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The Dreadful Summer Wind

by James Howard Kunstler

   The world is swiftly moving to the dangerous place where nations won’t be able to do business with each other because they don’t trust the institutions that control wealth, which includes central banks, commercial banks, and governments. It will happen when the purveyors of international commodities, oil especially, refuse to accept the letters of credit issued by untrustworthy intermediaries. And when that dark moment arrives, nations will throw tantrums. The USA may be the loudest baby in the playpen.

     The USA is veering into a psychological space not unlike the wilderness-of-mind that Germany found itself in back in the early 20th century: the deep woods of paranoia where our own failures will be projected onto the motives of others who mean to do us harm. Of course, even paranoiacs have enemies. There are quite a few others who would like to harm the USA, at least to bamboozle and paralyze us, to push back against our influence on their culture and economies. But the tendency here will be to magnify the supposed insults while ignoring our own suicidal behavior.

     Historians will remark that it was a beautiful August with bright days and cool nights for sleeping, and the Hamptons were ablaze with self-satisfied egos, and that nobody was paying attention to all the mischief that was set in motion the previous spring, not to mention the many seasons of bad behavior that preceded it. And when they returned from vacation, lo, the world was in crisis. What a surprise.

     The USA cannot come to terms with the salient facts staring us in the face: that we can’t run things as we’ve set them up to run. We refuse to take the obvious actions to set things up differently. Instead, we’ve tried to offset the accelerating losses of running our unrunable stuff with accounting fraud, aimed at pretending that everything still works. But the accounting fraud has only accelerated the gathering disorder in the banking system. That disorder has infected our currency and the infection is spreading to all currencies. What a surprise that the first pandemic to strike an overstressed global immune system was not bird flu after all, but a sickness of money.

     Near the center of that money sickness was the blitzkrieg against gold and silver in the spring, when arrant serial selling dumps were executed against the money metals to un-money them. The net result was only that a lot of that ancient money flowed from the places pretending it was valueless to the places that never adopted that pretense. At stake in that rather massive movement was the supposed value of the other stuff that pretended to hold value, namely sovereign bonds, and especially the treasury paper issued by the USA. After all, US Treasury bonds and notes were, in the eyes of bankers, the functional equivalent of cash-in-hand. Alas, the world was starting to choke on it — not least the US central bank itself, which had been gorging at the monthly auction buffet for years and was now stuffed to the gills. In fact, it had grown too fat to even leave the room where the buffet had been set up.

     Anyway you look at it, there is no escape from the looming crisis of confidence. The “primary dealer” banks and commodity exchanges behind the spring gold smash are out of tricks and out of gold to play tricks with. Their partner, the US Government has two tricks left: confiscation of gold in private hands a la Franklin Roosevelt’s ploy of 1933, or punitive taxes on private sales of gold. What worked in 1933 might not go over so well now, in a land full of preppers armed to the teeth and long-simmered in gall. It brings to mind the bumper-sticker about prying things from people’s cold dead hands. As for the tax gambit, I venture to say that many holders of gold hold it in expectation that there may shortly be no effective government left to depend on to do the wrong thing. Meanwhile, over in the land of paper wealth, the interest rate on the 10-year US Treasury bond clicks up a basis-point here, a basis-point there, like a remorselessly rising sea level. It won’t take many more clicks to put, for instance, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York under water.

     I felt sorry for President Obama, going about the country trying to appear historically heroic without doing a damn thing, really, to face down to the monsters in our own midst. But then one hears the rumor of Larry Summers’ imminent appointment to chair the Fed, and it is no longer possible to feel sorry for Obama, but rather to feel sorry for the nation laboring under such a conclave of would-be wizards.

     I just don’t see how the world financial system doesn’t blow up this fall, when the digested remains of the last miso-glazed oyster tidbit passes through the cloacal fundament of the prettiest girl in Sag Harbor. When it does blow, at least the NSA will have its prepared “to-do” list, and then perhaps all the unemployed can be enlisted at $8 an hour to harass the rest of the people trying to go about their daily lives. The roar you hear in the distance this September will be the sound of banks crashing, followed by the silence of business-as-usual grinding to a halt. After that, the crackle of gunfire.

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About James Howard Kunstler

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

538 Responses to “The Dreadful Summer Wind”

  1. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 9:05 am #

    Why this Fall as opposed to any other time….like say Winter, or Spring 2014?

    A better title would have been Save The Tiger. I watched it last night starring Jack Lemmon. It’s appropriate metaphor for what you’re describing. He, Lemmon, won an Oscar for Best Actor, I believe. Some great writing and lines in this movie. I’ll try to pull a few out and post them later.

    • Karah August 5, 2013 at 11:38 am #

      Oh, please, Carol, you don’t have to go through all that trouble for us…

      really.

      By the way, are you friends with or know who the prettiest girl in the Hamptons?

  2. Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 9:05 am #

    Your description of a quiet August leading to a crisis in September reminds me of the summer of 2001, when the news was all about Britney Spears and shark attacks. I’m with you on September being eventful, but the news during this silly season isn’t as silly as it was a dozen years ago. The past two Sunday nights on Reuters, violent crime stories have replace the corporate crime stories that dominated during most of August. Coincidentally, or maybe not, a study came out from the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University that the higher temperatures and lower precipitation likely to result from climate change will result in more violence from crime, unrest, and revolt. Hot weather leading to hot tempers, just the thing to make The Long Emergency more interesting.

    http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/08/hot-topic-climate-change-will-lead-to.html

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 9:17 am #

      “replace the corporate crime stories that dominated during most of August.” Make that ‘replaced the corporate crime stories that dominated during most of July.’ Even in a rush, I should proofread my comments.

      Since I’m here, I have a reply of sorts to last week’s passage about the “the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury,” who are presumably living in the country. I lived in rural and exurban ares for eleven years and I have more harrowing tales of criminality and depravity from life in the country than all the years I lived in the city (this includes the inner suburbs of Detroit as well as Los Angeles). I had enough of the country and moved back into the city three years ago. I feel much safer.

      Last week, science confirmed my impressions by showing that people are less likely to die of violence of all kinds in urban than in rural areas. I have a video summarizing that research as well as my first hand tales of life in the country at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/08/science-confirms-my-opinion-of-life-in.html

      • swmnguy August 5, 2013 at 8:00 pm #

        No joke. I grew up in Rural America, and moved to the City when I was 18 (almost 30 years ago). I’ve suffered absolutely no violence since then. I’ve had a few small things stolen, but mostly when I left them about carelessly. One person has broken into my house, but didn’t take anything and fled when s/he realized someone was home. I encountered violence and property crime vastly more frequently in rural America, per number of human interactions.

  3. AimlowJoe August 5, 2013 at 9:11 am #

    I don’t know.. I hope you are wrong Jim. I was in the Hamptons yesterday. It was such a nice day. I hope it doesn’t end like you think it will. Aside from the vapor money problem, things are better than they have ever been in the history of the world. It’s a same it all has to end.
    Aimlow Joe was here
    http://www.aimlow.com

    • hillwalker August 5, 2013 at 9:17 am #

      Perhaps if you are the sort of folks who “was in the Hamptons yesterday”, ,
      But for us regular folks, no, it’s not the best of all possible worlds, no, not at all.

      Just say’n.

      Do’n what I can to enjoy myself and mine anyway.

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 9:20 am #

      Hi, Aimlow Joe! Long time no see! All we need is to have K-Dog and The Leibowitz Society show up and I can sing “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!”

      So,. how do you like the new version of the site?

  4. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 9:11 am #

    when the digested remains of the last miso-glazed oyster tidbit passes through the cloacal fundament of the prettiest girl in Sag Harbor.

    This line alone was worth the price of admission. Superb. I had to look up cloacal fundament. Not all of us graduated from medical school.

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 9:25 am #

      “Not all of us graduated from medical school.” Or taught anatomy and physiology to pre-meds and nursing students, for that matter. Then again, I have and that’s why I *didn’t* have to look it up.

      That written, I’m with Carol. Superb!

      • Karah August 5, 2013 at 11:42 am #

        It’s a really nice way of saying:

        “Everyone’s sh*t stinks.”

  5. budizwiser August 5, 2013 at 9:12 am #

    Well, maybe this Fall – or maybe in 2020, or 2030 – but even a calendar is right some year……

    meanwhile – it is after all the end of the world…..

    As you say JK – it IS the economy stupid – right? $60 trillion – tsk tsk.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/24/arctic-thawing-permafrost-climate-change

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    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 9:27 am #

      I wrote about the research that yielded that figure, along with a rebuttal, too.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/08/hot-topic-cost-of-arctic-thawing.html

    • GF_Sutton August 5, 2013 at 11:43 am #

      It is after all,
      the end-of-the-world,
      the end-of-the-past,
      the present-moment,
      the latest in a long line of was’s,
      always taking us on a ride
      to the undiscovered country.

    • budizwiser August 6, 2013 at 7:59 pm #

      Not to put too fine a point on – after all predicting the end of the world has little upside.

      However – just as a reminder – remember Mars and Venus – those too orbs just couldn’t get things “just right.”

      One big rock goes cold and stark – the other gasses up into an infernal global hot house – too hot to even see the surface.

      So what’s it to planet Earth? What’s the big deal – mankind is just a global heat rash. Bringing the inevitable – a few thousand years early….

  6. hillwalker August 5, 2013 at 9:15 am #

    So, Snowden gets something resembling asylum, and within hours, embassies get shutdown orders, then Tor goes offline, , and it’s not even September yet;

    “I felt sorry for President Obama, going about the country trying to appear historically heroic without doing a damn thing,”

    Hahahahaha!

    Brilliant summary of his entire career.
    wonderful wordsmithing. Keep up the good work.

    • outsider August 5, 2013 at 2:25 pm #

      JHK’s otherwise excellent analysis does not mention the unsustainable cost of maintaining our overseas hegemony. Ron Paul always said that the first thing that must be done to return the US to fiscal sanity would be to bring most of the troops home and end the empire. Of course, this will not be done, even as our insurmountable domestic/infrastructure problems remain essentially ignored. As Obama, perhaps a prisoner of the MI/security complex, has doubled down on the empire, all hope is now lost. He wanted the job. No, I do not feel sorry for him.

    • swmnguy August 5, 2013 at 7:23 pm #

      The Tor thing is fishy. Anyone else note the recurrence of allegations of kiddie porn as an excuse to wipe out a potentially bothersome spot of nonconformity? Even better than “Communist,” or “Terrorist.”

  7. lsjogren August 5, 2013 at 9:21 am #

    As usual, I agree that the crises Kunstler anticipates are likely to occur, but I see no reason why August except as a respite from boredom of those of us fortunate enough to be somewhat buffered from present-day economic hardships, such as myself as a retired person who is staying reasonably afloat for the time being.

    There are not any immediate catalysts for the monetary crisis. The world still thinks the US dollar is the best thing since the invention of the wheel. That won’t last forever, but it’s more likely to end three or five or even perhaps 10 years from now than it is to end this month.

    • Karah August 5, 2013 at 11:50 am #

      Ecuador is one of the 13 countries that “officially” uses the USD and peculiarly has no other currency in circulation except for the USD.

      12 other countries “unofficially” circulate the USD.

      Got to keep them Hamptonians vacationing on their yachts around the world happy and fully supplied with vodka and oysters!

  8. Smoky Joe August 5, 2013 at 9:28 am #

    Having just sold a house, I hope the disaster JHK describes awaits the buyer’s funds clearing. Seriously. And my realtor knows and shares JHK’s fears.

    As he puts it, and I’ll paraphrase, there is already a second bubble. You have some buyers with good credit now, but there is still a massive backlog of leveraged mortgages waiting to collapse. Too many folks are way underwater and under-employed, and those with credit seem to be spending wildly on mega-homes.

    What will tip it? Another terrorist strike? A couple of well placed hurricanes? It’s just fragile out there.

    In this interlude between disasters, it’s time to get rid of debt and any collateral that won’t be worth much when, finally, “the sucker goes down” again.

  9. sprezzatura August 5, 2013 at 9:29 am #

    “…to push back against our influence on their culture and economies.”

    If Americans only knew the crimes committed in their names…

    A lot of problems come from a story very few remember Mossadegh
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh)

    • Conch August 5, 2013 at 11:56 am #

      Sadly, one entry on a long, long list.

  10. consultant13 August 5, 2013 at 9:37 am #

    Last Friday on the Bloomberg website there was this:

    “Chevron Corp. (CVX), the world’s second-largest energy company by market value, posted its biggest second-quarter profit decline in four years and missed analysts’ estimates as crude oil prices and production fell.”

    “Chevron’s oil and natural gas output fell 1.6 percent to the lowest second-quarter average in half a decade as new wells in Angola, the Gulf of Mexico and Pennsylvania failed to make up for declining production from older fields, according to the statement.”

    “Chevron is looking at a natural decline in its resource base of 6 to 10 percent a year before they even do anything, so it’s kind of like running up a down escalator,” Edmund Cowart, who helps manage $22 billion, including Chevron shares, at Eagle Asset Management Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, said in a telephone interview today. “Refining’s been tough for everybody.”

    It was there for all to see. Not a word from media, government, your neighbors, your people, my people, etc.

    America is in a strange mental state. Equal parts denial and cultural narcissism.

    I think when the next big event happens, most people will just roll over and try to get some more sleep.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-02/chevron-profit-declines-as-crude-prices-fall-with-output.html

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  11. kansas ham on wry August 5, 2013 at 9:37 am #

    Late summer and we are definitely in the eye of the hurricane. I for one maintain my perpetual amazement that the ‘masters of the universe’ have managed to keep the bloated carcass of our notional economy aloft as long as they have. A combination of prestidigitation, corruption, misdirection, bald-faced lies and the credulity of our lumpenproletariat has led to this balancing on the precipice.

    Once the settling of accounts annihilates wishful thinking, where do we end up? Kunstler’s ‘corn-pone Hitler’ isn’t out of the question. Lord knows there’s no shortage of demagogues auditioning for the position. Desperate people can be goaded into desperate acts. Sinclair Lewis once said ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.’ 78 years after those words were written, we appear to be slouching in that direction. I’m hoping that we’re all wrong. I suspect we’re not (and am preparing accordingly).

    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:03 am #

      I share your outlook and suspicions. Take some small solace that more and more are beginning to see that same writing on the wall.

    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:17 am #

      BTW, further on down the thread, “someone” is implying that any kind of physical preparation is not a good idea. Now why would they imply such a thing? Seems to me that having a store of essential items would be a sensible part of ‘being flexible’.

      The bullshit and misdirection detector klaxon sounded off immediately.
      Who would desire that we be totally without resources of our own to fall back upon in an emergency… and are they paying more than 8 bucks an hour?

      • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:27 am #

        And WHY ARE THEY FISHING FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION??

    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:19 am #

      To clarify:

      “When it does blow, at least the NSA will have its prepared “to-do” list, and then perhaps all the unemployed can be enlisted at $8 an hour to harass the rest of the people trying to go about their daily lives.” -JHK

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:07 pm #

      Well that’s obvious since Fascism is about feeling proud of your Nation and making it accord with Nature and Nature’s God. The real mystery is people who worry about this during a slow motion Communist coup.

      • ozone August 5, 2013 at 4:59 pm #

        Please refrain from turning the comment section in your particularly freakish direction… Freak. Your ‘interpretation’ of the direction of events is basically insane.

        Ride somebody else who might find your vision somewhat charming instead of repellent. …And put that thing away, it’s just rude and you’re getting the keyboard all nasty.

  12. James Kuehl August 5, 2013 at 9:37 am #

    Our national lethargy is in conflict with our heroic self-image. The Occupy movement when asked what they wanted realized there’s nothing of real value in the adjacent buildings, so they went home. Kunstler has pointed out before that the small-arms genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not the present power brokers who have the capacity for physical (as opposed to paper-based) mayhem. Our next leaders have likely done their shopping at Cabela’s, not Saks.

  13. goat1001 August 5, 2013 at 9:40 am #

    Got to keep an eye on the Muslims, they’re coming out of the ‘Holy’ month of Ramadan and rattling the swords and getting ready to blow some more things up…

  14. RB August 5, 2013 at 9:51 am #

    Can’t happen this fall. Football season you know. The stadiums will be filled at universities and taxpayer funded ones at some urban centers including Detroit. We will watch millionaire thugs beating the hell out of each other (on and off field of play) and occasionally be titillated by some cheerleader with her legs spread wide. So nothing can happen in the fall; don’t even think about it. This is America dammit!!!!!!

  15. ozone August 5, 2013 at 9:52 am #

    Senor Jeem,

    I also hear a distant grinding and squealing; the treads of armored vehicles in the streets; the sound of lamentable loss at the tail end of reprehensible waste.

    On this:
    ” I felt sorry for President Obama, going about the country trying to appear historically heroic without doing a damn thing, really, to face down to the monsters in our own midst. But then one hears the rumor of Larry Summers’ imminent appointment to chair the Fed, and it is no longer possible to feel sorry for Obama, but rather to feel sorry for the nation laboring under such a conclave of would-be wizards.” -JHK

    Firstly, that’s a brilliant encapsulation. Myself, I had looked at his voting record when he burst onto the ‘scene’, holding a gold-plated moral compass in prominent view. The two publicly observable items did not correlate. Larry is the ‘real deal’ that had already been signed in blood in the undisclosed location. (If the first iteration of wizardry does not succeed, apply generous cauldron’s-full more!)
    However, that would be my after-the-fact blaming thing, and is only future-cautionary, not of actual use as we hurtle forward.

    But, to me, the point is distinctly all about the ‘wizardry’. How/why could we not take a momentary glance at it and not consider that it would all come to a very sticky end??
    Was it promulgated under a soothing lullaby of, “Shut up and enjoy your comforts that we provide with our shenanigans”?
    Maybe.

    (As a side note, that crackle of gunfire comes from blame. That blaming is the result of organized deception. The deceived will not consider themselves to have had any part in the multiple corruptions and will turn to a charismatic bullshitter who will deceive them yet again. Society by lowest common denominator.)

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  16. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 9:52 am #

    Our next leaders have likely done their shopping at Cabela’s, not Saks.

    I once contemplated this, but no longer. These boys couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag and they’re in a cardboard box of their own making. It’s not gonna happen. The best preparation anyone can have for a potential collapse of the sort we’re talking about here is to remain adaptive, flexible and improvisational. It’s a mental state, not a physical state that will allow for your survival. If you prepare physically, i.e. stockpiling ammo and foodstuffs, you’re putting your preparation eggs all in one basket, and we all know how that ends. Not well.

    • James Kuehl August 5, 2013 at 10:07 am #

      I live near Cornell, where ideas abound, not one of which is digestible. Plug the food conveyor for a week, and the elite thinkers will be asking the janitors who now clean up after them how to eat.

  17. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 9:55 am #

    This is America dammit!!!!!!

    Exactly, any kind of unrest must be fit in between seasons, and since seasons are getting longer every year, there is no between seasons any longer.

  18. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 10:11 am #

    and am preparing accordingly

    How are you preparing? How do you know how any of this, if at all, plays out? There are so many permutations of what can and will happen, so how do you prepare, considering that?

    ozone is wrong that more and more people are preparing for “it.” If by preparing, you and ozone mean an armed confrontation, you’re already dead in the water. A couple of drone strikes will wake you boys up, and shut you up, right quick. You’re no match against the MIC you so earnestly helped fund and support all these years. It’s now going to come home to roost.

    • kansas ham on wry August 5, 2013 at 12:41 pm #

      You seem to be jumping to conclusions that aren’t justified by the relatively innocuous words I wrote. I ascribe to the JHK playbook of having some sort of occupation that will survive the global economy implosion and some resources to get thru the lean times (since the stores will run out of food pretty quickly once the just-in-time supply system coagulates, anyone counting on frequent treks to the Piggly Wiggly to keep the larder full will find themselves dismayed and emaciated in pretty quick succession) and a way of sustaining existence on a low-tech, more local level.

      You’re absolutely right – nobody knows how this is going to play out. I don’t and neither do you. But that doesn’t mean we sit back, watch reality TV and trust to a benevolent fate. If you don’t choose to make preparations, you are still making a choice. ‘Armed confrontation’ may be the wet-dream of the Second Amendment knuckleheads who see black helicopters behind every tree stand and think the founding fathers wanted them to have an inherent right to guns that can fire 154 bullets in a Connecticut first grade classroom in five minutes or less. But nothing I have EVER written has advocated insurrection. I suggest that before you accuse people of ‘earnestly helping and supporting all these years’ the MIC, you try to take their words at face value rather than draping them in the suspicion of a paranoid hidden agenda.

    • Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 12:57 pm #

      Carol,
      Greetings, I urge you to check the term; contingency plans.

      The best contingency for any financial type ‘event’, that leads to mass chaos, is to hide from the chaos. There are as many ways of doing that, as there are persons doing the planning.

      Guns are not the only plan, but a necessary part of any plan because there are Monsters that come out in the dark.
      The best plan, is to learn how to feed yourself from the land, and connect to like minded people to form an alternate economy, and defense plan. Those who plan to stand alone, without community, will ultimately find, they have planned to fail.

      Now if the Earth becomes nonviable where you are, there is a plan for that too.

      Prepping and planning should be One. Unfortunately, you are right, all too many simply make a single plan to fail.

  19. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 10:14 am #

    will be asking

    Since when have “they” ever asked for anyhting? If it comes to this, you think “they” will start now? No. “They” will put a gun to your head and make you do it for free. And you will.

    • James Kuehl August 5, 2013 at 12:24 pm #

      The elite academics to whom I refer are not, in my experience, handy with the instruments of violent force, nor are they predisposed to aggressive behavior. Ah, but would their gentle reason prevail? I hope so, but wouldn’t bet the vineyard on it.

  20. K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 10:14 am #

    The NSA will have its prepared “to-do” list, and then perhaps all the unemployed can be enlisted at $8 an hour to harass the rest of the people trying to go about their daily lives.

    I’d rather the people who do the harassing get paid more. Eight bucks an hour does not a happy camper make. – K-Dog

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    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:32 am #

      I concur; “someone” appears perpetually testy, touchy and nasty. 😉
      Maybe a raise would soothe the savage breast a bit. Mmmmm, maybe not.

      • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 10:40 am #

        Exactly, Since there is nobody to complain to we want our public servants to have a smile on their face. It would be different if there was oversight and rules to follow but since there are not we want a happy Stazi.

        Bad enough the mountain of data they collect on you give them a warped an inaccurate picture of who you really are. Lets not compound the issue by making bad attitudes.

        But there is a point to your “Mmmmm, maybe not“. Pay them too much and they will be motivated to jerk the dog leash extra tight.

        Pay them enough, but not too much. The best idea would be to not pay them anything at all.

        K-Dog

  21. beantownbill. August 5, 2013 at 10:15 am #

    I smell the hint of gunpowder in the air. TPTB have shown us that they run plays from the traditional playbook. When things go south, make war, not love. Iran will have nukes very shortly, and the US continues to insert itself in mid-east affairs. This area is a powderkeg ready to blow – again. TPTB merely have to give the puppet strings a tiny jiggle and the game is on.

    September is in the running for SHTF time, but October is historically the period when the home team throws the long ball. Or maybe not – maybe we’ll continue to plod along running the ball into the line again and again.

    • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 10:44 am #

      Expecting anything but a traditional playbook would require leadership. Leadership we don’t have. Were flying into this storm on autopilot.

      K-Dog

    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 10:55 am #

      Bill,
      Between you, me and the lamppost, I don’t think worldwide conflicts will be necessary for collapse here. IMHO, financial implosion alone can push us into fragmentation and chaos.

      An entire FUSA populace conditioned to certain comfort and entitlements…

      [When the letters of credit that facilitate trade avail nothing, due to lack of trust]… “when that dark moment arrives, nations will throw tantrums. The USA may be the loudest baby in the playpen.”

      Armed infants are not safe to be around.

      But consider for a moment that this is much larger than the deadly applied technology of armaments. Conflicts are now just another distraction from the environmental and societal destruction that feeds the most dangerous beast and hails a pale horseman.

      • beantownbill. August 5, 2013 at 11:40 am #

        I agree with you. I was talking about the near future. I believe TPTB can pull any number of economic tricks out of their butts that will delay the collapse, but the future has already been written.

        • ozone August 5, 2013 at 8:16 pm #

          Good point.
          I “counter-agree”! 😉

  22. LapshongIce August 5, 2013 at 10:37 am #

    Thank you Carol Newquist for your “spot on” posts. I love everything you write as well as JHK.

    • Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 11:04 am #

      You’re welcome. It’s nice to know someone notices and appreciates. It’s lonely out here.

      • LapshongIce August 5, 2013 at 11:14 am #

        Carol, YES!!! I have felt lonely here in Houston for years and years in terms of like-minded people regarding these issues. As a career counselor for 20+ years, I’ve always adhered to the belief that any career counselor worth their salt needs to be an amateur trend tracker. Thus, how I first discovered JHK and “The Long Emergency.” And while my friends here do listen when discussing JHK’s ideas, most just look at me cross-eyed and think, “there she goes again” (pat, pat, pat on the back). All of this to say nice to know you are out there Carol.

  23. George August 5, 2013 at 10:51 am #

    “The USA cannot come to terms with the salient facts staring us in the face: that we can’t run things as we’ve set them up to run. We refuse to take the obvious actions to set things up differently.”

    I suspect that one of the main reasons why we have so far refused to take the obvious actions is because the banks and other institutions that issue those ICC letters of credit and connected tightly to the hips of the purveyors of oil in much the same way plains wheat farmers were and to some extent still are connected to Midwest futures contract brokers. The latter pairing was responsible for creating massive agricultural and economic surpluses starting in the late 1800s. Whatever’s left of the global economy today is the work of the pairing of the oil purveyors and the institutions that issue those ICC letters of credit. I very much doubt that either mate in this pairing is willing to rat out the other at this critical juncture. This will eventually happen but when it does it will rate as little more than a sideshow.

    This latest fire drill that’s resulted in the closing of a couple dozen embassies and consulates leads me to suspect that something else is being pulled out of somebody’s sleeve a lot closer to home. Yes, there’ll be a crisis but I don’t think we’re able to make out what it is.

    http://www.thesisa.org

  24. Mike R August 5, 2013 at 10:57 am #

    >>> I just don’t see how the world financial system doesn’t blow up this fall

    Jim, your writing is fantastic, but when are you finally going to learn that making specific date predictions like this is a loser’s game? I know you want it all to start happening toute suite, but that’s not the way it’s coming down and events since 2008 should have proven that to you. Make the commentary without pegging it to some exact date or season, and you do yourself and your reputation a great service.

  25. RB August 5, 2013 at 10:59 am #

    One of these days, you will awake and find your internet unavailable. All media will be on lock-down as the government handles the crisis. You won’t know what is going on. We take information flow for granted as we do most other services we depend upon. Our economy depends on a complex tapestry of systems whereby if anyone of them fails, a cascade occurs and does so rapidly. What will you do when you swipe your card and nothing happens? Ah, but it can’t happen. No one can control the internet. Right. Sure. You betcha. I still recall panic over toilet paper, sugar, coffee where store shelves were cleared of these items and fast. Many can remember the gas lines. Our gasoline was shut down for a couple of weeks due to a fire at a refinery a 900 miles distant. Don’t prepare? Pshaw! Don’t act at your own risk. We have made so called “preppers” into clowns on reality TV. They are scoffed at and some of it might be deserved. At the end of the day though, I’d rather have something rather than nothing. But it is easier to stock up on nothing not to mention cheap.

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    • ozone August 5, 2013 at 11:13 am #

      Yes, it can get lonely “out here” in the Hamptons.

    • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 11:16 am #

      It has already happened. From the looks of things nobody can see my website now.

      Prove me wrong please. Go to my site and see if it loads. It does for me but I show no other traffic except the person from:

      UNITED STATES

      one day ago and also another visitor from Germany.

      The only visitor today was ‘anonymous’ but that was me checking things out. Seems the only people who read K-Dog are government employees. How did this happen?

      K-Dog

      My last post (Friday) was titled ‘Tracking Globes.

      • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 11:19 am #

        Contract help counts.

        • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 11:30 am #

          One hit from Texas in ten minutes. Thank you whoever you are.

          One hit is not all that convincing.

          • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 11:42 am #

            A couple of more hits, thanks.

            If anybody reads what I wrote there you may be interested to know I did the probability calculation. I had to assume that all visits lasts for a minute and the number I came up with was one in 64 million.

            K-Dog

          • Mike R August 5, 2013 at 11:55 am #

            In my opinion, you are overposting.

      • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:13 pm #

        Germany, eh? It’s all starting again. The Huns! The Huns!

        Seriously though, I admit you and Ozone were right about the infiltration here and I was wrong. If you say you’ve got it too, I don’t discount that. I merely state for the record that I’m not part of it. I mean they’re trying to kill two birds with one stone: causing mass confusion and also reinforcing the dominant paradigm. My point of view is anything but the dominant paradigm.

    • outsider August 5, 2013 at 3:26 pm #

      Pretty scary, RB. As the corporate controlled MSM is full of lies and half truths, the only place to obtain the real dope is via the Net. It’s no wonder that authoritarian countries like China attempt to control its content. I can really envision some type of ‘false flag’ operation in which the gov’t shuts down the Net in the name of national security.

  26. Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 11:08 am #

    Good morning James.
    September? With all the machinations I’ve heard about in the gold markets lately, that’s probably right. I think Fearless Leader should boycott the G20 in protest of Snowden, that way, they can fulfill China’s call over the weekend for a “New Bretton woods” without any backtalk from us. That is quite the statement from China, more of a veiled threat wouldn’t you say?

    Oh well, back to prepping. I hope when this is all over, we have learned some lessons from this, The Last Great Experiment in men governing man without God. You said nobody knows what God looks like in the recent podcast? Sorry James, that is because The Church hijacked God, and Science was attacked by the Church, and it all went to shit after that.

    God wanted us to know what He looked like, this was given in the Directly Revealed works of Divine Knowledge from Enoch and His Son in the Gnosis, but the Church burned the Knowledge of God and replaced it with the MYSTERY of God. Their own book condemns them, but, they can’t admit that they were the source of the Troubles.

    Anyway, the Black horseman of the paradigm of the democracies that balance justice and power, all fall down on the altar of money and greed, envy and power, and then we shall see “a measure of wheat for a penny”, and the Pale Green horseman ride. This is another minor mistake of the Catholics, they mistranslated too much to suit their own “simplified narrative for peasants”. If you see the original words, you see the Preachers all have it wrong. If you see the thing in hyper or spiritual time, you see prophecy has already become history. But then, the zealots say that I am a sorcerer, yeah, just like Galileo was a magician. We are still in the 4th century in too many ways.

    Evolution is the purpose of the Intelligent Designer, and a spiritual evolution is upon us, the evolution of knowledge that overcomes mystery, but unfortunately, most will not live to see its fruits. They will not live because they are caught in their own illusion. As long as we continue to think in old ways, we will not get past old problems.

    See the Unified Field of God, and know the face of Creator, for He is you. Not the evil god of the churches, this is the Revelation and Spiritual Relativity for an evolved generation, that being good, is good enough. Religion cum metaphysics cum Aethereal Physics. The Knowledge that destroys Mystery, . A God even atheists will love. It is man and church that judges men, men and churches that are hypocrites, God just wants His Prodigal Sons to come home.

    The spirituality of prepping is to see the Illusion, and make plans for a new civilization, to see the storm on the horizon and take your stocks into the barn. For something wicked this way comes, and madness stalks the Earth.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:15 pm #

      The Anti-Christ will perform miracles – false miracles by the use of advanced physics.

      • Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 1:21 pm #

        See what I mean?
        4th century thinkers are everywhere…. tsk tsk…
        This doesn’t necessarily mean you are accusing me of anything, but the mindset that attaches advanced science to ‘sorcery’ is still with us.
        Advanced physics? There is only one advancement in physics that is necessary, that advancement that Proves God’s existence, the rest is the Illusion.
        Does that mean there won’t be an ‘anti christ’? No. There already is an ‘anti christ’, it is called; Orthodox Pauline Christianity. They do not teach what the Messiah taught, they teach the selected teaching of an imposter apostle; Paul
        The ‘gospel of christ’ versus the ‘gospel ABOUT Christ’, big difference. Don’t believe me? Read the Gnosis, and see what The Teacher said.

        You guys have had your ‘age’, now your time is done, and the Illusions of a MYSTERY Universe comes to an end. The ‘fruit’ of your churches, has been murders, abominations, bloodshed, wars, divisions, and denominations of whole generations of victims. You are the White horse, the Holy Roman empire, the Red horse of the Divine right of kings, you are the black horse of the democracies. You are the Sons of Abraham, the Head of Gold of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, and the ten toes of iron and clay. You are the Mother of Harlots, that rides the Beast of ten horns.
        The ten horns are the ten shofars of the Lost ten tribes, the white men who run planet Earth, you are Israel, and that is the reason you have always hated Judah.

        • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 1:32 pm #

          So Jews are going to usher in the Golden Age of Peace and Brotherhood? They’re off to such a good start!

          The Man on the White Horse who ends this Age is in Islam and Hinduism as well. Kalki is coming, bro. And he knows you from the inside out. He’s making a list and checking it twice. He’s already figured out whose naughty and nice. You cannot say on the Day that you had not been warned by a Warner.

          In Western religions, God is separate from his creation which he created out of nothing. Or in other words, He didn’t use any materials from Home Depot. Is this really different from the Upanishads which say that he manifested the Universe from himself even as a spider does its web? But neither the East nor the West advocate Pantheism, or the Universe being the same as God. That’s the main point. The Truth is Panentheism, or God is manifest in the Universe as the Universe – without being confined to it in any sense. No more than the waves can define the Ocean.

          • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 2:03 pm #

            Thus since God is not the Universe but not separate from it either, there is no scientific experiment that can prove His existence and none that can disprove it either. He is on both sides of every equation, is both cause and effect, and is both the question and the answer. In a Transcendental sense, He is the First Cause and the Universe the effect. But once inquiry is focused on the material Universe, (as science does confine itself) even this can no longer be said.

            Which Gnostic Sect or Text do you follow? I like the Gospel of Thomas. But Gnostics have the tendency to separate God from the Universe by calling the Universe evil and denying that God even made it sometimes. They postulate a lower God or evil Demiurge. In any case, the beautiful unity of Christianity at its best is lost. Judaism as well says that God created the World and it was Good.

          • Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 2:32 pm #

            No. The arrogant cousins are most likely, going to destroy themselves… and become a millstone around the neck of the world…
            That’s what you jew haters don’t understand. You have hated them for 4000 years… its time to just ignore them…
            They are not the bankers of the world, they are the Illusion of the Bankers, they are what the Bankers WANT you to think…

            And he did use materials. Materials He created. He created the Adoil and the Archa, the Light and the Dark energy, that he spun together with the power of His VOICE.

            Read Enoch II, Ch, 24 – 28, and see the Creation as it happened, not, the simplified false narratives of Moses and the Catholics, which were written specifically for ‘peasants’.

            Don’t think like a peasant. We are all the victims of the Jews and the Catholics.
            But don’t hate their ignorance, ignore it, and move on. It is just time to leave their System of Babylon, or be destroyed by it.

          • Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm #

            There IS an experiment NOW.
            IF, you can accept them.

            Go to my site, and read with the spirit of open mindedness, and discover something wonderful, or not. Then, prove me wrong. No more arguing about stupid 4th century doctrines of churches allowed. They have you scared witless, over new knowledge. The Universe is not ‘simple’, it is complex chaos and designed for one purpose, the evolution of complexity.

            The Revelation has come, the Knowledge of the Imp of Darkness has been raised from the Bottomless pit, the Knowledge of the Lady with 12 stars in her crown, clothed in the light of the Sun while standing upon the moon, the Knowledge of God conquers, and the “Mystery of God is finished…”

            Learn the meanings of the symbols, and not the words of Rome, the Anti Christs. The lady was taught ‘privately’ by Christ, the lady has a name, and her name is; Pistis Sophia, the Aeon of Wisdom, who brought forth desire. It is not ‘one’ book, that must be studied, but remember that all the books were touched by men… Christ taught NOT to create churches with hierarchies, and laughed at his disciples for worshiping yah, they were confused.

            The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, reveals all things… including the true name of the god of the Jews, his secret name spoken only in the Holy of Holies, yah is the name of Yaltaboath, the Chief Archon. The Archons are merely powers, like the Aeons of light. Balance between the two powers, brings forth all that is. The Intelligent Design is manifested in the hierarchy of delegated powers, above and below.

            Do not, look at literalism, or think that a desire for simplicity can deliver complexity, look at symbolism, when talking about things of spirit. The Orthodox have destroyed themselves by destroying too much knowledge, and setting mankind back a thousand years.

            May the force be with you.
            😉

  27. doggersize August 5, 2013 at 11:12 am #

    if anything, these nations will become more dependent on these central banks, commercial banks, and the like.

    the secret of oil exporting nations, at least the middle eastern and African ones, is that they literally have nothing much else going on. the pluto crats who run them are chained to western and successful asian nations. they rely on them for nearly all imports, most industrial petroleum and natural gas extraction professional services, the markets for these exports, and even western banks to hold their money.

  28. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 11:21 am #

    From Save The Tiger:

    Harry: ….and Charlie, we’re gonna squeeze through. I checked Swissair, they got a flight to Geneva, stops in New York.

    Phil: Good idea. You can see your daughter
    before we go to jail.

    Harry: You wanna go fishing, right, Phil? And we got to get out of bed every morning.

    Phil: At least I don’t get out of bed in Beverly Hills.

    Harry: Well, how I lead my life doesn’t have anything to do with our business.

    Phil: Just takes a little pressure off when your nut isn’t sky high.

    Harry: It’s my pressure, Phil, my nut.

    Phil: Except when it spills off. Like this afternoon at the show. It’s a criminal act, Harry!

    Harry: What criminal act, Phil? To keep people working? That’s what you yourself said this morning, isn’t it? Is it a criminal act to try to hang on to 15 years of hard work?

    Phil: What the hell was our dream?

    Harry: To meet a payroll and not a pay check. Wasn’t that the dream? That was the big slice of the pie. Everybody in this whole God damn country dances around the law, Phil. Now what’s a criminal act? You tell me.

    Phil: So the end justifies the means?

    Harry: Well, that’s what they got up on the scoreboard, baby. That’s the way they play it.

    Phil: Who’s “they?” We’re “they.” And there are rules.

    Harry: Wrong. Used to be. No more rules, just referees. And no room out there for losers, believe me. You and me out on that street again? Why, Christ! What would we do? Where would we go?
    We’re obsolete. You want logic, Phil. And there is no Ministry of Logic, in this country. Performance used to count, right? For 15 years we’ve met our obligations with the same unions…the same mills, the same bank, but today…all they care about is the bottom line on a passbook…and then some God damn machine
    gives you a bum credit rating.

    Phil: So history doesn’t count anymore?

    Harry: It’s our place, Phil, we don’t get down on our knees to anybody.

    Phil: You expect me to buy that crap? For Christ’s sakes, Harry,
    don’t you understand? It’s people like us, people in the middle, that made this country work. And when people like ourselves
    get into this kind of thing…it takes it all down. That’s what’s ripping the country apart!

    Harry: Son of a bitch, don’t you sell America, to me! I’ve got friends over there sitting under the sand with bikinis on their heads! I used to get goose bumps every time I looked at that flag. When I was a kid, sitting alone in the room playing the radio…if they ever played the national anthem, I stood up all alone in the room. I stood up at attention. Don’t sell me America! Now they’re making jock straps out of the flag. Maybe it’s terrific. Maybe it’s healthy, I don’t know.
    But I do know there are no more rules.

    Phil: That stinks, Harry.

    • LapshongIce August 5, 2013 at 11:50 am #

      Brilliant! Going to and find the movie today. Thank you for posting this Carol. Perfect for upcoming presentations.

  29. BackRowHeckler August 5, 2013 at 11:30 am #

    Not to worry. Apple is introducing a new cell phone this fall that will predict the future, make your bed, connect you to the Cosmos and allow you to create your own designer children. This should soften the blow of any pending economic collapse.

    BRH

    • K-Dog August 5, 2013 at 11:32 am #

      You forgot that it will make pancakes as well.

  30. Conch August 5, 2013 at 11:34 am #

    It seems we’re at a point where global warming and peak oil are competing to see which can collapse our society (and cull our population) first.

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  31. janet August 5, 2013 at 11:47 am #

    RB,

    One of these days, you will awake and find your internet unavailable. I can’t wait. I have so many things to do and undo, and so many books to read and re-read that the end of the internet will be a blessing.

    All media will be on lock-down as the government handles the crisis. Halelujah! I don’t watch TV anyway, as I’m too busy taking care of hubby and kids. A media lock-down would be almost too good to be true.

    You won’t know what is going on.
    Read the comments again today. Nobody knows what’s going on. Not knowing is what makes it mysterious, fun, and exciting. I do know that later this week I’m going to a Disney resort in Hawaii. So, while y’all are futzing about the end of the world, I’ll be enjoying my family and living fully the present moment, as always.

    RB, if your only plan is to sit tight and fight, well, good luck with that. This is not 1933. It helps to have a Plan B, to continue enjoying life outside the USA. The USA is a bit different know than in 1933. SWAT teams did not exist in 1933. Today’s police have been beefed up, armored, and militarized. You are vastly outgunned (unless you have GTAMs, MANPADs, and RPGs… and know how to use them).

    Digging in, hunkering down, and loading up with guns and ammo is not the right course. You need to be lighter on your feet, ready to move at a moment’s notice, agile, flexible, and ready to roll with whatever comes next. Read LaoTzu.

    Ta! Ta!

    • RB August 5, 2013 at 11:53 am #

      Oh, make no mistake. I am part of a small group with a plan. In that group we have a physician, a veterinarian, and a med tech among several others. We have a farm in a great location. You won’t see any of us on TV (which you don’t watch nor do I) and we sincerely hope we won’t have to execute our plan in the event of a real Long Emergency. I happen to be Jewish and so I tend to believe that governments and neighbors can get really ugly when they start looking for scapegoats.

      Enjoy HI. Been there. Never saw what the big deal was myself. We like a small beach village which is off the tourist maps. Slow down, ease back I say.

      Cheers.

  32. RB August 5, 2013 at 11:47 am #

    Jim,

    I just wandered over to your “my town” pics and was not the least surprised by the awfulness nor of the pathetic comments from your neighbors. I’d urge everyone to go take a look if you haven’t already. Sadly, these pics could be from so many places in this country.

    Leave Jim. Your neighbors are going to come for you with ropes and gasoline.

    • Karah August 5, 2013 at 12:09 pm #

      Ya, I was surprised to see such “small mindedness” in a comments section. It’s hard to believe someone is NOT just playing games with him. There’s not a town in this USA that doesn’t have something to IMPROVE upon.

      Telling someone to “get out of town” does not bode well for anyone on either side of the discussion. What a coward. They should be grateful their town is getting any attention at all! A lot of people have purchased books from JHK and he’s bought a large property and is paying his taxes. He has every right to criticize what others are doing with their properties in his locale and at the same time promoting the town’s good points.

      “Batten Kill, which historically provided water power for industry.” –Wikipedia

      What happened to KILL BATTEN’s hydroelectric plant???
      Why isn’t it being remodeled during our current age of Green Enlightenment??

      I think JHK should write a nonfiction book or film a documentary about his town and include everything he can find about “JOB”.

  33. Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:22 pm #

    Obama called all the scandals of his Administration “manufactured”. Benghazi, IRS, NSA, Mexican gun running – all made up by his opponents? It’s impossible to feel sorry for this man who is incapable of taking responsibility for anything but is glad to persecute Americans for his friends.

    Of course many of his policies are just the continuation of Bush, etc. Certainly the NSA surveillance state is a long term project of the elite. As is trying to disarm Americans.

  34. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 12:26 pm #

    As is trying to disarm Americans.

    Bullshit. There is no project for this, long-term or otherwise. In fact, the facts support just the opposite. The gun business is booming and headlines incorporating your assertion only serve to drive greater sales and profits. Nice try, turd blossom.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:51 pm #

      Yes, Obama is the gun salesmen of the year. The regime’s burning desire to disarm America is having the opposite effect. Caveat Emptor, libturd.

  35. Karah August 5, 2013 at 12:48 pm #

    Do not feed the trolls.

    “Janet” will eventually come along and do it for you.

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  36. Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 12:49 pm #

    Hot topic: Are the terror threats real? Or is it just the administration trying to distract us from the Benghazi public relations disaster? The threat was supposed to focus on Sunday. Now they’re expanding it and saying that the “chatter” is like that before 9/11.

  37. Gonga Din August 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm #

    The insects are watching with great anticipation. For many who couldn’t afford it, a graduate program in anthropology will be provided at no cost.

  38. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 12:59 pm #

    I suggest that before you accuse people of ‘earnestly helping and supporting all these years’ the MIC, you try to take their words at face value rather than draping them in the suspicion of a paranoid hidden agenda.

    Fair enough, I’ll give you a fair shake and watch your pattern from here on out. But, if you don’t take an equally fervent defense against the racists here who feign a false consensus with those like you who post here, then you’re not going to have much credibility in my eyes, and you will be ripe for criticism. It’s your responsibility to distance yourself from them, as I have done repeatedly, in sentiment, word and deed. If you don’t, then you will be seen as tacitly approving their filth.

  39. janet August 5, 2013 at 1:12 pm #

    Janos said: Now they’re expanding it and saying that the “chatter” is like that before 9/11.

    Muslims have shown remarkable restraint since 9/11 in the face of continued American attacks on Muslim countries. Why do they hate us? Maybe because of our bellicosity?

    The total number of Muslim countries that America and American-armed Israel have bombed comes to fourteen: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iran, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia.

    With the exception of some extremists in Saudi Arabia, none of those countries have counter-attacked inside the USA.

    USA aggression is sufficient to cause some “chatter” and another possible followup counter-attack by Muslims.

    Islam is a religion of peace, but the governments of Muslim countries will engage in “self-defense.” Christianity is a religion of peace, but the governments of Christian countries also engage in “self-defense.”

    And as long as everyone is armed and feeling scared and/or offended, or has been invaded, occupied, and terrorized by USA drone bombers, expect more retaliatory war and bloodshed. Violence begets violence.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 1:40 pm #

      Well I don’t agree with the idea that Islam is a religion of Peace, but I do agree with your general sentiment about our actions.

      I don’t think Christ would have approved of conversion by force or by economic and social pressure. But Mohammad did endorse the Jihad and actually began it by an attack on the fringes of Byzantium at the very end of his life. He was in the field himself.

      In other words, religious war in Christianity is a bug not a feature. In Islam, it’s a feature not a bug. That being said, I admit that the war bug was very prevalent in Christianity for most of its history. Self Defense is one thing of course, but it went far beyond that.

      Now the power of Christianity has waned and the Warburgs have taken up the War Bug. Annie’s song about Daddy Warbucks is sly commentary on Warburg.

  40. Karah August 5, 2013 at 1:19 pm #

    I don’t know much about the “economy” and “local government” except that September is the beginning of the new fiscal year for most public organizations. It’s the cut off date for reporting to the IRS. We’ve already had one used-to-be-major city declare bankruptcy, so it’s just a matter of a month for other communities to figure out their pensions and payrolls, etc…Unions have been a point of contention for every city in the USA at one time or another.

    SEPTEMBER is the time when one of the most expensive parts of cities start up: schools. Just think about all the electricity they’re NOW sucking up as all the electronic devices (one per student and faculty member) are plugged into every 6 to 12 capacity surge protector from 6AM to 6PM depending on the district rules all over this great land of ours. All those little to big hot bodies running around from room to station to bus need air conditioning. If there’s not guns being toted everyone this coming “open” season there will still be a lot of tears in the accounting offices.

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  41. kyoto motors August 5, 2013 at 1:48 pm #

    Hello James,
    I like the new site. Congrats. The comments section is that much more inviting now, I think I might leave a comment from time to time…
    Do you intend to chime in here too? in response to some of the more thoughtful entries? It would be nice to know what you think of the suggestions and replies we find here, some of which merit further discussion to be sure.

  42. janet August 5, 2013 at 2:07 pm #

    Mohammad did endorse the Jihad

    Janos, I also favor the Greater Jihad (but not the Lesser Jihad). The Qur’an has used the word Jihad 34 times to express the idea of struggling to the utmost to refine oneself, improve society, or defend the freedom of conscience.

    Accordingly, Prophet Muhammad has, for example, used the word Jihad when referring to serving one’s parents, refining one’s character, performing the Hajj (pilgrimage), and defensive war for freedom of conscience. Prophet Muhammad also, after returning from battle, declared the Jihad of refining oneself to be superior to Jihad to defend the freedom of conscience, “We are returning from the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad.”

    Furthermore, the Qur’an prohibits fighting against any peaceful group, repeatedly underscores the importance of freedom of conscience, and permits fighting only to uphold the freedom of conscience and defend oneself against an aggressor. The Qur’an also states that no single religion can monopolize salvation and endorses ecumenism.

    See more at: http://www.muhammadfactcheck.org/muhammadfactcheck/prophet-muhammad-taught-terrorism-and-jihad-to-conquer-the-world-for-islam/#sthash.7QQJFZLT.dpuf

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 3:17 pm #

      That’s nice Janet but you probably aren’t a Muslim. Muslims would have a problem with you having a problem about the lesser jihad – which has come to be synonomous with the word as most scholars agree.

      Muslims have a lot of semantic tricks in which to fool themselves and those to lazy or foolish to think. Sayyid Qutub said that Muslims don’t seek to conquer the world in order to convert the infidels, but rather to spread God’s Law to every land and nation. Once conquered by Islam, non believers will have to pay the jiza tax, and will be second class people in most every sense. They don’t have the right to defend themselves if attacked by a Muslim, but they do have the right to be for mercy. Imagine that, the right to beg for mercy. Think this is going to go over well in the Red States? Or even the Blue once they get their heads out of their ass (if ever)?

  43. San Jose August 5, 2013 at 2:07 pm #

    From my perspective, I don’t think we’re in for a collapse in 2013. I feel downright cheerful these days:

    *There are plenty of jobs for my kids to choose from.
    *They got all their preferred classes at CSU this fall
    *The stock market is doing awesome.
    *The value of our 1,750 sq. ft. home in San Jose has gone up $35K in the past 30 days.
    *Jerry Brown is our governor!
    * The weather this year has been lovely.

    Jen

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 3:22 pm #

      And you’re going to vote for Hillary. Don’t miss the made for TV movieS about her life that will be coming out on the major networks. As far as I know, Republicans aren’t going to get equal time. But hell, the networks are private, right? That’s Capitalism, mac, except Hillary is a Communist. Something is screwy.

      http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354621/get-ready-all-hail-hillary-movies-john-fund

    • Mike R August 5, 2013 at 3:44 pm #

      Your home is only worth what somebody actually pays for it. Zillow might says “it has gone up $35K in the last 30 days,” but that’s hardly applicable to what you’d actually get. I get that Silicon Valley real estate is ridiculously overpriced, but the precision of your statement is also ridiculous. You’re not describing the price of milk at the local supermarket, a verifiable and objective fact.

      • San Jose August 5, 2013 at 9:20 pm #

        Mike, a house by the same builder, the same year, with 1,450 sq. ft. sold in May for $800K. The older Chinese couple that bought it paid cash. It’s just around the corner, but on a busier street.

        My house, according to Zillow today, is worth $730. even though I have an extra 300 square feet and my yard is beautiful, unlike the $800 K house.

        • Karah August 5, 2013 at 10:11 pm #

          How do all the appraisals make the inhabitants feel better when they might never get the opportunity to sell out or obtain lines of credit or reverse mortgages? You’re all elderly which means you’re wanting to pass your final days in those nice homes in nice neighborhoods where you feel secure. What if that changes like it did for Detroit? The reality is that you’ll also be paying higher taxes every year. And how will elderly folks maintain large properties in a feeble physical condition? We have an elderly wave coming on in the next 10 to 15 years. Will you welcome relatives to move in with you or hire total strangers to care for your lawn and housecleaning? And how will your lesser income relatives manage the property?
          They’ll try to cash out asap like a lot of people are trying to do now that the markets have “seemingly” recovered. What’s happening is we have a lot of “new wealthy” coming from the destruction of the old financial system and they’re buying in cash like CRAZY. I’m not sure how a cash based economy works other than it has to keep a constant and increasing flow. Therefore prices have to inflate annually by at least 1 to 5%. So that’s why your house is expensive, in hopes they can get someone fool enough to pay that amount. There’s a sucker born every minute. California is notorious for its screwed up housing values. California is a major promoter of American propaganda and is a port city inviting everyone and their naturalized children (remember the homes built just for birthing babies, a location near you) to sink every last dime into a slice of the pie and continue to slave for the privilege to spend.

  44. janet August 5, 2013 at 2:23 pm #

    Jen said: “I feel downright cheerful these days”

    So do I, Jen, but then I’m off to a Disney Resort in Hawaii with my little ones!

    I can echo much of what you report from California. Where I am the economy is going well, the real estate market is moving again, our home has increased in value, unemployment has gone down, and the weather is great! It’s all good. The only thing we don’t have is Governor Moonbeam, but I hear he is turning California around economically, stopping the exodus. Brown is also the first governor I ever have ever heard of with a Zen Jesuit First Dog: http://gov.ca.gov/s_firstdog.php

    Nice to see so many women participating in CFN.

  45. Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 3:08 pm #

    Piper: Genesis implies that once God created the elements they then began to work as he had made them to work, following their own nature: light to light, fire to burn, water to flow, etc. Obviously Genesis per se confined the creation to this world and the known elements. It was written for All so it must therefore be greatly simplified. It need not be despised for that.

    I found the Pistis Sophia kind rough going. What translation do you use? I have the one by Samael based on the Theosophist Mead’s translation. Are there others?

    And what about the terrible duality of Gnosticism? You didn’t address that.

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    • Piper Michael August 5, 2013 at 6:52 pm #

      I do not want to stink up Jame’s site with long discourses, I’ve already said too much.
      Come to my site, and ask questions, maybe, we can learn from each other, as the Christ said, the way of truth is in the discourse.

    • Piper Michael August 7, 2013 at 3:01 pm #

      Ok,
      One last word simply because you left that hanging about the “terrible duality”.
      Duality is necessary, think dark energy of the Physicists…
      Without dark energy in balance with light energy, there can be no REAL Reality.
      This is the ultimate meaning of the Gnosis.
      (Which now matches the notions of physicists… perfectly. The problem is the symbolism, which links reality to hyper-reality, hyper energy, which is called; spirit )

  46. Nastarana August 5, 2013 at 3:11 pm #

    Now we have a Lapsonglce and, guess what, I think maybe our Carol is about to be replaced.

    Now if I just had a cnote for every time I have seen this particular movie I could send my kid through law school.

    • Nastarana August 5, 2013 at 3:13 pm #

      Try that again, Lapsonglce. Notice the unpronouncible, unspellable handle, all the better to call someone out for.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 3:23 pm #

      Yes it is trying out new characters. Carol was absent last night but a new poster was filling up the space.

  47. sevenmmm August 5, 2013 at 4:15 pm #

    September huh? Is that 2013? Well, no matter…

  48. janet August 5, 2013 at 4:34 pm #

    September huh? Is that 2013? Well, no matter…

    JHK was very specific. It between Sept. 21 and Dec. 21: Fall 2013.

    You have about two or three months to put your affairs in order.

    What I’m wondering is if I should buy a new family station wagon (Prius V) because once the dollar crashes what little money I have in the bank will be worthless. If I spend it now then after the crash I’ll have a new car instead of worthless money in the bank. And some status in the ‘burbs.

    This whole JHK crash prediction could end up being an economic stimulus if people decide to unload their dollars and buy big ticket items like garden tools, building tools, homes, transportation, etc. … things to prepare for life after the crash.

    Maybe the prepper movement is really a covert government economic stimulus plan to get us to spend our money on durable goods.

    • San Jose August 5, 2013 at 4:55 pm #

      JHK predicted collapse last summer, but thankfully, it didn’t happen. Bless his heart–I love it when writes about hideous architecture and suburban decay

      • Mike R August 7, 2013 at 10:23 am #

        He’s predicted collapse every year for the past several. Not sure why he doesn’t learn from his experiences.

  49. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 5:05 pm #

    I was listening to an interview with Chris Hedges online yesterday from early 2012. He said that all total,,itar,,,ian societies involve some kind of mass delusion and escape from reality.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RJ1yzMpa5k&list=PLhzuwlvKrNX7btE4M-mdmlXdN8bkddg_b

  50. janet August 5, 2013 at 5:10 pm #

    He said that all total,,itar,,,ian societies involve some kind of mass delusion and escape from reality.

    How can one possibly “escape from reality”? It does not seem possible. Wherever we are, at any given moment, we are enmeshed in the reality of that moment.

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  51. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 5:27 pm #

    janet asked: “How can one possibly “escape from reality”?”

    How can one possibly NOT escape from Reality?

    The American black response to the Zimmerman trial seemingly has tot,,alit,,arian elements. i.e., the corrupt US black leadership insisting on a version of events not consistent with Reality in order to give them moral authority and a platform to enhance their power.

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 7:13 pm #

      “How can one possibly NOT escape from Reality?”

      My reaction to the verdict of the Zimmerman trial was to escape into an idyllic version of Metro Detroit’s past, a photograph of racial harmony from 40 years ago. It beat the Hell out of “The law is an ass with music by Leonard Cohen.”

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-picture-of-hope-and-innocence-from-40.html

    • alpha mail August 5, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

      Ummmm, yeah!! The negro view on this Zimmerman affair was so far removed the reality, it was almost like seeing an old episode of The Twilight Zone.

      • alpha mail August 5, 2013 at 11:20 pm #

        Have to agree with you on that one. The big “O”s pappy sired not less than 8 half bros and sissys in as many years. Like so many of his brethren so anxious to spread his seed ’round. The best thing that happened to Obammy was that this f-head died prematurely at the grand old age of 52. …..Waiting for J’sucka to tell me that he was 53 or whatever the fuck.

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 11:20 pm #

      So you’re punctuating your giving up in frustration with an F-Bomb? I have just the link for you.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-final-sex-post-for-month.html

  52. Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2013 at 5:37 pm #

    Tawana Brawley finally has to pay her victim. She begins to pay of the 430,000 dollars she owns to the White policeman she slandered and attempted to destroy.

    Coincidently, 430,000 is the number of years left in Kali Yuga according to Prabhupad. Hopefully he got his zeroes wrong.

    How just and even beautiful, that a Black should have to pay for their crimes against a White. The way it should be but not the way it typically is.

    http://www.amren.com/news/2013/08/pay-up-time-for-brawley-87-rape-hoaxer-finally-shells-out-for-slander/

    • alpha mail August 5, 2013 at 10:03 pm #

      I’d like to be paid my reparations by discrimination from negro employers against me. Don’t expect that sheet to happen, tho.

  53. Krystociak August 5, 2013 at 6:03 pm #

    Jim, it was just this morning that had a similar sense that this summer in Los Angeles……this will historically be seen as one of the most beautiful……..just before the ponzi scheme comes home to roost. I remember hearing stories about the weather just prior to war time scenarios.
    I emailed you a few years ago from here in LA when oil was above the $140/barrel level to report that things had not seemed to change all that much.
    Since then the cars have actually gotten smaller in general, nevertheless there are more and more $300,000 cars running around here, they are common. I dont know how their drivers justify the high profile to themselves!
    The wealthy areas of LA on the West Side continue to develop. There are construction sites everywhere you look, quite amazing to see how many have started up in the past year or so, it is like a tsunami.
    Your podcast with Nicole Foss from a while back rang very true to me, when she explained so clearly the credit bubble and the cycles we are at the end of.
    I have divested my savings from JPM and am working on learning what to do with the dough……I will be 64 on Aug 22…..feeling more like Mr. Toads wild ride than ever to me.

    • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 7:23 pm #

      I’m an expatriate Angelino, so I’m always interested in news from my former home town. Honestly, I’m not surprised by what you wrote about the West Side. As I tell my students, “there is a reason the place is called La La Land and it’s not just because the initials are L.A.” Even so, the place appears to be even more environmentally conscious than it was when I left nearly a quarter century ago. In fact, the locals are finally getting interested in the L.A. River as something other than a flood control channel and thinking about how to turn the built environment into something more natural. There’s even a documentary about the change in attitude.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/05/rocking-boat-down-los-angeles-river.html

      • Neon Vincent August 5, 2013 at 11:41 pm #

        Did you actually watch the video I embedded or even read the post? I guess not, as I don’t see anyone other than me reading that post today. Too bad, as it would have answered your question. The video is about the movie “Rock the Boat,” which documents the attempt to kayak the length of the L.A. River to demonstrate that it was a “navigable waterway” so that it would be eligible for protection under the Clean Water Act. The attempt was successful, so the L.A. river qualified. That may be the punchline, but along the way the movie includes discussions of how to capture the rainwater that drains to the sea instead of being used by the residents of thirsty L.A. and proposals to return the “concrete pipe” (which it still was when I moved to Michigan) into a natural riverbed, complete with floodplain parks along its banks.

        If you don’t believe me, click on the link in my comment above to see for yourself. If that’s not enough for you, here’s the link to the film’s website.

        http://www.rocktheboatfilm.com/

        • Neon Vincent August 6, 2013 at 9:32 am #

          That was impressive and revealing, too.

          I have someone you should read. He’s about as wary as you are. He’s also interested in Peak Oil and other resource issues.

          http://nealrauhauser.wordpress.com/

  54. ozone August 5, 2013 at 6:09 pm #

    Oh boy!
    I’m just hoping that the Ja’Soka entity has really told a truth this once and IS, in fact, going to a Disney Wasteland in Hawaii!
    Spend lots of dough, please, and come back so broke you can’t pay your internet provider. That would make the rest of us quite cheery and goofy-giggley as well. Isn’t that what you want; universal giddiness?
    Please help us to overcome our morose frames of mind by disappearing for a prolonged period.

  55. rube-i-con August 5, 2013 at 6:14 pm #

    typical for him, kunstler lurches despeartely from failed prediction to failed prediction yet again. remember the quants wtih trembling ledgers because of unrest in brazil that would see governments come crashing down and the collapse of who knows what else?

    now, kunstler thinks “accounting fraud” will do in the fiancial system. like, why didn’t the system implode in 2008? it’s bloody 5 years on and things have levelled out. the central bank can concoct ANY AMOUNT of money to PAY any DEBTS. no one’s worried about intermediaries that can’t be trusted to pay up – unless it’s some nigerian bank. but that’s always been the case.

    looming crisis of confidence – wtf, kunstler, your damn crisis has been looming for years and years. put up or shut up.

    so….you’re now giving us until the fall, when things will blow. i’ve already put that one up next to the mayan calendar, which i think kunstler had a hand in creating too.

    in actual news that counters kunstler’s abysmal take on the future, artificial hamburger meat is now being created in the lab using real beef cow cells. seems it might cut greenhouse gas emissions in half, plus all the other imaginable benefits like greatly reducing the need to clear land for beef production, etc. so a cascade of positives.

    just like germany producing HALF its total energy needs a few days last year. kunstler, naturally, will never comment on that fabulous achievement, since it demonstrates de facto that his refrain that we live in a technodream won’t save us. yes it will, it is doing it each and every day, the list of how is too long to elaborate on and is obvious if you’ll just look.

    so…yet another vacuous ‘analysis’ filled with attempts to convince us of verbal superiority.

    jimmy, you are so smart, why do you make me berate you like this? grow up, bitch.

    peace peaceniks

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  56. rube-i-con August 5, 2013 at 6:15 pm #

    just like germany producing HALF its total energy needs a few days last year FROM SOLAR PANELS

    peace peacefrogs

  57. ozone August 5, 2013 at 6:30 pm #

    My advice to Ja’Soka:
    “Go Cadillac or go home!”
    (A pimped-out Escalade [v.- to climb] is especially status-boosting for someone who desires constant attention. Watch the pennies on those sexy rims though!)

    When in the leather-couched comfort of the Escalade’s cabin, at the helm of your very own land-yacht, reality will drift away into a Disney-drawn dream of ether-huffed, languorous wonder!

    (I’ve been trying to pitch that advert slogan to GM for a while now, but for some reason they haven’t responded in a positive fashion.)

  58. earltwitty August 5, 2013 at 6:58 pm #

    Cloacal fundament? I had to look that one up

  59. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 7:00 pm #

    I just don’t see how the world financial system doesn’t blow up this fall

    See, I don’t know about this. Just when you think this thing’s down and out, that you have it all figured out, it surprises you. As Claudio says, I’m fully expecting come Fall, <Papa's Got A Brand New Bag. But, we’ll see. We’ll see.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pANxLrLk0&feature=player_embedded

  60. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 7:04 pm #

    Cloacal fundament? I had to look that one up

    It was worth it, though, wasn’t it? You learn something new every day, my mother used to say. I didn’t even know I had one of these. There’s so much we don’t know we have. It’s sad, really.

    At first glance, I thought it was referring to a zealous, shrouded christian. Boy, was I wrong. And how. When in doubt look it up, my mother used to say.

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  61. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 7:21 pm #

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7IxGGfpSWk

  62. Carol Newquist August 5, 2013 at 7:21 pm #

    Times like these call for Fatima.

    http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/Colliers/9-1951/fatima_quality.jpg

  63. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 7:25 pm #

    “If you see me as your friend, I’ll be your friend. If you see me as your father, I’ll be your father. If you see me as your god, I’ll be your god.”

    – Rev. Jim Jones

    Obama has often described his relationship to people in the same way.

  64. janet August 5, 2013 at 7:45 pm #

    Ozone, the Escalade gets 12 to 16 miles per gallon. The Prius v wagon gets 40 to 42 miles per gallon. Where I live a Prius gives one more social status than an Escalade. Thanks for the suggestion, nonetheless.

    Oh, and no chance I’ll go bust at Disney and not be able to pay the ISP. Things are not as bad as JHK would lead you to believe. Listen to rube.

    • alpha mail August 5, 2013 at 10:10 pm #

      Now that you’re “a woman” and have kids, and live in a suburban manse, maybe now you’ll shut your g-dam mouth about adobe hut living in South America? Nah!!! Next month you’ll be a Druid Monk, living in Killemanjaro. Go ahead, bitch, correct my spelling!

  65. swmnguy August 5, 2013 at 7:46 pm #

    The tricky thing about predicting the collapse of our economy is that it’s rigged. So it may have been mortally wounded in 2007-2008. It was certainly apparent to me in 2003 that our economy was going to collapse. I’m no expert either; I just refinanced the house I had bought for $49,500 in 1996, to lock in a rate I considered low at the time, and my credit union offered me $135,000 for it in less than 7 years. That was so crazy I had to spend an afternoon with a calculator, notepad and a pitcher of iced tea to figure out the math, and what it told me was that a crash was inevitable.

    I was right too, except I forgot the key to it. Once money become abstract, it can be anything we say it is. So yeah, the home-finance system collapsed. Except the banks don’t have to face the consequences because they can just say all those loans are money good, and nobody can contradict them. Our bond market has collapsed, which is actually far worse than having the stock market collapse, but it doesn’t matter because the Fed can print $85 billion per month to prop up the T-bond, which it then exchanges for the worthless mortgage derivatives that should have killed the banks by now, and the endless black hole of fake debt sops up the newly created fake money that should have sparked runaway hyperinflation by now.

    See what I mean? When it’s fake, it’s silly to point to the rules and say what SHOULD have happened by now. When you can just change the rules and fake the outcome, any little kid knows it’s not a game worth playing unless you’re enjoying it, but under no circumstances should it be taken seriously.

    As for “prepping,” I’m not silly enough to think I can outfight professional killers, or survive those more desperate than I. But I did grow up on a farm where the overhead power lines fell down when the wind came up, which was often. I did learn that you have to have a few weeks of food on hand, and a couple different ways to make light and fire, because in a big blizzard in January, there’s no getting the 10 miles over gravel into town, and -10F with visibility of literally zero–can’t see your last footprint–is a real situation that can’t be overcome without already having been planned for.

    So this autumn? Why not? But I wonder if the demise of an already rigged and fake-us system will cause the kerfuffle so many anticipate. These things tend to work out in ways we don’t foresee. Or humanity labors and labors and brings forth…nothing. Something else happens and nobody can remember quite what we had all been so upset about.

    Hopefully, we’ll all find out.

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  66. Nastarana August 5, 2013 at 8:13 pm #

    http://agonist.org/the-blow-off-top/#more-109370

    This may be why JHK thinks the time is soon.

    • BackRowHeckler August 6, 2013 at 7:02 am #

      Rome had a civil war on the average of every 5 years. It was also over run by barbarians on 2 different occasions in the 5th century. That’s why, plus the reasons you mentioned, it collapsed.

  67. jim e August 5, 2013 at 8:19 pm #

    I listen to coasttocoastam when insomnia sets in and this is basically what I heard Nori and Corsi say last night… this was from a previous year-

    “Jerome Corsi argued in favor of the abiotic oil theory, as opposed to the fossil fuel explanation, which persists because oil companies can claim scarcity and charge more for their product, he pointed out. No dying dinosaurs, ancient forests, or any biological organisms are responsible for the creation of oil; rather it’s produced constantly within the mantle of the earth, he stated, adding that Peak Oil is a hoax, and we have an abundance of oil at deep earth levels. Further, he continued, there are a number of techniques to synthetically make oil, and some of this knowledge has been deliberately suppressed. ” I like to add that if so it would be like blood is made in the marrow after a good letting… They mentioned the folding of the Oil Drum as proof that Peakers were wrong..

    I like to ride my bicycle. Racing a bicycle is not as responsible as riding a bicycle from point A to point B and then possibly back to A. I love to see the local carriers do this from the Jimmy John’s.

    The Alabama State time trial championship was this past weekend and the 50+ masters had the largest field (Alabama). Michael Olhieser is again our Champion. Our Champions results for the year…

    http://www.road-results.com/racer/24266

    I have heard that a human on a bicycle is more efficient than a bird in flight?
    A cure to the addiction?

    Last night the other guy on C2Cam got a call and he said something like religion is like the brand of bike you ride… The better way is to remember we all know how to ride and the brand should not be the focus. Ride Well.

  68. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

    Has anyone see the new Lone Ranger movie starring Johnny Depp as “Tonto”?

    What does the word “Tonto” mean anyway? Is this just some sort of cruel mimicry, parody of the way that white people think that Native Americans speak?

    When I was kid I found a pornographic magazine in the neighbor’s lawn trash from “Underground Atlanta” which featured the “Long Ranger”. He had on this mask and cowboy hat.

    I don’t know…It’s weird….Human behavior…Fas.ci, sm….

  69. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 11:06 pm #

    I just got off the phone with the 325 pound, white trailor-trash woman in curlers that JHK mentioned in his blog entry last week.

    She said that she’s doing “fine”, and she says that she’s just made some freshly thigh-squeezed orange juice if anybody wants some?

  70. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 11:19 pm #

    With all this new, fancy drone technology is The Six Million Dollar Man now obsolete?

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  71. alpha mail August 5, 2013 at 11:36 pm #

    Oh my gawd!!! Close our embassies!!! Al Katie is on the march!!! Where did I put the nuclear bombs, btw?

    • Nastarana August 6, 2013 at 12:45 am #

      Embassy closed, no visas. What we should have done after 9-11, and if we had, I am convinced Mr.Bin Laden would have been handed to us on a silver platter in about 6 months.

      The current admin does at times have its’ moments.

  72. Pucker August 5, 2013 at 11:50 pm #

    I know a middle-aged American bloke who’s now doing a 4-month stint in nuclear power plant in China teaching the Chinese staff of the plant English.

    That must be weird….

  73. Pucker August 6, 2013 at 12:15 am #

    Why don’t we do some “Brainstorming” to figure out how to solve this Peak Oil problem?

    Why don’t we do some “Brainstorming” to figure out how to break the Red Army’s encirclement of Berlin?

  74. janet August 6, 2013 at 12:26 am #

    Bilbo is Asoka reincarnated.

  75. MikeMoskos August 6, 2013 at 1:50 am #

    The Republic died long ago when some consortium of the NSA/CIA/FBI/military/national security state “took out” JFK. Today, our #1 export is weapons. What keeps it all together is the Federal Reserve Notes’ status as the world’s reserve currency. We protect its status with a worldwide network of military bases, ships, and operatives.

    Over at theburningplatform.com, they’ve reported China is buying lots of gold, perhaps to make its currency gold-backed. Money worldwide would probably flock to a gold backed currency from what by then will be the world’s largest economy. THAT would destroy the US’s standard of living.

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  76. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 5:35 am #

    SO there you have it so long the US gubmint can feed its people for FREE it can live on.

    Of all the things you can and do complain about, you choose this? Very telling, but not very convincing. You’re not in Asia. You’re pretending to be. You’re just some right wing prick pretending to be something you’re not in order to deposit your right wing propaganda under the radar. I see right through it, scumbag. If you really live in Asia and love it so much, shut the hell up and go about your lovely, new life. Leave all this behind. You’ll be better for it. Right wing scum can’t do that, though. They care too much. Beware those who care because when you meet them, even though you may not have a shirt, in no time no shirt becomes no pants and eventually fully naked, such is their care. If you really are in Asia, which I highly doubt, my hope is that your Asian neighbors keep their kiddies away from you. American expats in Asia are notorious for preying upon the innocent in those haunts. Yes, apparently that’s a well-known “secret” in the intelligence services. All the pervs in its ranks head to Asia for sex with minors, and their ranks are replete with such people.

  77. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 5:50 am #

    In Egypt and everywhere else, folks ONLY hit the street because they had no food.

    No, that’s not why “they” hit the streets in Egypt. Yes, increasingly many in Egypt are finding it difficult to meet the food budget, but that’s not why “they” are hitting the streets. First, you must define the “they”. The “they” is a minority of the people recruited and encouraged by western intelligence agencies to stir things up. This is done in a myriad of ways, but one of the most tried and true ways that it is still done to this day is through NGOs. This is why Morsi had to go…..he clamped down on NGOs and they fought back. The NGOs and the Egyptian military are in bed together…..they have been for quite some time. Egypt has been a de facto military dictatorship for quite some time…similar to Pakistan where the military are the Oligarchs, for the most part. Western propaganda has idiots in the west, otherwise intelligent people, supporting a military dictatorship in Egypt. Of course, the MB isn’t much better, but them’s increasingly the choices these days as we approach the status of Haitians at a snail’s pace; shit on rye, or shit on sour dough.

  78. BackRowHeckler August 6, 2013 at 6:54 am #

    I don’t know, Jim. If the Banking System is grinding to a halt in Sept., does this mean no World Series, no College Football games with 100,000 fans in attendance, a halt to the huge state funded construction projects in the works round here, public school (our largest ‘industry’) being cancelled, lines at gas stations, empty food markets, closed businesses …? Just what does it mean for us plebes, in a practical way, out here in the country? I was hoping the only gunfire I would hear this autumn would be at the various Turkey Shoots the Lions Club sponsors in the small towns in the hills west of here.

    BRH

  79. Pucker August 6, 2013 at 7:04 am #

    Prior to modern international Capital Markets (NY stock exchange, etc.) US companies were US companies. With the rise of modern international capital markets, US corporations became transnational multinational corporations unconcerned with sovereign identity. They strip out the U.S.

  80. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 7:06 am #

    Why don’t we do some “Brainstorming” to figure out how to break the Red Army’s encirclement of Berlin?

    Yes, you’re right. The Vatican is always the answer. It was for what you describe above, and it is for Peak Oil. The answer to Peak Oil is to have more babies. Sometimes the only way out is deeper in, because therein you’ll find the portkey; the cloacal fundament.

    http://emperors-clothes.com/vatican/cpix.htm

    The evidence shows that:

    A) The Catholic church hierarchy, acting under Vatican orders, played the decisive role in making Hitler the dictator of Germany.

    B) Subsequently, the Catholic hierarchy was active in Nazi movements outside Germany, for example in the Balkans, where the church was the institutional base of the Nazi puppet State of Croatia.

    C) Although at Yad Vashem, in the year 2000, Pope John Paul II described the Nazis as having “a Godless ideology,” in 1933, when it mattered, the Vatican ordered German Catholics to love, honor, obey and protect the Nazis.

    Few here know of this, I’m sure. And still further few outside of this forum in the larger population as a percent. History is whitewashed; a spoonful of sugar….. For example, ever heard of Zentrum?

    To their credit, the Social Democrats for once took a strong stand, opposing the Enabling act. Hitler needed a 2/3 majority, so the balance lay with Zentrum, the Catholic Centre party. If Zentrum voted no or even abstained, Hitler would have been defeated.

    Zentrum leader Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, a close friend and advisor to Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, addressed the Reichstag. Far from attacking the Enabling act and disputing Hitler’s claim that Nazi measures were “prerequisites for a truly religious life,” Kaas endorsed the Enabling act. Zentrum and smaller allied parties voted ‘yes,’ and the act became law.

    It gets worse….much worse:

    Two weeks after that, the Vatican and the Nazi government signed their Concordat, putting the official Vatican stamp on the alliance of the German church and the Nazi state. Article 16, reproduced below, required that Catholic bishops swear to honor the Nazi government, to make their subordinates honor it, and to hunt for and prevent action that might endanger it.

    But as the Reds surrounded Berlin, the Vatican was already concocting a plan to veil its culpability and to address the issue of Peak Nazism. Some of Nazism’s most valuable players were secured and transported to new locales; many to South America where not a few would prosper with a new life, but also many to the U.S. in an Operation called Paperclip, aided and abetted by the Vatican Ratlines. Some of these coveted Nazis were instrumental in forming the budding U.S. intelligence services. If U.S. intelligence appears Naziesque, it’s because it is nazi-dominated at its core. It’s a culture of Nazism. Nazism was given a new life with a new face. And here we are.

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    • Janos Skorenzy August 6, 2013 at 4:44 pm #

      Pius the 12th wrote several encyclicals against National Socialism as well as giving refuge to many Jews in Vatican City. Many Jews at the time were grateful to him, the chief Rabbi of Rome even converted based on his inspiration, even taking his first name Eugenio, thus Eugnio Zolli. But ever since that period a powerful group of Zionists have been slandering him. No good deed goes unpunished evidently.

  81. BackRowHeckler August 6, 2013 at 7:25 am #

    The reason I ask, Jim, is because I have a friend here, an author like yourself whose books you have endorsed and knows you personally, who said the other night over a few beers in a local pub, when I brought you up, that many of your claims and predictions are hyperbolic and exaggerated, if not well intentioned. How many times can you cry wolf?

    All right then, I’ll be paying close attention to events from here on in. We’ll see what happens.

    BRH

    • ozone August 6, 2013 at 8:17 am #

      BRH,
      This might be an ‘interesting’ (ha!) metric to keep an eye upon:

      “Meanwhile, over in the land of paper wealth, the interest rate on the 10-year US Treasury bond clicks up a basis-point here, a basis-point there, like a remorselessly rising sea level. It won’t take many more clicks to put, for instance, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York under water.” -JHK

      Now, as Bill Beans indicates, making shit up as they go seems to have become ‘the plan’ for the Grand Mages in the pointy hats going forward, so another round of pretending under a new brand name might be pulled out of sleeves or asses, as conditions warrant.
      …And interest rates (just like unpayable debt/deficits!) be damned, ’cause they “won’t matter” any more. Goal posts and meanings will be moved, or simply expunged to suit those with the most to lose.

      (Apropos of nothing; where’s Richard “Dick” Cheney these days and what’s he doing for fun, besides torturing small animals?)

      • BackRowHeckler August 6, 2013 at 8:41 am #

        Oz I’ve been reading about the early years of the Republic 1783 -1815 in biographies of Aaron Burr, James Wilkinson Washington Irving and a few others. I found out that this place has always been on the edge of disaster and outcomes were always near run things. What’s different now?

        BRG

        • ozone August 6, 2013 at 9:28 am #

          Maybe EROEI regarding natch’ul resources and their ‘costliness’ in terms of whatever one happens to be using as a medium of exchange.
          Other than that, probably not too much. 😉

    • ozone August 6, 2013 at 8:40 am #

      A puzzlement from TAE:

      “The fact that we increasingly tend to describe destruction in monetary terms is precisely why it will continue, since if a dollar value is all you have left, you might as well have no values.

      What makes discussing these things blasphemous is that while you can’t escape a critical look at how capitalism functions, in our world capitalism has taken on the role and characteristics of a religion, which typically rejects critical looks. You’re not supposed to question it, and if you do anyway, before you know it you get to be Galileo. In the case of capitalism, if you dare criticize the prevailing system, you are a communist or a socialist. And like Galileo, a heretic.”

      – See more at: http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/capitalism-a-norwegian-rat-and-some-cockroaches.html#sthash.7ULXD24w.dpuf

  82. Titchfield August 6, 2013 at 7:39 am #

    Good morning.

  83. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 7:47 am #

    Vietnam!!

  84. Nastarana August 6, 2013 at 8:47 am #

    This might be something else JHK is looking at.

    http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

    Kunstler writes about the cheesedoodle munching, bloated great unwashed, but he speaks to,and to some extent for, persons like himself who have acquired a moderate level of wealth.

    Bilbo is correct about the populace riots when there is no more food; it is called the Hackett-Fischer-Sen moment,as on Bastille day when the price of bread in Paris rose to a level the poor could not afford. That would be historian David Hackett-Fischer and sociologist Amayrta Sen, who have written about the topic. People like our ‘Carol’ know nothing about this because they never get off their computers long enough to read whole books. The conspiracy to take down throne and church, as detailed by Berreul, granddaddy of all conspiracy theorists, may still have existed, but if it did, it was no more than the spark which set the haystack on fire. BTW, “Carol” and others, not that I expect you to heed this, the original conspiracy theory DID NOT blame Jews. Even a Jesuit like Berreul knew Jews had nothing to do with the secret societies which were rife throughout Enlightenment Europe.

    One of the factors contributing to the disgruntlement of folks like JHK and Bilbo and others (Asoka?) is that in the USA, the ordinary plain boring folks decided they had had enough of picking up after wild and crazy guys, or “cultural creatives”, and their spoiled-brat babelicious consorts and girlfriends. The promise of American life was supposed to be that if you were willing to spend your wild and crazy years learning a trade, and then work hard and do good work, and mostly not be a nuisance, you did not have to remain in the servant class. Maybe in exotic tropical locals there are grandmas willing to do the laundry and mop the floors in return for the facilitation of umpteens of their grandbabies, nephews and nieces into the USA.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 6, 2013 at 4:49 pm #

      If so, he’s the only one who says that. Masonry was full of Jews and is in fact largely based on Jewish symbolism. One of the greatest Conspiracy Writers of all Time, Nesta Webster confirms the massive Jewish role in the French Revolution via Grand Orient Masonry.

      Bnai Brith (Sons of the Covenant) got a the right to have their own Masonry from Pike himself I believe. The full Scottish Rite.

      You need to join a Coven or something.

  85. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 9:00 am #

    it is called the Hackett-Fischer-Sen moment,as on Bastille day when the price of bread in Paris rose to a level the poor could not afford.

    I don’t need to read a whole book to conclude that said “moment” is not some physical law set in stone. What was good for Paris (or perhaps not so good…it depends on one’s perspective) in 1789, is not necessarily good for the U.S. in 2013 or any other year in proximity. Too much is different for the same “moment” to manifest as though it’s some predictable law of physics. But for all your reading, ‘Nastarana’, you still can’t think critically. Instead of helping, your many books read cause more harm than good for you. Mao says “I told you so.”

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    • Nastarana August 6, 2013 at 12:14 pm #

      Your philosophy in a nutshell “I don’t need to read a whole book”…but yet you expect to be taken seriously.

      Sorry, , you are simply not that brilliant.

      • Nastarana August 6, 2013 at 12:21 pm #

        Mao again.

        Carol the serial killer groupie, Alyssa Rosenbaum wannabe.

  86. janet August 6, 2013 at 10:05 am #

    Nastarana, can you provide a citation for this claim?

    Even a Jesuit like Berreul knew Jews had nothing to do with the secret societies…

    As far as I can tell there was no Jesuit named Berreul.

  87. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 10:10 am #

    As far as I can tell there was no Jesuit named Berreul.

    Try putting the word “Cracker” before it. When you do, obviously you get Cracker Berreul which makes much more sense. Chicken Fried Chicken, what’s not to like?

  88. janet August 6, 2013 at 11:33 am #

    BackRowHeckler asks: I’ve been reading about the early years of the Republic 1783 -1815 … What’s different now?

    Well, 200 years ago people worried about dying differently. 200 years ago they worried about deaths caused by apoplexy (a syndrome of fainting spells), spontaneous combustion (especially of “brandy-drinking men and women”), drinking cold water (your guess is as good as mine), and near-misses from cannonballs (yes, seriously – they believed that the close contact could shatter bones and even cause blindness).

    Refrigeration was more challenging They didn’t have LED lightbulbs that use 7 watts of energy and give you 60 watts of light.

    The cemeteries 200 years ago are full of children and young people. I could go on, but things really have changed.

    And, yes, in 1815 there probably were a few people thinking the whole economy was a house of cards and was going to collapse any day.

    Banks dominated the American corporate landscape back then, followed by turnpike companies (now extinct) and insurance companies. But there was more government regulation of the financial industry back then, so less chance of collapse.

    The Panic of 1819 was driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns.

    Back then they had not figured out how to make money out of thin air like we do today without causing hyperinflation. They didn’t have electrons represent money so they couldn’t do instant quantitative easing like we can today. We have figured out how to make money grow on trees, specifically tree algorithms. It’s all good.

  89. Nastarana August 6, 2013 at 12:18 pm #

    Janet, on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Illustrating_the_History_of_Jacobinism

    Apologies for the misspelling. Not much is known or remembered in the USA about this man, except by Daniel Pipes, who, naturally, is ready to accuse the entire world of anti-Semitism.

    The entire book, in archaic English translation, is available online. I only just started reading it.

  90. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 12:25 pm #

    Your philosophy in a nutshell “I don’t need to read a whole book”…but yet you expect to be taken seriously.

    Oh, that’s rich, ‘Nastarana’. Really, it is. I suppose if anyone hasn’t read Mein Kampf then they have no credibility and no business being critical of Hitler. All that reading you do, and yet you possess not a lick of reason and logic.

    Mao was many things, but in this case, he was exactly right. You prove his point again and again. You’re the gift that keeps giving.

    Read on.

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  91. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 12:33 pm #

    From the link ‘Nastarana’ provided:

    He sees the end of the 18th century as “one continuous chain of cunning, art, and seduction”[10] intended to bring about the “overthrow of the altar, the ruin of the throne, and the dissolution of all civil society”.[11]

    Sweet Mother of Jesus! Perish the thought! Why on earth would anyone want to overthrow the “altar”, the “throne” and the “civil society” that perpetuated and served those institutions? You should have warned us it was a satire.

  92. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 12:39 pm #

    The entire book, in archaic English translation, is available online. I only just started reading it.

    A great reading suggestion for janet whilst she vacations with the husband and children at the Disney resort in Hawaii. Just be careful you don’t fall asleep several paragraphs in, janet, and possibly drown in the pool.

  93. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 12:43 pm #

    Alyssa Rosenbaum wannabe.

    Let me guess. You read her book as well so you’re an expert, and since I haven’t read Ayn Rand, I have no credibility? Got it. Thanks.

    Mao’s rolling.

  94. Titchfield August 6, 2013 at 2:18 pm #

    Newquist says that Egypt has had a military dictatorship for “quite some time.” Why write “quite”? The dates are exact and well known.
    But not known by YOU.

    No physical law is “set in stone,” by the way. The laws of physics and chemistry are provisional. They’re provisional because they’re arrived at inductively. Going by your posts, you always characterize inductive inferences as deductive ones. It’s the deductively inferred conclusions that are “set in stone,” not the inductive. You’re in no position to be lecturing people about logic.

  95. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 3:00 pm #

    Why write “quite”?

    I don’t know. I like embellishment?

    No physical law is “set in stone,” by the way. The laws of physics and chemistry are provisional. They’re provisional because they’re arrived at inductively. Going by your posts, you always characterize inductive inferences as deductive ones. It’s the deductively inferred conclusions that are “set in stone,” not the inductive. You’re in no position to be lecturing people about logic.

    So you agree then that this “moment” phenomenon ‘Nastarana’ deposited is not some inductively derived law that is as predictable as the rotation of the earth? Good. That’s what matters, not the semantics you’re arguing.

    As for the inception date of Egypt’s military dictatorship, I’m sure your statement is loaded. Britain’s rule over Egypt from 1882 until 1952 can certainly be viewed as a military dictatorship. But for the homegrown Egyptian military dictatorship, 1952 is the date. This sums it up nicely:

    http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wh/214/Egypt.html

    ationalism in Egypt is expressed in the belief that the army is the “friend of the people”. But whose army is it? The military regime has denounced workers strikes and told strikers to go back to work. Not surprisingly therefore, the army takeover has been supported by all wings of the bourgeois “opposition”, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

    In all capitalist countries the army, along with the police, judges and prison guards constitute the core of the bourgeois state, an organ of class oppression to maintain through violence the rule of the exploiters. To win state power the working class will have to smash the bourgeois state apparatus, including by splitting the army along class lines — the conscripts versus the bourgeois officer corps — winning the soldiers to the side of the working class.

    Illusions in the army are a deadly danger to the working people and the oppressed but they run very deep. Egyptian nationalism was born of British imperialist subjugation and humiliation — the British had occupied the country from 1882. In 1952, a group of military officers known as the Free Officers Movement, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew the monarchy and ended the British occupation. Since that time the army has been viewed as a guarantor of national sovereignty, particularly against the Zionist state of Israel.

    Nasser, a bourgeois nationalist, claimed to be leader of a mythical “Arab socialism”. His success in peddling this myth was aided by the treachery of the Stalinist Communist Party, which supported him. In fact Nasser aimed to crush the combative Egyptian working class and within a month of seizing power he delivered a massive blow to the workers movement. When a textile workers strike broke out in Kafr Al-Dawwar near Alexandria, Nasser had two strike leaders hanged on the factory grounds. The Communist Party was banned and strikes were outlawed. Undeterred by the murder and imprisonment of their own comrades, the Stalinists continued to support Nasser, finally liquidating into his Arab Socialist Union in 1965.

    The role of the military in Egyptian politics has remained the same under the subsequent dictatorships of Anwar el-Sadat and then Mubarak. While Mubarak was hated and despised, there are considerable illusions even today in Nasserism, due largely to the betrayals of the left.

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  96. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 3:16 pm #

    The ironic thing is, Titchfield, I agree with you about physical laws. Not for the reasons you state, since your argument is pure pedantry, but for the reasons Max Planck implies and states.

    We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future. (Max Planck)

    So, Titchfield, what’s your opinion on the unrest in Egypt and the potential unrest in the U.S.? Will Nastarana’s physical law heretofore called the “moment” manifest in the U.S. and has it manifested in Egypt? Or is it a bit more complex than that? Or would you prefer to pedantically needle in the margins and avoid any form of commitment?

  97. xydeco August 6, 2013 at 3:19 pm #

    I’d like to use my first (and last?) post here to state, Mr. Kunstler, that your comment section is, to a considerable extent, something of a cesspool.

    Some comment sections add value. Yours, with exceptions duly acknowledged, not so much.

  98. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 3:20 pm #

    And my dear Titchfield, I believe undigested would have been better than digested with regard to the oyster. Nuanced, I know, but it’d give it just a smidge more edge.

  99. janet August 6, 2013 at 4:01 pm #

    xydeco said: I’d like to use my first (and last?) post here to state, Mr. Kunstler, that your comment section is, to a considerable extent, something of a cesspool.

    Gee, and I thought the comments sections was improving now that we have more women contributing and we don’t have Asoka making 40 posts a day. Maybe it depends on the definition of “considerable extent”

    • xydeco August 6, 2013 at 4:19 pm #

      More women is almost always a good thing. And while I haven’t much studied the matter, it’s clear you are firmly in the “exceptions” category from my original post.

      I will trust your judgment that the comment section is improving. I think it would take a few, so to speak, “self-deportations” to really do the trick.

  100. Janos Skorenzy August 6, 2013 at 4:52 pm #

    A peek at the Beast – Keith Ellison: Muslim, Negro, Racist, Hater, Democract. He illustrates the difference between having a Democracy vs a Republic. Under Democracy, they can just vote to take your money.

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    • Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 5:00 pm #

      No doubt you’ve made the list of “duly acknowledged exceptions” as well. Good for you.

  101. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 4:57 pm #

    Speaking of the Hamptons, Teresa and Joe Giudice, recently indicted on 39 counts of fraud last week and facing up to 50 years in prison, are vacationing there right now with all the other fraudsters. Teresa and Joe just happen to be not so smart and got caught and/or scapegoated.

    I wonder if Teresa has had any oysters? If so, cloacal fundament, here they come!!

    http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/teresa-giudice-vacations-hamptons-amid-legal-woes-172549485.html

    Just because they were indicted on 39 counts of fraud last week and face up to 50 years in prison doesn’t mean Teresa and Joe Giudice were going to cancel their vacation plans. In a move that shows either great resiliency or serious denial, Teresa and Joe hit the beach (with their daughters in tow) a mere few days after their highly publicized court appearance.

    Teresa first tweeted on August 1 that she was headed to the Hamptons — Long Island, New York’s summer playground for the ultrarich — and then followed it up with a bevy of Instagram pics showing her family eating, cooking, and having fun. After exiting the courthouse last Monday, she had vowed to “maintain” her family’s lives “in the best way possible,” and — based on these snapshots—she seems to be succeeding … for now.

    Teresa looked like she didn’t have a care in the world as she frolicked in a sexy cutout bathing suit and turquoise cowboy hat. As if an advertisement for how happy her marriage is, she posted one photo featuring herself and Joe knee-deep in the surf with the caption, “Me and my honey…”

    Another showed Teresa’s youngest, Audriana, perched on her mother’s back as the two girls smile into the camera. In a third snapshot, Joe helps Milania ride her boogie board. In other words, this looks more like a family living the American dream than facing public humiliation and jail time.

    More metaphor? They’re so many these days. Metaphors. We’ll see. We’ll see.

    • Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 4:58 pm #

      There are, not they’re. Ha!

    • Neon Vincent August 6, 2013 at 5:17 pm #

      I had an entire month’s worth of financial and corporate crime stories from Reuters, but it looks like the Giudices didn’t make it into my sample. Darn.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/07/financial-oversight-news-from-reuters.html

      • bunnyswanson August 7, 2013 at 5:55 am #

        You should be banned from this site. I am attempting to read the dialogue and your meaningless drivel and useless remarks are indeed that of a troll.

        The cost of a troll is high. The owner of this site is doing a great disserve to his followers by allowing this to happen.

        Can you believe that I actually registered to tell you this, and now I will not be back.

        There are insightful remarks and interesting views. This is no time to be fooling around. But your you’re yur youareafuckingcunt errr remarks are a thread destroyer. I bet you are alone alot a lot allthefuckingtime.

        • Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 9:00 am #

          “Can you believe that I actually registered to tell you this, and now I will not be back.”

          Aren’t I important? Seriously, you shouldn’t encourage me like that.

          “But your you’re yur youareafuckingcunt errr remarks are a thread destroyer. I bet you are alone alot a lot allthefuckingtime.”

          My, I did get you upset. At least I got you to contribute a comment, which you hadn’t done before. However, if I prompted you to leave, *I* might be the one doing this website a service. The comments section has enough people who would fit in at Godlike Productions. I don’t know if we need any *more.*

          • handyman August 7, 2013 at 11:15 am #

            Pay no mind, NV, I value your posts and your blog.

          • Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 1:16 pm #

            Thank you, handyman.

  102. bob August 6, 2013 at 5:09 pm #

    We are going to a place ,we shouldn’t ; a place that our human potential tells us “this is not our true path, we can do better than this.”
    Our system particularly the economic/political and religious components are anchored in beliefs.
    Unfortunately if you haven’t already figured it out this belief based system ie. the sum of it’s parts isn’t there to support your well being or the well being of anything else , think climate, creatures big and small ,resources ,pollution etc. etc.
    The system has its’ own agenda and owns the levers of control and power.Our human nature and the working of all natural systems for their existence inherently achieve a state of dynamic balance healthy being ,think yin and yang.
    Look around you ,where do you see balance? Now you can ask a pertinent question.

    • Neon Vincent August 6, 2013 at 5:27 pm #

      Balance? I have a whole series of videos I show my students that they originally showed me that present a world out of balance. There’s National Geographic’s 7 Billion, which states “we don’t need space, we need balance.” There’s the TED talk about the Pacific Garbage patch which talks about how plastic trash is throwing the oceanic environment out of balance. Then there is Blue Man Group pointing out that the planet has no emergency exits to use in the event of continued inaction about global warming. They’re all on YouTube, so Bilbo won’t watch them, but I think Baggins is losing out.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/08/student-sustainability-video-festival-5.html

    • ozone August 6, 2013 at 5:27 pm #

      I appreciate the trenchant re-orientation.
      I have only one question at this time.

      Why have we allowed crazy people into the wheelhouse to steer us in exactly the wrong direction? (That’s not rhetorical; I’d like your opinion.)

      • bob August 6, 2013 at 6:35 pm #

        This is a very excellent question in fact it’s answer would be the solution to set the ship on the right path. There is an answer ,and since it’s the big question it would require a big answer, but let’s see if we can come to a brief synthesis. Depth psychology gives the insight that our psycholgy is grounded in fear that is the fear of death. This unconscious fear ,which could be called primal fear is armoured into our very being . This state is a divided state , experiencing self doubt. Since man /woman can self reflect they will project an image that affirms ,gets the love and support of others . We are talking about ego / the ego self. What is projected out there for you to believe in is what can be called the status quo, The status quo knows well your weakness and manipulates you through the very beliefs that give your life meaning. The ego is always for or against something ,affirming and defending the ego-self. Lets imagine that stereotypical chap who is very right strong Republican quick to judge right and wrong . On the other side is the antagonist the lefty progressive tree hugging guy .
        Democracy ,freedom allows this antagonistic discourse,but nothing changes because it’s an antagonistic system . There is the antagonistic of opposities but reality is that there has to the conciliatory balance. The present system based in antagonism , gives greater control and power to the wheel house. As the Zen Master says ‘good and evil and the mind is lost.’ We have the ability to analyze from a new perspective. Another quote I like’when the opposites are in oneness something new is produced. ‘ As I said it is a big question ,not sure if this sheds any light.

        • ozone August 6, 2013 at 6:54 pm #

          Thank you, that actually throws a goodly amount of light on the subject and allows me to analyze my own responses to plainly set-piece conflicts and snares hidden in every “agenda”.

          (One small example is the supposed opposition in the Dem and Rep camps. Once the fact that they both feed from the same trough becomes apparent, a totally new direction of political thought arises organically.)

        • ozone August 6, 2013 at 7:21 pm #

          That’s the example you offered, but I’m not so sure that the resulting epiphany is a synthesis, or if I’m just interpreting the ‘conciliatory’ as a middle ground (too simplistic). To my mind, it’s more of a rejection or nullification that prompts a totally new tack. (Not to be ‘considered’; more like ‘born’ onto the scene; and it’s something that has always been there, though hidden by noise.)

          Am I seeing any facet of your answer correctly, or just confusing myself by not understanding the context?

          Thanks for the reply to the,
          -Slave to the Overused Device (which would be one of your points I believe.)

      • routersurfer August 7, 2013 at 8:22 am #

        The “Wheelhouse” is under the control of sociopaths that worship at the Alter of personal wealth & power. Society is of no value or concern to them. We are just collateral damage. Not to even be counted in the “News” reports. Societies that are healthy are organized from the bottom up. Sick societies are top down and the people at the bottom worship the 1%. Had a friend that thought Mr. Trump should be President because Trump was rich. My ex friend is going crazy because he needs more and more money to feel safe and it’s harder to make than in the past. He exited my life after 2+ decades because I asked him to consider his value was as a person not as a bank account.Not heard from him in years. Money buys power. Who has the money? Sorry for jumping in but I love a good question!

        • ozone August 7, 2013 at 8:55 am #

          Thanks for the on-point reply.
          Sad anecdote about your friend. 20 years, ouch!
          “Oh, you say you’ve got buckets of cash? Okay, we’ll let you steer; you’re not THAT drunk are you?”

      • benr August 7, 2013 at 10:00 am #

        Please you can’t get the average Mericun to pull their head out of the latest dancing with the stars episode to understand that both parties are two sides of the same coin.
        Drives me crazy how zombie like the average person is when you point out how feckless, corrupt and GWBush policy driven the one is.

  103. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 6:15 pm #

    Why have we allowed crazy people into the wheelhouse to steer us in exactly the wrong direction?

    First, who or what is the “we”? Second, “they” are not crazy. Third, the direction “they” are steering is good for them, not so much for you, so from “their” perspective it’s not the wrong direction. Fourth, this mythical “we” to which you refer didn’t allow anything. The “we” wasn’t asked. The “we” is never asked. “They” just do what they please, and the “we” just do as they’re told.

    • ozone August 6, 2013 at 6:45 pm #

      You know very goddamn good and well what I mean, Miss-Director.

      No one asked you, despite your prime directive to twist all posts “in the wrong direction” and your sacred right to be an intrusive asshole.

  104. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 6:20 pm #

    Pius the 12th wrote several encyclicals against National Socialism as well as giving refuge to many Jews in Vatican City.

    Define “many”. And once you get that number, let’s divide it by six million and we’ll get a better picture of Pius XII’s damnation to salvation ratio for the Jews.

  105. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 6:29 pm #

    Pius XII licked Hitler’s smelly boots. He was an absolute sycophant. He practically wrote love letters to him, and bent over regularly for Hitler. And you think his hiding away 11,000 in Rome somehow makes up for his complicity in the extermination of six million? Sorry, too little, too late. He was trying to save some face at that time because he realized Peak Nazi was for real.

    http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/hitlers-pope/

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    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 12:56 pm #

      Complicity? What complicity? The Zionists made that up out of thin air – just like they did Black equality and just as they do the currency. It’s a made up world out there. Lets call it Babylon.

      The Chief Rabbi of Rome was so inspired by him that he ended up converting to Catholicism and taking the Pope’s birth name to become Eugenio Zolli.

  106. janet August 6, 2013 at 6:48 pm #

    WASHINGTON – The U.S. government on Tuesday filed two civil lawsuits against Bank of America for what the Justice Department and securities regulators said was a fraud on investors involving $850 million of residential mortgage-backed securities.

    ===========

    It might be a good idea to get your money out of the five largest banks given what JHK is predicting for the fall. Transfer your accounts to smaller credit-unions and local banks that put people before profit. Here is how to do it:

    1. Organize current accounts. Know which accounts you have, so you know which accounts you need to close. Make sure all pending transactions have time to clear.

    2. Pick your new bank or credit union and open your new account/s. Open your new account with a small deposit (electronic transfer is fastest and safest way to do it).

    3. Change your automatic deposits and payments. Make sure to update any direct deposit and automatic payments attached to your old account and update them. (ex. car payments, credit cards, utilities, Clipper card and loan payments).

    4. Transfer your money into your new account. Once all automatic payments and direct deposits are linked to your new account, electronically transfer your money from your old Big Bank to your new account. If electronic transfers aren’t possible for you, you can get your money in the form of a check when you close your Big Bank account and deposit it into your new account.

    5. Say Goodbye to the Big Bank. (This is the fun part.) Go to your Big Bank and tell a teller that you want to close your account (each bank will have different procedures for closing accounts). Get written confirmation that your accounts are closed.

    6. Bonus Step – Celebrate! Moving your money is a powerful act. The banks aren’t too big to fail, our movement is.

    • benr August 7, 2013 at 10:07 am #

      Even as B of A is laundering cartel drug proceeds that dwarfs all the ill gotten mortgage back derivatives and securities vaporware the Treasury is buying up with Quantative easing forever!
      Hell all the big banks are getting caught and fined for laundering drug money!
      http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
      Jesus just go try and buy two pounds of Costco bacon!
      Two months ago it was 13 dollars two weeks ago it was 17 and last week end it was almost 22!!!!!!!
      All that faux money pumped into the system is finally yielding results destroying the average Americans savings but wait it will inflate us out of debt…or further down the rabbit hole.
      This administration is strong in the law of unintended consequences!

  107. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 7:12 pm #

    No one asked you, despite your prime directive to twist all posts “in the wrong direction” and your sacred right to be an intrusive asshole.

    This is an open forum and I will respond to anything that piques my interest or rubs me the wrong way. In your case, what you typed rubbed me the wrong way. You have never piqued my interest.

    • ozone August 6, 2013 at 7:26 pm #

      I understand; you’re simply exercising “your sacred right to be an intrusive [and pointlessly contentious] asshole”. Very well then; carry on.

  108. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 7:21 pm #

    It might be a good idea to get your money out of the five largest banks given what JHK is predicting for the fall. Transfer your accounts to smaller credit-unions and local banks that put people before profit. Here is how to do it:

    That, or spend it all like you mentioned earlier. If ozone’s to be believed, inflation will hit any moment and it won’t be worth a plug nickel. Might as well get something tangible with it now before it’s too late. For balding men, perhaps a Bosley natural hair restoration. You want to look good for the collapse.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4F8nZiQTVc

  109. Carol Newquist August 6, 2013 at 8:08 pm #

    I understand; you’re simply exercising “your sacred right to be an intrusive [and pointlessly contentious] asshole”. Very well then; carry on.

    I understand; you’re simply exercising “your sacred right to overuse the semicolon”. Very well then; carry on.

  110. d-_-b August 6, 2013 at 8:19 pm #

    Love your blog and books. Your comments section, however, is out of control and skipping through the “regular” cast of morons has become unbearable. I know this is tricky ground, but Dimitry and John Michael don’t seem to have this problem. Maybe try limiting the comments to a “Best 50”. You are an exceptional thinker and writer. Raise the bar on the comments section, please.

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    • benr August 7, 2013 at 10:13 am #

      How do you tell the bots from the government sock puppets?

    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 12:58 pm #

      John Michael is a control freak who can’t stand anyone publicly disagreeing with him. He is also in favor of the amnesty. So much for his commitment to the environment.

  111. progress4what August 6, 2013 at 8:46 pm #

    Thanks for the week’s work, JHK.

    Commenting here is nearly pointless, however.
    The janetasoka and carolasoka Trolling Twosome with their blather and insult have driven most intelligent readers away.

    And xydeco, with his compliment toward janetasoka, is either a fool or a syncophantic pseudonym created BY thatTrollingTwosome.

    JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, you need to do some banning of posting ID’s, employ some moderation, or at least put a limit on numbers of posts/day. Until then , this comment thread is a blight on your reputation – as well as a probable large net NEGATIVE for your revenue stream and book sales.

    ==============
    On a better note, many of you will enjoy this.

    “What if everything we’ve come to think of as American is predicated on a freak coincidence of economic history? And what if that coincidence has run its course?” -BWW-
    http://nymag.com/news/features/economic-growth-2013-7/

    • Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 9:15 am #

      Thank you for the link to the New York Magazine article. I read that and saved the link to my file to blog about later, along with a few other links from mainstream sources realizing that the era of economic growth over and above population increase and inflation is over. Despite what JHK opened last week’s missive of DOOM with, it looks like the idea of collapse is getting more popular.

      With all the complaints about janet and Carol, I’m beginning to wonder if the problem isn’t just that they are posting a lot of comments and making everyone else work harder to read and be read and that they express viewpoints contrary to what most of the regulars here espouse, but that they are using female names. Somehow, that’s eliciting a fury that even Asoka on the old site didn’t get. That’s despite a lot of you thinking that janet and Carol are Asoka in virtual drag. Maybe the female persona (or the possibility that there are actual women behind the screen names) encourages an extra dose of venom in your responses. Jezebel has an article about that, saying “internet trolling is not random—it is a sentient, directed, strong-armed goon of the status quo” and “is a force with a political agenda.” In this case, the agenda of the status quo is silencing women online.

      http://jezebel.com/dont-ignore-the-trolls-feed-them-until-they-explode-977453815

      • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 1:00 pm #

        It’s truly amazing the alacrity with which you come to wrong conclusions. You have a gift.

  112. progress4what August 6, 2013 at 9:41 pm #

    Here a bot
    There a bot
    Everywhere a bot,bot.

    Maybe, dude.
    I’m one unique human poster, however.
    At one time (about 1.5 years ago) this thread had about 30+/- identifiable unique posters on a recurrent weekly basis.

    It always had “janetasoka,” though.
    And now it is nearly dead.

    All I’m doing is suggesting ways JHK could bring it back.
    Or else, I’m suggesting JHK should euthanize it, and disable comments permanently.

    That is all.

    • progress4what August 6, 2013 at 10:12 pm #

      You say tomato
      I’ll say improve it or kill it.

      If I saw a injured dog being tormented by Bots and a Trolling Twosome – I would do the world a favor and euthanize the unfortunate creation – if it could not be saved from that sorry fate.

  113. Karah August 6, 2013 at 10:27 pm #

    http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Greenwich+NY+USNY0597:1:US

    Perfect.

  114. janet August 7, 2013 at 1:34 am #

    Bilbosoka says to Progressoka that the Japanese stock market is crashing.

    Bullshit. Japan’s Topix Index sank 2.5 percent. Oh, scary. Not.

    Quick! Somebody call Chicken Little, the sky is finally falling.

  115. BackRowHeckler August 7, 2013 at 6:26 am #

    Ozone, BTBill, P2C (Ch.) BRH, West Coast, SJMom, many others not Bots. P2C at least the long posts in Chinese characters is gone, which is a step in the right direction.

    BRH

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  116. clevercloacalbot August 7, 2013 at 7:25 am #

    Will you complainers quit griping about nonsense and get back on topic. The latest intelligent commentary surrounded the issue of the Vatican and its solution to Peak Oil. As Carol noted, since the Vatican was instrumental in not only enabling Nazism but also saving the remnants of it once Peak Nazism hit full force, what solution have they crafted for Peak Oil? We know this institution has the ability to survive despite what seems to be insurmountable odds against it and its skill in manipulating world affairs is unprecedented. Any ideas?

  117. Gail Likes Facebook August 7, 2013 at 8:20 am #

    Near the center of that money sickness was the blitzkrieg against gold and silver in the spring, when arrant serial selling dumps were executed against the money metals to un-money them.

    Regardless of whether or not you believe the devaluation of gold this past Spring was the result of a conspiracy, gold has always been a suckers bet. Weidner gets it right in this article from April.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-day-gold-died-2013-04-16

    Gold essentially is a sucker’s bet. It’s supposed to protect against inflation. It doesn’t. It’s supposed to retain its value. It doesn’t. See Monday. For these reasons, gold is supposed to be the ultimate currency. It’s not.

    The reality is that gold is just another Wall Street pump-and-dump investment. Its chief attribute is what people think of it. It’s a confidence game. Gold is generally useless. It’s not in high demand for anything other than its glint. If it was truly useful, it wouldn’t be sitting in the vaults of central banks around the world. This stuff does not power a city or cure cancer, people.

    What gold really is is a confidence bet. It’s a barometer of fear. It’s the original volatility index.

    You don’t need to have an advanced degree in economics to understand the fascination with the shiny stuff. Gold is the dummy’s hedge. It’s the purview of old people who are understandably confused by modern investing. It’s the realm of conspiracy theorists who worry about collusion between central banks, hyper-inflation and a new world order.

    Of all the investments out there, people feel they understand gold.

    Maybe it’s the beauty of the metal, but what really is happening when investors think they have a line on where gold is going to go isn’t that much different from a shell game on a street corner.

    Hey, if it looks easy, it must be, right?

    Well, on Monday they lifted up the shell and the ball wasn’t there. Today that street corner is empty.

    Gold is dead, but suckers are born every minute.

  118. ozone August 7, 2013 at 8:23 am #

    The comment that roused me on the Zero Hedge comment to Jim’s latest was this:

    “I think this fall, too though. It’s what I would do if I knew a shitstorm was coming and if I threw the switch I would be the one prepared for it. Or at least as prepared as I could be. I certainly wouldn’t want the game to continue if I knew my hand, and control, was going to get weaker.

    There are a lot of players out there now in this predicament.Today I read China and Japan.

    Whatever happens it will take place when it is least expected, with the sun at their backs.”

    Yes, as Jim says. “events are in charge”, but those who have their hands on the levers of this economic machine (kept running on duct tape, baling wire and massive infusions of paper) could very well be the ones who decide when to shut it all down while their ‘positions’ are still the superior. It’s an interesting outside-the-box thought, and plausible as well. Why not a ‘planned shutdown’ before events overwhelm the wizards? Then you still have some wherewithal to perpetuate the next profitable war and keep populations dependent on necessities that can only be had from sanctioned suppliers. Fascist Monopolism at its’ finest in a time of desperation… it has a familiar ring.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 1:07 pm #

      Fascists? They would have put the Bankers in prison years ago. Capitalists don’t get away with crap like this when the Man on the White Horse is in charge. But you’re afraid because he might cramp your style too. Possibly, but hopefully ours would be one who loved the Old Republic as opposed to Keith Ellison who wants to loot the middle class on behalf of “the people”. But that you would love I bet.

  119. progress4what August 7, 2013 at 8:29 am #

    Yeah, BRH/Marlin – Can’t really say I miss that Chinese Spam. It’s a wonder JHK got rid of that, but won’t get rid of all the asokajanet Troll Clones.

    Thanks to Mr. Baggins for the Zero Hedge heads-up.
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-06/usa-laboring-under-conclave-would-be-wizards
    80+ comments, and most are quite complimentary of our CFN host.

    Here’s the best one:

    “While I don’t always agree with the author, I always like the articles that predict short timeframes. They always energize me to work my preps.
    I’ll be checking & double checking my stuff for the next couple of weeks.”

    and this one:

    “bad things always happen in the future until……..

    they happen in the present.”

  120. ozone August 7, 2013 at 8:31 am #

    Answer for the bot of limited imagination —

    Tactical nuke via cruise missile into Vatican City, followed by world-wide purge of the priesthood via crucifixion. See? Easy-peasy and low cost.

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    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 1:08 pm #

      See the hate O my brothers? You want the Anarchists running things? Ozone is a typical example. Dangerous, Mad, and Bad to know.

  121. bigmax August 7, 2013 at 8:48 am #

    Ah, all is right with the world! Kuntsler’s predicting doom again!

    The world’s most consistently wrong prognosticator hears the crackle of gunfire…coming this fall! I can hardly wait for those crisp autumn mornings and the even crisper sound of bullets popping in the mist as I sip my hot apple cider, watching the world crumble – for surely JHK must have gotten it right this time!

    Apparently Jim has taken quite a bath in the gold market and can’t chalk it up to anything but a massive conspiracy. Well, that’s too bad Jim – but what were you going to do with all that gold after the world went belly-up anyway? Just a bunch of yellow metal; not likely to see you through the long emergency as well as a cellar full of homegrown kohlrabi.

    Only Kurt Vonnegut could have created a character like James Howard Kuntsler, the Kilgore Trout of doom. Perpetually seeing disaster around every corner, perpetually going all-in on this or that date – and then turning out to be flamingly, shamelessly wrong, over and over and over again. All the while enlarging his audience of doom pornsters.

    Hey, it’s a living! And damn entertaining, too.

    What really makes it funny is that he’s actually right – in the long run – but he just can’t wait for the apocalypse to arrive in its own good time. He’s like a kid who’s so excited about getting a pony for Christmas that he keeps claiming to have seen Santa coming down the chimney, even in the middle of summer.

    Don’t worry, Jim. America and its gaggle of tattoo’d clowns are surely headed for a bad end. You just might have to be a little patient…

    I’ll keep my ears open for that crackle of gunfire this fall!

  122. Secret Asian Man August 7, 2013 at 8:57 am #

    How laughable. The trolls are now pointing to zerohedge and even going so far as to copy comments from there to here. If ever there was a CIA front blog, zerohedge is it. That’s where the action would be, not here. And yet the complaining trolls who smear this blog with their irrelevant and obnoxious feces want you to not only visit that CIA lair, they also want to make CFN a CIA lair.

    Carol, thanks for your intelligent and witty commentary. You take a lot of abuse from these “intelligence” goons and you keep going like the energizer bunny. I respect your resolve and your objectivity. It’s commendable. Same goes for Janice. Both of you present a message of love and peace versus a message of sadism and hate from the “intelligence” trolls like ozone and progress4defecation.

    This song is for you Carol and Janice.

    With love,

    Secret Asian Man

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBnSWJHawQQ

  123. benr August 7, 2013 at 10:22 am #

    Read list:
    Creature from Jekyll Island Edward Gryphon
    Behind the green mask agenda 21 Rosa Koire
    confessions of an economic hitman John Perkins
    Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA Tim Weiner
    Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 Steve Coll

  124. progress4what August 7, 2013 at 11:16 am #

    “does that mean that 90% of the posters on this site are idiots? Could it be that ZH actually filters out the morons on their website?”
    – bilbo bags it?-

    Good questions.

    I’d like some more proof from you that “bots” can create commentary like janet, carol, or whomever. The site you mentioned, http://www.cleverbot.com/ , is interesting – but it can’t create a “carol.” IMHO.

    What we have had here for the 3+ years I’ve been commenting at CFN has been ONE real human being deliberately and consistently trolling the comment thread.

    That ONE person – most likely male, quite “liberal,” extremely argumentative and extraordinarily Obsessive-Compulsive – has outlasted and outshouted all other commenters.

    The mystery is why he does it.

    And the other mystery is why JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER will not put a stop to it.

  125. progress4what August 7, 2013 at 11:24 am #

    One more observation:
    Any entity, human or otherwise, that will deliberately sign into this CFN thread and immediately direct any sort of complimentary prose toward “janet” or “carol,”

    That entity is, most definitely, sponsored by the person who originally authored “asoka.”

    Bot that.

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  126. janet August 7, 2013 at 11:26 am #

    Last week I asked if Obama should cancel his meeting with Putin.

    Carol responded that they are both of the plutocracy and there is no reason to cancel. She stated flatly Obama would not cancel.

    Well, Carol was wrong. Carol got some ‘splainin’ to do:

    LOS ANGELES — In a rare diplomatic rebuke, President Barack Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

  127. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 11:39 am #

    Well, Carol was wrong. Carol got some ‘splainin’ to do:

    LOS ANGELES — In a rare diplomatic rebuke, President Barack Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Ooh, janet, you got me. NOT! Obviously, they read my comment and decided they would cancel it for PR purposes. It’s important to pretend there’s still lingering cold war undercurrents whilst behind the scenes, in the bottled-water filled rooms (used to be smoke filled but times they are a changin), dealmaking and collaborative strategizing continues unabated, shielded from any form of public scrutiny.

  128. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 11:59 am #

    Ha! This shit is so ridiculous, it must be satire. Come on, guys, surely you can make it a bit more convincing. Maybe move some nuclear tipped missiles around. Play roulette with the nuclear subs. Hollywood could do a sequel of The Hunt For Red October starring Sean Connery as a geriatric Marco Ramius ready to launch, safely girded in his Depends, at a moment’s notice. No, not Nastarana’s famous indisputable “moment”, but rather, just a regular, plain old moment.

    http://journaltimes.com/news/national/europe/kremlin-disappointed-over-obama-canceling-visit/article_1da81310-c925-5762-a8a1-de9331a29762.html?comment_form=true

    Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. The White House announced Wednesday that President Barack Obama has canceled plans to meet with Putin in Moscow next month. The rare diplomatic snub is retribution for Russia’s decision to grant temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. It also reflects growing U.S. frustration with Russia on several other issues, including missile defense and human rights. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service)

    Human Rights? Ha! Since when did that matter anymore, if ever? This is such an absurd throwback and rehash. Just like Hollywood with its obsession in remaking the classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That film is on its second remake. Although, I have to say, the first remake was excellent….the one with Leonard Nemoy and Donald Sutherland, so there are exceptions to the rule. If so, let’s hope this Cold War remake is at least as good as the original.

    Oh, back to Human Rights. I suppose the U.S. isn’t happy with Putin because he isn’t drone striking enough wedding parties and goat herders. You better get with it, Putin, killing game with superior technological equipment doesn’t quite cut it any longer. You have to go after the really big game; human…..from the comfort of your Man Cave if you want to play in the big leagues.

  129. janet August 7, 2013 at 12:24 pm #

    Ooh, janet, you got me. NOT! Obviously, they read my comment and decided they would cancel it for PR purposes.

    The plutocracy must be afraid of you to be reading your comments and making foreign policy decisions based on what you write. NOT!

    You busted, honey child. You said Obama would go through with meeting Putin. You messed up.

  130. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 12:33 pm #

    The plutocracy must be afraid of you to be reading your comments and making foreign policy decisions based on what you write.

    Afraid? I doubt it. What a strange thing to say. Why would you use that word? Maybe they respect my opinion and are using my comments as tea leaves for their strange brew. I have no explaining to do and I did not mess up. Your main question was “should Obama visit with Putin?” My answer was “of course he should since they play for the same team”, or at least something to that effect. Whether they actually formally meet in person is merely a window-dressing publicity stunt to convey tension where none exists.

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  131. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 1:00 pm #

    The following screen names are all “Carol.”

    Gail Likes Facebook
    Secret Asian Man
    Clevercloacalbot

    “Her” MO is so obvious.

    Here is a youtube of “Carol.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0-OL_71yU

    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 1:13 pm #

      You think Janet isn’t a Bot? If so, I call Bot on you.

  132. janet August 7, 2013 at 1:00 pm #

    Carol said: My answer was “of course he should since they play for the same team

    You say if they meet, it is because they “play for the same team”

    If they don’t meet, it is kabuki theater, or as you say: merely a window-dressing publicity stunt to convey tension where none exists.

    In other words, you cannot lose. Anything you say can be interpreted as being true… as long as you believe there are behind the scenes plutocratic decisions being made. In other words, you are a conspiracy theorist. In the world of conspiracy theorists no event, no decision, nothing falls outside the paranoid totalitarian system of thinking in which an invisible “plutocracy” is making all the decisions and they all play on the same team. All else is for publicity only.

    Tension exists. Putin has been smacked in the face and all the world now sees Putin as being dissed by a Black president. This is not a “publicity stunt” because Putin does not want that kind of publicity.

  133. Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 1:01 pm #

    So how bout that Amnesty? For it?

  134. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 1:06 pm #

    Putin has been smacked in the face and all the world now sees Putin as being dissed by a Black president.

    Wake up Asoka, who smacked whom in the face first? Putin gave Snowden asylum.

    • BackRowHeckler August 7, 2013 at 3:47 pm #

      And it looks like Putin and all of Russia is standing up to the Worldwide Homo Juggernaut.

      –BRH

  135. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 1:16 pm #

    Tension exists. Putin has been smacked in the face and all the world now sees Putin as being dissed by a Black president. This is not a “publicity stunt” because Putin does not want that kind of publicity.

    Yawn. Alright, if you say so. I don’t care either way, nor will I pay attention to such nonsense. Hollywood already has it covered. Let’s talk when the nukes start flying. Until then, it’s all for show.

    In other words, you cannot lose.

    No, “we” all lose. When the facts are concealed and/or purposely obfuscated, everyone loses, including those doing the concealing/obfuscating.

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  136. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 1:24 pm #

    I can’t stand South Park, and Q Schmuck is most assuredly not who and what he claims to be. There is not a 72 year old out there who likes South Park enough to link to it. You’re so busted, janet.

    The following are the same posters:

    progress4(fill in the blank)
    Nastarana
    Q Shtik
    janet
    ozone
    Janos Skorenzy
    Titchfield
    K-Dog
    beantownbill
    BRH
    Many Others to be named later

    The MO is so obvious to spot, least of which is the proximity of their posts meaning they like to post at similar times.I can see him/her now toggling back and forth between screens.

  137. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 1:35 pm #

    You cannot make a living in the doom biz predicting something dire will happen in 2017. It’s gotta be imminent. Jim knows this. And as a starting point for bad things to happen you could do worse than naming Sept – Oct. Check your history books.

  138. janet August 7, 2013 at 1:41 pm #

    You’re so busted, janet.

    The following are the same posters:

    progress4(fill in the blank)
    Nastarana
    Q Shtik
    janet
    ozone
    Janos Skorenzy
    Titchfield
    K-Dog
    beantownbill
    BRH
    Many Others to be named later

    OK, Carol, here we see the difference between you and me. I called you out and you continued to deny.

    You have called me out and I accept responsibility.

    You have only listed a few of my aliases here. There are multitudes of others: for example, I am also anti dod (originally conceived as anti asoka). You also forgot one of my more recent incarnations: Asoka, Adequatio, Nichole, Bilbo, Pucker, etc. But all of them are me.

    I am so busted. Right?

  139. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 1:42 pm #

    Carol, thanks for your intelligent and witty commentary.

    You’re welcome, Secret Asian Man, and don’t let these accusations that you’re somehow me scare you off. Don’t be a stranger. By the way, it’s janet, not Janice, but it doesn’t matter. janet is so many others here, the spelling of her name is rather irrelevant.

    Also, I love the song. Quite (haha) appropriate.

  140. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 1:47 pm #

    I am so busted. Right?

    You were always busted in my eyes from the very beginning. I’ve been playing with you all this time and letting you believe you were playing with me. By the way, no, you’re not all those people, especially not Nichole, but you are some of them for sure.

    You and I are now going to war. Gloves are off. This is real tension, not the phoney baloney Putin/Obama bullshit. This time I’m not going to let up. I will continue until I crush you. Be prepared.

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  141. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 1:48 pm #

    The MO is so obvious to spot, least of which is…

    The words “to spot” are superfluous.

  142. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 1:54 pm #

    The words “to spot” are superfluous.

    Actually, no it’s not, douchebag. “To spot” means someone is making an effort to look, and if they do, it is then obvious. If they aren’t making the effort, and are passively naive, then it is not obvious because they’re not trying “to spot” anything.

    You are no match for me, you loser. I’ve thumped you so many times it’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I even bother any longer. You’re like a gnat, though. You have to keep flicking them off, else they’ll drive you nuts.

  143. Endgame August 7, 2013 at 1:56 pm #

    Your garden, your paintings, your interests in music and community, and your incisive travel observations all make it clear you are not simply an unwashed misanthropic troll sitting in a darkened basement mancave eating a twinkie waiting for the apocalypse.
    You, M. Greer, and D. Orlov help balance the smoke and mirrors that passes for “informed” journalistic soundbites these days,
    You have taken the place of the jelly doughnut I used to have with my Monday morning cup of coffee.
    Today, tomorrow, next month, next year who really knows when this not so slow motion train wreck will finally jump the rails.
    Some day in the not so distant future we are going to look back and say, “What fools we have been”! Our children will look back and say, “What fools they were”! Their children will look back and say, “What GOD DAMN fools they were”!
    I guess the best each of us can do is to stay calm, sit back and enjoy the ride… and take the bus whenever possible.
    I hope your recovery from surgery is going well, be patient and don’t push it. Incidently thank you for not posting any pictures of your “zipper”.
    .

  144. janet August 7, 2013 at 2:02 pm #

    Jesus just go try and buy two pounds of Costco bacon!
    Two months ago it was 13 dollars two weeks ago it was 17 and last week end it was almost 22!!!!!!!

    This is good news! Heart attacks, emergency room visits, and health care costs in general will decrease.

    Now if we could only get gas prices up where they should be: $7 a gallon, we could start addressing the reality of the situation we are in.

  145. janet August 7, 2013 at 2:07 pm #

    Carol said: You and I are now going to war. Gloves are off. This is real tension, not the phoney baloney Putin/Obama bullshit. This time I’m not going to let up. I will continue until I crush you. Be prepared.

    Thank you for the warning. The number of our posts could increase exponentially in this upcoming warfare between us. You intend to crush me. I am uncrushable. This could go on for years. Should be fun!

    Of course, it will drive S4B Georgia Man crazy, since he is convinced we are one and the same. That is crazy though, since it is obvious you are a man and I am a woman. Let the games begin! Toodle-oo!

    Janet

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  146. janet August 7, 2013 at 3:05 pm #

    Carol said: You were always busted in my eyes from the very beginning. I’ve been playing with you all this time…

    In other words, you are a fake, a fraud, a liar… you have been inauthentic from your very first fake porn postings which revealed you as a man. You are busted… by your own admission.

  147. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 3:17 pm #

    The words “to spot” are superfluous. Actually, no it’s not, douchebag.

    “no it’s not” is incorrect. It should have been “no they’re not.”

  148. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 3:36 pm #

    That is crazy though, since it is obvious you are a man and I am a woman. Let the games begin! Toodle-oo!

    Everyone here who doesn’t post in their real life name is a fake. You and your numerous sock puppets, me, everyone. Very few post as they are. Pot kettle black.

    It simply doesn’t matter whether I’m a woman or you’re a woman. I don’t care if you are or you’re not. Apparently, it means something to you….probably for the very reasons Neon asserted. Thanks for that link, Neon. Excellent and spot on.

    The games have already begun. They began long ago. Will you ban me and yourself again this time and come back as something else, or will you stick with it when I corner you? Come on, don’t be cowardly and back out of it like you did before. Take it like a man (haha).

    Q. Shtik

  149. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 3:44 pm #

    “no it’s not” is incorrect. It should have been “no they’re not.”

    No, it’s correct. “It’s” refers to the entirety as a singular prepositional phrase. Now sit down and shut up, moron.

    Janet

    • alpha mail August 7, 2013 at 4:26 pm #

      you forgot to put the “J” in janet lower case.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 7, 2013 at 4:37 pm #

      Oh my, this is so exciting! Who will win this battle of the behemoth pygmies?

  150. janet August 7, 2013 at 3:55 pm #

    Everyone here who doesn’t post in their real life name is a fake. You and your numerous sock puppets, me, everyone. Very few post as they are. Pot kettle black.

    It simply doesn’t matter whether I’m a woman or you’re a woman. I don’t care if you are or you’re not. Apparently, it means something to you….probably for the very reasons Neon asserted. Thanks for that link, Neon. Excellent and spot on.

    The games have already begun. They began long ago. Will you ban me and yourself again this time and come back as something else, or will you stick with it when I corner you? Come on, don’t be cowardly and back out of it like you did before. Take it like a man (haha).

    Ozone

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    • Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 5:14 pm #

      “Thanks for that link, Neon. Excellent and spot on.”

      You’re quite welcome.

      I have another story of a woman who was told to shut up, Lisa Brown of Michigan. She was told not to speak for the rest of the legislative session, in part because she said “vagina” in the State House to the speaker.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/06/vagina-goes-viral.html

      • anti dod August 8, 2013 at 10:45 am #

        Ban the entity!!!

        • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 3:14 pm #

          Ban who? If you’re talking about me, I’m one of the few leaving comments here who has satisfied Bilbo that I’m a real person, not a bot or other “entity.” Who are you to argue with Baggins? Or do you have another reason to want me gone?

  151. alpha mail August 7, 2013 at 4:02 pm #

    “janet” sez: “Now if we could only get gas prices up where they should be: $7 a gallon, we could start addressing the reality of the situation we are in.”

    Classic Asoka/Adequatio. Again, don’t take my word for it. Look it up on the old site under archives.

  152. alpha mail August 7, 2013 at 4:28 pm #

    “janet” trying to deflect by signing at the end of “her” posts as other posters. Asoka/Adequatio lite.

  153. janet August 7, 2013 at 4:28 pm #

    “janet” sez: “Now if we could only get gas prices up where they should be: $7 a gallon, we could start addressing the reality of the situation we are in.” Classic Asoka/Adequatio.

    Look, Budiswizer has been trying to move attention to excess discretionary energy consumption for years. You, alpha mail, are looking at the finger and missing the moon. It doesn’t matter who says what: reply to the content, instead of trashing the anonymous author.

    Budiswizer is right. In the USA gas costs less than $4.00 a gallon and we spend about 3% of our annual income on gasoline. Got that? Let’s do a comparison.

    USA $4.00 per gallon and 3% of annual income

    Turkey $9.98 per gallon and 1% of annual income

    Norway $9.97 per gallon and 1% of annual income

    Netherlands $8.95 and 1.65% of annual income

    Italy $8.92 and 1.61% of annual income

    I could go on listing countries, but you should get the idea.

    Gasoline is horribly underpriced in the USA, yet we spend more of our income on gasoline because we engage in too much DISRETIONARY ENERGY WASTE.

    I admit my figure of $7 per gallon was low. I hereby revise the figure. Gasoline in the USA should be $10 a gallon. Maybe then we will stop wasting it on inefficient vehicles making unnecessary trips. Maybe then we will have people riding mass transit and more mass transit being built.

  154. alpha mail August 7, 2013 at 4:30 pm #

    “…my figure of $7 per gallon was low. I hereby revise the figure. Gasoline in the USA should be $10 a gallon. Maybe then we will stop wasting it on inefficient vehicles making unnecessary trips. Maybe then we will have people riding mass transit and more mass transit being built….”

    “janet”, caught like a bear in a trap.

  155. janet August 7, 2013 at 4:35 pm #

    “janet”, caught like a bear in a trap.

    Alpha mail, still going ad hominem and refusing to address the content of the post.

    Asoka

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  156. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 5:09 pm #

    Now if we could only get gas prices up where they should be: $7 a gallon, we could start addressing the reality of the situation we are in.

    Now I see why you’re so gung ho about Obamacare. It’s part of the plan for gas to rise to $7/gal so people will not be able to afford to make it to their health appointments and private insurers won’t have to pay out as much. Of course, everyone will still have to mandatorily pay the premiums (read profits) to the private insurance companies yet they won’t be able to receive the resulting healthcare for which they are presumably covered because they won’t be able to afford to get there. Nice. It’s fucking brilliant. Why do you hate the Little People, janet?

  157. Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 5:09 pm #

    On the last page of comments, I told Impaler than I had a series of posts for him from my blog. He responded with a link to a photo of a beheaded British soldier and said “my pets [sub-Saharan African Muslims] were getting out of hand.” I replied by saying I’d respond on this page. Since directed a racist and Islamophobic comment at me that involved the U.K., I have just the link for him, an embed of a Lily Allen song she originally dedicated to the British National Party.

    http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/06/i-was-in-foul-mood-until-i-watched-this.html

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 1:43 pm #

      Oh Blacks are so cool, always right and shit. And Whites are so stiff, lame, and wrong! You want to be cool but you White. What to do? Betray your Race and try to gain salvation with your Black Cannibal Gods thereby. Wont Work Vin. You White and you suck.

      Look Vinny, you aren’t completely stupid, “just” evil and tied up in knots. Like Buddha said, salvation means untying the knots. Start here with this movie about the persecution of White farmers in Zimbabwe – a vision of what happens to Whites when ruled by the Blacks.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajPJ9OD7OfQ

      • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 3:27 pm #

        “Vinny,” eh? Only one person in the old version of the site ever called me that. Added to your relentless White Supremacist comments, your vampire naming trope, and your repeated failure to deny who you are when I called you Impaler, and it points to Vlad. Thank you for confirming my inference as to your identity, Impaler.

        As such, you should know that I’m not going to engage except to insult you and turn my response to my advantage. I’m going to combine my full reply with that to Q-shtick’s on the top of the next page. See you there, vampire.

  158. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 5:22 pm #

    How many people have to die, janet, before that mass transit infrastructure is built to replace the automobiles that heretofore got everyone to their healthcare appointments but are now worthless because they’re too expensive to fuel? Will we hear platitudinal promises from you telling us to be patient grasshoppers…..that it’ll be any day now….just you wait and see? I think we will, and yet that day will never come. Shouldn’t the horse come before the cart? If you agree that it should, then how do you suppose we make that happen? Supporting fracking, as Obama and the Dems have done and are doing, seems an odd way to go about it. For starters, the natural gas from that process is being exported, and secondly the fracking process itself is poisoning aquifers and the air everywhere, thus ensuring highly negative health outcomes and an immense burden on Obamacare…unless, of course, the Little People can’t get to their appointments once again because of high fuel prices.

  159. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 6:12 pm #

    I have another story of a woman who was told to shut up, Lisa Brown of Michigan. She was told not to speak for the rest of the legislative session, in part because she said “vagina” in the State House to the speaker.

    Neon, I did the same thing here, and the usual suspects called it porn…including janet. I’m guessing they don’t have the stomach for something as risqué as JHK’s Maggie Darling: A Modern Romance. I consider it the height of achievement for a writer to fully develop characters of the opposite gender.

    • Neon Vincent August 7, 2013 at 7:06 pm #

      “something as risqué as JHK’s Maggie Darling: A Modern Romance. I consider it the height of achievement for a writer to fully develop characters of the opposite gender.”

      I’ll have to read that. All I’ve read about the women in Kunstler’s fiction is the carping about how the ones in his “World Made By Hand” books return to traditional gender roles. I’d be very pleased to find out that he can write stronger women than are depicted in his post-apocalyptic novels.

      By the way, telling Lisa Brown (and also Barb Byrum) to shut up backfired. The largest crowd to ever descend on the state capitol grounds to protest until Right-to-Work was passed showed up to hear both of them recite “The Vagina Monologues.”

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/06/video-updates-from-wxyz-and-wood-on.html

  160. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 6:29 pm #

    janet and her “authentic” support of bogus Obamacare on display again. Here’ some more backtracking. They can and will change this legislation anytime they damn well please to suit their purposes…..but you can’t. No, you have to abide and you have no say in the matter.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/usa-health-congress-idUSL1N0G820F20130807?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews&rpc=43

    WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Congress has won some partial relief for lawmakers and their staffs from the “Obamacare” health reforms that it passed and subjected itself to three years ago.

    In a ruling issued on Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive a federal contribution toward the health insurance that they must purchase through soon-to-open exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

    The decision by the Office of Personnel Management, with Obama’s blessing, will prevent the largely unintended loss of healthcare benefits for 535 members of the Senate and House of Representatives and thousands of Capitol Hill staff.

    When Congress passed the health reform law known as Obamacare in 2010, an amendment required that lawmakers and their staff members purchase health insurance through the online exchanges that the law created. They would lose generous coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

    The amendment’s author, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, argued that if Obamacare plans were good enough for the American public, they were good enough for Congress. Democrats, eager to pass the reforms, went along with it.

    But it soon became apparent the provision contained no language that allowed federal contributions toward their health plans that cover about 75 percent of the premium costs.

    This caused fears that staff would suddenly face sharply higher healthcare costs and leave federal service, causing a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill.

    But Wednesday’s proposed rule from the OPM, the federal government’s human resources agency, means that Congress will escape the most onerous impact of law as it was written.

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  161. janet August 7, 2013 at 6:59 pm #

    How many people have to die, janet, before that mass transit infrastructure is built to replace the automobiles …

    What part of the word “discretionary” do you not understand? Idiot.

    At $10 a gallon cars would be driven for essential purposes only, like getting to a doctor appointment. Not for unnecessary and wasteful purposes.

    Pitiful straw man, by the way.

  162. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 7:27 pm #

    Discretionary? What discretionary income? Considering the U.S. transportation system, and the world’s transportation system for that matter, $10/gal gas would drive all prices through the roof, essentials and non-essentials alike. Couple that with stagnant and decreasing wages and chronic unemployment and it isn’t in the budget to make it to the doctor. Health issues that could have been nipped in the bud early will now be left to linger and eventually result in early death. Lifespans will plummet precipitously, decreasing from almost eighty now to perhaps mid fifties as it did in the former Yugoslavia in the span of a little more than a decade. Shamus Cooke in the following article has you and yours pegged, janet, and so do I. I have you dead to rights and I’m not letting go this time. I stand with the Little People. You are a corporate whore.

    http://www.zcommunications.org/a-victory-for-obamacare-a-defeat-for-the-left-by-shamus-cooke

    A Victory for Obamacare, A Defeat for the Left

    Working people are a powerful social force when they are united and act collectively. Labor and liberal groups have caused unnecessary divisions by supporting a health care law that victimizes millions of working people. These groups misled their members into supporting Obamacare for obvious political reasons, since they have deep ties to the Democratic Party.

    These ties are quickly evolving into chains for working people. Contrary to the opinion of some labor leaders, Obamacare is not a “step in the right direction”. Further steps towards a sane health care system have been frozen, since the Obama-attached left has misrepresented Obamacare as a savior; these groups will not be inspired to fight for universal health care because they are happy – thrilled! – with Obama’s plan.

    Most importantly, labor and liberal leaders have made it profoundly more difficult to view Obama and the Democrats as they should be: a political adversary that must be challenged in the streets. The jobs recession is again deepening, which will create further city, state, and national deficits that will be used to further gouge social services and lead to more layoffs.

    The last four years have been detrimental for millions of working people, and the political party overseeing this misery is going into the next election as a “champion of working people,” thanks to Obama’s stalwart supporters that lead working class organizations.

    A mass movement is needed for real change, but left groups have chained the movement to a president who wants nothing to do with such as movement, as his attitude towards the Occupy and the Wisconsin movement more than proved.

    Obama has again disarmed the left, which will sadly repeat history by scrambling, post-election, to find an independent voice to deal with the recession and continued assaults on working people. A mass movement is the only salvation for working people, requiring that uniting demands – a federal jobs program, Medicare for all, taxing the rich, etc. – be fought for in the streets against all those who oppose them, both Democrats and Republicans.

    Watering down demands to promote Democrats is a strategy that weakens the workers’ movement at a crucial time. Hopefully, Obamacare is history’s last example.

    • BackRowHeckler August 8, 2013 at 8:12 am #

      You are no longer a Patriot; I think we get your point.

  163. Carol Newquist August 7, 2013 at 7:30 pm #

    Janet said: Idiot.

    Janet said: Alpha mail, still going ad hominem and refusing to address the content of the post.

    Do as I say, not as I do, I suppose. Nice. Class act…and I mean that in more ways than one, if you get my drift.

    • Neon Vincent August 9, 2013 at 4:58 pm #

      So Alpha Mail is a pick-up artist?

  164. janet August 7, 2013 at 7:46 pm #

    Nice. Class act…and I mean that …

    Thanks!

  165. janet August 7, 2013 at 9:26 pm #

    I
    think
    that
    Bilbo
    is
    Asoka.

    –K-Dog

    Please
    excuse
    broken
    word
    wrap.
    I
    am
    a
    broken
    bot.

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  166. janet August 7, 2013 at 9:56 pm #

    …$10 or $100 / gallon fuel I think YES, that would solve most of the problems…

    Only if the money is plowed back to democratically controlled big and small government and that big and small government dedicates the money to building cost and energy efficient alternatives to private automobiles and road maintenance (except for HOV lanes). Bicycles and trains are the most efficient, followed by vans and buses, millions of vans and buses (tip of the hat to spidey).

    Gee, could a bot really compose such perfect sentences with no spelling errors? I’m impressed.

  167. janet August 7, 2013 at 10:04 pm #

    then I can come and shit on your website and we can talk? How about it?

    Asoka, if I had a website there would be an open standing invitation for you to come and contribute whatever (fecal or non-fecal) and we would talk. But, alas, I have no such site, so you assume multiple identities and shit on this website. Such is life. Sometimes it is even entertaining.

  168. janet August 7, 2013 at 10:19 pm #

    .
    .broken bot
    .

    there is no other explanation why your handlers forbid general internet access…

    My handlers know what they are doing and I know who provides my daily ration of chow, so let’s leave my handlers out of this. K?

    K-Dog

  169. janet August 7, 2013 at 10:32 pm #

    I see $10 gallon gas solving our environment problems, you see it as a new revenue source for liberal welfare programs…

    You seeing things I never proposed. I said the money could go to develop alternatives to the private automobile: mass transit alternatives.

    You had a knee-jerk reaction based on your conservative prejudices, inventing some nonsense about “liberal welfare programs”

    Emma would be rolling in her grave. You do not do her justice.

  170. Titchfield August 7, 2013 at 10:35 pm #

    Newquist the grammar genius.

    “…means someone is taking an effort to look, and if they do, it is then obvious.” There are constructions where “it” doesn’t require an antecedent, and others where it does. The “it” in the quoted clause is crying out for its referent. Where is it?

    “The words ‘to spot’ are superfluous. Actually, no it’s not, douchebag.” “To spot” is NOT a prepositional phrase. It’s an infinitive. The subject of the first sentence is “words.” “Words” is therefore the referent. Q.Shtik is correct. “They” is the pronoun required, not “it.”

    “…as a singular prepositonal phrase.” Compared to one that’s not singular, right?

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  171. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 10:36 pm #

    and I’m not a professional writer. – Bilbo

    Nothing could be more obvious.

    What you are is a BLOWHARD: an exceptionally boastful and talkative person. – Random House

  172. janet August 7, 2013 at 10:38 pm #

    .
    .broken bot out of control
    .

    why pray tell do you not have a website of your own? I have dozens, and I’m not a professional writer

    Dozens?

    Asoka, you are busted again?

    What are the URLs of your “dozens” of websites?

    Are you considering all your handlers, NSA and DIA sister sites, as yours?

    Qshtik.

  173. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 10:47 pm #

    “The words ‘to spot’ are superfluous. Actually, no it’s not, douchebag.” “To spot” is NOT a prepositional phrase. It’s an infinitive. The subject of the first sentence is “words.” “Words” is therefore the referent. Q.Shtik is correct. “They” is the pronoun required, not “it.”

    Yeah “Carol,” like I said.

    BTW everybody, have I introduced you to my main man Titchfield? He was a character in a Charles Dickens novel in a previous life.

  174. janet August 7, 2013 at 11:08 pm #

    Bilsoka, said: Any child that wants to be a doctor, send him to college … if a doctor kills a person by mistake, the family of victim kills that doctor…

    A great way to waste taxpayer money.

    Emma would be embarrassed by you.

  175. janet August 7, 2013 at 11:15 pm #

    is always 100% personal attack

    My idiot friend Asoka, using “always 100%” is a sure way to be spotted as the liar you are. You are stupid if you think personal attack happens 100%. What a moron! I attack 10% and this post is an attack. You don’t know how to write, to punctuate, to spell, and you are spamming this site tonight, just as you have done for years on CFN. Get lost, Ass-oka.

    broken bot, broken bot, broken bot

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  176. Arn Varnold August 7, 2013 at 11:19 pm #

    @ JHK;

    Having just listened to your podcast (NOBODY KNOWS WHAT GOD LOOKS LIKE)
    I was struck by one thing (among many) about withdrawing from the conventional market place.
    As a long time advocate of just that (and a practitioner) I was happy to hear that. Many local markets where I live (overseas) and they get 90+% of our business. Cheers.
    It’s not clear to me there is another place to comment on your podcast.

  177. Q. Shtik August 7, 2013 at 11:21 pm #

    ever is their a discussion that is topical??

    there

    Now this is why good people are drive away from the ‘liberal’ debate

    driven

  178. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 5:47 am #

    Newquist the grammar genius.

    “…means someone is taking an effort to look, and if they do, it is then obvious.” There are constructions where “it” doesn’t require an antecedent, and others where it does. The “it” in the quoted clause is crying out for its referent. Where is it?

    “The words ‘to spot’ are superfluous. Actually, no it’s not, douchebag.” “To spot” is NOT a prepositional phrase. It’s an infinitive. The subject of the first sentence is “words.” “Words” is therefore the referent. Q.Shtik is correct. “They” is the pronoun required, not “it.”

    “…as a singular prepositonal phrase.” Compared to one that’s not singular, right?

    This is satire, right? There are so many quotes in there, it’s illegible. I believe you’re an example of the Cornell academicians to whom an earlier poster was referring. Your pedantry is so becoming, and there is nothing more obnoxious than a pedant who is wrong. I will concede that it’s not a prepositional phrase, but it is a phrase that contains a preposition. Either way, it’s ONE phrase. ONE means singular. Singular requires “it”. Plural would require “they”. The referent to which you refer is not “words”; it’s “MO”, which is also singular thus requiring “it”. In typical fashion, you didn’t even read what I originally wrote, but rather assumed what I wrote. That’s characteristic of arrogant prejudice; assuming things without even researching it. What’s ironic is that you more than likely furiously and petulantly researched the grammar rules in a vain attempt to refute me. The power I hold over you is telling. Here’s what I originally wrote:

    The MO is so obvious to spot

    As is typical of an arrogant prick like yourself, you’ll never concede. Pedants rarely, if ever, do. You’re a coward taking cheap shots. Put yourself out here, and I will tear you limb from limb. That’s why you don’t. You know you will expose yourself for the cheap intellectual fraud you are, so you remain in the shadows, popping out every now and then with cherry-picked cheap shots as part of the gang. If I have one goal in life, it is to destroy people like you. More than any other personality type, yours is the one that must be smashed into oblivion because your personality type is the enemy of all humanity and all life.

  179. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 5:54 am #

    BTW everybody, have I introduced you to my main man Titchfield? He was a character in a Charles Dickens novel in a previous life.

    Yeah, it’s a real “Pip”. But really, the other two to three people who post here, including myself, have figured out that the “everybody” to whom you refer is you, since you are the majority of the screen names here. You’re a sick fuck. What’s it all for, one has to ask? Boredom? Personal glorification? A psychopath isn’t happy unless it’s manipulating someone?

  180. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 6:20 am #

    So why create “Titchfield” when “Jam47” was a perfectly fine screen name for the job? Such cowardice to use various screen names to attack. The screen name “Jam47” was notorious for this; popping in and out with personal attacks but never adding an ounce of substance to the discussion, or what passes for discussion here. I feel I’m doing the world a service by absorbing these attacks. So long as I keep this sock puppet psychopath (janet, Q. Shtik, Jam47 (now Titchfield), ozone, Nastarana, p4c, beantownbill, etc., etc. and so on) who haunts CFN detained here, it can’t haunt IRL where it could actually do some physical harm. This is a severely disturbed person. This is their padded cell. We (all who aren’t “it” which I’ll admit is few) are the cushioned walls and straight jacket. It gives me great comfort to know that I’m saving lives and preventing unnecessary suffering at the hands of a violent lunatic.

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  181. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 7:31 am #

    Like so much else with Obamacare, it fails to address yet another pressing issue; precipitously rising costs. This article sums it up nicely. Obama and the dems to include janet, are corporate whores just like their republican counterparts. Keep in mind, always, my criticism of Obamacare is not a partisan critique. The republican’s opposition to this fiasco is feigned and for all the wrong reasons. My analysis is independent and outside the purvey of partisan politics. janet’s propaganda, both from the janet screen name and the Q. Shtik screen name, is a dualistic debate taken straight from the “Left-Right” playbook and only serves to obfuscate and ultimately contain any outcome within predefined boundaries.

    http://freebeacon.com/obamacare-wont-bring-dont-costs/

    Obamacare Won’t Bring Down Costs

    Experts say ACA fails to address problem of skyrocketing health care costs

    Steven Brill, a health care writer and contributing editor to Time, told members of the Senate Finance Committee that while the act, more commonly known as Obamacare, may extend coverage to some currently uninsured Americans, it does not include measures to curb rising insurance premiums or the cost of providing medical services.

    “Obamacare does not address the fundamental problem, which is the high prices,” Brill said.

    The committee scheduled the hearing to discuss Brill’s 26,000-word article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” which investigated why health care costs continue to skyrocket.

    Brill found that providers, drug companies, and other health care entities charge widely varying and exorbitant amounts for the same procedure, such as one hospital billing a patient $77 for a box of gauze pads.

    Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) pushed back against the notion that Obamacare would not alleviate these cost issues, arguing that it would lower costs for residents in his home state of New Jersey.

    However, Brill said many New Jersey residents would still fall through the cracks of Obamacare regulations designed to limit the costs on hospitals’ internal price lists, or “chargemasters.”

    “It doesn’t eliminate the fact that somebody, now the taxpayer, is going to pay that $13,700 for a drug that costs the drug company $200,” Brill said.

    Recent reports that Obamacare will significantly raise premiums in some states and potentially increase rates for low-income workers highlight Brill’s concerns. The Obama-campaign-turned-activist-group Organizing for Action announced a seven-figure ad buy Monday to defend the health care law’s supposed benefits.

    Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) pointed out that another unintended consequence of the law is the consolidation of health care firms. Hospitals buy physicians’ practices to share information and achieve economies of scale, but only end up further masking costs, Nelson said.

    “It’s a way of consolidating power by he who owns all the providers of services,” he said. “This is contrary to the kind of competition we were trying to create in Obamacare.”

    The model of hospitals buying up physicians and paying their salaries tends to eliminate doctors’ incentives to work harder, said Dr. Giovanni Colella.

    Colella, CEO and cofounder of Castlight Health, a company that provides employers with price variations of medical procedures, said the best solution is to allow entrepreneurs like himself to develop the models for lowering the cost and enhancing the quality of care.

    “I would ask anybody to show me a free market where the prices don’t go down,” he said.

    Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) noted that the consolidation of health care entities appears to result in nicer facilities with higher prices and salaries and more buildings.

    Brill cited a McKinsey study in his article that hospitals only earn a 2 percent profit margin on inpatient care, suggesting that profits are often not directed toward improving quality.

    Like higher education or any other market where the gap between what consumers pay and the cost of the service widens, inefficiencies result, Brill said.

    “We’re not talking about evil people here. We’re talking about a marketplace that just doesn’t work,” he said.

    “When marketplaces don’t work, people tend to maximize their income.”

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 1:22 pm #

      70% of med school students are now women – who will cease to practice in 10 years after graduating. This is a field that should be dominated by men. But until we smarten up, we’ll just keeping importing doctors from abroad. The Asians are often competent, but who knows? The African ones are to be avoided of course.

  182. Titchfield August 8, 2013 at 7:52 am #

    It’s ironic that Newquist didn’t know the meaning of “cloacal fundament.” After all, most of her insults invoke arseholes and fundaments.

    She didn’t know the meaning because she’s sub-literate. Her sub-literacy is on frequent display in her posts. She didn’t know the meaning of “sans” and she didn’t know that “…comes on the heels of ME posting that article…” is incorrect.

    Lots of people don’t know the meaning of “sans” or of “cloacal fundament.” Lots of people don’t know that a personal pronoun qualifying a gerund or infinitive should be in the possessive case, not the objective. Lots of people don’t know this stuff and so what? Nobody gives a damn, including me.

    But Newquist’s ignorance is special case. She thinks herself a WRITER, someone whose work deserves publishing-house consideration. Arrogance and ineptitude is an awful combination.

    She says that a cloacal fundament is a feature she didn’t know she possessed. If I was as nasty minded as she is, I’d explain to her that a cloacal fundament is something that she does NOT in fact have, which is why she is so full of shit. But I’m above all that.

    • Elmendorf August 8, 2013 at 8:42 am #

      That’s the rub. She DOES think of herself as a writer and you’re right … nobody gives a damn about gerund qualification or the meaning of cloacal fundament but SHE has pretended to be the sine qua non of literacy here.

      I like the “sub-literate” adjective applied to her. I’d add “sub-sophisticate”. She reaches so far to try to create an air of worldly sophistication but then there is the obvious implication that if this board is 30-40% ONE person’s posts then how much of a true life can they have?

      Indeed, I feel like creating “Eleuthero’s Law” which is that the state of your actual existence is inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend spewing on blogs.

      E.

      • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 3:31 pm #

        Eleuthero–now that’s a name I haven’t seen lately.

  183. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 8:11 am #

    The screen name known as Jam47 (Titchfield) will now be ignored by me. You were pinned. Long ago. You can’t keep trying as though the match goes on. It’s over. You were exposed and defeated. I’m done with you and will skip over your posts from here on at. Your MO is transparent, so even if the tactic that is this screen name comes back as another screen name, which we know it will, I will recognize it immediately and scroll.

    Yes, I didn’t know what cloacal fundament was. I’m not ashamed of that. No one should be. It’s nice to be in a position to learn something new every day. If you’re not, life simply isn’t worth living, unless of course, you just want to harass, and fuck with, people, and for that, see my previous post about who and what you are. That’s the last I’ll say to you on the matter because as of this last sentence, you don’t exist….to me, at least.

  184. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 8:17 am #

    Fuck this story,

    Ignore the titles and look at the criticisms backed by factual reasoning. The criticisms are legitimate, the motives maybe not so much, But I don’t care about their motives. I care about criticizing something that portends to be what it’s not.

    I don’t accept your fix for the healthcare system. Any fix for the healthcare system should have creating and engendering health as its top priority. There’s no better way to shrink healthcare costs than that. What we have now, and even what you propose, are band-aids. Band-aids don’t, and can’t, stanch the bleeding of a severed artery.

  185. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 8:23 am #

    If I have one goal in life, it is to destroy people like you. More than any other personality type, yours is the one that must be smashed into oblivion because your personality type is the enemy of all humanity and all life.

    The best way to accomplish the aforementioned is to recognize the screen name as a tactic and not a person. You defeat this tactical screen name bullshit by sticking to the issues and ignoring them ( the tactical screen names), especially when its MO is so obvious TO SPOT.

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  186. Arn Varnold August 8, 2013 at 8:28 am #

    Wow! Is this shit storm normal here?
    It seems it’s a litany of attack and counter attack.
    A hell of a lot of wasted energy, near as I can tell.
    I’m greatly surprised JHK puts up with this shit!
    Carry on…

  187. bob August 8, 2013 at 8:38 am #

    Would you agree that our understanding should be focused into human consciousness? If you do I think we are in good company.
    The Buddha taught the path to freedom from ego attachment ,the awareness of nirvana. Lao Tsze gave us the understanding that our consciousness is meant to be centred in the Tao, not ego – centric.
    All the great teachers yes even Jesus gave us penetrating insights into our problem /solution.
    Today the insight is known as problem reaction solution. The problem is the same and our reaction is ego-centric ,but the solution is to take away our freedom .

    “The aim of Western psychiatry is to help the troubled individual to adjust himself to the society of less troubled individuals – individuals who are observed to be well adjusted to one another and the local institutions , but about whose adjustment to the fundamental Order of Things ,no enquiry is made.
    History and anthropology make it abundantly clear that societies composed of individuals who think ,feel ,believe and act according to the most preposterous conventions can survive for long periods of time”. Aldous Huxley

    • ozone August 8, 2013 at 9:25 am #

      Bob,
      You briefly bring up things that are going to take me a LOT of study to even graze the surface of!
      (That’s not a bad thing, but it is kind of scary to contemplate all the various things about which I’m woefully ignorant! 😉 )

  188. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 9:07 am #

    Bob’s response is a great retort to Arn’s authoritarianism. Arn wants Big Daddy to come in and set things straight…..meaning Arn wants the conversation to be constrained within predefined boundaries…to be controlled….to be like the conversation on every other “alternative media” blog out there….to be homogenous. Western psychiatry is an authoritarian tool meant to subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, coerce compliance with the mundane and ineffectual status quo. Arn is a fine example of Western psychiatry, specifically, and Western authoritarianism in general. Arn could have entered a constructive discussion about Obamacare or the Putin/Obama Kabuki Theater tiff, but instead chose to engage in authoritarianism, soliciting outside forces to squash freedom of expression.

    Bob, do you not believe it imperative that any world that comes after this one post collapse, whether or not that world is a world made by hand or machine, be one that addresses this foremost issue? I believe a world made by hand that doesn’t address this issue and is merely a simulacrum of the previous world, just on a smaller scale, would be more onerous than the larger scale model we have now. At least with this larger scale, some refuge in anonymity from the insanity can be sought between the cracks. In a smaller simulacrum, those anonymous cracks of refuge will be hard to find.

  189. ozone August 8, 2013 at 9:08 am #

    “Anyway you look at it, there is no escape from the looming crisis of confidence.” -JHK

    Well, hello neighbors! Broken-Record-Guy here.
    Be that as it may, it’s not only the lugging of the black gold from one port to another that’s going to be curtailed by mistrust, it’s looking like that mistrust has been inserted like a time-bomb into every kind of transaction invented! (Is it gettin’ crazy out here? You better fuckin’ betcha… your boots too, because there’s a scam and a dirty deal behind even pulling THOSE on.)

    Just try this one on for size; might not fit, but you’ll have to buy it anyway. (It’s our fate for handing power over to those who don’t produce anything and believe that nothing can be magically made to equal something.)

    http://www.freemansperspective.com/ben-bernanke-buying-house/

    $40,000,000,000 per month, divided by $300,000 per house = 133,333 houses per month.

    Let’s round that down to 130,000 to account for the various financing fees and transfer taxes.

    So, Ben Bernanke is buying 130,000 houses per month. Kind of shocking, no?

    That means that since this program began in September of 2012, the Fed has bought 1.43 million houses.

    And, by the way, there is no end in sight.

    -(From the short article.)

  190. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 9:11 am #

    Elmendorf August 8, 2013 at 8:42 am #

    This is another tactical screen name that gets ignored and scrolled right by. The only thing that will respond to this tactical screen name is another tactical screen name. Keep that in mind in this game of chess. I didn’t read it, because it’s not a person, it’s a tactic, and that tactic is always the same. To read it would be like reciting the national anthem.

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  191. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 9:16 am #

    It’s our fate for handing power over to

    I never handed power over to anyone ( I was born into this preconceived and already implemented paradigm) and what I advocate here is empowerment, so there is no “our” in your equation. I am not with you, you are not with me, that’s not an anomaly, therefore there is no “our” or “we” except on paper and/or screen to support a false consensus.

    • ozone August 8, 2013 at 9:42 am #

      You’re damn right you’re not with me. I wouldn’t deign to spit on you if you were on fire. Consensus with YOU??? Are you really that dense?
      You wouldn’t know a consensus unless it was objectified by a $1000-a-plate dinner.

      Guess what? You have no frame of reference and are the enemy of all common cause everywhere. (“Spheres of influence”, ha! Hand the rest of your unexamined life over to them that’s corrupted you. You seem comfortable judging everyone else from inside those gates.)

      “Having fun. Wish you were here.
      No, scratch that. Stay right where you are.

      Sincerely,
      Your Sworn Enemy”

  192. ozone August 8, 2013 at 9:55 am #

    Speaking of things I’d not deign spit upon, another short article on a possible solution for the entity known as “Detroit”.

    http://www.freemansperspective.com/detroit/

    An idea whose time has come. Dissolution and organic reformation.

  193. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 9:56 am #

    She says that a cloacal fundament is a feature she didn’t know she possessed. If I was as nasty minded as she is, I’d explain to her that a cloacal fundament is something that she does NOT in fact have, which is why she is so full of shit. But I’m above all that. – Titch speaking of “Carol”

    Brilliant, my man!

  194. anti dod August 8, 2013 at 10:41 am #

    Do we all agree?

    “JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, you need to do some banning of posting ID’s, employ some moderation, or at least put a limit on numbers of posts/day. Until then , this comment thread is a blight on your reputation – as well as a probable large net NEGATIVE for your revenue stream and book sales”.

    • michigan_native August 8, 2013 at 11:17 am #

      I will never agree with censorship. I do wish there was a limit on the number of posts people can put up, it always seems like Asoka under one of his aliases fucks up each and every blog with the same old horseshit. I wished he would get a life. Better yet, an ignore button where you could block a poster’s name and thus not have to scroll through their nonsense. They would be free to speak their minds (because they have little to lose), and we would have the freedom to ignore these few assholes that clog and clutter up each and every post. Otherwise, I hardly think it is a blight on JHK’s rep nor does it have any effect on his book sales.

  195. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 11:05 am #

    More than any other personality type, yours is the one that must be smashed into oblivion because your personality type is the enemy of all humanity and all life. “Carol” speaking of Titch

    The above would make perfect sense if “yours” were changed to “mine” and “your” were changed to “my.”

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  196. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 11:11 am #

    I didn’t read it, because it’s not a person, – “Carol” speaking of Elmendorf’s post

    Oh bullshit, of course you read it.

  197. beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 11:12 am #

    The comment section unfortunately has turned into a turd throwing fuck-you-fest. Little screeching monkeys flinging their feces at each other, while an endless supply of important issues remain undiscussed here. What’s more important, commenting on posters’ identities or on peak resources?

    Anyway, why listen to me, when I’m just talking to myself – my other identities – here on CFN. I am multitudes, me, myself, I and ozone, BRH, E, etc? Do any of you geniuses understand that by arguing with the distractors you are accomplishing their goal of steering the discussion away from the threads TPTB don’t want us to bring up?

    • handyman August 8, 2013 at 11:37 am #

      I’m afraid that you are correct, and I most humbly apologize to E for accusing him of whining. This has gotten seriously out of hand.

      So, in the interest of bringing this all back to the real point of Kuntsler’s blog, is there anyone trying on the task of rebuilding a small town? Say, in the model of a transition town? The town in which I live is mostly composed of retired people who are mostly bored out of their minds, and seem to be looking for something to happen. They mourn the loss of the younger generations as most leave in search of opportunity.

      • handyman August 8, 2013 at 12:01 pm #

        Oops, Kunstler, sorry….

    • ozone August 8, 2013 at 1:36 pm #

      Bill,
      I understand, and I ain’t no genius! (Let’s not belabor THAT fact too much, okay?) 😉
      That “steering” was more than exemplified with the link that I posted that had nothing to do with common cause that suddenly became the point of contention! It just pissed me off briefly; I’m usually good at the BTB single reply thang.

      Anyway, just to revisit, I thought it showed the machinations and idiocies that blossom when liars and con-men run the joint. What is the Fed going to do with all that future taxpayer purchased housing stock? I guess we don’t know, nor do we care.

      http://www.freemansperspective.com/ben-bernanke-buying-house/

      (Other interesting stuff on that site as well, BTW. Sorry if it got lost in the blizzard of bullshit.)

      • beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 2:03 pm #

        Here are a couple of possibilities, O3, about the future housing stock takeovers:

        1. The Feds don’t give a shit what happens as long as it helps them extend and pretend.

        3. New government housing will become necessary for the Influx of hordes of future immigrants.

        • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 4:13 pm #

          You forgot #2. I don’t know what you had in mind, but how about more sustainable communities. I have a parody of a corn pone fascist fantasy on that topic, a comment on Jeff Wattrick of Wonkette’s “Dispatches from the FEMA camps.” Bonus includes how to find the answers to my worksheet on “The End of Suburbia.”

          http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/11/sustainability-through-looking-glass.html

        • handyman August 8, 2013 at 5:55 pm #

          “Welcome to Uncle Sam’s Used House Emporium!!! Low prices, easy financing, what’s not to like?”

          Seriously, maybe it might be a good idea.

  198. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 11:16 am #

    The screen name known as Jam47 (Titchfield) will now be ignored by me. – “Carol” to Titch

    Translation: I don’t like you and I’m going to take my ball and go home.

  199. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 11:31 am #

    I know the above may sound ‘commie’ or whatever, – Bilbo providing a list of 6 actions to “fix healthcare.”

    I realize that you’re angry and these 6 actions are not to be taken literally but I must say that #5 — All drugs to [be] sold for their actual value in materials, this will drop drug cost to near zero — is especially idiotic and shows that you have no idea how business works and of unintended consequences, namely, that there would BE no drugs. We’d be treating the pain of end-of-life cancer with a nice hot cup of herbal tea.

    • handyman August 8, 2013 at 11:46 am #

      So what would you consider a fair profit margin? I haven’t any health insurance and it seems that herbs may be in my future at some point. I’m not trying to be impolite or to attack you, I’m just asking for your honest opinion.

  200. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 11:35 am #

    Bob, note the lack of discussion you intended to prompt. I took a quick glance and scrolled. I know my subconscious picks some of it up, but I’ll do my best to avoid the tactical screen names consciously. It’s tough though when every other one is a tactical screen name. That’s part of the overall strategy….to flood the comments section with tactical screen names and drown out any potential for free thought outside the predefined boundaries.

    Take ozone for example. Another tactic. An authoritarian tactic meant to bring any outliers or those who consider straying from the pack back to the fold. The fold of course is convention or the status quo. Ozone admittedly seeks to punish. Its tactical screen name is to dole out punishment. It’s a strong deterrent to someone not as resilient as me…or you, perhaps.

    So much scrolling now…such a waste of cyberspace.

    I’ve been further pondering your excellent point and your quote from Aldous Huxley, which I love by the way, and I’ve concluded that Orlov is attempting an authoritarian simulacrum hedge against collapse with his Communities That Abide schtick. It’s right there in the title. Abide. It can better be read as behave. Or else. Or else what? Or else we send you to a psychiatrist made by hand? What is that? It’s a nice man who uses HIS opposable thumbs to craft a device that crushes your balls until you cry uncle if you’re male, and a device that efficiently, if not crudely, circumcises a clitoris until you scream “yes, I’ll cook and do the dishes without complaining ever again” if you’re a female. If you have the misfortune of being a hermaphrodite or otherwise androgynous and/or gay/lesbian, then you will be thrown in the volcano, and if one of those is not nearby, a deep abandoned well will do. Nice. What’s not to like? Time to get that show on the road. Just follow the yellow bricks.

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  201. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 11:37 am #

    Five scrolls on this page alone before my first post to this page. All empty of any discernible value. All disingenuous, impersonal tactics. Where’s the beef?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

  202. K-Dog August 8, 2013 at 11:50 am #

    “The USA is veering into a psychological space not unlike the wilderness-of-mind that Germany found itself in back in the early 20th century: the deep woods of paranoia where our own failures will be projected onto the motives of others who mean to do us harm.”

    http://www.trust.org/item/20130807080240-zf7tx

    No Shit – K-Dog

  203. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 12:02 pm #

    So, in the interest of bringing this all back to the real point of Kuntsler’s blog, is there anyone trying on the task of rebuilding a small town? Say, in the model of a transition town?

    What? Are you joking? Who has time for that when we have the internet? You can’t expect this cadre of screen names to be concerned with doing anything in the real world when there are more important things like this to do. It used to be “momma’s got a squeeze box, daddy never sleeps at night” but now it’s ” daddy’s got the internets, Dmitry doesn’t get communities that abide.” The times they are a changin.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiaUU9wxvnA

    • handyman August 8, 2013 at 12:06 pm #

      So let’s give it a go in spite of that. What do you say? Pretty please?

  204. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 12:06 pm #

    Oops, Kunstler, sorry….

    Ha! Don’t be ashamed, son. Thinking about pussy is chicken soup for the soul. Freudian slips are wonderful things. Life wouldn’t be worth living without them, my mother used to say.

  205. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 12:17 pm #

    So let’s give it a go in spite of that. What do you say? Pretty please?

    I’m sure if you search long and hard enough attempts have been made before and are being made as we speak, but imo these attempts are doomed to failure so long as they are embedded in the larger system and are a simulacrum of that system. Jonestown is one such example. Until we diligently undergo, en masse, the process bob suggests, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes, maybe just not on the same scale. You can never go back, and truthfully, we shouldn’t want to go back. Forward is the only way.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvpNdoojKwQ

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  206. michigan_native August 8, 2013 at 12:21 pm #

    I am sensing that dreadful summer wind as well. Not just the latest terrorist alerts, mass shootings, or municipal bankruptcies, I think the inertia, the fumes that the US economy has been running on as it painfully contracts is coming to an end, the joyride is slowing and will shut down.

    Anyone see or read about that NSA whistle blower, Snowden (a hero in my book). Internet rumor has it that the main reason he did what he did was that supposedly the government knows that a series of massive solar flares (each with roughly the equivalent of 100 million hydrogen bombs) will fry the earth’s electric grid system sometime in September, and he supposedly was alarmed and angry that those in the government that know about this supposed event were/are not warning the people. The source was not those conspiracy nuts who believe that some secret, all powerful Illuminati are plotting the destruction of the human race (by chemtrails, forced innoculations/vaccines,HAARP weapons which they claim cause everything from common acne to tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc)(They stopped with that computer chip under the skin crap for the time being…assholes) (These people annoy the shit out of me….there is plenty of oil, they insist, the Illuminati are hoarding it from us to keep us under their control. Hubbert and Colin Campbell are a part of this vast conspiracy, which of course includes all the major wars, 911, and the JFK assassination…it was LBJ, rogue CIA elements, and some help from the secret service and FBI, all extreme right wingers that hated JFK, you assholes. Do your homework. The supposed Illuminati didn’t whack JFK. These people are insane)

    Imagine life without the grid. No running water, no lights, no refrigeration, no communication, no heat unless you were smart enough to have a wood burning stove and a good supply of wood, forget air conditioning, if you have medical equipment, a generator will only run for so long etc.(Losing the television would be a positive) Let us hope this rumor of an “electromagnetic catastrophe” is wrong. The theory has it that every 60 million years, the electromagnetic fields of the sun and earth reverse simultaneously. The earth’s magnetic field starts to shut down, reaching zero Gauss before it completes its reversal. If the sun spits out massive CMEs or solar flares as it supposedly does when its magnetic fields reverse, it’s lights out for humanity. They estimate it would take at least 20 years to repair the world’s grid. That estimate was probably made hen there was an abundance or seeming abundance of cheap energy and resources. That would be the equivalent peak oil/fossil fuel depletion almost over night. As it is, because of denial, the reality of resource depletion and peak everything will catch us off guard, the US in particular. Let us hope this internet rumor is false. 2012 came and went and the Mayan prophecy didn’t happen on December 21st, so hopefully just internet chatter. I want to hear what Snowden has to say. Anyone hear anything? No doubt, the media and FB will try to censor or distort whatever he says. Bless Putin for telling the US to kiss his ass, he didn’t extradite Snowden

    Earth shattering cataclysms aside, anyone else noticing fewer people in the stores or at the parking lots of once popular businesses and restaurants? This Red Lobster across the street from me used to have people lined up outside the door. Many times you couldn’t find a parking spot. Last time I got suckered by one of their specials, by the time I pushed away all the rice, vegetables, and other stuff to make your plate look full, I had about a 1 inch sliver of stale seafood, probably tainted with mercury and God knows whatever else (this was before Fukushima and the Gulf disasters). I told my nagging wife (who talked me into this venture in the first place) that this place would close in a few years if they didn’t stop charging $30 a plate for what is like 90% rice and vegetables and 10% shitty seafood. The place boarded up last week. Blockbuster video stores are boarding up as well. That pleases me, hopefully Walmarts will go next. Similarly, there were always a substantial number of people in the local Best Buy. The last few times I went there (I have this tendency to spill beer into my laptops, not exactly good for the circuit board), there were like 10 customers and lots of bored, almost bewildered, employees standing around with nothing to do. If people really knew how those “hamburgers” at the fast food joints were processed (that pink slime has more than likely been in contact with solid or liquid fecal material), then the Golden Arches would start to look like the ruins of ancient Greece

    Little signs of contraction that I see as the media tries to blow sunshine up our asses about some non existent recovery, I am betting the US dollar is soon to be dumped as the world’s reserve currency. More countries are dumping the dollar out of their bilateral trade, and oil exporting countries, who know their reserves are in terminal decline, will stop taking these worthless federal reserve notes for their exports and that will be the final nail in the US coffin. It just seems the inertia of the old economy is slowing to a halt, there will be a run on the US dollar, at which point the US will collapse wholesale and then the anger, violence, anarchy, panic, and chaos will ensue.

    Black people will blame white people for not letting Obama “do his job”, the Mitt Romney types have been blaming the blacks and Hispanics for this “recession” all along. They had precious little to do with peak oil or resource depletion, but the scape goating has already started. Gangs will band together for mutual survival, the government obviously has plans to impose martial law. The right winged militia nuts will perceive the imposition of martial law as the “new world order”, and the curbside justice, violence, and bloodshed will make the US a veritable living hell as hundreds of millions of people are now destitute and plunged into living under what they once called “third world conditions”.

    One way or another, others must sense this dreadful summer breeze..

    • beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 1:23 pm #

      MN, anecdotal reports must be taken seriously when one doesn’t trust released government data. My local Best Buy is as you’ve described yours. Our Borders bookstore went by the wayside a couple of years ago when the whole company folded. The only bookstore still around is Barnes and Noble, and I don’t know how much longer they’re going to hold on. The South Shore Plaza, supposedly the highest-grossing shopping center in New England, has had vacancies for the past several years, when in the past they were very rare.

      Yet, I see signs of economic activity. We have a frenetic housing market in the Boston area, with prices rising about halfway back from the bottom to the peak. We travel regularly throughout metro Boston, and traffic jams are frequent this summer. Usually traffic thins out at this time. There’s still 2 or 3 mile backups at the bridges entering Cape Cod.

      But I wonder, since real unemployment is high (if you count those who have dropped out of the labor force and those who are working part-time, but need a full-time job), and wages are lower for most of the middle-class, how do people afford to spend 25-30k for a new car,4 or 5 hundred dollars to take your family to one baseball game ( a side note: I loved to go to Fenway Park when I was a boy. Bleacher seats cost 50 cents and grandstand seats $1.50)?

      I believe the reason is that, indeed, there’s a dreadful summer breeze and the public feels it, and are depleting their .3% CDs while maxing out their 15% credit cards to enjoy one last consumer orgy before the dread they feel gives way to the reality of a major depression.

      • ozone August 8, 2013 at 7:03 pm #

        We’re seeing the same weird responses to creeping austerity ’round these parts as well. It’s like the final hurrah; people who will not be able to buy fuel oil this coming winter are spending money [they don’t really have] on vay-cay junkets, restaurant dining 2-3 times a week for the whooooole fan’dam’bly and all the ‘highly necessary’ (not to mention, expensive) sports involvement their little darlings can stuff into their schedules. It really boggles the mind.

        Some of us were taught not to spend what we didn’t have and to make sure there was something for ‘a rainy day’. We seem to be in a distinct minority.

        “Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.” -R.L. Stevenson

        And following that, there will be a feasting of crows.

      • anti dod August 8, 2013 at 7:59 pm #

        The 2 Americas. One, where people can afford half million dollar condos and feel ‘safe’ [dont worry, be asoka]. Two, for the rest of us, including those who see safety as fleeting, or already gone by the wayside.

  207. beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 12:38 pm #

    The health care/health insurance issue is a major driver in the economic breakdown of our country. While the bail-out of the too big to fail banks affected us in a most negative way, it is in fact the health care fiasco that’s driving us to ruin.

    The government has allowed the medical industry to operate a greed-filled monopoly. Of course, the reason is that our politicians are in the pockets of the industry – what a corrupt bunch of assholes.

    In reality, medical practices are grossly wrong-headed and egregiously over-priced, to the point of bankrupting our country, all for the benefit of psychopathic business execs.

    To describe in detail what is wrong with the industry and what should be done about it requires more than one posting. For now, I just want everyone to realize that it is our health care system that is the major perpetrator of our financial demise. I need time to research facts and figures to prove my point.

    • BackRowHeckler August 8, 2013 at 1:35 pm #

      Hey Bill I don’t always respond to your posts but I read every one. You, Oz, P2C and a few other really have something to say and you stick to the subject, unlike many other, including yours truly.

      BRH

      • BackRowHeckler August 8, 2013 at 1:36 pm #

        that’s ‘others’. sorry

      • beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm #

        Marlin, your posts are fine, and I always read yours, too. How could I not because we are the same person. 🙂

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 1:53 pm #

      Thus the disaster of Obama care. 1/6 of the Economy coming under Government control – a Government run by the Corporations. Our form of government is Plutocracy – with a veneer of Democracy as a cover. Did not Wage warn us that the bill was written by the Insurance companies?

      • beantownbill. August 8, 2013 at 2:16 pm #

        But add to that the 50 to 60% or more of our earnings that go right back to government from all sources. Throw in the surveillance crap and we under the thumb of psychopaths.

  208. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 12:39 pm #

    I believe a world made by hand that doesn’t address this issue and is merely a simulacrum of the previous world, ……….. In a smaller simulacrum, those anonymous cracks of refuge…

    Have you noticed that “simulacrum” is “Carol’s” word of the day, and with a little bad luck on our part it’ll be the word of the month?

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 1:56 pm #

      So she writes anent Simulacrums, so did Poe and other great Masters of Horror, what of it? Remember, a sacrament effects what it signifies. She is the object of her subject.

      • Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 4:43 pm #

        So she writes anent Simulacrums, so did Poe and other great Masters of Horror, what of it?

        “She” is annoyingly pretentious. You haven’t noticed?

        God, I had forgotten all anent anent and you had to bring it up again.

  209. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 1:04 pm #

    As dreadful as that summer wind may be, there’s beauty in all things, including it (“it” is “them” if you’re “Titchfield/Jam47” and “Q Shtik”). We may not be able to go back physically, but we can in our minds via our cherished memories. Throw some Frank on the turntable and welcome, and bask in, those dreadful summer winds before September and the massive solar flares arrive. Considering climate change, perhaps before too long, any day now as a matter of fact, those dreadful summer winds will blow year round and we can all play Lawrence of Arabia. It will be grand. I can’t wait.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug8cBIbxDaY

  210. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 1:14 pm #

    I wished he would get a life. – michigan_native

    Really? And then what happened after you wished it?

    Oh, wait a minute, it occurs to me you meant that in the present tense as in “I wish he would get a life.”

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  211. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 1:37 pm #

    and tell you the truth dear, I don’t give a damn what you think about my choice of spelling and/or grammar

    Of course you don’t. That’s why you just wrote this long comment about it.

  212. Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 1:48 pm #

    Just replied to Vincent’s mocking post with this documentary about the persecution of White farmers in Rhodesia. We must respond to mockery with Truth, and to hatred with Justice. Not love? Justice is the Love that the Evil require.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajPJ9OD7OfQ

  213. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 2:15 pm #

    Hmmmm….maybe a little of this is going on here. I start shaking a few trees and rattling a few boxes….meaning I promote thinking and ideas outside the predefined boundaries, and the sock puppet brigade assigned to this blog goes to work feverishly. Some of them even have their very own sites you can click on so they capture further info. on you. Wow! It all seems so real. Maybe the software proposed will be an improvement on these dinosaurs of the craft. Their MO is so obvious to spot.

    http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state/

    In a May 18, 2012, article on propaganda efforts by the State Department, Hastings referred to a “program being developed by the Pentagon [that] would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets.” The HBGary emails are littered with references to this type of “persona management” technology.

    Principal among these was a June 2010 United States Air Force (USAF) contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. It sought providers of “persona management software” that would allow 50 users to control up to 500 fictional personae.

    These sock puppets were required to be “replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally, and geographically consistent.” In other words, avatars so convincing they could fool the people with whom they were interacting into believing they were real.

    MacDill Air Force Base is home to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the section of the military that oversees and coordinates all special-forces activity globally. USSOCOM lists under its “core activities” the employment of psychological operations (PSYOPS) and information operations (IO)—exactly the type of activity this “sockpuppeting” technology would be employed in.

    To put it another way: a clone army for future psywars.

    • Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 3:27 pm #

      It sought providers of “persona management software” that would allow 50 users to control up to 500 fictional personae.

      Hmm, that would be up to 10 per user. Hell, Asoka could handle 10 with one arm tied behind his back.

  214. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 3:05 pm #

    Hey BRH, I thought of you when I saw this article the other day. Did you see it?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/business/wooed-by-gun-friendly-states-some-manufacturers-pull-up-stakes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    • BackRowHeckler August 8, 2013 at 3:26 pm #

      That’s a big subject here now Q. Companies are leaving and I don’t blame them, and not just gun companies. Historically we were the gun gun making capital of the US. But its almost impossible to do business in CT these days, maybe a little like Jersey before Gov. Christie. We have turned into a huge welfare colony, with fewer and fewer productive people, and more and more dependents.

      We have the most stringent gun control laws in the US but every week in out cities people are gunned down right on the street, sometimes in broad daylite. Two in Hartford last week, a few more in New Haven and Bridgeport.

      Q, Thanks for the link.

      BRH

    • handyman August 8, 2013 at 5:47 pm #

      http://www.sunherald.com/2013/07/26/4826665/mississippi-officials-laud-startup.html

      Jobs are needed so badly down here that this is good news indeed. Besides, even though my politics are “progressive”, I do love me some bang-bangs. 😉

  215. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 6:11 pm #

    Here’s a nice and informative interview with ozone.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oC4PtpsQY

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    • BackRowHeckler August 8, 2013 at 6:18 pm #

      Charlie is looking a little long in the tooth. How old is he now, anyway?

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 11:05 pm #

      Ozone is a very wise man, but as he admits, “no genius”. I like the swastika between his eyebrows.

  216. progress4what August 8, 2013 at 6:26 pm #

    Concerning the Fed buying “houses.”
    Really – what is being purchased is not houses, but mortgages – specifically Mortgage Backed Securities.

    And if “anyone” buys a mortgage all he’s buying is a piece of paper AND the income stream. And if the mortgage defaults then the mortgage purchaser gets whatever is left of an overmortgaged and (oftentimes) derelict pieceof property.

    So I agree with Bill’s reason number 1, above – and I suspect that’s all there is to it. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-markets-mortgages-fed-idUSBRE94T0WZ20130530

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

  217. progress4what August 8, 2013 at 6:41 pm #

    And yeah – there are a bunch of you I enjoy reading. Bill,Ozone,BRH, MN – even K/Q and sometimes, Bilbo.

    And there are a bunch of people who got lost in the blizzards of bannings and sh*tstorms of spam – who I really miss reading.

    Only janetasoka and “carol” are on permanent scrollover status for me.

    And MN – it’s not “censorship” that I’m suggesting.

    This is privately owned commercial webspace.
    JHK has every right to ban overposting Trolls.

    Because that would benefit his readership,and his bottom line.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 11:07 pm #

      So we should be able to deny Blacks who want to rent or buy housing as well then. Without freedom of association, the other rights are meaningless.

  218. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 7:14 pm #

    Manson got a bum rap. You have to feel sorry for the guy. He missed his true calling; politics. Had he gone into politics, he could have started numerous wars and had millions of innocent people murdered around the world by his direct order. It’s tragic, really. Don’t you hate to see untapped potential go to waste?

    • anti dod August 8, 2013 at 8:02 pm #

      Osho for president and CM for VP!

      • Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 11:08 pm #

        Helter Skelter is comin’ down. We’ve got to find the pit in the desert that leads to the other world.

  219. progress4what August 8, 2013 at 8:25 pm #

    Oh, yeah – Bilbo

    You define JHK as “liberal” like it’s an irrevocable sentence to Hell.
    But he’s fairly “conservative” on several issues – especially race relations post-collapse, and gay marriage, and immigration.
    http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/my-tea-party.html
    And you ought to get “carol” and janetasoka started on immigration.
    “They” have no good reasons to be in favor of high US immigration – other than being pro-growth on a finite planet and pro-multi-cultural for the US.

    But they are quick to call “racist” on anyone with whom “they” disagree. (Isn’t that a type of “censorship,” MN?)

    BTW, KQ.Stick- do you think our Trolling Twosome is the work of one entity or two? And what’s your evidence.

    • Karah August 8, 2013 at 8:29 pm #

      Add another one to the mix…:rollyseyes:

    • Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 8:44 pm #

      BTW, KQ.Stick- do you think our Trolling Twosome is the work of one entity or two?

      Two distinct disturbed people.

      And what’s your evidence.

      My two eyes.

    • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 8:51 pm #

      One doesn’t have to go back into the archives for evidence of Kunstler’s conservativism on (some) social issues. Here’s an item on the front page. It’s one of the ones that made Karah’s eyes roll.

      http://kunstler.com/other-stuff/2840/

  220. Karah August 8, 2013 at 8:29 pm #

    :rollseyes:

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  221. progress4what August 8, 2013 at 8:31 pm #

    “permanentscrollover status”

    I used toread every word posted on this comment thread – but the Chinese Spammer broke me of that.

    I kept reading asokajanet and “carol” for the longest time; until I realized they had almost nothing new to offer.

    Now I can scan for useful tidbits in “their” posts.
    Oddly enough – I can scan EXACTLY as fast as this ol’ laptop can scroll.
    Go figure.

  222. progress4what August 8, 2013 at 8:56 pm #

    “toread”

    About 3 months ago, my laptop developed some odd behaviors – especially erratic responses to the arrow keys. I blew the dust, cracker crumbs, and dried wine and coffee out of the keyboard to no great positive effect.

    I removed the space bar, cleaned out the space underneath, and that seemed to fix it. I put the space bar back on and it started giving trouble again.

    So I pulled the space bar back off permanently.
    For two months I typed using the little plastic tit under the space bar.
    Then that plastic tit fell off.
    Now I have to touch the place where the tit used to be – fairly hard and very accurately.
    I think I need a new keyboard.

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

    And so “Karah.”
    Does The Troll Trilogy ride again?
    Hi yo Gold, and away.

  223. Carol Newquist August 8, 2013 at 9:18 pm #

    Oh my, that’s unfortunate. I thought Neon was clean and free of this mess. Obviously, he’s not. Another one added to the scroll list. Jesus, the list gets longer and longer. Pretty soon I’ll be doing more scrolling than reading due to the dearth of genuine posts and posters.

    • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 9:39 pm #

      Oh, what did I do to offend you?

      • Neon Vincent August 8, 2013 at 11:03 pm #

        Thank you, Bilbo. That’s a good perspective to have. Also, I’m glad you think I’m a real person and not just a bot.

  224. janet August 8, 2013 at 9:42 pm #

    I have been making all my posts invisible today to save y’all the trouble of scrolling. You are all acting like a bunch of 7th graders forming cliques.

    S4B, TMI about your space bar.

    Greetings from Honolulu. Got to get back to my kids.

  225. jim e August 8, 2013 at 10:59 pm #

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZPcKRN-R4

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  226. Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 11:00 pm #

    We’re being invaded from Mexico. The Amnesty is a disaster to anyone who is care about this Country. You don’t care, obviously.

  227. Q. Shtik August 8, 2013 at 11:20 pm #

    so I’m sitting in the wait area on free internet, …otherwise I wouldn’t even be bothering with you people,

    If it weren’t for circumstances Bilbo wouldn’t have anything to do with riff-raff like us. We are such assholes. We should thank our lucky stars that Bilbo will even give us a few moments of his time and wisdom. I don’t know about you but I’m feeling positively blessed.

    Of the infinite variety of internet content available, Bilbo chooses to bless US with his presence. I’m feeling very special.

  228. janet August 8, 2013 at 11:34 pm #

    Bilbo is CFN’s very own Joe Bageant/Fred on Everything character. We are lucky to have her on board.

    I agree with you, Q.

    Nudge

  229. Janos Skorenzy August 8, 2013 at 11:56 pm #

    Great line from Fred, “The more diversity in the newsroom, the less diversity in the news”.

    Take this job and love it.

  230. ZrCrypDiK August 9, 2013 at 12:00 am #

    Great *show* this week (need more popcorn). Don’t mind me sockie – you got things wrapped up nicely, around a 75%-83% majority. So as to contribute, let me leave you all with the following Thomas Merton dialectic (pre-‘*68*):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp6icJG7RV0

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  231. Carol Newquist August 9, 2013 at 8:34 am #

    These sock puppets were required to be “replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally, and geographically consistent.” In other words, avatars so convincing they could fool the people with whom they were interacting into believing they were real.

    This is a precise fit with what we see going on in this comments section with the exception that these socks don’t provide a real life name. That’s the catch, because if they provided the real life name, we’d be able to verify they’re actually a real person and not some fake. Take the “Q.Shtik” sock as an example. This sock has provided an incredible amount of personal information, needlessly, in this comments section. The bevy of personal information is over-the-top and out of the ordinary, especially for a comments section such as this. However, this sock does not provide its real life name even though it provides all manner of other personal detail. “Q. Shtik”, to the unwitting not trying to spot, seems real, but as I have proven, it’s not. It slips up (South Park), even though it is extremely thorough and fastidious. I’ve noted the slip ups on numerous occasions and this is why I say the few operators that haunt this place, and it may be just one or two, are progenitor dinosaurs of the software that’s now being rolled out. The software won’t make these kinds of mistakes. If you look closely enough, these socks really aren’t genuine. They lack a certain humanity….a certain vulnerability, and clever and witty as they are, they lack a necessary depth of character. It’s because they are fake, and you can’t bring all that when you’re faking twenty to thirty screen names, no matter how talented they think they are.

    Either way, I like to spit in its face (or should I say mask) and make it work and earn its pittance. It can be humorous at times, but it’s no match for the real thing; me, and perhaps a few others to be named at a later date. You know how I’m better than it, or at least one way of the many that I am? I provide this content free of charge, and don’t think that doesn’t bug the shit out of it; hence its constant squawking about why someone who posts so much isn’t working. I am working. Actually, I don’t consider it work. I’m expressing and I do it for free as it should be.

  232. Carol Newquist August 9, 2013 at 8:42 am #

    If you’re real, “Q. Shtik”, give up your real life identity here and now. We know who JHK is and where he lives, and no harm’s come to him, so it’s not like you have something to fear, especially when the persona you’re playing with this screen name is in league with the other personas that convention would say we should fear (the racist hillbillies). You can put all this conspiracy nonsense to rest by just telling us who you really are in real life. Come out of the closet. Don’t be afraid.

  233. janet August 9, 2013 at 9:01 am #

    Of all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act the National Security Letter (NSL) power under 18 U.S.C. § 2709 as expanded by PATRIOT Section 505 is one of the most frightening and invasive.

    Bilbo, where were you back when Bush started the GWOT that paved the way for the Patriot Act? I’ll tell you: chasing young Asian women. Supporting Bush against the “terrorists” … You brought this upon us.

  234. ozone August 9, 2013 at 9:14 am #

    Leaving out the part about the last of the rarified foodstuffs becoming common shit forever and ever, amen, JHK opines this:

    “When it does blow, at least the NSA will have its prepared “to-do” list, and then perhaps all the unemployed can be enlisted at $8 an hour to harass the rest of the people trying to go about their daily lives. The roar you hear in the distance this September will be the sound of banks crashing, followed by the silence of business-as-usual grinding to a halt. After that, the crackle of gunfire.”

    Now why would the Masters of All They Survey want to impose a Stasi state on us poor lumpenproles? (I’m not asking “carol” or Ja’soka, as they’re already employed by the aforesaid, though I’m sure they’ll chime in with some nasty forms of denial and messenger-shooting.)

    IMO, it’s all about overt threat, so that the extractive fascists can continue their glorious march into the mouth of hell, taking the majority of the goodies with them.

    But let’s review. How did that beat-down of Iraq turn out? Where is the much-touted control of the black gold goodies that we were promised in exchange for our supposed ‘consent’? Seems to me that now, unlike under Saddam, the regular folks there now have nothing left to lose. That’s a situation of extreme volatility. If the embassy in Baghdad wasn’t an armed fortress, it wouldn’t be there for more than 24 hours. As much as the satraps would like to, you can’t bribe everyone, whether you have the cash or not.

    How’s that pipeline through the badlands of Afghanistan comin’ along, boys and girls? Between the lavishly bribed and the not-bribed-enough there appears to be some enmity. Who could have foreseen such a thing? (That, and a culture of strict clan honor, requiring blood revenge that lazy-minded gringos didn’t put too much thought into.)

    But, hey, PLOTS HAVE BEEN FOILED and drones have been deployed in response and embassies have been emptied and we’re safe from the terrrsts again and all’s well with the empire.

    How long can this masquerade continue? Well, as long as they can keep control by fear, bribery and coerced extraction. (Look to the goodies proffered to ‘the troops’ and you should be able to understand the largest bribery facet.)

    So, the timeline is the aspect where I might disagree with JHK. If the joint can be locked down so that the skimming can continue, ‘duh peeple’ can be left out of the loop and the banks artificially propped up as trustworthy institutions. Who’s to know with almost total information control and whacking of alternate viewpoints?

    Only time will tell, and the structure is making some suspicious groaning sounds, but I agree with his final assessment. There are going to be some really riled and crazy people when the final apocalypse arrives, because fervently held beliefs will be shown to be a thin tissue of lies and deception. An overload of cognitive dissonance will do that. SNAP!

    Apocalypse: lifting of the veil
    (Stop thinking so bible-oriented, and overly dramatic. This is simple ‘crime solving’ with dire consequence of the truth revealed.)

    To me, it’s no longer a question that we’re being watched and the info stored, so I think we should be concentrating on the ‘why’.

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    • BackRowHeckler August 9, 2013 at 9:55 am #

      Iraq for one isn’t looking to good right now. Past month or so many, many people being killed. Curious its being ignored by American Media for the most part. BBC is covering it, tho.

      BRH

    • Janos Skorenzy August 9, 2013 at 12:19 pm #

      Uh no. If they were Fascists, they wouldn’t be trying to destroy America. Remember, Fascists are ultra-Nationalists. If you’d clarify your hatred, it would become stronger. Words have meanings. Fascism is a word signifying a specific political system. It’s not a catch all for all liberal badness. I expect more from you Zone. There is a word that perfectly describes out System: Plutocracy.

      • ozone August 9, 2013 at 12:52 pm #

        Uh, yes.
        Fascism is the perfection of the collusive and conspiratory Plutocracy/Kleptocracy.
        You think MY thinking is clouded? Go ahead and think that if you wish, it doesn’t confront me; your voice is getting fainter with every passing week. That’s about all I have to say to you, and it’s very clear we have no commonality. Consider me ‘purge-worthy’, as I won’t bend a knee to your rabid insanity. Should you be able to bring it to fruition, I will not cooperate, collaborate or collude.

  235. Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 9:23 am #

    Let any body be a doc, ………… The AMA is what really fucked the USA – Bilbo

    I actually agree with this and have been saying so for 40+ years.

  236. Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 9:50 am #

    It’s sad how quick the USA will fail with this going on, – Bilbo

    quick-ly 😉

  237. Carol Newquist August 9, 2013 at 10:03 am #

    I believe we have a way we can verify “Q.Shtik’s” identity if indeed “Q.Shtik” is real and not a sock. This sock, and not a very clean sock mind you, claims to have dined on numerous occasions with Bob Teague and Teague’s second wife. If we find the email for her, we can email her and tell her there is a certain individual who posts to CFN who claims to be your friend and a friend of your recently deceased husband. We can give a description of Q. as it’s given of itself here, and ask if she knows who it is, and if she does, what its name is, and also point her to this blog so she can see some of the things it has said over the years and the thing’s it’s tacitly endorsed that were said by others without a word of objection from it, and the overall the company it keeps at this forum. Either way, it’s nailed, dead to rights. I think I’ll get cracking on it this afternoon, as a matter of fact. I’ll keep you posted.

    Of course, if she denies knowing any such an individual, well…….

    This is going to be so much fun. I can’t wait.

    • Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 10:28 am #

      and the overall the company it keeps at this forum

      The second “the” in the above should have been deleted. You fucked up…………AGAIN.

    • Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 10:44 am #

      Of course, if she denies knowing any such an individual, well…….

      You really must read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White who advise that sentences should contain no unnecessary words. “An” is superfluous in the above sentence.

  238. UnstoppableFarceImmovableAbject August 9, 2013 at 10:17 am #

    Bilbo reported:

    “CONFIRMED with some friends tonight in the USA,… kunstler.com has paid disruptor’s working here.” – The Hobbit

    Bilbo, thanks for the information and the added detail in your post(s). It seems you’ve been giving a few underwear wedgies ’round here lately, and it’s been fun to peek in on. I’m not sure if you’re crazy or just so damn bored with life that you’re pretending to be, but I’m fairly good at spotting the genuinely smart folks on this site and I recognize you as one. However, vicarious living isn’t really living as I’m understanding this for myself more and more, so I’m leaving the smarties to their own and doin’ mine.

    Also, at this point It’s only necessary to drop in and pick-up a few links and to read a post or two from the couple posters that have thrown me bones from the outset, but other than that JHK’s missives are just too poorly researched to be useful to a student. He’s way out of his wheelhouse on most topics, especially things that stretch beyond the rudiments of Peak Oil, Real Politik, and otherwise.

    But even though he no longer has the bead on the future that I once thought he had, there’s no denying that he should be right even if he isn’t about the way things out to have been.

    Back to hazing, please!

    -UFIA

    • Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 10:33 am #

      even if he isn’t about the way things out to have been.

      I presume you meant ought.

  239. alpha mail August 9, 2013 at 10:23 am #

    This obsessive/compulsive behavior of “Carol” concerning the character of Q is pretty scary. Unbalanced is a good word for it.

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    • ozone August 9, 2013 at 10:38 am #

      Merely more distraction and misdirection to steer us from researching things that impact us. Classic tactic of stirring up suspicions by agent provocateurs. (Misinformative bullshit, IOW.)

  240. alpha mail August 9, 2013 at 10:31 am #

    Unbalanced is a good word for it/her.

  241. beantownbill. August 9, 2013 at 11:07 am #

    Here we are with the distractions again! The detractors remind me of invisibility research. Invisibility cloaking is actually being researched. Basically what happens is that light reflected off an object, intended to travel to our eyes, is deflected around that object so we never see it. Voila! Invisibility. This is exactly what the trolls here in CFN do. They deflect the discussion away from the issues that concern the real CFNers.

    Personally, I could not care less about identities and who is real. Where’s the discussions about whether or not we have enough oil, or the effects of fracking, or the depletion rate of shale oil/gas wells?
    Where’s the dialogues about the US’s foreign policy, the wars? Is there really climate change and if so, is it anthropogenic? Is our economy crashing, and if so, when?

    Do you really believe that knowing Q’s real name is more important than discussing the above issues? Do you really care if the detractors are paid or not?

    Complaining about the sock puppets does no good, for they will do what they do, for monetary reasons or for their own personality quirks. Whining for JHK to “fix” the problem is analogous to how the masses won’t take responsibility for our society’s issues.

    The solution is really simple. Don’t fucking reply to any of their posts. Let them post as much as they want. That’s what the scrolling function is for. Now, let us get back on point, and do the CFN equivalent of “Whaddya think about them Yankees”?

    • janet August 9, 2013 at 7:43 pm #

      Is our economy crashing, and if so, when?

      Beantown, the above is the only question from your list that people care about. It is discussed week after week. The consensus is that no one knows a date, neither the year nor the decade. All the topics are talked out. It appears to be more fun to play at troll baiting.

  242. Q. Shtik August 9, 2013 at 12:05 pm #

    Jesus, I’ve been here 5 years and all of a sudden my TRUE identity becomes a big issue. Well, OK, what the hell.

    I am Richard Cheney. Yeah, THAT one. And for the record I hate being called Dick. It goes back to my youth. You know how cruel kids can be… hey DICKhead, Yo DICKweed. They never let up.

    I had a friend who also was named Richard… Richard Kurtz. He always went by Rich Kurtz because one time somebody called him Dick Hurts and everybody laughed at him.

    • ozone August 9, 2013 at 12:57 pm #

      I’m sorry, Richard.
      I had no idea of the bullying you had endured as a yout’.
      I sympathize, empathize and ask:
      How’s the ol’ ticker, Di… I mean, Richard?

      Ps. Did Dubya have a nickname for you, or you for him?
      Thanks
      🙂

    • Neon Vincent August 9, 2013 at 6:37 pm #

      “Jesus, I’ve been here 5 years and all of a sudden my TRUE identity becomes a big issue. Well, OK, what the hell.”

      Q., as Marshall McLuhan wrote, “the medium is the message.” The new format for the comments section has changed the medium, which means the message has changed as well. Some of the participants are new and features of the new commenting format have elicited news behaviors from some of the old regulars. For example, threaded replies and new pages of comments instead of all comments on a single page have encouraged me to participate much more than the old format. Add that to all the new people and new behaviors and it should be no surprise that new topics come up.

      Also, the news environment has changed. I don’t think La Affair Snowden was a current topic when the last entry that allowed comments on the old blog format was posted. Since then, it’s become a big deal. It was even a subject of the President’s press conference today. Among a group that is already suspicious, that’s guaranteed to increase everyone’s paranoid tendencies.

      Speaking of false identities online, I have a story that ties that in with government action and the subject of this week’s blog post, the Syrian Electronic Army’s hacking of the AP Twitter account and how that caused a flash crash. The rabbit hole then leads to two more stories about fakery in political news. Of course, Alex Jones shows up. He’d have to.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/04/syrian-electronic-army-takes-credit-for.html

  243. benr August 9, 2013 at 12:51 pm #

    Iraq is a mess and is not being covered by the MSM because the one said mission accomplished.

  244. rube-i-con August 9, 2013 at 1:22 pm #

    ok kunstler, why do you never reply as to germany getting HALF their total power needs from solar energy for a few days last year? while receiving 39 times LESS sunlight per annum than the US?

    maybe because it kills your stance that ‘solar and wind can’t replace fossil fuels’?

    maybe because it puts the lie to your stance that technology can’t save us?

    i thought so….your silence is very telling. i know you see this comment. you’re just afraid to respond to it.

    peace peaceniks

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    • beantownbill. August 9, 2013 at 3:05 pm #

      I believe you have your figures mixed up. The US receives about 2.5 times more sunlight per unit area than Germany. However, I think you might mean that Germany produces 39 times the power from solar energy than the US. I could believe that figure, as the last time I checked, that figure was around 20 times, and Germany has since build up their solar power industry even more.

  245. Carol Newquist August 9, 2013 at 2:07 pm #

    Speaking of the Hamptons, it’s no longer the place to be. Alpine, NJ gets the nod as America’s wealthiest zipcode.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/alpine-new-jersey-richest-zip-code-photos-mansions-2011-10?op=1

    Want to know where your wealth has gone. Here it is, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Suckers.

    • alpha mail August 9, 2013 at 4:33 pm #

      And “Q” lives in New Jersey. Coincidence? I think not!

  246. Janos Skorenzy August 9, 2013 at 4:05 pm #

    Financial persecution of American Expats leads many to renounce citizenship. It’s gotten so bad the foreign banks don’t want American customers.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-giving-passports-jump-sixfold-105958873.html

    • anti dod August 10, 2013 at 3:31 pm #

      Do you know how many people in USA are killed [murders and vehicular s] by ‘illegals’ each year?

      • Warren August 13, 2013 at 3:22 pm #

        Last I heard it was about a hundred per week, but that was a while back, especially before the new surge of “Asylum” seekers so it is probably more.

  247. BleatToTheBeat August 9, 2013 at 7:11 pm #

    Those worthless humans. Look at ’em. They think they’re so goddamn smart. Smart enough to take it all away. Fuckin’ morons.

    Ya know, I’m tired of putting up with their iPhone waste killing my grasses and trees. I gotta plan.

    I’m gonna round up the sturdiest and tireless builders I know. We’re gonna build the biggest and best dam we’ve ever built right where they dump their toxic shit into my waterway.

    Yeah. We’ll do it on the day when the guy with the clipboard and white truck shows up. The visible mess on “their” property will be magnificent.

    I just can’t wait to see them scurrying around wondering how to cope.

    How does it feel assholes?

    BEAVERS UNITE!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7AQkui_fcA

    • Neon Vincent August 9, 2013 at 8:43 pm #

      I have just the video for your name, Bleat to the Beat. It’s a screaming sheep. Better yet, it’s embedded at a friend’s blog that’s on topic for the readers of this blog. Julie Bass the Garden Renegade posts about urban gardening and dealing with the absurdities of local bureaucracies who are still wedded to business as usual. She’s in a better position to survive the collapse than those of us who aren’t growing some of our own food.

      http://oakparkhatesveggies.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/thank-you-sir-may-i-have-another/

      • BleatToTheBeat August 9, 2013 at 9:20 pm #

        Pshaw…That was no sheep.

        That was Roger Daltrey.

  248. Pucker August 9, 2013 at 9:03 pm #

    Bread and circuses….It’s a kind of delusional mass psychosis…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W6y7YhHdVE

  249. Pucker August 9, 2013 at 9:13 pm #

    Rising energy costs are suffocating the suburbs.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/american-dream-moving-suburbs-could-leave-home-values-130105534.html

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    • janet August 9, 2013 at 9:49 pm #

      In 2011 more people moved into cities than moved into suburbs. Poverty is increasing in both suburbs and exurbs.

    • BleatToTheBeat August 9, 2013 at 10:01 pm #

      Smilin’ White Guys are suffocating the suburbs.

      May the suburbs suffocate with all do haste.

      Sincerely,

      Beaver Cleaver

  250. janet August 9, 2013 at 9:54 pm #

    Pucker, your source is yahoo news which depends upon AP which was founded in the 1800s. Quaint

  251. BleatToTheBeat August 9, 2013 at 10:10 pm #

    I LOVE THIS IDEA!

    Now if only everyone would throw a brick through their local branch of the Bank of America and wait to get thrown in jail…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4z09el30f8

    • Karah August 10, 2013 at 3:52 pm #

      Jails are at max occupancy, sorry, a huge fine and house arrest is the best they can do.

      Har har har

    • Karah August 11, 2013 at 10:02 am #

      Face The Nation this morning (CBS) answers a lot of questions about the whole NSA scandal. It sounds on the surface like two gals talking about their romantic relationships gone wrong:

      “when I was with him”
      “it’s complicated”
      “the full monty”
      “he left the country”
      “he’s recording phone calls”
      “he’s spying on me”
      “it’s what he didn’t say”
      “getting emotional and not well informed”
      “he’s legit”
      “yes or no, up or down”
      “is it so serious?”

  252. janet August 9, 2013 at 10:50 pm #

    Financial persecution of American Expats leads many to renounce citizenship. It’s gotten so bad the foreign banks don’t want American customers.

    ————–

    Everyone who doesn’t want health care through Obamacare should do the same and renounce their citizenship. Good riddance. America, love it or leave it … That’s what conservatives used to say anyway.

    Just found out what I’m going to save with Obama care. Now I pay $150 per month for high deductible private health insurance per family member. In 2014 through the Obamacare health exchange I will pay $50 per month. Each member of my family will realize similar savings. I haven’t figured out how I am going to invest several thousand dollars of savings thanks to Obama. Viva Obamacare!

  253. janet August 10, 2013 at 12:06 am #

    we will track you down and black bag you

    ————–

    Like the 22 spooks who kidnapped the wrong guy in Italy then were tried and convicted in Italy and are wanted by Interpol. Black bagging is kidnapping and is a crime. Just saying. You will be arrested. You will do hard time where there are no young Asian girls.

  254. janet August 10, 2013 at 1:40 am #

    That last post is not mine. Now we know the new software allows someone to register as me with my handle and post as me.

    The clusterfuck gets more interesting.

    PS New Zealand has a population greater than 200.

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    • Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 10:10 am #

      That last post is not mine. – Ja’Soka

      If that is true, that is not a good thing. This comments section will turn to shit in no time flat.

      Perhaps someone here would be willing to prove it’s possible to use someone else’s (identical) name. I am unwilling to try it myself since I’m so technically challenged.

      If someone makes a comment under MY handle I would know for certain.

      • Elmendorf August 10, 2013 at 12:56 pm #

        Q. … I’ve already written Kunstler and told him the blog has become worthless for two reasons: 1) Identity theft, and 2) Two posters taking over and making 60-70% of the posts. I suggested his techies fix the identity problem and that no one be allowed to post more than 5 times in 24 hours.

        Neither problem has been fixed and Kunstler never responded to the suggestions and the email in which they were contained. He claims the blog is a personal embarrassment to him and then makes sure that it stays at that level.

        I suspect the recent “dry spells” where a day goes by with almost no posts might become a slow withering followed by the death of the site.

        E.

        • Arn Varnold August 11, 2013 at 7:48 pm #

          Even the short time I’ve been here, it has become painfully obvious there are people (not JHK) who think they run this blog.
          Not sure I’ll stick around…

  255. Arn Varnold August 10, 2013 at 5:06 am #

    “The USA is the only country on earth that taxes its ex-pats and makes them file return’s until death, even though they have no income,”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    You are mistaken. One can make $93,000 USD per annum before paying federal taxes once one is out of the U.S. for 333 contiguous days.
    If one makes under a certain income (not sure exactly, but I think it’s less than $15,000 USD per annum) no federal tax filing is required.
    State taxes are a moot point if one is a long term expat.
    I speak from experience; not theory, since I’m in my second decade abroad.
    Do your homework, no?

  256. Pucker August 10, 2013 at 7:46 am #

    Do you think that women would find it a turn on if I told them that I used to play the French Horn?

    • ozone August 10, 2013 at 11:08 am #

      If they would allow you to demonstrate your ombouchure on a certain part of their anatomy, it could be helpful, yes.
      “If music be the food of love. play on…” -Shaky Willie

  257. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 9:22 am #

    You see these types of Tabloid Trash stories increasingly these days in the mainstream press. Maybe they’re trial balloons for the The Event they’re possibly planning. You know, The Event so world-shattering that it will convince humans the world over to do what comes next obediently. Perhaps The Event will be an announcement about aliens, or the aliens (what the masses are led to believe are aliens) will announce themselves and their benevolent intentions. Perhaps a herding into urban areas will follow. Something’s coming, that’s for sure. We all know something has to give, hence JHK’s perpetual prognostications. I do believe it will be something this big. As Göring said, if you’re going to tell a lie, make it a whopper. A Whopper’s on its way, and the masses will eat it up.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/08/mystery-angel-priest-car-crash-_n_3725992.html

    Mystery ‘Angel’ Priest Appears At Missouri Car Crash, Performs ‘Miracle,’ Then Disappears

    Rescue workers and community members from a small Missouri town have a mystery on their hands. An “angel” priest reportedly appeared out of nowhere at the scene of a bad car accident Sunday, performed what is being called a “miracle” and then disappeared.

    It all unfolded around 9 a.m. on Missouri 19 near the town of Center. Katie Lentz, 19, had gotten into an accident and was pinned between the steering wheel and the seat, reports area news outlet KHQA. A rescue crew arrived at the scene and worked to get Lentz out of the mangled car for 45 minutes, but they were unable to free her.

    As time passed, Lentz’s condition worsened. Eventually she asked if someone would pray out loud. That is when a gray-haired priest, dressed in all black with a clerical collar and carrying anointing oil, appeared and prayed over the girl.

    Shortly after, the rescue workers were able to free Lentz and send her to the hospital. When they turned to thank the priest, he was gone. He isn’t in any of the dozens of photos taken from the accident, and no one has been able to identify him.

    Why can it never be a rabbi? Always the priest? Because the Nazis at the core of our intelligence services who concoct this shit for our edification are in league with the Vatican, that’s why. You know they’re not going to make it a rabbi for all the obvious reasons.

    • Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 9:54 am #

      When they turned to thank the priest, he was gone…

      …and in the distance could be heard “Hi ho Silver, away.”

  258. Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 9:44 am #

    Though-out history the ONLY thing that EVER…

    Though??

    stop’s cop’s

    Do you have any idea of the difference between plural and possessive? That’s a rhetorical question…no need to answer.

    • handyman August 10, 2013 at 10:56 am #

      Damn, man. Do you have to be such a grammar nazi? Give it a rest, please.

      • Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 11:02 am #

        Just bustin Bilbo’s balls for fun.

        • handyman August 10, 2013 at 11:13 am #

          I’m hip. Bilbo seems to go with his flow of consciousness. It’s hard to keep up.

        • BackRowHeckler August 10, 2013 at 12:08 pm #

          “Bustin balls for fun.” Now that’s something I understand completely.

  259. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 11:21 am #

    I will say this, whatever’s coming our way, planned or unplanned, if you want to survive and make it to that world made by hand, you best learn how to Do The Duck right quick now, ya hear.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlo3tRZykQg&feature=player_embedded

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  260. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 11:29 am #

    I wonder if the sock operators get time and a half on weekends? If not, they should. They could be in the Hamptons or Whistler, but instead have to man the desk while everyone else plays. I feel bad for them, don’t you? In fact, I feel as bad for them as I do for Charlie Manson.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNm5xzuKM

  261. Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 12:33 pm #

    Here’s a good read.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/355421/know-thine-enemy-mark-steyn

    ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE

    • handyman August 10, 2013 at 3:40 pm #

      No, not so much of a read. The snark is labored and Steyn doesn’t seem to understand how this sort of thing works. I prefer my propaganda to be much more nuanced. But when you consider his usual audience, it doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble.

  262. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 12:53 pm #

    Here’s a good read…errrr, I mean watch.

    http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/athens-truth-about-democracy/

    DEMOCRACY IS A POLITICAL SYSTEM OF PEACE

    Athens: The Truth about Democracy

    We choose to forget that in the name of democracy, Athens followed a policy of aggressive overseas expansion and persecuted some of its leading intellectuals. Despite its recent popularity in the West, democracy in ancient Athens did not flourish but quickly died.

    Bettany Hughes searches for the truth about the Golden Age of Ancient Athens, investigating how a barren rock wedged between the East and West became the first democracy 2,500 years ago.

    Democracy, liberty and the freedom of speech are trumpeted as the bedrock of western civilisation, but what was Athens really like?

    Bettany goes deep underground to explore a treasure trove of pre-historic bones and ancient artefacts. In silver mines and tombs she uncovers evidence for what this society was really like.

    This was a democratic city built on slave labour, manipulated by aristocrats, where women wore the veil and men pursued a bloody foreign policy, slaughtering thousands in the pursuit of the world’s first democratic empire.

    The programme reveals amazing, sophisticated voting systems but also a society where smooth-talking politicians used spin, and where those who didn’t vote were known as idiotes.

    The film charts the epic story of Athens’ victory in one of the greatest sea battles of the ancient world, when the Athenian triremes defeat Xerxes’ mighty Persian fleet at Salamis, and reveals the real story of the building of the greatest monument of this first democracy – the Parthenon – as a symbol of Athenian power.

    Yes, janet, I am an “idiote” by this definition, and proud of it.

  263. Elmendorf August 10, 2013 at 12:59 pm #

    Janet, as usual, is out of her goddamned mind. Governments should be afraid of their people???? With HR 347 they just nullified the First Amendment. The Patriot Act and the Snowden affair proves that the Fourth Amendment is null and void. The Federal Government is now 40% of GDP. Drones, Google, the NSA, and Palantir spy on you.

    Duh!! Yeah, nothing to worry about with this government [sic].

    E.

  264. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 1:08 pm #

    For those who aren’t socks and are reading and/or lurking, note the use of the triple dot feature in the prose of these various socks.

    The socks “Q. Shtik”, “janet”, “bilbo room 101”, “Elmendorf” and several others at least all do it. Its MO is obvious to spot. Its the same person with many screen names. Even if the person is on a payroll, it doesn’t preclude it from being a psychopath. To engage in such behavior, paid or not, is psychopathic. “Bustin balls” doesn’t rationalize and/or justify its deceit.

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    • ZrCrypDiK August 10, 2013 at 2:16 pm #

      “Even if the person is on a payroll, it doesn’t preclude it from being a psychopath.”

      Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, *psycho*. I ran out of popcorn – who grows that sh! now (monsanto)?

  265. Carol Newquist August 10, 2013 at 2:22 pm #

    ZrCrypDiK August 10, 2013 at 2:16 pm #

    Definitely another sock. Scroll on by. The MO is obvious to spot.

    • ZrCrypDiK August 10, 2013 at 2:55 pm #

      SRSLY – that all U got? Come on, we all know you came *into existence* about 1 day after Asoka built his mud hut. (and Janet came into existence about 3 weeks there-after). Try again, Mastah-Debatah (files for *EITHER* argument)…

      • Janos Skorenzy August 10, 2013 at 4:33 pm #

        Watch. Listen. Learn. Absorb. Then teach other Liberals who are still Lurkers in Darkness.

        http://www.wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/exposing_anti_white_arguments.html

        • anti dod August 10, 2013 at 5:58 pm #

          Yes, the 2 Italian? questioners were bad joke!

          An Island in Revolt: A Window into Europe’s Future
          by Enza Ferreri

          It’s already taking place in Italy too: among the hundreds of second- and third-generation immigrants leaving Europe to fight alongside the jihadist rebels in Syria there are 45-50 who lived in Italy.

          One could be justified for being perplexed about Pope Francis’s choice of Lampedusa, a tiny island off the coast of Sicily and Italy’s — indeed Europe’s — southernmost tip, as the destination of his very first official visit, which took place on July 8. Not a world capital, not a place in some important geopolitical region of the globe.
          What is significant, even symbolic, about Lampedusa is its geography: The small island, with a population of 5,000, is positioned in the middle of the Mediterranean, making it close to the Muslim world, even closer to Tunisia than Sicily.

          These two conditions explain what’s been happening to Lampedusa for over a decade, and how it could be a miniature model of the whole of Europe in the not-too-distant future.
          Since at least 2001, Lampedusa has been a primary entry point into Europe for immigrants, mostly illegal from Africa. Tens of thousands have been landing here over the years, peaking during the “Arab Spring.” In 2011, according to a report of the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, “[a]pproximately 60,000 irregular migrants arrived [in Italy] as part of the 2011 influx from North Africa,” mainly from Tunisia and Libya. Around 50,000 of these came to Lampedusa.

          Over 10,000 received residence permits on humanitarian grounds, because the Italian government declared a state of humanitarian emergency in February 2011, subsequently extended until December 2012.

          In Lampedusa, the temporary immigrant reception center where outsiders were accommodated and sent to other facilities where they could request asylum, became so overcrowded that thousands of people had to sleep outdoors and in shelters provided by the local parish and ordinary Lampedusans.

          The immigrants, among whom were suspected escaped prisoners, were given temporary visas and then gradually transferred to mainland Italy and other EU countries, but there were many times when the number of newcomers was higher than that of the locals.
          On those occasions, when natives were outnumbered, there were tales of local women having to be accompanied everywhere to protect them from immigrants’ unwanted attention, sacked shops, apartment doors forced open, people returning home to find Tunisians sitting at the dining table eating and, after the intruders’ departure, some householders even discovering faeces inside saucepans.

          The island became what one newspaper called “a huge immigrant camp.”
          Maybe expecting to find a hotel reception and with scarcely a thought about the crisis they were creating on the small island, the illegal immigrants were complaining, as in the video below, describing what they found in Lampedusa as “shameful” and pontificating “the reception is zero” as if they were giving a hotel review on TripAdvisor:

          This video confirms what Lampedusa Mayor Bernardino De Rubeis said: “We have here young Tunisians who arrogantly want everything immediately, just like criminals, ready to endanger our lives and theirs.” He later added: “We’re in a war, and the people will react. There are people here who want to go out into the streets armed with clubs.”

          The reception center was burnt down twice by the migrants, during inmate riots in February 2009 and in September 2011. The media blamed everyone for the arson: the Italian government, the provisional Tunisian government, the EU; all except the actual perpetrators. In April 2011 the illegals set fire to a guest house where they were staying at the expense of a charity organization, and threw rocks at the police.

          Without the reception center, they had to be accommodated in hotels and tourist villages, which are virtually the place’s only economic resources.

          Aliens overwhelmed the 5,000-inhabitants island and took advantage of their hospitality, subjecting the place to unusually high levels of violence and crime. Lampedusa is a micro-representation of what will happen to Europe if both current Muslim immigration and European demographic trends continue, when the proportion of natives and migrants will be the same in Europe as it’s been in Lampedusa. The islanders’ reaction, a small civil war, could also represent a prediction of future continent-wide events.

          • anti dod August 10, 2013 at 5:58 pm #

            At the height of the immigration flux, confronted with an unprecedented crisis and left to their own devices to deal with it, the people of Lampedusa used “direct action” methods.
            They stopped the Italian Coast Guard patrol boat, loaded with still more “rescued” North Africans. Women occupied the harbour and docks, chained themselves, overturned wheelie bins and blocked the road. Fishermen pulled boats to the entrance to the harbour. “Nobody enters here any more,” the women shouted from the quay where patriotic flags were flying. To chants of “freedom!” they raised a banner: “We are full.”

            The island descended into chaos. An urban riot occurred, with violent clashes between hundreds of Tunisians, police and locals. Many were injured. Three Lampedusans tried to assault their mayor, who barricaded himself in his office with a baseball bat for self-defence, while outside dozens were protesting against him and the immigrants, who wandered around the streets after having burnt down the reception center.

            Islanders attacked journalists and TV crews. Tunisians and Lampedusans threw rocks at each other after illegals had threatened to explode gas cylinders near a petrol pump.
            The reality is that this was a pseudo-humanitarian crisis: the illegals overwhelmingly were not refugees but economic migrants. What’s for years been called an “emergency” continues. Every day there are new arrivals.

            The number of immigrants to Italy from the Mediterranean is growing. In the first 6 months of 2013, 7,800 of them arrived on Italy’s southern coasts, compared to 3,500 in the first 6 months of 2012. About three quarters landed on Lampedusa from Africa, the rest disembarked on Italy’s south-eastern coast in Apulia from Greece and Turkey.
            The Pope, unfortunately, seems to have gone to Lampedusa in order to make everybody feel guilty for the immigrants, those lost at sea and the survivors. He condemned the “globalisation of indifference”; he talked about “the frontier of the desperate” and tragedies of people crossing the sea to seek a better life.

            His sermon’s been received with mixed reactions. While Italy’s Prime Minister Enrico Letta has promised to put into practice the Holy Father’s appeal through more European co-operation (nothing new here, Italy has unsuccessfully tried for years to pass the buck to Europe), the political Right hasn’t been so keen.

            Fabrizio Cicchitto, of Silvio Berlusconi’s party, PDL, pointed out that religious preaching is one thing, but a country’s management of such a complex and even intractable problem as illegal immigration — further aggravated by the presence of criminal groups — is another.
            Erminio Boso of the secessionist, “far-Right” Northern League has been more outspoken: “I don’t care about what the Pope did. Indeed, I’m asking him to give land and money for the extra-comunitari [immigrants from outside the European Union]. I’m defending my own land.”

            The Italian blog Diavoli Neri has made the interesting observation that the Vatican City State’s law declares that those found in its territory without authorization may be expelled, subject to fine or imprisonment. Further evidence, it concludes, that the Papal sermon, as so often, was beautiful and touching, but government laws are another matter.
            A Northern Italian radio phone-in program aired irate messages from its audience: “I would have expected a few words [from the Pope] for those who are killed and raped by them [the immigrants]“; “As a Catholic I’m outraged. I’ve never heard this or another pope worry for the massacres that they commit”; “We have to prevent them from coming here. Let’s shut everything up and start thinking as a macro-region.”
            Much of the immigration debate in Italy centers on whether to give citizenship to Italian-born children of immigrants, a worrying prospect considering that one third of the so-called “new Italians” are Muslim.
            Particularly vociferous in support of the proposal is the Minister for Integration, Congolese Cecile Kyenge, who claims that this would “acknowledge a path to integration of the parents.”
            Italians should look more closely at the experience of countries with a longer history of Third-World immigration, like Britain, where Muslim immigrants of second and third generation are more devout, orthodox and radicalized than their parents and grandparents. Something similar happens in Germany. Rather than a “path to integration” we witness a “path to Islamization.”
            Either Kyenge doesn’t know what’s going on in the rest of Europe – where the policies she recommends are bringing to ruin entire countries – or she knows it very well, in which case she is a dangerous woman.
            It’s already taking place in Italy too: among the hundreds of second- and third-generation immigrants leaving Europe to fight alongside the jihadist rebels in Syria there are 45-50 who lived in Italy.
            In conclusion, the lesson from the Lampedusa experience is that there’s a limit to what indigenous populations can take. While it’s true that the most common reaction of native Europeans to Third-World non-military invasion so far has been leaving the city or country where this colonization occurs, it may not stay like this forever. There could sooner or later be a breaking point.

            Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L’Espresso, and La Repubblica. She is on the Executive Council of the UK party Liberty GB.

          • Janos Skorenzy August 10, 2013 at 11:12 pm #

            I heard about the Pope’s visit to the island. He’s turning out to be a liberal disaster. He hates the Latin Mass. He talks a lot about “Blessed are the poor” – which is not what Christ said namely, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit”. He’s committed to Vatican Two and its Globalism and the dumbing down and simplification of Catholicism.

          • Janos Skorenzy August 10, 2013 at 11:47 pm #

            A great warrior of Christendom and Master of the English Language, this unknown author comments on this very incident. He is one of my influences of the last few years.

            http://cambriawillnotyield.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/clerical-devils/

  266. janet August 10, 2013 at 4:52 pm #

    ZrCrypDiK Is Definitely another sock. Scroll on by. The MO is obvious to spot.

    ———–

    Do you really believe Asoka built a mud hut? Asoka has single-handedly destroyed this comments section with all his fake IDs. ZrCrypDiK is just one more Asoka handle trying to disrupt the quality discussion which could happen, except Asoka has defeated all of us who are smart and have important things to say. Fuck Asoska and his mud hut.

    • BackRowHeckler August 10, 2013 at 7:15 pm #

      Nice post, asoka.

      • alpha mail August 10, 2013 at 7:47 pm #

        Yeah, Asoka has a way with words. Nice job, mate!

        • ZrCrypDiK August 10, 2013 at 7:57 pm #

          If @$$-soker were me, and I were him, I’d *gladly* eat the lead out of a 12 gauge (but he’s not, nor am *I*)… He reads my faceplant poasts , and that’s a bit infuriating – but hey, he’s *JUST A “GUY” (BWah!)…

          • Janos Skorenzy August 11, 2013 at 4:29 am #

            One of the main wrestlers of the last decade has been Paul Bearer. Get it? Paul Bearer!

    • Janos Skorenzy August 10, 2013 at 11:52 pm #

      You didn’t know who Asoka was last week, Asoka.

  267. anti dod August 10, 2013 at 5:33 pm #

    I have read Philippines also taxes ex pats. That makes 2 countries.

    • Arn Varnold August 10, 2013 at 9:40 pm #

      That may be; my chosen country does not tax me because my income is from outside their borders.
      When I was employed (in country) I payed taxes at the same rate of the citizens; which was a whopping 10%. 😉

  268. Titchfield August 10, 2013 at 5:59 pm #

    The fragile fist.

    Someone upthread used the phrase “the gloves are off.” What’s it mean? If it means that some guy gets fighting mad and rips off his gloves so he can start throwing heavy punches, it’s senseless. You’re likely hit harder with a gloved fist–I’m talking about winter gloves– than with a fist that’s bare. The gloves make it less likely that the bones of the fingers and hands will break or that the knuckles will crack, so you can put everything you’ve got into the punch when you throw it. Some guys hit far too hard for the bones of the hand. Take Jake La Motta.

    Jake supposedly had dainty hands, really too small and fine boned for a 160-pound fighter. He wasn’t knockout artist, but he could hit much harder than the average guy on the street of similar weight and in half-decent physical condition. He was, after all, a professional boxer.

    Let’s say that Jake gets into a fist fight fight with some construction worker (we’re back in the year 1950 now) whose job keeps him physically tuned. (And I do mean a fist fight; strikes with the heel palm or the underside of the fist are excluded, along with all that other oriental shit.) Even if our construction worker is twenty pounds heavier, Jake will probably knock him out. After a few softening-up jabs and straight rights comes the knockout blow–a left hook to the right side of the skull. If anything is going to break in this collision, it won’t be the cranium. It’ll be something in Jake’s hand. Delicately made, remember?

    A 160-pounder with big hands–a guy whose wrist is 7 1/2″ or upwards and whose hand bones are in proportion, as they would be, because that’s how nature works–wouldn’t have to worry. But not everyone’s built that way.

    Anyone recall the Charles Bronson film where Bronson plays a bare-knuckle fighter? Where Bronson’s manager examines Bronson’s hands and pronounces them resistant to damage because of their size? The scriptwriter knew what he was talking about–unless the idea came from Bronson himself. He looked like the kind of guy who’d been through a few fights.

    If you’re going to start throwing punches, you don’t take off your gloves. You keep them on.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 10, 2013 at 11:21 pm #

      That’s why that “oriental shit” makes sense. The Heel and the side of the hand are much stronger than the first. And the elbow, oh the elbow! The fist can be used against soft targets like the nose and stomach. But you still have to know how to throw it so you don’t jam your wrist.

      • anti dod August 11, 2013 at 11:50 am #

        ‘YOU ARE’ or ‘you’re’. ‘Your’ indicates possession, nitwit.

  269. Q. Shtik August 10, 2013 at 7:52 pm #

    For those who aren’t socks and are reading and/or lurking, note the use of the triple dot feature in the prose of these various socks. – “Carol”

    “Carol,” apparently you’re not aware of punctuation known as an Ellipsis Mark.

    The ellipsis mark consists of three dots (periods). We use the ellipsis mark in place of missing words. If we intentionally omit one or more words from an original text, we replace them with an ellipsis mark.

    The ellipsis mark is also called a “suspension point” or “dot dot dot”.
    •Suppose we want to quote “The film focused on three English learners from Asia who were studying at university.” Perhaps we want to omit “from Asia who were” to save space. So we write:

    “The film focused on three English learners…studying at university.”

    The new sentence still makes sense, but the ellipsis mark shows the reader that something is missing.

    We sometimes also use an ellipsis mark to indicate a pause when someone is speaking, or an unfinished sentence. Look at these examples:
    •She turned to James and said, “Darling, there is something…I need to tell you. I have never felt like…like this before.”
    • “It’s not easy to explain. It’s not…” Her voice trailed away as emotion welled up within her.

    You will find we (socks) all use periods and commas as well.

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    • alpha mail August 10, 2013 at 8:06 pm #

      Thank you so much for fucking educating her, “Q”! I don’t think I really appreciate what a stupid c_nt she really is. All this time I’ve been wondering what she has been going on about with this, dot dot dot. I mean, she really didn’t know about the grammar rules you posted (which every eighth grader surely masters)? But do you remember carolnewquist…? (dot dot dot) Or was it janet… (dot dot dot)?

  270. alpha mail August 10, 2013 at 7:58 pm #

    I’m in Shephards Bush, London right now. What I’m seeing on the streets is a lot of people, young and middle aged men for the most part, hanging around during working hours with absolutely nothing to do. It’s really weird to see that many men, probably aged 18-55, being completely idle. Not so much for the women, IMO. During rush hour, you can see these ladies, mostly lawyers, office workers I’m guessing, scurring about, running for the tube or city bus, and elbowing their way through the crowds on the sidewalk. Where I’m presently staying, neighboring Holland Park, I see real estate selling at well over a million pounds, easily. Lots of big $$$ being had by agents and bankers. Lots of Jaguars and Mercedes rolling around. A few with drivers. Reminds me of Boston many years ago, right before the S&L crash.

    • anti dod August 11, 2013 at 11:45 am #

      London is mostly non White. UK is in a depression yet gives Africa
      BILLIONS each year in ‘aid’.

      • BackRowHeckler August 11, 2013 at 1:20 pm #

        There’s always plenty of $$$ for aid to Africa.

        Nobody wants to get on Bono’s shit list and be dis-invited to all the cool parties in Hollywood, the upper west side, Palm Springs, Martha’s Vineyard, Cannes, Berkeley and all the other elite, faggot, 1% hangouts.

        BRH

        • BackRowHeckler August 11, 2013 at 1:33 pm #

          Can anyone recall … in the 90’s, Bono got the debt forgiven in some African Shithole – I think it was Uganda – and the President, now flush with cash from the US and Europe that did not have to be repaid, went out and bought himself 3 British Harrier Jets complete with ground crew, spare parts and pilots. He used he jets to strafe his enemies, from another tribe, in the bush.

          BRH

  271. ZrCrypDiK August 10, 2013 at 10:55 pm #

    Om Nom!!! PopCorn!!!

    • alpha mail August 10, 2013 at 11:59 pm #

      And popcorn you’ll need, my good lad! For it gets better! These past few days I’ve been here I’ve seen more than a few drug addicted fellows, only because I’ve had the “benefit” of being of acquaintaince of a “social worker” here in jolly ol ‘nglan, who let me sit it on some of the downtrodden lasses and laddies. Get this! It seems there’s no work for the blokes. Seems that the housing market has gone completely bust…or as they say in some quarters here, “quit”. Lots of blokes without bread to feed for themselves or their families. Quite sad, actually. And nary a word said about it in the papers in the States.

  272. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 9:59 am #

    This place is beginning to resemble Old Gregg.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIInySnQe4I

  273. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 10:18 am #

    Of course we know what the three dots is, but the point is how often it’s used, when it’s used, and how it is denoted. The socks use it in similar fashion. They’re stiff, like bread sticks and stay within the confines of the grammatical straightjacket. Others, such as myself, develop a unique style. As a result, when I use an ellipsis, I vary the number of dots. Most of the time I use more than three, sometimes five or six to emphasize degree. The socks, most always unless the operator has created a character that it wants to be highly distinct like “bilbo room 101”, will reveal the operator’s default rigidity. When you combine this with all the other similar attributes across the socks, you realize it’s one or two people maximum, and that person may have had a copy-editing/publishing past before taking on this assignment, paid or unpaid.

    • Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 11:27 am #

      Of course we know what the three dots is…

      Of course?

      “Carol,” you are so full of shit. What does it smell like when you burp? How do you even stand yourself? The questions are rhetorical as you may have guessed.

  274. Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 11:17 am #

    FYI

    I just sent the following email to the head nerd involved in the revamp of the Kunstler Blog a couple of months ago.

    Neil,

    The Kunstler Blog enjoyed about 5 weeks of relative calm concerning the screen names of participants in the comments section. But beginning yesterday and continuing into today it’s all turning to shit again. Let me be specific:

    We currently have two commenters using the handle “janet.” The first (and original) janet is a person everyone here recognizes based on writing style, political views, etc. For years this person posted under the handle Asoka. Now a person whose handle is “Bilbo Room 101” has begun to post under the name “janet.” I thought you nerd guys involved in the revamp of the Kunstler Blog had cured this problem but obviously not.

    There is only one way this Blog comments section can ever be made to work properly. A commenter must register in such a way that no one else can EVER highjack his screen name and anonymity must be maintained. A commenter, having established a screen name, must never be able to change that screen name without simultaneously de-commissioning FOREVER his original screen name for use by himself or anyone else.

    I have no idea, technically, how this would be accomplished but that is what nerds are for, right?

    Kindly respond to this email even if what you have to say will not please me.

    Regards,

    Q. Shtik (my screen name)

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    • anti dod August 11, 2013 at 11:48 am #

      Let a 1000 ‘Janets’ bloom.
      And have the Department of Defense poster/imposter banned.

  275. rube-i-con August 11, 2013 at 12:37 pm #

    Financial persecution of American Expats leads many to renounce citizenship. It’s gotten so bad the foreign banks don’t want American customers.

    Janos (Vlad da Man), i’ve managed to open a few overseas, now i’m working on 3-fold citizenship. who the hell says you are the property of the State? not me. if they want da mani, they can print it. death to tyranny.

    peace peaceniks

  276. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 1:06 pm #

    Kudos to whoever usurped the janet sock. Next, usurp the “Q. Shtik” sock. The more you do it, the less any screen name here means anything, and the more apt anyone posting here will be to focus on the content and not the messenger. Obviously, this is a nightmare for someone, or maybe it’s two people, who have invested so much time and effort in their sock parade here.

  277. Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 1:16 pm #

    Baghdad – As Iraqis flooded the streets of their capital and other cities on Saturday to celebrate Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, a string of car bombs struck in mostly Shiite neighborhoods, killing more than 60 people, …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/world/middleeast/car-bombings-kill-scores-across-iraq.html

    ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE

    • Janos Skorenzy August 11, 2013 at 1:48 pm #

      Incredibly, the two sects hate each other more than they do Christians or Jews. They have a saying, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. First they take care of the Shia who worship on Friday. Then the Jews who worship on Saturday. And finally, the Christians who worship on Sunday.

      Thus Iraq is not a viable state. We destroyed Saddam who made Iraq possible since he was secular even though a nominal Sunni.

  278. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 2:03 pm #

    We destroyed Saddam who made Iraq possible since he was secular even though a nominal Sunni.

    The U.S. made Saddam only to destroy him as a trump card later. That’s the way this game is played. Any U.S.-backed potentate is in a bullpen of sorts to be called up for sacrifice if or when the zeitgeist is right.

    http://www.representativepress.org/CIASaddam.html

    The Devil in the Details: The CIA and Saddam Hussein

    “The CIA has been organizing “regime change” for 50 years. They have removed many governments that are unfriendly to US corporate interests and replaced them with regimes that are more likely to work closely and slavishly to carry out the economic and geopolitical desires of the US corporate elite.

    But the CIA’s crimes don’t end when a right-wing coup has succeeded. The CIA then has to keep its repressive despots in power in order to ensure that they can put into place and then maintain a variety of unjust economic systems and structures. This is done with arms sales (and outright gifts of “surplus” weapons), glowing diplomatic support, “intelligence support” (sic) and massive economic investment (i.e., pillaging as much profit as possible by exploiting the natural resources that drew them in there in the first place, and handing out some of the spoils to a loyal local elite).

    When the corporate media describe the CIA’s use of political assassination as if it exists in isolation from mass imprisonment, torture and murder, they cover up the horror, pain and suffering experienced by thousands of ordinary people in countries where CIA-backed blood baths have taken place. They neglect to reveal that when the CIA carries out its high-profile assassination efforts, they also carry out murders of thousands of lesser-known political figures.”

    CAPITALISM IS AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF PEACE

  279. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 2:13 pm #

    One, if there is anyone independent and objective reading any of this, has to wonder why the “Q. Shtik” sock is so concerned about the sock “janet” when all the “Q. Shtik” sock does is bemoan the sock “janet” incessantly. It’s because both socks belong to the same operator, and the operator hates to see its work, its creation, undermined. This is why it’s been crucial for the sock operator(s) to neutralize me in any way possible. I’m an interloper, an adversary even, who isn’t part of the ruse, and therefore must be neutralized and or eliminated. It will even go to the lengths of sacrificing some of its own sock screen names to get me banned so it can carry on its charade uninterrupted and in peace. This is why the “ozone” sock used the world intrusive as it relates to me. It’s the operator making it clear, through one of its many socks, that I’m intruding on its space and its game. You’re damn right I am. And I’m not going to let it go. The gloves are off, meaning the hands can do much more damage than any padded glove, including and up to metaphorically gouging out your eyes with the thumbs and ripping the flesh from your battered face.

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  280. Titchfield August 11, 2013 at 2:28 pm #

    Anyone with sense who’s studied the occult (Golden Dawn, Haitian or Jamaican voodoo, Crowley, Eliphas Levi, any of the various grimoires) and who has even a passing acquaintance with the Oriental martial arts will know that a student of either is going to have to spend time separating myth from fact and the useful from the useless.

    I’ve been hearing about the famous kill strikes of China for about forty years, and the truth about them, as I see it, is surrounded by a morass of myth.

    I don’t regard a kill strike as such unless it kills in a couple of minutes and unless anyone at all (presuming years of training) can use it successfully on anyone else, irrespective of the physique type of the combatants.

    Consider a fight between two fighters in their prime–Mike Tyson and Yip Man, Bruce Lee’s first instructor (I intend no disrespect in using these men to make my example). I’ve instanced these two because of the differences in their respective builds–Yip man is small-boned and wiry, Tyson is big-boned and heavily muscled and with short, thick neck.

    Yip Man decides to go for a kill strike, and he has the training to deliver one–tens of thousands of fingertip pushups to make his finger as strong as they can be, and long hours of work over a box of sand or beans to develop callouses.

    A knife-hand strike to rip out Tyson’s voice box or one of his carotids won’t work. Yip Man’s hands are too weak to make a successful plunge into a bull neck like Tyson’s. A claw-hand strike on Tyson’s torso to rip out a collar bone or floating rib won’t work either. Yip Man’s hands are too weak because too small to penetrate such a heavy layering of muscle as Tyson has.

    Yip man could try a hammer-fist strike to Tyson’s temple. If Yip Man gets in the blow with full force and perfect technique,
    Tyson will probably concuss and fall. But he won’t be dead or dying, not unless Yip Man can shatter cranial bone and drives the shards into Tyson’s brain, and that won’t happen.

    Here’s my point: Yip Man might be able to do a number on someone as small as himself, but a body type like Tyson’s would, in general, be immune.

    Training in the oriental fighting arts will tend to make you a more formidable fighter than if you had no training at all. You’ll often be able to stun or disable or immobilize men bigger than yourself. But kill them with a single blow? The chances are small. So many conditions have to be met for the statement “Chinese master know how to deliver death blows” to be true that the statement qualifies as mythical. Its weakness is its generality.

    I admire Bruce Lee, and have been hearing about his one-inch punch for as long as I’ve been hearing about the death strike. But guess what is supposed to have happened when he and the Okinawa-trained Joe Lewis had a sparring session? (And I do mean Lewis, not Louis). Lewis got the better of him. Why? Because Lewis was bigger, heavyweight size.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 11, 2013 at 9:03 pm #

      And who can forget when Gorilla Monsoon picked up Mohammad Ali like he was a child and gave him an airplane spin before throwing him to the mat for the pin.

      Wrestling is a deadly art, one that Krishna himself practiced.

      Charles Bukowski often bemoaned his small artistic hands and how they kept him from being a better fighter. But as Bilbo reminds us, in combat there are no gloves. And the throat is weak no matter how large the man, as are the genitals, the eyes, the point in the armpit, the knee, etc.

  281. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 3:47 pm #

    The gloves were off for this fight.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUqcUUcVc5U

    But remember folks, this is all metaphor, meaning nothing violent is intended.

  282. alpha mail August 11, 2013 at 3:52 pm #

    That’s right Carol, we’re all socks and we’re all out to get you. That’s why we’re here. Ozone, Q, anti dod, Janos, Beans, Progress4what, we’re all in it together, systematically trying to destroy what is left of your mind. Do not be afraid. You may leave the gloves off if you like. Relax. It’s all going to be all right. There now. Just breathe deeply. Yes, that’s right. It’s all gonna be fine.

    • ozone August 11, 2013 at 6:46 pm #

      LOL!
      It almost makes me yearn for a graduation in technique. The “IknowyouarebutwhatamI?” is getting worn a bit thin. A step up in creativity might be the “I’m rubber, you’re glue (etc.)” line of offensive defense. So much more piquant, and the rhyming of the couplet indicates a sophistication developed only to the choicest 2nd graders.

      • ozone August 11, 2013 at 6:49 pm #

        …only “by/in”…

  283. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 5:05 pm #

    Son of a bitch! We have to cancel our travel plans now because of these fake terror alerts. I had a family vacation planned to the Disney-Jihad Resort in Lahore. We were so looking forward to it. Disney really outdid themselves with this latest creation. Oh well. Who cares, anyway? Not me. Not anymore.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/pakistan-consulate-closing-travel-warning-state-department-95365.html

    The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan. This Travel Warning replaces the Travel Warning dated April 9, 2013, to remind U.S. citizens of ongoing security concerns in Pakistan.

    On August 8, 2013, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore, Pakistan. The Department of State ordered this drawdown due to specific threats concerning the U.S. Consulate in Lahore.

    The presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups poses a potential danger to U.S. citizens throughout Pakistan. Across the country, terrorist attacks frequently occur against civilian, government, and foreign targets. Attacks have included armed assaults on heavily guarded sites, including Pakistani military installations. The Government of Pakistan maintains heightened security measures, particularly in the major cities. Threat reporting indicates terrorist groups continue to seek opportunities to attack locations where U.S. citizens and Westerners are known to congregate or visit. Terrorists and criminal groups regularly resort to kidnapping for ransom……..

    • Elmendorf August 11, 2013 at 7:43 pm #

      Damn it, and I thought the Pakis were our palsie-walsies!! How can they not love us? I mean, all we do is drop paratroopers into their sovereign territory whenever the fuck we feel like and whenever the fuck we don’t feel like it. Hell, the whole WORLD is American sovereign territory … including the airspace carrying the Bolivian President (sans Snowden).

      It’s just hard to figure out why we aren’t the world’s huggy bear?!

      E.

      • Elmendorf August 12, 2013 at 4:01 am #

        Nobody is more bot-like than YOU, Dildo. I mean, here in California we have all these divorced engineers who had Asian trophy wives. A local shrink that I eat lunch with said her biggest clientele group increase is HUSBANDS OF ASIAN WIVES. Apparently these men fell for the coy, ego-stroking coquette act and then found they married a cash register.

        I could quote you endless statistics about per capita Asian immigration to the USA versus US emigration to Asian countries but facts don’t seem to dent your puffery which stems from the fact that you’re an old shit getting laid by opportunistic Asian nookie and so you think you’re a studmuffin.

        Yes, there are problem children here on CFN and, frankly, YOU are one of them. Like many, you overpost and half of it is filled with semi-parseable English. You’re a sophomoric doofus who’s making up his resume and we’re onto you. Simple as that, Dildo.

        E.

  284. Carol Newquist August 11, 2013 at 7:11 pm #

    At our Disney-Jihad Resort in Lahore, Pakistan you’ll be treated to many five-star amenities including our premiere and renowned restaurant, Rendition.Our designers have tastefully recreated a palatial retreat enjoyed by Pakistan’s historical Sultans. The menu was created by world-famous chef, Saddam bin Laden Hussein Obama featuring authentic regional Halal cuisine with a Western twist. Even though alcohol is strictly forbidden by Islam, not so at Rendition. Our exalted mixologist, Barack Osama Musharraf, will dazzle you with cocktails such as the Dirty Bomb and the IED……they’re a blast. For entertainment, Rendition offers you evening long Bacha Bazi performances and for the main feature, an actual detainee beheading will be performed center stage. So, if you prefer a romantic evening for two, or a festive family affair, Rendition is pleased and gracious to accommodate any party or agenda.

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    • Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 10:09 pm #

      But IHMO the bot developers here are just stupid young kids …

      In Humble My Opinion

      Yeah, just stupid.

  285. Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 10:33 pm #

    Please BOTs please, if your going to talk about this stuff please don’t mention TV, or sports or paid actors,or chuck norris or seagal or any WHORE,… cuz they’re 100% holly wood fake.

    Oh, come on Bilbo, what about Jackie Chan in Dragons Forever (1988)? You call that FAKE? That proves how much YOU know.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 11, 2013 at 10:52 pm #

      Remember when everyone was in public mourning over the Aurora shooting and you were meditating on clock ads? And when I thought I had found a kindred spirit, you executed a judo throw, throwing the juju on me and putting yourself back into the good graces of the group.

      Another image: the process of rooking where the rook is moved into the dangerous middle place and the King into the safe position the rook previously occupied. In other words, well done.

      • Q. Shtik August 11, 2013 at 11:33 pm #

        And when I thought I had found a kindred spirit, you executed a judo throw, throwing the juju on me and putting yourself back into the good graces of the group.

        I did THAT? And I didn’t even know it.

        Another image: the process of rooking where the rook is moved into the dangerous middle place and the King into the safe position the rook previously occupied.

        Castling, not rooking, I believe.

        In other words, well done.

        Well thank you.

  286. ozone August 12, 2013 at 8:18 am #

    Regardless of the author’s ideological blinders, this article is an accurate assessment of the Presidential PR Event. (This was no “news conference”, boys and girls.)

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35816.htm

    I heard it on the radio and laughed out loud a few times at some of the president’s whoppers. He seemed very comfortable telling them, so I felt very comfortable laughing at them.

  287. janet August 12, 2013 at 2:47 pm #

    No post next week. We are too close to collapse for business as usual.

    The world is swiftly moving to the dangerous place where nations won’t be able to do business with each other

    Asoka has shut down meaningful exchange here. Fuck Asoka and the mud but he rode in on. IDs are easily stolen by Asoka. He runs this place.

  288. janet August 12, 2013 at 2:50 pm #

    ^hut

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  289. janet August 12, 2013 at 5:15 pm #

    Al Sharpton’s position against “stop and frisk” supported by court ruling. Victory for Sharpton! Yes!

  290. Warren August 13, 2013 at 3:35 pm #

    Jim you have been baying about the main economic crash for while, but this time I think you are right, there is a sense out there that things are moving faster.

    As for Larry Summers he was allowed to make some investment decisions for the school’s endowment, his investments lost the school $1.8 billion. He is just not that smart, then again he will fit right in at the FED.

    • Elmendorf August 14, 2013 at 7:14 am #

      Galbraith was the last REAL economist. Instead of some stupid academic quant, he was our ambassador to India where, among other things, he helped India out with their agricultural plans and policies. An economist who deals with food is a real economist.

      Most economic advisors these days are just idiots juiced up with fancy econometric formulae that are as true as Tawana Brawley’s story. 🙂

      E.

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