JHK’s Three-Act Play
Such is the power of wishful thinking that a set of fool-making memes now pulses through the word-clouds of financial chatter in America spreading the false good cheer that our economic troubles are behind us and pimping for perpetual motion in wealth expansion. A poster boy for this bundle of falsehoods is financial analyst A. Gary Schilling. Just last week, he was talking out of his cloacal vent about US “energy independence” and “the manufacturing renaissance” that will allow this country to magically decouple from the compressive contraction driving the rest of the world.
Shilling is among the growing chorus of cheerleaders who believe that the shale oil and gas boom will make it possible for so-called “consumers” (what we foolishly call ourselves) to keep driving to Wal-Mart forever — which is the master wish behind all the current fantasies of endless expansion. That idea is going to leave a lot of people disappointed and put the nation further behind in the necessary reorganization of all the key systems that support everyday civilized life, namely: food production, commerce, transport, and the management of capital.
Here’s what’s actually going to happen with shale oil and gas. Best case scenario: shale oil production rises for three more years to about 2.3 million barrels a day and then crashes so quickly that in 10 years the shale oil industry ceases to exist. A less rosy forecast would admit that the exorbitant costs of drilling-and-fracking will not find the necessary capital to even take the industry that far. Rather, dwindling capital will see the shocking decline rates of shale wells (commonly 50 percent the first year and double digits the following) and will run shrieking for other places to hide.
Contrary to Gary Schilling’s blather, America is not practicing “energy conservation.” Rather, an economy engineered strictly to run on cheap oil has gotten crushed by oil that is not cheap. Does Schilling believe, for example, that American suburbia works just as well on $90-a-barrel oil as it did on $11-a-barrel oil, or that it has a future as the basic armature of daily life, or that we are doing anything meaningful to alter the burdens of living this way? My guess is that he has never thought about it.
Likewise, as the American economy got crushed by no-longer-cheap oil, all the working classes in this country below the one-percenters got crushed, hammered, and trashed. Among other things they can no longer afford is gasoline. Total vehicle miles driven has gone down by almost 3 percent since 2007. It will keep going down, and the Happy Motoring matrix will collapse for another reason: capital scarcity will translate into fewer available car loans for Americans, and fewer qualified borrowers, and Americans are used to buying their cars on installment loans.
The shale gas situation is also not the “energy savior” it’s cracked up to be. Because it costs so much to export the stuff, and we don’t have the export infrastructure in place — ocean terminals, fleets of special (expensive!) tanker ships — shale gas is hostage to the US domestic market. The initial boom was so extravagant that it produced a gas glut, which drove the price way below the level that makes it economically rational to drill for the stuff. Now, a lot of those drilling rigs are migrating to North Dakota, where the Bakken shale oil fields require perpetual increases in rig-counts to offset the rapid decline of existing wells.
The shale gas regions of Barnett (Fort Worth), Haynesville (Louisiana), and Fayetteville, Arkansas, are already dwindling. The “sweet spots” turned out to be smaller than the hype suggested. The Marcellus (Pennsylvania and New York) is next. Several of the other hyped shale gas “plays” — the Antrim and the Utica — proved too unpromising to even bother with and never made it out of the wish bag.
The problems with fracking and groundwater pollution are secondary to the economic quandaries as far as the fate of the industry is concerned. At under $8 a unit (1000 cubic feet), shale gas is not worth drilling-and-fracking for. It’s currently around $4. Above $8, Americans are going to have a hard time paying for it. So, enjoy the temporary glut and now stand back and watch the industry begin to dry up and blow away.
As for the “industrial renaissance,” clowns like Gary Shilling can’t put together the obvious trends. The talked-about new factories will be operated by robots, so there would be no employment renaissance to go along with them. Then there is the question of who might the products be sold to? To Americans who have no jobs and no money? To Europeans who are also going broke and also have the ability to roboticize industrial production and impoverish their own working people? To Asia, which is already at industrial over-capacity — and which will only grow worse as Americans and Europeans buy less stuff? I guess that leaves South America and Africa. Well, good luck with that.
Schilling is really only shilling for delusional stock market psychology, which tends to be a self-reinforcing racket until it reaches a threshold of credulity criticality and then implodes from a sudden loss of faith, ruining even a great many one percenters. Money may indeed keep pouring into the US stock markets, especially from other countries, where the money is frightened. I’ll tell you what it ought to be really frightened about: that it doesn’t represent genuine capital, i.e. has no real value. One day not distant, all the nations will discover that their money is only notional and that notions have a way of going up in a vapor. Foolish ideas, though, appear more durable and plentiful. They just keep coming, no matter what’s going on in reality.
My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times — before they whap us upside the head and put and end to the project of remaining civilized.
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Jim, we disagree, I suspect, about how far America will sink once the shale bubble bursts. I see us becoming a beat-up version of the mid-1970s, on our way to the 1920s, technologically, if we don’t manage to make the adjustments. Lots of fatties and dispossessed skinnies will die along the way. DIYers and brutes will fare a little better.
What stuns me with all of this talk of energy independence is how often we’ve heard it before. There simply is no consideration that these booms do bust. Even NPR has lost its mind, putting these shills on to blab about the coming energy utopia.
I wish fracking were safer to ground water and could give us 50 years of freedom from coal. But that’s not going to happen. Soon enough, we’ll realize it, just as, gradually, John Q. Fatso has come to see that gasoline isn’t going much below $3 a gallon in his driving lifetime.
NPR lost its independence years ago and is front and center in the government propaganda machine. Consider it National Plutocratic Radio because that’s what it really is. Sad, because years ago they enjoyed some independence and were the closest thing to enlightenment we had.
I hear the guy now heading up NPR has a lot of ties to the Republican Party. Not that the Dems are any better these days, but if it’s true, it shows how far NPR has sunk.
Paul G. Haaga, Jr. stepped into the role of acting president and CEO of NPR on September 30, 2013.
Haaga is a fairly regular contributor to Republican politicians. According to OpenSecrets.org, he made a $32,400 donation to the Republican National Committee this year. In the previous two years, he made contributions of about $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
He’s also given four-figure checks to a large number of Republican candidates, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WIS), George Allen (R-VA) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) being among them.
The new boss at NPR is a former financial industry lobbyist who is a regular donor to Republican politicians, with ties to two prominent conservative think tanks.
Any comment made by K-Dog at the NPR website is instantly deleted. This began when I made the first one which after being approved lasted ten seconds.
I have been so disillusioned by NPR. It has become just awful, see post a couple down, too.
I heard some jackass author on The Diane Rehm Show last week touting the wonders of fracking. I was thinking, I wish JHK would phone in! After awhile I switched to music; it was too irritating.
James, as a wordsmith, I believe you’d want to know that humans only have a cloaca in the embryonic stage*. (This assumes that Schilling is human, of course). A cloaca is an orifice that combines two or more bodily functions.
As for bubbles, a friend’s 1200 sq. ft. house, in this border suburb of a crumbling midwest industrial city, recently sold for over a quarter million dollars. It’s had some updates, but still needs quite a bit of work. It was built in the 20’s, (so it has some “charm”) but built on the cheap. Who are the boneheads who are willing to pay that much? People don’t learn.
*It seems to me that I’ve heard some refer to a woman’s vagina as a sort of cloaca, given that it is a passage for urination, menstruation, and birth.
You have fallen victim to the erroneous usage of the word vagina for the entire vulva. Urine does not come out of the vagina, it comes out of the urethral opening, which is above and separate from the vagina.
I attribute this to certain popular, yet squeamish and ignorant TV “personalities” Just search “vulva”, its very complex…and that’s just the outer parts
A woman does not piss out of her vagina. Urine comes out of the urethra, which is above the vaginal opening. It is only used for urination. Men urinate and ejaculate out of the same hole.
Boy, the ladies must love you, Petro, what with your extensive familiarity with the female nether regions.
People, please. I clearly said that women do NOT have cloacas (unless it’s a case of “persistent cloaca” – an abnormality). My poorly worded footnote was meant to say that it is a misunderstanding among some because they think all that “stuff” is happening down there. Sorry for the confusion. Should have just let Kunstler’s remark about a “cloacal vent” stand. Thinking about it now, it was probably meant as a joke, anyway: a combination of Schilling’s asshole & mouth.
I had this exact same experience. In fact, I was taking a senior class about urban design on a tour of a local municipality and ended up changing from my NPR station to music, something I do more and more now. I can remember when years would pass and I would not change from NPR, not anymore.
I just could not believe the blathering of that idiot. I commented to my students about it, noting that Diane Rehm not once asked anything about decline rates. No one brings up the most basic historical data such as the peak production rate in 1970 and what current production is. The reporting is so bad, you cannot even call it informational. The post a couple above may have it right, that NPR is nothing more than propaganda now.
I find the major institutions increasingly irrelevant. They are so far from reality, they just don’t matter.
Re: “A cloaca is an orifice that combines two or more bodily functions…”
Forgive my presumptuousness, but I’m pretty sure that’s what Jim intended: Schilling’s mouth being the single egress for things that physically can’t be mixed–for long; in Schilling’s case, We have an emulsion expulsion of words and feces, aka, the justly ephemeral…
A photo of the guy might shed some light on this dispute. If it doesn’t do that it at least sheds light on his motives and reasons for lying. So check out his orifice.
A. Gary Shilling
The motive is get other people who look like him to give him some of their money. Being as mostly those who have lots and lots of money look like him anyway it sort of makes sense.
“get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times”
Could not be more cogently said.
If your predictions are off by thirty years, you are a failure in your time, but a prophet in history.
I’ve been giving my students that message of Jim’s for the past five years, as I’ve been showing “The End of Suburbia” to them along with a worksheet they have to fill out that whole time. Last week was one of those showings, and I found two student responses to it worth repeating.
The first was from a student who has been critical of Jim’s message, who, after hearing our host predict that “Americans will elect maniacs who promise to allow them to keep their McMansions and their commutes and that’s going to produce a lot of political friction, probably a lot of violence, probably a threat to our democratic institutions” responded “I’m amazed that all these predictions were made ten years ago and they’ve all come true.” That’s why I keep showing the movie.
The second was a student who found the worksheet posted to my blog (that’s not a first; students have been doing that for years), and gathered enough courage to ask me where the answers were. I have them scattered all over my blog, so I posted a guide for him to find them. He won’t find them all; I’ve only written about half the questions over the past two years. Still, here’s to his following the links.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/11/guide-to-entries-that-contain-answers.html
I predict JHK will turn out to be a prophet, then. The statquo can go on a lot longer than anyone thinks it will. I myself thought that the gig was up in 1987, but things got patched up and ran well enough until 2007. 2008 was the beginning of the new reality, and for all I know, this could go on for another 20 years. I tend to think the endpoint will come around 2025, but I’ve been wrong before, especially about the timing.
“Schilling is really only shilling for delusional stock market psychology, which tends to be a self-reinforcing racket until it reaches a threshold of credulity criticality and then implodes from a sudden loss of faith, ruining even a great many one percenters. Money may indeed keep pouring into the US stock markets, especially from other countries, where the money is frightened.”
And the money was indeed pouring in last week as the DJIA and S&P500 set record high after record high. In fact, this morning, the Dow broke 16,000. Let’s see if it closes above that level.
As for thinking this rally is being driven by market psychology, you’re not alone. The people over at Naked Capitalism think it is a bubble, based on the frenetic interest over Twitter and Pinterest, neither of which have seen a profit. It reminds them of the terminal 90s tech stock bubble. Pets.com, anyone?
While there isn’t uncertainty hurting stock prices, it is causing oil prices to start rising again. So much for the local gas stations daring each other to limbo under the bar of each others prices. It’s back on the gas price rollercoaster!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/11/stop-limbo-get-back-on-rollercoaster.html
The corporate state will transform us. Useless eaters will be “transformed” and corporate laws will prevail: http://youtu.be/SvgPYklPGBI
“Shilling is among the growing chorus of cheerleaders who believe that the shale oil and gas boom will make it possible for so-called “consumers” (what we foolishly call ourselves) to keep driving to Wal-Mart forever – which is the master wish behind all the current fantasies of endless expansion.”
My sense is that all this hype is being generated so that the institutional investors that got in early and are wise to the fallacy of the shale oil and gas boom can offload their positions to what’s left of the shrinking middle class (that still believes in what Wall Street’s selling) before what they know becomes common knowledge.
http://www.thesisa.org
I would say that’s exactly right, seeing all this ‘non-productive’ swapping of promises going on. “Commotion”.
Spending a few weeks here in Albany, NY, close to my newborn grandson, I am reminded of the future that beholds him. It will be a much different world than the one I enjoyed growing up in. Watertown, NY, was a typical manufacturing town, no less than Malone, NY, where i spent my adult working life, and looking too much like Jim’s depressing images of nearby Greenwich, NY. When I last saw Jim speak at Elon University in North Carolina, I was acclimating to living in the South and realizing that those “cornpone” types are far more plentiful than I would have thought. After three years there, I am wondering if the warmer climate is worth it. While having made many good friends there, guns, Jaysus and NASCAR do not comport with my life. Selling our house will force us to either come back home to northern New York or move towards Raleigh and the progressive Triangle area. Property remains very costly in both places, with low-priced Schenectady, NY real estate offset by outrageous taxes. Does one area really offer a better life than the other in the long emergency?
I am constantly frustrated by glazed looks and a lack of any substantive response when I try to talk to people about the mess we are in. Wishful thinking and denial are the fanciful fumes on which things run nowadays, and with such amassed wealth and inertia, the USA juggernaut may well lumber on a few years more. For lack of an understanding of reality and inaction regarding what is required for down-scaling, contraction and living within our means, the coming decades with be especially painful.
It may well lumber on for a few years for a lucky few and more than a few years for those with millions of buckaroos most certainly. Many will not participate in the lumbering and they will be dispossessed. We are already collecting them. Consequently any lumbering on will be an illusion as those ‘voted off the island’ will not be seen. And of your grandson? What of him?
Jamyang, having lived and worked on a small, organic farm near the triangle of NC (in a town called Pittsboro about 30 mins. south of Chapel Hill), I can tell you there are lots of small farms in what is a very progressive area of the south, mostly because the soil and climate is good for growing a number of crops. If you have the desire you could certainly make a go at farming, even on a very small scale, there. It aint easy going though, I can tell you.
Well this is the crux, isn’t it. The main delusion facing our ‘leaders.’
It’s not entirely their fault. After all, these people went to traditional schools that taught traditional economics and chiefly they learned and believed that growth could and would go on forever; our inventive technology would provide the next great energy savior de jour in time to replace the previous worn out model. Now ‘energy independence’ and ‘alternative energies’ are going to save us; allow all we know to go on forever. Unfortunately the laws of physics are against us: we can have food or fuel, but not both. We can have both but only with a much much much lower population level operating at a much much much lower level of industrial activity. Sadly, capitalism as we know it cannot and will not survive.
Not entirely their fault perhaps but exactly how much accountability do you think they have? Leaders are supposed to be responsible at least in my world and those who trade in lines not truth; to which standard shall they be held when famine and misery stalks the land?
‘Lines’ was supposed to be ‘lies’. I don’t live in Toronto so it was a mistake. If I lived in Toronto, while still unintended, it would have been close to the truth.
Jim,
You write:
“My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times — before they whap us upside the head and put and end to the project of remaining civilized.”
This is also my fondest wish for not only this country, but the rest of the globe that’s indulged in hyper-industrialization and its’ byproducts of deadly toxins. (The present and coming bane of generations yet to exist.)
Another “Apollo Project” in this direction would be the way to go, but someone would have to step up to the mic and tell the ugly truth to a population that wants to hear happy-talk instead. I don’t have any illusions that our President would desire to take on the dirty job, as he’s avoided tackling ANY of the crucial realities that we face. It’s become apparent (to me) that his job is to front for what Gerald Celente (the raging raver) likes to call “the white shoe boys.” Thus does he dispense the bromides necessary to keep the herd from stampeding all over the asses of those who ‘run the show’. …Stock market just went 16,000. Woo-hoo! More sucker-rallying ahead!
Perhaps we must face the possibility that since no one wants to hear that we’re on the road to ruin (and invest more and more finite resources to its’ upkeep, instead of conserving them), we’re going to drive “this sucker” right off the edge a la Thelma & Louise.
I “hope” not, but it’s a thin hope and the odds are a’gin it.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -Sinclair Lewis
This is becoming an iron-clad truism as opportunities for decent-paying employment continue to dwindle and the regular folk are driven to ignore what “products” their employers create. (The military is a prime example, and you constantly hear from the troops about getting “the job” done. To imply that it’s simple mundane employment is a bit horrifying in/of itself!)
Thanks for pointing out that a large portion of what we hear from the economic sector is self-interested bullshittery with little, if any, verifiable evidence [aside from their metrics of their own design] behind it. We should consider that happy-talk about recovery went on right until america’s entry into WW2! They can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent, as a wag of old opined.
Thanks again for the fine stylings that makes these ideas easier to define and confront and, as always, be well!
…And speaking of things ones’ salary depends on (and the style to which one has become accustomed), look where these fine public servants (self-servants) have ended up!
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/tim_geithner_goes_private_equity.php
Little Timmy Geithner? He and his fellow travelers waited for the fuss to die down, then quietly slipped into extraordinarily cushy positions in private firms, financial and lawyerly…
“— And now Tim Geithner becomes president of private-equity firm Warburg Pincus for an undisclosed pay package that will be in the many, many millions of dollars a year. Hey, at least, it’s not Goldman.”
Read the article and cease wondering what the hell is going on here and now.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Sorry, that’s Upton Sinclair (American author, 1878-1968), not Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951, Nobel 1930)
Correct-o; thanks.
About six months ago, the USGS DOUBLED their estimates of the amount of soil recoverable in the Bakken and related formations in ND/SD/MT/SK.
Unfortunately, even after doubling their estimates, it is only enough to supply the USA’s thirst for oil for one year. That’s it.
But that’s another year of Dancing With the Stars. Party on.
right on, Mr. Kunstler, right on.
one quibble, yes, gas is expensive, but that’s not the half of it, cars are expensive also, then you have the insurance.
thing is, when you carry a loan it is required that you carry comp. and that is more per month than the car payment most usually.
then, since capital makes more money with automation, you can’t find a job anyway.
you are dead right about impoverishing the work force, and guess what? all these machines require power, which has to come from somewhere.
but then human beings require so much maintenance.
but wait, there’s more! drive into a mechanic/car service center with anything wrong at all? it’s a $300 bill.
little 4 cylinder truck, the kind you buy to economize, plugs and wires?
$325.00, for starters.
lovely world, people working for $10-$12 retail positions, if the car you can’t afford breaks down and you are late to work, you’re fired, there’s more desperate people where you came from.
I’d just like to say that it is so nice to see the sane type of replies back here at CFN, for a while there it was getting really creepy.
btw Heretick, here in Japan car inspection alone cost 1000 clams, ouch.
My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times — before they whap us upside the head and put and end to the project of remaining civilized.
Your wish and mine but we this is our own wishful thinking. Today I once again had to get the URL to your new article ‘by other means’ as the man in the middle (Uncle Sam) has place a barrier to your new article on my internet connection. As I type this My normal browser still can’t load your new article though last week’s loads just fine. This is chilling shilling not just from the emotional terror that it produces but because of the sheer cluelessness of the effort. The elephant in the room is dancing and smashing furniture hoping not to be noticed.
I doubt A. Gary Schilling types have such problems (Firefox still won’t Schilling-Shilling but The Turning loads just fine.). Energy independence unlike energy depletion being one of the allowed memes. The censorship is criminal. I don’t think Schilling really believes that $90-a-barrel oil will run suburbia. Dark forces are at work. It is time to follow the money and find out where and how such obviously false information as “energy independence” sprouts. Once foisting lies on the public would get one in the pillory. Now lies are just another part of the pillage. Truth is not taken stock of and it looks like too much truth might actually put one in the the stocks.
Bad enough the bill of rights is shredded but the truth hidden is not the truth of opinion. Mathematically inclined high school drop-outs could even figure out what’s going on if they had access to the right information. But we have a modern day Joe Goebbels at work somewhere in the bowels of Washington chanting to himself: “If a square is referred to as a circle often enough, it will become a circle”.
Edward Bernays bragged that his book “Crystallizing Public Opinion” was prominently displayed in Joseph Goebbels private office. From the introduction, (I have a copy).
“During the First World War, Bernays served as a foot soldier for the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI)– The vast American propaganda machine mobilized in 1917 to package, advertise and sell the war as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the source from which marketing strategies for subsequent wars– including the spurious and deadly adventure in Iraq– would flow.”
But not just wars are sold. Bullshit like energy independence is sold as well.
Numerous typos and 15 comments down. The best I could do and I tried to get here shortly after article post time.
And still I get:
Clusterfuck Nation – Blog > The Turning
At the top of the list in Firefox. My load time for CFN using Firefox is about three minutes. Other websites load just fine.
My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times
Anyone have any ideas on how this might be accomplished considering? I’m at a loss. I think it will be a slow, dragged out decline/contraction that occurs at such a rate as to be nearly imperceptible. I know that’s disappointing to most here but life is full of disappointments and this is yet another. In the meantime, enjoy these fine Polish freedom-loving young ladies. My favorite is the third from the left. Which one of these beauties is your favorite?
http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CFACT-Warsaw-climate-rally-women.jpg
Attn: general public. This is a prime example of a Government Troll. Possibly the one that comments most frequently under the name PUCKER.
You understood her meaning (UFIA), but choose to be a spelling Nazi. – Arn (from near the end of last week’s comment thread)
=============
I’m pretty sure UFIA is of the male persuasion.
BTW, UFIA’s spelling of he was perfect. It was a grammar error.
This handsome lad has it all figured out. He’s a survivor. He’s preparing for successful marauding when it all comes down to include performing a C Section on his wife. Yes, we’re doomed. And this is a large part of why we are.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/videos/prepper-build-body-armor/
Hello Janos.
Nope, just got here. Now why is “Widok” me? You just said it was Pucker. How many Agents do you think are after you?
So wait…let me get this straight…. are you saying I should not be putting money into my 401k? If so that is a relief because I only have 6k in there now and the rest in cash..but what if we have hyper inflation won’t I miss the boat as the stock market should triple…
Methinks JHK is as old as I and he has forgotten to account for inflation. $90 oil is a lot like $30 oil in the mid to late 80s. That was a time of economic expansion. Further, he has overlooked the fact that there is a huge amount of oil from tight sands that is currently being developed with horizontal drilling and fracing. It is produces such a huge amount of natural gas that it will keep the gas market glutted for a long time. The U.S. will probably never be energy independent, but it will have an adequate gas supply and can probably sustain 10 million barrels/day oil production for another decade. What this means is that if our way of life collapses, it will be an economic event; not a result of fuel shortages in the immediate future.
Oil was $11 a barrel in 1999.
–JHK
I checked your math. In 1987 the CPI was at 113.6 now it is at 229.6 which gives a ratio of 2.02.
CPI and oil prices track reasonably well.
Thus $90 oil is a lot like $44 oil in the mid to late 80s. But this simple calculation does not take into account enormous external costs we have now we did not have then to keep the price artificially down. Drones and soldiers cost a lot of money.
West Texas Intermediate is now at $93.84 and Brent crude is at $108.55.
You have a point but saying $90 oil is a lot like $30 oil in the mid to late 80s spins things over-much.
Between 1985 and 1990 oil was never above $30.00 a barrel.
Whoa! Can I have some of what you are drinking?
Got to thinking perhaps even dreaming while sleeping about this 90 / 30 claim that everything remains the same. Perhaps the googling of graphs and a belly full of beef made me think of it again. My gut feeling is from a consumers point of view currently oil is about 70% up from the late 80s days “of economic expansion”.
70% higher up and rising up faster than the Arctic ice is melting. Those roaring late 80s days weren’t so great for everybody anyway. The only difference now is that these days aren’t so great for a whole lot many more. Perhaps I remembered the ten years of 10 million barrels/day claim and then my paws twitched in my sleep.
Ten years and what? Flying cars that run on faith and wishful thinking? Ten years and benevolent space aliens land on the White House lawn? What happens after oilie’s ten years are up?
If oilie is as old as JHK then ten years rolls by pretty quick. Ten years is not looking ahead very far when it concerns the society you live in.
Go dogs go. Drive like there is no tomorrow (if you can). If you don’t think looking ahead more than ten years when it comes to our nations future matters you can’t think of much besides going faster and faster anyway.
Am I hard on oilie? Maybe I should stop growling so. The current fantasy of endless expansion and trust in endless turning of cycles. Bad into good and good to bad and back round again is not limited to oilie alone. Wheels go round and round and because they did yesterday everybody expects they will tomorrow. But sometimes wheels fall off and don’t go around any more at all. Sometimes things just plain get broken. Someday the oil extraction machine will break and stop turning. When it does mother nature may even be wearing a bikini and sitting on a beach of sand.
And if we haven’t bothered to make alternate living arrangements it will be the death of us. Mother nature will be on a lonely beach all by herself with no children to watch.
“…all the working classes in this country below the one-percenters got crushed, hammered, and trashed.”
Not as long as they have Cheap Credit!
We here spend a lot of time bemoaning “higher unemployment”, “price inflation”, “debt levels and the “decline of America”. But people aren’t paying attention: there are TWO economies in North America.
One is composed of those people with an even halfways-decent paying job. They are not complaining; in fact their salaries lately buy more. In case it hasn’t been noticed, it is quite easy to fund a comfortable lifestyle on even a modest income, if it is reliable and regular. $15-20/hour, eight hours a day, with the consequent low taxes and often with a paid-for house acquired over a 20-year working life, is enough…
The second comprises everyone without work, hiding in school, living in basements, on government assistance, in a government job (yes – they don’t pay their way either!), desperately running a failing home-based or online business, in the underground economy, under-earning part-timers, criminals, perma-students, house-sharers, seasonal workers, self-funded retirees, fixed-income-ites, emigres and the like.
The key takeaway is: this second group is the growing one. But slowly: it’s PERNICIOUS.
But if you have a (so far) reliable joband n income, the stock markets are soaring, prices are “stable”, and it is easy to continue consuming one’s silly head off and to pretend that the future is up, up and away…
@Kreditanstalt,
This is in my opinion an excellent analysis. The smart people are out of debt, have savings, have a smallish comfortable home paid for, live in a low tax area, have friends or neighbors they can count on and try to keep as physically fit as possible.
The “at risk” people are mired in debt, are tethered to a high income job whether they like it or not, are transient and are obese or sick. These people can look forward to a life of slavery.
djc
You have it right. You are insightful.
And every effort will be made to exploit the difference.
Divide-and-conquer is an ancient strategy. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu writes:
…the art of using troops is this: When ten to the enemy’s one, surround him; When five times his strength, attack him; If double his strength, divide him…
Expect media to illustrate the differences between those who are ‘deserving and responsible’ and those who are not. Expect subtle prodding to split the nation along racial lines. Expect the powerful to do whatever they can to turn dog against dog. Expect a litany of devious tricks to keep the existing power structure intact and prevent needed change.
I didn’t explain very clearly, I think… All I really have to point out is that my employed and pensioned neighbours don’t seem to see any problems with the economy at all…!
This will go on a long time. As long as the governments can keep issuing debt to fund their spending – social spending in particular – without raising taxes enough to upset the ’employed’ two-thirds of the population, no one will ever notice the rest of us.
I want to see a society in which saving and frugality is once again a virtue, in which failures are allowed to fail, in which service users pay their own way, where generalists survive while specialists wither, in which honesty and ethics is rewarded with success and in which good work, self-reliance and preparedness pay dividends. One in which I know, and voluntarily work with, my neighbours. One in which energy is priced to reflect its real scarcity and thus one in which localism and family life are valued again…
We desperately, desperately need one or more of mass price inflation WITHOUT real economic growth, rapidly rising job losses in the middle-management/technical/government area or a bond market revolt.
Failing those, the thing will continue unraveling drip-drip-drip slowly, from the margins. But too slow to save us peasants.
Failing those, the thing will continue unraveling drip-drip-drip slowly, from the margins. But too slow to save us peasants.
And a puppet press and suppression of dissent will bake the cake.
Where generalists survive while specialists wither, in which honesty and ethics is rewarded with success and in which good work, self-reliance and preparedness pay dividends.
I’ll give you five stars for that!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The Elite use racism to divide people? Sure. But they use food production against too. Did they invent food or the need for food? Likewise they didn’t create racism. It’s natural – just like eating. Can it go too far? Be misused? Sure, just as one can eat too much or eat the wrong food.
Sun Tzu says elsewhere to always allow the enemy a way out. Desperate men are capable of miracles. Not sure how to reconcile these two statements. Just pointing it out.
” … get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times ” Mr. J. Kunstler
Okay, but still, such a ‘sensible use’ of, the resources and capital remaining, will in itself only enable us to keep on course for the ecological cliff of ‘goodbye Charlie’.
I suggest we ‘keep those motors running and get out on the markethighway’. Our only hope for planetary survival is in a great mother of complete industrial collapse. The stock market is doing it’s job, what a great bubbling mass that is! Amazon with a P/E of over 1300! Shout ‘Yahoo’, guys an gals, cause Yahoo is a big buy at only 29.81, Father Christmas is giving you a big HO, HO, HO, there, so jump right in and blow that bubble!
“My load time for CFN using Firefox is about three minutes. Other websites load just fine.” – K-Dog
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Dog,
Back in the day, whenever I had some unexplainable computer glitch happening, the advice from my tech-savvy co-worker was to, first, “re-boot.” That is, to re-start the computer.
If that fails, try clicking on the Archives (just to the left of the title Schilling Shilling) and re-select November.
Note: This advice is pure guesswork and is coming from someone who never even figured how to use a VCR when those devices were all the rage.
I spent an interesting weekend reading initially unconnected articles that seem to have a common thread:
– Money deposited in banks is legally viewed as a loan to said bank.
– Poland nationalized retirement savings accounts.
– Cyprus bank grab.
– Homeland Security allocating thousands of armoured vehicles.
– Homeland Security purchases 1.6 billion rounds of ammo.
– Domestic spying.
– Internet kill switch.
– Chase Manhatten withdrawl limit trial ballon……
On the plus side Americans don’t have to worry about the Shale gas and oil to deplete…I think the event horizon for the U.S. is about 6 to 12 months. Won’t matter how much fuel there is no one will have currency to buy it
If you have enough money you will still be able to get it. Congress has 261 millionaire members. The gap between the rich and influential and the poor and powerless makes for little incentive to put things right. Time to start digging!
Yes and I am worried that the U.S. may have it’s second revolution that looks like the French Revolution. These parisites told the citizens to go eat cake in the 2008 financial crisis. It’s only a matter of time before some one loses it.
It is interesting also that the French Revolution occurred at a time when they had reached their current limits of growth. Not dependent on fossil fuels and using comparatively primitive agricultural techniques they could not feed any more population than they had at the time; twenty million. Something had to give.
I got that from a book about Robespierre and the French Revolution I read about six years ago. Fatal Purity by Ruth Scurr
I have read that as well. It was more about hunger and poverty than slogans. But the barbarity was horrible and I expect much worse from our pierced, tattooed, MMA crowd.
This is not the first time and as you well know I am very tech-savvy! I have been jumping around the block for weeks.
If any commenter at CFN had the skills to know when a man in the middle was being used against him it would be me.
Try singing a different tune. ♫ ♪ ♪
Using a block against my tech-savvy ass makes the antics of black suited dancing elephants all the more pathetic and ominous.
In the last days of East Germany the STASI infiltrated stamp collecting clubs of retired pensioners. dangerous enemies of the state no doubt. It appears history is rhyming again. Manipulating comments on blogs by amateur intellectuals; equally pathetic.
I don’t think your advice is pure guesswork. I think it is meant to deliberately confuse.
That was not all suppose to be all in bold. only man in the middle was intended to be emphasized.
♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♪
Somehow Startdigging squeezed in betwixt my comment with the unintentional shouting and the Q. Shtik comment I was addressing.
Be it known that in my copy of Firefox his advice of going into the archives and finding Schilling Shilling worked but it still won’t load normally on the home page.
Q: So how did I get here in the first place?
A: A different copy of Firefox.
Q: So how did Q. Shtik know it would work?
I leave the answer to you.
HK, Please credit that “Course of Empire: Desolation” image to Thomas Cole, the nineteenth century British/American artist from your neck of the woods. It may may be our condition in a century, but I think our current state is more accurately represented by the time between the Consummation of Empire, and Destruction. We will know destruction when the meth-enraged, unemployed, pension-less hordes
come to visit Wall Street and DC.
And they will need meth to be enraged why?
Meth can easily cause or accentuated preexisting rage.
Being unemployed with no chance for a future should produce rage enough.
Why do you use a Chinese dog for an avatar? What are you trying to say with that?
The Roman Empire lasted about 1000 years, the British Empire 200 and the American should only last 40. The question for debate is when the decline date is…. Was it 1975 with Vietnam, Iran Hostage, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Afganistan? Either way there has been a consistent pattern since the 70’s of the empire having to put the wogs to the sword to stay in line. Like Whack a mole, two more pop up everytime another one is hit. The empire is spilling more and more blood and treasure to maintain hegemony but exhausting itself. It would be ironic if this empire ended up being sacked and looted by it’s own people.
There is a later painting by Cole called Resurgence or Renaissance. As Chance says in Being There, the Garden will grow again even though it’s hard to believe in the middle of winter. The Earth Abides. Be like the ant and store up for the hard times ahead – and not like the Aesopian Grasshopper who parties until his limbs begin to stiffen in the cold. And Who can stand against His Cold? (one of the most famous sermons ever preached in New England. A New Hampshire farmer denied a family shelter in his barn during a blizzard. They only made it another few hundred yards. It was around Christmastime time too. The farmer never recovered from his remorse)
I live in Canada. I can relate to that. But I’m afraid there are too many grasshoppers and not enough ants.
Do we hope that we can make it back to the Pastoral or Acadian state, or we will have to regress all the way back to the Savage state?
Neither is really possible. Appropriate use of technology combined with fundamental changes in the way we live is the best option but the way things are going that option is not on the table.
This week:
“My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times — before they whap us upside the head and put and end to the project of remaining civilized.”
says it best.
I reckon that I’m still stuck on Richard Duncan’s Olduvai Theory, especially the Olduvai.gif. It is a vision for me that has had no contradiction over these last 10 or 12 years. I can imagine nothing else for humans except for the distinct possibility of near term extinction.
http://alturl.com/p3xww
~toktomi~
If monkeys with guns were not our leaders there could be another way. It is not that we don’t have enough smart dogs to lead us to the promised land. The problem is that prophets of unrestrained capitalism got into positions of power long ago and won’t give it up. Near term human extinction. is a possibility but dwelling on it takes binary thinking way too far. A rough ride is certainly in the cards but intelligent leadership could yet put the brakes on near term human extinction.
Is intelligent leadership in the cards?
Probably not, but I shall fight the good fight to the end.
“Every man dies – Not every man really lives.” – William Ross Wallace
We may get there after millions perish. I say may depending on who prevails. We have a minority who think in terms of collective survival, are capable of building a better society. We have the existing leadership class who will try to sail the Titanic even after it is sitting on the bottom, and we have a large biological mass of dumbed down cattle raised on a steady diet of porn, NFL, MMA, cheese doodles and whatever stool is emitted from television. They easily outnumber us and we have our work cut out for us to save anything worth saving from Western society. We could easily emerge from this as a tribal warring society running around the continent wearing ass-less leather chaps killing people for dog food. There was a dark age before the Renisance.
I believe it could be very similar to The Walking Dead, minus the walkers. Actually this show is a very good metaphor for where we could be headed. Most of the people are dead, but some of the ones that are left show a surprising amount of leadership ability.
Yes that is a good metaphor. Unfortunately the real zombies will be smart enough and fast enough to be a bigger worry
Hurricanes, Typhoons, Tornadoes everywhere! Not hardly a month passes these days without mention of a major natural disaster. The elephant in the room is climate change. The number and intensity of storms across the world will rise and rise until almost no place on the planet is safe. So not only will civilization have to carve out smaller, localized, lower energy abodes, these may have to be underground as well to escape the persistent wrath of the super-storms. Imagine, one percent of the current global population huddling in little underground abodes – like the Hobbits – or rabbits – with the other 99 percent gone with the wind…literally.
Yes! And it all comes from the Sun. He is dancing with the Earth. He is the Man and He leads, the Earth follows. Long ago there were no ice caps. The tune changed. Once Mars was wet. But she offended him and He no longer dances much with Mars. During Roman times, grapes were grown in England. But no longer. The global warming wonks were caught trying to explain that away.
Sorry Janos, but below is a link to the website for English wine producers. In fact, England recently won Best Sparkling Wine two years in a row at the International Wine and Spirit Competition.
http://www.englishwineproducers.com/
My thesis is not threatened by a stray fact or two. You said nothing about Mars. Do they grown grapes there too? England was much warmer during Roman times. The end of the warming helped end the Roman Empire.
“My thesis is not threatened by a stray fact or two. ”
Actually, it is. You just choose to ignore it.
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/11/black-reporter-mychal-massies-summation-obama-nero-white-house/
Oh snap!
“My basic wish is that we would quit all our wishing in America and get on with the job of transforming our economic arrangements to a scale and mode that are consistent with the resource and capital realities of these times”
Good luck with that…
“You have fallen victim to the [erroneous} usage of the word vagina for the entire vulva.” – Marlena13
===========
Erogenous?
Mar, I think it is fair to say that the average (non-urologist non-gynecologist) male cannot figure out what the hell is going on down in the region of the female peep. I’m married 40 years and I STILL don’t know.
The male equipment is so less complicated…ya basically have your dick and that’s it.
“Not hardly a month passes these days without…” – Goat1001
==============
The word “Not” above is superfluous.
‘Not hardly’ is northern Alabama lingo …
The saviour comes with his or her set of beliefs and ideological doctrine. You really don’t have to deal with reality if you just believe,your sins will be forgiven and you will live in the promised land.
Just kick the reality can down the road all the time blaming the other side. You will wake up one morning and find your house destroyed by fire wind or water and your gas tank empty ,but you’ll thank your saviour that you are still alive , at least for a little while.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, at least there were magnificent ruins that left a legacy of wonderment, and became the subject of many important works of art. After our empire, who will want to paint the ruins of the golden arches and Walmart shells. I know that Kunstler the painter has worked on this genre, but will it be great art?
The only thing worth saving is the constitution and bill of rights.
There are already tours of the ruins of Detroit – the Colossus of the North. Future historians will wonder who built it – surely not the savages that now infest the ruins.
Remember Peter Fearon’s book ‘Hampton Babylon’ from about 20 years ago? Is the excess any less now out there now than it was then? In 2009 AIG, after getting a $192 billion bailout, celebrated by throwing themselves an extravagent party in the Hamptons, flying their employees out from Manhattan on helicopters. Why then, should the rest of us, who don’t summer Sag Harbor or Southampton, and don’t fly on helicopters, accept a lower standard of living, or even change our American way life? Sure, we’ll be hoeing the dirt and riding around on bikes; in the Hamptons and other places like it they’ll still be driving their Bentleys and eating cavier flown in from Russia.
–BRH
If what we are talking about happens the only safe mode of travel for them will be a helicopter…. And remember that French revolution painting Storming the Bastille. I would not trade places with any of them. Karma is a bitch in this life or the next sooner or later it catches up with you
“So how did Q. Shtik know it would work?” – K-Dog
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If you are suggesting I know a whole lot more than I’m letting on, you couldn’t be more wrong ’cause I don’t know Jack Shit.
With water fast becoming the most valuable resource on the planet; that alone will signal the end of fracking.
America’s biggest problems are the sociopaths and psychopaths who run corporations and the government.
The inverted moral rudder steering the states will continue until its citizens wake up and act (fat chance, that).
As to manufacturing; there is a renaissance of sorts. It’s called 3D printing; it will change everything. And then there is the MIC, it must be fed and it requires domestic manufacturing capabilities. These cannot be outsourced to any large degree.
…but of course; all of this is irrelevant, because climate change is the gestalt of the moment, and nothing is in fact being done to stop it…
The warming stopped over a decade ago. It’s basically a conspiracy by the Globalists to stop Capitalism with them on top forever.
To the many this week who are paying attention to the thrust of JHK’s missive, I highly recommend the trackback below, from Economic Undertow.
Redundant link:
http://www.economic-undertow.com/2013/11/18/pride-of-failure-and-the-fall/
A thought-provoking and surprisingly holistic examination of the confluence of multiple failures, all in the slavish service of modernity. Most interesting and a bit on the chilling side! (Halloween is dragging on past its’ sell-by date this year and we’re being cheerled, not “on to victory”, but straight to the graveyard.)
Please report back with your impressions.
Yes, the ‘graph below, though it colors WWII and America’s wartime behavior too lightly, sharply captures the essence of my uncle Conrad’s personal character: A WWII paratrooper, who after the war moved to Tucson Arizona, married, had two girls with my aunt Patricia, and proceeded to build several homes and businesses all on his own. But for a high school education, he was from there entirely self-taught, a constant reader, his own accountant, and a Ford Model A hobbyist and tourer. He awoke before dawn, worked all day, mostly outside, and was asleep in his chair after catching just a few minutes of the Leno monologue every night like clockwork. I’ve never met a Boomer in my life who came close to matching my uncle’s dignity, moral conviction, and generosity toward others.
“The ‘Modern America’ the world’s citizens inhabit in 2013 sprang almost fully- formed from the US’s victory over Germany and Japan in World War Two. We defeated two military superpowers in two different parts of the world at once; this was our first- and defining, ‘If we can put a man on the Moon’ moment. Americans were competent; we did things right, we were efficient yet (somewhat) humane and civilized. Our armies triumphed without massacring prisoners or raping and pillaging, they gave candy to the enemy’s children. America succeeded in spite of internal differences and a crushing economic environment. After saving the world from Nazism and Japanese militarism Americans believed they could do anything including remake the debauched old world in their own, atomic-powered, tail-finned image … and to the large degree they succeeded.”
How such traits are almost entirely absent in the men of the Boomer generation is quite a mystery to me, and I think this next paragraph speaks too kindly of the types of complacent self-proclaimed snobs found therein. Boomers were handed everything, yet find slightest fault with any “other” who rely on the very system their parents built which they’ve gutted. They’ve squandered, leveraged, and squeezed that system whenever it suited their own whims (i.e., off-loading dear old mom or pop to an institution to save some bucks), and slowly sold themselves and everything else in the country to corporates; now they’re shitting their adult diapers that not all of them will have died before the country is entirely ruined. They want us Millenials to fix it for them, to fluff their pillows and warm their blankets before they die. The reality is that we’re even dumber than they are. Well, maybe that’s an over-generalization (wink). But we certainly don’t type as well as these prissy motherfuckers.
“America’s failure regime emerged twenty years later in Vietnam; which gave birth to ‘Blunder, American-style’. Vietnam war is the template for our subsequent- and ongoing failures: policy-making as play; denial, the over-commitment to faulty premises and propagandistic marketing, institutionalized stupidity and sadism, fetishized violence and technology, complexity for its own sake; the refusal to consider limits, preening arrogance and intellectual dishonesty; colossal/heedless waste of irreplaceable social capital — Americans’ narcissistic idealism and naive patriotism — all of this for non-existent gains. Ambitious, corrupt men set about to satisfy trivial personal ambitions; even as they failed, the country was broken: red versus blue, old vs. young, hawk versus dove, urban against rural, liberal/conservative. Beavis vs. Butthead … The great failure in Vietnam sits like Carlos Castaneda’s death upon the left shoulder of the United States. Everything the US does and has done since 1968 has been a desperate effort on the part of both the establishment and culture to re-write history; to find a different outcome to the Vietnam War.”
That doesn’t come close to saying it all, but what’s the point of elaborating?
-UFIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Sal6N5OiE
What happened to my male posturing comment?
ANDREW MELLON:
“In a depression, assets return to their rightful owners.”
RODNEY DANGERFIELD:
“Heeeee’s a Melon.”
“How such traits are almost entirely absent in the men of the Boomer generation is quite a mystery to me,” – UFIA
=========
How true, how true. Thank god I can’t be counted amongst that bunch of assholes, being 6 years old before the very first Boomer was born.
But, in their defense, they had nothing to do with the Vietnam debacle. They were only 19-29 years old during the Vietnam years. You can credit your Uncle Conrad’s generation with ‘Nam.
BTW, where is “the ‘graph below” that you reference? Is ‘graph some new way of shortening the word paragraph that I have never seen before?
Yes, ‘graph is just short hand used typically by journalism types. You *new* the answer before you asked. You’re Trolling again, Q.
“But, in their defense, they had nothing to do with the Vietnam debacle. They were only 19-29 years old during the Vietnam years.”
19-29 yo isn’t the perfect fighting age for potential soldiers of the Vietnam era? I’m no history buff, but was 18 or maybe 21 not the voting age back then? Of course, draft-dodging was an option. Failing to vote was an option, too. Did you run and shriek back then? Fight? Vote? Dont’ fuckin’ lie, prissy guy.
“…being 6 years old before the very first Boomer was born.”
The age ranges distinguishing generations are somewhat arbitrary, so your phony pedantry doesn’t afford you technical excusal from the Boomer crowd. There’s certainly contiguity between the generations. You’re easily within range. Nice try though. You’ve surely voted for any one of the lying liars of the past 50 years, too, no? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
But you’re right: my uncle’s generation cannot be granted the simplistic heroism of WWII and thus excused from the extended hubris that led to the Vietnam blunder. That was the author’s position, not mine. I mentioned that U.S ethical behavior of WWII was colored too lightly in (his) ‘graph. My uncle’s well lived life is what I spoke directly to. Like it or not, there were significant differences between men of that era and Boomers. Your residence in the cusp marks the transitional frailty of men to come – Boom.
My uncle wasn’t perfect by any means, but he saw the government exactly as it was, having learned from his first-hand experience. He minded his own business and took care of his own. You might barely be able to say the same.
Jesus, UFIA, self-righteous much?
This one might be for K-Dawg and Zrcrip…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSOBL00-30E
Those non-linear and rapid positive feedback loops become a bit more salient when one takes a peek at the graphics presented in the vid. But I think its all techno-magic at this point, huh? Are we seriously contemplating even allowing THEM to keep extracting and burning for as long as it lasts. Alright, I’m all for it.
Let’s say the fracking bubble gets us another 10 years. Let’s say the light sweet crude left gets us another 20 or more, capital granted. Running and shrieking for another place to hide takes on a whole new meaning.
-UFIA
I’m like Q, born before the Boomers, but only by one year. My parents had it very rough in the Great Depression, particularly my mother’s family. Those years were extremely traumatic for that generation. In the midst of poverty, they then had to go to war. I believe generations before my parents’ wanted their children to lead pretty much the same lives as them. In my parents’, after all their suffering, they wanted their own children to not suffer like them, so after WW2, they indulged their children, the Boomers.
Yes, the Boomers are spoiled, but they were made that way by doting parents. It wasn’t really the parents’ fault, they had a very, very hard time. I don’t think the younger generations really appreciate – or even know – how bad those times were. I didn’t experience them either, but I grew up in the shadow of the depression through my parents’ stories.
My point is, the real reason that things are the way they are now is because over time, greed and corruption have become institutionalized by those who have been in power for over one hundred years.
One of the main things wrong with this country is assigning blame to others without making an effort themselves to fix things that need fixing. Don’t say you can’t, because the PTB are outnumbered 99 to 1.
What have YOU done to get things back on track? Have you taken all your money out of the bank so the banksters can’t use it? Do you refuse to be a consumer? Have you cleared up all your debt? Have you stopped eating frankenfood? Are you still voting for political parties’ candidates? Have you made preparations to live through the hard times that are probably coming?
If you didn’t answer yes to all the above, then stop blaming others, stop whining and take personal responsibility.
Take your own advice for a change, sir. List what YOU have done to get things back on track. Quit spinnin’. C’mon, show us the way. Show us that whatever you’ve done amounts anything but a symbolic gesture. We’re way beyond changing to efficient light bulbs and social activism.
So how do you continue to eat, pay bills, acquire the basic goods you need to regulate body temperature and dispose of your personal waste. C’mon tell us. Oh, wait. To do that you must be right now communicating telepathically from a mud hut, wearing a loin cloth, and scratchin’ away in the dirt with a diggin’ stick.
C’mon, Bill. You’re a smart man way beyond these sorts of platitudes and convenient sentimentality.
I wrote the above specifically for you. I’m not the one who is complaining and bringing things up about generations. All I’ve ever really said is that great changes are coming. I’m saying now that if you’re criticizing generations for the mess we’re in, then do something about it. I don’t bring up generations faults, so please don’t evadethe argument onto me. I
Meant to say, ” please don’t evade the point I made by turning the argument onto me.
I can say, however that I’m actively working on accomplishing the things I asked you to do.
Riiiiight, so deflection is not OK when you claim that I do it, and just dandy when you decide to be evasive? What a clever little diddy you’ve posted.
Pathetic, Bill. Go to bed already.
“My point is, the real reason that things are the way they are now is because over time, greed and corruption have become institutionalized by those who have been in power for over one hundred years.”
That just begs the question: why? My theory is that children simply weren’t brought up right. They are not brought up to become independent rational adults. They are not taught real values, a moral philosophy, or with respect to the good.
I’m quite sure most people would not even have any idea what I am talking about- because it seems anachronistic, idealistic or delusional.
What our education “system” does is grade and sort human beings like eggs on an assembly line, and does an overwhelmingly effective job at inculcating the social hierarchies and economic value system. The humanist function in education is not apparent at all.
But thats only half the picture. The other half is contemporary parenting, which is the inculcation of cultural mythology and programming, with respect to the identities specific to the parents. Kids are viewed not as autonomous people, but as property, a kind of raw material, upon which the prejudices and vanity of the parents are continuously impressed in a sort of relentless, soft terrorism.
Under these circumstances, none of the present situation is surprising. BTW, great video!
Part of the problem is the lack of grading in the sense of putting like with like as used to be in Britain. There is no reason the bright should be in with the dull. Or the dull with anyone else. There is justice in any of that. Obviously the dull should not be forced to go to High School and they should be prevented from attending College.
Children have always been viewed as “property” to some extent in all cultures. That’s not what caused the moral collapse. That was caused by too much prosperity and the loss of credibility of the old moral culture in favor of the new media driven culture of excess, liberalism, and science. There were many levels and counter reactions of course. Extreme hippies became Wall Street millionaires who only believed in “being themselves”. They saw no contradiction and of course they are correct. These people still love Rock & Roll, the music of hedonism.
Are you saying the State can do a better job with kids? That’s right from the Communist Manifesto and Hillary. Surely you don’t believe that is the path to social happiness? How many more must die before you people get that?
“Those non-linear and rapid positive feedback loops become a bit more salient when one takes a peek at the graphics presented in the vid.” – UFIA
==========
The video makes it pretty clear that I needn’t concern myself with the grossness of “death panels.” The melting of the Arctic ice cap will be eliminating earth’s excessive population in relatively short order.
“Yes, ‘graph is just short hand used typically by journalism types. You *new* the answer before you asked. You’re Trolling again, Q.” – UFIA
=============
No, you are wrong. I literally believed there was a link somewhere in your long post where I would find information presented graphically. First I went back over your post visually thinking I’d spot the link. I didn’t. Then I slowly moved my cursor downward over each line looking for something to light up. Nothing. Then one last time scrolling upward. Still nothing. Then I re-read the pertinent sentence to see if there was something I misinterpreted the first time through. This is where I spotted the apostrophe before the word graph indicating a shortening of a longer word as one might write ’cause rather than because since this is how people commonly speak. But I have NEVER heard anyone say ‘graph as a short form of paragraph. And if you Google ‘graph you will not find it as a short form for paragraph either.
And further to your insulting post……all of the key players in our Vietnam involvement were born well before 1940.
What the fuck are you even blathering about? You must be drunk, old man.
And tried to spot what link you idiot? I never mentioned anything about a link.
And who cares if you’ve never heard anyone say ‘graph? You think every colloquialism ever used by humans needs to be cataloged? I simply said that the shortened expression is used typically by journalism types. Specifically, if you’re really gonna be that fuckin’ anal about it, one of my instructors (a journalism professor) used the shortened version all the time in class. That’s where I first heard it.
Try to at least stay on topic, and quit making erroneous side-bar rebuttals, as if they were things I argued directly.
Put down the drink and pass out already, Troll.
This country is doomed.
Can someone please tell me who the fuck this UFIA asshole is? Did he/she exist her under another handle before? That is one ornery, angry shitbag.
“Can someone please tell me who the fuck this UFIA asshole is? Did he/she exist her under another handle before? That is one ornery, angry shitbag.”
Nice. As if your posting track record of late distinguishes you any differently. Brilliant.
Yeah, in a matter of minutes I’ll be accused of being a CIA agent, here to prevent the fabled super heorine, Hineshammer, from exacting its long awaited brand of social justice.
How precious.
There’s somethin’ for you to seize upon in that one too, Q.
Looks like you got yourself a lapdog as well.
Have fun for the rest of the week, Faggots! And that was a slur in the South Park sense of the word. You wouldn’t get it either way.
I have my suspicions. the short answer for now is simply Yes.
This is well worth a read;
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/at-edge-of-time.html#comment-form
It’s quite a read by Luis de Souza. Basically it’s a quite thorough graphing (many graphs) on the limits of growth.
Somebody said someth’n about a urethra?
Why is it called “fracking”?
‘Flooding’ and ‘cracking’ of rock layers. It sounds cuter that’a’way.
But you knew that.
“…so-called “consumers” (what we foolishly call ourselves)”
Thank You Mr. Kunstler. The words we sometimes blithely apply to things carry more import than we know consciously. “Consumer” has become not an economic descriptor but a moral imperative. Whatever happened to “citizen”?
That transformation is worth a series of posts in itself.
Speaking of transformation, I would like to take slight issue with the manufacturing renaissance comments. In the field of electric power equipment there has in fact been repatriation to the USA of power transformer manufacturing: EFACEC, Hyundai, and Mitsubishi have recently opened facilities to build large transformers including generator step-ups that are the link between power station and transmission system. Those who warn of EMP and solar storms should be comforted by this. Indeed – there is now a test rating for geo-magnetic-induced currents.
These transformers cannot be assembled by robots. Would that they could, since good help is hard to find.
But in the absence of fossil btus to create the steam to move the turbines that spin the generators… well, we all know how that story ends; we just don’t know how the next story begins.
After the section on Brazilian delusions, dreaming and pretending regarding their recent speculations in “unobtainium” (copious amounts of deepsea oil), the author of Economic Undertow say dis:
“Both climate change and energy depletion are serious as a heart attack. Meanwhile, Americans are unwilling to even consider making the needed material sacrifices so that the human race might escape the consequences of dumping billions of tons of carbon- and other gases into the atmosphere. As in Vietnam, we refuse to face reality, we believe our machines will save us rather than destroy us contrary to all available evidence.”
…And that’s not even factoring in the inevitable accidental spillage to poison and kill their fish stocks. (ASIDE from ocean acidification!)
Are you back to eating Gulf shrimp? If you are, do you really think it’s a good idea? If you do, you’re trusting the word of people who ought not be trusted.
Then:
“…our technological advantages are the root cause of our ongoing economic, social and political failures. Use of technology incurs costs which add up, eventually costs become greater than any possible benefit that can be gained by the technology. In the beginning the costs are so modest to be invisible, they aggregate over time, like the rate of depletion in oil fields or amounts due as interest. Eventually, the costs become breaking, like our debts, taken on to pay for and operate our precious — and money losing — machines.”
Intriguing thesis, and most ‘Kunstlerian’…
See:
The Big Fix
Jack Kevorkian’s Gulf Shrimp, Andouille and Okra Gumbo
3/4 lb andouille sausage (diced into bite sized pieces)
★ 1 lb Gulf Shrimp (peeled and deveined)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 finely chopped onion
1 celery rib (finely chopped)
1 jalapeno pepper (finely chopped)
1 green pepper (finely chopped)
1 cup canned tomatoes (diced)
32 ozs chicken stock
2 cups okra (chopped)
kosher salt
black pepper
★To Avoid being one of the departed use rubber gloves while peeling and deveining!
“But thats only half the picture. The other half is contemporary parenting, which is the inculcation of cultural mythology and programming, with respect to the identities specific to the parents.” – Lil Debbie Snack
============
Please tell me when and in what culture it has ever been different.
Yes, a Utopian. And Utopia means nowhere. The scriptures say there was a Golden Age that will come again in the Cycle of Ages. So maybe “then”. But it wont come until the Winter King comes over the waters, the waters of space and time – to annihilate the miscreants.
“one of my instructors (a journalism professor) used the shortened version all the time” – UFIA
============
One, he says! Ha ha ha.
ONE professor used it all the time and THAT, to UFIA, constitutes “typically.”
Yoof, I suggest you drop this topic and your whole paean to your Uncle and his generation (no doubt as flawed as any) and against the entire Boomer generation as it is solidifying your reputation here as an asshole of the first order…….now you wouldn’t want that would you?
“One, he says! Ha ha ha”-Q’s desperate attempt at relevance
You’re getting desperate, Q. This morning’s hangover must be a doozy for ya. You can’t imagine that I’ve made the acquaintance of other journalism pros, not to mention students and professors in literary courses that don’t also use the shortened ‘graph expression. Amazing. You need my world to be as small as yours.
And drop which topic? You raised the ‘graph issue, not me, and got your ass handed to you. You always address me with a silly potshot, then can’t handle the harsh response. I could give a fuck if you or anyone else thinks unkindly of me. You, on the other hand, can’t handle the scrutiny, and are one of the first to run and shriek and snitch to JHK.
Go ‘head, keep side-steppin’.
-UFIA
And I know what you’re gonna do next, even though you don’t think I know.
Farce is looking into his crystal ball. Or in Kdog speak, his dossiers.
“Have fun for the rest of the week, Faggots!”
UFIA
I thought that meant that you were leaving. Too good to be true, huh?
The questions JHK raises about who’s going to buy products coming out of these robotic manufacturing facilities are central. As it is we’re living with the results of insane business models that posit nonsense, mainly that you could ship to China your manufacturing backbone, throw millions of Americans out of work, destroy whole swathes of the American economy, and somehow there would still be purchasing power in the United States.
The tall foreheads, you know, all those Harvard Phd’s in economics, none of whom have a grasp of the blindingly obvious, all wonder why is it that inflation is so low. They say, golly, this low inflation imperils economic “growth”. Well, maybe it’s because the US middle class was stripped of its purchasing power with all that offshoring. Just a guess.
I would encourage these same ninnies to look at production costs in China vs the US and ask, in the absence of Fed counterfeiting to the tune of trillions of dollars over the last 20 years, what would consumer prices in the US look like?
I know, these questions make their brains hurt. Maybe they don’t want to know the answer. Maybe they don’t want YOU to know the answer. Because maybe the American consumer has been hosed to the tune of trillions because of Fed money printing. Maybe all that funny money helped boost consumer prices.
Here’s a guess on that second question: if not for loosey goosey Fed monetary policy there would have been a collapse in prices of consumer goods. The collapse would have reflected low production prices in China, low purchasing power in the US.
Never mind a really regular 2% to 3% year by year rise in prices, which given all the mayhem in the economy, looks highly improbable. As an aside, could these overly uniform-looking rates of inflation be the result of statistical cookery? Oh good god, what am I saying, perish the thought.
But let’s assume the official rates of inflation are on the up-and-up. So here’s another proposal: why not take the difference between where price levels were at and where they would have been at if the Fed hadn’t embarked on this reckless money printing. Let’s call that difference the real rate of inflation.
I know, too many measurement difficulties. How could we possibly know what would have happened had the Fed not printed all that money? Well, the tall foreheads have all those complex mathematical models of the economy. Couldn’t they do a simulation? Why be shy about it?
After all they’re not shy about using those models for making predictions that don’t pan out. They don’t see disasters coming just weeks before they happen and they don’t look in the least embarrassed. You get ten economists to look at data and all of them give you different answers. They can’t agree on what just happened never mind why it happened. And they don’t look the slightest bit embarrassed about that either.
“Failing those, the thing will continue unraveling drip-drip-drip slowly” – Kredit…
=========
If ever there was a mixed metaphor this^ would be it.
“…drip-drip-drip slowly”
Didn’t somebody say sum’n about a urethra?
“U Rethra….Me…Tarzan….”
What do you blokes think about Tarzan and Jane (“Urethra”) as the new model couple for the post Collapse future?
For a decade, I dated a woman whose middle name is Jane. In an online forum, I asked her if she wanted to be Jane to my Tarzan for Halloween. My invitation was “Me Tarzan, you Jane. Want to swing on my vine?” For the next seven years, the answer was yes.
As for urethra, despite all the health news I’ve been covering from the universities whose research are possibly making health outcomes better, but mostly making health care more expensive, I don’t have any mentions of urethras. Prostates (an organ that means more to me now that it’s been removed) and kidneys are another matter. I have lots of those on my blog. How about the most recent mention of prostate?
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/11/health-news-for-week-of-election-day.html
Is it true that eating beans won’t make you fat?
Hey Pucker, are you from Boston? It’s fart, not fat! And, no, it’s not true. Beans do make you fart.
Speaking of Boston, I have an account of how BU’s trauma team reacted to the Boston Marathon bombing, along with how Hurricane Sandy was bad for seniors’ health (duh). Two, count them, two disasters in one!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/11/hurricane-sandy-and-boston-marathon.html
As usual I agree with most of the essence of Kunstler’s opinions but not on some of the details.
The energy boom is real and will positively affect the economy for some time.
And yes, energy efficiency has improved greatly in the US. That means at $100 per barrel, $3-4 per gallon of gas, the suburban economy is still viable at the present time.
I haven’t looked into the “manufacturing renaissance” much, but there’s probably something to it.
None of this means we aren’t still headed for Peak Oil oblivion, but I believe it is not coming as soon as Kunstler thinks it is. I believe the fracking revolution has bought the suburban economy a couple decade stay of execution.
Of course, there is always the chance that even before Peak Oil hits our idiotic elected officials will wipe us out before Mother Nature takes over and does it for us. For example, so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform would have an impact on our economy comparable to striking America’s major cities with nuclear bombs. So far, the coalition of progressives and billionaires pushing that policy have been stymied by public opposition.
Best post of the week, Isjo.
They announced on 60 Minutes that they will be willing to bring the jobs back as long as robots are up to the challenge. Of course if Chinese robots are cheaper then they’ll just send them over there again. Capitalism is utterly ruthless. What about people? Don’t worry they say, there will be jobs (a very few) opening up to service the robots.
The Billionaires who support the Amnesty are the Democratic ones and for political reasons. Think about it: the illegals were let in to work for cheap. Once legal, they’ll have to pay them the same as other Americans. No gain only a loss of political power as Republicans – assuming they haven’t already become turn coats of course. That’s not to say the Republicans wont try to get anything: they do want more hi tech workers from Asia to undercut American workers. But as far as the Hispanics, I think they’d rather just keep things the way they are. And even after the Amnesty, the illegals will keep being welcomed.
Really? You think you know more than JHK, Richard Heinberg, and Dmitry Orlov, who all seem to be of the consensus that “fracking” is just another hot air bubble that will burst and only leave us with poisoned drinking water. Kinda pompous on your part. What background and qualifications do you have to make such an arrogant assertion? Methinks you have an advanced degree from the school of wishful thinking.
Methinks yoou have an advanced degree in haberdasher metallurgy.
On a more substantive note:
One example where I believe Kunstler underestimates the impact of fracking: Fracked horizontal drilled wells do indeed have a surge of output initially and then their output drops way down, but then there remains a small trickle of output for decades.
That output curve is reflected in the economic models for production from those oil deposits. The producers know full well that they need to continue to add new wells to their production to make up for that early-phase drop-off in production from the wells that have gone into production in the last few years.
The companies producing from those fields have lots of undeveloped areas of their deposits that they know will produce.
Hence the resource exists to continue expanding production at the present time. The companies engaging in this turn a profit with oil around $100 per barrel, where it is currently at.
One can argue whether or not the suburban lifestyle can be sustained at $100 per barrel oil. But if you have evidence that the unconventional (fracked, horizontally drilled) can’t be profitably produced and expanded at the present time, please produce it.
And by the way, Michigan Native, there is not evidence of any appreciable degradation of drinking water by fracking. They held a very informative Congressional Hearing a few years back I saw on CSPAN that was very informative on that score.
If you have oil companies operating in your neighborhood, I can understand that you would be nervous about water quality. I would be too, even knowing full well that the evidence shows it is not a problem.
For the drunk-ass oldster of CFN who never knew anything he didn’t Google first:
“In journalism, a nut graph is a paragraph, particularly in a feature story, that explains the news value of the story.[1][2] The term is also spelled as nut graf, nut ‘graph, nutgraph, nutgraf. It is a contraction of the expression nutshell paragraph, i.e., “in a nutshell” paragraph, dated at least to the 19th century.[3] Sometimes the expression nut paragraph is also used. Writing a nut graph is called nutshelling and the writers are called nutsellers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_graph
For as often as industry peeps need to use the word paragraph to communicate some aspect of news writing, it’s no wonder the above concept gets contracted even further – ‘graph.
See, Q was especially loaded the other night, otherwise he normally *woooda* been able to figger such a thing, being the consummate grammarian that he isn’t.
-UFIA
To JHK,
I don’t recall your ever mentioning who the manufacturer of your bad/toxic hip was but I spotted this article concerning J&J on the web today which may be of interest to you.
J&J confirms $2.47B settlement over hip implants. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) will pay at least $2.47B in total to around 8,000 patients who said they were injured by some of the company’s artificial hips. However, the deal doesn’t stop patients whose devices fail in the future from seeking compensation, which could significantly increase the final bill. There are also some U.S. lawsuits that will remain even if the settlement receives the necessary 94% approval from eligible claimants.
A special section of today’s NY Times titled Your Money is devoted to The New Math Of Health Care:
The price tag for medical care, already big and getting bigger, looms over the lives of all Americans. Retirees see their savings vanish. Families face tough and bewildering choices……..etc.
To all readers here except UFIA (who gives every sign of being too young and immature to concern himself with the messages herein) I recommend in particular two articles:
1. Medicaid Help Without Falling Into Poverty
2. For Those at Death’s Door, a Case for ‘Life Panels’
I will attempt to find links to these articles and post them in a subsequent comment.
See: ‘Crimes of the Times’ blogspot, for the scoop on ‘ny slimes’.
Here is the first link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/medicaid-help-without-falling-into-poverty.html?_r=0
And here is the second.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/for-those-at-deaths-door-a-case-for-life-panels.html?_r=0
“For as often as [industry peeps] need to use the word paragraph to communicate some aspect of news writing, it’s no wonder the above concept gets contracted even further – ‘graph.” – UFIA
===========
So your assumption in using ‘graph in a comment was that we readers are all journalism “industry peeps”?
No, not at all. I did confuse you as being news media saavy, and I know you, in particular, to be a professional Googler. The booze clouded your perception that night. All you were looking for was a fight after the theme in my post struck a nerve.
And you didn’t misunderstand what I wrote at all. You deduced ‘graph to be a contraction of paragraph quite easily before your even initially Trolled me. Your own post acknowledged this.
Colloquialisms are used rather heavily here, but you only attack their misuse or what have you when your disrespecting the unwitting CFN user. And in your remark above you’ve admitted that you fucked up by omission. You are a Troll, Q. You, Trog, and Janos. The real Troll Trilogy all along. And very few others here stand up to you assholes.
You see, when you don’t like someone’s opinion, you hide behind language usage to passive aggressively insult their intelligence, then when you get a direct aggressive response in return you run and shriek – snitch.
Please demonstrate…
A graph is a two dimensional representation of the relationship of two numerical variables.
I’m sorry this is hard for you but this is the primary definition of the word. I’m sick of your monkeyshines.
You deduced ‘graph to be a contraction of paragraph quite easily before “your” even initially Trolled me.
*you* (wait, there’s *MORE*)…
“To all readers here except UFIA (who gives every sign of being too young and immature to concern himself with the messages herein) I recommend in particular two articles:” – Q-Tipsy
Yeah, the exchanges between us have demonstrated my immaturity. Sure, uh huh. Even though I did engage your Trollish jabs rather harshly, I clarified my opinions and even agreed, partly, with one of your points.
At the end of it all, you backed out of the tangle and implored me to drop an issue you had raised and I defended. Riiight, I’m immature, young, and whatever. But at least I’m sober minded.
“I did confuse you as being news media saavy” – UFIA
===========
Yeah, I also confused YOU with being news media savvy until I spotted your latest misspelling. Journalism majors and news media people are far more careful in their writing. They usually proofread before submitting.
Not a journalism major, asshole. Took some electives as an undergrad… Your showing your maturity *smirk* again, Q.
Lol… I hate writing for an audience but did have a curiosity about the news media profession back then. Wanted to understand how such a noble profession became so corrupt. Figgered it and moved on.
So, Q, you can drop this issue whenever you’re ready. But go ‘head and persist, since you’re demonstrating my thinking toward you perfectly.
Take another sip, pops
“Your” showing your maturity *smirk* again, Q.
You’re – please, would you stop your incessant 3-daze long banter?!?
Here is an article that might help you understand what we are dealing with in the person of Farce.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/11/leftist-personality-types/
Yes. Yes! A perfect explication of leftist insanity. I agree whole heartedly and will work tirelessly to change my personality from such evil.
Thanks you, Janos. You carry the weight of this blog with a mighty back.
Oh dearie me, since we’re in the cesspool, might I sling some chunks as well? Lessee here, Wikipedia will have to do for now…
“In regards to child development, the formation of the authoritarian type occurs within the first few years of the person’s life, strongly shaped by the parents and family structure. “Hierarchical, authoritarian, exploitative” parent-child relationships may result in this personality type (Adorno et al., 1950, pp. 482–484). Parents who have a need for domination, and who dominate and threaten the child harshly, and demand obedience to conventional behaviors with threats, foster the characteristics of this personality. In addition, the parents have a preoccupation with social status, and communicate this to the child in terms of rigid and externalized rules. The child then suffers from suppressed feelings of resentment and aggression towards the parents, who are instead, idealized with reverence.
Alfred Adler provided another perspective, linking the “will to power over others” as a central neurotic trait, usually emerging as aggressive over-compensation for felt and dreaded feelings of inferiority and insignificance. According to this view, the authoritarian’s need to maintain control and prove superiority over others is rooted in a worldview populated by enemies and empty of equality, empathy, and mutual benefit.”
Can that be a descriptor of someone who comes to the blog for the express purpose of taking a [mental] dump? little laddie, it’s either you or your dad. Your religion demands sacrifice… jump froggie, jump.
Now that’s some analytical writing for you, Janos. When you can consistently pull off argumentation like that, then you won’t need to persistently blow smoke up your own ass.
You realize that you’ve all along been the biggest Farce on this blog don’t ya, Janos.
So how many books did it take to git to that level writing ability?
Do you (can you?) discern the difference between pathological hierarchy and natural hierarchy? Will you? Or do you think little kids know better than their parents? And that all the cops are criminals and all the criminals, saints? The French Revolutionists did – as did the later Communist ones. Adler was a competent thinker and made this distinction. Adorno the Commie – did not. To the extent the “authoritarian personality” is a real category describing real people, well Communism is full of them and depends on them completely. They are the very life of Bureaucracy. The actual Revolutionaries are even lower on the scale of being. Needless to say you didn’t read the article. You are proud of your ignorance – a trait shared by many communist lowlifes.
Must people drag Psychiatry [a world of BS] into this blog?
Alright, so I’ve been fence-sitting out of pure shock ever since Ozone first linked to a Guy McPherson podcast several months ago. The hook in the podcast title was too sensational, I thought; not sure I even remember it verbatim: North America a desert in 5 years, the rest of the planet dead in less than 30? Mcpherson has backed off the 5-year angle for the most part, but it seems he’s regularly vindicated in alternative media reporting regarding the growing strengths of what now amount to 26(?) positive feed-backs. A Chris Martenson podcast awhile back featuring Dr. Mark Cochrane allowed me some seemingly false hope that the evidence of climate change may just be wrongly interpreted by some scientists. That seems to be true, however, the evidence trend is demonstrating that things are being revised in the opposite direction from Cochrane’s perspective. I’m admittedly thoroughly whooped by the mounting evidence that we’re all done. I honestly don’t know if 30 years is now too optimistic.
I don’t think I’ve been fully aware of the ensuing depression this has caused in my mom and dad either, as I watched one of Guy’s related presentations with them awhile back. They bought the presentation entirely, but the only thing any of us know is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We all have *lives* still.
I have a reasonable but thin and inexperienced grasp of research methodology, plus I remain friends with several of my instructors from undergrad. Dr. Holder (geography), who is actually a close friend, and me chat between courses often. He’s always understood anthropogenic CC to be a reality, but cautioned that the science was still young and constantly changing. From his point of view there is still an inefficient understanding of how the earth’s atmosphere manages to release CO2 into space. However this occurs, he now explains, the release process doesn’t seem to be keeping pace with the amount of CO2 being produced, especially due to positive feed-backs.
I also check in with an engineering acquaintance I made a few years ago, Paul Lutus. He travels to Alaska annually and was, for the most part, a climate skeptic. He isn’t any longer, and this has solidified my own negative outlook on the future of humans; Lutus is no intellectual slouch, so that he’s no longer a fence-sitter, too, frightens me.
http://arachnoid.com/alaska2013/mendenhall_glacier.html
And another video featuring recent CC evidence with Peter Sinclair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9euZ6q4bEKs
Fuck, man. my girlfriend is the family type, and I no longer am. What to do, what to do
-UFIA
So why did they change to “climate change” instead of global warming? Amazing how you Leftist peons are willing to fag for your masters.
Hahahahahahaha….
That’s right, Troll. Your semantic games really impress people here.
Not me.
Wake up dupe – it’s the Sun not Man that decides whether we freeze or melt. You can worship Gaia and Negroes all you want, it’s not going to help as you freeze in the darkness
HAha… you’re sumthin’ special, Janos.
And you are NOT a Troll? gees…..what a nut u r
It’s global warming, for anyone willing to stick their necks out and scrutinize the *DATA*…
OMG, I just got *TROLLED* by the racist (again! Won’t happen [again?])…
I’m struck by how much despair you must feel if you believe we only have a relatively short time left before we’re wiped out, or almost wiped out. For me, although I want to and have the genetic disposition to live another 20 or 30 years, at least I have already lived a long time, whereas you have barely begun.
I can’t speak for anyone’s accuracy in predicting future dire events, but a cautionary statement is in order: Take every expert’s claims with a grain of salt, and don’t take anything they say as gospel. In my own experience I’ve found experts to be wrong almost as often as the ignorant.
That’s one reason why I’m usually optimistic. Nothing is written in stone just because someone says something is going to happen. They may well be correct – or not – but we won’t know until it happens. I’d rather be happy while waiting for the event to occur or not. If it does happen and I die, well, at least I spent my last days happy. And, if the end doesn’t happen, then I didn’t waste my time unnecessarily feeling despair. For me it’s almost a win-win. For you, you have much more to lose, and I can see it being very difficult to maintain a state of happiness or good feeling.
On another subject, why dump on those commenters you don’t like? It’s good practice to learn how to cope with people you can’t stand in a positive manner because whether you realize it or not, dealing with annoying persons the way you are doing here is a major energy drain. Just my $.02.
Hey, Bill.. glad to see you’ve pulled yourself together again. When we drink it’s best to stay away from the keyboard, lest we risk draggin’ dem digits ‘cross the dern thang ‘n hittin’ enter.
All kiddin’ aside, I, like yourself, am trying to navigate the roller coaster ride of emotions as all of these ideas settle in. however, I won’t pretend to be optimistic, hopeful, or whatever other sappy slogan one might adopt.
I also won’t post while drinking, either. ;>)Good luck to you, Bill.
Christ! Bean, have you even bothered to look at the rate of clearcutting in the Amazon Basin over the past 5 (10/30) years (or CO2 atmospheric levels/global temp trends/solar irradiance)? There’s nothing to absorb the CO2 we burn, other than the ocean (and deep space, as we expand the atmospheric radius through greenhouse gassing of methane and CO2).
The oceans have absorbed so much CO2, that not only are they heating up, but they’re also releasing deep-ocean methane hydrates (solid), which evaporate and bubble up into the atmosphere (along with fracked methane). Not only that, but the oceans have become acidified by absorbing so much CO2, that all coral reefs are drying up/dead (along with the ‘fish’/plankton/etc).
But that’s whut we do – we exponentially populate, exponentially deplete peak resources, exponentially pollute, and kill off all remaining (non-human) life forms on the planet.
To be that blind, is to not give a SH! about your children/grandchildren/etc. It’s not really about despair – it’s about such *IN YOUR FACE* facts, that you simply seem to ignore, daily, as you guzzle/overconsume/overpollute/run in circles, using carbon fuel…
PS – Ozone starting to sound like @$$-soker, and that Q/Farce flame-thread is unprofessional/unnecessary/uninteresting.
Look, I know we’re destroying our forests, and I know that we’re experiencing an enormous growth in CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, resulting in acidified oceans, thawing permafrost and a possible release of methane, as well as melting ice caps and sea coast inundation, etc. But we don’t know all the systems involved in climate change, including counter-effects to global warming. Some climatologists suggest that global warming leads to the introduction of an ice age and the consequences to humanity from that.
I applaud any reasonable efforts to reverse adverse climatic changes, but I can’t lie in my bed at night, take heavy-duty drugs or drink excessive amounts of alcohol because I’m terrified we will all die. It’s just not in me. I guess we’ll find what happens when the future evolves into the present.
“I can’t lie in my bed at night, take heavy-duty drugs or drink excessive amounts of alcohol”
And because *I* can, that makes me less?!? Hehe, I get your points, but there’s *children* and *grandchildren* out there – and *WE*’re not doing *JACK* (and they ain’t my kids, unless the aliens are using my sperm to produce future progeny)…
Toss in some hefty doses of mercury, which have increased as countries like China and India burn more coal, and you learn that these toxins and carcinogens concentrate as they travel up the food chain. I believe staples like salmon, tuna, etc have been unsafe for human consumption for a long time ago, the radioactive isotopes from Fukushima that are causing the eyes and gills of Herring caught off Canada’s Pacific Coast to rupture and bleed aside.
Than the untold tons of plastics we have dumped in the world’s oceans. For a detailed description of this, go to http://www.cluborlov.com and read the 6th stage of collapse (Dmitry is getting out of the blogging business, much to my personal sadness, like I lost an old friend, but apparently he is a father now and wants to move on to other things. Stop by and pay your respects). The plastic products tend to wash up on the shore, and photo degrade into the micro plastic muck, which in many places outnumber the main food source for life in the sea…plankton. The fish mistake the plastic muck for food and ingest it, eventually clogging their digestive tracts and causing them to starve. In sum, the oceans are dying and you may as well kiss seafood goodbye if you haven’t already.
Toss in the fact the the most densely populated area of the US, the eastern seaboard will be under water in the decades to come, the erosion and destruction of fertile topsoil from a variety of assaults, and the decline of the honey bees (traced to the use of pesticides) and you will see that the planet will indeed be very hard pressed to feed 8 billion people by the middle of this century, when fossil fuels will have been depleted forever.
We failed to act to constrain ourselves, so now mother nature becomes the new arbiter, and as while some neocon types like to exclaim “the American way of life is non negotiable”, if you refuse to negotiate with nature, as Orlov stated, the new arbiter becomes death. Nature will bring the human population back down to its pre-industrial level of 1 billion people, leaving some 7 billion people to die in ways that will not likely prove to be the most dignified
Point being, even if you don’t have little ones, chosing to stay in a state of denial and dismissing environmental devastation/resource depletion as some “negative” subject that will just go away if you don’t think about it will not prove to be at all positive in helping the reality of the predicament let alone help you mitigate the future for yourselves or your posterity.
In sum, wake up. Your planet is dying.
Nice one! I know, the fertilizer/pesticide/herbicide runoff from GMO crops into rivers, and the plastic island (the size of Australia?) in the Pacific (and a similar one in the Atlantic)…
Read this afterwards (and it confirmed my own assertions):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
“A similar patch of floating plastic debris is found in the Atlantic Ocean.” (I whuz just guessing Atlantic also, but apparently they *KNEW* about *ALL* this, 25 years ago…)
OMG – pelagianism (pelagic plastics)… That sums it up for me – it’s all *religion*!!!
At this point, Q, hasn’t realized he’s the mouse to my cat… but watch what he seizes upon next.
Predictable, ’cause after all his pretending, he’s never really truly been here for a discussion.
I am the dog to your cat. My insults give your life meaning.
That’s correct. You’ve won me over. Please submit many more of your profound lessons. Meow
I accept your surrender. Now if only the others would be as sensible. On this Blog, Prog and Q are the elder statesmen of the Right; Kdog and Ozone of the Left. As a Fascist, I am above both pairs and can mediate between both sides since my viewpoint is higher. Prog doesn’t think of himself this way, but these terms are relative to the context of the other posters. The only way these people stay on good terms is by not talking in depth. Prog occasionally rocks the boat and is politely ignored by the Leftists. Needless to say this makes for a boring blog and done on the Macro level – a rapidly decaying society.
True.You’ve always maintained the superior position by not speaking in depth or substantiating your positions with credible evidence. Your tactic of never arguing point-for-point with anyone who’s ever entertained your missives smacks of utter genius. You post short juxtapositions of defunct ideas, position one above the other with distorted logic, then abandon the original statement with sleight of hand in a follow-up post.
You move swiftly like a ninja, fatally strike your victim, then disappear into the shadows with ease. You’re like a fart in the wind, detectable just for a brief second, then gone.
Awesome
Jeebus, Joe-step and Maori, UFIA, you gots his ‘technique’ nailed!
(One thing he doesn’t describe very well is his grovelling at the feet of da deb’bil; that’s not exactly what we’d consider a ‘higher’ position than any-fucking-body.)
Oz isn’t on the right or left. That’s where you’re wrong, Vlad. He’s in Western Mass., hunkering down for winter. Land of Terry Southern, Arlo, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. And Edie Sedgwick.
–BRH
Are you trying to glorify him with those names? You’re another one who keeps mum for the sake of peace. Ask him what he thinks of Blacks killing Whites in America and South Africa. Even you can’t deny the quantity and quality of his PC Yankee Hatred for everything that the Founders stood for.
There a special over at WND: White Girl Bleed a Lot for 4.95. Today only!
And William Cullen Bryant.
Whoa! (Reference is what the intertubes be all about.)
A Presentiment
‘Oh father, let us hence–for hark,
A fearful murmur shakes the air.
The clouds are coming swift and dark:–
What horrid shapes they wear!
A winged giant sails the sky;
Oh father, father, let us fly!’
‘Hush, child; it is a grateful sound,
That beating of the summer shower;
Here, where the boughs hang close around,
We’ll pass a pleasant hour,
Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain,
Has swept the broad heaven clear again.’
‘Nay, father, let us haste–for see,
That horrid thing with horned brow,–
His wings o’erhang this very tree,
He scowls upon us now;
His huge black arm is lifted high;
Oh father, father, let us fly!’
‘Hush, child;’ but, as the father spoke,
Downward the livid firebolt came,
Close to his ear the thunder broke,
And, blasted by the flame,
The child lay dead; while dark and still,
Swept the grim cloud along the hill.
-William Cullen Bryant
You killed the child who only wondered with *amazement* – what are you (DEMON)?
Oh, as I said be-4, this sounds very reminiscent of @$$-soker, who *YOU* called out (very cursory/cursing/foul language?) recently…
What’s the deal with these negotiations with Iran? On the level? Honest brokers earnestly trying to come to some sort of agreement to make a better world. Or just another head fake (to use Jim’s word) like Syria, Egypt and Libya?
How about those bombs outside the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon yesterday? In the past week there have been bloodbaths in Libya, Egypt and Syria. Now that (the US) is supposedly ‘energy independent’, nobody seems to give a sh-t about sanguine events over in the oil patch.
–BRH
How ’bout them negotiations with Afghanistan to leave U.S. troops indefinitely? What’s that all about?
The constant of destabilization and subjugation — and in the end, abject and utter failure, soaked and dripping in the glory of death for Death’s sake. Gott mit uns, and we’ve been charged by our craven leaders with the bloody task of proving it.
Nicely stated.
The best my little mind could fathom was to secure dem damn pipelines.
Gotta keep that 12/31/01 pipeline *IN CHECK*, and ensure consistent poppy (opium/heroin) deliveries… WAKE THE F* UP!
Haha buggy code, totally responded to the wrong thread (but at least *IN THREAD*).
Thanks for the week’s work, JHK. And, I’ve got to say that “Schilling Shilling” could be your best title ever. It’s funny on several levels, and pithy without being pissy. Well done!
Schilling Shilling could be a great name for a PR firm, btw.
Schilling, Shilling, and Schist – a geological PR firm?
Schilling, Shilling, and Shillelagh – a PR firm with an Irish enforcer?
Anyway – thanks for the entertaining writing. Although, I tend to believe that recent advances in US hydrofracturing may hold the wheels on our clown car for longer than you conjecture in your weekly missives.
Although – that does not mean that something won’t take us out. I think climate change having an adverse impact on grain production could certainly do it, just as a for instance.
And there’s nothing like hunger of their populations to make governments even MORE erratic than at present.
Everyone consider history, please. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/19/opinion/frum-global-cooling-impact/
“Prog occasionally rocks the boat and is politely ignored by the Leftists. Needless to say this makes for a boring blog and done on the Macro level – a rapidly decaying society.” …janos….
That’s actually not a bad analysis. And I’d like to see either UFIA or Ozone attack you on the specific merits of your specific arguments.
The pouting diatribes that paraphrase as “Janos go away because,” grow tiresome.
And the ad hominems make their ideas appear weak.
Haha – the *RACIST* trolled *U*. Don’t be such a *sucka*, next time…
“….you only attack their misuse or what have you when your disrespecting the unwitting CFN user….”
….ufia, resident journalism expert?…..
DAMN IT, UFIA! GET A FUCKIN’ CLUE, ALREADY!
How can you masquerade as an educated person with exposure to journalism professors when you constantly bollix up “your” and “you’re?”
Try not to do it again. Please.
QUICK DRAW *MC’GRAW*!!!
“But that’s whut we do – we exponentially populate, exponentially deplete peak resources, exponentially pollute, and kill off all remaining (non-human) life forms on the planet.” ….z crypt …..
Maybe, Zcrypt – but nature is tough, and evolution is immensely powerful – given enough time. For example, coral will colonize hard substrates in northern latitudes – even though cold water kills those colonies EVERY SINGLE WINTER.
The point is – life will find a way to survive, given enough time.
Now – if we kill off the planet in 30 years, there won’t BE enough time, I agree. But I’d try to be an optimist.
And hey! Just wait until AGW really starts to heat up – and some govt. gets the bright idea to fertilize large sections of the Pacific Ocean with iron, or some other nutrient, to sequester CO2 on a global scale.
Then the good times can really start to roll.
The most realistic and to me frightening disaster scenario is the melt down of nuclear reactors if the power goes off. Do you think this is possible or are their fail safe contingencies for this?
And of course, an EMP strike is quite possible. Many commercial ships are registered out of Liberia. All the Iranians or whoever would have to do is bribe the captain or the Liberians with a few million and they could set off the missile(s) from the deck just outside our sea border.
Yes, we are in midst of a great die off of species. It’s very sad but it has happened before when we weren’t here. New species will come into being. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Yeah, that’s a scary one. We got to get cracking on developing FTL drives so we can get the hell out of here.
For some reason I’m not too concerned about EMPs. Did you know we’re beginning to manufacture large transformers in the US? Also, does anyone really know how much of our grid is hardened for an EMP? I’m more concerned about a cyber attack bringing down the grid.
Check these guys out – inspiring. We cut our teeth on Mars before we go stellar.
http://www.marssociety.org/home/about/founding-declaration
Many have said first we must solve our problems here on Earth but that’s obviously another way of saying we’ll never go. No we go and that helps relieve our problems here. And relieve means relieve, not solve. And like some of those old Science Fiction covers, that might mean stone age people watching space ships taking off. The Earth will continue to be our nursery with different peoples at all different stages of development.
Yes, the message is inspiring. My preferred mode of action is either small steps or to leapfrog them and go for the whole enchilada. In other words, space colonies (like an L5 one) or a moon colony, then Mars, then outward, OR go for the FTL drive. Extremes of action, I know.
I wrestle with the idea of whether we should go, because we are a very destructive species which hasn’t learned how to behave as a grown-up. Look at what we’ve done to the Earth. Isn’t wrecking just one planet more than enough? On the other hand, if ever there was a species built for great adventure and expansion, it is us. We desperately need new dreams.
Reactor meltdown is insignificant. That’s already been proven by Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Chernobyl… What you want to do, is to *NOT* get the actual radioactive (heavy [tm]) metals inside you – then your *FUXORED*.
These things spew heavy metals like a *SINK HOLE*… Just don’t go up to that…
It’s like that *MAJIK* trick, where the guy injests water and then a flammable oil on top of it – as long as they don’t *GET INTO HIS SYSTEM*, it’s all a *GAME*!!!
Besides, where’r those experts who designed the uranium systems, and why they didn’t go *THORIUM*…
Because (haha!) the uranium systems supplied nuke weapon material – and thorium *DOESN’T*.
Hahaha – F to the YUCK – you too optimistic!!!
You must have your eyes *WIDE SHUT*, or something, not to see what sits in front of all of us, every *SINGLE* day… You can’t keep exponentially depleting *PEAK* resources, nor can you continue to exponentially pollute the environment, *NOR* can you continue to keep exponentially breeding liek rats, nor can you continue exponentially killing every last (non-human) life form (i.e. food) on the planet – and expect something other than demise…
Ahh, you *MAGICAL THINKERS*!!!
I’ve repeatedly said great change is coming.
What great change is that? Soylent Green?!?
Now you’re sounding like me.
Oops, meant for Prog.
d00d you *did* reply to *TROG*…
Sippin’ tha good good, he is.
OMG dOOd, sippin’ tha good good… That’s pretty much the *ONLY* reason I can poast here… You call it wrong most times (I doubt Q or Bean ever bother with liquor – but I *know* Adam West did, back in ’74 – and he’s still alive, @85 [rhymes})
TESTING, 1234567890 – now why is the O a lower case o? Now I’ll have to *MEMBAZ* that, so I can type $2OO, and it looks *A-OK*…
Can we say, *NICE NUMBER FONT* (just liek nice embedding of *ONLY* youtube links)…
NO! *THEY* need a reason to ban you, and typing lower case ‘l’ instead of 1 suffices!!! (quit embedding youtube – you *MORON*).
Whats the deal with the DOW etc? All from Q1,2,3?
33::1 leveraged high frequency high volume tradez *R* dah *BOMB*!!! And 0% fed loans offer that *LEVERAGE*… Did *U* really think you had your money *invested*, and that some bankster din’t leverage *YOUR* assets 33::1, in order to skim your assets (through high frequency high volume tradez)?!?
*WAKE THE F’ UP*!!! Ghad-damned morons…
Maybe this would have been more apropos (appropriate?):
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303763804579183680751473884#
I feel like going time-traveling tonite. Time for a journey into *our* recent history (what did *we* learn?)…
In ’98, Citi commercial banksters acquired Travelers investment banksters. The regulation committees (FBI? Federal Reserve? *SEC* [try finding SEC on a citi/trav google {haha, evidently *payed* off}]) gave them a 1 year buffer, after which Glass-Steagall whuz *apparently* repealed.
In 2000, we had the internets (DOT-COM) bubble. In 2001, we had Enron, *top-secret* US Mil-Spec grade anthrax bandied throughout the entire US postal system, and Dumbya’s approval rating plummeting below 18% – whuz there any surprise that the next Pearl Harbor event whuz inevitable?!?
Fast-forward from 9/11/01 to 12/31/01 – Those pesky Taliban in Afghanistan had been *SHUT UP*, and the pipeline whuz easily *signed in stone*… (And the poppy fields [opium/heroin] that the Taliban shut down, were now open for *HARVEST)
Same old story – NE-1 want to repeat it for me, since (or BE-4?)?!?
There’s always those old (70’s/80’s) stories about US friend of Iraq (Saddam Hussein) against Iran (US giving them chemical weapons to use against Kurds), or US friend of Afghanistan Taliban (Osama Bin Laden) against USSR (Contra/Coke for Bushies/etc)…
(Can you tell I just watched the documentary “Inside Job” again, and got just as *infuriated*?)
“DAMN IT, UFIA! GET A FUCKIN’ CLUE, ALREADY!”
“How can you masquerade as an educated person with exposure to journalism professors when you constantly bollix up “your” and “you’re?” -TROGGY
Trog, how in the world did you ever get the diea…. that I believe mysellf to b edjuKated? Or anything but a peck-r-head typist?
And is it that I don’t know what your talking about? Or is it that I simply get on you’re nerves because I don’t engage the dieas you raise? Is it my typing that’s atrocious, my mind, or both?
OK, theirs* an argument for both, and i’ve never claimed to be smart. Real talk now: I failed every grade after 4th. They put me in high school for gawd nose what reesin. Droped out of the the beginng of 10th gray’d yeer when I wuz teknikly sposed to be finishing my ieleventh, if eye member creklee. Somehow I managed to steel my way into grad skouwl. Beleive me, Trog, I yam everybit as uneducated and incompetent as you think. probably have an IG of ’bout 90, if ime lucky. No mask needed.
but I can surf the web liek a mudderfukka.
And the reason I don’t argue point-for-point with Janos is because I know his ideas to be pure bullshit. Don’t need to prove it to him or you. He deals solely in abstraction and inductive reasoning – social philosophy. Every social philosophy ever contrived has failed, collapsing so-called civilized peoples with it. Any one of those social philosophies could be co-opted at any moment in history and were. Janos just thinks his patchwork of discredited, plagiarized ideas will finally be the ones that save humanity. He is a malignant narcicist, as rrrr you and Que. Does he make an accidental point now and again? Do you? Does Q? Well, you ffewls certainly think so. You in particular TROG iz/rr every bit as properly educated as he, and I’ll have none of that shit.
I watched you funkin’g clowns for several months just 2 b shooor. I am certain about you. So “DAMN IT, TROG! GET A FUCKIN’ CLUE, ALREADY!”
Just don’t address me, and I’ll return the fave. Really, man. I have no respect for you. This isn’t because of your ideas and opinions, it’s because of your character. May the Farce Be With You.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrqJFHGVS10
I hope this ol’ Spidey scheme is passed in Switzerland. A check for $2800/mo for every adult, rich or poor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&smid=tw-share&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1385010867-1HkFXq3qZZZPG03Z1M3vow
It will be the litmus test for pure socialism destined to stir class warfare and ultimately to fail.
Yes, the most advanced country on the planet. Tobor was right despite his mania. There just aren’t enough jobs anymore and robotics is exploding so there are fewer all the time. But don’t get your capitalist undies in a twist: having a job will become even more of an status symbol than it is now. And obviously not every country is going to be able to shell out 2800 per month. Most places will just pay the bare minimum for survival so a LOT of people will still want to work for just the bare luxuries too.
I understand the need for robots. It makes sense for a corporation to use them instead of humans. Unfortunately, that makes it tough for the masses to produce labor and get paid for it. We need to develop a new paradigm of living to compensate for the void or lack of purpose in getting up every day when no longer able to have a paying job. This is one major area in which great change is coming.
Don’t argue with Vlad/Janos/Marge Schott about Racial Purity.
Why?
This biologically ignorant and fictitious character is …..Vlad.
What else needs to be said.
We’ll just see what happens when the Homo’s are down to a couple of thousand and Vlad is SERIOUSLY thinking about snuggling with that Cincinnati Neanderthal Woman on a cold New Jersey night…
Home Schooling?
Because you’ll know you’ll lose.
Marge? The only Marge I know is from the old commercial where she uses dishwashing detergent as a hand softener for her clients. Mild? Oh it’s more than just mild. Schott? Sounds Jewish.
It is now Nov 21, 2013 and I just turned 73 years old. I bring this up since I know UFIA would not want to miss wishing me a Happy Birthday. ;o)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1pXcMw-8Nk
haha!
Fletcher memorial home? (I know, not *quite* thursday)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWyZNGDvW8
The ghost of McCarthy!!! (racist!)
OMG, I think I just played this ‘tubes about 15 times, already, tonite… (I know, sad state of affairs…)
Stop it.
You’re scaring me.
I’m so close.
The ruddy fucks will confiscate my harmonica.
The last musical instrument that I’ll be able to carry around.
There isn’t enough Jello in the world to buy your way out.
you and me – we’re the *same*?!? (falling down)
That whuz srsly *lattice of coincidence* tho…
Don’t “Drive Angry”.
Your rates will go up.
And “They” would know this how?
Sorry – I don’t drive. I do ride a motorcycle about 4 miles every month or two, tho (only because it can haul 120+ lbs [and my current bicycle configuration can only load about 60lbs worth], and because I need to keep the $100 battery fresh as well as the internal explosion machine)… But I’d guess *they* “know,” because of citations?!?
Happy Birthday and have fun wherever you find it.
(Oh, BTW, have you looked into Orlov’s “spell-unspell” program? You’d be interested… perhaps appalled, but interested. 🙂 )
Hey, it’s almost crissmass. Look at the purdy lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_lLhBt8Vg
You do understand that the kids don’t really learn about this until they get into the upper echelons of academic indoctrination.
So, I’ll go Old School.
A single molecule of Plutonium-239.
You know….on top of the Xmas Tree.
Happy Hollidays!
Haha, the US just had to nuke more than all the rest, *combined* (kinda like the size of the US military)!!!
That “thang” started to look like fireworks after about 1949 or so… Bikini Atoll, around 100 megatons there – yet no issues swimming/diving there (the particulate [heavy{tm}] radioactive metal isotopes must have settled into the sand)…
When I started watching this vid, I thought to myself, “Man, this is a totally *stoner* thing to have conceived, *AND* implemented!” All those particulate (heavy[tm]) radioactive metal isotopes in the air did slowly settle back to the surface, contaminating breathing air/drinking water/arable land *REAL-TIME* (buzz for Bill Maher)…
Great comment on the ACA Clusterfuck from Lost My Shorts over at Zerohedge. Great moniker, by the way. The predigested criticisms of the ACA bandied about by dolts on the “Right” are fallacious and imbecilic. These dopes take their talking points from deceitful pundits and don’t think critically and objectively about what they’re repeating. The ACA should be criticized for the piece of shit that it is, but not for what it isn’t and what numbskulls want it so badly to be.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-20/obamacare-shock-one-california-employers-terrifying-true-story#comment-4174615
I am a confused sort of guy today. The California business guy says most of his employees qualify for MediCal (the California version of Medicaid) so why do they need insurance? Is part of Obamacare that employed people must now pay a little bit for their Medicaid, and Medicaid now has a deductible of nearly $7K?
It sounds like the California business guy is now required to pay $3,300 per worker (whose cash comp is just short of $20K) so that is a significant increase in the guy’s employee comp expenses, and he would be normal to complain. But the federal taxpayer must be picking up an even bigger chunk. And before Obamacare, most of his employees (the opt-outs) were probably on MediCal paid for by the California taxpayers. So the net effect seems to be shifting cost from California taxpayers to the employer and federal taxpayers. But too confusing to really understand what is going on there.
Must separate the issues:
1) Obamacare policies are crazy expensive, which reflects our religious devotion to insurance company profits plus the crazy high price of medical care in America. Check. Roger that.
2) How much should an employer of low-wage workers contribute to their medical care, vs. pushing the cost onto California and federal taxpayers via MediCal? This is a familiar issue that comes up with Walmart a lot. Is it really a great thing if the taxpayers subsidize this business by covering the health expenses of his low-wage employees? (Or let no one pay and they are just denied access to healthcare?)
3) These workers all belong to the 47%, yes that 47%, the one the Mittster and all the rest of you can’t stand because they don’t pay taxes. If they now must contribute $1,500 per year to the cost of their healthcare, taking some of the burden off taxpayers, isn’t that what you all want? Doesn’t that reduce their takerness? Even aside from the clusterfrog of Obamacare, average medical expenses for a family would exceed $1,500 per year. Why shouldn’t they pay that?
Just askin. Amid the anti-Obamacare firestorm, there seems to be very little actual clear thinking about the issues of healthcare in America.
Here is an interesting blurb from a stock market related site called Seeking Alpha:
President Obama’s health-insurance fix not such a fix. President Barack Obama might have said that consumers will be allowed to keep canceled health-insurance policies for another year, but at least five states – including New York and Washington – won’t let plans be reinstated, as they believe it would harm their exchanges. Many carriers are also not allowing their customers to extend their old policies, due to time constraints and other obstacles. And firms that do reverse the cancellations could increase premiums.
Can anything get more convoluted and fucked up?? (That is a rhetorical question so no need to answer.)
If you followed my own health insurance tale of woe you may recall that Horizon BCBS informed me in mid-Oct that I was being “disenrolled” from my Medicare Advantage plan. That plan, they said, was effectively being terminated. Once the smelling salts kicked in and I was able to pursue a line of questioning I learned that in reality the plan wasn’t being terminated so much as its cost to me, should I wish to continue with this coverage, would be rising by an infinite percent, namely from zero to $153.70 per month.
That news resulted in me going to a sort of Horizon BCBS open house held at a hotel on Oct 11 where I chose a completely different insurance arrangement. Namely Medicare plus a Supplemental (i.e. Medigap) plan plus drug coverage from a different insurance company. This will cost me in total about $170 per month…worse even than the $153.70 but the coverage is significantly better.
At that point the failures of Obamacare were reaching a political boiling point. Key among the complaints was that Obama had previously stated that insured people would be able to keep their insurance with no changes. But all of a sudden people were learning that their insurance was being cancelled and they had to shop for a new arrangement. To quell the uproar the President then appeared on TV (on Nov 13, I believe) apologized to the nation and said he would see to it that “consumers will be allowed to keep canceled health-insurance policies for another year.”
Wow, I thought, does this mean I can now cancel that new arrangement I just made two days earlier and revert back to my Medicare Advantage plan with the zero premium?
Well, no, you poor delusional fool, of course not. I called the Horizon sales rep and asked if Obama’s about face meant that I could get back my zero premium plan. No, he said, the extension of people’s existing insurance plans for an additional year did NOT include any Medicare related plans. Nor are plans being reinstated in 5 states, nor are many carriers allowing their customers to extend their old policies.
Have you ever seen anything so FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)? No need to answer.
“Can anything get more convoluted and fucked up?? (That is a rhetorical question so no need to answer.)”
Ahahaha!!! OMG, yes – many things are much more fuxored – take Mother Earth (ack! *heathen*), for example (and you should have used “?!?” instead of “??”, for more emphasis on “?”).
Liek I said last week, the only peepz I know with health insurance *cancelled* due to ObamaCare, were those on medicare with supplemental plans. Now how in *GHAD’S GREEN EARTH* could a supplemental plan to medicare be *substandard* – yet that’s all you hear in lame-stream media – cancelled plans are *SUBSTANDARD,* (PERIOD). (redundant period there)
And apparently the 100,000 I claimed signed up for ObamaCare that were already on medicare (fortitude!) – well, the figure is apparently only 50,000 (GO FIGURE!). That hardly seems to deal with the 50,000,000 uninsured (ain’t it already 80,000,000 uninsured?!?). I’m thinking us poor uninsured folk gunna *LOVE* this year’s *additional* IRS TAX of $2-3k (you *know* the govt/ins companies eating this SH! up!!!)…
Oh *wait* – that flunky Canadian website developer that did ObamaCare claimed they needed *5 more* years to get it into shape (that, after Canada *FIRED* them). That is the state of no bid/cost plus contracting. I can tell you from personal experience – any software project that requires more than 6 months using simple WEB widgets is a total *SCAM*. Hell, any software project requiring more than 5 quarters (1.25 years) is based on incompetent coders. Yet, that’s wut we *GOTZ* w/ ObamaCare/./
“Have you ever seen anything so FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)?”
Haha, I know that acronym – didn’t it come from mil spec?!…
Happy birthday, Q.
A day before November 22nd, huh? So you just turned 23 when JFK got his. Somehow I can’t picture you as a 23 year old.
“And is it that I don’t know what your talking about? Or is it that I simply get on you’re nerves because I don’t engage the ideas you raise? Is it my typing that’s atrocious, my mind, or both?” ….ufia….
Your typing isn’t that bad, so your mind must be atrocious – in the binary choice that you give me here.
And your affectations to specialness are visible in many of your ‘graphs.
To UFIA: No, I wasn’t drinking. Sometimes I spazz out by touching the wrong key. I love my iPad, but typing accurately on it is problematic, and also sometimes I don’t get this blog’s new reply system. NBD (no big deal).
I know U and Q aren’t the heavy drinkers, liek I am. I think you should stop this UFIA flame thread – it’s rediculous, nonsensical, and *pointless*…
“you’re sounding optimistic like me…” …btb, paraphrased….
Yeah, bill, I’m actually an optimist in real life – maybe that’s why I like occasional strong doses of pessimism, like from CFN, for example.
And Happy Birthday, Q.
“So you just turned 23 when JFK got his.” – Bean
============
Correct. And as everyone who lived through that era will tell you, I remember vividly where I was and what I was doing. I was a 1st Lt, Accounting and Finance Officer at Duluth AFB, Minn. I was in the Cashier’s Cage relieving a civilian employee during her one hour lunch. Word spread that the president had been shot. I locked the Cage and went back to my office where my second in command, a civilian named Jerry Bjeirkness (Sp?), sat stunned with the radio on, a sick look on his face and tears running down his cheeks,
Coincidentally, it was only a month or two before that JFK flew into Duluth AFB, which doubled as the local airport, and did a small motorcade along a chain link fence before heading downtown for unknown political purposes. Most of the Air Base military and civilian people were given a half hour off to line the fence as the president walked past. Except for the fence I could have reached out and touched him.
I was about to take a chemistry mid-term when we got the news. The damned college wouldn’t cancel classes that day, so I had to take the test in a total state of shock. As a group, Bostonians took the news harder than most because he was a Boston boy. JFK had gotten my Mother a temporary Christmas job with the government, which ultimately led to a career in the DOD.
The grief was real because we were a real Nation then. Now half the people wouldn’t give a damn and most of the rest would just worry about what it meant. Real grief would be limited to the various Presidential Cultists and Groupies.
Happy Birthday, when are yah leavin’?
Is it the media’s job to reveal the truth or obscure the truth? ‘Polar Bear Hunting’ is finally getting notice after Thomas Sowell’s column in the NYPost Monday, but the central fact of it, young blacks laying out white and asian men and women with one surprise punch to the head, sometimes killing them but always causing severe injury, on the streets of cities across the US, and filming it for YouTube, is being obfuscated. How much can whitey take?
Last nite on Capen Street in Hartford, at 2am, a group of ‘Youths’ beat and stabbed a man nearly to death and left him laying on the street to die. This was in the middle of the night on a Wednesday, in our Capital City, near where romantic poet Ann Signourey lived in the 19th century. I wish I could bring some of these people back from that time — Sigourney, Law Olmsted, Mark Train, Louise Marie Alcott — and say “Look, look what became of your beloved city”.
Last week there was a rolling shootout on Maple Avenue in Hartford, dozens of shots fired from cars and sidewalks. Well, nothing unusual about that. What is discouraging is that the action occurred in the South End, the Italian Section, thought to be the last civilized neighborhood in the city. No more. Every gunfighter, the corrections officer, the police, the dealers and gangbangers involved, were Hispanic. Turns out the Italians, no longer able to tolerate the wonderful ‘diversity’ swirling around them, have moved on, tired of their cars being stolen, houses being broken into, tired of being robbed on the streets and not being able to use the public schools and parks, and the general chaos and decay in the old neighborhood.
These cities are done for. Best to stay out of them. Even without energy depletion the future isn’t looking to good for them hometeam.
–BRH
I just remembered, there is one white section left in Hartford. Its in the west end, around Trinity College, near where Fredrick Law Olmsted lived as a boy. This is where the homosexuals with big jobs in State Government live, public sector union bosses, the governors staff and chiefs of staff of senators, and top welfare administrators. You always read about them on the society page, attending one AIDS fundraiser or another. Believe me, this area is well protected by the police and private security. These are highly important individuals.
–BRH
From what I’ve seen (white) women are being targeted (in DC) as well as men. And Thomas Sowell says in NYC they are identifying and singling out Jewish kids on their way to school for these attacks, pounding them right on the street and filming it amidst laughter and curses. Where’s Holder on this, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Obama? Anybody know?
–BRH
Heh, or [cry] – you starting to sound a lot liek pucker (ufia/k-dog?!?)…
Don’t even accuse me of posting under another alias. I am a real person and not employed by the FBI or TSA or any other government agency or employed by any private entity under contract to the government or anyone else. I am a private citizen here on my own time without pay expressing my personal opinions and contributing my personal knowledge if the spirit so moves me. I am here for no other reason. This week the spirit isn’t moving me to dance with trolls but you just forced the issue.
My association with JHK is no more than that we both belong to a small group of like minds who have a genuine interest in seeing the human experiment continue into the future and recognize that if society continues to behave as it is without making new living arrangements the future will be a bleak and terrible nightmare. we are not gloom and doomers but responsible concerned citizens who want a better path to the future than that which is being forced on society now.
I have no association with the phony racial bullshit propagated by government employed trolls who live here in order to prevent rational dialogue about our nation and the world future and drive viewers away. I have no association with lies or misdirection and genuinely seek truth.
Trolls are here and employed by forces who desire to prevent social change, adaptation or evolution because these forces hugely benefit from the current social clusterfuck and have a vested interest in plundering the planet and the American people.
May they all fuck off.
dOOd!!! haha, I said *SOUND LIEK* – but I often *wonder*…
BTW, when you poasting a new blog entry?!? (ducks!!!)
Leaving one to wonder is part of the infection trolls want to pass on.
Busy right now teaching myself about TDD (Test Driven Development) I need a job and am salvaging my skills. I made a good comment here last night: The Archdruid Report.
The psychology of social denial around issues concerning the collapse of society is a big piece of the puzzle that needs to be found and understood. Human behavior and the way we think is turning out to be as important as the oil that isn’t in the ground or the thickness of the Arctic ice that is quickly vanishing. My next blog post will be something along those lines. Perhaps I’ll delve into the facts and attitudes concerning Near Term Human Extinction and why extreme denial of it or extreme acceptance of it seems to be the only two options peoples minds are wanting to grab on to. I’m thinking both of the extremes keep people from getting off their comfortable asses and a more realistic middle rational approach would mean the acceptance of having to make alternative living arrangements and do real work in that direction.
K-dog,
That says it for me too. Thanks.
(Off to Archie’s place; see yez ’round the square…)
White Americans are waking up to mob violence against them by Blacks. The media can’t hide it anymore. Nothing phony about that, Dawg.
You *DRAFT DODGER*!!! Where’d you go – to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya – or *SAUDI ARABIA*!!! (I know, all those 9/11 terrorists were from SAUDI ARABIA – so *why not*?!?)
(Breaking News) Senate adopts new rules on *gerrymandering* [guffaw!] Hahaha, really – filibuster?!?
[Yawn] These congressmen are the only reason I can get NE sleep – I just tune into CNN/MSNBC/FOX and the *snewz* is “ON”. There’s a reason their approval rating is almost sub-10%…
“Happy Birthday, when are yah leavin’?” – Janos
=============
Leavin’?
Wadda ya mean? “This mortal coil?”
Well, I’m pretty healthy but there is a strong propensity for males in my blood line to die at 75. My father and both grandfathers were 75. And even though it’s not blood line my father-in-law died at 75. My brother, however, is 76.5 and going strong.
76.5? FM? Wtf? (nice *font*) Does he poast here, and under whut alias?
I know, that curse of uncertain *certitude*. Just stock up on quality food and water, and you should weather the *storm* of life just fine…
Consider getting mummified instead of buried or cremated. Your body could be placed in the pyramid you built and your family could come and spend time with “you”.
“I know U and Q aren’t the heavy drinkers, liek I am. I think you should stop this UFIA flame thread – it’s rediculous, nonsensical, and *pointless*…
Not for nothing, but you seem to be suggesting that I’m the one who instigated the types of exchanges you’ve rightly pointed out as being useless. Well I did not. I did get a little ridiculous with the facetious, snarky replies, however. Chalk that up to fatigue from studyin’ for a final and writing several assignments.
Also, what’s with the insinuations of me being some sort of CIA agent? If I were an agent, I’da been fired a long time ago for wasting my salarly campin’ out in a forum which poses no threat to the established order WHATSOEVER.
But I guess that doesn’t say much to clear my name, because the gubbamint surely doesn’t shy away from blowin’ money on stupid shit anyhow.
Oh, well… the test starts at 4:30, then after that Turkey Day Break all next week… Woo Hooo! ANd XBOX ONE drops tonight. Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield 4 here we come. By the way, K-Dawg… you play FPS online?
-UFIA
OMG – hahaha!!! Well *thx u very much*!!! Apparently, you still reading last weeks poasts?!… Now *who* would do that, other than a $6-fig-salaried-govt-stalka?!?
I played FPS ever since doom2 multiplayer (’92?) Quake (1/2/3) was teh penultimate FPS – unfortunately a bunch of rip-offs with sub-standard engines came afterwards, which swamped the genre…
Doom! Wow…my parents gave me an old SNES when I was younger and Doom was one of the first FPSs my friends and I played. Just a year or so later I became a Halo: Combat Evolved fan and had to collect all the series goodies. Had to steal the original xbox from a drug dealer, too. Oops!
Anyhow, I musta just read too much from the previous coupla days posts. I think Janos accused me of acquiring dossiers on folks. Wow. I’m not sure how any of the material I could have collected would be useful in thwarting some sort of activism…. hmmm… have ta thunk on that 1 fer a bit.
Oh, Quake… I think that’s fairly similar to Halo. Never played. Gonna have to check it out.
Bill: Mars is important because we need to learn how to terraform other planets. It is unlikely we’ll ever find one that suits us perfectly as is. I don’t think we can pollute Space – it being so vast. The word only has meaning in the context of an ecosystem. But obviously we could ruin other ecosystems on other worlds. A moral dilemma since terraforming would tend to do just that.
http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/blogterraformingmars
Not that those with their hands on the levers of power ever respected a ‘contract’ that didn’t benefit them, specifically……
“Publicly, U.S. representatives say they’re open to [a United Nations] affirmation of privacy rights. “The United States takes very seriously our international legal obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Kurtis Cooper, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in an email. “We have been actively and constructively negotiating to ensure that the resolution promotes human rights and is consistent with those obligations.”
But privately, American diplomats are pushing hard to kill a provision of the Brazilian and German draft which states that “extraterritorial surveillance” and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata may constitute a violation of human rights. The United States and its allies, according to diplomats, outside observers, and documents, contend that the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to foreign espionage. ”
What kind of pressures might it take to wipe out blogs such as this that sneer at the ethereal notions of paper promises bound to future growth representing real capital? Where is the tipping point that explicitly indicates to the public that their leaders have no respect for ‘contracts’, so why should they respect those that the government has shackled them with? What proportion of hungry, homeless and hopeless will it take?
“NY Times” – — The National Security Agency is authorized to spy on the citizens of America’s closest allies, including Britain, even though those English-speaking countries have long had an official non-spying pact, according to a newly disclosed memorandum.
The classified N.S.A. document, which appears to be a draft and is dated January 2005, states that under specific circumstances, the American intelligence agency may spy on citizens of Britain without that country’s consent or knowledge. The memo, provided by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, is labeled secret and “NOFORN,” indicating that it may not be shared with any foreign country.
Look, even a proven propaganda organ like the NYT wants to pretend to have some distance from this nastiness.
……..So, you tell me, can there be any kind of ‘alliance’ or ‘international accord’ without trust? (Sure, you can bring that right down to the local level and ask the exact same question.) Be assured, trust is hard-won and easily lost.
From your NY Times article.
“One paragraph, marked secret, appears to suggest that the preferred option is to gain permission from the country whose citizens are to be spied upon.”
And the article ends with: “But in the next two sentences, the memo asserts that the countries “reserved the right” to spy on each other “when it is in the best interest of each nation.”
I’m sure full permission has been granted to spy on K-Dog as a result of recent comments I have made at the Guardian (under my real name). Permission was probably given months ago. I’ve been growling there for a while. The fact is I know so from watching my own tracking balls on my own web pages and observing the Canadian web hits.
And why I’m here I’ll respond to the question that was asked a few comments up:
“By the way, K-Dawg… you play FPS online?”
I’m curious why you would ask this Asoka since you already know everything I do online and already know if I do or not. If the question is an attempt to intimidate and manipulate me because surveillance of my personal email and telephone clearly shows I will be meeting someone on the Microsoft Campus today at the ‘X-Box’ building, (a building not identified by its official designation) I have a question of you.
Why would you expect that reminding someone that they are under up close and real time surveillance and have been for over a year be intimidating to them? Eleven months ago the decision was made to let K-Dog know he was being monitored up close and personal. You know this and at the time it did freak me out as was expected and intended yes. Gang stalking will do that. But as Bart Simpson would say “That was then and this is now man”. Now months later I’ve adjusted to all the little fuckifications you boys throw my way and try to the best of my ability to ignore them and get on with my life. Chase your own damn balls. Why would letting me know that you know where I am going to be today by asking a random question about First Person Shooter be intimidating to me. I don’t care if my ‘true’ identity becomes known.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh this what you wanted to know! Do I care! I’ve answered my own question and you have your answer.
Gentile readers:
K-Dawg instead of K-Dog refers to ‘Dawgs’ which describes the University of Washington Huskies. Husky Stadium on the campus of the University of Washington is about twelve miles Northwest of my own doghouse where I now type this.
As the question was to see how I’d react and not to simply further terrorise me then ask yourself this question. Has K-Dog figured out why we would ask him this question to see how he’d react and if so, why would he respond as he has? What does it all mean?
Back at you dude. But hey, don’t be in a hurry. I’m not playing your game today and I might not play tomorrow either.
But you have a nice day Asoka.
‘And why I’m here’ should be ‘And while I’m here’
I think that is called a Freudian slip.
Regarding this fateful day in history, Mr. Roberts says:
“I never cease to be amazed by the gullibility of Americans, who know nothing about either event, but who confidently dismiss the factual evidence provided by experts and historians on the basis of their naive belief that “the government wouldn’t lie about such important events” or “someone would have talked.” What good would it do if someone talked when the gullible won’t believe hard evidence?”
I would say that, at the root, this is a trust issue and denial keeps that trust in place (however shakily).
(“Either event” would be the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers.)
Like most people of my generation I can still remember the day of Kennedy’s assassination as if it were yesterday
For all that time I have wondered about those events,and the killing of Bobby Kennedy too
I have come rather reluctantly to the view…I know it’s held by ,many…that the murders of the 2 Kennedy’ mrn was all pat of a klind of slow coup d’etat planned and carried out by the CIA and US Military who I think ….after the missile crisis over Cuban…felt that Kennedy might seek a reaprochment with the USSR and give up on Vietnam…and then move to end the domi ance of the Military-Industrial coimplex of which Eishenhour had warned a little while before he came to power
The plotters got what they wanted…a commitment to the war in Vietnam by Johnson…ironically the war would be lost and would destroy Johnson..and signal the beginning the downfall of the American Empire which today’s stands in great trouble…and has jn never been able to “win” any conflict…Iraq/Af’stan/ where ever …In fact the US military machine built at vast cost in money and lives hasn’t really won a war since 1945(and that with the help of a coalition of allies notably the Russians
So the ruin of the US Empire which now seems on course,was what Kennedy saw as likely and they killed him for that reason…
perhaps one day the truth will out…but that’s how I see it
Another viewpoint on the matter by Roger Stone, directly accusing LBJ (and friends) of getting ‘the job’ done:
http://stonezone.com/
Compelling evidence. Although circumstantial, it’s damningly circumstantial. Means, motive and opportunity.
More on the Kennedy murder conspiracy
…
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/kennedy-conspiracy-theories-go-mainstream.html
JFK was all over the place intellectually. He had become aware of the Federal Reserve scam and intended to do something about it. That’s one reason he might have died. At the same time, he also was a One Worlder who wanted to disarm the United States in favor of the United Nations – another reason he might have had to go.
Like his Dad he also though Hitler was a great man. But he didn’t make a big deal about it. As his Father said, the Jews won the War and you have to work with these people.
“Gentile readers:” – K-Dog
============
Why are the last several paragraphs of your post addressed to only non-Jewish (i.e. Gentile) readers?
uh, um, wait a minute… I just got it… you meant gentle as in non-aggressive……..neh verrr mind.
Right as rain. Spell check didn’t catch it naturally. I suffer from phonetic impulses. But Dmitry Orlov wants to make it better for everybody as you know.
Don’t you ever go home? Never mind, you are at home right.
I’m also am grated by:
‘this what you wanted to know’ which could be ‘this is what you wanted to know’, but then again the first form has a colloquial feel even if the grammar is not quite proper.
Since I use a bit of HTML here and there I have other ways to go out in the weeds too. Usually I see something that always makes me regret hitting *SUBMIT* too soon. It’s uncanny how errors can instantly glare at your as soon as a comment posts but stare at the edit box for minutes after finishing a comment and at least one mistake always seems to slip by.
Everyone on Clusterfuck is an Agent now. All of us are assigned to Kdog’s case.
You may be an Agent too. Can you prove that you are not? I think you are assigned to your own case!
Vlad you should be proud! I caught a few minutes of the JFK 50th memorial on the tube. The US Naval Academy Glee Club sang a few tunes. Talk about white bread, It looks like all our future leaders will be on the pale side. White boys can sing.
They’re probably all gay. But as a PC Libertarian Muscle Head that’s Ok. You like Gays. You are superior to other Muscle Heads.
When Martin Luther King watched the clip of Jackie Onasis bending over the body of JFK at the Wake, he chortled, it looks like she’s blowing him. Such a nice man! You Liberals deserve such a god.
“it looks like she’s blowing him”
…. mlk in reference to Jackie K, according to janos…..
I call bullshit on this one, vlad. Even if you provide a source, it’s going to be based to conjecture and innuendo.
FBI surveillance tapes of MLK should be released in 2027. There will doubtless be some bad things revealed, unless redacted.
Until then, then – a post like this one only gives K and UFIA (and many others) reason to disparage any real truth you might otherwise provide, here.
Nope they have him on tape. He was a sex addict remember. Surely you don’t dispute that?
Everything you’ve been told is a Lie. This should pique your interest if it can be piqued on this subject. Your god had feet of clay and a heart of lead.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63078.html
“I have no association with the phony racial bullshit propagated by government employed trolls who live here in order to prevent rational dialogue about our nation and the world future and drive viewers away. I have no association with lies or misdirection and genuinely seek truth.
Trolls are here and employed by forces who desire to prevent social change, adaptation or evolution because these forces hugely benefit from the current social clusterfuck and have a vested interest in plundering the planet and the American people.”
….k-com….
Look, K, you appear to be losing it, when you call UFIA a govt. troll, since he seems to be more on your side than, for example, Janos.
And I don’t see how Janos can be a troll, when there appear to be hundreds like him on AmRen and other websites – posting about race in America as they see fit, for FREE, and without being on anyone’s payroll.
Are you calling Back Row Hecker a race-based govt. troll? Simply because he posts about the Knock-out game. That’s bizarre.
Thomas Sowell, again, has something to say:
“Responsible people of all races need to support a crackdown on these attacks, which can provoke a white backlash that can escalate into a race war. But political expediency leads in the opposite direction.
What is politically expedient is to do what Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is doing — launching campaigns against schools that discipline a “disproportionate” number of black male students.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/21/sowell-a-very-dangerous-game/
And, let’s all remember that Sowell is a well-known African-American journalist and commentator.
“My association with JHK is no more than that we both belong to a small group of like minds who have a genuine interest in seeing the human experiment continue into the future and recognize that if society continues to behave as it is without making new living arrangements the future will be a bleak and terrible nightmare. we are not gloom and doomers but responsible concerned citizens who want a better path to the future than that which is being forced on society now.” …k….
Nice words, K. And if you’ve got some ideas for saving humanity from a terrible future – you need to float them out there pronto. Please.
I expect most rational people would ignore or overlook , for example, Janos’ disparagement of MLK’s sexual peccadilloes – to read such words – when expressed on CFN.
I know I would.
Why should it be overlooked if it happened? We have to learn to love the Truth for the sake of Truth no matter if we like it or not. Otherwise you start thinking like a Muslim: they don’t dispute Mohammad’s sexual weirdness – they are simply outraged that you mention it. It’s “disrespectful”.
And I’ve got an idea to save the CFN comment thread from a terrible future of being hard to use and follow.
STOP THE GOOFY AUTOMATIC PAGINATION OF THE THREAD.
AND STOP THE CONVOLUTED LINKING OF COMMENTS.
Pretty please, JHK? It would really help a lot.
One thing that is probably going to be forced on American society is excessive population growth, due to immigration.
Growth (of all sorts) needs to slow down, otherwise we’re doomed.
Reduction of population growth INSIDE the United States seems a very good place to start.
Anyone want me to suggest a good website?
OK.
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/
Reduction of population? Start here: http://www.amren.com/news/2013/11/student-14-used-tree-branch-to-rape-teacher-in-school-bathroom-before-slitting-her-throat-and-leaving-a-note-saying-i-hate-you-all-next-to-her-staged-body/
He was a “good boy” with a great attitude. Too bad Massachusetts has no death penalty to bring justice for the beautiful young women he slaughtered and threw in the garbarge.
Yeah – Janos, hideous rape and murder.
IMO, it’s better to post from a far-left news organization, on a forum like CFN. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/11/22/colleen_ritzer_murder_14_year_old_philip_d_chism_charged_with_murder_rape.html And may this innocent young teacher rest in peace. And may the killer rot in Hell.
As far as your citing of AmRen – we’ve discussed this before. AmRen is going to have to clean up their comments. Comments to the article you link make numerous unacceptable racial references, “Zulus,” and “‘groids,” among them.
================
And as regards MLK saying that Jackie was “blowing” JFK’s recently deceased body – you can’t give a reference, so I’d suggest dropping the subject.
It’s war Prog. Hatred is natural. Except for Heroes like Ali or Arjuna, men cannot fight without hatred. Would you leave us defenseless?
The strengths of Christianity you will have nothing to do with. The bad parts like this, you cling to. Are you a Monk? Above the World? No. So embrace the whole of life and hatred is part of that. You don’t think they hate us? And I mean both the Elite and their Apelike Pets.
I will look for the information you have requested.
All this stuff about blowing dead JFK is bullshit. Many years ago I remember reading the same story, except the perpetrator was LBJ. Will people elieve anything? Or do the originators of such sick stories have an agenda?
So, on a lighter note. I just pulled the Brussel sprouts and picked the last of the apples. Sprouts are super sweet, cooked and vacuumed, and the apples are on deck for the dehydrator. I can vacuum pack 10 lbs. of apples down to 1 lb. and they keep for years. Don’t come knockin’ I only share with neighbors!
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16940-australia-rejects-un-socialism-masquerading-as-environmentalism
Australia tells the Corporate Socialists of the “International Global Warming Community” to go to Hell. It’s warm so they should like it.
To K-dog re an earlier post:
Are you saying Asoka has transformed himself from a 70 year old black man to a twenty-something graduate student?
Pointing out that both ‘Had to steal the original xbox from a drug dealer‘ would be as useless as pointing out my computers don’t have web-cams. Or pointing out that 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC is in Zip Code 20535 and ‘ Langley’, Virginia is in Zip Code 23665 would make sense to few. Not many these days remember what COINTELPRO was or apparently care.
[And why I’m here I’ll respond to the question that was asked a few comments up:
“By the way, K-Dawg… you play FPS online?”
I’m curious why you would ask this Asoka since you already know everything I do online and already know if I do or not. If the question is an attempt to intimidate and manipulate me because surveillance of my personal email and telephone clearly shows I will be meeting someone on the Microsoft Campus today at the ‘X-Box’ building, (a building not identified by its official designation) I have a question of you.
Why would you expect that reminding someone that they are under up close and real time surveillance and have been for over a year be intimidating to them? Eleven months ago the decision was made to let K-Dog know he was being monitored up close and personal. You know this and at the time it did freak me out as was expected and intended yes. Gang stalking will do that. But as Bart Simpson would say “That was then and this is now man”. Now months later I’ve adjusted to all the little fuckifications you boys throw my way and try to the best of my ability to ignore them and get on with my life. Chase your own damn balls. Why would letting me know that you know where I am going to be today by asking a random question about First Person Shooter be intimidating to me. I don’t care if my ‘true’ identity becomes known.”] The dawg
Whoa, Kevin. Be easy man. The only reason I asked If you played online is because I thought I might give you my gamertag and invite you to a Halo or BF4 match. You seem younger than any of the others here, so I thought…. well, fuck it anyway.
My friend bought an XBOX ONE and we picked it up last night at a midnight release from a GameStop in our hometown. Seriously dude, *your* throwin’ a whole bunch of shit against the wall and seeing a Last Supper Davinchi Code that just isn’t there. Lay off the media, man. Sometimes random coincidences are just that. You’re intimidating the hell out of yourself, and I’m sorry If you were in anyway made to feel uncomfortable.
P.S. you make the funniest faces when you’re jackin’ off in front of your laptop. We here at Langley use these images as screensavers ’round the office, just for shits and giggles(Didn’t Asoka use this line one time?). Put a little piece of black tape over the webcam lens next time. And keep more than one Kleenex handy for all that….ahem… ectoplasm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWCAvmZBcw
Good luck with the spooky ghost who’s haunting ya :>O
-GOOFIA
Because I said ‘chase your own damn balls’ it now appears government peeping toms have decided not to throw their balls but to play with them instead.
I’d have to have a laptop with a web-cam if I did what you say and any ectoplasm needing to be cleaned up would be on your side of the screen. And it would be cleaned up not with Kleenex but with a copy of theThe Bill Of Rights. A copy being needed because the original has been ripped in half.
“Because I said ‘chase your own damn balls’ it now appears government peeping toms have decided not to throw their balls but to play with them instead.”
It’s not just the government disinformation agents who do that. Rutgers University and Iowa State University do as well. ISU actually offers a class on “The Mathematics of Juggling.” Watch the videos at the link.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/11/educational-fun-with-balls.html
I enjoyed both of the video clips. Thank you for helping to redirect the blog from a totally inappropriate misdirection. It is presumptuous of me to speak for JHK but I suspect he’d also be pleased you grabbed the ball and picked it out of the gutter.
Thank you for stopping by and watching. Glad you enjoyed the videos. I can’t be all DOOM all the time, even here.
Re Deblonay’s post.
They say that Kennedy was “loved”. No doubt. But as an uppity Irish Catholic who obviously didn’t know his place, he was also despised. But to the point where his political opponents would want him dead? And then actually do it?
There’s a question in this whole assassination thing: what was Oswald’s motive? I heard that Oswald also likely took a shot at a US general. Luckily for the intended target, he missed. So maybe he was just a disturbed young man looking for a place in history. A nobody with a gun.
Or maybe, as Oswald himself said, he was a patsy. Maybe he was a very conveniently disturbed young man who came to the attention of whoever was looking to get rid of Kennedy. Jack Ruby supposedly said that if you knew the truth, you’d be amazed. What did he mean by this?
If this was a coup you have to admit it was done in spectacular fashion, in a wide open space, in front of thousands of people, with the press in attendance.
Apparently, nothing discrete would suffice, no surreptitious poisoning, no private demise, no mournful announcement that the president tragically passed away during the night. No claim that it was a natural death, a sad result of the president’s chronic health issues.
Nope, it had to be a murder in full view, blood and brains everywhere. Was it meant to send a message? If so, I’ll bet the intended recipients got it loud and clear. And then, as if to tidy things up, another rub-out, this time of the alleged assassin, again in front of the cameras. Nope, no jail-cell “suicide” for Oswald. And then Jack Ruby, most advantageously, dies of an embolism. Two of the possible story-tellers, possibly the loosest of the loose cannons, silenced.
And then, as if in a demonstration of the conspirators’ power, a mess of a police investigation followed by a half-assed commission of inquiry. Or should I say white-wash?
If this was a coup, who would have the balls? They must have thought that they were untouchable (maybe because of their positions of authority), that no investigation would come close to them, that everyone involved would keep their traps shut, that anyone with even tangential knowledge would stay quiet if for no other reason than they could face dire consequences, not least from the conspirators themselves.
And so the facts and the truth would remain under wraps forever. People have been asking questions for fifty years and what have we got to show for it? Maybe, if there was really a plot, the plotters got it right.
On NPR coverage of 50th anniversary of JFK murder, they kept referring to Dallas in 1963 as a right wing bastion. But I thought Oswald was a communist, like obama mentors Frank Marshall and Bill Ayers. Maybe i was wrong all these years, I don’t know. Also, at the time Texas was dominated totally by Democrats, which wasn’t mentioned. They did end the feature on a hopeful note, however, reporting that Dallas is now “minority-majority” and the police chief is a lesbian. All is well, evidently. Thank god! NPR, you can’t beat it.
The Governors stringent Gun Control measures are paying off, even as I type this. Last week a dude was stabbed many times on Capen St. and left for dead. Not to be outdone, and respecting the ‘toughest gun control laws in the US’, just 2 nites ago the captain of the Bloomfield HS football stabbed his lover to death, a dude named Ed. Once again, you really had to search hard for a description of the assailant. Here’s how it works: the only time a suspects race is identified is if he’s white. Other than that no way. Well, at least Ed wasn’t shot. that would’ve been really bad.
–BRH
Hey Marlin, I never caught that Bloomfield story. Conn. is catching up with Ma. on gun control. Sh## a coupla year ago I could go into Cabela’s and buy ammo. After Newtown not so much. Good or bad? I don’t know. We are losing our rights bit by bit. A very minority of as####s and we all look bad.
There’s no way Oswald shot JFK. It was a professional hit if ever there was one. Who and what we will never know, but the Oswald angle makes no sense and too much evidence contravenes the theory of him as the Lone Assassin or an assassin at all. It really doesn’t matter any longer. What’s done is done, and things have moved well along since then. There’s no going back. Only forward. Sure, mistakes will be repeated because we rarely, if ever, learn from history, but those mistakes are not repeated in exactly the same way because the context can never be identical, so it’s a repeating of mistakes only in the broadest and most general interpretation of that assertion. Here’s a rebuttal to the latest farce from National Geographic, Killing Kennedy. It’s called Killing Oswald. Clever and jabbing title. I couldn’t get myself to watch Killing Kennedy because I can’t stand Rob Lowe. He’s as bad as Peter Strauss as Rudy Jordache of Rich Man Poor Man fame. Pretty boy who doesn’t like his hair to get mussed up.
http://www.killingoswald.com/
Widok how could something like that be covered up for 50 years? Even in a conspiracy of 2 people one of them is going to talk sooner or later, probably sooner. Now McKinley, that might have been an uncovered conspiracy. Czolgoz was an anarchist at a time when anarchists were assassinating pols all over the world.
Hey RipThunder that happened 2 nights ago. Really pretty tragic, in that the kid who did the stabbing was only 17, and the dude who got stabbed was 27, most likely a homo predator.
–BRH
When Whitey Bulger was on the run, do you think he used to get drunk and tell people he was Whitey Bulger? No, that’s what a common criminal would do. He was above that level. He used to read books and sample the finer things of life even when he was an up and comer. Apparently it was very amusing for his fellow Irish and Italian thugs – but fully developed it gave him the ability to walk away and create a new identity. Common Criminals can’t do that because they have no other interests. They invariably drift back to what they know and like. Don’t believe the police shows – people get away all the time and never get caught if they are smart enough. Now translate this to the conspiracy theory and double it. When people talk about not being able to keep a secret they are talking about themselves – or even underestimating themselves. Secrets are kept by people capable of keeping them.
I’ve made the argument, (not on here) that the old mob, run by white men, was signifantly better than this bunch of nappy headed jerks whith their caps on backwards, and their shirts and shorts too big. They look like babbies who dressed themselves in the dark. The batos are little better if any.
Hollywood has hidden the number of Jewish Mobsters for obvious reasons. It’s not so big now since the have gone to bigger scams like Wall St, the Supreme Court and Hollywood. Proof? Here’s my proof!
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/francesca-eastwood-clint-eastwoods-daughter-marries-jonah-hills-223000893-us-weekly.html
BRH, it depends on who or what perpetrated it, but I don’t think it would be all that difficult to keep the lid on it. IN fact, it hasn’t been. Containment is key, I suspect. Meaning, each person plays a small part and has no idea what they’re taking part in. In otherwords, they’re never given the larger picture. Sure, they may figure it out after the fact and think to themselves that they’ve been duped, but after they’ve seen what they’ve taken part in unwittingly, two things would keep them from being a threat. One, they realize that the same process they took part in unwittingly could be used against them if need be. That’s enough of a deterrent for most but certainly not all who played their part. Two, for the small minority that doesn’t keep it zipped, they’ll be smeared as kooks and their careers, if they still have one, will be ruined. Three (I know, I said two originally but now it’s three and counting), for the very small handful for which one and two proves ineffective, there’s death by whatever means necessary.
Considering the above, if I was involved at the highest planning levels and wanted to keep the truth from ever seeing the light of day, I would create a permanent fog around the issue, and that would entail creating controlled, misdirectional conspiracy theories that would lead suspicious researchers down rabbit holes and prevent any large-scale inquiries because people will fear being labeled conspiracy theorists, so they’ll just go with the establishment flow, and that flow right now has taken a strong swing back to Oswald being the Lone Gunman. For a while there, the conspiracy theories were making some headway in altering public opinion, but the momentum has swung the other way, and JFK assassination conspiracy theories aren’t getting any airtime on cable any longer. Instead, we have the Killing Kennedy crap.
But, like I said, who really gives a shit? I don’t. It’s intriguing from an unsolved mystery perspective, but it’s not like it matters even if someone did stumble on the truth either serendipitously or through crackerjack research. A million realities have been crafted and rolled out since. The truth of the JFK assassination can no longer set anyone free if it ever could have, which is doubtful.
Well written, Widok. You make a good case.
–BRH
The freedom from the illusion that government institutions are [currently] in the business of providing honest and helpful dispersion of tax-payer ‘contributions’ (rather than a exercise in self-perpetuation for its’ own sake) is liberating one.
So, nothing to see here; more along?
There’s plenty to see for those who might wish to dispel the vapors through critical comparison in the usage of ‘da fax’.
http://fff.org/2013/11/22/speaking-the-unspeakable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=speaking-the-unspeakable
If you don’t give a shit on such a gargantuan issue of trust between a government and its’ (admittedly apathetic) citizenry, that’s certainly your business, but I contend that it is exactly this issue that is the root of this desperate escapism and ubiquitous apathy.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“MOVE” along. (Kee-riced on a cracker!)
“…and Hollywood. Proof? Here’s my proof!” – Janos
==========
How in the hell does THIS prove anything?
And BTW, If Jonah Hill and Jordan Feldstein are brothers (it doesn’t say half-brothers) why do they have different last names? Did one of them legally change his name?
Did you see that guy? He’s a walk in character actor for Horror Inc. Why is a beautiful young thing like Eastwood’s daughter marrying little Lurch? Answer: green paper what the Sioux call frog skin. It’s power round these here parts. But noooooo, as a good little goy you don’t BELIEVE that they control Hollywood, the Banks, America, and the Deli down the street.
Get some poetry and rock in your soul or you will never know the Truth.
“Why is a beautiful young thing like Eastwood’s daughter marrying little Lurch? Answer: green paper…” – Janos
============
Oh for God’s sake, women have been marrying for money since time began.
And, no, I wouldn’t know Jonah Hill if I tripped over him.
“Because I said ‘chase your own damn balls’ it now appears government peeping toms have decided not to throw their balls but to play with them instead.” K-Dog.
Wow, You really do think I’m an agent and monitoring you. Aside from a couple mere coincidences that seem to have enabled you to create this spook fantasy, there’s absolutely nothing I’ve posted in this past year that would give any intelligent person cause to think this, to think that I’m trying to thwart or stifle any kind of activism. From a year’s worth of reading this sort of material I’ve become entirely cynical and simply do not believe the country as a whole will ever construct a coherent narrative that begins to tackle the toughest issues we can name. But that’s simply my own take on it all. It’s just how I see people, generally speaking.
Kev, you’re a good natured chap, but from what I’ve seen of you there’s no reason an agent would spend a lot of energy tracking your activities. But who knows, you might be some sort of grand mastermind. Good luck.
-UFIA
His name is Keith. Check your files. You are confusing him with Asoka whose code name is Kevin. We are watching the Watchers so watch out. You are always under review. We don’t like the way you knew the Daughters of Men – that created the Grigori, a giant problem.
I can’t believe I’m actually thanking the master of misdirection for clarifying my name.
Thanks
Yes, for has not Penemue corrupted the Dog and given him bitter and sweet wisdom. The dog knows the days of man should comprise one hundred and twenty years and considers that this be not so an abomination. With his knowledge the dog no longer innocent and pure was able to hear the voice of Chazaqiel and thus being spoken to the Dog apprehended all the secrets of the clouds and sees clearly the future coming of collapse and errors in the ways of men.
But I correct you; he is not of the Malakha. He himself is actually one of the Nephilim Himself. Your mistake is understandable for surely it appears he is not of the daughters of man and no daughter of man would admit to being his mother.
But he is of the Nephilim and a giant problem for you. I don’t know why you continue to put up with him and I must think that he must hold a commission and is very well connected for he spends far too much time walking the earth and not dwelling under it as he properly should.
Watchers after all could be watching the watchers watch the watchers watch the watchers for all you know and that could be a serious complication.
Yes Q, a redundant ‘himself’ and probably not enough of the watching of the watchers for we both know there is no end to the watching going on.
I’ve become entirely cynical and simply do not believe the country as a whole will ever construct a coherent narrative that begins to tackle the toughest issues we can name.”
And that kind of cynical poison should be kept to oneself. Take a long walk in the crisp air and let nature renew your soul. If you’re not part of the solution step aside and get out of the damn way. Constructing a coherent narrative that tackles the tough issues is the reason why we are here in the first place. You are an eater of cheese puffs at best and at worst………………… never mind that, I just covered it in the comment on top of this one.
Barack Obama will be town today and I’d like to discuss some of those tough issues with him but can’t afford the $16,000.00 a plate it would cost to have dinner with him.
We might as well just have a King. A King-Dog in charge. It would be cheaper.
Now you are talking. Enough with this democracy crap as Kennedy Sr said. You and me fight for the Kingdom (Malkuth) to the Death. The Winner shall be crowned. Meanwhile Arn watches in his city of Arn in the Land of Arndom in the Pit. He waits for Farce who is almost there. He talk to himself, “I am already a King.” But of what, Arn, of what?
JHK sez:
” Likewise, as the American economy got crushed by no-longer-cheap oil, all the working classes in this country below the one-percenters got crushed, hammered, and trashed. Among other things they can no longer afford is gasoline. Total vehicle miles driven has gone down by almost 3 percent since 2007. It will keep going down, and the Happy Motoring matrix will collapse for another reason: capital scarcity will translate into fewer available car loans for Americans, and fewer qualified borrowers, and Americans are used to buying their cars on installment loans.”
Furthering this idea, what happens when the petro-dollar SCAM collapses? (BTW, things are distinctly creeping in that direction.)
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/11/22/dying-dollar-paul-craig-roberts/
Even if apathetic and terminally distracted, it’s short enough to invest 3 minutes to read it…
I generally don’t like the more extremes of Roberts’ statements, but in this article I believe he is correct.
You can’t play around with a currency without repercussions. Ultimately, China is doomed, but they are playing the hand they have extremely well. Actually, I’m surprised they’ve waited so long to wean off the dollar.
Great changes are coming.
Mother of the gods; what has this thread degenerated to?
You’all need to get a serious grip on reality.
Fuck all; this thread has rotted to the usual cesspool of crap led by Vlad as is the usual course of events.
But for the rest of you’all; what’s your excuse? Hmm?
I don’t know how long you’ve been following this blog’s comments, Arn, but things are better now than they’ve been for a long time. There’s always going to be posters that try to divert off the main themes. You do know, I hope, that this is normal for any forum?
I compare it to mining for gold. Miners have to sort through tons of rock to find a few ounces of gold. The question you have to ask yourself is, are those few ounces worth it to you to mine those tons of rock? Personally, I’ve gained a lot of knowledge here over the years.
We’ve lost
We’ve lost a lot of insightful posters these few years, like Turk, Being There (who does post occasionally, but not anywhere as much as she used to), and several others whose names I can’t drag out of my own memory storage at this moment. But new ones do come online.
Bean,
You know the definition of a gold mine out west……a hole in the ground with two liars standing around it.
I once compared it having to mine a lot of coal to find a diamond. Diamonds don’t actually come from coal mines but both are made of carbon.
@ beantownbill.
November 24, 2013 at 12:16 pm #
I don’t know how long you’ve been following this blog’s comments, Arn, but things are better now than they’ve been for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Checked in now and again for maybe three/four years; but seemed to insane to attract any comment from me.
Well, it was (better) for awhile, but its orbit seems to be in retrograde once again…
too
Don’t take my Mother’s name in vain.
Kunstler is wrong about the fall of Western civilization and retrenchment as an agrarian-manual society. He is right that communities would do well to adopt a mixed-use structure that embeds groceries, small shops etc. in with residential areas. There is a sore lack of this in the United States, which results in the need to have a car do bloody get anything done.
The West is characterized by rampant technological progress that solves our most pressing needs/problems. It’s been so successful at it that we have a surfeit of virtually everything.
JHK’s take is that it’s all based on the availability of cheap oil. But this entirely ignores the massive implementation of alternative energy over the past 30-40 years. It’s gotten to the point where Stanford University says that all solar panels produced to date are now net energy plus. This has massive beneficial implications, which Kunstler glosses over or simply disparages without extrapolating to their logical conclusion.
In a nutshell, we are harnessing more and more of the sun – not to mention other limitless energies – here on Earth. Since we could easily furnish all of mankind’s energy requirements using 1% or less of the sun’s energy, we are blessed with a situation where we simply need to continue to do what we are doing to reach 100% energy supply ad infinitum.
Oil ‘shortages’ are merely the birth pangs ushering us into the next blissful stage of energy limitlessness. The physics are there to back this up.
peace peaceniks
What physics; where Asoka? The physics of climate change? The physics of the inability of all alternative energy combined to to run the wall Wal-Mart delivery system or put thousand mile salads on your dinner table? The physics of soil depletion and farms unable to provide enough food to feed the population as it iswithout massive fossil fuel inputs?
JHK’s take is that modern American life depends on the use of massive amounts of cheap !! fossil fuels to keep going and without it we stare wither and die. He is not wrong and even if alternative energies existed to compensate for the loss of fossil fuels (which they don’t) none of these technologies have been put in place in a magnitude that comes anywhere close to maintaining your cornicopian wet dreams. The basic problem for those addicted to the technological dream is that you and your kind cannot grasp that the King of Science, Physics needs the Queen of Science Mathematics to rule or science is eviscerated and becomes nothing more than magical fantasy. Your kind loves to use technology without understanding what it is and the consequences of using it.
Shoulds, woulds, and coulds are not going to lead us to a future of any prosperity. Massive change and the acceptance of reality could give the country a future but that’s not happening. Change is being prevented my massive corporate influence in our political system at all levels. Oil companies lobby for subsidy while preventing the subsidy of alternative energies. No thought is given to the future to make our nation sustainable. Change of the game is prevented at every turn by those who currently benefit from the status-quo as it is. Massive surveillance justified by the search for imaginary demons combined with mostly hidden interference in thought and action behind the scenes prevents any dissent at a time when positive responsible dissent could save the day. Everywhere mass media distractions stifle original thought and drown intellectual activity. The average American is taught every day to understand nothing, stand for nothing, and be nothing and the tragedy is it could all be another way.
We have reached a point where ignorance and the worship of false gods by cornicopian types like yourself who dream childish dreams are not simply quaint benign and simple minded. Reaching real limits to growth as we have cornicopian types like yourself are now dangerous and evil. The praise and cultivation of ignorant hedonism and the existing consumer culture must end or in our future there will be no future to have. Instead there will only be death pain and misery.
without it we starve wither and die
Ok grammar is pretty flawed. It was a stream of consciousness howl and I wish I could edit it.
Change is being prevented by massive corporate influence
Another big error and I don’t even want to count the little ones.
Sunday football:
Referee: “Facemask, number nahnee-ate of the dee-fay-ints, 15 yods.
A sports talking head: Pronounces a team’s name as the Seahocks. I guess he never noticed the “W”.
Nobody notices the ‘W’ here. That’s how it’s said.
By concentrating on specific details so closely and intensely, by zooming in on fine nuance. Do you ever get the sense that you might be missing the bigger picture?
Double quotes around a single character is discouraged. The way I did it is more correct.
Good point. At some point the English language has to be given back to the people and the spelling changed to match current usage. Otherwise the scholars will preserving Chaucer’s English while we are speaking Shakespearean – a difference greater than between Shakespeare and the current vernacular.
What’s up with this. You agreeing with me and the article you post below while coming from a fundamentalist point of view I can’t hang with is about something I’ll agree with too.
Hip hop lyrics are gross and disparage women. No argument from me. I’m all about free speech but I’ve a friend who listens to Hip Hop on his radio and when certain tunes come on he switches the channel or turns it off quick. Usually he mutters a sentence from the tune about ‘bitches’ having to something or other to clue me in and says we don’t need that shit. I’m usually curious about what I’m missing having never heard the particular tune he flicks off but I accept that he’s probably right. We don’t need that shit.
I’m finding this agreeing between us to be a bad sign.
From the desk of Ann Barnhardt:
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/11/21/the-one-about-how-the-raphip-hop-culture-must-be-exterminated/
The physics of the inability of all alternative energy combined to to run the wall Wal-Mart delivery system or put thousand mile salads on your dinner table?
Straw man.
No one is saying 1000-mile salads. You are confusing current alt energy production with expanding alt energy production as the years progress. IOW, you are using a static interpretation of a mushrooming generation capacity.
Alt energy production was nil in 1950, and is terrawatts now, most likely. IBM – a reliable source, you have to agree – says its can generate all the world’s energy requirements using 2% of the Sahara’s surface area.
Coal replaced whale oil, solar/renewables are replacing follil fuels. Deny it if you want, but that just denies a half-century of progress. Why would tend of billions of dollars be spent if the physical foundation was untenable?
Also, don’t forget efficiency. LEDs use 2% of the power that incandescents require. So stop worrying. Human power alone can replace loads of fossil-fuel powered applications.
Google it. Don’t discount technological progress. Remember the failed doomsdayers of the past: man is not mean to fly, and everthing worth inventing has already been invented.
We’ll see you in the bright, wonderful future. Where you can forebodingly foretell the end of the world at 150 years of age while communicating simply by thinking. It’s almost here.
peace peaceniks
Human power alone can replace loads of fossil-fuel powered applications.
Yes, given enough humans and enough planets the earth could get on with human power alone. And the energy slave needs are not taken into consideration.
22 Billion En ergy Slaves
“LEDs use 2% of the power that incandescents require.” No, that’s incorrect. A correct answer is about 20%. The high efficiency lighting panels I’ve make from scratch in the last two years consume about twelve watts to give 600 lumens. They use the latest and greatest phosphor coated white LEDs and the power which drives them is converted to a correct drive voltage with an efficiency of 90%. That’s pretty good.
The best state of the art LEDs only covert electricity to light with a bit more than 20% efficiency which is why you have your facts wrong. 600 lumens of white light is only on the order of 2 watts of light energy.
It is typical of cornucopians to refer to the future when backed in a corner “expanding alt energy production as the years progress“. To rely on the future misrepresents reality and is highly irresponsible. I recall seeing a world of tomorrow living in a future of technical progress type of movie in grade school. A small boy at the start of the movie wrote the year ‘1992’ in beach sand. At the time that was far in the future. None of the technology presented in the movie came to pass and the mistake of assuming infinite amounts of plentiful non polluting energy was prominent in the assumptions made.
“Coal replaced whale oil, solar/renewables are replacing fossil fuels.”
Actually oil did the replacement and had it not there would be no more whales. The oceans are not big enough to grow enough whales to light the night for the current population. The replacement for whales; fossil fuels are warming the planet and their continued unregulated use will bring on the extinction of mankind by unchecked global warming. Besides which they are becoming unattainable.
You dance and you evade. You do not deal with the basic fact I stated previously. The King of Science, Physics needs the Queen of Science Mathematics to rule or science is eviscerated and becomes nothing more than magical fantasy.
You are lost in fantasy. You place all you bets in a future which ignores basic laws of nature and is nothing more than a dream of wishful thinking. None of the equations in your dreams balance.
Communicate by simply thinking? I’ll pass thank you very much. I have no desire to have the cesspool one would see if they were to lift your scalp and actually peer into your brainpan forced on me.
lighting panels I’ve made from scratch
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135481-will-your-body-be-the-battery-of-the-future
peace peaceniks
Nobody notices the ‘W’ here. That’s how it’s said.
I find that to be just offal
By concentrating on specific details so closely and intensely,
I don’t think of the ‘w’ in hawk as a “specific detail” requiring close and intense concentration to notice.
by zooming in on fine nuance. Do you ever get the sense that you might be missing the bigger picture?
Fine “nuance”?? Haha. To pronounce a common four-letter word the way it is shown in every English dictionary on earth? I’m getting the big picture just fine.
I think youz guys speech is ahsomely ockwerd.
Test
“I find that to be just offal” – Q.
===========
Why do people not like offal*? Because they think it is awful.
* the parts of a butchered animal that are considered inedible by human beings; carrion.
Once left an opened can of alphabet soup in the fridge too long. It was offal.
@ beantownbill.
November 24, 2013 at 12:16 pm #
I don’t know how long you’ve been following this blog’s comments, Arn, but things are better now than they’ve been for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Checked in now and again for maybe three/four years; but seemed too insane to attract any comment from me.
Well, it was (better) for awhile, but its orbit seems to be in retrograde once again…