JHK’s Three-Act Play
History is in a bad mood, as reflected in its acting troupe, the human race. What goes for the micro of an individual human personality also seems true for the group. We have our bright moments, or years, and our darker ones and cycles within cycles of these and even sometimes bright and dark at the same moment.
I am reflecting this week on Stephen Greenblatt’s book, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, which concerns itself with the mood of Europe in the early 1400s, but in particular the career of one Poggio Bracciolini, a poor boy whose beautiful handwriting took him to the center of power as secretary-scribe to the first Pope John XXIII (deposed and de-Poped), and later as key agent to unlocking the lost secrets of classical antiquity. (Apologies if I have already lost you in this week’s departure from my usual japery).
The depravity of the late medieval church hierarchy, and its sick grasp on the totality of everyday life a thousand years after the fall of Rome, is the outstanding feature of the period. What started out in Judea as a humble cult in thrall to the new idea of God-given grace, degenerated into a vile whoredom of concentrated wealth devoted to the routine infliction of cruelties. Poggio was especially struck by the fate of one radical reformer, Jerome of Prague, persecuted as a heretic. Jerome had made a career of inciting subversion in his wide travels around the universities of Europe, and was constantly in trouble with the church establishment.
Around 1415 Jerome ventured to the Council of Constance in Germany where cardinals, archbishops, and other church poobahs had gathered to resolve a vexing administrative problem: the schism that had one Pope in Avignon, France, and another in Rome, each answering to different kingdoms of Europe. In the course of things, Jerome the reformer made a pest of himself and was branded a heretic, thus nominating himself as a candidate for gruesome execution. Poggio witnessed Jerome’s defense of his actions and beliefs before the council higher-ups, which were delivered in Latin with an eloquence not displayed since the days of Cicero. Jerome was eventually burned at the stake anyway, but the heroic power of his rhetoric made an impression on Poggio.
In the course of things at Constance, Poggio’s patron, so-called “anti-Pope” John XXIII, a.k.a. Baldassarre Cossa, got kicked out of the club and Poggio was released from his duties to pursue his true life ambition, which was the rescue of forsaken manuscripts from the high culture of the Roman empire which lay moldering in the vaults and attics of monasteries all over the continent. He traveled far and wide in all weathers and seasons in a time when even the best roads were little more than mule tracks. The indifferent monks let him poke around their storerooms and in cases where he could not purchase a dusty scroll outright, he either pilfered them, or copied them out laboriously in his beautifully clear Carolingian handwriting.
In rescuing the works such as the complete orations of Cicero, the Epicurian discourse of Lucretius (De Rerum Natura – On the Nature of Things), as well as the practical dissertations of Vitruvius on architecture and Frontinus on the Roman aqueducts, he opened the door to the revival of human spirit that we call the Renaissance. If you look closely at the artifacts of the centuries pre-dating the Renaissance, you detect a long-running mood of severe psychological depression when the human race dwelt in abject hopelessness and poverty, with only the hocus-pocus of the church promising better times beyond the mystery of death as the Zoloft of the day. Poggio was not alone in his enthusiasm for the lost world of the ancients, and eventually the rediscovery of a realm of ideas beyond the drear preoccupations of a corrupt church turned on a light for humanity that has burned for five hundred years.
I mention these old and arcane matters because the mood of humanity lately seems to be darkening again, and to some large degree for understandable reasons. Between the melting of the polar icecaps, the destruction of all edible life in the oceans, and the vulgar spectacle of the paved-over American landscape with its clown monuments mocking all civilized endeavor, and a long list of other insults to healthy life on earth, there’s a lot to be depressed about. We stand to lose a proportional amount of human capital accumulated over the past five hundred years as the benighted people of post-Roman Europe lost, and it may take us a thousand years or more to recover – if we recover at all.
It’s especially disturbing to see the infiltration of the latest version of Jesus mumbo-jumbo – Southern Republican Nascar Evangelical orthodoxy – take over the collective mind of the USA. The poverty of ideas this represents can’t be overstated and the timidity of any opposition to it is a disgrace to our heritage. Maybe that’s an argument for electing a Mormon president, since that peculiar branch of the church is so self-evidently childish and ridiculous that it will probably do more to defeat religious fanaticism than all the humanist dissertations ever written – or a thousand clones of Madonna Ciccone dancing in stadiums under laser beams in titanium brassieres.
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Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15
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First
James, “anything goes and nothing matters” accurately captures the ongoing international, national, and even state “vulgar spectacle” of political unraveling and vanishing capital.
At home, and in our communities, however, those of us who get it (in large part thanks to YOU) understand that “everything matters and every minute counts.”
A few months ago, I finally realized that all we can really do about that darkening mood–what is clearly Strauss & Howe’s unfolding Fourth Turning Crisis–is get our affairs in order and enjoy the love of our friends, family, and neighbors along the way. It’s more than possible to integrate the two: Each day, some more purposeful action to become more useful to the community, some stronger connection with those we love, and some concrete physical and emotional preparation for harder times.
Lately, my physical preparation has been building up more endurance by briskly walking the dogs in the cool autumn air, and the emotional preparation has been re-reading the first two World Made By Hand novels (and pestering their author about the third installment).
“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us. What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” -Albert Pike
http://newveganage.blogspot.com/2011/03/dirt-from-my-grave.html
FIRST! (or second or third or fourth?) – and I’ve never even posted here before!
No apologies for the lack of links to crazy, fringe blogs filled with nutty rants! Ditto on the lack of a sentence or two where I pretend to have read JHK’s post mashed in with a faux-response I made up simply to appear like I’m engaging in anything other than shameless self-promotion!
God bless us, everyone! That is all!
Bravo! Will check this out. Another great old standard is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. Love the 14th and 15th centuries.
Religion is not the problem people are the problem.
Anything can be turned into a religion of sorts man made global warming, libralism, communism anything that causes people to lose sight of common sense or that corrupt elites can use to control the common man.
Fine column today.
Like a virgin.
You aint seen nothing yet.
In the Ghetto.
Have it your Mc finger lickin your way.
Go Cardinals.
Achtung Jesus.
Will that be unleaded or premium. Fill er up.
I have never seen a NASCAR with a cross or a picture of Jesus on it, which surprises me.
Also…speaking of “gruesome torture”, how many more puppet show “elections” must we endure and when the f*ck is the end game going to get here? I have been waiting at least 15 years for TSTHTF and I’m tired of going to my job that I hate and being harvested for taxes and I’m sorry but it must be getting difficult for James and other bloggers to come up with things to write about that hasn’t been said before ad-nauseum.
Bring it on! (THE END)
Poggio? Freakin’ Poggio? Popo Gigio is more relevant to our current straights. Little puppet people, including our current president that dance on the end of the string of political correctness.
It is not NASAR Christianity that threatens our world. The idea that this country was founded on the principle of inalienable rights was our original salvation. Some dumb-fuck can’t get a bug up their ass to do away with our rights of life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness because said dumbfuck, never had the right to grant these rights to begin with. Only our creator could and did possess the authority to grant these rights.
Freedom of religion has become freedom from religion. If the ruling elite can successfully “kill” God, they can successfully kill your right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I’ve said it several times and it’s been considered nutty, but I think is worth repeating. It was at the outset of creating a means of exchange that it all got out of whack. We don’t need competition, we just need to co-operate (locally) and abolish money, barter or anything else that smacks of ‘this for that’. Then government and law will evaporate (which it should) and then we can all just live as suits each of us individually.
But it requires a conceptual leap … from where we’re at now … to what COULD be. Jack
This post was a constructive departure from the norm in that it reminds us that we HAVE been here before in the human paradigm of things, and we retain, however deeply buried, the seeds of our own reclamation.
Thank you for this dose of perspective, and for an example that reminds us that religions are at best a self created human intermediary for divine forces, whatever they may be, and are subject to the potential for corruption and ignorance that can affect all other human endeavors. Nothing special. Nothing sacred.
I suppose I can understand your anti-Christian bias. Much of your interpretation of pre-Renaissance thought is true, I’m sure. The Church had degenerated into a moral cesspool. But this followed a millenium of contribution to Western civilization which would not have been possible without it. And the Church’s current contribution to worldwide humanitarian assistance is without peer in the non-profit sector. Do you really believe that the greatest religious threat to human progress today is the Church? If so, that is a sad commentary on what is taking place. Without local community, as you constantly point out, little progress will be made in overcoming our malaise. And the greates unifier of local commuity is the Church.
Sorry, doomers. I know you would be happier if the bottom was falling out of the economy and you could imagine a Black Swan event was happening. But the markets are not cooperating. Things are getting better and better. More jobs being created. Housing values returning. Leading Economic Index up. Damn. And we were all hoping for a giant collapse and a civil war, complete with pitch forks and hangings!
It is impossible to return to a medieval future … if that even makes sense.
We can never go back to an earlier time because we have an accumulated knowledge base that will be with us which was not available in medieval times. Our quality of life will be much better, even if oil disappears tomorrow.
For example, we have knowledge about solar energy photovoltaics, wind energy generators, etc. that medieval peoples did not. We will have lights at night with LED bulbs medieval peoples did not have.
Go ahead, make my day. Take away oil. We have alternatives that did not exist back in medieval times
You guys are hurling all kinds of things at me, about me, about my posts, impersonating me, cutting and pasting my posts, calling me names.
I think JHK allows freedom on this blog because it illustrates how a clusterfuck happens. Each week the content of my comments is ignored. Each week it devolves into ad hominem attack.
It’s enough to make me suspect there may be some racists here who are reacting to something other than content. Yes, I just “played the race card.”
How else to explain the CFN penchant of attacking me every week while ignoring the substance of my arguments? (Some, like Mike Hunt, deny I even have the capacity to argue logically.)
Allahu Akbar!
Assalaamu alaikum!
Shazam! (???? ????)
Jesus, Jim: even by your cryptic standards, this was dark. All your usual essays make me angry at the stupidity all around us. This one was just depressing. As usual, accurate, but not even a pinhole of light!
Yes, everybody living in peace without any government, law or a medium of exchange.
Please let us know what kind of medications you are on, I would love to get some.
One of James Burke’s TV shows (probably “The Day The Universe Changed”) mentioned that in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Spain – and threw the Moors out – that there were 14 libraries in Alhambra (then the capital of Moorish Spain). The smallest of the libraries had 100,000 books, which was about equal to the entire number of books in Christian Europe in 1491.
While it is true we have a pretty much crap civilization due in part to the federal system and the large land mass and diverse population. Constant war since 1941 has dissipated much of our treasure with only refined and efficient killing machines to show for it. Perhaps a return to the Articles of Confederation would break the back of the military/industrial complex that has now completely remade itself into a separate entity using the specter of ever renewed bogymen to keep the dole coming. This will not be easily accomplished and indeed a monetary collapse might be needed. The quality of our civilization is the least of our worries.
Sorry I am late to the party, James http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/on-the-road-to-perdition-mitt-misfits-and-other-miscreants/
ENJOY!!!
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/on-the-road-to-perdition-mitt-misfits-and-other-miscreants/
Do not confuse religion with faith, or churches with community.
We will still need to build from the ground up. It will take individual initiative and insight, leveraged with community will and commitment, and a shared sense of something greater than ourselves. But it will not happen within the competing dogmas (religious, political, economic, social) that too many of us cling to because it spares us the effort of thought.
Loved it…and of course, the first comment as well.
from the perspective of a life at the edge of the jungle, I’d rather take my chances with the critters around here than all the loose screws conglomerated together under the Stars and Stripes.
I gotta hunch it won’t be ‘forever’ up there as the super glue that holds it together reaches the end of its shelf life.
Life is indeed short, nice to stay warm and walk to the beach.
This week’s blog coincidentally jives with an interesting and realistic article over at SHTFplan.com; “When the music stops…” It basically reviews the coming dark age when the haves and have nots will be at war in amerika, likely across both racial and class lines. The writer of the article alludes to Yugoslavia and its fall into a road warrior world, an issue this writer has had some experience with, up close and personal. Sarajevo literally went from being the Paris of Eastern Europe (remember the 1984 winter olympic games?), where diversity was celebrated, to a world where snipers from one religion (pick muslim or catholic) were shooting women and children from the “opposing” religion while they tried to get water from community wells. And the “cross religion” snipering was not the most barbarous of the events that took place there, by far.
The SHTF article paints what I consider to be a relatively realistic picture of what’s coming to amerika in the next few years, and we’ll be lucky if we can recover from it as Europe recovered from their dark age and entered the renaissance. Realistically, it will likely be another thousand years before we get out of this dark age, so get ready for every progressive value and ideal you’ve ever had to literally turn into shit. Every concept of decency and racial and ethnic harmony will be swept away, with a vengeance. We’re seeing the beginnings of this in the flash mob thefts in stores in the big 3rd world amerikan cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and the like.
The “melting pot,” will become a boiling pot of racial, ethnic, and class hatred, and nothing can stop what’s already started other than a miraculous economic turnaround that puts every unemployed person to work in a reasonably well paying job with a future. Right !!! Not a chance. !!!
Good morning dark age amerika,
Wardoc
You can be as late to the party as you want Kulturcritic. In fact, next week don’t even bother to show up!
Assalaamu alaikum!
Allahu Akbar!
” It’s especially disturbing to see the infiltration of the latest version of Jesus mumbo-jumbo – Southern Republican Nascar Evangelical orthodoxy – take over the collective mind of the USA.”
This is nothing more than the lastest version of Manifest Destiny, centered around the twisted view that God gave humans dominion over the Earth. More twisted is that God approves of our genocide and accumulation of wealth. Even more perverted is the notion that America is a ‘christian nation’, something that has never been, and by all appearances, never will be true.
It all boils down to the ‘health and wealth gospel’ that fundamental churches are always dancing around. Basically, these people truly believe that God approves of our hegemony and abuse. This would even make Caligula blush.
Oh, what joy this morning — Asoka the King of Cutting-and-Pasting complains about people “cutting and pasting my posts.”
Proof that there is a God — at least a God of Irony.
I appreciate Jim’s wealth of knowledge surrounding history and how decision in the past have lead to horrible outcomes.
Like today the lack of decisions or even the ability to cogently discuss the real issues f the day, are leading us down a path few truly desire.
I find myself constantly talking with others about the dire necessity of building local self-reliance and sustainability where we live. We will be pulled in that direction whether we like it or not.
If you would like to read a vision of what our communities could be like if decision are made to support these ideal take a look at the positive future novel From Here to There: A Story of America’s Future. http://www.fromhere-tothere.org.
Were the dark ages really that dark? I’m thinking grubbing the earth like serfs would be a good way to atone for our sins. I am growing a lot of my own food + organizing locally with others who are doing the same. I just hope it doesn’t get that dark. I would miss hot showers and the internet somewhat makes up for the lack of knowledge and wisdom of the elders.
“You guys are hurling all kinds of things at me, about me, about my posts, impersonating me, cutting and pasting my posts, calling me names.”
So, go the fuck away douche-girl. You are boorish, foolish…toolish. Go away, reflect on your douche-ways, and then repent to your douche-masters, never to return.
“How else to explain the CFN penchant of attacking me every week while ignoring the substance of my arguments?”
Of course your delusional state could not, perhaps, explain the “substance” of your arguments? Just sayin’
“The smallest of the libraries had 100,000 books….”
And??? They had 100,000 books on the subject of the ways in which to eradicate the infidel. Big effin’ deal.
This link is quite apposite this week
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/tim_minchin_serenades_the_pope.php
One would like to believe that Mormonism is sufficiently risible as to diminish the prevailing crackpot religious mentality in America today. But-alas-it is no longer possible to get ahead of the childish-and-ridiculous curve. A President Mitt would probably boost Mormon demographics the way Bill Clinton boosted sales of Krispy Kreme donuts.
For my part the only tenable option in this state is for me to vote for some guy named Gary Johnson, whose only presidential qualification is that he is neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama. I wish it were in my power to defeat them both, but there’s some consolation in the possibility that my vote might take down one of them.
@benr. “Anything can be turned into a religion.. including man made global warming.” No, No, No. You can’t turn science into religion. You have to be an alchemist to do that or attempt to do that. Science is totally different from religion. In science nothing is sacred. Everything can be overturned. Even the law of gravity or the speed of light could be overturned. Just go out and prove it, or fail trying. That’s what science is about. No preconceptions. And that’s what’s been shown about global warming by the way. It’s man made. It’s not a belief or a faith It’s the best explanation we have right now that fits the data. But if you care to prove otherwise or offer some data that supports another conjecture please go to print. Send your paper to a peer reviewed journal. We all await! That’s the challenge that scientists have every day. Stand before your peers and defend your data and explanation. So go for it Benr.
Yet amidst the gathering gloom, Jim, two interesting survey results could be noted last week:
– Americans in greater and greater numbers are leaving organized religion, including the southern evangelical churches, and openly identifying themselves as atheists, and
– 74% of Americans believe that climate change is real and is significantly impacted by human activity.
There’s hope a new Benightedment may just be averted.
Another glimmer: a 200 MW solar farm has just been announced in northeastern Vermont, to be New England’s largest.
http://OccupyMBA.com !
thank you for that public service announcement!
duck, duck & cover!
i’m not buying that religion is the problem. we are already in the New Dark Age. the politics of money have infested everything. the new ecclesiastical heirarchy is basically the corporo/state cyborg.
just ponder how none of our systems actually function without kowtowing to the all-seeing eye of the dollar. violent rapists and murderers roam the streets after a few years of penance, while our jails are full of young men who like to smoke plants. people enter hospitals trying to fix what ails them, and come out bankrupt and sporting MRSA infections. no one tends the old, and if they do they’re perpetuating some scam or other, generally on the family members AND the government simultaneously. our schools turn out people who haven’t a hope in hell of navigating all of this, unless they’re staffed with Jesuits, yet our solution to all of this is to complain about ‘my property taxes going to fund worthless future welfare queens’. our water supplies are treated without our consent, yet at our expense, without a by-your-leave when the only thing wrong is that young poor folk have cavities.
none of our intentions are being fulfilled, and we’re all free to believe what we want to believe as long as we continue to pay rent on all of life’s necessities. it sure seems like the religion is some kind of bastardization of the dismal science reigning over all human activity to me, and we all must genuflect or at least, buy something to eat (try to exist for one entire day without it costing you a cent–only those of you who’ve adapted to farming can possibly do it).
they don’t care whose bumper sticker (fish or darwin) you sport. they’ve found a way to get paid regardless.
That was uncalled for.
I enjoyed Greenblatt’s “Shakespearian Negotiations” some years ago. Looks like this one might be a good read as well, although the names you mention seem like they are right out of “The Crying of Lot 49.”
-Phut.
Best post in recent memory! Outstanding work Jim!
“That was uncalled for.”
Wrong. Your never ending gibberish called for it. It called for it loudly and clearly.
Misty, you are your ‘old cantankerous self’.
JHK book mentioned in Arabia, most PHDs are in ‘Islamic studies’.
Are you saying nothings changed?
I am as interested in the rise of China as I am in the fall of the USA.
If ya wanna see scary, get this image onto yr screen.
Vintage Cheney, Bush 1 and Ford
+ 2 other news tidbits:
1…………
File:Deng Xiaoping, George HW Bush, and Gerald Ford, 1975 …
it.wikipedia.org/…/File:Deng_Xiaoping,_George_… – Translate this page
File:Deng Xiaoping, George HW Bush, and Gerald Ford, 1975 A7620-15A.jpg. Da Wikipedia, l’enciclopedia libera. Vai a: navigazione, cerca. File; Cronologia .
2…………
.Clinton Gave China Chips for Nuclear War
Charles R. Smith
Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003
Newly declassified documents show that President Bill Clinton personally approved the transfer to China of advanced space technology that can be used for nuclear combat.
The documents show that in 1996 Clinton approved the export of radiation hardened chip sets to China. The specialized chips are necessary for fighting a nuclear war.
3…………..
Declaring that China and the United States have ”an enormous stake in each other’s success,” President Obama welcomed President Hu Jintao of China to the White House on Wednesday with an elaborate color-guard ceremony that included a colonial fife and drum band and a 21-gun salute!
Barack has said he wants the USA to be ‘competitive with China’. That means we are to work 100? hours a week for 20$ a week, in sweat shops.
“self-evidently childish and ridiculous”
I don’t know how many times in any given week on any number of subjects a similarly phrased observation on the way we live rattles around in my brain like a bolt drop into a bucket. Where are the adults?
http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com/
Believe what you will, but the only god I (or any other living [or now dead], mortal) have ever seen was at USMC Basic; try it and you will see god, too.
“We stand to lose a proportional amount of human capital accumulated over the past five hundred years…” I’ve been mulling over this over statement and although I tend to agree with its’ premise, am not sure how this will occur. One thing is certain, a society that spends more and more (and more) money on public education (see U.S.A.) with diminishing return on the investment, is bound to fail. I need go no further than point to “honey-boo-boo” or the “kardashians”…..the last 500 hundred years of education was a TOTAL f’ing waste. Good luck.
Mistified wrote:
“If the ruling elite can successfully “kill” God, they can successfully kill your right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Rather than killing God, the ruling elite will claim to have God on their side, just as ruling elites have done throughout history.
Once you conclude that rights come from God, they are much more easily taken away by Priests or religionists who believe they have discerned His commands and thus will claim to be doing Gods’ work when they strip you of any “rights” they deem to be inconvenient.
Knowing well the history of the religious wars in England and throughout Europe in the centuries prior to our own Revolution, the founders of this nation wisely chose to separate Church and State. When we forget that lesson and commingle Church and State, thus allowing the Church to use the mechanisms of raw State power to punish heresy and blasphemy as treason, we open the door to the oppression of conscience and, ultimately, usher in religious civil war.
If the NASCAR Christians want to live in a society where religious leaders call the shots, then they should pack up and head to Pakistan – where a 14 year old girl can be shot by the Islamic version of Christian fundamentalists, for simply suggesting that she ought to have the same right to an education as someone born with an X and a Y sex chromosome.
“And that’s what’s been shown about global warming by the way. It’s man made. It’s not a belief or a faith It’s the best explanation we have right now that fits the data.”
Hogwash. I’ve read as much discounting the “man-made-ness” of global warming as that supporting it. And before you shoot back a sassy retort don’t confuse the “best explanation we have right now” (even though it isn’t) with fact.
Every 24 hours mankind is responsible for the extinction of 200 animal and plant species on average while during this same time period the world human population net gains an additional 265,000. It does not require a doctorate degree to know that this formula is unsustainable. Colony Collapse Disorder is causing the extinction of native pollinators while domestic bee hives are being wiped out at the rate of 40%. White Nose Syndrome is a mysterious disease responsible for killing millions of bats-Mother Nature’s most important insectivore. A single bat will consume its body weight in insects every night. With these losses farmers will have to apply ever greater amounts of poisons to kill the harmful insects. Chytrid is a mysterious fungus that originated in Israel and has spread worldwide. This fungus is wiping out entire Amphibian species in less than a year. The national symbol of Panama-the beautiful Golden Tree Frog was declared officially extinct last year due to the disease. You see, these new and deadly diseases are like canaries in the coal mine. Does humanity possess the collective wisdom to halt our wholesale destruction of our Earth’s life support system before it’s too late-I think not. All the money in the world will not matter once we face ecological collapse. This is the most dangerous threat facing mankind, but conservation of our planet has turned into a partisan issue with Republicans opposed to environmental protections and Democrats favoring caution and responsible stewardship. The result is gridlock.
“Once you conclude that rights come from God, they are much more easily taken away by Priests or religionists…”
Ah but you forget, the Priests get no vote. Hell, they can’t even keep forced birth control being foisted on their institutions. Viva Fluke, baby.
@jlee
CO2 is not the MAIN driver of global warming sun spot activity and water vapor are.
Think cloud cover in winter keeping the ambient temp warm and when the cloud cover goes the temps plummet.
Can we assume you understand Greenland was in fact green at one time? How did this occur with so few humans on the planet and ZERO cars?
Lifted from another site why reinvent the wheel:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
BIOCAB
“When we consider a short period, for example an 11 years period we can argue that the intensity of the solar irradiance is decreasing; however, if we consider a longer period, for example 400 years, we can see that the intensity of solar irradiance has not decreased. Some 400 years ago the solar irradiance intensity was 1365.5946 W/m^-2, while in 2000 the total solar irradiance intensity was 1366.6620 W/m^2. This year the Sun has been mostly spotless, but the solar irradiance intensity has been 1365 W/m^-2. This constitutes evidence on the existence of other solar “pulses” that we have not understood well:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/17jan_solcon.htm
Regarding the particularity of CO2 on the global warming, I don’t see why to blame the CO2 of GW when its particular thermal characteristics show that the CO2 is not capable of producing any warming. The Pp of the CO2 in the atmosphere is roughly 0.00034 atm*m, wich limits the absorptivity-emissivity of the CO2 to only 0.00092 (dimensionless value), not the 0.2 given by the IPCC. The absorptivity-emissivity of CO2 is 0.00092 conduces to its total emittancy of barely 0.414 W/m^2, not the 5.35 W/m^2 given by the IPCC. If I was to blame any atmospheric gas of a GH effect, I would blame the Water Vapor, not the the coolant CO2.
If I was to blame any atmospheric gas of a GH effect, I would blame the Water Vapor, not the the coolant CO2.”
You would be right in that water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. It’s also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and amplifies any warming caused by changes in atmospheric CO2″
@mistified “The best explanation we have right now” is essentially what defines science. Science doesn’t maintain that it is right. It makes certain claims after sufficient proof but stands prepared to be corrected and revised, nay even reversed. That’s what science is: a method for getting better and better explanations of how the world works. And if your reading suggests that there is much support that man has not been involved in generating the latest round of warming then all I can do is suggest you continue to read the journals. With an open mind your views will no doubt change. But the challenge is up to you. You too are free to submit your paper to any journal. So stand up and be counted if your opinion is worth anything. Go for it.
Another take on the rediscovery of ancient wisdom that ignited the Renaissance is a book by Richard E. Rubenstein, “Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages” It has relevance to today in the need to include ethics with our reason.
” In rescuing the works such as the complete orations of Cicero, the Epicurian discourse of Lucretius (De Rerum Natura – On the Nature of Things), as well as the practical dissertations of Vitruvius on architecture and Frontinus on the Roman aqueducts, he opened the door to the revival of human spirit that we call the Renaissance.” -JHK
Mr. Kunstler,
Most illuminating commentary this morning, thanks. I really never wondered how these manuscripted thoughts came down through the centuries, until Tripp posted a lament about the various molds [encouraged by the Jaw-ja heat and humidity] that make preservation of books problematic (to say the least). Preservation and dissemination of knowledge is a large concern of mine, as well as the luxury of the entertainments of literary fiction. These bring a depth of thought to life that relieves the crushing drudgery. ‘Murkins are now basically a semi-literate society? What does that bode for our future?
***********************
” Poggio was not alone in his enthusiasm for the lost world of the ancients, and eventually the rediscovery of a realm of ideas beyond the drear preoccupations of a corrupt church turned on a light for humanity that has burned for five hundred years.” -JHK
Thank you Prometheus-Poggio-guy!
I would like to think that the organized religious edifices have the best interests of our souls always at the forefront, but… the ugly evidence points to the acquisition of power and the lust to punish “the other”. (We heretics will get our turn, once again.)
If we should [as per usual] focus our pleadings for relief from our self-imposed fuck-ups on a handy sky-ghost, Armeggedon is sure to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Religion as justification is its’ raison-d’etre. (Seems it’s means and ends all wrapped up together for convenient use.)
Despite what some boosters may think, in these days of dissolution, wasting time, effort and resources on religious gobbledy-gook, and solidifying a hardcore cadre of gimlet-eyed fanatics is beyond dangerous. If you haven’t a modicum of ethics and morality within you (that isn’t supplied by the tenets of some cult), I would tend to consider you “untrustworthy”. For me, that is the absolute nadir of a human descriptor.
Oh James… James…
It goes much deeper down the rabbit hole…
For not only did the Catholics set science and mankind back a thousand years, they set our knowledge base back ten thousand years…
The Church of Rome IS based in evil, the evil of the Orthodox of Babylonian MYSTERY… their mystery destroyed all the teachings of ten thousand years, teachings that gave the secret of the Universe, the Holy Grail in the God science of the Magi, called Gnostic and HERETIC.
The Piper was gifted the Secret James, after searching for 40 years, the Secret of Einstein’s Light energy and relativity, and where it comes from. This is the Holy Grail of the Ancients, that Rome destroyed when they burned the books and the Heretics, the biggest CRIME in History, that they then covered up with evil. For they were the First Horse of the Apocalypse, the White Horse of the Holy Roman Empire, that murdered The Saints and became a Harlot that rides a Beast.
Follow the rabbit hole of Da Vinci code to the bottom of the well and what do you find? Truth, in the Science of Creation. What the physicists seek, and have proven 99%, proves the Grail 100% (for they lie too, there is no such thing as a ‘god particle’ James, there is only the damned lie of manipulated statistics. If you check into with the eye of a true skeptic, you’ll see, they were desperate to keep the CERN funding of a broke Europe. )
The ‘God’ particle cannot be, Einstein was right, but so were those who lived in fear of Rome; The Gnostics, called Heretics and Magi, The Keepers of the Ancient Fire of the Gods. But what, exactly, is a ‘god’?
See The Grail, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that it raised from myth into a hypo-stasis of the cosmogony. (The Reality of the Hyper Cosmos.) A math that predicts ancient prophecies.
It is just time James, you feel it coming, the Dark rift at Galaxies edge, and something wicked this way comes…
May His Force be with you…
http://pipermichael.wordpress.com
Actually, “human-caused climate change” wouldn’t make a good religion because it is backed by SCIENCE, which religions most definitely aren’t. The consensus among scientists worldwide who actually publish on climate was in long ago–game over, no question about it. So deal.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama was in town over the weekend; beyond a really cool guy with a belly laugh and incredible loving mojo, he represents a religion (or philosophical system, whatever–he doesn’t care) refreshing for its lack of a creator and for the insistence on trying things for yourself. HHDL has said many times that if science proves elements of Buddhist thinking wrong, then it’s Buddhism that has to change.
” the infiltration of the latest version of Jesus mumbo-jumbo – Southern Republican Nascar Evangelical orthodoxy ”
It wouldn’t be Monday if Jim didn’t slap the reb’s,Jesus and NASCAR. There wasn’t much real substance in any of the 3 debates last week. We had R vs O, R vs B and S vs O’. All basically entertainment designed to confuse and take your eyes off the ball. Meanwhile things are still turning to shit.
And just a heads up ! NASCAR will be moving to Martinsville, VA for the Tums Fast Relief 500 this coming weekend. I’d look for Mitt in a crisp white shirt or Barrak munching on a pulled pork sandwich strolling pit road with Michelle in a confederate flag tube top and designer Daisy Duke’s.
(I should have said, “MOSTLY self-imposed fuck-ups”.)
It’s enjoyable to see you delve into deep history. It makes for a refreshing change of pace from the usual rants about contemporary culture. As for your suggestion that it might do good to elect someone from the LDS church as president to discredit religion, I think you should be careful what you wish for. It might actually strengthen religion in a perverse way, just as Obama’s election has emboldened racists.
Over at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News, I’ve been concentrating a lot on the election, particularly on the debates and their effects. I’ve also resumed writing for Examiner.com, marked the first anniversary of Occupy Detroit, and continued documenting the gas price rollercoaster. As for what the future holds, I have lots of material about climate, space, and cities saved up in addition to more about the election.
Happy Motoring–for now–from Detroit!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/
Europe had its age of antiquity its dark ages, and its Renaissance before America was settled. We had our age of antiquity, in which we invented representative democracy, the Hudson River School, and jazz – now we’re in our dark age, in which action movies are applauded and in which Madonna is hailed as an icon of style and art (and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the moment she’s eligible). Speaking of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rush may be inducted at long last; drummer Neil Peart’s uniquely Canadian perspective of Ayn Rand in his lyrics may be more relevant to our situation today, and more to the truth, than Paul Ryan’s ideas. I will choose a path that’s clear – I will choose free will! And my mind is not for rent!
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”. – Karl Marx
I think an essential problem is that the idea of a “standard of living (SOL)” is entirely subjective; no one can or really wants to come up with some kind of matrix that would help to better balance a minimum SOL on the global level. Of course, most (I hope) would include some fundamental education, food, shelter, clothing (optional in warm climes) and healthcare, in that basic idea, but many don’t see a minimum SOL as a “right.” in the minds of many, one’s SOL should not be limited, nor can many agree on the distribution of the basic components. Poor Malala from Pakistan found that out the hard way. Another factor relates to all the crap that comes with “prosperity.” There tends to be a creeping acquisitiveness and self-centeredness as incomes rise. One man’s stash of exotic spices is another man’s plasma screen. Some things never change.
“All the money in the world will not matter once we face ecological collapse. This is the most dangerous threat facing mankind, but conservation of our planet has turned into a partisan issue with Republicans opposed to environmental protections and Democrats favoring caution and responsible stewardship. The result is gridlock”, *resulting from both parties being chained to the altar of Mammon, the one true god of the FUSA.*
*(I put a little addition on there that I thought might add some further context. Probably the worst form of plagiarism I’ve ever indulged in! Sorry.)
So Vlad, you admit that you are “challenged” in the area of social intelligence. I think that is obvious, but I’m still a little surprised that anyone so clueless would notice, kudos to you for exceeding expectations!
I think most people would agree that a low social IQ is more debilitating in many ways than a low analytical IQ. Given the heartache people such as yourself cause; saying insensitive things, not catching social clues, and picking your nose in public, it seems only fair that some “special arrangements” should be made for you and your fellow disadvantaged citizens, for all of our sakes.
I purpose a permanent reservation, (somewhere in the deep south seems appropriate) for your protection and happiness. Now the bad news is, Jerkistan, (perhaps a little insensitive, but who are you to notice) probably who prove to be something of a “rainbow coalition”, but perhaps you can subdivide the reservations according to your own wishes. The good news is I’m quite sure most of your racist buds would qualify, (can you say “homeland”!) and empirical evidence suggest Serbians might be over represented as well. (but they do make up for it somewhat with Anna Ivanovic)
Someone with your high moral intelligence (by your own yardstick) must admit the fairness of this, given your advocacy of a white homeland to protect yourself from blacks. It seems only, well….just and moral….tit-for-tat…wouldn’t you say? Perhaps it get more to the crux of the problem than racial separation….eh?
So, you’d consider us your scientific peers?
And, by extension, this forum a peer-reviewed publication?
Ohhhhhh-kay.
Meanwhile…
The third richest company in the world is dealing with it’s first ever walk-out strike in fifty years.
STILL not hearing much about this on the MSM news.
What is actually being done about LIBOR. Is there any hope of reforming that international racket?
If only the Vatican would intercede.
The artifacts from the late middle ages I notice when I go to Europe — the Gothic cathedrals — appear to reflect rather the opposite of severe psychological depression and abject hopelessness. More along the lines of thousands of people happily and idealstically employed in some grand transcendent project. When I look at those magnificent structures I always wonder: Who were these people who could work so hard, sometimes over centuries, to create such beauty devoted to an ideal? They must have lived in a completely different mental universe from our own. The other thing I notice in Europe is the layout of medieval cities — on a human scale, as Jim likes to put it.
As Jim is given to associating the architecture a people create with their psychologies and souls, and appreciates urban planning that encourages human association, I’m surprised that he would so readily accept a hasty dismissal of this time period.
“I finally realized that all we can really do about that darkening mood–what is clearly Strauss & Howe’s unfolding Fourth Turning Crisis–is get our affairs in order and enjoy the love of our friends, family, and neighbors along the way.”
It always gladdens my heart to read someone else acknowledging that we’re in a Fourth Turning, which means Strauss and Howe’s ideas are getting through. It also reminds me that I haven’t written about them as I have promised for months. Well, leave a comment at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News, and I’ll get around to it.
It all boils down to the ‘health and wealth gospel’ that fundamental churches are always dancing around. Basically, these people truly believe that God approves of our hegemony and abuse. This would even make Caligula blush. -Dirk
Wouldn’t Caligula heartily approve, as he thought HIMSELF to be a gawd? A perfect[ly insane] fit, if so! ;o)
JHK said: “We have our bright moments, or years, and our darker ones and cycles within cycles of these and even sometimes bright and dark at the same moment.”
JHK, thanks for the change of pace. Your comment about darker moments and brighter moments, happening at the same moment, is inspired. While Europe was in a holding pattern, torturing and burning heretics at the stake, other parts of the world were thriving. North Africa, the Middle East, China, India and other parts of the world were experiencing great changes.
Thanks to the learning of the Islamic people in the East, the world received its first book on algebra (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing by Al-Khw?rizm?, 790-840). Thanks to Islam we have the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations and the decimal positional number system (Arabic numerals) we use today.
When Islam arrived in Spain the Muslims tried to show the poor Europeans how things are done. The Muslims built mosques in a year, while the Europeans took forever to build cathedrals. Muslim engineers rivaled the Romans. Aqueducts brought drinkable water into Cordoba, thanks to superior Islamic knowledge. Muslim agriculturists improved yields and allowed the Spanish to live longer lives.
While European whites were languishing in their “dark ages,” the Chinese were developing a meritocracy and expanding their empire. The Tang Dynasty produced incredible art which was traded all over Asia. The Sung Dynasty was producing iron in the 11th century, in quantities Europe could not duplicate until the 18th century.
So, JHK, your comment is inspired: “We have our bright moments, or years, and our darker ones and cycles within cycles of these and even sometimes bright and dark at the same moment.”
I did not think you would ever make such a comment. You are showing that you have the capacity to be large, to contain multitudes, and to appreciate paradox, when you say: “even sometimes bright and dark at the same moment.”
Aristotle was wrong: one can say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time. You just did. Heretics unite!
Well done, JHK!
Yes this is a very tired old Liberal Meme: Evangelical Christianity is taking over America. I grant that it could have happend, but it didn’t. The just didn’t have the power or support. But to invoke this idea is the middle of a vast power grab by the Communist Left (backed by the Banks) is bad faith indeed.
Are we headed for Fascism? No, because Fascism is the Corporations being subdued by the State. We are headed for Plutocratic Dictatorship in which the State is controlled by the Corporations and Banks. And the Banking Families are the senior partners. Watch Rollerball for the real situation. Communism is obviously a scam to break the middle class. When there are only the poor and the rich remaining, who will rule – the poor? C’mon folks, think.
What’s up with this. Wishful thinking of a newbie from the great master? We will all be wearing Mormon small clothes before that happens and the scratch of a itch will damn one for eternity. There’s a lot to be depressed about yes, and hope is hard to maintain. But there is something fundamentally wrong with a things have to get worse before things get better attitude. I’ll try and put my paw on it but for now.
K-Dog for president.
Because Obama’s got no plans for Camden and Romney’s got no plans for you.
Unless you call basting in a lake of fire plans.
Get down with the Jinn! What does Shazam mean btw?
Roller Ball ! Rock on Johnathan ! When you go back and look at the actual movie, it did have every bit as much message as say 1984. Could Logan’s Run be the next fix for our pending Medicare/Social Security crisis ? There is always some little glimer of the future in movies. Spend some time watching Headline News on CNN and you can see the plot from Wag The Dog on a 15 minuet re do.
The new Dark Age is plainly here and gathering momentum. This time it will be global and there will be very few areas untouched, no obscure libraries preserved and no easy resources with which to rebuild. Among the signs are the rise in indirect sabotage by metals theft, growing plagues of invasive infections and parasites and the contamination of the environment by heavy metals, pesticides and radiation. Item: Birth defects in Iraq now affect 50% or more of babies due to the residue of explosives.
A planet so encumbered with the growing cancer of human flesh, pushing all other species toward extinction, cannot survive a simultaneous global climate change. A population this factionalized by religion, nationalism and the extremes of wealth and poverty lacks the will or ability to focus on critical solutions. A financial system that blindly worships greed while building a house of debt and unsustainable derivatives has left humanity behind. Talking to you, Mr. Romney.
Only a radical enlightenment that casts off all gods, myths and credos and instead puts its faith in science, education and ecology would have a chance of altering our course. And that is not going to happen in time.
The Founders said are rights were inalienable – from God. The U.N says all rights are merely privledges that can be taken away if that serves the greater good.
The choice of which system is better is obvious – except to a Liberal.
Logan’s Run -> Don’t trust anyone under thirty.
You listed two classics there, I had to woof something.
I was born in Camden (NJ). I hear it’s not really a nice place anymore…
Puzzler, someone is impersonating me using the handle Asoka_
My handle is Asoka..
My first post today was this:
asoka.. | October 15, 2012 12:49 PM | Reply
All the other Asoka_ posts are from someone who must think I do not post enough and wants to imitate me by posting under a similar handle.
Imitation is a form of flattery.
ALL IS WELL.
And here in the Rocky Mountain west, hunting season has begun where the bubbas have replaced their Nascar jackets for ones of orange. And since none of them can walk around any more after years of cheeze doodle diets, they all drive their rumbling, fume belching diesel trucks that I can hear coming a mile away. I’m not sure what they think is going to happen – a deaf elk or deer will stumble out of the forest and fall into the back of their trucks?
And then there are the part-time neighbors who drive their ATVs up and down the county road with absolutely no purpose all day long.
Oh God (or whoever), I can hardly wait for winter to get serious here, bury the rural county roads in deep snow and send all these yahoos back from whence them came.
It has the distinction of being a city in total collapse and the poorest city in America. It is a poster city for all the Americans left behind by Republicanomics. It is a symbol of failure for our ‘black’ president who spends all his energy being ‘white’ and privileged.
Would Mormonism (the Salt lake City franchise headquarters)really want Mitt Romney to survive a full term? How much research and light can the maze of Mormonism tolerate? Most likely powers in motion would bring forward a number of “False Flag” attacks giving reason to go after Iran, North Korea, maybe even China? A short term was telegraphed with the words: “we need a limp hand to sign the proper bills…”
Its less likely BO would go along with a war started on an excuse. Incidentally, about Guantanamo: The prisoners are kept as a package to trade for US Prisoners Of War after we leave the Muslim war zones…
We owe China a couple $Trillion- A pre-emptive strike on the People’s Army military infrastructure might cost half what we owe??? Would that start over some boating mix-up in the South China Sea? Mitt has already said the right words about China!
Regarding JHK’s comments on religions; obviously Jim is a man of great faith, the ultimate level of faith required to be an atheist. Calling out Mormonism as Jim & Doonesbury have, is simply following the lead of Samuel Clement in his classic “Moving West chronicle. Zane Grey’s documentary/fiction “The Riders Of The Purple Sage” gives a nice old west look at the operations of Mormonism.
Mormonism and Muhammadanism share some important ideas for virile men, particularly the collection of women and emphasis on works to merit a comfortable afterlife. Both have a history of abrogation, retuning the misdirections of their original “Prophets”. Judaism and Christianity have much stricter rules for their particular Prophets of record…accuracy is demanded!
Background on the two major counterfeit religions can be seen in George grant’s “The Blood Of The Moon” and Walter Martin’s “The Maze Of Mormonism”. For President Mitt’s game plan, see Senator Frank J. Cannon’s “Under The Prophet In Utah”, a primer for the Mormon business franchise.
The particular tragedy of Islam is their denial of prophecies concerning Israel, the Divinity of Christ, and about to be fulfilled prophecy concerning Jerusalem and attempts to dislodge Israel. Many liberal writers such as Noam Chomsky, along with Presidents Clinton, Bush II and BO have completely ignored prophetic warnings against tampering with Israel’s borders and administration of Jerusalem. Muslim blood shall be on their heads, as a result of the horrific events about to occur!
For the record: Prophecy states the demise of Damascus as a result of conflict with Israel. This happens to concur with war consequence papers from strategic think tank analysts. Egyptian failure to heed the lesson of 1973 could be dam (Aswan) costly as well.
Iran? The world should really hope Iranians are able to properly read O.T. Prophecy and understand it is to their existential benefit to leave Israel alone. Because, an Iranian attack on Israel will bring the most deadly 10 days in casualties and the most costly damage to (oil) infrastructure in the history of the planet. It is written; believe it or don’t. Newsfeed from DEBKAfile is sobering, and warning to procrastinators in leadership.
Jim’s guidance in “The Long Emergency” includes a few lines about US lack of rail capacity & reach. Probably the most crucial detail in the book… Proximity to federally secured rail corridor and load interface shall be the difference between famine and your family getting by over the rest of this century in America.
“We’re seeing the beginnings of this in the flash mob thefts in stores in the big 3rd world amerikan cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and the like.”
I live in Metro Detroit and had never heard of any flash mob thefts around here, so I went looking. I found lots of reports from reputable news sources of flash mobs looting stores in Portland Oregon, Chicago, New York, Montgomery County in Maryland, and Washington D.C. (the earliest news report I could find), but none from any reputable news sources reported them from Detroit. Only sites like Infowars, The Blaze, and Stormfront mentioned them happening here. Those are not credible news sites and their mere association with Stormfront would be a violation of Godwin’s Law except that Godwin’s Law doesn’t apply to discussions of actual (Corn Pone) Nazis.
As the current, archaic religions of earth continue their slow fade out from existence, a true spiritual renaissance will be emerging: real understanding of components and laws of self; the mind; the body; the physical universe. That is all there is. Once these understandings begin spreading through the world, man’s personal and social ills will begin to dissipate.
“Those are not credible news sites”
And you know some who are?
Yeah – When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars.
FFKLING asks/answers: “Does humanity possess the collective wisdom to halt our wholesale destruction of our Earth’s life support system before it’s too late-I think not.”
I am convinced that you are correct in your assertion and have commented similarly in the past on CFN. The preponderance of opinions espoused on this blog subscribe to the irrational perpetual exponential economic and human population growth paradigm; conveniently ignoring the exponential depletion of the Earth’s resources by such.
As a newspaper article I read recently pointed out, neither candidate has really addressed the state of our “cities.” Nor have they addressed the defacto racial segregation of the same. I now live in Atlanta, and nearly every issue in this city is tainted by race.
Oops! ~ make that Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain in his assessment of Mormonism’s herky/jerky “Book”, delivered by angel Moroni ~an apt name for an author of such a piece of fiction… (Clemens’ words not mine)
And remember how you said you never attacked me…You are a person of the Lie and you serve the Lie with great devotion. Good people have trouble with this Satanic System, but such as you have no problem at all….and you expect to get enlightened too. You deserve it after all, right?
Whites are discriminated against by this Evil Civilization and you love it. More proof of what you really are. But your Black God will betray you and you all will beg to be let into our White enclaves. Not gonna happen Dale, you’re going to have to face the evil that you have served in human form.
As far as my being “challenged” – I don’t get along with most people. But perhaps that’s because I have more sensitivity not less. I don’t insult other people casually like you do. You’re projecting your traits onto me.
I really got to you last week, eh? Good. You need someone like me. No one around me gets to sleep in peace. Like Mohammad, I am a Warner. Like Socrates, a Gadfly.
Thanks for the wayback post this morning, James. A look at previous dark times illuminates the way into our own darkness.
Not knowing the timetable, though, I am not ready to sequester myself. I’ve decided to run with the stock market bulls and cavort with its bears when the cycle turns downward. Cynical? Maybe. But that is how I can best see to get the resources needed for the long emergencies.
A bit of a contrarian among contrarians, I think the climate change will ultimately be into a colder world, not a warmer one. But again, I don’t know the timetable, so I’m not going to obsess upon it. Warning: Above-average snowfalls are predicted this year from Atlanta to New York City.
And because I can’t be totally gloomy, I have hope when I see stories like the one I’m linking below. It’s about the creation of a $20 cardboard bicycle. Read about it before dismissing.
Cheers!
http://news.yahoo.com/cardboard-bicycle-change-world-says-israeli-inventor-090732689.html
I hear what you’re saying, Jim, but these were mostly Italians, after all … what the hell do you expect?? Your mood would be dark, too, if you were surrounded by artifacts of a great Roman civilization of a 1000 years previous, and you couldn’t even get a decent plate of spaghetti.
–WSP7
Barbara Touchman was a wonderful historian and writer. Her A Proud Tower and The guns of August are classics of literate, historical writing, and her book about the beginnings of the American Revolutionary War is almost as good.
That said, Middle Ages were not her field. Read The Waning of the MIddle Ages, by Huizinga. Somewhere therin, my copy is packed away somewhere, Huizinga records that there was a tradition current in Europe that since the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity, which was when Phillip the Fair of France moved the Papcy to Avingnon, no Christian soul had been admitted to paradise.
Yes the Arabs were great borrowers and thieves. But they did preserve some of the Greek Learning. And they used craftsmen from conquered Nations such as Egypt and Persia to build their masterpiece Mosques. They couldn’t have done it themselves, but they did have a vision of beauty, I’ll give them that.
As far as Europe goes, they took over Churches and made them into Mosques. Your malice makes you so stupid sometimes.
This my day for book recommendations.
You might want to have a look at The New Class, by Molovan Djilas, which explains why your theory doesn’t work.
“Between the melting of the polar icecaps…the vulgar spectacle of the paved-over American landscape with its clown monuments mocking all civilized endeavor, and a long list of other insults to healthy life on earth, there’s a lot to be depressed about.”
Mr. Kunstler is obviously at the top of his game. But wait maybe he forgot to read the article posted today on National Geographic’s website reporting: Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Record High!, or maybe it’s just easier to ignore actual data as the best method to support your Monday nonsense.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121013-antarctica-sea-ice-record-high-science-global-warming
Mr. Kunstler, you fail to recognize that it is precisely the “paved over American landscape” that enables you to exist in your world in the eastern US where the landscape has literally been paved over. That world that has been built around you enables you to sit back and criticize those that actually contribute to society. Do you think the computer, data networks, keyboards, electricity, etc…, that we are all using to read and post comments to your website, could have been created without the immense infrastructure (including pavement) that has been built over the years? Maybe you have been enlightened with knowledge that is not available to the rest of us, that the technologies that have been developed that enable your current lifestyle were developed in some remote utopian African rain-forest society that none of us are aware of? Oh yeah that didn’t happen.
There is plenty of open space left out west, maybe rural New Mexico, where you could move and create the sustainable society you so often espouse as the best way to save the world. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and create the world you claim to be so superior to what exists today? You can even call your new community Bullockton. I’m sure there a plenty of likeminded folks out there that would follow you out there and help you build your save humanity society without the use of any oil and its derivatives, and of course, without pavement.
James, lovely. I haven’t even found anyone else who has read the book, except for my husband. I’m pleased to read your correlations to the world today. I think the biggest thing I came away with from the book, besides just learning of the rediscovery of Lucretius, was abhorrence for the established Church of the time. Religion has been so horrible for the world. Religion of all stripes, that is. I’m not anti-Christian, just anti-religion in GENERAL. Spirituality is a different thing.
Mila
The Black areas of Detroit have nothing worth looting. And the White areas are heavily guarded against Negro activity. One mall has a good idea: no kids under 18 without a parent or guardian. It’s unfair to good kids, but it saved the mall. So many have been driven out of business by Black theft and terror.
Pay attention to the handle, Radu. That Shazam was not from me.
Someone is impersonating me using the handle Asoka_
My handle is Asoka..
My first post today was this:
asoka.. | October 15, 2012 12:49 PM | Reply
All the other Asoka_ posts are from someone who must think I do not post enough and wants to imitate me by posting under a similar handle.
Imitation is a form of flattery.
Neither candidate will address the cities because both are both globalist. The idea that you can’t make an omelet without breaking an egg has been extended to mean you can’t create a ‘free’ society without destroying the world first. No prosperity without murder and mayhem to support it.
A global society where one can be citizens of the world and those not able to adapt to the new order will live in shantytowns behind walls which keep the citizens of the world safe the anger of those dying. A society founded on inequality and injustice.
safe from the anger of those dying.
And in 20th Century, which caused more suffering: religion or communism? You could call Communism a religion and thus still be right. Feminism too – both created by the same group of humanoid reptiles.
LOL !!!
First time poster….long time reader. Just had to comment. I have a rather personal knowledge of the “anti-Pope” Baldassarre Cossa. He just so happens to be the “Boogy Man” of Kappa Sigma fraternity when I was in college in the early 80’s. Legend has it that Kappa Sigma was founded in Bologna, Italy by one Manuel Chrysaloras who was at the time trying to reignite the study of Greek literature and trying to unite Greek and Latin cultures for the empowerment of Italy. However, he and his students were constantly harrassed by thugs on their way in and out of the city and the university….thugs sponsored by….you guessed it….Baldassarre Cossa who at the time was the Governor of Bologna (this is before his rise to the Papacy). So…Chrysaloras formed an undergound, secret society based on the Freemasons for his students complete with secret handshakes and passwords to help protect them and the knowledge they had.
Thanks for expanding my knowledge about this shadowy time with the fascniating story concerning Cossa’s secretary Poggio.
Some people say that some of your people are the New Inquisition.
But he sounds so much like you with his Islamaphilia! How can I tell the difference? Can you prove that you are you?
I sympathize – this was done to me too. But the person was slandering me not flattering me as your person is doing.
Some people? — Who?
Snafu, thank you for this addendum and perceptive observation- well done indeed.
Thanks for the clarification, Ozone, although I would not attribute blame equally between the parties. With evangelical intensity, the Republicans will do damn near anything in order to prevail. The day Obama assumed the presidency, the Republicans publicly committed to obstruction regardless of the consequences.
The Republicans are the same folks who put forth a bill to eliminate the very successful Endangered Species Act. Nothing, including preservation of life on Earth, is sacred to these fanatics.
I like how we’ve been bouncing off each other, Jim. It’s still probably a race to the bottom, as I like to call it, but I feel like I’m at least in good company.
Fortran says Hi. Diamond wants to know when you are coming over for dinner cuz she’s really hungry.
Well said, Elsid. “From the ground up” and from the heart out. When will we collectively become ready to receive the bounty and mercy in our very midst but ignored by clinging to our age-old illusions?
A message given out by Meher Baba during World War II in November 1944.
“In the one undivided and indivisible Ocean of Life, you have, through ignorance, created the pernicious divisions based on sex, race, nationality, religion or community: and you allow these self-created divisions to poison your heart and pervert your relationships. You are already parts of one life, and, as such, brotherhood is not something which is to be brought into existence through laborious efforts, but is the supreme fact, which claims your recognition and wholehearted allegiance as soon as you have the candidness and the courage to face the truth.”
Have you considered that there is so much for you “to be depressed about” because you have a complete lack of understanding regarding anything spiritual? Before you dismiss Christianity as “mumbo jumbo”, you might take into consideration that the life expectancy of Mormon Church members far exceeds the general population. Though this doesn’t prove the existence of God, you do have to ask yourself if there is something to the faith that Mr. Kunstler dismisses as “childish and ridiculous”? Times are darkening…rather than complaining about it maybe you should consider looking for the light.
http://www.belnapfamily.org/brentjbelnap/institute/Preventive_Medicine_2008_Lifestyle_and_Mormon_Mortality_Enstrom.pdf
Thanks, Radu. On CFN anything seems possible. I must truly have good karma, to have such a polite flatterer. “Shazam” was a bit juvenile, though.
And remember how you said you never attacked me…
——————–
Always the victim eh Vlad? I said at the time I hadn’t attacked you in ‘that thread’, when you were whinning away, and I haven’t attacked you in this tread either. I acknowledged you analyzed yourself appropriately and proposed a new “homeland” for you and your like challenged friends. You should be happy with that proposal.
It’s more likely to happen than a “white homeland”, since the vast majority of whites want nothing to do with you and your Nazi buddies. This way we’d all be happier. Thinkaboutit.
We’ve been through this how many times now?
You attack and spew hate and contempt for entire races (Caucasians), nationalities (especially American) and classes of people (especially working class Americans) so it’s more than a bit rich that you bitch about ad hominem attacks. You bloody well beg for it.
As for the content of your posts, you consistently take silly-assed positions that defy logic, common sense and the evidence provided by simple observation.
As for your posts on economic matters you regularly tout destructive courses of action whether on immigration or monetary policy that are contrary to the interests of the vast majority of commenters on this site (who are mostly American) but that ARE to the great benefit of the upper economic classes of society.
And then there’s your claim of being able to live sumptuously and grandly with cars, airplane trips and all the modern electronic conveniences on $12,000 a year which sounds like propaganda from the mouth-piece of a modern day robber-baron. There are a lot of people in the US living poor on that kind of money or who’ve lived poor and know what it’s like. And that kind of stupid claim is insulting and incites bug-eyed fury in people that have been there and know poverty. And you complain about being attacked?
Or your lauding the so-called “reconquista” of the US south-west or your support of unrestricted immigration (both legal and illegal) into the US when, as has been pointed out to you a multitude of times, unrestricted immigration of millions of people hurts the majority especially when millions of jobs were being offshored at the same time.
As I’ve said before, I have family that immigrated to the US (legally and with a passport) in the post war era when jobs were plentiful and paid decently. But now? Recent Hispanics immigrants whether of the legal or illegal variety can’t get decent work like my own relatives did decades ago because those jobs are GONE.
Importing millions of semi educated, semi literate people in this modern era is a recipe for their marginalization and impoverishment. Yeah, yeah they contribute, they contribute to the bank accounts of the 1% who are delighted to have multitudes of desperate people willing to work for peanuts.
And, contrary to your cartoonish portrayal of Hispanics, those poor bastards are not happy, laughing, dancing, guitar strumming clowns content with just tortillas and beans and a place to lay their heads at night. They are real people that bleed and suffer. The reason they cross northward from the Rio Grande is that life south of it whether in Mexico or places further south SUCKS.
If you make well considered comments worthy of some respect then that’s what you get in return. But if you post commentary so obviously at odds with simple fact, so contrary to the legitimate interests of so many and if your aim is to insult people and their intelligence then you get what’s coming.
“But it requires a conceptual leap … from where we’re at now … to what COULD be. Jack”
Jack, let me suggest that you may be understating what is required. I would say the requirement is a radical change of heart brought about through suffering leading to the recognition that what we have been doing and thinking as regards our connection with one another DOESN’T WORK because it is simply not based on the Truth. Once we start to see ourselves as one family (or One Being), the idea of keeping accounts and paying each other for things will seem a total waste–an absurdity.
I think that should free up about 70% of our labor which could be refocussed into creative and fun channels of endeavor in a need/gift economy. Life in this world is not meant to be a struggle. I say this even though the conventional worldly life seems nothing other than struggle or seeking ways to escape it.
But it will not happen within the competing dogmas (religious, political, economic, social) that too many of us cling to because it spares us the effort of thought. – elSid
“…spares us the effort of thought…” Great post. You hit the nail right on the head. Some charismatic bullshit artist gets a microphone, enthralls the crowds, tells them what’s what, makes it sound plausible, appeals to the worst in them, blames outsiders. And how many times have we seen this?
And then there’s this: “It’s especially disturbing to see the infiltration of the latest version of Jesus mumbo-jumbo – Southern Republican Nascar Evangelical orthodoxy” – JHK
So there are people that think that people south of the Mason Dixon Line are gap toothed microcephalic cretins that eye their own sisters, whose major source of calories is moonshine.
I’ll say it again, people with a podium better measure their words because words matter. You have so-called “battleground” states in the up-coming election. Best take care that they don’t turn into actual battlegrounds.
Can’t happen? You’ve been there before and not all that long ago. History’s tentacles still reach out and touch us. Someone else pointed out a while back that the last person in the US to collect Veterans Benefits from the Civil War just recently died.
But seeing as we’re name-calling and stone throwing let’s do it right. There are many disturbing lines of thought circulating, not just of the Nascar, evangelical variety. So let’s not be blind to idiots north of the Line posing as “intellectuals” claiming to be rooted in “data” and “evidence” when in fact they’re nothing of the sort, when blind, idiot ideology is their stock in trade, when in fact they see what they want to see, when they deal just as much in conceptual swill based on statistical mirages unmoored from objective reality, who are hobbled by the dictates of their own brand of political correctness, whose first instinct is to take sides against their own country no matter the circumstance.
I could go on but you get the drift. The first key to personal and national survival is to take accurate stock of reality. The second key is to not go out of your way to make enemies of your fellow countrymen. Because, and to state the eminently obvious, they inhabit the same country. Say what you must but watch out how you say it.
OBAMA WAIVES ACT TO ARM COUNTRIES THAT USE CHILD SOLDIERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!
check it out!
JIM K, THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS HERE!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/viral-video/cleveland-bus-punch-736901
What about World star hiphop?
How long didya search there? And what didya find?
The Rolling Stones have a new song called
Doom and Gloom. Zombies are mentioned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPFGWVKXxm0&feature=g-all-lik
Doom and gloom is spreading like cholera.
I believe you typed this incorrectly – Southern Republican Nascar Evangelical orthodoxy. Shouldn’t it be SNORE (Southern NASCAR Orthodox Republican Evangelicals)? Great line, by the way!
Amen brother!
I would love to see Michelle in those hot pants, and the POTUS eating a pulled pork sandwich. It would tell me that they are my kind of people.
I have been reading this blog for several years, and have read the “World Made by Hand” novels, and have watched the History channel documentary in which JHK participated. the Richard Rainwater article Fortune in 2005 changed my life. I must report that I agree with nearly 99% of JHK’s positions. With one obvious exception… I love racing, having raced motorcycles for 20 years, and I love motor sports. I will love, and dearly miss motorsports when it is no longer available. So I wish JHK could go a little easy on NASCAR.. at least until Danica wins a Cup title.
webjmn
Yeah ok, but is it really enough to change our whole industrial base? Especially after they were caught fudging the data?
No differences then? Treat the tiger like the house cat? The dwarf like the giant? The blind like the sighted? The woman like the man? The Negro like the White – in the White Man’s Civilization?
Dude, you are misinterpreting ultimate statements for practical policies. Everyone and everything is different and must be treated so. Not to do so is an insult and is unskillful. In brief, Love is beyond love and hate. But you are confusing love and Love. Stop it.
The majority of Whites don’t want to be colonized by Islam or Mexico. And though afraid to say it, they don’t want to live with Blacks since they move when too many Blacks move in.
Old sayings: Southern Whites hate Blacks as a race but love them as individuals.
Northern Whites (liberals) love Blacks as a race but hate them as individuals.
Southern Whites don’t mind living near Blacks as long as they don’t get uppity.
Northern Whites don’t mind Black getting uppity as long as they don’t have to live with them.
Obviously the Southern point of view is more real and compassionate. The Northern one nothing but cant. But now that we have lost all power, I would ammend the one about not minding living near Blacks. They have lost all fear of us and are very “uppity” now. It’s just not safe anymore.
Hm, seems like this comments section has become the Radu Voda show. What I would give for a nice little “ignore” or “hide” button. We need some Web 2.0 up in here, says I.
Pay attention to the handle, Rhino. The post you are replying to was not posted by me.
Someone is impersonating me using the handle Asoka_
My handle is Asoka..
My first post today was this:
asoka.. | October 15, 2012 12:49 PM | Reply
All the other Asoka_ posts are from someone who must think I do not post enough and wants to imitate me by posting under a similar handle.
Imitation is a form of flattery.
Jerkistan, hahaha. Good one, dale.
Radu Voda wrote:
“The Founders said are rights were inalienable – from God. The U.N says all rights are merely privledges that can be taken away if that serves the greater good.
The choice of which system is better is obvious – except to a Liberal.”
You focus on the line in the Declaration about inalienable rights, but you ignore the next line: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”
The Founders recognize that Government is necessary to “secure” those rights. If those rights flowed, inalienably (or “unalienably” as per the original text) from some all-knowing, all-powerful God, then why would we need government to “secure” them?
Fact is, the Declaration of Independence was a PR piece of propaganda, intended to convince the colonists to support a break from England (it was not a constitution or a template for a form of governance). So I would suggest that one view its rhetorical flourishes through that prism. In that light, the reference to a “Creator” in the Declaration is analogous to the phrase “God bless the United States of America” that every politician uses to end his/her speeches – i.e., it just makes us feel good to have God on our side.
In contrast, the governing document of this country – the Consitution – does not suggest that rights flow from some deity. In fact, there are no Constitutional mentions of God or a creator, and its only mention of religion (the First Amendment came later) was a negative one – i.e., prohibiting any religious test for public officeholders. So go ahead and mock the UN and Liberals for recognizing what our Founders recognized: that humans have rights by simple virtue of their humanity, free and clear of any god or gods.
The majority of Whites don’t want to be colonized by Islam or Mexico.
—————–
WTF does this mean?
And though afraid to say it, they don’t want to live with Blacks since they move when too many Blacks move in.
—————–
mixed neighborhoods, be it income, age, race, or interests, make the most interesting places to live. I’ve always told RE agents to avoid the “ozzie and harriet” hoods. Too Boring!
Yeah….a lot of what you say are “old sayings”, really old.
BTW Vlad….you measure sensitivity not by how sensitive you are, but by how sensitive you are to others. Ergo, calling other people “apes” would seem to disqualify you from consideration as a sensitive type. Capiche? I know it’s tough to grasp that with a low social IQ but puzzle on it awhile.
The Bard said, To thine own self be true. And as follows the night the day, thou canst then be false to any man. Dale, you are a fraud. I know this because you can’t be straight with me. You’re not going to get any further in your spiritual life is you don’t stop lying to yourself that you’re a good person. You aren’t.
Not that you’re Jack the Ripper, but you obviously enjoying inflicting pain, and have no doubt gone out of your way to get people fired, etc. If you can admit this, there’s a chance you can change. But not until then. I am the Gate. You cannot advance but thru my good graces. But you throw stones at me, and I sweets at you. This state of affairs has to change, “Dale”.
BTW — since you have been unable to substantiate your assertion with scientific studies asserting the IQ was predominantly a measure of inherent ability and not acculturation. I will give you a quote and a source to the contrary. One of endless, I could easily produce from numerous recent studies and source documents.
“When use to compare groups with different cultural backgrounds, the Stanford-Binet IQ test is less a comparative measure of ability than an index of eculturation into the ways of the American Middle
Class. Since Negros have been systematically denied entrance to the middle-class world, it is not surprising that their learned behavior is measurably different from that on which the IQ test is based.” —Race & IQ (Oxford University Press)
Really simple common sense, to anyone who isn’t reading with racist blinders on.
“Northern Whites (liberals) love Blacks as a race but hate them as individuals.
Southern Whites don’t mind living near Blacks as long as they don’t get uppity.
Northern Whites don’t mind Black getting uppity as long as they don’t have to live with them.”
————————————————
WHO THE FUCK APPOINTED YOUR DUMB ASS AS SPOKESMAN
Not that you’re Jack the Ripper, but you obviously enjoying inflicting pain, and have no doubt gone out of your way to get people fired, etc.
———————–
are you saying you’ve been fired a few times, Vlad? Maybe you should sue them for discrimination on the basis of your low social IQ.
I am the Gate. You cannot advance but thru my good graces.
———————–
You may be the Lone Ranger buddy, but a Christ like figure?…Eyeyeayea.
Liked. Dig the historical perspective.
Jack Waddington, I guarantee, the end result of your prescription for humanity would not be communities of people working together, but an authoritarian global dictatorship.
Rhino:
Indeed, it would be nice to see a little self-awareness on the part of progressives so that when they advocate permissive immigration policies they are not offering utopia to anyone, they are offering a sweatshop economy.
poor grammar, let’s try that again:
Indeed, it would be nice to see a little self-awareness on the part of progressives so that when they advocate permissive immigration policies they start confronting the reality that they are not offering utopia, they are offering a sweatshop economy.
No the rights are from God but have to be fought for here on Earth. Our Goverment is supposed to do this for us – not try to take them away like the U.N proposes to do.
What good is this statement? Well it does restrain the beasts for awhile at least. When they come prowling, people know what they are and what they intend. But now our Goverment has quietly fallen and is not longer the Protector of our God given rights. The Founders knew this would happen at some point – thus Jefferson’s suicide clause that we have the right to overthrow. It would be nice if other things had been tried first – like recalling judges, impeaching presidents, but the System was already too corrupt to purify itself by the time it became an issue.
So sure, you’re in favor freedom – chip every man and beast etc. All water belongs to humanity. Sure, and soon we’ll have to open up our houses for immigrants from Africa. They intend to crowd us all into the cities and have the Countrside for themselves. Reduce the population to 500 million a la the Georgia Guidestones. And thus a Medevial World is created. God, how can we stay free with people as gullible as you?
Oh did you read The Bell Curve already as I directed? And read up on the Minnesota Twin Study?
It’s obvious that Blacks are third rate as is everywhere they live be it here or Europe, or the Carribean, or in Africa.
What you quote admits they flunk but makes an excuse for them. Get one of the older Encyclopedias for the Truth. But I warn you, as the Orangutan warned Heston, you will not like what you find.
If it hasn’t been mentioned already, it’s worth pointing out that the Islamic dynasties that were thriving during the European dark ages had just as much to do with preserving cultural artifacts, especially from the ancient Greeks.
This during a time when the aforementioned monks were busy scraping clean the roman and greek texts so that they could re-use the vellum for their hand copied christian gospels.
Islamic math and science flourished for centuries as a result, and was eventually spread to western europe via the moors of Spain, despite the best efforts of the popes to burn heretics at the stake.
I was taking with him about this very thing last night. He thinks Liberalism is to blame for them not assimilating. Immigration is fine per se, the more the merrier.
They got most of that from India. Christianity actually support Science more due to the influence of Aristotle via the Scholastics. I’m talking High Christianity not Elmer Gantry now.
Islam makes God capricious and whatever He does is by definition right. The idea of His ruling by unchanging Laws (which could be investigated) is downplayed. These are generalities – there were individuals and schools that held views more like those of Aristotle and Christianity.
As I mentioned in last weeks thread, I have no idea what you mean by “bell curve” is that suppose to be a book or what?
Further, to be reasonable, you should post excerpts from the studies which support your assertion, as I did, not ask me to go swimming through hundreds of pages of documentation.
This is one who knows all dogs eat !!
Ront knows this is the key to survival.
✔ K-Dog for president.
Get one of the older Encyclopedias for the Truth.
———————
I see, how old do they have to be, 18th century, 19th century? We all know the sort of research that went on in the old days, (there they are again) and the sort of attitudes that drove the studies in those eras.
It’s common knowledge that racial attitudes dominated thinking in the past, and statistical studies and recognized bias have improved results in more recent times. What’s your contention, that anything that disagrees with you is “too modern”?
Do you wash you clothes down on the riverbank by beating them with rocks too? Only drive 50 year old cars, and ride trains because man wasn’t intended to fly?
Get with it Vlad, if you can’t support it, don’t pretend you’re doing science. You’re just dishing up out of date hack bullshit to support your fucked up ideas.
Anyone want a laugh?
I wrote a very long story called “Vermont, that liberal place” based on the fears of FoxNews
just click on my name above and I hope you enjoy!
But scanning by I did notice this part.
”
They intend to crowd us all into the cities and have the Countrside for themselves. Reduce the population to 500 million a la the Georgia Guidestones. And thus a Medevial World is created.
“
If I were teaching high school I’d give it a b+ for sure.
As I mentioned in last weeks thread, I have no idea what you mean by “bell curve” is that suppose to be a book or what?
==============
HERRNSTEIN, R. J., & MURRAY, C. A. (1994). The bell curve: intelligence and class structure in American life. New York, Free Press.
Did you read about the Gandhi statue in South Africa?
A colder than average winter was predicted for Minnesota last year. We had record warmth. Don’t place too much faith in long term forecasting models.
Get one of the older Encyclopedias for the Truth.
———————
I see, how old do they have to be, 18th century, 19th century? We all know the sort of research that went on in the old days, (there they are again) and the sort of attitudes that drove the studies in those eras.
===========
dale, it is not the research that makes the older editions better. It is the essays. The 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is the best, but it was hard to find, until it passed into public domain and became available digitally. The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, renamed to address Britannica’s trademark concerns.
The original essays in the 11th edition dropped out of future editions. Essays by T.H. Huxley, Alfred North Whitehead, Algernon Swinburne and Peter Kropotkin. Fifteen hundred men, and an impressive (by Edwardian standards), 200 women contributed articles to the 11th edition.
“The Age of Aquarius”
It really must suck to be jewish. Really the later medeval church sucked, but it sucked less than anything else going on at the time. As for the Renaissance that brought back Galen and his crackpot theories of blood letting, sucked for George Washington let me tell you.
Africa, Asia compared to the church, really big time sucking, and the halfwits have no excuse for the backwardness of those two continents, any problems were of their own making.
If you are not a white gentile I have one word to describe you and your precious culture, “stagnation.” And that is being nice.
The Spanish Reconquista did do one thing, it put additional stress on the jewish community in Europe and they responded succesfully. They fled Europe and began the plantation system in the New World with African slavery.
Take that Asoka
Gee wizz Jim… You can’t let those comments from ‘The Survival Podcast’ readers get to you… not that they understood more than a few words of this!
Its back to hunting and foraging to the future human types. But instead of wildebeast steaks and wild sweet potatoes – with miracle berries as desert – they’ll be hunting rats & cockroaches still heavy on the bitterbrush with chokecherries on the side.
Jim, those Millennials you love so much, and that I doubt quite often, have this going for them: skepticism about organized religion.
Their growing cohort may explain recent findings about lack of affiliation among 20% of those polled nationally.
We can keep hoping that Time the Shriveler will get the old and religious offstage…soon.
Now that was worth listening to…
This is easily the worst blog entry ever. I mean, really, Evangelical Protestantism, Mormonism and now Catholicism are irredeemable religions?
Give me a break.
djc
158th!!!
158th
Take that Asoka
==============
I will not take it. You are propagating false and antisemitic information. You are showing your bigotry. I disdain antisemites.
You have no understanding of past societies and their value systems, and you think a transgression in the past, however distant, invalidates activities or ideas of the present.
For people like you and Vlad, the finding that even one Jew participated in the slave trade in the 18th century invalidates Jewish political support of civil rights or integration in the 20th century.
You guys re-invent the history of the Jewish participation in the slave trade as if Jews were the majority of slave owners in the United States, as if Jews played a major role in the slave trade everywhere.
You should check out Eli Faber’s scholarly book, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight, on the participation of Jews in the slave trade and slavery.
He has provided the basic numbers that can be established on the relation between Jews and African slaves in the English and Dutch colonial worlds. His major finding is that Jews had a minuscule role in the slave trade and played only a minor role as slave owners wherever they resided in the New World.
Of course, knowledgeable historians could have predicted the results of the book, given the circumscribed role of the Jews within European and American societies from the 15th through the 18th century. As Faber shows, the Jews were not a major factor in any international trade in the Anglo-Saxon world, except possibly the diamond trade. They were also not significant as planters or slave owning farmers, except possibly in Surinam. To the extent that they owned slaves they tended to own fewer slaves on average than their non-Jewish peers. A dozen or so participated in some aspect of the Atlantic slave trade to 1800, with only about half a dozen being serious traders, and even this group moved a very tiny fraction of the total Africans brought to America.
Take this opportunity, NewWorld, to actually learn something about the New World… and ditch the anti-semitism. It does you ill.
Jim,
Did you ever imagine when you were working at Rolling Stone that one day you would turn into the Pied Piper??
RV, check my link that is somewhere above.
And yet, year after year, we all continue to *execute* the same mindless, destructive acts – against our very existence. Our population breeds exponentially, much like rats/bacteria (thx women hormones, “I MUST HAVE *CHILDREN* BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE”). We continue to exponentially consume every last Earthly resource remaining (peak everything – trees, water, minerals, oil, food/livestock, etc). And in our wake, we leave nothing, but exponential pollution and total destruction, in the form of carcinogenic heavy metals, carcinogenic hydrocarbons, and carcinogenic radioactive materials (thx to Fukushima/etc, mountain topping, petroleum refined *drugs*, natural gas fracking, clearcutting/bulldozing the topsoil for oil tar sands, landfills, and the usual *must have MORE, BIGGER, BETTER!!!*). Nothing ventured, nothing gained – I s’pose (or rather, “if I don’t know, it can’t hurt me” ignorance)…
“So, you’d consider us your scientific peers?”
I’d simply ignore morons like them. It has been documented for the past 300+ years that solar sunspot activity comes in ~10-12 year cycles – it hasn’t been going *UP AND UP*. And, the last 40+ years worth of solar irradiance data, from places like NASA, shows that solar irradiance is directly correlated to solar sunspot activity (>0.88 correlation coefficient?). Finally, that 40+ year NASA data shows that the past 3-4 years were at *RECORD LOWS* for solar irradiance.
Morons will always be morons. Do you really want to argue with a moron who constantly *LIES*, as well?!…
Who exactly is this *ASS SOKER* guy?!…
Oh yeah, now I *membaz*. He’s the master debater – the guy who will argue *EITHER* side of any argument.
As long as that argument isn’t what we should be discussing in public – *EXPONENTIAL GROWTH/DEPLETION* (population/consumption/pollution/destruction)…
Oh, yeah *THAT* guy.
I’m sorry, did I say *sock puppet*?!?
Sorry, what I meant to say whuz *six-figure-salaried-government-stalker*. Sorry, *my bad*.
1oo,ooo books?
James Burke got his information from some Twentieth-Century historian or the other, who got his information, directly or indirectly, from some Medieval chronicler. Medieval chroniclers were careless with large figures. The number of books was probably 10,000.
A belief is based on a metaphysical premise.Take on the right belief and there are all sorts of magical mysterious benefits. I just sit back in my big easy and my imagination takes me into the promised land where me and my kind rule the world and the sinners aka progressives suffer the fire for their sinful ways. How good is that , I feel cleansed and affirmed in the way of the almighty .
It’s time to repent before we get out the rack and screws . Does anyone remember the name of the device on which the sinner is straddled with increasing weight added to his or her legs until there is a tearing apart.
So just who is that masked man?
HI-OH Silver!
Allahu Akbar!
Assalaamu alaikum!
Shazam! (???? ????)
what I meant to say whuz *six-figure-salaried-government-stalker*. Sorry, *my bad*.
=======
High six figure, with good benefits. You are forgiven this time, but don’t let it happen again.
Enjoyed the post, Jim, educational and provocative (as usual). Politics and religion, who could ask for more?! Best book I’ve read lately besides Jim Harrison’s The Beast God Forgot to Invent (a novella actually)) is The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, by Alex Rosenburg of Duke. “Physics fixes all the facts.” Well written, well argued, and damned compelling, just chocked full of interesting mind-blowing science. Surpasses even Dawkins, I think. And the good professor wastes no breath refuting the already well-refuted religions. “Nice nihilism!” You will be provoked!
The bible is one third prophecy, it is the only text that can predict the future, no other religion can lay claim to this extraordinary claim. All through the book of Revelation a very precise description is given of the Catholic Church as being a false religion masquerading as the real thing. You will not find Jesus in a sect or a denomination. If he was to return today you could bet that these very churches that hold his name up as their savior would turn on him and would try to re-crucify him. Please in your future posts do not throw all the true Christians into the same lot as the Republican Zealots brand of false Christians. If you spent time studying the scriptures as much as figuring out the future with the oil depletion facts, you would come to discover what Jesus was talking about. Jim you have been wrong on some things in the past such as Obama and your corrupted implant., please examine yourself. If you were really so bright, where did the first molecule come from. How far back did time go when it began. As you cannot answer these questions, neither should you denounce the teachings of Jesus. Do a yourself a favor on a lonely road some night and ask him to reveal himself to you with a sincere heart. More deception awaits you if you allow it.
============
So, what are your solutions? How do we deal with these problems? Do you have any practical ideas, Ixnei? Or, are you just here for the ad hominem?
I’m going to call your bluff. Because I have been consistent on supporting women’s rights. I challenge you to find a post where I argue against women. Only by women having more control over their lives can we solve our problems.
I’m going to call your bluff. Because I have been consistent on supporting global population control. I challenge you to find a post where I argue in favor of having children. I got a vasectomy BEFORE having any children.
I’m going to call your bluff. Because I have been consistent on opposing violence. I challenge you to find a post where I argue in favor of violence. I don’t even condone violence for self defense. I refused to go into the military when drafted, because I didn’t have any enemies in Vietnam (and the USA was supporting the dictator).
I could name many more issues in which I have been consistent. Your charge that I argue both sides, just for the sake of argument, is bogus.
If we’re going to make grateful note of the rescuers of Classical manuscripts, Petrarch’s name should be placed alongside Poggio’s. But neither of them did as much as Cassiodorus (Fifth Century) and the monks that worked under him.
The Arabs were rescuers too. They transmitted Aristotle to Europe via Moorish Spain. And it was Aristotle’s stimulus on the late Medieval mind that gave us, for instance, Ockham’s Razor, the device periodically named and made use of on this very site. Those pesky Arabs.
Those pesky Arabs.
=========
I take offense at this. Arabs are being attacked all the time, instead of being praised for being intellectually superior to Europeans.
Arab achievements speak for themselves (during the time Europe was in the Dark Ages) in medicine, agriculture, engineering, mathematics, astronomy, literature, poetry, etc.
The Arabs are not “pesky” … they are a gift to humanity.
I was being ironic.
Sorry, Jam47. I apologize. I feel terrible for not recognizing your irony. My reaction was totally unjustified. Mea culpa.
And thanks for not scrolling past my post.
Oh come on, JHK. The real reason you wrote your anti-Vatican rant is to nudge Mika out of retirement. 🙂
And you accused me of the ‘one liners’!
Actually that was 2.
“…that’s an argument for electing a Mormon president, since that peculiar branch of the church is so self-evidently childish and ridiculous that it will probably do more to defeat religious fanaticism than all the humanist dissertations ever written….” -jhk-
Wow. That’s quite an indictment.
And I like the way that you lump “the church” together with all of its “peculiar branch(s),” too.
Nice going. Presumably you include those in Israel who cloak themselves in religious garb for that “church” – whether they believe in Jahweh, or not. I certainly hope so, JHK. I don’t mind you bashing “the south,” so much.
But if we’re going to bash religion.
Let’s be even-handed, please.
==================
The open internet is a largely atheist space.
And this unmoderated and unregulated comment thread is certainly part of the open internet.
All very interesting.
Makes one wonder how it will all play out.
Doesn’t it?
Thanks for the week’s work, JHK.
I see you have run afoul of our resident troll, X.
“I’m going to call your bluff. Because I have been consistent on supporting global population control.”
-a…,to x-
But none of us, as citizens of the US – has any control over world population. And when it comes to growth of the US population – which fuels US economic growth and an immigrant-staffed US military machine that will take us to 2050+, or collapse of global ecosystems – whichever comes first.
Our troll argues with the 1%.
Growth must continue in the US!
I will now assure a troll..response for myself.
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about/what-numbersusa-all-about.html
P4S,you really shouldn’t be talking about growth of the USA population, since you added to that growth.
When it came to putting your vas deferens under the scalpel, you were not man enough to act on what you profess.
Only the childless can speak to population control, right, little troll?
http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web
But none of us, as citizens of the US – has any control over world population.
============
But we can vote for USA candidates who will support policies that control global population growth.
The USA is part of the global community. Reducing population in the USA effectively reduces global population. Vote for political parties that support:
* contraception (including morning after pill)
* reducing infant mortality so that parents do not increase their family size to ensure at least some survive to adulthood.
* abortion (including 2nd and 3rd trimester)
* sterilization (vasectomy and tubal ligation)
* euthanasia (including physician-assisted)
Wardoc seems like a very legitimate poster – one who has gazed at some of the rough edges that may occur when TS hits TF. I’m pretty sure this is the webarticle that he recommended earlier today.
http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/when-the-music-stops-how-americas-cities-may-explode-in-violence_10122012
The number of people who can be loved by one living and sentinent human is, most definitely –
finite.
“Reducing population in the USA effectively reduces global population.”
————————————————–
Yeah, you’re about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
About as smart as one, too.
xhalor, I had to state it bluntly because some people believe reducing immigration into the USA is reducing population. That is false. Anti-immigration advocates are thinly disguised racists.
Stopping people from crossing an invisible line does not reduce global population. Which side of a national boundary one lives on does not change global population at all. Limiting immigration does not change global population at all.
Anti-immigration advocates don’t really care about global population. They care about keeping out others now that they have theirs. Anti-immigration folks usually come from families who immigrated from Europe, but now they want to slam the door shut. They will not succeed. They are not succeeding. People continue to stream in, legally and illegally, and that trend will continue unabated.
If anti-immigration advocates are really concerned about the increase in USA population, then the option is always open to emigrate. Love multicultural USA, or leave it. But they won’t do that because their actions are not consistent with their words. They would rather stay and whine about how their country is changing before their very eyes.
The Jewish guy denies any role for Jews in slavery – of course he does, what do you expect him to say? Only Whites care about objective knowledge….
The Black Muslim book “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” expains the massive role of Jews in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Who are you going to believe – Blacks or Jews? Everything is he said, she said with you – so you have a real problem here. I have no doubt that Race will be a primary criterion. Of course, you hate Whites more than you love Blacks so…so you might stick with your current opinion. In any case, it’s a choice between Ethnic Loyalty and Pragmatism. As usual with you, the Truth doesn’t come into it all.
It was funny the way you posted an excerp that agreed that Blacks score lower. Now try and find one that says the contrary.
I think you’re playing dumb about the Bell Curve. It’s a famous book and also a well known statistical curve that portrays the range of low, mean, and high for many things….
Careful you don’t get too good at playing dumb Dale. You have a powerful mind, the problem being that you are always playing to an invisible judge and audience. Your Id and Superego are in a conspiracy against you, the Ego. You must adopt Freud’s motto – Where it (id) is, there I shall be. Forget the audience, concentrate on the Good, the True, and the Beautiful – instead of the Profitable, the Lie, and the Popular.
Vlad, I’m not going to go ad hominem. Instead of looking at who the author is, I am going to look at the empirical historical evidence.
I think I have been clear: I deplore any misuse of history that distorts the historical record to demonize or demean a particular racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural group. I therefore condemn as false any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the exploitation of slave labor or in the Atlantic slave trade.
Atlantic slavery was an intercontinental enterprise extending over nearly four centuries.
Ethnically, the participants included Arabs, Berbers, scores of African ethnic groups, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, Jews, Germans, Swedes, French, English, Danes, white Americans, Native Americans, and even thousands of New World people of African descent who became slaveholding farmers or planters themselves.
Since Portugal and Spain barred Jews from their empires, and since, by the 16th century most of the Jews who weren’t either killed or converted in Western Europe had fled eastward, it was impossible for Jews to play more than a marginal role in a vast system that attracted tens of thousands of pagans, Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants. Even in Holland and the Dutch colonies, where Jews were allowed to make their main “contribution” to New World slavery as merchants and planters, they always formed a minority. Similarly, Jews played only a nominal role in the slave system in the American South. Never more than a tiny fraction of the white population, they never formed more than a minuscule proportion of slaveholders.
Huh? Did you say something? There’s gnat a buzzin’ in my ear. And it’s saying something. Sounds like…KooKoo for Cocoa Puffs…I’m an Atheist/Muslim/Anarchist/Pacifist….from Indiana
fuckin’ ding-dong
P.S.
Harry Baals would be so proud…
What day is today? Monday? Today I’m a Hindu. I am large. I contain multitudes. Deal with it.
So you’re a fat schizophrenic with an identity crisis and a multiple personality disorder. And a black-jack dealer to boot.
LOL!
I prefer tolerant, multicultural, and diverse.
You know, the wild blue yonder really is coming my way very soon. My days of leisurely hangin’ out on the Internet are just about over. I do not presume to know anything about you, but before I do the big log out, I just gotta know, how do you do this? Day in, day out, week after week, month after month.
I’m serious. After about a week of what you do, I would be a drooling, blabbering mess. Come to think of it, the way things are going for me, that might just happen anyway…but still, what’s your story?
To quote you:
“You have crossed a line.”
Good bye.
OK. No trade secrets here. Not that I’ll be losing any sleep over it. Wouldn’t want to kill the goose that’s laying all these golden eggs.
Careful you don’t trip over them. I wouldn’t want you to fall and hit your head.
ding-dong
Unlike the politicians we have these days Vlad, I’ll just call your behavior what it is, chickenshit denial.
No one contested early test scores of blacks were lower, the issue always was why? You were challenged to produce specific evidence for the statements you’ve made here regarding most of the difference being the result of lower inherent ability. Produce, as I have, specific quotes substantiating your views, with sources provided, and you might salvage at least a modicum of respect.
It’s never been about “YOU” Vlad, it’s about your sick views and your bald face willingness to pollute this website with them. Worst of all, your slippery efforts to offer them as legitimate, and anything other than the worst kind of pornography, which they are.
Seriously, get your shit together or leave this website alone.
I mean seriously? You want to offer up articles from a 1911 encyclopedia and expect anyone to call than substantive? In an era where Jim Crow ruled America and England was scarcely better?
I have to wonder just how intelligent you might want to appear if you were afraid that someone might lynch you for being too smart.
Fucking unbelievable!
Asoka,
I think we’ve established here that Vlad has about the same interest in the truth as a junkie whore with her hand in your pocket.
This guy is in his 70’s, or so he says, and he’s here 24/7. Can you imagine spending your “golden years” hanging out here every day? He’s a very sad case, the Soake. Very sad… And not too bright.
I like the poster that did a cut and paste job on him this morning, though. THAT was funny!
Debt
What concerns him most is the conflict that he thinks an oil shortage will precipitate. What happens when people get blindsided by prices rocketing past any level they have contemplated–especially when you factor in other challenges America faces? “We’ve got a lot of things going on simultaneously,” he says. “The world as we know it is unwinding with respect to Social Security, pensions, Medicare. We’re going to have dramatically increased taxes in the U.S. I believe we’re going into a world where there’s going to be more hostility. More people are going to be asking, ‘Why did God do this to us?’ Whatever God they worship. Alfred Sloan said it a long time ago at General Motors, that we’re giving these things during good times. What happens in bad times? We’re going to have to take them back, and then everybody will riot.’ And he’s right.”
December 26, 2005
And now seven years past the unwinding which was then a whisper is now a hiss in the distance. Must it become a dull roar before it is noticed?
You would agree that Christianity is a verb and not a noun?
Yes 10,000, I remember he lamented in his (fourth episode?) that the first generation which had movable type was the last generation in which we did not have specialists. That was around 1500. Keeping track of the knowledge in 10,000 books is doable but 100,000 would strain this dogs brain.
✔ Vote K-Dog
We need a president who knows how to read.
Dear Angry Lunatic: A Response to Chris Hedges
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-chris-hedges/
Interesting.
What we have here is two Heretics who have no desire to Unite!
I’m shocked you are disparaging Black scholars like this. Where is your loyalty?
In fact, the Jews have always had an incredible maritime tradition and have been prominent as Slavers since ancient times. After leaving Spain they went to Holland. And from they began to take over England with the Protestant Ascendancy. And from there they began their assault on America. Their headquarters for Slavery here was Newport, RI.
Their next stop is China if the Chinese fail in vigilance. They tend to leave their host countries in ruins.
Hedges got the better of Harris re: nuclear first strike against Muslims, and now Harris refuses to appear in public with Hedges.
Harris does not seem rational. A rational person would welcome a public appearance with Hedges, so as to discuss differences calmly.
Knowlege can be lost or obscured – look at Italy after the fall of Rome as well as many places in Europe. Or look at Buddhism: how much was lost with the sack of Nalanda by the Muslims. And Buddhists themselves see the cycle of ages as going down into more ignorance not greater knowledge and goodness.
So your idea of constant ascent is naive. In fact, although testing was in its infancy, they did get the Black IQ more or less right since there was no PC yet to obscure the issue. Since then Psychometrics has become far more sophisticated – and far less believed due to the dominant ideology of spurious human equality.
Your indignation is simply a sign that your losing the debate this week as you did last week when Prog declared me the victor.
Salt Lake City Fashion Trends
Menswear inspired woman’s fashion, with its classic and clean lines and a touch of androgynous sex appeal, has certainly withstood the test of time. Since the days of Coco Chanel’s tailored black and white jackets and pants to actress Katharine Hepburn’s infamous masculine-feminine style and accompanying deep voice that exuded sexiness, to actress Diane Keaton in ‘Annie Hall’ making pants, ties, hats and suspenders look oh so feminine, menswear style for woman has proven it’s not a trend but rather a bona fide classic.
Menswear for women can be interpreted in many different ways. A woman who just wants a touch of menswear can mix masculine pieces with feminine details such as pairing a boyfriend blazer and tailored wide-leg trousers with a ruffly blouse and sky high heels. A menswear inspired suit in solid black or white is perfection when it fits impeccably and is worn a bit open at the neckline to expose feminine décolletage. Or a classic white menswear button-down shirt can be appropriate for just about any occasion when dressed up with a pencil skirt or trousers or dressed down with jeans. All of these pieces can be bought at Urban Outfitters, Ann Taylor, and J Crew all at the Gateway mall in Salt Lake City, Utah or at Nordstrom at the Fashion Place Mall in Murray, Utah. Zoe’s inspiration for her collection was from icons of the 60’s 70’s like Bianca Jagger Ali McGraw, so structured tuxedo jackets and tailored pants are strong in the collection mixed in with feminine blouses and flowy dresses.
Balancing both masculine and feminine style within an outfit creates the perfect juxtaposition between the two. Achieve this by either mixing menswear inspired pieces with feminine pieces (as mentioned above) or choose one piece that has elements of both masculine and feminine within it, such as this boyish shirtfrom Urban Outfitterswith a girly necktie bow. Whichever way, chic style is sure to be achieved with menswear inspired women’s fashion!
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=179812
Which Case ?
The three possible cases with Physics – Mathematics:
1) Even if you had infinite precision of initial conditions, positions of particles, velocities (precision with more than 1000 decimal points aka 10^1000 while presently the most precise measurement is about 15 decimal points aka 10^15 ?) and even if you had all of the exact formulas and even if you had the exact analytical solution to all of the equations, partial differential equations describing all physical systems, the entire universe, you still couldn’t predict the next configuration of the system, there would always be a discrepancy. In this case, the message would be that Mathematics, Logic and the entire program of Scientific Research has a fundamental limit, no matter what, reality is outside of our models, no matter what, there is not a one to one correspondence of reality with any kind of logical construction, linguistics – symbolic construction of it in our mind, or in any mind for that matter, or in any contraption for that matter, even trillions of supercomputers, etc. This would mean that reality, the universe, matter, energy is disjoint from us, 100 % independent from us, completely alien from us. At most we have some good approximations, some lucky shots at guessing some patterns, our formulas are simply matter and reality making fun of us and playing jokes on us just for the fun if it (just like god makes fun of us and plays jokes on us with the impossibility to determine his existence, it is a matter of faith, hence everyone will beat up everyone else because they all have different faiths, etc.), matter and physics and reality make some things look logical and correspond to some formulas, tricking us into believing that the program, the logical analysis and discovery of patterns will lead us to even more precision and formulas (like the “language of the universe is written in mathematics” and such nonsense) only to hose us and fool us as soon as we try to solve the simplest problems like the simple 3 body problem (imagine trying to solve the million body problem contained in a glass of water or an ocean wave form and such).
2) If you had infinite precision of initial conditions, positions of particles, velocities (precision with more than 1000 decimal points aka 10^1000 while presently the most precise measurement is about 15 decimal points aka 10^15 ?) and you had all of the exact formulas and even had the exact analytical solution to all of the equations, partial differential equations describing all physical systems, the entire universe, you could predict the next configuration of the system, there would always be no discrepancy. In this case the message would be that reality, matter, physics, the universe has a one to one correspondence with logical – symbolic – mathematical models of it in our mind, is quantized according to discrete and precise patterns, is simply a computer program in essense, hence you could create new programs and they would be 100 % reality, no matter what, you could invent virtual realities, nay anything you want, and the reality, and truth and the essense of that would be exactly as real as any physical reality, there is no metaphysical or abstract property making reality disjoint or independent from us. Of course the problem here would be to find all of the millions of values for particles and electrons (all of the electrons in the sun, and their exact position up to 1000 decimal points, and exact velocities up to 1000 decimal points and the exact analytical formulas and solutions to all of the equations, and so forth extended to the entire universe, all of the particles of the universe and such). And since this is hard to do (and then why stop at 1000 decimal points ? why not 100000 and then 100 trillion decimal points, there is no constraint saying which decimal point is the limit since if there was a constraint it would mean that the universe is a digital machine, quantized according to precise values) it can never be verified.
3) You can determine the exact configuration of the universe (all of it, every particle and rock and event in it) to any precision you want by a handful of differential equations having exact analytical solutions and applicable to all and needing only 10 or 20 decimal points of precision for most particles (not even all). In this case, reality is a 100 % virtual reality, a machine, a puny machine with no metaphysical properties to it, we are an excess of it, we are excess capacity compared to what reality can deliver, etc. The problem here is that no one has discovered the secret formula to predict all, but it may be possible.
The real solution is probably that reality is irrelevant to us as a subset configuration of the universe, we are a machine that creates, has and explores problems only according to its own input -> process -> out, we simply talk to ourselves in the end and don’t need to know or have the precise configuration or next state of the universe. In this case, the entire program of scientific research is mostly metaphysics and philosophy, we just need to reach a level of self manipulation of our mind to create infinite pleasure loops or similar, or infinite complexity virtual realities that satisfy a given configuration of Brain Style and neural circuits, then the entire program of scientific research would be done and over with no matter how much we discovered or not or what would be left to discover.
Of course the Instant Singularity may have a hybrid form, a really wacky form with us having somewhat modified minds, somewhat weird societies and activities (all handling smart phones ?) a mix between input and output and activities and all kinds of things (new bodies, sense programs, hybrid Man Rocket Contraptions traveling Space or such ?) it doesn’t necessarily entail modifying our brains completely, although and Instant Singularity will always be just one example amongst trillions of possible others, there is no predetermined destiny or path of progress in this, any event and configuration will do, there is no external metaphysical reality waiting to be discovered, we will invent the reality on the go, as we progress, any reality…
I AM THE OVERMAN (as imagined by Frank Zappa).
12-21-2012 12:1212121212 …. pm THE END IS NEAR
From:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it
and
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it
Well, JHK, that was a masterful column. The truth is the world has been going to hell in an hand basket since Day 1. The End of the World scenario is written in the Bible and has been thumped ever since. Its easy to see why people think its the end of the world. Imagine being a Dark Ages resident and the Plague has struck. Everyone you know (including your own family) has died. Whole towns have been wiped out. It seems like the end of the world but really it is just the end of YOUR world. The world actually goes on.
Let’s say you’re a modern day person who’s reached the age of 95. Everything hurts, your body no longer works as well as it did when you were a mere lad or lass of 20. You know time is short. It seems like the end of the world. It is the end of the world for YOU but for everyone else, the world goes on. Just because you’re frail or elderly or terminally ill, doesn’t mean everyone else is. It just seems that way to you because we are all ego-centric. But actually the world is just fine and still orbiting the sun as it has for trillions of years and will continue to trillions more.
The key question of the current day situation is — are we on the upside or downside of civilization? Doomers feel that we are on the downside and WELCOME it. Many others seem to believe that we are on the edge, will we trip over it and fall into the abyss or will we pull back and save our civilization? Some say elections don’t matter and whether Obama or Romney gets in makes NO difference. So far Obama has kept us from plunging into that abyss. Romney with his old time patriarchal religion will make sure that only the rich get richer (his Ryan Plan promises a complete fantasy — 20% tax reduction across the board that is mathematically impossible) and women are thrown back into the Dark Ages. I personally do not want to become a serf. I will roll the dice and vote for Obama because recovery is slow and hard but do-able.
[Patrick advises JHK]:
“Do a yourself a favor on a lonely road some night and ask him to reveal himself to you with a sincere heart. More deception awaits you if you allow it.”
-Patrick
I’d say you’ve put that perfectly.
What I need in my life is, “more deception”, thanks very much!
Knowlege can be lost or obscured – look at Italy after the fall of Rome as well as many places in Europe. Or look at Buddhism:
———————————-
blah, blah, blah…..
Post authoritative sources, from publications of the last 30 years. If you want to have a debate based on facts and not the rummage of outdated racist tripe you’ve assimilated over the years, I’ll be happy to oblige.
Quit pretending that your views have any scientific credibility. They are about as science based as Creationism.
You live in N. Idaho for christsakes! You must go weeks without any real interaction with minorities. You’ve driven scores of the best posters away from this site who simply can’t stand listening to you. GIVE IT A FUCKING REST!
The sad part is other topics you often actually have something worthwhile to say, but how many can get past your twisted obsessions and gross insecurity. I really, really, feel deeply sorry for you, but you need to get some help man!
For the most part, i could not understand what you were trying say. However, you did say this: “Dude, you are misinterpreting ultimate statements for practical policies. Everyone and everything is different and must be treated so.”
That observation looks at life superficially. Yes there are differences just as the human body contain trillions of cells with various roles, functions, and characteristics. How practical is it to be the judge of which cells are the superior: blood cells, skin, muscle, brain, fat, nerve, etc.? They all function in synchronicity as one. That is beautiful. At times when a cell “gets a wild hair up its ass,” it rebels against the body and it becomes cancerous. This renders it useless, and a healthy immune system will get rid of it. If this doesn’t take place, the cancerous cell can influence other cells creating tumors. That is when we say we have cancer.
There are a lot of wild hairs being shoved up many asses these days as our lasting values are ignored and short-lived comforts, conveniences and illusory certainty are sought after instead.
Excellent tunage!
Keep it growl-y, Catman.
Very droll, Monkeyboy. Contributing to the continuing “japery” is important too.
Here’s a link:
http://www.rightofyou.blogspot.com/
**************************
Good post Jim. I love history. The topic is so relevant and I love the way you weave it into today’s woes. Like everything there is a dark side and an equally powerful light side. The Catholic. Church is only an example. I believe that everything is predestined anyway and our freedom lies only in a choice of bring goodness into this world or darkness into it. We certainly don’t choose our parents or circumstances we r born into. Everything we encounter in life are specific choices offered us at a specific time. How and what we do with those choices is our only freedom. Some people are born with lightness in their souls and their struggles are minimized and others are born with degrees of more darkness and their struggles in life are sometimes insurmountable for them. But it is precisely those people who if they choose to overcome their natures and bring goodness instead of destruction that can do more to elevate the already dark world we live in than those who never struggle with that darkness could ever bring…
What you have to understand about Vlad is that he suffers from Classic Irish Martyr Syndrome. In other words, the constant need to bitch about something. In that regard, it’s not about blacks, women, gays,liberals, Mexicans, Jews; it’s about the obsessive urge to feed his avaricious and masochistic emotional appetite.
If not that very long list of the aforementioned, it would be something or somebody else… even Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!
…And now, seven years past the unwinding which was then a whisper, it is now a hiss in the distance. Must it become a dull roar, before it’s noticed? -K-dog
Nope, some watchdogs hear it distinctly and are howling in the night.
I’m listening. How humdrum a messenger/guard-doggie is your local grocer? (If you still HAVE a local grocer, that is.) The one that we pretty much depend on for moderately priced and good quality meat said just yesterday, “I don’t like the direction that these prices are going in, and I don’t see it turning around again.” This from a guy who’s very careful with his slim profit margin and doesn’t operate on credit. He’s worried and is not afraid to say so… to certain people.
“We can keep hoping that Time the Shriveler will get the old and religious offstage…soon.” -SJ
No worries, Smoky, rust never sleeps! Let’s just help it take the garbage out as it passes through. ;o)
When the call comes, we cannot help but answer…
interesting observation.
Let me summarize, and end this discussion.
The point of the quote I placed from the book, “Race & I.Q.” was as follows:
‘Using I.Q. results to make comparisons regarding native reasoning ability between different ethnic/racial/cultural groups is invalid due to the inherent bias that exists in the tests.’
Why?
For example: two kids; black kid in inner city (BKIC) and white kid in suburbs (WKIS), are shown a picture of a rabbit, and asked in a multiple choice test if it is a rabbit, bear, dog, or rat. WKIS is more likely to have seen a rabbit in the flesh, if not he is also more likely to have had his mother read him bedtime stories from nice picture books with illustrations of rabbits. BKIC, having never seen a rabbit, may think it looks more like a rat. If he identifies it as such, that makes him less inherently intelligent, according to Vlad’s racist interpretation.
Balancing questioning in such tests to eliminate this bias, would simply make the tests impossibly long, creating other issues of measurement. Experts know this, and this is why they stipulate the tests have some comparative validity in measurements within relatively homogenous groups, but are meaningless when comparing results between people from different cultural backgrounds.
Now….this is the truth of the matter. If it makes you feel better about yourself to believe otherwise, that’s your issue to deal with. Just be careful who, and what, you choose to believe, because it will have an impact on your life.
I’ve had a number of work projects come in and won’t have the time to deal with the frustration of refuting Vlad’s nonsense for the next few weeks. Cheers!
“Harris does not seem rational. A rational person would welcome a public appearance with Hedges, so as to discuss differences calmly.”
————————————————–
ooooo….Sam dissin’ The Hedges. Now, how did I know that would bring out ol’ Spidey?
Too predictable.
They already have debated publicly.
Secular Fundamentalism (snort)
ding-fuckin’-dong
About your example:
I took this test recently as part of a job application. I failed miserably. When they showed me the picture of the rabbit, I said it was Kobe Bryant.
‘If the NASCAR Christians want to live in a society where religious leaders call the shots, then they should pack up and head to Pakistan’
They can move to Europe.
Parts of it are already Sharia ruled.
Moscow is 20% Muslim. With the attendant problems brought when muslims invade.
“Aidar is not alone numerically speaking; he is one of 2 to 3 million Muslims living in Moscow.
Anywhere between 800,000 and 2 million illegal immigrants flood the streets of Moscow daily, working construction, driving buses, cleaning courtyards…..” centralasia.imb.org/encounter/moscow.html
Back 25 years ago I read [perhaps in the Enquirer!] that the USSR was doomed, due to abortion [among Christians] and 6 child families
[muslims].
Tell more, pls.
Like I said before, BuckStud and Ozone, two of the best writers in the CFNation. (even tho they often don’t see eye to eye). Its probably no coincidence that they are both artists.
–WSP7
Testers overcame that decades ago with culture neutral tests. But if Blacks can’t understand a neutral variable which could be either a rat or a rabbit, it’s just more evidence that they don’t have much g or general intelligence.
In related news, high schools are considering dropping algebra from the curriculum since so many minorities are being sunk by it. And to think, high schools used to teach calculus….Step by step we descend back into the darkness due to the presence of these primitives. Mexicans are only a bit better than Blacks.
Paranoids may have real enemies. It’s true I’m focused on threat, but is that without value or function? Think we might need a bit of that? Think we should have listened to “paranoids” decades ago who warned us about the Banksters? Ever hear of a white blood cell? Or do you consider them just grumblers too?
Wise Cultures value their early warners. The Plains Indians had young men who lived a couple of miles away from the main camp. Why? To guard and warn against attacks. They were called Dog Soldiers and were greatly honored.
Your betrayal of your own people continues. Repent.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/10/asatru-and-the-political/#more-32283
What a ding dong. That liberals couldn’t take their own side in an argument stared as a joke. Now it has become a terrible reality indicative of a split in the psyche. Whites cheer as aliens take over the nations. White Liberal parents support policies that will handicap their own children throughout their lives.
Yeah that’s bad about Russia. White Nationalists are starting to doubt Putin’s wisdom. He was heroic in his betrayal of the Oligarchs, but it seems he just did it so his own group of Russians could take their place – and do the same thing. Does he give a fig for his own people?
Asoka, do a little thing from where you’re sitting reading this
look around you, and mentally remove everything that has a component of oil coal or gas built into its production and distribution.
I do mean everything
Once you’ve done that. Examine what’s left.
In purely figurative terms, you will be sitting naked on bare earth.
when thinking of ‘alternative energy’ that’s what alternatives will have to do, eventually replace all that we have. This isn’t going to happen. Alternatives supply electricity and not much else. you cannot eat electricity.
We used fossil fuels to develop technology, you cannot reverse the process.
Oil coal and gas lifted us out of a medieval past, when that energy source has gone, there will be nothing to prevent us sinking back into a medieval future. http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
I agree, Harris dodged and danced when he had a free pass to make his case.
“blah blah blah” – now you sound like the execrable Dee. You got no intelligent response to what I said. And then you pretend that I’m relying on old encyclopedias for my theories. Distortion is second nature to you.
I’m in Eastern Washington now and see minorities everyday. But they’re moving them into Kootenai County too. I saw White Girls there as proud as peacocks of their Black babies. All White areas are targeted. Montana and Wyoming are coming under the gun now. They’re hiring demented Leftist professors to teach White guilt and the need for reparations.
Stop drinking Dale. Try to clear your wooly mutton head. You’ll feel better and may start treating other people better too.
Don’t forget Bomber Harris, the butcher of Dresden. His statue was doused with red paint withing 24 hours of being unveiled – probably because of his poison gassing of the Iraquis under Churchill. After all, the Germans were just Whites like him.
I haven’t looked for any news yet. If you have looked today then you probably know more about the current status than me. The last I heard, it was a twelve state walk-out strike that started in LA.
The news black out is telling. Remember what happened to the stock market when Congress voted down the bank bail out? The coup has already happened. If you don’t see that, then you are having a hard time letting go.
“They” control the government.
“They” control the banks.
“They” control the judiciary.
“They” control the elections.
The data center that’s being built in Utah is genuinely scary. It’s one of the reasons I don’t really want to freely blog anymore. It’s just too easy to wax someone like me and then disappear into a city of 12 million people.
Did you see Leon Panetta on TeeVee the other night warning of massive cyber attacks? This is most likely the pretext that will be used for limiting, if not denying, access to the Internet for the public. Start thinking of news ways to communicate and organize.
I just took an iq test. I wanted to see what the questions were like. Generally, I’d say, the questions required general analytical ability. There wasn’t a distinction between a rabbit and a rat, or a tennis court question that hailed over a basketball court question. Still, if you didn’t know the definition of a hexagram from the outset, you’d have a problem. If you didn’t have a good command of the English language, you’d have a problem. I think that much of what I received from my education was the ability to think about these things quickly and come to an answer. Time is a factor. I’ve taken a lot of tests like this. All those years of studying for tests and taking them gave me an advantage. Also, they will, for a small fee, teach you to get better scores.
That being said, I would say that one’s schooling would be helpful in getting a good score. These are things we can be taught to do well, with practice, determination, and patience, etc. Smarter people will take much less time and will be able to get more out of the teaching than (scholastically) dumber people. There are many intelligences, I agree.
As for iq differences among races, that’s one thing. There may be something to it. As far as education being complex, layered, social, long-term, something that starts very young, I’d say that even if all groups are equal, you won’t get much out of that if you spend your time doing frivolous shit like being on this blog all the damn time. (actually, there are some nuggets here).
We used fossil fuels to develop technology, you cannot reverse the process.
==========
No, we cannot reverse the process. But we can, and will use substitutes. We will not be consumers of Wal-Mart plastics because there will be no more plastics. We will use our feet instead of motor vehicles. We will be healthier.
People existed before oil coal gas were used in industry. We will be more industrious (manual labor) without oil gas coal. I built an adobe brick house by making the bricks out of the earth under my feet. I know what manual labor is. People have been making structures out of the earth for millennium without oil gas coal.
The absence of oil gas coal will not be the end of the world. I’m looking forward to military machines all over the world coming to a grinding halt from lack of oil gas coal. Should happen in about 80 years, once we’ve finished the downward/contraction side of the peak oil bell curve. You don’t scare me. I love the earth.
Good riddance to bad garbarge. God bless the Great State of Texas. Surely they deserve to be their own Nation? If they can just get rid of all those little brown guys as old Ed Abbey told us to.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/16/man-convicted-killing-texas-pastor-to-get-death-penalty/
Yes, and heretics must unite for there is much danger about.
Tonight the politicians will explain the hiss ON THEIR TERMS if it is mentioned. When that happens cheap lies specially drafted for tonight’s political extravaganza may await national distribution.
The conscience soothing falsities presented so eagerly consumed by those wanting to be informed will result in eager acceptance and diligent refusal to examine any refutation of them. My country right or wrong, just like a hundred years ago.
The price of meat is tied tightly to the price of oil. Your grocer may know more than he is willing to admit to himself. Can you blame him? In the working world when engaged in any trade prices are always talked about. He may have heard a supplier say diesel prices are killing his business. He puts pieces together and the scare of it all causes him to remind himself that he is no expert and there is a reasonable explanation. Somebody just needs to tell it to him.
Leaders need to take care of this kind of scare and the problem is most people believe just about any explanation a ‘leader’ tosses at them. Scraps of meat thrown to a pack of dogs makes even them most well balanced eyes glaze over. Humans are the same way regarding explanations.
People hear the dull hiss in the distance right enough. The problem is that they don’t know what it is and are ready to devour the first explanation one of their masters throws at them. Rotten or not.
Once that happens, bad news. Once an explanations get into the head it has a hard time finding its way out.
Sometimes lots of people have to die before a correct explanation replaces a bad one.
Researchers have come a long way. And as hard as it is for people like Dale to believe, they wont try and test people who have never seen a piece of paper with little lines on it. But some Bushmen and Aboriginees have been in school for years and can be tested. Cultural influences? Sure, and now they have developed culture free tests. And the Bushmen of South Africa and Aboriginess of Australia test as having IQ’s of 55 and 62 or so respectively. Retarded by our standards. Fauna. But yes, they live and obviously have skills. The Abos have a larger visual cortex than we do even thought their brain as a whole is smaller. It helps them find their way thru trackless wastes. Thicker skulls too – good for survival in their vicious culture.
The culture free test:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
3/10 James. 3/10.
One of your own has been outed and needs your help. You can send him money by paypal.
Reddit’s most infamous user and inciter (referred to as a “troll” in Internet-speak) has realized his worst fear: getting found out and then fired in real life.
Obama never called Bill Clinton. Because he doesn’t like him? No, he never calls anyone. He doesn’t like people in general. He doesn’t like many people – basically only people who embrace his own ideology and come from the upper class.
Just saw the movie The Monitors again. Saw it when I was a small boy. Great stuff – exactly what you vision requires if it is to come true: millions of polite, well dressed Englishman aliens in bowler hats and knockout spray in hand.
If you’ve never seen it, sign up for Netflix free month and cancel before the month is over. Radu Voda is full of such helpful advice. He is wise, compassionate.
The anonymous ballot should be outlawed too, right? People have the right to know so they can fire you or break your windows. You’re a prince.
The Gays are working on it and succeeded in releasing the names of people who voted against Gay Marriage in Southeastern Massachusetts.
AN OPEN LETTER TO JAMES KUNSTLER:
Jim,
I know you’ve attempted to rid the blog of the pestilential infection referring to himself as “Radu” or “Vlad” or other similar names. I also know that you can see from the quality of posts and posters here that the focus of the blog and its information level has declined significantly in the time he has been here.
Consider the impact the tone of this blog has on your brand, is someone visiting this site more or less likely to buy your books? Are they not likely to assume you expound similar beliefs in your books, if it so dominates his blog site? There are reasonable limits to free speech, and this being a private blog under your ownership, there is no reason to tolerate such nauseating behavior any further.
There are other ways to get rid of this problem, I would first speak to your web manager, he should be able to eliminate his URL under any name. If that doesn’t work, threaten to drag him out from under the rock he’s been hiding under by publishing his email address if he refuses to leave. That way, his cowardly activity can receive the illumination and response it deserves.
It’s your choice, or course, but it seems to me to be the right thing to do from both a moral and strictly self-interested point of view.
Best Regards,
Dale
Whoever or whatever or whomevers you might actually be you have consistently respected women. You mentioned that earlier this week, I agree. You will appreciate this.
Rosie Pérez
There must be some around you.
Nice one K-Dog, may a similar fate await the troll we all know so well, if he doesn’t desist, that is….I wouldn’t wish this on anyone and I think that site should have given him the chance to bugger off. Of course, he would have just found another site for his disgusting behavior. (follow link)
Yes, I saw part of this on the Rachel Maddow show. Thanks for the link to the full video. Woof!
I feel your pain Dale but where does the line get drawn? Who is to say I’m not a troll too?
I had in mind a website looking much like this where users would be limited to an average of 10 posts a day. That would be democratic and fair and with the higher ‘cost’ to the user posts would be more intelligently written. I would have continued working on it but it was not paying the bills.
But some posters use a number of short posts to get their ideas across so their style would be cramped. Benefits would outweigh the disadvantages I think.
The problem with free speech is one has to put up with a lot coal to find the diamonds but without the coal there would be no diamonds.
I don’t want Vlad in my head any more than you do. I don’t want his filth hooking up my neurons. It is disgusting but we have to put up with him because he has to put up with us. It sucks.
Hint: If you see the word ‘black’ or the phrase ‘bell curve’ in any of his posts skip it and start on the next one up or the next one down depending on which way you are going.
I share your anger because you know that new people come here all the time see crap and never come back. Fortunately once you get on to the game here you know which posts to skip easy enough. Unfortunately this skill can only be acquired by regular viewers.
It sucks.
Limiting posts to ten a day is a good idea, if the blogger software would permit it. I also favor limiting the size of each post to 500 characters, again, if the blogger software would permit it.
Limiting the number and size of posts would:
1) allow ideas to be expressed
2) limit the AI/spidey/Chinese spammer type posts
3) cause one to be more thoughtful before firing off a one-liner post. (you’d still get 10 of those)
4) limit those who abuse the blog by carpet bomb posting of irrelevant material (thinking of Asoka here). You’d still get 10 of those.
I agree with dale that the racist slurs against ethnic and racial groups should not be permitted. Asoka should not be allowed to castigate the entire white race because nuclear bombs or genocidal behavior of some caucasians. Though he does should his stupidity when he shows his racism against whites.
Placing some simple post restrictions (size, number, etc.) would make CFN a better place.
CORRECTION
Though Asoka does show his stupidity, when he shows his racism against whites.
“Consider the impact the tone of this blog has on your brand…”
————————————————
Financial terrorism!
My post above (October 16, 2012 3:59 PM) contains 942 characters (including spaces), so I have already violated my suggestion to limit posts to 500 characters. Maybe I should have left out the parts where I was criticizing Asoka for his racism and his carpet bomb posting behavior on CFN.
The above paragraph contains 288 characters (including spaces). I don’t know. I like concision because it forces one to be cogent, but maybe a 1,000 character limit would be preferable?
The above two paragraphs contain 473 characters (including spaces).
Allowing the ClusterFuck Nation freedom in posting (including abuse of freedom of posting) could, ironically, result in clusterfucked sales.
K-Dog,
The point is, this isn’t a public place, and there is no free speech here, it is entirely at JHK’s discretion. If it were a public place you can be sure Vlad would be a lot more careful about his statements.
He’s saying it here, because he dare not do it in public.
Yes, many interesting posters, women most particularly, have been driven off by Vlad and his noxious behavior. There are still a few good people left, but Vlad draws his own kind more and more, and only they remain without offense. Vlad is not without his charm and is quite intelligent, but he is also seriously disturbed, and that intelligence is mostly used to try and spread the virus with which he is so overwhelmed, through lies and half truths.
Yes, Asoka… you seem to be determined at times to push people’s buttons, but the overall tone is more foolish than serious. I don’t know how you tolerated Vlad referring to you as an “Ape” etc., it’s absolutely unconscionable.
If a few of the rest of you wrote to JHK and indicated your feelings in this matter, perhaps we could return this blog to at least, arguing about PO and other trends. Complaints are a form of free speech that is unlimited. Your freedom to vote Vlad off the island, or at least show your moral courage in making that request, can only reflect on you in a positive manner.
I don’t know how you tolerated Vlad referring to you as an “Ape” etc.
============
It is offensive in the extreme. Vlad’s slurs are repulsive and disgusting.
But then I step back and say to myself: either Vlad is right or Vlad is wrong.
If I am an Ape, then Vlad is correctly stating the case, and there is no need for anger.
If I am not an Ape, then Vlad’s comment does not even apply to me and can be ignored. I chose to mostly ignore Vlad, though I slip sometimes and lash out, which doesn’t help or change him.
chose to mostly ignore Vlad, though I slip sometimes and lash out, which doesn’t help or change him.
——————
precisely, you don’t change an infection, you get rid of it.
As far as K-Dog, and his “where do you draw the line” argument, I draw it as sick shit like this:
“I’m in Eastern Washington now and see minorities everyday. But they’re moving them into Kootenai County too. I saw White Girls there as proud as peacocks of their Black babies. All White areas are targeted. Montana and Wyoming are coming under the gun now. They’re hiring demented Leftist professors to teach White guilt and the need for reparations.”
He should leave or be outed.
Yes, Vlad is a goose-stepping racist who should be alternately subjected to water boarding and watching “The View”. But, he isn’t always wrong. Especially about pointing out how the situation we find ourselves in America has some deep historical roots. Also, the last time I checked, we still have freedom of expression. That what’s makes CFN so chock-full of magical goodness.
There are still communists in this world. There are still fascists in this world. And liberals?
Nigra please.
When I first started posting here, the weekly maximum was 300 posts. It’s often three times higher now. I doubt if I’m hurting the brand.
One of the big pluses of American life up to know has been free speech. But like most Leftists, you don’t really believe in it though you wont admit it. Your kind has triumphed in Europe and people are fined and thrown into prison for criticizing Muslims, Jews, or Gays or just about anybody except Whites. Now you want the same thing here. And why? Because I stand up against the dispossession of Whites. You should be ashamed of yourself – for both your “fascism” and your denial of the First Ammendment.
Mr Kunstler has said clearly that Whites are clueless about Black hatred – thus their affection for Rap music which is replete with this. As he says, the lyrics are a promise of a war to come. He also says that Black misbehavior will not be tolerated during the Long Emergency. And if I may expand upon this, not tolerating it (as we are now) may be the best way to avoid the long feared race war. So Dale, perhaps you should review the long 20 pages or so of The Long Emergency. You are another of these clueless Whites. Shape up or ship out.
May the God you don’t believe in bless you for staying true to our American Ideals – unlike the Idahun Commie. In your honor I quote the Indian (feather) Prophet Smohalla, “My followers shall know not work, for men who work cannot dream”.
I have 2 of JHKs books.
I doubt I will buy more [I didnt like what little of the Novel of his that I did read].
I have no trouble with you, Asoka, Radu posting.
Do you really think a post to JHK is going to
get yr enemy here banned?
YOU HAVE REPLIED TO HIS POSTS 100S? OF TIMES!
Did that encourage him to post more here? hmm…..
I have also contemplated voting as part of the system. I have considered posts changing color so hated ones fade out. Public forum or not the ideal system would make the flowers bloom without the need of daily gardening.
A sad aspect of this despicable situation is that the Vlads of the world are everywhere and we might as well sharpen our skills against them in here as well as anywhere else. The problem is the vile evil rotten meat they bring in is allowed to fill our scroll beyond all reasonable proportion.
Some asshole in a private club somewhere has probably remarked to his fellows sometime that it is good to see a bum thrown out every now and then so everybody gets reminded that bums are out there. Rounding up dissidents and torturing them is also the first step in a regime change. The torture and murder is done so everybody gets the memo. Gathering information is not the object.
I hear what you are saying but I think a clipping of the wings by modifying the format would be the best way to clear the air of stench.
As far as outing goes I’ve accepted the fact that K-Dog for president would surely out me if the campaign got hot enough but I would not otherwise choose to be outed.
Corporate America is not going to give K-Dog a job. I should put up a screen shot of how many applications I have in at one of the local employers right now on chasingthesquirrel.com. That would be stupid for me to do but if I were outed I might as well do it. Over 500 and I’m not saying where. The phone could ring tomorrow or Blackwater could show up at my door. But anything multiplied by zero is also still zero and even my extreme patience has limits.
Asoka is chiming in with good positive feedback. A word count combined with an intelligent algorithm is the way to handle computer generated Ape 8 Man type soccer shirt posts. Individual users could collect word points which are automatically redeemed when they have something important to say and need extra length.
Posters who show up screaming first week after week could find they are shooting themselves in the foot. It could all be automatic, democratic and fair.
I nominate myself as the “Decider” of good, positive feedblack, I mean, feedback.
Kinda hate to mention this, but in pre-industrial times there was only one tenth of the people around as there are now.
Without the support of an industrial/agricultural economy , just what do you think is going to happen to 6.5 billion people?
Would be interested to know.
also would like to know about these substitutes too—-and no..”technology will fix things” please, thats not good enough, technology is a derivative of energy, not the other way around.
in 99% of cases, you cant make anything durable without heat.
where I live, an adobe house would be a mudpile in a year
That what’s makes CFN so chock-full of magical goodness.
————-
I guess I’m missing that part. To me, as it currently stands, I would be embarrassed if anyone I knew in my personal life, read this blog and thought I would be associated with it. It was once contentious, but far more interesting and informative. The decline is almost almost entirely due to Vlad and his influence.
If JHK thinks this is a ‘freedom of expression’ issue, then it’s his decision. As I said before, this is not a public place under which such rules apply. Freedom of expression is excessive, when it is injurious to others, and expressed by those who cowardly high from their own speech because of the consequences. It shouldn’t be accepted, and isn’t in the public arena, you don’t yell “fire” in a movie theatre, and you don’t falsely attack people in injurious ways, ask Joe McCarthy.
I have compassion for Vlad, he is deeply ill and delusional, and doesn’t understand completely what he is doing. But that doesn’t entirely excuse it, and it doesn’t excuse people here who act as his apologists.
I sent my “open letter” directly to Jim’s email, it’s his decision and I’ll live by it, but either the extreme racist, misogynistic crap ends around here or I do.
oh and one more thing—your good health is directly related to the fossil fuel energy that removes your sewage (unless you intend to dump it on the next plot of land) delivers your water, and powers your hospital/pharmaceutical factories. …comments on that too please?
Per your posting, I may just check it out! :o)
(We’ll be smelling some ripe whoppers, but we’re used to that. ;o)
YOU HAVE REPLIED TO HIS POSTS 100S? OF TIMES!
Did that encourage him to post more here? hmm…..
—————————
Perhaps so, but when a guys has for months been posting ten posts in a row, how do you really ignore that without ignoring the whole blog?
“Sometimes lots of people have to die before a correct explanation replaces a bad one.” -K-dog
Now there’s a nasty truth.
If we were given a button to eliminate offensive posters from our own feed, I’d be good with that.
When I first started posting here, the weekly maximum was 300 posts. It’s often three times higher now. I doubt if I’m hurting the brand.
Good Point. But it is hard to prove a negative. Readership might be a million a week without you.
One of the big pluses of American life up to now has been free speech.
No doubt about it.
I stand up against the dispossession of Whites. You should be ashamed of yourself – for both your “fascism” and your denial of the First Ammendment.
If any dispossession of whites is going to happen he is our man on the ground and you can be sure we are going to hear about it.
Mr Kunstler has said clearly that Whites are clueless about Black hatred
Add Asian to the list. Whites are clueless. play Man in The Mirror ten times today, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
As he says, the lyrics are a promise of a war to come. He also says that Black misbehavior will not be tolerated during the Long Emergency.
Race issues not dealt with are going to grow and fester.
That was a great post. I live north of the dixon line and am amazed at the hypocrisy that exists here. “Let’s all accept one another.” Except, they don’t. Not one iota from anything different from themselves.
“Mr Kunstler has said clearly that Whites are clueless about Black hatred – thus their affection for Rap music which is replete with this. As he says, the lyrics are a promise of a war to come. He also says that Black misbehavior will not be tolerated during the Long Emergency. And if I may expand upon this, not tolerating it (as we are now) may be the best way to avoid the long feared race war. So Dale, perhaps you should review the long 20 pages or so of The Long Emergency. You are another of these clueless Whites. Shape up or ship out.” —Vlad
I sent Jim a copy of this to his email and asked him if he thinks this is a clear representation of his beliefs. If it is, or I get no response, it will explain to me what’s happened to this blog, and I’ll bug out with a clear conscious. Cheers to all! (including you Vlad)
I’ve had all my shots so I can watch too. That’s the problem, not enough dogs are up on their shots.
“If we were given a button to eliminate offensive posters from our own feed, I’d be good with that.”
————————————————-
Wow. I need one of those devices here in Los Angeles. I could walk down the sidewalk and as soon as heard something “offensive”, I could just whip out my remote and tune them out. Would that be too much magic?
You didn’t read the book? In any case, you have left before promising not to come back. But here you are.
But fine. I am matter and you are anti-matter. People like you think that calling Blacks bad names is worse than them killing and raping Whites. Your values are that of the commissar. And in your person you combine feminine cruelty with the intellect of a man – with a will to impose these crazy ideals onto the rest of us. I can’t see much difference between you and Grouchy or Helen Highwater. You are a woman in a man’s body. Bad news for everyone.
Yes you would turn into the boy in the bubble.
Though Liberals will deny it, Blacks were treated with kid gloves during the 60’s riots and in the Los Angeles riots – and all in between. That has to change. Best thing for everyone (especially them) is that the next time the batons and rubber bullets come out. No more. And no more covering up for them in the media. Let the Truth be known, and let them change – if they can. I doubt it but let everyone see what is. And then we make changes based on WHAT THEY DO – and not based on WHAT LIBERAL WHITES FEEL.
How could you POSSIBLY know that is one of my all-time favorite songs?
Goddamn computers.
Admirable analysis, Soak, admirable. Right from the pages of Dale Carnegie quoting Lincoln, the Stoics, et al. I have been called far worse than Ape. If I can take it, so can you. That I was the one to call you an ape is of no moment – none of your business. I feel very close to you right now. None of these other White skinned savages can understand how much like a Black Man I really am.
The Borg knows all.
The Monitors are your friend.
Cooperate with the Monitors.
Violence solves nothing.
Sugar rots the Teeth.
The Monitors believe in moderation in all things.
Of the 50? or 100? or 200? people who posted last week, most [?, I wont go back and count] managed to
not respond to Asoka and his 100+ posts. Yes?
I recall the Trayvon case. Zimmermans Dad was quick to point out ‘My son is not a racist’.
Why was his dad more concerned his son be called a racist, and not a murderer?
He could have said ‘self defense, George is not a murderer’.
Quite telling to anyone who can think.
In the USA, people are more afraid of being called
‘father of a racist’ than ‘father of a killer’.
A long time ago violence solved the problem of an older kid trying to steal my Hershey bar.
Teeth are all gone now. Fuck it.
dale –
I’m appalled. Vlad posts maybe 8-10 times/day.
Sometimes a lot less. Just ignore the s’b if he bothers you that much. Jeeze!
Furthermore – JHK’s fiction has racial strife as an integral and essential component. Why do you think all those folks relocated to Bullock’s (sp?) estate to be subject to his whims?? They could have just stayed in the big cities or whatever.
Vlad has a bad habit of hyperbolic overreach and needless and counterproductive insulting language.
But he expresses a core of truth concerning how US society will have to reorganize itself in The Long Emergency.
Ban Vlad? You may as well ban JHK.
I’ll keep it simple this time: you can’t treat a smart person like a dumb one or vice versa. And you can’t treat a woman like a man or vice versa. They are different. Equal (same) treatment of unequal people is tyranny.
The sages adivise us to be adaptable: to be simple with the simple, chatty with the ladies unless a monk, brusque with the mascline who like few words and so on.
I hope Baba knew this. I’m was taken aback when I saw him use the words “New World Order”.
I sympathize. It would have been better if I had never been exposed to the shit. I was going to make a pilgrimadge to the Hershey Plant in PA but I found out that the Town was 60% Black so I let it go.
mmmm….chocolate
‘He should leave or be outed’
Time will tell. He was banned 1x, far as I can tell.
I admire Radus honesty. He posts what he thinks.
You seem to take Asoka seriously. I consider him the most dishonest long time poster here!
“You seem to take Asoka seriously. I consider him the most dishonest long time poster here!”
-anti soak, to dale-
Asoka..is the quintessential CFN troll, and little else. That’s what you interpret (correctly, btw) as dishonesty.
I have made a few posts suggesting to JHK (if he ever reads this goddam’ thread, which I doubt) that he should ban asoka..for commercial reasons.
And also suggesting to JHK that asoka..is likely to be someone with a vendetta against JHK.
asoka..certainly has a permanent vendetta against PO and/or The Long Emergency.
And a permanent vendetta against any agreement that this discussion thread might ever be able to reach.
But I’ve never thought to write to JHK to say that asoka..should be banned. That seems like a nasty incursion against free speech.
appalling, dale.
Oh well.
Thanks Prog for the strong but relative vote of confidence. Ban Vlad? That like banning Sir John Falstaff.
This guy can barely wait for the Dictatorship. There will be much work for his kind. I remember meeting a guy once who said he wanted to be a “Civil Rights Investigator”. My blood ran cold.
I’m posting alot today because of Dale. One extreme breeds the other. If people would be realistic about the racial situation, I could stop thinking and talking about it and focus on something else. A white blood cell does its duty but no praise – it can do nothing else. I just hope people realize how unfair they are being to me by making me work so hard. Like a honeybee, I will be worked to death for the good of the hive.
Don’t believe Vlad, he loves every second of it. Well why not, that’s what he was made for. But what about his friends? You fool, you don’t have any friends. Neither do you, no man does – as E said, none will come with you across the rive Styx. None except the Guru. Asoka is thus more fortunate than any of us.
…I know this may be a bit on the heretical side, but let’s have a little peek into “how it’s done” and “WHO owns WHAT???”, shall we? (It’s in bad taste to point out aggregations and monopolistic graspings, especially when they’re so clearly profitable. Horrors, it’s so gauche, and my church would certainly approve of such sound practices!)
Meester Beembo don’ need no steenking oversight of eets’ moh-noh-poh-lee holdeengs, Gringa puta!
http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/our_brands/other_brands.html
Guess what? It’s never enough…
****************************
For one second I…I…almost felt sorry for you.
You racist, nazi, douchebag….
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Man, I feel A LOT better now.
You see lots of Bimbo label bakery products in LA. I had no idea they owned all of those other brands. They damn sure didn’t used to. We mostly go to a family owned Mexican about half a mile away. It’s been there since 1938 I think.
mmmm….chocolate eclairs
I meant to say “Mexican bakery”. No, my family does not, I repeat, DOES NOT own any Mexicans.
X, my friend,
Weep not for those whose only aching need in this life is a surreptitious stiletto to the kidney. (It will eventually be provided.)
BTW, vicariously, I feel better now too! ;o)
LOL!
And my follow-up query would be: “Well, why-ever not?”.
New Fred on Everything.
Fits in – eerily – with dale’s cliched desire for an end to Vlad on CFN.
“The problem of race is one of many American problems about which it is impossible to do anything but continue with what we are doing, however poorly it is working. The campaign against drugs is an utter failure, but we can’t stop it or change it. The war on Afghanistan is a failure, but we can’t stop fighting it. The schools are a disaster, but we can do nothing but keep on keeping on. So with race. Things will stay the same, or get worse, until they blow as we stand by, paralyzed and muttering clichés.”
http://www.fredoneverything.net/White_Girl.shtml
Cuz it’s hard to find one with a clear title that hasn’t had it’s odometer turned back…
OOOOOOOOOOOH!!
Just in – the inevitable finally happned: Black kids playing the knock out game finally picked the wrong White Guy. Guy took out a knife and defended himself. One of them died. Black Community out of control with grief and rage against the Monster who killed “another little Black angel”.
Remember folks, these kids can hit. The John Wayne Westerns are lies. One, just one, punch in the face can change your life forever. And if you fall there is a deadly weapon called the pavement or curb waiting for you. You are fighting for your life.
The police are behaving sanely for a change and haven’t charged the guy with anything.
http://www.amren.com/news/2012/10/black-mob-picks-on-the-wrong-guy/
So can one induce from that you stand with Dale and Tyranny?
Today is the CFN vs. Vlad/Radu day. I despise what he says. I wish he would go away.
BUT. I happen to believe in free speech. The price I pay for that is hearing a lot of garbage I don’t want to listen to. To me, the price is worth it to hear some good things, as well.
To be honest, Dale, part of that freedom of speech is you having the choice to ignore Vlad’s posts. That you reply to him as much as you do when youknow
Where your humour? I detect an excess of bile. Remedy: no more deep fried food, drink green tea, and warm baths instead of showers. Use a loofah mitt and Dr Bronner’s soap. Take the time to read the soap bottle – lots of Ront/Asoka type philosophy about Love and Oneness. You need this message…We are One. Exceptions? None!
Have never personally muddied your waters Asoka, and I probably never will. Your points are valid. On the face of it things do look like they are improving or thats what is being sold to us.
The national debt right now is 16 trillion (doesnt include personal debt or local government debt).
Our GDP is 15 trillion, so I suppose if we all worked for a year for free we get well eh?
Our federal deficit , what we borrow to keep the govmint running (as posted by the OMB) and in this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget#
is 12.3% of our GDP and growing….1.7 trillion if you are interested….
The interest on the deficit is 18% of our mandatory spending , so imagine whatever number comes into the treasury, 18% of it doesnt go anywhere useful except to pay our DEBTS.
The rest of the world is no better, it is in fact worse.
We are all drowning in debt and there is no growth. The smoke and mirrors game the FED plays called TARP and QE is just to keep this deck of cards afloat. Forget Peak Oil (though its real) and forget anything else NUMBERS DONT LIE. You can run your 12VOLT LEDs all day on a PV panel and some deep cycle batteries, but if the infrastructure does collapse I hope you have a good garden my friend.
I guess it’s just because I live in a big dangerous city. I don’t really pay attention to these events like you. So I did a light search on variations of “teenage gangs”. Is this what you do? Or do you just receive email alerts?
I see all kinds of colors beating up and killing each other. I must say that I don’t see too many Jewish kids involved in this behavior.
Personally, I find this to be more of a failure of parenting than anything else. I will never be able to take you seriously about any of it because you have never been a black teenager and you simply refuse to acknowledge that there is any difference in growing up as one.
Your ignorance is appalling.
British pensioner get kicked in the chest by Black and then his buddy jumps on his chest. Whaddya think Bill Buddy? This could be you. If Whites did this to a Black, it would be World Wide News.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218079/Wolverhampton-Bus-Station-Sickening-moment-pensioner-karate-kicked-thug-Smurf-T-shirt.html
No my ignorance is Divine – Da’s statement that we don’t know what anything is and to rest/abide in that Ignorance.
Your ignorance is his “avoiding relationship”, in this case, with the facts about Blacks.
You obviously think that Blacks attacking Whites is OK at some level. Now ask yourself why and how that squares with being a decent human being.
Nah. Not inclined to discuss this anymore. I’ve already said my piece. I personally think that you and Asoka are the same poster and once you become this vitriolic there’s no use going any further. Find someone else to badger with your bullshit.
Don’t forget the pres. debate, boys and girls.
There are a couple of excellent liars onstage.
Obama appears to be winning on points.
Don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I’m voting for the Libertarian.
He’s on the ballot in GA. I just checked.
That’s got to be better than NOT VOTING AT ALL!
Seriously. How can anyone advocate not voting???
For a detailed explanation of how the Romney-Ryan tax plan is able to cut taxes by $5 trillion without exploding the deficit or requiring tax hikes on the middle class, simply go to http://www.romneytaxplan.com/
and click the red button.
A few days ago some poster made the remark that black people in his neck of the woods refer to God as “Jah.” This got me thinking.
Is the poster talking from personal experience? And if he is, who are the people he is talking about? Is he talking about Rastafarians of Jamaican ancestry or is he talking about American blacks who’ve taken up Rastafarianism? Jamaicans are Rastafarians because they are more or less obliged to be–Rastaferianism having become virtually the national religion of that once almost paradisal but now infernal island. But why would black Americans bother to convert?
I’ve brought up the subject of Rastafarianism because the topic this evening seems to be race. Rastafarianism is an example of racial animosity institutionalized.
Rastafarians are convinced that Jews ran the trans-Atlantic slave trade and profited from it hugely. Rastafarians are not inclined to forgive Jews for this wickedness and believe they will face a severe “judgement,” which is a word that is frequently on Rastafarian lips.
Original Rastafarian doctrine maintains that the entire white race is evil and corrupt (hence the term “Babylon” for white civilization)and that the fate awaiting whites will be even more severe than the one that is going to be visited on the Jews.
Writing all this enervates me and makes me almost despair. But animosity between the races seems instinctive. Come the collapse, it will only get worse.
From what many of you seem to believe, the Long Emergency will only aggravate what Jam47 calls an “instinctive” animosity between races.
The USA military is 65% white and 35% non-white, and they operate in crisis situations, life and death situations.
So… my question is… are the USA soldiers of different races killing each other in Afghanistan? Or are they cooperating because their survival depends upon collaboration and mutual cooperation?
Since Vlad and ‘public space’ has become a topic I think I’ll post an interesting comment from a listserv I frequent. And also to annoy Rhino a little bit:)
“This refusal to deal with issues outside of the instrumentality of one’s own subjectivity rather
than for the sake of the collective is the type of privatization of public
space…”
The instrumentality of one’s own subjectivity pretty much nails Vlad…and others, too.
The renminbi has fallen by 1 percent since February, and Romney is freaking out. Apparently Romney does not know the fall is a result of capital flight, not government intervention.
Still, Romney says on Day One of his presidency he will formally identify China as a “currency manipulator.”
Umm, OK, all that would do is trigger bilateral consultations. Romney seems to be unaware that the USA and China are already negotiating over the renminbi’s value — and have been for many years.
So Romney, acting the role of big dog, has promised that if China does not compromise, he will follow up by instructing the Commerce Department to impose countervailing duties on Chinese imports on a case-by-case basis.
Romney is set to trigger a trade war with China… in which both sides lose.
Tax cuts for the rich!
Kill Big Bird!
End middle class deductions!
The math all adds up!
Under Romney look for higher deficits, higher military spending, and more profits for the 1%, the “job creators,” and lot of new jobs… in China.
http://www.bindersfullofwomen.org
Yes we will have torches to light our way to hell.
Tip the gals better when you leave and maybe they will smile when you show up at the diner next time.
Dale, didya catch the piece RV posted about, about a dumbed down, algebra less HS?
I was talking to a gal in Santa Barbara tonite,
and she informed me of this!
So whos savvy, and whos a dummy?
France’s Hollande promises pupils ‘no more homework’ – FRANCE …
http://www.france24.com/…/20121010-hollande-promises-school-c... – France
6 days ago – French President François Hollande potentially won the hearts of millions of future voters on Tuesday when he announced plans to abolish blablabla
Those immigrant kids just cant do the math!
Blacks were famous for fragging in Vietnam. Since then, they are wisely kept mostly doing supply work – which they of course prefer. Much safer and also many profitable scams can be worked.
‘that asoka..is likely to be someone with a vendetta against JHK’
As usual, you have more insight than I!
Asoka is bad for business.
Did you read a post, long time ago, where Qtip accused Asoka of having multiple accounts to
‘converse with himself here, and give himself compliments’?
hahahhahahaha
Just when ya think you have read it all, the French
will top it!
He doesn’t think it is fair that some kids get help from their parents at home while children who come from disadvantaged families don’t. It’s an issue that goes well beyond France, and has been part of the reason that some Americans oppose homework too.
Hollande’s reform plans include increasing the number of teachers, moving the school week from four days to 4 1/2 days, overhauling the curriculum and taking steps to cut down on absenteeism.
“Education is priority,” Hollande was quoted as saying by France24.com at Paris’s Sorbonne University last week. “An education program is, by definition, a societal program. Work should be done at school, rather than at home,” as a way to ensure that students who have no help at home are not disadvantaged.
Obama allowed our ambasador to be killed – and then blamed a video.
Thank you for your moral support in this battle against evil. My typical hyperbole but the thank you is sincere.
Vlad, that ‘Wrong Guy’ story you alluded to happened in Meriden, CT, not far from here. (about 20 miles) It is not a large city, about 30,000 people. Until about 40 years ago Meriden remained a quaint New England Town with a remarkable Industrial History. The Parker Shotgun was manufactured here, the best shotgun ever made. A vintage Parker right now can go for $50,000. The silver plate industry was also created and based in Meriden, which gave rise to the famed “Yankee Pedlar”, who traveled around the US in a buggy full of kitchen wares, selling his products. The founder of Hitchcock Chair of Riverton, CT got his start in Meriden. Many, many early consumer products, the result of the engineering genius and organizational abilities of Yankee industrialists, plus the hard work of Jewish, German, Irish, Italian and East European immigrant labor, came out of that city.
Its all gone. Last year I drove to Meriden to try to locate the Parker Factory. (closed 1937) I didn’t stay long. What I found was a shabby, degraded place, a welfare colony, with young Hispanic and Black men loitering menacingly on the streets in the middle of the day. There were some visible vestiges of the Yankee Industrial Past in the fine old houses in town, now broken up into Section 8 apartments. Public Housing was everywhere. Main Street was abandoned. JHK states that places like Meriden, CT might make a comeback in TLE. Right now it looks pretty unlikely.
–WSP7
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I agree. Just to satisfy our mutual curiosity on this point, I scanned back a bit through the Radsoaker posts, and they seem to have forgotten exactly who they were supposed to be on Oct.16, @ 7:56pm. (Stripped a tooth on the persona flywheel for a second there; a weird peek behind the curtain.)
That kind of research (exactly the word, BTW) was mighty distasteful, and I won’t do it again. …I promised Mom.
“JHK states that places like Meriden, CT might make a comeback in TLE. Right now it looks pretty unlikely.”
–WSP7
Yes, the qualifier of “right now” is very apt.
IMHO, in future, malingerers will be shunned in short order. “If you can’t lend a hand, get outta the way!” …And before we hear further [ideologically dogmatic] comment on the subject, we must remember that most criminals are lazy; this is why they engage in a gamble for “the quick score”, or “the BIG score”. Yes, it’s fairly easy to go from malingering to petty crime; it all has to do with a life of ease without work. I believe that the consequences for pilfering what little there is will be harsher as law and order break down further.
I see that Meriden is fairly close to the river (due east with what is likely a very old road), which is an advantage. Did you happen to notice or read about any other bonuses to its’ location? Or was it mainly good farmland (pre-industry)?
(Ps. That was a nice comment, far above, but again, one impossible for me to live up to! ;o)
My response from Jim was:
“I just don’t have much time to police the comments section of the blog.
ocasionally I take action, if I stumble on something really outrageous.”
Fair enough, as I said before it’s not an issue of “free speech” it’s an issue of whether or not Jim wants to be associated with such content. I had no idea he was espousing “race war” and other divisive ideology in his most recent book. When I became associated with this site about 6 years ago, he was an architectural critic who had written a book on Peak Oil. Since then apparently, he’s drifted over to the dark side. I hope he realizes what he’s attracting, and the potential stain that will place on him as a writer.
That’s good enough for me, I’m completely done here, I’m not going to be associated with a site that I feel has crossed the line into being significantly polluted with racist content.
I have notified the Southern Poverty Law Center and another organization concerning the content here. They can determine for themselves whether this site deserves inclusion to their lists of racist websites.
Over and out.
OZ, WSP7
My hometown is a lot like Meriden. In it’s heyday, Ft. Wayne, Indiana was a big factory town and a labor union stronghold. It’s painful to go downtown there now. All of the family businesses have been replaced by law firms and bank offices. They ripped up a big section in the middle of downtown to build a baseball stadium / condominium complex for their minor league team. There isn’t a grocery store within four miles. I’m pretty sure that the city hasn’t finished paying for the previous stadium that was built in another location. Of course, these are taxpayer funded sweetheart construction projects.
GM built a huge factory complex there not to long ago. I don’t think that it has ever run at full capacity. I know people who work there that get get laid off / hired back pretty frequently. I guess that’s going to be the norm for that kind of employment now. There is a horrible unemployment / under employment problem and most of they young leave the state when they graduate from high school and college.
I no longer weep for that city’s industrial past. It’s to time to move on, but most of the residents there don’t have a clue about what their future holds.
Can’t wait to get back!
Great. This will undoubtedly result in harassment from overzealous lawyers trying to make a name for themselves.
I expressed an opinion on this blog once that despite all of it’s good intentions, civil rights legislation is light years ahead of the attitudes of most white Americans. Yes, you must certainly keep the press on, but these things just take time. I’m thinking that generations of previous thought have to die off before newer ones can take root.
What a strange post and response from you, Dale. I was actually enjoying your retorts and repartee with Vlad, which read to my eyes like two tennis players verbally volleying back and forth.
And then suddenly, in midstream, one might say – or in your case, as your bending over to insert a fresh tampon – you raise your hands in the air and utter “no mas”?
And not only that, but you then have the bad manners to bleed all over JHK’s reputation by simply accepting Vlad’s assertion that JHK “espouses a race war”. But why would you believe Vlad’s characterization and not check out the facts for yourself? Instead, and like some invertebrate tattle-tale, you run like a limp-wristed crybaby to the nearest authority figure to plead your cause?
You’re a pussy Dale but so be it. Real men will stick around and fight the good fight against insidious racist propaganda.
Yeah – I’ve never understood why this BLOG invites so many sophomoric posts. I assume its because of the monicker “clusterfuck nation.”
Gee-whiz – the “I” net has free phone, free chat rooms etc ….. why these people don’t get a room – I don’t know…..
On the other hand – since I hardly deserve any respect, even though I occasionally have posted comments containing rational discourse of what I presume to be the subjects at hand – I guess that is why “clusterfuck” is such an inherently appropriate term.
Give Jim his credit for being a master wordsmith. The other clowns are what they are – no matter what they think or post.
‘I had no idea he was espousing “race war”’.
Cite source?
Is he ‘espousing’ or sensing it is a possibility as
the economy contracts and the Latinos [60? million here] continue to flood in.
Maybe view ‘Machete’ and get back to us with yr thoughts.
What about the ‘Race’ riots, were they race war?
Or is it always the Whites who are the bad guys?
Did you read WSP latest, about going to some ruined town near where he lives?
The French now have some ultra left nitwit running / ruining their land.
They will get what they deserve.
They voted him in, not Le Pen [or is it Penne?].
“This is the most dangerous threat facing mankind, but conservation of our planet has turned into a partisan issue with Republicans opposed to environmental protections…”
I can guarantee you that if the government does not get out of the way of responsible energy producers, you will freeze to death in your dwelling, long before the environment becomes an issue.
Exactly. Dale was the kid who always tattled to the teacher in first grade. Alot of those kids grow out of it, but Dale never did. Now imagine the carnage he has wrought in the workplace. How many people he has gotten in trouble, and how many he has sought to get fired.
And yes again: nowhere did I say Mr Kunstler is in favor of race war. Dale is constantly distorting everything. It comes naturally to him now so he might not even know he’s doing it. Or care. That’s how a soul corrupts and falls. All I said was read the last 25 pages of the Long Emergency. Like Fred, Mr Kunstler seems to think Blacks are out of control and that this will not be tolerated as things worsen. I mean if people want to disagree, fine. But don’t pretend that he doesn’t say that.
Face it, you backed the wrong horse.
This is not a sneaky way to get more K-Dog votes. The K-Dog campaign is more of a journey then a destination anyway.
If you don’t vote nobody will know. If you vote K-Dog it may not mean anything anyway but at least a record of your protest must be deliberately ignored. If you leave here our misanthropes have more freedom to spew their poison because there will be one less voice to keep them in line.
I have been every bit as upset as you are right now concerning Vlad and he drove me a way for a while about a year ago. But his victory over me was brief and now I have him on the run.
He might make a comment about this or not. Either way he proves me right.
I’ve seen plenty of racism in my life and have been a victim of it personally. As ugly as it is one thing I know for sure. If people don’t stand up to it then it will never go away.
Of course in here, standing up to particular posts is optional because you don’t want mental midgets running your life which they will be more than happy to do if you let them.
Don’t let anyone be the boss of you and right now Vlad is the boss of you. But no shame about it. He is here to press your buttons and he has, that’s all. Just like he does to every dog with a heart.
Think about it. If you leave you are doing exactly what Vlad wants you to do.
Jim knows if he were to police the blog the way you suggest it would become a full time job for him. Asoka and Vlad or Asoka/Vlad or whatever knows this and will see to it. They will revel in fucking with him. No more books, no more podcasts just the weekly blog with monitoring needed 24-7 and a victory for white supremacy as Jim drops off the radar and the number of posters here becomes fewer and fewer and then the blog disappears.
We don’t want that.
I do not believe that Jim is espousing a race war. I believe he is saying we might very well have one if we don’t deal with our issues.
I agree with that and think you do too.
So what do you think will happen to the guy with the right stuff? Connecticut is pretty liberal politically, but are the police too? That doesn’t always follow. But if the story goes viral, then alot of pressure will come on them to indict.
Huh? So racism isn’t one race discriminating against another – a basic formula with variables that can have different values – but rather Whites discriminationg against Blacks? In other words, an ideology?
You sound like the true believers Fred Reed describes in his last article who get grossly offended when anyone suggests Blacks have some responsibility for their actions. What they (you?) don’t get is how deeply they are condemning Blacks by their attitude. Human Beings are responsible be definition, animals are not.
Yes they love that crap. They hope to rule the world via the U.N. They’ve been smarting over losing out to the Anglo world for decades.
They have been smart about Africa though: they left but stayed in control to some extent behind the scenes. The English have clung on and been massacred. The Foreign Legion still exists and moves in very quickly to restore order and save French Citizen. Most of them have already seen the light and gotten out by now though.
If you read my post again you might catch that I have been a victim myself so I am a true believer all right, a zealot in fact. Everybody needs to be held responsible for their actions.
“What a strange post and response from you, Dale. I was actually enjoying your retorts and repartee with Vlad, which read to my eyes like two tennis players verbally volleying back and forth.”
-buck-
Excellent analysis, Buck – perhaps the best I’ve ever seen performed on a poster’s CFN performance. I also, was enjoying the vlad/dale back and fourth – and learning a little something from both of them.
Dale’s actions are inexcusable.
And reportig JHK to the SPLC is WAAAY over the line. Wonder who else he reported him to??
Most. Unfortunate. All the way around.
==================
And for once, Buck, I’m finding myself enjoying one of your hideous sexual metaphors.
“bending over to insert a fresh tampon….”
-buck to dale-
It’s funny how stuff like that is a little funnier when I agree with the basic premise!
Interesting, heh?
You seem to be saying that many of the posts submitted here are irrelevant to the subject of this site. What IS the subject?
JHK’s Monday morning essays are about the rottenness of our present civilization and its imminent collapse. The subject of this blog is therefore civilization itself.
An exercise: treat the concept of civilization as a class or a category and then make a list the sub-categories that don’t fit. What would be on that list? Relative to what wouldn’t be, not much.
Complaints about relevance aren’t relevant.
It is not strange when you consider this.
I know exactly where Dale is coming from. I have been there myself. Jim seems to support racism by allowing racist posts to persist and by not banning those who come here only to poop and write them.
I was on the fence myself about Jim but I’m thinking his section on ‘Reader Hate Mail’ redeems him.
It would be nice if he made his position a bit more clear.
Actually, Vlad, I’m beginning to think “dale” was a creation of yours. The friendly back and forth, the interjection of comedy, the sharp-witted retorts- it’s beginning to have that peculiar stench of the contrived and scripted.
Moreover, all week long “dale” has demanded “proof’ and “evidence”, but when you mention JHK’s book and racial observations, “dale’ goes into panic mode screaming “Fire” and then threatens to turn on the extinguishing sprinkler system via SPLC.
And all of this because he suddenly finds your characterization of JHK’s book believable? The same “dale’ who all throughout this and last week’s thread was demanding proper citations and proof?
Yeah, something stinks alright.
Score for today:
Truth Justice and Enlightenment Score: 0
Radu Voda Score: 10 points.
Discussion has been reduced to being skin deep for a couple of hours now which after a presidential debate that has yet to be commented on. This is a win for Vlad.
Can anybody find the address for Obama’s grandparents house on Mercer Island? The ones who raised him. I’d like to take a picture of the ‘Middle Class’ digs from which he comes.
Finding a house on that Island for less than a half million dollars is damn near impossible and there are hundreds of houses there. Most sell for over a million each now. I’ll ride El Ponderoso over and take a picture if someone comes back with the address.
El Ponderoso is shown on the last slide in my slide show. You can see it by clicking on my name at the top of this post.
A hoosier, eh? You must love Kurt Vonnegut. Read his Slaughterhouse Five about the destruction of Dresden by the RAF. Also his short story Harrison Bergeron about the leveling down to a low mean of gifted people. In short, Vonneget was an old fashioned Liberal – Liberalism before it mutated into the monstrousity it is now. For current Liberals, he can provide the golden thread out of the maze and away from the monster.
“Everybody needs to be held responsible for their actions.” KD
(Just popped in from doing something productive. Please excuse the interruption of even more speculation.)
Right-o.
What the brownshirt boy continually fails to factor in is the concept of SURPLUS GOODIES. This supposed person’s whole schtick relies on ignoring this pile of elephant poo on his quartermaster-supplied kitchen card-table. (You see, those of the authoritarian bent figure that they’ll be the ones on top creaming the surplus and lounging about the palace with their pick of sex objects and vittles.) If there’s no surplus… well then, these fantasies become just that.
Anybody that thinks they’ll hang about and just tell everyone else what to do by dint of coersion is going to be in for a disappointing time, post-post-collapse. (What I mean is: the period following the endgames of the brutal paradigms we have in place that will struggle mightily to maintain themselves. By doing so, incurring much unnecessary suffering and catastrophe.)
In such a world, the unproductive and unhelpful who attempt to live off of others’ labor will be most unwelcome (to say the very least).
Establishing a 4th reich in desperate times is quite possible; holding it together will be a different story altogether.
Well that’s just stupid and offensive. Why don’t you stop “wondering” and just get the book and read it the last 20 pages or so? How bout that sport?
I remember you saying that but you (like the media) neglected to mention the race of the perps. So I didn’t know if you meant a victim of White Patriarchial Evil, Black Thugs, or White Skinheads. To listen to most Liberals, the the first and third are a constant danger to life and limb.
I admit other and more subtle forms of persecution exist of course – and I didn’t know if you meant these (and therefore Whites) or actually getting bashed.
“Moreover, all week long “dale” has demanded “proof’ and “evidence”…”
————————————————
Who else does that?
Wait…my psychic powers have been activated…
I see something large….something that contains “multitudes”…
I just want to know when they’re ready to name names. This whole blog reminds of psyops training in the army. I would have stopped posting a while ago but I’m bored and vain. There’s also another reason.
I see cracks…
http://www.bradenton.com/2012/10/17/4241870/walmarts-everyday-low-wages.html
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-landowners-rare-stand-against-072055899.html
Message to XXX5:
WASHINGTON — New residential construction starts surged 15% in September to their highest annual rate in more than four years, as the housing sector continued to show signs of a burgeoning rebound.
The number of new privately owned housing units that began construction was up for the third straight month, and rose in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 872,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
The figures surpassed economists’ expectations of about a 770,000 annual rate.
September had the best monthly performance since July 2008, when housing starts were on an annual pace of 923,000. Compared with last September, new housing starts are up 34.8%, the Commerce Department said.
Last month’s growth was “surprisingly strong,” said David Crowe, chief economist at the National Assn. of Home Builders.
“As consumer confidence rises and jobs return, more local markets and more consumers will join the buyer market and I expect housing construction to continue a modest but fairly steady rise throughout 2013 and into 2014,” Crowe wrote in a blog post.
============
XXX5 says the middle class has disappeared.
XXX5 says manufacturing is dead in the USA.
XXX5 says the housing situation is abysmal.
XXX5 says we are in the “crunch time”
XXX5 says the velocity of money is “slow”
XXX5 says our economy is the worst in USA history.
XXX5 says unemployment is worse than U6.
XXX5 says the recovery is nonexistent.
XXX5 says Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
XXX5 says the USA is in an economic DEPRESSION.
I ask XXX5: does a 34.8% increase in new housing starts over the last twelve months happen in a depressed economy?
Housing starts ripple throughout the economy and those starts are an economic multiplier.
I challenge XXX5 to pick any other period of USA history he considers to be an economic depression which has 34.8% annual increase in housing starts.
How can people continue to deny we are in an ongoing economic recovery (unemployment down, housing starts up) in spite of economic data to the contrary?
You see Buck, Dale really is that crooked – demanding proof that he has no interest in is always his first course of action. And that more people can’t see thru him has always amazed me. Now you come up with a convoluted argument to avoid the fact that you weren’t able to see either.
“Seriously. How can anyone advocate not voting???”
Seriously, all that happened was that the thought popped into my mind that I should not vote for president.
Great post. This isn’t rocket science. Judging someone by their race is unjust. Pure and simple.
And as someone else said the best disinfectant for racism is sunlight. Get it out in the open. Most people are amenable to reason and fairness. People like Vlad and Asoka may not like the racial mix in America but these are the cards that history dealt.
Black folk and Indians were on the receiving end of some really raw deals. There’s no getting around it or minimizing what was done.
How do you un-do history? You can’t. What’s done is done. Acknowledge it and resolve to not do it again. At some point history has to be history. Start turning the pages. It won’t help matters to constantly pick at old scabs.
This may sound like a sorry assed eyeball roller to “realists” who see the racial situation as set in stone with no way out of the racial divisions and animosities or to militants of a vindictive cast of mind but my own remedy is to be fair to people regardless of skin color and hope that over time it re-sets the clocks. The reasoning being that everybody deserves a fair chance. I don’t think that’s starry eyed idealism and I don’t think it’s too much to ask. And the best remedy is intermarriage ie people don’t tend to kill their own kin.
IMO these are the only ways forward. This may not suit haters or “nationalists” or separatists of the White or Black or Indian or Latino variety but that’s just too damn bad.
I think I have been clear: I deplore any misuse of history that distorts the historical record to demonize or demean a particular racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural group. – Assoka
Excuse me for a few minutes……Sorry I just pissed my pants laughing. You’ve been clear? When?
My oh my. Such screaming hypocrisy. You deplore any misuse of history that distorts the historical record? Except when YOU do it. Right?
“…to demean a particular racial, ethnic, religious or cultural group…”? Good grief, what a load of crap. A self avowed racist saying this? With a straight face?
As far as your post telling me to pay attention to the moniker, yes, I’m sure, absofuckinglutely sure that it wasn’t you posting. No chance. Had to have been someone else. Had to. No question. Yes, yes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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“This refusal to deal with issues outside of the instrumentality of one’s own subjectivity rather
than for the sake of the collective is the type of privatization of public
space…” – BS
Deep sigh.
OK BS what’s all this razzmatazz actually mean? In plain English that is.
Feel free to use a lot (or even just a few ) of those monosyllabic, guttural sounding words of Germanic extraction unbeloved of academics.
No, I’m not annoyed. 🙂
“This refusal to deal with issues outside of the instrumentality of one’s own subjectivity rather
than for the sake of the collective is the type of privatization of public
space…” – BS
Translation for Rhino:
What’s in it for me? Fuck the commons.
Capiche?
CORRECTION
“This refusal to deal with issues outside of the instrumentality of one’s own subjectivity rather
than for the sake of the collective is the type of privatization of public
space…” – BS
Deep sigh.
OK BS what’s all this razzmatazz actually mean? In plain English that is.
===================
Translation for Rhino:
Fuck the commons! What’s in it for me?
Well, I’m a noid.
I took a stab at it:
My instrumental subjectiveness renders me incapable of dealing with issues that benefit the collective well being….
Really wish he would have finished the sentence so it could be related to the “privatization of public space”.
Verstehen?
Here is another translation:
As long as I’m OK, fuck the safety net for others.
Can anybody find the address for Obama’s grandparents house on Mercer Island? The ones who raised him.
Obama’s grandparents lived in Honolulu. Obama’s parents lived in an apartment in the Wedgewood Estates in the Wedgwood, Seattle neighborhood. In 1956 they moved to the Shorewood Apartments on Mercer Island, a Seattle suburb, where they lived until 1960 and where their daughter Ann attended Mercer Island High School. In 1957 Stanley began working for the Doces Majestic Furniture Company.
Wedgewood Estates is located at 3716 NE 75th Seattle, WA. Talk about middle class!
Studio from $675
1 Bedroom from $750
2 Bedrooms from $925
Shorewood Heights apartments are located at 3209 Shorewood Drive | Mercer Island, WA
Talk about middle class! They offer spacious two and three bedroom apartment homes that feature hardwood floors, crown molding, washer and dryer in every home and fully equipped kitchens. Such luxury!
I’m sure you’ve nailed it, K-Dog. You have found the secret wealth of Obama’s ancestors on Mercer Island… in a fucking apartment building with apartments ranging from 663 sq ft to 819 square feet. Why, they lived like kings! NOT!
Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
Class, repeat after me, Asoka is an ignorant cornucopian.
I doubt it.
During the Acorn scandal, OEO [aka notyrmommy and a zillion other handles] ‘sparred’ for a long time
with Dale.
If Dale is Radu, he/she/it is a real mess.
Nothing to say about a 34.8% increase in housing starts over the last twelve months?
Thank you for getting us back on track. I am not trying to ‘nail it’. I listened to the entire debate last night and got a better sense of the character of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I am disturbed by elements of each mans character. I am trying to understand Obama’s worship of elite privilege yes.
Before I get to Barry I’ll get to Mitt. Of the two he is far more dangerous. Obama is ‘out of it’ but Mitt is the worst of George Bush back again if anybody noticed.
Free Trade with the ‘Southern Cone’ which will have none of it after throwing off their yoke of tyranny? How is he going to manage that? Perhaps with a little help from the CIA?
I read the Shock Doctrine last week. To say what Mitt Romney said is menacing though only one in twenty of course would know. Mitt has a new dog on the top of his car Jingo and if we give him a place to go he is going to let Jingo out again just like Bush did.
I don’t think Barack has to worry about his daughters getting into school. I contend he cares less for yours than he pretends to.
“Mercer Island, a Seattle suburb”
Is incorrect. Mercer Island is a separate bedroom city on it’s own island and is the most exclusive of all Seattle area suburbs. I know it well.
Ms. Dog and I looked at moving into those apartments years ago shortly after we were married. We left right away disinterested. They were really cramped. Not the Mercer Island experience, they are gone now.
Mercer Island is a separate bedroom city on it’s own island and is the most exclusive of all Seattle area suburbs. I know it well.
==============
I know it well, too. And it is just a short seven mile drive (10 minutes on I-90) across the bridge to the Seattle Public Library (4th and Madison).
Bellevue, Renton, and Mercer Island can be considered suburbs due to their physical proximity to downtown Seattle.
Seattle Real Estate companies consider Mercer Island a suburb of Seattle:
Whether you are looking for Seattle waterfront real estate in Seattle or Seattle suburbs like Shoreline, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Kirkland, Edmonds…
But, if you want to consider it a “separate city” 10 minutes and seven miles from downtown Seattle, fine with me.
I think they are gone. I recall seeing a public notice announcing that new construction was going to replace them but I just googled the address and the apartments still appear to be there. The area is kind of inaccessible, you really have to be going there or be lost to find them.
Now you are being a bad dog.
Here you are arguing with me about where I live. Any gentle readers are going to read what I’ve written here and are going to realize that I’m just a dog with questions that’s all.
I remember being a kid with my dad in Washington DC. On the way to Fords Theater I noticed Porn Theaters within walking distance of the White House. I know they are long gone, I read something about them being shut down years ago.
The bridge to Seattle is about a mile long.
“Nothing to say about a 34.8% increase in housing starts over the last twelve months?”
How many empty houses and commercial buildings do banks hold titles on now?
That is, when they can actually locate the titles.
I have one more thing to say about the 34.8% increase in housing starts.
When are you going to post a link about the Bangladeshi who was arrested this moring in an FBI sting operation for attempting to blow up the New York Federal Reserve Bank?
Criminy.
What a waste. Can you imagine being 21 and smart enough to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York?
Think of the possibilities.
From Salon:
“Numerous commentators, notably Rick Perlstein at Rolling Stone, have this year questioned how often FBI stings are in fact instances of entrapment”
I should really highlight the word Numerous
Barack held his own last night as I predicted he would last week. Revision of the script is unnecessary at this time.
How many empty houses and commercial buildings do banks hold titles on now?
xhalor, thank you for that question because it gives an opportunity to share more GOOD NEWS, and puts the lie, once again, to XXX5’s contention that we are in the worst economic DEPRESSION of our history.
The number of empty houses is declining.
Nationally, the number of occupied housing units – that is, those receiving mail – rose by 970,000 in the last year, from mid-July 2011 to mid-July 2012. In fact, vacancies have declined in 90 of the 100 largest metros. The biggest year-over-year decline – by a wide margin — was in San Jose, where vacancies dropped by 24.1%.
XXX5 is wrong. And so is anybody else who tries to say we are not in an economic recovery. The data speak for themselves.
SOURCE OF DATA FOR THIS POST: The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Delivery Statistics. These files, report “active” and “possible” addresses on postal carriers’ routes. These data show the number of residential addresses that are occupied and vacant each month at the ZIP code level. Typically, addresses are considered “vacant” 90 days after mail delivery to that address stops. Seasonal or vacation homes are not counted as vacant. P.O. Boxes are excluded from this analysis.
But the recovery will be so much better with a new war.
Where are people getting money for houses? Are foreigners moving in or did everybody get a job?
xhalor, thank you for asking about vacant commercial buildings. That gives the opportunity to share MORE GOOD NEWS.
Boston, July 10, 2012 – Defying concerns about the pace of economic recovery and lukewarm employment growth, the U.S. commercial real estate market showed improvement across all property sectors in the second quarter (Q2) of 2012, according to the latest analysis from CBRE.
Vacancy in the nation’s office buildings dropped to its lowest level since 2009, falling 30 basis points (bps) during Q2 to 15.7%. National industrial availability1 dropped 20 bps during Q2 to 13.2%, continuing two years of improvement.
============
Does that sound like we’re in a fucking depression, as XXX5 maintains? Both residential and commercial vacancies are down. Meanwhile, housing starts are up, manufacturing is up, etc. The USA is recovering slowly… and will continue unless Romney is elected.
What does that have to do with housing starts and our economic recovery? You are going off-topic. We were talking about vacant houses and vacant commercial properties. Did you get bored because the data don’t support your pessimism? When are people going to start celebrating America when there is good news?
So what do you think that all of that good economic news is leading to? Full employment? Reversal of resource depletion? Restoration of the rainforests?
1966?
And yes, you should definately highlight how many opportunities the feds have had lately to “entrap” people.
Did you ask those same questions of Ronald Reagan when he announced: “It’s morning in America again”?
Did you expect so many scandals?
The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by multiple scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any US president.
What do you consider full employment, for example?
Ft Wayne, Indiana?
Named after General Mad Anthony Wayne, who defeat the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1796? Injun Warfare right from practically day 1!!!
–WSP7
But the recovery will be so much better with a new war.
==========
If you really believe that, vote for Romney.
If you are being sarcastic, ignore this comment.
The USA is obsessed with the military (one-half our discretionary budget spending), and loves to bomb, invade, and occupy countries (187 military interventions into Latin America), and that is why we are not liked universally. We go to war too easily. It’s almost like we have the weapons, so let’s try them out. War as a military weapons testing program.
So you are answering my question with a question.
Full employment. Does that really need to be clarified?
They didn’t call him “Mad” Anthony for nuthin’.
Read more. What a murderous mofo.
War as a military weapons testing program.
Hardly,
It is profit for Der Übermensch corporations which thanks to the Supreme Court can now buy as many politicians as needed to start them. Not that they had a great difficulty getting their way to begin with. Privatization of government has compounded the situation and made it hopeless. I think both of them will get us into a new war very quickly.
The only hope is to vote for me.
✔ Vote K-Dog
How about when every dog who needs a job has one?
What a concept!!!!
…uh…bow-wow?
How’s this for a concept:
Dwindling Multitudes
Full employment. Does that really need to be clarified?
===============
Yes, it does, because it means different things to different people. It is not zero unemployment. The unemployment rate, excluding teenagers, fell below 4 percent in 1998, the first time it had dropped that low since 1973. It fell to 3.3 percent in late 2000, achieving briefly what many economists define as the “full employment unemployment rate” for adults. Some, however, would put it lower.
“Two percent unemployment would certainly be a condition closer to one in which everyone seeking work would be able to land a job at a good wage,” said William A. Darity Jr., an economist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Adult unemployment often fell well below 3 percent in the early 1950’s and occasionally in the late 1960’s. After that, an expanding global production network shifted work overseas, reducing the number of good jobs in America. The late-90’s bubble economy was a brief exception to this trend.
So, given that 0% is impossible, do you think full employment is 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, etc.? I think the new normal is 7% and when we get down to 7% we will achieve “full employment” … I don’t think we will ever get below 7% due to global and technological factors.
But can you clarify what you mean?
I’m all for that. Have you gotten your vasectomy? Or are you just yapping and biting ankles?
Remember The Pretenders? ‘My City Was Gone’?
And that song was pre NAFTA!
OK, I just did.
p295 ‘Idaho RW extremists’
p297 ‘Racial Conflict’ [ = race war?]. 5 pages on.
From what you are saying about p297, the Long Emergency will only aggravate what Jam47 calls an “instinctive” animosity between races.
The USA military is 65% white and 35% non-white, and they operate in crisis situations, life and death situations.
So… my question is… why aren’t the USA soldiers of different races killing each other in Afghanistan?
In situations of high stress they are cooperating because their survival depends upon collaboration and mutual cooperation?
We can expect a lot of love and neighborliness to happen between the races in the Long Emergency.
Canadians Discover USA Police State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-i5sDOdoFqg#!
From YouTube:
“If you’re told to do something, do it without asking the reason.”
Tom Tomorrow outlines anti-soak-cchio’s worldview and treasured “positions”.
http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2011/01/knowing-and-not-knowing/
Hurrah! Now we no longer have to guess!
Romney claims he wants women to have work, but has made no effort to hire women managers at Bain Capital, and even today only 4 of out of 49 of Bain’s managing directors are women.
Busted.
X,
It seems that you and K [of the dawg] have got Piss-‘soak-cchio in a bit of a panicky state. Thick, fast, and likely irrelevant, come the postings.
WTF did you guys do? Torpedo the Good Ship Lollipop? You evil BASTARDS!!!
Contrary to Romney’s assertion, oil production on Federal land did not decline during Obama’s presidency over all. In fact, it was way up from the last year of Bush. There was a decline in 2011 because of a temporary offshore moratorium caused by the Deep Horizon malfeasance.
Oil Production from Federal lands
(Percent Change from Previous Year)
2008 -8.6%
2009 +11.7%
2010 +14.9%
2011 – 13.8%
Romney represented himself as a supporter of college students but in fact Romney has slammed Obama for doubling the number of Pell grants– which are low-cost Federal loans for . . . college students.
So many CFNers saying there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Red and Blue, when it appears there are some differences.
Romney said, “We have fewer people working today than we had when the president took office. If the — the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he took office, it’s 7.8 percent now.”
But when Obama took office, the country was still losing 800,000 jobs a month because of the Bush meltdown. Obama obviously needed a year or so to get his policies in place and implemented. You can’t just start the clock ticking from the inauguration– in something like economic trends, you have to take a longer view.
In January of 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.7%, after all the Bush-caused hemorrhaging. Obama has improved that number he inherited to 7.8%.
On energy, Romney said “Let’s take advantage of the energy resources we have, as well as the energy sources for the future.” Romney is posturing as a friend of green energy!
But as Obama noted, the former governor Romney wants to cut the Federal tax break aimed at encouraging wind energy, something he has been slammed for by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
Still wonder what’s really important and what really needs to be done?
Wonder no more!
http://truth-out.org/art/item/12148-republicans-unite
(Thanks, Tom, we’re enlightened and better people now because of you…)
Romney said, “And if we do that, if we do what I’m planning on doing, which is getting us energy independent, North America energy independence within eight years, you’re going to see manufacturing jobs come back.”
The United States imports roughly 11 million barrels a day of petroleum. Contrary to what is often alleged, that level of imports has not fallen significantly.
We use about 19 million barrels a day, and there is a shortfall of about 8 million a day (we export some of our own production in Alaska to Asia since it is cheaper to do that than bring it down to the lower 48, making for net imports of 8 million b/d).
There is no scenario under which the United States increases its production by 8 million barrels a day in the next 8 years, or, like, ever. That would be like discovering a whole Saudi Arabia in the US. In fact, most of our current fields are declining and even with new production we are unlikely to produce more than about 6 million b/d of oil in the coming decades.
There is only one path to energy independence for the USA with regard to transportation, and that is a combination of green energy and hybrid or electric cars. This is also the only path to an America that is not destroying the world by dumping enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, causing climate change (something neither candidate had the gumption to bring up).
Romney alleged, “When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now, it’s $4.00 a gallon. The price of electricity is up.”
Obama correctly riposted that the low gas prices of fall 2008 were caused by the Bush-induced economic collapse. And Obama pointed to increased Asian demand as the reason for the current high prices (as more and more Asians drive, they use more gasoline to fuel their vehicles; since world supply is fairly steady at 89 mn b/d, more use equals rising prices.).
The fact is that the president has little to do with oil prices– they are set by supply and demand, and contrary to what Romney alleges, there simply is not much supply in the United States yet to be developed.
Neither Romney nor Obama mentioned a further consideration, which is that some of the run up in petroleum prices comes from taking Iranian oil off the market through sanctions (less supply equals higher prices if demand does not fall).
Romney says his Iran sanctions would be even worse (hard to imagine). You can’t reduce supply without increasing prices.
Romney pretended to be a big booster of coal and blamed that industry’s woes on Obama. Actually, the larger problem coal faces is that fracked natural gas is cheaper and cleaner, and coal plants can’t compete, which has little to do with Obama.
Romney’s posturing gave Obama an opening to correctly quote Romney as Massachusetts government determined to close the coal plant and saying, ”I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people, and that plant — that plant kills people.” Romney blew up a big balloon full of hot air that Obama readily punctured.
Thick, fast, and likely irrelevant, come the postings.
==============
Coal, oil, and energy posts are irrelevant to CFN?
I would welcome some relevant posts about energy from you, Ozone, or relevant responses to the content of my posts, instead of snide ad hominem attack.
Romney maintained that President Obama did not publicly refer to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi as an “act of terror” for two weeks after it happened.
As moderator Candy Crowley pointed out in real time, Romney was completely wrong about that.
In his speech from the Rose Garden on September 12, 2012, Obama said, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”
Romney’s charge was disturbing for several reasons. First, he was wrong on the facts, which cannot inspire confidence in him. Second, he reminded people of his outrageous attack on Obama while the Benghazi incident was unfolding, in which he incorrectly said that Obama had made excuses for the attackers. Third, he had to be slapped down by the moderator for telling a whopper, which is not the image a candidate would like in the public mind.
The true state of affairs (and all those other “thingy’s” we’d rather not think about).
Who needs pundits/analysts/think-tankers, when Tom is on the job?
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/this-modern-world-experts-agree-nothing-can-be-done-648542/
There you have it; now quit’cher bitchin’!
LOL! Two of those issues were discussed in the presidential debate last night.
Dr. Jill Stein and her VP candidate were arrested and handcuffed to chairs during the debate. Green Party participation was not welcome.
(I’ll get bored wid’it a’fore he/she/it does, but I’ll interject another bit of nonsensical sense, just to prod the pud-pullin’.)
http://clatl.com/atlanta/this-modern-world-10042012/Content?oid=6563769
Thanks, Tom, I’d forgotten those important segments…
Albert Pike was a Confederate General and Mason. Fine words from a fine White Man.
I do so hate to “drone” on (haw, haw, hack-choke), but in the sacred interest of “free and unfettered speechifyin'” I bring us a word from Droney, the Friendly Drone! Please respect his opinions, for the sake of Gawd, Da Nashin, and Jingo, the mostest patriotical dawggie of All Time…
http://clatl.com/atlanta/this-modern-world-10112012/Content?oid=6633016
(I feel safer-er; don’t you?)
I say it make no difference who gets elected. Why do I think this?
Because the first job of the president is to run the country as chief executive. The second job of the president is to be the head of his political party. Both parties receive hundreds of millions of dollars in political contributions from big business. Both parties are beholden to the same people. It’s money that rules and makes policy decisions, not the president. Therefore the same result obtains no matter which candidate wins.
Maybe the democrats seem to be more socially conscious. But their policies will kill people’s faith in the dollar. Yes, the government can in effect print an unlimited amount of money to pay for whatever social programs it desires, but ultimately that will lower the dollar’s value (by supply and demand) to the point people will not want to get paid in dollars, and a crisis will ensue.
The republicans seem to be more fundamentally religious. They are against many progessive social programs like women’s rights, welfare, food stamps, medicare, etc., as well as being much more bellicose in foreign policy. The end result of these political stances are that the middle class will become poverty-stricken to the point a crisis will ensue.
Collapse by hyperinflation or middle-class deflation are our choices. The end is the same although the paths are different: collapse.
That’s why I don’t care who wins. I can only hope one of these benighted candidates, when elected, will be willing to change their ways when they see the folly of their past actions. Either that, or the people will ultimately take their own action.
Dag’squirm’it! Mis’spellin’s a-hauntin’ muh rakin’-o’-th’-muck. That thar shoulda read (red, fer youse ign’ramissuz): “Nayshin”. Okay then, take yer punishment and yewl git a sweetie after.
The moderator later admitted she made an error in this matter, and in fact Romney was “substantially correct”.
Point taken, Beans.
The only way out is through; we’ll discover what that signifies in due time. I can’t see it “running on” for more than a couple years, in any case, because there will be no changing-of-the-guard or BAU. (Too much is now being acquired by hook, crook, and theft at the present time.)
You are a binder of women.
Vote for Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party. He is basically President Starky in the movie The Postman.
http://www.goodeforpresident2012.com/the-issues.html
Uh-oh… I saw that!
Shit, the little laddie in the lederhosen is CORRECT (damnit)!
It’s true; I bind wimmenz to me; the laddie repels them.
(Oh, I think I win.)
You may be the one to ask since Ozone wont talk to me. Why do Anarchists march with Communists? I mean the philosophies differ so greatly. It would make more sense for them to be at Tea Parties and Libertarian Conferences. The Communists would simply purge them if succesfull…
Is it the predeliction for violence which they both share that holds them together? Or clothing style – the way Hare Krisnas and Hard Core got together?
I thought you didn’t read my posts. You are a liar is this and in all things. Now you made me seem to be a liar by suddenly responding.
Thanks for your hoping I get a stilleto in the kidney. Where does your psychopathology come from?
“I say it makes no difference who gets elected.”
-btb-
Good analysis, bill, and I don’t disagree with any of it.
I still say it’s far better to register a “protest vote” for POTUS by voting for the Libertarian or the K-Dog.
If everyone reading this would just vote for K-Dog he would pick up, WOW!
Maybe 10 or 12 votes.
And 6 of those would be from asoka..multitudes.
OK – that’s a lame attempt at lame humor.
I just think this thread is very thinly read these days – after Monday, especially.
==========================
Changing the subject to – where did all of our good posters go or why did they leave???
I first blame the inexplicable screenname bannings by JHK and/or his software or tech guy.
That cost us WageLaborer and Hancock, two of our best and most thoughtful.
I know that’s why they left, because they both emailed me to tell me that that was the reason.
I also think the frenetic overposting and trolling by our resident..know..it..all drives people away. Why state an opinion when asoka..always has the repeated, repetitive final word for himself on every possible question.
bah.
I’m not sure how much longer I will last.
Driving off, outposting, and outlasting any dissenting voice is certainly a major goal for asoka..troll.
oh well.
It’s working.
I looked at your link, and I do agree with most of the platform. I disagree about abortion and gay marriage. I’d have to think more on this for voting purposes – I know nothing about the candidates other than Goode’s resume on the website, nor do I know anything about the party. I’ll do some more research. Thanks for the link.
God Will Provide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCm__345nSU
Why do Anarchists march with Communists?
They don’t. In fact their is some serious bad blood.
If you want to know why read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. If you read it you will understand.
The book is about George’s experience in the Spanish Revolution. He relates how he was shot through the neck in it. A true story.
It is a good read, I enjoyed it.
I’ve been blocked out twice. The first time was for 3 or 4 weeks. The second time I found out, at least in my case, how to get around the blocking without having to change my screen name. Things like this just happen as an artifact of the code. I don’t believe Wage and Hancock were banned. They may have given up trying to get back on-line. I admit it requires a lot of patience.
As far as giving up on this site,of course it’s your right to do whatever you want, but for me, I’d never let any poster drive me away. I notice many posters pop back in after a long period away. Plus, as life in America gets harder to deal with, I believe CFN will attract many new posters. Even now, there’s new posters coming in from time to time.
On Wednesday there were 2274 unique visits to this website. Way more people read than write here.
Most probably only read the weekly article but some may come down and enjoy the circus for a moment or two.
Probably a good guess to figure ten times as many read as write comments.
I probably have over a hundred votes total. I’m encouraged.
Remember Widespread saw ‘K-Dog’ written in the dust of a dirty car window in Connecticut last week. It may have actually been his own SUV he did not say but regardless it’s all good.
✔ K-Dog for President !!!
How silly she is!
Ok but in America they do. I think you must know this…
There are not many posters left here. Each week the quality of the posts deteriorates as more and more voices leave. Now that dale has left, after giving us Jim’s message, CFN will be an even more desolate place. It is like collapse is happening right in front of our very eyes. I try to keep the comments section alive by making multiple posts every day and taking care to respond to others, trying to promote dialog. But we may be reaching a period of drought. In the natural course of things there are ups and downs, autumn, winter, and spring. We may just be in a temporary hibernation stage.
Do you have a cite for that? This morning she did not say anything about making an error.
What she did was save Romney’s ass from further embarrassment. After Obama said: “Please proceed, governor,” Romney was like a deer frozen in the headlights of his error, until Crowley came along and rescued Romney, preventing him from digging himself into a deeper hole. Here are Crowley’s words from a Los Angeles Times article:
“Crowley explained to Soledad O’Brien that her original goal was not to fact-check Romney’s claims, but to steer the candidates away from their semantic squabbling and toward more substantive issues.
“We got hung up on this ‘yes he said,’ ‘no I didn’t,’ ‘I said terror,’ ‘you didn’t say terror.’ And there was this point where they both kind of looked at me…. And what I wanted to do was move this along,” she said.
In something of a rebuke to her right-leaning critics, Crowley also said, “There is no question that the administration is quite vulnerable on this topic. That they did take weeks to go, ‘Well, actually there really wasn’t a protest and actually didn’t have anything to do with the tape.’ ”
For the record, she also used almost the exact same words last night, debunking Romney’s “act of terror” claim in the same breath that she also said he was right about the administration’s delayed response: ” He — he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.”
The following is what I read Wednesday from foxnews.com:
“The moderator in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, after appearing to side with President Obama on the question of whether he called the Libya strike a terror attack from the start, conceded afterward that Mitt Romney was “right” on the broader point — that the administration for days insisted it was a spontaneous act.”
“He was right in the main. I just think he picked the wrong word,” Candy Crowley said of Romney on CNN shortly after the debate ended.”
“However, Obama didn’t explicitly label the Benghazi strike terrorism in those Sept. 12 remarks. What he did say is: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.”
“Crowley, during and following the debate, pointed out that despite Obama’s Sept. 12 remarks his administration was peddling a different story to the public. She said it took two weeks for officials to say more definitively that the attack was more than an out-of-control protest.
And she continued to clarify on CNN that Romney was making a legitimate point.
Right after that I did turn around and say, ‘but you are totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape’, she said.”
The point being that Obama gave the impression for two weeks that the incident arose as a protest, while during much of that period American embassy staffers – who were eyewitnesses – were saying it was a terrorist attack. I don’t know about you, but I would tend to believe the statements of people who were actually there over so-called intelligence analysts.
I did err when I stated that the moderator said she made an error. She never said that. My bad.
If by communist you mean the U.S. Revolutionary Communist Party I can explain.
They have a nice bookstore here which I have been to and I am on their email list. If they announce that there is going to be a local protest against say; The Afghanistan War, I’m likely to learn about it from them first. I just lifted the link above from one of their mailings to me which is in my mailbox right now. I have not even followed the link myself yet except to see what it is.
I think you are confusing counterculture types being drawn to a common cause as groups marching together. Injustice brings some people out and they being counterculture types tend naturally to tolerate each other.
The mark of a healthy group is one which tolerates other groups and which is not secretive and exclusionary. The reasons for this are legion.
All you are seeing is Heretics Uniting!
This manifesto is worth checking out. Heretical 4 sure. Woof
Ok the casual association part makes sense. But Communists do not tolerate other people so it is at best a marriage of convenience. I bet they are also drawn together by violence…
I know there are peaceful anarchists too. I assume you are one. So why not be with the Libertarians as well? They are closer ideologicaly are they not? Perhaps you need to meditate on this?
Pakistani Taliban’s indoctrinated child bombers
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121014102539659862.html
Heretics Unite!
“Nothing to say about a 34.8% increase in housing starts over the last twelve months?”
————————————————
Fedex to cut thousands from workforce
http://www.france24.com/en/20121010-fedex-cut-thousands-workforce
JOB OPENINGS IN FORT WAYNE, INDIANA
I’ll probably vote for him because of his name. It reminds me of Virgil Kane and the song, The Night They Dragged Old Dixie Down.
Good ideas for a trip to HAWAII
My goodness, I was delighted to see your post so I signed on just to reply. If you don have gloves maybe the ranger will have extra which came in real handy since we hiked 6 hours! Bring good tennis shoes that are comfortable, lot of water (6 quarts per person recommended) a poncho (it rained on and off and it can get real windy and chilly at night) . The first 2 miles are marked but after that your on your own and that where things get interesting.) We left at 4pm so it was cooler (no bathrooms) and came back in the dark so you can see the real orange color of the lava flow. This is not for anyone with a bad back, the elder nor children (except for the short marked hike). Be sure to bring a couple of really good flashlights. You will find that at night you will not be able to take (NO JOKE) even one step without looking. Every step you take has either a wide crack in the ground or sharp, irregular surface. After we passed the 2 mile marker we were on our own. I highly suggest someone not do this alone! The
terrain changes the further we went that what I mean by it got more interesting. The ground got more crunchy and when you brushed your foot against it, it just turned to sand. Steam vents here and there began as well. Our goal was to hike to the opposite side to see the lava flow into the ocean but that 1 more mile meant 2 miles and it would have been 3am until we would get back so we had to turn around (all of us were in our early 30 since we were getting tired. We wore t-shirts and shorts which the ranger suggested long pants and long sleeve shirts. You will trip on the ground, you may even fall (both the guys who were in super muscular shape fell once, thankfully unharmed. I slid or lost my footing countless times but never fell. Of coarse that doesn help when it rains and makes it slick.) The terrain is quite amazing as far as the lava you have to try to walk over it which can be so high it will amaze you. At night is the best time to see the lava flowing down. I wouldn waste my time going in the day, you could barely see it and it so VERY hot during the day. Some poor sap got misguided that night and had no idea he was on the INSIDE of the marker where he shouldn be and said he never saw the markers. Also not wear flip flops unless you like to bleed.
Like I mentioned we went past the 2 mile markers (many do) and just so you know, they are like blinking beacons at night so that helps once you get close enough upon return. It a lot of fun but be safe! Flashlights, Parka, change of cloths if you like, I highly suggest GLOVES (ranger may or maynot have extra), 6 quarts of water per person, snacks, camera (actually video camera picked up the lava flow better than any of our digital cameras; toilet paper and thanfully we didn need any bandages but recommended as well. Wish I knew this before we got there. Rooms were only like $250 or something a night. It just as amazing as one of the main hotels on the Las Vegas Strip (I used to live 20 min from there). There a lagoon you can snorkel at (ocean water goes into it) which has fish and a couple of turtles, a boat takes you through a tropical canal to your room and different area of the resort, there are 2 major pools (one has an awesome slide! I was like a 12 year old out there) the other slide was more for younger kids. The hotel is right on the beach. Golfing there too for those golf lovers. There is an incredible restaurant (all part of this huge resort which has many unique neat places to eat and even food for the casual burger to eat on the go) This particular restaurant was a special treat that averages $30 a plate that has amazing delicious food. You can sit outside with the torches and the beach view. Have a chi chi there, it one of the best drinks and ranked right up there with my dads. (We used to make them when we lived in Hawaii) It a tropical drink. Or, have a “Volcano” those are tasty too! The food is a little pricey at the hotel but the hotel itself is AMAZING. I traveled and lived around the world and this is top notch.
OAHU: I highly suggest that you now book for things you would want to go on. You must, MUST go to a Luau naturally. 😉 I suggest the Royal Hawaiian Luau. It located beach front and a great view of diamond head. It a buffet, lots of food you can eat and lots of various desserts. Yes, it an all you can eat. Food was good, something for everyone. Even had poi you can sample. (I never did like it but you can say you had it.) With our tickets you have a choice of either 1 alcoholic beverage or 2 sodas. You get a pinapple on your table (open the “lid” and eat some while you wait for dinner). Get these tickets now while you can.
Next YOU MUST go to the north shore and have some “shaved ice” it only $1 for the small size. It just along the roadside in a surf shop. Just ask a local. IT deeelicious! We tried another place on Waikiki beach and it was like a snow cone or the kind on the mainland and very dissapointing go you MUST have one on the North Shore! (North Shore is known for Shaved Ice) Oh yes, the North Shore is where the Big surfing competitions happen during the winter time.
Oh, we used to live in Hawaii when I was younger so we toured around to some of the better places where not a lot of tourists buses go. Beaches. bring your snorkeling gear and head for the north shore as well. Three Tables, Sharks Cove (no sharks it just shaped like one) are all nearby. Naturally you should go to the famous Hanama Bay for snorkeling. Lot of neat fish, the coral has lost it color over the years but still neat to see but if you can get there early say 6:30am you will not have to stand in a VERY long line (they only let so many people onto the beach at one time during the day to conserve it. Besides, you get to pick out the best place to park your goods (go to the left side!) and you don have to pay either since technically it not open. BUT! If you leave to get a snack make sure you get a stamp on your hand before you leave since the snack stand is outside the front entrance that way you won get any grief to get back in. There are 2 different ones but you want to go on the one with the guy named “Rich”. (This tour has been on discovery channel, BBC, etc.) This tour has the largest cage the other company has a smaller one. (Don mistake it for the other one since they are both at the same dock) Your totally safe and the sharks just swim around the cage that floats 2 feet above the water and your hands and feet rest safely inside the cage. My 7 year old niece went. However, if you get motion sickness get the EARLIEST tour out first thing in the morning and take Bonine the night before (as suggested by the locals as a secret) and an hour before you go. Bring your snorkel and mask since that how you be checking out everything but if you forget, they have plenty on board. A couple family members freaked out about the idea but went along anyway and afterwards said they are glad they did and really enjoyed it. Bring that underwater camera! There were 5 of my family and another 5 people on the boat. Really. Below I give you my email so you can get more details since my husband is sleeping so I can recall the exact name of the company, I want to make sure you get on the right one. I can even get phone numbers for you since I feel like they know me with all the calls I done. Also, just a side note, if you or your family are military/retired deals around the island and discounts for them/you so email me if you have that and I give you some more details. Honestly, I didn like swimming at Waikiki Beach (pretty though) since there is has a rocky bottom and not soft on the feet. Besides, why do that when you have the North Shore! Important tip: Bring extra toilet paper when your driving around. I was really surprised to find out their wasn much if any in many bathrooms even along the shopping areas in Waikiki. If you are on Waikiki Beach area there is a long stretch of shopping areas. MANY “ABC” stores which are great for family and friend souvenir shopping, I think t-shirts were 12 bucks.
You find it busy everywhere you go since you can get macadamia chocolate nut gifts for cheap as well as on the go sandwiches, bottled water etc for pretty cheap. You find the well known “International Market Place” which has lots of t-shirts (you see many places advertise 10 shirts for $20.) Not the best quality but some are cute! This place is more like a flea market so to speak. I wasn really delighted with it as much as the venders just along the main shopping street. I bought a tank top for 6 bucks (just shopping by the street) (I HAD to have it. as well as I found a matching towel for $8) It was a white shirt and has a thick red cross and red words that said, “Life Guard” “North Shore Hawaii” (On the Back of the shirt and the front said the same thing but smaller and in the corner.) Now, for the good/fun t-shirts! They are located at “CRAZY SHIRTS” you must go there! They are about $28 bucks but they are so soft and comfy, have unique and some funny designs and sayings. They are pre shrunk. If you buy 10 you get 1 free so make sure you get a card if you plan to get a bunch of them. (Dah! I was only 3 shirts away but you can use them on the mainland like Las Vegas. But, Hawaii has t-shirts just for Hawaii as you probably know) Man, your going to have a GREAT TIME!!! I have more to tell but I would have questions for you that might help steer you in more what you would like to do. You may or may not know this but do not for any reason carry anything liquid or gel on a carry on or held in your hand. I can tell you how many people purchased sun tan lotion just to have it taken away. Or the guy who just purchased a large container of alcohol as a souvenir and they took that away. Secure that stuff in your checked in luggage. If you have more questions on places to eat, more tours to go on like to Pearl Harbor (GO TO THE EARLIEST ONE!!!) or you be stuck in a very, very, very long line. And if we had to do that tour again we would have drove ourselves since they had some mix up and forgot to pick up at a couple different hotels (leaving poor stranded tourists) and calls had to be made and 2 hours later for someone to pick us up. (I can tell you later the name of the company but I would have to ask the sleeping husband. 😉 There is so much to do and see so you have more to do than time. Lots of tour things average 100 bucks. Yes their is surf lessons (we ran out of time) I wanted to take from some well known local firemen (who better to know safety and for a rescue?) I think they were called Fire Hawaii but again, I need to ask my hubby. He the one that found it and wanted to have the lessons. (I can get you the website from him too) I suggest get a rental vehical AND RENT the GPS thing. You just stand there and look, it quite beautiful and you don stick around long. (Some people think it a big deal to go to as you can tell by all the Japanese tourists). Again, depends on what your interested in. (Go to the bathroom before you get there, no restrooms there) 😉
Another tedious tactic.
Yeah, this will keep ’em reading.
Paul Craig Roberts has the temerity to write this:
“It took some doing to obscure the facts and to present the US as a rival to China in manufacturing prowess. How did it happen?
The fault might lie in the way statistical information is collected and presented. Apple, for example, is a US corporation. It reports its worldwide earnings to the IRS. Its manufacturing is counted as US manufacturing as it is a US corporation. However, Apple doesn’t produce a single computer in the US. They are produced in China. The employment that Apple reports is in China. The Chinese are employed by an American company, but they are not Americans. The Chinese incomes that Apple provides do not support the American consumer market or provide the tax base for cities and states. The Chinese incomes do not provide ladders of upward mobility or careers for Americans.
The wages Apple pays are in China. The consumer incomes and GDP that Apple generates are in China. When Apple’s computers come back to America to be sold they come in as imports. But Apple’s manufacturing and employment are reported as the output and employment of an American company.” -PCR
I believe that he’s implying that we’ve been deceived (lies; damned lies; and statistics). That couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Are people being paid to lie to us, on purpose? (Why, it’s too horrifying a concept to entertain!)
Spidey,
I suggest you go to the bathroom before cutting, pasting, and posting your next crap-tacular.
Methodology as follows:
Shit in your hat and wear it.
We must ask,
Has PCR become yet another of a dreaded cadre of heretics, assaulting the sacred temple of economic legerdemain, dispelling smoke and shattering mirrors?
“Nothing to say about a 34.8% increase in housing starts over the last twelve months?”
————————————————–
If you want to be a builder, you have to keep building. Oh, and contributing to political campaigns.
————————————————–
Study Warns of Vast Increase in Market for Distressed Commercial Real Estate during 2012 and into 2013
http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/Study-Warns-of-Vast-Increase-in-Market-for-3927610.php
Since this week’s battle cry is
HERETICS UNITE!!
I’m going to re-post the Al Jazeera link. This is enough to make anyone cry and is way more important than the stupid blog-blocking bullshit.
Pakistani Taliban’s indoctrinated child bombers
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121014102539659862.html
‘ Why state an opinion when asoka..always has the repeated, repetitive final word for himself on every possible question.’
And I will add, asoka ‘goes contrarian’ just to aggravate posters.
Since he has done this countless times, and shows no signs of tiring, he wears people out.
After all, this is a peak oil blog but he wants to contradict facts, time and again.
My lord here we fucking go again.
OK Assoka as a great believer in government supplied statistics you might want to look at these from the United States Census Bureau showing housing starts.
We know that for the resident mouthpiece for perspectives and policies for the top 1% perceptions and cognition will necessarily be filtered.
So this is really more for others who have an interest in maybe understanding where things are at.
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/startsan.pdf
This chart shows New Privately Owned Housing Units Started by year from 1959 to 2011. Look at the column on the left titled “Total. That’s the total by year.
For most of us who aren’t similarly cognitively affected the numbers’ precipitous declines since 2007 ought to be self explanatory and to most of us pretty horrifying.
If you can bother to calculate an average number of housing starts per year for the whole of 1959 to 2011 you get a figure of 1.480 million. For the period 1959 to 2007 (the year just before the financial crisis) you get a figure of 1.547 million. The average for the years 2008 to 2011 is 664 thousand.
Here’s more: population of the USA from wiki who say they got it from the US Census Bureau. I added the related housing starts for the year and calculated the housing starts per million of population:
in 1960: pop = 179 million. 1960 housing starts? 1.252 million. housing starts per million of population: 6994
in 1970: 203 million. 1970 housing starts? 1.434 million. housing starts per million of population: 7062
in 1980: 227 million. 1980 housing starts? 1.292 million. housing starts per million of population: 5693
in 1990: 249 million. 1990 housing starts? 1.192 million. housing starts per million of population: 4789
in 2000: 281 million. 2000 housing starts? 1.569 million. housing starts per million of population: 5583
in 2010: 309 million. 2010 housing starts? 587 thousand. housing starts per million of population: 1899
in 2011: 311 million give or take. 2011 housing starts? 609 thousand. housing starts per million of population: 1958
current population of the USA per the US Census Bureau 314.6 million. So what are the projected housing starts for 2012. Feel free to do the math. But let’s say it’s 872,000 as assoka says. Housing starts per million population: 2768. Compare that number to 6994 for the year 1960 and so on. You catch my drift.
If anyone would like to check my arithmetic feel free.
Those of us with an interest in seeing what’s really happening (as opposed to being blue skies promoters of elite interests) will know certain FACTS that underpin these housing stats.
Like the fact that the federal funds rate is effectively negative, like the fact that the fed is artificially suppressing interest rates (to be fair, aided by panicked megabuck investors that crowded into US govt issued debt), like the fact that the fed is debasing the currency and has been since the 1990s, like the fact that purchasing power has been drained from the US middle class through offshoring of jobs.
That’s just for starters. Do you want other facts? Because there are others. Like how about the fact of trillion dollar a year federal deficits? Or like the fact that the Chinese have taken a pass on buying US govt debt? How about the fact of the 16 trillion dollar accumulated federal debt?
Now, for most people these are facts that bear some serious scrutiny. Because these are facts that these houses are built on. Want more? Can you say “bond bubble”? But don’t say it too loudly. Bubbles have a nasty habit of bursting.
And there are still other facts. Like the fact that presidential contenders are talking about fantasyland tax cuts in combination with magical tax loophole closings. And the fact that such presidential contenders have a decent chance of winning. Now that’s one scary fact.
After all, this is a peak oil blog but he wants to contradict facts, time and again.
Mornin’ anti soak. Hope all is well with you.
I have posted more on peak oil than anyone on CFN.
2007: production was flat and prices were surging towards an all-time high of $147 per barrel
2012: production has risen by 2.7 million barrels per day to 93 mb/d and prices have recently slumped to around $100 a barrel.
Peak oil, anyone?
Actually, today’s prices are under $100.
NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (UPI) — Crude oil prices eased back Thursday morning, slipping to less than $91 per barrel after stockpiles rose in the week ending Friday.
Crude oil inventory rose by 2.9 million barrels in the week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Stocks reached 369.2 million barrels and are higher than the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
OK Assoka as a great believer in government supplied statistics you might want to look at these from the United States Census Bureau showing housing starts.
============
Rhino, you are citing old data. I am citing 2012 data.
And I am not citing only government statistics. I cite private sector data. Specifically I was citing data released yesterday.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index increased to 41 this month, the highest since June 2006 and the sixth-straight gain, figures showed yesterday.
That is not government data.
You are mistaken and you are using obsolete data.
Hello Anti and thanks for coming out to play again today.
I do weary of having to speak so loudly to those of you who are so very hard of hearing but…
Here is the reality, yet again, anti soak:
There are very strong indicators that the world is actually getting better for the majority of humanity–fewer wars, lower crime rates, incredible advances in communication, a dramatic democratization of information that promises to catalyze social transformation on a global scale… and the list goes on. Not to mention the steady rise of integral consciousness all across the planet, bringing us ever-closer to a cultural “tipping point”, in much the same way we saw with rational modernism during the European Renaissance, and postmodern pluralism in the 1960’s. This “tipping point” will allow us to find and enact integral solutions for our 21st century problems, with the measure of complexity, compassion, and consciousness that they demand. Needless to say, this is very good news.
No meditation necessary, that’s whats good about being your own dog I already know who I am.
The Communists I’ve met are passionate about their beliefs yes, but I reserve judgment concerning their tolerance of other peoples to individual cases. Some Communists are deep into imitation, the great human game and affliction. They have merely found a different place to get their corn pone that’s all. Others are the most patriotic of citizens who have arrived where they are from deep reflection and concern about society and the issues we face. If you want to know if violence draws people together look into your own heart and you will find the answer there. All the human race is inside you. Communists being people can be expected to act like people too.
All anarchists are peaceful but not all people called anarchists are anarchists.
Concerning libertarians there are two kinds. One I have been told is common in Europe the other is an American creation. Both demand that individuals be free, that individual rights be respected. The similarity stops there and the European type outshines the American type. It is based on a deep respect for reality whereas the American version is a crude poorly thought out chimera having little else in common. I refuse identification with the poorly thought out version.
So you admit many of those wearing black and scarfs to hide their identity are really just a cult of Communists?
Individual cases? Communism by definition means leveling and the appropriation of other’s wealth. Libertarianism by definition means the opposite. It’s clear then where true anarchists belong is it not?
I agree with your assesment of bad libertarians. Mature individuals realize that they must regulate their activities to live together in Society. And that means public goods as well as public space.
“Actually, today’s prices are under $100.”
Uh-huh. Should have checked first. You must go to Market Watch too. One of the effects of all of this great economic news is demand destruction.
“Oil declines as data fail to offer demand catalyst”
Thats a headline from today’s Market Watch web site.
OK. You can go back to talking about “integral consciousness” now. Keep that post count up!
You’re winning, Assoka, you’re winning…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pipTwjwrQYQ
Just heard: massive cultural nostalgia. On both coasts students doing duck and cover lead by big sis Janet Napolitano. The more things change, (like being lead by lesbians), the more we need continuity. Nothing has changed – we’re all still Americans even though our skin is no longer White, we no think the Whites who founded America were evil, and we don’t believe in the Constitution. But we’re still Americans, see? We’re doing duck and cover.
What’s the rationale? We are the Earthquake generation. Perhaps they intend to use Tesla Technology to shake things up…
Mitt Romney: Draft Dodgin’ Chickenhawk?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/10/09/mitt-the-strange-case-of-the-secret-vietnam-years/
Vote for Virgil Goode – the gent from Bear Creek.
I’ll vote for Johnny B. Goode
The country boy from deep down in Luzianna
(close to New Orleenz)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM
You’re winning, Assoka, you’re winning…
============
But not by myself. It takes two to tango and I thank you for playing.
I knew it was two.
Now we have at least three Asokas:
Me: Asoka..
Imposters: Asoka_ and Asoka,,
Imitation is a form of flattery.
Demand destruction is what we want. Demand destruction is good news. We need a hell of a lot more demand destruction in the coming energy descent, in the Long Emergency energy contraction. Demand destruction is desirable because fossil fuels are a finite resource. Thanks for sharing more good news.
Mitt and all his five sons avoided military service.
You can go back to talking about “integral consciousness” now.
============
That wasn’t me. That was my imposter: Asoka,,
But, yeah, integral consciousness is a good idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfGYSHy1jQs
Oh, I get it. You are opening accounts with a name similar to mine, just like Asoka’s little helper.
I think you have a valid point. Your post is right on. One statistic does not a trend make. Let’s all hold our judgments until 3 rounds of statistics. Then we’ll see if housing is rebounding.
Peak oil, anyone?
In April 2008, Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, predicted a barrel of oil would cost $225 by 2012. With oil then at $118, it was a controversial call. These days, it’s trading under $95 a barrel. So not only was Rubin off by a huge margin, he got the direction wrong.
In 2009, Rubin famously quit CIBC to publish his first book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. It was a No. 1 bestseller and won the National Business Book Award. Rubin argued peak oil supply and rising prices would push up transportation costs and slam the brakes on globalization. Say goodbye to New Zealand lamb in Canadian fridges. Air travel would also become prohibitively expensive. We’d drive less, shop closer to home and generally live in a smaller world.
You can still get New Zealand lamb, of course, as well as cheap vacation deals in Mexico. But Rubin is undeterred. The End of Growth, his new book, continues his argument that oil is the single most important factor guiding global economic progress, or lack thereof. Rubin lost his prediction, but for pop experts like Rubin and JHK, being right isn’t nearly as important as getting noticed. Create a suitably grim future and you are guaranteed to attract plenty of media attention.
Rubin has the unenviable task of flogging a book in the very year his oil price forecast has been proven dead wrong. The solution? In practised pop-expert fashion, he has simply recast failure as a success. “I made a forecast of oil at $200 based on what the price would be if the economy continued to grow,” he explained in a recent interview. Now, he claims his end-of-growth scenario means the world will find it impossible to keep going like it did in the early 2000s, which will henceforth keep oil prices down. “We’ll never see $200 prices, not because oil has become abundant, but because the world will never grow at a pace that can justify that,” he says. Point proven. Sorta.
He’s also taken some liberties with his trademark prediction. The 2008 call on oil referred specifically to West Texas Crude, the North American benchmark that’s currently at $85. But when Rubin talks about oil today, he uses Brent, the European price that’s around $100. He prefers the bigger number for an obvious reason.
It seems Rubin has no more idea where it’s headed than anyone else.
Peak oil, anyone?
You know what peak oil means…
Peak valium
Mostly those wearing black and scarfs to hide their identity are a cult of assholes and some of them wear a false flag. It all depends on the situation.
The 34.8% increase is comprised of twelve rounds of statistics. It an annual figure, not a one-month outlier.
Funny how the ride on the bumpy plateau gets misunderstood and by devious means confusion is then amplified.
If North American benchmark is at $85 (I’m not checking) and unemployment has not significantly decreased since 2008 that means we are in a recession or depression or some kind of partially peak oil induced deep doo-doo. Somebody is not coming around the dog park to clean up.
Do you believe in Magic? Maybe too Much?
What’s this I see. A new book !!!!!
Woof Woof
Well I’ve been perusing thru this thread.
It looks like all Asoka, all the time!
Its the Asoka show sure enough.
–WSP7
Are we going to walk along clogged trash filled streets through a desert of mouldering skyscrapers? Send me a copy and I’ll write a review.
I am not Asoka..
Peak natural gas, anyone?
The price of natural gas has now dropped below $2 per thousand cubic feet, the lowest in a decade.
Demand destruction? I don’t think so.
Due to increased population we have increased demand. As finite fossil fuels are expended and supply decreases, aren’t prices supposed to go up?
Peak natural gas, anyone?
Oh, so you missed the posts by K-dog, anti, Radu, beantown, rhino, xhalor, etc.
You got as much brass as Romney.
The bridge is a little over a mile long. Once you cross the bridge you are in Seattle. So you are saying Mercer Island is not a suburb, even though it is one mile from Seattle. Administratively you are correct. But by any common definition of suburb, Mercer Island is a suburb. Don’t be a bad dog.
Peak coal, anyone?
European thermal coal prices in Amsterdam are down by around 20% so far this year, while South African prices are down about the same. Australian prices are down some 22% so far this year while Indonesian and Chinese prices are down 25%.
World population increases, supply (which is finite) decreases, and the prices go down.
Peak coal, anyone?
Actually that was you. The poster is copying and pasting your EXACT words from five or six weeks ago. You write that drivel and then don’t even remember… Alzheimer’s syndrome anyone???
It’s not flattery Soak, you’re being spoofed and made fun of – not a hard thing to do.
I can’t wait until we hit peak Assoka.
It’s actually quite sad. What I mean is, would you be here all the time if you had an active social life? This blog IS his social life; very, very sad.
And he lives in a mud hut on top of that…
Solar energy, anyone?
The plummeting prices for solar panels are good news for installers and solar power plant developers – and ultimately consumers.
The cost of sunshine has remained steady: IT’S FREE!
Price of oil: down.
Price of natural gas: down.
Price of coal: down.
Price of solar panels: down.
Peak oil, anyone?
A 2012 report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggested that oil prices can be correlated with a reduction of oil supply.
Oil prices have gone down from 2007 to 2012. Does that mean supplies have gone up?
Sorry, Asoka, but you yourself, in your post, stated there was a 34.8% increase in housing starts this September as compared to last September. That’s a one month figure. If housing does continue to improve, THEN the figure won’t be an outlier. It WILL be considered to be an outlier if next month housing starts decrease or remain flat, month-to-month October.
Peak oil, anyone?
Recent (Evans and Fisher, 2011) economic literature shows that, in the past 25 years, oil shocks have had little impact on core inflation and that headline inflation tends to return to low levels. Blanchard and Galí (2010) also find little evidence of the second-round effect of oil price increases. They conclude that, since the mid-1980s, oil price shocks have had little effect on nominal wages, limiting the overall inflationary effects in the United States.
The truth is the price of oil is pretty much irrelevant to wages and inflation.
SOURCES:
Evans, Charles, and Jonas Fisher. 2011. “What Are the Implications of Rising Commodity Prices for Inflation and Monetary Policy?” Chicago Fed Letter 286 (May).
Blanchard, Olivier, and Jordi Galí. 2010. “The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Price Shocks: Why Are the 2000s So Different from the 1970s?” In International Dimensions of Monetary Policy, eds. J. Galí and M. Gertler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 373–421.
a 34.8% increase in housing starts this September as compared to last September.
=============
If you count the number of months between last September and this September, I think it comes to twelve months.
Seems to me this is an argument against electing this Mormon president wannabe not one for it. Individual cases may differ but in this situation the poverty of ideas represented can’t be overstated. The timidity and opposition to him is a disgrace to our heritage.
True or not never should things be ‘made bad’ so they will ‘get better’ later. The height of hubris this behavior leads to very bad ends.
I said I’d get back to it and I did.
✔ K-Dog the write in candidate.
Hey, ju all see this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/18/greece-protests-general-strike-austerity
Those Greeks know how to riot. I think if protestors in the states tried this, they’d probably get shot.
It only comes up to 11.
“The truth is the price of oil is pretty much irrelevant to wages and inflation.”
There is no way you can make such a broad and definitive statement on this issue, even with supporting literature. The subject is far too complex with too many feedback loops, unknowns, etc.
Though I will checkout your links. I just don’t buy this for a minute.
“It’s actually quite sad.”
What’s sad is that as of late, this poster goes on and on until Sunday when IT chastises the other posters for not reaching 1000 posts for the week. Is this important for some reason?
How about quality instead of quantity. I think there’s something very OCD going on here. Especially when IT talks about “defeating” other posters as if this blog were some kind of competitive debate.
I really do wonder about the possibility of this poster creating “dummy” (how apropos) accounts and carrying on conversations with ITself. It calls into question the veracity of this space.
Lots of people have come and gone. Never seen your handle before….show me papers.
Beantown asked for three rounds of statistics and that is what I am going to give him in the next post.
My counter-argument is that there is no way that rising oil prices cannot strongly affect the price of commodities and manufactured goods. These are both transported primarily using oil-powered vehicles, including trans-oceanic ships and cargo trucks. When the price of oil goes up, the cost of transportation also increases. The transportation companies will then pass these extra costs along to their clients, who in turn will raise the prices of the goods for consumers and manufacturers. This chain of economic consequences is so simple that even a semi-intelligent child could follow it.
The most glaringly obvious example is the increase in the cost of basic foods like corn and wheat over the last decade, which is directly tied to the rising price of oil. Since modern agriculture uses oil at every level from production to distribution and packaging, the costs of these goods will be closely linked it.
Or am I missing something more subtle here?
A reason you may be right is that the people there are far more familiar with protest unlike here in America. Mericans know how to shop n party n that’s bout it.
When things get bad enough to draw that kind of crowd here it will be something new to all concerned. Something not seen for a long time here. A less than professional response is highly likely with extremely professional tactics brought to bear.
Do you think that footage will be making any of our news?
Beantown, you said we should wait until we have three rounds to statistics. We don’t have to wait. We have three rounds now, and here they are:
From 2011 to 2012:
+18.6% .. July to July
+30.5% .. Aug. to Aug.
+34.8% .. Sept. to Sept.
In other words, for the entire last twelve months housing starts have increased over what they were twelve months ago. Pick any damn month you want! We have twelve rounds of statistics.
No way in hell is XXX5 right about being in an economic depression. The data do not support that contention.
“Oil prices have gone down from 2007 to 2012. Does that mean supplies have gone up?”
The price of oil declined dramatically in 2008 due to an economic collapse that decreased demand for oil. It has risen steadily since then.
And oil supplies have gone up, slightly, mostly due to new non-traditional supplies coming online like tar sands and deep water rigs.
nope
Behavior consistent with the bumpy plateau.
Or am I missing something more subtle here?
=============
Um, yeah. You are projecting into the future as if “the American way of life” is going to continue unabated, as if there is going to exist an equal demand for goods as we have in the present.
We are dealing with finite resources. Eventually we are going to have to contract (consume less goods, transport fewer goods, produce fewer goods, build smaller houses, use more public transportation or walk more) and with less demand for fossil fuel there will be little inflation from higher energy prices. Our current lifestyle is not sustainable, but inflation is not inevitable either.
There has been an exploration bonanza lately, with oil companies responding to the looming supply decline, especially since their now older fields cannot be counted on to produce at consistent levels. So more supply has come online from various sources.
I’m not sure how you can extrapolate this increase in supply into the future though, anymore than one could make an accurate prediction in 2001 where the price would be in 2012 or what the supplies would be. There are too many possible Black Swan type events, plus the oil industry is not a passive player and are stepping up their game with massive exploration campaigns.
In the long term, say 100 years from now, the oil is for all intents and purposes depleted and gone, as the earth is fairly well explored for petroleum. This is a blink of the eye in geological terms, but for us hyper-humans, it might as well be 1 million years from now as far as its impact on our psyche and current thinking.
I agree that trying to predict the short (even mid) term oil supply numbers and price is generally a fools game. There are too many unknowns.
But to think blithely that the trend can continue indefinitely into the future is equally naive.
Most certainly oil supply will obey the laws of physics and resource depletion, but the timescale is, as you said, still a bit hazy. We’ll only be able to pin it down after the fact.
Thanks! I was searching for that term, as I’d heard it before. Some analyses says that the cost of oil will not rise linearly but will fluctuate due to cycles of contraction and expansion. I wonder if there’s a definitive source on this topic someplace.
oil supplies have gone up, slightly, mostly due to new non-traditional supplies coming online like tar sands and deep water rigs
================
And increased supply means less imports. The share of net oil imports peaked at 60% in 2005, fell to 57% in 2008 when the real price of oil peaked, and dropped further to 43% by May 2012. It has been a steady decline from 2005 to 2012.
Thanks! I was searching for that term, as I’d heard it before. Some analyses says that the cost of oil will not rise linearly but will fluctuate due to cycles of contraction and expansion. I wonder if there’s a definitive source on this topic someplace.
Behavior consistent with the bumpy plateau.
==================
No bumpy plateau in the decline of oil imports. The share of net oil imports peaked at 60% in 2005, fell to 57% in 2008 when the real price of oil peaked, and dropped further to 43% by May 2012. It has been a steady decline from 2005 to 2012.
What point are you trying to make, soka?
There has been a mini-revolution within the oil industry which is usually called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_oil_recovery
This has allowed dormant fields to come back to life, and it has increased the overall extraction percentage is possible from older fields.
So, coupled with new supplies in offshore and tar sands, the increase in domestic supply is easily explained. The oil industry is not a passive player in this game. It is reactive and sensitive to the inherent trajectory of resource depletion globally and in individual fields.
What I’m not sure about is what exact point you’re trying to argue, soka? The current trends in the US have reversed some earlier predictions about declien of supply.
But that is incredibly short-sited and myopic to only look at US production.
Many of the major industrial players throughout the world, such as Japan and most of Europe, have, for most intents and purposes, NO domestic oil supplies they can exploit. I don’t possibly see how you can wear such rose-colored glasses about the overall situation when this is the case.
Furthermore, oil usage is very one-sided towards developed nations. Most of the rest of the world you could consider oil (or energy) starved. What about them? Or are you only concerned about first worlders and their continued standard of living in your glib analysis of this complex topic?
Good post. Prolly best I’ve read on this week’s thread…
Regarding the riots.
Turk’s Riots
Europe does not have the ability thankfully for a military option right now. Unfortunately we think we do and to prevent austerity reactions from becoming as bad as in Greece and Spain our leaders if they are cowards they have shown themselves to be in the past will choose war to keep the game going a little while longer.
Zombie Capitalism
Damn that’s a good job.
He’s here to argue, for all intents and purposes. You’re trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone who doesn’t want one. Best to ignore him IMHO.
BR
You may have hit the nail on the head with labeling said behavior as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That fits remarkably well. As for my papers, well,you live on the Left Coast, right? Come on by for a beer sometime.
BR
There are too many unknowns.
But to think blithely that the trend can continue indefinitely into the future is equally naive.
….
There are too many possible Black Swan type events
….
What I’m not sure about is what exact point you’re trying to argue, soka?
================
OK, Turk, you brought up Black Swans. Are you aware that Taleb also speaks of positive Black Swans?
Given what you say is true (and I do believe so) that “there are too many unknowns,” and given that Taleb speaks of positive Black Swans, the point I am trying to argue is that pessimism about the future is not justified. There are too many unknowns.
Yet on CFN I am labeled as cornucopian because I dare to be intellectually honest enough to admit the future might be BETTER than anyone imagines. Yet all anyone here will say is that things will only get WORSE.
So why is it that anything positive presented on CFN is attacked? Why is data that might indicate a different future, other than collapse, is met with claims of “those are government statistics” or “you are cherry picking”?
Given that we are all uncertain of what the future holds, and given the fact that positive Black Swans are possible, it is not intellectually honest to maintain 100% of the time that only tragedy awaits us, as many on CFN do.
That is my point.
Your pop psychologizing, besides being ad hominem, is just plain stupid. If you want to publicly demonstrate your stupidity, that is fine with me, but at least be aware of what you are doing. It is obvious to me that you have nothing of substance to contribute here, except to further the clusterfuck.
Best to ignore him IMHO.
==============
How adult of you.
And I support you in that decision.
“Your pop psychologizing, besides being ad hominem….”
-the resident impediment, to BR-
Is an ACCURATE attack still an ad hominem??
RI certainly manifests many observable characteristics of an OCD personality, doesn’t he?
=====================
Now, mind you, I don’t pretend that I do not have my own OCD manifestations. For example, I continue to deal with RI, who would be fine here – even an asset to the place – if he would just post less.
“So why is it that anything positive presented on CFN is attacked?” -ri-
ummm – because it is a doomer website?
With a doomer host, JHK?
And it’s frequented by readers and posters who have an interest in shtf scenarios???
Could that be why, ri??
(i’m a poet and know it!)
One can go to 90% of the US sponsored internet and find NOTHING but the MSM sponsored meme of bright skies forever.
You mention Peak Oil on any of these websites and people don’t even know WHAT you are talking about!
Please let us enjoy the doom, here, a…
It really is a scarce commodity out in the world at large.
Please. post. less.
Manifest your ocd somewhere else.
Yes, I checked the DSM IV TR for OCD, and I qualify:
This is what Banana Republican said and I didn’t believe him. He must be a mental health professional. There it is: the OCD diagnosis is confirmed. Please be kind to me: I have a disability.
Black? A neatly trimmed veil? Somber tones, suitable for blending into the late October days and evenings? What is fashionably suitable to wear during the death of a once great blog?
Cash is gone. Lewis left. Wagelaborer is gone. L.B. comes, sometimes. “E” is disappearing. “Q” is long gone. San Jose Mom is fading into the woodwork. Likewise, Grouchy, and so many others. And what are we left with? Nothing but the threadbare, off-the-rack, discounted business suit from Penny’s, hanging from a closet long since being relegated to the cellar.
And yet one last RI remains. Here in time to omit much laughter over the ashes of the fire that once burned here. Quite ironic.
Please let us enjoy the doom, here, a…
===============
Your plaintiff cry is touching, S4B.
But much of what passes for doom on CFN is not reality-based. The predictions are often just suppressed wishes for the worst. And they are often based in writings of similar folks who fail at prediction, like XXX5 citing Nouriel Roubini. Let me give you a couple of examples.
In April 2009, Roubini predicted that the USA economy would shrink in the second half of the year and that it would manage to grow only 0.5 to 1 percent in 2010. People like XXX5 or JHK will grab something like that and run with it, even though it is not reality-based. So what really happened?
Despite a lot of headwinds, the economy managed to expand through all six quarters at an average annual rate of about 2.5 percent. But that doesn’t get publicized on CFN. What gets publicized is the scary, fear mongering prediction.
Another example: A few months later, in 2009, Roubini suggested that the unemployment rate would soon hit 10 percent and then peak at 11 percent in 2010. CFN loved it! Such great gloom! Unemployment did indeed hit 10 percent in October 2009 but has been lower in every month since. That doesn’t deter someone like XXX5 from still trumpeting unemployment, or someone like Rhino et al. from distrusting any government statistics or others from distrusting MSM.
If I suffer from OCD, it is in the service of treating many on CFN who suffer from paranoia and psychological depression (see I can pop-psycholanalyze, too!)
Maybe the new book will help.
And yet one last RI remains. Here in time to omit much laughter over the ashes of the fire that once burned here. Quite ironic.
===============
Beautiful, MM! Yes, I will dance and laugh on the ashes of pessimism and paranoia… while the CFN folk are hunkered down in their bunkers, heavily armed, with their dried foodstuffs in the basement, fingering their stashes of precious metals, waiting for the hungry armed gangs of coloreds to attack them. Oy vey!
Alrighty then! Back to the matter at hand, namely, a gathering of heretics and other assorted malcontents and undesirables…
http://www.nolanchart.com/article9907-thirdparty-presidential-debate-october-23-2012.html
But-but-but Larry KING?? Puhhh-leeze! Is he gonna ask ’em what weight Depends they prefer while listening to his show on the car radio? “Hello, East Bumfuck!”
So, O-Bomney ain’t gonna show due to contractual stipulations. Sounds about right for a two-headed corporate stooge.
How does Ob a ma keep so thin and trim?
It can’t be his diet since he must be eating the same food as Mi,ch ,elle who’s got thunder thighs?
Most bl, ack people are obese….
Orlov once said that the hyper-complexity will create opportunities for tech-savvy lunatics to make mischief.
Orlov foresees the prospect of a computer-savvy, socially-dysfunctional hobo living under a bridge somewhere using his computer and the Internet to cause a nu..clear mel td o wn.
I believe that everything will work out ok in the end with humans, including Americans. So why am I here?
I’m here because no one can make sense of tea leaves. No one, despite what parapsychologists may opine, has the ability to see into the future. Therefore, it is one possibility among many others that we all go down the tubes. A prudent person plans for all the eventualities; he or she keeps all of their options open.
I am here to learn more, to maximize my chances and those I love of survival in the event TSHTF.
We may well run out of oil, we may run out of energy, food, breathable air, potable water and our own freedom. But we also may find or create new energy resouces, we may be able to desalinize ocean water efficiently, reduce air and environmental pollution, create new ways to grow food, and throw out dishonest and corrupt politicians. Nature will resolve for us all the other problems we don’t ourselves, like overpopulation.
I understand the bent of most of the CFN posters. I learn from them. But if there are CFN dissenters, I think CFNers should not castigate them and discard their viewpoints as worthless out of hand, but rather reflect on what they are saying, and see if there’s any truth to their comments.
My observations on CFN show me that many posters here make offhand generalizations without giving evidence. Those are then opinions. Opinions are ok, but the makers of those opinions ought to be prepared to be called on them.
what really ruins this blog is that, like children who refuse to listen to the advice that picking at a scab is a bad idea, everyone wants to play one-upmanship and rise to the bait (debate) with these trolls.
you aren’t changing anyone’s mind. someone who has the beliefs that are espoused here do so largely without reference to facts and statistics, and will merely use those things to back up their inwardly formed, preconceived notion.
that you spend half of the comments every week arguing with the same fools is what really drives people away, instead of doing what rational adults to do children who throw temper tantrums: ignore them until they cease acting a fool and behave themselves better. in the case of internet trolls, they only behave better long enough to pretend at penance mea-culpas to get back into everyone’s good graces so that they can more surreptitiously sneak in whatever ideology they are shilling for this week. in better hands, this pattern of behavior is called psycho- or sociopathy.
Couple of theories –
(and MyrtleMay, good to see you again, and thanks for prompting this post from me.)
Regarding the slow disappearance of most of our good, thinking, posters AND their failure to be replaced by new blood.
You’ve heard the “broken window” theory, right.
It says that a single broken window, left unrepaired, or a single gang grafitti, not painted over – will lead to a steady decline in the affected neighborhood – – because of the perception that something is amiss.
Well, so it is with this website. Our “broken windows/gang grafitti” are threefold, and in order of importance:
1. chinese “spam,” 8m/spiderman
2. screenname bannings
3. The Resident Impediment (aka..asoka)
This place has suffered along due to RI for almost as long as there has been a comment thread. So, apparently it could survive one “broken window.”
But the chinese spam gives the place a truly unkempt and undesirable look. What new poster wants to scroll thru that sh*t??
And the screenname bannings make some of the best and most sensitive posters BELIEVE that they are not wanted, by JHK personally.
Put 1,2,3 together and you have the death of a once-great comment thread. I doubt it will come back as long as 1,2,and 3 remain in effect.
=====================
And bill of Boston – I actually agree with you that Wage and Hancock *probably* were not banned for the specific ideas they were posting.
But they BELIEVE they were, pretty much.
Wage was a great conspiracy theorist, and JHK dislikes conspiracy talk.
Hancock believed that some of the drivers of TPTB have such a definite “Semitic?” look, that there is probably something to some of the talk of THAT conspiracy.
The rationale for banning those two posters, in particular and whether by design or electronic glitch, didn’t matter.
What mattered was what they believed –
about that rationale.
Anyway – they are gone.
And probably 15 other great thinkers along with them – maybe a whole lot more than that.
=======================
I may have something to say later* about how important cautious, even paranoid, personalities in leadership roles – should be to the functioning of a healthy society.
And how US society has marginalized the cautious for too many DECADES, now.
In other words – anyone who sees trouble ahead, JHK, ozone, wage, hancock, jimmy carter, ross perot; you name it – will be marginalized.
That doesn’t mean trouble is not ahead.
Statistically, it must be.
The US has had a great run of luck.
Nothing lasts forever.
*later
NOT.
The RI would just tell me how flatly wrong and racist I was for even suggesting that anything other than happy, peppy, positive people should even live on planet Earth.
So then no one else would bother to comment at all. bah.
Screw it.
The phrase “active social life” is one of those Americanisms that I cannot abide. The phrase and the idea behind it were dumped on us by the psychological/psychiatric mafia to make us conform.
Take a lesson from the sages of India. After a certain age, a man is not SUPPOSED to socialize as actively as when he was younger. The last stage of life is the time for him to contemplate the Big Awesome. And you know what I mean by that, don’t you?
“that you spend half of the comments every week arguing with the same fools is what really drives people away,”
-anon y’-
You need to be more specific, anon.
And then you need to show us how it’s done.
For example –
What should be goal for the upper limit of population for the US, for sustainability and quality of life – in a Post Peak Oil World?
I don’t like a lot of comments on CFN, but it really doesn’t take too much effort to scroll past them. It really says something about repliers if they answer someone they can’t stand.
Do you get unwanted e-mail, even with a spam filter? I do. If so, did you get rid of your email service? Do you ever get junk phone calls? If so, did you get rid of your phone service?
Without knowing you, I’d guess you haven’t. To me, it’s illogical and lazy to stop posting on CFN because of some posters one doesn’t like, when one accepts that they’ll live with junk email, junk mail and junk phone calls, and yet won’t even bother scrolling over the offensive posts (I’m not talking about you BTW).
Good point about Wage and Hancock. When I was unable to post for 2 or 3 weeks, I became frustrated, but I still read JHK’s weekly blog posting, and every few days I’d read the comments.
I’d suspect Wage and Hancock occasionally read the comments as well. Therefore, I bet they’ve seen other posters’ comments that state it isn’t a matter of being banned. I don’t believe they’re not posting because they FEEL like they’re being banned.
Concerning the maximum desirable US population, it would depend on what kind of society you’d find ideal: An urban society like we have now, or a farming/herding society like in the 1870’s, among others.
And the type of society you have would determine what the maximum carrying population should be.
My opinion is just a guess, but I’d say for an urban culture like we have now, 100-150 million people would be the max. For a pastoral culture, maybe 25 million or a little more.
Scroll on little doggies scroll along. Three wheels on my wagon and I’m still scrollin along…
And as the maximum planetary carrying ability for humans probably shouldn’t be much over a billion, if we don’t put in a real effort to fix the overpopulation problem, nature will fix it for us.
I’m sure you get what I meant using “active social life” as it applies to the Soake. And as for the tradition in India of renunciation in one’s later years – I hope to do that myself when the time comes.
Be well.
An active social life can be infectious.
“Scrollin’, scrollin’, scrollin’, keep those dogies scrollin’, rawhide.”
And with apologies to Frankie Laine.
Hmmm… As I recall Exhalor suggested that your behavior had a whiff, at least, of obsessive compulsion to it. I responded that his observation had the ring of truth to it. Thus I have become a pop psychologist, and a stupid one at that.
It seems that I’ve struck a nerve with you and that at some level certainly you agree, but don’t like what you see in the mirror.
It is quite obvious to me as well that you have considerably less to contribute here than you imagine. Sadly, you often post over 100 times a week.
As well you should refrain from telling us your posts have substance and are “erudite”. You really look stupid when you do that. I’m just trying to help.
Be well.
Happy trails, K-dog!
“Couple of theories”
Hardly. People (at least me) get sick of arguing with the master debator, the sock puppets, or the disinformant “6-fig-govt-stalka” plants/trolls… It just becomes tiresome.
That is not to say, we had some sort of login problem, or no longer visit – *EITHER*.
I saw the newspaper. It says in 2011 Violent Crime up by 11%.
To me, thats way up.
And in the USA almost everyone has food and housing, so what next?
Many us believe that Cash is Rhino.
Hancock told you about the Semitic part of the Conspiracy by prive email I preume? I don’t remember him doing it here. In any case, I’m glad he has grown as a person to embrace this Truth.
It is quite obvious to me as well that you have considerably less to contribute here than you imagine.
=================
I have reflected on this statement and come to the conclusion that you are correct. I have less to contribute than I imagine. Thank you for the mirror.
✔ Vote K-Dog or else.
Mormon Small Clothes
Happy birthday to you James.
From William in Herndon, Virginia
Good article about “doxxing” – the outing of trolls – and its many implications for our society. Why should we have the right to the private ballot? Shouldn’t we be completely open to to each other? And shouldn’t people who don’t believe in gay marriage be persecuted unto death by the Gay/Liberal Establishment?
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/10/18/doxxing-becoming-a-political-weapon/
Were you able to “grok” – retain, absorb, accept the fact that Jews owned slaves at twice the White rate in the Old South? Or has it been deleted by your “What’s good for the Jews” program?
Are you able to ‘grok’ that in the Old South cats and dogs used to be doused in turpentine and torched for sport when sicking dogs on pigs in the street wasn’t enough amusement when the hot summer days came?
Guantanamo Woes
David Hicks is an Australian held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay from 2001 until 2007. The psychology of the former Australia’s foreign minister in this video is a sad commentary on the human condition. Some of you are just plain mean. Ignoring that confessions obtained under torture are bullshit is just plain mean. I’m glad I’m a dog.
Guantanamera
“some sort of login problem, or no longer visit”
Hahaha! Good effort, none-the-less…
I notice more and more ‘Super Markets’ (grocery stores) are being built around here all the time. A new ‘Stop & Shop’ is going up on the old Wagner Ford site in Simsbury. This is about the 5th big store in the past 4 years. These are far, far from the Main Street food markets we had back in the day, (not that long ago), and the regular sized grocery stores where our moms did the family food shopping when we were kids. These new places are immense, and they are surrounded by seas of paved parking lots. It seems that every conceivable food product is available inside their walls, including all types of ethnic products for the dominant immigrant groups that are here (Puerto Rican & Polish, to name two) These stores provide employment for the locals, and some of the jobs are Union. As far as the actual foodstuffs that are being sold, much of it is refined, and brightly packaged. In fact, packaging, and product placement seems to be everything. But there is a lot of good, fresh local stuff being sold, too. There is much competition between all these companies, and it has to be keeping prices down. Hospitals, Massive Grocery Supermarkets, and driving around in cars, that’s the American Economy now. We are beginning to resemble a huge, disorganized, mutinous army, an army that takes immense amounts of resources and discipline to keep in the field, but whose only mission is to care for its own wounded.
–WSP7
Life takes people in different directions.
This blog has always had contentious bloggers who get into little fights, sort of like reality blogging, we all know that and yes there are those I introduced the blog to who didn’t have the stomach for it.
As for myself, I’ve been working 12 hrs days sometimes 7 days a week and that may be ending soon.
Wage myself and Q were all thrown out of the blog for a few months and Wage got busy with something else, so we really shouldn’t simply say that it’s the breakdown of civility on the blog that is the issue.
Yes, Bean you can always scroll past discussions that don’t interest you and you can always ignore those who are trying to bait you. That’s what adults do.
“we really shouldn’t simply say that it’s the breakdown of civility on the blog that is the issue.”
-bt/lbend-
Wow, BT!
Are you saying this thread was civil at one time???
I must have missed that hour. (haha!) ;0)
===================
And OK, you prompt me to think of another problem related to the “screenname bannings,” that serves to diminish the intellectual level of the thread.
You were “lbend” for a good long while, right?
You had a following, readers who knew you by that name. Someone would search you out in the torrent of BS that is this unregulated thread to read you and, maybe, post a comment to you.
As “being there,” you are brand NEW to the thread.
It would take a long time to get back to the level of “respect?” that you had before.
Time that you may not have, it appears, btw.
Same for Eleuthero changing into “xxx/whoever?”
See, I can’t even remember his new handle.
==========================
Hancock wrote me a private email a few weeks ago, saying, “I see you finally quit posting, ProgorCons. I don’t blame you, although I miss seeing your writing.” (paraphrased)
So, HC was running searches each week for my old banned handle, specifically.
I told him to look for progress4spam, now.
Until that gets banned again. ;-(
Good to see your thoughts, bt.
Take care, up there!
“We are beginning to resemble a huge, disorganized, mutinous army, an army that takes immense amounts of resources and discipline to keep in the field,”
-wsp7-
That’s a very good analogy, wsp!
And right now, there is plenty of food and fuel, and the police are only minutes away for most folks.
What on Earth is going to happen when the power goes out and the food trucks stop running.
Because I’ll guarantee you that, at that point, the police will be hours away for most folks – if they can even show up at all.
=============================
Hospitals, Massive Grocery Supermarkets, and driving around in cars, that’s the American Economy now. We are beginning to resemble a huge, disorganized, mutinous army, an army that takes immense amounts of resources and discipline to keep in the field, but whose only mission is to care for its own wounded.
–WSP7
Nicely put, M.
The psychology of previous investment (tm JHK) seems to be set in concrete now. The only contingency plans being made are for the continuation of this energy wasting leviathan. (Somebody’s making a helluva lot of lucre off of this paradigm, make no mistake.)
…And this is why I don’t hold much hope for a peaceful transition to another way of doing business. It’s almost like a steam boiler without a safety valve. My perspective on our “chances” is quite a bit more realistic than those who booked passage for a dreamy trip to Peppermint Bay on The Good Ship Lollipop. No other “lifestyles” are being considered, IN THE MAIN. The rest of us are being dragged into the black hole by sheer mass of the mob of deluded idiots who refuse to believe in the power of the exponent.
Corn-pone Nazis and their fellow travelers are going to get their shot when this crumbles; mark my words. (They’re already staking out ground in the House of Reprehensibles as we speak; just look at some of their pronouncements, idiotic though they may seem.)
Get yer magic undies cleaned and ready!
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Re: Alien Life on Mars
Postby nameta9 » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:00 pm
From:
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.it/
and
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it/
8
Oh, I had meant to comment on that giant box that they’re going to put up on the old Wagner’s site.
I know that area, and there are NO residential neighborhoods [of any appreciable size] within a reasonable walking distance of that spot. It’s completely car-centric and therefore, bordering on the insane, long term.
…Like the road construction in Southwick center. Sidewalks? Are you kidding me? Who’s to walk on them? Can you say, payoff to construction company buddies? I knew you could. (Mr. Boldyga is probably up to his neck in this boondoggle, because he’s just soooo damn proud of it!)
I know it is all good because Droney says so. Thanks for that one Ozone. Can we all feel the ‘reaper’. Fits with the season don’t you think?
Looks like somebody with a budget watched the last debate and heard Romney’s veiled threat to foist free trade agreements on South America. If he is going to do that he will need these for sure.
Stimulate the economy through government spending. The Romney and Obama plan.
The CIA needs these why? Aren’t they suppose to be spying or something like that? What do they need these for? Did somebody forget to invite them to a wedding and they got pissed off?
Wouldn’t renting a tux be cheaper?
(Cute pic of Droney in happy flight there; those missles sure look spiffy too.)
Yes, the CIA is vastly under-equipped and staffed. There’s a crying need for more black-ops, covert killin’s, and false flag projects out there in this mean ol’ world. LOOK OUT, Al Keyeduh is UNDER THE BED!!! Gum’mint thugs can help; call today!
Then there’s this fine display from your taxpayer-supported, privately contracted defenders of truth, justice, freedom, democracy, and all that other shit that’s good for you and me! Hurrah, me boys, Hurrah!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32780.htm
Drunk and stoned defenders of freedom? What’s the problem…? Relax, it’s all good.
Vlad said:
Were you able to “grok” – retain, absorb, accept the fact that Jews owned slaves at twice the White rate in the Old South? Or has it been deleted by your “What’s good for the Jews” program?
***************************************************************
It’s been consigned to the same informational black hole that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has been consigned to. Imagine that you live in YOUR country and cannot use highways that connect the settlements of ANOTHER ethnicity within YOUR country. If you can picture that, then you are accurately depicting what Israel does to the Palestinians.
If one Israeli dies by a Palestinian hand, Israel downs high-rises in downtown Beirut. We support one of the most egregious terror states in the world … Israel.
E.
What? It’s all good? This story said drunk and stoned. I see no evidence of being stoned. Was the intent of this story to give the holy erb a bad name? Those bastards.
I mean really work hard play hard, those good old boys all alone in the big city pulling down 100’ds of K a year. Probly never been so far away from home before. Whach U gonna do? It’s not like there are museums in Kabul you know. The booze looked Merican. It’s all bout stimulating the economy you know.
“This story said drunk and stoned. I see no evidence of being stoned.” K-D
Ahhh, check the video again at exactly the one minute mark. There you’ll see that the medical officer has anointed himself with an elixir of anesthesia (ketamine) via the holy plastic spike. Sweeeeet surrender to the Afghan Jeezis.
“Duuude; the dude is like, totally K-holed, dude!”
Breaking news: dumb people are too dumb to know they’re dumg – or even elect people who are smarter than themselves. Thus Democracy doesn’t work.
Take cell phones – they should have never been allowed. And if allowed, people should have refused them since they seem to cause cancer. But let’s face it, neither of these was ever a real possibility. The phones were just too convenient for people to resist and therefore far too much money to be made. The right thing was beyond our ability to effect. If it was going to be stopped, it would have had to be stopped at the highest level, the level beyond business. And there is no such level here anymore.
http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html
You gotta give’em some release – some crazy stories to tell back home. But there are no bars and the opium and hash dens would not welcome them probably. And if the went to the local boy brothels, they’d be up on charges. And are there are any Womanly Brothels? Would they welcome them? Would the officers turn the other way? So what’s a good ol boy to do but serve his self?
In any case, this confirms what the locals already thought of us. I’m sure that makes you happy.
Robert Anton Wilson said this is the drug that prepares us for space flight – and further evolution.
Hey Oz I think those sidewalks up in Southwick are from ‘Shovel Ready’ money grants from 2008. Or maybe from one of the bilion $$ transportation bills since. In Plainviille, CT, in the center of the Village (empty storefronts, no pedestrians, in fact no people) sidewalks that were put down in 2005 were ripped up last summer and new ones are being installed at this moment. They’re working down there today, in the rain. Odd thing, the project was supposed to ‘create jobs’, but in talking to an official in that town, he says all the workers are from El Selvador.
–WSP7
To K-Dog, Bean and Turk: thanks for the kind words.
Now to business:
“You are mistaken and you are using obsolete data.” – Assoka
Ha-ha-ha-ha… excuse me.
Sorry, pissed my pants laughing again. You should stick around asshole. We need a good belly-laugh once in a while.
Obsolete? Really?
I’m using numbers from your post and I’m using American census numbers.
But the data IS terribly inconvenient, isn’t it? For you, that is, and your propaganda.
This next part is for folk cognitively unimpeded by class and/or ideological imperatives:
I’ll summarize for those who got bleary eyed reading my rather lengthy post (sorry about that).
Housing starts per million population:
1960: 6,994
1970: 7,062
1980: 5,693
1990: 4,789
2000: 5,583
2010: 1,899
2011: 1,958
2012 Projected: 2,768.
Compare the projected 2012 number – 2,768 housing starts per million people – to 6,994 for the year 1960 and so on.
This is the thrust of my argument: this projected 2,768 housing starts per million people for 2012 is buttressed by the currency counterfeiting (sorry can’t think of a better word for it) going on at the Fed plus trillion buck a year govt deficits.
Now if you take away the effect of Fed action plus megabuck deficits where does the economy go?
I’ll answer that: straight down the crapper, without touching the sides.
The Fed and Congress are doing more of what got the USA and much of the world into this mess: printing too much money, incurring too much debt, letting banks run rampant, thus creating fuel for massive crises and bubbles and busts.
By doing more and more of the same fucking around they’re creating conditions for more conflagrations down the road.
Call this what you will. A depression? OK, let’s go with that.
It takes wilfull blindness to mistake what’s going on in the USA even if you don’t have numbers to look at. I don’t live in the US but I’ve been I’ve been visiting since the 1950s so I’ve seen the changes with my own eyes.
At the risk of being overly repetitive, the root cause is offshoring of productive capacity thus draining Americans of purchasing power with successive federal governments deliberately blind to this but diligently catering to elite interests.
And so the 1% and Wall Street prospered. And the rest of the population? Take a look at Main Street USA and the boarded up stores, potholes, brownfields, abandoned factories and decrepit neighborhoods. You can see what’s happening.
To Being There
In response to one of your comments last week (I think) wrt to China.
Everyone no doubt has heard about cyber-attacks emanating from Chinese servers, some of these being efforts to extract expensively developed IP.
WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203363504577187502201577054.html
Chinese implicated in hacking Nortel.
I don’t suppose anyone heard that Scotland will be holding a referendum on independence in the year 2014. What does this mean?
I think that it will mean a lot of mess if the referendum comes to a “yes” vote. The UK has been “unified” for 300 years so unravelling all that will be an immensely complex task.
What currency will Scotland use? The Euro? The UKP? It’s own newly floated notes? What does it mean for Scotland’s ability to finance govt operations? Does it have the economic capacity to fund all the various contrivances of modern statehood? What does it mean for citizenship and passports and pensions?
Maybe Scotland is too small to matter. But this could be a major, on-going pain in the ass for Britain for years down the road. What if it’s a sliver thin victory for the “no” forces? What if it’s a sliver thin victory for the “yes” side? Will there be on-going politicking after the vote by people that refuse to abide by the result?
I think it’s more relevant because if it’s a yes vote it could embolden separatist sentiment in other countries. Who and where? Like the Catalans and Basques in Spain, the Flemish in Belgium, Quebecers in Canada.
Probably others out there. What about ethnic minorities ie maybe in places like Hungary or Romania that found themselves on the wrong side of national boundaries? Will the Scotland situation be the flap of a butterfly’s wing that causes a hurricane somewhere else?
“Maybe that’s an argument for electing a Mormon president, since that peculiar branch of the church is so self-evidently childish and ridiculous that it will probably do more to defeat religious fanaticism than all the humanist dissertations ever written – or a thousand clones of Madonna Ciccone dancing in stadiums under laser beams in titanium brassieres.” It’s good to see JHK articulating what an awful lot of us are thinking, namely that a Romney victory in November could actually be a victory for the progressive voices who have been far too silent over the last four years as both of America’s political parties descent into the politics of delusion and wishful thinking.
‘m so disappointed that there was no response at all to the Al Jazeera link that I posted yesterday. Not one. Worse, the tiresome tactic of posting miles of worthless dreck immediately afterwards to segregate the post from the continuity of the weekly blog was used. So by all means, continue to believe that religious fanatics do use such indoctrination methods.
So, as a nation, let’s do the right thing. Let’s abandon our commitments. We will withdraw our military forces. All of them. No more drones. By the way, the alternatives to drones are air strikes (even messier), artillery (way, way, messier), or ground troops. A lot of ground troops. But, I digress, we are leaving so these considerations are now moot. Oh, and since ceasing the intrusion into other governments is the goal, we will be taking our money with us. Got plenty of other things at home that we can spend it on.
What a relief for the Pakistanis. They no longer have to worry about saying or writing the wrong thing while some child relative of theirs is being held hostage in a madrassa. They can now go back to worrying about what this child will do when they get their graduation bomb vest in a country with nuclear weapons and a second rate security force. Their moderate Muslims are quite capable of dealing with their internal issues.
What a relief for the Iranians. They can now go back to the peaceful development of nuclear power program without wasting their rapidly deteriorating currency on perfecting the Shahab missile system. Their moderate Muslims are quite capable of dealing with their internal issues.
What a relief for the Iraqis. With Saddam out of the way, they can finally get serious about a long overdue civil war in their artificially created country. With any luck, the Turks will also leave them alone. With any luck, the Europeans will also leave them and their oil alone. Their moderate Muslims are quite capable of dealing with their internal issues.
What a relief for the Afghanis. They will no longer have to wonder if they are being observed by the American press while they engage in the important, time-honored cultural traditions of honor raping, poppy growing, and….whatever the fuck else it is that they do in that shithole. Their moderate Muslims are quite capable of dealing with their internal issues.
And finally, what a relief for America. We will finally have the opportunity to do some things that we haven’t been able to do for a long, long time while making sure that the old money retains absolute control of finance and politics.
On a personal note, I am relieved that I will be free of all of these far-flung worries so that I can concentrate on wondering if humans will ever figure out that killing the plankton in the ocean is what they should be worrying about.
After this week’s submission, I think that JHK is probably running out of things to say. The blog appears to be a vehicle to practice his already superb mastery of English vocabulary. So I think that it’s time for me to ditch this antique computer so that I will be relieved of the temptation to return to this space to wonder what kind of manipulations are going on here.
One final thought about soldiers far away from home getting loaded on whatever was available.
Yeah, that’s probably NEVER happened before with any army during any time.
Please feel free to follow up this post with several pages of vacationing information in beautiful Kabul.
Yeah your right, missed it on the I-Phone but I’m home now. Yes K-holed for sure. There is a guy who looks just like that who owes me five bucks.
I’m not sure I understand your work – something about touching about photos? Can you (if possible) post a before and after sample?
Scotland’s separatists are multicultists so why even bother? They want to fill Scotland up with Coloreds. So how is that any different than what England is already doing?
It’s just one gang fighting another for turf. Like Mafia families or Mexican cartels or the Houses of old England fighting for the Crown. It means nothing for the people in general as they all have the same philosphy.
“Concentrate on wondering if humans will ever figure out that killing the plankton in the ocean is what they should be worrying about.”
Soylent Green is People.
Anyone care to enjoy General Flustercluck?
How does one get rid of pesky phantoms anyway?
Bless yer heart, K-dog.
He’s my most favorite-est ‘Murkin hero EVER. (Well, his doggie, Jingo follows as a close second.)
And speaking of soylence, here’s how these superior ideas get spread around to become an integral part of our Nashinall zeitgeist:
http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2011/04/language-is-a-virus-2/
(More heroic Jingo treats from Eddie Munster’s mentally/emotionally-challenged twin brother to follow, I’m sure…)
*******************
As a veteran I must stridently protest about this depiction of our spiritual leader, the honorable General Flustercluck. We shall now march to the Libyan embassy and kill the embassador! Jihad!
(shhh…it’s a front for an attack by Tea Partiers)
Well as one naive unrealistic ideologues to another at least we know what soylent means:
Soylent became a word in 1973 from the movie Soylent Green. It refers to any foodstuff of dubious nature or origin.
I met that most favorite-est ‘Murkin hero EVER. once: For real. It was 1977 and he checked into the hotel I worked at. If he was still around he’d be talking to empty chairs.
Lots of emptiness these days and not the good Buddhist kind.
Emptiness…..
Right.
I really wonder where this brain dead logic comes from? Anybody care to take a crack at it because it makes no damn sense to me.
“Romney victory in November could actually be a victory for the progressive voices”
Exactly how does putting a ‘kick me’ sign on your ass improve your day?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
Has anyone read the essay for which progress4spam (October 15, 11:17 PM) provided the link? Reading it is sort of like watching a good horror movie–it both thrills and disturbs. It’s a safe bet that at least one of America’s half-million screenwriters, confident that Hollywood will be everlasting, has already stolen certain details and worked them into a treatment. If you haven’t read it, here are a couple of quotes that might prompt you to do so:
“The commuters will be dragged out of their cars and kicked or beaten to death.”
“The enraged mobs in urban America will soon recognize that their spontaneous street riots cannot be stopped by the police, and then they will grow truly fearsome.”
The author lays out a scenario of class war and race war, twice using the phrase “tri-ethnic cities.” But he never names the ethnic groups he has in mind. Coy as a geisha.
“Probably others out there.”
There probably are. Provence might want to separate from Paris and the north. Italy, Rome to the Alps, might want to push away the leeching south. And Turkey, which waxes as Greece wanes, might want to send the Cypriot Greeks packing.
“Romney victory in November could actually be a victory for the progressive voices”
-k9, quoting george-
George may not be thinking as you are, K, because he followed your quote with the following:
“a victory for the progressive voices who have been far too silent over the last four years as both of America’s political parties descend into the politics of delusion…” -p4s, quoting george-
So George may think the dems. will repudiate the big corporations and Corprobama. Or maybe George has something else in mind. I hope he’ll post again and elaborate.
============================
However, when I saw the original George-quote you posted, K-d, I was thinking something along the lines of the following:
Whoever the next pres. is going to be, a lot of negative chickens (swans, if you prefer) are going to be coming home to roost. Romney will be out, even more than Obama – ruffling feathers and causing more sh*t on the henhouse floor from EVEN MORE roosting chickens.
IOW, and to stop the barnyard metaphor –
4 years of Romney will be SO bad, that the whole country will turn progressive and remain there forevermore.
Nice fantasy, actually.
But in 4 years, the population of the US will increase by 4 million – mostly due to immigrants and their children.
And “progressives” are famous for being pro-immigration/population growth/open borders.
So at that point we’ll be 4 million closer to our own population overshoot* and collapse – but now with open border “progressives” in charge.
I wish I could see how this would all work out without lots of death and disaster.
But, I do not.
=====================
Pink Slime is rude. It should be called Soylent Pink.
LOL. I was just about to reply calling it ‘soylent pink.’ You beat me to the punch.
As the Dragon said, it has already happened – in the future.
If you like this kind of thing, get Tom Chittum’s classic Civil War Two for the rationale. Or if you want more action, this one’s good too:
http://americannaziparty.com/rockwell/materials/articles/nightmare.php
I am not sure why our ‘leeders’ make the decisions they make. Did they make make some long term agreement with the other side? Or maybe hope to? Are they out to divide the masses? Are they out to get us? Just maybe, they are simply so stupid to believe in ideology, and we, also stupid, follow along with them hoping we will avoid the worst.
I have to ask what has gone so wrong in Scotland that they want to separate from the UK?
I hope he does come back and elaborate because if Romney wins and exploits a national catastrophe there may not be any progressives voices left to speak. Think Reichstag fire, Berlin, February 27th 1933. When Hitler came to power someone progressive German may have been thinking that this might be a good thing because now other progressive Germans will wake up too.
A deluded thought process and wishful thinking. Give an enemy the likes of Romney an edge and he will gladly take it. Then he will thank you very much, and ask for more.
When Hitler came to power some progressive German may have been thinking that this might be a good thing because now other progressive Germans will wake up too.
Dark Ages v2.0?
That’s my honest contention with Obama. He does not take a stand in any way which benefits the nation long term and moves us closer to the cliff of disaster instead of away from it.
Romney gave the same old same old bullshit ‘America is a nation of immigrants’ speech during the last debate. He wants to open the borders for all college graduates to be able to come and work in America. It was there as clear as a bell. All they need is diplomas with equal accreditation value and according to him they should be welcome.
Only the first three lines should have been blockquoted.
From:
So any Americans with unemployed college graduates…
Onward are not Romneys words but mine.
Remodeling the spare room thankfully does stimulate the economy. Trickle down in action. Globalized trickle down.
Divide and conquer for the ultra Elite – the 1% of the 1%. The Pyramid of Power is very small at the top. The ancient Assyrians, Romans, Babylonians all mixed and moved around subject peoples to weaken them and their culture. That’s what is going on. A 90% White America might be able to resist, but a multicultural mess wont do squat.
People, natural People, want to rule themselves – in other words, have some congruence between the State and the Nation. They’re not the same thing but they can be a helluva lot closer than we have now.
Just maybe, they are simply so stupid to believe in ideology, and we, also stupid, follow along with them hoping we will avoid the worst.
The ideology they believe in benefits them immensely. We follow along trusting that since it benefits them it must therefore benefit us.
This is deluded irrational thinking without basis in actual fact.
Examination of the ideology does not benefit them so they don’t. Trust prevents us from doing so so we don’t. The thought that that our trust is misplaced is too horrible to contemplate.
Have none of you learned to see the larger, long term picture that Dmitry Orlov tries teach you (those of you that have read and listened to him)? In the end, politics will matter little, if any, in a post collapse, deindustrialized world where food production and shelter will be the new priorities. As such, politics right now is a complete waste of your time and energy. There is no politicial solution. Like Walmarts, let it run its course and collapse. I used to endorse Ron Paul, not because I think he could save us from collapse (nobody can bring back cheap and abundant oil, boarded up strip malls, a long lost industrial base, or peak housing values), but many of his ideals will become reality for those who survive a post collapse, deindustrialized world. Minimal government, an end to militarism, personal responsibilty, and if a new currency should emerge other than food, water, drugs, and prostitution (I have no problem with any of the above)and personal relationships, it will have to have value and thus people’s faith in it else it will fail. The energy will not exist to continue empire building, and the energy that militarism seeks to secure will be gone. A broke nation fragmented and trying to worry about how to feed itself and provide shelter for millions of people will have much greater priorities than trying to maintain some nanny state, so…..by all means, jump on the stupidity train that will inevitably crash, jump on the USS Endless Growth Titanic which has already bottomed out and dance with the 3 piece wake as you drown like rats. Now rather than worry about your lives and our collective future, let’s talk about the usual irrevelant bullshit. It’s fine to have diversions, we all have denial to some extent, but the longer you deny, the worse reality will be. The harder you try to prop something up, the further it has to fall.
Remember, Hitler was a Socialist – just not a part of the Bankster/Marxist Cabal. A National Socialist, a German version of Eugene Debbs.
Just in case anyone hasn’t heard, Q has not been ‘thrown off’ this site. He’s just been busy promoting his up and coming grammar workshops: “Find The G-Spot With The Shape Of A Comma!”
The past has disappeared and the future won’t arrive until we get there. What we do today matters.
You bring up many good points in your post. However, those who are in control can and will change the game at any time they believe their power is threatened. Even though we are in Peak Oil, there is still plenty of it around. When it gets really critical, the government will simply cut us off from it and use what’s left for the military. They will probably use a term like ‘national security/priority’ and the population will follow since it has no other option – Can we say gas rationing during WWII? The strategic oil reserve is for the military; not for the plebes driving to wal-mart for cheeze doodles.
Today is the tomorrow you dreamt about yesterday.
Austerity is just around the corner!
It really doesn’t matter who wins the dog and pony show. The differences in the parties is social issues at most.
Obama is quieter about his allegiance to global inverted communism, but during his time the same things that happened under Clinton and W are moving in the same direction.
Check out the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) where the taxpayers will pay out huge sums to transnational companies who don’t like sovereign regulations. The congress and senate are out of the loop. All they do now is fight for their owners, the lobbyists and their oligarchy.
Same kids of trade deals, same dishonest discussion on jobs. We are on a trajectory of looting all nation states for their public assets as a way to make money for the few insiders—or untouchables.
Romney might be more draconian because his backers are.
That’s all you need to know, folks. O will do everything the Republicans want while they scream foul! That’s been the charade for the past 4 years and will continue whoever gets in.
Expect O to adopt austerity a la Simpson Bowles during the Dec break.
In the meantime I heard an interview with Jill Stein this week where she described being arrested for “disorderly conduct” near the debates at Hofstra Univ.
She was handcuffed to a chair for hours—that’s the way the alternative to the duopoly is treated in the land of the free.
In this country only the people don’t know this isn’t free. My sister dubs it Free-Dumb!
Just to outline one possible scenario, Archie the Druid walks down a blind alley to the future to pen a little fictional tale of US Military Adventurism meeting a bridge too far:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-it-could-happen-part-one-hubris.html
(Part 1 of 3 parts currently posted in weekly installments. There will be a total of 5.)
Entirely plausible really. Do we all believe that China is simply going to stand by and let their hard-won energy investments be pissed upon and stolen?
So, to consider, is the US military one failed “regime change” and true ass-kicking away from [global] irrelevancy? What happens to The Land of Duh Free when this military might can no longer be projected outward and is turned inward? Will there be enough aggregated wealth (or confidence in the scrip) to sustain the bulk of this behemoth, or will its’ former members turn to forming bands of well-armed bandits (that Orlov has so vividly outlined)?
Those who no longer believe the myth of benevolent leadership have given up wishin’ and a-hopin’ that a political solution is at hand to deny Hubris its’ onrushing Nemesis. Unfortunately, it’s a path paved in iron, forged by the machinations of amoral and powerful men, and it seems it must be walked now that it’s been laid.
P4S,
The Republicans (Nat’l Party types) like the illegal immigrant slave labor. Anything to break down the American worker to serf level.
The Dems don’t know what they stand for anymore. They used to champion unions, but the plutocracy says no.
The only people who don’t like the illegal immigration is us and the tea partiers and progressives who understand what this cancerous model is.
________
Ozone, good post. We are headed to the same spot the Soviets were in where the people understand the narrative is alot of BS!
Another beautiful day in New England! My maples are fully fully dressed in their best finery. A touch of rain yesterday for the winter crops. I know? we will not get 2 ft. of wet snow on Halloween this year. That was a freak 500 year storm. Nothing in the books like it. My apples and pear trees are still crying.
Was the USSRs ‘problem’ low birth rates, except among Muslims? [+ Chernobyl, corruption, etc]
And now Moscow is 20% Muslims, with the endless problems a ‘Militant Minority’ always bring?
Jill Stein being arrested.
Thanks for that BeingThere. I recall a documentary showing Ralph Nader trying to get into presidential debates from his last race for the presidency.
News media videoed him being upset after being harassed outside presidential debates which he was excluded from. The video made it around the country and it portrayed him as a crazy man without any context showing why he was upset in the first place.
Without media complicity neither Romney or Obama could get elected.
Out of respect for Jill I’m not saying K-Dog for president with my little check mark this time.
I get the impression that you don’t shed too many tears when some pea-brained, disease spreading, cut-throat, shit-sack of a jihadi gets blown to Allah by a drone strike.
Anyways, it will be interesting to see what happens when the USA finally withdraws and mothballs it’s military might (out of financial necessity rather than some sudden attack of moral qualms).
Did the US presence ouside its borders on balance have a dampening effect on conflicts that would otherwise have broken out? Did it suppress Soviet trouble-making? Did the world become a better place because of the USA or a worse place?
There’s a lot of people that deplored the American deployment as raw imperialism. All the while remaining steadfastly and diligently blind to Soviet imperial deployment. So you wonder whether such folk would have preferred to live under a Russian boot? Maybe they would have.
Were the deplorers being genuine or were they just posturing for their friends, maybe just trying to garner applause or maybe trying to get laid. I don’t know. Maybe all of the above.
But there isn’t an alternate Earth to test what would have happened had the US NOT deployed its forces to various parts of the globe post WW2.
So maybe the coming American military and diplomatic shrinkage will be the next best thing. We might get some idea as to what MIGHT have happened post WW2 without an international American presence.
The thing is, the world has changed. The Soviets are no longer with us. Replacing them is a much shrunken and enfeebled Russia. Not the same thing. Nuclear armed but without the goose-stepping confidence and ideological certitude. Had to sit by and watch former east European vassal states turned westward.
But we do have in the world a newly powerful and muscle flexing China flexing both its financial and its military muscle. And its cyber muscle.
The Chinese are not the Soviets so not quite the same thing either. But there are some parallels between the new China and the old USSR.
And we also have a Muslim world that seems to be violently veering towards religiosity and extremism. Good news for the new Beards in charge given that they will have a free hand to plunder at will but extremely bad news for Muslim girls and women I would think.
In due course we’ll see what the Iranians do with their Kebab nuclear bomb. And we’ll see how a nuclear armed Israel reacts.
We’ll see also how a nuclear armed and quite possibly Talibanized Pakistan conducts itself in Afghanistan but also in relation to India. And we’ll see how a nuclear armed India deals reacts.
And I think that we’ll see whether, as a lot of analysts claim, that the PTB in Iran and Pakistan etc are “rational”. Or not.
So I think we’ll get some idea in our lifetime as to whether an America active in world affairs, militarily and otherwise, was on balance a good thing or a bad thing. America haters both within and without the US will no doubt squeal with glee as America shrinks.
So while there will be much exultation in certain quarters as America bows out, I suspect that the cheering and clapping will be short-lived. Because I don’t think that what replaces the USA in the international arena will be any better and will quite likely be worse.
Rhino,
Those are some excellent questions and concerns. And there just the type of concerns that keep on feeding the beast that Eisenhower warned the nation about. And of course, you don’t mention Vietnam or other misadventures gone terribly wrong.
I have always said, that if a fighter gets in the ring too many times, he will eventually get knocked out. So battles need to be chosen very wisely and not for the purpose of financing the militaristic gravy train.
What a great lil lady. A bit skinny but I wouldn’t kick her outta bed
She says we are heading to a very bad place. Chrystia Matt and Bill understand all dogs eat.
Mr. Romney would you save the nation if you had to pay a ninety percent tax rate? A simple yes or no will do.
How about you Mr. Obama? If your answer is yes perhaps you might think to ask Mr. Romney this very question in a debate. You have one more chance.
About half way through they get into the delusions which are running the country. Chrystia admits to being a capitalist but understands the failure of banks and corporations to address social responsibilities. The plutocracy lives in a bubble which prevents them from understanding reality. Mericans suffering from extreme sad delusion is discussed.
This is a must watch show.
✔ K-Dog for president. Write me in. Let meh save civilization. WOOF WOOF
Two posts to emphasize a two part presentation.
At 51 minutes 41 seconds into the video Bill Moyers begins a separate presentation concerning the Supreme Court Citizens United Decision and its quite timely implications.
He ends his presentation with:
“The gilded age is back with a vengeance. Welcome to the plutocracy. The remains of the old USA.
Someone recently asked me if I talk to my wife after having sex. I replied “yes, when I can get to a phone”. Just testing to see if I made the hit list. My last post telling all of you Obama vs Romney fucktards that you should have learned from your parent’s mistakes by using birth control did not appear. If so, life goes on
OK, sorry…it did appear. I am close to seeing double, now time for a fattie and crash to Dark Side Of The Moon and another day picking cotton for my bosses where I work…..while my job still lasts. Sobriety sucks. Happy trails
Anti,
Understand I was referring to the lack of belief in the system when I compared the US to the former Soviet Union. The point was that neither one of the systems (communism and inverted communism) has any credibility with the people.
__________________
While at work, yesterday I listened to the Moyers show with Matt Taibbi and Chrystia Freeland. It was an excellent show that throws light on the attitude of the klepto crowd that can never get enough and think they’re the heroes of Capitalism, the “Job CrE-A-Tors” don’tcha know. That means that they are entitled to government collusion and handouts ‘cuz they’re so special.
The rest of us who paid our taxes toward Medicare and Social security all our working days?
Mere maggots, I’m afraid. That’s what happens when the education of a country goes downhill and people don’t know facts or history. That’s what happens when people need to justify their selfishness.
Let me add that in the gilded age, there were many who were philanthropists.
They say the struggling middle class gives more to causes (proportionally) than the rich today.
There were those who believed in public good. Last week I was watching PBS and they had a great show on Charles Pratt who founded Pratt Institute. It was a great show if you can catch it at another time and it throws light on the differences of our culture and values from the progressive era of the last 1800’s and now.
Let’s just say we will look a lot like Mexico when these idiots get through with us.
—-NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THAT.
Let’s just say with spoilt brats with no intellect or ability to see themselves honestly like we have today– who needed the American revolution and the best political ideas coming out of history?
Talking about the Revolution betrayed!
OH, one more thing…
Re: Moyers interview:
The owners of companies are telling their workers that must vote for Romney or else…..
In some cases they are being forced to go to the polls in a group so as to force the issue.
Did anybody tell you that your country could be a democracy but corporations are not!
That’s the way the democracy dies, my friends through the corporations who of course are people!
Is that the way they want to win this election? BY FORCE?
Really?
BTW, you can all watch this online. There’s no excuse not to see it.
We’re supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracy means rule of the mob – and it always degenerates into Dictatorship since as chaos, it is not viable.
Democracy has gotten us where we are today. And you want more of it?
As Michelle Malkin said, vote your lady smarts not your lady parts.
“The Dems don’t know what they stand for anymore. They used to champion unions, but the plutocracy says no.” -bt-
Your point is valid, bt.
Except there are few unions of any size left to champion EXCEPT the public employee unions. And since public employee pay and BENEFITS have hugely outstripped what’s available in the private sector – –
It is necessary for public employee unions to take a much “lower profile,” and their Dem. party backers along with them.
==================
Regarding immigration, NumbersUSA is putting it together – how much immigration harms US workers, especially the lower class, and especially native born blacks. And they are catching some serious flack from the high immigration groups.
“…what has the open-borders forces far more worked up than usual is that our ad comparing the numbers of unemployed Black Americans and the numbers of new immigrant workers each year challenges the long-cultivated image that high immigration is THE compassionate and moral policy.
Most advocates of high immigration pose as especially concerned about our country’s ethnic minorities and about the poor. But when we cite unemployment statistics for America’s minorities while noting how many foreign workers are being added to compete with them, that really threatens the whole facade of morality that has been built around immigration policies that are disproportionately hurting the poor, especially poor minorities.”
Here’s the ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9dBFSvxfuA
Tagline – LET’S SLOW DOWN IMMIGRATION AND SAVE JOBS FOR AMERICANS. ALL AMERICANS.
There is not a single subject we discuss that doesn’t have spin around the logic. That’s why this can’t go on. It has to crash sometime because nothing the media says makes a bit of logical sense.
This is over.
PS McGovern died and to little mention
Concerning the maximum desirable US population, it would depend on what kind of society you’d find ideal….
And the type of society you have would determine what the maximum carrying population should be.
My opinion is just a guess, but I’d say for an urban culture like we have now, 100-150 million people would be the max. For a pastoral culture, maybe 25 million or a little more.
-BTB-
Your numbers seem very well reasoned, bill.
Yet, we’re already double your max for today’s urban type society.
My guess is that US society will remain urban forever. Until something disrupts modern logistics for food and energy distribution.
At which point, things will finally reorganize at the level of the tribe – or perhaps the small village.
-finally reorganize –
There is a lot of hidden pain in those two words.
Population is the ONE issue that trumps all others. This group is doing something about it.
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/abandoned-pages/what-we-support/5-great-immigration-reduction-bills.html
Donate and Join!
X talked about getting waxed. Wouldn’t it be cool to go to Madame Truseau’s and see yourself there? And then realize that that was your real body all mummified and shit and that you were a ghost?
Exactly. In the current sick paradigm, Blacks are sacred and Whites are shit. It doesn’t matter how many Whites are unemployed or poor since they are slated for elimination.
Fight hatred and hate speech against Whites. Speak out whenever you hear it – even if in service of a good cause.
Good radio show about hate speech against Whites. We’re building our own Media since the one we have is no longer our’s and no longer covers things important to us nor looks out for our interests.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/10/eur-hour-the-white-student-union-and-politically-correct-hate-speech/#more-32574
Tomorrow can you put link to the Towson talk?
I did listen to 8 minutes, it was way too slow moving.
Thanks…is it link at OO site?
and wheres yr riposte to Mister Dale?
I’d like to see a politician run under the slogan “Everyone will get exactly what they deserve”.
Yes, Vietnam went terribly wrong. And some argue so did Korea given fifty thousand American dead, the continued presence of tens of thousands of American soldiers for decades with no apparent end and the continued existence of that shitty regime in the north.
Personally I have no idea what the hell Bush father and son were thinking when they invaded Kuwait and then Iraq. And I have no idea what earthly difference it makes to the US as to what moustache is selling Kuwaiti or Iraqi oil. Do you give a damn one way or the other Buck?
My post wasn’t to justify American actions in the world that make no apparent sense or were destructive. And there were a bunch of those but you have to balance them with actions that did obviously benefit hundreds of millions of people (I’m thinking about Europe specifically).
American military presence in Europe helped to defeat the Nazis and surely headed off a Soviet takeover of the whole continent. Do you give a damn one way or the other Buck? I sure as hell do because if the Nazis or the Soviets had been able to commandeer European productive capacity and technology the post WW2 period probably would have looked markedly different. Because both the Nazis and Soviets were bloody murderers and on a gigantic scale.
A lot of Americans born and raised in the post war era may not get it especially professional intellectuals who spend their lives affecting a carefully honed ironic detachment. But they don’t have the perspective of people who enjoyed German or Soviet attention ie the business end of a Mauser or PPSH. Talk to older Polish people or those living in Israel who’ve seen either/or and they’ll tell you.
Have to say also that a lot of western Europeans are disdainful of the US and here I’m thinking of the French. Hard to fathom given the multitude of Americans buried on French soil. Maybe those sneering Frenchmen would have preferred German or Russian jackboots stepping on their faces. Because one thing is certain. If not for American military muscle the vaunted fine French wines and cheeses wouldn’t have been sipped and nibbled in France but rather would have been commandeered by commissars for the pleasure of people in Moscow. Or maybe Berlin.
But on the other side of the coin many east European are thankful for the US pressure on the Soviets giving Americans credit for the Soviet departure.
How different would the world be without Americans having fought in Vietnam or Korea? Hard to know. The one thing we do know is that communism as an ideological force in the world is spent. The Soviet Union, an evil regime if there ever was one, is gone. Surely good things wouldn’t you say?
In any case the US will disengage from the world maybe not because it wants to but because it has to. And we’ll see where things go.
The Great French Wine Blight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_French_Wine_Blight
“…And I have no idea what earthly difference it makes to the US as to what moustache is selling Kuwaiti or Iraqi oil.” -R
C’mon now, sure you do. Search on “petrodollar” and read all about it. The trickle-up scheme of currency/monetary enslavement.
***********************************
“How different would the world be without Americans having fought in Vietnam or Korea? Hard to know. The one thing we do know is that communism as an ideological force in the world is spent. The Soviet Union, an evil regime if there ever was one, is gone. Surely good things wouldn’t you say?” -R
I agree; hard to know. The past is mostly decayed and many of its’ actors buried. Interestingly, recording devices have been providing us a better look at some intents of these actors “lately”. What makes it even harder to know is the active corruption by the spin industry to revise history.
***********************************
“In any case the US will disengage from the world maybe not because it wants to but because it has to. And we’ll see where things go.” -R
As a person of no power, I’m just an observer, so, exactly, we’ll see.
Why do you want me to link to it if it is slow moving? OO site? Those looks like large breasts to me – DDs. There are many good large breast sites.
But your devotion to the White Race is commendable in any case. Jared’s talk is at amren.com or counter currents.com
Proposing White Student Unions, facing the avalanche of ignorance, and then using that as a teaching moment is a great strategy. The Student Unions themselves are naturally a good thing too, but this may be the main thing.
Except there are few unions of any size left to champion EXCEPT the public employee unions.
One of the justifications for the Citizens United Decision was that unions make out and gain political influence along with corporations. A total crock and the numbers are in. Corporations have been outspending unions 17:1 in elections.
Civic interventions is in our future. I’m not saying when, but it’s there and sooner than we think. Ooops – the rain just started coming down an inch a minute with my last sentence. I’d better stop for now.
Interestingly, recording devices have been providing us a better look at some intents of these actors “lately”.
You said Recording Devices.
Reality is a harsh mistress. Regarding the decisions we make our votes matter now more than ever before. Fail to understand the issues and make intelligent decisions and “Everyone will get exactly what they deserve”. Disaster and pestilence will be upon the land and society will get what it deserves for not reading the writing on the wall.
Vote “K-Dog” (the write in candidate)
I want to keep all dogs eating and this means I have to take care of all the people all the time.
It is true
I’ve always loved
the daring ones
like the black young man
who tried to crash
all barriers
at once,
wanted to swim
at a white beach (in Alabama)
Nude.
George McGovern
Meh vice presidential running mate has been on FOX NEWS. Were talking solutions yeah!!!
I don’t think the attitude of the French towards America is one of disdain. It’s more like resentment, the kind of resentment the debtor feels toward his creditor. The French haven’t forgotten what American troops and arms did for them in both world wars.
Alongside the resentment is fascination and respect. The French respect America for its power, and are fascinated by its cultural productions–jazz, mafia gangsterism, movies, rock and roll, for instance.
There have been a number of famous Frenchmen, however, who truly seemed to have disdained America, and even who have hated it. De Gaulle tops the list.
And there’s a problem with knowing what the French attitude, in general, really is. What people in America take to be the French attitude to this or that is really the Parisian attitude. Paris, even now, after decentralization, dominates France like no other Western nation is dominated by its capital.
Good post, Rhino. And the one before it.
McGovern – a beautiful loser. It’s a rough game. Look at what they did to Ed Muskee – insulted his wife and made him cry. And that was the end of Ed.
Then you should admitre Matt Heimbach who has faced insults and threat of violence to start up a White Student Union at Towson University – or face the Abyss of your own conditioning towards death.
Black Civil Rights still? Really? What have they done with these rights? Violence and dysfuntion have increased in proportion to their rights. They can’t compete and they haven’t forgiven us. Nor are they going to do either one in the future, no matter how many freebies are given them.
Alot of focus on Lincoln lately. First O’Reilly’s best selling book and now a movie by Spielberg. Both of these guys are liars since they don’t mention that Lincoln thought Blacks inferior and wanted them sent back to Africa.
Moyers’s comparison with the the Gilded Age has made me do a bit of looking around.
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
Hanna can be compared to Karl Rove and was worth millions.
d
Ha, Vlad
Boehner cries without insult. Guess that means he can’t run for POTUS.
https://www.google.com/search?q=boehner+crying&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=qLx&tbo=u&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BTaFUPzpAqzU0gGEo4DgDA&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1400&bih=559
“No one contested early test scores of blacks were lower, the issue always was why?”
Genes, heritage, different bodies, smaller brain cases in the skull, karma, etc.