SPONSOR

Vaulted Invest in Gold

Visit this blog’s sponsor. Vaulted is an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold: Kunstler.com/vaulted


 

Support JHK on Patreon

 

If you’re interested in supporting this blog, check out the Patreon page or Substack.
 
Get This blog by email:

Attention Movie Producers!
JHK’s screenplay in hard-copy edition

Click to order!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Bankster…
Three Teenagers who bring him down…
Gothic doings on a Connecticut Estate.
High velocity drama!


Now Live on Amazon

“Simply the best novel of the 1960s”


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!
JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Long Emergency Cafe Press ad 2

Get your Official JHK swag on Cafe Press


The fourth and final book of the World Made By Hand series.

Harrow_cover_final

Battenkill Books (autographed by the Author) |  Northshire Books Amazon


emb of Riches Thumbnail

JHK’s lost classic now reprinted as an e-book
Kindle edition only


 

Clusterfuck Nation
For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

Especially at Christmas Time!


And this solemn night a great stillness falls upon the land as the Leviathan of Washington is sent to its room to get its mind straight, and the USA gets on with collapse in earnest. There will be no visions of sugarplums for the Deep Staters as the government enters its induced coma, only premonitions of anarchy and insolvency, and perhaps some dim nostalgia for that golden age when things seemed to work in America. On the plus side of things, this may be the last year of Christmas shaming.  Even the Wokesters of Wokesterdom appear weary and bored with Wokesterism ­— isn’t that a blessing?

I have a theory for what is behind the decline and fall of this once proud and capable country: nobody answers the phone. This one change in consensual social behavior has enabled virtually everyone in authority to evade responsibility for what they do. Corporations especially don’t want to be bothered by their pain-in-the-ass customers with their tedious complaints and demands. Every time I see the smirking face of that quasi-autistic ninny, Bill Gates, I have to wonder why he doesn’t apply a tiny fraction of his gargantuan fortune to hire a few actual humans to answer the phone at Microsoft instead of that insulting tele-robot. I suppose it would hurt his feelings to learn how badly his own products work, especially just after you purchase MS Office — as I had to do last week with the 2019 upgrade — and flounder your way through the maze of protocols to get the damn thing up-and-running.

Forgive the excursion into personal reminiscence, but I remember the time some decades back when I was a 26-year-old reporter on what was then called a newspaper (as opposed to a bulletin of moral instruction from Wokesterdom). I could call just about any company in the land saying I was a reporter for ________ and get the Chief Executive on the phone in a New York minute. (It ain’t bragging if it’s true.) This was the case, of course, for thousands of other reporters on hundreds of newspapers in America. If a story was especially dicey, you could work your way up the whole C-suite food chain collecting all kinds of contradictory, ass-covering information until you got to the Big Orca at the top, and lever his mouth open with what you learned from his underlings. It worked when dealing with the government too. You could lay a line of talk on some receptionist — say, invoking the term “grand jury” ­— and get her boss on the phone pronto. I think it went quite a ways to keeping the people who run things honest.

Woodward and Bernstein could never investigate a case like Watergate under today’s conditions. Deep Throat wouldn’t even answer his phone. The two reporters would find themselves so far up an automated answering tree that they would disappear across an event horizon and find themselves in an alternative universe where Richard Nixon was a relief pitcher for the Montreal Expos and Fred Rogers sat in the Oval Office… and there would be no story to tell. These days, apparently, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee can’t even get a hold of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. They left a message on his phone a few months ago and he hasn’t even deigned to send a text back.

This national telephone quandary is a prime example of the diminishing returns of technology. We’ve spent thirty-odd years and countless billions of dollars computerizing all the phone systems in this country, and then overlaid so many bells and whistles on top of it, and the net effect is that it only made communication worse. Combine that with one of my cardinal rules of human social behavior — that you can’t overstate people’s ability to misunderstand each other — and you might apprehend the darkness we’ve entered.

We’re currently being treated to another playing-out of these diminishing returns of technology in a related realm of communication: financial markets. Go ahead and put algo robots in charge of the system and see how things work out. Today we’re informed in The New York Bulletin of Wokesterdom that “the President’s Working Group” (also known as the Plunge Protection Team) is convening to assess the ongoing damage to stock indexes. The PPT at least is composed of humans. But are the trading algos a fair match for them? I doubt it. I suspect the PPT and the rest of America will discover we’ve blundered into the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scenario, a techno-magical, runaway, recursive feedback-loop fiasco. How odd, though, that this is all happening during the holiest week of the year.

Sleep in heavenly peace tonight, everybody, as Santa makes his way across the rooftops and homeless tarps of our Republic. Your call is important to us!


This blog is sponsored this week by McAlvany ICA. To learn more visit: https://icagoldcompany.com/


Just Out! Previously Unpublished!
From the Jeff Greenaway Series

At Ponsonby Hall, a new Hampshire prep school for screw-ups, things are far from all right.
“Audaciously hilarious”
$7.00 — Cheap! Buy!
(Read Excerpt)

 

Something Strange is going on at Camp Timahoe in Lost Indian, Vermont, summer of 1962.
Rollicking fun
$7.50 — Cheap! Buy!
(Read Excerpt)

New Paintings by JHK 2016 — 2017


Great Summer Reading… JHK’s Hippie Novel!

“Simply the best novel about the 1960s.”

Read the first chapter here (click) on Patreon
Buy the book at Amazon or click on the cover below
or get autographed copies from Battenkill Books


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!

JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Other Books by JHK
The World Made By Hand Series:

Book 1:
World Made by Hand
Book 2:
The Witch of Hebron
Buy World Made By Hand Signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy World Made By Hand on AmazonBuy World Made By Hand at Northshire Books Buy The Witch of Hebron signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy The Witch of Hebron on AmazonBuy The Witch of Hebron at Northshire Books
Book 3:
A History of the Future
Book 4:
Harrows of Spring
Signed and local from Battenkill BooksAvailable on AmazonAvailable at Northshire Books Signed and local from Battenkill BooksAvailable on AmazonAvailable at Northshire Books
Geography of Nowhere The Long Emergency
Available on Kindle Buy The Long Emergency signed and local from Battenkill BooksBuy The Long Emergency on AmazonBuy The Long Emergency at Northshire Books

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page


This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted


Order now! Jim’s new book
About the tribulations of growing up

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Barnes and Noble

Order now! Jim’s other new book
A selection of best blogs 2017 to now!

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Troy Bookmakers


Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15


GET THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL PROVIDED BY SUBSTACK

You can receive Clusterfuck Nation posts in your email when you subscribe to this blog via Substack. Financial support is voluntary.

Sign up for emails via https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com


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.

413 Responses to “Merry Christmas to All”

  1. Georges1202 December 24, 2018 at 9:52 am #

    Yes, Jim – my favorite fob-off is the now standard “All our agents are currently helping other customers…” and the faux-sincere “We are experiencing high call volume…however we REALLY care about your call” (really? at 4am? EST)

    I have been a Microsoft Engineer since Jesus was a corporal. It was always well known, even among the anointed, that a call to Microsoft was always greeting by a kind of telephone wallet biopsy.

    Have a Merry!

    • shotho December 24, 2018 at 10:12 am #

      I hope he forces the whole damn thing to shutdown.

    • DrTomSchmidt December 24, 2018 at 10:23 am #

      “Of course this shithead never did a thing without $$ in mind”

      Did he run for President to make more money? He did manipulate the media and spend FAR less than Jeb or Hillary. But I don’t think that’s the sense of what you wrote.

    • Anon1970 December 24, 2018 at 12:58 pm #

      Try getting a hold of Uber on the phone. I found an 800 number by doing a Google search, only to be told by the automatic message system that I would not be allowed to speak to someone or even leave a message. I would have to leave my complaint/questions on Uber’s web site. When i asked for a cancellation fee to be reversed, the best the robots would do for me was to give me a $5 credit on a future ride and still not let me talk to someone.

      My credit card company was much more cooperative. It reversed the cancellation charge after I told them that I had made a good faith effort to get an explanation from a real person. Two weeks later, the only email I have received from Uber was that one of my drivers had given me a 5 out of 5 rating (highest). The Uber robots have not closed my account or if they have, they have not bothered to tell me.

      • DrTomSchmidt December 24, 2018 at 2:54 pm #

        They are the worst. 120 billion dollar market cap is there the IPOis going. Well, guess which stock I am going to short?

        The absolute worst customer service ever.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 5:25 pm #

        I didn’t even know they a phone number. I thought it was all by app. Or is that what you meant?

    • K-Dog December 24, 2018 at 10:27 pm #

      Like an old time phone-receiver bouncing on its cord this comment falls from the top and finally finds a place on the clusterfuck wall.

      Such is life, Hanging on the telephone.

      Merry Christmas to All

    • K-Dog December 24, 2018 at 10:28 pm #

      I have been a Microsoft Engineer since Jesus was a corporal.

      Ha, you’re busted. They don’t last that long!

  2. Georges1202 December 24, 2018 at 9:54 am #

    The Dow has slipped over 300 points early. The brighter lights are saying that the ‘Santa Claus Rally’ might be in jeopardy.

    You don’t say…

    • Ol' Scratch December 24, 2018 at 10:31 am #

      Great news! It’s a Festivus miracle!

  3. stelmosfire December 24, 2018 at 10:06 am #

    Another one. Not relevant to the blog but one more to the list. My wifes cousin joins the ranks 12/24/2018 Opioid OD. Count as of today. 1. My son, 6/2015 2. Brother in law, 8/2017. 3 Best Friend and music making buddy 12/12. 4.Another good buddy, 06/17. It keeps coming non-stop. Merry Christmas to all my CFN friends!

    • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 10:22 am #

      Sackler family makes the pills.

      • Eoin December 24, 2018 at 11:37 am #

        Yeah, but at least they(Endo, global, Purdue, et al.) answer the phone when you call them.

        Everybody wants to blame the Manufacturer’s , the Sales staff, the Physicians, etc. How come no one talks about people who cannot seem to take their medicine as prescribed, and end up dead ?
        Most folks who take pain meds do so for years without overdosing, not even once.
        The entire “Opioid Epidemic” is nothing more than a distraction.
        In the mid-seventies, it was heroin.
        Eighties, Cocaine, and its burnable form “Crack”.
        Difference between the mid-seventies, and now ?
        Dope is killing White People !
        I hope that the next demon substance can be found quickly so vets in chronic pain can get what they need to keep living, and stop killing themselves when they get taken off their pain medication due to a manufactured “epidemic”.

        • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 12:01 pm #

          You seem very bitter and in a blame the victim stance.
          You even played the race card,

      • aibohphobia December 24, 2018 at 6:57 pm #

        Yes, its a bit mysterious.
        I hear it is still possible to call businesses in China and order bulk Fentanyl powder, which they will ship to anyone with no questions asked. Assuming it is not among the 5% of packages that get even a cursory glance, you too can have the chance to poison and kill thousands of people you don’t know, and maybe some that you do.

        OTOH, Oxycodone and Hydrocodone have a secondary effect on the MDMA receptors in the brain that makes you feel pain more intensely when they wear off– Its just as if they were designed to get people addicted to them….

    • elysianfield December 24, 2018 at 11:33 am #

      St. Elmo,
      Jesus, you have been visited by more than your share of adversity. Take care, remain centered, and stay safe. E

    • wet dog December 24, 2018 at 12:05 pm #

      st.elmo,

      I’m sorry to hear that, especially your son. I only have a small circle of acquaintances, but I know 4 people who have died from opioids in the last year, and a fifth had a stroke from meth. Maybe it’s from a sense of hopelessness? I don’t know.

      Best wishes through Christmas.

      • 100th Avatar December 24, 2018 at 3:30 pm #

        Maybe it’s from building a society not worth caring about because it’s a society that cannot care less.

        We saw and see the physical manifestations.
        Neighborhoods, streets, communities.

        Now we see the manifestation in our awful and low culture and our degraded psyche.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:35 pm #

      Sorry to hear about your loss and best wishes to you and your family.

    • TinySolar December 25, 2018 at 7:53 am #

      All these people died! I’m very sorry to hear this stelmos. That’s too many people to lose, especially your son.

      I know that there’s nothing that a stranger from the internet can say to make it better, but I do feel for you man, and I hope you do OK, and find a way to cope with it.

    • Hands4u December 25, 2018 at 2:05 pm #

      Sorry to hear of you and your family’s losses.

  4. shotho December 24, 2018 at 10:11 am #

    Excess communication is not a good thing. May the technology continue to bedevil and may the satellites fall.
    Complexity will eventually give way to simplicity again. It’s already happening in the financial markets.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:38 pm #

      Simple is a lot better.

    • rhys12 December 25, 2018 at 7:44 pm #

      As I get older I have increasing problems dealing with complexity. I believe the same is true for most elderly people. The population generally is aging. So why do they keep making health insurance more and more complex? Do we really need to have the choice of 50 slightly differing plans? I just sent in an application for medicaid for my wife – a 3 inch thick sheaf of paperwork that cost me 4 days of work to find and photocopy. Computers have made it possible for government and corporations to make everything mind-numbingly complex and totally beyond understanding. At the same time, computer makers and programmers can’t standardize the simplest things. As was mentioned above, you can’t call a business and talk to a person without spending 15 minutes wading through a phone tree, and if you do they are in India reading off a script and you can’t understand them or get a useful answer. But at the same time, every telemarketer and robocaller on the planet can call you continually even though you have a cell and are also on the do not call list. Leading to the present situation where I seldom answer my phone unless the person is on my call list and their name pops up. Unfortunately, corporate callers like in health care are always calling from different numbers, so I miss a number of important calls. The lack of interest by phone companies and governments about doing anything at all about this situation is making telephones totally useless. If I wasn’t married I likely wouldn’t even own one.

  5. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 10:12 am #

    Merry Christmas Everybody!

    Let the Christmas Spirit cast away the spell put on this great Nation by the old ugly Witch, Bastinda the Great and Terrible, the Wicked Witch of the West!

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • shotho December 24, 2018 at 10:14 am #

      “the Christmas spirit” is called the incarnation of God.

      • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 10:23 am #

        And dear God, gather all her Flying Monkeys and send the flying away to the Winter Nests located at Gitmo!

        You could start with the biggest, ugliest, with longest tale Flying Monkey Mueller.

        We all under the Mueller’s Hood:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtAkGmxdYbs&t=75

        • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 11:34 am #

          Fincain, sir

          Watched the entire video. There is one enormous flaw. Almost forever JHK has been reporting our economy is one gigantic scam being manipulated by “grifters” and blah, blah.

          Your presenter in the video asserts the Fed is just raising interest rates to undo an otherwise great economy just to make Trump look bad.

          Which is it? Jim has been wrong all this time about the un-wholesomeness of our economy or your guy is on his ass.

          • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 11:59 am #

            I said it all along:

            As one would expect, the city of New York is slowly but surely becoming the epicenter of the US civil war, as the Southern District of the New York Federal Prosecutor’s Office is becoming the main headquarters of the Clintonoids’ war with Donald Trump and the war of Clinton Cash against the US Economy.

            http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/sleepwalkers-awoke/#comment-386231

            Just like in 2008, when Hillary Clinton, by denying the bailout funds for Lehman Brothers, arranged a financial catastrophe leading to millions of Americans losing their homes.

            And she did it to settle political scores with Lehman Brothers, which financed the election campaign of Barack Obama (using Bushes family funds, by the way).

          • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 12:07 pm #

            I bet she didn’t forget to convey the message to all her Flying Monkeys – Short the fuck out of the stock market now!

            To think about it, that makes me think of certain financial escapades of Lil Debbie Snack Packaging – is he in the know?!

          • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 12:10 pm #

            Sober up Fincain

            In 2008, when Bush was president? …and Hillary was just someone who you fantasized about in hopes of boosting your libido?

          • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 12:18 pm #

            She managed to organize a substantial Islamist war on American troops in Iraq – and it was during Bush presidency.

            She almost managed to organize a nuclear war between Russia and the United states in August of 2008, when President Bush was away in Olympics in Beijing, by giving orders to Georgian troops to kill Russian Peacekeepers in South Ossetia.

            You underestimate Hillary – she just does not give a flying you know what who’s the President at any given moment.

          • shotho December 24, 2018 at 1:50 pm #

            His guy is on his ass.

      • rhys12 December 25, 2018 at 7:46 pm #

        Yes. The only hope for this failing nation.

  6. thenuttyneutron December 24, 2018 at 10:20 am #

    Jim, STOP paying money to M$!

    I grew tired of their bullshit many years ago and decided to use Open Office after struggling to reinstall M$ Office on my laptop after a HD upgrade.

    https://www.openoffice.org/

    This is an Open source project.

    I like Windows 7 but will now move on and never again use a M$ operating system again in my future machines. They got greedy and made using their products a royal pain in the ass. I have had to “verify” my Windows 7 install as being legitimate multiple times despite having used it for the last 10 years on the same Dell laptop with the license sticker on the bottom.

    Why are they pulling this shit on me? Are they upset that I am not upgrading my PC like everyone else? I have only changed the hard drive out to a SSD and installed the maximum allowed amount of memory in it. I also have a USB keyboard plugged in to the laptop and a large 20″ monitor connected to it via HDMI.

    I am using this 10 year old laptop now to type this post. Until the recent “patch” of the Intel CPU bug earlier this year, it was extremely fast and did everything that I needed it to do. It has been slowed down with the patch a bit but I refuse to upgrade for now.

    Fuck M$. I have the license to use the products forever as long as I keep it on this machine.

    I am cheering for Mr. Powell to bring price discovery back into the markets. How in the hell does it benefit us to allow companies to leverage themselves up while buying their own stock? The price of money needs to factored in. We fucked up badly 10 years ago by bailing out the financial system. We should have instead given the TARP money to FDIC and told the major banks to go off and die somewhere. Obama made things worst by not assigning the DOJ to prosecute the bad actors. What incentive is there for people to not behave badly?

    • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 10:28 am #

      Fuck M$

      Microsoft still chasing bugs they inherited when stealing software from “Digital”.

      And “Digital” stole that software from the Serbian software company, which was one of the reasons to bomb, bomb, bomb Orthodox Serbia to smithereens.

      God will NOT be put to shame!

    • Luhrenloup December 24, 2018 at 11:32 am #

      Have other posters on JHK used openoffice.org/?
      Thoughts?

    • wet dog December 24, 2018 at 12:11 pm #

      Open Office or Libre Office are pretty solid. For most people (95%), it gets the job done. I use Libre on my Mac and it works well.

      I still have Word 2003 which I use on Windows. It works fine and there’s no ridiculous yearly tax to pay. When I use Word 2016 on the work laptop, it’s barely any improvement, and the ribbons are excessively annoying. MS came up with ribbons because they had nothing left to innovate.

      The constant yearly tax from MS is just to screw you. Looking back from the 90’s, most software has barely improved. That’s how pathetic this industry is. Word 2003 was paid for once, and I never needed anything more. But MS has to milk everyone to death,

    • kapnkirk December 24, 2018 at 2:12 pm #

      Agreed that there is little reason to buy/use MS Office.

      Regarding OpenOffice, it’s not really supported or being developed for anymore. A well supported option is “LibreOffice” which is a fork off of the same software base from around 2010. I use and recommend LibreOffice all the time.

      I also agree that many versions of Linux (e.g. Linux Mint, Ubuntu) are as good as Windows by now and often easier to install. Main problem is if people want to run Windows specific software (e.g. Quickbooks) they’re kind of stuck keeping a Windows PC around.

      LibreOffice runs beautifully on Linux, so the best of both worlds. And it’s all FREE. (Although nice to give them a donation!)

  7. Sunflower December 24, 2018 at 10:27 am #

    Remember, those calls are now monitored for quality assurance. Who or what is doing the monitoring?

    • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 10:44 am #

      I know who – the Mueller’s team. They are in charge now, a new, “better” Gestapo.

      • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 11:04 am #

        Well, Fincaln, perhaps you recall the surname of the last chief of the GeStaPo … 😀

        Cheers

        • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 11:10 am #

          The Witches reincarnated Heinrich Müller of the Third Reich to work for them.

          He is no longer human.

  8. Paulo December 24, 2018 at 10:37 am #

    Wood and Bern would do just fine investigating these days.

    Follow the leaks, find and follow the money, and accept that it really is that blatant and that bad. Actually, these days the malfeasance is hiding in plain sight and yes, they are all crooks and con artists hoodwinking a cadre of idiots. It is going down in broad daylight.

    Trump will be removed by his own party when the Senate repubs desert him after jan 3rd. Unless he turns turtle and recants.

    Interesting, Justice Reform is done just before the indictments. Even that’s self-serving.

    Note to Donald and family, “Buy vaseline”.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 12:20 pm #

      So why haven’t they investigated Hillary and the Clinton Foundation? In the end, they’re just Democratic Party hacks like all the rest.

    • revilo December 25, 2018 at 2:30 pm #

      Woodward and Bernstein were just conduits for partisans in the government who wanted to bring down Nixon. Same way Judith Miller was a conduit for those who wanted war in Iraq. These people are literally nothing but stooges who are plugged into the deep state and do their bidding. Friggin Deepthroat didn’t even exist–it was a fictional construct for a lovely tale about our cantankerous 4th estate.

      • S M Tenneshaw December 28, 2018 at 8:50 am #

        Yeah, right. Nutsie Nixie was a true blue patriot, haw haw haw.

  9. akmofo December 24, 2018 at 10:38 am #

    ..Wokesters of Wokesterdom appear weary and bored with Wokesterism..
    ==

    Maybe it’s because they sense, and some even know, that they are really programmed automatons in a scripted fake theater. Where nothing is real, except Vatican Romanism in all its variations: from Fascism to Corporatism to Nazism to Communism to Socialism to Globalism to Imperialism to Statism, and all the other mutations of Central Control and Command. Of-course, what is REAL is never explicitly or critically on display on the propaganda outlets, except to further the fake scripted PsyOP dialectic of slavery to Caesar.

    Yes, Merry Romanism to All

    • shotho December 24, 2018 at 1:54 pm #

      Who would have thought all of those vaticanistas were so smart?

      • akmofo December 24, 2018 at 3:00 pm #

        They’re not. They don’t seem to understand basic human psychology. Or maybe they do, but it’s all a deliberate affront to YeHeVeH. Likely it’s a combination of both, along with institutional perseverate.

        Anyway, what they are good at is making people ignorant by poisoning them with deliberate lies and chemical warfare. In the land of the blind the one eye gimps are King.

  10. Ron Anselmo December 24, 2018 at 10:43 am #

    This national telephone quandary is a prime example of the diminishing returns of technology. We’ve spent thirty-odd years and countless billions of dollars computerizing all the phone systems in this country, and then overlaid so many bells and whistles on top of it, and the net effect is that it only made communication worse. – JHK

    Exactly, and with all the additional means to contact people. We’ve made it so easy to get in touch with everyone, that we can’t get in touch with anyone.

    Remember the old “string & tin cans” means of talking to one another when we were kids. Nowadays, it’s as if there are 15 strings, totaling 30 tin cans. If your talking into can number 7, what are the chances your friend is listening to can 7 on his side? Astronomical.

    So, yes, it’s so easy to get in touch with people, that we can’t get in touch with anyone anymore. Thanks technology, for all those options. Big help!

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 11:02 am #

      @Ron

      Funny how items like (real) telephone numbers and email addresses are hard to come by anymore.

      I think the socially acceptable blow-off of the 21st century has become, “I’m on Facebook”.

      Cheers

      • Ricechex December 25, 2018 at 10:41 pm #

        Ha ha! So true. I don’t use FB any longer. Haven’t for years. I have friends that call and when we are catching up they say “didn’t you see it on FB?” Check out FB for the pictures. It is as if we are expected to be checking FB.

    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 11:10 am #

      “We’ve made it so easy to get in touch with everyone, that we can’t get in touch with anyone.”

      And we are being given access to more and more information all the time, yet we know less and less every day. Those who work are compensated less and those who prey on those who work make even more. Our entire society has done an about face and is now eating itself backwards. Soon it will consume its own tail and then the real fun will begin.

      So taking into consideration the fact that it is Christmas, it should be a good time to step back, see it for what it is, and take at least a little bit of time to concentrate on what is good, decent, and honest. Have a peaceful, considerate and caring time these next few days regardless of what you may or may not believe.

      • ozone December 24, 2018 at 11:56 am #

        Thanks Walter; I shall.
        And I wish the same for you and yours.

      • shotho December 24, 2018 at 1:57 pm #

        Thanks, and maybe it will carry over to the rest of year. All it takes is to control the greed and fear, die to self and live for others. Easy to say, hard to do. But, anything worth doing is never easy.

    • seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 11:21 am #

      Where it’s particularly embarrassing is within families. You have email, cell phones, landline phones, twitter, facebook, overnight mail, regular mail, texting and on and on and you know what, people don’t use a single one of them. It used to be you could call or write and you know what, people did. Now they don’t. They don’t have anything to say to one another.

      • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:40 pm #

        I agree with you. That is a big problem with a lot of families today.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 2:12 pm #

        Your real family is the people you spend time with. In your case, the guy on the barstool next to you at any number of New Orleans dives.

      • wet dog December 24, 2018 at 3:19 pm #

        I miss the times back in the 90’s where I could write a 5 page letter to my girlfriend in another state, wait a week and a half, and get a long letter back. I could see that she spent time on it, thought about her ideas, and wrote in an elegant script.

        That’s a totally different experience from email, or texting (which I refuse to do). It’s something your parents did to each other, what Jane Austen’s characters did (!) 2 centuries ago, and it was far more satisfying.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 5:29 pm #

          No one stops you from doing that now. – if you can find a girl who would want to do it. Perhaps that’s the rub. There are so few good women now.

  11. teddyboy46 December 24, 2018 at 10:46 am #

    you can’t overstate people’s ability to misunderstand each other. That’s sums up the American Culture since the 1990s , and it did not happen by accident , but by design .

    • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2018 at 10:55 am #

      Be exact, it happened since 1992, and you all know what happened in 1992.

  12. pequiste December 24, 2018 at 10:55 am #

    NO modern company answers their calls except via the A.I. black box demon; true that.

    Then one spends 15 minutes pressing buttons in response to an interrogative program that the GeheimStaatsPolizei would sure have loved to have.

    Wait until you see what the fucking geniuses from Silicon Valley, MIT, and Darpa have in store for the antiquated and detested terrestrial snail mail. “Your check is in the mail” will metamorphose into “We’re sorry, your Blockchain payment has apparently been sent to The Bank of Nibiru” in error and there is no way to retrieive it. Please resend your payment or we will be required to shut down your cell phone service.”

    A Merry Christmas to all at the CFN.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4puLybRGSAw *WARNING*

    *(This shall trigger primary school principals, school board diversity monitors, SJWs. atheists, and believers in a certain religion.)

    Peace on Earth. Goodwill to All.*

    *(UNtil the Evil Fuckers decide to initiate WWIII that is.)

  13. montsegur December 24, 2018 at 10:57 am #

    Jim,

    I don’t agree with some of your assertions, but more often I appreciate your plain speaking. The USA, by comparison, has become masterful at blowing smoke . . .

    Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

    • volodya December 24, 2018 at 11:25 am #

      When someone speaks plainly it’s as if they’ve committed a faux pas. People look at one another and say, tell us what you REALLY think. I’ve seen it done to others and myself on occasion.

      It’s like Napoleon said, if you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna. If you’re going to make a point, make a point.

      Highly educated Americans have become adepts at either concealment or mischaracterization. Blowing smoke as you say. Concealing a fact doesn’t make it disappear. Mischaracterizing a fact doesn’t change that fact. Calling something other than what that something is doesn’t change the reality of it.

      But maybe this is a different facet of the communication problem that Jim talks about.

      You can’t get anybody on the phone nowadays which puts the lie to any smooth sounding phrases from the corporate communication department that the company gives a damn about its customers.

      But email is a different thing. In the workplace it’s become an impediment to getting things done with everybody getting in each others way. Back in the good ole days before PCs and word processing software, you’d write up a memo, get the secretary to type it up, then you’d review it, find a couple typos and omissions and give it back for re-typing. And so you’d think twice before doing it given the rigmarole.

      Same type of thing before the advent of voicemail. Playing telephone tag by leaving messages with somebody’s receptionist, secretary, switchboard operator was a pain in the ass. And so you’d think twice about that too. And so would your counterparts.

      What this reluctance to communicate accomplished was to free everybody up to do their damn jobs, to make decisions and get on with things. IMO what has happened with the coming of communications technology is to slow productivity in the workplace and to piss off customers.

      Do you enjoy getting an Indian call center with the impenetrable accents?

      • elysianfield December 24, 2018 at 11:41 am #

        “You can’t get anybody on the phone nowadays which puts the lie to any smooth sounding phrases from the corporate communication department that the company gives a damn about its customers.”

        Volodya,
        …Speeds may vary….

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 12:25 pm #

        Indians are very comfortable with lying. You know you have a bad one when they get sing songy – an Indian female specialty. They start running words together – and even if they speak English well it becomes incomprehensible.

  14. Walter B December 24, 2018 at 10:58 am #

    What a great Christmas present Jim, thank you. If I were to ever run into gutless Bill Gates in public, a crowd would have to hold me back to keep me from beating him into bad health. It is not the skyscraper pile of cash he has amassed that irks me. That seems a suitable punishment for such a sellout. It is the social destruction and penultimate parasitic existence that he and his Techno-bauble industry has inflicted upon our society that burns my buns.

    In the old days we used to draw and design machinery and systems on paper, then vellum and tally component lists and pricing on lined yellow legal pads. Reams and reams of them. We were promised, warned, or threatened that these old methods would one day be replaced by technologies and that we would become extinct by it. Bullshit we cried, bring it on, it will make our work easier we would declare. Our kind were always the sort that could easily adapt and thrive with innovation. Unfortunately for us, we did. While Quattro Pro spreadsheets (replaced by Excel) were inconceivably productive and time saving and AutoCAD allowed us to do the same amount of work in one day that used to take five, we paid huge prices for both. The spreadsheet programs we had 30 years ago were maxxed out at efficiency and usefulness and the only improvement in the last 30 years has been that now Bill Gates wants to make you pay for them ever year, and soon, every day. Provide a service once and receive payments every day thereafter, sort of like Mic Jagger but without the entertainment. Computer Aided Drafting did allow us to do five times the work, but we did it all at the same pay and eventually at much less when the kids came out of tech school and made drawings for minimum wage.

    In the end, it is the greed of men that destroys everything it touches. It is the total lack of greed, replaced by the total selfness of Jesus that makes this season so special for those of us that believe in Him. For those that do not, the joy and peace of selflessness can still be had and I hope that you all will experience it. For all of the greedy bastards out there, you have my deepest sympathy for you shall not find peace either in this life or the next.

    • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 11:14 am #

      Walter B,

      I’ll bet you recall a skill known as “mechanical drawing”. And items like T-Squares. Yeah, those guys were genuinely skilled.

      And check on the software’s capabilities. Everything looks -prettier- these days, but much of the basic function is the same as when we used Word Perfect and DBase III+ .

      Thanks for the good comments over the months here, and best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

      Cheers

      • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 11:24 am #

        Actually montsegur, I was one of them. I still have a few of the hand made drawings I made decades ago. The muscle between my right thumb and forefinger was massive enough to crack walnuts! I even did a couple of pen and ink drawings using my Grandfather’s old set for advertising projects.

        Thank you for your kind words my friend. I pray you find peace and relaxation during this time off and are safe, well and healthy.

      • wet dog December 24, 2018 at 12:43 pm #

        DBaseIII ! Boy, those were actual craftsmen back then building software. The front-end UI tools I use today are nowhere near the quality of DBase, Delphi, or Paradox. Not even close.

        Software, for the most part, has significantly regressed over these years in power and capabilities. But most kids don’t realize there were far superior tools in the pre-internet days.

        • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 2:52 pm #

          No kidding about the decline in software and its capabilities. How many people use an assembler any more or even know what one is?

          Not to say the most powerful tools were the best solution to any given problem, but at least, in the old days, the option was there. Today, one has to hop through a hoop just to work with a command-line interface.

          Cheers

      • pedal pusher December 24, 2018 at 6:17 pm #

        In the course of my work I often update mechanical drawings for a manufacturer. My deliverable is an Adobe PDF file that gets stored in a digital vault on a server. Part of the ECO (engineering change order) process is digging through a flat file drawing vault in a warehouse storage loft and replacing a hard copy of a previous revision with an 8.5″ x 11″ laser printed sheet. Occasionally the drawing to be retired is a hand drawn, ink on vellum treasure that dates from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. These works of art are incredible. They are signed and dated by the draftsman, the drawing checkers, and the engineers. The company still has an engineering technician who worked with some of these people in the 80’s. I mention the names on the drawings I retire and its as if a ghost from a forgotten era visits for the afternoon.

    • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 11:44 am #

      Mr. Walter B

      You seem to exhibit a violent streak overly often for being such a withered old coot.

      “…hold me back to keep me from beating him into bad health.”

      • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 12:24 pm #

        It is only a way of expressing my frustration Eve, you have mistaken my words. I have never been a violent man nor am I one now and have always worked within the system to bring about change even though the only way change can come about is through a good old fashion bashing. No, violence begets violence and those who resort to it are admitting that they have no talents or skills within themselves to fix anything, only to break them. You know, like our own federal government.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 12:32 pm #

          Yet Christ was violent with the money changers in the Temple. But also said, Those who live by the sword shall die by it – after advising his followers to carry a few.

          We don’t know what He thought about the whole thing, not really. The best minds concluded that pacifism is a genuine vocation for a very few who are called to it – a rule of perfection as the saying goes. The rest must fight for existence as per natural law – and defend those who follow the counsel of perfection NOT to fight. They in turn must pray for those who protect them. The Amish follow this righteous path. The Quakers in contrast have always mocker their protectors.

          • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 12:44 pm #

            Indeed Janos, our faith might request that we turn the other cheek, but it does not preclude us from taking a stand when it is time for a stand to be taken. Since forgiveness is available for those who believe, fighting back with great gusto is not a deal breaker, is it? There are still some people of faith that it is not a good idea to push too far. A real shame that the progressives do not understand this.

          • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:54 pm #

            I wonder if it’s because some people naturally are inclined to fight and be fighters. So they fulfill that role for society. And some people are naturally inclined to be pacifists. They have their place in society too. There is a such thing as a warrior who doesn’t live by the sword in his heart isn’t there? Sometimes you simply do what must be done.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 1:45 pm #

            Some have said the Pen is mightier than the Sword, but by itself it is impotent. It must be backed up by the Sword. The Constitution can’t save us just as it’s not going to save the Whites of South Africa. The Blacks are changing it in order to legally steal their land.

            The Pen is a Sword, that sheds ink. The Sword is a Pen that writes in blood. Mind and Body. Only together do they make a Whole Man.

      • devon44 December 27, 2018 at 10:56 am #

        What’s wrong with having a violent streak? That can come in very handy while living in an evil world such as this. You would sure as hell hope your man had a violent streak if you were threatened and needed protection.

        Typical woman, always trying to be the ’emotion police’ for men. Yeah, sometimes we get angry, and want to smash the shit out of people. So fucking what?

    • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 11:50 am #

      Y’all may have noticed that Gates is no longer at the helm when it comes to what comes out of MS so perhaps he could be a little put off himself by how second rate their product has become.

      I’m only speculating here because I’ve been away from MS for so long I’ve had temptations to go back as my frustration with the deterioration of Apple has grown. After reading today’s assessment of MS here I guess that won’t be happening either.

      • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 12:05 pm #

        eehhh … I don’t care for either supplier. Apple is forever locked in a house of mirrors in which the firm constantly admires its own reflection. MS has always delivered bloated products.

        Back in the MSDOS days, I tried a Borland assembler at one point. In a flash, the command line was cursor was blinking again. I thought, “Didn’t work …” But it had. I was so used to MS compilers and linkers grinding – on and on – … that when I worked with a comparable Borland product, I could not believe how quickly it had functioned.

        Windows is a mess. It works to a degree, but the latest laptop needed a LOT of tweaking, sometimes at registry level, to make the functioning and appearance acceptable.

        We don’t have to worry much about drivers anymore. I suppose that is an improvement.

        Cheers

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:46 pm #

      Well put Walter. Greed and selfishness are destroyers. Charity and selflessness always help to counter-balance those sins we can’t quite get away from.

  15. Luhrenloup December 24, 2018 at 11:13 am #

    Microsoft Word? Bad, bad, bad. I have the 2011 version. Each new conception gets worse than the last one. Their designers seem to work on the basis of making their software ever more difficult for writers to manipulate. Why can’t I lock in my favorite fonts instead of being presented with that ugly Cambria every time? Such a simple,essential detail. Trying to set up the document in other than 8.5 x 11 page format is more complex than the Rubik’s Cube puzzle. As Steve Jobs said about Gates’ company, “they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product,.” Ugly, clunky, inefficient.

    Merry Christmas Jim, and to all posters!

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 11:18 am #

      They did the same damned thing with AutoCAD. The first version or two was fine and sufficed for just about anything you could want to do. By the time they degraded it to AutoCAD 15 it was impossible to even get started on. I don’t get it, how come we all have to come up with a new value for what we do to get paid every day and these “software” assholes are knee deep in forcing us all to pay them more and more simple because the calendar date changes?

  16. seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 11:13 am #

    Trump and Schumer should just pull out their peckers and let Nancy Pelosi measure and see who’s bigger. At least there would be some progress.

    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 11:19 am #

      Because Nancy’s is bigger.

      • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 11:51 am #

        Not just an old man, but a vile old man you are. Tsk, tsk.

        • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 12:25 pm #

          So is Nancy Eve. Aren’t you as well?

          • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 1:25 pm #

            Pelosi is a tough, competent, well grounded person who could have been the best president in our lifetimes and god knows for you that would be a shit load number of presidents.

          • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 1:31 pm #

            Sorry but she is a dottering geriatric with no future and should not be allowed to be in a position where she sets the future for those that shall have to live it. Every futuristic novel includes euthanasia, and while I am not advocating the idea, the fact that they do is very telling.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 1:41 pm #

            She’s an odious little tyrant who has condemned our Constitution abroad. Yet she is in charge of interpreting it for us? How fucked up is that? Needless to say she’s been committed to changing it in ways never intended – making it compatible with “international law” for example.

          • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 2:49 pm #

            Back up your inane assertions with something meaningful.

            Pretty rich, Walter the geriatric who had no future except cracking walnuts the day he popped out of his mother’s womb.

            Pelosi ground up and spit Trump out in his only real encounter with her. A fine taste he got to the road of misery she is going to send him down.

          • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 4:11 pm #

            Naw, the Old Bitch doesn’t spit, she swallows.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 5:36 pm #

            And the winner is: Walt by a knock out. Eveleyn is on the mat with little birds twirling around her head.

          • seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 5:40 pm #

            Spitters always have big Jew noses hooking down pointing towards hell.

          • elysianfield December 24, 2018 at 5:51 pm #

            “Back up your inane assertions with something meaningful. ”

            Evelyn;

            “…Sometimes we have to pass a bill to see what is in it….”

          • S M Tenneshaw December 25, 2018 at 1:15 am #

            Kraut pigs like Fuckface77 always have flat noses because they’re kraut pigs who enjoy smelling their own shit as they shit all over themselves.

            77 Sunset Strip! Snap snap!

      • JohnAZ December 24, 2018 at 12:49 pm #

        Ha! That is the best comeback I have heard in a while.

  17. seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 11:16 am #

    “If my call is so important then why don’t they answer the fucking phone?” Tony Soprano griping to Dr. Melfie about what’s wrong with America.

  18. ozone December 24, 2018 at 11:40 am #

    Jim,
    Thanks for the “unguessed” and unambiguous missive this week, based on undeniable evidence.

    Let’s be very clear about what the players behind the curtain have been up to since they dropped that siege-engine bridge over that forbidden moat of “Thine Deep Operatives shalt not assassinate thine Chief Executive lest thou reap the whirlwind” waaaaay back in the forgotten era of the early ’60’s, most surely guided along by LBJ and Bush with his gaggle of spooks and misdirectors.

    Wellsir, they got away with it handily (no whirlwind reaping) and have been engaged in a flurry of ass-covering, subterfuge, murder for profit, Big Lies and consent manufacture ever since. (It’s similar to that horrid period of popular music in America where they just couldn’t let go of that C – Am – F – G structure, because it MADE MONEY consistently and reliably.) The benefits have been flowing to the same bloody-handed (and -minded) assholes ever since. Why change the formula for the secret sauce?

    So, we come to this strange point in the American narrative where nothing is genuine and a frankly shocking snarl of hypocrisy, deceit and double-speak are now taken for granted as business-as-usual. It’s really not so surprising that a heapin’ helpin’ of self-loathing is abroad in the land and a desperate attempt at a “return to the good-ol’-days” was entrusted into the pillow-soft hands of a real estate grifter with the cognitive ability of your average squirrel.

    Okay then… let’s celebrate what little agency for self-direction we still retain and focus on the importance of aiding and abetting our neighbors and ignoring the [mostly self-serving] directions and diktats of the benevolent overlords. Indulge! Family and friends take delight in seeing us enjoy ourselves (unless there’s troubles associated with the absorption of indulgent substances). Parameters may vary.

    Thanks for all the years, Jim; much appreciated from this actual individual. …Even though the government is still “up and running” despite panicked bleatings that say otherwise, enjoy this brief (if not genuine) holiday respite!

    • montsegur December 24, 2018 at 12:08 pm #

      @Ozone

      Yeah, it has been a long 55 years. RIP JFK.

      Cheers

  19. tucsonspur December 24, 2018 at 11:41 am #

    Who ya gonna call? Ballbusters!

    Christmas time chaos pervades the nation, and Trump is no Jesus to bring us salvation. But who is?

    What will be the ‘gift’ to fill the rift and build the wall? 1.9 billion, 2.3, 2.7, 3.6, 3.9? Right, go small and build the wall. Mister Scrooge, Mister Scrooge!

    Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!

    Have no further intercourse with Spirits, and like Scrooge himself learned to do, keep Christmas well.

    “God bless us, everyone”.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:26 pm #

      Merry Christmas tucsonspur!

      • tucsonspur December 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm #

        Same to you, SSL.

        “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining”.

  20. wet dog December 24, 2018 at 11:41 am #

    Merry Christmas, everyone!

    Thanks for all your thoughts this year. I’ve learned a lot from all of you.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  21. rexl December 24, 2018 at 11:52 am #

    The trick in our area, Phoenix, AZ. on the phones is, a lot of calls to buy any real property we own. A lot of calls to sign us up for ACA or some other government program. A lot of calls to sign us up for a new, and therefore better mortgage.
    It makes one wonder what would happen if they really needed the phones. Also, we have contemplated getting rid of the ‘land lines’ entirely, because most of the calls are not wanted.

    • ozone December 24, 2018 at 12:36 pm #

      rexl,
      First off, never, and I mean *never* give your phone number out to any business at the cashier’s station. There’s no law that says your must and the trouble that you bring on yourself from them “monetizing” your number by selling it onward is not worth the bennys supposedly accrued with that particular business.

      We did it once at a car dealer (of all places!) so that we could communicate the details of the purchase. Guess what? About a week later… blammo!… robocalls and boiler room scams appeared as if by a magic plague. The fuckers sold our number; I wonder how much it paid? …Probably not enough to cover the bad-mouthing loss-of-business that they are forever going to receive via yours truly.

      • rexl December 24, 2018 at 3:00 pm #

        We do not give out our phone number or anything else, for god’s sake. These are just dialing machines, there is usually a delay between picking up and the machine, during which one can merely hang up. I particularly like the police or fire union calling, I ask them, well haven’t I paid my taxes? But you also want more money? Phones have become useless, the more ubiquitous they have become.

      • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 3:07 pm #

        I get india calling, daily, fake costco calls, marriott hotel calls.

        • Tate December 24, 2018 at 4:49 pm #

          Merry Christmas, Mr. Malthuss.

          • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 10:10 pm #

            I wish I was merry.

            But thanks.

          • SoftStarLight December 25, 2018 at 7:44 pm #

            Merry Christmas Tate.

          • Tate December 25, 2018 at 9:52 pm #

            Merry Christmas to you too, SSL.

  22. malthuss December 24, 2018 at 12:03 pm #

    Paul Allen died last month.

  23. Robert White December 24, 2018 at 12:10 pm #

    Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism only requires a rigged economy to survive, and the PPT provides whatever the Ponzi Capitalists require because they are the Ponzi Capitalists.

    If I urinate on your leg and tell you it’s Trickledown Economics you better believe it or the whole system will crash under the weight of disbelief.

    Only the imprimatur can save you now, America.

    Merry X-Mas, eh.

    P.S. Don’t eat the yellow snow, Mr. Trump.

    RW

    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 12:40 pm #

      Unfortunately they are peeing on our heads and not our legs. At least it will be warm for a little while, right?

  24. Kevvia Knack December 24, 2018 at 12:19 pm #

    I like it when I call ExxonMobil to get my credit card balance and the automated system asks me if I would like to enroll in their “eco friendly” paperless billing system. ExxonMobil…ho hi ho ha ha ha

  25. SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 12:20 pm #

    Merry Christmas Mr. K! Thank you for sharing your visions with us. Visions of anarchy and insolvency dancing in our heads this Christmas Eve. And then we will have to start over from scratch like you and other prophets are saying. So God bless everyone in the new year ahead.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 6:15 pm #

      SSL – do you always have to be so ambiguous?

      Which god?

      The xian god is too busy starving children in Yemen and generally inflicting pain and suffering around the world when it’s not responding to all the knuckleheads beseeching it to influence the good fortunes of their football teams so I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be wasting your time on that one.

      • SoftStarLight December 25, 2018 at 7:42 pm #

        Merry Christmas to you too Evelyn :-)! Ambiguous? Now you don’t believe in the “xian god” you mention so let me know when you want to have a real discussion.

  26. My Point of View December 24, 2018 at 12:33 pm #

    There’s a “Plunge Protection Team?”

    I thought Trump didn’t bother with protection, didn’t bother using rubbers, that he plunges right in, that he’s a manly man, that he ‘grabs them by the pussy,’ that he ‘moved on her like a bitch’ and all that stuff. Oh woe. All is lost…

    Will the “Plunge Protection Team” require Olympic divers wear hard hats before taking a plunge off the ten meter platforms?

    Will the “Plunge Protection Team” require cleaning ladies wear hip waders before plunging a clogged toilet in Trump’s white house? I mean the Commander in Chaos needs a cool stool to tweet the fleet.

    Is the “Plunge Protection Team” gonna save Trump’s plunging ratings?

    I really don’t care, do you. Be best.

  27. Plunge protection levels:

    1. Nylon Hawaiian print trunks
    2. Snorkel
    3. Flippers, full face mask
    4. SCUBA tank
    5. Cast iron diving bell, 200 ft. of rope
    6. Mini-submersibe
    7. Colombian cocaine sub (long range)
    8. Triton class MK-22
    9. Deep Trench Explorer
    10. 100x leveraged put options on the S&P 500

    • pequiste December 25, 2018 at 3:26 pm #

      Tres drole, Lil Deb.

  28. Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 12:51 pm #

    https://kakistocracyblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/no-war-is-hell/

    Both the Neo-Liberals and Neo-Conservatives agree on that, and so much else. What about the Kurds, they scream and gibber. Their Ethnostate must be established. But I thought Ethnostates were unspeakably evil? Or are they only evil when they are White? Or do they become good when they help Israel somehow? Which one? Both? Or does it depend on whether they “move the envelope” towards World Government?

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 1:12 pm #

      Good point regarding the uni-party and their wasteful and bloody foreign adventures. Sure, a people thousands of miles away should have a complete homeland. Us? We aren’t even allowed a secure border.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 1:37 pm #

        If they don’t stop, we’ll have to flee to Mars – after nuking them from space.

        Just think, you’ll get to learn to skate on the Great Bear Lake on Mars. How Ursanine is that?

        • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:46 pm #

          Lol, if it were possible I bet it would be an amazing experience :-). No more roller skates. Nope, real ice skates! I wonder what the sky would look like….

  29. Dumbedup December 24, 2018 at 1:12 pm #

    There are very few people left in this country who practice genteel magnanimity. I don’t subscribe to the theory of “imminent collapse” but to restore our sense of honor and decency it may be necessary cross this particular Rubicon.

  30. JohnAZ December 24, 2018 at 1:16 pm #

    Merry Christmas, Felix Navidad, Joyeaux Noel.

    And a Happy New Year! To all the CFNers.

    The phone situation is just a part of a high tech governmental attempt to drive everyone apart. Think of the aim of the PC guys and gals for thirty years. Shop from home, work from home, communicate from home, by golly, we do not ever have to leave home. What an ideal situation.

    One problem. Most of the jobs in the world have to do with interrelationships, with a necessity to network and understand each other. Everyone goes home, that stops. And the tailspin begins! Maybe already.

    I tie a lot of it to the disconnect that started with email. Lord, what a perfect whipping boy. I didn’t see the email. The perfect excuse. Oh yeah, that is because I only read my email once a day to avoid anything that might make me anxious or actually do something. Telephone? Ha! Voice mail, maybe every other day. Just leave me alone. Facebook. Perfect, I do not ever have to respond to anyone, unless my post is meaningless.

    How much of human intelligence is tied into writing, reading and ‘arithmetic. Our lovely government and high tech sector is doing its darndest to tear down people’s intelligence by eliminating basic math skills, cursive writing, books, debate, civil discussion, compromise. Sound familiar? The result? Dependence on the government for vocations, education, what there is, welfare, etc. What is the aim point for the power Liberals? Just what you are witnessing.

    To add to it, bring in a whole new class of “dummies” from overseas that cannot or want to challenge the jerks in the Deep State. The US is heading to a situation where the Elite will be running the ignorant masses supported by the Federal government.

    Back to the Middle Ages. Is the feudal system Jim’s Long Emergency?

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 1:35 pm #

      The abominable Dr Pook admitted he helped develop Common Core to dumb Whites down.

      https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/03/teacher_admits_he_wrote_common_core_to_end_white_privilege_.html

      As either you or Walter said, learning why things are the way they are is something far beyond ordinary men, what to speak of little children. It’s far easier to move your arm then understand how you do it. Likewise, learning the times table or common addition is far easier than to understand than why these things are true. Bertrand Russell wrote a five hundred page book on things like why 1+1=2 or why a is a.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:38 pm #

      Merry Christmas JohnAZ!

  31. TPTB-USA December 24, 2018 at 1:22 pm #

    Jim, great post and “food for thought” subject as usual.

    “Forgive the excursion into personal reminiscence, …”

    In the above paragraph you describe how you have “gamed the system”. I contend that we are all hypocrites, that it is part of our DNA, a subset of our survival instinct. That being said, one needs to recognize that there are different degrees of “gaming the system”. For instance, it would seem that geese “gaming the system” by flying in V formation would have negligible detrimental impact, whereas we have yet to see and suffer the consequences of the ploys that the Muller team has used to “game the system” to their advantage. Why should it be a surprise that human nature dictates evolution?

    In order to avoid becoming a slave to the likes of Bill Gates, consider “gaming the system” by setting-up an older system, with dated software, a workhorse printer, and don’t connect it to the internet (some of us still have those components sitting in a cast iron bath tub down in the basement).

    Merry Christmas Jim.

    • Word processing will be big in TLE. Hopefully you will have some method of plugging it into your cow manure pond cogenerator.

      And unless you have it stored in a Faraday cage, the next coronal mass ejection will render it a door stop or ballast, as the case may be.

      • TPTB-USA December 24, 2018 at 3:36 pm #

        Looks like we have basically come to the same conclusion, that you either play the games, or loose by default.

        What are your proposals for dealing with entities like the Taliban who refuse to lay down and die peacefully? Throw the ballast at them?

  32. Exscotticus December 24, 2018 at 1:57 pm #

    At this point, I’m just happy with word processing software that doesn’t phone home to the mothership with the entire contents of my hard drive. Really—who is the watchdog that regulates what info can and can’t be gleamed from usage?

    Try this: afer you think you’ve turned off everything on your smart phone that might possibly be monitoring you, say “baby diapers” over the course of a few days, and see if you don’t see ads for baby diapers showing up…

  33. Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 2:03 pm #

    Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men (the modern version) is very different than, “Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will” – the correct version. And what then to the other kind of Men? He is a God of War and Vengeance and will deal harshly with them.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:37 pm #

      Merry Christmas Janos!

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 5:31 pm #

        Right back at ya.

        • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 10:09 pm #

          Happy hannukah

          • SoftStarLight December 25, 2018 at 7:46 pm #

            Merry Christmas malthuss :-).

  34. Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 2:09 pm #

    Microsoft tried to foist an obnoxious little fembot pal named Cortana on me. I went back to the older version of Windows sans Cortana. Alexis makes funny noises in the dead of night. And apparently the other night it told a foster kid to kill his foster parents.

    • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 6:08 pm #

      Janos, are you a foster kid? Not sure I’d want to sleep in the same house with you.

  35. malthuss December 24, 2018 at 2:50 pm #

    DJIA down 650 points today, 21800.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  36. amb December 24, 2018 at 2:55 pm #

    Happy “whatever doesn’t offend you” to all.

    Technology has far exceeded the humanities and humanity’s “understanding” of itself (i.e., spiritual and mental). As a result, the inmates have been running the asylum for quite some time. This is a recipe for utter chaos and destruction of civilization.

    Yet, in this current interim, I do think that Trump’s National Security Assessment is a piece of sanity–and pretty much explains and clarifies why he does what he does. Unfortunately, he stands alone without any support. Also… carrying out his NSA makes for a very good chance that he’ll be JFK’d.

    (I don’t see how any sane mind, who wants to someday be proud of their country again, could argue with this NSA — https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf)

    The US government (Deep State, MIC, Fascist entity, etc.) has an agenda, is deeply embedded, and retains all of the power. It has bungled along ever since WWII (often taking us to the brink of utter destruction). How can it ever reverse its trend? And more importantly, ever make amends for all of its crimes and sins on the world at large?

    I wish us all a world without immorality, insane ideologies, false data, and the resultant oppression and chaos they have brought to humanity. We’ve been in the grip of these since the beginning of time. I pray for TRUE enlightenment and evolution on a spiritual and mental plane.

    • malthuss December 24, 2018 at 3:05 pm #

      Why are people allowed to live? why not a planned die off?

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:32 pm #

      Yes, we do need a real spiritual enlightment.

      • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:34 pm #

        …enlightenment :-).

      • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 6:03 pm #

        OMG SSL, have you said a mouthful!!!

        Better yet if you change the 1st person plural to singular.

        • SoftStarLight December 25, 2018 at 7:58 pm #

          OMG Evelyn you are like, so right! I do need to focus on a spiritual elightenment for myself. And guess what? Last time I checked, nobody was perfect. Has that changed? I’m sure you’ll be able to clue me in. I recall you never answered my question about the enlightenment you have mentioned.

          • EvelynV December 26, 2018 at 2:45 am #

            SSL – sorry, I must have not seen it. What was your question?

          • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 11:32 am #

            Well, you mentioned having a consciousness expanding experience or experiences and coming to the conclusion that the reality we perceive is an illusion. At the time I responded with something like, “tell us more.” So I was just curious about it.

    • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 6:06 pm #

      As long as the last person breathes it could happen amb but in the wake of such an occurrence the tallest mountain in the world will be made of human corpses.

  37. seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 3:03 pm #

    All software ages poorly. What I don’t understand is why they try and give personality to the voice software. “I’m sorry but I didn’t understand what you said,” the voice says high pitched at first and then in a much lower register, “Please try again… and speak disticntly.” You try again and the same thing happens except she adds “Still.” This time you scream “Customer representative!” She repeats it one more time. You scream “CUSTOMER REPRESENTATIVE!!!!” “Oh I see. You want to speak to a customer representative.,” She says understandingly.

    • “All software ages poorly. ”

      I still have MS Office 98 and despite a few flaws, does most of what the 2019 version does except send money to microsoft.

      From a security standpoint, I would be cautious Word Processing on a non-air gapped PC in the modern era. Content is valuable. Sooner or later you’ll find your manuscript exposed on the Dark Web, repackaged and published by rogue operators.

  38. 100th Avatar December 24, 2018 at 3:20 pm #

    “…visions of sugarplums for the Deep Staters…”

    Did anyone hear or read Comey’s denial of the existence of a deep state?

    In that smug and sanctimonious middle class way, he defended our national state police and spying services. He defended the permanent bureaucratic class from SES to the upper GS.

    Condescending, in the way only a middle class catholic with an “education” can be, he poopooed the notion. So beneath him.

    This repellent man with a messiah complex knows better, does better, and is better than you, but nonetheless he still has the compassion and empathy and martyrdom that only an Irish Catholic can and will suffer for you and your well being.

    Trust him. Even when his cold uncalloused hands are feeling around inside your drawers. It for the better. Shhh, and trust him, and the lord.

    • SoftStarLight December 24, 2018 at 3:36 pm #

      He has always come off as shady to me. Halfway on everything but solid in nothing.

    • tucsonspur December 24, 2018 at 3:42 pm #

      See him here, with the pious, folded hands.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/comey-defends-fbi-interview-of-flynn-against-charges-of-bias-against-trump/2018/12/18/ac391146-0302-11e9-9122-82e98f91ee6f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5ae3fea8351a

      He’s a corrupt Creeping Jesus, a towering carbuncle of careerism and a Catholic contriver.

      And overall, I like the Irish.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2018 at 5:45 pm #

        Yes this one grew tall but never grew up or in – or out of his early chambers. No orchestras for him as he kicks off his mortal coil. Just a packing of the heavy black bags under his eyes where he stores his sins.

        The Chambered Nautilus

        THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
        Sails the unshadowed main,–
        The venturous bark that flings
        On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
        In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
        And coral reefs lie bare,
        Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

        Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
        Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
        And every chambered cell,
        Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
        As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
        Before thee lies revealed,–
        Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

        Year after year beheld the silent toil
        That spread his lustrous coil;
        Still, as the spiral grew,
        He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
        Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
        Built up its idle door,
        Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

        Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
        Child of the wandering sea,
        Cast from her lap, forlorn!
        From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
        Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
        While on mine ear it rings,
        Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–

        Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
        As the swift seasons roll!
        Leave thy low-vaulted past!
        Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
        Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
        Till thou at length art free,
        Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

        Oliver Wendell Holmes

        • tucsonspur December 25, 2018 at 3:07 am #

          A truly marvelous connection. May the elegant equiangular spiral of our chambered friend mock his downward linear descent.

        • SoftStarLight December 25, 2018 at 8:43 pm #

          That is a beautiful poem.

  39. San Jose December 24, 2018 at 4:07 pm #

    Speaking of “phone trees,” I had fun calling PG&E this morning. Last night around 9:30 pm we had a brown-out that evolved into a power outage that lasted until 1:30.

    A neighbor measured the voltage and we were getting 50 volts rather than 120. He lost a motored appliance and my fridge sounds like leaf blower this morning. Not a good sign.

    So after pressing a million numbers on the PG&E service prevention line, I finally talked to a guy and perhaps they will replace my fridge if it bites the dust.

    Merry Christmas,

    Jen in San Jose

  40. Walter B December 24, 2018 at 4:42 pm #

    I find this blog a good place to go for some lively discussion and sharing of information and ideas. The really sad part is how little it takes to bring out the angry attackers who appear to just sit there at the keyboard waiting for any small opportunity to lash out at what pretty much is a total and complete stranger. None of us possess enough information on who our fellow bloggers are so how can we form such derogatory attitudes towards these relative strangers in the first place? Are some of us too sensitive? Too easily offended or too coddled as they were raised? The Eagles sang some good advice for people of such demeanor you know:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-8l8v3h1Bg

    Why any idiot would defend ANY of the ancient, career politicians who have accomplished nothing but their own aggrandizement, financially and “socially” is beyond me. Apparently there are a lot of very angry people out there. Yes I will fight back and sometimes even fight dirty for there are no rules in Cyberspace and most of us remain at least partially human. For those of you that I have and shall go toe to toe with, “Come and get some”. For those who can argue without malice or wrath, God Bless and a Merry Christmas to you all, especially our host, the Dean of Clusterfuck College, James Howard Kunstler. Way to go Jim, keep up the great work.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Tate December 24, 2018 at 5:01 pm #

      Merry Christmas Walt, I hope I haven’t offended you with my angry mood at times.

      • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 5:14 pm #

        You offend me Tate? Heavens no! You and I have good go-arounds and I appreciate not only them but the style in which you carry them forward. I enjoy “talking” to you. I come here to share, to hear and to learn for I am only human too. I am smart enough to know how dumb I really am and persistent enough to keep trying to improve. Although many will argue that.

      • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 5:45 pm #

        Yes, and a very Merry Christmas to you and to all of the others here as well! Thank you all.

  41. EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 4:47 pm #

    Trump’s bumbling has prolly cost me the price of a new car today with what his screwing up the stock market has done so far.

    In the past when everything he touched turned to sh&t there was always something to bail him out. His father, stiffed contractors, the U.S. govt, probably Russian oligarchs

    Who beside you all and me is going to bail him out for what he’s done to bring the house of cards down on us all this time?

    I’m telling you, he should be investigated, impeached, tried in the senate, thrown off the throne, jailed, and mixed in with the hispanic inmate population. Trial by fire.If he survives allowed to go back home to his loving family and if she still won’t give in to his desires to sleep with her, forced to go back to Melania if she’ll have him.

    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 5:10 pm #

      The Stock Market is a slush fund for Insiders and they empty the account when they think it wise to do so. There are two kinds of people in the Market, Insiders and Victims. If you were an Insider I do not think you would post here, so you have my condolences. I am truly sorry for your losses but before they are done with you, you will consider yourself fortunate to still have cab fare. It is what they do, look at Detroit. Blaming one man, even the president is a clear indication that you are clueless. There are far more greedy individuals at work here than DJT and they are counting on people like yourself to fall for the misdirection. It is only just beginning……

      • EvelynV December 24, 2018 at 5:56 pm #

        Trump gives them their excuse, so he IS to blame. He wasted no time taking credit when the market implausibly rose.

        Maybe you are a nice man Walter. I appreciate your refusal to express schadenfreude so I’ll be honest here and tell you it was only a cheap smoking high mileage used car I had in mind.

        • Nightowl December 28, 2018 at 5:14 am #

          A month ago Obama was trying to take credit for the current economy.

          #Funfacts

  42. mow December 24, 2018 at 5:05 pm #

    Santa just left Chicago
    And he’s bound for New Orleans

    Merry Christmas from NORAD

  43. Luhrenloup December 24, 2018 at 6:16 pm #

    I’m throwing this on for discussion:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZveA-NAIDI&t=72s

    Spacey is a great actor. This video certainly proves it. BALLSY! I hope he is not disappeared.

    • Luhrenloup December 24, 2018 at 8:52 pm #

      So, what? We don’t talk about grabby queers? I don’t know how MA is going to make this charge stick. The age of consent in that state is 16. And the age of majority is 18. The guy was 18 drinking at a bar and he told Spacey that he was 23. But mom is in show biz and pushing for this, seeking to defend her innocent boy. The charge – it is alleged that Spacey put his hand in the guy’s pants at the bar and invited him to a party, which he refused.
      Of course, nothing boosts a guy’s ego by being shown up as a mama’s boy who can’t handle himself in public and take care of his own business in the world.

      • KesaAnna December 24, 2018 at 11:50 pm #

        Oh , so this accuser was 16 ?

        Anyway ——-

        one of the many absurdities of the sexual revolution is this idea that ANYTHING goes , so long as it is CONSENTING ADULTS.

        — Never mind how many adults it hurts , or even if it wrecks an entire society .

        And the follow up ; This construction of childhood vs. Adulthood that belongs squarely and solely in Disneyland.

        Granted , I’m sure it varies from person to person , but in my own case , I was by no stretch of the imagination ” innocent ” at age 12.

        And i don’t think I am some exotic rarity in that regard.

        If , at age 12 , a , for example , 40 year old , had any undue advantage over me , it was due to status , money , contacts , that sort of thing.

        It wasn’t because I was some sort of pure and pristine , hapless and helpless , egg shell.

        They would have the SAME undue advantage over me , today , due to status , money , contacts , and I’m 54 !

        You have only my word for it , but I predicted 20 years ago that in time 20 year olds would be described as victims of child molestation ,

        and predicted 20 years ago that saying hello would in some cases be described as sexual harassment.

        And i will predict now that if current trends continue , you might need to start sweating and looking over your shoulder due to things you did in ……3rd Grade.

        The West described the old Communist Bloc as fruity , with its Proletarians — who live in palaces , and its reactionary Black Hundreds — who scrub toilets.

        But the fact is , many of your characterizations are even more ludicrous and fantastical.

        Well , maybe not , ” even more so ” ?

        Once upon a time I suspect Bolsheviks and Fascists WERE a separate and distinct category ,

        But not anymore.

        • Luhrenloup December 25, 2018 at 6:47 pm #

          I guess this topic is too emotionally charged for an objective approach and analysis as to what’s going on in this situation.

          • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 12:18 pm #

            My emotions are telling me that he is creepy and quite possibly crazy. Maybe he is planning to disappear himself? He is scheming and plotting? If the guy was 18, and the age of consent is 18 what is the case? Easy enough to say get your nasty hands off me….if you really mean it in the first place. What is your objective analysis?

          • Luhrenloup December 26, 2018 at 6:36 pm #

            I say, he’s an outstanding actor, which would be a loss if he is blacklisted. Kevin like 99.9% of heterosexual men appears to be attracted to nubile young lovers. I don’t know about you Softie, but I have been grabbed and pinched inappropriately quite a few times, especially in my early teens. Would I be willing to ruin a man’s life for it? Of course not. Mostly I just cursed and smacked them when I could.
            But if it is proven in a court of law that he has forced himself on boys and men, and I don’t mean the touchy feely type, but a clear violation with the prey definitely refusing such advances, that is not Ok and the courts need to prosecute him.

            Weinstein’s case is different because he was the boss, abusing his authority. There are women who assented to his advances because they were willing to take him on for the perks. But there were also young women who saw this powerful authority figure, and were too afraid to confront him.

  44. Pucker December 24, 2018 at 6:26 pm #

    Well, this will be Bill Cosby’s first Christmas behind bars…in a prison of which the Warden looks like Homer Simpson….

    I bet that Bill Cosby never foresaw that Ole “Dr. Huxtable’s” Christmas meal would be some horrible pulp soy-based turkey, a half cup of corn, 2 slices of bread, a slice of frozen pizza, and an 8 Oz. Cup of Taster’s Choice coffee to wash down some anti-depressant meds?

    “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

    Homer Simpson: “If Santa thinks that he’s gonna violate prison rules and just Willy Nilly slide down this chimney, he’s gonna get a get a butt full of razor wire. All presents must be inspected by the prison staff for drugs and contraband.”

    • KesaAnna December 24, 2018 at 11:22 pm #

      I never knew a damn thing about Cosby’s private peccadilloes ( and still don’t , for that matter. )

      Never – the -less I always thought that TV show of his ; That propaganda piece about a unitary American culture as mythological as Santa Claus , was as ludicrous and ridiculous as anything you will see on North Korean TV.

  45. Pucker December 24, 2018 at 6:54 pm #

    Santa Clause with an assault rifle raised in his hand: “Free Bill Cosby! God Damn It! Free Them All!!!!”

    Merry Christmas, Mutherfuckers!”

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  46. elysianfield December 24, 2018 at 7:02 pm #

    Komradenl Finc!

    A gift for you…a short read on why we won the cold war….

    https://wilderwealthywise.com/a-wilder-story-or-the-bb-gun-the-black-bear-the-soviets-and-me/

    Have a merry X-mass, one and all.
    Elysianfield

  47. Pucker December 24, 2018 at 7:05 pm #

    Santa’s got a grenade in his boot and an assault knife for close quarter hand-to-hand. Santa in his youth was in the French Foreign Legion. Razor Sharp Toy…..

  48. seawolf77 December 24, 2018 at 7:34 pm #

    The Devil’s Advocate Features A Rich Murderer Who Owns Trump Tower
    In The Devil’s Advocate, Al Pacino is the titular Devil (not a spoiler; you don’t cast Pacino in a movie about Satan and make him the lovable dad), who has set up a law firm in New York in order to subvert justice and release evil into society. And who is Satan’s favorite client? The guy who lives atop Trump Tower.
    Alexander Cullen, played by a suitably balding Craig T. Nelson, is a Trump-esque real estate mogul accused of murdering his wife, stepson, and maid — dire straits for a guy based on someone who once bragged he could shoot a person in the middle of the street and get away with it. His arrest immediately prompts Pacino’s law firm of Fire, Brimstone & Ham to send their new ace attorney, Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves wearing his dad’s suit), to defend Cullen. Why? Because, oddly, he’s Lucifer’s best client, having racked up “16,242” billable hours in one year. That’s a lot of shady business.
    But being a hated New York business tycoon and employing a massive team of evil lawyers doesn’t necessarily mean Cullen is a Trump clone, right? Luckily, for the sake of subtlety, when we finally arrive at Cullen’s home, we see that it’s literally Trump’s apartment in Trump Tower. The filmmakers managed to rent it out, preserving its natural appearance as Liberace’s mind palace.
    In the end, Cullen is found not guilty, despite Lomax knowing that he murdered those people, thereby finally giving in to his true nature as the son of Satan. That’s right, the Devil’s son loses his innocence by defending Trump. Burn.
    You gotta love it.

    • Nightowl December 28, 2018 at 5:17 am #

      Where does Perkins Coie fit in? Or are we sticking purely to fantasy?

  49. Pucker December 24, 2018 at 8:40 pm #

    Should I move to a remote mountain Chinese village and become a millenarian cult personality? Open a Bed & Breakfast? I suspect that all that I really need is the Local’s support that I can probably buy by organizing the labor, capital, and technology to produce a Surplus that I can then use for my cult rituals? If I can get them to buy into the legitimacy of the cult rituals (however illegitimate, like TV sports, shopping at the Mall; Watching CNN; voting; Christmas, farting up wind in Congress, etc.), then it may work?

    Merry Christmas!

    • K-Dog December 24, 2018 at 10:49 pm #

      Go organic and turn your guests into slave labor to work your gardens. Tell them it is permaculture and they won’t know the difference. They will love it! Actually they will be too embarrassed ta say they don’t know what permaculture is but hey, if it gets them to work so what! And they pay you too.

      If you are going to do the cult personality thing bail out and hit the road in the middle of the night in about five years. That’s about how long it takes before you loose it after people tell you are wonderful all the time. We are social animals. After enough time the endless worship of hippie chicks would not be a good thing. It will all go to your head even if you know better! No matter how strong you are.

      Life is so fucking ironic.

      Merry Christmas!

      • Pucker December 24, 2018 at 11:45 pm #

        Aquaponics? Chinese herbs? Hemp resins rubbed into joints of old fuckers? Thermal herbal baths? Organic peat mud packs? Massage?

  50. K-Dog December 24, 2018 at 10:38 pm #

    I have a theory for what is behind the decline and fall of this once proud and capable country: nobody answers the phone. This one change in consensual social behavior has enabled virtually everyone in authority to evade responsibility for what they do.

    Santa, you there? Answer dammit. Santa pick up the damn phone! We need a Christmas Miracle and we need it now. I know you can hear me so pick up the phone………I expect this runaround from Rudolph but not you. I want to talk to your supervisor. Now.

    No you can’t put me on hold. I’ll talk to Mrs. Claus if I have to.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 10:51 am #

      He was allegedly pretty busy last night. The Old Boy is as Old School as they come, but more than a little bitter about his lot in life this time around. Tired of Mrs. Claus and “those damn shitty little elves” nagging at him all the time, he tossed his hearing aid for good and has never owned a cell phone in his life. Claus says that the “Jolly Old Christmas Elf” schtick was always just an urban legend concocted by marketing to sell shit and an extremely bad deal with the devil himself (thank you very much!) to blatantly exploit his labor.

      In his next life he’s planning to be a hermit farmer in what’s left of the great white north, employing elf slave labor to raise reindeer for slaughter and sale to whatever global behemoth he can come to the best terms with. “Merry Christmas to all and free delivery my ass,” he said. “UPS and Fed Ex are all over that shit already and they can damn well have it. Let the fucking global economy come to ME next time! The future’s cheap reindeer meat sold to the masses in giant corporate Super Centers, and I plan to be first mover for a mo’ fo’, bee-atches!”

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technologyinvesting/santa-delivers-almost-eight-billion-christmas-gifts-travels-200000-miles/ar-BBRpRIZ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp

        • K-Dog December 25, 2018 at 1:09 pm #

          It says Reindeer meat on the package. ‘Chopped and formed’.

          • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 2:45 pm #

            Tis the season! Claus intends to take the market by storm, however, trading on his established brand name and worldwide distribution system, which he’s cleverly leasing to UPEX for a saintly sum. The Old Boy got his MBA online after the missus joined #TheResistance and left him a few years back, and now feels that the Christmas toy market is all washed up.

  51. KesaAnna December 24, 2018 at 10:52 pm #

    ” I find this blog a good place to go for some lively discussion and sharing of information and ideas. The really sad part is how little it takes to bring out the angry attackers who appear to just sit there at the keyboard waiting for any small opportunity to lash out at what pretty much is a total and complete stranger. None of us possess enough information on who our fellow bloggers are so how can we form such derogatory attitudes towards these relative strangers in the first place? Are some of us too sensitive? Too easily offended or too coddled as they were raised? ”

    well , in my case two reasons , or really just one reason ;

    First reason — When I spend six hours and write an epistle as long as your arm to explain myself , people complain about THAT.

    second reason — when I then consequently cut my , ” Fuck You too hater ” comment to less than ten thousand words when they suggest my Confederate ancestors being shot was a good thing , they will complain about THAT.

    Or , when I cut my , ” You are full of shit ” explanation to less than ten thousand words , when they suggest there are significant differences between the USA and my old DDR , when I lived in the DDR ten years and know better , they will complain about THAT.

    You cannot win , for losing. 🙂

    • KesaAnna December 24, 2018 at 11:05 pm #

      Anyway , i got pretty pissed when you suggested Elrond was a nice guy , when that guy has repeatedly stated that my family deserved to be killed.

      And I got pretty pissed when you suggested Janos was a nice guy , when i suspect ( suspect — granted , not a confirmed fact ) he doesn’t care any more about the millions of Germans slaughtered , than he does about the ( statistically , average ) small number of Jews slaughtered.

      And at the time I wasn’t in the mood to write a book explaining why.

      • K-Dog December 24, 2018 at 11:25 pm #

        More Germans, interesting observation. But if you were a jew your chances would have been way higher of getting snuffed. Not that it mattered to those who got the snuff ticket. Dead is dead. But what a way to go, gassed naked taking a shower or shot like a pig. No dignity. Men are cruel. Like no other animal men know their cruelty. We do not have the innocence of lesser creatures and we know what we do, or we can know. Yet men ever perplexed and nervous persist in sick blind revelry with each step they take.

        Merry Christmas!

        • KesaAnna December 25, 2018 at 12:57 am #

          But what a way to go, gassed naked taking a shower or shot like a pig. No dignity.

          No disagreement. The lack of any dignity in that killing , alone , renders it utterly repugnant.

          on the other hand , the National Socialists never got more than 45% of the vote.

          ( The Wiemar Republic was a multi-party system , so 40% was quite sufficient. )

          In other words , the typical German was no more responsible for Hitler than you are for Trump , or no more responsible than You are for the Clinton crime family.

          But carpet bombing German residential neighborhoods was — no , not just a necessary evil — but a good thing !

          As far as that goes though , I hate the whole World War II narrative right from the start.

          A far better narrative , I think , is ; What was so fucking terrible about the Austro – Hungarian Empire that the United States had to stick its nose in that clusterf uck in 1917 ?

          ( Which in many ways resembles the United States , in being a hopelessly muddled polyglot none of its denizens really likes )

          in my view , World War II , like the situation today in Afghanistan , was merely the resultant fuck -up – epilogue of an earlier act of shear idiocy.

          • Epicur December 25, 2018 at 1:28 pm #

            “What was so fucking terrible about the Austro – Hungarian Empire that the United States had to stick its nose in that clusterf uck in 1917 ? ”

            The most reasonable explanation I have seen is that the bankers had lent way more money to the Brits and French and needed for them to win to avoid catastrophic (for them) losses.

            Of course Wilson’s idealism had a lot to do with it – “make the world safe for democracy” was a sincere impulse for some, just as there were some sincere abolitionists in the American Civil War. Mostly it’s just easy to get young people to join causes of all sorts and political leaders are quite adept at using that aspect of human psychology for their ends.

      • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 11:34 am #

        Well Kesa, Elrond and I could never be friends for we are so vastly opposite in what we believe, but he has always deal with me respectfully and for that I appreciate his style. I do not recall the remark you say he made, but his commentary in that regard was certainly in poor taste if not totally wrong to infer.

        I wouldn’t say that I think Janos is a nice guy for he often is quite the opposite to many posters here. He certainly is wise however, and I do respect him as I do you, though he and I do not share all of the same opinions by a long shot.

        I am descended on both sides from Germans, some of whom fought for the Kreigsmarine and the Luftwaffe. None were Nazis and all despised the Nazis. I had an American uncle who flew 26 missions as copilot of a Liberator and participated in many of those raids that killed so many civilians. I was told that before the war he was a happy, friendly gregarious sort, but afterwards as I knew him, he was quiet and sad and never got over the bad feelings of doing what he had too do. War is the most evil and vile thing we men do and it does just as much damage to those who survive it as it does to those who do not, if not more.

        • Epicur December 25, 2018 at 12:58 pm #

          ” I had an American uncle who flew 26 missions as copilot of a Liberator and participated in many of those raids that killed so many civilians. I was told that before the war he was a happy, friendly gregarious sort, but afterwards as I knew him, he was quiet and sad and never got over the bad feelings of doing what he had too do.”

          Not only what he had to do, but what was done. My uncle was a navigator on a Liberator and shed tears as he told the family of the bombers going down “on the deck” on the return trips and shooting anything that moved. Chuck Yeager told of the same.

          War is hell, and men are far from angels.

          • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 6:33 pm #

            “If they are angels, then that damned sure are Killer Angels.” Thank you for sharing Epicur, it is a good thing to have in common. They were great men doing a damned dirty job that somebody simply had to do. My Uncle Johnny flew with the 492 Bomber group in Captain Earleywine’s crew on the Sweater Gal, among other assignments. crew 901:

            http://www.492ndbombgroup.com/cgi-bin/pagepilot.cgi?page=showCrewPage&crewPage=901-Earleywine&crewTitle=Earleywine%20901&nav=i2c

            I asked him once if he ever saw any of the Foo Fighters on a mission and he told that yes they did. When I asked if he ever wondered what they were or tried to find out, he said, “No, we were sort of busy at the time”. He died on the 04 Jul 11, rather appropriately. He was a very good man.

        • Elrond Hubbard December 26, 2018 at 4:33 pm #

          Cheers, Walter B, and thank you. We do indeed have differences, and those differences may indeed be irreconcilable — at least so long as both of us remain recognizably ourselves. But my respect for you is sincere.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 25, 2018 at 2:40 pm #

        And your Pope Francis loves gays qua gays, hangs out and lauds abortionists, and protects pedophiles. But who are you to judge?

      • Elrond Hubbard December 26, 2018 at 4:29 pm #

        KesaAnna: “that guy [referring to me] has repeatedly stated that my family deserved to be killed.”

        Uhh… no. Please get help, Kesa.

    • Walter B December 24, 2018 at 11:35 pm #

      Can you be a little bit more specific on why you feel I have somehow fucked up? I would really like to know so that I can make amends or at least improve myself. Thank you, Merry Christmas.

      • KesaAnna December 25, 2018 at 12:40 am #

        I never thought you fucked up.

        My family is American ~ Southern.

        It’s a long story , but I was born in East Germany , and spent the first ten years of my life there.

        Returning to the United States was not my idea , and now there is no country of mine to return to anyway.

        Well, to make a long story short , on a typically average day I incessantly hear people I care about , or am at least fond of , described in a very disparaging way , by people no wise different , or no prize themselves.

        indeed , I quite commonly hear talk about the killing of these people ( which really would basically include me ) in the same sort of tone in which one discusses brushing ones teeth .

        It gets on my nerves sometimes . And i dare say , I commonly see people get a lot more upset , over far less provocation.

        ” Fucked up ” ?

        The only countries in the world remotely similar to the United States ; Russia , China , Brazil , are all clown states.

        ( Except these clowns are not funny. )

        it should be obvious that this Union is not going to end well.

        But , I’m afraid , we will see snow in Hell before Russians , Americans , Chinese , Brazilians , and other would -be monopolists , will give up their empires .

        Even though their empires are bound to give them a shit hole to live in.

        —-

        The abandonment of Church tradition , and apostolic succession , its substitution with a Sola Scriptura which is 500 ways fucked up , and the subsequent rise of the secular state to primary moral authority , or , really , ONLY moral authority —

        — Well, it should be obvious 500 YEARS LATER , that this can only result in atomization and marginalization .

        But , again , I think we will see snow in Hell before — EVEN CATHOLICS or ORTHODOX — admit that .

        I don’t know , everybody has to pretend John Wayne was real or something ?

        • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 10:22 am #

          Because man is flawed Kesa, all that he does and all of his institutions are flawed and therefore, eventually decay and corrupt. Salvation can never be had by the group, it can only be achieved by the individual. There is no longer any moral authority in this plane of existence. We must seek that in another realm, not in this mortal world. Wise men like Martin Luther knew this and revealed that a direct connection can and must be made on an individual basis and that is how we must pursue it. I hope that you find that inner well being and that it brings you the peace and tears of joy that come with understanding. The kingdom of Heaven lies without, but also within us all.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 25, 2018 at 2:51 pm #

            But I assume you accept that things are getting worse? I mean we never could have gotten this far if it was always like this. In other words, if you expect nothing from society and impose no standards, that’s all you will get. If you impose much, you will get much. Not as much as you ask for – that’s a given. But if our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what’s a heaven for?

            Emerson resigned his position as a Clergyman saying, Souls are not saved in bundles. Yet we never said they were. And his way, if taken to the extreme, leads to social chaos. It is the downward path.

            To be fair, Emerson probably meant something very exalted when he said “saved” – as in becoming a mystic or saint. That’s not the traditional meaning of the word. Traditionally, it meant basically that you were on the right path and if you stayed on it, you would attain unto God at the End. People like Emerson (and me) can’t stand the idea of waiting – but for most people, that’s what religion will always be and has always been.

            The levelers (Communists under the cover of religion) invoked Luther as they started tearing down society. He said, I never told them to do this. Cut them down like dogs.

            But the levelers got to be so strong that the Lutherans and Catholics had to put aside their War and unite to crush them.

          • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 6:07 pm #

            My Lord yes Janos, things are getting much worse and will only degrade further. Setting the bar low always encourages poorer performance and the SJW’s kick it down another notch every day. I wonder if they understand that their method of “inclusivity” draws all participants down to the lowest common denominator and degrades all aspects of society, especially intelligence and morality. If they do know then it is conspiracy> If they do not then they are simply stupid. In either case they must be neutralized or the entire herd will succumb eventually. I wonder how it will play out?

  52. KesaAnna December 25, 2018 at 1:07 am #

    Well……… In many parts of the world , 500 acres of land isn’t worth 5 dollars , unless you have access to water.

  53. seawolf77 December 25, 2018 at 9:42 am #

    Trump’s cameo in “The Devil’s Advocate.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHBUpeTToc4

  54. Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 11:49 am #

    Interesting development in the culture wars…

    A coalition of liberal progressive groups has filed suit in US DC district court this morning banning the further showing of the nostalgic movie A Christmas Story. The movie has become a staple for TBS and TNT watchers in particular, airing for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve/Day on one or both of those networks since 1997. The film was released in 1983, and depicts a nostalgic view of Christmas through the eyes of a 1940’s era middle class white family of the era.

    The suit contends that the film is unsuitable for modern audiences due to its explicit depiction of “white privilege, child abuse, gun violence by children, sexism, bullying, obscenity, and blatant condescending anti-Chinese racism in the final scene.” A group spokesman added that, “In light of recent and ongoing mass shootings, often due to the trauma of childhood bullying, the scenes depicting graphic childhood abuse, violence, and/or gunplay in this film are especially troubling, but only slightly more so than the troubling adult modeling depicted by the loathsome father figure in this film, whose despicable use of profanity and leering sexual displays toward a fetishized woman’s leg-shaped lamp are simply unspeakably horrific. A stronger mother figure here might have alleviated these many ills in some small way, but alas, the totally beaten down female lead depicted here served as nothing more than an enabler for her brutalizing, psychopathic husband and the rest of this cast of nefarious, ne’er do well characters. As if all that wasn’t enough, the totally gratuitous and shameful anti-Chinese racism and display of graphic cleaver violence in the final scene was simply a scene too far.”

    Both TBS and TNT have refused comment.

    • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 12:13 pm #

      But violence, murder and mayhem in Hollywood films and video games is just fine because they are making tons of money on it. Thank you Scratch for bringing this retardation to our attention. Looks like a substantial Christmaspresent for the scum-sucking lawyers too. Merry Christmas to you my friend.

      • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 12:16 pm #

        Likewise Ol’ Walt! We’re kindred spirits.

    • K-Dog December 25, 2018 at 1:16 pm #

      I always thought those lamps were cool.

      • K-Dog December 25, 2018 at 1:19 pm #

        Of course as a dog it is not all what you think. Sure leg humpings come to mind. But really, since I know its a lamp part of me feels like I do when I see a fire hydrant.

        • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 2:33 pm #

          The suit also contends that they’re thinly veiled homoerotic phallic symbols, thus heightening their perversion. Shocking!

    • A Movie review as a lawsuit.

      This is why America is great and will be great again. I have many times desired to sue the movie studios for making poor quality films.

      Resorting to shorting their common stock has not been as much fun in recent years but perhaps the worm is turning.

  55. JohnAZ December 25, 2018 at 1:26 pm #

    To all you folks who figure out a way to blame Trump for every problem we face. A pox on you.

    The latest, he is responsible for the stock market doing its thing. Wrong! Double wrong! Just check the timing. What happened just before the stock market started reacting. What could affect the fear factor on Wall Street. Not the trade issues, that has been going on for a year. Two things happened, the latest uptick of the Fed, and the Midterm results. I cannot believe how political DC is. The Fed which is supposed to be apolitical is obviously looking at 2020 and trying to steal Trump’s one great legacy, the economy. To me, this is treason against the public. There is no inflation which is the purpose of the Fed to monitor, so why the rate increases. The last time they did this led to 2007 and 2008. The other is the return of the Democrats to power, the Elite conservatives do not like this one bit. Hence, less risk taking as they anticipate less favorable economic conditions.

    Blame Trump all you want, he does not care. Nor do I.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Epicur December 25, 2018 at 1:40 pm #

      “The latest, he is responsible for the stock market doing its thing.”

      It is said that one cannot reason a man out of an idea he did not reason himself into. There is no hope for anyone who cannot look at human economic history (since the “Tulip Craze” at least) and not realize that there is something in human nature(s) that creates these bubbles and then heads for the exit in a panic.

      Wash, rinse, repeat.

    • I agree that blame-finding is a fairly worthless past-time, but I don’t see a Fed agenda here. Their rate adjustments were conservative- if you believe they are acting as a provocateur you have to imagine that if they did not raise the rates the selling would stop. I just doubt it. We’re in a reactionary downturn and liquidation phase of a cycle.

      Just take the 10 year chart and turn it upside down and inside out. Its ready to move the opposite direction. Nest eggs are being raided and people need to cover their holiday debts. People are booking their liq

    • I agree that blame-finding is a fairly worthless past-time, but I don’t see a Fed agenda here. Their rate adjustments were conservative- if you believe they are acting as a provocateur you have to imagine that if they did not raise the rates the selling would stop. I just doubt it. We’re in a reactionary downturn and liquidation phase of a cycle.

      Just take the 10 year chart and turn it upside down and inside out. Its ready to move the opposite direction. Nest eggs are being raided and people need to cover their holiday debts. People are booking their liquid assets ahead of tax season.

      The adrenaline has kicked in, but nobody’s jumping from the skyscrapers- yet.

      • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 2:50 pm #

        The adrenaline has kicked in, but nobody’s jumping from the skyscrapers- yet.

        So the dream’s still alive then? Here’s to investing in defective catcher nets.

  56. Today’s edition of The New York Times is excellent; you wouldn’t know that unless I told you.

    You would assume that the 2 page spread on the deteriorating situation in Nicaragua wasn’t award winning journalism.

    You wouldn’t assume that the front page feature on the phenomenon of helicopter parents and the real psychology behind the obsession was award worthy.

    You wouldn’t assume the Science Times section features a passel of articles summarizing the recent findings by researchers published in cutting edge journals, well-written and useful to the layperson after being translated from their native scientese.

    You wouldn’t believe that the NYT printed a deep feature on the reality of green-card and fake social security document industry yesterday.

    You are sitting there, wondering your 401k is going up in flames and being hypnotised by Fox News and National Review while Hard News, served hot daily, soars overhead.

    You wouldn’t believe how much money I’ve made shorting markets from indicators published in the Business section- no, you are polishing your gold bullion and whistling past the financial graveyard.

    While you stare, bleary eyed, at a glowing screen with articles served up by the algo-bot, I’ve been savoring the printed word, put together in generic fashion, oblivious to who I am.

    While you sit there, terrified the News is going to kick down your door and arrest you for thought crimes, I am chuckling softly and raising a cup of joe to you, my friend, hopeful that you get your head out of your ass and buy a subscription for the new year- only $10.31 per week for the first 12 weeks and $20.25 per week thereafter, or just $933.72 the first year, $1,053 each additional year.

    This is chump change, my friend. I made much more shorting General Electric this year. All because of the classic, slow-cooked News of the New York Times. But how can slow nes be the best news? Its quite simple, really. Recall when taking the kids’ temperature, you have to leave the thermometer in for 5 minutes.

    Faux News is always burnin’ up, screaming at you, like its life and death. Who hasn’t been mesmerized by the perky breasts of some TV anchor reading off a teleprompter? Behind the headlines of these shlock outfits, are advertisers, licking their chops. Forget Soros- the people pushing your buttons are making millions off you.

    You got to let the news age, like fine wine. You have to read it to internalize it properly.All I see here in the comment section is the colicky bleating of folks suffering from News Indigestion. You cheap bastards are getting conned while you are walking around feeling smug you’re getting something for nothing. I got “news” for ya, you get what you pay for. You want real news? Thats ten benjamins buddy. A tree has to die and human beings have to get paid, otherwise, you’re getting punked.

    And don’t even tell me about your local news rags. Its undiluted garbage.

    • Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 2:47 pm #

      I’ll bet it makes an even better yule log, all wound up tight and burning in the fireplace.

    • pequiste December 25, 2018 at 3:22 pm #

      The going rate in NY used to be five bucks a word for second-rate freelancers on assignment for MOR publications. Photos extra of course.

      WIth the ongoing stock market implosion, I’m thinking it is going lower.

      Maybe JHK would know what a schlockmeister shill-hound scribbler for the Old Grey Crone gets these days.

    • BackRowHeckler December 25, 2018 at 7:25 pm #

      Hey Snacks, is Carlos Slim your uncle?

      brh

    • Walter B December 25, 2018 at 9:52 pm #

      “Today’s edition of The New York Times is excellent; you wouldn’t know that unless I told you”

      No, not really because none of us read the crap you post, sorry. It has become like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. Or a Crazy Eddie commercial shouting, “Buy, buy, buy!” I hope that your intent is to turn all away from purchasing the worthless rag, because if you are not, you are failing miserably. Hope you had a Merry Christmas anyway.

    • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 12:27 am #

      And I really wouldn’t know anything at all about the New York Times except you post so much about it here. Is it official? Are you part of their cult now?

    • Nightowl December 28, 2018 at 5:23 am #

      About 2.5 years ago, the NYT’s publisher had to publish a mea culpa on “rededicating the paper to honest reporting” after publishing a slew of fake news stories.

      Quality and price are not related in the news world.

  57. Hands4u December 25, 2018 at 2:37 pm #

    Merry Christmas Jim. We are loathe to answer our phone and only if it seems at an odd time of day will we actually check the land line while its ringing. This morning it was my mother (80+) and step father bringing over a large cooked turkey to share while we made the trimmings. We are hesitant to answer for multiple reasons other than somebody asking for money, blood or robo calls. Our Parents and other older relatives are moving into extended care. They need family to empty out their warehouses (er I mean homes) of their lives memories. Most of them being from the end of the depression/wwII they were taught to sacrifice, save and- “Don’t throw that away, you never know when it might come in handy…” I find that this might be a metaphor for our current government as the boomers and millennials will now wrestle for the coming decade over the remains of power and oil based economy that the silent generation are letting go of. I think we will survive, and in pure hope and joy of the coming new year, people will change and make the best of it as we are able. Though that is ambitious; we do need something to hope for. Once again- Merry Christmas!

  58. Ol' Scratch December 25, 2018 at 3:52 pm #

    The news just gets worse!

    Claus Indicted on Multiple Counts – North Pole Elves Union Leaders Alleged to be next

    US Federal prosecutors released a bombshell indictment today of reputed North Pole mob boss, Santa Claus, aka “Kris Kringle,” aka “Saint Nicholas,” aka “O’ Dirty Bastard,” et al. The indictment caps a multi-generational investigation and involves multiple jurisdictions within the US and abroad. Claus was long reputed to be a mere mythic children’s holiday Christmas tale, but recent investigations revealed the seamy underbelly of his all-too-real worldwide criminal operation, including – but certainly not limited to – multiple counts of breaking and entering; exposure and numerous assorted acts of sexual deviance; interstate trafficking of multiple illegal and quasi-illegal substances and products; human, elf, and animal trafficking and labor exploitation; federal income tax evasion; numerous FAA violations of controlled airspace; and operating a non-airworthy sleigh in gross violation of the US Clean Air Act, which specifically prohibits reindeer flatulence and droppings emissions in the upper atmosphere.

    Federal prosecutor and #Resistance member Ima Khuntt lamented the fact that the indictment came down too late to prevent Claus from making his rounds in 2018, blaming the blunder on the Federal Government shutdown, which she termed, “a likely pro-Clause stunt on the part of pro-Clause interests in high places.” “Regardless,” Khuntt added, “let these indictments serve notice to dirty old perverts everywhere that a new day has dawned in America. No longer will these degenerate old men come without invitation sliding down our dirty, sooty, chutes in the middle of the night to deposit their holiday loads, tradition or not.”

    Claus, who was planning to announce his retirement and future business plans on Wednesday, was unavailable for comment at press time. His plans to divest himself completely of his world-wide toy making and distribution empire and expand into the commercial reindeer meat industry to capitalize on opportunities afforded by global warming are now very much uncertain, with global retailers now almost certain to be leery of the Santa Claus brand for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile the North Pole Elves Union, seen by many to be both exploitative of and exploited by Claus’ various criminal pursuits, are anxiously awaiting Federal Prosecutors’ announcements regarding their legal status in the case.

    • pequiste December 25, 2018 at 8:29 pm #

      Put Mueller on the case. You just know there is a connection to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election somewhere like who sat on his lap and what looks suspicious in Claus’ yearly travel plans.

    • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 12:55 am #

      This is really good lol! What will all those elves do for work now? I bet the elves that worked in Santa’s mailroom can help revitalize the USPS.

  59. capt spaulding December 25, 2018 at 3:53 pm #

    It should be pretty obvious to everybody that the current state of the stock market is the fault of Obama, and I’d imagine Hilary is in there somewhere too. Just think of how bad it would be if we didn’t have Trump’s steady hand on the helm. It would be twice as bad as it is now. Trump’s policies have kept the fall from being much worse.

    • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 1:13 am #

      Wall Street has had it their way every day since day one. No different under Obama or Trump. Except maybe that the Fed would do anything possible to make Trump look bad but did the exact opposite with Obama.

  60. Pucker December 25, 2018 at 6:01 pm #

    Indebted Blue States and cities will be caught in a fiscal vise during the impending fiscal crunch?

    Northern Reconstruction paralleled Southern Reconstruction with Wage Labor displacing freedolder yoeman labor. The fear during the Depression of 1873 was that Northern Unemployed oppressed white Wage Labor would united with Southern Black negro labor. Fortunately, the Elite Ruling Class was adoitly able to exploit deep racial hatred and racial fissures in the society to keep Labor Divided. Black Lives Matter….

    “With the depression exacerbating the fiscal problems of state and city governments and threatening to push taxes to even higher levels, retrenchment became the order of the day.”

    Eric Foner
    Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863 – 1877

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  61. Pucker December 25, 2018 at 6:05 pm #

    It appears that an Irony of miscegenation is that it produces a class of fair skinned beautiful Mulattoes who can see that they’re better than everybody else? Go figure…

    • Pucker December 25, 2018 at 6:14 pm #

      Oprah is a Mulatto, right?

      Wasn’t Oprah once dating some young white Stud?

  62. Pucker December 25, 2018 at 6:27 pm #

    “Fuck Yeah!”

    “…the WCTU pointed the way toward an expansion of female political activism. Eventually, it would wed its condemnation of the saloon to the demand for the vote. But in the 1870s, under the banner of “Home Protection,” the organization disavowed women’s suffrage. The rapid rise of the temperance movement and the temporary waning of interest in the vote symbolized the eclipse of the broad feminist tradition that stressed the common humanity of men and women by a narrower movement emphasizing women’s unique moral purity and their responsibility for bringing feminine virtues to bear upon a dissolute male world. 16”

    Eric Foner
    Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863 – 1877

  63. BackRowHeckler December 25, 2018 at 7:23 pm #

    Well, one area we’ve really excelled in 2018 is in the copious amounts of oil and coal the world is burning up to keep the party going and the techno-illusion alive: for the first time in human history we’ve burned up over 10 billion tons of coal and and have topped 100 million barrels of oil per day.

    It doesn’t seem to matter how many electric cars you build, how many windmills you erect, how many solar panels you install on roofs, we need to keep burning those fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate. Nothing can stop it! World population is increasing exponentially, and everybody everywhere want electricity, a warm house and a car. Show me the elitist Tom Steyer billionaire cruising the world in his private jet aircraft who will tell the grasping billions they cannot have these things.

    brh

    • malthuss December 26, 2018 at 10:57 am #

      TS–One of that tribe you defend.

  64. Pucker December 25, 2018 at 7:26 pm #

    Would a society organized around shamanic rituals flourish or degenerate into mass psychosis and war? Or is this a “Bad Thing”?

    • pequiste December 25, 2018 at 8:21 pm #

      Uh, Puck, I was under the strong impression that we already had, for quite a number of decades anyway, here in the U.S.A, flourishing mass psychosis and plenty of war.

      No need to go out into the desert wilderness; commune with bears in the forest; take peyote with the natives, or have a sweat lodge. The shamanic rituals can be seen on any TeeVee screen 24/7.

      Bet you can’t wait for the NFL playoffs either.

      • Pucker December 25, 2018 at 8:43 pm #

        What exactly are the Shamanic Rituals of Capitalist Accumulation, Profit, and Domination, apart from Bohemian Grove and those bizarre Spirit Cooking coven gatherings in New England?

        • pequiste December 26, 2018 at 5:56 pm #

          Do Comet Ping Pong pizza parties count?

  65. GhostOfHam December 25, 2018 at 9:09 pm #

    Look, Henry, you can do whatever you want to do, but just don’t answer the Goddamned phone — Jesus! Those faggot sons-a-bitches ‘ll never let it go.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  66. BackRowHeckler December 25, 2018 at 9:17 pm #

    A few weeks ago I got a cell phone call, guy started shouting, telling me to stop calling him, he knows where I live, he’ll find me and so on. i didn’t know who he was, I rarely call anybody, and I certainly didn’t call his number. So I told him to f-k off and hung up.

    about 10 minutes later the phone rang again, from a different number, and a chirpy voice on the other end asked me if I was ready to buy an electronic home security system, which would allay all fears and counter all threats. I told her I already have a system — 3 layers — shotgun, carbine, revolver. That ended the conversation.

    brh

    • elysianfield December 25, 2018 at 9:33 pm #

      “A few weeks ago I got a cell phone call, guy started shouting, telling me to stop calling him, he knows where I live, he’ll find me and so on. i didn’t know who he was, I rarely call anybody, and I certainly didn’t call his number. So I told him to f-k off and hung up.

      BRH,
      Sorry, but I was drunk….

    • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 1:22 am #

      Lol no beating around the bush and wasting time on the dang phone :-).

    • Epicur December 26, 2018 at 9:38 am #

      Somebody was spoofing him, using your number as a cover for the call they were making (probably soliciting). I went through that regularly a few months back, people were “returning” calls I had not made. For some reason it stopped after a while.

      I’m fine with the death penalty for people who do that stih, or at least forty lashes.

      • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 12:39 pm #

        How Old Testament of you :-).

        • Epicur December 27, 2018 at 4:42 pm #

          Just grousing. Obviously, there is no danger of the goobermint instituting such a measure, not in my lifetime, anyway.

    • malthuss December 26, 2018 at 10:58 am #

      wow

  67. Walter B December 25, 2018 at 9:46 pm #

    I have an atheist cousin that gave me a bunch of crap about Christmas being the actual birth date of Jesus a couple of decades ago. She said that it wasn’t the 25th of December or any other date that anyone could really be confident of and ended her argument in a way that made it clear that we would never be able to determine the actual day so give it up.

    So I though about this for a while and while I have no problem with having her believe whatever it is she cares to believe or not, being beaten down just was not something I could live with. So I thought about it and it did not really take that long before I came up with a solution that could not be decried and that was to thank God every day, 365 days a year and 366 on leap years for sending His Son to us and to this day, I wish Jesus a Happy Birthday every single day! Never accept defeat. Fight until you have no breath left in your lungs. Do not submit – fight!

  68. Pucker December 25, 2018 at 10:20 pm #

    US property market is crashing….

    It looks like they’re pulling the plug on US military spending by paring down the useless wars, and starting a Trade War with China, and crashing the stock and property markets all at once while raising interest rates?

    It’ll be like the time in junior high school when I spent an hour flushing small grapefruit sized inflated rubber balloons down the powerful industrial school toilet which eventually got stuck deep in the bowels of the school plumbing causing a huge problem for the oppressed black school janitors who probably deeply hated white people?

    The Elite must be into Numerology and have a thing about dates that include the numbers 9,1, and 3?

  69. BackRowHeckler December 25, 2018 at 11:59 pm #

    What the hell is this?

    Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino, from Jersey Shore, is getting locked up.

    8 months for tax evasion.

    FREE MIKE SORRENTINO!!!

    brh

    • SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 1:35 am #

      Not ‘The Situation’!!!!!! He might get out early for good behavior though. And he just might get a new show out of it.

  70. BackRowHeckler December 26, 2018 at 2:22 am #

    In short, Global Warming, Climate Change, call it whatever you want, hoax or real threat, nothing is going to be done about it except lefty elitist billionaires, internationalists, heads of foundations and doomsday scientists flying around the world in their jet aircraft attending conferences and issuing edicts that nobody pays attention too and could give a sh-t less about. We see exactly that in France when the global warming fuel tax was rescinded in the face of Yellow Vest riots. Governments will burn coal in a big way as soon as the brownouts start, and people are freezing in their houses, regardless of what some treaty says.

    brh

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • JohnAZ December 26, 2018 at 11:30 am #

      I remember in TLE that JHK’s prediction was that renewable energy sources will never replace oil because they just do not create enough energy out vs. energy in. Seems to me that a lot of the current events related to climate change is confirming this fact. France shows that people are unwilling to give up energy usage for conservation.. The assault on developed countries by refugees from third world is another indication that the fringes of the world economy are sinking to the point that people are willing to die to compete for world resources. A big question is, Is the Western developed countries going to give up their economic position to try to absorb these refugees. THAT is the immigration question. The fable that adding these immigrants to our society increases th economic is balderdash. There are just so many resources to share between the folks, more people, less resources per person. That is what the French are discovering and fighting back.

      All you Democratic supporters that just basically voted in an open border in the future. I hope you are the first to have to sacrifice.

      Sidebar

      Saw a study Xmas eve that said that moving away from fossil fuels has cost billions of dollars and 100+K jobs in the US. Hmmm.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 1:16 pm #

        Yes, most people are at the intellectual level of “concrete operational” as opposed to formal operational. They can discuss things but not ideas, not directly anyway. So they need to be confronted in groups, first small and then big, each with a pie or cake. Point out to them how big the pieces are in the small groups but how small they are in the big groups. And then use this experience as an analogy for what going to happen with mass immigration.

        A Mason builds a Wall with bricks all the same size for the most part. But he can brake them apart when needed to make a clean fit. Similarly with words, someone at the formal operational level can use words as a Mason uses bricks, breaking them apart if need be. The Master, not the Servant of the material. But a Master never tries to make his medium do what it is not meant to do. Likewise, the word “nation” should never be used for what America has become. That would be a perversion of the Art.

        • JohnAZ December 26, 2018 at 6:48 pm #

          Concrete learners vs. formal “abstract” learners is an intellectual progression in maturation format.

          The human being can be pure concrete to pure formal intellectually. Transition, maturation wise, happens sometime during junior, senior high school, but sometimes not at all.

          Maturation continues with age, which means, wisdom accumulates with the years. Our Liberal society has concentration on youth. Why? Because they are so underdeveloped intellectually, that they actually believe the BS the Liberals tell them. Then they actually learn to think rationally and poof, convert.

          The biggest enemy of the Progressive side of the Democratic Party is:

          Common Sense!

          Which is very different than book learning and academic brain washing.

          • cbeard December 27, 2018 at 2:32 pm #

            I have a quote from somewhere, maybe this site. “If you are not liberal when young, you don’t have a heart. If you are not conservative when old, you don’t have a brain.”

  71. RobH December 26, 2018 at 9:39 am #

    IP Phones Jim. The name comes up of whatever management pillock is calling. Just answer the calls from the good guys

    It’s not all bad. The ‘blokes’ can just get on with it. Head office – or 90% of the payroll as they appear to be now – just have to make up the spreadsheets

    It’s all good

    Happy new year to you

    Rob

  72. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2018 at 11:09 am #

    Huge landfall which formed 500ft mound in Russia ‘was caused by meteorite or falling UFO’ locals claim

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8057809/russia-landfall-ufo-meteorite-bureya-river/

    Probable Chinese nuclear diversion on the Bureya River in the Khabarovsk Territory?

    Of course, you can always suspect our American friends, but they just have hard time finding the place on the map.

    Part of the Chinese elite probably considered that the time had come for an H-hour (the American market was rocked) and it was time to take the situation in the Far East into their callous hardworking hands.

    From a Japanese [spy?] meteorological satellite they detected an underground low-power nuclear explosion, temperature anomaly in the winter deafness.

    The expedition reported: a very accurate meteorite of which no one had seen any trace, very successfully demolished the top of the mountain directly into the river bed of the Bureya on which the hydroelectric station was recently built, from which powers the Vostochny Space Launching pad, all the military installations, etc.

    If the blockage is not bombed to smithereens, then the flow of water, a tsunami, will wash everything away along the road into the Amur River, down to the sea.

    The Chinese will offer help plus 10 million Chinks to go along and tons of new jobs appear from nowhere and no war is needed, no problem anymore with the American solvency crisis and trade wars can be avoided.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2018 at 11:20 am #

      But!

      F-ing Japanese satellite spoiled everything.

  73. I deign to say, you unwashed masses, you are missing out on a piece of real American journalism this morning. You don’t even know what that means. Just like the 2nd amendment means every American should be prepared to defend his country against all enemies foreign and domestic, so too the First, supporting real journalism and free speech.

    Paraphrasing Franklin, ” “They who can give up real journalism to obtain a little temporary satisfaction deserve neither journalism nor satisfaction.”

    The New York Times.
    https://imgur.com/a/EF0EVZf

    Today’s business section features the Patreon issue that Mr. Kunstler refers to in recent days- reprobates who don’t pay for news probably don’t know what that is anyway. Pony up you cheap bastards. JHK is one complaint away from being disenfranchised. This whole outfit could go back to being photocopied and mail ordered. Considering that the millennials he employs can barely lick a stamp and can find more lucrative gainful employment in the county as a drug mule for MS-13, the situation is bleak.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2018 at 11:53 am #

      How’s shorting of American future going? Making a killing?

  74. Interesting story about real estate crime in Russia. No, not that kind of crime. Real estate agent gangs take their customers and kill them, taking the cash and the home. They are called ‘black realtors’.

    Seems fake news huh? 34,085 open complaints from fraudulent black realty.

    State television (RT?) Reported a gang of brokers kidnapped 30 sellers, mostly alcoholic single men, absconded the properties, and forced them into slavery on a remote farm. So, basically back to Russian norms of the prior millenia.

    Wow, only the pointy bearded, cone-heads of Orthodoxy can stop this devilry. I’ll be waiting for that moment. Even the IMF is ready to throw in the towel, unable to make heads of trails of the corruption in the mortgage and lending industry or how extensive the cancer is in their banking system.

  75. So the 3rd largest fleet of F-15s in the world is being used to blow away civilians targets in Yemen while American military advisors who are there to provide intelligence, ie., don’t bomb that building because it’s a school, are ignored.

    The prodigious amount of munitions there are now under the command of Mr. Bone Saw, who is like a dog in a jerky store and using up ammo like its going out of style, on defenseless fishing vessels and hospitals.

    Likewise a “Safari Gun” manufactured by CZ arms out of Kansas City keeps being picked up in Mozambique, where the world’s remaining Rhinos are being blown away by Sportsmen, for the express purpose of feeding the market for sham drugs in China and religious trinkets across SE Asia.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2018 at 12:46 pm #

      Wait till the place ends up under the Russian protectorate, like Syria and Iraq.

      Then the killing will stop.

      • K-Dog December 26, 2018 at 1:35 pm #

        In a nation of 28 million, a staggering 22 million people are currently in need of some form of assistance to survive.

        Russia taking over would be a good thing Obviously. Once the world looked to the USA for rescue; but we already have sand.

        Once America had religion and now we have video games. Night and day difference because with churches gone and only remembered as houses of organized insanity nothing now protects the meek and the weak. Secular compassion being far too fickle to make any difference that matters in today’s world. A Sunday morning first-person-shooter gaming makes all the difference. Get into the gamers mind and when you find out that 60% of the civilian deaths in Yemen are caused by F-16s what do yo say? Ya-Man! Awesome. As soon as we hit the singularity all the dead people are going to come back to life anyway so what’s to worry about the mind thinks.

        If Trump was a man he’d stop the killing but Trump at heart is a cruel arrested adolescent repressed gamer who’d love to shoot people up online all day long and tweet his time away. Trump has not changed in 50 years. He is as full of himself now as he was when he was getting busy in New York with daddy’s money back then and making his big minnow splash in the little New York real estate magazines.

        Some people, lacking sufficient ability to self-reflect can’t learn from life’s lessons. A narcissist is particularly immune from the bane and affliction of self-reflection. Looking at the man in the mirror can suggest change and result in sobering humility. The narcissist is already perfect, they will avoid all change so self reflection is best avoided. Ultimately that makes them all small change. Trump is small change for sure. In fact he will short change you in a New York minute given the chance, just because he can.

        I’d be a bad ass and solve all sorts of things if I had the chance. The Yemen war would be one thing I’d put a stop to and it would take me about 15 minutes to get bone saw in line. I’d not be a time wasting turnip like Trump. Weak ass pussy too worried about himself to care about other people is what he is.

        22 million in need. About three quarters of the population; but who owns the airwaves. Kardashians do! Let them eat……makeup.

        • malthuss December 26, 2018 at 4:00 pm #

          who pays their bills?

  76. SoftStarLight December 26, 2018 at 1:08 pm #

    So another Christmas Day has come and gone and I am left with a bit of mystery. It’s the second year in a row that I have received an anonymous gift. I have asked everyone I could think of if they were the secret Santa. I presumptively said thank you to a few. One in particular, I was totally sure it was him. But no, I can’t find the secret Santa. So I am left to wonder who you are. Why so shy and sly? I at least want to say thank you.

    • K-Dog December 26, 2018 at 1:50 pm #

      Does it fit?

      • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 11:04 am #

        It does!

  77. JohnAZ December 26, 2018 at 1:20 pm #

    Finca

    Good point.

    An area is under conflict from two ethnic groups contesting for supremacy. Two potential mediators

    The US goes in and tells the two groups that they are free to make their own decisions and let’s take a vote. A US lackey ends up in charge, ignites the other side, while US arms manufacturers send in the arms. Results? Look at the ME, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Korea, Iraq. We will always lose these conflicts.

    Russia goes in, takes a look at who will favor their presence, supplies arms to them and helps them obliterate the other side.

    The end result of both activities is the same, and will always be the same, one side annihilates the other and takes the power. Then we contest with Russia and China for the spoils of war.

    Negotiations, forget it. Negotiations are used by the US Deep State to prolong conflicts to make money, period.

    • K-Dog December 26, 2018 at 1:45 pm #

      Two groups? which two groups? John I don’t think you know what you are talking about here. I’m not being mean but your lack of specificity gives a pastel patina to your post and it is not an attractive pastel at that.

      “An area is under conflict from two ethnic groups contesting for supremacy. Two potential mediators”

      The country is getting the shit bombed out of it by another country Neither of the two groups has an air force. How does that jive with ‘two groups under conflict‘. Inquiring minds want to know.

      • JohnAZ December 26, 2018 at 3:32 pm #

        Just generically speaking

        You name the conflict, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya.

        During he Cold War, we contested everywhere with Russia and lost .

        Since the Cold War ended, we stick our nose in anywhere our National Security is at stake, i.e. Oil.

        My point was, we are “nice guys”, as opposed to Russia’s more direct approach. Either way, lots of people die.

  78. Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 1:22 pm #

    https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018/12/24/womens-march-organizer-white-jews-as-white-people-uphold-white-supremacy/

    Not quite right, but in the right direction. They pretend to be us when they’ve done something wrong, otherwise they uphold Jewish supremacy. In any case, they don’t like to be singled out like this as being in control – even though they boast about it themselves. Chickens coming home to roost!

    All these groups are already competing for whose going to rule once Whites are gone – before we’re even gone yet. And in the process, exposing the group that really is at the Top as being part of the evil White Establishment. Their trickery is coming back to haunt them now. Very, very good for Us.

    • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 11:17 am #

      I don’t imagine that any of these groups truly have the collective IQ needed to run everything. Violence and tyranny is the only language they really do understand. Jews are fools to participate in it so they are reaping what they have sown.

  79. K-Dog December 26, 2018 at 2:01 pm #


    18 December 2018

    A Yemeni mother whose two-year-old son is on life support in the United States has been barred from travelling to the country due to President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban.

    Shaima Swileh’s husband Ali Hassan appealed to the US State Department on Monday to expedite his wife’s application for a waiver so she could say goodbye to their dying son, Abdulla.

    • pequiste December 26, 2018 at 3:58 pm #

      NO medical facilities were closer than 8000 miles away for the sick child?

      No wealthy Muslim country had the proper treatments available for the kid?

      Dubai? Saudi Arabia?
      I know a number of American citizens who find having adequate medical insurance coverage for their families to have enormous monthly premiums and substantial deductibles.

      Will the Yemeni family or benefactor be paying cash for the generally very expensive life-support treatment ( in an I.C.U. facility no-doubt)? Do they have some great insurance program or are they getting the treatment gratis? Who is paying in that case?*

      Are there no hospice capabilities in Yemen or something a tad closer to home?

      *(Ben Dover, the famous, hapless, and generally clueless U.S.A. taxpayer will be picking up the tab in that case.)

      • Walter B December 26, 2018 at 5:08 pm #

        My oldest friend is an RN who makes a ton of money administrating Medicaid cases for foreign nationals that come to America for “political refuge”. They sign documents that allow them to go directly to a medical provider, hospital or whatever their needs are and be given free treatments, operations, and follow up care. They even continue to receive follow up treatments and care, including prescriptions if they return to their countries because the paperwork is routed through insurance agencies with offices here in the States. It is one of the many forms of Medicaid fraud, but because of technicalities cannot be prosecuted.

        Medicaid fraud, $29,000,000,000.00:

        http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/medicaid-fraud-and-abuse.aspx

        But Americans bitch when stories like the one above come out so what are you going to do? It is a crying shame especially when you realize that some of the same idiots that are whining about it are the ones that are paying for the free health care for the foreign nationals, while forking over tens of thousands of dollars for their own care as well. Let us hope that the credit cards never max out or we might not survive as a nation.

        • pequiste December 26, 2018 at 6:07 pm #

          Thank you for the high credibility link, Walter.

          Too bad such fraudulent activities are just a minor symptom of the virulent cancer that is corrupt Hyper-FInance Capitalism now fully metastasized throughout the body of the formerly great republic.

          Even more worrisome is that the awful malady is coupled to the miserable brain disease (similar to Alzheimer’s) known as Liberalism.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 5:58 am #

            Sorry, to rub this in your face but the mother is in Egypt and the father is from California. They are being kept apart.

            Capeesh ?

          • pequiste December 27, 2018 at 6:47 pm #

            Strange why the child was separated from its mother in the first place, especially if terminally ill?

            No worries though; the fine folks at CAIR made it a discrimination issue anyway. Sick boy as poster child of American Christian Infidel Crusader oppression and – shazzam – mom comes to America.

            https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/20/yemeni-mother-shaima-swileh-lands-in-us-to-say-goodbye-to-dying-two-year-old-son

            If one likes to sandbag information and play “Gotcha” e.g. the child was a U.S. citizen living with its father in the U.S. and the estranged/separated/ whatever marital state of the mother had them living apart (news organizations I read did not explain further) then that’s O.K.; but CAVE CANEM that that is a door that swings both ways.

            Walter’s facts and position concerning immigrant and illegal alien abuse of the U.S. medical system stands.

  80. Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 6:18 pm #

    In Kdog’s book, Whites are supposed to have infinite compassion for other peoples and infinite capacity to meet their needs – and not have any needs of their own. Or if they do have needs, they must be willing to renounce them in favor of the other. When Whites fail in this (as is inevitable – read The Long Emergency), then they are Scum in his book. His ideal of perfection for Us, is that of an Eton Marble Statue, both White and Dead, but oh so beautiful.

    Yet he says nothing about the German girls hiking in Morocco, who were raped, murdered, decapitated with their killers spitting on their heads. They filmed all this, no doubt to enjoy it over and over again.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 6:22 pm #

      Want to SEE?

      http://www.wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/why_i_watched_the_infamous_murder_video_and_why_you_should_too.html

      I haven’t found the courage or perhaps I don’t need to see it since I already know. In any case, I don’t enjoy such savagery towards anyone, especially my own kind. But perhaps you, Mr or Ms Liberal, need to see in order to believe. Follow the links if they are still working.

      • pequiste December 26, 2018 at 7:08 pm #

        Don’t need to see any of that mind poison.

        Too bad the peoples of ancient Viking heritage have been completely neutered, feminized and turned into servile cowards.

        In the olden days, the Vikings, in retaliation for the disgusting butchery conducted by the vermin Muslims on the Nordic womenfolk, would have rushed to their longships, girded themselves for battle, and once arrived at the town of the murderers, go berserk.

        Instead, the politicians, ministers, and clergy of the Scandinavian countries obsequiously apologize to their own Muslim populations for offending Islamic sensibilities. Women traveling unchaperoned and not in hijabs in Dar Al Islam? Who do the dhimmis think they are? The nerve.

        Time for Denmark, Norway, Finland and especially Sweden to open their hearts and wallets and each welcome a fresh batch of a million Muslim immigrants to help ensure die-versity.

        I’m all for fire-bombing, or better, neutron bombing, the village(s) where these vermin live.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 7:55 pm #

          Yes, we have much vengeance coming to us.

          And the women were utter fools of course, believing the lies they were fed since they were babies. Believing “The Lion King” would never hurt them…. Or perhaps subconsciously hoping to meet some Real Men that they couldn’t wrap around their fingers or make sit down to use the toilet.

          Children naturally fear monsters (large animals) and boogie men (like these guys). They are correct in their fears. PC Faery Tales try to break them and make them unnatural at the earliest age possible. And just as naturally, people prefer their own kind, in terms of race, nation, and culture. This is also beaten out of them.

          • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 11:48 am #

            When you want to believe that everyone has good in them it is easier to fall for the PC lies, or maybe even a portion of those lies. I do believe women generally struggle with this more than men do. When your natural disposition leads you toward taking care of others you have to also always remember who those others are and what they are capable of.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2018 at 12:56 pm #

            Around adolescence, I’ve heard girls often develop a strong interest in big animals like horses. Nature is obviously getting them ready for Men. They thought they could handle these big brown dogs. But these men were wolves – something else entirely.

            Many of my Brothers in Asgard and Vanaheim take a savage delight in such fools getting their just deserts. So much so that I fear they are becoming like the boogie men themselves sometimes. But I understand it: We have been utterly betrayed by our women. Those, “Refugees Welcome” held by those blonde and brunette, blue eyed German women as the columns of Orc Soldiers march in. Some of the signs mocked us directly saying, Rapists not Racists. Truly women who held that sign are tempting fate.

            There are many other possible aspect to this story: besides their possible secret attraction and hopes for romance or hot sex, there is the strange innocence of the Nordic people, particularly in women. These countries themselves recognize it, equating it with blue eyes. There’s something there I think. I can’t imagine Blacks or say the Chinese, ever being like this. It is a loveable quality, but a very dangerous one when out of control. Having children seems to mitigate it since practicality then must reign supreme. Such former idealists “find themselves” voting for Trump.

          • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 4:12 pm #

            Kinda like when I mentioned before that to me it seems like White people have the biggest hearts. People know that so they take advantage of it. The other problem is thinking you can change someone if you “work” on them enough. People change when and if they want to. And some people just don’t want to believe there are wolves despite the obvious. Little ones change everything and you will do whatever you think is in their best interests. Yes, including voting for Trump :-).

      • Tate December 27, 2018 at 2:00 am #

        No thanks.

        The female spirit will find ways to be subdued. If not by her own menfolk who are unable to exercise rightful mastery over her because they have been feminized by the designs of a hostile yet formidably patient globalist elite, then she will travel to the far corners of the earth to be subdued & abused by savages under the pretext of “adventure,” or “missionary work” or do-goodism of one stripe or another.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:05 am #

          It’s been my experience women generally like to be owned by one man and to accomplish that genetic imperative they will often tolerate a savage. You are confusing the icing with the cake.

          • capt spaulding December 27, 2018 at 7:56 am #

            Well K-Dog, it sounds like these guys are all fans of the “Gor” series of books written by John Norman (a pseudonym). The women in the books simply can’t wait to throw themselves at the feet of studly, sword wielding men who show them their real place in life. Not only that, the women are humbly grateful to the men for showing them that being subservient in all things is the most fulfilling goal obtainable for women. Any “Real Man” here, can add a couple inches to his pecker just by reading the Gor books. Actually, I’ve never read them myself, there’s such a thing as overkill, you know.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:02 am #

      Dude by your standards she is the property of some dude in Cali.

      Sometimes I’ll let my guard down a bit just to see what you apes will do. But never very far. I always cover my ass. I know of course that you know this about me. But since we both know gentle reader does not, I’m always ready for you. Always!

      In my book the introduction puts you to sleep. You can’t even make it to chapter one.

    • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 11:41 am #

      My ultimate question is why in the world did you want to go camping in a country like Morocco????? Any Muslim country is a potential death bed for any Westerner.

  81. pequiste December 26, 2018 at 6:41 pm #

    And speaking of the bizarre behaviours and ideations of Hyper-Finance Capitalism’s most famous patient – the U.S.A.:

    I see that gyrations on Wall Streets stock markets reflect more than an acute case of Cyclothymia, but instead a full-blown manic-depressive psychosis, now better known as bipolar disorder.

    Up and down and around it goes; where it is headed….

    One used to have to be a Wall Street insider; captain of industry; Ivy League lawyer; or MBA with great connections to have access to some of that information. With today’s A.I.computer trading al-gore-rhythms, one only needs to be invested “all-in” with Bitcoin, Ethereum and all the rest of that. Or maybe tulip bulbs? South Seas Company shares? Dotcom companies or some Florida swampland? What do valuations really mean anyway? Whatever some rube is willing to pay, right?

    All I want to know is when is the collapse of the Petrodollar system? (Will the New York Times wisely and beneficently tell us before the event or report it after the fact, Lil Deb?)

    And by-the-way Pucker, one can see the remnants of shamanism in the worship of animal fetishes on Wall Street and throughout the Capitalist world: bulls (Mithraism) and bears*.

    *https://whatismyspiritanimal.com/spirit-totem-power-animal-meanings/mammals/bear-symbolism-meaning/

  82. Pucker December 26, 2018 at 7:33 pm #

    “Depressions often provide the occasion for structural changes in capitalist production, and that of the 1870s was no exception.“

    Eric Foner
    Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863 – 1877

    • JohnAZ December 26, 2018 at 7:53 pm #

      The Times they are a-Changing should be the theme song for all economic perturbations, just like political revolutions.

      The Great Depression was , in part, a result of the invention of the gas powered tractor. Most of the remaining agrarian sector was decimated by the efficiency of motorized farming. They ended up in the cities looking for work, which had not been invented yet. WW2 provided the impetus, finally, to break out of the doldrums, as men went to war, or got factory jobs.

      Depressions are economic revolutions. Today we are fighting the introduction of high tech, especially AI and robots, where discovery of the next generation of work is in progress. Hopefully, it will not take a war to generate jobs.

  83. Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2018 at 8:05 pm #

    Kdog goes down in flame again, like Snoopy before the Red Baron, the Man with the Iron Hand, Manfred Von Richtofen.

    https://allthatsinteresting.com/manfred-von-richthofen-red-baron

    • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:13 am #

      LOL

      Swileh’s husband, Ali Hassan appealed to the US State Department on Monday to expedite his wife’s application for a waiver so she could say goodbye to their son, Abdulla, who is on life support.
      “My wife is calling me every day, wanting to kiss and hold her son for one last time,” the 22-year-old US national said as he broke down in tears. “Time is running out. Please help us get my family together again.”

      Janos You just did the ultimate in dumfuckery. Never dance a victory jig when my Sopwith Camel is dropping down on your ass straight out of the sun. K-Dog shines with brilliance and vanity once again blinds Janos.

      • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:14 am #

        Please help us get my family together again.

        You know what family is Janos? LOL

        • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2018 at 12:39 pm #

          Well since Family is people we don’t know (LOL), I feel a lot closer to those dumb Scandi girls. You choose the Boogie Men and want to support little boogers so we get more Boogie Men here. As many as possible, right? To take care of people like me….

      • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 12:52 pm #

        I wish the US would end immigration for now. These stories are heart-breaking no doubt. But what of all the American families and people suffering from similar health issues? We only talk about it when it involves immigrants.

  84. Pucker December 26, 2018 at 9:00 pm #

    Why do they call it “Corrections”? Isn’t it, at the end of the day, just 9 bucks an hour?

    http://www.correctionscorp.com/

    • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:15 am #

      Because if you are getting nine bucks an hour you need to do something to correct your situation.

      • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 6:16 am #

        Perhaps?

        • Pucker December 27, 2018 at 7:37 am #

          The terminology change in US academia from “penology” to “corrections” occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, driven by a new philosophy emphasizing rehabilitation. It was accompanied by concrete changes in some prisons, like giving more privileges to inmates, and attempting to instil a more communal atmosphere. At least nominally, most prisons became “correctional institutions”, and guards became “correctional officers”.[8] Although the corrections-related terminology continued thereafter in US correctional practice, the philosophical view on offenders’ treatment took an opposite turn in the 1980s, when academics labeled the “get tough” program[which?] as “The New Penology”.[9]

          • Pucker December 27, 2018 at 7:50 am #

            They’re obviously insane. Maybe, at the end of the day, it really is just purely a Labor Question, i.e., 9 bucks an hour?

          • Pucker December 27, 2018 at 7:58 am #

            “Corrections” may an example of a “Discipline” or a “Field” that is Insane? Perhaps, “Gender Studies” is another example? The entire Discipline from the academic theorists to the literature to the research to the dogmatic practitioners—- all Batshit Crazy….

  85. Cavepainter December 27, 2018 at 7:07 am #

    Sorry folks, JHK’s pieces on the future (and even Cormac McCarthy’s) are much too optimistic; humanity’s capacity to reckon the future has collectively always been skewed toward pushing the harsh truth of reality aside for appeasing fantasy. Hell, even the Biblical rapture is too optimistic. The feed-back loop of overpopulation kicked in decades ago and will accelerate ever faster. The first signal — pathologically ignored — is the general unraveling of social cohesiveness. My most optimistic expectation is that in less than ten years only a small fraction of humanity will have survived and the prospect beyond will be ever more tenuous. If you doubt me consider what happens when technicians cease showing up at the nuclear and public service facilities plants for fear of leaving their family exposed to civil chaos and disorder — emergency personnel and even military too. Get to a small, homogeneous community distant from dense populations and nuclear faculties. Its the only chance for you and your family. The greater mass will die or be killed and cannibalized for staying in place where they now are clinging to either Utopian rapture salvation or some techno-miracle.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:32 am #

      But, but … we have cell phones and electric cars.

      CP, if I join the Wellness movement, and become woke, will that save me?

      Brh

      • Cavepainter December 27, 2018 at 7:35 am #

        Yeah, of course, dumb ass. That is if in your Christmas stocking you found, and then installed, the latest ap.

    • Cavepainter December 27, 2018 at 7:49 am #

      Those that do survive (if any do) will be of two types; those who are resolutely pragmatic and resourceful, otherwise those who are simply ruthless in the most merciless way.

      • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:55 am #

        Hey CP you. took my question seriously. Good answer tho, I deserved it,

        Brh

        • Cavepainter December 27, 2018 at 9:01 am #

          Naw, it was my own attempt at jest in response to what I took to be jest from you. So thanks to both of us for infusing a little levity into this most solemn (appropriately so) site otherwise.

    • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 1:37 pm #

      A very dim outlook but completely within the realm of possibility. And a sobering message for the season. It’s always a good idea to be ready for the worst-case scenario.

  86. BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:20 am #

    Massive brawls yesterday in malls in Manchester and Milford, as many as 500 combatants involved. By the looks of it, it was Puerto Ricans vs blacks. The media is calling them Youths.. The shape of the future of New England is becoming clear.

    3 people shot in Bridgeport shot last nite, the gunman an illegal alien, whose brother shot a 12 year old boy last week. It’s a family affair, apparently. Dam pols are calling for more gun control.. As new years eve approaches more tribal warfare and mayhem is anticipated,

    Happy New Year, CFNers.

    Brh

    • stelmosfire December 27, 2018 at 7:44 am #

      Mornin BRH, So now I get letters in the snail mail and in the ol’ email box. Some of the symptoms for” MOLD TOXICITY ” ( the new money maker) from the anti dirt cellar crowd.- I have a dirt cellar, so there!- They include fatigue, headaches, nausea, anxiety, irritable Bowel Syndrome, muscle aches, brain fog, weight gain, adrenal fatigue and sensitivities to light and sound and whatever else ails ya. Ok let’s break it down. I’m 61. No. 1. Fatigue(check) 2. Headaches (Daily dealing with asswipes) check. 3. Nausea (I vomit in my mouth reading some comments on this site) check. 4. IBS( I don’t know whether to shit or get off the pot.) check. 5. Muscle aches (I’m 61 -split some wood and join the club) check. 6. Brain fog( I’m 61 repeat no. 5) check. Weight gain( everybody relates) check. 7. Adrenal fatigue (huh? WTF is that?) 8. Sensitivity to lights/ sounds. (Turn that damn music down!! quoted from my Mom in ’72.) so there you have it . The Solution? $10.000.00 mold mitigation, ventilation, etc. etc. No Thanks. I grew up with lead gas, lead paint, asbestos wrapped steam pipes, asbestos house siding, fiberglass insulation, DDT, radium watch hands, pot, acid, no bike helmets, etc. “Oh the horror.” Happy New Year!

      • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:50 am #

        Hey Rip, I was sorry to read about your son.

        My condolences, sincerely

        Brh

        • stelmosfire December 27, 2018 at 7:56 am #

          Thank you Marlin, your thoughts are appreciated.

      • stelmosfire December 27, 2018 at 7:55 am #

        An addendum, i worked 33 years on a taxi cab for sick people( ie bonebox) I was pretty much exposed to every malady known in the western world( thank god we don’t have Cymothoa exigua in these parts. I really never get sick. i haven’t had a common cold in ages. So i’ve got that going for me.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X48G7Y0VWW4

        • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 11:02 am #

          St. Elmo’s

          Read your post with interest. You are right, all this concentration on things like mold is totally political, something to stir the pot with.

          We live in a world full of toxins and germs. Your genetic structure, mostly your immune system, sets your ability to fight off the environment. You are fortunate to have the makeup you have.

          BTW, I am 71 and my comment on your symptomology is ” welcome to the sixties”. Changes,in you, only accelerate with time. Enjoy life, forget about all the alarmists.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2018 at 1:01 pm #

      There is a Rose in Spanish Harlem. She half Black/half Spanish (whatever “Spanish” means) and both sides want her. So they fight. What your problem?

  87. BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:47 am #

    Phew, I saw the menu for the Climate Change conference in Poland; without going into details let me just say those f_jokers eat good, delicacies flown in from all corners of the earth. It’s hard work, saving the world. So why not?

    Brh

    • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 11:17 am #

      BRH

      I wonder, how much of the globalization that is occurring would stop if the Climate Change group and Davos, the economic group would just disband.

      I believe in Climate Change, the AGW sort. The science of it is compelling. However, the effect of Earth positioning and the vulcanism of the Ring of Fire are both influences that are uncontrollable and unknown. As I write, I am seeing that Indonesia is raising warning levels on Anak Krakatoa. One eruption of that monster throws out all projections. Mother Nature does not give a hoot about our petty politics. The biggest statement about CC is that it will happen, and people can do nothing about it except adapt to the changing conditions. France currently shows what the human response to BS changes by the anointed Elite. People do recognize when they are being adversely manipulated by greedy jerks. At least, most do.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 12:16 pm #

      It used to be that when I ate a salad in winter, it was a long-distance affair. I munched on the “3,000-mile salad” consisting of organic loose-leaf California lettuce that, according to American writer James Kunstler, will soon disappear from our plates thanks to the depleting supply and increasing price of fossil fuels.

  88. Pucker December 27, 2018 at 8:34 am #

    Prisons have become criminal enterprises?

    Rechargeable Credit Cards and “Green Dot” Numbers and drugs seem to be an alternative currency in prisons? The junior “Correction Officers” (COs) only get paid $9 an hour and the Criminal inmates seem to have much more money than the COs. So basically the Criminals probably run the prison economy?

    Shane Bauer
    American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

    Money card transaction: The inmate asks friends or family to purchase a money card. This money card contains a series of numbers (Green Dot Numbers) that can be reloaded or transferred to a rechargeable Master Card / Visa Card. The inmate may tell you that in doing so they will be able to purchase items more quickly.

    Recently, there has been a flood of inmates having friends and family perform these types of transactions. This form of money card transaction is a violation of prison policy. There is no legitimate purpose or reason for an inmate to receive numbers from a purchased money card or to have you send money orders or personal checks to anyone other than the inmate themselves. The inmate having you do this is fully aware it may violate prison policy, and that he/she will be subject to receiving disciplinary action.
    Here is a typical drug transaction scenario involving the use of money cards:
    Inmate A’s girlfriend is prescribed the drug Suboxone (Buprenorphine) in strip form. The girlfriend may be on her parents’ medical insurance and receives the medication basically free. Inmate A pressures her to assist him with selling the prescribed Suboxone. The inmate first has his girlfriend purchase a reloadable Master or Visa Card and manipulates her into bringing a few Suboxone strips in with her during a visit. The girlfriend, now involved in the commission of a felony, conspires to conceal the drugs and pass them to Inmate A sometime during the visit. After the visit, Inmate A then brings the Suboxone strips into his housing unit. The paper thin orange strips are broken down into many pieces. The word gets out in the housing unit that pieces of Suboxone are for sale.

    Inmate B, desiring to purchase some of the Suboxone, calls a friend / family member with a concocted story that the books he got from them last month have all been read and he is eternally grateful (other times it may be to replace his hot pot, T.V. or to purchase shoes, etc.). Inmate B makes the request, “Please purchase me a money card so I can get more books”. He convinces the friend / family member that he has a connection that can get the books for a fraction of the cost and by you getting him the numbers off the back of the money card he will get the needed item/s quicker. The friend or family member of inmate B goes to a retail/convenience store and, at the register, purchases a money card with the series of numbers that can be reloaded to a Master or Visa Card. This 14 digit “green dot” number is then communicated to inmate B.

    Inmate B with the green dot number in hand delivers it to inmate C, who will arrange for the drug delivery. Inmate C may have already collected twenty other green dot numbers from other inmates who had friends and family do the same task. Inmate C then delivers the twenty-one green dot numbers to inmate D. Inmate B has no idea of the identity of inmate A or inmate D and no knowledge of their connection to the transaction. Inmate D gets the green dot numbers to inmate A’s girlfriend (21 green dot numbers @ $50 each). Inmate A’s girlfriend dials the 1- 800 number on the back of their rechargeable Master or Visa Card, or logs in online following the prompts given, and within 15 minutes she has the funds. She inserts this card into an ATM machine to transfer $1,050 onto their card which is then converted into cash.
    Illegal drug use within the prison is powerful, manipulative, and destructive. Many of these inmates themselves may not be bad people; it’s the drug use that motivates them to do bad things. As friends and family of those incarcerated, please be duly cautious of enabling behaviors that are not positive in scope. If you are ever asked to send money as outlined above, please think it through. You may also be committing a crime by facilitating these drug transactions. Funding drug use in here hinders any chance of rehabilitation and their chance of success out there!

    • stelmosfire December 27, 2018 at 10:13 am #

      Pucker, I have visited people in jail. There was absolutely no contact between visitors and prisoners, These were county jails. behind the glass visits with telephones. There was no way to pass contraband to a prisoner. Even written correspondence had to be USPS issued, no stamps. Any drugs were from the guards or from new detainees via the digestive route. All money went straight into commissary via a third party.

    • Walter B December 27, 2018 at 12:08 pm #

      . Pucker, I had the good fortune to be stationed at the tail end of a local Christmas Parade a couple of weeks ago along with an officer from the County Sherriff’s Department. We had an hour or more to kill until the parade finally got to us and we got busy, so we had a long very interesting discussion. Before he got into the Sheriff’s Department he spend two years as a Correctional Office in a local prison. It was the worst job he ever had and he hated going in every day he worked. The tales he told of the corruption and illegal goings on were so bad that I am not even going to discuss any of them, but it is apparently all a very big joke in very bad taste. If you want to know what goes on behind the bars, do not visit your friend in the can, talk to a C.O.. They know

      • cbeard December 28, 2018 at 5:39 am #

        I had an old friend who died in prison serving a life sentence for killing a man over a woman. He told me that you could get anything you wanted in prison, if you had the money. Drugs, women, weapons, booze, anything.

  89. JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 11:28 am #

    I am watching an analysis of the coming Democratic House and it is scary.

    Number one, they are going to investigate every contact Trump has had with a foreign government for business collusion. I just hope that boomerangs on them like the Russian Collusion has. Second, they are going to put together a platform to remove all the pro-business changes of the past two years and grow big government. Number one is Medicare for all, followed by tax increases and re-regulation of the banking industry.

    Hope all you Democratic voters enjoy your unemployment checks when the Obama malaise starts back up. You will reap the rewards of your lousy decision making.

    • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 1:48 pm #

      The trouble is that it will effect everyone. A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.

  90. elysianfield December 27, 2018 at 12:20 pm #

    Well, ladies and germs;

    I was watching RT news the other night, when they showed a clip of one of the new Russian wonder weapons in a successful test. It was the fearsome “Satan-2” with the deployable “hyper-sonic” payload…apparently unstoppable and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound…. There were cries of alarm reported from our Defense Department, and the implication that the Rooskies are years ahead of us with this technology….

    Well…the 80’s are calling and they want their technology back.

    We have had, since the ’80s, MIRV’d warheads that do the EXACT same thing, at comparable speeds, with mind-boggling accuracy. They too, cannot be defended against. God (or Satan) only knows what our technology now provides for…40 years later.

    100.000 bayonets sounds much scarier. Finc?

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 1:51 pm #

      Hey, if Putin and Trump were such chums, and the Russians wanted to get him the Presidency, why have them been developing this new generation delivery system during the end of the Obama years and the Trump time? Why do both sides just continue to up the ante when MAD is the name of the game?

      Why? And what role does China and the New World Order play in this? Maybe all these weapons are not pointed at us?

    • ” …only knows what our technology now provides for…40 years later.”

      The tax basis for numerous political constituencies?

  91. K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 12:26 pm #

    The Global Carbon Project projects growth in carbon dioxide (CO?) emissions from fossil fuels and industry in 2018 to be +2.7%, within uncertainty margins from +1.8% to +3.7%.

    • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 1:45 pm #

      K Dog

      Each year the levels are going to rise because CO2 is stable and does not go away. The real problem is people do not want to change, as evidenced by France’s reaction to a CC gas tax.

      I cannot remember one time that people acted proactively to a problem. We have always just played the reaction game. The number one modus opera director is that people just do not want to change.

      Wait ten years, People WILL change whether they want to or not.

      The number one threat in The Long Emergency will be the people from the inner cities. They will descend on all the softies in the suburbs and exurbs, and the results will be brutal.

      • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 1:52 pm #

        Speaking of the climate, what ever happened to Green Alba?

        • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2018 at 2:01 pm #

          The Group Mind defeated her.

        • GreenAlba December 27, 2018 at 2:04 pm #

          On a long vacation in Ultima Thule, I believe…

          Dropped by briefly to wish you a Merry Christmas, though, JohnAZ, since Santa reported that you’d been kind enough to mention her without saying anything rude 🙂 .

          • malthuss December 27, 2018 at 2:34 pm #

            Merry Christmas.

      • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 3:30 pm #

        I take it to mean that the emissions are +2.7% more than what was emitted last year. You put a +spin on it that I don’t think is there.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 3:31 pm #

          That is not the same as the total going up.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2018 at 3:36 pm #

            It means we are on a runaway train out of control. If you did not already know.

          • JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 5:25 pm #

            Relax, K-dog.. You and I are on the same side here. My point is that CO2 does not dissipate and just continues to accumulate. Your observation is right on. Economic growth produces more combustion, thus more CO2. Somehow, we are damned if we don’t and damned if we do.

            Interesting story last night. They were talking about the developed countries not replacing themselves and the death rate is higher than the birth rates. Japan, Europe and America were subjects. America and Europe’s leadership answer is immigration. That is another subject. In our context though, more people means more CO2 emitted, thus more heat retention. The runaway train is gaining speed.

            BTW, the Earth has been much warmer in its past. We do not even understand why we cooled off. We do not know s–t about CC and that is what is scary. What if we make the world overreact and it slams us into an ice age or frozen Earth as it has been in the past.

          • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 6:10 pm #

            I keep thinking an ice age is much more likely to happen if you consider past glacial cycles and the fact that we are overdue for another ice age.

          • elysianfield December 27, 2018 at 6:19 pm #

            “Relax, K-dog.. You and I are on the same side here. My point is that CO2 does not dissipate ”

            John,
            Well, what of the billions of tons a year absorbed in plant respiration? Billions and billions and billions of tons.

          • Tate December 27, 2018 at 6:20 pm #

            Lol. We’re in an interglacial period at the moment.

          • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 10:03 pm #

            I know it sounds kooky maybe but it is possible. The interglacials on average last about 11,000 years. The interglacial we live in now has allegedly been going on for about 11,600 years.

  92. Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2018 at 2:00 pm #

    Nancy Pelosi and Cher were sitting together at an awards show last night. The plastic on their faces was starting to melt and drip from the heat of the lights. And their faces were so tight from all the “work” that they had to talk out of each other’s mouths. No problem though since they believe exactly the same about everything. So why do they even bother talking to each other? Perhaps for facial exercise – so they don’t tighten up even more?

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 3:45 pm #

      Enough plastic on those two faces to build 6 Kevlar vests.

      That story about the Scandanavian girls in Morocco, raped and beheaded is shocking but not surprising. Doesn’t the same thing happen right inside Sweden itself; and the families of the raped Swedish girls having to apologize to the muzzies for bringing into the world such attractive daughters?

      brh

      • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 6:00 pm #

        The article doesn’t comment on the ethnic composition of the crowd. Hispanic?

        • Tate December 27, 2018 at 6:23 pm #

          It was a massive chimp-out.

        • elysianfield December 27, 2018 at 6:42 pm #

          “the ethnic composition of the crowd. Hispanic?”

          SSL,

          Silly goose!

          The crowd was composed entirely of white NYU music students. The fight was over the suggested ethereal superiority of Faure’s “Requiem” over that of Mozart’s offering. Of course, who would not have strong opinions?

          Just the thought of some choir members favoring Faure would make me want to slap a bitch….

          • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 8:45 pm #

            LOL gee what was I thinking?! White NYU music students? Faure versus Mozart? No wonder it was a 200-person brawl!

  93. deetrump December 27, 2018 at 6:18 pm #

    The military was sent to the border over a fictional caravan invasion. Now 44,000 active-duty are working without paychecks and Trump says he owns the shutdown that is denying them pay. Then the Commander in Chief lied to the military about a fictional 10% pay raise.

    Such disrespect for the military.

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 8:10 pm #

      Little Jane is that you.

      It sounds like you?

      brh

  94. JohnAZ December 27, 2018 at 6:41 pm #

    Elysian Field

    Nitpicking time. Photosynthesis, not respiration. The Carbon atoms are not destroyed when converted to sugar, then made into wood etc. However, then the plants are consumed, burned, die of old age and are converted back into CO2. Balance is the key and K-dog is right, we are combusting more than plants are reabsorbing. Actual measurements show that the equatorial areas are warming and that CO2 percentage is increasing. Cause and effect is not as certain.

    Sidebar

    An interesting article I have read says that a upward temperature rate increase starting in the early 70’s made be because we have cleaned up the levels of pollution and particulate in the air, allowing more solar radiation to reach the surface. Point is, there are so many contributors to the situation that the idea that there is any one fix is ludicrous.

    Remember that if JHK is right about fossil fuels, another fifty years or so, the fossil fuel combustion problem will become history.

  95. Pucker December 27, 2018 at 6:48 pm #

    Prisons have become criminal enterprises with guards and CO’s bringing in the drugs? So much for “Rehabilitation”…..

    The prisons pretend that the prisoners bring drugs into the prison via the mail, but it’s probably the CO’s who get paid only 9 bucks an hour and the guards who bring in the drugs? The Society has gone Nuts….

    “I found some drugs in someone’s legal mail. They are supposed to give us fifty dollars when we find drugs. I ain’t got it yet. They supposed to give it to me, but getting it is another story.” Miss Roberts teaches us the kinds of things to look for in the letters by mentioning them as they arise. As she flips through a stack of photos, she pulls one out. No pictures should have anyone making a hand sign, “not even a peace sign,” she says. She opens a letter with several pages of colorful drawings from a child. “Now, see like this one, it’s not allowed because they’re not allowed to get anything that’s crayon.” I presume this is for the same reason we remove stamps; crayon could be a vehicle for drugs. There are so many letters from children—little hands outlined, little stockings glued to the inside of cards—that we rip out and throw in the trash. One reads:

    I love you and miss you so much daddy, but we are doing good. Rick Jr. is bad now. He gets into everything. I have not forgot you daddy. I love you.“

    Shane Bauer
    American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 7:06 pm #

      $9 an hour?

      • Pucker December 27, 2018 at 8:52 pm #

        The “Innates” in the “Correctional Institutions” always remind the “Corrections Officers” (CO’s”) of how little the CO’s are being paid. CO’s are only paid 9 bucks an hour, and there is a huge turnover of staff. The head of Corrections Corporation of American who got his start in the 1960’s running a penitentiary in Louisiana, which was basically a cotton plantation, is now paid an annual salary of $4 million per year. They’re obviously Insane….

        Rather than calling prisons “Correctional Institutions” they should call them “Connectional Institutions”…..

  96. seawolf77 December 27, 2018 at 7:44 pm #

    I hope at this year’s State of the Union whenever Trump says something a democratic congressman or senator yells out “Liar.” They should have a predetermined sequence. In the front “Liar.” In the back “Liar!” Then three all at once in the center “LIAR!!!” On and on the whole night. By the end of the night Trump will know the Democrats have come to fight.

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2018 at 8:15 pm #

      A Republican congressman called out “liar” during a speech Obama was making about the affordable care act, and was roundly criticized for it. And in this case Obama really was lying.

      Brh

    • Exscotticus December 27, 2018 at 9:22 pm #

      “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it”. — 2013 Lie of the Year

      • Walter B December 27, 2018 at 10:37 pm #

        How about, “If I am elected I will repeal the Patriot Act”? That was my favorite.

  97. “Speaking of the climate, what ever happened to Green Alba?'”

    Probably reading and rereading the comprehensive special report, a complete section printed by The New York Times this morning…

    “This Is Our Reality Now,”

    “President Trump has systematically undone protections of the environment over the4 past two years. He says they have COST JOBS* and HURT THE ECONOMY*. But undoing them also comes at a cost. Here is how profound the shift in federal policy is affecting communities across the country. ”

    * emphasis mine.

    What follows is an extraordinary avalanche of analysis, comprehensive in every way. The Pulitzer is going to the New York Times this year, no doubt.

    12 pages, in color.

    The New York Times. You can find it, wherever they throw away today’s newspaper- for free.

  98. Tate December 27, 2018 at 8:29 pm #

    Here’s a very good book that you should immediately go out & buy.

    Physics Reforged, by Julian von Abele, 4-1/2 star Amazon rating

    Has nothing to do with racism.

    https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Reforged-Parallel-Universes-Dimensions/dp/1517765633/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1545960430&sr=1-1&keywords=julian+von+abele

    • Recommending a book about Physics to this rabble is futile. They don’t even read a newspaper.

      What do you think these inveterate Climate Change deniers and New Flat Earth society would do with the information? One struggles to imagine…

      • SoftStarLight December 27, 2018 at 10:12 pm #

        Always so judgy. That attitude makes me dislike the New York Times.

  99. deetrump December 27, 2018 at 9:20 pm #

    The short-fingered vulgarian does not get along with the generals, but then he says he knows more than the generals.

    General Kellogg. Gone

    General Waddell. Gone.

    General McMaster. Gone.

    General Flynn. Gone.

    General Kelly. Gone.

    General Mattis. Gone.

    Comrade Putin. Still welcome in the White House.

    What an insult to our military!

    • Walter B December 27, 2018 at 10:35 pm #

      Never spent a day in the military did ya dt? Let me let you in on a little secret. Nobody ever got to be a general by caring about someone else, they get there by taking of themselves first and foremost. During peacetime, which this sort of qualifies as cause its about as peaceful as it gets anymore, playing politics and kissing butt is how generals collect stars. I am not saying that they are all bad, though many are, but there was a reason that the Founding Fathers placed the military at the command of civilian authority. Being that it has been over one hundred years since generals stopped being casualties of war (for the most part) they can often be far to glib about sending our young men and women to their demise for corporate and political profit.

      • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2018 at 6:22 am #

        That’s what i admire about the IDF. They actually have Brigadier Generals out on combat patrol..

        Brh

  100. Pucker December 27, 2018 at 11:16 pm #

    What does this look like to you? Do you empathize with bona fide, yet very dysfunctional love between low IQ’s prisoners down on their luck and who are extremely imperfect and who have made lots of mistakes and who will probably continue to fuck up and they know it? The prisoners’ favorite TV show in the Winfield, Louisiana “Correctional Institution” was “The Young and the Restless”. I wonder why the inmates identified with the TV show “The Young and the Restless”? Americans seem to identify with TV?

    “Where did we go wrong? There were the vows we made. “Blood in, Blood Out.” So what happen? What’s the sudden change of mind? Love doesn’t just fade away that easily Fat Man unless you never loved me in the beginning. Bae, what do you expect me to do without you in my world? Just forget about you? Well, I’m not! I refuse to give up without a fight we are for life I have nothing if I don’t have you. Bae, I truly love you and I can love you better than any of them other hoes you so called left me for. Our anniversary is in 13 more days on Christmas and we could have been married for 2 years why can’t you see that I want this to work between us? Bae, [remember] the jeans, the first pair of Jordans you ever got me and I ever owned in my life, the chain that you bought for my B-day, that says “My Fat Man 4 eva,” the picture frame that says “Run DMC,” the engagement ring you proposed to me with on the yard, most importantly the tattoo on my left tittie close to my heart that won’t never get covered up as long as I have a breath in my body and I’m about” to get your name again on my ass cheek. I’d gonna say property of Dyonte G. Bates 4 Life or Fuck Me Dyonte G. Bates 4 Life which ever you want.”

    Shane Bauer
    American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Pucker December 27, 2018 at 11:33 pm #

      When they stuff you into an Agenda 21 urban slum, these fuck ups will be your neighbors, if you’re lucky….

  101. deetrump December 28, 2018 at 12:56 am #

    On his trip to Iraq this week, President Trump exposed the faces of members of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 5, thereby putting them in danger.

    President Trump has no appreciation of, or respect for, operational security (as the Israelis found out)… The photo-op has priority in Trump’s mind. He does not care about the lives of military service members, who he lied to, saying they would be getting a 10% raise this year.

    I hope none of the military personnel believed Trump or think they will actually be getting a 10% raise. Trump does not care who he lies to… he has no honor. He lies to the soldiers in theatre. He lied about having bone spurs to get out of service. He lies incessantly.

  102. deetrump December 28, 2018 at 12:58 am #

    “Just a thought: Which should be considered more “marginal” – believing in Santa at age 7 or not believing in climate change at age 72?” (Dan Rather)

    • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2018 at 5:37 am #

      Hey Little Jane maybe you can hitch a ride on some elitist billionaire’s private jet to one of the many Climate Change conferences they hold yearly. Yeah, call Tom Steyer and tell him you are a true believer. If anything else you’ll be drinking top shelf scotch and champaine for about a week. Kobe beef and mountain trout specially flown in from Argentina is on the menu too.

      Brh

  103. Pucker December 28, 2018 at 2:02 am #

    If they went to a system of just paying contractors a certain sum to dispose of prisoners per head rather than to warehouse or to work the prisoners in labor camps, then there would be a different result? The problem is that this would necessitate a steady stream of people to be executed? You wouldn’t want to start giving lethal injections to Little Old Ladies for “Mouthing Off”?

  104. Pucker December 28, 2018 at 2:45 am #

    Livestock Management….

    ““Does anybody know why we don’t want them to wear individualized clothing?” the assistant warden asks us all. “We want them institutionalized. You guys ever hear that term? We want them institutionalized, not individualized. Is that sort of a mind game? Yup. But you know what? It’s worked over the couple hundred years that we’ve had prisons in this country. So that’s why we do it. We don’t want them to feel as though they are individuals. We want them, for lack of a better term, to feel like a herd of cattle. We’re just moving them from point A to point B, letting them graze in the dining hall and then go back to the barn. Okay?”

    Shane Bauer
    American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

  105. BackRowHeckler December 28, 2018 at 5:48 am #

    Phew, how can these indoor shopping malls survive? Already struggling because of Amazon, they now serve as staging areas for massive Black and Puerto Rican gang warfare.

    No longer is it mom, dad, buddy and sis driving the family Plymouth in for a movie and a happy day of shopping.

    Whos going to go to these places and spend money anymore? You’d have to be crazy toa go there.

    Brh

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  106. BackRowHeckler December 28, 2018 at 6:12 am #

    Trying to stem the tide of chaos, violence and mayhem, mall administrators have advanced a plan to ban unaccompanied minors from entry. As you might expect cries of racism have gone up and the plan will probably be dropped. What will finally happen is these malls will go out of business, and will stand for years as crumbling rusted hulks, like steel mills in Gary, Indiana, a testament to bygone days.

    Brh

  107. BackRowHeckler December 28, 2018 at 6:18 am #

    The Indoor Shopping Mall, USA.

    1956-2020

    RIP

    And may i add good riddance.

    Brh

  108. FincaInTheMountains December 28, 2018 at 7:29 am #

    From a friend in NYC: What if it all started?!

    Today I worked on the corner of Broadway and 34th Street, and suddenly I heard explosions. I worked in the semi-basement of a private house and couldn’t see much. But heard well.

    And with fear, it seemed to me that this was an artillery duel. The sound was similar to the work of the D-30. At the 50th second, you can hear this sound, or rather something similar to it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G4dYRcKnVE

    I could only judge by the reflections and the sound, but in my opinion there were many explosions, and in different places. But I do not even know where it happened, but fear has big eyes.

    D-30:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm_howitzer_2A18_(D-30)

    The friend has a Soviet military training.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Circumstance” – Viralmount - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler by means of Kunstler.com, […]

  2. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Scenario” – iftttwall - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  3. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & "The Sorcerer's Apprentice Scenario" | ValuBit - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  4. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Scenario” | peoples trust toronto - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  5. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Scenario” | Real Patriot News - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  6. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & "The Sorcerer's Apprentice Scenario" — WITSNEWS - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  7. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Scenario” – TCNN: The Constitutional News Network - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  8. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & "The Sorcerer's Apprentice Scenario" - open mind news - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  9. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Scenario” – TradingCheatSheet - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  10. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & “The Sorcerer's Apprentice Scenario” – ProTradingResearch - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  11. Jim Kunstler On Wokesterdom, The PPT, & "The Sorcerer's Apprentice Scenario" | AlltopCash.com - December 24, 2018

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  12. Merry Christmas to All - The Daily Coin - December 24, 2018

    […] Continue Reading / Kunstler>>> […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  13. Merry Christmas to All « Financial Survival Network - December 26, 2018

    […] by James Howard Kunstler Kunstler.com […]