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Birthday Card

      Do you, too, sense the dread abiding in our annual celebration of national wonderfulness? Outside today’s barbeque bubble the dark shapes of wild events loom, exciting primal fears of unresolved woe and travail. Yesterday, I saw a man on a back street of a small town with spider webs tattooed on his elbows and a screaming skull on the back of his neck. America, meet your new normal: a citizenry of exterminating angels. Our political exertions mean nothing to them. They think Ronald Reagan was the offspring of John Wayne and Minnie Mouse and the House of representatives is a reality TV show about home improvement. Once they are on the loose, even Rush Limbaugh and other like-minded jingo creeps of the airwaves will despair. 
     Old Allen Ginsburg got it right fifty years ago: “America, go fuck yourself with your atom bomb,” he said. Even back then, in the age of purple people eaters and the weird neutered figure of Ozzie Nelson lurking in kitchen with nothing to do but drink endless cups of coffee, all was not so well. Freedom to cruise for burgers turned out to be a pretty trashy thing, considering all the blood and sacrifice that preceded those days of fun in the California sunshine. Look at California now: Nathanial West Meets Aztlan (coming soon on home video). Who put that locust in my burrito?
     Do you ever wonder what Mr. Jefferson would think looking around Virginia today? All those farms of his sturdy yeomanry turned to tract McHousing for lobbyists from pharmaceutical industry; the Beltway traffic at Tysons Corner; the Richmond International Speedway. I’d like to take ole Tom to Nascar on the Fourth of July to meet the futurity of 1776, put him on a seat right behind the crash barrier, stick a long-neck in his left hand, a cheese-steak in the other, and one of those hats crafted of flattened beer cans on his philosophy-filled noggin. What would he make of the celebrity drivers in their logo-covered jumpsuits, not to mention the activity to which they dedicate their youthful energies: roaring around an oval circuit in flame-spewing carriages. There was no analog for this is Tom’s time, except perhaps the alter-pieces of Hieronymus Bosch – and there was no color lithography in those days, so he may well never have actually seen that particular depiction of hell. I’m sure the speedway spectacle would drive him batshit. Five minutes into a Sprint Cup heat, Tom runs shrieking to the piers of Norfolk in search of a passage to France….
    Science knows: not all experiments come out the way you expect. Here you have the North American continent, filled with untold natural riches, splendid waterways, six feet of loam on the trackless prairie, timber galore, gold, silver, borax, buffalo, passenger pigeons innumerable darkening the skies! All in all, a pretty high-percentage deal. And it took only a couple of hundred years to turn it into a set of interconnected parking facilities, that is, to fuck it up royally (even though we are officially opposed to royalty). Too bad none of the Founding Fathers was a traffic engineer. He might have advised against recent developments. 
And now the experiment is foundering. It’s been nice not thinking about it so much for a day or two. I spent one afternoon canoeing down a local trout stream called the Battenkill. Even this will be impossible in a few years, because you need a couple of cars to do it – one at the put-in and one at the take-out. So it is not that far removed from Nascar, really. And the darn canoe itself is made of some rubberoid petroleum derivative  So shame on me. All I can say is they weren’t selling cheese steaks and beer can hats along the bank and the ospreys do not wear the Budweiser logo on their under-wings. It was shockingly beautiful along the river. I thought about all the people battling their way hopelessly on the I-30 freeway through Dallas, or the I-405 in L.A., or the I-85 in Atlanta and almost squeezed out a few crocodile tears for them. When “this sucker goes down,” in the immortal words of a recent former president, we’ll all fall pretty hard, wherever we may live. I wish I knew what the hell we are really celebrating today. 
     Surely many in this nation see an approach to an abyss. I wish we could get our heads together before it gets here or we get there. There is so much to do besides what we are busy doing now, keeping a set of stupid rackets spinning just because they are our rackets and we’re used to them. Among other things, in case you haven’t noticed, money is going extinct. The distant roar you hear today is neither Nascar nor Niagara. It’s the sound of institutions crashing.  I guess, like Scarlett O’Hara, we’ll think about it tomorrow. Happy Fourth of July everybody. Happy birthday, America.

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About James Howard Kunstler

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

869 Responses to “Birthday Card”

  1. Casual Observer July 4, 2011 at 10:48 am #

    Happy 4th, Jim !

  2. Zanrak July 4, 2011 at 10:49 am #

    First in war, first in peace, & first on this ol’ blog today! (& I’ll never do it again…)George W…

  3. Zanrak July 4, 2011 at 10:50 am #

    damn… CO must be working for the GOP…

  4. Jack Waddington July 4, 2011 at 10:52 am #

    Unless and until we abolish money we are just re-arranging the deck chars on the Titanic. It’s such a simple solution. Why does it elude us? Jack

  5. Paulus July 4, 2011 at 10:56 am #

    Did John Wayne and Minnie Mouse ever get together??

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  6. welles July 4, 2011 at 10:59 am #

    What do you intend to replace it with?

  7. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 11:00 am #

    I am starting to wonder how viable the electrical grid will be without oil.
    I have yet to see any of the large equipment needed to keep the lines up and going being powered by moonbeams and goat farts.
    Not to mention the equipment that is busy removing mountaintops seems to run on plenty of diesel… not the “bio” kind either.
    I went to a Chevy Dealer to look at the much touted “Volt”… they told me that they didn’t sell them.
    I suspected as much from the get go.
    I have yet to see one, despite that fact that the entire population of Connecticut seems to be in town for the weekend.
    For all the talk of “energy independence” going on for years and years now I see nothing but the signs on the freeway that run on solar.
    No Hydrogen stations, or cars…. 20 years after the announcement that this would save us.
    Just a bunch of badging on cars with a picture of a tree, or leaves or something… assuring me how smart “green” and kind to trees it is.
    Bullshit… bullshit everywhere, and not a bull in sight!

  8. anotherplayaguy July 4, 2011 at 11:01 am #

    “All I can say is they weren’t selling cheese steaks and beer can hats along the bank and the ospreys do not wear the Budweiser logo on their under-wings.”
    Exactly what’s wrong with America today: there are still places without advertising splayed on them.
    And Nathanial West? It’s been too long since I read him. The Day of the Locust is surely upon us. But, then, we earned it.

  9. Lara's Dad July 4, 2011 at 11:01 am #

    Money is our (contemporary civilization) means of keeping score. Unless we are all to live a subsistence or nomadic lifestyle, which may or may not be considered egalitarian, how would you suggest we divvy up the (power) pie ?

  10. Michael Rothman July 4, 2011 at 11:05 am #

    “A republic, Madam…if you can keep it.” Dr. Franklin, we lost it.

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  11. Jack Waddington July 4, 2011 at 11:07 am #

    Nothing; just simple desires. Why do we have to replace it with something? Jack

  12. progress,conserve July 4, 2011 at 11:08 am #

    “Surely many in this nation see an approach to an abyss. I wish we could get our heads together before it gets here or we get there.”
    -jhk-
    Well said, JHK. Happy 4th of July to all of you ClusterFuckers. Get out there and appreciate what you have, today. As always, the times, they are a changin’.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIPQxrog8M&feature=related

  13. BeantownBill July 4, 2011 at 11:09 am #

    Jim’s mirrored my thoughts exactly. I feel like I’m on the runaway train in the 1985 movie of the same name, an obvious, but great metaphor for where we’re going today. Or maybe I’m on the back of the bicycle in the WWII cartoon “FROOMB”, an acronym for “the fluid’s running out of my brakes”.
    BTW, I don’t know if this is meaningful, but I usually hear fireworks most nights up to two weeks before July 4th, but this year I haven’t heard any. Is this another metaphor?

  14. Laura Louzader July 4, 2011 at 11:10 am #

    If Jefferson were to come alive in our time, what would shock and appall him the most is what has become of our banking system. Jefferson warned of the dangers of a centralized bank, and that it would impoverish the population and concentrate money and power in few hands.
    However, I don’t think he’d be particularly shocked at the vulgarity of certain segments of the population. Back in those days, the analog to Nascar was of course animal torture of all kinds, notably cock fights and dog fights, not to mention vicious abuse of “inferior” people, all with the approval of the larger society.
    Kunstler has this way of idealizing a past that never existed. It’s easy to do that because all the filth and barbarity of the past- the slavery, the commonplace daily filth and brutality, the vicious domestic abuse that met with no disapproval, the mistreatment of slaves, servants, factory workers, and of course, women, as well as the enslavement of whites and blacks- yes there WERE white slaves and they were not indentured servants either-has been buried and what remains are highly sanitized images.
    Hate to tell ya, but the 19th century was distinctly not Currier & Ives, and the 18th century was elevated by what the people of that era aspired to, not what they actually were and did.
    We need to think about that. Jefferson and his colleagues and fellow philosophers in France strove for something much better for every human creature. What do WE aspire to? We need to ask ourselves that. You are no better than what you aim for, and while having elevated goals is no guarantee that you will achieve them or even approach them, if you aim low, you will surely not do any better than that.

  15. Jack Waddington July 4, 2011 at 11:11 am #

    Why divvy it it up. What’s so complicated about simple desires???? Jack

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  16. Unconventional Ideas July 4, 2011 at 11:11 am #

    I’m sensing if you want to have money in the future, find a job serving the rich. Note, the best job security is probably in cleaning, gardening, tailoring, cooking, and other daily essentials.
    Thing is, there are far fewer of the rich than there are of the rest of us, so you’d better get your resume in pronto.

  17. Casual Observer July 4, 2011 at 11:11 am #

    Jim,
    I caught the new movie Transformers – Dark of the Moon this weekend and realized how mesmerized the American sheeple have become by corporate brands, religious zealots, and militarization to stop invading aliens (aka terrorists). There must have been no fewer than a couple dozen ad “spots” for everything from Chevys to St-Germaine. With two and half hours of nothing but exploding robots the mind starts to believe that the plant really is at the brink of armageddon! This sort of cinematography keeps the kids transfixed on the important things that matter in American life.

  18. Desertrat July 4, 2011 at 11:12 am #

    I’m quietly celebrating the idea of America, of equal rights under law, of my freedom to bitch about things I don’t like and the type of thought which gave us the Bill of Rights. At least I’ve had a pretty good life as a fairly-free citizen and not as a subject of a king or queen.
    The world has always been overloaded with assholes. You either kill ’em or avoid ’em. Avoidance is far less hassle. But people are people and always will be. If a way to screw up can be found, it will be found. That’s what people do. Having taken that for granted, I refuse to worry about it.
    I’m still trying to figure out if I had more fun driving race cars or going hunting. Tossup, I guess. But today’s “decorations” on the cars are a turn-off for me.
    Overall, I agree with a lot of Jim’s views of the future, although I think the negativism against Joe Sixpack is a waste of psychic energy. That world made by hand may come back around, but we survived the first iteration. Why worry?

  19. Casual Observer July 4, 2011 at 11:13 am #

    LOL pure luck on my part and definitely no link to the GOP !

  20. ozone July 4, 2011 at 11:14 am #

    “The distant roar you hear today is neither Nascar nor Niagara. It’s the sound of institutions crashing. I guess, like Scarlett O’Hara, we’ll think about it tomorrow. Happy Fourth of July everybody. Happy birthday, America.” -JHK
    I must say that I always enjoy your upshot windups!
    Zingers, fer shure.
    Funny, there ARE times I’d just like to “blanken” the mind and not think about the dissolution of all things profit-driven (and oh so comfy-cozy). But, it’s like the “loss of innocence”, or the crossing of the Rubicon; once that door is opened, it’s not disposed to close again. Still, I like your generally snarky finger-pointing, and feel that bit of lightness about the whole deal [the Great Crumbling]. I’m just a very little guy, so I can only affect my tiny corner, and you make me feel as though that’s okay, for the nonce.
    R.I.P. for-profit-happy-burger ‘Murka; Happy Birthday Oo-Ess-Eh!

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  21. Zanrak July 4, 2011 at 11:15 am #

    …. not much comment today …. likely, everyone’s got big plans 4 da 4th….
    …. sorry about my prior trivialities…..
    My enlightenment for the week was to discover that NASCAR grew from moonshiners one-upping the cops with faster & faster cars to move the ‘shine around in ol’ Kentucky. So really, it’s sparked from an anti-authoritarian/anti-gubamint activity! Jim, I dislike nascar too, but hey, it did have some redeeming qualities originally….
    Personally, I think real decline in the 235 year old US is going to take a bit more time to unravel… like not this year or next… But man, does one get frustrated & angry reading about all the pathetic intentions and activities of so many humans….too many humans….. but really, it’s the same old song – just that more & more of us can figure out how pathetic our civilization/culture is….
    Now today, THE FOURTH OF JULY, check out some jazz! The greatest American “invention”… not that most ‘merkuns… even know what it is….like those polls that are on the news today about how 76% of ‘merkuns don’t know the year the US started (1981?), or the 24% who don’t know who we split from… Rome?
    Happy 5th!

  22. bubbleheadMarc July 4, 2011 at 11:18 am #

    If your canoe weighs over 80 pounds it is probably constructed of polyethylene just like most garbage cans are. If the canoe only weighs about 60 pounds it is almost certainly made from a sandwhich of styrofoam coated on either side by ABS plastic then encased in a thin skin of vinyl for the sake of cosmetics. This substance is usually called royalex and is used by the big three canoe builders: Old Town, Wynona, and Mad River. Old Town currently produces about 25,000 plastic kayaks and canoes per year, mostly kayaks, while yet retaining a wooden canoe department which builds about 75 wood & canvas or wood & fiberglass canoes per year, in addition to restoring their older canoes at the plant in Maine. A few canoes are also built entirely of fiberglass. Plastic canoes can also be trimmed with wooden gunwales, seats & thwarts plus a yoke amidships for carrying the canoe in an inverted position. I prefer aluminum canoes because they are fire resistant. I currently own a plastic canoe trimmed in wood which nearly had a hole burned through the hull by an errant spark from a telephone pole fire. Patched the hole in the outer layers of skin by painting over the styrofoam core with red rubberized spray paint used for coating tool grips. Worked so well I neglected to demand that the power company buy me a new canoe. Should’ve made them buy me an aluminum canoe. Too late now. Beat up old plastic canoe works fine.

  23. Zanrak July 4, 2011 at 11:23 am #

    Sir, you are a gentleman! May I pour you another expensive micro-brewed beverage?

  24. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 11:26 am #

    Oh, but in America we are all subjects… of Corporations…. you to ratty… you may think that you have enjoyed freedom, but mostly what we have had in this nation is freedumb.
    The freedumb to shop… and ‘choose’ where you do it.
    The freedumb to use oil, and other resources with reckless abandon
    The freedumb to treat the planet as if you can simultaneously live on it and kill it.
    The freedumb to choose between two candidates who have been chosen for you.
    The freedumb to embrace “left” or “right” and believe that you are actually part of real conflict and debate.
    The freedumb to go to war for rich people.0
    And one things for sure… freedumb isn’t free.
    Cheers Ratty!

  25. bubbleheadMarc July 4, 2011 at 11:26 am #

    Asshole avoidance is indeed the secret of happiness. And there will never be a shortage of assholes. In fact I’m sure that there are many people who think The name Desertrat indicates that you’ve discovered that living in undesirable areas in one way to avoid assholes, as undesirable places are by definition thinly settled. The notion that one could or should take refuge in the most highly desirable land doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Better to adapt to the undesirable place which is why I’m also attracted to the desert. I could be totally full of shit. Should find out soon enough.

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  26. kulturcritic* July 4, 2011 at 11:30 am #

    James,
    “Surely many in this nation see an approach to an abyss. I wish we could get our heads together before it gets here or we get there. There is so much to do besides what we are busy doing now, keeping a set of stupid rackets spinning just because they are our rackets and we’re used to them”
    Unfortunately, we are on a path of no return
    Well it is Independence Day… many happy returns,
    sandy, the kulturCritic
    http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/independence-day-freedom-and-human-nature/

  27. bubbleheadMarc July 4, 2011 at 11:33 am #

    Sentence fragment on line #3 above: “I’m sure that there are many people who think that I’m an asshole and want to avoid me.” followed by The name Desertrat…

  28. steve July 4, 2011 at 11:33 am #

    what do we celebrate today – why the day off, of course.
    approaching the abyss – always have been, always will be.
    jingo creep, Limbaugh – self-hating creep, Olbermann

  29. welles July 4, 2011 at 11:34 am #

    everyone just do a little good in your little corner. a little adds up to a lottle when a lot of folks do it.
    peace people

  30. Loveandlight July 4, 2011 at 11:40 am #

    Yes, I also find myself inconsolably sad this Independence Day over the cliff’s edge towards which we as a society are racing and our fervent determination to blind ourselves to our rapid approach to it.

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  31. Newfie July 4, 2011 at 11:42 am #

    Every species is an experiment. Nature the experimenter is indifferent to the outcome. Species come and go on a regular basis – on the geological time scale. Civilization is also just an experiment. There have been two dozen large scale civilizations since the dawn of history. None of those experiments stood the test of time. And the time scale of all civilization is a mere blink of an eye in geological time. The problem is people cannot or will not think on a geological time scale. If we did have long term thinking then people would have realized as soon as we started to use oil that The Age of Petroleum would be over in a geological blink of an eye. Wink. It’s almost gone.

  32. MarlinFive54 July 4, 2011 at 11:46 am #

    Nathaniel West meets Atzlan?
    Is The Day of the Locust at Hand, finally?
    Calling Miss Lonely Hearts, Calling Miss Lonely Hearts, we need your sage advice now more than ever.
    Still, happy 4th fellow CFNers!
    -Marlin

  33. icurhuman2 July 4, 2011 at 11:50 am #

    I forgot it was the 4th of July American biggie-day for a holiday, I suppose it must be a significant date but I don’t really “get it”. Nationalism and national pride has always seemed to be a stupid idea to me, how can an individual feel proud of the nation they live in unless they had something to with creating it personally? The same way I view the Olympics, not a contest between nations but the individuals that stretch their limits to the max, I applaud the valliant loser who did his best more than the champion who didn’t…
    Anyway, getting past the holiday story I wonder how JHK wouldvé felt had he been canoeing down the Yellowstone river when the oil pipeline burst around the same time he was enjoying his local trout stream. Surprising to think that a pipeline was allowed in such an iconic national park, they banned any exploration for oil and even the passage of oil tankers through our Great Barrier Reef down thisaway. I can understand why so many Americans don’t think much of making a mess of the ANWR since few would go there, but putting parks in danger that are easily accessible and have probably been visited by most Americans at some time in their lives seems a bit… provocative…
    JHK’s post today was a little brief compared to usual so I suppose he’s enjoying as much of the day off as possible (a long weekend)like most of you up’n thataway… enjoy it while you can…

  34. 3rd Generation July 4, 2011 at 11:51 am #

    “BTW, I don’t know if this is meaningful, but I usually hear fireworks most nights up to two weeks before July 4th, but this year I haven’t heard any. Is this another metaphor?”
    Those blasts you used to hear were not fireworks, they were gun blasts. The spider and skull heads are conserving and saving all the ammo for later, but not much later…
    America is Dead. Good Riddance.

  35. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 11:52 am #

    “Look at California now: Nathanial West Meets Aztlan (coming soon on home video). Who put that locust in my burrito?”
    As an expatriate Angeleno living in Detroit, I resemble that remark. For years, when I ran into another person who had moved to Michigan, I asked them, “So, do you miss Mexican food?” and they invariably answered, “Yes! Do you know where any is around here?” They also missed cheap Cantonese food, too. I was always happy to steer them to the nearest good examples of both.
    Within the past decade, Chinese takeout places run by immigrants from the mainland have sprung up all over southeast Michigan, to the point where two of the three small towns on the outskirts of Irish Hills each have one and the next small town I moved to had one as well. Also, Mexican food has become common enough and people have developed enough of a taste for it that the local blues joint that served ribs has become a Mexican restaurant. I no longer run into Californians who can’t find the food of home; it’s now all around them. I personally consider this to be an improvement.
    All of the above reminds me that I’ve twice before remarked about your anti-immigration stance and how it conflicts with your self-identification as a liberal, the first time a year ago in “My Tea Party,” an entry of yours that I really enjoyed, and two weeks ago in “Man Down,” in which I found three of your paragraphs about gender equality troubling and also conflicting with your political identification.
    Over at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News, I’m participating in National Blog Posting Month, in which bloggers post every day of the month on the monthly theme of “swim.” One of the interpretations of that theme is “bloggers swimming against the stream,” something you do regularly. I already have one commentary on “Man Down” on the site and plan another, plus one on “My Tea Party.” There are some things that require more room and formatting to say than can be said in a comments section.
    I also have coverage of how local zoning ordinances designed for a happy motoring suburbia are coming in conflict with people who are accidentally trying to prepare for the Long Emergency by growing vegetables in their front lawn. For some reason, this ticks off the powers that be no end.
    http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/

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  36. ASPO Article 1037 July 4, 2011 at 11:52 am #

    It seems the president and his transport secretary Ray LaHood are missing a bet by touting High Speed Rail, when a lower profile but more massive program to expand generic rail capacity & reach would smoothly move along…
    Private enterprise rail operators and investor mentors like Warren Buffington are savvy in rail technology, and would move rail expansion quickly when the President acted like he had a clue about the Energy Emergency. The move to tap Strategic Petroleum Reserve could in fact be a test; what happens to oil price and supply with this new tweak on the oil markets? If artificial (SPR) addition to oil supply fails to dampen price what next?
    By now no one trusts anything the government does, so why not get crazy: declare Peak Oil a fact, call up Gold & Silver to bolster the currency, and issue Nixon’s Federal Executive Emergency Orders for motor fuel rationing?
    This forum for doomnation and gloomstone seems to be stuck in some kind of Sargasso Sea, with no direction. It does serve as a springboard for book sales and lecture gigs, but it is time the proprietor got into some specifics on the railway tool beyond generalizations about “rebuilding the passenger rail system”??? Specific rail corridors are bottlenecks, and that really begs talking about freight haul too in any motor fuel allocation scenario.
    To mention the I-95 Corridor as a candidate for rail track capacity enhancement is what we mean by project specificity. Another is the western Bakersfield-Mojave/Palmdale segment, so jammed by freight NOW, no track & time exists for passenger trains. Imagine what happens at rail chokepoints when trucking wakes up to diesel fuel allocation?
    There are 3000+ County Planning Bureaus in the US. It would be helpful for each to visit the library, get circa 1920-1950 copy of “The Official Guide” of the US Railways and refresh their recollection of the legacy rail corridors and dormant branch lines in their purview. Another source, “US Rail Map Atlas” from spv.co.uk is available.
    Interested parties can get a quick read on rail scoping methodology by obtaining the 1995 Reno-Tahoe I80/US50 Rail Corridor Study (unabridged) from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. For an excellent look at a rail branch line rebuild document, see the 1991 Wilbur Smith Associates Nevada County RR Study of the Colfax-Grass Valley branch rail corridor. Citizens can do it & you too, Jim!
    Reformed US Army/Guard Railroad Operating & Maintenance Battalions are crucial elements for expediting the dormant branch line rail lines, beginning with agricultural traffic generators. Peak Oil is not a routine challenge; mitigation of impacts to transport (victuals distribution) includes full employment of assets civilian and military. Interim we need to emplace container handling enroute rail main lines to enable more local orientation for truck interface with rail.
    China is waiting in the wings to develop rail infrastructure in Afghanistan. Why not shift strategic emphasis; excuse our military from roadside amputations detail, partner with China to build railway and develop the mineral resources? Just sayin’.. Like, if we want to save some real money? Back to you-all…

  37. MarlinFive54 July 4, 2011 at 11:56 am #

    The US Military burns up about 300.000 bpd of oil. NASCAR and all the other racing events can’t use more than 10 or 20 thousand bpd. Its hardly a drop in the bucket.
    -Marlin

  38. Jim H. July 4, 2011 at 11:57 am #

    Laura,
    I think you are right on young lady!
    Now we need to begin to identify the kind of world we all may want to live in. Jim K. has his say about that every week.
    I think we all need to start providing our ideas too, and somehow try to generate a consensus as to the direction we want to head.
    Then of course we have to start working to achieve those goals.
    Anybody else want to work at some goals? Big effort, but nothing happens until someone starts.
    Jim H.

  39. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 11:58 am #

    Hey BHM I have an Old town cedar/canvas canoe. with sponsons! Made in 1911 It is a century old this year. 17.5 feet long and heavy as a mofo. It’s a nice lake cruiser but I would never take it in the river. http://www.westfieldriverraces.com/

  40. DeeJones July 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm #

    Celebration? It should be a day of mourning: For all the lost freedoms, especially since 9-11 & the passage of the so-called patriot act, more like an obscean act performed on the ‘Merican sheeple, who now have been reduced to corporate serfs. No once- proud Citizenry left, just fat, tat’d freaks.
    But to paraphrase, your getting the government you deserve, and your getting it good and hard.
    Glad to be outta that mad house. The loonies really are running things there.
    Well, hope you enjoy the BBQ, Blues & Beer, it probably wont last much longer.
    Dee

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  41. Cash July 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm #

    I think asshole avoidance was one of the main drivers of human migration. Hell, after all, is other people.
    I can see in my mind’s eye the fed up stone age hunter or neolithic farmer telling the little lady to pack up girl we’re leavin’. Enough of the mooching, deadbeat cousins, useless as tits on a bull, goat fucker of a brother, migraine inducing mother in law, thieving neighbours etc.
    You wonder why people moved to the arctic. Maybe their ancestors were driven there by stronger, more numerous tribes. But maybe not, maybe they’d had enough of everybody and thought that putting up with extreme cold and an iffy food supply was better than putting up with the bullshit at the old homestead.

  42. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 12:10 pm #

    Please let’s all get along this week people.
    here’s proof for Soak and Vlad that the black man and the white man can live in harmony.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4BlGXwSew&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4BlGXwSew&feature=related
    talk about inflation, I have a blond Tele like these dudes. It’s a 1969. I paid 100 bucks for it in maybe 72? It is wworth maybe 5 large now.

  43. BeantownBill July 4, 2011 at 12:12 pm #

    Your comments make me think about how ole Daniel Boone had to get out of Boonesboro and stay in the woods for long periods of time because he couldn’t deal with so many people in one place. Wonder what he’d think of today’s 330 million population?

  44. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 12:17 pm #

    tell me that brother can’t tickle the ivorys and I’ll poke ur friggin’ eye out! check out 4:40

  45. Belisarius July 4, 2011 at 12:18 pm #

    “Among other things, in case you haven’t noticed, money is going extinct. The distant roar you hear today is neither Nascar nor Niagara. It’s the sound of institutions crashing.”
    At the moment all I hear is lawnmowers, chainsaws, gunfire, fireworks, and the odd aircraft.
    I suspect the institutions are doing the Wylie Coyote “suspended over the cliff” thing. Despite the best efforts of the banksters to cushion the void beneath with newly printed greenbacks charged to taxpayers, the cacaphony of crashes could soon become audible even to me.

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  46. Cash July 4, 2011 at 12:23 pm #

    Ole Dan’l would go north of the border where it isn’t so crowded.

  47. judithweingarten July 4, 2011 at 12:29 pm #

    JHK, you wrote that there was no color lithography in the days of Hieronymus Bosch (d. 1516) so Thomas Jefferson may well never have actually seen Bosch’s depictions of hell.
    Correction: it was during Bosch’s lifetime that color printing, color etching, and color woodblocks all came into use — so no reason our hero couldn’t have seen ‘prints’ of Bosch’s tortured works. 16th C Europe was definitely ‘on the up’.
    Love your rants and keep hoping you’re wrong.
    Judith

  48. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 12:31 pm #

    So last week we were talkin’ bout Iceland. Here is a nice Iceland link for yhe dudes. What a country. The scenery is beautiful and the late great SRV is awesome.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-G6ebGV0w&feature=related

  49. progress,conserve July 4, 2011 at 12:32 pm #

    “All of the above reminds me that I’ve twice before remarked about your anti-immigration stance and how it conflicts with your self-identification as a liberal,…”
    -neon, to JHK-
    Neon, liberalism is not a cult to which one must swear allegiance. It is very possible for a thinking person to look at the evidence and make the decision to oppose more immigration into the US.
    Without oil and technology, we could not begin to support the population that we have now.
    Life should be about more than liberal fealty, nearby Mexican dining and good Chinese take-out.
    Now, I’ve got to go hunt up some good beer, some good bar-b-que, and a good designated driver to take me to see some good fireworks.
    Again, happy 4th to all – even if it is “just another Monday,” where you are!

  50. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 12:32 pm #

    Very few younger Blacks like that kind of music anymore. It’s a White thing now. Whites have always been able to appreciate Black music – but very few Blacks able to appreciate our’s. This is just more proof, as if more was needed, of how alien the two races are to each other – exactly as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson said.

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  51. Jill July 4, 2011 at 12:35 pm #

    Alexander Hamilton won – we lost.
    @onzone
    Thank you for ‘The Great Crumbling.’ Best description I’ve ever heard for the state we’re in.

  52. africananarchist July 4, 2011 at 12:37 pm #

    Wonderful. ” . . . . and the ospreys do not wear the Budweiser logo on their underwings.” Reminds me of Michel Serres’ (French philosopher) recent “Malfeasance: appropriation through pollution?”. Advertising is ‘soft’ pollution, forceful appropriation of our perceptual space. If the corporatocracy could get its own way, every blade of grass, every leaf would bear a corporate logo. Advertising is simply corporations pissing, nay, shitting, in the clear swimming pool water of our minds.

  53. bproman July 4, 2011 at 12:38 pm #

    GOD BLESS what’s left of America.

  54. Cash July 4, 2011 at 12:39 pm #

    I think blacks and whites won’t just “get along”. Things will go a lot further than that. Yesterday I was on the bus and across from me a black chick and her white boyfriend/hubby were sharing lunch in a plastic container, passing a spoon back and forth and having a great old time. Human libido will do its thing regardless of whether racists like it or not. It’s as relentless a force as gravity. Anyway IMO inbreeding is not a good thing. Better a vigourous mongrel horde than stunted, cretinous inbreds.

  55. budizwiser July 4, 2011 at 12:39 pm #

    Sadly, July 4th has become a day that reminds us of how intrusive all levels of government and commerce have become in our daily lives.
    We’ve all lost our way; willing victims of economics, profits and convenience.
    We grow ever closer to lives that resemble those of the cattle in feed lots. Nothing more than livestock for the rich to grow and slaughter.
    How thankful I am to have been born into the time before hand. How disheartening to see the noble “experiment” go so horribly wrong.
    How many years until we reach the “greek solution?” How many until the Argentina finale?

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  56. Elrond Hubbard July 4, 2011 at 12:40 pm #

    Neon Vincent: ‘As an expatriate Angeleno living in Detroit, I resemble that remark. For years, when I ran into another person who had moved to Michigan, I asked them, “So, do you miss Mexican food?” and they invariably answered, “Yes! Do you know where any is around here?” They also missed cheap Cantonese food, too. I was always happy to steer them to the nearest good examples of both.’
    Tell, tell! Good food is one of the things that can still lure me across the border these days. Are Xochimilco and Mexican Town even on the map, or am I just a philistine Windsorite?

  57. Patrizia July 4, 2011 at 12:40 pm #

    The 4th of July is a magic day for me.
    Even though I am Italian I always feel a little part of myself belongs to that place.
    My grandfather was there as a little boy, with his sister and brothers.
    They all stayed there, he came back.
    He missed his country too much, he wanted to die in Italy, in the small village where he was born, among his friends.
    But a small part of his heart was there, in the new land where he lived for a while, chasing the dreams of a better life.
    But he found soon out that a better life was not a better income, it was the place where you felt loved.
    I was the first time in my life in USA when I was 15 and it was the 4th of July.
    I didn’t know it was a big feast, we do not celebrate the birth of our nation.
    We do not celebrate our nation, we take it for granted and we hate it more than loving it.
    I was surprised of how proud Americans were to be Americans.
    How they felt to belong to their land, how they worshipped it.
    But today, today, I am not so sure anymore.
    Today there is a feeling to be on the verge of an abyss, of something great that will destroy what little still has to be destroyed.
    There is this feeling like being an American is not something to be proud of, like not having a future and lacking the present too.
    There is not anymore what they called the American dream, there is no dream, but the sight of a sad reality which nobody can escape.
    Truth is something nobody wants to talk about because it is an unhappy truth.
    Truth is pretending that nothing has changed, that everything will go back as it was.
    Truth is believing in miracles, because miracles happened and will happen again in this land.
    Nobody talks about the next fourth of July.
    Nobody talks about tomorrow.
    Let’s talk about yesterday, how we were, how we hoped, how we dreamed.
    Happy birthday, even though it is one nobody would like to celebrate.
    America has reached the age in which you shouldn’t celebrate birthdays anymore.

  58. BeantownBill July 4, 2011 at 12:42 pm #

    My neighbor is a native of Iceland and from what he’s shown me, it’s quite the place. I may take a long weekend sometime and fly over there for a few days.

  59. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 12:44 pm #

    China and Japan have lasted for thousands of years. You have to distinguish between a Civilizaton and it’s Dynasties or Regimes. They only last a few hundred years – usually not more than two. We’re due. Of course, there wont be a new America since we aren’t a people anymore but rather a multiracial and cultural mob. That’s the secret of longevity: homogeneity. No one belives modern Egypt is the same as ancient Egypt: different people, language, and culture. They lost their homogeneity, and then had no basis to reconstitute themselves after beating back invasions. Then the Arabs conquered and flooded in in massive numbers and that was the final end.

  60. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 12:48 pm #

    Go tell some Black Africans in Toronto that they are inbred cretins – just be careful of those blue eyed blonde gangbangers when you go downtown.
    Boy have I outed you or what. You are another Asoka or Met.

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  61. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 12:51 pm #

    the cacaphony of crashes
    ==============
    It’s spelled cacophony.
    On my way from my man-cave to the kitchen last night to make a cup of tea I passed through the living room where my wife was watching a movie. I asked her if it was a horror movie and she said “yeah, how did you know?” I said “the cacophonous background music and sounds portending danger and mayhem.”

  62. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 12:54 pm #

    And Aslan had to die in torment because Edmund couldn’t resist sweets.

  63. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 12:54 pm #

    “Tell, tell! Good food is one of the things that can still lure me across the border these days. Are Xochimilco and Mexican Town even on the map, or am I just a philistine Windsorite?”
    I went to Xochimilco in Mexican Town once. It was OK, but not impressive enough to make me drive there again from Ann Arbor, where I was living at the time. I thought “La Fiesta Mexicana” in Ypsilanti was better and made that my regular Mexican Food stop when I was in the area. When I lived in the Irish Hills, I drove to El Chiapulin in Adrian, which is the second most Mexican city in Michigan after Holland. They have very good food, although it’s from a different part of Mexico, then filtered through Texas, than what I grew up with in California. I haven’t yet tried Cantina Diablo, which replaced the rib and BBQ place nearby, so no opinion yet.
    I notice you didn’t ask about Chinese food. I’m not surprised, as Windsor has the reputation of having the best Chinese food in the area. Let’s see how long that lasts, as Troy is now the most Asian city in Michigan, with active and growing Chinese and Indian populations.

  64. Newfie July 4, 2011 at 12:57 pm #

    Mmmm… But I’m still surprised by the number of people who grudgingly acknowledge that other civilizations did collapse, but… this time will be different. It’s variant of the Titanic syndrome. Industrial Civilization is unsinkable. Apparently.

  65. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 12:58 pm #

    “And Aslan had to die in torment because Edmund couldn’t resist sweets.”
    Aztlan=Aslan? Impaler, I don’t know whether to compliment you on the creative pun or tell you that you are being silly.

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  66. Caniculus July 4, 2011 at 12:59 pm #

    Celebrations are just so fun on this blog, where we mostly agree the country we commemorate today has already passed into history. Or that it never existed in the first place, or was just the myth of our elementary school textbooks.
    And so the plutocracy grows. The Democratic Party remains shamelessly complicit. Obama proves he was just a brilliantl­y marketed cypher. The two latest generations have little or no intelligentsia. Our political will is diluted in a sea of endless war and endless entertainm­ent. There is no opposition­. And humans continue to prove that their only true evolutionary purpose is to liberate mineralized carbon back into the environment where the planet can use it to start over with the next iteration of life.
    I remember how quickly that other modern empire, the USSR, slipped beneath the surface and disappeare­d, and I wonder, could this be America’s last Fourth of July? And the fact that such a question doesn’t even seem cynical anymore and might get a yawn and a “whatever” from most voters, even those who haven’t had a paycheck for 99 weeks, suggests that the answer is, if anything, a quibble over the year it will happen, or the year it already happened, or a not so secret wish that it happen soon, since we all know we’re in that inevitable period of foot dragging before we get on with it.

  67. wagelaborer July 4, 2011 at 1:05 pm #

    Wow. On my radio show this morning, I brought up some of the same points as JHK, what with the squandering of natural wealth and all.
    But along with the passenger pigeons and the 6 feet of topsoil, I mentioned cod so thick you could walk on their backs, the bountiful Gulf of Mexico and the redwood lined Pacific coast.
    All gone now, while the current crop of Americans busily blow up the beautiful Appalachians and bury its streams while also destroying the water supply of the East Coast to get that hundred year supply of natural gas.
    Bah, humbug!

  68. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:08 pm #

    You’ve forgotten Vlad that subsaharan Africans are genetically more diverse than other people in the world. Why? Simply because those populations are far older than non African populations and there’s been a lot more time for mutations and genetic variability to accumulate. There are neighbouring tribes of Bushmen that are more genetically dissimilar to one another than Frenchmen are from Japanese. WRT Blacks that are descendants of slaves I don’t think you need to worry about inbreeding among them. A good deal of their bloodlines come from white folks and Amerindians. What I’ve read is that Europeans are the least genetically variable of the world’s people simply because that population is the youngest. And don’t ask me about sources. I can’t fucking remember but most of this stuff will have come from mags like Scientific American ie publications for laymen like me that want to read up without having to get graduate degrees so as to understand dense, field specific jargon.

  69. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:17 pm #

    Exactly. The Central Bankers finally triumphed after a long struggle. Actually their final victory was assured in 1913 with the founding of the Federal Reserve. The currency has been debased and America enslaved. There wont be enough money for anything soon. Everyone will be put on rations – with a ration card. No one will be able to be allowed to buy or sell without his card – or a computer chip embedded in his hand for the same purpose.

  70. newworld July 4, 2011 at 1:17 pm #

    Cash proving that Political Correctness is a pathology of the mind/soul.
    It seems the 4th has now become the greatest of Aryan holidays, where all of us whites/non-whites debate the purpose or merit of living.(mainly whites doing this, non-whites not having much more than a vicitmization script in their tawny hands)
    Since the enviroment and conservation of pristine enviroments is a main point of this CF post I happily remind my fellow Americans of one of the originators of the conservation ethic, Madison Grant. You libs google him and let your heads explode.

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  71. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:19 pm #

    Chronicles of Narnia – Aslan is the Lion Christ.

  72. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:21 pm #

    Oh so your hate filled comment was just meant for Whites? You stand revealed as what you are. Mine, the revealing hand, Mine the glory.

  73. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 1:21 pm #

    Oh, I know that. So are you saying that you accidentally made a silly pun?

  74. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 1:22 pm #

    “Whites have always been able to appreciate Black music – but very few Blacks able to appreciate our’s.”
    Mmmm-hmm…. doesn’t take you long to get down to hating on blacks, does it?
    How is a Racist like a drunk?
    Everything he says ends in a slur.
    What’s the difference between a white supremacist and a bucket of shit?
    The bucket.
    How do you make a white supremacist laugh on Monday?
    Tell him a joke on Friday.
    How many racists does it take to change a light bulb?
    None, racists hate enlightenment.
    Why do racists compete on the basis of color?
    Because if they competed on brains, they’d loose.

  75. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:25 pm #

    Yes the Normalcy Bias. And even a mere Dynasty/Regime fall is catastrophic for the people involved. And there is usually a goodly gap lasting decades or even a century. In the meantime: chaos, hunger, rape, plague, warlords, foreign invasion etc. And the new regime may be a foreign occupation – such as the Manchus or Mongols in China or the Chinese in Vietnam.

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  76. newworld July 4, 2011 at 1:27 pm #

    Thanks Cash for telling us genetics is important, its high time the blank slate bunkum got put down so we can concentrate on real science and not magic thinking garbage.
    As an aside the negroes you mention the Bushmen and their look alikes in the South Pacific have a great internal GPS system, truly wonderous if one appreciates HBD.
    But then again you are mush head who wants a globalized consumer prole, a low grade commoditized human being.
    If cattle were allowed to roam free, with no directions they would quickly degenerate to a lumpen mass of ill quality stock without their masters guiding their breeding, proving genetics once and for all.
    Second if one wants a truly wild unfettered existance on breeding then one must accept the survival of the fittest, the weak and the stupid dying out. A lib no-no and a major strike against the magic thinking of the blank slate.

  77. newworld July 4, 2011 at 1:30 pm #

    Whole sections of the college curia are made up of declaritive sentences declaring whites this, whites that, are they too a bucket of shit? Are you an anti-white? Tell us about yourself?

  78. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:30 pm #

    The most corrosive not to mention most irrational pathology is that of the racist. You have recent history as your guide.

  79. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:31 pm #

    Define racist. Can Blacks be racists? So do these jokes apply to Blacks and East Asians racists too? Or are you a narrow hater?
    On the Music: it’s true. Blacks don’t typically like Classical, Opera, Folk, or Rock. That you don’t know this shows you don’t know many or any. And the younger generation don’t usually care for the great traditions of Jazz, Blues, or Motown.

  80. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:32 pm #

    You have proven yourself an anti-White racist. A self hating White.

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  81. shecky July 4, 2011 at 1:34 pm #

    Cacaphony: a harsh, discordant talking of shit. See Spanish/English: Caca/poopoo.
    you lack the ability to appreciate a fine neologism, even an inadvertent one. your schoolmarmish need to adhere to the established order stifles the evolution of the linguistic canon.
    hie thee to hell, schoolmarm. apply your red pencil to the errors of your self.
    you are correct about jibe vs jive, however. soak in your squat-juice, asoka.

  82. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:35 pm #

    Are you saying that your tongue and belly are more important than safety, survival and sovereignty? A litte bit selfish of you….

  83. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:39 pm #

    Common sense, with which you sound as if you have only a glancing familiarity, is important too. Try using some.

  84. Elrond Hubbard July 4, 2011 at 1:39 pm #

    Neon Vincent: “I notice you didn’t ask about Chinese food. I’m not surprised, as Windsor has the reputation of having the best Chinese food in the area.”
    Yes, for a city as pedestrian (in the unfortunate sense) as it is, Windsor is surprisingly well-supplied with good ethnic, and especially Asian, cuisine. Visitors can start with the string of restaurants on Wyandotte Street West in the Ambassador Bridge area, or a bit closer to downtown, Pho Nguyen Hoang (sorry I can’t get the Vietnamese diacriticals right) — my friend-the-actor worships the soup there.

  85. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:43 pm #

    Too absurd for comment other than to say this post is too absurd for comment.

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  86. lbendet July 4, 2011 at 1:45 pm #

    A birthday wish laden with sadness…
    Just got back from my daily swim which generally clears my head…
    I think the first time I realized things had really gone wrong was when Solzhenitsyn finally could emigrate here only to tell us how far gone we were–how we didn’t even respect our freedom and how we took it for granted–how vacuous we were. And that was in the 1970’s!
    Somehow I imagined this would have been a relief to him after all he had been through–but I think he really couldn’t wait to go back to Russia, now that he had seen heaven.
    Anyway I’ve always been amazed at how a few generation who were given so much could screw it up so completely and yet there seems to be so many screw ups that there’s no way to fix it.
    Here’s my comment for today:
    Laws are meant to be Circumvented, changed on the fly…subjugated to the will of the powerful
    I remember someone saying when I was young that “rules were meant to be broken”. Now we live in an age where if you’re in the right position, laws are meant to be circumvented, and changed on the fly, so you haven’t broken any laws. (you gotta love Orwell)
    This morning I came across a few articles on the web. One was by Mish Shedlock discussing how since 2009, China has been buying more than the legal limit of 35% in our treasuries in any given auction. They do that by coming in under various names and in different locations, ie London, etc.
    Well given that they have so much of our debt, wouldn’t we be vulnerable to a giant dumping of the dollar?
    Other articles I’ve read this morning reveals so much of our vulnerabilities, it is hard to imagine this going on for the long-haul.
    In OfTwoMinds blog, Charles Hugh Smith posted a great blog illustrating the what he referred to as peak government.
    [Cheap, abundant energy offers a surplus of value that can be invested in social complexity and consumption. Once the cost and availability of energy declines, then that surplus shrinks and can no longer be used to support the high cost structure.
    The U.S. economy has clearly been driven to the cliff edge of instability by both dynamics: the cheap, abundant energy which enabled fast growth of consumption and high cost social complexity is vanishing, and the cost structure of the economy has ballooned far beyond sustainability.]
    He also brings up Joseph Tainter and Jared Diamond’s books about how empires fail. This goes back to much of what JHK describes in saying that racheting down would be the option to take, but as Smith says, the information that would lead in that direction has been suppressed.
    Tying into the Shedlock interview is an interview I had copied a few months ago he had with Chris Martenson where he discussed peak everything. CHS also brings up China in his interview saying [China has every intention of “winning” any potential conflict with the U.S. by disrupting the U.S. military, society and economy via cyber-attacks on our infrastructure and communications. That ability to disrupt an entire nation via fiber-optic cables is new.]
    The third article I read is be Richard Clark on opednews. From Democracy to Kleptocracy: What’s being stolen from us and how.TBTF in the banking system and all that is done to keep these banking cartels going is the key to ultimate failure and the destruction of democracy.
    [3.         The rule of law in the US has been divided into two branches:   one is a branch of law in name only — it’s for the financial elites and corporate cartels.   The other branch, which actually has some teeth, is for the rest of us, we mere “citizens” (so-called citizens).   Between corporate toadies on the Supreme Court who have granted corporations rights to spend unlimited amounts of money lobbying and buying legislators, as a form of “free speech” — but how can something that costs billions of dollars be “free”? — and vast regulatory bureaucracies that saw nothing wrong with MERS and the complete corruption of land and mortgage transfer rules, the US legal system is now part and parcel of a very refined and perfectly functioning kleptocracy.]….
    [The USA is a haven for corporate money laundering
    The “little house of secrets” on the Great Plains is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as “shell” companies, i.e. paper entities able to hide assets so as to keep them from being taxed.]
    Boy, and I thought you had to go to the Grand Cayman Islands for this to happen.
    What a sad mess we find ourselves in, many years in the making and nobody noticed anything till the steep recession and stock market crash in 2008.
    Trip has it right, the only thing we can do is to become self-reliant.

  87. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:48 pm #

    How many times has your ass been pinched by the local Latino men? Remember, if you say 0, that implies that it isn’t worth pinching.

  88. FrogCounter July 4, 2011 at 1:48 pm #

    Thank you for reminding us to remember the past as it was. Perhaps the absurdities of the present somehow make us long for a perfect world that never was.

  89. bubbleheadMarc July 4, 2011 at 1:49 pm #

    Very impressive. My first response got eaten or else I screw up somewhere so this’ll be brief. Look up cool canoeing photos at both Keewaydin of Temagami and Camp Wabun, Lake Temagami. The custodian at Wabun still builds wooden canoes on a surviving Chestnut mold for Camp Keewaydin. The famous impostor Grey Owl also guided for Keewaydin. Grey Owl turned out not to be half Apache & half Scots but entirely English and from Hastings, England. He wrote “Tales of an Empty Cabin.”

  90. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:50 pm #

    You said what you said – the rags of your false dignity cannot cover your nakedness now.

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  91. BeantownBill July 4, 2011 at 1:52 pm #

    Oh, oh. We’re sliding into irrelevant racist talk. Warning! Warning! Let’s stay on-topic – even though we know Blacks are responsible for global warming, peak oil, fracking and ocean oil-drilling, agri-business, the mess on Wall Street, the ME wars and other problems. And, and what’s that I see? Oh, no! Behind the curtain pulling the strings to orchestrate all this are, are OMG! … THE JEWS!
    Bulletin (via CNN, Cable Nazi Network) at 1:47 P.M. there’s been a sighting of Jewzilla in New York harbor. It’s heading for downtown! Call in the Air Force! NYC is doomed! Run for your lives!
    Get real, idiots.

  92. shecky July 4, 2011 at 1:53 pm #

    5 minutes in any canoe, plastic, plywood or birchbark, is worth 5 years spent watching american idol. my best trip ever was 110 miles down the rio grande; mexico to the right, texas to the left. they looked about the same to me.

  93. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:54 pm #

    The USA is the worst place on the planet except for all the rest. The trouble with America haters is they have no idea of all the rest.
    This place is full of America haters. Besides hating Westerners it’s the only socially permissible bigotry. What I’d like to see is what would happen if we can’t firehose 400 billion a year of exports south of the border. A multitude of people here made a damn good living off the 100 million plus American consumers living a day’s drive from Toronto. Hypocrisy on stilts.

  94. Malagodi July 4, 2011 at 1:54 pm #

    What do you do when the grid goes down?
    Jump into the water and drown!

  95. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 1:54 pm #

    Yes and we were already to love and lionize him but then he talked about boring things like morality and abortion and so became an unperson. He coulda been famous, a contenda.

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  96. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 1:55 pm #

    You come on this site, week after week; you don’t mention peak oil, suburban mistakes, or anything else mentioned on here… instead you spend a day or two on CFN… blaming other people for your failings and shortcomings.
    You carefully avoid using the word “nigger” to try and have some air of respectability in your blame… But everyone know that’s exactly what you mean.
    Is it possible for there to be a black racist? Black people have a hell of a lot more reason to hate you than you do them.
    Your great grandparents built this country using slave labor… they were lazy pigs… and your hatred of the people who did all the heavy lifting for you…
    …. it is the essence of disgusting.
    It isn’t racist to hate your oppressor… it is racist to hate people of another color who did your grand parents work for them.
    You are a spoiled brat… and you hate black people why? Because their descendants didn’t do enough free labor to make your great grandparents richer?
    White racists seem to forget… you hate black people so much… but it was your lazy ancestors who kidnapped them and brought them here in the first fucking place!
    If you are a pig, and feel blacks are ruining your country… then place the blame squarely where it belongs…. WITH WHITE PEOPLE!

  97. shecky July 4, 2011 at 1:56 pm #

    about the only time texas ever showed up on my left, btw.

  98. Elrond Hubbard July 4, 2011 at 1:57 pm #

    Cash replying to newworld: “The most corrosive not to mention most irrational pathology is that of the racist. You have recent history as your guide.”
     
    Vlad Kranz replying to Cash: “You have proven yourself an anti-White racist. A self hating White.”
     
    So, to recap: Cash, evidently a non-racist, denounces racism as an irrational pathology, not mentioning whites (with either an upper- OR a lowercase ‘w’) or any other specific race in particular. Vlad, clearly a racist and apparently incapable of imagining that other people really, sincerely do not see everything through a racist lens as he does, is helpless to understand Cash’s statements on its own terms. Instead, Vald draws the non-sequitur conclusion that Cash’s rejection of racism is in fact a racial slur. Did I miss anything?

  99. Cash July 4, 2011 at 1:58 pm #

    I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about Vlad. To claim that I hate Whites because I say that races do not differ in terms of their intellectual abilities is nonsensical.

  100. Cash July 4, 2011 at 2:02 pm #

    You may have missed about two years worth of back and forth arguments between me and Vlad on this issue. Other than that, no.

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  101. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:03 pm #

    Thank you for you input about my cat. It is a little dicatator like Charlie Chaplin. It marches into my bedroom like a drill seargeant and wakes me up with a loud meow so I can get up (even in the middle of the night) and let her out. I have to learn to protect myself.
    In gratitude, I give you this piece which explains why we fight. It wont be easy for you, but it is the Truth.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXfnyXp06Y

  102. DreamCycle July 4, 2011 at 2:04 pm #

    Go on a bike ride, work in the garden, enjoy some quite time with a good book. Here in Illinois the tomatoes are reddening, the chard has been big enough to eat for some time, the eggplants and peppers have flowers, the beans are vining, the squash is getting big leaves and life is, at least temporarily calm and sweet.

  103. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 2:05 pm #

    Well, Impaler, it took you a while to get to your point. I suspected that’s what you were getting at, but decided to play with you first to see if your creativity was intentional or accidental.
    As for my safety, survival, and sovereignty, let me address those in order by telling you some stories. First, when I lived in East Bakersfield, a mixed working-class White and Mexican-American community, nearly 30 years ago, it wasn’t the Mexicans who scared me. To them, I was just another White guy, and not their problem as long as I minded my own business. It was the working class Whites. They were the ones who could tell that I wasn’t from there. They were also the ones who were likely to confront me about it. They were also the drunks and wifebeaters. I was happy to get away from those people. The “diversity” wasn’t my problem, the “uniformity” was.
    Speaking of Bakersfield, the most memorable T-shirt I ever saw there read “Bakersfield isn’t the end of the world, but you can sure see it from here.” On the other hand, Detroit’s most famous T-shirt is “Detroit, where the weak are killed and eaten.” I’ve survived 21 years in southeast Michigan, including 15 years working and living in or next to Detroit. All of us here in Metro Detroit are starting to realize that we’re all in this together and that the survival solutions Detroiters devise will be the ones exported to the rest of the continent, a theme I’ve explored on Crazy Eddie’s Motie News multiple times and will explore again. Diversity will be a big help here and respect for diversity will be an even bigger one.
    So, I’m not worried about my survival here. We’ll do just fine and teach you all lessons in how to survive based on what Detroit, ground zero of the post-industrial future, has learned.
    As for sovereignty, I have two things to say. First, why are you picking at the people at the bottom of the social order and not the people at the top? They’re the ones in charge of sovereignty. That’s the federal government’s role and right now, they’re too busy making sure the rentier class is made whole while everyone else suffers. Those are the people borrowing from foreign investors and it will be the calling in of those debts that will be the threat to national sovereignty more than immigration.
    Speaking of immigration, if you really want to frame sovereignty in terms of ethnic identity, I want to know what percentage of your ancestors are Native American/First Nations? If it’s more than 12.5% and you’ve maintained a connection to your ancestors, like my ex-wife, my longtime ex-girlfriend, and my second wife, you can talk, but then your talk would look very different from what you’re doing now. Otherwise, you are just another descendant of immigrants, just like most of the rest of us, and your spiel becomes “We stole it fair and square” and “I got mine, screw you.” On that note, as someone born in California, I will remind you that the Spanish and Mexicans were there first, not the Americans.
    As for American culture, it is an amalgamation of immigrant strains from all over the world. Are you saying the American culture is now so fragile that it can’t still accomodate immigrants? Do you hate America that much?

  104. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:07 pm #

    Wrong. He is a fanatical advocate of miscegenation – but apparently only for Whites. He said Whites are inbred cretins but Blacks are fine as they are. You see, he has a Chinese Wife and wants everyone to do as he did. He’s the Model, the New Capitalist Man.

  105. Elrond Hubbard July 4, 2011 at 2:07 pm #

    “Too absurd for comment other than to say this post is too absurd for comment.”
    To a racist, it’s completely normal to assume anyone who doesn’t share their pathology is some kind of hypocrite. They can’t imagine a different state of mind.

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  106. newworld July 4, 2011 at 2:09 pm #

    Lorne why is it that only white countries must submerge their populations with non-whites? Vlad and myself are the actual anti-genocidalists here, the rest are either loathsome hateful self-haters or unicorn libs afraid to actually think.
    I think Cash is a unicorn and puppy dogs lib myself, happy to believe in the blank slate nonsense for a few pats on the top of his male pattern baldness head.
    Is Jim disgusted with only white tatooed thugs? What about the black and brown tatooed types, or is lib etiquette such that one must never critique them?
    FTR if one is thinking of attending the University of Illinois Champaign the main business model of its downtown is tatoo parlors.

  107. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 2:11 pm #

    “Shut the fuck up”
    Let me guess, you are a Vet who went to war for my right to free speech?
    I’m white… and more into peak oil then blaming the predecessor to petroleum for my problems
    When did this place turn into a KKK rally?

  108. Martin Hayes July 4, 2011 at 2:12 pm #

    I can think of a better Allen Ginsberg quote. In an interview in a compendium called Mavericks of the Mind, he said: “The Americans are the most stupid and heartless…”

  109. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:16 pm #

    God, are you ever stupid. Only a tiny percentage of Whites ever had slaves – even at the time. As far as my ancestry, we weren’t even here yet – we were slaves in Europe. The same is true for most White Americans – their ancestors never had Black Slaves. Got it dumbo?
    Of course that makes no difference to the Black/Liberal hate fest. You sure watch TV reeeal Good boy. And you payed attention in school and got your conditioning in real well too.
    When you get attacked in the coming flash riots, will you make excuses for them? Or do you just do that when it’s other White People getting it? I’ll say this for Blacks, no one of them is a traitor to their own people like you and your’s are.
    There is still slavery in Africa. Strangely, our great Blacks don’t seem interested. No do the Clintons and the Pelosis. Maybe something else is going on? For example: there’s no money in it? There lots of money and political advantage in White guilt and dispossesion – even though we outlawed it long ago and lost hundreds of thousands fighting a war over it. Gratitude from Blacks to Northern Whites? Absolute Zero exactly as predicted by the South.

  110. Steve July 4, 2011 at 2:18 pm #

    OY – I am going for a swim.

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  111. Cash July 4, 2011 at 2:23 pm #

    He is a fanatical advocate of miscegenation – Vlad
    Bullshit.
    He said Whites are inbred cretins – Vlad
    I said no such thing. Stop misrepresenting the clear intent and meaning of my posts and stop making me waste time clearing the record as to what I said and meant. Otherwise I’ll stick you on my “ignore” list with Asoka.
    You see, he has a Chinese Wife and wants everyone to do as he did. – Vlad
    See my prior comment.

  112. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:25 pm #

    Good ending Vinnie. That’s exactly what I’m saying. We can’t take anymore diversity. Way too fragile. We were a White Anglo Saxon Nation that somehow (it wasn’t easy) accomodated other European Groups. The Anglos changed a bit but by definition, the other groups had to change more. That’s the difference between immigration and colonization. We’re being colonized now – we are that weak. And some of the weakness came from trying to accomodate too may people who could never have fitted in.
    This is the Earth, a place of conflict. A Nation by definition is a group of sucessful fighters. Why apply the screws to Whites and Whites alone? The Sioux got screwed by the Ojibwas, fled the Woods, and then screwed the previous residents of the Dakotas. A dog barks, the Caravan passes. Grow up.

  113. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:30 pm #

    Go back to your post about the mixed race couple sharing a spoon. Down past that. You said you’re in favor of mixing; that better a vigorous mongrel horde than a bunch of inbred cretins.
    I called you on it. Dared you say that to Blacks. You replied that it didn’t apply to Blacks – implying that it only applied to Whites I assume since those are the two groups we were discussing. Logic, my poor hate filled fellow.

  114. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 2:35 pm #

    It’s a He not even a He/She or She/He. More’s the pity!

  115. DavidinLosAngeles July 4, 2011 at 2:36 pm #

    DreamCycle, it sounds as if your garden is growing nicely. I cut 3 cucumbers from my garden this morning, and green beans from my 6″ beanstock. It looks like a tepee. It’s huge. Tomatoes haven’t ripened yet. Tonight I’m taking a bike ride up to the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Bowl to watch fireworks. I’m staying in today reading “Death By Supermarket”. An excellent book for everyone here on CFN to read. Thought I’d share.

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  116. DavidinLosAngeles July 4, 2011 at 2:37 pm #

    6 foot beanstock I meant, not 6 inches. Pffsssh

  117. edpell July 4, 2011 at 2:41 pm #

    I think Jim will be disappointed. The US has enough coal to power the country on coal alone for 67 years. It also has hydro, oil, natural gas, and Canadian tar sand. So the US is not going down in the sense of no energy. It does seems to be going down in the sense of fascist control by the few of the many. Fourth of July wonderful ideas that are not part of present day America.

  118. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 2:45 pm #

    And fuck you on your “Happy Birthday America”. You don’t mean it and are too stupid to know what many of us chose to celebrate.
    ================
    Obviously his Birthday wish was intended sarcastically. And it’s choose unless you intended the past tense. You really DO need to watch your spelling since it affects the meaning you’re trying to convey.

  119. Cash July 4, 2011 at 2:48 pm #

    Yes Vlad take your own advice and try using logic. You apparently have no concept of time and of change. What I said about inbreeding applies to all peoples equally because, the last I checked, the clock hasn’t stopped ticking has it? There’s a future to deal with is there not? The past is past and we can’t go back and rewrite history and re-do events. Blacks in North America have varied ancestry because of past circumstances. And that is over and done. But if we want a healthy population in the future I maintain that too much inbreeding is unhealthy. You don’t like racial mixing? Tough shit.

  120. shecky July 4, 2011 at 2:50 pm #

    not my point. asoka is as doctrinaire in his racism you are in your racism. “free your mind and your ass (or whatever) will follow.” this is a semi-quote from a black motherfucker which applies as much to you and me as to the soaker. we are all rats who must swim from the sinking ship. to where shall we swim? someone lives there already.
    my children are dead. to me this is merely interesting.
    an aside- When The Killing’s Done- good fucking book, T C Boyle.

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  121. Sean the Mystic July 4, 2011 at 2:56 pm #

    Personally I enjoy racist rhetoric as a radical form of dissent from current consensus reality; in fact I strongly recommend embracing all forms of “evil” as a means of mental liberation from this wretched and failing paradigm.
    Taking this idea further, I would suggest that what is commonly thought of as “good” is really mostly social conditioning designed to perpetuate your slavery, and has no basis in nature. I have no doubt that there is a small class of “Satanic” elites who understand this cosmic fact, and teach their children accordingly so as to maintain their dynasties. So to those who would be truly liberated and powerful, my advice is to reject the Light of the false religions, embrace the Left Hand Path and Darkness, and always remember that in this dark universe, evil wins!
    “The nature scientists uncover has crafted our viler impulses into us: in fact, these impulses are a part of the process she uses to create. Lucifer is the dark side of cosmic fecundity, the cutting blade of the sculptor’s knife. Nature does not abhor evil; she embraces it. With it she moved the human world to greater heights of organization, intricacy, and power.” –Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle

  122. AMR July 4, 2011 at 2:57 pm #

    No, that isn’t what Cash suggested. You’re twisting his words. He stated, correctly, that most North American Blacks are already racially mixed because they have European blood. I would add that many also have Indian blood, often Cherokee.
    Since you dared Cash to go downtown and provoke Blacks by calling them inbreds, I dare you to do likewise. Take leave of northern Idaho for a while, find a black neighborhood (if Spokane doesn’t have one, Tacoma and some of the areas around Fort Lewis do), and talk smack to the locals about their genetic inferiority.
    I don’t expect you to actually do this, of course. Internet bluster from the Great White North (yours, not Cash’s) is one thing; leaving the White Man’s lair to mix it up with swarthier sorts is another.

  123. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 3:03 pm #

    Let’s ask Q to follow the dialogue and decide whether you were out of bounds or not.

  124. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 3:11 pm #

    What is to be gained? You want to see me beat up? I Know what they are like – Cash doesn’t perhaps.
    You believe naturally (and incorrectly) that the mixed is always superior to the pure breed. As if a greyhound crossed with a German Shepherd will have BOTH the great speed on the first and the strength, loyalty, and intelligence of the second. It doesn’t work that way at all. The offspring may be healthy and a nice pet, but it will not have all the qualities of the parents to anywere near their full extent. In fact, it may be a mixed up mess of qualities and traits.
    Forget the name but there was a “screwball” comedy back in the early 60’s: a puny genius and a beauty queen decide to have a super child. But the dumb blonde asks what if it has your body and my mind. Not so dumb after all.

  125. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 3:13 pm #

    Bravo Sean. Beware Bloom – he lifted entire parts from Lindsay’s “Voyage to Arcturus.”

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  126. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 3:24 pm #

    You are tacitly admitting that you said it – and defiantly holding that it was OK because true.
    Take the Africans. A mixed bunch to be sure. But not all mixed the way most of our Blacks are. There are groups that are ancient and distinct populations. The Mountain Tribes of Kenya are the best marathoners in the world – an adaptation to their way of life in a high environment. If they were to be mixed with West and Central African Bantus, the offspring would not be as good at distance. Nor would they have the incredible jumping and sprinting ability seen in much of West and Central Africa. Mixed isn’t always better. The hybrid vigor is something specific and lasts one generation I believe. After that, the mixed aren’t any stronger or healthier in general. Of course, something valuable may have been picked up – to balance out what has been lost. Can mulattoes retain the immunity against AIDS that 20% of Western Europeans have as a legacy from the Black Plague?

  127. Grouchy Old Girl July 4, 2011 at 3:26 pm #

    Not much holiday cheer here today, and the idiots are out in droves, ready to slash each other to bits with their bon mots. I will leave them to their hatred.
    On the bright side, up here in Canada our version of History Channel ran the mis-named show “Prophets of Doom” recently and my son watched it. He came over to tell me all about this terrific guy he saw who talked about peak oil and what we need to do to survive the future without it. He didn’t know the guy’s name but it sounded alot like JHK to me, and when I showed him the pic on this website of JHK with moustache attached, he got all excited and said yes, that’s him.
    Wow. I’ve been telling my son about JHK for a couple of years now, and he was mildly interested, but this show featuring him really lit a spark. He is now reading my copy of the Long Emergency, and I can hardly wait to have the discussion that will follow.
    Thank you JHK. I caught up to that show myself a few days later, and must say I was impressed with your contribution. Compared to the guy worried about terrorists and the other one scared of robots, it must have been easy to be the shining star of the show. You were indeed most persuasive and engaging too. Your facial expressions were priceless. Thank you, from one citizen of the world to another.

  128. WestCoast July 4, 2011 at 3:27 pm #

    Speaking of Black slaves,
    of all the slaves sent out of Africa by other Africans and Arab slave traders….What percentage were brought to the United States?
    50%? 25%?
    Nope….Four Percent, that’s 4%. So much for our country being responsible for slavery. The Jesuit order of the Catholic church brought more slaves
    to Brazil than all the English and Portuguese slave ships coming to the United States.

  129. Grouchy Old Girl July 4, 2011 at 3:34 pm #

    Ahem. The Canadian “tar sands” are not yours to take. They belong to Canadians. That may seem like a small point to you, but for many of us here, that does matter. And if you want it, you will pay BIG to get it. Hopefully nobody will get it though, since it costs more to access than it is worth, and the environmental costs are enough that we should just leave it there.
    As you can tell, I am not from Alberta. They are singing a different song out west unfortunately. We can only hope the voters in Central Canada will put their brakes on for them. Cowboys should not be in charge of our resources.

  130. Grouchy Old Girl July 4, 2011 at 3:41 pm #

    Vlad is really getting to me today. Just how does he know all the “facts” he keeps asserting? He must be a real genius to be so sure of what black people all think, like and dislike. I wish I had that kind of insight to just know with certainty what others believe.
    What a tool.

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  131. Steve M. July 4, 2011 at 3:50 pm #

    Yes, let’s leave the complaints for tomorrow. Paul Fussell, the great American intellectual, once said that July 4 is the one day the United States should receive nothing but praise.

  132. thomas99 July 4, 2011 at 3:51 pm #

    Jimbo…I’m surprised you left hot dog eating contests out of your 4th of July essay. 60 dogs at one sitting, now that’s AWESOME and something the winner can really be proud of. Gluttony, deadly food and good ol’ Americana all rolled into one! Really makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it? Even puts NASCAR to shame. Party on, America!

  133. tucsonspur July 4, 2011 at 3:59 pm #

    Jim, if he could have, Ginsburg would have tried to fuck himself with an A-bomb.
    You are right, not all experiments come out the way you expect, and the founding fathers were not fortune tellers.
    It has been proven that you cannot stop or foresee the resulting long term ramifications of the exciting and joyful moments of invention. Of the steam engine; the locomotive; the automobile; the airplane.
    Today I’m celebrating what we had and what we still have, keeping in mind the dangers that we face.
    In this great, grand experiment that is the USA, with all of its flaws, I’m still a yankee doodle dandy, yankee doodle do or die!
    Don’t let the bastards wear you down! Keep up the good fight! God bless the USA!

  134. suburbanempire July 4, 2011 at 4:05 pm #

    You want ME to “shut the fuck up” about race?
    I’m not the looser who comes on a peak oil blog and blames all my problems on blacks and “liberals”…..
    You want me to “shut the fuck up”…. come make me!

  135. Ixnei July 4, 2011 at 4:08 pm #

    “Transformers – Dark of the Moon”
    I heard that 532 flood-damaged automobiles were “recycled/salvaged/destroyed” in that movie. At first, I was liek, “WTF? No more CGI?” But then I was all liek, “Uhmm-K…”
    I have to admit, I took great pride in seeing my hero Jerome’s “The Garden Of Earthly Delights” triptych as discussion material this week. A friend and I used to study all of his artwork, and found the “stomach flute” in the Hell panel, played by the dark, hooded, bat-like figure quite mesmerizing. We made it our ‘clan’ logo, and even silk-screened t-shirts of it in high school (oh yeah, that went over well with the ‘in crowd,’ LOL).
    Well, gotta get back to work – 2 quarts of raspberries picked, and at least another 3+ quarts to go. Also need to try and clone some of the grape vines and blueberry bushes – I’m not sure you can ever have enough of those (and they could prove valuable for next year’s bartering of crop starts).

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  136. driguana July 4, 2011 at 4:13 pm #

    I suggest a rereading of E. F. Schumaker’s Small is Beautiful before the week-end.

  137. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 4:18 pm #

    “Every species is an experiment. Nature the experimenter is indifferent to the outcome. Species come and go on a regular basis – on the geological time scale.”
    Well said, Newfie. The Great Experimenter is indifferent to humanity, or was, until we got so big that we started impacting her complex systems in a noticeable way. The “Anthropocene” era will end most abruptly, from a geological perspective anyway. Still, for us humans living in human time frames, it could take a while yet.
    As “Earth Abides” author George Stewart said:
    “As for man, there is littler reason to think that he can in the long run escape the fate of other creatures, and if there is a biological law of flux and reflux, his situation is now a highly perilous one….Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens.”
    Nature, I’m afraid, is already loading the dice.

  138. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 4:25 pm #

    “I suggest a rereading of E. F. Schumaker’s Small is Beautiful before the week-end.”
    Sound advice. I’m taking my copy to the mountains with me on Wednesday for a much-needed, feet-in-trout-stream-soaking holiday. Thanks for helping me decide which book to take.

  139. AMR July 4, 2011 at 4:27 pm #

    The current grid won’t be viable in the total absence of oil. On the other hand, barring a total and sudden collapse of oil supplies and gross political incompetence, utilities will get high priority for emergency oil deliveries. I doubt that the Federal government would be stupid enough not to impose some sort of official rationing or at least allow market-based rationing by price to arise. Utilities might not fare as well buying oil on an inflated open market as in a rationed market, but even so they might bite the bullet and buy enough oil to keep servicing their grids.
    In the next few years we’ll probably see massive blackouts more or less on the scale of the 2003 monster blackout in the Northeast. I’ve often imagined electric vehicles overloading grids to the point of brownouts or blackouts, especially during the summer in California. The environmentally correct set driving the e-cars and plug-in hybrids are woefully ignorant about the actual sources of electricity that they use. They’re prime marks for carbon offsets and surcharges that purport to ensure a direct supply of renewable electricity. They are deluded into thinking that by paying these surcharges they can plug directly into a wind turbine or a solar panel through the common grid.
    So I don’t think it bodes well if many of these people decide to recharge their electric cars from the grid on a hot summer afternoon. If they overload the system, something has to give. To avoid a brownout or a blackout, immediate austerity measures must be imposed by, or on, grid customers.
    In fact, car charging ports should be first in line for shutoffs, or else close. It’s less disruptive to shut down power to car charging stations than to server farms with business transactions in progress, and it’s a lot safer than shutting down supplies to, God forbid, hospitals.
    The American public has a real mental block on the electrical grid. This includes most of the environmental movement. A lot of environmental activists have gotten on board with the e-commerce model because it saves shipping fuel and allegedly saves trees. Some of the paper savings are imagined, since all sorts of receipts and the like are printed out, and the amount of fuel saved through online bill payment schemes is negligible. At the same time, few people give any thought to the huge amount of electricity needed to run an e-commerce server farm, or for that matter any server farm. Or even an office computer network.
    Something to consider for a low- or post-oil future: mail can be hand-sorted by daylight; it can be transported by barge or railcar, horse-drawn if desired, or by sailing ship; it can be delivered by foot or bicycle. But there is no way in hell to back up a server farm with a towpath and a mule.
    If we use your premise about there being absolutely no oil to maintain the electrical grid, the super high-voltage interties have to go. I have trouble imagining the utilities devising a system to hoist heavy parts into place at heights of over a hundred feet in the middle of the desert. Even if such a system could be devised, the manpower or literal horsepower requirements would be huge, and there might be no way to provide enough food and water.
    Basically, the grid would have to be downscaled and localized. Many cities would be well served by the establishment of DC grids, either parallel to the AC grid or as replacements. If memory serves, parts of New York City had a parallel DC grid until the mid-Twentieth Century. DC is much more efficient than AC, but AC has become the industry standard because it has lower transmission losses over long distances. Some appliances would have to either be converted to DC operation or supplied with AC-DC inverters, but maybe the biggest obstacle is the cultural one. The people running the grid think in grand terms using AC; they just don’t think in local terms using DC. Parallel systems may have to be built ad hoc with no consultation of the electrical powers-that-be.
    Coal mining will continue on some scale without oil inputs, but it will become more labor-intensive and dangerous, as it used to be in the US and remains in places such as China. Coal mining is an industry that has not historically placed much value on human life, and I don’t see that changing in the US without an honest-to-God labor insurgency of the sort that we haven’t seen in decades.

  140. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 4:30 pm #

    “Nature, I’m afraid, is already loading the dice.”
    As our friendly commenter Zen17 has said on more than one occasion, we will need sharp minds and healthy bodies to respond appropriately to the suite of novel pressures energy descent will present. In that vein, my blog post this week is about a group of new medicinal herbs and super foods we’re trialing at Small Batch Garden this season. Hopefully this will be useful information for those of you determined to get your genes through the looming population keyhole event.

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  141. Buck Stud July 4, 2011 at 4:36 pm #

    Great stuff, Ripped, thanks for posting!
    I was listening to this Cheo Feliciano song recently and I thought it was incredible. The first part not so much, but from minute three-and-a-half it was pure rapture for my ears:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh87b_4FwlU

  142. DeeJones July 4, 2011 at 4:47 pm #

    “On the Music: it’s true. Blacks don’t typically like Classical, Opera, Folk, or Rock. That you don’t know this shows you don’t know many or any. And the younger generation don’t usually care for the great traditions of Jazz, Blues, or Motown.” Flad
    Geez, along with everything else you know nothing about, you know even less about music.Winton Marcellas, and others prove the lie to your claims.
    You really are retarded, and shouldn’t be allowed to breed, tho with enough meth, you will no doubt find the perfect mate, tats & all. Just make sure you know which hole to put it in, its the Front one, just so you know.
    And as to your other comment, the men here are truly gentlemen, something you also know nothing about.
    Dee out….

  143. AMR July 4, 2011 at 4:51 pm #

    Yes and no. You’re right that we weren’t responsible for creating African slavery, but we were responsible for maintaining it in our part of the New World for over two centuries, enshrining it in the mid to late Seventeenth Century as an officially racist system of servitude and social control, and maintaining that system of apartheid in various official forms for three centuries. We are still responsible for the largely unspoken racism that continues to pervade our society, especially our criminal justice system.
    As a nation, we made Black slavery our own, and four centuries on we’re still struggling to deal with the ramifications. We can’t shift the blame onto sub-Saharan tribes for starting it, Arabs for consolidating it, or Spaniards for besting us at it in the New World. We need to own our part of it and do our best to rise above its evil legacies.

  144. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 4:51 pm #

    As an addendum to AMR’s weighty post above, I came up with what I think is an easy way to determine if your recycling activities are producing a net energy gain. Back when I figured out that ethanol was a net loser, and just another wealth drain on the federal coffer, I started wondering whether all the materials we recycle might have the same issues. Plastic in particular seemed problematic, as making bottles from raw petroleum is easy and the infrastructure and markets for doing so already existed. In essence, recycling plastic added another link to that food chain, and longer food chains always come with a substantial metabolic drain on the system.
    So here’s my rule of thumb: if you can get paid for your recycled materials they represent a net energy gain. Otherwise they just represent another form of eco-piety. And eco-piety ain’t gonna cut it in the descent phase. If the option is tossing your plastic in the landfill, then by all means keep recycling it, but if you can reuse the plastic, or even burn it, I’m guessing we’d all come out ahead energetically. Best option obviously would be to refuse to buy plastic in the first place, but it’s a useful material, so I understand. Holds a bourbon and 7 on a hot Independence Day afternoon quite nicely…

  145. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 4:53 pm #

    “Nature, I’m afraid, is already loading the dice.”
    As our friendly commenter Zen17 has said on more than one occasion, we will need sharp minds and healthy bodies to respond appropriately to the suite of novel pressures energy descent will present. In that vein, my blog post this week is about a group of new medicinal herbs and super foods we’re trialing at Small Batch Garden this season. Hopefully this will be useful information for those of you determined to get your genes through the looming population keyhole event.
    http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/
    That little link might be useful…
    Cheers!
    Tripp

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  146. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 4:58 pm #

    Experience old girl. Also keeping my eyes open in general. Most people here who so piously pontificate have obviously never lived near Blacks, lived with Blacks (1 once), gone to school with Blacks, and worked with Blacks. It really shows by the sappy idealism and relentless overestimation of their abilities and character.
    What you call “getting to you” is actually your mind starting to work. Don’t be afraid – that’s how it feels as you begin to lose a paradigm. It gets easier once you’ve done it a few times as I have. Liberals are the most resistant to growth and change and thus almost as conservative as Communists.

  147. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:08 pm #

    ‘diverse’
    DIVERSITY IS THE HOBGOBLIN OF THE CORPORATE MEDIA.

  148. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 5:10 pm #

    “The American public has a real mental block on the electrical grid. This includes most of the environmental movement.”
    David Holmgren said that reducing our overall energy use is the best way to care for the Earth, without the need for specific knowledge of the individual impacts of each consumptive action. Likewise, I think the only way to reduce environmental impact from electrical use is to less of it. Period. Solar, wind, tidal, coal, or gas, it is foolish to think that continuing to use the same amount of energy from a “green” source is really changing anything. The only truly green energy is energy not spent.

  149. wagelaborer July 4, 2011 at 5:11 pm #

    You moved from LA to Detroit?
    Years ago I was on the 22 Filmore bus in San Francisco.
    An African American woman got on the bus, and started a conversation with a friend a few rows away. (The bus was packed).
    It was a loud conversation, but everybody on the bus politely looked forward and pretended that they weren’t listening. Until one of them asked the other, who had recently moved back from Detroit “So, which do you like better? San Francisco or Detroit?”
    At that, everyone on the bus, black and white, roared with laughter.
    Detroit? As if!

  150. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 5:11 pm #

    The Front?! Oh that’s why! Wait, what if I’m already behind her?
    Two paths diverged in a wood,
    I took the less traveled and
    it has made all the difference.

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  151. Auntie River July 4, 2011 at 5:11 pm #

    One of my all time favorite posts here folks! As one of the Futurama robots would say “That equals true.”

  152. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:15 pm #

    If ‘subsaharan Africans’ and Africa are so
    WONDERFUL then tell us more!
    Whats so wonderful in their ‘diversity’?
    Why are so many of them so eager to move to USA/
    Europe?
    Like the black woman crying rape in NYC with
    the big $ so recently added to her bank account?
    Whats her name?

  153. mow July 4, 2011 at 5:17 pm #

    i once read that jefferson’s wife had the declaration of independence tattooed on her backside

  154. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 5:18 pm #

    and the hobgob of little minds. As it says in The Postman, Oh little mind of Bethlehem. I was rooting for Bethlehem but I still liked the Black kid. If I ever have a son, I’m going to name him Ford Lincoln Mercury.

  155. mow July 4, 2011 at 5:18 pm #

    lol

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  156. wagelaborer July 4, 2011 at 5:19 pm #

    I went to buy a dog pillow for my paralyzed dog to lie on.
    I chose the one with the spiffy card on it, claiming that the filling was made of recycled plastic bottles, now turned into a soft, bouncy pillow. My dog wins, and the Earth does too!
    When I got home, I read the tag attached to the side that every pillow has. It said that the filling was 100% polyester!
    They lied somewhere, and I’m guessing it was the spiffy card.

  157. Auntie River July 4, 2011 at 5:20 pm #

    Albert Collins! Makes me want to slow boogie. Uncle Ned caught his act live when we were in Mpls but I missed it.

  158. Auntie River July 4, 2011 at 5:26 pm #

    Cash is right on the money. Human genome project and mitochondrial DNA studies. Mitochondria have their own DNA which comes directly through the matrilineal line and has been key to determining historical family trees. Australian aborigines are genetically closest to the Chinese, and quite distant from any modern Africans.

  159. Auntie River July 4, 2011 at 5:27 pm #

    Still laughing out loud.

  160. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 5:34 pm #

    SOLAR GUY, ARE YOU OUT THERE?
    I would like to put my well pump on a solar backup. It’s 3 hp, 230 volts, 60 Hz. What size panel would it require?
    Thanks,
    Tripp

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  161. Shakazulu July 4, 2011 at 5:39 pm #

    “Yesterday, I saw a man on a back street of a small town with spider webs tattooed on his elbows and a screaming skull on the back of his neck. America, meet your new normal: a citizenry of exterminating angels.”
    I guess you don’t read Drudge. The new normals travel in packs on the main streets of the large cities and don’t look anything like angels and they are already busy exterminating whatever they can.

  162. Puzzler July 4, 2011 at 5:39 pm #

    JHK’s proofreader must have the 4th off and Qshtik is napping, so I had to step in.

    alter-pieces of Hieronymus Bosch

    It’s altar.

  163. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 5:40 pm #

    “Take leave of northern Idaho for a while, find a black neighborhood (if Spokane doesn’t have one, Tacoma and some of the areas around Fort Lewis do)”
    Try the Hillyard or “Felony Flats” (it’s near the jail) neighborhoods in Spokane. And let me know how it goes.

  164. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:42 pm #

    I didnt know that.

  165. lbendet July 4, 2011 at 5:42 pm #

    Q,
    You lament that nobody has anything nice to say about the rich—well surprise, I do.
    I was watching C-Span the other day and someone called in to say this. He said he was invited to a dinner party comprised of seven couples. He said the one with the least amount of money had a mere $500 Million and I’m not getting that wrong–no typo here.
    He said the group was made up of some Liberals, Centerists, Republicans and one Conservative. they were discussing raising taxes to help this country an all were in favor-except the one Conservative.
    Now isn’t that a heart-warming story?

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  166. Auntie River July 4, 2011 at 5:46 pm #

    Time for a quick bike ride before heading to the bonfire for roasted weenies and wine. But first I want to say Happy Birthday America, I love you! Why do I love America? Because, at the beginning of the revolution John Adams volunteered to be the defense lawyer for redcoats accused of massacre. That’s American. Because two books written by women, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “A Silent Spring” were able to change who we are. Because abolitionists refused to give in on the issue of slavery, and because white people were willing to march with Martin Luther King. Because women at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory stood up for their rights, and their deaths came to mean something. Because hippies smoked pot and grew their hair and challenged the rigid ideas of the world they were born into. Because I can bike through landscapes so lovely tears come to my eyes. Because so many of my hellos and goodbyes are accompanied by bear hugs.
    If I say I love my husband and my daughter, do you assume I think my family is better than any other family? Of course not. That’s how I love my country. It’s MY country, cruel and compassionate, ugly and beautiful, corrupt and innocent and crazy and wonderful. Talking don’t change nothin’. Live your life with kindness, love and compassion toward everyone including yourself. THAT is what matters.
    Happy fourth! Don’t drive drunk!

  167. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:48 pm #

    Gay NY jooish who wrote a poem about getting his back acre plowed by a blond.
    I almost smoked a joint with him at the fillmore 41 years ago.

  168. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:50 pm #

    Unless the spelling is intentional.

  169. Sean the Mystic July 4, 2011 at 5:51 pm #

    Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and taste.
    Do you fancy yourself a radical? Know then that in the twilight of this Dark Age of egalitarianism, collectivism, rationalism and utilitarianism, the real radical is the Aristocrat, the Artist, the Conqueror, the Irrationalist, the Mystic, the Sith Lord and the Satanist. Are you a man or a steer? Are you man enough to leave the herd behind and walk the Path of Darkness which is the Path of Power?
    Then raze this wretched civilization to the ground! Destroy everything that is weak, botched, mediocre and ugly! Use your Dark Art to invoke the Apocalypse!
    Of course most of you are not true “doomers”, but pathetic cowards clinging to the delusions of a dying age. The real face of doom is the event horizon of the black hole, the total overthrow of the moral order, a violent gnosis with the Dark Energy, a return to the primal order, a Satanic Singularity.
    Out of the ashes of a world in flames shall the empires of the future be built. The strong will once again annihilate the weak without pity or remorse, for they will serve the Lord of this World, who is as cruel as nature. You moderns have allowed yourself to become disarmed and blinded to the true nature of the world in which you live. Time to wake up, all you would-be conquerors and men of power! The age of pious weakness and false religions of the Light is ending. The time has come for the strong to stand and once more wield the cleansing power of the holy Darkness. The time has come to decide who is worthy of life, and who must die. The time has come to ask yourself: am I evil enough to survive?

  170. asia July 4, 2011 at 5:53 pm #

    Grouch….quit yr whining and scroll past.
    HAPPY HOLIDAY TO ALL

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  171. AMR July 4, 2011 at 5:56 pm #

    You’re putting words into my mouth. I don’t believe in breeding humans in the manner of dogs or horses, something that you routinely insinuate would be a good idea, with all your rhetoric about Kenyan marathoners, Greyhounds and the like.
    My position is that incest is a bad idea morally and pragmatically, inbreeding (i.e., at the level of cousins) is dubious, but pretty much anything else is fair game. With a few basic exceptions, people should be allowed to shack up and breed with whomever they want.
    I don’t advocate licentious reproduction; in fact, I think birth control is highly underused in many circles; but it sure as hell isn’t the government’s or society’s place to say tell people that they are to have their children with those of like race, or with those of unlike race. That decision is for the individual parents to make. There are some valid arguments to be made for non-racially based eugenics, but it’s a road to hell paved with good intentions, so it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution.
    Your talk about racial purity, as though the goal is pedigreed Jews or Englishmen or Kikuyus, is sick. It has a depraved Nazi vibe, and there are people alive today who have seen where that sort of rhetoric leads when it becomes the basis of policy–specifically, to Auschwitz, Srebrenica, and the killing fields of Rwanda.
    I wasn’t trying to get you beaten up by suggesting that you talk to Blacks about their racial inferiority. You’re the one who first made the suggestion, to Cash earlier in the thread. You’re projecting.
    I’m sure Cash will exercise his own right of reply as to whether or not you know more about the nature of Blacks than he does. I will say, however, that he certainly does not sound like an idealistic naif to me. He seems to have a keen understanding of a number of ethnic cultures, interactions between those cultures, and the general effects of culture on individuals and societies–much keener, I should note, than you seem to have, being blinded by racial theory and paranoia.
    In the same vein, let me state right now, although you probably won’t heed my advice, that you do not speak for me about my knowledge of or experience with any ethnic group. You do not speak for my ethnic prejudices or lack thereof. You are not my spokesman. It is safe to assume that if you continue to put words into my mouth as you did above, they will be pure bullshit. If they aren’t, it’s because even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
    As far as your reference to the “screwball comedy” is concerned, it’s a long way down from the bona fide, serious debate about genetic disorders that you and Cash had upthread.

  172. asia July 4, 2011 at 6:01 pm #

    I read about the Koch brothers..what evils have they done other than who they were born to?
    One of the things I read warned that …
    One of them sided with Mc Carthy [right side]
    and warned peeps about Stalin.
    If they are trying to take over the world…cite source. [they may be]
    No where did I read that Soros was a Nazi as I searched.

  173. asia July 4, 2011 at 6:07 pm #

    Thus spoke Vladisthustra…’We have no rights to people like this. Save Tibet but let the West die’
    I once read UTNE reader…article saying..
    I HATE OSWEGO NY, WHERE THE COLLEGE KIDS GO TO
    A TIBET BENEFIT WALKING BY A CRACK HOUSE!
    On Public Radio recently…
    I learned to hate libs at Harvard Divinity..
    the libss id cut cane in Niceragua but would never go walk thru slums talking to blacks!

  174. Buck Stud July 4, 2011 at 6:14 pm #

    Sean,
    Have you ever had your ass kicked and I do mean kicked bad? In the hospital for months bad? As my grandma used to say there’s always someone bigger, stronger,faster,smarter, and luckier than you are. Be careful what you wish for.

  175. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 6:15 pm #

    You said what you said – the rags of your false dignity cannot cover your nakedness now.
    ====================
    Vlad waxes poetic…

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  176. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 6:18 pm #

    Hey Auntie,I saw ol’ Albert once. He opened for Grand Funk Railroad at Springfield MA in maybe 72?I had nosebleed seats but the rebels which we were we elbowed our way to the front of the stage.

  177. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 6:25 pm #

    You are the Pope and therefore infallible in these matters but yet I wonder…If the Sun is giving us the energy anyway, it can’t be as dangerous as say, nuclear. Once the infastructure is in built and in place anyway.

  178. rippedthunder July 4, 2011 at 6:25 pm #

    “The Master of the Telecaster”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Collins

  179. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 6:32 pm #

    So Spokane’s only Black or partially Black neighborhood is called Felony Flats. How appropriate. It’s the most dangerous too I bet – I mean right now, not because the jail was once there.
    What street intersection is it near? Bus number?

  180. army July 4, 2011 at 6:34 pm #

    I wonder at times why people just don’t go to D.C. and start shooting. All of my normal friends are so upset with the way things are, they have turned so negative towards everything. I’ve never seen it so bad. Not even during the Vietnam War were the folks I worked with so negative.
    But it’s a differnt kind of negative. Back in the days, people rose up to the occasion…..now, nothing……..just fighting between each other. Road rage, cheating, disrespect, loss of values, wanting something for nothing, being self-centered…….is the order of the day.
    One day the whole system will shut down……..maybe pretty soon…….sadly, we will all sufer.
    Anyways……just keep checking the messages on your cell phone……you are so fu**ing important, you know!

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  181. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 6:34 pm #

    I take our case to you. Trace back the scrolls and judge whether Cash is guilty of insulting the White Race.

  182. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 6:38 pm #

    No need to breed them – the difference are already there. Bless the Maker and His works. The joy of Creation is in its infinite Diversity. But instead of blessing, Liberals curse and would undo the work of the Maker – making all Humanity into a mono chrome Dung Heap – and all in the name of Diversity! What a Sin and a Mockery. May they be cursed.
    The Hierarchy has no idea how many Whites they’ve lost by going Native as they have.

  183. Neon Vincent July 4, 2011 at 6:41 pm #

    “Good ending Vinnie. That’s exactly what I’m saying. We can’t take anymore diversity. Way too fragile.”
    I’m stunned. I asked that question to back you off a rhetorical cliff and you kept walking in reverse and fell. I haven’t done that online in years, so I didn’t know if I still had it in me. Looks like I do.
    “This is the Earth, a place of conflict. A Nation by definition is a group of sucessful fighters. Why apply the screws to Whites and Whites alone? The Sioux got screwed by the Ojibwas, fled the Woods, and then screwed the previous residents of the Dakotas.”
    You didn’t claim Native American ancestry, but making you face the issue did change the kind of talk you engaged in. In both cases, I admire your honestly, even if I find your views repugnant.
    Since you conceded both of my points above, and refused to address the rest of my thesis, I’ve decided that descretion is the better part of valor, so I declare victory and depart the field of battle. I’m looking forward to finding out if you’re up to the challenge next week, when the debate starts all over again. See you later, Impaler!

  184. contemonte July 4, 2011 at 6:44 pm #

    Jim, do you own a gun?

  185. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 6:45 pm #

    I bite my hand. Strike it. Sit on it. Anything to stop it from saluting in the Roman Way.
    Just remember, Love is the Law. Love under Will. You seem a little Yang there, bro.
    Christian Warriors followed your advice. 5000 Saxon unarmed chieftans were sacraficed writhing in their own blood after being invited to a feast. The Vikings never offered as a big a sacrafice to the Grey Man.

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  186. Sean the Mystic July 4, 2011 at 6:46 pm #

    Sir, why would I allow myself to have my “ass kicked”, as you so pithily put it? As a servant of the Lord of this World, I fear no one. Fear is my ally. Fear is my power.
    As we enter the time foreseen by all the dark prophets, the time called Apocalypse, “Helter Skelter” and the return of the Old Ones, “with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy”, I too will shout and kill and revel in joy and fear. I did not choose to be born into this dark time and place, but I will play the hand I am dealt and perhaps if I am lucky I can build a new empire among the ruins.
    There is nothing left to hold the American Empire together now; its people are divided in a thousand ways, such as no lasting nation can be. In the parlance of our times, America has sacrificed everything for the creed “get rich or die trying”, and now she must surely die….

  187. Cabra1080 July 4, 2011 at 6:56 pm #

    “Surely many in this nation see an approach to an abyss.”
    Actually, we are beyond the approach to an abyss. We have entered the abyss and are sliding down the vortex with increasing velocity. There is absolutely nothing in the whole wide world to stop this slide. All resources are heavily and irreversibly depleted and the hungry population looms too large. Technology cannot save us because technology itself is starving. Prepare for a bump, a BIG bump.
    The past 200 years of industrial civilization was just a one-time blip on the radar screen of eternity.
    What becomes of all these nukes is anyone’s guess. Happy 4th of July…

  188. Pucker July 4, 2011 at 7:16 pm #

    The economy did Fuck me…
    I’m barely alive…
    Obama did spunk me…
    Our leaders so jive…
    Education to make me somebody…
    Put on a suit, a tie…
    Give me a place, stucture, order…
    Feel like I’m special inside…
    But the dream has crashed…
    I’m lost, in a cloud….
    Awaiting the Fuehrer…
    So that I can goosestep around….

  189. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 7:28 pm #

    Ssst Ssst, Macha! Macha! It is customary for Costa Rican men to compliment women in public places. These cat calls are called piropos and are usually considered harmless unless excessively vulgar. Women are advised to ignore them since any response in seen as an invitation for attention. Macha refers to someone light skinned.

  190. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 7:34 pm #

    I do it all the time, Vin. Blacks accuse me of racism and I just smile or say “Sure just like you”. What can they say? It’s true. That’s what you Liberals don’t get. Whites aren’t the most racist people in the world but the least. What other race would give their whole Civilization away as we are doing now?

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  191. Glensufi July 4, 2011 at 7:38 pm #

    Tripp,
    Actually not so much a question of the panel size but the balance of equipment required IE battery pack, inverter, etc. For backup purposes probably a couple 200watt panels would be sufficient since there is a long time for charging between expected outages. Depending on how long you want to run the pump the battery pack is crucial. Any competent electrician should be able to advise.

  192. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 8:02 pm #

    And Noddens is Lord of the Abyss…

  193. progress,conserve July 4, 2011 at 8:06 pm #

    Lot of racism on this discussion thread, today.
    The perpetrators may protest otherwise, but there it is – useless, heavy, and hatefilled.
    It is a sad thing to see – on this well-crafted website, featuring the work of our intelligent, and VERY tolerant, Jewish host. And on this, the day that celebrates the birth of a grand experiment in government.
    Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
    Thunderstorms brought the blessings of rain and cool air into the north Georgia mountains for the evening.
    Now, I’m going back out in hopes of watching stuff blow up.

  194. Glensufi July 4, 2011 at 8:15 pm #

    Auntie,
    Remarkable woman you.

  195. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 8:30 pm #

    6 foot beanstock I meant
    ===============
    No, you meant 6 foot beanstalk.

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  196. Dbluge July 4, 2011 at 8:33 pm #

    SEAN THE MYSTIC:-
    “The time has come for the strong to stand and once more wield the cleansing power of the holy Darkness. The time has come to decide who is worthy of life, and who must die. The time has come to ask yourself: am I evil enough to survive?”
    This is what happens when you take too many holidays in Mordor…

  197. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 8:55 pm #

    Cry me a river. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a work of Hatred for Southern Whites. This desire to be better than other Whites and to justify ourselves to Minorities (who hate us) will be the end of us.

  198. DeeJones July 4, 2011 at 8:58 pm #

    WAge, et al, recycling plastic bottles uses less energy than the manufacture of new ones, all they do is melt them down again, at a much lower temp too.
    Plus they can be made into many items, such a re-usable shopping bags, your doggie bed, etc.
    So, go ahead and recycle them.
    As for actually buying drinking water, then recycling the bottles, that is just stupid.
    Instead, buy a nice metal bottle, and fill it from a Brita or PUR water filter, and keep it in the fridge. Water just as good and pure as anything you buy in a plastic bottle, with out the tiny amounts of plastic that is released into the water in the bottle.
    Enjoy.
    Oh, and fuck off Flad,
    Dee 🙂

  199. Vlad Krandz July 4, 2011 at 9:05 pm #

    Lots of White Self Hatred – racism of Whites by Whites. The festering wound of self hatred must be lanced. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it.

  200. metuselah July 4, 2011 at 9:38 pm #

    Blah. This guy was miles ahead of most whites, including his white smart ass host, and probably still is:
    http://youtu.be/0D-ktFALbsE

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  201. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 9:45 pm #

    “What street intersection is it near? Bus number?”
    28? You could check out STA.com, I think. West of Ash/Maple, north of the river, south of Monroe. Should be at least a line or two that would get you in there.
    And it’s perfectly safe to walk around in Felony Flats too. Not at all like a real ghetto. My wife says that Hillyard would be your better chance though.

  202. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 9:48 pm #

    Obvious foil. But who do you belong to?

  203. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 9:49 pm #

    Sean the Mystic, I mean.

  204. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 9:51 pm #

    But I don’t want a battery pack. I have enough water to make it through the night. I want to pull water in the sunshine when the grid is down. How many watts would that require? I have a backup wind turbine coming online this year too.

  205. Desertrat July 4, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

    I’ve been free enough to not have to be anywhere at anybody else’s appointed time for over thirty years, now. I go where I want to, whenever I want to and stay as long as I want. Don’t have to obey anybody’s orders, from one day to the next. Living quite comfortably amid many and many an acre of elbow room. Bigwigs harumph and spout off a lot, but I just ignore their BS.
    Deserts are way too harsh for most folks, but I’ve enjoyed every moment of my time here. Living is easy, since I know the “how to” of the desert.
    I like “easy”. 🙂

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  206. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 10:07 pm #

    And plans to build a 5000 gallon ferro-cement cistern to get me through outages, and dark, calm and cloudy days.

  207. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 10:09 pm #

    “I’ve been free enough to not have to be anywhere at anybody else’s appointed time for over thirty years, now.”
    And I thought waking up to only 2 alarms in the last 3 years was free. You got me beat by an unrecoverable distance. Jealous.

  208. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 10:15 pm #

    I’m not the looser who comes on a peak oil blog
    =================
    OMG, stop them Lord. I beg you in the name of Samuel Johnson.

  209. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 10:18 pm #

    “What becomes of all these nukes is anyone’s guess. Happy 4th of July…”
    There’s the rub, isn’t it? That’s the one thing that worries me. Post-peak, everything starts recovering, but there’s always this one dark cloud in the back of my mind. If there was one task worth banning together for, one last task to shore up as a country, perhaps one last defining moment as a nation, it would be to snuff out the nuclear threat. You can’t prepare for nuclear winter, no matter how many years you’ve been at it.

  210. metuselah July 4, 2011 at 10:20 pm #

    Whose Samuel Johnson? 😀

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  211. metuselah July 4, 2011 at 10:26 pm #

    Good rant:
    http://youtu.be/D4YMbsEm3ms

  212. Dr. Doom July 4, 2011 at 10:26 pm #

    Wow, my password still works after all these months. Good ole TypoPad.
    JHK’s long card is the not so simple way he has of rationally looking at what’s possible and doable, and not getting suckered by all the “technograndiosity” we are fed as in “keeping hope alive”, “daring to hope” or whatever. It’s interesting that he doesn’t follow his own observations and conclusions too far, least they bum everyone out, including himself. That he leaves to the readers. In his books about the future, humans are always a bit thinned out. That may come to pass, but I doubt much usable infrastructure will remain.
    His recent article for Orion was simply outstanding. Just about sums it all up, and again, the reader can read between the lines on what all the occupants of those fancy high rises and exurb mansions will be doing in the not too distant future. Worm food, mostly, I’m afraid. See Rome, Western Empire, Collapse. Speed up film.

  213. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 10:47 pm #

    you know even less about music. Winton Marcellas, and others prove the lie to your claims.
    ===========
    Wynton Marsalis

  214. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 10:51 pm #

    “If the Sun is giving us the energy anyway, it can’t be as dangerous as say, nuclear. Once the infastructure is in built and in place anyway.”
    Again, here’s the rub, once the infrastructure is built. But what do we mean by that? Do we mean replacing the entire oil and coal infrastructure with solar, because surely that is an impossible task this late in the piece. And solar will never ever, on its most charmed day, be oil. Oil is the representative of eons of solar energy sequestered through geologic time by living creatures that built up to form it. Dense, stable, portable, liquid, concentrated like no other. Solar panels simply harvest the sun’s energy at that moment in time. Just that one second’s worth of power. It barely registers on the scale compared to a quart of oil. So right off we ought to still be talking about radical conservation practices preferentially to alternative energy sources.
    Second, the rare earth elements required to manufacture PV panels are already past their peak supply, and the so-called solar revolution hasn’t even begun.
    Third, solar is not a simple technology. For all its merits the deployment of solar technology requires a certain amount of economic buoyancy from the consuming population. That economic buoyancy is eroding severely as we speak.
    Solar is a one generation transitional technology to my mind. It’s worth employing for sure, but by the time it’s time to replace those panels I would be highly surprised if we still possessed the economic buoyancy to do so, or the mining and manufacturing capability to make it happen technically. Get them, and use them for important tasks, but do it with the idea that this is only to make the transition back to zero more comfortable.
    Other than that, yes, it’s a lot safer than nuclear! My god, what a mess nuclear is!! How anyone can look at Japan and Nebraska right now, and think, hmm, I think we should do more of this, is beyond me. Especially someone who really understands where we’re headed, and how much less control over Nature we’re likely to have there.

  215. asia July 4, 2011 at 11:23 pm #

    mosdef is fulla s*it.

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  216. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 11:24 pm #

    Wait, what if I’m already behind her?
    ===============
    Then if you took the one in front you’d be traveling “the old dirt road.”
    You’ve done a yeoman’s job of paraphrasing but for others reading here those last 3 lines from Frost are:
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.

    A simple but profound poem. My very favorite.

  217. trippticket July 4, 2011 at 11:25 pm #

    Wait a minute now, no talkin’ shit about Mosdef.

  218. asia July 4, 2011 at 11:26 pm #

    ‘lie to your claims’
    Really? I know of no Black Americans that buy or
    listen to Blues?
    Are you Black?

  219. asia July 4, 2011 at 11:33 pm #

    I say Whites are the most violent race, as judged by number of bombs dropped.
    worse than…
    Darfur
    Rwanda
    Somalia
    Congo
    Zaire
    Uganda

  220. progress,conserve July 4, 2011 at 11:39 pm #

    Tripp,
    3 horsepower is a pretty big well pump. Horsepower increases as a function of depth, flow rate, and (somewhat?) age of the installation.
    My pump is 1.5 hp, hanging 250 feet down a 500 foot well. It flows about 10 gpm when the well hasn’t been pumped for a while – since the water is within about 85 feet of the ground surface. After a couple of hours of continuous pumping, the flow rate drops down to about 1.5 gallon per minute – which is my signal that it’s past time to shut down whatever I’m using water for – usually irrigation – to let the well recover for a half hour or so.
    My installation is 3 years old, now. I looked into “variable speed” well pumps, but stopped because of the high cost – and thinking that I’d go to a variable speed when the time came to replace the first pump. It’s on flexible poly pipe, so I can pull it myself if I ever have to.
    The problem with well pumps on PV solar, without battery banks, is going to be the amperage required to get the pump started. That’s considerably higher than the running current for most any standard electric motor or appliance.
    I know there are specialty pumps for solar designed to have a very low starting load. But I think they only work on “low heads,” where the water is close to the level of your house.
    So, one of your first questions would be – how deep is your water table, month after month.
    That’s what I know about off the top of my head – and based on a fair amount of research and some hands-on work.
    I’ll be interested to hear SolarGuy’s response – or anyone else’s.
    Without reliable running water, civilization is pretty much out of business, IMHO.

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  221. metuselah July 4, 2011 at 11:50 pm #

    mosdef is fulla s*it.
    ==
    Yeah? Well, I don’t know enough to say. Except that in that vid he was miles closer to the truth than most in the US.
    Mr. T. thinks I’m overly frightened. He thinks that if he be a good boy on his isolated farm they’ll leave him alone. I think the outrages of the Nazis were just a trial run compared to what’s coming. Certainly the potential is there. I hope I’m wrong.

  222. asia July 4, 2011 at 11:53 pm #

    Are you in USA?
    whats ahead?
    Mos was talking about cops killing folks…..

  223. Qshtik July 4, 2011 at 11:55 pm #

    Back in the days,
    Unintuitive as it may sound, the expression is “Back in the day.”

  224. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:02 am #

    I take our case to you.
    ===============
    Sorry Vlad, enough people here hate me already without getting mixed up in this kerfuffle.

  225. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:07 am #

    descretion
    =========
    discretion

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  226. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:24 am #

    banning together
    ==========
    banding

  227. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:26 am #

    Whose Samuel Johnson? 😀
    ============
    Google it.

  228. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:29 am #

    Whose Samuel Johnson? 😀
    ============
    P.S. It’s Who is.

  229. lpat July 5, 2011 at 12:31 am #

    Chris Hedges opens his birthday card on truthdig.com today with three powerful paragraphs before telling us that Nader has had enough. Hedges then quotes Nader as saying we need organizers, organizers, organizers.
    The trouble is: organize what? We have only one ideology, one religion in this country. Unbridled, unfettered laissez faire capitalism. Greed. Selfishness. The gospel according to the syphilitic German’s alter girl, Ayn Rand.
    The government’s depredations of the past century have completely destroyed the left in this country. A left that has completely abandoned the working class for the middle is the silly kerfuffle we see at work today.
    Instead of working for economic justice we’ve all been seduced by the dream of middle-class comfort and status. A powerful witches’ brew it is. To the extent, Mr. K., that we Americans realize that that is what’s a stake, there will be hell to pay. Anything, anyone in the way of maintaining that illusion is forfeit.
    The 500 years of the modern age, of unlimited resources, land, manpower (slave, indentured, proletarian), energy, wealth, have been a dream.
    All of the laws of capital a pure illusion.
    I can’t think of a better metaphor for the state of our hyper-complex system than that of an aging aircraft, its systems failing one by one. We’re just beginning to fall out of top-of-climb.
    No orchestra to play us to the ground. Just re-runs.

  230. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:32 am #

    His recent article for Orion
    ===========
    Can you provide a link?

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  231. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 12:34 am #

    “It isn’t racist to hate your oppressor.”
    -suburbanE-
    Suburb, this one short statement of yours excuses both racism and hate – two things which should never be excused.
    “Is it possible for there to be a black racist? Black people have a hell of a lot more reason to hate you than you do them.”
    -suburb-
    So hate is OK?
    And a black man can’t be a racist?
    That’s some nasty and twisted logic, Mr. Suburb An Empire.
    ================
    I give Vlad plenty of hell for the way his fear and hate screws up this discussion board.
    But it still seems strange to see the precise polar opposite coming from a thoughtful poster such as yourself, SuburbEmpire.
    ================
    But it’s still hate.
    And it’s still racism.
    And it’s still wrong.

  232. truthteller July 5, 2011 at 12:49 am #

    Jesus H! Jumped straight to the racist bullshit this week, didn’t it, instead of a day or so of relevant discussion beforehand! Man, so much intolerance out there!
    I watched a couple of interesting flicks on Netflix streaming last night, both gay/lesbian history films (“Before Stonewall” and “After Stonewall”) and I’m not even gay, I just find the world an interesting place and I can’t say that I really understand the world without having listened to and absorbed the POV of people who aren’t all like me. Liberal that I am, I saw a lot of parallels between that group of people and the history of the civil rights movement for blacks in America, as well as the women’s rights movement in America. Bottom line . . . How can ANYONE claim freedom for themselves while oppressing another? It’s so much hypocrisy and bullshit, if you really look at it.
    If you can watch Dr. King make his “I Have A Dream” speech, and not be moved as a human being and as an American, then you have a heart of stone, IMO, and you should search your heart for humanity.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

  233. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:49 am #

    the silly kerfuffle we see at work
    ===========
    Perhaps you are unaware that the word kerfuffle may only be used once per day on this blog and that I got there first at 12:02AM. Sorry.

  234. Dr. Doom July 5, 2011 at 12:58 am #

    From the JHK Home page: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6336

  235. lpat July 5, 2011 at 1:11 am #

    Remind me why I would’ve read you?

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  236. wagelaborer July 5, 2011 at 1:21 am #

    I’m all about recycling. I just doubt that the dog bed is actually recycled plastic, since the tag says something different.
    And I drink tap water, bizarre as that is in this day and age. I won’t touch water in a plastic bottle.
    http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2010/03/battle-against-dehydration.html

  237. truthteller July 5, 2011 at 1:28 am #

    I put my last post out there as food for thought. I am not a black woman, and I have no claim to the oppression that the black people in this country have gone through. I am a white woman, born in the Deep South to the exact same conditions that Dr. King speaks of . . . poverty, injustice, and oppression. As a miracle of Dr. King’s work, I did not grow up in an atmosphere of segregation and inequality. I rode the school bus with little black boys and girls, and they were my friends. I benefited from the civil rights movement as a child of the south. I grew up believing that I could work hard, use my brain and my discipline, and go much farther than my mother had the opportunity to go, and that was by benefit of the women’s movement. I benefited from public education, and from the schools in Mississippi teaching evolution (not creationism), the benefits of a scientifically oriented education. I learned to question, and to say “NO” to oppression. I learned the ethic of hard work and discipline and kindness and decency toward my fellow man and woman, regardless of race or creed. These are the blessings of the “TRUE” America, my friends! People who stand up, and speak up! Perhaps we are in a world of shit, but I’m here to tell you . . . not all is lost! We’re not all a bunch of mouth-breathing morons out here in this country (even the South, JHK! 🙂
    I went to my first day of first grade, with no shoes on my feet, and I have a master’s degree and make pretty damn good money today. I HAD A DREAM. And it started, with someone telling me I COULD. So, ClusterFuckers, know that all hope is not lost . . . if I could DO IT, perhaps your children can TOO . . . meet these seemingly insurmountable challenges and meet them with dignity and certitude. We CAN DO THIS!
    Let freedom ring! FREE AT LAST! And I hold hands with my fellows and meet that future willingly.

  238. truthteller July 5, 2011 at 1:53 am #

    Judge not by the color of someone’s skin (or the nature of their genitalia or sexual orientation) but the content of their character.

  239. truthteller July 5, 2011 at 1:59 am #

    Or even their tattoos and piercings or NASCAR leanings 🙂 Judge NOT! You’d be damned surprised at how many tattooed, smart-as-hell blue-collar bikers I know personally 🙂 People who can quote poetry and read philosophy books (YES, some of those people READ, man! And FAR ABOVE a fifth-grade level :)~

  240. tasman88 July 5, 2011 at 2:05 am #

    One Breeding Female Available.
    On young breeding female. Interested in surviving the impending apocalypse. Wishes to connect with strong and successful Armed Survival Compound in need of young stock.
    In addition to sexual services, can cook and clean. Also know HTML.
    =====
    I wonder how long before we see personal ads like this?

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  241. lpat July 5, 2011 at 2:06 am #

    A libertarian, ragging on the central bank (suprise! suprise!), bringing the K. up short for idealizing a non-existent past. My, my! Nothing is as we suppose it to be, have been or to be. All uglier and far more accidental than your philosophy dreams of.

  242. lpat July 5, 2011 at 2:31 am #

    “Gentlemen, he said
    I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
    I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
    But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
    Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards”
    Damn, Bob.
    We’re so proud of ourselves. We’ve done all this by ourselves. All these glittering towers of glass and steel and Babel. These last 500 years of wealth and glory. Earned by the sweat of our brow and glorious intelligence.
    Jared Diamond has tried to show us that the glory of the west is just a confluence of accidents. Plate tectonics.
    Oh, and newbie. Fred Hoyle. Thank you for that quote. Wow! I am of the generation of “heavy!” Maybe the heavy of all time:
    “It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical preequisties so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however compentent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high=level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, the planteary stem fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them ther will be one chance, and one chance only.”
    One chance only.
    This Earth is Eden. As harsh a mistress as she is, the conditions for the evolution of life have been perfect here. Out of all the billions of stars and planets.
    All the chances we’ve been given to get it right.
    The funnel is narrowing.

  243. rocco July 5, 2011 at 2:35 am #

    Excellent points, but my fellow co workers and many have letters of education after their name, tell me they do not care what Science says, the earth is only 10,000 years old, climate change is false,and we did not evolve, its the same group of animals since the flood. Socialism is causing all the money problems,and Jesus hates gays,and as soon as Sarah or Michelle become President and instill Christian Values( right wing view) American will rise again,until the rapture occurs. I cannot wait until the rapture as a B.A.A, (born again Athenian) I can garden in peace. Happy 4th of July!! Zeus bless us all. Good article JHK.

  244. xhalor July 5, 2011 at 2:53 am #

    My apologies for whatever repulsive posts were posted while my terminal was commandeered using my account name. I’m much too horrified to even look. These are people I will probably have I lifelong bond with.
    If I don’t indulge them, they use physical duress and, it hurts.
    The thing about these people is that they still believe.
    I still believe.
    We all swore an oath to defend the Constitution.
    Not some fuckin’ personality.
    We’re all pretty much in agreement. For the foreseeable future, that better not goddamn change.
    This is your blog. I’ve intruded enough.
    See ya in couple of centuries?

  245. rocco July 5, 2011 at 3:00 am #

    THE easy path is to kill, destroy,raze,that requires no courage,espeically when brought against the defenseless, fear is stronger than reason, terror is stronger than reason. The dark side is so easy to follow. Thats why to me the strongest act by Jesus was when he told his fellows, to turn your cheek when slapped. BUT not to fear history shows your path was many more followers than Jesus, Gandi,or Martin Luther King, fear,rage,and darkness are easy, thinking, working, compassion require courage and strength. May Zeus bless us all.

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  246. tucsonspur July 5, 2011 at 3:02 am #

    So, you open with a line from “Sympathy for the Devil”, and I guess that prelude is supposed to introduce us to how cleverly far you can take the satanic and destructive.
    Let’s instead call you Sean the Septic, because your rant is not only a one pound bag filled with twenty pounds of putrefaction, but also a one pound bag covered externally with the excrement that only a spewer of shit could produce.
    You say, “Destroy everything that is weak, botched, mediocre, and ugly.” Why not start with yourself, O courageous one. Come on, get the balls, it’ll be over quickly if you do it right.
    You also say, “most are not true doomers, but pathetic cowards..”
    O leader of the satanic horde, tell me, I beg, if I destroy the world can I heroically enter the dark kingdom?
    Your rant is full of the sound and fury of a confused adolescent in search of himself and finding an internal map leading only to an angry contrariness intended to further provoke adults.
    Sean the Septic, Satanic Shit Shoveler

  247. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:09 am #

    Right on. Women immediately go into prostitution under duress. As Jim said thru one of his characters, they are not moral creatures. At least it will be the end of the bullshit posturing known as Feminism. Too bad young men wont get to enjoy the illusion of romance that we had. But it was going sour anyway – way too much power imbalance against men.

  248. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:16 am #

    Now do you see the method in my madness? You’ll never agree with my views, but without me would this man ever face the contradictions inherent in the hatred of his own race?
    That was official dogma a couple of decades ago: only Whites could be racists. My Women Studies Major girlfriend preached to me to that effect. It’s gone underground since it’s so patently absurd, but they hard core still believe it 100%.

  249. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 3:19 am #

    Hey Tootsie… take your meds, your real manners are showing

  250. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:26 am #

    I think I knew most of that, but it’s so easy to forget and fall back into the old way of thinking. The problem with “head knowledge” I guess. You don’t know something until you know it with your whole body and being.
    Thom Hartman put it the end of oil beautifully: the last hour of ancient sunlight.
    Nebraska? What’s going on?

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  251. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:36 am #

    The Left always says this with one side of their mouth as they condemn all those who disagree with them with the other.
    People aren’t going to get along – look at the flash mob attacks by Blacks. And things aren’t even that bad yet. Nations need alot more ethnic homogeneity than we have now. We will never recover since we aren’t a united people anymore. Sure there were always lots of Blacks – concentrated in the South and without power. Now they’re everywhere and the Hispanics too – both vying for an ever larger piece of the vanishing pie. It’s over. Separation is the way towards any kind of recovery from here on in.

  252. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 3:55 am #

    So it is raciest to sit in a ghetto in Camden NJ and resent the man?
    My gawd, listen to yourselves…. most blacks in this country are plenty suspect of whites, and with good reason!
    That’s all I’m saying….. a person in a ghetto has a hell of a lot more reason to resent the person in a plantation house than a person in a plantation house has to resent the person in the ghetto….
    person… not black and white…. person.
    If a person kidnaps another person…. makes them work for free, treats them cruelly, is forced to let them go, and just goes on resenting them …. and their children resent that persons children….. that is a trans generational asshole.
    you don’t even have to add white/black to the story to get it
    as a matter of fact it helps if you take it out.
    A group that has been victimized by a group of trans generation assholes deserves to have a chip on their shoulder… no?

  253. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 4:10 am #

    Now.. you.
    Why are you so afraid to use the word “nigger”?
    Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
    Why are you afraid of the truth about yourself
    Would you like to see what your posts would look like if you took out the word “black” and substitute the word “nigger”?… I would!
    let’s do that……
    “The Left always says this with one side of their mouth as they condemn all those who disagree with them with the other.
    People aren’t going to get along – look at the flash mob attacks by Niggers. And things aren’t even that bad yet. Nations need alot more ethnic homogeneity than we have now. We will never recover since we aren’t a united people anymore. Sure there were always lots of Niggers – concentrated in the South and without power. Now they’re everywhere and the Spics too – both vying for an ever larger piece of the vanishing pie. It’s over. Separation is the way towards any kind of recovery from here on in.”
    —–or there’s this instant classic
    “Experience old girl. Also keeping my eyes open in general. Most people here who so piously pontificate have obviously never lived near Niggers, lived with Niggers (1 once), gone to school with Niggers, and worked with Niggers. It really shows by the sappy idealism and relentless overestimation of their abilities and character.
    What you call “getting to you” is actually your mind starting to work. Don’t be afraid – that’s how it feels as you begin to lose a paradigm. It gets easier once you’ve done it a few times as I have. Liberals are the most resistant to growth and change and thus almost as conservative as Communists.”
    ————–
    Wow… I know why you don’t use the word “nigger”… even though we know that’s how you really feel….
    It’s because if you use the word “nigger” to express your stupidity… you suddenly sound as stupid as you are.

  254. AMR July 5, 2011 at 4:20 am #

    Washington wouldn’t be surprised–dismayed, yes, but not surprised. Joe Bageant wrote that George Washington was appalled by the cretinism of Winchester’s voters when he rolled the whiskey barrel out to them during his campaign for the House of Burgesses. Nearly three centuries later, according to Bageant, a lawyer visiting from Atlanta, himself not a stranger to Southern backwardness, took a look around Winchester and announced in astonishment, “Dumb Lordy, Crackers, I reckon!” The longue duree dies hard.
    I’m not sure that NASCAR really has an early American analog. I say this because even though it’s stupid, vulgar and wasteful as hell, it isn’t nearly as violent as it looks or as it should be. From a safety perspective, it’s pretty close to harmless. If large numbers of Americans were obsessed with something in that particular vein of idiocy in the pre-automotive era, I’m not aware of it.
    Also, some of the sorts of violence that you mentioned endure to this day. Case in point: Jefferson and Washington’s fellow Virginian Michael Vick. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s a modern analog to the “rough and tumble” fighting that was common among Scots frontiersmen in Appalachia. The old-time Cracker understanding of “rough and tumble” was a lot rougher than ours; causing an opponent’s death or putting out his eye were considered fair game. I don’t know of a neighborhood anywhere in the United States where that level of hand-to-hand violence is accepted by anything resembling a plurality today; maybe it’s accepted in deepest Appalachia or our most degenerate urban ghettos, but even for our most fucked up backwaters it sounds like the province of renegades who know better than to let their neighbors know that they brawl like that.

  255. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 4:29 am #

    Oh… I wish I had included this one with the above translations…
    Another Vlad instant classic.
    “Very few younger Niggers like that kind of music anymore. It’s a Honky thing now. Honkys have always been able to appreciate nigger music – but very few Niggers able to appreciate our’s. This is just more proof, as if more was needed, of how alien the two races are to each other – exactly as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson said.”
    HAHAHAHAHA!
    boy do you sound dumb!
    I think I may spend mondays doing Vlad translations… until you quit race baiting, or Jim bannes me for reposting your posts with the words “honky” and “nigger” replacing “white” and “black”…
    Some things are worth getting suspended from school for!
    Race bait on my friend! I look forward to translating for you!

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  256. xhalor July 5, 2011 at 4:55 am #

    Dammit. I nearly forgot. As for the perils of nuclear weapons, they sure as shit brought a swift end to all that convenient continent grabbin’ now didn’t they?

  257. Eleuthero July 5, 2011 at 6:04 am #

    Our annual multi-hundred-million to trillion
    dollar annual deficits started PRECISELY when
    Reagan lowered the income tax on the rich.
    David Stockman called “bullshit” immediately
    but even his own party no longer listens.
    There were no loony “supply-siders” when
    Eisenhower was Prez and we were kings of the
    universe. No one thought that a 70% tax on
    millionaires was unfair. Only in this era
    of cerebral decrepitude do we actually believe
    that some dumbshit like Zuckerberg or a scammer
    like Vikram Pandit “deserve” a $500M year.
    I say SOAK THE FUCKING RICH. No man’s contribution
    to society (especially idiotic “contributions”
    like Facebook which give the NSA all the
    invasions of YOUR privacy they’ll ever need)
    are so earth-shattering that they deserve
    a HUNDRED LIFETIMES of earnings in a year.
    Not a living soul on earth.
    If an average man makes $40K he will make
    roughly $1.6 million IN A LIFETIME. And that
    average man is the one who collects your
    garbage so that your neighborhood doesn’t
    look like Lagos, Nigeria, he pours your
    morning eye-opener in Starbucks, he delivers
    your mail (with astonishing reliability, too)
    every day, and he Fedexes that critical
    document overnight.
    As long as we celebritize useless-as-tits-on-a-
    boar plutocrats and do not have a proper respect
    for the daily toilings of the common man, we’re
    going to end up … well … basically where we
    are already heading. I don’t think the average
    American has felt as economically insecure as
    they do now since 1945.
    E.

  258. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 6:48 am #

    JHK,
    I would like to apologize to YOU for attacking Vlad and tootsie in your online place.
    Tootsie came on a post late in the day a few weeks or months back and said “I’m sorry everyone, I didn’t take my meds”
    It was sincere, and I believed it… now when I figure out that it is tootsie (fabian) I back down and let it lie… I figure tootsie is just being hostile because he/she forgot to take their meds…not their fault.
    I tune into the CFN, because I am DESPERATE for some kernels of truth… some thread of sanity in a BS filled media environment…
    I have seen so many thoughtful people flock away from the comment thread and thoughtful discussion of peak oil, and the hopelessness of the burbs…. and the only reason I can see for it to happen, is the same reason I have vacated for months at a time…. the sudden race baiting.
    While I realize that Tootsie puts the “fuck” in Clusterfuck nation…. it seems that Vlad is the Cluster….. I understand they are a part of this as well… but does it ALWAYS have to get into a “racism” “reverse racism” (no such word by the way… there is only racism) thing?
    Vlad doesn’t even link Peak oil to his post industrial white/black tribal war…
    Hell it isn’t even post industrial… he doesn’t get why black people don’t embrace Donnie and Marie, and Lawrence Welk???
    Seriously. That’s what I got out of his first post today… and I couldn’t stop laughing at him long enough to explain it.
    I grew up around nasty, blatant racists… passive aggressive white assholes who used the bible to justify the most vile perverted views. As soon as I could get away I fled to a ghetto.. and stayed in them. (the worst ghettos to live in are poor white neighborhoods… the best, are Latino…)
    18th street and Van Buren in Phoenix
    30th and Welton in Denver (five points)
    56th Ave and Pembroke in Hollywood Fl
    Swenson and Twain in Las Vegas (white ghetto)
    I have spent my adult life moving around the country and living in the most affordable and “least desirable” places to live…. you know what? I knew my neighbors, even as a resident for one year… I knew their names. Especially in Hollywood. I was not only the only white guy living in a half mile radius, but being gay made it “riskier”.
    Turned out there wasn’t any risk at all… at least not from my neighbors, the only people who ever hassled me for renting where I chose to rent were cops.
    My neighbors in Hollywood and Denver invited me to their barbeques and holiday/family dinners like Christmas and Thanksgiving… sure there were problems, but not with the people that I lived around. They shared my problems… they looked out for me, and expected the same in return.
    inVla(i)d says he has “worked and lived” around blacks… and I have worked and lived around people like Vlad while they are working with blacks…
    I know that Vlad and people like him are immune to any attempt to drag them kicking and screaming into the LAST century… I have no desire to change him.
    HOWEVER… he is getting people to engage him like he is making thoughtful points… and it has spread like oil in the gulf.
    What Vlad has been bringing to the table is toxic crap… with a light razzberry reduction.
    It may be a symptom of peak oil… maybe increasing racism is a symptom of peak oil… maybe oil is what made integration and other “liberal” programs possible… and that is a discussion worth having… maybe.
    But the racism… weak after weak…
    I am not trying to change Vlad’s mind for him… I don’t care about him enough to try…but I do care enough to stand up to him in the presence of others… in person, or in here.
    I come from a long line of Ad men… the Detroit kind. I know how to spot destructive self serving bullshit…And I know what even latent racism does to a place….
    My own grandmother was a racist.. but at least she had the courtesy to use the word “nigger” when referring to black people… so everyone knew she was a stupid, lazy, drunk, who had a vile temper and a small mind. She died in 2005… she would have died alone, except her family was better than her, and could suck it up and seem to forgive the decades of drunk for her last week.
    And no.. I never stood up to my grandmother… something I regret.
    But because of that I won’t sit back and listen in a forum where I can speak back.
    All I know is I am moving very soon, and have decided that cable to to toxic to subscribe to… Vlad, and the Huffington Post have me thinking that I don’t need an Internet bill either.
    So I may be back to “shame” Vlad… I may not be back at all.
    Anyway…. Jim, sorry to pick a fight in your bar… I will click through on your google ad and pay for the damages.
    And Vlad… I’ll be back! (at least once more) to translate for you… so think about how many times you really want to use the word “black” in a post…cause imma gonna translate for you!

  259. old69 July 5, 2011 at 6:48 am #

    Investment
    There is nothing left to invest in. This concept, investment, that dominated so much of the last few decades was based on growing markets, amplifications of results from technology and innovation and new processes, new inventions, growing wealth, more of this and that and you name it. The bases is you put some money in A and you got A + a1, there is some kind of amplification factor that can be based on anything at all, but mostly wage differentials, power differentials, economies of scale, technologies applied, globalization, all kinds of levers and economies of scale and amplifying mechanism that gave you a return, you got more out compared to what you put in, you got more money, more energy, more results – products, more profit, more gain, more anything out of something compared to what was put in.
    Well this one trick pony is mostly dead. There are no new amplification processes in sight, there is nothing that seems to be available that will give you a gain. Yes, you have the developing world that is increasing their consumption, hence, invest in the goods they buy since they are growing markets, yes you can make some cash this way, yes we had bubbles of various types in the past, internet bubbles, financial bubbles but especially and mostly real estate bubbles that forced a return on investment, that forced something to go up no matter what, that made believe that there was this magical return on investment for some unknown magical reason, like house prices that just went up for the fun of it, to pretend that they were acquiring value and worth (maybe from the scare of overpopulation and resource scarcity myths and similars when in all truth real estate should go down, way down always, because we have excess capacity, we have way more houses empty now than ever (15 million in the USA, 20 million in Europe from Lisbon to Moscow, go figure), can build them quickly and cheaply if only someone would pay some peanuts for them and real estate should always go down because you have to maintain a structure that decays and grows old everyday, in short, real estate is mostly a loss and a pain in the ass to maintain and always has unforseen problems popping up from nowhere, now who on earth was such a jackass and idiot that thought that real estate should “go up” ?).
    But these one trick ponies are dead, have run their course, now there is nothing left. We had the 20th century that added real effective new inventions one after another like magic, first cars (and all the successive 100 years of improvements, markets, brands, economies of scale, prices lowering due to technology, you name it) and this all generated work for millions in factories, showrooms, loans, etc. And then air traffic with jets, another innovation and invention that generated all kinds of jobs by the millions, and TV and then the final perfect model for the myth of “innovation” and “research and development”, etc. the MICROPROCESSOR: this really fooled everyone that real magic was operating in the economy and system and capitalism, no one noticed that this was a one trick pony based on Moore’s law (one of those unique, one time quirks, one time lucky windfalls, like the discovery of electricity, happens once in a thousand years), that you could put ever more transistors on a silicon chip and produce electronics, consumer electronics, microcomputers (then applied all over the place from the 1960s to the 1980s), and then the Personal Computer and all of its software (once again applied all over the place and generated millions of jobs in all kinds of endeavors associated with it) and finally the Internet that once again created all kinds of activities and jobs and returns on investments.
    The final innovation is in Health Care, Drugs, as in a population that grows old and has to save itself and try desperately to keep on doing the things it did up until it was about 40 or 45 years old. But this turned out to be just a mega ripoff based on the necessity of avoiding pain but forcing people to pay higher and higher prices for something that should be free as it is a basic necessity (just like real estate and houses).
    But all of these fun and games are ending real fast exactly because all the research and technology and computers (why on earth was the computer invented in the first place ? to get rid of work, to automate labor, to render the employer independent of employees making him get essentially free work from a machine) operate exactly to get rid of labor, is successful only in as much as it can streamline and eliminate work and labor and mostly people from all productive endeavors: these technologies serve to get rid of people, that want to be paid and are always a pain in the ass, and always cost too much and always have so many problems and defects, that anyone would greatly be relieved to not depend on these total turds anymore.
    So this is the situation: all the innovations that generated jobs are finished, now it is payback time, in the sense that first the innovations created the jobs, now it is time to make the innovations pay back, and they are paying back big time by eliminating all kinds of jobs worldwide as fast as possible. And in the process making corporations and the ruling class gain profits beyond their wildest dreams.
    The corporations and rich have trillions of dollars sitting in banks (or wherever) not doing anything, not knowing what to do with all that cash (I estimated that 40 trillion dollars the rich have worldwide could create 400 million free salaries of 10,000 dollars a year worldwide for 10 years) but the rich and hogs just prefer to keep it under their beds. And this finally brings me to the real situation and message of the modern era:
    WORK NO LONGER GENERATES PROFITS AND THE WORKERS NO LONGER GAIN ANYTHING FROM WORKING ANYMORE, SO YOU HAVE A WIN – LOSE SITUATION WHERE THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS CONSTANTLY KEEP ON WINNING AND THE WORKERS CONSTANTLY KEEP ON LOSING.
    There is no labor or activity people can do that can generate a profit anymore, hence why invest in hiring people, why invest in people anyways since they are all total turds ? And the workers have no incentive to work anymore given such a low salary and high Health Care and Rents and others they have to pay, so why work anymore ? The economy is in a deadlock people aren’t hired because there is nothing they can do to generate profits and people don’t work because there is no work they can do that can make them profit from their work.
    But the entire idea of investment, of something that improves, in the idea that you can do something to gain, to get something more back is at a dead end: not only in the economy but in all endeavors, in all social activities, in all possible activities, there is nothing worth doing anymore, nothing can be done to get more or improve or to get something better, all we do and can do generates not only diminishing returns, but negative returns, if you start out with 100 and do something, anything at all, in any possible activity you end up getting 70, and even less and less, so nothing is the best thing you can do, do nothing, give up real fast, watch TV, end of story.
    All of the improvements that we expected to keep on having forever, all the huge contrasts that all of the novelties and improvements generated in the 20th century in all cultural affairs also, like in Music Elvis and the Beatles (the surprise factor, the novelty, the contrast with what was before) the contrast between generations, all the Modern Art, the Experimental, the Avant Guard, the new generation always having something new and better to do and new and better ways, the entire mythology of new is better, all kinds of new things, the drugs, the LSD, the experiences, free sex and love, you name it, all the novelties and inventions, Movies, TVs and Internet and books (an infinite amount of new books and ideas, a never ending array) and all kinds of new theories, Marx, Freud, philosophy, Women’s liberation, queers, you name it, all the new and better, and novelties and new is better and all the contrasts with what was before (the Atom bomb, Nuclear Energy, Einstein, the Military Technology) all the improvements (imagined or real ?) the exploration, the Doors, Space exploration, the Future, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Pink Floyd, Progressive Rock (notice the word PROGRESSIVE used in the 1970s) a never ending array of novelties and cultural affairs that went towards the Future, Progress, Better, Newer, the entire idea of you can invent something new, you can innovate, there is something new and better that can be and will be done, well:
    THIS IDEA OF NEW AND BETTER IS OVER, DEAD, EXPIRED, OBSOLETE, NO LONGER OPERATING, WAS A LONG FANTASTIC ONE TIME QUIRK TRIP WHERE ALL THE TECHNOLOGIES GOT DISCOVERED ALL AT ONCE AND APPLIED AND CREATED A MAGICAL VISION OF REALITY, BUT WAS AN EXCEPTION, IS THE EXCEPTION, IS NOW DEAD AND OVER.
    Now there are only two things left to really do:
    1) Free Salaries and Cheap Rents since the economy won’t generate jobs and the entire fairy tale of jobs even necessarily having to be generated (who on earth ever thought that jobs are a natural disposition of things anyways ? the idea is and has always been to do less work possible and technology is forcing this on everyone anyways), money will just keep on being hogged up and concentrated in fewer hands (there is absolutely no mechanism at all that can change this, in fact those that are losing are doing everything possible to lose even more and sustain the “moral” position that free salaries and cheap rents “are wrong” hence giving all that money completely for free to those already super rich, go figure.
    2) Modify the neural networks of minds, wether trying to follow some scientific and logical path, or more simply and bluntly through the Instant Singularity, sticking wild chemicals and signals and symbols in wildly modified brains – minds. These weird minds perceive a new universe, actually exit our universe and enter a new one that has nothing to do with ours anymore (hence the end of the idea of progress or a sequence of events that lead up to an aggregated conclusion, this disconnects the sequence, there is no longer any idea of time, or linear progress, or before or after, it can no longer be compared to what existed before because before is totally unrelated to the Instant Singularity), hence this is the end of our civilization, but even more so the end of Science and Progress, but even more so, a new Big Bang, a New universe with totally new laws of physics and logic and metaphysics and the very concepts of non contradiction and identity and existence no longer operate, hence even the Technological Singularity and the Big Bang and God himself are puny concepts and ideas compared to this one. On a side note, this idea of the Instant Singularity, Modified new Minds and Brains (or even the old fashion Technological Singularity) may be the very last and most deeply faith based concept of Investment, and Gain and Profit possible. The concept of Investment brought to its extreme consequence. The concept of doing A and getting something more, in this case a new universe – life – physics – metaphysics.
    So the entire concept of investment is done, over, dead. We invent all kinds of make believe activities that simulated a kind of imaginary investment, a kind of imaginary activity, a chore, a task, a start point -> path -> target (often simple, so we are guaranteed to always win, like play a video game or watch a TV program, or go to the Mall and buy some crap), a kind of better, a kind of if I do A, I gain something, or make believe I gain something, so that makes you feel satisfied and OK. Now you are OK, etc. Well there is nothing left to do, no investment possible, nothing that will make you feel OK, now every activity is going backwards, you feel worse and worse, no matter what, you lose more and more no matter what, so the entire idea of better, do this and you gain (like jogging and exercise or whatever, anything else), invest in this you will gain, put effort in this you will gain (win ? be better ? improve ? ALL FALSE), is dead and gone, now it is only loss and losses forever. AMEN.
    Quo Vadis, Baby ?

  260. MarlinFive54 July 5, 2011 at 7:17 am #

    This combination of warm, sunny days with rain and the garden is exploding, lettuce & peas, and tomato plants 4 ft high, tomatoos as well as cukes, squash and eggplant forming up nicely. I surprise my friends in the pressroom, bringing in all this produce for them, they’re thinking, what’s a redneck gun nut like you doing with a garden? Little do they Know …
    We had an enjoyable time Sunday PM with Ozone at the Red Rooster in Winsted CT, Mrs. Marlin & me, and thanx, Ozone, for the kindly and welcoming way you treated my wife. That was really an honest to goodness Biker Bar, full of locals and tough looking characters, toughest looking character: the Owner Himself. How ’bout that bartender, Megan? (Whoo, a little hometown sweetheart!) Ozone is a true CFN troubador, and as an adroit facile wordbender behind the mike as he is on this blog.
    On the way home we stopped off at DQ for soft ice cream, right next to the Gilbert clock factory on the Mad River, employer of hundreds and maker of the best clocks in the world, now abandoned. All around town, from the imposing Green with Civil War monuments to the solid 19th century 3 story buildings on Main Street, are signs of past greatness, prosperity, pride and prosperity. Now all gone. I saw some of the clueless folk JHK talks about, with tattoos, nose rings, big guts, and skin piercings. And there were some very young girls on Main Street, maybe 14 or 15, already with tattoos, dressed up like hookers and smoking cigarettes. On that rainy overcast day it was a sad sight.
    Hey Ozone, far from me telling anybody what to do, but did you ever think of getting some local kid to help you create a website, market some of those CDs of yours? The one I have is good. I think you’d seel a bunch right here.
    -Marlin

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  261. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 7:18 am #

    The problem with satanism, even in the fairly harmless version espoused by the “Church of Satan” founded by Anton Lavey, is that you’re rebelling against an illusion. Although you’re correct in intuiting that the established religions are bunkum, you’d be better off if you didn’t feel the need to rebel against that which is devoid of substantiality in the first place. So yes, no one really needs Jesus to be their imaginary playmate, but neither is it necessary to pay such nonsense any heed either.

  262. old69 July 5, 2011 at 7:33 am #

    On the first point solution in my previous block of text, please add:
    “And huge public private projects hiring millions like Rockets to Mars, trillions of skyscrapers, high speed trains, you name it. Not because of the profit motivation or for gains but to give Pride, Ambitious, Meaning, a Goal, a collective aggregated symbolic social (and therefore Metaphysical goal, like Hitler gave the Germans under the Nazi myth)and a Function (give them a function they will be happy) to millions of unemployed worldwide so they don’t just throw themselves down the toilet, as Man is a Turd, so they know they are turds and hence they would just throw themselves down the toilet.”
    So the correct text should be:
    1) Free Salaries and Cheap Rents since the economy won’t generate jobs and the entire fairy tale of jobs even necessarily having to be generated (who on earth ever thought that jobs are a natural disposition of things anyways ? the idea is and has always been to do less work possible and technology is forcing this on everyone anyways), money will just keep on being hogged up and concentrated in fewer hands (there is absolutely no mechanism at all that can change this, in fact those that are losing are doing everything possible to lose even more and sustain the “moral” position that free salaries and cheap rents “are wrong” hence giving all that money completely for free to those already super rich, go figure. And huge public private projects hiring millions like Rockets to Mars, trillions of skyscrapers, high speed trains, you name it. Not because of the profit motivation or for gains but to give Pride, Ambitious, Meaning, a Goal, a collective aggregated symbolic social (and therefore Metaphysical goal, like Hitler gave the Germans under the Nazi myth)and a Function (give them a function they will be happy) to millions of unemployed worldwide so they don’t just throw themselves down the toilet, as Man is a Turd, so they know they are turds and hence they would just throw themselves down the toilet.
    Reference :
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781

  263. Eleuthero July 5, 2011 at 7:36 am #

    I “feel your pain”, SE, because I “disappear”
    for weeks at a time because my take is that
    it’s either more race wars or trolls like
    Fabian calling people “fucktards”. Like
    most blogs, the trolls have driven out or
    marginalized the civil and the reasonable.
    As for the race issue, I’m a “racist” to the
    extent that I believe that cats like cats and
    dogs like dogs and wolves like wolves and it
    has always been so. I actually believe Vlad
    has some points but they are negated by his
    refusal to look at his own race and their
    backwards progress in the USA since the 1970s.
    I never thought I’d live to see WHITE TRASH
    dominate the social sphere. I cannot tell
    the difference, conversationally, between
    the white cretins I meet in public meetinghouses
    (a.k.a. “pubs”) and the worst sort of ghetto
    trash that guys like Bill Cosby decry.
    Vlad is living in a “Live It To Beaver” fantasy
    land that has not existed since the ’70s. It’s
    gone. Whites, educationally, are careening
    towards the abyss while ASIANS are the new
    valedictoria in high schools and overachievers
    in colleges … especially graduate schools of
    science and engineering where 55% of new Ph.D.’s
    are foreign and nearly ALL of them are Asian …
    that’s from AMERICAN colleges.
    However, SE, one has to respect the statistics,
    no matter how chummy your experience is in
    Hollywood, and those stats are very, very
    damning of what’s going on in the Black and
    Hispanic communities of America.
    This is not “hate”. This is arithmetic. Your
    anecdotal experience, while interesting reading,
    is not a valid argument form to refute Vlad’s
    thinking. I empathize with your general
    sentiment that the blog has gone more and more
    to off-topic comments, incivility, grade-school
    vulgarity, and wild emotionality.
    Even on the issue of race, however UNgermane it
    is to this site’s mission, it is possible for
    people of good will to disagree without savaging
    the humanity of the other side of the issue. And
    that appears to be your message. If so, I
    wholeheartedly applaud it and hope for better
    days for CFN.
    As things appear to stand, in a few scant years
    the signal/noise ratio seems to have gone from
    about 3:1 to 1:8. That’s why I do NOT believe
    in democracy. Democracy is the RABBLE. I’d
    rather revert to monarchy than the rabble.
    And that “rabble” has become increasingly trashy
    in the last decade with alarming speed.
    I now expect an average 35 year old white male
    to have his ass crack showing because his pants
    are sweeping the floor, the tucked-in shirt is
    asking too much, the word “fuck” is now filler
    in 50% of the sentences even of young women in
    place of “er” or “um”, “conversation” has been
    replaced by phone-text like interjections which
    punctuate uncomfortable silences, even wine bars
    have ten TV sets showing crap people pretend to
    care about, women are more “male” than men now
    that they can “score”, … you get the idea.
    And that idea is … IT’S THE SECOND DARK AGE.
    E.

  264. old69 July 5, 2011 at 7:38 am #

    1) Free Salaries and Cheap Rents since the economy won’t generate jobs and the entire fairy tale of jobs even necessarily having to be generated (who on earth ever thought that jobs are a natural disposition of things anyways ? the idea is and has always been to do less work possible and technology is forcing this on everyone anyways), money will just keep on being hogged up and concentrated in fewer hands (there is absolutely no mechanism at all that can change this, in fact those that are losing are doing everything possible to lose even more and sustain the “moral” position that free salaries and cheap rents “are wrong” hence giving all that money completely for free to those already super rich, go figure. And huge public private projects hiring millions like Rockets to Mars, trillions of skyscrapers, high speed trains, you name it. Not because of the profit motivation or for gains but to give Pride, Ambition, Meaning, a Goal, a collective aggregated symbolic social meaning (and therefore Metaphysical goal, like Hitler gave the Germans under the Nazi myth)and a Function (give them a function they will be happy) to millions of unemployed worldwide so they don’t just throw themselves down the toilet, as Man is a Turd, so they know they are turds and hence they would just throw themselves down the toilet.

  265. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 7:45 am #

    What you’re describing, just burning up all the coal at once to power everything, is the energy equivalent of a small business owner rafting out his credit cards to keep his shop afloat for just awhile longer. Sooner or later the day of reckoning arrives and your shop gets shuttered permanently while you’re pounding the pavement looking for a job. To me electric plug in cars with large banks of batteries are coal cars, nuke cars, or hydro cars. And then of course the coal can be liquified to satisfy the industrial hunger for petroleum needed in manufacturing applications. Same thing. This is not even to mention the effect on the economy of essential commodities becoming ever scarcer and therefore ruinously expensive. And then the government goes bankrupt and can no longer maintain the roads. Roads are much harder to maintain than rails or canals. And finally, without access to easy credit Joe Sixpack will no longer be buying himself a new automobile.

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  266. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 7:52 am #

    Yes indeed, the “good old days” weren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Also, the appearance of social calm in past epochs was merely a sort of surface placidity concealing the roiling depths beneath. Why were people obsessed with juvenile delinquency during the ‘fifties? Could it be that that was the beginning of the misguided effort to force everyone to become dull noral middle class and middlebrow and even then it was at least somewhat evident that this misguided project was doomed to failure? When there is no work not everyone is going to be content with staying in school fucking forever as some sort of simulated employment booby prize for the painfully earnest who dare not rebel openly. We’ve been screwed for a long time and the negativistic social scientists of early eras were on to it before most.

  267. lbendet July 5, 2011 at 7:55 am #

    “Our annual multi-hundred-million to trillion
    dollar annual deficits started PRECISELY when
    Reagan lowered the income tax on the rich.
    David Stockman called “bullshit” immediately
    but even his own party no longer listens.” -E.
    E. His own party has turned this into a fundamentalist religion. This is the crux of their economic principle. They won’t back down on no matter how destructive. We may even lose the fiat money position with these guys in Congress.
    Ipat referred to Ayn Rand as the model for this crazy, off-the-cliff greed is good credo. She was a cult personality who wrote some books and had some acolytes like Greenspan, but it was Milton Friedman who took this thing to theoretical levels. His economic Science has been adopted by think-tanks, professors. The status quo have adopted his model of global corporate communism over real capitalism.
    Global monopolies, hegemony in world finance and military force are not what democracy or capitalism are made of.
    This is the way the world economy is being redistributed to the top 1% and we are watching the process of rampant privatization in Greece, so to spread to other weaker economies in Europe.
    Max Keiser pointed out that when he went to Greece he ran into Steve Forbes who unabashedly discussed helping to establish inroads for those who want to buy the joint off. (a coupla islands for global oligarchy)
    Watch as we get others into debt and than privatize the commons for pennies on the dollar. Ayn Rand is nothing compared to this system. When you try to make changes, they cry, this is class war! Nothing like projection.
    What’s truly amazing is how the extreme economics are not being challenged and it could be so easy to argue against it.

  268. Glensufi July 5, 2011 at 8:12 am #

    Tripp,
    I’d be happy to go over a more detailed response with you via email and would need more info to do so. The “problem” is really the 3hp pump which is big and requires lots of juice particularly on startup. Also even if one had adequate number of solar panels to operate the pump in full sunshine there are simply too many potential problems unless the circumstances are ideal. And any solar system like this is going to be very expensive. I’m sure you’re not interested in a standby generator alternative but until gas/diesel/propane go to $50/gal that would definitely be the way to go in my opinion given the very limited use as I understand it.
    If you want to do the solar thing and the circumstances permit a cistern might be a better approach. Pump from your well into the cistern using your current system when the grid is up then use a much smaller pump to serve the house from the cistern. But before any system design can be done really need more info about your exact circumstances.

  269. ccm989 July 5, 2011 at 8:13 am #

    One of the things that strikes me as odd is the idea perpetuated around here that things were Better in the Past and that the USA is now teetering on the edge of disaster. Got some news for ya — the PAST SUCKED for mostly everyone. In the past, there was actual slavery (instead of Corporate bondage), women could not vote and had little control over the number of children they produced, the police and firefighters did not exist, laws were few and hard to enforce, health care was non-existent. Too many here whine about how terrible everything is now. Read a history book or two and count your lucky stars that you are alive now and not during the Roman Empire or the Civil War, etc.
    I look around and see Great Things. Here’s one — hot showers on demand, clean sheets on the bed of anyone who has access to a washing machine, regular employment and regular unemployment for those who are unlucky, survival from cancer and diabetes, people not lynched, a legal system that usually works, technological improvements galore (including this one that I am typing on). Sure there are problem but there have always been problems. We have always teetered on the brink. There are natural disasters and man-made disasters but we are a progressive people, we can improve. So I am counting on this world not only surviving but getting better. And there are these big incentives to get things right called my children and your children and grandchildren. I won’t let them down.
    Happy 4th of July.

  270. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 8:18 am #

    Ipat referred to Ayn Rand as the model for this crazy, off-the-cliff greed is good credo.
    ==
    This is the equivalent to saying that Orwell was a proponent for the system he described in his 1984 novel. Ayn Rand was a severe critic of ‘the model for this crazy, off-the-cliff greed is good credo’. Only someone with an IQ lower than their shoe size would not to pick up on this.

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  271. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 8:19 am #

    ..would not pick up on this..

  272. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 8:22 am #

    Whose Samuel Johnson? 😀
    ============
    P.S. It’s Who is.
    ==
    No, that was spelled correctly. Whose Johnson are you talking about? Answer the question! 😀

  273. lbendet July 5, 2011 at 8:31 am #

    Hey metuselah,
    Instead of insults why don’t you enlighten me to why you disagree. Would love to hear your arguement– no, really.

  274. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 8:38 am #

    What is it about the word ‘dystopian’ that you don’t understand?

  275. babystrangeloop July 5, 2011 at 8:38 am #

    Follow me on twitter for news like:
    1. Egyptian natural gas pipeline blown up for the 3rd time.
    2. China chemical market sags due to shortage of electricity
    3. Roscoe Bartlett delivers speech on Peak Oil for an entire hour in front of C-SPAN cameras. Speech now available on Youtube.

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  276. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 8:58 am #

    Dear Polyanna,
    Yes, everything is wonderful right now. Get back to us once the oil runs out and those who find cannibalism unpalatable or morally objectionable are all starving to death, and all the little vegetable gardeners have been murdered by foragers from hell. Meanwhile back at the ranch, I’ll be hiding out in the wastelands of Nevada where nobody thought to look for me, having been inspired by Desertrat to become a desert rat. I will have a giant Quonset hut filled with the detritus of civilization such as a ton of red beans & rice. Yours, Zonar Fubar

  277. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 8:59 am #

    As far as generators go these one lung lister diesels are the way to go. They run for years and Tripp can probably grow his own peanuts to fuel the thing. You can even use the waste heat to warm your hose in the winter.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KenSF3wOtIc&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Kz7uFOm84

  278. lbendet July 5, 2011 at 9:13 am #

    M.
    I’m going to end this discussion now. It’s about getting the last word in instead of explaining simply where in Ayn Rand’s ideology is greed not good. She seems to think that it’s human nature to be greedy and not altruistic, but if you disagree, why?
    If you don’t want to answer my question that’s ok too. Nobody’s forcing you.

  279. piltdownman July 5, 2011 at 9:19 am #

    Random thoughts.
    I used to fish the Battenkill when I was a kid. Remember standing in the firm current below that old covered bridge in Shushan…and another covered bridge that was further upstream I think….
    I learned a hard lesson years ago; people never change. I’m not talking in the meta sense, but I might as well be. It is clear that there is nothing to be done but to step back and watch this implosion, like city-dwellers reveling in the destruction of a 20 year old stadium.
    Finally, Jim, don’t speak to loud or someone will make a burrito with locusts — at least every seven years or so.

  280. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:30 am #

    “Mr. T. thinks I’m overly frightened. He thinks that if he be a good boy on his isolated farm they’ll leave him alone.”
    Not exactly. I have guns and I’m prepared to use them. The other folks who live on this farm see things roughly the same way we do and are ready for action too. I have lots of food crops that most people wouldn’t recognize, mushrooms in particular. We’re steadily modifying our behavior for life without electricity, which I think gives us a distinct advantage over the soft and coddled masses.
    But more importantly, we’re teaching other people to look after themselves. Subtly challenging people to something resembling an austerity contest. If nothing else, many of our friends have gotten their first glimpse of some energy descent thinking through us. Whether they embrace that kind of thought or not, the seed is planted and will bear fruit of some sort down the road.
    Although I will admit, I teeter back and forth between open doors and a more cloistered approach.

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  281. Elrond Hubbard July 5, 2011 at 9:30 am #

    ccm989: “One of the things that strikes me as odd is the idea perpetuated around here that things were Better in the Past and that the USA is now teetering on the edge of disaster. Got some news for ya — the PAST SUCKED for mostly everyone.”
    Well, the present still sucks for lots of people. (“The future is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.” — William Gibson.) What’s changed is that in the past, there was lots more potential (read: energy and resources) than we have now. Society keeps careening forward on the assumption that the future will be like the past. Except that the past had a belief in the future, whereas we *are* that future and it’s beginning to dawn on us that it’s increasingly not working. Much of the potential of the past has been spent, largely squandered on toys and conveniences that will give no long-term benefit (read: suburbia). More Of The Same won’t be like a rising tide that lifts all boats; more like stretching a rubber band till it breaks. We need to be ready.

  282. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 9:42 am #

    Happiness is a warm hose. Should have been house.

  283. old69 July 5, 2011 at 9:48 am #

    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    Investment
    There is nothing left to invest in. This concept, investment, that dominated so much of the last few decades was based on growing markets, amplifications of results from technology and innovation and new processes, new inventions, growing wealth, more of this and that and you name it. The bases is you put some money in A and you got A + a1, there is some kind of amplification factor that can be based on anything at all, but mostly wage differentials, power differentials, economies of scale, technologies applied, globalization, all kinds of levers and economies of scale and amplifying mechanism that gave you a return, you got more out compared to what you put in, you got more money, more energy, more results – products, more profit, more gain, more anything out of something compared to what was put in.
    Well this one trick pony is mostly dead. There are no new amplification processes in sight, there is nothing that seems to be available that will give you a gain. Yes, you have the developing world that is increasing their consumption, hence, invest in the goods they buy since they are growing markets, yes you can make some cash this way, yes we had bubbles of various types in the past, internet bubbles, financial bubbles but especially and mostly real estate bubbles that forced a return on investment, that forced something to go up no matter what, that made believe that there was this magical return on investment for some unknown magical reason, like house prices that just went up for the fun of it, to pretend that they were acquiring value and worth (maybe from the scare of overpopulation and resource scarcity myths and similars when in all truth real estate should go down, way down always, because we have excess capacity, we have way more houses empty now than ever (15 million in the USA, 20 million in Europe from Lisbon to Moscow, go figure), can build them quickly and cheaply if only someone would pay some peanuts for them and real estate should always go down because you have to maintain a structure that decays and grows old everyday, in short, real estate is mostly a loss and a pain in the ass to maintain and always has unforeseen problems popping up from nowhere, now who on earth was such a jackass and idiot that thought that real estate should “go up” ?).
    But these one trick ponies are dead, have run their course, now there is nothing left. We had the 20th century that added real effective new inventions one after another like magic, first cars (and all the successive 100 years of improvements, markets, brands, economies of scale, prices lowering due to technology, you name it) and this all generated work for millions in factories, showrooms, loans, etc. And then air traffic with jets, another innovation and invention that generated all kinds of jobs by the millions, and TV and then the final perfect model for the myth of “innovation” and “research and development”, etc. the MICROPROCESSOR: this really fooled everyone that real magic was operating in the economy and system and capitalism, no one noticed that this was a one trick pony based on Moore’s law (one of those unique, one time quirks, one time lucky windfalls, like the discovery of electricity, happens once in a thousand years), that you could put ever more transistors on a silicon chip and produce electronics, consumer electronics, microcomputers (then applied all over the place from the 1960s to the 1980s), and then the Personal Computer and all of its software (once again applied all over the place and generated millions of jobs in all kinds of endeavors associated with it) and finally the Internet that once again created all kinds of activities and jobs and returns on investments.
    The final innovation is in Health Care, Drugs, as in a population that grows old and has to save itself and try desperately to keep on doing the things it did up until it was about 40 or 45 years old. But this turned out to be just a mega ripoff based on the necessity of avoiding pain but forcing people to pay higher and higher prices for something that should be free as it is a basic necessity (just like real estate and houses).
    But all of these fun and games are ending real fast exactly because all the research and technology and computers (why on earth was the computer invented in the first place ? to get rid of work, to automate labor, to render the employer independent of employees making him get essentially free work from a machine) operate exactly to get rid of labor, is successful only in as much as it can streamline and eliminate work and labor and mostly people from all productive endeavors: these technologies serve to get rid of people, people that want to be paid and are always a pain in the ass, and always cost too much and always have so many problems and defects, that anyone would greatly be relieved to not depend on these total turds anymore.
    So this is the situation: all the innovations that generated jobs are finished, now it is payback time, in the sense that first the innovations created the jobs, now it is time to make the innovations pay back, and they are paying back big time by eliminating all kinds of jobs worldwide as fast as possible. And in the process making corporations and the ruling class gain profits beyond their wildest dreams.
    The corporations and rich have trillions of dollars sitting in banks (or wherever) not doing anything, not knowing what to do with all that cash (I estimated that 40 trillion dollars the rich have worldwide could create 400 million free salaries of 10,000 dollars a year worldwide (which is a very high salary in most of the world) for 10 years) but the rich and hogs just prefer to keep it under their beds. And this finally brings me to the real situation and message of the modern era:
    WORK NO LONGER GENERATES PROFITS AND THE WORKERS NO LONGER GAIN ANYTHING FROM WORKING ANYMORE, SO YOU HAVE A WIN – LOSE SITUATION WHERE THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS CONSTANTLY KEEP ON WINNING AND THE WORKERS CONSTANTLY KEEP ON LOSING.
    There is no labor or activity people can do that can generate a profit anymore, hence why invest in hiring people, why invest in people anyways since they are all total turds ? And the workers have no incentive to work anymore given such a low salary and high Health Care and Rents and others they have to pay, so why work anymore ? The economy is in a deadlock people aren’t hired because there is nothing they can do to generate profits and people don’t work because there is no work they can do that can make them profit from their work.
    But the entire idea of investment, of something that improves, in the idea that you can do something to gain, to get something more back is at a dead end: not only in the economy but in all endeavors, in all social activities, in all possible activities, there is nothing worth doing anymore, nothing can be done to get more or improve or to get something better, all we do and can do generates not only diminishing returns, but negative returns, if you start out with 100 and do something, anything at all, in any possible activity you end up getting 70, and even less and less, so nothing is the best thing you can do, do nothing, give up real fast, watch TV, end of story.
    All of the improvements that we expected to keep on having forever, all the huge contrasts that all of the novelties and improvements generated in the 20th century in all cultural affairs also, like in Music Elvis and the Beatles (the surprise factor, the novelty, the contrast with what was before) the contrast between generations, all the Modern Art, the Experimental, the Avant Guard, the new generation always having something new and better to do and new and better ways, the entire mythology of new is better, all kinds of new things, the drugs, the LSD, the experiences, free sex and love, you name it, all the novelties and inventions, Movies, TVs and Internet and books (an infinite amount of new books and ideas, a never ending array) and all kinds of new theories, Marx, Freud, philosophy, Women’s liberation, queers, you name it, all the new and better, and novelties and new is better and all the contrasts with what was before and other Science and Technology novelties (DNA, the Atom bomb, Nuclear Energy, Einstein, the Military Technology) all the improvements (imagined or real ?) the exploration, the Doors, Space exploration, the Future, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Pink Floyd, Progressive Rock (notice the word PROGRESSIVE used in the 1970s) a never ending array of novelties and cultural affairs that went towards the Future, Progress, Better, Newer, the entire idea of you can invent something new, you can innovate, there is something new and better that can be and will be done, well:
    THIS IDEA OF NEW AND BETTER IS OVER, DEAD, EXPIRED, OBSOLETE, NO LONGER OPERATING, WAS A LONG FANTASTIC ONE TIME QUIRK TRIP WHERE ALL THE TECHNOLOGIES GOT DISCOVERED ALL AT ONCE AND APPLIED AND CREATED A MAGICAL VISION OF REALITY, BUT WAS AN EXCEPTION, IS THE EXCEPTION, IS NOW DEAD AND OVER.

    Now there are only two things left to really do:
    1) Free Salaries and Cheap Rents since the economy won’t generate jobs and the entire fairy tale of jobs even necessarily having to be generated (who on earth ever thought that jobs are a natural disposition of things anyways ? the idea is and has always been to do less work possible and technology is forcing this on everyone anyways), money will just keep on being hogged up and concentrated in fewer hands (there is absolutely no mechanism at all that can change this, in fact those that are losing are doing everything possible to lose even more and sustain the “moral” position that free salaries and cheap rents “are wrong” hence giving all that money completely for free to those already super rich, go figure). And huge public private projects hiring millions for Rockets to Mars, trillions of skyscrapers, high speed trains, you name it. Not because of the profit motivation or for gains but to give Pride, Ambition, Meaning, a Goal, a collective aggregated symbolic social meaning (and therefore Metaphysical goal, like Hitler gave the Germans under the Nazi myth) and a Function (give them a function they will be happy) to millions of unemployed worldwide so they don’t just throw themselves down the toilet, as Man is a Turd, so they know they are turds and hence they would just throw themselves down the toilet.
    2) Modify the neural networks of minds, wether trying to follow some scientific and logical path, or more simply and bluntly through the Instant Singularity, sticking wild chemicals and signals and symbols in wildly modified brains – minds. These weird minds perceive a new universe, actually exit our universe and enter a new one that has nothing to do with ours anymore (hence the end of the idea of progress or a sequence of events that lead up to an aggregated conclusion, this disconnects the sequence, there is no longer any idea of time, or linear progress, or before or after, it can no longer be compared to what existed before because before is totally unrelated to the Instant Singularity), hence this is the end of our civilization, but even more so the end of Science and Progress, but even more so, a new Big Bang, a New universe with totally new laws of physics and logic and metaphysics and the very concepts of non contradiction and identity and existence no longer operate, hence even the Technological Singularity and the Big Bang and God himself are puny concepts and ideas compared to this one. On a side note, this idea of the Instant Singularity, Modified new Minds and Brains (or even the old fashion Technological Singularity) may be the very last and most deeply faith based concept of Investment, and Gain and Profit possible. The concept of Investment brought to its extreme consequence. The concept of doing A and getting something more, in this case a new universe – life – physics – metaphysics.
    So the entire concept of investment is done, over, dead. We invent all kinds of make believe activities that simulated a kind of imaginary investment, a kind of imaginary activity, a chore, a task, a start point -> path -> target (often simple, so we are guaranteed to always win, like play a video game or watch a TV program, or go to the Mall and buy some crap), a kind of better, a kind of if I do A, I gain something, or make believe I gain something, so that makes you feel satisfied and OK. Now you are OK, etc. Well there is nothing left to do, no investment possible, nothing that will make you feel OK, now every activity is going backwards, you feel worse and worse, no matter what, you lose more and more no matter what, so the entire idea of better, do this and you gain (like jogging and exercise or whatever, anything else), invest in this you will gain, put effort in this you will gain (win ? be better ? improve ? ALL FALSE), is dead and gone, now it is only loss and losses forever. AMEN.
    Quo Vadis, Baby ?

  284. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:48 am #

    Great website, Babystrangeloop! I think you can count on more hits from me in the future. But today I have to get the ol’ permaculture plot ready for a week without me. Which probably means processing my first rabbits. I’ve been dreading this day since I brought the buck and doe home. Oh well, I now know I can raise rabbits without imported feed, so here goes!

  285. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:49 am #

    “Happiness is a warm hose. Should have been house.”
    Riiiiight…;)

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  286. old69 July 5, 2011 at 9:51 am #

    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    2) Modify the neural networks of minds, whether trying to follow some scientific and logical path, or more simply and bluntly through the Instant Singularity, sticking wild chemicals and signals and symbols in wildly modified brains – minds. These weird minds perceive a new universe, actually exit our universe and enter a new one that has nothing to do with ours anymore (hence the end of the idea of progress or a sequence of events that lead up to an aggregated conclusion, this disconnects the sequence, there is no longer any idea of time, or linear progress, or before or after, it can no longer be compared to what existed before because before is totally unrelated to the Instant Singularity), hence this is the end of our civilization, but even more so the end of Science and Progress, but even more so, a new Big Bang, a New universe with totally new laws of physics and logic and metaphysics and the very concepts of non contradiction and identity and existence no longer operate, hence even the Technological Singularity and the Big Bang and God himself are puny concepts and ideas compared to this one. On a side note, this idea of the Instant Singularity, Modified new Minds and Brains (or even the old fashion Technological Singularity) may be the very last and most deeply faith based concept of Investment, and Gain and Profit possible. The concept of Investment brought to its extreme consequence. The concept of doing A and getting something more, in this case a new universe – life – physics – metaphysics.

  287. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:51 am #

    God I was enjoying your absence.

  288. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:17 am #

    [Published in serial form to get around the hall monitor]
    All the suburb bashing around this joint drives me crazy. You guys, including JHK, are stuck on an idea that just doesn’t hold any water. The conversion from high-energy modern society to a low-energy, local, sustainable future will be so radical, and so drawn out, that there is likely to be about zero advantage to living in any particular kind of ‘hood.
    Rural areas have serious drawbacks, long trips on bike or horseback to reach a viable marketplace not the least of them. Social isolation is another, along with its lack of access to culture and variety. Urban areas are probably the most precarious of all, with a lack of land for food production, and the need to get many people to agree on changes before they can be implemented. Havana did it, but can Atlanta? Not so sure. There is hope in the cities, but not as much as in the ‘burbs in my opinion.

  289. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:18 am #

    First of all a suburb, in ecological terms, is an ecotone: the boundary between two distinct ecosystems where more biodiversity hangs out, and more energy congregates. The suburbs have ready access to both urban areas and rural production and natural resource land. Admittedly the scale is all wrong for a future without happy motoring, but even standing alone, suburban plots are typically 1/2 an acre or larger, which is plenty to grow all the food a couple needs, with a little meat included. The setbacks on the houses are amenable to solar retrofits, and there is no need to come to group agreement on these incremental changes. You just have to talk your spouse into it (which can be hard enough, so imagine the need to talk an entire high-rise building downtown into various austerity measures! Especially when some of the residents will no doubt still be doing well financially.) Suburban houses are spaced wide enough to get cooling breezes through the house when the AC no longer functions, and large enough to grow a fair amount of firewood for efficient heating using coppicing methods.

  290. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:19 am #

    Most suburban parcels have garages, which, once the cars have been kicked out, can be turned into home workshops – smithing furnaces, bakeries, pottery shops, breweries, greenhouses, etc, and local marketplaces can form on the streets that will be safe to stroll about without the bloody cars ripping around everywhere. I could very easily see a 4 block area in the suburbs, or a closed suburban community forming a local free trading bloc, with more formal provisions for adjacent trading blocs.
    This all takes lots of time, and a lot of general loss of economic buoyancy, but since that’s where we’re headed, and what we’ll have, I really don’t see the suburbs being in any worse shape than anywhere else. Potentially even better…

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  291. bossier22 July 5, 2011 at 10:21 am #

    While I have a different political view than you, i agree that there are a lot of everyday people out there(tattoos or not) who have more native intelligence than many with college educations. I have doctorate and my dad went to eighth grade. I am not stupid but he excreted more brains than I will ever have. I keep that in mind when ever I meet someone. It makes your life so much easier when you realize you don,t know it all. When you act like you know it all your advertising your ignorants . You never know what you are going to learn from someone. My story is similar to yours having grown up in the south. Be open. Even Vladimir is not wrong about everything.

  292. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 10:29 am #

    I learned a hard lesson years ago; people never change. I’m not talking in the meta sense, but I might as well be.
    ===============
    Pilt, as many times as I’ve seen the word “meta” and thoroughly read its dictionary definition I cannot grasp its meaning. Using words other than meta please re-write the above so I may (possibly) understand.

  293. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 10:46 am #

    I know many among the CFN like to US bash. I agree the military should be kept home to protect OUR borders. We have no business messin’ with other peoples shit. Either way ya gotta give em credit. It takes brass balls the size of your head to dip a chinook helicopter ramp into the sea to pick up your buddies.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqqKe1AxfHk

  294. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 10:51 am #

    I wanted to be a SEAL, instead I qualified to be a WALRUS. We Americans Like R Useless Shit!

  295. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 10:59 am #

    Yo Tripp I agree , It must be the let -em out for the holidays policy at the nut-house. Hopefully Spider won’t gnaw off his foot to remove the ankle bracelet.

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  296. ubs July 5, 2011 at 11:07 am #

    You people are entirely too negative. You should be happy that we got rid of that oppressive 2% tax rate that King George had imposed on our colonial forebears.

  297. Buck Stud July 5, 2011 at 11:10 am #

    If we are in a rerun of the “Dark Ages”, please tell me the locale of the next Hagia Sophia being erected and where “ the space is not illuminated by the sun from the outside, but that the radiance is generated within, so great an abundance of light bathes this shrine all around”, and with “gilded tesserae from which a glittering stream of golden rays pours abundantly and strikes men’s eyes with irresistible force” (thank you very much Procopius and Paulus) ?
    After all, doesn’t a thinking person always have to be on the lookout for that little patch of white rolling around in the greater dark and that little ball of black within the greater white? In other words, I want to be where that 1% is opening their wallets because I have something to sell them.

  298. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 11:15 am #

    UBS I am glad someone remembers Fourbears, Threebears younger brother. The great Chief of the native american Fucawee’s.

  299. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:18 am #

    How many IPO’s are they offering on Wall Street?
    And whats being hyped?
    LinkedIn, Groupon, Fbook……companies that, if they make $ its via advertising or sales….
    The USA is in deep trouble but the Media wont admit it, instead they hype these companies and IPO’s.

  300. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:19 am #

    ditto

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  301. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:22 am #

    you say discretion
    i say discression
    whats yr obsession
    language cop
    is yr profession

  302. Auntie River July 5, 2011 at 11:30 am #

    Hello Sweetie! I love our Qshtik!

  303. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:33 am #

    JHK:
    For a polar opposite of yr worldview
    and a very corporate one at that
    Detroit being one of the best things about Amerika:
    100 great things about America –
    Fortune Features
    features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/…/
    100-great-things-about-america/ –
    ANYONE WHO CAN LAUGH AT CORPORATE LIES ..CHECK IT!

  304. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:38 am #

    FM……………. American idea!
    69. Michelle Obama
    A formidable presence who’s brought her own form of glam to the White House.
    72. The Kardashians
    Only in America would the family of O.J.’s lawyer become an institution!
    Clearly FM has declined.

  305. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 11:40 am #

    I have doctorate and my dad went to eighth grade. I am not stupid but he excreted more brains than I will ever have. I keep that in mind when ever I meet someone. It makes your life so much easier when you realize you don,t know it all. When you act like you know it all your advertising your ignorants.
    ==============
    Boss, I don’t want to be unduly unkind but where did you get your doctorate — from a box of Cracker Jacks?
    I know you didn’t intend it this way but your use of the word excreted makes it sound like you’re father has shit for brains.
    when ever is generally written as whenever.
    “It makes your life so much easier when you realize you don,t know it all.”
    Like when you use apostrophes rather than commas to form contractions and by not catching typos by not proofreading prior to submitting.
    And WOW!, that last sentence of yours is a classic. The correct words are you’re and ignorance. Ignorant is generally used as an adjective but I thought about it and conceived this sentence in which “ignorant” could be a noun that could be made plural. Teaching the ignorant is difficult and I had a class full of ignorants.

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  306. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 11:42 am #

    P.S. Boss, you have a doctorate.

  307. Newfie July 5, 2011 at 11:45 am #

    Science is not instinctive. So I read in a book – Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science. The brain is wired for superstition. And common sense is not very common. Whereas religious beliefs come “naturally”. Science doesn’t come naturally to most, and requires a lot of work. So here we are – an insignificant anthill drifting in the cosmic void at a precarious junction in our history. I’m inclined to think it won’t turn out well. We are too easily deluded by our own fantastic and irrational beliefs. That the Market will find a solution for our problems. That the saviour will return and rescue us. Etc. The list is long…

  308. Belisarius July 5, 2011 at 11:45 am #

    “There is nothing left to invest in.”
    If you really(?) want something to invest in, i have a suggestion: Small/mini/micro hydropower.
    Plenty of undeveloped sites and decent payback even today. Payback probably better in future, but plant may be harder to acquire/defend.
    A recent site feasibility study is here:
    http://hydropower.inl.gov/resourceassessment/pdfs/main_report_appendix_a_final.pdf

  309. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:45 am #

    ‘IT’S THE SECOND DARK AGE’
    Why, with ‘all the technology, all the goodies’ is the US much worse than it was 50 years ago?
    See my 2 posts just above this and my post on IPOs!

  310. asia July 5, 2011 at 11:50 am #

    well said

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  311. Auntie River July 5, 2011 at 11:52 am #

    Gramma made Uncle Ned plant some barberry in her yard once upon a time. She thought it was an interesting bush. Now barberry (an invasive) is everywhere, with its sharp spikes stabbing you when you try to pull it up by the roots. Maybe it was ok where it was native but it doesn’t belong in this yard. Its invasive tendencies and hateful barbs far outweigh it’s “interestingness.” If you can’t pull Vlad – uh, I mean barberry – out by the roots, for Gods sake don’t water it!

  312. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 11:53 am #

    The great Chief of the native american Fucawee’s.
    =================
    As in F Troop reference: “where the fuh-cah-wee?”

  313. jerry July 5, 2011 at 12:10 pm #

    This nation is mostly governed by egomaniacal, greedy fools. Mitch McConnell, who looks like the Wizard of Oz’ scarecrow. He has no brain. The nation is governed by haters of anything progressive and liberal. The nation was the most productive when taxes were high, and the least productive when the taxes were at its lowest-LilboyBush.
    Ole Mitch and his band of bobbleheads did nothing about jobs, debt ceiling, etc. under lilboy, but look out today. They are loser-liars. Jefferson would be most disgusted by the likes of these current morons in government than most anything else.
    None of these people have any leadership qualities. When one leads a country to nationhood (G.Washington), you get respect. Little else seems to qualify these days.
    I don’t believe we have many solutions, since solutions appear to have been taken off the table for decades. No one wants to admit that the US will be just a fraction of what has now become a globally productive world economy. Because there is a diminishing hope for a national renewal program, the American Freak Show will continue.
    http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

  314. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 12:12 pm #

    That will be enough out of you Agarn! Was it Where the Fuh-cah-wee? or Were the Fuh-cah-wee. I still have a crush on Jane.
    More than you need to know below.
    The Hekawi tribe supposedly derived their name from an incident in which the tribe became lost, exclaiming “Where the heck are we?”, which then became “We’re the Hekawi” The original name for the tribe, ‘Fugawi’, was to be changed after the censors discovered the sentence “Where the Fugawi?”[1] They are partners in O’Rourke Enterprises and produce most of the company’s products. They are a peace-loving tribe, (mainly due to cowardice). The chicken-hearted braves of the Hekawis, “the tribe that invented the peace pipe”, are “lovers, not fighters”, according to their leader. Agarn has to teach them how to do a war dance. They have a 50/50 deal with O’Rourke and have a still which produces the whiskey for the saloon. As a sly jest based on the myth that Native Americans are the 13th tribe of Israel, many of the Hekawi Indians were played by veteran Yiddish comedians using classic Yiddish shtick. The regular “Indian” characters (none of whom were played by Native American actors)

  315. artistic-thinker July 5, 2011 at 12:12 pm #

    Jim, once again you have raised very valid points in your “Happy Birthday America” column.
    I am certain that if T. Jefferson were alive today he would be both delighted and horrified by the America that we live in today.
    However, Mr. Jefferson almost certainly got it wrong when he saw an agrarian nation of small farms as some sort of ideal life. Cities have always have been and always will be the centers of our civilization. The problem is that in so many cases I cannot figure out where an American city starts and where it ends. This is what to my mind is most distressing. One thing is for sure, our current lifestyle is not sustainable!

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  316. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:14 pm #

    Whose Johnson are you talking about? Answer the question! 😀
    =============
    Samuel’s Johnson.

  317. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:24 pm #

    More than you need to know below.
    =============
    I see you’re a real conna-sewer* of the show.
    * Don’t feel like taking the time to look up the correct spelling.

  318. lbendet July 5, 2011 at 12:28 pm #

    What’s new is old again
    Old69 that is. On my lunch break I’m taking a moment to check the thread and noticed some comments.
    With all Old wants to say, one would think he’d want his own blog and not piggy-back on this one.
    Why, he could set up a blog with whatever name he chooses and invite all his friends from the I LOVE PHILOSOPHY site. Then he could discuss all the wonderful progress we could be making without that pesky problem called physical reality and those darn resources–who needs’em they just get in the way of our imagination and unlimited growth, anyway.
    Oh well one quiet week, now I’ve gotta scroll and scroll…

  319. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 12:30 pm #

    Well Huhhrrumphhh Q! I’ve been called a potty-mouth but never a conna-sewer! And I know you can spell that word blindfolded, tied by the ankles, and hung from the nearest maple or my name ain’t Jiminy- Cricket! So There ;o)

  320. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 12:41 pm #

    “I am certain that if T. Jefferson were alive today he would be both delighted and horrified by the America that we live in today.”
    -at-
    No doubt, artistic. Probably if he dug beneath the surface and projected trends he would be more horrified – but hey, TJ wasn’t a negative spirit – so he would have found something positive to say, do, and build upon.
    One thing that T. Jefferson would have noticed almost immediately would be the similarities between horse racing and NASCAR. I’ve never seen anyone on this CFN mention the parallels.
    But think about it. America in Jefferson’s day ran on genuine “horsepower.” Raising and racing thoroughbred horses took immense wealth and attention to detail. Only the uber rich of Jefferson’s day could participate in thoroughbred racing – just as only American Corporations can afford to sponsor NASCAR today.
    Yet, most every plowboy and wheelhorse owner of TJ’s day was interested in the outcomes of thoroughbred racing – though they never got any closer to horse racing than when they climbed on a mule bareback for a ride back to the barn after a day’s work.
    Just as those whose lives depend on cars and light trucks – are fascinated by NASCAR today.
    Though their only racing occurs – as a fantasy – when pulling away from a red light on the way to work.

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  321. MarlinFive54 July 5, 2011 at 12:56 pm #

    Pruning trees out front. Hard Rock Maple and Oak.
    Nothing tougher. Almost like cutting thru steel.
    -Marlin

  322. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 12:56 pm #

    To Eluthero and other CFNers,
    What you need to do is mentally redact all the insults from Tootsie’s post(s) and consider the wisdom within the underlying content.
    I agree with starving government except for its legitimate purposes. Of course we could argue till doomsday as to what constitutes government’s legitimate purposes.
    Among a million things government should NOT have their hand in are: public education, foreign aid and subsidies of any sort.

  323. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 1:07 pm #

    MLK never advocated violence. He was not a proponent of hate. He was an intelligent black man who had lived through discrimination and saw a way for his nation to progress to better things.
    Never once did MLK use the term “trans generational asshole.”
    ===========
    “If a person kidnaps another person…. makes them work for free, treats them cruelly, is forced to let them go, and just goes on resenting them …. and their children resent that persons children….. that is a trans generational asshole.” suburbanempire
    SuburbanE – even though the Civil Rights Act was passed into law over TWO GENERATIONS AGO – you still advocate that “children resent that person’s children….”
    Apparently you think this hate should go on forever. This is vile, SE.
    =========
    “you don’t even have to add white/black to the story to get it
    as a matter of fact it helps if you take it out.”
    -SuburbanE-
    But you won’t take it out, SE. And in doing this, you enable the OLD HATES to grow into fresh NEW HATES – in a cycle that can never end.
    =====================
    It is a good thing to call Vlad, or NewWorld, or anyone else – on their fear, hate, and racism.
    But when you fight hate with hate
    fear with fear
    and resentment with resentment.
    You produce only hate, fear, and resentment.

  324. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 1:18 pm #

    Oak and maple ? That be like butter. Try a locust some time. Shit be like quartz.

  325. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 1:31 pm #

    “What you need to do is mentally redact all the insults from Tootsie’s post(s) and consider the wisdom within the underlying content.”
    -Q-
    I keep trying to do that, Q. But all I get after all that redaction is about 5 points repeated endlessly by someone who listens to far too much talk radio.
    I’m with you on eliminating all subsidies and all foreign aid. I don’t know about public education.
    I envision huge hordes of underprivileged (undercapitalized?) children running loose, never receiving an education, and finally ending up in jail for life.
    I know. I know. You can argue that we already have this system in place in many areas. But I think it could get a good bit worse.

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  326. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 1:44 pm #

    “More than you need to know below. ”
    ===============
    Tootsie, as bright as you usually are you can sometimes be incredibly dense (reference conversation on gold 1.5 years ago). I didn’t write “More than you need to know below,” I quoted it from someone else’s post as a lead-in.

  327. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 1:46 pm #

    I’ve admitted a precipitous White decline all along. But let’s face it, alot of it among the young is being led by Blacks. The Blacks have been glorified no end so naturally this lost generation has taken them as role models.
    You are right: the change in girls is simply beyond belief. The White Girls are still at the vulgar stage but there are signs that they are moving toward the Black model of Female Gangs.
    God help us if White Guys start doing the Black Flash Mob thing. Most are too wimpy, but not all.
    The deeper question is why did we glorify Blacks to begin with? They obviously don’t live up to our projections at all. We obviously stopped loving our own traditions and shifted over to that old Romantic canard, the Noble Savage. Now we find out that he isn’t noble at all.

  328. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 1:48 pm #

    “Among a million things government should NOT have their hand in are: public education, foreign aid and subsidies of any sort.”
    Just playing devil’s advocate here, because what the federal government should or should not do is probably a moot point now, but aren’t subsidies and safety nets of various sorts one of the things that generally defines an “advanced, complex society”? An inevitability of civilization, the very thing that makes a culture peaceful? The thing that keeps the disenfranchised from revolting? Whether that’s farmers’ incomes propped up by price supports, because high-energy culture is robbing the consumptive base of any sense of the value of food? Or whether it’s food stamps, or unemployment insurance? Aren’t these the activities that are most responsible for creating the peaceful, mostly law-abiding society, that makes it possible for so many people of different skin colors, different religions, different political ideologies, to get along?
    I think so. And I also think the subsidies and safety nets that make peaceful, multi-cultural civilization possible are the very things that make it unsustainable. The reason that great civilizations always have a shelf life. But it’s not as if we could even take that information, act accordingly, and prolong our “great” civilization for any serious length of time, because if you remove the subsidies and safety nets, as is happening now whether we like it or not, you automatically lose the peace and law abiding nature that makes it worth being a part of. It devolves into chaos as farmers start to actually lose money every season, food prices rise precipitously to reflect that fact, the underclass loses their food stamps and section 8 support, and the wealthy start losing their privilege in large hemorrhagic chunks.
    It’s the reason Obama won’t call time of death, just like W wouldn’t, just like the next jagoff won’t either. Because as soon as you do, you’re not really president anymore. Not of 50 some odd united states anyway.
    And, just for my part, if Tootsie wants to be heard he should learn to speak like a grown-up.
    Just some thoughts.

  329. helen highwater July 5, 2011 at 1:51 pm #

    Well as Janis used to sing, Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

  330. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 1:52 pm #

    Now you’re using the N word. You were ready to come unwound and my gentle nudge just pushed you over the edge. I hope you get the help you need.
    A Hint: Loving yourself in a healthy was means loving your own People, Nation, and Traditions. It doesn’t have to be non-critical – but if it isn’t there in some kind of way you are simply without roots. And then you will end up loving alien peoples and traditions just as you have been doing – even to the point of taking their side against your own.

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  331. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 2:37 pm #

    “I don’t know about public education.
    I envision huge hordes of underprivileged (undercapitalized?) children running loose, never receiving an education”
    My wife and I have been discussing our way through this topic lately, and it’s a doozey. We tend to see the benefits of literacy as self-evident, but only because we have a life mode that makes it necessary, and adaptive. I tend to agree with Fukuoka on this one. That formal education is only necessary when it is appropriate to the society. We’ve been more rapidly building up our library, particularly the classics and books on self-reliance, ever since we recognized the descent pattern, and I hope they will be useful for generations to come.
    As long as they are required anyway. At some point there will be too few humans around to support a highly literate, erudite society, and although we think of “illiterate” as a bad word today, the idea that perhaps our literacy just shape-shifts is, I think, more appropriate.
    Vlad obviously won’t approve of this, but when you live in the Australian bush in small bands of foragers, dining on wallaby and water lotus seeds, there is no need in the world for literacy as we know it. That is why the aborigines always do poorly on western IQ tests. But let them design a test that favors their particular skill set and see how we compare. They are most excellent at territory mapping, illustrating ecologies, and landscape pattern recognition. Some of their ecological art is just fascinating to me. Pluck one of them at birth and place them in an American family and they will take our tests the same, drive cars the same, and have a similar IQ. Alternatively, take an American child at birth and place them with an aboriginal family and they will not learn to read and write the same way we do, but will excel at all the things that bush culture requires of them. Things that an adult American would royally suck at, and be thought of as primitive and stupid for not understanding, like which mushrooms are delicious and which are deadly. Useful knowledge in the bush, not so much with a grocery store around the corner. But that grocery store around the corner comes with its own set of problems. Diabetes was unknown in aboriginal culture before the white man arrived.
    So I don’t see the loss of literacy as such a terrible thing…when the cultural pressures don’t require it anymore anyway. Being illiterate today, in America, is sad, yes, but I’m not sure it will be in a hundred years. And I don’t think that will make us lesser people either, just different. Different pressures, different responses. If we don’t drive anymore, don’t have computers or many intact books, don’t work away from home much, and don’t live in densely populated regions with a highly specialized workforce, what’s the point? And even if we still have loads of books, in dry climates maybe, about civilization, or our road to civilization, what bearing might they really have on a society outside of civilization? They’re great to us because that’s the world we know, but they might be completely pointless to another kind of culture. And rightly so.
    I have more on this topic, but I’ve taken up too much room already today, so I’ll save it for a blog post.

  332. helen highwater July 5, 2011 at 2:41 pm #

    Try running your car, and all the other cars and trucks on the road, on coal. And don’t bother telling me liquid coal will save the day either, because it won’t.

  333. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 2:42 pm #

    “Loving yourself in a healthy was means loving your own People, Nation, and Traditions.”
    What if your own people, nation, and traditions are maladaptive for a truly novel suite of ecosystem pressures, like energy descent? Is “going forth and multiplying” adaptive in a world of constricting resource availability? I’m not saying that embracing multi-culturalism is the answer, just questioning the consistency-hobgoblin approach.

  334. Cash July 5, 2011 at 2:46 pm #

    If ‘subsaharan Africans’ and Africa are so
    WONDERFUL then tell us more! – Asia
    Who said they were wonderful? You can come to whatever conclusions you like based on your own observations. My own eyes tell me that they’re no better, no worse than the rest of humanity. They have a full complement of intellectual and moral faculties which, like the rest of us, they can use or misuse.
    As I’ve said to Vlad in other posts, go back three or four thousand years and compare the civilizational achievements of northern Europe, the supposed stomping grounds of the alleged tall, blonde “Master Race” to those of non white, non Europeans ie the Chinese, the South Asians, Egypt, the Middle East.
    What? I didn’t hear you. Did I hear you mumbling that northern Europe at that time had nothing comparable to the glittering civilizations built by these others? Did I hear you say that Stonehenge was an exceedingly crude edifice compared to the Pyramids or the Sphinx or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? What? Northern Europe of that era had nothing like the cities and civilizations in other places?
    So what does this imply? That the people of the crude, barbarous north of Europe were genetically inferior to other peoples at that time? It implies no such thing. Environmental conditions in different parts of the world are radically different and they have a large impact on the progress of farming cultures and civilization.
    Would you content that the Plains Indians of North America are racially inferior to Indians in central and south America that built spectacular cities and monuments simply because the Plains Indians didn’t do likewise?
    As I say to Vlad and others over and over the clock hasn’t stopped ticking. We can’t foresee the state of civilization or lack thereof in different parts of the world in the future. Africa may be “behind” for now but so was Europe until Rome and Constantinople and their armies and monks “civilized” it. And their civilization, like most others, picked up a great deal from neighbouring peoples.
    And remember the environment in Africa that people there have to contend with. A European colonial soldier had a life span measured in months as one other poster pointed out if he had the misfortune of being stationed in deepest darkest Africa.
    And just to show I’m not a totally humourless, sanctimonious prick and in case you missed it last time, I’m going to re-post the link to this short youtube vid of that Korean chick playing kickass blues guitar. It illustrates that culture, in this case music, travels across racial lines. Enjoy:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI_fB2kY9Os&feature=related
    So what did you think? Does she have Seoul or what?

  335. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 2:46 pm #

    I can love and respect my family, and physically position myself close to them for TLE, and at the same time reject their maladaptive traditions.

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  336. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 2:50 pm #

    Just in from Rush: “Everything they believe in, they refuse to live” – Kerry, Gore, Pelosi et al
    They wont fly coach. They wont cut down on consumption. They wont take public transportation, etc.

  337. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:07 pm #

    Well I disagree with you on some of the big issues. I don’t think culture is merely a response to the environment but also a series of choices as well. Have you decided that we’re going ALL the way back then? Because reading and writing have been revered for ages…If we give it up, that will be a choice – and a bad one. All this is just the prison of your Neo-Marxism. Let it go.
    Many Aboriginees live a Western Life and have even been raised by Whites. They do miserably is school – their brains are VERY small and their IQ is even lower than the Sub Saharan Africans: 60 as opposed to 70. One interesting point though, the visual part of their brain is larger than that of Whites – evidenly an improvement to help them traverse the Deserts. Teachers have noted they are very observant and it is hard to hide anything from them.
    Needless to say, the Traditionals had (have?) superb skills. I heard about one boy who would put a piece of food in his hand and take a nap – awakening to grasp any bird that had unwisely ventured on it. I like some of their art too but otherwise they are not very attractive: widespread cannibalism, constant raiding, brutality to women, ruled by taboos, etc. There was alot of linguistic and cultural diversity so maybe some cultures were better but most weren’t.
    Yes we need to make some big changes – like the multiplying. But that might be transitional too if you get your way. Once we are real primitive most babies will die early on. So breeding and bearing will again be a great need and honor for the woman who can do it well.
    Diamond himself admits that Primitives varied in their ecological wisdom. We DO have something to learn from the ones who lived within their means such as that Pacific Island Culture as opposed to the Abos who were always eating each other or the warlike Easter Islanders.

  338. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 3:10 pm #

    hello Helen, luv ya baby, who’s yur daddy. That would be a Janis cover of a KK song. I think we covered this a coupla weeks back ;o) Keep it on the high side girl!

  339. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 3:20 pm #

    Sheeeet Q,you damn put that man down! Some of your best work!

  340. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 3:25 pm #

    Interesting points about education, tripp. My original comment to Q was only concerned with the here and now. With our huge population, high unemployment, etc – public schools are an effective means of keeping children off the streets and out of the workforce until age 16 (drop out age) or 18, with a diploma.
    Other public schools in other countries use other ages and endpoints for public education. I think Mexico uses 9th grade. Georgia only had 11 grades of public education until some time in the 1950’s. Full day public kindergarten is a fairly recent innovation. So is pre-K.
    ============
    I take your points about energy descent, declining populations and the eventual decline of literacy to zero – but it makes me want to argue ideas and theories. (go figure – hehe)
    I see the thrust of western civilization as a generally good thing. And I see literacy as having functions in maintaining a people’s history and record keeping – but also as a goal to which some talented individuals have always aspired, and will always aspire.
    =============
    On another note – I wouldn’t be too shy about posting a lot of blocks of your blog posts here on CFN. I for one, don’t mind at all – your posts, or anyone’s that act as spring boards to discussion and keep CFN off of race/race/race and skyscrapers to Mars.
    Anything to attract and keep more thoughtful posters is to the good, IMO, for the JHK comment board.

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  341. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 3:29 pm #

    Casey found innocent – another travesty. The smartest person in the world by the recorded number (185), Marilyn vos Savant (fake name I assume) suggested once that we adopt the European System of trial by judges as opposed to trial by jury – our moronic peers.
    No guarantee of course – look at the railroading of Amanda Knox in Italy. None of her DNA was found in the murder room and tons of the Negro Rudy Gude’s was. Yet they couldn’t resist the titilation of putting of an American Blonde in prison. Why? She’s American, she’s pretty, she blonde in a dark haired country etc. And then there’s the PC. People are tired of Negro rapist/murderers. The idea of a blonde baby face is so much better copy – the cold, icy blue eyes!
    And once begun, they dared not turn back – careers were on the line as well as egos.

  342. Vengeur July 5, 2011 at 3:50 pm #

    Kunstler actually believes that people with spider web tatoos are Reagan worshiping Republicans!! LOL!

  343. digbycookies July 5, 2011 at 3:59 pm #

    Yet another instance how our rights are systematically being yanked away from us! And in the name of “security”, mind you!
    http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com

  344. Cash July 5, 2011 at 3:59 pm #

    I guess writing in general terms is communicating with someone in the future. So a lack of literacy isn’t necessarily fatal but doesn’t help matters. Of course, post collapse, what do we write on and what do we write with? Paper? I would think probably a relatively scarce and expensive commodity. Pens? Maybe quill pens.
    Archeologists have found in Roman garbage dumps “letters” between Roman soldiers and their far away families. These letters were written on thin slabs of wood and transported by pack animal from army camp to town and back. What they did apparently is to scrape off previous messages and write new ones. They went something like: Dear Father, lion among men, Dear Mother, virtuous matron and example to us all, how are you? I am fine? Send socks. Your devoted son, Marcus.
    I think people will make use of memorization a lot more like the old days when poets put long poems to memory. I think the human mind can be hugely elastic.

  345. digbycookies July 5, 2011 at 4:00 pm #

    http://digbysblogspot.com/

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  346. digbycookies July 5, 2011 at 4:03 pm #

    Having some technical difficulties! http://digbys.blogspot.com

  347. ctemple July 5, 2011 at 4:09 pm #

    The American judicial system often seems to have little if any concern for the innocent who are destroyed and cannot speak for themsleves.
    Somehow in this country we can put up with 15,000 murders a year, 40 or 50 thousand suicides, millions of abortions, God knows how many traffic fatlities, but not a couple of hundred executions. The liberal wack ninnies just go nuts over execution.
    Execution worked, and lynch mobs did a pretty good job too.
    I guess little Caylee was killed by the Mexican Mafia.

  348. MarlinFive54 July 5, 2011 at 4:11 pm #

    RipT, never cut Locust, don’t believe we have any on the property. Have some Hickory, though, which is plenty hard, too. Pruning and tree removal is the most dangerous thing I have to do around here. I use just hand tools, no chainsaw, and proceed very slowly and carefully. Several weeks ago a guy in Litchfield, the Fire Chief I believe, was killed taking down a tree. For the real big ones I bring in a professional.
    -Marlin

  349. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 4:11 pm #

    Who is John Galt?
    Ayn Rand was ahead of her time and describes accurately our current breakdown crisis. Our destroyers hold us captive by means of debt and a false allegiance. And we exhaust ourselves to help build the kind of world that we see around us now.
    Force, ignorance, and empire are the great evil. We have allowed our world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal, but that fear and force are more practical. We’ve allowed men to occupy positions of power in our world who preach that all men are evil from the moment they’re born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please.
    Understand that the enemy uses an inverted morality and that the acceptance of this morality is its only power.
    To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives morally, you have the chance to make the same choice offered in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Examine your values and understand that you ALWAYS choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

  350. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 4:16 pm #

    I have guns and I’m prepared to use them.
    ==
    Good luck with your guns and bullets when EVERYTHING around you is invisible poison.

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  351. bossier22 July 5, 2011 at 4:19 pm #

    i have a doctorate but i can’t type and talk on the phone with my wife looking over my shoulder all at the same time. hell, to be truthful i can’t type.

  352. Auntie River July 5, 2011 at 4:23 pm #

    Love it when Uncle Ned cuts down locusts. They are nasty buggers, hate their prickly, pop up everywhere saplings. Also they practically cure themselves when they hit the ground. You can burn ’em soon, and clean.

  353. Cash July 5, 2011 at 4:24 pm #

    I think if it’s done right you can pack an awful lot of education K-12. But what we have now is, as you say, mostly just a means to keep kids off the streets.
    I don’t think the traditional readin’, writin’ etc approach is good for everyone. I grew up with one guy that could barely read even in high school. Roy would open a book and before he’s read one page would be yawning and yawning. He just wasn’t wired for the readin’ thing. But I also took shop one year (to make my father happy) and Roy was in my class and he was an absolute artist with wood and metal. I remember machine shop. We had to make a hammer with a steel handle and steel head. Most of us clowns would be tormenting slabs of metal and picking steel splinters out of our asses. But Roy showed up all us smartypants. He was done and finished with a great piece of work before the rest of us had hardly started.

  354. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 4:27 pm #

    “I just doubt that the dog bed is actually recycled plastic, since the tag says something different.”
    According to a Google of ‘plastic bottle recycled into polyester’, plastic bottles are indeed recycled into polyester filling.
    The strange thing I found, was that not a single link on the first 2 pages had been ‘cached’ (???)
    Tripp: “but if you can reuse the plastic, or even burn it, I’m guessing we’d all come out ahead energetically.”
    BURN IT?!? I think we’re already taking enough of the Earth’s solid carbon, and pumping it gaseously into the atmosphere/ocean/deep space. Besides, have you ever smelled burning plastic? Lotsa nasty carcinogenic toxins created/distributed there.

  355. MarlinFive54 July 5, 2011 at 4:34 pm #

    “I have guns and I’m prepared to us them” -TrippT
    That’s what I like to hear, Tripp. Protect what is yours and all the hard work you’re putting in, a true American Son of the South. Nothing like a good firearm within easy reach to make you more confident for the future.
    And Metuselah, what’s with all this apocalyptic talk and threats against Americans, home and abroad? I showed my wife what you said a few weeks ago about American tourists being attacked on the streets of Europe. She still wants to go. I might insist we stay home. Don’t you know, we’re armed to the teeth here and in no mood to take any shit from anybody? We’ve had it! And I don’t think Georgia is engulfed in ‘invisible poison”. They have some of the best farmland in the world down there, and a good climate. Tripp and the southern boys are the core of this site; go after someone else.
    -Marlin

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  356. Cash July 5, 2011 at 4:35 pm #

    … but that fear and force are more practical – Mika
    Are you surprised?
    Who was it that said that you can get much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone? Capone? As Mao said power emanates from the barrel of a gun. Do you dispute this?

  357. asia July 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm #

    Are you in Nevada? do you collect yr own rainwater?
    ‘One of the things that strikes me as odd is the idea perpetuated around here that things were Better in the Past and that the USA is now teetering on the edge of disaster’
    hahhahahahawhawhaw
    WHAT ME WORRY?
    DoBee says US better 1950-60-70s.

  358. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm #

    I’m not interested in kind words and I’m not interested in force. I’m interested in truth.

  359. Cash July 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm #

    Your talk about racial purity, as though the goal is pedigreed Jews or Englishmen or Kikuyus, is sick. It has a depraved Nazi vibe, and there are people alive today who have seen where that sort of rhetoric leads when it becomes the basis of policy–specifically, to Auschwitz, Srebrenica, and the killing fields of Rwanda. – AMR
    That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him too. BTW thanks for jumping in.

  360. asia July 5, 2011 at 4:48 pm #

    S/he was perhaps offended by the truth that
    young white Americans are being gamed by the
    media and its ‘commons’ and ‘mosdefs’.
    And most young [under 50] blacks dont listen to blues.
    Check the FORTUNE article I noted above.
    Then get back to us.

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  361. metuselah July 5, 2011 at 4:49 pm #

    And Metuselah, what’s with all this apocalyptic talk and threats against Americans, home and abroad?
    ==
    You can’t protect against GMO contamination. You can’t protect against poison chemicals in the air, the water, the soil. You can’t protect against nature manipulated to turn against you. And that’s a very short list.
    Mr. T. doesn’t seem to understand this.

  362. asia July 5, 2011 at 4:50 pm #

    ‘MLK never advocated violence’
    I have read otherwise, I cant cite the source,
    It was something I read many years ago.

  363. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm #

    No, not yet. I’m interested in moving to Nevada largely owing to how cheap land is in northern Nevada along route 80. I go canoeing out west down various desert canyons such as Big Bend’s Boquillas Canyon on the Mexican border and the San Juan River canyon in Utah in the Glenn Canyon Nat’l Recreation Area.
    Pertaining to the other comments I am also skeptical that it was actually better in the past. I got my degree in history and I think it’s been totally fucked up for 90% of the people pretty much all of the time. I also think that the Judeo-Christian civilization is sick, and that as time goes by it gets sicker in some ways, owing to its perverse linearity of outlook. In other words, false premises tend to amplify themselves if acted upon over time as if they’re actually true, which of course they’re not.
    I’ve been at work today getting nearly zero haircuts and missed out on “DooBee” but if DooBee likes the occasional doobie then he can’t be all bad.

  364. asia July 5, 2011 at 5:07 pm #

    Im pasting this so not sure it will be posted:
    By NIKKI BATTISTE and SARAH NETTER
    Sept. 2, 2010
    A former FBI agent who once believed Amanda Knox was guilty of murder now says he has no doubt that she is innocent.
    retired FBI Special Agent Steve Moore told “Good Morning America.”
    “The evidence is completely conclusive.”
    Moore, a 25-year FBI veteran who investigated murders around the world before retiring two years ago, has independently researched and analyzed her case for the past year while Knox waited for her appeal.

  365. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 5:14 pm #

    “I was watching C-Span the other day and someone called in to say this. He said he was invited to a dinner party comprised of seven couples. He said the one with the least amount of money had a mere $500 Million and I’m not getting that wrong–no typo here.”
    LOL! The 2010 ultra-filthy-rich 7-14 top earners in the US invited some poor schmuck over for dinner – perhaps as some sort of annual penance for fleecing them blind?
    http://www.chron.com/entertainment/photogallery/Forbes_top_earners_of_2010.html#24572191
    #1 – Oprah Winfrey – $315 million
    #2 – James Cameron – $210 million
    #3 – Tyler Perry – $125 million
    #4 – Michael Bay – $120 million
    #5 – Tiger Woods – $105 million
    #6 – Jerry Bruckheimer – $100 million
    #7 – Steven Spielberg – $100 million
    Hmm, so those 7 (and their significant others) were the “dinner party attendees”? Quite the h00t, they should have sold tickets!!!
    Even if they were ‘coupled’ with the ‘lesser earners’ from #8-#14, there’s no way the minimum was $500 million – more like

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  366. bossier22 July 5, 2011 at 5:17 pm #

    casey could hook up with o.j. and look for the real killers.

  367. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 5:21 pm #

    Ahh, OK wealthiest – I suppose there’s around 2,000 folks with more than $500 million saved. Still sounds like a hoax call-in to me.
    http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400#p_40_s_arank_-1_
    I’d suspect the last thing they’d want to be talking about is the lower 99.998% of Americans. I’d suspect, rather, they were discussing their “fallout” bunkers, supplying them, supporting them with security, etc. And they certainly wouldn’t want to invite one of those 99.998% poor slobs into their inner circle of discussion – that’s absurd.

  368. tucsonspur July 5, 2011 at 5:23 pm #

    It appears that Bugarach, at the base of Pic du Bugarach in southern France is the place to be to survive the coming apocalypse on Dec. 21st, 2012.
    Hikers and climbers, along with the concerned and curious, are pouring into the town. Real estate is soaring.
    A couple of weeks ago, one climber reached the peak and died of a heart attack. The mayor said, “the end of the world came earlier for him”.
    Coyote waits, but sometimes gives us a laugh, if you can appreciate dark humor, that is.

  369. Smokyjoe July 5, 2011 at 5:27 pm #

    Richmond International Raceway was once a Fairgrounds. My bet is that it will be again in a localized future.
    Maybe we’ll race “hosses” again there in Ol’ Virginny after we rip up the tarmac on the oval to make tar for our shack-roofs. We Southerners didn’t need us no oil, Yankee cheese-steaks, or beer-can hats to rip and roar back in them-there good ol’ days, Mister!
    Besides, NASCAR is just dumb. Figure-Eight racing is the only motor-sport worthy of a Southern Man, while we still go the gas: more crashes!
    I do hope we retain them cheese steaks.

  370. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm #

    During World War II allied troops in New Guinea noticed that the illiterate inhabitants there had superior vision compared to civilized people. Learning how to read small print is probably bad for your vision, at the very least.

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  371. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 5:46 pm #

    I’m going to have to bust you for faulty semantics. “Public education”, by definition, is education provided free of charge by THE GOVERNMENT. Unless you are referring to the quaint English notion that public schools are private boarding schools which prepare obnoxious rich fuckers for their anticipated role in public life, that is, but we know that that’s not the definition of “public” to which you refer.
    More accurately, people have forgotten that the real concept behind so called public education originally was that it was in fact the charity schools for those unfortunates, or the overhwhelming majority of the population, who COULD NOT AFFORD PRIVATE SCHOOLING. It is for this obvious reason, that is that the public schools are actually charity schools, that they should operate for the benefit of the deserving academically talented, at least beyond the primary or intermediate levels, and with THE UTMOST ECONOMY OF EXPENDITURE, lest they become an odious burden to the taxpayers, AS THEY CLEARLY HAVE.
    I know of no filthy rich people who would willingly subject their kids to the public schools anywhere. They send their kids away to boarding school so that they can meet others of their same station in life. They are not interested in hanging out with poor people who cannot afford private schooling. That such people tend to be assholes is entirely besides the point. Assholism is in the eye of the beholder and they are patently NOT INTERESTED in making a good impression on us poor folks.

  372. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 6:18 pm #

    What Vlad meant to say…..
    “I’ve admitted a precipitous Honkey decline all along. But let’s face it, alot of it among the young is being led by Niggers. The Niggers have been glorified no end so naturally this lost generation has taken them as role models.
    You are right: the change in girls is simply beyond belief. The Honkey Girls are still at the vulgar stage but there are signs that they are moving toward the Nigger model of Female Gangs.
    God help us if Honkey Guys start doing the Nigger Flash Mob thing. Most are too wimpy, but not all.
    The deeper question is why did we glorify Niggers to begin with? They obviously don’t live up to our projections at all. We obviously stopped loving our own traditions and shifted over to that old Romantic canard, the Noble Savage. Now we find out that he isn’t noble at all.”
    And Vlad, I have been using “naughty” words All my life… And I am not usning “the N word”….YOU ARE!

  373. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 6:33 pm #

    “What it does indicate is the gift of time.”
    I’ve read that the resource base was so dense in the Pacific NW’s coastal regions that it supported the only state level political organization on the planet for a culture that used a hunting and gathering food acquisition mode. All other states have relied on agriculture. Impressive.

  374. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm #

    “During World War II allied troops in New Guinea noticed that the illiterate inhabitants there had superior vision compared to civilized people. Learning how to read small print is probably bad for your vision, at the very least.”
    Plus a far more mineral-dense diet and a lack of sunglasses, would be my guess. Did you see where I posted the other day about gaining 5 points in my vision since I decided to stop wearing sunglasses, even though I’m approaching 40? I’ve never heard of anyone gaining visual acuity as they age.
    Lots to give up with literacy and civilization in my opinion. Lots to gain too, but I’m not sold on a net gain.

  375. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm #

    Weren’t you supposed to go away and enter a Monastary or something? You are going downhill rapidly. Soon you’ll be calling yourself Vlad and yelling the N word in the ghetto.
    You can’t be me. I’m unique. You can only be unique when you find yourself. Until then, you’re just a knock off.

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  376. lbendet July 5, 2011 at 6:40 pm #

    Yes, Ixnei
    I was just trying to make Q feel that something good could be said about the rich–glad you got a laugh.

  377. progress,conserve July 5, 2011 at 7:14 pm #

    “During World War II allied troops in New Guinea noticed that the illiterate inhabitants there had superior vision compared to civilized people.”
    -BHM-
    My dad saw duty in New Guinea during WWII. He acquired dengue fever (the GI’s called it “break bone” fever) and he thought it was going to kill him for a while. He mentioned several things about his service overseas – but the superior vision of the natives was not on his list. The main thing that impressed him about the New Guinea natives was how the breasts of the women with children hung down nearly to their navels.
    He also retained a fondness for Australia, because of some leave time he had there. I have a picture of him and a GI buddy on the beach with a couple of “Australian girls.” They look pretty happy, especially considering that they are in the middle of a World War.
    Dad always wanted to go back to Australia, but he died in ’84 and never made it. I’ve always wanted to go back in his honor. If I can get TS to move slowly enough toward TF, I may yet get there.
    If I ever go, I’ll take that picture and try to find that beach for him. Any of you Australians have any other suggestions?

  378. Pucker July 5, 2011 at 7:24 pm #

    Did you ever see Woody Allen’s existential movie called “Antz”?
    “BE THE BALL!”
    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-12/14/content_11696624.htm

  379. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 7:48 pm #

    “Whose Samuel Johnson? 😀
    ============
    P.S. It’s Who is.”
    LOL! I was curious when Q’d correct that, and also, how long it would “take”. The ‘Spelling *B*’ (wonder why it’s not ‘Spelling *A*’) has been hard at work *grading* his supposed English *CLASS*. (He and) PoC are disturbed by the racism discussions today/yesterday? Oy Vey!!! How the times, they are a’changin’…
    But, the true ‘fix’ should have been “Who’s”, as the confusion/error root-cause is between “whose” and “who’s”, not “who is”. Come on Q, try opening up again – it wasn’t so long ago, you were discussing, rather than *correcting*./.
    PS – LB, I did ‘bust a nut’, if’n Ya NO wut Ah m33n!!! That was hilarious – I bet all 7 couples were argue-bragging about the number of lobbyists they self-employed, and how much “net profit/profit margin” (as in tax exemptions/AMT marginal rates/ludicrous deductions) it bought them, concerning (on-shore?) tax havens/loopholes…
    AMT – Alternative Minimum Tax – It is *NOT* an alternative, and it is *NOT* a minimum – go figure that Orwellian SH!T out.
    I had to file AMT, 2 years in the late 90’s. There was no alternative, as I *HAD* to file that AMT form. It was also not a minimum, as it drove my tax rate up from ~30% to around ~60% or so.

  380. asia July 5, 2011 at 7:51 pm #

    In ‘collapse’ will you be able to stand the heat?
    grow food? will there be water?
    I know people who cant walk in Las Vegas in
    120 degree heat of summer.

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  381. asia July 5, 2011 at 7:53 pm #

    I hear some rich guy just spent 2,000,000
    to ‘lunch with the Oracle of Omaha’.

  382. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 7:54 pm #

    How much do you charge for the standard 1/2″ (or so) buzz-cut? I just found it such a hassle ‘driving’ 5+ miles away, and paying $15+ for a haircut, then driving home (over an hour time), when I can just do it myself with an el-cheapo Wahl razor in about 20 minutes (and *immediately* shower/wash all the fine itchy hairs down the drain)…

  383. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 7:55 pm #

    Hey fucktard, I made $1039.52 this morning trading gold. What the fuck are you talking about?
    ==================
    Ooooooo sore-reee … and sooo close. I made $1039.53 this morning trading silver.
    😉

  384. asia July 5, 2011 at 7:57 pm #

    Public Radio…..Dengue [?] fever in Florida..
    so they are introducing GMO bugs.

  385. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:02 pm #

    An open poast to Q – I find that when he *actually* has something legitimate to say, I agree with him on a lot of thangz. (50%? More? Less?)
    However, he kinda leaves that taste in your mouth, much like *Corexit*. As in, 50% more poisonous slurry toxin added to the toxic sludge, which causes it to slowly sink away, out of site, 1 mile deep – and eventually resurface over the next XXX years as a mega-annoyance…

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  386. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:04 pm #

    “Hey fucktard, I made $1039.52 this morning trading gold. What the fuck are you talking about?
    ==================
    Ooooooo sore-reee … and sooo close. I made $1039.53 this morning trading silver.
    ;-)”
    I think I just spewed beer out my nostrils – that was classic!!!

  387. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:14 pm #

    “I hear some rich guy just spent 2,000,000
    to ‘lunch with the Oracle of Omaha’.”
    To whom? Hathaway/Berkshire? Well, at least he still takes *PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION*. That’s about the only positive thang I will say about Buffett/that.
    Hehe, Q? that’s “corexit”? I mean, corporations are now essentially individuals with *FREE SPEECH*, n’est-ce pas?!…

  388. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:24 pm #

    “the silly kerfuffle we see at work
    ===========
    Perhaps you are unaware that the word kerfuffle may only be used once per day on this blog and that I got there first at 12:02AM. Sorry.”
    OK, this is pure douche-baggery!
    Yet, I got another dose of beer-out-the-nostrils – LOL!!! Low brow, indeed.

  389. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 8:33 pm #

    You guys and your gold and silver. I just put 3 rabbits in the freezer that I raised from clippings from my garden. I’ve cleaned plenty of poultry but this was my first foray into mammals in over 20 years, so I was a bit reluctant, but I got it done. Not bragging, some of you guys probably do stuff like that all the time, but this city boy is still slowly making his way back into contact with the death that eating in the real world requires. ALL eating.
    And for the veggie types who might be appalled by killing rabbits, I would say that I have at least as much respect for the plants around me, the autotrophs that make the system actually work, as I do for the animals that just cycle nutrients. There is plenty of scientific evidence that plants do everything they can to avoid being killed. Not being able to move, they actually employ a much more sophisticated suite of tactics for survival than animals do. Why do you disrespect them so much? Without plants we wouldn’t be here. You owe them your life.
    Anyway, back to the rabbits. I would say we can feed our family of two adults and two young children comfortably on one rabbit, and they are light-years easier to clean than poultry. Even my unpracticed hand only required about 10 minutes per rabbit (maybe 15 for the first one). But a word of advice to all the would-be rabbit raisers out there: don’t lay them on the ground while you’re cleaning them. After the hide is pulled off they are super sticky, and it is damn near impossible to get all the grass and dirt off of them if you do.
    Now the 6 new pullets can go in the big chicken tractor (that the rabbits were in), and not run wild scratching up the garden, while we’re in the mountains. Those Auracanas are pretty athletic! Think about that too, maybe getting a fat, heavy breed of chicken that is easier to contain. The roof structure I’m going to build over the chicken run is costly, in terms of time if nothing else, salvaging the wood to build it with. Heavy chickens like the blue-laced wyandottes I have (so beautiful), or Black Australorps, wouldn’t require that expense.
    There. Rabbits in the freezer and chickens in the tractor.
    Mischief managed…

  390. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:34 pm #

    “And I drink tap water, bizarre as that is in this day and age. I won’t touch water in a plastic bottle.”
    Very smart move. New plastic bottles outgas/diffuse carcinogenic hydrocarbons into their contents. This contamination is on an exponential scale, so if you continue using the same plastic bottle 50+ times, you’ll barely get dosed by carcinogens on the 51’st fill-up.
    However, if you drink *solely* from brand new plastic bottles that you toss, you are getting the maximum carcinogenic hydrocarbon dose possible, every *bottle*.
    I see no issues with using old plastic bottles, that have been filled with water for long times, then *emptied*, and filled with what gets *DRUNK* (in other words, don’t fill with water, let sit for weeks [in the *SUN*] and *DRINK*). I find it ludicrous that these foo-foo jackasses think they’re getting higher quality water by drinking (plastic) “bottled spring water.”
    Don’t tell them – just let them *DIE*. It has to start/end *somewhere*…

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  391. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 8:38 pm #

    When I’m substituting at the inner city Greek barbershop I charge $10 for all haircuts. At the inner-ring suburban shop I charge $16 for all haircuts. If all you want is a butch it makes sense to go to a barber college where they probably only charge $5. Doing it yourself is easy if you’re only getting a butch. Try doing 3/8ths of an inch on top, 1/4 inch upper sides and back, and 1/8th of an inch at the bottom of the taper. You can do that by looking up the lengths of the guards which came with your clippers. If you go over everthing at least three times you should avoid any really unsightly patches of missed hair.

  392. San Jose Mom 51 July 5, 2011 at 8:41 pm #

    The heat in Northern Nevada isn’t nearly as bad as Las Vegas. Some areas along I-80 are at a pretty high altitude–I think Wells is at about 6500 ft. My family has owned land in Tuscarora, Nevada for over a hundred years.

  393. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 8:45 pm #

    I really don’t want to get into this Kaylee bit – I mean, for every ultra-cute little white missing girl, there are hundreds of black/asian/latin american children missing in the US.
    However, Wasn’t “TOT MOM” Casey aware that her daughter had *accidentally* drowned? And then, wasn’t she out partying for the next couple days (photo-documented)? And, didn’t it take weeks for her to report her daughter missing to the authorities?
    This certainly sounds like a clear-cut case of guilty “conspiracy to manslaughter”? She knew her kid had drowned, did nothing, and (supposedly) let someone else dispose of the remains, *WITHOUT SAYING A THING* for weeks.
    Or, is that not a legitimate charge?!… LOL, enough, enough *ENOUGH*!!! How about those other hundreds of missing minority boys/girls… /sigh

  394. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 8:47 pm #

    “Yet, I got another dose of beer-out-the-nostrils – LOL!!! Low brow, indeed.”
    Oooo, sorry, wrong again, it’s spelled Löwenbräu. And it tastes better in the mouth than in the nostrils. Just so you know;)

  395. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 8:52 pm #

    Those groups already exist. Why do you people want to get rid of them or rather just get rid of the Englishmen? You are without shame.

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  396. bubbleheadMarc July 5, 2011 at 8:53 pm #

    Northern Nevada is much colder than the Las Vegas area. Then if you are on the eastern slope of a mountain range you will get water in the rainy season.
    To be honest with you, I believe that nearly everyone will starve if in fact industrial society suffers a total collapse and organized agriculture ceases to function. Being in a pleasant area where you are obviously a prosperous and competent small farmer will only attract the wrong sort of attention once everyone has become extremely desperate. I would rather be hiding out in a less obvious place with a large store of beans & rice or what have you. In such a grim environment I very much doubt whether or not I’d even live long enough to eat all of my stores. Chances are I’d be murdered by others who wanted what I had. Nevertheless, I do believe that persons in isolated areas in that region could grow vegetables, and that furthermore, such vegetables if well hidden would prove more survivable than perhaps larger quantities of vegetables grown outdoors in plain view to the marauding hordes which inevitable would show up. In such an environment I believe that you’d have to grow your food in secret locations much like current marijuana farmers must usually grow their crops in secret but for mostly different reasons. One reason for secrecy in both cases though would be a desire to thwart foragers or “rippers” if you will. Northern Nevada is more like southern Idaho which is right next door across the border.

  397. Vlad Krandz July 5, 2011 at 9:01 pm #

    The Rabbit is a higher order of being. Animals aren’t plants just as people aren’t animals. We have higher needs beyond just survival – like the quest for knowledge for example. That’s why books are good – not just for survival tips.

  398. Qshtik July 5, 2011 at 9:15 pm #

    I’m going to have to bust you for faulty semantics. “Public education”, by definition, is education provided free of charge by THE GOVERNMENT.
    ===============
    I hate when people say that [something] has been provided free of charge by the government. NOTHING is free.
    In my town, as in most, public education is paid for primarily by property taxes. I live in a slightly better than average house in our town and my property taxes are almost $11,000 per year.
    With rare exceptions I believe anything that can reasonably be done by the private sector will be done more cheaply and effectively than if done by government. Profit is not an additional cost but rather the driving force in superior performance.
    The complaining by people at this site, such as Eluthero and yourself, who have worked in the field of public education or been exposed to the near illiterate product of public education, is legion. And yet whenever it is suggested that government should not have a hand in Public Ed (i.e. that there should only be Private Ed) up goes a great hue and cry. We don’t have Public Shoes and we don’t have Public Groceries but for some reason we must have Public Education.

  399. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 9:19 pm #

    “I just put 3 rabbits in the freezer”
    If I could do chickens here, or rabbits, or any other livestock, I’d have no qualms slitting their throats and bleeding them out/field dressing them. You do have to be careful, not to get too attached, tho. I understand that.
    But, alas, I can’t – or I could, until the neighbors complain. Rabbits don’t make much noise, so they’d be better for me in my situation. However, I really only liek eating chicken or fish as meat. I’m not a big fan of mammalian meat-gorging. I also love organic chicken eggs – but you, as I know, even hens make a *LOT* of noise (not gunna cut it here).

  400. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:26 pm #

    I never once claimed that books weren’t good. I love them; I read books all the time. And I personally would miss them if they disappeared. But 4 or 5 generations from now, if they find themselves in small bands of human foragers, reading just might not be a part of their experience of the world. Just as knowledge of wild mushrooms isn’t generally part of ours.
    Agriculture spawned sedentary life. Sedentary life spawned villages, spawned cities, spawned the military, spawned trade, spawned alphabets to record trade, spawned literacy, spawned hierarchical society, spawned despotic regimes, spawned reductionism and Cartesian dualism, spawned hubris, spawned cancer, spawned biospheric destruction and the compromise of human life support systems. Some of that was good, yes, but some of it obviously isn’t. If it’s unsustainable it’s inferior. Period. I don’t see any way to argue that.
    Our quest should be for the balance that both inspires and perpetuates our kind.
    If farming, written language, and material affluence bring about destruction of the biosphere then what good are they? I, personally, will always be able to read and write, and I will most likely maintain a certain level of affluence till the end, but I can tell you this from a first-hand perspective: there are modes of existence that are superior to farming – superior physically, spiritually, intellectually. Horticulture is the next phase, a phase where we will almost all garden at small scales, and once you engage a horticultural reference point, the rest will follow.

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  401. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 9:30 pm #

    hey Marlin, a fellow FF , a tough ol’ yank got flattened by a tree last fall. Luckily his son was with him. He is the dude I make wine with. We are both EMT’s with about 65 years experiance behind us. His son is on the job now and is a paramedic. Coupla broken ribs.No biggy. Although ribs hurt like a bastard. I think that is where the saying “It only hurts when I laugh” came from. He was lucky. I never wear a helmet and he always does. I just got off the bone-box after 31 years. Now I am just a lowly FF. It really gets old after a while. A cut in pay but I really sleep better at night. I have a lot of relatives in town and I was always concerned that I would have to pick them up.

  402. suburbanempire July 5, 2011 at 9:33 pm #

    “You can’t be me I’m Unique”
    If only that were so… David Duke, if only that were so.

  403. rippedthunder July 5, 2011 at 9:36 pm #

    so you dumped 50 plus oz of gold? you are an ass !

  404. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:47 pm #

    “We have higher needs beyond just survival”
    Dolphins have sex just for fun, and speak to each other in highly complex languages. My horses play games with each other. Who are you to delineate the biota?

  405. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 9:49 pm #

    “my property taxes are almost $11,000 per year”
    You gotta be roughing it, like *dear old Dad*, in your(/his) 6,000 sq ft Mc Mansion. I grin, as my property taxes are 30% artificially high, at $2,400/yr. I expect them to go down over the next 6-10 years, *EVENTUALLY*.
    I suppose you really need your SS then, just to pay off the annual property taxes – *HAH*! I plan on not ever using *either SS, or MC/MA*. But then, I’m still annually pulling from my *rollover IRA* – hehehehehe!!!
    I’m rolling in the red, about -$2k/year, after dividends/interest. And that’s *all* costs (all insurance/property taxes/water utilities/gas/electric (maxed green +40% cost)/phone-tv-internet)…
    The *ABSOLUTE* first thang I’m thinking of giving up is the *INSURANCE*. 20% profit margins? FSCKING CROOKS. They’ve never given me *SH!T*. *PERIOD*

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  406. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:53 pm #

    Plants emit pheromones that attract hunting wasps when they are being munched on by caterpillars, and build molecules of foul-tasting antioxidants and flavonoids in a matter of seconds that make them unpalatable to browsers (which is why browsers always move on to the next plant instead of decimating that one, and one of the many reasons organically grown produce is more nutritious).
    Not as much difference as you’d like to believe.

  407. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 9:56 pm #

    Humans can’t even tell real food from poison…

  408. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:11 pm #

    By the way, Jim, I’m sure you’re not reading this thread anymore, but I really loved the “barbeque bubble” phrase!

  409. UnHolyGuy July 5, 2011 at 10:15 pm #

    God Jim will you STFU about the tattoo’s already. Christ man, it’s just body art but you put it in Every. Single. Fucking. Blog. Are you really that scared of ink on skin. Mother of God, give it a rest.

  410. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:19 pm #

    That burning feeling, in the back of your throat, the one you take pills to control? Yeah, that one. It’s not supposed to be there. If it is it’s because you’re eating poison. Change your diet. The “lower” animals don’t poison themselves. They’re not that stupid. When someone says we’re not like other animals, they’re right. Only humans have lost the way. It’s been a very interesting tangent, for sure, but temporary, and correctable.

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  411. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 10:25 pm #

    I do wonder, however, if belief in god(s) is the norm for humankind, and agnosticism based on hard evidence the exception, flowing from the science enabled by high energy culture. Once we trade book literacy for landscape literacy will belief in the local deity become mostly unavoidable?

  412. Shakazulu July 5, 2011 at 10:48 pm #

    “There is nothing left to hold the American Empire together now; its people are divided in a thousand ways, such as no lasting nation can be. In the parlance of our times, America has sacrificed everything for the creed “get rich or die trying”, and now she must surely die….”
    I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with a Satanist. But truth is wherever you find it. And it is satan that has divided us in a thousand ways, but it is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who will unite the world with an IRON FIST, so the earth can enjoy a 1000 years of peace.

  413. BeantownBill July 5, 2011 at 10:58 pm #

    Tripp, if your worldview is correct, a violent, disorded society will develop no matter if we have subsidies and safety nets. So why bother with them in the 1st place if they ultimately won’t work? Wouldn’t it be better to use that government spending on programs, that according to you, would help more and more people to survive the coming bad times, like teaching people to live with far less energy usage, or providing goods and services to help our citizens adapt to a permaculture lifestyle?
    You might say that the feds aren’t capable of organizing something this radical, but I’m saying that even though your own efforts are admirable, shouldn’t you and many aware others try to adopt a political agenda, because the greatest concentration of resources TODAY lies with the government? Maybe you could launch a “Permaculture Party”. This way you could maximize the number of lives you save.
    BTW, I’m not saying I agree with your worldview, just that the next humanitarian step would seem to be a politicalization of your beliefs (if you want to act as a humanitarian).
    I am more optimistic about technology advancing in the future than you, but I do realize we’ve entered a pretty scary and hairy period where something got to give. From my perspective it would seem wise to educate myself about alternative lifestyles.

  414. Ixnei July 5, 2011 at 11:18 pm #

    “Humans can’t even tell real food from poison…”
    You underestimate the explorers/*readers* that can ID any plant or mushroom species. And even then, many plants are poisonous, unless you know how to produce *tinctures* from the roots or seeds…
    Don’t put all us humans into that *generic* bin. I know about barks and seeds from various weeds/trees that grow wild here. I’ve just not felt lucky enough yet, (or needing), to cook the witches’ brew from *wildlife*…
    I’ve eaten many ‘shrooms’ around here, but mostly teh hallucinogenic ones (liberty caps/amanita muscaria[fly agaric]). Eyes are open, wanna *talk*, or *read*…

  415. BeantownBill July 5, 2011 at 11:22 pm #

    Q, I also agree with you. American civilization today has advanced(?) to the point where we hire people to clean our house for us and mind/pay attention to our children for us while we work. It’s not so strange that we pay for others to educate them as well.
    It is true that it’s not the government’s responsibility to provide education for children. It’s the responsibility of the parents.
    But what I find most offensive about public education is that it forces ALL children to a standardized education. Every child has different aptitudes and likes. Many of today’s students shouldn’t be students.
    It’s cruel to make kids sit at a desk for hours at a time; it’s cruel to force kids to study something they have no interest or ability for.
    It makes no sense to force children to a standard 12 year education. For some, it’s necessary, for others, maybe 5 years is enough.
    And it is not fair to seize part of people’s income who either have no children or no school-age children to pay for other people’s children’s education.

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  416. soak July 5, 2011 at 11:35 pm #

    Q said: “We don’t have Public Shoes and we don’t have Public Groceries…”
    ———–
    We most certainly do and, before I reduced my income, my taxes paid for the large part of the federal budget that went to pay for those government issue (GI) shoes and military meals shipped around the world. There were government toothbrushes, government paid for pillows and government paid for babysitters called drill sergeants.
    But I imagine those hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on those things have never been protested by you.

  417. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 11:53 pm #

    The words of the wizard Gandalf, from Tolkien’s classic series, come to mind here [paraphrased]: “Do not offer me this ring, Frodo! Understand, I would wield it with the intention of doing good, but it would consume me.”
    Bill, you’re obviously a wise man to consider educating yourself in alternative modes of life. I understand your techno-triumphalist view, and agree that it would be the easiest way out. Attractive if nothing else. Unfortunately I think we’ve got ourselves backed into a corner here that unlimited free energy would only exacerbate. If there is free energy available humans will expand into it. As would any other organism. It’s just our nature. So we go on about our business for a while longer until we reach carrying capacity again, and we’re forced to take a long hard look at our options once more. Except this time even more people starve to death. This outcome seems inevitable to me, now or later, and if I had my ‘druthers, I’d just as soon watch it come to a head now, before we bring any more species down in the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. If for no other reason than the selfish one: that every species that disappears around us makes our persistence on this planet that much more precarious.
    It’s a complex thing you offer up for scrutiny here, a national political permaculture movement. And my response should be predictable. Long food chains, like what you have with imperial governments, simply waste too much energy to be sustained in the long term. The metabolic waste of governance at that level can’t be avoided, no matter who is in charge. I have to wonder if the first order of business for a permaculture governor might be to disband the government in order to remove a link from the food chain, and bring energy use one step closer to a sustainable plateau?
    I wish I had more to offer, and I hope that permacultural thought will infiltrate local governing bodies as we enter a more ecologically-oriented future, but our ideas of what “humanitarian” mean are obviously vastly different. To me the ideal of humanitarianism is a swift and decisive movement toward a sustainable level of political organization, and the one we’re operating under currently just ain’t it. Pleasant as it might be to think about.
    If there is excess capacity there will be despots assuming control of it. If there are despots in control there will be oppression and slavery. Permaculturalists are not despots, and so we go about the business of reworking this operation from the bottom-up. The primary goal of agriculture is the production of excess capacity. That can only continue for so long, when excess capacity is converted to more humans, as it always is. So if farming is what supports political organization greater than the tribal level, and larger governments have, without exception, always brought the local ecosystem to its knees, ending eventually in collapse, tribal organization is where we are probably headed. And the scariest part is, this time “local” means Earth.
    Who knows how long it will take, but I would consider making friends with some permies, and learning some new skills. Just in case.

  418. trippticket July 5, 2011 at 11:55 pm #

    Frodo: Take it!
    Gandalf: No, Frodo.
    Frodo: You must take it!
    Gandalf: You cannot offer me this ring!
    Frodo: I’m giving it to you!
    Gandalf: Don’t… tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good… But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.
    OK, maybe that’s a bit more than an elected permie would leap to, but you see where I was headed.

  419. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 12:01 am #

    “We most certainly do and, before I reduced my income, my taxes paid for the large part of the federal budget that went to pay for those government issue (GI) shoes and military meals shipped around the world. ”
    Well said, Soak. I too am willing to live in poverty to avoid the blood of war on my hands. This is the beauty of civilization we’ve been talking about? Blood for oil to make the machine spin? Not from my wagelabor. I’d rather just stop spinning, thanks.

  420. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 12:04 am #

    It is the Tribe of Judah that opened the borders to let in the alien hordes. They are proceeding likewise in Europe. Thus divided, the West falls and they can rule a divided, mongrelized population.
    http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Spectre

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  421. asia July 6, 2011 at 12:12 am #

    ‘To be honest with you,’ [well I hope you are]
    I lived in Hawaii as a teen, on beaches and plantations so I know what subsistence farming is.
    Even if you had 5 tons of Brown Rice and 5 tons of Miso [I think those id be 2 of the ‘A’ list foods]
    Ya still need fire to cook, water and if anyone sees you are ‘fat and happy’, will come around to steal yr food.
    Yes?
    Are you gonna live alone and kill anyone who
    walks past the ‘keep out’ sign?
    You can forage greens I guess.

  422. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 12:13 am #

    It would be nice to maintain the best of what we have now in terms of knowledge at least. Some hi tech for certain common purposes would be nice too if possible. Otherwise the whole ten thousand year spree was for naught.
    Probably both thing will happen – as well as a hundred other scenarios. Very high tech enclaves surrounded by low tech populations doing agriculture and/or permaculture.

  423. asia July 6, 2011 at 12:16 am #

    To a charity I think..its a lunch thats auctioned off, so do a search.
    He has a private jet called the “Indefensible”
    so no he dont take the bus.
    I say hes a real creep!

  424. asia July 6, 2011 at 12:18 am #

    Do you clip yr birds wings?
    are pix of the coops [if you have] up at yr site?
    do you have to buy them any food [external costs?].

  425. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 12:20 am #

    “It is true that it’s not the government’s responsibility to provide education for children. It’s the responsibility of the parents.”
    I couldn’t agree more. With two very young children we’ve taken a long hard look at the education system in this country, and have found it seriously wanting. My wife and I will educate our children by ourselves. Maybe we’ll form a tiny school with a few other children, and a couple more smart adults to help teach them, but public school is right out. So is private of any scale. If for no other rea

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  426. asia July 6, 2011 at 12:22 am #

    There was a sad news story of asian immigrants in nor cal..they hunted for mushrooms and died..
    the asian edible and the american poisonous look the same.
    And in LA some young guys made datura tea
    [its like LSD]..they died..it was a very strong batch of alkaloid that they brewed.

  427. BeantownBill July 6, 2011 at 12:31 am #

    I was thinking along the lines of what you said: Pool some kids from other families together and get some adults to teach them.
    And now, goodnight – busy day tomorrow.

  428. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 12:46 am #

    You gotta be roughing it, like *dear old Dad*, in your(/his) 6,000 sq ft Mc Mansion.
    ============
    I bought my house in June 1978. It’s 100 years old (construction began in 1911, ended in 1912) and nothing like a McMansion. NJ has the highest property taxes in the country.

  429. Pepp July 6, 2011 at 3:13 am #

    Alright. Enough is enough. Vlad can bloviate endlessly in his psychotic rage about the USA but his forays into other cultures need to be called out on. I’ve been reading Jim’s blog for years, and it’s becoming all about Vlad the Invalid, Vlad the Vague, Vlad the Verminous.
    ‘as opposed to the Abos who were always eating each other’.. this is simple ratbag nonsense from a mind that has no discipline, no analytical skills and no capacity to make up even a believable scenario. There is no record, no songline, no dreamtime, no painting, no message stick , no storytime of this event among any of the more than 800 tribes that make up the Koori people. Vlad cant even bring himself to use their correct name. ‘Abo’?? What kind of low iq mentality uses this term? Vladish Bloviation.
    ‘Many Aboriginees live a Western Life and have even been raised by Whites. They do miserably is school – their brains are VERY small and their IQ is even lower than the Sub Saharan Africans: 60 as opposed to 70. One interesting point though, the visual part of their brain is larger than that of Whites – evidenly an improvement to help them traverse the Deserts. ‘- Moving over the hideous spelling of the writer here ( Vlad), which points out more than I could of the IQ and size of brain of the writer (VLAD), the proposal is not borne out by research of any recognisable kind. In other words, it’s Vlad Bloviation yet again. It is Vlad EmotionalBloviate. As to the Desert part of the VladBloviate, Vlad ignores completely the non desert dwellers, no doubt because Vlad just doesn’t know anything about that, either.
    Speaking as a part Pitjinjarra, part Arunta, of whose language I have invited Vlad to join me in a discussion on this blog in times past, he seems unable to respond except to bloviate on other unrelated matters made up entirely of created nonsense. Time to fold up your makebelive tent, Vlad. Take your medication and stick to what you can fool your fellow Americans with and leave out your fabricated bullshit that you think you can get away with due to some crazed idea of distance. You can’t. It’s the Internet, old chap, your time is long past, and blown away as it should have been.
    Thanks for the weekly insights, Jim. Always a pleasure and a necessity, and greetings from Sydney, Au.
    p.s., Jim. From the land of a booming economy, 4.9% unemployment, a trade surplus, no bank failures, no home foreclosures, etc, what can I say? my sympathies, genuinely.
    p.p.s. The quota allotted by Australia in regard to USA immigrants to AU is very very small, for a very good reason. Think about it, get back to me why you think the reason for that could be. However, USA citizens can become refugees seeking asylum in AU on political grounds perhaps. Maybe. Sometimes. Once , in recent memory, actually. Otherwise, it requires a graduate degree, $500,000.00, ( thats AU dollars, worth currently $1.34 currently) no criminal record, ( ironic, ey? we can grow our own, thanks )under 30 years of age, and of good health. Good luck.
    p.p.p.s . For those who wish to suddenly spew out a whole lot of rubbish about Australia, please check facts first. Don’t make a bigger idiot of yourself than you can afford. Again, Good Luck.

  430. Pepp July 6, 2011 at 3:34 am #

    progress,conserve = ‘Dad always wanted to go back to Australia, but he died in ’84 and never made it. I’ve always wanted to go back in his honor. If I can get TS to move slowly enough toward TF, I may yet get there.
    If I ever go, I’ll take that picture and try to find that beach for him. Any of you Australians have any other suggestions?’
    AU has 36,000 kilometers of beaches. That’s 23,000 miles. Could you be more specific? It’s a big island. Luckily for me. You’d be more than welcome as a tourist, and any information you may be seeking re your father’s leave and location could be found at the AU war memorial in Canberra. They have many websites that address your query. As to any other suggestions as to your desire to find a particular beach in AU, no. I don’t have any at all. Except to say his leave was most likely in Sydney, and the beach is most likely to be Bondi, a short tramride from the guest barracks provided for US troops on leave at the time by the NSW Government.
    It seems unlikely his leave was in Brisbane, as Brisbane has no beaches within cooee of the City.
    It could have been Melbourne, in which case the beach would most likely be St.Kilda beach, again, a short tramride from the barracks provided by the Victorian Govt for US troops on leave in Melbourne.
    But I am betting heavily it was Sydney, as Sydney ladies ( my Grandmother included) were inclined to be hospitable to all visiting troops at that time. Whereas your Melbourne ladies were more circumspect, and the Brisbane ladies wouldn’t have a bar of US soldiers at all.
    Good luck in your search.

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  431. old69 July 6, 2011 at 3:46 am #

    Right Wing Thug says:
    “They will PISS IT AWAY, like they always have and always will.”
    I answer:
    Tell me in what instance money is “not pissed away” ? Money is pissed away always, no matter what, it is always wasted, it is defined as “pissed away” from the outset as it can only ever and always be pissed away (it really can’t do anything else but be wasted, only some think that it is wasted if it is used for C and “productive” if it is used for D while others think that it is wasted if it is used for D and “productive” if it is used for C (and it often coincides nicely with who gains by C and D as in if I gain by C then using it for C is not wasted, you get the idea)), only that the guy getting it always thinks that it is spent wisely since he is getting it, and the guy not getting it always think that it is wasted, go figure.
    There is nothing productive that money can do anyways, it is always just a fight, just a contention of resources, just A against B, A wins B loses, A gets “more money”, B gets less money, end of story. Now what is morally, politically or logically – spiritually or metaphysically correct about any of this ? Nothing at all, it is just your same old turdy people with their turdy minds, and that old obsolete clunker of their brain acting like the turd that it really is and just being greedy and hogging up all they can no matter what the excuses and/or the theoretical – moral – religious, you name it models they present to justify that they just want more, want more than you, want to win, want to win the contention of resources and money and goods, and directly or indirectly the distribution of pain and pleasure in such way that more pleasure is handed to the greedy turd of the moment that wins and less pleasure is handed to the pissed off loser of the moment.
    Therefore fabian, go build your Rockets to Mars and Trillions of Skyscrapers and stick wild symbols and chemicals and wild electrical signals in that puny brain – mind of yours, misunderstand everything, tear the mind apart, blow it up into billions of pieces and just stick it all back together again in the most crazy random fashion, you will enter some really wild, incredible, unknown universes with laws of physics and experiences beyond any possible thing you can imagine! and this is what all 7 billion turds on earth must do, now, right away, you can do it, go man go, do it, be a good little boy, do it for Mommy, while she cooks in the kitchen and you play in the backyard of your suburban house and your Daddy works at that crappy corporate job that always wants to hose him, go figure.
    Another infinite recursion of metaphysical and logical short circuits and mental computer programs got crashed when you said that I write a lot and say little, interesting, I am trying to figure out the difference, wow, that is driving me nuts, go figure.
    Quo Vadis ? Baby …

  432. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 3:56 am #

    Tom Bombadil could take it and not be corrupted.

  433. John O July 6, 2011 at 4:16 am #

    Would like a one way ticket to Pandora.

  434. old69 July 6, 2011 at 4:18 am #

    “Diabetes was unknown in aboriginal culture before the white man arrived.”
    No, diabetes and a never ending array of “problems” and “sicknesses” were not even perceived as such, were not even considered wrong, or a defect or a sickness until a very specific way of thought created abstract models of perfection or correct or “healthy” that most people should abide too according to pure statistics and consensus as the majority rules, what the majority does or is or how they live or whatever is defined as correct by shear numbers and as such becomes some kind of spiritual and metaphysical value, a target to reach for, a model of “correct”. But in other civilizations or cultures or whatever, they didn’t even notice the difference or maybe just assigned it different meanings or most likely just ignored it all together as in simple cultures you just live and die end of story, there are no complex goals and models and targets to reach. Science and Information has created more problems by simply defining them into existence, inventing them, information invents reality and invents problems and or solutions to no end, and comparing them to some kind of “normal” which in nature doesn’t exist: in nature everything is wrong and abnormal, there is no normal, everything is wrong and bad, there are no models or targets to reach. All of these sicknesses and targets and new targets, new discoveries, new sicknesses and such are all due to a very particular and quirky form of thought our civilization invented, as Man is the Infinitely Programmable Machine.

  435. old69 July 6, 2011 at 4:32 am #

    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    [quote=”rackedrick”]How do you know that progress is done with? You stated that it was done with many times but where is the evidence?[/quote]
    Well I don’t see any really new processes and inventions that can make such radical changes that have been achieved in the last 200 years, so progress is mostly over, we are now just optimizing, just improving, just perfecting the details, etc. Case in point, Facebook or IPHONE etc. are just new combinations of previous applications, Facebook is just a sophisticated forum – blog form, and IPHONE is just a computer put in a small package, etc.
    Another case in point, if there was all this research and science and all of this return on investment by putting money and resources in Science, Technology, Research, etc. then why does Google and Microsoft spend billions to no end in just buying up other corporations and not in the new great discoveries that are still to be made ? Because they know that it is over, that now it is just fun and games seeing who wins and loses, just the contention, the fight counts, A against B and who wins, end of story.
    Why did the FED give trillions to banks and not invest it all in the new great imaginary Return on Investments that Research and Development and Technology should give back ? Because they know that is is over, 90 % of the really important results have been discovered, applied and achieved, now we are left with breadcrumbs, therefore split the brain (like the atom), crack it open, change it wildly and crazily, connect it all backwards, upside down, in the most crazy random way possible, like a turbulent flow of liquids, like a stellar plasma that is going crazy, in all kinds of directions, no patterns, no models, no rules, no logic, and this new mind will enter a new universe with new laws of physics, new laws of philosophy and metaphysics and existence and contradiction, wild symbols going crazy, and on and on…

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  436. old69 July 6, 2011 at 4:48 am #

    Little Fabian found some spelling errors in my previous block of text, so I have to repost it again. What a pain in the ass he is and all these little pests always correcting me, go figure. First gear its all right, Second gear hold on tight, third gear out of sight (and Groovy too). Sock it to me!
    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    [quote=”rackedrick”]How do you know that progress is done with? You stated that it was done with many times but where is the evidence?[/quote]
    Well I don’t see any really new processes and inventions that can make such radical changes that have been achieved in the last 200 years, so progress is mostly over, we are now just optimizing, just improving, just perfecting the details, etc. Case in point, Facebook or IPHONE etc. are just new combinations of previous applications, Facebook is just a sophisticated forum – blog form, and IPHONE is just a computer put in a small package, etc.
    Another case in point, if there was all this research and science and all of this return on investment by putting money and resources in Science, Technology, Research, etc. then why does Google and Microsoft spend billions to no end in just buying up other corporations and not in the new great discoveries that are still to be made ? Because they know that it is over, that now it is just fun and games seeing who wins and loses, just the contention, the fight counts, A against B and who wins, end of story.
    Why did the FED give trillions to banks and not invest it all in the new great imaginary Return on Investments that Research and Development and Technology should give back ? Because they know that it is over, 90 % of the really important results have been discovered, applied and achieved, now we are left with breadcrumbs, therefore split the brain (like the atom), crack it open, change it wildly and crazily, connect it all backwards, upside down, in the most crazy random way possible, like a turbulent flow of liquids, like a stellar plasma that is going crazy, in all kinds of directions, no patterns, no models, no rules, no logic, and this new mind will enter a new universe with new laws of physics, new laws of philosophy and metaphysics and existence and contradiction, wild symbols going crazy, and on and on…

  437. old69 July 6, 2011 at 5:01 am #

    Uh oh, Alexandra (HOT bitch) found an error in another block of text I wrote, it is correction time again, go figure. And blog hog time again…
    Sounds familiar doesn’t it ? Sock it to me! It is so Groovy and out of sight…
    Give me five!
    From:
    http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/07/birthday-card.html
    Right Wing Thug says:
    “They will PISS IT AWAY, like they always have and always will.”
    I answer:
    Tell me in what instance money is “not pissed away” ? Money is pissed away always, no matter what, it is always wasted, it is defined as “pissed away” from the outset as it can only ever and always be pissed away (it really can’t do anything else but be wasted, only some think that it is wasted if it is used for C and “productive” if it is used for D while others think that it is wasted if it is used for D and “productive” if it is used for C (and it often coincides nicely with who gains by C and D as in if I gain by C then using it for C is not wasted, you get the idea)), only that the guy getting it always thinks that it is spent wisely since he is getting it, and the guy not getting it always think that it is wasted, go figure.
    There is nothing productive that money can do anyways, it is always just a fight, just a contention of resources, just A against B, A wins B loses, A gets “more money”, B gets less money, end of story. Now what is morally, politically or logically – spiritually or metaphysically correct about any of this ? Nothing at all, it is just your same old turdy people with their turdy minds, and that old obsolete clunker of their brain acting like the turd that it really is and just being greedy and hogging up all they can no matter what the excuses and/or the theoretical – moral – religious, you name it models they present to justify that they just want more, want more than you, want to win, want to win the contention of resources and money and goods, and directly or indirectly the distribution of pain and pleasure in such a way that more pleasure is handed to the greedy turd of the moment that wins and less pleasure is handed to the pissed off loser of the moment.
    Therefore fabian, go build your Rockets to Mars and Trillions of Skyscrapers and stick wild symbols and chemicals and wild electrical signals in that puny brain – mind of yours, misunderstand everything, tear the mind apart, blow it up into billions of pieces and just stick it all back together again in the most crazy random fashion, you will enter some really wild, incredible, unknown universes with laws of physics and experiences beyond any possible thing you can imagine! and this is what all 7 billion turds on earth must do, now, right away, you can do it, go man go, do it, be a good little boy, do it for Mommy, while she cooks in the kitchen and you play in the backyard of your suburban house and your Daddy works at that crappy corporate job that always wants to hose him, go figure.
    Another infinite recursion of metaphysical and logical short circuits and mental computer programs got crashed when you said that I write a lot and say little, interesting, I am trying to figure out the difference, wow, that is driving me nuts, go figure.
    Quo Vadis ? Baby …

  438. Eleuthero July 6, 2011 at 5:47 am #

    To the knee-jerk fake conservatives now known
    as Republicans I say … DAMNED RIGHT IT IS
    “CLASS WARFARE”. And that “warfare” has been
    conducted by the rentier and CEO classes (whose
    jobs are immune from offshoring so they get
    Socialist protections while the “little people”
    must fight each other for crumbs in the capitalist
    piranha tank) against the middle class.
    It’s a global “race to the bottom” to see which
    tribes/races/nationalities will be sold out by
    their governments for slave wages and horrendous
    environmental degradation like the maquiladora
    towns of Northern Mexico or the farms in China
    irrigated with SLUDGEWATER.
    So my message to these Randian/Straussian/
    Friedmanian pricks is that it’s time to take
    the money back that they’ve systematically
    LOOTED from their countries. And the biggest
    looters are NOT free-market producers. They’re
    the financial service jerks all over the world
    combined with state-subsidized, politicized
    industries like the US CORN ETHANOL industry
    which is an intellectual and ethical DISGRACE.
    Yeah, it’s class warfare ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
    BY THE RENTIER CLASS. The fact that the middle
    class wants its money back is cited as Commie
    mania by the radio Republikooks. They forgot
    who started this class WARFARE and if Obama
    doesn’t wake out of his stupor and TAX THE SHIT
    OUT OF THE EMBEZZLERS OF AMERICA, the “war” will
    end soon with 10% STRUCTURAL unemployment and a
    permanent underclass that’s 200% larger than
    even ten years ago.
    Then again, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin are
    closet Straussians like the Project for a New
    American Century sociopaths … we are all the
    expendible “little people”. It makes me barf
    to hear guys like them PRETEND that they give
    a shit about Gulf War vets, truck drivers,
    manual laborers, etc.. I’ve met people like
    this all my life. They clink glasses with the
    millionaire punditocracy at Beltway parties and
    chuckle about their entertainment SHTICK.
    And the greatest horror of all is that some of
    their liberal “adversaries” clink glasses right
    along with them because the MO’ MONEY PARTY can
    APPEAR to be Democrat as well as Republican.
    That’s why I think our Republic as lost. It’s
    toast. The hiring of Summers, Geithner, and
    the rehiring of Bernanke and Gates tells you
    how “progressive” Obama is. That is … he’s
    a fraud.
    E.

  439. Eleuthero July 6, 2011 at 6:01 am #

    Vlad,
    Noble savage worship seems to have started in
    the 1960s in a culture-changing way. Texts
    disingenuously started portraying history as
    a conflict between “bad” land grabbers and
    “good” primitives.
    Take the American Indian, for example. Long
    before the Honkie entered North America, these
    tribes were annihilating each other with quite
    awesome efficiency. Their social organization
    was weak which is why there were innumerable
    tribes and no “we are all one people”
    egalitarianism.
    You see similar sorts of revisionist histories
    of many other ethnic groups and it’s all
    nonsense. It’s intellectually offensive to
    see many groups in the world today portrayed
    as oppressed “Bambis” when the history of their
    native lands is all genocide against their own
    brothers.
    Finally, whether we’re talking Asians, Blacks,
    Honkies, Latinos, or whatever … no one can
    dispute that it was, and still is, the dreaded
    Honkie who invented all the things modern peoples
    want from Ipads to cars to stereos to flush
    toilets to modern medicine to scientific progress.
    Even the much-vaunted Asian tribes are mostly
    amazing COPIERS of the innovations of others
    than innovators themselves.
    And I repeat to my liberal comrades here on
    CFN … there aren’t a hundred people of ANY
    race who are HONEST about issues of race and
    ethnicity … especially the issue of WHO is
    racist. We ALL are … and always have been.
    Yet hardly a word is uttered herein about the
    racism of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians against
    … EVERYONE else. Do you think Asians, as a
    rule, like Blacks?? Heh, heh, heh. There’s
    an OCEAN full of bullshit about race. I refuse
    to swim in that ocean. I refuse to put blinders
    on my intellect and ignore DATA.
    E.

  440. Eleuthero July 6, 2011 at 6:16 am #

    Fabian, besides being a sandbox-level potty-mouth,
    is so stupid that he doesn’t even know American
    history back to 1980. Sorry dude, but the
    “redistribution” that you think I stand for
    HAS ALREADY HAPPENED AND HAS BEEN HAPPENING
    FOR THIRTY YEARS.
    Supply side economics your fave, eh? When Geo.
    Bush ran against Reagan even HE called it “voodoo
    economics” and old Muddlehead was ABSOLUTELY
    CORRECT. The rich, in America and everywhere
    else throughout history are known, statistically,
    for their LACK OF CHARITY and for RESOURCE HOARDING, especially money.
    They do NOT, and NEVER have, “created jobs” with
    their extra lucre. Banks right now are HOARDING.
    You fail to understand that government ARISES
    because of the tendency for greed and malfeasance
    in the powerful to get out of hand. Government
    is the Newtonian RESULT of “absolute power
    corrupting absolutely”. Sure, when things get
    out of balance and we get a bloated PUBLIC
    SECTOR, that’s no good either.
    However, a BALANCED point of view is never of
    interest to a polarizing, sensationalizing,
    scatological bastard like you now, is it?
    E.

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  441. old69 July 6, 2011 at 6:19 am #

    With regards to:
    “These weird minds perceive a new universe, actually exit our universe and enter a new one that has nothing to do with ours anymore (hence the end of the idea of progress or a sequence of events that lead up to an aggregated conclusion, this disconnects the sequence, there is no longer any idea of time, or linear progress, or before or after, it can no longer be compared to what existed before because before is totally unrelated to the Instant Singularity), ”
    Actually, automatic for the people always disconnects a sequence from another, you turn the corner and see a new house, the sequence of events that constructed that house occurred step by step sequentially but in parallel to you, but the information you obtained, you got all together, in one shot, all of a sudden, instant information, a new configuration of information that is disconnected from the previous (but occurred in parallel) so an instant new world (just like the Instant Singularity). Also a sequence in time or space is equivalent they are just snapshots of information whether organized spatially or temporally (or mixed, hmm.. new ideas?).
    But then cause and effect, the step by step sequence of life just makes it reasonable, makes it a slow gentle flow that justifies each step according to the previous, but these steps are arbitrary, are not connected at all, they are just one snapshot after another of a configuration of Matter, Mass Energy showing itself off in a new combination, in a new style, but the style changes slowly so you can follow it and compare it (and judge it) to the previous and can remember it and deal with it (no sudden changes and sudden emotions or pains/pleasures) so you can rationalize it and put it into some fairy tale model of reality that is supposed to be linear, smooth, cause and effect, mathematical: but nothing is further from the truth, reality is chopped up, no logic, no cause and effect, no model, and all of a sudden, when an instantaneous change occurs and surprises you, you realize this and stop believing in the symbols and denotations and religions. On a side note, a modified mind used to constant wild changes (and wild swings of sensations, emotions, wild swings of pain/pleasure, etc.) would feel completely lost (or bored ?) in such a slow linear moving world as ours is (or is our world just a game between fast changing and slow changing, information is fast changing – instantaneous, the physical world is slow changing, light weight material (information and energy cheap) against heavy weight material, the information economy, ever faster changes (to hose you quickly?) and the old economy based on manufacturing heavy weight goods that have inertia ?).
    Actually most of the myth of new and better and innovation and progress is based on the comparison and confrontation of a new configuration to the previous one, or to what was previously known: so when a Progressive Rock group like Henry Cow made their music, what counted was the contrast and surprise with what was known previously, was the surprise factor, the comparison, the way the information was set up, in such a different way that gave it its novelty and worth and value. But you need just one example of contrast to do the trick, all the others that imitate this just repeated a contrast that created diminishing returns, since the first one is the master contrastor. Same with so many other items and entities, the first Personal Computers greatly contrasted with the previous configurations, now each new model contrasts less and less hence a diminishing return, and so on.
    So, most activities, endeavors, inventions, configurations, whatever have mostly run their course, now we just combine the elements in different ways, but the results are diminishing and we get diminishing returns: that your car has 4 airbags is such an abstract and hypothetical value of novelty compared to the luxury cars of the 1960s, there is no comparison, each new luxury car of the 1960s really seemed so new and interesting compared to airbags.

  442. Eleuthero July 6, 2011 at 6:28 am #

    Note to Fabian, read the writings of Jefferson
    to get a handle on the idea that part of the
    “checks and balances” system of America was
    to counterbalance, and I *quote* Jefferson
    himself, “… monied interests”.
    You’re just another fake conservative Republikook
    whose knowledge of the origins of BOTH the
    Constitution (and the ideas behind it) and
    the origins of our current ECONOMIC DECLINE
    haven’t the faintest overlap with factual history.
    But you’re amusing because people who use your
    kind of language are NEVER over 30 and the
    under-30s in the United States are rhetorically,
    historically, intellectually, and civically
    “challenged”. In other words, you’re RETARDED
    in the very literal sense of the word because
    you mouth hackneyed talking points of your
    favorite talking heads and I doubt that you
    haven’t read five books cover to cover in your
    sad LIFE.
    You’re just an incendiary KID. That’s all.
    If you debated without all your “fucktards”
    and “morons” and “asshats” and so on your
    words themselves wouldn’t carry enough weight
    to get a response so you do what all you
    Gen-Y monkies do … you throw tantrums to
    get attention.
    E.

  443. Dostoyevsky July 6, 2011 at 6:53 am #

    Pepp
    Completely agree with your characterisation of Vlad the Bloviater.
    Vlad
    your pseudo intelectual rants can’t disguise your narrow minded bigotted view of the world. It must be infuriating to have all these non anglo saxon people (of colour to boot) not giving you the respect that you so crave and believe is your birthright as a result of your white skin.
    How do you feel after each time you have to pay that coffee coloured lady Laquisha, she of ill repute, to feign interest in your shrivelled penis? How does it feel to know that despite your deep seated racism, its only those coffee coloured ladies that get your inner Nascar motor running?? How do you feel knowing that should your Klaven buddies find out about your regular trysts with ‘a dark person’ they’ll likely beat you within an inch of your life with a baseball bat for having committed ‘race crime’ and that will be the end of the only circle of friends that you have?
    Well Vladdy you know you can give up slender leggy Laquisha anytime for one of the sisters of your good old boys from the Klaven provided you like ladies weighing 300+ pounds who are missing their front teeth and shave their multiple chins once a week and have swastikas tattooed on various interesting (when under 170 pounds) parts of their bodies.
    Now Vlad the man with verbal diarrhea do your best.

  444. Eleuthero July 6, 2011 at 6:57 am #

    Second note to Fabian … one of the most
    hilarious aspects of your philosophy in
    defending against “redistribution” is
    that it made a lot of sense … A HUNDRED
    YEARS AGO.
    When the titans of industry like Henry Ford
    were around, these people were involved in
    PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRY and deserved to keep
    their lucre far, far, FAR more than the
    sociopaths who hit the money lottery now.
    Look at the, to use your filthy jargon, “asshats”
    who strike it rich now … Zuckerberg,
    subsidized corn ethanol farmers, banksters …
    you seek to allow THESE kinds of people
    protection from Federal taxation??
    By inference, this is EXACTLY your point i.e.,
    that money is “neutral” and if you strike it
    rich, well, good on ya, right?? Yet because
    of your profound lack of financial and
    historical education, you fail to see that
    plutocrats now create MONEY for themselves
    but they create NO CAPITAL. Real capital,
    the kind created by real CAPITALISTS, can
    be CAPITALIZED UPON by all of society because
    their work represented breakthroughs that
    made EVERYONE’S lives more opulent. Note
    how my LANGUAGE illuminates for you what
    CAPITALISM REALLY IS … when it existed.
    You haven’t a clue.
    Capitalism has been DECAPITALIZED and replaced
    by “money-fication”. Mark Zuckerberg is hella
    rich but he ain’t no capitalist. He’s just
    another kid who started a fad which adds no
    value to society and, indeed, may SUBTRACT
    a helluva lot. Remember MYSPACE? Once worth
    $500M it disappeared with hardly a whimper a
    week ago for THIRTY MILLION … six percent of
    its putative “value” of just three years ago.
    What “capital” is Citibank creating right now?
    How about Google … they’re terrif, right??
    The Fabians of the world (and the Limbaughs
    and Hannitys) haven’t the faintest notion of
    what CAPITAL really is nor do they have the
    slightest idea what the difference is between
    it and MONEY.
    Capital innovates and liberates, money doesn’t.
    Capital multiplies through the principle of
    UTILITY, money doesn’t. Fabian’s Neoconservative
    pals in the Republican party are SOCIALIST
    flaks like Paul Wolfowitz … Marxists who
    “reincarnated” as “globalists”.
    REAGAN created modern big government. Yup,
    Reagan. The ruse was that because it inflated
    the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT it could be infinitely
    rationalized as “national defense”. Eisenhower
    warned us about this. Nobody, and I mean
    NOBODY, listened.
    So we have the specter of a Democrat, Obama,
    rehiring Gates, promoting Petraeus, and getting
    involved in the same game as PNAC what with
    Libya, Yemen, and so on. He might as well
    apply to be the adopted son of Bill Kristol.
    E.

  445. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:05 am #

    I think that you’re full of shit with your privatization rant. First of all, yes, the schooling is free to the family using it at the time, irregardless of their income or contribution to the tax coffers, because it has been provided by the government. So although it is not “free”, just like nothing is free, it has been provided to the family in question for free even if they are on welfare. And private industry is not more competent than government. The people who run the navy, for instance, are infinitely smarter than the fuckups running the merchant marine, which of course is private industry. Also, the government built all the streets we drive on as well. The streets were not built by the trucking companies, were they? In fact if the government had neglected to build the streets there would be no trucking companies. And I still maintain that the airlines should’ve been nationalized after 9/11. Would you claim also that the airlines are well run? I don’t see how the government could possibly do a worse job of running the airlines frankly.
    True, if there were no public education then new types of private schools would emerge. These schools would probably be priced to a level where most coould afford them, as of course you cannot sell a service which costs too much money.
    Public education should be rationed in the sense that those who are uneducable, a sizable chunk of the population, would NOT be permitted to attend school. Public policy should encourage creation of jobs for stupid people who cannot cope with school, as we are never all going to attain middle class status.
    According to the tax rates we have around here if you’re paying $11,000 in property taxes then your house must be worth $ 550,000. I’m sorry but you’re not going to get me to feel sorry for someone who lives in a half a million dollar house. Maybe you should sell your house and move to something smaller if you hate paying taxes so much.
    Again, public education costs so much because we’re misguidedly trying to school all the dumb-fucks. Yes, dumb-fucks do really exist; everyone is not intelligent. In fact, only about 2.5% of the population is considered intellectually gifted on standardized I.Q. tests. Private schools are not going to do any better teaching all the dumb-fucks. And they are dumb-fucks. That’s why they don’t learn. You can’t blame everyhthing on the teachers especially when the brighter kids in their classes are actually learning.

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  446. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:17 am #

    I think you’re kind of missing the point. I’m nearly sixty. If this goes down I probably won’t make it. Consequently I don’t really give a shit. Most other people aren’t going to make it either, and that includes all of the diligent vegetable gardening homesteaders. But no, I don’t anticipate shooting anyone and everyone who comes wandering down my dirt road.
    I am actually more concerned with tax avoidance prior to collapse. If and when the collapse comes I will probably be too old and feeble to do much about it, and would probably accept the fact that I was basically a goner. But in any event, far northern Nevada has a climate more like Idaho than Las Vegas.
    I envy you growing up in Hawaii. I lived there in ’78 & ’79. Do you know how to surf?

  447. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:28 am #

    Oh no, I had a typo in my post! Beat me up I’m one of the dumb-fucks! I’ll have to come back under a new name like Spidey and start proof-reading my posts better!

  448. lbendet July 6, 2011 at 7:30 am #

    Bravo, E., bravo!
    I’m sitting here clapping at your posts.
    Your post to me could not have been more perfectly stated and what a dystopian view for the future of civilization these people have. As W. said “Sometimes money trumps everything.”
    Of course they call it class warfare when you try to change course, let’s see, I’ve quoted some people I’ve heard in the past to those are against globalism: you’re a protectionist, you’re an isolationist. That was a tactic that Milton Friedman used against any opposition.
    The idea behind the shock doctrine is to tear a society down and remake it for the economic benefit of global oligarchy. Oh and if they can get people to all embrace one religion that would serve their purposes even more.–making the world safer for McDonald’s.
    Yes, I don’t know why people understand that all the principles of conservatism are of a different era. Things don’t work the way they used to because we’re global and in the process of destroying the compact of the people with their governments, while making the corporatists more powerful.
    Forget about peak oil for just a moment because this is going to destroy us before that will.(that will be the coup de grace)
    I’m wondering whether you have done any reading of Michael Hudson. He has been describing the mechanics of this neo-feudalism for some time.

  449. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 7:35 am #

    It’s absolutely laughable to think that a bunch of iPhone wielding, WalMart shopping, air conditioned softies could compete for one second with people who actually had to think through, cradle to grave, what they wanted out of life. It becomes clearer to me every day that people like you are so out of touch with the physicality of how things work that you would be a ward of someone responsible within 24 hours of a collapse scenario. It’s utterly pathetic, the way you attempt to philosophize your way out of responsibility for yourself. The very notion that someone should be GIVING you a salary and cheap rent belies the uselessness damn near everyone around here attaches to your name. Inwardly you are ashamed of who you are, and you should be, that makes sense, because you and your “philosophy” are wholly useless. To use Eleuthero’s words, the system you promote creates no capital, and worse, it destroys every shred of capital that man molded and Nature provided.
    No need to respond. I’m leaving for the mountains for a week in a few hours and have a lot to do between now and then. I need just a bit of rest from a life that requires intelligent thought and planning, a whole lot of initial labor, and most importantly, doesn’t rely on others to function.
    Stop being a parasite.

  450. ozone July 6, 2011 at 7:40 am #

    It’s pointedly germane to internalize the concept that folks like the resident nigger-hater and Pud-Pud (in one of several incarnations) are simply here to make the rest of us GO AWAY and STOP READING AND DISCUSSING KUNSTLER’S IDEAS AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS.
    That is their focus; that is their desire; it may be what they’re PAID to do.
    Alrighty then… continue, and please attempt to keep that in mind.

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  451. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 7:41 am #

    “Tom Bombadil could take it and not be corrupted.”
    Sure, that goes without saying. But unfortunately we finds ourselves short of even one Tom Bombadil in this culture.

  452. ozone July 6, 2011 at 7:41 am #

    Marlin (and many others).
    I’d like to respond, but no time right now!
    Lllllllater on.

  453. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:47 am #

    I’ll second my appreciation of your recent rants here. Also, is there any greater word than honkie? Whoever first coined that word is to be congratulated.
    The rich bastard lobby loves to point out that 55% of income taxes are paid by the rich. They are overlooking all of the taxes other than property taxes and income taxes paid by the rest of us, who pay most of the sales taxes and government license fees.
    Other young people I know just don’t get it when it comes to politics and economics since the Reagan fiasco. A 35 year old lawyer girl I went to barber college with thinks I’m nuts when I rant that it’s been “downhill since 1973”, much as if I’m mourning the passing of Jerry Garcia or something equally inane. She’s a Republican from a family with no money. She’s now shacked up with money though. The people I watch the Browns with are all Republicans. They think that Democrats are effeminate! Why do I put up these imbeciles? My three closest buddies are all either democrats or else socialists though. All is not lost.

  454. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 7:48 am #

    “Very high tech enclaves surrounded by low tech populations doing agriculture and/or permaculture.”
    Destroyers surrounded by creators. But probably true. Should be interesting to watch unfold at the very least.

  455. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 7:53 am #

    “Do you clip yr birds wings?
    are pix of the coops [if you have] up at yr site?
    do you have to buy them any food [external costs?].”
    No, no, and yes. For the poultry, not the rabbits. I’m going to try to grow the grain and beans for my poultry, but haven’t done so yet. I feed them a lot of insect-ruined produce though. I’ll work on getting some pics of the animal systems posted soon and let you know.

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  456. old69 July 6, 2011 at 8:11 am #

    “Capital innovates and liberates, money doesn’t.
    Capital multiplies through the principle of
    UTILITY, money doesn’t.”
    Yes, but that cycle is over, done, dead, capitalism for the most part has run its course, it was so very connected to Technology and Science and Innovation, but even more so to Consumption and Consumerism, and all of these “growing” markets, but most of these have run their course at least in the mostly developed world (the “adult” world that can’t “grow” anymore) USA, EU and JAPAN (along with some others like Canada, South Korea, Australia,etc.). In fact the only hope for some more growth is coming from China, India, Brazil and other developing and growing countries as they increase their consumption of consumer goods (and corporations profit from this), but even those countries will hit a wall, I phantom that not more than 300 million people in all will become middle class before all the negative feedback loops start kicking in, like high House prices and Rents (already happening in China), high government expenditures, debts, outsourcing to the next cheapest turd country available etc.
    So this is a systems problem, I would phantom to say that not even the rich and corporations and capitalists know what is going on anymore, they don’t even have the slightest clue of what is happening to that cycle, that repetitive pattern of new invention, commercialization, growing markets, investment into it, profit, jobs, etc. that really worked so well for the last 200 years or so: now we are at the end of the cycle, the pattern, the game is mostly over, now we are in something new. I don’t even think the rich do it really “on purpose”, they could care less, they just get the cash automatically because the systems and decisions operating just hand it over to them for free, like the FED and Europe’s BANK simply printing trillions and handing it over to banks which hand it over to the rich, all for free, all for fun and games.
    What they really should have done is kill all real estate values, slash them all down violently worldwide by 90 %, and call all real estate loans a total loss, and completely fail the banks and all the investors who put money into these things.
    On another note, why do the HOT bitches ph*ck ? Why do people ph*ck ? Why do they enjoy and have pleasure and gain, and have fun ? Why not me ? Why am I the loser and a puny pussy whip, puny impotent shrinking violet, puny crap that is grateful that the next heartbeat actually occurs ? Why do I then hate all their guts so deeply, why does Bustin (and the other HOT bitches on this blog like Alexandra, San Jose Mommy, you name it, all and everyone) ph*ck and enjoy ? Why does he do that to me ? (and all the Niggers and Latinos and all others) why does everyone do that to me and kill me ? why do they have pleasure, why are their needs satisfied, any needs, even like if they are hungry they eat and then are satisfied, and all other possible needs and wants ? Why does that make me crazy with hate, rage, envy and anger ? Why do I think they all should burn in hell for infinite time and infinite pain while only me, out of thousands of trillions of pleasure balls enjoying, only me be one pleasure ball, and all of the others become pain balls ? I hate everyone’s gut, kill them all kill and destroy and demolish this total reality, I win, you see, even Mommy says I win!
    This is what Matter did to me. This is what the Laws of Physics did to me. Now how can that be fixed ? It can’t therefore I am a pissed of loser, I have been defeated by Mass Energy and Matter (or maybe if I split my brain and change its design I can win).
    Therefore kill Nature and Mass Energy and Matter, kill all and everything, if all dies I win, finally, but I wouldn’t be there to enjoy (but could suffice if I just kill one, namely myself maybe).
    On another note, what is the speed of Time ? How fast does Time travel ? Well information has infinite speed, it is faster than the speed of light which is always associated with some physical entity, but information is pure abstraction and has infinite speed, since all travel in space is just a configuration of information changing constantly as you move and all sequences in time are also a configuration of information changing constantly, hence time travel and space travel are one and the same, hence the real speed limit of the universe is not the speed of light, but the speed of information which is infinite by definition.
    Amen, may GOD be with you.

  457. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 8:13 am #

    “It would be nice to maintain the best of what we have now in terms of knowledge at least. Some hi tech for certain common purposes would be nice too if possible. Otherwise the whole ten thousand year spree was for naught.”
    Not to beat a dead horse, but permaculture aspires to do just that. Take the best ideas from all cultures, not just the modern high-tech version, and integrate them into a working model that maintains a fairly affluent, ultra low impact, if not net-productive, lifestyle in the descent context.
    It’s the classic “drop back and punt” move. Freely adopt some pretty serious austerity measures now while we can work out the details without starving to death, so that we can hang onto some sense of affluence post-collapse. As an example, I just spent $250 and two hours of my time to install a solar attic fan, which will run until it doesn’t, and probably not be replaced. The assumption of course is that air conditioning will be a no-go in a lower energy future, but that spending that $250 now will keep our house about 5 degrees cooler than it would be otherwise. Affluence of a lesser sort than today, for sure, but meaningful in a post-industrial future without AC. That’s a classic “high-tech” permaculture move, all 12.6 watts of it; the low-tech version might be building an earth integrated, passive solar, thermal mass home, and giving both AC AND fans a miss. Although most of us are doing it because we want to at this point, not because we’re being forced to. I have mega connections in this little town. I could get another “real job” if I wanted one. But I don’t. I really like what we’re doing, I feel good about it, peak oil or not, and I definitely work hard in my own ways.
    And like I said, we’re building up our library quite rapidly, both with useful post-industrial and preparation literature, and the classics of our age. I’ll be adding Earth Abides to the list. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

  458. trippticket July 6, 2011 at 8:19 am #

    And now, if you fine folks will excuse me, I have a cool mountain stream to make my way towards. See you next week. Or not…

  459. MarlinFive54 July 6, 2011 at 8:21 am #

    I’m certainly no TrippT, or Rip, but I gotta admit, for an amatuer, my garden is coming up pretty nice. Yesterday, after cutting trees, picked a basket of snow peas, wife sautee’d them up in butter whilst I barbecued 3 Brown Trout, caught in the AM by my brother in the Farmington River, on the grill (charcoal, not gas).
    Now that’s good eatin’!
    -Marlin

  460. digbycookies July 6, 2011 at 8:25 am #

    FYI: Elaine Meinel Supkis rips JHK a new one in her offering today under “Links”, Culture of Life News. Kind of echoes your (and others’) sentiments about the tatoo wearing masses! No mention of Cheez Doodles, however.

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  461. old69 July 6, 2011 at 8:38 am #

    “Inwardly you are ashamed of who you are, and you should be, that makes sense, because you and your “philosophy” are wholly useless.”
    “Stop being a parasite”
    Ok, criticism accepted, I am so ashamed of myself, I know, I suck and so forth and so on, it is all fine with me, it is all ok for me, I am worthless, useless, but tell me:
    1) What other possible mechanism besides Free Salaries and Cheap Rents is available for millions of unemployed and poor worldwide in a world economy that is eliminating all kinds of labor worldwide ever more by using technology, automation and cheap third world salaries ? Do you know of any other solution that could work ?
    2) Weren’t all the bubbles that were created by Real Estate prices going up for no reason, and all those who gained, all the trillions the FED gave to banks and others for free, and all the trillions the rich and corporations have worldwide from profit (read using 100 dollar a month factory workers at FOXCONN China for example to build IPHONES, etc.) by parasites ?
    How may parasites are there in the world ? And even if I am a small parasite, I am small, how many BIG parasites are there in the world ?
    From:
    http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/07/birthday-card.html
    “True, if there were no public education then new types of private schools would emerge. These schools would probably be priced to a level where most could afford them, as of course you cannot sell a service which costs too much money.”
    Yes you can: services (and goods) that cost “too much money” are sold all the time to create the loan and debts, just look at Health Care and Real Estate prices. And I corrected a spelling error, say thanks.

  462. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 9:00 am #

    People who are highly motivated and who have demonstrated that they are capable of handling academic work will take out loans to attend college. That is not the same as persons of limited means borrowing money to send their overwhelmingly dysfunctional rug-rats to elementary school where they of course will inevitably fail to learn anything. So, if there were no public schools such people would probably neglect their children’s education entirely. This is why we have public schools. That people expect too much from the public schools is not a convincing argument that they should be abolished. Rather, our expectations should be right-sized to something more in accordance with reality, and the fact is, very few people are academically inclined. Those who are anti-intellectual will engage in such activity only reluctantly and then only if forced by a much larger adult who has the power to punish them for their indifference or recalcitrance. Why do people who once taught school for a few misguided years have to explain this shit to everyone else ad infinitum ad nauseum?
    This is the value of public schools: when I taught basic reading and G.E.D. at Job Corps virtually everyone entering the program could at least read the racing form. We were told, “if they don’t feel like working today don’t fight with them, just let them read the sports page that day.” Do you think these people could have read even the sports page if they hadn’t been literally forced to attend school? Everyone deserve to at least be coddled through elementary school to give them a chance to demonstrate their ability. Once they’re big enough to beat the teachers up however, all bets are off. If they become violently disinclined to cooperate then they should be tossed out. This in no way translates to eliminating public education entirely just because perhaps half of the high school kids are shit-heads. Let the shit-heads get crappy little jobs for awhile until they realize that maybe a G.E.D. would be a good idea. In any event, our public schools are way too fancy and cost way too much money. Even if education were entirely privatized all the poor people would be getting vouchers from the government anyway.
    And, to return to your customary “free salaries & cheap rents” rant: we already do have such things. They are called [1] social security disability and [2] public housing. How about if we try trade policies which discourage off-shoring of jobs and homesteading, both urban & rural.
    Why did you change your screen name from Spider to OLD 69? Maybe I should change my name to something more entertaining like “Professor Driftwood”, my nickname in the navy. Now I’ve given my identity away to those few who know that name.

  463. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 9:38 am #

    “How about if we try trade policies which discourage off-shoring of jobs and homesteading, both urban & rural.”
    Badly constructed sentence so sorry to you all. It sounds like I’m trying to discourage homesteading as well as off-shoring of jobs. As pointed out repeatedly this skein by “E” in the old days before Ronnie Rayguns we didn’t need to come up with policy initiatives to rectify some sort of all pervading governmental stupidity because Reagan hadn’t yet had a chance to fuck the entire country up the culu, as the Mexicans are fond of saying. That we’ve been forced to address this sort of shit today is simply beyond belief to anyone born before say, 1970. And we do need homesteading both in the inner cities and in rural areas.

  464. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 10:29 am #

    i wish our immigration requirements were like australia’s. do those requirements apply the same way to non european/ american applicants. besides being virtuous societies, both australia and canada have relatively small populations on gigantic land masses. if that can be maintained along with their virtuous dominant cultures then they will remain prosperous. i have never been to australia, but in canada both capitalism and socialism seem to work better there than here in the u.s. i know a lot of posters on this blog say that there was never a “leave it to beaver” society, but we did have a more virtuous society in the past. both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of its demise.
    i believe both canada and australia retain some of what america has lost in the last forty years. nothing stays the same and you can’t turn back the clock. obviously, what the u.s. is doing now is not working. the larger and more diverse the population becomes the harder real reform becomes. sheer inertia makes it hard to steer the ship away from the iceberg. if australia ever faces a chinese invasion force sailing over the horizon, its old ally will probably be flat of its back powerless to help.

  465. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 10:53 am #

    Vlad
    your pseudo intelectual rants can’t disguise your narrow minded bigotted view of the world.
    =================
    Dos, when expressing your contempt for someones intellect and views (bigoted) it is extremely important that your own writing be pristine. Your failure on this score is downright comical.
    Besides your misspelling of intellectual and bigoted please be reminded that sentences begin with uppercase letters.
    P.S. Based on your spelling of colour and characterisation I’m guessing you’re from Canada, Britain or Australia??

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  466. SeaYoung July 6, 2011 at 11:07 am #

    My 4th was spent similar to Jim’s. I too noticed the contrast of a resort area complete with a nearby jet port and the surrounding beauty of National and State Parks. As a follower of global catabolic collapse (thank you John Michael Greer) the new normal is all around us. Contrast a $4.3 million estate in foreclosure and our meeting a cascading water fall after a two mile hike. It reminded me of Jim’s earlier entry about the state of things in Greece. Tear gas on the street, but the goat still grazes in the meadow. Overlooking it all and completely unconcerned.
    The play money is gone. On to the next new normal.

  467. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 11:23 am #

    Badly constructed sentence so sorry to you all. It sounds like I’m trying to discourage homesteading as well as off-shoring of jobs.
    =============
    Bub, I’d like to respond regarding these two issues but I don’t know what “homesteading” is. Please inform me.
    I already have opinions on discouraging the off-shoring of jobs. Namely, that it cannot work to a meaningful extent in a world shrunk by technology. This problem will not go away until the salaries for transferable jobs/labor/work reach a common sea level.
    Personally, I could be an isolationist in a heartbeat, giving the rest of the world the finger, but the realist in me knows it will never work.

  468. rippedthunder July 6, 2011 at 11:24 am #

    Nice going Fabulicious,You really are quite the financial wizard. Gold is up another 20 bucks today. Keep up the good work and you will soon spend all of your allowance for the week. Nice going. Better go see Mommy and see if you can get an advance.

  469. asia July 6, 2011 at 11:31 am #

    They dont know the fate that awaits them so they dont fly away.
    Poor birds!

  470. rippedthunder July 6, 2011 at 11:32 am #

    Hi ya Marlin, That is good eatin’! ya gotta love those fresh snow peas, I just wish they could take the heat. Mine are just about done for the season. I’ll do them up again for the fall season. How big were those Browns? Did you know The Farmington River is the only river to flow in all four cardinal directions in the Northern Hemisphere.

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  471. asia July 6, 2011 at 11:35 am #

    ‘be reminded that sentences begin with uppercase letters.’
    who made you king?

  472. asia July 6, 2011 at 11:37 am #

    ANYONE HAVE COMMENTS ON THE DUST STORM IN ARIZONA?
    Photos at Yahoo. 50 miles wide?

  473. ront July 6, 2011 at 11:52 am #

    “I think we all need to start providing our ideas too, and somehow try to generate a consensus as to the direction we want to head.
    Then of course we have to start working to achieve those goals.
    Anybody else want to work at some goals? Big effort, but nothing happens until someone starts.”
    Prior to to goal-setting, I believe, we will do well to figure out just who we are before deciding what to do. I trust we have the genius, gifts, and potential for enthusiasm to solve all our problems. I derive my inspiration from this:
    Avatar Meher Baba, from Nov 1944
    “In the one undivided and indivisible Ocean of Life, you have, through ignorance, created the pernicious divisions based upon sex, race, nationality, religion, or community; and you allow these self-created divisions to poison your heart and pervert your relationships. You are already parts of one life, and, as such brotherhood is not something which is to be brought into existence through laborious efforts, but is the supreme fact, which claims your recognition and wholehearted allegiance as soon as you have the candidness and the courage to face the Truth.”

  474. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 11:55 am #

    we have romantic view of education. many think if we just spend a little more money, try a new program, or build self esteem everyone could be a nasa scientist. wrong. but a sweet thought. we should focus on the first four or five years. that is where a kid gets it or not. we should include second languages early on. it is three times harder to learn a second language in high school. later those who are not interested or academically inclined can learn a skill. it may pay them better than college .

  475. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 12:02 pm #

    i wish our immigration requirements were like australia’s.
    ==============
    Disregarding the content of your comment, there are two things about your post(s) that piss me off … things for which I’ve chided even great writers like Orionoir (who, to my regret, has largely disappeared from these pages) … viz:
    Are you too cool or just too fucking lazy to press your pinkie on the shift key to form uppercase letters? Are you trying to signal that you’re a very busy guy who does not have the time for such nonsense?
    And ditto for the lack of breakdown of your comment into paragraphs. Do you enjoy some sense of power in creating an unnecessary burden of understanding for the reader by displaying a continuous wall of words? Did your doctoral dissertation look anything like the piece of shit you wrote here?
    FYI:
    paragraph
    — n
    1. (in a piece of writing) one of a series of subsections each usually devoted to one idea and each usually marked by the beginning of a new line, indentation, increased interlinear space, etc

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  476. newworld July 6, 2011 at 12:07 pm #

    Vlad I love you and hate you, you post then the blank slate children of unicorn utopia post long rambles of pure anti-white hatred. So I guess anti-white hatred is the anti-semetism of the partially educated.
    So listen children if being asked a question is so injurious to your mental/emotional being how will the Long Emergency treat you when your Mommy Prof. world view has been completely overturned?

  477. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 12:10 pm #

    busy and lazy. hows that for an incomplete sentence? just getting to the point as fast as possible.

  478. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 12:11 pm #

    ANYONE HAVE COMMENTS ON THE DUST STORM IN ARIZONA?
    =============
    Yes, it appears to be very dusty. Duhhh. Were you hoping for something more profound?

  479. Buck Stud July 6, 2011 at 12:15 pm #

    BLOG IS EATING POST AGAIN…TESTING,ONE,TWO,THREE

  480. studejack July 6, 2011 at 12:17 pm #

    “Passenger pigeon”? What the fuck is a passenger pigeon? I thought those blue-and-gray things that cover Manhattan in the summer are native American pigeons. Golly, you mean America had its own, native, plentiful (billions) pigeon, 99.999% OF WHICH WERE SHOT, BURNED, CRUSHED, or STARVED TO DEATH BY ABOUT 1880? Hmmm, why, nobody taught me that in school Perhaps because not even the natural history museum located in the nation’s capital has one on display. If that isn’t fucked up, I don’t know what is.

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  481. Buck Stud July 6, 2011 at 12:18 pm #

    Apparently, at certain times, if you copy and paste a post it might be rejected. But if you type it in directly, it goes straight through.

  482. Cash July 6, 2011 at 12:21 pm #

    Where there is parental involvement, schools thrive. – Fabian
    Absolutely agree. And where schools are crap and kids do lousy it’s because parents don’t give a damn.
    I have not much patience with throwing money at education. You don’t need tons of money to educate kids. Way back when I was in elementary school we didn’t even have a gymnasium. The school was a rudimentary, one storey brick building with 8 classrooms and a playing field. And that’s it. Physical facilities that were below par by today’s standards. But we had great teachers and parents that were on the ball.

  483. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 12:21 pm #

    I take SILENT NOTICE of all men’s failures being discussed in this week’s comments.
    The particular message in the Gospel of the Kingdom that needs to be proclaimed in order to give the world a genuine view of the heart of God is not the message usually given of threats of hell-fire for all sinners [ law-breakers 1 John 3:4 ]. It is the message that Paul advocated in 2 Cor. 5:18-20,
    “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
    The Gospel of the Kingdom [ a form of government where the citizens have ALL learned to be self-governing under God’s Law ] that Paul preached had no threats. It was about the good news of what Christ had done [finished – completed – acknowledgement only needed] in “reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” It was a message about the love of God, and what God had done for them in Christ.
    God never fails.

  484. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 12:28 pm #

    It is different from: sitting on the sidewalk for hours with your children to be admitted to the court room, telling them that lies are punished, and lies made to the government are punished justly.
    Then the liar is found not guilty of murder, but guilty of lieing to the government. What do you suppose is the consequence of a child witnessing the adults around him being so __________ .
    I am at a loss for words, please help me out.

  485. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 12:31 pm #

    “Oh well, life can be tough.”
    I’ll make it easier for you. Buy some silver and bury it in the earth. You get more for your money and you won’t have to wait as long.

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  486. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 12:53 pm #

    “…we have romantic view of education.”
    “I want to see Sweden become the first country in Europe to introduce instruction in Chinese as a foreign language at all primary and secondary schools,” said Jan Bjoerklund, who heads the Liberal Party, a junior member of the centre-right ruling coalition.
    Getting Swedish pupils to learn Chinese was vital to strengthening Swedish competitiveness, the education minister told financial daily Dagens Industri.
    “Not everyone in the business world speaks English. Very highly qualified activities are leaving Europe to move to China. Chinese will be much more important from an economic point of view than French or Spanish,” he said.”
    What about teaching them English?
    http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/lifestylenews/view/1139237/1/.html

  487. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 12:57 pm #

    “Think he might have a thing or two to say to her?”
    I am asking the question from a child’s perspective. Can you help with this? Take it one step at a time.

  488. Cash July 6, 2011 at 1:02 pm #

    That means he had already studied trig by the 8th grade. You want to tell me the school system where this is occurring in the year 2011? – Fabian
    We have an over supply of slack jawed graduates with diplomas in self esteem. Socially “aware”, marinated in political correctness, brined in anti Americanism, innumerate, sub-literate, unable to find Africa on a map and as fucking useless as can be.
    Not a new problem. I saw a documentary not long ago about a pioneering educator from the early 20th century. She was moaning in the early 1950s at the end of her career about education that was drained of content. Not demanding enough of the little dears. So it was becoming a problem a long time ago.

  489. newworld July 6, 2011 at 1:20 pm #

    Uber Liberal Roger Ebert today lamented the fact that the “Great Gatsby” is taught today in an edited edition (I never read it).
    Two things stick out on his delicate rant, first the school children are brown and black with little use for white man’s books, second not everyone has the intellectual capability to sort thru nuance and the Three R’s would be way more approriate for our globalized consumer workforce of the future.
    They never ask the kids or their parents if shoving books by whites at them is what they want, why do white liberals presume this? Why do white liberals presume anything at all?

  490. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 1:22 pm #

    Good fences make good neighbors. Borders are absoultely necessary. Because I’m me and you’re you, we can have a relationship. As Ramakrisna said, I don’t want to be sugar, I want to eat sugar.
    Have you read about Baba’s work with the Masts? Many of them craved privacy. And even though highly advanced, they were often very angry and abusive at being endlessly disturbed and misunderstood. I’m not a Mast but rather a Mast Like Pilgrim or Salik. The depths of my being are filled with love but this can’t be shown to the ignorant. And like the Masts, I’m infuriated at the moment to moment idiocy and superficiality of the world.
    Real Love wants the best for the Beloved. Those who claim to love all races desire to enact the means that will end the White Race. To will the End is to will the Means. And vice versa except in the case of ignorance.

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  491. Cash July 6, 2011 at 1:25 pm #

    Now that we’re on the topic of education…
    Muslims want the cafeteria of a Toronto middle school to be used for Friday payers for Muslim students of the school. The Toronto school board says they’re bound by human rights legislation to allow it.
    Bullshit. They’re too paralyzed by fear to say no. The only people with the balls to take this on are local Hindus.
    If it were Christians who wanted the cafeteria for prayer meetings the answer would be an immediate unequivocal no with taunts, sneers and jeers and a lot of piety about separation of church and state. And not a peep about human rights codes either.

  492. newworld July 6, 2011 at 1:26 pm #

    Now for dozens of posts illuminating the ignorance of the masses. Intern at work, her school’s valedectorian thought Alaska was an island. (maps show it this way)

  493. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 1:29 pm #

    Ditto the Theater and the Symphony. The Blacks and Browns have no interest in our higher arts. Why was it assumed they would – especially when everything White was made out to be of the Devil?
    The East Asians like Classical and produce many musicians of technical genius. Many have said that these are somewhat lacking in spirit – but I’m not qualified to judge. Yoyo Ma is said to be one who has transcended this mental prison and found his heart.
    Why do you hate me btw?

  494. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 1:35 pm #

    If you don’t behave, I’m going unplug you.

  495. MarlinFive54 July 6, 2011 at 1:49 pm #

    RipT, trout 12″-14″ range.
    Ya I knew that about the Farmington. Where it bends from North to South is just across the way here. Water stays cold enough all summer to support a sizable trout population. No August die-off like in the Housatonic.
    -Marlin

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  496. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 1:51 pm #

    Do your plants play games with each other like the horses? And do the horses play intellectual games like chess?
    The plants have life but not consciousness. The animals have consciousness but lack intellect. We have intellect but lack wisdom – exept for the Saints and Sages.
    Primitive men also believe in the Great Chain of Being – though they express it more simply in terms of animal spirits and the Three Worlds (Underworld of the dead, the Physical World, and Paradise). My views are much closer to their’s than your Darwinism and Neo-Marxism.
    Glad you want to retain the best! Sometimes you seem to gravitate towards the Hunter Gatherers exclusively. Glad to introduce you to “The Earth Abides” – a real classic to be read and reread.
    Another one you might enjoy which I haven’t gotten to yet myself is “The Starship and the Canoe” about a Father who is Physicist who dreams of L5 Colonies and his son who is drawn to the past and the incredible workmanship of the sea canoes of the Pacific Northwest. Not a novel – the scientist is Freeman Dyson.

  497. asia July 6, 2011 at 1:59 pm #

    To my untrained eye it look unusual and dangerous.
    I dunno how rare it is.

  498. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 1:59 pm #

    And what are the immigration requirements for the Muslim rapists and the Chinese hordes? Not so strict I bet. You people are doomed – taken over by the Globalists just as the United States has been. Once the Chinese are in power, you’ll be dreaming of the generous and kind White Masters you used to have.
    An Australian Professor told my class about the Abos eating the Chinese workers. And even if can’t be easily sourced, you can’t deny this practice was common with your people. Sure, maybe not all of them – I know there were many cultures as I already said.

  499. soak July 6, 2011 at 2:05 pm #

    If it were Christians who wanted the cafeteria for prayer meetings…
    ——————-
    Then they wouldn’t be Christians.
    Jesus gave explicit rules about prayer:
    But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6
    Muslims deserve the cafeteria because Muslims have different rules about prayer.
    Get over it and stop your whining, Cash.

  500. ozone July 6, 2011 at 2:06 pm #

    Here’s yer “rare”…
    http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html
    Dangerous? Abso-fucking-lutely.

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  501. ozone July 6, 2011 at 2:11 pm #

    More… from 2009.
    Ya been hidin’ in a bomb shelter, or what?
    http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/dust_storm_in_australia.html

  502. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 2:52 pm #

    Some interesting thoughts on “self-control”:
    “Issues that I used to see in terms of politics and morality, I am now seeing in terms of human psychology, and in a broad sense, ecology: in nature, if easy prey exists, a predator will appear. In the last few hundred years, humans have given ourselves powers and opportunities that we don’t know to use yet, and this makes us easy prey for things like cigarettes, credit cards, Michele Bachman, and the Apple logo. The solution is not at the top but at the bottom, for more of us to become aware of our own mental states.
    For example, a few weeks ago I wrote about self-control and how I no longer believe it exists. Instead, people are acting from different perspectives and different stories about how the world works and what we’re doing here. Another way to look at this is that people are playing different games. If your game is to grab as much pleasure as possible in an unreliable world, you’re going to be terrible at saving money. But if you see money as your only protection against unspeakable suffering, you’re going to be really good at saving it. The key is not to find a perfect mental state and stay there, but to choose the right mental state for every situation.”
    Another way of saying, learn to ask good questions.
    http://www.ranprieur.com

  503. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 2:52 pm #

    little Miss Grammar-Mammar?
    =============
    Congratulations Tootsie, you spelled grammar correctly for the first time. This indicates you DO pay attention when I bust your balls. Good Boy. Here’s a gold star to stick on your forehead.

  504. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 3:10 pm #

    Intern at work, her school’s valedectorian thought Alaska was an island.
    ==================
    Reminds me of 10-15 years ago reading about some California H.S. students learning in history class that Japan and Germany were the enemies that the US fought in WW2. The article said the students were “stunned and appalled” and some asked “who won?”
    P.S. …dictorian

  505. San Jose Mom 51 July 6, 2011 at 3:18 pm #

    Thanks MD, those were great quotes on self-control.
    I’m hopeful that people will eventually come to the realization that extra “stuff” won’t make them happy. Maybe for a day or two…but beyond that, is the debt worth it?

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  506. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 3:20 pm #

    The Cannibals all say that East Asians taste the best btw. I eat horribly so that people wont want to eat me. If I bug gets into my mouth, I will spray Raid in there to get him.
    I will outlive all of you – but at what cost? Longevity isn’t eternal youth. Who wants to be an old spider?

  507. San Jose Mom 51 July 6, 2011 at 3:23 pm #

    Last month our family went up to San Francisco’s Museum of the Legion of Honor to see the Magna Carta. The document’s first public appearance in the US! My kid’s friends didn’t have the slightest clue as to what it was.

  508. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 3:25 pm #

    So in other words, all Churches should be turned into Mosques. Jesus said alot of things – they have be weighed against each other in the Light of the Tradition that goes back all the way to those who knew Christ. All Christains worship together and not just alone in closets. Perhaps you don’t understand the concept of a parable or metaphor?

  509. ctemple July 6, 2011 at 3:30 pm #

    Another comment on the travesty of justice that was the Anthony rrial.
    In the sixteenth century the Scottish King caught a large family of murderers/cannibals. They were brought back to Edinburgh by the King’s soldiers not for trial, the men were drawn and quartered and the women were incinerated. That had a nice sense of closure to it.
    No Godamn murderers being turned into reality t.v. stars, no scumbag parastic defense lawyers making their blood money, no weeks of psycho babble, no cave dwelling imbecilic gutter trash on juries who can’t convict anybody, no squads of armchair detective talking heads second guessing the police, the forensic experts, the judge, the coroner’s office, etcetera.
    God save the King.

  510. asia July 6, 2011 at 3:58 pm #

    Beautiful death…..are you saying theres enough global drying for another dust bowl in the USA?

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  511. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 4:01 pm #

    the Magna Carta … My kid’s friends didn’t have the slightest clue as to what it was.
    ==============
    …assumed it stood for “Big Car.”

  512. gavin July 6, 2011 at 4:02 pm #

    I live in a suburb of the DFW area and I only heard a few spasms of firecrackers, and that was at midday. Now, because of the drought, some professional shows were cancelled, but most ordinary people don’t care, and set off fireworks anyway. Strangely, I heard not the faintest report once the sun went down. I’m sure it wasn’t just me, because in previous years, the dogs have always been freaking out all night on the fourth. That night, they were completely calm. So, yeah. Strange.

  513. Buck Stud July 6, 2011 at 4:03 pm #

    Chalk up another one in the foaming-at-the-mouth for justice column. And while were at it, a mission accomplished mission mark for a sensationalized trial that takes feeble eyes off the true reality of America: The U.S incarcerates far more people than any other nation on earth – by far. Meanwhile, for profit prisons are springing up – a more diabolical incentive couldn’t have been devised by Witchfinder Vincent Price himself – while simultaneous education cuts are being enacted.
    The problem is not lack of people being locked away; it’s folks like you mistaking a pebble for the entire earth.

  514. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 4:23 pm #

    “Johnny/Janie, sometimes adults make mistakes.”
    We all have made mistakes. Mercy triumphes over judgement. Forgiveness is a gift under-appreciated by the righteous. Men condemn and punish, God convicts and restores.

  515. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 4:32 pm #

    Thanks for taking my earlier rudeness so well.
    Homesteading is a grant of free land from the government in exchange for occupying and then improving the land. Admittedly, I have eccentric ideas, but in Cleveland for instance the city government does have a so called “land bank.”
    I am an isolationist these days. Since it will take a very long time to establish an even playing field internationally it would be helpful if some of the tariffs could be restored and the tax codes changed so that companies are no longer given incentives for leaving.

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  516. old69 July 6, 2011 at 4:44 pm #

    Do you ph*ck a lot fabian ? do you have pleasure ? I hate that you do, I hate you for that, don’t do it anymore, just like the preists say to young boys, just don’t do it. I forbid you and anyone else, so now thee I win, ok ?
    You guessed right turd, I want to use your money, just like the money of 7 billion turds on earth for the symbol, the denotation, the ambition, the goal that I established as the only possible worth following : trillions of skyscrapers, trillions of rockets to mars, etc. infinite pain for everyone, thousands of trillions of pain balls while I am the only pleasure ball, no sex here (if I can’t get none, then no one can get any, no more fun for anyone, I hereby forbid all sex and any kind of pleasure for anyone under my iron fist dictatorship, so don’t do that or anything else, just don’t do it, don’t kill me and punish me), no pleasure here for anyone, now they all deserve and will get the infinite pain of hell forever, 24 hours a day of forced labor to build trillions of skyscapers and rockets to mars, modified minds and brains, only the symbol can justify hell, so no pleasure for anyone else anymore, there, iron fist communist dictatorship, I have finally come out of the closet, I have finally revealed my real self, full of hate, envy and desire to punish billions of turds who don’t know better and must be programmed to follow my idea of goal, only my idea, only I win, only I against all and win, so there I got you back. Satisfied now ? Oh, guess what ? it looks like a fight, A against B, and A wins, A being me.

  517. old69 July 6, 2011 at 4:46 pm #

    Do you ph*ck a lot fabian (and anyone else) ? do you have pleasure ? I hate that you do, I hate you for that, don’t do it anymore, just like the priests say to young boys, just don’t do it. I forbid you and anyone else, so now there I win, ok ?
    You guessed right turd, I want to use your money, just like the money of 7 billion turds on earth for the symbol, the denotation, the ambition, the goal that I established as the only possible worth following : trillions of skyscrapers, trillions of rockets to mars, etc. infinite pain for everyone, thousands of trillions of pain balls while I am the only pleasure ball, no sex here (if I can’t get none, then no one can get any, no more fun for anyone, I hereby forbid all sex and any kind of pleasure for anyone under my iron fist dictatorship, so don’t do that or anything else, just don’t do it, don’t kill me and punish me), no pleasure here for anyone, now they all deserve and will get the infinite pain of hell forever, 24 hours a day of forced labor to build trillions of skyscapers and rockets to mars, modified minds and brains, only the symbol can justify hell, so no pleasure for anyone else anymore, there, iron fist communist dictatorship, I have finally come out of the closet, I have finally revealed my real self, full of hate, envy and desire to punish billions of turds who don’t know better and must be programmed to follow my idea of goal, only my idea, only I win, only I against all and win, so there I got you back. Satisfied now ? Oh, guess what ? it looks like a fight, A against B, and A wins, A being me.

  518. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 4:46 pm #

    As you may have gathered this issue pretty much drives me nuts, which is why I continually revisit it. The first few years of school actually do work pretty well already. That’s why elementary school teachers usually prefer teaching the lower three grades. And yes, it is far easier to learn a language earlier on. But which language? To a great extent in the USA there is no obvious second language to teach, save Spanish perhaps. Of course learning any second language would be greatly beneficial.
    People become anti-intellectual because they are limiting themselves to what they see in the adults they emulate. So if Uncle Tony and Uncle Bill are fun loving and easy going dolts then that becomes the model to emulate. Also, if the teachers at school don’t seem the most interesting then that is problematical as well. Nevertheless, blaming everything on the teachers is idiotic as clearly the average person is not intended for an academic career of any sort.
    I think that the Germans have it figured out but that could be because I am German. People who find academics dull would not necessarily find motorcycles dull as well so I say let them become monomaniacs at an earlier age and teach them mechanics. People excel by becoming specialized so let them specialize. The current approach of turning out generalists strikes me as unrealistic. It’s kind of elitist to expect people to be generalists. After all, we no longer need colonial administrators to tell the natives what to do, do we? People are better off learning how to do something. Learning a trade should not be deferred until community college. Now we’ve got university graduates going back to community college so they can get certified to draw blood. After all, there’s not much call for art historians at the bachelor’s level unless they want to start out as art museum security guards.

  519. progress,conserve July 6, 2011 at 4:52 pm #

    “any information you may be seeking re your father’s leave and location could be found at the AU war memorial in Canberra.”
    -pepp-
    Thanks for the advice from Down Under. I have Dad’s unit numbers and most of his service records. His footlocker was dropped by a crane operator when he was coming back through San Diego in 1946. So he lost all of his personal papers and pictures that he had not already mailed home. He came home with his medals and campaign ribbons in , but they gradually rusted away to dust.
    Sydney is probably the best guess for his location for R&R – and I appreciate your suggestion as to that specific beach.
    Regards,
    p,c
    =======
    $500K AU and under age 30 to emigrate from the US?? That does seem excessive. I’m not getting the reasons – in light of some of the other, much looser, Australian immigration requirements.
    But I think you guys would do well to declare your country full, based on some of these ideas.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Australia
    Very interesting info in the ENVIRONMENT section of the article. Perth may eventually have to be abandoned due to lack of water?? Have you heard that? Or is it just a Wikipedia hiccup?

  520. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 5:03 pm #

    marc you would like the book “real eduction.” i forget the author. it’s main ideas are abilities vary and too many people go to college. everyone needs some training but not a four year or more degree.

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  521. progress,conserve July 6, 2011 at 5:04 pm #

    old spider 8m 69,
    You had a post earlier today that actually made sense. And I read the whole thing. But now I can’t find it through all the double posting bull shit, of yours, to link to it so others can see it.
    You are aware that every time you double post you kill billions of your own brain cells.
    And make money more scarce and more finite
    And destroy a spaceship to Mars
    And make a skyscraper self-destruct.
    You should quit.

  522. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:07 pm #

    Here’s an Atlantic article talking about Americans adapting to cheaper lifestyles-
    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/how-the-great-reset-has-already-changed-america/241200/

  523. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:11 pm #

    Well, that is a relief.
    I thought that plastic bottles were a different substance that polyester.
    And burning them is a travesty. Plastic does indeed reek.

  524. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 5:13 pm #

    OldSpider said: Do you ph*ck a lot fabian (and anyone else) ? do you have pleasure ? I hate that you do, I hate you for that, don’t do it anymore, just like the priests say to young boys, just don’t do it. I forbid you and anyone else, so now there I win, ok?
    =============
    It used to be my little joke – picturing OldSpider rocking back and forth in a corner of the fictional Greystone Insane Asylum smeared in his own excrement – but now it seems my joke may NOT be fictional … seriously.

  525. progress,conserve July 6, 2011 at 5:20 pm #

    Marc, you and E and LBend had a great point/counterpoint thing going on today. I’d like to compliment all 3 of you.
    And now your response back to Q mirrors my own thoughts, too:
    “Since it will take a very long time to establish an even playing field internationally it would be helpful if some of the tariffs could be restored and the tax codes changed so that companies are no longer given incentives for leaving.”
    -bhm-
    Yeah, no joke it’ll take a very long time, Q. And it will end up with white collar US salaries at something stupid, like $5K/year. And, logic dictates that regular US worker pay will have to drop to the level of rural China, or Viet Nam – which is what? $2/day, or less.
    That’s the only way the Resident Arachnid will get his “cheap houses” and “free rents.”
    I know some of the worst of this could have been prevented. Marc’s right – tax law has favored outsourcing for decades. And the US middle class has been slowly screwed into the ground since 1980.
    BushII couldn’t finish breaking off the tip – so Obama took over for him.

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  526. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:21 pm #

    Hypocrite.
    That sentence made absolutely no sense, but instead of attacking him and deconstructing the sentence, you acted as if he had said something intelligible, because he shares your right wing views.

  527. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:30 pm #

    I can guarantee you that Fabian never ph*cks, old69, so don’t worry about it.
    You were doing so well with your first post, but then you degenerated again.
    You wouldn’t be banned if you stuck to making your observations once. And without the Mars prescriptions.

  528. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:44 pm #

    Interesting that they brought it to the USA after Congress abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act.
    Kind of like having a passenger pigeon corpse in a museum.
    Look at this old relic, kids! Can you believe that in the old days, they weren’t allowed to throw you into prison for years without a trial? How quaint, as Alberto Gonzalez noted.

  529. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 5:52 pm #

    Back when Nixon was president, I made less than $5,000/year, but rent was cheap.
    Nixon and Milton Friedman both advocated a guaranteed income.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
    Spider isn’t so far off.
    This country is so hateful now, that Richard Nixon looks liberal.

  530. MarlinFive54 July 6, 2011 at 5:57 pm #

    “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who gives a shit about that cracker, got rid of him a long time age, replaced with sterling prose of Malcolm X?
    Whitman, TS Elliot, Hart Crane, what the hell kind of honky poetry is that? We study Tupac, Biggie Smalls and Maya Angelou now.
    -Marlin

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  531. San Jose Mom 51 July 6, 2011 at 6:21 pm #

    Just read about some new propaganda–apparently TSA is now worried that terrorists will implant explosive devices under the skin! What rot.

  532. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 6:23 pm #

    don’t you think both sides of the political spectrum are responsible for the hatefulness in the country. i see spew coming from both.

  533. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 6:39 pm #

    I dread hearing their solution to that problem!

  534. asia July 6, 2011 at 6:44 pm #

    That was 100M people ago Dear!
    50% increase to the 200 M ‘we’ had.
    Nixon, I barely remember…wage controls yes I recall, drug crimes went down because he advocated counseling for users.
    The ‘country’ is hateful?

  535. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 6:44 pm #

    Wage, you’re more obsessed than I am – conspiracy vs grammar. Newworld’s sentence made sufficient sense to me that I was able to focus on the content. However, had I written it it would have read as follows:
    An intern at work, her school’s valedictorian, thought Alaska was an island.
    Since you’re very bright I’m positive you DO understand the irony of a school’s valedictorian thinking Alaska was an island.
    The message in Newworld’s comment (and my reply) is about the sad state of education … but somehow you see my response as the codling of a right-winger.

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  536. asia July 6, 2011 at 6:48 pm #

    Baa..if open borders and a phoney war on drugs= freeDUMB….
    Invasive patdowns at airports while libs cry about ‘racial profiling’.
    What % are in jail/prison on drug charges?
    50%? 90%?
    and spidey..ole 69..whats goin on with you and them ‘preists’???..ol 69!

  537. asia July 6, 2011 at 6:52 pm #

    BBheadMarc
    I dont surf and lived in Hawaii around 1970 its closer to ruined now.
    Do you have a Facebook or private message?
    I have a degree and EVEN I CANT REMEMBER
    THE MAGAN WHATAA?

  538. asia July 6, 2011 at 6:58 pm #

    The ordinary man there has been heard to cry:
    WE GREW HERE YOU FLEW HERE
    What are their Imm requirements?
    Racist against whites? guess so.
    They sealed their fate in 1974..ending the ‘Whites Only’ policy…liberal fools slit their own throat.

  539. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 7:11 pm #

    I would have written it – An intern at work told me that her school’s valedictorian thought that Alaska was an island.
    And, as you pointed out to Bossier, you don’t get to complain about the current state of the nation’s education system when you are unable to write a coherent sentence.
    Ever.

  540. wagelaborer July 6, 2011 at 7:15 pm #

    And let us not forget that the governor of Alaska thought that Africa was a country.
    Although she wasn’t a valedictorian, to be sure.

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  541. asia July 6, 2011 at 7:16 pm #

    Common at the White House [he is common]..
    MosDef etcetcetc
    I say it was Cassius Clay that started it,
    but back then folks knew his rhymes were idiotic,
    now they win Grammies and make billions of dollars.

  542. asia July 6, 2011 at 7:21 pm #

    Perhaps she was 1/2 right, SA is a country.

  543. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:24 pm #

    Exactly. All I ever wanted to do was to be a sailor, but my parents talked me into attending college. I would have been better off enlisting and gradually working my way up to warrant officer or what not. Instead I attended a fairly selective college but graduated with mediocre grades in an unmarketable program. Then I enlisted, but not until I was too old to really adapt, plus to compound the error, I foolishly thought I could handle a special branch of the navy simply because I was older than the other people! The end result was disaster. I think lots of people have fucked themselves over by ignoring their real interests to go to college. American colleges are mostly just finishing schools where you’re not even allowed to take that many hours in your supposed major. Plus now it costs ridiculous amounts of money. At least when I went tuition at state schools was quite cheap. Parents do a crappy job of raising their kids because they want to protect their kids from the world. College is viewed as “safe”.

  544. messianicdruid July 6, 2011 at 7:27 pm #

    “I’m guessing you will see quite a few people in the course of your day, who through their own actions, demonstrate the fact, that a lot of people can’t handle freedom. They have no clue.”
    Isn’t education more than “clues”? Or is it that they have learned so many lies they have become mentally disabled, limited-function drones {as per specifications}? If your programming is GIGO, you have to ask – when did it become MY programming? Before I was self-aware? Can we become self-programming?

  545. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:30 pm #

    I haven’t been there since 1980 and have no idea what it would be like today. I remember thinking even then that Honolulu had been turned into a suburb of Los Angeles.
    I don’t understand the rest of your message. No, I’m not on facebook.

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  546. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:38 pm #

    Thanks. Actually I felt kind of frazzled and disjointed but I’m glad you liked the debate.
    I think that the current trajectory of the economy is forcing people to drop out by relocating to the cheapest areas so they can simply get by, then once you’ve got your ultra low property tax “homestead” set up you could simply get by doing odd jobs. To think today that you’re going to buy a nice pretty new house in the ‘burbs then find a good enough job to pay the mortgage strikes me as the height of insanity.
    I wouldn’t mind urban homesteading but after teaching in the ghetto I know better. After all, I’d have to find a full time guard to fend off the burglars while I was at work.
    Good house hunting areas: crapped out mining towns! Cheap but not as crime ridden as urban slums. Just watch out that the neighbor’s meth lab doesn’t take your house with it when it blows! Could we have anticipated these problems back in 1973?

  547. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:44 pm #

    Rereading your message it sounds like you’d like my email address. I’m not sure I should post that because I’ve revealed things on the blog which are personally compromising. Then again I may have misconstrued what you were saying.

  548. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 7:49 pm #

    In other words my email address contains my full legal name, which admittedly is probably stupid, but there you have it.

  549. xhalor July 6, 2011 at 8:37 pm #

    I just couldn’t resist.
    “SEND SOCKS”?
    that was some funny shit.

  550. digbycookies July 6, 2011 at 8:58 pm #

    Um, Grouchy,
    Those Tar sands may be yours now, but we here in the U.S. are gonna take ’em. You simply don’t have any say in the matter. Your people repeatedly have shown no balls when it comes to defending your own country. We’ve had to do it for you. Well, the time has come to collect. And collect we will.
    We’ve got DRONES. That means we can wipe out your cute, itty bitty country in a matter of nanny seconds. Don’t forget that we’ve got lots of Mexicans that we’re currently in the process of throwing out of this country. Try dealing with those violent assholes for about a week, and see who calls “uncle” first.
    Oh yes, we’re loaded with amo, just waiting to fire at you. When we’re done with Libya and the rest of whatever resources the world might have, YOU, my friend, are the next on our little list of former “allies”. BWAHAAAAHAAAAA!

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  551. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 9:01 pm #

    Muslims want the cafeteria of a Toronto middle school to be used for Friday p[r]ayers for Muslim students of the school. The Toronto school board says they’re bound by human rights legislation to allow it.
    ==================
    Remove education from the clutches of government and this sort of shit won’t happen. In private schools the owners would call the shots like:
    . there will be NO audible praying in this establishment whatsoever.
    . today we will stand on our heads in the Chem Lab while reading from the Kama Sutra.
    Those that don’t like it can go elsewhere.

  552. Shakazulu July 6, 2011 at 9:02 pm #

    “It is the Tribe of Judah that opened the borders to let in the alien hordes.”
    No–read the prophets. Know your Jews. “I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” There are false Jews and false Christians. All these end up in the same place.
    “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly;” The flesh counts for nothing. It is what is inside a person that determines whether they are a child of God or not.
    Now if you mean that the Rothschilds are determined to destroy Christian Civilization, you are correct.

  553. digbycookies July 6, 2011 at 9:04 pm #

    “The Canadian “tar sands” are not yours to take. They belong to Canadians.”
    Oh, that’s right. We of the U.S. NEVER take ANYTHING that doesn’t belong to us! I believe the Native Americans are still too sore to sit on their asses after believing THAT line of hooey. Oh, and the African Americans! They fell for the same line that we’d make everyone EQUAL after the Civil War. In short, Grouchy Honey, believe not in what folks say, but what they actually do! My advice to Canadians is to duck and cover (your wallets and your asses!)

  554. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 9:07 pm #

    just getting to the point as fast as possible.
    ============
    Why? What’s the rush? You got a heavy date?

  555. progress,conserve July 6, 2011 at 10:07 pm #

    “And what are the immigration requirements for the Muslim rapists….”
    -vlad, inquiring of an Australian CFN poster-
    “We allow many ethnic groups onto our wonderful continent.”
    “Unfortunately, due to space limitations, the only Muslims being admitted at this time are convicted rapists.”
    (Proof of conviction must be provided upon request to border officials at point of entry.)
    -hypothetical answer, reflecting stupid question-
    ==================
    Seriously, Vlad – you’ll do better if you don’t just DELIBERATELY p*ss folks off, right off the bat.

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  556. bossier22 July 6, 2011 at 10:09 pm #

    I wish, but no.

  557. progress,conserve July 6, 2011 at 10:21 pm #

    ‘Back when Nixon was president, I made less than $5,000/year, but rent was cheap.
    Nixon and Milton Friedman both advocated a guaranteed income.” -wage-
    Dang, girlfrien’! I didn’t know you were that much older than me. I was one year out of high school when Nixon left office. Rent and things were cheaper – and life was good.
    In hindsight, Nixon wasn’t near as bad as Reagan and BushII turned out to be. Although he did end the draft, which – as SNAFU or Ozone pointed out – was the worst thing Nixon ever did for the country.
    Hey, isn’t the Earned Income Credit a type of “guaranteed income?”
    ============
    And I’ll agree with something asia said – there was less tension overall, with 200,000,000 people in the US.

  558. Vlad Krandz July 6, 2011 at 10:24 pm #

    The corruption is both on the Left and the Right among the Jews; both secular and sacred. The Pharisee sect developed the extreme ethnocentrism of the Old Testament even more. As they state in their secret books known as the Talmud, only Jews are human with everyone else a merely animals meant to serve the Jews. Christ fought against this Sect which had been born in Babylon and was already powerful. But they put him to death – blaming the Romans of course. After the Fall of the Temple, the Pharisees became the main sect and the most powerful. The oral teachings (which we can see in the Gospels a bit) were written down and the vast commentary on them was begun. Thus the Talmud was born within three centuries after the fall.
    The only Bibical Jews are the Kairites and possibly the Falashas, since they lost touch before the Pharisees were around.

  559. Pepp July 6, 2011 at 10:26 pm #

    Again with the vapid blithering from Vlad.
    ‘An Australian Professor told my class about the Abos eating the Chinese workers. And even if can’t be easily sourced, you can’t deny this practice was common with your people. Sure, maybe not all of them – I know there were many cultures as I already said.’
    Piffle. Nonsense. Garbage. As expected.
    Name of Professor? School? Chinese workers? Location? Year? I have 50 crisp Au dollars that says Vlad won’t and can’t come up with that simple information. Because it is yet more of VladBloviate. Can’t be ‘easily sourced’?? Reaally? so… you can source it, but I cant? Is this your idiotic premise? *score – Must try harder, Vladdy.
    Ditto with the Chinese rubbish you spout. As expected, though. I predicted you would come back with more puffery ,Vlad, and you did, to no one’s surprise. Your day is over, old boy. Long over.

  560. Ixnei July 6, 2011 at 10:35 pm #

    “2 quarts of raspberries picked, and at least another 3+ quarts to go.”
    Understatement of the year.
    6 more quarts already harvested (8 total), and at least another 4 ripe on the vine. And all this, on a mere 54 linear feet of raspberry vines (taking up barely 160 square feet, almost 90% of which is in total shade).
    No wonder we have the migrant “wet-backs” (WTF does that mean?) slave 12-18 hours a day at minimum wage, picking this crop (then selling it for $5/lb at the grocery store/farmer’s market). Talk about back breaking work, that leaves your hands all nicked up with itchy rashes…
    I think I’m gunna blend most of this stuff up with a lil’ water, let the seeds gravity-settle out, wash the solids through a strainer with minimal water/apple cider vinegar, then add generous amounts of honey and refrigerate/freeze/dehydrate it. Anyone got any other ideas?

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  561. Ixnei July 6, 2011 at 10:40 pm #

    “Again with the vapid blithering from Vlad.”
    And thus, thouest feedest thy troll! Refrainest thyself thus!!!

  562. myrtlemay July 6, 2011 at 10:41 pm #

    “Anyone got any other ideas?”
    Pour over crushed ice, 2 shots of vodka, 1 shot triple sec. Try it, you’ll like it, dearie!
    xxooo, Auntie Mert

  563. Ixnei July 6, 2011 at 10:53 pm #

    “You got a heavy date?” (LOL, in the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger)
    LOL, Q! You know, I actually went back through just over a month of old poasts last week, as I thought I remembered you making a major faux-pas. However, that was someone else, who had replied to you (D’oh!) Best I could come up with was “a guy on bicycle stopped” (cyclist)…
    Heh, I’m gunna have to ‘reefer’ to you as *Neanderthal Q* from now on!!!

  564. bubbleheadMarc July 6, 2011 at 10:54 pm #

    Only private schools which accept no government funds may do as they wish.
    In spite of what I said about public education earlier it would really be more congenial to me if everyone were given tax vouchers to attend school where they go to church. This would reduce school size as well overall which I think would be good. Unfortunately if the government is paying much of the budgets of these ostensibly private schools then they will also be in a position to enforce anti-discrimination regulations such as those you mention with distaste.

  565. Pepp July 6, 2011 at 10:56 pm #

    You asked me if AUstralia’s immigration criteria applied to the USA quota allotted by the AU govt. was somewhat excessive – to quote-
    “$500K AU and under age 30 to emigrate from the US?? That does seem excessive. I’m not getting the reasons – in light of some of the other, much looser, Australian immigration requirements.’
    The Au Govt has quotas that apply to all nations in regard to migrants applying from those nations. These quotas are calculated on the degree of neccessity, history, and current Immigrant treaties and the interests of Australia. For example, the criteria applied to Canadian Immigrants to AU is much less stringent, Canada being a Commonwealth nation, ditto India, South Africa, Britain, Malaysia, etc ( 73 other countries hold that grouping)
    The reason for the quite strict regulations for Migrants from the USA is the rather outdated idea that North Americans can afford to have the $500,000 and be graduates, and be healthy and be under 30 years of age. While this criteria is probably a bit passe now, no one has seen any necessity to change it. Which we could if we wanted to, but inertia prevails. We like intertia, though.
    Re Perth. Australia is the dryest continent on earth, apart from the Antarctic. Perth is in Western Australia, which actually isnt the dryest state in the dryest continent. South Australia basks in that label, and no one is thinking of ‘abandoning’ Adelaide. Western AU is the richest state by far due to the incredible mineral resources, so ‘abandoning’ Perth would require a terrific sweep of sheer rage, something for which Perthians are not known for. Oddly, water suddenly isnt the problem after the heaviest and largest floods in recorded and archaelogical history, and that included huge swathes of Western Au. We have survived drought, we’ll survive flood, and fire, too.
    We’ll survive the current myth re the Chinese, also. ( this is for poor Vlad) They are very good trading partners, and frankly, I’ll see the Chinese bring the USA to it’s knees financially before the other wierd American dream of the Chinese taking over AU. This dream Vlad holds is called jealousy borne out of fury and has no place in any sane discussion, it’s best left to the water cooler in the locked ward.

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  566. Ixnei July 6, 2011 at 11:04 pm #

    “Pour over crushed ice, 2 shots of vodka, 1 shot triple sec.”
    OMG, Pseudo-Strawberry Margarita! I used to drink vodka straight – kept it in the freezer. Loved Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers. Don’t do hard liquor no mo, period. Only naturally fermented beer, and sometimes wine/champagne. I justify this, as fractional distillation tends to concentrate remaining methanol (toxic) – but it’s really because I can’t drink *more* than 1 beer an hour, so even after 8 hours I haven’t done *too* much damage… 3 fifths, indeed [har-dee-har]!!!

  567. Pepp July 6, 2011 at 11:11 pm #

    addendum to progessive , conserve.
    You asked if AU shouldnt declare itself ‘full’..
    There is much discussion on this very subject currently among the chattering classes in this lovely chatty place. Should we simply just keep adding to the population? Many Australian men think they can do this on their own, given a simple six pack of XXXX, a reasonably comfortable platform , and some good cricket broadcast playing softly in the background. They may have a point.
    Currently the population is 22 million and the highest projection is perhaps 40 million, with quite a few saying it should be 15 million, if the fans of one’s most loathed team is evaporated instantly. They have a point, also.
    Water is the measurement though,even though AU has the largest Artesian Basin in the world, and I would think that 30 million, provided that number isn’t concentrated in the cities would be the likely number eventually arrived at.
    P.S. Jim did a broadcast from Perth ( or about Perth) on his recent whirlwind tour on a speaking engagement. It’s worth a listening to, and tells you more than I could in a typed contribution. It can be found in Jim’s history of broadcasts. At the time, I begged Jim NOT to say anything about Sydney, how lovely it is, how happy Au’s are in general, etc. and he obeyed, for which much thanks, Jim.

  568. Ixnei July 6, 2011 at 11:38 pm #

    “I attended a fairly selective college but graduated with mediocre grades in an unmarketable program.”
    This discussion has been here, on and off, for months.
    I’m of the opinion that the only way a college degree *buys* you anything now, over not having one, is if:
    1. you have a degree in a tangible field (engineering/physics/chemistry/science/technology)
    2. it’s from a prestigious university, which is in the top 5 (top 10/20?) for that degree field
    3. you graduate with honors or better (i.e. mostly ‘A’ grades)
    Nailing all 3 of those is hard, but doable – and that’s the pool that smart business recruits from.
    And, I believe it’s been that way, for at least 30 years. You’re wasting your time getting average grades in a worthless major (regardless of whether it’s a community college or an ivy-league university).
    Back when my dad went to college (early 60’s), about 10% went on to college, so any degree would typically pay off. Now, everyone goes on to college – and it’s all simply resulting in the next “college tuition” bubble (you cannot clear tuition debt through bankruptcy anymore, thx to Dumbya, circa 2005)…

  569. Qshtik July 6, 2011 at 11:52 pm #

    “a guy on bicycle stopped” (cyclist)…
    =================
    Let me get this straight … you are registering a mild complaint that I did not simply refer to the person as a cyclist?
    Way too dry when story-telling. How would it have sounded if Lincoln had begun his famous speech “Eighty seven years ago our fathers…”
    The truth is I deliberately chose bicycle rather than bike to distinguish from motorcycle. The same reason would hold for cyclist. Also, since the individual was male I referred to him as a guy. Women are not referred to as “guy” unless they are part of a group, either all women or mixed gender. Calling women guys goes back maybe 40 years.
    “I’m gunna have to ‘reefer’ to you as *Neanderthal Q* from now on!!!”
    This^ sailed right over my head. Please explain.

  570. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 12:01 am #

    Should we simply just keep adding to the population? Many Australian men think they can do this on their own, given a simple six pack of XXXX, a reasonably comfortable platform , and some good cricket broadcast playing softly in the background.
    =================
    This^ is funny Pepp.

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  571. Shakazulu July 7, 2011 at 12:05 am #

    “The Pharisee sect developed the extreme ethnocentrism of the Old Testament even more.”
    Jesus and John the Baptist spent a great deal of energy trying to disabuse the Pharisees of their Racial Elitism, which is why they both had to be killed. The old parable, “Come this is the heir. Let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours.”
    The Bible, including the law and the OT, is and always has been a spiritual book, not an instruction manual on Racial Elitism. The references to the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s plan of World Restoration and Domination are too numerous to mention and the plan ALWAYS involved all the tribes of mankind. That the Hebrews as a pure racial people were the sole “chosen people” has always been a myth.

  572. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 12:12 am #

    Only private schools which accept no government funds may do as they wish.
    ==============
    Precisely! It goes without saying that (in the world of my dreams which will never happen in a million years) you can’t privatize and then turn around and have funding from the government or you’re right back to square one. As I said in some previous post, the government should not be permitted to subsidize ANYTHING that is outside the natural bailiwick of government like, say, the manufacture of shoes.

  573. San Jose Mom 51 July 7, 2011 at 12:16 am #

    Miz Myrtlemay,
    I have made a grand discovery this summer….Skinny Girl Margaritas. Yummy, and not too many carbs. $15 a bottle. Just what I need after working in the garden on a hot afternoon.

  574. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 12:20 am #

    “You are aware that every time you double post you kill billions of your own brain cells.
    And make money more scarce and more finite
    And destroy a spaceship to Mars
    And make a skyscraper self-destruct.
    You should quit.”
    LOL!!! An idea that is *read*, err, *discussed* (*talked* about), producing diminishing returns, every time it re-surfaces!!!
    6969 back at it, again. I’ll let you try to convince me (all of you – you know who *you* are) that this troll provides anything new, other than the same old, tired out free salaries/dirt-cheap rentals argument. Oh, and skyscrapers to *VENUS*. I won’t ever read his *tripe* again. Sure, autonomous BOTS are taking over the workplace… Whatever. Utopia is just around the corner, with his *INSIGHTS*.

  575. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 12:38 am #

    “Let me get this straight … you are registering a mild complaint that I did not simply refer to the person as a cyclist?”
    You stated “a guy on bicycle stopped.” That just sounds wrong. I proposed (last week, search it) that it should have been either, “a guy on *a* bicycle stopped,” or a “*bicyclist* stopped” – sure, you have a good point, gender is ignored in the second (cyclist is even more efficient, as no one in their right mind would have believed a unicycle rider came strolling by.)
    “This^ sailed right over my head. Please explain.”
    You stated “You got a heavy date?” That is the most colloquial/ebonic English sentence I’ve read in about 3 poasts (hmm). Shouldn’t it be, “You’ve got a heavy date?” or, “You have a heavy date?”
    Come on , Mr. Spelling *A*. You don’t seem to get sarcasm too well, *DAD*…

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  576. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 12:58 am #

    “Thanks for taking my earlier rudeness so well.”
    Q takes a licking and keeps on ticking. That’s what I admire in him so well. We shall see whether humility is also in his “vocabulary”, or rather, if he can pull up the proper links for the verb “(have) got”…
    I suspect I will be flamed in a few minutes – WTF, liek I care about that. That’s the *LEAST* of my concerns.
    My concerns?
    1. Poisoning of all land/sea/water/air with carcinogenic hydrocarbons/heavy (radioactive) metals
    2. Boiling off the atmosphere through CO2 burning, and turning the oceans into acidic baths.
    3. Clearcutting every last remaining tree on the planet, that might have sequestered some of that CO2.
    4. Exponential overpopulation/consumption.
    Spelling/grammar/etc mistakes aside, I’m betting I will be proved *WRONG* – but who knows, Q might bow to humility…
    In my opinion, humility is the ultimate virtue. It keeps one *usually* from becoming a sociopathic selfish-greed-monger. “We got” (LOL!!!) enough of them, already, in the banking/corporate systems, that marginalize our political system to shreds…

  577. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 12:59 am #

    I would have written it – An intern at work told me that her school’s valedictorian thought that Alaska was an island.
    =============
    I considered this^ interpretation possibility too. It works just as well. It just shows how one comma left out of the original post throws everything into doubt (like Eats shoots and leaves). Whether the intern herself or someone else from her school was the valedictorian does not diminish the irony nor the sad state of education. But I like the mental image of the valedictorian speaking in the flesh to a co-worker and revealing such incredible ignorance.

  578. tucsonspur July 7, 2011 at 12:59 am #

    Damn, was it nasty! Needed industrial strength vacs to suck out my nostrils!

  579. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 1:10 am #

    Come on , Mr. Spelling *A*. You don’t seem to get sarcasm too well,
    ============
    OK Ix, you’ve given me quite a chuckle with this post … especially the unicycle remark, which I confess to never having considered. But … I still don’t get the “Neanderthal” thing. Is this like saying I am occasionally as dense as Tootsie?

  580. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 1:28 am #

    “I am occasionally as dense as Tootsie?”
    You highly underestimate me. I’d never compare you to that PoS worthless troll, or 6969/Vlad.
    But, there comes a time, when you have to bite the bullet… I suppose it’s avoidable – build a fortress offshore/underground, and stock it full of Xe/Wackenhut *protectors*. Eventually, tho, it *will* catch up to you.
    What was that old line – something about, “can dish it out, but can’t take it?” Yeah, *something* liek that, *DAD*. Heh, I just can’t help but call you that (*DAD*) – not an insult, more liek an honor…
    And WTF is with this board!!! I try to keep up, but there’s serious gaps, in what I’ve been able to *READ* (hehe *talk* about).

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  581. asia July 7, 2011 at 1:59 am #

    huh?
    And Ixnei..'”I am occasionally as dense as Tootsie?”
    or worse

  582. asia July 7, 2011 at 2:01 am #

    Then grab Bubbleheadmarc at facebook fast

  583. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 2:13 am #

    “no scumbag parastic defense lawyers making their blood money”
    What to do? Pay $10k-30k+++ to get a “not guilty* verdict in a jury trial?
    Or simply pay $260, no prison time, and 20 hours community service, with a *misdemeanor* for 7 years on your record. Traffic tickets generally cost *MORE* than that.
    An easy choice, *there*. That’s what they (*WE*) ALL face, day after *DAY*.
    You all seem to forget the *Patriot Act* is still active. No such thang as an *ILLEGAL SEARCH* anymore… All they have to do, is camp in your homestead, and as soon as you try to get them out, it’s *resisting arrest/harassment*…
    Sounds like a r33l gud way to make sum petty $$$.

  584. old69 July 7, 2011 at 2:29 am #

    “One of the things that strikes me as odd is the idea perpetuated around here that things were Better in the Past and that the USA is now teetering on the edge of disaster. Got some news for ya — the PAST SUCKED for mostly everyone. ”
    In the end it is always one idea against another with no deeper reason or meaning no spiritual or religious or metaphysical superiority of one idea compared to another, that is why it always ends up in simply a fight, simply a contrast of will powers, simply A against B, who wins, who puts their idea action, which idea will create the laws the common world shared by different will powers all in contrast and in contention with each other must abide to, which idea will define and set up and assign the rules, therefore reality, which idea will define reality.
    So fabian wants his money to do what he pleases, I want a central government to get his money and do what I please and namely use it for Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers, there is no superiority or correct or moral value of one idea against the other, they are only artistic choices, aesthetical choices, I want to use him as a tool, he wants to do whatever, but since anything he does is worthless as he is a turd, as in Man is a Turd by definition, from the outset, then I see no reason to let him have his own money instead of using it for a higher goals and symbols I arbitrarily assign as valuable (it goes without saying that even my idea is just as worthless but the only idea that has any value is the idea and model and rules that are forced upon the collectivity by force, even when it is “democratic”, because democracy really simply means who is better at brainwashing everyone that their idea is good and better, end of story). Of course, if everyone agrees to mind their own business and do whatever they want like fabian wants to, fine, but then there will always be one out of a billion that want to use fabian as a tool, that want to interact and command him and force him to abide, there will always be just that one guy that will search him out and want to fight and want to win, as ideas exist only in as much as they are confronted against each other, compared against each other, and crystallized into a fight and contrast and contention of will powers and which will win.
    And so it is with all ideas, even JHK’s fairy tale view of the past that is supposedly correct and good when it was simply another configuration of crap set up in some arbitrary way with no further value or goal or superiority with what is set up today: it is just his artistic aesthetic choice to like the 18th century against suburbs, but there is no reason to assign that crap as superior, just as there is no reason to assign nature as superior to skyscrapers, it is just a religious like choice, an artistic choice, as for example I hate nature, I would get rid of carbon atoms from the universe and like it all to be just giant car engines, atomic car engines and uranium and iron and steel and all heavy metals, end of story, but not because it is really superior to nature, but just for the fun of it, for the contrast it opposes to nature, for the fight, who wins and who loses. Just like natural evolution doesn’t tend towards anything, every organism is just a temporary combination in a temporary equilibrium with its “environment” with its action and reactions and play of forces, but that can change in a jiffy and create a completely new configuration of forces, so it is with societies and civilizations and choices, so we now have suburbs and cruising for burgers, maybe in the future we will have something completely different, but not because it is morally or spiritually or metaphysically superior, but just because, for no reason at all, just because the play of forces randomly created this new configuration.
    As far as how bad things were in the past, this was mostly due to society that still didn’t have so much Automatic for the People operating as today (and from the fact that people simply sucked even more than today and were even more turdy than today), now since so much hard labor and effort has been eliminated from the production processes, there is less violence or it is more detached, less direct confrontation, as people can let off steam in imaginary fights in video games or by watching movies and TV shows simulating the fights or letting off steam on internet blogs and forums as everyone is an anonymous coward that would never confront and talk to people in real life as you can on all these blogs and forums (just like me and fabian and others, all anonymous cowards that would never really fight in the real world).

  585. Eleuthero July 7, 2011 at 2:40 am #

    Fabian said:
    require punishment. But ultimately, we all must stand before God. God knows all and God is just. So, though there may be bad people who escape punishment on earth, eventually, their fucking, soul-sucking, evil-shit ways will be punished in ways that Stephen-fucking-King could not imagine on is best fucking day. (Or something like this.)
    Author Profile Page
    ***************************************************
    How can a guy like you refer to God in a paragraph
    which has three “fuckings” and a “shit”? Rinse
    out your mouth, hypocrite, and try to sound
    like a modest person. Your God hates the kind
    of puffed-out vulgar immodesty you represent in
    spades.
    I also notice that you deftly avoided all the
    things I said about capital formation,
    government as a REACTION rather than a cause,
    and so on. You’re not here to bandy about
    ideas. You’re here to humiliate and smite …
    as if YOU were God.
    As I said, you’re just an incendiary kid who
    has added more blight to the website. I agree
    with CASH above … you go on the “do not
    respond to” list. What a waste of skin.
    How could God allow a mistake like you??
    You post so much that I’m guessing that you’re
    a trust-fund baby who day-trades and leans on
    a few blogs … like so many useless shits
    these days.
    E.

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  586. old69 July 7, 2011 at 2:42 am #

    Spelling correction time, and http://www.ilovephilosophy.com reference time! Sock it to Me! It is Groovy and Out of Sight! Go Man Go!
    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    From:
    http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/07/birthday-card.html
    “One of the things that strikes me as odd is the idea perpetuated around here that things were Better in the Past and that the USA is now teetering on the edge of disaster. Got some news for ya — the PAST SUCKED for mostly everyone. ”
    I answer:
    In the end it is always one idea against another with no deeper reason or meaning no spiritual or religious or metaphysical superiority of one idea compared to another, that is why it always ends up in simply a fight, simply a contrast of will powers, simply A against B, who wins, who puts their idea action, which idea will create the laws the common world shared by different will powers all in contrast and in contention with each other must abide to, which idea will define and set up and assign the rules, therefore reality, which idea will define reality.
    So fabian wants his money to do what he pleases, I want a central government to get his money and do what I please and namely use it for Rockets to Mars and Skyscrapers, there is no superiority or correct or moral value of one idea against the other, they are only artistic choices, aesthetical choices, I want to use him as a tool, he wants to do whatever, but since anything he does is worthless as he is a turd, as in Man is a Turd by definition, from the outset, then I see no reason to let him have his own money instead of using it for higher goals and symbols I arbitrarily assign as valuable (it goes without saying that even my idea is just as worthless but the only idea that has any value is the idea and model and rules that are forced upon the collectivity by force, even when it is “democratic”, because democracy really simply means who is better at brainwashing everyone that their idea is good and better, end of story). Of course, if everyone agrees to mind their own business and do whatever they want like fabian wants to, fine, but then there will always be one out of a billion that want to use fabian as a tool, that want to interact and command him and force him to abide, there will always be just that one guy that will search him out and want to fight and want to win, as ideas exist only in as much as they are confronted against each other, compared against each other, and crystallized into a fight and contrast and contention of will powers and which will win.
    And so it is with all ideas, even JHK’s fairy tale view of the past that is supposedly correct and good when it was simply another configuration of crap set up in some arbitrary way with no further value or goal or superiority with what is set up today: it is just his artistic aesthetic choice to like the 18th century against suburbs, but there is no reason to assign that crap as superior, just as there is no reason to assign nature as superior to skyscrapers, it is just a religious like choice, an artistic choice, as for example I hate nature, I would get rid of carbon atoms from the universe and like it all to be just giant car engines, atomic car engines and uranium and iron and steel and all heavy metals, end of story, but not because it is really superior to nature, but just for the fun of it, for the contrast it opposes to nature, for the fight, who wins and who loses. Just like natural evolution doesn’t tend towards anything, every organism is just a temporary combination in a temporary equilibrium with its “environment” with its action and reactions and play of forces, but that can change in a jiffy and create a completely new configuration of forces, so it is with societies and civilizations and choices, so we now have suburbs and cruising for burgers, maybe in the future we will have something completely different, but not because it is morally or spiritually or metaphysically superior, but just because, for no reason at all, just because the play of forces randomly created this new configuration.
    As far as how bad things were in the past, this was mostly due to society that still didn’t have so much Automatic for the People operating as today (and from the fact that people simply sucked even more than today and were even more turdy than today), now since so much hard labor and effort has been eliminated from the production processes, there is less violence or it is more detached, less direct confrontation, as people can let off steam in imaginary fights in video games or by watching movies and TV shows simulating the fights or letting off steam on internet blogs and forums as everyone is an anonymous coward that would never confront and talk to people in real life as you can on all these blogs and forums (just like me and fabian and others, all anonymous cowards that would never really fight in the real world).

  587. Ixnei July 7, 2011 at 2:44 am #

    “Here’s a gold star to stick on your forehead.”
    LOL!!! Raspberry Margaritas are nostril-spewing (I bit the bullet, what’s a fifth of Vodka?)
    Spelling *A* said it’s so – so *IT’S SO*!!! BWAHAHAHA! ILLEGAL SEARCH? Gramps (*DAD*) is *clueless*… He pays NJ stink-town 12k/year in property taxes *ALONE* – LOL!!! I remember going through *STINK TOWN* from DC to Penn/Penn to DC. He lives there? He *DEFINITELY* deserves a *BREAK*!!!
    LOL, enjoy it for me – or something!

  588. asia July 7, 2011 at 2:47 am #

    I always had the Impression Jimjim/zsazsa/
    ‘the mommy’ assass was a very angry OLD guy.
    Just my guess.

  589. asia July 7, 2011 at 3:00 am #

    Even paying big bux to go to a private college
    does not guarantee anything…
    There are lots of private schools these days.
    Had a Chinese neighbor who went to University of LaVerne and got an MBA..she said it was a worthless degree.
    She sternly said she was ‘working for Chinese and they are the worst employers [next to Jews, maybe]’
    [her words not mine]

  590. xhalor July 7, 2011 at 3:23 am #

    Yeah…well, sometimes I am too.
    So, I just hit ’em.
    Thinking of You,
    Gordie Howe

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  591. old69 July 7, 2011 at 4:16 am #

    BS Article :
    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/how-the-great-reset-has-already-changed-america/241200/
    That article is insane, we need to do the exact opposite, a huge deflation of costs, especially in the services sector like health care and housing and others, the guys writing that are totally clueless idiots. AMEN.
    “Geographic concentration and clustering speeds the transmission of new ideas, increases the underlying productivity of people and firms, and generates powerful economies of scale.”
    Odd, wasn’t that what the Internet was supposed to do ? Isn’t the entire “ideas”, “service economy”, “information economy” supposed to be independent now from geographical location ? Or is it all the same old BS, builders and real estate entities want to concentrate people in “high cost” areas for the status challenge, to force them to pay more to live, etc. By now we should have all been telecommuting to the fairy tale jobs that were still left, go figure. More BS and ever more BS, BS forever…
    “6.8 million of them will be high-skill, high-wage work in the knowledge, professional, and technical sectors of the economy.”
    Wow, cannot phantom what on earth they will be doing for 8 hours a day, what informational and physical manipulations and transformations they will be doing for 8 hours a day, everyday (and a job that should last at least a few years, sounds like science fiction much more than Skyscrapers on Venus if you ask me) that will somehow generate a profit to the employers, that can somehow create “value”! Maybe just a bunch of BS fluff as usual, never ending “meetings”, talking on cellphones about fluff and crap and more fluff forever, more BS and ever more BS forever.. but in reality paid by excess capacity generating huge amounts of free wealth to keep on paying people to do fake – make believe jobs, the Technological Economy generating free money and wealth for all, even though everyone thinks their “job” is so necessary and important, incredible!
    “If we’re serious about creating good, family-supporting jobs, we have no choice but to upgrade those service jobs and turn them into adequate replacements for the blue-collar jobs that have been wiped out. We did it 70 or 80 years ago when we transformed manufacturing jobs from low-paid, dangerous work into high-paid jobs; we must do it again. ”
    Insane ideas, well guess what ? we could do it 70 years ago because there was still 70 years of new inventions, applications, technologies and markets to develop for everyone to work in, from cars to jets to computers, etc. Now it is over, done, the great leap of progress has occured and is done with, now there are no new sectors – inventions and markets that will ever be able to generate nearly as many jobs as cars and jets and computers and many others generated and now all these advancements are killing ever more jobs by automation and economies of scales, optimizations, globalizations, you name it.
    The guy who wrote the article is an idiot.
    And no mention of BUS systems.

  592. metuselah July 7, 2011 at 5:18 am #

    Another imperialist asswipe. Go fsck yourself, and stop talking about Jews, you Roman Imperialist piece of shit.
    Jews are a tribal people. Always have been, always will be. We are fiercely nationalistic and we’re not interested in your world plans for OUR god, OUR traditions and culture, OUR laws.

  593. old69 July 7, 2011 at 6:54 am #

    With regards to:
    “6.8 million of them will be high-skill, high-wage work in the knowledge, professional, and technical sectors of the economy.”
    Especially if the knowledge workers, technicians or information workers are actually producing anything of value (aggregating their labor into some collective effort leading up to a solid result or product or discovery, collective action building a solution): since information and knowledge is produced only once and then utilized an infinite number of times after the “discovery” or “invention” over and over again, and since this information should improve, optimize, automate, create a gain and profit, then the very production of it should end up killing jobs big time and killing especially its own job since once it is discovered, there is no use/need for the inventor to discover another one (or maybe they imagine a fairy tale world where you can invent a new productive invention everyday, wow, talk about science fiction). As if you can discover electricity everyday all over again, or an equivalent new distinct discovery as important and fundamental as electricity everyday.
    Just this shows how absurd and unrealistic the entire idea of innovation, research and development creating jobs really is. But maybe what they really want to say, is invent fake innovations, fake jobs, make believe everything you do is brand new and productive and important, as show and tell and make believe and sell crap, fluff and fairy tales, like the IPHONE becoming this great new gadget no one could ever imagine.

  594. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 7:16 am #

    In the book “Psychic Warrior” Maj. David Morehouse revealed that remote viewers in Operation Grillflame at Fort Meade, MD had “astrally projected” into the future and foresaw that the human race would be forced to live underneath giant bubbles owing to environmental degradation. These same so called scientific remote viewers could also view targets in space and discovered that this had already happpened on Mars and that there was in fact a remnant civilization living beneath the surface of the planet Mars.

  595. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 7:19 am #

    If you want me to write you just post YOUR email address [if you don’t mind] and I’ll write you and give you mine. As I mentioned I would post mine but my email is my legal name.

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  596. myrtlemay July 7, 2011 at 7:30 am #

    Sounds wonderful, SJM! Btw, went to dinner a week ago with a friend who innocently ordered a Vodka with seltzer. Seems that the waiter had misinterpreted seltzer for Chablis! Turns out it was a delicious, very chilling summer cocktail (she let me try a sip, even though I’m not imbibing anymore.) Anyhow, it’s now her drink of choice when she has a cocktail before din din! 😉

  597. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 7:31 am #

    I have an educational fantasy which goes like this: having won the megamillions drawing I buy waterfront property, set up a small trade school, and also buy a schooner rigged school ship out of the for sale ads in Yachting Magazine, which is my preferred form of pornography, as according to my favorite Greek proverb “the man who owns a yacht has a new wife every night.”
    I would then offer a charter boat captain course for persons allergic to current educational practice in which the instruction would overwhelmingly be “hands on” and extremely repititive at the same time to ensure complete mastery of the skill sets involved. Any reading involved would be presented as recreational reading and would be done while hanging out with one’s tutor in his area to ensure that it had actually been done. Everyone would also actually be taught how to build boats. The graduation project would be building one’s own boat by hand. The graduates would be awarded a bachelor of fine arts in boat building. With no government funds being accepted the program could be whatever I so chose. I would hire a couple of really sharp people I know from the merchant marine to serve as the ship’s master and president of the school. The cooks would get a culinary degree. There would also be a program for painters of maritime themes and writers of sea stories. Then one day the school ship would be transiting a shipping lane and get run down by an ultra large crude carrier. I would turn to drink to console myself and end up at St. Herman’s House of Hospitality on Cleveland’s skid row. Oh well, guess you can’t win them all…

  598. myrtlemay July 7, 2011 at 7:44 am #

    Great, Bubbleheadmarc. I was about 50 years ahead of you when I had my own personal fantasy, which I don’t mind sharing with you now.
    I wish I were a princess, so beautiful to see.
    I’d pass the greatest law in history.
    A lovely little law, I hope you’d never break.
    And it would make you fall in love with me.
    And if I were a princess, the next thing I would do,
    Is plan a celebration in the land.
    And what a happy day, when people hear you say,
    “My princess, I’m asking for your hand.”
    Thanks to Little Peggy March. And no, it never came true for me, but keep smiling and hoping, BHM!

  599. welles July 7, 2011 at 7:52 am #

    …the instruction would overwhelmingly be “hands on” and extremely repititive at the same time to ensure complete mastery of the skill sets involved
    this is precisely the type of learning the country needs, get your damn hands on it and do it, not theorize about it for $35,000 a year. then just read a little, not cuz it’s assigned, but bcuz you want to better your abilities.
    make sure it’s something that folks can’t purchase for squat electronically, and you’ll have a decent trade/profession that’ll float you moneywise.
    peace peaceniks

  600. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 7:53 am #

    It used to be that the average college student had an IQ of 125, which I believe was top 5% of the population, which would translate to your 10% of the population in college.
    I think that Ivy League schools still carry a good deal of weight and will get you somewhere even with mediocre grades there. Many other people have only modest aspirations and can get by with lesser attainments. The key is to avoid simply majoring in whatever turns you on academically like I did. I majored in history with a teaching certificate program, not a marketable degree. If I really wanted to teach I should have majored in science education. I should also have minored in Spanish.
    For someone like me who merely wanted to be a sailor you can simply enlist: it is totally doable to get a commission in the navy without attending college because they have so called “limited duty officers” who may rise to the rank of lieutenant commander, which is as high as most reserve officers go anyway. What screwed me up was I spent the first two years of high school reading college catalogs from maritime acadamies such as State University of New York Maritime College at Fort Schyler but then junior year starting turning into a fucking hippie with shoulder length hair who just wanted to lay around reading Herman Hesse novels! As you can well imagine literary layabouts don’t thrive at maritime academies.

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  601. Alexandra July 7, 2011 at 8:16 am #

    Blighty’s being dunked in unseasonable lows, and I’m about to sail from Copenhagen to the island of Bornholm…
    @ BubbleheadMarc, loved yer marina’s tale… but think positive ship-mate… eh!! I can cook to Cordon Bleu standard if required, so if you seek a sea-born chef at some stage hence you know my numbers…
    *sniggers*
    Talking of boat-porn, this is where I forage…
    http://www.duboisyachts.com/Design/About-Us/
    @ Myrtlemay… Vodka with anything can temper the very worst of peak everything blues, my tip… keep the Belvedere Premier in yer freezer, for me personally a good evening needs a feisty Blood-Mary for things to suitably kick-orf defo with crunchy celery!
    @ old69… oh dear? I see you’ve managed to slither back onto Mr JHKs blog again with only 1 week’s respite!! Spewing yer infantile babble of badly thought through wisdom, classic trite stuff like *sell crap, fluff and fairy tales, like the IPHONE*
    Even by mid last year, Apple Inc. had sold over 450,000 iPads, 350,000 of which were sold on launch day, 600,000 iBooks were downloaded, 250,000 of which were downloaded on day one… and they’ve sold over 8.75m iPhones in a single quarter.
    Yep utterly useless crap no one wants?? Not to mention all the paper and wood this form of media saves us consuming… Yep world-class leading US tech you could ‘actually’ be proud of (if you had half-a-brain)…
    But heck… lets dump focusing on the inane and move onto something all-together more relevant, a key story for me this week, was this one…
    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201173142127501343.html
    På gensyn!

  602. old69 July 7, 2011 at 8:16 am #

    70 Years Ago
    But that is the point, 70 years ago there was still so many manufacturing and technical and you name it activities where skills, effort and merit, education still had some relationship with your outcome (of course pure luck and random events always played an important part, but anyways), there was some kind of logic, some kind of linearity with work activities, etc. But in the last few decades, Excess Capacity and the Technological Economy has made work ever more optional, fun and games, ever more quirky, people’s based, especially the quirky judgment of people’s based, marketing based, who can convince who that something has more imaginary value than something else (like Apple with its IPHONE, just a lucky guess in the end, a lucky quirky break, they have a consensus based market where everything they do is considered magic and great, their reputation is their most important asset, just like IBM’s or BMW’s (the car is just a simple piece of iron just as good as any other)), the reputation, the mass consensus on anything, if a turd is considered gold, then a billion people will imitate everyone else and buy it, etc.
    So this is the present day situation, there is often no amount of effort or skills or education that can make you “advance” or improve as most of the necessary nature of work and labor today has evaporated away (or evaporated away into 3rd world countries paying 100 dollars a month, etc.), what is left is the people stuff, the marketing, the guessing game, you name it.
    So maybe this is what they mean by “Professional Services”, the Lawyers dominated economy, if you can create a problem and billions of laws and regulations and contentions and fights around anything, you can make 300 million lawyers work around this “problem”, all conflicts and contention, all contrasting will powers and judgments, a never ending array of laws, regulations and documents, standards, etc. the services economy, the fluff and optional economy that is ever more based on people, therefore turdy, therefore an eventual living hell, as people can change their minds from one moment to another and hose you, just for the fun of it, because they are bored, and fight and all the rest.
    The (developed) economy no longer wants to create something solid, something with a clear cut input -> manipulation -> output(result), they don’t want to build Rockets to Mars or Skyscrapers because in that case, the goal is clear, the path given, the work clearly defined and necessary, etc. No this economy wants options, and lawyers, politics and “democracy” so as to fight over everything and never decide anything, they want contentions, and billions of laws and lawyers and conflicts and regulations and a never ending forced complexity to create so much effort and work that doesn’t add up to anything and doesn’t create a solid product and result.
    The ideal is to think a problem into existence, if you think about any oddball relationship, you can invent a problem and think it into existence, like Autism or Attention Deficit or such and create an economic circuit around it. The less real work that will be necessary, the more (fluff ? imaginary ?) problems and conflicts and lawyers and fights and confusion will be created and generated.
    On another note, all existence is simply thinking things into existence, they exist only the time that they are present in our thought, so if you think of anything you create it and think it into existence, and assign and define it into existence, when you forget it it disappears out of existence. Of course the entire goal of memory is to re-establish and reinforce something you “remember back into existence”: if it is part of a pattern it exists, since you are already familiar with it, the memory creates the Reality and existence, but must be constantly reinforced, constantly created again, the repetitive pattern must be sure it really exists, but since it can’t be sure, it must effect its existence all over again by remembering itself, playing out itself, and thinking itself back into existence.
    This is a metaphysical limit of the universe, nothing exists, but it has to desperately be repeated forever both in mind, thought and memory to try to exist when it will never be able to exist, no matter how many times you try to remember it into existence, think it into existence and play it out into existence: the only cue of reality is the pain/pleasure, sensations and emotions the sequence of events have, but this too is Matter and Mass Energy trying to force itself to exist by creating pain/pleasure as an emergency of response to ghosts. Think something into Existence, Memory creates Reality. AMEN.
    Quo Vadis, Baby ?

  603. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 8:34 am #

    Further thoughts on college:
    I’m not sure it’s worth playing the game anymore. Do people today REALLY get a good deal from the corporate world? Also, it is extremely difficult to steer most people into marketable fields because either they’re not interested in technical studies or else they simply can’t conceive of their history teacher degree being unmarketable, because after all, the only history teachers they’ve known were the ones with jobs who taught them in school.
    It seems more interesting to me to prepare for the coming apocalypse by going directly in to rehabbing crappy old buildings in cheaper rural areas. Maybe an agriculture degree would be the most appropriate then. Throw in a liberal dose of mechanical training and building trades courses from the local joint vocational school.

  604. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 8:39 am #

    Or at least keep buying magamillions lottery tickets.

  605. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 8:42 am #

    Okay, you’re definitely hired as the chief cook on the school ship. I’ll be the chief purser because that involves far less actual work. When in Copenhagen go to Christiansted [I think] to find herbal remedies. I was only kidding about the ULCC accident. I don’t view seafaring as being a doomed activity.

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  606. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 9:00 am #

    Change “Christiansted” to Christiania. And I just realized that you’re now leaving Copenhagen so enjoy yourself on the island of Bornholm. Sounds like the name of a spy novel: “The Bornholm Rendition”. Blighty of course is the U.K.. I’ve only tied up in Southhampton. Flew in there every other time usually enroute to somewhere else to join a freighter. Those sail boats look awfully small from the bridge of a freighter. The horizon as viewed from the bridge of a freighter is over 12 miles out. The horizon as viewed from the periscope of a submarine is only two miles out. When you’re sailing without using the motor submarines can’t hear you. That’s why the officer of the deck on a surfacing submarine continually spins around in circles on the periscope with the lens pointed upwards towards the surface repeatedly intoning “no shapes, no shadows, no shapes, no shadows”. Once the sub is on the surface the bridge watch moves to the top of the sail after the bridge monkey has opened the hatch and announced direction of airflow either in or out of the boat to the OOD before exitinig and pulling down the fairing on the top of the sail. The fairing prevents turbulence in the cavity where the bridge watch stands while the sub is cruising submerged. It was always fun to be the bridge monkey because then you were first into the air again and got to climb atop the sail to raise the flag and rig “the captain’s playpen”. While running on the surface in the Hawaiian Islands if a yacht approached too close we would dive to get away from them.

  607. zaxxon July 7, 2011 at 9:08 am #

    After reading these posts, I fear (in my eighth decade) that we are truly fucked. Some say we are on the highway to hell. I pray not, but the input speaks otherwise.
    It appears that our ship of state hit the iceberg, a new captain was in stalled … but many say, ‘no one is on the bridge.’
    The Constitution is our only hope.

  608. Buck Stud July 7, 2011 at 9:24 am #

    Vlad Krantz could be one of your pupils. He could build himself a very small and economical paddle boat with a massive and monumental “Eric The Red” carved figurehead installed on the front side. Shoot, I would even pop for a bottle of wine to break for his sailing away party!

  609. ozone July 7, 2011 at 9:54 am #

    Hey Ozone, far from me telling anybody what to do, but did you ever think of getting some local kid to help you create a website, market some of those CDs of yours? The one I have is good. I think you’d sell a bunch right here.
    -Marlin
    ***********
    Good idea, as I find myself farther and farther behind the curve, techno-speaking.
    (And thanks for the endorsement! ;o)
    I have to agree with your sentiments regarding Winsted and its’ remnants.
    Don’t you think it has potential, with its’ factories lined up along the “sluiceway” there?
    Of course, it would take some major investment, and you’d have to get things going before further “salvage” operations and vandalism by the local idiots.
    Hmmmm, to condense: it’s got potential, but I doubt the capital investments will be forthcoming. Sad upon sad.
    Ps. Glad the garden is thriving! The wife is sore tempted with visions of paella…. :o)

  610. ozone July 7, 2011 at 10:15 am #

    You’ll note that the ever-present trolls did not deny what I deemed their purpose to be, waaaaaaaaaay upthread.
    They will eventually lose their “sponsorship”, and when they come begging, they will lose the dearest thing of all. (Likely well before then…)
    I know it’s sometimes hard to ignore their windiness; the smell can be off-putting; but it’s possible, especially if “moving on by”. I don’t read any of their witless crap anymore. Unlike PoC, I don’t see their “reasonable postings” as having value; it’s merely a blind to attack from by dint of having been responded to.
    As always, do as you like, but refuse to be goaded by pissants and sponsored trolls.

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  611. MarlinFive54 July 7, 2011 at 10:16 am #

    Mornin’ Ozone, thanks for the comeback. Headed out your way sort (Riverton) shortly for some midweek trout fishing, in the sunshine.
    Last night at work I was thinking of some of Jim’s literary predecessors. Came up with a few, I’m sure there are many more.
    ‘The Education of Henry Adams’, Henry Adams
    ‘A Connecticut Yankee …’, Twain
    Anything by Lewis Mumford.
    ‘A Generation of Vipers’, Philip Wylie
    ‘The Air-Conditioned Nightmare’, Henry Miller
    ‘Travels with Charlie’, John Steinbeck
    The above are highly critical of American culture as they found it at the time, in the same way JHK is. But the authors are in no way ‘unpatriotic’, or wish for the destruction of the country, as some of the posters on this do. You know who you are.
    -Marlin

  612. ozone July 7, 2011 at 10:19 am #

    Truly enjoying your missives.
    Gad! You must be a blazingly fast typist! :o)
    -very slow-fingered fella

  613. ozone July 7, 2011 at 10:27 am #

    Ack! More reading to get wit’! lol
    Thanks.
    Looks like a champion day for throwing flies around in Riverton. Always remember, we’re about 20 minutes (as the car happy-motors) from there. As one would trek? Ooooo, probably have to take some deer and bear trails through the limitless forest, but I would imagine it could be done in a day, with knowing the proper fording spots. ;o)

  614. ozone July 7, 2011 at 10:32 am #

    Ps.
    Raised in Fredonia, so I know some geo. references.
    Plus, wrecked a wood and canvas canoe by sailing it in a gale on Eire with my oldest brother; good fun, as we survived. ;o)

  615. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 10:48 am #

    Yeah, you’re probably right.

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  616. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 11:02 am #

    Eehh? Speak up, sonny, I can’t hear you! And fetch me my slippers, boy.
    I think that ending the draft was a very good thing. People who claim that having a draft would stop wars are ignorant of history.
    More cannon fodder means bigger wars. The Civil War, WW1 and WW2 and the Vietnam wars threw millions of bodies into the fray.
    And, yes, an earned income credit IS a guaranteed income. That was my point. In those days, Americans were not as hateful as today. The thought of letting people starve if they couldn’t find a job was not considered appropriate.
    Now, after 30 years of right wing propaganda, we have normal people causally prescribing death for their unlucky fellow citizens.

  617. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 11:52 am #

    I mentioned that I injured my ankle and was immobile for about 4 weeks.
    When I recovered, I went out to check on my fruit trees. I figured that the cherries should be ripe.
    There is no fruit on any of my trees, except for one apple tree and the crabapple tree.
    No cherries, no plums, no nectarines, no peaches, and most of the apple trees are bare.
    WTF? They all blossomed, and there was no freeze this year.
    The only thing that I can’t think of is a lack of bees. Surrounded as I am by Round-up fields, maybe the bees are gone.
    People like Marlin, stroking the shaft of their rifles, pumping the ammunition, fantasizing over the brown marauding hordes coming to get their food, and how they’ll blow them away, don’t realize that their real enemies are corporate. Huddled in your bunker, waiting for the hordes of hungry people, while droughts, floods, hurricanes and dead bees destroy your chance for having anything worth stealing.
    Monsanto is the epitome of evil, with their patents on life, their Terminator seeds, their goons in tinted-window SUVs hassling seed-cleaners, their bee-destroying GMO seeds.
    You going to kill Monsanto executives, Marlin?
    Yeah, I didn’t think so. Useful tool of the corporate Earth destroyers.

  618. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 12:05 pm #

    George Carlin explains to Bubble, Q and the rest why the education system doesn’t work, and what the ruling class has in mind for us.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

  619. Patrizia July 7, 2011 at 12:09 pm #

    I myself made some enquires not so long ago about the Escherichia Coli epidemy in Germany.
    I found out that Monsanto uses that particular type of E.C. (genetically modified) to produce the growth Hormon for cows.
    Uses also the same E. C. to produce the Aspartame that he has renamed Nutra Sweet.
    That particular type of genetically modified E.C.doesn´t exist in nature, so the 68 people dead and the 3000 who finished without kidneys could thank Monsanto.
    The guilty were soya seeds imported from Egypt.
    In Europe the OGM are forbidden, but somehow they arrive…Is Monsanto the new Hitler?

  620. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 12:22 pm #

    I think that ending the draft was a very good thing. People who claim that having a draft would stop wars are ignorant of history.
    -wage-
    I don’t know about that, Wage. A large part of the convulsion of the ’60’s was based on gut-level, visceral opposition to Viet Nam. And the reason opposition was so visceral was the unease on the part of every able bodied man in America – that he might have to go get shot at. That tends to focus a man’s attention more than abstract ideas like simple love and peace.
    One of BushI’s unstated goals had to have been to wage an “approved war?” with low casualties that the American people would buy into.
    I remember clearly when BushI announced, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!”http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/47440/george-c-herring/america-and-vietnam-the-unending-war
    You can draw a straight line from that, to the all volunteer military and today’s unthinking veneration of “our heros, the men and women in harm’s way, because freedom isn’t free….”
    It’s really creepy – how unthinkingly pro-military the US has become. We weren’t always that way – not by a LONG shot. I don’t think we’d be that way, now, if we had a draft and/or universal national service.
    And I’ve very much pro-military (by CFN standards,at least!) and with my own martial tales to tell, someday – maybe.
    I’m holding back a couple of ideas, Wage, or anyone interested in a little rumble on this topic?

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  621. San Jose Mom 51 July 7, 2011 at 12:24 pm #

    Aspartame is like poison to me. I’ve consumed it by accident a couple of times, and I get a splitting headache within 10 minutes. No one in my family goes near the stuff.
    Highly processed food such as frozen entrees or fast food have a bad affect on my energy levels. I cook from scratch most nights. I’ve never been keen to use bean sproughts because of their bad reputation/carrier of pathogens. I probably should avoid sushi…but it’s just too good.

  622. budizwiser July 7, 2011 at 12:26 pm #

    I have very similar perspectives with this guy. I know, why talk about fixing anything. Game over.
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MG02Dj03.html

  623. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 12:43 pm #

    I’ve never been keen to use bean sproughts because of their bad reputation/carrier of pathogens.
    ==============
    sprouts
    When spelled correctly they reward you by NOT carrying pathogens.
    😉

  624. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 12:44 pm #

    I’ve got no idea why that CFR link didn’t post correctly. It’s the first page of a longer article, but it’s a nice look at the mindset of America until long after Viet Nam.
    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/47440
    Wage, you contend that the US population is always 100% at the mercy of brainwashing by our corporate overlords. And you know I don’t always agree.
    But, on the view of average citizens toward the military – the brainwashing has hit every single instinct, of guilt and patriotism – and is total and irresistible.
    I see this as a very bad thing for the US and the world. I wish someone could show me where I’m wrong. Marlin? Fabian?

  625. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 1:09 pm #

    I visited Elaine Supkis’ blog today and couldn’t help reading the comments her readers made regarding JHK’s rants on the South, Southerners, tatoos, etc. It’s really worth the read, especially when Elaine RESPONDS to one of the bloggers as to what an asshole she thinks Jim really is. Seems she and Jim don’t even SPEAK anymore! She calls him out for being a Zionist who secretly wants the unwashed masses (Southerners?) to experience a mass die-off. And yet, Jim still carries her blog under his “Links” section.
    I’ve only read two of Jim’s books, the non-fiction ones, so obviously I don’t know where this Zionism is coming from. Do any of you who have read his fictional books get the feeling he is a Zionist?
    It’s obvious that he hates Southerners, the South, fat people, tatoo covered people. I’ve always thought of him as a misanthrope, generally speaking. I don’t know enough about Zionism to paint him with that brush. I was extremely surprised about his rantings over gay marriage, although he doesn’t cackle about gays nearly as often as he does against the very dreaded, yet oh-so-delicious Cheez Doodle. As I said previously, and meant no disrespect, I just assumed Jim was gay – not that there’s anything wrong with that 😉

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  626. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 1:13 pm #

    I guess if I keep bringing this criticism of Jim up I’m gonna be condemned to the purgatory of being “banned”, like Soak, Prog, etc. So if I suddenly “disappear”, you’ll know why.

  627. BeantownBill July 7, 2011 at 1:51 pm #

    Last evening, after eating supper, I got sick and spent a bad night trying to throw up. Today, I feel much better; whatever I ate just didn’t agree with me. But it got me thinking about what we put into our digestive tracts.
    The point is, we don’t really know what we’re ingesting. What “chemical help” did the farmer have in growing the plant? Even organic food isn’t really pure. What ferilizers? Who were the food pickers? Were they sick or dirty, or what were their hands in before they started work that day? If the food I eat isn’t raw, what about the conditions at the food processor’s plant? Who unpacked the food and put it on the shelf at the store?
    This makes me think about the plusses in growing your own food. At least we are maxing out the chance we’re eating wholesomely. Too bad Tripp’s on vacation, I’m sure he’d have some input.

  628. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 2:10 pm #

    See, I consider that an immoral stance.
    You want the US ruling class to have access to every 18 year old’s life and freedom in order to force them into killing to enforce corporate hegemony over recalcitrant countries so that there will be more opposition to those policies?
    The ruling class didn’t care about Americans in the streets in the 60s, and they care even less now.
    Remember that there were more people in the streets worldwide before the US attack on Iraq in 2003 than any where ever before.
    Did they care? Come on, Prog, can you please look at reality?
    The Vietnamese people kicked the US out of their country, with help from some of those draftees, who refused to fight, went AWOL, and worse of all, from the military’s standpoint, started killing their own officers.
    That’s why Nixon stopped the draft, and the US military-industrial complex turned to more efficient, industrialized, hands-free mass murder weapons. They know that they can’t rely on shanghaied teenagers to terrorize, torture and kill with any reliability.
    And I don’t think that 100% of Americans can be brainwashed. I think that 94% of them can be.
    There are around 6% of Americans who refuse to buy into the immoral mass murders of other people, no matter what excuse the ruling class and their corporate media offers.
    There are about 30% who are ignorant and hateful, and don’t really need any lame excuses to go kill other people. They are more than willing to kill anyone.

  629. wagelaborer July 7, 2011 at 2:21 pm #

    You got that right.
    GMO products mess with the very stuff of life on this planet.
    Even if humans disappeared from Earth, Monsanto products could continue to destroy plant, insect and animal life.
    Monsanto sued a farmer in Canada because their genes got into his seeds.
    Monsanto has caused the suicides of hundreds of thousands of farmers in India
    Monsanto got a law passed in Iraq making it illegal for farmers to save the seeds that they have been planting in the cradle of civilization for centuries.
    Monsanto is physically and legally hassling a seed cleaner right here in Southern Illinois, using thugs and goons as well as lawyers.
    Obama has Monsanto people seeding the Dept of Agriculture and the Trade Dept.
    They are evil, as I said.

  630. Cash July 7, 2011 at 2:28 pm #

    Yeah it was pretty mundane stuff. I read somewhere that the Roman soldier had to be able to march 20 miles a day carrying supplies, weapons, armour etc that weighed roughly 100 lbs. So socks I guess were a high priority item.
    I read that there was a whole lot of trouble when the Roman army revolted over the issue of “nail money” ie money to buy the small nails that held together their boots. I read somewhere else that the average life expectancy for the Roman soldier was around 30 years. Pretty short. I think that their lives depended on taking care of small things like the health of their feet ie avoiding bloody blisters that turn septic and lethal.

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  631. messianicdruid July 7, 2011 at 2:41 pm #

    read it all:
    Rule #7: Cynicism Is The Path To Defeat
    “It is good to be critical, but not to the point of nihilism. America’s past is riddled with mistakes, bad judgments, horrible crimes, and downright stupidity; that doesn’t mean that the principles on which this country was founded are any less vital. We hear often from cynics that humanity has become too stupid and complacent to do what is right. However, stupidity and complacency are not inherent qualities. That’s an elitist fantasy with no basis in fact. Stupidity and complacency are learned behaviors, and they can be unlearned. What IS inherent is our ability to choose what path we will take. For adherents of liberty, we need only remind people that they have this choice. We can whine and cry all day long about how nobody pays attention and how there is no hope, or, we can exhaust all options before throwing in the proverbial towel. We don’t need to “like” society the way it is, but we do need to recognize the underlying potential of all people to become something much more than what they currently are (I can’t stand blind ignorance either, but I’m certainly not ready to accept it as a fact of American life). Remember, no fight is over until it is over.”
    http://www.alt-market.com/articles/164-the-essential-rules-of-liberty

  632. asia July 7, 2011 at 2:54 pm #

    In USA Coast2Coast did a program during the
    outbreak where theories were offered as to what was really going on.

  633. Cash July 7, 2011 at 2:55 pm #

    For a long time I was a supporter of public education because I saw first hand (my parents) how the lack of it can hobble your chances in life. I used to think that it levels the economic and social playing field. And I think that for a long time it did this and it provided a decent level of instruction.
    But more and more I’m revisiting this. If govts can’t or won’t do it (see the cheating scandal in Atlanta and the laughable level of knowledge of the nitwits we pass through the “educational” system) then you have to take the bull by the horns and get it done some other way.
    So does this mean private schools? If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes. I’m hesitant about it though because I think that public schools were good for creating the idea of a common citizenship and the idea of social and economic mobility. In those classrooms it was a meritocracy and if you worked hard and did well you could make something of yourself. But if we go the private school route are we planting the seeds for a rigid class system?
    The problems we have here with the Muslim prayer (thanks for pointing out the typo) meetings are simple. The services take place early in the afternoon on Fridays which puts the cafeteria out of bounds for other students that want to eat, Muslim students are missing class time, what you do for one religious group in the school you have to do for others. The most obvious problem is that public schools here are supposed to be secular. The solution to this issue is equally simple: go to Friday prayers at a Mosque or somewhere else after school hours and off school property. Or, as you say, if Muslim want to do their thing then they can open private schools that cater to Muslims. They pay for it and everyone is happy.
    In my post on this I said that Hindus are the only ones with the balls to take this on. Not any more. Muslim groups are weighing in against this prayer thing saying that it opens a Pandora’s box of problems. Jewish groups are weighing in against it also.

  634. Cash July 7, 2011 at 2:57 pm #

    “It is good to be critical, but not to the point of nihilism. America’s past is riddled with mistakes, bad judgments, horrible crimes, and downright stupidity; that doesn’t mean that the principles on which this country was founded are any less vital. – MD
    Bravo. I couldn’t have said it better myself especially the bit about nihilism.

  635. asia July 7, 2011 at 2:58 pm #

    Do you really think the Vietnamese had control of their country?
    And sure in south Korea they protested Us invasion of Iraq…only because the US prevented the Maoization of SK! with US soldiers lives.

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  636. lbendet July 7, 2011 at 2:58 pm #

    Just taking some time to recommend a video of Michael Ruppert interviewed by Janaia Donaldson on Energy Bulletin. Post Petroleum Man.
    http://www.energybulletin.net/media/2011-07-06/arrival-post-petroleum-human-michael-ruppert-interview

  637. asia July 7, 2011 at 3:02 pm #

    No you are a Moron..clearly the 1 to 2 billion in India had no need of the ungreen rev of Montsanto.
    Much as I disagree with much of wages posts with
    regards to…THE OWNERSHIP OF ALL LIFE…she is right.

  638. asia July 7, 2011 at 3:05 pm #

    Thanks for pointing me to her blog..
    got any more sites worth goin to?
    spideys driving me from this one.

  639. asia July 7, 2011 at 3:07 pm #

    What you dont have at least 3 email accounts?
    the old one, the present one and the anonymous one!

  640. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 3:29 pm #

    You’re welcome. Max Keiser has some interesting things to say, especially about what’s going on in Greece, Euro, etc. Mish Shedlock sometimes has a good handle on things, but bores the brains out of me. Much better is Karl Denninger. I sometimes enjoy Of Two Minds, but suspect the author spends too much time with the hash pipe.
    I guess I like Culture of Life News because the author updates her stuff daily (sometimes twice a day). It never ceases to amaze me just how much she knows about stuff. She has this amazing broad based source of knowledge. Think she comes from a CIA family background. Smart lady! Didn’t know she and Kuntsler had a falling out (linked back to the comments on her article of her hometown’s July 4th parade). Plus, she and Kuntsler don’t live far from each other.

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  641. Cash July 7, 2011 at 3:32 pm #

    Good advice. You guys have been good neighbours and footed the bill for a nuclear and military umbrella that got us through the Cold War and enabled us to have such lovely things like rich social programs and public health care. Now I know this will piss liberals off but ask me if I give a damn.
    But times change. Up here we are afflicted with this lethal ninny-ism that will be the end of us. I’ve ranted about it before. What we have here is a sparsely populated, continent sized country that is arguably the world’s richest landmass. And we are unshakeably convinced that no one will challenge our ownership of it.
    As you pointed out look at what happened to Amerindians. Just like us they were divided among themselves and militarily weak and over the course of a couple hundred years they lost ownership of this place.
    But nosiree this won’t happen to us. You see we’re Canadian and everyone likes us. Sure they do. Besides, if someone invades we’ll just march over to the UN and, by George, they’ll issue a really stiffly worded resolution. That’ll show’em.
    I hate to burst anyone’s bubble especially those that are convinced to their core that the US is the evil empire. The chief of our intelligence service went public about the level of Chinese secret service infiltration of our country. He said they were very busy subverting our politicians and stealing industrial secrets and intellectual property. And, for this public service and for pointing out the eminently obvious threat that China poses, various public figures, notably Liberal and lefty politicians, howled in indignation and called for his ouster! How dare he try to defend us, the bastard!
    So you see, this is what we have to contend with. Foreign powers that look lustfully at what we have and, most seriously, some really stupid people in our midst. I’m not discounting the obvious threat that the US poses. But I’m not discounting either another really obvious threat from China.
    So we sit here with furrowed brow. What to do, what to do. Well, do the obvious when all else fails. If you are a country with a small population like us and you have a great deal to lose and a conventional military that wouldn’t have the heft to do the job then go nuke!
    You don’t even need that many. Just a few is all you need and nobody will so much as fart in the wrong direction. A great peace keeper. I know that this is a great deal to swallow for many of my countrymen and women that inhabit the elevated moral plane that they think we live in up here. Just imagine. Canada as a nuclear power. But the world is an exceedingly nasty place. They should look around. The fate of conquered peoples is pretty awful. They should go to any Indian reservation and see for themselves.

  642. Buck Stud July 7, 2011 at 3:46 pm #

    Cash,
    Is your assessment valid when you decontextualize education as most commentators on this blog have done? I hardly ever read of competing diversions: the marginalization of books by television,video games,computers,etc. It’s not a lot different than criticizing the flakes of dirt on an old antique marble sculpture from the confines of a pristine museum. In original context, that sculpture looks absolutely right, grime and all. Likewise, education is a reflection of greater society and although not particularly beautiful or profound according to the observations and assertions of some, still harmonious and not an outlier. Some of you write as if privatization is suddenly going to erase the surrounding atmosphere that envelopes education and that’s a whole lot of bunk.

  643. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 3:47 pm #

    Sorry to hear you had such a miserable experience. There are very few things I’m aware of that are worse than being violently sick to your stomach (being on a boat whilst wretching has to be one of the worst agonies).
    I’m been going organic for about a year now and have shed some weight. Avoiding processed food of any kind is probably a good idea. As San Jose Mom says, cooking from scratch is probably your best insurance policy against getting food born illness. Of course, scrubbing the veggies is equally important as well.
    And whoever told Tripp he was allowed to go on vacation? 😉

  644. ctemple July 7, 2011 at 3:59 pm #

    Are you bugging out?
    Do you know how many idiots there are out there who want to turn the country into Bangladesh?

  645. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 4:02 pm #

    I’d have to agree with you on most points. You know your country well! I suspect that your perception of the U.S. is on target also. It seems to me that we are not so much evil as incredibly stupid. We tend to grab bright, shiny objects (money, gold, light sweet crude) and consider the consequences, which can be quite fatal, later, if at all.
    I also suspect the U.S. is (thankfully) too chicken shit to unleash nuclear warheads. We instead act like childish pussies, and take out entire villages with preditor drones. Then we cry and act all outraged when someone calls us on it. Like saying, “How dare you say mean things about us while the only reason we’re dropping bombs on you is to liberate you! (sniffle, chortle)”
    As to the fate of Canada, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you guys have been spared. It may be that you’re so close to the U.S. that we figure if we nuke you, we’ll probably end up nuking the entire northern part of the states as well – can’t nuke Wall Street, you know!

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  646. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 5:00 pm #

    Since asia asked about blogs and I mentined Of Two Minds, by Charles Hugh Smith, today’s entry is a beaut. Has it all: peak oil, nanny state government, processed foods making us fat Americans the object of JHK’s wrath, etc. Worth a read. Hey, gives me something to do between waiting for the unemployment checks. 86 weeks and still collecting…kaching! Whoever said an English degree and Masters in Education doesn’t pay?

  647. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 5:31 pm #

    A true gem discovered from one of the readers of Charles Hugh Smith’s blog: On the Federal Reserve
    “When you look at all of history, ask yourself, why can’t the biggest ever just learn how to fold their hand one time? They always prefer a quick fix or cheap shot to keep themselves mentally pumped after a loss. So know maybe you have your answer you have been searching for. Just go find someone who does not know how to solve their problems. Maybe a drunk, a compulsive gambler, a workaholic (now the most popular). Expect the same from the fed. And treat them the same way.”
    Jesus, I think I’m becoming Spider.

  648. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 5:41 pm #

    Back to Hawaii: while in Hawaii I lived [1] barracks on Ford Island near the Arizona monument; [2] Armed Forces YMCA on Hotel Street across the street from the state capitol; [3] Aiea Heights; [4] Waipahu. I only have one email account. We used to rent a 41′ Viking sailboat at the Ala Moana yacht basin to sail to Lahaina, Maui. Used to go scuba diving at Waimea Bay [does that one sound right?]. Liked to watch surfing contests on the north shore at the pipeline. When really bored would take The Bus around the entire island of Oahu, getting out to have a smoke break half way through. My favorite restaurant was the Kobe Japanese Steak House. My favorite ultra sleazy topless joint was of course the Club Hubba Hubba on Hotel Street. Favorite Chinese restaurant was Wo Fat’s on Hotel Street where the Chinese waitresses wrote all the orders down in Chinese characters. Regret not having visited the Buddhist Temples in the valley headed north to Lookout Pass.

  649. bossier22 July 7, 2011 at 6:00 pm #

    I think we have not”nuked” Canada because we have respect for Canada. Anyone who travels there can not help but be impressed with their society. Next time I go there, I want to tell the cabby to drive through the crummiest part of town. I would bet it would still be clean. The biggest threat to Canada is too much immigration. I know, I know, now all you brotherhood of man folks can pile on me now. Except for Qshtik, since I used capital letters.

  650. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 6:03 pm #

    My favorite ultra sleazy topless joint was of course the Club Hubba Hubba
    =============
    …where the girls had these round purplish greenish yellowish bruises on them from having been touched with a ten foot pole.
    😉

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  651. Qshtik July 7, 2011 at 6:10 pm #

    Except for Qshtik, since I used capital letters.
    =============
    **!!Hallelujah!!**

  652. BeantownBill July 7, 2011 at 6:27 pm #

    America is the name of a geographic area and the name of a political governmental entity. It is a thing, not a person. The individuals or groups of individuals who have perpetrated horrible crimes in the name of their government – did they go unpunished? If most of them did, then that puts a lie to the ideals upon which our country was supposedly founded.
    BTW, I’m not an anti-American American. It’s just that we had such great potential when we started, and considering all we could have accomplished, well, there’s a lot to criticize.

  653. BeantownBill July 7, 2011 at 6:33 pm #

    Not knowing what the Magna Carta is? Well, really! And learning we fought Germany and Japan in WWII and won, no less. Unbelievable! As I sit here in my paradise in the great island of Alaska, I just can’t figure out how our country got so fucked up.

  654. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 6:36 pm #

    OK, Wage – I’ll make a simple statement that the country would have been better off with something like a military draft/universal service. You’re now leading the debate off into another direction.
    But hey, I’m game for that, too.
    “The ruling class didn’t care about Americans in the streets in the 60s, and they care even less now.” -wage-
    Wage, for a while in the ’60’s the “ruling class” cared desperately – because they could envision the whole thing falling apart on them.
    So they started the “war on drugs” to marginalize the white youth revolt – and/or create criminals.
    They passed the Civil Rights Act and renamed a street in every town MLK Drive and did some stuff with welfare and public housing to marginalize the black revolt.
    And “they” ended the draft to end genuine civilian involvement with the military.
    All 3 of these things worked like a charm.
    ===========
    “Remember that there were more people in the streets worldwide before the US attack on Iraq in 2003 than any where ever before.” -wage-
    I will grant you that our “elites” do not care about revolt or bloodshed outside of the US, or “worldwide.” You should grant to me the idea that they do care about revolt inside the US, ONLY IF – it can threaten the “elite’s gravy train.” (see my ’60’s reference)
    =========
    “Did they care? Come on, Prog, can you please look at reality?” -wage-
    Ending the draft removed a threat of revolt/change/improvement – inside the US. That threat is gone forever, now. And our, US, society continues to set, and harden, and slide slowly down. (or sideways, if you’re an optimist)

  655. BeantownBill July 7, 2011 at 6:45 pm #

    Responding to Q’s earlier post, I’m a good citizen – my magna carta get about 52 mpg.
    (I know, I know, I have a nasty streak of sarcasm. I’d rather shake my head and laugh, otherwise I’d cry).
    BTW, It’s sad to see Spider unraveling right before our eyes. I wish we knew where he lived, so one of us near him could find someone to get him laid. I think that would be a good 1st step in improving his emotional state.

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  656. MarlinFive54 July 7, 2011 at 7:02 pm #

    WageL;
    Monsanto is barely detectable in New England, as ‘BigAG’ does not really exist here. If you asked 100 people around these parts who Monsanto was, you’d get blank stares from all of them. I know of them only because JHK mentioned the company in TLE and I looked into it.
    “Marlin wants to shoot black and brown people” — Wage
    Did I ever say anything like that, Wage? In the newspaper pressroom where i work, I’m one of the few white employees. Its a hard, dirty job, and we all work together. A more generous comrade than yourself might say, all things considered, that I’m part of the proletariat. Thats not what you say.
    WageL hates anticommunists — Marlin is in the John Birch Society.
    WageL hates Nazis — Marlin is a stormtrooper.
    WageL hates corporations — Marlin is a lackey for Monsanto.
    WageL is a multiculturalist — Marlin wants to murder minorities.
    Basically, everything WageL has spent her life railing against, that’s what Marlin is. Get the picture?
    Ozone, only got as far as Army Corps of Engineer Dam today. Had to head for home, get ready for my shift. No trout. And that Royal Enfield is damned uncomfortable after about 20 miles. One thing, though, Pete, you picked a nice area to move to. Is there any more beautiful place on earth in the summer than the S.Berkshires and Housatonic River Valley, NW Connecticut and SW Mass, home of Melville and Hawthorne, Actress Fanny Kimble and Jonathan Edwards? If ther is I’d like to see it.
    -Marlin

  657. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 7:04 pm #

    “The biggest threat to Canada is too much immigration. I know, I know, now all you brotherhood of man folks can pile on me now.”
    -bossier22-
    Bossier, the biggest threat to MANKIND is too much immigration. And except for asoak/soak and maybe? digbycookies, and the now departed Mila51 and *NeonVincent, no one logical – even on CFN – seems to think high immigration is a good idea.
    *BTW, Vlad – Neon Vincent is over on that woman’s blog that people keep referencing this week. He’s talking smack about how a famous CFN racist “attacked” him for attacking JHK over immigration.
    jeeze!
    —————
    I just finished reading “Collapse” by Diamond. It’s got me in a really “doomed” state of mind right now. Collectively, all of humanity is behaving like the Myans, or the Easter Islanders, or the Greenland Norse.
    In other words – we are behaving like IDIOTS. Selfish, unknowing, uncaring IDIOTS who are going to die. Soon.

  658. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 7:17 pm #

    You CFN’ers can file this one under the “Ya Shoulda Quit Whilst Ya Were Ahead” file. Jim Kuntsler’s Architectural Eyesore for July 2011.
    And on a sad, personal note, I just learned that our neighborhood supermarket is leaving our hood. Sigh…sign of the times…and I was hoping to get a job there as a cashier.

  659. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 7:20 pm #

    For the record, I never said high immigration was a good idea. Au contraire, mon cheri!

  660. BeantownBill July 7, 2011 at 7:28 pm #

    I have been a vegan for about 5 or 6 years. I try to eat organic, but I’m not a super fanatic about it. I think your comment about preparing your own food is rght on (acknowledgment to Wage). And we do wash our fruits and veggies.
    Say you go to a health food store and buy a sack of beans or grains. You still don’t know what’s in them or on them, but I guess that’s the best we can do, other than growing them ourselves.
    Considering that I’m in a place in the ‘burbs, with clayey and sandy soil, with very little free land area, it’s rather difficult to grow my own. But I’m looking at more innovative ways to do so.
    And thanks for commiserating about my stomach – being sick to your stomach is truly a hellish feeling.

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  661. ozone July 7, 2011 at 7:37 pm #

    “In other words – we are behaving like IDIOTS. Selfish, unknowing, uncaring IDIOTS who are going to die. Soon.” -PoC
    Yep. This is why I decry the distraction from issues that relate to our imminent extinction. Engaging fools and their narcissistic “concerns” wastes time, energy, and perhaps, most of all, focus.
    BTW, I’m an idiot too; there are many things I’m overlooking, but then again, there ARE some things I can do absolutely nothing about, and just have to move on to what little I can influence.
    I agree with your immigration stance, but mostly because it allows corporatists to continue pursuing their class warfare and purposeful division on/of the lumpenprole. That, by itself, I consider to be a very dangerous game.
    (Resource use? Humans will use more resources if they happen to be there to use; and the easier they are to use [access, efficiency], the more they’ll BE used. That’s how that goes, I guess. Collapse needs to happen for any to survive. That doesn’t mean I think one of the survivors might be me; I’d hope for younger people who happen to be clued in to energy descent and “carrying capacity”. Profit is the basis of what’s driving the incredible waste of resources)

  662. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 7:39 pm #

    Sorry Digg – I’ve got you confused with someone else. Ya’ need a scorecard around this blog, some weeks.

  663. Buck Stud July 7, 2011 at 8:06 pm #

    Prog,
    For the moment at least, you might not have to clear your throat and tingle the glass from the head of the CFN table before pronouncing the perils of illegal immigration:
    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html?scp=6&sq=mexican%20immigration&st=cse

  664. digbycookies July 7, 2011 at 8:18 pm #

    For what it’s worth (probably not much, but…) Elaine is totally against immigration to the U.S.
    And if you or anybody can explain to me what Zionism really is, I’d like to learn about it. From a Google search, “pro-Israeli” just doesn’t cut it for me. I mean, there’s just got to be more to it, ya know?

  665. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 8:38 pm #

    How did you know? The club itself was priceless, the girls not so much. The exotic dancers there were no longer in their prime for the most part. If you google “Club Hubba Hubba” you’ll see the original neon sign.

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  666. Vlad Krandz July 7, 2011 at 8:54 pm #

    Dude, he’s colored, part of the international grievance coalition that aims to bring down the White Man and His Civilization. He REALLY thinks he’s better than us – and he’s totally down with the Agenda. There can be no accord with him and his ilk. A few decades ago Australia declared itself an “Asian Nation” – much to the confusion of everyone. There’s no confusion now as the Chinese pour in. Australia has been betrayed by the New World Order and it is dying as a White, Western Nation. What it will become has no relation to anything there before. All the monuments to the heroes will be torn down – just as is being done in the American South. You approve no doubt.
    Same thing in New Zealand – only the Maoris are speaking out against the influx. The Whites too terrified of being called the R word. Sickening.
    Care to comment on the cheating scandal in Atlanta? You realize of course the impossible situation these teachers have been put in: the Blacks get passing grades or the schools close and the teachers lose their jobs. Absolutely shameful.

  667. Vlad Krandz July 7, 2011 at 8:58 pm #

    I attacked him for being against immigration? So now I’m in favor of it? I remember him – he’s declared victory after I defeated him. He’s into women who think they’re Indians – the Tribes allow you to be 1/12. Get it? Being anything but White is what it’s about now. The Iranians don’t want to be White either. This is what your policies have brought us too.

  668. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 8:59 pm #

    As much as I love George Carlin this is really little more than facile cynicism, but thanks for the link anyway. I’m such a Carlin fan that I even bought a copy of “When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?”
    I believe that long familiarity with various levels of schooling from the teacher’s point of view makes the situation quite simple. It also helps if you’ve been exposed to a good deal of vocational education in addition to academic programs.
    What Carlin overlooks is that nobody is being held back the man, as it were. People are held back simply because they have virtually no academic aptitude in at least six or seven cases out of every ten. Those who lack such aptitude never develop a taste for study and consequently they have virtually no mental life outside of popular culture, which used to be called mass culture. The social critics of yore were continually bewailing the state of “mass man”. This reveals an almost callow fastidiousness and elitism. The working class has two choices: either it can master technique and remain employed or else it can shun vocational training and become essentially worthless. Adopting some sort of cultural or political leadership role is out of the question because the ability is simply not there. What they can do is band together to revive trade unionism.
    The rich don’t want their own kids becoming artists or philosophers either. The most common professional aspiration among the kids at the old money “Grottlesex” schools in New England is, you guessed it: investment banker. Becoming doctors, lawyers or professors is too much like having a service job so that is definitely no de rigeur.

  669. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 9:05 pm #

    Thanks. Used to type 55 wpm on an IBM selectric when I temped for Kelly Girl as a word processor. Naturally computers are faster because they scroll automatically and you don’t have to hit return. I used to prefer a manual typewriter in college. The humming of an electric Olivetti annoyed me. You’re nuts for going canoe sailing in a Lake Erie gale! Unless you rigged up outriggers and filled the canoe with inflatable plastic bladders, then also packed a life raft with a sport inflator, you were really courting disaster. Last time I went out I turned around immediately because the wind direction wasn’t right. I need to have a north wind when I’m on Lake Erie so I can get blown back to the marina on the south shore of the lake.

  670. messianicdruid July 7, 2011 at 9:05 pm #

    “Bravo. I couldn’t have said it better myself especially the bit about nihilism.”
    That’s why I quoted it. Did you read the rest? {at link}

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  671. bubbleheadMarc July 7, 2011 at 9:17 pm #

    The distillation of my ideas vis a vis the schools just came to me after signing out last time, and it’s so simple I can’t believe I didn’t come up with this before:
    IT’S NOT THE SCHOOLS THAT SUCK. IT’S THE KIDS THAT SUCK. AFTER ALL, MOST ADULTS AREN’T REALLY THE BRIGHTEST. ALL THOSE NOT SO BRIGHT ADULTS STARTED OUT AS, YOU GUESSED IT, NOT SO BRIGHT KIDS. END OF STORY. LET’S ALL FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO BITCH ABOUT!
    And never forget: if your kid has trouble in school he’s probably just stupid. Send him to truck driving school instead of ANYONE CAN GET IN STATE UNIVERSITY. After all, he’ll only end up becoming an insurance adjustor after he gets his marketing degree with a C- average. No great loss. Of course he’ll be more likely to get hemorroids. On second thought, maybe he should go to ANYONE CAN GET IN STATE UNIVERSITY after all.

  672. ozone July 7, 2011 at 9:24 pm #

    That was meant as reply to PoC…
    …and immediately following was a perfect example of irrelevant idiocy and misdirection by somebody yelling, “Nigger, nigger, nigger, and did I mention niggers? Them niggers hates whites worse’n us whites hates them niggers! Look, over there! Niggers!”
    Jeeeeezus fuggin’ wept.

  673. asia July 7, 2011 at 9:32 pm #

    Marlon [I prefer that spelling]
    I went to a John Rappoport Lecture..
    Hes written ‘THE OWNERSHIP OF ALL LIFE’
    and about the Oklahoma Bombing…Hes not a nut
    Check him out…
    Just cause folks dont know about terminator seeds and Percy Smeiser doesnt mean Montsanto isnt out to get them…it is!
    And the farmer suicides in India are real…dunno how barat caved in to letting in Mcdonalds etc but they did.

  674. asia July 7, 2011 at 9:37 pm #

    ????
    maybe Im dense

  675. asia July 7, 2011 at 9:42 pm #

    I was on the way to the beach on 7/4..
    I see a guy get mugged [by 3 blacks] for his cell phone…in daylight…I get to the beach [pico and ocean] and theres a plaque
    ‘INK WELL, HERE BLACKS WENT TO ESCAPE WHITE RACISM IN THE 30’s’
    The beach was full of huge latino Families…
    those ‘brown hordes’ Wage thinks marlin fears so…
    No need to wonder, just go to a so cal beach on a sunny weekend.
    theres a book ‘THE GIFT OF FEAR’…its gist is that sometimes fear is a sane response.

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  676. ozone July 7, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

    “You’re nuts for going canoe sailing in a Lake Erie gale! Unless you rigged up outriggers and filled the canoe with inflatable plastic bladders, then also packed a life raft with a sport inflator, you were really courting disaster.” -BHM
    *********
    Well, yes, absolutely! We were kids (and boys to boot). That would mean, by definition, NUTS! lol
    Let’s see, we’d only gotten out about 150 yds. (just into the big swells, past the breakers that curl on that shallow, shale shelf); nice gust caught us just as we’d taken the luff out of the sail, busted the mast very handily and put us a-beam of a nice roller. That put a bit much pressure on the dagger-boards, snapping one right in half, and leaving the other to help facilitate a neat little coin-flip of a capsize… which upon smackdown, splintered the rudder. We actually had life-vests on, so were simply driven back to shore with all the various “pieces”. Canoe miraculously, unharmed, but Dad was none too pleased. He’d told my brother, “Well, umm, okay, but when you get out there [Point Gratiot sp?], you think again about this adventure and really take a good look to the weather.” Well, bro’ took a good look at a nice snorty little gale, just coming into its’ own, and said, “Neat-o!” Do they make a smart/common-sensical/self-preservational 17 yr. old boys? I was 12, and was “helping” to get us drowned, so that doesn’t count. ;o)

  677. ozone July 7, 2011 at 10:01 pm #

    Nope, you’re not dense; sometimes I’m just obtuse.
    I’m such a slow typist, I won’t go into “the whole thing” again. No worries, not important to most, I suspect.

  678. messianicdruid July 7, 2011 at 10:20 pm #

    Hey procon this is for you:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6r-l1Tn3BM&feature=player_embedded

  679. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 10:30 pm #

    “For the moment at least, you might not have to clear your throat and tingle the glass from the head of the CFN table before pronouncing the perils of illegal immigration…”
    -buckstud-
    That’s funny, Buck! And a cool way to look at the CFN “family,” to boot.
    =============
    I don’t know if you noticed – I gave up on the “illegal immigration issue” months ago. The problem we have in the US is a population that is too large and that is growing too fast. And this growth in population is 100% due to legal and illegal immigration.
    Simple facts.
    I’m going to work up a response to Ozone as to why the importance of issues – including US population – varies according to your view of the “timeline of collapse.”

  680. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 10:47 pm #

    The headline on youtube was misleading –
    “The Death of the Swedish People Should Not be Seen as Something Negative”
    Jackson never said that. He did say that “Sweeden is destined to become a multi-racial, multi-cultural society….Swedes should embrace this.”
    I don’t have a voice in this because I’m not Sweedish.
    I would advise the Swedes, if asked, not to allow any immigration – of anyone – into Sweden until the dust settles on many worldwide events, presently unfolding.

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  681. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 11:00 pm #

    “All the monuments to the heroes will be torn down – just as is being done in the American South. You approve no doubt.” -vlad-
    That’s not what’s happening in the South. They are adding monuments to acknowledge black history – that is all.
    If I buy into your fearful view of the future, then sure, it ends with a bunch of black/asian/indian/white guys in a multi-cultural mob – armed with dynamite or artillery pieces – and blasting Lee, Jackson, and Davis off the side of Stone Mountain.
    I’ve gone as far with you as to acknowledge that there is need for an organization to be known as the National Association for the Advancement of White People, NAAWP,(name needs work!) to call attention to prejudice as need be – in a nonconfrontational manner, devoid of sneering speech or hateful rhetoric.
    Hateful speech and rhetoric only hurts your cause and your people, Vlad.
    What is it going to take to make you understand this?

  682. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 11:13 pm #

    The “Cheating Situation” in Atlanta.
    At most this situation involves 200 teachers and principals, out of over 10,000. It mostly involves a few thousand summer school students who had already failed once.
    If they failed again – their principals and schools failed, with some severe consequences.
    Some of those principals and teachers supplied answers to those failing students. More of them changed wrong answers to correct – after the kids had left the buildings.
    They did not know they could be caught. They were caught by erasure analysis – after the fact.
    If they had known about “erasure analysis” they likely would not have cheated.
    This world is full of people who will cheat if the consequences are severe enough – and they think they can’t get caught.
    Trust, but verify.
    This does not excuse cheating.
    These involved principals/teachers should be disbarred and fired.
    But this foolishness has been dominating the news in Georgia for over two years now. It is all out of proportion to the harm caused.

  683. rippedthunder July 7, 2011 at 11:26 pm #

    More good news. A new dust bowl. a long write up but it seems like the farmers prayers are answered by the Monsanto GMO,s. Yey I’m down wid dat! We are totally so screwed!

  684. rippedthunder July 7, 2011 at 11:29 pm #

    Ooops, forgot the link. Seems like the UK has it over the MSM in the good ol’ Usa!
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/8359076/US-farmers-fear-the-return-of-the-Dust-Bowl.html

  685. progress,conserve July 7, 2011 at 11:32 pm #

    Ozone
    The importance of issues depends on the timeline.
    Let’s assume TEOTWAWKI is going to happen.
    That’s the underlying assumption of CFN, right?
    But let’s say that TEOTWAWKI is going to happen on a SINGLE DEFINITE date a precise number of years in the future. Consider the differences if this date is, exactly:
    1. One year away
    2. Ten Years away
    3. One Hundred years away
    4. One thousand years away
    Some issues, say gay marriage, are so unimportant that it doesn’t matter whether the world ends in one year, a thousand years, or never. All of the posters who signed in just last week – just to register an opinion about gay marriage – need a different forum.
    ===========
    But on immigration – the timeline matters, a LOT.
    If the end is in one year, immigration doesn’t matter – because one more year’s worth of movement is not going to make a bit of difference.
    If the end is in one thousand years, then it’s not going to matter – because Cash’s vision of the triumph of libido and racial mixing is going to eliminate most distinct racial characteristics in most areas.
    But, BUT, if the end is in 10 years – immigration matters a whole lot. One reason is that immigration is capable of VISIBLY HASTENING THE END IN OBVIOUS WAYS.
    And another reason is that the survivors, if any, are going to have enough troubles forming survival tribes, groups, and bands.
    Attempting to live in an overpopulated, and now collapsed – formerly multi cultural country – is going to give them a whole lot more misery with which to deal.

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  686. rippedthunder July 7, 2011 at 11:54 pm #

    Obtuse, such a descripitive word. My daughter says that I come at her from obtuse angles. She finished up as a math major. Is that useful? I don’t know. I like to be obtuse. It is not square. more of like a curveball in the geometry world. Obtuse we shall be. 45 degrees out of square. 135 dgrees is my favorite angle. I got caught smokin’ weed in “HIGH” school. After hearing my story The “ass”istant pricipal said I had more angles than a “corkscrew”. They gave me a 14 day suspension. after 12 days they sent a letter to my house and said I was due back at school. I called them and said,”Hey I have got two more days off, I won’t be back till Friday!” True story. I shit you not! Ah the good ol’ days!

  687. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 12:00 am #

    Jared Diamond, whose book, “Collapse,” I just finished, gets some stuff wrong. But one thing he gets right is the blame that the US govt. (read conservative Republicans, mostly) deserves for blocking birth control information to third world citizens. And that started with the verdamned Regan Revolution.
    Vlad worries about Southern History being destroyed by multi-cultural mobs. He may have a point, going far enough forward in time.
    But I might go to Stone Mountain and take a 105mm cannon shell to Jeff Davis’ nose MYSELF – If I could keep one more road, airport, or aircraft carrier – around this place – from being named for Ronald Reagan.
    Here’s a link – for our out of the US guests:
    http://stonemountain.com/archives/110

  688. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:23 am #

    I am familiar with CA Fitts and Mish from Dollar Collapse and C2C Radio..thanks
    are there blogs with as loveable and lively a crew as JHK has assembled here?

  689. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:34 am #

    I just read what Elaine Supkis says about the NYT!
    US continues to take 1 to 5 million a year in…
    legals, wetbacks,refugees, anchor babies..
    and immigrants have huge families.

  690. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 12:41 am #

    My daughter says that I come at her from obtuse angles. She finished up as a math major. Is that useful?
    ===============
    It is if she has big tits. Otherwise, no.
    😉

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  691. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:45 am #

    Where are you? in a small city?
    You wanted work as a clerk?
    with a Masters degree?
    Yr Market just went belly up?

  692. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:56 am #

    Digby,,
    first glance at CH Smith site…good info on education…
    NEXT TO AN AD FOR DEVRY..THATS A FOR PROFIT DIPLOMA MILL, I BELIEVE.

  693. Patrizia July 8, 2011 at 1:15 am #

    I was thinking exactly like you.
    What the hell people wanted to stop progress?
    If you can make plants that kill parasites by themselves, so that you cannot use pesticides, what do you want more?
    Then I read how those plants behave.
    They produce toxins that kill insects and they assured “nothing passes to humans”.
    While it was proved that more than 90% of those toxins were found in human milk, in human stomach…
    So, if you eat organic, you have very good chances to eat food that is much WORSE than the one produced with pesticides… and if you eat food fertilized with cow manure, you have pretty good chances to get some terrible bacteria…
    Since then I changed my mind.

  694. old69 July 8, 2011 at 2:08 am #

    Alexandra HOT bitch keep on ph*cking, keep on doing that to me, you too Bustin and the blacks with the HOT french gals, fabian and everyone else all thousands of trillions of turds on earth having fun and enjoying and killing me in the process, beating me up, punishing me, how I hate all their guts, go on, just do it, go on, go on, keep on doing that to me, keep on punishing me and beating me up, but you will all be punished for this, all in hell forever, infinite pain for infinite time as god wants to punish people for existing and living, and Jesus Speaks to Little Children and Beware of the Mark of the Beast. AMEN.
    On a side note, I think all our religion and christianity and the jews (the Abraham religions or Monotheistic, the Jew – Muslim and Christian religion model) really messed us all up on sex as it seems that the Japanese for example could care less about all of this…

  695. jackieblue2u July 8, 2011 at 2:33 am #

    An Old Man was reminising about the good ole days.
    “when i was a young boy, my mother would send me to the corner store with 1$. I’d come back with 5 bags of potatoes, a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, a hunk of cheese,3 loaves of bread and a gallon of milk!”
    “can’t do that anymore…..
    too many fuckin’security cameras.”

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  696. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 2:39 am #

    Things are what they are because they’re not something else. The Swedes are the Swedes because they’re not Nigerians or Arabs. To ask them to take huge numbers of these is to ask them to cease to exist. Of course the name “Sweden” or “America” will be kept for awhile, but it is just a ruse and only fools fools.
    Check this out: a highly ranked Jew admits that Jews are the leaders of all this.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXfnyXp06Y

  697. jackieblue2u July 8, 2011 at 2:44 am #

    I laid low for the weekend. But all the idiots throwing their M80’s into every garbage can they could. for 3 hours. freaking out our beloved pets. was fun listening to that. NOT.
    To me it’s so much better if I don’t have to drive too far at all. I live within a 7 mile radius more or less 98% of the time. works for me.
    Too much dis stress on the road, dangerous drivers, rude, and careless. aggressive and suicidal. homicidal. or just unconcious and in the way not paying any attention at all.
    I walked across the street and sat under the trees and watched the birds. Have to remember to bring some bread next time.
    Why oh why did they have to fuck it all up. JHK is so right about ruining the land scape. the land. Destroying the beauty and the environment.
    Such a waste. Now watch China and whoever buy it up and screw it up even more.
    I feel for the youngins’.
    Great post JHK. Thanks again. and again.

  698. old69 July 8, 2011 at 3:01 am #

    Get Out of the Stock Market
    JHK said to get out of the stock market, funny, since he said that it went from 12,000 to 12,700, it actually went way up, what’s up with that ? Simple, it is an example where the model of the world he has in mind, the linearity he imagines, the pattern that is supposed to be operating doesn’t really exist at all, is an illusion or maybe wishful thinking, and the way the stock market behaves reflects this: there are no rules, no patterns, no logic, no cause and effect, no linearity, no nothing at all, it just goes anywhere at all for any reason at all and the very fact that you can’t predict it, you can’t know (but maybe some do know if it is rigged which may be a possibility) is what gives the entire idea of playing the game, playing the Risks and Rewards game, the giant Poker game (actually all of life is just one giant guessing game and poker game, a wild guessing game, a wild take a chance and risk and maybe the pure random chaotic play of forces will make you win) its value and worth and fascination, as if the mind likes to tease itself, likes to make fun of itself and show how it is always wrong no matter what, it can always be wrong no matter how carefully it tries to understand and study the “economy” or (anything else for that matter).
    This is why capitalism is so natural as it doesn’t depend on any hard core “belief” (or belief system like religion or science or metaphysics or symbols and denotations and indirections) or any hard core solid “model” but pure guessing, pure risks and rewards, pure chance, trying to make that lucky guess and since the reality of the world and physics is essentially the fact that no real laws are operating, no causes and effects, as the three body problem demonstrates, capitalism is really more natural is closer to reality is essentially more correct as an ideology even though I personally dislike it.
    I see this with myself, I am always thinking about cheap rents and low rents when in all truth a variable rate 30 or 40 year loan (which many banks could possibly now give you) could almost do the trick in simulating a low rent, who cares about the future, who on earth is going to guarantee a steady job for 30 or 40 years, so who cares, get in the house, pay the monthly fee and the future will take care of itself, more or less, but I get obsessed and want this model of cheap rents to be the only correct model, so I too fall into the trap of thinking that only one model and cause and effect and linearity is operating, while there are alternatives.

  699. old69 July 8, 2011 at 3:02 am #

    When you think about how fake and empty all our possible models of reality are, how they are just wild guesses that sometimes just work, just from pure luck, if you see in what a total real vacuum the play of forces act out, you finally realize how mind boggling it is, how stupid and wrong it is to believe in models and rules and laws and patterns (and as a corollary religions ideologies, models, symbols etc.), as our mind is a pattern obsessed, pattern searching and pattern saturated entity oblivious to how everything is just a quirk, with no further meaning or laws or rules then what plays out instantaneously for no reason at all. Just like JHK is obsessed on the model of Peak Oil, his entire ideology is based on this, but doesn’t he see that he could be wrong in a jiffy if they discover huge new amounts of oil all of a sudden (a real possibility) or if it is abiotic or if they discover or develop fusion energy, more efficient batteries, you name it, his entire model of reality could be demolished in a jiffy by just one bit, he is playing in all truth a wild guessing game, a wild guess and chance.
    So the Risk and Reward ideology the Right Wing Thugs love so much is the only real ideology and religion that can back them up (this shows you that the myth of “Hard Work” and “Effort” is just a show they like to put on to justify people that got rich for mostly pure luck and chance as this is the real reason most people and corporations etc, get rich, not because of that oh so comforting imaginary linearity of more hard work and effort and education will make you succeed and rich, in fact so many companies have trillions of dollars in profit money not knowing what to do, if this linearity were really operating, they would be investing trillions and hiring millions in all kinds of Research and Development, but they don’t (or they fake it out and make believe they invest in Research to avoid paying taxes, but in all truth just hog it all up under the table when no one is looking)).
    The pattern saturated mind, we love patterns and repetitions (like music or like lovers imagining what the other is thinking and guessing “right” and such), we are so obsessed by the comfort of the models and causes and effects and patterns, repetitive patterns, the feeling of total control and understanding that we are blind to how false this all is, how wrong it all is to believe in any of this, in this sense our mind is always wrong, because there are no patterns, no belief systems worth believing in, there is no solution to the three body problem in physics and it doesn’t matter if we are made up of a million particles or the economy and world is made up of a million particles interacting randomly and chaotically, it still has no solution, it is a digital affair, either there is the magic formula and solution or there is no solution, no matter how many particles (in fact we think that a million particles makes it harder to solve as we are so used to linearities, causes and effects, graduality, more of this means more of that, when in all truth the complexity and difficulty is exactly equivalent no matter how many particles, it is non linear, independent of the number of particles or play of forces, it has NO SOLUTION, end of story, there is nothing behind the play of forces, just effects without any cause, the end of Science and Logic, the last great religion, the last great belief system in the Model, the comforting models of reality that are just illusions and don’t exist).
    And the same with all kinds of predictions JHK makes like Greece blowing up, the Euro blowing up (the Euro too has maintained its value), Saudi Arabia blowing up, etc. all a fantasy, all wishful thinking, all make believe models of a reality that follows no models (but it may be greatly rigged by the powers that be, who knows…).

  700. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 3:09 am #

    This is just the tip of iceberg – it’s all over the country – especially where minorities are the majority. As we begin to look like Africa or Mexico, we will begin to behave like Africa or Mexico. It cannot be otherwise.

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  701. old69 July 8, 2011 at 3:22 am #

    Get Out of the Stock Market
    JHK said to get out of the stock market, funny, since he said that it went from 12,000 to 12,700, it actually went way up, what’s up with that ? Simple, it is an example where the model of the world he has in mind, the linearity he imagines, the pattern that is supposed to be operating doesn’t really exist at all, is an illusion or maybe wishful thinking, and the way the stock market behaves reflects this: there are no rules, no patterns, no logic, no cause and effect, no linearity, no nothing at all, it just goes anywhere at all for any reason at all and the very fact that you can’t predict it, you can’t know (but maybe some do know if it is rigged which may be a possibility) is what gives the entire idea of playing the game, playing the Risks and Rewards game, the giant Poker game (actually all of life is just one giant guessing game and poker game, a wild guessing game, a wild take a chance and risk and maybe the pure random chaotic play of forces will make you win) its value and worth and fascination, as if the mind likes to tease itself, likes to make fun of itself and show how it is always wrong no matter what, it can always be wrong no matter how carefully it tries to understand and study the “economy” or (anything else for that matter).
    This is why capitalism is so natural as it doesn’t depend on any hard core “belief” (or belief system like religion or science or metaphysics or symbols and denotations and indirections) or any hard core solid “model” but pure guessing, pure risks and rewards, pure chance, trying to make that lucky guess and since the reality of the world and physics is essentially the fact that no real laws are operating, no causes and effects, as the three body problem demonstrates, capitalism is really more natural, is closer to reality, is essentially more correct as an ideology even though I personally dislike it.
    I see this with myself, I am always thinking about cheap rents and low rents when in all truth a variable rate 30 or 40 year loan (which many banks could possibly now give you) could almost do the trick in simulating a low rent, who cares about the future, who on earth is going to guarantee a steady job for 30 or 40 years, so who cares, get in the house, pay the monthly fee and the future will take care of itself, more or less, but I get obsessed and want this model of cheap rents to be the only correct model, so I too fall into the trap of thinking that only one model and cause and effect and linearity is operating, while there are alternatives.

  702. old69 July 8, 2011 at 3:26 am #

    When you think about how fake and empty all our possible models of reality are, how they are just wild guesses that sometimes just work, just from pure luck, if you see in what a total real vacuum the play of forces act out, you finally realize how mind boggling it is, how stupid and wrong it is to believe in models and rules and laws and patterns (and as a corollary religions, ideologies, models, symbols etc.), as our mind is a pattern obsessed, pattern searching and pattern saturated entity oblivious to how everything is just a quirk, with no further meaning or laws or rules then what plays out instantaneously for no reason at all. Just like JHK is obsessed on the model of Peak Oil, his entire ideology is based on this, but doesn’t he see that he could be wrong in a jiffy if they discover huge new amounts of oil all of a sudden (a real possibility) or if it is abiotic or if they discover or develop fusion energy, more efficient batteries, you name it, his entire model of reality could be demolished in a jiffy by just one bit, he is playing in all truth a wild guessing game, a wild guess and chance.
    So the Risk and Reward ideology the Right Wing Thugs love so much is the only real ideology and religion that can back them up (this shows you that the myth of “Hard Work” and “Effort” is just a show they like to put on to justify people that got rich for mostly pure luck and chance as this is the real reason most people and corporations etc, get rich, not because of that oh so comforting imaginary linearity of more hard work and effort and education will make you succeed and rich, in fact so many companies have trillions of dollars in profit money not knowing what to do, if this linearity were really operating, they would be investing trillions and hiring millions in all kinds of Research and Development, but they don’t (or they fake it out and make believe they invest in Research to avoid paying taxes, but in all truth just hog it all up under the table when no one is looking)).
    The pattern saturated mind, we love patterns and repetitions (like music or like lovers imagining what the other is thinking and guessing “right” and such), we are so obsessed by the comfort of the models and causes and effects and patterns, repetitive patterns, the feeling of total control and understanding that we are blind to how false this all is, how wrong it all is to believe in any of this, in this sense our mind is always wrong, because there are no patterns, no belief systems worth believing in, there is no solution to the three body problem in physics and it doesn’t matter if we are made up of a million particles or the economy and world is made up of a million particles interacting randomly and chaotically, it still has no solution, it is a digital affair, either there is the magic formula and solution or there is no solution, no matter how many particles (in fact we think that a million particles makes it harder to solve as we are so used to linearities, causes and effects, graduality, more of this means more of that, when in all truth the complexity and difficulty is exactly equivalent no matter how many particles, it is non linear, independent of the number of particles or play of forces, it has NO SOLUTION, end of story, there is nothing behind the play of forces, just effects without any cause, the end of Science and Logic, the last great religion, the last great belief system in the Model, the comforting models of reality that are just illusions and don’t exist).
    And the same with all kinds of predictions JHK makes like Greece blowing up, the Euro blowing up (the Euro too has maintained its value), Saudi Arabia blowing up, etc. all a fantasy, all wishful thinking, all make believe models of a reality that follows no models (but it may be greatly rigged by the powers that be, who knows…).

  703. Eleuthero July 8, 2011 at 4:31 am #

    Waste of Skin said:
    Oh, excuse me, fucktard. I’m guessing you are posting this while at work, saving the world from (enter “X” here examp. global warming, promoting abortions/drug use, nude sun bathing, etc.)
    **************************************************
    Hey, you. Yeah … YOU … dimwit. I post an
    average of like ONE post a day while you imply
    I’m wasting work time whilst a jitbag like you
    (scatology begets scatology) AVERAGES fifteen
    posts a day with forty on your Bipolar Type I
    days.
    For your information, numbnuts, I’m a CONSERVATIVE
    but you wouldn’t know what that means politically
    or economically because you’re one of those
    reincarnated sociopaths that pass for a
    conservative. I’m a Teddy Roosevelt kind of
    Conservative when they actually believed in
    working people (rather than stuck up wasters
    like you). “I got mine” is NOT the party of
    Lincoln, Teddy, or Eisenhower but it’s YOUR
    party.
    Go trade your fucking stocks, prove that you CAN
    worship your God and Mammon at the same time and
    then continue to act as if “redistribution” is a
    Commie idea when all the “redistributing” has
    already occurred so that trust fund babies like
    you can spend five hours a day on a blog whilst
    asking workers to eat cake and beans.
    Like Asoka last year, just the sheer amount of
    time you spend here is evidence that GET A LIFE
    applies more to you than 90% of the posters.
    You’re about avarice and vanity while promoting
    yourself as some sort of nouveau libertarian.
    You’re just a SPOILED KID WITH A FILTHY MIND AND
    CONTEMPT FOR HIS RHETORICAL ADVERSARIES. You’re
    a sycophant to your fan club (which is, what,
    here … two people?) and a dehumanizing monster
    to anyone who dares hold an opinion you either
    don’t agree with or … don’t understand.
    Was the GUF empty when you was born BOY????
    You’re in the God Squad so I figure you must
    know what the guf is, right? Show me your
    awesome erudition, monster. And you ARE *the*
    most monstrous person ever to enter this site.
    Asoka was a freaking saint compared to you
    and he’s even amenable to real discourse from
    time to time.
    Your idea of discourse is an endless series of
    one-way interjections which would make a
    longshoreman blush, which KILL dialogue, and
    which would be an offense to any “God” you
    purport to worship. Therefore, you’ve got
    to be another one of the zillions of internet
    frauds who “invented” this personality just
    for malicious shits and giggles.
    E.
    E.

  704. old69 July 8, 2011 at 6:52 am #

    Particle Accelerator
    Why do I have so much to say ? How is it possible that I can keep on writing this kind of crap forever, always making new connections, always connecting new pieces of information with other pieces and combining them ? Why did the computer program controlling my mind crash in such a way, how can that be fixed ? Too late Jose’, it is busted, an old clunker, broken, out of order, Tilt Tilt!
    Information and communication has this odd property that you can keep on saying the same or similar things over and over again forever and make the connections, new connections with similar things over and over again and it is always new or sounds always new, just like JHK’s blog, the same kind of idea repeated over and over, in different ways, a new view of something said a million times. How strange, how odd, in fact I was hoping (as a model of the mind that is always wrong, go figure) that I would finally run out of things to think and say, that it would end: nothing further from the truth, it goes on and on forever, an infinite loop, what a really strange universe we inhabit, how odd!
    Like what is a distinct entity compared to separate entities, the story of your life is a whole delimited entity, but made up of events, disjoint and distinct events, or connected ? and how connected, how separated, what difference does it make what the sequence of events were, what the path was ? Same with physical entities, a person is a bag of cells, but distinct and one at the same time ? how distinct, how connected, or completely disconnected, or totally disconnected as in the delimitation and entity is a person + the car + the house he passed by, all defined as one whole indivisible entity and delimitation ? And on and on…
    Like why is everything just an abstract information in the mind compared to others already present in memory and only occasionally touched by some pain/pleasure or sensation (this is why the mental models and laws of physics appear to be so important) ? If someone sees how CERN is investigating elementary particles by such a particular contraption, with such a particular set of rules, models and theoretical models and ideas, and the end result is only some bits on computers confirming an imagined “truth” or not, you wouldn’t believe that it is really relevant in any way: all information is always separated, and outside the mind, it is all at the same distance, even the most important bits of information are really just bits at the same distance, nothing really important (even the bit of information that a loved one died) how odd ?
    If they really wanted to discover the elementary particles of Reality then they should dismantle all of our delimitations, disconnect the sequences of events in space and time, disconnect everything from everything else, there is no unit or unity.
    Blocks of text and ideas and investigations that never end, go on forever, a material that is always self defining itself and investigating itself, sentences that talk to themselves, Matter and Mass Energy showing off, always changing styles, Matter is the artist…

  705. old69 July 8, 2011 at 6:55 am #

    Particle Accelerator
    Why do I have so much to say ? How is it possible that I can keep on writing this kind of crap forever, always making new connections, always connecting new pieces of information with other pieces and combining them ? Why did the computer program controlling my mind crash in such a way, how can that be fixed ? Too late Jose’, it is busted, an old clunker, broken, out of order, Tilt Tilt!
    Information and communication has this odd property that you can keep on saying the same or similar things over and over again forever and make the connections, new connections with similar things over and over again and it is always new or sounds always new, just like JHK’s blog, the same kind of idea repeated over and over, in different ways, a new view of something said a million times. How strange, how odd, in fact I was hoping (as a model of the mind that is always wrong, go figure) that I would finally run out of things to think and say, that it would end: nothing further from the truth, it goes on and on forever, an infinite loop, what a really strange universe we inhabit, how odd!
    Like what is a distinct entity compared to separate entities, the story of your life is a whole delimited entity, but made up of events, disjoint and distinct events, or connected ? and how connected, how separated, what difference does it make what the sequence of events were, what the path was ? Same with physical entities, a person is a bag of cells, but distinct and one at the same time ? how distinct, how connected, or completely disconnected, or totally disconnected as in the delimitation and entity is a person + the car + the house he passed by, all defined as one whole indivisible entity and delimitation ? And on and on…
    Like why is everything just an abstract information in the mind compared to others already present in memory and only occasionally touched by some pain/pleasure or sensation (this is why the mental models and laws of physics appear to be so important) ? If someone sees how CERN is investigating elementary particles by such a particular contraption, with such a particular set of rules, models and theoretical models and ideas, and the end result is only some bits on computers confirming an imagined “truth” or not, you wouldn’t believe that it is really relevant in any way: all information is always separated, and outside the mind, it is all at the same distance, even the most important bits of information are really just bits at the same distance, nothing really important (even the bit of information that a loved one died) how odd ?
    If they really wanted to discover the elementary particles of Reality then they should dismantle all of our delimitations, disconnect the sequences of events in space and time, disconnect everything from everything else, there is no unit or unity. or aggregate all kinds of disjoint and disconnected delimitations and entities and assign them as one unit, all the possible combinations, define and assign any entity and unit as one no matter how disconnected and disjointed, and invent new laws and models for it and go on and on…
    Blocks of text and ideas and investigations that never end, go on forever, a material that is always self defining itself and investigating itself, sentences that talk to themselves, Matter and Mass Energy showing off, always changing styles, Matter is the artist…

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  706. rippedthunder July 8, 2011 at 6:56 am #

    Yo Q, she’s got that covered. She does not use her degree. She is a beer slinger at an up-scale brew pub. good money. lots o’ cash tips.

  707. old69 July 8, 2011 at 7:53 am #

    San Jose Mommy’s HOT teenage bitch found an error in the block of text, what a pain in the ass, now I have to repost it, couldn’t she mind her own business that little slut ? By the way, why is only fabian called filthy mouth ? I want to be called like that too!
    By the way fabian, you are right I WANT TO STEAL YOUR MONEY, ACTUALLY EVERYONE’S MONEY WORLDWIDE, I WANT TO BREAK ALL THE RULES, KILL ETHICS, I HAVE NO ETHICS, BE AS BAD AS POSSIBLE, BE A REAL BAD LITTLE BOY, DO ALL THE WORST THINGS !
    Ok, satisfied now ? What a moron, he thinks that we need rules and ethics, right and wrong, good and bad, no, we need hell on earth, extreme pain, hate and war, all the worst possible, moron, ph*cktard, as*wipe, d*ckweed!
    By the way, it is http://www.ilovephilosophy.com reference time again too! Sock it to me, Out of Sight, It’s Groovy, Give me Five, First gear all right, Second gear hold on tight, third gear out of sight!
    From:
    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175781
    Particle Accelerator
    Why do I have so much to say ? How is it possible that I can keep on writing this kind of crap forever, always making new connections, always connecting new pieces of information with other pieces and combining them ? Why did the computer program controlling my mind crash in such a way, how can that be fixed ? Too late Jose’, it is busted, an old clunker, broken, out of order, Tilt Tilt!
    Information and communication has this odd property that you can keep on saying the same or similar things over and over again forever and make the connections, new connections with similar things over and over again and it is always new or sounds always new, just like JHK’s blog, the same kind of idea repeated over and over, in different ways, a new view of something said a million times. How strange, how odd, in fact I was hoping (as a model of the mind that is always wrong, go figure) that I would finally run out of things to think and say, that it would end: nothing further from the truth, it goes on and on forever, an infinite loop, what a really strange universe we inhabit, how odd!
    Like what is a distinct entity compared to separate entities, the story of your life is a whole delimited entity, but made up of events, disjoint and distinct events, or connected ? and how connected, how separated, what difference does it make what the sequence of events were, what the path was ? Same with physical entities, a person is a bag of cells, but distinct and one at the same time ? how distinct, how connected, or completely disconnected, or totally disconnected as in the delimitation and entity is a person + the car + the house he passed by, all defined as one whole indivisible entity and delimitation ? And on and on…
    Like why is everything just an abstract information in the mind compared to others already present in memory and only occasionally touched by some pain/pleasure or sensation (this is why the mental models and laws of physics appear to be so important) ? If someone sees how CERN is investigating elementary particles by such a particular contraption as a Particle Accelerator, with such a particular set of rules, models and theoretical models and ideas, and the end result is only some bits on computers confirming an imagined “truth” or not, you wouldn’t believe that it is really relevant in any way: all information is always separated, and outside the mind, it is all at the same distance, even the most important bits of information are really just bits at the same distance, nothing really important (even the bit of information that a loved one died) how odd ?
    If they really wanted to discover the elementary particles of Reality then they should dismantle all of our delimitations, disconnect the sequences of events in space and time, disconnect everything from everything else, there is no unit or unity or aggregate all kinds of disjoint and disconnected delimitations and entities and assign them as one unit, all the possible combinations, define and assign any entity and unit as one no matter how disconnected and disjointed, and invent new laws and models for it and go on and on…
    Blocks of text and ideas and investigations that never end, go on forever, a material that is always self defining itself and investigating itself, sentences that talk to themselves, Matter and Mass Energy showing off, always changing styles, Matter is the artist…
    On the delimitations, the set of things put together in a bag and considered one, or a unit, or a single entity or single item: where does it start and end, who or what defines it ? In what sense are people considered distinct when their minds and logic is more similar than any elementary particle possible, even more similar than electrons are between each other ? How odd, we are different but exactly the same, the same exact instance of each other to an infinite extreme, totally bizarre and insane if you ask me. And this sequence of symbols as sentences that fly all over the world through the internet, like the symbols want to create a physical space as large and dense and full of details as large as the earth, with all of its odd distinctions, delimitations and entities, but all the same but distinct, and each set of objects and items considered one and a unit in one instance, but distinct in another, all possible configurations, mixed and matched, and on forever.
    Quo Vadis, Baby ?

  708. bubbleheadMarc July 8, 2011 at 9:02 am #

    When I win the lottery and buy my schooner rigged school ship I will hire Vlad to be the equal opportunity employment compliance officer and will punish his illiberality by making him give speeches to the students on how we should all be nonjudgemental and treat everyone alike, marry persons of other races, and sell our houses in segregated neighborhoods to persons of color in order to integrate the old neighborhood quicker [after moving onto the schooner and abandoning the old neighborhood].

  709. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 9:11 am #

    Mos was talking about cops killing folks…..
    ==
    No, he was talking about your government abusing and killing its citizens on a regular basis. The Jihadis are just another tool your government uses for the profit of the corporations. Your government works for the corporations. And that’s all you need to understand, dummy.

  710. bubbleheadMarc July 8, 2011 at 9:18 am #

    TO RIPPED THUNDER:
    Math is one of the most marketable teaching degrees, but if your daughter got a BA instead of a BSEd she’ll have to take education classes to get certified. I think she means “oblique” not obtuse. Obtuse means an angle greater than 90 degrees, or the opposite of acute.
    Two weeks seems like a long suspension for smoking weed. If your name stems from a flatulence problem be careful about blazing up in enclosed spaces where there could be a dangerously high methane concentration just like in a coal mine.

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  711. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 9:20 am #

    Will the Iraqi dinar revalue over the weekend? Curious people want to know.
    Anybody interested in whether or not Atlantis will launch?

  712. ozone July 8, 2011 at 9:35 am #

    RT,
    Perfect. “Hurray fer me, an’ fuck you”, Texans. Couldn’t happen to a finer bunch. Talk about victims of ones’ own pride and hubris!
    “Whiskey’s for drinkin’; water’s for fightin’.”
    This is yet another example of the importance of timeline that PoC sites.
    Of course those little people will get it right in the neck, while TBoone and his loathsome “bracket” ride off to greener pastures… They’ll leave behind enough toadies to manage the precious “water allocation” racket, and those will be the tough-nuts who will have to take the heat and deal out the punishments.
    (I just don’t see Texans as having enough sense to hang ’em high before they can blow town with the bulging carpetbags.)

  713. ozone July 8, 2011 at 10:01 am #

    “The importance of issues depends on the timeline.”
    PoC
    I agree.
    Again, there are things that nothing will be done about. I’m afraid that depending on “da gum’mint” to change things WASTES VALUABLE TIME. Chemical poisoning by BigAg and BigFrack and under-the-gun small farmers? Pursuit of more dangerous and spendy nuclear energy and weapons? Deteriorating infrastructure? Treasury lootings and selling-off of the commonwealth? ETC., ETC.!
    Nothing will be done about these things; you can see the extending and pretending is proceeding at an accelerating pace in a furious attempt to hide the terrible unraveling. So, they’ll continue off the cliff of No-Mo-Inputs. The punishments will be terrible for such profligate waste, and will be meted out on “home ground”. (That’s wherever you happen to be when the Great Crumbling hits its’ timeline stride, due to a confluence of critical factors.) The more fools and delusionists in charge of your locality, the worse it will be.

  714. ozone July 8, 2011 at 10:05 am #

    “Anybody interested in whether or not Atlantis will launch?” -MD
    Mmm, I dunno. What would that portend, in your opinion?
    (I’d be more interested if Atlantis was rising from the sea! ;o)

  715. ozone July 8, 2011 at 10:15 am #

    “Attempting to live in an overpopulated, and now collapsed – formerly multi cultural country – is going to give them a whole lot more misery with which to deal.” -PoC
    And so that’s the way it will be, because nothing “officially”/”substantially” is going to be done to ameliorate the present [and thus, future] conditions.
    (I would imagine your “them” is indicating both residents and immigrants? Correct, or no?)

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  716. Cash July 8, 2011 at 10:33 am #

    You’re saying that educaton is a reflection of wider society and I agree. But IMO its primary function is to instruct kids in various core subjects.
    IMO the inescapable problem Buck is that schools are doing a miserable job. And, as you say, the problem within the problem is wider society. Just one example: my former boss’s wife is a school teacher. She has decades at the job. She said that in the old days in a class of thirty she’d have one or two screwed up kids that disrupted things. But it was manageable. But not now. She says there’s always half a dozen messed up or disturbed young ones and it’s all she can do to keep a lid on.
    You can keep peeling back the onion and find other problems at the root of the problem. I would say that unstable families with nobody paying adequate attention to child rearing is the problem another level down. And if you peel back the onion even more I’m sure there’s even deeper roots.
    In the end what matters is that kids are getting a shitty education and govts seem powerless to stop the slide. I don’t think privatization is a panacea because, in my view, there are minefields of potential problems with it.
    So what to do? Options are limited. If I was a parent I’d make sure my kid was being well instructed and, if the public education system couldn’t do it, for whatever reason, then I would get my kid privately educated. If that didn’t work and if I had to do home schooling then so be it. In this matter excuses cut no ice.

  717. dale July 8, 2011 at 10:59 am #

    Dos, when expressing your contempt for someones intellect and views (bigoted) it is extremely important that your own writing be pristine. Your failure on this score is downright comical.
    —————————————-
    Hummm…but perhaps not as big a “failure” as your defense of a hate monger by critcizing his detractors for their spelling.
    Seriously, can you spell “reassess your priorities”? BTW—“english” spellings are just as correct as “american” spellings, sometimes Bub, both ways are correct. If you insist on being anal retentive, you better make sure you have a lot of toilet paper on hand.

  718. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 11:02 am #

    “Why do I have so much to say? Is it possible to go on writing this crap forever …?” Spider/Old999
    You have nothing to say! You are a f—g lunatic. And you’ll go on writing your ‘crap’ until JHK comes to his senses and kicks you out.
    Did anybody else read the detailed, well documented, house editorial in Investors Business Daily yesterday, looking into Obamas myriad personal links to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? Needless to say they are tight! Hell, he might as well be a dues paying member, according to IBD. I know to many CFNers the main enemy is people who go to church, Israel, and corporations. But you have to admit, this is alarming. It would be like Truman teaming up with Mao in 1950, or FDR teaming up with Hitler in 1938. It should be in their online edition if anyone is interested. Is Investors Business Daily a credible publication, or a tool of the oppressor. Wage, maybe you can handle this one.
    -Marlin

  719. wagelaborer July 8, 2011 at 11:18 am #

    It is true that the government cared more about the population in the 60s than now. As I pointed out before, even Nixon wouldn’t have been heartless enough to condemn millions of people to homelessness and death. At least, not Americans.
    Eisenhower is quoted as saying that only crazy Texan right-wingers would talk about cutting the mininum wage or Social Security and they are stupid.
    Remember that in the 50s and 60s the US was trying to influence former colonies to switch to the capitalist approach, so that we could have their resources.
    The USSR was around, however, holding out a different path. Just because we in the US were completely brainwashed doesn’t mean that people in the third world were, by the way, so don’t bother repeating the Stalin mantra. He was dead.
    The book I frequently reference “They Thought They Were Free”, written in the 50s, by a Jew who interviewed former Nazis, spent the last chapter pointing out that Negroes in the US were treated like the Jews in Germany at a certain point.
    The Soviets also pointed this out. It really didn’t look good to former colonial peoples.
    Plus, the belief in the 60s was that anything was possible. People who grew up without indoor plumbing or piped-in water, hungry and shoeless, suddenly had plenty, plus cars and plenty of food.
    Why, if we could do this for so many, why not continue and do it for all?
    A lot of people felt that way.
    Now, even self-professed liberals are against health care, education and housing for all.
    And you don’t think that people can be brainwashed?

  720. Cash July 8, 2011 at 11:20 am #

    I did read the rest.
    I liked the line about the economist: An economist who knowingly skews data to fit his own political bias or to serve the political biases of men above him is just a liar or an inept buffoon…”
    You see this shit all the time. One well known columnist up here said she can tell who an economist works for by what he says. Economics is a farce of a profession and a joke as an academic field. Should be abolished. Should have no place in universities.

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  721. dale July 8, 2011 at 11:22 am #

    BTW Qshtik,
    In your statement,
    “Whether the intern herself or someone else from her school was the valedictorian does not diminish the irony nor the sad state of education.”
    The definition of irony is:
    “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”
    Ergo, it the intern WAS the valedictorian then it would be perhaps, “tragic” that were the case, but clearly not “ironic”. For it to be “ironic” you would perhaps ask someone who was clearly unschooled (and obviously not a valedictorian) whether they were a “valedictorian” in response to some mistaken statement, which would, of course, also be sarcastic.
    Better keep your own dictionary handy.

  722. wagelaborer July 8, 2011 at 11:28 am #

    You’ve got me wrong, Bubblehead. I totally agree that the parents are the problem. I’ve been in arguments with Vlad before on that very subject.
    That is another reason why I think that people should be paid handsomely to voluntarily sterilize themselves.
    I have pointed out before that I can count over 30 unwanted children in my immediate circle without trying too hard. Each of them stupid beyond belief, unparented, and some of them mentally disturbed.
    No Child Left Behind is a farce, a travesty and an attack on public schools, as well as a gift to the testing industry.
    And I pointed out that now the Health Care Insurance Enrichment Act is going after hospitals in the same way.
    Where I disagree with the rest of you is in your assumptions that the purpose of school is to teach children a marketable skill, and that leaving social relations as they are, and simply throwing the stupid and disruptive kids out on the streets would be a great improvement.
    I think that kids can all be taught to read and write and do simple math. They should be taught logic and civics, but, as George Carlin pointed out, the ruling class has no interest in logical, politically involved citizens.
    After that, there is no point in trying to get every kid into college. That is a racket, especially now, a way to prey upon our children by convincing them that only college-educated people deserve a decent wage and that they should go into lifetime debt to acheive this.
    No. Everyone deserves a living wage, even high school drop-outs.
    Quit producing unwanted and abused kids. Teach parents how to nuture their children. Have schools teach the basics. Divide the work necessary for a decent society between the people available to work.
    That’s what I believe.

  723. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 11:35 am #

    “Economics is a farce of a profession and a joke as an academic field. Should be abolished.”–Cash.
    True enough, Cash, but how about the academic degrees in ‘Women’s Studies’ and ‘Black Studies’? (Which was a sop to Blacks so they wouldn’t burn down the campus) Now that’s two rigorous disciplines! And don’t suggest doing away with them if you know what is good for you, and you value your health.
    Some of you commies will be happy to know that I have been reading some essays by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, former luminaries in the ‘new left’, (you know of them, WageL) to get a better handle on the commie mindset that I frequently encounter here.
    -Marlin

  724. wagelaborer July 8, 2011 at 11:36 am #

    If Obama has links to the Muslim Brotherhood than he’ll fit right in to Washington, DC, who supported them financially since the 50s, as a bulwark against the Arab nationalists and socialists.
    Osama Bin Laden and his merry band of jihadists in Afghanistan and Kosovo were not the first muslim fundamentalists that the US gave millions of dollars to.
    And Roosevelt had to fight against a substantial section of the US ruling class who supported Hitler.

  725. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:12 pm #

    I did buy a large book on the History of the Muslim Brotherhood…too many names and details and I didnt
    read much of it..gave the book away.
    And…
    ‘Roosevelt had to fight against a substantial section of the US ruling class who supported Hitler’
    Instead FDR supported Stalin [killer of 20 million]
    And the Rockefellers brought in the Bolshoi Ballet
    to give Stalins USSR a nice rep.
    As I previously pointed out.
    And Clinton / Gore [love the name, so fitting for a crooked politician] were in the Pockets of the Red Chinese, the biggest killers of all time, even worse then Stalin.
    But you and others are free to ignore all that.

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  726. Cash July 8, 2011 at 12:19 pm #

    The reason I pick on economics is because I majored in it. A real con job. Universities devote torrents of resources and make out as if there’s something to it. It was at the end of second year before I started suspecting that this whole thing was just totally full of shit. It was third year before I had no doubt. By that time I had devoted a pile of time, money and effort to getting that degree. I knew it would open doors for me (which it did) so I finished it.
    As far as “women’s studies” or “black studies” goes I have no exposure to them. If I were a betting man I would say they’re even more infested with political hackery. Dispassionate research? Not.
    Those that still adhere to communist ideology should talk to people that actually lived in communist countries.

  727. Hancock1863 July 8, 2011 at 12:24 pm #

    When a person who is normally reserved and polite, such as yourself, finally has enough and lets loose…it is a thing to see, especially when you have the truth on your side.
    I sympathize with you. You are a TR Conservative, and I am an FDR Liberal. Together, men and women like you and I made this country the greatest the world has ever seen. It was, as Lincoln said, “The last, best hope of Earth.”
    (of course, to most RWers on this board, that makes us both Stalinists, which would be comic if it wasn’t as objectively insane as a Mad Hatter)
    How historically brief was our window of opportunity, and how swiftly it flipped upside-down on almost all levels. How quickly the Masters of the Universe have stepped in to make sure we Plebes didn’t get too uppity – to make sure we knew that 1945-1980 was as good as it gets and, for the bottom 80% of us at minimum, it’s almost all downhill from here back to Witch Burning and the coming keyhole or extinction event.
    (which, by the sheer math and ecological nature of it, will likely feel more like the 1340s Black Death than WWII once it really gets going and siginificant diminishment of the fossil platform occurs and/or major climate instability & warming)
    Anyway, just wanted to compliment you on an exquisite and righteous takedown of an idiot who you characterized with eloquence and precision.
    The sad part is, it will have no effect. You might as well try to explain to a Nazi that Jews are people too, or to a Confederate that slavery is morally wrong.
    It just doesn’t compute. Will never compute.
    Something to ponder about the last 50 years, from an FDR Liberal to a TR Conservative who, rarest of rareties, will actually listen…
    Consider:
    Since the 1970s, with a few exceptions dwindling gradually until we have reached our current point in the Fall of the Republic today, FDR Liberals and TR Conservatives have been allowed to accomplish almost nothing of economic import – even when the Democratic Party had ostensible control of things.
    For the most part, the only major things “Liberals” in this long period of time have been allowed to accomplish was in the area of Identity Politics.
    Why? In my opinion, and viewing from the idea that the 2011 American game is rigged as the 1975 Soviet Union, at almost all levels, I would guess our RW Corporate Socialist Masters understand that the best way to destroy FDR Liberalism and TR Conservatism was to only allow “Liberalism” to succeed at things which made people hate Liberals, but never at anything which would improve quality of life for a broad base of hard-working, yet still poor people.
    So, not only is the power of we Plebeians sapped, but propagandistically, it is now easy for RW Corporate Socialists to dismiss FDR Liberalism and TR Conservatism, because as you well know, most people today don’t even really know what those terms mean anymore, and their influence is not to be seen anywhere on Corporate MSM.
    It’s just like Orwell said, E. They DID warp and poison vocabulary and language to the point where it was almost impossible to even articulate dissent.
    I never thought I’d live to see something like that and I’ll bet you didn’t, either.
    Not in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. More like the Land of TV and the Home of the Virtual Slave, I am so very sorry to say.
    Once again, nicely done.

  728. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 12:31 pm #

    The definition of irony is:
    “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”
    =================
    Let’s be clear, the above^ is not THE definition of irony, it is one of many nuances used to describe irony. The dictionary, in fact, pointedly recognizes the subtleties between irony, sarcasm and satire and expends much ink in attempting to explain them.
    Following is one of many dictionary definitions of irony, and the one in particular I had in mind in making my comment:
    incongruity between what is expected to be and what actually is, or a situation or result showing such incongruity
    We do not expect a valedictorian to think Alaska is an island.

  729. asia July 8, 2011 at 12:32 pm #

    I did try to read ‘The Looming Tower’ but found it too long and boring..
    Vlad…I checked supkis’es site…
    Did you know Alice Walker was married to Mel Leventhal in the 60s? Maybe its in who you go to bed with in ‘the “arts”‘

  730. soak July 8, 2011 at 12:39 pm #

    progress,conserve said: “no one logical – even on CFN – seems to think high immigration is a good idea.”
    —————
    I am logical. I have a different point of view.
    The problem is overpopulation, not immigration.
    Remaining in one place does not reduce global population.
    Movement from one place to another does not reduce global population.
    Restricting emigration does not reduce global population.
    Restricting immigration does not reduce global population.
    Immigration is a red herring issue, frequently the concern of racists and selfish people who got theirs and now want to deny opportunity to others (invoking natural and man-made laws for cover). The underlying motivator is fear.
    The real issue is the world’s overpopulation; not national emigration, not national immigration.

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  731. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 12:49 pm #

    Hey Eluthero, I consider myself a TR Republican as well. (Which is a reason I liked John McCain so much. Very similar to TRoosevelt.) Some of his relatives live around here, right down the street in fact, and I’ve gotten to know them. They have some great old photographs and other artifacts. Have you read Edmund Morris’s 3 volume biography on him? Its Ironic that it took an African to capture the essence of that great man. Probably the best researched and written bio of the last 50 years.
    Teddy authored 40 books. Many are quite rare, now. I’ve been able to collect a good amount of 1st editions, bought mostly in 2nd hand book stores in WMass and Vermont. I don’t know why, but that’s where I found them.
    -Marlin

  732. dale July 8, 2011 at 12:54 pm #

    To begin with there is an “island” named “Alaska”, so the girl’s statement is only incorrect if you know the context. Secondly, my mother occasionally called me by my brother’s name, but she really didn’t confuse the two of us. Our “valedictorian” may simply have done the same with “Hawaii” and “Alaska”. So….I think you have wildly jumped to a conclusion not supported in evidence, due to your own bias, regarding education, youth etc., and an error at least as great a mistake, as a misspelled word.
    In terms of word usage, I think you are reaching a bit here. It would only be correct to say “it is ironic the girl in valedictorian”, if in bestowing the award the school deliberately “intended”, something other than what the term actually “means”, perhaps as a comment on the quality of the student body.
    What you should have said was; “i find it ironic the girl is valedictorian”. Otherwise, I have no way of telling if it is you or the school which thinks it is ironic.

  733. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 12:54 pm #

    Question for mika:
    The Septuagint (LXX) is the “authorized” Greek translation of the Old Testament that was produced by 72 Hebrew scholars. They began their translation about 280 B.C.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint
    This translation was important for many years because so many Jews had forgotten Hebrew and had begun to speak Greek. This happened after Alexander the Great built a new city in Egypt (331 B.C.), Alexandria, and then gave tax breaks to Jews if they would help colonize his city. It is said that about 50,000 judahites, benjamites and levites moved there, and since Greek had become the main commercial language of Egypt and the Empire itself, the children naturally learned Greek.
    By 280 B.C., fifty years later, a whole generation no longer spoke Hebrew, and a Greek translation was needed.
    The Septuagint is important to us today because it provides a Hebrew-to-Greek lexicon, expressing Hebrew words in Greek. But more important, Hebrew CONCEPTS from the Old Testament were being expressed in Greek. Many of these Greek words were being used by the Greeks themselves to express Greek religious concepts, but those Greek definitions were not necessarily the same as the Hebrew definitions.
    The point being that when we study the Greek New Testament, where the Septuagint is often quoted, we have to understand that the writers used the standard Greek words to express Hebrew thoughts. One should not indiscriminately use classical Greek definitions of a word and apply them to Scripture.
    Are nationalist jews aware of this protocol, required while studying the Septuagint? Please avoid the use of irony, sarcasm or satire in your response.
    {Q – be alert!}

  734. soak July 8, 2011 at 12:57 pm #

    “We CAN protect our borders from ILLEGAL immigration. (But we do not.)”
    ————-
    Are you sure we CAN?
    Sounds illogical that we CAN, but we do not, considering that national policy is to deny illegal immigration. Sure Obama has stopped more illegal immigration than Bush. Sure Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than Bush. But neither Obama, nor any other president, past or future can stop immigration… nor should we.
    I say we CANNOT, and SHOULD NOT, “protect our borders” lest we become un-American monsters, denying the fact that this is a country of immigrants and we must always freely allow immigration. Immigration, absorbing the creative and productive and problem-solving energy of people from dozens of countries, is what makes us great.

  735. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 1:12 pm #

    “They DID warp and poison vocabulary and language to the point where it was almost impossible to even articulate dissent.”
    They “were allowed to accomplish” this by gaining control of the definitions of the words, labelling, and our own lack of diligence in unquestioning digestion of putrid {unclean} ideas. Our regurgitation instinct has been thwarted.

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  736. bossier22 July 8, 2011 at 1:13 pm #

    The liberals nor many righties are against housing, health care, and education for all. They just realize that it is just not possible to do it on the gigantic scale that we face now. It is one of JHK’s core ideas. Also, the more we dilute resources with rapidly increasing population, the lower the quality of life becomes for everyone. That will be true even if there is no long emergency. We can make everyone “equal” economically or we can focus halting population growth. As a conservative I can not understand opposition to family planning/ birth control by any method. Of course, per my other post, immigration is my pet peeve. I think if we work on quality of life in this country, we can mitigate effects of the long emergency. I am a conservative who believes that government is the only organization which can bring about the fundamental shift in direction. The chance of a philosophic change in government has a about a snowball’s chance in hell of happening. Probably sounds selfish to you.

  737. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 1:13 pm #

    You are a TR Conservative, and I am an FDR Liberal. Together, men and women like you and I made this country the greatest the world has ever seen.
    ==
    Stop lying you imperialist piece of shit. EVERYTHING you have in the US you got by way of thieving from others. EVERYTHING! And this is on top of your direct involvement and sponsorship of global wars, mass killings, slavery, environmental holocausts, and on and on. The arrogance and ignorance of you bunch of dumbfscks is just unbelievable.

  738. bossier22 July 8, 2011 at 1:16 pm #

    Qshtik, I forgot to do paragraphs again. Sorry. At this point I can only relearn one new thing per week.

  739. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 1:19 pm #

    “Those that still adhere to communist ideology should talk to people that actually lived in communist countries.”
    If you substituted ‘aspire’ for “adhere” you might find someone qualified.

  740. San Jose Mom 51 July 8, 2011 at 1:20 pm #

    Glad you are back Jackie Blue. I was kind of worried that Vlad the Bad had ticked you off so bad that you left permanently.
    The 4th of July racket bugs me too. I’m wired a little too tight and big loud bangs get me everytime.
    SJmom

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  741. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 1:23 pm #

    Asoka is logically wrong. He espouses ideas that serve to doom the planet and the US.
    You, on the other hand, are a potty mouth who occasionally blunders into a good idea.
    Thus proving that even a blind and vulgar hog will occasionally root up an acorn.

  742. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 1:26 pm #

    As far as “women’s studies” or “black studies” goes I have no exposure to them. If I were a betting man I would say they’re even more infested with political hackery.
    ==========
    Pardon me for repeating myself … I’ve riffed on “women’s studies” before. My daughter has a degree in women’s studies from Rutgers. Rutgers is a school in which everything is seasoned with socialism and women are taught that [to quote the wife of one particular professor] “men are SHIT!”
    The line is especially treasured around our house because the woman who spat it out is a bit of a nutjob and has a thick Hungarian accent. When my wife gets pissed at me she will put on a Hungarian accent (she’s very good at accents) and say “men are SHIT!” and then we both laugh.
    Then, toss into this mix of socialism and men being shit a heavy involvement of lesbians (both faculty and students) and you’ve got a Rutgers degree in “women’s studies.” (Disclaimer: my daughter was shacked up with her H.S. sweetheart for 10 years till I hitched them on May 20th this year.) The reading material is heavy on Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
    But it’s like you say Cash, that degree, or any degree really, can open doors. It indicates the holder can probably read and write competently and handle a certain amount of rigor.
    Despite my favorite line that “a ‘women’s studies’ degree plus two bucks will get you a ride on the subway” my daughter actually has a decent job with Ralph Lauren in NYC.

  743. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 1:26 pm #

    “Divide the work necessary for a decent society between the people available to work.”
    Who will decide?

  744. San Jose Mom 51 July 8, 2011 at 1:32 pm #

    I watched the launch on the computer. They stopped the count at 31 seconds because they weren’t sure if some arm had retracted. To me, the end of the Space Shuttle program represents and end to this age of too much system complexity. The shuttle is too complex to be safe. It’s also too expensive and yields too little scientific benefit for the most part — the Hubble Space telescope being an exception.

  745. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 1:35 pm #

    In terms of word usage, I think you are reaching a bit here.
    ===========
    Since you are bound and determined to find fault with my interpretation of irony and my wife has just yelled up the stairs for me to come down for lunch I will conclude by saying:
    Whatever.

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  746. soak July 8, 2011 at 1:45 pm #

    Fabian said: “Our entire history has been one of controlled immigration.”
    —————–
    Right … that’s why the Border Patrol was founded in 1924. You seem to think government is the answer to your imagined problems.
    Most of our history we had no “border patrol”.
    Border patrol should be abolished to conserve our historic practice of free border crossings. Get big government out of the “protect our borders” business.

  747. Eleuthero July 8, 2011 at 2:04 pm #

    Waste of Human Soul said:
    Now STFU because ANYTHING you have to add on this subject is wrong and muddleheaded and you are a MORON.
    ***************************************************
    Lather, rinse, repeat. It doesn’t even matter
    what the subject was of the rest of your post to
    an unfortunate fellow CFN’er about immigration.
    You are so full of the sin of HUBRIS that God
    will throw you, bag and baggage, out of any
    heaven that exists. Indeed, it was the sin
    of hubris itself that got Satan tossed out
    of heaven because he thought he was as big a
    heavyweight as God.
    I’m just going to repeat, over and over and
    over, to my fellow CFN’ers what a piece of
    excrement you are. You are Exhibit A of how
    not to be a human being. You throw filth in
    your God’s eye and expect HIM to wipe it off.
    When you aren’t being a defiled soul, you’re
    Otto von Bismarck because you end your missives
    with lines like: “that’s the way it is period
    end of story”. Ooooooh yeah, baby, you are
    the alpha and omega of opinion on ANY subject.
    Why don’t you return to Hell from whence you
    came? You must be a miserable soul because
    no person as hateful, filthy, vain, and
    dehumanizing as you could possibly have
    anything but bile flowing in his soul.
    Once in a blue moon you’ll say one of two things
    which have a scintilla of sense but even then it’s
    in the context of “Once I’ve uttered my opinion
    the case is closed and you should all shut the
    fuck up (STFU … you’re favorite abbreviation)”.
    I won’t lionize a single thought of yours even if
    it appears true. You are a hell-being, a demon,
    a spiritual cesspit, a bully, a bloviator, a
    hypocrite who invokes the name of God in posts
    with five “fucks” in three sentences, a self-
    anointed demigod … A SIGN THAT THE HALL OF
    SOULS WAS EMPTY WHEN YOU WERE BORN.
    You’ve criticized Facebook in past posts. So
    do I. However, a guy like you should WORSHIP
    the Internet and all of its manifestations
    because it’s the only place where a half-wit
    like yourself can sensationalize himself and
    totally hide the sad, prosaic, unsuccessful,
    and unactualized state of his ACTUAL life.
    No person who carries on like you do is ever
    successful in ANY domain in life … socially,
    professionally, or spiritually. You scream
    “Listen to me for I am the hammer of truth”
    but the manner in which you express yourself
    comically invalidates that to anyone who has
    lived a life and observed people.
    Why stay here and troll and belittle and
    dehumanize almost everyone including the site
    provider (JHK)?? Why not work on your life so
    you’re not such a comic-pathetic example of a
    standard internet ball-buster?
    Trust me … anyone on this site over 40 has
    been on many blogs and seen hundreds like you.
    You’re a dime a dozen. It’s like there’s a
    factory where your ilk is stamped out on a
    production line. Do you REALLY think you’re
    a unique person?
    Your bitterness, bile, and filth are NEVER
    associated with an actualized person. NEVER.
    EVER. This is it for me, pal. I fully
    expect a two-line back-o-the-hand for this
    but, hey, I never quit until I’ve given it
    the last ditch effort. Doesn’t matter.
    I don’t expect fast progress in a case like
    yours. Ten years of self-abasing would just
    be a start on the journey of self-improvement
    because you’re a DEVIL IN A DEEP HOLE. Stop
    digging.
    E.

  748. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 2:23 pm #

    No, Eleuthero.
    Fabian is correct in his emotion. He might not be correct on the “details”, as he’s largely ignorant, but his instinct and emotional animus is 100% correct.
    It is you who is in the wrong. In your passive tranquilized demeanor you are EXACTLY what TPTB want you to be. You are a lost cause, the walking dead. A living carrion. It is YOU who is the condemned. And in this hell, it is YOU who has made it his home.
    Fabian, keep your fire going. You are a son of our Prophets. The only thing I would reprimand you for is your lack of learning. Learn more!

  749. Moondog July 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm #

    “Roaring around an oval circuit in flame-spewing carriages” That describes America perfectly, only at Nascar a fatal crash is not inevitable. I can’t that hilarious, absurd image of Thomas Jefferson’s day at the races out of my head. Thank you, Jim. It gave me a badly-needed laugh on the 4th.
    On the subjects of American Justice and Our Poor Country’s Condition:
    Whereas the justice system deserves credit for not sending Casey Anthony, from the very bottom of society, to death row just because she sure as hell looks guilty, the system refuses to prosecute those at the very top of society. We have our own decadent Roman “bread and circus” with the media and with the mob outside the courtroom who would hang her if they could. It’s good to keeps folks distracted; otherwise they might just get out their pitchforks and torches and go after the really, really big criminals.
    There is virtually no criminal prosecution of those at the top, especially for the throng of grifters on Wall St. and the notorious super-wealthy Banksters of our era. Apart from the token poster-boy of the big bucks bad boys, Bernie Madoff, the Goldman Sachs ilk will not be charged for their heinous financial crimes against their fellow citizens. I highly recommend Matt Taibbi’s most recent book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America; it is both entertaining and extremely informative, and makes the eye-glazing, arcane jargon of the financial world easily understood. The book is well-documented and makes clear that, worst of all, the casino is still open.
    It is sickening to see America now caught inextricably in the clutches of corporatocracy, a republic hurled irrevocably into the sorrows of empire and perpetual wars. We are teetering on the brink of financial ruin, yet the status quo in Washington prevails. There is no great or bold leadership, and yet if there were, I fear it would be neither progressive nor democratic. I think Greece will serve as a pint-size foreshadowing for America and the ramshackle financial house we live in (but are still in denial about until the actual foreclosure occurs). Our fate is the same as the Roman Empire, only with a ‘roid-rage 21st century magnitude of debt commingled with dwindling resources and population overshoot. An extremely rude awakening lies ahead.
    Still, I’m looking forward to another delightful engagement in Charlotte with my band this weekend. Rock ‘n roll.

  750. BeantownBill July 8, 2011 at 2:25 pm #

    The urge to reproduce is hard-wired into every cell in our bodies. Sometime over the past few billion years, life on Earth took this path. We have as much of a chance to implement a conscious population reduction plan as the sun has of suddenly blooming with roses.
    We have become overpopulated because our technology has been successful in eliminating or lowering adverse influences to our survival.
    Historically, in the biological sense, nature is the final arbitrator of population control. Life on Earth tends to an equilibrium. When that equilibrium is disrupted, nature’s system of checks and balances automatically tries to restore the equilibrium. Nature doesn’t change the way it operates, species do.
    So I guess that pretty soon our population will be adjusted downward whether we like it or not. We’ll suffer a deadly pandemic or mass starvation or extreme global warming or some such thing. The only question is when. Time scales of species are measured in millions of years. We don’t know exactly where we are on the nature tolerance time scale. It could be a thousand years before nature responds, ot it could be tomorrow.
    The point is, I seriously doubt we have the ability to initiate our own expeditious and ordered population control.

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  751. dale July 8, 2011 at 2:30 pm #

    Whatever.
    ————————
    Which would be precisely my reaction to your comments on “style” while ignoring “content”.

  752. soak July 8, 2011 at 2:42 pm #

    The urge to reproduce is hard-wired into every cell in our bodies.
    ——————-
    I have never experienced the urge to reproduce and have always been careful to insure non-reproduction.
    I got a vasectomy at age 19, specifically to reduce global population (negative population growth due to no replacement births).
    I also wanted to gift Mother Earth and extend her carrying capacity by guaranteeing her no more polluters/consumers of resources from my lineage.

  753. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 2:46 pm #

    “The shuttle is too complex to be safe”
    -sj mom-
    Agreed, SJ. Also too big and too old. It will be a relief to get that thing back on the ground for the last time.
    What they needed was a much smaller craft with incredibly redundant safety systems for astronauts. Coupled with regular old disposable rocket boosters for cargo, food, etc.
    I was a “space nut” as a kid. Read just about every available book that I could understand on the space program. Even had a trash can in my room with planet and Mercury/Gemini trivia.
    I happened to be out in my truck when the last shuttle, ever, launched today. I listened with some American pride – and a sad longing for what might have been.
    ===========
    Sure, the manned space program was complicated and expensive. But no more complicated – and much less expensive – than what we’ve spent on ICBM’s and other hardware and programs over the years.
    And with the USSR kaput, and the Chinese about to lap us economically – could we have made better decisions?

  754. BeantownBill July 8, 2011 at 2:58 pm #

    If you were so idealistic about not contributing to population increase, why have a vasectomy in the 1st place? Why not practice birth control or remain celibate? I believe you did it because you knew you enjoyed sex and would not refrain from it. And you wouldn’t refrain from it because you didn’t want to lose one of life’s major joys and pleasures. And it is a joy and pleasure because your cells are programmed to try to propagate themselves.
    While I respect your decision, if everyone in the world did as you have done, the human race would become extinct within 100 years.

  755. soak July 8, 2011 at 3:06 pm #

    Asoka is logically wrong. He espouses ideas that serve to doom the planet and the US.
    ———-
    My logic says if I had had children, they would have children, and their children would have children, for generations to come, overpopulating the USA.
    So I chose to make a sacrifice at an early age and not have children, in spite of family/social pressure to do so. It was the expected thing to do, the socially acceptable thing to do. Still is.
    Progress,Conserve selfishly chose to have children. His way has served our eventual doom. His children will have children and they will have children and there will be an exponential Malthusian population tragedy thanks to Progress,Conserve, complete with untold pollution from his offspring and increased resource depletion due to his offspring.
    But now Progress,Conserve wants to “close the borders” after the fox is already in the chicken coop… his fox, his offspring. He probably delights in his grandchildren and enjoys the population increase and wants it to continue for his selfish reasons. More grandchildren. Great grandchildren. Etc. Etc. For generations, increasing USA population, thanks to his original decision to have a family.

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  756. soak July 8, 2011 at 3:13 pm #

    I believe you did it because you knew you enjoyed sex and would not refrain from it.
    —————-
    I can confirm your belief is correct. I also did not trust contraceptive methods and did not want Mrs. Asoka to take birth control pills for decades with unknown consequences. A vasectomy allowed continued sexual pleasure for us both with zero anxiety or risk of pregnancy.
    Yes, as you say, my “cells are programmed to try to propagate themselves.” I could not change that. But I did defeat the biological programming for reproduction by making reproduction impossible.

  757. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 3:23 pm #

    As I have stated, I had only two children – a conscious choice, since ZPG for the US would have leveled US population at 200,000,000.
    Immigration now has the US at a planet-destroying 313,000,000, and climbing rapidly.
    And thanks for reminding me.
    Join FAIR
    http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer
    Group action to push for a less populous future is our only remaining hope.
    =============
    BTW, Soak – and trying to change the subject to something more logical – what DO you have in mind to help reduce global population growth?

  758. Omar Bongo July 8, 2011 at 3:24 pm #

    honestly have never been able to figure out The Mighty Kunstler’s hatred of tattoos.
    They are so respectable:
    http://thedanzatap.com/?p=21272#comments

  759. soak July 8, 2011 at 3:27 pm #

    if everyone in the world did as you have done, the human race would become extinct within 100 years.
    —————-
    100% is very difficult to achieve. 🙂
    But with 95% compliance we could be looking at a considerably lower global population right now, 40+ years later.

  760. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 3:32 pm #

    Which would be precisely my reaction to your comments on “style” while ignoring “content”.
    ==============
    Please provide a reference (date/time) for this^ comment. If it’s from something I wrote I’d like to make sure you haven’t taken it out of context.

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  761. Omar Bongo July 8, 2011 at 3:55 pm #

    “Group action to push for a less populous future is our only remaining hope.”
    ****
    Not true. There are many alternatives. I would start with putting a muzzle on you and the other batshit-crazy social engineers who seem to be a-dime-a-dozen on this site.

  762. soak July 8, 2011 at 3:58 pm #

    P,C said: “BTW, Soak – and trying to change the subject to something more logical – what DO you have in mind to help reduce global population growth?”
    Thank you for the question. Ideally I would take a cue from Beantown (“what if everyone followed your example”) and go for a 20 year moratorium on childbirth, though 100% compliance would be impossible to attain.
    During those 20 years I would choose policies which empower and educate girls and women while at the same time making ubiquitous the availability of fertility management. After the moratorium women could then choose how many children to have, and the spacing of their children.
    Emphasis should be placed on child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families.
    But most important – you have to educate girls and empower women, as that’s the most powerful leveraging factor. When that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.

  763. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 4:06 pm #

    Well, as it turns out, he hates working class whites, who often enjoy body art. I’m not sure if he’d approve of the incredible hotties you depict, but then again, lots of us think he’s a closet case and thus would not be interested in them either…go figure.
    I’m pretty much a “to each his/her own” type of guy. Growing up, I saw a lot of guys in the Navy, Marines, Army, etc. sporting them. Recently they’ve caught on big time with people from all walks of life.
    Turns out he also is what they call a Zionist. I think this means that he supports the idea that the Jews can pretty much kick any Arab the fuck out of Israel whenever they wish. Taken further, they (according to what I’ve recently learned) Zionists consider themselves superior to all races. This doesn’t seem too surprising when you read Jim’s writing. He’s not too fond of blacks, and despite probably being a closet case, hates queers too. He’s a good writer though. That’s one of the reasons I hang around here.
    I liked your link. Who says tattoos are just for guys? As with anything, some folks take it to the extreme, but again, who gives a flying fig?

  764. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 4:49 pm #

    I also did not trust contraceptive methods and did not want Mrs. Asoka to take birth control pills for decades with unknown consequences. A vasectomy allowed continued sexual pleasure for us both with zero anxiety or risk of pregnancy.
    ==============
    Oooh what a tangled web you weave Asoka. Let me get this straight.
    You are around 62-63 years old. About 43-44 years ago at age 19 you got a vasectomy. You were married to Mrs Asoka at the time. You mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Mrs Asoka had children fathered by someone other than yourself. I’ll be charitable and assume it was a previous, not subsequent, relationship although you DID say you lived outside the country (South America? etc?) for 10-12 years.
    Do I have the story straight so far?
    Is there anything you’d like to amend?

  765. mika. July 8, 2011 at 5:14 pm #

    Well, it so happens that I’m a Zionist, so I can answer some of your CIA/Vatican imperialist claptrap propaganda.
    Zionism is the nationalistic self-expression and self-determination of Jews in their ancient land of Judea/Israel. A land that was stolen from them 2,000 years ago by the Roman imperialists and stolen again by various other imperialists since then. The modern state of Israel is that nationalistic expression and re-assertion of our ownership over our land.
    Zionists don’t consider themselves superior to all races. Zionists/Israelis are comprised of people from all races. We have Israelis off all colors and from all races from all over the globe in Israel. If you consider yourself part of the tribe of Israel and you have the ancestral history to show that you are part of ancient people of Israel, then you are welcomed as part of our people and part of Israel.
    As for the arabs, they need not apply. These imperialist thieves have plenty of lands that they stole from other peoples of the Middle East. Jews regained their nationality and the so modern state of Israel was born. I hope other peoples in the Middle East, like the Kurds, like the Cops of Egypt, like the Assyrians, and many many others, regain their national memory and their national rights and overthrow the Arab/Jihadi imperialists. Same regards all the peoples living under the US Federal imperialist occupation.

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  766. mika. July 8, 2011 at 5:17 pm #

    ..Israelis of all colors..

  767. mika. July 8, 2011 at 5:21 pm #

    ..Copts of Egypt..

  768. soak July 8, 2011 at 5:33 pm #

    Q said: “Do I have the story straight so far? Is there anything you’d like to amend?”
    —————
    Based on the limited information you have, you are doing a great job!
    There is no tangled web.
    There was a Mrs. Asoka at the time of the vasectomy. She was not down with me being so large and containing multitudes. We divorced, and years later I married again. Success (and step-children) the second time.

  769. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 5:38 pm #

    “Itinerant short con and carny hype men have burned down the croakers of Texas … ” William S. Burroughs, ‘Naked Lunch’
    Something to ponder, CFNers, when your local filling station runs out of petrol, and the lines start forming up.
    -Marlin

  770. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 5:41 pm #

    Asoka says – “But now Progress,Conserve wants to “close the borders” after the fox is already in the chicken coop… his fox, his offspring. He probably delights in his grandchildren and enjoys the population increase and wants it to continue for his selfish reasons. More grandchildren. Great grandchildren. Etc. Etc. For generations, increasing USA population, thanks to his original decision to have a family.”
    ===============
    At the time P,C had his kids the problem of population, resource depletion, etc was not so apparent. Since he now understands his own complicity, minimal though it may be, his intention is to do the next best thing: to offset that harm by working toward the expulsion of “illegals” (or as you so charitably call them: “undocumented” immigrants as though as soon as they get to the end of this row of beans they will be heading down to the government office to fill out the necessary paperwork) from his locality, his state and his country, if not the planet itself.
    Since these illegals (and lets not mince words, we’re talking primarily about Mexicans) reproduce at something like twice the rate as his “own kind” one less Mexican will offset his two kids and two or more Mexicans expelled will be a net large negative number in the pop stats over the longer haul.

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  771. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 5:49 pm #

    Personally, Mika, the fact that you and Jim are Zionists really doesn’t bother me. There are lots of folks on this site who hate: Mexicans, blacks, whites, homos, fatties, just to name a few. That fact that you folks hate Arabs doesn’t really affect me any more than Vlad hating blacks and Mexicans, or Marlin hating queers. Hey, if that’s the way you roll, I say go on with it!
    You’d have to admit though, we Christians have been pretty forgiving of you Jews, seeing as how you folks were the ones who killed our Lord and Savior. The Holocaust WAS a bit over the top, though, peering through the rear view window of history’s big ole SUV.

  772. asia July 8, 2011 at 5:52 pm #

    I notice today Soak uses the word ‘selfish’ or ‘selfishly’ as a rebuke, several times.
    Shees…selfishness is nature personified.
    see the book ‘THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS’
    or Harry Brownes books.
    Soak might think if I called him unselfish I was praising him, Wrong again!

  773. asia July 8, 2011 at 5:57 pm #

    I never thought our esteemed JHK was closet.
    And I assume that anyone of the Jewish faith
    who ‘buys the whole lie’ sees themself as superior…’gawds chosen people’.
    Do you think the Jewish princess grew up as less than indulged? Thats where her narcissism started,
    at home and temple.

  774. bubbleheadMarc July 8, 2011 at 5:59 pm #

    We’re very much on the same page. It was the Carlin clip that I found fault with. For one thing, I’m sure that Carlin himself could barely cope with school, so to me he’s no authority on the subject.
    The people of this country could take the country back any time they choose. But they won’t.
    By rehashing this shit over and over I finally achieved some clarity: the schools are fine but the majority of kids are really assholes. If “bird-boy” can get six days in the can for dissing the prosecutor in the Casey Anthony trial then all these asinine secondary school students should get similar treatment for dissing their teachers.
    When we blame the kids being assholes on the teachers we have collectively gone insane. There is simply no hope so over the top is the all pervading consumerism of our society. Have to go serve dinner so goodbye for now.

  775. asia July 8, 2011 at 6:01 pm #

    Vlad has stated hes OK with Muslims, as long as they stay in the middle east.
    Im fine with Mexicans, In Mexico…
    We now have 50,000,000 latinos in the USA..
    I assume thats more than all the black / white people the USA absorbed 1500-1965.
    The ‘myth’ of the Irish..a land of 2 to 5 million…the US might have taken in a few million, who had to earn their own keep and learn english fast.

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  776. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 6:01 pm #

    There was a Mrs. Asoka at the time of the vasectomy. She was not down with me being so large and containing multitudes.
    ===============
    Neither are the rest of us.
    So anyway, in my first 1.75 years at CFN there was not peep one about any female presence in your life. Now, in the past 3 months we’re up to 2 Mrs Asokas plus step-children. I hope you’ll pardon my skepticism.

  777. BeantownBill July 8, 2011 at 6:14 pm #

    Jeez, Dig, I don’t know. Jesus was never a Christian, he was a Jew his whole life. So if the Jews were responsible for his death (that’s not a given, btw), they were offing their own kind. And if my take on Christianity is right, Jesus died to save your own souls, so actually, you should be thankful to the Jews for Jesus’ death. Otherwise, he just would have been a preaching Jew through his old age and death. Then who would have expiated all your sins by his sacrifice?

  778. soak July 8, 2011 at 6:22 pm #

    Q said: “At the time P,C had his kids the problem of population, resource depletion, etc was not so apparent.”
    ————-
    I assume P,C grew up and went to university in the 50 or 60s, an era in which there was much ferment around population issues, especially among scientific types.
    Hasn’t P,C said he studied population biology, or worked in that field? He, as much or more than humanities types, would have been well-aware of Malthus and the dangers of exponential population growth.
    The book by the Anne and Paul Ehrlich, Population Bomb, is actually best understood as “climaxing and in a sense terminating the debate of the 1950s and 1960s.”
    Ehrlich has said that he traced his own Malthusian beliefs to a lecture he heard when he was attending university in the early 1950s.
    I don’t know how old you think P,C is, but he could not have missed the debates of the 50s/60s if he was studying environmental sciences.

  779. soak July 8, 2011 at 6:26 pm #

    Q said: “I hope you’ll pardon my skepticism.”
    ———
    Of course. You are morally frail.

  780. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 6:27 pm #

    Hey Asoka, Congresswoman Bachman has 5 children of her own, plus 23 foster kids. Now that’s what I call a multitude!
    Palin-Bachman 2012
    “The Year of the Woman”
    Proposed Campaign Slogan “Launch Nuke and Kick Ass”
    -Marlin

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  781. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 6:30 pm #

    Revised campaign slogan,
    “Launch Nukes (at Metusaleh) and Kick Ass”
    -Marlin

  782. BeantownBill July 8, 2011 at 6:36 pm #

    Please tell me, Asia, exactly what the “whole lie” is?
    Didn’t you ever meet a Christian princess? Since you only mention the Jewish ones, and from other comments you’ve made, why don’t you be honest and just say you don’t like Jews?

  783. ozone July 8, 2011 at 6:39 pm #

    Pretty good, M.
    Gotta get my shit in one sock to get down to the Fireplace and ready to go for 9-ish. See yez if’n you’re there! If not, see yez ’round h’yar! ;o)

  784. soak July 8, 2011 at 6:40 pm #

    Marlin, she is a regular Mother Theresa. I am amazed she has time to dedicate to 28 children and still run a campaign. Her multi-tasking skills must be excellent. Useful for being president.
    Palin-Bachman 2012

  785. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 6:46 pm #

    You’d have to admit though, we Christians have been pretty forgiving of you Jews, seeing as how you folks were the ones who killed our Lord and Savior.
    ==
    Christian, you know what you remind me of? You remind me of a lowlife pimp beating his defenseless victim to an inch of her life and telling her that he’s been pretty forgiving of her in not killing her for getting his pimped manicured hands bloodied with her blood. This is what you are, Christian. You are a disgusting lowlife pimp.

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  786. bubbleheadMarc July 8, 2011 at 6:48 pm #

    Back from serving dinner.
    I view Obamacare as bordering on the psychotic. How can one arrive at any other conclusion but that Obama is in collusion with the insurance industry? After all, requiring people with crappy part time jobs to buy their own hospitalization doesn’t exactly sound like socialized single payer government health coverage to me. It might be different if hospitalization were reasonably priced. I will never buy it. I will show the IRS my VA card and if that isn’t good enough for them I’m going to tell them to go fuck themselves. I’ll remain unemployed intentionally just so I have no income from which to caluculate a penalty for being uninsured.
    One of the reasons I think most American kids are assholes is that former American teachers who hated even the suburban schools here loved teaching Indian kids in the Peace Corps. I went SCUBA diving once on a Lake Erie wreck diving charter with a Ph.D. in chemistry who pronounced: “American kids are assholes, plain and simple.” He was the Peace Corps volunteer who had taught suburban public high school. By the same token the kids I taught at the suburban parochial school were very poorly behaved as well. The boy crazy nun wouldn’t expel any of them because she only cared about tuition income. She was too busy flirting with the fucking bus driver to pay attention to her job anyway. As I mentioned previously one of the main reasons she hired me was to have someone on staff who had lived in Hawaii so she’d have someone on staff to discuss all the locations used in the TV show “Magnum P.I.”.
    Half our problem in this country is everyone wants a sure thing. Also, no one wants to get dirty at work anymore which is why everyone would rather be an insurance adjustor instead of a tool & dye maker.
    And while we’re on the subject of stupidity: I’m going to puke if I hear another one of those asshole jurors from the Anthony trial say that there was “no evidence.” A jury consultant on the Dr. Drew show pointed out that jurors with less than a college education never believe scientific evidence. The reason for this, of course, is because they are simply too stupid to understand scientific evidence. There was more than enough circumstantial evidence to warrant strapping her down to a gurney and putting her to sleep like a dog. Enough said.

  787. rippedthunder July 8, 2011 at 7:12 pm #

    Hi Prog If those ICBM costs bug ya ,have a gander at this news.The small attack subs are only $2,600,000,000.00 each! I wonder what the price tag will be for the much larger ballistic subs. We must be ramping up for a good ol’ resource war. Either that or it is just a jobs program for the 16,000 laid off shuttle workers!
    http://www.rep-am.com/Business/569518.txt

  788. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 7:12 pm #

    Being a Christian, I forgive you for killing Jesus. You guys were simply caught up in the heat of the moment. Much like the bitch who killed Casey Anthony. Believe it or not, Jesus will forgive her, too. So you have nothing to fear. Your reward, as well as your punishment for being a Christ killer, will come to you in this life.
    P.S. Jesus even loved Satan. Even though Satan behaved pretty badly. He’s like that, you know…forgiving and stuff.

  789. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 7:17 pm #

    “Then who would have expiated all your sins by his sacrifice?”
    Right. The High Priest prophesied it, the Romans sanctioned it, the people accepted responsibility for it, and the priests performed it. They are the only ones who could lawfully act in that capacity. Jesus laid down His life, willingly, and took it up again. This makes apparent that death satisfies the law, not a permanent separation. A propitiation for the sins of all men.

  790. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 7:25 pm #

    Being a Christian, I forgive you for killing Jesus.
    ==
    Are you a fscking retard? You forgive me? For killing a character in a fairytale story made up by Roman imperialists after they destroyed my peoples homeland? What planet do you come from? Is that planet named Retardo?

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  791. messianicdruid July 8, 2011 at 7:27 pm #

    “We have Israelis of all colors and from all races from all over the globe in Israel … As for the arabs, they need not apply.”
    These two sentences seem to contradict one another. Are the arabs from another planet?

  792. MarlinFive54 July 8, 2011 at 7:41 pm #

    One more thing. ‘Southern’ Sudan officially became an independent nation today. Needless to say, the Muslims in N. Sudan are not too happy about it, not the least reason the productive oil wells are all located in the South. Already beset by famine, Financial Times of London says to expect a full blown bloodbath coming up like not seen since Rwanda. The only thing that possibly could prevent it is the presence of so many Chinese around the oil fields in S. Sudan. Then again, one must not forget that the slaughter in Rwanda was carried out largely with machetes shipped in by freighter from China. That was 10,000 people killed each day for 100 days. Yes, a daily tally was kept. Just warning you. Our US news orgs. might miss it as all their reporters are in Orlando waiting for Casey Anthony to be released from jail. Now that’s a scoop.
    -Matlin

  793. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 7:57 pm #

    There’s no contradiction. Arabs are not part of the tribes of Israel. Arabs come from Arabia. That’s their historic land. Arab imperialists don’t consider themselves Zionists, and are antithetical to Zionism or any other kind of real nationalism for that matter. The contradiction is to consider Arab imperialists as Israelis. They clearly are not.
    Also,
    we have to be very careful about calling many of the peoples of the Middle East, Arabs. They are not Arabs. They are peoples who fell victim to arab/jihadi imperialism and cultural genocide. Many had their ancient tribal/national identity practically erased. It will take time for these peoples to relearn and regain their real cultural identity. But I’m confident that eventually they will break free. Arab cultural/religious imperial bandage and the anglo-american imperialists that support it will not last forever.

  794. bubbleheadMarc July 8, 2011 at 7:59 pm #

    No one killed Jesus because Jesus never existed in the first place. So there is no need for you to “forgive” the Jewish “Christ killers”. In the same vein, Jesus has no descendants with “Mary Magdalene” for the same reason: people who never existed in the first place cannot have any descendants. This is also to ignore the fact that every time Mary of Magdala is mentioned in the gospels the reference is no doubt to a different woman each and every time.
    bibliography for my rant: “The Jesus Mysteries” by Freke & Gandy and “The Pagan Christ” by Tom Harpur

  795. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 8:09 pm #

    Before Q start his badgering:
    bandage -> bondage

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  796. JonathanSS July 8, 2011 at 8:21 pm #

    That’s some funny stuff! I must have misread your sense of humor when I criticized a post of yours a few weeks ago.

  797. cowswithguns July 8, 2011 at 8:39 pm #

    It looks like the CFN crew has largely been above talking about the Anthony case, as there are more important matters about us.
    But consider this: The case is a blatant example of the technotriumphalism JHK decries. A dozen bumbling jurors, facing a mountain of circumstantial evidence worthy of, at least, finding Anthony guilty of aggravated child abuse or manslaughter (two of the charges for which she was acquitted), instead decided to let her off completely because there was no video footage of the murder and no DNA was found in every crevice like it is on TV.
    The descent of the American intellect continues. Enjoy the show.

  798. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 8:41 pm #

    Stand by for attack from CFN pacifists –
    I want my country to have the best possible means of defense. In the same way – I want my own home to have the best means of defense.
    If the chips were down at my house – I would want trip wires, dogs, booby traps, sentries, my shotguns and hand weapons –
    – but, I would want all of that – backed up with the best marksman I could find out in the tree line with a couple of really good rifles. And my instructions to him would be – if things go wrong, don’t let anybody get out of here alive who’s not friend or family.
    I envision submarines serving that purpose. I suspect that US subs are the reason that the Australians and the Canadians won’t have to worry about the Chinese for far into the future.
    Other than that – I think as much as 75% of US military spending has been wasted, or worse.
    Worse than wasted – because it has led us to go for the military quick fix, instead of doing what’s best in the long term.
    And because the easy times are ending – and we really could have used some of that “defense” money for more productive purposes.

  799. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 9:06 pm #

    Before Q start his badgering:
    =============
    starts
    No matter how hard you try you just can’t get the whole thing right … a disgrace to your fellow Jews.

  800. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 9:13 pm #

    “There are many alternatives. I would start with putting a muzzle on you and the other….”
    -omar bongo-
    The only “alternative” that you suggest is “muzzling” those who speak their minds and – wait for it – – – attacking Kunstler because he does not care for tattoos.
    So, let me guess, Mr. Bongo – you either work for the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, or FOX News.
    Unless you are the REAL Omar Bongo of Gabon.
    In which case, I hate to break it to you dude, but you’ve been dead for over two years, now.

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  801. Ixnei July 8, 2011 at 9:14 pm #

    Carmageddon in LA, on I405, next weekend. LOL, they’re predicting 30-50 mile backups…
    “Royal” visit to Hollywood this weekend…
    27 year old dies, at the Rainbow Family Gathering…
    39 year old dies, grabbing for a baseball (6-year-old son watches in “shock and awe”)…
    “Caylee’s Law” in the works – don’t fret (something liek 300,000 blind/viral signatures for Ghad knows what kind of legislation)…
    All the news you “need to know”, right here! LOL, what a friggin’ *JOKE*.

  802. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 9:24 pm #

    a disgrace to your fellow Jews
    ==
    You racist bastard! 😀

  803. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 9:25 pm #

    Are you a fscking retard? … What planet do you come from? Is that planet named Retardo?
    ============
    Hey Obtusela, Digby is playing a game called “Pulling Mika’s Chain.”

  804. Ixnei July 8, 2011 at 9:26 pm #

    “Before Q start his badgering:
    =============
    starts”
    I’m guessing English ain’t (heh) his first language. I’d bet it’s *JEWISH* (hehe, come on Q, take the troll/bait!!!)
    .
    .
    .
    .
    OK, I won’t make you scroll – I meant to say *ISREALI*!
    .
    .
    .
    .
    Yeah, Yeah – Hebrew (correctable, tho negligible significance – i.e. it is NOT ancient).

  805. Bustin J July 8, 2011 at 9:32 pm #

    P,C said, “As I have stated, I had only two children – a conscious choice, since ZPG for the US would have leveled US population at 200,000,000.
    Immigration now has the US at a planet-destroying 313,000,000, and climbing rapidly.”
    This is an important point that needs emphasis.
    Controlling America’s population is critical, because Americans are top consumers.
    For example, 1 American woman annually uses the same amount of resources as 118 Bangladeshi women.
    So the increase of 113,000,000 people above the ZPG target has effectively increased the rate of resource intensity as much as
    113,000,000 / 2 (females) * 118 = 7,67 billion Bangladeshi women.
    That is, 56.5 million American women use the same amount of resources as 7.67 billion Bangladeshi women.
    When Mexicans become “Americans”, legal or not, living in the USA, making the same amount of money, using the same amount of resources, they are equivalent to “Real” Americans. I’ve estimated previously that a Mexican uses 1/10th the resources of a typical American, based on per capita GDP… as a baseline.
    Lets say we repatriate 30 million Mexican nationals. That removes 30 million “Mexi-Americans” as a resource burden, but adds 30 million Mexicans (again)… or maybe there is no addition required since the Mexicans are already covered by population estimates. Anyway, lets assume they are not.
    The Earth burden, by repatriation, is simple: 30 million people have reduced their impact by a factor of 10.
    The repatriated Mexicans are now only imposing a burden equal to that of 3,000,000 * (118 / 1) or 354 million Bangladeshi women, roughly twice the number of people in the entire country of Mexico.
    Lets look at the energetic consumption of Mexicans in the USA vs. Mexicans in Mexico.
    A Mexican in Mexico likely uses 1/10th the energy. Most of this is domestic crude oil production. He eats mostly corn, but also a fair amount of meat. He uses electricity, it is also mostly domestic. Sustainable energy use is negligible. He does not participate as much in consumer culture, as he does not have as much “disposable” income.
    A “Mexi-American” probably drives as a basis of his lifestyle. He probably drives 10 times as much as a Mexican. His energy is a mixture of globally-sourced crude-oil, uranium, fracked natural gas and trace amounts of renewables. He snacks on the 3000 mile salad bar and consumes many times his body weight a year in subsidized meat. He participates in consumer culture, buying gadgets and chemicals and stuff of all imaginable kinds. He is, in effect, an American as far as the Earth is concerned.
    The American citizen cannot vote in Mexican elections. He cannot own property within 50 miles of a Mexican coast.
    Maybe asoka can explain to the average American why it is in their best interest to allow Mexicans to colonize the United States.
    Maybe Asoka can explain to the environmentalist why it is in their best interest to allow Mexicans to colonize the United States.
    Now, it might seem like I’m picking on Mexicans, but, they have a sweet deal and they know it. They get to live on on the Hog- the Hog being the American Economy- and they get to flee without penalty to a homeland where they can exploit their wealth to great advantage. In effect, they have the benefits of being “American” without responsibility toward America’s effect on the world or the Earth.
    They are the beneficiaries of political stranglehold by the Dem-Rep kleptocracy. Their influence and wages are on the march while everyone else sees stagnation. They are the beneficiaries of official and unofficial subsidy by Big Ag and the politicians and business leaders who profit from the illegal labor trade.
    Jefferson wasn’t an idiot. He would see quite clearly that our government is completely broken and a hinderance to its constituency and its interests. People will say that it is a failure of political will- I say that it is failure of the political system. It is the dysfuntional nature of our “democracy” that is the problem. And by dysfunctional I mean that it is non-functional. It cannot be fixed.
    Democracy doesn’t exist. The popular voice has been dead for decades. What exists now is a system of control that revolves around legislating over what interests corporations. And corporations are blind to national interest.
    America, turning around, is critical in affecting global change, just because of the mathematical relationship between its size and resource intensity. Americans need to concern themselves with what is in their best interest, and their best interest alone- because it is going to require intense focus to change its nature toward a sustainable existence.
    As it is, we are simply sliding along the slippery slope pretending that we somehow benefit from global trade resulting in the consumptive crush of additional resource intensity. The writing is on the water: America will suffer for it.
    America did everything right by the rules of global capitalism. What the market proved in ’08 and continues to prove every passing day is that it is a system which destroys real value. Economies that play the game peak with energy and other essential ingredients. Cultures crash and burn, and ecosystems literally crash and burn.
    Eventually, it all crashes and burns.
    Americans have to step back from the lie that their country is still a democracy, that it serves Americans first, that its constituents can elect representatives that legislate their issues.
    The best part, to me, about Mexican repatriation, is the homecoming. Mexicans love their country, and it needs fixing. It needs Mexicans to vote in Mexican elections and advocate for Mexican democracy, just like America. But America obviously needs to lead, not just Mexico, but the world. If all 2.4 billion people in the Asian subcontinent achieve the resource intensity of the USA, its death to us all. It is global suicide. It is global Tuvalu.
    I could go on and on, but, the arguments are fucking easy to make. Americans have to start somewhere. This is where they start. Right at the heart of the labor “problem”. The Big Ag problem.
    But, as Kunstler points out, we are not a culture which solves problems anymore. We are a bunch of self-interested global capitalists living in a dream world. Hopefully Peak oil will slam into that notion.

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  806. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 9:34 pm #

    “Pulling Mika’s Chain.”
    ==
    And who says I can’t pull back? 😀
    (Notice I left the real “messianic” moron alone).

  807. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 9:40 pm #

    Thanks! I printed some of the rants off for a dinner party me and the missus just had. Hey, what can I say? There are times when you have to make your own fun, ya know? LOL, ROTFL! 😀

  808. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 9:43 pm #

    Freakin Christ killer! ;D

  809. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 9:43 pm #

    OK, Q – I don’t mind telling you that I appreciate your help dealing with Soak. Far too many layers of multitudinous bullshittery for me to have the patience for – by myself.
    I do, however, want to clear one little thing up, regarding:
    “At the time P,C had his kids the problem of population, resource depletion, etc was not so apparent. Since he now understands his own complicity, minimal though it may be….”
    -q, to asoaka-
    I’ve been thinking it over for a year, now, with the help of the able psychoanalysts of CFN – and I need to make a declaration. I am not complicit in anything, as regards overpopulation of humans, in the US, or on this Planet.
    I mean to say that I am not complicit in
    ONE SINGLE GOD DAMNED THING!
    I bought totally into the Zero Population Growth and environmental movements. That’s why my wife and I had only two kids – replacement level reproduction.
    It was the early and mid ’80’s that we made those decisions and limited our reproduction. We did this, trusting American leadership to do the right thing with respect to US population.
    The goddamned* bastards did not – for a variety of weak, selfish, and snivelling reasons.
    And here we are in 2011 – with a US population that is apparently going to grow toppling high – until it finally takes world ecosystems into collapse – worst case. Or else just moulders down into US/third world nothingness.
    A bunch of US leaders need to spend some time rotting in hell, for what they have done to the US. And I may be complicit in some pretty nasty stuff – as a US citizen, and in other capacities, related to that US citizenship.
    But I bear zero complicity for the overpopulation of the US.
    *goddamned is never a word I utter lightly – as a son of Southern Baptists, but it fits here.
    And none of you atheists believe in hell, anyway. But the people who have brought us to 313,000,000 +++ definitely need to rot there.
    And they will, I suppose – If they survive.
    Unless they have an “aristocratic elite” escape plan.
    selfish. short-sighted. bastards.

  810. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm #

    Freakin Christ killer! ;D
    ==
    Dat b x-killah 2 u!

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  811. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 9:55 pm #

    Hey, big guy, thanks for playin! You were the hit of my dinner party!

  812. cowswithguns July 8, 2011 at 9:55 pm #

    Interesting. That’s the argument a faction within the Sierra Club made some years back in an attempt to get the organization to take a stand to limit immigration into the US. The argument makes sense (though, of course, that’s not to say immigrants contribute their share to our society).
    The faction was slammed down hard. The Sierra Club didn’t want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

  813. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 10:03 pm #

    The Jews regarded Jesus as a apostate and a seducer of youth. They used the Romans to put him to death as they gleefully admit in the Talmud.
    To pretend Jesus didn’t exist is to deny recorded Jewish History. For the more secular minded, the Jewish Historiean Josephus discusses Him at length and considered a great and good Man.

  814. asia July 8, 2011 at 10:08 pm #

    No you meant to write IRAEL….
    and JHK……………….
    NASCAR beauty Paige Duke dropped as ‘Sprint Cup Girl’ after explicit nude pictures surface online
    Read more:online
    Beantown..Im fine with Jews, but I dislike Leftists,
    and having grown up in NYC I met lotsa Jewish Princesses, more spoiled then sh*t!
    IMO the stereotype of the JAP girl holds true, and I knew lotsa Jewish folks who agreed with me.

  815. asia July 8, 2011 at 10:11 pm #

    Earth to Soak:
    ‘The problem is overpopulation, not immigration’
    The second leads to more of the first in a feedback loop. The USA takes in the ‘huddled masses’ from the world, that continues to take $ from el norte
    and breed.

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  816. asia July 8, 2011 at 10:13 pm #

    Green is the new red, as Vlad has noted.
    The SC is bogus.

  817. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 10:13 pm #

    Jackie rubbed my fur the wrong way by saying that I was losing my edge and becoming “nice”. I responed in kind, impishly suggesting that she was 300 lbs. I never intended for her to go into full crisis mode and spend the next two weeks camped out in front of a full length mirror doing tummy tucks.
    I follow the “first thought best thought style of Trugpa/Kerouac. Send your son to me, I will teach him.
    As Blake says, He who kisses a joy as it flies,
    Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
    I don’t chase thoughts – they chase me.

  818. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 10:42 pm #

    The Sierra Club took a massive contribution (bribe) from David Geldbaum (means money tree) of the condition that they never speak out against the Reconquista.

  819. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 10:44 pm #

    Personally I think Jackie would be pretty freaked out if she had to “rub your fur”, either the right way or the wrong way.
    “Well, gee, I don’t know, but I think that’d be kinda gross.”
    (credit goes to Butters Stotch of South Park)

  820. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 10:45 pm #

    Good! I leave the moron @10:03PM to your hands. Maybe you can explain to him the significance of the following sentence. Wiki: The literary origins of Toledot Yeshu can not be traced with any certainty and are unlikely to be before the 4th century, far too late to include authentic remembrances of Jesus.[7]

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  821. progress,conserve July 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm #

    Hey Cows! Good to see you again on CFN!
    I was a Sierra Club member back in the late ’70’s.
    Now all I have to say about the Sierra Club is BAH!
    They got a huge contribution ($1 billion? surely not! but it was a LOT! you can look it up.) from some Jewish (sorry Bill – it’s not a slam) immigrant who sees Free Immigration into the US as an humanitarian essential, or something.
    So the Sierra Club is now useless – as a genuine environmental organization.
    ————
    So now what do we do?
    Bustin, BeanTown, Wage, You, me – there are some very intelligent, very liberal folks who see the immigration problem and are trying to wake people up.
    I say it’s way too late for individual action to matter. I’ve put my money with FAIR – so that’s what I’m pushing right now.
    But that’s not the only option.
    It’s late – but not too late. I hope.
    Good to have you back battling with us, Cows!
    Regards,
    P,C

  822. Vlad Krandz July 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm #

    Great post but remember, America was never supposed to be a Democracy. The Founders would have laughed at the idea of idiots voting. You yourself have indicated the People must consent to be governed by a wise scientific Elite in other posts.

  823. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 10:53 pm #

    Gotta agree with the JAP stereotype. I’ve known more than a few. They have very discerning tastes in everything – houses, jewelry, Naybahoods, and men…which probably explains why I never got laid by ANY of them…smart girls, for sure. Can smell a goy a mile away. And a real shame for me too, btw. I’ve heard from more than a few that they can fuck the ears off a guy. The stuff of urban legend.

  824. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 10:57 pm #

    No! Please, dear God in Heaven, no! You’re asking way too much of me. Come on! In the name of his holiness (Bibi Netanyahu), PLEASE NO!

  825. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 11:00 pm #

    For every JAP girl you can point to, I can point to ten IAP (Italian American Princess). You’re brain sick with Jews. And don’t go blaming the South African sun for your brain sickness.

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  826. bossier22 July 8, 2011 at 11:02 pm #

    I agree, the border patrol should be abolishised. The army controlled the southern border before that and it worked pretty well.

  827. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 11:06 pm #

    In the name of his holiness (Bibi Netanyahu)
    ==
    Only a rabid Vatican sith would go ahead and turn that quisling CIA agent into a Vatican Saint before he’s even dead.

  828. truthteller July 8, 2011 at 11:25 pm #

    {We’re very much on the same page. It was the Carlin clip that I found fault with. For one thing, I’m sure that Carlin himself could barely cope with school, so to me he’s no authority on the subject.}
    I agree yet disagree with that statement, B. I think Carlin was a member of that set of “bleeding hearts and artists” who was VERY intelligent, but not in a “skooly”, formal education kind of way . . . I’ve known many people like that in my life. Carlin seemed to me to be more of the self-taught auto-didact, who very much had a vibe for the “reality” of the world, even if not so much formal education. I find it hard to believe that anyone could watch his stand-up act (especially his later years) and not get a “gut-feel” for the dude and his RIGHTNESS.
    He was DEAD ON, you have to admit!

  829. digbycookies July 8, 2011 at 11:28 pm #

    Every good card player knows when to fold. And I ain’t no good card player, but I fold. And I don’t for a second doubt that Italian girls can fxck just as good if not better than Jewish girls. Round one goes to Mika! There might or might not be a round two. But I’ll lay some cash down on the virtual bar and buy you a drink! (Hey! I’m Irish! That’s what we freakin do! U gotta problam wid dat?)

  830. truthteller July 8, 2011 at 11:30 pm #

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJr_ggTeq64

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  831. bossier22 July 8, 2011 at 11:36 pm #

    Great post progcon. I hope those who engineered our population increase rot in he’ll too. Starting with Ted Kennedy. Along with many from both sides of the political divide.

  832. Buck Stud July 8, 2011 at 11:39 pm #

    ” The ‘myth’ of the Irish..a land of 2 to 5 million…the US might have taken in a few million, who had to earn their own keep and learn english fast.”
    Yeah…ya gotta hand to those irish, that tough transition from speaking irish to english in such a short span…and having to do it in such a faraway land as america!

  833. metuselah July 8, 2011 at 11:41 pm #

    Cheers! Thanks, mate!
    I’ll save you some gold at the end of the rainbow. (Right after me and Soros are done bankrupting your worthless paper currency regime, of-course).

  834. Qshtik July 8, 2011 at 11:42 pm #

    Can smell a goy a mile away. And a real shame for me too, btw. I’ve heard from more than a few that they can fuck the ears off a guy.
    =============
    off a guy or off a goy?
    😉

  835. Vlad Krandz July 9, 2011 at 12:00 am #

    It’s just a figure of speech you literalist fsck.

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  836. digbycookies July 9, 2011 at 12:03 am #

    Aye, and sure as the day is long we’re tough, laddy boy! And honorable. We are that, too, sure as I’m the son of an Irishman! As fer learnin the English language, it dint take more than a fort knight to learn and speak as good as the limeys done, cursed my own mother’s grave if I don’t speak the Lord’s truth, me lad! Shiver me timbers, laddy, me thinks this hear nation’s like a drunk sailor’s whore…She’s going down, LADDY!

  837. Vlad Krandz July 9, 2011 at 12:06 am #

    Bibi is too liberal for our Met. Imagine what this guy really wants – probably the Greater Israel as promised in the Bible – from the stream of Egypt (the Nile) to the Euphrates. He doesn’t believe in God but only in the promises of God.

  838. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 12:29 am #

    “What screwed me up was I spent the first two years of high school reading college catalogs from maritime acadamies such as State University of New York Maritime College at Fort Schyler but then junior year starting turning into a fucking hippie with shoulder length hair who just wanted to lay around reading Herman Hesse novels! As you can well imagine literary layabouts don’t thrive at maritime academies.”
    I almost ended up enrolled in NROTC. I traveled from Illinois to St Louis, MO, for an interview my Junior year in High School (’84). The guy who interviewed me asked if I had ever used drugs. I told him no. Then he asked if I had ever smoked marijuana. I repeated that I had never done any drugs. He then continued to ask me over and over, “really, you never smoked pot?” I continued to tell him no. He was shocked, for some reason. I didn’t end up smoking pot until I was 18, and had graduated from high school (summer ’85).
    I went back to St Louis, MO, a second time, for the NROTC physical. I forget all the details (pull ups, push ups, 3 miles of running?), but everything was lined up for acceptance into the NROTC program. However, at the last minute, I declined, as I had gotten a reasonable in-state scholarship, at the U of I, in engineering (it payed ~$1,400 per year for tuition). Needless to say, I was working weekends and summers, and got a semi-decent IBM co-op ($8/hr ’86 to $11/hr ’89), so I barely broke even (negative $10K at graduation ’90, which I owed to my dad, and payed off within a year of *real* corporate work).
    I smoked pot 24/7 throughout college, except for senior year (the year I got mostly B’s, Q.Q ). I was what you’d call a *1 hit* user – I’d do a single hit in the morning before going to class, another hit 4-5 hours later at lunch, a third hit around dinner time, and a final hit before going to bed. I’d use maybe 1/4 gram for an entire day – a quarter (ounce) usually lasted me a month or more. I found it helped me focus on the material I was studying, and it made the material a hell of a lot more interesting. Granted, the stuff back then had seeds, and was about 5-12% THC (not the 25-35% medical-grade sh!t floating around now – I can’t do this stuff anymore, too potent).
    I often wonder whether I could have graduated with “high honors” (or better), had I kept up with my dope-smoking program senior year. However, I ended up with “honors” in electrical engineering, from a top-3 ranked EE university (Stanford/MIT were rated higher). I burnt out my senior year, and hung out with the top pool players (gamblers/hustlers) at the Illini Union, and even saw “Minnesota Fats” get schooled by a couple of them, that same year. I simply went to class, and pulled Mountain Dew all-nighters before all my exams, senior year (all borderline A/B grades ended up B – prolly didn’t help that I also went to the graduate student conference early that year, and told most of the professors I wasn’t interested in doing a TA/RA program there/with them [no more of their “hide from reality” bureaucracy – I wanted a *real* job])
    Even with my “honors” degree in EE from a top-3 ranked EE university, *21 years ago*, I had a hard time finding a job. It took 7 different interviews, before a single company showed any interest (remember that ’90 recession? First time IBM ever laid off an employee in almost 100 years).
    Could have been a Naval military guy, like my Dad and Grandpa – but glad I dodged that bullet (I would have been in Desert Storm for sure). I saw my sister/brother get average grades in decent degree fields (education/chemistry) from mediocre universities in the early 90’s, that never amounted to sh!t for either of them, salary-wise.

  839. San Jose Mom 51 July 9, 2011 at 12:48 am #

    Your explanation is not good enough. Your posts during the last few weeks have been particularly atrocious.
    * Saying something to the effect that all women are just a paycheck away from becoming prostitutes.
    * Your repeated assertion that women are not is smart as men. Blah, blah, blah.
    It’s clear that you sit on your white pedestal and look down on everyone that isn’t Vlad.
    And just to make myself clear, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my son. He is NOT a racist or a misogynist.

  840. truthteller July 9, 2011 at 12:58 am #

    {I often wonder whether I could have graduated with “high honors” (or better), had I kept up with my dope-smoking program senior year.}
    I did, and I did (although in a BS of Business Admin program . . . and it did require several calculus courses, all of which I passed with a B+ . . . no A in math for TruthTeller, as I am a truth teller 🙂 If you’re smart, weed only enhances your brain, IMO.
    If we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, why not get baked? That’s my question to you Cluster-fluffers 🙂 Why not? Why not do all the fun stuff (even if you’re an old fuck and have never tried it) if you have nothing to lose now?
    I personally think weed should be 100% legal and a cash crop for anyone who has the cojones to invest in some hydro gear and the knowledge to make it happen 🙂
    And some of you old fucks here . . . Jesus H in a fucking sidecar! You need to get on with it and live your life! You’re miserable! You only get one shot, I believe, and to spend it HERE, being angry . . . WTF? I’m saying this after sitting on the sidelines mostly, watching racist spew and angry people of all political persuasions be angry! Get used to the fact that we are FUCKED! Don’t fight the spiral, because honestly I don’t think there’s much you or I can so about it unless we move to a goddamned far-off place, buy lots of beans ‘n rice ‘n firearms, and even then put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!
    I’m even rather complacent about this so-called “benign” lump in my breast . . . if it’s benign, well, whatever . . . if it’s cancer, then what the fuck will I do about it beyond driving myself into bankruptcy and having a sad life right before I die? Food for thought 🙂 Get over living forever, people . . . that’s what drives a lot of the discussion here, anyway . . . fear of death. Make friends with it. Happens to us all sooner or later, anyway, right?

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  841. asia July 9, 2011 at 1:00 am #

    ‘1 American woman annually uses the same amount of resources as 118 Bangladeshi’
    Yes, I call that use of Cars, Oil, Meat..What would be some other big ones? Food that travels 1500 miles, any other ‘biggies’? Pets,..
    Oh and in the 1970s the USA was using much of the earths oil, resources Etc, but WAS ALSO PRODUCING 80% OF THE FINISHED GOODS.

  842. asia July 9, 2011 at 1:05 am #

    Where does he live?
    Was it 50M a year to ACLU and 50M/yr to SC?

  843. truthteller July 9, 2011 at 1:12 am #

    And I KNOW, after that last post, that some of you are trying to reconcile me being for hope and MLK “I Have A Dream” . . . let me set you straight now.
    I’ve HAD MY DREAM. I got the chance to fight my way out of poverty and make a good life for myself. I’m grateful for that good life. I’m not looking forward to it ending. But I am also a REALIST, and if I have cancer, I’m not about to spend some shitty years trying to fight the system and get decent care with crappy health care, especially if I don’t see any really good reason to carry on. Honestly. I read these doomer blogs every week, I get told we’re fucked to shreds every week, I read the media, every week, fucked to shreds is the general message . . . what fucking message do any of you people have that would encourage a person who is feeling fucked to shreds, to want to live? I’m not seeing it. Far as I can tell, we should all fucking off ourselves and minimize the burden on planet earth 🙂

  844. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 1:19 am #

    “In the book “Psychic Warrior” Maj. David Morehouse revealed that remote viewers in Operation Grillflame at Fort Meade, MD had “astrally projected” into the future and foresaw that the human race would be forced to live underneath giant bubbles owing to environmental degradation. These same so called scientific remote viewers could also view targets in space and discovered that this had already happpened on Mars and that there was in fact a remnant civilization living beneath the surface of the planet Mars.”
    Ft Meade, indeed! I remember hearing about an underground bunker there, filled with warehouse upon warehouse of “supercomputers*, back in the very early 80’s. “Eschelon,” indeed.
    “Staring at goats” might eventually have an effect – I don’t doubt it. I’m certain that mind-altering drugs (in particular, LSD) would heavily play into spectral/astral projection as you/Morehouse suggest. Real-time/relativistic (time dilated) photon/energy sensations I can believe – future worm-hole tunneling I can NOT.
    As to bubbles – that seems a phenomena injected into our collective consciousness, since the 50’s (dome-bases on the Moon/Mars). But, one must wonder, what do they feed on underground, in the caves under Mars? Or is Mars *hollow*? Heh!
    I believe I’ve heard this Morehouse character before, on C2C (or one of his *cohorts*). Wow, decades old info, defibrillating the dead neurons back into action …
    Welps, we may have manned space exploration restored within 5 years, in the US!!! Heh, gotta ask (gunna check into it regardless), how long was manned space exploration down, after Apollo moon landings got *ixnei*’d? (I’m thinking there might have been a visit to the Russian Space Station, then of course there was the Shuttle debacle).

  845. asia July 9, 2011 at 1:22 am #

    You have mentioned the 60’s and visiting Mexico then. Another poster noted Mexico has taken a huge hit since then.
    ‘Now, even self-professed liberals are against health care, education and housing for all.’
    OK, I am responding to the above of yours and
    how things have changed for the US in the last 40 years. See my post of a few minutes ago about ‘finished goods’…US population has increased by 50% in 45 years. How can the US medicate/incarcerate/educate/supply foodstamps AND HOUSE ZILLIONS?
    You chastised Marlon for ‘fearing the brown hordes’
    VISIT L.A. DURING ITS NEXT RIOT AND YOU TOO WILL
    FEAR THE BROWN HORDES.

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  846. asia July 9, 2011 at 1:25 am #

    This ones for you….just got this spam and thought you would get a kick out of it…..
    brian”
    To:
    g….y@geocities.com, :
    do you know you`d make at least $41k if you only had master`s degree?
    we can help you, it`s fast and easy. Thousands of people already make bank with our papers
    You can become bechelor, master or even doctor faster then you think.
    you can call us free at:
    1- 954-537-3174
    Please leave us:
    1) Your Name
    3) Phone No.
    We will get back to you ASAP

  847. asia July 9, 2011 at 1:29 am #

    ‘David Morehouse’…I have seen his ads for expensive RV seminars in new age throw away mags!
    Sounds like a crook, me smells snakeoil.

  848. San Jose Mom 51 July 9, 2011 at 1:50 am #

    Amen sister.
    I plan to take up “baking” just as soon as the kids are out of the house. I had to give it up years ago on account of the kids getting older. Getting baked in bed with the husband after wrangling toddlers, changing diapers, and calming tantrums, was an occasional treat that I thoroughly enjoyed.

  849. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 1:51 am #

    “You only get one shot, I believe, and to spend it HERE, being angry . . . WTF? ”
    I can’t smoke this new hybrid sh!t they got (LOL Q!) now. It just sedates me to the point, where I feel my heartbeat and my breathing, and can barely move. I take the tiniest hit, and I’m blotto – and when I finally come down, after an hour and a half, all I get is “stone cop” paranoia. I wish I could get the low-dose, old-daze “heirloom” stuff, that came with seeds…
    Anger indeed. That’s all I get, when I sit (*read*) and *think*. And smoke/drink only seems to amplify the anger. That’s why I try to keep myself occupied with unimportant “busywork,” to keep me from *thinking* – is that NOT sad? *Thinking* involves logic and facts for me, and they simply become unarguable and unavoidable. How does one *NOT* become angry, when they *think* about what has been happening for decades, and what continues to happen at an exponential rate? I see maybe 1 in a 1,000 out there trying to make a difference – the other 999 continue our exponential death-dive into the nether…

  850. asia July 9, 2011 at 2:02 am #

    Sometimes I dont get JHK…
    ‘Allen Ginsburg got it right fifty years ago: “America, go fuck……. Ozzie Nelson lurking in kitchen with nothing to do but drink endless cups of coffee, all was not so well.
    So AG [NY ,Literati] was good, and Oz and Harriet,
    normal, christian, west coast were bad, I guess.

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  851. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 2:07 am #

    “Heh, gotta ask (gunna check into it regardless), how long was manned space exploration down, after Apollo moon landings got *ixnei*’d?”
    Looks like the same exact 5+ years we’re going to be down for, *NOW* (NASA site blows *HARDCORE*, but suggested the same exact 5-6 years downtime):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_spaceflight#Space_programs
    See the chart 83edf7d8258a96c0b5f02e76ef3b1ee7.png
    Pretty sad, the Russians have had literally *NO* downtime for for the last 50 years. I find it *VERY* curious that the US actually had 5+ years downtime after the final Apollo mission… (And here we go, repeating history!) USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

  852. truthteller July 9, 2011 at 2:08 am #

    {I can’t smoke this new hybrid sh!t they got (LOL Q!) now. It just sedates me to the point, where I feel my heartbeat and my breathing, and can barely move. I take the tiniest hit, and I’m blotto – and when I finally come down, after an hour and a half, all I get is “stone cop” paranoia. I wish I could get the low-dose, old-daze “heirloom” stuff, that came with seeds…}
    Shazam, da-zam, son! Can I get some of what YOU’re smokin? 🙂 No shit! You need to open a medicinal marijuana dispensary in DALLAS!

  853. truthteller July 9, 2011 at 2:20 am #

    {Anger indeed. That’s all I get, when I sit (*read*) and *think*. And smoke/drink only seems to amplify the anger. That’s why I try to keep myself occupied with unimportant “busywork,” to keep me from *thinking* – is that NOT sad? *Thinking* involves logic and facts for me, and they simply become unarguable and unavoidable. How does one *NOT* become angry, when they *think* about what has been happening for decades, and what continues to happen at an exponential rate? I see maybe 1 in a 1,000 out there trying to make a difference – the other 999 continue our exponential death-dive into the nether…}
    Damn, Ix . . .
    It would be awesome if you COULD escape all that by being baked, but I guess that ain’t gonna happen. How about this solution (and I know it’s a long shot . . . ) why don’t you try just LIVING LIFE, staying the hell away from doomer forums like JHK (he won’t like that, but fuck him anyway, he’s a douche 🙂 and just be a NORMAL human being for a while?
    There’s no reason ANY of us have to come here any given week to be depressed by a misogynistic misantropic bald-headed Jew, who incidentally is highly prejudiced against Southern people like ME 🙂 It’s ALL UP TO YOU, Honey 🙂

  854. truthteller July 9, 2011 at 2:25 am #

    And Ix . . . I’ll trade you my stank weed for yo’ hydro, son 🙂 Honest injun 🙂

  855. Vlad Krandz July 9, 2011 at 2:45 am #

    The use of intoxicants was forbidden by the Buddha. Sorry to ruin you fun – life is much narrower than what Liberals imagine.

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  856. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 2:47 am #

    “why don’t you try just LIVING LIFE, staying the hell away from doomer forums like JHK”
    Because, all I’ve thought about and seen to be *truth* for decades, is echoed in this forum. I keep trying to ween myself from this place – but it’s *illogical*.
    Leaving here is simply denying fact – it would be the same as going back to my old 6 figure salary, gobbling up slave labor inputs, and spending them on flashy, worthless gadgetry (cars/boats/planes/McMansions/iphones/computers/etc).
    I cannot live in De Nile!!! I can avoid *thinking* about the truth; but only temporarily. I need this place, just to know I’m not *totally* insane. I’m sure you must understand where I’m coming from?
    Maybe if I went out and became a legitimate card-holder here (my back pains are totally cured with the medical weed, FWIW), I might no longer feel as paranoid – but I’d still want to get the old-fashioned “heirloom” weed with seeds – not this synthetic genetic mutant strain, that is stronger than *HASH OIL* used to be…
    Don’t get me wrong – in ’88, my friend had some gold-foil Afghani “freedom fighter” hash – the most incredible buzz I ever had back then (reminded me of opium – perhaps it was a mix). Never heard The Police’s song, “Bring On The Night” sound so rainbow-ific!!! “Couldn’t stand another hour of *DAYLIGHT*!!!”

  857. Vlad Krandz July 9, 2011 at 2:52 am #

    Life will teach him wisdom – the school of hard knocks. Each one a boost.
    I speak of averages of course. Some women are smart. A few very smart. Both less than men. You think differently because of all the male morons and criminals. Women cluster under the dome of the bell curve. The Dalai Lama said the same – as did Buddha long ago. He didn’t want to let women in the Order at all but Ananada begged him.
    Some women wont sell their bodies. Don’t know the exact percentage. Will let you know if I find out.

  858. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 3:36 am #

    “I speak of averages of course. Some women are smart. A few very smart. Both less than men.”
    Both *WHAT* less than men?
    Asshole reminds me why I scroll past his poasts of racist and sexist (prejudicial) *HATE*.
    PS – *DON’T FEED THE TROLLS*!!!

  859. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 3:52 am #

    “No one killed Jesus because Jesus never existed in the first place.”
    Actually, I think several hundred different HEY-ZEUS existed – and one might have been a leader of those desert-dwelling doomers 2k years ago, that got executed for defying the state…
    He was certainly *NOT* the hand of Ghad, as he died just like any other loud-mouthed moron back then would have – by cruxifiction (Q get happy). Moreover, all dissenters in those days were either fed to lions in coliseums, or jacked up on stakes (usually just their *HEADS*).
    Homina Homina Homina – let’s be cannibals, and feast on the body and blood of our *LORD*, HEY-ZEUS. X-Tians!!! He’s *TALKING TO YOU* (schizophrenics). Talk about fscking *WACKO*./. Worship a dead dissenter!!!

  860. Ixnei July 9, 2011 at 4:05 am #

    “So anyway, in my first 1.75 years at CFN there was not peep one about any female presence in your life. Now, in the past 3 months we’re up to 2 Mrs Asokas plus step-children. I hope you’ll pardon my skepticism.”
    You also apparently missed his poast, where he claimed he was a permaculturist, well before Tripp had even joined this board…
    The guy’s obviously one of multiple sock-puppets, that forgets each created individual’s *boundaries*… Or, a simple troll seeing what everyone can remember. Either way, a gnat. *BUT HE TRIES*.

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  861. old69 July 9, 2011 at 6:07 am #

    Philosophical Problem
    Unemployment, Economic Recession, Jobless growth, you name it, all of these problems are essentially Artistic, Aesthetic, Philosophical, Metaphysical problems, nay, Religious problems essentially: In an economy that is mostly optional based, consumerist, fun and games based since most of the real necessary parts of the economy have been optimized, automated, you name it, what is really left are just mostly rituals to perfrom, optional rituals, which rituals are chosen as valuable, which are arbitrarily chosen as producing some results(none of them produce results, they are all just imaginary values and results attached to imaginary rituals, repetitive patterns of behaviors and activities and physical and/or informational manipulations – transformations that just repeat a similar sequence of activities over and over again with some slight changes, just like writing these blogs and blocks of text, that are connected to exchanges of money, to transactions, but there are no real necessities behind them like agriculture or manufacturing).
    Just think agriculture in the developed world gives work to 2 % of the working population, manufacturing only to about 20 % at most, so what is left are cultural choices, pure random quirky fun and game choices based on nothing at all but artistic and aesthetical choices like Movies, Music, TV, Internet, Finance, Lawyers, etc.
    Like which rituals are attached to what transactions of money and goods, how are the separate economic circuits connected, from necessary to fluff and fun and games, but since each ritual corresponding to an economic exchange, an exchange of money, a transaction has a counter attached to it, a score keeping system that corresponds to profit and how much you can gain from how little input you put in to play out or produce each ritual, then they automatically become optimized and automated or whatever and then kill the jobs associated with them. Like agriculture, the most important necessity has been optimized to employ not more than 2 % of the population, manufacturing, which already starts to become somewhat optional as the products chosen start to become designs, styles, artistic choices associated with some real necessities, etc. like a simple car and then a luxury car, a simple house but then a McMansion, a simple kitchen and then a high class one full of options and fluff etc. but still tied to necessities, well even in manufacturing only about 20 % of the workforce is employed: the rest is employed in mostly fun and games, options, or some kinds of necessities that become forced and used as weapons to crush (since there are no longer any necessities hiring workers) like health care costs going sky high, House costs going sky high, maybe Water in the future, etc.
    So, the real problem today, the real economic problem is purely cultural, artistic, aesthetic, really philosophical and metaphysical: which rituals and associated symbols are supposed to be valuable (always for no reason at all), what fun and games are worth playing and paying for, who or what decides (aside from the typical marketing based, brainwashing based consensus based decisions where millions are brainwashed that a turd is worth millions of dollars and buy into it, like housing, which is just a box and the prices going ever higher for no reason at all, IPHONE (just a cheap computer), health care, which is mostly routine and well known old fashioned rituals that go sky high because everyone has been brainwashed that there is some kind of scarcity going on, etc)?
    Even the capitalists are mostly naive on all of this, they just operate in cruise control making believe everything is still like the 20th century, production – innovation – jobs, the fairy tale, the previous repeated patterns forever, but they are dead wrong, the game has changed forever, the pattern interrupted, now it is completely unknown what on earth millions of unemployed are supposed to do and in fact work and labor keep people from fighting, keep them from discovering the real bottom line that people are mostly and simply defined as enemies, as fights, as contrasts, as contentions, as repressed and pent up desire to beat the living daylights out of everyone else, but the jobs and rituals should hide this real essence of Man that is a Turd and just wants to fight and hate and beat each other up, but if no rituals are available anymore hiring people, they will fight it off and kill each other.
    But then what is a ritual and what isn’t ? What is a necessity and what isn’t ? As Man is the Infinitely Programmable Machine anything can be defined valid and worthy of doing and anything else not, so in theory you could have a trillion new jobs all based on a trillion new oddball, the more insane the better, the more quirky and irrational the better rituals, repetitive patterns, or even not repetitive patterns, etc. so then there has never been so many potential jobs as today ? Maybe even just watching TV or simply sleeping can be defined a job, maybe all the dead are workers, doing nothing at all is ok, is an accepted profession, just do absolutely nothing 24 hours a day for trillions of years, you better like to get bored, that is the new normal, the new job, just punch the card every 1 trillion years, etc. or maybe war is the new normal, or unemployment and talking about an imaginary economic crisis is the new ritual and job, paid or not, whatever…
    AMEN.
    Quo Vadis, baby ?

  862. bubbleheadMarc July 9, 2011 at 6:53 am #

    My last post got eaten! Although they had Navy ROTC where I went to college it never occurred to me to join, not even the 2 year program which was for reservists and easy to enroll in. I did attend Marine Corps OCS afer junior year though.
    I was only a party smoker in college. I don’t think the new hybrid varieties make much difference. All you do is smoke less. Instead of smoking an entire joint you smoke perhaps three hits. It’s like sipping whiskey instead of guzzling beer, no difference. And better for your lungs and also less likely to make your eyes red. Clear Eyes works the best!
    The inquisitorial anti-pot atmosphere in the navy creeped me out. Why the fuck didn’t we legalize pot during the Carter administration? Eventually it will be. Go Barney Frank and his cosponsor for legalization of pot ???? what’s his name whose son just got elected to congree as well. During the ‘seventies the crew of an American attack carrier probably smoked five pounds of herb per day! After all, no legal beer in the mess like in the British navy.
    I do literally mean that there was no Jesus. The gospels are recycled Egyptian mythology. When you get to thinking that Jesus was a pastiche of three or more different persons that is the same as saying that he never existed. That is not to say that there is no god.

  863. progress,conserve July 9, 2011 at 8:43 am #

    “The inquisitorial anti-pot atmosphere in the navy creeped me out. Why the fuck didn’t we legalize pot during the Carter administration? Eventually it will be.” -the resident submariner-
    Yeah, Marc, I personally ran afoul of that exact anti-pot atmosphere.
    My take is that all branches of the military got scared shitless during the Viet Nam era over drug use – and concluded that drug use inhibited fighting discipline blah, blah, blah
    Take the golden boy screwup who became king. Here’s a guy with every advantage who finally bails on his National Guard unit to do lines of coke, get a DUI, and go AWOL. Can’t have that and dominate the planet. So – The War on Drugs!
    And now you can’t get a job a a greeter at Wally World without peeing in a cup.
    I wish I could see it reversing – but business/management/government are so ingrained with the anti-drug foolishness – – It’s not reversing any time soon, I’m afraid.

  864. old69 July 9, 2011 at 8:51 am #

    Hate Nature
    The laws of conservation of religions, if you stop believing in one you substitute it with another even though you don’t even notice: case in point, nature, ecology, the environment has become sacred, what morons, give us back the old Christ and Catholic BS, I hate nature, kill nature, burn it, nuke it, wild chemicals all over the place, cement, Iron, Steel, kill nature, devastate it, how I would love to nuke the entire world, how I would love to kill all nature, how I hate nature’s guts, make it run like terrorized, get it on the run real fast, give us back the old fundamentalists with their hell, but get rid of this green, nature religion, what ph*tards, as*wipes, di*weeds, thanks fabian for teaching me the right words.
    On another note, how is it that we only think in terms of language and logic, it is insane, we are just a sentence, a block of text, a mathematical formula, we are void and nothing, only concepts tied to some occasional emotions and sensations pain/pleasure, but nothing else, really insane, we, by using language are exactly the same, the mind of all is just one monolithic block of the same matter, one line of thought repeated in trillions of people, totally insane and crazy! give us the Sun and Plasma, give us trillions of useless details on the real Matter world in rocks, give us worthless and useless, kill the usefulness of things, kill functions and language, and on and on…

  865. progress,conserve July 9, 2011 at 8:53 am #

    “The use of intoxicants was forbidden by the Buddha. Sorry to ruin you fun – life is much narrower than what Liberals imagine.”
    -vlad-
    I thought you were a Christian, Vlad, what are you doing quoting Buddha? Why don’t you quote the narrow minded Saul, instead
    “Take a little wine…” – Paul, to Timothy –
    “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
    -Socrates-
    “A much narrower life is spiritual death.”
    -P,C-

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  866. progress,conserve July 9, 2011 at 9:19 am #

    TruthTeller,
    I’m with you 100%. Let’s get baked and be happy!
    This is a doomer website – so don’t be too distressed when you find posters expressing gloomy thoughts. It doesn’t mean we’re all that way in person.
    And remember you’ve got a standing invite to come on the CFN Permaculture Tour out to California and back – whenever we get it on the schedule. Maybe we could find an old VW bus – instead of piling a bunch of people in the bed of my little pickup. hehehe
    =================
    And for Vlad.
    “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Cross.”
    -Sinclair Lewis-
    “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a Cross, and holding a urine specimen cup.” P,C
    Vlad, in this metaphor, you hold the cup.

  867. SNAFU July 9, 2011 at 10:28 am #

    Last Space Shuttle launch yesterday; to my way of thinking none too soon. Back in the early 70’s whilst a junior USAF Cptn I was enthused about the program especially since a co-flight test engineering section member and friend of mine (El Onizuka) was attempting to gain entry into the program at which he was successful Jan 78. His death when the Challenger self destructed – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellison_Onizuka – ultimately reoriented my thinking concerning the Space Shuttle.
    The hyped concept was for a shuttle launch every week at an estimated cost of $15 million/launch. Reality was roughly 4 launches per year at a cost of about $500 million/launch; however when one includes the total program costs this jumps to about $1.5 billion/launch or a per astronaut into low Earth orbit cost of $200-250 million each. Hell-of-a-deal. Current Soyuz launch costs about $60 million/astronaut.
    Nature expended much time to the generation of hydrocarbon life forms suitable for survival within the air and gravity wells in which we find ourselves. Attempting to drag such into space with our current technology to enable we soft shell humans to survive therein is proving to be prohibitively expensive. The Mars Rover explorers have demonstrated the rational method to pursue until an alternative to flinging microscopic bits of extremely hot matter out the ass end of a rocket (nozzle), to generate reactive forces, is discovered.
    SNAFU

  868. soak July 9, 2011 at 10:50 am #

    “I mean to say that I am not complicit in ONE SINGLE GOD DAMNED THING!”
    ————-
    In the 80s, when you made your decision, it was more than clear that world population was a problem. Instead of going for zero, your decision for “replacement reproduction” was a decision to continue the problem.
    You have contributed to USA overpopulation and to planetary resource depletion and pollution by adding to the number of good ‘ol boys.
    The length and strength of your denial post is your admission of culpability. Thou dost protest too much.

  869. soak July 9, 2011 at 10:57 am #

    asia said: “Earth to Soak: ‘The problem is overpopulation, not immigration’ The second leads to more of the first in a feedback loop.
    ————–
    Male immigrant: “OK, honey we are finally alone now. Let’s do it!”
    Female immigrant: “Wait! Which side of the border are we on?”
    ————–
    asia, the problem is overpopulation. Which side of the border an immigrant is on does not alter the feedback loop. As Beantown said, the programming is at a cellular level.
    Immigration is irrelevant. The issue is too much procreation… whichever side of the border you find yourself.