JHK’s Three-Act Play
Looking around America these days, if you can stand it, the sense of what it means to be a man has become a very shaky business. I was studying one particular tattooed moron, twenty-something, in the gym Saturday. He had on display a full sleeve-job of “tribal” skin décor in that curvy blade-like motif that invokes a general idea of ninja swordplay. Perhaps he really was a dangerous dude, a Navy Seal just back from slitting Taliban throats in Nangarhar. More likely, he was a fork-lift operator in the local Ace Hardware distribution center. He seemed to resent my attention — but then why had he taken so many pains to adorn himself?
Is it not interesting that so many males in America affect to be warriors? What does this tell us about the psychological dimensions of manhood in this country? If I have to guess, I’d venture that many people of the male persuasion hereabouts can’t imagine any other way of being a man — other than as a fine-tuned bringer-of-death, preferably some species of cyborg, with “techno” bells and whistles. This is obvious fodder from the many Transformer and Robocop movies, the dream of becoming a most excellent killing machine.
This ethos was on hyperwarp display in Sunday’s NFL football playoffs, football being, after all, mock warfare with mock warriors. San Francisco quarterback Colin Kapernick’s arm tattoos were hard to decipher even on a large high-def flatscreen. At first I thought they were maps of suburban Milwaukee, or perhaps the full text of Jude the Obscure but it turns out (I looked it up) they record his ongoing life “narrative,” his triumphs and distinctions, his mom’s heart transplant, and his dealings with the fugitive deity known as Jesus Christ. Between scoring drives, Colin vamped on the sidelines in a red Cholo hat, one of those ball caps featuring an exquisitely flattened brim designed to make the wearer look like a homicidal clown — which is the favored motif of aspiring criminals abroad in the land nowadays. As Lon Chaney, the master of horror, once remarked apropos of his character creation technique, “There’s nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.” The objective: to look as ridiculous as possible and yet give off a vibe of unpredictable danger and violence.
Colin was hardly the sole creature on the field adorned with ink. At times, the scrimmage looked like the recreation yard at the Washington State Penitentiary. But that brings us to another theme of contemporary American manhood having to do with the grand initiation rite of serving time in prison. There is a meme on the loose, especially among the hopeless idealists, that American jails are filled with “political prisoners.” This is just not so. Though our drug laws are certainly idiotic, cruel, and pointless, I believe sincerely that the prison system is filled with psychopathic monsters. They may be creations of our monster-making culture, in all its depravity and pernicious falsity, but they are monsters nonetheless.
But the romance of monsterdom is yet another theme in the current caboodle of American manhood. Boys are in love with monsters, and want to be them, or like them, or with them, and nowadays many succeed at that. The indulgence in all these juvenile enthusiasms presents in the absence of any better models of a way to be. The time is not distant when a lot of things are going to shake loose in this land, and when that happens, there will be monsters amongst us everywhere: tattooed clowns in baby clothes with large muscles and weapons. Really, what are the chances that such people reared on dreams of triumphal violence will operate on the basis of kindness, generosity, and consideration of any future beyond the next fifteen minutes.
Let’s face it, the reason we do the things we do, and act the way we act, is because American manhood is in full failure mode, in full retreat from what used to be known as virtue. We wouldn’t know what this is anymore if it jumped up and bit us on the lips. I’m afraid it will take very stern leadership to reform all these current trends. When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.
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“This ethos was on hyperwarp display in Sunday’s NFL football playoffs, football being, after all, mock warfare with mock warriors.”
In his essay “Are you ready for no football?” EscapefromWisconsin at the Hipcrime Vocab pointed out that the relationship between U.S. culture and the NFL is a lot like that between the Roman Empire and gladiatorial games. “Mock warfare with mock warriors” indeed. Also the comparison between the U.S. and Roman Empire might be one to give people pause. What might be more likely to get the attention of Americans, who will take all manner of social, economic and political abuse, but will rise up with righteous fury when you disturb their Entertainment, is the possibility of football going away because of economic decline and lawsuits by former players over concussions and other debilitating injuries. I wonder what macho American culture would do then?
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/02/hipcrime-vocab-on-super-bowl.html
Maybe they’ll have to import a new macho culture from elsewhere. How about Vladimir Putin shirtless on horseback? That’s totally not gay.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/putin-brony-on-his-little-pony.html
An alternate view would be that human societies have an innate need for some form of blood sport as entertainment, and a sport which involves violent contact but is intended to minimize the injury from that contact, and in which the gladiators are highly paid professionals rather than slaves, is a less onerous form than what existed in, for example, ancient Rome.
In Ernest Callenbach’s book Ecotopia, in which he describes in great detail his vision of a futuristic non-violent society, the men still had annual ceremonial mock battles where they would ingest some psychoactive substance and then fight – I think it was with spears. The first man to be blooded became the hero of the day. Then they all had a big party. An excellent book, by the way.
America learned some valuable lessons from the Roman Empire – lead pipes aren’t good and killing the people’s champion in battle brings a loss of interest from his followers.
Fans gather around large, flat screen televisions purchased on credit in after Christmas sales to watch their favorite band of ruffians throw their bodies at each other, intent on causing damage. Without their near full-body plastic armor, more than just their primal brains would be turned to mush. They are attended to by medical staff whose sole purpose is to get the injured back on the field as quickly as possible. In Rome, the loser was dead and another would fill his place. In America where everything is branded, shallow sports fans don the jerseys of their favorite players, paint their bodies and scream. All the while they are being bombarded with corporate advertisements to buy more Budweiser, pickup trucks and car insurance.
Yes, allowing these over paid high school dropouts and criminals to kill each other would be counterproductive. The revenue stream would dry up and billions of dollars would stop flowing to the networks for ads, GM for their crappy trucks and Anheuser-Busch for their carbonated piss from the sewage laden waters of the Mississippi in St. Louis, MO.
Vladimir Putin shirtless on horseback? That’s totally not gay.
Hmmmmmm, I’m not so sure about that. Might not be so much hair on that chest. If any it would be blond wispy and from the ground invisible.
If he had a big sword strapped on his back the character of his stalwart visage would do the trick. The horse would also have to be the right color. White I think. He should go for the strong virtuous look.
But what is totally gay is that my comment is number 44 today. Way down in Sock Puppet land.
I take back what I said about Sock Puppet land. I was premature. There are still many real people arriving that far down today.
We’ve gone through the first page of comments in a little over seven hours. That’s near record pace, something not seen since this past summer when two people even more prolific than you were still posting comments here.
If post peak oil means some warped narrative of “Beyond Thunderdome”, then these morons are dressing up exactly for the part. Or perhaps this is just another symptom of our decaying digital age.
I seem to recall a New Yorker article in the 1970’s discussing the appearance of beards on Americans. From 1914 onward, Americans had for the most part been clean-shaven, apart from the odd movie villain. The New Yorker made a comparison of the cultural change with the Roman Empire, noting that in times of social stability, such as the Augustan age, the emperor and the average Roman were clean shaven. They linked this with confidence in a secure and civil society. But when the social order began to unravel in the waning days of the empire, beards began to sprout again. The beard, a secondary male sex characteristic, amplifies the jutting chin and projects a air of belligerence and threat. Thus, the beard is unnecessary in times of peace and tranquility, but appears when a sense of personal security is lost. I wonder if tattoos tell much the same tale. They say ‘don’t mess with me, I’m tough.’ What a sad commentary on this system of things’ ability to maintain a sense of peace and security among its citizens.
You write well Thuvia. But I have to disagree with your conclusion.
Beards being a part of the natural face of most men (and many women), it is the “shaved face” that is something close to an abomination in my view.
What we really should do is dig out a list of the bloodiest dictators of recent human history and see how much facial hair they sported. I’m not sure but I think most were clean shaven.
Facial hair on recent dictators?
Hmmmmm . . . . . mustaches, perhaps?
Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Saddam Hussein, and Omar al-Bashir come to mind.
And also . . . V. I. Lenin and Ho Chi Minh sported prominent goatees.
So, there’s a representative sample for you.
I have a thought. Has anyone ever done a study to see if men with beards are more honest or dishonest than those without? Such a study would would have different results depending on time and place studied and so could not really be taken too seriously but it would be interesting.
“We came, we saw, he died.” Hilary’s famous summation of our liberation of Libya. She is clean-shaven, but I bet she could grow a beard if she wanted to.
Bill Clinton, W and Obama are clean-shaven, so I think the hairy- faced bloody warrior is not going to work as a hypothesis. Of course, Americans can’t admit their country with these psychos at the helm killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions in their humanitarian wars.
Really into bearded women, eh? That’s very uncommon.
The latest research suggests that women like beards. I read that after I grew one, but the reason I kept it was because my wife thought I looked good in one.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/05/discovery-news-on-science-of-beards.html
So what’s the story about mustaches?
How about us bearded ones just like to sleep in an extra fifteen minutes in the morning?
“I’m afraid it will take very stern leadership to reform all these current trends.” I haven’t seen any signs of leadership in a long, long while. It just doesn’t exist. Yes there are those self appointed and elected by an electorate that has no idea what they want so vote for the biggest liar that is madly seeking his or her level of incompetence and having the chance to live the good life on everyone else’s dime. No I see no leadership anywhere and am reminded of the the lady comedian (name slips me at the moment looking for some evidence of intelligence on this planet.
” I’m afraid it will take very stern leadership to reform all these current trends. When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.” -JHK
No argument from me on this. (It seems to be a consistent trajectory of failed societies.) The big scare in all this, is that some will actually welcome this turn of events as another chance for skimming the goodies and consolidating [undeserved] profits and power.
As in visiting foreign climes: At all times, avoid encounters that may potentially bring one into contact with the police or military. Head down and powder dry…
Sound advice, Oz
There is a meme on the loose, especially among the hopeless idealists, that American jails are filled with “political prisoners.” This is just not so. Though our drug laws are certainly idiotic, cruel, and pointless, I believe sincerely that the prison system is filled with psychopathic monsters. They may be creations of our monster-making culture, in all its depravity and pernicious falsity, but they are monsters nonetheless.
I agree completely. In fact, my next novel will touch on this idea and incorporate it into the storyline. The Innocence Project is complicated. Are a substantial number of those sentenced to death innocent of the murder, or murders, for which they were charged? Yes. Are they innocent, though? Most aren’t and have led lives of crime to include other murders for which they were not charged. That will be the rub of my novel and I can’t wait to map out on paper the characters of the founders of my version of this Free Willy organization as well as the naive Liberal groupies working for said organization who fail to understand the complexity of character and thus believe innocence is a cut & dried proposition.
Assuming that is all true, and it could well be, I doubt a deep comprehension of it by those in the Innocence Project would cause them much pause.
First of all, it is a tenet of our justice system that you are not to be punished for crimes you did not commit. There are no ifs ands and buts of the nature of: “hey, even if you’re innocent, if you are badass then who cares whether you committed the crime you were convincted of”
Secondly, those who crusade to save those innocently convicted tend to believe that any miscarriage of justice is a damning indictment of the system, even if it is rare. There is certainly going to be at least a rare case now and then of a good person who is wrongfully convicted of a crime.
Furthermore, the notion of justice which you seem to hold seems to me awfully close to that portrayed in some dystopian sci-fi movies in which people are pre-emptively punished for crimes they are expected to commit or are statistically likely to commit. I think that is a huge step toward barbarism, not civilization.
I haven’t even written the novel yet and here you are telling me what my sense of justice and the justice system is from a comment I made that’s a paragraph long. I don’t hold a notion of justice. My focus will be on observing and commenting on the prevailing notion of justice via the justice system and those who attempt to reform it via efforts such as the Innocence Project. As I’ve mentioned, it’s complex, and complexity opens the door for great story-telling, fiction or otherwise. The fun is in the grey matter between the poles.
Yes, the Free Mumia people are slavering idiots who think all Black convicts are a priori innocent of anything and everything.
You need to rethink your proposition. It could maybe be applied to those in the death penalty abolition movement, but the Innocence Project and the innocence movement overall seeks to free the INNOCENT. As in, THOSE WHO DID NOT COMMIT A CRIME. Being that I am the executive director of one such organization, it is rather offensive for you to categorically and haphazardly pass judgment and belittle those who are living the American nightmare and those who have dedicated their careers to right those wrongs. It is extremely difficult to free the truly innocent, much less those who are murderers and recidivists. I suggest you go volunteer with your local Innocence Project and do some further research before you write your ill-conceived novel.
I do believe you are the one who is naive.
Not only will I not rethink it now, I will double my conviction to write it precisely because of comments like this. And as far as you and others being offended, that’s not surprising. You and your ilk have made a burgeoning industry and much ridiculous policy out of being perpetually offended about everything. In otherwords, I couldn’t care less you’re offended; it’s to be expected and par for the course.
As far as you being what you say you are, i.e. an executive director of such an organization, sorry, but I don’t believe tripe like that from anonymous posters on the internet. It’s not valid until I can prove your credentials are what you say they are, and even of you could, so what? You don’t get special billing and deference because you’re an “executive director.”
Writing this novel is going to be fun and you’ve just given me more motivation to choose this topic over several others I’ve been considering. Thanks for that, although, of course, that wasn’t your intent. In fact, that will be the major theme of my novel; intent versus unanticipated outcomes.
You clearly care more about blanket judgments than thoughtfully considering a topic. Your statements make it clear that you have a fundamentally flawed understanding of what we do, how we are (under)funded, and why we do it. I don’t exactly know who me and my “ilk” are but you obviously don’t know either. I am far from perpetually offended but I feel it necessary to comment when someone thinks they have something figured out but are wildly off course. Also, why on earth would someone pretend to be an attorney who actually works in this field just to respond to a comment on a blog? If I were to self-create a position of prominence I would most definitely shoot much higher than the director of a non-profit agency.
Caring more about blanket judgements is an understatement. LBOL is currently the highest profile sock puppet. His primary purpose is to make you and anybody else with a brain go away. Don’t let him get your goat.
Its not our justice system’s function to punish people for crimes for which they have not been accused, tried and convicted. To argue that someone executed for a crime they did not commit surely deserved it for some other crime of which society is not aware does not lessen or mitigate the miscarriage of justice in any way. It is not given to us to know or judge the secrets of men’s souls. That is for a higher court than man’s. Execution has been abolished as a form of punishment in 100 countries and is under moratorium and has not been practiced in at least 10 years in 48 others. It is a custom America shares with only 20% of countries and those are located in parts of Africa, the Middle East, India and China and is considered barbaric in the more civilized parts of the world.
Prabhupad said that was most unwise: execution is a lawful form of Divine Justice. The murderer thus pays off much of the karma quickly and relatively painlessly. The Sufferings in Hell are far, far worse both in duration and intensity.
Yes, India continues to practice that infantile form of barbarism and that particular rationale is akin to the Church in the middle ages arguing that burning an unrepentant witch or heretic alive somehow paid part of the debt they owed to God.
” As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared, “Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is.” Likewise, in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s novella “Traps,” which involves a seemingly innocent man put on trial by a group of retired lawyers in a mock-trial game, the man inquires what his crime shall be. “An altogether minor matter,” replies the prosecutor. “A crime can always be found.” “
“A crime can always be found.” is what I wanted to quote. I linked the article because I don’t take credit for that which is not mine. It is an excellent article and not entirely off topic but I linked it more to give proper citation.
Where there is injustice being accused, tried, and convicted does not make right.
The United States of White Trash. But I would argue this element has always been there — take a glance at the books of Joe Bageant (“Deer Hunting with Jesus,” “Rainbow Pie”) and Jim Goad (“The Redneck Manifesto”). Perhaps in the declining years of the empire it’s assuming pathological forms. I like the Mad Max metaphor one of the comments above alluded to.
You think Blacks are better? You are very naïve and yes, a racist.
Europeans are better. The US was settled in large part by the detritus of Europe.
We do seem to have gone awry. You think it’s genetic? And that genetics only works on Whites?
Jim, NFL players look like criminals because many of them are criminals. We have the example of the NE Patriots Aaron Hernandez, arrested for one murder and a strong suspect in 2 others. Since his arrest at least 5 people in his personal life have died violently; others are in jail. We have read he has strong ties to the Crips street gang, which operates even here in New England. Such is the legacy of Aaron Hernandez, NFL star football player.
Anybody who reads the sports page or listens to sports radio know that these guys are arrested almost daily.
What a difference from the elderly WW1 vets, and the WW2 and Korea vets I remember in our town as a kid, our fathers, uncles and neighbors, (who would probably take umbrage at being called a ‘warrior’ to begin with), mostly courteous gentlemen satisfied with working at their jobs and taking care of their families. I don’t remember seeing too many tatts, maybe an anchor or bulldog on the forearm of a Navy or Marine Corps vet, that’s all.
–BRH
I don’t see anything unnatural about facial hair. I like it. But its hard to deny that in times of cohesive society, the beard disappears. This trend can be seen in the statuary of ancient Greece and Egypt. I think the beard and the tattoo tell us that at a gut level, men feel personally insecure and unsupported by their society, and so need to assert themselves. The tattoo is a sign of the times in which we live.
The male warrior is a component of our collective instinctual nature. There’s no getting around it; survival has demanded such.
Our culture (along with all others) has ever supported a warrior class, and enshrined it in a mythic warrior archetype, be it the warrior-hero who marched back from WWII, made mythic by John Wayne, the West Side Story gangster hero, or the lone wolf – epitomized by Clint Eastwood. [ A regression from nationally-sanctioned warrior to tribally-sanctioned warrior to semi-sociopathic individual warrior cannot be missed here…nor can its implications for the deteriorating state of the larger society.]
I his ground-breaking 1967 book, THE NAKED APE, Desmond Morris said it best: “…it is the biological nature of the beast that has moulded the social structure of civilization, rather than the other way around.”
There has been a fair amount written about the crisis for the male in our society. Manual labor is now performed by machines, so brawn is no longer an economic asset except for fringe sectors of the economy such as sports entertainment. Most occupations which have survived automation tend to be those performed more by women, hence considerably fewer males than females go to college.
I believe you’re right; the lack of PRODUCTIVE physical activity (as opposed to, say, hitting the gym or pumping iron) is a modern phenomenon. In my view, its damage to the physical and emotional health of individuals, as well as to society’s collective ‘sense of self’ has been understated.
Well said!
good point, brh, but what is to be said of so-called virtuous men who sit comfortably in their controlled atmospheres watching virtueless, tattooed degraders of manhood engage in senseless violence for merely for the sake of violence and personal glorification? i gave up all football watching years ago and will never go back. not enough “men” have joined me (and in fact women have started watching in record numbers) and so the charade continues as the advertising dollars roll in at unprecedented levels because of unprecedented levels of viewing.
I don’t agree. There are a lot of people who use violent sports or violent movies or video games as a diversion from everyday life, while remaining cognizant that those are diversions and not to be treated as one of the foundations of one’s own life.
There very well may also be many people who are not well-centered in their lives for whom such entertainment may have a corrosive influence. But I believe that is only true for a subset of the spectators of violent sports.
Yes in corrupt societies, most men become more effeminate but a minority become more brutal. Thus the explosion of homosexuality – a clear pathology. As is the masculinization of women.
A “clear pathology?” Wow, spoken like a real Republican. Maybe a solution to this “problem” would be to re-educate them so that they can become he-men. Or maybe just put ’em in jail or euthanize them.
thuvia, that’s one interpretation of facial hair but i could come up with ten others that would be equally plausible and compelling. i have a beard and mustache and i grew them four years ago because i no longer felt compelled to conform to corporate standards. my mustache and beard are well-groomed and actually accentuate and complement my appearance. there’s nothing sinister or insecure about it. in fact, i’d say the exact opposite is true. blending in and hiding in plain sight is indicative of clean-shaven especially if clean-shaven the norm…which it still is, imo. wall street is replete with clean shaven wolves.
“American manhood is in full failure mode, in full retreat from what used to be known as virtue.”
Indeed, tattoos for some, mixed martial arts for others and a whole lot of hussied-up pickup trucks that will rarely have their utility put into actual service. The local car dealerships down here have about half their lots filled with massive pickup trucks. These things cost way more than the few cars on the lot both in terms of initial and operating costs: a hell of a price to pay to resolve questions of manhood.
http://www.thesisa.org
great point George. i’ve never seen so many pampered pick-ups that never get used for their intended purposes. in fact, i would say the purpose of the pick-up truck has been transformed. it’s purpose now is to convey an image. sure, it could do everything it’s advertised it could do, but could is the operative word. i have to laugh when i see the fat fucks with their pet pick-up trucks at the car wash every other day. they appear to wash them more than they wash themselves. the thought of a dirty pick-up is anathema to them. bizarre. but here we are and it only gets worse.
It’s like Landrovers in the UK. If you feel the need to clean it you don’t need a landrover!
The NFL is a Pro-Wrestling version of gladiatorial contests, made and tweaked for television. NFL football is the only sport that is better as spectacle watched on TV than live in-person.
I’ve noted all the different character types created for the show. There are the smaller African-American players who strive to look like the Predator monster from the movies. There are the larger players of all ethnicities who emulate prison heavies. There has always been the military theme pursued by coaches and some players.
Then of course there is the violence. Tackling used to involve wrapping the arms around a player with the ball and dragging him down. Now it mostly involves running at full speed into the player leading with the shoulder, trying to inflict the most damage at the highest-possible velocity. If the player with the ball sees the hit coming, he can rebound off the hit and advance further, but if he doesn’t see it coming he can be rendered unconscious or even paralyzed, to the roar of the crowd.
The violence, whether it contributes to a team’s success or not, is obviously encouraged. There’s no other reason for the surge in brain injuries. If this were not a desired outcome, football would have gotten rid of the hard plastic armor used as weaponry. No-one thinks Rugby or Australian Rules football are “wimpy” sports,and they don’t have the wearable weaponry. Nor do they seem to have the horrific injuries.
Many cultures have idealized deadly violence, but they usually tried to contain it to ceremonial purposes when not actually in battle. It seems when the culture has reached and passed its apex is when the violence-as-entertainment appears. The ceremonial function has been lost, and now it’s all just spectacle.
I recently worked on a corporate event in Las Vegas, at the Cosmopolitan. Right now across the street at the Hard Rock is a porn convention. Of course Vegas is all about vulgar spectacle taken to the extreme, but what I noticed was the influence of pornography as a cultural touchstone of style. All these young women in tiny dresses, wearing too much makeup and “trashy” haircuts, wearing shoes with 2″ soles and 6″ heels, wobbling around on the hotel’s carpeted hallways, wildly intoxicated. The men were fake-tanned, tattooed, wearing expensively ill-fitting jeans and ball caps with stickers and flattened bills, as if having just been stolen from a shop in a smash-and-grab burglary, wearing unlaced $400 sneakers. They were slinging around hundreds and thousands of dollars guzzling “sophisticated” liquor, gambling wildly, and loudly laughing and shouting expletives. A volcano of vulgarity, while the proprietors smile tolerantly and take the money.
When two of the more popular cultural references are pornography and gladiatorial contests, and Las Vegas and the NFL are seen as aspirational showcases, things are not heading in a productive direction.
Do the females who find these disgusting men attractive deserve our pity or are they equally disgusting?
they’re equally disgusting and now they’re some of the biggest fans. i remember a time when women didn’t like football. not anymore. they don’t even understand the game, but of course, that’s not the point and the advertisers know it. i do not respect any woman who is a “fan” of football. such a woman is no woman at all. she’s an abomination like so many things these days.
Gazing with dismay upon the spectacle of tattooed Usanian manhood (a constant meme of his Kulturkritik), Kunster concludes that “I’m afraid it will take very stern leadership to reform all these current trends. When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.” The imagined encounter of these two public figures may seem a trifle incoherent, but at least Kunstler is looking in the right direction by invoking the Fuhrer. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that when the socioeconomic indices are just right these unruly youth will happily succumb to authoritarian leadership, and that overnight – perhaps under the full moon – they will exchange en masse their rumpled clown’s attire for a neatly pressed brown shirt.
Perhaps a bit hard on JHK, Gardenplot, but I think that your observation about “a neatly pressed brown shirt” is perceptive and quite correct.
For my part, the juxtaposition of Dolly and Adolph was delicious.
Immediately thought of Sarah Palin.
And that would be a bad thing? A military coup would be by far the best solution to our problems. Egypt has it right.
I recall a photojournalist writing that most of the wars he covered had more to do with bored teenagers than greedy old men. A lot of us beat our adolescent chests, as it were, with electric guitars (nothing phallic there, eh?) in the suburban culture of my youth. In the Mideast, where young men have been excluded from oil money and are left with no way to enter adult manhood, it’s warrior garb and small arms aplenty, if that’s what it takes to impress the chicks.
Let me play devil’s advocate here. Two observations: What is the likes of you doing anywhere near a gym? I’m hoping “doctor’s orders”. Understandable. And what is the likes of you doing anywhere near the presence of a “large, high-def flatscreen”? Sheesh! Take Wendell Berry’s advice: “Stay away from screens”. The rest? Who can argue?
I’m old enough to remember when women didn’t like men with beards, didn’t like ‘neanderthals’, men who were overly belligerent and unsophisticated. That was a time of civil society, a society in which people felt confident and comfortable with resolving disputes with words rather than blows. A husband or a boyfriend who was too macho was an embarrassment in those days, out of place in that civil, polite society. That society is long gone. I think that Jim’s aversion to tattoos (and mine) is a lament for that loss, as the tattoo is a visible reminder of our steady return to the dark ages.
And while beards or the absence thereof do not correlate with virtue or warrior status, they do correlate in the art and history across the millennia with stable, cohesive periods in society. The jutting, phallic beards popular today, along with the proliferation of tattoos, coupled with women’s admiration for them, proclaim that the unraveling of society is widely sensed.
Why should a man look like a woman? Many Civilizations have featured bearded men in the Middle East and Ancient West. If the West has a problem with that, than we have obviously have a problem.
At least these people are easily identified. Back to the criminal banking theme, excellent interviw with Professor Black can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUHS7TVVgww
Thuvia, i watched a show not too long ago that included Jim and Mike Ruppert along with several other Collapse commentators and Jim had a mustache and an earring. your indictment of facial hair is an indictment of mustaches as well. and, what do you have to say about earrings on men? i like the idea of studying, sociologically, attitudes towards facial hair throughout history but i think your assertion is too simple and not well thought out.
I’m not indicting facial hair at all; I like it. (Of course at one time I liked bellbottoms and white lipstick, but like the rest of us, I’m a product of my times. Zeitgeist cannot be denied)
And as I said, it has no historical correlation with virtue or absence of war. It correlates to personal security. While I will concede that the Assyrian empire never went through a beardless phase, most empires did. Of course the Assyrians may have been outliers; they were renowned for ferocity and bloodthirsty, mindless violence.
But even the Middle Ages had beardless episodes; think of the high culture and prosperity of pre-Black Death Europe, when men were clean shaven. Post 14th century, amid the great upheavals associated with the failure of feudalism, the beard returned. I’m not trashing men with facial hair; I merely point out that facial hair is a historically valid correlate with unraveling societies. It is mostly likely a subconscious response to receding social fabric that used to provide our collective security.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars, yours is an interesting theory, but ultimately is trivial because there are many other more important markers for American societal decay, such as the rise of morbid obesity, the erosion of constitutional rights, the forced reallocation of wealth and impoverishment of the middle class through advancing socialism, currency erosion, and the institutionalization of corrupt government. Sorry, I’m not intending to be dismissive of your comment, just putting it into perspective.
This blog about warriors reminded me that on Saturday I attended the funeral of a real (former) warrior who spent 2 years fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. He didn’t talk about it much, but there were some photos of his army and OSS days, and medals including the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star on the table at the reception. The man I knew was a tall courtly southern gentleman, who spent 35 years as a Scout leader, and a retired to his farm. It seems that most of the young men sporting tattoos and backwards baseball hats are middle class, and sometimes even upper class posers.
As for tattoos, I despise them and consider them graffitti on the body. I find it especially sad to see them on women. Beautiful women don’t need them, and they don’t improve the looks of those who aren’t so pretty. Most of the tattooed people I met in my youth were rather low-rent types who most people wouldn’t have wanted to emulate.
To my observant eye watching the 49ers – Seahocks game there was one hopeful sign of change that in a perfect world will take root more generally.
You are all aware, of course, of the ridiculous displays players make each time they accomplish what they are paid to do. For example, if a defensive lineman gets through and “sacks” the quarterback he immediately leaps up, kicks out a leg, does a shimmy (not very manly in my estimation), screams angrily while bashing his face mask into the face mask of a team mate (why angry? why not smiling with glee?) and maybe runs around the field in a quick burst with his arms extended like an airplane. These moves are all pre-choreographed and well practiced. They are in no way spontaneous.
By contrast, in the field of financial analysis for example, I doubt anyone was ever high-fived for a well-placed debit and a beautifully executed spreadsheet…..certainly I wasn’t.
Another move that has become so ubiquitous that it is performed at every skill level of the game from professionals and college athletes right down to the pee-wee league players whose protective gear weighs more than they do. I speak of the celebratory practice of the flying body bump with team mates upon scoring a touchdown.
And this is where the hopeful sign appeared yesterday: Marshawn Lynch scored for the Seahocks. Team mates rushed toward him but before they could execute the leaping body bump he mildly gestured “no” with a gentle wave and instead shook the hand of two or three mates. Perhaps this was a throwback to that first game on the banks of the old Raritan?
“When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.”
Heh….your best one yet, Jim!
James’ descriptions of modern American male culture is more an issue of style over substance, in the sense that males have always aspired to be warriors at some level. It’s a result of the testosterone family of hormones. That men now over-tat themselves, shave off their hair, go the gym to show off, and vicariously live the warrior life through watching football is a reflection of current times, not a new mode of behavior.
Americans have always been pretty violent, haven’t we? Look what we did to Native-Americans, how we killed our own brothers in the Civil War and enslaved Africans. So what’s new about male behavior besides the hair, excessive tats, clothes, and the ritualization of violence through activities such as football-watching, studying martial arts and video-gaming?
Oh, c’mon. If we didn’t defeat the Indians and uproot them, there would have been no America. Just as there would have been no Israel if you people didn’t terrorize the Arabs into leaving.
Fairs fair, they’d have been no Palestine or indeed sny muslim run hellholes had the Arabs not terrorised and forcibly subjugated the Jews and Christians who lived their. The palestians are arabs and historically not native to the area. In fact had old mo stuck to fiddling with children his stone age views would have stayed on the arabian peninsula!
Oops lived there!
It is still a mystery to us Brits how you managed to start a war that killed some 600,000 over a matter we settled empire wide 30 years before with a simple act of parliament! Though, of course the Royal Navy had took a dim view of the slave trade for many years before that, confiscating overloaded ships and destroying many of the unseaworthy ones. The irony of simultaneously using press gangs to crew ships whilst freeing slaves was not missed by many of the Captains of the day either. A small historical note, Destruction Bay in Sierra Leone is thus named because of the Royal Navy’s use of the shallow waters to ground and cut the keel in half of any confiscated ship. The remnants of these hullks are still visible even today!
This is obvious fodder from the many Transformer and Robocop movies, the dream of becoming a most excellent killing machine.
A proper comment would look up the statistics and find out exactly how many hours and how many murders were watched on T.V. to make the average psudo-pretend killing machine. I could find out but we all know the number is so huge as to be incomprehensible. the sad fact is that most follow and few lead, and with nothing good to follow we see the results.
Men with nowhere to go and nothing to do. If your victim was a fork-lift operator in the local Ace Hardware distribution center he was one of a lucky few. That is if you can call someone with a job that can’t possibly pay a mortgage lucky.
Boys are in love with monsters and always have been. That they have nothing else to worship but the idea of becoming one so that they may ultimately express their frustration and anger at not being given the choice of anything else to be is almost excusable. Only one word in the essay offers anything remotely near an alternative, ‘virtue’. “American manhood is in full failure mode, in full retreat from what used to be known as virtue.”
No jobs for the non-educated and no jobs for the educated. A land where Wall Street larceny is praised and goes unpunished. A land where the only thought of the future is a fuzzy cornicopian sci-fi fantasy that won’t need oil or you and where everything will run on magic. A land where the passive art of watching a dead screen has replaced reading thinking and doing. How can there be virtue when the art of passivity is praised.
Virtue doesn’t buy much these day so exactly why would there be any to go around?
The only good thing right now is mostly males in America only affect to be warriors. They pose and strut mostly unaware of the game that’s been played on them. Should they ever realize how much they have been cheated there could be hell to pay.
With respect, K-Dog, I don’t think that there will be hell to pay. I think that Gardenplot, above, has it correct, as far as he goes.
The more important questions to my mind are:
1. who will eat it this time, and
2. who will direct it this time.
Of course, the brown-shirted ones will do the deeds as well as suffer the most, but there will be plenty of pain to go around.
This time, however, I suspect that it won’t be at the expense of anyone who can think.
Invoking the Fuhrer. Will history rhyme? Gardenplot could be right but it took 14 years from the time Hitler founded his party to when he took over and we live in different times. Now we are rudderless with a vacum of leadership yes, but the number of disenfranchised is not large enough to spark a movement. The disenfranchised are ignored and forgotten and doomed to fade away. The convenient view is that those now miserable and poor without a future made their own choice. That their predicament is their own fault.
Should the number becomes large enough could we have our own Golden Dawn roaming the land looking for scapegoats and demanding justice?
No, if you follow the link I dropped in you will see the Greek Government is going after ‘electronically documented illegal activity’ in an attempt to shut Golden Dawn down. American activity is now all extremely well documented. Only a fool belies the meta-data dodge. Our government even has time to watch End of The World Blogs and dogs. No opposition movement can possibly start without being seen so the answer to: 1. Who will eat it this time is that all of us will eat it. The answer for: 2. Who will direct it this time is that our own government will direct it. A goverment run by those most adept at lies and manipulating public opinion. An American Golden Dawn of brownshirts would be shut down before it starts. Along with any well intentioned opposition.
I need to qualify what I mean by a vacum of leadership. We have leaders who only milk the system for their own benefit. They do not lead. They have power like mob bosses have power. They exploit rather than lead.
Our future will be like Orwell’s 1984. With all communication electronic and currently being fully monitored the coming nightmare will be unlike any ever seen before. The ‘Party’ will be those with government jobs and those with money to ‘buy’ and control these jobs and influence those who have them. Our inverted totalitarian way of live is here to stay. Rule by the corporate beast without regard for the nations people, their welfare, or their future. America gave up freedom for an exaggerated bogeyman and now it is too late for anyone to emerge and effectively oppose the silently approved choice.
We go out down with a wimper and no bang. Young men may affect to be warriors but all they can do is war against their own people in the employ of the oppressors or become lone gunmen with no future and the mental derangement that goes along with that choice.
Our inverted totalitarian way of life is here to stay.
It’s always something.
And another: Only a fool believes the meta-data dodge.
Well that point is worth repeating anyway!
Yes they are masterful is their thoroughness. The Military has been utterly hollowed out with paper pushers and lesbians riding herd over the real warriors. Kunstler’s Christ haunted Lieutenant in Fallujah will never be allowed to rise in the ranks to where he could become a popular Hero and stage a coup and return to America as a Savior. Nor would the media allow him to become a hero. Our heroes are very carefully chosen: singers and athletes.
Also the Constitution carefully keeps the military under control – a good thing during normal times but not now alas.
I thought, K-Dog, that you used the term “hell to pay” to refer to armed insurrection, which I was arguing against. I see now that you argue the same case most persuasively.
I’ll shall clarify. I meant “hell to pay” as an increase in crimes against people where anyone being in ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’ could stand a great chance of being a surrogate target for someone’s suppressed rage anger and frustration.
Remember what Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars said, People must be kept busy, busy, busy. Or completely idle and distracted. A happy balance would make for Citizenship – and they sure as hell don’t want that.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/the-modern-phenomenon-of-nonsense-jobs-20130831-2sy3j.html
In truth, robots will replace much of human work if things keep going. Why we would create such a society is the first question. The second, is will we let the unemployed starve. They love to make people take responsibility for there not being enough jobs. And hopefully there will be hell to pay if and when the people thrown off that fiction.
So what’s new about male behavior besides the hair, excessive tats, clothes, and the ritualization of violence through activities such as football-watching, studying martial arts and video-gaming?
Ever seen the movie the The Birdcage. That’s kinda new, imo, and you left it out. Yet, it’s an increasingly popular lifestyle choice for many “men”; and please don’t hand me that nonsense that it’s not a choice.
Ah yes, now your true character and intellect come into focus.
What character?
“i’ve never seen so many pampered pick-ups that never get used for their intended purposes.” – eieio
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Across the street from me live a “dink” couple. He’s Jewish, she’s not. She’s blond, has big tits, and drives a little BMW sports car. He’s a lawyer and drives a Ford 150 4-door tricked out with everything including a bed cover. I don’t think Jason even knows how a claw hammer works.
A Ford 150 4-door. Red perhaps? Don’t look through the windshield of that BMW to hard or you might just find yourself being chased around the front yard with a claw hammer.
Jim, I note the irony that you DID tune in to the 49ers – Seahocks game and, I’ll guess, the Broncos – Patriots game too. Perhaps these were just anthropological studies?
If you want something really worthy to rail at tatt-wise may I suggest you take a look at Lena Dunham on the hit show “Girls.”
P.S. The 9er QB’s last name is spelled Kaepernick.
“Perhaps these were just anthropological studies?”
Of course they were.
This is our so-called culture on full and optimum display.
What’s happening in the country today reminds me of the last days of the old Soviet Union, with a few greedy son of a bitches grabbing everything they can grab and the police and the military and the media just standing around watching them do it.
“What does a man do, Walter?” “A man provides for his family. When you have children, you always have family. They will always be your priority, your responsibility. And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated or respected or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man.”
Gus Fring. Consider the source. Very carefully.
Check the Wikipedia article “Incarceration in the United States.”
You’re familiar with “hockey sticks,” Mr. Kunstler, as are Chris Martensen, Richard Heinberg, et al. There’s a big, fat hockey stick in prison statistics. Incarceration has soared since 1980. I think it’s a safe bet that few of those who represent the prison population are middle class or rich.
Law, civil or criminal, is, by definition, a political creation. We seem to have forgotten all those films from the 30s that pointed out that so many politicians make their bones as “tough on crime” prosecutors.
We incarcerate a disproportionate part of our population compared to any civilized society–other than a totalitarian state–and a hugely, hugely disproportionate number of young black men.
If our prison system is just we are a sick, sick, sick, sick society.
And look at the proportion of men vs. women imprisoned. It’s our men who are sick.
I certainly do not agree that everyone who goes into our prisons is a monster. But I don’t see how anyone could survive in them without becoming one.
Our criminal justice system is completely insane. Insane. I use that word purposefully.
As for men. Study Plato’s “Symposium.”
Good points.
Yes, female criminals who have children out of wedlock and on the public dime are lauded as heroic. And women are encouraged to divorce their husbands and ruin him if they can.
As for Blacks, they have never created a Society of the type you are alluding to. Consider that. After a certain point, crime becomes civil war does it not?
But yes, I agree about Gas Firing. Men are conditioned to accept unemployment as shameful and completely their fault. This is key. If you lose at musical chairs it’s your own fault 100%. And the losers deserved to lose. And ultimately there can only be One winner – and he deserved to win. Thus the Pyramid is created thru a kindergarten game.
Only Switzerland is even thinking about what to do when robots take most jobs. And btw, they have the best civil defense program in the world with a place for everyone. And their army is a militia where the men keep their rifles at home.
We abandoned civil defense after the coup in the 1960’s. The current Elite either want us to die or don’t care if we do.
Ah but Gus Fring knew exactly which of Walters buttons to push.
Walter was heavily invested in believing exactly what Gus said and it was not until the final episode that Walter finally admitted the truth to himself and Skylar. Gus knew that in his heart of hearts Walter was driven by anger and an exaggerated sense of personal injustice. That “A man provides for his family” was Walters justification and his self deception and just true enough to keep Walters deception alive. Gus knew Walter wanted too much for his justification to be true. Gus knew exactly which card to play.
“There is a meme on the loose, especially among the hopeless idealists, that American jails are filled with “political prisoners.” This is just not so. Though our drug laws are certainly idiotic, cruel, and pointless, I believe sincerely that the prison system is filled with psychopathic monsters.”
But as you say: We incarcerate a disproportionate part of our population compared to any civilized society–other than a totalitarian state–and a hugely, hugely disproportionate number of young black men.
Society not just prisons is filled with psychopathic monsters. Few go to prison for being nice but many go there who’s greater crime is being poor ignorant different and unemployable and who do not rate high on the psychopathic monster scale until they get into prison.
I don’t know, JHK. Your overall points about the decline and depravity of manhood in America are sound, but you’ve also veered into cranky old fart territory.
“Boys are in love with monsters…” Hell, I was in love with monsters when I was a boy in the 1960’s, and I didn’t turn into one. I’m sure I’m not alone in that regard. As for all tattoos, it’s hard to say whether that’s a result of people still going along with an (ill-advised) trend from the 90’s, or the warped warrior ethic you posit.
One thing is certain: this country has gotten meaner, and men without power or jobs are a powder keg waiting to blow.
JHK is cranky, which is why I enjoy his insights. I’m less concerned about ink than the narratives of power that they are supposed to symbolize for the powerless (but potentially dangerous) mob.
Yes, these folks are longing to act out, if no real jobs beckon. Might as well ink up, get loaded, get in a fight, and wait for the lid to blow.
There’s been a change over the years in popular culture: monsters are now the heroes and the good guys are really monsters. Thus Anti-Nominalism has conquered. All the cops are criminals and all the sinners, saints.
We are ruled by Satanists. It’s just that simple.
Well, Janos, I can’t quarrel with anything in that post.
“Where The Wild Things Are” and “Monsters Inc.” anthropomorphize ugly/scary things making them less alien; therefore, less scary. Same thing with the commercialization of anything associated with warfare.
If anyone can dress and obtain military level accoutrements then they can be just as powerful as the military.
Tattoos originate from a very small island: New Zealand’s Maori. It’s called Ta moko. Just like most other nature worshippers (Native Americans), they take on the sacred powers of the animals they imitate with patterns on the skin.
Pete Seeger’s song titled “Garbage” seems prescient, although it was probably written 50 years ago. Its closing lines, as I remember them, were:
“Nothing to see but garbage,
Nothing to be but garbage.”
Isn’t that just what you are saying, Mr. K?
Military culture is decidedly strange with its vulgar and debasing slang and sometimes satanic argot such as its Predator drones and Hellfire missiles — we are out there making it a better, safer world, or so we imagine. During my own military experience, ages ago, when I received a full dose of just what I’m speaking about, I worked on an aircraft known as the “Voodoo.”
-Phut
If America is going down hill we’ve been doing it for decades. The Mafia is way more violent than the tattooed street thugs but better dressed. It’s just a different version. The gangs in the 1850’s had long beards and mustaches and were almost animals in their violent beavior towards everyone coming off the boat to America (New York City draft riots) Tattoos have been so prominent for so long they just seem passe` to me. I think the football “concussion ” epidemic among other injuries is going to lead to it’s downard spiral in a decade. Every sport has it’s ups and downs.
The mafia perform an animalistic justice by defending territories with quick ferocity that affects everyone in the neighborhood. Gangs of juveniles who have to identify themselves from other gangs with markings or signs and whose territories are not well defined do not affect most people who are blind to them. It’s ugly graffiti to most people like JHK.
I like Dolly Parton.
I like her tits, but you need a safety rope and tether when you’re scaling them. Otherwise, what a blast it would be to wallow down the slopes of Mount Pardon. Without a GPS you could easily get lost and never find your way back…or out.
Of course, I know some will say it’s Parton not Pardon, but to me it should be Pardon because you know those massive boobs have to be bumping into all manner of things to include other people and she’s constantly having to say Pardon as a result.
“I don’t exactly know who me and my “ilk” are but you obviously don’t know either.” – TheLegalV
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Me neither but I can tell you this much, any time the word “ilk” is used it’s intended as an insult. You will never hear “Mother Theresa and her ilk.”
Exactly…as in Harvey Milk and his ilk.
But why? It’s because of the sound quality. The mantric quality of language is the deep mystery that goes far beyond your grandma nit pickery.
Tattoos don’t even register with me any longer: I live near the third-most inked city in the USA.
I rather like a bit of ink on a woman. But like so many American traditions, “if a little is good, a lot is GREAT.” Um, no.
What does register: Mustache mania. WTF is that about? Little kids have mustache pins on their backpacks.
JLaw referred to her “vagina armpit” the other evening. Damn it, that’s why women used to shave them! Doesn’t anyone know anything anymore?
“so brawn is no longer an economic asset except for fringe sectors of the economy such as sports entertainment.” – Isjogren
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and piano movers.
Janos may well be correct that robots will replace human workers. And having a “job” may well become passé.
I just wonder if, when machines become self-aware, they look around and realize we are useless and totally expendable.
“For my part, the juxtaposition of Dolly and Adolph was delicious.” – Sauerkraut
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Good, because I haven’t the foggiest idea what JHK meant here. Please explain.
I can’t speak for JHK, but I can tell you what I saw in the line, “When it comes around, it will look like Dolly Parton meets Hitler.”
1. First, the juxtaposition of principals (in language) is bizarre.
2. I visualized a meeting between an hysterical asexual and a hypersex object. Adolph’s internal state of confusion would have dwarfed his wars. You must admit to finding that delicious.
3. That meeting would have had repercussions on Adolph, at least. He might have become even more repressed, in which case he would have imposed more restrictions on the armed forces, perhaps leading to his early demise. Had he become less repressed, he might not have needed to compensate for his inferiority by killing people. Imagine him chiding an erring colleague, “Ya, OK, budt no more Misder Nyse Guy.”
4. Symbolically speaking, ‘Marca meets up with them thar Nazzzis and seeks common ground. That suggests, to me, a sexualized culture meeting obsessive discipline, which becomes its own unique variant on the S&M nation-state. Quite obscene, but in some prurient way …
Hope that helps, Q.
That’s an interesting interpretation, SK, but I’m not certain we need go that deep. To my ear, it’s simply another way of expressing the concept of “corn-pone nazi”, one of our favorite [tm] Kunstlerisms.
Speaking of devout followers clad in epauletted tan shirts, the crop of so-called “republicans” that have emerged from regions of darkening ignorance (those regions are dotted EVERYWHERE, BTW) give a very real picture of the authoritarian mindset, american-style. “These people” and their besotted fellow travelers are ripe and ready to get behind anyone who promises “stability” and punishment of their “enemies” (read: critical thinkers). Look at what popped up and coalesced around Sarah Palin, and you’ll see why I don’t think an ideologically-blinded horde of neo-nazi xenophobes is such a farfetched notion. (Mah-ahm, where’s my swastika tie clip?? I’ve gotta look sharp for tonight’s rally!)
I would suggest reading some newspapers from a couple years before that election cycle and compare it to today’s editions. Even on the opinion pages, a coarsening of sensibilities, and what seems to be a certain glee in expressing some rabid tropes of punishment and revenge are freely expressed. (Sure, freedom of speech and all that, but it doesn’t prevent us from engaging in the mulling of “how are these things different?”.) Look too at the massive increase in violence, bloodshed and death on the teevee and you can see what we’re being prepared/innured for. Contrast and compare; even in a time frame of human history, things have changed very rapidly and desperation and fear are the mind-killers and political landscape-changers. (It’s difficult to panic a person who has considered the options, or lack thereof. Facing a predicament is quite a bit different from following hierarchical happy-talkers down the blind alley of easy solutions… that are anything but!)
Very *STRANGE*, “indeed”… Neon nails all my concerns, almoast (TM) immediately.
Yet *NO ONE* discusses the after-game *politics* (CNN)?!? I mean, I used to follow “sports” back in ’81 or so, and could give you almoast NE-stats on the “big-ones” (and their entire record, up ’til that *TIME*). I gave that sh!t up a *LONG* time ago.
Roid eaters are teh *NAME OF TEH GAME* (350+lbs). And such a boring sport – 10% live, 90% *COMMERCIALS*. The only time these guys actually *PLAY*, is when 1 of them gets a concussion…
My *prediction*?!? I figure around 600 *POASTS* this week (new record?).
Kdog, how do you make something link to give proper citation?
Just search the web for anchor tags. I memorized how to use them long ago and have the process down. It only takes 15 keystrokes to turn a raw link into a link attached to any text you wish.
First I type: <a href=””></a> (15 keystrokes)
Then I paste in a link label: <a href=””>Anything you wish goes here</a>
And finally the raw link between the double quotes : <a href=”http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/warrior-land/comment-page-1/#comment-164816″>A link to your comment</a>
The final product is this which I made simply by replacing the code above this for greater than and less than symbols with actual ones from my keyboard: A link to your comment
Now tap that and the page should jump up a bit because your comment is my target. Of course the target is usually another web page.
the code above this sentencefor
“Many Civilizations have featured bearded men in the Middle East” – Janos
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I would like someone knowledgeable on the subject to explain the logic by which it is a virtual high crime among Muslims and orthodox Jews for adult males to go beardless. It strikes me as inane as the pre-tearing of toilet tissue before sundown on Fridays so as to avoid the stricture against doing work on the Sabbath.
Wait, wasn’t there a big beard requirement at some point in American History?
The Orthodox Christians of Antiquity felt the same way about beards. They are Man’s Majesty (masculine beauty) just as long hair is a Women’s Beauty. I found the same thing in the Rainbow Hippy Culture.
Male beauty secret: grow your beard for a few months. When you shave it off, your skin will be as smooth as a baby’s and it will be drawn in as if you’ve had a face life. You will look like an Aryan Ufonaut. A Nordic Superman from the Stars.
It’s not logic, Q, but tradition.
“think of the high culture and prosperity of pre-Black Death Europe, when men were clean shaven.” – Thuvia
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Yes, I believe that period coincided with Gillette’s IPO (initial public offering).
And just prior to when shaving moved from the face down to include the entire neck and the blades doing the shaving got a lot bigger. After which blades to shave with disappeared for 500 years.
VERY good.
“I merely point out that facial hair is a historically valid correlate with unraveling societies.” – Thuvia
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Interestingly, Bawney Fwank was interviewed on CNBC last Friday and he is now sporting a short beard. I wonder what that’s all about.
Go to an old timer for a tattoo. Get a dancing girl on your bicep so when you flex, she dances. With a bottle of Scotch and your girl on your arm, you’ll never be lonely again. Girls will love it. And even if they don’t, you still have her. Just substitute the Scotch for some tabs and she’ll come alive.
Who needs a job? A man without a job is a bum. A man looking for a job is a beggar. A man who finds a job becomes a slave. Is this slave Civilization what we labored for untold ages to create? If that’s the best we can do, why not go back to being hunter gatherers? Our Ancestors grew strong in the ice and snow, and so shall we.
” Our Ancestors grew strong in the ice and snow, and so shall we.” – Vlad
Yes, and their ancestors grew strong and fast and smart on the African savannah.
@ K-Dog:
I’ve repeated this introduction to the I Ching several times here:
Everything changes except change itself.
Good government arises, then corruption sets in and the government becomes destructive to the ends of the public. Uprisings occur and then reform. Everything is good and then corruption sets in …
Has there ever been a nation living under tyranny that has lasted long? Did the USSR, Nazi Germany, etc. remain forever? Maybe a lifetime, but not much more. I don’t think 1984, if it comes, would last.
Great change is coming and it doesn’t have to be bad. If it is, then change will insure that the human condition will turn turn towards benevolence.
1984 is already here.
And seriously I know of one Dog personally who was harassed and intimidated in real life for doing nothing more than talking about time stamps and the identity of of commenters on a certain blog. Had this Dog had any outstanding warrants or anything to hide he would not be happily typing on the internet right now. As it was the only thing he had to do was fix a minor tax problem, get new credit cards for all the ones which got cancelled and learned to live knowing he was being constantly watched. The harassment got intense, it even included vandalism. But I don’t want to get into that right now.
The problem with assuming that benevolence shall prevail is that without oversight absolute power corrupts absolutely. Most people always think they are right in whatever they do and always ignore any bad consequences of their actions. We are all stuck on ourselves. To think that without transparency and accountability the human condition will turn turn towards benevolence is naive. Men can be benevolent and take pride in being so or they can be sadistic assholes who take pride in being that. It all depends on which way the social wind blows. Few men listen to their own hearts to know who they really are but rather they listen for the song sung by others forever hoping it be praise.
Tyranny combined with the power to electronically monitor everything people do will last for then it becomes all powerful. And tyranny is the antithesis of “Everything changes except change itself.” Tyranny is all about maintaining a fixed social arrangement and preventing change at all cost. American tyranny today means we are ‘energy independent’, all polar bears have to do is move to zoos and that Moslems are hiding behind every bush ready to throw a burka over our women. We don’t have to worry about the future because technology to solve all problems is right around the corner. Just sit on your hands and wait. Better yet root for the super-bowl. To think otherwise makes you a rabble-rouser who believes in chicken little and the falling sky, and this also defines tyranny. Tyranny is absolute control by a state which does not tolerate dissent; and a state which controls communications is in absolute control. The end result of which will be widespread poverty misery and even death for many for those in high places are incapable of seeing social problems or of even caring. Elitism blinds and hardens the heart.
and learn to live knowing. I hope that is the only one.
Yes Bill is right but wrong at the same time. For the Left hand must not know what the right hand is doing. Or as Chuang Tzu said, A centipede was asked how we worked all his legs so well. The centipede thought about it and not only couldn’t answer, but couldn’t even walk anymore, much less run.
Women can do most things a man can do. But one thing women cannot do is grow a beard. In fact, a man shaving his beard looks like a woman — it is ugly. A man without a beard and a mustache is just half man.
As far as warriors go, the USA spends TRILLIONS of dollars on it militarism and trains teenagers to become killers, then gives them medals for killing. When they come home again, the desire to kill does not go away. They will continue killing. Check out #515: Good Guys: Act Four of This American Life, “Deep Dark Open Secret”
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/515/good-guys?act=4
“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)”
Our tax dollars go to train teenagers to become killers and it will not end well, for them or for us.
Yet we continue to romanticize Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force, Seals, etc. as “warriors” and call them “elites” and “heroes” because they are willing to follow orders blindly and commit immoral acts that take the life of others. In fact, they want to kill, just as they have been trained. There is no reluctance and no remorse expressed. But unconsciously it affects them and there is PTSD.
Actually the military train soldiers. Killing in a modern army is a function carried out by but a small percentage of the overall force. Basic training, here, is twelve weeks to nine months depending on what unit etc. The vast bulk of that training is to teach recruits how to act as a unit, to do thing in a uniform way. Trade training however lasts a minimum of two years.
An awful lot of violent thugs who attempt to use PTSD in their defence are revealed to never have been in any action or even fired a shot in anger. In reality it transpires that they are just thugs( ironically often heavily tattooed and driving a forklift in the REMF stores) 🙂
So you’re saying women shouldn’t be Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, etc? Sexist much?
Well, Jim, the NFL deserves to be a target, it’s one of the leading scams in America.
First of all, the parent organization, the administrative arm NFL is set up as a Tax Exempt operation with over $10 Billion in revenue. Taxes are paid by the individual teams.
Second, local NFL teams get state and local governments to fund their stadiums and practice facilities.
Third, the NFL gets the NCAA to organize and run their minor league talent system, commonly know as College Football without compensation to the players. In many states the highest paid public employee is a college football coach.
Fourth, the NFL gets virtually all cable and satellite TV subscribers to pay about $5 per month to the NFL, regardless if the games are watched or not.
Fifth, while salaries for NFL players may sound high, the average NFL career is less the 4 years.
Sixth, the average NFL player suffers a death rate from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease combined was about three times what one would predict from the general population.
“their violent beavior towards everyone” – Earltwitty
=======
I never took any French. What does beavoir mean? Oh, wait a minute, neh ver mi…….
I knew a guy who had a beard tattooed to his face. You couldn’t tell it wasn’t real until you were within a few feet of him. He said that if he ever had regrets about the tattoo, he could just grow a real beard, to hide it.
Haha soxkie! I hide it *TOO*. Tatz on every free space … OMFG@@@ My arm whuzn’t quite *covered*… (*BLACK INK*)
“Though our drug laws are certainly idiotic, cruel, and pointless, I believe sincerely that the prison system is filled with psychopathic monsters. They may be creations of our monster-making culture, in all its depravity and pernicious falsity, but they are monsters nonetheless”
You may regard the drug laws as pointless but consider this. Most people involved in the drug trade are career criminals. They manufacture/ supply / enforce for the drug trade because it is easy money compared to home invasion, bank robbery etc. Legalising drugs doesn’t just make these animals take jobs flipping burgers. Portugal is a prime example of this. Their career criminals just relocated to other european countries or moved ‘trades’. The US doesn’t have the luxury of moving them beyond it’s borders!
Then of course is the fact that government’s cannot resist a tax. Once taxes are added to legalised drugs, that would be in a heartbeat, the gangs will just start undercutting the prices. A prime example of this is petrol and diesel in northern ireland. The PIRA has run untaxed fuel from Eire into the north for thirty years, reaping millions in profits. They also run the bulk of the drug trade in both directions. For an otensibly socialist organisation the leaders live remarkably well!
“Most people involved in the drug trade are career criminals.”
What kind of idiotic rot is this. Most people in the drug trade are low level operators who probably are not event making the equivalent of a minimum wage. Many would be happy flipping burgers if that were an option. And what we really are talking about is cannabis which if decriminalized nation-wide would eliminate 90% of all illegal drugs. The resources dedicated to removing truly dangerous drugs and the consequent benefit to society would be enormous. Prices for cannabis even with taxes added on would drop below their current levels and the current illegal market would become unsustainable.
Drug laws concerning cannabis are idiotic, cruel, and pointless and make a mockery of the rule of law. Regarding other drugs, our laws target the poor and disadvantaged unfairly. I think your comment isn’t serious and designed to yank a dogs chain, nothing more. And I’m not wasting any more time trying to decipher what you are trying to say about Portugal.
probably are not even making the equivalent of a minimum wage.
They’re not, at least according to the authors of Freakonomics.
“A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald’s burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker. In fact, most of J. T.’s foot soldiers also held minimum-wage jobs in the legitimate sector to supplement their skimpy illicit earnings.
…
So if crack dealing is the most dangerous job in America, and if the salary is only $3.30 an hour, why on earth would anyone take such a job?”
http://freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/chapter-3/
The study took place in Chicago and the book “Freakonomics” was published in 2005. That year, the minimum wage in Illinois was $6.50. The street dealers were making just over half the local minimum wage.
“… why on earth would anyone take such a job?”
They take the job as a way to get their drugs on the cheap. The drugs are attractive because there is no ligitimate means to achieve success, or anything whatever the allows them to feel fulfilled. Drugs are a means to feel good – and when a society is so ill adapted to human habitation that this is their last resort, that society is headed for a fall.
Perhaps the drug honchos will simply go into bank robbery, petty theft and running numbers (wait, they can’t do that – the state already has take over that racket); most of the people impacted, though, are the small fry – the street level people who at least won’t have to steal as much to satisfy their drug cravings when the laws are changed.
The problem will not go away as long as there are poor people who feel powerless to change their status. Argue as you will that they are made that way by some governmental welfare program – status quo will remain until a more fundamental change is made.
Jim makes the excellent point in most posting that our auto-urban disaster is a major contributor to dehumanizing society. I tend to agree.
Craig
A career criminal is defined as an individual who serially breaks the law and makes their living by the illegal gains there of.
Have a look sometime at the vast bulk of these charming folks. They rarely stick to one crime. They are serial offenders. Yes they sell street level drugs, they’ll also yank out your stereo and steal your kids bike without a second thought.
They won’t flip burgers for a living, your comment is utter social worker BS. Reoffending rate are so high because they enjoy what they do. You seem to imagine that a career criminal is someone who makes a good living at it. Most spend half their adult lives behind bars simply because they reoffend so often.
Here often a career shoplifter will be tried for 9 sample cases and have over 100 other cases taken into consideration. Because of community orders and tagging etc they often appear in court at least once a month. The average theft is in the region of £10. Many cite drug problems as a reason for stealing. Cannabis is we are told non addictive yet it is the no1 reson for their thefts, by their own admission. They don’t flip burgers dumbo because stealing is easier and they do it repeatly just as they sell drugs, rob, mug.
The utter bollocks of legalise drugs and everyone will be happy productive members of society is a fantasy that would gag anyone witha rational mind!
Portugal being a member of the EU has nicely managed to get rid of many of its career criminals by easing up on drugs. The bigger dealers have moved to other countries, Germany being one whilst underlying crime is rising. Though they have tried to shift the blame for this on the austerity measures statistics already bear out the fact that the vast majority have prior drug offences.
Crime over all appears to have fallen but then if suddenly the US legalised cannabis, overall crime would fall, it does not mean though other criminal acts have not risen.
Reminds me of a book I came across in B&N the other day with the title “When Did White Trash Become the New Normal? Maybe Kunstler should rename his blog “White Trash Nation…..”
We’ve managed to fill the entire first page of comments in exactly six hours from my first comment to the last comment before WW’s above. It normally takes until Tuesday evening to do that. I don’t know if it’s the subject or that a lot of people are off for the holiday but the readers are responding at near record pace.
Back to the topic of the NFL. In response to me talking about the NFL, grochef wrote:
“Yes, allowing these over paid high school dropouts and criminals to kill each other would be counterproductive. The revenue stream would dry up and billions of dollars would stop flowing to the networks for ads, GM for their crappy trucks and Anheuser-Busch for their carbonated piss from the sewage laden waters of the Mississippi in St. Louis, MO.”
He may be right about the regular season, but I can tell grochef wasn’t playing close attention to the ads for last year’s Super Bowl. Forbes was, and they reported that “Korea Dominates 2013 Super Bowl Ads” with sponsorship of the Big Game from Samsung, Kia, and Hyundai and an ad for pistachio nuts featuring K-Pop star Psy.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/02/03/korea-dominates-2013-super-bowl-ads/
Here’s what the piece had to say about Kia’s spots: “Kia will school us on where babies come from and show us a kick-ass female robot. She will probably be very sexy.”
She was, and a good example of “sex selling the Super Bowl in space” to boot.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/02/sex-sells-super-bowl-in-space.html
Think how much better his poetry and chocolates would have been if he were clean-shaven. It’s a pity.
http://dirtybourbonrivershow.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/whitman_sm.jpg
or that a lot of people are off for the holiday
What holiday?
Wow! Check this one out. You could hide a piece in their and a couple of clips or more…but make sure to get the proper concealed weapons permit.
http://dirtybourbonrivershow.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tolstoy_big.jpg%3Fw%3D680
It’s there, not their you idiot. This one tops the two you’ve provided. I bet this bloke had people pulling on his beard all the time to see if it was real or fake. It sure looks fake, and he looks creepy; not someone to be left alone with the children for too long.
http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-beardsvin1107/5.jpg
“Really, what are the chances that such people reared on dreams of triumphal violence will operate on the basis of kindness, generosity, and consideration of any future beyond the next fifteen minutes.”
– jhk –
That’s a helluva scary vision, and probably prophetic.
Plus, that Dolly Parton meets Hitler thing is certain to cause nightmares.
Thanks for a great week’s work, JHK.
Found this on Yahoo Sports in the Comments: “I have given my life to alleviate the sufferings of Africa. There is something that all White men who have lived here like I have must learn and know: that these individuals are a sub-race. They have neither the mental or emotional abilities to equate or share equally with White men in any functions of our civilization. I have given my life to try to bring unto them the advantages which our civilization must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status: White the superior, and they the inferior. For whenever a White man seeks to live among them as their equals, they will destroy and devour him, and they will destroy all his work. And so for any existing relationship or any benefit to this people, let White men, from anywhere in the world, who would come to help Africa, remember that you must maintain this status: you the master and they the inferior, like children whom you would help or teach. Never fraternize with them as equals. Never accept them as your social equals or they will devour you. They will destroy you.”
— Dr. Albert Schweitzer, missionary to Africa
Well done. We are spreading the message far and wide oh my Brothers.
Thanks for the beard photos LBoL and kidney. LBoL you’re hilarious. Please keep it coming. I’ve never laughed so hard. Here’s a photo of my great grandmother. Isn’t she beautiful? What a wonderful beard she had. She was a powerful woman; not to be trifled with. Men behaved themselves around her and did as they were told.
http://glasstire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/BadGirls_Delait-300×219.jpg
In other news – did anyone see that construction on the new Panama canal has slowed due to lack of funding?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eeae16bc-81fb-11e3-87d5-00144feab7de.html
“Work on the Panama Canal’s expansion has slowed to a crawl but has not stopped entirely, despite a deadline set for Monday by the Spanish-led consortium to halt the project over a cash crunch.”
…. article ….
Wonder if this is like the first robin of spring, a harbinger.
==========================
And, in other news Prez. Obama, our racist-in-chief, thinks its OK to invoke the race card to defend against his falling pole numbers and his inability to tell the truth or govern competently.
This led a competent, honorable African-American to make the following statement:
“As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. let us pay more attention to the content of one’s character than the color of one’s skin.— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) January 20, 2014”
When is 2017 gonna’ get here? Not that it will matter much.
Oops, forgot the links –
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/109751-dr-ben-carson-says-mlk-day-25-words-huffington-post-says-800/
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/60576
“Far from being racists, people ignored his skin color and trusted Barack Obama enough to place their hands on the front burner of the liberal stove. As a result, they’ve been badly burned and are yanking back as fast as they can.
Obama’s dismal ratings have nothing to do with race. They have everything to do with the failure of his Presidency.” …cfp…
“of course the Royal Navy had took a dim view” – WW
===============
Who am I to correct YOU…..it is YOUR language after all…..but around here we say had taken
You’re correct, it is our language. Be careful we may take it back. Then you’ll have to speak French instead! 🙂 Actually I think you are right, my bad as you colonial chaps say!
“What holiday?” – Blaby
==========
Janos’s favorite holiday, Martin Luther King Day.
It’s poll numbers, Prog.
Tatted posing muscle canaries at the gym are……….warriors?
Obama’s polling numbers are about the same as Bush’s poll numbers in his fifth year. It’s common for second term presidents to have lowered poll numbers. Obama has always had people who wanted to play the race card against him, and now they are accusing him of what they have done for the last five years because Obama made a true statement about racists.
“December, 2013
Obama started the month of December at rock bottom. There’s just no other “polite” way to put it, folks. On the second day of the month, President Obama hit the lowest daily approval rating of his entire presidency, charting a dismal 39.8 percent average daily approval rating and an equally-dismal 55.9 percent average daily disapproval rating. This was after two months of nonstop media bludgeoning as a result of the broken Obamacare website, it bears noting.
The beginning of the month, however, was the point of change for the website’s woes — and it also turned out to be the rebound point for Obama’s polling woes as well. As people flooded back to the website (this time to successfully sign up, instead of just getting more error messages) and as the news media slowly started admitting this was what was happening, Obama’s numbers made significant gains in the first week of the month. As people got more and more confident in the website, and as more and more people had better and better experiences, Obama’s polling continued to improve and he held onto these gains. Added to this was the surprise defusing of the budgetary standoff, with a deal worked out to push all such major budgetary haggling out beyond the midterm elections — an idea embraced by just about everyone (politicians of both parties, Wall Street, the media, and last but not least the public itself).
By month’s-end, Obama had managed to chart not just his third-only gain in monthly average job approval for 2013, but also the biggest jump he’d managed the entire year. He finished the month at 41.9 percent monthly average job approval, an increase of 0.5 percent. He just missed out on lowering his monthly average job disapproval as well, which wound up rising only 0.1 percent to finish at 54.0 percent.”
Obama’s polling numbers are about the same as Bush’s poll numbers in his fifth year. It’s common for second term presidents to have lowered poll numbers. Trolling about Obama “playing the race card” is just the pot calling the kettle black.
Obama’s numbers go down, but then they go back up. Bush’s numbers never did go back up. Bush declined steadily until he was in Nixon territory.
I don’t buy into the narrative of tattoo art rendering its wearer (necessarily) moronic. My 25 year old son, an extraordinarily smart, educated, polite, handsome and productive member of society, has arm tattoos which I find silly but they don’t turn him into a moron. Other friends in our circle, all young and educated “family people”, boast tattoos which somehow highlight an experience, value or person important to them.
There may be something in the context – message of the body art and how much of it is actually covered in them. His are supposedly symbols of peace and harmony and are not too visible, whereby a curvy blade-like motif that invokes a general idea of ninja swordplay would be more suspect.
In a wider sense, I also don’t think that the current crop of American young men is necessarily worse or better than their ancestors. They simply march to a different tune esthetically, and the older generations will always carp on about how terrible their fashion, looks and music are. I too think lower-cut shorts are ugly but hey, they’ll soon go away.
Are they more or less violent or prone to criminal activity than 20 or 50 years ago? Are they more likely to give birth to a quasi-Nazi movement as some think? I don’t see any evidence of that.
I presume the fact that so many are still imprisoned is a by-product of the criminalization of drugs AND the marginalization of public education in inner city neighborhoods AND the 30-year old successful war on the poor and under-privileged by the Republican party.
It’s not the aesthetics that turn me off about tattoos, it’s the disfigurement of the human skin, the body’s largest organ. I have no problems with someone having a small tat, which is a minor disfigurement. It’s the full sleeves and other multiple tattoos that I don’t find appealing. They fade over time anyway. If I want to be aware of something, I don’t have to look at my arm to remind me.
My own theory on multiple or large tattoos is twofold: Either the person feels insignificant and wants to be noticed, or wants to escape the present world and revert to a time when people were primitive.
Howdy BTB, my daughter has quite a few tats, many of which are from life experience. The only thing I stress to her is keep them where they are hidden by regular clothing. So far so good.
Howdy to you, too. I hated to post my comment, but when I have a strong opinion, it’s like I can’t stop myself. No disrespect meant to your daughter personally. At least she keeps them hidden, which is a good thing.
I hate to break this to you, but the younger generations are careening towards sociopathy and narcissism as a norm.
In a study done by the National Institute of Mental Health did a study (which they quickly buried) that the number of teenagers in the US with Narcissistic Personality disorder (NPD) is almost one in ten. For their parents, the rate is about one in fifteen, and for the generation before that, it is about one in twenty. NPD is not something that changes greatly once someone reaches adulthood.
I work with a lot of people who are in the twenties and thirties. While they probably aren’t going to instigate any “quasi-Nazi” movements, they definitely are completely unequipped to do anything about it, either. I’m not putting the blame on them completely, there were raised to be the least resourceful generation the world has ever known. Most of them are good little authoritarian followers, like they were taught, and they have no idea how to be anything else. The tattoos, I think, are an outlet for both their need for attention, and their inability to express themselves otherwise.
Obama’s polling numbers have bottomed out and will be going up, in contrast to what happened to Bush after his fifth year in office. Bush had both Iraq and Afghanistan dragging him down for the final years of his presidency, while Obama got us out of Iraq and we will be exiting Afghanistan by the end of this year. The Republicans are convinced that Obamacare will just become a bigger and bigger disaster as time goes by, but the reality is that what is actually happening is millions and millions of more people will be benefiting as time goes by — again, a different dynamic. While Republicans are fighting this fight during the midterms, Obama will be leading the Democrats fighting for “little guy” issues — which the GOP has positioned themselves on the unpopular side of (minimum wage, etc.). So, long-term, I think Obama’s prospects for public approval are such that this will be the last time we’ll ever feature one of these “Obama’s tracking close to Bush” charts, for the rest of his term.
http://www.chrisweigant.com/opw/
Well spoken!
“Trolling about Obama “playing the race card” is just the pot calling the kettle black.” …aj must Troll CFN…
Note to JHK – first use of the “T-word” this week comes from “the poster who must not be named.” (tm Q)
If you, JHK, have some special relationship with “aj must be asoka,” which means other posters to CFN have to tolerate him – then you need to let us know. He’s starting to crank up his activities again.
And our president has slowly revealed himself to be a racist.
His recent statements confirm this.
I’m disappointed. What might have been.
A racist president would institute policies that discriminate against people of one racial group, you know like separate drinking fountains, separate rest rooms, separate schools, etc. Obama has not done anything racist against a particular racial group, except to ignore the plight of unemployed African-Americans.
You seizing upon an innocent comment (one which is true, by the way) that some people don’t support him because he is Black, and then to call the President a racist based on that comment, is completely inaccurate.
Racism is structural and institutionalized. If you want to say the President is prejudiced, that would be different. It would be wrong, but it would be your opinion. Anybody can be prejudiced without being a racist.
When prejudice is institutionalized and backed by laws, you know, like arresting Black people who sit at a Woolworth’s counter and order a meal, THAT is racist.
Whites aren’t offered equal protection under the Hate Crime laws nor under the discrimination protocols – just because they are the largest ethnic group – for now. They are no longer the majority. Also Eric Holder said he wasn’t going to prosecuted “his own people”. Why wasn’t he immediately reviled by all and dismissed by Obama?
“other posters to CFN have to tolerate him” — Prog on ajmuste
Yes, Prog, they have to tolerate both of us, but at least I don’t go whining to JHK every week like a cry baby. I just tolerate you. It goes with the territory.
Making drugs illegal should be stopped. We tried that in the 1920’s with C2H5OH and all that did was enable the creation of a national crime syndicate and allow it to grossly inflate its wealth.
Although the effects of drug addiction are not totally harmless to the population at large, the costs thereof are a lot less than those resulting from criminalization of their possession and sale. To wit:
– An explosion of incarceration inside our prisons. This is a weird form of welfare – covering the living expenses of prisoners by the taxpayers.
– The proliferation of psychopathic drug cartels.
– The tremendous expense of waging a “war on drugs”.
– A massive increase in corruption of certain government agencies and their employees.
Most importantly, our government doesn’t have the right to make our own personal choices for us. It’s really quite simple. We can’t be the arbiters of others’ morality.
“..but at least I don’t go whining to JHK every week like a cry baby.”
…aj must always lie….
We covered this Sunday night. I’ve never complained to JHK about your antics, soak.
So – it’s back to the brawl, unless JHK intervenes.
And Obama is a racist – in that he believes he, President of ALL the people of the United States,deserves special consideration, because of his race.
And you are also a racist, as you have admitted on many occasions.
You will now try to get the last word – because you are also obsessive/compulsive.
And Bill, you’re right.
This one’s as scary if not more scary than Bob Denver’s beard. I hope this style doesn’t catch on. It’d be tough to conform if this was the norm.
http://www.bizarbin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/captain-circle-beard.jpg
I laughed my ass off at the sight of it. You can’t make shit like that up!!
Imagine going for a job interview like that.
“And Obama is a racist – in that he believes he, President of ALL the people of the United States,deserves special consideration, because of his race.” — Prog-Soak hallucinating
I am not the only OCD here. Nor am I Asoka. But continue to say that if you want: whatever floats your boat. You may be Asoka, for all I know.
Can you provide a link where Obama said he deserves “special consideration”?
All Obama said is that his poll numbers could be down because some people don’t want a Black president. It is a true statement that some don’t want a Black president. Here is the exact quote:
“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”
It is a true statement. There are racists who despise him. Obama’s comment does not make him a racist, nor is he claiming that he deserves “special consideration.”
You are inferring a bit much, prog. Happy Martin Luther King day!
Addendum for Q: (CNN) – Unfavorable opinions of Chris Christie have doubled over the past year, according to a new national poll.
” I’ve never complained to JHK about your antics, soak.” — P4W-Soak
9:57 pm (less than an hour ago) Prog-Soak complained to JHK:
“He’s starting to crank up his activities again.”
It is clear for all to see that you are lying. You complain every week to JHK, and apparently you do NOT have a special relationship with JHK. He has asked you to stop your complaining about other posters. You continue to ignore our host.
“You complain every week to JHK,” ,,,aj must split hairs….
OK- point noted. I meant complaining via private email to JHK.
You meant complaining via the CFN thread, which I certainly will do.
I can understand where you thought I was wrong.
Have you ever understood where someone might think you were wrong, ajmuste?
You’ve never admitted it here.
Which gives the impression that you consider yourself perfect.
Prog–
If you dont stop quarreling, i’m going to kick you off this blog. –JHK
OK – I’ll do my best.
Let the record show, however –
HE STARTED IT!
haha!
Prog, your stupid question deserves a stupid answer, so I am going to quote Sarah Palin verbatim:
“I didn’t really had a good answer, as so often — is me.”
–Sarah Palin, on writing notes on her hand for the Tea Party convention address, March 5, 2010
I’d swear (if I didn’t know better) that I just stepped into a kindergarten class where the teacher has left the room.
The US defense budget — in constant dollars — is at the highest levels it has been since World War II, higher than during the peak of the Korean War and Vietnam War.
In spite of this monumental spending to create “warriors,” we are not safer as a country, and we suffer economically for it.
We need to re-calibrate our military spending and put the focus back on priorities at home.
I sure do agree to that. How about adding that we should also have true fair trade rules where our exports aren’t tariffed if our imports are? This would certainly help our economy.
I’d swear (if I didn’t know better) that I just stepped into a kindergarten class where the teacher has left the room.
nothing changes
where is information on energy developments, new technology, end of world plans?
remember to prepare for december 21, 2012
peace peaceniks
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” – Charles Bukowski
Let the record show; 110 million people watched those 2 football games last Sunday. 110 million. And that was just inside the USA.
Q, do you live near Met Life Stadium? To use a familiar word, it gonna be a clusterf-ck around there come gameday.
–BRH
Is it not interesting that so many males in America affect to be warriors? What does this tell us about the psychological dimensions of manhood in this country?
The indulgence in all these juvenile enthusiasms presents in the absence of any better models of a way to be.
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor ladies’ eyes
Just for fun he says, “Get a job”
That’s just the way it is
Some things will never change
That’s just the way it is – Bruce Hornsby
Yes and men stop more often to help attractive stranded ladies. And women? They don’t stop to help stranded men at all.
You Femdom outlook is endemic in what remain of our society – a cancer eating away at our vitals. Single mothers are criminals pure and simple. And besides theft, they are destroying the moral character of their children. And they often engage in child brutality – or their boyfriends do. A single mother household is a very dangerous environment statistically speaking.
“Imagine going for a job interview like that.” – Q. Shtik
________________
Ha! Can you imagine interviewing that and keeping a straight face? I’ll tell you what, I sure am glad my interviewing days are over. I’ve been on both sides of the interviewing process and I absolutely deplored it. I had an irresistible urge to laugh when I was being interviewed and there are a couple of interviews where I did laugh out loud for no reason but quickly covered it up or distracted it away. They were close calls. I was very close to losing it, but the worse was early on in my career when I was being interviewed by some hag who had some kind of mole/boil on her cheek. Not only could I not help but notice it, the thing was repulsively mesmerizing; I couldn’t take my eyes off it and the harder I tried to divert my attention from it the greater the power it had over me. I know she had to notice because I couldn’t make eye contact with her. I did laugh out loud a couple of times when she looked down or away momentarily…the kind of laugh that is uncontrollable; a full-body laugh that will break your ribs and pull muscles if you try to stop it. I did manage to get my control of myself each time, but needless to say I didn’t get the job…thankfully.
That kind of thing can lead to mayhem. Read Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”. He loved the old man. But he couldn’t stand his heart….
A man asking for a job is a beggar asking to become a slave. You being revolted. The slave is only noble when he rebels.
Whoa! Big doins in Davos. Goldie Hawn, Matt Damon, Bono … all the luminaries are there. I’m a little surprised about Bono. You think he’d be in SSudan or the Central African trying to smooth out the brutal civil wars raging right now. Or does he show up only in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he can sing songs about killing whites (bring me my machine gun, One boer, one bullet)? If there’s no whites to crush Bonos not interested.
Samuel P Huntington wrote a whole book about Davos, calling it the place where American and European elites go to undermine the sovereignty of their home countries. This might explain the presence of well known American patriots George Soros and Jaime Dimon.
–BRH
Hey Marlin, just for Sh*** and giggles, A civil servant is “LIKE A BROKEN CANNON- “IT WON’T WORK AND YOU CAN’T FIRE IT” George S. Patton. http://www.generalpatton.com I was a civil servant for 32 years. I ,however did my fair share of work. Suckin’ smoke and such and rollin’ in gore.
“Q, do you live near Met Life Stadium?” – BeckRowHackler
=============
It’s 32.7 miles right up the Joisey Tpke. It will not affect traffic in my vicinity.
That’s a little too close for comfort should a crazy Muslim (redundant, I know) decide to uncork a nuke at the event. It might be prudent to plan a trip to Aruba for that week, or at least to Florida.
How did we get here? Maybe the result of two factors, economic and cultural – working in concert? A no-help-wanted economy and an anything goes culture?
There’s been a loosening of behavioral standards over the past 50-60 years. Some of us are old enough to have seen it. People were sick of the straight jackets of the 1950s. Young people didn’t want to be seen as middle class. Or “up-tight”. Or “square”. Because, man, that would be a real drag. A bummer.
We wanted to be anti-establishment, we wanted to stick it to “the man”. And so we grew our hair. We adopted jazz slang. You with it? You dig? Outta site man. The precedent? You remember, the artistic and literary 1940s and 1950s nonconformists loosely categorized as “Beat” (as in beaten).
Free Love? Sure, why not, it shocked the old folks. Great for the guys, not so good for the chicks, a real disaster for the little ones.
But cripes, what more could us guys ask? Sex without obligation. Sex used to be a lot of work. You had to bring home a paycheck. Getting laid at the end of a long hard day was the reward. No wedding ring? Keep your hands to yourself.
And, starting at about the same time, a multi-decade degradation of the country’s industrial base. Guys that used to have some decent job prospects and were therefore marriageable, are now out on the street and, as a result, good for no more than temporary liaisons. The sexual contract is broken.
Seems to me it all started with the inner cities. The corrosive forces – a degraded, jobless economy and a degraded popular culture – acted there first. And the rot spread.
Tattoos are the least of the problems. Single mom families are the real calamity, a recipe for a slow-motion multi-generational disaster. “Heroic” single moms? Jesus give me strength. Ok, have it your way, let’s say single-motherhood is “heroic”. But can you think of anything more ruinous than giving birth and trying to raise kids without the financial support of a dad that’s present and accounted for? Other than maybe alcohol or drug abuse?
Nothing worse than a moralistic finger pointer, yes? Who do I think I am anyway? Right? Didn’t a great man once say let he who is innocent cast the first stone? Didn’t we get past the nags and the prudes?
But isn’t it a bitch to admit the old folks were right? But they’re irrelevant. That was literally a lifetime ago. Disheveled households, absent fathers, intermittent marginal employment, semi-literate, messed up kids, this is the “new normal”. Right?
But the behavioral ills aren’t isolated in the country’s poorer classes. The “upper” classes are just as screwed.
The Chinese and Russians look across the pond and think that they have to make alternate monetary arrangements because the world financial system is in the hands of crazies, nutcases that grew up during the wild, “anything goes” 1960s and the hedonistic, “me decade” 1970s, who adopted the “free market” ideology of the 1980s and who came to believe that there were no behavioral boundaries. They were entitled, the devil take the hindmost and everyone in between be damned.
And so, with this gang, we’ve had one crack-up after another. And they don’t seem to learn. In fact, regardless of how disastrous each successsive crisis has been, they want more of the same as a solution ie printing money and de-regulation no matter the evidence to the contrary.
The people in the Kremlin and Beijng look at the federal political system. Some see hopeless deadlock. Others, despite all the noise and furor, see perfect agreement. Agreement? Yes, both Democrats and Republicans agree that there will be entitlement programs and massive military expenditures but that they will not be paid for. No, you see, Ben over there will print funny money and pick up the tab. So now, unsurprisingly, the Russkis and Chinese and others are getting worried. If you were them wouldn’t you be?
The Fed and Wall Street will kill the US dollar and present day monetary arrangements. Just like the UKP the US dollar will bite the dust as the international medium of exchange. Will somebody create of something new?
That was a good rant.
A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked a turtle to carry him on his back across a river. “Are you Scorpion mad?” exclaimed the turtle. “You’ll sting me while I’m swimming and I’ll drown.”
“My dear turtle,” laughed the scorpion, “if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Now where is the logic in that?”
“You’re right!” cried the turtle. “Hop on!” The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river gave the turtle a mighty sting. As they both sank to the bottom, the turtle resignedly said:
“Do you mind if I ask you something? You said there’d be no logic in your stinging me. Why did you do it?”
“It has nothing to do with logic,” the drowning scorpion sadly replied. “It’s just my character.”
The suits are in charge. They have theirs and they are not going to give it up. It has worked for them too long for them to imagine another way. They are ossified and dull.
“How did we get here? Maybe the result of two factors, economic and cultural – working in concert? A no-help-wanted economy and an anything goes culture? ”
Add to that I’ve got mine and I worked really hard for it. Now you go get yours and quit yer whining. What nothing left to get? Too bad for you.
K-Dog I think you over complicated the parable.
The scorpion was hamstrung, his tail all aquiver;
just how would he manage to get cross the river?
“The water’s so deep,” he observed with a sigh,
which pricked at the ears of the tortoise nearby.
“Well why don’t you swim?” asked the slow-moving fellow,
“unless you’re afraid. I mean, what are you, yellow?”
“It isn’t a matter of fear or of whim,”
said the scorpion,
“but that i don’t know how to swim.”
“Ah, forgive me. I didn’t mean to be glib when
I said that. I figured you were an amphibian.”
“No offense taken,” the scorpion replied,
“but how about you help me to reach the far side?
You swim like a dream, and you have what I lack.
Let’s say you take me across on your back?”
“I’m really not sure that’s the best thing to do,”
said the tortoise, “now that I see that it’s you.
You’ve a less than ideal reputation preceding:
there’s talk of your victims all poisoned and bleeding.
You’re the scorpion — and how can I say this — but, well,
I just don’t feel safe with you riding my shell.”
The scorpion replied, “What would killing you prove?
We’d both drown, so tell me: how would that behoove
me to basically die at my very own hand
when all I desire is to be on dry land?”
The tortoise considered the scorpion’s defense.
When he gave it some thought, it made perfect sense.
The niggling voice in his mind he ignored,
and he swam to the bank and called out: “Climb aboard!”
But just a few moments from when they set sail,
the scorpion lashed out with his venomous tail.
The tortoise too late understood that he’d blundered
when he felt his flesh stabbed and his carapace sundered.
As he fought for his life, he said, “tell me why
you have done this! For now we will surely both die!”
“I don’t know!” cried the scorpion. “You never should trust
a creature like me because poison I must!
I’d claim some remorse or at least some compunction,
but I just can’t help it; my form is my function.
You thought I’d behave like my cousin, the crab,
but unlike him, it is but my nature to stab.”
The tortoise expired with one final quiver.
And then both of them sank, swallowed up by the river.
The tortoise was wrong to ignore all his doubts —
because in the end, friends, our natures wins out.
And regarding tattoos it is all this guys fault. If he hadn’t drum beat that word into the subconscious of the youth of the land they would all be out helping little old ladies across the street, opening car doors for their mothers, and learning permaculture. Instead they lay about like museum paintings on walls wistfully waiting for admirers, lost in an island of fantasy.
The least of our problems. I agree.
V, the youth in the ’60’s were idealistic. They wanted to stop a meaningless war where thousands were killed (sound familiar?), they didn’t want to be part of a corporate culture, they didn’t want to conform, they didn’t like the widespread hypocracy (like prevalent drinking and the attendant consequences, yet keeping weed illegal), and the insincere commitments and morality. They disapproved of the idea that the state required its permission to legally marry. They wanted to make love, not war. They wanted to relax and enjoy life as best they could, while scorning the rat-race treadmill.
Unfortunately, even then they were in the minority (witness the election of Nixon). In the end, the establishment overwhelmed them. Personally, I mourn the loss. They were too good for this world, as Don McLean sang in Vincent, “the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”
The Hippies by and large, were pre-egoic. You are confusing that with being trans-egoic. If they were really good, then why did so many of them put on suits and destroy America with their narcissism? They were just late bloomers. When their egos did develop, they combined them with the new self indulgence – which older America had kept down.
Are you goin’ to Folsom St Faire,
Sagebrush, Rosemary, and Thyme.
Remember me to one who is there,
She once was a submissive of mine.
She once was a submissive of mine.
Then she came to her senses and hopped on the bus Gus.
James – so what is with these people?
Tattoo – is it a verb or a noun?
What is the importance of marking oneself?
Clearly – there is a distinct difference of a tattoo – if is received involuntarily. I believe the term is “branding.”
So – many Americans have taken to “branding” themselves – double intended meaning.
James – what drives your attention to those whose only pass time is their attention to themselves? What is the meaning in it?
After all, it is the vast, globally orchestrated discretionary waste of energy that will doom our society – – and eventually much of human civilization – not the body-branding of our morons.
Martin Luther King’s greatest obstacle was the inherent decency and restraint of the White people of the South, especially the sheriffs and police like Bull Connor. You have to understand the method: provoke outrage and violence and then bask in the subsequent guilt as if you are wholly innocent.
This kind of thing wouldn’t work on healthy people btw. Healthy people know their own goodness.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/01/fifty-years-of-cant-2/#more-44846
” Looking around America these days, if you can stand it, the sense of what it means to be a man has become a very shaky business.”
To your excellent descriptions you can add the New Jersey Governor and his minions tying up for 4 days the busiest bridge in the world, during the anniversary of 9/11, as a form of political retribution.
Any form of virtuous manhood is pretty much in full retreat at all levels of our society and been for at least the last 35 to 40 years.
But our collapse of leadership at all levels in every sector of society is stunning and spectacular. A collapse this wide and deep is cultural.
When the Long Emergency kicks into high gear, Christie and the tattoo boys will all be reduced to 135 lbs.
Play time will be over.
While we can lament the collapse of leadership at all levels perhaps we should ask the question. When exactly did we have good leaders anyway? I think it has been too long for anyone to remember. Good leaders are a rare breed.
Let’s face it, the reason we do the things we do, and act the way we act, is because American manhood is in full failure mode, in full retreat from what used to be known as virtue.
When did last we have virtue?
You would say never – give it back to the Indians and go back to Europe and give that to the Muslims. You are a culture destroyer you see. You only see vice in Western Culture and only see virtue in Non-Western Cultures. In short, you are Mad.
“In short, you are Mad.” – Alfred E. Neuman
In madness lies the safety of being misunderstood; for he who understands would enslave.
Beaten down – you *SUXOR*. I know you@@!!!… *BYE*
“When did last we have virtue?” – Dog
============
Have last when virtue we did, June 1958.
If you can use that sort of sentence structure so can I.
Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
“By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Extreme poverty rates have been cut in half in the past 25 years. Child mortality is plunging. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient,” he said.
bill gates, speaking at the davos conference
he said it, i didn’t
peace peaceniks
And whatever the second richest man in the world says must be true!
I was up in Redmond today and heard it on good authority that the smart boys on campus are working on a Windows App that will take CO2 out the air using your computer cooling fan and refine it into hi grade gasoline so you can fill your carz just by getting a really long USB cable and plugging it into an empty USB port. I can’t reveal my source because he signed a Non Disclosure Agreement and I don’t want to get him in trouble.
Gates also said by 2035, there would be almost no poor countries left in the world.
With the new windows windows app all these new nouveau-riche will lead comfortable middle class lives. They won’t leave a carbon footprint because they will all be using the new windows app. Then the biggest problem in the future will be growing old waiting while all the worlds computers install the latest Windows updates.
But there will be almost no poor countries as America, once the richest country, will itself be poor. That is because should the current labor force participation trend continue by 2035 no American will have a job.
So what if there’s no jobs in 2035? That would mean Americans wouldn’t have to “work” to stay alive. How that would happen, I don’t know, but I could think of a million things I’d rather do than work for a living. Like Janos, I think old69 got it right.
Make a man a fire, and he will be warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
But setting a man on fire, not cool.
And America can run out into traffic with a squeegee washing Chinese wind-shields with our hand out hoping to get a Lincoln instead of a Washington or an empty paw. Because of the million things I know I’d rather do than work most of them require a bit of bling.
Oops we are already doing that.
R all you old fogey stogey’s looking in the *MIRROR*, and seeing my face?!? I know it’s got to *hurt* (locker), but I’m an old grey bearded conundrum. Sure, JhK banned me – prolly about 6 months ago – but that has *NOTHING* to do with this message. You sock puppets liek to play yer game, and keep JhK in *teh fog*, as you worm ever closer and lower…
WTF I’m trying to say?!? 6-fig-salaried-govt-stalkaz?!? Sorry, lost my *TRAIN* of thought… (gotta be *NICE*)
Six figs would be nice, I’ll be happy with a high-five. Hope something comes through for me soon. I need dog-food.
“A man asking for a job is a beggar asking to become a slave. You being revolted. The slave is only noble when he rebels.” – Janso
______________
Good point. There is much merit in this statement. The following underscores your sentiment although no doubt the author has a very different notion of what should be done about it, if anything, and what sort of world we should have in contrast to the one addressed by this criticism. Also, the Sperber (I can’t type this name without the Gerber baby image popping into my head) article mentions Dolly Parton which is fitting (unlike most bras for her), wouldn’t you say?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/30/freedom-from-jobs/print
Another thing that should be pointed out when discussing the relationship between jobs and freedom is that, though owners cannot function without workers’ cooperation, jobs are not extended to workers out of any generosity or concern from owners for their workers’ well-being. Unless the amount of money a worker’s work brings to the owner exceeds the amount of money the owner pays the worker, the owner won’t hire anyone. This simple, arithmetical fact is commonly referred to as “business sense.” For a hire to make “business sense,” an owner will only hire a worker if the value that that worker creates for the owner exceeds what s/he is paid by the owner. Another way of saying this is that jobs are exploitative. Workers provide more value to owners than they receive in return. As such, in asking for jobs, people are asking to be exploited – which, by definition, is the opposite of freedom. This is just the name of the proverbial game, however. And, as Dolly Parton informs us in her hit song 9 to 5, “it’s a rich man’s game, no matter what they call it – and you spend your life putting money in his wallet.”
My old friend from The good, The Bad and The Ugly comes to mind.
If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?
~Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
Nice post, Janeway.
Still, there is innate value in work, in human labor.
Personally, I’ve always feet better about everything when I’m working. I no longer need a job to get by but I have one anyway.
I will say the whole nature of work has been corrupted in the 20th and 21st centuries, more so under communism, but also in our free market system.
–BRH
Your bold screaming missive does not explain self employment or the desire of an employee to actively contribute to society through work. The economic argument is a no-brainer but you qualify it and seem to insist the world be split into a binary set of those exploited and the exploiters. It is not true that workers must provide more value to owners than they receive in return. Value must be received by the ‘owner’ true enough but it can be more, less or even equal in magnitude. Not all jobs are exploitive and a synergistic cooperative arrangement would be a better way of looking at the situation.
“Your bold screaming missive does not explain self employment or the desire of an employee to actively contribute to society through work. The economic argument is a no-brainer but you qualify it and seem to insist the world be split into a binary set of those exploited and the exploiters.” – K-Dog
__________
It’s not MY “bold screaming missive” and I didn’t qualify anything. I merely linked to an article that supports Janso’s comment to me. Drazen Divac has a point. Do you have doubts, or do you know it all? You seem to be pretty certain man has caused global warming and climate change as you are quite certain about a great many other things. What does that make you according to Bukowski?
It is your bold screaming missive because you posted it in bold screaming text. Take ownership of it.
You seem pretty certain that I’m pretty certain so what does that make you?
I did BTW read the link and enjoyed the essay. Thanks for posting it.
all right, everyone get to work arready
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”
nuf said
peace peaçeniks
You are at work.
nuf said
WTF I’m trying to say?!? 6-fig-salaried-govt-stalkaz?!?
oh, this tyred old meme of government stalkers out here. why in hell would the govt pay anyone anything to stalk this board?
what, are we influencing public opinion or the legislature too much?
jeez, just state yer bizness and move on.
peaçe peaçeniks
Because it is AN END OF THE WORLD BLOG. And military intelligence can’t tell the difference between social criticism and uni-bomber tin-hattery. Because it is not enough for the inverted totalitarian corporate state to message mass media; they seek to control the other end of American expression as well. Because there is a long history of COINTELLPRO in America and post-911 America has billions of dollars to spend on surveillance looking for the terrorist bogeyman and the surveillance machine can’t resist adding government stalkers to the mix as working honeypots. Because our government wants our population dumb numb and compliant and will dilute and shut down activity which can collect criticized.
Because Asoka only a government stalker would say “why in hell would the govt pay anyone anything to stalk this board?
“
Oops – collect criticism.
Let’s apply the following to K-Tatt’s comment and determine whether the former or latter applies. K-Tatt sounds mighty certain. There doesn’t appear to be any unwavering doubt.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” – Charles Bukowski
Don’t you mean wavering doubt? Although unwavering does fit if the implication is there’s no probable chance of the doubt diminishing. Sorry, just thinking it through out loud. Please proceed without me.
Yes, thank you for the contribution. And one must consider the constellation of events. A large enough collection of the improbable does make the improbable certain.
Another way of saying it is that lacking definitive proof enough circumstantial evidence establishes proof beyond any reasonable doubt.
Enough evidence must make the doubt diminish. Or it should anyway.
Sadly this does not apply to group-think which perpetuates wavering doubt in the presence of definitive proof. Current examples are global-warming deniers and those who refuse to accept the reality of peak oil because it is socially uncomfortable for them to acknowledge the need for social change.
Ah but if one has experienced the beast up close and personal there is no room for doubt in the intelligent. If the reality of the situation intrudes up close and personal the intelligent ones have the confidence of knowing it is true and the stupid ones are lost in denial of not wanting to believe the truth however strange it may be.
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth. – Sherlock Holmes
Because Asoka only a government stalker would say “why in hell would the govt pay anyone anything to stalk this board?
man you are paranoid. any time anyone says anything that doesnt fit your end of world shtik it has to be the government bogeymen.
like theyre going to spend money making you dumb numb on this tiny blog when they can just broadcast via tv or some large internet sites.
peace peaceniks
I’m not paranoid. Because I have been on this blog government bogeymen have been in my life for real; that is not paranoia. That is reality.
And because I do not go quietly into the night I annoy-ya which is not paranoia.
hey K-dog this is one for you:
here I sit,
and soak my finger,
one below and still I linger,
Frosty snow is on the ground,
Peace and silence all around,
Even Squirrels are soundly sleeping,
Peanuts won’t disturb there leaping,
man I am bored!! I gotta go fix my fisher plow now.
and soak my finger,
Oops,
and soak my finger,
Thats what I wanted.
Longtime lurker here. Speaking of quarrelsome this kdog is obnoxiously so.
You are welcome to you opinion. If that’s what it is.
Longtime lurker here. Speaking of quarrelsome this kdog is obnoxiously so.
you must be a highly paid government snoop sent to prevent him from educating the rest of us. you know, to shut him down.
notice his crazy person answer about being paranoid – no, there really are govt snoops after me….
we are all still waiting for him to show us the IP addresses he claims he can see in our posts. though he’ll likely lie and say he never said it. although multiple posters have confirmed he did.
he is the annoying prick everyone hated in grade school, and he’s kept it up as an adult. ugh, is this the stuff america is made of?
the more i get to know other people, the less i want to get to know other people.
back from delusion, and into the real world…
Germany set another solar record in July of 2013:
Germany set a new record in July by providing 5.1 terawatt-hours of electricity from solar. That beat its record production of 5.0 terawatt-hours of electricity from wind in January of this year. That means that 8.6 percent of Germany’s electricity was from wind and 6.9 percent from solar. It offers real promise that the country is well on its way to achieving Chancellor Merkel’s goal of 80 percent renewables by 2050
piece pieceniks
Lets be clear. I don’t have to show you shit. You can say I’m crazy all you want to and I can defend myself all I want to. No sane person is going to hold it against me from defending myself from being called paranoid and crazy. You can attack me and embarrass yourself as you wish. It will be noted that I am not the offensive prick. I am only defending. All I am doing is not backing down. You can attempt to needle and show yourself to be the bully you are and that is what the audience will see. You have no proof I’m deluded. I have proof I’m not but I’m under no obligation to bring it to you or anyone else.
I have not been able to see IP addresses since the Stat-Counter was removed By JHK. I have not claimed otherwise and your claim that I claim to see them is a lie perpetrated by you. So drop it already.
Then why did you tell me I was wrong when I told you my outside temperature? You then told me what my real temperature was. I think you thought I was in the Seattle area near you. You probably think your next door neighbors are agents too.
And the bunnies in my front yard. Don’t forget about them. Agent bunny is my favorite and a damn good imitation of the real thing. Animatronics at it’s best.
Apply tension and release, apply tension and release, breath in breath out. Mind control 101.
I think you thought I was in the Seattle area near you.
Now why would you thing that?
Because you kept insisting it was a Seattle type temperature. Or perhaps you are just stuck in pre-rational thought. If show a young child a block with red on one side and blue on another side, he or she will say you are seeing the same color as he or she is. They simply can’t imagine a perspective other than their own.
Now you are being a blockhead.
Many years ago, fresh out of college and in the midst of the Vietnam war, my draft board wanted me. It didn’t work out for them, but I was always under the threat that their efforts would succeed at any moment. I was applying for hi-tech employment, but naturally those companies were very leery of hiring me, spending a small fortune to train me and then watching as I marched off to Southeast Asia, possibly forever.
So here I was, a kid getting ready to start his career and be on my own, but no one would hire me. I really needed money to buy a car, rent an apartment and have a social life (which meant chasing after women. It was the ’60’s.). Finally, in desperation, I obtained an “office job”. Of course, I the non-conformist, hated it. I hated the strict hours, I couldn’t be late. I hated that I had to wear a tie. I hated having to keep my hair short. I hated that I had to pretend to keep busy when my desk was clear.
But, you know what? Even though I was young, I realized that my situation was all my responsibility. I could have gotten a lower-paying, more tolerable job, moved into the city and take public transportation instead of buying a car. I could have found other ways to meet women than spending money in bars. My employer was what it was. I chose to work there.
So I left my office job. And except for a couple of times when circumstances dictated I needed a job for a short while, I never worked for anyone else again. I started a few businesses, some worked out, some didn’t (I’ve owned my current business successfully for the past 18 years).
Much later, when I was older and more mature, I came to the conclusion that the game was fixed. Big business protected their interests by making it exceptionally difficult for an average man to succeed. I thought that if I was rich and powerful, I would probably do what the rich do to maintain my position, as well. I didn’t choose to be rich and powerful because my observations of these people showed me they were extremely ruthless, probably willing to shoot their own mothers to gain something. I made a conscious choice to not be that person. That decision cost me a lot of financial success and power, but I’ve gained even more because I like myself.
The whole point of this comment is that most everything is a consequence of a choice or choices. That is one of my most important personal laws of life: actions have consequences. So a lot of times I get mad when I hear people complaining about TPTB and how they make life hard for everyone else. If it bothers you that much, do something about it.
Am I hearing that the substance of people’s complaints bothers you less than their refusal to take action to change and deal with whatever they are whining about?
I like that! I’d say your “American manhood is” not “in full failure mode”.
@K-Dog:
I’m saying that the subject of my comment addressed the whining of people, and not their suffering. That’s a whole ‘nother matter.
And NO ONE, no one, not even my wife knows how I myself have suffered. And no one ever will.
I will say, though, wisdom is so hard won.
You are a Knight in White Satin, Always seeking the end. But that makes your tacit and a priori support of International Judaism all the more incongruous on the spiritual level.
I have suffered just as much if not more. And yes, no one will ever know or care to know – or even care if they did know. Nay more, many would laugh with glee.
In San Francisco, Gays handcuff passed out bums to kiosks and then call the police on them. So much for the City of Love.
And look what the Kdog types did to the small farmers and businessmen of Russia and China. And would do again under the rubric of Global Warming and Agenda 21.
Of the two conspiracies, Capitalist and Communist, the first is dominant and funds the second. As the Bible says, love of money is the root of all evil. And as Shaw countered, lack of money is. But lack stems from love on the part of others. As Gandhi said, there is enough for every man’s need, not every man’s greed. Let the Titans (for Titans there will be) compete for honors and luxuries. But let them not impose that model on ordinary people and make them compete for necessities.
I have never been to Russia or China and have nothing against small farmers and businessmen.
I have not been able to see IP addresses since the Stat-Counter was removed By JHK.
way to man up and finally tell the truth. so you never really could see ip addresses as in ‘i have this ability to see where youre posting from, because i know things other people dont’, which is what your original comment was. so you were just pumping yourself up. ok, good enuf.
that was all you had to say, way back when
peace peaceniks
But I did at one time and I saw you.
And I do know things other people don’t.
And knowing what I know I see mistakes others without the knowledge I have would not notice.
I saw them too. Many of us here did after Kdog showed us how.
And I do know things other people don’t. And knowing what I know I see mistakes others without the knowledge I have would not notice.
oh ok, back to the paranoia and govt snoops. check.
back in the real world, not that i necessarily like or dislike obama, since i havent met him, tho i do think the healthcare nonsense is reprehensible:
Under the Obama Administration, 16 projects have been permitted on federal lands, which will provide 6,058 MW of generating capacity.
we are slowly and surely putting the cork on the fossil fuels ‘problem’, if it really be such
so, end of the world once again postponed, you can climb down from the rooftops and sip a little more brandy before it all goes down
peace peaceniks
It is not paranoia when the government has personally contacted you directly and tried to scare the shit out of you asshole.
But lets do move on by all means.
What means do you see of operating society when fossil fuels are gone?
Sixteen projects? What are they exactly and who do they belong to. Details please. You haven’t even described the technology.
America uses about 11,246,301 mWh a day. dividing this by 24 gives:
468,596 mWh
Dividing this by 6,058 gives:
1.29%.
That won’t even feed the god of growth. The end of the world has not been postponed.
Correction:
America uses 4500 Billion Megawatt hours a year.
That is 513,698,630 Megawatt hours per hour.
513,698,630 / 6058 gives:
0.0012% of the total used by the country.
That won’t even give the god of growth enough to taste. The end of the world has not been postponed.
That won’t even feed the god of growth. The end of the world has not been postponed.
who said anything about growth, besides you?
naturally, your ever shortsited analysis left out all the installed and generating solar capacity in the US besides those scheduled projects. theyre just the latest from the govt sector, not even including private sector projects.
ill let you do some more math, let me know if you cant find the numbers, ill dredge them up for you
btw, another thought for you, since you see society collapsing without fossil fuels. how do net plus energy houses function without fossil fuels?
we have no energy shortage. millions of rooftops can provide a lot of what we need.
we only have commitment shortage
peace peaceniks
Correction:
America uses 4500 Billion Megawatt hours a year.
That is 513,698,630 Megawatt hours per hour.
513,698,630 / 6058 gives:
0.0012% of the total used by the country.
That won’t even give the god of growth enough to taste. Much less meet any but a negligible part of our current needs. The end of the world has not been postponed.
Millions of rooftops could provide a lot of what we need yes. They could have solar thermal heating panels installed on them and a large portion of the energy currently used for home heating could be offset. BUT NO ACTION IN THAT DIRECTION IS TAKEN!
See this: Seven Sustainable Technologies
Look at the comments under the article and you will find this:
k-dog said…
I enjoyed your essay this week and like your lower tech sustainable technologies. Technology with a high EROEI that serves man first and not the market. But society as it is right now won’t support a shift to lower tech solutions of any kind.
I’m reading an old book I recently picked up at a used book store. Written in the seventies the title is ‘Fundamentals of Solar Heating’.
I pass a new housing development near where I live daily which is about half finished. All the new homes will have gas heat and the development which is under construction by a national home builder could have easily been built with solar heating systems to augment the conventional heating systems being built into the homes.
The added cost of solar heat augmentation could have been folded into the home mortgages in such a way that new buyers could have saved money at the end of the day on a month by month basis through gas savings.
To expect such sagacity from a particular builder of a dozen homes may be unreasonable but no such wisdom is expressed on any homes built anywhere. Our economic arrangements only allow for the fastest possible buck to be made and the wisdom of adding solar heating would be considered foolish by a builder who only desires to build homes as fast as possible, sell them, and move on.
At what point would lower more human and earth friendly technology be expected to replace corporate resource intensive technologies? It seems to me our economy and culture will not allow any shift in the way things are done until long after the need becomes apparent. As things are now a dark age will be well under way before any sustainable technologies emerge.
*****************************************************************************
I am becoming an expert in energy neutral homes.
And my god we actually agree on something:
We only have commitment shortage!!!
But we probably disagree on the extent. Our commitment shortage is monumentally huge and with our government/corporate propaganda machine in full swing nothing soon will change and we shall go down when the fat lady sings.
And here is an easy link to the previous page. Should anyone desire.
* BTW net plus energy houses are not going to be built when fossil fuels are gone. The time to start building them is now and in large enough numbers to put America back to work.
Hi, K-Dog! I was going to hold off posting the link to my interaction with The Archdruid about that entry until next week, but since you brought it up, here it is.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-steampunk-calculator-and-six-other.html
I’ll probably post that again on Monday. After all, I’m an environmentalist; I recycle.
As for Rube Icon the River of No Return, I’ve challenged him before to post over at Greer’s blog as a contrary view. I haven’t seen him there yet.
This is rich…Obama is such a useful idiot!
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/obama-to-address-global-warming-in-coldest-sou-address-in-history/
THANKS DRUDGE FOR POSTING THAT.
The whole point of this comment is that most everything is a consequence of a choice or choices. That is one of my most important personal laws of life: actions have consequences. So a lot of times I get mad when I hear people complaining about TPTB and how they make life hard for everyone else. If it bothers you that much, do something about it. – beantownbob
*******************
thank you for my best laugh of the day. the above comment coming from someone who regularly tunes into an end of times blog that could easily be construed as the whining that bothers him so much. so tell us one who has suffered so, what is it jim should do about peak oil, the fed, the tattoos, the accounting fraud–you name it, rather than just bitching about it week in and week out and writing books about it and giving speeches about it? your advice is welcomed.
ted talks, your handle reminded me that UC San Diego professor Benjamin Bratton gave a TED Talk late last year in which he asked “Why don’t the bright futures promised in TED talks come true?” and “Does TED falsely present problems as simply puzzles to be solved by rearranging the pieces?” He then went on to attack “the intellectual viability of TED, calling it placebo politics, middlebrow megachurch infotainment, and the equivalent of right-wing media channels.” That tirade got the attention of KPBS, who wrote an article about it, then interviewed Bratton and put the video on the station’s YouTube channel.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-ted-talks-wont-bring-flying-cars.html
IMHO the quality of TED talks which were stellar when they first started went way downhill when big money got involved.
I need to check the situation out more before I defend my opinion and I’ll start with what you have posted.
First, I think it is very disrespectful of you to make fun of someone else’s suffering.
Second, Todd, this is not just an end times blog, but more of a social commentary blog, one subject of which happens to be peak resources.
Third, I wasn’t speaking about Jim, I was talking about all the hand-wringers here that are consumed by fears of TEOTWAWKI.
And fourth, I won’t be disrespectful myself and tell you what I really think in detail of your posting.
Hey again BTB, a retired civil servant here. Being a landlord is pretty lucrative. I am friends with all my tenants. Some of them are family. I keep rents cheap and everyone is happy. They pay less then I pay for a mortgage and I give free vegetables and fruit! Plus I clear snow and mow the lawn.
Hey Stelmos, a good friend tried to become a landlord in New Britain and bought an apartment house off High Street. It didn’t work out too good. The first month he went to collect rents he got stabbed. That pretty much ended his career as a landlord.
The murders here the last couple of days have been pretty ordinary except for that woman in Manchester who was set on fire (whole body burned up, think of the reality of that). A black guy in Waterbury was shot to death in front of his 2 kids; the cops are looking for the killer in Brooklyn, a career criminal. A shooting in New Haven, a cop run over by a stolen car in New Britain (possible crips gang member), home invasion in Windham, also, a few spectacular car wrecks, in Newington and Cheshire (smoking twisted steel, bodies strewn across the freezing pavement, flashing lights of emergency vehicles, 3 dead total) … you’re right Jim, a warrior culture, entropy in high gear, entropy made real!
–BRH
See the You Tube channel I linked to..especially his ‘Toledo Development Scam’ and ‘Toledo is 40 below’ clips.
WORDPRESS / STEVE GODDARD
All Caused By Global Warming!
Record global sea ice area
Record Great Lakes ice cover
Record low tornado count
Record low hurricane count
Fewest US fires in 30 years
Coldest winter in 35 years
50% growth in the summer sea ice minimum.
Fewest 100 degree readings in decades
All of these things are caused by an overheated Mann-made atmosphere..
Then you are a rare, good landlord, RT. I just hope you can afford to keep up the good job you are doing. Speaking of good jobs, I never did tell you how much I respect you for what you’ve done in your previous occupation. I’m telling you now.
As for Rube Icon the River of No Return, I’ve challenged him before to post over at Greer’s blog as a contrary view. I haven’t seen him there yet.
you and everyone else needs to post at the end of the comments, its way too easy to miss something if its not. never saw your challenge, but gladly accept it.
the archdruid is long on verbiage and vocab, but time and again these armchair prognosticators confab a version of events that fits comfily in their noggin but fails the litmus test of reality
like jhk
peace peaceniggers
crazy eddie, i have to say im impressed with your screeds out at yer blog!
i adore the caring, thoughtful way the ideas – which i vehemently disagree with – are presented. we need more people who can think things through and demonstrate a love of culture, science, etc. and wish to preserve it thruout a post-industrial crash of civilization and renaissance of the dark ages.
i would love to be holed up with you folks during a few dark decades, conversing endlessly about these things of import.
touché
peace peacenigs
Is it illegal in most places in the U.S. to ride a horse to work? Where would you “park” a horse?
I rode a horse all day up a mountain several years ago, and I recall that my butt was sore the next day. Riding horses is not as easy as it looks in the TV Westerns.
Alternatively, what about a dog sled as a form of transportation?
I ask this question because, according to the Chinese calendar, next year is the Year-of-the-Horse”. Thanks.
You tie your horse to the hitching post.
The cavalry used pickets, pegs in the ground.
All this I learned from watching ‘Fort Apache’, an ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’.
–BRH
Did they ever let homosexuals into the “Boy Scouts”?
When I was in the Boy Scouts we used to undertake Lord-of-the-Flies-style “Panty Raids” on Girl Scout camps at night.
Ken Cuccinelli: Chris Christie Should Step Down From RGA Post
Gov. Christie Cancels Ellis Island Inauguration Bash
Nearly Everything About Chris Christie’s Inauguration Is Going Wrong
Christie skirts scandal, pushes agenda in inauguration speech
Chris Christie’s Inauguration is Less Fun With Scandals
Christie’s Verve Wanes as Scandal Clouds Inaugural Moment
Chris Christie met with VP of developer at center of Hoboken claims
Chris Christie and Co. won’t have a lot to celebrate this evening
The GOP’s Rising Christie Panic
All three networks on Tuesday morning continued to pile on Chris Christie, offering gloating coverage about how his “glory days” have gone.
The Republican Party, the party of “not” (I am not a homosexual, I am not a crook, I am not a witch, I am not a bully, etc.) is not donating to Christie’s war chests.
Christie’s scandals (Fort Lee, Hoboken, etc.) constitute the longest “fart in a windstorm” on record.
Maybe you can get a job at MSNBC
The whole goddam world is boiling up and this is what you’re worried about, a traffic jam in Joisey?
“Christie’s scandals…” – aj-Soak
=========
Nothing more than the libruls playing the Obese card.
Remember, boys and girls, no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.
K-Dog, be glad you’re not protesting in the Ukraine.
“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.” That’s the chilling text message people near the clash between Ukrainian riot police and protesters in Kiev yesterday received shortly after midnight, ….”
(snip)
“This incident highlights how location metadata — contrary to NSA defenders’ claims that such data isn’t sensitive — is incredibly powerful, especially in bulk, and can easily be used by governments to identify and suppress protesters attempting to exercise their right to free expression,….”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/21/ukraines-1984-moment-government-using-cellphones-to-track-protesters/
We might see Russian tanks rolling into the Ukraine before too long.
–BRH
You guys all know about Huntington’s Line? The Ukrainian East is Orthodox – a different Civilization. The West, Catholic and always looking to the West. And that means Liberal now like the rest of Western Europe. I don’t know if the geography of belief still holds, but the division is still there, boundaries or no.
I know this is weird, considering who you are and who i am, but maybe you can help me. I know what town in Russia my father came from, but the village was eradicated by The Germans in WW2. I’ve been trying for years to find out where it was, but in those days borders were pretty obscure and depending on who was talking, one could be from either of several countries. I’ve narrowed the village down to two areas: one in Belarus and the other somewhere in Ukraine (I think in those days – the 1910’s – it was called The Ukraine). You seem to know something about the area. So tell me, given my father was a Jew, if he came from the Ukraine, in your opinion, what part would he be more likely to have come from,East or West?
Sorry Bill, can’t help. You need a genealogist. I bet there are Jewish sites that would be right up this alley.
A DNA test and payment to 23 and me would be the best that I can think of.
Or USA!
Interesting article. I’d say the protesters in Ukraine should take a lesson from me. Leave the phone at home if you don’t want to be electronically followed. Or get a stealth case like mine and leave it in the car trunk.
I read the comments below the article you posted. The one by hhhobbit strikes me as amusing:
What if you just lived in the area and had nothing to do with the demonstrations?
The answer to that is you have a really high chance of getting screwed.
I just was sent a video and the guy in the video says that whoever watches it should share it with two other people. I figure if I post it here at I’ll get my two people. An online chain letter.
Million American Jobs Project
Sharing is caring or something like that. Maybe if enough people watched the video and took it seriously America might get some of its manhood back. A journey begins with a first step. Perhaps considering a future beyond the next fifteen minutes might begin by watching this video.
“Christie’s scandals…”
Nothing more than the libruls playing the Obese card. — Q-Soak
The 80% of the population of Hoboken that was underwater might disagree with your assessment. Christie withheld disbursement of federal funds for Sandy relief, unless political favors were granted (a criminal act by Christie).
Christie might do well to take note of how public corruption can lead to unpleasant consequences, even after he has left the governor’s office (see ex-Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s corruption case).
In any event, Christie doesn’t seem to be enjoying public scrutiny and isn’t so happy to be in front of the cameras anymore because the windstorm is not dying down and the smell of the fart lingers.
” Christie withheld disbursement of federal funds for Sandy relief, unless political favors were granted”
Allegedly. It has yet to be proven. Not to defend that fat bully, but let’s hold off on the establishment of guilt until we know for sure.
MSNBC was on it like ‘a dog on meat’! See BRH comments to ‘the entity’.
Turns out Puerto Rico is in the same shape as Detroit: insolvent, and looking for a bailout from Washington.
This explains why suddenly there are a million Puerto Ricans in Connecticut. I used to wonder about people who would leave a semi tropical island for a place with such a harsh climate as we have. (0dF right now). Of course the answer is the generous welfare benefits provided by Democratic Politicians eager for votes. Not a day goes by when we don’t hear about two or three outrageous crimes committed by these people, mostly in the cities. Our largest cities have become some of the most dangerous in the America. Why is it, in the US, places controlled politically by blacks and Hispanics are in such bad shape, bankrupt and crime ridden? Is this what we have do look forward to as we slip into minority status within our own country? Even you Libs have to be worried about this if you have children and grandchildren. In this sense the future doesn’t look too bright, energy problems aside.
–BRH
Hispanic beasts beat a lovely Vietnamese girl to death. Reason? She got in the way of a picture they were taking perhaps.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-brutal-brawl-california-nightclub-left-23-year-old-woman-life-support-article-1.1586428#ixzz2rClEBg7L
Such incident happen by the millions, worldwide, yes?
One is a tragedy, a million …..well you know the quote.
Mornin’ Marlin, I have heard, maybe not true, a story about a sign at the San Juan, PR airport encouraging people to move to Holyoke , MA due to the more then generous benefits available to Ma. residents. Especially those with chronic health problems. Romney care will pay all their bills at some of the best hospitals in the country.
How you braving this cold, Rip?
I have to admit its starting to get to me. Nothing moving except cars and trucks, cars and trucks. A frozen wasteland.
One good scam they got going down PR way is Social Security Disability Insurance, where per capita they lead the US. Not a bad deal, $1000 per month for doing nothing, plus free medical care. Only trouble is the system is bankrupt.
Maybe over in Davos they can investigate how the US became such a sh-thole. They’d be investigating themselves.
–BRH
Hey, Marlin, wish me good luck. I’ll be in Ledyard later today. It’s about 5 degrees just South of Boston. We ended up with 14 inches of snow. So far a nasty winter. I’ve done some observations and found that the polar vortex got lost and ended up over my house. I can’t wait to get my next heating bill. If I lose today in Foxwoods, maybe I can make up the loss by burning firewood, of which I got plenty.
OK Bill Good luck down there at Foxwoods. Pretty soon you won’t have to travel so far but will be throwing away your money in your own back yard.
I’ve been reading up on the first foundry in NAmerica, at Saugus, north of Boston, and the first mint, which produced the Pine Tree Shilling right in Boston (both from the late 1640s and early 1650s.) There is a Macys where the mint was (they put up a plaque) and the foundry is a US historic landmark. Are you familiar with any of this?
Will you be headed south for some spring training baseball later on in the winter?
–BRH
Don’t get me going on SSDI. S###, all you have to do is claim alcoholism or drug addiction and you get a free ride. Why bother working for a living?. The burn-outs at the homeless shelter, located at the appropriately named Free St. have only about a 200 yard walk to the soup kitchen. I used to pick-up the regulars on a weekly basis when someone called about a passed-out person in the bushes. Many of these people were true professionals with a BAC of .35 or more. Our tax dollars well spent. Hell I enjoy a drink like the next fellow but at least I pay my fare.
But what does disability pay? 600$ a month? Or $4000? Different people tell me differenet figures.
In the 1970s a duo known as ‘Steely Dan’ did an album called ‘The Royal Scam’.
Sadly it did not name John Lindsay as the culprit.
THEY LEFT THEIR ISLAND HOME FOR MANHATTAN
SEE THE GLORY OF THE ROYAL SCAM.
The albums cover was of a homeless guy sleeping on a park bench.
And Wisconsin / Minn has the same problem with ‘folks’ from Chicago and Det Rot.
There is a depressing but revealing You Tube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/EconCat88
JHK, I know you do not like vid links, BUT THAT ONES FOR YOU!
Toledo, Las Vegas, Fla, China…have a look.
Last I checked 1/3? of Haitians lived in USA and Canada.
Depressing, eh?
“The answer to that is you have a really high chance of getting screwed.” –– K-Dog
“Another way of saying it is that lacking definitive proof enough circumstantial evidence establishes proof beyond any reasonable doubt.” –– K-Dog
By K-Dog’s own logic, they’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and so too is K-Dog except in K-Dog’s case, they’ve decided to surveil him rather than lock him up…perhaps to render him a future potential patsy…K-Dog thinks he’s standing his ground but all the while he’s being played and playing right into their hands.
Does anyone have any juicy information on the sensational Gov. Christie scandal? I haven’t seen much about it lately so I’m beginning to think it may have all blown over already. Unfortunately. Thanks in advance. I dig these kinds of controversies. They’re what makes life worth living.
Sorry, Jeff, I haven’t heard or seen anything lately either. The media’s been strangely silent on the subject…as though there’s been some sort of purposeful blackout. Like you, I relish scandals like this especially when they involve the pratfalls of a corpulent, corporate clochard like Chris (I haven’t seen my dick since I don’t know when) Christie. I know that’s cruel to say and it’s really not fair. Christie has probably suffered more than we can ever imagine and it’s disrespectful to harangue and chastise someone who has possibly suffered so excruciatingly. Still, someone has to do it just as someone has to make the doughnuts and fries. We must do what we must do. There’s no use whining about it. If we don’t like it, do something about it. It’s all about choices. This is what I tell my bipolar patients every day. It’s not your bipolar that’s to blame, it’s the poor choices you make. You bring your suffering upon yourself by virtue of your insane choices.
Putz!
@ BRH:
I’m familiar with the foundry, but I don’t know about the first mint. Saugus was a dumpy town, but was very well-known for its iron works.
I grew up maybe 20 minutes from a certain part of Saugus, near route 1, but I rarely went there.
I’m not sure I’ll be in Florida this winter. I’ve been thinking about flying down to Jamaica or another one of the islands for a week or so, but I don’t know yet.
Last year I took in a Sox spring training game and look what happened to them. Maybe the organization will fly me down.
I’m turning 69 soon. The world’s future is murky, so I’ve decided to enjoy myself as much as possible in the good years I have left. As long as my wife and I stay healthy and can work, we’ll be ok. I’m still preparing for TSHTF, although I’m not sure that will happen. You know, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. When I was an active investor I always hedged my trades.
The North End’s great molasses flood was a sign of the great brown out that would end Boston and indeed, the whole United States. The French Embassy warned French citizens to avoid much of Boston. There really is only a very small area worth seeing. The Blacks were up in arms and picketed the Embassy, but the Ambassador stuck to his guns. Refreshing. I’ll post the info later in case anyone missed it. It was in the Boston Glob but I hope you’ve given up reading such swill.
beantownbill – I won’t be disrespectful myself and tell you what I really think in detail of your posting.
Advice I’d be well to take concerning some comments that mention me and who’s sole purpose seems to be to maintain sock puppet employment. Sock puppets may have a weekly quota and seek to maintain comments above a certain number per week. To do this they practice dog-baiting. Some comments waste your time and mine like an unsolicited email regarding male enhancement products.
“American manhood is in full failure mode” and the unscrupulous who seek to exploit that fact are legion.
Puppets are not just here, their failure of manhood is widespread.
Consider this article What Obama Really Meant Was …. A most excellent article by Chris Hedges which has nothing to do with dismantling of the United States into smaller more manageable countries. An idea which a rational dog like Chris Hedges has no truck in and which nobody with a brain seriously advocates. Yet his comment section is chock full of nuts advocating exactly that. The feet of all blogs which are not 100% mainstream are choked with socks. A full drawer for every independent blogger who does not screen their comments.
Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sittin’ in a nest of bad men
Whiskey bottles piling high
Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sittin’ in a nest of bad men
Whiskey bottles piling high
Still have the hots for Michelle, eh? But that face – not the physical structure, the visage, the countenance! The incredible resentment of everything and everyone.
Ok, it’s time for you to tell exactly what happened on the physical plane between you and the authorities.
Vlad, it’s woman in a black dress,
Not a black woman, you jack@$$.
Why must you be such a racist?
Perhaps it’s time you *desist*…
(poetic?)
Generations of swine: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/23/22406018-sugar-vs-corn-syrup-legal-battle-aims-to-establish-the-sweet-truth?lite
And in the ‘Is it true’ department:
http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/banking_and_taxation_irs_and_insurance/social_security/news.php?q=1320062234
BRH ; Turns out Puerto Rico is in the same shape as Detroit…
I do not know the DNA of the PRs, but I read they average 20% African ancestry. Does this explain their languid ways?
That sounds quite a bit too low from what I’ve seen. But Black blood is the strongest – so the 20% probably shows far more than any other blood would at a similar percentage.
Why is the real question. Why do Black traits of appearance and behavior dominate? Perhaps because they are lowest common denominator of all the other races? Perhaps they attained this dubious distinction when Modern Man returned to Africa and mated with the large number of Homo Erectus who were still in existence “down there”. Or perhaps these moderns never left Africa and just mixed in. They show no signs of Neanderthal blood – the sine qua non of higher intelligence. Read Homo Erectus Walks Among Us. It takes, how shall I say, a certain je ne sais quoi to even begin to understand these matters.
Panic, I think its more a legacy the Spanish Empire and their mercantile economic system than anything else.
Another characteristic of Puerto Rico is an extremely high rate of violent crime, exceeding even Chicago or E St. Louis. Unfortunately, they bring that with them when they come.
Back in the 1950s a bunch of them tried to murder President Truman and machine gunned the House of Representatives. Nowadays, its considered impolite to bring this history up.
–BRH
Strange occurrence here past few days. In New Britain a police officer, investigating a stolen car in the back of one of those grim section 8 apartment buildings, was run over and dragged underneath the car for 200 ft. He survived but had 9 hours of surgery and is in critical condition. The assailant was identified as a black kid with one of those Africanized names (tho he was probably born around here) A vigorous manhunt was launched as you can imagine. Here is the strange part: he was located and captured in a small town in Northern Vermont, near the Canadian border, hiding out with his Puerto Rican half brother who lived there. This explained a lot. Last Sunday the Globe had a feature article on the Heroin epidemic ravaging the state, and the street gangs from NY, CT and Mass. who supply it. Forget any pre conceived notions you have about Vermont. Its becoming a dystopic shithole like everywhere else.
–BRH
Had enough White Man? We don’t ask for your soul just your blood, sweat, and tears – in reverse order a la Churchill.
You *R* a sad sorry state. White man = wtf.
Am I repeating *MYSELF*?!? – OH WELL!!!
I feel like going time-travelling tonite. Time for a journey into *our* recent history (what did *we* learn?)…
In ’98, Citi commercial banksters aquired Travelers investment banksters. The regulation committees (FBI? Federal Reserve? *SEC* [try finding SEC on a citi/trav google {haha, evidently *payed* off}]) gave them a 1 year buffer, after which Glass-Steagall whuz *apparently* repealed.
In 2000, we had the internets (DOT-COM) bubble. In 2001, we had Enron, *top-secret* US Mil-Spec grade anthrax bandied throughout the entire US postal system, and Dumbya’s approval rating plumetting below 18% – whuz there any surprise that the next Pearl Harbor event whuz inevitable?!?
Fast-forward from 9/11/01 to 12/31/01 – Those pesky Taliban in Afghanistan had been *SHUT UP*, and the pipeline whuz easily *signed in stone*…
Same old story – NE-1 want to repeat it for me, since (or BE-4?)?!?
There’s always those old stories about US friend of Iraq (Saddam Houssain) against Iran (US giving them chemical weapons to use against Kurds), or US friend of Afghanistan Taliban (Osama Bin Laden) against USSR (Contra/Coke for Bushies/etc)…
(Can you tell I just watched the documentary “Inside Job” again, and got just as *infuriated*?)
I’ve been out in the bush for a few days doing some big game hunting so I need to catch up on the comments. It looks like a lot has happened but I’m guessing it’s nothing new. Like Sherlock, I’m bored and nothing seems to excite or impress me any longer. So many worlds are possible with the code we’ve been given and yet we can’t help but repeat this world. It’s so dull and uninspiring––this world where we serve as jailers for each other.
This comment in particular struck me:
But what does disability pay? 600$ a month? Or $4000? Different people tell me differenet figures.
Workers’ Compensation is increasingly irrelevant, for humans at least, these days as the industrial economy steadily replaces human labor with robot labor, so one has to ask, considering this trend at what point do robots obtain rights and start making Workers’ Compensation claims? The Workers’ Compensation specifics will have to be altered and amended to apply to robots rather than humans. As it stands now, WC pays out using a wide array of formulaic determinations; the loss of a finger has a specific dollar amount versus a hand versus half an arm versus a whole arm versus a toe…a foot…half a leg…a whole leg…total paralysis. It’s byzantine and pure madness. They have actuaries actually value body parts and at some point those very same actuaries, or their cold, calculating progeny, will have to value the various robotic components for Workers’ Compensation. I wonder as I consider this insane complexity what is the value the actuaries gave a cock or a cunt and if such a value exists what is its counterpart on a robot?
From this site. Note there’s no mention of genitalia. Tough luck if you get your tube steak caught in the lathe or you accidentally sear it with a blow torch. Actuaries are sadistic pricks if you ask me.
http://www.wcb.ny.gov/content/main/Workers/ScheduledLossUse.jsp
Maximum Possible Compensation
Member Lost Weeks of Compensation
Arm 312
Leg 288
Hand 244
Foot 205
Eye 160
Thumb 75
First Finger 46
Second Finger 30
Third Finger 25
Fourth Finger 15
Great Toe 38
Other Toe 16
No mention of *WHA*?!? Hehehe, you still scrubbin’ that *ANTHRAX* off your *PERTY* body, hey? *SOKER*(?!?)/./
Don’t *sweat* it – you and me, we *DODGED* that bullet…
Big game hunting you say. Out in the bush. So Sherlock is that code for passing the pipe. So many worlds are possible “with the code we’ve been given” as you say. Now that I like, inspiring, but then you crash your blip of wisdom with “It’s so dull and uninspiring”.
What? The inner blabby too scary to let out? Perhaps you might consider therapy. As Jim said this week quoting Lon Chaney, “There’s nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.”
And stay out of those strip clubs you boys in black suits are so fond of. That’s half the reason the reason you see the world as “where we serve as jailers for each other.” And 100% of the reason you are worried about Workmens Comp if you get your tube steak damaged ‘on the job’. Better have a close listen and consider riding off into the sunset. Riding off into the sunset would do your soul good. Mine too. Consider jumping over those tables and heading for the door.
This mix is better, it has lyrics.
Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sittin’ in a nest of bad men
Whiskey bottles piling high
Did I *STUTTER*?!?
Have any of you here ever read alt.conspiracy? I ask, because I *whuz*, from about 1997-2001, and it actually had some decent discussions back then. Ever since, however, that group has been nothing but k00ks (off-their-meds-nutterz), sp00ks (6-fig-govt-stalkaz), and rediculous smoke-screen conspiracies (the Jewish one is always tops for diversion [vlad just busted a nut!]).
It would appear that the alt-conspiracy discussion board *model* has propagated to all *alternative* blogs with any sort of following. I am reading the same sh!tola here for months now, sock-puppet banter consisting of nothing but flames, trolls, and wacky conspiracy/disinformation. But what can you expect, when the US govt employs 2-3+ million *6-fig-govt-stalkaz*, who do nothing all day but lurk, spy and flood. Just imagine what a better *state* we’d be in, if these same 2-3+ million were instead using existing regulations (LOL – any left?) to investigate and prosecute corporate/financial/political criminals…
WHAT A JOKE!!!
PS – one thing I realized recently, whuz how the war against Afghanistan whuz just as illigitimate as the war against Iraq/WMD. I say this as it whuz well known in our govt’s triple-letter-acronym clubs that Osama whuz in Pakistan the day before 911, receiving dialysis. And, he remained within 30 miles of that same military hospital in Rawalpindi for the next 10 years, until *WE* whacked his @$$ (if he EVEN managed to live that long with his kidney failure) – therefore *they* knew he had never been in Afghanistan after 911. I suspect this is why Dumbya never went after killing Osama, as it would have shown they already knew he had always been in Pakistan… If one remembers the real reasons for going to war with Afghanistan, they were 2 (3) fold:
1. The oil pipeline that the Taliban were opposed to installing
2. Lack of opium/herion production, almost all of which had been shut down by the Taliban
(3. The trillions in precious/rare-earth minerals available for mining)
You seem to have forgotten about those *chosen few* who sponsor everything, and profit ever after (to the nth degree)…
Vlad, Why must you be such a racist? Perhaps it’s time you *desist*…
Yet another Liberal screaming “racist.” Janos is like a concerned and skilled baker who cares about his sourdough culture; so much so he makes sure to tend to it and nurture it so it will produce the sumptuous leavened loaves that feed us Whites daily. And for this, like the Christ he loves so dearly, he has been persecuted and crucified. He has suffered much, but he makes no mention of that suffering; he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve or hang it over people’s heads like some. Janos accepts his suffering graciously; finding intrinsic reward in knowing that his mission is to preserve a glorious culture despite overwhelming resistance. Michael Pollan metaphorically sums up what Janos does as follows:
In the microuniverse of a sourdough culture, the baker performs in the role of God, or at least of natural selection. It may well be that the requisite microbes are everywhere, but by shaping their environment––the food and feeding schedule, the ambient temperature, the amount of water––the baker, wittingly or unwittingly, selects which microbes will thrive and which will fail. Frequent feedings and warm temperatures tend to favor yeast, for example, creating an airier, milder loaf, whereas skipping meals and refrigerating the culture favors the bacteria, leading to a more acidic environment, and a more strongly flavored bread.
“Baking well really comes down to managing fermentation,” according to Robertson. The flavor and quality of a naturally leavened bread depends to a great extent on how skillfully the baker governs this invisible microbial world. And if the baker fails to care for his culture? It may take awhile, but once the sun of his attention goes dark, the culture eventually dies.
You missed the *RHYME*…
That’s how you all interact, tho – nothing of *INTEREST*!!!
Go back, and read *TEH POEM*. You fucking sock puppet@!@ Italix and *BOLD*… so sorry, socky.
MUTHA FUCKIN *SOCK*
haha dont *think* so
You are the Play Dough to my Socrates and Aristotle to my Play Dough.
Vlad – wamt to *WHITE* me?!?
you got suxored into the douche
Vlad wants to *WHITE* me@@!
Stuttah!@
ZrCrypDiK shut up with affected nnoonnsseennssee, the shtik’s way past prime. we get it, ur so smart & informed.
everyone here sooooo wurried about “govt stalkers”, jeez, you might like just ignore them and say what you want, no one’s censoring you here, jhk rarely drops in to skold anyone unless his webmaster’s little php program flags something raciss
Germany has managed to slash its fossil fuel consumption by 50% since 1992 by a broad range of energ efficiency and renewable energy measures, the parameters of which are constantly changing.
http://theenergycollective.com/ecskris/178531/new-solar-technology-may-entirely-change-game
sorry fossil fuel descenters, you lose
you lose because you faile to grasp that, in the great Western tradition of technological progress, scarcity brings out the best in our inventiveness
we salute you as we rocket tranquilly high above you into our future of untold material and mental abundance.
peace peaceniks
I salute you as you blithely blow cornicopian smoke up our ass.
Germany – Fossil fuel energy consumption
Oil 34.6%
Bituminous coal 11.1%
Lignite 11.4%
Natural gas 21.7%
Nuclear power 11.0%
Hydro- and wind power 1.5%
34.6% + 11.1% + 11.4% + 21.7% = 85.64%
This does not look like 50% to me nor does this graph tell your tale.
And your solar energy cones are as ridiculous as these.
Why are you so resistant to the idea of social change and insist that the game be played without change at all cost?
I don’t expect an answer.
What is the premise of the Kunstler screed? A tatted muscle canary at his local smelly fungi infested homo erotic gym somehow represents a warrior kultur? Why it’s the Patton of the Precor…….
kunstler only sees the veneer, not the substance. there are millions of tattooed individuals that are rock solid members of society, and who you’d be proud to have as your friends and compatriots….if you knew them
which kunstler don’t
he only , like all intellectuals, disparages them from afar
peace peaceniks
Laser removal of body cartoons is a growth industry. Replaces the ink with a scar at 10x the cost and 10x the pain of having the abomination installed.
Theres some truth to that Rubicon. Yesterday I had my 09 F250 in the shop for service. The guy who did the work was covered with tatts all over except on the head and face. On the neck, yes, vines growing up. He was a big dude with a shaved head. It reminded me of a short story I read in HS — I think by Ray Bradbury, ‘The Tattood Man’ — as in every picture tells a story. But this guy had a gentle demeanor and he explained the work he had done in a modulated voice which bespoke some education and a middle class upbringing.
So maybe these tatts are just a passing fad, no harm done. Of course, years from now, grammas will have some ‘splainin’ to do when their little grandkids start asking questions, like, “Gramma why is there a picture of lips painted on you back?”
–BRH
“Gramma why is there a picture of lips painted on you back?” – BRH
==============
So, BRH, you envision that these grandkids will be speaking Ebonics?
No the Illustrated Man. He became enraged when they were called tattoos. And his illustrations moved and spoke to him…
Was it ‘The Illustrated Man’?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_Man
So if you don’t like him why are you here. Did he ever do anything to personally offend you? And why this thing about intellectuals? What is wrong with thinkers anyway? They are not the kind who kick sand in your face at the beach you know. If they mumble too much and bother you cross the damn street. I thought you were the diversity sock and more tolerant.
I don’t see Jim Kunstler standing in front of Tattoo parlors stopping people who are trying to get in. Do you?
The thread starts to get boring by Friday. Let’s see if this stirs up Janos or aj-Soak a bit:
If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and. . .remaining in the country illegally
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldn’t be found
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government
— you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
The left and its cultural rot continues. How long till the dollar really is dead? And with that Chaos!!!!
If you think that the “stock market” is representational of the real economy, you are definitely an american idiot (as well as a prized sucker). …The Founders didn’t take into account the proliferation of real-life vampires and parasitic shitheads that would breed in exponential fashion as the stored sunlight was prodigiously and wastefully burned in the name of profit and overarching dumbfuckery.
Bring on the plunge protection team (the pee-pee tea), quick! (In case no one noticed, there’s a small panic goin’ on that needs a Friday “correction”/”tweaking”
for those Monday shark-smiles and media bullshittery [tm MM].)
brh, tx for ejaculating some truth ichor into this seething pool of despondency. nothing beats the real world for educatin’ them intellectuals. they can talk real good but can’t change a tyre.
the world’s real work gets done by (sometimes) tattooed folks, god love ’em
peace peaceniks
“the world’s real work gets done by (sometimes) tattooed folks, god love ‘em” – Rube
==============
Something on the order of 80% of NBA and NFL athletes are covered with tattoos and blacks more so than whites. When asked why they adorned themselves with tatts the most common answer (paraphrased) was “to express my individuality and my uniqueness.”
When the other 20% of the athletes – the ones not covered with tattoos, whites more so than blacks – were asked why they had no tatts the most common answer (paraphrased) was “to express my individuality and my uniqueness.”
Which group’s response sounds more logical?
As usual you’re on the cutting edge (don’t cut yourself). But this article goes further and condemns Dunham for her aggression. This kind of nudity is a kind of social dominance: making us look at her ungainly troll body. It’s like workers at mental hospitals who display themselves to the patients.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2014/01/23/lena-dunhams-nudity-as-handicap-principle/#comments
You’re right about individuality btw: it’s really fairly rare.
“You missed the *RHYME*…
That’s how you all interact, tho – nothing of *INTEREST*!!!
Go back, and read *TEH POEM*. You fucking sock puppet@!@ Italix and *BOLD*… so sorry, socky.” – ZrCrypDiK
=========
Above, ZrCry, is a typical post from you. I often wonder why you express yourself in this way and whether you are capable of expressing yourself without all those extraneous exclamation marks, asterisks, capitalizations, at signs, deliberate misspellings, etc. I mean, seriously, WHAT is the purpose? What, for example, is gained by spelling THE as TEH?
Just to humor me, I challenge you to write a thoughtful paragraph in the old fashion way our English teachers taught us in grades K through 12……..or would this rob you of a treasured persona?
My next reply *WERKZ*? Hehe 🙂
Come on Y’all?!? (southern accent?) We got a few hundred to get to *600*…
I just don’t get why everyone seems so bent on vilifying video games, or rather FPS’s, as being the root cause for all these SSRI riddled sociopathic timebombs. I’m thinking there’s prolly a higher correlation (and significant, at that) to high fructose GMO corn syrup and hydrogenated GMO vegetable oils (and to a lesser extent, ADHD diabetic onset, due to all TV programs interrupted every 5 minutes by 4 minutes worth of pure, unadulterated, subliminal noise/poison [commercials]).
I played Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple2E back in ’83, and absolutely loved it. Hell, I spent time on that same Apple2E programming those multi-color line-bouncing screensavers you see today, spinning through and ricocheting off walls (rIIIght, screensaver in ’83 – hehe).
OK I digressed. After the introduction of Doom v1.5 ’93/4 (multiplayer), I was hooked on co-op gameplay. I played Quake1-3 also, mostly multiplayer – either CTF or teams (yeah, some FFA – heh). I then saw the death of the iD FPS by those military FPS clones – and they totally took over (my bro just loved Battlefield 1942). These military FPS’s totally focused on chump moves, like ducking/hiding/sniping – rather than open playfield cooperative tactics. And they illustrate why we still camp/stealth/drone in our current wars (*ONE* takes out many “collateral”).
Around ’99 or so, I started trying out those MMORPG FPS’s (similar clone FPS engines). Everquest was evercamp for negative returns, WoW was fight for nodes/mobs/grindfest.
To end this rather abruptly, my experience with FPS’s involved cooperation, tactics, skill, and character growth – rather than simply kill every living thing that moves, with the BFG9000 and INVULNERABILITY…
My point? Haha, there’s a *POINT*!!! Ayup, vid games don’t produce murderers liek *YOU*. That’s majik (or $6-figs$, you govt stalkaz).
Ix, if you’ve been into FPS they have had your number for a long long time. Looks like we could be roomies in a FEMA camp someday soon.
<a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/431511/december-16-2013/Colbert on nsa-video-game-surveillance”>NSA Video Game Surveillance
Leak: Government spies snooped in ‘Warcraft,’ other games
Can I have the top bunk or should we flip for it?
d00d, we sleepin’ in the *SAME BED* – my *PRECIOUS*!!! Hehe!!!
*Ahhhhhhhhh* talk like that could make me cut my hair put on a blue suit, don a red tie, and start singing hymns of praise to rube-i-con the cornucopian nightmare. I might start drinkin BURBON in the burbs. I’m a tolerant guy but I don’t swing that way. I’d rather get bit on the neck by this guy.
*hmmmmmm* Tats aren’t my thing but. I’ll get used to it. No offense to you, but I’d prefer dealing with tats.
Those tat-chicks *SCARED* me. But you *know* it, we in the *SAME BED*. Just *wonder* wut those *6-fig-salaried-govt-stalkaz* gunna think *NEXT*!!! Hehe. They *BREWING*.
Those tat-chicks are why god invented the light-switch.
Fags.
You need role play games to get you out and meeting other wierdos. That’ll help develop your characters.
Typically combative New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie kept his mouth shut Thursday after the growing Bridgegate scandal mushroomed.
US Attorney Subpoenas went out to the Christie campaign Christie’s favorability ratings have plunged 19 percentage points since last November, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll of New Jersey voters.
For 2016 instead of leading over Hillary, Christie now trails by a large percentage. A Fox News national poll shows troubling signs for Christie among Republicans.
Politicians of both parties go to prison for political corruption. The FBI goes after corruption regardless of party affiliation. State Assemblyman and Mayor of Perth Amboy, New Jersey Joseph Vas (D) was sentenced to 6 and a half years for federal corruption in 2011. Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich (D) is currently doing 14 years in prison.
The FBI is gathering evidence from witnesses and documents about Christie’s crimes. Christie’s political corruption has now gone way beyond Fort Lee to include places like Elizabeth, Jersey City, Hoboken, etc. “Everybody does it” is not a legal defense. Ask the Mayor of Perth Amboy or the Governor of Illinois.
I wonder how many years in the big house Chris Christie will be sentenced to after his indictment and conviction, and whether Christie will do time in a real prison or a minimum security country club.
Of course, it could all just blow over like a fart in a windstorm. But the evidence does not support that faulty poldar.
Long time, no talk – *SOKER*. Idiots always claim no knowledge – and perhaps they’re *RIGHT*. Being st00pid, means you r00l the roost, no problemo.
You gunna dive into your debate files and argue the opposing side?!? I’d guess *YES*. Do you feel good about yourself – I’d guess *NOT*. That’s the sad, sorry state of affairs, *ME BOYIE*. GIMME A KISS when you’re *done*…
“The FBI is gathering evidence.” And you’d be knowing that you would! ***** Sorry I could not resist that one.
You still talking about that sh-t?
Why do you care?
Why don’t you?
And mine is the better question patriot.
Back Row Marlin? Nice *RIFLE* Why do you respond?
I suspect you’re nothing more than a *6-fig-salaried-gov-stalkah*. But that’s only *ME* (the pay has *GOTTA* be nice).
Pretty, pretty?!?
Little misunderstanding, Gents.
I was responding to Asoka (Ajmuste) about his Christ posts.
Carry on!
–BRH
I will admit it when I’m wrong. I did think you were responding to me and missed that the indent arrow was missing. My bad.
The way you describe yr hometown and state, gees.
But Drudge reports [no joke] ‘1 in 5 households on food stamps’.
I kid you not!
“man i am so tyred of troglodyte anti-progress types.”
You and your ilk are the anti-progress types. You want everything to continue on exactly as it is now, unchanged. You expect majikal “tech” solutions to be delivered to you, *just-in-time*, by someone else. *YOU* do not want to put forth any effort whatsoever, in order to progress toward any sort of sustainable/renewable future. You just reap the rewards, and dump the problems on future generations.
“large-scale tree planting has very positive effects on atmospheric levels of co2.”
Oh, please – open your eyes. This wouldn’t even come close to offsetting a *fraction* of the annual Amazon Basin clearcutting that is going on, in your neck-of-the-woods.
“who said we should only plant a ‘few’ trees?”
I believe these were *your* exact words, “plant a damn tree.”
“and re googling the latest climate change models…whose models? the ones which show no/no appreciable warming?”
I suggest you look directly at real/actual/measured data, which involves 3 main trend charts. The first is the annual global temperature trend (going back a good 150 years, maybe look at massive polar region differentials). The second is the global CO2 atmospheric trend (even the ones that goes back 400,000 or 800,000 years from ice cores). The third is the global solar irradiance trend (which shows we have just come out of the ~6 year long solar minimum). If you need to go further, look into radiative absorption coefficients of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, and develop your own simple model using science/physics.
“multiply that by millions of trees, or a billion.”
Assuming very minimal estimates: ~20,000 square kilometers are clearcut in the Brazilian Amazon each year, ~400 trees per acre in the Amazon. That comes out to *2 billion trees* clearcut EVERY YEAR, just in the Brazillian Amazon…
And the “no-caps” thang ain’t really helpin’ your argument much, either (but perhaps it helps you mentally, to remember which *sock-puppet* you’re logged into)…
And, as turkle suggests, I’m not sure any of these nay-sayers even bother going outside, and looking around (or going online, and doing a real investigation without relying on being MSM spoon-fed)…
I *know* – so out of *TOUCH*!!!
http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/liberal-icon-urges-obama-impeachment/
Nat Hentoff says throw the bum out. He’s making a mockery of the Constitution with his executive orders. Very dangerous and obviously a terrible precedent for whoever comes next – if anyone that is.
“He said it was literally true that Obama is “the most un-American president we’ve ever had.”
And just to make sure everybody heard him, he added, “I hope the FBI got all of that.”
That was from the article showing FBI agents from the ‘Joint Terrorism Task Force’ hard at work. Looks like some of them could be ready to log on onto some ‘End of the World Blogs’.
Or not.
We are approaching the Hour of Decision. Do we survive as a Race or do we go under the Dark Tide as Zipdik so greatly desires? Spengler wrote about it well. Why do they hate us? Ultimately it’s out of envy – because we are better than they are.
http://www.amren.com/features/2014/01/the-hour-of-decision/
What do you blokes think of the movie “The Butler”?
“man i am so tyred of troglodyte anti-progress types.” —
You and your ilk are the anti-progress types.
whoa, is this a retort to something written many, many weeks ago?
if you’re so dead set against planting a tree, don’t plant one. world will go on, nature will recover, given the massive global consciousness of the necessity to preserve it. all in spite of your scientific babblings about this and that level of chemical.
did u know that walden pond was a barren, clearcut wasteland 150 years ago? go there now, it’s brimming with huge trees everywhere.
a hurricane there in 1938 wiped out most all the trees thoreau had planted. they’re all back.
thats the power of planting “one tree”.
go ye and do the same, and stop being such thick-lensed scientists that cant see beyond the bridge of their noses for all their learning.
by the way, in my neck of the woods in brazil, i see massive clearcutting of planted eucalyptus tree plantations. then the trees are replanted, and shoot right back up. yeah i know its not the same as breatheable jungle, but its one small step by these iggorent critters down here…
peace peaceniks
Hey Rubicon I was curious about your life in Brazil. Are you allowed to work there? What are the wages? How are foreigners treated? A guy I know spends the winters in a town on the coast in the south. He says its mostly Europeans escaping winter and he doesn’t have much contact with local Brazilians. Can you get by without speaking Portugese? I’ve seen news reports about the poverty, vicious gangs and violent crime, but maybe like here its just in the bigger cities.
After the Civil War about 20,000 Confederates and their families emigrated to the central part of the country and their descendants still live there, having mixed with Ukrainians and Brazilians.
Just wondering about ex-pat life in Brazil. Comment if you care to.
–BRH
Don’t know how much attention this is getting but it looks like a new financial blowup may be brewing in so-called “emerging-market” countries.
Seems like there’s a rush for the exits and the currencies are tanking. Which countries? Russia, Argentina, Turkey, Brazil…. the usual suspects among others.
Are we talking contagion? Maybe. Other currencies, normally seen as robust, are getting hammered too.
What’s behind it? Depends on who you ask. A lot of “maybes”. If you ask me, and this is just my own opinion, maybe it’s the unsustainability of world-wide production-consumption imbalances.
The USA, glutted with debt, it’s middle class crippled by offshoring, can no longer soak up Chinese made products like it used to. And so China can no longer grow like it used to. And so China, and the suppliers to China, are feeling the squeeze.
Another maybe…. normally financiers have a tolerance for rotten-ness that would make buzzards sick. But maybe the stink of of rotten-ness in emerging markets has finally got to be more than even financiers can stand. So maybe good sense finally overcame greed.
Maybe such places, built on the idea that social rank gives license to steal, finally put fear into money-men. And so money-men want to get their money out before it too gets stolen.
Maybe there’s a consensus among emerging market elites that their banks, normally complicit in helping them move loot offshore, are so crippled by thievery and incompetence that they’re just as likely to incinerate money as to hide it.
Maybe all of the above.
What does this mean? Maybe the day of reckoning, that the Fed put off by its incessant money printing, is at hand. I guess we’ll find out in due course.
Another thing. ZeroHedge is saying that the Chinese PTB are considering teaching everybody a lesson on moral hazard. This is about loans to the coal industry. You see, default beckons. The Chinese PTB are thinking in terms of no bailout for creditors.
So is this the beginning of the long brewing restructuring in China? An end to the building of ghost cities? A stop to production where there is no corresponding consumption?
The Fed thinks it can manipulate monetary and interest rate levers to sustain financial scams and so protect Wall Street banks. The Chinese powers also think they have the ability to defy financial gravity, to conjure economic forces by command, to make it so just by saying that it IS so.
It ain’t so. Both the Fed and the Chinese are dreadfully mistaken. Both will find out the hard way.
And so money-men want to get their money out before it too gets stolen.
But what if there is no “out?” It’s all in, all the time, so if there’s a possibility of a crash, you may as well go for the gusto in the meantime since there’s no out and you’re all in all the time. Seriously, any contrivance you can imagine to serve as a reserve for your wealth is based on arbitrarily derived values and those values are subject to the same chicanery which caused you to seek the “less riskier” harbor of this latest contrivance. This is why espousing gold, or any precious metal, as a hedge against anything is ludicrous. If one must store their wealth rather than swear it off, then store it in humans since it’s the least abstract instrument of value storage. Human physical power once built the pyramids and when the cost of oil becomes prohibitive, humans can and will build those pyramids, or something to akin to pyramids, again with their coerced blood, sweat and tears.
LB, did you say you were a novelist?
I can believe it. You certainly have a way with words.
–BRH
What do you blokes think of the movie “The Butler”?
Yet more propaganda and mind control from Jewish-controlled Hollywood. Same goes for Spleenberg’s Lincoln. I don’t have to watch this crap to know. Just looking at the trailers and investigating the history of Cinema is enough to know. Plus, Oprah’s in it and I can’t stand that gaseous, bloated, Black bitch. If you want a good movie about a butler, and the history of Service in general, check out The Remains of the Day. It was an excellent movie in every way.
Of course, it’s all about the Jews, shithead. That’s the most logical explanation for everything. What a doofus you are. Why, Spielberg called me himself for permission to make “Lincoln”, as it was my month to chair the Hollywood Committee of the International Jewish Conspiracy.
You know how things are. It took us all this time to undue the damage we did from 1916 when D.W. Griffiths made that anti-black film, “The Birth of a Nation”. Oh, wait. Griffiths was a Christian.
Your bitterness is showing again Bill. The Jews didn’t control silent movies such as Birth of a Nation, but only since Hollywood became the center. If you don’t like what they produce, you should try to get them to change. Otherwise own it.
From what I’ve heard, the movie Lincoln was grotesquely Pro-Black and Politically Correct, with Blacks shown as the perfect Americans. Not a word about sending them back to Africa like Lincoln wanted.
Suddenly, riots in Argentina, Kiev, Bangkok. Brutal civil war in CAR, SSudan, Syria. Terrorism in Russia, Egypt and Lebanon. Possible financial meltdown in China (and the US). 25% unemployment in Spain, 13% in France. Are these events isolated and random, or is something else going on?
–BRH
I don’t think these events are random, Marlin, as all the world’s economies are tied together in this electronic age. Not a conspiracy, but a logical result of grasping for power and wealth and making very poor, short-sighted economic decisions. We reap what we sow.
I’m not a big conspiracy believer. I operate on the Occam’s Razor principle: that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. And on the natural Law of “actions have consequences”. We’re just at a point in time when the inevitable comes into play.
I’m very into Murphy’s Law as well: if things are going well, then glitches occur, and at the worst possible time. Old man Murphy’s a real prick.
I don’t mean a conspiracy, Bill, unless possibly a conspiracy of related events with similar causes. In Argentina evidently the pesos has collapsed (again). The president there is a leftist and currently is attending a political conference in Havana. Other countries in Latin America are melting down, too, notably Venezuela, which has the highest murder rate in the world right now.
It seems, suddenly, everything is boiling up all at once. Not much of it is being covered by the US media. The all encompassing news here is a pissant like Justin bieber got arrested in Miami Beach.
–BRH
I read that there’s a mass grave in Egypt, out in the desert, that’s some ten thousand years old. The skeletons are those of young men, many bearing the marks of violence, bashed in skulls, broken bones etc.
Warfare, IOW, has been with us for a long, long time. What was behind that particular conflagration? if I was a betting man I would bet that by that time the Sahara was turning into desert and those young men were fighting young men of other tribes for dwindling usable land. Or maybe water. How can you tell after such a long time?
Fair bet though that the common denominator in recent wars was probably a factor in those far off days. That is to say it boils down to contests over resources. Too many people in too small a space, not enough to go around.
And so away you go. Kill the infidel, kill the degenerate spawn of Satan or Beelzeebub, kill those worthless, bloodsucking parasites that deprive us of our due, who took our land, who steal what’s ours, who infringe on our historic rights. Etc. Heard it all before, no? These things mask themselves as wars of ethnic affirmation. Or religious affirmation.
So what’s going on in all those seemingly unrelated, random events? Keen observers would have insights, mostly though they’ll be ignored. Dangerous to oversimplify, but again, if I was a betting man, I would bet that it boils down to the price of bread. People can’t afford it.
Why can’t they afford bread? If you want to pull the curtain back a bit further, it’s the price of oil. Not only does the US economy not work when oil is pushing 100 USD per barrel, neither does a lot of other stuff. The old arrangements are no longer workable. People will tolerate a certain amount of mis-appropriation. Why? Because that’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been. And so people put up with it.
But there’s a limit to what people will put up with. The kleptocratic murderers want to keep stealing as if oil was still 20 bucks a barrel. You know, there’s never enough loot in the Swiss bank account. And it’s putting an intolerable squeeze on the people they’re stealing from. There’s no longer enough left to go around.
But that’s just a guess. Like you I suspect that there’s something going on pushing all these seemingly unrelated events. Maybe it all becomes clear with the benefit of historical hindsight.
“It took us all this time to undue the damage…” – Bean
==========
undo
“…Murphy’s Law ………… if things are going well, then glitches occur – Bean
===========
Wrong.
Murphy’s Law is generally stated as “If anything can go wrong it will go wrong.”
You’re right, Q. I couldn’t remember the exact wording, so I tried to paraphrase it. Didn’t do a good job. And I also screwed up the corollary to Murphy’s Law: …and at the worst possible time.
The “undue” mistake, I believe was caused by my iPad, but I still take responsibility.
“Spielberg called me himself for permission to make “Lincoln”, as it was my month to chair the Hollywood Committee of the International Jewish Conspiracy.” – Bean
==========
Good one.
About women…
If the Hillary/Gillibrand ticket does win the next election, wouldn’t that be the first time the United States has both a white woman president and a white woman as vice-president?
~ ajmuste
Umm, uh, yeah, I guess it would.
“The U.S. Olympic Committee told American athletes that wearing their team colors at the 2014 Winter Games may make them a target in Sochi”
This is because “tough-guy” Putin has made so many enemies that he cannot protect the Olympics from terrorism.
I used the quotes because anybody who puts women musicians in jail is not really a tough guy… he’s a cowardly bully.
“The imprisonment of the members of the band Pussy Riot (and their cynical release just prior to the Games), as well as the government’s active repression of the LGBT community, are the most visible examples of an autocratic regime that controls the lives of its citizens to a degree not far removed from the era when the last Olympic Games were held in Russia, in 1980. Communism is officially dead, but the state led by Mr. Putin has preserved and resurrected many of its worst characteristics.
Add to this shameful litany the large-scale exploitation of migrant workers who helped build the venues and infrastructure of the Games. There are numerous reports of abuse of vulnerable workers by Russian companies, including documented cases of non-payment of wages. Not only will visitors to the Games be surrounded by soldiers and required to pass through endless security checks, they may well end up watching events in arenas built by what amounts to slave labour.
Russia today is Mr. Putin’s Russia. The Olympic Games are his Games. They are testament to his ambitions, and also to his abundant failings.”
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 24 2014
http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/trauma-inducing/
Hillary as you’ve never seen her.
“Mitt Romney praises Chris Christie, calls Hillary Clinton beatable”
LOL. They said Romney was going to win in a “landslide” …
Romney is a loser who is now praising a piece of toast.
Once the hunter, Chris Christie is now the prey in Bridge-gate probe …
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2014/0124/Once-the-hunter-Chris-Christie-is-now-the-prey-in-Bridge-gate-probe-video
Rachel Maddow reported on Christie’s public corruption back in December 2013. Q. thought it was a “fart in a windstorm” revealing his faulty poldar, and by extension to his faulty political beliefs about government in general.
Monster Truck Rally coming to Hartford! Destroyer, Crusher, Stomper, Shredder … they’ll all be here in their fire breathing, 600 bhp glory. Jim, I think they’re headed your way, too, at Saratoga. Tickets cost only $10.
–BRH
7
A Freudian slip from The American Israelite. They call the director of The Butler, Lee Daniels who just so happens to be a Black man who hates Whites, Lee Butler. The movie, despite its Black director, was highly influenced and predominantly controlled by a cadre of Jews to include a majority of the executive producers, the screen writer Danny Strong who is only 39 years old and of limited experience, and the distributor, The Winostein Company. Even the title is rather ironic. Its real legal title is Lee Daniels’ The Butler which could be interpreted as Lee Daniels is the butler. A butler to whom, though? A butler to Jewish-controlled Hollywood perhaps. Lee Daniels did their bidding and that was to denigrate White culture and at the same time remain a dutiful servant to his true master(s).
Oscar-nominated director, Lee Butler visits the American Jewish Archives at HUC
Ironically, I only went to see “The Butler” as a time-killer as I and my wife waited for “The Cleaning Lady” to finished cleaning my apartment.
As usual, Oprah Winfrey was annoying. Forest Whitaker’s performance was superb. My first reaction to the film was: “Propaganda Film”. I don’t view Obama’s election as progress for black people.
I was, however, glad to see the establishment stand up for Sidney Poitier in the film.
In my view, the movie “The Butler” somewhat “misses-the-point”: It’s not about black people; it’s about the relative price of labor. Now that black people get paid as much as white people, no one will want to hire ’em. And what good are civil rights, if one’s on-the-dole? Black people were economically better off in the 1960’s.
I recently saw a mongaloid kid working the deep fat fryer at the local McDonalds. Another option would be prisoners, and, unlike the Mongaloids, you wouldn’t have to provide ’em healthcare.
http://www.online-paralegal-degree.org/prison-industry/
The movie “The Butler” makes the Reagan’s look good, which is suspicious, in my view. I recall that Nancy Reagan once asked the then wife of the dictator of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, for a referral of a Filippina maid for the Reagan household. Nancy “didn’t want no black butler.” Nancy wanted someone that she could really kick around.
It’s interesting that the movie “The Butler” didn’t mention the Bush Presidencies (Bush I and Bush II), nor the Clinton Presidency.
Bill Clinton used to joke that “Hillary gets more P….ssy than [Bill] does.”
Bill Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas used to “go jogging” during the day. He’d jog over to Jennifer Flowers apartment that Bill rented for her (Bill had Jennifer on the state payroll), screw her, grab a burger and grape soda and fries. Bill would then jog back to the governor’s mansion and splash some water on his face to look like he’d had a “good work out” before seeing Hillary.
The Butler at the Arkansas governor’s mansion probably handed Bill a cold drink upon his return.
This is what the U.S. leadership is like now.
The Obama Administration is packed with Clinton people.
It looks like Hillary will be the next POTUS….
Here’s a list of the executive producers:
http://www.fandango.com/leedanielsthebutler_v559020/castandcrew
Of particular note, aside from Harvey the lush, is Aviv Giladi and Len Blavatnik of Icon UK which just so happens to be a portion of Mel Gibson’s former distribution company he sold off. It’s all so ironically incestuous.
Rube Icon made a very particular request of me a few days ago.
you and everyone else needs to post at the end of the comments, its way too easy to miss something if its not. never saw your challenge, but gladly accept it.
I’d rather people responded to the comments that elicited their replies. That way the conversation threads properly and doesn’t make new pages of comments too quickly. In fact, because of your preference for comments, I missed your reply to me for more than a day. However, I decided to comply with your request when it was most convenient for me. I hope you didn’t mind waiting the extra few days until that happened.
the archdruid is long on verbiage and vocab, but time and again these armchair prognosticators confab a version of events that fits comfily in their noggin but fails the litmus test of reality
*evil chuckle* I think Greer would say the same about techno-optimists like you and me–that what we write is wishful thinking and not reality.
like jhk
With an attitude like that toward your hosts, I don’t know if he’d ever approve your comments. Moderation is much heavier at The Archdruid Report than here.
crazy eddie, i have to say im impressed with your screeds out at yer blog!
Thank you for reading it. That you did resulted in me not only complying with your request, but not using one of my insulting names for you.
i adore the caring, thoughtful way the ideas – which i vehemently disagree with – are presented. we need more people who can think things through and demonstrate a love of culture, science, etc. and wish to preserve it thruout a post-industrial crash of civilization and renaissance of the dark ages.
However, I can tell you didn’t read my blog carefully enough. I actually don’t wish for a collapse. I much prefer civil order and technological progress. I’m just not optimistic that either will continue without a lot of work.
i would love to be holed up with you folks during a few dark decades, conversing endlessly about these things of import.
Be careful what you wish for; you might get it. Failing that, I have some optimistic entries just for the likes of you.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/01/discovery-news-thinks-its-best-time.html
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/01/south-korea-is-betting-on-nuclear-fusion.html
touché
I’m not done fencing yet.
“…Lee Daniels who just so happens to be a Black man who hates Whites, Lee Butler. The movie, despite its Black director, was highly influenced and predominantly controlled by a cadre of Jews…” –Blaby
Blaby:
1) Do you have evidence Lee Butler hates whites? Have you been able to look into his heart to confirm your statement? Do you feel threatened by Blacks who rise to leadership or directorial positions?
2) Jews are just human beings like the rest of us: intelligent and with a good sense of humor. Even if “Jews” influence movies, what is inherently “bad” about Jews controlling an industry? Is a “cadre of Jews” something to worry about? Why? What have Jews ever done to you?
Please explain your comments.
Despite the recent polar vortex and the efforts of some to suggest otherwise, global warming is happening. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA have both said that the 10 warmest years in history happened since 2000. 97 percent of working climate scientists believe climate change is due to the actions of humans. And the risk to the planet is even greater than some scientists thought.
A visualization released Tuesday by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which monitors global surface temperatures, shows how much warmer the Earth is in comparison to a 1951-1980 baseline. But be warned, it’s not comforting to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJJtS_WDmI
Some of the worst warriors in Warrior Land are global warming deniers.
Speaking of the movie “The Butler”, I once saw a TV interview with the former pool maintenance bloke at the Bush I household. He said that Barbara Bush insisted that the pool temperature be exactly 86 degrees, and she’d freak out at The Help if the water was too cold.
I bet that this is exactly the way that Michelle Obama and Oprah behave.
“Nancy “didn’t want no black butler.”” – Pucker
========
Really……..this is a direct quote……Nancy used a double negative? Of course she would have said “[I don’t] want no black butler.”
And who is she alleged to have said that to, Imelda? And who was the third person who heard and reported this conversation? Or is this something you cooked up in your imagination?
In the movie “The Butler”, the role of Nancy Reagan is played by Jane Fonda.
“Imelda Marcos’ dreamy City by the Bay called the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex or CCP Complex for short, a flat extended open space reclaimed from the bay that resembles Beijing’s Tienanmen or Moscow’s Red Square lined with coconut palm trees, as Civic Center and breezily tropical as it gets and an inspiration for Singapore’s Marina, is bannered by the zen-like and boxy Cultural Center of the Philippines – home for national theatrical performances, co-inaugurated by then Marcos buddy and Governor Ronald Reagan.”
Happy Motoring continues in the Land of Warriors:
“NEW ORLEANS — Boosted by rising employment, home values and housing construction, Americans will buy 16.4 million new cars and light trucks this year.”
Still denying an economic recovery?
Jobs, homes, cars, trucks … that is what the middle class wants and that is what Obama has delivered.
Five years ago Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression (Bush’s Republican economic disaster).
Thanks to Obama’s leadership businesses have created more than eight million new jobs in the past 46 months, and they’re primed to create more.
I have to think Obama is going to celebrate the economic recovery in his State of the Union address Tuesday by talking about how he strengthened the middle class, and empowered those who hope to join it.
Obama is the best Black president the United States has ever had.
Perhaps the best president, period, considering the hand he was dealt.
I shudder to think of what we may have fallen into if one of these “more tax breaks for the wealthy, and Fuck the environment” fools had gotten into power.
Remember when gasoline prices were heading to $5.00 a gallon a few years ago (CFN was apoplectic!), before Obama became president?
George Bush’s peak gasoline price was tied for the highest ever (adjusted for inflation) in United States history. Yes, blame it on Bush. We were paying an average of $4.12 for gasoline in June 2008 during the Bush administration.
But now, with President Obama’s leadership, the average regular gas price in many cities is under $3.00 a gallon. I haven’t read anybody on CFN giving credit where credit is due, but what’s new? You’ll just continue to enjoy 3 dollar and something gas, instead of 4 dollar and something gas and say it has to do with the world market, not Obama. Sigh.
Great summary of the Race/IQ connection. Blacks who come from households earning 160,000 don’t do as well on IQ tests as Whites coming from households earning 20,000. The environmental argument is simply wrong.
Black children adopted by upper middle class Whites? Almost no difference – a mere 3 points.
http://www.amren.com/news/2014/01/race-differences-in-intelligence-2/
Seriously? a great summary? I want to believe that you did not actually listen to this. I am amazed that people take this type of “analysis” seriously.
1) There are over 7 billion people in the world. How many of them did you test with your “unquestionable” IQ tests?
2) These IQ tests are designed to test certain type of mental skills. One can easily develop those skills to ace similar IQ tests – without getting smarter at all. There is a difference between wisdom and intellectual muscles. There is also a difference between being street smart and being office smart, between ability to survive and live without medical assistance and remembering numbers. The same person can be good at one and bad at another. Einstein did very poorly in math at school.
3) Brain size – it is not the size but how much of it a person uses. And what parts. Some birds have minuscule brain size and yet they are able to remember thousands of locations where they hid food, and remember them a year later – with a 90% accuracy. Can any large-brained white or Asian human do that? Americans are infamous for attributing a lot of importance to size ALONE. It is like saying that a tall person will automatically be a better manager – a fact many “intelligent” Americans believe in.
4) Quotes from studies. All studies are limited and in many of them data is manipulated. Who funded a study should be the first question. Rhetoric of “small numbers” is one very common thing about many a studies. Take 10 people, ask them to do a couple of things, and if 3 of them did something better – 30% increase…never mind it was all based on 10 people only. “Studies prove without a question” – really? there are dozens of questions that can be applied to any study.
5) Apparent history of “achievements” among whites. No black culture created anything of what whites perceive “valuable”. How about atomic bombs and word wars for achievements? And what valuable things did Americans create exactly? except for dropping an atomic bomb on Japan? Digital technology comes too mind, but even here, many lead developers in break-through technologies were from other cultures: Russians, Chinese, Indians. Heck, this “undoubtedly” proves that Americans are “less intelligent”, right?
6) Pattern skills. Recognizing patterns in drawings. It is a good skill, of course, but what about recognizing patterns in a forest or other natural environment? It would be nice to see how whites do in those tests compared to blacks.
7) Memory – I had white students in a class who could not add simple one-digit numbers and I had black students – fresh, 5 years from a very rural country in Africa – students who could remember what quote comes from from text book better than me. Their long-term memory was better than average whites as well (and we are talking very average students in both races)! And what else I found is that they can isolate the most important point of any topic much quicker and then don’t focus much on the rest. I also found that their rate of improvement in learning was faster too – once they grasp what is required of them. Most of them are not used to spending a lot of time reading or looking at fonts, drawings or pictures.
8) Americans use 3-8 times more energy per person than any other culture, including other white cultures – how smart is that? This can easily be deemed as “lesser intelligence”, especially if you consider long-term implications.
Seriously, you folks should be smarter than listening to this type of self-proclaimed “scientific” nonsense.
IQ is like a muscle. You may be born with the muscles of an Olympiad but if you don’t use them they will diminish. IQ really says very little about individuals.
IQ tests don’t measure personality, talent, or persistence and application. For example, someone with a lower IQ and a gung-ho personality might use their lower IQ more effectively than someone with a higher IQ. IQ is a poor measure and tells us very little.
An IQ test doesn’t measure things like creativity, emotional sensitivity, social competence, various acquired skills and many other things that usually fall under the general heading of intelligence. So a person who displays exceptional creativity, for example, may only manage an average IQ test score. BFD.
IQ scores can be safely ignored for how little they tell us.
IQ tests test capacity you testy fellow. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – or vice versa. No one ever said they test creativity. But what can creativity do without intelligence? Most inventors, writers, and composers are above average I dare say.
The portrayal of President LBJ in the movie “The Butler” was also a bit “off”. I recall that LBJ referred to “The Civil Rights Act” as “the Nigger Bill.”
But the piece of crap also jumped right to the end and talked about equality of results. Many subsequently did the same thing. It’s a classic technique in street fighting: a sucker punch is followed by a flurry of blows. Likewise in politics, a victory is pushed to the max. Ending segregation immediately was pushed to forcing integration. And equal rights became the right to equal results. Civil rights became special rights for Blacks.
Was the U.S. Civil War fought because Whites wanted to keep Blacks as Slaves? Or was it fought because one group of people (i.e., the Owners) didn’t want to pay another group of people anything for their labor? If the latter, then the Civil War didn’t really solve anything as the Owners will simply look to another group of workers whose labor is cheaper, and the Blacks will find themselves unemployed.
The Southern Intellectuals told the North to free their slaves first – the immigrant factory workers.
Were Northern factory workers forced to come to the USA in shackles, their family members separately auctioned off to different slaveowners and have no legal rights whatsoever?
Factory workers lived in bad conditions, but they could walk down the street anytime they wanted without reprisal, and could even look at white women without being lynched.
There is slavery, and then there is Slavery.
Interesting thing about slavery, Bill. Of the 12 million Africans brought west out of Africa, only about 450,000 ended up in what became the US. African Slavery was largely a legacy of spain and Portugal, and continued until about 1890 by Muslims operating out of Zanzibar. The US had only a small part in the overall history of African Slavery, yet we seem to take the brunt of the blame.
Frankly, I for one am tired of having my nose rubbed in it, my ancestors having fought for the Union in Mass. and conn. regiments.
–BRH
Yes, a very real distinction – and one that was blurred in colonial America. Indentured servitude was brutal with the Employers trying to get the most of out of their charges during the seven year period. Slaves, being property, were treated better – sometimes far better. And the servitude wasn’t always a voluntary contract but sometimes something forced into by poverty back in Europe.
Even in pre-Civil War times, Northern travelers saw Irish workers being treated worse than Negro slaves. And the Irish rebels exiled to the Carribean sugar plantations? A death sentence for most.
In terms of living conditions, Blacks slaves often had it better than Northern factory workers. But no, obviously most wouldn’t exchange places with the slaves who had no hope of better things.
The Southern Intellectuals told the North to free their slaves first – the immigrant factory workers.
===========
Please document ^this^ statement so I’ll know you didn’t just make it up.
I don’t know where to look on the web – I’ve found it said in books, those relics soon to disappear. Do you believe that everything in books will make it onto the web? Not so.
Was Popeye’s girlfriend, Olive Oil, “extra virgin”?
http://www.colavita.com/oliveoil.htm#sthash.DekWJswy.dpbs
i would love to be holed up with you folks during a few dark decades, conversing endlessly about these things of import.
i too don’t think this will happend, it was written subjunctively.
peace peaceniks
i too don’t think this will happend, it was written subjunctively.
===========
will happend?
Make up your mind Rube, past tense or future.
Pussy Riot
=====
Does anyone know if the word “riot” in the above band name is intended in the sense of hilarity or as civil unrest?
You need to be strapped in with your eyes stapled open – forced to watch Dunham cavort in the buff. Then you will know!
I watched Face the Nation for a few minutes this morning until the old dude who moderates the show (I forget his name) said the word issues but pronounced it as ee-shoes.
Well, that did it for me, like fingernails on a blackboard. I grabbed the remote and tuned over to the Nadal – Wawrinka tennis final in Australia………and moments ago Wawrinka won the match. Great, some new blood among the world’s best tennis players.
Jim has a lot to write about. I’d like to hear what he has to say about the sudden melt down of the pesos in Argentina and the bolivar in Venezuela. True, these both are poorly managed countries, run by dishwater communists. Are Hollywood luminaries like Sean Penn and Danny Glover still making assh-les out of themselves hanging around Caracas, pretending to be Che Guvera? I would think not since Venezuela now leads the Western Hemisphere in homocide. Of course these people are big stars and, like Bono in Africa, travel with armed security.
The riots in Kiev and Bangkok seem pretty big, as does the terrorist threat in Russia. The Golden Age of peace and love we were promised with the presidency of Obama seems not to have materialized. As a matter of fact, considering events last week, worldwide and here at home, the great unraveling might have begun. We have treaties with Japan and it will be interesting to see how Obama will react when Japan gets into it with China over those disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Oh ya, Al Queda is ready to move on Baghdad itself from its base in Fallujah. Those of you who had all the answers back in 06, 07, 08, Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Cindy sheehan, grab your anti war signs and you bullhorns, fly to Iraq, and try to scare these sonsabitches off.
–BRH
Guevara
homicide
your bullhorns
What are you talking about? They told them the Iraq war was nonsense all along. America created Al Qaeda in Iraq. It’s a completely divided in Country in any case. It can only be held together by Tyranny. Many of the Muslim Countries in the area are like this – thus the strategy of Project for the New American Century to undermine each and every one for the good of gallant little Israel.
Extraordinary how you support the New York, London, Tel Aviv axis of evil. Shame.
Vlad, you are so far right you’re on the left.
That shows real insight. As I’ve said countless times, Left and Right are just opposite sides of the same coin. Fascism is the higher third, the apex of the Triangle. So obviously, we look like the opposite to both. We look like Socialists to Capitalists and Capitalists to Socialists. We are both – and neither. We operate on our own principles based on a Different Vision – not a materialistic one like Capitalism/Communism.
“What are you talking about? They told them the Iraq war was nonsense all along.”
He’s right, BRH. The fact that we often disagree with Janos does not invalidate everything he writes.
And remember how Cindy Sheehan “disappeared” once she mentioned Israel and the Project for a New American Century – as if she never was. Solzhenitsyn disappeared too once he started talking about American corruption and the need for repentance.
Please absorb the information in this article – and stop making an ass out of yourself. You’re supporting Ex-Trotskyites. Not that they believed that either. They don’t “believe” things like we do. They just use belief systems to disguise what they really are – ethnic self seekers.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/01/paul-gottfrieds-leo-strauss-the-conservative-movement-in-america/#more-44883
Here are your allies! Who needs enemies with friends like these.
http://www.wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/islamization_of_europe_a_good_thing_says_west_bank_rabbi.html
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler” wasn’t even mentioned for an Academy Award. That’s not surprising. I believe Mr. Daniels saw the wrting on the wall. White people were not particularly in the mood to spend $40 on a date night to hear themselves insulted for two hours, and Blacks didn’t want to see Forest Whitaker go “yas-sur” then mutter under his breath. Liberals didn’t want to see Robin Williams play a filthy Republican and Conservatives didn’t want to see Eisenhower recreated by Mork from Ork. Oh, and John Cusack played Nixon, and the bad guy from Harry Potter played Reagan? All the above was supposed to bring in the racist Whites and Blacks? This was a film that had nothing for everyone. Weinstein’s a drunk genius. His mother should be proud.
“I recall that LBJ referred to “The Civil Rights Act” as “the Nigger Bill.”” – Puck
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Really?
Do you recall reading it, seeing and hearing it on TV, or what? Preferably, please provide YouTube clip.
I’ll be honest Puck, I think you make a lot of shit up.
Please Google: LBJ “nigger bill”
“Obama is the best Black president the United States has ever had.” – aj Soak
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Hard to argue with ^that^……. and worst as well.
“Jim has a lot to write about.” – BRH
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The obvious topic to me would be the nosedive of the DOW (and world markets in general) on Friday and all the associated perceived causes. Therefore, Jim will discuss something all together different. He’s perverse like that.
dishwater communists
great phrase.
hard to write being so inebriated on brazilian beer and barb-qued beef et al
typical sunday here in shithold paradise
funny “The Butler” didnt have morgan freeman in it, that guys the biggest fucking pestilence everywhere-asshole in hollywood
youd think the guy could fix his teeth….
peace paceniks
“IQ tests test capacity…” — Janos
Janos, are you saying there is a relationship between brain capacity and intelligence? Cro-Magnon brain capacity was about 1,600 cc, larger than the average for modern humans. Do you therefore think Cro-Magnon were more intelligent than we are, both of us being modern humans with smaller brain capacity than the Cro-Magnon?
Or were you perhaps referring to brain elasticity?
Either way your theory is not supported by evidence from neuroscience research.
Of course. Both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon were superior to decadent modern man. Things are running down, getting worse. Entropy operates on all levels.
“…since Venezuela now leads the Western Hemisphere in homocide” — BRH
What is the source of this surprising information, BRH? Venezuela leads in the Western Hemisphere?
If you look at the last 10 years both El Salvador and Honduras have higher homicide rates than Venezuela.
If you look at sheer numbers (total homicide count, not homicide rate), then neighboring Colombia usually beats out Venezuela.
“Both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon were superior to decadent modern man.” — Janos
I see. Interesting.
Janos, as you seem to be affirming that larger brain size means more intelligence, I wonder if you would then say that women are less intelligent than men, given they have less brain capacity.
Perhaps you would favor women not being allowed to vote, given they have less capacity? Maybe women should go back to the occupying the support roles they played to men in the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal times?
Just how far do you want to carry this idea that less capacity means less intelligence?
Well obviously Whales have bigger brains than we do. So it’s not an absolute principle irrespective of all other considerations. In humans, it also has to do with the convolutions of the higher parts of the brain. Blacks are conspicuous for lacking much of this as well.
But still brain size has been found to have a robust relationship with IQ – and head size has a robust relationship with brain size. Little Australoid heads with thick skulls – no wonder they have IQ’s even lower than Negroes!
Convolutions, yes. Blacks have less, no. What is the evidence for this extraordinary claim?
Let’s think about what would be required of such a study. Measuring convolutions is not easy, and a proper study would have to address this first, and then find a correlate to intelligence. Since IQ is but a flawed mirror of intelligence, this makes the whole enterprise suspect.
But even if the statistics come from decent studies, and these studies are well replicated, real care is required in interpreting the statistics. For the sake of argument, suppose that Caucasians had a 15 IQ point advantage over Blacks. That would necessarily mean that a third of blacks were smarter than half the whites. The overlap would be enormous, and swamp any but the broadest of generalizations.
Compare individuals by IQ if you must (although education and achievement would be better), but not populations. There is too much overlap for it to be more than suggestive, and not very useful.
2014 will be the first year of Obama’s presidency that things can get done because Obama is finally realizing the Republicans only want to obstruct legislation, filibuster, and play golf.
2014 the Senate will be operating under new rules and Obama is going to be taking unilateral executive action to carry out his agenda. Finally.
Five years of Republican foot dragging is enough.
The liberal agenda must go forward. We have to stop deporting immigrants and we must get out of Afghanistan and we must NOT get involved in any other wars in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, etc. More stimulus spending would be good, and taxing the rich to pay for it.
2014 will be a new ball game … with Obama finally taking the reins and not waiting for “bipartisan cooperation” …
Let the Republicans scream “Tyrant!” and “Dictator!” all they want.
“brain size has been found to have a robust relationship with IQ” — Janos
Janos, the reported correlation between brain size and IQ may be thoroughly confounded by underlying factors that affect both, such as child-rearing conditions or socio-economic status.
Brain scans have shown that no matter what we’re doing, our brains are always active up to 45% with some areas more active at any one time than others.
Brain capacity is not a problem.
Your emphasis on g is misplaced and entails a devaluation of other important abilities.
Have you ever taken the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH 100)? When it was administered to both Black and white students the Black students answered 87% correctly and the whites answered 51% correctly. So, Blacks are more intelligent than whites, right? The BITCH 100 test proves it. What it really proves is there are no culturally neutral IQ tests.
As for your disparaging words about the “Little Australoid heads with thick skulls” … Let’s put you in the outback and see how your “g factor” aids in your survival.
BITCH 100? The name alone shows it’s a fraud. The Progressive Matrix test is culturally neutral.
Approximately 13% of Blacks are at or above the White average. Very few of those rise into the superior level of 120 and above.
“Approximately 13% of Blacks are at or above the White average.”
On which scale (i.e. IQ test)? Which populations? When replicated? By whom?
Thanks!
Yes the IQ scale. The White average is 100. You obviously know nothing about this field of study. So I’m not going to play your game. If you admit you know Nothing and want to know, I’ll point you in the right direction.
Read the massively and pathologically maligned Bell Curve. It’s the best place to begin. It’s sound but written for the layman. In the meantime, watch the Amren video I linked to. Yes, I’m going to make you scroll up by yourself. The quest for knowledge is hard.
Well, Janos, wrong you are. It seems to have escaped your attention that there are many psychometric instruments which purport to measure intelligence. I asked you which one of these many IQ tests gave such a surprising result.
Of course, any study of individual characteristics derives from a sample of individuals. I merely asked you which population the sample was taken from. Just elementary statistics. I also wanted to know who had replicated the surprising result – just elementary scientific diligence.
I simply asked you for elementary details about your extraordinary claim. Why so hostile?
As Jared Taylor says above, the real question is not what proof there is that Blacks are inferior, rather what proof there is that they are not. They didn’t even have the wheel. They’ve never invented anything – not even a two story building.
Good point btw. The Australoid and Negro thick skull protected them in violent cultures. What purpose would a high IQ serve in places like that? They should stay where they developed. We need high IQ people here.
Janos, in The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray acknowledge that James Flynn has demonstrated that across the world intelligence as measured by IQ tests has been increasing dramatically over time, in direct contradiction to your entropy assertions earlier today in saying that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal were superior.
IQ is not devolving, according to The Bell Curve. Entropy does not rule.
Or is The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray wrong? Or is Janos wrong? It’s all so confusing for those of us with thick skulls. LOL!
The Bell Curve proved Black inferiority in exhaustive detail. Perhaps you should try trepanation – give that little brain some more oxygen. Many ancients had this operation done.
Bronies: guys into cartoon horses. This one wants to marry one. For “real”. This is the End, beautiful friends.
http://www.avclub.com/article/the-internet-finally-reaches-its-apex-as-man-marry-94206
Janos, the research cited in The Bell Curve was funded by the Pioneer Fund who fund eugenicists who want to eliminate Blacks completely. The Pioneer Group is the same group who funds FAIR, the anti-immigrant group P4W used to push. The same group funding research to “prove” black genetic inferiority in order to push for policies like school segregation.
Even so, the data collected by these racists does not show a consistent 15-point gap between black and white IQ. The studies they present show a wide range of results, ranging from no black/white IQ disparity at all to the absurd finding that most African-Americans are severely retarded.
Even The Bell Curve acknowledges that more recent tests have shown a narrower black/white difference, ranging from seven to 10 points. SAT tests have shown a similar convergence.
But Murray and Herrnstein warn that “at some point convergence may be expected to stop, and the gap could even begin to widen again”–because “black fertility is loaded more heavily than white fertility toward low-IQ segments of the population.” In other words, the bad genes will triumph, no matter what the evidence says.
That sort of circular argument abounds in The Bell Curve.
Although sociologist Jane Mercer has shown that supposed racial differences in IQ vanish if one controls for a variety of socio-economic variables, the authors of the Bell Curve reject her method because their theories assume that low IQ causes people to be poor, rather than poverty causing low IQs.
Similarly, even though IQ tests show that average scores are rising–by as much as 15 points since World War II–“real” IQs must be falling, since low IQ women are having more babies.
The Bell Curve is pseudo science.
That’s just slander and hatred. This is why the authors are wrong: we can’t live with them. They have too much resentment and hatred towards us.
There was a panel discussion of The Bell Curve on the TV program The McLaughlin Group (which is not a liberal program)
John McLaughlin said the obvious about The Bell Curve:
“It is largely pseudo-scientific and it is singularly unhelpful.”
He’s what you call a Kosher Conservative. Pat knows bettah.
Just some brief clarification about the Bell Curve and IQ, so people don’t dismiss something analyzed with a bell curve out of hand:
A bell curve is one of several distribution functions used in statistics. It is a mathematical formula more correctly called a “normal distribution”, but is commonly referred to as a bell curve because when plotted on a graph, it is shaped like a bell.
Many groups of things or occurrences, when plotted on a graph result in a bell curve. The distribution of IQs is one of these things. There is no question that IQ is a normal distribution. The issue with the bell curve and IQ isn’t the bell curve, it’s in the composition of the test and the meaningfulness of its results. Questions and controversies about bias and other factors, such as mental and physical states during the exam, are reasonable.
The question of the level of Black IQs are kind of like the debate on global warming: an overwhelming majority of the scientific community believes it is occurring, but a few (around 3%, I think) disagree. In the field of IQ testing, the vast majority of scientists believe that proponents of low Black intelligence because of poor IQ results are full of bunk.
So to be precise, I don’t think it is accurate to state the bell curve itself is pseudo-science and meaningless, for it is but a commonly used mathematical statistical formula, but it is perfectly valid to state that the results as pertaining to Black IQ are not real. Personally, I agree that Black IQ is not represented correctly by taking a standard IQ test.
Janos, you mean Pat Buchanan of FoxNews?
Yes, he is great and has helped the Democrats win most recent elections, just as you and Amren and NumbersUSA do … thank goodness.
When the mainstream media reigned supreme, between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won seven out of the ten presidential elections.
But since 1992, when the likes of Pat Buchanan and conservative media began to flourish (first with Rush Limbaugh’s ascendancy, then with Fox), Democrats have won the popular vote five out of six times.
Thank you, Pat Buchanan and Fox News!
Great news about the new Miss Israel…
http://rethinkisrael.org/meet-the-new-miss-israel/
Venezuela: 66 murders per day, including lovely Veronica Spear, shot long with her husband in front of their 5 year old daughter in a carjacking.
Maybe the esteemed Sean Penn, noted millionaire revolutionary, could do something for this little girl, now an orphan.
–BRH
While I agree that manhood, and especially American manhood, is going “pathological”, I can say that womanhood is no better in this respect at all.
Surely, many morons are heavily ornamented with tattooes but not all tattooed guys are morons.
JHK – anger is not good for your liver, people are different. That “moron” went to the gym, trying to be sexy and healthy, leave him be! Better in the gym than selling drugs.
Post after post..I still read all your posts all every Monday.. but I feel more and more disappointed. Both the articles but especially the comments had been gradually sliding into the realms of “pathological”….In the past, people used to provide links to statistical data, historical reports, useful tips on how to do things by hand, etc.
JHK – please post something interesting like you used to! I am so looking forward to reading a meaningful article by you.
In 1994 I lived for a period in Mexico city and again in 1998. One of the profound changes I noticed in 1998 was the prevalence of “narcocorridos” -the narco ballad- that the lower economic classes had become enamoured with.
These songs, which one then heard nearly everywhere in the country, glorified the narco trafficante, typically as a tragic hero who often lived and died in a hail of bullets and whose death would be lamented by the population who would memorialize him forever. Presumably in a narco corrido. . .
I took a keen interest in that social phenomenon, studied it, considered its sociological impact and came to the conclusion that the hero worship of fabled narcos that came from the slums, just like the fans of the music, was a potentially bad bad portend for the nation. The ballads were presenting milions of young men an “honorable” direction for their miserable lives in a society that, thanks to all the myriad problems Mexico has, offered little to nothing of a better alternative.
We can see today where the90s romance in the of the narco corridos led to, I think, no one can deny the horrors related to the trafficantes in Mexico.
What H. Kunstler is musing about in this post – the romance of the tribal “warrior” by young men with no positive view for their future could – and perhaps should- be a subject for our analysis.
Back in 98 I did not imagine the tally of bodies and the depth of the horrors that the narco business and culture has brought to Mexico, but I recognized that the probable potential for a bad trend was in the making.
Can we use the lessons of the impact popular culture in Mexico to consider how this American tribal “warrior” trend might mutate and develop in the future?