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The stock market is zooming this morning on the news that only 5.7 million people in Florida will have to do without air conditioning, hot showers, and Keurig mochachinos at dawn’s early light Monday, Sept 11, 2017. I’m mindful that the news cycle right after a hurricane goes kind of blank for a day or more as dazed and confused citizens venture out to assess the damage. For now, there is very little hard information on the Web waves. Does Key West still exist? Hard to tell. We’ll know more this evening.

The one-two punch of Harvey and Irma did afford the folks-in-charge of the nation’s affairs a sly opportunity to get rid of that annoying debt ceiling problem. This is the law that established a limit on how much debt the Federal Reserve could “buy” from the national government. Some of you may be thinking: buy debt? Why would anybody want to buy somebody’s debt? Well, you see, this is securitized debt, i.e. bonds issued by the US Treasury, which pay interest, and so there is the incentive to buy it. Anyway, there used to — back in the days when the real interest rate stayed positive after deducting the percent of running inflation. This is where the situation gets interesting.

The debt ceiling law supposedly set limits on how much bonded debt the government could issue (how much it could borrow) so it wouldn’t go hog wild spending money it didn’t have. Which is exactly what happened despite the debt limit because the “ceiling” got raised about a hundred times though the 20th century into the 21st so that the accumulated debt stands around $20 trillion.

Rational people recognize this $20 trillion for the supernatural scale of obligation it represents, and understand that it will never be paid back, so, what the hell? Why not just drop the pretense, but keep on working this racket of the government borrowing as much money as it wants, and the Federal Reserve creating that money (or “money”) on its computers to infinity. Seems to work so far.

Rational people would also suspect that at some point, something might have to give. For instance, the value of the dollars that the debt is issued in. If the value of dollars goes down, then the real value of the bonds issued in dollars goes down, and as that happens the many various holders of bonds already issued — individuals, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds of foreign countries — will have a strong incentive to dump the bonds as fast as possible. Especially if backstage magic by the Fed and its handmaidens, the “primary dealer” banks, keeps working to suppress the interest rates of these bonds at all costs.

Would the Federal Reserve then vacuum up every bond that others are dumping on the market? They would certainly try. The Bank of Japan has been doing just that with its own government’s bonds to no apparent ill effect, though you kind of wonder what happens when a snake eating its own tail finally reaches its head. What’s left, exactly, after it eats that, too? My own guess would be three words: you go medieval. I mean literally. No more engines, electric lights, central heating….

In this land, we face a situation in which both the value of money and the cost of borrowing money would be, at last, completely detached from reality — reality being the real cost and value of all goods and services exchanged for money. Voila: a king-hell currency crisis and the disruption of trade on the most macro level imaginable. Also, surely, a massive disruption in government services, including social security and medicare, but extending way beyond that. And then we go medieval, too. The mule replaces the Ford F-150. And The New York Times finds something to write about besides Russia and trannies.

The value of money and the cost of borrowing it is about as fundamental as it gets in a so-called advanced economy. You can screw around with a lot of things running a society, but when that goes, you’re flirting seriously with anarchy. In the meantime, we’ll see how the social glue holds things together in those parts of Florida that are entering a preview of medieval attractions in the electrical blackout days ahead.


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460 Responses to “In the Dark”

  1. seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 9:39 am #

    I can only say thank God for Hurricane Irma. For the last week I have not been forced to watch Dufus Donald on TV. His absence left me with an alacrity I have not felt since his announcement to run for president. I bet if they polled the country, they would all say the same thing. Please please no more Trump.

    • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 9:45 am #

      I agree that a lot less coverage of President Trump would be good. And the hurrican was not as bad as the media predicted (what a surprise), but I assume your thanks for the hurricane is sarcasm?

      • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 9:54 am #

        You assume because you don’t know. To the rest of us it is obvious.

        • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:03 am #

          You, of all people, who is so consistently wrong on here, should hold yout tongue.

          How much did you pay for gas in the 70s? Can you charge an electric car at home?

          • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 11:35 am #

            Once I paid 17 cents a gallon.

            Charging a car at home quickly means having a expensive charging station installed. You can’t do it yourself unless you are comfortable working with 220. If you don’t know what I mean by being ‘comfortable working with 220’ you are not ready to install your own charging station.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm #

            Because you bought gas from your buddy for 17 cents, or there was a price war at your gas station, doesn’t mean gas was 17 cents in the 70s. It has nothing to do with current, past or future energy prices.

            Charging a car at home is no problem with a regular wall outlet. It is slower, but it works and may be all you need.

            If you want faster charging, you need a 220 volt setup. If you can”t do it yourself, it will cost you perhaps $500 or $1,000 plus dollars, depending on your situation. This is not an extraordianry expense. You might save that much over gasoline costs in less than a year, depending on how much you drive. You might save that just on brakes over a few years.

          • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 1:27 am #

            You asked as the reader can see. I have nothing to do with your ramblings.

          • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 7:42 am #

            Kdog, slowly, but you are learning. Everything you know about gas prices and electric cars, apparently, you learned from me. You’re welcome.

          • seawolf77 September 13, 2017 at 9:48 am #

            He didn’t thank you retard.

          • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 5:11 pm #

            No, he didn’t. But he’s still welcome to the help he needs. And you are too.

    • DrTomSchmidt September 11, 2017 at 9:56 am #

      Most people aren’t as obsessed with Trump as the media is. Most people care more about the suffering of countrymen than the President who is expert at trolling the CNNs of the world.

      This basic decency of the American people is a good thing, and I am glad you brought it to our attention.

      • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:06 am #

        Thank you DrTom. Especially today.

      • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:21 am #

        I’ve met quite a few of them here in Houston. They had the pictures to prove it. The ones that aided the stranded didn’t surprise me. The ones that didn’t lift a finger, which includes me, didn’t surprise me either.

      • Cavepainter September 11, 2017 at 10:24 am #

        The American people aren’t “a people” in any sense of the past; identity politics, victim class growth industry and PC has destroyed any commonly held sense of nationhood known in the past — we’ve been Balkanized into warring tribes. Trump gets the focus now because the effectiveness of the other “equal” parts of government have been neutralized and “citizen” has been cancelled as a relevant distinction.

        • draupnir September 11, 2017 at 11:19 am #

          We haven’t been called citizens for a long time. We’re consumers. Do consumers have inalienable civil rights? Recent events suggest that perhaps we do not. You know, they no longer need a warrant to search your home or property in DC. How long before that extends to the rest of the country? We’ve all seen the video of that poor nurse dragged out to a police car in handcuffs after refusing to give the officer a blood sample from her unconscious patient without a warrant. The patient was not charged with any crime, and it would have been illegal for her to do so, but the policeman and his supervisor apparently believed that was a small problem that could be dealt with after the fact, and the more important issue was the refusal of the nurse to cooperate.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 11:23 am #

            The way the police act today, it’s almost as if they have been instructed to push the envelope as hard as possible. They have lost all semblance of deescalation.

          • swmnguy September 11, 2017 at 11:59 am #

            To the Police in the US, the rest of us are “Civilians.” They, apparently, are not “civilians.” They seem to consider themselves a foreign, hostile, occupying force. On that point at least, agreement is nearly unanimous.

          • Cavepainter September 11, 2017 at 12:35 pm #

            Now tell me, in our nation’s circumstance of low intensity civil war would you like to be a police officer? Notch up the intensity and soon police stop leaving their home for recognizing necessity to remain for protecting their own family. Ah ha, what then for the smug multitude who’ve virtue signaled “gun control”, leaving themselves unarmed. All of a sudden their neighborhoods will become “no go” places like so many inner city areas now off limits to police.

          • DrTomSchmidt September 11, 2017 at 12:36 pm #

            “You know, they no longer need a warrant to search your home or property in DC.”

            Got a link to this? I missed it. Thanks.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 12:49 pm #

            http://www.snopes.com/did-congress-pass-bill-warrantless-searches/

    • sophia September 11, 2017 at 3:53 pm #

      You poor, helpless thing.

  2. seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 9:51 am #

    Debt is a misnomer. It is our money supply. Call it what it is. When the government needs money it issues a bond, which the private Federal reserve buys for cash they print our of thin air. That cash gets flushed into the economy and the national debt increases. It’s called debt monetization. The bigger the economy gets, the more money it needs to function properly. This was the argument against silver and gold. It’s supply increases 2% a year, and in the go go world of plentiful fossil fuel, that was too slow. But that world is fading now.

    • messianicdruid September 11, 2017 at 12:05 pm #

      The misnomer is in calling it “ours”. It is not mine.

    • michael September 11, 2017 at 2:54 pm #

      It is not only the federal reserve that creates money by issuing debt, the banks do this also by granting loans (banks do not loan money they have but instead money they create subject to certain restrictions i.e. reserve requirements). As these loans are paid back the money supply contracts again. It’s worse if the loan is defaulted on, then it becomes a liability for the bank (negative money as it were).

      Monetization of debt occurs only when the FED buys debt with newly printed money. The consequences are a redistribution of wealth to those who get the new money first since they can buy at prices which have not yet adjusted upward — and that won’t be you.

      If it is driven to extremes the currency can become worthless.

      • Bruce E September 14, 2017 at 12:36 pm #

        The Federal Reserve is the banks. They are not separate from each other.

        Also, “printing” money into existence is misleading as a metaphor. Money is “typed into a spreadsheet ledger” into existence. The former implies something real and tangible happened.

        But yes, the redistribution of “wealth,” if wealth is to be understood as US currency, is that it goes to those who are loaned that money. It went to housing in 2007-2008 and that “wealth” was distributed to home-“owners” as the bubble pushed up their house values and apparent equity, until of course the bubble popped. Now it’s put into financial institutions who plop it into the stock market, creating a new bubble in equities and bonds.

        Currency is already becoming worthless as a means to purchase a solid stable low-risk yield over a long period of time (>10 years), and it buys less and less P/E than it did just a few years ago. It hasn’t yet bled its worthlessness into consumer goods like gasoline and bread, and I’m not sure it will even when the equity and/or bond bubbles pop.

    • ejhr September 12, 2017 at 8:06 am #

      Yes, Debt is a misnomer in the sense that if the government spends the bond money it has to find a way to repay it.
      But the government does NOT spend the bond money. It’s more like corporate welfare, money the corporations etc have spare so they purchase the bonds at Treasury auctions. They get interest.
      Yes, the government owes it back alright, but to repay all that is required is the Fed to draw down the numbers in the bond savings reserve accounts and add them to the checking accounts the investors banks have in the Fed. Problem solved.

      Government has NO need of bond money, when after all, it can create it at will. It has no use for taxes as revenue.[It has other uses]. The government raises money by spending into the economy and it does that by buying its debts.

      • ejhr September 12, 2017 at 8:07 am #

        Mr Kunstler, please take note!!!

      • Bruce E September 14, 2017 at 12:37 pm #

        FYI the Federal Reserve is not the government.

  3. DrTomSchmidt September 11, 2017 at 9:54 am #

    as to the situation getting interesting with respect to collapsing currency values and subsequently going “medieval,” may I suggest it is to be welcomed?

    I wonder, JHK, if you’ve read fellow NYer David Graeber’s book Debt. He makes the point that Debt repeatedly got out of control in the ancient world, and thus the need for an every-7-years jubilee, as in the Hebrew bible. A debt based system works reasonably well for a while, but they all run up against a fundamental limit: exponential growth of obligations via interest versus geometric or linear increase in the assets that need to be used to pay that interest. The system cannot hold together and eventually blows up.

    Our system had a pressure relief valve: the most liberal bankruptcy laws in the West. W bush, in what will come to be seen as an even bigger debacle than Iraq, closed that relief valve by changing bankruptcy laws in 2005, a totally unnecessary change, locking students, medical debtors, and others into a lifetime of debt slavery.

    That’s where medieval comes to the rescue. A medieval system forbade usury, that is debt secured by the person rather than an asset. Borrow on a house at 20% and cannot pay? The lender seizes the house and there is no recourse to the person. Contrast with student loans today, where there is no way to get out from under crushing debts stupidly taken on.

    Another aspect of medieval was forbidding price competition, forcing producers to compete on quality. In an age where computers can easily reveal the lowest price but have a hard time with quality, price competition is a race to the bottom.

    Lastly, the feudal order had serfs, and we all imagine that their lives must have sucked. Of course, with all the feast days, 1/3rd of their time was spent not working. More important, while they had obligations to their lords, their lords likewise had obligations to them, enforced through interlocking structures. Right now, an elite that recognized obligations to the serfs sounds a lot better than what we have got.

    • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:03 pm #

      As far as stupidly taking on that debt goes, I’ve met a number of fairly intelligent people who thought they were taking on that debt in a reasonable fashion, fully intending to pay it back, only to discover that the terms and conditions they thought they understood were not what they thought they were.
      There was a period of time, mostly occurring during the Bush administration, but before that too, when a lot of what used to be true about debt was quietly changed.
      Banks, for instance (well this isn’t about debt so much as finance) started deliberately trying to make their customers bounce checks, loopholes were created to get around usury laws, etc.
      A number of Americans who got their own student loans through Sallie Mae thought it was safe for their own children to do so, not realizing things had changed.
      Were they stupid, or just a little late in understanding that our government was working against the average American?
      A lot of people still don’t get it.

      • messianicdruid September 11, 2017 at 12:08 pm #

        Fraud vitiates all contracts. Debt contracts, specifically.

        • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:31 pm #

          That’s true; but when the lender knows exactly how to go right up to that legal line without crossing it, and the borrower isn’t even aware that they would want to do this, it isn’t quite the same as fraud.
          We have so many government regulatory agencies, people just assumed their interests were being looked out for.

      • DrTomSchmidt September 11, 2017 at 12:38 pm #

        Stupid is the wrong word. Ignorantly is better. Thanks for the correction.

      • TPTB-USA September 11, 2017 at 1:39 pm #

        “A lot of people still don’t get it.”

        Exactly.

        What happens to everyone’s position if the government gives everyone $100k/year?

        The big picture is that the “system” is not a law of nature, it is nothing more than a game concocted by man.

        • elysianfield September 11, 2017 at 8:00 pm #

          “What happens to everyone’s position if the government gives everyone $100k/year?”

          …I’m going to Disneyland….

          • TPTB-USA September 26, 2017 at 8:59 am #

            … and what happens to your position if everyone’s pension takes a 50% haircut?

      • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:08 pm #

        Now and then I read contracts written by banks. Most are written in extremely opaque language containing absurdly unreasonable clauses. Once I read one that stated in effect that the bank can alter the main payoff characteristics of the contract at will as it sees fit (not worded like that but having this effect).

        There were also wordings that were clearly designed to be misleading.

        The main problem is very simple: as soon as banks can take the deposits of citizens (and subsequently lose them through speculation) they can blackmail the state for a bailout (since the electorate might be roused from their idiotic stupor obce they find out that their deposits are gone).

        From this position of leverage over the state they have evolved into their current boundles arrogance and undisguised criminality.

        There is a very simple solution to that: Glass-Stegal:

        Deposit taking institutions cannot enage in the activities of an investment bank and are limited to granting commercial loans.
        Investment banks cannot take deposits, must get their capital eslewhere and have no leverage over the tax payer. This will bring immediate discipline to the investment banking sector.

        We will either return to Glass-Stegal or men made of much sterner stuff will solve these problems for us.

        • outsider September 11, 2017 at 5:13 pm #

          Michael,
          I believe it’s “Glass-Steagall.” Nonetheless, didn’t our President, on the campaign trail, say he wanted it restored? Just another in the growing list of forgotten campaign promises?

          • thwack September 11, 2017 at 10:05 pm #

            what if you just hung people from trees?

    • TPTB-USA September 11, 2017 at 1:28 pm #

      The format of the “system” (game), … whether it be capitalism, socialism, monopoly, or medieval, … macht nichts.

      What is being ignored (assuming we are civilized), is that all humans are hypocrites to varying degrees, and we are all trying to “game the system”. This is just human nature, one of the drivers in the tool box that we were born with, … the “survival instinct” driver.

      An individual’s dominant driver varies based on various factors, and within any dominant driver group, some individuals are more talented than others.

      But, as big a factor for success as any, is just plain luck, and in that regard, a benevolent leader is the ultimate set-up for management of the end game and game reset period.

      This depicts efficiency:
      http://www.snopes.com/wolf-pack-photo/
      … and this depicts the US at this point in time:
      https://i.pinimg.com/736x/bf/73/ad/bf73ad06a92a58d491ae5cceac1954c6.jpg

  4. Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 9:58 am #

    I’m just not buying the disappearing fossil fuel theory. It was wrong in the past, and I believe it’s wrong now too. I know it’s very popular on this site, and that may be part of what leads to all the misperceptions here, but it isn’t happening. It appears we have enough relatively cheap fossil fuel to last us much longer than we will need to transition to primarily non-fossil fuels.

    • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:18 am #

      Facts dispute your position.
      https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=a

      • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:22 am #

        Watch out, he will come back with alternative facts of his choosing and ignore yours. That is what he does and then you could be wasting your time and arguing with him all day. Or arguing with it.

      • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:23 am #

        I’m not sure why you link to a graph that shows increasing levels of crude oil production in the US, but I thank you. It does support my position.

        • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:26 am #

          That hockey stick you see the last ten years is fracking. After that there is nothing. What part of that don’t you understand? The downhill of fracked wells does not look like the gradual decline of the 70’s 80’s 90’s. It’s a cliff, and the only thing that is left is the current glut. Once we burn that off…

          • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:15 pm #

            Coal can be liquified by addition of hydrogen produced by solar power. It costs something but extends the life of liquid hydrocarbons almost indefinitely.
            The Germans had to do it in WW2.
            Before tht there is natural gas. It too can be turned into
            diesel fuel. Currently much of it is flared off leading to the fact that the oil companies are the biggest CO2 producers.
            Saudi Aramco produces more CO2 than all of Germany i any given year.

            If we can ever get to methane hydrate we are set for hundreds of years.

            The problem is not the lack of hydrocarbons but the generation of CO2.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 4:05 pm #

            The tar sands in Canada are one of those pipe dreams.

        • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:51 am #

          A graph that shows increasing fossil fuel extraction is proof of transition away from fossil fuels how?

          Claiming that data which disproves your position actually supports it documents your mental illness.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 11:41 am #

            KDog, I can see why you would be confused, but the graph shows that the disappearing fossil fuels theory is wrong. That’s obvious to most folks by the fact that it doesn’t reference any other energy sources. You should try to avoid the personal remarks, especially when you are wrong. Again.

            If you need evidence for the transition away from fossil fuels, look for statistics on the increase of solar, wind and other non-fossil fuel energy. Start with a Google search.If you are unablle to find them, let me know and I will help you.

            Seawolf, there has always been an explanation for why fossil fuels are over. So far they’ve always been wrong. Fracking or not, we have oil, natural gas and coal to last long past the time when we will no longer need them.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 12:38 pm #

            It’s not an explanation, it’s the facts. Oil fields used to be large pools of easily extracted oil that lasted for decades, albeit with a decline in production over time. Those are now depleted as evidenced by the long slow decline from 1970 to 2007. Fracking fractures rock and released oil from the source rock. The amount extracted is peanuts compared to the old fields and they last a few years. What you see is a normal distribution from 1920 to 2007. What you see after 2007 is not normal. It is asymptotic. The shape of the curve is proof it cannot last and was an emergency measure.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 12:45 pm #

            But the coal will last for centuries. Sorry doomer.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 1:41 pm #

            Of course we extracted the easiest oil first; why would anybody do otherwise? But there is still plenty of oil left for the near future. Oil is great stuff, it helped create the wonderful world we live in, but we have better alternatives for most energy needs. There will still be plenty of oil left in the ground, but nobody will bother extracting it.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 2:32 pm #

            You have a lamentable ability to miss the point. All the easy stuff is gone. All that’s left is the hard. And it’s mostly gone too. What’s left is far from our shores and require military action to steal it. Kunstler position is we should have treasured it, but instead we wasted it because of people like you, who think it is inexhaustible. It’s not.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 3:43 pm #

            Never did I say oil was inexhaustable; quite the contrary. But we have enough to last us till we transition.

            And your facts are just wrong. We produce all the oil we need in this country. And that is more than we produced a decade ago. Then there’s Canada and Mexico right next door.

            So the oil is not far away, we don’t have to fight anyone for it, and I never said it was limitless. Was there a point you wanted to make?

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm #

            That is flat out wrong and has been since 1970 which is when we hit peak oil in America. Back then it wasn’t by much, but we still had to go off the gold standard because we needed to start printing money. We produce (per the EIA data) 10,000,000 barrels a day and we use twice that much.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 7:36 pm #

            I think it was Tip O’Neal who said you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

            https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/us-oil-output-to-hit-record-10-million-barrels-a-day-next-year-eia.html

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:38 am #

            I think it was Tip O’Neil who said “You can’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola.”

          • Graycenphil September 12, 2017 at 7:47 am #

            Not Tip O’Neil; it’s probably an old army barracks expression. I’m afraid you’re wrong, again. At least you’re consistent. And I’m happy to correct you.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 8:41 am #

            You’re re-purposing the locker room talk reason. Can’t you guys stop regurgitating and have an original thought? I guess that’s asking a lot from a parrot. “Polly want an original thought?”

          • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 1:35 am #

            Actually

            We do not have plenty of time for a transition.

            The Uninhabitable Earth

            “Actually, we’re about there already. Since 1980, the planet has experienced a 50-fold increase in the number of places experiencing dangerous or extreme heat; a bigger increase is to come. The five warmest summers in Europe since 1500 have all occurred since 2002, and soon, the IPCC warns, simply being outdoors that time of year will be unhealthy for much of the globe. Even if we meet the Paris goals of two degrees warming, cities like Karachi and Kolkata will become close to uninhabitable, annually encountering deadly heat waves like those that crippled them in 2015. At four degrees, the deadly European heat wave of 2003, which killed as many as 2,000 people a day, will be a normal summer. At six, according to an assessment focused only on effects within the U.S. from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, summer labor of any kind would become impossible in the lower Mississippi Valley, and everybody in the country east of the Rockies would be under more heat stress than anyone, anywhere, in the world today.”

            Graycenphil, you are a turd.

          • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 7:52 am #

            Kdog, you’re confused again. We have enough conventional energy to last however long the transition to other fuels may take. It may be a few decades, but we have more than a few decades worth of fossil fuels.

            I know you are having a hard time understanding that we will be able to deal with the changes that may occur before then, That was the same problem John McLemore had in the S-town podcast. But rmember, the real problem was him. Much of what he believed, like yourself, turned out not to be true.

            I will continue to help you understand. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

          • seawolf77 September 13, 2017 at 9:23 am #

            Supercilious Gracie-poo will continue to parade around on his/her/it’s high horse. Pay her no mind. No one else does. After all, we’re arguing about the end of the world.

          • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 5:20 pm #

            Apparently you are paying me some mind. But at least you are learning something. Now you know that we can produce more oil than we did in 1970. What else would you like to know? Try to use your nice words Seawolf.

    • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:18 am #

      Then we must have an infinite supply since no ‘transition‘ is going on at all. And good climate change won’t get in the way of any ‘transition‘ to a flying car future too. Since we won’t get around to a ‘transition‘ until time runs, out climate change won’t be interfering.

      I don’t buy the disappearing fossil fuel theory either. I don’t think it disappears. I think it gets burned.

      • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:26 am #

        I don’t know why you say that, but you’re mistaken. There is clearly a transition to various non-fossil fuels, primarily for electricity but also for transportation and industry. It could be faster, but it is happening, it is accelerating, and we have plenty of fossil fuels for the near future.

        • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 11:00 am #

          I am mistaken? It does not get burned? It just vanishes?

          It does not matter if other fuels are being used when American fossil fuel extraction is increasing. For there to be a transition, fossil fuel use needs to decrease and that is not happening. Since extraction increases there is no transition.

          The only way fossil fuel use will decline is if people change their lifestyles and they would rather re-fi their homes than change any of that.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 11:48 am #

            Acctually, you’re wrong here too. We now make less electricity with oil and coal than we used to. That is a transition.

            Even in transportation, a larger percentage of our cars run on electricity, and even biofuels, than ever did in the past.

            This is how transitions begin.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 2:46 pm #

            We make less electricity from coal and oil because fracking has provided so much natural gas they’re flaring off tons of it just to get the NGL. It has nothing to do with transitioning. Plus 7 GE 9FA’s are equal to a Hoover Dam, and quite a bit smaller and cheaper.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 3:46 pm #

            That doesn’t explain the electricity from solar and wind now, does it?

            We do use a lot of natural gas for electricity. That’s because it is cheap and plentiful. Tell me again about disappearing and expensive fossil fuels.

          • 100th Avatar September 11, 2017 at 5:59 pm #

            Graycen, I applaud your fortitude. Never tiring from the easy but ceaseless task of making K dog and she wolf look stoopider.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 7:37 pm #

            Thank you 100th. It’s easy, and I sort of enjoy it.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:40 am #

            Oh that’s ripe a mule complimenting a jackass. Reciprocity I am yours’.

          • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 1:38 am #

            He has many avatars, perhaps not 100, but one who is called 100. Almost a riddle. I have only one avatar, I am real.

        • zizzybalooba September 12, 2017 at 3:06 pm #

          Graycenphil, loving the seapup beatdowns

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:46 pm #

            Well at least your original, in a mongoloid sort of way.

          • Graycenphil September 12, 2017 at 5:59 pm #

            Thanks, but whats a seapup?

          • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 1:39 am #

            zizzybalooba would be another.

    • shastatodd September 11, 2017 at 10:30 am #

      “I’m just not buying the disappearing fossil fuel theory. It was wrong in the past, and I believe it’s wrong now too. ”

      all my life i have been told i will someday die… but here i am at 61 and everything’s still fine… smh

      • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 5:22 pm #

        But if all your life, someone had been telling you that you would die tomorrow, wouldn’t you stop believing them?

    • beantownbill. September 11, 2017 at 11:03 am #

      No one knows exactly how much oil is left. No one knows for sure if oil can be abiotic. Consider that the Earth is a 4,000 mile in radius sphere; we’ve only explored the top handful of miles for oil.

      The crux of the issue is the cost of extraction – it basically is related to how deep the oil lies and the immediate environment. A good rule of thumb is the deeper the oil deposit, the more costly it is to extract it.

      We have already gotten most of the not-so-deep, “cheap” oil. There could be huge supplies of deep oil, but it would cost a small fortune to extract it. Would you be willing to pay 75% of your income to buy gasoline or heating fuel?

      We may not run out of oil for hundreds of years, but that is not the
      problem.

      • malthuss September 11, 2017 at 11:14 am #

        We may not run out of oil for hundreds of years, but that is not the
        problem.

        With a billion new ‘resource takers’ added every 10-12 years, IF
        that population increase continues, at that rate, how many people
        will ‘we’ have? 16 billion?

        • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 11:50 am #

          That reminds me of the old “population explosion” fears from the past. “We’ll never be able to feed all those people.” That turned out to be wrong too.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 12:47 pm #

            And they could all fit in Texas too, right?

          • outsider September 11, 2017 at 5:37 pm #

            I blame our surplus population on modern medicine – specifically vaccines. Prior to vaccines, the world population remained stable due to various plagues. But plagues mutate and will find a way to return with a vengeance once carrying capacity is reached. Perhaps it’s not wise to try to vaccinate all the world’s people.

          • 100th Avatar September 11, 2017 at 6:01 pm #

            It’s not all about feeding. That is looking with one lens. There are innumerable problems beyond simply having to feed people. Come on man!

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 7:40 pm #

            I agree, it is most definitely not just about feeding. There are a lot of good reasons not to have the population keep growing. But I remember the claim during the population explosion fear that we would see mass starvation before we got to the current population.

          • elysianfield September 11, 2017 at 8:15 pm #

            “the old “population explosion” fears from the past”

            Phil,
            The fears have come to pass…human populations are increasing as promised…in geometric progression. Any errors involving lack of technology factoring will be mitigated, also in geometric progression, as technology stumbles…Malthusian dystopia on steroids.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:03 pm #

            There was never any doubt that the population would increase. The “fear” was that we could not feed everybody. That fear turned out to be dead wrong.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:41 am #

            If by feed you mean food devoid of almost all nutritional value and making everybody sick, you’re dead right.

          • John Howard September 12, 2017 at 10:55 am #

            We should ban sperm and egg donation and stop subsidizing IVF, and certainly rule out artificial wombs and male pregnancy and female sperm. Talk about resource hogs!

      • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 11:44 am #

        We wil never run out of fossil fuel; it will just become too expensive to extract. That may be because it is too difficult to get. Much more likely, it will be because alternatives are just cheaper and better.

        Coal is a good example. It has become cheaper, but it still suffers because there are better, less expensive alterntives.

        • swmnguy September 11, 2017 at 12:05 pm #

          Financial “cost” may be the wrong factor to consider. “Cost”, in financial terms, is a human concept and is subject to change, sometimes very rapidly.

          All the rules and “laws” and considerations regarding economics are merely markers and tokens for various human behavior, and human behavior can also change.

          The real cost regarding energy is energy itself. When it takes a barrel of oil’s worth of energy to extract a barrel of oil, that’s the end of that, no matter how much oil is left to extract.

          If the US Dollar collapse and goes the way of the Roman Denarius or Confederate Dollar, people can and will still exchange goods and services, including energy. When the exchange denominated in Joules doesn’t make sense, it won’t matter what currency is worth what.

          • ozone September 11, 2017 at 6:07 pm #

            swmnguy,
            Thank you for the cooling breeze of a little clear-headed realism in the conucopian fog of smoke, mirrors, wishful thinking and downright *delusion* that continues to haunt these abused and tattered pages!

            How many somnambulent pests will get shaken off in the next few years? I will likely be among them, but I’m hoping to leave a bit of something for the more pragmatically-minded realists, rather than these idiotic wasters and wallowers in luxury and “communication devices”. Jesus wept; short-term thinking just isn’t…

    • DrTomSchmidt September 11, 2017 at 12:44 pm #

      PiRcubed is the formula for the volume of a sphere. If R is about 4000 miles, as in the case of earth, then the total volume of earth is… a very large but finite number, about 200 billion cubic miles. If that number is not infinite, then the maximum volume the earth could hold if a hollow sphere would be that amount of oil.

      We have burned some of that volume, ergo that amount of fossil fuel has disappeared. There is no giant space fuel hose refilling the center of the earth.

      Note: estimates of total oil in the earth are much less than 200 billion cubic miles. And estimates are we have burned half of the high-EROEI oil. But that’s another matter.

      • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:26 pm #

        The main problem with the internal combustion engine is that it is a primitive technology, basically a souped up version of a stone age camp fire.

        The electric engine based on the electromagnetic field is a more modern and more elegant technology. It is vastly superior to the internal combustion engine in every respect and the “only” problem is the energy supply in the form of a battery.

      • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 4:45 pm #

        When you research this you find clean was battling Standard Oil for the future in the name of Nicola Tesla and Wardenclyffe. Standard Oil is arguably the greatest fortune ever made, so I guess it was worth fighting for. But would the world be a better place with Tesla? Absolutely. Is that where we’re headed? Probably.

        • zizzybalooba September 12, 2017 at 3:08 pm #

          Is this the seapup blog? Your garrulity is tiresome….

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:47 pm #

            Don’t read it mongoloid.

  5. Lonely Traveler September 11, 2017 at 9:59 am #

    I believe that the devastation in Florida will increase migration back north. I believe that the “halfback” phenomenon will increase (people retiring to Florida from the north and then deciding to move halfway back) will increase. Property values will soar in the Carolinas and Georgia. The only problem is that these areas will soon become undesirable like Florida. Any coastal city is subject to larger hurricanes than we’ve ever seen before. Anyplace too southern is subject to drought and famine. So refugees, come on up north.

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    • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:35 am #

      The coasts of all nations will recede. I went down to Surfside and homes that were dragged out into the Gulf are still there, and the state of Texas still wants their property taxes. They’re in court now. Get the picture?

      • Lonely Traveler September 11, 2017 at 11:45 am #

        I’ve seen the same thing on the Atlantic coasts. I have friends in Charleston who talk very frankly about how they know their own properties will be under water in a few decades. The refugee crisis here will rival any third world country such as Bangla Desh.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 12:49 pm #

          The South is already infested with Mexicans and Central Americans. We learned nothing from Black Slavery, but went straight ahead and brought in another alien, hostile people.

          • outsider September 11, 2017 at 5:43 pm #

            Janos,
            We’ve welcomed the world into our shores. Now we must take our punishment.

          • malthuss September 11, 2017 at 8:02 pm #

            Janos Skorenzy –And they could all fit in Texas too, right?

            Thats what the John Birch Society told me. 30 + years ago = 3 billion people ago.

          • GreenAlba September 21, 2017 at 11:43 am #

            Poor Janos. You’re pretty much the most alien hostile person to inhabit this website 🙂 I hope you never find yourself needing help from an ordinary human being who doesn’t meet your criteria. Or rather I do, actually.

      • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:37 pm #

        We had devastating floods in Schoharie County, New York, which is inland, but homeowners faced a similar problem. Homes they still owned but could not occupy were still incurring property taxes.
        Th local government can’t exactly lead recovery efforts without the revenue to pay police, etc. either.

    • cbeard September 11, 2017 at 12:23 pm #

      I hope you are right about the property values in Georgia going up. I’ve lived in South Georgia most of my life and I love the deep south and its people, but my locale is degenerating with all the industry, manufacturing etc. gone and now with racial problems, illegal immigration and other issues, I would consider making a move. I would have to sell my house and the real estate market in my area has bottomed out. Nothing is selling at anything other than fire sale prices and I’ve spent a lot of money on upkeep and improvements on my property and under current conditions could never recoup enough to easily relocate. I’m sitting here watching the wind and rain right now and haven’t had any problems. The power went out for about ten minutes this morning but has been on ever since. I’m far enough away from the coast to avoid most of the problems associated with sea faring storms. I talked to a local cop about an hour ago and he said we should be over the worst winds by 2:00 pm. Normally I would try to discourage anyone else moving here. But now, come on up or down from wherever. I’ve got approximately a 100 by 200 feet lot with maybe 13 or 1400 sq. ft living space with a front porch and a nice deck at the rear. central heat and air, vinyl siding with a metal roof. A 12 X 20 metal shop with a concrete floor out back. Its a small town population 654 in 2016 with close proximity (20 miles) to some larger communities.

      • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 9:44 pm #

        “I consider making a move” — CBeard

        Making a move where, CBeard?

        We are running out of places to move to. You’re probably better off staying put, where you already know the lay of the land.

        brh

    • 100th Avatar September 11, 2017 at 6:02 pm #

      Uh.. have you seen Chucktown today?

  6. michics September 11, 2017 at 10:16 am #

    Did anyone else tire of the endless minute by minute coverage of Irma over the weekend by the media ? Those on site broadcasters standing out in driving rain and high winds trying to convince us that yes this is really a weather event. I guess we the people are so dumbed down that we need to see someone standing in the rain before we believe it is actually raining. This has become normal for the media the last few years. One day a broadcaster will get killed live on tv by a flying roof or something. Then maybe they will get a little common sense. Probably very little!

    • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:35 am #

      Watching weather people standing out in driving rain and tipping over is the best part of their reports. But waiting for them to tip over does take a lot of patience.

      There was a local weatherman who was always standing out in storms here for ‘out-standing‘ coverage. I think he was named George Foreman but he was a white guy who had nothing to do with grilling.

      I’d look for him on the screen whenever we had bad weather. The difference is that they don’t shiver from cold when they cover hurricanes in Florida. Though I liked seeing him standing in a wind whipped jacket trying to hold still for the camera I also liked it when he could get back out of the rain. When we have storms they are cold.

    • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:11 pm #

      They stand in between the camera and the story. Television is a wonderful invention, when it’s used as television. It lets us see what is happening in places we can’t be.
      I can see some dunce waving his hands around and shouting while getting wet anytime.
      They really think their reactions are the news.
      I also think they set a bad example. For a medium where they constantly yammer about safety, they make it appear that standing outside in a hurricane is quite doable, even fun.

  7. volodya September 11, 2017 at 10:28 am #

    Medieval is where things are going, as JHK sez, where oxcarts replace autos and smoke signals replace iPhones. But there’s going to be a few stops along the way.

    BitCoin is one. Incontinent money printing by central banks, not just the Fed, is one factor that underlies the phenomenon of this virtual currency and other audacious digital usurpers of the ruling order.

    Look at the Fed. The Fed is just begging to be usurped. If the Fed isn’t in the business of counterfeiting then please tell me, what is it doing? Find me a better term.

    The Fed’s mission is to look after the interests of the vast criminal apparatus called Wall Street. So what gives Yellen and her henchmen any kind of moral superiority over the creators and users of bitcoin. And don’t tell me the Fed has “legal” authority. That’s a joke. Washington is nothing more than Brazil on the Potomac.

    How long will it be before the billionaire donor class abandons the greenback and deals in something bitcoinish? IMO, because the Fed so completely debauched the coin of the realm, it’s just a matter of time. That is, the .1% get a move on before the lapping waves become a storm surge.

    But this is just a way-station. This goes like preceding civilizations, not change in a gentle slope but change in upheaval and jerks and spasms like a 410 AD event with Alaric sacking Rome. Where does it end? With moats and palisade barriers.

    • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:37 am #

      “But there’s going to be a few stops along the way.”

      Breeding enough mules to replace all the Ford F150’s is going to be a problem.

      • draupnir September 11, 2017 at 11:45 am #

        There was a time before the invention of the plow when plowing was done with a sharped stick. Before the horse and ox were domesticated and put to work the power that pulled the sharpened stick was manpower and every stalk of grain and blade of hay was cut by hand, first with a knife and then with a sickle and finally with a scythe. There are medieval paintings still extant that show men bent over in the fields harvesting grain with a sickle.The scythe was first introduced in Europe around the 12th century and totally replaced the sickle by the 16th century. It was used until the horse-drawn reaper was invented in around 1834.

      • cbeard September 11, 2017 at 12:29 pm #

        Come to Calvary Georgia on November 3rd and 4th to buy mules and attend the festival.

    • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:34 pm #

      410 is not the decisive date.
      9 August 378: the Battle of Adrianople, Roman arrogance cost them dearly. So eager to claim the victory for himself the eastern roman emperor could not wait for the western (and superior) army but decided to claim victory for himself alone. It almost worked.

      After that they did not regain control of the goths.
      But they had been breeding down for a long time before that.

    • ozone September 11, 2017 at 7:16 pm #

      “If the Fed isn’t in the business of counterfeiting then please tell me, what is it doing? Find me a better term.”

      V.,
      Maybe not ‘better’, but perhaps more piquantly descriptive:

      Alchemy. …In this sense, turning magical keystrokes and mumbled incantations into yuuuuuge buying power for REAL, PHYSICAL goods, along with heavy leverage over the black gold that belongs to others. Yes, it certainly is crazy, isn’t it? Some one of these dark ol’ days, the con will be discovered by the very common boobus americanonsensus. At that point, the bogeyman du jour pops out of the closet, all bets are off and nobody gets paid.

      In the meantime, please do your part by donating to your megalithic insurance corporations to ‘insure’ they’ll be here to deny you protection in the future. Won’t you help… please?

  8. Walter B September 11, 2017 at 10:29 am #

    It must be peaceful to be able to simply ignore devastations of the magnitude of these recent events by glibly stating that everything is fine, the problems are all over and everybody is simply getting on with their Wonderland lives once again. Those of us in positions of responsibility to help, aid, and work with victims of such tragedies would be well served to be able to swap the Happy, Happy All Ends Well people with the newly homeless, financial decimated, and desperate souls that are now digging and pumping themselves out of the wrecked lives that they are faced with. The units that I am involved with have been sending in aid and help in the form of personnel as well to Texas and are now gearing up to do the same for Florida. So many people are now completely lost and now face futures of almost no hope that a lot of the aid that we are sending are in the form of mental health assistance. Reality, what a concept. I have a feeling that when the tables are turned, and they will be, the happy people will become the crybabies de jour. Do us all a favor then please, and take care of your own problems rather than ask for help from any of us that are the ones bearing the brunt of the relief efforts now. After all everything is fine now, so it will always be fine for you too, whatever the changes may bring.

    • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:41 am #

      The pain is just starting, for everybody. Everywhere I go now there are empty pumps, pumps with orange and yellow wrappers, No Gas signs. When I was in Louisiana for Gustav, we didn’t have gas for a week. No gas. Nada. When it finally arrived there were near riots. You didn’t see any of that in the happy, we’re all in this together reporting.

    • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 10:44 am #

      Our happy happy joy joy sociopath ignores individual tragedy and says things will be all right because he only sees what he wants too.

      • Walter B September 11, 2017 at 10:53 am #

        Yes indeed and the big reason that this bothers me is not because some dipshit cannot handle tragedy, pain and suffering, but because the spreading of such BS lies may serve to send the coward back to the couch and the TV, but it also convinces other, potential helpers that there is no problem so go back to sleep. Our CERT Team in Holland Township has assembled a core of us to put together supplies and aid that will be ramping up over the course of the next 6 months per our OEM administrator and the local Township Council. These people are in trouble and need help, not a quick sweep under the rug.

        • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 11:15 am #

          I don’t care what he thinks but people who are not aware he is here to distract will listen to his random happy proclamations with undeserved attention and weight. They can’t help it. Their brains not attuned to his agenda of deception will consider what he says seriously, at the very least on an unconscious level. That could translate into some people not getting help and making the long emergency a little more intense and a little more tragic.

          He disrupts, that is what he is here to do. He is PR for the fossil fuel industry.

      • OHealihy September 11, 2017 at 11:31 am #

        ” Because HE only sees what HE wants too (sic).”

        Or, IT, as you’ve previously said. Funny, but I’ve been thinking the same thing over the past few weeks; something about the elocution that is even apparent in the writing. Not to mention the perseveration of “smoke up your ass” sentiment regardless of the presented facts.
        BTW, mule gestation is about a year. In 1922, according to Henry and Morrison Feeds and Feeding, there were 5,436,000 mules in the U.S.. Mules were backed up by a dwindling contingent of 19,099,000 draught Horses. 1922 was a tipping point, afterwards engines and tractors took over.

        • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:15 pm #

          You need a horse to get a mule. Most mules cannot reproduce.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 12:54 pm #

            And a donkey too. One morning I woke up with a strong desire for a donkey. Genetic memory percolating up to the conscious mind.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:43 am #

            Percolating up from where? Your anus?

    • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 1:59 pm #

      Okay kids, get a grip. A hurricane happened, and that’s a bad thing. Actually two hurricanes happened, three if you include Mexico and four if you include Barbuda. That’s really bad. Nobody wants that. (Well, maybe a few folks, most of whom are on this site. They think it will hasten the long emergency. It won’t. That’s fiction. Get over it.)

      Everybody (except maybe a few, probably also on this site) feels bad for those affected and hopes for the swiftest recovery possible. We will do whatever is needed to help. Most will recover fairly quickly. Some will take longer, and some never will. We all realize that. Sometimes bad things happen.

      But despite doomsday predictions (and hope by a few, again here on this site), Houston is not history, Florida was not wiped off the map and the long emergency has not started.

      Thanks to the enormous resources, health and capacity of this country, the States of Texas and Florida and the city of Houston, this is something we can deal with. Life as we know it has not ended, the long emergency has not started. Overall, we will be a better, stronger place after these disasters are cleaned up.

      We preparefor disasters because sometimes bad things do happen. When they happen to us, we will be just as strong as the folks in Florida and Hoston. I’m sure when it happens, they will be in a position to offer any help we need, and they will.

      • Walter B September 11, 2017 at 3:01 pm #

        I am starting to think that coming here twice a week may be a poor investment of $10 a month. Thanks for helping me reduce my monthly costs.

        • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 3:48 pm #

          You may be right about it being a waste. But time, much more than money. Still, I get a few laughs, and it is good to know what some are thinking.

        • sophia September 11, 2017 at 5:58 pm #

          Hmm, so you’re implying that you don’t want to support Mr. Kunstler here because such awfulness as Gracenphil politely speak a bit of counter doom? Quite the snowflake then.

          • Walter B September 13, 2017 at 3:20 pm #

            Your abilities of deduction are damned near non existent, my condolences. I support our host through the purchase , reading and promotion of his work throughout my social circles, and I come here for intelligent discussion and exchange of ideas. We have all had numerous run ins with other posters and they are usually worked out well in the end. Why anyone other than a paid shill would come to a place like this to denounce the host at every turn and spew childish drivel of “nothing to see here move along” is not only just about the worst form of distraction but damned aggravating. I would much rather exchange intelligent alternatives with those of differing opinions, so yes, the frustration does make me question the validity of week after week of simple crap. In the olden days we were specifically instructed to “question everything” not to just “shut up and pay”. Perhaps times have changed and I have become an old anachronism. Sorry.

          • Graycenphil September 13, 2017 at 5:41 pm #

            Walter, I believe you’re talking about me? If not, just disregard.

            I also support our host through the purchase of his books and have recommended them to more than a few friends. I also appreciate the intelligent exchange of ideas. Unfortunately that is not all you get on here; some resort to personal insults, perhaps because they have run out of ideas or don’t like to be wrong or just won’t accept another opinion.

            I’m not sure why anyone would pay someone else to come on here and argue against the host, but maybe you can tell me. I most certainy do not denounce the host at every turn. I have said more than once that I think his fiction is great and his bi-weekly essays are clever, interesting and thought provoking. I have said that he makes terrible predictions. Looking back at them, I’m not sure how anyone could say otherwise. And I’m pretty sure Mr. Kunstler is aware of the predictions that fell short, and can handle the criticism. He seems like a pretty intelligent, confidant and secure adult.

            I am most defintely old, and I have always “questioed everything”. That inculdes, of course, everything. Not just what some folks might want questioned.

            All that said, I am completely open to reasonable discussion. If you or anyone else believes my facts are wrong, please question them. Feel free to prove it with links or data or references. Or ask me for proof; that’s part of “questioning everything” too.

            And for those who would rather just throw out a personal insult, go ahead. It’s an open forum, nobody can stop you and it’s not a big deal.

          • Walter B September 13, 2017 at 6:31 pm #

            Well G&p I do not believe in simply sitting back and casting aspersions in the direction of those that aggravate me. Building bridges is a far better way to spend the day rather than hurling insults and derision. Let us discuss one of your previous errors in the spirit of understanding and intelligence. You accused our host of being full of it when it comes to his feelings on the Peak Oil situation and stated that there was more than enough of the Devil’s Excrement down below to last a long, long time at the current rate of harvest (inplied). Unless you have actually tunneled deep down to confirm this belief, it flies in the faces of not only what many in the business state to the contrary, but it promotes an attitude of “the hell with conservation of this resource” which is one of the guiding principles of engineers such as I. Will there be enough oil to get us to the “transition” of which you speak? Now there is an actual possibility, though does this not imply that there is some great conspiracy in existence that is holding out the next big thing for once the oil runs out? Or perhaps you are of the belief that the cavalry will magically show up with a magic blue beam energy source and save us all in the nick if time? Do you see where I am coming from? Yes there may be a magic bailout through the wonders of mankind (though I personally have no faith in such a thing) but realistically speaking James Howard Kunstler is not so much a doomsayer of gloom as a caller to conservation and good future planning as am I. So what have you got?

          • Graycenphil September 14, 2017 at 8:09 am #

            I agree that building bridges is always better. Some on here clearly do not agree, but I’m more than willing to give them another chance. Personal insults and unfounded accusations are never appropriate. I won’t use them, but I may respond to them with sarcasm.

            I do believe we have a lot of oil, gas and coal left. I also agree none of us knows for sure, but all evidence seems to point that way. From reasonable sources, I frequently see estimates of enough coal to last hundreds of years. Again, nobody knows but we may have used half of the oil reserves, so wild guess another 100 years left. Not as easy to get, but still there. Natural gas, maybe something under 100 years?

            I’m not sure why you call my previous staements error, but please feel free to be more specific on that. Now I have never, for a moment, advocating a “to hell with conservation” attitude. But I do believe we should be making our decisions from accurate facts. I am a huge advocate of conservation,both personally and as a policy. I would never suggest we should lie in order to achieve that goal.

            As I have said, I love conspiracy theories, but believe almost all are false. And I do not believe there is a conspiracy to withhold some new technology until we run out of oil. But it is clear to me that we are pretty rapidly developing alternatives to fossil fuel energy, and will continue to do so at an increasing rate. Not so much because we are running out of oil, but because the alternatives are just better. Cleaner, safer and ultimately cheaper.

            I aslo agree Mr. Kunstler is a caller to consrvation and good planning. But his technique is through doomsday predictions. That is hard to dispute. I have also said that I question whether he even believes those predictions; I think they are likely a literary device. That only he knows for sure.

          • Walter B September 14, 2017 at 10:49 am #

            Looks like we may have something going here. When we talk of oil and coal it has to be kept in mind that regardless of whether these are or are not the cause of “Climate Change”, the powers that be are hell bent on limiting or stopping our use of these fuels altogether. It is only a short step to them attacking natural gas next. In my way of thinking, I cannot help but believe that they already have replacement energy sources (no not wind, tide, solar or any that we have been made aware of yet) and that they are simply nudging us all towards desperation over the end of what we have now. if they do one day unveil something bright and too good to be true (especially if it is tied to Antarctica ) I will certainly develop a permanent state of dirty drawers (think Buzz Aldrin). In the meanwhile I shall continue to utilize my motorcycle year round as possible for transportation and will burn deadfall wood to heat my home to conserve fuel oil. I encourage all to join me in doing the same.

          • Graycenphil September 14, 2017 at 5:42 pm #

            Thank you Walter B.I think we’ve had someting going all along; it’s just been in fits and starts, with a few major setbacks by a few with personal issues. I don’t believe anything I said in my last post contradicts anything I said earlier, but if you think it does please point it out.

            I seem to give much less weight to conspiracy theories than you do. But the future is hard – I’m much better at history and facts. I suspect that over the next 10,20,30,100 whatever years we will just see much more of the current alternative energy sources. Certainly more solar, wind and geothermal, probably more hydro, tidal and nuclear, hopefully some fusion and probably a few I’m not aware of. I don’t think there is any “too good to be true” suppressed technology, but I wouldn’t rule it out either. But I’m quite sure some mix of these will make most of our electricity and heat. Electricity will probably fuel most of our ground transportation, and maybe air and sea too.

            100 years from now I suspect we’ll still use oil and gas, but a lot less of it. It will probably be cheap because of the lack of demand, but heavily taxed so other sources are still less expensive. I suspect coal might be gone, but maybe we’ll have economical “clean coal”. Surely synthetic fuels and hydrogen wil have a big part too.

            The gist of this is, I believe, we will have a world pretty much like today’s only better. Just as today we have a world pretty much like that of 100 years ago, only better. That doesn’t make Mr. Kunstler’s novels irrelevant; one might suggest that makes them more important and they can stake some claim to the better future. It does mean a great many of his predictions are wrong. But as I say, I’m not convinced they are literal predictions.

            I think climate change is probably real and probably caused by human activity. And I think we should behave, for the time being, as if it is. That said, if 50 years from now it’s gone the way of Y2k, I won’t be too surprised.

            I don’t ride a motorcycle, summer or winter, but I do ride a bicycle, we burn wood and waste vegetable oil, we have a large freezer and solar panels. We also burn heating oil, have generators and burn my share of gasoline and jet fuel.

          • Walter B September 14, 2017 at 10:06 pm #

            Well Grayce, you and I shall have to meet here again tomorrow after our host posts once again and perhaps with a new understanding, you and I can go forward in a new ability to discuss, analyze and consider the possibilities that are put forth in this place. I look forward to that. See you tomorrow.

      • skamander September 11, 2017 at 5:44 pm #

        Gracie, you are not intelligent enough to know when you’ve soundly trounced and completely out-argued. You are wrong. Deal with it.

        • skamander September 11, 2017 at 5:46 pm #

          “…you’ve been soundly trounced…”

        • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 7:43 pm #

          Can you point out what I say that’s wrong? I didn’t think so.

          • skamander September 11, 2017 at 8:36 pm #

            Kdog and others have already done so, you idiot. And so has JHK. Learn to think.

          • skamander September 11, 2017 at 8:39 pm #

            Ah, right; you “didn’t think”. How’s it feel to be hoisted by your own petard, in the sense that I’ve purposely misquoted you to show you what you do to others here? Now, just go away, you insufferable little man.

          • Graycenphil September 11, 2017 at 10:09 pm #

            So none of you can point out anything factually wrong. Of course not. So you resort to personal insults.

            At least JHK accepts it when he is wrong. And he writes well.

            And Skamander, if you can show where I’ve misquoted somebody, please do. Hint: You can’t.

          • skamander September 12, 2017 at 3:06 am #

            Gracie, you’ve had your asinine mistakes handed to you on a proverbial platter several times in several threads above. Of course, you didn’t understand the argument then, you don’t understand it now, and you didn’t even notice when you were referred to as an ‘it’ and a sociopath.

            Just do everyone a favour and fall on your head. Oh wait; that is your least vulnerable area.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:45 am #

            No we point out the facts and you dance around them like a chicken targeted for dinner. It’s not entertaining and it’s not annoying. It’s just passe.

      • outsider September 11, 2017 at 6:01 pm #

        Graycenfil,
        Reading your comments, I’m reminded of my college days eons ago when I read Voltaire’s “Candide.” Your optimism so reminds me of the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss.

        • skamander September 11, 2017 at 6:30 pm #

          Nailed it, outsider; Gracie is indeed a dumbed-down version of Pangloss, who was, in turn, a satire of Leibniz.

      • ozone September 11, 2017 at 8:38 pm #

        Gracie (&guyinahole),
        Please address your fine opinions and granite-chiseled facts directly to Mr. Kunstler; I’m sure he’d be surprised and delighted with your perspicacity (or ability to talk shit; whichever comes first). As for the rest of us? Mmm, not so much.

        What are you here for? “For fun”? If so, do you enjoy wasting people’s time and being contrary for the sake of it? Very strange how your “ideas” directly contradict JHK’s. Now what is the purpose of that and how do you think that will affect those of us who feel the need for long-term thinking that doesn’t include an “easy fix”, app-for-that world ahead? (Similar to JHK’s visions of a sternly consequential future.)

        (Sorry, but I’m all about motivations as the basis for trust, even though you may not be interested in being trusted. Knowing the motivations, I can be fairly confident in which direction a particular froggie is going to jump. Shit happens, but I like to avoid surprises as much as possible.)

        • Graycenphil September 12, 2017 at 8:11 am #

          Ozone, I assume that by writing on here Mr. Kunstler is in fact seeing it. I originally came here because I like his fiction very much, and I also enjoy his bi-weekly column. That doesn’t mean I agree with all of it.

          I started posting on here because I was sort of wondering how he could be so wrong in his predictions, yet still continue to make them. I’ve come to suspect he does not actually believe what he is saying; they are merely a literary device. This may or may not be true. If it is not, I again question how he can be so wrong.

          I am definitely a contrarian in many aspects; that has served me well and I’m not about to change. That said, my opinions are based on facts and realism. That doesn’t mean my opinions are right, but it does mean my facts are. I cannot say the same for some of the others on here. I’m willing to point out when they ar wrong; I’d be happy if they would do the same but generally all I get are insults. Kdog did eventally admit I was right about gas prices and electric cars, but he quickly returned to silly personal remarks.

          I listened to the Serial podcast about John McLemore, a literal follower of JHK. He talks about living in S*@+$town, and how awful it is. As the story progresses, we realize that many of his facts are just plain wrong. The S-town hs is living in, in reality, is mostly in his own mind. It appears many on here are in the same situation.

  9. teddyboy46 September 11, 2017 at 10:38 am #

    what happens when a snake eats its own tail it eventually eats its own head.

    now that is a very cool metaphor for what the Fed has been doing. it can also be applied at the personal level when it comes to personal debt.

  10. Bro Jobe September 11, 2017 at 10:39 am #

    I get called a “Gold Bug,” but I like silver a lot more. I still buy into the value of the phantom we call “investments,” but it is nice to have options.

    What most of us regard as “money” will have little value soon, as soon as that snake eats its own head. Try as I might, I cannot get others to see how insane things are.

    Maybe they need to see more photos from Wiemar Germany, where wheelbarrows of Deutschmarks were needed for grocery shopping?

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    • malthuss September 11, 2017 at 11:10 am #

      GOLD $100.000 an ounce?

      • cbeard September 11, 2017 at 12:33 pm #

        I’ve heard it said there may come a time when lead is more valuable than gold.

        • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:43 pm #

          Might I suggest tungsten for you?

    • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 9:49 pm #

      Bro Jobe,

      Silver has been holding at about $17-18 per oz for quite a while now.

      brh

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:46 am #

        A long, long while.

        • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 3:10 pm #

          7 year bear, as of Xmas.

  11. seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 10:43 am #

    Remarkably similar MO. A strongman comes out of nowhere saying he alone can fix things.

    • outsider September 11, 2017 at 8:08 pm #

      seawolf,
      And he would have – if he’d been allowed. But, as Steve Bannon said on 60 Minutes yesterday, it would take 20 years of fighting to drain the Swamp.

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:47 am #

        If he was there for 8 years he’d said it’s a 100 year job. It’s like the people that come here and sprinkle optimism. They just move the goal posts and close their eyes when the football goes through anyway.

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:49 pm #

        Hitler drained the swamp. Then he killed all the alligators.

  12. RocketDoc September 11, 2017 at 10:48 am #

    If money grew on trees, it wouldn’t be money, it would be coconuts. Calling money creation “debt” pretends that policy differences are actually important. The only thing that is important is the right to produce all the money you want or need. The government has that right and has exercised that right with gusto and as George Carlin remarked, “no one seems to care”. A small percentage do but my question is, what percent of the American people actually care that the government has gradually taken over all value creation by symbolic receipts? I think it’s less than 5%. I can’t get anybody to understand that a government that can create all the money it needs is totalitarian in the most basic sense. It is not representative it is sui generis. So while a bunch of “representatives” are running around discussing debt limits there is not a discussion of how big the Federal Reserve balance sheet could be. Why not $10 Trillion?

    • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 11:04 am #

      All true but what does the end game look like? Fracking was subsidized by banks loaning to Mom and Pop shops like crazy and oil production approached the 1970’s peak. But that’s over. The best spots were hit first. Without question people will work from home via the internet. That will be huge. Electric cars will help. Our military is in the penultimate great puddle of oil in Iraq. The last puddle is Iran. My prediction is China wants that one. And there you have World War 3. Russia is in the catbird seat here.

      • michael September 11, 2017 at 3:48 pm #

        There is no end game. There are periodic crises, civilizations collapse and others arise. Been going on like that since the time of the Sumerians.

        You may be interested in the late bronze age collpase:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse
        Several superpowers disappeared (Mycaene, Hittites), Egypt hit hard but others unaffected.

        Seems to have been the most significant historical collapse as yet
        and surely much to your liking.

        • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:50 am #

          There is always an end game. They’re called periods. Doesn’t mean there isn’t another sentence coming. Unless of course you’re at the end of the Bronze Age.

    • messianicdruid September 11, 2017 at 12:19 pm #

      Has anyone noticed some of the new FRNs are colored brown. It is a hint, the leaves are turning brown. No evergreens in these parts.

      • sophia September 11, 2017 at 6:09 pm #

        I’m stumped. What is the meaning of your post and what is an FRN?

        • My Point of View September 11, 2017 at 11:58 pm #

          FRN = Federal Reserve Note

  13. PeteAtomic September 11, 2017 at 11:03 am #

    One difficulty I have is with the elite’s response to going medieval. I can’t envision people like the Trumps of the world simply deciding to follow along with the mule-replacing-the rolls Royce idea. I don’t see that happening. I think they’d all start twittering each other first to see if they can come to some kind of agreement about continuing their lifestyles while ‘all the others’ go medieval.

    • elysianfield September 11, 2017 at 11:27 am #

      ” I don’t see that happening”

      During our “Great Depression” of the ’30’s, the unwashed had to be mindful while on foot lest a Duesenberg or Hispano-Suiza run them over….

      • John Howard September 11, 2017 at 2:35 pm #

        “That was a Doozie!” they’d say.

      • PeteAtomic September 12, 2017 at 4:12 pm #

        I think it might get way more extreme than that, but yeah I see your point.

    • K-Dog September 11, 2017 at 11:29 am #

      As long as their lifestyle is better than yours they would be fine with changes.

      Conspicuous consumption has to do with status not need. When high status once again means having a finely black polished horse drawn buggy they will dump a Rolls to get one. Creature comfort is good but status drives the Trumps of the world.

      Sadly that is only a thought experiment. Currently status means denying truth so as to hold on to that Rolls as long as they can. I do not see this changing anytime soon and your objection to them deciding to follow along is well founded. They don’t follow the rabble. They look down on the rabble. They only follow their peers and their peers do not care about others not having resources as long as they have theirs.

      • PeteAtomic September 12, 2017 at 4:14 pm #

        yeah, I’d agree there. The trouble for the rabble I think is that they’d get so far down in the tech level that the ultra rich and their retainers may simply decide to rule the planet in a role as if they were an off planet intelligence.

    • hmuller September 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm #

      I agree, Pete. Although I really enjoyed JHK’s 4 books – The World Made by Hand series, and I hope he continues the storyline.

      But I don’t think the worst case future scenario will involve everyone going back to a mid-19th century lifestyle. I expect something like an entire world looking like Haiti – which is probably worse – corruption, injustice, brutality, overcrowding, no rule of law. Meanwhile, the “Uberrich” will still enjoy the benefits of high-tech civilization in their citadel-like neighborhoods.

      • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:22 pm #

        Parts of where I live do resemble Haiti, except with a lot more asphalt rubble and no palm trees.
        Speaking of Haiti, isn’t it interesting that all during the last presidential campaign no one asked Hillary Clinton what happened to all that money donated for Haitian relief?
        Six houses. Six.

        • cbeard September 11, 2017 at 12:41 pm #

          My rural community certainly resembles Haiti since a lot of big corporate farms have Haitians in there employ. You see Haitian women walking home from the grocery store with all their purchases balanced on their heads. The corporate farm types have living quarters for them, sometimes rural close to the farm and some stay in shotgun shacks in town and are picked up by old school buses to shuttle them to the fields.

          • hmuller September 11, 2017 at 3:14 pm #

            cbeard, That sounds like the future the globalists have in mind for all of us. White, black, brown, red, yellow, no matter, we’re all just slaves on their plantation world, or should I say prison planet.

            Of course, the Georgia guidestones reveal they only need 500 million of us to serve them. Guess what happens to the other 6.9 billion of us!

      • PeteAtomic September 12, 2017 at 4:18 pm #

        yeah. I think this Haiti like existence for most people will happen in degrees. These super storms like Irma or Harvey will knock places out (one example), and the resources to rebuild these areas may not be there anymore. Larger parts of the US will slowly (or maybe quickly) sink into slums of rubble & detritus.

    • Bro Jobe September 11, 2017 at 1:28 pm #

      Pete, in Soylent Green, the elites still have fresh food and limos, plus a lot of hired muscle to protect them from the rabble living in wrecked cars and eating each other’s protein.

      That’s a more likely short-term outcome than World Made By Hand, as much as I’d prefer JHK’s version of tomorrow.

      • PeteAtomic September 12, 2017 at 4:20 pm #

        ha ha, Solyent Green. I own that one. I’ll have to put that on again sometime.

        Seems like the trend on this thought is shared pretty similar amongst people, which is interesting.

    • michael September 11, 2017 at 4:02 pm #

      There is no going medieval. The mule is gone because it eats more than you do. This used to be a problem for cavallery armies first experinced by the Huns and finally their undoing.

      The Hummer with the power of 100 horses “eats” much less.
      it is also less versatile but the verstility of the horse is not needed.

      If the horse makes a comeback it is only because the humans are gone.

  14. volodya September 11, 2017 at 11:33 am #

    K dog, yep, breeding enough mules will be a big problem. So will learning a massive skill set of which we do not have clue one. The vast majority of us are at least one generation off from running a family farm. This is something that will need to be re-learned. I don’t know how that knowledge gets disseminated so as to avoid mass hunger/starvation.

    I don’t say this because I automatically assume a worst case situation. That’s not my nature. I just look at what people have done in my lifetime and the life times of my parents and grandparents. These are people that I know and knew and the accounts are not only recent but still in living memory. What they’ve told me doesn’t encourage me.

    One thing to expect as one commenter said above is for the ruling elite to try to hang onto the advantages that they’ve got. That they acquired such massive wealth to the detriment of millions of people in the American interior tells me the way down is not going to be good.

    • ozone September 11, 2017 at 7:45 pm #

      I would agree that the Haves will most assuredly attempt to hold on to their present advantages, but keep in mind that there is *no one* that can’t be “touched” given sufficient motivation. (…and there will be shitloads of motivations.)

    • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 1:51 am #

      Yes, contact with a farm and its ways was once a normal thing. Call me cynical but when things break down a ‘farmin’ APPon a phone is not going to teach anybody enough to make a difference.

      Canning, harvesting and doing all the work needed to bring in a harvest was once common knowledge but excepting rare exceptions we are all at least a generation away from these complicated and time consuming skills.

  15. hmuller September 11, 2017 at 11:48 am #

    Someone once claimed people were only 9 missed meals away from turning to cannibalism. Maybe Florida will answer that claim one way or the other.

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    • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 3:02 pm #

      It’s the Last Supper. Josephus used this very effectively when he wrote the New Testament. Cannibal Mary. Jesus giving instructions on how to eat him at the Last Supper. The last supper is when you eat people, during a siege as Cannibal Mary during the Siege of Jerusalem or when you’re lost at sea.

      • hmuller September 11, 2017 at 3:07 pm #

        Well, I would never argue with an old seawolf on the subject of cannibalism at sea. But your claim that Josephus wrote the New Testament is a bit much even for a conspiracy theory sponge like myself. Which internet blogger is putting out that claim?

        • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 3:15 pm #

          Joseph Atwill in “Caesar’s Messiah.” He makes the case the Jesus is based on Julius Caesar and that Josephus used typology to write the 4 gospels and may be the basis for St Paul. I make the argument it was Caesar’s son by Cleopatra who went to India after the Battle of Actium, explaining the lost 17 years, and inexplicably came back. He was the Son of God, since Caesar had been deified after Caesar’s Comet appeared in his birth month (July) a few months after the assassination. And of course Julius Caesar’s son would be guilty of sedition.

          • hmuller September 11, 2017 at 3:32 pm #

            According to wikipedia “Caesarion was born in Egypt on June 23, 47 BC. His mother Cleopatra insisted that he was the son of Julius Caesar. Caesarion was said to have inherited Caesar’s looks” .
            That would put him (Caesarion alias Jesus ) way too early for the timeline and the historical people and events connected with the life of Jesus and the early church.
            Anybody can write anything. Hell, I could write a book claiming Philo assumed the persona of Jesus. Wasn’t Philo always talking about “the logos”.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 4:00 pm #

            There are a ton of historical problems with this story. There is no anchor to that date.

          • hmuller September 11, 2017 at 4:32 pm #

            Problems with which date? All the historical records agree that Julius Caesar died in 44 BC, and we may presume any children he fathered were during his lifetime. (No frozen sperm banks)

            The Battle of Actium was in 31 BC, after which Caesarion disappeared from history. If he went to India and came back as the preacher Jesus circa 30 AD, there’s more than 17 missing years. Caesarion would have had to be pushing 80 when he died on the cross.

            Or perhaps you believe the events of the life of Jesus/Caesarion occurred decades earlier and were then rewritten and set in the time of Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate. I suppose that’s a possibility.

          • seawolf77 September 11, 2017 at 4:38 pm #

            Exactly. There is nothing in the New testament story that anchors the date. There is nothing in the Roman record of an execution of a man named Jesus.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 10:05 pm #

            The Jews say Jesus was a real man, an evil one is their book (the Talmud) and they gloatingly take full responsibility for his execution.

            Are you calling them liars? Anti-Semite much?

            Beyond that small but cogent argument, there is the broader one of Nothing coming from Nothing. Do you really think a Global Religion started from some stories? That countless people dedicated their lives and lost them based on that?

            Robert Spencer hates Islam so much (I don’t blame him btw) that he makes a similar argument for Mohammad not ever existing.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:52 am #

            The Muslims say the crucifixion was a farce and that they crucified somebody else i.e. they substituted a fake Jesus. Are you calling them liars? Take what people say with a grain of salt. It’ll come in handy when you’re drinking that Margarita, unless you take it like Milton Waddams “No salt! No salt!”

  16. JohnAZ September 11, 2017 at 12:26 pm #

    Personal experience. The family has a fracking oil well in the Eagleford formation. Just as JHK has described, the well peaked in output in about a year and has declined since. Our “take” has reflected the same. It was hitting low levels six months ago and now they have come up with a new idea. The well was drilled sideways at about 5000 feet. Now the idea is the shale formation exists at 10000 feet, so let us drill down to there and repeat the frack. My only question is what will that do to the geologic structures above and below the new zone? The “take”has increased over the past couple of months, so maybe it is succeeding. Fracking is a short term solution, period. When the fields peter out from their sweet spots, the decline will be sudden and final!

    Abiotic oil, oil from the earth? How many oil companies have gone back to their exhausted fields and found a replenished supply? Not too many, I would think?

    • Beryl of Oyl September 11, 2017 at 12:45 pm #

      We’ll just have to start running cars off of recycled plastic. That should buy us some more time.

    • sophia September 11, 2017 at 6:34 pm #

      Perhaps if we come back in 10,000 years, like the Ogallala aquifer, it might refill.

    • outsider September 11, 2017 at 8:26 pm #

      I know nothing about geology. But I’ve often wondered why Saudi Arabia, with its underground oil deposits being pumped out at a massive rate, hasn’t turned into one gigantic sink hole.

    • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 9:54 pm #

      True enough john AZ.

      But an article a few years back in WSJ claimed there are still a few privately owned operating oil wells in Titusville and Oil City PA., where it all began in 1859. You got some guy getting 9 or 10 barrels per day out of his well in the backyard he’s doing pretty good, ‘specially if the price is up there round $100 pb.

      brh

    • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:54 am #

      You can be sure if just one of them refilled the abiotic theory is now hard, cold fact.

  17. JohnAZ September 11, 2017 at 12:37 pm #

    Your comments about the elites being deniers are so right on. I remember that a goodly portion of the elite in 1912 bought tickets on the Titanic because someone told them it was unsinkable!

    • volodya September 11, 2017 at 1:01 pm #

      A goodly portion of the British aristocracy wanted to make an accommodation with Hitler. Talk about denialism.

      A goodly portion of the pre-WW1 European elite apparently thought
      that a war would be an invigorating, cleansing act. What did they say back in August 1914? Back before Christmas?

      If you ascribe blame for these calamities to elites cretinized by centuries of inbreeding and weakened by alcohol, opium and syphilis, I think you have a case. I think not much has changed. I think the elites running things back then weren’t completely eliminated. Their descendants/successors are still stinking things up.

      Denial is maladaptive behavior. Natural selection will deal with it.

  18. PostPeakRancher September 11, 2017 at 12:38 pm #

    Off topic: Jim, are you going to treat us to a 2017 Garden Update any time soon? I hope you had a great growing season. We had our successes and our failures this season but overall I say that this year was our best so far.

    PPR

  19. capt spaulding September 11, 2017 at 1:15 pm #

    Once the manufacturing jobs mostly left, the middle class pretty much took it up the keister. Jobs that pay any kind of a decent wage will require more tech education. There won’t really be any decent jobs for the average Joe. There’s a very informative book out there called “Rise of The Robots” by Martin Ford, which covers the situation, and that’s assuming that we develop good alternative energy sources. If you throw in the big whammy of energy collapse, you will revert to the middle ages, when most people were serfs, and living miserable lives at best. It’s hard for me to envision any kind of a comfortable transition to that kind of life. It would come hard and fast, with no time to relearn the kind of skills necessary to live in that environment. Those skills developed slowly over generations, and they won’t be relearned quickly enough to help everyone. Our society hasn’t developed that way, and most of us aren’t equipped to deal with the problems we would be confronted with. There’s no such thing as a soft crash.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 2:25 pm #

      So can we say with confidence, that you would be AGAINST going down this road of automation? Or do you just acquiesce, assume its automatic – and then hate those “funny guys” who try to stop the 18 Wheeler of America from going over the cliff?

      Stopping this Juggernaut and returning Industry to control by the American People is National Socialism. Not Marxism which is inhuman and a project of the Global Elite. On the eve of the Black takeover, Mandela switched from Communism to European style Marxist Socialism. He would have been dead in short order if hadn’t. His employers would have seen to that.

      • capt spaulding September 12, 2017 at 11:25 am #

        There’s no stopping automation, since it involves immense profits for corporations & investors. It’s gonna happen whether you like it or not, so all you can do is try to figure a way to minimize the impact on society. The American people never had control of industry, it’s always been controlled by the wealthy. Read the book. You might find it interesting. It’s pretty well written.

        • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 2:57 pm #

          There’s no stopping automation….

          You miss the main point, which is robotics make depopulation
          much easier. The 1% wont need farm workers etc.
          We are not needed by them, soon.

          • capt spaulding September 12, 2017 at 7:29 pm #

            I think you’re wrong. Advances in robotics is all about making a buck. The side effects include loss of jobs, making migrant workers unnecessary, along with a huge percentage of the rest of the population in many areas of work. The driving force is not a depopulation effort, that’s just one of the results, among many others. Like I said, it’s gonna happen, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. It’s gonna change the way we live. Best to start thinking about it now, rather than let it sneak up on you like it will for most uninformed people.

  20. John Howard September 11, 2017 at 2:43 pm #

    Hopefully Trump will make the case that, with these unexpected hurricanes, wars, and terrorism, we simply can’t afford transgender reproduction and same sex marriage. To balance the budget and provide better healthcare, we have to ban male pregnancy, same-sex conception, artificial wombs, and void all same sex marriages.

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    • sophia September 11, 2017 at 6:39 pm #

      Works for me.

    • Q. Shtik September 11, 2017 at 9:28 pm #

      Yeah, #1 on my list of concerns.

      • John Howard September 11, 2017 at 10:03 pm #

        What is?

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 6:27 pm #

      Also let’s pass a law banning water from running uphill.

  21. lsjogren September 11, 2017 at 2:57 pm #

    you kind of wonder what happens when a snake eating its own tail finally reaches its head

    Good way to pose the question.

  22. lsjogren September 11, 2017 at 2:59 pm #

    Meanwhile, in the background, my radio is on and some guy is advocating scientists come up with a way to make ice cubes taste like soda so you can put them in a soft drink without diluting it.

    • Q. Shtik September 11, 2017 at 9:30 pm #

      #2 on my list of concerns.

    • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 2:58 pm #

      make them from soda, duh.

  23. akmofo September 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm #

    “…you kind of wonder what happens when a snake eating its own tail finally reaches its head. What’s left, exactly, after it eats that, too? My own guess would be three words: you go medieval. I mean literally. No more engines, electric lights, central heating…” – JHK

    No, you issue a new paper of a New Shekel now worth a thousand of the old Shekels. Pretty simple, Pontifex Maximus. The only persons possessed by a medieval mind are those writing the kind of nonsense writ above.

    • lsjogren September 11, 2017 at 4:18 pm #

      Could be. Maybe the airlines are a good analogy.

      Airlines get set up, issue stock, build a business, go banrkupt.

      Stockholders lose all their money. The airline keeps running under a restructuring plan, they issue new stock, a new band of “hope springs eternal” shareholders buy the stock on the rational that the company is financially clean now, because the pesky existing financial stakeholders- stockholders and bondholders, have all been eliminated.

      Rinse and repeat.

      The airline keeps on running despite the periodic bankruptcies.

      So there’s no reason to assume the economy comes screeching to a halt. The only thing for sure is that a lot of people who thought they had money discover they don’t.

  24. akmofo September 11, 2017 at 4:05 pm #

    Btw, I’ve been to Bulgaria, Sofia specifically, and there is not a city in the whole of the US that even comes close to it in terms of the excellence it in its urban planning. You really should take a lesson from that place before you get the chutzpah to disparage these people.

  25. 100th Avatar September 11, 2017 at 5:48 pm #

    They could write about how looting encourages people to stay rather than evacuate, but they can’t write about what segment of society is doing it. They’re rather like trannies and Russians: need the right narrative to be newsworthy.

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    • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 9:05 pm #

      I think the Russia story is just fading away.

      It doesn’t seem like there was any substance to it to begin with.

      I doubt in the future if it’ll be remembered other than anything besides an embarrassing manic episode of political sour grapes and hysteria. But it served its purpose.

      brh

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 6:07 pm #

        Said the same thing about Watergate. Goldwater said if Nixon had come out and said I screwed this pooch something fierce, it all would have been forgotten.

  26. DrGonzo September 11, 2017 at 7:51 pm #

    It was just last week that JHK was all excited because Irma was going to destroy Disney World. I wish he’d at least try to keep his story straight.

  27. BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 8:16 pm #

    $20 trillion, it sounds like a lot of swag.

    But the assets of the United States, all added up, amount to over $125 trillion. Looked at that way the national debt doesn’t seem that daunting. We have a long way to go yet before we’re bankrupt, and it probably won’t happen in any of our lifetimes.

    I think Erma was overhyped. It certainly wasn’t the most powerful hurricane to strike Florida. I heard a local meteorologist, apparently one without an agenda, say it was the 9th most powerful storm, and the ones in 1926 and 1935 were far worse in terms of lives lost and property destroyed. But why let that get in the way apocalyptic, histrionic news reporting?

    brh

    • outsider September 11, 2017 at 8:54 pm #

      You might be right, brh, but I just watched ABC’s national news, and it appeared from the report that a large part of Florida has been decimated. The Keys have been leveled. Millions are without power. There’s been massive flooding in Jacksonville and Charleston, SC. Orlando has suffered property damage, so perhaps even Disney has not emerged unscathed. In any case, isn’t it a little too early for a meteorologist to proclaim that Irma is only the “9th most powerful storm” to strike Florida? Obviously more lives were lost in earlier hurricanes, but that means they were more deadly, (people didn’t even know they were coming years ago, and there were scant building codes), not necessarily more powerful.

      • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 8:59 pm #

        Good points, all, Outsider

        brh

        • 100th Avatar September 11, 2017 at 9:53 pm #

          Hurricanes serve a purpose in the natural realm (AKA: reality) or have a silver lining depending on how you to choose to look at them. Atmospheric pressure, rain, and humidity balances. To humans they’re just destruction writ large. So arrogant that we take blame for them. Can’t win for losing.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 7:55 am #

            Can’t win for losing. Is that some Eastern thing?

          • 100th Avatar September 13, 2017 at 2:09 pm #

            Good question. I don’t know. However, the usage I am accustomed to has a different meaning than what I have since found on the web.

            I always heard it in a context, that even when one loses, even by choice, they are denied even that satisfaction.

            So above, humans can’t just accept a storm as a natural phenomenon, they created it, this loss, and can only blame themselves.

            “Honey you won in checkers, time for bed” “But daddy, you played poorly on purpose”

            Can’t win for losing literally.

      • sophia September 13, 2017 at 1:20 pm #

        It’s not about property damage or lives. It’s about wind speed mostly. Objective measurements.

  28. DA September 11, 2017 at 8:49 pm #

    Slow week this week, what with only two hurricanes coming ashore (so far at least) and the usual fall football festivities “kicking off.” Taking the opportunity to kick it with some Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest “seasonal brew” and some Rolling Stones at Hyde Park videos courtesy YouTube. The young Mick was quite the fucking charmer, in much the same way I imagine janet was/is eyeing Thwack’s thwack. Funny, I never saw that when I was his age:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbI9D8Ya9cY

    (If you watch the video through Honky Tonk Woman, you’ll be rewarded with Sympathy for the Devil next!)

    • DA September 11, 2017 at 9:12 pm #

      I love this video even more, if only because Aimee Mann is a figure so easy to hate/make fun of. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved her voice, but you have to admit she presents an awkward scarecrow-like figure for anyone attracted to traditional femininity. Thin straw-colored hair, a near-skeletor figure with unmistakable jowl-like features forming underneath her prominent frown lines, horn-rimmed glasses, dark clothing and melancholic demeanor to match; Aimee was never destined for mass media stardom, for sure. But she’s A BEAUTY all the more! Enjoy!:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgYT7zB3w5M

      • DA September 11, 2017 at 9:37 pm #

        Aimee’s voice also exhibits a particularly pronounced “presence” to my ear, in that her volume seems unnaturally “loud” (more accurately, room filling) with apparently minimal effort. She’s a natural gift/wonder to my ears.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2017 at 10:00 pm #

        What an incredibly thin lipped ungenerous mouth – even without it being downturned. Is she descended from Puritans? Did she star in a horror movie about Salem?

        • DA September 11, 2017 at 10:32 pm #

          Thanks Janos! What an incredibly ungenerous take as well. LOL!

        • BackRowHeckler September 11, 2017 at 10:48 pm #

          Its NPR. What the hell do you expect?

        • DA September 11, 2017 at 11:07 pm #

          Sorry for that flippant response Janos. She does present a rather scarecrow figure, doesn’t she? But quite a talent nonetheless. Her tone / tenor / presence is what impresses me most. I was a trumpet pretender in high school and quickly came to recognize it when I heard it( I never had it). A lot of kids (me) practiced a lot and so had fairly good technique, but the TRUE talents you recognized as soon as you heard them. Their musical voice was simply preternaturally bigger than the rest. While everyone else was trying their hardest, they were just fucking around.

          Another one:

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

          • Harry Bolsogna September 12, 2017 at 2:18 am #

            Wut? Only the music accompaniment is decent. Both vocalists are complete garbage. What are you listening to?

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:19 pm #

            Figured it out: Sherri Moon Zombie (Rob’s daughter) starred in “The Lords of Salem”, a genuinely scary movie. She looked like a young Aimee Mann.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lords_of_Salem_(film)

      • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 3:01 pm #

        Aimee. I went to one of her concerts. She doesnt have much of a vox.
        Someone I knew who went to Berklee [the guitar college]
        saId that AM worked as a clerk at the [1980s] record store.
        And she was a bitch.

        Yet someone else I knew worked in a ‘boiler room’ with
        one of the guys from her band, who she had cheated, I gather.

  29. wm5135 September 11, 2017 at 9:56 pm #

    Looking into the crystal ball I submit that we will see that the financial system does not really work the way so many of us believe. The amount of money required to paper over the effects of the storms is nothing compared to what would happen if the system were to collapse.

    We have not yet exceeded the point of diminishing marginal returns. When the current system is no longer profitable it, the system, and all of the you and I will be abandoned.

    This will not be the last time someone is dancing because they shot themselves in the foot.

    By the way Gracenphil (whatever) please “SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP”. Thank you in advance.

    • Q. Shtik September 11, 2017 at 10:46 pm #

      wm5135 and others,

      Gracenphil’s purpose in life is the same as janet’s: to annoy.

      • DA September 11, 2017 at 11:08 pm #

        They do it well.

  30. janet September 11, 2017 at 10:54 pm #

    “The American people aren’t “a people” in any sense of the past; identity politics, victim class growth industry and PC has destroyed any commonly held sense of nationhood known in the past” –cavepainter

    I live and share with people of different races, ethnicities, and faiths who all share an appreciation of what unites us.

    What unites us is that America is founded on ideals … like freedom, liberty, justice, etc. … not on class or blood or soil or language or borders or civil status or sexual orientation. What they love about America is its pluralism.

    If you really think being a citizen is important, go to a citizenship ceremony and witness that joy and hope and the American spirit is strong. Your cynicism will be destroyed.

    Or don’t go to a citizenship ceremony. Stay in your WASP bubble and complain. Be like Jen and complain about trivia, like the lesbians who dare go to church and don’t dress “right.”

    I know my beautiful multicultural America is vital, is alive and is thriving. I see it everyday in the faces of those who janos despectively calls the “mud people” …

    Mud is beautiful… America IS made of, by, and for people with beautiful shades of golden brown and black skin and people with white skin… and yellow … and red skin. Beautiful.

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    • DA September 11, 2017 at 11:13 pm #

      The twat/twit of unrequited optimism weighs in again. Thanks for that. Shouldn’t there be a message from your sponsor now?

    • beantownbill. September 11, 2017 at 11:37 pm #

      I don’t care what any other posters say, I think your post expresses a beautiful sentiment.

      No one can convince me otherwise.

  31. beantownbill. September 11, 2017 at 11:46 pm #

    I laugh at those who disdain others just because of their color. If one thinks about it, it is sheer stupidity. My only regret is that I probably won’t be around when there is no black or white or brown people, just golden ones (but then, again, who knows? Medical science and life extension technology is really advancing.). The bad but ironic news for the racists is that there will be no racial diversity. We will all be made up of all the former races and be one golden people.

    • akmofo September 12, 2017 at 9:29 am #

      I hope you’re wrong. Diversity is what makes humans great.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:00 pm #

        Mixing all the races out of existence is what the Bills of the world call diversity. It’s a cognitive trick and combined with their ruthless Will has proven most effective.

        Racists are the true advocates of real Diversity. We don’t necessarily hate the Other, we may even admire him (as in the case of the Japanese), but we Love ourselves too much to blend ourselves out of existence.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:59 pm #

          What did Spock say? The glory of the Universe is in its infinite diversity. Thus the Bills and their fellow travelers are the the enemies of all. As the Ramayana said of the Demon, Ravana, “He is a whirlpool in the river of life.”

        • akmofo September 12, 2017 at 2:03 pm #

          Nobody can will others, unless they are willing dumb animals.

          Racism is a US globalist spawned & sponsored divide & conquer propaganda, and fake pseudoscience.

          Ethnicity and culture is what animates diversity. Nazi Racists have been opposed to this since their inception by the US globalists, and they have waged ruthless wars of extermination to that end.

          As I said before, you’re on the wrong team, Janos Skorenzy. Your pride and emotional blindness prevents you from seeing things for what they are, even though the facts are clear.

          • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 3:04 pm #

            Darfur? Rwanda? South Africa? Rhodesia?

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 3:12 pm #

            Look Akmo: Buy a set of watercolors and a palette from an art supply store. Set up your spectrum of paints on the palette. Real Diversity, right? A veritable rainbow. Now like the slob you are, let the paints all run together. Still have diversity? Where’d the rainbow go!

            The Rainbow is a symbol of true Diversity because the colors are separate. Every crystal or dvd reproduces this beauty of Nature. Akmo is against Nature, and is thus to that extent, Evil.

          • akmofo September 12, 2017 at 6:05 pm #

            I’ll say it again,
            in the most simplistic way, so that even you can understand:

            nazis = globalists/collectivists/fascists/imperialists

            akmofo = nationalist = hates nazis/globalists/collectivists/fascists/imperialists

            There can be no such thing as a white nationalist. It’s an oxymoron. White racism is the enemy of nationalism because it subsumes nationalism and preys upon it (just ask any Dutch, or Czech, or Austrian, Ukrainian, etc., under nazi occupation). How stupid can you be to not understand this.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 6:24 pm #

            In other words, Whites don’t have the right to have their own nations like Blacks, East Asians, South Asians, Hispanics, etc.

            You’ve outed yourself, bigot. And Whites had nations long before “Nazism”. Or were they Nazis too? Note: If you over use a stimulus, the conditioned response will begin to fade. Be careful, bigot.

          • akmofo September 12, 2017 at 6:55 pm #

            Ok, whatever. I can see you’re in deep denial. What can I say, cling on to them precious nazi propaganda lies while the EU nazis destroy Europe and the CIA and DoS nazis destroy the US.

          • capt spaulding September 12, 2017 at 7:38 pm #

            Racism exists in almost every culture there is. I have been to many other countries, and have encountered racist attitudes in all of them. Sad to say, but it appears to be a part of the human condition. It’s not restricted to just a few countries.

    • elysianfield September 12, 2017 at 7:40 pm #

      “I laugh at those who disdain others just because of their color. If one thinks about it, it is sheer stupidity.”

      Bill, I can state with almost certainty that no one, but one, on this site has disdain for anyone solely because of color…one would have to be a drooling idiot to do so. Having said that, being wary of some people because of their color, attitude, dress, and actions, is nothing more than common sense.

      Who on this site would you suspect as disdaining others solely because of their color (other than Thwack, of course)?, Thwack has many times made blanket statements regarding white people. He is the only true racist that I can identify among the regulars.

      • beantownbill. September 12, 2017 at 10:15 pm #

        Janos? Malthuss? JIF? NSA? Among others.

        • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 11:41 am #

          The reason sites like,

          Angry White Dude
          SBPDL
          Ambrose Kane were destroyed is because those sites, among others now gone, told the truth.

          Its known as ‘Race Realism’. Those sites told the truth about crime and race.

        • elysianfield September 13, 2017 at 4:38 pm #

          Bill,
          When living in Texas, in pre-civil-rights era, there was a “joke” heard once in Jr. High…(apologies in advance);

          “What do you call a black man with a bachelor’s Degree from Princeton, a Master’s Degree from Yale, and a Doctorate from Harvard? Ans…Ni**er.”

          Janos, JIF and others would not agree to this statement. They may speak of the angst and loathing of a particular race in general terms, and their observations may have basis statistically, but they are not so ignorant that they would brand an individual they did not know with those general traits…and in my 70 years, I have rarely encountered anyone over the age of 30 that would. I think that type of thinking among adults is exceedingly rare.

          Real discrimination, hatred of an individual solely because of skin color, and acting upon that hate, without consideration of individual qualities, is much rarer than blacks and liberals would like to believe.

          • beantownbill. September 13, 2017 at 5:49 pm #

            Sorry, EF, but not in my experience.

  32. trypillian September 12, 2017 at 1:26 am #

    Hurricane Erin category 2 was on track to hit lower Manhatten 500 miles to the south-east sixteen years ago on 9/11. Precisely at 10 am it turned 130 degrees and waltzed back to the Atlantic. The Deep State built in redundancy to the diabolical plot in case the directed energy weapons malfunctioned. When destruction of the World Trade Center, ie all seven buildinds, was at stake; why not have Plan B, to compliment the energy weapon damage.

    • RIB September 12, 2017 at 6:26 am #

      Surely, you geste, Beau

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 8:47 pm #

        I don’t geste. And don’t call me Shirley.

  33. Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2017 at 6:36 am #

    High-ranking Viking warrior was female, DNA tests prove
    Bone experts had long suspected the remains belonged to a woman, but the idea had previously been dismissed despite other accounts supporting the existence of female Viking warriors.

    https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/high-ranking-viking-warrior-was-female-dna-tests-prove.html

    “BERLIN—Scientists say DNA tests on a skeleton found in a lavish Viking warrior’s grave in Sweden show the remains are those of a woman in her 30s.

    “Bone experts had long suspected the remains belonged to a woman, but the idea had previously been dismissed despite other accounts supporting the existence of female Viking warriors.

    “Swedish researchers used new methods to analyze genetic material from the 1,000-year-old bones at a Viking-era site known as Birka, near Stockholm.

    “Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University said Monday the tests show ‘it is definitely a woman.’

    “Hedenstierna-Jonson said the grave is particularly well-furnished, with a sword, an axe, a spear, armour-piercing arrows, a battle knife, two shields, and two horses. The trove indicated the individual buried there was a ‘professional warrior.'”

    Every Tormund has his Brienne.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:04 pm #

      Such things happened, but they were exceptions and anomalies – like Clarence Thomas. If Blacks were all like Clarence, there would be no race problem.

      Btw, they found a woman warrior in a beautiful suit of armor in a tomb near the Black Sea – exactly where the Greeks say the Amazons lived. Who knows? One nation of Woman Warriors may have actually existed.

      • Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2017 at 1:59 pm #

        And which of these teaches us more: a thousand cases that confirm our preconceptions, or a single, telling exception? Science — the systematic pursuit of truth — doesn’t reward blind assurance. It rewards doubt, and the willingness to be puzzled.

        http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/L001855/

        Einstein started by questioning what seemingly could not be more obvious: space and time themselves. Forty years later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vapourized. Judicious doubt of the obvious can change the world.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 2:04 pm #

          Sophistry thy name is Elrond. Justice is the Rule, Mercy the exception – and not vice versa. But you like vice more than versa and thus reverse everything. Science is about seeking out the Laws of Nature. Anomalies might be proof of other Laws, or perhaps the Law as stated is stated incorrectly – or is only part of a more comprehensive Law – not no Law at all as spiritual criminals like you would prefer.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

            Is Elrond one of the Lords of Salem? One of those responsible for the destruction of Thule and later Atlantis? And now, again our current World System? Against them and their allies, the Brotherhoods of Light and wage ceaseless warfare.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 6:05 pm #

            You been watching to many Batman movies.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 13, 2017 at 11:02 am #

            “Spiritual criminals like me.” It’s a red-letter day — I don’t know that I’ve ever been openly accused of crimethink before. Especially not by someone so clearly sincere and shameless about it. How validating!

            It’s a fundamental error to confuse human laws and norms with the laws of nature. Norms of justice and mercy are worked out by people living in history. Nature’s laws, on the other hand, are ahistorical and utterly without normativity, without ought. From the core of a black hole to the drama of nature red in tooth and claw — it’s all just stuff that happens as far as the universe is concerned. To recognize this is the farthest thing from endorsing it as a plan for human society — I shudder when I think of the potential consequences of abandoning moral limits on behavior. (Certain experiments come to mind.) But it’s up to us to pay attention and take responsibility. The atom bomb doesn’t care.

            In a way, you sense my meaning, Janos, but your world view commits you to an agenda of power and control over others. The least challenge prompts you to denounce me as a criminal, with everything that word implies: arrest, punishment, retribution — everything but a sense of limits on your own action in pursuing what you feel is right. For all that you reference Tolkien incessantly, you utterly miss the point of the Ring of Power. “‘Let you? Make you?’ said the wizard. ‘Haven’t you been listening to all that I have said? You are not thinking of what you are saying.'” Why don’t you give that some thought?

          • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2017 at 1:24 pm #

            Remember Saruman, the equal treatment of unequal people is Tyranny. Of course to you, it’s a pleasure and power to rile up the Orcs and the Swarthy Men and send them against the High Men – whose Law you have rejected and in turn who have rejected you.

            Shall the Swarthy Men feast in the White Tower? You say yes and we say no. It’s On.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 14, 2017 at 9:27 am #

            Huh? That epigram is nowhere in Tolkien. It sounds like one of those insufferable slogans that fascists natter at each other and spread in memes falsely attributing to one Founding Father or another. (And you manage to be unclear as to whether Saruman is supposedly speaking or being spoken to, but never mind.)

            That epigram is also deeply anti-American. The American creed can be summed up in a very few words from the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.” You once tried to dismiss that as a meaningless rhetorical flourish, but you can’t escape it: it’s the heart and soul of the American idea. It’s a vision of society that does not impose differences of status on people, like class-ridden Europe. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have it, while you will have nothing else. Fascism is anti-American.

            It’s on? You bet your ass it is.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 2:24 pm #

            Jefferson didn’t believe that and he was foolish to put it out like that. Read his Notes on Virginia: Blacks are distinctly inferior in his worldview. There is no equality in the physical world. It exists as a Platonic Ideal and of course you people don’t believe in things like that!

      • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 2:00 am #

        Clarence Thomas of cunt hair on a Coke fame. L-O-N-G Dong Silver

        ‘he wanted to talk about Long Dong Silver and pubic hair and coke cans’

        • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 2:25 pm #

          He’s the best Black in America and perhaps the world. So of course you people set out to destroy him with your high tech lynching.

  34. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2017 at 6:50 am #

    ISIS was built as an analog of NSDAP of our times

    On one of the senior commanders of ISIS, Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi (better known by the nom de guerre Haji Bakr), after his death, was found many pages of documents and other records, schemes of the organization suspiciously reminiscent of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA) of the Third Reich.

    And, by the way, not a single volume of the Koran.

  35. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2017 at 7:04 am #

    Thule, society (Thule Gesellschaft), created on the model of the Masonic lodges in Munich after the First World War, the Order, which proclaimed for its official purposes the study and popularization of ancient German literature and culture.

    In fact, the society preached extreme nationalism, racial mysticism, occultism and anti-Semitism. The Society was a branch of the Teutonic Order of Knights, whose branches were scattered throughout Germany, and the headquarters were in Berlin.

    The society received its name from the legendary land of Thule, which was reported by the Greek geographer Pifej. Thule was interpreted in different ways: as one of the Shetland Islands, Norway (and in general Scandinavia) or Iceland. The land of Thule was considered the ancestral home of the ancient German race.

    A primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. In 1917, people who wanted to join the “Germanic Order”, out of which the Thule Society developed in 1918, had to sign a special “blood declaration of faith” concerning their lineage:

    “The signer hereby swears to the best of his knowledge and belief that no Jewish or coloured blood flows in either his or in his wife’s veins, and that among their ancestors are no members of the coloured races.”

    NSDAP, ISIS, Thule Gesellschaft, US Clintonoids = Western Black Project

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:07 pm #

      The Axis of the World shifted. And the Glorious Land of Thule ended up in a Polar region. I remember it. I was there. And if we wish to bring back the Glory That Was, what is it to you? Stay out of our way.

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 6:04 pm #

        He was a ridiculous little corporal with a funny mustache who thought he could take on the USSR and lost ignominiously because he was suckered into a trap by Stalin. Stalingrad was arguably the greatest military victory in the modern era. Who were the subhumans exactly?

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 6:19 pm #

          Who exactly? The “Communists” in three piece suits with names like Schiff who supported Communism financially and then later, gave them heavy industry in order to make tanks and other American type weapons.

          • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 8:46 pm #

            American type weapons? The T-34 tank was the greatest use of a secret weapon in the history of warfare, and it was wholly home grown, with the exception of the Christie transmission, which did come from America. But when the Germans tried to copy it, they said the metallurgy alone would take years to work out.

          • elysianfield September 13, 2017 at 4:42 pm #

            “they said the metallurgy alone would take years to work out.”

            Wolfie,
            Yes, but only because they were concerned with the metallurgy….Russians, not so much.

  36. volodya September 12, 2017 at 10:26 am #

    Seems to work so far except we see the deleterious effects all over the world.

    Money gets printed by the Fed and where does it go? Follow the money. The debased coinage goes to China to pay for the crap they produce – fridges used to last 40 years when they were manufactured domestically. Now the POS Chinese brands last seven or eight if you’re lucky.

    But shit product quality is besides the point. The Chinese, not trusting their own government, recycle US dollars overseas. And so what you’ve got is property bubbles all over the place, London, Vancouver and places in between. Property bubbles ie zero sum Ponzi schemes, never end well. We fail to learn this over and over. Banks tip over, people lose everything.

    It’s not just property bubbles. Zero interest rates are the flip side of bond asset aneurysms. And an artificially imposed zero discount rate leads to preposterous stock prices. That doesn’t end well either.

    Reality doesn’t accommodate idiots and the so-called bi-coastal elites running this shit-show are idiots. Nonetheless, be careful, you know the saying, markets can stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent.

    But reality, in its many manifestations, still prevails in the end. Faith in a ludicrously compromised Fed will be disappointed and people will find alternatives to the dodo dollar, virtual coinage being one while the web is still up and running, barter another.

    • malthuss September 12, 2017 at 3:05 pm #

      ‘The Fed’…bwaaaaaa. Printed by Banks, for their benefit.

    • AKlein September 14, 2017 at 8:09 am #

      Bubbles are one of the consequences of making a fetish out of “ownership”. First and foremost, the things worth most to own are those things which produce, i.e. the engines of production, as Marx would say. But all such things require maintenance, and generally, maintenance is a labor intensive effort. Consequently, “owning” something truly valuable brings along with it a whole vast array of responsibilities – such as organizing, managing and being able to pay for maintenance. This is not so easy and requires a continuous relationship with other human beings – please refer to the “labor intensive” observation above. Of course, the greedy and crafty figure out all sorts of ways to avoid te maintenance pitfall, such as to “flip” an asset quickly so that the burdens of maintenance are shouldered by some poor fool, or fools, down the “ownership” chain. These concepts are in now way recent; ask any boat “owner” about the relationship between ownership and maintenance.

  37. liber8tor September 12, 2017 at 10:31 am #

    Spot on (as always) Jim. The Long Emergency is underway here in Florida. While the electric is out, the masses are kicking in the doors at Walmart. The most prized booty seems to be Nike sneakers and large screen TVs which are being wheeled away through the flood water.

    The fragile “just-in-time” supply chain has collapsed. Merchants accepting cash only. Registers are frozen while hand-held calculators tally up the sale.

    Can’t wait until the populace in fly over country realize they can no longer obtain simple items like toilet paper, razor blades and laundry soap. If people want to prep, forget gold bars. Stockpile 5 gallons of gas, a case of TIDE detergent and some .22 ammo.

    Wheee….. here we go.. sliding into the “medieval attraction” during the electrical blackout

  38. volodya September 12, 2017 at 10:58 am #

    The New York Times is one of those faux intellectual publications that tout prevailing preposterisms; currently Russia and trannies. But these fashionable idiocies will run their course. If you’re a faithful reader and believer, don’t worry, they’ll find more and you can use these to do more virtue-signalling.

    But does this point the way to oblivion for the Times and others of its ilk? To people that don’t buy their bullshit, that see them as they are, a distractive and corrosive force in American affairs, don’t you worry either, they’ll soon enough be ass-wipe, run over by the exigencies of the times.

    Trump, whatever his personal failings, was always an outsider at least in part because he called bullshit on nonsensical economic models that couldn’t possibly stay upright. And Trump is uniquely qualified in this, he was the author of his own serial disasters.

  39. volodya September 12, 2017 at 11:38 am #

    Ozone, of course you’re right that there’s no one that can’t be – cough – touched.

    Look at history. The mighty Roman elites looked at their accomplishments, hustling, bustling towns and cities, spectacular buildings and monuments, a seldom defeated military, and got complacent. They scoffed at un-lettered, un-cultured barbarians and so felt no hazard in admitting this tribe and that within their borders. Big mistake.

    It was these looked-down upon farmers and herdsmen, who for generations plied their trades as peaceable residents, that cut up and up-ended the ruling order, one chunk at a time. Those fat-cats in the manor houses sure got a shock.

    One ruling aristocracy after another, variously deposed, exiled, guillotined and dumped down mine-shafts. As you say, shit-loads of motivations, but first among them the need to stay fed and housed.

    You’ll remember no doubt our questioning the wisdom of those that choose for whatever reason, maybe ideological, maybe personal conviction, maybe a simple paycheck, to align themselves and side with the sure losers in this unfolding civilizational restructuring. I’ve urged them many a time, before you enter the yellow box make sure your exit is clear.

    So as sure as we sit here the scoffers will mount their high horses and scoff. They’ll scoff that it’s different this time. Yes, of course, it’s different this time. It’s always different. It’s the end that’s the same.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 1:10 pm #

      Yes, we will overthrow the Judeo-Masons and create a new Order, one favorable to our race and culture, being based on the Wisdom of Thule.

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:54 pm #

        Shanghai Exchange that is gold based opened a few days ago. The end of the petrodollar is near.

  40. fodase September 12, 2017 at 11:49 am #

    oh gosh, oh my, the world is ending, people are without the electric (as my grandfather called it) for a few days.

    bring on medieval times, says jimmy kunstler, heralder of the never-arriving long emergency

    still waiting for an answer from you worldenders on how long ‘soon’ is with respect to the onset of The End

    enjoying lots of ice-cold budweiser and picanha down here in brasil, nice place once you get used to it

    fodase

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    • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:59 pm #

      For someone professing to doubt the long emergency, you picked the one country that is oil independent to soak up some suds. Now that is either ironic or fatuous.

    • elysianfield September 12, 2017 at 7:46 pm #

      “of ice-cold budweiser ”

      Fodase,

      Why that snake-piss…do they not have national/ local brews?

    • Q. Shtik September 13, 2017 at 12:53 am #

      oh gosh, oh my, the world is ending, people are without the electric (as my grandfather called it) for a few days. – fo da se

      ===========

      Yeah, but what if we’re without ‘the’ electric for a few weeks or a few months. And what if it’s not just in Houston and Florida but the whole world. I can easily envision an electric grid attack (or failure) as the next H-bomb.

      Last week my wife shopped for 2 hours at WalMart but couldn’t check out because the machines that took payment via credit card were “down” and my wife had a whole six dollars in cash on her.

      Today I had a doctor appointment…a preview for a colonoscopy. Every step in the entire process was automated. No telling how many people’s jobs were eliminated along the way. Even the huge parking deck had not one visible employee. Check in and check out via interface with machines.

      I DID have to complete in advance a 14 page document that was emailed to me and I printed out. No one ever asked me for that document. I told the doctor that completing those 14 pages was the second hardest part of getting a colonoscopy. The hardest part would be the day before the procedure when I would have to swallow a gallon of an awful tasting oily liquid to flush out my colon till it was clean as a whistle. Among the items of info on this doc was not only my SS number but my wife’s as well. I refused to provide either but it made no difference anyway since no one asked me for the 14 pages of info.

      The point however is, how in the hell is everything going to work if I can’t even park my car when ‘the’ electric goes out?

      • elysianfield September 13, 2017 at 4:45 pm #

        Q,
        No problem parking the car…it’s computers will also be destroyed by EMP…you aint goin’ anywhere….

  41. janet September 12, 2017 at 12:01 pm #

    “The New York Times is one of those faux intellectual publications that tout prevailing preposterisms; currently Russia and trannies.” … “they’ll soon enough be ass-wipe”–volodya

    Wrong on all three counts. Transgendered persons have civil rights. Trump’s attack, trying to remove them from the military, is a disgrace just as much as trying to prevent women or Blacks from voting.

    Russian collusion with Trump will result in Trump’s eventual impeachment. Mueller is quietly documenting Trump’s criminal activities. An October indictment is possible. The New York Times will report it.

  42. volodya September 12, 2017 at 12:28 pm #

    Fodase, of course you get to call it as you see it. But perspective changes with the passage of time. The difference in the state of things between now and forty years ago is like night and day. Maybe you don’t have the benefit of decades. But I do.

    No matter. Drink up. Have one for me.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 2:17 pm #

      Time: the moving face of Eternity. Without it, the rat pack would still be playing Vegas five hundred years from now. And Jerry would never stop doing his telethons. Enough. Things have to go on. They will return in new editions as Ben Franklin put it. As will all of you. Hopefully I will not. We’ll see.

    • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 11:36 am #

      – fridges used to last 40 years when they were manufactured domestically.

      The longest lasting one I had was less than 20 years.
      I replaced it a few years ago.
      I was told that new ones last 7 years.
      Also the replacement [Whirlpool brand] weighs so much less than the 1990s refrigerator did.

  43. fodase September 12, 2017 at 1:58 pm #

    energywise, we have more than ever

    and the discover of methane ice may give us another 3,000 years of fossil fuel

    plus, we have coal galore

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 2:18 pm #

      Methane Ice is great at parties.

      • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 8:43 pm #

        I’ve smoked some. Gives you a limp dick.

    • janet September 12, 2017 at 3:00 pm #

      Sock it to the Luddites, fodase!

  44. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2017 at 3:19 pm #

    The Black Project and the Crisis of Articulation

    In principle, a Black Project could be called a mad-dog-knights or Teutonic Order, the same with which Alexander Nevsky fought on Lake Peipsi.

    But the order is changeable and has not appeared in an empty place. If not to limit the flight of imagination, then its history can indeed be traced to Phenicia and the construction of the First Temple, but it is provable, at the level of historically documented handshakes, that this World Project first appears during the First Crusade as a reaction to the manifestation of the White Project – the Order of Hospitallers.

    I would even say that it was first manifested in the form of the First Crusade, which began as usual with Jewish pogroms, which in the course of time became its calling card, and nowadays it was noted by selecting the September 11 date in memory of one of the most “successful” pogroms in terms of amount of loot and the number of victims.

    But to track it to our time is even more difficult than to the builders of the First Temple, who were not Jews. The fact is that the Order is really good at not only changing clothes but also changing shoes in a jump, and killing God knows how many millions of people in the name of the “holy” Roman Catholic Church in the 12-15 centuries, in 1525 the Order, led by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albrecht of Brandenburg passed over to Protestantism, and the state founded by the order on the lands of the exterminated Orthodox Prussians and Vikings of Jomsburg became the first state to declare Protestantism the state religion.

    And this transition to Protestantism paradoxically was the continuation of the anti-Christian Fourth Crusade started with the Northern Crusades, as the Roman Catholic Church, after passing through the second great schism and becoming the Avignon Papacy, began to return to Christianity in the 14th century thanks to the efforts of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus , and the disciples of William of Ockham founded the University of Königsberg.

    In the New Times Black Project made a huge contribution to scientific and technological progress, especially in metallurgy, and the lion’s share of alchemists of that time lived on grants of the Black Project. And to the development of religious philosophy, it put the hands of Kant and Hegel, and then quite naturally turned to the esotericism of Goethe and Wagner, as well as the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky.

    And Russia at that time first burned the “heretics” in the best traditions of the Black Project, and then asserted itself as the Orthodox capital of the Golden Horde and paid for its participation in the Black Project with the Time of Great Troubles and Split with a capital letter.

    And when in the 18-19 centuries the religious philosophy of the West collapsed, the Holy Synod forbade the importation of Catholic literature to Russia, originated by Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. And the esoterics of the Black Project freely penetrated into Russia in the form of fiction, and Orthodox Russia could not respond to it because it found itself without an adequate language which led to a crisis of articulation.

  45. fodase September 12, 2017 at 4:20 pm #

    Industry insiders describe the commercialization of gas hydrates as similar to the development of coal bed gas resources. Not very long ago, coal bed methane, which currently accounts for almost 10% of all U.S. natural gas production, was considered too expensive for commercial production. Technological innovations made coal bed gas a viable fuel.

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  46. PeteAtomic September 12, 2017 at 4:26 pm #

    Hillary’s new book is out today. So, if anybody has run out of toilet paper at home, you know what to buy
    🙂

    • seawolf77 September 12, 2017 at 5:51 pm #

      Donald Trump toilet paper. It’s on Amazon. Two kinds. One with his face on every sheet, and the other with one of his greatest hits.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2017 at 6:26 pm #

      She has a face that belongs on an iodine bottle. But that’s what Sea Wolf likes…..

      • elysianfield September 13, 2017 at 4:58 pm #

        “She has a face that belongs on an iodine bottle.”

        Excellent!

  47. janet September 12, 2017 at 4:48 pm #

    “…bring on medieval times, says jimmy kunstler…” –fodase

    LOL!

    A few years ago the failed prediction was a medieval Japan by 2014.

  48. Pucker September 12, 2017 at 8:31 pm #

    27 million to 45 million Kangaroos in 6 years. Do the Math….

    “Australians have been told to hunt and eat kangaroos after the population of the marsupial reached double that of humans.

    New data shows the kangaroo population in Australia is close to hitting 50 million, while the human population stands at 24 million.

    Experts are now warning Australians to hunt, eat and cull the native animal or face being overrun by it. The kangaroo population has boomed in recent years, rising to 45 million last year from 27 million in 2010, news.com.au reported. The huge rise in kangaroo numbers is thought to be due to an abundance of food after high rainfall.”

    • Pucker September 12, 2017 at 8:33 pm #

      Do the Math!

  49. Q. Shtik September 12, 2017 at 8:38 pm #

    I think it was Tip O’Neil who said “You can’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola.” – seawolf

    ===========

    Who ever it was said “He don’t know shit from Shinola.”

    • capt spaulding September 12, 2017 at 10:30 pm #

      My grandfather used to say that. Shinola was shoe polish. It was a common expression back in the day.

      • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 11:31 am #

        Thanks. Now I know what that is. Finally.

        • Q. Shtik September 13, 2017 at 3:28 pm #

          Is there something wrong with the google box on your computer?

          • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 9:29 pm #

            I avoid google.

            I have nt heard the phrase that many times, and not in many years.

    • jim e September 13, 2017 at 10:28 am #

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cly1JNCxlro

  50. Pucker September 12, 2017 at 8:49 pm #

    I hope that “T” can fix America’s tax imbroglio so that all of the rich people and investment moves to the US.

    “President Donald Trump plans an aggressive travel schedule, taking him to as many as 13 states over the next seven weeks, to sell the idea of a tax overhaul as the administration tries to avoid repeating the communications failures of its attempt to repeal Obamacare.”

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  51. Pucker September 12, 2017 at 8:52 pm #

    Where can I get a Highway Patrolman’s “Smokey” Hat, mirror sunglasses and a super “Close Shave”?

  52. janet September 12, 2017 at 9:32 pm #

    “But these fashionable idiocies [Russia investigations] will run their course.” –volodya

    Here we agree, volodya. The investigations of Russian collusion with Trump WILL run their course. Just because they have disappeared from FoxNews does not mean they have gone away. There are House investigations, Senate investigations, Special Counsel investigations, etc. and they are all ongoing. Mueller has two grand juries working.

    The FBI conducted an early morning raid on the house of Trump’s former campaign manager who also has ties with Russia. There is much criminal activity related to Trump’s collusion to investigate. Mueller is looking closely at Trump’s Russian collusion business deals: real estate scams, money laundering, foreign corrupt practices, financial crimes, etc. The hammer is going to come down hard on Trump soon. The New York Times is your best source for reporting on Trump’s legal predicament.

    • Q. Shtik September 13, 2017 at 4:27 pm #

      There are House investigations, Senate investigations, Special Counsel investigations, etc. and they are all ongoing. – janet

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

      I note that you have pluralized the word investigation several times. This sounds like hyperbole to me (exaggeration for the sake of emphasis)…but perhaps there are literally more than one each being conducted in the House and Senate. But what about the Special Council. Is he conducting more than one investigation of Trump?

  53. K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 2:08 am #

    I wonder what the odds are that a troop of chimps randomly banging on keyboards filtered through spell and grammar checkers could be responsible for the endless circular banter here.

    Perhaps outlandishly improbable but it would save a few paychecks if it could be done.

    • janet September 13, 2017 at 3:49 am #

      Republicans close to the White House say every sign by Mueller –from his hiring of Mafia and money-laundering experts to his aggressive pursuit of witnesses and evidence — is that he’s going for the kill. Trump is going down for obstruction of justice.

      It turns out there is a there there … one that led to Trump panicking over investigation into his collusion with Russia.

      • janet September 13, 2017 at 3:56 am #

        P.S. Russian politician Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the Duma (ruling assembly), said on live TV that U.S. “intelligence missed it when Russian intelligence stole the president of the United States.”

        2020 is coming up fast. The Russians are ready for a repeat performance if Trump gets away with his Russia collusion … collusion that the Russians freely admit allowed them to steal the election.

    • ozone September 13, 2017 at 9:19 am #

      K-dog,
      If you’ll notice, the responses to your rumination are not responses at all. (Basically, knee-jerk, boilerplate, UberState, daily talking-points.)

      It’s likely that the paycheck is earned by “responding” to specific viewpoints (and maybe even specific posters) with this scattershot bullshit, as well as the usual massive volume of comforting clouds of unicorn farts. I wonder if a red light starts blinking in their chipboard cubicle when a new posting appears in their assigned-to-disrupt blogs?
      ***Oo-ooo-ooo! Ah! Ah-ah-ah!***

      As volodya sez:
      “You’ll remember no doubt our questioning the wisdom of those that choose for whatever reason, maybe ideological, maybe personal conviction, maybe a simple paycheck, to align themselves and side with the sure losers in this unfolding civilizational restructuring. I’ve urged them many a time, before you enter the yellow box make sure your exit is clear.”

      This “occupation” probably holds more risk than its tradesmen would like to think. Who are the friends of agent provocateurs; are they really their friends, or just fellow pretenders? 😉

      • volodya September 13, 2017 at 11:19 am #

        Why can’t they automate trolls? After all the NSA and their intel compadres have got the resources of the US government at their disposal. And what they post is crap anyways. Why can’t a computer algo do it?

        • K-Dog September 13, 2017 at 5:09 pm #

          Exactly, and it does not have to be perfect. All the algorithm has to do is drive people away and prevent the right of internet assembly which between American citizens is a right guaranteed by the first amendment.

          That’s the only difficult part. The algorithm like trolls here has to operate under the radar since what they are doing is illegal.

          The basic military maxim of DON’T GET CAUGHT must be followed. If the operation is kept under the radar then people won’t know their rights are being sodomised by a big deep state dick. With no awareness of the rape nobody complains about the crime and the existing order continues its cancerous growth.

          Software could be leaked to Wikileaks or given to Glen Greenwald in Brazil. A room full of enlisted men at computer terminals, all subject to non-disclosure, in contrast can’t be leaked. They could all be on E-Bay and not boning your hole and cancelling your credit cards. Who’s to know?

  54. volodya September 13, 2017 at 11:14 am #

    Q,

    yeah, when the electric blows for an extended period, it will be a total and complete clusterfuck.

    Back in the old days, if you had to, you could still work because procedures were much more mechanical and you could still complete paperwork. Remember typewriters? Remember carbon paper? Remember pens? And do transactions. Like pay the fucking cashier.

    As for colonoscopies, I HATE those things. Not so much the procedure because I’m always asleep, nor so much the aftermath because you have the best sleep of your life at home. But it’s that shit they make you drink. What I drank tasted like vanilla flavored sea-water. Vomitory. But I choked it down and crapped my lungs out. What was coming out at the end when I was lying whimpering with exhaustion on the bathroom floor was pristine clear liquid.

    The doctor asked me how clear was my output. And I told him very clear, you could drink it. And I complained. I told him jesus you guys with all your scientific advances you can’t come up with something that tastes better? And the fucker told me he drinks his with gin. And I said why the fuck didn’t somebody tell me earlier? Then it occurred to me he was joking. Well, probably joking. At least I hope he was.

  55. volodya September 13, 2017 at 11:26 am #

    Elysian, the snake-piss won’t taste like snake-piss if you mix it with something. It doesn’t have to be high end stuff either, just dump in some cheap fortified wine. Or some cheap whisky. See, the beer kills the taste of the shitty whiskey and the whiskey kills the taste of the shitty snake-piss beer. And you and your friends will be on the roof top in no time singing the Polish national anthem. Trust me on this.

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    • elysianfield September 13, 2017 at 8:36 pm #

      Volodya,
      Circumstances may, in the future, require such first-person advice…and much appreciated. Currently, however, snake-piss and bottom-shelf goods can be avoided.

      I assume that your recipes are gleaned from hard-earned experience in the Former Soviet Union, when quality may have been…indifferent?

      When I began making straight-grain beer, around 1987, I visited a brew shop in Reno, Nevada, where a recent brew of the owner was being choked down, by several of his customers, with…lemon juice. It seemed untoward…an abomination.

  56. DA September 13, 2017 at 11:27 am #

    Bet ‘dem geezers was ripe!

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/13/irma-death-toll-rises-as-5-dead-at-south-florida-nursing-home/?utm_term=.c5a7a5abff34

    Makes you who came up with the bright idea of storing retired geezers in the Florida heat and humidity in what amounts to “refrigerated storage units” (aka retirement condos) in the first place. An idea so stupid, only a capitalist real estate mogul could have come up with it! As the slow motion collapse continues, you have to wonder how people so un-fucking-apologetically stupid could have ever survived this long.

    • sprawlcapital September 13, 2017 at 12:54 pm #

      Jim has stated repeatedly that Florida is uninhabitable in the warm months, without air conditioning.

      As to nursing homes, the option should be available to every adult over a certain age, I suggest 25, for voluntary euthanasia. That is, death without prolonged pain or panic. I was present when the vet put our cat to sleep a few years ago. Why do we treat pets better than humans?

      • sprawlcapital September 13, 2017 at 1:09 pm #

        Sorry to be so blunt, above. But at least it’s not more circular banter, Right, K?

  57. janet September 13, 2017 at 12:48 pm #

    2020 Fake New Made in Macedonia

    “Veles used to make porcelain for the whole of Yugoslavia. Now it makes fake news.

    This sleepy riverside town in Macedonia is home to dozens of website operators who churn out bogus stories designed to attract the attention of Americans. Each click adds cash to their bank accounts.

    The scale is industrial: Over 100 websites were tracked here during the final weeks of the 2016 U.S. election campaign, producing fake news that mostly favored Republican candidate for President Donald Trump.”

  58. fodase September 13, 2017 at 1:21 pm #

    Yeah, but what if we’re without ‘the’ electric for a few weeks or a few months. And what if it’s not just in Houston and Florida but the whole world. I can easily envision an electric grid attack (or failure) as the next H-bomb.

    I can easily envision no electric grid attack or worldend.

    so We’re even.

    and yeah, my grandfather called it ‘the’ electric, as well as often said that gasoline was ‘dear’.

    love that old englysh.

    • Q. Shtik September 13, 2017 at 4:06 pm #

      I can easily envision no electric grid attack or worldend.

      so We’re even. – fodase

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

      No, the world will not end but…….

      I consider your response flippant and unrealistic. In all seriousness, can you not see the possibility (perhaps the inevitability) of the mother of all stuxnets? In the past week alone “Equifax cybersecurity incident affects nearly 143 million U.S. consumers.”

      Have you read anywhere that the incidence of cybersecurity ‘issues’ has grown fewer and less problematic? No, you have not. In fact each new incident is worse than the previous one.

  59. janet September 13, 2017 at 1:26 pm #

    “There certainly was communication and there certainly was an understanding of some sort. Because there’s no doubt in my mind Putin wanted me to lose and wanted Trump to win. And there’s no doubt in my mind that there are a tangle of financial relationships between Trump and his operation with Russian money. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the Trump campaign and other associates have worked really hard to hide their connections with Russians.” –HRC

  60. janet September 13, 2017 at 1:32 pm #

    The Mueller investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia is hitting ever closer to home for Trump, and Trump is using the tools of his office to try to undermine the special counsel’s future findings of Russian collusion. Trump allies plan to vilify Mueller the way the Clinton White House treated Ken Starr.

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    • thwack September 13, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

      Janet,

      listen to me as a friend, just this one time.

      Hillary Clinton lost the election because she is an unattractive candidate that people did not trust.

      Trying to blame external forces like “Russians” just makes you look sad and childish.

      Granted, there is an attractive white female candidate out there; but Hillary ain’t it.

      So

      please stop trying to find people, things… to blame for Hillary’s loss of the election.

      I know its painful to admit; but Donald Trump ran a BETTER campaign, and thats why he won the election.

      Im really sorry I have to expose you to this; but it is what it is and you REALLY need to get over it so people can take you seriously?

      I know you can’t stand Trump; but there were people who couldn’t stand Obama; don’t act like them?

      Remember how silly the Obama haters looked?

      Well thats kinda how you look now; like a petulant child having a temper tantrum…

      Don’t be like that. Stop crying over spilt milk…

      Okay?

    • Billy Hill September 13, 2017 at 5:32 pm #

      Indeed, Bloomberg is reporting Mueller’s red hot focus on social media with his team reporting Russia-backed fake news on social media.

      Seen at ZH.

      Looks like Russia spent $50,000.00 on Facebook ad buys.

      ZH prepared a bar chart comparing $50K with the $1.2Bn Hilary spent. The $50K did not even register.

      But wait you would say, they didn’t make the bar chart big enough! Unfair! Fake News!

  61. FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2017 at 1:33 pm #

    Fakir was drunk and the trick failed!

    A week ago I wrote that the Clintonoids got a terrible blow from Trump. And during this week it turned out that this blow really was of an intercontinental character and Trump was backed by powerful enough forces (not only, but including Vladimir Putin), who do not accept the Black Project categorically.

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/perturbations-anon/#comment-318010

    The point is that at this stage, the Black Project is not only the Party of War, but also the Party of 2008 economic crisis, which Steve Bannon talks about and during which “Old Money”, including, in the first place, the money of WASPs in the USA, should have lost everything.

    And all this in the name of the destruction of Orthodox Russia!

    Really low oil prices and in general low prices for raw materials pull down the Dow Jones, which creates very dangerous imbalances in the economy, but low oil prices are supposedly the factor that destroyed the USSR, and for the sake of repeating this scenario, the Black Project is ready for a lot. But the White and Red Projects may not be friendly to Russia, but they do not want to go broke for the sake of disassembling it.

    The fakir was drunk and the closure of the WADA case against the Russian athletes appears to be the first step away from confrontation with Russia, although no, the first step seems to have been Saakashvili illegal crossing into the territory of Ukraine, and this is typical of Trump’s humor – to use Saakashvili as tool for eliminating such Clintonoid in Ukraine as Poroshenko.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/sports/olympics/russian-doping-wada.html?mcubz=0

    http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-saakashvili-20170911-story.html

  62. Epicur September 13, 2017 at 2:32 pm #

    “My own guess would be three words: you go medieval. I mean literally. No more engines, electric lights, central heating….”

    I don’t think that will work with 300+ million people. The cities would melt down.

    With the “Emergency” powers on the books the first response will be a command economy under the aegis of the Defense Production Act (and knock-ons). That is hardly a recipe for stability, and I do not propose that it will work for the long term, but it will be tried.

    Long term we are headed for a worldwide population crash.

  63. Buck Stud September 13, 2017 at 3:17 pm #

    Janos writes:

    “Look Akmo: Buy a set of watercolors and a palette from an art supply store. Set up your spectrum of paints on the palette. Real Diversity, right? A veritable rainbow. Now like the slob you are, let the paints all run together. Still have diversity? Where’d the rainbow go!

    The Rainbow is a symbol of true Diversity because the colors are separate. Every crystal or dvd reproduces this beauty of Nature. Akmo is against Nature, and is thus to that extent, Evil.”
    ————————————————————

    Strained analogy. In fact, the pure spectral colors do not depict nature/reality; only the refined compound colors, those ‘colors with no name’ as Van Gogh marveled are capable of doing that.

    Don’t believe me? Kick a beach ball down a hill sometime and notice how “gummy bear” unlike those colors are to the magnificent hybrid hue subtlety of Nature.

    At any rate, it’s a pleasure to clarify your understanding.

    • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 3:26 pm #

      I believe in kingdom come
      where all the colors bleed to one.

      —-U2
      say one thing, do another.
      How many negroes are in Malibu?

      U2’s The Edge Upsets Malibu Neighbors : TreeHugger
      The Edge considers building a Malibu … with plans for a mini-development of five homes in Malibu, … renovated in the 1990s by new owners Bono and The …
      [Search domain http://www.treehugger.com] https://www.treehugger.com/culture/u2s-the-edge-upsets-malibu-neighb
      U2’s The Edge looks set to build five luxury mansions on …
      The musician, real name David Evans, saw his plans recommended for approval by the California Coastal Commission to build the sprawling homes and will have a final …
      [Search domain http://www.dailymail.co.uk] dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3145940/U2-s-Edge-build-five…
      U2’s The Edge to build Malibu homes, despite opposition
      U2 guitarist The Edge won approval on Thursday to build five hilltop homes in the California celebrity enclave of Malibu despite opposition from … you want …
      [Search domain http://www.irishtimes.com] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/u2-s-the-ed

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 1:49 pm #

      Buck has never seen a rainbow or looked through a crystal that breaks down light into the spectrum – or doesn’t even own a CD since they do it too. I suppose he does own some, but rigidly avoids looking at the play of light – so threatened is he by Nature and the lessons she teaches.

      He doesn’t even believe his own eyes. Coming from an artist, that’s damning indeed. He’s not always this bad, but periodically, his Liberal Tribe drags him down into their morass. Perhaps it’s the hysteria involving Hillary’s new book or something his main fantasy squeeze (yuk! and yuk yuk) Susan Sarandon said.

  64. skamander September 13, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

    For Gracie, janet, and fodase:

    “It is difficult to talk to people who confuse Austria and Australia.”

    • elysianfield September 14, 2017 at 8:52 pm #

      “It is difficult to talk to people who confuse Austria and Australia.”

      Which one is where the people are upside down?

  65. capt spaulding September 13, 2017 at 3:34 pm #

    I agree with your assessment. Seems to me that the thing that most people forget is that most people will wind up to be serfs. After all, somebody’s got to farm the fields. Actually a good illustration of what would happen is the tv show, the Walking Dead. People who have power will force the rest to labor and provide for their well being. I know, I know, it’s only a tv show, but it addresses a truth about human behavior. Those in power control (one way or another) the people underneath them. It’s not that brutal right now, because we are “civilized”, however we are still controlled by the Oligarchs, and if conditions deteriorate, we will go right back to the way life was in the “Good old days”. If we all get poorer, people will no longer be driving around in jacked up pickups with crew cabs, They will be plowing and looking at the south end of a horse headed north. When this shit goes down, life will get just as brutal as it was back then. Probably the best I can do in those times, is become a man at arms, or dare I dream, a Duke. At first people will fight against those conditions, but if you kill enough of them, succeeding generations will accept the status quo. The conditions that we all live under at the present, is because of cheap energy and a good climate. Take that away, & it’s gonna be the same as it was during most of human history. By the way, you can’t blame the German people for WWII, Hitler lied to them. He told them they’d win.

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    • janet September 13, 2017 at 5:04 pm #

      “…you can’t blame the German people for WWII, Hitler lied to them. He told them they’d win.”

      But did he tell them they would win so much they would be sick of winning? Did he tell them “I alone can fix it!” ?

      • capt spaulding September 14, 2017 at 2:54 pm #

        Hi Asoka/Janet. Just for the hell of it, at the end of my post, I put something that was completely out of context with the rest of the post. I was curious as to whether anybody would reply. I should have guessed it would be you. You chose the one part of the post that you could give one of your cliche’d replies to. It’s like trout fishing, cast out the right bait and that fat little trout will rise to the lure every time. Frankly, your posts are boring, They’re just what everybody expects. Hell, I could write your replies myself, and so could everybody else. Why don’t you just accept that you are a fruit fly, something that is annoying, but doesn’t have anything to contribute to the dialogue. A passive/aggressive troll is all you are. Given your past behavior, this won’t faze you at all, and you will continue with your trite posts ad nauseum. That’s what a troll does.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 1:55 pm #

      But Negan doesn’t offer people enough. People will kill you if you treat them that badly or their loved ones – even at the cost of their own lives.

      You need religion to keep people content. Hopefully a true one that offers some real connection to the Divine. As St Augustine said, without that, any supposed State is just a band of brigands.

      But for the madness of the Americans, Hitler would have saved Western Civilization. But instead we fought with Stalin – which is simply insane. And we also betrayed the Chinese Nationalists and set up Mao. Our Elite went bad and crazy a long time ago.

  66. Q. Shtik September 13, 2017 at 5:34 pm #

    I laugh at those who disdain others just because of their color. If one thinks about it, it is sheer stupidity. – beantownbill

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

    To my knowledge, Bill, there is only one person in the whole wide world who actually desires darker skin…Rachel Dolezal. Show me any other person or group of brown people who are striving for darker skin and I’ll eat my metaphoric hat. How many ‘people of color’ use tanning salons?

    I have read several articles in the past year about certain people of varying shades of brown (in Korea, Africa, India and, in fact, anywhere that brown people exist) who try desperately to lighten their skin shade. They use products that may even be highly detrimental to their health. No matter, the desire for lighter skin is near universal.

    The left-wing NYT loves nothing better than to promote miscegenation (a la janet) and yet writes these articles about skin lightening products and desires without even an iota of irony.

    It is the brown people themselves who disdain their skin color. What sheer stupidity, right? What could possibly be their motivation?

    • beantownbill. September 13, 2017 at 6:40 pm #

      Maybe it’s because they’re sick and tired of being treated as second-class citizens.

      By the way, if black is so undesirable, why do most African-Americans have white blood in them?

      • thwack September 13, 2017 at 7:09 pm #

        because their ancestors got raped by white people?

        • messianicdruid September 13, 2017 at 7:31 pm #

          They are not their ancestors.

          • thwack September 13, 2017 at 8:59 pm #

            well our common ancestor got raped by white people?

        • malthuss September 13, 2017 at 9:26 pm #

          That was the liberal lie, told to me in school.

          DNA tests show the 13% Yt [whitey] blood is from the White coal burners, needing the BBC. Not from White slave owning rapists.

          • thwack September 14, 2017 at 12:22 am #

            Slavery pretty much makes rape legal (and pedophilia)

            Allowing white men to own black females is like allowing Dracula to own blood banks.

            Just sayin

  67. janet September 13, 2017 at 7:32 pm #

    “Who actually desires darker skin? –racist Q

    Black is beautiful. Lots of people want darker skin.

    “As a bi-racial woman with very light skin, Faith Evans had already become accustomed to hearing things both good and bad associated with her complexion. In a culture that overall prefers light skin to dark skin, many light-skinned women often grow up experiencing reverse colorism, feeling the need to make themselves darker with makeup, suntans or tanning beds.”

    “The idea of valuing darker skin is something I can relate to. At school I was called Casper the Friendly Ghost by my classmates. (A ghost is white. Get it? Sigh.) I had freckles, too, so I was also called Pippi Longstocking. I felt left out even at home. As the only lighter-skinned person in a family of cocoa-brown parents and siblings, I’ve always been addicted to the pursuit of brownness.”

    Black is beautiful, so much so many light-skinned Blacks want darker skin.

    • janet September 13, 2017 at 7:37 pm #

      Q., what does a metaphorical hat taste like? 🙂

    • Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 12:07 am #

      “Who actually desires darker skin? –racist Q – janet labeling me as racist for acknowledging a well known fact about the desirability of white or lighter shaded skin

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

      Get real janet. Read the article below.

      Apparently Ghana and Korea are filled with racists.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/skin-bleaching-south-africa-women.html?_r=0

    • thwack September 14, 2017 at 12:33 am #

      “Who actually desires darker skin? –racist Q

      **************************

      I do.

      on white girls.

      When you have a white girlfriend and she goes to the beach and comes back brown; Its like cheating on your girlfriend; and their tits do remind you of an owl, thats why y’all call them “hooters”

    • Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 4:12 pm #

      Black is beautiful. Lots of people want darker skin. – janet

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

      Green, orange and purple are beautiful too but no one wants them as their natural born skin color. Actually, almost no one wants darker skin. Lighter colored skin is the nearly universal preference.

      Read the article I linked (one turn of the scroll wheel) below… and stop trying to blow smoke up our collective ass.

      Now, you and others on this comment page may debate long and hard as to WHY this light (or white) preference exists but, that it DOES exist is simply undeniable. Wide-eyed Liberals like yourself and, let’s say, Charles M. Blow (a black op-ed writer for the NYT), or Prof Henry Gates (a prominent black intellectual of beer debate fame) are trapped in the unenviable position of having to deny that even their own black brothers and sisters would prefer lighter skin. To admit this would destroy their raison d’etre.

      I have my own opinions concerning the skin color preferences of all ‘people of color.’ They are all racists and secretly suspect (though they MUST never and WILL never admit it) that white people ARE, in fact, superior in many important ways (the 100 meter dash not being one of them) and so the presence of light skin on an otherwise black or brown person subtly signals, “I have more white blood and so I’m superior to my dark neighbors.” It is NOT simply a matter of fashion despite what the article about Ghana tries to imply.

      • malthuss September 14, 2017 at 10:01 pm #

        Gates had his DNA tested.
        He is mostly White.

  68. FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2017 at 8:56 pm #

    The T-34 tank was the greatest use of a secret weapon in the history of warfare

    Naturally, Russia, the peaceful peasants of which time and again reel up on their bayonets or the tracks of their T-34 tanks guts of the best Western killers, in this context simply has no right to exist.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vV_ZH39zig

  69. janet September 13, 2017 at 9:37 pm #

    Another white shooter at school. More white on white violence. Sophomore with an AR-15. BAN SEMIAUTOMATICS.

  70. Pucker September 13, 2017 at 10:03 pm #

    Somebody keeps moving the golf holes on the golf course. Have you noticed?

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  71. Pucker September 13, 2017 at 10:20 pm #

    Do blokes get tired of having sex with the same sexbot?

    • nsa September 13, 2017 at 10:52 pm #

      Keep the relationship fresh and exciting by trying lots of new positions and maybe even something a little kinky like public sex or some light bondage……..

      • thwack September 14, 2017 at 12:38 am #

        I just use different wigs; but Im pretty sure they will produce one that can tan.

        Then later they will have different heads you can attach to the same body…

        welcome to man world.

  72. Pucker September 13, 2017 at 11:09 pm #

    Meet the Grim Reaper’s brother: The Amiable Reaper.

    Everyone says: “He’s so serious and unpleasant. Why can’t the Grim Reaper be more like his brother?”

    • Pucker September 13, 2017 at 11:28 pm #

      Form over Substance….

  73. FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2017 at 7:34 am #

    Ahnenerbe

    Ahnenerbe (“the Legacy of Ancestors”) was one of the most unusual official organizations of the 3rd Reich.

    The ideological basis of Ahnenerbe laid Herman Wirth, who in 1928 published the book “The Origin of Humanity.” He argued that at the origins of mankind there are two Proto-Races. The Nordic, spiritual race of the North, and the Gonvanic, ridden by low instincts, the race of the South. Wirth claimed: the descendants of these ancient races are scattered among various modern nations.

    In 1933 in Munich there was a historical exhibition called “Ahnenerbe”, which means “heritage of ancestors”. Its organizer was Professor Hermann Wirth. Among the exhibits were the oldest runic and proto-runic letters. The age of some of them Wirth estimated at 12 thousand years. They were collected in Palestine, the caves of Labrador, in the Alps – all over the world.

    The exhibition of Wirth was visited by Himmler himself. He was impressed by the “clarity” of the conclusions about the superiority of the Nordic race. By this time, the SS, hatched from the small guards of the party, had outgrown its role as guardian of the leaders. Here already tried to take over the functions of protecting the Nordic race in a genetic, spiritual and mystical sense.

    This required special knowledge. They were looked for in the past and on July 10, 1935, on the initiative of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, the rase-ologist Richard Walter Dare, the SS Gruppenfiihrer and the researcher of ancient German history Hermann Wirth was founded by Ahnenerbe. Initially, Ahnenerbe was positioned as an educational and research society for the study of German spiritual prehistory. The headquarters was located in Waischenfeld, Bavaria.

    Initially, the organization was headed by Hermann Wirth and his deputy professor Friedrich Hilsher. Hilsher played an important role in developing a secret doctrine, outside of which the position of the next leader of Anenerbe, the disciple of Hilsher, Wolfram Sievers, like the position of many other Nazi leaders, and not only them, remains incomprehensible.

    At the end of 1935 Hermann Wirth was subjected to house arrest (He spent under lock to the end of the war) and since 1937 Henry Himmler became the chairman of the society, the curator of the society was the rector of the University of Munich, Professor Walter Wurst, and the general secretary, historian Wolfram Sievers.

    Ahnenerbe acted so successfully that in January 1939 Himmler included the institute in the SS, and its leader became a member of the personal headquarters of the Reichsfuhrer. With a view to a closer connection with the military needs of the Reich in Ahnenerbe, in 1940 an “institute for applied military research” was established, the director of which was appointed Sturmbannführer SS V. Zivers.
    The Institute for Applied Military Research merged with the Department of Entomology and the Institute of Plant Genetics. The Institute had the following organizations:

    – Department of Mathematics. The head is Bozek. He was assisted in the work of 25 assistants from the outstanding prisoners of the concentration camp Oranienburg. The problems were raised by the Armed Forces, the Navy, the Air Force and the Council for Scientific Research of the Reich.

    – study of pectrine. Conducted by Dr. Pletner, SS storm-burgler and lecturer at the University of Leipzig. The research focused on the use of pectrine and glutamic acid as a clinical tool for blood clotting, Pletner’s assistant was doctor Robert Fakes, a Jew imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp, and another prisoner, graduate engineer Bromme, was in charge of technical issues. The laboratory was in Schlachters on the Lake Constance.

    -Experiments on cancer research were conducted by Professor Hirt of Thuring University, a member of the regular SS and a member of the Nazi party. Hirt managed, it is believed for the first time, to withdraw the cancer cell using fluorescent microscopy and he also managed to destroy cancer cell due to his method of treatment.

    – Studies of the problems of chemical warfare were conducted in cooperation with Professor Brandt (one of Hitler’s personal physicians) and Professor Bickenbach from the Strasbourg University of Natzweiler. So it was found that the poisoned gas LOST, yielded to treatment with a vitamin diet.

    – Experiments on the effect of low temperatures on humans were conducted by Dr. Zygmund Rascher at the Schwabinger Hospital, a hospital in Munich. Rascher was a member of the SS and the staff physician of the German Air Force. In his opinion, the experiments on the study of the effect of aerial heights on the pilots had long been stuck and demanded the further promotion of the participation of living people in them. And he received them.

    To be continued…

  74. Pucker September 14, 2017 at 8:00 am #

    The tattooed prisoners will punch the sexbots in the face.

  75. capt spaulding September 14, 2017 at 8:32 am #

    Just read online that the govt. has banned it’s agencies from using cybersecurity software developed by Kaspersky laboratories, a Russian company. It’s a good thing some sharp-eyed employee caught that one.

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    • FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2017 at 10:15 am #

      What about the companies that under the control of the Fourth Reich? Like Google, for instance.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2017 at 10:19 am #

      … or you think that the Fourth Reich is user-friendly to Jeffersonian Democracy?

      • capt spaulding September 14, 2017 at 2:42 pm #

        Frankly Fincain, I don’t trust any of the motherfuckers, be they Russian, or capitalist corporations. Those of you who adhere to some archaic belief of difference are just as stupid as I was back when I thought the Democrats were still the party of the working class. Times have changed, right along with the reality of the world situation, and the sooner you see that, the better, however you may be one of those who are still committed to the way things were in the old days, and if you are, there’s not much I can do for you.

        • FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2017 at 4:57 pm #

          The more things change, the more they stay the same… – like 1,000 years same.

          We have ruling elites in the West that beneath their relatively contemporary party affiliation, are still conceptually split into Medieval Sects and Orders.

    • Billy Hill September 14, 2017 at 1:46 pm #

      Now if they can just get the Chinese hardware out of the fighter jets and destroyers…

      I am reminded of Steve Buscemi’s observation in Armageddon:

      You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?

  76. beantownbill. September 14, 2017 at 11:04 am #

    United we stand, divided we fall.

    Over-breeding, loss of topsoil, nuclear Armageddon, lack of essential resources like fresh water and energy, environmental pollution like destruction of the oceans, overfishing and floating areas of plastic, infringement of coastal land by rising oceans. This is just a partial list of threats to the survival of humanity.

    These threats can be dealt with or corrected. Now is the time for the human race to pull together to insure our survival as a species. So instead, what do we do? Stupidly waste our emotional and physical energy arguing over trivialities like skin color. Or whether or not we like this or that politician. Etc., etc. Instead, we ought to pull together, think of ourselves as a species, not as Americans or Russians or Chinese and be furiously working together on developing solutions to avoid extinction.

    As one example, if you isolate particular nations, they end up without a standard of living high enough to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Crowded together, their societies are vulnerable to invasion by potent viruses. One species of virus will eventually escape their natural boundaries and spread across the world, killing billions or us all.

    I’m not doom mongering. But I am saying we’re playing Russian roulette with all cylinders loaded with bullets, except one. Do we want to play?

    Stupid, stupid.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 2:04 pm #

      Sure mac, sure. But first, open your gates to the Palestinians. And yes, that means most Jews will have to leave. In fact, all of them will.

      Not willing? Neither are we. This is the time to build Walls and Fences. The untermensch must be kept out and the must be allowed to die off as Nature cannot sustain their vast and unnatural numbers.

  77. volodya September 14, 2017 at 11:15 am #

    On Michael’s point, sure I’ll buy that, the Battle of Adrianople could be the more decisive date. If you’re looking at happenings that mark an event horizon past which there’s no return, Adrianople could have been it.

    I wonder though how much Alaric’s sack of Rome shocked the Romans, especially the upper crust. Nothing like this had happened for about 800 years. Just imagine a modern parallel: the shock of uniformed Nazis swaggering on the streets of London. Just like Rome, Britain hadn’t been conquered since William’s victory, 800 years prior. Would the loss at Adrianople been as big a psychological blow?

    On Ozone’s point, that’s exactly right, that’s the point of the incantations isn’t it? There’s a lot of ceremony that goes into it, a lot of seemingly learned discourse, the use of obscure jargon, the deployment of abstruse concepts, the quotation of numbers. You know, like a church, the incense, the smells and the bells.

    But what’s the point of it all? If the point isn’t the outright theft of real, physical goods, then what is it? First it’s the theft of money, then using the money to scoop up goods.

    The deplorabilus boobus americanus may not have cottoned onto that aspect of Fed machinations, at least not yet. But they sure can’t miss the plant closures and their re-location overseas. One or two of these maybe anyone can overlook. But when it happens 10,000 times and then 20,000 times and then 60,000 times it’s pretty tough to miss. So for now, that’s what the boobuses are focused on, that and their own resultant deprivation. But it’s a matter of time. The boobuses will figure out the Fed’s role as enabler ie they figure out the con.

    And the bogeyman? Will he be a goosestepper, a wearer of arm-bands? Maybe, but IMO these will be just costumes and a bit of mimicry. I think when all is said and done, no matter the nastiness and mayhem of whatever pops out of the closet, it will be a different game than a hundred years ago. I think that it will mark the fracturing of America’s continental “empire”, something that the goose-steppers of a century ago would never countenance.

    Messianic Druid is probably right, something of the USA will survive, maybe in truncated form in a corner of the continent, maybe as ghost institutions going through the motions, like a talking head after all the limbs were cut off.

  78. volodya September 14, 2017 at 11:36 am #

    Malthus, I guess it’s the luck of the draw w.r.t. fridges. I bought one forty years ago. It passed from hand to hand through the family and now it’s still humming away in my mother’s basement. My parents had similarly long lived fridges.

  79. Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 11:39 am #

    Sorry this is so long. Note: the 10 numbered facts were published in the LA Times.

    Just sharing……….I can’t personally verify the facts.

    California – LARGEST INSANE ASYLUM IN THE WORLD Interesting that the LA Times did this. Lou Dobbs reported this on CNN and it cost him his job. The only network we would see this on would be FOX. All the others are staying away from it.

    Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, this should be of great interest to you!

    Just One State – be sure and read the last part… try for 3 times.

    This is only one State… If this doesn’t open your eyes, nothing will!

    From the L.A. Times.

    1. 40% of all workers in LA County (10.2 million people) are working for cash; and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
    (Donald Trump was right)

    2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

    3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.

    4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

    5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals; they are here illegally.

    6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.

    7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.

    8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

    9. 21 radio stations in LA are Spanish- speaking.

    10. In LA County, 5.1 million people speak English; 3.9 million, speak Spanish. (There are 10.2 million people, in LA County.

    (All 10 of the above facts were published in the Los Angeles Times)

    Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the United States ‘ annual population growth,
    (and over 90% of California , Florida and New York ), results from immigration. Also, 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

    We are fools for letting this continue.

    HOW CAN YOU HELP?

    Send copies of this letter, to at least two other people. 100, would be even better.

    This is only one State…If this doesn’t open your eyes nothing will and you wonder why Nancy Pelosi wants them to become voters!

    IF YOU DON’T AGREE, JUST DELETE — IF YOU DO PASS IT ON! WHERE DO WE GET THESE MORONS?

    And then there’s NANCY PELOSI:

    Nancy Pelosi (who was just re-elected and part of this problem) wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income. In other words, tax what you have made by investing toward your retirement. This woman is a nut case! You aren’t going to believe this…; Windfall Tax on Retirement Income… Adding a tax to your retirement is simply another way of saying to the American people “you’re so dammed stupid that we’re going to keep doing this until we drain every cent from you”.

    Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on all stock market profits
    (including Retirement fund, 401K and Mutual Funds)!

    Alas, it is true- all to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed Minorities!

    This woman is frightening. She quotes… ‘We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income,
    (didn’t Marx say something like this?) in our country; and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest. (I’m not rich, are you?)

    When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied:

    We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as Americans.

    (Read that quote again and again and let it sink in.) ‘Lower your retirement; give it to others who have not worked, as you have, for your money.

    Send this on to your friends. I just did

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 2:18 pm #

      Sign. The DACA Tribesmen have already wreaked havoc on the American People. Time to send these wetbacks packing. And repeal the 1965 Immigration Act while we’re at it.

      https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/uphold-our-immigration-laws-and-deport-800000-daca-recipients-and-repeal-immigration-act-1965

    • Therian September 14, 2017 at 4:36 pm #

      What you cite, Q Shtik, is bad enough but what’s worse is that we’re actually giving preferential treatment to illegals. Go to any emergency room in California and I guarantee you that most of the people in the waiting room are illegals who won’t pay a dime for medical care.

      In all of California’s unemployment offices, signs are written in English and Spanish. In some of them, and you’re not going to believe me, signs are written ONLY in Spanish, especially in the agricultural parts of California (e.g., the Central Valley).

      Thanks for the list of stats. I will, indeed, send them on to many people.

    • malthuss September 14, 2017 at 10:39 pm #

      the LA Times should provide actual statistics, which are probably as numbing, instead of simply saying that the ones presented are a hoax.

  80. Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 11:49 am #

    To fodase:

    The lead front page headline in today’s NYT reads “8 Die After Power Fails at Care Center in Florida”

    Yeah, I know, just one unfortunate incident in Hollywood, FL. I’m sure they’ll have everything up and running in a day or two but for the 8 old farts in this nursing home it was literally the end of the world.

    Yet YOU are unable to envision a power failure lasting weeks, or months, or years.

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  81. DA September 14, 2017 at 12:48 pm #

    Great comment by ‘Fresno Dan’ over a NakCap this morning (they finally enabled comments again yesterday!), which speaks to a misunderstanding I had with Janos a few weeks back about what it was he meant exactly by “white” when it comes to race:

    https://newrepublic.com/article/144547/redoing-electoral-math-argued-demographics-favored-democrats-wrong

    Taken together, Phillips writes in his book, Brown Is the New White, “progressive people of color” already combine with “progressive whites” to make up 51 percent of voting-age Americans. “And that majority,” he adds, “is getting bigger every single day.”
    ……
    The U.S. census makes a critical assumption that undermines its predictions of a majority-nonwhite country. It projects that the same percentage of people who currently identify themselves as “Latino” or “Asian” will continue to claim those identities in future generations. In reality, that’s highly unlikely. History shows that as ethnic groups assimilate into American culture, they increasingly identify themselves as “white.”

    Whiteness is not a genetic category, after all; it’s a social and political construct that relies on perception and prejudice. A century ago, Irish, Italians, and Jews were not seen as whites. “This town has 8,000,000 people,” a young Harry Truman wrote his cousin upon visiting New York City in 1918. “7,500,000 of ’em are of Israelish extraction. (400,000 wops and the rest are white people.)” But by the time Truman became president, all those immigrant groups were considered “white.” There’s no reason to imagine that Latinos and Asians won’t follow much the same pattern.
    ……
    In fact, it’s already happening. In the 2010 Census, 53 percent of Latinos identified as “white,” as did more than half of Asian Americans of mixed parentage. In future generations, those percentages are almost certain to grow.
    ============================================
    I think anytime someone can own up to the fact that they were mistaken and reexamine their own premises and conclusions, one can gain at least some novel insights from the reassessment.
    OBTW, what race does Tiger Woods say he is? And who gets to decide?
    Oh, and I’ve decided to self identity as an orange…NO, NO, not a Trump orange, but a monarch butterfly orange…..

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/links-91417.html#comment-2861090

    • volodya September 14, 2017 at 1:43 pm #

      DA, the Democrats are onto a losing strategy. Chances are that they’ll stick with it. They think that demographics is a sure winner for them. Nope. As you say assimilation works its magic both through self-identification and through inter-marriage.

      If the Democrats were smart, which they aren’t, they’d see that people vote their economic self-interest. They can do all the race-and identity mongering they want and assume that you can fool all of the people all of the time. And the Democrats will lose.

      People have to eat. Fist raising and chanting in demonstrations don’t buy the groceries or pay the rent. A woman may need an abortion. But she needs to eat everyday and preferably more than once a day.

      What won Trump the election is economic distress. The real societal divide is in terms of economic class. And economic class doesn’t divide up neatly according to racial and census categories.

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 4:18 pm #

        Indeed it is! And it’s not going to go away, either. But it’ll sure be fun watching them melt down again. Let’s see if “We the Sheeple” are as stupid as they think we are in 2018 and 2020.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

      You’re projecting past conditions onto the present and future. People are already ashamed to be White and are latching onto other Winning identities. One Latino star was on Lopez’s show and did a DNA test to be revealed on air. She was all about being down with her people – and was humiliated that she was 85% White, though her straight features and light skin were giveaways to those with eyes to see.

      Believe it or not, there is real science here, not just whose up or whose down. It’s a lot deeper than the psychological and political lens thru which you see everything. Obviously the Irish are White and the Establishment was wrong to see them as otherwise back then. Just as obviously, the Mestizos are not White and never will be.

      It’s just skin color to you. No doubt you think all breeds of dogs are the same. Temperment, Ability, IQ – naw, they’re just dogs and therefore all the same. You don’t have eyes because you’re not interested. Not interested because you don’t love dogs – or people. Stuck inside your own head, you sure love your own Ideas and Liberal Ideology.

      • thwack September 14, 2017 at 2:41 pm #

        Believe it or not, there is real science here, not just whose up or whose down.

        ************************

        No theres not, its all theater.

        For example, the “Alt-Right” is nothing more than a bunch of people attempting to expand the definition of white; thats why you find so many Jews, faggots, Pollocks and other marginal whites leading it.

        “Blood and soil”, my ass.

        Its more like “fake it and make it.”

        I bet if I started a movement called the “Alt-Black”, I would get more white members than the ‘Alt-Right.”

        • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 4:43 pm #

          You’re obsessed with equality because you feel inferior. You feel inferior because you are inferior. Thus you try to get back at us in any way you can. This is typical Black psychology – and you are a typical Black. Listen to the little voice inside. Accept that you drew a bad hand this time around. But if you play it right, maybe next time you can be White.

          • thwack September 14, 2017 at 6:27 pm #

            Accept that you drew a bad hand this time around. But if you play it right, maybe next time you can be White.

            ******************

            Hmmm?

            I don’t know?

            Maybe, maybe, if I could build my own white man in a test tube… I might, MIGHT, consider being a white person?

            But something tells me God would be offended, and trick me with some kind of King Midas and the golden touch crap…?

            Besides, Ive got a pretty good tool kit to take on the racists. Ive been all over the internet and so far Im undefeated against the racists; most of those by knockout.

            My only problem is finding a suitable opponent. Even you duckin me Janos?

            But don’t worry, I understand.

            Its bad for the movement to have your racism deconstructed and thrown in the trash can of history by a black man; I guess thats why y’all accuse me of being a Jew?

            Because if Im not…?

          • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 8:45 pm #

            Morally inferior as well.

            https://www.amren.com/news/2017/09/rapper-xxxtentacion-sparks-outrage-music-video-showing-hanging-white-child/

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 4:15 pm #

        LOL! As always, you continue to illuminate with the broadest brush (oops, better make that a roller!) possible, Janos!

  82. Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 4:45 pm #

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/century-old-francis-scott-key-monument-defaced-with-racist-anthem-in-baltimore/article/2634255

    So it’s not really about just the Confederacy, is it? This is after statues of Columbus and Jefferson have also been vandalized. This is about tearing down any reminder of the Founding Race.

  83. tucsonspur September 14, 2017 at 5:12 pm #

    As Tucker Carlson pointed out last night, more towns are giving illegals the right to vote, the latest being College Park, Maryland, thus raising the question, what does US citizenship even mean anymore?

    The Democratic termites continue to eat away and rot the structural timbers of our nation.

    http://nypost.com/2017/09/13/vandals-scrawl-racist-anthem-on-francis-scott-key-monument/

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 5:47 pm #

      Yes the collapse is accelerating. “Racist anthem”? It doesn’t say anything about race. Trump is a racist? Where is their evidence? But they are serious and the whole definition of racism has changed. Any White who isn’t working for White suicide is now considered a racist. And thus, all White History is by definition, White and therefore evil.

      There can be no compromise with these people. It’s them or us.

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:04 pm #

        You’re projecting Janos. Linear social trends rarely sustain themselves for long. The current Lib/Dem/Fem trend won’t either, no matter how much the MSM gets behind it. I know, because I’m guilty of it too. We “thinking” people in the US are bred from birth to “project” things. I make my living producing accounting spreadsheets for overpaid, ignorant, managers who need to see “trend line” pictographs in lieu of actual numbers because they’re TOO FUCKING LAZY AND STUPID to understand actual numbers, so believe me, I know.

        I look at this way: the Hillary Lib/Dem/Fem “revolution” reached its apogee in 2016, and in reality had likely long since plateaued before that with her total eclipse by Obama. She was nothing more than a fading former political superstar living on past glories in 2016, and what we’re seeing now is little more than the wake turbulence of her passing. Yes, of course the Janet’s of the world are all alive and stirred up with irrational imaginings of Lib/Dem/Fem revolutions the world over right now, but you know what? THIS TOO SHALL PASS!

        • Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 9:51 pm #

          of course the Janet’s [sic] of the world – DA

          • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:59 pm #

            Good catch! I had to look at that one SEVERAL times to see it!

          • malthuss September 14, 2017 at 10:39 pm #

            the LA Times should provide actual statistics, which are probably as numbing, instead of simply saying that the ones presented are a hoax.

  84. FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2017 at 5:16 pm #

    Martin Shkreli was finally jailed. You will laugh when you find what for!

    Remember the “Pharma bro”? The golden boy Martin Shkreli who lost all shame?

    He was convicted several weeks ago of guilty for fraud, but can not be put in jail because there is no damage and this would be a bad precedent.

    So, he was still sent to prison. If you think that the American criminal system has triumphed, you are mistaken. They sent him to prison, depriving him of the right to put up bail, for ridiculing … Hillary Clinton !!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Shkreli in his style “and what are you gonna do to me?” offered money for the genetic material of Clinton. This to him and his friends seemed funny. But Killary and her sidekicks considered it not funny and at their request (!!!) Shkreli were sent to prison.

    Like, deprive working people of the health care by raising the price of a medicine – inconsequential matter, arrange a shaher-maher in the office – a poorly prosecutable case, but to mock the Bastinda, the Great and Terrible – this is a capital violation of the law.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/shkreli-ordered-jailed-after-online-bounty-on-hillary-clintons-hair-idUSKCN1BO2T8

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 6:01 pm #

      I got a laugh out of that one too. Too bad someone doesn’t put out an actual bounty on the bitch. She’ll be dead soon enough though anyway. Something that hideous can’t live on forever.

    • Q. Shtik September 14, 2017 at 11:33 pm #

      Martin Shkreli was finally jailed. You will laugh when you find what for! – Finc

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

      I’m not laughing Finc…in fact I’m disgusted.

      As despicable as this Shkreli guy is on many levels, the stated reason for jailing him is just unbelievable. Maybe janet can explain why it is justified.

  85. Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 5:58 pm #

    “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of
    their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and
    corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of
    all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent
    their Fathers conquered…. I believe that banking institutions are more
    dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…. The issuing power
    should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it
    properly belongs.”

    -Thomas Jefferson

    Who tried to stop them after Jefferson? Lindbergh, both Sr and Jr. Utterly vilified for their efforts. Andrew Jackson, the great populist and Indian fighter. But the evil ones were able to use his populism to great advantage. Father Coughlin, silenced by the Cucked Church. Ezra Pound, imprisoned in St Elizabeth’s as a mad man. And greatest of them all, Adolf Hitler.

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    • DA September 14, 2017 at 6:06 pm #

      Now you’ve got a point with this one there Janos. But alas, the chance to stop the Federal Reserve system died all the way back in 1913 under the traitorous Presbyterian fool Wilson. Now, we are all once and truly fucked!

  86. Pucker September 14, 2017 at 6:55 pm #

    The tattooed prisoners will punch the communal, shared sexbot in the face for making fun of them.

    • Billy Hill September 14, 2017 at 7:25 pm #

      Nothing more despicable than a snarky sexbot.

      Apropos of nothing the Cleveland Indigenous Americans are going for the all-time major league record for consecutive victories tonight.

      Can you hear it, intoned with solemnity over ESPN?

      We are All Native Americans Now.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 8:24 pm #

      I can’t image having sex with a machine. But it might be relative. The models are so crude so far. What about when they are completely life like and able to treat you like shit?

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 8:40 pm #

        What about when they are completely life like and able to treat you like shit?

        LOL! Well fucking Christ Janos, we’ll have to MARRY them of course!

      • elysianfield September 14, 2017 at 9:08 pm #

        “I can’t image having sex with a machine. But it might be a relative.”

        Insult to injury…do not lampoon the dating rituals of the forest dwellers, those of the deep south, nor the hollows of Appalachia….

        “OK, I am guilty of having sex with my teacher…and yes, I was home-schooled…”~ Daniel Tosh

        • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:17 pm #

          Where the dick goes in private, let no man (or woman) put asunder in public. The dick knows what it knows, and it needs what it needs.

  87. Pucker September 14, 2017 at 7:03 pm #

    It’s weird: The Americans HAVE to do the Hemp business as a drug business because it’s more profitable than doing the Hemp business as an industrial application venture.

    “The legalization of cannabis by states across the nation has led to a significant growth in the production and distribution of legal marijuana and an explosion of related service providers, including marketers, sellers of paraphernalia and bankers. The laws vary greatly from state to state and the sale of cannabis is still illegal under federal law. The faculty for this seminar features several leading authorities on the subject. This comprehensive program on cannabis law will introduce you to the most relevant issues and practical solutions, including transactional, investment issues, litigation, criminal, banking, money laundering, asset protection, and ethical considerations. The faculty will also cover the changes and progress on the latest legal developments and future regulations. Registration includes online access to course and reference materials that serve as a helpful guide to the numerous topics and techniques discussed in the program.

    Key Agenda Points View Complete Agenda

    Mastering Cannabis & Marijuana Regulation:
    An Overview of the Legal Marijuana Industry in the U.S.
    Most Critical Challenges involving Legalized Cannabis
    Banking Concerns for the Cannabis Industry & Potential Solutions
    Effectively forming Legal Entities
    Issues faced by Lenders & Landlords seeking to Serve the Cannabis Industry
    Obtaining & Protecting Federal Trademarks
    Federal Criminal Laws & Prosecution under the Trump Administration
    Examples of State Law & Criminal Defense Strategies
    Successfully Working with Cash Clients
    Asset Protection and Offshore Banking for Cannabis Clients
    Faculty Detailed Faculty Information

    Jacob Stein, Partner at Aliant, LLP
    Kenneth J. Berke, Partner at Berke Miller LLP
    Dmitry Gorin, Partner at Eisner Gorin LLP
    John E. Saunders, Partner at Lodgen, Lacher, Golditch, Sardi, Saunders & Howard LLP
    David Schnider, Partner at Nolan Heimann LLP”

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 8:04 pm #

      Nothing weird about it. Just BAU in the USA! Might make a good song title.

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 8:38 pm #

        And when you think about it, the ambiguous state of marijuana prohibition is a textbook lesson in the wonders of modern “full spectrum” capitalism. Unlike the repeal of (alcohol) prohibition before it, which was an utter failure in terms of truly maximizing revenue extraction, maintaining cannabis’s quasi-legal status allows all parties to the current revenue extraction process a continued seat at the bounteous feast table. And all this for a common weed that if cultivated privately by users would have completely innocuous effects on both growers, users, and society in general. In stark contrast to government-sponsored designer strains and for-profit industrial grow operations on the other hand…

        • Pucker September 14, 2017 at 10:37 pm #

          The Chinese have the highest technology for the commercial exploitation of Hemp. They use it to make tough clothing for soldiers, pharmaceuticals, and the seeds for high-protein foods. The Hemp seed oil is high in Omega 3. The Chinese have developed varieties with zero drug content. It’s just a plant.

          • DA September 14, 2017 at 10:44 pm #

            No profit in THAT, is there?

  88. janet September 14, 2017 at 9:06 pm #

    Q. was conned by the fake news email purporting to quote the LA Times (hey, isn’t that MSM!) and Q. fell for the fake news email, because it supposedly supports his racist views. Here is a more objective analysis:

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/taxes.asp

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:19 pm #

      Thanks janet. Voice of reason, as always.

  89. janet September 14, 2017 at 9:19 pm #

    Apropo of Q.’s long fake email on California and its criticizing Nancy Pelosi:

    Whatever Trump does seems to be OK with Republicans … except meeting with Nancy Pelosi.

    Get rid of DACA? Republicans say what the fuck, doesn’t matter, no problem with that.

    Grabbing pussies? That’s OK.

    Sell your country to the Russians? Not a problem with that.

    Praise Nazis? That’s fine.

    Work with Pelosi? Trump is a Monster!

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:22 pm #

      So… I trust you’ve never had your pussy grabbed in earnest then? I’m not surprised.

      Sell our country? Fucking Jesus Christ almighty! Where the FUCK have YOU been for the past 50 years or so, you mindless twat/twit?

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 9:42 pm #

      Hey janet, you fucking bot, take a listen to a REAL woman singing about the REAL America. It’s out there, although you almost certainly don’t inhabit it.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOdsAE8Mq7I

  90. malthuss September 14, 2017 at 9:36 pm #

    Janos Skorenzy September 14, 2017 at 8:45 pm #

    Morally inferior as well.
    I assume XXX mama was a coal burner. He was raised by gramma.
    He dyes his hair, one side is almost white.
    I assume thats to push his racial confusion.

    He isnt black.

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  91. messianicdruid September 14, 2017 at 9:49 pm #

    Yes, she really is that delusional. Here’s the passage;

    “Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. The goal is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust toward exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves.”

  92. janet September 14, 2017 at 9:58 pm #

    North Korea has today fired another ballistic missile over northern Japan for the second time in less than a month, going 2,300 miles and reaching an altitudes of 480 miles.

    Since Trump became president, Kim has laughed in Trump’s face. Kim continues his program of missile launches and continues to perfect nuclear armed ICBMs. On Trump’s watch Kim is threatening to send nuclear missiles into America’s heartland. Not just threatening… he is making positive gains toward his goal with each missile launched on Trump’s watch.

    Trump swore an oath to protect America against all enemies foreign and domestic, but Trump is incompetent as a commander in chief. He is able to babble impotent threats about “fire and fury” … but he is failing to protect America.

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 10:10 pm #

      Hey janet, how about showing us the equivalent of some “internet titty” and offering some sort of “proof” that you’re actually a human female, and not just an internet spam-bot named ‘janet’? Although, granted, it’s getting harder and harder to discern these days, even amongst “legitimate” humans.

      Tell us something about ‘janet’, the “dissident optimist.” The Kunstler community awaits breathlessly.

  93. janet September 14, 2017 at 10:01 pm #

    “Hey janet, you fucking bot…” –DA

    You are a riot. So much emotion responding to a bot? You give yourself away.

    • DA September 14, 2017 at 10:11 pm #

      And you give yourself to who or what?

      • DA September 14, 2017 at 10:24 pm #

        LOL! I’m guessing that pussy – assuming it actually exists – has never been penetrated. Perhaps in imagination only. Such “penetrating” analyses too!

  94. janet September 14, 2017 at 10:58 pm #

    “Tell us something about ‘janet’, the “dissident optimist.” –DA

    ———————–

    All the information has been posted several times by JiminFlorida. Ask him. He has posted on my religion, my politics, my work, etc. He as even described the poster on my office wall. I have not denied any of what JiF has posted. JiF knows I am not a troll and not a bot.

  95. Billy Hill September 15, 2017 at 6:01 am #

    Cleveland Indigenous win their 22nd in a row. MLB record.
    Expecting Janet to blame Trump as soon as the DNC talking points become available.

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  96. FincaInTheMountains September 15, 2017 at 9:15 am #

    Regarding the Role of Divorce in the History of Salvation

    First of all, I want to congratulate my Russian compatriots: the Rurik dynasty had no divorce and illegal children, since the Rurikovichs were Normans who had such a thing as a “Danish Wife”, that is, a wife not married in the Church, but enjoying all the rights of a lawful wife.

    By the way, it is the Normans that have had a decisive influence on Russian culture and a large part of today’s most fundamental cultural stereotypes of Russians – from the Normans.

    So Lomonosov was wrong, but he actually meant the pro-German propaganda of Miller, the president of the Russian Academy, who mistakenly considered the Normans a variety of Germans.

    In fact, it was not so, and the culture of the Normans was the antipode of the culture of the Salic Germans. In particular, the well-known contempt of Russians for rapists comes from the Normans (because of this, I do not believe in mass rapes in Germany in 1945).

    The fact is that before the adoption of Christianity during the pagan period among the Normans, they are Vikings, they are Varangians, the supreme deity Odin was a god of love and even sex, and violence against a woman, even in conquered European cities, was considered an insult to this very touchy deity.

    What favorably distinguished them from the Germans in the lower reaches of the Rhine, whose culture was formed under the influence of the Salic Law. And this difference was further exacerbated after the adoption of Christianity, since Christ with the Normans in some sense took the place of Odin, just as with the Romans Christ took the place of the Genius of the Emperor.

    The most famous case of the Danish wife is Gunnora de Crepon, who is called the mother of modern Europe, as her descendants have founded all European aristocracies, except Protestant princes of Germany, where the Turkic Khazars really got involved, whose moral code was very close to the Salic Law.

    As always, everyone talks most about what hurts the most.

    But there is an even more interesting example: the Church of England in church tradition was created by Joseph of Arimathaea, who sailed to Cornwall with the Holy Grail, and she was older than the Church of Rome. But over time, under the influence of the Franks and Rome, the moral principles of the Normans were blurred, and, after the conquest of England by the illegitimate William the Conqueror, also known as Wilhelm-the-Bastard, the Church of England fell into spiritual slavery to Rome.

    Trauma from this spiritual slavery has deeply settled in the subconscious of the British and in their truly great culture, periodically breaking through into politics.

    And then, just 450 years after the Battle of Hastings, Henry the VIII, a zealous Catholic, a man well educated and almost genius, a real Norman in spirit, sat on the throne of England. And so he met Anne Boleyn, and he wanted her so much, that he completely lost it. And she does not let him – “I do not want adultery. If you want me – divorce, but otherwise – go away.”

    Well, the real Norman can not rape his beloved woman! A Roman Pope climbed into the proverbial bottle and did not give a divorce, no matter what. And so the zealous Catholic Henry the VIII, the writer of theological and philosophical treatises, could not endure these torments, splintered with Rome, hanged half of the hierarchs and pro-Catholic politicians high and short, demolished the Catholic monasteries to the ground, and sent the monks to soldiers.

    And he changed the religion in the country, practically restoring the Orthodox Church of England, which from the joy of it divorced him from Catherine of Aragon.

    And he, finally, legally dragged Anna Boleyn into bed.

    Further all of course it was not very nice, but his daughter from Anna Boleyn was wonderful, and almost married to Ivan the Terrible, really very similar to her dad in all respects. True to him, the divorce had a reverse action, which once again proves that everything in life is contextual.

    Over time, all these passions have subsided, and the Church of England has remained until now, and the fact that what LGBTQ is now trying to do to it makes Anglicans, Episcopalians and other Methodologists in Britain and the United States recall their Orthodox roots.

    And if the ROC and Russia Today had more brains, and a less Pharisaic spirit, they would have listened more attentively to the voice from above and look at the fingers writing on the wall, and now would have turned the divorce of Vladimir Putin into the same evil that the Lord with the help of his faithful servants turns into good.

    The truth is that they would have to hide their anti-Americanism somewhere far away, but what can not you do for the glory of the Lord, if the love of Christ and Russia is greater than the dislike of America and even the Englishwoman.

    But I’m afraid that we have not enough brains and no one understands the difference between the checkers and a horse ride, and my voice will again be a voice crying in the wilderness.

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