JHK’s Three-Act Play
by James Howard Kunstler
Societies periodically go insane. Fallacious memes sweep through a frightened and confused populace and bad things happen, bad choices get made. Two bad ideas in particular infect the American thought-o-sphere these days: 1) that non-cheap oil can keep all the rackets of consumerism going; 2) that we can offset all the quandaries of non-cheap oil with accounting fraud and debt creation.
These ideas present themselves in the places of greatest authority and influence. The president says “we have a hundred years of shale gas.” The Wall Street Journal says that an inflating Dow Jones index stands for a growing economy. My recent favorite came out of the increasingly demented New York Times on Saturday: Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic About the American Economy. Quoting an econ professor named Tyler Cowen from George Mason University The Times said:
The recent surge in domestic oil and gas production signals “the start of a new era of cheap energy,” he said, while less expensive online education programs could open the door to millions of people who have been priced out of more traditional academics.
That was a two-fer of stupidities since A) it ought to be self-evident that $90-a-barrel oil is not cheap oil, and B) that because of A, there’s unlikely to be lucrative employment for people who learn double-entry book-keeping on their laptops. In fact, anyone who actually learns math over the Internet must conclude that $90-a-barrel oil will crash all the supposedly normal operations of a consumer society, including the ability of oil-and-gas companies to get the capital investment necessary for further oil production.
None of these accredited morons seems to get the basic equation between available cheap energy — e.g. oil with a high energy-return-on-investment — and capital formation — the accumulation of wealth that can be deployed to produce more wealth-producing activity. That was only possible on the way up Hubbert’s curve. On the way down, alas, the relationship enters a Ponzi unwind of too many claims on excessive promises to pay. The net result is a society with a lower standard of living. Personally, I think it will go way lower, and way sooner than later.
The idea that on-line education is a sovereign tonic for economic vitality is just another gloss on the inane belief that technology can take the place of energy in the equation above. Tom Friedman, grand poobah, of The New York Times Op-Ed page is the cheerleader-in-chief for that meme, but it is accepted by virtually all authorities in business and politics, and their handmaidens in the academic chairs. As the American economy dissolves in an acid bath of capital scarcity and grievance, these idiots will be waiting for the next iPhone app that can power the electric grid — and thus all the new iPhones streaming out of the Apple factories of China into the hot little hands of nineteen-year-olds in Michigan taking “Macroeconomics” on the Kahn Academy website.
Speaking of China, The New York Times ran another humdinger over the weekend: China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities that illustrates how meshugga that society is. Such are the tragic sorrows of late-blooming techno-industrialism that China is doing exactly the opposite of what the future requires — namely, destroying the basis for small-scale local food production. But, not to put too fine a point on it, China is fucked. They are simply in the hopeless zone of population overshoot and resource scarcity. There was some loose talk in that Times story to the effect that China will offset all its problems by colonizing Africa (and, who knows, other lands with other resources), but it will be interesting to see how it goes on the slow boat back to Shanghai with all that bok choy rotting in the hold as it plies east out of Mombasa under an ever-hotter tropical sun.
Chinese leadership apparently thinks this is the way to go. Just as the Princeton-bred American economists think that we can all migrate onto the Web and live a virtual existence on virtual wealth with virtual energy. The manifold disappointments that societies around the world face as they discover the falsity of their own memes is already leading to a lot of dangerous mischief, which is to say armed conflict. There is potential for a lot worse.
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Societies periodically go insane.
I believe it is the other way around; societies periodically, albeit infrequently, go sane. By default, they are clinically insane from their inception.
This planet is one big insane asylum for the universe.
Collect food scraps…
NYC and Bloomberg are soon going to need all the help they can get!
JHK,
So glad you picked up on that nonsense in yesterday’s NY Times. After the good professor’s comments about abundant and cheap energy for the future, he followed with this forecast related to the health care costs:
“slower growth in the cost of health care will be a boon for the government and businesses, but will actually subtract from reported economic activity.”
Between that nonsense and James k Glassman, ( 1999 co-author of Dow 36,000— calling for a tripling of the DJIA by 2005) offering his rosy take on economic prospects for 2014 it’s sad to see how useless the Sunday NY Times has become.
I remember Glassman’s nonsense in ’99 and am ashamed to say that I bought into it. What a difference 15 years makes.
Although on the benefits of online education, I respectfully disagree with JHK. Yes, online programs that push traditional curriculums aren’t much useful in a society where things are smaller and more local and jobs at Gargantua Corp. no longer exist.
But curriculums that teach permaculture, alternative energy, DIY, how to fix shit, etc. will thrive. And they are exactly the sorts of educational tools we will need for a future that’s defined by the “end of work” — at least as we envision it now.
I agree… Technology doesn’t fix everything. But in the education realm what it DOES do is allow the instantaneous sharing of “best practices” on a global scale in the very skills we’ll need in a smaller, more local future.
It’s already happening to some extent: The interest in DIY, home gardening, alternative energy, etc. are being driven by really smart tinkerers who are coming up with novel ideas and solutions at the INDIVIDUAL level.
All this presumes of course, that we can run the Internet in the future. If not, better download as much of this course material as possible now!
I recently took a 3 credit ‘hybrid’ class via my JC. It was a joke.
Grade school level work. Some enroll in online classes so that others can do their class work and they are fairly sure to get an ‘A’ for their transfer transcript.
@Carol – comment of the year.
None of these accredited morons
Accredited by whom or what, may I ask? I use an independent and objectively partial entity called Newquist Accreditation Services. By its standards, these charlatans don’t come close to accreditation. In fact, NAS (Newquist Accreditation Services) doesn’t even consider these nattering nabobs worthy of review for accreditation. They are, on the face of it, illegitimate and their opinions aren’t opinions at all. They are nothing more than parrots, and not very clever ones at that.
Those who think we are doing ok at the moment with $90/bbl oil are not taking in to account that the 40% of oil we import for JHK’s “happy motoring” is paid for with an equivalent amount of currency expansion. -Stop the expansion and see what happens. And stop we must, at some point in the future….
China is counting on global warming making the Tibetan plateau, the and the deserts of Mongolia and Sinkiang suitable for intensive rice cultivation.
This is really no more cynical than the calcuations being made in Washington that, backed up by the US military, we can just help ourselves to the resources of distant countries.
The Russians and Canadians are probably making the same calculation. Of course, it helps both of them that they are also oil and gas exporters, which means that they benefit both coming and going.
As for China, climate change isn’t even among their top six environmental problems, unless one counts it as a contributor to desertification. I tell my students that as much Chinese land is lost to desert every year as the area of the county we live in. That always gets their attention.
I suppose what you wrote would be one solution to that problem. I don’t think a warmer world will help with the other five environmental issues.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/03/chinas-top-six-environmental-problems.html
Unforunatly for we poor Canadians, unlike the Russians, we don’t have nukes or millions of troops to keep Americans south of the ever warming border. When the Deep South becomes the Deep Fry, where are all those climate refugees going to go? My back 40. It won’t be fun for us either. In the mean time where else is our Tar Sands product going to be sold? “Sorry, Uncle Sam – China’s offering a better price”. That’d go over like body oder in church and we’d be looking at our very own Gulf War 2 Redux with Alberta as the set location.
If it weren’t for immigration, Canada would lose population. Also, I doubt the true Southerners would move all the way up to Canada. Maybe the Northern transplants, but they’d go home to the Northern U.S. first.
As for the China and Canada’s Tar Sands, that’s why I am not part of the crowd trying to keep the Keystone XL pipeline from being approved. The point of that protest is to slow down the exploitation of the Tar Sands to prevent more CO2 from getting into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, if the U.S. doesn’t serve as the market, China will. The best those protesters can do is allow us to say “it wasn’t our fault” and keep that particular moral stain off our character. Meanwhile, China benefits at our expense and the CO2 goes into the atmosphere anyway.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/11/next-media-animation-on-keystone-xl.html
If it were not for immigration, 4 of 4 Canadians would be home bred.
1 in 4 Canuks is an ‘immigrant.
A good chink of Canadian citizens are dead set against building the so-called Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast for export of dilbit (diluted bitumen)to China.
The reasons? Equal parts a desire to prevent environmental damage from the inevitable spills, especially from ruptured tankers spilling dilbtit that promptly sinks to the bottom (and the ocean floor off the coast is mountainous, unlike the Kalamazoo River bed, where an Embridge dilbit spill has cost 750 million dollars to clean up, and still counting), let alone a diverse marine ecosystem unmatched in the world for its diversity; and a recognition that pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere from the Tar Sands will only add to global warming.
The Battle of the Northern Gateway has only just begun. Canada’s federal government stands firmly with the pipeline advocates in the industry (in fact, they are the main water carriers and cheerleaders), while the majority of citizens in B.C. are dead set against it. Albertans, on the other hand Interesting times ahead.
Not quite, you are forgetting the NAFTA proportionality clause. Uncle Sam does not have to do anything – we’ve already handed it to him on a silver platter. http://www.plea.org/legal_resources/?a=281&searchTxt=&cat=5&pcat=
i hope your students are questioning those desertification figures? an exaggeration of large proportions, or just a very unclear statement?
this was supposed to be an answer to neon vincent comment about china
I’m already seeing a lower standard of living here in metro Detroit, ground zero of the post-industrial future. Whenever there is a combination of high gas prices and hard times, gas theft goes up. That’s been happening here in Detroit, including a couple of incompetent thieves who ended up spilling 300 gallons of gas in order to get a tankful. Earlier in the week, a more competent crew was stealing several hundred at a time.
As for China, they just sent another mission to their space lab. They really want to be a major power, and I don’t think they care what they do to get there.
All of the above are currently on the front page of Crazy Eddie’s Motie News (link in my username), along with coverage of the Solar Impulse, how electric cars won’t solve our pollution problems, a humorous look at how to act unsustainably, and the usual potpourri of space and science news, but I don’t have anything there to address your main point about how people are thinking that peak oil is dead and that fossil foolishness can go on forever. That entry was posted last month.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/05/time-magazine-on-peak-oil-and-climate.html
Finally, that’s the second time I’ve heard about the Khan (not Kahn) Academy this past week. I probably teach some of those 19-year-olds in Michigan looking at their videos.
Happy Motoring–for now–from Detroit!
Regarding TNYT piece about China.Their point is to create a non-export based economy. Meaning, all those small scale farmers are given an apartment on the XXrd floor of some fancy new highrise and a wad of cash. Now, go shop! – Then what…
The scary as fuck thing about this article is the land is being given to “corporations or municipalities to manage.”
Are people really this stupid?!
Yes. Yes we are.
yes
obviously!
Hello, from across the Pond, where the leaders of G8 are meeting at present, so surely all must be well with the world, Mr Kunstler – or are you saying all these “great men” – Obama, Cameron, Putin et al – are duping us? For shame, sir! I cannot believe that. Anyway, must go and work on my combined Eternal Sunshine Perpetual Motion Gold from Base Metals Machine – it’s powered by dreams, don’t you know?
Keep up the good work, Mr K!
You want to talk about a Clusterfuck, wait until the implications of the Affordable Healthcare legislation kick in shortly. Sweet Mother of Osho!! It’s going to be the quintessential Clusterfuck of all Clusterfucks, and not for the reasons the reactionary right parrots, and quite contrary to the pollyannish naïveté of the lapdog left. TRy to find the truth about this obscenity. There is scant objective criticism of it even in the alternative media.
Yep, got a taste of that when as an UNinsured, had to get a prescription for my daughter… Doc was FORBIDDEN under new rules to give an uninsured patient the generic prescription. which would have saved us prob. $80. So now, the leading democrat is making sure we are ALL well and truly FUCKED. Nowhere to hide anymore
Can you elucidate a bit? On what basis was a generic drug disallowed? I mean, was it declared somehow less effective and therefor could not be prescribed under the “new rules”?
Just simply as stated – he could not prescribe the generic drug on the basis we had no insurance. That’s it. Big pharma has the politicians so deeply in their pocket that they pretty much make up the rules, it appears.
Gosh, that other place that China is planning to colonize wouldn’t be North America, would it? But, it’s already ours.
Just to clarify, that post of mine is sarcasm.
No need to clarify Katnip. That was pretty good.
K-Dog
All of the oil in ND/SD/MT/SK in the Bakken, and the layers underneath, can only provide ONE YEAR of the consumption of oil by the USA, and maybe only 3-4 months of its natural gas use. That’s including the most recent data by the USGS. So, not very significant in the long run.
And only if it were possible to suck it all up at once. It’s not only the amount available, but the rate of production that will turn out the lights.
Within a decade, they’re going to clone a Wooly Mammoth. Talk about a World Made By Hand. We may have to revise the definition of that concept. Hunch-backed, peasant, desert rice farmers toiling besides herds of manicured and pampered Wooly Mammoths (think Kobi Beef cattle). As the Long Emergency progresses and picks up pace, obscenities will multiply like rabbits. Obscene, always part of the societal landscape, will now become the landscape, obscuring everything else. You can laugh or cry. I choose the former, until I can’t any longer.
“Just as the Princeton-bred American economists think that we can all migrate onto the Web and live a virtual existence on virtual wealth with virtual energy”
Nailed it Jim
—too bad Philip K. Dick died to early to write about this one.
That should be too, not to.
Sorry, the bolding should have been to the to preceding early, not subsequent to it.
James, If you are going to use a yiddish word like meshuggah, please at least spell it correctly.
And maybe a translation for lazy goyens like me:-)
Meshuggah /m??????/[1] is a Swedish extreme metal band from Umeå, formed in 1987. Meshuggah’s line-up has primarily consisted of founding members vocalist Jens Kidman and lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, drummer Tomas Haake, who joined in 1990, and rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström, who joined in 1992. The band has gone through a number of bassists, with the position currently being held by Dick Lövgren since 2004.
Meshuggah first attracted international attention with the 1995 release Destroy Erase Improve for its fusion of fast-tempo death metal, thrash metal and progressive metal with jazz fusion elements. Since its 2002 album Nothing, Meshuggah has used downtuned eight-string guitars. Meshuggah has become known for their innovative musical style, complex, polymetered song structures and polyrhythms. Meshuggah was labeled as one of the ten most important hard rock and heavy metal bands by Rolling Stone and as the most important band in metal by Alternative Press. Meshuggah has found little mainstream success as yet, but is a significant act in extreme underground music.
Since its formation, Meshuggah has released seven studio albums, seven EPs and eight music videos. The band has performed in various international festivals, including Ozzfest and Download, and embarked on the obZen world tour from 2008 to 2010. A new studio album, Koloss, was released on March 23, 2012. Nothing and the albums that followed have all charted on the Billboard 200. Meshuggah’s most commercially successful album, Koloss, debuted at number 17 in the USA, with first week sales of 18,342 copies. In 2006 and 2009, the band was nominated for a Swedish Grammy Award.
\m/ \m/
Yiddish Dictionary Online
English Yiddish (in Romanized Spelling) Approximate Pronunciation
(Northern / Southern) Part of Speech
craziness, madness meshugas
meh?shoo?gaas’ / meh?shi?gaas’ (n.) ??????
crazy meshuge
meh?shoo’?geh / meh?shig’?eh (adj.) ?????
drive (someone) crazy meshuge makhn ? (v.) ????? ?????
madman, crazy person, lunatic meshugener meh?shoog’?en?er / meh?shig’?en?er (m.) ????????
I believe JHK is spot on on overall analysis. Surprised he still clings to the AGW phony hysteria (‘under an ever-hotter tropical sun’), when in reality global cooling seems much more likely and further, that GW is actually a good thing while cooling is bad. Might not be a factor in our lifetimes anyway. Most likely, a few years from now, no one will care about what is happening with our climate.
AGW is a legitimate concern, although the human race as well as the fossil fuels themselves that create it will likely die out before AGW becomes a major problem.
As I see it the key disasters facing mankind, in order of severity are: (note that these for the most part are interrelated.)
1). Peak Oil
2). Comprehensive Immigration Reform
3). Regional and global warfare
4). Economic policy malpractice
5). Anthropomorphic Global Warming
My list:
1. people not understanding debt-money
2. people not understanding the consequences of debt-money
3. everything else.
I would add to your list, at number 2, Peak Water.
Let’s just keep it simple:
1) Peak stupidity
That’s long past, we’re just adding crap to what we have left.
Global Cooling?? Have you every bothered to look at any of the charts of ACTUAL DATA at NOAA?
Why be afraid of global warming? Warming periods were the most prosperous times in history… just ask the Vikings.
The amount of global warming so far has probably been neutral to slightly beneficial on the whole, making it easy to say “What’s the big deal?”. The big problem is the continuing increase and the inertia of the physics of the system. The tricky part is that we have to scale back GHG emissions NOW or we end up with very bad outcomes several decades out. It then is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. I could go into all the “bad outcomes” but suffice it to say the list is surprisingly long and bad when you dig into the science.
What the hell are you smoking, math moron? AGW is real, it’s here now, and should be our #1 concern! Peak oil is also here (since 2005), and once fully realized will do more to cut emissions of CO2 than any government policy wonks could possibly accomplish. Industrial civilization cannot collapse soon enough…and collapse it will. Kunstler is spot on.
Yep, oil production is in terminal decline – doesn’t mean there will be shortages any time soon. Enough people will be priced out of the market and a slowdown/collapse will lead to less consumption. The law of supply and demand will not be denied. As far as GW… earth has been here before and she knew what to do. Humans didn’t cause the previous episodes – what makes u so sure we are this time? If it’s to be a radical cooling spell and humans can’t adjust fast enough, could be a die off. If lucky enough for it to be warming, that just might offset the collapse a bit. There’s plenty of things to get hysterical about. Like… how can I ensure a decent future for my kids given the shitload of problems due to mismanagement on every level you can think of over the last 50 years? How would you like to be an heir to that? That should be enough. Seems you should’ve learned to be skeptical of any hysteria created that leads to major policy changes.
War = racket
AGW = racket
Health care = racket
Higher education = racket
Tennis = racket
Don’t be a sheep
Does it not seem obvious that ” people being priced out of the market” IS a shortage, just not for the rich?
One thing where I think a slight shift of emphasis on Kunstler’s part would be helpful:
The Establishment actually believes we can replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, not iphone apps. Expressing it in terms of ophone apps is a catchy way to point out the absurdity of the conventional wisdom through exaggeration.
But to rigorously refute the conventional wisdom, one should focus on the fact that renewable energy cannot, in fact, replace fossil fuels.
Jim, Check out Nafeez Ahmed’s recent blogpost on the Gaurdian. While like yourself I tend to shy away from the David Iches of the world this post seems to have more than a bit of credibility. Perhaps those running the show are not as delusional as they appear in public. If preparations are being made to quell civil unrest due to environmental,energy or financial “shocks” would that not imply that they expect such to occur? Unless our fearless leader was awarded an F- in geology,mathematics,economics and history I find it difficult to believe that he puts any stock in his own energy rhetoric. Though delusion still runs rampant among what’s left of the middle class it appears that reality has gained some ground due to the fact that unlike vinyl siding on a McMansion witch has a bit of give, well constructed stone walls have none when plowed into even if the vehicle is powered by shale oil or gas…delusions.
The recent surge in domestic oil and gas production signals “the start of a new era of cheap energy,”
This should read:
The recent surge in domestic oil and gas production signals “the start of a new era of bubble-profiteering,”
I am usually a silent reader of this site, but this raised my hackles enough to reply. As a career international oilman, I can conclude that the current euphoria in the US of ‘Ey over unconventional resources (shale, etc.) is hyped-up baloney at best, and just another lucrative scam on the plebes at worst.
Here’s how it works: 1) investor drills like hell and (naturally) production goes up showing tremendous growth potential for investor’s company; 2) investor goes to IPO (or similar method of fleecing the unawares) to fund further growth – i.e., inflate the value of the huge block of shares in investors portfolio; 3) investor keeps drilling like hell and (naturally) stock price goes up as does ‘perceived’ value of investor’s company; 4) investor cashes in at peak stock price on the backs of the dupes that inflated same stock; 5) investor stops drilling, and lo and behold – production plummets, company value plummets, and – well you know the rest of the story.
I have seen this happen before in other ‘marginal’ plays, and this one is no different – in that its a ‘play’ (pun intended). These wells have few reserves, and decline in a vertical line, not the nice smooth Hubbert curve as JHK is so fond of reminding us.
Sure it gets a few more drops in the tank, but the reality is not what it seems, as so many things appear these days. But don’t take my word for it, here’s a laymans analysis should you care to learn a little more about the subject. (Required reading for non-industry investors in this latest boom-cycle):
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/121744-mark-anthony/1354531-the-real-bakken-shale-well-decline
Just remember history – what goes BOOM eventually must go BUST.
W.I. Tobedone, thanks very much for your post and the link. Very substantial article with some empirical data points to toil over. Posts and contributions from you and a few other dedicated information sharers who have stuck with this site despite the seemingly unbearable vandalism help a dunce like me flesh out his understanding of some difficult issues that people of my daily sphere have no capacity for or even interest in. If I tried to rely on ordinary social encounters for these types of inquiries I’d starve to death. Not even my college professors have the knowledge base or the courage to dig into these issues. It’s just too threatening to speak openly about any of these matters for fear of offending someone who might have some influence over one’s employment.
The internet isn’t going to save society, but it will help the few who have their eyes peeled. Thanks again.
~UFIA
Thank you for this explanation…clear and simply stated.
Me thinks our founding fathers may have hoped, “This time it will be different”
They forgot we’re talking about human beings.
Please, not the “founding fathers” exceptionalism again. The constitution was drawn up to protect an Oligarchy; one that believed “negroes” were not fully human.
Yes, they conquered the Indians and took their land. You (all of you) have enjoyed the fruits of the conquest all your lives. It’s called the United States. There could have been no United States without the conquest of the indiginees. If you have a problem with it, you should leave. Or accept that you are a hypocrite.
I would love to leave. Emigration is difficult without funds, however.
So you are better than the Founders? Because you “believe” in Negroes? What a cheap salvation that is.
Let me quote a few sentences from the foreword to Hubert Benoit’s Supreme Doctrine made by Aldous Huxley.
“The aim of Western psychiatry is to help the troubled individual to adjust himself to the society of less troubled individuals -individuals who are observed to be well adjusted to one another and the local institutions , but about whose adjustment to the fundamental Order of things ,no enquiry is made.”
And the Far Eastern Paths of Taoism and Zen emphasize social unconventionality because those cultures value conformity so much -and as so good at it. As Christ said, “No man can serve God and serve Mammon”.
From looking at those talking heads in the media and academia that JHK was talking about, they seem to have little or no imagination, and can’t imagine any world other than the one they’ve known. They apparently have been educated way beyond whatever intelligence they may have had. They also seem to have little or no common sense or good reasoning ability. You see a lot of this same kind of crap in Washington, where nobody will ever take responsibility for anything. They get caught lying, and it’s well they didn’t lie, they just mispoke, there’s all these weasel words to avoid taking responsibility. And, nobody ever seems to get fired or punished for anything. They all seem to have an alternate reality that they want to live in.
Why fire good employees? Just restructure and let them lay low for awhile. Acorn will rise again under another name. The Hollywood 10 were not ruined. Casino Jack is coming back too – fully repented of course.
Bogart and Bacall were good Liberals and went to support the Hollywood 10 at their trial. They were amazed at the vitriol and hatred towards the United States. Shaken, they later admitted they were in way over their heads. Thus the rot was well advanced even in their day. It comes to perfection in the persons of Obama and Hillary. The Democratic Party is American Communsim. It has been completely subverted via the Alinsky Process.
Outwardly, in terms of elections and culture, the Democrats dominate. Inwardly, in real terms, the Republicans are often closer to the real Secret Government. But their role is to be good losers as the Republic falls. They will be rewarded for this in the Days of the Empire to come. But to be clear: at the higher levels it’s all the same. Obama and John Boehner have no real quarrel. George Bush Senior call Bill Clinton “Bubba” and they are good friends.
Agreed. As an insider (an academic) I see this all the time. Your sense of self comes from acceptance by the community of scholars in your field. They have one, or at most two or three, general orthodox “schools” one must belong to. To stray from these first principles is to separate oneself from the community (think Spinoza). This in tantamount to professional suicide, but worse, to being banished from the community whose regard is most crucial to your own sense of self-worth.
The worst offenders I’ve ever seen are economists. Business school types are similar. They actually are often very smart people, but their intelligence is outer-directed towards ticket-punching and conformity. Truly iconoclastic people find the 7-9 years of grad school too frustrating or degrading to endure, so they don’t. Clever and hardworking careerists largely make it through to Ph.D. status. Add another five or more years of pre-tenure ass-kissing and you can imagine that it’s tough to suddenly find your voice and speak truth to power after an ordeal like that. Better to go along and get along and take out your anger at generalities like elitism or the usually miscreant university administration.
Another thing I don’t like is, everything seems to be political, the science of climate change at times gets reduced to idiot politics. If you’re a Republican, then you have to be a climate change denier. If you’re a Democrat, then you have to believe that homosexuality is really really cool. And both parties tend to weed out anybody who disagrees on anytrhing. They’ve gotten so partisan they’re unable to function.
If you have a problem with it, you should leave.
I have a problem with you and think you should leave. Get out now. You’re not wanted in the U.S. by the majority. It’s time for you to take refuge where you can before it’s too late. Pretty soon they’re coming for you, and your gun & spam collection won’t save you.
Hey “Carol Newquist” — I don’t like the tone you’re taking here — JHK
Respond to my points Asoka: The United States was founded on Indian land. They didn’t go of their own accord – we conquered them and made them leave. Anyone who lives here and enjoys America has to accept this. If they don’t, they are morally obligated to leave. If they don’t, they must accept that they are hypocrites.
The third alternative is of course stay and overthrow the system. Thus you have the Middle Class Revolutionaries who get to enjoy the System even as they work to dismantle it. And most importantly, they get to feel morally superior to people who aren’t doing this. Thus ordinary Whites are sacrificed for the moral purity of the Liberal and his salvation.
I am shocked! They are still teaching Math? WTF?!!!!!!!
I am shocked! They are still teaching Math? WTF?!!!!!!!
Yes, it’s a new, fancy kind of city math where two plus two equals one million. The new, fancy city history is impressive as well; it teaches that wealthy, murdering, racist landowners are venerable and noble “Founding Fathers” to be honored and respected for their words whilst ignoring their sordid deeds.
Dear JHK,
Oil should be priced today at $1000 a barrel. E=MC2 is the most importent equation in the universe. All human electricity need be generated by E = MC2, not by valuable fossil fuels. Future generations will need the fossil fuels for chemical feedstocks and medicine.
Join the effort, JFK, nuclear is necessary, burning fossil fuels just screws up the weather! Bad weather will impact food production,famine will result. Most of the problems in Islam are driven by hunger, caused by the Federal Reserves inflation.
sincerely,
JDC
James,
You called it years ago brother. We are morphing into a society of mindless nutcases. The entire planet has lost its collective mind, soon to descend into madness.
What is termed normalcy bias or cognitive dissonance has now begun the slow morphing process into what I term; systemic irrationality.
This is a process of societies, that move from barbarism to civilization, and back to barbarism.
Societies go insane? Think of what Sir Kenneth Clark said about Germany:
“Look at Durer’s Oswald Krell compared to one of Raphaels balanced self-contained, cultured portraits: it is on the verge of hysteria. The staring eyes are very German and a nuisance for the rest of the world.
However, in the 1490s these destructive national characteristics had not shown themselves. It was still an age of internationalism. ”
Only Clark, in a very English understatement, could find the recent fascism of the Nazis a “nuisance.”
Internationalism + scarcity = we all go insane?
And the “Nazis” or National Socialists (a good economic system btw) were the only ones to realize the danger of the International Bankers and throw them out. And since then only Iceland has: too small for them to make a big deal out of by crushing them as they did Germany.
This is the perfect time for a crisis overseas. Our collective leadership lead by the media has us well on our way to economic recovery, oil and gas a plenty for years to come, nothing in the way to a return to those glory years. Shale oil and tar sand oil will lead the charge all that is needed is just a few more years/projects to get this underway. What better time for those nasty zealots in Iran to “provoke” an incident that will crash it all and we can blame someone else for all our woes to come!
That Iranian Oil is our Oil. They just don’t know it yet. The Obama Reich will last a thousand years fueled by Middle Eastern Oil.
I know, right! Next thing you know they’ll tell us he’s a Liberal. As if!!! One thing’s for sure, he’s a whipping post for racists.
I was being droll my dear frau, but I will answer you question seriously in the interest of education, both yours and other readers. Reich means Reign. K? But yes continue, you are on the right tract. Extract the universal or common element out of both systems as you understand/misunderstand them. If both are totalitarian, does it make much difference what you call them? Does the word, title, or appellation matter? As Emerson said, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. To “think” otherwise is “wordism”.
Remember the old Czeck saying, “Under Capitalism, man oppresses man. Under Communism it’s the other way around. So where does this put your Hillary and Barack? There is no answer here. The answer lies in the 3rd Way of Nationalism, America First (or whatever country you’re a citizen of) combined with a back to the land ethos with local decisions made locally. Germany had both of these aspects but was too committed to conquest I admit. These are also the Social Teaching of the Church – now utterly subverted by the Globalists and ignored in favor of Globalism and “immigrants”.
Whatsa Nastsi btw? Is it a proper noun specific to that time and place? No, right? Not the way you people use it. So therefore the La Raza Brown Berets whose motto is “For my Race everything, for other Races nothing” are Nazis too. No? So only Whites can be Nazis? Isn’t that racist on your part? You can’t have it both ways.
This is the Socratic method with me as Socrates and you as the slave boy. Imagine what I could teach you in real time and space. But I will charge a fee above and beyond my room and board.
IT WAS A JOKE, DUMMY
Folks check this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc_BkmS-vMM
And LINKS TO THE MEDIA DEFENDING THIS NASTY BITCH
via Ram Z Paul at youtube.
Nazis! Can’t live with them, can’t get them to congregate so we can area-bomb them any more.
Read Slaughter House Five about the fire bombing of Dresden by the Allies. German women and children running towards the lake to escape the flames were strafed by RAF fighter bombers. But that’s all Ok cuz they were “Nazis” right?
Kurt Vonnegut was one of the last real Liberals. You are SOMETHING ELSE. But what? Don’t look in the mind’s mirror too closely – you wont like what you see. Even your lil pic is sickening.
Too bad all the list-trolls weren’t in Dresden in ’45. Would have been fun to come in with the P-51s to chase them around with .50 calibers.
So how many years will it take for the rest of the world to realize that PO theory wasn’t dead after all, and does it even matter? I hear Jim every week say that the harsh reality is coming sooner rather than later, but I often wonder if the timeline matters if were actually talking about decades from now. If it’s months or years until an undeniable collapse, then the immediacy with which he writes implies to me that people will be forced to act in meaningful ways indeed sooner rather than later. If it’s a decade or even two from now until undeniability rears its ugly head, then the immediacy with which he writes is in fact hyperbolic, in so far as people will be able to falsely justify inaction based on the “distant” uncertainty of JHK’s warning, and the tragedy of it all goes unchanged. As a young person trying to figure out how to navigate the system responsibly, this quandary is quite perplexing. Despite the gamble of renewed energy confidence in unconventional oil, even the critics talk about the “boom” lasting until 2030.
“Other similar fields, which are currently contributing to the hysteric swing towards optimistic euphoria, such as the Bakken will likely experience similar production schedules. Collectively, in the absence of human ingenuity causing a real breakthrough, which does not seem to be currently imminent or even to be expected, the fracking revolution will cause a bump in production which started in 2008, and it will end sometimes between 2020 and 2030. On the way down, it will be very painful, just as it will be a great boost to the US economy on the way up. In fact it may be the only bright spot going forward, so we can enjoy it while it lasts. We could enjoy it and worry later, or we could put some of our human ingenuity towards coming to a collective realization that, unconventional sources of oil and gas being tapped worldwide are only enough to cover the potential growth in demand coming from what seems to be a permanently anemic global economy for perhaps two decades. If we fail to come up with better ways to manage the global economy by the time this bump in production ends, we will be left with nothing else except prayer for a technological miracle, because the market has already played its hand a decade ago.”
What a pain in the ass the bumpy plateau is.
~UFIA
UnstoppableFarceImmovableAbject, thanks very much for your post and the link. Very substantial thoughts with well-thought-out arguments to toil over. Posts and contributions from you and a few other dedicated information sharers who have stuck with this site despite the seemingly unbearable vandalism help a dunce like me flesh out my understanding of some difficult issues that people of my daily sphere have no capacity for or even interest in. If I tried to rely on ordinary social encounters for these types of inquiries I’d starve to death. Not even my college professors have the knowledge base or the courage to dig into these issues. It’s just too threatening to speak openly about any of these matters for fear of offending someone who might have some influence over one’s employment.
The internet isn’t going to save society, but it will help the few who have their eyes peeled. Thanks again.
~Carol Newquist
Carol, I appreciate you poking fun. I do recognize my subordinate position in the CFN hierarchy.
When you switch modes, as you do constantly, I even learn some valuable things from you.
Keep doin’ what you do! It has an effect, sometimes positive, even if unintended.
~UFIA
I’m glad you and UFIA are besties again. Girls just wanna have fun. Why don’t snap a selfie and post it. I bet you are a beautiful old bag man.
The United States was founded on Indian land.
The land belonged to no one. Land belongs to no one, despite your bogus laws that state otherwise. That’s what’s happened to the Palestinians. Israel comes in, plops down and says to the Palestinians, “let’s see your legal title to this here land.” The Palestinians say “what legal title, we don’t have any such thing. We’ve resided here for thousands of years without legal title. Why do we need that now?” Why indeed.
There’s nowhere to go, Jaego, where land hasn’t been claimed and those claims protected by violent force. You speak from a private-property-centric perspective as though it’s the only perspective that exists, has existed and will ever exist. You’re wrong about that. The Indians, or at least some of them, had it right. You can’t own land. It’s a nutty concept. It’s insane, and societies that have developed around this insane notion are themselves insane.
Now you are agreeing with me. You can’t have it both ways. America is ours by right of conquest and Israel belongs to the Jews for the same reason. And it will belong to the Palestinians once they conquer it back. That wasn’t so hard was it? What else do you need help with?
Btw, I’m willing to consider a higher way of Life as long as the other party is on board too. But if only Whites are guilty, then forget it. This is how we have been conquered – by guilt tripping us while the other Races have no conscience at all outside their own group. The same Liberal Jewish Intellectuals who brow beat us into pulp have no qualms at all about Israel for the Jews alone. There are honorable exceptions I know.
Hi Jim:
I love this paragraph in your post today. It’s says it all about our current predicament.
“None of these accredited morons seems to get the basic equation between available cheap energy — e.g. oil with a high energy-return-on-investment — and capital formation — the accumulation of wealth that can be deployed to produce more wealth-producing activity. That was only possible on the way up Hubbert’s curve. On the way down, alas, the relationship enters a Ponzi unwind of too many claims on excessive promises to pay. The net result is a society with a lower standard of living. Personally, I think it will go way lower, and way sooner than later.”
It’s too bad Kubrick kicked the bucket early; he could have made a sequel to Paths of Glory and called it Jim’s post. In fact, I think that’s what Jim had in mind. Glory = Folly. It always has.
There are many here among us, who feel that life is but a joke.
China will not succeed in colonizing Africa due to disease. It is a tropical place mostly and they are not adapted to the climate specifics. Hence why the people who live there are the same people who always live there.
Another great movie reference BT! DRAAIINAGE!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOEYT0wZFNg
Whites can’t handle it but East Asians are often far more adaptable. Read Jared Diamond on this issue. Don’t know about the Northern Chinese and Koreans, but the Southern Chinese do very well in tropical Southeast Asia, Indonesia, etc.
Oh, YankO… there ya go again ya tired old pedophilE who thinks no one is on to hiM, jealouS no one takes his pretended nobility and dumb-ass use of CaPitalS seriouslY.
Where Carol/Asoka is an open fraud you remain a closeted one. If you had one ounce of courage in your own convictions you wouldn’t need to change your handle so often. You’d develop your persona and positions to manifest in tangible social action instead of always only clinging to JHK’s hairy nether region and heretofore hiding behind the boring, disjointed and cautiously vague flibbertigibbet that means nothing to anyone but you.
Keep doin what you dO, fuckO. We see you, too, even if there’s nothing worth looking at.
You are a Liberal Nazi and Racist. OEMSSYOO to you tOO.
who or what do you consider UFIA to be?
unidentified flying into abject?
@CarolNewquist: ” Land belongs to no one, despite your bogus laws that state otherwise. That’s what’s happened to the Palestinians. Israel comes in, plops down and says to the Palestinians, “let’s see your legal title to this here land.” The Palestinians say “what legal title, we don’t have any such thing. We’ve resided here for thousands of years without legal title. Why do we need that now?” Why indeed.”
Absolutely right, Carol. The same can be said for Ireland. The UK has been trying to force the Irish off the land brutally for years. The Native Americans had no concept of land ownership. When they were offered money for Manhattan island, they must have been laughing their ass off, thinking, “Stupid white men! Sure we’ll take your money!” Kind of like me offering to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Alas, they learned too soon the viciousness their lack of insight would soon provoke.
Nice try Liberal. The “Native Americans” (NOT!) INDIANS were often at war with each other. The Ojibwas pushed the Sioux out of the Eastern Woods and out onto the Plains. The Sioux displaced half a dozen smaller peoples in the process. Then the Sioux pretended that they have been on the Plains since the beginning of Creation. Such confusion is the Indian Way – a conflation of real Spiritual Intuition with relative things.
Some argue that the White Conquest caused all this. It had an impact. The Ojibwas got guns first from the French and were able to do what they did. But they still wanted to do it. In any case, there is abundant evidence, both from Native Oral History and Archeology, that warfare was quite common on this continent before the coming of the White Man.
In other words, they didn’t own land as individuals but they did as a Tribe in the sense of having a Territory. And they did fight to hold it and/or take the Territory of others.
There are specifics to every environment that limit the capacity of people to settle in any given area and since we are headed for a low technology future the capacity to settle certain places becomes deficult without technology. For instance people will find it difficult to live in places like the American south without air conditioning and antibiotics.
“People” are an amazingly resilient species. “People” lived without a/c and modern antibiotics for thousands of years. Now, “people” have become accustomed to the modern sanitized comforts and can’t imagine existence without these comforts. “People” can and will survive being uncomfortable!
The problem with “people” nowadays is that they are making poor decisions that take too long to correct. The curves and predictions Kunstler takes pride in presenting to us on his “educational site” focus on one aspect of what “people” are doing. Actually, it’s not “people” in the general sense who are responsible for the kinds of decisions being critiqued – the mismanagement of natural and public resources (“people” being one of the resources). The Constitution of the USA was a working theory of what would make the “people” happy in order for the “people” to agree to be governed by a central body of elders. The “people” eventually went mad with this idea because half of the “people” depended on human slavery to enrich their economy and make it comparable to the standard of living of the other half of the “people”. The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with the economy. If the “people” had been presented with a way to make the same living without cheap labor (or cheap oil) then they wouldn’t have gone to war.
Education is a public resource that is being squandered because “people” are not putting it into real world application. Most math is memorized formula WAITING to be applied to a real world scenario like building something or counting the costs of a project. However, most of the education is being diverted to a pie in the sky idea of what our society (“people”) SHOULD be able to attain if you can get enough financial backers (ponzi scheme). The meme is that nothing is impossible for “people” if you have unlimited resources. Well, we are limited in what we can do as a “people” due to various things including ideological differences that we have no control over, not even the universities have control of this.
“…..to settle certain places becomes deficult without technology.”
deficult: when one is all backed up and it is hard to poop; constipation
We at the agency here in Langley see no signs of insanity in the post industrial American “culture”. The caucasian megatrend towards obesity, impotence, and wiggerism is mildly disturbing, but expected of a drugged out indolent peasant class living entirely on government largesse and the efforts of others.
With the conversion of 15 million undocumented democrats to voting status, essentially a one party multi-racial state will be permanently enshrined within the glorious 1000 Year Republic……..we here at the agency will monitor and enforce the democratic security values of our glorious 1000 Year Republic…….and those resisting have the right to step forward and be terminated with extreme prejudice……
Yes, it’s wonderful how Blacks are supporting Whites. You probably even believe this.
We here at the agency in Langley do not utilize politically correct indentity politics designators like “black” and “white”….preferring the more scientifically accurate categories delineated in our rapidly expanding DNA data base ………..
Yanko writes:
“This is the Socratic method with me as Socrates and you as the slave boy. Imagine what I could teach you in real time and space. But I will charge a fee above and beyond my room and board.” -Jaego thE gReat
You see, this blog’s resident pedophile just can’t help giving himself away. We already knew of your secret fantasies for slave boys, Yanko, and we are well aware of the “fee” you will charge a young fellow desperately captive to your boarded up room.
Uh, oh. You’re gonna call me a Liberal Nazi Racist now, huh. How poweRful your prose is.
Guess you didn’t read that Platonic Dialogue. Or any. You are an Ass Klown, a Democratic Catamite eager for rough minority trade.
Much appreciated, BT –
Uncle Diddles likes to throw around a bunch of empty, over emphasized Proper Terminology as if he has a deeply original or historic take on the state of the world that simply escapes or baffles all us *Liberal, FemiNazi, Communist, Socialist, compadres* because we’re too damn sleepy to realize the veracity of his being.
Poor guy is a self-inflicted shotgun trigger pull away from freeing his brain matter to the misty cognitive mind space to which he aspires. Let’s wish him Gawd Speed!
As a person who has spent my entire life studying history, and teaching it the “old fashioned” way: to 20 students at a time at a small liberal arts college, I feel the e-university crowd misses the point. In reality, college is expensive because we spend money on everything BUT instruction: layers of administration, and multi-million dollar athletic coaches and staff. Then, when college becomes “expensive,” we further degrade the learing experience my mass producing instruction via cookie cutter classes ( and the resulting “cookie cutter” graduates). Of course, if people like myself are gradually replaced by one universal computer course, how do you encourage the next generation of (potential) teachers to invest their time and treasure in becoming scholars? Thankfully, I am 57 years old. I will be dead before “1984 University” reaches the natural end of this trend. America: always spending money on the wrong things, assuming we do not try to get something for nothing…
Like at Bard? You want even more attention paid to minority grievance and gender studies? Or do you mean the real Liberal Arts? Like not at Bard.
Hello CFN members:
An important new book has emerged and I wonder if Mr. Kunstler will review it. Check out “Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail ” by William Ophuls.
Quoting from the book : ” With its ways of thinking and acting set in concrete, increasingly blind to reality and to alternative possibilities, an ossified civilization descends into a terminal stagnation that prepares its demise….The civilization’s elites may understand that the system is dysfunctional, but fundamental reform would require major sacrifice on their part, so they fight to preserve their privilege and power….Bluntly put, human societies are addicted to their ruling ideas and their received way of life, and they are fanatical in their defense. Hence they are extraordinarily reluctant to reform. “To admit error and cut losses,” said [Barbara] Tuchman, “is rare among individuals, unknown among states.” Instead of changing their minds, leaders redouble their efforts to do what no longer works, wooden-headedly persisting in error until the bitter end.”
I pulled that quote from a review by Dr. Morris Berman, himself a noted author, see his book, “Why America Failed”. His short review is here: http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/ on May 10,2013.
We failed because we listened to the Bermans instead of doing as they do. They opened our borders and corrupted our currency. We could have had a stable population of 200 million, 90% White, and be colonizing Mars by now. Instead we listened to the Bermans and are becoming a despised and persecuted minority who pay for their own dispossession.
The 10% or so Black/Indian/Hispanic population were a heavy burden but they were far more self sufficient until the Agent LBJ destroyed that with his vile great society.
Berman is an Historian writing on the collapse of the American Empire, similar to Mr. Kunstler.
Your comments are nonsensical.
Yeah ok Fish Bum. You all could never figure out whether you should rule us or destroy us. You will pay dearly for that confusion. If we fall, so do you.
We would be shocked out of our shorts if ever there came a time when his comments began to alarmingly veer toward the “sensical”. (Just not his bailiwick, period. He’ll probably even respond to this; such knee-jerkery cannot resist. We used to call it a problem with “impulse control” but I suppose that became too dangerous to self-esteem and had to be discarded.)
Beg pardon, but doesn’t the PRC have lots of sovereign gold, cash, commods, and other wealth, not to mention private wealth?
We Americans could well end up working for Chinese-owned companies and renting from Chinese landlords. They might seem to be doing the exact-opposite thing from what is required, but they might also be planning on moving their food production to North America.
No, that is ‘chinese ism’. Their dominance.
In this Silent Classic, the White Girl Opium Addict says to the poor Chinese Saint, “Why are you so good to me, Chinky?”
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/06/broken-blossoms-or-the-yellow-man-and-the-girl-1919/#more-40177
This is a test.
this is a test.
Interesting, I submitted the above comment at 4:52PM and the system dated it at 4;00PM.
Further, I tried bolding a sentence, italicizing a sentence, and placing a paragraph in “blockquotes.” Only italicizing works.
There goes two very useful communication tools.
Uh…aren’t Americans already working for Chinese supplied companies like Wal-Mart and renting from Chinese or Australian owned buildings, including your city halls?
It’s funny how you guys “predict” stuff that’s already happening.
Where oh where is Petr Kropotkin when we need him?
Frustration and exasperation are common to most warnings about impending systemic collapse triggered by peak oil .
Hey, I don’t disagree ! Peak Oil is a bitch and we’re all gonna die . That’s both a true statement and fair summary .
My only addition to the conversation is a question ::
” So , what makes you think our Leaders don’t ‘get it’ ? ”
It is remotely possible, I suppose, that the Elites’ failure to address the issue stems simply from greed, ignorance or advanced syphilitic degeneracy … but I deeply and sincerely doubt it.
To me it looks more sinister. Some secret guilty fear , only stronger … like abject palm sweating heart palpitating terror. The elites reek of desperation, as though they are engaged in a fight so dire and despicable that they dare not speak of it openly , even between themselves.
Maybe the real situation is that they understand all too well that the long predicted resource wars ( over oil in particular ) of humankind’s collapse into barbarism have begun in earnest. Maybe they already accept, after so many centuries of false alarms, that the end actually is near.
In other words : Has it occurred to many of us doomsayers that the Elites hear us loud and clear ?
Just look at the completely obvious situations right out there in plain sight. No crystal ball or supercomputer required. Every vital system on earth is either in terminal decline, or precariously teetered on the brink thereof . Water, oil, soil, food, climate, population, social stability, you name it. Maybe our leaders are ignoring the din of warnings because they DO ‘get’ what is being screamed at them… and are acting accordingly, by saving their own asses first , and to HELL with everybody else and the Rule Book with ‘em !
If roles were reversed, and you were the one with real power, would you announce Armageddon and possibly turn relatively civilized warfare into utterly internecine chaos? Or would you deem it wiser to fight dirty for the home team and stock up on things you reckon might come in handy for your own small tribe when the shit hits the fan ? Would your fellow tribal elites see that as criminal or heroic?
So although I believe our Leaders are exceedingly unwise and corrupt, I do not believe they are stupid or poorly informed. Nor do I think they share even the slightest wisp of any inclination to stop “prepping” in their own inimitable way . . They are just clever rats, busy pilfering the ship that they themselves scuttled. They see their fellow plunderers as the good guys , and they view us as barely sentient livestock.
Here is what’s really going on : There is a no-holds-barred power struggle among the Oligarchs of the world, to see who will own the serfs and the oil ( and thus survive ) and who will not. This is not a drill. The only rules are those of feudal allegiance, which shift with the ever changing estimates of probable outcomes. Laws, treaties and all other rules of fair play ( including Financial rules ) serve only to distract the semi-literate, and are ignored, defied or rewritten on the fly. Pure pragmatism. Now would be a real good time to brush up on your Machiavelli.
The vast majority of us are spectators to this blood frenzy… by birth, choice or temperament. Or, if you prefer to say it in the forked tongue of High Finance , we the people are just another “tranch” of stakes in the ownership game. But don’t believe that you are nothing but a hapless helpless victim… because you most definitely are NOT . No one has to be a spectator ! Please feel free to wade in and get your hands bloody any time you like.
Personally I see see little benefit in any of that. Who wants to rule over ashes? I shall tend my garden, care for my loved ones, study & write enough to stay interested in the spectacle , listen to some Dylan… and continue living until further notice.
Don’t forget their Terrible Beauty, prophesized from time out of mind: the Global State. In this all their Idealism, Corruption, Greed, Glory, Talent, desire for Adventure, and Thrill in doing wrong flow together into One. They seek to crash the System prematurely in order to resurrect it with themselves on top. And yes, a techno-medevialism with themselves on top. The masses will be crowded into the cities. Only They, the Lords, will have access to His Majesty’s Forest.
And many will have to die for this World to be born. That wont be a problem though.
And you, SiR DuMbsHit JaegerMeister; must you be that Chewed Piece of Pale bubble gum stuck beneath everyone’s shoe?
Well, yes – yes you must. Not even Alex Jones would have you as an expert guest. That’s not a problem for you though. You will force our audience upon yourself via this blog at any cost.
In other words, you want to give America back to the Indians and go back to Europe as La Raza has told us to. Good White Boy, always ready to sell out his own people in order to be morally superior. No one is stopping you. I’ll even carry your bags in the airport. But I will give you a kick in the ass as you depart. No one can take that away from me.
The vast majority of us are spectators to this blood frenzy… by birth, choice or temperament. Or, if you prefer to say it in the forked tongue of High Finance , we the people are just another “tranch” of stakes in the ownership game. But don’t believe that you are nothing but a hapless helpless victim… because you most definitely are NOT . No one has to be a spectator ! Please feel free to wade in and get your hands bloody any time you like.
Personally I see see little benefit in any of that. Who wants to rule over ashes? I shall tend my garden, care for my loved ones, study & write enough to stay interested in the spectacle , listen to some Dylan… and continue living until further notice.
***************************************************************************
Beautiful writing, Mr. Smith. Advice taken.
I had thought of these “points to ponder” as well. Most of the speechifying for public consumption is distractionary and disinformative at best. I just hope to live long enough to see how they go about this final “consolidation” they’re planning so furiously for. It’ll be a clusterfuck of gargantuan proportions, I’m convinced. Ridgerunners might have some other ideas that could give TPTB a dicey moment or two. (The best-laid plans, etc.)
As to whether our leaders get it, a telling quote from Van Jones:
“I’ve sat with all these people who we think are in charge, and they don’t know what to do. Take that in: they don’t know what to do! You think you’re scared? You think you’re terrified? They have the Pentagon’s intelligence, they have every major corporation’s input; Shell Oil that has done this survey and study around the peak oil problem.
“You think we’ve got to get on the Internet and say, ‘Peak oil!’ because the system doesn’t know about it? They know, and they don’t know what to do. And they are terrified that if they do anything they’ll lose their positions. So they keep juggling chickens and chainsaws and hope it works out just like most of us everyday at work. That’s real, that’s real.”
http://www2.energybulletin.net/node/35615
—
My grandpa used to say that the capitalist would sell the rope to hang himself, so it is with our corporate sector. They worship at the alter of profit that Chinese provide them.We envy their low pay no regulation environment, salivate at the prospect of profit potential of a market of that size, thereby we ignore their spying, hacking, of our industrial and military secrets, support of countless nations, organizations etc. which are openly hostile to us. Turn a blind eye to to human rights violations, child labor, environmental concerns, and so forth ad nauseam all in the name of profit. ( for you Star Trek fans Ferengi R Us) The bottom line for us will unfortunately be a disaster!
Indeed, James, I have wondered how the Krugmans of the world imagine that money printing has “worked” given that workforce participation is at 32-year lows, the net worth of a median-aged worker is 50% lower than 2007, oil is 9.7X more expensive than it was under Clinton, food inflation is starting to rear its ugly head, and all the shale oil “bonanzas” are well on their way to total depletion.
I only wish I was as optimistic as you are, James. I don’t think we can have a “world made by hand” in a continent where we’d have to reclaim all that paved road to have local agrarian economies. And the soil that’s left is so depleted by petrochemical goosing that people are going to be reduced to their front and back lawn for potatoes.
Meanwhile, here in Silicon Valley, techno-triumphalism is alive and well. We think that an economy can be built by just-in-time production based on the combo of Artificial Intelligence and Statistical Business Forecasting. Our new technological “gods” are getting sillier and sillier and reach farther and farther only to grab at less and less reality.
E.
Warmongers only, please. Otherwise, go home.
http://dividedundergod.com/2013/06/14/woman-being-denied-citizenship-because-her-morality-doesnt-come-from-religion/
I think that pretty much sums it up, don’t you?
Miss Newquist, (or should I say Asoka)
You continue to show no shame. Your ramblings unfortunately have found their way to Asoka’s finding this site and wanting to destroy it as he (you) strive to continue to derail the conversation. When are you going to continue your homo-erotic ramblings like you did on Jim’s last site? Or are you just waiting for your other “alter-ego”, Carolnequistdotdotdot to show up and make a mockery of this thread?
“Please submit a letter on official church stationery, attesting to … the church’s official position on the bearing of arms.”
==========
PTL and pass the ammunition!
Except for certain traditional peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, Brethren, etc.) most are fully in support of patriotic nationalist violence against enemies. Most support funding armies trained to kill.
Most churches believe in self-defense and the death penalty, believing that capital punishment is the right of the state.
Talk about paths of folly.
While I am in total agreement with James Kunstler on the follies of trying to preserve the SUV surburban lifestyle and the delusions that we can have exponential material economic growth in the face of Peak Oil/Everything and Climate Change, it seems that Jim as with Krugman and so many others ignores the biggest waste of resources – namely the $1 Trillion per year wasted on War. A Trillion dollars a year or even a major slice of that would go a long way towards restoring our Green Transit and the Green New Deal towards sustainability. So it is good to see War brought up here.
And Edward Snowden’s revelations about the huge NSA spy machine reveals yet another huge waste of resources for the US National InSecurity State – namely all the power for the mega machines and $1 Billion plus data centers to house all Americans data run by the NSA etc. And it is revealing and no surprise that we learn that Booz Allen made $1.5 Billion as mercenaries in this business hiring private contractors like Mr. Snowden with the ability to snoop into any American’s business they want. And Booz Allen in turn is another evil subsidiary of the machinations of the Carlisle Group supported by such luminaries as George Bush, Sr, Kissinger, Weinberger and all the usual gang of War profiteers and War criminals stealing from taxpayer’s pockets as they denounce Social Security, Medicare and now Food Stamps.
The US has the resources to make the transition over fossil fuels and the Green New Deal. It is solely a matter of priorities -Wars or Green Transit, schools, music and arts, NSA spying on every American or supercomputers to help predict Climate Change and its onslaughts.
Orbit,
I think it’s actually a simpler choice than you state.
It’s pursuit of profit vs. pursuit of a “different way of inhabiting the landscape” (tm JHK).
(As you allude, these nasty ‘businesses’ are massively efficient at liberating the funds of the taxpayer treasury. Again, it’s all about the single-minded worship of Mammon; life, liberty and the pursuit of any-other-thing be damned.)
What about the folly of USA under the thumb of the UN and its setting our refugee policy? And adding a million Syrian mu-slimes to our nations footprint? Brought in as deserving, wanna work refugees? Like the Somalis, 95% of whom get a gov handout once they get here?
Lance Sjogren said: “But to rigorously refute the conventional wisdom, one should focus on the fact that renewable energy cannot, in fact, replace fossil fuels.”
—————
The FACT? The facts are that alternative energy is growing rapidly. According to a new report by the International Energy Agency Brazil will add 32 gigawatts of renewable energy to its power grid within the next five years. The move will put Brazil tied for fourth place with Germany in renewable energy investment, exceeded only by China (270 gigawatts), the U.S. (56 gigawatts) and India (39 gigawatts).
At least be honest about what is actually happening in the real world right now: renewable energy is replacing fossil fuels, little by little. And there is no end in sight to the trend toward more and more utilization of alternative energy. I’m not even mentioning conservation efforts and contraction efforts.
Maybe be honest enough to recognize that alternative energy sources such as bio fuels, hydrogen, solar, geothermal, or nuclear energy can meet future energy demands better than finite fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
Maybe be honest enough to recognize human innovation and ingenuity such as a new water battery that is being created at MIT that will be able to power a car for hundreds of miles. With technologies like this on the horizon, it is hard to not think that our futures may have very little reliance on fossil fuels.
Maybe be realistic enough to recognize that alternative energy can take a vast number of forms from simple solar power to more complex systems such as fuel cells. Each type of variation has its own benefits and hindrances … just as much as fossil fuel systems.
Maybe be honest enough to admit we have been slowly moving toward alternative energy and that there are so many avenues of different energy sources, such as nuclear energy, solar energy, and hydrogen-based technology and that probably the one source that will propel us into the future of alternative energy will be nuclear energy (probably thorium-based), as its potential for use is enormous.
JoeBob,
Try to be honest enough to understand that any alternative way
of energy extraction on substantial scale will need a lot of complicated equipment, which can be manufactured only with a massive usage of fossil fuel.
Renewable energy cannot replace fossil fuels just as the square dance cannot replace the disco; the horse and buggy cannot replace the F-15 Jaguar your garden cannot replace McDonalds, the family cannot replace whatever drugged existence you may be living at 3 AM on the streets of the inebriated american experience; cooperation cannot replace competition, etc. The “replacements” are a very different lifestyle to the point where they are not replacements at all.
Much if not all of the 32 gigawatts of renewable power to be added by Brazil to their power grid in the next five years will come from enormous dams, reservoirs, and canals in the Amazon basin, which will destroy large areas of rain forest. This is an environmental crime in progress almost beyond imagination.
Fortune cookie say : Chicken weiners made out of rubber smart guy.
JB–you had me right up until the word “nuclear” reared it’s ugly head. Would you agree that perhaps it may be a smarter idea to figure out what we’re going to do with all of the nuclear waste we’ve got already before creating more?
I have a 15 panel solar array and thermal hot water panels as well, on my home. I recycle, reuse and repurpose. I have an 1800 sq. ft garden where I tediously (every. single. day.) maintain the soil quality with buckets of manure, biomass, and compost. I don’t drive anywhere unless I can accomplish 5 different tasks (not purchase five different things at the same store). I have all CFL lightbulbs. I don’t eat out. I have no television. I don’t patronize WalMart. I ride my bike everywhere, including to work, even if it’s raining (Oregonians taught me that).
If every single human being on this planet would do the things on my list, and then the governments of the world would deploy (JHK’s nice word) every single alternative energy scheme…such as wave power, solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and biofuels….
we might have a chance.
But the thing that you are missing—is the capitalist way of doing things. All us little people are going to do these wonderful “contraction” things—but these big corporations will not. They will not run their factories or companies efficiently, figuratively or literally. Little people are not the drivers of climate change, financial mischief or wars—-governments and corporations are.
The bottom line is—corporations don’t do anything unless there is a profit in it. Since the government is a corporation, run by a bundle of corporations, for corporations….don’t expect them to do anything unless there is profit in it, either.
So…I think that perhaps if ALL of the alternatives are deployed AT THE SAME TIME….wave power for those on the coasts….solar power for those with lots of sunshine (and even those who don’t. my array actually does quite well on partly cloudy days. keeps the ambient temp down)…etc….
in other words, things are going to get really local, as they should. Small communities, run by small local utilities, controlled by small councils in that community. These grand schemes such as “nuclear power” have already been proven to be dead ends…and deadly.
Hey mCubed,
A big old hat tip to you, sir! I own and manage rental properties here in Southwest Georgia, and I can tell you that on my land we do everything we can to follow the down scaled living arrangement you so well describe. The only time I take my truck out is when I need it to do work, such as haul wood, compost, maybe even if me and my boys go out hunting and bag a few deers. Other than that, I try to limit my driving.
Although not a religious man myself personally I do sometimes drop my mother-in-law off at her Baptist revivals sometimes, but hey, she’s past 90 and I figure it’s something I can do for her (as well as my wife) haw! I fear though for my sons in that they won’t have the access to cheap oil that I had in my life. I grew up in the fifties and sixties and don’t see the like of folks making those kind of decisions about their arrangements.
M3,
All good points about where we stand and what stands in our way of striving for a rational future.
The god of profit will have to be slain, I fear, as ‘enough’ is going to be all that we could ask for. Those who would continue business as usual are not going do anything differently until forced to do so. …And thereby do I see Big Trouble and Evil Schemes ahead. I’m hoping just to make it through to see how realists deal with massive downscale. (I’m just a perpetually curious observer.)
Mr. Kunstler,
Sir, I can’t say that I’m feeling the love about your new website upgrades but hell, I’m just a Georgia farmer boy, so what do I know? Dang! I will add this about the current meme. We can continue to add immigrants to this nation in order to “grow” and not see a depletion of resources. That’s just not a thing that makes sense to me. I guess as long as the plastic goodies keeping coming to the SuperWalmarts nothing seems to change this.
Have to say it’s sad to see so many of the original commentors gone, like Kyoostik, Tripp, Wage, Myrtle, et.al. Now we get the likes of …carolnewquist… Is she (asoka) still doing the three dots? I guess only time will tell before she starts to reveal her other “personalities…
Another negative post for the disenfrancised.
Perhaps we can get a bit of encouragement once and a while, just check out your pets, or the birds outside your window, or the plants that grow all around you. If your garden is not up to scratch, you need to work a bit of that old fashioned magic, it is called CARE.
Water your garden, work your life,
Hell, xport, I wish you could see my South Georgia spread here. I got some cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, spinach, brocolli, some squash, cucumber, radishes, zucchini, and even some watermellon growing. Love for you to come out and see it sometime! Sorry that the feel of my last post made it sound negative.
Hat tip also to Wage! Glad you’re back, adding to the conversation in a real meaningful way. Also, to Vlad, and his new handle “Jaeg”. Hell, we didn’t all agree or get along, but it still feels like a class reunion. I talk to Tripp now and again, but don’t know if he’s coming back on this thread. Too busy walkin the walk!
Most of the speechifying for public consumption is distractionary and disinformative at best. I just hope to live long enough to see how they go about this final “consolidation” they’re planning so furiously for.
***********************************************************************************
Zone, I’ve got my front row ticket to the freak show as well and am quite happy to watch it all go down as a spectator who doesn’t claim to know what the ending ought to be; prepared for a mighty dose of pain, too. yet I do worry about my immediate relations and some close friends and their rug-rats if the post-climactic slide becomes as turbulent as I imagine. I’ll fight for them, even a few hapless strangers, though not in a national or international war; this government and the society(ies) of present form can rot for all I care.
Still, the most meaningful threat I truly believe is lurking in the wings is the one Dr. PCR seems to see inching incrementally forth. Gut instinct says that if we truly were just around the corner from an alternative energy paradigm and that all we really need is the right sort of Leaders to think for us about how to turn that corner, then all this wouldn’t be happenin’:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/06/17/washington-is-insane-paul-craig-roberts/
I have to say that short of that kind of undeniable nuclear reality tweak all the public discourse about whether we’re headed down the right or wrong set of tracks seems to lead to the same ashy end later if not sooner, so what’s the point? Or is that just too dismissive of the power of WEeple to be credible? Oh, more links from the PCR article:
http://rt.com/news/iran-troop-deployment-syria-782/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35318.htm
And just how is the garden coming by the way? Ha! What a way to finish.
“E” said…
Meanwhile, here in Silicon Valley, techno-triumphalism is alive and well. We think that an economy can be built by just-in-time production based on the combo of Artificial Intelligence and Statistical Business Forecasting. Our new technological “gods” are getting sillier and sillier and reach farther and farther only to grab at less and less reality.
Good to see you back, “E”! All I can say is those folks in Silicon Valley had better start investing in some turnips and cotton because that technology god isn’t going to scratch the hound behind the ears! An old Southern saying, just saying!
And as long as we’re talking about work to be done, I don’t expect that soft handed folks to be able to plant crops and harvest them. That takes a skill that is rapidly being lost. The land I’m on, as you know, is part of my family’s. Been in my family for nearly 150 years. It took hard work to make it what it is today, but I can’t say future generations will be able to do it. My sons can, they just don’t want to. Glad to know it’s part of their inheritance though. My wife and I can feel good about that anyway.
You think our communications data base here at the agency in Langley is impressive, wait til we fully roll out our DNA data base……works better than the crude ID chip implants we field tested for pets. DNA is god’s naturally implanted ID chip and our data base is now over 100 million residents of our glorious national security state. With the advent of our magnificent leader’s ObomberCare, we hope to have every resident of N. America DNA ID’d by the year 2020. This DNA data base will prove particularly useful for targeting selected groups with our advanced designer diseases….reducing the population is the most effective way of controlling it.
I must say, that since reading the enjoyable antics of JHK, I’m now wanting to say, thank you much.
However, if you were to come to Central Texas, you would see the exact opposite as far as economy and the so-called, moving backward of just about everything goes.
This place is getting too much going as far as I can deal with, progress sucks and I want to move again, this place(Austin) is so busy with frenetic economic activity that it’s almost too-much to be around.
Yes, people are attracted to growing and success and employment and yes, they want to avoid the downside, that which comes with overshoot, entropy and just plain shortsightedness. I’m living in an constant construction zone everywhere around me and my neighbors, the traffic is a constantly ever-cautious re-learning experience everyday.
I don’t pray, but God help this world if we don’t start thinking rationally. Should there be some balance(?)that would be tantamount to denying the natural progress of things as the general way forward, we can only hope, as gasoline prices are moving- up again, that the way forward has to fall-back to sanity occasionally.
Thank you Jim for your blog and forum.
Austin is ruined now. I used to live there, before it was discovered, which sealed it’s fate. Every year 60,000 new residents sharing the same meager natural resources, which includes a couple of parks and two lakes. It won’t end well.
Still predicting Dow 4500 at year-end, JHK? How’s your gold investment faring?
Note to NSA: you can’t track shit.
Any terrorist who wants to completely evade the money wasted on NSA can do so ver simply: Just use Apple services—FaceTime and iMessage, in particular — to leaving a digital trail for the NSA.
The NSA probably does not want you to know that conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, Apple does not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.
The NSA is a giant clusterfuck of wasted taxpayer money. All a terrorist has to do is communicate using Apple services to evade NSA.
The NSA is a path of folly.
CORRECTION
Any citizen, or anyone in the world, who wants to communicate and remain completely invisible to the NSA can do so very simply: just use Apple services—FaceTime and iMessage, in particular — to AVOID leaving a digital trail for the NSA.
It is so easy to outwit the fools at NSA. All that money they spend trying to achieve “total information awareness” is wasted.
All that secrecy for naught. All that money wasted on the whistle blowers, on Julian Assange, on Bradley Manning, on Edward Snowden.
What a clusterfucked up folly of a government spy agency the NSA is.
JB, You underestimate the extent and reach of our full spectrum dominance here at the agency in Langley. We have several assets at the Apple encryption portals…in fact the late Mr. Jobs had been one of our assets since 2001. We bailed Apple out at the time and blackmailed that homo from Pepsi out of the AppleCEO position, reinstalling the always compliant Mr. Jobs. Mr. Gates is also one of our assets…not only has he provided a backdoors to all his crappy user unfriendly operating systems …he has kindly supplied sidedoors and frontdoors. He has been very very cooperative since we took a full video of him cavorting with a 13 year old girl. At least it was a girl, unlike the Pepsi gay…er guy. We are totally in charge and control every aspect of modern human existence…….
Who is the pepsi gayer guy? And who tried to quaff him?
A while back, I falsely reported that the Mall of America was on the decline. It had closed one department store, with no replacement, which gave me that impression. Recently, I have found out that it is on the brink of doubling its current size. No, I’m not making this up.
NSA: “…the always compliant Mr. Jobs”
-========
Oh, you’re killing me. Does the NSA not know that Mr. Jobs has not been the CEO for some time? Are you not aware there is a new sheriff in town? Do you know how much computer power the NSA would have to dedicate to decrypt one teenager’s iMessage?
When Apple’s iMessage was announced in mid-2011, Cupertino said it would use “secure end-to-end encryption.” It quickly became the most popular encrypted chat program in history: Apple CEO Tim Cook said last fall that 300 billion messages have been sent so far, which are transmitted through the Internet rather than as more costly SMS messages carried by wireless providers. 300 Billion messages the NSA could not read because NSA methods no longer work.
**Wiretapping cannot be done because instant messaging and VoIP programs are not “managed”–meaning peer-to-peer programs like Apple’s Facetime and iMessage do not use the public telephone network.
** Surreptitious installation of keystroke-logging software. Hello Siri. Take a message.
**Attempts to send a suspect malware, purchase a so-called zero day vulnerability to gain control of a target device and extract the contents. Contents? How 20th century!
**Warrants to seize the physical device and perform a traditional forensics analysis. Again, no digital trail that can be analyzed.
None of it will work. The DEA has apparently acknowledged that because of the use of encryption, “it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices” even with a court order approved by a federal judge.
The NSA is a paper tiger spending our money like their pentagon pals spend, with all the attendant waste and fraud … and without any accountability … and apparently the NSA is too stupid to know how easy communication has become: unbreakable, undetectable communication between Apple devices.
NSA is toothless, useless, and antiquated.
The NSA has yet to even admit its inability to conduct electronic surveillance, or apply filters to, any of those 300 billion messages sent between Apple devices using iMessage.
One small point you are overlooking Mr Kunstler, $90 oil would certainly crash an economy if the Fed had not decimated the value of the dollar. $90 isn’t what it used to be. In gold terms oil has remained remarkably stable and may continue to be so for a while. Time will tell.
You know what they say, an Apple a day helps keep the NSA away. I think the NSA gave Jobs pancreatic cancer like they did with Bob Marley. They don’t like high-profile individuals who defy their authority. JoeBob has it right. His message is a great counter to that of the Snowden plant. Yes, Snowden is a purposeful plant. Why, you ask? Because if he was not, you never would have heard of him. His message serves the NSA well. They want to appear to be the all-seeing eye that’s watching you to determine whether you’ve been naughty or nice. They want you to police yourself because, as JoeBob says and JHK underscores, they don’t have the ability or capacity to monitor and control the throngs. So, they resort to psychological warfare. Swowden is a paper tiger. The reaction from both the so-called “left” and “right” has been predictable, just as they planned it. Don’t fall for their scripted bullshit. They’re a bunch of ass-clowns. Hey you ass-clowns, I’ve dropped my panties and I’m mooning you right now. Take that, you losers. Get a life…..or should I say, a pole-dancer. Oh, and Snowden is not a hero. Jesus, you have to laugh at what it takes to be a hero these days. All you have to do is breath, apparently, and the sycophantic so-called “left” will call you a hero. If you’re gay, you’re automatically a hero for just existing; you don’t even have to take a breath.
One small point you are overlooking Mr Kunstler, $90 oil would certainly crash an economy if the Fed had not decimated the value of the dollar. $90 isn’t what it used to be. In gold terms oil has remained remarkably stable and may continue to be so for a while. Time will tell.
Since the value of gold is denominated in dollars just as the value of oil is, it stands to reason that the value of gold is affected in the same way as oil. How much gold is a barrel of oil worth without using dollars?
Hi Jim, You said in the final 2 paragraphs that China is moving its people into cities and obviously where does the food come from. Your answer is correct that China is virtually colonising Africa but the Chinese are also buying up millions of acres of prime farmland in Australia and our dickhead government is allowing it. I wonder if in the future Australians will be the serfs of the Chinese.
Mark from Australia
Yes Mark. And non resident Chinese individuals are also buying a lot of residential property in Australia, especially in the 3 main capital cities. Was looking at a property forum and quite a few posters mentioned that they were being repeatedly outbid at auctions by non English speaking Chinese, and as a result home ownership was eluding them.
I read Jim Rogers best seller, from the 1990s. He said he could not buy a home down under. The law did not allow it since he is a US citizen.
James I just got back from the Clearwater Great Hudson River Music and Arts Festival in Croton-on-Hudson on the Hudson River started 35 years by Pete Seeger and his band of leftist malcontents and troublemakers. One of these years you should sail down the Hudson or take the train to Croton-Harmon station and stop by. I have been attending the Clearwater Festival since 1984 and am always amazed on how they are way ahead of their time. They have always had recycling and buses from the train station/parking but now have “Zero Waste” where almost everything is recycled or composted. For the past 5 years or so they have been largely solar powered and Pete Seeger’s truck for his farm (note Pete has been farming all this time!) has been run by leftover McDonald’s etc french fry oil. (Would probably use cheese doodle oil if it were readily available! lol)
As you probably know Pete Seeger built his own cabin largely by hand years ago.
As a volunteer I discovered that like my own family, a large number of people even in the city, are signing up for Community Supported Agriculture with fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey supplied by local organic farms. the Green Living Expo tent where I got assigned this year as a volunteer had more tables and attendance than ever for things like beekeeping, of course solar PV, but also a very interesting “Tower Hydroponic Garden” little vertical growing setup ideal for growing some of your own fresh vegetables if you have some sun on an urban porch or roof.
the Clearwater Festival, which of course rants against the Wars, fracking, Indian Point nuclear plant, etc is a very positive event of life the way it should be lived with acoustic non-fossil fueled music jams, art, and fantastic craftspeople already building fine long-lasting items for the world made by hand.
You should come next Father’s Day Weekend.
It will revive your faith in humanity and the future!
Orbit,
I’d like to see some reliable hydro-electric (drop-in, turbine style) to power some of that jammage!
Call me decadent, but I do like me some ‘lectrified musics from time to time. 🙂
You are decadent. What kind of folkie are you. Miking the instruments if permisable, but that’s it. Have you thought about learning to call Square Dances? That might be a good part time career for you during TLE. Or do you even remember what those letters stand for?
Seeger who sits on the board of the Meerapols [Rosenbergs kid or kids] foundation! They help Mumias kid or kids.
This whole festival thing’s going to come to a full halt, as well. In the World Made by Hand, travel for entertainment purposes and self-actualizing will be taboo. Sheltering in place, meaning staying put in your own community will be the norm for all the obvious reasons.
JB and Carol,
You are doing a great job spreading disinformation as to our full spectrum dominance and total information awareness capabilities. We here at the agency in Langley are monitoring you and your contact lists closely, and commend you on your efforts……though you could toss in a little more pro Israel stuff. Keep that disinfo flowing and sowing confusion. As our great mentor Joe Goebbels used to say, claim a circle is a square long and loud enough….and it will eventually be a circle…….
So Obama went on CR last night to properly frame up the narrative on a host of issues ranging from the recent Iranian presidential election, Syria, Russia, China, etc. It was a substantial interview at least in the sense that we can safely say that this country is undeniably inching toward a confrontation that some say could go nuclear rather quickly.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12981
Now, I personally don’t buy the neat and tidy narratives propagated in the commercial media for one bit, but make no mistake – if TPTB make their thoughts known on CR shit is gonna go they way they report – at least as far as such plans can be controlled and executed. The coup d’état upon the Syrian govt. planned by Washington and executed by covert proxies in Syria largely failed, and Obama whether you like or dislike him now has to put his money where his mouth went regarding that red line tough talk. Dr. PCR seems to see through the bullshit humanitarian narrative so many others doubt also. His take is that Washington is both insane and stupid; although, i personally only agree with the insane part:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/06/17/washington-is-insane-paul-craig-roberts/
And I have more links to share, but this new site format seems to gobble up posts with too many links, so more to follow.
So Obama went on CR last night to properly frame up the narrative on a host of issues ranging from the recent Iranian presidential election, Syria, Russia, China, etc. It was a substantial interview at least in the sense that we can safely say that this country is undeniably inching toward a confrontation that some say could go nuclear rather quickly.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12981
Thanks for the links, UFIA; always appreciated.
I concur with your observation that if it’s blurted on Charlie Rose’s propaganda organ, that’s the direction ‘the big plans’ are pointed in.
(His program takes the tone that it exists for the education of the politically and socially aware ‘Murkins, which is pretty interesting as a contrast to what can actually be gleaned from a half-hour on the intertubes.)
As much as I detest CR’s lickspittle, softball-lobbing, toadying manner, we do learn of the sly machinations that TPTB are trying to ‘get us used to’. (Don’t get me started on the stupidity of the entertainment/celebrity segments! Gad, the utter obsequious groveling is a bit disgusting.)
To call Charlie, “unimaginative” would be giving him too much credit.
You said it, brother. Charlie is little more than a ball washer for the golfing elite, but I’ve come to believe that once we separate the two types of messages being presented in any of these interviews – the dumbed down nationalistic themes for the supposedly aware middle crowd and the clever investment signals relayed to the monied interests- then it becomes pretty easy to trace the trajectory of lies without having to resort to sifting out the truisms from among the even worse zealotry reported by the tinfoil hat wearing interweb crawlers, much as I do appreciate visiting their fantasy worlds.
And timing is everything with the CR broadcasts; his show a launch pad or redirect positioning strategy tool and counter propaganda soundboard that feeds off of the remaining hopes and delusions about democracy in the U.S., which are unsurprisingly still strong among the people.
In that sense, I do believe the msm is a legitimate, more credible source for understanding at least what the status quo would ideally like to see happen, even if the fantasy is merely opted-in to. How could all the bullshit persist and pile if the Joe Sixpacks didn’t help shovel it over top themselves otherwise? In this manner, I part ways with JHK when it comes to voting in any fashion. I don’t bare any of the responsibility for the failures of these politicians or this society, except where I must prostitute myself to the system to acquire the necessities. Guy Mcpherson learned the hard way that it’s impossible to entirely quit empire and now regrets his decision. On a related note, I sometimes wonder why Jim has never honestly reconciled his decision to vote for Obama a second time, or why Bushies welcomed that thundering turd to a second term; votes for each self-inflicted democratic wound were cast in the face of overwhelming evidence that shit had indeed gone awry, as if the lesser of two evils justification ever has vindicated the people’s own complicit duplicity.
Even so, we don’t get the absurdity of one without the other, so if Charlie Rose is a joke, then so are the people who knock the media and still vote on the issues as they are presented. I suppose if there is any freedom left it’s the freedom to piss in one’s own eye.
Anyhow, If I want to know how the elite are “feeling” about those best laid plans, I intuitively listen to what they say and discard the easy rationalizations. My undereducated guess is that they’re mighty nervous right about now. And this is where social predictions are proven right even if the merits of the argument are false. That’s the ticket to the freak show we’ve all been given.
Nicely said! Wish more folks would tumble to your “just-readin’-the-ol’-Pravda” methodology. 😉
Now, I personally don’t buy the neat and tidy narratives propagated in the commercial media for one bit, but make no mistake – if TPTB make their thoughts known on CR shit is gonna go they way they report – at least as far as such plans can be controlled and executed. The coup d’état upon the Syrian govt. planned by Washington and executed by covert proxies in Syria largely failed, and Obama whether you like or dislike him now has to put his money where his mouth went regarding that red line tough talk. Dr. PCR seems to see through the BS humanitarian narrative so many others doubt also. His take is that Washington is both insane and stupid; although, I personally only agree with the insane part:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/06/17/washington-is-insane-paul-craig-roberts/
And I have more links to share, but this new site format seems to gobble up posts with too many links, so more to follow.
Another link from the PCR article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-send-4000-troops-to-aid-president-assad-forces-in-syria-8660358.html?printService=print
I do realize that Peak Oil is dead for possibly the next two decades as we languish once again in stock market bubble euphoria, but if we’re really just turning the corner to a new, feasible alternative energy paradigm, then why are will still championing freedom and democracy in only the countries that have oil & other resources and no nukes to stop us from takin’ ’em? Things that make me go hmm.
Meanwhile, events are coming to a head in Syria. 100,000 dead so far, but the potential is there for many, many more casualties. Just wait ’till that snazzy new American Weaponry is introduced into the conflict. And Russia will be making some substantial weapons deliveries in its own right. Mix it all up with fighters from Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iranian Kuds force, plus the Israeli wild card, and you’ve got a real situation on your hands. Good thing out esteemed Presidents has a Nobel Peace Prize! I remain …
the BackRowHeckler
Let us say, for the sake of discussion, that there are two kinds of people in the world (in reality it is much more an and/both than either/or): those who ignore the truth in order to protect self-interest and ego-identity struggling in a hostile universe for vague purposes, and those who seek, embrace, and try their best to live in accord with the truth and meaning that they find in a universe supported by a benevolent, creative intelligence.
As Julian said, Saguna Brahmin includes Righteous Wrath. God, Ishwara, Yahweh, is busy planning our destruction even as the Prophet Jeremiah perceived.
Let us say, for the sake of discussion, that there are two kinds of people in the world
From my vantage, their is only one type of people in the world; Dumb and Dumber.
it should read there, not their
Three types: Dumb, Dumber, and Dumberer. You are the last, the highest low.
Dr. PCR seems to see through the BS humanitarian narrative so many others doubt also. His take is that Washington is both insane and stupid; although, I personally only agree with the insane part:
Ha!! Of course, it wasn’t stupid and insane when he was one of The Gipper’s right hand men, was it? No, it must have gone insane shortly after he left his post. Isn’t that always the way it is?
Reagan got a bad rap as being daffy and not in charge, but it was actually quite the contrary as this rare footage reveals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go-FoUrn63Q
All of the Gipper’s cabinet was CFR, but he wasn’t. He was a total pastsy just like Obama. A decent man in way over his head.
Here’s another fine example of “America’s” character:
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/second-grader-in-wheelchair-set-apart-from-classmates-in-school-photo-153816157.html
Look how these callous bastards made sure this poor kid in the wheelchair was set apart, as though he was a plague of some sort. This is so typically “American.” Of course, if he had been a big star prior to his disability like Christopher Reeves or Steve Gleason then this would never have happened. If you’re nobody and you have a disability in “America” you are lower than trash and treated accordingly as per this photo. This is the way people who support NumberUSA act. They’re soulless vampire squids who keep taking and never give a thing, and on top of that they whine incessantly. Pathetic cowards, they are. All of them. Their time is up. They know it, and they’re getting desperate. It’s why they love to here about collapse, so they can rape and pillage without recourse.
The new meme: Superman was an illegal immigrant. Desperate and Despicable. The tide is turning against the Gang of Hate. Paul Ryan and Marko Rubio have revealed themselves to be enemies of the People. Better to find out now than after they became President.
Enemy of the People? What people?
The American People – Whites. But on a more relative level, the Bill will prove a disaster for Blacks as well. Many Hispanics are against it too, but these minority voices of sanity are drowned out but the Liberal Din.
Do tell me. I saw something [did not read] about Superman film was pro wetback????? wtf?
Not the movie as far as I know (haven’t seen it) but it’s being spun by some in the Media. It’s backfiring since it’s obvious a sign of utter desperation.
http://www.examiner.com/article/superman-is-an-illegal-alien-alien
A decent man in way over his head.
Wow, such kind words about Obama, Janos. I’m surprised. As you know, I don’t have as high an opinion of him as you.
No Obama is not a decent man though he is in way over his nappy head. I meant the Gipper.
his nappy head
At least he doesn’t have a yeast infection. You can’t say the same with your inferior immune system. You’re regular doughnut factory.
A low blow but you I’m sure you’ve given lots of those…
Yes, Vlad, she undoubtedly spends a lot of time on her knees. And it ain’t that she’s praying for forgiveness! LOL!
The new meme: Superman was an illegal immigrant.
You are such a racist stereotyper. Yes, in this latest version he’s an olive-skinned stoner who enjoys getting high. There’s more than one way to fly, but all that doesn’t make him an illegal immigrant unless you associate olive-skin and cannabis with illegal immigration. I don’t, but I can see why you would. It’s because you are scum. Carry on, you dung heap.
well well well, all is not well in Eurabia:
The Netherlands and Belgium seem to be in a race to the bottom of medical ethics. Early in the week, Belgium was ahead by a nose. Its Parliament reportedly reached a consensus on expanding controversial euthanasia policies to include access for gravely ill children. But the very next day the Netherlands broke clear and lunged ahead.
The Dutch press reported an even more startling development on the euthanasia front. Distress felt by parents of a dying newborn is a justification for killing their child, declared the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG), which represents doctors in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands and Belgium seem to be in a race to the bottom of medical ethics.
It’s not about a race, and what they are doing is more ethical than forcing people to suffer by making euthanasia illegal.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1430431984/
It was beautifully touching to see this person exit this world in a dignified manner on his own terms. For you to deny him that and call his act illegal is unethical. You have it backwards, as always.
I urge everyone who cares about the future of the United States to fully support Numbers USA. It may be the only way to save the way of life we are already losing at an alarming rate.
The immigration bill currently getting tossed around in Congress will ensure that every living person in this country will get a lower standard of living and will financially devastate this country. People like Asoka and Carol will have you believe that we are a great American “Melting Pot”. The only pot these new people (Mexicans mostly) will bring into this country is the kind that can be smoked.
It may be the only way to save the way of life we are already losing at an alarming rate.
Ah yes, this way of life, whatever the hell that means. Maybe it means this way of life…..the one for the hicks in the pickemup truck. If so, good riddance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYAEtO-Ohk
“Carol” formerly known as Asoka, or “Adequatio” said…
Ah yes, this way of life, whatever the hell that means. Maybe it means this way of life…..the one for the hicks in the pickemup truck. If so, good riddance.
“Carol”, your lewd, crude, and rude. You haven’t changed…unfortunately. You make fun of things you don’t understand because you live in a world of make believe on this and no doubt other sites. Normally I wouldn’t bother to respond to your inane and ridiculous statements, but you really leave me no choice.
It has probably escaped your notice that no real economic “recovery” has ocurred in this country. You probalby don’ understand and can’t comprehend that the Powers That Be actively bring in low wage workers to undermine workers wages, that is, people who are here LEGALLY. That’s right, Carol, LEGALLY. You advocate people breaking the law and getting rewarded for it. When hispanics come into this country they do so for the free “bennies”. Free or reduced lunch for their many, many, many kids, food stamps, section 8 housing, medicaid. Try hauling your sorry ass over to Mexico. Ask Pedro where the food stamp office is. Ask him where the section 8 housing is. Ask him where you can go to get your free apendectomy. Go ahead, Carol, ask him. After he’s done laughing at your ass, maybe he’ll ask you for some pesos.
Your vile Carol. Your vitriole hasn’t changed. I’m waiting (not) for your next installment of your homoerotic novel. Sick fuck!
“Carol”, your lewd, crude, and rude.
Your vile Carol.
It’s you’re, not your.
Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZoyE1B7HHA
progressorconserve said: “…every living person in this country will get a lower standard of living…”
==========
Hey, that is a good thing! You are finally catching on. A lower standard of living (energy-wise lower may be a higher quality of life) is what energy contraction requires. That is what this blog is about.
We all need to use less energy and lower our obscenely proliferate “way of life” that constitutes nothing less than theft and a death sentence for many in the third world.
Whether legal or “illegal”, the immigrants coming here can lead the way. They have valuable knowledge. They know how to live on less.
Glad you are finally seeing the benefit of immigration reform.
We all need to use less energy and lower our obscenely PROFLIGATE “way of life” that constitutes nothing less than theft and a death sentence for many in the third world.
You and old Paul Volker agree then. He said that wages of the American Worker must fall. It’s wonderful how the Left and the so called Right are becoming One now. And on the streets, Anti-Fas attack Conservatives – doing the dirty work of their corporate mastuhs.
OK , I am not afraid to say I was wrong. At first I thought it was a good design. This new format is extremely irritating. To follow a thread is constantly annoying. Rippedthunder aka Stelmosfire
From the discourse, Spiritual Infinity of the Truth by Meher Baba:
The new civilisation
In social life the recognition of the spiritual infinity of the Truth will mean a challenge to individualism as well as to collectivism. It initiates a new way of thinking in terms of an indivisible totality and it discards all the relative values of comparison in favour of the recognition of the intrinsic worth of everything. In a civilisation based upon a true idea of the spiritual infinity of the Truth, there will therefore be no problems of majority and minority, of rivalry and competition, and of those comparisons and laborious assessments which so often become a shelter for pride and separative ego. Life then will be infinitely simple and integral, because the illusions which create rifts and complexities will all have disappeared.
progressorconserve said: “It may be the only way to save the way of life we are already losing at an alarming rate.”
————–
Now who is the sick fuck? Why would anyone want to preserve our immoral “way of life”? You, your militarist family, and Dick Cheney can all go fuck yourselves.
The path of folly that is the “American way of life” is all based on violence. The United States of America was conceived and nurtured by violence. Americans not only engage in violence, they are entertained by it.
Killing takes place in America at an average of 87 times each day. Going to war in Afghanistan is less dangerous than living in Chicago.
The Romans went to the Coliseum to watch people being killed. In major cities, Americans just look out their windows.
Baseball, once America’s national game, a benign, soporific sport, has been replaced by football which is so violent it destroys the brains of those who play it.
Violent films, euphemized as action flicks, dominate our motion picture theatres and television sets.
Our children play killing video games.
This is the violent “American way of life” you want to “protect” from immigrants. You are really sick, progressorconserve.
Wait until Hispanics are the majority if you want violence. Wait until the welfare runs out for Blacks – every major city will erupt in violence.
The Tea Party will fire the first shot in the race war to come in America.
This pea-brained author don’t even understand the profiles of most on-line students. Check your bearing asshole!
The site looks better, thanks. The Font however is harder to read now.
Cheers,
Matt
Yes, echoing a previous comment, the site looks great, but I would appreciate a more substantive font to make the reading of it easier. “My eyes are dim . . . they cannot see . . . I have not brought my specs with me, etc. . . .
“…that illustrates how ‘meshugga’ that society is…”
Whops! That sent me scurrying for the dictionary. I finally found it in a Yiddish dictionary. Maybe in the future you could provide translation for the goyim.
Goyim – Cattle. Shishka White Whore. Nice folks, eh? Yiddish has more put down words than any other language.
In your browser, simply highlight the word and right-click, a sub menu should pop up with links to several options to find out the meaning.
I think I smell Asoka/Adequatio/Caroldotdotdot! Howdy, Asoka! What took you so long???
Hi Prog. Do you think Joe Bob is Wage? They do seem to believe some of the same madness.
I enjoyed your poor mouthing yourself – something like, “Aw, shucks. What do I know. I’m just an old Southern Boy, etc. It is charming.
Did you use to watch Hee Haw?
Senator Ted Cruz was just on Rush. A real White Hispanic. He wants people to sign a petition. Think he said it was securethebordersnow.com or something like that.
The new digs look awesome!!!
Great blog right out of the gate, James!
In the TV show ‘Revolution,’ where the power grid has shut down, everybody is preoccupied with getting the power turned back on and the underlying implication is that it is possible. Perfect analogy to our modern society; trying to get the ‘cheap-oil’ high by other means if we just invent (and sell) the right iPhone ap to make everything OK.
ain gonna happeen
Ninety dollar a barrel oil? We wish. NINETY-EIGHT dollar a barrel oil. At least that’s where it was this morning.
Another thing, China is sitting on a demographic time bomb. Even if the resources were there, China will get old before it gets rich. At least according to stuff I’ve been reading.
And another thing, you wonder how full of shit you have to be to get a Nobel in economics. Do you read Krugman’s New York Times articles? In the latest installment of howlers Krugman says that the clear and present danger is mass unemployment and we should deal with it now. Well, it’s a good thing the perfesser is here to tell us these things.
Why do economists get the time of day? It’s not like you need an intricate, super-computer driven quantitative model of the economy with bazillions of moving parts and whirling, interlocking, mathematical wheels to make predictions. You have real live economies to look at. You can see with your own two eyes the disasters when households, governments, businesses, financial institutions get too deep into debt. So anyone with two functioning brain-cells to rub together might ask why the fuck would you advocate more debt? There’s an abundance of debt. If debt was the answer everyone would have TWO good paying jobs. And you don’t need a PHD to see the calamitous effects of excessive money printing and artificially suppressed interest rates. We’ve been there, done it, seen it.
But Mr Debt Denier Krugman hollers for more government spending and debt. So anyone with the afore-mentioned two functioning brain-cells might ask: to what end? Government make-work can be a bridge from “here” to “there”. But where is “there”? What is the intended destination?
Let’s say you have under-utilized factory capacity in the USA. The destination might be to get those factories in small-town USA back up on their feet and hiring.
But what if you DON’T have under-utilized factory capacity? What if those factories no longer exist in the USA? What if the factories were offshored to China? How does that additional dollar of US government debt get the American worker back to work? What does that additional dollar of debt do but keep the machines buzzing away in some dollar an hour Chinese sweat-shop?
If the intended destination of this government debt fueled “bridge-to-somewhere” is to get people back to work there have to be places to work for people to get back to. But the work-places are gone. To places like China. And there’s scant evidence of them coming back. And that’s what the fucking problem is.
So maybe the good doctor could stop dicking around? Maybe he could address the fucking problem and tell us what his prescription is? After all, who would we ask? Krugman’s got the PHD – from MIT no less – and he’s got the Nobel prize.
New ruling from On High. Your silence can be used against in Court, especially if you had been answering the Police on other questions. Also your body language can be brought up. If you want to remain silent, you have to explicitly invoke your 5th Ammendment right to the Police – as soon as they start their questions. In other words, even before you are arrested. The 5th isn’t just for scumbag politicians anymore.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=221919
I wonder when all the pollyannas about oil are finally going to throw in the towel? Even at $98.42, the Commercials are still net long oil.
If there is truly this huge “glut” of oil in the USA from shale oil, where is it to be found in the market price of oil? If it was entire based upon speculation the Commercials, who deal with commodities on a cash basis in order to get a fair price (like farmers for their crops), would be hugely net short. They aren’t.
One merely has to visit theoildrum.com to get the truth behind the hype. That truth is very simple: The shale “bonanza” is so much bullshit and most of those wells have already depleted by 70% or more in just the last couple of years. Moreover, the amount of energy it has taken to retrieve that energy is huge making oil companies themselves increasingly poorer investments.
We’re now just a scant few years from a tragic scenario where we will get increasingly desperate for oil but oil companies themselves will refuse because after the energy INVESTMENT to get it plus the sheer cost of equipment and labor they will actually LOSE money. We forget … they’re still economic entities and they’re not going to dig it up if the result is an easily-calculated net loss.
For the last year, one has heard these “whisper rumors” that the terminals in Mississippi and Louisiana had tankers lined up idly in the Gulf of Mexico with this alleged surfeit of crude. This is progressing much faster than I had thought it would. I thought we’d have more demand destruction and at least one more round of $70 oil. Well, it never happened and I don’t think it’s going to happen.
After all the hue-and-cry about how we were going to outdo Saudi Arabia in production, JHK’s insistence that energy is THE central conundrum the USA faces is as true as it ever was.
E.
BT,
I think we will HAVE to nationalize oil as a national security issue. Of course, it will be another drain on our economy to operate nationalized rigs at a net loss but we’ll just print the money to pay ’em. ;~)
I think our only quasi-hope is to turn all Hondas and Toyotas into natgas cars … the modern models are inherently flex-fuelable anyhow. However, we’re in a narcotized stupor and will wait until a year before energy armageddon … at which time there will be no solutions at all.
E.
BT,
One way or ‘tother, this empire of forced extraction of resources from faaaaar away hasn’t got a long life. Just for one fr’instance, the EROEI is an obvious big-time loser. It’s entirely dependent on massive printing of reserve currency, petro-dollars. The “psychology of previous investment” (in this case, an investment of confidence) is the only thing propping up its’ value. What do you think happens when that goes away? Notice the cracks in the foundation of this scam: those with a lick of sense are turning in their mountains of Treasuries for actual assets.
Here at the agency in Langley we are all having a good chuckle….Hastings ate the big weenie in a “car accident”. We have the legal right to kill anyone, anytime, anywhere, for any reason. Some of you perverted anti-americans on this deviant website should be forewarned….we know who you are and where you are…….
When you know what most of us perverted anti-americans are actually thinking then I’ll be impress….naw, not really.
Rhino, for a guy who has all the answers you sure ask a lot of questions.
Give it up *LIAR* – you fool *NO ONE* – sockie.
Without Asoka these digs are worse than a fokn clusterfuck, dead.
Better far fewer, more germane, and more intelligent posts than having to scroll over 20 pages of posts because Asoka and Asoka-repliers constitute 70% of the traffic.
Even with the reduced traffic, we still have “Carol Newquist” who appears and overposts. Well, we’ll deal with that again when it happens.
E.
*WE FOLLOW THE SUN*!!!
Just what makes youses think that the Mud Hutter is not here with his usual overposting?? The style is very easy to spot. In case you haven’t noticed it’s now using the handle of JoeBob. (Joe-soka) We’re having to “deal with it” already.
The “Comprehensive” Immigration Reform Bill is actually a Foreign Jobs Bill. How does bringing 30 something million workers into America help US? The Government is supposed to be for US not foreign workers or the corporations that want them here. We need some Socialism, National Socialism that is. Marxists love this Bill since it weakens America.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/18/rubios-bill-is-more-disturbing-than-his-motives/
You’re nuts. Marxism is still immensely popular and influential in Academia and in the various Labor Parties through out the Western World, including the so called Democratic. You must know this – unless you are clueless. Or lying. In either case, you lose much credibility.
Third possibility: just plain ol’ feminine narcissism. You are “done” with Marxism (even though most of your premises are straight out of the Communist Manifesto) so you just grandly proclaim that everyone else is too.
Exponential depletion of *ALL* resources on the planet? Exponential pollution of the land/air/sea/water/*aquifers*?
We should *SURELY* be *proud*!!!
Sockie! Damn straight, we sure have left a *LEGACY*!!!
HEY NOW IKO!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!! INVITE ME UP!
http://archive.org/details/gd83-06-18.aud.gardner.4605.sbeok.shnf
Better far fewer, more germane, and more intelligent posts than having to scroll over 20 pages of posts because Asoka and Asoka-repliers constitute 70% of the traffic. –Eleuthero to FoknBois
Right about the fokn Asoka. Good riddance.
With this new fokn format nobody seems to be abusing by over posting. Still it is harder to read, the fokn font is not as legible, and the fokn type & background contrast is not as good as before. Maybe that explains why there are fewer posts.
That and the death of Asoka, may he burn in hell.
Hell is too good for Asoka. He should be placed in Gila Bend, Arizona in June without air conditioning for the next five months. Hell will start looking like a cold front. ;~)
E.
I didn’t know videos could be embedded.
Cool
Oh well embedding a video didn’t work for me. I guess it takes SPECIAL ACCESS. 🙁
They only vid-display for me under linux – under dozer, simply links.
Oh, and yeah – 5-7 more years liek this, at the peak solar max!!! 2 years in a row Orygone coast got toast by tornados – WTF? Hehehe, I’m just feelin’ more *comfy* me-self, day by *routine*…
That explains it. I run the penguin. No biggie, anything worth watching I’ll put on my own site. Probably some things not worth watching too.
This is just because my link was broken.
I guess helicopter Ben decided not to *INJECT* 100 billion this month… (2.41%) Let’s *see* how this plays out… {Zzz…}
Tyler Cowen is definitely an advocate for the more tech-magic crowd: he penned a book called “The Great Stagnation” on how America’s early years of prosperity had been based mostly on cheap energy and technological innovation. We’ve plateaued now, he says, because we haven’t had a great new invention to set off the next wave of prosperity. His advice?
Sit and wait for the next tech-thingy to be invented, and then everything will be glorious again.
LOL!
Tyler can sit and wait with his thumb up his ass for the next great tech wave to ‘invest’ in. I’ll go with re-learning stuff about how the earth works and what it can provide. (Lots of new info in this regard, BTW!)
We’ll see who has a better long-term ‘strategy’.
The problem with the techno-triumphalists is that implicit in their opinion is the idea that we can wait in a LEISURELY way for that “next tech-thingy” to come along and save us. It’s like “if it’s 50 years that’s okay but rest assured it’s coming”.
We don’t have TEN years to “come up with something”. Theoildrum.com’s members, a few years back, came up with 13 years as roughly the start of “Doomsday”. That was a few years ago.
Energy is THE single biggest hit on people’s paycheck besides their mortgage. The average American drives 12K miles per year and at current gasoline prices they are paying $1900/ year on driving. The average electricity bill, nationwide, is about $100/month or $1200/year. Then there’s heating oil and other miscellany like gas-powered lawn mowers and so forth. Bottom line? On an average yearly TAKE HOME pay of about $34000/year, about 10% is direct fossil-fuel expenses and we haven’t even added in water utilities, garbage collection fees, house taxes and home association dues, and so on.
That might seem small but since the average US mortgage is about $1000/month, before the grocery bill is even paid and the kid’s doctor and clothing bill is addressed, and house taxes are even considered, $15,000 of that $34000 is GONE just from mortgage and energy costs. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a million ancillary costs are always hitting families: car repair and maintenance, home repair and maintenance, and so on.
There can be little doubt that TOTAL ENERGY COSTS are now right at levels where families can squeak by. Gasoline at $6/gallon and a hike in average monthly utilities from $100 to $150 will cause a tremendous new wave of financial defaults considering that average household installment credit balances are about $8500. Families in the US are on the brink. And, frankly, ten years from now, it’s VERY optimistic to think that gasoline will be ONLY $6/gallon. Remember, it has QUADRUPLED since Clinton!! Six dollar gasoline is “only” a 50% increase.
I hope these back-of-the-envelope calculations show the reader why Peak Oil is going to break the back of already-stressed-to-the-max consumers. I’ve only shown DIRECT energy expenditures. No one thinks about energy usage for truckers to get all the merchandise to all of its destinations nationwide so that people can eat, repair their cars, repair their homes, buy medicines, etc..
That’s why the blase attitude of the techno-triumphalists is tragic. We don’t have the time for “leisurely” breakthroughs.
E.
…And AS he waits, thumb firmly implanted in ass, he’s penned a book of fantasy in hopes of bilking the rubes out of a few shekels. Who’s backing/promoting this weighty tome?
Ahhh, he’s a PERFESSER too! Mayhap some ‘innovation’ in the larnin’ bidnez is in order too, eh?
Here’s a fun comment:
Sigivald January 26, 2011 at 11:05 am
Hmm.
I have duelling heuristics on this one.
You’re pretty sharp, and thus worth reading, is heuristic A.
But Yglesias likes the book a lot, and “Matt Yglesias is always wrong” is heuristic B.
***Alrighty, shutting up now. 😉
Via ‘American White History Month’
Let me share that which was related to me via one international business interest with strong ties to the nations highlighted in the following scenario: According to this source, President Obama had a mid-level U.S. official meet with a Chinese officer in 2011 to find out if the Chinese were open to a land and resource swap for debt forgiveness.
The upshot of this is that the Chinese are now engaging in experimental “farming” and “scientific” studies in several locations in the U.S. (in various states). The personnel involved are all Chinese military, and the plan is to use these as the base for the expansion of “land settlements” in payment of the U.S. debt to China
Could this possibly be true. Remember the TV scifi series ‘V’. That’s how the aliens took over. Do you think the Chinks watch American TV, ‘specially old shows from the 80s?
The personnel involved are all Chinese military, and the plan is to use these as the base for the expansion of “land settlements” in payment of the U.S. debt to China
Well, I prefer hemp, but if it’s melamine instead, I guess there isn’t any choice. It’s pretty versatile stuff, melamine, and will be an appropriate crop for the increasingly drought-stricken soon-to-be former breadbasket of the U.S.
Melamine…..it’s what’s for dinner (spoken by Sam Elliott with his newly installed Electrolarynx).
I know one thing for certain, all you locked and loaded tough guy big talkers here on the internets won’t do a damn thing about it if it were to come about. You’ll are a bunch of pussies. The Chinese will walk all over you. Hell, they already have and all you castrated eunuchs can do is squawk like the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. It’s more than a flesh wound, you morons. You’re dead, and you’re in hell. Accept it and move along. You’re making a ridiculous spectacle of yourselves….AGAIN!
You will make a 3rd rate scullery maid in a 3rd rate Chinese restaurant.
Yeah, and I’ll be serving you and your ilk as steam-fried dumplings.
Please, everyone take a moment of silence for the memory of Guy McPherson’s dog.
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/06/savanna-louise-rose-omalley-mcpherson/
Even though we seek great comfort in knowing we will be extinct by 2030, it doesn’t make our individual, personal losses any less painful. As for Tony Soprano, well, he deserved it.
Well been away from computers a few days, they don’t let us out of our cage here a lot.
Read this week’s ‘king james’ kunstler report, and I can say “BORING FRUCKING ZION-SHIT”, why don’t james just put a reference number up to an old post from 1980’s about peak-oil?
I mean this shit is boring, sure as hell jame’s sell’s books, but most of all he sell’s zionist 101 dog&pony, keep the fucking moron’s fixated on bullshit.
Let’s play the james-game and talk about SYRIA, and how his ISRAEL is running the US government (AIPAC) to murder everyone in SRYIA so that with no human life in SYRIA nobody will sabatoge the precious oil-pipe line that runs to ISRAEL through syria,
There’s a SHIT-LOAD of OIL all over the world, assholes like JAMES are what keep the price HIGH, by suggesting there is a shortage, but once a whore for ZION always a whore, ..
The KIRKUK fields are full of oil and 50 years ago ISRAEL paid for a pipeline, but for 50 years the SYRIANS destroyed the pipeline. Now today with ‘arab spring’ and the MOSSAD/CIA giving guns to everybody willing to kill his neighbor, … everybody is going to die, and ISRAEL can become an OIL POWER.
Carol Farkass … with the emphasis on ASS … why don’t you read theoildrum.com which was started and maintained by a WASP Libertarian-style Republican who was not a Zionist. The petroleum engineers and other educated people who write there talk NUMBERS, not bullshit like you and Kunstler’s views on energy are in total agreement with theirs.
Instead of slandering JHK, why don’t you post YOUR numbers about recoverable oil reserves worldwide. You don’t have it in you.
E.
This is another example of Asoka entering the thread, sly bastard that he is!
We here in Langley are not pleased that those cowboys over at the McLean VA agency whacked Hastings…..one of our best countertel assets. Those dummies keep it up and some of their media assets will also be having unfortunate “accidents”………they should stick to blackmailing homos like that senorita graham….er senator graham or the lesbo clinton woman…..or holder with his predilection for underage white girls.
Profuse apologies for frogging; but these are the kind of things that tend to happen when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. How’s the cafeteria over there?
U got *trolled*!@!
If you don’t know how to produce your own food already or haven’t established relationships with local producers, now is the time to do it.
Relax, most if not all of our unemployed will be “employed” raising food soon.
I AM THE SMARTEST DUMB ASS
“… The manifold disappointments that societies around the world face as they discover the falsity of their own memes is already leading to a lot of dangerous mischief, which is to say armed conflict. There is potential for a lot worse. ” -JHK
What we’re beginning to get a small glimpse of, is the lengths that are gone to in order that all the scams, frauds and layers and webs of lies might continue until it all collapses around everyone’s ears.
Here’s a fine bit of skullduggery and vicious venality. Remember the HBGary (private intelligence company) hack of Feb.,2011? (I know, it WAS a long time ago, wasn’t it?) Read on; it gets stranger:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35351.htm
“The HBGary hack may have been designed to humiliate the company, but it had the collateral effect of dropping a gold mine of information into Brown’s lap. One of the first things he discovered was a plan to neutralize Glenn Greenwald’s defense of Wikileaks by undermining them both. (“Without the support of people like Glenn, wikileaks would fold,” read one slide.) The plan called for “disinformation,” exploiting strife within the organization and fomenting external rivalries—“creating messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization,” as well as a plan to submit fake documents and then call out the error.” Greenwald, it was argued, “if pushed,” would “choose professional preservation over cause.”
Feel comfortable with the status quo? Well, it seems that it should be able to stand on its’ own merits, rather than this kind of full-spectrum defensiveness. Guess it’s just me though.
Just you wait till 20 million Latin Americans suddenly become American Citizens, maybe next week. They’ll go thru this place, like locusts devouring biblical wheat, in no time flat.
Well, as UFIA says, we certainly have some of the best seats in the house (time-wise) for a truly amazing show. Watching the smartest guys in the room attempt to throw back these various onrushing tides is going to be a spectacle of historic proportions… literally.
The wheel, it is in spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9sLkyhhlE
*CORRECT*?
One of many correct interpretations. 🙂
Here’s another of a more ominous tone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EjCHuqdKUs
Yes, all life is spinning. But the spiral doesn’t have to be merely two dimensional. But to go up like a reverse tornado, you have to go in. Don’t let yourself be dominated by the Centripetal forces, but rather the Centrifugal. Those who don’t go in and up, get tossed into the outer darkness to wander forever as dark stars.
Thanks for the reality check.
can NE-1 respond to teh poasts by ozone and vlad above? That’s kinda *STRANGE* (moar liek *buggy*)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJY8jJkDoMY
On a recent trip to the pac nw station to debrief the daughter of a Chicom general, travelling down I-5 just south of seattle and passing the Boeing plant……….there it was up in the sky……a wonderful beautiful predator drone hovering above the freeway keeping us all safe and secure. We should all thank god for the valiant efforts of all those noble patriotic Boeing engineers and technicians…. making sure we can live in freedom and can travel freely anywhere we want, though admittedly all four lanes were moving at about 5 mph….even the greenie HOV 2 passenger only lane was clogged. Just seeing that beautiful drone hovering lovingly gave this over-the-hill spook a great firm erection, the first since last year when a wonderful wing of F-18s passed just outside my corner window at the agency here in Langley…..
Yes, they are in the area. Testing and training happens around here.
After seeing one over me I got online and found out they are made by a Boeing Subsidiary based in Washington DC. It makes sense Boeing facilities would be used for test. That’s my guess. It took a lot of searching to actually find the drone I saw circling over me. There are so many different kinds.
Sometimes I think they follow dogs for practice.
This is another example of Asoka entering the thread, sly bastard that he is!
Is Asoka not allowed to make comments? I thought he dead.
I actually *believe* you ate his *SOUL*, and you are the same-said *DEMON*.
Sockie gotz an *ITCH*. (YOU VILLIAN). OH NOES!!!
Ix,
Yep, it’s becoming difficult to keep up with the puppetry of socks. Why would they no longer wish to be easily identified, hmmm? The stench of fear is in the air, and my wife just re-arranged the porch furniture! (Truly a bad sign that somethin’s up.)
(Ps. Your various incarnations of the Ix don’t bother me a bit; it’s kinda fun and allows you different ‘voices’ with the same prefix apparent.)
I know, I’m horrible wif’ sockies meself!!!
why don’t you post YOUR numbers about recoverable oil reserves worldwide. You don’t have it in you.
Hoo, boy, do we have another uncritical true believer in Hubbert here? Y’all should know that the Hubbert-Deffeyes “peak oil ” model is incapable of distinguishing between processes for which cumulative production is truly finite and processes for which cumulative production is unbounded.
The Hubbert-Deffeyes “peak oil ” model is therefore NOT capable of yielding meaningful measures of ultimately recoverable reserves or of predicting when world oil production might peak. Know what I’m saying?
British coal production peaked in 1913, and that is why we have never heard nor seen anything about Britain since 1913. No, wait, that’s not true … they reached the peak and did not disappear. It was not disaster as people had been predicting. Neither is “peak oil” … just sayin’
Yes, Hubbert was such an “idiot” that he predicted the 1973 American peak in the mid-SIXTIES and he proved to be wrong by about two MONTHS.
I detest cheap provocateurs talking bullshit.
E.
“cumulative production is unbounded”
*MORON*.
Constants are never even *CLOSE* to “unbounded” – go back to Internet classes…
Eleuthero issued an insult and a challenge to Carol about reserves. The reality is that natural resources cannot be used up. If one deposit gets too expensive to drill, cheaper deposits will be found or there will be a shift to a different energy source altogether. Because the costliest stuff is left in the ground, there will always be petroleum to mine later.
When MIT’s Morris Adelman was asked: “When will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted?” he replied: “The best one-word answer: never.” Effectively, energy supplies are infinite.
Eleuthero, the race between declining oil and advancing technology determines the size of a reserve — not the number of hydrocarbon molecules in the ground.
Alrighty then!
If’n dat be true [dat] then please drag your glutted behind over to my house any time I yell for petrol or in-jine oil and fill ‘er up!
(BTW, when I ask, “Thanks; how much do I owe you?”, you reply, “Aw shucks, fergit it, there’s an infinite supply, they’ll think of how to extract it so that it’s “too cheap to meter” reeeeeal soon!”)
Thanks in advance; it’s Happy Motoring Party Time for All! No worries.
There’ll be a book burning of all Kunstler and Orlov (and many. many more) selections, next Thursday on the town green! Happy ‘Murkin Days will continue on teevee and in our hearts foreeeeever and ever, amen…
Hey, why darken the door of this blog ever again? It’s just obvious crankery, right?
Just because the EROIE is less than 1, that makes his *WHOLE* premise:
“energy supplies are infinite”
He’s a fuck’n *TARD*. “PERIOD.” (And “sockie” to *BOOT*!!!)
Yes, and we all know that Morris Fucking Adelman is known for … NOTHING.
E.
Don’t worry about Carol, Folky. She has reserves of stupidity which are inexhaustible.
Hello Everyone,
I am a bit late on this thread, but want to leave a reply, Here is my attempt at creative writing, all I can say is nice.
No, not an acronym for some political group. Just my take on the mammals that act like insects. They find their way into your house when the weather gets cold. They find all of the secret paths in your place. Sometimes I hear them in the night. Stay up late, or even sitting at your computer, you can see them moving. Moving , moving everywhere.
I awoke last night and heard them crawling in the walls next to my bed. That’s right, I am not batshit crazy, I heard the creepy creature scratching and clawing. I sat up and looked around. Not a thing moving in my room, but still the sound. I lay back down, but now I hear the critter making crying noises and still scratching. So now I am starting to get concerned, and I put on my underpants, cause I don’t want no rat fucking with my junk, just in case. So the first thing I do is to try to wake up my wife, so she can deal with this thing. But she is out like a light, and I keep on hearing this thing getting louder.
So I man up and get a flashlight, open the closet door, and see this fat ass mouse stuck on some glue trap that was put down 10 years ago. The mouse is freaking out, and now that I have it under the flashlight, it is having a heart attack, but so am I. So I ask myself how do you want to deal with this mouse in your house? I figured I would do the right thing and put it out of it’s misery. After all, if I let it go, who knows what it would say about me. I cursed my bad luck, drew a bucket of water and drowned the vermin.
As it was perishing, it struggled to the end, and as I forced it under water it took the last breath—of water. End of story. for the mouse. But I had horrible dreams, and think about wall street, and how that cat and mouse game will end. We are all being drown.
M.M.
Hehe, that *DAMN* possum!!!
Eleuthero said: why don’t you post YOUR numbers about recoverable oil reserves worldwide. You don’t have it in you.
Take just one continent: Africa. According to the 2012 BP Statistical Energy Survey, Africa had proven oil reserves of 132,438 billion barrels at the end of 2011, equivalent to 41.2 years of current production. I could list other regions, but y’all in the CFN cult don’t seem too interested in facts.
Actually, screaming IT’S CRUNCH TIME! in the 21st century puts Eleuthero/CFN in good company. Every century needs its screamers.
Malthus screamed IT’S CRUNCH TIME! in 1798.
Jevons screamed IT’S CRUNCH TIME! in 1866.
Meadows et al. screamed IT’S CRUNCH TIME! in 1972.
etc.
The sky is falling you know. Disaster is imminent you know. Just around the corner. Could be months, years or a few short decades away, but it’s coming, right comrades?
Chicken Little was right
Chicken Little calls for the necessity to reason deductively and investigation thoroughly. CFN is a fact-free zone where paranoia runs rampant, as in Eleuthero screaming IT’S CRUCH TIME! several years ago. The economy was supposedly going to collapse in 2009, then 2010, then 2011, etc. The signs are that the economy is improving. I’m not saying it is a good thing or a bad thing. It is just reality as economic indicators prove. Warning, verifiable facts ahead!
** There has been a rise in expensive equipment sales.
** Housing prices are no longer in freefall (so much for Chicken Little!).
** Advertising sales are growing
** Factory production is increasing
** Record corporate profits
** Recovery of retail sales
** Unemployment is declining
** Jobs are gaining … slowly
** The dollar is stable (a weak dollar helps American manufacture exports)
In other words, the U.S. isn’t broke, and the dollar isn’t in danger of collapse. The R-word for 2013 is not recession, but rebound.
When new data present themselves, the CFN response is to ignore it, and stick head in sand (saying stupid things like “Chicken Little was right” with no evidence). Here is what Chicken Little says:
Feb. 10, 2013: Will the US Dollar Collapse in May? ?
– Founder of ShadowStats, John Williams predicts the US dollar will collapse by May 2013.
… UMMM, NO IT DIDN’T
2012: US Dollar on slippery slope to economic collapse
–The US dollar is on a path of no return, it will collapse in 2012.
… UMMM, NO IT DIDN’T
2011: The Dollar Will Collapse Within 3-4 Months | Zero Hedge
– Phoenix Capital predicted the collapse of the US Dollar in 2011.
… UMMM, NO IT DIDN’T
2010: What Happens if the Dollar and the Euro Both Collapse?
– Some analysts are warning that the U.S. dollar is in danger of collapse in 2010. (Eleuthero screams IT’S CRUNCH TIME!)
… UMMM, CHICKEN LITTLE WRONG AGAIN
2009: US Dollar Collapse Imminent !
Jul 25, 2009 – Although, I probably appear as ‘the boy who cried wolf many times’, I am going to sound this alarm again: the USD collapse is imminent.
… UMMM, I COULD DO THIS GOING BACK EVERY YEAR.
And there is always some gullible sucker who will believe it and start screaming their paranoia.
Chicken Little calls for the necessity to reason deductively and to investigate thoroughly, which is not done on fact-free CFN.
See there?
No need to change direction or discard the present paradigm; everything is operating smoothly. Do not prepare, do not relearn old/new effective skills, rely on the gum’mint to provide instruction, protection and correct ideology. Forward the Empire!
Return to your homes [after purchasing all wants and needs at Wal-Mart] and shelter in place. You will be informed when the ter’st threat is extinguished and it’s safe to come out [for the next motoring to Wal-Mart]. Until then, watch the teevee for truth and reality updates; we’ll be watching for persons that might dissuade you from the correct path. (Readers of Kunstler will be recorded as enemies for future reference.)
***Rewards for snitches are on the increase; turn in neighbors for extra credits!
Yur getting to big for your britches. Remember, liberals are a gonna get stiches.
BTW,
Got predicaments? Stop worrying! …”They’ll think of something”.
IPods powering the grid is brilliant. Each will have little photoelectric cell. There may also be a way to also convert all the users brain waves into electricity, and we’ll take a little slice off the top, 3%, on the way. Stick with me, baby!
Another good idea: power cars with extension cords if gas gets scarce. And if the grid goes down, just install steam engines in them. Someone in the back seat could feed the Sunday N.Y Times into the engine – without bothering to read it of course.
Good news: White people are defending Paula Dean. The magical spell of shame induced by the word, “Racism” may be beginning to wear off. Like Théoden, we may yet throw the Grima Wormtongues down the steps and out of the city.
Why, it allll makes me envision Yank-o/Jaeg-off as one of those types that just LOVE highly-structured hierarchical arrangements where they get to wield bully-boy power over the trembling masses.
….Perhaps he’s already part of such a structure; otherwise why would he post the dripping, belittling venom that he does? (Either that, or he’s a totally powerless buffoon that lives for a fantasy that would never accept him. That could prove interesting for his future ‘moves’.)
In other words, you want Paula Dean destroyed for her crime of saying the word nigger now and then? You are scum, dude.
I’m sorry. Maybe I’m putting words in your mouth. What would you like to see happen to Paula Dean? Don’t hold back, now. Shout, Shout, Let it all out.
In other words, don’t project the horror inside yourself onto me. YOU have to deal with your own shit. I don’t envy you, buddy. Cleaning that up will be like cleaning the Exon Valdez spill up with a spoon. You better get to it.
Joo (hehe) mean the *SPAMMER* vlad? Yea, enough of his small-scale ideology. Vitriolic sexist racist homophobe.
I’m always amazed at the assumptions – or lack thereof – of otherwise intelligent people. Both sides of the collapse scenario argue back and forth about whether there’ll be a societal collapse or not. Both sides argue the numbers showing why their position is correct and the others’ is wrong.
S I’m asking, where do you get your figures? Are they accurate? Do you trust the people who created these numbers? Most reasonable people wouldn’t know.
Do you look out your window and see that *BEAUTIFUL* asphalt concrete jungle? Do you *know* where your *WASTE* ends up? I thought *NOT*.
Until then, watch the teevee for truth and reality updates; we’ll be watching for persons that might dissuade you from the correct path.
FACTS: Across the television landscape, network and cable, public television and pay cable, English-language and Spanish, viewing for all sorts of prime-time programming is down this spring — chiefly among the most important audience for the business, younger adults.
In the four television weeks starting March 19, NBC lost an average of 59,000 viewers (about 3 percent) in that 18-to-49 age category compared with the same period last year, CBS lost 239,000 (8 percent), ABC lost 681,000 (21 percent) and Fox lost 709,000 (20 percent).
In the last few weeks, new viewership lows for network series have been recorded nightly among 18- to 49-year-olds, the group that still commands the highest advertising prices.
I realize CFN has fact-free dogma, part of which is the idea that the “sheeple” are hypnotized by teevee.
Don’t let new data alter your beliefs, ozone.
Come on sock puppet – at least use your *FAUX* name…
We *KNOW* how you love to leverage your high school (master) debate files…
…Sorry for the drift into the sordid. That’s HIS bailiwick; wouldn’t want to deprive him of his only tittering comfort.
Go all over the internet – who are the nastiest, Liberals or Conservatives? Liberals by far. But yes, I am one of the new breed, the ones who give it back to your kind in spades. And we will bury you and then piss on your grave. After we dance of course.
INBREEDER!!!
Many great cultures have have featured inbreeding. If you have perfection, why sully it with alien genes? It only causes problems when the inviduals are from a flawed line. Then the recessive inferior qualities are not held back.
An occasional influx of closely related but different genes may be necessary of course to maintain quality. This should be sufficient to offset the genetic entropy inherent in interfamilial marriages. Btw, I’m not suggesting that I or the average White is ready to do any such thing. We would need much selection and culling first.
If feel xhalor is part of your ixian brood…
“Many great cultures have have featured” – ehe, luckily I could reply to you *SOCKIE* I’ll do saki shots w/ U, if’n you *PREFER*…
WUT?!? No *RESPONSE*!!!
I didn’t call Ozone a Grima Wormtongue, or say anything particularly nasty to him today. He spontaneously identified with Grima and assumed I was talking about him, just like Blacks identified with the Gorillas in the Planet of the Apes movies.
Who am I to disagree with Ozone about this?
rIIIght – sexist, racist (U *no* the rest)…
I’m always amazed at the assumptions – or lack thereof – of otherwise intelligent people. Both sides of the collapse scenario argue back and forth about whether there’ll be a societal collapse or not. Both sides argue the numbers showing why their position is correct and the others’ are wrong.
So I’m asking, where do you get your figures? Are they accurate? Do you trust the people who created these numbers? Reasonable people would answer they really don’t know.
For example, do you trust our government and our media? Do you believe the numbers they put out regarding unemployment? How do the Feds gather and interpret the data? They use an algorithm. Is it accurate? Is every working-age American citizen accounted for? As a matter of fact, do we even know the real population? The last number I heard was 311 million. Does that count all the illegal immigrants who are too afraid to step up and be counted?
I use the above as an example to question whether or not we are in a state of resource collapse. Just what are “proven reserves”? How is that determined? Are the figures really accurate? Do you trust the source (I don’t think I told anyone here the story of when I met the owner of a gold mine in a bar)?
A prudent man admits they don’t really know the reality. But since the personal stakes are so high, a prudent man also would expend a certain percentage of their physical, mental and financial energy to prepare in case collapse occurs; just like a prudent investor might hedge 5% or 10% of their portfolio into gold.
Therefore, I don’t pay too much attention to what people claim or argue; I just try to cover my options.
Quite. People will be amazed to see how many illegals there really are. Probably 20 million Mexicans. How many millions more from all over the World?
Are you rooting for George Zimmerman? His Dad was a Jewish Judge. That’s the only hope he has. He just got an all woman jury. That’s a very bad sign. Don’t know the ethnic break down.
If his assailant had been White, this wouldn’t even be going to trial. Alan Dershowitz has weighed in saying that it’s all completely bogus. He wouldn’t have weighed in if George was really White. Jewish Dad perhaps?
R U really going to poast the *SAME EXACT SH!* over and over (I’m guessing *YES*)?!?
Yes E told me to stop talking about Race too – he was “tired” of it. As if his weariness was more important than the problem – the death of our race. The intellect. without character development and wisdom, is an enemy not a friend. A whore in fact, that sells itself to the highest bidder. Ix, can you not do better?
douche – *NOTHING* I said had to do with that, you *IMBECILE*.
Have you thought about taking up wing walking? You could fly into the asphalt dirt you love so much.
Sorry for the double posting. Somehow I accidentally posted part of my comment first. Dang these new-fangled websites.
rIIIght. I’ll *BUY* that. (sigh)
That arch blackleg charlatan homo Fuk-n-boys has impuned the integrity of my lifetime friend and drinking buddy, Chicken Little. Mr. Little has always been a source of great courage and inspiration to all of us….like the time that meteorite hit him in the head and fraud homos like Fuk-n-boys claimed it was a mere acorn. I have witnesses who can testify under oath that the projectile was a meteorite, or possibly even an asteroid, and the claims it was a mere acorn by the likes of a homo like Fuk-n-boys are absolute piffle……
That arch blackleg charlatan homo Fuk-n-boys…
Like I said, CFN is good at name calling and offering opinions but is basically free of peer-reviewed scientific facts.
CFN innocents do not learn from the frauds, shams, and charlatans of history who year after year successfully generate fear to sell their guns, gold, and narratives of “pending” doom. (always just around the corner)
“Prepping” is a waste of time, justified as a Pascal’s Wager by Beantown. Read a good book instead.
My dear friend, Henny Penny, is telling the truth and FukingBoys is a scoundrel and a psychopathic liar….what hit me on the head was a meteorite and not an acorn….and I have witnesses….Goosey Loosey saw it all happen……
WoW! no ends to *YOUR* sockies!!!
…and VICTIMIZED sockies as well!
Who knew that the sophistication went sooooo deeeeep??
(I’m so sorry I hurt their tender sensibilities, I must commit sewer-pipe now to atone for my lack of social graces and reading of cues.)
Dialog? Heh, *dialectic*~! Let’s talk for a moment!!!
Yes, Hubbert was such an “idiot” that he predicted the 1973 American peak in the mid-SIXTIES and he proved to be wrong by about two MONTHS. I detest cheap provocateurs talking bullshit. –Eleuthero
Nice straw man. Nobody said Hubbert is an idiot, just data dishonest.
Do you detest the scientific method? The exclusion of data which does not fit their theory is central to the Hubbert-Deffeyes peak oil model. Hubbert, when making his prediction that U.S. production would peak around 1970, omitted all production data prior to 1930.
He never states this explicitly, but any regression using data prior to 1930 results in an estimated value of ultimately recoverable reserves that is substantially lower than 170 billion barrels, which implies an earlier predicted date of the peak. “Two MONTHS” my ass, Eleuthero. They ignored data. The peak oil date should have been much sooner, according to their model, if you account for all the data. In other words, there was no successful prediction that is scientifically valid because Hubbert excluded data from the model.
To predict the peak in U.S. production in 1970 Hubbert used data between 1930 and 1960, excluding the 70% of production data before 1930.
To predict U.S. ultimately recoverable reserves, Deffeyes uses data from 1958 forward, excluding the hundred years of data before 1958 (66%). Ironically, Deffeyes, when estimating “peak oil” also omits the 1930-1960 data upon which the central claim to scientific prediction—the peak in U.S. production in 1970—that the peak oil model rests.
So, Deffeyes was also not honest. When estimating the peak oil model for the world, Deffeyes not only excludes Hubbert’s data, but he also excludes the twenty-three years before 1983 as well.
While the normal scientific method is to refine a theory to explain the data, Hubbert and Deffeyes refine the data to fit their theory.
Keepin’ on! Flood it, *SOCKIE*!!! Inane or not, you *BOLD* seems to “werk” (douche)…
Dishonest? Hell Yes, …
Strawman HELL-YES, … stupid fucking shit.
Is ‘eleuthro’ kunstler himself? A big probably…
Ok, first let me tell you I am a fucking geo-physicist and have worked the industry since the 1970’s, and I can tell you we didn’t KNOW SHIT in 1970 about anything under the ground. So to quote a 1970 fuckhead about peak-oil is a joke. In 1980’s computer’s went big, and we went 3D then we could map the interior of the earth for the first time, even now not even 1/2 the interior has been mapped. There is still a shit load of oil to be found. Fact.
The entire POINT made and escaped by all the KUNSTLER zombies here is the KIRKUK field in IRAQ is full of oil, and the reason ZION(OBAMA/KUNSTLER) want everybody in SYRIA to die, is to send all the IRAQ oil to ISRAEL, been the plan all along.
I don’t give a fuck about OIL, I care about LIFE, .. and kunstler and AIPAC & zion don’t give a fuck about LIFE. Fact.
Lastly the NSA story is what we should be talking about, but Kunstler ( right wing zion whore ) has already banned that topic here.
Where’s your very-own-extry-special-posi-happy-unimpeachable-factoid blog to counter all this, Soakie-sock-boey?
(See, then you’d only have to use ONE name and persona to tell us all the gawd’z’onest truff of all things at all times! We’d be ever so grateful, really we would. And never would we worry about any-damn-thing ever again. See how nice?)
It’s unfortunate no one really wants to *TALK*…
Where’s your very-own-extry-special-posi-happy-unimpeachable-factoid blog to counter all this, Soakie-sock-boey?
http://foknbois.bandcamp.com
You’re left wif’; *NUTHIN* – yet you still seem to *ROT*… hhehehehehe
*SOCKIE* still seems to believe he can rape children – Gogogo X-tians!!!
U R srsly *OUT OF CONTROL***
So you’re saying all those child pedophile priests where …
Barebones. Why did you all *DESTROY* every last “living” thing on the planet.
You *guys* turn my stomach.
burn the branches be-4 there’s *NONE*…
HeyZeus!
Hiding behind even MORE things (and maybe someone else’s REAL ones at that) doesn’t help the ‘credibility gap’ that you’re insisting on widening at every opportunity.
You sockie-spook shitheads just don’t get it… but eventually, you will. (By then it will be far too late, fortunately.)
Soakie, when you shit in your hat and wear it, does it feel nice? I hope so, because it’s very similar to the ‘positions’ that you take.
You sockie-spook shitheads just don’t get it… but eventually, you will. (By then it will be far too late, fortunately.)
At last. You have the truth. You are in the know. The others “just don’t get it” … You delight in the misfortune of others. You in the true believer fact-free CFN.
Your puritan roots are showing, ozone.
One last thing, Pustule-King:
You’re tacitly admitting to being spookified; score one for all the rest of us.
…As for wishing bad outcomes to oppressors and bullshitters of the oppressed and bull-shat-upon, call me old-fashioned, because a little come-uppance is all we’re granted; we’ll have to make do with that.
Tough nouggies for me and mine. (I know, it’s quite sad: “how regressive and pitifully barbaric”. So be it, it happens to be out here if you’d take the time to take a peek outside the sanctioned happytalk bubble. You and yours have brought things to this pass and now you would cast about for some other poor get-along-go-along bastards to blame, because of their lack of refined sensibilities? Sheesh, physician, heal thyself, please and thank you.)
Book Recommendation
The Good Life Lab (available on amazon.com)
“This rollicking, inspiring tale of Tremayne’s journey from being the creative director of N.Y.C. marketing firm Green Galactic to being a Burning Man volunteer, yoga teacher, Sufi seeker, and hardscrabble DIY urban homesteader in a former trailer park in the eccentric community of Truth or Consequences, N. Mex., is alternately funny, tender, philosophical, and practical. … Illustrated with whimsically florid drawings by a variety of artists and interspersed with essential how-tos for living “life in the waste stream”—from fermenting tempeh and brewing mead, to building a papercrete dome and removing rust from wrenches with electrolysis—the memoir riffs off Scott and Helen Nearing’s 1954 Living the Good Life with much more style and humor than the original, bringing the back-to-the-land genre up to date with impressive sophistication and appeal.”
(Publisher’s Weekly)
Forget it Soakie, hadn’t you heard? All that stuff is disallowed by building code and permitting requirements, regardless of what Publisher’s Weekly might have to say. Are you encouraging folks to break da law? HORRORS!
(Stick to one screen name so that we’ll know who to pass on by, okay?
Thanks in advance; I realize it’s your job, but you could make it a bit easier on your unwitting victims, couldn’t you? Why not? No one will know and we won’t tell.)
Former trailer park!? The end of mobility?
“I realize it’s your job”
Then have some compassion. Times are tough, don’t ya know?
I only have a couple dozen screen names here. I talk to myself continually and there is no rule about screen names. You will never know who is me and who is not me. All your screen names are belong to us.
Forget it Soakie, hadn’t you heard? All that stuff is disallowed by building code and permitting requirements
Not so, Ozone. The domes have building permits.
I made a simple CAD drawing of how the rebar, remesh,
and lath would connect and shared it with my building inspector. My
local building inspector asked that I get a stamp from a structural
engineer which cost about $50. The engineer had some good tips and I
only took 30 minutes of his time as the drawing was already done. I’ve
built on small 10′ diameter dome, and am midway through a 20′
diameter. At present I have permits to build three more 20′ diameter
domes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIkdj4NqCIk
Just for our own edification, Ted Rall and I (and loads of others) share in a barbarous outlook that shan’t be countenanced by the current PTB. For your [subversive] perusal:
“The appropriate, intelligent and self-preserving response to mass theft is rage, demands for action, and decisive punishment of political and economic leaders who refuse to change things.
As one revelation about the National Security Agency’s spying follows another, the “Keep Calm and Carry On” meme seems less like an appeal to dignity and calm reserve than the much older, classic response of the power elite to their oppressed subjects: Shut the Fuck Up. -Ted Rall
Ted, Ted, so HARSH, so regressive and antiiiiii………… I dunno, anti-goodness and democrafied freedom? Yeah, some self-scourging is definitely in order after that bit of unsanctioned commentary. Soakie, won’t you please write him and appeal to the better angels of his nature to STFU and get back with the ‘Murkin empire program that is so smoothly humming along?
BillyBob! JoeBob!
Dinner’s ready. Get off that damn computer!
Asoka back. CFN alive again with practical and intellectual content, with humor, and spark.
BillySoakBob,
You win. May you live to observe the dissolution of what you’ve supported, advocated and wished upon us all. I can bequeath you no better, sorry to say, it shall be what it shall be, Mud Huttery or no.
Soakie, won’t you please write him
Hmmm, Ted is protected by the 1st amendment. All he doin’ is runnin’ his mouth like you. Protected speech.
“it shall be what it shall be, Mud Huttery or no”
Wrong again. Off-grid electricity and water, community supported agriculture, a spirit of sharing … all abound in certain parts of the USA and those who prep will ride it out. Those in mud huts will fare better.
Henry: Who called?
Zoe: Amy
Henry: Yeah, what’d she have to say?
Zoe: Not much. She’s in town so she thought she’d drop me a line.
Henry: A line? Did you save any for me?
Zoe: Cute
Henry: What does being in town have to do with calling you?
Zoe: I don’t know. It’s weird that people do that. Maybe being in close physical proximity prompts them to reach out and touch someone.
Henry: Channeling Bell Telephone, are we?
Zoe: Shit, I didn’t do that on purpose….I swear!
Henry: She’s going to see you in several weeks anyway.
Zoe: I know. I guess she’s getting excited. I am.
Henry: Yeah, me too.
Zoe: Funny. Shut up.
Henry: What? I’m happy for you. Really, I am.
Zoe: Shut up.
Henry: I’m serious. I really am happy for you.
Zoe: Amy asked if Chloe was still mad at her.
Henry: How does Amy know Chloe’s mad at her?
Zoe: I told her.
Henry: That’s not cool. How do you think Chloe would feel if she knew you divulged that? Never let anyone outside the family know what we’re thinking again. Ever.
Zoe: Okay, Don Corleone.
Henry: Really. Chloe’s getting older, so this isn’t like talking about the antics of our little girl anymore. She’s reaching an age where you can make it or break it. Trust is crucial. You shouldn’t repeat to your friends what she tells you in confidence.
Zoe: I know, you’re right. I wasn’t really thinking of it that way.
Henry: You know, it’s not so much that she’s angry at Amy. Chloe doesn’t like Amy, and this latest encounter only reinforces that in her.
Zoe: What do you mean?
Henry: Chloe’s like me. You get so many chances with her and if you don’t make the cut, you’re done. I know, it’s not nice, but there it is.
Zoe: It’s true, she’s like you in that way, but what does that have to do with her not liking Amy.
Henry: She’s had several encounters with Amy so far in her life, and obviously she doesn’t think too highly of her.
Zoe: But why? What happened during these “encounters” that gave her a negative impression do you think?
Henry: Well, it’s just a guess, but I’d say Amy doesn’t acknowledge Chloe’s relationship with you. Amy does the same with me, so it’s not unreasonable to conclude she does it with Chloe. In fact, I know she does because I’ve seen Amy do it with her.
Zoe: I never really thought of it that way, but it makes sense I guess.
Henry: You should ask Chloe sometime rather than us speculating.
Zoe: I think I will.
Henry: Didn’t you say Amy’s moving back to Boston in July?
Zoe: She is.
Henry: Then why’s she here now?
Zoe: To make arrangements for Jalil’s schooling. He’s going to be in public special education.
Henry: Special Ed?
Zoe: You know he’s had problems since he was born. He didn’t start talking until he was five, Henry, and even now he doesn’t say much.
Henry: Do you think it has anything to do with she and Massoud having a child so late? They both seem ill-equipped to raise a child and their age doesn’t help matters.
Zoe: Maybe, but Amy mentioned that Massoud had issues when he was a child.
Henry: So, it’s nature, nurture or a combination of both.
Zoe: I think it’s a combination. She’s having a tough time of it.
Henry: How so?
Zoe: Amy didn’t raise him for the first five years. Massoud’s mother and sisters did, and now Amy’s playing catch up.
Henry: Doesn’t Massoud have a role to play in this?
Zoe: Massoud’s always at work. She said he leaves at seven in the morning and comes home at eight at night. He plays with Jalil for a bit, and she puts Jalil to bed and that’s that. Massoud doesn’t like to discuss Jalil’s problems and just leaves it to Amy.
Henry: Gee, that’s healthy, but hey, they’re livin in France and you’re going to visit them courtesy of a ticket on their dime all because of that bacon he brings home.
Zoe: He’ll be retiring soon, so he’ll be able to spend a lot more time with Jalil.
Henry: Massoud will be completely sucked dry by then. Have you seen him? He looks terrible. He’s unhealthy, decrepit……feeble almost. Like the partners when I was working at Price Waterhouse. They were used up and washed up by the time they retired. They had nothing left to give or offer.
Zoe: True, but people die of starvation and malnutrition when they don’t have enough money to put food on the table.
Henry: I didn’t know we were starving and malnourished?
Zoe: We’re not, but at this rate we could be any day now.
Henry: You know what? When you consider the state of the world, everyone could be starving any day now. What does that prove except you never know what tomorrow might bring?
Zoe: At least Amy and Massoud have economic security.
Henry: At what price? The dysfunction of their child and Massoud dead at age sixty? What then? Does Amy find a full-time Au Pair to wait on her fucked-up kid after Massoud is dead and buried while she travels the seven seas with her friends until she kicks off thirty years later? Gee, that’s not shallow, selfish and materialistic, is it?
Zoe: Why does it always come back to this?
Henry: I could very well ask the same question of you?
Zoe: I don’t want that life, I’ve told you that a hundred times.
Henry: Really?
Zoe: Yes, REALLY!!
Henry: Prove it.
Zoe: What do you mean prove it?
Henry: Words are cheap. It’s one thing to say you don’t want that life, it’s another to put those words into action.
Zoe: What about you?
Henry: What about me?
Zoe: Are you ready to move beyond the cheap words?
Henry: I am.
Zoe: How so?
Henry: I’ve located several companies that can help us write the business plan for a modest fee.
Zoe: Really?
Henry: Yes, really. Would you care to see?
Zoe: I would.
Henry: Great! See, that wasn’t too hard, was it?
Zoe: Shut up you douchebag.
Why do ZIONIST’s love the morons to play with their ‘peak oil pricks’, … please what ever you do … do not look behind the KUNSTLER KURTAIN …
****
Dishonest? Hell Yes, …
Strawman HELL-YES, … stupid fucking shit.
Is ‘eleuthro’ kunstler himself? A big probably…
Ok, first let me tell you I am a fucking geo-physicist and have worked the industry since the 1970?s, and I can tell you we didn’t KNOW SHIT in 1970 about anything under the ground. So to quote a 1970 fuckhead about peak-oil is a joke. In 1980?s computer’s went big, and we went 3D then we could map the interior of the earth for the first time, even now not even 1/2 the interior has been mapped. There is still a shit load of oil to be found. Fact.
The entire POINT made and escaped by all the KUNSTLER zombies here is the KIRKUK field in IRAQ is full of oil, and the reason ZION(OBAMA/KUNSTLER) want everybody in SYRIA to die, is to send all the IRAQ oil to ISRAEL, been the plan all along.
I don’t give a fuck about OIL, I care about LIFE, .. and kunstler and AIPAC & zion don’t give a fuck about LIFE. Fact.
Lastly the NSA story is what we should be talking about, but Kunstler ( right wing zion whore ) has already banned that topic here.
Methinks me had a bit to much *drip* o’ the saki tonite – yet, even my best efforts at flooding are pretty much *washed* over (wall’o’poast time?)… You gotta give ’em credit where *THEY* deserve it – pretty good job (I can’t even *COMPARE*)…
Poll!!! (I answer these *ALL* the time):
Cra-Z’est poaster on CFN: (be sure to get all those sockie’s names *CORRECT*)
ME for teh *WIN*!!! (I won?)
Self righteous!!! (Well, at least the NSA still reads *ME* – hell, they even got my house “mic’d”!!! I try my *worst* (to ill effect)…
Well NSA is watching everybody, except kunstler, … he’s one of them, his job is to talk shit and get moron’s to post comments, .. like all these blogs, … these sites have no other purpose.
Looking out my corner office window here at the agency in Langley, tears come to my eyes……..just as they came me to the eyes of Alexander over two millenia ago. We have achieved full spectrum dominance leaving nothing left to conquer……total control of all channels of communication including the internet……..the ability to legally terminate with prejudice anyone we cant blackmail or coopt, like Hastings…….zero resistance from the population and in fact internal studies show 98% approval of keeping the public safe……all major news outlets coopted and fully infiltrated at the highest levels. Yes, by all means start a garden and dig deeper into your eastern cult religions…..why I myself go to Whole Foods and have a mild interest in zen kultur…….
I didn’t do it, I swear.
What do you mean it’s all about corporate profits and political apparatchiks in cahoots? It’s not all about keeping us saferer?
I’m thoroughly shocked that anyone would suggest such a thing!
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/intelligence-corporatism-and-dance-of.html
Guess it’s all about amassing piles of shekels. Got ‘values’? How quaint.
Shekels? Is that some kind of Anti-Semitic smear? Why don’t you go get the guts to come right out and say it?
That’s all you got??? Whew! weeeeak
As I loudly (for public note) told the pickpocket on the tram who had the misfortune of running across an aware person (namely, me), “You’d better find another line of work; you’re not much good at this one.”
Still trying to conflate me with Asoka? Nobody believes that but you and the other liberal liars here.
NSA claims: “total control of all channels of communication including the internet…”
Hahaha! You should see what we are saying about you on peer-to-peer Apple devices using iMessage. Oh, that’s right, you can’t because there is end to end encryption of billions of messages and NSA doesn’t have the computer power to decode them.
An internal Drug Enforcement Administration document discusses a February 2013 criminal investigation and warns that because of the use of encryption, “it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices” even with a court order approved by a federal judge.
When Apple’s iMessage was announced in mid-2011, Cupertino said it would use “secure end-to-end encryption.” It quickly became the most popular encrypted chat program in history: Apple CEO Tim Cook said last fall that 300 billion messages have been sent so far, which cannot be “wiretapped” because they are transmitted through the Internet rather than as more costly SMS messages carried by wireless providers.
NSA doesn’t have a cryptanalytic attack against the 256-AES algorithm that allows them to recover a key from known or chosen ciphertext with a reasonable time and memory complexity.
NSA in the dark. First amendment in the light.
Bullshit 236 bits can be broken in nanoseconds,
If you want security then use 2048 bits,
ALSO its the LAW fuckheads nobody in the USA is allowed to deliver encryption software without giving a backdoor key to the gubmint.
If you want privacy only one way, … to ‘roll your own’, or use pgp with over 2048 bits in the key.
AES & DES ( 128,256, 512 ) all designed by the DOD-MIL were proved to be ‘broken’ and have built-in back doors over 20 years ago,
Read the fucking literature boyz.
AES & DES were mandated by the government for a reason, they hold the master key’s, …
If you want privacy then you must use an algorithm and large key unknown to the spooks.
Using the spooks lock ( des or aes ) to lock your door and expect privacy is the ultimate DUMB KUNSTLER bad joke offered by zion morons here on this forum.
This is a test.
This is only a test.
If we had an NSA, we would not have lost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. This concludes the farce that is the NSA.
If you want privacy then you must use an algorithm and large key unknown to the spooks.
Bingo.
Not even Apple can decipher iMessages delivered on its devices because the way its set up Apple doesn’t have the keys, much less the fucking NSA.
Unfortunately for the government agencies, Apple doesn’t keep the stuff the government wants on a server and therefore cannot turn it over to agencies. Apple reported getting between 4,000 and 5,000 law-enforcement data requests, which altogether cover between 9,000 and 10,000 specific user accounts (“or devices,” Apple says).
If NSA could decipher messages in “nanoseconds” they wouldn’t be asking Apple for anything, but since Apple’s text-messaging service is encrypted and can’t be read by anyone except the sender and the recipients, the NSA goes begging to Apple for information Apple cannot deliver because even Apple doesn’t have access to it.
iMessage and Facetime conversations, for example, are protected by end-to-end encryption so only the people involved can see them. Apple cannot decrypt them and turn them over. Apple also doesn’t retain data on customer location, Map searches or Siri requests and wouldn’t be able to deliver them to any government
iMessage isn’t covered by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). And NSA can’t deal with 300 billion encrypted messages. It is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices using traditional trap and trace devices, pen register devices, or wiretapping data collection through Title III interceptions.
NSA is fokked.
Please you GOD DAMN fucking a liar,
You already gave away the jewels ,,.. apple is using AES-256 because its told to do so, ..
A secure encryption scheme say 2048 is illegal ( so says USA ), because the NSA doesn’t hold the fucking master-key.
The fact that NSA makes ‘requests’ to apple is fucking BS, .. here nor there it doesn’t mean shit.
According to the PRISM report ( snowden) Apple didn’t even start working with prism until 2012.
When you say ‘request’ think of it this way, … the NSA is spying live 24/7 and when a ‘data-mining’ algorithm goes HOT on a person of interest, then the NSA makes a request to APPLE for EVERYTHING they have on that person. Encrypted or not it doesn’t matter,
Apple, Google, et-al KEEP everything you have ever done forever, … Facebook … eventually when the new data center in UTAH ( jewtah ) is finished, then maybe they can have everything, but now ALL data is diversified.
But AES-256 and DES-256 have been known to have back-doors for 20 years, and this known to everybody in computer science that study’s computation&discrete-math( theoretical encryption).
In the USA its illegal to SELL or GIVE-AWAY encryption that the NSA can’t break. That’s why those in the ‘game’ roll there own.
But breaking AES-256 on modern computers takes nanoseconds. But it doesn’t matter, because the keys are all held by apple and the NSA has a backdoor for all the commercial algorithms, in the USA if you sell encryption you are required by law to deliver the ‘master key’ to the NSA/CIA.
Why does KUNSTLER hate china and love the USA??
In the USA they let you do as you wish, but spy and log what you do, thus they let you hang yourself and can imprison you anytime they wish, as they know everything you have ever done. In CHINA, they don’t let you have access to anything they don’t want you to have, and they only watch you, if they have a reason. They certainly can’t be bothered with what your not supposed to be doing. Of course there are work-arounds to use FACEBOOK which is banned in china, but WHY NOT given that the CIA created and designed facebook, why would the chinese government want the NSA/CIA to know more about its people than they know?
So in summary the USA watches everybody and lies about it, and if they ever want to ‘black-bag’ you ( think v for vendetta ), then they have the INTEL. On other hand china is quite busy just trying to censor what they feel is bad, and most often there is a reason. Lastly, in the USA if you kill someone and your rich, you can get away with murder, in CHINA if you kill somebody, your going to die.
In China if a COP rapes a woman, he will die and quick. I saw it happen. In the USA if a cop rapes or steals nothing happens, the cops and lawyers and judges all support the cop. Welcome to the USA, this is why I don’t live there.
The USA has more people prison than anywhere on earth. The USA has invaded almost every country on earth and has killed more people than all despots in HUMAN HISTORY. China has no record in history of invading another country, in fact long ago they built a ‘great wall’ to keep invaders out.
Tibet? Hello? The Han have absorbed many peoples – they have 70+ minorities. The Muslim Turks are the worst. But aside from these caveats, I agree with you. They have acted with more wisdom than we. When they conquer something, it tends to stay conquered.
Africa will be their greatest challenge. They will purchase large parts of the United States without the need for conquest.
The treat animals and falun gong people terribly. There are tales of organ harvesting young political prisoners they have put to death.
Many years after losing his kidney function & undergoing dialysis 2 or 3 times per week, a relative was the recipient of an organ donation that came from China. I’ve often wondered if the organ donor was provided by a young Chinese citizen who was either a criminal or a political enemy of some powerful politician…..
We have our assets at the encryption portals….and decoded messages and emails are available in real time to us here at the agency in Langley. We set this up with Mr. Jobs quite some time ago, before his HIV infection blossomed into full blown aids. His successor is also a true patriot despite his sexual proclivities, who has continued these policies so important to the security of all of us in protecting the freedoms, democracy, and rights given to us by our founders and the almighty creator.
Snowden leaving hong-kong, Russia loving every minute.
Universal voice now in USA, … looks like the Rat’s are tightening the circle around the wagon, don’t see many ‘liberals’ coming out against the fascist state.
Me thinks most people now are very afraid to speak out, of course everybody is listening and any anti-spy statement now puts you on the black-list forever.
***
Light on the NSA, must be troubling.
Even MORE troubling is when or if Kunstler’s fan’s figure out that the entire premise of peak-oil is/was a fraud to sell bad books.
***
We live in interesting times, surely all those that are in the USA, will rot in hell in the coming months.
The NSA Built and Delivered AES-256, but move along, .. cuz the NSA is your OBAMA BUddy.
Seriously consider not using AES-256
AES-256 is an encryption algorithm that is used by default for the majority of encryption. AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard, and it is a title that was given to an algorithm that won a contest used to determine what the encryption standard should be. The name of the algorithm is Rijndael and it is used to encrypt military communications up to top secret.
One thing to keep in mind about AES is that the NSA was deeply involved with the contest and they recommended Rijndael be the winner. The NSA has a dubious track record with submitting taking flawed encryption algorithms and suggesting they be standards, for example the PRNG Dual_EC_DRBG, which had a skeleton key back door which seems highly probable to be in the possession of the NSA. Despite having had cryptographic proofs demonstrate that Dual_EC_DRBG has a back door in it, it is still one of the PRNGs of Windows Vista. This alone made me dubious about AES-256, but recent attacks that have been discovered seem to confirm my suspicious. If these attacks were known by the NSA or not is anyones guess. One would imagine, AES being open source and all, that someone would have noticed these attacks by now. You also need to keep in mind that these are not back doors like was involved with the PRNG, but rather these are weaknesses in AES that took years to be identified. I imagine NSA likely knew of the weakness for quite some time, if not at the time they pushed for Rijndael.
The new attack can reduce ten round AES-256 to 2^45 bit strength. AES-256 usually uses 14 rounds, so people are not panicking to badly yet, but it seems very likely that as more research on the attack is done 14 round AES-256 will be significantly broken as well. It should be noted that the ten round AES-256 attack is very practical and does not require a laboratory setting to pull it off. AES-256 with 11 rounds has been reduced to 2^70, almost possible to break with traditional computing. AES-256 with 14 rounds is indeed looking like a bleeding fish in a pond full of sharks.
One thing to realize is that this attack only works on AES-256 and 192, if you use AES-128 you should still have 128 bit security. In fact, this attack shows that AES-128 is significantly stronger than AES-256, which is a bit funny as AES-256 is used to encrypt higher classification data than AES-128. The attack exploits the key scheduling of AES-256 and also AES-192.
more information on the attack can be found here, as well as an older attack that was not as practical. This just shows that as the attack gets more sophisticated, it is likely to reduce the strength of AES more and more: http://7files.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-new-aes-attack.html
I suggest that people start using Serpent-256 instead of AES-256.
“If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about”
Joe Goebbels, 1937
The Chinese got smart and realized they had to become more like Capitalism – the endless pursuit of greater resources – just to compete. Now it’s just a matter of aligning the game pieces properly in order to achieve first or second place on the global slide to oblivion. Urban yuppies will look to grow produce on their iphones in the future and will just wait for the right smart-phone app, if Apple doesn’t go bankrupt first. If that happens, I for one won’t miss iTunes. Are there any other i’s the Me generation will be able to live without? Maybe the I luv memes: http://cf.chucklesnetwork.agj.co/items/1/0/5/9/7/1/peter-tosh-omg-i-luv-tosh-0.jpg
For the carnivores on Wall Street, this one is fitting: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/103256-i-fucking-love-cocaine-cocaine-bear
^—— Approve Me