Reality Check

kulturcritic* March 5, 2012 at 9:06 am #

“Those will be interesting fog-lifting weeks.” The ending of last week’s post is inaccurate, James. I think they (the conventions) will produce much more fog. After all, politics, like economics in the empire is always… “business as usual” and driven by psychopaths. Enjoy my latest. kulturCritic
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/business-as-usual-social-entrepreneurs-and-other-psychopaths/

John T Anderson March 5, 2012 at 9:12 am #

Jim: “Cargo cult” is the most appropriate term for our current true civic religion.

Moondog March 5, 2012 at 9:16 am #

Too often when I try to discuss these matters with people, presenting the facts and reality of peak everything and TLE, I am met with “I disagree with your politics.” Mostly I can hear their subtext, “kittens and puppies.” To hear Obama riff in denial about the issues is sickening, but to hear the GOP contenders is frightening.

WestCoast March 5, 2012 at 9:21 am #

You hit the nail on the head today sir.
Google search of the month
“grow food”

mountaingal March 5, 2012 at 9:22 am #

So Jim- how do we begin to make the changes we need to make? It’s all very well and good to point out the problems, both current and future. But how do we make progress in creating a better life for all of us? For instance, I enjoyed your photo spread of your new home town. I know there are similar places all over the deindustrialized North and likely the Midwest too(but I haven’t been there). These towns have walkable streets and some good buildings to work with- good bones really. So how would we go about trying to revitalize these places? I don’t buy into the notion that they will all fill with trendy boutiques and cafes either, but rather how do we bring real businesses back to these places and fill them with people living in these walkable communities where they can easily walk or bike to buy their bread, visit the hardware store or take the kids to the playground. Sounds like your basic “new urbanism” to me, just in old cities and towns. How can we move towards making this happen? For instance, in your new town; how would you get something like this off the ground?

dmiller March 5, 2012 at 9:29 am #

“We’ve entered a contraction that will seem permanent until we reach an economic re-set point that comports with what the planet can actually provide for us.”
I think we need to be very clear about the implications of a lower set point. It means a lot less people on Planet Earth. Already some 1 billion are insufficiently fed everyday. First the people making $1/day are shoved off the planet…then those making $2/day…and so on and so on till we hit that re-set point and an appropriate carrying capacity number.

Jimmy Drinkwater March 5, 2012 at 9:30 am #

Bette Davis eyes, gotta love it.
Meanwhile Citi Bank has declared an end to peak oil, hilarious that, the banks taking on the role of cheerleader in furtherance of the American Dream.
Anyone see the study recently released about the clinical characteristics of psychopaths displayed among Wall St. traders? No wonder predatory capitalism is working model.
BTW Jim, nice photo essay on the Battenkill.

pedal pusher March 5, 2012 at 9:34 am #

Democracy, such as it is, will not be able to meet the needs of the nations of the West any longer. It seems a quaint contrivance in an ever harsher world. Democracy is already being dispensed with outright in Europe, where banking technocrats are taking command.
Mencken said it best,”Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of the ignorant.”
But even totalitarian government won’t work on the large scale, as population pressures overwhelm the planets diminishing resource base. Still, the theater of democracy will continue for some time – and most westerners (especially Americans) will be fooled.
“What good fortune for governments that the people do not think”, mused Adolph Hitler.

norlight March 5, 2012 at 9:35 am #

You got it right on the housing thing. We were in Las Vegas visiting a family member recently. My wife’s cousin is in real estate. Right now there are 23,000 vacancies on the market, and the banks are sitting on another 40,000 foreclosed units they are not putting on the market for fear of crashing prices. This isn’t going to straighen out any time soon!

empirestatebuilding March 5, 2012 at 9:36 am #

I think Upton Sinclair got it right 100 years ago.
‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
It’s hard to get Americans to understand things have to change, when all they have ever known is slowly falling apart.
It was fun while it lasted…
Aimlow Joe was here
http://www.aimlow.com

orbit7er March 5, 2012 at 9:39 am #

I am not sure about the predictions of the collapse of the Information Age. Some time ago on the Oil Drum Moore’s Law which predicts a doubling of computer chip capacity was examined and appeared to be unaffected to date by Peak Oil/Everything. Things like the Thailand floods affecting all hard disks in the world would seem to show the vulnerability of high tech. Also of course the Rare Earths required will be in increasingly short supply. But those hard drives used to be made in the USA – it is only the banksters desire for the cheapest production anywhere on the planet that led to it being moved to Thailand. The Internet itself and 4G cell phones are dependent on a vast network of fiber optic, transatlantic cables, satellite and other cabling connections. When I worked at AT&T they had their own submarine fleet for laying and maintaining transoceanic cables which surely uses a lot of fossil fuels. But is this the only model? Short wave radios powered by independent solar could still communicate and the Internet is designed to actually be run off almost anything.
The Global Square project launched recently by Wikileaks and opensource programmers is going to build an alternate peer-to-peer open democratic network independent of Facebook, Google and all the current Corporate Internet behemoths so eager so spy on democratic activists and shut them down.
What if this peer-to-peer network concept were extended further to all the wireless routers in millions of homes and offices? I already have a micro-transmitter which can broadcast radio for my block and immediate neighborhood. Could this idea be extended to provide sustainable if spotty peer-to-peer networks in the event of major power outages and loss of fiber optic, cable or satellite major providers?
Just wondering out loud….

Desertrat March 5, 2012 at 9:44 am #

We don’t “make” any of it happen. It will come about from marketplace opportunity and entrepreneurial vision. It will be slowed, probably, by local governments who haven’t a clue as to what Jim is talking about.

PRD March 5, 2012 at 9:50 am #

Contraction, “powering-down” — I just can’t see how it’ll succeed, unless it happens very, very slowly and with minimal violence and desperation. I am much handier than almost any of my neighbors, and yet—in purely practical, hands-on, survival terms— I don’t know/can’t do probably 5% of what my farming forbears of the 1870’s knew how to do.
I look at sepia-toned old photographs of these people, and think, “man, if I could only spend a year with you folks, I’d be in much better shape for what’s coming.”

upstatebob March 5, 2012 at 9:52 am #

-and the biggest deniers of reality are those in my age group,
retirees. Social Security is met with “I paid into it”. Yeah, right.
If you have sucked on it for ten years you got all your money back. You are now on the dole. -same as welfare. The big car/truck thing. Why is it the minute they retire they go out and buy the biggest behemoth truck/SUV available when they have nothing to tote with it anymore? Therefore they WILL vote for any candidate who promises to extend and pretend just a little more, because
they are selfish and know they will be dead when TSHTF.

harrykrebs March 5, 2012 at 9:58 am #

It seems that tiny Iceland “gets it”:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/iceland-trial-idUSL5E8E50HQ20120305
And a glimmer of reality:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/mar/05/transportation-expert-urges-cities-to-think/

noel bodie March 5, 2012 at 9:58 am #

theautomaticearth.org……”in case you thought we are alone”. Sat. 3/3

Neon Vincent March 5, 2012 at 10:02 am #

JHK,
Good summary of our predicament from your perspective. Will that be the script of your talk at the University of Vermont on March 14th? I stumbled over the UV press release about that while I was looking for science and environment stories to post at Daily Kos. If so, I’m glad to know what the highlights of your speech will be.
I blogged about the announcement of your talk at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News this morning. Other things that earned posts this week were the Michigan Republican primary (three posts, four if one counts the link to my BlogTalkRadio program about the money spent on campaigning and lobbying here in Michigan), Newt Gingrich on gun racks and Volts, Tom “Suck on this” Friedman on energy efficiency, and Foster Friess (Foster’s Freeze) on birth control. As for what I’ll blog about the rest of the week, have no worries. Blogging about sustainability means never running out of new material.
Happy Motoring–for now–from Detroit!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/

ozone March 5, 2012 at 10:11 am #

Senor Jim,
Nice distillation, as per usual.
To riff off of the canard, “If you build it, they will come”, “if you break the realities down into digestible sound-bytes, will they finally get it?”
You’d think so, but it’s not appearing to be the case.
“Our reality-based assignment is the intelligent management of contraction. We don’t want this assignment.” -JHK
This is a good way to put it. What I’m generally seeing about me are caricatures of recalcitrant, pouty, grade-school children who don’t want to do their homework assignments; they want to “go play”. There’s yer trouble; no study, no understanding, no remedial actions, severely limited futures. Not pretty in a short-term perspective.
“Another widely-repeated untruth is the notion that we have “a hundred years of shale gas.” These are stories generated by the particular stage of collective grief we have entered – the bargaining stage, where we attempt to negotiate a better contract with reality. Good luck with that.” -JHK
Most insightful. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, and will have to revisit those cogent principles. Thanks for the “stage blocking”, I’m sure it will be helpful to our understanding of what we’re doing [or not doing].

8man March 5, 2012 at 10:12 am #

From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177834
[quote=”turtle”]thank you nameta9…[/quote]
You’re Welcome. Did you crack open all the skulls of the kids and shove Oldsmobile V8 engines in their brains so that they can experience and reach a new universe, with new laws of physics ? They enter a new dimension by changing their brain design, they enter a Twilight Zone, just like the old Twilight Zone movies of the 1960s…
Absolute vs Relative
The mistake is that of generalizing: everything must be A or not A, etc. Like when you say the only certainty that we have is that there is no certainty: well this is a logical mistake as it implies that you can see and assign and declare all things, entities, Information Relationships, etc., all chunks of possible existences and assigning them all a similar single property: that of being certain or not certain. Nothing further from the truth, you can simply say MANY things are uncertain, not ALL things are uncertain. So many things are relative and not all things are relative, but just as not all things are absolute, etc.
Or even better, if you assign, perceive, define, whatever A as being certain and absolute, then there is somewhere else a B that is reciprocally uncertain and not absolute, and they may also switch places: a kind of LAW OF CONSERVATION OF CERTAINTY AND DEGREE OF ABSOLUTES IN THE UNIVERSE: THEY MAY BE SOMEWHAT FIXED IN AMOUNT AND VALUES BUT MAY CHANGE ALOT AND SWITCH PLACES, AND RECIPROCALLY DEFINE EACH OTHER, JUST as saying if A is absolute then this assigns B as relative and such.
Only that according to a variable reference system you use, in one system A may be an absolute, the ground state upon which all measurements are being made and B a relative entity, and in another, B may be the ground state and A the relative entity, etc.
And this applies to all reasonings that create infinite recursions and contradictions, such as “this sentence is wrong”, “absolutes are based on relatives” and such, or some examples of past posts:
“And the mind was thinking, like a slow motion mental computer program that is slowly crashing, how can something be a unit and made up of separate parts at the same time ? how come a group of entities are considered one and are aggregated and in other instances are considered independent parts ? how does free will emerge from the laws of physics (or is it the other way around) ? how can anything be different from anything else (the principle of non contradiction, a totally insane and crazy principle if there ever was one), or is the question rather, how can anything be the same with anything else, even itself ? and other impossible problems, an infinite recursion of the mind applying itself to an infinite recursion of impossible Metaphysical problems.”
“So you end up having, in physics, special relativity, general relativity and Absolute Relativity as when the mind has been changed and hosed into something new. Total cultural relativism achieved, total relativism achieved, nothing at all is defined or stable, all relative, all a measurement compared to another but that reciprocally define each other, but only between themselves, no external absolute reality (but absolutes are based on relatives based on absolutes ? an infinite recursion).”
“but as usual, the infinite recursion of how you want to delimit each memory element (and how you want to delimit the Observer – Brain, a Brain can be light years large) can vary, etc. ”
We just must be more approximate with our ideas, more wiggle room, just say some things are absolute, some things change, some things this or that and don’t ever (but even saying “ever” creates a rigidity that is too strict, just say don’t try to fix what is stable too rigidly and often and always be ready to change it all, who cares) try to fix which things are stable or not, keep it wide and random and with a lot of wiggle room…
APE

Jimmy Drinkwater March 5, 2012 at 10:13 am #

RE:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/mar/05/transportation-expert-urges-cities-to-think/
Some of us ARE thinking of transitions outside the car!
http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com

8man March 5, 2012 at 10:14 am #

Also check:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.com/
Ok, it is ok now, Thank You…

Neon Vincent March 5, 2012 at 10:22 am #

“That’s why one of the main themes in this presidential election – not even stated explicitly – is the defense of the entitlement to a suburban lifestyle; in other words, a campaign to sustain the unsustainable.”
Actually, it is being stated explictly. On January 13th, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution that states “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called ‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment.” Other than privately owned farms, all those points are all about defense of the suburban lifestyle. Including farms, they’re about maintaining the exurban lifestyle.
The candidate who has been campaigning on this theme is Newt Gingrich, who has taken up Michele Bachmann’s call for cheap gas, although Newt is saying $2.50/gallon, not Bachmann’s $2.00/gallon. This is why he has been mocking Volts by saying one can’t install gun racks in them. It’s also why he’s been hating on subway riders and doing so in front of the National Association of Home Builders in South Carolina and underwater home owners in Nevada. Furthermore, he’s also been scaremongering based on Agenda 21. In fact, he was doing so before the Republican National Committee passed its resolution.
Mind you, Agenda 21 scaremongering is something that is a John Birch Society idea that the Tea Party picked up and has now become mainstream within the Republican Party. It’s as if the GOP read your (JHK’s) warning that “Americans will elect maniacs who will promise to allow them to keep their McMansions and commutes” and decided it was not a caution, but sound political advice.
I’ve blogged extensively about all the above at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News. Just go back to the link in my first comment today, which I’m responding to, and click on the links I’ve embedded in “Dude, Newt Gingrich hates you” at the end of my post on Tom Friedman or the tags “Newt Gingrich,” “Agenda 21,” or “corn pone fascists.” You’ll see.

DeeJones March 5, 2012 at 10:28 am #

Mtn Gal, well, you could start by, if you are currently living in suburbia, moving into or closer to town. With housing prices now, it might be doable. If you are already living in town, but know family/friends that live in the suburbs, try talking them into moving closer or into town.
Look at it this way, the suburban life style is going to (hopefully) be phased out to a more “townie” lifestyle, so why not get a jump on it?
If the coming contraction is handled properly (hoping again), things will just pull in so that scarce resources are not wasted servicing the ‘burbs. These will eventually be reconverted back to agricultural land.
If, however, things are not handled properly, then what we will get is collapse, then it won’t really matter much where you live if you still are living in the USA.
Unfortunately, I have a sick feeling that the contraction will not be ‘handled’ well. Look at who is running things: The most psychopathic of the psychopaths. They only care about themselves. You don’t matter to them.
Unless there is real change, and real truth told to the american people, and the american people are ready to deal with it….
Oh, that probably won’t happen either.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted….
Dee

Onthego March 5, 2012 at 10:46 am #

On housing, the son of a friend just bought a 2,394 sq. ft. home in Nevada for about $104,000. The house was built in 2005 with 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, etc. That place is going to be a stone female puppy dog to cool in that climate. Not much of real housing bargain with the way energy prices are headed. Another milestone on the road to a permanent reduction in the middle class standard of living. It costs so much more to maintain it that your effective standard of living keep ratcheting down, no matter how much money you make.

michaeljoseph March 5, 2012 at 10:47 am #

“That Lamebrain freeway idea could only be cooked up by a ‘toon.” Eddie Valiant the gumshoe hero.
In 1993 JH Kunstler in “The Geography Of Nowhere” described the national freeway system and the suburban drive-in paradigm as the greatest misallocation of wealth in the history of civilization. At this stage with Peak Oil clearly in the review mirror to call it prescient is an understatement.
100 years from now there won’t be people driving around in cars but the rivers of cement will be there for tens of thousands of years. When the civilization of the future dissects who the people were that built these massive structures what will they think?
It is my goal as a documentary filmmaker to bring “The Geography Of Nowhere” to light in a film. Last year James and my producer, Carmen Duran, tried to work out a schedule but unfortunately it didn’t pan out. We are going to try again in the fall.
Currently I’m working on a “Peak Civilization” film titled “Somewhere In New Mexico Before The End Of Time”. I am 2/3 finished with it and will be premiering it in the fall. Here is the link to the film:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Somewhere-In-New-Mexico-Before-The-End-Of-Time?a=423473
Michael Sosebee
youtube/sosebee2

ozone March 5, 2012 at 10:47 am #

M-Gal,
I think Desertrat has got it about right; that attempts to re-form, re-institute, re-use or re-purpose will be thwarted by local technocrats and bureaucrats. They are usually beholden to (or are owners of) the biggest area businesses. What can we determine might be the M.O. of these “institutions” in a society where profit depends on waste and obsolescence?
If this be even CLOSE to current operations, the only way for a wake-up call to occur will be through collapse, where these entrenched idiots lose their positions of control by sheer attrition.
Then, necessity/desperation becomes the mother of invention (or, “re-invention”, if you will). Communities will once again see the usefulness of sturdy factory buildings, erected by/on man-made sluiceways and canals for direct water-power. (BTW, former “owners” of these neglected structures will not be reimbursed for their lack of foresight. Actual people with actual skills are going to have to make actual things and actual repairs. There will be no “negotiations”. The rule of law and contract law is being dismantled as we speak, so why would future agreements be based on defunct notions that benefit people who don’t DO anything?)
Realism will once again rule without distraction or cornucopian argument. You can’t skim the cream when there is absolutely no extra cream to BE skimmed.

ozone March 5, 2012 at 10:53 am #

Very good! I’ll certainly check it out.
And… you’d better put a big hurry-up on anything that relies on the “current arrangements”. ;o)
(But you already knew that.)

DurangoKid March 5, 2012 at 10:55 am #

Has anyone seen this month’s issue of Discovery magazine? You know, Disney science? There’s a big article on how the population explosion is good for us. No mention of resource limits, carrying capacity, topsoil depletion, crouding, energy prices, you-name-it. If this is an example of where Americans get their info, we’re in even more serious do-do. This mag is cover to cover crap. Unfortunately, one of my delusional relatives keeps renewing the subscription for me. I suppose it has some value in keeping up with the lies people tell themselves. Beyond that, eh.

Weiv March 5, 2012 at 11:02 am #

“We will need more farmers, more people competent in agricultural management… ”
Most high school students in the San Francisco Bay Region seem intent on attending a University. When I ask them what they plan to study I am told Accounting, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or some other vapid major rooted in the past social-economy. In response I tell them they should consider attending the University of California at Davis or Cornell and study Agronomy. After a few seconds of silence a quizzical look emerges on their face — What is Agronomy?

newworld March 5, 2012 at 11:05 am #

One thing that is interesting at least to me is that both political teams are lead by reactionairies, flailing away.
Take the Fluke fiasco, an overfed, over educated, over priveleged white lesbian woman wailing away for “benefits.” Priceless. And all this while Detroit falls into third world dystopia and California becomes Mexico.
How out of touch is that my friends? Don’t mention Limbaugh, that is not worth talking about.
Only in the dying America can someone like Fluke be a cause celebre, “Womyn versus the (other) 1%.”

Glensufi March 5, 2012 at 11:09 am #

The sustainable carrying capacity is likely somewhere around 2 billion if we’re lucky. No one wants to talk about this for lots of reasons but reality is a tough mother and it can be done the easy way with very slow intentional planetary reductions in birth rate or of course there are the other less attractive alternatives.

Robert Magill March 5, 2012 at 11:12 am #

Jim:
Check out
The Maui Cargo Cult
http://goo.gl/3WTB9

Tancred March 5, 2012 at 11:13 am #

Kittens and puppies indeed. Seriously, I have found America’s kitten and puppy obsession one of the more annoying aspects of our popular culture. Do you guys know what is the most profitable aisle in any large Walgreens or CVS? It’s the cards, a HUGE percentage of which consist of nothing but “cute” puppies and kittens. I wish they had some “alternative” cards with dead puppies and kittens, perhaps the ones they gas every day at the animal shelters. But people Luv puppies and kittens soooooo much.
Hang in there, baby.

Elrond Hubbard March 5, 2012 at 11:14 am #

Yawn. JHK has nothing new to say this week, just a compendium of his greatest hits. It’s not like there’s nothing going on this week worth commenting on, such as Obama’s speech to the AIPAC conference and the relentless push to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran, but Jim just pulled another Post-It off the stack. Best wait for the forthcoming book, which I do expect to be worth paying for.

ozone March 5, 2012 at 11:20 am #

On population reduction:
Less people; less “consumers” and “customers”.
No incentive for reduction on the part of those who profit from the current set-up.
As aimlow Joe pointed out above:
“I think Upton Sinclair got it right 100 years ago.
‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
Thus, the “less attractive alternatives” will prevail. I really have no doubts about this. It in no way benefits me for things to go down this-a-way, but sorry, I don’t run things ’round h’yar and can only observe, for the nonce.

Dirk March 5, 2012 at 11:25 am #

I agree Westcoast, nobody wants to hear it.
PRD said:
“Contraction, “powering-down” — I just can’t see how it’ll succeed, unless it happens very, very slowly and with minimal violence and desperation. I am much handier than almost any of my neighbors, and yet—in purely practical, hands-on, survival terms— I don’t know/can’t do probably 5% of what my farming forbears of the 1870’s knew how to do.”
Well it really doesn’t matter, does it? It’s going to happen and the critical issue is that if we don’t manage contraction contraction will manage us. Governments….people…everyone that is crazy in love with hoarding thier personal fortunes to themselves, saving for kids educations and having that comfy retirement cannot and will not reach the point of acknowledging that ‘houston we have a problem’ until everything simply shuts down, in my opinion. All this doomsday talk is just ‘bad for the economy’ Soooo….I just had my good ol’ Trek bicycle refurbished and overhauled, new tires and all. Of course, who is going to be making tires when these wear out?

Mack184 March 5, 2012 at 11:25 am #

James..You are quite correct in that we cannot “tech” our way out of our problems. We can however pray our way out of our problems and turn to Jesus. All this coming chaos has been carefully outlined in the Bible, and the time for all of mankind to fail is at hand. If we turn to Jesus and seek forgiveness, the path of redemption will be open to us. The USA will fall, and the rest of the world will fall as well. Your predictions are essentially correct, but your prophecy could be so much more accurate if you sought out God’s wisdom through his son Jesus. We are in the twilight of man prior to the promised return of the savior Jesus Christ. Seek him, his knowledge, his wisdom and his foregivness, and you would become a great prophet.

DreamCycle March 5, 2012 at 11:28 am #

Meanwhile, get your flying car RIGHT HERE!!!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-201203021122usnewsusnwr201203010301flyingcarmar02,0,2569691.story

Hugh Culliton March 5, 2012 at 11:31 am #

Starting over from scratch. Thanks for, in your words, “harshing my mellow”.

ozone March 5, 2012 at 11:33 am #

“It’s not like there’s nothing going on this week worth commenting on, such as Obama’s speech to the AIPAC conference and the relentless push to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran, but Jim just pulled another Post-It off the stack.” -E.H.
Okay, but it’s my opinion that all these issues/predicament/dilemmas are predicated on, and driven by CURRENT ARRANGEMENTS. JHK brings this up again and you find it boring? No worries, things are all set to become very un-boring by continuing down the path that’s being chosen despite repeated germane and well-researched warnings.

Tancred March 5, 2012 at 11:33 am #

“The sustainable carrying capacity is likely somewhere around 2 billion if we’re lucky.”
OK. I’ve read Overshoot and understand the concept of carrying capacity, but what kind of society is this “2-billion” based on? Carrying capacity is easier to determine within a given ecosystem of plants and non-human animals, but are you talking about a hunter-gatherer society? Even the latter has technology, and it would be hard to tell people “Don’t go inventing new shit that mill make things easier!” So trains are okay, but automobiles are not? Are domesticated animals in the mix? How sharp and accurate will be our spears? Didn’t Catton already show how “native” societies also destroyed their enviroment? Will Cheetos be allowed?

TrE March 5, 2012 at 11:35 am #

Re-rading Thoreau’s Walden, and I was particularly struck yesterday by the following passage. Had to put the book down and wonder, “To what degree does this apply to me and others who follow & enjoy JHK?” Might be worth a pause in these comments for other readers, too:
“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip.”

ront March 5, 2012 at 11:35 am #

The following is my response to a letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. It seems to fit with this week’s excellent blog essay. Thanks, JHK.
In the letter, American worker’s dilemma (3-4-12), Bill Mainland describes the globalized economy as something we have been confronted with and something that has become our current reality. This suggests that some time ago this was not so. Actions were taken spurred by those who simply wanted access to all the resources and wage-slave labor in every corner of the world. This is the new face of aspiration for world domination and exploitation.
If we sit back and accept this as a given, the rich and powerful who have given it to us will continue to amass their absurd wealth creating the equally absurd and unsustainable inequality. There exist old ways and new ways, regulatory and systemic, to retake and remake our economy so that it can work for all concerned–for the common good. There is great wisdom is thinking globally and acting locally. We can take a stand and not allow this theft to continue.

TrE March 5, 2012 at 11:36 am #

“Re-reading…” Apologies.

CaptSpaulding March 5, 2012 at 11:56 am #

Up to the age of 14, I lived on a farm in Wisconsin. We had no electricity, an outhouse, no plumbing and we used a root cellar for food storage. It was a long time ago, but I remember most of the things we did to live. I think that if you want to make the transition from the cheap oil era to the expensive era, it would help to start trying to live in some of the ways that you’ll have to live in the future. Without some practice, it’s hard to imagine people making the change very easily. I own two lots in the little town I live in, and I have turned one lot into a garden. There are other things I’ve done that hopefully will help in a time with no energy. I guess what it means is that the simpler you live, the less you’ll be impacted when the hard times hit. Just my humble opinion.

Tancred March 5, 2012 at 11:59 am #

Curious to note that Thoreau’s reference to “a cow being run over on the Western Railroad” likely is a reference to an actual “Western Railroad” that ran from Worcester, MA to Albany, NY. It’s main scheme was to tap into the trade of the Erie Canal at the Hudson River, cutting off trade and goods that would go down the Hudson to New York City. Didn’t really stop NY City from becoming more trade-oriented than Boston, but the resulting Boston and Albany RR did become (and still is as CSX) a major freight connection between Boston and what was at that time “The West.”

ninaXYZ March 5, 2012 at 12:07 pm #

Dear Mister K, you’ve nailed it. GREAT essay.
Thank you.

jmann March 5, 2012 at 12:15 pm #

Re: Agenda 21, there seems to be a ground swell of panicky opposition to anything related to Agenda 21. A Google search on the combination of “Agenda 21” and “liberty” generated “about 6,810,000” hits today. In my state of NH a local representative submitted a bill to forbid any city or town to participate in any way with ICLEI “in furtherance of UN Agenda 21”. The issue is the UN is trying to take over the world AND take away all of our individual and property rights.
I read that Chou en-lai was asked what he thought about democracy as a form of government and he replied “It’s too early to tell”.

Solar Guy March 5, 2012 at 12:19 pm #

‘we have no idea how over all this is’ – JHK
The television is programming our reality. Most peoples reality anyway.
I’m off to pick up my first shipment of electric bikes to sell here at the solar shop. Rather exciting stuff!
This will be my 3rd season attempt at gardening. Grew sooo much last year yet not a enough to feed a family for more than a few days… sigh.
Cheers Clusterfuckers.
PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

Widespreadpanic7 March 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm #

Well Jim, the price of gasoline and home heating oil round these parts (Connecticut) appear to back up what you are saying. All we hear about from the shills in the local media is the wonderful economic recovery we are experiencing, meanwhile, it is costing an average $1,000 per month to heat one of these oversized McMansions everybody lives in, and $4.09 per gallon for gasoline to power up the family car for the daily 75 mile round trip commute to work. How long my fellow nutmeggers can afford this is an open question. The future suddenly seems a little murky.
–WSP7

Hammering Truth March 5, 2012 at 12:26 pm #

The U.S.A. is destabilizing the Middle East intentionally. Wake Up America! http://youtu.be/ybaG8eZlfG4

sevenmmm March 5, 2012 at 12:29 pm #

I invite all Americans to close their eyes and together hope as hard as you all can to flash back to 1981.
Hey, don’t laugh, we would have a chance to Change our Hopes!
Here, this might be an appropriate backdrop to the heavy thinking needed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=427LkcHOSUU&feature=related
Good luck. You are all going to need it.

steve-o March 5, 2012 at 12:36 pm #

It may not seem like a big deal but I have asked around and nobody can tell me where there is a well with a diameter large enough to lower a bucket for freshwater. We could boil rainwater or creek water…but when the bottle water is gone and the markets are closed…we shall thirst mightily. I fear many folks won’t make it to the fields.

Peter of Lone Tree March 5, 2012 at 12:43 pm #

Peter of Lone Tree March 5, 2012 at 12:45 pm #

118 RESIGNATIONS FROM WORLD BANKS 3/2/12
http://americankabuki.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/115-resignations-from-world-banks.html

greyghost05 March 5, 2012 at 12:51 pm #

Betty Davis ? Nope not at all. It’s more like Linda Lovelace ! She can take whatever is shoved down her throat or in anywhere else for that matter. And while crude, that pretty much sums up life as a sheeple in what’s soon to become post as we know it America. Bad news sells stuff. Just go to Kroger when the Weather Channel is predicting the next big storm cell bearing down on your area. Bottled water and raman noodles are non-existant. Just wait till summer and happy motoring becomes a struggle.
A good tip for a future store front would be 2nd hand hardware. Think of usefull tools from the past. Picked up on the cheap from yard sales and estate auctions. The kind of tools we had before Dewalt 18 volt everything’s. Like back in Grandpa’s day when it was all done by hand. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the guy’s who built my home and the buildings on my farm back in the 1870’s. It was all done by hand. Somewhat straight and level,but very solid. Locally cut and milled.

Rhino March 5, 2012 at 1:12 pm #

I don’t know if your post is serious or if you’re being sarcastic but on the off-chance you’re being serious here’s a joke about a preacher, a flood and help from Big G:
A preacher was having his usual sermon when all of a sudden there was a cloud burst. After about one full hour of complete non-stop rain, everyone began to evacuate because the whole church was flooding, but the preacher just stood there preaching in the ankle-deep water.
A man drives by in a car and shouts through the church doors, “Preacher, you better get out of there before you drown!”
The preacher replied, “Don’t worry. God will save me.”
The man then drove away.
The water was now knee-deep and a man in a raft floated over to the church and said to the preacher, “You better get in here before you drown!”
Despite the second warning the preacher just stood there and replied, “Don’t worry. God will save me.”
The man then rowed away.
The water was now waist-deep and a man in a power boat came to the preacher and said, “You better get out of there before you drown!”
Despite the third warning, the preacher just stood there and replied “Don’t worry. God will save me.” With that the man jetted away.
The water was now neck-deep and a man in a helicopter came by and yelled to the preacher, “You better get out of there before you drown!”
The preacher refused to move and replied, “Don’t worry. God will save me.”
With that the man flew away.
The water then got so deep that the preacher was sucked under and died. When he opened his eyes he noticed that he was in heaven.
He then saw God and asked, “Oh God! Why didn’t you save me from that horrible flood?”
God then replied, “I sent you a car, a raft, a power boat, and a helicopter! What else do you want from me?”
End of joke.
Seeking wisdom and guidance in scripture is fine. Who knows, you might even find some there. But, if there’s a flood, be practical and get in the damn boat.

orbit7er March 5, 2012 at 1:14 pm #

Connecticut has 24 Rail Lines in a very small State!
See http://www.ct.gov/dot/lib/dot/documents/dpt/rails2x3.pdf

2 of these Rail lines are actively used for Amtrak.
Another 2 are used for passenger service only for
Tourist Leaf-Peeper trains. So as Jim has said, the US has a huge potential to restore Rail instead of endless highway expansion. Connecticut is just another example…

Rhino March 5, 2012 at 1:20 pm #

I heard another version of this story where Chou en Lai was supposedly asked what he thought of the French Revolution and he replied that it was too early to tell.

anti soak March 5, 2012 at 1:20 pm #

DK, Is this not more of the ‘Immigration is good for the economy’ but in a Global way?
Friedman, ‘Lexus and Olive Tree’ etc?
Multiculturalism ‘enriches’ the US……….
[read honor killings and asians eating dogs].
2 commenter s above me mentioned UN21…
I have seen youtubes on it…I am concerned and rightly so.

anti soak March 5, 2012 at 1:23 pm #

Solar Guy………..’GOOD CHRISTIAN BITCHES’
PREMIERED LAST NITE…Here in Lala land there was much advertising.
The show was created by 2 jews.
‘we have no idea how over all this is’ – JHK
‘IT AINT OVER TILL ITS OVER’ YOGI BERRA

michaeljoseph March 5, 2012 at 1:24 pm #

“Has anyone seen this month’s issue of Discovery magazine? You know, Disney science?”
I’m not defending Discovery Magazine but if you look at all of the magazines that feed our delusions Discovery is one of the least delusional. Have you looked at recent issues of GQ, Cosmopolitan or Men’s Health lately?
Six months ago I went cold turkey watching no television. Last month I wanted to watch the Super Bowl so I broke my fast. I didn’t watch the build-up just the actual game. What I noticed was how ubiquitous and overwhelming the delusion is. By halftime I had been sold one product after another and I began to imagine that maybe I’m wrong about things after all.
Conclusion: This is going to be a much bigger project than any of us ever imagined.

helen highwater March 5, 2012 at 1:37 pm #

Weiv, even better, maybe you can convince your students not to go to University at all. Explain to them how many university graduates currently are unemployed or working at jobs that in no way require a university degree (statistics about this are available on the Internet). Tell them not to take on student debt, because they may never have a job that will enable them to pay it back, and student loans can not be gotten rid of through bankruptcy, they will hang over their heads for the rest of their lives. Tell them they don’t need a degree in Agronomy in order to learn how to grow food. Farming is best learned through the hands-on method. There are farmers all over the US and other countries who will provide free room and board and sometimes a stipend for people who want to work and learn. People are making a living farming on small pieces of land, they won’t need a lot of land or equipment to get started with their own farms once they have the know-how. The plan of getting a university degree and then stepping into a well-paid job is so over. Please tell these young people the truth about what is coming.

JulettaofOhio March 5, 2012 at 1:41 pm #

John Corzine may be a danger, but I think it’s a lot more dangerous for Obama to continue to ignore and defend Eric Holder and allow him to be running around loose.
As far as “things getting better”, Obama is off his rocker or else lying through his teeth. I suspect the latter from the power-mad Kenyan. We have two Villages (legally designated) in our area which are disbanding because they just can’t pay the bills. One of the larger suburbs in our area has laid off the police department and contracted with the already overburdened Sheriff’s department for coverage. As a final gesture, they’ve shut off the street lights which they cannot afford, making the ‘burb easier, not harder, to protect. Nope, things are not getting better.
I’ve wondered if these villages can come back to life. High speed rail is a pipe dream, but how about steam-powered trains? Ohio has lots and lots of coal (which I know is a nasty, dirty, filthy, disgusting word to use.) and people could at least get around. All of these Villages used to have grocery stores, lumber yards, grain elevators, hotels, etc., and would be a safer and more pleasant place to live after the melt-down, if only there were some services. What do you think?

Kurt Cagle March 5, 2012 at 1:43 pm #

Orbit7er,
(Long, and my apologies to those who dislike long posts)
I would second this point, and I think it’s the one place that I disagree with Mr. Kunstler. Societal collapses occur in stages. Societies start out as agrarian then develop localized population centers (typically around transportation distribution points – ports, crossroads, rail junctions, passes etc., which are mostly determined by geography). These population centers nucleate as cities, with towns usually evolving around intermediate transportation nexi – again crossroads, usually sited near potable water and other energy sources – between the cities.
Cities aggregate wealth, and eventually dominate the economic landscape. The cities become more dominant, and more aggressive. Over time, aggregation occurs, either through the emergence of linguistic niches (common communication protocols), through conquest, or through treaty and alliance. These cities become a state, with the wealthiest and the most politically dominant becoming the primary drivers of that state (in Europe the model is typically one where the wealthiest city is also its political center, but in the US, there seems to be at multiple levels an attempt to separate the two). Population growth occurs as living standards rise, but strains begin to develop from resource exploitation.
In time, the state and the corporatocracy – the dominance of corporate structures, whether they be theocratic, such as the church, commercial, such as banks and energy concerns, or unions (few current examples exist, but communist era hierarchies provide a good example) – merge. Technological development, which had been the hallmark of the previous generation, begins to stall out because technology driven efficiency gains mean only that existing resources will be consumed more quickly. Renewables help, but even there there’s a creation and maintenance cost, and all too often renewables are not replacements for resource consumption, but simply additions to a rapidly depleting resource store.
We’re now within the fourth turning of the current saeculum, which in turn may be part of a larger secular pattern lasting about 360 years. Call it the period of Western dominance, or the Grand Industrial Age, or whatever.
In terms of the current saeculum, city states enter into a period of withdrawal. Spheres of influence for dominant states contract rapidly as the centers become less and less efficient at extracting energy from the surrounding resource bases. Nation states held together by alliances between various city states begin to deteriorate along cultural fracture lines. Culturally diverse regions then begin to break away from the political center, either due to differences in belief or geographic distance. These breaks exist as de facto separations for a while, but eventually become de jure, usually through civil war as the primary political center seeks to protects the drain on “its” resources, which are quite frequently its colony states.
Up to now, that’s Jim’s grand scenario, but where I differ is that in such periods, the colonial states do not simply become more agrarian (though they do become somewhat more agrarian). Rather, they end up creating new socio-political entities that have a smaller reach but also have more efficient uses of resources because they’re more localized, and because they are effectively free to experiment with new governance structures that are more suitable to managing resource allocation.
The United States has managed to buck this trend because there has long been a strong autonomy in the states, but as the Federal government has become larger and more centralized, it’s also limited that degree of experimentation. The central government becomes more autocratic, becomes more heavily controlled by its corporatocracy, and becomes increasingly rigid in the face of stressors, at precisely the time (Peak everything) that the US needs to be flexible.
However, as we go through the long arc brought about by energy depletion, several things happen. Cities and cultural regions (7,9 or 11 depending upon who you read) become more important while centralized agencies become less so. Regionalism becomes rampant. Rebellions and civil war becomes the norm, but it will be fought at the regional level, and will likely not be single polar but multilateral NE and northern Midwest vs. SE and the plain states, a mexican-american breakaway state centered in Los Angeles (and another Hispanic state in Florida), Cascadia (into Canada), an independent Hawaii (for a little while anyway).
These regions are dominated by core cities and city corridors –
(1) NYC/Boston/Philadelpha/DC,
(2) Charleston/Atlanta/Nashville,Dallas(?)
(3) St.Louis/Chicago/Detroit/Minneapolis,
(4) San Diego/Los Angeles/Phoenix/El Paso/San Antonio(?),
(5) Juneau/Anchorage/Vancouver/Seattle/ Portland/San Francisco.
(6) Dallas(?)/Denver/Salt Lake City
As national power fades, the core culture value struggle between (1) and (2), which have been endemic since the country was founded, will likely cause a second rupture along familiar fault lines. However, in the 1860s, (3),(4),(5) and (6) were still largely in the early colonization stages. Now, they are all regional centers in their own rights, and culturally the two that are in greatest alignment – (1) and (5), (2) and (6), are also effectively separated physically – (1) and (5) have no contiguous regions (and hence will likely become strategic allies rather than a single homogeneous state), while (6) is still largely a fairly hostile colonial state that has alternatively been controlled by (1), (2) and (5). (4) is perhaps closest to being a culturally independent entity, that would likely not take sides.
Over the course of time, those same cities will shed their inefficient suburbs, and in most places these suburbs will end up going fallow (it’s happening now).
However, I don’t think the cities will self-destruct, primarily because cities are actually quite efficient at managing diminishing resources, especially when they are not bleeding out due to corporate peonage. They will shrink, but so long as the transportation infrastructure remains, they’ll survive just fine, though it will come at the cost of effectively subjugating the surrounding rural areas into forced symbiosis.
Communication infrastructure (the net, in whatever form) will remain, but will likely be more regionalized. Cities that lack control of their significant resources (water and electricity being the biggies, as well as being communication and transportation hubs) will cease to exist (which is why Las Vegas is not on the list above). Cities which have a plethora of options for both water and electricity (through whatever energy generative means) will do the best, and those cities that focus on their educational system will actually do well, even though that educational system will end up being very different from what exists today.
I think the one bias that we here on this forum have to overcome is fatalism. Change is coming, and it’s frightening, but change always is. Our society is going through a phase shift. Technology is accelerating that phase shift (as it usually does) but the future will not be the past redux (though it will likely continue in saecular and super-saecular patterns). The existing status quo cannot continue, so it won’t, but a new one will emerge in good time. Jim’s books describe a time in the relatively near future, but rather than seeing this as “the end times” or even the long emergency, it is perhaps more appropriate to see it as a New Beginning.

Belisarius March 5, 2012 at 1:45 pm #

Yes Jim. Americas’ reality check has bounced, but those actually running things are quite aware.
The Corporate Oligarchy has almost unlimited license to steal. The “system” is totally corrupt and unsustainable except perhaps on a Soviet Stalin-like model with expiration date. Working to “reform” it is, at best, a waste of energy. When this becomes apparent to Joe Sixpack, things could get ugly quick. So the “Owners” have their minions (politicans, educators, scientists, and media folk etc) distract Joe Sixpack with “happy talk”, while they build a gulag infrastructure under the name of emergency response, “war on terror” and “homeland security”. Meanwhile the “owners” steal like there is no tommorrow, as if they can’t get enough.
The odds are that you are correct; all large scale operations will come apart. World population is likely to be 10-20% of todays’ within a century. This can happen in many ways and speeds though, and few scenarios are entirely pleasant. A global gulag that preys on all it cannot control until it collapses (like a plague of locusts) is perhaps the worst possibility. One optimal outcome is illustrated by the John Lennon song “Imagine”.
There is still time for each of us to be busily creating the future we wish to live in.

JulettaofOhio March 5, 2012 at 1:47 pm #

Loved this one! I have several (very) religious friends who believe this way, as well. One said that if the world ever got this bad, he wouldn’t want to live, anyway, and will probably get his wish. Another friend said God would take personal care of her and she and her family would be safe “within God’s loving arms.” I told her that hadn’t worked out really well, historically, which upset her terribly. Now, she’s praying for my soul, which may need it, and I’m praying she’ll wake up. It’s better to nod and smile than to argue with friends and I am capable of shutting up if it’s someone I care about.

asoka. March 5, 2012 at 1:49 pm #

JOE BAGEANT NEWS
You can find some of Joe Bageant’s essays online, but for those who prefer a real book rather than reading on a computer screen, a book with 25 of Joe Bageant’s best essays is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball: The Best of Joe Bageant will be available for distribution in the USA April 1.

JulettaofOhio March 5, 2012 at 1:55 pm #

If it’s a good post, it doesn’t matter if it’s long. Some of us have an attention span, and this was a good post. The short posts tend to be sniping in what the poster considers to be a clever way and are of no value.

PRD March 5, 2012 at 2:08 pm #

Dirk,
I think you’ve misunderstood my original post above. I guess I wasn’t clear. Of course contraction and powering-down is going to happen, no matter what, and in a time frame we can’t predict.
My point was that if our society (or any portion of it) is to MANAGE this process so we don’t all starve or kill each other, I HOPE the contraction takes place slowly, so we can get up to speed on the necessary skills we’ve mostly lost. We are woefully unprepared.
Yes, hope is not a strategy, and I understand the ongoing clusterfuck will unfold fast or slow, without regard to what any of us may want.

Belisarius March 5, 2012 at 2:15 pm #

“It may not seem like a big deal but I have asked around and nobody can tell me where there is a well with a diameter large enough to lower a bucket for freshwater”
There are several outfits that make hand pump and/or solar pump kits to retrofit modern wells.
Simple Pump and Bison Pumps being the most reputable.
These are expensive for deep wells like mine. I have one from Simple Pump in Nevada. This despite also having a dug well and two streams on the place.

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 2:17 pm #

You left out Race/Culture. And minorities largely control the big cities. So the conflict will be minorites starving and coming out into the Country to loot and pillage – and being denied with exteme prejudice.
The Amish being good farmers and so close to Philladelphia are obviously destined to be serfs to inner city Blacks, at least until liberated by Whites.
Certainly some cities aren’t viable at all and will be abandoned as you say. Other areas will be fought for.
And of course, countries don’t exist in hermetic isolation so there may well be massive incursions of Muslims fleeing frozen Canada to prey on Vermont farmers or hungry Mexicans headed for the lush Southeast where their brothers have already established a beachhead.
In old Byzantium, western Asia Minor was all big estates, the Nation hollowed out as banrupted farmers and tradesmen fled to the Capital. So the Ottoman Turks encountered little resistance and just rode right in. You would have thought they would have learned something from the fall of Rome itself. But, no. Man doesn’t learn only individuals do.

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 2:22 pm #

So you do support Agenda 21 or not? The U.N was established by the Council of Foreign Relations and NGO’s at least still follow the Agenda of the Bankers.

Rick March 5, 2012 at 2:26 pm #

Jim, another good post.
I think most people, and a lot I know are drinking the Kool-aid.
I also know a number of people, just getting out of college, and who are going to join the military, because there are no jobs. Stupid. They should get into beyond organic farming, if they were smart.
I also know a number of people, planning on going to college, also stupid. The herd as not figured out what’s going on.
I also know people who think the economy is getting better, that the stock market is safe, etc. Of course these same folks have never heard of Peak Oil.

IdouHipposChloros March 5, 2012 at 2:26 pm #

While I agree with most of Jim’s opinions, I usually find the language they are couched in a little bombastic. Todays post was refreshingly direct, and should be sobering to those who think falling off the oil plateau is going to be an opportunity to simply step out of our fast pace life into a idyllic, simpler time. We are in for a long, miserable ride filled with deprivation, loss, and death. And all the beans, bullets, and bandaids in the basement aren’t gonna guarantee you and yours come out unscathed on the other side.

horseoutside March 5, 2012 at 2:32 pm #

Kunstler has been mailing it in more and more frequently of late. Its tough to be original all the time, but this weeks effort definitely had a tired copy and paste feel to it.
Maybe time for Kunstler to take a sabatical, or chow down on five grammes of dry psilocybin mushrooms, a la Terence McKenna, and have a mentally and emotionally invigorating detoxification.
Theres a lot of stimulating comment online, but increasingly, Jim Kunstler sounds like yesterdays news.

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 2:32 pm #

Good article from Israel about Israel: how does tiny Israel control America? The honesty is refreshing. But you have to answer it yourself – and the answer is disquieting. Countless Jews all over the Western World are basically just Israelis. And their wealth is used to win elections that further Israel’s interests. Israel is a not a tiny Nation but a mighty Nation without borders. Who said a Nation had to be bounded geographically? That’s mechanical Newtonian thinking. Moreover, Zionist Founding Fathers Theordore Herzl and Chaim Weitzman said it first.
We need borders. But the Jews do not. I never denied they were an amazing people. They are and we need to be on our guard against them.

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 2:34 pm #

The Article: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/it-s-just-a-matter-of-time-before-u-s-tires-of-israel-1.416297
Let’s pray he’s right about us tiring of Israel before it’s too late.

Kurt Cagle March 5, 2012 at 2:46 pm #

Helen,
I’m sending my daughter to a community college rather than university. Her interests are in art, and having known a number of (mostly employed) artists I believe that as a skill it’s actually pretty useful – she’s gaining facility in working with different media, from creating clothing to illustrating to architectural design, and it’s a remarkably good polyglot skillset to have. Will it be useful in the long emergency? Quite possibly.
However, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about education as a consequence. The problem that we face right now is that a high school education is not adequate, because there is no longer anything in our society that corresponds to the notion of apprenticeship. Farm kids spent 10,000 hours working on a farm when young just doing “chores”, and over that time absorbed through observation, practice, and occasional minor correction how to be good farmers. My daughter has been drawing since she was a toddler, has perhaps 8,000 hours of self-education, and is reasonably competent, but she also grew up in a household where her father was an artist and could periodically steer her when she wandered into potentially dangerous areas, could provide her with suggestions, books and art supplies, and could otherwise teach her. She has an aptitude and a passion for the subject which
A university education is not for everyone, and the education “industry” has over-marketed it in the same way that most corporate groups have over-marketed everything else, encouraged by the big pots of money that the financial industry makes possible by creating fairly punitive loans on students. Yet that doesn’t mean that some form of education isn’t still needed.
Personally, I think there’s benefits to moving to more specialized high schools and even middle schools, since aptitude usually manifests itself fairly clearly by then. Community colleges often fill this role at the post secondary level, but I’ve often wondered about the idea of expanding the mandate of community colleges down to grade 9, making it possible to create apprenticeship programs for students that could be combined with curriculum completion of core skills. Parents would pay a reduced tuition (that could be offet by scholarships), the students get a more specialized education targeted to their aptitudes and interests, and businesses could benefit from work study program interns while potentially covering the scholarships.
This has been done quite successfully in a number of places, but all too often these kinds of innovative programs get overlooked when discussing educational reform.

Al Klein March 5, 2012 at 2:53 pm #

Vlad, the Jews are not the only nation without borders. So also are the Chinese. Many years ago I interviewed with a firm down in DC whose president was a female Chinese. She said to me, and I quote, “Anywhere there is a Chines, I can make a deal.” At the time, I thought the comment was a bit arrogantr, since the majority of this woman’s company’s revenue was from US federal contracts. In any case, I felt I had been effectively dissed as a provincial bumpkin (though I do not think that was her intent.) I once heard that the Chines do not think of themselves as having a nation so much as having a civilization. Considering their overall contribution to the world for the past 5000 years, they may have a point. The Jews may feel the same way, since Christianity and Islam both sprang from Jewish roots.

Liquid Lennny March 5, 2012 at 3:06 pm #

Jim,
To use a tired sports analogy I have to say; I’ve never seen someone hit so many home runs as you did today. You pretty much sum up the big picture confronting all of us.
Makes the ninety percent reduction in population in this century spoken of by William Catton as a somewhat optimistic view.
Looking foreward to the new book.

John Howard March 5, 2012 at 3:07 pm #

We need a catalyst to show everyone that we are serious. We need to prohibit genetic engineering and same-sex reproduction and put to rest the unsustainable confusion of gay marriage, postgenderism, radical feminism. Tell men that they are needed to get to actual work, tell them it’s time to stop watching while feminists let the world burn up and out and take charge again.
The place to start is by enacting the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise to put an end to all that dumb transhumanism right now.

fairguy March 5, 2012 at 3:10 pm #

Excellent essay today which sums it all up.
Interesting corroboration on the upcoming financial debacle from an interview with David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director at :
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-03-03/david-stockman-says-economic-disaster-lurks/53339644/1

anti soak March 5, 2012 at 3:23 pm #

University, in the era of ‘Outsourcing and Web’, Is very over rated and ‘yesterday’.
And over priced.

Kurt Cagle March 5, 2012 at 3:24 pm #

Vlad,
Um … Okay, that borders on the edge. However, re: your post:
Minorities tend to end up occupying the lesser desirable parts of cities, because they often lack the economic clout (and often face discrimination) to relocate. During the build-up of this saeculum, whites tended to locate disproportionately to the suburbs, especially early on, making the cities proportionately higher in minority representation. As white middle class political and economic clout declines, their ability to stay in the suburbs also declines, especially as the cost of gasoline rises. They increasingly move towards the higher density cities, which will have two effects – for middle class minorities, this will actually prove beneficial, as they will be in a better position to barter over urban properties, securing their own positions in the city and increasing the economic clout of that ethnicity by extension. On the other hand, the suburbs will increasingly become the home of the economic poor, which includes displaced whites as well as poor minorities that will get displaced by the rising wave of “gentrification” into the urban core. This is already happening now as the Boomers retire – there’s actually something of a boom in gentrification projects in cities that are due to those retirees, now with adult children and who prefer a smaller place with lower maintenance, moving back to the downtown core with all its amenities. This is a known dynamic.
Moreover, the proportion of NW European whites in the United States has been dropping steadily, and they will be in a minority by 2045, which means that cities will only become more diverse over time.
I’d be willing to bet it unlikely you’ll see marauding bands of African Americans or Muslims taking over the Amish. My bet would be far more likely the hard core white racist dominionists performing ethnic cleansing in their backyards. Blacks in this country have far too long a history of slavery and suppression to be comfortable playing the role of the oppressor, and most muslim immigrants (like immigrants in general) often have a far higher respect for the United States than the native population does, because they have experience with where they came from.
Humans are humans – the capacity for both compassion and cruelty does not correlate with one’s place of birth, sex, social orientation or skin color, though it can correlate with one’s intelligence and the variety of experiences that the person has in their life. In a post-breakup world, there will be some regions that will welcome diversity (of certain types) and there will be others that may end being racist hellholes. What may prove instructive will be how those societies evolve over time.

anti soak March 5, 2012 at 3:25 pm #

‘Jewish roots’!
And where is Judaism from? See Grahams ‘Deceptions and Myths of the Bible’.

Kurt Cagle March 5, 2012 at 3:36 pm #

PRD,
Contraction WILL occur. It’s not a matter of succeeding – contraction takes place because the system no longer has the capacity for growth, and completely stable “sustainable” cultures are incredible difficult to get right; in most cases they actually oscillate between periods of contraction and expansion, rather than being purely balanced.
Contractions can be either painful and relatively fast or less painful at any time but more destructive long term. It’s like buying a car. You can take a big hit financially all at once while paying for the car or do payments but end up paying considerably more for the same car – in the end you still have the same car. The older generation, the one most invested in the status quo, much prefer to drag it out until after they die, putting the burden on future generations. The young, understandably, would be far happier to see the crash come sooner than later, because it gives them an opportunity to build something that works better for them. This is the coming generational crisis.

Niels Laughlin March 5, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

No. The $1/day people may have an easier time, especially if you’re a hunter/gatherer, you already know what to do. It’s the people who are consuming high amounts of resources who will have the most problems adjusting.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 3:39 pm #

Asoka, his essays are here: Joe Bageant Archive. So gentle readers, if $1000 dollar heating bills bite into your book budgets read them here (and lots of other good stuff to).
Screen quality is superb.
Concerning this weeks article:
Our destruction —

will be the result of leaders not telling the public the truth for many many years.

A situation which continues because we the American public allow it. If leaders who lie are burned at the stake remaining leaders will stop lying. In a country where lying leaders are tolerated and accepted it should not be surprising when mendacity becomes the norm.
So Millard Filmore runs the white house and stocks his cabinet positions with wanking yes men who do nothing. Its puppies and kittens, glazed portraits on Chinese Porcelain presidential collector plates in D.C. Greed fear and the vain hope in a lost American dream keeps everyone looking down and quiet. Ignorance and confusion exacerbate the problem as education in America always neglected remains the avocation of the few. Educated opinions are easily ignored in the electronic babble that keeps everyone stupid. Such is the zeitgeist in America Today.
In the 1850’s the original Filmore tried to solve the slavery issue and within a few years it was apparent that his compromise which had been intended to settle the slavery issue only served as an uneasy calm before the storm of the civil war.
Ignoring issues and lying about reality won’t make problems go away but that’s what political compromise can be. It’s not always a good thing as we were taught. Believing in the sanctity of compromise can keep sheep docile and wolves fed.
Millard Filmore was replaced by Franklin Pierce and James Bucanan followed him. Two more compromisers both of whom were referred to as ‘doughfaces’. Northern men with southern principles and sympathies. Men too out of touch with reality to do any good.
Today is no different. Our leaders are out of touch with reality and the result will be horrible destruction and suffering with wounds that will never heal.
In the 1850’s our system of government failed us, and it is happening again. Some things are best dealt with. Trying to compromise with slavery was a disaster, besides being morally wrong it lead to the deaths of over 600,000 men.
Pretending we don’t have serious energy issues and a society that can’t function without cheap abundant energy is also morally wrong. Future generations depend on us doing the right thing now. The question has been asked by some responding to this weeks post: What can we do?
The answer right now is to get loud and start making noise. Dialog with people so you can understand their arguments and where they are coming from and refine your position. An inflection point is coming and the sooner it gets here the less suffering there will be.
In 1852 militant northern Whigs refused to forgive Fillmore for signing the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’. That deprived him of the Presidential nomination in 1852.
If we had a militant Progressive element which refused to forgive Obama for shameless pandering to the status-quo, ignorance and inaction a person who could deliver change could be elected. Not someone who only promises it and then turns around and does everything he can to support the existing plutocracy like Obama has done.
K-dog for President.
And if you don’t like me find somebody you do.
But what incentive is there

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 3:41 pm #

The “But what incentive is there” was from an unfinished thought and was not intended.

Grouchy Old Girl March 5, 2012 at 3:41 pm #

I am calling out Newworld for ugly nasty misogyny today. As a Canadian the American fight for a simple right like birth control being covered by health insurance is simply incredible.
Newworld, if the person demanding those rights is a lesbian, so what? How does that have anything to do with the discussion at hand?

Grouchy Old Girl March 5, 2012 at 3:51 pm #

Best laugh of the day Mack, suggesting JHK seek out Jesus to reach his full potential as a prophet of contraction. Now why didn’t he think of that himself? Great stuff, hilarious.

normann March 5, 2012 at 3:54 pm #

This bit about “$1 a day” disguises the fact that some but not all of those in that category are subsistence farmers, who are already familiar with the Grim Reaper’s form of population control. The die-offs will be among those who have been kept alive by imports of Iowa and Saskatchewan topsoil in the urban slums of the West African littoral or the South Asian helots building and cleaning the toilet of Gulf emirate hotels.
When North American and European food supplies contract to locally, solar-produced maxima, not only will there be no such thing as veganism (or anorexia) among the natives- truly hungry people will eat what Mother Nature gave them with no qualms, but rafts full of prospective immigrants will be sunk by the coast guard.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 4:14 pm #

“The young, understandably, would be far happier to see the crash come sooner than later,”
Yes I have encountered this attitude myself and it saddens me. The first world war was only supposed to last six weeks or so. Attitude was that the weapons of the time would make short work of the enemy. Instead the weapons of the time led to trench warfare, years of misery and wounds that did not heal.
Iraq oil was supposed to pay for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq freedom. Instead you and I are pick up the tab. The oil is still in Iraq.
The Titanic was unsinkable.
So the crash comes and in the confusion and chaos that follows the young build a new and better society. They build their new utopia without energy inputs resources or food, united in a common purpose.
not
Dealing with the energy problem now is the only way. Crashing is like a referee blowing his whistle, game over.

Grouchy Old Girl March 5, 2012 at 4:30 pm #

Today’s entry was excellent and thought provoking and really enjoyed the photo essay of Jim’s new hometown. Looks much like parts of our little town here in Ontario right by the lake. While our noble town fathers are eager for condos to stand
cheek by jowl at our waterfront and block access to the water for ordinary people, we have old factories left to fall apart on their own in the wrong side of town. Our latest business to come to town is Payday Loan though, and that tells us all we need to know.
When I blogged about the deterioration of all the little towns along Lake Ontario’s north shore a local realtor raked me over the coals for telling it like it is, and vowed he would never read another word I wrote. Typical of the business boosterism that so many of our civic leaders are infected with. They really get annoyed when somebody comes along and tells the truth.
But we have to try, each in our way, as we make our own preparations for what’s to come.

ozone March 5, 2012 at 4:31 pm #

Kurt,
Not a reply, a question.
Denver? What’s it got to retain its’ status as a “major city” after decentralization? Anything other than mountain mining? Where’s all the foodstuffs grown around there?
(I don’t see any area that depends on massive importation to last for long [as a large entity]. Please elucidate.)

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 4:36 pm #

Learn how to survive fromt the animals. First, learn to do nothing like the reptile. Get a nice couch, chair, or rug and learn to stay comfortably still for hours. Listen to the radio or read. When you are more advanced, you wont even need to do these. How much energy can be saved! How little food such a person needs!

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 4:44 pm #

You say Humans and Humans and also say that Blacks are better people than Whites. Typical.
Whites flee Black crime and intentional terror. Black povety is 100% their own fault now. They’ve had generations to prove themselves and they have failed to do so.
When the welfare checks stop coming there is going to be hell to pay. Don’t know how anyone cannot see that or think that red necks are a worst threat. The latter, if they have left Christianity and only have their cars and guns, will be dangerous. But most still are Christian and have some principles.

Belisarius March 5, 2012 at 4:47 pm #

“…truly hungry people will eat what Mother Nature gave them with no qualms, but rafts full of prospective immigrants will be sunk by the coast guard.”
Maybe….if they are lucky. Rafts are useful, and guard dogs need to be fed. Coast quard may greet them warmly and haul or tow them to a “welcome center” where they can write nice letters home, before they are assimilated at the soylent plant. Thus these coasties will be “fishers of men”! 🙂

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 4:52 pm #

People like you are from another planet. Canada and Europe are, evidently. Why should anyone have to pay for this privledged person’s birth control? If womyn as so empowered, shouldn’t they be able to manage at least that much? Or shouldn’t it be between her and her boyfriend – though it’s hard to imagine any man putting up with her – or her being able to stand being with a man.
It’s now known that Fluke is hardly an ordinary “student” but rather a long time activist who chose Georgetown just because it didn’t offer this service. What a troblemaking piece of shit. Why don’t you people leave the Church alone? It doesn’t want to pay for what it deems immorality – so go elsewhere for your abortofacients.
The Democratic Party put her in at the last minute just so the Republicans wouldn’t have time to vet her and thus refused her. And thus the “scene” was contrived. How anybody could be so stupid as to believe any of that was real just boggles the mind. It is every bit as contrived and stupid as the whole Rosa Parks scam.

charliefoxtrot March 5, 2012 at 5:32 pm #

oh, this oughtta be good! i ll bite, flad- just which part of rosa parks having had enough was a scandal?

ront March 5, 2012 at 5:33 pm #

Moondog you present such as choice: sickening vs frightening! This is even better than lesser of two evils. On this theme a couple of local weeklies published this article last week:
Don’t believe the election sham
Four years ago, the excitement was mounting with the possibility that “we the people” might accomplish something groundbreaking, something that held great hope for meaningful change. There are still many who cling to that “accomplishment” and that hope.
I see something quite different. I see us having been played again by those who hold the strings of politics, government, and commerce. These rich and powerful persons, who exercise control and amass wealth from the exploitative systems that serve their interests, are quite happy to deliver to “we the people” two essentially interchangeable candidates for president, as well as for other leadership positions. All major-party candidates are vetted for their willingness to maintain the shams and scams that enrich and empower the wealthiest among us.
Consider all the celebrating that took place in 2008 with the election of one “vetted” candidate over the other (Obama over McCain). I am sure the ruling elite were quietly celebrating with their cronies — not that Obama won, which didn’t matter to them, but that the citizenry was happy, hopeful, and hoodwinked.
Has anything changed? Not really. The media continue the same old horse-race-handicapping rhetoric, ignoring anyone other than the two vetted candidates and their up-to-the-minute probability for success.
Not taken seriously, if mentioned at all, are the values the
candidates espouse, or who these values serve. The corporate-owned and -operated media cannot be trusted to do other than spew propaganda that serves its owners’ interests. Nor can the politicians and the money corrupted political system be relied upon to serve the common good.
How can we, who care, take back the authority and responsibility we have allowed the ruling elite to usurp? I say, if you want to accomplish something real for and by the people, then do not buy into the election sham again. Do not vote for the moneyed super PAC candidates that the two parties will hand us. Do not vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
Do not waste your vote! Accomplish something real with it — something that makes a statement, that takes a stand, that is true to your spirit, that takes courage, that does not bend to the will and manipulation of those few who hold power over you, and does not add to a mandate you abhor.
Vote for a candidate who values something other than his own career. Please, vote for someone other than the “viable” candidates anointed by the talking heads. Vote for and promote someone who is not on the take, nor likely to be indoctrinated into that culture.
If anyone thought electing an African-American was special, imagine electing a third-party candidate to serve the people as president (senator, governor, etc.). Such a candidate will almost certainly be ignored by the media if he or she lacks the treasure chest that spells victory in our insane electoral process.
Four years ago, something happened that would once have been thought impossible. Whatever the setbacks, we need to keep believing in the “impossible.”

Chuck March 5, 2012 at 5:48 pm #

Our local leadership is getting the picture of doing less with less. I posted a piece on Peak Oil Blues recently about this revelation.

Lou Gogan March 5, 2012 at 5:50 pm #

I think the large corporations will survive – they intend to. Few people realise that a coup d’etat has already taken place in the USA and the decisions made by ‘your’ government aren’t reckless or incorrect. Those decisions directly favour the owners of your political system – the large corporations.

Unfortunately I think Obama will turn out to be the greatest disappointment the USA has ever had as a President. He has failed the citizens.

It is easy to fight a military foe, you already did that a few hundred years ago, but when the enemy is from within and is already in charge of the governing forces, it is going to be a difficult process. The citizens of the USA need to waken up. It is practically too late already.

Archie Bunker March 5, 2012 at 5:59 pm #

Helen, I don’t think students who currently take on student loans will have to worry about paying back the money. If we truly have the kind of national breakdown that JHK envisions, then formalized debt will be a thing of the past. The kids will be working on farms scattered in all directions and anybody trying to collect educational debts will probably find themselves at the bottom of an abandoned well, never again to see the light of day.
More likely, these former students (now working farm kids) will be paid the same way that my father who owned a very large farm paid his workers. He paid them at the end of each day. It made for a lot of trust between my dad and the people who worked for him. Obviously, it was not a large sum of money each day but the workers never worried about being “stiffed” for their wages and the trust factor was off the charts.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 6:11 pm #

I say, if you want to accomplish something real for and by the people, then do not buy into the election sham again. Do not vote for the moneyed super PAC candidates that the two parties will hand us. Do not vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
***
I’ll second that motion. How about we get somebody smart enough to do the job who isn’t a politician and who’s only interest is to direct a dynamic team that accomplishes real change. Change grounded in reality and science committed to a sustainable future.
If that sounds suspiciously like what brand Obama fed you four years ago consider that millions of dollars were spend matching up the right words to the wrong man. And there are other differences, all you had for years ago was somebody with a big ‘O’ on a blue background who mentioned change but that’s all. Nothing about a dynamic team who’s only interest was to move America to a sustainable future and a prosperous society, no detail.
The man or woman we need to lead this country is out there, waiting to be found. Somebody who can step up and make it happen, somebody who cares more for this country than any particular agenda legacy or vacation.

Neon Vincent March 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm #

“So you do support Agenda 21 or not?”
Yes, Impaler, I do support Agenda 21.
“So you do support Agenda 21 or not? The U.N was established by the Council of Foreign Relations and NGO’s at least still follow the Agenda of the Bankers.”
So you do throw punches with your left hand. As Captain Jack Sparrow would say, that’s interesting. That’s very interesting.

jarrollin March 5, 2012 at 6:16 pm #

There is very one important kind of cheap easy energy that we also take for granted. Namely, it is the kind of energy that humans expect to elicit, suck in, garner and take from other humans. The only place this can happen in a way that is as easy as people like is through entertainment. People say that they are “relating” to others on the big or little screen. But they aren’t at all. One can only identify with a person through these mediums, which is a very different thing. Only disaassociation allows for the sense that we can relate to those in the mass medium of entertainment. We relate only in person. I have a feeling that this cheap easy energy people expect from one another will have to die off along with these other illusions.

Archie Bunker March 5, 2012 at 6:23 pm #

Vlad, it’s possible that the Amish might become serfs to other people since they tend to be extremely non-violent. But, I can guarantee you that anybody who tries to invade the South and enslave those folks will die from a very bad case of lead poisoning. I come from the deep South and I used to watch my oldest brother dispatch rattlesnakes with a handgun from a considerable distance. That’s how he got to the point of winning a number of shooting medals in the U.S. Army. My father knew how to handle weapons too. When he was a kid, he used to kill animals with a slingshot and then bring them home for grandma to cook up. My dad could easily have killed some loan collector interloper with an accurate head shot from a well aimed rock but they didn’t have formal loan collectors when my dad was a kid.
In about two years, I will be moving to Tennessee where I can once again take up the good old shooting routine. I’m now stuck in a city environment where I have to do my target practice with pellet guns in my backyard. Don’t laugh. The principles of aiming and hand/arm control are the same. I can’t wait to get to the Volunteer State where I will at last have a fighting chance for survival.

ofthehands.com March 5, 2012 at 6:32 pm #

Beautiful, succinct post, James. You nailed it. We’re stumbling ever closer to the peak rhetoric moment in this woefully depressing election year and it’s going to be a doozy. People are delusional both on the right and the left. I’ve been hearing the nonsense about how we’re now an oil exporter (due to us exporting a bit of refined fuel products) from people on both political sides, and who often should know better. The scariest thing about people repeating this assertion with confidence is that they obviously have had no clue how much oil we import, or else they would have heard this claim and had an immediate reaction of, “Wait, what?” and would have looked into it enough to realize what bullshit it is.
That so many people don’t have even that most basic knowledge is frightening. It’s why I think we’re most likely to just end up in further wars of aggression until the whole supporting infrastructure finally crumbles. We just seem unable, as a people, to be honest with ourselves about our way of life and how unsustainable it is, no matter how hard we close our eyes and wish for a technological miracle. No, it’s always going to be someone else’s fault, keeping us from the promised land.
I would suggest instead that we all learn how to be poor. That’s where most of us are going to end up no matter what, and I think it’ll be a much easier (though not easy) road if we do it via some basic understandings of our hard reality rather than via unchecked aggression as we fight that reality until the bitter end–which will be much more bitter for each pointless bit of warfare, domestic and abroad, we partake in.
Joel

ozone March 5, 2012 at 6:39 pm #

Yessir, baby!
Soylent Pink; mmm-Mm!
What’s that I smell? Oooooo, PROFITS….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Yg-c6iBF8
Eat up, BAU boosters.

mika. March 5, 2012 at 7:26 pm #

Interesting stuff:
Tiny fractal trees for solar power
– http://bit.ly/yI8RRS
3-Dimensional Solar Cell Reduces Payback on Solar Power Systems by at Least 40%
– http://goo.gl/j1GYa
Via: Google News Solar Power

PRD March 5, 2012 at 7:48 pm #

Yes, yes, Kurt, I know all that. You’ve misunderstood the point I was trying to make (which I really didn’t think was all that controversial an observation, but must have been stated unclearly).
If you’re interested, see my response to Dirk, a few posts back.
All I was trying to say is that, collectively, we have a lot to learn before we’re prepared to cope with (or even survive) life without all the things cheap energy has provided us.

MalcolmV March 5, 2012 at 7:51 pm #

JHK said “These are stories generated by the particular stage of collective grief we have entered – the bargaining stage, where we attempt to negotiate a better contract with reality”
Kübler-Ross’s next stage of grief, after bargaining, is anger. This should be interesting.

rippedthunder March 5, 2012 at 7:54 pm #

O3, Check out the picture tour of the new home town Greenwich, NY. which JHK posted. Take a modern look from Google maps satellite or Google earth. Seems like a great spot on the Battenkill. They have a coupla’ spots which would be great for a “World Made by Hand”. I saw two old dams which would be great for small time hydro or mill operation. The old post civil war pic looks likes Greenwich was a deadend railroad track. There is a turntable just past the depot and in front of the engine barn. I love those old aerial town drawings.

JonathanSS March 5, 2012 at 8:01 pm #

These are the K-R stages:
1. Denial — “There’s plenty of oil out there, but they won’t let us drill for it.”; “We’ve got NG, coal, oil shale, etc.”
2. Anger — “Those greedy oil execs, middlemen, Arabs, etc.”; “Who is to blame?”
3. Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”
4. Depression
5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

bubbleheadMarc March 5, 2012 at 8:05 pm #

Just read the new post without reading any of the comments yet. It would seem that any future vehicles post collapse would be more in the nature of electric bicycles or other light weight vehicles such as trikes or quadcycles. Why make them heavy if that only decreases the range? Then there is the observation that much of the power we currently use needn’t actually be used for that purpose at all considering that some of these functions, including leading users of fossil fuels, could accomplish the same end passively and with virtually no fuel. And then finally, it is typical to ignore submarine methane hydrates when viewing the overall fossil fuels picture. Especially considering projected effects of global warming on these deposits it seems more than merely plausible that they will eventually need to be mined in order to either consume or sequester the massive volume of gas that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and of course methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide.

Headless March 5, 2012 at 8:10 pm #

It’s really only a few dozen or hundred fascist white guys that need to be killed in order to allow the rest of us to scale down and reorganize society in a sharing and peaceful manner. How hard could it really be to take out the fascist brigade of Wall Street.D.C. fucks if a conscientious military force were to set their consolidated mind to doing what is necessary to save humanity?

Neon Vincent March 5, 2012 at 8:14 pm #

“Re: Agenda 21, there seems to be a ground swell of panicky opposition to anything related to Agenda 21.”
That’s what I’m reading about it, too. The first time was Tea Partiers vs. Manatees in Florida, which was mostly the concern of the St. Augustine Times. A few months later Tea Partiers were showing up at planning commissions all over the country and the Washtington Post, The Atlantic, and the New York Times were publishing stories about it. Now, it’s a target of the GOP National Committee.
“A Google search on the combination of “Agenda 21” and “liberty” generated “about 6,810,000” hits today.”
Looks like Agenda 21 is the new black helicopter.
“In my state of NH a local representative submitted a bill to forbid any city or town to participate in any way with ICLEI “in furtherance of UN Agenda 21″. The issue is the UN is trying to take over the world AND take away all of our individual and property rights.”
This is the same NH legislature that says that laws must reference the Magna Carta. *rolls eyes* However, if JHK is right, there might come a time when the Magna Carta would be appropriate.
“I read that Chou en-lai was asked what he thought about democracy as a form of government and he replied “It’s too early to tell”.”
That’s a new version on me. The most common is what Chou thought of the impact of the French Revolution. The less common is what he thought of the Enlightenment. In any case, the answer is still the same, “Too soon to tell.”

ghostlimb March 5, 2012 at 8:34 pm #

Disappointing to hear NPR news today reporting that the U.S. has more oil than it needs and is a net exporter now. How oil from the gulf is so expensive to pipeline/ship to the east coast that it’s exported to latin america instead.
Really? The U.S. produces more than 21 mil. barrels per day and exports the excess? Thirty seconds of googling by NPR would have held up a funhouse distorted mirror to their story to expose the absurdity and save themselves the embarrassment.

anti soak March 5, 2012 at 8:45 pm #

Except that NPRs Prez gets 500K a year?
Except that NPR is fulla crap.
Except that the 2 PM [PST] Business show is a JOKE!
and on and on it goes.

ozone March 5, 2012 at 8:50 pm #

Yep, I checked out the pi’cher show, but didn’t think to Google Earth the joint.
Will do, thanks!

ozone March 5, 2012 at 8:52 pm #

Is NPR one of those left-wing propaganda organs?

Dahveed March 5, 2012 at 9:01 pm #

Jim, a killer post. Targeted, hilarious, and inspiring… and only mildly depressing.

progress2conserve March 5, 2012 at 9:25 pm #

Nice weeks’ work, JHK. Thanks as always!
It would be nice to have an intelligent round-table conversation on the CFN discussion thread this week, concerning the ideas and issues you have thrown out for us.
For example, I would argue that we already have far too many people in the US for most of us to ever reorganize at the city, village, or township level. And I can point to evidence from CFN that various “my group right-or-wrong-isms” will destroy any possibility for purposeful collective action. (Multi-culturalism only worked in an energy-ascendent world. We prove this weekly.)
And I couldd argue that trains will NOT be a solution – trains, high speed or conventional, still require much MORE fossil fuel than a loaded passenger car – that’s just basic physics.
Plus, the passenger cars are probably going to have to be gone too, for most of us – that’s just basic peak oil and economics.
And that’s just to pick two examples for intelligent debate. And there are so many more.
We won’t do this (intelligent debate) of course, on CFN, based on previous weeks.
.
What we will do is based on this:
“…… the disorders in the collective conversion that we call “politics,” but we are probably going to see ever greater divergence with reality……” -jhk-
Reality on CFN has split into various Minority Tribalisms for the past several weeks.
The ClusterFuck Nation is very well named, Mr. Kunstler.
Thanks again, for providing a platform where we can prove it to the world – over and over and over.
Now what?

Pucker March 5, 2012 at 9:27 pm #

Does anyone out there in CFN know of any inspiring millenarian cults in the Good ‘Ole U.S.A., or elsewhere, taking active measures to survive the coming apocalypse similar to the Jim Jones cult in Guyana in the 1970s? Thanks.

Pucker March 5, 2012 at 9:32 pm #

About a year ago, I was in Los Angeles for work with a Jewish colleague named Edward, with a bizarre perfunctory trip to Universal Studios on the side.
During the trip, an ethnic Chinese woman who knew that Ed is Jewish asked me: “So Pucker, Would you like to come to work in Los Angeles?”
Later, she asked the Jewish bloke: “So Edward, Would ‘Jew’ like to come to work in Los Angeles?”
Maybe it was just a slip-of-the-tongue?

greyghost05 March 5, 2012 at 9:45 pm #

Oh mercy no….. it’s part of our tax dollars at work. Interpreting and dramaticly portraying the news so we can better ubderstand it.

progress2conserve March 5, 2012 at 9:46 pm #

“I’ve wondered if these villages can come back to life. High speed rail is a pipe dream, but how about steam-powered trains? Ohio has lots and lots of coal (which I know is a nasty, dirty, filthy, disgusting word to use.) and people could at least get around”
-juletta-.
h
Good questions, JofO. Now I will disagree with you, even though you are of my Tribe. amazing.
In a smaller and more logical America – villages were located where they were, because of rivers, fault lines, and other geographical features. We’ve carved up the country into Straight Lines run by Diesel Power – to the point that underlying geography is nearly meaningless. Someday, logically located villages may come back to life, Juletta. But the Hell to be dealt with, before that comes to pass – is almost too terrible to contemplate.
And concerning coal, and trains. Coal is indeed nasty stuff. But coal is incredibly useful – almost irreplaceable – for certain purposes. If I knew that there was a finite amount of coal available to me and my progeny for all Eternity* – then I would encourage my progeny to save that coal for useful purposes – and I sure would not waste that coal moving humans around and around and about.
*and, of course, there IS a finite amount of coal available for all Eternity.
American Free Market Style Capitalism seems to calculate Eternity as something less than 100 years. Anyway, that’s when most of the usable coal will be gone.

greyghost05 March 5, 2012 at 9:48 pm #

Closest you can get to that would be to become Amish or Mormon.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 9:58 pm #

“Kittens and puppies! Kittens and puppies!”

rippedthunder March 5, 2012 at 10:08 pm #

Git da fuk’ outta town! What waz that bullshit? ;o)

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 10:10 pm #

No, NPR is quite middle of the road and exists to make people feel like they are informed, it makes them feel better. A nasty thing to say yes, but I say it because it used to be so much more than it is now. NPR has become a shill for the status-quo. From the point of view that worship of the status-quo is now considered to be the far left, you are correct.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 10:11 pm #

Not my bullshit,
His

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 10:14 pm #

But good to know he likes dogs.

k-dog March 5, 2012 at 10:15 pm #

But then Obama probably does not even know about the site.

progress2conserve March 5, 2012 at 10:16 pm #

“It may not seem like a big deal but I have asked around and nobody can tell me where there is a well with a diameter large enough to lower a bucket for freshwater”
-steve 0-
Steve, water is the BIGGEST DEAL OF ALL.
Without water for 24 hours, the weakest among us begin to die. Without water for 24 hours – our largest cities become places where people either flee, or begin to die in place.
BelliS gave a pretty good answer, although I’ll disagree with him. (Hope he’s not in my tribe!)
Solar pumps aren’t much of a solution, because of supply and parts problems, over the long term.
His “high-lift?” hand pump sounds pretty good.
I’d like to see that. Do you have a link, BelliS?
I’ve got a 500 foot deep, 6 inch bored well. My water table is about 80 feet down. I would buy one of these in a New York Second –
http://www.wellwaterboy.com/id69.html
But, fortunately I don’t have to.
I’ve got a bold running creek, just downhill from my house. That, and some filtration, caution, and hard work – is my backup plan, if and when the electricity goes down – and doesn’t ever come back up.

Pucker March 5, 2012 at 10:45 pm #

Did you know that the doomsday cult leader, Jim Jones, was a “Maoist”?
Jones moved away from the Communist Party and Maoists when CPUSA members and Mao Zedong became critical of some of the policies of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

James Hansen March 5, 2012 at 10:51 pm #

The big fly in the ointment of Kunstler’s rosy future scenario is when the global social upheaval occurs a planet killing event would most likely take place.
If you leave a nuclear plant alone for three days, a melt down occurs. This has already happened in Japan last March. This will happen 400 times all over the world if there is a major collapse.
The nuclear pollution coming out of Japan is immense, Tokyo is experiencing 10 to 25 times the radiation limits of the mandatory evacuation zones of Chernobyl. The situation is totally out of control and this is in a fully functioning society.
The possible nuclear problems makes peak oil look quaint.

Pucker March 5, 2012 at 10:59 pm #

“For those of you who don’t know what Jonestown was, it was a commune in Guyana occupied by The People’s Temple. The People’s Temple was a new religious group founded by Jim Jones. At first, Jim Jones was an advocate of peace and integration. He believed in equality of races, ages, sex, and class. At first, it sounded like a beautiful thing.
How could this man, this one man who believed in so much good, convince 909 people to commit suicide?”
[Pucker shrugging his shoulders and mumbling to himself]: “I don’t know…Beats me….”

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 10:59 pm #

Oh dude. She was a hand picked Communist operative. Everyone who matters knows that. And the whole of Congress bowing and scraping at her memorial was nothing short or revolting.
Now Blacks can ride at the front of the bus (even though they prefer the back) and Whites can’t ride at all because of the Blacks. Liberal Justice.

Vlad Krandz March 5, 2012 at 11:01 pm #

There is no equality like that. It’s just not real. And anyone who believes in such fantasies will become vicious as soon as the rubber hits the road and his fantasies go splat.

Shakazulu March 5, 2012 at 11:15 pm #

Population. Control. The sole two objectives of the ruling Elite. Yes, many will die. This was prophesied millennium ago. Welcome to TEOTWAWKI.

asoka. March 5, 2012 at 11:18 pm #

And I can point to evidence from CFN that various “my group right-or-wrong-isms” will destroy any possibility for purposeful collective action. (Multi-culturalism only worked in an energy-ascendent world.
In my opinion, it does not help to say things like “Multi-culturalism only worked in an energy-ascendent world,” when we live in a multicultural society because it is a fatalistic statement, and it is not true. There is much more cooperation between what you call the “tribes” than conflict.
For example, most times when someone non-Asian goes into a 7-11, they buy something and walk out without killing the south Asian “tribe” member behind the counter.
Millions of such civil, and even friendly, business transactions between members of different “tribes” happen every day. But all you hear about on the news (or CFN) are the few times someone tries to rob a 7-11.
Second example: India. India is a multicultural country with 16 official languages and 2 national languages in the constitution. I’ve been there several times and traveled all over the country. It is a multicultural society.
India today has a population of about 1,210 million (more people live in India than the total population of Europe including Eurasia). Yet India is a strong and free democracy and is enjoying an unprecedented prosperity, thanks to the growth of knowledge-based economy like IT and Bio-medical technology. A strong Indian economy is driven by about 300 million plus young Indians with increased disposable income to spend on food, clothing and various other goods.
So neither multiculturalism, nor overpopulation, necessarily prevent a society from being successful (in both the material and non-material senses of the word successful). India today is poised to become the third largest economy in the world (after USA & China).
Yet some on CFN think multiculturalism does not make society stronger. They highlight differences. They highlight conflicts. They think multiculturalism should have lead India to civil war between “tribes.” But they are wrong. India is multicultural and is a strong and happy nation.
Far too much fatalism, pessimism, and mistrust of government on CFN. Far too much mistrust of other “tribes” on CFN.
In the real world the tribes (the majority of their members) are working together with other tribes. On CFN only conflict (that happens between a small minority of their members) is highlighted … thereby distorting reality.

Shakazulu March 5, 2012 at 11:23 pm #

Kittens and puppies! Kittens and puppies!
I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! ONE OF EACH! ONE OF EACH!
Seriously? What’s wrong with small, domesticated animals?

Shakazulu March 5, 2012 at 11:38 pm #

This will happen 400 times all over the world if there is a major collapse.
Fuk us hi ma all over the globe, eh? As Sgt Barnes said: “We all gotta die sometime, Red.”

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 12:03 am #

Marx recognized that people’s thinking is heavily influenced by their material circumstances, and that a change in a person’s material conditions would inevitably result in a change in that person’s thinking or consciousness.
I supposed that if Marx is correct, then an economic collapse would result in a mental breakdown in the society, right?
“In December, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination, claiming that “U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets” and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution.”

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 12:41 am #

JHK wrote: “More higher education is not going bring back the turbo-charged consumer economy. We will not need more office gerbils, bond salesmen, regional deputy managers, or Gender Studies PhDs.”
Here’s a link to a list of all of the Gender Studies programs worldwide. I notice that even Brigham Young University has a program.
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/programs.html

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 12:56 am #

I read 1 book on Jonestown.
I think you should go over to Wiki!
The Jonestown Carnage: A CIA Crime (Russian) – A book (in Russian) published in Soviet Union in 1987 containing witnesses of some people at Soviet embassy in Guyana and copies of documents unknown to western world.
Soviet ambassador recalls a meeting on 18 November with Deborah Touchette (she passed a briefcase with cash, tape records and documents of People’s Temple to him) and a call from Sharon Adams (she told about radio message from Jonestown about military helicopters and armed people approaching Jonestown on 18 November

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 1:02 am #

At one site theres an article:
WANT TO WORK FOR NPR, IT HELPS TO BE NAMED
ARI SHAPIRO……………Check it out!
Then decide 4 yrself……………..
Trying For NPR Job? Helps To Be Named ‘Ari Shapiro”
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/…/trying-for-npr-job-helps-to-be-na...
Helps To Be Named ‘Ari Shapiro”.
Christopher Donovan on January 13, 2012 — 64 Comments. On the drive home from work the other day, I was liste..

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 1:12 am #

People remember her name, But not the name Alan Bakke!

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 1:12 am #

Jim Jones looks familiar to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, as they say….
Jim Jones definately looks like a U.S. politician. He reminds me a bit of the former Penn State coach, Joe Paterno.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7IxGGfpSWk&feature=related

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 1:14 am #

Where are the Pix of JHK new home????

dominic March 6, 2012 at 1:20 am #

I hope we don’t forget how to make cement. we forgot for 13 hundred years after the roman empire fell.

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 1:24 am #

In the Jim Jones Peoples Temple documentary linked to below, they interview a former Peoples Temple member whose name, believe it or not, is “Jim Jones, Jr.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7IxGGfpSWk&feature=related

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 1:46 am #

“Seriously? What’s wrong with small, domesticated animals?”
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
I’m sure our attorney general has a pet or two and that must surly make him a kind wonderful man. He’s just put out that a judge is not required in making the decision to murder an American citizen abroad using a drone because he decided a judge is not required in legal due process when it comes to making a life and death decision to drop a drone on somebody’s ass. Obama did announce that he was streamlining government spending. This must be part of it, to save money by not involving judges in the decision do snuff somebody with multi-million dollar drones.
Not good, even small domesticated animals have hearts and can love. I know that and so do you, but our attorney general obviously does not know about beating hearts.
So is it OK to murder because we love pets? I think not.
Please remind me who does Eric Holder work for?
Ahhhhhhhh the lover of pets.
Makes it all good?
********
NPR was mentioned today.
NPR is putting out as I type some tripe about the military using more renewable energy than anyone else and must therefore is some kind of good steward of the earth. Murder is now PC so long as green principles and environmental awareness are used in the process. No doubt several Harvard graduates were involved in that show production, just sayin.
Is NPR a voice of the ‘Left’ progressive, middle of the road, radical or otherwise?
No. Jingoism belongs to the ‘Right’
Small domesticated animals have some qualities we would do well to emulate. They never really have their heads up their asses the way we do.

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 1:58 am #

I think when Obama gets around to using domestic drones they will be smaller and cheaper. They won’t have to avoid the enemy and can be short range. Payloads will be carefully measured to take out a singe McMansion at a time. It’s the humane thing to do, and the neighbor next door could be a good republicrat. McMansions are not designed to resist drone attack. It won’t take much to bring one down. Small cheap drones are on the way and thanks to Eric in time to a neighborhood near you.
Isn’t that exciting!!!!!!

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 2:15 am #

What’s with the whole “drone” thing, anyway?
What kind of a mind comes up with the idea of “drones”? Drones are basically “dildos”, right?
And what’s with all the fixation on “secrecy”, as if “secrecy” is somehow “clever”?
It’s all rather weird and creepy….

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 2:19 am #

Rather than having our leaders and government bureaucrats spy on us, why don’t we spy on them?
We should pass a law requiring them to wear a wire 24 hours a day so that we can see who they’re meeting with and what they’re up to.

ASPO Article 1037 March 6, 2012 at 3:48 am #

American railway transport was in full swing before oil was even noted as a particular discovery by Mr. Drake circa 1859.. Yes, very possible to contemplate railways as part of the Oil Interregnum (and beyond) solution set. Wind, solar, biomass among other energy sources can make electric railways run, and batteries are not necessary. See website “Suntrain Transportation Inc.”
Comments above about cars being more energy efficient than railroads are simply wishful thinking, but seem plausible if paved roads and other paraphernalia civil and military needed to maintain happy motoring are left out of the calculation. Accident injuries are another cost of the car habit.
Institutions, various Schools of Transportation like to put up energy comparisons of highway (car, bus, trucks) vehicles of various size and compare with aircraft, waterborne transport and rail transport. They share a complete disregard for the fact of Peaking Oil… With the drawdown of conventional oil, places with a workable railway link -either main trunk or wobbly rehabbed branch line will be liveable while most places without rail and/or waterborne link shall not. Railway transport is robust; trains shall continue in their starring role: essential Guarantor Of Societal And Commercial Cohesion and always part of the social fabric as long as the Union of States shall endure.
A very important part of the American historical record occurred in July 1838, when the US Congress declared ALL Railroads to be legal working definition of “Post Roads” satisfying the requirement seen in Article I section 8 of the US Constitution. Probably the first case of privatization of an economic function by a direct act of Congress!
Along with the rebuild of the 1000+ dormant US rail corridors, we most naturally will decorate the rail lines with US Post Office amenities at appropriate locations removed with the centralization of that vital service. Maybe Fedex and UPS will assume operations in many locations at the start-up period, but this United States Postal Service arm of the Federal Government will persevere as long as the Constitution is considered a working document.
Post Offices were crucial during the formation of the Union of States (before the oil age) and expect to see Post Offices maintained wherever rails go and settlements warrant, as the oil age wanes.
The American Short Line Regional Railroad Association is the operating element most suited to play key role in the dormant rail line rebuild period just ahead. Expedited rebuild of crucial branch lines to serve agricultural corridors and manufacturing nodes now lacking rail link shall see reformed US Army/Guard Railroad Operating and Maintenance Battalions.
Cars will still be important, many lives shall be saved by use of inoperable cars as shelter from the rigors of winter, in case of attack, and in regional areas slow to adapt rail links. But why would any sensible locale delay efforts to re-establish de minimus (freight) rail link?
Anyone can search ASLRRA and contact the organization to begin planning for rebuild of rail link in one’s respective locale. If a rail main is near, replacing enroute sidings/spur tracks and container/trailer handling apparatus may suffice to keep a suburb viable. Anyone reading this can ascertain their regions’s rail legacy footprint by acquiring copy of US Rail Map Atlas from spv.co.uk and determine best course of action: relocate or work to emplace rail service closeby.
The physics of steel wheel on steel rail energy efficiency coupled with multiple energy source/rail power combinations make for maintaining passable robust economic possibility with vastly reduced rubber tire transport component. The Postal component in partnership with a rail line situated nearby brings a community into the Federal jurisdiction, an important security consideration. The local railway maintenance facilities, along with the Post Office as a gathering place make for a good quality of community life.
Keep ‘Em Rolling

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 4:40 am #

Three Bucks…Three Spots….? What’s with the number three?
“Pucker —
Today there are three seats left at the upcoming dinner with the President. By midnight tomorrow there will be only two — we’ll be picking the next guest.
Janet, a grandmother of four from Maryland, found out yesterday she’ll have the first seat.
It’s time to fill the second.
Pitch in $3 or whatever you can before midnight tomorrow, and you’ll be automatically entered for the chance to join Janet, President Obama, and two other supporters:
https://donate.barackobama.com/The-Second-Guest
There are only hours to go — so if you want your name to be in there, you should act now while there are still three spots remaining.
Good luck!
-Rufus
Rufus Gifford
National Finance Director
Obama for America”

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progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 7:30 am #

The number 3 –
Here’s a theory, Pucker.
I’ve been watching “Little Einsteins,” with one of the grandkids. He appeared to be getting smarter, but the show was definitely making me slightly dumber – and now there is a song stuck in my brain – incessantly playing over and over, despite my recent escape into my “office refuge,” and away from that infernal TV –
– incessantly making the same point
– incessantly getting longer and more pointless
– incessant, like posts from Tegmark
– incessant, you understand?
“Three Special Steps, that’s all you need
Three Special Steps, to help you succeed
Three of this, three of that
Three of something, three to splat
JUST THREEEE SPECIAL STEPS”
I wonder if the US is being programmed in sets of three, three, three – at this time, time, time?
Should we wonder why, why, why?
==========================
Of course, three political party choices would be far better than two, right?
Proving TPTB are dumb, dumb, dumb
as a box of rocks, rocks, rocks.

Widespreadpanic7 March 6, 2012 at 7:34 am #

Some of the posts here in the comments section yesterday were as good and illustrative as Jim’s original essay.
Well done, CFNers!
–WSP7

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progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 8:15 am #

OK – I just had to take a slight detour into practicality upon failure of a necessary system.
Which is to say my 4 year old, top-quality, well pump has failed. This is the first time I’ve had to pull it, so I’ll call one of the local companies to come out, do the diagnosis (again), pull the thing and replace it. I’m going to look into spending extra money so that the new one will be a “slow demand start?” (not the exact term) which will work better with a power inverter if I ever choose to go off-grid – or have to go off grid.
Anyway – we’ve got plans in place. Enough sanitation water is stored for a month. Drinking water to be drained out of the water heater, before switching over to stored potable water in the basement. Then there’s the creek, for after the first month.
Of course, I expect to have a new pump installed by this time tomorrow – we’re still pre-collapse, you know? But what would any of YOU do – at YOUR residence, if/when the water shut off, and never came back??
=======================
ASPO, I referenced this thing to you, first – because I wanted to talk about rail efficiency.
My figures show that freight rail is slightly more than double the efficiency per ton-mile, than is a loaded tractor, for moving freight.
And passenger rail just is NOT that much more efficient on a Passenger Mile Per Gallon (PMPG) basis, than are passenger cars. And loaded passenger buses beat all modes of long-distance transport, hands down.
BUT they all burn petroleum – lots of it!
Anyone got any figures. Anyone, of any tribe, can feel free to challenge me. IN fact, I encourage it.
“It is only through disagreement, that we can hope to learn to deal with our differences.”
-anon-
=====================
OK – It’s 8:10 a.m, EST. All the pump guys should be up and at ’em. Better get on the phone and start making the wife happy.

VyseLegend March 6, 2012 at 8:17 am #

There will not be a re-calibration of the current system, thats like trying recalibrate a train on a collision course with a waterfall. What we need to be thinking about is how we are going to get back to civilization after the fall.

robosan March 6, 2012 at 8:31 am #

http://www.infowars.com/h-r-347-another-step-in-the-elimination-of-the-first-amendment/
This one slipped thru with little notice by the MSM:
The virtually unanimous passage of H.R. 347 starkly exposes the fact that, despite all the posturing, the Democrats and the Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with the corporate and financial oligarchy, which regarded last year’s popular protests against social inequality with a mixture of fear and hostility.

rippedthunder March 6, 2012 at 8:34 am #

Hi A, speakin’ of India. I know they are smart people but what about this stuff? Common sense tells me that it is just not right.
http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 8:51 am #

don t drink water from a water heater: the solder used has a high lead content…good luck with the pump, that oughtta be fun

Alexandra March 6, 2012 at 8:55 am #

Howdy Clusterf#ckers…
(Thanks Jim for another smile inducing weekly missive)
Well even our Beeb Radio4 news yesterday let slip that O’Barmy’s deal broking with Netanyahu is getting strained, as the Israelites get very nervous re: the persian horse has already bolted from the fusion stable…
But they don’t have the heavy tech to take it all out kaboomph – the nuclear bomb making factories are spread out far enough away from F16 strike zones – they’d need B2’s and Boeing Co’s new 30,000-pound GPS bunker-buster for a go for that…
Which is what Barack will be teasing them with, the long-term promise of, post his US election result… meanwhile the Iranians stall for time with a replay of the Hans Blix/Saddam manoeuvre…
But I’m with the tech-heads on predicting that if the Jews (Vlad speak) go for it, then they’ll use there exiting drone tech (IAI Harop) which will be cheap on mass available, and they’ll go not for the nuclear stuff which is high-risk, low yield and very complicated…
They’ll go direct for the oil-n-gas jugular which is easier and cuts off the Iranian financial cash flow instantly which = no continued funding = no more nuclear miltel developments, and more deviously internally will push Iran’s people to go meltdown arab-spring mode guaranteed…
Then all bets for Obama’s successful re-election would be off, as the MENA region goes sh#tstorm/batsh#t…
BTW a new US law that should prove interesting is H.R. 347, we have something similar in place in the UK already, and the rumblings of dissent OWS’ers tent nests here have already been nicely legally killed off and fully cleaned away.
Finally we have a new drama TV show over here called Homeland, based on the Israeli series Hatufim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyFmS3wRPCQ
Mental illness and paranoia is a strong underlying theme, mix this with exponential software developments and physical tech like this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-dkonAXOlQ&
And it all starts to get very interesting… very quickly! I predict it won’t take too long for (look awy now Vlad) the islamist brown tinged camel-f#cker folk to twig that drone’s of their own making could be used in the NATO zones very effectively, with little fear of find and strike back.
All’s fair in the firestorm of geopolotics, the little people are simply the expendable, burnable twigs, so keep out of the fire folks…
Resilience and its maintenance is key to all…
Be seeing you…

progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 9:07 am #

Hate to disagree with you, CF – but that’s an old wife’s (sp, Q?) that has even less validity today.
It used to be thought that hotter water would dissolve the lead out of the lead/tin solder used to sweat copper pipes. Well, maybe – maybe.
But they stopped allowing lead/tin solder for residential construction YEARS ago. Now they use silver/tin solder, which has limited? toxic effects – although it’s a pain to work with, because it requires a hotter torch.
Plus, CF, the plumbing in my house is all PVC, no lead there.
Plus, even in a house that does have lead solder – what you want to do is drain the potable water out of the BOTTOM drain of the water heater – so that it never enters the “hot water” pipes before you drink it – lead or no lead.
====================================
And in my post above on transport efficiency, I should have said tractor-TRAILER.
OK, back to the water wars.

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:16 am #

WSP,
I must tell you that my neighbor mentioned the abandoned canals in CT just this last weekend, so you can see that there IS some deeper thought about our past and future infrastructure going on. (Perhaps in far-flung and rare pockets, but existent anyhoo.)
Hansen’s post about reactor melt-down is probably what I “worry” about the most, as I highly doubt anything will be done to mitigate this eventuality until it’s far too late. But……. we’ll either cross that bridge when we come to it, or drown in the irradiated waters below.

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:21 am #

LOL!
“Little Einsteins”, or “Good Little Obedient ‘Droids”?
Yes, yes, yes, sir, sir, sir. ;o)
How many times must a command be repeated on a submarine? BHM will tell us!

DeeJones March 6, 2012 at 9:25 am #

“Disappointing to hear NPR news today reporting that the U.S. has more oil than it needs and is a net exporter now. How oil from the gulf is so expensive to pipeline/ship to the east coast that it’s exported to latin america instead.”
Read this link from The Oil Drum (http://www.theoildrum.com)
Bill O’Reilly is Misinforming Americans About Oil Supplies (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8981#more)
We are NOT exporting excess supply, we are only re-exporting S. American oil products (gas, desile, etc) that we have refined for them as they don’t have the refineries.
This is pure smoke & mirrors.
Dee

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:32 am #

Good luck with the life-liquid! I’m looking into various means of pumping well water; I’ll let you know if something feasible and reliable pops up.
On the RR commentary, I feel you’re missing the point entirely. You’re banging away on “efficiency” when ASPO is talking “viability and operability”. Individual motor transport is going to become a luxury for the very wealthy, and just who is going to maintain (and pay for) the roadways??
You keep trying to load oranges onto the apple cart. ;o)

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:35 am #

…that would be “wives’ tale”, plural, to imply gossip, I suppose. (Not to go all Q on ya. ;o)

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:37 am #

Thanks for the link, Robo.

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:54 am #

“In December, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination, claiming that “U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets” and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution.” -Pucker
Ah, fine legal decisions such as these have certainly changed my thoughts about what and who the Govt. represents! Heckuva job by toadies who must expect a nice payoff a’comin’. (Toadies Inc.; established [officially] circa 2000) Who will get to the commonweal’s corpse first? Let the plundering commence!

ozone March 6, 2012 at 9:58 am #

“Is NPR a voice of the ‘Left’ progressive, middle of the road, radical or otherwise?
No. Jingoism belongs to the ‘Right’ ” K-D
Dawg,
That reflects my ruminations on the subject as well.
(I was just baiting anti-soap; easy wasn’t it? Jumped right up and begged for the Jingo-Treats. ;o)

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 10:13 am #

ok, but it was my impression that since water from the heater isn t considered potable, they are manufactured with lead solder…it has been years since i was told this by a plumber; conditions may have changed with civic awareness- if you re willing to gamble your health on the strength of some facless corporation’s propensity to do the right thing…well, have at…i personally will err on the side of caution- i m just glad i know how to boil water in a piece of bark, if need be! cheers

greyghost05 March 6, 2012 at 10:23 am #

RT
That link to India was absolutly eye opening ! What a rape of the natural environment. They are foresure a different breed.

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 10:32 am #

i for one have been recently questioning my own view of npr as the go-to newscast for unbiased reporting of “just the facts, ma’am”…i ve only got about 20 years under my belt, so to speak, so i can t compare recent years to the whole spectrum of their broadcasts; but to me at least, it sounds like a parrot or mouthpiece for establishment…somebody please tell me npr hasn t always been a lie; somehow it would feel better to know the sell-out occurred recently, rather than that i was rooked all along into thinking that there was a voice of reason besides the pretty voices on at five…

greyghost05 March 6, 2012 at 10:35 am #

There must be some serious shit about to crash down upon us ! Why else would such draconian shit be put in place without any of the usual debate ?
Interesting times foresure !

newworld March 6, 2012 at 10:38 am #

So someone took the Fluke bait, but congrats to the rest who properly put that piece of theatre in the mind dumpster.
I literally cannot think of another elite as out of touch as the American one. Yes I understand the need for deception so as to grab real power, but IMO our elite think the Sandra Flukes and their trevails are the trevails of America.

budizwiser March 6, 2012 at 10:43 am #

Mr. Kunstler, you are in rare form this week. Your latest exposition regarding current events is descriptive yet succinct. Your narratives concerning the possible futures for the people of the United States are worthy of broadcast and publication. Readers are entitled to question summations and outcomes you describe as the “real reality” – but the facts [regarding resources for growth] supporting most of your logic are inescapable as well as unimpeachable.
However, just as you have a clear vision regarding the scarcity of resources for future growth – you continue to set aside any inspection of just how much disposable consumption will be curtailed and rerouted toward energy-based necessities.
In other words – you speak volumes about how much we are wasting – but never speak to what will happen when the current market arrangements cut the fat away, cut the disposable consumption from our economy.
It is my contention that our fearless leaders believe believe that as the price of gas rises – all else about world of growth will moderate, or gyrate itself into what “counts” and what goes away.
Are my posts so worthless that you will not respond? Why is it that most of the “learned people” believe the markets will guide a safely into sustainability.
Your thoughts? Please.

BeantownBill March 6, 2012 at 10:52 am #

Powerful stuff, RT. Us CFNers think that because we’re aware that shit may well rain down on us, we have a good take on what life will be like then. But as your post shows, we 1st worlders have no idea how bad TEOTWAWKI will be.
India has around 15% of the world’s population and so does China. From the comments in your link, it appears China’s not that much better off. That means, just with those 2 countries, almost 1/3d of the human population live in unimaginable, disgusting poverty and misery.
If anyone wants to make an argument for overpopulation being the world’s root problem, all they have to do is show these pictures.
That link kind of makes me despair for our future, and I’m generally an optimist. Also, it kind of makes me wish that we press the reset button and start over.

ozone March 6, 2012 at 10:52 am #

Charlie,
I’d have to ponder that for a bit; it’s sorta like the slowly boiled frog, so hard to pinpoint any precise moment that they became national petroleum radio.
Perhaps some more perceptive soul could answer that mo’ betterer.

ozone March 6, 2012 at 11:01 am #

Speaking of reality checks…
Damnit! Punked by Pooty-Poot again!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30721.htm
How do these legally established democracy-spreaders keep getting exposed??? (Empire boosters want to know.)
…Then there’s THIS shit! Geeze, a jingo-boy can’t catch a break these days…
http://rt.com/news/firefox-addon-tracking-privacy-759/
Fuggin’ hacker-built browsers; grrrrrrr.
****************
***********
*******

SNAFU March 6, 2012 at 11:12 am #

Howdy Progressor, Per your comment clips:
wife’s – possessive
wives – plural
Did you not inform me a couple of years back that you had a BS or MS in Chemistry?
“It used to be thought that hotter water would dissolve the lead out of the lead/tin solder used to sweat copper pipes. Well, maybe – maybe.”
Temperature has little to do with the taking into solution of Pb by H20 you are correct; however, you failed to mention the most obvious variable in water PH. The softer (lower PH 7) the more alkaline the less Pb taken into solution. Most water in the US and likely worldwide is hard and is the reason that the use of lead in plumbing has had a lower effect on Earth’s fauna than the hyperbole of late would lead one to believe.
Here is a link to a simple explanation from the European Vending Association – http://www.kahls.se/bianchi.pdf
SNAFU

ront March 6, 2012 at 11:39 am #

“Change is coming, and it’s frightening, but change always is. Our society is going through a phase shift. Technology is accelerating that phase shift (as it usually does) but the future will not be the past redux (though it will likely continue in saecular and super-saecular patterns). The existing status quo cannot continue, so it won’t, but a new one will emerge in good time. ”
The more important changes will be attitudinal or changes in one’s perception. Circumstances are not what effect us as we can see very different responses from different individuals to the same set of circumstances.
Why not be open and welcoming to what is coming? Practicing poise in the face of changes will make for greater creativity in problem solving.
“Life is happening in me not to me.”
The world will need some anchors to steady the boat. And what are “anchors?” Dead weights? Or integral parts of our voyage through life?

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 12:04 pm #

Ozzie, didya listen this AM?
Obambi went to Elkhart, highest unemployment in the country.
‘Lets Make Electric SUVs’
Now the parent company [not in US] is going bankrupt.
I missed some / most of show and cant find anything about it online but found this!
Electric Vehicles May Energize Elkhart’s Future : NPR
http://www.npr.org › … › Elkhart’s Quest: Rebuilding A Midwest Economy
Mar 11, 2010 – The exterior of the empty Phillips Industries plant in Elkhart, where city and … A year ago, Elkhart, Ind., had the highest unemployment rate in the country … President Obama highlighted Elkhart’s troubles, visiting twice last year

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 12:16 pm #

Yes, thats an old civilization!
re: ‘Cow dung is the most environmentally friendly fuel source’
Uh, it too pollutes. There was the ‘Asian Brown Cloud’ But Asians asked the UN to rename it so its called ‘Atmospheric Brown Cloud’ now.
And its huge.

Rhino March 6, 2012 at 12:17 pm #

I’ve never been to India but I know people that have gone there for work reasons for months long stints and they all are revolted by what they see. A friend of mine is from the Punjab and I’ve also worked with people originally from Pakistan and India and you get stories from them also. Same thing with China. There’s no sugar coating it, a real horror show.

Rhino March 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm #

There was a retired US soldier I saw speaking on television and he said much the same thing, that Americans live in a fantasy-land, that they have no idea what goes on over on the other side of the world.
The irony is that with so many immigrants all of whom have stories to tell it shouldn’t be so hard to get some knowledge and understanding even if it’s second hand. But it seems that people rub shoulders and maybe work together but don’t talk much.

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm #

Jerry Garcia and Charles Mingus are among those who
had their ashes thrown on the Ganges.

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm #

H.R. 347: Another Step in the Elimination of the First Amendment.
“Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,”
The bill makes it a felony to disrupt or protest at any place or event attended by any person with secret service protection.
Back in the day this would have brought the muskets down from over the fireplace.
Can debate be confused with protest? Hmmmmmmm given the vague language of the bill the answer is yes. So we need this why?
***
To answer charliefoxtrot I’ve been listening to NPR (or used to) for more than twenty years and their erosion in objectivity and thought has been going on for about I’d say, three years. I think one of ‘Obama’s’ do nothing appointments could be behind it though I’m pretty sure old George W. got involved in sanitizing NPR and turning it into the voice of the establishment before he left for the ranch.
Oh and to answer puckers inquiry ‘whats the thing about drones anyway?’
Drones are the perfect terrorist weapon. People are terrified when death rains from the sky and when it happens at random it is even worse.
It is a weapon that can be deployed quickly for apparently little reason and boom it’s all over.
The cowardly retreat consists of nothing more than turning off the TV screen and the moral deliberation to use the damn things apparently now consists of little more than turning the TV screen on. Thank you Eric Holder.
As to puckers observation that these things are big dildos I agree. Men who are oh lets say a bit insecure like to drive Corvettes. Men who are cowardly and have no dick at all drop drones.
Urban drones are on the way. A wingspan of about three feet should serve the dogcatchers purpose about right.
Meanwhile, if the king is surrounded by the kings men and the dog goes ‘woof’ the dog goes to the kennel.

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm #

The Immigrants I see in Lala Land are from very third world countries so obviously they are iso
economic opportunity.
THE HUMAN DIVERSITY PROJECT
this is from TOO or somesuch:
‘Katrina Vanden Huevel was on Fareed Zakaria on March 4 2012 with total rage for people in Arkansas who could not accept diversity in their small town.
She views them as contemptible losers who are bigots to object to what has been decided for them.
The elites are already waging the war. They are not waiting for some mythic time in the future at which war starts. They are waging it now openly. Their attitudes on TV are those of leaders in the midst of waging war, not preparing for some war to come in the future.’

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm #

In case you missed it:
The bill makes it a felony to disrupt or protest at any place or event attended by any person with secret service protection.
Any questions?

Vlad Krandz March 6, 2012 at 1:30 pm #

There is no vicious or puerile nonsense that old liberal ladies like Grouchy or Helen wont believe – as long as the bad guys are the right color (White) or sex (Male). It would take writers of the caliber of Dickens or Flannery O’Connor to do justice to their mean spirited Hypocrisy. The whole cafe au late future of Humanity would be a new one on them and I’d love to see what they would have done with it.
In the Middle Ages, they would have been burned as witches. Perhaps the Dark Ages weren’t so dark. The Burning Times! – millions of overweight Wiccan would be goddesses gasp. Their own leaders try to reason with them but to no avail. They’re Female and know better. As Twain said, the Truth never catches up to a lie. About 40,000 people were put to Death during the Inquistion (and Protestant Sects as well) over the course of several centuries. Both male and female and nearly all Christian. From this some bright girl concocted the idea of millions of witches being burned to death.

kleymo March 6, 2012 at 1:38 pm #

Take the opportunity to have a discussion with the sheeple, everyone. Our man on the scene Kuntsler is under attack by the lumpen patricians.
http://infrascapedesign.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/heizers-rock/#comment-831

Vlad Krandz March 6, 2012 at 1:42 pm #

The Magna Carta either means something or it doesn’t. By rolling your eyes and mocking our past, you just insure that we will lose our rights. The contempt Leftists feel for individual rights is just stunning. All they care about is group rights – except for Whites that is. Total betrayal of their own Tradition and People.
You support the UN and its Agendas? You are a Globalist and the enemy of everyone on this site.
And then when Obama actually takes away our rights they are amazed and indignant. He was supposed to just take away the rights of White People. Useful idiots one and all.

Vlad Krandz March 6, 2012 at 1:47 pm #

I used to ask Afrians about their Countries and many of them became uncomfortable. So I learned not to do it. They obviously don’t want to talk about how bad it is. Some would ask me why and I would try to explain that I live on this planet and am interested in it.
A few were more sophisticated and could talk selectively without strong emotion or blaming me for asking. I learned to be more discrete and selective about asking as well.

Vlad Krandz March 6, 2012 at 1:57 pm #

The charlies of the world always support the wrong people. He voted for Obama and he believs Rosa Parks was just an anonymous Black Woman and he believes Fluke is just a college student. He believes Obama’s birth certificate is real too. Even as he protests injustice he just assents to new injustices by the same people. They’ve got him and his coming and going.
The answer? None as long as the charlies get to vote. Sure, he could awaken. But not enough of them will in time. The numbers, it’s all about the numbers. Quantity over Quality. That’s democracy. Countless charlies voting away their rights and our rights in the name of nonsense like civil right or global warming.

greyghost05 March 6, 2012 at 2:21 pm #

Did you check out the link ? This is way beyond dropping cremated ashes in the river. What I saw in those pictures was just fucking nuts. Body after body,human and animal just floating down the river or washed up on the shore with feral dogs chewing on what is left. People were bathing,drinking the water doing laundry like it’s all good.
And then there was the matter of taking a shit ! Well I guess I’ll just have to take India off the upcoming world tour.
Can you picture the Hudson looking like this someday ?

metuselah March 6, 2012 at 3:05 pm #

Can you picture the Hudson looking like this someday ?
==
The Hudson is too cold, but subsidizing birth control is not. It’s definitely a hot idea.

insufferable March 6, 2012 at 3:13 pm #

Well, I have read your book The Slow Emergency, and I saw you on cable recently, talking about peak oil, etc. However, I cannot agree with you totally. Never in the recorded history of mankind, has a society gone backward. Yes backward! If that occurs it occurs because of a major war, or natural disaster. I am not hoping that happens so we can live in rural america again. Quite the contrary, what we do need now is FORWARD THINKING. I really don’t think humanity has come up with it yet. I do think however, you are on to some of it. Suburban tracks of neighborhoods that had a walkable town square would be do able. But using horses to get there is really not going to happen willingly. Maybe bicyles, but not in winter, snow or downpours, with babies, or pets or very old, or feeble people. Its just not going to happen. If you are speaking of the young and healthy, well they can withstand almost anything. But you are forgetting the rest of society. You can’t just assume everyone is like you. There is nothing wrong with cars, tv’s, internet, beautiful homes, city life, rural life, or suburban life.I do agree however, we have to start to think that these conviences are wonderful and not take them for granted. Maybe valuing our lifestyles more instead of feeling ENTITLED, is the answer. But I happen to like living in the suburbs. There, I said it,…suburban life. I have one. Its great. I used to live in Brooklyn. It became dangerous, and dirty. I did love growing up there when it was safe, but give me the suburbs anytime. So I have a smaller car, but I have freedom. I would not know how to take care of chickens, goats, horses, donkeys, etc. I cannot chop down trees, and pull up their roots. I really don’t want to anymore. I am too old. So Jim, and all his believers, it is you who is drinking the cool aid. Even if we run out of oil, gas, water, and food,,,, I am not moving back to Brooklyn, (unless I have an automatic weapon) or going to live up state NY in a windy, cold barren environment, killing my livestock for food, and using a bucket to get the water from a frozen pond. What planet do you live on? Have you given up smoking that crack yet?

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 3:23 pm #

you re falling victim to the same old trap all stupid people do, flad: you don t know whatthefuck you re talking about, so you ve ascribed feelings and motivations to me that appear just to be things that, if said to you, would piss you off…give it up, asshole, you don t get it; you never will, and your pathetic attempts at insult have only made me laugh- which, flad- and i ll speak very slowly and enunciate as clearly as i can: the object of any insult is to produce feelings of anger, embarrassment, or other shades of inadequacy…in your protagonist…since you have only evinced yourself of these feelings, if you are indeed even intelligent enough to realize this, might i not so kindly suggest that you shut your cavernous pie-hole and leave me out of your calculations

Mike Hunt March 6, 2012 at 3:29 pm #

I couldn’t finish the whole series of pictures as I was getting nauseous. Up in the Himalayas it’s much nicer. If you go to India go treking in the Himalayas.

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

I have been to the Ganges
I did look at some of the images at the link
I was adding that some venerate the Ganges, Including some of the best Musicians.

Bustin J March 6, 2012 at 3:41 pm #

KC and his sunshine band said “The United States has managed to buck this trend because there has long been a strong autonomy in the states, but as the Federal government has become larger and more centralized, it’s also limited that degree of experimentation. The central government becomes more autocratic, becomes more heavily controlled by its corporatocracy, and becomes increasingly rigid in the face of stressors, at precisely the time (Peak everything) that the US needs to be flexible.”
…Except there is very little “regionalism”. The USA is fairly cohesive. I’ve commented before on the effect of a diverse military which shuffles the social deck and redistributes populations and deteriorates regional affiliations (as well as social, racial, etc.)
What I see is a ‘corporat-ocracy’ evident at all levels, federal, state, even invading backwaters like N.A. reservations and US “possessions”. Where you see a mounting influence, I see a pervasive influence that has been well-established for generations. Corporate actors have been working this system like a lump of clay to their own designs for decades, in an environment of increasing homogeniety.
A midwestern strip-mall owner and a strip-mall owner in Provo, Utah are remarkably similar. All of their tenant businesses are identical replications of franchises. They all depend on the same 16,000 mile caesar salad delivery system. In what way do their interests become individuated, and then turned against each other?
In what scenario of yours does the ultimate rainbow coalition, aka the US military figure? Under what conditions do centralized command and control break down and result in a fractionation of the federal military? I can’t imagine it.
KC: “However, as we go through the long arc brought about by energy depletion, several things happen. Cities and cultural regions (7,9 or 11 depending upon who you read) become more important while centralized agencies become less so. Regionalism becomes rampant. Rebellions and civil war becomes the norm, but it will be fought at the regional level, and will likely not be single polar but multilateral NE and northern Midwest vs. SE and the plain states, a mexican-american breakaway state centered in Los Angeles (and another Hispanic state in Florida), Cascadia (into Canada), an independent Hawaii (for a little while anyway).”
Very imaginative, but it remains nearly impossible to believe that the midwest will do battle with the Southeast, or that Southern California will secede because they have such strong ties to Mexican culture, or any other permutation of the post-modern ‘civil war’ scenario. It makes little sense.
Strauss and Lowe did not imply specifics of this type when referring to America’s future, I just want to reiterate to those unaware. This stuff is strictly of the survivalist pulp-fiction genre.
KC: “These regions are dominated by core cities and city corridors –
(1) NYC/Boston/Philadelpha/DC,
(2) Charleston/Atlanta/Nashville,Dallas(?)
(3) St.Louis/Chicago/Detroit/Minneapolis,
(4) San Diego/Los Angeles/Phoenix/El Paso/San Antonio(?),
(5) Juneau/Anchorage/Vancouver/Seattle/ Portland/San Francisco.
(6) Dallas(?)/Denver/Salt Lake City”
These groupings, as I read them, are arbitrary and bring to mind an attempt to rationalise with a map of the US and a Sharpie, much less actual (or potential) reality.
KC “I think the one bias that we here on this forum have to overcome is fatalism. Change is coming, and it’s frightening, but change always is. Our society is going through a phase shift. Technology is accelerating that phase shift (as it usually does) but the future will not be the past redux (though it will likely continue in saecular and super-saecular patterns). The existing status quo cannot continue, so it won’t, but a new one will emerge in good time. Jim’s books describe a time in the relatively near future, but rather than seeing this as “the end times” or even the long emergency, it is perhaps more appropriate to see it as a New Beginning.”
It sure is- because in the final analysis armed struggle against ones’ neighbours is idiocy.
I think S&L’s saeculum theory is sound, and I do believe we are seeing a 4th turning, however, all I have to do is sniff the fresh air around here and realize that a violent disintigration is improbable and implausible.
America’s urban centers are polyglot- some are better than others, others are rotten and falling from the tree, but, by and large, America’s vast homogeniety mean that internal migration is possible.
Two examples: New Orleans and Detroit. Both depopulated, and the nation’s other urban areas absorbed the Diaspora, without so much as a hiccup. The internal migration of Americans is incredibly diverse. Where I live all I have to do is walk outside and look at license plates: people are on the move. The pattern of living is mobilised by our economy: the population is distributed like fecal matter hitting a fan.
The young grow up and leave home. The military sucks people up from all over and distributes them all over. A professional workforce is shuffled continuously. Retirees are hitting the road to travel. An IHOP here, an IHOP there, pretty soon IHOP is your local culture, and everyone is the friggin’ same.
The net effect is a homogeniety. We are no longer 13 colonies. The “cultural” regionalisms that tie together your concept of sub-sets of US culture are more or less articles of fashion, the “scenery” if you will. We aren’t going to go to war over the scenery.

Bustin J March 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm #

JulesofOH said “Another friend said God would take personal care of her and she and her family would be safe “within God’s loving arms.””
Where were God’s loving arms when the family of that tornado baby were ripped apart?
Did God scold the baby, “I sent medical personnel and search and rescue, why didn’t you cry louder!?”

Bustin J March 6, 2012 at 4:04 pm #

Asoka muses “India today has a population of about 1,210 million (more people live in India than the total population of Europe including Eurasia). Yet India is a strong and free democracy and is enjoying an unprecedented prosperity, thanks to the growth of knowledge-based economy like IT and Bio-medical technology. A strong Indian economy is driven by about 300 million plus young Indians with increased disposable income to spend on food, clothing and various other goods.
So neither multiculturalism, nor overpopulation, necessarily prevent a society from being successful (in both the material and non-material senses of the word successful). India today is poised to become the third largest economy in the world (after USA & China).”
Well that is a quick conclusion about a society with an ingrained caste system, overpopulated, with an insurgency in the north-east, with serious and endemic problems, and generally being fuck-tarded in a religious sense (talking purple Elephants?)
If this is your counterargument you’d best go back to the drawing board.
Without English colonisation, India wouldn’t exist today as cohesive entity. And its future is far from guaranteed as a cohesive entity.
Outside a few special economic zones, the country is solidly in the 3rd world meaning life is tenuous and miserable for most, and likely to remain that way fro quite some time, as Indian leaders are pursuing a western-style society complete with cars for everybody, and a national highway system even as disaster looms for both town & countryside with seriously depleted resource bases, corruption, and overpopulation. Quite a bit of it has to do with the persistence of subcultures, centered around the worship of imaginary dieties, oppressive social customs, etc.
Its so-called “growth” of biomedical and IT are driven entirely by western economies and corporations. It is a cheap labor pool, and we poach its best talent, while exploiting its labor.
This is a country which swipes its touch screens with the same hand it swipes its ass. They have one foot in the stone age.

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 4:36 pm #

Laughter is good but one must take care when feeding wild animals.

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 4:53 pm #

hey, boo boo! i think i see a pick-a-nick basket!

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 4:58 pm #

And you’re smarter than the average bear.

Glaucus March 6, 2012 at 4:58 pm #

Great post, Jim.

San Jose Mom 51 March 6, 2012 at 5:00 pm #

Bustin,
A great post. You are exceedingly wise.

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 5:04 pm #

Over a Billion ? or 800 Million in dire poverty,
New Billionaires, Farmer suicides, air pollution.
One Pasha built himself a BILLION DOLLAR
MULTISTORY MC MANSION………….Gees is it ugly.
W/O Christianity Chindias Billionaires dont sense a need to do charity.
Buffet went there to give the billionaires a talking to about doing some charity.
Oh the TP there is a bit less rough than sandpaper but theres a reason they shake hands with the right [hint they wipe with the left]!

anti soak March 6, 2012 at 5:12 pm #

WELL WELL WELL.
Im listening to the new Springsteen song at youtube and this is what someone posted there:
As James Howard Kunstler said it this week –
“America is starting to remind me of Bette Davis in the horror movie classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? America is losing its grip on reality. America is acting like an elderly strumpet in too much pancake makeup performing a song-and-dance on the beach while its kinfolk? lie dying in the sand.”…
RalphSylvestersen 1 day

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 5:30 pm #

yeah, and i m sure i can take him if i can convince him to crawl out from under his fraidy rock and meet me somewhere in the midwest…maybe the arch in st louis or lucas field over in d anapolis…gonna be nearby, anyhow- might as well do us all a public service while i m at it…

myrtlemay March 6, 2012 at 5:42 pm #

There were of course the Dark Ages where just about every conceivable advancement that came from the Roman Empire was literally erased from the planet. So your assessment that society cannot go backward has some fundamental flaws.
The main issue appears to be how we can continue to advance our technology and state of living in an era of decreased opportunity and declining energy. The robust enhancement of what we can now do (hip replacements, internet access, lightning speed financial transactions) depend upon a great deal of energy and infrastructure. The decaying state of our nation’s roads, highways, and bridges are not likely to improve greatly with a deceasing amount of tax revenue. Citizens in America are being bled white through inflation and taxes.
So the next question must be, where will the revenue come from (not to mention the energy sources) when the taxes (through major defict spending and TARP programs) come from. The short answer is from foreign powers. The idea that these foreign powers will be benevolent toward us is, perhaps, a bit sanguine.
My own assessment is not necessarily that we will “go backwards” as you suggest. Only that, as JHK posits, these advancements will become much, much more expensive, less common place, and much less available in the not-too-distant future.

myrtlemay March 6, 2012 at 5:48 pm #

Oh, and hip, knee, joint replacements, as well as organ transplants and life support systems will be as common as finding a four leaf clover in the central business district in Manhattan in the near future – for most people. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid will be astronomical. There is simply no way these advancements in technology will be available to the average American. My unsolicited advice to all would be to take care of your bodies, both physically and spiritually. Nurture relationships with neighbors, family, and friends. These are relatonships are the assets you will need in TLE.

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm #

well put…i would suggest, however, that by dint of exposure to the new technology, losing access to them for whatever reason IS going backwards as a society…it doesn t make much of a difference if i can t get surgery because i can no longer afford it, or if we no longer have the required hospitals & doctors…and that last part has been resonating with me since i started reading this blog- i ve already got an agreement of sorts to share some gardening labor with one of my neighbors, and traded my back for firewood from another…stayed warm basically for free this winter

insufferable March 6, 2012 at 6:46 pm #

Myrtle, I said the only times civilization went backward was during war, or natural disasters. You brought up the Roman Empires advances virtually disappeared during the dark ages….exactly what I meant. The Roman literally dissolved as a civilization, (over time). The Dark Ages were the result of the disappearance of the Romans. Disease, and many wars plus long term internal problems did them in. However, the Romans were gone first, then the rest of the known world started from scratch, (so to speak). I personally cannot see Americans at this point in time to start riding horses, becoming subsistant farmers, and buying livestock that we can use as food. It may happen someday, but we (you and I) will be dead by then.

rippedthunder March 6, 2012 at 7:07 pm #

Can we say BHOPAL, A tragedy of immense proportions. Union Carbide , a USA corporation caused it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
They should have hung the CEO. He skated!

rippedthunder March 6, 2012 at 7:27 pm #

Hi Myrtle, We can take care of our bodies but sometimes nature says FU. I am in good shape and work like a MOFO. My heart went bonkers a few years back. AFIB. No fault of my own, just came out of the blue. I was in the hospital overnight and got fixed. $67,000.00 for a one night stay and the procedure. Hopefully I can can now be an asset to society for years more. What kills me is that we have many immagrants in my hood. Mostly from the former Soviet Union. They had no health care over there and come here as elderly folks with huge health problems. Never worked here and never will. Hundreds of thousands for cardiac caths and surgury. It kinda bugs ne.

metuselah March 6, 2012 at 7:29 pm #

“Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.” – David Hume

DeeJones March 6, 2012 at 7:49 pm #

“…people are on the move. The pattern of living is mobilised by our economy: the population is distributed like fecal matter hitting a fan.
The young grow up and leave home. The military sucks people up from all over and distributes them all over. A professional workforce is shuffled continuously. Retirees are hitting the road to travel. An IHOP here, an IHOP there, pretty soon IHOP is your local culture, and everyone is the friggin’ same.”
Um, until the petrolium stops coming in. Kinda hard to be mobile if you have no gas for the SUV or rec-vec. Then you will end up living in back of the IHOP, dumpster diving with the rest.
You and others seem to think that in an ’emergency’, whatever that entails, you will still be able to mosey on down to the pumps and fill up the car, truck, giant truck or SUV. Not too likely. YOU will be given a ration card, YOU will only be allowed a certain amount on YOUR designated fillup day, and it won’t come to a full tank. YOU will only be allowed to drive into the city on odd/even days, depending on the digits of your license plate.
Oh, what about that stretch H2 limo pumping in 50 gallons of gas. YOU didn’t see it, now move along little doggie.
Dee 😉

k-dog March 6, 2012 at 10:13 pm #

Git along little doggie git along, hee haw.
Super Tuesday and I Don’t care. Because a write in campaign would be foolish to care.

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 10:22 pm #

“Jerry Garcia and Charles Mingus are among those who
had their ashes thrown on the Ganges.”
I visited Varanassi on the Ganges several years ago during the month of July. Hot-as-Hell, but a very interesting place. I’d go back in a minute.
I recall that I had the most bizarre feeling when drinking the boiled water or taking a shower in Varanassi knowing that the water came from the Ganges River. Apparently, dead “impure” people are cremated and their ashes are thrown in the Ganges. The banks of the Ganges is covered in black ash. Deceased “pure” people (babies, and Sadhu Holy Men) are not cremated. Rocks are tied to their corpses, which are then tossed into the Ganges.
Great vegetarian food though. India is the only place that I’ve been where I’ve felt like I could be a vegetarian. The Indians are the sanest group of people that I’ve met, so far.

rippedthunder March 6, 2012 at 10:30 pm #

Here is the circus bring on the gotdam bread part!Snooki is engaged!!!!!!! Bastard Child Makes good part deux. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/snooki-engagement-pregnant-career_n_1322720.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D141060

progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 11:11 pm #

“Um, until the petrolium stops coming in. Kinda hard to be mobile if you have no gas for the SUV or rec-vec. Then you will end up living in back of the IHOP, dumpster diving with the rest.”
-deeJ-
Dee, it hasn’t been that often that I’ve agreed with you lately – so I thought I better highlight this idea and the above post of yours.
Very nice counterpoint to BustinJ. And that particular post of Bustin’s that you were responding to does seem to be predicated on a continual flow of petrol and an continuous ability to move.
All of JHK’s posts are motivated by the idea that some day the petrol will stop. Bustin, that means most of the movement will stop. We will have to harden up into some sort of living arrangement wherever we are.
The most tribal among us will have a huge advantage, then. Come to think of it –
They already do.
===================================
But I can’t bust on Bustin too much.
You did a nice take-down of asoka’s response to me from last night – where asoka highlighted the JOYS of Indian ascendancy due to JOYOUS multi-culturalism.
India’s doing OK right now. The whole world looks to be doing OK, except for isolated pockets of famine, drought, and death.
ANYONE alive today – even those who have spent their lives in third world countries – has been living in an energy ascending world.
Descent will be grim. If it comes? Yeah, right?
When it comes.

progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 11:20 pm #

“sometimes nature says FU. I am in good shape and work like a MOFO. My heart went bonkers a few years back. AFIB. No fault of my own, just came out of the blue.”
=rt-
Maybe, RT, maybe not. You have a hell of a job – for trying to maintain good health. From “restful?” sleep, or some semi-relaxed mental state, into full-bore adrenaline rush, repeatedly, every third day, for years on end.
And, depending on your duty station – a lungful or two of warm toxins once or twice a month for a full working career.
Kick back and enjoy your retirement, man.
YOu’ve earned it.

Pucker March 6, 2012 at 11:30 pm #

As some of you out there in CFN may know, Passover is coming up soon (early April). Today, I was at the supermarket buying some yogurt and fruit, when I noticed at the checkout counter a box of discounted Rasmens brand “Matzos”. On the bottom of the box appeared the wording: “Not for Passover Use.”
My question is: If I’m out partying my ass off during Passover and while I’ve got a buzz off of too much Mogan David wine I somehow negligently whip out a Matzo cracker, thereby, violating the above “Not for Passover Use” prohibition, what will happen to me? (I’m not Jewish, by the way.)
Thanks.

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progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 11:47 pm #

Hey SNAFU!
Always good to hear from you.
You say to me, “The softer (lower PH 7) the more alkaline the less Pb taken into solution.”
You need to change “(lower PH 7)” to read
“(higher pH 7),” if you please, for greater accuracy.*
And nice catch on the “old wives’ tale,” to you and ozone, both. I’d never much thought about it, and when I spelled “wives’,” as “wive’s,” and CFN spell-check rightly rejected that spelling – then “old wife’s tale” resulted in a slam-bang hurry.
*funny little error, SNAF. Not as funny as my original error of the fire truck propelled by the near “infinite?” energy of a single SCUBA bottle –
but funny, nevertheless, you gotta’ admit.
And both of my degrees are in biology – but some chemistry and physics have to go with that, you know?
Regards, SNAFU –
P2C

charliefoxtrot March 6, 2012 at 11:49 pm #

place keeper: find on page…hi, prog doing ok?

progress2conserve March 6, 2012 at 11:58 pm #

Charlie Foxtrot –
We’ve got to clear this up. None of us should make a habit of routinely drinking water from our hot water tanks. You know why? Because the water is hot.
We have to let it cool before we drink it. And this causes needless waste of finite fossil energy.
========================
Still, despite the above attempt at humor – water from a modern hot water heater is 100 percent safe to drink – once it cools enough.
A domestic water heater contains around 40 gallons of perfectly safe water, available to anyone who know how to access it – anytime domestic fresh water supply is interrupted for any reason.
Those are the facts.
============================
Just be sure to turn off the circuit breaker on an electric water heater – or turn the gas valve to “pilot” on a gas water heater –
before you start draining the thing for drinking water.
Otherwise, if TS fails to HTF with sufficiently great impact – you could be looking at a big repair bill the next day.

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 12:23 am #

JHK wrote: “America is losing its grip on reality.”
It could be worse….
“Jonestown was meant to be a utopia. However, when members arrived at Jonestown, things were not as they expected. Since there weren’t enough cabins built to house people, each cabin was filled with bunk beds and overcrowded. The cabins were also segregated by gender, so married couples were forced to live apart.
The heat and humidity in Jonestown was stifling and caused a number of members to get sick. Members were also required to work long work days in the heat, often up to 11 hours a day.
Throughout the compound, members could hear Jones’s voice broadcast through a loudspeaker. Unfortunately, Jones often would talk endlessly on the loudspeaker, even through the night. Exhausted from a long day’s work, members did their best to sleep through it.
Although some members did love living in Jonestown, others wanted out. Since the compound was surrounded by miles and miles of jungle and encircled by armed guards, members needed Jones’s permission to leave. And Jones didn’t want anyone to leave.”

charliefoxtrot March 7, 2012 at 12:24 am #

thankyou for clearing up the old wives’ gossip for me- and, well, i can always make some mint tea until the water cools enough to make lemonade luckily enough for me, my neighbor across the valley has a spring-fed pond between us, so if the crap gets too happy, that s one thing not to worry about…

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 12:27 am #

“He looked like such a nice young man. Jimmy even helped to carry my groceries.”
http://photos.indystar.com/photos/2010/11/17/430438/inline.jpg

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 12:35 am #

Homogeneity? Madness. That ended forever with the opening of our borders to the 3rd world. Assimilating the various European groups was hard enough – when we were strong. But vastly more different people now that we are weak? C’mon.

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 12:35 am #

How are you going to celebrate Passover this year?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xmw046Ag0gY/TWHSnsjKUYI/AAAAAAAAAj4/yxRZr1y30uw/s1600/large_Bodies1978-30_Years_After_Jonestown_Meye.JPG

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 12:41 am #

Don’t you think that the idea of Passover is a bit weird? The Jews celebrate being “passed over” by God in a case of mass murder?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xmw046Ag0gY/TWHSnsjKUYI/AAAAAAAAAj4/yxRZr1y30uw/s1600/large_Bodies1978-30_Years_After_Jonestown_Meye.JPG

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 12:42 am #

The whole kosher food thing is a giant scam. It’s been foisted on gentiles just to boost prices. Some companies have to pay off the Jews just because they control a particular industry.

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 12:52 am #

Do you follow some sort of Spiritual Path?
Why Benares?

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 12:52 am #

Obama’s Passover message to Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu:
“Don’t worry about those nuclear-armed Iranian lunatics! I got yo’ back Bibi!”

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 12:58 am #

Everything I said was true: you believe all that nonsense. You mean well but you just don’t have it. And you ego is too big to admit that you’ve been snookered. You shouldn’t take it personaly – everyone has. But you do – you take everything personally. You don’t understand that the personality is mask and a cage for the soul.

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 1:05 am #

I recall that my wife got a cheap 10-day tourist package to Mumbai, New Delhi, and Agra (the Taj Mahal). We broke off from the tour to visit Varanasi and the weird sex temples at Khajuraho.
http://www.journeymart.com/de/CityImages/khajuraho-temples.jpg

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:08 am #

Don’t forget Obama’s “We are you and you are us”. Incredible lack of boundaries – common with people suffering from Borderline or the Schizophrenias. Ront loves all this – can’t tell the differnce between this and real Spirituality. It’s all just “Oneness”.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:11 am #

See the power of the Mormons – they vote for their own man! How amazing and wonderous. They have more power because united than Christians may end up having.
The Spanish and Blacks are both more powerful than Whites because they vote for whoever will keep the gravy train flowing. After Whites are finished, they will fight for the spoils. The Hispanics will win. No contest.

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 1:15 am #

At the Khajuraho sex temple complex there was this dark, hot sexy young Indian woman with her boyfriend/husband who WANTED me. It was weird….

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 1:23 am #

“Don’t forget Obama’s “We are you and you are us”. ”
Obama is one of those personalities (like Jim Jones, Joe Paterno, etc.) that looks very familiar, but I just can’t quite put my finger on, so to speak.
Obama, to a certain extent, reminds me of one of those well-groomed blokes that serve drinks to middle-aged, slightly overweight yuppies trying to get a tan by the poolside at the holiday resort.

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 1:34 am #

Over 3,000,000$ to trap [as opposed to killing] 53 ? Cats!!!!!!!!
San Nicolas island has accomplished a great achievement as the largest island in the world to remove feral cats without using poison.
The island’s invasive species diminished native animal populations like Brandt’s cormorants and Western gulls.
The cats also killed the federally threatened island night lizard, and were making it hard for the island fox, a protected species unique to the Channel Islands, to get enough food.
After spending more than $3 million and catching the felines over the span of 18 months, San Nicolas island is finally cat free.
Read on to find out how this amazing feat was accomplished humanely. — Global Animal

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 3:48 am #

March 8th is International Working Women’s Day.
http://baike.baidu.com/albums/328605/328605.html#0$aa64034f78f0f7363a751bb90a55b319eac413fa

josedesk9 March 7, 2012 at 4:44 am #

NIKE AIR JORDAN 4 RETRO WHITE/BLACK-CEMENT GREY ??? ?? ?????4 ??? 308497-103

? AIR JORDAN 4 ?
????????????1989?????????????????????????Flight???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????AJ4?????????????????????AJ??????????????????? 1999????????????????1????????????

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 5:09 am #

“On housing”
Your post, and the prior by norlight, got me thinking about what I’ve been looking into, for a while. I’ve been checking Zillow, from time to time, to see if any land/acreage has been freed up nearby…
What I’ve noticed (no surprise), is that over the past 3-4 months, there are almost 3x as many listings for sale. And almost all are with realtors, and all are about 50% above the zillow price (1500 sq ft on 7000 sq ft, asking $260-320k, when zillow/selling prices are $160-190k tops [still living in the 2006 bubble]).
Hell, there are even houses that are less than 1000 sq ft, on lots that are less than 3000 sq ft, within 5 miles of here, asking $160-200k. Zillow lists them around $130-140k – I’d be hard pressed seeing them worth more than $45-70k…
I’ve also noticed, for the first time, that many foreclosures are coming on the market, in my neighborhood. Maybe this foreclosure listing is a new zillow feature (*doubtful*)?!? However, within a 3 block radius of my house, there are 6 foreclosures currently…
FWIW, my neighborhood is ~1 mile west of the Hillsboro Airport, in OryGone.
Oh, the market whuz down today, as was the 10 year interest rate, the euro, the pound, silver, gold, etc, etc, etc… ***WHAT INFLATION***!!! I’m absolutely dumbfounded at how the market drops, and the bond/CD rates *ALSO* drop. Given the Fed printing press running non-stop (to supply banksters with 0% infinite $CASH$), shouldn’t we be in hyperinflation by now (all prices UP AND UP – particularly exchange rates, and commodities)?!?
These guys sure know how to cook dah books – wonder how long they can manage before a sub-2k Dow (grats JHK/4k)? I moved about 30% of my IRA out of the “0.1% money market” (at Fidelity it’s not even FDIC insured!!!) into SLV/GLD (I can’t cash it out for another 3 years, so WTF). JHK sure nailed that one “(Translation: swindling retirees who cannot get yield from “safe” investments such as bonds.)”

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 5:31 am #

“I was in the hospital overnight and got fixed. $67,000.00 for a one night stay and the procedure.”
I call *BOLLOCKS* on that *HORSE SHIT*. No overnight stay costs that much, and if it does, you *ALSO* got anally probed by Aliens…
I protest the hospital/medical/insurance corpo-complex, by never visiting them, and by not buying insurance… That will change soon, thx to Obama’s health care bill to give *MORE* money to the healthcare corporatocracy (under rule of law/force)…
Guess I can no LONGER PROTEST their synthetic drugs with disastrous (exponential) side effects, or their needles and knives mutilation… Freedom, indeed!!!

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 5:42 am #

Jesus *FUCKING* Christ!!! Could Vlad, Anti, 6969, Vlad, Met/Mika, Vlad, Rhino, Vlad, Pucker, PUCKER, PUCKER, and ***Vlad*** (mega-peas in a *SOCK PUPPET*) flood any more?!? Vitriol spewed, is merely *vitriol spewed* (get the ***HINT***, moron spammers?)…

Widespreadpanic7 March 7, 2012 at 7:03 am #

Speaking of the Ganges, didn’t Steve Jobs occasionally take a dip in it, for, so to speak, spiritual enlightenment? Can you imagine the bacteria and viruses broiling in that filthy sewer. What the hell was Jobs thinking? Is that how he got sick?
–WSP7

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 7:26 am #

I bet he (Jobs) got all his shots – that is to say, I’ll bet his shots *ALONE* are what killed him, or messed up his immune system to the utter (udder!!!) extreme!!!
Yeah, those Hindus shit in their rivers, swim in those same rivers, and *DRINK* those same rivers… Sounds like a *SWEET* religion…
Aside – Anyone up for an Ozone-Pete / Eliza-Gilkyson jam?!? Hellz-JYAH!!! Let’s do this!!! (Andreas Vollenweider-free)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb-WT4JhiCU

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 7:37 am #

That Marlin guy gots a nice *rifle*… Let’s *CHAT*!!!

josedesk9 March 7, 2012 at 7:42 am #

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IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 7:42 am #

I listen to Chomsky, and hear him talking about it being much worse, if peak oil *DOESN’T* exist/happen…
And then I get fucking pissed off. But after that, I start to wonder, does Noam believe in *GLOBAL WARMING*?!? Ahaha, who are the imbeciles that *DON’T*. No Rush Limbaugh in this – that pissant lost all his sponsors!!!

Jason Heppenstall March 7, 2012 at 8:45 am #

“History is taking us in a certain direction and we don’t want to hear about it. We’ve got our hands clapped over our ears and we’re shouting “Kittens and puppies! Kittens and puppies!”
Nicely put. That’s my cut-out-and-keep quote for this week.

ozone March 7, 2012 at 10:14 am #

In service to JHK’s reality check, here’s a very concise article that explains some of our limits.
It’s also in distinct opposition to self-delusion, useless distraction, and applied bullshittery.
http://theautomaticearth.org/Earth/uneconomic-growth-when-illth-trumps-wealth.html
(Yes, yes P2C, calm down; it specifically points to overpopulation as one of the largest turds in the punchbowl.)

rippedthunder March 7, 2012 at 10:28 am #

Yes IX, it was 67 large. I saw the bills. The hospital stay was only a coupla grand but the cath procedure,mri,and associated bullshit was 65K. I doubt if the insurance pd. it. They probably worked it down to way less than half of that . I don’t know. I paid a pittance. All I can say is modern medicine is grand and I am back to being a big-ass MOFO kick-ass sumbitch again!

rippedthunder March 7, 2012 at 10:41 am #

Thanks Prog, 16 more days and I’m in the wind! There is nothing worse for ya then going from 0-100 in 60 seconds. Two days ago at 3:30 am we had a roll-over. I was dead asleep. I mean really down deep, REM, and all that shit. The bell goes off and it is like WTF. out the door in a minute. Guy got ejected. My eyes don’t work for a minute or two and I’m driving a big-ass engine.Ha-Ha, My uncle always said “I’d rather see you guys on the bench in front of the station instead of an empty barn, that way I know everything is good!”. A fire department is like insurance, it seems like a big waste of money until you actually need it, if you need it you are damn happy that it is there! We have so much shit at the station you can’t hardly walk through the bay. We’re like gotdamn boyscouts,prepared for all sorts of shit!

ozone March 7, 2012 at 10:42 am #

Glad everything worked out well!
(What I wanna know; did you get charged for the bam’bulance trip? ;o)

rippedthunder March 7, 2012 at 10:47 am #

O3, actually the city did send me a bill when I went to the ER. Two of my brothers picked me up. ‘Course I folded it neatly and tossed it into the circular filing cabinet! I was on the bone-box for 31 years and they sent me a bill. F-them!

ccm989 March 7, 2012 at 11:06 am #

Well, the paranoia that is exploding across the country has reached its peak. Never before have I seen so many nuts taking center stage – Rick Santorum, who is barking crazy and says birth control doesn’t work, sonograms cause abortions and higher education is for elitist snobs (like himself with 3 advanced degrees). But he is not ALONE. All over TV are preppers, extreme couponers, hoarders of every variety, people with weird sex, health and other problems. Its all out wacky time all day long, every day of the week.
Then Rush Limbaugh ices the cake by a prolonged three day rant about a young law student who was testifying about the necessity of birth control. Every women in the US was outraged over El Rushbo’s comments wherein he told us that every responsible women who uses birth control is no better than a whore. So advertisers started abandoning ship. It’s a repeat of the Susan G. Komen debacle all over again. Goodbye and good riddance Rush.
But wait, there’s more – there’s Agenda 21, the bane of the Tea Party’s existence with its socialized planning and environmentalism where the air and water might be kept clean and uncontaminated for our children and grandchildren. O the horrors! Destroying corporate liberty and forcing population control on white people. Egads! And, of course, decent, gun-totting Christians everywhere are being put down publicly by horrible, horrible progressives, liberals, foreign diplomats and college graduates everywhere. The Rapture can’t come soon enough!!!!

messianicdruid March 7, 2012 at 11:07 am #

There is no new thing under the sun.

ozone March 7, 2012 at 11:31 am #

Pretty fuckin’ NERVEY, I’d say!
Do you suppose it was ignorance [of what you do], or just plain ol’ S.O.P.?

ozone March 7, 2012 at 11:39 am #

“Well, the paranoia that is exploding across the country has reached its peak.” -ccm
I’m not so sure about that; I think we’ve quite a ways to go yet in that regard (unfortunately).
Folks will continue to turn to whomever feeds them the most pleasant line of bullshit until times get so tough that realities can no longer be fantasized away. What they’ll then do in their desperation and panic, I can’t guess.
Santorum for POTUS; bring on the Krishan brownshirts and let’s get this shit over with already! ;o)

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 11:55 am #

‘A midwestern strip-mall owner and a strip-mall owner in Provo, Utah are remarkably similar.
You might want to add ‘Dis’ before ‘Similar’.
The one owner is Korean, The other Afghanistani.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:08 pm #

You have to stop thinking like that. That’s a young man’s game. I’m not saying be weak but rather learn to nurture your body as Prog indicated. Think of it as a City, a City of Joy like Mumbai. There are arteries and small roads, a sewer system etc, a communication system, etc. Health is a love affair between the organs to quote Plato.
You must start thinking like a City Planner and not a pissed off cabbie. Get above the City into a top floor office (your brain) and look down with benign interest – and begin to make things better: diet, take up gentle exercise like gardening, tai chi, yoga etc. The 0 to 50 stuff is the worst. You are well rid of that. You’ll be able to do some heavy work again but the gentle approach always.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:10 pm #

It’s a test of purity and faith. Believing as you do, you would die. But Anti would live and more abundantly. For him, that water is the best medicine.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:14 pm #

Considering the behavior of you people in Russia and China, Christians have been very tolerant of you – too much so perhaps.
America was founded on both Faith and Free Thinking. But those Free Thinkers were far too wise to openly mock believers – and morevoer, they knew they might be wrong about there not being a personal God. You and your’s have no such qualms. As the old saying goes, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:21 pm #

Nothing weird about it: the statues got her gina a tinglin. White Men are universally desired by dark skinned women. They want those good genes for their children. The Rajahs used to invite English Officers into their harems: they wanted that height, that skin color, and that IQ in the children that they would claim as their own. It takes a wise man to know his own deficiency.
You should have signaled her somehow and done her quick and standing up against a wall out of sight. You would probably have lost your dick to some disease but it would have been worth it. They’ll soon be producing cyber dicks and add ons anyway. Milarepa hit his erection with a brick so it’s not like its so important…

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:26 pm #

Wrong dumbo: Rush said any women who wants other people to pay for her fun is a whore. It’s between her and her boyfriend(s).
I’d be glad to rapture you before I go!
In case of rapture, this porn booth will be empty.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 1:30 pm #

Yes, and on Ix are made the face dancers, the skin jobs. My good golem, you Pinnochio Pinochet, how do you do?
Ganges water is the only thing that can you into a real boy. It is your blue fairy.

newworld March 7, 2012 at 1:42 pm #

Anybody from KC, MO? What is up with the staff at East High high school and their instigations to racial violence?

charliefoxtrot March 7, 2012 at 2:16 pm #

O3, please accept my deepest regrets and appologies on behalf of the eleven intelligent voters in my state; i hope between now and september i can convince them to write in k-dog for president…! cuz if that crazy motherfucker gets in the double-wide, i ll have to seriously consider moving in next to soaka down in the jungle

rippedthunder March 7, 2012 at 2:50 pm #

O3, I figure they sent the bill so I could submit it to the Ins. Co. and they could make a coupla’ hundred on the deal. The bill is from the office so they gotta send it I guess. No hard feelin’s but they ate it just the same.

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 2:52 pm #

Real Tea Check: anyone try Rush’s Tea, Two if by Tea? Well?

rippedthunder March 7, 2012 at 2:58 pm #

So I voted in the Republican primary yesterday, being the good old American Independant that I am, They have a “Secret” ballot here with your choices covered by a paper sheet. Well clumsy as I am my “secret” ballot fell on the floor for all to see. “The horror” the 85 yr. old ballot watchers said almost in unison, “So much for secrecy!”. I replied “No secrecy here, The only guy on the ballot with a brain is Ron Paul!”. The old bitties all laughed! As you know Mitten’s is the MAN in this BLUE state.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/06/super-tuesday-2012-massachusetts-primary-results/

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 3:05 pm #

Ripped, do you agree with Alex Jones that RP has been winning and the Repubs have been faking the count?

Vlad Krandz March 7, 2012 at 3:19 pm #

White kids are offered a small candy bar now or a big one next week. Black kids are offered the same deal. The White kids generally decide to wait for the big one. The Black kids go for the small bar right now. Delayed gratification: one of the secrets of civilization. And its lack indicates the Blacks not ever fitting in here. It’s so simple even a liberal could understand it.

charliefoxtrot March 7, 2012 at 4:15 pm #

this is powerful stuff it s a little over twenty minutes…

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 4:25 pm #

“Oh, the market whuz down today, as was the 10 year interest rate, the euro, the pound, silver, gold, etc, etc, etc…”
Flipside, yo! Everything up today on that list (including oil – forgot to include that, ’twas down yesterday). How deep do the ETF tentacles go?!… That can’t also explain the exchange rates tied to the market…
That Automatic Earth article about the Reagan d00d whuz “reel gUd”. Pretty much summed it all up (2 days before “ILL or ***KILL***”)…

IxNoMor March 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm #

“The old bitties all laughed!”
***STAGED***
Yet albeit *true*. Ron Paul was 2nd or 3rd in the first 4 primary voting states (each time tied for the higher position). Yet, the MASS MEDIA managed to totally *SHUT HIM DOWN*…
I am *NOT* impressed by the stupidity of the voters. I’m *suspicious* of the electronic (DIEBOLD?) voting booths, and no means of “verification” (encryption/”paper trail”/etc)…
14 years later, and we’re still relying on a rigged (electronic) “unsecured” voting booth – with the ***TECHNOLOGY*** that can save us (haha, they don’t even *USE* it)?!?

Bustin J March 7, 2012 at 5:22 pm #

DJ says “YOU will be given a ration card, YOU will only be allowed a certain amount on YOUR designated fillup day, and it won’t come to a full tank. YOU will only be allowed to drive into the city on odd/even days, depending on the digits of your license plate. ”
My personal exposure to peak oil is not at the gas pump; I haven’t bought gas in over 3 years.
But the fact that gas might be rationed, or expensive, doesn’t change the flapjack culture.
Economic stratification, if I can believe the newspapers, says that the youngest vs. oldest cohort are separated by a 47-fold wealth gap.
In other words, for the relatively wealthy, a doubling or tripling of prices won’t affect them all that much. As for the unfortunates stuck in boonies? Who really cares? The marginal folks getting nickel and dimed to death will go under, and resort to collectivism and what might be charitably called ‘car camping’.
IHOP is more than a cultural artifact, it is a way of life. A social center, a ritual gathering place. On a sunday morning the place is packed. People under economic duress might carpool, they might pitch in as a group and buy a whole pie, they might pay an extra 0.50 a cup of joe and if the carafe of coffee turns out to not be exactly ‘bottomless’ they’ll just accept it, because there will be no choice.
When it comes to America’s legal pleasures, food is numero uno. The Belgian Waffle is something to live for. It is not optional.
America’s best performing stock of last year on the indexes was… McDonalds. Yeah, and studies show that its customer base is not the down & out but broad middle class.
In the end the established wealth is in a good place. They already own the homes within reach of the IHOP- they just choose to drive. If the middle class starts pushing away from the table, McDonalds will lower prices.

greyghost05 March 7, 2012 at 6:32 pm #

Just like manitory sterializations for women on welfare. Uncle Sugar pays for the 1st and only child. Turn the ho’s into sport models. Or maybe free Vasectomies for the asking. As gruesome and gross as it may sound, just think of how many Charles Mansons and Nancy Pelosie’s have been aborted ?
We neuter our pets to control their population and we let welfare ratz breed and pay for the effort.

greyghost05 March 7, 2012 at 6:58 pm #

Anti, living here in Michigan and with all of us knowing how mitten felt and spoke out against the Auto Loans, it’s mind boggeling that he won.
Fixed ???? One can only speculate. I’m not sure he will have the juice to beat Obama though. My bet is that we will get 4 more years after which it won’t matter anymore.

ozone March 7, 2012 at 7:06 pm #

Your fine plan is a hair too late; the laddie slipped on through.
Damn, another case of a sad delay of ideation to realization; ah well, the colonel did need a enthusiastic and willing ‘bottom’ for his private private (now gone missing in Syria somewhere).

progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 7:28 pm #

Concerning Super Tuesday results –
Yeah, folks – I understand the grumbling on CFN, and the idea that the election is fixed by party bosses and by Diebold. It’s a nice conspiracy, and I have learned to appreciate a Truly Good Conspiracy lately. But Republican Hacks in collusion with Diebold just ain’t gonna’ make the cut, folks.
Party hacks would prefer a Repub who could out-Obama, Obama. Diebold probably would, too.
What’s really happening is that thinking independents who are willing to talk politics and disagree with their Mainstream in public – a rare breed, even on CFN it seems – those sorts of folks support Ron Paul.
But the people who actually VOTE in the Repub primary – mostly tow the party line, and think Paul can’t win – and split their choices among Nut, Nut, and Mittens.
Nut Gingrich won his home State of GA.
I voted for Paul. When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll be there. Looks like I’ll be pretty lonely – if the roll is called based on politics.
Or based on Tribe.

messianicdruid March 7, 2012 at 7:34 pm #

“As the old saying goes, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”.”
Older: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”
Book, chapter and verse on request.

progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 7:50 pm #

On to more prosaic matters –
And concerning food storage-
Find some Mormons, first. And do what they do.
Tucker, GA, is lucky to be THE major food distribution warehouse for the SE United States for LDS Churches.
I took a tour, a couple of days ago – while buying some food from them.
You don’t have to be a Mormon to go in the place.
You don’t have to be a Mormon to buy their food.
You do have to be a Mormon to get their free food.
I wasn’t interested in being a Mormon.
If if were ever seriously hungry –
I’ll give Mormonism serious thought.
But FRIENDLY folks. The sort of folks you would want to have around you if TSHTF. And they are a TRUE religion – with no pretense to TRIBALISM.
If there are Atheistic Mormons – I did not encounter one while taking my tour.
=======================
Anyway – I bought 30 cans of food that should have a shelf life of 30+ years. (We’re talking #10 cans, the big one gallon? lunchroom style.) I bought almost two thousand SERVINGS of food – split among pinto beans, black beans, white rice, red wheat, with some dry milk, dry drink mix, and dry coco mix thrown in – to keep any future kids happy for a month or two..
Plantable and viable – non-GMO, beans and wheat, by the way.
Total ticket was about $140.00, cash out the door.
It was enough food to completely fill the passenger side of the cab of my compact pickup.
The bed was too dirty to carry food.
I’ll go back in a couple of months with one of my grown kids, buy another $500 or so to fill the BED of the truck, which will be cleaned out by that time – split the food between my place and his place – and we’ll call it a cure on stored rice and beans for the next 30 years.
Soo – now I can feed my family enough to keep them alive for a couple of months, in case of very hard times.
What would Buddha do?
Buddha always looks pretty well fed, when I rub his belly exiting my favorite Chinese restaurant. I know what Buddha would do.

messianicdruid March 7, 2012 at 7:59 pm #

“Delayed gratification: one of the secrets of civilization.”
SPANNUNGSBOGEN – the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.
a Fremen word, Frank Herbert

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 8:01 pm #

OK, As a former ‘homesteader’ and being ‘green’ for 40+ years, what about buying [assuming you have storage space] Metal Trash cans and dry beans and grains?
Someone here noted that ‘I bought Rice but it molded in storage’ so be careful of mold and rodents.
Whats the cheapest one can get 100 pounds of organic brown rice for?

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 8:03 pm #

I avoid eating from tins, they are lined with Plastic.
Much food today is ‘in plastic’ even the fresh local farmers market things I put in plastic bags in order to bring home.

ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:23 pm #

P2C,
So what you’re implying is that there are THAT many crazies out there [that self-identify as Republicans] that vote in overwhelming majorities for fuckwits? That’s what you’re saying? No shenanigans/fudging?
If so, I guess I should be somewhat nervous. (It would probably be the more practical response, but I’m numb to a lot of shit now. I actually expect mass insanity, by manipulation or circumstance.)

progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 8:27 pm #

“what about buying [assuming you have storage space] Metal Trash cans and dry beans and grains?” –
-as-
That will work, as. Almost anything will work, for a good long while with dried beans, rice, and wheat – assuming you keep them DRY, and keep the bugs out.
Visit a Mormon “cannery” if you can. I was totally impressed. This one schedules “canning sessions” three times per week – for Mormons, or for any other Tribesman of other Tribes. We didn’t discuss whether a Tribesman should criticize other Tribesmen. That didn’t come up in the conversation.
And for every six of these #10 cans you buy from the LDS storehouse you get a perfectly sized cardboard case for six cans and you get two plastic lids for cans that are opened but not emptied.
I’m telling you, Mormons have got food storage down to a science – a CHEAP, cost-effective science.
====================================
And my full intention is to stack about 10 cases (60 cans) in my basement, and another 10 cases in my closest kid’s basement (he’s on the other side of the county from me) and call it a cure for 30 years.
If the S stays away from that F for 30 years -, then I’ll never have to open these cans. They are insurance – very CHEAP insurance, in the scheme of things.
To end with a little humor, AntiS, your worrying about the plastic liners in my metal cans of dry stored food – is as bad, or worse than, Charles F. Trot worrying about lead poisoning from drinking out of my water heater.
We’re talking survival situations, here – where reality trumps trumped up fear.
Gopher it, in other words. hehe!

ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:30 pm #

Good for you (and good find of folks and resources).
Best to be prepared and not need it than the opposite.
I’m finding it puzzling that those I know that have a good amount of financial wherewithal aren’t even entertaining any thoughts of possible future shortages. I don’t get it; perhaps cornucopian thinking has been successfully been “installed” in a short few generations.

progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 8:38 pm #

O3, I’ve come to admire your paranoia, in the two years that I’ve been reading your posts.
But in this case, I don’t think paranoia is called for.
“So what you’re implying is that there are THAT many crazies out there” -o3-
Ozone, I’m not implying it. I’m flat-out stating it! The two party primary system in the US is all about “energizing the base.” The base consists of “crazies,” as you affectionately call them. These are people who will donate, man phone banks, and line up in the rain, if need be, to vote for the Chosen Dip-Stick of their party.
The Repub crazies are energized by Gay Marriage and Abortion and beating Obama.
The Democ. crazies are energized by – I’m not sure, really –
Political Correctness?
Beating Republicans?
And keeping Obama in office.
================================
The crazies on both sides are FREAKS, and they are leading the US and the Planet to its doom.

ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:38 pm #

(Sorry for the “that”s and been been’s.
L’il Dumbass has been been my discdisc of choice for a while now, and that that is a nice nice thing! I’m feeling reeeeeeally good good about it.)
byebyeandnightynightnight

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 8:42 pm #

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ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:44 pm #

…One last thing.
Got it. Loud and clear. Also the page I’m reading from. No worries! Sanity in the land of the insane is a mind-set to keep well closeted, however.
Caution is advised. Thanks for the affirmation. :o)

anti soak March 7, 2012 at 8:44 pm #

Maybe if you loan Tripp $, thats better Insurance.
$ now for a payback in fresh food later.
Talking Numbers………you paid [what] for [how many] calories?
And the cans last 30 years?
You are where and do what kind of work?

ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:45 pm #

…and perhaps the collusion…

charliefoxtrot March 7, 2012 at 8:45 pm #

ha ha #B b]

ozone March 7, 2012 at 8:47 pm #

(Ask P2C; it’s a weird reference to one of his earlier posts about preschool DVD’s.)

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ozone March 7, 2012 at 9:02 pm #

Just for a moment, while I’m here…
Take your consumerist, waste-stream, crapola thuggery and jam it as far up your ass as it will jam. Then……….. enjoy the result!

charliefoxtrot March 7, 2012 at 9:08 pm #

Zone, you ok, man? sounds like maybe you got an extry sail in the breeze…or e’en gotcherself an organic at the helm…

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progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 9:41 pm #

“Maybe if you loan Tripp $, thats better Insurance.
$ now for a payback in fresh food later.”
-AntiS-
I’d concur, antiS, but Tripp is about 40 HARD, unpopulated, mountain miles away from me. Without fossil fuel, I doubt I’ll be making the 5 mile trek to my own little mountain town more than twice a month – at the outside.
And yeah, I’ve been standing on my head in my basement estimating calories in the 30 cans of food I bought this week. Looked, to me, like between 175,000 and 200,000 food calories.
That estimate seemed high, so I took a pencil and a calculator down, read the packages, did the math and found that my 30 cans of food total 245,266 total food calories. That would feed one person 2000 calories/day for 122 days. My total cost was $144.00. I’m amazed.
Lots of beans and rice, which make a complete protein for humans, btw.
I’m very light on oils and animal proteins. I’ll be adding in some canned freeze dried eggs and canned cheese and butter – in the next couple of weeks. Those will have shorter storage lives, because of the fats, mostly. Which is part of why the Mormons don’t sell them and their canneries. And my wife and I normally keep a couple of months worth of short term stored food around, too.
Here’s the LDS stored food price page, btw.
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/multimedia/files/pfw/pdf/123141_HSC_OrderFormUS_EngNov2011_pdf.pdf
Enjoy.

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BeantownBill March 7, 2012 at 10:12 pm #

For all those CFNers who might be scratching their heads over our election campaigns, here’s a link that explains why they’re so messed up:
http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html

progress2conserve March 7, 2012 at 10:57 pm #

James Howard Kunstler –
I just heard from Hancock1863.
He’s been banned.
Wage has been banned.
Lbendent has been banned.
Eleuthero wasn’t banned, but he left in disgust.
============================
Yet the Chinese spammers, or the nonsensical dipwads with X’s in their names – flourish on and on and on and on.
What gives, JHK?

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 11:07 pm #

Today (March 8th) is International Women’s Day.
How will Peak Oil affect the status of women?
One might argue that the “women’s rights” movement was a product of cheap, plentiful oil and coal fueled economic growth which ended the need for traditional woman’s labor (i.e., to churn the butter, grind the corn, and make babies). Will economic collapse, the collapse of materialism and the rise of spiritualism force women back into traditional roles?
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme.asp
Various IWD themes around the world
– Global, United Nations: Women and men united to end violence against women and girls
– Canada, Status of Women (Federal Gov): Strong Leadership. Strong Women. Strong World: Equality
– Australia, UNIFEM: Unite to End Violence Against Women
– Australia, Queensland Government Office for Women: Our Women, Our State
– Australia, WA Department for Communities: Sharing the Caring for the Future
– UK, Doncaster Council: Women’s Voices and Influence
– UK, Welsh Assembly Government: Bridging the Generational Gap
– UK, Accenture: Stretch Yourself: Achieving 50:50 in the boardroom by 2020
– USA, IBM: Women@IBM: Success in the Globally Integrated Enterprise

Bustin J March 7, 2012 at 11:31 pm #

Women are great workers. They never complain, always happy (generally). The only obstacle is that any time they could become bored, or for some reason just toss off.
They are not “yoked” like the “Mad Men” of old.
Women don’t care if they take a pay cut. They just quit. And when they get the idea to learn a new skill, they diligently set about in all their free time to learn it.
Women care most about their feelings. So pairing them with testosterone apes is a bad decision.
There is no equivalent to the testosterone ape. He has a drinking problem. He loses his temper and yells at people. He has little luck with women. He’s exploding, or about to.
The marketing of “jobs” to women goes like this: they are presented with examples of the jobs: images of people doing what they will be doing on the job.
When the images mainly show women directing men what to do, we’ve come half-circle.
Super Bowl commericals anyone.
Demoralizing as it is, society is being ground down to dust by television, still. Television!
At the same time, it is entertainig, so… meh

Bustin J March 7, 2012 at 11:44 pm #

Poc said, “I’m telling you, Mormons have got food storage down to a science – a CHEAP, cost-effective science.”
Got a link? I got a nickel.

Pucker March 7, 2012 at 11:55 pm #

One good thing about technology in the workplace is that, to a certain extent, it eliminates the need for the secretary. I used to hate having a secretary because I felt like I was obligated to care for them and have regard for their feelings. In the past, some of my secretaries wanted me to hump ’em, which was weird. Quite frankly, I feel more comfortable when I ask someone in the office to assist me, and they just tell me in their own way “to piss off.”
I’ve always hated the whole fascist authority thing.

Pucker March 8, 2012 at 12:01 am #

Why are they called “Mormons”?
I once knew a Mormon lawyer, who was greedy, money-driven, given to back-stabbing and was quite blood-thirsty.

Bustin J March 8, 2012 at 12:08 am #

Pucker said “I recall that I had the most bizarre feeling when drinking the boiled water or taking a shower in Varanassi knowing that the water came from the Ganges River.”
That would be your common sense.
“Apparently, dead “impure” people are cremated and their ashes are thrown in the Ganges. ”
natch.
The only reason you weren’t killed is likely the high proportion of bacterial parasites in the area.
That strange feeling was billions of newly experienced foreign life forms and virus particles.
You went where lots of men have gone before.
And lived to tell us about it.
Bravo

Pucker March 8, 2012 at 12:18 am #

Accounts of survivors of the Jim Jones “Peoples Temple” say that towards the end, cult members grew afraid of saying anything to other cult members even members of their own families out of fear of being reported to Jim Jones. Jones had a core cadre of about 80 devoted followers with thousands of others who, it seems, were recruited too hastily in the nationwide evangelical bus tours that Jones would do across the U.S.A. It was basically a totalitarian movement.
One would expect that there would have been some core cadre followers who would have fed Jim Jones’ paranoia about the people out to get him, the “Terrorists”. The C. I/A would have studied the Jim Jones cult and drawn cookbook rules from it.

Pucker March 8, 2012 at 12:27 am #

Will the Peak Oil, post-collapse American women of the future be more like the traditional, God-fearing, washboarding, butter-churning maidens ‘Of Old’, or will they be hard, pistol-pack’n mamas who ‘don’t-take-no-shit-off-nobody’?

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:35 am #

Good review that shows the Genesis of the Holocaust Cult and its contempt for the White Americans who helped defeat their enemies during WW2. Just Nazis waiting to happen.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/03/some-thoughts-on-irmin-vinson/#more-24271

youmouyixia March 8, 2012 at 1:33 am #

According to Russian news agency reported, the southwest of Poland Wroclaw City police revealed on the 27th, the local two thieves actually an entire bridge stolen as scrap metal to sell. The two thieves were arrested. Water Heater
It is reported stolen the bridge belongs to a local coal mine. The thief will be the bridge is broken down into several parts, into trucks sent to sell the scrap metal recycling points. However, they encounter car broke down when the last shipment of coal mine security personnel found them acting suspiciously, then called the police to arrest them.
It is not clear why no one found the thieves dismantling bridges. The two thieves face the punishment of imprisonment of five years. formal dress

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Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 2:13 am #

I wonder why Ozone is still here? Perhaps they want to keep track of him. That’s what Lucan said about me after all.
Black Teacher mocks White Student in her class. After class Black Students set him on fire. Teamwork. Guess this is what Asoka wants from Black History Month.
http://amren.com/news/2012/03/was-boy-in-k-c-fire-attack-a-victim-of-his-schools-racist-teaching/

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 2:15 am #

I believe they have ‘403’ Bans.
I was 403ed as Asia.
I bellieve JHK has intentionally banned only 2 here….OEO and Jaego.
Do you know what a 403 is? tDue to too much block text or too long a post.

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 2:19 am #

So you got food at 1970 Prices [1$ a day].
Even I take transportation for granted!
Do you grow your own food?
And what about keeping seeds for sprouting so you have some greens?
Has honey kept for 1000s of years in the Pyramids?

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 2:19 am #

Both. They serve their Husbands with humility and are ready to fight by his side against all comers. That’s how we conquered North America after all. If women were like they are now it never would have worked. All the Men would have ended up with squaws like the French and Spanish did. It was the courage of our Women and the zero tolarance for miscegenation that made America.
Of course the men were brave too, but so were the Spanish and the Frenchmen. But they didn’t have their women so they turned to the Indians – and their line ended. In Quebec and later in the Spanish Cities, some White Women began to come. But early and on the frontier it was as I said – except for the Americans.

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 2:20 am #

One Macrobiotic guy claims to have lived on Brown Rice and nothing else for 3 or 4 years!

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 2:22 am #

Exactly. They could probably come back but are reveling in their persecution complex. And they might have to change names – not easy for some of these egos.
What would you rather have – the humble pride of an Aurobindo/Vlad Krandz or the proud humility of a Sri Chinmoy/foxtrotcharlie?

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 2:26 am #

One of my Fave books is ‘ALIVE,THE ANDEAN SURVIVORS’
Who were so dumb they didnt walk off the mountain but waited months [living on dead people] and then
climbed over the 22,000? foot mountain hoping
Chilean farms were just on the other side.
The leader [Corrado] has a website and takes folks
on the hike…great pix there.
Id like Vlad to go hike with him, the cannibal survivor.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 2:32 am #

Big Solar Storm supposed to hit the Earth tonite. This may be the Big One. Nice knowing you all or at least some of you, or at least a few – one or two maybe?
I’ll stay at my Post as long as I can but don’t expect me to die here. I want to live to see the Oceans taken off. I want to farm the sea bottoms as one of the 144,000 remnant.

Patrizia March 8, 2012 at 2:33 am #

“America is losing its grip on reality.”
It is time to wake up.
The great America was based not on freedom, but on:
1) Having 300 millions (even less) on a territory as big as China (or almost as big) which has to feed 1 billion 200 millions
2) Cheap oil
3) A strong weapon industry
4) Wars and colonialism
Cheap energy meant that a few people could run a huge farm and produce ALL the necessary food.
It meant that a few could produce a lot of cheap goods and consume a lot.
Now the energy is getting expensive.
The number of Americans is NOT enough to produce food and good in the same quantity as before.
South America, India, China, DO NOT WANT to produce and work for the Americans, they do not want a paper that without oil is worth zero.
It is time to realize that imperialism is finished, cheap energy is finished, it is time to save the little land and water America has, it is time to reduce expectations and the size of the dinner.
This is the only way to save America

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 2:36 am #

I’d be honored – he’s a fine fellow it seems. Why so hostile to them? They didn’t kill and eat anyone, just those already dead. And they were hoping to be rescued, that’s why they stayed put. It’s usually the best idea in situations like that.

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Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 3:01 am #

Two thieves stole an entire bridge? I find that a little hard to believe!

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 3:16 am #

America should break up into smaller, more logical homogenous parts. So should Italy. Why encumber the industrious Nordic North with the “mananna” philosophy of the South? And does Sicily want to stay in? Why should the artistic South have to deal with the workaholic Germanics of the North?

Patrizia March 8, 2012 at 3:29 am #

It is “Magna magna” a slan way to say eat eat…
I guess that going away from the south would be the biggest mistake of Italy.
Why?
Because the future is in agricultural and NOT in industry.
And the south has land, water and SUN to feed not only Italy, but a big part of Europe.
What today is paid nothing, tomorrow, a very near tomorrow, will be more precious than gold.
FOOD is the engine of humanity and FOOD will be the boundary between death with starvation and life.
Who doesn´t understand it doesn´t understand reality.
What do big investors buy?
Skyscrapers in Manhattan?
Or good agricultural land?

Patrizia March 8, 2012 at 4:09 am #

I just finished reading the “agreement” between Greece and the bond holders…
Isn’t it a copy of what happened in 2008?
The same, the investors in derivatives of subprime mortgages had invested in AAA investments, rated AAA because “very safe”, you had no risk, since the capital you invested was insured…(just like the Greek bonds).
In THAT case AIG went bankruptcy, in THIS case there is NON DEFAULT, you JUST lose 75% and the Insurance doesn’t pay…
Who is behind? The same old guys…

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 4:18 am #

I’m not wildly speculating in saying this. Remember I’m writing my own blog software and I’m learning the ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes now.
I don’t thing those who have left were banned. A blog like this has a filter that tries to catch spam from being posted. Posts are sent off to a remote website where they are scanned and returned only if they are determined to be clean. The technology behind the procedure is mysterious and proprietary because like virus scan software security is an issue. Without a feature like this Viagra adds will start appearing on the site within a day.
The only problem is that if the proprietary algorithms put you on their exclusion lists you are screwed and you will think you’re banned. This can happen without JHK even knowing what has occurred.
My site, chasingthesquirrel.com will have this feature when I go live with comments.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 4:40 am #

Sicily was the bread basket of the Roman Empire. Is it still or is the soil all played out?

mika. March 8, 2012 at 4:42 am #

“The democratic process relies..” – BS article
==
Bill, you don’t have a democratic process in the US. You never had a democratic process in the US. What you have is a contrived illusion of a democratic process to manage and deflect popular revulsion, revolt, and revolution against the moneyed elites.
That article is pure BS. The US needs to be broken apart to a thousand pieces with the imperialist gov mafia destroyed. The political architecture needs to be completely redesigned. Same for the other empires: russia, china, india, canada, eu, iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, etc.

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charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 5:24 am #

mika- while you are correct in a sense, i must disagree with you that the article is bs; whether one agrees with the founding era white, rich men’s self-centric version of democracy or not, it is what we have now…further, i would submit that (and to be clear, i mean the people of: ) the US is much better off in a union, in that each geographic region has different things to offer; the agriculture of the south and west, or industry of north and northeast, for example…i do whole-heartedly agree with your sentiments about empire; surely after the last 25,000 years has successfully demonstrated that the model only really benefits a very few in closing, i urge you to remember that america is not a homogenous mass of evil empire; we are people too…the problem you see is not our fault per se, the fuckers in charge are the same all over the world, and have hoodwinked most everybody…

Patrizia March 8, 2012 at 5:46 am #

Thanks to the fact that in Sicily they never had enough oil to use as fertilizer, since most of the agricultural land is still worked as 100 years ago, since the labor there costs less than in China (Morocco, Libya, Algeria, they contribute a lot) and therefore is MUCH cheaper than using machinery and oil, Sicily will pass the “oil age” without even knowing what it was.
Things never change there, so they change a lot…

mika. March 8, 2012 at 5:56 am #

the fuckers in charge are the same all over the world, and have hoodwinked most everybody
==
Yes, and they have done that by of centralization and systems of empire. You want to get of the fuckers in charge, get rid of centralization/empire and the political/economic/cultural architecture that supports it.
The article is pure BS, because the whole premise of the article is false and pure BS. You don’t have a democracy, and until you do have a democracy such articles or studies are BS propaganda (paid for by the fuckers in charge).

mika. March 8, 2012 at 6:02 am #

done that by ^way of centralization

8man March 8, 2012 at 6:12 am #

From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177834
Take any configuration of Mass Energy and blow it up with a bomb. And then imagine the process going backwards in time, from all of the pieces it follows a path of intermediate configurations until it reaches how it was before blowing up. So this is the deal: we have a configuration of Mass Energy that can navigate a sequence of intermediate steps – combinations – slots – frames (just like a TV is a sequence of frames creating a smooth flowing picture, but you can imagine any sequence of frames creating any “picture” or non picture, any chaos or anything at all, etc.) and reach any other target configuration, but it can also be reached in one shot without any intermediate steps, just like changing channels on a TV (or actually, just like thought and language, just like reading, just like changing websites, just like looking at something different in a jiffy, etc.), and then you can imagine any sequence of intermediate steps of configurations of Mass Energy that lead to a target and the sequence can be of any length and each frame can be related or unrelated or anything, etc.
So you can imagine a box within which you can configure Mass Energy in one shot to have any configuration, so in one moment you configure the box to contain a skyscraper, in another instant the box contains a specific person with all of his memories in a specific environment, and the next moment the box can contain a star, and next an ocean and next a car, the next a city (with all of their people, etc.), the next planet earth, etc. and the size of the Mass Energy Configuration aka Matter Chunk can be any at all, and the sequence each distinct combination of Mass Energy navigates to go from source Chunk of Matter to Target Chunk of Matter can be any at all (no longer dependent on them navigating through the constraining forces of the Laws of Physics and the constraining choices of Free Will Observers manipulating and interacting with Matter and Mass Energy, etc.). And then you can imagine a mixed configuration (like a Chunk of Matter being a car mixed with a person mixed with a mountain mixed with a chunk of stellar plasma, etc.), any mix as wild and incredible as possible (just delimit any area you see and imagine it as a Chunk of Matter, and delimit any other area and imagine that as another Chunk of Matter and imagine all of the intermediate steps (any intermediate steps, there is no relationship necessity anymore between the frames since we are no longer dependent on the laws of physics) that can be assigned between the two chunks and a sequence of configurations that may be of any length) that can be assigned to any number of frames, all being different mixes, and the number of frames may be as large as you like and the time slot for each frame may be as short as you like, so you may have 10^100 distinct frames (distinct combinations of Mass Energy – Matter, distinct Chunks of Matter configured in a certain way) each cycling through completely in one second for example, etc.
So you can tune in (like tuning on to a TV channel) to a synchronized repetitive pattern representing the life of a person and his environment, that becomes a smooth flow of frames even though the next frames next to each single distinct frame of that person are completely different and may belong to another person or world or chunk of matter etc. Kind of like time division multiplexing, or what computers do when they are processing apparently parallel tasks but are actually just processing different instances of different tasks at precise intervals so they appear to be continuous and smooth, etc.
OF course the number of frames necessary to cycle through all of the possible chunks of matter and persons and all of the possible possibilities in our universe (say delimit the largest possible frame in the box to be 100 billion light years across and the smallest possible frame to be 10^-100 meters) is very large having multiple exponents like 10^10^10^100000 or something like that, etc.
Remember each frame is simply a given configuration of Mass Energy – Matter that is expressing something that may or may not be familiar to us, therefore each frame is made up of a volume of atoms (and photons, particles and velocities of each, etc.) configured accordingly to design the Chunk of Matter we desire, etc.
But you can then superimpose on the frames, and the sequence of frames and such, connections to any fake laws of physics, or simply regularities or simply rules you want, any constraints you want to impose
can then be connected to emotions, pain/pleasure, anything imaginable, and then imagine radically modified minds as being parts of the chunks of matter and belonging inside some frames and imagine the experiences that they could perceive, etc. And imagine the mixes not only being assigned in space, but also in time, consider a sequence of a trillion frames as One New Frame, a new Chunk of Experience, a new Chunk of Reality composed of Matter navigating a path in time through a sequence of configurations, a set of Chunks of Matter changing combinations in time assigned as one single combination and such. The possibilities are endless.
But a strange thing happens: all of this contraption is designed with how the rules of the world appear to our Man Brain, it is designed according to our logic, but our logic may be only very limited and only one possible “rules of the world”, there may be others and some Chunks of Matter may use and discover others and may create other new contraptions, etc.
AN APE MAN

8man March 8, 2012 at 6:25 am #

From:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.com/
BOX of MATTER

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 6:37 am #

ok, granted, but there has never been a true democracy; even in greece it was rich, white men who were voting…i still have to agree with the basic premise of the article, as i see the results every day…human beings are fundamentally stupid, and there is no reason to believe that stupid people will suddenly understand something just because you explain it…the way to combat the problem is education; not the dissolution of what democracy we do have

8man March 8, 2012 at 6:43 am #

Also check out:
http://instantsingularity.blogspot.com
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.com

8man March 8, 2012 at 6:45 am #

From:
BOX of MATTER
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.com/
8

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 6:53 am #

chickenshit punk…you know what a punk is, don t you, flad? well you scared little cocksucker, i gave you your out; you coulda left me out of it…although it occurs to me that it does take a certain bravery to spout white supremacy after proclaiming yourself to be queer- we all know the public, at least, policy of most nazi groups…so, hypocrite fairy punk

mika. March 8, 2012 at 7:00 am #

human beings are fundamentally stupid
==
Not so much stupid as they are ignorant. And they are kept ignorant by BS propaganda, systems, and institutions designed to serve the moneyed elite. Granted, you do get outliers, like Anti Soak, who genuinely are brain-dead and as dumb as a rock. But these are what, 10% of the general population?

nameta9 March 8, 2012 at 8:26 am #

Infinite Reductionism ?
Maybe consciousness and the Mind, Brain, the Man Brain is based on something completely different from what our Scientific Models suppose: maybe the levels of reductionism explaining “how things work” are really infinite, the Causes and Effects, the Information Relationship Interactions within Matter extend forever from molecule to atom to quark to a smaller entity and down forever, each one having their particular Laws of Physics, their particular equations and quirks, and going on down to smaller and smaller forever and never ending, no matter how far down you go. We can only go a few steps, say only up to the planck level of 10^-40 meters or such, but there is another level of new equations and effects and interactions, a complete universe of interactions, maybe even very complex, maybe even very specific, detailed , chaotic, random, etc. at 10^-50 mm and then at 10^-70 mm and so on to 10^-200 mm and then 10^-1000 mm and so on, just keep on hiking up the number in the exponent to get to a New Universe and Laws of Physics expressing themselves and such. But the point is, a simple consciousness event of the Mind may have its origin very far down, like at 10^-100 mm that influences and interacts in a very complex way with a phenomena occuring at 10^-50 mm, and that with one occuring at the planck level and then quark level and then atom level and then molecular level, etc.
So if Infinite Reductionism is the name of the game, then science will never win, is destined to fail no matter what.
Also, I was thinking of all of the Economic Gurus always saying what must be done to grow the economy, improve the economy or create more employment and such, and so on. Well, it seems to me that no matter what, the forces interacting between people and their economic goals and interests are essentially completely disjoint and independent of any and all theories and models and such. They will keep on doing anything they want according to their interests and environments and situations no matter what laws or theories or models or “More Innovation” or “More Education” or “More Competition” models want to impose. There is no “Normal” and “Good” and “Correct” Economy, they are all quirk – unstable systems that are mostly unpredictable and follow no laws or models at all. Just like the Man Brain driving the system…

tegmark March 8, 2012 at 8:31 am #

From:
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.com/
APE MAN

tegmark March 8, 2012 at 8:33 am #

A new way to travel in Time or Space or to Visit Aliens…with A BOX OF MATTER
From:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.com/
THE APE
Also check out:
http://instantsingularity.blogspot.com/
OK, it no longer belongs in the Rant House, ok…

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 8:38 am #

well, judgeing by experience, i might go with closer to 50%; but that might be intellectual snobbery on my part…i do know that once you get past IQ 120 or so on the bell distribution, the difference in scale is miniscule…

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 9:02 am #

well, how s this for an example of the difference between MUM and the internet: the woman accused of running a child-sex ring for elites, by mr jones, is called by NBC “the soccer-mom madame”, and the only mention of children is that a witness (prostitute in her alleged employ) claims to have been involved in a sex party ‘that included minors’…of course the woman is not being charged with that; only one count of attempting to solicit, for setting up a website…i m starting to think there might be something to the theory that the ‘elite’ are involved in many of the disappeared kids… you ve heard the old saw about power corrupts…it s no stretch to think that those with too much money get jaded with the usual; and must have more and more stimulation

greyghost05 March 8, 2012 at 9:05 am #

P2C
Thank’s for providing that link. The prices are very affordable and the choices look better then surplus MRE’s. I’ll have to explore the main link to find one up here in the Toledo metro area.
If and when it crashes, fishing will be the main source of protien. I’m 2 miles away from a huge deep quary that is loaded with tastey fish. Plus I’m 13 miles west of Lake Erie which has mad amounts of fish. Gonna need a sail boat to get off shore but I have friends who have just that.
Also living on 20 acres gives me ample room to raise food and animals.
The main problem will be dealing with those less prepared. Freeloading family members and roving bands of hungry’s out of Toledo will have to be dealt with.
This summer will be the big shift in land use for me. 100X100 garden area. Time to see if I still have the green thumb that I had back in the 70’s. Back then my former wife and I had a 25X25 garden and with simpely following the recomendations for wide row planting that came with thr Troybuilt tiller we were able to grow more then enough food. The amount of beans you can produce by planting in rows 2′ wide and planted on 6″ centers will blow you away. We were able to give away grocery bags of beans and still have more then enough to can for ourselves. Time to get back into it.
Phil

greyghost05 March 8, 2012 at 9:40 am #

Mika,
I have traveled across the US by car many times. From NYC on the east to LA,’frisco and Seattle on the west. Most recently I took my son on 2 road trips. The 1st in ’09 out to LA via the old Route 66. And the 2nd trip in ’10 out via I-90 to Seattle. All along the way on both trips we met people from all over the country and the world. Especially at the Grand Canyon,I swear English was the minority language. That place was an excercise in digital photography and sign language. I took more pictures of foreigners with their cameras then I snapped with mine. It was cool.
What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t judge any people by their leadership. Politicians have a way of making everyone look bad.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 9:54 am #

Yes, but the reason why illusions rule in America is that the people aren’t intellectually up to seeing through the lies.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 10:10 am #

This is a very interesting subject: Are we too ignorant or too stupid? I’d guess a combination of both. When I say stupid, I’m really saying “not intellectually up to being able to discern being lied to and manipulated”. In order for the ignorant to be made aware, it takes more than just information, at least in this case. It takes people with the capacity to emotionally accept they’ve been lied to; I believe that is somehow tied in to intellect.

messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 10:20 am #

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html
Trivia: In 1917, long before he wrote this letter, Aldous Huxley briefly taught Orwell French at Eton.
“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.”
Another key phrase: “Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations.” FDR’s New Deal forestalled the ultimate revolution, and WWII spent the pent-up energy in ways beneficial to the usurpers. Could they have realized they did not yet have the technology to put down a massive, possibly worldwide rebellion? Today, our “leaders” apparently consider their chances to be much better. They have prepared the battlefield to their advantage by passing totalitarian laws and making any alternatives abhorrent to the vast majority. By most indications, it seems, we are entering Orwell’s Age of The Boot.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.(Psalm 2:1-3)

ront March 8, 2012 at 10:21 am #

P2C, I must agree and add that it is all a show, a way to instill the crazy messages and frame the situation. This is for maintaining the indoctrination into the culture and world view of ignorance, arrogance and greed. Whether one is drawn to be for or against what is framed it serves well to distract from the heist in progress.

ront March 8, 2012 at 10:30 am #

The problem is not simply being ignorant; it is being ignorant of one’s ignorance. Unless you question, you will never know.
The intellect and the rational mind make excellent servants but terrible masters. These servants tend to seek conclusions unless inspired by the heart keep stretching and learning.
The limited ego-mind thrives on defining its identity as_________….

ront March 8, 2012 at 10:31 am #

Swami’s State of the Universe 2012
Posted on March 5,
2012: One Small Step For the Mayan Calendar … A Quantum Leap Year For Humankind
By Swami Beyondananda
read it here:
http://thewakeuplaughingblog.com/?p=230

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 10:48 am #

have to agree about the technology…i saw in the comment section of another blog: “the cure for 1984 is 1776” i thought it was a great expression of the angst facing the youth of our day…you know, the kids who only recently learned about the constitution & bill of rights we used to have…it doesn t look like we ll have another generation with that mindset…too many school children are getting their information from tv and movies and video games; and the real-world examples to be drawn from are already orwellian enough to scare off the majority- witness the apparent collapse of occupy in the face of (pun unintended but welcome) pepperspray and jackboots…i think all it will take is a few protesters being publically ‘liquidated’ to suppress any popular dissent at the upcoming theft of “elections”…

ozone March 8, 2012 at 11:09 am #

Beans,
I think a lot of what youse guys are discussing is predicated on the narratives people chose to “star in” (or are “fed”). This is, of course, a gargantuan and well-remunerated industry. (I’ve always liked “Death to Madison Ave.!”, it’s got a nice ring to it, as advert slogans go.)
Strangely, and timely enough, Senor Fred addresses this very topic. It matters a great deal which narratives one chooses to internalize, and ‘Murkins would do well to read and understand this scurrilous commentary:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Narratives.shtml
***************
************
*******

messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 11:10 am #

“the cure for 1984 is 1776”
People won’t know what is going on until they choose to take individual responsibility to find out what is going on. If we go to a soup kitchen to be fed… guess what, the only choice we have is to eat what they give me. If we have the ability to grow {or shop} and cook, only when we {I} choose to use that ability, do I get pick and cook what I want to eat. Same with knowledge and opportunities… I’ll only get the slop that’s chosen for me until I choose otherwise.

ozone March 8, 2012 at 11:14 am #

One final response to the Chinese spam-slinger:
It’s
not
working.
Over ‘n out; back to your cammy-jammy yessir nosir keyboard clacking.
How’s the pay and food, Tossers?

ozone March 8, 2012 at 11:16 am #

Good analogy there, MD.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 11:17 am #

This is a very interesting subject
==
It is. But I think it is rather irrelevant to a well functioning democracy. Take for example the implied premise that smart informed decisions are always the correct decisions. I’m not sure I agree with it. I know that in my personal life, the dumbest craziest action often resulted in very positive consequences. Consequences that I did not at all imagine, let alone anticipate.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 11:20 am #

Well said, MD.

ozone March 8, 2012 at 11:21 am #

Yes, it is directly relevant to a check of reality.
Check please, garcon…

messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 11:22 am #

“the way to combat the problem is education; not the dissolution of what democracy we do have”
But will you admit that far too many will simply use democracy to vote {or propagandize} themselves goodies at the expense of those who actually produce something?

rippedthunder March 8, 2012 at 11:26 am #

No tappin’ this year. Trees are beat from Halloween storm. They deserve a break, no pun intended!

rippedthunder March 8, 2012 at 11:32 am #

Hi Prog , Why would LB and Wage be banned? I was getting banned for awhile but then I was able to post. I think it is just some sort of IT glitch bullsh** , Anyhoo?

rippedthunder March 8, 2012 at 11:46 am #

Who needs a water heater? I have a 24 ft swimming pool with 13,000 gallons in it. I hardly use the thing now that the kids are gone. I was gonna get rid of it but hey it is aluminumn so I figure it is good for 100 years. I think of it as a CEE-MENT pond like Jed had. With that and the gutter tanks I am set for H2O.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 11:49 am #

This reminds me of my recent trip to the American Southwest. My flight arrived to LAX late at night. It was dark and rainy and when I received my car rental, all that was on my tired mind was to get my luggage in the trunk and get a move on before I collapse. Later when I arrived at my hotel in Carlsbad it was 6am but still dark. The receptionist asked me for my car’s plate number and color. Well, I didn’t really know what color car it was, I really didn’t have a good look at the car to discern its color. I thought it looked dark grey, but I wasn’t sure. It could as easily been dark green or whatever. The point is, as I stepped outside to really have a good look, I distinctly heard the girl call me ‘stupid’ under her breath. I don’t think she meant for that to happen. I don’t think she even realized that she did it. But she did.
The moral of the story, and as a reply to Charlie and others, if I qualify as stupid to a (minimum wage?) hotel receptionist, anybody can qualify. 😀

San Jose Mom 51 March 8, 2012 at 12:10 pm #

As a recovering Mormon (and great, great grandaughter of pioneers) I can tell you that “Mormon Church” the nickname of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” (a mouthful) came from the most important “prophet” of “The Book of Mormon” — Mormon himself. He was the last person left of the “Nephites.” The Nephites were at war with the wicked, dark-skinned “Lamanites,” aka Native Americans.
He compiled the history of the Nephites on Golden Plates that were buried in Palmyra, NY on a hill called the “Hill Cumorah.” (The church has a big pageant there every summer.)
Joseph Smith, discovered the Golden Plates back in the early 1800’s. He translated the plates, written in “reformed Egyptian” with the help of “seeing stones” given to him by the Angel Moroni. Moroni’s golden statue is on top of every Mormon Temple.
As to your other observation, the rotten lawyer, I can easily agree that there are some highly un-ethical Mormons out there–but every population has rascals. My opinion is that Mormons make good neighbors and they are generally more polite than the US population.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 12:26 pm #

Some pics from my trip:
https://plus.google.com/photos/111947774710886151608/albums/5593394627505319393

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm #

Yes, original Mormonism was a Religion for Whites. Look what it has become! Just like the Catholics, the Collleges, and the Banks, all their Literature is replete with minorities. Guess they see them as the coming thing and thus a “good investment”. Despicable.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:34 pm #

You need anger management, guy. I just said you have a big ego hiding under those small caps. I think your response proves my point.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm #

The more gifted the mind, the further it can go wrong and invent worlds that don’t correspond to reality. Thus the most ignorant are often the brightest. Witness Jean Paul Sartre and his Communism. After he finally admitted the Soviet Union was corrupt he switched allegiance to Maoism.
Or look at the Republicans trying to curry favor with Hispanics – an endeavor guaranteed to fail. Or people who imagine the Israel is our ally – how could anyone be so dense?

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:42 pm #

Maybe she was a Vatican Agent? Or at least an Anti-Semite?

mika. March 8, 2012 at 12:49 pm #

Maybe. But one thing for sure, she was white and blond and a racist bitch. Didn’t really notice her color eyes, but I bet they were blue. They usually are with them lizards.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:50 pm #

What did you think about Fred’s observation that the Black Underclass is out of control? You can’t pick and choose your Freds.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 12:52 pm #

Bill? Time for an intervention. This guy is a sick racist.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 12:57 pm #

Or you just have a very low IQ.

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm #

What do big investors buy?
Skyscrapers in Manhattan?
Or good agricultural land?
Why not Both??
Soros is buying up Afreeka, as are the Chinese,
while ‘white Christians and the Govts’ do charity work and Foreign Aid.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 1:04 pm #

Racist? Did she think you were a Negro? I thought you said you look Swedish?

mika. March 8, 2012 at 1:08 pm #

I do. But I was wearing my tefillin and kippah, which kinda gave me away as a non-white.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 1:17 pm #

Good read:
Remember though when the article says:
For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.
Incompetence is being talked about. It can be a mistake to generalize ‘lacking mental tools’ to a broad brush that paints all people. There are people with intellectual abilities to change mental scope and perspective. Who do not get caught in categorical thinking. There are men and women who have become comfortable doubting themselves in their pursuit of the truth and their passion to find what works on the real world. Men and women who can be trusted to handle the unknowns and the unknown which is yet to be found in removing the layers on a given onion.
The article could make one rely on ‘experts’ overmuch. The truth is ‘experts’ may have their cranium up their rectum just as far as the incompetent masses in the article. The article skips this consideration.
But that consideration puts us back on square one because experts see the trees in the forest but not the forest.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 1:21 pm #

Smart people get the tools they need to make meaningful judgements or take dogs who have the tools on a walk, leashed of course.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 1:29 pm #

If democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies join the k-dog write in revolution.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 1:33 pm #

Famous surgeon says sorry, he was wrong – animal fats and butter not bad for you. Heart disease is caused by the inflammation caused by daily sugar spikes. Any thoughts, anyone? Being overweight is still a no, no. And he’s in favor of lots of vegtables, etc.
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/fester/world-renowned-heart-surgeon-what-really-causes-heart-disease

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 1:52 pm #

In Among the Terrorists Fred wrote:
The staff were helpful and courteous, as nearly all people are nearly everywhere. I had read on websites dedicated to genetic speculation that Moslems were of low intelligence. In Tanger they characteristically expressed this inferiority by speaking five languages.
‘websites dedicated to genetic speculation’
Is it a stretch to think that Fred could be a fellow clusterfucker? There is an excess of genetic speculation here.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 2:10 pm #

You define two types of stupidity. One a stupidity of not being able to discern being lied to and manipulated and the another of being emotionally unable to accept being lied to well.
The emotional acceptance aspect is a transitional phase. After one awakens from the first form of stupidity which is a cultural artifact as well as a consequence of innate ability emotional adjustment becomes a function of how quickly one can adjust to reality. Life experience desire and passion as well as intelligence has a lot to do with the speed and quality of the emotional adjustment.
Being lied to makes me wanna boil em in oil sometimes, but I get over it quicker and quicker.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 2:19 pm #

The ability to discern lies is a key issue. There are things people do which give them away but you need dog skills to know.

k-dog March 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm #

You have to not take mendacity personally. Accept it for the poisonous ignorance it is and deal with it.

turkle March 8, 2012 at 2:41 pm #

“First the people making $1/day are shoved off the planet…then those making $2/day”
I’m not so sure if it is going to be that simplistic of a mapping based on income level. These are the people growing their own food, sometimes with little or no petroleum-based fertilizers. Many subsistence farmers in South America still work their fields with ox/horse and plow. On the other hand, Joe Sixpack thinks that obtaining food amounts to driving the Hummer down to the Super Walmart. Now which system do you think is more fragile and will be more effected by severe hikes in gas prices or other resource scarcities? The food in that Walmart is shipped in from thousands of miles away via gas-guzzling ships and trucks. If gas doubles, triples, etc. those living in poverty will mostly go on living. They don’t have cars. Their farms aren’t heavily dependent on oil. They can walk their goods to market or take the old mule. Fertilizers and pesticides are definitely a weak link, but, again, they aren’t so heavily dependent on these as “rich” Western farmers. For fertilizer, they can use animal excrement. The pesticides might not be replaceable but that is (possibly) one problem where non carbon resource based alternatives could be developed if needed.
Just, erm, food for thought…

Mrs. Soake March 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm #

Vlad,
Your meds. Get back on them. You’re talking to yourself again.
Mrs. Soake

turkle March 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm #

“Who were so dumb”
You’re a creep.

Bustin J March 8, 2012 at 2:58 pm #

Dog skills? I can induce a dog to think that I am an immanent threat in about 3 seconds. Dogs are gullible. They are quite unaware that you did not throw the ball, that it is in fact, behind your back.
Humans are good at lying. The skills required to detect them are reason and logic.
The best way to lie of course, is to omit. You never mention the “other person” you’re sleeping with to your partner, for instance. You don’t keep the second set of books.
You don’t give someone the opportunity to ask the question in the first place.
BTB: “This is a very interesting subject: Are we too ignorant or too stupid? I’d guess a combination of both. When I say stupid, I’m really saying “not intellectually up to being able to discern being lied to and manipulated”. In order for the ignorant to be made aware, it takes more than just information, at least in this case. It takes people with the capacity to emotionally accept they’ve been lied to…”
The problem as I see it in modern society is that virtually no one understands the integral role of logic and reason. It is fundamental, but, is not taught to children, who already have an unblemished instinct for it. Rather, they are indoctrinated in the adult world of disingenuous belief and, after a programme of this kind of reinforcement, become uneducated.
The other tine of the fork is the denatured existence we live in. Clean water comes from the faucet. Electricity comes from the plug in the wall. The Internet comes from tubes. Etc.
Never before have so many idiots been so empowered.
Pat said “Thanks to the fact that in Sicily they never had enough oil to use as fertilizer, since most of the agricultural land is still worked as 100 years ago, since the labor there costs less than in China (Morocco, Libya, Algeria, they contribute a lot) and therefore is MUCH cheaper than using machinery and oil, Sicily will pass the “oil age” without even knowing what it was.
Things never change there, so they change a lot…”
When I was in Italy a few years ago I saw the ravages of machine agriculture all over Tuscany. It was as if they were trying to ‘catch up’ to the Midwestern US in terms of soil erosion. If Sicily remains untouched, good for it.

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 3:15 pm #

This line of thought has been around for 30 years.
Yes Eskimos dont die of coronaries.
If you read John Robbins etc they insist Vegans
dont get many coronaries.
Other studies point to bleeding gums as a cause of heart attacks [germs from mouth go to bloodstream].
Its been known for a long time Vegetable Oil is bad for ones health.

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm #

I knew a woman who was mostly Vegan for 35 years.
She got to be 60+ and they did a [CAMERA INSIDE ONES VEINS]procedure.
THE DOCTORS ETC COULDNT BELIEVE SOMEONE 60 OR 70 HAD ‘THE ARTERIES OF A 3 YEAR OLD’.

turkle March 8, 2012 at 3:37 pm #

How about we put you on a plane with a bunch of your friends and no survival gear whatsoever, crash it into the Andes in an unknown place 60 miles from the nearest anything, and then we’ll see how well you fair.
You freaking termite.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 3:58 pm #

Happy International Women’s Day, Dostoevsky.

metuselah March 8, 2012 at 4:55 pm #

Fail-Safe (1964)
– http://youtu.be/tWJw7kp3nwM

anti soak March 8, 2012 at 5:53 pm #

Mika, Dont feed the trolls.
Whats ‘Int Wimmens Day’?

turkle March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm #

Good. Hopefully, this vindicates my All Butter All the Time nutritional regime.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 6:09 pm #

He seems to be advocating something like what’s called the “Paleolithic Diet” – high protein, and no simple carbs like bread. There may be something to it, not sure. On the other hand, the 7th Day Adventists do live longer with their vegetarianism. So could longevity be a function of the quality of the meat and – a vigorous lifestyle like the Innuit? Perhaps if you going to live a sedentary lifestyle or don’t have access to good meat, it would be better to be be Vegan or Vegerarian.
Everyone seems to agree that veggies are better than bread – even high quality bread. Some fruit is good but not too much – the sugar spike again.
Alot of fish seems to be the compromise position and my choice as of now.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 6:13 pm #

Aren’t those just for the Orthodox? And isn’t the tefflin just for the time of prayer?
I think Prog is right: you were an American originally and you love the tall tale. Checky out Kinky Friedman, the Jewish Cowboy.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 6:25 pm #

Aren’t those just for the Orthodox? And isn’t the tefflin just for the time of prayer?
==
Exactly, Vladik.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 6:27 pm #

Another compromise point: most hunter gatherers didn’t eat meat everday. So if the Paleos were anything like our hunter gatherers, they ate alot of nuts and roots. They all would eat alot of meat when they caught some, but often didn’t have anyway to preserve it.
People following the Paleo Diet might not understand this point and may eat meat several times a day – which probably isn’t good.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 6:28 pm #

Yeah, just eat butter and nothing but. Dolly Parton eats alot of cheese. Her breasts are just big lumps of cheese.

ozone March 8, 2012 at 6:47 pm #

Mmmm, that would be a stretch, yeah.
But with all the clamoring fuckwits pounding down the door of reason with “Untermenchen, untermenchen everywhere!”, all the “Zeit!”, what’s a believer in realities to do? (Which would be the upshot of Mr. Fred.)
Take it for true, the cornpone nazis feel this is their large opportunity to take the reins of command and control to make their perfect nightmare into the New Rome.
And this is why I say: Bring it, you fuckwitted ass-lickers; let’s see you try and rule without fear. It’s my opinion that fear is their one and only weapon, and their greatest weakness (aside from the adulation of the irredeemably shit-headed). As usual, they’ll be horrified when the untermenchen have the unmitigated gall to resist. “Shit, I thought they’d welcome our perfect rule with flowers, clean sheets, and prolific boy-sexing. Wha’happen’?!?”
(We’ll let you know wha’happen’ just after we let yer guts out.)

turkle March 8, 2012 at 7:33 pm #

Ignorance of limits is at the heart of many of these items in JHK’s list. In other words, oil and other carbon based energy is a limited resource. Yet so many seem to think that all we need to do is drill faster/harder/farther/deeper, because there’s always going to be more oil and gas.
This applies in many other areas. Arable land is a limited resource, and each acre has a limited amount that it can produce, which (nearly) always decreases over time. Clean, drinkable water is a limited resource. Fish in the sea is a limited resource, quickly being depleted by rapacious human appetite for sushi and fried fillets.
etc.
Maybe it is just a flaw of human psychology. Humans lived for millions of years as hunter gatherers, and the tribe just moved to the next territory if the pickings became scarce. It seems like this idea is still embedded deeply into our minds, though the supply of roots and berries has almost nothing in common with oil.
It seems to be reinforced here in America by the idiotic notions of Bible Thumpers that the earth was put here by God for us to, um, consume and that this planet has limitless resources. Before easy global transportation became available, it certainly seemed this way. In other words, God and Jesus will always provide more Go Juice for us, because they loves us. No recognition that Nature is a cruel mistress who cares not one wit whether humans collectively live or die. She could send a big old 10 mile wide asteroid to destroy all life on the planet. Similarly, if we make the atmosphere unbreathable, raise the temperature so that the ocean levels rise, etc. there is no divine entity that will intervene. We’re on our own here, and we alone have to make sure things work out. If not…kapput!
I see it as the ultimate human tragedy, this misunderstanding of our own limits. We will be brought down by our own faults and ignorance. That’s what makes it a tragedy.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 7:44 pm #

I waited and I waited and nobody cared to chime in. I really find it amazing, and quite disturbing actually. What does it say about you as a people, when so many of you don’t believe that your compatriots have a right to have an equal say of equal import. What does that say about your opinion of your countrymen and yourselves as a nation. The implications are terrible. You are all disparate tribes, and not even that. Truly an animal farm.

ozone March 8, 2012 at 8:05 pm #

Well, wait s’more then.
Working for the gum’mint should have taught you that by now.
BTW, did you get the paperclips and staples that I requisitioned for your section last week?
Ah well, you can make do, I’m sure. And tell the laddie to show his work on your expense forms next time; this shit is starting to attract attention.
BTW, nice photos…. now get back to clacking on them keys, corporal; leave’s fuggin DONE! Websites to track; minds to muddle.
Over and OUT…

mika. March 8, 2012 at 8:09 pm #

Do they pay overtime? Because I should have enough to retire by now, don’t you think.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 8:10 pm #

Turk,
I do agree with almost all of your post except the last paragraph. I’s very far from a sure thing that our faults will destroy us.
Rapid technological advances and their resultant societal changes have brought great stress to our civilization and causing most of the issues we face today: overpopulation, depleted energy resources, global pollution, climate change, fresh water shortages, nuclear weapon proliferation, etc.
But to my mind, if, in spite of the human race’s immaturity, we have produced such technical progress, we can also produce solutions to the problems it wrought. Can we hang on until we produce those solutions (for they are coming)? No one knows, and because no one knows, I’d put our chances of survival at 50-50 – even odds. I guess it’s just a matter if one is a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full type of guy.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 8:30 pm #

You are correct to a certain extent. But I’d bet you are using selective memory about your crazy actions. If you are a reasonably emotionally healthy person, you would tend to remember the good results and forget the bad, just as an unhealthy emotionally person would tend to remember the bad and forget about good results. We all employ selective memory to varying degrees.
So I’d say that statistically the smarter you act, the better off you are. Democracy is theoretically a nice idea, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for it. On the other hand, true democracy – which you correctly state we don’t have – is such a “right” idea that maybe we ought to try it despite our shortcomings. Gotta think about that.

mika. March 8, 2012 at 8:44 pm #

Bill, I’ve changed my mind. Democracy will only work for a small nation state. You are not small and you are not a nation. You are an artificial artifice of corporate imperialism. I really don’t know what will become of you. In all likelihood you will follow the Roman Empire to be overtaken by invading tribes and dissolve into the history books.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 8:52 pm #

“The more gifted the mind, the further it can go wrong and invent worlds that don’t correspond to reality.”
Yes, but the more gifted of mind tend to have great dreams, and where would we be if didn’t have them?
“Thus the most ignorant are often the brightest.”
But the most ignorant are often the dumbest, as well.
… “people who imagine the Israel is our ally – how could anyone be so dense?”
I do have to give credit to your creativity in being able to interject Jews into every conversation. Even I couldn’t do that. I’ll bend a little and say you are partially correct: We are Israel’s ally, but they aren’t necessarily ours. Now don’t you use that against me in a later post – I wasn’t implying in any way that Israeli’s are bad.
“Bill? Time for an intervention. This guy is a sick racist.”
You should know.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 9:00 pm #

“The problem as I see it in modern society is that virtually no one understands the integral role of logic and reason. It is fundamental, but, is not taught to children, who already have an unblemished instinct for it. Rather, they are indoctrinated in the adult world of disingenuous belief and, after a programme of this kind of reinforcement, become uneducated.”
So true, Bustin.

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messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 9:02 pm #

“Her breasts are just big lumps of cheese.”
Exaggeration is a form of lieing.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 9:02 pm #

Yes, but it seems the period of adjustment for many people is infinity.

messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 9:10 pm #

“I really don’t know what will become of you.”
We will also repent {change our minds}.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 9:18 pm #

O3, I liked that Fred commentary. It very succintly and well-writtenly summed up my own feelings about some (or most) of Americans’ attitude.
Yeah, our national narrative is so hypocitical and blind, but as Fred says, other countries’ narratives, although different, are based on illogic, too.
Sigh, must be the human condition.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 9:38 pm #

I agree that we may well go the way of the Romans. We are so much like them, so why not go out like they did, too?
I would say that if our civilization continues to advance like it has been doing, and we pass through our time of crisis reasonably intact, the concept of the nation-state may become extinct. In other words, we won’t need them, and that will become very obvious. In still other words, we won’t have a one world government, we will have a no governemnt world.
Democracy would work better in a smaller country.

messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 9:42 pm #

“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans…”
I’m thinking most of you would appreciate {but never suspect} the echo:
“Guesstimating the Truth in a Fascist Society”
http://lewrockwell.com/douglas/douglas49.1.html

mika. March 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm #

Bill, I’m glad you’re here. I really enjoy your company and thoughts. I should thank Vlad for forcing you to post. His evil did bring some good. I’m feeling verklempt. http://youtu.be/PDXEgBh0TF0

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messianicdruid March 8, 2012 at 10:37 pm #

Another changed mind:
“It’s completely out of control,” Mr. Robertson said. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all.”
http://www.goldismoney2.com/showthread.php?30040-Pat-Robertson-Says-Marijuana-Use-Should-be-Legal

turkle March 8, 2012 at 11:08 pm #

I wouldn’t put our chances of survival on technology, primarily, just that we are tenacious little beasts, able to live in most any conditions on earth, much more so than most other large animals. If it came to it, we could probably live under the ocean or below ground. We definitely can supplement and extend our living conditions using advanced tools, to some degree.
I did “pull a Kunstler” and pretend that I have a crystal ball. Of course, I’ve no idea what will happen 1 second from now, much less 10 or 100 years. A gigantic meteor could blind side us and destroy everything. A black hole could open up right beside us. Or perhaps Jesus will come and take all the true believers to Heaven. I have no idea what is going to happen.
The issue you raise is a crucial question. Can the human race innovate itself out of all the problems it creates? It is a fascinating, complicated topic. I recommend “The Ingenuity Gap” by Thomas Homer-Dixon, by no means a doomer book. In the long term, say more than 100 years, I put humanity’s chances of survival in its current form, i.e. 7 billion+ of us on the surface of the planet, as rather dim. Just do the math. Everything is running out. Food. Water. Gas. Clean air.
What do people do when they start running out of things? They fight. That’s what you see from most of human history, which was far more a period of scarcity than the “blip” of advanced technological civilization.
What happens when people fight with today’s most advanced weapons? Well, potentially A LOT of people could die. Just the US has enough nuclear missiles to pulverize the earth a few times over. I think Chekov or someone said that if there’s a gun on the mantle at the start of a play, expect it to be used by the end.
Now, I think the chances of nuclear war are receding, and we are probably safer from that threat than during the cold war. But what do you think the future holds? Space weapons. More powerful explosives. More deadly biological weapons. etc.
So, yeah, maybe we survive long term for thousands of more years, but the “we” is not going to be in the billions, I recon. War, starvation, disease, climate change, etc. is really going to cut us down to size (my guess).
Technology, while able to “save” us, also definitely has the ability to cause massive destruction.
The US probably already has weapons up in space that could cause a wide area EMP pulse, disabling most electrical devices. That would cause immense chaos in most modern societies.
Biological agents probably already have been devised that have a 98-99% mortality rate. The US has advanced bio-weapons capabilities, the extent of which would probably make our heads spin if we understand the nooks and crannies (highly classified of course).
So the rifles are over the fireplace. How long before they’re used?
Which way will it go?
Of course, who knows. But judging by how humans just seem to love war and violence, I’m pretty confident selecting option B for “big trouble”.

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 11:36 pm #

It’s called metaphor. Lighten up buddy. God didn’t create the world in six days either. Poetic License comes to Orientals as naturally as breathing. Most of them understand this at some level. But when things come West, trouble starts because of our literalism. Before the Englightenment we were a quite a bit more like them.

BeantownBill March 8, 2012 at 11:40 pm #

Aw, shucks. Please don’t hyper-verklempt, though, you could pass out. 🙂

Vlad Krandz March 8, 2012 at 11:42 pm #

You’re failing in your duty to us and to Mika. I mean this guy hates fair skinned people – and he is one too. You don’t see a problem here? For him and for us? Why throw it back in my face? I have a valid point whether you like it or not.

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 11:44 pm #

yeah, i ll third or fourth that one too…well said

charliefoxtrot March 8, 2012 at 11:49 pm #

i will admit it, yes, but i think it is a necessary function of a free democracy- as close as we can get- and it would behoove us to teach our children logic and deduction so we can raise the bar…

asoka. March 9, 2012 at 12:06 am #

War, starvation, disease, climate change, etc. is really going to cut us down to size
The US probably already has weapons up in space that could cause a wide area EMP pulse, disabling most electrical devices.
Biological agents probably already have been devised that have a 98-99% mortality rate.
So the rifles are over the fireplace. How long before they’re used?
Please explain to me how a rifle is any kind of defense, how a rifle is anything other than a joke, when faced with mass extinction, disease, nuclear annihilation, climate change, EMP pulses, and biological agents.
This Yankee individualist myth of “I’m gonna take care of myself” … one against all … really dies hard, doesn’t it?
The myth of individualism that we cling to is quaint, a bit humorous, and completely delusional.
Instead of going against the Other with a rifle, we have the moral capacity embrace the Other: we are capable of mutual aid, voluntary cooperation, meditative awareness, a spirit of love and unity.
There is no limit to how many people we can love.
Rifles are history. Rifles are useless. You can collect them as a hobby, for historical interest or for fun, like Marlin does.
But don’t expect rifle over the fireplace to save you from nuclear holocaust, a biological attack, plague, catastrophic climate change events, any kind of mass extinction event, or even a simple drone bombing of your residence (with a Predator, Reaper, or a smaller “kamikaze” Switchblade drone.)

BeantownBill March 9, 2012 at 12:11 am #

It’s not so much I believe technology will save us, but that technology MUST save us, or else we may have a very large human die-off – which is what you are saying. Since the human population is 7 billion, with no current die-off, it is theoretically possible for the Earth to support this magnitude a population, assuming present conditions are maintained. Unfortunately, conditions will deteriorate unless technology can advance.
To the extent it can, our population levels will be mainained, otherwise masses of people will perish. The point of technological advancement is to insure we will have adequate resources to survive.

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BeantownBill March 9, 2012 at 12:19 am #

Oops, I posted before I was done.
Again, I don’t know our 7 billion survival probability, but I’m willing to give it even odds. Science and technology have the capacity to save us – I just don’t know if we’ll let them. I hope you are being overly pessimistic and I’m right, but most likely, what really happens will be in the mddle between our outlooks.

BeantownBill March 9, 2012 at 12:21 am #

Maybe I should amend my viewpoint to say technology plus love can save us. I just can’t be pessimistic about the future, that’s not me.

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BeantownBill March 9, 2012 at 12:30 am #

I was just joking, being sarcastic, really.
I don’t believe Mika dislikes all white people, just some, for his own reasons. You seem to dislike all brown and black people, except for some, for your own reasons. There is a difference.

asoka. March 9, 2012 at 1:13 am #

THERE IS NO “FREE WILL”
Your thoughts come and go of themselves. You aren’t in control of them. This becomes particularly obvious if you try to stop thinking, because you will find that you can’t! Thoughts arise whether you like it or not. So if you’re not the ‘thinker’ of your thoughts, then you aren’t the ‘doer’ of your intentional actions either.
SOURCE: The Laughing Jesus: Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom, Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (O Books, 2006. ISBN 978 1 905047 819)

Bustin J March 9, 2012 at 2:43 am #

BTB post-its: “For all those CFNers who might be scratching their heads over our election campaigns, here’s a link that explains why they’re so messed up:
http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html
”
It snot the election campaigns that matter.
Its the climate.
And its far more dangerous. Every minute of every day we wait to stop using fossil fuels is more energy the planet is absorbing from the sun.
As we begin to cook like frogs in a pot, scarcely anyone is aware.
And it is because of the phenomenon in the study. People don’t know who to trust. So when politicians lie to them, or political operatives, car companies, “special interest groups”, talking heads, propagandists, teachers, professors, the local news anchors, Dan Rather, the Pope, the neighbors, or their friends, they will fail to come to the correct conclusion- which is that the science is right, the theory is sound, and the data show the inexorable heating of the planet has been occuring and is now accelerating, and that these effects will begin to accumulate exponentially.
The scope of the effects are far, far more serious and consequential than any democratic election, anywhere, since 1776, believe it or not.
Every year that goes by, the CO2 accumulates, making it exponentially harder to reverse, exponentially harder to stop fossil fuel burning.
And of course the kernel is the exponential function itself. People don’t know what it means, even many otherwise “educated” people.
We’re beginning to see it, though. It is heavy, it is real. I sense it. Many remember the old days, and it will become more and more obvious to those sensitive enough to the seasons to notice the changes.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 3:01 am #

It’s Socialist and Jewish.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 3:04 am #

The rate of violent home invasions soared in England once guns were made illegal. That’s your answer: they can save you from home invaders.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 3:27 am #

Mika is this true?
You’re wrong about me – I don’t dislike them personally. They just don’t belong here. I’ve liked some Blacks that I’ve met. Haven’t had much contract with Hispanics – hate Puerto Rican music I used to hear in Jamiaca Plain. Liked some of the food. Thought the girls were pretty. But no contact came my way and I don’t seek things like that. So my position is impersonal in the deepest sense.
Obviously White Culture is higher and must be protected both in terms of memes and genes. To want to protect the memes alone as Rhino does is fatuous. Your Orthodox are the heart of Judaism – they preserve it and maintain the genes. You and your’s would destroy your own people.
Went out to a Klezmer Concert tonight in honor of Women’s Day. Love the Jewish Folk meets Jazz – joyous, the Jewish Spirit at its best. But it was a benefit and the Woman and her cause were nutty. “Helping” heal the rift between Palestinians and Jews in Palestine thru Feminism, shamanism, oying, chakra attunments, shaming soldiers at checkpoints, the whole megillah. I appreciate that some Jews are trying to walk their Universal Talk – at long last. But so clueless! No better than JP Gentiles! Doesn’t realize that the Muslims will NEVER forgive the Jews for what they did in Palestine. And that Jews live there only by the sword. Very heavy anti-male vibe too. I enjoyed a few songs and also a lot of older woman coming in wearing special hats – something to do with Labor and Unions. But I had to get out – just couldn’t stand her rap. She had alot of charisma as a singer but that just strenghtened her in her nuttiness.
Real healing for the Jews would mean a long hard look at their History and their bogus scripture The Talmud which separates them from all other people on Earth. They must Own their part in the things that have befallen them. After that Deconstruction (which they have done on Christianity and Islam) each Jew can decide the balance of good and evil and whether to stay in or not. Certainly Jews must renounce their desire to fufill the Prophecy and conquer the World. And yes Mika, the New World Order as a whole must renounce it also.

asoka. March 9, 2012 at 3:51 am #

More people are killed by accidental shootings in homes with guns, than bad guys are killed while engaging in “home invasion.” Having a gun in the home means that someone in your home is more likely to be shot and possibly killed than that the gun will be used to thwart a home invasion.
Many CFNers say people are stupid or ignorant and those are not people you want owning guns. People who mess with guns are morons, even though they don’t want to hear this.
Some moron in Ohio gave his grandson two rifles and the kid used one of them to kill mom dead. By accident or on purpose hardly matters: Had those guns been kept away from the child and locked up, that gun death would not have happened. But morons don’t think things through. (They have 2nd amendment rights, you know, including the morons.)
Besides, Vlad, gun ownership can actually attract bad guys. For example, Carl Roudebush collected guns for years. The wrong people apparently found out about it. Carl was robbed at gunpoint handcuffed and put in his crawlspace. They took his guns, his ammo and about $3K in cash.
Assuming you have to sleep, having a rifle over your fireplace would not stop a home invasion since you have to go to sleep eventually. Even sleeping with your rifle would not deter a determined home invader (one who is not a moron).
None of this “home invasion” talk is relevant to my main point that having a rifle above the fireplace will not protect you from nuclear attack, or a plague, or a 200 foot wall of water from a tsunami, or any other mass extinction event.
As far as “home invasion” goes, a rifle will not even protect your home from a post-collapse mob that decides to firebomb your house at 2:00 a.m. and shoot you as you run out of your burning house. (With or without a rifle in your hand.)
BTW, an adobe sun-cured earthen brick “mud hut” with a roof made of adobe bricks will not burn.
Good luck trying to defend your stick-built house.

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charliefoxtrot March 9, 2012 at 8:10 am #

…and so much for tripp and his hay bale construction…hi, soaka, long time, no “see”…hey, i bet most of those accidental shootings involved improper storage or access…

rippedthunder March 9, 2012 at 10:29 am #

Yunno’ what they say A- “Happiness is a Warm GUN”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE2Vdcv9Q_o
check out the Gibson at 0:43 , I’ve got one just like it hanging in the basement. It will make a damn good club when the grid goes down!

mika. March 9, 2012 at 10:32 am #

Mika is this true?
==
I’m not going to contradict Bill. There’s a blood bond between us. You know that, Vladik.

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Rhino March 9, 2012 at 11:17 am #

Eleuthero RIP.
I can understand why he quit. Hope he comes back.
Hope Lbendet gets unbanned. Many good posts. Hancock too even though some were a bit out there IMO.
Too many of Wagelaborers posts IMO inhabited that great beyond in the far outer realms of opinion and observation, way past the reach of common sense. But I don’t get why she was banned.
Maybe if we get an explanation we can better understand the ground rules. Or maybe it was unintended ie just a technical spasm.

desg120e3 March 9, 2012 at 11:20 am #

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Last year’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act demanded that employers take a little less out of every worker’s paycheck to adjust for the “making work pay” credit that will be provided to single workers earning less than $75,louis vuitton outlet,000 and married couples earning $150,000 or less.

But if you earn more, are one of two working spouses, or have a side job or pension income, this lower withholding could mean that you have underpaid your taxes and are headed for a nasty surprise come April.

To check, run a quick projection by estimating this year’s income and pulling out your latest pay stubs to determine how much tax is being withheld from your checks.

If you’ve paid less taxes than last year but don’t have less income, bigger deductions or some reason to think you’ll get the new credit, start setting money aside to pay the taxes you’ll owe next year. (You could also do this by withholding more money from your paycheck. See your employee benefits department for help.)

Looking for work?

Millions of people lost their jobs last year and had to spend money going to interviews, printing resumes and taking contacts to lunch. You need to keep track of those costs because your job-search expenses are tax deductible, said Mark Luscombe, principal tax analyst with CCH Inc., a Riverwoods, Ill., publisher of tax information. The catch is that job-search expenses are classified as “miscellaneous itemized deductions” and can be written off only if they exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income.

Can you bunch deductions?

Exceeding that 2% figure can be a challenge. With that in mind, it may be a good idea to try to push into this year all your possible deductible expenses, such as those for business subscriptions, dues payments and maintenance on a car that’s used primarily for work. “Bunching” these miscellaneous deductions into one year helps you clear the threshold and get more tax deductions for your money.

On the bright side, when your income is down perhaps because of a job loss or a cut in pay, it’s easier to clear that 2% threshold, said Philip J. Holthouse, partner with the Santa Monica tax accounting firm of Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt.

Did you become an accidental entrepreneur?

The deductions you can claim when you call yourself an out-of-work employee pale in comparison with the deductions you can take if you call yourself “self-employed.”;col1

Those who have secured some contract or freelance work — or even those who simply aim to — can take dozens of deductions and credits for home office expenses, business equipment, mileage and even their health insurance premiums. And there are no income thresholds to clear to take these write-offs.

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 11:21 am #

Chinese spam – Shit!
Somehow I associate the Chinese spammer with Tegmark/Olde/8M.
Asoka – now that you have started another witless CFN episode of “love the gun but hate the violence,” you need to go back and reread Bustin’s original post. He was using “rifles over the fireplace” as a METAPHOR for nuclear, biological, EMP, and other weapons of mass destruction. Nitwit.

desg120e3 March 9, 2012 at 11:25 am #

Three teenagers in Texas appear to have had heart attacks caused by smoking synthetic marijuana,nike air jordan, doctors reported Monday. While smoking marijuana is known to affect the heart, such as by increasing the heart rate, synthetic pot — known as K2 or Spice — may represent an additional risk. These drugs contain synthetic cannabinoids and have become popular among illicit drug users because they do not show up on toxicology screens. Doctor at UT Southwestern Medical Center described three recent cases of heart attacks in teen-agers using K2. All three were 16-year-old boys who said they had smoked marijuana recently but also admitted to using K2 within the past few days or within the prior week.

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 11:27 am #

Hancock believes his banning was part of a larger conspiracy. I can certainly understand where he is coming from, in that regard.
Asoka. tells us that this webspace is closely monitored and that Wage was banned because she posted on 911 Truth. Alrighty, then.
While the ban plays on, to the tune of Chinese spam and the purposeless posts of the X Q 3 F 2 robot.

Widespreadpanic7 March 9, 2012 at 11:30 am #

Well all stats are in and, contrary to what Jim says, this looks to be the strongest economic recovery in recorded history! That’s what the business section in our local paper proclaimed yesterday, and it is backed up today by pundits on CNBC, Bloomberg, IBD and the Wall Street Journal. Its really remarkable! Cramer says American banking is the healthiest its been in 150 years, unemployment is on its way down, consumer confidence on its way up. Truly, happy days are here again! Sure, the housing market is still suffering a bit, but that’s being addressed by Obama and others. Its only a matter of time. I notice that crude is headed to $108 per barrel but don’t worry about that because, with electric cars and solar panels, we won’t be needing much crude oil anyway. Its time to go out and buy a 2nd home in the mountain or at the seashore. And forget about Greece, that’s been successfully, dealt with, too.
–WSP7

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 11:34 am #

Stored food –
Those Mormon black beans, pinto beans, white wheat kernels, and red wheat kernels – are completely viable seeds. They can be planted on the day of purchase, and presumably for many years into the future – and be expected to sprout and grow.
I know that kernels of wheat, buried in Egyptian tombs 1000’s of years ago – have been tested and found to produce viable sprouts, seedlings, and plants.
Humidity control and bug/rodent control are the first two keys to long term seed storage.
And yeah – I’m definitely buying or building a “sprouter” so I can add green sprouts to my family’s survival diet.
Anybody got a good design?

anti soak March 9, 2012 at 11:46 am #

de120…Is that ‘News’ n ‘advert’ combined?
Yr news service to us?

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 11:48 am #

“unemployment is on its way down”
-WSP-
Aye, there’s the rub, Marlin.
Do some members of our brilliant elite actually believe that 300,000,000++ people can have an economy that mostly consists of doing each other’s fingernails, serving prepared food to one another, and pushing high-dollar paper and digital chips around and around.
I don’t believe it.
I must not be in that elite.
I reject illogical brilliance of this nature.

mika. March 9, 2012 at 11:52 am #

Very interesting, PC. Even more interesting is that you’ve managed to get in personal contact with all these people. How come? And how did you manage that? You being busy with your travels and your funerals.

Widespreadpanic7 March 9, 2012 at 11:52 am #

P2C, what’s going on with Tripp? Specifically, why did he abandon the farm he put so much effort into and move to the mountains? If in fact he did that.
–WSP7

charliefoxtrot March 9, 2012 at 11:53 am #

re sprouts: yes…use a glass gallon jar- say a pickle jar, and it is important that it be glass- and put seeds in with a bit of cheese cloth held across the mouth (rubber band works great)…rinse the seeds, then sprouts in cold water EVERY DAY…you should be eating sprouts within a week or two…enjoy! hey prog, try sprouts and avocado on a beef frank- there s a certain satisfaction to “healthying up” one of the least healthy ‘food’ groups…
re 403: according to JHK, there is no moderator; only a tech guy who jim pays $60/ hr for various software issues…if you can contact lbendet et al, perhaps you could persuade them to try again; maybe with a slightly different nom de guerre…

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm #

Yes, confess your crime to Mika the Inquisitor.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 12:04 pm #

Ozone is a Leftist Conspiracy Theorist much like Hancock and he is still here. I think it’s random and that they could come back if they but swallowed their pride.

Rhino March 9, 2012 at 12:06 pm #

You’re right to not believe. Does not at all square with simple observation and common sense.
If I recall correctly you’re old enough to remember the USA as it was when fathers had a job and workers, even highly educated and skilled workers, weren’t glorified temps with one foot out the door and when offshoring wasn’t all the rage. But I think WSP7 was maybe being sarcastic.
Beware Wall Street and its shills and messenger boys in the mainstream business media. Wall Street always talks its book.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 12:07 pm #

What about the Truth though? Do you give a shit about that? Or is everything just power and influence peddling with you people? If so, you don’t deserve any access to power in Western Nations.

asoka. March 9, 2012 at 12:16 pm #

You’re right to not believe. Does not at all square with simple observation and common sense.
Does not at all square with your anti-Obama conspiracy mindset, isn’t that what you mean?
Or are you dissing the half million American workers who are once again actively seeking employment?
Are they just too blind to see what is obvious to you, Rhino, through “simple observation and common sense”?

WASHINGTON — The United States added 227,000 jobs in February, again surprising economists with the breadth and brawn of the economic recovery. The country has put together the strongest three months of pure job growth since the Great Recession. The unemployment rate stayed at 8.3 percent. It was the first time in six months that the rate did not fall, but that was only because a half-million Americans, perhaps finally seeing hope in the economy, started looking for work.

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 12:16 pm #

Well, I’ll be danged. Mika Zman, I do believe you may actually be a real person, after all. Nice pics of the SW. Believe it or not, I skimmed through all 1000 of them. Is that Zion National Park, with all the snow on it?
I kept seeing your rental car among all the stark landscape shots – but not a single pic of yourself, from any angle? Don’t you know how to use the self-timer function on that camera, dude?
Now, as regards:
“I waited and I waited and nobody cared to chime in. I really find it amazing, and quite disturbing actually. What does it say about you as a people, when so many of you don’t believe that your compatriots have a right to have an equal say of equal import. What does that say about your opinion of your countrymen and yourselves as a nation. The implications are terrible. You are all disparate tribes, and not even that. Truly an animal farm.”
-mika-
Mika, those words ring true. No one can see the BIG picture concerning the US, as well as an outsider can. (Which is why you should rely on the words of the native born, who will speak up(hint, hint BTB) to flesh out the intricate details.)
Beyond that, though, you’re going to have to elaborate on what your words mean to YOU.
Because to me – your words ring true from my OWN perspective – – – I’ve been trying to “chime in” for weeks. So has Eleuthero. Seemingly, no one cares except you, Bill, Eleuthero, me, and a couple of others.
CharlieFox did offer one or two somewhat neutral observations.
====================================
I’m really not trying to revive TRIBAL WARFARE for another week, here. In fact, that was never my intent in the first place, if you’ll check back all my posts.
And so, I will attempt to end this with some somewhat conciliatory humor –
Regarding checking into motels, etc, and giving your tag number/vehicle description.
My first car was a ’72 Chevy Vega. I memorized the tag number and various numerical details about that car, my first mechanical love. Years later, tired and PO’ed and checking into a motel while driving a rental car – I gave that old, old memorized tag number and just MADE UP a vehicle description for the desk clerk.
She checked me in, did not call me an insulting name, and never looked at my vehicle.
That was in the mid-80’s, and ever since then I’ve been making up tag numbers (or using that Vega tag number hehe!) whenever I check in anywhere. Works for me in the States.
I probably wouldn’t try the same stunt in a foreign country, though.

progress2conserve March 9, 2012 at 12:23 pm #

“Very interesting, PC. Even more interesting is that you’ve managed to get in personal contact with all these people. How come? And how did you manage that? You being busy with your travels and your funerals.” -mika z-
Mika, I’m flattered. I do believe that you think I am some sort of clandestine agent. You just blew my cover. Progress4Conserve, here I come.
You guess my superiors will approve?

mika. March 9, 2012 at 12:36 pm #

LOL! Truth and power in Western nations are like oil and water, Vladik. You know that better than anyone, being the racist propaganda Vatican Sith that you are. Everything that you are is a lie on top of a lie on top of a lie. It is YOU who has made the choice to side with power and lies, opposed to the truth. And when the truth is widely known, you will be extinct and you know it. But I do enjoy your pathetic theatrics. They be almost as good as the Vatican/CIA/Nazi Paliwood production we get to watch 24/7 on the propaganda outlets.

mika. March 9, 2012 at 12:39 pm #

You didn’t answer the question, PC. How come?

charliefoxtrot March 9, 2012 at 12:44 pm #

“betterhotwater@aol.com”…is that correct, prog?

rippedthunder March 9, 2012 at 12:48 pm #

Hey CFT, RE: sprouting I’ve done it for years . I think a gallon jar is a lot of sprouts! I use 1 qt. canning jars and these
http://www.amazon.com/Handy-Pantry-SL-5-Sprouting-Strainer/dp/B000N8MRW8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331314806&sr=8-1
They work for me. I buy seed in bulk .Amazing amout of food and it will last for years.

rippedthunder March 9, 2012 at 12:57 pm #

Hey Prog The snow shots are Bryce Canyon, Also a bunch of pics from Monument Valley, Capital Reef, Maybe the Fisher Towers? and Dead Horse Point?, Been all over that country and it sure is beautiful. Nice work Mika!

mika. March 9, 2012 at 1:00 pm #

Is that Zion National Park, with all the snow on it?
==
No, that’s Bryce Canyon. I skipped Zion NP due to heavy snow storms.

mika. March 9, 2012 at 1:02 pm #

Dead Horse Point?
==
Nope. Skipped that as well.

Widespreadpanic7 March 9, 2012 at 1:04 pm #

Hey Vlad, Ozone is no ‘left wing conspiracy theorist’. I read his posts; like P2C, Rhino, CFT, Tripp and a few others he does a good job here in sticking with the theme of this blog, peak oil and energy depletion.
WageL is a ‘left wing conspiracy theorist’, but she appears to be gone. I kind of miss her.
–WSP7

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 1:31 pm #

War Monkey = Space Monkey! Kony Island. Tough Love? Yes.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/03/in-defense-of-kony/

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 1:35 pm #

War is the Way. Who are you to question the Lord of the Worlds and the Ancient of Days? Fight them or be brushed aside; defeated without striking a blow.

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 1:37 pm #

This Chink is getting annoying. Let’s counter attack or at least defend ourselves.

Widespreadpanic7 March 9, 2012 at 1:43 pm #

Its just the script for the latest Charlie Chan Movie, appearing in theaters near you.
–WSP7

Rhino March 9, 2012 at 2:09 pm #

227,000? If you want to trust in a government statistical/economic agency that slices, dices and marinates raw survey data with liberal lashings of assumptions, guesses and statistical cookery then be my guest.
You portray yourself as an elderly black man. You may be black but you’re sure as hell not elderly. You evince no knowledge of the world of the 1940s/50s/60s/70s, the economic circumstances of those days, the economic situation of the ordinary man (black and white and otherwise) of those times.
You never saw neighborhoods and communities as they were so you have nothing to compare their present state to. You have no way to understand the economic decline of the country in a way that dry numbers can never explain (even if they weren’t concoctions of governments and academies all of whom have their own interests and axes to grind).
I can’t say you are a walking, talking embodiment of landscape amnesia because you weren’t there to see the past landscape. But you refuse to listen to the observations of people that were there to see it, you instead take positions grounded in political affiliation and blind ideology and, like today, numbers conjured by a government whose interest is seldom to reveal the truth but, especially as it relates to money and economics, to conceal it.

charliefoxtrot March 9, 2012 at 2:25 pm #

@soaka- yeah, what he said! and said well, i might add, with no random numbers or ad hominem attacks…i suggest you take rhino’s advice on the subject, and try to listen to- and learn from- perspectives other than your own…cuz while there may be no limit to the capacity to love a mud hut; there is a limit to the capacity for patience for sophistry and distraction…

Buck Stud March 9, 2012 at 2:30 pm #

I often believe the Substance Dualist perspective springs from the Materialist mind as a coping strategy mechanism. For example, whispering to oneself to occupy a more observational mental outpost – sinking the Mind into the Tan Tien/Hara – in order to remain detached and simply “witness” the clouds of angst and turmoil floating by.
Perhaps the mind/will is more malleable and versatile than your cited post suggests in a manner that recruits the power of paradox to achieve a predetermined outcome. Similar to not resisting Satan,thus impotent in his efforts to injure and apprehend the wind.

turkle March 9, 2012 at 2:34 pm #

Yeah, wow! I contacted Jim, and I think he will remove the posts when he can get around to it.

charliefoxtrot March 9, 2012 at 2:36 pm #

to all and sundry, concerning sprouts: you may be told that mung bean sprouts are a ‘great source of nutrition’, beware! they may indeed be an efficient vehicle for various nutrients and processes; but the taste is somewhere between foot-based fungus and putrid slugs…as best as i could guess, anyway…they say that if food is good for you; it tastes bad- absolutely correct, in this instance…others may opine that ’tis an acquired taste’…well, it s a lie, in that the word ‘taste’ is used…more like a miasma that overwhelms the senses
[DIATRIBE ENDED; back to your regularly scheduled rant]

Vlad Krandz March 9, 2012 at 2:47 pm #

You’re an American – that’s why you come here. The Israelis don’t get your jokes or popular cultural references. Taking the Aliyah was a huge mistake. We are your people you now realize.

ozone March 9, 2012 at 2:59 pm #

Hey chinese-character time&space-waster guy,
Please take some time out of your busy, busy day to go fuck yourself. Thank you, we do appreciate it.

turkle March 9, 2012 at 3:12 pm #

“1940s/50s/60s/70s”
Was this supposed to be some golden era? There never was a time when America had picture perfect little communities. Everything has always been in flux.
If you go back one decade from your stated period, the entire world was in a horrible depression, including America. The current doldrums do not really compare in severity.
The 1950’s certainly was a special period for America, but it wasn’t some grand conspiracy which changed this. It was simply the fact that America was virtually the only developed country in the world which was not devastated by World War II, and exited that war with a roaring industrial base. And we were the world’s number one oil producer and manufacturer. That position naturally eroded as time passed. There really would have been no way to keep it, aside from preventing other nations from developing economically (basically impossible without coercion).
The 60’s was a quite turbulent period, with many assasination

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