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Happy Labor Day everybody. Forward from here, things get jiggy. The nation faces a pile-up of events as we turn the corner on summer and head into the spook-house of autumn.

This will be the week when the reeking after-effects of Harvey’s journey through Houston become super-vivid. It’s going to be hot-hot-hot there all week, perfect conditions for mold to creep through untold square-footage of soggy sheetrock and plenty of nutriment in the toxic gumbo of lingering standing water for mosquitoes and bacteria to breed like crazy. Bigger surprises will be waiting for some:

HOUSTON (CNN) — A Texas homeowner returned to his flood-marred home Friday in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey to a shocking surprise: a 10-foot gator in his living room. Brian Foster made the discovery while assessing how badly the water had damaged his house near Lake Houston, north of Houston….

The news media are already calling Harvey the costliest storm in US history, with estimates running to $180 billion. But damage assessments are incomplete for highways, surface roads, bridges, railroad tracks, water and sewer systems, public buildings, dams (Addicks and Barker), natural gas terminals, and port facilities, not to mention homes and business structures. Texas is the nation’s number one cotton producer and the storm blew away many temporary cotton bale storage modules following a bumper harvest. Corn, soybeans, and cattle were also affected.

The Colonial Pipeline’s hookups to the refineries west of Lake Charles, Louisiana, won’t reopen fully until Tuesday at the earliest. The pipeline conveys 40 percent of the gasoline consumed from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. and extends up to the New York metro area. By next weekend Hurricane Irma looks like she’ll be slamming into the US Atlantic coast somewhere between Jacksonville and the Carolina Outer Banks as a category 3 or 4 event. There’s even talk today of possible cat 5. Will there be enough gasoline on hand for the folks at risk to evacuate? Stand by on that.

Much of western North America is burning up. British Columbia closed off its rivers to fisherman because 680 wildfires had broken out across the Canadian province this summer and 73 were still listed as “out-of-control” on Sunday. San Francisco set a record high temperature of 106 this past weekend. Down in Los Angeles, the county endured the largest wildfire in its history. The La Tuna Canyon blaze scorched 7,000 acres on the edge of Burbank. This morning it was at 30 percent containment after some Sunday rain showers.

Okay, that’s just the weather. You surely couldn’t fail to miss the weekend’s big news story out of North Korea: an underground hydrogen bomb test that set off a 6.3 magnitude earthquake felt across the border in China. Kim Jung-un was photographed with an alleged missile-ready weapon capable of inflicting an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the USA (though in the photo the device looked sort of like a 1938 washing machine barely capable of laundering a load of dishtowels). In theory, such an EMP could fry every electrical device over a large US region, from George Foreman grills to your car’s ignition system to the whole electric grid. After that, nothing works and would take years to fix and there’s a fair chance that nothing would ever work again. Disturbing, huh?

The Sunday Cable News chat-fests were full of politicians and assorted experts saying there was “no good option” available to deal with the North Korean threat. I’m not so sure about that because why would our military reveal a workable option if they had one? Mr. Trump, our (ahem) president made the point explicitly a dozen times during the election campaign that it would be foolish to reveal our military plans in advance of any action. Perhaps he meant it. You’d also have to suppose that computer jocks in the US military / intel sub-basements of northern Virginia are working around the clock to find some way to turn Kim into a platter of smoldering bulgogi by wireless command — and we won’t hear about it until after he’s eaten by his former flunkies and lackeys.

Finally, there are the accumulating hazards kludging up the sputtering engine of the US economy. Houston’s travails will take the GDP down a notch to Q1 2018 and Irma might take it negative. The oft-referenced debt-ceiling problem remains unresolved, and now it appears to have entailed the sticky problem of Hurricane damage relief — and who knows if Houston will ever recover no matter how much money is thrown at it. Dragging out the debt ceiling issue would lead to a chain of government defaults on its obligations, problems for US Treasury paper in the bond markets, and pressure on the dollar.

There are few shelters from the financial storm. In an emergency, the Federal Reserve might take a U-turn back to QE mode. That “liquidity” (money created out of thin air) would rush in to further inflate the over-stuffed stock markets. But without a QE pump, the markets may have already suckered in the last remaining liquidity pools on the buy-side, leaving the sell-side an empty echo-chamber if and when the market mood changes. Gold and silver have already launched into a zoom cycle, finally defeating the years-long efforts by interested parties, shall we say, to squash them in the paper markets. Bitcoin has been zooming all summer. I’m not a fan of the crypto-currencies. They are figments of the server farms, and they’re reproducing wildly like digital yeasts, and in the end they are at the mercy of those computer servers and an electrical grid that is less reliable than even economists might imagine.

There’s always excitement in the quickeningly chill air of fall, back to school, back to work, and back to what passes for reality these in these late days of empire. Finally, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Special Counsel Robert Mueller stepped up with a surprisingly sudden bill of particulars in the quest to pry Mr. Trump out of the just-redecorated oval office. The Deep State longs for that fatal lever, but it would come at a time when so many other perturbations are shaking things loose, the satisfaction might not last long.


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

314 Responses to “Perturbations Anon”

  1. Graycenphil September 4, 2017 at 9:36 am #

    On the other hand, recovery from Harvey is going quite well, oil pipelines and refineries are coming back and Trump is looking almost presidential down in Houston.

    Irma may, or may not, hit the US but we’ll deal with it if it does.

    Harvey failed to bring down the country, so now we’re predicting North Korea will?

    • Walter B September 4, 2017 at 10:16 am #

      No better way to start off a bright and beautiful Labor Day than with a heaping helping of optimism, jellybeans and unicorn farts! Is the glass half full, half empty or actually overflowing with happiness, smiles and puppy dog kisses? Who can say for sure but it always feels good to be happy so I shall enjoy the feeling for a moment or two. After all, it is all about feelings is it not?

      I have been kicking around an idea lately in regards to all of this inter-nation hostility, posturing, and threatening behavior, because there is much sound and fury, yet it all seems to signify nothing. Consider this if you will. Historically speaking, individual nations such as the Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Nazi Reich, the Stalin USSR have all been really pretty bad at CONTROLLING the other nations that they have had to deal with. Yes they all had their victories, but they have all suffered many defeats and in the end, controlling other nations really does not work out very well. Even attempting to do so is ridiculously expensive and time consuming. At the same time that these nations failed to control other nations, what was it that they ALL could do not only rather well, but pretty much completely and totally? Why, they all exercised total power over their own populations, over their own nations! And that control has only gotten easier to maintain thanks to developing technologies. It is also where they have been concentrating their efforts.

      As the world has shrunken due to technology and all of those at the top meet so frequently, it is hard to believe that the heads of state haven’t shared notes and developed strategies on what works and what does not in controlling the masses? Do they not share a common goal of getting in power and staying in power? Why would it not be better to work together to accomplish this rather than to struggle against one another at great expense and great effort?

      I have come to believe that all of these players have all worked out deals that assign roles of all sorts for each nation and that they act out a huge script while not only concentrating their efforts on controlling their own populations, but utilize the other nations as scapegoats to accomplish this and maintain the expenditures on munitions and defense spending to keep the profit machine well oiled and at maximum profit.

      So perhaps things are not as dire as they may seem after all and maybe we are being cared for by our leaders in the best way they see fit. Heck maybe they even love us and would never let anything happen to us but just fib a little, you know like the Tooth Fairy and Santa stories. Tiny little lies to help us sooth our worries and allow us to go back to smiling and content. Nothing will ever happen everything is good. I think I feel much better now, don’t you?

      • robert magill September 4, 2017 at 10:53 am #

        “Why would it not be better to work together to accomplish this rather than to struggle against one another at great expense and great effort?”

        You might look for an answer to most of Eurasia linked together with the Belt and Road scheme and apparently thriving..

        • islander800 September 4, 2017 at 5:41 pm #

          From what I’ve learned about the Chinese belt and road initiative, it’s like America imperialism on steroids, without the happy face to mask the true intent. Every nation that’s been drawn in as part of this massive Chinese investment is finding that it is all about helping China and nothing about helping them. All design and construction work is being done by the Chinese, including imported Chinese workers, and all the benefits flow to China with little “trickle down” for the locals. At least America tried to put a benevolent face on their imperialism whereas China has no desire or need to do this. Anyone that thinks the trillion dollar belt and road investment by China is for anyone’s benefit but the Chinese is dreaming.

          • DA September 4, 2017 at 6:35 pm #

            Its primary purpose is as an alternative to the US Empire in the short term. In the long term, any prospective Chinese/Eurasian Empire will face the same challenges as ours does, albeit with three times or more the mouths to feed and energy requirements, and proportionally less resources with which to do it. There simply are no good outcomes for populations firmly in population overshoot, which humanity has long been in.

          • elysianfield September 4, 2017 at 6:43 pm #

            “Anyone that thinks the trillion dollar belt and road investment by China is for anyone’s benefit but the Chinese is dreaming.”

            Islander,
            Welcome to reality…Realpolitik dictates that there is rarely a true act of selfless altruism among nations.

      • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 11:57 am #

        “People such as our host are not so much prophets of doom, but are long range thinkers who caution us all to think and plan ahead, especially if the courses of action we are on are not sustainable. While no one has a correct timeline for collapse, it is not actually collapse or apocalypse of which they warn, but of degradation of our systems and our societies.”

        Exactly right. And we watch the complainers who argue we must be wrong since we have not collapsed yet forever make fools of themselves. Like turkeys who love their farmer life, is so good that every day must be good just like today has been their logic goes. It is not on their or any turkey’s radar that their last day might not be so good.

        Eternal happy trolls like Graycenphil claim Huston recovers so they lie, exaggerate the recovery, and try and equate recovery with no damage at all.

        The people who died in Houston are simply ignored by the happy sociopaths. That is the dastardly thing about it. The eternal optimists are actually heartless sociopaths who selectively ignore any human tragedies they don’t want to acknowledge. They are mentally ill. They hide behind a smile but the aura they project is one of pure evil.

        • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 12:31 pm #

          Keith, I’ve never heard of optimists being called mentally ill, sociopaths and evil. Your statement is kind of over the top. I’m an optimist and I mourn Houston’s loss of life and suffering. A true optimist recognizes

          • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 12:35 pm #

            … that life can sometimes suck, but feels that one will overcome that and prevail. That attitude may or may not be accurate in America’s case, but it isn’t psychopathic or evil.

          • Boiledfrog September 4, 2017 at 5:41 pm #

            The 2008 economic collapse was caused by optimists. Most wars are started by some idiot who thinks he can win. That lying car salesman is an optimist. That whole “I will succeed failure is not an option” bullshit works fine in football. Half still fail. It is when you are affecting others that the egotism of such a position is evil.

          • Therian September 5, 2017 at 4:04 pm #

            From J. Robert Oppenheimer: “The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.”

            Therian’s quote about optimism: “The glass is two-thirds empty and the last third is backwash.”

          • Graycenphil September 5, 2017 at 10:59 pm #

            As I recall, Oppenehimer was very pessimistic about the atom bomb. Of course, he was also wrong.

        • Graycenphil September 4, 2017 at 7:53 pm #

          K-Dog, you may think Houston isn’t recovering, but you also believed gas was 17 cents a gallon in the 70’s and you thought you couldn’t charge an electric car at home. So at what point, when so many of your facts turn out to be wrong, do you start to question your conclusions?

      • hmuller September 4, 2017 at 11:58 am #

        Oh Walter, don’t you know that you’ll be labelled “a conspiracy theorist” by the respectable corporate media if you think rich and powerful people ever meet behind closed doors and make decisions affecting us.
        But in truth, while I think there is merit in your theory, I think there are also chumps and victims in this globalist game. I doubt if Libya’s Ghaddafi, or Syria’s Assad agreed to play the roles they were given. Are Trump and Kim just playing or serious? Do the globalists want to further their agenda via a big war at this point in history? Time will tell.

      • Graycenphil September 4, 2017 at 7:41 pm #

        I understand your hyperbole Walter, but there is some truth to it too. I don’t think China is nearly as upset as we, South Korea and Japan are about North Korea. There is considerable value to them in having someone else in the region to be the bad guy, and to keep us occupied. And it even serves our purpose to have an ugly enemy out there for everyone to hate.

        I love comspiracy theories, though I believe almost all are false. But I don’t think everything we are heatring about North Korea is true either.

        • Walter B September 4, 2017 at 8:36 pm #

          Always better to build bridges than to destroy them G&P, so thank you. As far as conspiracies go, I am at a bit of an advantage/disadvantage to the general populace. As an elected member of my Township’s government, I am one of five that meet twice a month at public meetings to “do the business of the Township”. We hold meetings that run an hour to an hour and a half and then we close public session and vote to go into executive session where all civilians leave the building and the doors are locked and the recoding device is shut off. The discussions that are had by the five of us from this point on are neither recorded nor kept track of (the minutes are a joke) and as the odd man out, I can assure you that the other four then go about doing whatever it is that they want to do. I cannot by law disclose any of what went on and many shady deals and bad actions come out of such sessions. This may be at the small local level but it is the exact same at every level. If this does not qualify as conspiracy then perhaps it is simply collusion, corruption, or some other great, dark way that those in power deal dirty and get away with it. As George Carlin always said, “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it? So forgive me please, I am tainted. Conspiracy is not a theory, it is a way of life for those in control..

          • Graycenphil September 4, 2017 at 9:24 pm #

            Thank you Walter. I think we are agreeing much more than disagreeing. I know politics is awfully messy, and not very clean either, but somehow at the end of th day it works. I hope that is your experience as an elected official.

            I’m quite conifdant that the big conspiracy thoeries (the ones that I love) are 99% false. But I’d sure love to know the 1% that aren’t.

          • Walter B September 4, 2017 at 10:10 pm #

            Well the point is that at the end of the day it does not work. It fails and because it is failing slowly people cannot comprehend that. Our government has become a parasite and it is draining the host and at some point down the road the host shall die. I have a liberal friend who is an AA guy and simply cannot accept any scenario but one where the wonderfulness of mankind will solve all of the world’s problems and there will be a happy ending. I am certain that if he loses this faith he will return to the oblivion that he entered into to escape it originally, so I leave him where he feels safe. He must be allowed to believe whatever it is that keeps him sober. I understand that he is not alone and yes it is not easy for those few of us that go once again into the breach every day to keep fighting decay, especially when we see people like my buddy hiding in self deception. But then, fighting to allow him to stay there is a noble cause that in the end will allow me to rest in peace. Eternal rest, what a concept!

      • monkey_flower September 4, 2017 at 8:50 pm #

        Once you go down the rabbit hole there is no returning.

        • Majella September 5, 2017 at 5:39 pm #

          Yes, there is…I’ve been down it. friends, very good friends, put up with me rabbiting on about 9/11, the Illuminati and so on, but stuck with me.

          When I finally had to admit that climate change is real, scales fell from my eyes, and the ridiculousness of the basic principles of the nut-job-level conpiracists became intensely apparent.

          Now I have a couple of brothers whom I had quite a lot to do with dragging into the rabbit-hole, are still down there. It absorbs their every waking moment and they sound ridiculous, but don;t like hearing it…

          • Sean Coleman September 6, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

            Majella, I agree with you about the conspiracy theories but global warming is a fantasy.

          • Walter B September 7, 2017 at 10:58 am #

            Of course there is climate change, climates always change that is how it works. If we want to discuss what exactly it is that makes them change, or more precisely, makes the changes more dramatic and even non-traditional, well what the cause or causes may be opens up a realm of possibilities doesn’t it? Is burning fossil fuels a possibility, I would think it is possible, although as goes the Sun so goes the weather as I have been told. And the possibility that mankind, or more properly the militaries of the world have finally found ways to screw with the weather, well that is more possible than the average Joe could possibly understand. The one thing that I think even the slowest studies in evolution must one day admit to is that NO problem anywhere on the planet was ever solved by giving politicians more money. That proposed solution is a really, really bad joke.

      • Iananna September 5, 2017 at 10:59 am #

        ..umm “ they all exercised total power over their own populations, over their own nations!, yeah, no as the kiddies say.
        Depends what you mean by “own populations…nations” which are not, and haven’t been for centuries, the same kettle of sushi.
        Defining one’s cohort – aka identity politics worked so well, for the other side, that I am amazed that it hasn’t been chucked into the compost bin by now.

      • Dumbedup September 5, 2017 at 11:13 am #

        What is the end game for NK? Is there a credible threat that they will actually do more than test their weapons and perhaps actually use them unprovoked? Will they use them and claim provocation? Or is it blackmail – to coerce other nations to pay ransom, buy their goods or pay homage to Kim?

        The answer to this rhetorical question is “no.” He has us on the end of a string he likes to pull. He is a two-bit dictator we have allowed to wag the dog. He pokes and we howl. It must be great fun for him as he has nothing else to do as he presides over a country with no real economy or future. Stop enabling him by responding with sound bites of “fire and fury.”

        On some level he knows (and as China and Russia have pointed out) that if he pops off a missile at any target that actually hits and causes damage or injury it will be the end of his life – within hours. In that situation even China and Russia would side with us.

        Trump howls too much because he is used to being the bully himself. Suddenly it is not so easy to cut a deal … despot to despot.

    • DrGonzo September 4, 2017 at 10:17 am #

      In Kunstler’s world, the Apocalypse is perpetually just three weeks away. It’s been that way, week in and week out, for at least the last ten years.

      I think my favorite is his insight that a rise in petroleum prices indicates a coming implosion of the global economy … and, also, a fall in petroleum prices indicates a coming implosion of the global economy.

      JHK is a great writer but his economic logic often verges on the absurd. DOW at 4500 any day now, anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

      • Walter B September 4, 2017 at 10:44 am #

        In a world of immediate gratification, patience and planning ahead have no value and are shunned by the general population. People such as our host are not so much prophets of doom, but are long range thinkers who caution us all to think and plan ahead, especially if the courses of action we are on are not sustainable. While no one has a correct timeline for collapse, it is not actually collapse or apocalypse of which they warn, but of degradation of our systems and our societies. The amount of decay that I have seen in this nation is staggering over the course of my lifetime and the clearest way to see it is by utilizing mathematics to analyze the nation’s financial system.

        Our governments have been totally out of control with their spending and are now desperate to increase their revenues. America thinks that cash can simply be printed endlessly and credit cards issued to cover all of their needs. The problem here is that although 90% of America would fight each other to the death over a pallet load of $20’s, unless the rest of the world feels the same way (especially those places that exchange their goods for our cash) it all falls apart. There is a BRICS meeting going on right now and perhaps those in attendance may discuss what value the toilet paper disguised as dead US president may actually still have. When the day arrives that they no longer value this trash, then there may not be any apocalypse, but the American way of life is going to seriously degrade all at once. Doing things to change this future event now is what our host futilely attempts to inspire, though the words fall upon deaf ears.

        • ozone September 4, 2017 at 11:37 am #

          Walter,
          I do believe you’ve hit that particular nail smack-dab on the head.
          Trainloads and mega-cities of deaf ears. It behooves us to ponder why that would be so that future generations (if they might exist) might not “mis-allocate” whatever resources will be remaining.

          The true meaning of the word “conservation” will be returned from the Luntzian-newspeak compendium to its apolitical place. (A place where the brute force of existential realities must be respected and consequence cannot be denied.)

          On a cheerier note, we should remember that in 100 years, all of us here will no longer be, so our particular legacy won’t be shaped by our self-referential bullshit, but by consequences and events following what we’ve done or ignored. That’s a *good* thing as denial and delusion will, in point of fact, be deadly. (Toldya it would be cheerier! 😉 )

          Oopsie, a return from Olympus?

        • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 12:12 pm #

          Excellent. The fact that you have even noticed any degradation make you unusually observant. Most ignore the truth.

          The popular view is that life is as good as it ever was and this view is held even by those who were not alive to possibly know this for fact or fiction as well as by the many happy dancing fools who were around to actually see and ignore the changes.

          But people only see what they want to see. To think life is perpetually good is a necessary delusion held by the arrogant evil optimist, who thinks only because they want to; that we can’t possibly collapse.

          When the grim reaper begins to take thousands from starvation a day happy happy don’t worry optimism will finally be seen for the evil it is.

          • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 12:45 pm #

            One can be an optimist while planning for the worst.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 12:57 pm #

            Yes, the policies of the American Elite have been disastrous for the American Nation and People. Opening the borders like you people want is just more of the same. The Left and their Antifa goons work for the same people as Paul Ryan and the “respectable” Anti-Trump Republicans.

          • Walter B September 5, 2017 at 10:00 am #

            You know what the worst degradation today is? People, and I mean damned near everybody, simply do not care about anything, even their own children! Before Care, After Care, Day Care, Summer Care, nannies, you name it, the parents of the past decade or two have little to no use for their own spawn, much less than the millions of strangers across the nation. Yes they will donate their $10 to the cause, pat themselves on the back, and say how it is all better now and then get back to their doping, drinking and other distractions. As a former PTA president, County PTA president, Mayor and now current Committeeman and (2) CERT team member, I have more contact with the residents around my county on a daily basis than most people have all year and it is bad, real BAD and getting worse. I would shout out STOP – CHANGE NOW, but I’d probably be arrested. Nope, it ain’t gonna get better, only worse.

        • Graycenphil September 4, 2017 at 9:41 pm #

          Very good, Dr. Gonzo. Walter, I agree with about half of that post.

          I very much like Mr Kunstler’s writing; that’s why I’m here. But his specific predictions are incredibly inacurate. And I agree he is probably using his “predictions” as a literary device. The trouble is, some folks on here, (and folks like John McLemore of S-Town) take them awfully litrerally.

          As for things getting worse and worse, I wholeheartedly disagree. But I do remember as a kid hearing the old guys say “I’m glad I’m not in your place – this world is going right down the tubes.” Well, they were wrong. I’ve certainly lived most of my life now, (I’m 58) and overall it’s been pretty wonderful. Far from perfect, and lots of sadness and tragedy along the way, but overall a much better place than it was 58 years ago.

          There are lots of things I’d like to change, and lots of other things I wish hadn’t changed, but there’s no way I would trade today for 1970. Ensuring a continuing good future will take hard work, and I think folks like Mr. Kunstler are part of that, but we will do it.

        • Gerold September 5, 2017 at 2:03 pm #

          Unfortunately, you’re right, Walter. I’m old enough to see the decades-long decline of the West despite ever more shiny iGadgets to distract us.

          We forget that during the Great Depression’s alleged 25% unemployment, 75% still had jobs. I say alleged because there were no unemployment statistics at that time. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hired an economist to estimate what the private sector employment rate was during the Depression. He calculated that 75% were employed including 6% government workers. In other words, although the unemployment rate varied throughout the Depression, the worst unemployment rate was 19% at its peak. Now, compare that to John William’s ShadowStats.com (22% unemployment) and today’s Worker Participation Rate 76% (= 24% unemployment) and it’s obvious that, despite the BLS and mass media propaganda, we’re worse off today than During the Great Depression.

          We don’t see “soup kitchens’ and ‘bread lines’ today because they’ve been replaced with EBT (‘food stamp’) cards. Today, 75% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck only because the government’s financial repression has encouraged over-indebtedness by keeping interest rates artificially low thereby swindling seniors out of their life-savings’ interest earnings.

          China already owns Volvo and is toying with acquiring Chrysler’s Jeep from Fiat who had hoped that the Chrysler dealership network would help them flog their Fiat 500 garbage cans, but they’re selling less than half the cars they did three years ago. Driving to work I pass the remains of a GM dealership that once had three brands and is now reduced to GMC only. All the optimism in the world plus a buck and a half will buy you a cup of coffee.

      • 99 cent nation September 4, 2017 at 1:55 pm #

        The hell with the market and the DOW.Everybody that is in it in anyway needs to be thrown back into the sewer they came from.

      • Dumbedup September 5, 2017 at 11:36 am #

        I think he believes what he is saying, but would say that critical mass is hard to predict. Quite a few others believe, as he does, that at some point we have not yet reached the realization will strike that the math does not work and cannot work. At that point people will lose confidence in the economy and in the ability of government to deal with crisis, and “confidence” is what sustains hope in the future.

        The thesis makes for interesting Kabuki Theater, but there is no economic event horizon in a nation of 325 million people short of a 10 mile wide meteor striking the planet. That would be the civilization killer.

        • Graycenphil September 5, 2017 at 12:59 pm #

          You may well be right, but can he possibly believe his timeframes, after all the failed predictions? Some on here, I think, do believe the predictions, but when they continually fail don’t you have to at least reconsider the timing?

      • Bruce E September 5, 2017 at 4:29 pm #

        Actually the Dow is not far from 4500 depending on how you adjust for asset inflation (not to be confused with CPI).

        That is, we’ve already collapsed. We’ve been collapsing and not recovering for about a decade now. The numbers themselves, absent any context, mean nothing. They are deliberately designed to mislead and confuse people over the meaning of value.

        We are the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot of water. There is nothing that will happen in 3 weeks or 30 weeks or 300 weeks that will change that now, other than the fact that once everybody knows what they already know, that the emperor in fact has no clothes, the only thing we will learn was that we were already cooked a decade ago.

        If you look at the 22k Dow and reassure yourself that number means we’re just fine and dandy and that JHK has been perpetually wrong for a decade, well that’s by design. I think it works so well that the people who designed it have convinced themselves with the same numbers…

        • ozone September 6, 2017 at 6:56 pm #

          Bruce,
          I think you have it right; they’ve been bullshitting the public for so long that they’ve started to believe their fudged numbers themselves! A strange phenomenon: when ones’ own deliberate lies become acceptable delusions. Therein lies doom.

        • DrGonzo September 6, 2017 at 10:52 pm #

          Yes, the US stock market is way overvalued right now. Of that I have no doubt. I have drastically reduced my holdings in US equities over the past two years for exactly that reason, and moved those assets to other investments.

          But, in the meantime, I made a bundle by ignoring JHK’S Dow 4500 prediction in 2008 and investing heavily when the market was so debilitated. Maybe it is all ‘fake money’, Bruce … but curiously it has bought me some major home improvements, and some real estate, and a new Subaru, and all my new fly fishing equipment, and lots of great travel opportunities. (In fact I just got back from a great trip to southern Colorado made possible by that ‘bogus’ appreciation in assets.) I’m sure all those dollars are fake .. but somehow the benefits I’ve been getting out of them seem real. LOL.

          Yes, the Dow will tank by 20% or 30% or more sometime in the next 18 months, I’m almost sure. And, as sure as the sun will rise, JHK will cite that as a sure sign that the Apocalypse is upon us.

          Well, maybe. But, more likely, it will just be another big popped bubble, like in 2000 and 2008. Life will go on. People who got on the stock market bandwagon in 2017, like those who got on in 1999 and 2007, will shake their fists at the Universe and insist they’ve been scammed. No, they were just naive. Those of us who are more patient will move in and buy the bargains we find amidst the wreckage, just as we did in 2001 and 2009. Rinse and repeat.

          • Graycenphil September 7, 2017 at 9:20 am #

            I agree there will be a correction, and very likely in the next 18 months. But I would have said the same thing a year or so ago too. It’s the timing that is so difficult.

            I completely agree about the real benefits of the run up in the markets, and even more so about buying next time it tanks.

            2009 was, quite literally, the opportunity of a lifetime.

          • Bruce E September 7, 2017 at 2:59 pm #

            I’m guessing the next major market correction (sometime in the next 6-12 months, perhaps) is one of two things:

            1. The next opportunity of a lifetime to buy (if you go to mostly cash now or if you’re already there) and benefit off of the next bubble in about 8-10 years — a 2009 all over again.

            2. The SHTF moment where we never recover because we finally learn that unsustainable things are unsustainable, and the USD finally takes the hit it deserves for a decade of QE loaning money into existence, and this finally spills over into consumer goods price hyperinflation.

            Question to me is this: if I plan for #1 but I’m wrong and #2 happens, does it really matter? What do you do differently if you know #2 is going to happen this time and not #1?

          • Graycenphil September 7, 2017 at 10:09 pm #

            I suppose if you really knew #2 was going to happen soon (nobody really knows that) hten you would be wise to get rid of your stocks and cash and buy gold or seeds or freeze dried meals or something useful to trade.

            But anything less than a Kunstler style Long Emergency and you are probably still better off in stocks. If we just have massive inflation, but a relatively stable nation, stock prices will go up too. As long as you pick the right companies.

          • Bruce E September 8, 2017 at 8:55 am #

            Of course, I suppose there’s a third possibility, where a series of bankruptcies among the overextended companies who were loaned all this new nearly-free money, the loans bringing the money into existence, cause rampant asset deflation, again not affecting CPI as much as one would think. Basically, the reverse of what got us here.

            In such a scenario, I wonder if the Fed would continue chasing the market down and fighting deflation hand-over-fist, with a new series of QE to bail out the failing corporations, or if they would let the stock (and bond) market collapse in (nominal) value? In the former case, cash could become near worthless in terms of what it buys in the stock market (stocks might only modestly correct before bouncing rather than the currency correcting), but in the latter case a cash position right now would give someone some great bargains even if they didn’t wait for the bottom to get back in.

    • shotho September 4, 2017 at 10:56 am #

      I have to agree with you. The doom and gloom on here is getting rather thick, even though I agree with the general thrust of it. The debt ceiling will be raised; don’t know about the 2018 budget. Human beings will always deal with nature as best it can. Besides, do we really need the megalopolis of Houston to live decent lives? Trump does seem to be in a better mood, maybe the Kelly influence. This is not to say that our problems won’t overwhelm us eventually, especially the financial ones.

      • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 12:16 pm #

        If the doom and gloom in here is getting rather too thick for your taste you can leave.

        Once upon a time people like you sacrificed virgins to keep the gods happy. I think you still would if you could find a virgin.

        • shotho September 4, 2017 at 5:20 pm #

          Right, not many virgins around these days, so I’m outta here. buh-bye!

    • Elrond Hubbard September 4, 2017 at 11:18 am #

      Harvey wrecks up to a million cars in car-dependent Houston

      https://www.wired.com/story/harvey-houston-cars-ruined/

      “As the Hurricane Harvey storm system dissipates and the water it dropped recedes, Houstonians left without shelter face the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. Many people are focused on the staggering figure of 40,000 homes lost, but another number also deserves close scrutiny: The flooding destroyed as many as a million cars in the Houston metro area.

      “Reliable transportation is a daily, fundamental need, almost more so in the wake of a disaster. Add in the fact that Houston is a car-dependent city, and the consequences of the destruction of so many vehicles comes into stark focus. How will rental companies and dealerships suddenly supply cars to people who need them right now? How do people get permanent cars? And what is the fate for the many people who can’t afford to replace their way of getting around?

      “‘You really have to have a car if you’re in Houston,’ says Andrea French, executive director of Transportation Advocacy Group Houston, which advocates for better funding for all modes of transportation. People in the city center may commute by bus or bike, and Uber and Lyft have made it easier to go without a personal vehicle, but as a rule it’s hard to get by without your own wheels. That’s why 94.4 percent of households in the Houston area have cars—1.8 each on average, according to analyst firm Cox Automotive. Only Dallas has a higher percentage.”

      • capt spaulding September 4, 2017 at 12:04 pm #

        It might be wise to avoid buying a car with Texas license plates for awhile.

        • DA September 4, 2017 at 12:28 pm #

          I was thinking the same thing. How many of those flood damaged cars will get quickly and minimally spiffied up to flood the used car markets with future woes for unsuspecting buyers? “50% off and only underwater once!” It’s all about the grift these days!

          • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 1:43 pm #

            My car was stranded in Montana two weeks ago and it only rolled off a car-carrier in Seattle Friday. I was in great fear of it being shipped as a lone car on an otherwise empty car carrier with business in Houston finally to be delivered to me the long way around like a shipped package.

            Perhaps not a reasonable fear but when you don’t know where your car is and cars experience a national disaster it is a fear you too may have.

            Here is my story.

          • DA September 4, 2017 at 3:14 pm #

            Sounds like a funky adventure. Driving a high-end German car through the great American mountain west. What could possibly go wrong? Mercedes and BMW are both notorious for expensive and often lengthy repairs. And if you drive an Audi you might just as well buy a spare, since you can probably afford it anyway.

          • Dumbedup September 5, 2017 at 3:28 pm #

            It happened after Katrina. A friend of mine bought a brand new Pathfinder at 50% off sticker. Not only was it salvage, but the seller never produced the title and then disappeared.

      • ozone September 4, 2017 at 12:12 pm #

        “…The flooding destroyed as many as a million cars in the Houston metro area.”

        EH,
        Yessir, silver linings abound!

        http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-31/harveys-destruction-may-have-solved-auto-industrys-inventory-problem-according-rbc

        • Elrond Hubbard September 4, 2017 at 4:55 pm #

          When I worked in the auto industry, it was on the service/warranty side, not new car sales where the real action is. So I don’t have serious dirt, but channel-stuffing (i.e. ramming new vehicle inventory down dealers’ throats whether they wanted it or not) was a way of life.

          You live and die by the sales targets. Are we making the nut for this month or not? The monthly target is always a few percent higher than the same month last year, after you adjust for the number of selling days. (I.e. a 30-day month that begins on a Saturday will end on a Sunday, leaving 20 weekdays to do your selling; but if it begins on a Monday then it ends on a Tuesday and you have 22 selling days, so you had better have 10% more sales that month and then add the targeted growth rate on top.) The targets accumulate year-to-date, so if you have a good month that gives you an edge to maybe survive a slow month to come. On and on it goes, a never-ending treadmill.

          Summer 2008 was memorable first because as credit dried up, we stopped offering leases and went to sales only (i.e. getting out of the liability to take the vehicle back and figure out how to re-sell it after the lease expired). Then sales tanked as well, and all my metrics went haywire as the denominator (# of vehicles sold) dropped off a cliff. Fun times.

          I guarantee you a lot of mid-level regional sales managers whose territories cover southeast Texas are heaving a sigh of relief — those whose own homes didn’t flood, anyway. Their lives for the rest of this year just got a lot easier.

          • DA September 4, 2017 at 6:54 pm #

            Good points Elrond. By hook or by crook, new car sales in the extended Houston area are almost certainly about to go through the roof. The one monkey wrench in the works could be oil prices, but they’d have to spike pretty damn severely to radically affect car sales outright. Ordinarily jobs would be a consideration as well, but I’m guessing the Fed and its minions are likely to be willing to inflate the subprime auto loan balloon even further to maintain whatever pretense of “recovery” they can sell. What are the options? Admit defeat and collapse now? Not going to happen. Yet.

          • ozone September 4, 2017 at 9:25 pm #

            EH,
            Thanks for the insider peek. Ev’abody woikin’ fo’ de comp’ny sto’ now, boss.

          • Walter B September 4, 2017 at 10:39 pm #

            Say DA, do you think that people in the Houston area that lost their homes and their cars are going to be in a position to actually BUY new cars? The last time I looked at my homeowners and auto policies there was a big deductible as well as limitations on what would be paid for in the event of a claim. And of course we have not even started to talk about how long it might take to get adjusters out to the homes and how long payments may actually take to arrive. Insurance companies are not able to pay their executives huge salaries and build massive urban structures because they hand out too much money to victims of disaster unless I am sadly mistaken. I would think that the people of the inflicted areas are going to be hard pressed to clean up and go forward with their lives. Tell me if I am wrong please.

  2. Billy Hill September 4, 2017 at 9:46 am #

    One might add the Yuan oil futures contract to the mix. With the Russian Consulate in San Francisco for added flavor.

    Future statuary will include the unknown deep-stater shooting himself in the foot.

  3. pequiste September 4, 2017 at 10:15 am #

    “Water; never touch the stuff, fish fuck in it you know.”
    W.C. Fields

    The thought of all the pollutants in the swollen waters that Harvey brought to the south Texas and Louisiana coasts is just staggering.

    I am thinking of making a new cocktail to both celebrate and counter the effects: vodka and prune juice – and calling it a Harvey Piledriver.

    • elysianfield September 4, 2017 at 12:14 pm #

      “it a Harvey Piledriver.”

      Puck,
      It could be described as thus; Diarrhea is but a fart with fluid drive….

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 12:35 pm #

      Just add yeast and you’ve got Harvey’s Natural Dark & Cloudy Ale. Comes out exactly the same color as it goes in. Estimated transit time: as fast as you can get to the can.

  4. Bro Jobe September 4, 2017 at 10:33 am #

    So much of what JHK talks about is beyond our control, but to East-Coast folk, you can at least be sure your friends and family have at least a couple weeks of food, cash, ammo (if they know what to do with it) and fuel around.

    Irma has a sickening familiarity to it. In 2003 we lived for two weeks in Jim’s World Made By Hand, after Isabel roared through.

    Time to be prepped.

  5. bailey alexander September 4, 2017 at 10:37 am #

    It’s nice to live in Piemonte, near the Alps, surrounded by Italian farmers, married to an engineer; two trades that actually produce stuff. I’ve taken lots of risks to live here, invest in a home and land, happy I did, I’ve learned so much.

    I planted saffron last month, about 1500 bulbs, not sure if my experiment will work, but a neighbor has had some success. And, with all the new farmbots, I think in a few years there may be one that could assist with the labor intensive process of extracting the stigmas…

    Best to match action with thought and actually try and make stuff happen.

    It will all end in tears soon enough…

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 1:00 pm #

      Farmbots? Surrounded by unemployed people? You will never escape the stigma of that.

    • Bro Jobe September 4, 2017 at 2:44 pm #

      Bailey, don’t put too much faith in farmbots. The farm labor of the future may well be serfs. If you own productive land and can hold onto it through troubled times, you may have to become more like Steven Bullock in World Made By Hand.

      That would be my plan, but so many plans go awry in troubled times. Still, in Italy where you are you are further from large metro areas populated with soft and weak folk used to sitting at keyboards. That’s my fears about rural life in the States. Good luck and happy farming!

      • bailey alexander September 5, 2017 at 12:39 pm #

        capito. and thanks Bro Jobe; all good points. however, farmbots ‘are’ doing amazing things, I know Romanian engineers that are investing and building their own, there’s a disproportionately large # of engineers in RO, and they all like to have land, so they do…and they have money bc google, amazon, etc are paying them a lot of money these days…reminds me of my days during the tech boom in seattle, when i had a successful co recruiting engineers…

        after living in a half dozen capitals in Europe, well aware of the soft life..these piemontese, from the mountains, are tough, tho, they are teaching me what I need to know…how to be tough…

        and no one’s unemployed around here, never trust Italian stats, they lie, incredibly large black market, and Milan, nearby, is doing surprisingly well, lots of investment, have family that live and work there, and Turin, an hour away, doing fine…the south is always in a poor way, special as it is..

        my fellow Americans would be quite surprised by how well the eu project is doing in general…unfortunately they listen to the english press….wait and see, when Brexit kicks in….and yes, lived in London too, well aware…

  6. Ghung September 4, 2017 at 10:46 am #

    Irma now eying South Florida, but who knows?

    https://s.w-x.co/wu/irma-gfs-ensemble-12Z-9.2.17.png

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 2:02 pm #

      South Florida’s been showing a lot of leg lately. I can see why Irma might be interested in her.

  7. wholy1 September 4, 2017 at 10:50 am #

    JHK appears to have eliminated the word “optimism” from his prolific literary lexicon and his glass not even anymore “half empty” of some stagnant, chem/fecal/mosquito-larve Houston-aftermath “brew”.

    • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 12:20 pm #

      Optimism is a disease that infects the mind leading one down a road of heartless sociopathology. Optimism shows no concern for ones fellow man.

      • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 12:50 pm #

        Not true! You generalize.

        • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 1:20 pm #

          Not true! You generalize.

          Now had you said somewhat true you would have been correct. Certainly I generalize, just as those who think optimism is nothing more that hopping white bunnies in green fields where the sun always shines down upon willing virgins who itch to please generalize.

          The truth is so hard to face that our first reaction is to turn and flee.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 1:02 pm #

        Optimism is good if there’s reason to be optimistic and/or it leads to effective action.

        Pessimism is good if there’s reason to be pessimistic and/or it leads to effective action.

        Neither is good if they’re wrong and/or they lead to inaction via complacency or despair.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 1:05 pm #

          Obviously if your optimism is misplaced, there’s less chance for effective action. Complacency is also a good excuse to do nothing or just keep doing the same failed thing.

          Ditto for pessimism. Despair if anything, is even worse than complacency.

          • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 1:33 pm #

            Both can lead to complacency if the optimistic or pessimistic excuse can be made to fit. On leads to a satiated complacency and the other to a perception of powerlessness leading to a complacency of no action.

            “Ditto for pessimism. Despair if anything, is even worse than complacency.”

            I’ll agree with this in general but despair and pessimism once endured that does not lead one into the void from which they cannot return, may lead to incredible power. What makes it worse is that at least as often as it can enrich the suffering supplicant, it destroys.

        • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 1:25 pm #

          I agree with you, It is best if one can see both sides at once but your effective action yardstick is a good measure. In general optimism is seen as leading to effective action and despair is seen as leading to inaction and ineffectiveness. The truth is more complex but this generalization appeals to a simple mind.

        • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 3:44 pm #

          In other words, be realistic.

      • HowardBeale September 4, 2017 at 2:05 pm #

        With all the loose usage of the word optimism, it has really started to make me wonder if it is not just, in effect, a synonym of “losing.”

        https://youtu.be/WN-aCYVVtyo

      • malthuss September 4, 2017 at 3:24 pm #

        There is a book [probably self published] ‘Free Yourself from Positive Thinking.’

      • shotho September 4, 2017 at 5:24 pm #

        Well, if you don’t like it, you can always leave here.

  8. wm5135 September 4, 2017 at 10:55 am #

    “recovery from Harvey is going quite well, oil pipelines and refineries are coming back”

    Noble sentiments, simple for sure, but noble. Oil pipelines and refineries, let’s get cracking!

    • K-Dog September 4, 2017 at 12:23 pm #

      “recovery from Harvey is going quite well, oil pipelines and refineries are coming back”

      And the dead are coming back to life.

      How is it the sentiment noble when it ignore tragedy. There is nothing noble about it. I’ll agree with it being a ‘simple sentiment’, but noble just because you imagine a smile goes with it. No way!

  9. Cab September 4, 2017 at 12:28 pm #

    /Users/Cab/Desktop/Supreme Dick.jpg

    • Cab September 4, 2017 at 12:29 pm #

      Dah. Probably good that you can’t post pics…but you would have thought it was funny. *Delete*

  10. seawolf77 September 4, 2017 at 12:36 pm #

    The water has receded in most areas. There are still major roads closed and Eldridge Pkwy (crosses over Addicks Reservoir) will likely be closed for months. People are in good spirits, I suppose from the relatively low loss of life. But this wasn’t New Orleans or even Galveston where flood insurance is required by the lender. Lots of people who flooded never flooded before and never had flood insurance. Not only is there fixing what was destroyed on their nickel, but now the value of their property has dropped and they now need flood insurance to boot.

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 1:08 pm #

      Once a house is flooded, can it be saved? Or does mold always destroy it, especially in warm areas? Does it have to be completely gutted inside in order to save it?

      • seawolf77 September 4, 2017 at 1:32 pm #

        Of course you can. If depth of flooding is under 2 ft, you take out the bottom of the sheet rock. Above 4 ft you take out all of it.

        • DA September 4, 2017 at 2:03 pm #

          Sounds dicey either way.

          • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:20 pm #

            A good friend had problems with the mold returning from the stud work AFTER removing the drywall, insulation. Studs “TREATED” by a mold expert……. still came back. Sent his wife to the hospital. If it spend too long underwater I would remove the concrete. Good luck and best wishes from JAX,FL.

  11. teddyboy46 September 4, 2017 at 12:53 pm #

    I know this post will earn me the scorn of the other posters, but that is OK because i could care less.

    Trump Maybe the Right man at the Right time. The problem with North Korea is going to require quick and decisive action, and that is how Trump operates.

    Ok cue the Haters.

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 5:28 pm #

      [Sound of crickets chirping]

      The “problem” with North Korea, is that it’s only a “problem” in the fevered imaginations of the MICC and their breathless followers. Fair to say, you’re one of them I guess?

      Nuclear weapons are an answer to a question no sane person ever asked – how to end all life on earth very quickly and very effectively based on the momentary whim of a handful of insane ideologues. Do you really want to roll those dice?

      I don’t.

      • elysianfield September 4, 2017 at 7:03 pm #

        “. Do you really want to roll those dice?”

        DA,
        Those that can/do will probably not ask us first….

        • ozone September 4, 2017 at 9:35 pm #

          e.,
          Ouch. You’re quite likely correct. (Although the dastardly do’ers of the deed will probably try mightily to convince us it is and was the “right thing to do”, before and after the horrible and decidedly non-consensual fact.

    • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 8:58 pm #

      No scorn, Ted. I think you’re spot on. Good post.

      brh

    • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:29 pm #

      China is the hand inside Korea. Everyone up for that? Remember they backed us down in both Korea and Nam BEFORE Greenspan helped them become industrialized. Can we even make the parts for our weapons system without parts from Korea, Taiwan and China? How much blood will it cost. BTW, what the Hell can happen with our Boomers sitting off everyone coastline??? Let the little guy build his bombs. Maybe one will go off in his hands. Maybe his tiny Kingdom will become as polluted as parts of our “Homeland” have become.

  12. beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 1:10 pm #

    Yes, everything JHK is concerned about may come to pass. That said, I don’t believe we will go nuclear with N. Korea. Are we really that suicidal? New Orleans got hit worse with Katrina, and despite its travails, came back. Houston probably will, too – after all, there’s now a precedent. It’s still too early to know about Irma. Why worry; just prep.

    Speaking of prepping, any reasonable person should prep now for possible future bad times. Keep cash at home. You should have bought some gold and silver coins by now; if you haven’t, buy some. Stock up on supplies.

    • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 11:06 am #

      ” New Orleans got hit worse with Katrina, and despite its travails, came back. Houston probably will, too – after all, there’s now a precedent”

      You need precedent? Hiroshima, Nagasaki….

      Bill,
      Everyone can cite gold and silver as preparation against the ‘Zombie Apocalypse”…never heard anyone cite…tools…machine tools… the means of production. When I made my decisions regarding survival in a dystopian future, I chose the means of production…no gold nor silver. Perhaps not the expected choice from a former pawnbroker.

      Guns, ammo food, medicine? Covered.

      • beantownbill. September 5, 2017 at 1:50 pm #

        Beans, blankets, bullets and booze.

        • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 2:45 pm #

          Do not forget B-b-b broads.

  13. Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 1:20 pm #

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/man-rescued-flames-burning-man-festival-184940681.html

    The man died later. The Ancient Celts used to execute criminals in such large burning figures. Perhaps he felt himself to be a spiritual criminal. More likely, it was ecstasy brought on by drugs or Game of Thrones. Or perhaps an intentional religious suicide like elderly Hindus sometimes commit during their festivals. Does anyone know if this has morphed into a religion? In any case, it probably wasn’t a good idea since probably no god is associated with this with whom he can merge. The Lords of Karma will probably go easy on him though for trying.

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 2:07 pm #

      No accounting for stupid. Guess he took the festival name literally.

    • malthuss September 4, 2017 at 3:23 pm #

      Burning Man is Bohemian Grove for commoners.

      The owl is replaced with the burning man.

  14. Cavepainter September 4, 2017 at 1:21 pm #

    Again, its calories stupid. The human psyche must shunt aside reality because confronting it head-on is too damn disturbing (anxiety speeds up the rate of caloric burn). Mom nature’s script is not for all to survive but, rather, just enough, and every behavioral trait that’s been programmed by evolutionary experience has a Bell curve profile for effectiveness (the white shirts that didn’t work for the Indians at Wounded Knee illustrate the failures on either side of the steep slope of the curve). The high middle of the curve reflects where notions — as often no less preposterous (obtuse to empirical evidence) — as the Indians’ white shirts kept the “believers” striving against odds that more objectively would have seemed impossible.

    It’s an evolved mechanism, you see: The lesson for us “carbon burners” is that calories are hard to obtain and not always reliably available (the reason calories {fat} is stored so easily for retrieval under compelling stimulus. That is, the old familiar “flight/fight reflex”. Otherwise, strong drive toward other functional behaviors of derived satisfaction like dominance in competition for opportunities to procreate and monopolize resources — all mammals as juveniles are emotionally driven to “play” roles to be acted out in adult hood).

    Sounds familiar, huh; our brain wants us to conserve calories by being as idle as possible (grow fat as couch potatoes).

    Well now, put it together; the connection between abstract “reality” and caloric burn rate: “Reality” we apprehend by processing sensory input into CONCEPTS. Yes, that’s peculiar to our specie. Keeping caloric burn rate down to approximate probability of calorie acquisition (normative during evolution) nature had to program our psyche to “conceptualize” mollifying influences over a “grasp” of reality that would cause high burn rate anxiety. Our brain is very sensitive to low blood sugar.

    Touché; so that’s why we get re-assuring nostrums from the media and politicians (Obama’s platitudes). Its good business.

    • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 4:17 pm #

      Interesting theory. I don’t know anything mathematical about evolutionary theory, but I do know that a Bell curve (what’s called a probability distribution function or pdf) is,only one type of pdf; there are others. Do you happen to know if evolutionary effectiveness is represented by a Bell curve or are you assuming it?

      Also, I don’t think evolution would select for low calorie burning over anxiety (in order to not starve) because the purpose of natural selection is not the survival of the individual, but the survival of the genes. Facing up to possible unpleasantness is more effective for genetic survival.

      • Cavepainter September 4, 2017 at 9:00 pm #

        Just a rough illustration. As you say, within the calculus of mom nature the individual isn’t any more important than, say, and individual egg or spermatozoon among the thousands. Too, tribes and societies have low ratio of survival, those that do is coincidence of whether or not embraced beliefs drive behaviors that give an edge in the quest for survival.

        Funny on that note the debate about patriarchy or matriarchy. Through history the character of societies, all and any, has been product of attempt to balance the innate tension between the two specific agenda of male and female. The ‘agenda’, in both cases, is ironed in, testament to the survival adjustment honed by the rigors of survival through evolutionary time.

        Enforcement of behavioral comportment, one sex to the other, has always been more by general consensus (decorum) rather than by edicts of prelates, officialdom or statute law (think gentlemanliness’ and ‘lady like’ in common parlance before incivility became fashionable). A ‘consensus’ not polarized by political abstractions such as patriarchy vs matriarchy, but drawn more from collective grasp of tangible reality.

        Belief about manliness or womanliness has varied greatly among societies but in all cases it is testament to global wide intuitive understanding that gender difference is distinct, but must be harmonized for societal survival. Marriage ceremonies globally ritualize merger of the two agendas according to a heritage of beliefs about sexual roles as pertain to societal survival.

        Probably the most ostensible evidence of inherent tension between the genders is the ‘in group’ humorous stereotypes applied one to the other. Doubtlessly, sympathetic exchange among peers addressing the tension inherent in cross gender relationships channels attendant frustration into outlet of humor as opposed to hostility. Functioning similarly is gender exclusive membership orders, among which often there are ceremonies kept secret from the opposite sex.

        Survival circumstance through history determined whether one agenda consensually took practical preeminence over the other, the nature of circumstances before modern times being less abstruse as are political abstractions (patriarchy vs matriarchy) now wedging the two genders apart, leaving both tangled in a crisis of obscured sexual role identity.

        And here is where we see the “Overton Window as a mechanism of political control, and with politicization of speech and thought in general, is that it causes significant collateral damage on the ability of your society to think clearly”. Physical attribute and emotional pre-disposition within each gender is measurably different – scientific rather than anecdote of ‘identity politics’ (a construct to obfuscate innate gender distinction). Consequently, a void has been created where prior existed a modeled co-existence between the genders.

  15. seawolf77 September 4, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

    North Korea is a farce. It’s almost as if Commudus has appeared on the world stage, except rather than commanding Rome, he commands the nation who fought Rome to a draw, a fate which no one would have believed possible. Remember we had just beaten the Nazi and the Japs, if you believe the movies anyway. And we couldn’t even beat little North Korea. A few years later we lost to North Vietnam. All of this while possessing nuclear weapons, which presumably could have been used, except using them would start World War 3. Truman steps in and fires Douglas. Ah what a tangled web we weave. To wit I am sick and tired of worrying about nuclear devastation. How could we lose a war when we have the most powerful weapon? Doesn’t make sense does it? I agree with Jim, WTF is Kim Jong Un looking at? Looks like a head on one of the engines I work on.

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    • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 11:09 am #

      “How could we lose a war when we have the most powerful weapon”

      Pyrrhic victory is what we are worried about.

  16. trypillian September 4, 2017 at 2:43 pm #

    I’m delighted to view the abject failure of your civil engineering ‘flood control projects’;.an oxymoron if there ever was one, but appropriate for morons, nevertheless. Good old Yankee knowhow has bit the dust or perhaps more to the point drowned in its own engineered swamp, complete with reptiles. The Emperor must drain the swamp literally which is ironic isn’t it, since he is an expert at figurative swamp draining.

  17. malthuss September 4, 2017 at 3:21 pm #

    One can be an optimist while planning for the worst.

    I disagree. Planning for the worst is realism or pessimism.

    An optimist would not do that.

    • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 4:36 pm #

      Planning for the worst is just hedging your bet. Highly optimistic investors do it. I suppose you could call it realistic, but if you do hedge, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are a pessimist. I think you have to distinguish between being generally optimistic about things and feeling pessimistic about something specific. Thus one could be both. I can say that I am optimistic about the human race’s survival prospects, but pessimistic about a financial collapse not occurring, so I would act to protect myself from the latter possibility.

      • malthuss September 4, 2017 at 4:40 pm #

        So someone can be 90% Optimist and plan for disasters.

        • capt spaulding September 4, 2017 at 5:33 pm #

          “Sometimes a pessimist is just an optimist who has extra information.” Read that somewhere.

          • DA September 4, 2017 at 6:15 pm #

            Optimistically, albeit most definitely foolishly, I followed an internet recipe for crispy, oven-broiled, Brussels Sprouts on this sunny and hot Labor Day in the Great American Southwest. Realistically, my nose, eyes, and taste buds (VERY briefly) immediately detected the stupidity of my decision, not just ONCE, but indeed TWICE!

            After a quick trip to the grocery store and an appeal to the Culinary Gods, I did what I should have the first time. I boiled the living shit out of them little green babies in a heavy beef broth for 40 minutes, sliced ’em up like butter, and sprinkled ’em liberally with Parmesan Cheese. Add a Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale or two, and all is right with the world once again!

          • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 2:47 pm #

            Capt,
            Ignorance is, indeed, blissful.

        • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 8:55 pm #

          Last weekend I spent some time preparing in case the hurricane in the Atlantic made its way up north here (now looks like it moving toward Florida) nothing big, got the generator running, chain saw tuned up and mixed a batch of 2 stroke fuel, put some jugs of water aside and bought some propane canisters for the camp stove. Also bought 10 gallons of gas.

          I’ll be damned if my neighbor didn’t come over, ask me what I was doing, and when I told him started busting my balls about it, and getting a good laugh. He’s always been a pain in the ass anyway.

          brh

          • ozone September 4, 2017 at 9:55 pm #

            BRH,
            So exactly what would this chuckling scoffer expect to receive from you in the event he needed your help in a severe weather emergency? (Jesus, everywhere you go, there’s always an asshole…) Couldn’t they just have said, “That’s a good idea”, and left it at that? There’s little courtesies that reinforce social cohesion and neighborliness and there’s thoughtless rejoinders that tear it apart… and too many fucking dummies that don’t seem to know the difference.

          • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 11:38 pm #

            What can I say Oz, the guy’s a lawyer.

            I have to admit back in 11 when we had that Halloween storm that shut the place down for 2 weeks he was pretty helpful clearing the street with chainsaws and axes so we could get out. His wife, a pretty fetching piece, set up a table in her front yard and poured chilled glasses of sparkly wine. We were 13 days without electricity that time — you remember — but everybody in our little area worked together, cookouts on the grill, coffee brewed cowboy style on my camp stove, getting news off a transistor radio, and the whole experience was rather enjoyable.

            brh

          • ozone September 5, 2017 at 8:33 am #

            BRH,
            On the Halloween storm (yes, that was a corker): Your anecdote is a prime example of how shit *really* gets done in the actual, physical world. We had the Nat’l. Guard up hyar eventually, but for the first two days, we helped each other out as best we could. Funny, no one had anything to say (or seemed to care) about what the poo-flinging bloviators in D.C. were up to. 😉

          • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 12:50 pm #

            “What can I say Oz, the guy’s a lawyer.”

            BRH,
            Tell him that you were training to be a lawyer, but were denied entrance to Law School when they found out that your parents were married….

  18. malthuss September 4, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

    In Kunstler’s world, the Apocalypse is perpetually just three weeks away. It’s been that way, week in and week out, for at least the last ten years.

    It ends with a whimper, not the Bib Bang JHK predicted.
    Death by a million cuts [and additions, of third world people.]

    • Sean Coleman September 4, 2017 at 4:00 pm #

      I believe Adam Smith put it like this: “There is a lot of ruin in a nation.”

    • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:36 pm #

      It’s our world not JHK’s. His views are correct. Even looking back no one can pick the day Rome fell. Will we even feel it? I think it will just be a slow spiraling dance of death. Millions are feeling that now. Our time will come. Forgive me for not knowing the date. JHK also. See you in the past.

  19. tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 4:26 pm #

    With continuing defiance and ironic, gleeful mockery of the United States and its President, Kim Jong Un, remembering that it was we who dropped the first two atomic bombs, has named his first two bombs Pudgy Boy and Portly Guy.

    Future bombs will be less self referential, and have names like the “Trump Terminator”, and so forth.

    There seems to be no end to his infuriating insolence.

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 6:18 pm #

      Insolence against whom? The US? Who died and left DC in charge?

    • tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 6:51 pm #

      Pudgy Kid better? Boy already used.

  20. malthuss September 4, 2017 at 4:39 pm #

    TAKI MAG COMMENT

    Albionic American • 2 hours ago

    James Howard Kunstler calls Houston a dystopian “anti-city,” or words to that effect; it wouldn’t have come into existence in the first place without cheap fossil fuels.

    Even if we could still keep Houston running like before with the available energy supplies, would we necessarily want to after Harvey? In the coming decades we might see the downsizing of established cities and the relocation of populations to areas which make more economic sense.

    Like sending Mexicans back to their own country where they really belong.

    [Also Houston has 600,000 illegals].

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    • DA September 4, 2017 at 5:47 pm #

      The number of ‘illegals” goes up in direct proportion to the number of wealthy people with too much money but too little time who hire them to do the work they either don’t have time for or simply don’t want to do. Want to get rid of illegals? Tax the fucking shit out the rich!

    • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 8:47 pm #

      600,000?

      How is that possible?

      brh

      • malthuss September 5, 2017 at 10:21 am #

        Clinton, Bush, Barry = millions of wetbacks.
        that is how.

        Search for “how” many undocumented houston?

        A Profile of Immigrants in Houston, the Nation’s Most Diverse …
        In 2013 the Houston metro area was home to 1.4 million immigrants—with the nearly 60 percent growth in its immigrant population … Illegal Immigration & Interior …
        [Search domain http://www.migrationpolicy.org] migrationpolicy.org/research/profile-immigrants-houston-natio…
        For Houston’s many undocumented immigrants, storm is just the …
        Hurricane Harvey devastation comes days before sanctuary-city crackdown; advocates say Houston will need immigrants to rebuild.
        [Search domain http://www.washingtonpost.com] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/for-houstons-many-undoc
        Houston Leads Nation for Illegal Immigrant Minors …
        Houston Leads Nation for Illegal Immigrant Minors’ Destination. Houston Leads Nation for Illegal Immigrant Minors … the illegal immigrants will impose many …
        [Search domain http://www.breitbart.com] breitbart.com/texas/2014/08/29/houston-leads-nation-for…
        Interactive: Demographics of Texas’ undocumented population
        Interactive: Demographics of Texas’ undocumented population. … which has twice as many undocumented … To read this article in one of Houston’s most …

        • malthuss September 5, 2017 at 10:22 am #

          Look at the media dis information.
          Zillions of poor mexicans = die versity.

          A Profile of Immigrants in Houston, the Nation’s Most Diverse …

  21. tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 5:30 pm #

    In Houston, oil and illegals mix very well it seems.

    Trump must put an end to DACA. The Knavish Kenyan, swinging his Knobkerie, put it in place unilaterally, adding another layer of problems and complications to an already troubled nation.

    And Congress? Here’s just a taste:

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-lawmaker-mocks-trump-great-072304088.html

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 5:53 pm #

      Trump is all show and no go. He’d never dream of ending programs that benefit his own hyper-wealthy class. Illegals are what makes it possible for him to sit in the White House.

      • tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 6:44 pm #

        If Trump were a woman he’d be called the go-go-go girl. The link above is only one example out of many illustrating the resistance he is getting from all sides. Undoing the Katzenjammer Kenyan’s work is not easy.

        The case of the Rich needing illegals is vastly overstated. Illegals are what makes it possible for Trump to sit in the WH? Damn right, his campaign against them put him in there!

        • DA September 4, 2017 at 6:56 pm #

          And his lies to his supporters will keep him there. For a time, at least.

  22. capt spaulding September 4, 2017 at 6:24 pm #

    Trump’s a bluffer on every level & Fatboy Kim knows it. Warnings only work if you have proven that you’ll back them up. That’s also what enables you to bluff. You need credibility to make it work. He raised the bet with Kim and Kim called him. Whatcha gonna do, Donald?

    • tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 7:09 pm #

      If it weren’t for China, he’d go all in. The fat rat who killed his own uncle and half brother will keep his nation in chains to satisfy his own lust for power. He’s big, for a rat, and needs the big trap.

      He knows we can’t set it, and so howls and squeals like a fat pipsqueak taunting his little sister.

  23. routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 6:56 pm #

    Happy Veterans Day! As one looking to head NWW from Jacksonville,FL. I for one do not see the glass half full. Korea, is a pawn of China so it sure looks like a fist or dollar fight with China is on the menu. President Trump is doing a great job of reminding us how lucky we are to not have President W.Bush in office. But what is of greater interest to me is how a few days after Germany said it had most of it’s gold back from France and the Fed –the price of metal has started up. It could be a great ride. To those that think JHK is a downer……. well he seems to be the optimist. Time to pause and think about our troops and ask the question how much more for an Empire built on oil.

    • tucsonspur September 4, 2017 at 7:22 pm #

      Wait, I have to check my calendar! In the not too distant future it will be take to survive, and whatever it takes.

      It’s already a great ride! Trump going full speed ahead, or trying to, with the Left and Antifa buffoons putting up barricades all the way.

      JHK in 2020!!!

  24. Pucker September 4, 2017 at 7:09 pm #

    James Sinclair says that only 15% of affected Houston residents have flood insurance, so 6 months from now expect massive foreclosures.

    • DA September 4, 2017 at 7:16 pm #

      On what? Swamp rubble?

      • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:40 pm #

        Yes. The banks will get the money or a great tax write off and tax payers and the working poor get the bill. God bless our Banks! Congressmen will make us pay for the Banks greed.

  25. FincaInTheMountains September 4, 2017 at 7:14 pm #

    In connection with rising tensions in N. Korea, I decided to count the number of warheads of a preemptive strike that was put by Russia on combat duty after 2006, when the head of the Deep State Hillary Clinton, through an article in the journal Foreign Affairs “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy” for the first time threatened Russia with a nuclear war, inevitable if Vladimir Putin would go for a third term in 2008. Here, this article can be read free of charge:

    https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dpress/docs/Press_Rise_US_Nuclear_Primacy_FA.pdf

    According to this article, the bulk of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces and the nuclear submarine then rapidly deteriorated, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, part of the Soviet nuclear warning stations wound up on the territory of Ukraine and Azerbaijan, the United States was already looking forward to a disarming attack on Russia with impunity. Actually, the EURO ABM stations in Poland and Romania were started to be built for intercepting 10% of the missiles that could survive after the first disarming strike.

    Russia responded to this plan with an accelerated modernization of its nuclear submarines, under the cover of which the Air Force, the Land Forces and the Navy are now being modernized, and since the Cold War showed the futility of the purely defensive strategy of “retaliatory strike,” declared in its new military doctrine its readiness to strike preemptively.

    And since Caliber missiles are integrated with 533 mm torpedoes launch tubes, the torpedoes will be recalculated into Calibers, which in the future can be replaced with hypersonic Zircon missiles whose flying time to any point in the United States will be no more than 15 minutes. The “Zircon” missiles were successfully tested in April this year.

    In total, these submarines put into service after 2006 can carry 2,300 thermonuclear warheads, and another 428 sea-based warheads should come to service this year.

    The Russian Foreign Ministry threatened the US with a military response

    Moscow allows for a military response to the build-up of the THAAD missile defense system near Russian borders, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

    “If all this happens at such alarming rates, it is inevitable at some point; perhaps, the question will arise about our reaction in the military sense of the word, in the creation of some kind of counterbalances.” Ryabkov said, commenting on the deployment of THAAD in South Korea.

    http://expert.ru/2017/09/4/mid/

    We are talking about deployment of Iskanders cruise missiles in the Far East rigged for automatic launch. If they are placed in North Korea, then it will be a bomb.

    By the way, that’s were the things are leading to.

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    • DA September 4, 2017 at 7:54 pm #

      On a positive note, maybe the hurricanes will get us first. One can hope anyway. By the way, aren’t you situated in the Caribbean? How’s the weather down that way today?

      • FincaInTheMountains September 4, 2017 at 8:00 pm #

        Looks like we are expecting some heavy rain on Thursday, but usually were I live the mountain range deflects the worst of a hurricane.

  26. BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 8:45 pm #

    A 10 ft gator in the living room? Jesus Christ!

    And I’m reading there’s water moccasins, 5 ft long snakes crawling all over too.

    Maybe it wasn’t too good of an idea to build a city with 4 million people in it on top of that swamp.

    brh

    • seawolf77 September 5, 2017 at 2:02 pm #

      Well at least they didn’t build a bowl of levees like my idiot hometown New Orleans.

  27. meargen September 4, 2017 at 8:46 pm #

    I visited Houston some years ago since a GI friend of mine lived there. I found it flat, unattractive, a mix of postwar housing and super chrome skyscrapers. The Astrodome was, I thought, particularly ugly, and much of the city reminded me of JHK’s descriptions of LA/Hollywood of a city living with outside ugliness but having movie-set interiors.
    My friend, who was Mexican, later married a woman from Colombia. She never spoke English because, as she said, ‘everyone here speaks Spanish.’ And we went through entire swaths of Houston entirely Hispanic.
    As my friend cheerfully said, ‘we’re taking back this part of America and there’s nothing you gringos can do about it.’
    That being said, I figure the flooding would be catastrophic for such a flat area. I recall a publicity brochure about Houston from the seventies:
    ‘Houston is a Boston Brahmin’s nightmare. It’s got hundreds of miles of freeways, a gas station on every block, countless cars, no buses, subways or trains, a brash attitude that won’t be put in its place…Houston has got what everybody else in the world wants: money, guts, untold prosperity, vitality…If Ulysses had had a choice of Houston or the sirens, he’d have picked Houston. THAT’S how strong the lure is. It’s even stronger for an American, born and bred on the ideals of the West. Free men. No nonsense. Don’t waste time. Don’t tread on me. Liberty or death. Don’t fence me in. If you don’t like it where you are, move on…If there’s any city that seems to have a monopoly on the American spirit, that city has got to be Houston.’
    It looks like recovery is beginning, but seeing heaps of waste and wrecked housing and goods makes you wonder how this will effect the economy. Houston will recover, but they took a hell of a beating.

    Meanwhile, looks like North Korea is in our sights…ours? Wonder if it’s Trump or the generals simply pulled him into a room, told him what’s what, and he had to go along, or, he decided why not?
    I agree with Bannon that there really is no military option. A war would be nasty and I worry less about N. Korea then Russia and China deciding enough is enough. I fear that all of this goes back to 9/11, when almost immediately after that day, the Neocons had a bucket list of countries sponsoring terrorism that had to be overthrown: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan,Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
    Maybe they decided it’s North Korea’s turn.
    I get an uneasy feeling we are repeating Czarist Russia, and Melania and Jarod Kushner are a kind of inner circle directing what gets to trump’s desk. God help us if a Rasputin gets their ear.

    • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:44 pm #

      The SW was lost decades ago. The Brown Buffalo won.

      • malthuss September 5, 2017 at 10:27 am #

        A Profile of Immigrants in Houston, the Nation’s Most Diverse …

  28. Janos Skorenzy September 4, 2017 at 8:48 pm #

    http://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2017/08/germans-investigate-drugging-population.html

    They’re testing using Oxy to get people to accept Muslim immigrants. The evil is just beyond belief. They deserve to swing.

    • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 9:35 pm #

      Hey Vlad, polls say, Burkha Merkel is way ahead in in the presidential race, although I assert its not much of a contest as her opponent is a big lefty who loves muzzies almost as much as Burkha. The majority of the German people don’t seem to mind what’s happening to them or to their country.

      If they don’t care why should we? We got our own problems here.

      brh

      • Janos Skorenzy September 5, 2017 at 12:50 am #

        Yes, your boys or rather those behinds them did an incredible job on the German psyche. Holocaust Memorials and “art” are everywhere in modern Germany. They were far better off under Russian control.

        Your casual dismissal of tens of millions of your brothers shows how deep the illness is.

  29. nsa September 4, 2017 at 9:27 pm #

    James K. Polk stole half of Mexico fair and square, and then euchred the Brits out of a large swath of Canada without firing a shot…….but now the Mexicans have stolen it back as cowardly moronic whitey lacked the will to defend and enforce his southern border. CA is now down to 37% non-hispanic white according to the Census bureau. Get it? Game over. TX, AZ, CO, OR, and WA will be the next states to enjoy the Reconquista. Who will rule CA? It certainly won’t be the browns, blacks, or white trash……more likely a loose coalition of moneyed jooies, Chinese with direct financial ties to Asia, and assorted LGBT perverts like the creep who runs Apple. The future has arrived early in the formerly american southwest……….

    • BackRowHeckler September 4, 2017 at 9:37 pm #

      Yeah, it aint looking good for the home team, that’s for sure.

      brh

      • beantownbill. September 4, 2017 at 10:29 pm #

        Yeah, but it’s only the bottom of the sixth.

        • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:48 pm #

          Been in extra innings since the 60’s…..God bless the Church.

    • malthuss September 5, 2017 at 7:17 pm #

      600k wets in Houston. see my other post.

  30. Pucker September 4, 2017 at 10:08 pm #

    I guess that we’ll never know what the Awan Brothers were up to, and what The Clinton Foundation was all about?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zyW3nLeYXrU

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    • routersurfer September 4, 2017 at 10:46 pm #

      Have hope. Chelsea will run. The show goes on.

  31. Pucker September 4, 2017 at 11:40 pm #

    Didn’t there used to be a TV show called “Married with Kids” that mocked American men and family life?

    • DA September 5, 2017 at 11:09 am #

      Married with Children, featuring Ed O’Neill as the immortal Al Bundy. Guess he did pretty well, as he’s been basically reprising a slightly updated role in Modern Family for the past eight years.

  32. pequiste September 5, 2017 at 12:33 am #

    “Future bombs will be less self referential, and have names like the “Trump Terminator”, and so forth.”
    Tucsonspur

    What a fabulous idea for the marketing people in Best Korea; how about a “Name That Bomb” contest?

    All they need do is have a web site that will take entries from around the world at five bucks or 10 (or a Bitcoin) a pop and blammo – not only a great fund raiser and morale booster but fun times for all with great prizes including a grand prize of an all expenses paid trip to a get down weekend of all-out Juche partying with the man-in-charge himself: Kim Jung UN.

    Consider some of the potential entries-

    – “Take This You Running Dogs of Capitalist Imperialism”

    – “Suk Muk Dik Yankee Plik”

    – ” Juche Party Favor For You Stupid Amelican”

    – “You Think Kimchee Hot Bourgeoise Bastard?”

    – and the ever popular ” Fuck You Round Eye”

    With as many entries as participants may like to make there will sure to be some memorable monikers for the munitions. I can’t wait to enter.

    • elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 11:24 am #

      “You Think Kimchee Hot Bourgeoise Bastard?”

      Pequiste

      Where do I send the money?

      • elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 2:23 pm #

        “You think Kimchee Hot? Taste the Sun!

  33. FincaInTheMountains September 5, 2017 at 2:36 am #

    It was already noted that the crisis with the North Korean nuclear program occurs whenever it is for some reason beneficial to the USDS (United States Deep State). This time, the tests of the hydrogen bomb and the launch of the ballistic missile Pyongyang conducted on the eve of the opening of the BRICS summit in China. Thus the ball was passed onto the Trump’s gate.

    However, Trump did not even raise a brow, like the Pentagon, who did not say much about why a vaunted American anti-missile system THAAD did not knock down a North Korean missile when it was approaching Japan.

    If we add to this the fact that Ukraine loses after the “revolution of dignity” the advanced technologies that it inherited from the Soviet Union, including aircraft construction (“Antonov” moves to China), missile technology (“Yuzhmash”) then a very simple scheme emerges. The “Deep State” of the US – USDS – itself pumps North Korea with technology, including from Ukraine, to then work out on it its worn out image of the chief cowboy on the planet. Kim plays along hoping that the Americans will not push to the end and their whole game is just a huge bluff.

    Perhaps Russia and China are aware of this fixed double play of the USDS and Kim and support North Korea in obtaining the appropriate technologies, knowing that the USDS is behind all this, but for the time being it can not expose the Americans for various objective reasons (perhaps just too early) and gently heat the situation, taking advantage of the fact that the situation around the North Korean nuclear program is further exacerbating the internal political crisis in the US (the actual United States).

    USDS in the spring of this year almost managed to persuade Trump to escalate the situation around the North Korean nuclear program. But now, judging by how diligently Trump distances himself from this topic, he realized that a military solution to this problem would be his big mistake and a setup by his principled opponents.

    • DA September 5, 2017 at 11:18 am #

      It was already noted that the crisis with the North Korean nuclear program occurs whenever it is for some reason beneficial to the USDS (United States Deep State). This time, the tests of the hydrogen bomb and the launch of the ballistic missile Pyongyang conducted on the eve of the opening of the BRICS summit in China. Thus the ball was passed onto the Trump’s gate

      My thoughts exactly. This is all just a very elaborate subterfuge to keep global tensions high, all the more beneficial because North Korea borders on both China and Russia. Rest assured, if Dennis freaking Rodman can get a personal audience with “Dear Leader”, then the CIA or one of their cronies could have easily knocked him off a few hundred times over.

  34. FincaInTheMountains September 5, 2017 at 11:01 am #

    Finca’s guide to the economic crisis
    (Warning – ideas expressed are perpendicular to the ideas of our esteemed host)

    First of all, what is a revolution and how does it differ from a coup? A revolution can mean two completely different things:

    1. A complete change of the elite, that is, those same Dante’s 100 thousand vacancies, usually formed as a result of the resettlement of the former elites, either to places of incarceration, or to a Better World.

    2. A fundamental change in the socio-political structure of society

    The Great French Revolution, along with the Great October Revolution, combined both options, but the end of the 20th century showed that the first option is not necessarily connected with the second.

    For example, the disintegration of the Soviet Union led to a cardinal change in the socio-political structure of society, while the Soviet nomenklatura either stayed in its offices, or moved to the next floor, often becoming the owners of those enterprises that it had previously ruled as Soviet “bosses”.

    Similar processes have occurred in other countries of the Socialist Bloc, and the fact that these revolutions later turned out to be a victory in the Cold War, in my opinion, quite clearly speaks of the conspiracy of socialist nomenklatura with the Western elites: “We give you our country, and you help us become bosses-owners.”

    The decisive role in this mutually sweet process was played by a FED printing press, which at the time of the orgasm of Soviet privatization turned not only into a real Philosophical Stone, but also into a financial endorphin. And from the premonition of dollar trade in the largest piece of real estate in the world, the orgasm of copulating has reached such a level that in the era of the Clinton super bowl, more than 20 trillion dollars of unsecured dollars were rumored to be printed, just to express delight at possessing such a wonderful geopolitical partner.

    And then came Putin and spoiled everything.

    Returning to the real world was painful, endorphin starvation simply unbearable, and after Bush, instead of striving with Putin, discovered the soul in his eyes and together they tried not only to slow down the printing press, but also to get out of the body of the world the toxic products of the decay of these 20 trillion dollars, the Transatlantic Virtual was hammered in convulsions and proclaimed the slogan “Endorphins or Death!”.

    Satisfied with the fate of Russia, doomed in his opinion to die as a result of the demographic catastrophe, the Transatlantic Virtual turned into a virtual bull and prepared to kidnap the invitingly spread Europe.

    But at that moment the Texas cowboy Bush grabbed the bull by the horns and not only cut off the Clinton Penis of MCIWorldcom, that in excited state turned into an “Information Superhighway”, but also castrated the Global Virtual, ruthlessly cutting off the balls of Alan Greenspan’s creative financial instruments. Meanwhile, it was precisely these organs that produced not only financial endorphins, but also financial testosterone of the trans-Atlantic Bull.

    In addition, the fighters for the freedom of Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, etc., who lost financial endorphins they were sucking off of the Bull’s dick, went for the “international terrorism” on the basis of abstinence, trying to force another dose. This conflict led not only to the paroxysm of Al-Qaida 911 withdrawal syndrome, but also caused Clintonoids to first accuse Bush of excesses of abstinence, and then, using controlled media, to mix Bush’s brilliant victory in Iraq shit with, turning it into defeat.

    Meanwhile, Bush with the help of Iraqi oil from the West Qurna field was going to stimulate the growth of the US economy during the transition period of sterilization of surplus dollar mass and control inflation if Clintonoids, including Chinese and European, begin to move these 20 trillion into the material values.

    The fact is that the capitalist system does not provide for other ways to destroy already printed money, other than inflation, and Bush, representing the interests of the real sector of the American economy, began printing dollars, simply in order to reduce the relative influence of Clinton money invested in stock markets NASDAQ and AMEX, which by that time were already tightly controlled by the Bush Securities Commission.

    Moreover, he softened the negative consequences of this policy, which led to an increase in the price of oil to $140 / bbl by an increase in global production by 20%, while cheapening the goods in the US by increasing imports from China and tying money leaving stock markets in mortgage pyramid. That is, in every way stimulating investment in real estate and housing construction on the principle of “the dollar will collapse, and houses will remain, even if at some point they lose their solvent owners.”

    Such a cool guy this Texan cowboy from Yale. And his advisors were just amazing!

    This led to the fact that the dollar began a gradual decline in relation to the Euro to the level of 1.6 EURUSD, while not losing the purchasing power in the US, which provided Bush with social stability.

    I remember how before the crisis began on the New York shops, “tourists” from Europe went by herds, furiously buying up high-quality Chinese computers, so flying to the USA for intercontinental shopping allowed to save considerable money.

    At the same time, all the freshly printed dollars received the Bush clan and the real sector of the US economy, the Asian economies and especially China grew due to the growth in the quantity and quality of goods exported to Europe and the USA, and Europe increased its financial strength due to the growth of the euro, though suffering as a result this growth from the reduction in production. And only the Clintonoids, who controlled the so-called high-tech, and in fact the virtual sector of the US economy, not forgetting about the Bush amputation and apparently tormented by phantom pains, watched helplessly the decrease in the relative size of their imaginary penis, the measurement of which was the only function of the financial system that they created. It seemed that for several more years the world would return to a multipolar system, bypassing the economic and political collapse of the United States.

    To be continued…

    • DA September 5, 2017 at 11:23 am #

      LOL! I love the colorful metaphors today! Great post so far too!

  35. Janos Skorenzy September 5, 2017 at 1:30 pm #

    Why does the sun go on shining?
    Why does the sea rush to shore?
    Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
    If there’s no DACA anymore.

    Why do the birds go on singing?
    Why do the stars glow above?
    Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
    It ended when DACA lost our love.

    I wake up in the morning and I wonder.
    Why everything is the same as it was.
    And I can’t understand,
    No I can’t understand why life goes on the way it does.

    Why does my heart go on beating?
    Why do these eyes of mine cry?
    Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
    It ended when DACA said goodbye.

    Goodbye Dreamer Bastards. We reuniting you with the families who sent you away. Give them our luv. Take this time to learn Spanish so you can communicate.

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    • DA September 5, 2017 at 3:18 pm #

      Janos waxes poetic? What’s this world coming to? Next thing you know Thwack and Janet will be… but wait!

    • Janos Skorenzy September 5, 2017 at 6:13 pm #

      Fill my heart with song,
      Let me sing for evermore.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hxibHJOE5E

      Frank was a first class wop. During “Civil Rights, he would punch out racist counter men who wouldn’t serve Sammy, yet he never tired of hanging around with Mafia murderers. Not all Italians are White, yet Old Blue Eyes was, yet he was still a punk, a very talented one of course.

      • DA September 5, 2017 at 8:05 pm #

        Frank was the one singer of his generation that I actually liked. It was all in the phrasing, in which he was the universally recognized master. The 60’s almost destroyed him, but he came out the other side even better, though never as popular again, of course.

        • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:18 pm #

          Knew a older woman, once a striking beauty, who “dated” Frank while she was “assistant talent director” at the Vegas Sands in the ’70’s…she hated him with a white-hot passion.

          She swore she never slept with him…of course! He wouldn’t let ’em sleep!

  36. Janos Skorenzy September 5, 2017 at 1:36 pm #

    The new DACA will mean Deport Aliens Completely Already.

    • tucsonspur September 5, 2017 at 2:20 pm #

      Right. The old DACA was caca. Obama caca.

  37. seawolf77 September 5, 2017 at 2:01 pm #

    The Racist GOAT gloats. Man that’s ugly.

  38. FincaInTheMountains September 5, 2017 at 2:09 pm #

    Putin: the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine would be its sentence

    Sometimes the Western press is much more informative than the Russian. Russian press lately publish a complete nonsense about America – apparently they just lost their way in the “forest” of three pines, and even then, without the theory of Colored Projects in application to Bastinda, the Great and Terrible, the conclusion that in the United States everything gone nuts is simply inevitable.

    Although in reality everything is vice versa, but I’m not talking about this now, but about how the Western press interpreted yesterday’s interview of Vladimir Putin on the basis of his visit to China.

    The Russian media mainly drew attention to the fact that Vladimir Putin is not against peacekeepers in Ukraine, and Western media reacted to his words that Russia reserves the right to respond to American artistry with Russian diplomatic missions, as well as a warning about what will happen in the case of providing lethal weapons to Ukraine.

    They interpreted his words as a warning to the US that in this case Donbass will get everything necessary to go on the offensive and take Kiev and Lvov.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-warns-u-not-supply-ukraine-defensive-weapons-093143048.html

  39. pequiste September 5, 2017 at 2:34 pm #

    It’s even odds on which storm will be worse: the repeal of DACA or Hurrican Irma?

    Consider the fallout from the illegal immigrant policy reversal as a shit storm versus the all-out wind and water devastation of Mother Nature’s storm.

    The Donald is going to have a September to remember!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk

  40. elysianfield September 5, 2017 at 2:55 pm #

    A vile rumor has it that Thwack, enamored of Janet’s obvious charms, have them both taken leave from their labors on the site to consort in an unholy union. When will this ill starred honeymoon end? Will it end with blood (and I don’t mean on the sheets…)?

    Lookin’ for Love in All the Wrong Places….

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  41. capt spaulding September 5, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

    Interesting to see hurricane Irma described as being unprecedented. It appears to one who is a novice to the effects of hurricanes, that it could be a result of the effects of global warming. Far be it from me to project future weather on the say-so of 97% of the climatoligists, as opposed to the 3 % who say it is nonsense. All I can say is that the one thing about science is that it doesn’t care about what you believe, it’s gonna happen anyway. The only analogy that I can think of is when you step into the boxing ring thinking that you are the best fighter, only to realize that by round three, you were wrong. At that point you have some serious thinking to do. ie: how can I save my ass? Somewhere you have to accept that you were wrong and then deal with the reality that follows. Not being a weather expert, I will have to depend on what I am told by the majority of climate experts. It certainly seems that people should at least pay attention to what the majority of scientists say. Me: I tend towards pessimisim, and prepare myself accordingly. The rest of you are on your own. Go ahead and build your houses on flood plains, but try not to bitch when the elements rip you to shreds. To me, the people of Houston don’t deserve that much sympathy. Anybody who looks ahead should have seen the reality of another hurricane. If you didn’t consider that fact, my heart goes out to you, but you only have yourself to blame. You should have known better. One hint I will offer you: don’t rebuild on a known flood plain. If you do, that’s your problem. God does not suffer fools gladly.

  42. fodase September 5, 2017 at 3:36 pm #

    i count about 5-6 years now you endworlders have been spot on wrong

    see you at your 200th birthday, we’ll discuss the coming apocalypse together with your very, very sexy droid wife

    • Therian September 5, 2017 at 4:29 pm #

      The problem with end-of-the-worlders isn’t that they’re wrong. It’s that they’re early like the Boy Who Cried “Wolf”. All one has to do is a simple analysis of the American, European, and Japanese economies. Worldwide, we have really, really bad demographics with birthrates way below replacement.

      All the governments of the civilized world seem to be in a catastrophic amount of debt. In America, households could not be worse shape since their incomes have fallen $4,000 in the last nine years (from $57,000 to $53,000) and they average $15,000 of installment credit debt if they hold such debt.

      Our government’s debt is about 130% of GDP. But the situation isn’t much better in Germany, Japan, and Britain. This is exactly the wrong time for Trump to be touting reductions in taxes. The State of Kansas went over the line in tax reduction and their state budget cratered. They had to raise taxes just to keep the state government alive.

      So, Fodase, you can whistle past the graveyard all you want but the end-of-the-worlders are going to be correct and you (and we) won’t have to wait too much longer. It’s as inevitable as spring grass.

    • capt spaulding September 5, 2017 at 9:24 pm #

      My droid came with solar panels. I came home the other night, and she asked why I was carrying a gun. I looked her dead in the ocular implants and said “It’s those fucking decepticons.” She laughed, I laughed, the toaster laughed. I shot the toaster. I knew I couldn’t trust that sonofabitch.

      • DA September 7, 2017 at 12:14 pm #

        LOL! That’s thar’s funny!

  43. fodase September 5, 2017 at 4:39 pm #

    So, Fodase, you can whistle past the graveyard all you want but the end-of-the-worlders are going to be correct and you (and we) won’t have to wait too much longer. It’s as inevitable as spring grass.

    all worldenders have been wrong since time immemorial.

    btw, how much is ‘too much longer’, since that seems to be the in-phrase with your club?

    regarding now is the wrong time to lower taxes…..hahahaha, raise them to 110% and government will still spend more than it steals.

    sheesh

  44. wm5135 September 5, 2017 at 6:52 pm #

    Just a note: There are some supply shortages on the Emerald Coast this afternoon as motorists and residents start to prepare for Irma.

    “Kid are you ready for the wild ride?”

  45. FincaInTheMountains September 5, 2017 at 7:37 pm #

    Finca’s guide to the economic crisis – Part 2

    It seemed that for several more years the world would return to a multipolar system, bypassing the economic and political collapse of the United States.

    And then there was a certain catastrophe not only of economic, but also historical, cultural and possibly metaphysical nature.

    I honestly do not know what actually happened, but several obvious causes of the catastrophe can be mentioned, without forgetting that these reasons can not explain what actually happened.

    1. First of all, George W. Bush and the group that supported him could not nominate a worthy candidate in the 2008 elections. Rather, there were such candidates – Giuliani and Huckabee, but the circumstances of their failure are another story. But it is very interesting that in this failure of Bush, the support of Senator McCain by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rick Perry, the governors of California and Texas – the two largest and most influential from the electoral point of view, played a very big role. The further fate of these politicians showed that this was their biggest mistake.

    2. The European Union, which has always disliked Bush, who defended the priority of the US national interests over the interests of NATO and the so-called global West, entered into an anti-Bush conspiracy with Clintonoids, to which Condoleezza Rice and a number of other figures of Bush administration have joined.

    This was due to the fact that the European Union, contrary to popular belief, hates and fears Russia more than the US, and the Bush policy led to $140 per barrel, as a result of which Russia finally broke free of debt bondage and, by creating stabilization and other funds, very vigorously began to form its own, independent from the West, banking system.

    Suffice it to say that by 2008, Russia’s state debt fell to $50 billion, and gold and foreign exchange reserves increased to $750 billion dollars. Neo-colonization of Russia kicked a proverbial bucket, and after the visit to Brussels in September 2006 of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovych, Ukraine’s membership in NATO kicked the same bucket as well.

    In general, the European Union had to start thinking not about the Energy Charter and human rights, but about the responsibility for the results of its civilizing policy in the post-Soviet space and the Balkans. From such a perspective, you can start kissing not only with Condoleezza Rice(who is pretty ugly), but with Osama bin Laden and Russian Nazis. Actually, the EU has nobody else to ally with, their double-standard morality stinks to high heaven and unlike States, they do it behind your back.

    3. Evidently leaked information about the approach of the Georgian war of 08.08.08 gave rise to uncertainty in the end result of this adventure among a number of investors, much more realistic in their assessments, compared with regular analysts and propagandists.

    Investors knew perfectly well that the real estate market is overheated, that the mortgage in the US is financed by Japanese money, issued under 1-2% with the help of carry-trades, insured by FOREX options with a huge shoulder.

    This made these investments extremely sensitive to the results of political intrigues, which seemed to have nothing to do with the mortgage. In this situation, any destabilizing factor can lead to catastrophic consequences due to a loss of confidence in financial and political institutions. A simple psychological effect called “where it’s thin, there it tears” – the general uncertainty in the political situation forced investors to withdraw money from the most risky, politically motivated investments.

    Now it is certainly ridiculous to read economists’ explanations that sub-prime mortgage lending was unnecessarily risky – this money simply had nowhere to go, and if they had not been given out as mortgages to anyone who wanted them in the early 2000s, the financial system would have been completely destabilized with unpredictable consequences already in 2001-2003.

    Does anyone remembers what was happening at that time in Russia and the rest of the world, because in addition to the Asian economic crisis, Clinton’s open support for Chechen fighters, the political crisis in the US in 2000, the military crisis associated with the Kursk nuclear submarine, the 911 attack, the second Chechen war, the mass terrorist attacks in Moscow and the Caucasus, the Iraqi, Kurdish, Serbian, Macedonian, Transnistrian crises, the conflict with Georgia over Pankisi, the Gongadze case and the possible conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we could still have hyper-stagflation in Europe and the United States and the disintegration of the world financial system.

    And by the way, Russia’s economic growth in 2000s was provided by the American financial bubbles. In addition, it should not be forgotten that in the previous period in 1999, General Wesley Clark ordered “to destroy the Russians in Pristina”, and in connection with “millennium bug” the possibility of unauthorized launches was seriously discussed.

    Moreover, friendship forever between Yeltsin and Clinton ended with Clinton’s threats in connection with the start of the second Chechen war, vividly recalling similar and very recent threats against Milosevic in connection with his similar actions in Kosovo.

    And Yeltsin responded to the threats with a public reminder to Clinton from China that Russia has a full nuclear triad.

    What happened then is well known – the subprime crisis created the banking crisis in England, which was successfully stopped by the decisive actions of the government.

    But someone seemed to deliberately splash gasoline into the fire, refusing to support the bank “Lehman Brothers”, as a result of which the achievements of Bush were thrown into the trash, and Saakashvili got into his hands the torch with the Olympic flame.

    The first global revolution began, of which the recent events in Russia and US are the part. And this revolution has already led to a complete change of elites in a number of countries, leaving the socio-political structure of society in them unchanged.

    Which, however, is not for long.

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    • DA September 7, 2017 at 9:41 pm #

      Nice post Finca, and I (at least) appreciate all the effort you must have put into it. You’re obviously a very deep thinker, albeit with a decided economic bias/focus, which is my chief critique. Nonetheless, I don’t want to piss all over your parade here, but I have a few counter points that won’t belabor any longer than necessary:

      1. You totally missed the great elephant in the room of any discussion of world politics in the post-Cold war era: 9-11 and the US’s unilaterally declared Global War on/of Terror. It was and will prove to be THE defining historical of our era, PERIOD.

      2. Not surprisingly then, you entirely missed the fact that the Bush/Clinton economic/political dynamic is nothing more than a good cop/bad cop strategy which was planned from the very start when Bill Clinton was first supported to supplant “old school” Poppy Bush (and his more vocal opponent Ross Perot, who actually very presciently spelled out in GREAT DETAIL the stakes of that year’s elections) in 1992. This dynamic was then triangulated completely with the election of the Kenyan who shall not be named in 2008, the perfect meld of political ideologies and races, and who similarly laid the ground for all the rest of this multi-sexual bullshit we see today.

      3. You may or may not be right about Trump’s election truly throwing a monkey wrench into all these proceedings, but it’s still too early to tell with any degree of certainty at this point. The only things we think we “know” about the US deep state in real time we have to draw from inference, which is to say they’re simply educated guesses. With a WHOLE LOT less than perfect information at that!

      In summary, if I was going to assess the sae history through a mostly financial prism like you did, I’d say this: yes, the Clinton’s were chosen SPECIFICALLY to sell globalism to the masses in 1992, a task which Bill was ideally suited for and which Poppy Bush was abysmally prepared to defend against. In retrospect, my Uncle Dave (long dead now) was right: Ross Perot TRULY WAS the canary in the coal mine! The good cop/bad cop dynamic was then set up and played out all through the 90’s. But underneath the apparent strife the seeds for the next round of escalation were already being sown with the OKC and other faux “terrorist” incidents throughout the world. BOTH political parties/persuasions were complicit in this!

      In 2000, the Bush/Cheney team were recruited for their name and expertise respectively to play bad cop. The election itself was the first sign that the fix was in, but the top secret Cheney “energy summit” soon after, and 9-11 after that, certainly sealed the deal for anyone who cared to look, and the next eight years amounted to nothing less than completely legalized open criminality.

      All of which played out exactly to plan with the devastating crash of 2008, which, little did we know at the time, was but a test run for even greater things to come. A doddering old fool and an incoherent “janet-like” bitch were trotted out against and eloquent “Super-Negro,” who then proceeded to rubber stamp all the financial, political, and international chicanery implemented by the previous band of criminals.

      Which leads us to Trump and present day. What to make of him at this point? Who the fuck knows, but one thing I’m quite sure of is that he’s not a return to the “good old days” of Bush/Cheney, and that if anyone seriously thinks that one side or the other of the current political dynamic in the US is “right” and the other is “wrong,” then their analysis is DEEPLY FLAWED right from the start.

      • FincaInTheMountains September 8, 2017 at 8:26 am #

        1. Ross Perot was a 100% Clinton spoiler-wrench thrown into election campaign of Bush Senior. By doing that, Clintons broke all gentlemen agreements that used o stabilize US 2-party system and Republican response came fast and furious.

        2. Barack Obama is not a “Kenyan”, he is Kennedy and politically and philosophically close to Bush clan, may be he is actually a leader of the Bush clan now.

  46. Janos Skorenzy September 5, 2017 at 8:33 pm #

    Madness of the End Times. Trainees or Trannys: you can’t have both. Men or Womb Men: you have to choose. Soldiers or Bradley Mannings Soul Jahs: there can only be one or the other.

    A FEW GOOD WOMEN

    To the surprise of liberals, a few good women have protested. Former Army Spec. Catherine Aspy, for instance. Her account, “published in Reader’s Digest, February, 1999,” was relayed by columnist Fred Reed. Aspy, who had “graduated from Harvard in 1992 and enlisted in the Army in 1995,” said this:

    “I was stunned. The Army was a vast day-care center, full of unmarried teen-age mothers using it as a welfare home. I took training seriously and really tried to keep up with the men. I found I couldn’t. It wasn’t even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so huge. There were always crowds of women sitting out exercises or on crutches from training injuries. They [the Army] were so scared of sexual harassment that women weren’t allowed to go anywhere without another woman along. They called them ‘Battle Buddies.’ It was crazy. I was twenty-six years old but I couldn’t go to the bathroom by myself.”

    NEUTERED SINCE THE 1990s

    Biological reprogramming and brainwashing, courtesy of Rome on the Potomac, were already plain to see in a Pentagon-endorsed VH1 series entitled “Military Diaries,” which this writer covered in 2002. Touted as a “powerful firsthand look at our heroes, their stories and the music that gets them through,” this “militarytainment” could but strengthen the resolve of the enemy.

    Welcoming the viewer were the thrusting pelvis and pendulous breasts of a recruit by the name of Charlie—swaying to the music—followed by Laurie, Danielle, Paul, and Jimmie, among others. These poster-girlie recruits wanted viewers to know that their “real duty is to provide humanitarian aid to the Afghans” (it’s in the revised Oath of Enlistment, apparently). They shared their dreams of being “self-help authors.” And they imparted the joys of manning posts like “Diversity Awareness Officers” and “Drug and Alcohol Counselors.” Suffice it to say that the “human face” of our coed men and women of the armed forces exudes mush, not mettle. “Military Diaries” was a motivational video for America’s ascetic, Islamic enemy.

    Instead of being ashamed of this let-it-all-hang-out credo, the men at the top authorized it, proud to parade emotional whimsy like they would a Purple Heart.

    Not to venture into X-rated conversation, but XX in the military has been a boon to … urology. The “politically driven reformation,” since the 1990s, has seen racy descriptions in medical journals about incontinence and urinary tract infections (UTIs) plaguing our military lasses in deployment settings. In addition to their inferior physical strength and superior propensity for neuroses and sexual showiness; women’s urinary tracts suffer in “austere environments.” ISIS formations, needless to say, are free of UTIs, because they’re not freighted by women.

    In any event, LGBTQ is a fig leaf, camouflaging that the army was neutered by “recruiting nineties style,” where nothing less than “proportional representation” of women became the recruiting goal.

    The official line then became “something like, ‘We want you [ladies] to join us; we want you to stay with us. Tell us what you don’t feel ‘comfortable’ with so we can change it.”

    And they did.

    Ultimately, the idea that everyone is eligible to serve in government institutions runs counter to the imperative to contain government growth and reach.

  47. beantownbill. September 5, 2017 at 11:29 pm #

    Numbers don’t have anything to do with the economy. Rather psychology does. Think about it. If numbers had economic meaning, can you really tell me that America could operate with trillion dollar annual deficits, a national debt of $20T plus trillions more in unfunded obligations and trillions lost or unaccounted for? The numbers are too large, too unwieldy.

    It’s faith in the government that keeps things running. The masses still believe the government can keep our society going despite the bad economic numbers. Therefore

    • beantownbill. September 5, 2017 at 11:43 pm #

      …they keep participating in America’s functioning. And that’s why futurist prognosticators are always off in their doom and gloom predictions. The predictors are using number logic, but they’re neglecting human psyche factors. The country will keep on rolling along and the markets will continue to rise. It’s psychology, you see. One day, and no one really knows when, people will wake up and their brains will realize that everything is really shit. That’s when a reset will happen. It’s human nature. It has to happen, but the magic day could be tomorrow or in a hundred years.

      • DA September 7, 2017 at 12:16 pm #

        Good point bb! But the number logic is shit too.

  48. BackRowHeckler September 5, 2017 at 11:43 pm #

    I’ve got a book around here somewhere ‘The Old Army’ by James Parker; he was a West Point graduate in the mid 1870s, fought the Sioux and the Apache on the western frontier, and in the Philippines was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1901. Then he fought the Moros in Southern Philippines under Hugh Scott and John Pershing. Anyway he was a cavalryman and talks about the companies of blacksmiths and horse doctors (vets) that accompanied a US army that relied on horses for mobility and logistics. He retired as a General and even volunteered, as an old man, to go to France in 1917.

    Wouldn’t General Parker be surprised now with this new army; instead of horse doctors accompanying the troops we have OBGYN specialists; not blacksmiths to shod horses but spa people to give pedicures in the field. And Corpsman and medics, not just handing out fistfuls of malaria and dysentery pills, but special medication for Tranny Troops transitioning from male to female.

    brh

    • beantownbill. September 5, 2017 at 11:47 pm #

      Don’t despair, Marlin, relatively soon it won’t make a difference.

      If I knew I could have gotten free pedicures, I might have enlisted in the 1960’s.

      • BackRowHeckler September 6, 2017 at 12:00 am #

        I don’t think the army gave out pedicures in the 60s Bill. This is a more recent development.

        brh

        • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:38 am #

          Don’t despair, Marlin, relatively soon it won’t make a difference.–

          This from an optimist?

  49. BackRowHeckler September 5, 2017 at 11:58 pm #

    New TV show coming soon on Fox, ‘Valor’.

    The CO is a squared away, by the book black guy. The hero appears to be a babe who looks good in battle fatigues, takes no sh-t from fellow sexist (white) soldiers, and kicks enemy ass with no problem. And from the trailer it looks like she has a black sidekick, with whom she is having an affair (against all military protocols)

    I think we have an emmy award winner here.

    brh

    • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:03 am #

      One of my favorite blogs is gone. Bye bye Ambrose Kane.
      The blog reported on crime by Blacks.

      Meanwhile, You tube ads have race mixing.
      The Frito lay ad has a Blonde w a black and the Amazon ad has similar.

      Have you seen the Cadillac ad?

  50. Q. Shtik September 6, 2017 at 12:10 am #

    Oppenehimer was very pessimistic about the atom bomb. [Of course], he was also wrong. – Graycenphil

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

    Well, yes, of course.

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 1:40 am #

      You’re bitter and going to get banned again. How much did you lose today?

      • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:08 am #

        ?

        • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 2:31 pm #

          Q was raving above about the common use of of course, using me as a common example.

  51. BackRowHeckler September 6, 2017 at 12:38 am #

    Attention Socialists and Big Lefties!

    Down in Venezuela ‘The People’ are eating dogs and zoo animals stay alive.

    Where’s all the big Hollywood luminaries like Bill Ayer, Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Michael Moore who used to jet into Caracas on a weekly basis, then lecture us on the wonderful utopia being built by Generalissimo Chavez? They ain’t around much anymore to tell us about the medical system where everything is free.

    Well fed Cuban secret police agents prop up the regime by beating the sh-t out of ‘enemies of the people’ in makeshift camps across the country. Execution pits, yes, why not? These are trained, disciplined communist cadres, not pipsqueaks. They’ll teach these counterrevolutionary ‘chained dogs of American Imperialists’ who’s boss. Venezuelans are starving to death, famine and disease stalk the land, so what? We got a revolution here! A new world is built upon the ruins of the old! So a few thousand kids starve to death, so the murder rate is the highest in the Americas, so there’s no diapers, toilet paper or milk, a small price to pay, comrades.

    brh

    • DA September 6, 2017 at 7:58 am #

      Venezuela had the temerity to cross swords with the US deep state. They will be made to pay dearly before becoming a US vassal state like the rest of central and most of South America.

      • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:09 am #

        Was the country always poor or was it another Argentina?

        • ozone September 6, 2017 at 7:19 pm #

          OIL.
          Any more questions?

    • SvrzoH September 6, 2017 at 10:11 am #

      I checked Jim’s blog again and, yep, it is about crap in US.

      What is to you how Venezuelans live?

      While US you-know-who keeps constant eye on that Country’s oil reserves, average american has ‘feel good’ obsession with Venezuelan toilet paper.

  52. pequiste September 6, 2017 at 1:05 am #

    it was a true love fest interview on CNBC today, with one Dara Khosrowshahi, the new CEO of that extraordinary “rideshare platform” Uber. After watching it I just know the economy is going to be great again. How? you might ask.

    Uber, a private company, is valued at a staggering $68 billion and the company only loses money – a $2.8 billion adjusted loss for 2016. Wow, worth more than Boeing ( one of the remaining very great American companies that employs 174.000 well-paid people and actually builds fantastic aircraft in the U.S.A. and sells them all around the world) valued at $42 billion with 2016’s annual revenue of $94.6 billion and a tidy( but declining and disappointing ) profit of $4.9 billion.

    The discussion touched on cleaning up the tarnished image (rapes and murders by drivers) of the non-traditional taxi company and speculations on the future initial public offering, something I am sure that those who have to drive for Uber to get their “side hustle on” with, will probably not be able to participate in — at least not with the anticipated stratospheric valuation.

    My thanks to Volodya for making the connection for me regarding this exemplar of the state, and the evisceration, of the American formerly middle-class worker and the economy. That and the Airbnb thing.

    • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:26 am #

      Well, a fast food stand [not a chain] was ‘taken public’—and I appreciate your comparison, ‘Boeing v Lyft Uber’.

      • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:20 pm #

        Reference?

  53. malthuss September 6, 2017 at 8:24 am #

    This is for Daveed,
    https://symptomaticcommentary.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/the-dogmatic-slumber-of-neal-degrasse-tyson/

    and this,

    Breitbart,

    The advantage of being a celebrity scientist is that you don’t actually have to do any science. You’re exempted from the usual “publish or perish” rules.

    Even when he was making a go of being a proper academic,
    Tyson didn’t exactly have the most glittering record. He didn’t get the PhD he was studying for at the University of Texas and had to go elsewhere for his qualification. Obviously, rather than take responsibility for his academic performance,

    Tyson has blamed racism. In reality, Tyson was playing in bands and appearing on stage instead of completing essays. Typical science PhD students are at any given time either studying, teaching or sleeping.

    It’s tough to avoid the conclusion that much of what is frustrating about Neil deGrasse Tyson stems from identity politics and the victimhood ideology peddled by leftist academics and journalists.

    Despite all his media success, Tyson insists that racism is responsible for his academic failures, alluding to sinister “forces” that keep women an

    • thwack September 6, 2017 at 10:19 am #

      Tyson didn’t exactly have the most glittering record. He didn’t get the PhD he was studying for at the University of Texas and had to go elsewhere for his qualification.

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

      Is there a name for the phenomenon where a persons flaws only become visible to themselves when they project them onto “others?”

      Neil Degrasse Tyson is playing the game, and he’s playing it quite well. He was hand picked to be the next spokesperson for materialism, scientism and all things techno narcissistic…

      Thats his job; and based on the evidence, he is highly qualified.

      The white man is the biggest huckster, shyster and trickster in the known universe; but as soon as a black man starts making the same gains, you try to single him out as a fraud.

      You mad bro?

      Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

      Tyson puts up numbers, and you don’t.

      Get off his dick.

      Faggot

      • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 11:33 am #

        “Neil Degrasse Tyson is playing the game, and he’s playing it quite well”

        Well, with all respect,I’d suggest that you and yours do the same….

        Tyson comes off as a rational, decent human being…unlike the vast legions of ghetto rats that exist in our roiling urban areas.

        just…observin’

        • thwack September 6, 2017 at 12:04 pm #

          You got a little bit of that bullshit you are spewing on your chin.

          Good thing you have a PHD to wipe it off with.

          Just sayin

          • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:25 pm #

            Thwack,
            Could you please be more helpful regarding the bullshit?

            Was bullshit the statement that Tyson is a decent human being, or that people that embrace ghetto culture are not?

            just questionin’

          • capt spaulding September 6, 2017 at 3:31 pm #

            Exerpt from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Doctoral Dissertation: “People don’t think the universe be like it is, but it do.”

          • elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

            ” “People don’t think the universe be like it is, but it do.””

            Link or reference?

    • nsa September 6, 2017 at 10:54 am #

      Just for the record: Breitbart is a neocon jooie site similar to the neocon homo Drudge’s Report. The jooies have extreme contempt for blacks (and everyone else), commonly referring to the afro hordes as “the schwarz”. So of course they have a go at Tyson, the most acclaimed afro scientist since that guy who invented the peanut. “Dr” Dave Duke has a similar academic credential problem and has also received considerable invective from the ever vigilant jooies. Dave got his PhD from a Ukrainian mail order university……..

      • malthuss September 6, 2017 at 12:55 pm #

        Andrew Breitbart was Irish DNA but, yes, raised in a Jewish household.

        You dont like him, obviously.

        He died for the truth. And his coroner was offed, as well.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 1:10 pm #

        No, he want to an actual Ukrainian University and did some course work and had an advisor for his Thesis, etc. Of course he was an unusual student and may have gotten some credit for his life experience. But the Jews were incensed and said they wouldn’t rest until the University was shut down. The President of University suggested shutting Israel down. In other words, there are still real men over there and his message is received well.

  54. Q. Shtik September 6, 2017 at 11:22 am #

    This is a test.

  55. volodya September 6, 2017 at 12:37 pm #

    Therian, people don’t want to see what’s right under their nose. It’s more comfortable not to.

    And they scoff at history. One after another, like night follows day, empires collapse, cities and civilizations get reduced to dirt-covered mounds. It happens over and over.

    One ruling elite after another gets carted off to the dungeons or get thrown down mine-shafts, glittering palaces get levelled. But you can’t convince people of these things despite all the signs. It’s not like they’re hard to see.

    Just like with Vesuvius and its rumblings, the mountain always rumbles and always smokes, so don’t worry. But then the mountain blows its top.

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  56. malthuss September 6, 2017 at 12:58 pm #

    Noted in passing,

    The White man is the biggest huckster, shyster and trickster in the known universe;

    • thwack September 6, 2017 at 2:37 pm #

      Yeah,

      exhibit A:

      Donald J Trump

      Look how he kicked DACA back to congress?

      When congressional impotence is the main reason Obama had to use an executive order.

      So what does Trump do?

      Like a bitch he kicks it back to congress; and tries to pretend he is decisive.

      Im starting to notice that Trump sets up his decisions so that if they blow up in his face, he can blame someone else.

      He has a lot of cunt like qualities.

      Just sayin

    • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:27 pm #

      Yeah, right up there with Loki and Coyote….

  57. Elrond Hubbard September 6, 2017 at 2:09 pm #

    Canada should welcome up to 30,000 DACA young people facing deportation in U.S., senator says
    ‘This is America’s loss but it could be Canada’s gain,’ says Ontario Sen. Ratna Omidvar

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-could-gain-from-daca-move-1.4276201

    “Canada could gain from the Trump administration’s decision to end a program that has allowed young, undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States for years, says Ontario Independent Sen. Ratna Omidvar.

    “In an interview on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Omidvar said the program’s beneficiaries are precisely the kind of immigrants Canada should be pursuing for its economic migrant program.

    “‘These individuals are low-hanging fruit for us,’ Omidvar told host Rosemary Barton. ‘They speak fluent English, they’ve been educated in the U.S., most of them have been to college or university, some of them have work experience. They understand the North American working culture.’

    “‘On top of that, in order to qualify to be a “Dreamer” you have to have biometrics testing, you have to have a criminality check. So this is America’s loss but it could be Canada’s gain.'”

    Hey there. If you guys aren’t gonna finish exploiting your underclass, mind if we help ourselves?

    • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 2:25 pm #

      Yeah, help your miserable selves. Take all 800,000 Dreamer Bastards.

      The kids did nothing wrong? Yeah, but Obama did. Why should they be punished but not him? Deport him with them.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 2:34 pm #

        Or is Elrond saying that of the 800,000, there are only 30,000 good ones who not only fit in, but are a net benefit to an modern, English speaking, industrial state?

        Even I’m surprised at how few there are. And since most of those fanatically support the other 770,000, and the Mexican Diaspora and Reconquista, they would be a curse as well, all their ability going towards destabilizing our Nations.

      • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:34 pm #

        Janos,
        Why not allow them to be vetted? If they speak good English, and have never applied for assistance…why not embrace them? True. we do not need more population, but it would avoid a certain human injustice. Those who have never bothered to learn the language? Let not the door strike you on the ass on your way out….

        • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 8:19 pm #

          It’s like the Black African guy who speaks perfect Irish Gaelic. Does he belong therefore? Of course not. He’s an abomination as are the people who adopted him and created a golem out of a little Black boy.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 9:35 pm #

          And as I explained above, most of these high functioning kids will devote their lives, or at least spare time and dollars, to the Mexican Diaspora and the Reconquista.

          You’re asking us to be pall beaners at our own funeral.

          • elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 2:16 pm #

            “most of these high functioning kids will devote their lives, or at least spare time and dollars, to the Mexican Diaspora and the Reconquista. ”

            Janos,
            In this you may be correct.

  58. Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 2:28 pm #

    Breaking: Heather Heyer died of a heart attack. There may have been some very vile media trickery here. According to these folks, she wasn’t the fatty sliding off the car hood. That was some other fat foe. Heather was being treated for a leg injury when she had a heart attack. Ed didn’t kill anybody. Ed didn’t do anything wrong. But a great wrong has been done to him.

    http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2017/09/05/heather-heyer-died-of-a-heart-attack/

    Fat Chix are the new NME or NNME.

    • thwack September 6, 2017 at 2:47 pm #

      Jesus Christ

      Thats one fat bitch

      Why am I shocked?

      Because they been using a much younger, thinner picture of her the entire time.

      Why do I hafta depend on racists like Janos for the truth?

      (((shaking my head)))

      Im placing the rest of you white people on punishment for the next 24 hours.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 3:15 pm #

        White and Black racists are or should be brothers. We both want to separate from each other and both are opposed to the Judeo-Masonic Conspiracy against the World and its Peoples. Farakahn knows all about it.

        Your addiction to White slobs like Heyer keeps you from becoming a true advocate for your People.

        • capt spaulding September 6, 2017 at 3:41 pm #

          It might be easier to consider what you say if you were able to use spelling & punctuation correctly, but since it appears that you are unable to master the simple rules that apply to English, how can anybody trust what you have to say about complex issues? To paraphrase Thwack: “Just sayin”. – Farrakahn.

      • elysianfield September 6, 2017 at 3:41 pm #

        “Why do I hafta depend on racists like Janos for the truth?”

        Because you will not find truth in the dogma of cultural Marxists? Because The media, invested in “cultural diversity” assaults common sense? Because you cannot believe your God Damned Lying Eyes?

        just statin’ the obvious,

      • Q. Shtik September 6, 2017 at 8:38 pm #

        To add to all her pulchritudinous charms she clutched a pack of highly mentholated Newports in one chubby hand.

        • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:43 am #

          Felt sorry for her looking at those pictures. Hard to believe people live like that.

          • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:14 pm #

            I heard her online name was janet. But I can’t confirm that, of course.

  59. liber8tor September 6, 2017 at 4:15 pm #

    “Support our Heroes on Patriot’s Day…9/11”.

    Sign seen posted on local bank today.

    So it’s official, the Banksters have declared 9/11 an official holiday. (causing dry heaves)

    • liber8tor September 6, 2017 at 4:47 pm #

      I thought I was seeing a scene from the movie “They Live”. I wasn’t even wearing my special sunglasses.

      9/11 “Patriot’s day”? That’s enough to make even George Orwell gag.

    • ozone September 6, 2017 at 7:31 pm #

      liber8tor,
      So, what are they going to do to commemorate the day?
      I think it would stick in the public imagination if they had a nice picnic (on their dime), then destroyed the place, controlled demolition style and let everyone root through the rubble for the singed bills and scattered coins. Woo-hooo! Now *that’s* making America great again, baby!

      • liber8tor September 7, 2017 at 5:50 pm #

        So true. First responder heroes would love to celebrate “Patriots Day” on Sept. 11, except they all suffer from Asbestos Lung Disease because they were lied to and their benefits were denied by the City of New York.

  60. 100th Avatar September 6, 2017 at 7:44 pm #

    Metropolises built on susceptible coasts, or sprawled along reconstituted deserts of California, or the intact desert of Arizona. Nestled besides old PacNoWe forests prone to dry spells.

    The problem isn’t nature. Or climate change.
    The problem is too many people.
    Too many people in too large hives, sometimes reminded, harshly, of nature.

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  61. Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 9:23 pm #

    Looks like we’ll be keeping all 800,000.

    https://www.amren.com/commentary/2017/09/donald-trump-immigration-law-ann-coulter/

    Trump seems ready to stab us in the back.

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 6:32 am #

      And you’re surprised?

    • FincaInTheMountains September 7, 2017 at 10:11 am #

      Personally, I’d like to see another solution to the “dreamers” problem rather than deportation – after all the didn’t break any laws.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 7, 2017 at 6:07 pm #

        They subsist in a state of illegality. And they are a vanguard, the nose of the camel to get their families in as well. So that’s a few million more right there. Where does it end? Where can it end but in the destruction of the historic United States. The more weakness we show, the more they will swarm in. That’s the lesson of the past amnesties.

        A Nation is not a Globalist Charity Ward. It’s more like a Club which extracts dues from its members and uses the funds for the benefit of the Club and the members thereof. The people aren’t part of the Club. That they personally did nothing wrong has nothing to do with it. Their parents sure as hell did, as did Obama – all so they could make the same sentimental, nation killing argument that you just made.

        • DA September 7, 2017 at 8:46 pm #

          Where does it end? Where can it end but in the destruction of the historic United States. The more weakness we show, the more they will swarm in. That’s the lesson of the past amnesties.

          Mass reverse migration of American geezers to Mexico and/or points south in search of cheap geezer medical supplies and procedures? Personally, I’m ready to give up this shit-fucking country and leave it to whoever claims it. It’s a fucking sewer populated by psychopaths on every end of whatever spectrum you care to measure these days.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 7, 2017 at 8:54 pm #

          Even if the kids did nothing wrong by being brought here, That they were brought here is a very great wrong against us. Oh you again, Finc says. He doesn’t like thinking about us and our rights.

          No doubt many of the kids have done wrong since they were brought here though. Great wrongs if they are typical Mexicans.

  62. 100th Avatar September 6, 2017 at 9:36 pm #

    Trump makes a debt-ceiling deal with Democrats.
    The audacity is the genius.
    Turtle McConnell and Eddy Munster Ryan have been cutting the legs from under Trump since the election.
    Who needs them? It was going to happen. The GOP just wanted the theatrics of a pitched battle ’til the 11th hour before the assured capitulation. All bullshit for their loyal and dim voting coterie.

    Destroying the GOP is a noble endeavor.
    Stupidity simple in its execution, and that’s what hurts the haters.

  63. janet September 6, 2017 at 10:42 pm #

    Oh, happy day! Trump just rescued 800,000 Dreamers. Trump loves the Dreamers!

    Donald J. Trump (D-NY today) ignored the pleas of his own Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and of Republican leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and he sided with Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer’s plan to combine Hurricane Harvey relief funding with extending the debt limit and funding the government, both for three months. (GOP leaders wanted to extend the debt limit for 18 months. The art of the deal!

    When the debt ceiling and government funding bills expire in December, Democrats will have all the leverage, because Republicans can’t pass a CR or debt ceiling without Democratic votes.

    That will force Republicans to support a funding bill that legalizes the protection of illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, thereby rescuing DACA. Oh, happy day, when Trump was reborn as a Democrat!

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:40 am #

      So is it true that you and Thwack are hooking up now?

      • elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 2:26 pm #

        A filthy, despicable rumor…almost as filthy and despicable as the deed….

        • pequiste September 7, 2017 at 2:45 pm #

          I need a shower after just a cursory glance over the comment.

          On second thought a bleach eyewash plus a lingering autoclave might make me feel cleaner after that mind filth.

          • pequiste September 7, 2017 at 3:37 pm #

            Plus I feel bad for Thwack.

            Really. I mean it; after all communing with Satan’s own porte-parole.

            Damn!

          • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:12 pm #

            I washed my mouth out with soap (Irish Spring, umm umm good!) after posting it. Fingers too!

  64. Janos Skorenzy September 6, 2017 at 11:20 pm #

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/heartbreak-oregon-wildfire-scars-beloved-columbia-gorge-201242788.html

    Unspeakable Beauty going up in smoke – Old Growth Forest. All because of some young idiot playing with fireworks. But it could just as easily been started by Nature Herself with dry lightening. Alas, but the Earth abides.

  65. FincaInTheMountains September 7, 2017 at 5:36 am #

    A terrible blow to the Clintonoids. Terrible!!

    God! He’s had them! I have no words!!!

    Trump signed an agreement on raising the limits of borrowing.

    I can not now explain all the subtleties of the budget in the US, but Trump, an hour after the Republican leaders in Congress and Senate Paul Ryan failed in the negotiations on which the allocation of funds for the liquidation of the consequences of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma depended, Trump signed an agreement with the leaders of the Democrats, which will allow him to delay this problem for 3 months, that is, to repeat this situation just before the elections. And now Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan will be forced to explain to party comrades why distancing from Trump and supporting impeachment leads to a loss in the election rather than a win.

    Thus Trump paid back the old Clintonoids Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for making him sign the law on anti-Russian sanctions, by blackmailing the president with the threat of impeachment. That’s how the victim of betrayal betrayed the traitors, and the Democrats went for it!!!

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  66. FincaInTheMountains September 7, 2017 at 9:58 am #

    Tens of thousands of witches around the world join forces every month to cast a ‘binding’ spell on Donald Trump

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4412811/tens-of-thousands-of-witches-around-the-world-join-forces-every-month-to-cast-a-binding-spell-on-donald-trump-and-protect-the-world-from-his-actions

    No doubt they do it on a calling from the Wicked Witch of the West, Bastinda, the Great and Terrible, however in vain since it is well documented in the tales of the Grimm Brothers that the real Kings and Princes are not affected by that.

    • janet September 7, 2017 at 11:52 am #

      It is obviously working. Trump has not been able to repeal Obamacare, pass “tax reform, build a wall, deport the Dreamers, nuke North Korea, etc. The word witch means “wise woman” … I am a witch.

      Trump hasn’t been able to enact a single part of his legislative agenda because witches are binding him … to prevent him from doing harm. Long live wise women!

  67. volodya September 7, 2017 at 3:14 pm #

    This North Korea thing makes me laugh. The Chinese are sitting there in their lawn chairs nibbling dim sum and sipping beer watching the foreign policy heavies at the State Department heave themselves into pretzels. And the Pentagon too.

    What a joke. Beijing could turn out the lights in North Korea tomorrow if they wanted. No good options? “Good” is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, there’s options. Like blowing North Korea off the face of the Earth. But the fact that American leadership is too squeamish is what gives Kid Kimchee his leverage.

    • janet September 7, 2017 at 3:47 pm #

      “In fact, there’s options. Like blowing North Korea off the face of the Earth.” –volodya

      Yes, there are options, just not military options. Because Russia and China will not permit a US military option. The US missile shield cannot defend against five hundred incoming from Russia, China and North Korea without a sizeable percentage getting through. It’s still a MAD world when it comes to hurling nuclear missiles. Your macho bluster, volodya, is on a par with Trump’s … and just as impotent.

      • tucsonspur September 7, 2017 at 4:50 pm #

        Yeah, it really is easy to kill millions of people isn’t it?

        Right on China and Russia. But think about it MADly. If we blow up NOKO, would China or Russia actually escalate knowing the much larger consequences? What a gamble!

        The talk now is about nuclear “containment”.

        Are they so close knit that we can’t get in and slip Kim and others some Death Caps?

    • tucsonspur September 7, 2017 at 4:37 pm #

      Football is back, and so is the black.

      Again the media moans and maliciously plays the race card.

      Here is what happened:

      https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/las-vegas-police-say-race-played-no-role-in-michael-bennetts-detainment/

      The NFL has always avoided the question, never pressed by the media, “why is the NFL 80 to 90 per cent black, when blacks are only about 13% of the population”?

      To answer this question truthfully would mean being honest about racial differences and abilities. The dishonesty must be maintained to preserve the platitude that we are all created equal.

      Equal as humans yes. In abilities no.

      • nsa September 7, 2017 at 6:46 pm #

        Homoerotic Americana – millions of obese, moronic, low sperm count white degenerates orgasm over africans in plastic hats and tight pants groping each other…….. while gorging themselves on gmo wings and thin chemical suds. How much lower can the culture go?

        • elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 7:30 pm #

          ” How much lower can the culture go?”

          Ever watch “Soul Train”?

          just comparin’

  68. pequiste September 7, 2017 at 3:48 pm #

    If any one wants to know what a true tactical clusterfuck is: just head on down to sunny, chic Miami, or the rest of the Sunshine State for that matter, for the Cat 5 Hurricane Irma hysteria shit-show.

    Mandatory evacuation orders from the Government.

    NO gasoline.

    Lines for everything.

    No water left.

    Traffic jams on every main artery with people looking to get out.

    Plus everyone just super-saturated with angst. YOu can see it in the faces of the people who have never been through one of these tropical treats.

    Imagine this level of high insanity now 72 hours before the monster storm even arrives.

    Then there is the Hurricane porn on every local and most national stations. Talk about a blow job to remember!

    • tucsonspur September 7, 2017 at 4:54 pm #

      Yeah Peq, but the people aren’t coming, they’re going!

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 8:38 pm #

      Builds character! They’re all just pissed off because they won’t be able to watch the game tonight and the Dolphins-Bucs got postponed until November.

  69. FincaInTheMountains September 7, 2017 at 3:57 pm #

    Vladimir Putin: Tillerson has fallen under a bad influence

    https://rg.ru/2017/09/07/reg-dfo/vladimir-putin-tillerson-popal-v-plohuiu-kompaniiu.html

    I do not want to take desirable for reality, but if we put together the seemingly unrelated events on different continents, then the picture of the complete defeat of the Black Project is formed, while the general public is getting the impression that Trump is going down.

    To some extent, this is due to the colossal misinformation that media is inflicting on their heads, and I do not know what’s worse – that the media are working for Hillary for money, or they are simply incompetent.

    In my opinion, the second is worse – Hillary’s agents can be bribed, but you will not be able to get rid of incompetence for money. This manifests itself in everything – in the story with N. Korea, in the events of Hurricane Harvey, in how they comment on the search in the Russian consulates, and on Russia’s appeal to the American court, and I can imagine how they will comment on the brilliant political combination that Trump pulled off yesterday.

    The main struggle between the Black Project and the union of Red and White is now taking place in the United States, and Russia is an ally of Trump’s America, not because Trump is a Putin’s spy, but because of the intersection and even coincidence of the national interests of the US and Russia.

    In particular, Russia so gently reacted to the absolutely outrageous search of the Russian consulate in Frisco, because Putin knew about the upcoming defeat of the Clintonoids within the leadership of the Republican Party.

    By the way, the “legality” of this search is the hallmark of Hillary Clinton, one can say her signature, and the search was conceived to be real and nasty, and not the one that took place, and then Putin would have reacted differently, and this case would be considered within the framework of the Last Judgment Day, and not within American Circuit Court.

    • San Jose September 7, 2017 at 10:47 pm #

      Finca,

      I man of your knowledge and intelligence shouldn’t be referring to San Francisco as “Frisco.”

      Shuddering at the thought,

      Jen in San Jose

  70. janet September 7, 2017 at 4:54 pm #

    Notice Trump has stopped saying he will build the wall, even if it means “shutting down the government.”

    Trump and Cruz and the other small government crowd now are begging the federal government for Hurricane Harvey aid and Hurricane Irma aid and Huiricane Jose aid.

    Trump won’t ask for money to build the wall. He desperately needs that money to rebuild the US.

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  71. Janos Skorenzy September 7, 2017 at 6:00 pm #

    Is this the answer to North Korea?

    http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/these-air-force-rods-from-god-could-hit-with-the-force-of-a-nuclear-weapon

    Tungsten rods, 20 feet long and 1 foot in diameter. Weight 24,000 lbs. From a couple of thousand miles up, they will hit with enormous kinetic force, penetrating hundreds of feet into the ground. The loss of life will be far less than using nuclear weapons, while being far more powerful and quicker than conventional.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 7, 2017 at 6:36 pm #

      The railgun of yours poses a terrible threat… primarily to the ship on which it is stationed.

      A small grain of sand in the working body and the arc short-circuit in the wrong direction. And that’s all!

      It will be like a crack on the ablative tile of a space shuttle.

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 8:35 pm #

      It’s not North Korea anyone needs an answer to. It’s the US MICC. The North Korean “threat” is a deep state fiction anyway.

  72. liber8tor September 7, 2017 at 6:26 pm #

    The Long Emergency is here.. no need to wait.. step right up.. no waiting.

    Want to see people acting badly while staring into their cell phone and stumbling about?

    Visit any gas station in Florida for an eye-opening, “pre-Irma” glimpse of current America. Observe the masses fighting for a place in line at the gas pumps. Watch the tattooed masses flail and push while shoving to the front of the line…. just to obtain a 6-pack of Dasani water (no matter the price).

    The dirty diapers and empty beer bottles are enthusiastically flung out the car door into the parking lot at Walmart, as the masses head off down the road, towards the next Burger King oasis.

    Watch the Long Emergency unfold… 6 barbers… plenty of chairs… no waiting.

  73. elysianfield September 7, 2017 at 7:41 pm #

    Well, ladies and germs.

    They are describing Hurricane Irma as a once in a decade storm, stronger than Hurricane Andrew, and maybe to become the most furious Hurricane on record.

    Reminds me of my youth, Okinawa, ’58-59. The Island was hit by a Typhoon (as they call Hurricanes south of the equator), 200 mile and hour sustained winds. Leveled much of the Island, including many buildings on Kadena AFB, where I resided. It was said to be the strongest Typhoon/Hurricane on record…ever. There were reports of straw being driven into telephone poles…this, however, I never saw.

    Remember, the danger is not so much the speed of the wind…it is what the wind is carrying…like sheet metal, parts of roofs, tree limbs , sand.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 7, 2017 at 8:50 pm #

      Typhoons tend to be stronger than hurricanes, but I though that’s what they were called in the Pacific not the Southern Hemisphere.

  74. janet September 7, 2017 at 8:09 pm #

    “why is the NFL 80 to 90 per cent black” –tucsonspur

    The answer is obvious: football is a game requiring mental agility, a game requiring the mental ability to remember hundreds of possible play calls, a game requiring mental flexibility, strategy dependent upon instantaneous mental analysis with such analysis based on real world rapidly developing conditions, a game that requires split-second mental calculus and executive decision making … These are all qualities Blacks possess and of which Blacks excel.

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 8:36 pm #

      So it IS true love then, eh?

  75. malthuss September 7, 2017 at 8:49 pm #

    Fischer leaves the Fed— IS THIS TRUE?—-

    Why was an Israeli Central Banker the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve?

    Zionist Rothschild Illuminati conspiracy terrorists want to know.

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    • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:10 pm #

      I think you meant “theorists.” That said, it’s not really a “theory” anymore once a certain mass of evidence accumulates, is it? More like “generally accepted fact.” At least for those who care to look.

  76. janet September 7, 2017 at 10:25 pm #

    For those still keeping score of loser Trump’s losses.

    1 … Trump loser
    17 … Courts

    President Donald Trump’s travel ban policy suffered another defeat Thursday as an appeals court rejected the administration’s attempt to deny grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of Americans a temporary exemption from the controversial executive order.

    A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declined to overturn a district court judge’s ruling that the administration was taking too narrow a view of an exception the Supreme Court carved out from the travel ban in June.

    • DA September 7, 2017 at 10:37 pm #

      So with regard to Thwack, would you say he’s closer to one or seventeen? I’m guessing the latter? More? And would that be with a narrow, normal, or wide view? I trust that any “carving” involved was likely entirely satisfactory as well, although a quick “overturning” can often resolve such issues before either party has reason to complain.

    • janet September 7, 2017 at 10:44 pm #

      Don’t elect a racist neo-Nazi-KKK-defending billionaire to be president and expect he will care about you. Especially one who was a Democrat, invited Hillary to his wedding, and makes chummy deals with “Chuck and Nancy” to save DACA …

      LOL!

      Sittin’ on the DACA delay…. Chuck and Nancy carried the day!

  77. janet September 8, 2017 at 12:08 am #

    Kansas City scored 42 points and made mincemeat of New England.

  78. FincaInTheMountains September 8, 2017 at 7:20 am #

    Star Wars For the Idiots

    I could never understand the meaning of this movie and why it attracts so many people. As it turned out it was not done in the right language. As soon as it sound in the right language immediately everything becomes clear:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtfDbQlqvXQ

    For comparison, a silly Anglo-Saxon romantics. Can’t understand anything:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPhHl2DpD4E

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