JHK’s Three-Act Play
This economy has a destination for sure, but it’s not in the direction where all eyes are trained in moist hopefulness: that glimmering horizon of longed-for growth. You will not get that kind of growth — the kind that increases the overall wealth of the organism in question. A few people will make more money than they did before, but overall we are in an epic contraction. More people and organizations will go broke than will thrive. It will seem very unfair.
The true destination of the US economy is to get smaller and for two reasons mainly: 1.) Capital (“money”) is vanishing out of our system steadily and rapidly due to a massive collective failure to repay money owed on loans, mortgages, debts, and assorted obligations. 2.) Access to the primary resource we depend on for powering the economy (oil) is increasingly beyond our control — even worse, under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die.
We really have a choice between two ways of dealing with this. We can downsize and re-scale consciously and coherently, or we can continue to chase after the phantom of growth and allow the nation to fall into a shambles of desperation. So far into this long emergency of an economic fiasco, we seem to have chosen the pursuit of a phantom. That’s what President Obama was doing last week in Detroit, shilling for a new electric automobile which, he said, will make us “energy independent.” If Mr. Obama believes this, then it isn’t a very good advertisement for an Ivy League education.
I’d like to know how many Americans believe that electric cars run on virtually free energy (but I don’t have pollsters on my payroll). I’d bet a lot of them do, including President Obama. Sorry to rain on this uplifting parade. At best, such a car fleet would run on coal — that is coal-fired electric power plants — but even that is a ridiculous fantasy when you actually pencil-out the details. Not to mention that a nation full of people with dwindling or vanishing incomes won’t be in a position to fork over forty-grand for one of those new pseudo “green” vehicles. Also not to mention — wait for it — that due to rapidly vanishing capital there will be far fewer car loans available. The only thing growing in this part of the picture is the number of Americans who cannot possibly qualify for a car loan under normal terms that would require regular repayment of interest-and-principal. (Plenty of Americans qualify for the new “innovative” kind of loan — the kind that you never have to make payments on, but for the moment, the banks are choking to death on them, so additional approvals may lag for a time.)
It’s instructive that so much current hoopla about economic growth revolves around the issue of cars. For, if anything, reality is telling us very clearly that the mass motoring paradigm is near its end. Our determination to prop it up at all costs, despite the grave impairments of available capital and energy resources is a symptom of our detachment from reality. It’s also a fine illustration of the psychology of previous investment, which prompts a desperate society to squander its scarce remaining resources on the very things that are putting it out of business.
We don’t need need more highways. We’re about to find out that we don’t have the money to keep up regular repairs on the highways we already have. The hundreds of millions of “stimulus” dollars that President Obama flung into “shovel-ready” highway projects was among the more tragically dumb mistakes he made early on, and he has apparently learned nothing along these lines since then.
Interestingly, NPR ran a local story over the weekend — an obscure little item — saying that Amtrak was determined to raise the average speed of its passenger trains running north from Connecticut through Vermont from 40 miles-per-hour to 60mph. That would be some triumphant accomplishment! It would bring us back to about an 1860 level of service. Of course, I happen to believe that we will be lucky in a few years if we are able to enjoy an 1860’s standard-of-living, so maybe this little side venture in public transport is perfectly in tune with America’s future.
Otherwise, these are just ominous days of drift in a place of stillness where the uncomplaining robot traders tirelessly work their magic in the server farms of Wall Street, while their putative “handlers” enjoy the dainty pleasures of the Hamptons — which seem to center these days on pounding back vast draughts of premium vodka in conjunction with Red Bull, cocaine, hydroponic ganja, Viagra, and Klonopin to round off all those edges. And let’s not forget the catered delicacies circulating on trays passed by super-models — the yellowtail tartare tidbits, the green olive pesto crescents, the firecracker shrimp canapés. I wonder if the nibblers ever stop to reflect on how many of the un-privileged “out there” get by lately on dog food and ketchup.
My timing is notoriously faulty, they say, but I can’t ignore the sensation of being seasick-on-dry-land that tells me something awful is at hand. President Obama appears more and more Gorbachev-like to me, a well-intentioned functionary sailing his ship-of-state steadily into a maelstrom. The course is set and ain’t nobody going to make a move to change it. Of course, Mr. Obama is no more to blame than Mr. Gorbachev was — if anything one can’t help but admire Gorby’s steering of the creaky old Soviet ghost ship into drydock with nary a pint of blood spilled in the process — but what’s really striking in America today is the massive failure of leadership in the layers below Mr. Obama, and in all the other sectors of American culture where CEOs, chairpersons-of-the-boards, deans and provosts, doctors of this and that, generals and attorneys-general, even diverse clergy in all their arresting head-gear cannot collectively advocate for reality.
This failure of credentialed and elected authorities will surely unleash the crazies as we skid toward fall. Legitimacy hates a vacuum. The absence of a reality-based consensus for action will invite a consensus based on other things such as the lust for vengeance, the labeling of scapegoats, patriotic gore, and all the alternate trappings of a politics-gone-mad. Enjoy the heat and the clam rolls wherever you are in the meantime, and when you come home don’t be surprised if you no longer recognize the country you’re in.
_______________
A sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, will be published in September 2010 by The Atlantic
Monthly Press. Pre-order via AMAZON.
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First!
The USA politicians and their owners are ‘holding their breath’ until the November elections are past.
The rest of us are already turning blue.
~Ruff
The longer we go without realizing the collapse has already begun the worse the “payback” will be. In my Great Lakes community our Sunday paper’s editorial bemoaned the fact that 20% of our mostly rural county is now on food stamps. When we think its hit bottom it keeps getting worse and now there’s no where to run for jobs.
I weep for my daughters future.
djc
Here’s what I read: blah blah blah, hydroponic ganja. And then there was something about capital leaving the system. Mmmmmmm…… ganja.
There is a song that sums up Jim’s view: Larry McMurtrey’s ” Can’t Make it Here Anymore”… a seven minute monster of a song that fellow readers will enjoy. I found it on i-tunes…. moe.
We’ll be lucky if we have a Soviet Union style failure of State. It was mostly non violent and although it was full of hardship there was no widespread civil unrest.
I really think the Republicans are going to block any reform because they purposely want things to go so badly and fall so far in the hope that they will regain power in 2012. It is a cynical strategy aimed at inflicting the greatest pain for the most amount of people.
I just tried to call the NYS unemployment office. My UI dispersant is late. The phone system is hanging up on me.
Oh and that Chevy electric car the Volt is going to cost 40 grand. Good move GM.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
‘That’s what President Obama was doing last week in Detroit, shilling for a new electric automobile which, he said, will make us “energy independent.”‘
The Chevy Volt is looking more and more like it is destined to be a flop. Some have characterized it as a Prius with a lot higher price tag. Apparently its prospects are so dismal that GM has altered its production plans from something like 40k or 50k to 10k units per year.
It certainly doesn’t put the bailout of GM in a positive light, and I would have to think that a politician like Obama who wants to make it a poster boy for bailouts has got to be doing so with a healthy dose of mixed feelings.
There is a song that sums up Jim’s view: Larry McMurtrey’s ” Can’t Make it Here Anymore”… a seven minute monster of a song that fellow readers will enjoy. I found it on i-tunes…. moe. uh, sorry that should be JAMES MCMURTREY
There is a song that sums up Jim’s view: Larry McMurtrey’s ” Can’t Make it Here Anymore”
====================
Probably sung by the same people who voted for Bush, who drove the country into the ditch… the same people who saw those protesting deficit-producing military spending and yelled: “America, Love It or Leave It!”
What goes around comes around. Those who voted for politicians who destroyed the country now get to suffer the consequences. Karma.
I’m taking the contrarian position that, to the extent it gets industries actively pursuing non-oil based alternatives, the prez’s support of the Volt is a good thing. I understand your frustration with the fog of denial in the face of simple realities, but what I see is an increasing level of understanding in general. The real problem here is that public grasp of the issue is about where my own understanding was about 8 years ago — “well we can try this or that”, etc.
aimlow: Exactly what “reform” do you believe would be blocked by the Republicans that would otherwise strengthen the economy?
Yet more borrowing to stimulate Americans to spend on consumer goods they can’t afford?
I find it bizarre that Democrats talk about Obama digging us out of the hole that Bush got us into.
Obama’s economic policies are virtually identical to Bush’s: Stimulus, bailouts, massive new social programs all paid for on borrowed money.
bridges:
I believe to the contrary that an alternative vehicle that proves to be a fiasco will simply breed cynicism and public opposition to such efforts in the future.
It reminds me a little of the argument that carbon taxes at the national level will “set an example” that may encourage the large carbon emitters of the future like China to follow our lead.
However, if the primary effect of those national curbs on carbon are to slow the economy, then I believe what the Chinese will conclude is: “Woe unto us to be idiots like the Americans and sabotage our own economies through carbon taxes.”
Somewhat of a corollary is that the whole “green jobs” thing is nonsense. I am a strong believer in the need to convert to renewable energy but I have no patience for scientifically-illiterate politicians that paint smileys all over the effort.
Developing renewables is not going to bring dividends any time soon- for the forseeable future it will be virtually all pain and virtually no gain- lots of spending on research with very little energy produced.
The green jobs that are needed are ones that won’t be self-supporting, they must be supported by expenditures out of our national savings. (oops, we are deep in debt)
Another great Monday roundup, Mr. Kunstler. Keep it all on the radar. People are starting to wake up to reality.
Too bad that we can’t all live in Illinois where it only took our governor and state legislators a few days to solve the budget crisis. Just don’t pay any bills and try to borrow some more money to pay all the state employees and high priced pensioners. The governor was so pleased with the solution that he gave all his staffers a raise. “Problem solved!” It’s lost on me how other members of a so called intelligent society could have overlooked this obvious answer.
Next month when we put our ninth (or is it tenth) governor in prison maybe finally someone will wake up to the fact that this problem didn’t start yesterday or even last century. It isn’t Obama or Bush or even Clinton’s fault…it is their handler’s plans…those much farther up the food chain who have needs that must be filled. Good luck!
Too many people are invested in Real Estate: they can’t let go, they cannot admit that their house is worth much less than what they dream. Too many people are still buying houses at prices that are not real. These prices must go down, way down, they must get in line with food stamp people and minimum wages. Most of all, it is time people stop dreaming about owning their home and accept renting: only rich and well off middle class used to buy homes, the rest rented and saved until they had enough to buy.
Switzerland is a much richer country than a lot of places in the USA and yet most people are not home owners there.
Jobs are much more important than real estate, the prices of homes at 200,000 dollars and the tax base can no longer be supported: this goes for JAPAN too, which after 20 years still can’t get those house prices down to where they belong, and a lot of cities in Western Europe, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid etc. where the prices are even more wacky than in the USA.
People, don’t buy houses, wait until the prices collapse, don’t buy house and don’t make banks and the richer rich by buying houses.
Obama should say HOUSES MUST BECOME AFFORDABLE AGAIN, ALL OF THEM AND EVERYWHERE WORLDWIDE, THE GOING FUTURE SALARY WILL BE AT MOST 800 DOLLARS A MONTH, RENTS SHOULD BE NOT MORE THAN 300 DOLLARS A MONTH FOR A 2 BEDROOM HOUSE EVEN IN LA AND NYC AND TOKYO AND PRICES SHOULD BE FOR SAID HOME NOT MORE THAN 100,000 DOLLARS.
house prices and rent should and must go way down
Repeat:
KILL REAL ESTATE PRICES, MAKE THEM GO WAY DOWN, WAY DOWN, KILL REAL ESTATE PRICES, MAKE THEM GO WAY DOWN WAY DOWN…
“I weep for my daughters future.”
I have a daughter too, djc. I understand how you feel.
“Oh and that Chevy electric car the Volt is going to cost 40 grand. Good move GM.”
Yeah. Hysterically bad timing. Good luck to them. lol I won’t even give it a glance at $40K.
Now I’m off to the garden to harvest the okra. It’s far tastier than dog food and ketchup 😉
Sold another 45 gladiolus plants thriving in my back yard — they’re ca. 2 feet tall & set to bloom later this month — for $1 each.
I am the real economy.
Fuck the ‘Real Economy’ & its ghastly death dance of gov’t strangulation.
This is a necessary change we’re entering. It will weed out the weak, the unhealthy, and the fat cats, too. It’s going to be a spectacle to behold.
Jim’s right. Cars are a dying breed and wasting money fixing up the roads and bridges is foolishness.
They will make nice bike paths, though. Prepare to walk more.
http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com
NUMBER 1: I recently had to speak with a lawyer concerning an estate. For $500 an hour he perused a large pile of conflicting legal documents for about 10 minutes and then closed his eyes for about 2 minutes. He then opened his eyes and said “This is what we’re going to do…(and then a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that my bachelor’s degree brain couln’t fathom)” What startled me was the fact that reality is shaped by legal, verbal, and rhetorical factors. You may think that his skills will not matter much when the lights go off and the “armed hoardes” arrive to steal your last box of pasta but I think this whole sucka is going to go down pretty slow with a lot of LEGAL SKILLS being employed. Was it hubris or just talent, I don’t know but I can tell you that the corporates and the government have zillions of brainiac lawyers who will have the police state well oiled by their “rule of law”. There ain’t going to be any “anachy”, it’s going to be like Burma, a freak show so freaky that Laura Bush tried to do something about it.
NUMBER 2: today’s NY times reports on the fiasco if Iraq, on the trillions of dollars spent so that we can leave the place ripe for Islamic dictatorship and anarchy. It’s sickening that we continue to support wars abroad while we have little to no job growth in the US. But again, I’m sure the lawyers can make dramatic sense of it and keep this crap rolling along until the eventual exit of Americans forces from Afganistan in 2024. Does anyone believe that our war for oil will actually get us any? The best survivalist move of today is not to learn how to shoot a 22, plant a garden, or ride a bike. The best move is to learn Mandarin and move to China before they close the borders to us wetbacks crossing the Pacific.
Peace – Deacon John
My brother-in-law is a chemist who explained to me the ugly truth about chemical batteries: No chemical battery will every have anywhere near the energy density of a gallon of gas or diesel — pesky laws of physics, you see. There is no magic bullet when it comes to batteries. The high efficiency of electric motors, and use of light-weight materials can mitigate for this ugly truth, but you still end up with a vehicle with very limited range, and no practical way to heat or cool the passenger compartment. This EV BS is nothing but one big circle jerk, it can never be anything more than a fancy golf cart.
BTW, it’s interesting that the same problems that bedevil EV’s today are what killed off EV’s in the early 1900’s: very limited range and long recharge times.
In this ecomomy energy and information move fast, but finance moves faster.
“His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs they cannot bark; Sleeping lying down loving to slumber. Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own territory. “Come” one says “I will bring wine, and we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink; Tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant.”
Deacon John,
you way underestimate planting gardens and riding bikes. Self-sufficiency, bitchez.
Everyone needs to Learn to Thrive on 50% Less. Party’s over. Hangover’s been here since 2008. Simple is the New Plenty. Peace brother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng
“We really have a choice between two ways of dealing with this. We can downsize and re-scale consciously and coherently, or we can continue to chase after the phantom of growth and allow the nation to fall into a shambles of desperation. So far into this long emergency of an economic fiasco, we seem to have chosen the pursuit of a phantom.”
-JHK
Brilliant distillation, again!
I cannot adequately express the feeling of dread that [finally] seems to be niggling at the back of folks’ brains now’days. Jeez, it’s like a smell; the smell of fear (and anger). A critical number of wallets are now being emptied, I suspect.
I’d have to say that TPTB will take their chances with chaos; for some strange reason they must believe that suffering will only be visited upon “the little people”.
The one thing that can still shock me (but not much) is the wishful bullshit of a “return to growth” that the Lord High Poobahs of the “McEconomy” (tm Cowswithguns; thanks ;o) endlessly spew. For fuck’s sake, Alan Greenspan AGAIN??? When will this asshole go away and wallow in his ill-gotten gains, and let us get on with the dirty business of preparing to [attempt to] survive the inevitable shit-storm? E-fucking-nough, Alan, you craven, lying, vulture.
Finally, I warn you, most emphatically, that we are NOT IN ANY SENSE as socially or “infrastructure-wise” as well off as Soviet Russia was/is for the collapse phenomena. Read Orlov and take his suggestions seriously. (While keeping his sense of black humor, as well. We’ll need it.) Do not delude yourselves this will be a gentle let-down. Take a hard-nosed look at the “culture” that IS America, and draw some realistic conclusions about what privation will bring. How do the “good folks” act at the Piggly Wiggly when a storm’s coming and supplies are running low? There’s a clue for you.
Beware the authoritarians; these are the times they’ve been panting for.
Hello EMPIRESTATEBUILDING,
Yes General Motors has the solution. Back in the 50’s they had a slogan. 60 60 if I remember correctly or possibly 60 60 60. It was 60 percent of the whole US market in 1960. If it was a third 60 I do not remember what it stood for. GM had a prior electric vehicle the EV1. That ended badly and the same will be said for the Volt (my prediction). The price is around the gross yearly salary of many families. On a price basis it needs to be closer to $ 10,000 to sell enough to be a success.
I am really sorry Jim because I know these comments will ruffle your feathers.
I respect your viewpoints but you cannot seriously address the areas you are concerned about without confronting the Jewish , nay , Zionist influence in all the shenanigans that are happening all around the globe and , particularly , in America and the associated delusions in the exercise of power. The Anglo/American/Israeli alliance is central to all the shit that is happening from one end of the planet to the other. Your concerns and arguments are deficient without you having the courage and clarity to address this fact. Its not just America that is under threat – it is the whole Western world. Follow the money all the way to the BIS in Zurich and you might get the answers that you are looking for.
Truth is that the Jewish ( or should I say Ashkenazi ) community has been so successful in all areas of finance , business , media , law , administration lobbying etc etc etc that this success has fed “the crazies” whose influence has overwhelmed any sane dialogue due to the very psycotic nature of these people who are driving policy in both in Washington and London. This situation is ironically due to this very extraordinary success. Obama was chosen and groomed by shadowy figures long before the election , not elected by the people. I regret to say that your democracy that you Americans cherish so much disapeared long ago – and all that is left is some sort of Disneyland fantasy that even you are holding on to. Unless you get out on the street and reclaim your country you are fucked – think Greek ire. America was hijacked by the internationalists a long time ago.
I know you do not subscribe to conspiracy theories and you do not have to but there is an overwhelming body of evidence that there is a Globalist agenda. Without addressing and researching this issue seriously your analysis is empty and falls short of any real solution to the problem. I am sorry but incredibly much more courage and much deeper thinking is required.
With respect
Colin
Sydney
Australia
How telling is it when former members of Reagan’s economic team, Paul Craig Roberts and David Stockman are denouncing Supply side economics and the insane tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans?
Stockman just wrote an article “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse” where he censures the Republicans for misrepresenting the monetarist, supply-side “ism” as rooted in traditional economic theory. There is not one among them that will think on their own and discuss economics rationally. They walk in lock-step with fundamentalist neoliberal views in spite of reality and are looking more like Bagdad Bob every time they speak. These are dangerous people since they are too afraid to stand up to the dictates of the folks who are stuffing their pockets with that pretty green paper which may be worth toilet paper in the future.
It has only led to an $18 trillion deficit and a cascade of bubbles. He also writes about Milton Friedman’s $8 trillion error by getting Nixon to decouple the paper money from gold. We have lived beyond our means and have suffered a total loss of value while trade deficits are not self-correcting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1
Without barriers to entry and an interest in manufacturing anything of value here, we are only Balkanizing at greater extremes creating a bigger rift between Wall St. who feeds off the government in a form of corporate communism and Main St. which is falling deeper into a hole.
Speaking of bubbles there are developers in L.A. who are setting up business what they predict will be some real Go-Go times in the L.A., Calif real estate market in 2013. Somebody’s on something.. I’d love to know what. (Can I have some of that too? It must heady- stuff, indeed-now all they have to do is convince anyone who still has money to jump right in.)
In the New Yorker there is an article worth reading by George Packer,”The Empty Chamber Just how broken is the Senate?” describing how little interaction the legislative branch actually has since everyone’s just trying to raise money— their only function. No wonder that the government is replete with corruption. Charlie Rangel et al. Nothing like having the tax policy folks cheating on their taxes.–Now that’s entitlement!!
There’s barely any real debate, but a lot of mugging to the camera for their own speeches and publicity. While bills are being discussed with very few showing up, the audience is twittering ideas to their press secretaries. They can’t wait to get votes over with so they can catch a plane home and we are paying through the nose for this total disinterest in governing. This branch of government is completely breaking down and as usual We, the People are the biggest losers.
We all are watching in frustration as we cannot seem to turn this debacle around so all we can do is watch as the Good Ship Lollipop go down–speaking of ship references and all.
A terrific essay this morning, albeit overly optimistic that there is still time to change course. If we used what fossil fuel we have left to reconfigure sprawl and redesign our food system, if we establish local energy generation, if we quadruple mass transit, if we get serious about global population control, if CEOs start talking about less quarterly return to shareholders—too many ifs, too late in the game. We’re already sunk.
One expert on the old Soviet Union said recently that several items keep Russians going in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet State . These were an extensive and very cheap public transport system which meant that people could still move around,get to work and move across country, without too much difficulty…in a country where few people has cars…and most city dwellers had acess to small family plots for growing vegetables on the edge of the big cities.
In addition many Russians still had family plots in the countryside and using the trains they could grow and buy some cheap food to take home.
The Second thing was that most Russian lived in state owned housing
WHEN THE CRASH CAME THEY NO LONGER PAID EVEN THE SMALL STATE RENTS THAT HAD BEEN UNIVERSAL(5% OD INCOME),,so most survived the crash !
How would Americans survive..badly re transport and badly re rent,unless the Government made a law to prevent evictions !
Interesting essay Jim. We can see the Nazis and cranks coming out of the closet even on your own comments thread – they’ve completely taken over what passes for the Left here in the UK, they can’t seem to make it through the day without ranting about “zionism” and “israel” (nudge nudge wink wink). Between those clowns and the Muslim-bashing football hooligans of the EDL, we have the British equivelant to American Tea Party idiots, with the added bonus that they also discredit progressive politics by association.
Anyway. I agree that the Volt is probably much too little too late, that said I think it is a step in the right direction.
About the economy – I’ve read reports to the effect that the problem isn’t that there’s no cash, but that the rich are drowing in cash and have nowhere to spend it. Worth noticing when you read about private space exploration initiatives! Companies like SpaceX should soak up that surplus quite nicely. Assuming there’s still energy resources left to fuel those birds, of course…
I’m just back from a week to the old homestead in western NY, an area that has been in an economic depression for four decades since the tool and furniture factories were shuttered. I spent some time roaming the roads, to see how the locals are affected by the times. I have three observations. First, it appears that the principle economic engine in the area is yard sales; the local paper ads for same took up an entire page. Second, I passed several empty houses with garbage bags full of kids toys and household odds and ends at the roadside; where are the former residents and why did they leave, I asked myself. Last, I visited a few local farmstands, all of which advertised on their signs and in the newspaper that they are happy to take food stamps.
TLE has been happening longer back there, but I take these things as nudging reminders of scenes soon to come to my neighborhood, and yours.
The electric car symbolizes the imaginary nature of the new economy. As Jim points out, electricity is just a form of energy transfer, not energy itself. The whole idea of expanded sustainable energy was to displace fossil fuels, not to supplement it. Coal, oil, nat. gas or nuclear are the prime movers for electricity, and don’t forget that for thermally generated power, generation only gets 28% to 35% of the original energy content of the fuel burned, the balance is exhausted to the environment as waste heat. And,then another 5% to 10% transmission line losses. So, typically, only one-third of the energy consumed for generation will make it to the car’s batteries.
The financial side of the electric car is the other imaginary dimension.
The fact that these cars may sell in any numbers at all is due to the tax rebate angle. Take California for instance. The practically bankrupt state is giving a $5,000 tax rebate. Our of thin air, one may say, or out of new IOU’s, which are just about as solid as thin air. And, then I am guessing, California will soon be putting out more IOU’s to subsidize additions and replacements to the electrical distribution infrastructure to support the combined load of A/C running 24/7 and the electric cars.
And then there is this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrXgLnkv21Y
Once again, Mr. Kunstler cries out for a coherent march to the national ego reduction clinic, along with some pragmatic preparation in collective asceticism in advance of the inevitable austerity which foreshadows the nation’s future. But what JHK fails to mention is that no politician gets elected in this country if they have real audacity and suggest that it’s time to cut back and push the nation away from the buffet banquet table. Politicians who do so are branded losers, infected with the defeatist malaise of that misery index president Jimmy Carter. We’re Americans after all, with lifestyles that are “non-negotiable.“ So what options are left other than an extended period of checkmate time while the fat lady sings for the remaining buffalo wings?
It’s about leadership alright; but it’s also about a people who have no intention, much less the will of putting down the fork.
Beyond the diabolical and devious class warfare antics of the GOP, real discipline and austerity will be imposed by external factors. As a result, the nation will either end up looking lean, noble and reflective–I’m thinking of a magnificently lean and bearded Tom Hanks spearing for fish in Castaway–or it will descend into clans of racist barbarians shoving the equivalent of deer antlers through the wind pipes of each other a la Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
Well, Gorby did do a fine job of bringing the creaky old Soviet ship of state into drydock. And yes, there was no major bloodshed. But, according to Dmitry Orlov, something like 25 million people just disappeared! After the first few years of financial shock, they were just gone! Off the rosters. If we have a financial meltdown similar to the Soviets, just imagine what will happen here to the homeless, for example. They will die and their friends in the tent camps will bury them wherever the soil is sufficiently soft to allow easy digging. Given the current economic climate, I’m fairly certain we can meet the USSR’s 25 million and even raise them a few million. I recall Orlov wrote of a “financial meltdown race” (a sardonic parody on the former arms race).
Orlov writes that the Russians were far more prepared for economic calamity than we are. Having been to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, I can certainly see the verity in that statement. The Russians, despite their welfare state, were far more self-reliant than we are. For one thing, most did not believe the crap coming out of the government gasbags. Plus, they had lots of personal agriculture. Finally – and this is very important – their expectations were more in line with reality.
In any case, I suppose we shall see…
For those who were lucky enough to get buyouts and indexed pensions from their employers, I doubt there is a lot of worry about the future. I know lots of recently-retired autoworkers who are building new homes, buying cars and going on vacations without a care in the world, secure in the knowledge that some young schmuck working for half the pay the retirees made and with almost no hope for a pension, will continue to fund their lavish lifestyle. Sometimes life sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it.
“…under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die.”
No, Jim. They want us to pay the corporation/government all our taxes/debts, dig our own graves without bothering them, and *then* eat shit and die.
And if we tasted good enough, we’d be on their dinner tables with a fine chianti and fava beans.
Cheers!
When applied to society, sinking to the lowest common denominator is never a good equation.
@Ibendent..re:”The Empty Chamber…” you are right. I know many politicians; they get paid, by us, to raise money for themselves. Now, what’s wrong with this picture? An analogy can be made to current day psychiatrists who get paid to dispense meds rather than do therapy and get to know their patients.
With regard to living beyond one’s means- don’t be fooled -being ‘sustainable’, at least at start-up, costs money!
“There are two Spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast domes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from a furnace.” Aldo Leopold
We all know that you, I and many others have a better understanding of what needs to be done in order for this nation to be steered back onto the right course. But, the Obama Ship has been taken over by pirates, as had the ships of the previous presidents. Many of the crew members are traitors and tools for the pirates. The nation has been hijacked by the corporate elite crooks and liars. It has been allowed by the ruling classes.
Nothing will change until the pirate ship begins to sink from their own incompetencies and lack of upkeep.
We just have to wait, and in the meantime, take care of our selves and those close to us.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
The best designed SYSTEM for electric cars (so far) is Shai Agassi’s Better Place. It addresses all the flaws of electrics:
–range (you can pull into a battery swap station)
–cost (you don’t buy the battery, you pay for the battery like cell phone minutes)
–grid overload (the grid decides when you charge)
–cost (its much cheaper to operate than gas/diesel and overall costs are lower)
Moreover, its the only way adding renewable energy–which generates power intermittently–to the grid makes sense: the car batteries suck up the power when the wind turbines are moving, the hydro flowing, and when the solar cells get lots of sun.
Renault/Nissan will be building 100K cars a year with these swappable batteries and testing has begun on Tokyo taxis. Scaling up is their biggest issue.
It scares me to think that it could not only continue, but accelerate, our happy motoring culture. BUT, Kunstler is right: whether because of peak oil, tighter credit, and/or less disposable income, people will be driving far less in the future. But, walking or God forbid getting on a public bus is such an anathema to us that people will go hungry before they’ll sell their car.
In any case, his swappable battery idea makes sense for light rail (no ugly, expensive-to-string overhead wires), buses, and perhaps freight rail.
If this all were not so tragic I might laugh. A shall attempt to provide a little history, my children. I’m sure many of you remember the Jetsons cartoon of the early l960s. Folks, this fantasy of high-tech living, flying (no fossil fuel) cars, push button automation has been a staple of the delusionary American mass consumption diet for over 50 years! It is hard to believe that our society STILL believes that we can sustain our ridiculous notion of crapping on the planet at virtually no cost (environmental, physical, mental, etc.) For chrisakes people, WAKE UP! Where, oh where is the cash going to come from to maintain the vast array of super highways your dreams are made of? Let’s forget for the moment the ridiculous idea of clean energy, courtesy of the electronic automobile. Let’s say it WILL happen. Let’s say the government GIVES all of us a spanking new 2013 Volt (a down payment on the loan we all gave for the too big to fail G.M.). Let’s further conjecture that we all get FREE ENERGY. Where is the money going to come from to maintain the infrastructure of said transit (highways, interstates, toll booths, bridges, guard rails, maintenance crews? And please don’t tell me that the government is going to pay for it. Take a long, sober look in any mirror available. YOU are the government. I’m not saying you cannot have your George Jetson fantasy. I’m simply asking, how in heck are you going to pay for it with your Mcjobs? By the way, you’ll need at least two Mcjobs to afford a roof over your head. Or did you think the price of food and shelter would also be provided for free?
Enjoy your view and comments from USA here in the UK — So many parallels.
I mention your blog regularly on a world wide blog with contributors from China, France and Australia.
Other USA contributors welcome at:-
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/
Keep up the good work and common sense
Electric cars aren’t free energy, but they do save a lot of energy – the Tesla for instance gets the equivelant of 135 mpg. The Volt when driven in electric only mode (less then 40 miles between charges) will probably get quit a bit more as it’s not a high performance sports car.
That said I’m a scooter man myself. Electric cars aren’t sustainable in anything like the long term as they cost a lot more and waste a lot of resources just moving people about. Scooters and bikes along with public transport would solve the problem nicely though.
One more thing, Agassi’s swappable battery idea for cars is a disruptive technology; we need a truly disruptive new technology for energy (fission? helium 3 from our moon?). Otherwise, everything will come to a grinding halt.
Getting agriculture off oil probably represents the best way to solve multiple environmental problems (including global warming), employing lots of people, and eliminating most degenerative diseases. Off oil=local, nutritionally dense, organic FRESH food using perennial grasses as animal feed.
The thing about the Volt is that it’s just a smokescreen. GM has absolutely zero commitment to the Volt.
Consider the fact that the Prius was sold at a large loss for the first few years. But Toyota had a long term commitment to the hybrid concept. So they ate the losses while continuing development and building brand awareness. Now the Prius is quite profitable and is the foundation of an entire line of hybrid vehicles.
GM, on the other hand, is reluctantly building just a few volts because it makes daddy happy. They have no long term plan for the Volt. There is no path of future development for the Volt. GM only wants Uncle Sugar to pat them on the head and keep forking over free government cash.
And poor sad Obama playing the fool at the GM photo ops. He’s the frontman for the big IPO scam which will enrich the GM executives and the connected few. I really never imagined that a President could sink lower than Bush. But in so many ways Obama has. And it seems he he is still sinking.
Actually talk about Israel and the Middle East is relevant…because the unquestioning support of recent US presidents for anything Israel does,has helped load up the anger in the Islamic world against the USA…and I fear that the Israeli desire for an attack on Iran will land the USA in the greatest crisis of all…what will happen when the Iranians retaliate for an attack by closing the Persian Gulf to oil shipments…the price for gas at the pump will rocket…that’ll be the day when the wisdom of being Israeli best friend will be questioned…and those who do that are not Nazis..for .many Jewish writers in many places do also question the policies of mad leaders like the present Likud rulers in Tel Aviv,,Libermann the Likud Foreign Minister is not acceptable in many countries which are otherwise sympathetic to Israel.
If Iran is attacked the effect may be an “oil shock” to finally topple the US economy…think about that as a consequence of unquestioning support for Israel !
Well, the more things change the more they don’t quite seem the same.
I’m all boggled up with too many posts to mull over. A couple things I need clarified.
What is the “economic term” for when all the fake wealth, which is based on fake or unpaid debt, is entered into the economic system at the same time the federal Reserve prints money to give to or “loan” to all the holders of all the fake wealth and fake debt?
I mean – as far as I can see, this a mix of deflation and inflation at the same time. How does it manifest itself to me, my banker or my offspring?
Also, what good would it be to live like the 1860s? That economic model would result in back breaking life styles and starvation for more than half the population.
How do we as society determine the given level of austerity we must endure for a greater good? So far, the obvious deciding factors should involve using energy for discretionary consumption versus
usage as commodity for basic survival.
So JHK, you tell some good stories, but you never ask the hard questions about who decides, or how any activity, or anything of consequence will be sacrificed.
Should we cut out NASCAR or NFL and MLB night games and their team-travel by air? Tell us all about who decides on the 1860s or the 1960s…
Discretionary consumption – two little words no one wants to discuss, even here….
To: THE THREE STOOGES
Near the end of last week’s thread are these two lines from Asoka:
1) What is happening today is the reconquest of the territories through migratory tactics. That is going swimmingly and nothing can, nor should, be done to stop it.
2) Liberal? I am insulted. Name a liberal who defends the reconquest of the southwest by Mexicans.
This is just a reminder to you three fools about where Asoka’s heart lies.
And I must ask, when are you idiots going to stop talking to this guy as if there was some kind of genuine debate going on? As if the discussion was an actual two-way street? As if you are making headway in changing his mind? This is about as likely as Vlad calling up Precious for a date.
About the Amtrak item. This is going to be a problem that has to be dealt with in more than one part of the country if we are to raise rail passenger service above the level that Jim calls “embarrassing to Albania”. Railroad speed limits are set by the Federal Railroad Administration, based on a standard set of criteria as to the sophistication and condition of a railroad’s physical plant. Speed limits range from 10 mph to the 150 mph for Amtrak’s NE Corridor in a part of Rhode Island.
The service that Jim is talking about, Amtrak trains #55 & 56, the “Vermonter”, operates on a Rail America property known as the New England Central (NEC) from Palmer, MA to St. Albans, VT. This used to be the Canadian National owned Central of Vermont until about 17 years ago. Regional railroads like the NEC usually have relatively simple operating systems, lacking electronic signaling systems, which the FRA requires to operate at speeds above 59 mph. The NEC uses radio relayed paper orders called Form “D”‘s to dispatch trains, much like in the old days when a station operator “hooped-up” hand-written orders to a passing train crew he transcribed from the station telegraph – only now relayed from a central dispatching office by radio. Not very advanced, but it works, and is far cheaper than paying to install and maintain automatic electric wayside signals.
New FRA rules set to go into effect by 2015 (courtesy of the Caltrain head-on collision a couple of years ago, where the commuter train engineer was texting instead of watching the signals ahead of him) will require a satellite-based system called Positive Train Control (PTC) to be used on all U. S. railroads handling either passenger or hazmat trains. PTC uses a GPS-based system that will automatically override the engineer’s control and stop a train heading for a collision. Amtrak will have to subsidize installation of this system on the NEC so they can continue to operate their trains over it. Amtrak will probably have to help pay for the installation of PTC on a lot of miles of railroad in the U. S. Most routes that Amtrak uses do see at least some hazmat traffic, but the trend over the past 20 years has been that agencies wanting to operate passenger trains over a freight railroad pay for most of the costs of upgrading the line to accommodate passenger service. It’s really something that needs to be done anyway, but Amtrak and the other passenger authorities should get more say in the dispatching and on-time performance of their trains than they do now.
Unless things have improved significantly on the NEC since the late ’90’s when I last rode the route, I don’t know that I’d want to be on the “Vermonter” above 60 mph on the barely maintained, jointed rail of their “mainline”. It was a somewhat rocky ride even at 59 mph. The route needs a major rebuilding, and if you’re going to do that, then it really should be for more than one passenger train each way per day.
I guess Wall Street doesn’t read CFN. The DOW is up 195 as we speak.
Yeah! And for the up coming November elections the people will be playing ping pong again voting out the dems and voting in the reps. We keep going back and forth, back and forth while continuing the slide into the abyss! Now, seems many are set to vote the same people back in who started the malicious slide in the first place. This time they’ll let people lose jobs, become homeless, and starve while funding ongoing wars, and starting more!
Yeah, I read Stockman’s article.
Blah, blah, blah, don’t pay back the trillions of dollars in Social Security that American workers have paid into the trust fund since Greenspan and friends set it up in the 1980s, and the US military spent attacking other countries, blah, blah, blah.
Living within our means?
I already live within my means. They don’t the ruling class, those who still can spend $4 million for a hours. They mean we who live in cars and the basements of our relatives.
George Carlin said it well-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0OJEFlq7A
DOW, eh, Q? My advise to you (and ONLY you) would be to take every last nickel you can lay your hands on and gamble it in “the market”. …Please.
You are a gatekeeper. It’s evidenced by your use of “distractionary” irrelevancies. I’m thinking that you don’t believe in TLE. If true, you’re not adding anything but useless tangents. Is that the point? Legerdemain is not useful/productive at this present time. If you wish to entertain yourself with it, that’s your business, but I would suggest that very soon, your something-for-nothing dreams will come to a sorrowful awakening.
I appreciate the English lessons, but beyond that…?
Exactly, badnews, the problem is that the rich have TOO MUCH money.
The division of wealth in the last 30 years has been tilted more and more towards the wealthy. The top 1% owns more than the bottom 60%.
And now they’re telling us that WE have to tighten our belts? So that they can collect more money that they can’t even spend? And when they do spend it, it’s spent wastefully and destructively? (In my previous comment, I meant spending $4 million on a house, not an hour. That would be their pay!)
Or, worse, it’s lent back to us, with interest.
And the anti-Jewish propagandists coming out of the woodwork are part of the traditional divide-and-conquer program, meant to appeal to those, like Mel Gibson, brought up with such beliefs.
They also use divide-and-conquer tactics with us via : democrats and republicans, the guns, god, and gays plus abortion divisions, the illegal immigrants, etc.,etc., etc.
I agree with you regarding Asoka, Qshtik.
The 25 million disappeared people in the Soviet Union are referred to in our corporate press as “life expectancy dropped”.
In one year!
Oh, yes, further divide and conquer tactics-
the young vs the old.
The 2010 Chevy Volt has already missed the 2010 model year… surprise. The Tango Car costs over a hundred thousand dollars…….
and the worst part is that the GM EV1 was ready to go OVER A DECADE AGO (more like a decade and a half) Chevy decided that it’s 100 mile range was not enough (considering most people drive less than 40 miles a day…. one has to ask WTF???)
But Jim is right…. happy motoring isn’t so happy anymore anyways… America has devolved into this quasi-fascist police state… where the Ohio State Police seem to be pulling over people at random (because of the shitload of cops nobody really speeds in Ohio…even in the cities) but yet there are plenty of people pulled over (being searched) nonetheless.
and all this talk about “alternative energy” has been going on since the seventies…. The United States talks about going solar like I talk about quitting smoking cigarettes….. seems like every month I am quitting… yet the next time you see me I will be headed out for a smoke…….
And our collective heads out for a barrel of foreign oil in much the same manner…. while talking about how we are going green…. Got news for you America, bullshit is brown.
The police state… and the lame corporations that provide “food” and the other stuff “needed” for travel are so bad at what they do that it makes me want to stay home!
http://www.suburbanempire.com
Sorry, Q.
For the sake of honesty, I’d have to say that you “appear” to be a gatekeeper [for the status quo]. I can’t prove that, but you do give that impression. …And again, that’s only one person’s opinion, now ain’t it? Didn’t mean to make the waters any muddier.
“Enjoy the heat and the clam rolls wherever you are in the meantime, and when you come home don’t be surprised if you no longer recognize the country you’re in.”
But it is, or will soon be, the country they want. Upper Class and everyone else. Peons. The saving hope is that the peons are heavily armed, and the police reluctant to take them on because 1) they are heavily armed and/or 2) the police recognize that they are being had by the Upper Class. It was most often the Praetorian Guard who killed the Emperor in ancient Rome.
Suburbanempire, you said:
The police state… and the lame corporations that provide “food” and the other stuff “needed” for travel are so bad at what they do that it makes me want to stay home!
You hit the nail on the head. My extended family just had a reunion this past weekend. I made a decision to “stay home” for many reasons, the least of which you mentioned. It would have been a nine hour drive for me. I’ve been out of work since November. I just couldn’t rationalize the trip, although I truly wanted to see my long lost cousins.
Traveling by car for any extended period of time is an exercise in horror. God forbid you go the speed limit. To ensure a steady traffic flow, I normally drive about 5 miles over the speed limit so I don’t get mowed down. I’ve had .ssholes tailgate me so close, I could almost see the insects on their radiator grill! Not only is there virtually no common courtesy, but people seem to think that forcing each other off the road is some kind of Mad Max, Road Warrior game. I don’t know where the intelligence has gone. Even assuming you have the money to replace your $30,000. Dodge Ram pickup (one of my neighbors has just purchased one of these “beauties”), how are you going to replace an arm, leg, eye, etc., assuming you live through the crash? Is this a new sport nobody told me about?
Not to bag on the South, as Jim does, but in Dixie, Nascar rules. The spectators act out their own little fantasies on the interstates! This is not a great advertisement for our collective intelligence. And it definitely does not bode well for our future.
Great article Jim. You are somewhat ahead of your time, but you’re right. I have to say, the people I know who still have very good corporate jobs, are in complete denial, about what has happened in this country and where we are headed. I think quite frankly they are brain washed, or stupid. I think both. In a nut shell, they think, we’ll all be fine, that this country has always rebounded. What a load of crap. And by the way, what I find even more interesting, is they have kids just entering college, they can barely afford to pay for, and / or kids in high school. The kids, and the parents seem to think that they’ll all find good jobs, after college. I keep my mouth shut, because the truth is, they may finish college, but they’ll have to move back in with their folks, when they realize, the good jobs no longer exist in this country, and are gone for good. That will be another major turning point in just a few years.
Keep the good articles coming.
Hey, when we’re done arguing about the economy, want to argue about the man convicted for the Pan Am 103 bombing?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/I-Don-t-Care-About-the-Fa-by-wagelaborer-100802-584.html
That’s why I take Amtrak, Myrtle, as aggravating as the delays are!
You can’t read or dine or sleep while you’re driving (or at least not very long), but you can while riding a train.
If you do fall asleep while driving, you certainly don’t wake up 600 miles closer to your destination!
Oh, yes, further divide and conquer tactics-
the young vs the old.
=======================
Don’t forget one that is making a comeback for the 2010 elections: Christians versus Muslims.
Now it seems the principle of freedom of religion this country was founded upon is under attack by some who oppose an Islamic cultural center being built in NYC.
Fear tactics will be tried again to make us afraid of Islam, like Newt Gingrich wanting a law preventing Sharia law from replacing American law, even though this has never happened and will never happen. It is a way to foment fear, mistrust, and hatred against Muslims.
With a nation of angry , unemployed, college-debt burdened youth who were bottle-fed the ultimate in satanic fascist video games, I have no real expectation of receiving Social Security checks financed on the backs of the younger generations.
In fact, I’m thinking of tossing my hand-carved Skull and Roses walking- stick into the fire, lest an angry young mob turns my future mobility aid into a bloody scapegoat weapon.
Skidding Toward Fail.
Suburbanempire is right about the “police state” tactics. Here in NJ they just passed a law where if a pedestrian starts out or is in the crosswalk you must stop.
Now that’s something anyone with common sense would do normally anyway but because of a few bonehead drivers out there who don’t, they passed a state law.
Last week in Glen Ridge, NJ they had a sting set up on their main drag, Ridgewood Avenue, both directions whereby a plain clothes cop would start out to cross as you approached. If you didn’t, (or they judged that you didn’t) another cop behing a tree radioed ahead and you were stopped and ticketed.
They were doing a huge business with ticketing.
“we can continue to chase after the phantom of growth and allow the nation to fall into a shambles of desperation.”
This.
“I happen to believe that we will be lucky in a few years if we are able to enjoy an 1860’s standard-of-living”
Medically speaking, in the early to mid 1800’s, a woman had 10-12 pregnancies in her lifetime; only 1 of 3 kids lived to adulthood, and 1 in 4 women did NOT SURVIVE their pregnancy. Women in childbirth died of blood loss and infection; children died of infection from minor wounds obtained around the farm (there were no anti-biotics, which, BTW, come from petroleum products). Think about what that life must have been like. That’s what our futures look like, IF WE’RE LUCKY!!!!!. The population in the mid 1800s was small enough to be sustained without oil and all its results; our current population is far greater, so 1860 is far less likely than 10,000 BC as the lifestyle we’re going to see.
“vast draughts of premium vodka in conjunction with Red Bull, cocaine, hydroponic ganja, Viagra, and Klonopin”
Sounds like a fun weekend.
The Clinton wedding seemed like a kind of parable about the folly of the rich US elites and the collapse of decency in US public life!
At a moment when tens of millions are unemployed and being feed by food stamps and charities,the Clintons behave like Bourbon aristos in Paris before “Le Deluge”..oh for someone with a Guillotine !!
MArie Antoinette was not match for Bill and Hillary…and they represent the “caring progressive “side of the US elites.? God help the USA
What a show of wealth and ARROGANCE..almost too amazing to be true !
Truly Washington is the new Roman Imperial Capital…I doubt that Nero or Caligula could been more heedless and greedy..and their new son-in-law works for a banking house…!!
“reality is telling us very clearly”
Since when do Americans listen to reality? We tie up reality, throw her into the back of the Humvee, and waterboard her.
Um, so what?
Also, many Russians were already use to hard work. Their hardy infrastructure allowed them to hold tight without unbearable hardship when their system collapsed. Many Americans are fat and unfit, only know that the food they eat comes from the grocery store, rely on cars for transport, don’t know the concept of repair and reuse. Boy, when the system collapses here this country is in BIG BIG trouble! I plan to have escaped by the time that happens!
You came up with the same figure for mileage equivalence for the Tesla that I did… but we’re both leaving out something.
135MPG is extremely deceptive because it does not factor in the cost of replacing the battery pack every two years or so, at a cost of approximately $20,000.
Figure that in, and you come up with a very different number, one that makes a large Hummer look like a low-mileage economy car compared.
The battery pack is made of 6800 lithium ion battery cells. Lithium is a “rare earth” mineral and while the car does not produce emissions while running, it is deceptive to say it does not produce emissions- you must factor in the pollution produced in manufacturing the battery pack.
The Tesla sedan is an absolutely beautiful car but it will always be a rich person’s toy. There’s no free lunch when it comes to energy. A future of electric cars means very few people will own one, so we might as well square with the fact that the automobile age is coming to a close, and use the resources and money we have (if any) to capitalize electrified conventional rapid rail, NOT high speed.
@ Budizwiser
“What is the “economic term” for when all the fake wealth, which is based on fake or unpaid debt, is entered into the economic system at the same time the federal Reserve prints money to give to or “loan” to all the holders of all the fake wealth and fake debt?”
To answer your question, I shall say that my buddies and I have been informally formulating an economic paradigm based on our observations of sputtering 21st century Americana. This paradigm shall blow the theories of Smith, Marx, Keynes and Friedman out of the water. Under our model, the economic concept that answers your question is known as “Fairy Princess Myspace Glitter!”
Well, I gotta get back to the all American glitter hustle, but I hope that helps in the meantime!
James says it better than anyone and that song is much older than the depression that we are now in. Greed has ruined the country. There is another song on Outlaw Country that sums it up also. It says a white guy in a golf shirt on a cell phone is what he fears most. That, and all the religous nuts.
James McMurtry writes great songs. They are not about political parties but the sad state of America.
Yes wagelaborer, “It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Turkle, that’s just another day at the office for our faithful lobbyists up on K Street and lawmakers they entertain.
Corporate communism = corporate welfare state = corporatism = fascism = communism in the Soviet Union
These are some of the names of systems where most of the wealth and power are consolidated into few hands, typically less than a couple of percent. Those hands are firmly on the levers of law, finance, and power so everything else is just illusion for the sheeple.
wardoc, I researched 10,000 BC, apparently a new special effects movie and 1 million years BC, the 1966 Raquel Welch flick.
I’ll go with Raquel.
There’s some chance that climate change will runaway and release hydrogen sulfide gas which will change the environment enough so that no oxygen breathers will survive. That would be us.
You are genius…Lets blame the Jews. Yes, Yes..It feels like 1938 all over again.
I agree with you 100 percent. I hope I live to see the final score.
Well, they did kill Jesus.
“It’s also a fine illustration of the psychology of previous investment, which prompts a desperate society to squander its scarce remaining resources on the very things that are putting it out of business.”
This is the whole point. And the Volt is the little period of the ! More freeways for gods sake?? What the fcuk are people thinking?
Nothing is going to change until the whole thing crashes out of control.
DJ
The electric Edsel.
Hey! For all you people writing about the International Jewish Conspiracy. Would you guys please be quiet or more people are going catch on to our game! You’ll tempt me to bring this up at our weekly meeting. You guys probably know (since you know everything) that we meet every Thursday in a skyscraper in NYC to plan out world domination. Half Jews are welcome–but they only get half a vote.
All of you Goyim, who probably have a sibling who you never even talk to, wonder how us Jews get together and agree with each other on how to control the world. You Goyim can’t even control your family but us Jews control the world. How do we do it? We are different than you. We look different too. If you see a bunch of big nose people going into a skyscraper in NYC on a Thursday you better stay away or our big nose goons will show you a little domination.
Mr. Kunstler –a Jew!– writes about the fiasco of suburbia, peak oil and resource depletion and the American people’s delusional attitude about it all. Now most people reading Kunstler’s stuff would think, what does this have to do with the International Jewish Conspiracy to dominate the world? You people who keep writing in the JHK’s blog about the Jewish Conspiracy do it to warn people about our diversion tactic. If JHK makes people think he is against BAU and the status quo people will not catch on to our plan of of building wall to wall Wallmarts with a few suburban ranch homes in between. (Ok, so now you know our plan. But you know everything anyways.) So please be quiet or we will have to do something about you guys. (And we know where you are.)
And to that guy in Australia who wrote about the Jews above. We will be sending you a hooker and a twenty dollar bill if you agree to be quiet about this. OK?
+1 sarcasm
wall to wall Walmarts….I laughed.
Please, stop the Jew anti-Jew comments. As someone above has pointed out, these feelings were created in you by propaganda to DIVIDE the population. A divided and constantly fighting population is far easier to control than a cohesive, united people, united against their overlords..
Instead, you should be asking yourselves, ‘who are these overlords that control so much of my life, and whose decisions over which I have no sway..’
George Carlin believed it was the fabulously wealthy, the ones who own much of the super international corporations who are our true overlords. I’d agree, and add that the rich ruling the non-rich is part of a societal system that manages itself and has been doing just that since the invention of money and ways to count it. But because it is inherently evil, it will ultimately fail.
We are living during the times of that failing.
This EV BS is nothing but one big circle jerk, it can never be anything more than a fancy golf cart.
Fissle, we have to stop thinking of a car as a way to just go anywhere & everywhere whenever we want. In the very near future, you will only be able to go where you HAVE to go to: Work, the store, home. Leisure travel will be a thing if the past.
So, in that case, EV will do what you will need it to do, after all, isn’t the average commute less than 45 miles? If charging stations are set up at the job, or even the swappable batteries mentioned above, you will still be able to get to your little habi-trail at the corporate oriface park, and back home at the end of your days servitude. Plus if the speed limit is cut to 50mph, EV’s will be sufficient. But like I said, forget about discretionary leisure travel for long distances. You will be able to go to work and shop and that is about it, especially if they ‘ration’ your charging hours.
Personally, I think they should repo ALL autos, and substitute little Smart Cars, a pink one for girls, and a little blue one for boys. And the boys can put fat tires on them so they will feel more manly. And install speakers so they can make loud farting sounds, like a motorcycle. Very manly.
All petrol fuel will of course be reserved for the military.
In fact, both Chelsea and her new husband work for the bankster industry. She’s a HEDGE FUND MANAGER, and he’s an INVESTMENT BANKER! I’m so disgusted!
HA! The electric Edsel! That’s a good one. I remember that car! It had all the doohickeys and thingamabobs cars of the futurama shows (once more I give my age away)were supposed to have. Anyhow, the car was a bonafide piece of horse manure. Shake(d), rattled, and rolled (as in, off the assembly line) all the way into dealerships in Fall l957, amongst the merriment and hoopla of Ford auto execs (idiots, then and NOW). The price of the gosh darned thing, around 3k with all the trimmings, as I recall, was widely rejected by the public. Of course, the recession of 1958 didn’t help matters any. Alas, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Any ideas who’ll be the first one on your block to own one of these electric s_it cans?
lsjogren,
Thanks for asking.
I am talking about a Tobin Tax to end financial speculation, the reinstatement of Glass-Stegall to keep brokerage houses from betting with our money. I am talking about raising the taxes on the top 1% of “earners” to 90%. I am talking about policies that will work to strengthen the middle class and penalize the banksters.
I am talking about actually doing something about our energy crises. About funding infrastructure projects to build walkable communities and viable public transit.
In short the usual progressive bullshit. None of which will happen in our current corporate controlled government. I don’t lay the blame solely on the Republican’s. They just seem to be the haters of the moment.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Bilderberg Group, CFR, Trilateral Commission…oh, wait….those are “conspiracy theories.” Nothing to see here. Move along sheeple.
Asoka is not a guy. Asoka is a black female Jedi Knight on the cartoon Star Wars. Watch out she may use the force against you!
Q said: “Near the end of last week’s thread are these two lines from Asoka…”
Q, you have snipped two lines out of a coherent argument I made based on an historical legal document presenting a different perspective to explain just who the real “illegals” are.
Your response is pure ad hominem attack without responding to my evidence, and without contributing anything positive.
“Your response is pure ad hominem attack without responding to my evidence, and without contributing anything positive.”
So what else is new at kunstler.com?
thanks ZXCVBNM, for the link and compensating for my flagging computer skills…. Moe
according to a.m. radio, gore was not invited to the wedding and the ceremony was ‘ half jewish’, whatever that means!
why is chelsea so ugly?
[ because janet renos her dad!]
Great column, JHK, and you are right on the money (bad pun intended).
There is a website I have accessed for a couple of years now, both to read the commentaries as well as to listen to their weekly news offerings. It is the financialsense.com site and I would urge anyone who reads JHK’s weekly commentaries to access their Newshour for July 28, 2010. It features an interview with Michael Ruppert, an ex-L.A. cop and former detective who has turned his investigative talents over to the current crises we face in the U.S. I usually allow this program to play in the background while I take care of other tasks but I have to tell you that this particular program had me riveted and listening with all senses at attention. I recommend it to all.
Gracious sakes! Them railroad-train contraptions a tearin’ along at a mile a minute! Why, tarnation, that’s liable to scare the horses, make the milch cows dry up and put the chickens off their feed! What’ll they be tryin’ next?
Seriously, my dad used to sing some lyrics about a train going a mile a minute that was an old song when he was young. I think it might be this one:
http://ciscohouston.com/lyrics/clickety_clack.shtml
Suddenly it’s 1860! Ominously, that was the year before the Civil War broke out …
a few weeks ago in santa monica I went with one of the ‘greenies’ that works for the city to look at a car, powered by solar panels!
Jim…santa monica ‘place’ [mall] reopens this weekend..the outside is so ugly! its very near
[ like 2 blocks north]of the ‘solar parking structure’ that won one of yr eyesore awards.
as do many others!
‘Name a liberal who defends the reconquest of the southwest by Mexicans’
in other words aswipa is a ‘radical’..
naaa..there are plenty of libs who support open borders, and with it the end of america.
hahahah
a young woman in a prius almost ran me over this a.m…..she was on her cellphone and rather than slowing down kept racing and honked at me.
however in LA walkers must be wary of bicyclists as well. the ‘ uber sportsman’ JHK warned us would take over the rockies with their outdoor adventures!
‘What is happening today is the reconquest of the territories through migratory tactics. That is going swimmingly and nothing can, nor should, be done to stop it.’
mexicans..si
mexican americans..si
when they invade ‘ his ‘ country…camexicans
when they invade alaska..EMESKIMOS
“Please, stop the Jew anti-Jew comments. As someone above has pointed out, these feelings were created in you by propaganda to DIVIDE the population. A divided and constantly fighting population is far easier to control than a cohesive, united people, united against their overlords..
Instead, you should be asking yourselves, ‘who are these overlords that control so much of my life, and whose decisions over which I have no sway..'”
A very BIG Like!
Yoni.
Interesting article this week, JHK. You splice known truths into gloom and doom and come up with something that is enjoyable to read…but depressing overall.
Just to be sure, I went back and read the article a second time….YEP, it’s depressing all right.
The Ship of State is going down and Jim tells us we burned all the lifeboats for firewood years ago.
And some of you posters on the thread make JHK look like a screaming optimist. I mean…my family had been hoping to have turkey for Thanksgiving….
But according to some of you posters the best we’ll be able to expect for Thanksgiving is a couple of roasted rats from the river swamp below the house.
At least we’ll have something to eat.
Life is good!
************************************************
And seriously, we can’t have a “normal” economic recovery in the US anymore, because we don’t MAKE useful things.
You can’t run the economy of a great Nation when all the best new business ideas involve cleaning each others offices….selling financial products to one another…or selling Sub Sandwiches to people passing by on the street.
And now real working capital is free to move around the globe…I’m sure the business people in China and India are not as depressed as some of you on this blog seem to be.
An honest national effort at renewable energy (equal in scale to NASA’s moon program) could still save the US and the world…but time is getting damn short.
and Q and A and anybody small minded enough to join in their foolishness….this is an internationally read blog with new visitors every week…what you two are doing is wrong…STOP BURNING UP JHK’S BANDWITH ON THIS IDIOCY SO EARLY IN A NEW WEEK!
What happened to all the perfectly good GM EV1s? They were crushed. Oil money rules the world. Watch “who killed the electric car”…
On a positive note, I actually went for a ride in a 100% Electric converted Honda Civic on Friday Night. It was fucking awesome! There were a couple Toyota RAV4 EVs at the event too. Supposedly there are only ~350 Rav4s left because they were all crushed. You can’t even buy a new battery pack either, Chevron bought that patent.
And yes, I am converting a 91′ Honda CRX to be 100% electric, silent, fast, and cool.
I’m also going to plug my website one week soon…
JHK, how many hits do you get on Monday mornings?
You’d think we could get the world to WAKE UP with the internet, the perfect viral video with an oh by the way were fucked at the end message and please do something about it call to action..or not…
PUSH ON . DO GOOD . KEEP SMILING
Howdy Wagelaborer, Last week you posted the following:
“All right, SNAFU, way to use math!
Now, why don’t you work out the mathematical equation for the potential of jet fuel to explode- “Six million sq ft of masonry, 5 million sq ft of painted surfaces, 7 million sq ft of flooring, 600,000 sq ft of window glass, 200 elevators, and everything inside came down as dust, according to Greg Meeker of USGS” , not to mention 200,000 tons of steel, thrown into pieces,some of which pierced neighboring buildings, plus pulverized humans, bits of which were tossed onto the rooftops of neighboring buildings?
I’d love to see the equations for that!
Didn’t you state before that the buildings were ripe for falling, and it was just a wonder that a pigeon smacking into a window didn’t bring them down earlier?
Or was that someone else?”
Where to start? Never have I pontificated about the twin towers on this or any blog prior to today.
Math? As I have stated previously I am but using high school algebra and physics. The knowledge of 28 hours of engineering math and 18 hours of physics required for my engineering degree have unfortunately to a large degree slipped silently out of my memory banks.
To the task at hand I did a bit of sleuthing upon the net to ferret out the following information:
Flt 11 was a Boeing 767-200 aircraft with 92 humans aboard, I estimated about 15000 lbs for their wt. and 10000 lbs for their baggage and other miscellaneous cargo, 70000 lbs of fuel out of a potential 168000 lbs full load of fuel. The aircraft was traveling at about 404kts/hr at impact with the North tower between the 93rd and 99th (out of 111) floors. 102 minutes later the North tower leaned over and collapsed.
Flt 175 was a Boeing 767-200 extended aircraft with 65 humans aboard, I estimated about 10000 lbs for their wt. and 10000 lbs for their baggage and other miscellaneous cargo, 70000 lbs of fuel out of a potential 168000 lbs full load of fuel. The aircraft was traveling at about 545kts/hr at impact with the North tower between the 77th and 85th (out of 111) floors. 56 minutes later the South tower collapsed virtually straight Earthward. Although the South tower was struck 17 minutes after the North tower it collapsed approximately 29 minutes prior to the North tower.
Now let’s look at bit of physics:
For convenience I used the same impact mass which I estimated at 250000lbs/32ft/sec/sec = 7812 slugs for both aircraft because Flt 11 had more humans aboard and Flt 175 was a slightly larger aircraft. We shall see that the mass differences would make relatively small changes to the energies involved. Converting the speeds from kts/hr to feet/sec we find Flt 11 was traveling at 685 feet/sec and Flt 175 at 800 ft/sec. The kinetic energy of each aircraft at impact was about: KEflt11 = 1/2*7812*685^2 = aprox 1.825*10^9ftlbs or 1.356J/ftlb*1.825*10^9 = 2.47*10^9 joules of energy. The KEflt175 = 1/2*7812*800^2 = 2.5*10^9*1.356 = 3.39*10^9 joules
of energy. From Wikipedia I found that 4.184*10^9 J is equivalent to 1000Kg of TNT explosive. Therefore the TNT equivalent impact energies of the two aircraft were: KEflt11 TNT equivalent = 2.47*10^9/4.184 = aprox 590Kg TNT and KEflt175 = 3.39*10^9/4.184*10^9 = aprox 810Kg TNT. Notice the power of exponential increases, for the same mass an increase in speed of 1.17 times Flt 11 for Flt 175 yields a TNT equivalent increase of 1.37 times. The impact of the planes likely sheared off some of the exoskeleton structural support of the towers; however, the 70000 lbs of fuel estimated to be aboard each aircraft was the real damage maker. Had there been no fires the towers would not have collapsed; however, there would still have been large loss of life on the floors impacted by the aircraft.
Let’s take a look at the fuel; Jet A or Jet A1, I know not which was in use, are very similar with the exception that the density of A1 is about .5lb/gallon less than A. Both have a flash point of about 105F and both contain about 2.4*10^7 J/lb of energy. For the 70000lb this means that the energy contained in the fuel was about 70000*2.4*10^7 joules = 1.68*10^12J which equates to a TNT equivalent of 1.68*10^12/4.184*10^9 = 402metric tons of TNT or roughly 442 US tons of TNT which is about 884000 lbs of TNT equivalent in 70000lbs of fuel oil. Is this an Ah Ha moment for anyone? Did a light illuminate about the reason OIL is so sought after? Oil has roughly 12.6 times as much energy per unit mass as TNT; is that a WOW or not?
Jet A and Jet A1 fuels are specifically formulated to have a high flash point (105F) which is the temperature at which the fuel will vaporize sufficiently to burn in the presence of an ignition source. The auto ignition temperature of a substance is the temperature at which it will continue to burn absent an ignition source which for Jet A and A1 is about 400F. When the aircraft impacted the buildings the fuel continued forward at a high rate of speed and likely a significant amount was atomized as it collided with structures within the buildings. The hot engine components were right behind the fuel and provided an ignition source for the atomized fuel which quickly heated the air in the building cavities containing the fuel to the point that the fuel would have reached autoignition temperatures. The likelihood that a fuel air explosion took place is vanishingly small. When I was in Viet Nam the USAF used a few fuel air bombs which I was not involved with but as it was my job became familiar with. As anyone with a computer can Google and discover most fuel air combustion processes take place subsonically or as it is known in the trade it deflagrates. A detonation blast takes place with a supersonic flame front racing through the fuel oxidizer mixture igniting the substrate as it passes through. For a fuel air weapon to function the mixtures of air (oxidizer) and fuel must be within some relatively close parameters and to obtain a detonation blast a supersonic ignition source must be present. Therefore my best guess is that the fuel from the aircraft burned intensely with a minor overpressure effect which would have blown out windows and some affects within the buildings but not sufficient to do any major structural damage.
The components of the aircraft undoubtedly ripped a significant portion of the insulation surrounding the structural steel off as they slammed into the interior of the buildings. The exposed steel was heated rapidly, sans it’s insulation, by the burning fuel and office space combustibles. If both aircraft contained approximately the same amount of fuel why did the second building hit collapse first? This is where the differences in the velocities plays an effect. The first aircraft impacted with an energy of 1.825*19^9 J and the second with 3.39*10^9 J and the impact energy differences affected the damages to the interior of the buildings. The second aircraft with higher energy at impact likely drove fuel and components deeper into the interior of the South tower enabling a more symmetric heating of the structural steel exposed to the heat of the burning fuel. Since there were about 34 floors above the impact level on the South tower the additional mass coupled with the deeper heating resulted in a nearly pancake perfect collapse of the South tower 56 minutes subsequent to impact. The North tower was inflicted with a less severe impact injury same quantity of fuel; but, not as symmetrically dispersed with significantly less mass, only 17 floors, half the number above the impact level of the South tower. When the North tower collapsed it started with a tip out of the top 17 floors and then it also pancaked virtually straight down.
The impact damage at distance from the collapsed towers can be understood as the momentum of impact from the mass of the towers hurtling Earthward impinging upon portions of the lower floors which in turn hurtled pieces into the air space due to collision effects.
There you go Wage have fun.
Progressor, Fear not I have started looking into the photovoltaic power generation industry for you.
SNAFU
I’m a limey, myrtlemay, but I read about the Edsel (without the details you give) long ago.
You sure write well, Vision Cube. Do you do it professionally?
Regarding my earlier post; ie, my neighbor’s new, big, shiney, Dodge Ram. I noticed that it has an ethanol emblem on it. Do any of you out there in CF land know anything about these trucks? I know ethanol isn’t the answer to anything, but just how efficient are these things? This truck is absolutely unbelievably big. I’m thinking the guy could have bought himself a little Toyota p/u for half the price. I have never seen him load anything in this monster truck, although I have no real idea what he does for a living.
I am not an historian but I am, nevertheless, fairly certain that nearly 100% of the people on earth are occupying lands that they or their ancestors “took” from some previous “owner.” Yes, there may be an exception or two – the Eskimos perhaps?
Once land is taken the new owners will fight like hell, carve commandments such as “thou shalt not steal” into stone tablets, and concoct elaborate legal systems and property rights to hold on to it and in time will be convinced that they are, in fact, the “rightful owners.” And, so long as they hang onto that land, occupy it, use it and defend it from new, would-be occupiers they are the rightful owners. If ever there was a relative term, “rightful owner” is it.
One of the more extreme examples of this is Jerusalem which has changed hands 26 times in 4,000 years and has been totally or partially destroyed 35 times. (For more on this google “Jerusalem the Contested City” by Dr. F.E. Peters.)
Sooo … if Anglo Saxons arrived 5 centuries ago and displaced indigenous Indians and Mexicans, well, tough shit for the Indians and Mexicans. As Vlad said, “we took it fair and square.” And if the Mexicans wade back across “our” southern border and re-take the southwest it’s tough shit for the Anglos. This is how it works. Don’t go getting all pissed off at me for telling the truth.
In case you haven’t guessed, I favor defending all our borders from encroachment by “illegal” immigrants. What makes them “illegal?” Because we fucking say so. Is this too harsh for someone’s tender little ears?
Why is this so hard to see and understand? It’s so obvious.
Q and A … what you two are doing is wrong…STOP BURNING UP JHK’S BANDWITH ON THIS IDIOCY SO EARLY IN A NEW WEEK!
==================
Progressorconserve, see what you have done?
Your post is only going to promote more small-minded response and more waste of bandwidth, contrary to your stated concern.
katbalou2, thank you for this interview tip. I listened to it, twice!
Here is the direct link:
http://www.financialsensenewshour.com/broadcast/fsn2010-0728-1.mp3
Very relevant to JHK’s themes: peak oil, re-localization, sustainability, etc.
Late to the flame-o-rama this week, but here’s a bit of support for JHK’s thesis: an Morning Edition or Marketplace story (still hunting that link) about “underwater” mortgages in the DC suburbs.
Bottom line: nationally more than a million home-owners unable to move because they owe a lot more than their homes are now worth–50% more in the area covered by the story.
These folks are one layoff away from walking on that loan. What a disaster. I expect another housing collapse in the dark days of winter.
The Oil Drum proves against that it hasn’t met an oil industry subsidy that it doesn’t love and seek to defend regardless of the consequences:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6796#more
I’d become offended except that there isn’t a conscious person alive outside the employment of the oil industry who would read The Oil Drum as anything other than what it is … that is a lying shill and propagandist for the American Petroleum Institute.
It began an oil industry rag and it remains and oil industry rag and it won’t ever stop being an oil industry rag.
The members there don’t mind, though, because most of them get their paycheck from the oil industry and the rest have their oil industry investments.
Trashing the Gulf of Mexico is just collateral damage to those people. They love their money more than they love humankind. Oil is the drug that will drive humankind extinct.
As for myself, I am thoroughly invested in Nature and look forward to the post-human earth:
http://www.flickr.com/dmathew1
Peak Oil better get here soon otherwise it will be lost in the muddle of civilization’s collapse and no one will even notice its occurrence.
Thanks flying picket, but nah, just for the fun of it. I’m full of hyperbole, among other things, so it’s a good way to release 🙂
Building 7?
SNAFU,
Very nice analysis for Wage and CFN above.
One point of clarification is your use of the term kts/hr, which I assume is an abbreviation for nautical miles/hour.
To stay with simple math:
1 knot = 1 nautical mile/hour…by definition
So the expression 1 knt/hr = 1 nautical mile per hour per hour….should not be used as an expression of simple velocity.
(Now, if kts/hr means something else…then I’m “off base” in a critique…and just need the term clarified.
***********************************************
But… the “take away” for the *math impaired crowd* on CFN for your WHOLE ANALYSIS is that if you put two large aircraft with heavy fuel loads into two large skyscrapers at a high velocity…that those skyscrapers WILL FALL DOWN.
A tragedy…but it is explained by physics, fanatics, and box cutters….NOT by a conspiracy.
*************************************************
SNAFU, seriously, cordial thanks so far…
And when are you thinking of doing an analysis of PV power?…’cause I think we might want to define the terms and important points up front.
IMO, PV and/or renewables have great potential to help the US get out of the “economic disaster” that JHK explained this week…I think you and some math might help us get there, SNAFU.
Maybe?
Best Regards,
C
“Also, what good would it be to live like the 1860s? That economic model would result in back breaking life styles and starvation for more than half the population.
“How do we as society determine the given level of austerity we must endure for a greater good? So far, the obvious deciding factors should involve using energy for discretionary consumption versus
usage as commodity for basic survival.”
Your question, Budizwiser, got me to thinking. Here’s what I came up with: If we’re still living in the USA in five or ten years, we’re not going to have a choice whether we live in 1860’s style or not.
This country is being run into the ground. I often think that it is part of the plan to totally exhaust every resource on stupid projects like building new and better roads while stirring up new and bigger wars — that we can’t win — in the Middle East and South Asia.
If president Obama and his brain trust of Ivy League advisers were trying to bankrupt this country, they couldn’t do much better.
So, #1) We’re not going to have a choice about living without the city and national services we have come to expect, because most levels of government will be totally broke and nobody will loan them a nickel; #2) Your question about “How do we as a society determine…greater good?” makes me want to point out that we have no voice in what is being done in our names anyway.
Ninety-nine percent of Americans who contacted their Congressional reps about the Bailout furiously opposed it — and it was passed anyway.
The American people would like to see us get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, so we can protect our own southern border, but Obama has increased troops in Afghanistan, is pushing into Pakistan, S. Yemen, Making ominous noises about North Korea and Iran, too. These are not good ways to act when your country is already broke and has half the world legitimately pissed off at us.
So, we’re going to be lucky if we’re living peacefully in 1860s style. The problem is, few Americans live in places where they can grow their own food, crap in an outhouse, and wash up in the pond. I’ve lived like that and it’s pretty idyllic if you are left alone.
The problem is that nobody is going to have a say in how they choose to live, unless they have the money and foresight to buy their way out of the big cities NOW, before this new lifestyle is thrust upon them.
For some ways to prepare for the coming collapse: http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com
So JHK, you tell some good stories, but you never ask the hard questions about who decides, or how any activity, or anything of consequence will be sacrificed.
Should we cut out NASCAR or NFL and MLB night games and their team-travel by air? Tell us all about who decides on the 1860s or the 1960s…
Discretionary consumption – two little words no one wants to discuss, not even here..
Why the BS about electric cars? They “consume” – what is needed is technology that “saves” energy?
And if we can’t find the “savings” then the cuts have to come from the status quo?
Let’s all get together, like in Denmark and discuss how each of us will reduce our discretionary energy consumption….
welcome back dave. fuck them humans. human fucks.
cucarachas sin almas. chinga las.
numero 7. los penes de los siete diablos en el culo su madre.
mi culo chuparse.
in the nicest possible way.
flicker this. it will live forever.
viva dave.
shecky borracho.
Thank you, Mook, it’s good to get some affirmation here. We’re all in this together, but we’ll probably have to organize into tribes who see things in generally the same way. Then agree to disagree with the rest.
=================
I have discussed discretionary consumption quite a bit under other names like “voluntary simplicity,” and downsizing.
====================
I reported on a solar powered plane that made a 28 hour flight and when it landed its battery charge increased and was MORE than when it took off.
In other words, during the 28 hour flight the plane increased the amount of energy available.
Even if all of our cars were ommitted and the trains were somehow enlisted to do the dirty bit of moving us around the landscape – there are too many of us – too many of us to move about. We need double maybe even triple sets of train tracks to move us to and fro. Back and forth to the grinding, belching factories that hold our paychecks…wait, I’m thinking of some other place. Nevermind. Go, talk amongst yourselves.
i genuinely like ol’ dave. like i like most humans. they are just so fucking human.
pretty pictures bubba. i saw a roadrunner in the rain today. broke my heart. no camera though.
if a heart breaks in the desert and no one takes a picture…
shecky desolado
Howdy Progressor, Your comment: “1 knot = 1 nautical mile/hour…by definition” is absolutely correct. I erred by trying to ensure that the reader understood it was a speed.
As to your comments: ” I think we might want to define the terms and important points up front.
IMO, PV and/or renewables have great potential to help the US get out of the “economic disaster” that JHK explained this week…”
I am all ears, scratch that, eyes for any definitions and points you care to enlighten me with up front.
SNAFU
One of my friends is an Ojibwe Indian. He was telling me some of the history of various tribes. He told me that the Sioux used to occupy Wisconsin, but were chased out by the Chippewa who took over their land. White Europeans have no monopoly on aggression. If the Chippewa had ships & cannons & landed in a primitive Europe, we’d probably all be living on reservations over there. These politically correct pukes are no different from their right wing counterparts. Both sides have a party line to adhere to, with no regard for reality. A pox on both their houses.
“In case you haven’t guessed, I favor defending all our borders from encroachment by “illegal” immigrants. What makes them “illegal?” Because we fucking say so. Is this too harsh for someone’s tender little ears?
Why is this so hard to see and understand? It’s so obvious.” -Q
Okay then; that doesn’t confront me. But then again, it’s soon to become a moot point. Will this broken and broke country be more attractive to immigrants (of any ilk) than their “home countries” when there’s nothing but privation, fear, violence and xenophobia to be had here?
Status Q, look over here! No, over here! No, there! Where’s that lazy housekeeper?
I am just replying to my Jewish friends.
Please don’t give us the old “anti semetic” chestnut. Its a copout and just inhibits meaningful discussion.
“I can’t ignore the sensation of being seasick-on-dry-land” that tells me something awful is at hand” (JHK). I hear ya, the last time I felt this way was 2 months before Sept. 11. I returned from my semi-annual road trip up the California coast two days ago (we still have roads in California—for now anyway, so I went for it), although Big Sur seems to be sliding into the Pacific, with a few one-lane areas now and construction crews erecting enormous fake cement mountainsides to stop the erosion. Nets don’t work anymore. Santa Barbara’s State Street (main shopping area) was eerily vacant, although Pismo Beach had a lot of tourists (Germans, many Germans in San Francisco, too). Lots of road rage in Central Cal on Highway 1, and tons of jumbo people in their “El Monte RV” motorhomes clogging the roads—everywhere. Well, gas is only $3.49 a gallon. I came within 3 feet of a fresh dead person on the sidewalk at the base of Buena Vista Park, the cops put a white sheet on him right when I approached. I looked into the dead man’s eyes. He did not look unhappy. In San Franciso I bought a near-mint issue of the March 1970 Esquire magazine, featuring Lee Marvin’s wary countenance on the front with the cover blurb “Evil Lurks in California. Lee Marvin is Afraid”. 1970? Evil? OK, there was the Manson Family and the Vietnam War, but I have a feeling the Cat Ballou star would be pissing in his pants if he were alive in 2010.
CaptSpaulding said:
is this the kettle calling the pot [ no pun ] black?
‘Q and A … what you two are doing is wrong…STOP BURNING UP JHK’S BANDWITH ON THIS IDIOCY SO EARLY IN A NEW WEEK!
idiocy?
burning jimmys bandwith? or is it ‘ width’?
‘Ninety-nine percent of Americans who contacted their Congressional reps about the Bailout furiously opposed it — and it was passed anyway.’
if yr 99% is indeed correct THAT IS SCARY! yikes!
‘several items keep Russians going in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet State’
they were already so poor and very use to crisis.
that being said alot left [ seems theres a ton in so cal workin the welfare dime and crime] and life expectancy [ actually age of death] went down. read Jim rogers 2 books. he traveled across eastern europe at least twice and called it a ‘disaster’.
Here are some simple businessmen from Indonesia who are using gold and silver currency as part of their economy. They have a pretty good grasp of the deception and theft of the Babylonian banking system. They show in simple terms how money in the bank is continually eroding in value, while gold and silver can purchase the same number of goats or chickens today as they could 1500 years ago.
So simple, an American can understand it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNtIsSWVJBI&feature=player_embedded
Asia,
I don’t have a read on you, yet, on here.
I’ll start to work on it.
JHK’s post for the week is about economic collapse.
I think it is simple good manners to confine ourselves to that topic for at least a day or two…after that…sometimes discussions will take on a life of their own…OR…sometimes the thread will stick to the topic….of JHK’s article for the week.
Meantime…qshtick and asoka have a visible personal level of distaste for each other..and I think they both have valid reasons…for feeling distaste..they begin to seem distasteful to me, TOO….because neither one seems to be honorable and focused on ANYTHING IMPORTANT at all…..and I’m tired of seeing both of their ideas in print
So I WILL IGNORE THEM….always and permanently on this website…until at least Thursday or so…EACH and EVERY week
and as far as idiocy and JHK’s bandwith…..if spell check doesn’t catch it….CFN is gonna see it!!
Later on,
C
PS Damn! And I thought LAST week started off unfocused and angry. ClusterFuck, Indeed!
China has been the worlds largest economy for 15 of the last 18 centuries, the U.S. has been the worlds largest economy for about a half a century. China has been through many cycles of inflation, deflation,hyper-inflation, wage arbitrages and the like. The U.S. only knows inflation so it is difficult for the average American to comprehend the possibility of necessities such as cars, healthcare and pensions only being affordable to elites and government workers.
The U.S. government is in the process of monetizing all those bad mortgages, car loans and debts of all kind to ensure that we all pay those debts through inflation. The government cannot allow deflation to set in because it would then be impossible for the government to service the growing debt. Everyone loses with high rates of inflation but at least the government will be able to sustain it’s self.
“‘(…or worse, what oil there is out there is) under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die.’
No, Jim. They want us to pay the corporation/government all our taxes/debts (we can), dig our own graves without bothering them, and *then* eat shit and die…”
Eh…unless you’re intimating that the Ruling Class in the United States and Europe has converted to Islam as part of the requirement of going beyond level 33 at the Masonic Lodge (a thought I must admit that I entertain, considering how history has gone the past forty years), I think Kunstler was referring to the Middle East and other Muslim nations, all whom are willing to deal with us as long as we fund the various Jihads against us.
asia, part of being an American citizen is taking responsibility for informing yourself … didn’t they teach you in college how to distinguish propaganda from fact? Didn’t the college librarian teach you how to conduct research?
PROPAGANDA:
‘Ninety-nine percent of Americans who contacted their Congressional reps about the Bailout furiously opposed it — and it was passed anyway.’
That would mean 99% of the Republicans, 99% of the Democrats and 99% of the Independents … highly unlikely, don’t you think?
FACT:
WASHINGTON – An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll shows little public support for President Bush’s proposed $700 billion federal bailout of the financial industry.
Only 30 percent say they support Bush’s package. The president says the bailout is urgently needed, but it has run aground after House Republicans rebelled.
Another 45 percent oppose Bush’s plan, while 25 percent are unsure.
CLUELESS CITIZEN:
“if yr 99% is indeed correct THAT IS SCARY! yikes!”
Honor and importance is determined by you, of course, you who started this latest comment with this important note:
Here is my message to you, Progressorconserve:
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye. (Matthew 7:5)
No need to answer until Thursday, hypocrite.
No need to call me names until Thursday, jackass!
Let me back up two weeks…when I said…”Asoka, I consider you an active impediment to honest discussion on this website.”
Sorry, JHK, but what a *sweet* operational definition of a clusterfuck nation we have working here.
Glory be to Allah;
Praise be to Allah;
there is no god but Allah;
and Allah is most great!
Indonesia is an Islamic country and Islam has a banking system based on the concept of Mudarabha, where people are not charged interest for loans.
Another humanitarian advantage of Islam over Christianity. With Islam you don’t have to pay high interest rates, “Adjustable Rate Mortgages” with “balloon payments,” or credit card interest rates that can only be called usury.
Allahu Akbar!
Progressorconserve said:
Five minutes later you read my post and responded.
Your word, your promises, are worth nothing.
You have no honor. You are a hypocrite.
If you look back to where this all started today it was Qshtik referring back to something I wrote LAST WEEK and you following up on that. So, both of you should apologize to JHK for being off-topic.
And Building 7?
Oh, wait a second -burp!
People get a fucking clue. Either we get together and discuss ways to share values regarding discretionary consumption or we are fucked.
We either rig markets, or penalize people directly, but no matter what, leaving it alone assures the worst of possible Clusterfucks, with the hogs winning and polite people losing.
Get a fucking clue. Now discuss discretionary consumption. That’s why the rest of the world hates us, it’s the non-negotiable American way of life.
I did apologize, proactively:
“Sorry, JHK, but what a *sweet* operational definition of a clusterfuck nation we have working here.”
You, Asoka, have proven tonight that you do not actually READ and consider the posts of others.
You are an active impediment to honest discussion on this website, asoka.
I know that now. I will only respond to your posts if I think I can help others understand this fact.
Which may actually be quite easy to accomplish.
Maybe??
You’re right, Bud.
But the only way to impact markets is with taxes or incentives.
Which the RW and FOX have taught us are evil…taxes BAD; tax cut GOOD.
So you’re right, man; but what do we do with it?
Get a fucking clue. Now discuss discretionary consumption.
=======================
budizwiser, we are in a bit of a bind right now and discretionary cash flow is declining.
We know this because the effects are showing up on bank balance sheets and income statements as slower loan growth, faster share growth, rising delinquency rates, and lower net income.
There are several contributing factors to declining discretionary income. These include:
1. Consumer incomes aren’t rising as fast as inflation.
2. Rising food and fuel prices are increasing essential spending costs.
3. Discretionary spending is decreasing.
4. Consumer balance sheets are eroding as falling home prices reduce consumer wealth.
5. Home foreclosures … need I say more?
Because of this wealth evisceration, consumers are reducing discretionary consumption and increasing savings.
Consumers are hoping discretionary cash flow will improve when economic expansion resumes … if it resumes.
Peter,
They’ve heard your question about building 7.
It took me a couple of weeks to realize that any post is seen by 100’s(?) and read by many.
My personal opinion is that gravity got building 7.
It may be that some special *black ops* team sneaked in there and blew up building 7 and escaped back out….without being seen or acknowledged….by anyone…
But does that really change the fact that 15 fanatics with 15 box cutters changed the course of history for a Mighty Nation?
Islam’s banking system is based on fees charged ahead of time. This means you can’t get money back if you pay ahead of time (unless you put something into the contract detailing whether money is given back for pre-payment, and how much). I’ll take interest-paying, as long as I know what I’m getting into, the rules are fair and I can pay ahead without having to pay for the full period.
And as for the “zagat” the bank gives to various charities, goody for them – I’ll give on my own first, and worry about whether the companies I pay money to give afterwards.
One railroad-oriented website went back and calculated the average travel speed, including station stops, for streamliners in 1952, based on the Official Guide to the Railways. Many of them were in the range of 40 to 45 mph, a few under 40 mph, and a few above 50 mph. The Chicago to Florida routes in particular had slow speeds.
Many of the railroads in the east had (and some still have) significant geometric and grade issues. Station stops do require time, and the urban routes that trains go through involve many low speed (15 mph) sections. In fact, raising a section of track from 15 mph to 30 mph (or 40 mph to 60 mph) is much more efficient than increasing the speed from 79 mph to 90 mph.
That said, we need to look at the concepts that railroads like CSX are using. CSX improved speed and capacity along its Chicago to Atlanta route by adding high speed turnouts for passing sidings, allowing trains to pass each other at 45 mph each. This is much more efficient than double-tracking a route that never had a double track before. (Think bridges and tunnels as well as new rights of way and existing industrial sidings.)
CSX submitted to the USDOT in 2006 a proposal for a Washington to Miami four-track corridor, to be grade separated, that would allow passenger train speeds up to 125 mph and freight speeds up to 79 mph. It is a good concept model for the critical high speed corridors that the federal government has identified. Everything else needs to be conventional rail.
Right now, the Obama administration has freaked out the Class I railroads by issuing a draconian set of regulations for federal railroad grants that gives the railroads no incentive to take the money. The Senate subcommittee has cut the high speed rail funding and increased the Amtrak funding. We still have no transportation bill, but, of course, we don’t even have a federal budget!
No one (other than JHK and a few like him) has asked the question “where are we going to find 10,000 rail passenger cars and 1,000 rail passenger locomotives?” That is how many passenger rail cars were in inventory when Amtrak started in 1971. (Of course only about 30 percent were still road-worthy.)
Do Obama or Ray LaHood (Transportation Secretary) know any of this? Probably LaHood does, but he has no real power. Meanwhile, we are waiting for Obama to come to Nashville to bless the new Nissan Leaf, the best electric car coming. Metro Nashville government is adding recharging stations on public property. Of course, Tennessee is a right-to-work state, so we won’t hold our collective breath.
Good column, Jim. Keep preaching.
budizwiser said:
On second thought, your whole premise here may be wrong. Not only do they NOT hate us for our discretionary consumption, they are anxious to join us in discretionary consumption.
In the past 10 to 20 years, emerging economies have been heavily driven by exports and investments. Looking ahead, the structure of growth will shift to discretionary consumption.
This is due to rising income levels. With a lot of evidence suggesting that certain levels of income (around $3,000 per capita) lead to a sudden surge in discretionary consumption, the fact that 50% more people in emerging markets are expected to reach that threshold in the next five years is significant.
Another factor driving the discretionary consumption trend is the correction of global imbalances. Recently, export-driven emerging markets have generated huge current account surpluses, while discretionary consumption in the developed world has produced large deficits.
The credit crisis has made it clear to emerging market policymakers that they can’t continue to grow by relying on exports.
The third driver of discretionary consumption is the lack of household debt in emerging markets. While household debt relative to GDP is above 80% in the United States, this number is less than 20% in emerging markets. Similarly, mortgage penetration in many markets such as India is only 7%, compared with 80% to 90% in many western countries.
Solar Guy
ya have to be careful in those really quiet cars because people will step out in front of you. you are going to have to use the horn alot.
i luv quiet cars.
i sure wish i had my old honda cv. major miles per gallon.
i have 3 bicycles now tho and can get around this town i live in without a car. got feet, bikes, buses. etc. and a camry.
we are definitely going thru a transformation, much needed actually. but it’s gonna hit so hard because of all of the thieves who took ‘our’ money they didn’t earn. it got so out of control. people got caught up in it making 200k in one month on a house. from 200k to 400k in 2002 or so. buy and sell immediately. it was a sickness. (too bad i didn’t get in on it !)
maybe there is no such thing as a simple life in this world.
what a long strange trip it is.
i know i am not original, but i enjoy reading the posts here. every once in awhile, i say something, or try to anyway.
that’s it for now.
Asoka says
“Not only do they NOT hate us for our discretionary consumption, they are anxious to join us in discretionary consumption.”
Which of course is why we need to open the borders to the US. And grant citizenship to all.
So that the historical record will show that the accepting, multicultural US…with 500,000,000 plus CITIZENS…was responsible for the DEATH of Human Life on planet EARTH…
What a great plan, hey, Asoka?
Glad to see SOMEONE remembered that four of the “terrorists” were actually guests in the Pilot’s section of the plane. Explains real easily how they were able take over planes with plastic and chutzpa (there were REAL guns brought in by the guests in the Pilot’s section; the plastic was improvised until the REAL firepower could be used).
Everything else – from the convenient setup of practice scenarios to tie up and divert the greater portion of the Air Force to the way the WTC buildings fell (All of them; not just 1,2 and 7) to what really struck the Pentagon and how Flight 93 actually crashed – I have my doubts about.
9/11 turned 40 years of airport security completely “on its head.”
Prior to that the doctrine had been…”agree with the terrorists, get the plane on the ground.”
The 9/11 plot was BRILLIANT….
If you’ve got a conspiracy involving the American government….
does it really change the involvement of Saudi Arabia…and how we, you and me, as US citizens should respond now…TODAY?
If so, I’d like to hear it.
Especially if it involves renewable energy and my own family’s survival.
Progressorconserve, you worry way too much about immigrants. As the Long Emergency progresses, and the standard of living decreases in the USA, fewer will want to come.
On the other hand, as incomes rise in emerging countries and their opportunity for discretionary spending increases, they won’t want to come.
It is all going to work out just fine. Relax and stop freaking out about the borders.
Open the damn borders and put the ICE agents, the National Guard troops, etc. to work doing something productive. Guarding border is not productive. It’s a drag on our economy.
Asoka,
You are not a biologist. You have no demonstrated knowledge of exponential growth of populations.
You say, “On the other hand, as incomes rise in emerging countries and their opportunity for discretionary spending increases, they won’t want to come.”
Your open borders and rising incomes in emerging countries are setting forces in motion that can destroy the ecosystems on the planet that support human life.
Have a nice day.
……and how Flight 93 actually crashed – I have my doubts about.
================
And every boxing match ever fought has been fixed. Everybody knows that.
Nissan’s electric vehicle will be more successful because the Japanese government – which has balanced car manufacturing and mass transit in their homeland for nearly fifty years – have an economic strategy. Nissan is owned by Renault, and the French are pretty good at striking a balance between autoroutes and TGV lines.
The Japanese economy stays afloat on our demand for Honda Pilots.
This oil-dependent land of ours failed to notice that August 2, 2010 marked the twentieth anniversary of the day Mr. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
Re-read what I said:
“With a lot of evidence suggesting that certain levels of income (around $3,000 per capita) lead to a sudden surge in discretionary consumption, the fact that 50% more people in emerging markets are expected to reach that threshold in the next five years is significant.”
Anyone who wants to keep people out, and keep people from having a discretionary income because of notions about ecosystems, is evil.
But, then, you already have your refrigerator and can store food in it. Just don’t let others have the same convenience because “the ecosystem” cannot support that.
I got mine … the rest of you can go to hell (from the other side of our borders).
That is not just inhuman and unchristian… that is evil.
i know i am not original, but i enjoy reading the posts here. every once in awhile, i say something, or try to anyway.
==============
By all means Jackie, say all you want here … whatever crosses your mind just so you start every friggin sentence with an upper case letter.
Wow, Steve…the 20th anniversary of the Kuwait invasion.
Shortly after that George Bush I announced that the US had “defeated the Vietnam Sydrome.”
And the present day gloomily dawned.
Personally, I wish that damn Viet Nam syndrome had stayed in place!
Asoka, you said:
“With a lot of evidence suggesting that certain levels of income (around $3,000 per capita) lead to a sudden surge in discretionary consumption, the fact that 50% more people in emerging markets are expected to reach that threshold in the next five years is significant.”
Anyone who wants to keep people out, and keep people from having a discretionary income because of notions about ecosystems, is evil.
But, then, you already have your refrigerator and can store food in it. Just don’t let others have the same convenience because “the ecosystem” cannot support that.”
Do you JUST MAKE STUFF UP? AND THEN SAY IT IS TRUE BECAUSE YOU SAW IT IN PRINT??
‘Cause yes, Asoka…3,000,000,000 families on Earth…with $3000 US/month…at present levels of resource depletion.
WILL KILL US…YOU, ME, AND MY GRAND BABY..AND THAT’S SOMETHING TO ME WORTH FIGHTING FOR!
Call me selfish all you like…I’m not willing to doom the human species just so I can be a sharing person.
And spread fossil fueled refrigerators across the Planet.
Thanks for making it clear. Your grandchildren…
Others have grandchildren, too, and need the food security and clean water you already have.
But you are “not willing to doom the human species”… just allow it to suffer a slow death on the other side of the big fucking wall you love so much.
Do me a favor and never imagine you are a Christian. You are a moral monster.
Look Q,
I’ve told you before.
Be nice to first time posters.
And BE NICE TO FEMALE POSTERS…we need the women empowered ON THIS WEBSITE and on the Planet.
You said,”By all means Jackie, say all you want here … whatever crosses your mind just so you start every friggin sentence with an upper case letter.
I think Jackie’s lower case post looked great…even *cute.*
I’ll take one Jackie against fifty of you Q’s, any day.
Play nice, from now on Q. You’re not going to like my stories about the men who memorize GEICO commercials and live in fear of women, otherwise.
CORRECTION: “You are a moral monster … but I like you as a person.”
As usual, A, you missed the point.
There are not many things I’m willing to fight and die for…but LIFE on the planet…personified by my grandson…is one thing that I will fight for.
So you said:
**************************************************Thanks for making it clear. Your grandchildren…
Others have grandchildren, too, and need the food security and clean water you already have.
But you are “not willing to doom the human species”… just allow it to suffer a slow death on the other side of the big fucking wall you love so much.
Do me a favor and never imagine you are a Christian. You are a moral monster.
*************************************************
Asoka, you just lifted a couple of my words out of context and then MADE THE REST OF THE QUOTE COMPLETELY UP OUT OF THIN AIR.
I said 3,000,000,000 families with $3000/month and refrigerators will KILL US ALL (doom the human species)…if they adopt present patterns of resource depletion and fossil fuel consumption.
That is a defensible statement…based on REAL physics and REAL biology.
Nothing you have said to me is defensible in any sort of real world *non utopian* context.
Again…to all CFN’ers, Asoka has demonstrated himself to be an active impediment to honest discussion on this website.
The forgoing is only one piece of evidence. I have many others. So do many other posters who no longer attempt to understand Asoka or respond to his posts.
Anyway…
What got us into this discussion was the unsecured border with Mexico.
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/1438/earth_lights.gif
Look at this picture. I mean LOOK at the goddamn thing!! Mexico has *almost* as much progress and civilization as the US…and they are closing fast.
If they don’t have “food, security, and clean water” it is a problem of the Mexican government and their management of the country’s resources.
I’ll repeat the question from last week that no one answered:
“Why is it that the light skinned Castillian Spanish citizens of Mexico never attempt to emigrate to the US illegally? What is wrong with Mexican society that their lower class citizens have to BREAK the LAW trying to escape?”
Mexico needs to solve their own societal problems.
The US cannot save the World any longer. We may be lucky to save ourselves.
Illegal immigration is bad for Mexico, bad for the US, and bad for the Planet.
I haven’t driven a single mile since my old shitbox of a car took a crap in mid-June, and I don’t plan to any time soon, because they are expensive, and I don’t really need one. I still go to visit the same friends every weekend, I still do my shopping, and I still to and from work (for however long it lasts).
This past Sunday, I was riding to my friend’s house, a journey of about 12 miles round trip. He lives out in the country away from my small town, and the area is populated by people with big trucks, ball caps, and NASCAR bumper stickers.
I came to a four way stop, and while waiting for traffic to clear, someone going the other way came to a stop and yelled out his window to me, “Keep going buddy, you’re almost there!” I yelled right back “Keep going buddy, you’re almost here!”, while pointing at my bike.
Needless to say, he didn’t get the joke. To make things even better, he did a nice long burnout with his F-150 and headed off to town, probably to buy something. Precious.
I am well aware of who owns the country, and everything in it, but they do not own me. I participate in the system only to the degree that it makes sense to me to do so. When working for a paycheck no longer suits my needs, I will move on to something else. I don’t have children, and my name isn’t “Dad”, so I can do that.
I don’t have any illusions about my ability, or the collective ability of everyone who participates in this forum to effect any sort of a political solution to the compressive deflationary contraction we are witnessing. It is what it is. It’s as simple as that. Trying to find solutions to problems that cannot be solved is wasted effort, so I try to spend at least as much of my free time learning useful skills as I do in escapist amusements.
I haven’t driven a single mile since my old shitbox of a car took a crap in mid-June, and I don’t plan to any time soon, because they are expensive, and I don’t really need one. I still go to visit the same friends every weekend, I still do my shopping, and I still go to and from work (for however long it lasts).
This past Sunday, I was riding to my friend’s house, a journey of about 12 miles round trip. He lives out in the country away from my small town, and the area is populated by people with big trucks, ball caps, and NASCAR bumper stickers.
I came to a four way stop, and while waiting for traffic to clear, someone going the other way came to a stop and yelled out his window to me, “Keep going buddy, you’re almost there!” I yelled right back “Keep going buddy, you’re almost here!”, while pointing at my bike.
Needless to say, he didn’t get the joke. To make things even better, he did a nice long burnout with his F-150 and headed off to town. Probably to buy something. Precious.
I am well aware of who owns the country, and everything in it, but they do not own me. I participate in the system only to the degree that it makes sense to me to do so. When working for a paycheck no longer suits my needs, I will move on to something else. I don’t have children, and my name isn’t “Dad”, so I can do that.
I don’t have any illusions about my ability, or the collective ability of everyone who participates in this forum to effect any sort of a political solution to the compressive deflationary contraction we are witnessing. It is what it is. It’s as simple as that. Trying to find solutions to problems that cannot be solved is wasted effort, so I try to spend at least as much of my free time learning useful skills as I do in escapist amusements.
The most useful skill I have learned so far is how to be happy in spite of ” “. Fill in the blank, and have a nice day.
Doh, sorry for the double post (with edit). I didn’t think the first post made it through. Ciao.
Please tell me you don’t dream of the day when 1 billion Chinese people can all drive Hummers and own McMansions just like we NASCAR-lovin’ Americans. That’s what it sounds like judging by your post regarding Mexican immigrants.
That truly would be the death of planet Earth, a precious resource that we should do our best to preserve, even if it means slowing down our own economy a bit and keeping some people — though good people they may be — out.
Whew! I just skimmed all this stuff, twisted man that I am. And (drum roll), my award for the best post of the day goes to Brian F. for letting us all in on the weekly meetings of the Jewish conspiracy team.
Brilliant satire, my friend. Wall-to-wall Wal-Marts — love it!
The sad thing is, though, it’s a conspiracy that some — perhaps even on this site — have thought about in very earnest ways.
To clarify, lest I be misunderstood: Brian F’s wild satirical conspiracy scenario involving JHK is probably a reality in the mind of someone who’s completely lost his mind.
I liked the line “chasing the phantom
of growth” in Jim’s weekly missive.
That about sums it up. If ever there
was a version of earth that fits Thomas
Malthus’ theories, it’s this version.
Earth 2.0. 🙂
There are many ironies about the US
economy in Earth 2.0. One is that we
are counting “growth” as the cancerous
growth in the financial sector which
is careening toward being a full third
of the entire US economy.
Kids are still majoring in Business in
college. It’s a big favorite. The
irony is that in the 1970s biz majors
were relentlessly teased as not being
“real” students … and rightfully so.
What “skill” do you learn in biz school?
The course titles ought to reflect what
such courses represent:
1) Finance 101 – Obfuscated Financial Products
2) Finance 102 – Fleecing Third World Countries
3) Finance 103 – Courting Dictators
4) Finance 104 – Downsizing Your Neighbors Wallet
5) Finance 105 – Getting People to Buy Shit
6) Finance 106 – Manufacturing Necessity in
Consumers
7) Finance 107 – Shopping as Lifestyle
8) Finance 108 – Orwellian Advertising
9) Finance 109 – Psychological Methods to
Prevent Saving in Consumers
10)Finance 110 – Offshoring for Civic Sociopaths
I don’t believe a college should have either
a school of business OR a school of education.
I don’t know which is worse. When you meet
educational administrators, you really sense
you’re dealing with an Orwellian slimeball.
Many Republican talk shows love to light into
educators but you educators out there know
that the overpaid, underworked people in
education who IMPEDE progress in classrooms
are the principles, Deans, Presidents, and
various functionaries who deal with “student
activities” and “counseling”.
It’s time for my mantra: Kafka’s world was
sane.
E.
Well Jim
As we enter the summer holiday silly-season…. (you may pulpit bash)…but the masses are not listening…they’re focused on cramming the SUV’s to the rafters full of all those key creature comforts… you know, sleeping bags, baby-diapers, note-books, kindles, DVD players, iPod chargers, the kitchen sink…. and fast-food snacks, cheesy-doodles and the ubiquitous shrink-wrapped mega coke bottl/sugary drink bratz placating packs…
You’re the king-o-the-hill in that gas-guzzling masculine knobbly tyred uber vehicle….right?
But when those gloom filled weeks of October are back, when Billy-Bob is sat at the coal-face of corporate down-sized sanctioned workstations (the lucky ones still with jobs that is) return to the sobering stance of income generation again…. then where will they be?
Increasingly frightened, on-the-edge and disillusioned. One of the winning fields in all this is mental health. Here in the UK white men of 50 plus and a certain age/class are more frequently turning to guns to solve there melt-downs… there lack of easy affluenza…
A case of this fiction….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8b3963VRW4&
Becoming fact…
The biggest irony of all this being some centuries past Europeans flocked to your landmass originally for a better future as the unravelling at home had become unbearable…
(the local red-skinned incumbents quickly being removed/dispersed) New age settlers or invaders… use whichever word works best?
And where are you lot now exactly, chest beating and star-striped clasped?
Right here I’d wager….
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/07/27/american_people_obsolete
Once more headed for a grim life of ghastly deprevation…Govt elite sponsored or otherwise people…..*sniggers*
And WWIII awaits patiently off-shore Iran…
(HooRah to that)
Here is a “rebuttal” — I suppose — from the Seretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. It is published in today’s New York Times [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03geithner.html?hp][/url] (By the way, please don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger!!)
Welcome to the Recovery
By TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER
Published: August 2, 2010
THE devastation wrought by the great recession is still all too real for millions of Americans who lost their jobs, businesses and homes. The scars of the crisis are fresh, and every new economic report brings another wave of anxiety. That uncertainty is understandable, but a review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth.
The recession that began in late 2007 was extraordinarily severe, but the actions we took at its height to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery.
From the start, President Obama made clear that recovery from a crisis of this magnitude would not come quickly and that the recovery would not follow a straight line. We saw that this past spring, when the European fiscal crisis posed a serious challenge to the markets and to business confidence, dampening investment and the rate of growth here.
While the economy has a long way to go before reaching its full potential, last week’s data on economic growth show that large parts of the private sector continue to strengthen. Business investment and consumption — the two keys to private demand — are getting stronger, better than last year and better than last quarter. Uncertainty is still inhibiting investment, but business capital spending increased at a solid annual rate of about 17 percent.
Together, private consumption and fixed investment contributed about 3.25 percent to growth. Even the surge in imports, which lowered the rate of increase of G.D.P., actually reflects healthy and growing American demand.
As the economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart have written, recoveries that follow financial crises are typically a hard climb. That is reality. The process of repair means economic growth will come slower than we would like. But despite these challenges, there is good news to report:
• Exports are booming because American companies are very competitive and lead the world in many high-tech industries.
• Private job growth has returned — not as fast as we would like, but at an earlier stage of this recovery than in the last two recoveries. Manufacturing has generated 136,000 new jobs in the past six months.
• Businesses have repaired their balance sheets and are now in a strong financial position to reinvest and grow.
• American families are saving more, paying down their debt and borrowing more responsibly. This has been a necessary adjustment because the borrow-and-spend path we were on wasn’t sustainable.
• The auto industry is coming back, and the Big Three — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — are now leaner, generating profits despite lower annual sales.
• Major banks, forced by the stress tests to raise capital and open their books, are stronger and more competitive. Now, as businesses expand again, our banks are better positioned to finance growth.
• The government’s investment in banks has already earned more than $20 billion in profits for taxpayers, and the TARP program will be out of business earlier than expected — and costing nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars less than projected last year.
We all understand and appreciate that these signs of strength in parts of the economy are cold comfort to those Americans still looking for work and to those industries, like construction, hit hardest by the crisis. But these economic measures, nonetheless, do represent an encouraging turnaround from the frightening future we faced just 18 months ago.
The new data show that this recession was even deeper than previously estimated. The plunge in economic activity started an entire year before President Obama took office and was accelerating at the end of 2008, when G.D.P. fell at an annual rate of roughly 7 percent.
Panicked by the collapse in demand and financing and fearing a prolonged slump, the private sector cut payrolls and investment savagely. The rate of job loss worsened with time: by early last year, 750,000 jobs vanished every month. The economic collapse drove tax revenue down, pushing the annual deficit up to $1.3 trillion by last January.
The economic rescue package that President Obama put in place was essential to turning the economy around. The combined effect of government actions taken over the past two years — the stimulus package, the stress tests and recapitalization of the banks, the restructuring of the American car industry and the many steps taken by the Federal Reserve — were extremely effective in stopping the freefall and restarting the economy.
According to a report released last week by Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, advisers to President Bill Clinton and Senator John McCain, respectively, the combined actions since the fall of 2007 of the Federal Reserve, the White House and Congress helped save 8.5 million jobs and increased gross domestic product by 6.5 percent relative to what would have happened had we done nothing. The study showed that government action delivered a powerful bang for the buck, and that the bank rescue on its own will turn a profit for taxpayers.
We have a long way to go to address the fiscal trauma and damage across the country, and we will need to monitor the ups and downs in the economy month by month. The share of workers who have been unemployed for six months or more is at its highest level since 1948, when the data was first recorded, and we must do more to ensure that they have the skills they need to re-enter the 21st-century economy. Small businesses are still battling a tough climate. State and local governments are still hurting.
There are urgent tasks to be undertaken to reinforce the recovery, and Congress should move now to help small business, to assist states in keeping teachers in the classroom, to increase investments in public infrastructure, to promote clean energy and to increase exports. And while making smart, targeted investments in our future, we must also cut the deficit over the next few years and make sure that America once again lives within its means.
These are considerable challenges, but we are in a much stronger position to face them today than when President Obama took office. By taking aggressive action to fix the financial system, reduce growth in health care costs and improve education, we have put the American economy on a firmer foundation for future growth.
And as the president said last week, no one should bet against the American worker, American business and American ingenuity.
We suffered a terrible blow, but we are coming back.
With a lot of evidence suggesting that certain levels of income (around $3,000 per capita) lead to a sudden surge in discretionary consumption, the fact that 50% more people in emerging markets are expected to reach that threshold in the next five years is significant.
========================
I don’t even want Hummers and McMansions for Americans, and you should know that if you have read any of my posts on voluntary simplicity, adobe house contruction, the tiny house movement, etc.
I am sensing a real fear that if others have their basic needs met, our planet is doomed… and this is justifying political positions… so let them die.
I say a $3,000 a year income that allows for a refrigerator, food security, clean water, and not watching your grandchild die of disease is desirable, and you mention Hummers and McMansions!
It is amazing what can be justified from the comfort of the first-world.
I don’t want people to use a lifeboat ethics type of mentality to justify an anti-immigration policy.
Using population biology as an argument to prevent the “doom of the human race,” while supporting the training and arming of a huge and inefficient fossil-fuel consuming armed forces necessary to defend borders, seems a bit ingenuous and self-defeating and immoral.
If 3 billion people already earning $1,200 a year had their income increased to $3,000 a year, that would only be 3 billion * 1800 = $5.4 Trillion.
We have frittered that away in the last decade through our “pre-emptive” wars of aggression and occupation of the Middle East, bombing, torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying instead of building security.
There will be blowback for adopting a “lifeboat ethics” stance, whether self-inflicted or from those we have pissed off.
I wonder how JHK feels about Bill and Hillary’s recent big extravaganza in New York State just a bit south of him? Duchess County (I think that’s the county Rhinebeck is in) exemplifies much of what JHK reviles. Big box stores, NASCAR devorees, rampant poverty of all kinds, and lots of faded glory popping up here and there from the weeds. And in the midst of all this current “culture” erupts the vulgar excess of a multi-million dollar wedding. How ironic that the Great Stain-Maker should spend so much loot on celebrating holy matrimony! Certainly the sum spent (more than movie stars spend) is a clear indication of sincerity! How ironic that the groom in this splendid affair is an “investment banker.” How appropriate for these times of ours!
Suffice it to say that the Great Stain-Maker is really not so clever after all. For sentient adults, this recent excess clearly exposes the reality of the current situation in the country. Once again, he has “let the cat out of the bag.” Translation: if you can’t read the present and future now, then you just aren’t listening.
O tempora, O mores.
Jimbo: You forget that GM just bought a finance company that specializes in high-risk loans, so pretty soon the taxpayers will be buying Volts for welfare moms.
Uh, oh. We better protect ourselves while we still can. http://www.thenothingstore.com
Garrett Hardin’s lifeboat ethics and tragedy of the commons position has two basic problems: it holds survival to be the ultimate value and it views mankind primarily in biological terms.
These problems lead to a rejection of traditional moral values, to an inadequate view of society which limits morality to the members of one’s tribe (or family, or grandchild).
A concept of moral community can ground obligations to future generations in a manner that appreciates the importance of biology while recognizing the human transcendence of biology through culture and maintainability of traditional moral values.
“We have frittered that away…”
You gotta mouse in your pocket?
Al, they are spending their own money not yours.
The “vulgar excess of a multi-million dollar wedding” would fund a few minutes of the war in Afghanistan.
I’d say you got your priorities mixed up. You probably voted for Bush who got us tangled up in trillions of dollars of military misadventures.
SOURCE:
The war costs $500,000 per minute according to analysis done by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes)
Growth as has occurred in the last 50 years is over for the developed world, USA, EU and JAPAN (and some others, Australia, Canada, South Korea, etc.). This is very simple: when a country goes from being poor to middle class (even lower middle class), the economy constantly “grows” in the sense that more people have money, buy cars, furniture, TVs, some buy homes, etc. This process creates jobs, more jobs, more money, more growth etc. for decades. This happened very nicely and according to the textbook in Italy, JAPAN, South Korea, Germany, USA and some others from 1945 to about 2000. Actually for Italy and some other European nations and JAPAN this process of “the end of growth” occurred in the beginnings of the 1990s, aka the “lost decades of JAPAN”.
Now this happened also in an era of a given level of technology and technology applied to production and the economy: a given amount of automation, optimizations and computer applications, etc. And since these elements were still not as developed as today, there was still a lot of labor that was needed, factories weren’t so automated, bosses still needed secretaries (they didn’t have or use MS word, Access, etc.).
But now that growth is over in the “West” and technology is killing those few jobs that are still needed, there is no hope of going back to the good times. Growth in the developed world can only occur through services, that is by deliberately breaking things up and fixing them up in a futile cycle. Just look at Health Care, Lawyers, and Military adventures to get an idea.
On the other hand, countries like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, etc. are in the “growth phase”, where JAPAN was in the 1960s and 1970s for example. So this is where the markets are, and this is where western corporations are making huge profits by selling to high growth economies, economies that are going from being poor to being rich (this is why the stock markets go up anyways no matter how bad things are in Ohio). Of course technology applied to the economy just accelerates this as does the internet, outsourcing etc. so they may end up having an even smaller window of time of high growth economy.
What the west needs now is to start modifying the brains of people, start creating the Instant Singularity by putting chips and computers and changing the neural circuits of people so they go forward into a new era. We are at the threshold of the next technological revolution, the Instant Singularity:
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewt…hp?f=4&t=172275
And forget about all the population explosions and resource limitations: worldwide population may reach at most 10 billion which is nothing compared to the holding capacity of 100 trillion the world has, and all the energy science will harness through fusion, bacteria that creates oil, genetic engineering food and petroleum creation, trillions of skyscrapers, space travel, trillions of cadillacs, etc. Colonization of the galaxy through Technological Singularity computers, robots, etc. An infinite Resource Society.
And in yesterday’s news, Obama says we’ll be out of Iraq by the end of the month. This on the heels of the announcement last month that the Chinese will be developing the oil fields in Iraq. What a great way to repay our debt to the Chinese! Now get back to making more cheap plastic shit for people to throw away!
Growth as has occurred in the last 50 years is over for the developed world, USA, EU and JAPAN (and some others, Australia, Canada, South Korea, etc.). This is very simple: when a country goes from being poor to middle class (even lower middle class), the economy constantly “grows” in the sense that more people have money, buy cars, furniture, TVs, some buy homes, etc. This process creates jobs, more jobs, more money, more growth etc. for decades. This happened very nicely and according to the textbook in Italy, JAPAN, South Korea, Germany, USA and some others from 1945 to about 2000. Actually for Italy and some other European nations and JAPAN this process of “the end of growth” occurred in the beginnings of the 1990s, aka the “lost decades of JAPAN”.
Now this happened also in an era of a given level of technology and technology applied to production and the economy: a given amount of automation, optimizations and computer applications, etc. And since these elements were still not as developed as today, there was still a lot of labor that was needed, factories weren’t so automated, bosses still needed secretaries (they didn’t have or use MS word, Access, etc.).
But now that growth is over in the “West” and technology is killing those few jobs that are still needed, there is no hope of going back to the good times. Growth in the developed world can only occur through services, that is by deliberately breaking things up and fixing them up in a futile cycle. Just look at Health Care, Lawyers, and Military adventures to get an idea.
On the other hand, countries like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, etc. are in the “growth phase”, where JAPAN was in the 1960s and 1970s for example. So this is where the markets are, and this is where western corporations are making huge profits by selling to high growth economies, economies that are going from being poor to being rich (this is why the stock markets go up anyways no matter how bad things are in Ohio). Of course technology applied to the economy just accelerates this as does the internet, outsourcing etc. so they may end up having an even smaller window of time of high growth economy.
What the west needs now is to start modifying the brains of people, start creating the Instant Singularity by putting chips and computers and changing the neural circuits of people so they go forward into a new era. We are at the threshold of the next technological revolution, the Instant Singularity:
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewt…hp?f=4&t=172275
And forget about all the population explosions and resource limitations: worldwide population may reach at most 10 billion which is nothing compared to the holding capacity of 100 trillion the world has, and all the energy science will harness through fusion, bacteria that creates oil, genetic engineering food and petroleum creation, trillions of skyscrapers, space travel, trillions of cadillacs, etc. Colonization of the galaxy through Technological Singularity computers, robots, etc. An infinite Resource Society.
To fritter: “spend frivolously and unwisely”
Growth as has occurred in the last 50 years is over for the developed world, USA, EU and JAPAN (and some others, Australia, Canada, South Korea, etc.). This is very simple: when a country goes from being poor to middle class (even lower middle class), the economy constantly “grows” in the sense that more people have money, buy cars, furniture, TVs, some buy homes, etc. This process creates jobs, more jobs, more money, more growth etc. for decades. This happened very nicely and according to the textbook in Italy, JAPAN, South Korea, Germany, USA and some others from 1945 to about 2000. Actually for Italy and some other European nations and JAPAN this process of “the end of growth” occurred in the beginnings of the 1990s, aka the “lost decades of JAPAN”.
Now this happened also in an era of a given level of technology and technology applied to production and the economy: a given amount of automation, optimizations and computer applications, etc. And since these elements were still not as developed as today, there was still a lot of labor that was needed, factories weren’t so automated, bosses still needed secretaries (they didn’t have or use MS word, Access, etc.).
But now that growth is over in the “West” and technology is killing those few jobs that are still needed, there is no hope of going back to the good times. Growth in the developed world can only occur through services, that is by deliberately breaking things up and fixing them up in a futile cycle. Just look at Health Care, Lawyers, and Military adventures to get an idea.
On the other hand, countries like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, etc. are in the “growth phase”, where JAPAN was in the 1960s and 1970s for example. So this is where the markets are, and this is where western corporations are making huge profits by selling to high growth economies, economies that are going from being poor to being rich (this is why the stock markets go up anyways no matter how bad things are in Ohio). Of course technology applied to the economy just accelerates this as does the internet, outsourcing etc. so they may end up having an even smaller window of time of high growth economy.
What the west needs now is to start modifying the brains of people, start creating the Instant Singularity by putting chips and computers and changing the neural circuits of people so they go forward into a new era. We are at the threshold of the next technological revolution, the Instant Singularity:
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewt…hp?f=4&t=172275
And forget about all the population explosions and resource limitations: worldwide population may reach at most 10 billion which is nothing compared to the holding capacity of 100 trillion the world has, and all the energy science will harness through fusion, bacteria that creates oil, genetic engineering food and petroleum creation, trillions of skyscrapers, space travel, trillions of cadillacs, etc. Colonization of the galaxy through Technological Singularity computers, robots, etc. An infinite Resource Society.
The link:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275
THE LINK
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275
READ THE LINK
IT IS COMING, WATCH OUT …….
CORRECTION: There will be blowback for adopting a “lifeboat ethics” stance, whether self-inflicted or from those we have pissed off.
In the latter case, blowback may be nuclear… Grandchildren will not survive. Having ammo or gold stored up is no guarantee of survival of a nuclear attack. Karma.
Anyways worldwide economic growth is 3% a year so in 40 to 50 years most of the world will be about completely developed. No stopping that, the west is standing still the rest is growing…
“those that started with LSD have already been closer to the Singularity by decades.”
Amen.
8m, re:singularity, you might enjoy the podcasts at http://urbangurucafe.com on advaita vedanta
“…in 40 to 50 years most of the world will be about completely developed. No stopping that, the west is standing still the rest is growing…”
Nice to see someone acknowledging reality.
Thanks, 8m.
Karma
“But now that growth is over in the “West” and technology is killing those few jobs that are still needed, there is no hope of going back to the good times. Growth in the developed world can only occur through services, that is by deliberately breaking things up and fixing them up in a futile cycle. Just look at Health Care, Lawyers, and Military adventures to get an idea”
I forgot to add that a very important “engine of growth” in the developed world is to HIKE UP THE VALUE OF REAL ESTATE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, creating imaginary “growth” and “imaginary wealth”. We all know how that will end up…
It is akin to making believe your house or commercial building is now Instantly worth twice or three times as much, and you can ask rents three times higher. No wonder no one wants to open a business anymore with commercial real estate rents so stupidly high…
Asoka, you have utterly missed my point. Furthermore, the comparison of the money spent in Afghanistan to the Clinton Wedding is irrelevant. (As it so happens, I am utterly dismayed at the US expenditures for wars while our country, our people and our infrastructure crumbles.) Silly me. I would hope that our leaders would show some semblance of dignity and earnestness. Neither Clinton nor Bush II were very good in that division. I would say that Obama is better at that.
In any case, don’t go into attack mode so readily. You are adopting the very characteristics of the people who attack you by bringing up irrelevant issues.
Let me spell out my point clearly: We are hurting in this land. We have huge financial and societal problems. In the midst of this miasma, a pair of our “leaders” have underwritten a public explosion of personal excess. Is this the only excess being currently underwritten? Of course not. But it’s very public and the message is quite clear: “We don’t care what you think. You don’t count.” This ought to sound very familiar. It’s the same message we are getting regarding Afghanistan. When sane people question the rationale for spending trillions in foreign wars and sacrificing life and limb, they get the same answer: “We don’t care what you think.”
How do I feel about the Clinton wedding and the war in Afghanistan? I am saddened. Those who have been ordained to lead are without concern for those whom they lead.
Personally, I feel that every penny Mr. and Mrs. Clinton spent on Chelsea’s wedding was worth it. Anybody fool enough to marry Chelsea must be half blind. The girl looks as though shes been beaten by an ugly stick.
And by changing the neural networks of people’s brains they will be engineered into correction: the fighting, conflicting, free wills, opposing opinions and all of that will no longer exist.
All of what economy and sociology and psychology and politics tried to obtain can be corrected by changing just one bit in people’s brains:
KILL FREE WILL
KILL FREE WILL
The brains of humans must be engineered into correction: the free will circuits must be deactivated, the circuits that generate conflicting opinions, conflicts in general, differences, inequalities, power struggles, war, confrontations, etc. must be changed, they are probably just a few transistors, just a one transistor circuit that creates free will and the material called “Free Willonium” that is composed of particles that freely make different and contrasting choices, that struggle and fight each other, in this way escaping all the laws of physics.
This must come to an end, this will end 100,000 years of violent human history with all their “fights” and “politics” and “different choices – opinions – lifestyles – behaviors”, etc. It is probably just one bit in brains that must be changed, and humans will then become a superior spiritual machine, one monolithic slab of unity of intent working towards higher singularities, more advanced experimental brains, circuits, and hence universes, emotions, experiences. Change all the circuits in brains, create new sense organs, new emotion systems, new and fake and simulated and make believe logics, laws of physics, internal narratives, new memory and logic circuits, etc.
The serialization of trillions of “Man Hours” of work accumulating into solid results of unity of intent, and not like now with everyone working against everyone else and dispersing all the energy each individual puts in. Work that adds up, hence an Instant Singularity created by the shear number of Man Hours of “product” that is finally accumulating and creating ever higher states of being.
KILL FREE WILLS, all of them, the machines and the universe will decide what configurations are valid…
C’mon, Chelsea’s really smart, she a “Hedge Fund Manager” hahahahah.
Chelsea: “Daddy daddy they made me a Hedge Fudge Manager at that company you talked to”!
The StainMaster: “It’s Hedge FUND, not Hedge Fudge, Chelsea.”
Chelsea: “And my boyfriend there is so cool, he’s an Investment Baker”!
The StainMaster: “God Chelsea, it’s Banker, not Baker!! Anyway I thought the job’d make a nice birthday present. Oh, and Hillary says Chavez loved the teddy bear you bought for him.”
To get a real idea of where the American economy is headed, all eyes should turn to Mexico. Although Mexico’s population is about a third of ours, their class hierarchy resembles what we are beginning to see in this country. About 60% of Mexico’s populace are poor, aka, the lower class. These folks usually have an elementary school education (at best), and live in one room houses, often times with dirt floors. They take day laborer jobs and servant positions in Mexico’s thriving tourist meccas. Those who are obedient, servile, complacent, and dependable keep their jobs (thus having what we call job security). Roughly 30% are what we consider to be middle to upper class, including professions such as police officers, electricians, small business owners, and managers. About 10% are upper middle class, of that group, a little less than 1% are what we call “super rich”, with second homes, servants, European vacations, including quick jaunts to Manhattan to catch a few plays on Broadway, shop 5th Avenue, and dine in top tier restaurants. Private (mostly Catholic) schools are in charge of teaching children, with the Roman Catholic Church pulling out the smartest boys to become clergy. Most people in Mexico don’t own their own homes. Population trends find that an increasing majority are clustered in the larger cities, because job opportunies and government services (think flushing toilets and paved roads) are more plentiful than in the agrarian country side.
I’m not so sure there is much anyone can do to avoid the U.S. descent into a Mexico scenario. The past 60 or 70 years in this country can be seen through a larger lense as an aberration. Huge numbers of a formerly lower class ascended into membership of middle and upper middle class (yes, the rich have always been with us). WWII was pivotal in recruiting and drafting thousands of men into the armed services, providing them with tools to better their existence through the GI bill and loans for new home buyers. Government infusion of money lifted thousands of families from grinding poverty into stable, middle class existence. Before this, however,
I had an uncle who worked as a factory hack for an iron works concern somewhere in Allentown, PA. He worked there for over ten years when one day he mistakenly left his hand on a machine press for about fifteen seconds too long and his entire right hand and much of his fore arm had to be amputated, having been crushed beyond recognition. The company’s response? He was promptly fired. There was no workman’s comp, social security, or welfare. His wife (my aunt) had to get a job as a seamstress and his two oldest boys dropped out of high school and junior high to go to work. The older boy found employment as a gas jocky, the younger found work in the same factory where his father became an amputee!
I agree with Jim. We are in the process of driving the tanker right off the cliff. Pretending to be what we once were.
Germans have proven to be the most technologically advanced innovators on earth. They deal with $8.00/gallon equivalent petro every day. See any hydrogen, electric, syngas, etc. vehicles in their national private fleet? Didn’t think so…
Al, they are spending their own money not yours.
================
Yeah Al, stop being such a noodge. Hillary made the cost of the wedding in a couple of days trading cattle futures way back in the day. With little or no background in the field she was able to beat the professionals at their own game. She is one smart cookie. Did you forget about that.
Welcome to the Recovery
By TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER
Published: August 2, 2010
Drew,
Who do you suppose wrote this tripe for li’l Timmy G.? The man’s not NEARLY that erudite. Frank “word-mangler” Luntz, perhaps?
Ha!
Thanks for posting it, anyhoo….
Nicely put. Go check out http://www.foreignaffairs.org. This is the site where you can read about the internationalist’s plans for the future. Great site.
Phil
Stuck on the astroid belt outside Toledo
If you’ve read through all the comments today you’ve endured a serious dose of EightM-think and I feel an explanation on behalf of 8M is called for.
About two weeks ago 8M’s meds ran out and there were no refills left on the prescriptions. The shrink was supposed to fax in a new Rx to CareMark but something got F’d up and, well, here we are with 8M back to his old lunacy … trillions of skyscrapers and trillions of cadillacs. (Just a quicky question for 8M … how many million are in a trillion?) And then there’s the problem of the multiple posts.
Feels to me as if the zeitgeist becoming soooo painfully clear to anyone in America with functioning brain cells, is that our fume-based ‘Economy’ has hit the brick wall, and the zillion shattered pieces are in a kind of slow-motion descent to the ground, also known as Cold Reality.
Most college ‘educations’ are literally less-than-worthless as they’ve morphed into a sick form of perpetual debt slavery via student loans.
I cringe in horror when I read about the futile job searches of college grads with a degree in ‘Literature’ or ‘Female Studies’ or ‘PolySci’ eegads!
What the Fuck are those people and their parents thinking? For 20-40k a year???
If this doesn’t underscore the Canyon of Disconnect between economic reality & American’s utter ignorance thereof…
Learning to repair washers&dryers, cars, refrigerators, computers, etc seems much more beneficial to me. Along with lessons in Self-Sufficiency.
Jeez it’s a Disaster out there, with bright spots of Awareness coalescing into larger islands of Awakening.
To Al Klien,
A. Klien said: …”something like 25 million people just disappeared! After the first few years of financial shock, they were just gone! Off the rosters.”
Al, could you give a reference please. I like Orlov and i missed that that statement in the summary i read.
It seems like if 25M disappeared we would have heard many many horror stories. How did they collect them? Where were they disposed of? Surely some would escape to tell the tale.
Homefire
OK, so I was using hyperbole. I agree that if everyone’s basic needs are met, the world will be a better place. But there’s no denying that the tendency seems to be a push for “the American Dream for all.” But just as, say, Hummers are a relic (or should be) of 20th Century America, the American Dream of endless consumption, too, is a relic of a bygone era.
Home,
Like so many things said here at CFN, this thing about 25M people just disappearing in Russia is an exaggeration. When this issue first came up a week or two ago I googled “1990’s population decline in soviet union.” I suggest you do the same.
Why are we going the way of Mexico? The short answer is that a collective long term idiocy descended decades ago. This idiocy has so many dimensions it’s hard to know where to start.
I know people that don’t know their take home pay. They don’t know what they spend every month. I know people in their 50s still up to their asses in debt. You guys just had a catastrophic bust in real estate. Guess what the geniuses at the Bank of Canada (our central bank) are doing now? They’re inflating a real estate bubble. After all this mayhem. Why? Why? Why? They are idiots. It’s the only explanation. Can’t they see where housing is headed? Can’t they see what just happened a stone’s throw away from us? How else could they have decided that a real estate bubble is just what we need?
We have people, supposedly educated people, that say, golly, people are saving money now, a whole 4% of take home and it will for sure depress the economy. Idiots. I mean, Jesus H Christ, it’s not as if that money disappears into a hole never to reappear. And since when is saving a few bucks for a rainy day a bad thing? Have they lost their minds?
A couple years ago our Prime Minister lowered our federal sales tax rate to 5% from 7%. This was derided by every economist in the land as stupid and destructive, the very same imbeciles that didn’t see the financial implosion coming. They ALL said the better way is to lower income tax rates. But I think the PM, cold hearted prick that he is, knows people.
Executives lose consciousness the instant you mention “tax rates”. Their eyes roll up and their foreheads hit the table. Most people have no idea of how much income tax they pay, they know nothing about income tax and their only question to the man at H&R Block is how much is the refund. But they sure as hell know how much sales tax they pay because it’s on every receipt. they can’t miss it. But income tax is complicated and the PM knows we’re idiots and that we will not respond to changes in income tax rates.
Homefire, I’ll see if I can dig up the reference. I know it was a real statement by Orlov because it amazed me at the time. (I think I saw in print this maybe 2 or 3 years ago). I also wondered how such an enormous number of persons had just vaporized. As I recall, Orlov made some effort to explain how. His proffered explanation was that there was considerable chaos in the land and records simply were not being kept for a period of time. So many deaths, both by disease and crime, were simply not reported nor recorded. I know it seems hard for us to imagine this, but that, in fact, was the message Orlov was trying to convey: when the system breaks down, there is no more system. For a while, at least.
Messianic,
last week in repsonse to one of my posts you asked why do so many people spend so much intensity pigeonholing others?
I think it’s in our nature to mentally organize and classify. I think it’s also in our nature to be tribal, to demonize the “other”. It seems that after our forebears left Africa we forgot that we’re all related.
I think that was one of the Old Testament’s deepest insights. I think that’s the point of the story of Adam and Eve, that we share common parentage. It’s a funny thing, how “rational” people crap on scriptures. To them they’re nothing more than superstition. Yet now we have geneticists talking about “mitochondrial Eve”. It’s a funny thing too, how people thousands of years ago sitting around a fire, armed with nothing more than their intellectual faculties, came up with such an insight.
I think that we moderns have really misunderstood those old books. I think the writers meant to tell stories but that historical and scientific accuracy was the least of their concerns. Some of it was tribal saga, some of it was about human nature and some of it was about how we live our lives.
But we go looking for Noah’s Ark. What were they telling us in that old story? IMO at its heart it was about environmental cataclysm from which there were few survivors and it was also about those few survivors that became founding peoples that carried on. We know that such things happened. The glacial melting and global warming 12,000 years ago much have been wrenching, millions of cubic miles of ice melting in a few thousand years with massive flooding ravaging huge areas. Seems to me that the story was a distillation of stories circulating for a very long time.
Qshtik, it be very welcome if you were to extend the same courtesy to 8m when he/she engages in “exaggeration” instead of disrespecting him/her by inventing stories about medications which you have no way of verifying.
As usual, I would love to hear what you have to say about the substance of 8m´s comments, instead of ad hominem attack/slander.
“It’s a funny thing, how “rational” people crap on scriptures.”
Yes, I see it here regularly, including your last “rationalizing” post.
Was it SanJoseMom who a few days ago said:
‘ Welcome to a world of 7,000,000,000’
India may be the worlds first [ and last ] country with 2 billion! ponder that.
The population of the USA is exploding, as is that of Mexico.
maybe i should ask the techs here in LA who do ‘green shows’ about solar powered hummers. they are so enamoured with solar aircraft!
Having traveled there I am told 1 in 5 lives on
1$ a day. hence the flight ‘ el norte ‘..see award winning book ‘ enriques journey’…it was on the LA Times page 1 day after day. and the population keeps growing.
is their #2 source of 4 that which immigrants to USa send home?
its oil, hard drugs and $ sent home as top 3?
‘Asoka, you have utterly missed my point’
..gee …SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
‘Immigrants have always been discriminated against .. It will be no different with the Latino invasion.’
INVASION INDEED…but never before was there an ‘ immigrant invasion’ to the usa.
there was only contriolled immigration.
and from what i see in LA the racism is on the side of the immigrants, not directed to them.
see ‘ pretending to be mexican in LA’…
cover story of LA Times.
The universe is infinite in time and space. The number of planets, galaxies and any other structures is infinite. It has lasted forever, forever changing, will last forever. The big bangs is either:
1) True. Which means we happen to be in a bubble of maybe 10^1000 light years in space and 10^20 years from origin, which means it appears to be a big bang since this is how far we can ever possibly see both in time and space (“observable universe” and note that all of the official science has never denied that we are limited in our observation of the universe, has never denied that we can see only a small slice no matter what). If 10^1000 is too small, well just add a few trillion zeros to the exponent aka 10^1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000…..
2) False. Which means that the microwave radiation has another, different origin, which may very well be possible.
Since the universe is infinite in space and time, all possible combinations of Mass – Energy will have the time to come into existence, and in fact will cycle through an infinite number of times, “the eternal return”. This also fits in nicely with my theory of the universe as a combination, as a big number:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=157516&start=25
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=152877
Since any possible combination will occur, this explains the occurrence of life on earth, since that one time quirk sequence of chemical reactions that brought life and man had to occur at least once (but infinite number of times, since the universe is infinite in time and space). So the origin of life is explained.
Also the universe is probably just a small dot in a universe containing an infinite number of other universes with different laws of physics.
All of our science, religion and philosophy is just desperately trying to size this universe to our limited brain, language and thought processes: we cannot accept infinity as an answer while in fact infinity is the only answer. That is why scientists cling on so strongly to the big bang theory.
A friend went to china and was aghast at how messed up the enviornment [ trees, air, lack of birds] is there. but she said ‘ THIS IS THE FUTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANET IF WE DONT STOP DESTROYING IT’.
also they are destroying tibet and may try to grab indias water.
since both countries have nukes WATCH OUT.
‘. Lithium is a “rare earth” mineral ‘
at one of the ‘ green ‘ talks i went to i believe it was said we are dependent on imports from peru…and only peru.
what about solar hummers and aircraft?
the ‘ greenies’ are gaga for them!
‘Again…to all CFN’ers, Asoka has demonstrated himself to be an active impediment to honest discussion on this website’
cool…logic rules!
‘Will this broken and broke country be more attractive to immigrants (of any ilk) than their “home countries’
having traveled in asia and mexico..do you have any idea how open, full of trees and relatively fresh air the usa and canada are?
this is paradise..mexico is hell.
us/canada are ‘ the prize’ and are being ruined. from within and without.
do you know how many politicians and businesses are being bought here with narco terrorist $?
and clinton says ‘ the us is to blame for mexicos violence’.
LOL!
Like I have the ability to prevent so many brilliant people from carrying on their intelligent discussions… Or would have any desire to do so!
I’m not crapping on those writings and I’m not trying to twist them into something they aren’t. As to whether such books are divinely inspired I have no opinion. I think they have a lot more wisdom than we give them credit for and I think they represent a lot of thought over many centuries.
And I think that our mind set is different ( we “rationalize” as you might say) than it was all those years ago and so we’re missing out on the meaning and intent of those writers.
As Martin Buber might say we have more of an “I and It” mind set than in the old days when it was more “I and Thou”.
Are the old books about objective truths? I think that’s not the thrust of the writings. I think it’s more to talk about “spiritual truths”: how we conduct ourselves, how we relate to one another, how we relate to God. I think that to the old people the factual accounts of the flood or cataclysms are not what’s important but rather what is their meaning.
Then again I’m not a biblical scholar. I’m just a bean counter.
‘ armed forces necessary to defend borders, seems a bit ingenuous and self-defeating and immoral’
qtip…did you catch that? ask finger pointing!
‘ingenuous , immoral’
Using population biology as an argument to prevent the “doom of the human race,” while supporting the training and arming of a huge and inefficient fossil-fuel consuming armed forces necessary to defend borders, seems a bit ingenuous and self-defeating and immoral.
Asia, you didn’t include the subject in the above quote. You are preventing honest discussion! LOL!
Why do you assume in the article that Obama is well-intentioned? All the responsibility seems to have been routed away from him and to his advisers and cabinet only.
I don’t believe he is baffled about the reasons his policies haven’t been effective; mainly because it appears to be deliberate that he keeps trying the same methods and getting the same outcome.
To whom it may concern:
There are certain comments written on this blog that are so “off the wall” that they don’t deserve a serious reply. Rather, they get the kind of reply they do deserve — a contemptuous spoof. This makes it clear the replier doesn’t think the comment’s author is “playing with a full deck.”
It should now be clearly apparent to the entire world that we have a president who cannot find his _sshole with both hands. He is being led around a circus tent like a blind, retarded elephant. His ring leaders, outside of the state of Israel, include the likes of Bernanke, Geitner, and Greenspan. Most of the S.O.B.s of his administration should have been drawn and quartered years ago. Don’t even get me started on Hillary Clinton, who wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and smacked her squarely in the face. So where does that leave our country? Proverbally up .hit’s creek without a paddle. These bastards are worse than cockroaches feeding off of dead carcasses. And they will not stop until every last dollar is sucked up down into the financial maelstrom of quasi-wonderland.
“…being seasick-on-dry-land”
Exactly how I’ve been feeling since 911.
From the start,Obama gave me the impression of already knowing he would be taken care of, as if he had already been told of his golden parachute. And another thing I thought when I saw him in the campaign was that ‘he will be a globalist president, like HW Bush was.’
In the Financial Times recently, an article about a particular CEO quoted him as saying he had been feeling stressed, and so realized he needed ‘some yacht time.’ This is the kind of elite running things now. We as citizens and workers no longer matter to this new system we see emerging.
“…and so we’re missing out on the meaning and intent of those writers.”
This is a huge understatement. Especially, given the fact that the message itself bears evidence and multiple claims of inspiration.
“An analogy may help make this clear. It is rather like meeting a man who denies that Chinese is a language, and refuses to learn anything about it until it has been mathematically proven that the marks in the Chinese book are interrelated in the same way as other languages, and that they certainly were not randomly scratched out. The joke is that even if the proof is understood and accepted (a very unlikely outcome, considering the effect of willful ignorance), the unbeliever has not come one step closer to knowing – let alone receiving – the message contained in the book! If, on the other hand, the unbeliever were willing to learn to read Chinese, the proof that it is indeed a language would simply fall out as an inevitable side effect.”
http://www.biblewheel.com/canon/probability_of_the_sevenfold_canon.asp
http://www.whatabeginning.com/Misc/Wonders/P.htm
Myrtlemay has been SPOT ON in several arguments the past two days.
Comparing present day realities in Mexico with the future of the US seems very apt….depressing, even chilling…but apt.
Of course Mexico *was* a third world country and most of their lower class people *should* have no way to go but up. Whereas the US was a first world country that may be destined to slip inexorably down due to TLE and/or demographics.
Then 8m and several others pointed out that the third world countries will be “built out” within the next 40-50 years. (To which I add…yeah, no doubt AND with little regard for the devastating environmental consequences of their industrialization.)
Then seayoung (great handle, btw) points out for us that even at $8.00/gallon the Germans do not use anything but fossil fuels in their private cars.
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/3208/
And I found this link that says the Germans plan to be 100% wind and PV powered by 2040.
But I’m so depressed from reading the thread that I don’t have the mental energy to look at it right now to see if it has the *ring of truth* or not.
SNAFU, haven’t forgotten about PV solar and math…hold those thoughts….’Cause I think if the planet has a future that its in that area.
And Wells…funny stuff in your little script about Chelsea Clinton and Bill the Stainmaster!
I’d never heard that term before…good stuff!!
I have a theory on the collapse of building 7 as well as the twin towers if you’re interested in me elaborating. And it isn’t the party line.
When I saw each of those towers collapse, as an architect who is familair with how strucutre works, I was amazed at how organized they all fell. So it got me thinking….
Apparently 1500 new vehicles (automobiles) hit the Bejing roadways every day. And GM is in there like a dirty shirt… sellen’em Buicks! They LOVE those Buicks!
Pop goes the world!
I think that we as Americans’ have led a charmed life for awhile now. led to think that ‘everything’ will always be this way. We don’t know how good we had it.
It’s over.
I have a friend who had to flee Cuba when he was 8 when Castro took over. So he’s always been ‘enlightened’ as to the Real World. His family got out in the nic of time.
There is No Security. Not really. He knew it then.
This world is ready to blow, it already ‘blows’ imo.
It’s just sickening to see young high school kids stabbed by mexicans, so they can join a gang or what ever. happens all the time where i live, in a beautiful tourist town. by the beach.
I wish more men or people would take care of these punks. It should be legal. right is right and wrong is wrong. it’s about context. not an eye for an eye. some punk stabs or shoots someone innocent person, well i say the one who takes care of that punk is a hero. period. Should get a Medal of honor.
Some guy was walking his dog in broad daylight,
gangster gets out of car, shoots both. dog dies. man injured. makes me sick.
Now you know how they say ‘don’t take the law into your own hands?’ what the hell does that mean. right is right and wrong is wrong.
period.
well we just have to keep our eyes and minds open, and watch our backs, and our friends backs.
and move if we can afford it. which of course i can’t.
This isn’t Disneyland. (I never liked that place)
Time to grow up. sadly too many won’t or can’t.
MC
We need to think of the human population as a fungus on the surface of an orange.
We’ve all seen it happen, right? Eventually, the fungus consumes it’s host, and sooner or later the host goes into a state of apotosis… cascading cell death. The signs on this planet are already here.
Apparently species depletion is happening at an accelerating pace. This includes trees as well, and not simply due to us cutting them down. Certain tree species are disappearing (in North America as well as around the world) due to the onslaught of stresses that we put upon them as a result of our existence and our collective activites.
Without addressing world population in concert with consumption patterns — NOW! — nothing will stop this process. It may very well be too late.
So no amount of “green” energy programs or bicycle riding or public transportation schemes or shifting economic paradigms or immigration laws will stop this biological reality. Arguing about this other stuff simply distracts us from the root of the problem. Any one of these issues above can be attributed to human overpopulation (combined with excessive consumption):
Mexican illegals: overpopulation (squalor) in their home country.
Out of control CO2 emmissions: overpopulation in the West where we consume outrageous amounts of energy.
Species extinction and habitat destruction: overpopulation… EVERYWHERE.
Oil leaks in oceans: overpopulation… insatiable need for products and energy.
War on Terror: overpopulation… us vs. them.
The list goes on.
Sorry CFN’ers.. apoptosis.
When I read Jim’s reference to “under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die” – my working assumption being that most folks in these countries have no control, and the the wealthy class who do have control, and who coincidentally live in oil producing countries have about as much loyalty to their country of origin as the top management of Goldman Sachs or IBM does to the United States (i.e. “None”).
You are correct though. On rereading, I’m sure he was referring to people in oil producing countries. I think, however, that my first assumption may be a more accurate picture of what’s really going on.
Sorry Charlie, but the Repubs are not blocking anything but further destruction by comrade Hussein and his marxist thugs. I do have to disagree with Jim about Hussein, as our marxist/muslim great leader knows exactly what he is doing, as he and his thugs, like the Tides Foundation and the Apollo Project, both run by ex-Weather Underground founders, have been planning our downfall for a long time. The rapid introduction of pre-written stimulus and healthcare plans, not to mention the amnesty and other takeover plans, running into many thousands of pages demonstrate the preparation by these leftist loons. You complain about the Chevrolet Volt, but it is a Government Motors car, financed by $200 million of our money. The Nissan costs much less, and travels 2 1/2 times the distance before needing recharging. At least Hussein has taken care of the unions, which is the primary purpose of he Volt, not to handle our transportation needs. No need to go into the millions of jobs lost under comrade Hussein, again intentional.
Angry, disgruntled chumps on the internet prattering on about how Obama is the next coming of Lenin.
Now this is some original s*** I have never seen before!
In what wing nut universe is Obama a Communist? You do realize that your talking points come straight from noted psychopath and Obama-hater Glenn Beck, don’t you? He and the other Fox News talking heads want to convince you that Obama is a socialist, Marxist, whatever.
The neo-cons were the true Marxists, always talking about exporting their democratic revolution, creative destruction, etc.
Obama is just trying to fix things. He’s doing a good job. Stop presenting the toilet droppings of Glenn Beck as some kind of gourmet meal, ya brainless dittoheads.
What indication do you have that Obama’s intentions are not good? Any evidence or are you just supposing?
cannot find his _sshole with both hands. up .hit’s creek without a paddle. These bastards are worse than cockroaches
====================
Myrtle, I am amused by your old fashioned prudishness in which the spelling out of ass and shit is avoided but bastard is okay. What are your criteria?
I have a theory on the collapse of building 7 as well as the twin towers if you’re interested in me elaborating.
===============
E-Frigg,
I can’t speak for the person to whom your reply is directed but speaking for myself … no, I’m not interested … and I don’t care if you’re I.M.Pei.
we couldnt possibly think that about your nemisis? could we Qshtik?
could we think that about you?
[author is “playing with a full deck.]
prattering
=============
pratering
envirofrigginmental, I am interested in your theory. I love hearing different perspectives. I would like to hear your theories even if you are not I. M. Pei.
PC….there are many ways to look at a civilization:
‘Of course Mexico *was* a third world country and most of their lower class people *should* have no way to go but up’…..but the economy is only one angle, the angle the power elites point the sheeple in.
actually far as i can tell life south off the border was far better before globalization!
mexico has a huge trade deficit with china.
when the peso was devalued [ 20 years ago] millions were pushed below the poverty line that day.
clinton bailed mexico out saying ‘ we have to’ or what ever but as things have worsened there the millions move here anyway.
see the disgusting peice in the NY Times sunday section…vicente fox on immigration…
[ gee how odd theyd ask him rather than ask say me or you or pat buchanon..you might also enjoy ..in that same sunday section..the 8 page piece on ‘culture new orleans style’,,drag queen dj and sissy bounce hip hop..takin it to nyc for ‘ hoodstock’ ..im not kidding..
thats their culture piece..you can see sissy bounce at you tube.
i pointed someone to it and he was horrifeid, not cultured by it.
“It’s a funny thing, how “rational” people crap on scriptures.”
==============
It’s a funny thing how many “rational” people have never even read the scriptures.
There are many holy scriptures I have not read, but here are some of those I have read:
* Bhagavad Gita
* Bahai Texts
* Bible
* Buddhist Texts
* Christian Fathers
* Confucian Texts
* The Egyptian Book of the Dead
* Gnostic Texts
* Hindu Texts
* Islamic Texts
* Jain Texts
* Mormon Texts
* Nag Hammadi Texts
* Old Testament
* New Testament
* Taoist Texts
* Shinto Texts
* Sikh Texts
* Tibetan Book of the Dead
* Urantia Book
* Zen Texts
* Zoroastrian Texts
‘I cringe in horror when I read about the futile job searches of college grads with a degree in ‘Literature’ or ‘Female Studies’ or ‘PolySci’ eegads’….well maybe they can teach [ those who cant teach, and those who cant teach can teach teachers!].
yes diminishing returns exists on many levels, and now with ‘for profit’ schools trolling for more ..uh..suckers! [esp GIs with $ from govt].
id written here about devry or somesuch offering Gis an AA degree for taking one oneline 2 or 3 credit class. no kidding.
and by paying the 4000$ or whatever the max on the GI bill is.
‘I’m not so sure there is much anyone can do to avoid the U.S. descent into a Mexico scenario’
our ‘leaders’ could at least try!
what they are doing is pushing FOR that scenario!
500,000? anchor babies a year.
and this huge backlash over arizonas law [1070?].
clearly the deck is stacked. see the NYTimes interview with our ‘friend’ vicente fox.
actually far as i can tell life south off the border was far better before globalization!
===============
The PRI was Mexico’s “official” party from 1929 until the early 1990s. PRI stands for Institutional Revolutionary Party. When the socialist PRI had power Mexico was fine.
Then Mexico elected PAN, a center right capitalist party, in the 1990s and the country went to hell.
Look at the world’s poorest countries: they are capitalist countries.
The socialists (like Venezuela), democratic socialist (like Scandanavian countries), and communist party countries (like China) are doing fine.
Get a clue people. If you use per capita consumption as the criteria for discretionary energy consumption the US wastes nearly 50% of its energy on non-essential uses.
If another country the size of the US was as wasteful – we would all be feeling the “real” effects of Peak Oil.
Simply changing our consumption rate to that of a country like Japan, could make up for the expansion of consumption of India and China for several years.
Currently our national energy policy is “use it or lose it.” That may play well for now, but it hardly helps prepare for the inevitable.
My point is that no one is even examining the hard questions. How will govern those who choose to use energy as an amusement or recreation when we see others sliding into dire straights.
So far, we got curly-cue light bulbs.
Jim,
What you fail to look at, because you are purposely programmed to look the other way, is the underground reich that has stirred and manipulated the US towards the fascist imperialist model and the national security state. The state and all the resources of the state are geared towards feeding the arms industry and the corporatist empire.
SIS-CIA-MSM propaganda priests agitate and manipulate for war, because enemies allow the wheels of the anglo-american central bank warfare/welfare model and the imperialist machine to turn. The CIA-MSM keep the world unstable to allow the Establishment political cover to spend any amount of money on arms and enrich the war profiteers. The establishment is basically the Rockefeller and Morgan clans along with the satellite families that are partnered to them. These families have run the United States as a subsidiary of their family business for over a hundred years, and it is their man that largely make up and control the CIA and the government mafia. To learn more about this I urge you to check out the Mises Institute, and in particular the excellent work done by the late Murray Rothbard, especially as it regards US economic history. Also, see Russ Baker’s latest book, “Family Of Secrets”. Baker’s book digs into the history of the Bush Family, to reveal what I’m sure to many will be startling facts concerning the government mafia and the underground reich.
“So far, we got curly-cue light bulbs.”
=================
CFL light bulbs are so yesterday. The new light bulbs are LED.
LED is the most energy-efficient light bulb you can buy. It’ll last you 10 times as long as a CFL counterpart, while creating less heat during use (after five minutes of use, an LED light bulb will be cool to the touch, unlike both CFLs and incandescent bulbs), which could equal lower cooling costs for your home.
Because there are no hazardous materials in LEDs (no mercury), they’re easily recyclable and less of a health risk if they break–and they turn on instantly.
Q,
Bastard refers to the offspring of an unmarried couple. It can be used in polite society. By the way, there’s a word I could ascribe to Ms. Clinton, but it isn’t used in polite society, outside of a kennel.
Asoka said: envirofrigginmental, I am interested in your theory
===============
Yes, E-frigg, by all means, explain your conspiracy theory to Asoka and maybe Kunstler will read it too. You know how he loves loony conspiracy theories.
…which reminds me, it’s almost 5 days since Vlad has posted a comment. Do you think he’s been banned again or is he just on the road with a U-Haul full of guns and ammo headed for Idaho?
QTIP – while we’re niggling – you should know that the word you were TRYING to correct (not even the right word), is “prattling”, as in: Noun: Foolish or inconsequential talk: “this childish prattle”. Which is the bulk of almost everything you have ever contributed here. When you need a professional, but unfortunately unemployed, proofreader to check your prattle before you post, nah – never mind. Not worth it.
budizwiser said:Simply changing our consumption rate to that of a country like Japan, could make up for the expansion of consumption of India and China for several years.
OK, how do we change our consumption rate? I have an idea. If you divide energy consumption per capita by the income per capita you arrive at a calculated energy intensity index.
Now, here is the interesting part: Studies have shown that, using the calculated energy intensity index, energy consumption is directly controlled by per capita income.
But it doesn’t stop there. An increase in energy efficiency corresponds to an increase in per capita income across the board, which is in agreement with a recent report published by the American Physical Society. The energy intensity index increases over time despite positive developments in energy efficient technologies.
So, it’s a bit more complicated than simply saying discretionary income results in wasteful energy consumption.
It’s a Catch-22.
Increased energy efficiency results in increased per capita income. Energy consumption is controlled by per capita income. An increase in energy efficiency corresponds to an increase in per capita income across the board, ad infinitum.
There is a synergistic interplay of many different variables to consider when talking about per capita discretionary income and energy consumption.
It’s also not fair to generalize “United States” energy consumption, when some states have made more efforts at energy efficiency than others. You might want to check out “Energy Consumption Trends in Hawaii” (Energy; March 2010, Vol. 35 Issue 3, p1363-1367)
Hob, this is what Turkle said: Angry, disgruntled chumps on the internet prattering on about how Obama is the next coming of Lenin.
So we’re both wrong. My correction should have read prating. See Dictionary.com
Are you, in fact, a professional proofreader? If so it must drive you nuts reading these blog comments … unless, of course, your heart is not in it and your profession is nothing more than a means to a paycheck and you are like most people: you don’t really give a shit?
“So no amount of “green” energy programs or bicycle riding or public transportation schemes or shifting economic paradigms or immigration laws will stop this biological reality. Arguing about this other stuff simply distracts us from the root of the problem. Any one of these issues above can be attributed to human overpopulation (combined with excessive consumption):” -EFM
Well now; there it is. Thanks.
Even the “fossil” aquifers are under stress. Too late, too late? Will it be a bang or a whimper?
White folks are being scared by false information.
Immigration is up in Phoenix.
Crime is down in Phoenix.
Property crime has gone down year after year.
Violent crime has gone down year after year.
Conclusion: increased immigrants means less crime.
Open the borders, as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed by the USA, stipulated.
Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in Spanish.
Gosh, I thought all this time I was some poor sucker, single parent trying to scrape by. Now it appears I have the upper hand on survival. I have been living within my means for the past 20 years. I have food stored up; the kind that lasts for years. My rent is low with expectations to match. I have been using public transportation, walking and riding my bike. This article gives me hope that others will now learn what my life has been like for some time now.
Just tonight I harvested prickly pear fruit from my neighborhood and made juice, which is very nutritious. I have my mesquite beans picked and ready to be milled into flour. Yes, I use the grocery store, but I just hate to see food go to waste. Most people in my city step on and throw away desert food. Not me. I know what’s coming in our future and I want to stay one step ahead of the game.
“My rent is low with expectations to match. ”
================
My idea of low is around $400, which can be found in parts of New Mexico.
Do you mind saying how much your rent is and how you found it and what it’s like?
Thanks so much for this list of the light reading you do … and thanks for alphabetizing it for us (although you screwed up the order of the old and new testaments and the Taoist texts should come after the Sikh texts). And oh BTW, what about Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Philosophy? Surely you must have read that.
While we’re on the subject, maybe you could explain to me what makes a scripture (or for that matter, a place, like, say, Mecca) “holy” particularly from the viewpoint of an atheist.
“…if “liking phenomenal latin music that’s bursting with rhythm and pulse and that’s led by one of the hands-down best rumba flamenco guitarists in the world,”…then have a listen to Jesse Cook:
http://www.myspace.com/jessecook.
I recommend Bombay Diner and Havana, but the entire album is great.
Ooops…the period at the end of link above is not needed:
http://www.myspace.com/jessecook
Qshtik, if you are serious, I can answer your question. The answer has to do with Husserl and phenomenology.
But I don’t want to spend the time if you are just engaging in provocation … you know, like implying an atheist cannot learn from sacred texts.
Conclusion: increased immigrants means less crime.
====================
As the good Jesuit fathers teaching Logic at St. Joe’s would tell you, your conclusion does not follow from your premises.
Reminds me of:
The population was 50-50 male and female. Therefore, the average person had one breast and one testicle.
In 1979 I picked up a book called “Muddling Toward Furgality” by a economic geographer who forcasted the current situationa and how we would get there and he has more than correct in his assupmptions.
One comment amomng many that has stuck with me and has caused me to go back and reread his book was a comment that people act and goverment reacts. Want change then the people must act even if it is illeagal for by action we create de-facto law.
Beware: The downgrading of the American lifestyle is non-negotiable. You will find that attitude in both liberal and conservative circles alike.
On one hand, you have a group of people that will not give up the big-screen TV and Hummer, while on the other, the ideal of the American Dream for all — which is dependent on a lot of resources — will not be abandoned.
The reaction to a Long Emergency — should it come to pass — will therefore be fierce from both sides.
There are those among both Asoka’s and Vlad’s circles who would probably bludgeon a guy like me to death.
No, Cows.
My circles are made of nonviolent pacifists like:
Jesus
Martin Luther King, Jr.
SNCC Leaders (Julian Bond, Bob Moses, etc.)
Quakers
Thich Nhat Hanh
Catholic Workers (Dorothy Day, the Berrigans, etc.)
Gandhi
Dalai Lama
Buddha
etc.
We would never bludgeon you.
you know, like implying an atheist cannot learn from sacred texts.
================
That is not my angle at all. I have always been annoyed by the terms holy (and sacred) as when Mecca is referred to as Islam’s “holiest” city. How can any given place or space or book be “holier” than any other … or holy at all?
I am interested to hear what you would say on this subject although, to be perfectly honest you would be wasting your time since I am totally and irretrievably convinced that it’s all a crock of shit … by which I mean, holiness has no existence outside of a contemplating mind. It’s a figment of the imagination.
A very important property of the infinite universe is that it is large enough to contain logical contradictions: since it is unbounded in time, space, combinations and laws of physics, it no longer has to obey to any principle of non contradiction. Thus the last boundary or models, languages and thought processes of our mind imposed upon reality also disappear.
Any logical contradiction, any linguistic or mathematical contradiction can be contained inside the infinite universe, our thought processes simply break down and cannot contain or model such a world, but nonetheless it is true.
For example, you can rebut that the universe is infinite in time and space but contains just one bit of information that is always set to one and never changed or can change. This is true. You can say, AT THE SAME TIME, the the universe is made up of matter, Mass – Energy as we know it in all directions for infinity and all time from the past to the future, from minus infinite time to plus infinite time. This is true. But since the universe is infinite ,it is large enough to contain both universes, they exists, AT THE SAME TIME, mutually exist, are both true even though they appear to contradict each other because infinity is large enough to contain both of them no matter how contradictory they are. Hence even logical contradiction is too small to be contained within an infinite universe.
While the Clinton’s and their newly bedded in banking family members and other favoured guests eagerly flaunt their power and privilege, by partying-on down-dudes…with a $3m matrimonial blow-out….
(Cue Hello Magazine pay-off for photos at some future point, so women throughout the global village infected heavily with the virus – Affluenza – can enviously dream on, wishing and swooning for there own prince charming to ride in over the horizon, bearing their ticket to a glittering consumption fuelled nirvana)….
Meanwhile Ms. Jarrin and her fellow four million US 99’ers quietly fade into some back-lot car seat living hell, and lest we forget the other current millions of US uber-poor families still limping along on via the good grace of food stamps…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03unemployed.html?_r=1
(Anyone here thinking, what I’m thinking?)
Now sing with me folks…
‘Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just…
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave..
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!’
“A very important property of the infinite universe is that it is large enough to contain logical contradictions…”
==================
Thank you, 8m.
I have been saying this for a long time through Walt Whitman’s poetry. But Aristotelian-logic-dominated minds don’t want to hear it.
“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!’
===============
Brave people suck it up and tough it out… what brave people don’t do is whine.
In the “home of the brave” they especially don’t whine about the cost of a privately-funded celebration of marriage between a man and a woman.
“…holiness has no existence outside of a contemplating mind. It’s a figment of the imagination.”
Do you believe this also to be true of un-holiness?
MD, do you believe in studying sacred texts outside the Jewish-Christian traditions? Which have you read?
(That’s the problem with a once powerful nation state wilfully blind to truths)
Unabashed arrogance flaunted under the watchful eye of a state-sanctioned benevolent ‘Christian’ god,with not a whine or whimper in sight, that makes it all acceptable and in good taste and morally right?
Keep sucking it in….and breathe it deep, I hope you’ve got the stomach for it…
(I guess with rampant per capita obesity you have?)
Great advice indeed!
Qshtik – indeed I have been a professional proofreader for most of the last 30 years, and you are still wrong. Look at the CONTEXT of the original comment. “Prattling” is the real word that fits. No, the typos and errors in blog comments do not “drive [me] crazy”, because it’s not in a professional environment where my job is to correct errors. I learned a long time ago to separate reading for fun from correcting professionally. I don’t correct my friends in polite conversation anymore – because it’s not polite. You seem to be permanently annoyed that everyone isn’t as smart as you. Well, they never will be – so you need to relax. And yes, I’ve always given a shit for what I do – someone has to care about the quality of our communication. You know, it’s a fairly thankless job – no pats on the back for 99 percent accuracy – yet condemnation for the one percent failure rate. I lose my job every time the economy tanks, and everyone thinks their spell checkers catch their errors. Spell checking software is worthless with names and numbers, for instance. Your “then” for “than” or “that”. Or my favorite: “or” for “of”. Good Day to you. And sorry to the rest of you for the off-topic personal nonsense. Hob
“Great advice indeed!”
==============
Yes, that is how a great country was built, by brave people, not whiners.
Now we have people whining about a celebration of marriage. It’s sick!
It is also a clear violation of one of the Ten Commandments … but who cares about that anymore, if they even know what the Ten Commandments are.
Ok, so the wedding was an ostentatious display of wealth. On the other hand, the wedding may have answered a few temporary prayers for some cake bakers, photographers, groundskeepers, tuxedo merchants, catering services, carpenters , musicians, clergymen, painters, framers …
Within the confines of the day-to-day economic forest, where the macro-view is relegated to a food search on the basement floor, and where many self-employed craftsmen, artists, and merchants have not had a commission nibble for months, the phone call from a wealthy potential client is not an unwelcome event. And that’s the fly in the big picture ointment: economic trauma and necessity obscuring and undermining long-range concerns. So it cones down to leadership and some zealous politicians willing to lose a reelection bid for their beliefs.
In the meantime, there will be plenty of the self-employed more than willing to suck on the large tit of the wealthy and who can blame them–most cannot collect unemployment when their work dries up.
The transition phase is going to be some very tricky business.
Q, I actually worked with Yann Weymouth (former Design Architect for I.M. Pei, responsible for the Kennedy Centre in Boston and the additions/renovations to the Louvre) when he was Design Director at Rosser International. What a cooincidence. Shall I get him to say hi to I.M. for you?
Anyway, my theory is a simple one. I wlil try to keep it brief.
After 1993, I suspect the security people got a little spooked. (Ya think?) They imagined an undermined tower (due to a more massive explosion) tipping one of these babies over, starting an actual domino effect in downtown Manhattan. Can you imagine the catastrophe? I can assure you they did, as I have worked with many security folks. They have more vivid (albeit dark) imaginations than architects.
The only way to avert such disaster would be to rig the buildings with explosives that, under extenuating circumstances, as 9/11 was, would bring the buildings down in a controlled manner. Better to have a few thousand die than potentially tens of thousands.
These explosives could have easily been placed over the preceding years by a small team: i.e. no complicated “conspiracy” per se. The individual’s party to this may simply have seen this as doing their “job”.
When TSHTF, let’s face it, I wouldn’t want to be the person deemed responsible for the death of hundreds of American “heroes”, would you? Again, not many people needed to be involved in the execution of such a seemingly innocuous, “security-related” procedure.
When the authorities witnessed what was happening, their fingers were placed on the trigger, waiting for one of two things to happen: signs of collapse, or direct orders to bring them down.
To me, physics rules. I don’t care what propaganda, revisionism or double-speak is out there, massive buildings such as the three major towers that collapsed, do not fall IN THE MANNER THAT THEY DID without some form of intervention. We as architects and structural engineers do not design buildings to fall straight down, pancake-style; especially with the centre cores subsiding first which is the strongest part of the building. It just can’t happen unless there is some form of intentional intervention. Tower 7 fell like a controlled demolition, despite what the report says.
In the famous film footage, the south towers top floors started to fall in one direction, but mysteriously stopped in its trajectory and corrected itself, falling straight down. The momentum from such an object could ONLY correct its trajectory by one means: having the support pulled out from under it i.e. a controlled demolition of support structures below. The videotapes don’t lie, and these weren’t optical illusions.
WTC7, when watching the footage extremely carefully, should have collapsed drawing the western portion of the building with it and subsequently lagging in time, but instead the entire building collapses almost completely symmetrically, despite the asymetric damage that is outlined in the report. Again, the only way this can happen is through a controlled demolition.
As far as the “official” reports are concerned, we all KNOW that history has proven that governments NEVER lie to their public or do anything that would harm them if it means protecting themselves from criticism… or worse.
9/11 reeks of “other” inputs.
Thank you, Hob.
Hob, I should know better than to go up against a professional with 30 years in the field BUT …
I copied this from Dictionary.com:
prate (pre?t)
— vb
1. ( intr ) to talk idly and at length; chatter
2. ( tr ) to utter in an idle or empty way
— n
3. idle or trivial talk; prattle; chatter
‘prater
— n
Notice that prate and prattle are synonymous. Turkle chose to use the more obscure of these two words. I did not quibble with that choice but mearly pointed out that there should have been one t not two. But that was wrong because prater is a noun (i.e. one who prates) not a verb. I should have advised Turkle that the word he was aiming for was prating. I could have suggested to Turkle that he use the less obscure word prattle (as you would have if you were as impolite as me) but I’m not out to stifle the flair people choose to put into their writing (like, why “four score and seven years ago” … why not “87”?)
Hob, what started out as a two word reply from me to Turkle has turned into a pissing contest that is no doubt boring other readers so this will be my final word on “prating.” But you can be sure that it won’t be the last correction you’ll see from me at this blog. I’ll be fighting the dumbing-down of the written word till my last breath.
BTW, I’ve noticed a general fall-off in the quality of once near-perfect publications as the NY Times and the Wall St Journal (as regards spelling, punctuation and grammar). Your remark about losing your job whenever there is a downturn in the economy explains it and is something I have suspected all along. Local newspapers seem to have done away with proofreaders entirely and have become an abomination.
Clarification: LED’s are not bulbs. They are light emmitting diodes.
Further, I would not be convinced that they are innocuous to the environment as you suggest. Read the list of elements that thay are comprised of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#Lifetime_and_failure
One of the elements is arsenic.
Besides, anything extracted from the earth has an impact (some more, some less depending on the process and accessibility etc.) and anything collected in significant quantities, when dumped can be hazardous to the environment. It all comes down to degrees of damage/harm.
Yesterday was a sad day for Clusterfuck Nationals. We lost the man who invented the Cheez Doodle: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100803/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obit_yohai_3
Thanks, Efrigg.
I am agnostic on what happened, but from seeing the videos, it does look very much like other videos I have seen of controlled demolitions.
So, your theory is completely plausible.
Shall I get him to say hi to I.M. for you?
============
By all means, give the gentleman my best.
Anyone Contango
No not really, if you try you lose. Can you hear the music and imagine the dance?
Contango refers to a commodity game practiced by our very “innovative” power brokers using pre-rolling of commodity pricing,causing ETFs (derivitaves on commodities) to lose money.You learn something new every day in the world of rigged manipulations by the players that can wipe out investors. There is a case that caught my eye, thanks to economic commentator(who hails from my hometown) Max Keiser, who now resides in Europe.
Contango definition by Wikipedia: “Formally, it is the situation where, and the amount by which, the price of a commodity for future delivery is higher than the spot price, or a far future delivery price higher than a nearer future delivery. This is a normal situation for equity markets. [1]”
What caught my eye was an article I copied from Bloomberg last year that referred to the storage of oil in tankers by Citibank and other financial institutions:
“Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc.’s commodities-trading unit followed BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc in anchoring a full oil tanker offshore northern Scotland to profit from higher prices later this year.Citigroup’s trade shows how the contango, caused by an inventory surplus onshore, is attracting more traders to hoard oil. Brent crude for January 2010 settlement sells for $58.97 a barrel, 30 percent above the contract for next month. Stockpiles surged as recession reduced demand, while forward prices remain higher on forecasts OPEC cuts will start to curb excess supply.”
Bloomberg 7/22/10 well worth reading. Article describes an individual who invested in U.S. Oil Fund and how he lost 50% on his investment even though the price of oil climbed 11%. If he tries to sue, the committee it comes before is rigged with cronies from the industry.
“When the futures contracts that commodity funds own are about to expire, fund managers have to sell them and buy new ones; otherwise they would have to take delivery of billions of dollars’ worth of raw materials. When they buy the more expensive contracts — more expensive thanks to contango — they lose money for their investors. Contango eats a fund’s seed corn, chewing away its value.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-22/etfs-imperil-commodity-investors-when-contango-conspires-with-pre-rolling.html
I recall hearing that the reason why large tankers were not being used sooner to clean the Gulf spill was that there were none available–hmm…
The BP fiasco in the Gulf isn’t over. They now don’t want to finish the relief well, as they think their Static Kill (pumping mud into the blowout preventer) is going to work. Some say it may not go down deep enough to bypass the damage, which only the relief well can do. Also the whole topic of Corexit is back on the front boiler, since nobody can say how much damage it has done to life in the gulf.
Q – Thank you. So actually we’re both right! And yes, the quality of our communications has been determined by TPTB to be NOT WORTH IT any more. It’s usually left to the account rep, the editor, the client or the creative people to catch their own errors – and they frequently can’t spell for sh*t. Here’s a story: the first time my job, and our typesetters, was “outsourced”, was back in 1989? Before “personal” computers. The struggling company I worked for – where we assembled scholarly and university press BOOKS on a networked mainframe computer- decided they could save a few bucks by shipping the manuscript to the Philippines, where TWO typists would simultaneously type the manuscript text. Then the file would be shipped back to us – output – then cursorily quality checked by us. The company still lost their figurative shirt – because the quality slipped. So it goes.
So, your theory is completely plausible.
================
E-Frigg, what you say has the ring of plausability however I choose to withhold BELIEF until you round up ten or more workmen who swear under oath and otherwise prove that they, in fact, placed the various dynamite charges in the buildings in question. I’d also like to hear from the guy who pushed the button that touched off the controlled demolition. Plus I would like to see the receipts for the purchases of the dynamite by whomever would be making such purchases on behalf of whomever are the powers that be.
Further, I would like to hear from the exceptionally prescient folks who foresaw the potential 911 event and were wise enough to have charges placed in the twin towers and bldg 7 and presumably other buildings. I would have to imagine that their preparations would have included some other iconic structures like the Empire State Bldg and the Chrysler Bldg at a minimum. Has anyone searched these other bldgs for the dynamite waiting there to bring them down? I could go on and on.
This is the problem with all “grand conspiracies.” They require an ever expanding web of secrecy that is virtually impossible to achieve.
Until my retirement a few years ago I held a secret clearance with the defense contractor for whom I worked. In the early ’80s I played an infinitesimal role in the development of the military GPS that lead to the common GPS that my kids ride around with today. In those days the GPS was a “black” job (i.e. secret) so I have some inkling of the effort it takes to keep a secret – even for something like an electronic gadget – much less the setting of dynamite charges in skyscrapers in NYC.
Wardoc,
I have found your comments consistently worthwhile reading since I have visited this site. I suspect that our backgrounds are identical. I wanted to write a bit about medicine in The Long Emergency a few months back when it was topical and JHK specifically mentioned Lignocaine, or Lidocaine as you call it on your side of the pond, but am still working on my rant.
I work in an environment that is undergoing an extraordinary robotic transformation, in keeping with peoples cornucopian expectations of what the late 21st Century will look like, and how medicine will function. I was of the opinion that the collapse will be insidious over two or three generations, as per The Long Descent. The longer this exuberant borrowing from tomorrow continues the more certain that I am that collapse will be sudden and catastrophic, possibly over a timescale of weeks and months, probably as a result of the paper money in our pockets becoming suddenly useless.
I agree that an 1860s style existence, rather than a Tudor one may be optimistic, and we could well be on the Road to Olduvai, given the loss of basic skills that were honed over millennia. You may be interested to look at Prof Steve Jones take on DNA analysis and the fact that the Human population almost died out as soon as we left Africa 60,000 years ago. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/steve-jones/7923782/Human-population-our-brushes-with-extinction.html Possibly as few as 80 individuals from one generation made it out of Africa. The population here in the UK was just a million in 1800 and is now about 65 times that. It is chilling to think that there is only enough rock phosphate to sustain modern agriculture for the next 30 years (leaving aside gas and oil). Of the babies born today it is very hard to see how many will reach their thirtieth birthday.
Keep up the good posts JHK
Sorry, UK population 1801 10,million with 6.5 fold increase. I have lived up to my name.
Good for you. I know people that have never read any yet are contemptuous of them. I’ve read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Revelations, Genesis, Exodus, Ecclesiastes, Job and other bits of the New and Old Testament, pieces of the Koran, some of the Gita and some commentary on Gnostic texts (Elaine Pagels). Over the years I’ve also read books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism which isn’t as good as reading the texts but you get a flavour of the thinking behind them. I would have liked to have read more but I had a line of work that was extremely demanding time-wise. Now I have time and am slowly catching up on reading I would like to have done over the last few decades.
Thanks to JHK´s post this week, there has been some 1860 bashing in the comments. Here is another perspective:
In 1860 there were banks, houses, churches, and factories. But the banks of 1860 weren´t like today´s banks that invest in toxic paper.
The houses of 1860 were well-built, not like the stapled together McMansions or double-wides of today.
The churches were places to gather and actually talk to neighbors, not the drive-up or virtual churches of today.
The food was fresher and not packaged in plastic with preservatives.
The pace of life and stress levels cannot compare. Obesity, heart attack, diabetes, etc. were not so common as today.
Going back to 1860, WITH THE KNOWLEDGE WE HAVE TODAY THAT THEY DIDN´T HAVE THEN, will not be as horrible as some would like to think. It will not be a doomsday scenario, and may actually improve our quality of life.
My apologies, in advance, for being off-topic.
Agreed on the problematic aspects of an ever expanding web of secrecy, but I assert that my theory isn’t that grand at all.
The WTC was already a target (in previous attempts) and therefore it would have been perceived as a “real” threat, versus a “potential” threat for the other large towers in Manhattan. Certainly finances would also dictate (limit) where such procedures would be applied.
I don’t know the actual physics of the different characteristics of collapse for different structural systems, but simplistically, buildings as structurally and physically dense as the Empire State and Chrysler would likely require far greater fire power to bring them down in an asymmetric way than an all steel structure and lightweight skin suchas the WTC towers, which were more pliable and lighter.
And I’m not sure anyone would admit to a) placing the charges b) pushing “the button” or c) doing an investigation to get to the point of subpeonaing these individuals at a hearing; especially now.
A fairly small team could have accomplished this task (during off-hours) over a relatively short time frame after 1993. Receipts and records could easily be destroyed.
Not so grand.
If this is not “believable” then I’d like someone to please explain the incongruencies of the collapses where the laws of physics (i.e. gravity) were suspended.
This is a troubling quote from the initial FEMA report on WTC7:
“The report did not reach conclusions about the cause of the collapse and called for further investigation:
Loss of structural integrity was likely a result of weakening caused by fires on the 5th to 7th floors. The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue. [Ch. 5, p. 31.][1]”
The final report goes into detail of the chronicle of events that precipitated the WTC7 collapse, but neglects to explain why the west half of the building followed the east almost instantaneously, when it was the structure on the lower floors of the eastern quarter of the building that collapsed first.
CORRECTION: Going back to 1860 will not be a doomsday scenario, and may actually improve our quality of life, especially if Internet dies and goes away forever (one can hope). Who knows, people might actually start using libraries and reading books again.
No. I will not accept the Doctrine of Balaam.
“In the name of toleration and unity, the Church was married to pagan gods [rulemakers], even as the Israelites had married the Moabites in the days of Moses. This is “the teaching of Balaam” in Rev. 2:14.
The Church has likewise learned the ways of Balaam. It rejected the Word of obedience that was given on Mount Sinai, so it went to Mount Zion to try again. But there it found the same God who requires obedience to HIS law, rather than man’s traditions.”
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/SevenChurches/chapter4.htm
Asoka, I have not previously ever debated a point on this site but I have to now make an exception.
I would like to share your vision. Perhaps, if everyone has the courage and forbearance to behave, be generous towards each other, and generally accept that the life of iphones, ipads ipods and iwant it now is over, swapped for one of honest sweat in the fields. Look at what is happening in Greece-armed mobs are on the rampage and the Long Emergency has barely begun.
More importantly, and decisively, the numbers of “ghost acres”, as Edward Catton describes them in Overshoot, currently being farmed, mean that when the natural gas, oil or phosphate run out, whichever comes first, we begin to starve.
The maths just doesn’t stack up, I am afraid. A significant amount of the land area is needed just to support traction animals before we even start feeding humans. A family needs 4 tons of firewood to survive a northern winter. The solar carrying capacity of the earth for humans is only one billion (before the soils were wrecked with 50 years of industrial farming).
The point of no return was probably in the early 1980s. It is now too late to power down and populate down painlessly. The course will be an exponential one, as all biological systems are. How the dots are arranged on the X axis, in terms of the timescale of the unfolding crisis remain to be seen. Things are likely to look normal for the first few years but once the toboggan ride begins the slope will constantly steepen.
Knowing what is coming and accepting what is coming is a simply enormous step that personally took me two years to swallow. It is a conversation stopper and to mention it turns one into a boring, depressive freak, as others have mentioned previously.
MD, aren’t you crapping on other people’s sacred scriptures?
No one knows what is coming and I refuse to engage in speculation, much less assuming the worst. You cite Greece, I cite Cuba.
What will happen in the USA where there are safety nets in place no one knows but I would guess the situation will continue to be managed to provide a soft landing precisely to avoid uncontrolled chaos. TPTB have it all under control. All anyone has to do is display the tiniest bit of insurrection and you will be SWAT teamed and tazered three ways to Sunday.
I agree with everything you say. The only problem with it (from the Cheez Doodle crowd’s perspective) is that the average life expectancy around 1900 was 47 years. (It’s now in the high 70’s) Life expectancy in 1860 would likely have been even less.
Hmmmm… given one of my previous posts, this might not be a problem after all.
Hmmmm… given one of my previous posts, this might not be a problem after all.
——————–
IMHO, many are way underestimating the abilities of the cheese doodlers in a problematic situation.
The USA is a nation of can do problem solvers (or good followers of those who show can do leadership). Don’t worry, be happy.
SNAFU,
Ok, man, let’s look at a little PV solar math.
This is such a big topic that I suggest we start *small* and work our way deeper into the topic as weeks go by if we are both interested.
BTW, I’ll say upfront that JHK’s post seems to have hit some nerves this week. I am seeing new individuals posting comments, and lots of comments so far for a Wednesday. We’ve also hit a vein of pessimism that needs to be “aired out.”
With that said, though, I firmly believe that if there is a way out for humanity it will be simpler living coupled with renewable energy.
PV power can help….and exploring renewables on JHK’s website should never be considered “off topic.”
Back to you, SNAFU.
Let’s look at two *myths* (IMHO, myths) concerning PV power…you can dig out some math and we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
Myth 1. PV solar will never work because conversion of sunlight to energy is not efficient enough using today’s technology. A modern solar cell has a conversion efficiency of =/- 10%. Coal fired power has a conversion efficiency of =/- 40%.
*Some* solar detractors (and I’ve seen it on this thread) look at figures like this and say solar PV has no chance of success.
I say that efficiency is immaterial to the argument. What matters is cost of PV per installed KiloWatt. $1000/KW is a common abbreviation.
I see figures of =/- $7,500/KW for new solar installations.
I’ve seen figures of $5000/KW for new nuclear.
Coal fired electricity is much cheaper, of course….but we need a correction factor for the environmental impacts of coal AND nuclear.
Myth 2:
The only way PV solar is feasible is with HUGE tax incentives and subsidies. Of course, right away this ignores the fact that nuclear, oil, and coal enjoy legacy subsidies of their own.
But I say that PV solar can compete on price today..without need for subsidies…if electric utilities adjust the prices they pay for “peak use” power…and spend as much on conservation and efficiency as they do on “new generation.”
SNAFU, these ideas are a starting point. You may think of something better.
Math, physics, chemistry, and biology got humanity into our present predicament.
If we get of this mess out without massive die-off or extinction of the species it will be because we deal with reality in terms of math, physics, chemistry, and biology.
And for all of you who are saying….let’s just slide back to 1860 and life will be good…hold on…I’ve got some ideas for you, too.
What is nice about solar (for residential and very small commercial) is the power is generated right where it is needed and used, almost eliminating line losses in our current (pardon the pun) mega grid power distribution system.
Solar also will do a wonderful job at tempering usage, which has gone out of control over the past several decades.
There is no magic bullet when it comes to addressing our energy needs. A mulitplicity of solutions will be necessary. This is where the idea of “local” will really start to emerge.
Let me go on record as not being in favor of sliding back to 1860! But we’re not going to just forget what we’ve learned over the past 150 years of head-spinning scientific endevour. We know infinitely more about soil physics and biochemistry now than we did mid-19th century. Same for microbiology, botany, hydrology, energy, the cosmos, and, most importantly I think, human history. I think we are capable of designing brilliant human ecosystems with our remaining energy, that will permit us to live simply but comfortably, and leave more time to pursue being human at our disposal. That’s something we’ve really lost along the climb up this great energy mountain. But, not to fear!, it’s something we will find again on the way down. Those who are smart enough to recognize what’s required, and ballsy enough to put it into practice at their earliest convenience, anyway.
We got our primary fall bed planted this week – one last round of summer squash, bush beans, and potatoes; some new herbs like chamomile, sorrel, and tarragon; bulb fennel transplants, several lettuces, chard, and broccoli.
My 15-bird Dark Cornish meat flock is a mere 5 weeks away from “harvest.” My new hens are well on their way to egg-laying, and my goat had a good time on the lam in the neighborhood yesterday. She came back fat and bloated so she must’ve just gorged herself…quite the stir she created!
Children are great and growing like weeds, as are my figs and grapes. Graywater cut-in, treatment marsh, and composting toilet are forthcoming as it cools down; summer kitchen, solar attic fan, blown-in insulation, metal roof, and cisterns in the spring. Three great big sugarberries are coming down soon for firewood and to make room for fruit trees this fall. Goat goes whoring at a friends farm in January. Great urban animals goats are.
Happy Hottest Day of the Year!!
Tripp out.
Ya know Frigg, one of the big downsides of being an atheist is that there is no afterlife and no omniscient being who, after the world comes to an end, will give us the complete skinny on what was true and what was bullshit. Were it otherwise, I could envision the Supreme Being decked out in His gleeming robes and flowing white beard calling the flock of souls before Him to set everything straight lest we go through eternity as full of shit as christmas turkeys.
He might begin as follows:
“The first thing I want to disabuse you of is the BS that the Jews are my “chosen” people. I have no chosen people. Capeesh?”
Second, I want that small fringe group of loonies among you (you know who you are) who think that the 1969 moon landing was staged in a movie studio in Burbank to know that the landing actually did take place. So let’s please cut the crap on that one.
Third, I don’t want to hear another friggin peep about the US blowing up its own Twin Towers. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? Please google it and read up. I haven’t got time to go into it now. Suffice to say, it was just as it appeared … the perpetrators were 19 f’d up muslims. The question about a 20th is moot so let’s move on.
Fourth, although the universe is, (or should I say, WAS) teeming with life, earth was NEVER visited by extraterrestrials so that means all the stuff about UFOs and about Area 51 is just a huge pile of crap. Similarly, the same goes for all those shows on TV where people are trying to scientifically locate and film ghosts in so-called haunted houses. Take it from someOne who knows — there were NO ghosts on earth – none, zero, zippo. To think that people sat enthralled watching these shows amazes me. And all those various and sundry gods and goddesses portrayed in Greek literature as operating in the daily lives of people … all hogwash, needless to say.
Etc, etc.
I would really miss being in that crowd of souls, laughing, and saying “whud I tell ya?”
Trippticket,
Thanks for a great and optimistic post that also made me laugh.
We’ve been thinking of getting a nanny goat for our little corner of the mountains.
And hearing you say, “Goat goes whoring at a friends farm in January.”
Almost made me spit a mouthful of homemade wine on the computer! That phrase will bring a future smile to the face of me, my wife….and probably our future nanny goat!
The first paragraph of your post is pretty good, too. I’m going to take the liberty of reprinting it with my comments IN BOLD.
Let me go on record as not being in favor of sliding back to 1860! I’M WITH YOU SO FAR.
But we’re not going to just forget what we’ve learned over the past 150 years of head-spinning scientific endevour. WOW, I SURE HOPE YOU ARE RIGHT.
We know infinitely more about soil physics and biochemistry now than we did mid-19th century. Same for microbiology, botany, hydrology, energy, the cosmos, and, most importantly I think, human history. I think we are capable of designing brilliant human ecosystems with our remaining energy, that will permit us to live simply but comfortably, and leave more time to pursue being human at our disposal. SING IT, TRIPP!
That’s something we’ve really lost along the climb up this great energy mountain. But, not to fear!, it’s something we will find again on the way down. HERE’S THE PART THAT WORRIES ME A LOT, LOOKING AROUND AT MODERN AMERICAN SOCIETY.
Those who are smart enough to recognize what’s required, and ballsy enough to put it into practice at their earliest convenience, anyway. I’M TRYING TO BE ONE OF THOSE, TOO…I JUST HOPE THERE ARE ENOUGH OF US TO SHOW THE WAY!
Thanks Tripp…Keep up the Good Work!
Erviro,
I’ve been meaning to get back to you about the Twin Towers and Building 7. Other posters have been doing a pretty good job of knocking your ideas…and I am not a conspiracy theorist…so my nature is to tend to join in.
Because I believe any National problem can be explained without a conspiracy….by using American Free Market Capitalism acting in collusion with the Government that it is busily buying.
But, Enviro, I’ll give you lots of points for a uniquely explained theory…that I had not heard before. And of course our Government would be capable of doing such a thing. Heck, we all know they have done worse than that around the Globe.
My main criticisms would be 2 points that I don’t think any one else has mentioned:
1. How does this preemptive placement of explosives change the fact that 19 (thanks Q, don’t know where I got 15 from)…the fact that 19 fanatics with box cutters changed the course of a Great Nation.
AND
*************************************************
If the US of A is capable of this sort of duplicity…to bomb our own buildings preemptively….
*************************************************
If we could do this, then…
Why did not W Bush II and the neocons simply MAKE UP SOME WMD’S IN IRAQ. It would have been so easy…right about the time of “Bush on the Carrier Deck” mission accomplished myth….
So easy to have a special ops team plant some evidence of WMD’s that “regular Army forces” could then find.
And the US and the Planet would not be in quite this exact Hell, where we’ve lost the faith of almost all countries all around the Globe.
We’d certainly be in a whole different Hell, but that’s another issue!
So, nice try, Enviro, but you’ve got a theory that does not help us moving forward…
You’re right about the Solar Stuff, though!
“Knowing what is coming and accepting what is coming is a simply enormous step that personally took me two years to swallow. It is a conversation stopper and to mention it turns one into a boring, depressive freak, as others have mentioned previously.” -C.S.
I know whereof you speak! :o)
I try to just let my “looniness” out a squeak at a time, then, kinda let it drop and drift onto other subjects. (People who are scared of discussing “THE FUTURE” tend to get onto other things quite rapidly, so it’s never a large problem.)
I am also of a mind that there’s going to be a rather steep and rapid decline (at least in this particular country). Those who have “practice” being poor are the best prepared, psychologically. IMHO, that is a very important factor. We’ve got to face the fact that a major portion of this population is spoiled and lazy. Those are the ones who will resist the irresistible (and also look for authoritarian “saviors of the sacred lifestyle”). Flexibility is key. (I suppose that would be determined by acceptance in the first instance, no?)
Appreciate your comments.
The media says Chinese are buying more cars from [ ford? chrys? gm? ] than americans. surprising since tata has that 2,000$ car and chinese can do cheap knock offs of [almost?] anything!
heres yr words/ folks can draw thier own conclusion:
White folks are being scared by false information.
Conclusion: increased immigrants means less crime.
Tripp,
Now THAT’S the kind of “growth” that’s good all ’round!
Glad to hear everything is proceeding apace. Good health to all and sundry…
Saaaaay, there are plenty of goats around these h’yar parts; I’ll have to look into their needs. (Our soil needs lots of amending; rocks grow well, however. ;o) I’m trading some grading for some good, grass-fed cow manure, so we’ll see what we can get growing.)
THANKS!!!
yes i did read the piece on ‘ the 99 ers and how congress doesnt want to give them more $’…
how many are on foodstamps in usa?
welfare? it was sad to see her there workin her laptop, survivin, her 3 children cant or wont take her in.
the clintons disgust me so i didnt read about their latest multi million doller bash. [ remember when streisand etc threw them a 20? million dollar inHOGuration? ]
‘So far, we got curly-cue light bulbs.’ full of mercury!
when you say wasted energy , does that include say, beef…20 pounds of wheat = 1 pound of beef?
asia, thank you for your post. Fact is white folks are being scared by lies being told by Arizona senators Kyl and McCain. They lie when saying Phoenix is the “kidnapping capital” and they lie when they say crime is going up in Arizona because of immigrants.
Here are the facts:
Property Crimes in AZ:
231,633 (2009)
262,130 (2008)
277,051 (2007)
281,686 (2006)
Violent Crimes in AZ:
26,094 (2009)
28,753 (2008)
29,612 (2007)
30,833 (2006)
If you look closely, you’ll notice those numbers consistently going down.
The Arizona in which illegal immigrants are constantly pouring over the border to rape, pillage, plunder, kidnap and murder Americans exists solely in the imagination of conservative politicians, their enablers in the right-wing media, and those predisposed to believe anything that supports their pre-existing worldview while ignoring everything else.
Incidentally, the story about how the Los Zetas drug cartel has taken over ranches in Laredo, Texas—that Mexican drug-lords are invading American soil—-is also completely false.
In fact, if you Google “los zetas laredo” you can scroll through at least five pages of right-wing blogs trumpeting the story without ever coming to a single actual news source.
You won’t even find the story anywhere on CNN.com. Why? Because they check facts, and there are no facts behind this one.
“MD, aren’t you crapping on other people’s sacred scriptures?”
If you had understood what I told you last Sunday, or the information at the link I provided, or the first commandment, you would be asking better questions. There is no contest.
Here’s a better explanation. Illegal immigrants are in such insular communities…with such fear of “ratting out” to established law enforcement…that they don’t report crimes.
We’ve had this problem in areas of Atlanta with high illegal populations.
Basically…If there’s no body or no trip to the hospital there was no crime.
Ironic?
Property Crimes in AZ:
231,633 (2009)
262,130 (2008)
277,051 (2007)
281,686 (2006)
Violent Crimes in AZ:
26,094 (2009)
28,753 (2008)
29,612 (2007)
30,833 (2006)
Howdy Asoka, you posted: “The food was fresher and not packaged in plastic with preservatives.
The pace of life and stress levels cannot compare. Obesity, heart attack, diabetes, etc. were not so common as today. Going back to 1860, WITH THE KNOWLEDGE WE HAVE TODAY THAT THEY DIDN´T HAVE THEN, will not be as horrible as some would like to think. It will not be a doomsday scenario, and may actually improve our quality of life.”
Here is a portion of a Fertility and Mortality in the United States, 1800-1999 chart from whence I lifted the following:
Approx. Life Expectancy Infant Mortality
Date Rate
White Black White Black
1800
1830
1840 1850 39.5 23.0 216.8 340.0
1860 43.6 181.3
1870 45.2 175.5
1880 40.5 214.8
1890 46.8 150.7
1900 51.8k 41.8k 110.8k 170.3
1910 54.6l 46.8l 96.5l 142.6
1920 57.4 47.0 82.1 131.7
1930 60.9 48.5 60.1 99.9
1940 64.9 53.9 43.2 73.8
1950 69.0 60.7 26.8 44.5
1960 70.7 63.9 22.9 43.2
1970 71.6 64.1 17.8 30.9
1980 74.5 68.5 10.9 22.2
1990 76.1 69.1 7.6 18.0
2000 77.4 71.7 5.7 14.1
Do you notice the huge differences in longevity and infant mortality between 1860 and 2000?
Fresher food? Sure when it was in season else it was canned and/or smoked and soaked in brine, as well as monotonously limited in variety. I recently ran across a passage which pointed out the tremendous amounts of salt that were used to preserve meats prior to the advent of refrigeration.
Less stress? Only for those who did not have to work for a living. Do you think OSHA was a big player in worker safety back then? Think they will be in a post peak oil situation?
Less Obesity, heart attack, diabetes, etc.? More starvation and micro-critter induced diseases coupled with plenty many injury induced life span shortening incidents/accidents.
The extraordinary pool of knowledge that we have accumulated might mitigate the potential for unpleasant living or it might not. In the 1860’s the people who went to learning centers of higher education were obviously the wealthy who were surprisingly interested in learning. I am not convinced that the residual wealthy in 2060 are going to be all that interested in learning for the sake of learning.
The likelihood is that you and I are of an age that we’ll not get to partake in the frivolities of the full on post peak oil fun and games. I am in agreement with JHK in that there is a high probability that we will see the onset of such. Unfortunately those in their 30’s and below will likely reap most of the benefits of a full on post peak crack up.
SNAFU
August 2, 2010 11:56 AM Qshtik asks an important question:
Should we make that FOUR STOOGES????
LOL!
Howdy Cupid,
Agree with your contentions wholeheartedly. Perhaps you will recall my post a few weeks back, that rieled a few folks, wherein I recommended sterilization for every male human on the planet to enable a near step function depletion of the human population to a billion or less. As you pointed out an exponential population rise in critterdom is invariably followed by an exponential fall. Too bad the critter that thinks it is too smart to have to follow the same rules of procreation that the other critters do is too stupid to recognize that it does.
SNAFU
SNAFU says:
Might not? Under what circumstances might it not?
Once you know daddy is really Santa Claus, you cannot go back to believing in Santa Claus.
Medical advances and basic knowledge not dependent on technology cannot be unlearned.
As for your life expectancy statistics, in the 1800s it is quite obvious that people often died from causes that rarely cause death today.
For example, when children were teething in the 1800s there was a practice of cutting swollen gums with a knife, which sometimes caused infection.
We have since learned that is not a good idea. Do you know anyone who cuts their teething children’s swollen gums nowadays in the belief that will help? You think people will go back to doing that in the LONG EMERGENCY.
Don’t underestimate the power of knowledge we have now that is not dependent on technology, knowledge that will save millions of lives of people who would have died in the 1800s.
Guess I screwed the table up. Looked good when I hit submit. I may try to recover it or not.
SNAFU
IF you desire to see the whole table in a legible format try this link http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haines.demography
SNAFU
“Medical advances and basic knowledge not dependent on technology cannot be unlearned”
Asoka posted this…and I wish I believed it…I truly do….but I have too much evidence to the contrary..from how the human spirit actually works.
I’ll give you a for instance….I’ve been known as the “family biologist” for over 30 years now…with my inlaws. I know the theoretical underpinnings of the human body and immunology..and now one of my sons is an EMT.
And when something comes up regarding health of the extended family….*they* will always ask the opinion of me or my son….and if it’s scary they will ask us both independently….to see if we agree…
Then….almost always…unless the condition resolves overnight….the afflicted individual will be taken to a DOCTOR.
And whatever diagnosis and treatment the DOCTOR comes up with will be taken as gospel…regardless of what my son or I say….
Now honestly…this is mostly benign stuff…thank Goodness….and there is nothing wrong with going to a doctor….usually they are right and usually they don’t kill you.
My point, though, is that the hard won practical experience of my son and me is always ignored in favor of an EXPERT.
No problem in today’s world…but if the EXPERT was chanting over chicken entrails….with a bone in his nose…..saying to cut the child’s gum with a knife…..it would not matter what my son or I KNEW as truth…because the EXPERTS are always believed.
Especially in a society under stress…
Thanks for your comments about childbirth I fail to understand why you comment on these though because from what I gather most posters here are male. What about all the lifestyle and diseases of nutrition that will most likely disappear, something to ponder. .
There is much fear death in our culture and getting familiar with it in very personal terms is something we will all have to face not just birthing women.
My great grandfather was born in 1859 his wife in 1856 they had 8 chilren all born at home all of whom survived to adulthood. My great grandmother had her last child in 1904 at 48 years of age. Unfortunately she died 6 years later in a horse and buggy accident.
They were made of stronger stuff than the average westerner is now, mostly I think because of what we eat, lack of exercise and our polluted environment. The efects of artificial baby milk which first made an appearance around this time also has much to answer for in the health or lack off in our people.
The other side of this was though that the poor who had many children close together and lived in unsanitary conditions did lose many children especially to childhood diseases when the child was weaned. Other family history illustrated this and the disparity between ancestors that lived in the towns and cities and those that lived and worked on the land and had access to fresh produce and fresh air highlights this.
The term breastfeeding, non vaxing, homebirthing, midwife from Australia
Hi progressive conserve I agree completely we are trained in this culture to consult the expert free thinking and finding out yourself is not encouraged. I see this all the time day after day especially when it relates to birth and birth choices. Well healthy pregnant women consults an Obstetrician and then are suprised that they end up with surgery. Well you engaged a surgeon to manage your pregnancy, after all it is easier than doing some research or thinking yourself.
Rejecting what everyone else is doing and finding your own way is not easy. Im not so sure that the knowledge will be retained it may be in some parts but I think it equally possible that strong personalities can influence people to do all manner of stupid things.
MD said: “In the name of toleration and unity, the Church was married to pagan gods [rulemakers]…”
============
God is one and other sacred texts promote obedience to the same God you obey: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And they are often persecuted for their belief in God, like the Bahais who are persecuted in Iran. The Bahais are not {rulemakers}, nor do they worship “pagan gods”
MD, your {rulemakers} argument is bogus.
Femme,
I am so delighted to see you back on the thread tonight. If you recall I made a comment a month or so ago concerning home birth…that you may have taken as a negative…which I regret.
Because you are the only midwife that I *know.* And it occurred to me that if one of my daughter in laws was at my house in the mountains and went into labor (which could happen) and the roads were snowed in (which could happen…but not in August in the States)and the phones and cell phones were out (which could happen)….
Long story short…femme…if I could get you on the internet you could really help me out in a situation like that…so I’m happy to know you.
More importantly for TLE…your store of knowledge could help us all out.
Regards,
C
PS…what is non vaxing? or should I ask???
As long as it was the middle of the night LOL which it usually is.
Non Vaxing as in not putting vacines into little bodies that actually need to develop their own immune defences. In Australia the Hep B vacine is OFFERED at birth in hospital. The scedule of vacines OFFERED grows each year, even chickenpox.
Im not sure what comment you are refering to but hey I have a thick skin, comes with the territory.
I think Precious is kind of cute – in a hideous way. It was hilarious at this year’s Oscar’s with everyone trying to pretend that she was some kind of beauty. Bestial Beauty at best.
You are similar to Stephen J Hawking – he said that he hoped that there was no God. Anything to avoid having to surrender to something better than one’s self. Are you so great? Don’t you ever get sick of yourself? I get sick of myself as well as getting sick of you.
Femme,
OK…cool…I looked it up on the internet and non-vaxing converted to non-WAXING….and I didn’t want to take the discussion thread off down that road…hehehe!
Anyway, Femme, good to have you here, and thanks for the response.
You and I might have a lot to argue about, but you argue in good faith…which I appreciate and honor. And you represent the feminine…which I REALLY appreciate.
It’s 12:24 local EDT…and I’m checking out.
‘night
C
PS…glad I checked your latest comment before I posted this one…what I said that may have offended was that my father was one of 14 children…all born at home…and he had seen enough of “that stuff” in the house…so I was born in a hospital…
No harm, no foul…I hope, as we Yanks say…In the States we have excellent maternity suites in hospitals…and midwives are welcome at any time…
but if TLE gets rough…I’ll want to know some more good midwives….and you may be the first one of which I think…
And Asoka has a whole nother (word? it is now!) set of arguments as to why Europe should be overrun by Muslims. The common factor in both is his hatred of everything White or Western. Obama has the same outlook. The only Whites who pass muster are those who hate themselves and work towards ending our civilization.
Blacks will not stop hating us until we are gone – “loved” out of existence by miscegenation and forced sterility based on economic slavery. The hatred is existential far more than it is historical. The history is just a guise or excuse. Fundamentally, they hate us because they feel inferior to us. And nothing can be done ameliorate this – because they are inferior to us in so many ways. Even they know that athletics and music don’t match up to a high IQ.
Indians are very frightened by the Mexican Invasion – after all, their treaties are with us not the Mexicans. The Mexicans were the enemies of the Tribes of the Southwest just as much as the Americans were. And even today, the Mexican Indians are third class citizens behind the White overclass and the huge Mestizo majority. The Maya groups miscegenated far less than the Aztec groups. They dearly wish for their own Country away from the madness and death that are Mexico. The only people who think well of Mexico are clueless, liberal Whites. They don’t hate the invaders – they hate the White victims who dare to speak out. It is sick beyond belief.
We stopped the brown flood underneath the gulf. Now we need a “top kill” for the brown flood at the border. Building our own “Great Wall” would unify us as a Nation clearly showing who were the traitors. Every few miles along the wall, there could be subway like turnstyles to allow illegals a point of exit. Repeat offenders could be used as labor to help build the wall – a fitting punishment and a way for them to pay back their debt to our society.
Interesting since Asoka believes in the Mau Mau theory of History: that Whites stole all their knowledge from ancient Blacks – who then promptly forgot everything they knew!
With the overturning of Proposition 9, the People of Califonia have been shat on again by the Federal Judiciary. The Meixcan Majority spoke out strongly along with Conservative Whites. The Whites don’t matter of course, but what about the Mexicans? When will Liberals stop oppressing people they claim to love?
Or take Black Africa: when will Liberals speak out against the centuries old Musim Jihad against the Blacks of Sub Saharan Africa?
It is so delicious to see minorities squabble. And pure entertainment to see Liberals squirm in torment as their paradigm dissolves. The Revolution will be televised at least for a while. And we will see the break down of Multicultural America. The only thing that hold it together even now is the thin blue line of White Cops.
Vlad said: “Even they know that athletics and music don’t match up to a high IQ.”
Vlad, I am tired of your Black bashing. Maybe you hate us because African-born Blacks are smarter than you?
American Blacks suffered centuries of brutal white oppression and that took its toll. But the evidence from African-born immigrants shows that Blacks are superior to whites. I can prove this from published research. References to literature provided upon request (if you are not smart enough to find them from the in-text citations.)
Black African immigrants to the United States are more likely to be college educated than ‘any’ other immigrant group, which included those from Europe, North America and Asia (Nisbett, 2002; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000).
African immigrants have also been shown to be more highly educated than any native-born ethnic group including white and Asian Americans (Logan & Deane, 2003; Williams, 2005; The Economist, 1996; Arthur, 2000; Selassie, 1998; Nisbett, 2002).
Most research suggests that between 43.8 and 49.3 percent of “all” African immigrants in the United States hold a college diploma (Nisbett, 2002; Charles, 2007; U.S. Census, 2000). This is slightly more than the percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S., substantially greater than the percentage of European immigrants, nearly “double” that of native-born white Americans. (Williams, 2005; Nisbett, 2002; Kent, 2007; The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999-2000; U.S. Census, 2000)
Dustmann and Theodoropoulos (2006) provided the first thorough investigation of educational attainment and economic behavior of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain. This study investigated how British born minorities performed in terms of education, employment and wages when compared to their parent’s generation, as well as to comparable groups of white natives using 27 years of “LFS data” (Labour Force Survey). In both generations Black Africans topped the list in both years of schooling/educational qualifications and wages/employment followed by Indian and Chinese immigrants.
African born blacks residing in western countries as a group possess IQs that are between 5 points and a full standard deviation (15 IQ points) above that of whites living in these countries (see, Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999; Richardson, 2002; Cross, 1994; Williams, 2005; Nisbett, 2002).
So that if one accepts the research suggesting direct casual relationships between academic attainment and IQ (Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999) the median IQ for African blacks residing in the west should be about 110.
This is especially true for those living in the United States and in the UK. One may also expect to find, according to much of the “corroborative” literature that relates IQ with education, approximately twice the number of African born immigrants with IQs in the 115 range, than among the general white American population (Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999; Williams, 2005; Nisbett, 2002); and more than twice the number of African immigrants in the 125 IQ range (see Gottfredson, 1998; Nisbett, 2002; The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999-2000).
For example, in the United States, African born blacks and their offspring have been reported to exceed American born whites in several of the most cognitive socio-economic indicators – ‘the areas of educational attainment and occupational status’ — in ways that are virtually identical to the gaps observed between native born white and black Americans (Nisbett, 2002; Charles, 2007; Le, 2007; Le, 2007; US Census Bureau, Census 2000. “5% Public Use Microdata Sample.”).
Some advantages to using academic attainment comparisons for the analysis of major group differences in IQ in Western industrialized nations are that they provide very big numbers, sample sizes often in the hundreds of thousands, that are genuinely random; and consequently specific ethnicities can be compared with statistical confidence.
Evidence shows that the differences in overall educational attainment observed between African born blacks in the United States and UK and native born whites are quite spectacular.
Indeed, if one chooses to adopt the racial hereditarian thinking of Jensen (1980), Herrnstein and Murray (1994) or Gottfredson (1998), these disparities become suggestive of underlying intelligence differences between the two populations; with these differences in “strong favor” of African born blacks.
Ah yes the birth is messy comments very used to that.If that is what you were refering to ? Or perhaps it was seeing babys come out of vaginas ? I should also have put down I also not into waxing shaving or body hair removal either. Bring back the bush lol
Way to go Asoka, stick it to Vlad and his racist ways — that,really, as far as the powers that be are concerned, promote a divide and conquer agenda.
We need to stand up against the fucks who — to borrow a phrase from my sarcastic friend, Brian — want to build wall-to-wall Wal-Marts. And the best way to do that is to realize that, white or black, if you’re not a member of the elite you are a N****R.
Be that as it may, I must say I see a flaw in the African-born blacks analysis Asoka presented. African-born immigrants should — of course — definitely exceed the average in terms of IQ. After all, they are the elites from a large continent who are emmigrating (because they have the resources, etc.) to a First World country. We’re not talking about, after all, the poorest of the poor in a country like Chad.
The elites of any race — be they white or black — are going to kick ass wherever they go.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Please pardon me while I down the 12th G ‘n’ T of the night.
Actually, as much as I hate your divisive ideas on race, from my experience, you are correct.
I’ve known some American Indians over the years whose reservations were overrun with meth after illegal immigrants exploited legal jurisdictional loopholes in order to deal methamphetamine on the tribal territories. Let’s just say, there is some hostility involved, at least coming from the tribal people I associated with.
Though I generally see Mexican immigrants as good, hardworking people who simply want a better life, if my, say, sister became addited to meth due to an influx of the drug courtesy of Mexican gang members into my reservation, I would be bitter too.
Hello.
Lithium is not a rare earth element. It is an alkali element. Elements in this family have 1 electron in the outermost s -sub shell and no electrons besides that in the outer shell. They tend to be highly electro-positive and large relative to atoms of similar atomic number. The alkali elements are the following: lithium (with atomic number 3), sodium (atomic number 11), potassium (atomic number 19), rubidium (atomic number 37), cesium (atomic number 55), and francium (atomic number 87).
You said
“you say wasted energy , does that include say, beef…20 pounds of wheat = 1 pound of beef?”
How about 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of wheat? Anyone that thinks growing beef is bad for the planet, consider this:
Natural gas for the fertilizers (generally shipped from offshore, so add in bunker fuel in the ships and barges for transport)
Diesel to plant, spray, harvest, ship, process, package, ship, etc, etc,
Oil for the pesticides,
When modern agriculture runs out of diesel and natural gas, and the land reverts to native prairie to rejuvenate itself, the most cost effective, low maintenance harvesters of the grass will be the cows (animals). Rather than export the nutrients from the field they cycle it on site, other than the feed efficiency ratio of grass to growth. And they reproduce themselves with out too much trouble as well. It would (will) look a lot like the bison that roamed the prairies prior to us getting here.
Need some grass fed manure for your tomato plot? There will be lots of it around.
On our small farm in the central prairies of Canada, we generally pick up a couple dairy steers (cheap or free because they cant produce milk) in the spring and let them graze the grass in and around the yard. In the fall when the grass runs out, we whack ‘em and cut them up, freeze and eat them.
Same with a couple pigs. Best recyclers on the planet, will eat anything (table scraps, compost piles, the bread and fruit the grocery store is throwing out). Give them a bottle of home made wine that has gone sour each day for a couple weeks before you whack them, and you have tenderized, marinate pork for the winter.
I’m a meataterrian. It’s a personal choice. Good for the planet also.
I would think that African immigrants are, in general, the cream of the national intellectual crop, hence their ability to immigrate. Thus, I don’t buy your unfortunate assertion that African-born immigrants are “superior to whites.” What I do agree with you on, however, is the legacy and deleterious effects of systemic/institutionalized racism. It’s rather ironic that many whites tout the potency of lineage on one hand while suggesting that centuries of oppression should be immediately hurdled and devoid of a bitter aftertaste.
I once knew a highly intelligent African immigrant. He was from Ethiopia and he had a magnificent countenance. A very striking individual. He devoured all books spiritual and he called me on the phone for weeks raving about Rajneesh’s “ The Mustard Seed” which I gave to him. His enthusiasm,zest for life and the sheer evangelical bent of his nature which shouted to infinity regarding any particular subject he was studying at the moment, is my lasting impression of Yennewatta, or Yenni as I called him.
We were studying with a former Soviet artist who was granted an artist of special ability visa–this chap had works in major Russian museums. Anyway, Yenni’s enthusiasm dominated our discussions, to the point he was all-talk and I was all-listen–my head never stopped bobbing an up and down “uh-huh’ during these “conversations”. Finally one day I managed to interject –I felt guilty for doing so, strangely enough–and stated, “ Yenni, the reason you’re not a good portrait artist, and the reason you will never be a good portrait artist, is you never learned how to really listen–you squelch out the ineffable with your verbal dominance and it shows in your work”.
My ‘listen with the eyes’ castigation was not well received and that was the end of that friendship.
Sucking on the large tit of the wealthy, swimming pool owning, suburbanites here in Philly is still quite enjoyable. The most amazing element of all is their complete dismissal of the whole bleak situation. While I am currently making a living off these arrogant hogs, I think it will be more fun observing the oncoming trip to the slaughterhouse.
“God is one and other sacred texts promote obedience to the same God you obey…”
You are intentionally confusing worship with obedience.
“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against YHWH, and against his anointed, [saying], Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: YHWH shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure [what some would call TLE]. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: YHWH hath said unto me, Thou [art] my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give [thee] the heathen [for] thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth [for] thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve YHWH with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.”
People obedient to God will acknowledge [trust] Jesus Christ as the legitimate ruler of this planet. All others are pretenders.
Wage, last week you wrote me a blurb about architecture. Maybe my wires are crossed but I think you meant to reply to someone else.
“Fundamentally, they hate us because they feel inferior to us. And nothing can be done ameliorate this – because they are inferior to us in so many ways.”
This is the same justification judaism uses to oppress the “goyim”, even though it’s BS.
I get sick of myself as well as getting sick of you.
================
Whoa there Vlad, what’s up with the personal attack? Surely it can’t be the “dating Precious” remark. That was funny. And who but me even acknowledged your absence of 6 days … unless you didn’t appreciate the U-Haul full of guns and ammo spoof.
As to Stephen Hawking, if it’s true that he said he hoped there was no God that would make me the opposite, not the same. I am fairly certain there is no God but I would be pleased to awake after death to discover I was all wet.
Do I get sick of myself? Not sure what you mean by that but on the surface I would have to say “no, not really, I am pretty comfortable inside my own skin.” (I have to admit that I’m sometimes sick of myself when I make a bonehead mistake in the market.)
Whenever I’m feeling down it’s usually because I’m suddenly reminded of the fucked up state of the world. Like yesterday when I read the whole story about the black truck driver in Manchester, CT who flipped out and killed 8 people and himself. And then there’s the Iranian(?) woman who is going to be stoned to death for adultery.
But when the news brings me down low I think about my 3 kids (34, 32 and 30) who are all employed and making their way (tenuously) through life. I do wish one of them would have a kid and make me a grandfather. I hate the thought that I might be the last of a line that started with Adam and Eve and ends 5, 10, 15 years from now.
“Serve YHWH with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.”
People obedient to God will acknowledge [trust] Jesus Christ as the legitimate ruler of this planet. All others are pretenders.” -MD
Ummmmm, just WHO wrote these words anyway? Someone who desired power over others, might you suppose? A “pretender”, perhaps?
Vex me, and I’ll vex you right back; that’s the way it goes, sorry. (At least until we get our 8mm “correction” chips implanted.)
Many years ago I read a book by a Jewish writer who’s name I cannot remember. And I can’t remember the named of the book either. That’s the trouble with age, your fucking memory goes. Anyway he said that the way people worship would not be seen favourably in God’s eyes because he specifically forbade idolatry yet what people do when they worship is pretty much idolatry.
He said that was God wants from us is what he got from the old prophets ie dialogue. He gave the example of God being really pissed at some city or other and vowed to destroy it. A prophet took him to task over this and said for the sake of 500 good men would you spare the city (or something to that effect). God said yes. So then the prophet said what about for the sake of 200 good men and God said yes for the sake of 200 good men he would spare the city. So the prophet worked God down and down until in the end God said for the sake of these few good men he would spare the city. So he spared the city.
Another example he gave was when God was really pissed about our generally bad behaviour and vowed to destroy the Earth again. So a prophet held him to account and said didn’t you say you would never do that again? What about the post deluge covenant? So God said you know you’re right. So he spared the Earth.
Anyway what this Jewish writer said was that God does not want tremulous little weenies cowering and bowing and covering their eyes, he wants strong, respectable upright men that will listen to Him but will also look him in the face and say what they have to say. According to the writer, we fall way short. Maybe this explains the lack of modern day prophets. There’s nobody God wants to talk to.
Howdy Asoka, You posted “Might not? Under what circumstances might it not?”
It appears to me that the incredible technological advances of the last 100+ years have been accomplished largely on the back of the energy pool afforded by OIL. Therefore in a post peak oil situation wherein cheap energy is no longer available having the knowledge to do does not equate with the capability to do. For instance, the mechanisms by which special weapons (nuclear) function have been understood by a large segment of the Earth’s scientists/physicists for at least 60 years; however, the capacity to turn that knowledge into viable weapons was and still is not widely available.
SNAFU
Fortunately
SNAFU
Looks like whats his name from Wisconcin may be right after all with his ideas about debt forgiveness!
http://blogs.reuters.com/drudge.html
Jerry Johnson
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2006/12/not_so_wonderfu.html
There seems to be some confusion about what are the rare earth minerals. They are generally define as elements with a filled s sub shell in which the next shell to be filled is an inner sub-shell,the f shell which lies relatively close to the nucleus. Thus these elements all have fairly similar properties and are consequently difficult to separate. The lathanide series is the typical rare earth series and contains the following elements:
lathanum (atomic number 57)
cerium
praseodymium
neodymium
promethium
samarium
europium
gadolinium
terbium
dysprosium
holmium
erbium
thulium
ytterbium
lutetium
Notice that there are 14 elements in this group.
That is due to there being that many places for electrons in the f sub-shell. The s sub-shell (with quantum numbers l = 0 and m = 0)has 1 orbital and can accomodate 2 electrons. The p sub-shell (with quantum numbers l = 1 and m = -1,0, or 1) has 3 orbitals and can accomodate 6 electrons. The d sub-shell (with quantum numbers l = 2 and m = -2, -1, 0, 1 or 2) has 5 orbitals and can accomodate 10 electrons. The f sub-shell (with quantum numbers l = 3 and m = -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, or 3) has 7 orbital and can accomodate 14 electrons. Can see the pattern here. Given that the principal quantum number n (which is associated with the row in the periodic table and gives the shell) is an integer. Then l, the polar quantum number (which gives the sub-shell)varies integrally from 0 through n-1. m, the azimuthal quantum number (which gives the orbital) varies from -l through 0 to l. Finally, the quantum number s, which is associate with a fourth degree of freedom for the electron, called spin, has the value + or – 1/2. Thus the number of electrons in a given subshell is equal to the number of orbitals in that subshell (given by the quantum number m)multipled by 2.
Will continue this later by listing some of the other elements that are termed transistion metals and giving their quantum numbers and some other features. Note that lithium and none of the other alkali metals in Group I are among them.
You got it! God does not want worship for His benefit. It is simply good for us to appreciate Him and what He has done [reality vs. our version of reality}. IOW; you can worship an IMAGE {a false representation} of the true g-o-d {rulemaker} just as you can worship an image of a false g-o-d {rulemaker}. They are both false.
This is the problem with smorgasbord religion; it appeals to the self-centeredness and self-righteousness of man, as if we were the deciders of right and wrong. And I am the first to admit {nay – to scream from the housetops!} that the scriptures have been misused by nicolaitans {which thing Jesus hates} and balaamites to lord-it-over and take advantage of the people.
There is no god.
Notice that there are 14 elements in this group.
===============
Tree, I count 15 names on your list, not 14.
Also, what about linoleum? I think it comes after Hardwood and before Pergo ;o)
God does not want worship for His benefit.
===============
Messi, as a rather insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things, aren’t you even the slightest bit embarrassed to be telling the rest of us what THE SUPREME BEING does or doesn’t want? Really, it seems to me that that takes a gigantic pair of brass balls … unless, of course, you’re in regular direct two-way communication with HIM.
Q, (and Progressorconserve) I am not suggesting that the US government had the twin towers (and others) bombed, although the sophistication of the 9/11 operation and other curious incongruencies of the overall story make me wonder (like, where was all the wreckage of the UA flight 93??? and why does the hole in the Pentagon not resemble an airliner in both size and configuration??? but I digress), but simply that there needed to be a pre-emptive strategy to bring down those buildings (WTC 1 and 2 for certain, and perhaps 7) in the event of another attack.
Once *they saw what was happening, they were prepared to bring the towers down. The stakes were too high to let the situation get out of control. The loss of life as a result of demo’ing the towers would pale by comparison to the domino effect. And if you don’t believe that buildings can topple over, there is this famous example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1196064/Tumbling-tower-China-Amazing-pictures-13-storey-block-flats-toppled-over.html)
(* “They”, of course, being a small team of controlled demolition members and some arm of the government.)
I am aware of Occam’s Razor and believe that my theory is fundamentally NOT that complicated and does not require an intricate maze of sub-plots and tenuously connected contrivances.
The few who would have to keep this secret would consider it as the honourable thing to do. There would be no advantage to make it public. C’mon guys. You should be well aware of all that hand-on-the-heart-do-it-for-the-country stuff.
I hate cheesy acronyms, but Q, you had me LMAO on that one! Too funny!
Q is also an atheist.
I have a simple question:
If one cannot prove the existance of God, then how can one prove there isn’t one?
(I am agnostic.)
O3! Good on ya for trading labor for shit. You and I just about have this peasant thing figured out;) (A great scene from Monty Python’s Holy Grail comes to mind, where King Authur is trying to pursuade the two mud gathering peasants of his sovereignty via Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake!)
There’s a lovely bit of filth down here!
Man I love improving soil. My garden beds, despite the native sand, look so good after a season of meddling. Use tons of organic matter, anything you can get your hands on, but particularly composted manure and straw, encourage the fungi to help you mine that mineral wealth from the bedrock (MycoGrow at http://www.fungi.com), and trust your plants to help themselves. I always use some plants immediately to help establish new beds. They have a better feel for what needs to happen than we do, and are capable facilitators. They don’t always thrive right away, but eventually something clicks and they take off! That’s where the spirit of organic really separates itself from conventional ag to me: the trend is always toward better tilth, more humus, higher CEC, more water-holding capacity, and more biodiversity, not away from it.
As Permaculture Activist magazine editor, Keith Johnson, says, “Be fruitful and mulch apply!”
Later, G.
To all,
Here are opposing views on the mosque proposed to be built near ground zero.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/opinion/04wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
I am interested to know what you (all) think about this issue.
Hello, lovely Georgians! We really have it made down here, don’t we? We can grow damn near anything with our climate, we’re not overly regulated, we have beaches and mountains, trout streams and lakes full of bass, lots of pigs and deer to eat, and our forests regenerate at breakneck pace. Good luck to those people who live in places where the natives never had the resource density to progress beyond tribal organization! Tens of millions of white bread WalMart junkies should have no problem though;)
So, looking at it from a Jared Diamond perspective, where societies grew and organized based on ample resources, where should Americans live? I’m guessing the Southeast, the Ohio Valley, the Mississippi Valley, and the coastal Pacific Northwest. And we ought not expect to live at the densities the aborigines could.
By my accounting, that would point to a 1 in 6(ish) ultimate survival rate, even for this resource-rich country. If we are very good.
(You are in Georgia, right?)
So POC, I say get that goat! And get her out whoring quick as you can. They can convert the most insane things into pretty tasty meat. Poison ivy? Not on my property!
And I agree that modern ‘Muricans are going to have a REALLY hard time with this. We have a lot of work to do, no doubt.
Q,
I, too, am LOL, ROTF (rolling on the floor, according to my grand kids)!
As a ‘ member of a tribe’ I can only speak for myself.you know my tune.
natives are an oppressed people.
i assume all [ repeat all] prefer the devil they know to the one they dont.
‘they’ want a better life so much theyll steal yours and bring you down in the process!
‘ simply’ isnt the proper term to use.
E-Frigg, Dictionary.com lists atheist, agnostic, infidel and skeptic as synonyms and then it goes on to define each, showing the subtle differences (see below).
When push came to shove I used to tell people “I’m an agnostic” but that started to sound like a cop-out. Finally I had to admit to myself that I simply don’t believe in the existence of God so now I tell people “I’m an atheist” and my new cop-out is that “I hope I’m wrong.” I don’t worry about the issue of proof anymore. It is sufficiently obvious to me that nothing can be proven one way or the other.
—Synonyms
Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings. An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity. A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.
ahem:
Wisconsin …
more indictments [ 14?], and not just blacks from minneapolis!
jihad recruiting of us born muslims is increasing.
yet the govt continues to encourage immigration to the usa.
and you saw the aclu is working with the dad of that alleged terrorist in suit agains cia?
the one whos in somalia?
jenny [ your term ] destroyed
little z [ again yr term ] destroyed
when will you destroy asoka?
‘By my accounting, that would point to a 1 in 6(ish) ultimate survival rate, even for this resource-rich country. If we are very good’
i dont ask IF I ask when?
Please pardon me while I down the 12th G ‘n’ T of the night.
================
Gin and Tonic is my drink of choice during the heat of the summer too (and BOY has it ever been hot as hell, not that I believe in the existence of hell). I do mine with a wedge of lime.
I hope you’re kidding about “the 12th G ‘n’ T of the night.”
Hi Vlad. My basic reasons for being against illegal immigration are two. First, I think we have enough people in the country as is, without allowing millions more to come in illegally. With the amount of Mexicans coming here, it’s not immigration, it’s an EXODUS from Mexico to here. For people who think there’s plenty of room left, I would invite them to start taking immigrants into their homes and then ask them when they think there are enough of them. People are always willing to accept overpopulation as long as it doesn’t impact them directly. The second reason is just plain numbers. I understand that the vast majority of illegals are just hardworking, honest individuals who only want a better life, and that there are only 1 or 2% who are criminals. However, look at what that 1 or 2 % is doing in Mexico right now. Indiscriminate killing in the cities, open war with the Mexican government, in other words, anarchy propagated by drug cartels. Now imagine a United States where the largest population group is Mexican. That same 1 or 2% is gonna follow them right up here, and no doubt will be pulling the same shit here as they do down there. It’s not the average Mexican I’m against, it’s the bullshit that follows them. If you don’t believe me go to California, I lived there 40 years ago, and even then, you didn’t go into a Barrio unless you were Hispanic. If you did, you would be assaulted and/or killed. Something tells me that it hasn’t got any better either. So those of you who don’t think there’s any harm in illegal immigration, go ahead and let them in, just make sure they are living in your house and neighborhood. Sure, it’s too bad it has to be that way, but that’s the reality, and sometimes reality can’t afford to be politically correct.
ahem:
Wisconsin …
===========
I guffawed loudly at this correction of Scott’s spelling coming, as it did, from Asia and whatnot.
P.S. to Asia, I suspect Asoka and I will both be around till one of us is taken by natural causes. Wouldn’t it be ironic if his adobe hut collapsed on him?
If I told you I had daily two-way communication with God it would not change anything about what you believe. I’m not asking you to have faith in me. I’m not even asking you to have faith in God.
I’m begging people that say they believe in Him and “love” Him to repent {change their minds} and start obeying Him. Until that happens, the chastisments will not cease.
I don’t blame unbelievers for their lack of faith, I blame those who say they love Him with all their “heart, soul, mind and strength” for acting just like everyone else “in the world”..
Quistik,
Would you please do as MD says so that he chastisments will end? I’ve had enough of the chastisements.
so…had enough of the chastisements have you?
Quistik, [ not the way he spells his handle]
Would you please do as MD says so that he chastisments will end? I’ve had enough of the chastisements
‘ he chastisments ‘ ????? chastisements.
where is MR Q when we need him?
‘ I think it will be more fun observing the oncoming trip to the slaughterhouse’
when the ship sinks we [ almost ] all go down!
history:
Left out Mexican/US history is the “Zimmerman telegram” which actually was the straw that broke the camel’s back and that got the US into World War I. In the telegram from the German foreign ministry, Germany was promising Mexico a return of their former land if Mexico would come into the war on the side of Germany and keep the US too busy to support the allies much in Europe.
This was the final provacation to get Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on Germany.
In World War II, Mexican sympathies were with Germany and the government most likely had hopes that a German victory would lead them to regain the US Southwest.
That “c” looked quite out of place immediately after posting it. Thought about apoligising immediately upon recognizing my error but really didn’t think anyone was paying attention. thx!
“more indictments [ 14?], and not just blacks from minneapolis!
jihad recruiting of us born muslims is increasing.
yet the govt continues to encourage immigration to the usa.
and you saw the aclu is working with the dad of that alleged terrorist in suit agains cia?
the one whos in somalia?” -asia
Lawdy, Lawdy, ha’mercy, but that’s some really cowardly, distracted shit.
You want to go there? Go by yourselves; it’s not worth the energy of those of us who might want to be thinking about some survival stratagems.
Generally, you’ve cogent [and controversial] comments to bring to the format. This ain’t one of them.
My ex wife kicked the bucket and since she didn’t have a will, her insurance company sent me the check because our son, the beneficiary is too young to receive a check. My $40,000 child support arrearage went away as well even though I wasn’t relly in arrears, I couldn’t prove it. Oh yeah, my domestic violence case was expunged too.
“If one cannot prove the existence of God, then how can one prove there isn’t one?” -EFM
Ahhhh, that’s quite easily done! We’ll shuffle off this mortal coil (or “to Buffalo” if that will suit), and discuss it further after that irreversible happenstance. ;o)
….Which begs the question: “Can one ever REALLY “return” from Buffalo?” Hmmm, I’m not entirely convinced one CAN! (Cue “Twilight Zone” theme…)
Tripp,
Thanks for the link.
I’m entirely fascinated with the fungi stuff (as we’ve become overrun with many forms of it in the last couple years). Must be the warmer winters.
I’m hoping if “I’m good” these all-pervasive spores will keep the “bad” bugs down, but I don’t think it works that way. lol
I’m sure if they (uncountable fungi) could take down those [we might consider] inconvenient insects, I’ll be easy pickin’s for ’em afterwards. ;o) Oh well, such is life [in its’ largest sense].
Q,
Finely drawn and very droll. :o)
That’s a lot more than “snark”; there’s a point to that epee!
Thanks for that; I definitely could not have couched it that well.
Obama is not to blame… he has good intentions… If Obama really believes that electric cars….
(“IF”????? – are you retarded?). How long are you going to continue to drink the koolaid? Obama is a lame duck and dangerous to the Republic?
Complete these sentences….
I believe Obama has been a good and effective leader/president because….
Obama is blowing a trillion $$$ in Afghanistan instead of rebuilding our infrastructure because…
Jim – you cannot answer with “he is a victim of circumstances” or “he means well”…
You are such an intelligent, perceptive guy, but you have this massive blind spot… You just want Obama to be “The One”… Well, he’s not and unfortunately he is not going to be either. What will it finally take for you to call Obama for what he is… a lying, ineffective political hack?
Why a TLE Slide Will Not End in 1860
(and may end more likely at BCE 10,000..at best)
I have been thinking about my mom’s father a lot lately. He was born in 1887. He taught me most everything I know about farming…although I didn’t realize I was learning things at the time.
One of my favorite jobs when I was helping him was to hold an ear of dried corn in front of the mule to keep her “gentled down” while Granddaddy got the harness on.
(That was one wonderful animal, btw, I could ride her bareback all around the pastures..holding on to her mane and grinning the whole time.)
After helping get the harness on, the single tree hooked and the plow lines adjusted… I would try to follow my granddad as he plowed for the rest of the day…hoping an arrowhead would turn up in the warm Georgia clay. Good Times!
If a fast sliding TLE hit North Georgia…the only way I could imagine a workable survival strategy would be through *channeling* my granddaddy. He could have walked around my little “farm,” making suggestions and doing in one Hard Hungry year…. work that would take me 10 years.
And this is a complete mental exercise. The man died in 1967. He would be 123 years old this year, had he lived.
But the knowledge, the skills of technology and animal husbandry…. that he performed as naturally as breathing…are mostly, sadly… lost forever.
I know a lot of farmers, still. They would mostly be incapable of doing much of anything these days without petroleum fuel, hydraulics, and PTO’s.
I’m not saying that’s good or bad…it’s just a simple fact….human nature gravitates to the EASY and COMFORTABLE…and old ways are lost.
(BTW, this is why we need to be careful about recommending REFRIGERATORS to peoples who presently live sustainably! It’s an idea that reeks of hubris.)
Tripp may be optimistic in saying that we’ll be lucky to have 1 in 6 survival.
That’s why I push PV and renewables, controlling US populations, and conservation of resources.
A man’s gotta hope!
“…But the knowledge, the skills of technology and animal husbandry…. that he performed as naturally as breathing…are mostly, sadly… lost forever.”
I hear you; my ignorance is what I fear most of all.
Firstly, as other poster already said, some of these immigrants may be the creme de la creme and thus not a representative sample. But what may be more to the point is the “affirmative enrollment” that foreign students enjoy over native born Whites. It is a repulsive, abhorrent situation. How did AA morph into a monster that aids people who never suffered any discrimination in America? It didn’t take long – suddenly Hispanics were included and that was with absolutely no public debate that I’m aware of. And from there to infinity.
Much as you hate me now as a kind of racial Scrooge, in time you will come to love me as a Truth Teller. I will change as you grow in vision.
I’ve heard that even George Bush admitted that 10% of the illegals were criminals. And of course, from another point of view they all are. But be that as it may – every one of them, both the good and the bad, is a weed. My next door neighbor asked my for the definition of a weed when I was a little boy. I didn’t know. He said a weed was any plant that was where you didn’t want it to be.
We need those jobs now for our own people. And we don’t need anymore people. People who compare the situation now with that of the early twentieth century are hopeless. The economy is no long growing exponentially like it was then. Plus now we know that there are limits to the ecosystem – 300 million is already far too many.
Our country is no longer young but rather middle aged. We are naturally set in our ways – it’s inevitable and entirely healthy and normal. We cannot cease to be an Anglo Saxon/Germanic/Celtic Nation. If we try to be something different, we will end up being nothing at all. Neither the Mexicans nor the Africans can ever play any role here. They have no intention of conforming nor do they have the real ability to even if the desire was there – for the most part. Wisdom is the acceptance of this fact. And maturity is the committment to try and do something about it.
If I told you I had daily two-way communication with God it would not change anything about what you believe.
=================
After reading the above sentence I did a google search and discovered that there are pages and pages of sites dealing with people who hear voices in their heads, hold conversations with these voices, etc. Then, one of the links lead me to yet more pages of sites all on the subject of holding regular two-way conversations with God. (I shit you not .. pages of them.) I clicked on a few of these sites and the common thread was that how-to CDs were available for purchase. Some even had electronic shopping carts to drop your purchases in like Amazon.com. Some also had a button titled DONATIONS. In a few cases a picture of the site’s proprietor appeared – always an exceptionally handsome, clean-cut and conservatively dressed male around 35 to 40 years old. I’ll tell ya Messi, these people who communicate directly with God have their marketing programs down to a science.
But what I want to know is: does God have an accent like, say, Brooklynese or (more likely) upper-class British, and does he really use the word “thou” a lot like in the Bible? And when it’s your turn to talk do you have to speak the words out loud or can you just think them? I have a lot more questions in this vein but lets just go with these few for starters.
BTW, depending on whatever kind of work you do for a living, I’d be careful about mentioning to my boss or co-workers anything about these two-way conversations you’re having with God, if you get my drift.
Nothing personal – you’re one of my sparring partners. I’m like you – I hate everyone sometimes and to some extent. In Buddhist psychology, wisdom is the higher correlate to hatred. So we are hate/wisdom types. Wisdom is symbolized by Manjushri’s sword of discrimination. It’s up to us whether we wield it well or not.
Tell your children how you feel. Demand a grandchild as payback for all you’ve done for them. Maybe I could marry your daughter – now that I’m spacing the dash properly I’m almost family anyway. Might as well make it official.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/news/economy/wheat_prices/index.htm
Read the above link everything is fine.
I am trying to get in shape, looking at diets, exercise programs, the new 24 hour gym for only $11 a month. I started instead to prepare for the long emergency, walking biking,gardening,eating( trying to) real food. WOW, the future energy descent world will elminate the obesity problem. See everything is good, unless Zombies become part of the long emergency.
I hope you don’t really believe that Blacks are our equals. Superficial comparisons are the bane of our intellectual life.
Yes, actually the Jews are a bit smarter than us – but the difference is nowhere near what it is between Whites and Blacks. Their success is a more explained by their mutual cooperation, ruthlessness, and plain old hard work. Historically, some Whites may have envied the Jews sometimes. But it was their meddling in politics and with the economy that got them kicked out of one nation after another. Plus their boastful arrogance and contempt for Christ never went over too well either. You can boast about your smarts or your sucess and it might all be true. But what you can’t boast about is how good you are. The very act of so doing negates it. The Jews do this constantly and it really shows the discerning where they are coming from.
Why shouldn’t we be able to live as densely as the Indians did?
How are the climate and soil of Eugene, Orgeon for farming?
A terse one-statement response, Turkle,
but it’s about time someone tried to
blast a breeze back at the holy rollers
who always seem to populate these sites.
The amazing thing to me is: The Bible
itself talks about FAITH as a center-piece
of worship and IDOLATRY as a mortal sin.
Yet virtually every one of these holy
rollers imagines that “God” has formed
a pipeline to their puny brains and
souls. This is idolatry to an amazing
degree because to imagine that you KNOW
about God’s PERSONAL plan for you is the
formation of an IDOL, an internal image
of God.
Turkle, I’m glad that you didn’t actually
try to engage in a full conversation with
any of the rollers. It’s fruitless. You
see, they’re “superior” to us “heathen”.
I close with a quote which speaks to the
above with eloquence by one of America’s
greatest writers ever … H.L. Mencken
“God is the immemorial refuge of the
incompetent, the helpless, the miserable.
They find not only sanctuary in His arms,
but also a kind of superiority, soothing
to their macerated egos; He will set them
above their betters.”
E.
I’ve heard that shit can be used as fuel – or is this just true of cow shit? Also, the Hindus believe it has disinfectant qualities. Some even drink cow urine…for health!
If you want some of my shit, just leave your address and I’ll send it. Properly aged of course.
LOL. Thanks for your concern. 12, perhaps not, in hindsight. But it felt like it.
The origin of Space – Time comes from the existence of monolithic slabs of pure logical – mathematical contradictions: an elementary particle (or item) composed of an invariant monolithic slab of pure logical contradiction. This is because the existence of the contradiction creates:
1) Time as the stage that allows a sequence where the item is assigned or declared or perceived as first “A” and then successively “not A” by a single observer;
2) Space as the stage that allows the item to be assigned or declared or perceived by two distinct observers who are simultaneously assigning the same item as “A” and “not A” from two different points in space hence creating space.
The existence of the “Contradicton” elementary particle constantly creates Space and Time by the continuous creation of elementary virtual particles having the property of being “Virtual Observers”: a particle named “Observerton”.
Contradictons live in a cloud of virtual Observertons.
In a sense, contradictions do not exist at all, there are only observers that either declare an item true and false in sequence or two observers declaring the item true and false in opposition. The declaring of the item as different by two observers is due to the nature of conflicting will powers, the “Free Willonium”, but it may hide a power struggle, or a delusion by assinging something in a certain way as opposed to another: but all assignments are delusions, are only made according to what the intentionalities of the observers are, whether some kind of a gain or just the desire to create an attractive picture of reality according to how the observer would like it to be.
Maybe the Pain/Pleasure circuits natural evolution created constrain the choice of acceptable contradictions, but only because of an arbitrary quirk choice that nature assigned for no necessity or reason at all: the illusion of non-contradiction as the nature of reality by hiding it behind forced Pain/Pleasure circuits…
Nature, Reality and the Physical Universe is ultimately only contradiction.
Of course all of the above is wrong or it would contradict itself (?!?!) …..
Vlad,
You ask, “Why shouldn’t we be able to live as densely as the Indians did?”
It took the Indians 10,000 years + to develop the technologies and knowledge that they used to live in the Americas.
Their knowledge was very specific to place and Tribe.
And we “moderns” have nothing like that – it would take, I fear, several generations of Hunger and Hardship to get TLE survivors to that population density….if ecosystems collapse didn’t make the whole project impossible right out of the gate.
BTW, Vlad, your response to Cows about the US now being “middle aged” was very good. I had never thought of it exactly like that before. I think if that idea could permeate *national leadership* that it would be a net positive for the Country.
I am not sure how, when there are over 50 loaves of bread made from one bushel of wheat, that a $2.00 increase in the cost of a bushel of wheat equates to $0.90 per loaf of bread increase in cost at the store.
Must be some sort of derivative trading in bread.
Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_on_re_as/as_china_us_carrier_killer
Young people should seriously consider emigrating from the U.S. rather than staying and being a bagholder for the something for nothing classes.
now that I’m spacing the dash properly I’m almost family anyway
==============
That’s funny … in a way only I could fully appreciate.
“I have a lot more questions in this vein but lets just go with these few for starters.”
“Then some of the leaders of Israel visited me, and while they were there, this message came to me from YHWH: “Son of man, these leaders have set up idols in their hearts. They have embraced things that lead them into sin. Why should I let them ask me anything? Give them this message from the Sovereign: I, YHWH, will punish the people of Israel who set up idols in their hearts so they fall into sin and then come to a prophet asking for help. I will do this to capture the minds and hearts of all my people who have turned from me to worship their detestable idols. “Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign: Repent and turn away from your idols, and stop all your loathsome practices. I, YHWH, will punish all those, both Israelites and foreigners, who reject me and set up idols in their hearts so they fall into sin, and who then come to a prophet asking for my advice. I will turn against such people and make a terrible example of them, destroying them. Then you will know that I am YHWH. And if a prophet is deceived and gives a message anyway, it is because I, YHWH, have deceived that prophet. I will stand against such prophets and cut them off from the community of Israel. False prophets and hypocrites-evil people who claim to want my advice-will all be punished for their sins. In this way, the people of Israel will learn not to stray from me, polluting themselves with sin. They will be my people, and I will be their God, says the Sovereign.”
Burning your idols is a prerequisite for accuracy.
To E-Frigg, Myrtle and Ozone,
Thank you so much for the lavish praise of a couple of posts I made yesterday. There is nothing I enjoy more than making people laugh. – Q
“Why shouldn’t we be able to live as densely as the Indians did?”
Because they weren’t as needy as we are. And I would assume they understood the natural world a helluva lot better than I do. I’ve heard that archaeological digs have yielded hundreds of plants that were in common use in any given village. By my last count, I have about 100 cultivars of at least 60 species of plants placed in my garden intentionally (to date). I also allow most “weeds” to grow in the understory as well, knowing that they, at very minimum, play a role in improving soil tilth and fertility, and with the hope that I can find another more direct use for them as my knowledge improves.
And I am light years away from the immersion, experience, and knowledge that the least of the aborigines had. So I think it’s safe to assume that it will probably be many generations of first-world humans before we could again achieve the population densities they did. Not to mention that biodiversity has to have time to regenerate. We’re playing with an increasingly short deck every day we dawdle.
One caveat: I’m intentionally not counting on modern technology and trade to supplement our subsistence in the future, as the means for such support itself requires even more energy and resources, and if engaged in, probably perpetuates the theft of other peoples that got us here.
I stick to my ecological interpretation that everything changes in a descent scenario. I don’t believe we’ve ever engaged in a truly complete environmental accounting system. But I think Nature will straighten that out for us…
“I’m a meataterrian. It’s a personal choice. Good for the planet also.”
Me too. Although it took a while to arrive at that conclusion. I was a vegetarian many moons ago, but one day I got hungry and had a ribeye. Best thing I’ve ever tasted. Now I eat grass-fed beef preferentially to anything else, because it is the natural choice for this North American ecosystem. No need to import feed or meds at all. It’s their natural diet, and they are very efficient at converting it and staying healthy by doing so. Just provide a little pond for drinking water and harvest when ready. Nothing else to do.
And here’s the real kicker. Grazing cattle actually sequesters atmospheric carbon too!! The methane horse shit people fear is uniquely relevant to feedlot cattle, not grass-fed cattle. Methane is CH4, a gas, better known as wasted energy in a biological system. When cows eat what they evolved to eat they don’t produce it. They convert the hydrocarbons into steak instead.
Factoid: A 1.6% increase in soil organic matter across 12 million acres of ag land would remove 100 ppm of carbon from the atmosphere. No more 350 ppm threshold to debate. And a 1.6% increase is relatively easy to achieve if we…you must be expecting this by now…stop growing grain to feed cattle and start grazing the damn cattle directly on grass instead.
The future is about radically cutting out the middle man I think. Whether that middle man is a grocer or a #2 field corn producer. Thanks for your consistently high-quality information, sir.
“i dont ask IF I ask when?”
Who the hell knows. I would’ve expected it already, although I’m glad for a little time to prepare. If it matters. In the end I don’t harbor a lot of hope for human survival. Probably best for the planet though. We’ve been steadily working on destroying the place for about 100,000 years now.
Too clever for our own good I think.
Back to the beef. In re-reading my post it occurred to me that a lot of energy goes into cooking a steak: electricity, nat gas, or charcoal. Fair enough, but that is required by the lion’s share of vegetables too. ANd they damage the soil typically instead of improving it. On my little urban farm we are very deliberately moving toward a diet that primarily consists of fruit, herbs, meat, and mushrooms. Any of that that has to be cooked can go right in the pan with the meat.
This is a fairly long message from YHWH (BTW, is that an acronym? I’m unfamiliar with it but I’m sure it means God) and you seem to have gotten it all down verbatim. Did you have to stop HIM in mid-speech and say “hang on a sec, I’m writing as fast as I can for Chrissakes and now, wouldn’t ya know, the friggin ballpoint is running out of ink.” Or, when speaking with God is total recall kind of automatic?
And what about the accent? Brooklynese like Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot? or upper-class Brit like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady?
After HIS speech what did you say? “OK God, I’ll do my best to get the word out.”
YHWH is Yahweh a.k.a. “God”. It’s also the
abbreviation for Yahweh in the Book of the
Subgenius which, to say the least, satirizes
religion.
A quote from the Hungarian psychiatrist, Thomas
Szasz:
“When you speak to God, it is prayer. When
God speaks to you, it’s schizophrenia.”
Good satirical response, Q. I think satire
is the only way to defuse holy-rollerism.
It cannot be dealt with seriously because
that would mean TAKING it seriously.
Outside of unusual Christians like Soren
Kierkegaard, almost every “Christian” I’ve
met either has a direct pipeline to “God”
or a quote that verifies their own internal
idols of “God” while they deny their own
idolatry.
Kierkegaard, one of the few sensible Christians
ever to exist, understood that “the leap of
faith” is the only way to honor a deity.
He wrote “Attack on Christendom” to illustrate
what Mark Twain once said:
“Christ may have been many things were he alive
today but one thing he assuredly would NOT be is
a Christian.”
E.
So,some of you are eating beef in a country where the cows,too sick to stand,are being dragged into the processing plant with a come-along?
Indeed, natives evolved a civilization, ours is collapsing in a ‘ cheez doodles moment ‘!
vlad…oregons overrun by illegals. high unemployment etc. it was the land of kurt cobain!
as far as its soil goes ask TT, he seems to be an expert on [ or at least better than me].
and soil can be built rapidly IF you have the detritus and worms.
questions about rain are more important.
as far as yr communicating with asokafail..destroy asokafail.
Divine Q,
destroy asokafail.
I prefaced my earlier statement with the word “if”, you are familiar with it?
The incident I pointed you to, in answer to your question, is ancient. Ezekiel 14 {didn’t you notice the quotation marks?} It was recorded so it can be read and understood without constantly repeating it over, and over to each generation.
“For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”
The question, “Why should I let them ask me anything?” is worthy of careful consideration. What did you come up with?
Great article Jim. I have been a long time reader (your books & CFN) but have never weighed in on the message board until now. I have embraced a lifestyle that is based on living small (frugal) for several years so the initial downturn of the nation’s economy did not impinge on me as much as it has on some other people. However, the continuation of bad policy, out of control spending and the impending deflation has me very worried. I am so glad you continue to tell it like it is and let other so-called media outlets sugar coat our nation’s demise!
‘I’m a meataterrian’…and do you have cheezdoodles for dessert?
african in USA [ immigrant ] arrested for smuggling monkey meat..claims ‘ religious freedom’..if that isnt the sickest of sick!
read ” THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE “.can be read in 1 or 2 sittings.
Messi, to restrain my natural inclination toward mean-spiritedness I am declaring this God-conversation ended. You are a man “of faith” and I am not.
Funzel, if you re-read my post, you will note that the beef never leaves my farm, from the time it gets there until I shoot it and gut it in the very field it is feeding.
If by cheeze doodles you mean fresh grains, legumes, peppers, cucumbers, corn, onions, spuds grown on my farm, picked fresh and eaten, (or purchased at farmers markets if I come up short) then yes.
Your self-control is commendable, and will be rewarded.
You all can quit debating freaking battery pwoered cars, etc. The Long Emergency has begun and it reflects not only what JHK says but what Wm Cattron discuses in his terrifying but oh so prescient book “Overshoot”.
The following is lifted from the Weather Underground website on 8/6/10, also the 65th anniversary of the first nuclear bombing.
“The extreme heat has led to thousands of premature deaths in Russia. According to Yevgenia Smirnova, an official from the Moscow registry office, “We recorded 14,340 deaths in Moscow in July, that is 4,824 deaths more than in July, 2009.” Undoubtedly thousands of additional premature deaths have occurred in the rest of Russia as a result of the heat. The heat has also caused the worst drought conditions in European Russia in a half-century, prompting the Russian government to suspend wheat exports. The drought has caused extreme fire danger over most of European Russia (Figure 3), and fires in Russia have killed at least 50 people in the past week and leveled thousands of homes. The fires are the worst since 1972, when massive forest and peat bog fires burned an area of 100,000 square km and killed at 104 people in the Moscow region alone. Smoke from the current fires spans a region over 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from east to west, approximately the distance from San Francisco to Chicago. Dozens of flights were canceled at Moscow’s airports today, thanks to visibilities of 300 meters in smoke. Also of concern is fires that have hit the Bryansk region of western Russia, which suffered radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in nearby Ukraine. There are fears that fires may burn through the contaminated area, releasing harmful radiation into the atmosphere.”
There is a very simple solution to the mass processing of beef, or food in general.
Vote with your wallet.
If you are concerned about the welfare of the beef you are eating, find someone like me who can grow you a beef over the summer. Hell, I’d even sell half a beef. And maybe, if you came to help plant or weed my garden, you might get a sweet deal with some peppers and tomatoes thrown in on the side. And learn some agronomy, free of charge.
Alternatively find a local butcher who buys from a local farmer that he knows. Farm to plate is real and happens all the time. Or, insist that your grocer has local food.
Same with bakers. I sell wheat to a local group who grinds it and bakes bread in real old time wood fired ovens. They bake on the weekends, put a shitty little sign on the road and never have a loaf left over to freeze.
Vote with your wallet. McDonalds serves approximately 600 million burgers a year. Using the Quarter Pounder as an example, if a cow dresses at +/- 700 pounds, a quarter million cows in the US would have to find a better home if we stopped supporting McD’s. Add in Sonic, A&W, Carls Jr, etc and it would effectively kill the factory beef processing industry. Besides, as JHK mentions, what they sell doesn’t really pass as food anyway.
I don’t grow chickens because of what I call the “Canada Day Massacre of 2002” (July 1, for those in the US). Chickens are dumb, and turkeys dumber. But one local farmers market vendor grows and sells all I need.
Buy (grow)fresh in season, preserve, freeze, etc.
For all the Solar & Wind proponents out there, here is a link to a very interesting article on the state uf the US electric grid, from TOD:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6817#more
Basically says that due to deregulation, and the quest to ‘max profits’, the grid has been neglected and actually cannot handle much more capacity.
DJ
Los Angeles is having its coldest summer on record. its like january is normally here.
i did see the article in the times[?] of the woman digging for potatoes in the burned out field with the odd crosses in the background. however i thought it said southwest russia was having this heat wave, not all of russia.
also it rained here 2x and misted 2x in july. I dont ever recall rain in socal in july.
DeeJones,
Nice link to TOD. There is no doubt that the electrical grid in the US has been hugely neglected.
Deregulation has fouled up a lot of industries and a lot of places. Generally speaking, deregulation favors corporations over the middle class and lower class and favors short term thinking over long term thinking.
The wonder is that we citizens continue to tolerate and encourage it.
In my opinion, the whole deregulation paradigm is based on the “child-like faith in free markets” that the right wing of the country was selling up until the 4/20 oil blow-out.
blame the divine Q !! I think he ‘ahemed’ me because i beat him to the punchline.
not surprising, unfortunately! hardly like US has been a ‘ wise stewart of its resources ‘!
so what are we gonna do? any good ideas?
also on the weather front i dunno if 122 degrees is normal this time of year in las vegas [ with 60 mph winds ] but thats what im hearing from 3 people who are there. they all say its unbearable but ‘ the locals stay indoors amap for june till sept 1].
jdfarmer,
You, sir, are a survivor. I wish you were living close to me, because we’d be a natural alliance.
If you’ve cut up your own cows and your own hogs you know how much “pure grunt labor” is involved.
I don’t mind working…plus I can bring some talents and things to trade.
Alas, it’s a looongg way from my place to your place.
But I know a couple of guys like you around here.
Best wishes for the future,
C
you grow / store enough to eat fresh vegetables 12 months a year? how?
‘Also, many Russians were already use to hard work’…indeed. under communism was it 60% of the food was grown on 1% of the land?
the ‘ babushkas’ kept things going, they survived, USSR did not. that being said after 70 years of communism there I think they shoulda styaed red, the nukes and uranium were guarded then.
valerie plames done a movie about how [ she means this literally ]…the uraniums less guarded there now than the potatoes. something about a sting set up and the guy got the uranium to sell. it was in a shed . protected by a cheap lock!
Q,
You said,”Messi, to restrain my natural inclination toward mean-spiritedness I am declaring this God-conversation ended. You are a man “of faith” and I am not.”
Q,that’s about the coolest thing I’ve seen anybody do on these CFN threads. It is very good to know when to disengage.
And you get to a point pretty quickly on religion…where you’re not going to change anyone’s mind…just p*ss them off. (That was for you, Myrtlemay.)
So I’ll stay off religion…unless provoked. Politics, the environment, and open borders are different issues….stay tuned, and jump in when you feel like it, Q.
C
Just be nice to the girls!
ASIA….
And JDFARMER…
I’m taking the liberty of linking to my own post from yesterday. Because….no, I don’t think you’re understanding the concept if you think you can have fresh vegetables year ’round in most climates..,..but nevertheless, you can LIVE WELL…if you know what you are doing.
And my granddad…in my post I linked off….let me *help* him run a sustainable farm in the 1950’s in Georgia. He and my grandmother were never rich, but they never went really hungry, either.
He WORKED and harvested. She COOKED and put up canned food and preserves.
They never had a freezer. They barely had a refrigerator….and they didn’t trust it for sustenance…because electric power was new to them…it was a novelty AND a convenience (ONLY) to them.
They both worked from sunup to sundown every day of their lives.
Except on Sunday, when they rested, and went to church…because you’ve got to believe in Something (and have trusted neighbors) if you pull your living out of the hard Georgia clay…year after year.
So, forget the fresh veggies 24/7…that’s not happening…but you can draw a good living out of the Earth if you know how….but Good Lord!!… it is a lot of work!
Free Willonium? That’s what Bill said to Monica.
Time is Nature’s way of making sure that Frank, Dean, and Sammy aren’t still featuring in Las Vegas five hundred years from now.
Space is a “vacuum” created when Divinity retreats or contracts – thus allowing a stage for the theatre of creation to begin.
As for the lobotomies and electo-shock necessary to kill free will – you first mate. Even an electron has an iota of free will – it’s vestige of Divinity. A plant has more. An animal has more again – the freedom to move and emote. And a man has even more – at least the potential to reason.
In short, your investigation is going in the wrong direction towards greater and greater division into smaller and smaller particles. If you want to understand the big picture (or even the small), I advise you to retrace your steps. As Aristotle said, matter is a vanishing point. It’s form or the way that the matter is arranged that’s the important thing.
I wish.
We eat fresh and preserve what we can, but we do buy fresh from the grocery in the off season.
I would like to think that in TLE we would make it though.
As a production farmer, I would always have flour from wheat, and protein from legumes and animals. (yes, I have diesel burning machinery).
As long as my freezer stays on, we should be fine. If not, I have learned from my folks how to preserve. Have recently spent some time with them learning how to make my own yeast, and talking about the ice houses that kept preserves well into the summer months.
My dad remembers when they got their first tractor, so he also remembers the horses. It is something to speak of the old times before the oil boom.
As an aside, they used to budget 1/3 of the harvested crop for fuel for the horses. Food vs fuel?
Asokean Logic: Immigration is the essence of America. Therefore immigrants are more American than the native born – mostly White. In other words, the longer you stay in America, the less American you become. To be American is to be Un-American in Asoka’s Twisted Reality.
What about Blacks? Because they weren’t accepted and now that that are accepted, they refuse it – they have acieved a quintesential outsider status. So they are the ideal of what an “American” should be. They are the symbol, the kernel of the grievance coalition. Not that they engineered this themselves – although it’s hilarious watching take credit for it. No the palm goes to the devious Talmudic Minds of Eastern Europe – the ones that Walt Disney warned us against. Long have they studied us, slowly and carefully did they make their plans against us. And then with great confidence they sprang their traps.
Compare all this to the ideal of Japanese aesthetics – Wabi Sabi. The older something is, the more chance it has had to ripen, to become itself. The arrogance and ignorance of our policy makers! It takes generations even for Europeans to become Americans. Africans? Mexicans? Never, except for Mexicans with alot of White blood.
How bad has it become? The president of the beer company who just lost 8 workers had a press conference announcing that his company was not racist – as if the words of a Black thief and murderer carry any weight whatsoever. But apparently they do. The media is trying to spin this and make the butcher’s accusations the main story. The Company actually feels it has to defend itself. How sick is that?
Become friends with the “guys around there”.
I can never keep ahead of the work. But with a few more people helping we could produce 10X what we need.
Part time. Couple hours a week.
Tripp, one comment. Don’t let the weeds become reproductive. Anything with rhizomes or creeping roots has allelopathic effects once the reproductive stage hits. Some annuals also.
Free Willonium is a liquid or material or a phase of matter made up of particles that are independent of each, act and react when encountered in many unknown ways, is based on the free will of these particles acting in any possible way, completely undeterminate.
This is matter’s way of escapng the laws of physics, or the laws of physics escaping themselves. This phase of matter or material is outside of the laws of physics. On earth these particles are humans with their quirky mind, always fighting, confronting, challenging each other, always trying to dominate others through their lifestyles, choices, etc.
Can someone tell me how you prepare and eat Kale ? I have grown it this year a neighbour told me she grew it and it did really well. But I have no idea what to do with it. Can you preserve it, and do you cook it or eat it raw ?
Selector
I wouldn’t worry about deflation. Bernanke, Greenspan and a multitude of other great economic thinkers have been looking under their beds for the great deflation bogeyman for more than 10 years. They haven’t found it.
IMO the Fed under Greenspan and then Bernanke fashioned monetary policy to fend off this non existent threat, created too much liquidity, kept interest rates artificially low and as a consequence created the necessary conditions for sequential speculative bubbles and busts, the last of which we’re now trying to unwind.
Again they’re worried about deflation, they’re creating too much liquidity, they’re keeping interest rates artificially low and as a consequence are laying the foundations of the next financial catastrophe. In other words they haven’t learned anything.
We have the same problem up here north of the border. Our central bank governor is a Goldman Sachs alumnus and I think he’s drunk from the same koolaid. He insists that the record low interest rates up here are in response to the financial crisis. My assertion to him was that more of what got into this mess will not get us out of this mess.
Like Americans we save way too little. By keeping rates artificially low for so long the central bank is further discouraging saving and encouraging the very behaviours that created the present crisis.
I am very pessimistic. I think our universities’ departments of economics are producing a crop of cretins. But they speak authoritatively, they have the ear of people in power. Our managerial class are liars, gangsters and thieves. Too bad for us.
I agree with Mr K about the sorry assed state of the economics profession. I’ve been railing about this myself for a long time. IMO the first step out of the mess we’re in is to shut down permanently every university economics department, fire every economist that’s employed in private industry, de-list, so to speak, economics as an respectable academic pursuit.
Creating all this liquidity when we’re offshored our manufacturing and so much of our white collar work will is akin to pushing on a string.
But you want to worry about out of control spending? I’m with you there.
Femme fatale,
Here is one of many links that I got by googling “kale preparation.”
http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2005/344.html
I am very disappointed that I’ve received zero response to my post on Aug 5th at 5:15 PM. That post contained two links which expertly laid (layed?) out the pros and cons of whether the US should permit a large mosque to be built within a couple of blocks of ground zero.
The first link takes you to an op-ed piece in the NY Times (I forget the author) and was a very persuasive argument on the pro side of the issue.
The second link is a video of 6+ minutes where a british comedian gives the con side of the issue. Although this guy is a comedian the delivery of his message is dead serious and devoid of humor. I found his message highly convincing.
I’ve re-posted the link below and I’m asking that you folks take 6 mins out of your lives to watch this.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html
Got disconnect and collapse anxiety? Here ya go…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26094.htm
Kale:
I assume any veg can be pickled.
Kale can be : steamed, boiled, fried, maybe baked.
Well, have noticed the oil spill and the heat wave in Russia have been retreating from the news. What is more newsworthy? Well, consider this. A girl in England named Emma Watson (who played Hermione Granger) has just cut off all her long hair very short. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/05/emma-watsons-haircut-chan_n_672072.html?page=28)
It has generated a lot of press.
VLAD…asokafail [the meaning of the term is destroy asoka!]
was at the gym last night. saw the piece on
‘honor killings’ and how the FBI refused to call the double murder of 2 young attractive americans ‘ honor killings ‘. news said ‘ more american women are victims of honor killings’.
DUH! the bitter fruit of immigration and its child multiculturalism is here!
the pizza driver in virginia [ from tribal pakistan] who killed his daughter for bieng ‘ too american’….WTF..he thought she wouldnt assimilate!
‘ immigration is the essence’blablabla…asoka fail..blablabla
What is it, Q?
Do you see the Muslims as the evolving fascists, or what? (As if there weren’t plenty here already.) I don’t get it; to me it’s all just another distraction. (Probably the reason I spit on “organized religion” of any stripe; it DISTRACTS from the business of living in this particular cosmic reality with all its’ attendant marvels and wonders. …Also why I detest “commodification”. These are the manufactories of death and desolation of all that is.)
what i need to learn about the future of america i saw last nite on TV, posted it post above.
in so cal people are protesting the opening of yet one more mosque.
remember ‘ demographics is destiny ‘ and in some countries muslims average 7 or 8 children per family.
a mosque at ground zero….well how multicultural.
see tammy bruces ‘ the new thought police’ for more info on power grabs.
we are like canaries in a coal mine.
‘It’s now in the high 70’s’.. yes but diabetes is now maybe the new form of population control.
kill folks off with meds and junk food and diabetes.
‘ eat it raw ‘..try it. ive been vegetarian 40 years, i couldnt develop a taste for raw kale. and ive read raw broccoli is very bad for humans.
“Our determination to prop [the mass motoring paradigm] up at all costs, despite the grave impairments of available capital and energy resources is a symptom of our detachment from reality. It’s also a fine illustration of the psychology of previous investment, which prompts a desperate society to squander its scarce remaining resources on the very things that are putting it out of business.” -JHK
This phenomena also extends to the “GWOT” and a lot of other worthless shit. “The terr’ists are gonna get me! We need more weaponry, damnit!”
Some believe in “the culture/religious wars” and wish to keep engaging in them. (Guess what? The class war is over and us reg’lar folk lost. DISENGAGE.) I think they’re a bullshit waste of resources, and a dangerous distraction to boot. I’ll have to side with Hancock1863 and try to rebuild around our Constitution after this house-o’-crap falls in on itself (if I should survive it).
Now I’ll follow Q’s good example and bow out of discussing this mosque foolishness further.
Great piece Oz. My favorite two words were the alliterative “froth forth.” I also liked the quote from Hamlet which, if I ever decided to kill myself, might serve as a sort of high-brow suicide note.
“Can someone tell me how you prepare and eat Kale ?”
Feed it to your rabbits and chooks, and then clean and grill them…
“Tripp, one comment. Don’t let the weeds become reproductive. Anything with rhizomes or creeping roots has allelopathic effects once the reproductive stage hits. Some annuals also”
Not if you smother them out like I do with massive sheet mulches and biomass. Then they’re just gravy. But I get your drift. Thanks for the comment.
“Some believe in “the culture/religious wars” and wish to keep engaging in them. (Guess what? The class war is over and us reg’lar folk lost.”
O3, I have a little scene I like to envisage along these lines, where the last banker/shithead in town is sitting at his desk counting his stacks of gold coins and paper notes. Suddenly he notices out the window that every other person in town is dancing to live music, drinking the season’s fresh ale and cider, and grilling the proverbial fattened calf, and completely unaware that he even exists. It’s a good image.
Here’s to the meek inheriting the earth!
This mosque is on US turf so I thought I’d shut up. But seeing as nobody else said anything…
I’ll give you my view without looking at the video first. I got about three lines into the Times article and my brain shut down.
Saying that religion had nothing to do with 9/11 is pure bullshit, it’s like claiming that religion had nothing to do with the Spanish Inquisition. So let’s be even handed: 9/11 was an act of mass murder where religion played a central role.
So the question is who would have the cojones to put a mosque so close to ground zero? You’d think that someone in that group would know that this is really looking for trouble. But maybe that’s the point of it. Maybe the motivation for the building of the Mosque in the first place is to provoke controversy, to provoke a violent reaction?
Yes, yes, Islam is a religion of peace. Yes, yes the US has freedom of religion. There’s also a place for common sense and practicality. By this I mean common sense on the part of the group that wants to build the mosque and also those that have to approve it. 9/11 after all was not a figment of our imagination. So why does the mosque need to be built there? Is there no other location available?
You don’t need Einstein’s IQ to predict that this mosque could be a magnet for revenge. So my question is whether any of the idealists pushing for this thing ever considered that issue. How long before extremists take a shot at this place? How many potential bombmakers in the mould of Tim McVeigh are out there itching for a go?
There’s also a place for simple courtesy and consideration. Did any of the would be builders consider the feelings of families that lost people on 9/11?
Did any of your covert intelligence services investigate the people that want to build the Mosque? What is their source of funding? Are terror groups involved? Is the Saudi govt or royal family involved?
I know that people wanting to build a Christian church or Hindu temple or Jewish synagogue would not be treated this way and this is most unfortunate. This is not a perfect world. You want equal treatment for everybody. Maybe the would be builders are people of goodwill. Maybe there really is a good reason and a need for the Mosque to be built here.
Freedom, freedom of religion or lack thereof are wonderful ideals. But I think everyone needs to use some good judgement. Personally I am suspicious of the motives of the builders. Why, of all places, here?
The United States is a country of laws, civil rights, fair play and due process. The people charged with approving or turning this down have to do some due diligence. They have to act according to their legal mandate. They also have to consider that the builders are adults like everyone else, that, as such, they ought to have used common sense, that they ought to have been aware of sensitivities with respect to the location, that they ought to have been sensitive to the feelings of those hurt by 9/11, that as a consequence there is doubt amomg a great many people as to the goodwill and good intentions of the would be builders, that building the Mosque could be a provocation and an incitement to violence from extreme elements in American society. The approvers need to ask some questions, get some answers and not be shy about it.
I think in the end the Mosque will be built. If the answer is no there will be outrage in the Muslim world. But being seen as as pushover I think is worse.
This is not a good situation but maybe is unavoidable. The process will be acrimonious, it will piss off Muslims and in the end the Mosque will piss off a great many non Muslims. If the builders were looking for a way to provoke conflict this is the way to do it.
Maybe the result of this process is to demand from the Muslim world rights for Christian minorities. If Muslim are to have rights in the Christian world why are Christians not afforded the same in the Muslim world?
“So,some of you are eating beef in a country where the cows,too sick to stand,are being dragged into the processing plant with a come-along?”
Again we’re talking about shoving unnatural grains, chicken litter, expired chewing gum and hard candy, (not to mention other cows), down the throats of dirt pen-confined grass eaters up to their knees in bullshit. Not the same thing at all.
When I eat a grass-fed steak I can rest assured that only one animal died in the process. The cow I’m eating. An animal whose success as a species completely depends on this relationship. No telling how many wild animals get chunked, diced, smothered, and crushed every time a field of soybeans is combined.
I just don’t want that kind of bloodshed on my hands;)
the proverbial fattened calf
==============
The proverbial calf to which you refer is “fatted” not “fattened.”
Concerning the mosque, having read the article and listened to the link, I am reminded of the recent episode of South Park, where the creators incurred the wrath of the “peaceful religion” of islam (NO, I won’t capitalize it!) by drawing a cartoon of Mohammed in a bear suit. The cartoonists were sent death threats from members of this “peaceful religion” until the network censured the scene. Remember, this was a FRIGGIN cartoon drawing! There you have it. Those of us who remember Joe McCarthy know only too well the evil inflicted by the power of censorship and its threat to freedom of speech. We don’t have freedom of speech anymore. Money is our god. _UCK human rights! I’m not sure what tit the PC folks are suckling on, but does anyone have even the faintest idea how much money property in this section of Manhattan goes for? I mean, I don’t think you can buy a studio apartment anywhere near that neighborhood for less than a million and a half. And they’re going to build a mosque THERE? Something smells like muslim bull_hit to me! These people have unbelievable gall! The left wing PC folks are babbling, “Oh, but this will just show the world how accepting we are of others.” This “peaceful religion” has but ONE wish: to execute the complete anihilation of the United States. They are well on their way of doing just that. If you want to know who and what’s behind this garbage, FOLLOW THE MONEY! The Saudis have very deep pockets, thanks to our “fill-er-up” attitude here in the west. While all of this is taking place, voices of reason and caution are being drowned out by the relentless screetching of cars around the NASCAR track.
I’ll give you my view without looking at the video first.
=================
Cash, all the issues you raised are covered in the video.
For his support of the plan, Bloomberg should insist on a quid pro quo … like a jewish temple in the heart of Mecca or a US military base on its outskirts. Can you imagine anything more absurd?
As far as I know the Japanese had the good sense not to open a Shinto temple on 12/7/51 a stones throw from the sunken USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
In the comments that accompany the video one person points out something about the financing of this project. The gist is this: if they play their cards right they can finagle it so the construction is paid for by the US taxpayer. It is already assured of getting a free ride tax-wise just like other religions do in this country. I have always vehemently opposed tax breaks for religious organizations of whatever brand.
Q,
I’m completely with you on the tax break thingy. Maybe if our country ended the tax breaks for the Catholic church, the would be and current child molesters wouldn’t have a free hide out to take little boys. Oh, and YES, I AM allowed to say that, as I was raised Catholic, but somehow managed to turn out okay in spite of it.
To Oz and Tripp,
I’m a bit dismayed, to say the least, at your lack of appreciation for the symbolism involved in this mosque fiasco. Your whole I-couldn’t-care-less-one-way-or-the-other, mox nix, who-gives-a-shit attitude is bothersome. And to top it off you barely address the topic of THE MOSQUE and of ISLAM in general and instead pull an Asoka-like segue to your own pet peeves: the lost “class war” (Oz) and “banker/shitheads” (Tripp).
As matters stand, anyone who takes the position they “couldn’t care less” is effectively casting a vote FOR this mosque and will be watching its grand opening on TV 13 months and 4 days from today. Wake up guys, this is a travesty!
Since when is sensitivity a forte of American culture? Are there no Christian houses of worship that litter the surrounding lands of the Sand Creek massacre ? That’s just one example of the hypocrisy that infects the now sensitive and civilized minds of some Americans who have a convenient and selective memory when touting the moral high ground.
To embrace is to diffuse; to reject is to empower–that would be a true Christian understanding and it would also be the strategically smart thing to do. No matter how hard the ridiculous polemicists argue, Islam is not going to be fenced off or segregated.
Yes, islam made itself very clear it wouldn’t be swept aside on September 11th. Thanks for the reminder(s).
OK Cube, I’ll put you down in the “FOR” column.
The radical fringe will never be dissuaded by any embrace, I do understand this. But an act of inclusion, even via architectural symbolism, will serve to further isolate the radical zealots.
That strikes me as far more practical and wise than denying an entire religion and it’s more mainstream masses.
Very well said. I don’t necessarily agree with you, but you make a cogent argument.
a. “The United States is a country of laws, civil rights, fair play and due process.”
b. The United States was a country of laws, civil rights, fair play and due process.
c. The United States is a government of arbitrary laws, civil priviledge, fair game and true excess.
d. none of the above {never was, is or will be}
e. all of the above [depends on where you live}
Ive been reading Ann Coultre [?]..she says many things about the NY Times, for instance:
128 articles on DC snipers, 9 [yes 9] that mentioned he was muslim. NYT preferred to mention he was AN EX GI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dorothy rabinowitz in this weeks WSJ has a brilliant piece on bloombergs disinformation [the bomb in times square could be a sic teabagger]
and EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRYS FIRST SUSPECT WAS…A MUSLIM TERRORIST..indeed it was, we the little people were right. see either of those.
‘I have always vehemently opposed tax breaks for religious organizations of whatever brand’
would make sense, if that religions adherents [or some] want to destroy your country and now 2 presidents are bombin the hell of of ‘ them ‘ for whatever reason.
Logic: Immigration is the essence of America..
ICHING : times change and with them thier demands.
euros took the land, kill the redman and built a civilization.
what good purpose do ‘ emmas huddled masses’ serve in a build [ and now crumbling ] civilization?
thanks for telling us about emma lazarus!!!!!!!!!
Don’t put me in the “FOR” columns too quickly. I am simply expressing the view that building a Mosque near ground zero is automatically a non-starter. Beyond all of the moral, political, philosophical, and religious objections, the proposed building should pass some sort of visual mustard, which from what I have seen of the plans thus far,fails to do–that Greenbergian aesthetic of formal specifiity drives a hard bargain.
Rome was hard upon the Jews, but Michelangelo’s Moses eventually became the central figure in the tomb of Pope Julius II, a figure carved in marble which inspired pilgrimages to Rome by many of the Jewish faith.
So perhaps there is an architect who can pull it off and negotiate all the aforementioned obstacles. We’ll see, I have my doubts, but the ultimate proof will reside in the visual pudding–IMO.
“Unless you get out on the street and reclaim your country you are fucked – think Greek ire. America was hijacked by the internationalists a long time ago.”
Um the Greeks got the Big Screw. They had some ire, but they didn’t reclaim their country, did they? Did I miss that part where they all just gave up and realized they’d been screwed royally up the yinyang?
Yes, of course America was hijacked. On November 22, 1963. Does no one remember what happened on that day? How that day ended our country as it was?
Repubicans and Democraps are one and the same. Does anyone seriously believe there is a difference? You’re gonna “vote the bastards out” just to let new even worse bastards in? We need an “ignorance quotient” here to test members of the public’s relative comprehension of reality. Apparently the general IQ is damn low. Damn low.
“Now that’s something anyone with common sense would do normally anyway but because of a few bonehead drivers out there who don’t, they passed a state law.
Last week in Glen Ridge, NJ they had a sting set up on their main drag, Ridgewood Avenue, both directions whereby a plain clothes cop would start out to cross as you approached. If you didn’t, (or they judged that you didn’t) another cop behing a tree radioed ahead and you were stopped and ticketed.
They were doing a huge business with ticketing. ”
A “few bonehead drivers”? That is all we have here in SillyCon Valley — bonehead jackasses in a big rush to get nowhere. And yes, in the past year three people have been hit in crosswalks in our little downtown by “drivers” preoccupied with saving two seconds on their way to nowhere…haven’t noticed anything at all like a slowdown on the SUV dumbasses or any other type of road rage driving around here. And yes, I ride a bike period. Haven’t driven a vehicle in over 5 years. I watch as three or four vehicles in a row tail-gate each other down a two-lane residential road…in a big fat hurry on the way to nowhere.
“Again they’re worried about deflation, they’re creating too much liquidity, they’re keeping interest rates artificially low and as a consequence are laying the foundations of the next financial catastrophe. In other words they haven’t learned anything.”
Are you seriously serious? Do you truly not think those lovers of money don’t know what they’re doing? They “haven’t learned anything”? Oh, on the contrary they learned plenty and they know exactly what they are doing, manipulating the world’s economy, the stock markets, the global financial situation. What they are “doing” might not make sense even to someone with common sense which apparently is in short shrift around here, considering the “golly what is up with this economy and our “leaders”?-type postings on this clustery blog. You best get with their program. Even if you are growing your own whatever, or using a bike as your only transportation, or feeling enlightened and wanting to change your paradigms. Kind of like too little too late for most folks…
“So let me get this straight: You claim your intentions were noble because you simply wanted to get your child a puppy but somehow didn’t notice that it was foaming at the mouth, and now you’re shocked that your child has rabies? I think not. That is not a mistake. It is negligence — dangerous, life threatening and, I am convinced, downright criminal negligence. And the price for such negligence is catastrophic, don’t you know.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/30/it-is-us/
MD,
Normally I rise above this sort of name calling, but you sir, are a clown. Your link is typical, hate-filled, homo bashing bullsh_t! You and the rest of the f_cking religious numbskulls are so god da_mned worried about fags not over populating the planet by their sexual orientation, that you nervously look for wood to create crosses to crucify them on! You f_cking STUPID NAZI BASTARD!
Whew! OOO ooo OOOOO Weeeee! MYRTLE – WHAT YOU SAY!?!
Ok, Q I will bite. The powers that be in the US want to destroy the white working population and replace them with latinos, blacks, muslims etc.
Ok?
OK, Qshtik, I’ll bite. I’m in favor of the construction of The Cordoba House.
Here are some facts to consider:
FACT 1:
The Cordoba House is not a “Ground Zero mosque” … it is a Muslim-financed community center called The Cordoba House.
FACT 2:
Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together in peace from the beginning of construction of The Great Mosque of Cordoba (Spain) in 786 for hundreds of years. Owing to the peace which the Christians of Cordova then enjoyed […] the citizens of Cordova, Arabs, Christians, and Jews, enjoyed so high a degree of literary culture that the city was known as the New Athens.
From all quarters came students eager to drink at its founts of knowledge. Among the men afterwards famous who studied at Cordova were the scholarly monk Gerbert, destined to sit on the Chair of Peter as Sylvester II (999-1003), the Jewish rabbis Moses and Maimonides, and the famous Spanish-Arabian commentator on Aristotle, Averroes. SOURCE: The Catholic Encyclopedia.
FACT 3:
In Medieval times the largest library in Western Europe was to be found in Cordoba, a city in which scholars of all three major Abrahamic religions were free to study side-by-side.
FACT 4:
Currently in the United States some people, like Newt Gingrich, are trying to portray the Cordoba House project as an anti-Christian project which symbolizes “Islamic conquest” instead of as The Cordoba House symbolizing hundreds of years of peaceful co-existence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. SOURCE: Newt Direct statement at Newt.org
ASOKA’S OPINION
Some Christians among us seem intent on sowing division, conflict, and violence. They do so based on ignorance of history, fear of the other, and paranoid distrust of others unlike them.
Jihadists and radical extremists do not represent mainstream Islam. Muslims should not be judged by the actions of a violent minority.
Wow, the Muslims against the Christians,
… the Crusades, Part Two. I say let’s
have LIONS devour the extremists of both
religions. Are Wahhabists and/or
Pentacostalists in season and, if so, what
is the hunting limit? How many can one
legally bag and roast over a spit later? 🙂
Enquiring minds seek to know.
E.
NOOO The chicken’s only started laying 2 days ago.
I went back through the article and did not see one word about sodomites {they are the least of my problems}. If it had mentioned them, I would not have linked to it. There are plenty of issues far more important than that.
Or was it this: “The devil brigade acting upon the Saul Alinsky deception playbook has made its mark by lying, cheating and attacking with the very hate that it accuses everybody else of harboring.” that got you to sink below your normal standards?
Do you really think Ted Nugent is a “religious numbskull” or did he attack one of your idols? Maybe it was your self-image. Either way I think he did a pretty good job of spelling it out {how we got here}.
My first impression in looking at an image of the proposed building is that it is somewhat evocative of the WTC, especially in shape along with the silvery patina. And what is that field of yellow that meanders up and over the intricate ornamentation of the proposed building like clouds of smoke? Could this visual ambiguity trigger an association with the smoke that accompanied the death of their loved ones who died on 9/11?
I have no doubt the designers and architects of the building are not being intentionally insensitive and perhaps that yellowish band of clouds creeping up the building is an attempt to harness the stylistic unity of the Great Mosque of Cordoba whose multitudes of horseshoe arches seem “to billow out like sails blown by the wind”.
I certainly don’t know –perhaps the architects have already elaborated?–but visual impact is always going to allow for quite a bit more subjective interpretation than the boundaries of the declarative text accompanying the painting on the wall or the building in the ground.
At any rate, TPTB in NYC seem sold on the idea, intentions, and sincerity of the project and are opening up a palm. Meanwhile, the usual suspects from other vantage points on the political spectrum seem only too eager to clench fists once again.
What to do with Kale? Harvest it after you’ve had some frost for best flavor. Make Portuguese kale soup with cut up, sauteed chorizo or linguica, smashed up potatoes, chicken stock, and some other stuff. Eat and freeze the remainder for tasty hot meals in Winter. Very nutritious.
Here is a link to image of proposed building:
http://dnainfo.com/20100524/manhattan/world-trade-center-mosque-debate-on-agenda-for-community-board-1-meeting
Vision Cube said:
The horseshoe arches might more accurately be described as two-tiered polylobed arches and interlaced arches.
As for the billowing clouds, if you look at the maqsura and mihrab of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, built during the reign of Al-Hakam II (976 CE), there is a definite sense of spiritual uplift.
In all cultures, and in many different ways, man has searched for God, and architecture has been a fundamental element in this search.
The Great Mosque of Córdoba is a unique example of this particular history of the search for God through architecture: first with its choice of a horizontal space on a human scale, adapted to the praying practices of the Islamic period, and then with a vertical space, symbolizing the grandeur and spirituality of the Christian period.
Billowing clouds seem entirely appropriate, Vision Cube. The concept of Allah’s infinite power is evoked by designs with repeating themes, pattern and geometry, which suggest infinity. Alhamdulillah!
This whole tempest in a teacup, raised for discussion by Qshtik, is another indication of xenophobia borne of ignorance (literally ignoring the right of others to worship). Thankfully, cooler heads (like Mayor Bloomberg) are prevailing.
In a previous exchange on private versus public, Laura pointed out the right to worship on your property is a right guaranteed to the private property owner.
It isn’t easy for some to accept the reality that we live in a multicultural country … and that we, of different cultures, can live together peacefully. We can do so because Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all value peace.
By respecting different religious traditions we embody the principle of freedom of religion that is bedrock in the United States Constitution.
OK, Qshtik, I’ll bite. I’m in favor of the construction of The Cordoba House.
====================
Well of course you are … that’s a given.
This whole tempest in a teacup, raised for discussion by Qshtik
================
It’s teapot
I googled the following:
‘Tempest in a teapot’ is the version that is used most often in the USA, and hardly at all in other places, but which nevertheless appears to have a Scottish rather than an American origin. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1825, included a debate over the relative merits of the Scottish poets James Hogg and Tom Campbell. Campbell’s imagery of raging tempests in his poetic work wasn’t well received there:
What is the ‘tempest raging o’er the realms of ice’? A tempest in a teapot!
Finally, we come to the version of the phrase that we English might imagine is the ‘proper’ original version. This appears to be neither original or English as it is later than the versions above, and the first mention that I can find of it also hails from north of the border. Catherine Sinclair, the Scottish novelist and children’s writer, wrote a novel of fashionable society life, Modern Accomplishments, or the march of intellect, in 1838:
“As for your father’s good-humoured jests being ever taken up as a serious affair, it really is like raising a storm in a teacup.”
I should add that, as an agnostic, I don’t have a horse in this race. But as an American I recognize the right of private property owners to worship their invisible beings on their own property, even if the property happens to be at Ground Zero.
Since I lost the BoA in New Mexico bet with Qshtik, I no longer bet.
But, if I was a betting person, I would say the future religion of the United States is Islam, a fast growing religion.
Islam is the superior religion, since contemporary Islam recognizes Jesus as a prophet of God, whereas contemporary Christianity does not recognize the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon Him) supersedes Jesus Christ.
Others (especially Christians) may also sense that Islam is superior, and perhaps that is why they have their knickers in a knot over The Cordoba House.
Makes no difference to me which invisible being is being worshiped, since there is no evidence God even exists.
The Holy Bible indicates Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him), not Jesus, is the legitimate prophet spoken of in the Old Testament.
Almighty God speaks to Moses in Book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18:
“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.”
The Christians say that this prophecy refers to Jesus because Jesus was like Moses. Moses was a Jew, as well as Jesus was a Jew. Moses was a Prophet and Jesus was also a Prophet.
If these two are the only criteria for this prophecy to be fulfilled, then all the Prophets of the Bible who came after Moses such as Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Malachi, John the Baptist, etc. will
fulfill this prophecy since all were Jews as well as prophets.
However, it is Prophet Muhammad who is like Moses :
i) Both Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) had a father and a mother, while Jesus was born miraculously without any male intervention. [Mathew 1:18 and Luke 1:35 and also Al-Qur’an 3:42-47]
ii) Both Moses and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) were married and had children. Jesus according to the Bible did not marry nor had children.
iii) Both Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) died natural deaths. Jesus has been raised up alive. (Al-Qur’an 4:157-158)
Muhammad is from among the brethren of Moses. Arabs are brethren of Jews. Abraham had two sons: Ishmail and Isaac. The Arabs are the descendants of Ishmail and the Jews are the descendants of Isaac.
Words in the mouth:
Prophet Muhammad was unlettered and whatever revelations he received from Almighty God he repeated them verbatim.
“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” [Deuteronomy 18:18]
iv) Both Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) besides being Prophets were also kings i.e. they could inflict capital punishment. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36).
v) Both Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) were accepted as Prophets by their people in their lifetime, but Jesus was rejected by his people. John chapter 1 verse 11 states, “He came unto his own, but his own received him not.”
vi) Both Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) brought new laws and new regulations for their people. Jesus according to the Bible did not bring any new laws. (Mathew 5:17-18).
This biblical prophecy legitimizes the coming of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him), as ordained by God, and may explain why many Christians are converting to Islam, and why Islam is a fast-growing religion.
Asoka says: FACT 1:
The Cordoba House is not a “Ground Zero mosque” … it is a Muslim-financed community center called The Cordoba House.
====================
Here is how Bloomberg described it in his speech:
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center…
Also, from a Daily News article on July 14th:
The Cordoba House is now Park51.
Developers behind the controversial 13-story Islamic community center and prayer space near Ground Zero announced Tuesday a bland new name for the project.
Qshtik, of course the original is teapot.
By changing the original to teacup I have diminished even more the importance of this issue.
Whether or not to construct a ground zero mosque is so insignificant (and opposing it is so un-American), that I have downgraded the teapot to a teacup.
Myrtlemay, as I said earlier in the week you had been coming up with some outstanding ideas.
But I’ve got to say that your attack on MD has left me a little flummoxed. It is possible that you linked to the wrong article?
The one I got was by Ted Nugent…and did not mention anything directly related to your post.
Understand I’m not a Nugent adherent. He’s a *spokesman* for a position. For example, from the article, ******************************** “many of us have allowed uneducated, history-devoid, denial-riddled, fantasy-driven, anti-gun and anti-hunting, anti-capitalism general ignoramuses to remain so and run amok
************************************************
Nugent’s got a viewpoint and a pulpit. As a pragmatist, I disagree with a lot of what he says, but not all of it.
I voted for Obama…and Nugent can go to Hell for telling me I invited a communist, Islamist, pickyourobamasmearist into office.
I have been disappointed with many of the things Obama has done and not done. I was disappointed with virtually everything Bush II did.
I think McCain would have been a bigger disaster than Obama…as the tickets were constituted.
I also think that if McCain had listened to his Own Views…ignored the RW fringe…picked a centrist democrat as his VP…that McCain could have won. Instead McCain picked the cute little governor from Alaska with the sadly dysfunctional family.
I got on this website to shape and explore my own views….while trying to save myself, my family, my Country, and my Planet from a variety of collapse situations.
I have a educated *liberal* view of cultures with a pragmatic view of the possible and desirable.
I’m finding that that is a surprisingly and disturbingly uncommon outlook.
OK, Qshtik, I will concede it is a mosque/community center. So what?
On private property a house of worship is being legally constructed. Freedom of religion is a founding principle of the United States.
But more to the point, the traditional functions of a mosque are many. First and foremost, the mosque is the place where Muslims gather to pray together. I have absolutely no problem with people praying to their invisible gods.
But a mosque is also a very important part of the social life of the Muslim community. Modern mosques run homework clubs, women’s activities and youth clubs, and may have IT facilities, computers, creches, and kitchens.
Once the prayers are over, Muslims often stay on, chatting with their friends or, if the mosque has a ‘social’ room, youngsters play snooker or table tennis. The imam can use the premises to meet people, discuss problems, or help with family life.
Most mosques have a collection of books — sometimes enough to qualify as a library.
Visiting speakers are often invited to mosques for talks, or to discuss problems of Muslim law.
The mosque also fulfils an important function as the school or madrassah where people can study the Arabic language, the Qur’an and various Islamic subjects. Maybe this explains the freak-out over The Cordoba House, since madrassah has been vilified as a place for brainwashing, completely ignoring the real reason for madrassahs.
All Muslims are expected to learn as much of the Qur’an as they are able, and for many this is a difficult business, as Arabic is not their first language. Children usually start these Islamic studies at the age of five, and continue until they are 15 or so. It is quite possible to go on studying for the rest of your life. Arabic classes and Qur’an study classes (known as tafsir) are held every day, and children usually go straight after school, studying for around two hours, five nights per week. Some schools even demand weekend work, too.
Mosques can also be used for all sorts of other functions — meetings, weddings and festival days, birthdays, or parties celebrating circumcision, home-coming, or the passing of an important exam. These are all joyful functions.
Most mosques will have a good kitchen area as part of the complex, and perhaps a special function room. Some even run a café for the public.
Sometimes people sleep overnight in a mosque, either on the carpeted floor of the prayer-hall or in specially provided facilities.
Mosques may offer services to the community as primitive hospitals, feeding centres or ‘rest-rooms’.
The mosque may also have an ablutions room where it is possible to administer the last washing to the deceased before shrouding takes place.
Whether the Cordoba House will be a community center that is a mosque, or a mosque that is a community center … either way, The Cordoba House is a legitimate way to commemorate the thousands of Americans, including American Muslims, who died in the attacks on 9/11 and to repudiate the violent acts of 19 Saudi Arabian Muslims.
Asia, Vlad, and occasionally Q
I count you three among the posters who consistently attempt to hold Asoka’s views “in check.” Because A is another “gatekeeper” on these threads. And I’m honestly a little worried about the guy.
Someone said weeks ago that “…Asoka is subjected to the most vile attacks week after week and responds with perfect politeness….” (quote is a paraphrase, but as close as memory allows)
But that politeness is slipping away. He slammed you, Q, in a vulgar manner concerning your handle.
Then, in one single interchange about unsecured borders he attacked my persona as, “…a hypocrite…selfish…evil…and a monster.”
Well, I disagree. And I’ve said repeatedly that I’m a “nominal” Christian, mostly by culture, laziness, and default. Yet, A, keeps trying to force me into a box on border security by invoking Christianity….which makes no sense.
Because it is obvious from Scripture that Jesus cared about what was in the hearts and souls of mankind….not about whether all mankind had access to refrigeration or “first world” living standards.
Then Asoka says,
**************************************************
Garrett Hardin’s lifeboat ethics and tragedy of the commons position has two basic problems: it holds survival to be the ultimate value and it views mankind primarily in biological terms.
*************************************************
Sorry, but without SURVIVAL of humanity, ALL the rest of this is MOOT.
And as global population pushes through 6,000,000,000 demanding mouths to feed….mankind’s BIOLOGICAL needs are proving capable of trumping ANY offsetting factors.
Often, but not always, “time heals all.” Let’s give this Ground Zero Mosque idea 50 years or so (starting from 9/11/2001) and see how things go. Note: IMO the first 9 years do not bode well.
Here is a suggestion: Establish some boundaries around Ground Zero and declare that NO religiously affiliated building (that did not exist prior to 9/11/2001) may reside within those boundaries before 9/11/2051 after which time the rule for this area will be reconsidered, either for extention or abandonment.
That’s a mere 41 years from now … the proverbial “blink of an eye.”
And while we’re on the subject, read the following link which deals with whether muslim suicide bombings are religion-based or otherwise. Note: Despite the article’s title, both views are discussed.
http://www.bereanpublishers.com/Cults/Muslims/suicide_bombers_follow_quran.htm
And let me get my ideas in about the ground zero mosque.
I think it is a bad idea. But I’m a Southerner and I know New Yorkers are gonna do what they’re gonna do.
The reason NYC keeps getting attacked is that it has special symbolism around the Globe as a multi-cultural city…because of the UN, and other reasons.
If New Yorkers approve this thing…maybe they understand that symbolism in some special way that my Southern sensibilities are incapable of detecting. Who knows/who cares.
I’m tired of mega-churches of strict doctrine.
I’m tired of tax exempt churches *doing* politics.
I’m sick unto vomit by religions that deny females
How about a huge Unitarian mega-church in NYC instead of this mosque.
That, I could support.
I have focused on WHY Park51 (The Cordoba House) is a good idea (legal, constitutional, spiritual, American freedom of religion, need for unity, etc.) and I have focused on WHAT a mosque is (a community center and a prayer center), but I have not commented on WHERE or WHO.
WHERE IS PARK51
Park51 is not on top of where the World Trade Center towers were. It is two blocks away, on private property.
WHO SUPPORTS PARK51
Park51 supporters include those who lost loved ones on 9/11. Herb Ouida, whose son Todd died in the attacks, says he supports the Cordoba Initiative’s project.
“To call it a mosque is not right. It’s a community center that includes a prayer center,” Ouida told AOL News today.
The 68-year-old father from River Edge, N.J., says he is deeply concerned about the tone of some of the opposition to the project.
“What we are doing [when we oppose the community center] is we are saying to the world that we are at war with Islam. And we can’t be. I want my grandchildren to live in a better world,” he said.
“To say that we’re going to condemn a religion and castigate a billion people in the world because they’re Muslims, to say that they shouldn’t have the ability to pray near the World Trade Center — I don’t think that’s going to bring people together and cross the divide.”
On 9/11, Marvin Bethea rushed to the World Trade Center to try to save lives, and has had trouble breathing ever since. The former Emergency Medical Services worker says he had to retire in 2004 when the breathing problems he acquired from toxic materials at the site made it too hard for him to work. But Bethea said he supports the Islamic center anyway.
“Even though my life has changed, I don’t hate the Muslims,” Bethea, 50, said. “Especially being a black man, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against. I’ve lived with that.”
Bethea believes racism is stoking the controversy.
“I understand the families are hurt and lost,” he said. But “how do you sit here and condemn all Muslims as being terrorists?” he said. “That’s just bigotry and hatred. We’re a better nation than that. The diversity that we have, this is what New York is about. But we have such prejudices, some of us. We have a long way to go.”
ASOKA’S OPINION
If we deny the right to build Park51, we give Al Qaeda one more recruitment tool.
Muslims are our friends. They are devout and peace loving. We can show them that we support them by supporting Park51.
How’s about these friendly peace loving Muslims compromise a little?
How about a non-denominational Christian chapel in the Park51 community center.
And a Synagogue as well would fit nicely.
And perhaps there could be other areas at Park51 for services by peoples of other Faiths, and even an area for Atheists?
All faiths could be encouraged to attend one another’s services and given equal access to the Community Center.
I submit that the Muslims pushing this will NEVER compromise; EVER…not a single inch.
Which tells a neutral observer something about any great religion!
“I’m sick unto vomit by religions that deny females”
===============
I challenge you to find these rights guaranteed to women in any verse in the Holy Bible. Muhammad was a feminist compared to the Judeo-Christian Bible guys.
I will spare you the chapter and verse cites from the Qu’ran, but rest assured the Holy Qu’ran guarantees Muslim women these rights and in a true Islamic society women have these rights:
1. The right and duty to obtain education.
2. The right to have their own independent property.
3. The right to work to earn money if they need it or want it.
4. Equality of reward for equal deeds.
5. The right to express their opinion and be heard.
6. The right to provisions from the husband for all her needs and more.
7. The right to negotiate marriage terms of her choice.
8. The right to obtain divorce from her husband, even on the grounds that she simply can’t stand him. (pls note that God deeply frowns upon divorce as a solution unless there is hardly any other alternative but it does not mean that men have more right to divorce their wives than women do.)
9. The right to keep all her own money (she is not responsible to maintain any relations).
10. The right to get sexual satisfaction from her husband.
11. custody of their children after divorce.
12. to refuse any marriage that does not please them
Progressorconserve, since you say you are a nominal Christian, and you may not be up on the Bible, let me refresh your memory about how women are viewed by the Bible of your Christian religion:
Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
1 Corinthians 11:3
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 14:34-36
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Colossians 3:18
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
1 Timothy 2:11-15
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.
1 Peter 3:1
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.
============
I am really grateful to you and Qshtik for allowing me to get out the truth about Islam and expose misconceptions and prejudice against Muslims.
Let’s briefly review a few tidbits from Asoka’s posts today. Asoka says:
1) I should add that, as an agnostic
Q asks: Why, all of a sudden, does Asoka crank back one small notch from atheist the way he describes his religious beliefs or non-beliefs? Is this another case of “I am large…”?
2) OK, Qshtik, I will concede it is a mosque/community center. So what?
Q replys: Wasn’t it Asoka who made a point of saying: FACT 1: The Cordoba House is not a “Ground Zero mosque”?
3) But more to the point, the traditional functions of a mosque are many (besides gathering to pray together).
Q responds: Likewise, the traditional functions of nearly all other religions are many. So what?
4) I have absolutely no problem with people praying to their invisible gods.
Q asks: If you knew with certainty (which, of course, you can’t and don’t) that there is/was no God, do you think it would still be OK for people to pray to their invisible gods? That is, that it would be neither better nor worse to be guided through life by a false belief? Does it make any difference at all for a person to believe the earth is flat rather than spherical? Is belief that 2+2=5 just as good as 2+2=4?
5) the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him)
Q notes: these very words appear 9 times in one Asoka post. The only possible reason I can come up with is that Asoka is shooting for his eighth consecutive month atop The Most Annoying Commenter Award list.
How’s about these friendly peace loving Muslims compromise a little?
====================
They own private property in Manhattan and want to build a community center/mosque. They have a right to do so, as guaranteed by the Constitution. I am an American and I support them and recognize their rights. I would also recognize the rights of any other group (Unitarians, atheists, etc.) to build on their private property because it is the American way to respect freedom of thought and freedom of religion.
Anyone who spreads falsehoods, sows division (denying the multicultural American truth of E PLURIBUS UNUM), or demands compromises with regard to basic constitutional rights, is un-American.
Asoka,
Again, you prove that you do not actually try to READ and understand the ideas of posters other than yourself.
I said, “I am sick unto vomit of all religions that deny females”
Do you notice the “s” at the end of the word “religions?” That makes the word PLURAL. I’ll include Christianity, Islam, and any of the other religions that deny feminine strength in any manner.
And my *personal* Christianity is more of the Thomas Jeffersonian variety. I have tried to explain that…but it does not seem to penetrate your understanding of my belief system.
(for example…of all the Bible verses you cite above…only Peter 3:1 was in Jefferson’s bible.
I will suggest that you stop trying to use *your understanding* of my religious beliefs as a PROXY for the belief systems of mainline Christian denominations generally.
It doesn’t fit…and it is counterproductive.
Now, seriously, man…how about a Synagogue and a Christian Chapel be given equal space with a Mosque in this proposed Community Center?
That would be wonderful. Don’t you agree??
rest assured the Holy Qu’ran guarantees Muslim women these rights … 1. The right and duty to obtain education … 12. to refuse any marriage that does not please them
================
And last but not least:
13. the opportunity of being stoned to death for adultery by males who have committed adultery.
“Billowing clouds seem entirely appropriate, Vision Cube. The concept of Allah’s infinite power is evoked by designs with repeating themes, pattern and geometry, which suggest infinity.”
Asoka, I agree with the above, especially visual properties suggesting infinity–very well said.
On the other hand, suggestive clouds engulfing a scaled down WTC like structure…well I can see how that might draw the ire and condemnation of those who are not familiar with some fairly arcane principles of Islamic architecture. And let’s face it, clouds engulfing the buildings as they collapsed, and NYC in the aftermath, is a lingering and trauma imbued memory for most anyone who witnessed the horror of 9/11. Linked below is a view of the proposed building:
http://dnainfo.com/20100524/manhattan/world-trade-center-mosque-debate-on-agenda-for-community-board-1-meeting
My visceral impression of the building leans more towards recent events. I imagine I am not alone in that impression which means the architects and planners have some very serious educating to do if they wish to tread sensitively in what most assuredly is not just another constitutionally guaranteed property rights issue.
Which brings me back once again to the merits of the building itself, and the role of formal analysis in consideration of all the mitigating factors.
An agnostic teaching prophecy. What’s next, an atheist worshipping the devil?
They own private property in Manhattan and want to build a community center/mosque.
===================
Suddenly you are a champion of private property rights. In what way are the property lines of the community center/mosque different from the southern border of our country which Mexicans cross with impunity … with your blessing.
I saw hundreds of beautiful mosques in Dubai but as a non-muslim I was not permitted to set foot in any of them … even for a tourist photo. I don’t know what the criteria of proof are … I guess I’m what might be called an “undocumented muslim.”
Let’s take Qshtik’s observations one by one:
=================
Q asks: Why, all of a sudden, does Asoka crank back one small notch from atheist the way he describes his religious beliefs or non-beliefs? Is this another case of “I am large…”?
=================
In a weak sense I am an atheist because I don’t believe in God. In a strong sense I cannot be an atheist because an atheist makes an assertion God does not exist. I can neither prove God exists nor prove God does not exist. In reality I don’t really think it matters at all, so I call myself an agnostic.
======================
Q replys: Wasn’t it Asoka who made a point of saying: FACT 1: The Cordoba House is not a “Ground Zero mosque”?
======================
Yes, I did. And I am correct on two counts:
1) It has a name. The name is not “Ground Zero Mosque.” The name is The Cordoba House. I dislike press manipulation of facts. Call a thing what it is instead of inventing a name calculated to inflame passions.
2) It has a location. The location is not Ground Zero. The location is two blocks from Ground Zero. In this sense perhaps Park51 is a better name than “Ground Zero” because the mosque/community center is not being built on top of where the Twin Towers were.
============================
Q responds: Likewise, the traditional functions of nearly all other religions are many. So what?
========================
Q, you have to ask “So what?” You were the one using the name “Ground zero mosque” and I was the one saying it is a community center with homework clubs, women’s activities, youth clubs, IT facilities, table tennis, a library, a school, computers, creches, and kitchens. My description is much more descriptive of a community center. When you said “Ground Zero Mosque” all those activities are not normally thought of. I simply conceded it is a mosque… and by the way a mosque is a community center… and I spelled out what functions a mosque could serve.
======================
Q asks: If you knew with certainty (which, of course, you can’t and don’t) that there is/was no God, do you think it would still be OK for people to pray to their invisible gods? That is, that it would be neither better nor worse to be guided through life by a false belief? Does it make any difference at all for a person to believe the earth is flat rather than spherical? Is belief that 2+2=5 just as good as 2+2=4?
====================
Doesn’t make any difference to me. I recognize a person’s absolute right to go through life with beliefs I do not share. It’s not like I could change them anyway. It is what it is and I accept reality as it is.
===================
Q notes: these very words [Muhammad, may peace be upon Him] appear 9 times in one Asoka post. The only possible reason I can come up with is that Asoka is shooting for his eighth consecutive month atop The Most Annoying Commenter Award list.
===================
Once again you betray a lack of empathy and respect for the beliefs of others, Qshtik (may peace be upon you)
The Most Annoying Commenter Award is a fictitious award invented by you and has nothing to do with me or with reality.
I am just a low-IQ black who didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket (which evidently gave African immigrants their smarts) and according to you, only Stooges would carry on a conversation with me, yet here you are.
I am glad you are enjoying your retirement, Qshtik.
“Now, seriously, man…how about a Synagogue and a Christian Chapel be given equal space with a Mosque in this proposed Community Center?
That would be wonderful. Don’t you agree??”
============
Yes, I agree it would be wonderful if representatives of Christianity and Judaism calculated the real estate value of Park51 and offered to buy space at the going price, to compensate the Muslims for their investment.
I think that would be fantastic, to have all three “Religions of the Book” together sharing the same space. I would hope that they would each participate in the prayer services of the others as well and try to understand each others scriptures. The more understanding and trust that develops between them the better.
If the Christians or Jews would want to fairly compensate the Muslims to buy private property, that would be great. I don’t think they are interested though.
I have attended services in a synagogue, in a church, and in a mosque. Have you? If not, why not?
And if not, that explains how you continue to spread misconceptions about Muslims and how can you make such harsh judgments about Muslims.
I imagine many in Georgia share your views. Too bad your “Southern sensibilities” are so limited.
MD, that’s right. You have no monopoly over the Good Book, and I know how to read, in spite of being an agnostic.
The weight of the scriptural evidence in the Holy Bible supports the view that Muhammad is the Prophet spoken of in the Old Testament, not Jesus.
If you believe the Bible is the Word of God, then Islam is the TRUE religion, not Christianity.
proove it
‘that’s a given’ CUTE!thats a witty response.
Qshtik said:
Qshtik, there is one mosque in Dubai even atheists can enter, but you have to plan your visit. It helps to have purity of heart, though I don’t know if that is a criteria of proof.
Jumeirah Mosque Dubai accepts non-Muslim visitors through organized Jumeirah Mosque tours. The only way for visitors to tour the mosque is to join one of the Jumeirah Mosque tours led by the Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding.
The organization’s goals are directed at nurturing cultural awareness through direct experiences and promoting first-hand insight into Islam through their UAE tours.
Both history and religion are touched upon and professional guides can answer any questions about Jumeirah Mosque.
Jumeirah Mosque tours operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 10am only.
The not-for-profit organization gathers with visitors outside the mosque and leads a thorough tour throughout.
thanks, as Q said ‘of course asokas in favor of a mosque at ground zero’…
why would the mosque be there? to recruit terrorists? what i wonder is how long WorldTrade 2 will stand till its blown up, and how much longer the usa will bomb 2 countries!
anyone see the thing on naomi campbells 3 blood daimonds, gifts from charlie ?
or ice the size of a country breaking loose?
after a century of rampant inflation whats wrong with deflation? id welcome farms at 1,000$ and sacks of rice at 1$.
bring on the good ol days [ keep on dreaming ]
NY state gov. wanted to give drivers licenses to illegals!
‘If New Yorkers approve this thing…maybe they understand that symbolism in some special way that my Southern sensibilities are incapable of’
Its not what the people want, its what the power elites want. as someone posted here very recently, 99% of the comments elected officials got on tarp were ‘ dont do it, we the people disapprove’
do you really think 51% of us citizens want muslim immigration? let alone as we drop 1000s of hiroshimas on 2 muslim countries?
‘You don’t need Einstein’s IQ to predict that this mosque could be a magnet for revenge’
the reverse could be true….’ say a prayer there then go blow oneself up at WT2′
dont ask when suicide bombers will blow themselves up in usa…ask when. first in israel, then elsewhere. no way would i go to an event thats got 10s of 1000 of people at it.
fool, islam is a religion of segregation. and ‘honor killings’..now that weve 5M muslims in the usa weve plenty of honor killings here.
and they are HK despite the fbi/cia’s refusal to call them such.
Vision Cube, American Muslims died on 9/11. Muslims are under attack all over the country from communities who oppose Muslims building places of worship. It’s not just Park51. They cannot afford to compromise. They must fight for their right to worship God.
Ron Messier, professor of religions at Vanderbuilt, is completing a book, “Jesus: One Man, Two Faiths, A Dialogue About Christ Between Christians and Muslims.”
Here is an excerpt of an interview of Messier:
‘But a mosque is also a very important part of the social life of the Muslim community’
muslims, often having 7 or 8 children per family have overstrecthed the middle easts carrying capacity.
as JHK noted in TLE ‘ most are under 18 or 21 in SaudiArabia and most PHds are in islamic studies’
the bigger question is why are we ‘ giving away our country and culture’?
If we deny the right to build Park51, we give Al Qaeda one more recruitment tool.
===================
Good point. We should appease Al Qaeda. Sincerely, Neville Q. Chamberlin
Stoning women to death is against Islam. It should not happen in a true Islamic society.
Islam has various sects. Iran is 89% shia, 9% sunni. You can’t judge all of Islam because of what happens in one country or the edict of one cleric or the decision of one judge or the actions of one sect.
It would be like someone visiting the USA criticizing all of Christianity because women are not allowed to lead communion in the church.
You might explain that Christianity is not monolithic. Catholics do not allow women to become priests or perform the communion ceremony, but many other Christian denominations do allow women to become ministers and lead communion.
When I stayed with a Muslim family in Kashmir the Muslims wanted me to understand they are Sunni, “not like those radical Shia.”
Islam is not monolithic.
When you start denying Muslims the right to build places of worship on private property, when you start subverting the United States Constitution, you are doing the terrorists’ work for them.
And Al Qaeda has already won thanks to Neville Q. Chamberlain caving on fundamental principles upon which this country was founded.
All right; that’s it…
FUCKING FULL FUCKING STOP!
Regardless of what anyone may think about my thoughts about religion (or lack thereof), this crap has absolutely nothing to do with the week’s posting by JHK.
If you might opine that religion is a necessity for survival, then SAY SO in some germane way.
All I’m seeing is distraction and irrelevancy; what else ya got? I’m also seeing that such misappropriated passion is a sure path to “the creator” in short order. (You’re gonna die while debating bullshite… get it?)
Q asks:
Duh, let’s see.
One is personal deeded private property with border rights recognized by civil municipal, state, federal and supreme courts.
The other is a national property border whose border was decided by military might in a war which ended in an agreement to maintain open borders in a binding treaty with Mexico signed by both countries, which treaty was broken immediately by the USA, and then subsequently ignored by 20 million Mexicans who correctly refuse to recognize the legality of the border.
Just a guess.
I keep hearing it said that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo mandates open borders.
To the contrary, it establishes a legally defensible border.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
I extracted the two most “Mexican friendly” quotes I could find from the Wikipedia article, Asoka. There is no mention of unrestricted movement of persons across the border.
*************************************************
The treaty extended U.S. citizenship to Mexicans in the newly-purchased territories, before many African Americans, Asians and Native Americans were eligible. Between 1850 and 1920, the U.S. Census counted most Mexicans as racially “white” [24], despite the actual mixed ancestry of most Mexicans
The version of the treaty ratified by the United States Senate eliminated Article X[17], which stated that the U.S. government would honor and guarantee all land grants awarded in lands ceded to the U.S. to citizens of Spain and Mexico by those respective governments. Article VIII guaranteed that Mexicans who remained more than one year in the ceded lands would automatically become full-fledged American citizens (or they could declare their intention of remaining Mexican citizens); however, the Senate modified Article IX, changing the first paragraph and excluding the last two. Among the changes was that Mexican citizens would “be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States)
…And as a p.s., Q., I reiterate that perhaps you are a “gatekeeper” for the status quo by emphatically inserting incongruent “false controversy” into any and every discussion. It doesn’t lessen my respect, but it does sharpen my well-whetted paranoia.
Sorry; that’s what I feel, and I NEVER forget. (I do change my opinions with fresh information, but I NEVER forget.)
Well said, O3….
I have often wished I could demand a Full Stop to off-topic threads, myself. Good luck with that.
Maybe it’s philosophy. Belief in ultimate good demands the existence of ultimate evil.
Q demands A, A demands Q!
To infinity and beyond!
Ha! Very good P.O.C.
To the abyss and over and out! ;o)
(I love “To infinity and beyond!”, ala Buzz; think about it: beyond infinity? Whoa, baby!)
Progressorconserve, you have correctly identified what the US government promised: “the U.S. government would honor and guarantee all land grants awarded in lands ceded to the U.S. to citizens of Spain and Mexico by those respective governments.”
Here is what actually happened:
“the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed that the inhabitants of the newly acquired lands would be secure in their property rights. In many cases, however, the guarantee turned out to be hollow. Many Anglo-Americans treated the Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the way they treated Indians – as an inferior, conquered, and subjugated people.
For example, American squatters would sometimes trespass and settle onto properties owned by Mexicans and Mexican Americans. When lawsuits were brought, it was often impossible for the legitimate owners to prove a clear chain of title to their property; after all, this was not something with which they had had to be concerned when they lived in Mexico. And even when the property owners ultimately prevailed in the legal battles, attorney’s fees and court costs would force them to sell their property anyway.
Travel across the border after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not difficult… because the border was completely open… and remained open for some 75 years.”
If I were Mexican, I would not recognize the current borders at all because they were established as open (and remained open for decades) but immediately after the Treaty was signed the land rights granted were not respected, invalidating the Treaty. Then, after 75 years of open borders (as the Treaty intended) the borders were closed.
‘American Muslims died on 9/11’
well said, best thing yve ever posted here.
‘American Muslims died on 9/11….proving that muslims will kill their own and bomb mosques…shiite against sunni..thats how ‘ eye for an eye’ some are.
if they are willing to kill other muslims how must they feel about the great satan, bombing 2 of ‘ their’ countries.!!!!!
American Muslims died on 9/11
American Muslims died on 9/11
American Muslims died on 9/11..Q..is that pure asoka fail?????
Ozone…can you explain:
Q., I reiterate that perhaps you are a “gatekeeper” for the status quo ….thanks
Ozone,that is a big,tall 10-4 !
It seems the manipulating,thieving dual passport crowd has led you simpletons back to the religious fairy tales.Synagogues,mosques and churches should immediately be converted into homeless shelters and deportation facilities.
Asoka said, Almighty God speaks to Moses in Book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18:
“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.”
Who do you think the “them”, “their brethren” and
“them all” might be refering to? My guess is that it is the Israelites.
The Muslim prophet was not raised up from among the Israelites, nor does he speak to {minister to}Israelites. And he certainly does not “supercede” Jesus, the Anointed King of Israel.
Jesus is the Kinsman Redeemer. He said quite plainly that He was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. No one else qualifies.
http://dnainfo.com/20100524/manhattan/world-trade-center-mosque-debate-on-agenda-for-community-board-1-meeting
Say, Jimbo, can I pre-nominate this as a future Eyesore of the Month?
Dee
Basically, a “mis-director”, an “obfuscator”, a “smoke-and-mirrors” user. (A guard of the gate of verifiable reality whose job is to deny passage through the gate. A good example would be health insurance “providers”.) Purpose? To steer people away from REAL issues and REAL dangers, and into the territory of straw men, shadows, fools’ errands, and red herrings. Follow these directives at your peril…
As usual, Asoka continues to believe that saying something in print makes it true.
He says:
***********************************************
If I were Mexican, I would not recognize the current borders at all because they were established as open (and remained open for decades) but immediately after the Treaty was signed the land rights granted were not respected, invalidating the Treaty
***********************************************
A treaty is not valid and binding on the US unless and until RATIFIED by the Senate.
And if it’s not in the treaty, in writing, it is not part of the discussion.
According to the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe the southern border of the US is defensible and enforceable.
Any questions?
dont ask when suicide bombers will blow themselves up in usa…ask when.
===================
The first “when” in this sentence should have been “if” but knowing its author we all got the drift ;o)
…Or, more simply: one who engages in diversionary tactics. TV? The movies? “You create a diversion; I’ll slip around ‘back and…”
Ozone said: “All right; that’s it…
FUCKING FULL FUCKING STOP! Regardless of what anyone may think about my thoughts about religion (or lack thereof), this crap has absolutely nothing to do with the week’s posting by JHK.”
OK, Ozone, back on topic for a moment.
This week’s JHK post is title SKIDDING TOWARD FALL.
At first I read this as skidding toward autumn. But there weren’t any dire predictions about heating oil shortages or stock market at 4,000.
Then I thought maybe it really means skidding toward TSHTF (a fall of the economic system, complete economic collapse).
Then I though maybe it really means skidding toward the fall of man, but according to the religious folk that already happened in the Garden of Eden, but that would take us into unnecessary religious discussions and someone would end up screaming: “All right; that’s it…
FUCKING FULL FUCKING STOP! Regardless of what anyone may think about my thoughts about religion (or lack thereof), this crap has absolutely nothing to do with the week’s posting by JHK.”
So, I’m going with the prosaic autumn.
Did anyone happen to notice the recent labor statistics? We lost government jobs (that is good, isn’t it, when we shrink the federal government?) In part it was expected loss related to the Census winding down.
At the same time federal government was shrinking, we created private sector jobs, small business jobs, and manufacturing jobs. That’s good isn’t it?
All three U.S. automakers are posting a profit for the first time since 2004 Obama touted. Since they emerged from the big crisis of 2008, the auto industry has added 76,000 jobs.
That’s good isn’t it? As goes GM, so goes the country, isn’t that what conservatives used to say?
The Senate just passed legislation Thursday that boosts aid to states in an effort to keep teachers and other public officers on states’ payroll. That’s good isn’t it, that police and firefighters won’t lose their jobs?
Kind of puts JHK’s first sentence in question: “This economy has a destination for sure, but it’s not in the direction where all eyes are trained in moist hopefulness: that glimmering horizon of longed-for growth.”
We haven’t fallen over into the abyss yet. But most on CFN think it’s going to happen any day. And I’ve been reading for years about JHK’s predictions about Y2K, TSHTF, etc. always about six months out (one Friedman unit).
Maybe in six months we can begin to withdraw troops from the Middle East, or twelve months, or eighteen months. Maybe in six months an economic collapse, maybe in twelve months, maybe in eighteen?
About the future nothing can be said. That is why it is difficult to stay on topic when JHK starts his column talking about the unknown future.
“As usual, Asoka continues to believe that saying something in print makes it true… the southern border of the US is defensible and enforceable.”
I know what I am saying is true and 20 million illegal immigrants crossing the border are my proof.
And I know what you are saying about the Southern border being “defensible and enforceable” is false.
One million each year cross in “la reconquista” because it is their land and ain’t nothing gonna stop it.
Not Sheriff Joe, not the National Guard, not ICE, not the 101st Airborne, not the Minutemen militias, not even all the good ‘ole boy racist Mexican haters in the good ‘ole USA.
Since JHK likes to make predictions, I’ll make a prediction about immigrants.
Two years ago many were ranting about the “gay agenda” and trying to divide the electorate by saying marriage is between “a man and a woman” and they claimed theirs was the moral high ground.
This week the court ruled discrimination against gay marriage is unconstitutional and the Republicans did not come out ranting about the “gay agenda”. Seems their principles got lost as it became an indefensible position, not in their political interest.
I predict in two years (4 Friedman units) the Republicans will be very agreeable to immigration reform that legalizes the “illegal” Mexicans, because suddenly they will see it is in their political interest.
And I will personally resurrect ACORN, or work around the clock with whoever ACORN morphs into, to register all the Latino voters and Muslim voters I can for the 2012 presidential election.
Voting is a right.
Asoka,
Stick to a topic…any topic.
You have been yammering on about how the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe mandates an open unsecured border with Mexico.
That is untrue.
I said this earlier,
“According to the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe the southern border of the US is defensible and enforceable.”
You cannot refute this….so you just made up some more stuff out of thin air.
I’m sorry, Asoka, but I have to stand by my statement. You are an active impediment to honest discussion on this website.
Let’s talk about that Treaty….if you think I’m missing something. Otherwise, you’re out of line, here….on a specific provable fact.
Just to clarify…
“According to the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe the southern border of the US is defensible and enforceable.”
I am using the terms “defensible and enforceable” in the legal sense. A treaty is a legal document and the southern border is legally defensible and enforceable.
Thanks for those tips. We dont get frost we live on the border between a tropical and sub-tropical region so while it does get cold frost is very rare. August is usually our coldest month and it has been cold lately. Put in two new vegatable beds yesterday.
Boy, all I can say is God help us from people like Asoka. reading all of your dishonest drivel makes one want to projectile vomit!!!! Agnostic? You CLEARLY come from an Anti- American, Anti-Judeo-Christian point of view and obviously have an islamo-centrist point of view!!! You want open borders, ACORN rejuvenated, and islam to be the national religion and you feel it is peaceful rleigion…you know with it’s honor killings and all that good stuff! What a FUCKING JOKE you are and only in this country could an treasonous, anti-American lowlife such as yourself have voice. If you were voicing these views in the opposite manner in an islamic country, they’d cut your tongue and balls off. This country is most certainly waking up and when enough of the sheeple do, everything that you believe and stand for is gonna get a good old American ass kicking!!! There’s a reason that we are STILL and will ALWAYS be the greatest country and it’s not because of sharia muslims and ILLEGAL mexicans pal!!!
Desert Dawg,
I feel your pain, man. Asoka says things on here, repeatedly, simply to make people angry. It seems to have worked on you, tonight.
Only problem is that he will pick out parts of your argument…and use them to flip you and defeat you….and make it look as though he and the ultra-liberals have all TRUTH on their side.
Now, I’m a pragmatic native born Southerner, with all the mental baggage that implies…so…I understand you…I know you…you’re like my cultural brother, man…
So when you say something to these over the top liberals like Asoka, “everything that you believe and stand for is gonna get a good old American ass kicking!!! There’s a reason that we are STILL and will ALWAYS be the greatest country.”
I’d like to agree with you, Dawg, but I just can’t logically do it. The US is a great country, still. We can have a wonderful future in front of us…and if we play our cards right we can be “great” for a long time to come.
We could fix our borders, control populations, do something about renewable energy and renewable industry…and the US could be a force for good for many more centuries.
But if we as a country just keep running around “kicking ass” I’m afraid we might fizzle out pretty quickly.
We might take out a good chunk of the rest of the World (and maybe destroy the whole Thing?) when we fizzle out….but that doesn’t help me to ensure the survival of….my family, my country, and my Planet.
Any ideas, man? You have my attention!
TWO LOOSE ENDS:
1) Asoka, your list of muslim women’s rights, while possibly technically true, reads like a fairytale. Get a clue. Read INSIDE THE KINGDOM: My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin Ladin. I’ve read the book and it’s an eye opener. Here’s a link to a review:
http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews2/0446577081.asp
Following is the last paragraph of the review:
When I closed the cover on Carmen Bin Ladin’s fast-paced but often gut-wrenching INSIDE THE KINGDOM, it didn’t even matter to me that the rather sensationalist hook of the “Osama connection” never amounted to more than a name in the background, nor that she never apparently even met the alleged perpetrator of the catastrophes of September 11, 2001. Like her, all I wanted to do was rush outside into the sunshine, breathe unveiled air, and thank God/Allah for creating a world whose beauty still manages to transcend the terrible things human beings keep doing to one another.
2) Ozone, I’m glad that Asia asked you what you mean when you say I am a “gatekeeper” because frankly I had no friggin idea either. Your explanation is thorough and clear and I will tell you, in all honesty, that I am hurt by it. I don’t see myself in that light – a “mis-director”, an “obfuscator”, a “smoke-and-mirrors” user – at all. Quite the opposite – I oppose everything you accuse me of. I see myself as an identifier and debunker of bullshit with a penchant for sarcasm. And an arch-foe of the slimy eel, sophist, master downloader and spinner of half truths, Asoka. The obsessive spelling and grammar thing is a mere sideline to fill the hours.
It is seldom that I take a hard-line position on the main topics discussed in JHK’s weekly essays but those topics lead off in myriad directions. Two of them are: Illegal immigration, particularly the most visible (Mexicans), and now the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, which just recently came to my attention. If Femme can discuss midwifery in Australia and Tripp can tell us about his whoring goat I don’t think I need to be apologetic about raising consciousness on the GZ mosque: a bad idea with even worse timing, destined to cause big future trouble.
Go back to sleep, Dawg. Your time is over. You done lost your country. We got a Black president, a wise Latina and a wise Jewess on the Supreme Court, and a new generation that is not homophobic, militaristic, or anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim.
It is cute though to hear you making some patriotic sounds on Clusterfuck Nation where week after week we get JHK telling us about the fat, checkdoodle-eating tatooed couch potatoes, in a country of unemployed, lazy, white Harley-riding meth-addicts who relive Vietnam in their fantasies, watch FOXNews, and secretly admire the Tea Party.
This is the country you are going to save from the hard-working Mexicans who risked their lives to get here and live below the radar, commit no crimes to avoid any authorities knowing about their status.
This is the “greatest” country in the world you are going to save from the clean, drug-free, hard-working, Muslims who pray five times a day?
It is really sad to see Americans who have been robbed blind — by Clinton’s NAFTA, Bush tax cuts and outsourcing, Reagan’s union-busting, Obama’s TARP, and bankers ponzi schemes of toxic paper and endless defense spending and wars of all of them — take it out on the Mexicans and the Muslims.
Go back to sleep, Dawg. Your time is over. You done lost your country. We got a Black president, a wise Latina and a wise Jewess on the Supreme Court, and a new generation that is not homophobic, militaristic, or anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim.
It is cute though to hear you making some patriotic sounds on Clusterfuck Nation where week after week we get JHK telling us about the fat, checkdoodle-eating tatooed couch potatoes, in a country of unemployed, lazy, white Harley-riding meth-addicts who relive Vietnam in their fantasies, watch FOXNews, and secretly admire the Tea Party.
This is the country you are going to save from the hard-working Mexicans who risked their lives to get here and live below the radar, commit no crimes to avoid any authorities knowing about their status.
This is the “greatest” country in the world you are going to save from the clean, drug-free, hard-working, Muslims who pray five times a day?
It is really sad to see Americans who have been robbed blind — by Clinton’s NAFTA, Bush tax cuts and outsourcing, Reagan’s union-busting, Obama’s TARP, and bankers ponzi schemes of toxic paper and endless defense spending and wars of all of them — take it out on the Mexicans and the Muslims.
Pro Con, I’m with you. That guy just babbles such nonsense…and lies! He’s not defeating me no matter what he says because EVERYTHING THIS CLOWN SAYS IS A LIE! If libs on here agree with him, that’s not defeating me, he’s just preaching to his fool choir. What I meant by ass kicking wasn’t going going around blowing up other countries. I meant taking this one back ;). I mean how do people even accept a moron like this talking about actively recruiting muslims and illegals to take over this country and people are OK with it on here! That’s not happening because of what I said about what this coun try still is. the problem is that most people still are living in the fantasy, but when they wake up…they are going to be pissed Trust me, most are like us when it comes to core beliefs. As far as what to do with some of these problems…Close the border, not secure it…CLOSE IT! It’s not hard, it’s VERY simple. Take some of those hundreds of thousands of troops from overseas and put them on our border, while we build a double fence..a real one, not the crap we have on the AZ border now. There will be a place and time for legal entry, but we are supersaturated and no more immigrants for several years until we can account for who is here now. Once it’s closed, then we deal with the illegals here. Scumbags get deported and people with jobs get put into the system. No job…bye-bye. No more anchor babies. DONE! If people still want to try to invade and get past fence #1…in between the two is open fire zone. Sounds harsh, but would people risk it if that was the case? I think not. The job of the military is to protect us, not nation build countries we just blew up. We need to make things here again, the government and whores on Wall St sold our soul to China and screwed our manufacturing base. Yes, we need renewable energy, but the entire economy worldwide is dependent on oil, you just don’t get rid of it. There’s plenty of here to access that wouldn’t even be near civilization, I mean the whole reason we got Alaska was for the oil (ie the pipeline). DRILL IN ANWR!! Nuclear energy would be the most efficient and yeah work on solar and wind, but let’s be practical here. You stated your concern was, like most people, family, the country and the planet. Well, being energy independent, closing and securing our borders and manufacturing things here, without all the union and govt interference will do just that. We need to STOP the progressive big government agenda, but the unions, make sure groups like ACORN don’t have power, etc, etc. It’s really simple, be the country we were intended to be…NOT A PROGRESSIVE, MARXIST, MUSLIM, ILLEGALLY INVADED, BIG BROTHER NANNY STATE! Peace!
Qshtik,
Life is a funny business. You are a gatekeeper, all right. That’s a large part of the reason why I tried to “say hello” to you when I first logged onto these CFN threads.
I think O3’s definition of gatekeeper is too harsh, though.
My definition of gatekeeper flows more from your constant consistent presence on here. “nobody comes to the father but through me, Q, while exercising proper grammar, spelling, and capitalization….”
Now that’s an attempt at a joke…roll with it.
You and Asoka are like bookends on this website.
OK, enough of this, Q. If if not careful I’ll be telling you how much I like you…and I know how much you would HATE that….me being womanly and all…that’s another joke, btw… 🙂
I see Asoka has signed on and responded to DesertDawg as I predicted he would.
Except, somehow Asoka FREAKIN’ DOUBLE POSTED…AS MUCH AS HE USES THIS SITE AND HE DOUBLE POSTS…WHAT A MAROON.
What are we gonna do with Asoka? I’ve got him completely boxed in on a misrepresentation (lie) about that Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe. He may try to wriggle out…or he may ignore it.
But he will be able to begin next week like it never even happened…and he was never wrong…and we need more illegal immigrants because we already have only 20,000,000.
I don’t know what to do about this particular clusterfuck. I’m open to suggestions.
Only thing is that I don’t want to drag old business onto JHK’s discussion thread on a Monday.
We could try to thrash it out here, on this thread…next week…not sure how rewarding that would be, though.
Last thing, don’t go calling me one of the three stooges..or whatever, again..you got something to say to me..go ahead and say it.
Night,
Dude
Assholeka, I will give you this, this part is true what you said “Clinton’s NAFTA, Obama’s TARP, and bankers ponzi schemes of toxic paper and endless defense spending and wars of all of them” has played a big part. Who’s blaming that on muslims and illegals? Do the tolerant muslims let other religions be practiced in their country? What about coming in illegally? Didn’t think so. Pseudo-intellectual jackoffs such as yourself are so transparent and recite the same bull crap, that it really does get tiring. I could sit here and rebut your lying crap all day long, but it’s not worth my time
A country without borders isn’t a country and in spite of all this and vermin like you who are allowed to spew your venom, YES there isn’t any place better. Actually, your time is the one that’s done. Your time is now, this is it, hope you’re enjoying it :)It will be brief and this country would break up before it would be consumed with your ilk in its entirety. Some of what you say may happen in the ultra-progressive cesspool cities of the northeast, Chicago and California, but I guarantee, it’s not happening in real America. You know, those of us who still believe in the Judeo-Christian God, the founding principles of this great nation and have their second amendment rights, NOT all-ugh or whatever you call him and your second century wife beating ways. I’m done with you fool. Go back to your dream!
DesertDawg,
You laid out a bunch of things that have you PO’d.
I’m on board with most of them. There are a couple that worry me.
One is your idea of the double fence, with what sounds like a *kill zone* in between the fences.
I just don’t see the southern border as such a big technical problem that we can’t fix it in a hurry…no threats of death necessary.
The other thing you said that bothers me is the idea of “drill ANWR…” ’cause we’ve gotta have oil.
Dawg, we’ve got, at best, 50 years worth of oil left for the world. I think ANWR may be worth a whole lot more to our kids in 100 years than it is to us in the US right now.
So I’d say leave US oil in the ground for the future…pay more now…and work on renewable energy.
Pick a topic and we can have a great argument, Dawg….this is important stuff!
I’m ready.
“Pro Con, I’m with you. That guy just babbles such nonsense”
It only appears as nonsense and lies to someone brainwashed by FoxNews.
I provide facts, statistics, and cite sources and you respond by calling names.
ACORN will make a comeback, more voters than ever will be registered, and this country will be run for the benefit of the new majority, not for the privileged white minority that ran the country into a ditch.
Peace!
How ’bout that treaty, A.
You been lying to us?
A says,
“I provide facts, statistics, and cite sources and you respond by calling names.”
A, I did not notice any statistics or cited sources in your response to desertdawg.
Care to put up…. or shut up?
. Pretty good rant. Good enough that you felt it should be posted twice, I presume.
. checkdoodle ??
. Muslims who pray five times a day
Imagine if, as you and I suspect, there is no God. Think of all those wasted hours, months and lifetimes that could have been used in doing something useful … permaculture, study math, anything but talking to a non-existent being about your issues with the great satan.
. white Harley-riding meth-addicts
Just going by the tone of the paragraph I suspect you intended a comma after the word “white” since you just don’t often see meth-addicts who exclusively ride white Harleys.
. Mexicans who … commit no crimes
That’s a good one. Fifteen years ago, give or take, I regularly shot pool in Jack’s Irish pub in New Brunswick, NJ. This pub slowly but surely found itself engulfed in a big “little Mexico” neighborhood of legals and illegals. One night I was strokin a shot when the whole friggin joint emptied out. I’ve got some significant hearing impairment – which, before political correctness in labeling set in, was known as being partially deaf – so I was unaware of the cause of the exodus. I was literally standing in the place alone. As I went out the side door to find out “what’s up?” everybody else started coming back in. “Nothing much, just two Mexicans in a shoot out in the middle of the street three doors down.” The next night I permanently took my business to The Bottle and Cork in Edison, NJ where the neighborhood was mostly white.
Asoka,
You have a few faults that I have tried to help you recognize.
The worst fault, for purposes of not BEING AN IMPEDIMENT TO HONEST DISCUSSION ON THIS WEBSITE is that you do not read OR consider the ideas of others.
Here is (yet another) example.
You post this fluff, in response to desertdawg:
************************************************
“This is the country you are going to save from the hard-working Mexicans who risked their lives to get here and live below the radar, commit no crimes to avoid any authorities knowing about their status.”
**********************************************
**********************************************
When desertdawg had just handled the exact same issue in the same vein:
***********************************************
Once it’s closed, then we deal with the illegals here. Scumbags get deported and people with jobs get put into the system
**************************************************
Desertdawg has a solution….a honest workable solution…that *honorable* illegals can believe in.
Asoka…you’ve got nothing but words…beautiful sophistic, Planet destroying words.
About that treaty, progressorconserve…
There were open borders between Mexico and the United States, from the time that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848 until approximately the 1930s.
During that period of time, Mexicans could cross freely into the United States to visit, work, open a business or live here. Hardly anyone gave it a second thought because Americans were accustomed to the idea that human beings had the fundamental human right to travel, work and visit wherever they wanted without governmental restriction.
You think the US government just kinda overlooked or forgot about implementing closed borders? Or could it be that Congress created the Border Patrol in 1925, and they needed to bureaucratically justify their existence?
Q said: “Pretty good rant. Good enough that you felt it should be posted twice, I presume.”
Give me a break Q… I’m on a dialup connection (very slow) and the line dropped in the middle of sending so I didn’t realize it had gone through. Can you let that one pass, Q? You know I wouldn’t do it on purpose to annoy anyone. 🙂
. checkdoodle ??
I don’t know what happened here. Should be cheezedoodles, the ones JHK references frequently in this posts, which I assume you are reading carefully.
Asoka…you’ve got nothing but words…beautiful sophistic, Planet destroying words.
=============
When you stop to think about it, that is all any of us have when writing on a blog.
But thanks for the compliment.
I had not realized my rhetoric was so powerful it could destroy an entire planet!
A, I did not notice any statistics or cited sources in your response to desertdawg.
Care to put up…. or shut up?
============
I was enjoying the spontaneous composition of a rant, hardly the time to engage in serious research.
I will provide statistics when they are necessary, but I will not shut up.
I am enjoying too much watching the Clusterfuck Nation squirm and whine as they notice they are losing their white privilege and will never have their country, their flag, their religion, or their laws enslave the non-white masses like they once did in court decisions like Scott v. Sandford (aka Dred Scott) (1856) a decision that black Americans were not citizens and that slavery could not be abolished in the territories of the United States.
Ooops, I inserted a fact, a date, an inconvenient truth.
Anyway, there is no going back. We are somebody! And we are increasingly taking power.
This country will not be rebuilt by old, white, tea party whiners.
It will be rebuilt by those who flee the relative comfort and safety of their homeland, including friends, family, and a native language.
Those strong enough to leave are usually the industrious ones–those who are willing to take big risks for the sake of economic betterment.
They provide the USA with an infusion of energy and vitality we should honor and preserve. Energy that will save America.
God bless ALL the immigrants, legal and illegal.
“I’ve got him completely boxed in on a misrepresentation (lie) about that Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe. He may try to wriggle out…or he may ignore it.”
=============
LOL! You don’t have me boxed in dude. And I did not ignore it. I answered it above. You got to understand the difference between de jure and de facto.
De facto the borders are still wide open. De jure the borders are “defensible and enforceable”… so it’s on paper, but it don’t mean squat.
Dawg said, if you don’t have borders you don’t have a country. I assume then, that the USA was not a country from the time of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo until the 1930s, because the borders were open and people went freely back and forth, as should be our birthright: freedom of movement.
I guess some prefer government restriction over freedom.
Dawg said: “Some of what you say may happen in the ultra-progressive cesspool cities of the northeast, Chicago and California, but I guarantee, it’s not happening in real America.”
==============
No, it is not just bi-coastal anymore. Freakin’ Indiana voted in favor of Obama! Indiana a blue state.
What part of the “real America” you talkin’ about.
Obama, a Black liberal Senator, took states all across the midwest, including lily-white state, states McCain/Palin could not win. It is over for you and your kind, Dawg.
You are dreamin’ Dawg. Or purposely ignoring reality.
” As polls closed from East to West, Obama kept hammering McCain, as he snatched away Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada — states that had been in President Bush’s column in 2004.
And Wednesday morning, Obama added Indiana to the list of states he’d turned from red to blue. Indiana hadn’t voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.”
That’s right, the REAL AMERICA, 2nd Amendment America, voted for… what did you call it? Oh yeah, A PROGRESSIVE, MARXIST, MUSLIM, ILLEGALLY INVADED, BIG BROTHER NANNY STATE!
Get over it, cause Obama will be re-elected in 2012, again by the real America.
CORRECTION: De jure the borders are “defensible and enforceable”… so it might on paper, like legalized slavery was, but it don’t mean squat.
Oy voy, it’s late.
Correction to the correction: “CORRECTION: De jure the borders are “defensible and enforceable”… so it might be on paper, like legalized slavery was, but it don’t mean squat.
Also, Progressorconserve, the days when a cornpone Georgia boy could tell a man like me to shut up are long past. And, like white-run America, those days are not coming back.
Oy voy, it’s late.
=================
The expression is oy vey.
You have exposed yourself completely, Asoka.
And you are an active impediment to honest discussion on this website.
The Blog is about oil, and how to get by without much of it. The problem is that money is the only factor deciding consumption. The answer is to wisely use what oil is left to build a world that doesn’t need so much of it.
The Clusterfuck is the continuing inability to focus on even the most obvious flaws of market based oil consumption and workable social construct that could make inroads to alleviating those flaws.
All the other crap posted here doesn’t count toward the Blog. But does make you all citizens of Clusterfuck Nation.
You have exposed yourself completely, Asoka.
=============
That was the honest thing to do.
=============
And you are an active impediment to honest discussion on this website.
============
I look forward to discussing this hypothesis.
Budizwiser said: “The Blog is about oil, and how to get by without much of it. The problem is that money is the only factor deciding consumption.”
=================
The title of the blog is: Comment on Current Events by the Author of “The Long Emergency”
While oil is one small part of current events, oil is not the focus of this blog. Current events is much more than oil.
BTW, money is not the only factor deciding consumption.
This week JHK said: “2.) Access to the primary resource we depend on for powering the economy (oil) is increasingly beyond our control — even worse, under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die.”
Who are those people? Muslims? Are we skidding toward Fall, or skidding toward a fall, because of our dependency on Muslim-controlled oil? Then the present-moment problem is not oil, it is international relations, it is war and the war crimes we are committing that causes other people to want us “to eat shit and die” because in a loose nukes world they can make us die.
Budizwizer,
Yeah, you are correct….all the way around, with your comment.
I think the best solution would be a simple tax on petroleum fuels, incrementing gradually over several years to give the economy time to adjust. The proceeds of the tax should be used for research and investment in alternative and RENEWABLE fuel.
Sadly, that will probably never happen in time to help. Why? We are indeed clusterfucked.
And Bud, you said,
**********************************************
“The Clusterfuck is the continuing inability to focus on even the most obvious flaws of market based oil consumption and workable social construct that could make inroads to alleviating those flaws.
All the other crap posted here doesn’t count toward the Blog. But does make you all citizens of Clusterfuck Nation.
**********************************************
Well said, Bud. And pretty soon, JHK will post his opus for the week….and soon after that the comment thread will fill with proof of how Clusterfucked we all are…or soon will be?
“I had not realized my rhetoric was so powerful it could destroy an entire planet!”
It’s not the rhetoric, it is the BELIEF in the rhetoric. Similar to, “Ye shall not surely die: for God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing {deciding} good and evil.”
“…If Femme can discuss midwifery in Australia and Tripp can tell us about his whoring goat I don’t think I need to be apologetic about raising consciousness on the GZ mosque: a bad idea with even worse timing, destined to cause big future trouble.” -Q.
Although I still feel that this New Yack thang is a non-issue, your point is taken. Sorry to offend.
I’ll try to stay away from “posting while pissed[-off]”. ;o)
Could you please attempt to tie in with the week’s topic somehow ‘r another? It would be beneficial to my mental health (what little there is left of it.) I’m hoping to lose the rest of my mind shortly, as it will be a great relief! ;o)
You misunderstand, AGAIN, Asoka.
“”I had not realized my rhetoric was so powerful it could destroy an entire planet!”
Your individual words have little power. On this website, though, your voice gains power through repetition…and sophistic argument.
You meet Ozone’s definition of a “gatekeeper,” to perfection.
This will likely be the last entry here, as JHK has already posted a new missive.
Given JHK has a lot to say about architecture, after reading the few comments here about the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, I’m reassured to see that (some) architecture can still have meaning in a meaning-deprived society. It’s too bad in this instance that it happens to be a building that isn’t inherantly North American.
But perhaps that speaks volumes.
Ok. Well, Asoka I do appreciate what you do in terms of letting folks know what much of the liberal agenda amounts to, which is the destruction of white European populations and cultures and their replacement with that of the blacks, latinos, muslims etc. If that is what America stands for, then new nations should rise in its place. Many of my people were here back in colonial times before the US of A was formed. On my dad’s dad’s side some were Green Mountain boys in Vermont and probably Connecticut during the time of the American Revolution, fighting against or at least otherwise opposing the English. A lot of folks are not happy with the agenda’s you propose. It is only recently and through various legalistic maneuvering that these points of view have become dominant in this country. Hopefully, the civil rights movement has reached its apogee and the time will soon come when things are set right. You are living proof of the expression, “Give a N*gger an inch, and he will take a mile.”
G
I have been a fan of yours for years. I have 3 acres on Long Island and regularly plant my own food. Regularly get disgusted about the people who live on the north shore here. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, lots of people are severely depressed or don’t care at all. Here we are now in 2010 and ultimately, I must say the spiral has continued to go down. Its every man for himself. Not any different from what the baby boomers were when they were young. The hippie love culture that was never that at all. It was a self involved ego driven drug driven world. Lots of my friends were lost to drugs or part of the Civil Right movement that destroyed their lives. I never tried drugs, and never joined any movement. I found it hard to get married and eventually married out of my generation. I had a boy and now am involved in a younger generation. Could my generation expected anything less. They were selfish and now have to struggle. La DE DA. I really don’t care about them. They have ruined the world, with their selfishness. What goes around comes around is the simplification of what it means to get your just rewards. I hate them all. They went out of there way to destroy all they grew up with and they will reap with they sewed.
My dream is to have a motor home, I have always wanted to have one. In the UK we call them Camper Vans or Campers for short but they are amazing!!! I loved reading this. I still dont even have my driving lisence yet. Enjoyed this hub!
Cheap Motorhome Insurance
My dream is to have a motor home, I have always wanted to have one. In the UK we call them Camper Vans or Campers for short but they are amazing!!! I loved reading this. I still dont even have my driving lisence yet. Enjoyed this hub!
Cheap Motorhome Insurance