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The Fate of a City

     I was born and raised in New York City, on the east side of Manhattan (with a brief intermezzo in the long Island Suburbs (1954 – 1957) though I have lived upstate, two hundred miles north of the city, for decades since. I go back from time to time to see publishers and get some cosmopolitan thrills. One spring morning a couple of years back, toward the end of Mayor Bloomberg’s reign, I was walking across Central Park from my hotel on West 75th Street to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I had an epiphany.

     Which was that Central Park, and indeed much of the city, had never been in such good condition in my lifetime. The heart of New York had gone through a phenomenal restoration. When I was a child in the 1960s, districts like Tribeca, Soho, and the Bowery were the realms of winos and cockroaches. The brutes who worked in the meatpacking district had never seen a supermodel. Brooklyn was as remote and benighted as Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania. The Central Park Zoo was like a set from Riot in Cellblock D, and the park itself was desecrated with the aging detritus of Robert Moses’s awful experiments in chain-link fencing as a decorative motif. Then, of course, came the grafitti-plagued 1970s summed up by the infamous newspaper headline [President] Ford to City: Drop Dead.

     Now, the park was sparkling. The sheep’s meadow was lovingly re-sodded, many of Frederick Law Olmsted’s original structures, the dairy, the bow bridge, the Bethesda Fountain, were restored. Million dollar condos were selling on the Bowery. Where trucks once unloaded flyblown cattle carcasses was now the hangout of movie and fashion celebrities. Brooklyn was a New Jerusalem of the lively arts. And my parents could never have afforded the 2BR/2bath apartment (with working fireplace) that I grew up in on East 68th Street.

     The catch to all this was that the glorious rebirth of New York City was entirely due to the financialization of the economy. Untold billions had streamed into this special little corner of the USA since the 1980s, into the bank accounts of countless vampire squidlets engaged in the asset-stripping of the rest of the nation. So, in case you were wondering, all the wealth of places like Detroit, Akron, Peoria, Waukegan, Chattanooga, Omaha, Hartford, and scores of other towns that had been gutted and retrofitted for suburban chain-store imperialism, or served up to the racketeers of “Eds and Meds,” or just left for dead — all that action had been converted, abracadabra, into the renovation of a few square miles near the Atlantic Ocean.

     Nobody in the lamebrain New York based media really understands this dynamic, nor do they have a clue what will happen next, which is that the wealth-extraction process is now complete and that New York City has moved over the top of the arc of rebirth and is now headed down a steep, nauseating slope of breakdown and deterioration, starting with the reign of soon-to-be hapless Bill de Blasio.

     Mayor Bloomberg was celebrated for, among other things, stimulating a new generation of skyscraper building. There is theory which states that an empire puts up its greatest monumental buildings just before it collapses. I think it is truthful. This is what you are now going to see in New York, especially as regards the empire of Wall Street finance, which is all set to blow up. The many new skyscrapers recently constructed for the fabled “one percent”— the Frank Gehry condos and the Robert A.M. Stern hedge fund aeries — are already obsolete. The buyers don’t know it. In the new era of capital scarcity that we are entering, these giant buildings cannot be maintained (and, believe me, such structures require incessant, meticulous, and expensive upkeep). Splitting up the ownership of mega-structures into condominiums under a homeowners’ association (HOA) is an experiment that has never been tried before and now we are going to watch it fail spectacularly. All those towering monuments to the beneficent genius of Michael Bloomberg will very quickly transform from assets to liabilities.

     This is only one feature of a breakdown in mega-cities that will astonish those who think the trend of hypergrowth is bound to just continue indefinitely. It will probably be unfair to blame poor Mr. de Blasio (though he surely can make the process worse), even as it would be erroneous to credit Michael Bloomberg for what financialization of the economy accomplished in one small part of America.

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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.

379 Responses to “The Fate of a City”

  1. SteveO January 13, 2014 at 9:45 am #

    “Splitting up the ownership of mega-structures into condominiums under a homeowners’ association (HOA) is an experiment that has never been tried before and now we are going to watch it fail spectacularly.”

    They have been doing it with condos in ski country of a couple of decades now. Buildings in harsh environments like the White Mountains of New Hampshire require continuous upkeep. Add in units being abandoned by bankrupt owners (no condo fees being paid) and the results is condo fees that are rising as fast a tuition at UNH (about 12%) per year.

    However, it worked great for the builders who walked away before the last condo/timeshare was sold with millions in their pockets.

    • James Howard Kunstler January 13, 2014 at 9:51 am #

      The experiment has run for “a couple of decades.” It was but one consequence of the burgeoning hyper-turbo financialized cheap oil economy. The ski condo part of the experiment will also fail — JHK

      • SteveO January 13, 2014 at 10:25 am #

        IMHO, it is in the final phases of failing. Owners are running away in droves, the price of these condos have gone though the floor. All it will take is the next “slow down” and these places will be ghost towns.

    • K-Dog January 13, 2014 at 10:16 am #

      HOAs are an expression of affluence not of decay. Enough decay and warlords chase owners away and start collecting rents. They don’t care about the color of peeling paint.

      • CancelMyCard January 13, 2014 at 3:08 pm #

        Not too many people to rent to in the White Mountains of NH.

        There’s very few employers thereabouts, and jobs are as scarce as hens teeth.

        The ski resorts can only hire so many snow machine operators, not nearly enough to pay rentals on all those abandoned condos.

        • K-Dog January 13, 2014 at 10:02 pm #

          True but my reference to HOAs comes from the article:

          Splitting up the ownership of mega-structures into condominiums under a homeowners’ association (HOA) is an experiment that has never been tried before and now we are going to watch it fail spectacularly.

        • SteveO January 14, 2014 at 11:58 am #

          I used that example because the condos in mountains require huge amounts of maintenance like the glass towers JHK referred to.

          The HOAs for the towers will have the same problems the condos have – continuous, expensive maintenance and owners taking a walk as soon as the next slowdown happens.

  2. Smoky Joe January 13, 2014 at 9:49 am #

    Hard to disagree. NYC is lovely again, but it’s not the place for poor or working-poor people. The video (no, I won’t post it! Lesson learned) for Steve Earle’s recent song “Invisible” juxtaposes the carefree and interesting lives of young people in NYC with its forgotten poor.

    Yet outside NYC, in battered but still affordable urban areas, it’s the Millennials who are our best hope. They want local business and local community. Keep your fingers crossed for them, as we are leaving them a mess. At least they seem to disdain suburbia as much as you and your readers do.

    • I’ve always marvelled at this concept. The kids will save us! They are trying but not getting much traction I’m afraid. If they attempt a low-intensity lifestyle they are mocked for their prudence and thrown under the bus. If they join Hope’s Army they will be over-rewarded for producing ever-more addicting varieties of technological soma.

  3. christiangustafson January 13, 2014 at 9:55 am #

    OMFG, they tore down Ebbets Field!

    I blame Le Corbusier!

  4. Neon Vincent January 13, 2014 at 9:58 am #

    The future for New York City may be grim, but the present for its suburbs is already terrible, although it’s hidden in plain sight. This weekend, PBS NewsHour marked the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty by examining what poverty looks like today. The result was that they proved that a prediction JHK made more than a decade ago is coming true–the suburbs will become the slums of the future. We’re now living in that future, and there are millions more people living in poverty in the suburbs than either the cities or the countryside. PBS found a woman in Suffolk County on Long Island, one of NYC’s suburbs, and found her living in exactly the kind of desperation Jim forecast in “The End of Suburbia.”

    Another report detailed how wages are not keeping pace with inflation, which touches on one of the points Jim made in his other front-page essay this week, “The Disenchantment of American Politics — And the Coming Uproar,” about how average people just aren’t able to support each other. Check it out; it’s well worth reading.

    On top of all that, the American idea of suburbia was imported into Mexico, and that experiment is failing, too. There are 50,000 abandoned houses in the suburbs of Tijuana and all the problems there are even worse. Import an American “solution,” get American problems. In response, the Mexican government is now promoting walkable neighborhoods closer to jobs and services. Maybe we can learn something from Mexico.

    http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/suburban-poverty-north-and-south-of.html

  5. Htruth January 13, 2014 at 9:58 am #

    NYC is a prime example of what has become the capital of the inverted totalitarian empire called America. NYC is buried under the matrix: http://youtu.be/iCKPSkVW7cY

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  6. Being There January 13, 2014 at 10:01 am #

    JHK

    As a resident of NYC for 35 years, I couldn’t agree with you more.
    I’ve seen incredible changes here.

    The Wall st. and financialization of all human activity is ultimately a great extractor—that’s the design and that’s how it works.

    However, you haven’t mentioned the globalism thing, here. First I went to China in 1988 where the building of a new downtown of Beijing was in full swing. At this point the cities I visited look nothing like they did then.

    BTW, I have photos of the development of Dubai from 1992-present and nothing could be more dramatic than that development.

    In 1992 Catherine Austin Fitts described a meeting she went to with financial agencies who after hearing her ideas about strengthening local economies throughout the US, she was told, “Don’t you know, we’ve given up on America. We are now investing in Asia.

    So my point is that the extraction point may be in the doings of Wall Street, but the money went to build infrastructure elsewhere. In turn with rents and costs of “ownership” going up, up and away here in the great shiny city, it is foreign entities buying it up—and for cash!

    That’s what happens when the very wealthy don’t pay taxes and buy influence instead. Real estate is the only game left after the stock market since there’s nowhere else (except art) to put your money.

    In the meantime since 2008, I noticed many business closing down and banks taking their place. The only thing that saves this city is that people are organizing their own style of business that has a more local appeal.

    In defense of de Blasio, the people of NY wanted some balance from the “financialization” of their city to something that might address the needs of the people inhabiting the city. We don’t know if he’s for real, but we did know what we’d get from his opponent.

    That’s the way the American people have been voting. They’ll take a chance on someone they think might not be a creature of global corporations and banking. Whether there’s anything like that out there remains to be seen.

    • ozone January 13, 2014 at 10:28 am #

      BT,
      Combining your observations with JHK’s gives an illuminating picture of what is hidden in the magician’s tophat of various bait-and-switch financial legerdemain. Thanks, much-appreciated and helpful perspectives for future reference. (Me? I’d just as soon expire out here in the woodlands, but then again, not too much in the way of varied employment opportunities or social stimulation out h’yar, as one would expect.)

      • Being There January 13, 2014 at 10:50 am #

        Thanks O.

        Well, you’ve got your music.

        As far as globalism goes, we’ve got the fast-track TPP going through without opposition. Funny how the conservatives aren’t opposing Obama on the most important issue of all. Just goes to show they are simply doing political maneuverings on the social issues and nothing about the breaking down of the nation state. The great unipolar power. Lots of dough to be gleaned when you break the pinata.

        As I mentioned elsewhere, our leadership and it’s governed are too ignorant to carry the responsibility of being the world’s superpower.

      • ZrCrypDiK January 14, 2014 at 4:41 am #

        I *knew* you’d play me a “diddy” – good -ol’ boy! Why you so *QUIET* the past few weeks… (hehe)

  7. K-Dog January 13, 2014 at 10:09 am #

    I can’t remember where I heard that great monuments are erected just before collapse but I know I also heard or read that somewhere. It makes sense. Wealth collection from the provinces would demonstrate power and monuments can express power and the ability to rule. In more pleasant, less threatening times, the need to express power would be much less. As a civilizations history runs its course and nears its witching hour competition to maintain what is perceived as normal would increase and the need to express conspicuous consumption would become important.

    With capital scarcity and rising energy costs, giant buildings cannot be maintained but they will rot from the inside out and on the outside may look normal for quite a while. The fate of Johannesburg seems to have traced that path. As America scales down and becomes more local the infrastructure currently taken for granted and needed to support great metropolises must crumble. Wealth-extraction complete as there is no more wealth to extract. Rising energy costs will doom the big cities as we have known them. Populations would fall but as there is nowhere else to go the population fall may not happen right away. It may be a while before there is a scramble outwards for low paying agricultural jobs. The only jobs that will be around.

  8. 99 cent nation January 13, 2014 at 10:12 am #

    “This is what you are now going to see in New York, especially as regards the empire of Wall Street finance, which is all set to blow up.” Damn that will be one great day for the entire living planet when Wall Street goes over the cliff. Please, please let it be soon.

    • K-Dog January 13, 2014 at 10:35 am #

      If it were properly dismantled and the scoundrels jailed I’d agree but there is some truth in ‘too big to fail’. The “too big to fail” theory asserts that the financial institutions of Wall Street are so large and interconnected that sudden failure would be disastrous to the economy.

      Unfortunately ‘too big to fail’ was misconstrued to also mean ‘too big to change’, something entirely different. Everyone just nodded and swallowed that brain fart in. The thought of older bald men in suits going to jail was too radical to contemplate and they deftly and impassibly confabulated the word change with failure. They don’t want to change. They would rather eat your liver and have great contempt for those easily fooled. Because fooling is what they do and they deftly do it.

  9. Dawnrider January 13, 2014 at 10:19 am #

    I’m just finishing up listening to the 91 hour audio download of Robert Caro’s book on Robert Moses – “The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.”

    I agree with your reason for NYC’s prosperity of the last three decades. However, there may be a second source of recovery which is more sustainable, that is that in the three decades New York City has been recovering from the devastation that Robert Moses brought to the city in his four decades of power.

    Between Robert Moses numerous highway developments (which created huge traffic jams, guaranteed urban sprawl, included no mass transit, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and many neighborhoods) and his housing plans (which uprooted tens of thousands of people which led to severe overcrowding and neighborhood decline) the fabric of the City was torn apart.

    It’s taken quite awhile to recover from all he did. The neighborhoods that are that are doing the best are those least affected by Moses acts.

    • K-Dog January 13, 2014 at 10:39 am #

      But the point is that the engine to drive renovation will vanish. No recovery is possible. The economy is dying.

  10. rckrueger January 13, 2014 at 10:35 am #

    I would expect to see this process of deterioration start in China’s mega cities first. Their credit crunch and misallocation of resources makes the US financial system pale in comparison.

    What will eventually kill the US living arrangement is the underlying complexities of the systems that go into supporting it. Unlike the 2 bedroom flat JHK grew up in, the new structures of the digital age do not fail gracefully in an analog fashion. Rather they have two states – either “on” or “off.”

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  11. Greg Knepp January 13, 2014 at 10:59 am #

    Empire capitals always suck wealth from the provinces – be those capitals governmental (Washington) or financial (New York).

    I’m familiar with three US cities: Baltimore, Atlanta and Columbus. Of the three only Columbus can be said to be prospering – this despite the fact that it’s located smack in the middle of the rust belt! In-town neighborhoods are being spiffed up, the downtown – once a parking lot desert – is being rebuilt and repopulated, and City Hall regularly runs budget surpluses.

    Mostly this is due to two factors: (1) Columbus is the state capital and thus benefits disproportionally from tax revenues, and (2) the city long ago began shedding its manufacturing sector in favor of becoming a center of finance, tech, health services and education [consider, if you will, the enormous sums pouring into the local economy from federal student loans. The OSU campus has 50,000 students….and there are several other colleges to boot!]

    The sad result is that in-town areas are fast becoming gentrified and therefore unaffordable to the average Joe. Neighborhoods that were once diverse and interesting are now slick and cutesy. Another problem is that the newer economic models that have afforded Columbus its prosperity are essentially non-productive, and will dissolve as collapse emerges as a palatable reality.

    • Greg Knepp January 13, 2014 at 12:50 pm #

      I’ll take the liberty of adding to my own comment.

      It’s interesting to note that, of the three cities mentioned above, Columbus is actually the largest, coming in at just over 810,000 residents. Baltimore is next at an estimated 630,000, with Atlanta bringing up the rear at a mere 450,000.

      The metro areas, however, reflect a demographic that is exactly the opposite. The Columbus metro population is 2,350,000, while Baltimore’s is 2,700,000, and Atlanta’s stands at a staggering five-and-a-half million.

      In other words, while 35% of the Columbus metro area’s population lives in the city proper, only 8% of people who fancy themselves Atlantans actually live in Atlanta. Baltimore City residents compose about 22% of their metro area’s population.

      I’m not sure what all this means, but I found it food for thought.

      • Janos Skorenzy January 13, 2014 at 2:40 pm #

        Also one would assume Columbus isn’t saddled with overwhelming numbers of sub-Saharans like the other two.

        • Greg Knepp January 13, 2014 at 3:28 pm #

          Janos, Actually, Columbus has a large population of Somalis – one of the largest in the nation. I’m not sure why. They have their own rather extensive neighborhood in the northeast section of the city (I will refrain from calling it a ghetto) and have developed some political clout as well – perhaps because they have displayed a curious (but certainly healthy) reluctance to assimilate. As a group they are recent arrivals on our shores and may be somewhat more skeptical of the viability of American dream than earlier immigrant populations.

          I don’t like to generalize, but in my dealings with the Somalis I have found them to be pleasant, energetic and rather up-beat. There has been some friction between the Somali community and the African American community in Columbus, but these problems have been sporadic and seem to be working toward self-correction.

        • godozo January 13, 2014 at 10:16 pm #

          Baltimore is its own county and the city can’t grow out of it. Atlanta is also surrounded by suburban incorporations and has its own county line issues to deal with.

          Columbus, on the other hand, has been able to eat up a sizable portion of the surrounding areas. The result being a sprawling metropolis that, while it has a semblance of a downtown, also has lots of areas that don’t necessarily count as “there” within its wildly-flailing borders.

          I’ll let you add two and two together and see how that answers your question. Do note that Columbus has had resources that the other two cities were barred from.

          • Greg Knepp January 14, 2014 at 11:08 am #

            Good point; Baltimore City is not a part of Baltimore County, and there has been no municipal land acquisition for nearly a century. Columbus, on the other hand, has been sopping up adjacent property since its inception. For this reason, much of Columbus is suburban in every way except politically. This has given Columbus a wealthier tax base, but Baltimore is certainly the more interesting town – gritty, diverse and textured with a rich history.

            However, Columbus is doing an excellent (though plodding) job of rebuilding its downtown and adjacent urban neighborhoods.Baltimore has pretty much been well preserved all along – at least by American standards – but I’m not happy with the city’s treatment of the Inner Harbor: International Style architecture and an amusement park atmosphere…please.

            Atlanta is a different animal altogether. I have an interest in a bicycle shop down there, and have spent a good deal of time there, studying the town – reading a lot, even consulting an Atlanta historian…but I must say I don’t quite know what to make of it. One thing is certain: Atlanta is a lot more interesting than is generally assumed by northern types like me.

  12. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 11:12 am #

    Where trucks once unloaded flyblown cattle carcasses – JHK
    ==========

    Great word:

    flyblown (adj)

    1.dirty: dirty and in bad condition
    2.contaminated with blowfly eggs or larvae: contaminated with the eggs or larvae of a blowfly or flesh fly and therefore not fit to eat
    3.tainted: contaminated with something undesirable

  13. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 11:32 am #

    You fooled me again Jim……….not one word about Christie.

    After 4 or 5 days of BridgeGate saturation I guess a remark by you would be nothing more than piling on.

    • James Howard Kunstler January 13, 2014 at 12:17 pm #

      I wrote a piece for Politico.com about Christie that they will publish sometime today.

      • sevenmmm January 13, 2014 at 12:50 pm #

        Interesting. I’ll go look for it.

      • Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 3:18 pm #

        Nothing has appeared there as of 3:06p.

        • Karah January 13, 2014 at 11:08 pm #

          What I found at Wikipedia:

          The George Washington Bridge is the busiest motor vehicle bridge in the WORLD (102 MIL vehicles per annum).
          It is a toll road going EAST generating about 2 to 4 Million USD a day.
          It’s been in continuous operation for 82 years with a 51 year old addition.
          It sports the largest (90 ft x 60 ft; 450 lbs) free flowing American flag in the WORLD.
          “The idea for the Port Authority was conceived during the Progressive Era, which aimed at the reduction of political corruption and at increasing the efficiency of government. With the Port Authority at a distance from political pressures, it was able to carry longer-term infrastructure projects irrespective of the election cycles and in a more efficient manner…
          The Port Authority lost [during Sept 11 attacks] a total of 84 employees, including 37 Port Authority police officers, its Executive Director, Neil D. Levin, and police superintendent, Fred V. Morrone.[19] In rescue efforts following the collapse, two Port Authority police officers, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, were pulled out alive after spending nearly 24 hours beneath 30 feet (9.1 m) of rubble.”
          ***
          The timing of the lane closure during the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks can’t be ignored, in my opinion. The way our country is organized to fail at the whim of ANYONE’S particular agenda is horrific to say the least. New Jersey is under scrutiny because it is the biggest suburb of the biggest city in the U.S. that could produce the biggest president (in physical girth) we have ever had. This particular story feeds into the greater story asking the question: How much can our political leaders know and control? What do all those people formerly employed by the the state going to do with their lives? How is the bridge going to generate revenue from a reduction in cars and only toll free pedestrians and bikes?

        • ozone January 14, 2014 at 9:43 am #

          Okay, now I can see how the Christie Kerfuffle is germane to the topic at hand after reading the article. It’s clear that Christie has planted his [not inconsiderable] bulk* firmly in the path of true innovation (…a different way of inhabiting the landscape: tm- JHK), raised his hand, palm outward, and is bellowing for innovation and conversations regarding it to halt, cease and desist!

          Follow that analysis with this article that exposes his endorsers and backers and a holistic picture of what the danger to us peons really is from a truly nasty S.O.B. (Of course, if too much shit sticks to Christie, another power-mad satrap will be selected.)

          http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37358.htm

          If you’re not a bit repelled by all this info, I would consider you much too trusting of those who consider us nothing but piddling integers on a balance sheet.

          *It may be in poor taste to mention his size (or how he may have gotten that way), but none other than the sober and well-respected George W. Bush has dubbed him, “Big Boy”, so that’s good enough for me…

        • Neon Vincent January 14, 2014 at 3:22 pm #

          Thank you, Karah!

  14. wayfarer January 13, 2014 at 11:37 am #

    Makes one wonder if the ‘winos and cockroaches and brutes of the meatpacking district’ didn’t have more character than today’s denizens of the high towers.

    • CancelMyCard January 13, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

      I don’t know about winos or meatpacking brutes . . .

      but I’d say a cockroach is several steps on the integrity scale above a Wall Street banker.

  15. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 11:42 am #

    “As a resident of NYC for 35 years, …………. I’ve seen incredible changes here.” – Being There
    ==========

    Yes, but when in the past 350 years could a resident of NYC not have truthfully said the same thing?

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    • ozone January 13, 2014 at 11:56 am #

      Surely. But that doesn’t blunt the point of where things are heading as of now. (Big-Picture-wise.)

  16. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 12:03 pm #

    “Makes one wonder if the ‘winos and cockroaches and brutes of the meatpacking district’ didn’t have more character than today’s denizens of the high towers.” – wayfarer
    ===========

    Nah, I don’t think so.

    I can’t speak for the “cockroaches and brutes of the meatpacking district” but I have this old memory from when I was a kid. The term Bowery was synonymous with “skid row.” Philly had one too and it was on a stretch of Vine St.

    Anyway, we were on some sort of class trip into NYC. I stared out the school bus window at the staggering and disheveled bums along Bowery St. It was cold out. We were halted in traffic waiting for a light. I looked to my right. In a building’s entryway alcove a bum struggled to drop his pants to his knees. He went into a shaky-legged half squat. His legs were hairless and white with rouge-red blotches. He took a dump right there in front of God and everybody.

    No, I think “today’s denizens of the high towers” have more character.

    • CancelMyCard January 13, 2014 at 3:25 pm #

      That poor fellow merely shat on the sidewalk.

      Whilst the 1-percent crowd is shitting all over the rest of America.

    • hineshammer January 14, 2014 at 8:04 am #

      Jeez Q, haven’t you ever seen the movie Trading Places? That bum was probably just an ex-trader or banker down on his luck.

  17. Troy34 January 13, 2014 at 12:22 pm #

    Jim,

    I have been following your Blog and listened to your podcast for years now. I regret to admit I still have to read your books as I’ve only skimmed though them. I’m a fan of your work.
    What compelled me to respond to this particular post is that completely opposite of you, I was born and raised in Troy and have been living in NYC for 10 years now. I too have noticed (and as a practicing graduate architect have been a large part of) the transformation of the city to what it is today. The economic development here is hitting another ceiling in my opinion. I find it fascinating and highly unusual that just years ago everything was on hold, now the phones are ringing off the hook and you can’t do the work fast enough.
    The city is going mad with development but this is waning the middle and lower classes. I have noticed a shift of young creatives that are relocating outside of the mega urban realm because they are being priced out. I experience this first hand as a resident of Williamsburg Brooklyn.
    I often reflect on what makes this all worth it and the answer is: what I give up in monetary capital I gain in social and cultural capital.
    Thanks for the Blog Jim, its something I look forward too on Monday mornings.

  18. dolph9 January 13, 2014 at 12:24 pm #

    I’m not convinced cities like NYC and Chicago will be maintained. I’ve always had a good time when visiting, but there’s something about the buildings to the sky that screams hubris.

    Tokyo is another example and the Japanese are running out of young workers and energy to maintain it. Although, they tend to be very skilled and productive.

  19. BackRowHeckler January 13, 2014 at 12:32 pm #

    Good Insights, Jim. This is what keeps me here week after week.

    I’d hate to see Central Park go down, which I consider one of the world’s wonders. It was designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted from Hartford, CT. Olmsted was one of those 19th century American Native geniuses, a writer who had no training in Landscape Architecture, a dicipline which did not exist in the 1st half of the 1800s anyway. In fact, he never went to school at all, spending his youth wandering around Connecticut visiting relatives, shooting guns and fishing. Olmsted was living in a cheap hotel in New Haven, writing magazine articles, when he heard NYC was looking for people for the project. He applied and the rest is history.

    I remember those bad old days in the city. Central Park was a nogo area. I remember even being warned away from Washington Square Park if I valued my skin. I always gave Rudy Guliani credit for cleaning the pl;ace up without realizing there were other forces at work, too.

    –BRH

    • hineshammer January 14, 2014 at 8:06 am #

      I thought Central Park was designed by Joe Peppitone.

  20. beantownbill. January 13, 2014 at 12:40 pm #

    Cities were born only after humans developed agriculture, and this occurred shortly after climate change from a

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    • beantownbill. January 13, 2014 at 12:59 pm #

      I was starting to write about cities, but I decided to skip it. Sorry for the partial mis-posting.

  21. rube-i-con January 13, 2014 at 12:42 pm #

    Wealth-extraction complete as there is no more wealth to extract.

    wrong. plenty of wealth is constantly being created, albeit perhaps not distributed in a way that might benefit the maximum number of people.

    taskrabbit, microsoft, airbnb, twitter (tho i hate it) – all these companies create wealth ‘out of nothing’, i.e. they generate something of use to people that creates significant amounts of money for owners/users.

    out of nothing, as it were. we are not resource-bound. the newer financial models are significantly peer-based, meaning they democratize profits (see above examples), i.e. they really spread the money around to lots and lots of folks, instead of concentrating it at the top (excepting microsoft, of course).

    this democratisation reflects well the reversion to social inclusion via technology.

    the old static boss-job-salary models are severely imperiled or dying as we speak.

    peace peaceniks

    • hineshammer January 14, 2014 at 8:11 am #

      Apparently wealth is anti-matter since the old truth of the law of physics that matter is not created or destroyed but simply altered (or something like that), certainly doesn’t apply to wealth.

  22. devon44 January 13, 2014 at 1:23 pm #

    I think if we all could agree on a term for this, it would help us communicate better to others.

    I have been calling this “The Crumble.” Reading JHK, Greer and Ruppert has been illuminating for me – your typical survivalist prepares for a massive collapse that happens very quickly. But, to paraphrase Greer, “Never underestimate the desire of the machine to perpetuate itself, or the desire of the sheep to keep the machine going.”

    After all, wouldn’t you try as hard as you could to perpetuate the system that feeds you, clothes you, and entertains you? Most people have never known a different life than this one, nor can they even imagine it.

    That’s where we come in. And I know everyone is frustrated by the inability of the sheep to process what is happening to us, but that doesnt mean we can give up. We have to try even harder! Maybe if we could all agree on one term to use, it would help. Maybe.

    By the way I love the garden pictures JHK!! Yours is prettier than mine, but I raise Durocs… they are pretty good at tearing up everything.

    CHEERS!!!

    • CancelMyCard January 13, 2014 at 3:39 pm #

      “Never underestimate the desire of the machine to perpetuate itself, or the desire of the sheep to keep the machine going.”

      However, we have created a very, very complex machine with a massive interdependency on many, many other very complex components. In Roman times it could take several days or weeks to get a single message from one part of the empire to another. Today it takes nanoseconds.

      Historically, it could take many months for a nation to assemble an army and march it hundreds of miles to destroy a rival. Today, a few well-placed ICBMs can accomplish the same thing in minutes.

      A collapse process that would take decades to complete in older empires, could easily be accomplished in weeks, or even days, in contemporary times. When the communication net begins to implode, it will take a lot of the edifice down very, very fast.

    • Smoky Joe January 13, 2014 at 7:38 pm #

      Here I agree. The system has enough redundancies to keep limping along, Soylent-Green style, for a long time.

      I don’t buy into the theory of a rapid collapse, barring some pandemic or nuclear exchange. What you call “the Crumble” I call “The Slide” and it’s been under away since the end of the 1960s, when the US economy began its movement to financial services and such as the middle class get ever-more squeezed, even as other nations began to copy the disastrous US model.

      The Slide creates as many opportunities for the savvy as it takes away from the unlucky or unwary. Those you call “the sheep” can’t believe the facts before them because 1) They have a myth of American Exceptionalism as old as The Founding Fathers and 2) They have the Horatio Alger Myth, as new as the latest lotto or reality show.

      • devon44 January 14, 2014 at 12:25 pm #

        Smoky and CMC – I dig what you guys are saying. I love reading the comments on JHK’s articles because he aggressively moderates trolls, and also because anyone who even knows who JHK is is already smarter than the average bear.

  23. the Heretick January 13, 2014 at 1:35 pm #

    concentrations of people have always strip-mined wealth and resources from the surrounding countryside, the modern metropolis does this on an even more destructive scale.

    NYC, Chicago, they have always made their money “managing” the assets of the rest of the country, the advent of synthetic currencies has simply exacerbated this problem.

    the energy use to service and maintain these machines we call “buildings” has got to be phenomenal.

    this arrangement is not socially or environmentally sustainable, Humpty Dumpty comes to mind.

  24. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 1:40 pm #

    This link is not related to today’s essay by Jim but it certainly ties in with Jim’s themes of the past few years………and besides, it’s clever and funny.

    http://aliensinthefamily.wordpress.com/

    Lifers here will remember a commenter who went by the handle AMR. He had/has his own blog titled aliensinthefamily. AMR is a great observer of the passing scene with a big vocabulary and an unusual style of writing. He abruptly stopped posting last July 7th. I religiously checked in every week hoping for his return. I was beginning to fear he had run afoul of one of the various people he had disparaged but finally a new posting dated Jan 6 appeared. It’s a good one. Check it out.

    AMR, if you’re monitoring this site, please come back.

    • devon44 January 13, 2014 at 2:02 pm #

      I just read a couple of the blog posts – wow, that guy is smart, unusual, and funny.

  25. retired guy January 13, 2014 at 1:49 pm #

    Jim; Great article. I hadn’t thought about the cause of the renaissance in New York City. Once again, you are right on target. I was aware of the same phenomena occurring in other times and other parts of the country. The 1950’s through the 1970’s aerospace boom in Southern California. The 1940’s through the 1980’s auto wealth in the Midwest. In both cases, like NYC today, wealth flowed into those areas from the rest of the country. They got richer while the rest of the country was somewhat poorer. When the booms deflated, the wealth went away. For Southern California, the Cold War ended. For Detroit, foreign cars arrived en mass, and many new auto plants were located in other parts of the country. However, through all these times, there has been one area that is the ultimate wealth vacuum. Yes, we all know where that is. Washington DC. The federal government tales wealth through taxes from all over the country, (not even the tiniest hamlet is exempt) and enriches itself. The DC economy and housing market always outperforms the rest of the country because of this wealth transfer. Very insightful observation about NYC, Jim.

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    • hineshammer January 14, 2014 at 8:34 am #

      I believe I read somewhere recently that 4 or maybe 5 of the 10 richest counties (as measured by median income) in the country were in the DC area. Apparently you can here the great sucking sound as wealth is vacuumed up from the rest of the country into these tony, little enclaves of snobbery.

      • hineshammer January 14, 2014 at 8:49 am #

        hear, not here. How embarrassing.

  26. BatMastersonJr January 13, 2014 at 1:57 pm #

    Dammit, Jim, sometimes you simply NAIL IT! Kudos to you.

  27. aka_ces January 13, 2014 at 2:07 pm #

    During my 2011 visit to New York, my first since 1986, I sensed something similar.

    Despite the pleasures of being on vacation in NYC, the city seemed the giant parasite, the very vampire squid, of financialization. Having extracted the wealth of the rest of the US, of much of the rest of the world, and of some of its own, lesser, more remote limbs, the city must now move to feeding on the riches of its corp.

  28. George January 13, 2014 at 2:59 pm #

    Maybe Gotham has moved over the top of the arc of rebirth and is now headed down that steep, nauseating slope of breakdown and deterioration. Though events could prompt that sooner rather than later, I suspect it probably won’t become obvious until well after Bill de Blasio’s gone.

    http://www.thesisa.org

  29. Janos Skorenzy January 13, 2014 at 3:08 pm #

    A few Cities may survive as the refuge of the Super-Rich and their servants. See the movies Elysium and Fire Starter. The rest of the people will be dirt poor industrial serfs relegated to economic zones – neither urban nor rural. The Wilderness will belong to the new Nobility and will be forbidden to the hoi polloi.

  30. nsa January 13, 2014 at 3:30 pm #

    ……it’s the New Jerusalem….. Israel on the Hudson…..

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  31. BackRowHeckler January 13, 2014 at 5:02 pm #

    Uh-oh. China might be taking that disputed South China Sea Island by force. I saw some pics of PLA Marines and they looked pretty formidable.

    And I’m reminded of an article just last week stating most of the ladies training for integration into US Marine and Army Infantry units can’t do 1 pull up. You’re going to have to bulk up there ladies if you plan on taking these guys on in combat. Bring you EEOC manual with you.

    –BRH

  32. Warren January 13, 2014 at 5:50 pm #

    Mr. Kunstler:

    Eds and Meds, do not forget Feds.

    Much of how you describe NYC also applies to Metro DC, 30 years ago a house in 1950s split level in Bethesda cost about 60K US, now that same house will sell for 700k, be torn down and replaced with a McMansion selling for 2.2 million. As NYC sucks wealth from the rest of the nation so does the Capital City (DC) from the Districts.

  33. Pucker January 13, 2014 at 5:58 pm #

    What do you blokes think of “Gospel Hip Hop”?

  34. Pucker January 13, 2014 at 6:03 pm #

    O.K….Gospel…Hip Hop….Back-to-Reality…

    It really is time for everyone to stop f..cking around and to get organized.

    Hell…I’d even be willing to assume some responsibility, not that anyone would want me to. But I suppose that I would be willing to let the banks go bankrupt and to fund mass transit and infrastructure in the U.S.

    And I wouldn’t take bribes.

    My first initiative would be to let young people discharge their student loan debt in bankruptcy.

    But I’m sure that there’re are better leaders out there like JHK and Orlov.

    It can’t be that difficult forming a 3rd party in the U.S. with the Internet. Stop f..cking around!!!!!

    • Neon Vincent January 13, 2014 at 6:39 pm #

      “It can’t be that difficult forming a 3rd party in the U.S. with the Internet.”

      Oh, yes, it can. Go ask Americans Elect, which spent $35 million, got ballot access in just about all states, ran a primary and had no one qualify as a candidate.

      http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/05/americans_elect_an_inevitable_35_million_failure_.html

      You’re better off hijacking an existing minor party with an organization. The Libertarians are too organized for that, the Constitution Party is too suspicious (and they’re full of corn pone fascists), and everyone else except Greens are too small. So, by default, infiltrate the Green Party. Good luck and see if you can outflank the Socialists (Watermelon Greens, who are green on the outside but red on the inside) who have control of the party now.

  35. rube-i-con January 13, 2014 at 7:32 pm #

    forget parties, why waste your valuable energy, planting a tree is much more valuable than anything some fucking stupid ‘party’ will do for you.

    do for yourself. you can do good on your own. let the party shitheads prattle on about change and the constitution, all while things remain the same or worsen.

    you know the old saying about power corrupting.

    parties are piles of shit that attract the worst flies you can imagine.

    i’ve never seen anything more stupid than brain-dead hat-wearing conventiongoers.

    roo haha, nixon!, carter!, obama!, bush!, the great state of iowa for hadley! wild cheers for romney!

    like your life is gonna change for the better because some dufus is in some office.

    like george carlin said, it’s a club, and you ain’t in it.

    peace peaceniks

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    • Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 7:42 pm #

      My sentiments eggs-zackly. Politics and politicians disgust me. The only people more revolting are the political junkies who follow them. Especially those of the left-leaning persuasion…..Rachel Maddow, for example.

    • sauerkraut January 13, 2014 at 8:15 pm #

      parties are piles of shit that attract the worst flies you can imagine.

      OK Rube, if you say so. I guess that you would know about the parties which you have voted for.

      But here’s a thought. If you have tried a thing, and found it to fail, why not try something else? It is free, you know.

  36. ZrCrypDiK January 13, 2014 at 8:37 pm #

    OMG, who whuz that douche-bag predicting 500 posts last week?!… (11 short)

    Jim, you nailed it this week – stick to urban infrastructure/peak oil!!! I’m eating this SH!T up liek … 🙂 [bow]

  37. Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 9:21 pm #

    This, from Politico, is for aj-Soak-muste:

    By JOSE DELREAL | 1/13/14 2:45 PM EST Updated: 1/13/14 3:27 PM EST

    While journalists and politicians have spent the last week captivated by the George Washington Bridge Scandal involving Gov. Chris Christie’s office, two new polls show the public has remained largely indifferent, calling into question the long-term political consequences the scandal might have on Christie.

    The Pew Research Center poll reports that 60 percent of adults say their opinion of Christie has not changed since revelations that top aides were involved in politically motivated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. Only 16 percent of of those surveyed say they now view the New Jersey governor less favorably and 6 percent say they now view him more favorably.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/chris-christie-poll-102110.html#ixzz2qKnebjGN

    • Q. Shtik January 13, 2014 at 9:23 pm #

      Chris Christie…..the Teflon Blimp.

      • ZrCrypDiK January 13, 2014 at 10:36 pm #

        Q – you replying to yourself over and “OVER”… It’s kinda “SAD”… Quit being whut you R, and start being what you could BECOME…

  38. Pucker January 14, 2014 at 12:39 am #

    The Finger is pointing at YOU.

  39. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 7:05 am #

    See the movies Elysium and Fire Starter.

    Huh? You want people to subject themselves to a movie, Elysium, that promotes a Socialist revolution? Are you serious? Make your mind up. Either you are a Socialist or you’re not. Your message lately has been against Socialism and towards Free-Market Conservatism. Or has that changed yet again based on your reading a book in the last week that convinced your waffling mind to the contrary?

    I rented and watched Elysium this past weekend, and let me tell you, it was garbage and a complete waste of time. I will never watch another movie starring Matt Damon or Jodie Foster. Those two have proven themselves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to be purely political in everything they do. They’re utterly compromised. No integrity.

    Elysium was pure political propaganda. It was pushing immigration reform and Obamacare, and the notion that we should get used to the inevitable Hispanic majority in the U.S. The director has no business making movies. Another one of his creations, District 9, was also garbage. I shut it off after ten minutes it was so ridiculous. Get back to South Africa where you belong, Blomkamp. You suck and your movies suck.

    Matt Damon’s Sci-Fi Socialism

    Foundas then described “Elysium” as advancing “one of the more openly socialist political agendas of any Hollywood movie in memory, beating the drum loudly not just for universal healthcare, but for open borders, unconditional amnesty, and the abolition of class distinctions as well.”

    “But Blomkamp never makes it clear how, if overpopulation and pollution are what got us into this mess in the first place, moving everyone up to Elysium would make for a sustainable solution; he just wants us to take it on faith that it would,” Foundas added.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 14, 2014 at 2:31 pm #

      Did I say that I supported Elysium? Or just that it portrayed what is coming? Some people have a hard time with the concept of Time’s Man of the Year too…

      I have to choose between Capitalism and Socialism? No, I don’t think we should have to. A National Socialism that’s not Marxist could help transcend the divide. An Individual can be relatively selfless for the good of his extended family, the nation – in a way people simply can’t for abstractions like the world or humanity.

      It’s outrageous that you believe or pretend to believe that people have to live like animals because that’s where the Market is bringing them. Fuck the Market. It’s just the Law of the Jungle. We created the Market and can rule it. Why let it rule us?

  40. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 7:13 am #

    Q, your incessant preoccupation with this Christie been-there-done that non-scandal is undermining your prediction and helping to ensure it will still be an issue when the temperatures soar this summer. You have provided ample and suitable evidence that most find it irrelevant except the Party hacks. If you believe that (I do), then don’t you think it’s time to drop it and move on to more enlightening topics/issues?

    Scott Walker, not Chris Krispy Kreme, for President in 2016. Walker is the one to rescind Obamacare and break the Government unions once and for all.

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  41. gryffyn January 14, 2014 at 7:49 am #

    Here is an interesting story about Central Park. Yesterday an old acquaintance told me about playing on his grandparents’ farm In New Jersey when he was a kid. The place was pockmarked with deep twenty foot wide craters. The holes were the result of fully grown trees being dug up and transported to the newly created park in NYC. Another form of extractive mining and transfer of wealth to the city.

  42. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 8:21 am #

    He took a dump right there in front of God and everybody.

    This is still a common occurrence in Bombay. Still, what did you want the guy to do? Shit in his pants? Curiously, what did he use to wipe? Your answer may be reason number one of many why not to shake hands with a bum.

  43. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 9:11 am #

    I thought Central Park was designed by Joe Peppitone.

    Close. It was designed by Moose Skowron Jr. A much-discussed legend was that while on his way to 1962 spring training in Florida, Pepitone spent his entire $25,000 ($202,278 today) signing bonus on Moose’s Central Park project.

  44. Sandero January 14, 2014 at 10:55 am #

    Jim,

    Some excellent observations about how the city has changed. There were other factors…. the huge influx of the wealthy from around the world to NYC to set up a pied a terre. They drove real estate prices, “development” and gentrification.

    Ironically at the same time the population is has shifted to what used to be called minorities, black, Hispanic, East and South Asian and Moslem. As youth I never ever saw Islamic dress for example. Now it’s common.

    I don’t know what DeBlasio will actually do, but he may try to find some means to stop the Bloombergian trend of catering exclusively to the well heeled. He seems to suggest he will try. Or will be turn out to be another Obama.. all hat and no cattle?

  45. Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 11:05 am #

    “Curiously, what did he use to wipe?” – the Blabster
    ============

    I have been wondering about that myself for the past 60 years. The light changed and I never got to see if there was any paperwork involved.

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  46. beantownbill. January 14, 2014 at 11:29 am #

    Oh, boy. I forget it is 2014, an election year. Now I have to spend the coming months listening to utterly useless political blather from professional bullshit artists and others. Seems to me Americans and Europeans spend most of their intellectual energy – however little they have – on non-sequitors like religion, God, and which politicians are effective and honest enough to get elected. Unfortunately, except for organized religion, the others on this short list do not exist. And, when or if TSHTF, people will have to invent a new religion to explain why God let them down to suffer, like Native-Americans did in the 1890’s.

    Couldn’t we just focus our thoughts like JHK on preparing for a period when resources become extremely scarce? I don’t buy into the idea that our technological civilization is dying, but I do believe there may well be very bad times between now and when new technologies come on-line in the near future.

  47. Crue January 14, 2014 at 11:37 am #

    Since its founding people have been predicting (in many cases, wishing for) the death of New York City. Ain’t gonna happen.

    James has it partly correct, the city can not continue for very long as playground/redoubt for the ultra wealthy, but neither will the city die.

    NYC rose to prominence in the first half of the of the 19th century after the Erie Canal was built which connected the Midwest to the Atlantic coast. NYC became the Atlantic home port for the Midwest, that’s why the state of New York is known as the “Empire State”.

    Today, as energy costs continue to rise, New York will remain vibrant for the same reason it rose to prominence in the era before petroleum: NYC is energy efficient. The high density style of living in NYC is much more energy efficient than the auto based suburbs. Everything from heating/cooling/lighting to transport is more efficient in NYC than in any other big city in the USA, to say nothing of the suburbs. Speaking of transport, NYC has a comprehensive mass transit system unmatched anywhere else in the USA. In the coming era of high energy costs, cities like New York are the future.

    As for New Jersey, James has it partly correct. NJ’s oldest suburbs, adjacent to New York City and Philadelphia, predate the automobile. These old suburbs were originally served by rail and trolley. The outer suburbs that have no rail service will die, the inner suburbs will experience a renaissance….according to the Census, it’s already happening.

    Speaking of trolley service, it’s back to the future, except it’s no longer called a trolley, now it’s “light rail”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%E2%80%93Bergen_Light_Rail BTW, the feds provided money for a new light rail system that would connect Paterson, NJ with NYC, restoring light rail service that was shut down back in 1938. Gov. Crisco killed off that project to provide tax cuts to people making over $400K a year. As for Gov Crisco, I’ll quote Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez, “I like big fat men like you. When they fall they make more noise. And sometimes they don’t get up.”

  48. robert693 January 14, 2014 at 11:41 am #

    Chicago is in a similiar situation. It has cleaned up a lot of neighborhoods that you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in a decade ago. The parks and boulevards have been cleaned up as well. You mentioned Peoria. Peoria has spread out into its hinterlands in a huge building boom lately. One reason has been the fact that Chicago ripped down many of its high rise housing projects and gave the residents rent vouchers for Downstate Illinois. This helped Chicago clean itself up but many of these residents moved to Peoria. The crime rate increased and many Peorians moved out to the far reaches of the city as well as across the river into towns like Washington (recently hit by a tornado).

  49. rube-i-con January 14, 2014 at 12:45 pm #

    parties are piles of shit that attract the worst flies you can imagine.

    OK Rube, if you say so. I guess that you would know about the parties which you have voted for.

    you obviously have not voted for any party

    peace peaceniks

  50. rube-i-con January 14, 2014 at 12:56 pm #

    Scott Walker, not Chris Krispy Kreme, for President in 2016. Walker is the one to rescind Obamacare and break the Government unions once and for all.

    yeah!!! get all ginned up about some candidate. scream as loud as you can for SCOTT WALKER FOR PRESIDENT!!! SCOTT WALKER FOR PRESIDENT!!! he’s going to DO SOMETHING!!!!!

    lol, my do i get a kick outta some of you. you never, ever learn.

    peace peaceniks

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  51. Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 1:32 pm #

    “I wrote a piece for Politico.com about Christie that they will publish sometime today.” – JHK……”today” was Jan 13
    ==============

    Jim, I can’t find that piece at Politico. If it’s there please post a link. I’m technically challenged and often can’t find stuff that’s right under my nose.

    • Neon Vincent January 14, 2014 at 2:21 pm #

      Found the link for you, Cue ball. The title is illuminating, but I expect no less from our host.

      “Chris Christie’s New Jersey Is Everything That’s Wrong With America”

      Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/chris-christie-new-jersey-suburban-sprawl-102101.html#ixzz2qOxUahNL

      The blurb on the Chris Christie page is even more revealing: “On what Bridgegate says about suburbia.”

      You can thank me later.

      • aka_ces January 14, 2014 at 10:06 pm #

        a lot of smugly-critical comments following the JHK piece at politico, of the form “it hasn’t happened yet, so it sure can’t happen later, so stop talking about it”

  52. ajmuste January 14, 2014 at 2:05 pm #

    “…the wealth-extraction process is now complete and that New York City has moved over the top of the arc of rebirth and is now headed down a steep, nauseating slope of breakdown and deterioration…” –JHK

    What is happening in New York City is really not that novel. Finance capital has been an inherent part of most forms of capitalism since its earliest origins. Finance is not exceptional to Western capitalism, but elemental; not aberrant, but pure.

    Heavy financialization is periodic and essential to global capital. Thus ours might not be an exceptional era. For example, the latter years of the British Great Depression (1873–1896) saw outbursts of frustration similar to JHK’s at finance and its proponents.

    In the past—in say Genoa or Amsterdam—following a wave of growth in commercial capitalism and the accumulation of capital on a scale beyond the normal channels for investment, finance capitalism was already in a position to take over and dominate, for a while at least, all the activities of the business world.

    Genoa and Amsterdam did not slide down a “steep, nauseating slope of breakdown and deterioration.” They survived “financialization,” and so will New York City.

    • aka_ces January 14, 2014 at 10:16 pm #

      Read the earlier CFN essays here, and the JHK essay at the politico link referenced earlier in the comments here, and you’ll see that the critique of financialization in this essay is coupled with a view of exhausting energy resources. The two together likely make for a NYC denouement way more terminal than in Genoa and Amsterdam.

  53. Neon Vincent January 14, 2014 at 2:07 pm #

    “[S]cores of other towns that had been gutted and retrofitted for suburban chain-store imperialism, or served up to the racketeers of ‘Eds and Meds’”–“suburban chain-store imperialism” and “racketters of ‘Eds and Meds'” are wonderfully quotable and descriptive phrases that sum up some of your favorite complaints about the current condition of the economy, including what you see as tragic misallocations of resources. I’m surprised I don’t see them in the pingbacks to this entry at the bottom. Actually, I’m surprised that I don’t see any pingbacks at all. Is that just my browser (IE) or are they really missing?

    Speaking of suburbia and the tragic misallocation of resources, it turns out that neither PBS nor I were done with poverty in suburbia. PBS’s viewers had lots to say about the subject and I found a lot of research describing how poverty and recessions are bad for people’s mental and physical health, causing damage for decades and generations. Recessions even make the literature of the next ten years more sad.

    http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/pbs-viewers-on-poverty-plus-poverty-and.html

  54. ajmuste January 14, 2014 at 2:13 pm #

    Q, why don’t you try this link:

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/chris-christie-new-jersey-suburban-sprawl-102101.html?ml=m_pm#.UtWJYHnAU7Y

    Yours truly,

    ~ ajmuste

    • Neon Vincent January 14, 2014 at 2:23 pm #

      Jinx!

      Just for good measure, here’s another link for Cue Ball. It should look familiar.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-bridge-too-fat.html

    • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 3:07 pm #

      “Q, why don’t you try this link:” – aj-Soak posing a question but without a question mark
      ===========

      Why?? Because I didn’t know that link existed.

      Preferable wording, IMHO, would have been “Q, here is a link to the article you’re looking for.”

      All kidding aside, thanks for the link, aj.

      The meat of the article is an excellent rehash of everything we CFNers already know about Jim’s pet themes. Christie and New Jersey are merely convenient current vehicles to advance his gospel to the great unwashed beyond CFN.

      My take-away: Christie is just another clueless boob/politician and because his constituents are clueless boobs as well Christie may go unscathed by BridgeGate.

  55. Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 2:14 pm #

    Seeeee!? ………… Like I tell my kids……….seeee what can happen!? For Crissake, put down those fucking phones and get a life.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/us/florida-man-is-shot-to-death-for-texting-during-movie-previews.html?_r=0

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    • ZrCrypDiK January 15, 2014 at 2:59 am #

      OMG, you not *BANNED*, after – (SEEEE, SEEEEEE). I know, I *know*.

  56. K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 2:51 pm #

    From: Chris Christie’s New Jersey Is Everything That’s Wrong With America by JHK

    “The vacuum of political leadership—in the sense of being able to galvanize the attention of the clueless voting public in order to take society where it doesn’t know it needs to go.”

    The idea that Chris Christie has any future with his staff shenanigans portrays the hopelessness of our situation. As Being There said yesterday: “Our leadership and it’s governed are too ignorant to carry the responsibility of being the world’s superpower.” The bill for years of extraordinary wishful thinking will soon be due with late fees and interest appended.

    Everything about American needs to be redone and rethought but we shall soon be too angry a country to express any unity in downscaling and localizing any activity. Anger does not listen to the wind and we are about to all be blown over. Only a tiny few has any clue as to what to do. The end of cheap oil will be the beginning of cheap death.

  57. K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 3:04 pm #

    Perhaps Being There‘s statement needs reformulation:

    Our leadership and it’s governed are too ignorant to continue as a society and survive.

    • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

      “Our leadership and it’s governed are too ignorant to continue as a society and survive.” – K-Dog
      ===========

      Both yours and BT’s version of ^this^ sentiment make the case for one of Janos’s perpetual themes: Democracy may not be the best way to appoint our leaders.

      • Being There January 16, 2014 at 4:22 pm #

        Whoa! Q
        (I happened to take some time off a project to view the thread)

        And what are you saying?
        You call this a democratic election process?
        You must be joking.

        This morning on Morning Joe, they were discussing the show pony elections and why candidates must start running over 2 years in advance and guess why that is.
        They need to go to the big money.

        In this Corporatocracy $=Free Speech which is why nobody but the rich get their agendas done. Armies of lobbyists push laws and rewrite laws to their own specifications.

        The congress pushes through the agendas after receiving gobs of money for their elections and get insider stock info when they have to push through laws that effect businesses. Then they give themselves raises before going into lobbying upon leaving office.

        Even when the little folks sign petitions against corporate agendas, in the long run the armies with unending $ get their way.

        Half of the people who would like to run, even if they can get enough signatures, can’t get on the TV for an interview and can’t partake in televised debates. In the NYC Mayoral elections alone, the Tax Wall street party candidate Randy Credico was virtually unknown to the public.

        The middle class is stuck competing with labor in third world countries and then have to compete with Big $ when it comes to getting lawmakers to recognize their issues.

        ok to clarify:
        When I say the US is ignorant I am referring to the sad state of information in what people who depended on the 4th estate to enable them to make good choices. Since the media is as consolidated as the banks there is corporate control of the message. There is censorship by not putting people like JHK on TV.

        (Got to get back to work. Just clarifying what I meant.)

        Vlad is an admitted fascist. That’s his choice–sure not mine.

  58. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:14 pm #

    It’s outrageous that you believe or pretend to believe that people have to live like animals because that’s where the Market is bringing them. Fuck the Market. It’s just the Law of the Jungle. We created the Market and can rule it. Why let it rule us?

    That’s because it’s not a market now, if it ever was. It’s a centralized, planned economy. What we have now is not a market, let alone a free market. It’s outrageous that you introduced Elysium without issuing a caveat. I had to call you on it and instead of you humbling yourself and saying “you’re right, my Lord, it’s everything you say it is and I should have included a disclaimer when I mentioned the movie,” you get all defensive and digress into hyperbole yet again.

  59. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:17 pm #

    Does anyone have a link to JHK’s article about Christie he said he was going to author for Politico? Thanks in advance.

    • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 3:31 pm #

      Obviously you don’t read all the comments. Scroll up to:

      ajmuste
      January 14, 2014 at 2:13 pm #

      • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:42 pm #

        Obviously you don’t either. Go back a page to yesterday evening. Karah provided you with the link and you totally disregarded her good will gesture. You were distracted by the nostalgia of that bum taking a shit on the sidewalk and trying to figure out the mystery of what he used to wipe. Keep your eye on the ball not the bum you cheeky monkey.

        http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-fate-of-a-city/comment-page-1/#comment-164373

  60. ajmuste January 14, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

    Lord Blaby, why don’t you try this link:

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/chris-christie-new-jersey-suburban-sprawl-102101.html?ml=m_pm#.UtWJYHnAU7Y

    Yours truly,

    ~ ajmuste

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    • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 3:28 pm #

      Question?

      Is it against government rules to use anchor tags like this:

      From: Chris Christie’s New Jersey Is Everything That’s Wrong With America by JHK

      “The vacuum of political leadership—in the sense of being able to galvanize the attention of the clueless voting public in order to take society where it doesn’t know it needs to go.”

      The idea that Chris Christie has any future with his staff shenanigans portrays the hopelessness of our situation. As Being There said yesterday: “Our leadership and it’s governed are too ignorant to carry the responsibility of being the world’s superpower.” The bill for years of extraordinary wishful thinking will soon be due with late fees and interest appended.

      Everything about American needs to be redone and rethought but we shall soon be too angry a country to express any unity in downscaling and localizing any activity. Anger does not listen to the wind and we are about to all be blown over. Only a tiny few has any clue as to what to do. The end of cheap oil will be the beginning of cheap death.

    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:35 pm #

      Thank you kindly. You would make a fine tenant to this liege lord. If you ever need to rent a parcel of land in which to grow some potatoes and tomatoes, or perhaps you may want to rent a power tool or some sandbags, I will be happy to temporarily share my estate for a reasonably negotiated monthly remittance.

  61. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:28 pm #

    Genoa and Amsterdam did not slide down a “steep, nauseating slope of breakdown and deterioration.” They survived “financialization,” and so will New York City.

    Okay, how about anthropogenic global warming/climate change instead of “financialisation?” According to that other blowhard fat bastard, Al Gore, NYC will be under a hundred feet of sea water in twenty years. I can’t wait for your assurances to the contrary. I’d like to see you further my point that AGW/ACC is a scam.

    • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 3:31 pm #

      According to that other blowhard fat bastard, Al Gore, NYC will be under a hundred feet of sea water in twenty years.

      I don’t believe he ever said that. Care to provide proof?

      • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:37 pm #

        How about a woof instead of proof? He may not have said it explicitly, but he sure as hell implied it so what’s the difference?

      • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 3:40 pm #

        I don’t believe he ever said that. Care to provide proof? – Dog
        ===========

        I don’t think he meant it literally. It was hyperbole.

        • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 3:43 pm #

          I think what Gore said was “NYC will be under a foot of water in 200 years.” ;o)

          • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:47 pm #

            Either way, he’s still a blowhard fat bastard who talks down to people like a smug jackass.

          • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 3:48 pm #

            The difference between reality and fantasy. <sarcasm>No big deal in America.</sarcasm> Perhaps I should not be so sensitive about what he pulls out of his ass. Which is plenty.

          • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:52 pm #

            I agree with you for the second time, K-Daub. Gore does pull an awful lot out of his fat bastard ass. I know that was tough for you to concede being an Indian and all.

          • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 3:59 pm #

            I was referring to you.

          • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 4:03 pm #

            Indian giver.

          • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 4:07 pm #

            Bluecoat.

  62. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 3:50 pm #

    Q, have you read the comments to JHK’s article over at Politico? TexLiberty sounds awfully familiar. I wonder if Tex is from the Houston area?

    • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 4:13 pm #

      Since you know him ask him what he intends to do when the shale oil runs out as he admits it will. He’s going to get his 26 miles a gallon then how?

    • Neon Vincent January 14, 2014 at 4:18 pm #

      I’m not Q, but I’ve been reading them. I was paying more attention to TonyWestover than TexLiberty, whose comment about biodiesel and improved mileage I found interesting. Westover annoyed me for the first response he left, a snide comment about how cars are not subsidized and how, if one wants to see subsidies, how about all the “trains no one rides.” I decided to let him have it.

      “You’re against passenger trains? What would Dagny Taggart say?

      More seriously, as for “passenger trains that nobody rides,” maybe no one you know or want to know, but Amtrak has set ridership records for ten years out of the past eleven. with passengers increasing from 21 million to 32 million (rounded) since 2000. There insults you can make about passenger rail, but I suggest you drop that one out of your repertoire.

      http://www.dot.gov/fastlane/amtrak-ridership-breaks-10th-record-11-years

      As for cars=subsidies, think of all the government-funded highway, bridge, and road construction. Also think of the tax deductions for travel from one work location to another. Finally, how much of our policing goes to keeping roads safe and how much of our military budget goes to defending the oil supply? Cars may not be directly subsidized, but all the infrastructure that allows them to be useful sure is.”

      There’s also a lot of knee-jerk dismissal of JHK as a leftist. I wonder how the people doing that would react if they knew how many of JHK’s fans lean right?

      • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 4:48 pm #

        Yes the comments on politico appear to be not where the intelligent sentient beings we seek reside. The label ‘leftist’ is a label nothing more. It means nothing and is but an epithet with which to express hatred for someone more well read than he who throws the epithet.

        To point out that the following is an example of ‘leftist’ propaganda should turn ears red instead of making neck veins bulge as to many it surely must.

        We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

        Another example of leftist propaganda would be:

        We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.

        It is a Bizarro world we live in and now one where now charged to defend leftist ideals now curse them and seek there destruction.

        • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 4:48 pm #

          their destruction.

        • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 4:51 pm #

          That sentence is still FUBAR this is what I want:

          It is a Bizarro world we live in and one where now those charged to defend leftist ideals now curse them and seek their destruction.

  63. Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 4:10 pm #

    “Obviously you don’t either.” – Blab
    ==========

    Don’t know how I missed it.

    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 14, 2014 at 4:13 pm #

      It’s this cumbersome threaded reply feature. I miss a few here and there because of it. All we can do is persevere.

  64. BackRowHeckler January 14, 2014 at 5:28 pm #

    JHK seems to be saying … when NYC turns back into the bankrupt craphole it was in 1977, it won’t entirely be Bill DeBlasio’s fault. At one time New York was a world class manufacturing center, but not any longer. If the mayor drives out Wall Street what will be left? How will he pay for the massive wealth redistribution programs he has planned? About 23% of the city is still white; before DeBlasio is thru you can expect that number to go down. Only the real hard core Libs, the True Believer, will hang around.

    My advice, for what its worth, get out while you still can! Go now!.

    –BRH

  65. gellen with yellen January 14, 2014 at 5:51 pm #

    BRH said: “My advice, for what its worth, get out while you still can! go now!.”

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

    that advice applies even more so to the jews. de blasio was a traitorous aider and abettor of the sandinistas and if you remember correctly the sandinistas were rabidly anti-semitc; so much so, they chased the jews out of nicaragua and burned down their temple. also, the commie pinko de blasio is the muslim’s choice. a perfect storm is brewing for a contemporary pogrom in nyc led by de blasio.

    http://nypost.com/2013/10/03/no-way-de-blasio-missed-sandinistas-anti-semitism/

    From the article:

    In 1985, President Ronald Reagan told legislators from Western Hemisphere nations that a “new danger” existed in Central America, due to the support given the Sandinistas by Libya, the PLO and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran.

    Indeed, in 1988, the very year young Bill de Blasio traveled to Nicaragua, he could have read a major Rand Institute report, which noted the “support, training and arms furnished to the Sandinistas by the Palestine Liberation Organization.”

    So when de Blasio went to the country, the evidence about Sandinista anti-Semitism was easy to find. This might be excused as a young man’s folly, were it not for Bill de Blasio’s continuing pride in the support he gave to Marxist Nicaragua decades ago.

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  66. jpond January 14, 2014 at 6:15 pm #

    Jim
    Another aspect of the 85 million dollars of subsidy the Fed is deferring to the far future each month is that it is supporting the increased cost of “new oil” and other basics the economy requires to operate. Jim, you wonder why we don’t get hit by the increases right now, just dial in more QE to make up the difference. What a deal, turn up the QE tap, buy more pick up trucks, try to cripple more alternatives, and if we show more downturn, turn it up again. Watch out for more effects of the increasing commodity prices when the Fed tapers down its subsidy.

    • K-Dog January 14, 2014 at 11:20 pm #

      The function I suspect will be exponential in nature. This time next year the 85 billion will need to be double to 170 billion to achieve the same result. Eventually no amount of printing will be able to keep up and the price of bread will climb to ten dollars a loaf without any taper at all. Obama probably figures he will be on the Supreme Court by then so for now it’s who cares lets all go to the fair. Cotton candy now diabetes later.

  67. ajmuste January 14, 2014 at 6:26 pm #

    gellen, your attempt to label diblasio as against Jews is weak and your focus on what he did 30 years ago is weak. Look at what he has done recently (2012):

    “Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio is defending your right to buy seltzer, matzo and kosher goodies imported from Israel at the Park Slope Food Co-op. Late last month, members of the food co-op finally decided to schedule a vote on whether to vote to ban Israeli-made food products. And DeBlasio is piling on to make sure Park Slope doesn’t forsake Israel.”

    “The inflammatory proposal to boycott products from the State of Israel is wrongheaded and an affront to American values and interests,” DeBlasio declared yesterday, according to the New York Daily News”

    Antisemitic defender of Israel? Does not compute.

    If DiBlasio was communist and antisemitic he would not be defending capitalist sales of Israeli-made food products.

    What else you got?

    DiBlasio is the mayor of NYC, which as BRH pointed out, is an excellent place to go to learn about non-white cultures, through the 77% of residents who culturally enrich NYC.

  68. jpond January 14, 2014 at 7:14 pm #

    85 billion per month

    • Q. Shtik January 14, 2014 at 10:06 pm #

      “85 billion per month” – jpond correcting himself
      ===========

      I was just cracking my knuckles getting ready to type that.

  69. Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 12:05 am #

    Last year I started watching the show “Girls”….. written, directed and starring young phenom, Lena Dunham. It was all the rage. I felt I had to acquire at least a passing familiarity with pop culture or be written off by my kids and society in general as the out-of-touch fogey that I was probably becoming.

    Once somewhat hooked, I had to set aside the Sunday time-slot to view it or at least catch up on it later in the week. For the same reason I had to start watching Downton Abbey and both are on in Sunday primetime.

    Last night (Monday) I played catch-up by viewing the first two half hour episodes of Girls. The most amazing gift possessed by this Dunham chick is to be supremely confidant showing her awful naked body (does this girl NOT own a mirror?) in explicit sex scenes. She also has some god-awful (real, not fake) tattoos on her back and side that would make any normal person ask the question, “Whatever possessed her?” If such self-confidence could be bottled and sold as an elixir the world would be utterly changed overnight.

    As I mulled over what I had just watched I suddenly reached a conclusion. “That’s it. Clever as some of the dialog is, I am not watching anymore.” My Sunday evening is now free for Downton, football or whatever. If “Girls” in ANY way reflects what is happening in the lives of young women in the big city, I just don’t want to know about it.

  70. ajmuste January 15, 2014 at 1:59 am #

    jpond, you give the impression that the Fed is printing money (QE). The money that the Fed creates is all done electronically in the form of bookkeeping entries that expand the deposit accounts that banks hold at the Fed. It’s all smoke and mirrors. It is not real money. It cannot hurt you. Interest rates have not gone up. The economy is stable. The link between money and inflation is weaker than people think.

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    • ZrCrypDiK January 15, 2014 at 3:07 am #

      OMFG – *SOCK*!!!

    • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 4:08 am #

      Is stupidity part of your act or does it come naturally?

    • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 4:18 am #

      Not real money. Ha! Give me about twenty mil of that not real money in my bank account and see if you ever see me around these parts again. Just drop in a 2 with eight zero’s behind it. Should be easy enough to do. It is, as you say just a bookkeeping entry.

      True story. I actually had a bank account that had $600K dumped into it by accident once. I left it there knowing that the mistake would eventually be corrected. It was spotted after a couple of weeks. And did anyone ever thank me for being a good dog?

      Not even a pat on the head.

  71. BackRowHeckler January 15, 2014 at 6:55 am #

    Q, not familiar with the program ‘Girls’, but those tattoos you refer to … they wouldn’t be the infamous ‘tramp stamps’ we once mulled over on this site several years ago. You know, tatts on the small of the back select young ladies are prone to decorate themselves with …

    Got a helluva ice storm going here, schools closed, cars wrecked on the side of the road etc. Plus, in the past several nights, man shot in the head in Bridgeport and several ‘youths’ shot at a high school basketball game in New Haven (where just last week the new mayor, a black woman, declared it to be a ‘new day’).

    My God, what a civilization!

  72. Dražen Divac January 15, 2014 at 9:11 am #

    “Scott Walker, not Chris Krispy Kreme, for President in 2016. Walker is the one to rescind Obamacare and break the Government unions once and for all.” – Lord Blaby of Lawson

    *************************

    I think you’re on to something Lord Blaby. Your friend, and mine as well, Ron Radosh agrees. He touts Walker in this Nov. 2013 publication.

    Will Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin Enter the GOP Presidential Sweepstakes? Why I think He makes a Viable Candidate.

    Here’s a taste. I like this Radosh guy. He used to be a Liberal until he saw the light and he loves to stick it to the Zionist-loving, Jew-hating de Blasio every chance he gets.

    Those who have looked no further than Christie many years before an actual candidate will be chosen should take a deep breath and reconsider. They should, especially, take a good close look at Governor Walker. Listening to him and talking to him briefly after his speech, I was struck how down to earth he is. Scott Walker is the opposite of a striving, somewhat phony politician. He comes off as a regular guy, a man of principle who believes in the concept of public service, a man who is serious, thoughtful, and anything but the caricature of a sleazy politician in it for power. Moreover, he is solidly middle-class. No one can brand him the way that Mitt Romney was — as a candidate of the super-rich who disdains and scorns the 47 percent.

  73. eieio January 15, 2014 at 11:01 am #

    i’m pleased there are others who feel positive about a walker presidential run. I think the following expresses it concisely. go Scott Walker!

    http://clockworkconservative.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/scott-walker-wins-america-wins.jpg

  74. ajmuste January 15, 2014 at 11:39 am #

    Scott Walker Still Using Crony Payola Scheme

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/14/1247178/-Scott-Walker-Still-Using-Crony-Payola-Scheme-to-to-Reward-Loyalists

    • Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 11:51 am #

      “Scott Walker Still Using Crony Payola Scheme” – aj-Soak
      ================

      DailyKos headline:

      Scott Walker Still Using Crony Payola Scheme to to Reward Loyalists

      How credible can a source be that can’t even write a HEADLINE without an error.

  75. Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 11:39 am #

    “Q, not familiar with the program ‘Girls’, but those tattoos you refer to … they wouldn’t be the infamous ‘tramp stamps’ we once mulled over” – BRH
    ===============

    No, not tramp stamps. Check this out:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=lena+dunham+tattoos&hl=en&qscrl=1&rlz=1T4TSNJ_enUS456US456&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=f7XWUpueCu_ksAT72YDIBQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=894&bih=453

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  76. daytrip January 15, 2014 at 12:04 pm #

    I was walking through the mall the other day and overheard a young woman at one kiosk telling another woman at the next kiosk down how she’s getting her 4th tattoo. When I came back through, she was telling her how someone called her a slut, etc.. She was speaking loudly, as the kiosks were about 20 feet apart. As I turned the corner toward my car, a young woman with skintight leopard skin tights and high, high heels was walking out of a store with what appeared to be her mom. Demure is out. And I’ve turned into my father.

  77. BackRowHeckler January 15, 2014 at 12:09 pm #

    Well, I checked it out, Q. Thems some classy broads, real ladiep in that lineuo. Like JHK says, every dude a Gangsta, every girl a Ho.

    –BRH

  78. BackRowHeckler January 15, 2014 at 12:10 pm #

    xcuse the misspellings. O and P f’d up.

  79. ajmuste January 15, 2014 at 12:25 pm #

    CHRISTIE’S FAVORABLE RATING

    2013 … 70 %

    2014 … 44 %

    That is from a Monmouth poll this week in New Jersey.

    If Christie cannot get even half of New Jersey residents to see him in a favorable light, I wonder what it would be in places like California or Virginia.

    In the same poll of New Jersey residents fewer than half of state residents said Christie has the right temperament to be president.

    And they ought to know.

    Maybe they didn’t like being stuck in traffic for hours while having to take a leak.

    • beantownbill. January 15, 2014 at 12:37 pm #

      Lol. Been there, done that. When I went to Foxwoods the time it took me over 4.5 hours for a 90 mile highway drive! Both my wife and I squirmed. We had to make a couple of emergency stops. I tell you, it’s no fun getting old. I know every restroom stop along route 95 from Boston to the Connecticut state line.

  80. beantownbill. January 15, 2014 at 12:31 pm #

    @Q:

    Gee, thanks for that link. Not that I ever watched the program, but I definitely do not want to see this woman naked!

    Regarding tats, I understand that most people who too-ize themselves do so because it’s the “in-thing”, or because of peer pressure, but behind all that, what is the psychological mechanism that made tattoos so popular? When we were young, it seemed that only sailors had them, mostly on their forearms. Or a few marines.

    Maybe I am an old geezer, too, but to me they mostly look like a defacement of the body, not in any way attractive. Primitive tribes tattooed themselves. Maybe it’s a desire to embrace tribalism, or a wishful return to more simple times.

    Speaking of tribes, the Jewish religion forbids tattoos. Not many Jews have them. It is a violation of the commandment not to worship false idols or gods. Since the Ten Commandments are part of Christianity, all those Christians with tattoos are sinners.

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    • Janos Skorenzy January 15, 2014 at 2:54 pm #

      Jews are an ethnic group now for the most part. You yourself are an agnostic or an atheist. So lots of young Jews have tattoos.

      Which of the Ten Commandments cover tattoos btw? In reality, real Jewish believers forbid the Ten Commandments to Christians. We aren’t good enough for them according to the Jews….

      • Janos Skorenzy January 15, 2014 at 3:01 pm #

        Never mind. You said the first. Interesting, I get it. I wonder if any Christians have made this connection. Probably.

        Dunham, a Jew, represents the extreme De-Sacralization of sexuality under secular Judaism which has been foisted on America under Hollywood. She has a terrible body yet she bares all. Weird. We all are invited to partake. No thank you.

  81. CFI January 15, 2014 at 12:50 pm #

    daytrip, thanks for that visual description. Rape is a heinous act, but women/females need to take some responsibility in the matter. Knowing some males are of the raping variety, is it wise to dangle it in front of them just as it’s unwise to dangle raw meat in front of an alligator or crocodile? It’s perniciously stupid. These young women need to get smart and learn some self-respect.

    As for the show Girls, it’s gotten better since they’ve introduced an all new girl….

    Blerta from Albania.

  82. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 15, 2014 at 1:15 pm #

    Maybe they didn’t like being stuck in traffic for hours while having to take a leak.

    Or worse, what about taking a dump? Traffic jam for too long and people will start going hobo and crapping all over the highway in plain site. Imagine the trauma such mass dumping would inflict on the children staring out the windows on the field trip buses. In the least, for just such occasions, the State should provide toilet tissue dispensers every half mile or so, especially if they’re going to lock down traffic venally for retributive shits and giggles.

  83. BackRowHeckler January 15, 2014 at 2:03 pm #

    Bill, a Jewish guy I worked with, a Vietnam Vet, US Marines, had a tattoo on his forearm. It said “Marines” with a picture of a bulldog.

    I think God will forgive him.

    BRH

  84. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 15, 2014 at 2:10 pm #

    Yeah, I’m sure the police are destroying it. As if. It’s not very different from Kenya or Nigeria where the police will pull you over and you have to pay some form of tribute for amnesty…on the spot. In this case the tribute is weed. What a racket. Per the article linked to below, “it (marijuana) is completely banned in all areas of the airport due to federal aviation regulations which make it illegal to operate a civil aircraft with the knowledge that marijuana is on board.” Since when is cannabis a box cutter? In fact, an argument could be made that piping it through the air ventilation system would neutralize potential terrorists. Instead of hijacking the plane and terrorizing the passengers, the would-be terrorists would be negotiating peace treaties and requesting the stewardesses to crank up the Floyd while scarfing copious quantities of peanuts (after half an hour trying to get the stubborn and uncooperative packages open) like a hungry dog vacuuming up its kibble after not being fed for several days.

    You can’t toke it with you: Colorado airport installs ‘amnesty boxes’ for passengers who bring marijuana to the airport.

  85. K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 4:13 pm #

    Misogyny, defecation in the street, ink on skin, and airport drop boxes to put shit in. The stench of paid sock puppetry.

    Do you think a discerning mind just might notice that serious adults would not behave this way and begin to wonder how widespread this stain on democracy spreads.

    And all because this blog has been labelled and ‘end of the world blog‘. It makes one wonder what other categories there are.

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    • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 4:19 pm #

      an ‘end of the world blog

      And note that there has been no new comment but mine for 2 hours and three minutes but if the normal pattern repeats there will soon be several others from the demons of the satanic mass.

      • Neon Vincent January 16, 2014 at 1:41 am #

        “An end of the world blog” You prompted me to see if the people over at Rapture Ready are paranoid about being spied upon and trolled by disinformation agents. The answer seems to be no, as they’re attitude is “forget the NSA; God’s watching.”

    • beantownbill. January 15, 2014 at 11:34 pm #

      C’mon, K-Dog, lighten up. This blog isn’t all about peak oil, it’s about social commentary, too. An occasional trip into trivial subject matter can refresh our minds and keep us from getting obsessed about “we are so fucked”.

  86. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 15, 2014 at 4:23 pm #

    And all because this blog has been labelled

    I see K-Daub’s been getting the most out of his Rosetta Stone. Good doggy.

    • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 5:33 pm #

      Labelled vs. labeled. both are correct.

      Does your obsession with the differences between British and American Spelling result from employment by GCHQ or are your out of Fort Mead.

      • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 5:36 pm #

        Ahhhhhhhh

        are you out of Fort Mead.

        Sorry sometimes it is my big paws.

      • Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 7:00 pm #

        “Labelled vs. labeled. both are correct.” – Dog
        ===========

        Some time ago I found this very useful link…

        http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=labeled&submit=Submit

        …and saved it to my ‘favorites’ list. You can check the pronunciation of just about any word. The voice you hear has a British accent but for various words they provide both Brit and American versions.

        They DO show both spellings of ‘labeled’ and of course they are pronounced the same……..note, being an American (U.S.), I always default to American English spellings which generally eliminate unnecessary letters as in labor vs labour. I note that this comment section’s spell check puts a squiggly line under labour and labelled so it must prefer American English spellings as well.

        Dog, I bring up all these sorts of things such as grammar and spelling errors, people unabashedly shitting on the sidewalk, etc., not to destroy the comments section as you suppose, but rather since I regard them as tying in nicely with the whole idea of civilization (civilisation?) collapse. Who here at CFN has done more to maintain standards of written communication than myself?

        BTW, I don’t recall your taking Tripp to task a few years ago when he told the anecdote of the black woman lifting her dress in broad daylight and taking a shit on the sidewalk in that Georgia ghetto he was living in for awhile.

        • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 9:36 pm #

          but rather since I regard them as tying in nicely with the whole idea of civilization (civilisation?) collapse.

          This may come as a big shock to you and your staff but JHK is really not all about worshipping collapse, nor am I. What we both see is a train wreck coming our way and what we would really like to see is a serious effort to apply the brake.

          Our nation is dependent on cheap fossil fuels and nothing is being done to deal with the simple fact that these finite resources are in terminal decline. If you want to “tie in nicely” with the idea of collapse we are working towards totally different ends. JHK and I want to avoid collapse if possible. We are about suggesting that America make new living arrangements and deal with reality. We are not about tying in nicely with collapse and celebrating it. That is something only a demented fool would do.

          And as far as maintaining standards of written communication goes I don’t recall that you were assigned or elected to that post or even that such activity is here desired. I maintain my opinion that you are all about power and control and keeping intelligent discussion away from CFN. That is your mission but I don’t have to accept it and you are nobody to tell me who or what I should ‘take to task’. I am a free agent, unlike the other agents here.

          • Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 11:15 pm #

            “Tying in nicely” means that despite what you think I am staying on topic.

            I think you are trying mightily to perpetrate an argument.

  87. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 15, 2014 at 5:48 pm #

    Why are Indians so serious? K-Daub, you need some balance in your life. As you anxiously await the endlessly falling sky to descend upon your hackles as you provide minute by minute updates on the progress of Collapse like Howard Cosell announcing Monday Night Football, perhaps a challenging distraction would be in order and just the ticket. Why don’t you retrieve, like a good dog, Geronimo’s skull. I’ll give you a hint to start your hunt: New Haven.

    • K-Dog January 15, 2014 at 6:04 pm #

      The only reason there are ‘minute to minute’ updates is because I’m responding to personal emails right now and unless a new one has come in after I submit this, you and your fellow denizens of distraction will be all by yourself for a few hours. You will be free to disparage women, talk about tats and pursue whatever other inane topics you wish to dilute Kustlers’s ‘end of the world blog‘ with. Nazis, Jews, which is your normal staple; or whatever fantastical irrelevancies your military minds come up with. Have at it, I’ll be offline for a while.

  88. Pucker January 15, 2014 at 6:10 pm #

    It sounds like you CFN blokes have given up entirely on politics, political parties, and politicians? I guess that you may be right in a sense. While there might be a few good people out there that could set things right, if people are self-centered and corrupt generally, then any attempt to build a mass, democratic political party would probably implode rather quickly as people within the political party jockeyed for power and material benefits?

    I guess that we’re right back in Goshan like the Hebrew slaves praying for a Deliverer? And I don’t mean the Dominoes Pizza Delivery Bloke…

  89. Pucker January 15, 2014 at 6:21 pm #

    Now that’d be a korny TV commercial:

    TV scene opens with Hebrew slaves in Goshan praying for “The Deliverer”. Joshua, the Stone Cutter, says with conviction: “The Deliverer will come!” Suddenly there’s a knock on the door and it’s the Dominoes Pizza Delivery Dude accompanied by a dumb blond with really big tits holding the piping hot pizza under her knockers.

    • Q. Shtik January 15, 2014 at 7:07 pm #

      I love it! You should run that by the Dominoes marketing people.

  90. beantownbill. January 15, 2014 at 11:05 pm #

    @Janos:

    Where does it say in the Jewish religion that Christians aren’t allowed the Ten Commandments?

    As far as why tattooing is disobeying the 1st commandment: The commandment says thou shall not have any other gods before me. I think a tattoo is considered an idol, or at least a representation of one, and worshipping an idol really pisses God off.

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    • Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 2:38 am #

      We are supposed to follow the seven “Noahide” Laws – the Commandments given to Noah. Only the people descended from the people camped at the foot of Mt Sinai have the right to what Moses received. At that includes the Torah and Talmud as well I believe.

  91. beantownbill. January 15, 2014 at 11:15 pm #

    @ BRH:

    I agree that God most likely would look the other way. Although, technically, God could interpret the tat as worshipping the god known as the US Marine Corp before worshipping God himself.

  92. ajmuste January 16, 2014 at 1:31 am #

    BTB, most people put the Marine Corps above God.

    In spite of what our coins say when we wanted to whup ass in Fallujah, we did not trust in God. We trusted in the Marine Corps.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-committed-war-crimes-in-fallujah/8340

    The USA should have called upon God. The Marines committed war crimes in Fallujah. And in vain. Al Qaeda is back in control in spite of the billions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted.

    • BackRowHeckler January 16, 2014 at 4:09 am #

      What war crimes, Asoka? You mean winning the battle? If the enemy had won I suspect there wouldn’t be any mention of war crimes.

      @ Fallujah@ In 1918 US Marines of the 2nd Div. AEF pushed the mighty German Army out of the Argonne Forest in their drive thru NW France. But by 1940 the Krauts were back, and it had to be done all over again in 1944. What, you think fighting in the Middle East, NAfrica and Central Asia has ended? Just because President Foodstamps, the Messiah, has said so? Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ahaa haaaaa … No, they’ve only just begun! These are religious wars, resource wars, Sam Huntingtons clash of civilizations. They’ll come to an end when there is one side left standing. And when they really heat up this time nobody is going to give a sh-t what Code Pink, Noam Chomsky or Cindy Sheehan clones have to say. It will be a fight to the death with a brutal, implacable enemy, like it was against the Nazis and Imperial Japan.

      I have to give Hartford credit. It took ’til last night, 15 days into the new year, to register its first murder. That’s a long time in. It was a street robbery in a housing project, a guy shot in the head. Think what shot in the head means, at close range. In the ghetto, amongst people who dwell there, life doesn’t seem to have much value.

      –BRH

    • Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 2:31 pm #

      Allah says, Did I not create Men and Jinn but to worship Me?

  93. Nadia January 16, 2014 at 8:06 am #

    The fascist feminists, the femisogynists, have ruined the U.S. and are the tool with which the White race is being genocided. To destroy a valuable culture purposely is to genocide a people. There are many ways this tool of femisogyny’s been used to genocide a beautiful culture. One such way is by destroying chivalry. The show Girls is a prime example of femisogyny in action. It saddens me and makes my heart weep.

    One of the easiest ways a man can show respect towards a woman is through chivalrous actions. Opening a door, pulling out a chair, giving up a seat for a lady… actions like these all show deference and respect for a woman. Being willing to protect a woman and put yourself at risk for her shows her value and worth. But for some reason, chivalry has come under attack. Men don’t practice chivalry anymore, to the disappointment of women everywhere.

    Why not? Well, according to a poll taken of college men, it’s because of radical feminism. Chivalry has been dubbed sexist. There’s an attitude from women that they don’t need a man. Women act as if chivalrous actions are somehow disrespectful. So why should men continue to be chivalrous? Many, many women are completely unappreciative when men treat them like a lady. And, according to the femisogynists, things like holding doors open for women are totally sexist. Fascist feminists see chivalry as dated, sexist, and demeaning. It doesn’t matter that most women yearn for it deep down. They miss romance, they miss dating, and they miss being treated with respect and honor. How many times do women cry on the phone to their friends that they can’t find a man who treats them well? Killing chivalry has a lot to do with that. Women have been manipulated and conditioned to see chivalry as something antiquated and disrespectful, so they spurn it when they see it. They still crave it though. They’re wanting something better.

    Chivalry gives a woman power, the very thing that femisogynists claim to be after. If a man is going out of his way to be chivalrous towards a woman, it’s because he respects her, it’s because he sees value in her, and it’s because he wants to show that he is worthy of her. Chivalry is actually empowering to women, it elevates them, but it’s missing in our relationships today because fascist feminists destroyed it. It says a lot more about the worldview of the radical feminists than it does about the merits of chivalry.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 2:23 pm #

      Chivalry per se elevates women and downgrades men to mere servants. What quality women wants a man who is beneath her? They want to go up!

      Let me clear it up: Traditional chivalry takes place in a Patriarchal culture. Unless men are above women in status, chivalrous acts are merely those of a subordinate – which is how most women respond these days. But in Patriarchy, those same acts are those of a superior, cultured, caring man. Context is everything in this case.

      In Patriarchy, Men are responsible for Women and Women are responsible to Men. If you get rid of the “to” then sensible men drop the “for”. Why wouldn’t we?

      Feminism isn’t about Women per se, but only about a certain cult of Women. They don’t care about Women outside the cult – like the victims of Bill Clinton or the victims of Muslim rapists. Clinton and Muslims are allies after all. Feminism is political to the core. And as Marxists, only victory matters – not people, unless they are Party Members that is.

  94. ted talks January 16, 2014 at 8:47 am #

    wow, nadia, that was refreshingly brilliant. will you marry me?

  95. Nadia January 16, 2014 at 9:37 am #

    Thanks Ted. No you can’t marry me. I’m already betrothed. But I understand your motivation for asking and take it as a compliment unlike the femisogynists who would consider it threatening and insulting.

    The hand that rocks the ladle is the hand that rules the world. Fascist feminists have undermined the power and value of women. I’ve taken back that value and power in my personal life but I need other women to do the same so we can change the momentum. Gloria Steinem, as far as I’m concerned, can go fuck herself…although she probably already does.

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  96. progress4what January 16, 2014 at 12:08 pm #

    “The brutes who worked in the meatpacking district had never seen a supermodel. Brooklyn was as remote and benighted as Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania.” ….jhk….

    Nice look at changes in the Big City, James. Of course, every city of medium size or up had its meatpacking “brutes,” at one time.

    Those brutes have now been outsourced to the mid-west, where hogs and cattle are completely disassembled by non-city hands, before being moved to the mouths of the city dwellers.

    Just another example of how impossible it will be to run New York without just-in-time delivery systems and vast pools of diesel fuel.

    Another thing about the City is how well it gives expression to the desires of people to live near those who are like them – and to be separated from those who are unlike them.

    http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/21/interactive-map-color-codes-race-of-every-single-american/

    “The data presented on the map is so specific and detailed that zooming in on neighborhoods in highly segregated cities like New York can reveal stark, street-by-street racial divides.”

    Yeah, “multi-culturalism,” is another one of those things that will only work so long as the power stays on and the Halal, Kosher, or GMO food trucks keep running.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 2:27 pm #

      And as I taught Tripp, multi-culturalism is also a function of energy. As we return to localism, racism will again become accepted as natural and a part of life.

      Only people who learned the facts of life from porno mags and not from farm animals could possibly believe in Negor equality.

    • BackRowHeckler January 16, 2014 at 2:46 pm #

      Hey P2c, don’t forget shipments of beans and rice. There are maybe 1 million Dominicans in NYC, and nearly as many Chinese. There are just not enough resources in Asia to provide for 1.4 billion Chinamen; many will be arriving here sooner rather than later. They’ll be living off the fat o’ the land in the USA, where the streets are paved with gold.

      Oh, that reminds me, those millions of Syrian refugees featured on PBS and BBC each night, they’re coming too, thanks to a special program administered by the State Department, same people who brought tens of thousands of Somali tribesman into Maine and Minnesota.

      That last sentence of yours was a good one. I’d like to see it posted in my nephews school, where, other than Islam, multiculturalism is the only religion still permitted and discussed.

      –BRH

  97. BackRowHeckler January 16, 2014 at 2:52 pm #

    These are the same somali tribesman who save up their generous Minneapolis welfare checks and fly back to NAfrica or the Middle East for terrorist training or to participate in this or that jihad.

    –BRH

  98. Dave January 16, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

    “Only people who learned the facts of life from porno mags and not from farm animals could possibly believe in Negor equality.” ~ Janlos
    __________________

    Are you promoting bestiality as somehow superior to looking at porn mags with this comment? If so, that’s sick. Farm animals already serve dual purposes; we don’t need to add lovemaking with their human masters to that burdensome list.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 3:52 pm #

      Good point, Dave. I concur and would add no marriage between beast and man. If lovemaking is prohibited and/or “wrong” so should marriage. Ditto between man and man. God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve much less Adam and Fido.

  99. gellen with yellen January 16, 2014 at 3:32 pm #

    BRH said: “These are the same somali tribesman who save up their generous Minneapolis welfare checks and fly back to NAfrica or the Middle East for terrorist training or to participate in this or that jihad.”

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

    this is a real concern and it’s why immigration to the u.s. in all its myriad forms needs to cease immediately. if it doesn’t then the ptb will pit all of these various subcultures against one another and the criminals from each subculture will win the day. the u.s. is being destroyed from within with these noxious and odious policies. when will we stand up and put a stop to it?

    Bill Clinton’s legacy: Somali crime wave here at home.

    In July 2012, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on the threat which Somali refugees now pose to not only Minnesota, but to the entire nation.

    “I have been asked to testify today about the specific emergence of Somali gang related issues we are having in my county. Minnesota’s Somali population has been estimated in the range of 80,000 to 125,000 and a majority of them live in Hennepin County. Whereas the African population represented 4% in the United States in 2008, in Minnesota, Africans represent 18% of our population because Minnesota is a designated U.S. Refugee Resettlement Area”

  100. Janos Skorenzy January 16, 2014 at 4:22 pm #

    The Captain was the finest Christian Gentleman since Robert E Lee. Would he have kneeled to ask a woman for her hand in marriage – like a slave?

    http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/01/the-far-right-in-the-balkans-roots-and-perspectives/#more-43753

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  101. Jeff Christy January 16, 2014 at 4:31 pm #

    @Nadia – You make some valid points but I have to say, no one hijacked feminism. It is what it is. Destructive. Stop trying to redefine it to make it sound like a positive movement.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

      And the photo linked to yr name is???

  102. CFI January 16, 2014 at 5:50 pm #

    Would he have kneeled to ask a woman for her hand in marriage – like a slave? – Janis

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    It’s debatable. While he was a man of great dignity and honor who lived a life of honest conviction, he has the lineage of a slave. He was of Slavic origin, like it or not. Slave was in his blood. Does that mean he would have gotten on his knee to ask a woman for her hand in marriage? Not necessarily. In fact, I don’t think there’s solid evidence that Slavic people treated women all that well or certainly not any better than any other culture of the day. Here’s a flattering photo of him in his prime. He was a handsome man who struck a dashing and formidable pose. His eyes reveal an intense passion, purpose and vision.

    http://theendofzion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/capitanul-corneliu-zelea-codreanu.jpg

    • Jeff Christy January 16, 2014 at 6:19 pm #

      What’s the bid idea using the link I use behind my name behind your name?

      • CFI January 16, 2014 at 6:30 pm #

        I think you mean big idea, not bid idea, right? Calm down. I was only joking. I found the link interesting and amusing so I playfully used it. I’ve removed it since you’ve taken exception. Happy now?

        • Jeff Christy January 16, 2014 at 6:43 pm #

          Whatever, asshole. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. Don’t mess with people’s identities. Tread lightly my friend.

  103. Pucker January 16, 2014 at 6:29 pm #

    What do they call those mini-hot dog weiners that the obese female food service worker named “Rosie” used to serve in the elementary school cafeteria? None of the kids would eat ’em because they were “gross”? When the kids returned their lunch trays Rosie would collect ’em (stuffing a few in her mouth) for God-Knows-What purpose?!

    In my political science class in college when discussing Marxism the professor would refer to a hypothetical character called “Rosie-the-Riveter” who’d make “Widgets”. What are widgets? Whenever he mentioned Rosie, it’d remind me of the obese elementary school cafeteria worker “Rosie” who coveted the kids’ “mini weiners”. Maybe “widgets” are those “mini-weiners”?

    WASHINGTON, January 2, 2014 – Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon today announced that USDA is making permanent the current flexibility that allows schools to serve larger portions of lean protein and whole grains at mealtime.
    “Earlier this school year, USDA made a commitment to school nutrition professionals that we would make the meat and grain flexibility permanent and provide needed stability for long-term planning. We have delivered on that promise,” said Concannon.

    • Neon Vincent January 16, 2014 at 9:26 pm #

      “What do they call those mini-hot dog weiners that the obese female food service worker named “Rosie” used to serve in the elementary school cafeteria?”

      They’re called Vienna Sausages, Pucker. Also, a widget is a a placeholder name for a manufactured device. I’d provide the Wikipedia links, but I don’t want to spoon feed you the information. I want you to learn to look up the answers to your own questions instead of waiting for other people to do the work for you.

      Since you’re on the topic of weiners and widgets, I’m going to leave you links that aren’t to Wikipedia about them. First, here’s what I had to say about former U.S. Representative Weiner after he lost the NYC mayoral primary, which makes it on topic for this week’s entry.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/09/weiner-shouldnt-have-followed-tougas.html

      Next, I don’t have much about manufactured devices, but I do have posts about web widgets, which are a generic type of software application comprising portable code intended for one or more different software platforms. I use those to get oil and gas prices. Here’s the latest one of those.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/corner-station-sets-new-low-for-year.html

  104. Pucker January 16, 2014 at 7:11 pm #

    Notice the oxymoron: “…make the….flexibility permanent….”

    Does this mean in practice that state institutions now have the “flexibility” to give some people more food while starving others?

    WASHINGTON, January 2, 2014 – Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon today announced that USDA is making permanent the current flexibility that allows schools to serve larger portions of lean protein and whole grains at mealtime.
    “Earlier this school year, USDA made a commitment to school nutrition professionals that we would make the meat and grain flexibility permanent and provide needed stability for long-term planning. We have delivered on that promise,” said Concannon.

    • Neon Vincent January 16, 2014 at 9:37 pm #

      “Does this mean in practice that state institutions now have the “flexibility” to give some people more food while starving others?”

      No, Pucker, it means they now have the option to feed their students healthier meals that are less likely to make them obese. More lean meat and whole grains will be both more filling and less fattening. It’s exactly what I’d eat if I wanted to lose weight while not feeling deprived. That’s not the only diet advice I’d follow.

      http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/12/losing-weight-after-holidays.html

  105. Being There January 16, 2014 at 7:17 pm #

    I love this. It was posted on FB showing Judge Andrew Napolitano.

    If you noticed my comment to Q earlier today you will understand why I want to post this from 2012. It speaks directly to the idea that this country is ignorant —not through the fault of the people:

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=52b_1329796059

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  106. michigan_native January 16, 2014 at 7:26 pm #

    Here is the fate of the new cities that are popping up everywhere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DXxxyp2uSg
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PsUyEYO16E
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWbw7YGGYIE

    And the good towns people want to chase them out, not knowing they could be next.

    • Being There January 16, 2014 at 7:30 pm #

      MN,
      Other countries including Great Britain show this on their news, but in America we’re all doing just great, aren’t we.

      • WW January 17, 2014 at 6:43 am #

        They do make rare appearance in the news but the mighty god obama is still the love of the beebs life(BBC). Personally I knew you’d all get shafted when I saw O had the same smile as Tony Blair. A cross between a used car salesman and a shark, but without the nice side!

  107. BackRowHeckler January 16, 2014 at 8:32 pm #

    Can we call these camps ‘Obamavilles”, or is it only proper to name homeless encampments after Republican presidents? (Hooverville, Reaganville)

    –BRH

    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 6:20 am #

      Why don’t we give credit where credit is due? Let’s start naming these voluntary internment camps after the true perpetrators; The Fed. Considering that, Greenspan Acres and Bernankedelphia would be in order. I don’t think Mount St. Helens is being used for anything other than scientific observation right now. Why not let these poor folks down on their luck relocate there and we can rename it Mount St. Yellens.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:15 pm #

      Check Taki Mag for the article on child molestation by Celebs!
      Unfortunately it conflates those who date teens w those who go after pre teens. It bemoans on of The Stones marrying a teen.

      [If this thing allows me to copy/paste I have another for you].

      • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:15 pm #

        Did you read the piece in the Post about NYC/PS 108 [or 106?]?

        The gal who runs the place once a week for 110,0000 a year.

        Various thoughts gathered elsewhere……

        Janet Yalin will start requiring a 1%-5% take of your commercial bank accounts( put $100 in leaves only $95 available )

        China owns us. They have well over $2T in our T-Bills and we virtually have nothing of theirs.
        In Boise, there is a designated area of a China Park of at least 50 square miles. This was put on hold, but the plan is still there. This Chinatown was to be gated and guarded and you would need a pass to enter. I will not vote for Butch Otter again. He is a nice guy but this scenario was not good.

        In Lake City Florida a Hong Kong firm just purchased the biggest ongoing private industry
        ( most employees behind the school district and Wal-Marts ) called TIMCO-Lake City…an aviation repair station with an 8000 foot runway…several years ago Lake City was designated: “An inland port city”…what ever that is since it is nowhere near the ocean….

        …piece by piece they are coming…and since the corrupt USA government follows the orders of whomever pays them….well…time will tell…the vacuum won’t go unfilled…as the USA legacy economy folds…not only will the Chinese move on in…

        but they have already ok’d a SPACEPORT in Oklahoma
        …..https://www.google.com/search?q=spaceport+in+Oklahoma&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=VbLVUtz2Iea42gXi7YGgAw&ved=0CFwQsAQ

        anhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton-Sherman_Industrial_Airparkd…..

        Just a sample of the future industries headed to the USA….so if they already approved a SPACEPORT for commercial use.

        A friend of mine at Micron was laid off a few years ago and then rehired at about 40% less pay. He said today it is mostly foreigners running the show. Micron was started by Idahoans and funded by JR Simplot.
        I knew some of them in the early 80s. Now, it is someone elses business.

        And remember that the film industry rewrote the new RED DAWN with Korean soldiers rather than Chinese( to hide the guilty???)

        And your…..don’t forget shipments of beans and rice. There are maybe 1 million Dominicans in NYC, and nearly as many Chinese.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:17 pm #

      There are just not enough resources in Asia to provide for 1.4 billion Chinamen; many will be arriving here sooner rather than later. They’ll be living off the fat o’ the land in the USA, where the streets are paved with gold.
      Oh, that reminds me, those millions of Syrian refugees featured on PBS and BBC each night, they’re coming too, thanks to a special program administered by the State Department, same people who brought tens of thousands of Somali tribesman into Maine and Minnesota.

      OK, so I am in COSTCO and I see a gal with all this rice. Why Mamasan you buy so much ricey?
      To send to the Philippines.

      When the Clintons arent brining in an ‘adoptable baby’ [read, they dont identify with poor Whites that give a baby up for adoption]..wellTHE SOMALIA MISSION; Clinton’s Words on Somalia: ‘The …

      [will this allow ‘copy-paste?]

      • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:18 pm #

        HAPPY NO SO NEW YEAR!!!!

  108. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 6:34 am #

    Yes, the video of those formerly middle class squatters is heart-wrenching and so too is the following linked video. It shows it’s happening everywhere but Liberals only point the finger at the U.S. while ignoring the rampant depravity everywhere else…as though the U.S. is the center of the universe and the cause of all evil in the world. Liberals go so far as to support Iran’s evil government in their quest to build nuclear weapons while poor people like this woman are thrown out of their homes to starve on the streets. Liberals are immoral and support evil. I take their agenda-driven, faux concern with sufficient grains of salt.

    Iran – Poor woman tries to kill herself in front of police after losing her house.

  109. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 7:19 am #

    The most egregious perpetrator of impoverishment is the Chinese government, yet that very basic fact is overlooked and ignored by the Chinese water-carriers: The Liberals. At least the destitute in the U.S. aren’t hacking off their limbs…yet. China’s beaten the U.S. to the punch but we seldom see such evidence presented by the captured Liberal media.

    Extreme Poverty Drives Chinese Man to Saw Off His Own Limb

    In this climate of inequality and corruption, rural worker Zheng Yialang personifies the Chinese struggle to survive in an export-dominated economy that is skewed against benefits for the poor. Zheng’s 17-year-old daughter has abandoned schooling to work at a shoe factory while his diabetic wife tends to their agricultural fields. Sadly, there is no government health policy that can support this family. Zheng routinely stays awake all night, shouting in emotional and physical agony, often keeping his neighbors awake with his desperate screams. But the lawmakers who have the power to come to his aid are conveniently deaf to his calls for help.

  110. BackRowHeckler January 17, 2014 at 7:27 am #

    LBL, any criticism of Yellin or her policies, from here on in, will be characterized as misogyny. She is untouchable, which was the whole point of putting her in that position to begin with.

    The new head of the SBA is another ‘Wise Latina’.

    Man, the demographic changes in Connecticut are playing out before our eyes every morning on the local news. Home invasions, shootings, stabbings, beatdowns, hit and runs, cars stolen and destroyed, women gang raped … and that was just in the last 15 minute segment.

    I’m not that old but I can remember when the staple of the morning news here was the farm report.

    –BRH

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    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 8:48 am #

      I hear you. At this point you might as well replace the Farmers’ Almanac with the Ghettos’ Almanac. An example passage will read as follows:

      This Spring you can expect an increasing pattern of sodomy mixed with larceny and murder followed by a brief intermezzo of petty theft before a wave of violent muggings and rapes come Summer. Specific indicators of this forecast are a 2013 bumper crop of opium in Afghanistan with the resultant heroin from it due to the hit the streets in early February and a flood of Blue Meth on the market due to the ending of the vaunted and unprecedented AMC Original Series Breaking Bad; copy cats will be tweaking their formulas and word has it a real-life Heisenberg, or Heisenbergs, has/have already perfected it and are producing as of the date of this printing. Have a great year. Stay safe…somehow.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:52 pm #

      ‘ demographic changes’…is that a racial comment?

  111. Dražen Divac January 17, 2014 at 7:30 am #

    Great set of posts Lord Blaby. We need more like you to set the record straight. Liberals have always had a fondness for the Chinese Communists and Mao’s Little Red Book. Look how Clinton gave away the family jewels to China during his administration; Chinese spying and secret stealing was not only overlooked and unpunished…it was encouraged. If Liberals have their way, and they are having their way unless and until we stop it, in twenty to thirty years or sooner in the U.S. chinoiserie will be popular again just as it was in the 17th and 18th centuries but this time for very different reasons.

    • Being There January 17, 2014 at 9:29 am #

      Ha, indeed the Republicans have their nose clean on the issue of building up China. It’s all the Librul’s fault is it?

      And who went to China to break the ice for McDonald’s (actually Coke)? Why it was Kissinger and Nixon.—oh, yeah let’s ignore the Republican side of this cuz we only seethe about the left. The right is always right–cuz it’s right–of course. Gotta love the logic.

      I say it’s both global corporatist parties and you can’t get either party to stop this destruction for money. If you’re in the right position here, you too can back up the truck and ream this country. Like a pinata.

      • Q. Shtik January 17, 2014 at 11:10 am #

        “… you too can back up the truck and ream this country. Like a pinata.” – BT
        =============

        Wow! Talk about your mixed metaphors. A piñata does not get reamed, it gets whacked with a stick.

        • Being There January 17, 2014 at 11:17 am #

          Indeed. That did occur to me after I wrote it to be honest.

          • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 11:40 am #

            But then you may not be wrong. Some people would use the stick differently. ‘Different strokes for different folks’.

      • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:58 pm #

        Actually the guy to blame was Rockefeller.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rockefeller [e gads, at Wiki it states he is STILL AMONG THE LIVING].

        Have you read ‘None Dare Call It Conspiracy’?

        If Kissinger is conservative than I am Attila the Hun.

        • Panic January 17, 2014 at 3:59 pm #

          AND

          Nelson A. Rockefeller (1908–1979) was elected governor four times before being appointed vice president by Gerald R. Ford after Richard Nixon resigned.

          As governor, he expanded the State University of New York into the largest public education system in the world.

          He also expanded the state parks and highway systems and created the Council on the Arts. Governor Rockefeller proposed the first statewide minimum wage law in the country and appointed an unprecedented number of women to head state agencies. He oversaw massive building projects including the Empire State Plaza, Lincoln Center, and the World Trade Center.

          • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:00 pm #

            RINO

            Was Nelson Rockefeller a democrat or republican – WikiAnswers

            Nelson Rockefeller was nominally a Republican, of the variety often called “RINO” or “Republican In Name Only” or “Country Club Republican”!!!!

    • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 11:38 am #

      I suppose it makes sense you would say ‘great set of posts’ since you complement yourself. If you want to know how I know, remember all I have to do is put my ear to the ground and the earth screams ‘sock puppet’.

  112. beantownbill. January 17, 2014 at 11:36 am #

    Right and left. At the risk of sounding like Pucker, who equated handedness with political stance? Why couldn’t conservatives be called the left, and liberals the right? What does “liberal” mean, anyway? Liberal to the masses, but conservative for business? Conservatives are trying to conserve what? Their own values? But aren’t liberals pushing for most everyone to accept their own values, in other words, conserve their own values?

    Socialism means the government distributes wealth according to how it deems proper. Socialism is associated with the left, therefore, is liberal. But isn’t TARP and QE meant for the benefit of the banks, who are conservatives? So is socialism left or right?

    The point I’m making is that labeling is meaningless and a deterrent to clear thinking. We have some real problems, physical ones like peak resources, environmental pollution and climate change. So in a typical human response, many CFNers jabber back and forth about liberal this and conservative that, and devote minimal energy to discussing the truly important things. It’s ok, have fun arguing while the world goes to hell.

    • progress4what January 17, 2014 at 11:55 am #

      Without looking it up, the left/right thing has to come from the seating chart in the Congress, or the House of Lord’s Blabbing, or Commons, or somesuchdamnthing.

      Makes you wonder why the SOB’s need a seating chart – like some sort of behavior challenged elementary classroom.

    • Being There January 17, 2014 at 12:01 pm #

      It’s inverted communism. I wrote about that a long time ago on this blog. It’s using the phrase free markets, with no regulations, but this can only lead to what we have. No protections for labor wages, no protections for the environment. Why would anyone care about the environment? Cuz it will kill us if it’s poisoned. Yet, these inverted commies what to demonize those who want to live in a healthy world.

      E. represented the Teddy Roosevelt idea of conservative. One would think all Republicans would want to protect the beauty that was once the hallmark of this continent, but putting money as the object that trumps all else is the opposite of conservative.

      Reality has been turned on its head and we are told TINA There are not alternatives—Maggie Thatcher.

      The enemies of the corporate and banking cartel are those who want to live.

      The Koch brothers believe that we are all getting in their way to use their god-given rights to use the resources to achieve their greatest money making potential. The use of politicized fundamentalism with unfettered funding to influence creates a new paradigm that can only lead to destruction and death.

      But the revisionism of Free Market fundamentalism deserves a dissertation by someone studying economic history.

      All wealth goes to the top and in the global arena leaves the nation state bereft of the funds to function.

      • Q. Shtik January 17, 2014 at 12:32 pm #

        There are certain commenters here who make me feel dumber than dirt. I barely get what they are talking about, if at all. You are one with your constant reference to ‘inverted communism’. Hancock was another. And Janos is frequently yet another.

        My take away from you is: profit bad;

        From Hancock: right-wing totalitarianism bad;

        From Janos: Blacks, Jews, commies and women bad.

        I do, however, enjoy alliteration as in “… politicized fundamentalism with unfettered funding to influence….”

        • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:06 pm #

          ‘unfettered funding to influence’…The Golden Rule:

          She with the gold makes the rules.

          I dont claim to know much about Q1-3, TARP, etc but refer to the GR posted above.

      • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:04 pm #

        All wealth goes to the top and in the global arena leaves the nation state bereft of the funds to function.

        Is the USA there yet? My ‘adviser’ says yes, that I am to listen to
        one Lindsay Williams on you tube. He insists the collapse is this year.

  113. progress4what January 17, 2014 at 11:50 am #

    Nice posts, BT, and it’s good to see you back on the blog.

    It is discouraging to see LBoL and Mr. Divac fall into the conservative=good/liberal=bad duality.

    Take immigration, where the “conservatives” want more immigrants to devalue labor and increase the value of capital Whereas the “liberals” want more immigrants because they want more voters and because diversity. And that’s just to use immigration as an example – one can do the same thing with most any contentious issue (TPP, anyone?) where Modern American Capitalism has a foreordained outcome in the governmental pipeline.

    LBoL and DD need to really listen to that Judge Napolitano rant. The man speaks truth. Of course, most real “conservatives” will stop listening (and therefore negate the whole 4 minutes of truth) because Napolatano left the Fox plantation and DARED to diss’ St. Ronald of the Reagan.

    BTW, Napolitano did NOT get fired over that rant, despite numerous internet legends to the contrary. He’s still on staff, as shown here. http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/andrew-p-napolitano/bio/#s=m-q

    • Being There January 17, 2014 at 12:03 pm #

      Thanks P4W

      I have some downtime from on-site work with a couple of small jobs to be done at home, so I have a bit of time to blog.

    • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 12:42 pm #

      If LBoL and DD both listen to the Judge Napolitano rant that video will only have to play one time for both to see it.

      I got a flexible metal mesh/fabric Faraday cage case for my iPhone as a belated Christmas present the day before yesterday. It was belated because it came shipped from Singapore. We tested it and it works great. Consumer reviews about it say you might be seen if you are standing right next to a cell tower but otherwise you are invisible.

      The tracking collar has been defeated and no more random CFN ‘comments’ should appear in my personal teXts when I message family. Well maybe not about that last part. I still have to take it out of the case to use it.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:08 pm #

      Immigration to the USA economically benefits only the top 1 or 2 % and most people here are not in favor of amnesty and our current laws.
      To ignore the ‘Act of 1965’ and its impact on the US is absurd.

  114. Being There January 17, 2014 at 12:21 pm #

    Just listened to maxkeiser.com

    Max interviews Arjen Kamphuis about tinfoil as the new black and intelligence agency click fraud as the new payment system for co-operation with corporate and industrial espionage.

    well worth listening to –sorry don’t have time to explain.

    • Q. Shtik January 17, 2014 at 12:39 pm #

      See now…….this is a perfect example:

      “…… about tinfoil as the new black and intelligence agency click fraud as the new payment system for co-operation with corporate and industrial espionage.”

      I have zero understanding what ^this^ sentence means.

      • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 12:57 pm #

        I don’t understand it either but it is a direct quote from the web page and not Being There‘s fault. I’m watching the video to see what’s up. A 25 minute video but since it is all up my alley I’ll watch the whole thing.

        Keiser is channelling JHK as I type. Fat lazy American slaves starved for attention. He lays it on thick.

        • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 1:03 pm #

          Tinfoil is the new black is explained 13 minutes in. I’m happy with my Linux. You will understand what I mean if you watch the video. Windoz can ruin you hardware. I know.

        • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:21 pm #

          Indeed Q-tip, indeed…what does this mean?

          Keiser is channelling JHK as I type. Fat lazy American slaves starved for attention. He lays it on thick.

      • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:20 pm #

        ‘tinfoil as the new black and intelligence agency click fraud as the new payment system for co-operation with corporate and industrial espionage.”’

        Tinfoil = paranoia hats

        black and intelligence agency click fraud = secret and Gov computer hi jinks

        co-operation with corporate and industrial espionage = Lord Google
        and Lord Zuckerberg in cahoots with the White house etc.

        See Drudge headlines today.

  115. ajmuste January 17, 2014 at 1:05 pm #

    “We have some real problems, physical ones like peak resources, environmental pollution and climate change.” — BTB

    I would add another problem to your list: We still live under a nuclear sword of Damocles.

    “…each U.S. Trident submarine commonly carries 96 warheads, each of which is 10 to 30 times more powerful than the weapons used in the South Asia scenario. That means a single submarine can cause the devastation of a nuclear famine many times over.
    The United States has 14 of these submarines, plus land-based missiles and a fleet of strategic bombers. The Russian arsenal has the same incredible overkill capacity. Two decades after the Cold War, nuclear weapons are ill-suited to meet modern threats and cost hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain.” — Ira Helfand

    What a monumental waste of humanity’s limited resources.

    Both political parties voted to build these nuclear arsenals. Liberals and conservatives go along with having them. To his credit at least Obama has worked (since his days as a Senator in Illinois) to eliminate the threat from “loose nukes” … but the governments of the world still want to hang onto what they have. It is a threat to human survival rarely mentioned on CFN.

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    • Q. Shtik January 17, 2014 at 1:24 pm #

      “What a monumental waste of humanity’s limited resources.” – aj-Soak
      ==========

      True, but doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing nobody with half a brain gonna fuck wid US? ;o)

  116. ajmuste January 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm #

    “True, but doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing nobody with half a brain gonna fuck wid US? ;o)” — Q-Soak

    This sentiment is based upon the outdated MAD scenario, in which one feels safe because one assumes others do not want to die in nuclear retaliation.
    What you are saying is: nobody will mess with us because they don’t want to die. This scenario is a false assurance.

    See 9/11, see kamikaze bombers, etc.

    When someone believes dying for their cause/ideology/religion/etc. is a guarantee of a greater imagined good, then your threat of killing them is a laughable threat.

    We will only be safe when humanity achieves universal nuclear disarmament.

  117. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 1:56 pm #

    When someone believes dying for their cause/ideology/religion/etc. is a guarantee of a greater imagined good, then your threat of killing them is a laughable threat.

    Laugh all you want, but it’s undeniable a nuke dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively forced a surrender. And look at Japan ever since. Docile yet fastidious, humble yet confident. Dutifully compliant. It learned its lesson just as some of these other rogue countries will learn their lesson; the hard way. Iran will push too far…and it will be turned to glass. Same goes for China. Never bite the hand that feeds you. If you do, you will pay with your sovereignty.

  118. ajmuste January 17, 2014 at 1:56 pm #

    “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles,

    hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.

    The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

    –President John F. Kennedy

  119. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 2:00 pm #

    What’s K-Daub gonna do once Obama shuts down the NSA? He’ll have to make up another monster, or monsters, hiding under his bed to serve as a replacement. If K-Daub’s tinfoil theory about a spy in every corner is correct, then considering Obama’s proposed plan this comment section should, very soon, grow quiet with very few commenting except K-Daub who will hold vigil here til the end of time.

    • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 2:27 pm #

      Not going to happen. Your job is safe.

      And yes I will be lonely here all by myself until other concerned citizens who want a future for their children and children’s children realize that it is safe to comment here. That may be a while, but unlike you I won’t be talking to myself using other alias while I wait. There is only one Alias I use and have ever used.

      • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

        aliases

        Your use of Daub is interesting. If I was PARANOID I’d say you were looking at my web history for last night. If you were or not I’m not going to worry about it. Be as clever as you wish, but take that foot out if you need to breath. I would not want you to choke to death.

  120. progress4what January 17, 2014 at 2:02 pm #

    Concerning the Somali immigrants to Minnesota.
    Some of it seems to be due to interrelationships between government and some civilian agencies – like the Lutheran Church up there.

    Certainly, some of it is the fault of this guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison

    And here he is, again – conflating the unconflatable.
    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2014/01/17/dem-rep-ellison-islamist-terrorismus-income-inequality-same-strugg

    american politics. bah.

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    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 2:09 pm #

      Maybe we should get the stationary out and write those letters. That’ll put a stop to it.

    • K-Dog January 17, 2014 at 2:41 pm #

      Equating terrorists to the majority of the population in any country is just plain wrong. On both sides. Conflating the un-conflatable. I have to agree. He is a politician, no doubt about it.

    • Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:11 pm #

      ‘Some of it seems to be due to….. …’. Uh, All of it is due to:
      The Tribe
      The Left
      The Dumbed Down.

  121. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 17, 2014 at 2:04 pm #

    Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles…..

    What they don’t know and don’t care to know won’t hurt them. If there ever was an all-out nuclear conflagration, the peeps would be so immersed in the distractions of every day life to include their i-everything that they would hardly notice if they notice at all.

  122. ajmuste January 17, 2014 at 2:46 pm #

    “Maybe we should get the stationary out and write those letters. That’ll put a stop to it.” — Blaby

    If you are not being cynical, Blaby, then I agree with you. A letter writing campaign is an easy, effective advocacy tool by which a group of constituents voice their opinions about specific issues. In the USA we live in a representative democracy. Knowing that reelection depends on the votes of their constituents, representatives pay close attention to the mail they receive. I know from personal experience that foreign policy has been changed as a result of organized citizen action.

    Both red/blue conservative/liberal groups utilize letter writing campaigns because they all know how effective they can be. On this website P4C urges such action to stop more immigrants from coming into the USA.

    Even the i-everything folks use such things as Twitter, online petitions, etc. to bring about change. It works.

    Anybody who believes that letter writing is a meaningless, feel-good exercise – that decision-makers do as they please or as paid lobbyists suggest does not know how the system works.

    The reality is that well-timed, informed, and clearly written letters can have an affect on political decisions. This is especially true in the lower echelons of government –-at the state and local level. Many elected officials keep track of constituents’ support for issues and letters have a cumulative impact.

    Elected officials understand that there are fewer letter writers than voters, but they also understand that those that do write are more likely to vote.

  123. Janeway January 17, 2014 at 2:47 pm #

    I know Jim believes the Christie controversy is an example of what’s wrong with America, but truth be known there are many things that serve as metaphor for what’s wrong with America. Case in point is the rise and fall of sardines, not only in the demand of them but also in the supply of them in certain locales. I love sardines and remember a time when they were appreciated and ubiquitous. Not anymore. And that’s a shame because they’re great tasting and they’re great for you but increasingly Americans relish a diet that’s anything but good for you and pales in comparison to the satisfying flavor of sardines. Here’s a little history and an update on the status of sardines.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/so-long-sardines-americas-last-cannery-closing/

    “Sardines at one time were an inexpensive staple for many Americans who packed them into their lunchboxes and enjoyed a can or two – or perhaps a sardine sandwich – for lunch. The fish – usually packed in oil or in sauces such as mustard, hot sauce, tomato or green chilies – can still be had at supermarkets for a little over $1 a can, but they’re not in too many lunch pails these days.

    Ronnie Peabody, who runs the Maine Coast Sardine History Museum in the town of Jonesport 35 miles up the road from the Stinson plant, has a cookbook published in 1950 called “58 Ways to Serve Sardines.” It includes recipes for sardine soup, sardine casserole, baked eggs and sardines, and creamed sardines and spinach.

    Sardine consumption began falling decades ago, he said, after canned tuna came on the market and Americans’ tastes changed. The closing of the last U.S. cannery is the end of an era, he said.”

  124. ajmuste January 17, 2014 at 3:42 pm #

    Janeway, thanks for giving the lowly sardine some good press.

    I think Sardines caught near Portugal or Spain are the best because they have a meaty tuna flavor. You can usually find Portuguese sardines in Italian grocery stores. I also think olive oil is the best medium for sardines; you should really skip those flavored with tomato sauce or mustard. Also, read that ingredient list. There is no reason for anything but fish, oil/water or salt. Matiz Gallego sardines in olive oil from Spain are the ones I recommend.

    http://www.amazon.com/Matiz-Gallego-Sardines-Olive-4-2-Ounce/dp/B001IZ60S2/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1389990649&sr=1-1&keywords=matiz+gallego+sardines

    Thanks, Janeway.

  125. rube-i-con January 17, 2014 at 4:11 pm #

    sardines, yes, anchovies, hell no

    peace peaceniks

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  126. Panic January 17, 2014 at 4:15 pm #

    BRH….please get this book [Amazon says ‘American Dream’,
    naaa Nitemare is the term]

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Snakehead-Chinatown-Underworld-American/dp/0307279278

    Also Q-tip, Drudge posts today that the Garden State is the most broke in the USA!

  127. Janeway January 17, 2014 at 4:45 pm #

    Ajmuste – Thanks for the suggestion for sardines but while they look delicious they’re a little too pricey for me. I’ll stick with the affordable King Oscar (the Mediterranean style in olive oil). I wonder if King Oscar got on his knee to ask for his wife’s hand in marriage like a slave? He must have been special to have a brand of sardines named after him. We all should aspire to such fame. The world would be a better place today if we did. Janeway Sardines. It has a nice ring to it. I think I’ll make that my next goal. You are what you eat, or better yet, you eat what you are.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qvM74UcMCSI/T2Y-wen7z0I/AAAAAAAAAHw/qCR3TpnQ_jc/s1600/kingoscar1.JPG

  128. BackRowHeckler January 17, 2014 at 4:58 pm #

    I’ll check that book out, Panic. Thanks for the tip.

    Incidentally, some good posts on your part today. Good to hear from you again.

    Does anybody know if Minnesota pays welfare benefits to the second and third wives of the Somalis?. I know in England and France they do. Its a pretty good deal all around. When the Somalis first showed up in Lewiston, Maine they did not know how to wear pants. They also stuffed twigs and leaves inside their electric ranges and lit it a fire, to cook. Its been a real learning curve. Good thing there is no shortage of do gooders stepping up to show them the ropes. You know the type; I don’t have to describe ’em. In Portland, every once in awhile, in summer, they riot. That’s when, literally, the spears come out.

    The Clinton’s gift to America, from the heart.

    –BRH

  129. progress4what January 17, 2014 at 5:00 pm #

    Here you go, Bill. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/01/17/mass-appeals-court-upholds-inmate-right-sex-change-surgery/

    I’m glad you guys have plenty of money up there, to pay for this foolishness.

    • beantownbill. January 17, 2014 at 8:38 pm #

      I couldn’t link to the article, but I am somewhat familiar with the story. Yeah, sure, Massachusetts still has money. My sister lives in a nice suburban location, but not considered luxurious. Her home is currently worth around $425,000. Given that most any suburban Boston home in decent, non-slum areas sell for $400,000 and up, her home isn’t considered outrageous. She’s paying $12,000 per year in real estate taxes. She also owns a small home in Cape Cod, one block from the ocean. She just got a notice that her flood insurance is going up to $9,000. She bought the house in 1969 for under $20,000. I have no idea how much she pays in real estate taxes there. BTW, she is not wealthy.

      So, yes, my sister and I are partly paying for this “person”‘s sex-change operation. I wonder what part of “it” I’m paying for (actually, eeoew, I’m not wondering). We truly are living in a mad society.

  130. BackRowHeckler January 17, 2014 at 5:04 pm #

    I’m trying to think of a word to describe all this. ‘Reprimitivism’, is that a word?

    –BRH

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  131. Pucker January 17, 2014 at 9:18 pm #

    [Retiring Baby Boomers – Professors Emeritus]

    Last week, I sent a general email inquiry about a matter to some U.S. university professors about an issue that is squarely in their field of expertise. As it turns out, some the “Professors” to whom the email inquiry was sent are “Retired”.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor

    The “Retired” professors all wrote back with the same general reply: “I don’t know the answer to your question. I’m retired, out-of-touch, can’t get-it-up, and no longer give-a-shit. You’d be better off asking someone much younger.”

    Of course, they didn’t use these exact words, but you get-the-picture.

    • BackRowHeckler January 18, 2014 at 11:05 am #

      Timely question, Pucker.

      The real professor, Russel Johnson, died a few days ago.

      Turns out he was a war hero, a WW11 bomber pilot.

      –BRH

  132. Janeway January 17, 2014 at 9:23 pm #

    This mind-fuck came out around the same time sardines peaked. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. This looks like some ritualistic LSD experiment performed by military intelligence on a bunch of military brass’s children on a beach in California; the very same mechanism that spawned Jim Morrison and the like as the next wave.

    Bob Denver’s Scary Singing Beard

  133. Pucker January 17, 2014 at 9:28 pm #

    What do you think about the concept of “Pro Bono”? Is this the same “Bono” as in Cher’s husband “Sonny Bono”?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono

    What about growing “medical marijuana” in Colorado Pro Bono in order to put the mafia and the government out-of-business?

  134. Pucker January 17, 2014 at 10:49 pm #

    What do you think about the Asian cultural tradition of embalming or pickling political leaders? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickling

    Upon close examination, they discovered that the ancient Egyptian Mummy of King Tit has a discolored, but extremely well-preserved P…ssy Finger.

  135. Q. Shtik January 18, 2014 at 12:50 pm #

    Aubade
    By Philip Larkin

    I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
    Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
    In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
    Till then I see what’s really always there:
    Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
    Making all thought impossible but how
    And where and when I shall myself die.
    Arid interrogation: yet the dread
    Of dying, and being dead,
    Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

    The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
    —The good not done, the love not given, time
    Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
    An only life can take so long to climb
    Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
    But at the total emptiness for ever,
    The sure extinction that we travel to
    And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
    Not to be anywhere,
    And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

    This is a special way of being afraid
    No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
    That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
    Created to pretend we never die,
    And specious stuff that says No rational being
    Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
    That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
    No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
    Nothing to love or link with,
    The anaesthetic from which none come round.

    And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
    A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
    That slows each impulse down to indecision.
    Most things may never happen: this one will,
    And realisation of it rages out
    In furnace-fear when we are caught without
    People or drink. Courage is no good:
    It means not scaring others. Being brave
    Lets no one off the grave.
    Death is no different whined at than withstood.

    Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
    It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
    Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
    Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
    Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
    In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
    Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
    The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
    Work has to be done.
    Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

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    • BackRowHeckler January 18, 2014 at 1:58 pm #

      The best part of being a Minnesota Somali (who Hillary Clinton calls model Americans) gone to NAfrica to train for Jihad is that you’re safe in the knowledge your 3 wives and 19 kids are being well taken care of back at home, in the land of 1000 lakes. Section 8 housing, foodstamps, WIC, free school, vouchers for heat, free medical, courtesy of the city, county, state and federal governments … you can concentrate soley on destroying enemies of the prophet and nothing else. The family of a Marine Corps Major in Afghanistan has more to worry about. In all of recorded human history, about 8000 years, has there ever been a place like the United States. with leadership like we have. We are unique in many ways.

      –BRH

      • Q. Shtik January 18, 2014 at 2:25 pm #

        It’s 10,000 lakes.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 2:39 pm #

      City Drops into the Night by James Carrol

      Its when billys whores are re to seeorkin
      They’re workin with the skeleton crew
      Its when the sky over jersey
      That sky starts to drain from view
      Its when my woman pawns her voice so
      So she can make her old excuses sound new

      But I just want one clue

      Refrain:
      Cause when the city drops into the night
      Before the darkness there’s one moment of light
      When everything seems clear
      The other side, it seems so near
      What seemed wrong?
      I think it’s gonna be just about right
      Before the city drops, the city drops
      Into the night

      Its when the door to the river
      That door is like 26 miles
      Its when ambitious little girls start
      They start to dream about a change in style
      Its when the slick boys got their fingers
      They got their fingers in the telephone dial

      But I think I’ll just wait a while

      Repeat refrain

      Its when the sneak thieves are checkin
      They’re checkin the alleys for unlocked doors
      And billys sisters gettin frantic cause
      Cause billys sisters little brother can’t score
      Its when the woman from the dream is . . .
      Oh my god! that’s the woman on the floor

      Each promise was just one promise more

      Repeat refrain

      Its when teddys ghost is on the roof
      Beatin his drum
      And teddys best friend is two blocks east
      And he’s makin teddys ex-girlfriend come
      You know, they mistook teddys blind trust . . .
      Just to prove that teddy was dumb . . .
      But listen, you know, I think they are both just scum

      Repeat refrain

      Its when the body at the bottom,
      That body is my own reflection
      But it aint hip to sink that low
      Unless you’re gonna make a resurrection
      They’re always gonna come to your door
      They’re gonna say, it’s just a routine inspection
      But what you get when you open your door
      What you get is just another injection
      And there’s always gonna be one more
      With just a little bit less until the next one
      They wait in shadows and steal the light from your eyes
      To them visions just some costly infection
      But listen, you should come with me
      Im the fire, Im the fires reflection
      Im just a constant warning to take the other direction

      Mister, I am your connection

      Repeat refrain

      To Kyoo, Vision is just some costly infection.

  136. ajmuste January 18, 2014 at 1:34 pm #

    Q’s poldar is faulty. Christie’s presidential electability has been destroyed by Rachel Maddow.

    TRENTON — Eighteen current and former Christie administration staffers, along with two organizations, have been given two weeks to surrender documents, emails, text and instant messages, calendars and visitor logs to the Assembly committee investigating the ongoing George Washington Bridge lane closing scandal.

    Farts in a windstorm? Q is wrong about that.

    • Q. Shtik January 18, 2014 at 2:26 pm #

      It’s “fart” (singular).

  137. ajmuste January 18, 2014 at 1:56 pm #

    I just heard a thirty minute speech by Martin Luther King on the radio.

    I suppose those who planned and executed King’s assassination mistakenly thought that death would shut him up.

    Bullets cannot kill ideas.

    Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 2:40 pm #

      Who did he crib that from?

    • BackRowHeckler January 18, 2014 at 3:36 pm #

      I have a dream … that someday I can walk the streets downtown without fear of a roundhouse ambush knockout punch, filmed for You Tube …

  138. ajmuste January 18, 2014 at 2:16 pm #

    In all of recorded human history, about 8000 years, has there ever been a place like the United States. with leadership like we have. We are unique in many ways. — BRH

    Yes, I agree. The United States is a wonderful country with Black leadership.

    I disagree with you about Somalis. They work in Minneapolis. Ask anyone who takes a taxi there. Many Somalis are also doctors, engineers, lawyers, businessmen that are well assimilated into the American main-stream.

    Fortunately there are many Americans of European decent who appreciate their Somali colleagues unlike the very few who propagate hateful stereotypes.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 2:42 pm #

      Yes Somali doctors are great at clitorectomies. I hope you are lucky enough to get a Somali Doctor. Address him as Herr Doktor please.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 3:38 pm #

      Also remember Hirsi Ali said that Western Culture was far more advanced than her own Somali one. Now before you get yourself into more trouble, I remind you that she is not only Black, but a Woman. And not only a Black Woman, but an Immigrant. And not only a Black Woman Immigrant, but a Muslim or at least a former one. In short, she outranks you by a country mile.

      Care to start walking your imprudent statement back now?

    • BackRowHeckler January 18, 2014 at 6:22 pm #

      Doctors? You mean from carrying spears and wearing loinclothes to medical school in 1/2 a generation? That’s remarkable! Are there any medical schools in Somalia? Are there any in all of black Africa (not built by Europeans)?

      Maybe they’ve been fastracked thru the Mayo Clinic.

  139. gellen with yellen January 18, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

    Q said: “It’s 10,000 lakes.”

    ===========

    maybe all this talk of sardines made him hungry and he was thinking thousand island dressing. it’s just a hypothesis. unlike sardines, thousand island dressing is still going strong after all these years.

  140. gellen with yellen January 18, 2014 at 2:43 pm #

    Ajmuste said: “Many Somalis are also doctors…”

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

    i would proceed with caution about seeing a somali doctor. somalis like to harvest organs.

    Somalis Bring Children to Britain to Harvest and Sell Their Organs

    The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the intention of removing her organs and selling them on to those desperate for a transplant.

    Child protection charities warned that the case was unlikely to be an isolated incident as traffickers were likely to have smuggled a group of children into the country.

    The case emerged in a government report which showed that the number of human trafficking victims in the UK has risen by more than 50 per cent last year and reached record levels.

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  141. Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 2:46 pm #

    Ann Landers and Abigail Van Burren: more American than Apple Pie? Or Twin Anti-Gentile sisters named Friedman? You decide.

    http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/01/thanks-but-no-thanks/#more-44827

    • BackRowHeckler January 18, 2014 at 3:44 pm #

      Interview with Celine, one of my all time favorites. “Journey to the End of the Night”, “Death on the Installment Plan”. Even the titles are great.

      –BRH

  142. CFI January 18, 2014 at 2:49 pm #

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert Somali men don’t engage in acts of chivalry. They are not slaves, at least not by virtue of chivalry.

  143. Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 3:41 pm #

    Every Man, and every Woman, and every Child – is a Star. Treat them as such. And your self as well.

    Elvis said every man must find his flaming star…

    • CFI January 18, 2014 at 3:56 pm #

      Was that before or after he stepped on his blue suede shoes? He also said you ain’t nothing but a hound dog cryin all the time and you ain’t no friend of mine. He was a prophet like Muhammad.

  144. Pucker January 18, 2014 at 6:44 pm #

    General George S. Patton with his pearl handled six shooters marching across North Africa chasing the “Nazzis” imaging that he’s the reincarnation of a Roman general.

    In his final days in office, President Nixon facing the possibility of impeachment had a fixation with the movie “Patton” drinking heavily and literally watching the movie over-and-over in The Oval Office while U.S. B-52s carpet bombed the helloutta Cambodia and North Vietnam.

    Heinz Kissinger would remark: “I can’t believe that a 4th rate power like North Vietnam doesn’t have a breaking point.”

    Nixon’s and Kissinger’s strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was to try to convince ’em that Nixon was insane.

    Now we’ve got Obama: “Good news! The economy is recovering.”

    “Good news! We’re not spying on you.”

    “Good News! Health care that you can afford.”

    “More Good News! State institutions now have permanently flexibility in the amount of food they can give you.”

  145. Pucker January 18, 2014 at 6:59 pm #

    Do you think that would could characterize “politics” as a kind of societal recidivism? No matter how hard societies try at finding a political solution to their tragic flaws, “politics” always seems to end badly for ’em. Yet societies always seem to go back for yet another bite of “The Shit Sandwich”.

    “Mmmm….Yummy….Maybe this time around we can finally create a Utopia?!”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism

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  146. Lord Blaby of Lawson January 18, 2014 at 7:22 pm #

    What a pathetic, bloated, corpulent mess of a pig Elvis was toward the end of his short and reckless life and musical career. He did reach a zenith like no other though. He wasn’t referred to as the King for no reason, although Black folk, jealous no doubt, laughed at his popularity and considered him a rank amateur. At the pinnacle of his career he was bigger than Jesus Christ. Even more so than the Beatles. But Colonel Tom Parker sank his hooks deep into Elvis and drove him to his death. Parker was a creepy piece of work; a schnorrer or parasite. He milked Elvis for all he was worth and killed his plump, overwrought Golden Goose in the process. The relationship between Colonel Parker and Elvis is much like the relationship between the Fed and the economy. And what’s up with some men in the South having to refer to themselves as Colonel? It still happens today. Those who do it aren’t Colonels in the true sense of that word; they just like to be called Colonel. Colonel Sanders is a prime example, and Colonel Parker is yet another. So, you had the Colonel and the King; it sounds like something Twain would conjure for one of his tall tales.

    • Pucker January 18, 2014 at 7:31 pm #

      …And don’t forget the Late, Great…Michael Jackson!

      Do you remember the time when Michael Jackson held his adopted baby by the ankle upside down off the 4 story balcony of his hotel room with his mob of screaming adoring fans below?

    • Janos Skorenzy January 18, 2014 at 7:41 pm #

      And the ultimate Colonel was Colonel Mandel House – Wilson’s main Jewish handler. Although the Colonel had no military experience apparently he did have occult power – he could “pump” ideas into people’s heads. If you weren’t careful, you would end up agreeing with him even if you really didn’t.

      I like the Western appellation of Deacon. For now. After the Fall, I’m going to try to become a Duke or in Japanese, a Daimyo. Failing that, a Baron. Or in Romanian terms, a Voivod.

  147. Looongerbeard January 18, 2014 at 9:03 pm #

    Had a nice day ice fishing today, and the wife and I just had a good supper of pickerel, and home-grown potatoes and peas.

  148. ajmuste January 18, 2014 at 10:10 pm #

    “It’s “fart” (singular).” — Q Soak, he of faulty polder, and by extension all of his political beliefs are faulty

    FART #1 … Governor held Sandy funds hostage for the City of Hoboken

    FART #2 … Republican donors jumping ship on Christie

    FART #3 … Supoenas hit Christie’s inner circle

    FART #4 … Christie lawyers up

    FART #5 … Christie claims non-existent “traffic study”

    FART #6 … Christie punishes Fort Lee with lane closures on GWB

    FART #7 … Capo has story to tell if granted immunity

    FART #8 … Christie blames MSNBC : thinks he is a victim

    It is farts (plural), Q, and the decline of Christie is just getting started.

    The end will be the end of Christie as a national candidate for president, just the opposite of what you were implying by saying this would blow over like farts in a windstorm.

    • Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 1:06 am #

      “It is farts” – aj Soak
      ==========

      Wattle and daub.

    • BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 12:02 pm #

      Hey Asoka you’re wasting your time hammering Christie. He was never going to be the Republican nominee anyway. He’s just your straw man.

      Pretty soon you’ll be on here shilling for Hillary. I already have her campaign theme song picked out. ‘I Like Big Butts’, by Sir Mix-a-lot. That, and the Benghazi Hustle.

      –BRH

  149. BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 10:39 am #

    So I was wondering about all the house fires on the news each morning, mostly in the city and the inner ring of suburbs. Not long ago a house burning down in the middle of the night was a rare phenomena. Now it happens almost every day, sometime with tragic results. Invariably you see little kids from some 3rd world paradise out on the freezing sidewalk in a bleak dawn, wrapped in blankets. Some of it can be explained by what my West Indian cooworkers in the pressroom call vengeance arson, where slights and grudges, some decades old, are satisfied by burning down your neighbors house (in the middle of the nite, you in it). Then there is the problem of faulty or nonexistant heating systems in substandard housing, My neighbor, an electrical contractor, is sometimes hired by the city to work in public and urban houses. He says you would not believe the conditions in which these people live. He talks about entering apartments and finding 30 or 40 people sleeping on mattresses on the floor, mostly Asians or Africans. The squalor, the odor, is shocking.

    –BRH

    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 19, 2014 at 12:20 pm #

      Also, people trying to get out from under their underwater mortgages and setting their houses on fire. There is a positive correlation between Black movement into a middle class area and the number of sirens (police, fire, ambulance and home/business security alarms). It’s a wake-up call to the White residents to get the hell out of Dodge. The problem is, most everywhere is Dodge; hence the need to terraform Mars. Janos is right, we need to give them their own section of the U.S. as their homeland. Assimilation hasn’t worked and it won’t work.

  150. K-Dog January 19, 2014 at 1:13 pm #

    Perhaps the sock drawer finds keeping Kunstlers end of the world blog flooded with bogus natal acrimony and defamity dispiriting. Maintaining the mire of cornicopian poo-poo humdrum. The bane on the brain must drain. Perhaps a break in the rake may allay.

    Cogitation on how your propaganda machine could overcome the American proclivity for inertia and pretention of invincibility to embrace solar panel installations on the wattle and daub mud huts of the land could be invigorating.

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    • Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 1:31 pm #

      “The bane on the brain must drain. Perhaps a break in the rake may allay.” – Dog
      ===========

      You’re a poet and don’t know it, your feet show it, they’re long fellows.

    • Lord Blaby of Lawson January 19, 2014 at 1:40 pm #

      Hey K-Foil, why don’t you be a humanitarian and volunteer your organs for harvesting in Somalia, Minnesota to help spare a little girl or boy from having their organs harvested by the Somali butchers. As we speak, an innocent abducted child is having their organs harvested by a Somali sadist, and instead of stopping it, you’re waxing poetic on the internet. Pathetic. But that’s a Liberal for you.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 2:27 pm #

      Blabby is right. God gave you two kidneys so you could give one away. You should feel guilty because you are guilty. Stop projecting that onto us – at least until you are down a kidney.

  151. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 1:53 pm #

    A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. — Martin Luther King

    Check out This American Life segment on 515: “Good Guys” about the effects of military basic training in the creation of killers. It is Act Four and it called “Deep Dark Open Secret”.

    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/515/good-guys?act=4

  152. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 1:55 pm #

    I forgot the description of the 20 minute interview:

    In 2009, a U.S. soldier contacted our show and offered to send audio dispatches from his deployment in Afghanistan, to do a story about what it’s really like to go to war. But what he learned when he was over there was way more personal and honest than we, or he, expected. Producer Sarah Koenig explains. Note: Ira warns listeners that this story may not be appropriate for children. (20 minutes)

  153. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 2:07 pm #

    BRH, thanks for your comments.

    Why don’t you think Christie will be president?

    He is innocent, as he explained in the two hour press conference.

    He is very intelligent. Christie created a culture among his staff of “reward our friends and punish our enemies” while keeping a buffer of plausible deniability that kept his hands technically clean. So he could still manage to become president.

    About Hillary: I don’t think she will become president. People don’t want royal successions: George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, etc.
    They don’t want Bill Clinton, followed by Hillary Clinton.

    No more Bushes. No more Clintons. It’s time for someone new with fresh ideas. I have no idea who that will be, but I suspect it will be someone who is currently not even on the radar.

  154. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 2:33 pm #

    “Had a nice day ice fishing today” – Looongerbeard
    ===========

    Yeah, me too….but only caught ice cubes which by law are too small to keep and must be tossed back.

    • Looongerbeard January 19, 2014 at 2:54 pm #

      “Ice-fishing” does sound a bit odd doesn’t it ? (I appreciate your humor).

      Around here, in VT, it’s quite a common past-time. I appreciate it as one the few outdoor activities that I Like to do in the winter.

      And the hi-quality protein is a Bonus, if you can catch it.

  155. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 2:50 pm #

    “I suspect it will be someone who is currently not even on the radar.” – aj-Soak
    ==========

    What happened to Liz Warren?

    Better yet, Chirlane De Blasio. She’s the whole diversity package all in one, including sexual orientation switch-hitter. The only thing she needs is a prosthesis for a missing limb.

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  156. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 2:55 pm #

    It is Act Four and it called “Deep Dark Open Secret”. – aj-Soak
    =============

    Every now and then you slip back into your former persona and start talkin’ Ebonics.

  157. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 3:06 pm #

    “it’s quite a common past-time. I appreciate it as one [..] the few outdoor activities that I [L]ike to do in the winter.” – Looonger
    ===========

    pass-time

    [of]

    [l]

    I spent 3 years in Minnesota (in the Air Force) where those little huts dotted the 10,000 lakes all winter.

  158. Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 3:44 pm #

    http://www.infowars.com/47-of-all-jobs-will-be-automated-by-2034-and-no-government-is-prepared-says-economist/

    Only Switzerland is even thinking about this. The rest of the Nations will probably just let people be put out on the streets by an invention that was supposed to serve “us”. But who is the “us”? Obviously not the common man. We were lied into giving away the ways of life that supported us. We are now in the position of the weavers in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Will a King Lud rise up to lead us? And will his and our fate be the same as theirs?

    Tobor was ahead of the curve. Far ahead. Only I and a few others could parse his Truth from his Madness. And he hated us for doing it.

  159. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 3:58 pm #

    Julian Edelman

    You don’t see many names like this on pro football team rosters.

    It raises the question:

    Is Julian Edelman Jewish?

    Answer

    Julian Edelman has Jewish ancestry on the father’s side but he grew up as a Christian. He is an NFL player for New England patriots in the cornerback position. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall.
    Reference:
    http://www.ask.com

  160. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 4:14 pm #

    “Every now and then you slip back into your former persona and start talkin’ Ebonics”

    I have no idea what you are talking about. You are confusing me with some other poster.

    ~ ajmuste

    “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

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    • Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 4:41 pm #

      “I have no idea what you are talking about.” – aj-Soak
      =========

      I think Chris Christie used those identical words, didn’t he?

  161. Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 4:30 pm #

    Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, a report adopted by the Bilderbergers in its first meeting. It is the product of a highly developed demonic mind, much like the Protocols. I wish I could say that its palpable contempt for the ordinary man was unfounded, but it is not. The only workable alternative is a Traditionalist Society, with strong cultural traditions and morals.

    To his credit, Kdog hates these people, but his policies must be similar since he eschews Tradition.

    http://www.stopthecrime.net/docs/SILENT%20WEAPONS%20for%20QUIET%20WARS.pdf

    • Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 5:11 pm #

      “but his policies must be similar since he eschews Tradition.” – Janos
      ==========

      I knew a Spanish woman who said to her young son “doan eschew your food with your mouth open.”

      • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:19 pm #

        Read Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars. You will find yourself in there in your love of Bread and Circuses. But I admit you buy your own bread and ticket. And you are smart enough to understand the paper. Is this enough? No. For the Intellect is a whore until she marries Truth and becomes a good wife.

  162. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 4:42 pm #

    Janos, couldn’t a Traditionalist Society be easily wiped out by high-tech modern weaponry? By Traditionalist Society you mean earlier and smaller social units which are homogeneous not multicultural, right?

    Like tribes. But tribes cannot put up much resistance because of their limited resources compared to the might of nation-states. When you are talking Bilderbergers I assume the might they can muster exceeds the might of nation-states.

    Can you explain how Traditionalist Society is a solution?

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:24 pm #

      Yes, good point. We will be in danger from the Globalists even if we do manage to take back a little Nation or two – or even a big one like Russia or White America. With fire fire must be fought I guess. I never mentioned pacifism did I? Pacifism isn’t Traditional by any means. Hopefully our Age will end with Ice and not by Fire. An Ice Age would be the best end of all this. As far as I know, the Globos aren’t prepared for that.

  163. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 4:43 pm #

    “I think Chris Christie used those identical words, didn’t he?”

    That whole Christie kerfuffle is no more than a fart in the wind.

  164. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 4:58 pm #

    Janos, did you know the Bilderbergers goes back to Frederick C. Howe? That is proof the Bilderberg/CFR/Trilateralists are a white, anglo-saxon protestant male conspiracy. Read Howe’s Confessions of a Monopolist (1906)

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:35 pm #

      Well Bilderberg is far more international than that – very European. CFR is an American version of the British Round Tables. Those are Anglo-Saxon – and that means lots of Jews obviously.

  165. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 5:10 pm #

    People like BRH help the Bilderberg/CFR/Trilateralists by talking about “clash of civilizations” and painting Muslims as enemies. Bilderberg success depends on finding a way to get us to surrender our liberties in the name of some common threat or crisis. Bush helped by reacting to 9/11 with military instead of law enforcement, and making people like BRH fear an imaginary external enemy to get the Patriot Act passed. The media is enlisted to keep up the fear levels through threat exaggeration and demonization of immigrants and people of color.

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    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:37 pm #

      And who brought the Muslims into the West? They did. Create a problem and then have the solution that moves society in the direction you want.

  166. K-Dog January 19, 2014 at 5:15 pm #

    Earlier I post.

    “Perhaps the sock drawer finds keeping Kunstlers end of the world blog flooded with bogus natal acrimony and defamity dispiriting. Maintaining the mire of cornicopian poo-poo humdrum. The bane on the brain must drain. Perhaps a break in the rake may allay.

    Cogitation on how your propaganda machine could overcome the American proclivity for inertia and pretention of invincibility to embrace solar panel installations on the wattle and daub mud huts of the land could be invigorating.

    (There was a link in the text but any single comment is only allowed two links so if you want to follow it you have to scroll back a page.)

    From which I get these replies from the sock drawer:

    Lord Blaby of Lawson:

    Hey K-Foil, why don’t you be a humanitarian and volunteer your organs for harvesting in Somalia, Minnesota to help spare a little girl or boy from having their organs harvested by the Somali butchers. As we speak, an innocent abducted child is having their organs harvested by a Somali sadist, and instead of stopping it, you’re waxing poetic on the internet. Pathetic. But that’s a Liberal for you.

    &

    Janos Skorenzy:

    Blabby is right. God gave you two kidneys so you could give one away. You should feel guilty because you are guilty. Stop projecting that onto us – at least until you are down a kidney.

    Why repeat this filth. Because the reference to kidney donation is a result of targeting me using information gleaned from surveillance of my personal life and as we celibrate Martin Luther King this week it is worth mentioning.

    We now live in a surveillance state where crimes may now be perpetrated on those who think, dissent and who in any way would seek to rock the boat of the status quo with will and ease. The power of surveillance gives the power of intimidation. The abuse of power by little men is not and will not be resisted. For those who think surveillance is no big deal consider this:

    Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’.

    Uncle Sam has you by the short hairs. And little men can peep in your window.

    As we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. We should remember this man was subject to a Vendetta perpetrated by the FBI. If Martin Luther King were alive today he would have a website and with it he would have his own sock drawer full of puppets. We remember Dr. King for his achievements as we should. But in the times we live in now it is appropriate that we should also remember the harrasment he endured.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:27 pm #

      If you’ve had kidney disease, I apologize. I don’t care to mock serious illness – only self righteousness.

      Needless to say, I have no access to your records. I don’t know if Blabby does nor not.

  167. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 5:22 pm #

    “We should remember Martin Luther King was subject to a Vendetta perpetrated by the FBI. — Kdog

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

    We have guided missiles and misguided men. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 6:29 pm #

      He was a Communist and thus a legitimate subject for surveillance. How things have changed, eh? Now Communists are allowed to be in charge by the Capitalists, and Patriots are under surveillance.

      • BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 6:58 pm #

        Remember the scenario in ‘The Camp of the Saints’?

        • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 9:29 pm #

          Yes we must remain White or become nothing.

  168. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 5:33 pm #

    New England getting clobbered by Manning.

    Go Broncos!

  169. BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 6:50 pm #

    Speaking Of MLK, has his FBI file been opened up to public scrutiny yet? If no, why not? I wonder what kind of information is in those files.

    Asoka, you are right. Muslims are our great friends. Their love of Christians and Jews is well known thru out the world.

    –BRH

  170. BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 6:55 pm #

    And the late Samuel S. Huntington, Professor at Harvard University, came up with the phrase ‘clash of civilizations’ to describe the west’s conflict with the Muslim World, not me.

    –BRH

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  171. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 7:52 pm #

    BRH, I don’t know who the hell Asoka is, but I assume you were responding to my post about the so-called “clash of civilizations”

    You say: “Muslims are our great friends.” You are right! When Europe was in the Dark Ages, the Muslims had a great civilization going and helped the Europeans out of their miserable ignorance. The West got medicine, mathematics, literature, etc. from the Muslims. They are still our friends. Iran is our friend. Turkey is our friend. Pakistan is our friend. Can you name one Muslim country that claims to be our enemy?

    Huntington was wrong in this theory of his because he contended that a civilizational fault line exists between the two dominant yet differing religions (Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam). Because of that supposed difference Huntington theorized that it was the basis for external conflict. But he was wrong.

    There was an integrated civilization comprising those peoples along with those belonging to the less dominant religions of Shiite Islam, Alevism, and Judaism. They have a set of mutual cultural, social, economic and political views and norms which radically differ from those in the West and the Far East.

    Therefore, one cannot speak of a civiliational clash or external conflict, but rather an internal conflict, not for cultural domination, but for political succession. This is where you go wrong, too, BRH, assuming these peoples are at each others’ necks. The reality is an integration of those cultures. We share and learn from each other. Our central values are identical. Islam and Christianity are both religions of peace. Citing extremist actions of a minority (abortion clinic bombers, the Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, Texas, or the Oklahoma City bombing) does not discredit the central religious values of love and peace.

    You want to smear an entire religion due to the actions of a minority.

    • BackRowHeckler January 19, 2014 at 8:04 pm #

      One question; in these cultural fault lines which do not exist, just in the past 30 days, how many bombs have been detonated, how many people killed … in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in Russia, in Afghanistan? So much for your ‘religion of peace’.

      –BRH

  172. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 8:04 pm #

    OK, Janos –
    You had me going with your “Silent Weapons for Silent Wars” link.
    It’s a good one, and the story about the document found in the surplussed copying machine is soo good. It’s almost too good to be true. I bet it fooled you too.

    But I’ll tell you – no official document would ever use this language, especially one from 1957. It sounds like you and Q collaborated on this particular excerpt:

    “The man of the household must be housebroken to ensure that junior will grow up with the right social training and attitudes. The advertising media, etc., are engaged to see to it that father-to-be is pussy-whipped before or by the time he is married. He is taught that he either conforms to the social notch cut out for him or his sex life will be hobbled and his tender companionship will be zero. He is made to see that women demand security more than logical, principled, or honorable behavior.PAGE 42” …vlad’s link….

    Amazing.

    It does go on-and-on about the military draft, so I’ll admit your document must have some age on it. But, it’s a fabrication, IMO.

    Anyone want to “Snopes” it?

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 9:25 pm #

      You may be right. That is kind of colloquial language isn’t it? Likewise, Obama’s birth certificate says “Black” – which just wouldn’t be used back then on an official document. It would have been Negro.

      Let’s everyone read, “Report from Iron Mountain” instead.

      The Illuminati Conspiracy against Europe was discovered when a rider carrying dispatches was hit by lightening. Don’t discount chance, mistake, or Divine intervention.

    • K-Dog January 19, 2014 at 9:42 pm #

      “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars”

      That was a hoot. But only a moron could take the theory seriously. A mix of classical physical linear theory applied to human relations by an insecure crackpot who imagines themself to be superior no doubt to sublimate feelings of great inadequacy. The fact that human society is complicated and functions according to non-linear rules makes this sophomoric gem from Boeing Surplus as stale as the moldy warehouse from which it allegedly came.

      Junk, but amusing junk. If it is actually is on the level there is no hope for the human race and the exodus from Africa 50,000 years ago was at least 50,000 years too early.

      • Janos Skorenzy January 20, 2014 at 1:40 am #

        So you deny that Humans can be programmed? Kept in line with various techniques? In your best moment you know better. The idea that people are infinitely complex is a liberal conceit. Liberals think too well of man and too poorly as well. Sometimes simultaneously.

  173. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 8:07 pm #

    “BRH, I don’t know who the hell Asoka is,”
    ….ajmust be asoka…..

    The soaker hose is here among us JHK.

    He knows everything about everything, from Muslims to MiLK.

    Stand in awe.

  174. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 8:16 pm #

    “just in the past 30 days, how many bombs have been detonated, how many people killed”

    =========

    What does that have to do with a “clash of civilizations”? They are not invading and occupying us. We are invading and occupying them.

    Just in the past 30 days, how many Muslims have planted bombs? Now divide that number (let’s say 60 bombs have gone off) by 1.5 Billion Muslims. How many bombings? Way less than 1.5 billion.

    The infinitesimally small percentage you get is the proof that Islam is a religion of peace.

    I could cite you a number for how many murders have been committed by people who claim they are Christians, using their handguns, in the last 30 days. You post frequently on those murders.

    So what? A minority of persons, who are Christians but who aren’t really practicing Christianity, are engaging in murder. That does not negate that Christianity is a religion of peace.

    Same thing is happening in the countries you name. A minority which does not follow the precepts of Islam and whose terrorism is condemned by Islamic authorities does not negate that Islam is a religion of peace.

    http://www.whyislam.org/jihad-2/worldwide-condemnation-of-terrorism/

    You are cherry-picking, citing Muslim violence, and ignoring Christian violence, then falsely claiming Islam is not a religion of peace based on what a minority does.

  175. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 8:22 pm #

    “However, Kitsikis establishes an integrated civilization comprising these two peoples along with those belonging to the less dominant religions of Shiite Islam, Alevism and Judaism. They have a set of mutual cultural, social, economic and political views and norms which radically differ from those in the West and the Far East.”
    …..aj must plagiarize…..

    By his unattributed quotes, shall ye know him.

    http://www.charlesayoub.com/life-style/index.php/more/1/3934

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  176. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 8:23 pm #

    “The soaker hose is here among us JHK.” — S4B

    I have not seen posts from Asoka. But why don’t you write emails to JHK and complain.

    Make JHK pay attention to his comments section. Make sure your voice is heard with JHK.

    Ask that Asoka be banned because he is somehow damaging the comments section and hurting JHK’s commerce.

    Make your case directly to JHK. Make a nuisance of yourself.

    Good luck!

    Don’t feed the trolls.

  177. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 8:25 pm #

    “…..aj must plagiarize…..”

    Thanks for fetching that citation. I forgot to provide the link. I love how people and canines on this blog will fetch!

  178. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 8:41 pm #

    “Ask that Asoka be banned because he is somehow damaging the comments section and hurting JHK’s commerce.
    Make your case directly to JHK. Make a nuisance of yourself.”
    ….aj must be admitting to being asoka….

    Look, “aj,” I’ve never complained to JHK about you or anything else.

    The only times I have written him have been when he threatened to ban me and when he (once) deleted a post of mine.

    I’ve never minded the unregulated nature of this comment thread. I enjoy the brawl. And I’ve really minded you, either. Sometimes you have been worth brawling with – although it’s been a while.

    It would be better if you would not plagiarize without attribution – which is one of your ABSOLUTELY distinguishing characteristics.

    And it would be better if you’d argue from some honest perspective – instead of TROLLING various random issues that contravene the basic thrust of JHK’s work, and of this comment thread.

    Other than that, carry on.

  179. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 8:52 pm #

    “And I’ve *never* really minded you, either.”
    ….p4w slips past Freud….

    oops.

    • Janos Skorenzy January 19, 2014 at 9:27 pm #

      No you felt, correctly, that he destroying the site when “he” became Carol.

  180. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 8:56 pm #

    “Other than that, carry on.”

    Like I said, I have no idea who the hell Asoka is. As far as I remember he has made one post in the time I have been posting here, if Asoka…. is Asoka.

    Thanks for your blessing. I plan to continue to make rational and factual posts because people like Q and BRH and Janos are making outrageous and offensive posts.

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  181. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 9:30 pm #

    “Thanks for your blessing. I plan to continue to make rational and factual posts because…..” – aj must be kidding –

    That wasn’t a blessing.

    I don’t like your plagiarism, but it’s not my comment thread.

    JHK doesn’t like your trolling. If you continue, he has promised to ban you, again.

    Just calm down, aj, (you) must. That’s a reasonable request.

    And pick one honest perspective (multitude) and stay with it.

  182. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 9:59 pm #

    “No you felt, correctly, that he destroying the site when “he” became Carol.” – janos/vald –

    Yeah, well – the thread was destroyed around that time. That was when “janet” was hacking everybody’s login handle, and spewing some really nasty sh*t. But JHK also implemented this new format which has taken a LOT of getting used to – at that same time.

    Since you’re still awake, Vlad – I found this article as a link off something you posted. http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/12/the-faustian-soul-western-uniqueness/#more-43955

    I keep thinking about how the West made Europe run red with blood, before, and then after, European colonial adventures made the rest of the world run red with blood as well.

    And the the West achieved complete global hegemony – only to
    give it away to China and the third world. And the US could have had blissful internal harmony, and a stable population of 200,000,000 forever – but we gave that away as well.

    Anyway, there’s something wrong with us. But, maybe we’re the most human of humans, in Faustian striving.

    It’s a compelling idea. Read it and let me know what you think.

    You too, backrow and Q.

    And you too, bill of boston and JHK – ’cause it appears Jewish culture has gotten completely bound up with the West, and where we’re taking the world.

  183. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 10:01 pm #

    “…it’s not my comment thread.” — S4B

    So stop acting like you make the rules and are a JHK mind-reader.

    How ’bout den Sea Hawks!

    • progress4what January 19, 2014 at 10:05 pm #

      “So stop acting like you make the rules and are a JHK mind-reader.”
      – aj must be the perfect Troll for CFN –

      • ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 10:18 pm #

        Stop being a resident impediment

    • K-Dog January 19, 2014 at 10:26 pm #

      I just asked Ms. Dog who won.

      The Sea Chickens no more!

  184. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 10:20 pm #

    James Howard Kunstler –

    I know you asked me not to engage in “troll hunting.”

    Sorry about that, man. I got carried away.

    But it’s asoka, all right – regardless of ISP’s and other identifiers.

    Ask any of your regulars, if you want confirmation.

  185. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 10:27 pm #

    OK, I’m done for the week – assuming JHK posts on time on Monday.

    I’ll check for responses to that “Faustian” link here.

    It’s the most compelling thing I’ve seen in a long while – to explain the self-induced madness that Western Civilization is descending into.

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  186. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 10:30 pm #

    James Howard Kunstler –

    I know you asked me not to engage in “troll hunting.”

    =======

    So you are ignoring what our host has requested of you. That definitely makes you the CFN resident impediment. Do as JHK asked and stop your “troll hunting” … Asoka hasn’t posted here for a while. Let sleeping dogs get their needed sleep.

  187. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 10:38 pm #

    OK, one more post –

    “Asoka hasn’t posted here for a while.”
    – aj must lie –

    Another trait that confirms this to be asoka is his absolute inability to give anyone else the last word.

    He’ll have something to say about this, too.

    And JHK, either you need to moderate this thread or you don’t.

    Regards,

    A loyal reader.

  188. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 10:51 pm #

    JHK, please ban progress4what for his troll hunting.

    I have just recently begun posting here and P4W has begun to call me a troll, accusing me of being someone else who was banned earlier. His constant accusations distract and impede meaningful exchanges. P4W is persistent and irrelevant and should be banned from CFN.

    Thank you.

    A loyal reader.

  189. progress4what January 19, 2014 at 10:53 pm #

    OK – I wasn’t as tired as I thought.

    “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president,”
    – Prez. Obama plays the race card –

    Can you imagine Allen West or Herman Cain doing this? I cannot.

    I can’t believe I voted for this man against McCain.

    He’s the worst. Worse than BushII. That seemed impossible at the time.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-19/obama-says-racial-animus-may-soften-support-new-yorker-reports.html

    • K-Dog January 19, 2014 at 11:20 pm #

      Now isn’t that being lost in fantasy. The self deception bug has got him good. Just like someone here who thinks he recently begun posting here because he merely changed his name. The insanity of men.

      No Mr. President. It is not because you are black. It is not because you are white. It is because you have betrayed those who elected you. It is because you are a disloyal man who is a slave to the special interests who paid to deceive the electorate and put your moral zero of an ass in office. It is because you have nothing and will do nothing to ensure the survival of the nation. That’s why.

      The man is lost in a bubble and driving the nation to ruin.

  190. ajmuste January 19, 2014 at 11:03 pm #

    ““There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president,”
    – Prez. Obama plays the race card ” — S4B

    It is not playing the “race card” because it is a true statement. There are some people who don’t like the idea of a Black president.

    Your regret about your vote only says something about you. Something not very flattering.

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  191. Q. Shtik January 19, 2014 at 11:06 pm #

    “How ’bout den Sea Hawks!” – aj-soak
    ===========

    dem

    Hocks or, alternatively, Hox

  192. jawediqbal April 9, 2018 at 3:14 am #

    Fast (Sawm) this is also obligatory in the month of Ramadan and the five pillar of Islam is Pilgrimage (Hajj) which is performed in the month of Zul-Hijjah and obligatory when some conditions are found.

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