JHK’s Three-Act Play
by James Howard Kunstler
The idea that techno-industrial society is headed toward a collapse has become very unpopular the last couple of years. Thoughts (and fears) about it have been replaced by a kind of grand redemption fantasy that bears the same relation to economics that masturbation has to pornography. One way to sum up the current psychological state of the nation is that an awful lot of people who ought to know better don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground anymore. We’re witnessing the implosion of the American hive mind.
This is what comes of divorcing truth from reality, and that process is exactly what you get in the effort to replace authentic economic activity with accounting fraud and propaganda. For five years, the Federal Reserve has been trying to offset a permanent and necessary contraction of techno-industrialism by lobbing mortar rounds of so-called “money” into its crony “primary dealer” banks in order to fuel interest rate carry trades that produce an echo in the stock markets. An echo, let us be clear, is the ghost of something, not the thing itself — in this case: value.
The permanent contraction of techno-industrialism is necessary because the main fuel for running it has become scarcer and rather expensive, too expensive really to run the infrastructure of the United States. That infrastructure cannot be replaced now without a great deal of capital sacrifice. Paul Krugman — whom other observers unironically call Dr. Paul Krugman, conferring shamanic powers on him — wrote a supremely stupid op-ed in The New York Times today (“Stranded by Sprawl”), as though he had only noticed over the past week that the favored development pattern of our country has had adverse economic consequences. Gosh, ya think?
Meanwhile, the public has been sold a story by nervous and wishful upholders of the status quo that we have no problem with our primary resource due to the shale oil and shale gas bonanzas that would make us “energy independent” and “the world’s leading oil exporter — Saudi America!” A related story along these lines is the imminent “American industrial renaissance.” What they leave out is that, if actually true, it would be a renaissance of robots, leaving the former (and long ago) well-paid American working class to stew in its patrimony of methadrine, incest, and tattoo “art.”
To put it as simply as possible, the main task before this society is to change the way we live. The necessary changes are so severe and represent so much loss of previous investment that we can’t bring ourselves to think about it. For instance, both the suburbs and the big cities are toast. The destiny of the suburbs is to become slums, salvage yards, and ruins. The destiny of the big cities is to become Detroit — though most of America’s big cities (Atlanta, Houston) are hybrid monstrosities of suburbs and cities, and they will suffer the most. It is not recognized by economic poobahs such as Dr. Krugman and Thomas Friedman that the principal economic activity of Dixieland the past half century was the manufacture of suburban sprawl and now that the endeavor is over, the result can be seen in the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury.
Then where will the people live? They will live in smaller cities and cities that succeed in downsizing sharply and in America’s currently neglected and desolate small towns and upon a landscape drastically refitted for a post-techo-industrial life that is as far removed from a Ray Kurzweil “Singularity” fantasy as the idea of civic virtue is removed from Lawrence Summers. The people will live in places with a meaningful relationship to food production.
Many of those aforementioned swindled, misled, and debauched lumpen folk (having finally sold off their Ford-F110s) will eventually see their prospects migrate back into the realm of agriculture, or at least their surviving progeny will, as the sugar-tit of federal benefits melts away to zero, and by then the population will be much lower. These days, surely, the idea of physical labor in the sorghum rows is abhorrent to a 325-pound food-stamp recipient lounging in an air-conditioned trailer engrossed in the televised adventures of Kim Kardashian and her celebrated vagina while feasting on a KFC 10-piece bundle and a 32 oz Mountain Dew. But the hypothetical grand-kids might have to adopt a different view after the last air-conditioner sputters to extinction, and fire-ants have eaten through the particle-board floor of the trailer, and all the magical KFC products recede into the misty past where Jenny Lind rubs elbows with the Knights of the Round Table . Perhaps I wax a little hyperbolic, but you get the idea: subsistence is the real deal-to-come, and it will be literally a harder row to hoe than the current conception of “poverty.”
Somewhere beyond this mannerist picture of the current cultural depravity is the glimmer of an idea of people behaving better and spending their waking lives at things worth doing (and worthy of their human-ness), but that re-enchantment of daily life awaits a rather harsh work-out of the reigning deformations. I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months. It would at least signal a rapprochment of truth with reality.
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Truth with reality; now that would be refreshing.
My vision is darker, much darker; dystopian is the by word of the moment.
I wish it were other; but that’s not to be found; it’s too soon; not enough pain…
“dystopian is the by-word of the moment.”
That it’s the big theme of books and movies for teens this year is a sign that 1) at least young people aren’t completely oblivious to what’s going on around them and 2) Hollywood thinks it’s good business to think about collapse. That’s one part of the American Hive Mind that is recognizing reality. Too bad the rest of America is in denial.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-hunger-games-dystopia-as.html
While I understand; it’s not my intent to parrot any contemporary commentary.
Much ado about nothing, IMO. Your “hive mind” comment is apropos to the present mind set and will lead “us” nowhere; again, IMO.
I have seen nothing that leads me to think we’ll survive with our collective values intact.
It’s up to us as individuals to maintain our values, privately, and to pass them on to worthy recipients.
It’s in our DNA to survive by any means necessary, and that may or may not prove to be our salvation…
I have always felt that horror movies proliferate when the “good times” are rolling and people need a little variety in their experience besides just material abundance and comfort.
The recent raft of horror movies is not a sign of anyone having a clue, it is a sign that we are in a “mini bubble” in which many people are experiencing a little resurgence of “the good life” after the shocks of the crash of 2008.
Yeah, we’re in collective denial. To face the reality, is so beyond anything we ever thought we’d have to deal with, any distraction will do.
There’s a reckoning coming; but, I have faith the American people, after much agonizing, will actually “get it” and rally to the facts and prevail. There will be horror and death, finally come home, but we’ll rally, and battered and beaten, we’ll prevail.
Chastened and bloodied; my hope is we’ll get it and return to our roots.
But that may be too optimistic; I’d be curious what JHK thought about that…
With the onslaught of robots, maybe a 30 hour work week is in order. Save Detroit: http://youtu.be/KhDZiJ6MvBg
Robots are something JHK would dismiss as techno-narcissism. The bloggers who would consider the effects of robots more seriously as a dystopian effect of the Singularity would be Stuart Staniford over at Early Warning and Chad at Hipcrime Vocab. They think that automation is a major part of the jobless recovery now. I have links to the relevant posts of theirs in an entry of mine.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/05/robots-are-coming-for-our-jobs.html
The 40- hour work week was won by our unionized grandfathers early in the 20th century when there were millions of industrial jobs available. Why our leaders can’t see that this model is obsolete is beyond me. In fact, industry continues to force overtime on it’s overworked aging full-timers rather than hire. A good friend of mine, for example, is forced to consistently work 60 or more hours per week in a steel mill. It’s cheaper to pay time and a half than hire now workers. Industry is killing itself long term. Where will the new consumers with money to spend on their products come from?
“James Howard Kunstler Breaks Ground to Build Kunstlerland.”
“The intense organizing efforts by highly motivated individuals and organizations in preceding years for the formation of the Alliance to Reconstruct America is bearing results. Under the battle cry of “one for all and all for one,” large and small cells of the Alliance grew strong enough together to persuade Congress to establish the Department of Homeland Reconstruction. Federal funding for Reconstruct America projects is now available for qualifying nongovernmental organizations.”
James,
The above is fictional, yet I can see the headline news just a few years down the road. I can’t imagine a more qualified person than you, or a better institution than yours to utilize federal grants in building a nonprofit-managed, mixed-use, live/work, compact, urban village with a hybrid economy and social contract. Such a community would demonstrate all of your ideas in a pioneering, socioeconomic entrepreneurship. Massive Open Socioeconomic Self-organization (MOSS), and all the supplementary tools and materials are now freely available from Holigent.Org under the Creative Commons license.
It is time to physically present a grand, socioeconomic solution for the future of this nation and our planet. The pursuit of building “Kunstlerland” as a demonstration model community for social, economic, and environmental justice, quality and sustainability would be a noble and necessary project. More details here:
http://www.holigent.org
Considering that the only thing still working in our dysfunctional system is the political Iron Triangle, and knowing that most corrupt systems work well for the corruptors, let’s work the system the way the system works. When mature and muscular, the Alliance to Reconstruct America will “encourage” Congress to allocate reconstruction funds.
We need to encourage students, along with their educational institutions and the construction industry (the prime stakeholders for jobs and a livable future), to form the core of the Alliance to Reconstruct America. This could be an exciting game to play if we could pull it off, and a seriously fun subject to talk about for your followers between reading your Monday blogs.
Best to you and all your readers,
Nicholas
Nicholas–
The kind of national reconstruction you propose really requires a major shift in the collective imagination and a consensus leadership. I would not volunteer to lead what in effect sounds like a dictatorship. There are many competent and thoughtful people in this country, but they are overwhelmed for the moment by a trashy and meretricious culture — which is losing momentum. Things will change.
–JHK
And 5 years ago you had favorable feelings toward ‘Mister Hope n Change’, unlike many of us who saw him for what he is.
anti dod,
and unlike yourself, he has eyes that see, and a brain that works… which implies that he is able to change his opinion based on new information. I, like you, saw this collective monster coming, but James gave him a chance to prove himself, that is admirable. It saddens me that you, and I, were right, but I’m sure James isn’t so thrilled either.
James,
Exactly what my comment was going to be, a proto-dictator system worse than the Black Caesar we have. The collectivists are real good at the “sweet words on the tongue”, but, their Envy and Empathy act is getting old as we now see that it “turns bitter in the belly”.
Unfortunately, the other side is not so good at their own idealistic notions of creepy capitalism. We need a new ‘ism’ James…
Perhaps the oldest ism of them all? Tribalism?
The only way for anything else to work, is by understanding what ails us, and that begins at understanding MONEY and debt and living within the EROEI structure of Earth.
But first, we have to kill all the Bankers, lawyers, politicians, and suits that love this system.
Oh, wait… they’re gonna do it to themselves…
Never mind.
But there is not ‘nothing’ that we can do about the energy situation, it will take a new mindset of old things. It was even predicted long ago James…
“and they shall pound their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and neither shall they learn war, anymore”…
This tracks with what I believe was the best solution, your solution, the Locomotive. Turning to old ways, and making them new again, while learning to live within Earth’s means.
What have we learned over the last 4000 odd years of centralized empires? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and centralized power corrupts whole societies… that no man can ‘represent’ another, to give another man your ‘power’ is too great a temptation.
Now, after the die off, lets all learn our lesson, No more centralized anything, money, gov or religions. The Natives Americans had it right… now, who were the Barbarians again?
Warfare will get smaller, that’s all. You don’t think the Indians did it? The Papuans? The Africans? You don’t know anthropology – the real deal, not the PC crap that’s been peddled since the days Boas and Margaret Mead.
Go to a museum and look at the weapons of the Indians, specifically the war clubs that had no hunting function. Perhaps that will jar you mind. Believing that Whites are uniquely evil is the very essence of contemporary Liberalism – which must die along with Conservatism.
Jim, Listen to this http://www.findtheconversation.com/episode-46-mark-mykleby/
Right up our alley.
Good day JHK,
“rapprochment” should contain an “e” after the “ch”
you’re welcome!
I learned two new words today because of your post.
Thanks!
“The people will live in places with a meaningful relationship to food production.”
Had to think about what would make food more significant or intentional in our lives…
Because we live in an illusion of abundance of whatever we could want, a cornucopia of products (not sources) designed to coax more and more money from our paychecks, most people do not understand what it takes to actually FEED themselves, the family and the community. It’s just there and always been there. You have summed this up nicely with the term “1200 mile Caesar Salad” or something like that. This is a big reason why suburbia must fail in a market driven by cheap oil and gas. How will suburbia get its food? Will the local organic farm be sufficient to satisfy people who are used to the taste of fried and overly processed foods? Will they know what to do with a beet or turnip? Might these people suffer major sugar withdrawals like poor Trayvon Martin recently; he just had to run and get his skittles at great cost to himself? I would describe a major part of our collective predicament: babies having babies. I see more and more people who look like overgrown toddlers waddling through the parking lots and aisles. I believe most of the college debt is paid off by the family or another “sponsor”. Our society has imposed more and more unrealistic expectations upon the next generation. Encouraging the idea that “research and development” is the key to a sustainable future. Agrarian cultures have been doing fine for centuries with very little innovations. Corporations like Monsanto and their propaganda have lead people to believe the land can produce more than it was designed to produce in order to meet increasing demand.
What does food mean to corporate America?
“Ben Schaefer
07.29.2013
@B_Sumerville- You can never prove GMOs are 100% safe. You can never prove anything is 100% safe. But that same insecticide that is in GMO corn is the same thing used by a vast amount of organic farmers. So if you fear GMOs due to this you should also fear the organic industry as well. But propaganda has tricked many people into thinking “organic” equals safe. And GMO equals “unnatural”. But what you may not know is that nothing you eat is ‘natural’. Corn as you see it now has never existed naturally in nature. Have you ever gone on a walk and seen broccoli growing in a ditch? These crops that everyone eats are all ‘unnatural’ But that in no why means they are unsafe. It takes years of R&D to get GMOs to market. They are tested and retested more than any food you ever buy.
As for your health questions, cancer rates and mortality rates are actually down. Autism is up, but no one even knew what Autism was 20 years ago. And as for diabetes, let’s face it, Americans are just not healthy. But that should be blamed on fast food and processed food, not GMOs.” – http://gmoanswers.com/ask/how-can-you-be-sure-gmo-foods-wont-affect-human-health-long-term
This made sense to me.
the result can be seen in the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury.
A lot of F-250s as well. In fact, they’re now a favorite target of thieves, they’re so ubiquitous these days. I have to chuckle when I see a line of these pampered behemoths at the local car wash. Aren’t trucks supposed to be rugged and dirty? Not anymore. They’re now pampered Prima Donnas….like their increasingly unemployed owners. Where have all the cowboys gone? To the car wash with their air-conditioned, sissified metal horses, that’s where.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/07/09/f250-escalade-chevrolet-sierra-often-stolen-loss-/2500647/
The current boom in the popularity of big pickups is taking place among thieves as well as ordinary buyers.
Full-size trucks have the highest insurance claim frequency of any group of vehicles, the insurance industry Highway Loss Data Institute reports. The HLDI claims data cover 2010 through 2012 models.
Thieves’ favorite: Ford F-250 Super Duty crew-cab with four-wheel drive (4×4). It’s a heavy-duty model used more often by tradespeople and owners doing serious towing or hauling than the gentrified truckers who buy many of the standard-duty pickups.
Paul Krugman’s NYT column today was instructive. The title (‘Stranded by Sprawl’) is promising, but reading the text adds up to a fundfamental misanalysis of the problem. While bemoaning inner city poverty, he comes to the conclusion that it’s the ‘job opportunities’ clustered in suburbia that are not in close enough proximity to those who need them. The problem is that work as Gap employees at the mall or aromatherapists are merely busywork that props up the rickety economic edifice. When petroleum becomes unaffordable, these jobs will blow away in the wind like the fluff they are. But hey, give Krugman props. He used the word ‘sprawl’ in an article. For the Grey Lady, that amounts to a paradigm shift.
Krugman is a useful idiot. Has he ever been right or predicted events with accuracy?
He used the word ‘sprawl’ in an article…well maybe NYT is for the city and against the suburbanites.
I take my solace where I can find it. Admittedly, it’s a low bar to hurdle. Snails could clear it with ease.
The ironic part of calling this era “The Dreamtime” is that it refers to the creation myth of Australia’s original people, as a far distant time in the past, not the present of the U.S. and other industrial nations. It also smacks of a title John Michael Greer the Archdruid would use. I know you’re acquainted with Greer, as you’ve interviewed him on your podcast. He shares your opinion about technology not being the savior of modern industrial civilization.
As for Dr. Krugman (the man does have a Ph.D., so calling him Doctor is actually appropriate), I think it’s better late than never that he recognizes the deleterious economic effects of sprawl. Looks like it took the bankruptcy of Detroit to get him to acknowledge the problem. At least something good has already come out of this crisis.
I did allude that I’d write up something about Krugman saying that sprawl killed Detroit. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but now that you’ve brought up the subject, I think I will. What I did instead was respond to janet, who mocked the idea of the private sector picking up the slack in Detroit. The for-profit sector won’t, but the non-profit private sector is trying. It won’t succeed, but it certainly is making the attempt.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/07/at-least-detroit-has-great-charities.html
N.V.,
A little perspective on municipal bankruptcy is in order. (Although this is on a much smaller scale, I believe it’s germane.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/central-falls-rhode-island-bankruptcy_n_1852982.html
(It’s a Reuters article that Huffpo swiped.)
I can’t help thinking that the wished for more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments is still more than a few months away.
Folks who prefer homemade and homegrown to fancy-from-the-store are still having to contend with the disapprobation and contempt of their neighbors, including outright hatred on the part of some immigrant groups who think DIYers should be hiring them instead of doing for themselves.
I am as disgusted as anyone by the fact that our former working class seems to spend its life now in a drug and alcohol induced pornographic haze, but I think it is also necessary to understand that Americans have been subjected for decades to a barrage of propaganda which was deliberately intended and planned to convert Americans of the middle and lower classes from producers to consumers.
These days, surely, the idea of physical labor in the sorghum rows is abhorrent to a 325-pound food-stamp recipient lounging in an air-conditioned trailer engrossed in the televised adventures of Kim Kardashian and her celebrated vagina while feasting on a KFC 10-piece bundle and a 32 oz Mountain Dew.
This sentence is like manna from heaven for me. It feeds the soul. It’s vintage JHK.
Yeah, I loved that!
“the misty past where Jenny Lind rubs elbows with the Knights of the Round Table”
is a great kicker!
Possibly the funniest and most appropriate sentence I have ever read!
This is why I love Jim . . . and my wife can stand him. She thinks he a misanthrope. I think he just hates fat, lazy, stupid people.
Neon, did not some young entrepreneur who wanted to build vertical farms in Detroit say “We need to create scarcity?” That last remark got a lot of attention on gardening fora, as you can perhaps imagine. Would that be the same individual whose company bought public land in Detroit for tree farms?
There has been some attention over the past few years on gardening fora and websites, sorry, I don’t have any links offhand, to attempts by Detroiters to convert abandoned land in Detroit to food production. Do you know anything about this? How much of such gardening or urban farming is being done in Detroit?
Jim,
You sez:
” This is what comes of divorcing truth from reality, and that process is exactly what you get in the effort to replace authentic economic activity with accounting fraud and propaganda. For five years, the Federal Reserve has been trying to offset a permanent and necessary contraction of techno-industrialism by lobbing mortar rounds of so-called “money” into its crony “primary dealer” banks in order to fuel interest rate carry trades that produce an echo in the stock markets. An echo, let us be clear, is the ghost of something, not the thing itself — in this case: value.”
I still don’t get what’s so friggin’ hard to understand about this!!
Sure there’s thousands of Carnival-cruise-ships-full of flabby folk who’d rather NOT understand it, because understanding it makes all the comforts and kingly/queenly luxuries go away.
Hell, those are going away as we stand gaping anyway; might as well get busy with “other arrangements” that don’t include fantasizing along with the teevee talking heads (also well-known as purveyors of sponsored LIES).
Excellent essay and tandem podcast. The heels of the Ruby Slippers are wearing out from all the wishing and attendant clicking. (We now await the arrival of purveyors of sponsored lies to these very pages! What could be a finer contrast to reality, I ask you?)
Just driven 4000 miles across the US from SF to Boston.
I can assure you that the fire-ants are thriving!
Most folks don’t have the language to comprehend let alone discuss what is unfolding before their very eyes.
It’s an extraordinary scenario :-((
Actually the fire ants are not thriving, there is a new ant called the “Crazy ant” like the fire ant from South America, so called because they run around like crazy, they are displacing the fire ants.
I really wish this would all happen as quickly as possible. Enough pussy footing around while drinking the kool aid. Let this pile of dung go down now. Its historical and many will be histarical. What fun
My guess would be that when the scrambling for foodstuffs begins, fragmentation and disorder will follow posthaste.
(Got gum’mint cheese? Does the gum’mint gots gum’mint cheese?)
Always good writing to be found here.
But parts of Dixie are doing incredibly well now and Big-Ag is far from dead. They will be among the last cut off from the teat, as they’re still actually producing something to be exported. Remember producing? Hard to imagine but as late as the early 80’s there were still mom and pop factories just outside of any large city producing a myriad of textiles, fixtures and tools. Now they’re McMansions with $15,000 per year of property taxes levied on them. We traded production for consumption and will pay the price for our stupidity. But not to fear the military will always be there to kick the wrong guy’s butt for you.
Dixie is also known for “producing” its’ camo-clad and helmeted youngsters.
Can they possibly be considered an “export”? (After all, we’ve been exporting them hither and yon for some time now; must be good for the GDP’s bottom line.)
What will be the upshot when Big Ag finally succeeds in cornering the market in food and has poisoned every particle of formerly useful farmland? (In case we hadn’t noticed, that’s the direction they’re careening in.)
Change.
We ain’t seen nuthin yet.
However, the most basic change that must occur is to change the way money (works). Debt-money must be replaced with money. Until that happens, everything else is just window dressing. To imagine that change taking place leads to a very dark place… “they” will not give up their privileged position peacefully.
Here is a portrait of what one world made by hand (the article actually used that phrase) looks like.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/transylvania-hay/nicolson-text
Chomskyite, Americans “traded production for consumption” because they were TOLD by an array of experts, you should excuse the expression, from TV presenters to TV advertising to educators to politicians and others that production was dull, yesterdays news, old hat, etc. etc., and that consumption was the new wave of the future that was going to make us all beautiful, sexy and prosperous.
Keep in mind that the true function of mass advertising, beyond the selling of products, is to set out the limits of what is to be considered socially acceptable.
“We’re witnessing the implosion of the American hive mind.”
You know, for the past eight or so years, every time I attempt to add a comment to a Paul Krugman op-ed that suggests any obvious connection between “peak oil” and his subject de jour, it was never posted. After about the first year, I suspect I was put on the “Troll List” and automatically excluded even if I didn’t mention anything about “Peak Oil”. It just seems that there’s some sort of editorial taboo against any mention of the subject in the print and broadcast media.
What’s even more interesting is that most politicians from the established political parties seem to go out of their way to avoid discussion of peak oil as well. The president, despite having a whole slew of strategic planners at his disposal, obtusely references the subject only occasionally. They know what’s going on. They know the story. Why the taboo?
It’s interesting to note that returning from a recent business trip to Argentina, a colleague reported that it seemed as if the entire country was mobilizing for a national response to “the energy crisis at our doorstep” (as President Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner referred to it).
Perhaps this taboo is part to blame for the implosion?
http://www.thesisa.org
The last politician to comment extensively on peak oil was the Republican 6th District Congressman from Maryland – Roscoe Bartlett – he got rededistricted out of office in 2012.
He also was one of the few to speak in support of hardening the electrical grid against EMP or solar flares.
My sons 15 & 18 and I were in the car on Sunday listening to MPR/NPR news, and they both piped in “Thats so depressing, can we turn it off?” I did, but whats even more sad is that in reality, we can’t.
About the poster known as ‘Janet’ and taste:
I once initiated a thread on another forum some years ago on the topic of writers who should have received a Nobel Prize for Literature but did not. My entries included: Jorge Amado and Chinua Achebe, I believe I would now add the name of Vikram Seth.
On another forum, back in the 90s, I answered the what are the five greatest novels question thus:
Tales of Genji, the novel known in the English speaking world as The Golden Lotus, The Charterhouse of Parma, I Promesi Sposi, and I think the last novel which Amado published before he died.
The problem I have with your list, other than I have no idea who Donna Tartt might be, is that no other name on it has not been the beneficiary of NYT bestseller media hype.
“There will be no deviation from the officially-sanctioned status quo and you will wait patiently for it to come to your rescue should you find yourself its’ victim!”
(Translated from FUSA-ian per “The Sponsored Screed of Ja’soka the Mudhutter”)
The book listing handily explained.
Sorry, Ozone, but that was a bit too obscure for me.
What is FUSA-ian?
lol Sorry for that.
That would be the bureaucratically approved language of the “Former United States of America”. 😉
LOL thank you for giving me a good laugh this morning.
“To put it as simply as possible, the main task before this society is to change the way we live. The necessary changes are so severe and represent so much loss of previous investment that we can’t bring ourselves to think about it.”
Yes. And, to change the way people live their lives, it is first necessary to change the way they think. It’s tempting to view this primarily as a “messaging problem”. If we could just get them to listen, etc. The thing is, it’s not just that so many people can’t bring themselves to think about it; they harder they are pressed to do that, the more energy they will divert to the shields.
It’s like trying to persuade an alcoholic, against his will, that he has a serious drinking problem. Even if he doesn’t get up and wallk right out of the room, he’ll find some way to counter every argument you make, often with a surprising degree of rhetorical skill. After all, defending the way one thinks and lives is always a more attractive alternative to changing the way one thinks and lives. We have to experience directly the consequences of our flawed thinking by feeling the pain that comes from building an entire life around it. It’s just human nature. In what I would call “recovery society”, it’s referred to as “hitting bottom”, and is often regarded as a necessary precursor to any hope for turning things around — but, of course, only for those who survive the experience. And for some, the approach may be imperceptibly gradual; “hitting bottom” may come in the form of a sudden realiziation that they’ve been living at rock bottom for years. It’s amazing what humans can come to tolerate if they have time to adjust, and a firmly fixed mindset to cling to.
With heroin addicts, it tends to work a little differently. The alcoholic may persuade himself that he’s merely a “heavy drinker”, but the nature of heroin addiction does not easily facilitate such cognitive dissonance. Most heroin addicts know they’re heroin addicts; they just don’t see any way to get clear of it.
As trite as it may be to apply the metaphor of addiction to our dependence on oil (and the extravagant and massively wasteful lifestyles it has permitted), at least it’s a metaphor that works. Oil is a substance, and we are abusing it. There’s nothing quite like an SUV, or a Ford-Fwhatever, to convey the message, “I’m not an oil addict; I’m just a heavy user — and damn proud of it, by the way.”
The question of “where will the people live?” will therefore depend a lot on how many survive the collective experience of “hitting bottom” toward which this nation of substance abusers is clearly headed. At one time, the question, “where will the people live?” largely answered itself; it was inseparable from the question, “what will the people eat?” Far too many are still focused on the question, “what will the people drive?”, which really underscores the lack of a full appreciation of the nature and scope of the challenge we’re facing.
A full unleashing of the “incipient political fury” mentioned above is something I find myself welcoming and dreading at the same time. Some of the potential consequences are too gruesome to contemplate, but in the end, the frog-in-a-pot-brought-gradually-to-a-boil scenario isn’t much prettier, if you really look at it.
I once read an article that warned that during a power outage the worse thing would be that ATMs wouldn’t work.
Very astute. Thanks.
Are we allowed to speak of the “incipient political fury”? (The watchers may not have tumbled to what that phrase really implies.)
That will be a very ugly phase to witness (if one should survive it), but it will happen unless “the authorities” have plenty of free food to hand out to the milling masses. Food, water, shelter: the ultimate human realities. No delusions or wishes provide acceptable replacements.
Necessary changes are so severe and represent so much loss of previous investment that we can’t bring ourselves to think about it.
The missing link, not really not so missing, but not being able to think about necessary changes makes it so. The ‘so much loss of previous investment‘ is the rub. A change in power structure might have allowed the old Norse of the collapsed Greenland colony to survive but extinction it appears may have been preferred to losing power and rearranging social structure and expectations to create lifestyles with a future.
But changes in lifestyles are coming. It can happen the hard way or the easy way and the country has chosen the hard painful way.
Hearing our jingoist Mr. Change we can believe in prezident giving a speech a few days ago at a Washington war memorial lifted right from the cold war 50’s inspired zero confidence. Our leaders seem to have no grip on reality and all. They live in bubbles seeing only what they want to see and what benefits them. Reality be dammed, out of sight and out of mind as long as they make out.
A good title to this weeks article, and those who have ventured to my article last week know why I think so.
http://chasingthesquirrel.blogspot.com/2013/07/dreamtime.html
A link to my post last weeks. This week’s title is ‘Out Standing’. The end of the above link shows last weeks title. Coincidence? Yeah, we just happen to all be dreaming, we live in the dreamtime.
Everyone have a great week. I’m going to google sorghum and check out Krugman. In that order.
I hate typos when I read what I’ve posted, oh well.
Sorghum:
Sorghum grows in a wide range of temperature, high altitudes, toxic soils and can recover growth after some drought.
It has four features that make it one of the most drought-resistant crops.
* It has a very large root-to-leaf surface area.
* In times of drought, it will roll its leaves to lessen water loss by transpiration.
* If drought continues, it will go into dormancy rather than dying.
* Its leaves are protected by a waxy cuticle.
Drought resistance will be important for long emergency crops. It also does well in toxic soils.
Sorghum is a most useful plant, a source of an excellent syrup which I have used in baking with very good results, grain, and biomass. Not to forget the broomstraw! It is unfortunately not hardy, but, along with hemp, could be a good alternative crop for tobacco farmers.
No he just said it was hardy. What are you doing to hurt the sorghum, Nasta?
Oh, really? If so, next season I will plant some. However, what Pacific Northwesterners consider hardy can’t necessarily be grown in upstate NY.
Kansas Ham on Wry said: “But hey, give Krugman props. He used the word ‘sprawl’ in an article. For the Grey Lady, that amounts to a paradigm shift.”
Criticizing Krugman for just now using the word sprawl is a bit unfair. JHK first published about sprawl in 1996 in <Home from Nowhere.
One could just as easily (and unfairly) ask why JHK has not published books on international economics. Krugman has hundreds of publications on banks, markets, industrialization, trade, etc.
JHK comes out of architecture, not economics. Krugman comes out of economics, not sprawl. So, to criticize Krugman on the basis of one word is a cheap shot.
Krugman has received international recognition, the Nobel Prize, for his work. Krugman has been addressing real world problems far longer than JHK. JHK was a bit late to the party, only recently waking up to international economic shenanigans.
Just to drive the point home, and prove how JHK was late to the party, Krugman has more publications on economics in the year 1988 than JHK has in his whole life. Krugman was addressing real world problems whilst JHK was still writing fiction.
For example, in 1988 JHK published three books of fiction:
Thunder Island
Embarrassment of Riches
The Hunt
For that same year, 1988, Krugman has 37 publications and they weren’t novels. Here are a few titles:
International economics : theory and policy
Strategic trade policy and the new international economics
Target zones and exchange rate dynamics
Market-based debt-reduction schemes
Australia and the Pacific economy
Differences in income elasticities and trends in real exchange rates
Deindustrialization, reindustrialization, and the real exchange rate
Financing vs. forgiving a debt overhang
EFTA and 1992
The exchange rate, asset valuation and capital formation in the open economy
Essays on exchange rate movements and the behavior of U.S. import prices and quantities
If you include JHK’s works of fiction, JHK still has fewer than 100 publications to his name. Krugman has over 600 publications and they aren’t novels; they deal with the real world.
I am glad JHK finally got around to addressing real life problems in 1996, but he can’t hold a candle to Krugman, who started writing on the real world in the 1970s. JHK can only hope to gain some stature by criticizing Krugman, but the reality is they simple are not in the same league.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with your premise that real-world problems cannot be effectively addressed in works of fiction. The wildly successful FOX business model is based on the premise that most Americans would prefer being entertained to being informed. If you’re expecting Joe sixpack to come home from work, flop down in his LazyBoy, and pick up a book on economics, you’re living in an alternative reality. Package your message in story form, and you may have a chance. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a work of fiction, yet its effect on the political mood of this country was as powerful as any non-fiction work could ever hope to be.
Spoken like a true Keynesian…
I think that a more accurate description of Kunstler is that he is a critical-thinking journalist who recognized earlier than most that sprawl was a problem. He wrote about it eloquently and colorfully. The next step for a critical thinker is to realize that Peak Oil is a reality. He wrote about that as well.
Krugman, on the other hand, has been locked in an ideology for his entire career. What he “produces” reflects that ideological prison. I would agree that they are not in the same league. Krugman plays the field in the prison league whereas Kunstler is a freelance agent in the liberty league.
Nobody is disputing how much Krugman has published or that it has resonance amongst the intelligensia. And I agree with his premise that the ladder for upward socioeconomic mobility has had most of its rungs cut out. But in this instance, quantity does not necessarily translate to quality. The point of JHK* (and me) was the relevance of the most recent NYT posting to the problem he discusses. Krugman’s solution of ‘”smart growth” urban strategies, which try to promote compact centers with access to public transportation’ sounds like an attempt to perpetuate the current sclerotic system by rearranging and relabeling the component pieces. The destination remains the same. The route is a little more circuitous and scenic.
*my apologies to JHK if in attempting to speak on his behalf, I put words in his mouth he disagrees with.
Well that’s the problem: economics is controlled by prostitutes in the service of psychopaths. For example, the idea of tariffs is automatically discounted. You wont make it thru Grad School is you don’t. And that’s a complete disconnect from reality since the tariff is a nation builder and maintainer. Explanation? Our Elite are against Nations so their Economists are too. See how it works?
It certainly is fair to criticize Paul Krugman for seemingly just having some sort of waking moment about suburban sprawl as a problem for cities.
This gets to something basic, a real peek at essence, the problem that can be found in a lot of areas in the form of blindness from over-specialization. This was covered nicely in the recent Kunstlercast with guest Charlie Hall; a very simple idea… the notion of economics based in actual reality.
Dude! What a concept!
Starting into some comparison of “Krugman v. Kunstler Smackdown!” (subtitled “oh yeah? what’s that Kunstler guy done?”) is pretty silly stuff, but if you want to go down that road, then there are real live practical point lessons to derive.
Incidentally, pulling out my copy of The Geography of Nowhere reveals that Kunstler was starting to write about the subject no later than 1993, 20 years ago, and nailing the problems on the head.
Much more to the point, the view broadened out considerably into a whole generalized view of many things all interacting and working together (or, if you like, malfunctioning together), when he wrote The Long Emergency, a book way more valuable to humanity trying to sort out what the fuck is going on than anything Krugman has written that I know of.
But Krugman, we’re told, wrote things such as:
“Target zones and exchange rate dynamics”
“Differences in income elasticities and trends in real exchange rates”
Well, alrighty, then.
I quote:
“JHK can only hope to gain some stature by criticizing Krugman, but the reality is they simple are not in the same league.”
I seriously doubt that Kunstler gives half a rat’s ass about “gaining stature” by addressing what Paul Krugman says.
People can have fun getting into games of “oh yeah? where’s your PhD and Nobel Prize in economics, Mister Smartypants?”, but I know that for myself, comparing these two guys, I know which I find more useful as, let’s say, a useful guide to actual reality.
JLE
JLE,
Thanks for that! I’d say you whacked that particular mole a mortal blow. (Well…. not really; a paid distractionary provocateur doesn’t give up their ‘job’ that easily.)
I used a quote from JLE in last week’s non-understanding-fest; I hope you don’t mind. (Yes, I did attribute it to your actual name. ;))
…And I heartily endorse and appreciate your muted ravings and unhinged yammerings!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/isle_take_that_welfare_scam_VBsTspIxia2GA9o2oS505L
“divorcing truth from reality” Kind of like voting to re elect Obama, in spite of the fact that he has failed to address these issues, and anticipating that he will do things differently in his second term. ey Jim
“the result can be seen in the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury.”
And off JHK goes on a Damned Yankee’s anti-Southern rant.
He loses credibility in critiquing our region’s Bubba-Culture (so rife for ridicule) by making a cardinal city-boy’s mistake. There ain’t no Ford F-110. It’s a F-150, 250, or 350 (this is the “big dog”). Old-timers will recall the F-100 or, if really old, the Ford F-1.
The rest of this post follows the typical JHK script against the South. While a good deal of it rings true, he’d only have to go 10 miles from his Washington County retreat to find knuckle-draggers with Confederate Battle-Flag decals in the rear windows of their pickups.
I’ve often said “The South IS the problem,” but not in the cartoonish way JHK claims. The South suffers from its heritage of slavery and a lost war it cannot forget, plus a nexus of anti-science and over-religiosity. It won’t face facts until forced to do so, often by Federal power. It generates more clownish politicos per capita than any other region of the nation.
It gets very prickly if outsiders, especially Yankees, point these facts out.
The South will suffer mightily if (not a given) Suburbia and Central AC fail. But sales of Ford trucks are up up up! Mr. Kunstler, as is domestic oil production (yeah, it may fail in a few years). It may be an “echo bubble” to soon burst, but we won’t go into “A World Made By Hand” so easily down here. I’d suspect the South would be more like Mad Max than Union Grove (or Tobacco Road, another JHK touchstone). This time, Jeeter will drive in his F-150 to the Captain’s big house, and Jeeter will shoot him.
PS: JHK omitted Honey Boo-Boo from his rant, too!
“more clownish politicians”
Seriously? I only wish we had a Weiner like you do up north. That yankee pol has given us a lot of laughs. How about Rangel “screw taxes–they’r for the lil folks”. Bloomberg “I will manage your entire life”. Ted “drown’em if you got’em” Kennedy. “Don’t worry Marilyn, we’ll relieve you of your misery” (Kennedys). Barney Frank “side business out of my apartment”? Just going by what them yankee papers print mind you. Lard ass Christie anyone? I wish our pols were only a tenth as humorous as your clowns. Send us some.
Now, with that out of the way, the ugly, historical fact is that through most of history, the vast, vast majority of people everywhere have lived in abject poverty and desperation. Briefly, post WW II, things picked up but now is fading rapidly to the normal state of things.
So what? What are you going to do about it? Little towns are not going to come back to life—ever. You cannot live in them. Many are decrepit with little or no infrastructure remaining. No money to fix it and no motivation. Burn them and spread the ashes.
Please dear Lord, send a plague and delete 90 percent of us.
I think RB is correct. Most all politicians present a cardboard cut-out to vote for which hides the ‘inner weasel’ beneath. All of ’em pretty laughable if they weren’t so damned counter-productive or downright destructive.
Sorry for giving offense with the ‘camo-clad youngsters of Dixie’ remark. Please advise as to why ‘the South’ should disproportionately be providing cannon fodder for the Liars in Charge. (I suspect it’s more of an economic advantage that underpins it, nicely covered by jingoism and family tradition, but I could be hugely mistaken.) Thanks.
Dear Mr. Kunstler:
One minor correction, if I may. The model number for the Ford truck you referenced in your blog post is the Ford F150. I look forward to reading your commentary on a regular basis.
Sincerely,
-Scott Kieser
JHK said: … and fire-ants have eaten through the particle-board floor of the trailer…
While I enjoyed this prose, I must correct a factual error. Fire ants are not going to chew through particle-board. Even termites don’t like the stuff.
Of the five commercially-available wood-based composites: softwood plywood (SWP), hardwood plywood (HWP), medium density fiberboard (MDF), oriented strand board (OSB) and particleboard (PB), the most resistant to termites is MDF, followed closely by particle-board. Fire-ants are not interested in these wood-based composites. Termites are.
To add insult to injury, not only are fire-ants not a problem for composite wood products, they are natural predators of the termites who do damage wood.
For those of you who build with wood (instead of earth) and have these insect problems, here is a World Made By Hand hint: cut-ends provide decay fungi and termites with easy access or penetration. Hence, the importance of remedial treatment of processed building components at construction sites. Though it would be better if you just build with adobe bricks.
“…build with adobe bricks…”
Careful, Asoka, you’re giving yourself away, honey.
“There will be no deviation from the officially-sanctioned status quo and you will wait patiently for it to come to your rescue should you find yourself its’ victim!”
(Translated from FUSA-ian per “The Sponsored Screed of Ja’soka the Mudhutter”)
Adobe will melt in the first tropical storm. Brickmaking, ONTOH, might be a skill worth reviving.
James,
Where people will go as things break down is more obvious than you might think. They’ll do as people have done for millennia. They will cluster around sources of water sufficient for drinking and agriculture. The luckier ones will manage to settle around rivers and lakes and so will get some fishing thrown in. Poor folk will make do with streams and shallow wells.
Cheers!
Jim does love to rag on the South, but then again, the deserve it. I have to smile when I read the tag line on his latest book which says something like, “Git you one!” I think Jim’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Southerners have this way of taking pride in some imagined heritage cloaked (or soaked?) in patriotism, religion, and fire arms, as in, “Ya’ll hafta pry this here shotgun outta my cold dead hans, mayan!” The South may well be cooked if the AC ever goes out, probably set to happen not due to Peak Oil, but rather the ability to pay cash for the ‘lectric bill. But folks survived down South before there was AC (pre 1950?). It was just friggin uncomfortable as all git out. Novel ways to address the heat in days of old included the use of high ceilings, large transoms over windows and doors, and the infamous “shot gun” house.
As far as making fun of the prissy assed good ol boys prancing around in their shiney, chrome-ladden pick ups, I couldn’t agree more. What do these boys expect to haul in these things, a Costco run with the Missus? About the only industry they have left there is banking (think Charlotte) and …??? They managed to piss away their agriculture and all that’s left is tobacco. The textile business has long been shuttered due to free trade and the exporting of manufacturing jobs that go with it. But hey, they still got “Honey Boo Boo, right?
but the reality is they simple are not in the same league.
It’s simply, not simple.
Economics is fiction and Krugman writes some paralytically boring fiction as compared to JHK. I’m guessing someone like Krugman has difficulty not only reading and comprehending satire, but also doesn’t have the capacity to write good satire. There is no way in hell Krugman could use the word sorghum humorously…not even serendipitously, so anathema is humor to his person.
I don’t think I’m alone in craving a collapse which (since it can’t be averted) would just HAPPEN and be over & done with so that I could get on with whatever comes next (assuming I live through the collapse itself, of course).
Alas, that (like so many other things I wish for in extended periods of weakness) is not to be.
Collapse is not a singular event. It is a long drawn out and extremely complicated process. To mangle an old saying, “Rome did not fall in a day.”
Look around. THAT is collapse . . . a deconstruction in progress. A seemingly neverending “series of unfortunate events” as Mr. Snicket so unctuously put it.
Earthquakes tsunamis and volcanic explosions “happen” and are more or less done with. Societal collapses take a bit more time to play out. Think glaciers , not asteroid strike.
I’m 66 years old. I first noticed that the so-called civilization around me was falling apart around the time that “they” shot Kennedy and several years later it was still totally confused and mysterious just who the hell “they” were ( or even IF “they” were.)
It took another three or four decades to figure out that the reason collapse was behind schedule is that it wasn’t. It was right on time, but in that same sense had to seen like the arrival and departure of a VERY long train . First the engine arrives, then the tender, mail car and passenger coaches, all in their turn , and at speeds determined by numerous and largely unalterable factors like physics, financial practicality and rail road management.
It departs the same way , slowly at first and then gathering speed as it develops a head of steam and gathers momentum
Those lights you see dwindling away in the distance from where you now stand marooned in the increasingly derelict station is the back end of the caboose.
Damn !. Looks like you missed the last call for “All Aboard !”
But don’t worry. There’ll be another (much smaller) one coming along in a century or so .
I have to smile when I read the tag line on his latest book which says something like, “Git you one!” I think Jim’s laughing all the way to the bank.
I know I would be. That “Git you one!” explains “Howdy”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKdNV2ep7I
Novel ways to address the heat in days of old included the use of high ceilings, large transoms over windows and doors, and the infamous “shot gun” house.
Don’t forget slaves to do all the hard labor and wait on you hand and foot.
“Here’s yur julep massa hawkins, all minty and frosty juz like you likes it.”
Life Support said: I’m afraid I can’t agree with your premise that real-world problems cannot be effectively addressed in works of fiction.
Yes, novels can address real-world problems, or they can be fluff. Take this novel JHK wrote in 2004, post-9/11, when we were aware of real world problems:
“James Howard Kunstler’s novel is a delightful blend of romance and mystery, part cozy and part commentary — like an offspring of a union between Agatha Christie and Alexander Woollcott. … Bouncing between her family, her lovers, and her employees, from an attorney to a gardener, she eventually sends out roots and shoots like one of the exotic plants over which she fusses. The demanding juggling act is launched when her millionaire investment banker husband Kenneth is nabbed dabbling in adultery, and their son is hooking up with his girl friends and hanging around with “gangsta” types. Maggie’s best friend is rebounding from her own breakup at Maggie’s house, entertaining bad habits ranging from liaisons and drug abuse to theft.
Maggie herself gets involved with a younger rock musician/actor, who betrays her, too, then with an older editor, who also betrays her (in a particularly pathetic passive/aggressive lie), and then with a professional peer, who threatens to kill himself.
Breathlessly, the plot shows blah blah blah...”
(Maggie Darling: A Modern Romance, a novel by James Howard Kunstler, ISBN 0-87113-910-3, from a review by Bill Knight)
Package your message in story form, and you may have a chance.
The operative word being “may”
Oh, and while JHK was publishing this fluff in 2004, here is a sample of titles published by Paul Krugman in 2004:
The great unraveling : losing our way in the new century
Microeconomics
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
And just to give an example of international impact, Krugman’s work has had a broader and more lasting impact. His 2004 book, Microeconomics, is out in its 3rd edition, published this year, 2013.
While telling a story can lead to social change, in the case of what these two authors were doing in 2004, and in terms of continuing impact, non-fiction wins out over the romance novel.
About the only benefits I can see in the “Romance novel” is the carbon sequestration all those pages provide, and, in a pinch, as a source of fuel for cooking and heating. (My couch isn’t missing any legs, but I could probably come up with some other ideas as well if I put my mind to it.) But let’s not cherry pick, shall we? We both know what works of Kunstler fiction I had in mind. I read mostly non-fiction myself, and while I’d love to live in a world where book titles like “Differences in Income Elasticities and Trends in Real Exchange Rates” leapt off the shelves with the ink barely dry, I’m just not seeing that. It sounds as though you would be in a better position than I am to provide comparative data on numbers of copies sold. I don’t really have any idea. Not pressing you on that or anything, but it might help to bolster your position. Just a suggestion.
You have no idea who you’re dealing with here. janet will provide those numbers, I assure you.
It was a completely sincere request, so I’ll look forward to that. As I said, I really don’t have any idea. I really would be interested to see what the numbers say about which author is more widely read. If I were confident that they revealed it to be JHK, I’d probably be working on compiling those numbers myself, but, being fully prepared to accept the opposite result, I’d rather let the first claimant do the heavy lifting. Call me lazy.
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
An appropriate sequel to this thriller would be:
American Dynasty II: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Obama
With respect, though not much, if you want a friend or a lot of friends, forget dogs and buy a pickup. It is the most useful, functional vehicle available. I enjoy, perversely, watching people at Home Depot, Lowes or other big box stores trying to place that HD TV into their Prius or better, bags of manure from the garden center. Lovely. Do they think they can magically shrink the item to fit? And, with my heavy duty pickup and trailer, I can remove myself and DW to a friend’s farm 150 miles distance along with all of my good stuff. In doing so, I can nudge the Prius folks off the road. With my winch, I can pull a Prius out of the ditch. The pickup lets me see over cars so I can avoid problems. The 4 WD helps getting around obstacles and if I put on my chains, I can go in most any road condition. When the guvmint legalizes Mexicans, I can fit easily 8 of them in the back of my pickup whereby I employ them and pay them. Prius doesn’t work that good for such. And shazam! I can put a 55 gallon aux fuel tank in the bed for that additional distance I might want. And no, I don’t worry about the cost of fuel. Not a bother. Oh the joys of a pickup.
Yeah, you tell em, fella!!
This one’s my favorite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWcNLz9r_QE
Nice of you to winch that Prius out of the ditch. After, you know, nudging it off the road. What a guy!
Do you offer classes that teach dogs how to ride in the back?
It is my humble opinion that body piercing should not be deprecated as part of the patrimony.
Carol said: “Economics is fiction and Krugman writes some paralytically boring fiction…”
In the case of Krugman what you say is not true. In addition to his prolific scholarly publications and textbooks like Microeconomics, Krugman has demonstrated a rare capacity, at least for academics, for “translating” economic theory into highly readable prose. Indeed, his considerable influence on recent economic-political discourse is a direct consequence of his ability to connect clearly with his educated, non-specialist yet concerned public. In his capacity as a public commentator, his galvanizing ideas have circulated widely in columns and articles for such varied lay publications as U.S. News & World Report, The New York Times and Fortune. Boring does not get published widely, nor read widely. Krugman is not boring.
RB said: And, with my heavy duty pickup and trailer, I can remove myself and DW to a friend’s farm 150 miles distance along with all of my good stuff. In doing so, I can nudge the Prius folks off the road.
At 15 mpg your pickup will use 20 gallons of gasoline to go 150 miles there and 150 miles back. (you probably get less than 15 mpg pulling a trailer)
The Prius folks will use 6 gallons of gasoline for the same distance.
If money matters to you, at $4 a gallon, you spend $80 and the Prius folks spend $24.
According to my quick research, the Ford F-110 is from the 60s:
http://www.fordtruckfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15840
Note the handle of one of the posters at the above site:
“Arrogant A-hole At-Large”
Join Date: 2008
Location: outside your house
Posts: 31,670
I bow my head to Jesus, stand for my family, love only one woman, and am always proud of what I have. Standing by my gun and Bible since 1986.”
This gentleman may fit the profile of those you regularly predict will rise up in misdirected rage.
Misdirected? Most likely. But who can really predict such things? It would be deliciously ironic — and not entirely surprising — if the mob’s first response to a crippling spike in fuel costs was to loot and burn the gas stations.
The ridiculous concept, from a basic physics standpoint, of using a 1800 kilogram “package” to contain and move a 100 kg human body never seems to faze people.
I wonder if some future civilization’s archeologists, digging through the remains of this one, will not be amazed at the sheer quantity of automobile content. Once they piece together the story, they will ponder the obvious question of how we could have been so dumb as to burn off the prodigious quantities of fuel get from point A to point B.
Smoky Joe and Scott Kaiser apparently don’t have access to Google. See link below. The F-110 indeed exists or did exist.
http://www.google.com/search?q=ford+f-110&rlz=1T4TSNJ_enUS456US456&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8Kz2UZAG1rPgA-KIgagH&ved=0CEYQsAQ
Love the truck commercial……
James Kunstler – when will you figure it out?
Everything is OK – for at least 30% of the population.
And that’s the 30% that “shows up.”
I need instruction.
We’ve seen the depths that Congress can sink. Sequestration?
Come now – what the fans of Clusterfuck nation want is a “heads up.”
Even now – we see so clearly. Have you not heard? It is illegal for Detroit city to declare bankruptcy. “Clearly” you need to contact Paul K. and ask him to explain.
Signed,
Just wanted to know when TSHTF
Life support said: We both know what works of Kunstler fiction I had in mind.
Oh. You mean World Made by Hand, published in 2008, available in … wait for it … English.
Let’s see what Krugman published in 2008:
The return of depression economics and the crisis of 2008
International economics : theory and policy
The conscience of a liberal : reclaiming America from the right
Oh, and did I mention that Krugman’s work is translated into Spanish, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Turkish, Korean, and Polish.
JHK’s World Made by Hand is available in … wait for it … English.
Non-Fiction wins again.
Of course. The American Cancer has spread or been spread to the far corners of the Earth. Krugmanism is a small part of that. The guy isn’t that smart – his nerd persona fools people. He doesn’t understand (or want to understand) what money is and why it must be kept close to the physical world and real things.
Mein Kampf has been published in at least 12 languages. Ergo AH is a more popular author and more knowledgable than Krugman. Reductico ad absurdum.
Furthermore Eric von Daniken published almost double the number of popular books that Stephen Hawking has with sales of over 40 million in several languages and was stocked by libraries worldwides. By Janet’s definition E von D is therefore the more knowledgable and professiinal writer.
We could even compare the publication figures of the Bible and the koran. The bible has both higher publication figures and been translated into more languages. Ergo the bible is the better book.
The criteria used by Janet to measure two authors is as simplistic as the reasoning of a three year old.
Boring does not get published widely, nor read widely.
No, but stupidity does.
I haven’t read any of the Krugman titles you listed but I have read all of his twice weekly columns in the NYT for years. I can’t think of another ultra liberal/socialist/communist more infuriating than Krugman unless it is yourself, Ja’soka.
If I may paraphrase, Krugman’s main theme for the past couple of years is that:
‘Being in the middle of a great recession is no time for austerity, it is precisely the time when Govt should be spending like crazy. Oh sure, there is an appropriate time to cut back and pay down Govt debt but that time IS NOT NOW. Rather, the time to reduce Govt spending is when the economy is humming and we have reached full employment.’
Well Ja’soka, I ask you this, has there been a time during Krugman’s professional career in which the economy was humming? Yes, during part of Raegan’s administration and most of Clinton’s.
Your assignment for today is to find an article from those periods in which Krugman was exhorting Govt to CUT BACK!! That these are the good times during which we MUST CUT BACK on Govt expenditures and the creation of money.
Please show me such words, use quotes and provide publication and date.
I doubt you will find such words since the fact is, no Govt is EVER too big for Krugman.
Usury or Riba is a sin. Money must not be allowed to become a commodity. Is it Currency or a medium that allows for the transmission of value. Bring back Glass-Seagull. Do it for Johnathan Livingston.
Life Support: It sounds as though you would be in a better position than I am to provide comparative data on numbers of copies sold.
Let’s use this as an opportunity for doing some critical thinking:
As of 2008, Krugman had written 20 books and published over 200 scholarly articles in professional journals and edited volumes. He has also written more than 750 columns on economic and political issues for The New York Times, Fortune and Slate.
Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (informally the Nobel Prize in Economics), the sole recipient for 2008. This prize includes an award of about $1.4 million and was given to Krugman for his work associated with New Trade Theory and the New Economic Geography.
Over the course of the first 14 years of his writing career (1979–1993), JHK (who regularly criticizes Krugman), wrote seven novels. Since the mid-1990s, he has written four non-fiction books about suburban development and diminishing global oil supplies.
Use reasoning to determine which author has sold more books.
I’ll give you some more data, just to help you.
World Made By Hand was purchased by 876 libraries.
Conscience of the Liberal was purchased by 1,468 libraries and is available in 17 different editions (including Korean and Chinese).
Non-Fiction wins again.
So in other words, popularity is your criterion for what is good and/or true? So why do we even need science anymore? Let’s determine scientific questions by popular vote.
I don’t think that’s what Janet is saying. I asked for numbers, she delivered, and I appreciate that.
I hope I’m not just quibbling here, but let me explain why I asked.
There is a particular country (primarily English-speaking) in which denialism in various flavors is especially prolific. It happens to be the country that consumes by far the lion’s share of fossil fuels, is the most suburbanized, is highest in per capita ownership of fuel-inefficient vehicles, etc. Deeply entrenched mindsets in this particular country pose a significant obstacle to progress toward mitigating the impacts of climate change upon human society across the globe — as well as peak oil and other resource depletion issues. That’s the target audience I have in mind. In this context, “appeal to popularity” isn’t a logical fallacy; it’s the thing that will determine the course of human society. Scientific questions are being settled by popular vote. That’s a lot of the problem.
As I indicated in my first post to this thread, I’m not entirely optimistic about the prospects for recalibrating this entrenched mindset through any “messaging” effort — and even if that miracle could somehow be accomplished, it would put us merely at the starting point for a Herculean (perhaps Quixotic) task. As I see it, we’re probably at least thirty years too late to even have a good shot at a soft landing. It’s entirely possible that nothing much will change until we hit bottom, hard.
What I’m interested in (having not quite yet given up all hope, I suppose) is which author is more effective in reaching that target audience. I think Uncle Tom’s Cabin still stands as an example. Often criticized, perhaps fairly, as overly melodramatic and sentimental, but its power to bring about change cannot be denied, and that power rested on its appeal to a popular audience. I suppose a by-country breakdown would probably show Krugman still well in the lead. It may even be that he could be expected to be the more effective communicator, even to that target audience. I just don’t know.
Yes any message in which Whites are the bad guy may prove to be immensely effective. So package a message where Whites are destroying the Earth and making Blacks suffer. Whites eat this stuff up. It’s a masochism – the replacement for healthy Christianity.
Your assignment for today is to find an article from those periods in which Krugman was exhorting Govt to CUT BACK!! … Please show me such words, use quotes and provide publication and date.
The infuriating thing about this tragedy is that it was completely unnecessary. Half a century ago, any economist-or for that matter any undergraduate who had read Paul Samuelson’s textbook “Economics”-could have told you that austerity in the face of depression was a very bad idea. But policy makers, pundits and, I’m sorry to say, many economists decided, largely for political reasons, to forget what they used to know. And millions of workers are paying the price for their willful amnesia. –Paul Krugman
CITATION: Krugman, P. (2012, Jan 31). The austerity debacle. Financial Express.
Janos: “So in other words, popularity is your criterion for what is good and/or true? So why do we even need science anymore? Let’s determine scientific questions by popular vote.”
Straw man. I never said what you asserted. I was asked for NUMBERS and I provided NUMBERS. Good or true never entered into the discussion. Neither did science.
Bring back Glass-Seagull.
————
Become a Muslim. Be done with usury.
Where do I sign?
Southerners have this way of taking pride in some imagined heritage cloaked (or soaked?) in patriotism, religion, and fire arms… – Alpha Mail
Yeah, some of my fondest memories of life in the military involve southerners. It all began in USAF ROTC. I did a month of training at Lockbourne AFB near Columbus, Ohio in the summer between my Junior and Senior year. Let’s see, that would have been 1961.
A “good ‘ol boy” (age 20) from VMI was marching us from point A to point B. He explained the proper posture of the hands while marching…..”like you’re holding a blade of grass between your thumb and forefinger.” And he taught us some real neat marching chants like:
“See that girl
Dressed in pink?
She’s the one that
Makes my finger stink.”
[Krugman] doesn’t understand (or want to understand) what money is…
—————-
Janos, weren’t you banned? This comment is hilarious! I wonder if Krugman even knew what to do with the $1.4 Million dollars he got for the Nobel Prize. I wonder if he just stared at it and said, “what’s this?”
LOL!
lsjogren said: “it is a sign that we are in a “mini bubble” in which many people are experiencing a little resurgence of “the good life” after the shocks of the crash of 2008.”
——————
Agreed. Things are good. People are breathing more easily and are buying stuff again. Whether or not it is a “mini-bubble” we’ll have to wait and see. But not too long, just around the corner, collapse hunger is increasing. (at least on CFN)
Jim,
Those of us who follow you here are well aware that this mess has been coming on for a very long time. What’s interesting is that as far back as the 1950s, Frank Lloyd Wright proposed a rather fascinating solution that might have changed the direction of things. Or maybe not. His proposal definitely did not follow his normal philosophy of “form follows function” to fit the terrain and environment.
To get you off the tenterhooks on which I have inadvertently placed you, here’s a thumbnail description of his idea:
FLW proposed a one mile (that’s right…5,280 feet) tall skyscraper that would taper to a point at the top. It would be securely anchored by a base/foundation that would descend one-third of a mile into the earth. Size of the building’s base at ground level? I can’t remember, but it would’ve had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a half mile on a side.
The purpose of the tower would have been to contain all of the inhabitants, equipment, businesses and activities (including industrial)….along with parks, recreational facilities, etc… for a fair size city. Say 100,000 to 200,000. Larger cities would be replaced by several such towers.
The reclaimed land resulting from the demolition of the old style cities would then be used for agricultural production and expansive greenswards where residents of the tower(s) could stroll and enjoy themselves whenever they felt the need to go outside.
Whether he actually had an idea that would’ve worked or had over indulged on some 190-proof liquid that he had just discovered and didn’t know the effect it would have on him, I can say. But…an illustration of the proposed tower appeared in a two page color spread in a NYC newspaper. The New York Times, I believe. If I can find that spread…which I still have somewhere…I could tell you for sure.
RCM
Ooos! I just found an incomplete word. As a result, I’ve copied and pasted my original post into this one with the word corrected. My apologies for the error. I’m a freelance writer, so that kind of thing bothers me.
Jim,
Those of us who follow you here are well aware that this mess has been coming on for a very long time. What’s interesting is that as far back as the 1950s, Frank Lloyd Wright proposed a rather fascinating solution that might have changed the direction of things. Or maybe not. His proposal definitely did not follow his normal philosophy of “form follows function” to fit the terrain and environment.
To get you off the tenterhooks on which I have inadvertently placed you, here’s a thumbnail description of his idea:
FLW proposed a one mile (that’s right…5,280 feet) tall skyscraper that would taper to a point at the top. It would be securely anchored by a base/foundation that would descend one-third of a mile into the earth. Size of the building’s base at ground level? I can’t remember, but it would’ve had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a half mile on a side.
The purpose of the tower would have been to contain all of the inhabitants, equipment, businesses and activities (including industrial)….along with parks, recreational facilities, etc… for a fair size city. Say 100,000 to 200,000. Larger cities would be replaced by several such towers.
The reclaimed land resulting from the demolition of the old style cities would then be used for agricultural production and expansive greenswards where residents of the tower(s) could stroll and enjoy themselves whenever they felt the need to go outside.
Whether he actually had an idea that would’ve worked or had over indulged on some 190-proof liquid that he had just discovered and didn’t know the effect it would have on him, I can’t say. But…an illustration of the proposed tower appeared in a two page color spread in a NYC newspaper. The New York Times, I believe. If I can find that spread…which I still have somewhere…I could tell you for sure.
RCM
The concept you’re describing is an arcology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
In the Wikipedia article to which i link, Frank Lloyd Wright is mentioned, but not for the structure you described. Instead, it’s for something called “Broadacre City,” which is not at all like a standard arcology. Instead, it’s a planned, self-sufficient low-density city. It would have been dependent on the automobile, although the residents would have done a lot of gardening for their own food.
Here’s the link to the Wikipedia article on Broadacre City.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadacre_City
CITATION: Krugman, P. (2012, Jan 31). The austerity debacle. Financial Express.
Your grade is F. You have failed (deliberately) to understand the assignment….which I will reiterate:
… find an article from those periods* in which Krugman was exhorting Govt to CUT BACK!!
* written during periods when the economy was humming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNqIJ3e0OJw
This had 361,615 views, or about 361,000+ more than this article, which kind of confirms Kunstler’s point on the current hive mind. All 361,615 of those viewers knows what a bucket of KFC is and how to use an EBT card, but how many know that the FRB controls the price of that bucket?
FRB?
‘Afropuffs’ has been at Youtube for years. This blog does have
1000s ? of viewers.
Remember the LAWS are made in DC and seven of the ten wealthiest counties in USA are nearby. Those folks are hoping the gravy train goes on forever. They do not live in DC, however.
It is too Black near the WH.
Nastarana said: The problem I have with your list, other than I have no idea who Donna Tartt might be, is that no other name on it has not been the beneficiary of NYT bestseller media hype.
Nastarana, all the authors you mention have been reported on/reviewed by the New York Times many times. Here are examples:
JORGE AMADO
West, P. (1988, Feb 07). Ambushed in the cacao groves. New York Times Book Review
CHINUA ACHEBE
Gordimer, N. (1988, Feb 21). A tyranny of clowns. New York Times Book Review
VIKRAM SETH
Woodward, & , R. B. (1993, May 02). Vikram seth’s big book. New York Times.
Nice piece of disingenuous blather.
I still remember the hype over Yevtushenko. He is not bad, I suppose. I prefer Mandelstam and BTW, the memoir by his wife is also a minor classic.
I think none of the names I mentioned can reasonably function as any kind of cultural signifier. Sorry to disappoint.
You clearly thought I was going to mention something like that piece of overhyped trash, The Red Tent, which I only finished because it was for a book club.
How about you tell us which of Prof. Krugman’s oeuvre you have read, and which you would recommend for non-specialists?
His field is international trade, and, I would guess, he just realized that there might not be much more of that if the price of energy keeps rising while its’ availability declines.
… find an article from those periods* in which Krugman was exhorting Govt to CUT BACK!!
I completed the assignment.
It’s like a doctor who says in print: “when you have a headache, take an aspirin”
And you come back and say: Find a doctor who has said in print “Don’t take an aspirin if you don’t have a headache.”
Use your common sense that God gave you, even if you no longer believe in God.
Adobe will melt in the first tropical storm. Brickmaking, ONTOH, might be a skill worth reviving.
Adobe bricks are of many kinds: traditional sun-dried, semi-stabilized, stabilized, terrones, quemados, and pressed-adobe bricks. Treated or stabilized bricks will not “melt” in tropical rain.
Untreated bricks have to be covered with stucco/plaster to protect them from rains.
People figured out how to protect adobe ten thousand years ago and adobe buildings are still standing that are five thousand years old. Are there any wooden buildings still around after five thousand years?
Do any of the still standing adobe buildings happen to be located in other than arid environments?
Nastarna, J’aska is an “expert” on everything, but most especially mud huts.
I failed the pickup truck test. Indeed, there was an F-110. Never heard of it before today:
There was an early 60s F-110. But JHK is still a city boy! And he drives a ding-dang Tacoma 😀
JORGE AMADO
West, P. (1988, Feb 07). Ambushed in the cacao groves. New York Times Book Review
JHK’s most recent blog post here and this title have given me an idea for my next book. I’ll call it:
Sodomized In The Sorghum Rows
Boring does not get published widely, nor read widely.
Shit Fire, of course it does. In fact, the majority of the bullshit published today that is widely distributed and read is boring, and Krugman’s material is no different. Unless, of course, you think O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck et al are interesting and not boring. All of the aforementioned have written multiple books that are “published widely” and “read widely.”
here was an early 60s F-110. But JHK is still a city boy! And he drives a ding-dang Tacoma 😀
Not to mention, he no doubt knows how to wipe his ass properly, unlike the majority of pickem up truck drivers such as yourself.
I wonder if he just stared at it and said, “what’s this?”
I’m guessing he smoked it all up by now. He looks like the type.
Adobe works fine with cold and moisture, but it’s high-mass properties mean it doesn’t make sense unless there is a large diurnal range of temperature. Just like the stick-frames of New England don’t make much sense in the desert Southwest.
OK, it’s far enough into the day to let this comments section devolve into a contest to see who can find the best pickup-truck parody ad.
I’m not saying this one’s the best, but here’s a start:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c55de7eca1/it-s-movin-season-ram-truck-parody
When’s this sucker going down (to quote George Bush) that’s what I want to know?
Gas is $4 per gallon and people are still driving around like maniacs. On a pristine spot by the Farmington River, in Burlington, Developers have cut down all the trees and plowed up the ground to build a McMansion subdivision, price tag: $1 million and up. I was hoping the long emergency would put those sonsabitches out of business!
–BRH
When’s this sucker going down…
It is not going down… ever. It will continue for hundreds of thousands of years more, at least until the sun burns out.
The reason is simple:
this sucker depends upon energy, not finite fossil fuels.
End of story.
“at least until the sun burns out”
That is BILLIONS of years. Do you REALLY think human civilization is going to last that long? Talk about deluded…
To Read Too Many Books is Harmful
~Mao Zedong
That, I believe, would be a quote from one Lord Shang, an ancient Chinese writer who makes Machiavelli look like a Sunday School teacher. The original went something like there is no one more useless than an impoverished bookworm.
Good quote. He’s right.
An authoritarian would naturally think so.
Am I the last one to figure out that “janet” is actually Asoka in ….drag? Scary images of Asoka sitting at a dressing table applying lipstick, eye shadow, rouge, and high heels. I guess things must get pretty boring when you’re beating off to Osho in a mud hut. blech!
The misdirection, dogged contentiousness and puzzling irrelevancies should have been a giveaway, but we do like to think the best of people despite the evidence of our own eyes. (We might want to file that little peccadillo away for a decade or so if we intend to continue living.)
Rouge is not necessary when clacking away at your assigned card-table, but it can prove briefly entertaining for your fellow slaves to the M.I.C.
this sucker depends upon energy, not finite fossil fuels.
It depends on the definition of “this sucker.” IF by “this sucker” you mean civilization, and more specifically industrial civilization, then “this sucker” requires more energy than the planet and sun can provide. I posted this link before, but I’ll post it again as support.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
The purpose of this exploration is to point out the absurdity that results from the assumption that we can continue growing our use of energy—even if doing so more modestly than the last 350 years have seen. This analysis is an easy target for criticism, given the tunnel-vision of its premise. I would enjoy shredding it myself. Chiefly, continued energy growth will likely be unnecessary if the human population stabilizes. At least the 2.9% energy growth rate we have experienced should ease off as the world saturates with people. But let’s not overlook the key point: continued growth in energy use becomes physically impossible within conceivable timeframes. The foregoing analysis offers a cute way to demonstrate this point. I have found it to be a compelling argument that snaps people into appreciating the genuine limits to indefinite growth.
Once we appreciate that physical growth must one day cease (or reverse), we can come to realize that all economic growth must similarly end. This last point may be hard to swallow, given our ability to innovate, improve efficiency, etc. But this topic will be put off for another post.
It depends on the definition of “this sucker.”
Very good!
Yes, that is the question.
I was assuming “this sucker” to be the “planet earth” and it existed quite well for millions of years before human beings arrived on the scene, it existed quite well without combustion engines or refined gasoline because those things are not necessary to sustain life on earth, including human life at perhaps 500 million population. We are all going to die anyway eventually. Gaia just might shake off a few billion of the most harmful parasites a little early.
Am I the last one to figure out that “janet” is actually Asoka in ….drag?
I went back and read some posts made by this Asoka everyone keeps referencing. He (or she) had some ideas I agree with and some I disagree with.
James, your reference to “..subsistence is the real deal-to-come, and it will be literally a harder row to hoe than the current conception of “poverty,” is spot on. I spent a sizable fraction of my life living with and studying subsistence-based hunter-gathers. The skills critical to living a truly subsistence type of lifestyle, including basic agriculture, requires an amazing amount of information, training and fortitude. True subsistence living takes generations of trial and error to develop the database and skills to live off the land. Anyone who thinks they can simply pick up a gun and go off into the woods to shoot a deer or hoe away at hardscrabble land and have food suddenly appear are in for some tough lessons. The one basic truth about Nature is she doesn’t give a damn.
Yep. By necessity, I’ve adopted raised-bed gardening through hard experience and have barely scratched the surface of that practice in 5 years. Just basic gardening without commercial inputs is a demanding lesson in working with Nature… and, as you say, she doesn’t give a hoot or holler in hell about our success or failure.
(That’s not even taking into account the changing weather patterns and infestations of ‘new’ insects and fungi, year over year.)
The permaculture folks have some good ideas. You can start by planting fruit and nut trees if you have space or hops and grapes and small fruit if you don’t.
Jim- the turn-over of southern fried language in this week’s entry is well flipped. It reminds me of Reverend Billy C. Wirzt’s “Roberta, Roberta! (I love you but you just won’t left me breathe”).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhYWa1KdRM
I long for a life in a town with the feeling of the music in the podcasts.
A lot of sorrow in the soul these days amid the act that everything’s fine.
Nature… and, as you say, she doesn’t give a hoot or holler in hell about our success or failure.
Nature is keeping you alive this very minute because She cares. How does She care? She keeps your ass alive, Ozone, through negative feedback loops that are essential for homeostatic system maintenance.
Several biologically driven negative feed back loops have been identified that keep the oceans at a constant salinity and keep nitrogen-phosphorus concentrations at the Redfield ratio of 6.7 — these are conditions which are ideal for life, including your life, ozone, although you are ungrateful.
Photosynthetic organisms regulates atmospheric CO2 concentrations. That’s Nature working for you, ozone. Life seems to maintain atmospheric O2 concentrations just below the level where fires would disrupt land life. Various other biological mechanisms help to control atmospheric, soil, and ocean chemical composition and pH (according to Lovelock).
Life is also important for maintaining nutrient cycling. It provides efficient recycling pathways for poorly supplied nutrients. Biota annually consume 200 times more carbon, 500 – 1300 times more nitrogen, and 200 times more phosphorus than is supplied by external fluxes. Without this biological amplification by Nature there would be less than one percent of the biomass that is present now (including your garden and your winter firewood). But all you can do is complain about insects and fungus, right ozone? After all, Nature doesn’t care at all, does She?
“The misdirection, dogged contentiousness and puzzling irrelevancies should have been a giveaway,” -J as A
Your screed has miniscule skewed references to what I wrote and the direction of intent is COMPLETELY misplaced! I don’t “complain” about Nature, I’m required to adapt to it if I desire to remain alive. And no, Nature is absolutely disinterested in whether mankind thrives or expires. (You don’t think so either, you just have to appear pious and ‘spiritually superior’. Your assumed persona has certain buttons that need constant pushing to give it a thin veneer of credibility.)
BTW, do you seriously think I’m unaware of all these “workings of Nature” that you’ve slathered your gum’mint-sponsored attack with? Jesus wept.
You have a very nasty, warped ‘job’ of driving people away from actual discussion. You are cordially invited to go fuck yourself. (That’s a standing invitation, BTW.)
Which is why 99% of all species of life that have existed on this planet are extinct. Asokas nature, caring you into extermination lol!
Nature… and, as you say, she doesn’t give a hoot or holler in hell about our success or failure.
Damn, ozone, that is one of the dumbest statements on CFN, even dumber than some of the stuff I read that Asoka posted.
The moment Nature stops caring, the moment Nature stops maintaining homeostasis in the atmospheric O2 concentrations for us to breathe, we are dead: all 7+ Billion of us.
Rich and poor, black and white, they are precious in Her sight.
You are still here precisely because Nature does care.
It’s not all about YOU, ozone, but Nature is sustaining you nonetheless, so you must be useful for something. I trust Her implicitly.
Jim,
As a former resident of the Detroit metro area I just have to comment on the city’s demise and its blueprint for the nation at large. Our family escaped the carnage which came to be known as the city of Detroit in the early 70’s and transported to another urban hellhole in the making, Phoenix, Arizona. In many respects it was a good move, in others maybe not so great. A vast suburbia in the making, cheap land, cheap labor, what’s not to like? Except the city has no character. The personification of a city of nowhere…but we do have a token light rail line, another urban boondoggle when you factor the cost per rider.
I’d like to make a brief comment regarding urban planning if I may. Seems to me this love of the “New Urbanism” is a bit misguided and is the same old, same old only on a smaller scale.
Frank Lloyd Wright was exploring a different concept with his “Broadacre City” which to some only became a guide for the suburbia of today with all its transportation evils. However, we must remember at the time the auto was a wonderful liberating machine and expressed in so many ways the promise of the future both in freedom of movement and as a social and personal art-form.
Unfortunately, sometimes those things we love the most also tend to do us the most harm, take for example; double cheeseburgers, cheese puffs and ice cream.
But back to “Broadacre City”, the concept of families living on a acre plot of land with the opportunity to live partially in a self-sufficient manner is not unlike the short lived Urban Homestead program proposed by the FDR administration in the 1930’s. If ever there was a pattern of sustainable living to be explored further these concepts have significant merit. Particularly if coupled with efficient use of an enhanced information network. It’s ludicrous to drive across town only to push virtual paper around, yet that is what many of us do on a daily basis.
But back to Detroit, with its fertile soils (that is if it’s not a Superfund site) and temperate climate it would be short sighted to completely discount the Urban Farms proposition. There is dignity in working the land if you think human labor has intrinsic value in of itself. But regrettably we’ve all been sold another bill of goods and that bill is coming due soon enough.
It’s my sense we’ll miss having the opportunity for a smooth transition to urban bliss, we still have too many other avenues (auto metaphor) of poor judgment to pursue at this time.
Perhaps we’ll figure it out in the 22nd or 23rd century then, we can only hope can’t we?
In the mean time let us all enjoy watching and participating in; the great circling of the drain…it going to be quite a ride…
“Detroit, with its fertile soils (that is if it’s not a Superfund site) and temperate climate it would be short sighted to completely discount the Urban Farms proposition.”
That is part of the Detroit Future City project, which was funded by the Kresge Foundation to the tune of $150 million this year. The rest involves managing Detroit’s water resources to create a “blue-green infrastructure.”
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/01/kresge-pledges-150-million-to-detroit.html
Hey Neon,
Thanks for the link, it’s been a while since I visited your blog site.
Recently I took a tour of some of my old stomping grounds via Google Earth and street view. I saw my Grandparent’s house, the porch collapsed, the front door open and a general state of disrepair, it was quite a shock. But even more surprising was the fact that 90% of the adjacent homes were gone. Nothing but nature reclaiming its own…the Earth’s healing process.
It’s nice to hear of the Kresge pledge but I’d be concerned that good intentions will be sabotaged by the presence of big money.
Had a chance recently to read ‘Detroit – An American Autopsy’, what an aptly name book. Detroit is America’s future, maybe twenty years out (if we’re lucky). Most people won’t know what hit them, they ( we ) are so ill prepared for our future.
Thanks again…LL
Yes robots are being developed to do agricultural work. So what will people do for work? Nobody seems to care. And if you disagree, you’re a “luddite”. Yes quite a ride – like Poe’s descent into the Maelstrom.
It is my hope that we give the robots a break.
People need to be in contact with the soil, to move their bodies, to rediscover the life cycle, themselves and their self-worth.
As for work, there is plenty to go around, only it doesn’t have to be on the 9 to 5 hamster wheel. It needs to start on the community level.
But then you’re right about one thing, I am a ‘Luddite’ and proud of it. I keep my flip phone though and I dig a fast processor….
Personally I like Poe’s ‘Narrative of Arthur Pym’ and the journey to the South Pole, now that was a strange ride, full of adventure…
g.t.gooooo
The permaculture folks have some good ideas. You can start by planting fruit and nut trees if you have space or hops and grapes and small fruit if you don’t.
Once upon a time, I considered permaculture a good thing. Not any longer. After reviewing the comments to this blog and several others to include Nature Bats Last, I’ve concluded permaculture is a movement of white racist misanthropes who not only want to be crucified, but also want to crucify. Sorry, but I’ll take my GMO fruits and veggies rather than support the likes of that.
Oh, and this isn’t a ballgame, and nature doesn’t bat first or last; it doesn’t bat at all because there is no freaking game. Humans are nature. There is no distinction. If you don’t like human, then you don’t like nature because human is nature. If nature’s so great, how do you explain its creating its executioner, human? Perhaps it would be wise to quit thinking of nature as some sort of entity separate and distinct from human, because it’s not. But, humans, or at least some humans, like to try to quantify, qualify, characterize and contain EVERYTHING in human description, hence cartoons where every other thing that exists in the universe is characterized with human attributes….to include human’s vaunted deities.
Anthropomorphism is a vain and onerous device revealing a severely disabled and self-centered incapacity to see everything as a reflection of itself. It’s the pinnacle of narcissism.
But, by all means, let the permaculturists continue their little Passion Play. Mel Gibson will be proud.
For crying out loud, do you have any sense at all? Nevermind, I guess I already know you don’t.
I never said I was a whole hearted permie, I said they had some good ideas. Even you have those once in a while.
So let me guess, where are you going with this? It is perfectly OK for interesting ethnics to plant their own culturally appropriate community gardens, but the rest of us mustn’t presume, because our shrinking resources are needed to prop up the lifestyles of parasites like you? Before you start squawking, I know you never said any of that, or at least not in so many words, but it for sure seems to be implied in a good deal of what does come out of your miserable keyboard.
As for GMOs, why am I not surprised that you cannot recognize Evil when it not only stares you in the face, but poisons the land, water and air for all of us?
Why do you predominantly assume my comments are directed at you, personally? It wasn’t directed at you, so if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it or try to defend not wearing it. There is a substantial presence here for whom that shoe does fit, and the comment is directed at that presence. Yes, I quoted something you wrote, but only as a segue to a broader audience and point.
If you quote me, I suppose you are talking to, or responding to, me.
As for the other remark you asked about, it speaks for itself.
It is perfectly OK for interesting ethnics to plant their own culturally appropriate community gardens, but the rest of us mustn’t presume, because our shrinking resources are needed to prop up the lifestyles of parasites like you?
I’ve read this five times over now and still can’t make sense of it. I suppose it makes sense to you, and if you don’t mind talking to yourself that’s perfectly fine, but when you’re talking to someone other than yourself, or should I say corresponding with someone else, it’s important to clarify and elaborate. So, please explain…..especially the parasite part and “interesting ethnics.”
That, I believe, would be a quote from one Lord Shang, an ancient Chinese writer who makes Machiavelli look like a Sunday School teacher. The original went something like there is no one more useless than an impoverished bookworm.
I wonder what the good Lord would have thought and said about blogging?
I think he was in many ways the original totalitarian. He also excoriated the people who went into the wilderness to practice yogic disciplines, which I believe were just then being introduced into China, for having no proper respect for authority.
The Obama admin and the Dems have weighed in. There will be no bail-out of Detroit. This is an indicator of just how far right the country has moved since the times of Gerry Ford. Even Ford relented to a bail-out of New York City, and he was a Republican. Obama, allegedly a Democrat, won’t even consider a bail-out of Detroit.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/28/no-bailout-coming-for-detroit-treasury-secretary-says/
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had that message for them Sunday, telling CNN’s “State of the Union” that Detroit’s debt problems were between the city and its creditors.
“Detroit’s got serious financial problems,” Lew told chief political correspondent Candy Crowley. “They’ve been a long time in the making. We stand with Detroit and have been working with them, the technical advice, working with the kinds of normal programs the federal government has to see if there’s anything we can do to help in the Treasury Department.”
And while those “normal programs” may include resources for helping remove blighted buildings and aid to specific communities, it doesn’t mean help paying down the $18 billion Detroit owes in debt.
He makes it crystal clear in no uncertain terms; Obama is no Gerry Ford….he will not capitulate. Lew, like all the others inside the Beltway, are such lying, manipulative cocksuckers. Here’s one of the reasons he justifies bailing out the auto industry, but not Detroit.
But it could rub some Detroit residents the wrong way. While city workers are likely to see their pensions slashed, auto industry workers there are still receiving full benefits, thanks to the 2008 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.
The $80 billion in assistance to those firms came in early 2009 after executives begged for federal help, and since the funds came from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the package didn’t require congressional approval.
A federal bailout of Detroit would require lawmakers to sign on – a feat unlikely in a body mired in debate other financial issues.
On Sunday, Lew also argued a municipal bailout wouldn’t have as widespread an effect on the country as the auto industry assistance did.
“In the middle of the economic crisis, we were saving the American economy,” he said. “We were in free-fall. If we hadn’t taken decisive action, we would have had a massively worse problem than what we even had. So I think the situation in 2009 to 2010 was unique. And it’s something that hopefully we never see again.”
What a deceiver. Bullshit, Lew! A more valid argument can be made that not bailing out Detroit will have a greater impact than not bailing out the “American” auto industry. By allowing Detroit to default on its debt, investors everywhere will be reluctant to invest in municipal bonds, and if municipalities can’t secure debt, they won’t be able to pay their bills to include retirement benefits for their city employees, and if they can’t do that, they won’t have employees, and if they don’t have employees, they can’t provide services, and if they can’t provide services, businesses will leave and new businesses will not locate there. It will quickly catapult into a crisis of confidence having a much greater ripple effect than not bailing out the “American” auto industry would have had.
Some further research reveals that a back door bail-out is in effect. The bankruptcy plan for Detroit includes turning the healthcare of retired Detroit employees over to Obamacare, and allegedly, the Obama admin knew this when the Act was formulated. This is sneaky and duplicitous. It’s one thing to publicly announce a Federal bail-out, but to pull these kind of stunts out of the public eye is conspiratorial to say the least.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kateandrews/2013/07/29/revealing-obama-administration-is-bailing-out-detroitthrough-obamacare-n1651697
Revealing: Obama Administration Is Bailing Out Detroit–Through Obamacare
A key component to Detroit’s bankruptcy plan reveals The Affordable Health Care Act as a ploy to bail out deeply blue cities and their corrupt public employee unions.
As Detroit enters the federal bankruptcy process, the city is proposing a controversial plan for paring some of the $5.7 billion it owes in retiree health costs: pushing many of those too young to qualify for Medicare out of city-run coverage and into the new insurance markets that will soon be operating under the Obama health care law.
Unfunded retiree health care costs loom larger than ever for localities across the country, and the health law’s guarantee of federal subsidies to help people with modest incomes afford coverage has made the new insurance markets tantalizing for local governments.
And legally, it can; Obamacare has been designed to allow blue cities like Detroit to over-spend on behalf of the public sector and then divert the cost to the American taxpayer, who has no vote or control over the city’s financial decisions.
Detroit is not the only city to propose such a controversial plan. Other blue cities, like Chicago, have proposed similar plans to divert city-run health care coverage over to Obamacare; and more cities are likely to follow. A recent Pew Charitable Trust study discovered that 61 of the country’s leading cities have made a combined promise of $126.2 billion worth of retiree health coverage to their public sector workers, yet only 6% of this cost is funded.
While both Republicans and Democrats have been lamenting the huge financial strains of Obamacare and escalating costs of insurance premiums, this shift from city-run health care coverage over to Obamacare would drive the cost of Obamacare up even more, all for the benefit of public employee retirement funds.
Today, it’s claiming that Obamacare will lower the cost of healthcare and provide full-coverage for all Americans; in reality, it is a tool to fund manipulated, public employee health care plans at the expense of taxpayers, who will not only pay for the public employees, but for their own, escalated insurance premiums as well.
Wow, this is dirty, dirty business……as dirty as it gets. I’m betting this couple hundred billion wasn’t included in the projections proffered by the Dems for Obamacare. The Dems are as dirty and crooked as the Repubs, and this proves it once and for all. Pelosi said we’d know what what was in the plan once it was passed. Well, we’re finding out, slowly but surely, aren’t we? Like I said, we’ll see…..and we’re seeing, alright.
You have a very nasty, warped ‘job’ of driving people away from actual discussion. You are cordially invited to go fuck yourself. (That’s a standing invitation, BTW.)
Nastarana, cover your ears…errr eyes. I know you’re sensitive to such filthy language, or is it alright when your pal ozone uses it?
Carol, listen, or read, carefully because I ain’t agonna repeat myself.
I. Don’t. Work. For. You.
Please repeat or at least refer to one post in which I objected to someone else’s choice of language.
I am not going to complain about someone else’s choice of language, not even yours, which is worse than vulgar, it simply does not make sense, because I might like to use the same myself.
Carol, you post a lot of loaded words to describe Obama’s efforts to provide health care, like ploy, allegedly, sneaky, duplicitous, stunts, conspiratorial.
The truth is ACA was debated by the American people, debated by Congress, passed by a bipartisan vote in Congress, signed by the President, and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. It was not a “ploy” nor “sneaky” nor “duplicitous” etc.
Michigan (unlike Texas and most of the South) sends more taxpayer dollars to Washington, D.C. than it receives back. Now it will be getting back some of those tax dollars.
Public funds for public health. What a concept!
Carol, you post a lot of loaded words to describe Obama’s efforts to provide health care, like ploy, allegedly, sneaky, duplicitous, stunts, conspiratorial.
They’re not loaded words, they’re factual descriptions. Obama would not let Single Payer advocates at the table for this process. He excluded them, purposely. He had a Democrat-controlled Executive and Congress, and yet he failed to pass Single Payer legislation, let alone consider it. This is not universal healthcare, rather, it’s legislation making it mandatory to turn over a significant portion of your income to the insurance companies so they can record double-digit profits for another decade or more.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/12/707486/-Baucus-Obama-160-Single-Payer-is-Off-the-Table
Senator Max Baucus has told the Helena Independent Record that a single payer health care system is “off the table.” President Obama has said pretty much the same. At a recent Washington conference on health care reform, only a few health care reformers were invited (and only after a major protest was threatened). They were not considered seriously despite the fact that a majority of Americans favor a single payer system (which would cut out the insurance industry). Indeed, the mainstream media has minimized the importance and support for single payer. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.
STATE SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent—14 percent—of its gross national product on healthcare, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out: a single-payer healthcare plan, universal healthcare plan.
Obama got it wrong. He’s against single payer not because “a lot of people work for insurance companies and…for HMO’s” but because insurance companies and HMO’s gave lots of bucks to him and his campaign and the last thing in the world they want to see is a single payer system (because it cuts them out). “Health professionals” gave the Obama campaign almost $11.5 million and insurance more than $2 million. http://www.opensecrets.org/…
That’s not all. Lobbyist “bundlers” who gave to Obama included:
Alan D. Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures in Massachusetts represents Health Services/HMOs. As an Obama bundler, Solomont raised $200,000+. FEC records show that Solomont personally contributed $2,100 on January 26, 2007;[34] $2,500 on March 30, 2007;[35] (Rebecca Solomont at the same address made two $2,300 contributions on the same day); and $2,300 on March 30, 2007. Many other lobbyist bundlers, of course, also gave to Obama but they represent unclear clients. Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/…
Moreover, listed among the top 50 contributors to Barack Obama 2003-2004 as a Senator are found the following political action committees: Allstate Insurance PAC; AIA Ill Pac (American Insurance Association). Among his top 50 contributors in 2001-2002 were the Illinois Health Care Association PAC. Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/… While serving in Illinois, reports http://www.boston.com, “Obama was willing to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. Obama’s state Senate campaign committee accepted contributions from insurance companies and their lobbyists – including $1,000 from the Professional Independent Insurance Agents PAC in June 2003, and $1,000 from the Illinois Insurance PAC in December 2003 – while the Health Care Justice Act was wending its way through the Illinois General Assembly. Obama also collected money from the insurance industry and its lobbyists for his successful US Senate campaign in 2004.”
janet, you don’t have a leg to stand on here, and you know it. Concede.
it is a tool to fund manipulated, public employee health care plans at the expense of taxpayers, who will not only pay for the public employees, but for their own, escalated insurance premiums as well.
ACA is a tool to provide health care. Check.
At the expense of taxpayers. Yes, everyone will pay premiums. Check.
Escalated insurance premiums. No. This is a lie.
The health exchange makes plans transparent, make cost comparison easy, and LOWERS insurance premiums. Look at California, Maryland, and New York, the states which have announced health exchange plans. In all three states the rates are LOWER than the private health insurance company gouging we have now.
Carol, you post a lot of loaded words to describe Obama’s efforts to provide health care, like ploy, allegedly, sneaky, duplicitous, stunts, conspiratorial.
They’re not loaded words, they’re factual descriptions. Obama would not let Single Payer advocates at the table for this process. He excluded them, purposely. He had a Democrat-controlled Executive and Congress, and yet he failed to pass Single Payer legislation, let alone consider it. This is not universal healthcare, rather, it’s legislation making it mandatory to turn over a significant portion of your income to the insurance companies so they can record double-digit profits for another decade or more.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/12/707486/-Baucus-Obama-160-Single-Payer-is-Off-the-Table
Senator Max Baucus has told the Helena Independent Record that a single payer health care system is “off the table.” President Obama has said pretty much the same. At a recent Washington conference on health care reform, only a few health care reformers were invited (and only after a major protest was threatened). They were not considered seriously despite the fact that a majority of Americans favor a single payer system (which would cut out the insurance industry). Indeed, the mainstream media has minimized the importance and support for single payer. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.
STATE SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent—14 percent—of its gross national product on healthcare, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out: a single-payer healthcare plan, universal healthcare plan.
Obama got it wrong. He’s against single payer not because “a lot of people work for insurance companies and…for HMO’s” but because insurance companies and HMO’s gave lots of bucks to him and his campaign and the last thing in the world they want to see is a single payer system (because it cuts them out). “Health professionals” gave the Obama campaign almost $11.5 million and insurance more than $2 million. http://www.opensecrets.org/…
That’s not all. Lobbyist “bundlers” who gave to Obama included:
Alan D. Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures in Massachusetts represents Health Services/HMOs. As an Obama bundler, Solomont raised $200,000+. FEC records show that Solomont personally contributed $2,100 on January 26, 2007;[34] $2,500 on March 30, 2007;[35] (Rebecca Solomont at the same address made two $2,300 contributions on the same day); and $2,300 on March 30, 2007. Many other lobbyist bundlers, of course, also gave to Obama but they represent unclear clients.
Moreover, listed among the top 50 contributors to Barack Obama 2003-2004 as a Senator are found the following political action committees: Allstate Insurance PAC; AIA Ill Pac (American Insurance Association). Among his top 50 contributors in 2001-2002 were the Illinois Health Care Association PAC. While serving in Illinois, “Obama was willing to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. Obama’s state Senate campaign committee accepted contributions from insurance companies and their lobbyists – including $1,000 from the Professional Independent Insurance Agents PAC in June 2003, and $1,000 from the Illinois Insurance PAC in December 2003 – while the Health Care Justice Act was wending its way through the Illinois General Assembly. Obama also collected money from the insurance industry and its lobbyists for his successful US Senate campaign in 2004.”
janet, you don’t have a leg to stand on here, and you know it. Concede.
This supposed return to preindustrial times is not going to happen overnight. If anything, various countries and regions will go forward or backward depending on their characteristics, such as government policies, access to energy, etc. This fits with the overall historical record. Consider the “collapse” of Rome. It actually lived on in various forms all the way into the 20th century in the form of the Ottoman Empire, preceeded by the Byzantine Empire. It seems unlikely to me that all our technical knowledge will simply be discarded. The real world is not like a sci fi movie, and I don’t see Mad Max as our future.
On the other hand, technological progress has always proceeded at different rates depending on various factors, and it can be strangely incongruous. Africans may have access to fast cell phone networks, but many don’t have access to a sanitary water supply. Rather than the types of stark outcomes given by Kunstler, I see rather more of this kind of strange juxtaposition of the old and the new, with some problems easily solved (e.g. communication via cell phones) and others remaining quandaries for the forseeable future, such as the energy supply and the concommitant effect on the environment of injecting so much CO2 into it.
There are some great points brought up in the article, and employment continues to be a major one. The economy certainly has jobs for those with advanced technical skills. But low-skill manual labor is continually being eroded by automated technology, and there is no term in this equation that requires the number of newly created jobs to equal or surpass those that are removed due to this automation.
The effect of burning fossil fuels is likely to be a more urgent and pronounced problem that finding enough of them, at least for some portion of the affluent population. There actually are vast untapped carbon resources available, and the technology for extracting them is ever progressing. But these resources could be thought of as nature’s carbon sequestration program, and we are quickly reversing it.
What about Tesla Technologies? Is there not no hope there?
The very people Obamacare purports to be helping are confused and distrusting of this legislation, and many aren’t sure they’ll sign up for insurance using the exchanges by the Jan. 1st deadline. Why would that be, janet?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100783056
There’s no assurance folks will be buying insurance under Obamacare, and that could spell trouble for the Affordable Care Act.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans who currently lack health insurance don’t know yet if they will purchase that coverage by the Jan. 1 deadline set by the ACA, a new survey revealed Monday.
And less than half of those in the survey released by InsuranceQuotes.com think they’ll get better health care after Obamacare takes full effect. Nearly 50 percent believe the ACA will make it more difficult for them to get tests and procedures done in a timely manner, according to the phone survey of 1,001 adult Americans conducted in early May.
And a whopping 68 percent of low-income Americans aren’t sure they qualify for tax credits that would subsidize their purchase of health insurance—despite they fact that they almost invariably will qualify, the survey found. That population is most likely to benefit from government subsidies under the health-care reform law.
Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com, said public uncertainty about Obamacare—particularly a lack of commitment to signing up—could end up driving up health-insurance costs under the program because not enough healthy people will participate to offset benefits payouts.
Of course, we know if they don’t pay their dues to the insurance companies, they will be penalized by the IRS, and we all know what happens when you get in hot water with the IRS; your life is effectively ruined. These Little People, already stretched to the limit and living life on the margins, will now be labeled criminals by the IRS and will be shoved into poverty as a result. So much for building the middle class. Single Payer would have precluded this predictable scenario, but then, the insurance companies wouldn’t have gotten their captivated “customer” base.
Public-private hybrid systems can work in certain circumstances, but it is a disaster with health insurance. The worst characteristics of each seem to be combined into a horrible mess. There is the byzantine over-regulation of government coupled with the inherent profit motive and immorality of private enterprise.
Already the government fills in the gaps (more like gaping chasms) of the private insurance industry, by providing Medicare, Medicaid, and VA services. Only in a narrow sense does private insurance even work at all.
I agree that single payer is a superior system, but is quite clear that the capture of the government by lobbyists of the health insurance business made it a political impossibility.
“don’t know”
“believe”
“aren’t sure”
The same thing probably happened at the beginning of Social Security or any new program. People eventually get on board.
I bet members of this very CFN paid FICA (a mandatory, compulsory, federal insurance tax) and now receive Social Security checks.
Don’t worry be happy.
When speaking of humanity’s prospects, there need to be a number of distinctions established for the conversation to make any sense.
1) What is the timescale under consideration? Is it 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? There are vastly different problems depending on this. Fossil fuel supply will likely not be a crisis issue in the next 10 years, but it likely will be in 50 years+. etc.
2) Which regions and countries of the world are being discussed? The prospects for Canada look quite a lot different than Bangladesh.
3) What assumptions are being made about population growth and contraction?
4) What models of climate change are being used?
etc.
Once these kinds of basic assumptions are established, then it makes sense to discuss the overall trajectory. Without this information, any predictions about collapse and the like look more like an expression of general angst rather than anything based on real data.
PeakEverything said: “Consider the “collapse” of Rome.”
Rome collapsed? Quick, somebody tell all those agencies signing people up for tours of Rome.
Things get worse, then they get better, then they get worse, then they get better. What you are calling collapse is nothing to fear.
30-yr. fixed mortgage rates
1972 … 7.38%
1982 … 16.04%
1992 … 8.39%
2002 … 6.54%
2012 … 3.66%
up, up, up and down, down, down, up and down, up and down
Rome collapsed? What else is new?
Uh, who cares about fixed mortgage rates? Those are manipulated artifically by the Fed. They mean essentially nothing in this discussion.
I actually agree with you that “collapse” is usually a misnomer. It might be more accurate to speak of death and birth, or simply change. One civilization dies, and another is born. But if the change looks a lot like going backward to those affected, then they might call it a collapse. It all depends on perspective.
The conquent of the Mayan civilization by the Spanish was an apocalypse for those affected. Disease and war wiped out millions. For the Spanish, it was a bonanza as they seized gold and other resources. Yet the descendants of the Mayans live on today in some form. True destruction is quite rare, but extreme change is still disruptive. And it can leave things looking almost nothing like they were.
That said, most of your posts are pretty disingenuous. Simply because your life seems okay, it is fatuous to assume that humanity’s future is rosy going into the distant future. Any realistic look at our prospects would acknowledge the quandaries and contradictions that will likely lead to disruption and chaos.
The Maya had already largely collapsed before the Spanish arrived. Many of the City States were already abandoned. The Maya practiced the Human Sacrifice religion too just like the Aztecs. They didn’t kill as many people but they tortured their victims more.
“Public-private hybrid systems can work in certain circumstances, but it is a disaster with health insurance. ”
Not so. Romney successfully implemented it in Massachusetts. It is still working there. It took a few years to get people on board, and it is still being modified, but RomneyCare works.
“The law mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage and provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The bill aimed to cover 95% of the state’s 500,000 uninsured within a three-year period. The law was amended significantly in 2008 and twice in 2010 and major revisions related to health care industry price controls were introduced in the Massachusetts legislature in May 2012 that passed in August 2012.”
Things evolve. Things get better. Humans are rational beings capable of being flexible and making changes to improve legislation.
Relax.
Yes, relax and try to enjoy it. If not, just stare at the ceiling and think of England.
Meaning you don’t know your Benny Hill and Monty Python. Shame!
Why do you spend so much time and energy trying to convince others than everything is “okay” and will be for the forseeable future? If you truly believed this, then you wouldn’t spend so much time astroturfing here with your moronic cargo cultism and inane status quo worship. This is just more of the same consensus trance discussed often by Kunstler: “I’m okay. You’re okay.” You’re trying to convince yourself, essentially. The rest of us are just the unfortunate sounding board.
There is essentially no evidence at all that America will be financially healthy going into the future, say the next 10 years. In fact, the opposite is true. You could read the current issue of the Economist for a reality check on this topic. Or not. It isn’t much skin off my back, but I think everyone here is getting sick of reading your foolishness.
“If not, just stare at the ceiling and think of England.”
Meaning what?
See my above response which should be here instead of this.
PeakEverything said: “Any realistic look at our prospects…”
Any realistic look at our prospects will lead directly to death. That is what everybody seems to be afraid of. Apocalypse, collapse, destruction, extreme change, destruction, etc. are all ways of expressing fear of death.
That said, most of your posts are pretty disingenuous. You can afford a computer, an ISP account, and have free time to post reflections on historical events. You are in no danger of any of the things you worry about. Why do you continue to post?
Mortgage rates are concrete and determine what people do with a large percentage of their income. It was an easy way to illustrate that things change both directions. Yet no one on CFN acknowledges the possibility that things will get better. It is inevitable. Up and down. Better and worse. The pendulum swings. Yet CFN will only address the downside and never the upside. Like you, talking about “collapse” and “destruction” and “apocalypse” even though you are comfortable. It is disingenuous.
I post here occassionally and intermittently. I say what I have to say in a few posts a week, at most, and I move on.
You are here week after week, trying to convince others that since things appear to be fine now, they will be until the sun burns out. Humanity will continue to progress and improve, forever and ever, until (I guess?) it reaches the technological singularity or some such.
It is such an unbelieveably stupid way to look at the world that I wonder if you even believe it yourself.
Mortgage rates have essentially NOTHING to do with this discussion. They are an artifically and dictatorially manipulated financial statistic which has no bearing on this.
Here is the definition of disingenuous:
“Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.”
Your endless posts disregarding all negative evidence to the contrary is pretty much the textbook definition of this. I’m trying to consider all the facts as currently laid out. That is the opposite.
“You are in no danger of any of the things you worry about.”
Are you omnipotent now? Can you predict the future to know that I’m in “no danger”? What an absurd and absolutist statement. Everyone is affected by everything that happens on the planet. It is just a matter of degree.
PeakEverything said: “There is essentially no evidence at all that America will be financially healthy going into the future…”
And you have a crystal ball that predicts the future? You know things will get worse… and you know things will not get better? You KNOW THIS? Be honest. You are just blowing smoke. All hat no cattle. Enjoying the gloom and doom porn that is CFN with no idea whether things will get worse or better. You probably are incapable of looking back 100 years, comparing then with now, and admitting things have gotten better. You are probably CFN-wired only to see darkness and catastrophe even though the reality is no one can predict the future. You are being dishonest in not saying things COULD get better.
Alright, well I only have so much time to respond to your endless straw men arguments and ad hominems. This will be my last post today.
“And you have a crystal ball that predicts the future?”
No, I do not, and I don’t make the presumption. You are the one barfing out post after post claiming that everything is just fine and will be forever. You’re doing exactly what you falsely accuse me of.
“You know things will get worse… and you know things will not get better?”
My point was that better and worse often depends on where you’re standing. Something that is good for one set of people can depend on a negative outcome in another. Anyways, “better” and “worse” are overly simplistic ways of looking at all this.
“You KNOW THIS? Be honest.”
Of course I can’t predict the future. My point was that there are a set of facts that predict some serious problems for humanity in the future.
Primarily I would include in this:
-unsustainable population levels
-resource imbalance requiring extraction of non-renewable resources
-climate change due to carbon fuel dependence
etc.
Given these facts, predicting a 100% “better” future for all of humanity is a pretty shaky argument to try and make.
“You probably are incapable of looking back 100 years, comparing then with now, and admitting things have gotten better.”
You are projecting a simplistic view of a “doomer” onto me. My views are far more complicated than just some simplistic designation of “better” or “worse” upon all of humanity.
“You are probably CFN-wired only to see darkness and catastrophe even though the reality is no one can predict the future.”
All of human history is full of darkness and catastrophe. A betting man would put his wager on more of the same in the future.
“You are being dishonest in not saying things COULD get better.”
Oh, please. Omission in one blog comment is not dishonesty. Most of your posts, on the other hand…
What I should have said is:
This will be my last post responding directly to you today, “janet.”
PeakEverything said: “If not, just stare at the ceiling and think of England.” Meaning what?
C’mon PeakEverything, get with the program. Or at least read between the lines. How can anyone possibly relax believing that England is being overrun by swarms of Muslims and colored people, which is what worries anti dod and janos.
Actually it is and government statistics bear that fact out. The ONS has already admitted that it ‘misplaced’ over two million non european immigrants during the last labour administration. They currently estimate that in Kent alone there may well be 300, 000 people living in unregistered addresses. These are converted garages, outhouses, sheds and small industrial buildings. The problem is so severe that police are using helicopters with IR cameras to identify buildings being used. These unoffical, non taxpaying, nonregistered free loaders put an immense strain on services such as the NHS, Police and welfare agencies.
Of course in Janet’s bubble these people do not exist despite such evidence to the contrary!
On Romneycare in Massachusetts, the precursor to Obamacare, I guess it depends on whom you ask. If you ask janet, you’ll be told it’s all good….even great, but if you ask the people of Massachusetts, the majority will tell you the opposite. Who are you going to believe?
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2011/04/romneycare_big_bust
Romneycare a big bust
As governor, Mitt Romney accomplished a feat that most Republicans would have thought impossible. With the single stroke of a pen he convinced the liberal population of Massachusetts that they, too, hate government-run health care.
As a health care plan, Romneycare is an unmitigated fiasco. It has caused costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to soar and nonprofit providers like Blue Cross to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Now, keep in mind that Romneycare, like Obamacare is not “government-run health care” or universal health care. It”s mandatory health insurance. One of the distinguishing differences from Obamacare is, Romneycare has a public option. Obamacare, instead, utilizes a subsidy forcing taxpayers to account for their health care insurance premiums via their tax returns, thus adding unnecessary complexity to an already screwed up process.
A new Suffolk University poll showed that nearly half of Massachusetts voters say the law isn’t helping, while just 38 percent say it is. As Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute pointed out, Romneycare is almost as unpopular here as Obama- care is across America.
That’s not supposed to happen.
Romneycare has also blown a hole in Romney’s reputation as a “numbers” guy, a savvy business guru who, like him or not, knows how to handle your money.
Uh, anyone checked these Romneycare numbers lately?
Taxpayers now spend $2.5 billion more on our state’s health care budget. The direct cost of Romneycare has gone from less than $100 million a year to at least $400 million — and even that number is suspect. But we do know we’ve spent more than $35 million in a single year on health services for illegal immigrants, and tens of millions more on illegal, unallowable or outright bogus claims.
If you want to know why Romneycare’s costs keep rising, check out this simple statistic from the Patrick administration: In 2006, 85 percent of the insured in Massachusetts got their coverage through private group coverage at work. Today that’s down to 79 percent.
Meanwhile the percentage on the MassHealth dole has doubled, and more than 150,000 people are now subsidized through Commonwealth Care.
Romneycare supporters like Brandeis University health policy professor Stuart Altman brag that “the basic reason for the reform was to extend coverage, and on this, we have done amazingly well.” But that’s only if you use the phrase “extend coverage” to mean “the government forced you to buy your own insurance.”
Romneycare hasn’t made that insurance more affordable — just the opposite. Many people have seen their premiums double in the past five years. Supporters also never mention that when Romneycare was signed, Massachusetts already had one of the nation’s lowest rates of uninsured.
Billions of dollars spent to accomplish so very little — that’s Romneycare’s legacy, and a glimpse of Obamacare’s future.
Once again, the author is wrong about Romneycare and Obamacare being universal healthcare. Universal healthcare is Single Payer, and in neither case was that ever considered.
And there you have it. janet’s silly, shallow defense of the status quo juxtaposed with the actual situation. Thanks Carol.
Don’t worry be happy.
I’m not worried, and I’m as happy as a bug in a rug. Don’t confuse my critical analysis with worry and unhappiness. The two are mutually exclusive, for the most part.
What is your definition of “universal”? Some people are going to refuse to enroll, but when you get down to 3% it is effectively “universal” not unlike 3% unemployment is considered to be full employment.
“According to a new analysis, health care reform in Massachusetts, popularly known as “Romneycare,” didn’t cause hospital use or costs to increase, even as it drove down the number of people without health insurance. Amresh Hanchate, an economist with the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and lead author of the study, which he presented Thursday at an American Heart Association conference, says that the results of the study were surprising. When [RomneyCare] was implemented, about 8.4 percent of Massachusetts citizens were uninsured; by 2010, just 3 percent were uninsured. Uninsured rates fell most among minorities: In 2006, 15 percent of African-Americans were uninsured, in 2010, that rate was at 3.4 percent. Uninsured rates for Hispanics in the state fell from 20 percent to 9.2 percent during the same period.”
PeakEverything said: “And there you have it. janet’s silly, shallow defense of the status quo juxtaposed with the actual situation. Thanks Carol.”
Carol is saying a public option was not considered and she is correct. But RomneyCare, as a public-private hybrid achieved what is effectively universal health care in Massachusetts without increasing costs.
“According to a new analysis, health care reform in Massachusetts, popularly known as “Romneycare,” didn’t cause hospital use or costs to increase, even as it drove down the number of people without health insurance. Amresh Hanchate, an economist with the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and lead author of the study, which he presented Thursday at an American Heart Association conference, says that the results of the study were surprising. When [RomneyCare] was implemented, about 8.4 percent of Massachusetts citizens were uninsured; by 2010, just 3 percent were uninsured. Uninsured rates fell most among minorities: In 2006, 15 percent of African-Americans were uninsured, in 2010, that rate was at 3.4 percent. Uninsured rates for Hispanics in the state fell from 20 percent to 9.2 percent during the same period.”
The most grotesque “power couple” ever. They make James Carville and Mary Madeleine look normal as apple pie.
http://www.vdare.com/posts/huma-anthony-diverse-political-odd-couple-strains-boundaries-of-sensibility-and-security
Rush just called Huma Hillary’s body woman.
What is your definition of “universal”?
No, the term is universal healthcare, not universal. A proper definition of universal healthcare doesn’t involve, in any way, shape or form, insurance companies and their mandatory double-digit profits. Single Payer is an example of universal healthcare. I know you know this, and you’re just being coy, but it needs to be emphasized, nonetheless.
Carol said: “I’m not worried, and I’m as happy as a bug in a rug. Don’t confuse my critical analysis with worry and unhappiness. The two are mutually exclusive, for the most part.”
Thanks for that clarification. This critical analysis is fun, isn’t it? Of course, there are some who don’t want to see others having fun, or being relaxed, or being happy. Terrible things are about to happen, doncha know, just around the corner. We’ll know soon, because JHK this week says we are only “months” away:
I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months. It would at least signal a rapprochment of truth with reality.
People here on CFN eat that up. They consider most Americans to be fat, lazy and stupid. CFN is rubbing its hands together with glee at the thought that the “sheeple” are going to get their comeuppance. Damn straight! Reality gonna slap ’em up the side of the head… in a few months.
Then, when we are in 2014 and nothing has happened there will be another post announcing in just a few “months” TSHTF. And so on, and so forth, per seculum secularum It’s the way CFN rolls, and I have enjoyed it for the last 14 years, since 1999, when Y2K was going to be a disaster, just a “few months” away.
And you can bet true believers like PeakEverything will continue to be emotionally thrilled by the prospect of massive human suffering.
People come here for various reasons. There is (or at least used to be) a good clatch of people who were conversant on relevant topics such as Peak Oil, climate change, etc. Some just want to test their presumptions in a debate. Others want to present information. Still others are more like trolls or astroturfers. In other words, it is a typical internet comments section. But to say that people who post here agree 100% with JHK’s view of the world that collapse is just a few months away constitutes an inaccurate projection. One of JHK’s primary flaws to my mind is being too hung up on the time table, the exact details of which will only be known after the fact. Historical prediction in general is difficult and prone to exaggeration.
We’ll know soon, because JHK this week says we are only “months” away
Yes, I noted this when I read the piece and wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it since it’s ambiguous. Maybe a carrot to the “Git one” and “Howdy” audience, I don’t know.
Another thing I noted that needs further clarification because as it’s stated it doesn’t square with my observations and experience, is this:
The idea that techno-industrial society is headed toward a collapse has become very unpopular the last couple of years.
I’ve observed just the opposite. The alternative media is increasingly saturated with this collapse prognosis, and some of it is beginning to leak into the mainstream….something heretofore I would have considered improbable and unlikely as tightly controlled as the MSM is.
“Still others are more like trolls or astroturfers.”
I don’t know what you mean by this. Every single post on CFN is providing information or responding to something expressed by another post in a manner that is relevant.
There used to be a “troll” who sent endless spam in Chinese, contributing nothing to the discussion. I don’t see anyone here who is not contributing to the discussion. Just because someone expresses a contrary opinion does not make them a troll, or a paid agent. People here need to grow up and realize the world contains a multitude of perspectives. To challenge the CFN dogma is not to troll.
I realize you have vowed not to respond to me, an indication of your intolerance, your closed-mind, but I will continue to respond to you… respectfully, without name calling, without using bad words. I love you, PeakEverything.
“There used to be a “troll” who sent endless spam in Chinese, contributing nothing to the discussion.”
I remember him. He so incensed me that I was motivated enough to translate the Monty Python catchphrase “Bloody Vikings” into Chinese: ????? When back-translated, it comes out as “Damned Pirates.” While it loses the idiomatic flavor of the original British English, it gains the imputation that the goods being hawked are less than authentic. Either way, the insulting nature of the remark comes through.
That written, I wouldn’t even grace him with being called a troll. Trolls are there to disrupt the conversation, divert attention, or just mess with people’s heads. The Chinese poster wasn’t really here to do any of those. He was just a spammer.
At the risk of being repetitious, I’m going to post a link to one of my science of trolling entries. I have this feeling that I’ll be doing that a lot around here to clarify what a troll is.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-on-science-of-trolling.html
I see that the current version of the site doesn’t support Chinese characters. That means that our unlamented former spammer from the Middle Kingdom won’t be able to post anything but question marks here. No loss!
Methinks the origin of the Chinese character drones of Zion past was actually:
Booz Allen Hamilton
733 Bishop St Ste 3000, Honolulu HI
The timing of them always was somewhere off the west coast. That we know.
Or maybe it’s true they only look. 😉
It’d be cool to have 16% mortgage interest rates again, wouldn’t it? I’m thinking the cast of characters here would keel over and die right on the spot in celebration.
“It’d be cool to have 16% mortgage interest rates again, wouldn’t it?”
It would be cause for some to scream “see, fiat money causes hyperinflation; you can’t print money endlessly”
The fact that we have been printing money endlessly for decades and have an inflation rate less than 2% doesn’t seem to cause them to question their beliefs about fiat money. They seem impervious to facts.
2013 USA INFLATION RATES
Jan … 1.6
Feb … 2.0
Mar … 1.5
Apr … 1.1
May … 1.4
Jun … 1.8
You can run the printing presses to print paper fiat money with no hyperinflation. We’ve done it for decades.
You can engage in Quantitative Easing with no hyperinflation.
You can run the printing presses to print paper fiat money with no hyperinflation. We’ve done it for decades.
You can engage in Quantitative Easing with no hyperinflation.
Yes, you can so long as your currency is the preeminent global currency. If and when it’s not, well, that’s another story of, and for, another time.
Carol said: “If and when it’s not…”
You sound like a Goldman CEO.
“Most risk management is really just advanced contingency planning and disciplining yourself to realize that, given enough time, very low probability events not only can happen, but they absolutely will happen. Once you think that something is improbable and everybody thinks it, people modify their behavior in a way that makes it more probable,” said Blankfein.
Perfect expression of CFN dogma: “Things work… until they don’t.”
This shows who CFN is aligned with: Goldman Sachs CEO thinking.
U.S. Historical Inflation Rates
1914… 2.0
1918… 19.7
1922… -11.1
1932… -10.1
1942… 11.3
1947… 18.1
1955… -0.7
1964… 1.6
1975… 11.8
1980… 13.9
1987… 1.5
1995… 2.8
2005… 3.0
2009… 0.0
2012… 2.9
*Note, the method used to calculate these rates has changed over time allowing for the more current rates to be understated in comparison to earlier years. Nonetheless, it does show a pattern of vacillation, although in the last couple of decades, perhaps due to the tinkering with the method used to calculate the rate (massaging), the discernible pattern of wild vacillation appears to have subsided and is practically non-existent.
Carol said: “If and when it’s not…”
You sound like a Goldman CEO.
No, I sound like you. Remember, you yourself said things change….there’s an ebb and a flow in all things, especially all things human-related. Are you backtracking now and saying that doesn’t apply to the U.S. dollar and its preeminence in the world? It’s important to remain consistent, right?
Carol said: “…the discernible pattern of wild vacillation appears to have subsided and is practically non-existent.”
Economic stability is the result of good government. Government, it turns out, is not Kabuki theater. Government helps citizens by providing an economic environment where fear is minimized and opportunity for advancement is maximized. It’s all good.
Specifically, of 193 countries in the world, the USA is in the top 20 countries (using the Human Poverty Index) with these criteria:
** Probability at birth of not surviving to age 60 (% of cohort)
** People lacking functional literacy skills (% of people scoring in the range called “Level 1” in the International Adult Literacy Survey, age 16-65, 1994–2003).
** Long-term unemployment (12 months or more, % of labour force), 2005.
** Population below 50% of median adjusted household disposable income (%)
People who consider things to be bad in the USA usually have not lived in the third world to have a basis for comparison. Longevity, literacy, employment, and income are better in the USA than in most other countries.
all those factors you list are in fact true, but they depend exclusively on energy availability and input. As long as the USA and the rest of the developed industrial world can continue to get hold of enough oil (and coal and gas) to maintain its infrastructure, then we will remain healthy and well fed.
The ‘government’ has not provided an ‘economic environment’, oil has done that.
National prosperity and oil supply graphs fit neatly on the same upward trend
Already 1 in 6 of Americans is dependent on food supplements, similar figures apply elsewhere, they call it different things. that’s because oil is beginning to price food beyond the reach of the poorest in our society
don’t depend on an infinite supply of fuel to continue with our food supplies, as the cost of it rises, so poverty will climb our ladder of prosperity. the food supply system will inevitably break down.
Our money is loaned into existence on the collateral of endless oil supplies being available to power our future. http://www.endofmore.com/?p=1188 That’s where our money comes from, it is nothing more than oil-debt. As oil depletes to nothing, so our money will deplete to nothing. talk on here of the dollar losing its value ‘in 100 years’ is a nonsense that defies belief.
Oil and money and food are now the same thing, in lockstep with one another,
…saying that doesn’t apply to the U.S. dollar and its preeminence in the world? It’s important to remain consistent, right?
I’m saying that in a hundred years, in the 22nd century, the dollar could weaken. Of course, it is possible. But we have to work with the facts we have, not with the fears we project.
The rise in US yields now places the USD into the basket of yielding currencies, which suggest further support is likely to build over the over medium term.
The USA employment data has continued to provide positive signals for the USD … But, the positive news is broadening beyond the labour market, with a favorable impact on the US consumer also starting to become evident, while our USA economists now see US Q2 GDP tracking at 1.8% instead of 1.2%
Treasury yields and the dollar are both gaining strength. If we look at historic charts of the US dollar we can clearly see the dollar bottoming out in 2008. The dollar has seen slow momentum, but overall it’s getting much stronger as of late. This trend in my view, along with treasury yields gaining bodes well for a stronger U.S. economy.
But if you want to speculate that someday the dollar might collapse, leading to destruction and apocalypse, be my guest. I choose to stick to current economic reality.
I’m saying that in a hundred years, in the 22nd century, the dollar could weaken. Of course, it is possible. But we have to work with the facts we have, not with the fears we project.
I am working with the facts we have, and I am not stating anything out of fear. You infer that from two words; “if” and “when”. That’s a stretch, janet, and in fact, such a stretch, I’d call it, psychologically, projection on your part. You don’t know if it’s a hundred years, or ten. I don’t either, but we do know, and you have admitted in your astute comments to others, things can and do change. If the dollar isn’t the preeminent currency in ten, or a hundred, years, it doesn’t mean we should fear, necessarily. Inflation isn’t always something to fear, either, as many South American countries have proven.
Everything on this page is ‘ass okas’, except for Neon Vincent. Gee.
You’re asoka? I never would have guessed.
Email JHK his’self? Not working too *GUD* for me, but your response might get more *REPOSE*…
I nevah your fan, *ANTI* – but at least you’re not using multiple aliases to respond to yourself *OVER AND OVER*. I didn’t poast for about a month, until Sunday last week (and that whuz certainly *pointless*).
I’m still not quite sure that these socks aren’t all JHK his’self, developing characters for his next fiction work (Mehetabel?!…) I mean, I ‘membaz seeing Janet quoting *itself* last week – but alas, that thread is gone. And this week, there is 1 instance of Carol responding to *itself* – but I’m pretty sure that one’s gone as well (poor sock can’t even ‘membaz to change aliases B4 responding).
What I can say, is that the 400+PPM CO2 is no concern, compared to the methane hydrides evaporating from ocean floors – along with methane from fracking outgassing. Things are seriously gunna get *HOT* (even tho the sun seemed to settle at the 50% irradiance point in the 40 year *CYCLE*)/./
I’m glad you recognize me as a distinct person. I’ve been an unwilling participant in other people’s online Fregoli Delusions. I can tell you from experience that it wears thin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fregoli_delusion
Economic stability is the result of good government.
Yes, I agree, good government brings economic stability via massaged numbers and an extremely high ranking on the unhappiness index.
http://shanghaiist.com/2011/05/31/north_korea_releases_global_happine.php
North Korean “Global Happiness Index” ranks China no. 1, USA dead last
China is the happiest place on earth(!!) according to a new global happiness index released by North Korea’s Chosun Central Television. China earned 100 out of 100 points, followed closely by North Korea (98 points), then Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. Coming in at 203rd place is America (or rather “the American Empire”), with only 3 happiness points. South Korea got a measly 18 points for 152nd place. While their representative representatives might not show the vivacity on their faces (and a few slip ups might have been caught on video) I guess China’s been right to gush about Pyongyang’s future. Nothing says happy like government-issued proclamations of happiness.
Carol said: “If the dollar isn’t the preeminent currency in ten, or a hundred, years, it doesn’t mean we should fear, necessarily. ”
Definitely no reason to fear if the dollar is not the preeminent currency, as most of the countries in South America show. Life can be very good in countries which have their own currencies. I know.
anti-dod believes I am talking to myself when I respond to you. LOL! and we have such different opinions with respect of Obama, antisemitism, economic policy, etc.
anti-dod believes I am talking to myself when I respond to you. LOL! and we have such different opinions with respect of Obama, antisemitism, economic policy, etc.
Funny, I don’t remember debating antisemitism with you. How do you know our opinions are different as it relates to antisemitism?
BTW, even if Republicans shut down the government they will not stop the implementation of ACA.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a report on Monday stating that the ACA law would still be in effect even if lawmakers hold up the functioning of the government over budget disputes.
Nothing can stop Obamacare, nothing can stop Americans from having health insurance, nothing can stop the reigning in of out-of-control private health insurance companies. No more double-digit premium increases, no more dropping people when they get sick, no more refusals for “pre-existing conditions,” no more irresponsible spending on overhead, no more abuse of consumers have an illness.
nothing can stop Americans from having health insurance
Yes, even if you force them to carry it with penalty of jail time if they don’t. The best way to reign in insurance companies is not handing them coerced-into-captivity “customers”, but rather by eliminating the middle man skimming, like the mafia in Vegas, profit off the top unnecessarily.
Nothing says happy like government-issued proclamations of happiness.
I provided specific criteria and how they are measured objectively. I did not make a simple proclamation. My ranking of the USA in the top 20 countries is defensible.
No more double-digit premium increases, no more dropping people when they get sick, no more refusals for “pre-existing conditions,” no more irresponsible spending on overhead, no more abuse of consumers have an illness.
As I read this, the following played in my head. I love this song…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UythVvkS6cA
It’s going to be GREAT! Life IS good!
I provided specific criteria and how they are measured objectively. I did not make a simple proclamation. My ranking of the USA in the top 20 countries is defensible.
I’m not arguing with you. North Korea’s index is equally defensible. Don’t be so defensive. Relax, grasshopper. We’re having fun!!
Yes, even if you force them to carry it with penalty of jail time if they don’t.
Jail time? Ooh, scary! I see you are working the fear element again.
Here are the facts:
Under the mandatory coverage provision, individuals who are not covered by an acceptable insurance policy will be charged an annual penalty of $95, or up to 1% of income over the filing minimum, whichever is greater; this will rise to a minimum of $695 ($2,085 for families), or 2.5% of income over the filing minimum, by 2016.
Exemptions are permitted for religious reasons, members of health care sharing ministries, or for those for whom the least expensive policy would exceed 8% of their income.
In 2010, the Commissioner speculated that insurance providers would supply a form confirming essential coverage to both individuals and the IRS; individuals would attach this form to their Federal tax return.
Those who aren’t covered will be assessed the penalty on their Federal tax return. In the wording of the law, a taxpayer who fails to pay the penalty “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty”, and cannot have liens or levies placed on their property, but the IRS will be able to withhold future tax refunds from them.
The individual responsibility requirement does not apply to some:
** people who cannot afford coverage (defined as those who would pay more than 8 percent of their household income for their premiums)
** people without insurance for less than three months
** individuals with incomes below the tax filing threshold (In 2012, the tax filing threshold was $9,750 for individuals and $19,500 for couple)
Exemptions will also be given to specified categories of individuals, for example for religious reasons, American Indians, Americans living abroad for at least one year, and incarcerated individuals.
SO, WE HAVE IN THE ACA LAW: NO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR NONPAYMENT, NO LIENS, NO LEVIES . WE HAVE EXEMPTIONS FOR WHOLE GROUPS OF PEOPLE.
GEE, NO WHERE IN ACA DOES IT TALK ABOUT PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL.
“Relax, grasshopper. We’re having fun!!”
I am not your grasshopper. I am a grown woman with a brain.
Let me tell you something: gardening is not easy. I came to it rather late, even tho my Yankee ancestors farmed around here for 10 generations. I was a mill town kid, but just down the road there were woods and meadows to hunt in, and rivers and streams to fish in. Of course they’re all gone now, plowed under by real estate developers. The climate in Connecticut is favorable and the growing season is 150 days long. I have 2 acres, the soil is good, there’s plenty of sun and rain. For all that, on 50 tomato plants I see only 2 or 3 tomatoes, peppers have done nothing, no zuchini to speak of, asparagus abysmal, squash hardly evident, and no sign of pumpkins or beets. The only thing that was pretty good were cucumbers! And I really work at it I’m out there every day. I guess you have to have a knack for it, like my neighbor, who is a master gardener. I think he pities me, but he humors me at the same time. He’s a good guy. I think I’ll go back to shooting, treasure hunting and trout fishing. If I had to live on what I grew here in my garden I would starve to death pretty quick . If TLE kicks in in a big way, many of us probably won’t survive, especially yours truly.
–BackRowHeckler
Mmmm — hmmm, death by starvation; sounds like fun! I’m so IN!
Well, the crows should eat just fine if we’ve got the decency to drag our bags of bones out into the great wide open before expiring.
The cycle of life. Somebody’s lunch.
I swear I heard a *sw33t jam* from Ozone (the 70 yr old geezah) a couple years *BACK* – he should be more proud, and link his *JAMS*!!!
I don’t remember all the details, tho – howevah… (Soker not too happy w/ all this *UP-THREAD* action)
I am the douche… Is there any *HOPE*!!!
Let me give you 2 paths to *wisdom* here.
First, tomatoes can be self-fertilized – bang the plants *daily*/./ Just whack the tomato cages…
Second – *PERENNIALS* – get mint, thyme, rosemary, sage, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, fruit trees, nut trees, *ETC*. Sure – I do still grow tomatoes, but it takes a literal *SH!Tload of fertilizer to keep them *growing*… The perennials – piece of *CAKE*…
Oh, and grow sugar snap peas/vine beans on every perennial plant’s roots (they infuse nitrogen). And clover’s not a bad bet, either (EVERYWHERE).
Garlic and oregano also work *wonders*…
Thanks for the tips!
I’m finding the “Tripp method” of post-season cutting of the plants at ground level and adding more mulch on top for overwintering works dandy for ‘fertilizing’.
Yeah – that’s the layering technique from “Gaia’s Garden”, I believe. Just pile the carbon a foot tall in fall (cardboard/newspaper at the bottom), and let it break down through April!!!
(I knew you’d bring Tripp back into the fold! Suspicion makes me think *OTHERWISE* [who R those socks?!…] )
My gardening experiment worked a bit better than yours this season (and I consider every year experimental with different seed varieties, saved seed and varying techniques).
Top-mulching has been a LARGE boon this year I suspect. Held in the moisture; kept the rains from compacting the soil; gave the soil bacteria, insects and fungi plenty of munchies; kept the weeds smufficated or very easy to pull.
Keep at it man, you’ve put a lot of effort into it so far. We’re not talking the “psychology of previous investment” here, we’re talking fresh eats with known inputs. 🙂
Try some quickies like lettuce, spinach and greenie beanies to renew your confidence. Seeds for this year can still be had at low, low discount prices!
Heh, you *sun-of-a-gun*!!! We all in this *TOGETHER*!!! Composting/mulching is the only way out here…
Well, *MAYBE* – hehe!@@! GIMME A KISS
GOOD LUCK xxx ooo
Don’t take JHK’s wet dreams about the future so seriously.
Most of his hopes stem from his personal desire (and those of many others of his same age range and persuasion) to not be held accountable to any political/financial/religious institutions whatsoever.
The challenge, then, is how does one live with absolutely zero accountability. It’s not possible in any kind of society because we need each other. How much we need each other is debatable and changes due to the circumstances. We all share basic needs for survival (food and shelter) and those have never failed to be met. What’s failing are the institutions that tout themselves to be the bulwarks.
Like Detroit, when everything failed what did people do? They sure as heck didn’t stick it out, start gardening, ignoring the city codes and forming their own housing associations responsible for maintaining whatever was left and providing services through a central pool of money and volunteers. Why don’t black people form huge communes and have multiple wives like the Mormons?
The reason why pre industrial “jobs” and “careers” will never return is because people don’t want to do the work. We have the world that the world wants. JHK is not the world; however, he isn’t offering a more practical way of life for large communities of people. There’s always going to be paupers. JHK is no misanthrope, he hates what people say and do to themselves. So, an option is to provide another arrangement for living. He still hasn’t figured THAT out either.
You very unconvincing – just *SAYIN*.
This last year has been the worst for home gardens I have seen in about 20 years. I also live in the NE. The heavy summer rains literally drowned plants and seeds. I am now pretending we are going to have a late frost and planting a fall garden. The one silver lining is that I have so many fast growing weeds, I am sure to have awesome compost next year. And the soil is so damp that the weeds are easy to pull out.
Lettuce went immediately to seed, cabbages got eaten, radishes didn’t bulb. Squash either didn’t grow or didn’t sprout at all. Beans look not to bad so far, but I planted them late, during the last week of the deluges.
You might like lasagna gardening, which means spread a heavy mulch and plant your plants into it.
Hardly true – it’s been the same for decades – you all GREENY-green makes my day.
Huh?
“GREENY-green” is your label, not mine.
Guess I failed to pay the monthly tax to the so-called “convenience” stores. Too bad, so sad.
Emerson, anxious to be true to his convictions, said, “He who does his work frees a slave”. So he endeavored to garden at Brook Farm. But over time he saw his thinking and writing suffer and realized that there was a unbridgeable gap between the higher life and the lower. His conferees at Brook Farm came to the same conclusion – as did the Greeks long ago. But they were more honest and came to the conclusion that slavery must be for many if the higher life would be for a few.
It doesn’t have to be “Slavery” per se, serfdom or the servitude of being an employee will suffice. This gives me no pleasure btw. I wish it was otherwise. Ozone always thinks the worst of my motivations – one of the penalties that comes with speaking the Truth.
Emerson? haha – wash your mouth out with *ACID*. We all know who E is. Quit pretending your nazi boyz gunna save *U*. Acid douche.
So do you stroke yourself high or low? Gotta be nice believing you’re still *WHITE*…
If TLE kicks in in a big way, many of us probably won’t survive, especially yours truly.
And if TLE does no kick in in a big way, we live forever?
TLE or no TLE, TSHTF or no TSHTF, WMBH or no WMBH… we are all going to die, without exception… and it’s nothing to get excited about. People do it every day.
You’re correct. That’s pretty much what John Maynard Keynes said about the future, too.
Yes, and Keynes also said: “In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.”
And he said that in 1924!
Some people still haven’t caught on yet. They still be buyin’ gold.
I am not your grasshopper. I am a grown woman with a brain.
Even if you were a grasshopper, I would never claim you as mine, so your use of “your” is inappropriate. I never implied it. I think you’re being redundant when you say “grown woman.” “Woman” inherently implies “grown”…unless, of course, you’re implying you shop at Lane Bryant, then I understand and point taken.
Asoka may shop at Lane Bryant, but he’s not a woman. At least in the traditional sense of the word.
JHK said: the result can be seen in the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury.
In the entire history of F-series trucks Ford sold about 34 million. There is no evidence of how many Ford truck owners drink, or how many Ford truck owners have any fury. Think what the Tea Party Patriots could have done with 34 million supporters. Never happened. Probably never will. The aging middle class is not going to engage in 60s style protest on Social Security. They don’t even write angry letters to the editor. There is no fury. Unless it is at the elected Tea Party representatives who have sold out already.
“Grown woman” just means I am at least 18 years old.
I was a bit defensive and I apologize.
It’s all good. We’re just having fun. I didn’t take it personally. I’ve learned to take nothing personally. Teflon’s my middle name.
Jail time? Ooh, scary! I see you are working the fear element again.
No fear. Of course, I was being facetious when I said jail time, but no liens and levies can always be easily changed in the coming years, if need be. If enough people opt out of purchasing insurance and the penalties mount, Congress could very well change the provisions to apply levies and liens to include garnishment of wages. Remember, the Supreme Court in deciding the ACA was constitutional, did so by considering the so-called “fee” for not purchasing insurance a tax. It is a tax, so my point is, if you’re taxing people anyway, why not tax them like you do for Medicare and eliminate the insurance middle man and the unnecessary skimming of profit? You keep dodging this. Why? It’s central. Do you believe in giving insurance executives big bonuses at the expense of people living on the margins? If so, you’re a sick creep. What would Allah say about you stealing from the poor like that and giving to the rich? You want to steal their tax refunds and give it to wealthy insurance executives so they can pay for their third, fourth and fifth homes scattered across the planet? What a weirdo. Allah is ashamed of you. You should be ashamed of you. You are in bed with Satan. You have sold your soul.
Don’t take JHK’s wet dreams about the future so seriously.
Are wet dreams possible at that age?
Great to hear you are out of hospital and still attached to your head. That’s not a business I would like to trust to some knife wielding relative stranger.
You mentioned, on your latest audio, something about there being no double jeopardy in the USA legal system? Problem is there seems to be very limited access to single jeoprody. As I understand, it is more a streamlined type plea bargain system?
Any idea how much GDP depends on quick processing by plea bargain? i imagine if the system got all hung up on due process and justice it could really clog the business gears of prisoner housing?
Methinks *BREAKING BAD* provides a bettah response, than those Soker socks!!! I mean, taking out the Mexican Cartel single-handedly!!!
Oh yeah, soker, what up *DOG*! You still *alpha*? (methinks *NOT*) Me bets my 8lb long-haired chihuahua would eat you for *LUNCH* (do you *EVAH* shut the F* up? Just *askin’*)!!!
Think: *METHANE*!!!
You keep dodging this. Why? It’s central. Do you believe in giving insurance executives big bonuses at the expense of people living on the margins?
No, if it was my choice I would have a socialized medical system like the Veterans Administration. Government doctors, government hospitals, and all doctors and staff salaried with no bonuses and no CEOs. Overhead would be 3% instead of 31% because government is more efficient than the private sector.
Overhead in the individual market is often above 30%. The estimate that total administrative costs consume 31% of U.S. health spending is from research by Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003. The figure would undoubtedly be higher today.
I agree with you that a single-payer government health care system would be much more efficient and cheaper.
But at least Obama is forcing more efficiency in the private market. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies are required to spend 80 to 85 percent of premium dollars on medical care and health care quality improvement, rather than on administrative costs or CEO bonuses.
If they don’t, the insurance companies must provide a refund to their customers. Americans can receives these refunds in several ways: a refund check in the mail; a lump-sum reimbursement to the same account that they used to pay the premium if by credit card or debit card; a reduction in their future premiums; or their employer providing one of the above, or applying the refund in another manner that benefits its employees, such as more generous benefits.
While most insurance companies are spending premium dollars consumers pay on their health care, before the enactment of the health care law, there was no way for all Americans to make sure that their premium dollars were primarily being spent on their health care and its improvement. The health care law’s “Medical Loss Ratio” provision cracked down on the worst insurance companies that were not providing Americans the value consumers expect from their premiums.
According to a recent report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in 2012 8.5 million consumers received half a billion dollars in refunds – with the average consumer receiving a refund of around $100 per family. Moreover, in 2012, 77.8 million consumers saved $3.4 billion up front on their premiums as insurance companies operated more efficiently as compared to 2011.
Your bold/unbold text makes you *SOO* much more believable (SOKER).
Single payer? I don’t think I saw that in your *TOTAL DISCOURSE*. (but I might be *wrong*)
Haha, U know my 8lb longhaired chihuahua would have ate you (HATE YOU?)
Let’s just be honest – he’ll love you like you were GHAD’z next coming – I *SWEAR*!!!
“If enough people opt out of purchasing insurance …”
People don’t want to risk bankruptcy due to a medical emergency, so they will purchase the insurance.
The reason for making it mandatory to purchase insurance is to lower costs and to prevent freeloaders who expect others to pay their medical costs in the most expensive way: the emergency room.
ZrCrypDiK said: Me bets my 8lb long-haired chihuahua would eat you for *LUNCH*
ZrCrypDiK is more proof that the new website design does not prevent trolls from creating accounts.
He *HATES* you for lunch! ?!?
THINK *METHANE*… It’s the 400+PPM CO2 *CURE*. (here and now)
Karah sez: “Like Detroit, when everything failed what did people do? They sure as heck didn’t stick it out, start gardening, ignoring the city codes and forming their own housing associations responsible for maintaining whatever was left and providing services through a central pool of money and volunteers. Why don’t black people form huge communes and have multiple wives like the Mormons?”
Ummm, because that would require actually working rather than waiting around for the gubmint checks to roll in as well as the food stamps. Technically speaking, they don’t have multiple wives, but they do get hot and heavy with “der hos”, and procreation has not been a problem for them,
White women are doing the procreating.
Among the U.S.-born, black women had the strongest birth-rate decline from 1990 to 2010, according to a recent report from Pew Social and Demographic Trends. The birth rate—the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44—declined 29 percent for blacks, 25 percent for Asians, 21 percent for Hispanics, but only 5 percent for whites.
But the white ones have jobs. Pity the decline of Asians, though.
Thanks for the week’s work, JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER.
And you sure have a way with words.
Of course, you have your detractors – like anyone who spends time in the public eye.
Unfortunately, your most overly vocal detractor has set up permanent residence on your blog site under the pseudonym janetasoka and/or “carol.”
You have every reason to ban him/her/it.
You have every right to ban him/her/it.
Just do it, JHK.
Ahh, prog2cons!!! JHK not too happy with me – however, he seems to *LOVE* the socks… I don’t get it – but it’s not up to *ME*!!! It’s all-too-clear, yet?!?
Neon Vincent had a link on his website which is well worth a read, and which shines some light on how janetasokatrolling can degrade your readers perceptions of your work, JHK.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Blogging with comments enabled assumes more than transmission of information, it assumes a conversation, and what kind of conversation it ends up being depends on what kind of behavior is encouraged or forbidden, who feels welcome or alienated.”
(snip)
“While blogs usually aim to communicate with lurkers as well as readers who post comments (and every piece of evidence I’ve been shown suggests that commenters tend to be a small proportion of readers), most are aiming to reach a core audience that is narrower than “everyone in the world with an internet connection”.
Your “core audience” is being driven away, JHK.
Ban the Trolling Twosome.
Here’s the link. Well worth a read by all and sundry.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-good-science/2013/02/15/more-on-rudeness-civility-and-the-care-and-feeding-of-online-conversations/
Oh, good. Someone not only read my post, but the material I linked to. Online scholarship is not dead!
Your despair over this (I can feel it) is a symbol to you of the coming downfall of America. You must have realized the Fix is in and the Weeper plans to sell us out to the Dreamers. America as you knew and loved it is coming to an end. And it was White America that you loved even though your religion forbids you from admitting as much.
Hi there, IxNoMore, aka ZrCrypDiK.
How’s it been going for you?
Your “core audience” is being driven away, JHK.
Ban the Trolling Twosome.
janet, is it my imagination, or does this jackass add absolutely nothing to the discussion/conversation? A fantastic conversation has been going on about Obamacare, and this jockstrap comes up with this? What a jacknabber. Is he supposed to be a grown man?
carol asoka janet carol asoka janet carol janet asoka carol janet janet carol janet carol janet asoka carol janet janet carol janet carol asoka janet carol janet asoka carol asoka janet carol janet asoka carol janet janet carol janet carol janet janet carol janet
What happened to “Nicole”, nimrod, even though it’s Nichole? You had her in the list before and now you’ve dropped her. Make up your mind.
hahaha!!! That’s the *tr00f*!!!
janet, is it my imagination, or does this jackass add absolutely nothing to the discussion/conversation?
No, not your imagination. He only shows up each week to impede whatever meaningful discussion is ongoing. He derails and distracts by engaging in personal attack. I’m thinking JHK might ban him for his resident impediment antics.
The Economic Benefits of Immigration
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ib_18.htm#.Ufh7zBYQhjE
What happened to “Nicole”, nimrod, even though it’s Nichole? You had her in the list before and now you’ve dropped her. Make up your mind.
What happened to Assoka? He isn’t in the list either. Make up your mind, Mr. Georgia Woodlot Southern Avenger Militia Man of the Slaveholder Tradition.
Yeah sock why U no longer use that alias? FSCKn *SOCK*!!! Scardey-*CAT*! (sux 2 b u)…
He stood in the storm – carved out in *STONE*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Acj_zKWZs
Flood the socks? might be worth a *try*…
prolly not the best *REPOSE*… But who knows, maybe JHK wants us to rebel!!!
JHK,
Here’s another example of “truth divorced from reality.” My husband just returned from a family wedding in Michigan. His older brother and wife retired in January from their jobs as employees of the state of Michigan.
They plan to spend their winters in Florida. During the visit they showed off their new camping rig–a giant “fifth wheel” that is towed by a new F250 Super Duty truck. The camper has GRANITE countertops, air-conditioning, a “fire-place,” and to top it off, a big-screen TV.
What they do in Florida is beyond me. No one would ever want to see my sister-in-law in a swimsuit. (Shudder!)
San Jose Mom
I find myself apologizing too much — but that story is a *TOTAL* apology!!! Sorry San Mom – it’s prolly *ALL MY FAULT*!!!
The birth rate—the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44—declined 29 percent for blacks, – Ja’Soka
…yet the black birth rate is 23.9% greater than the white birth rate. Also, black teenage birth rates are more than double that of whites and Hispanics almost triple.
Births to black UNWED mothers are off the charts.
Notice how Asoka cherry picks his data to create a rosy picture… an affront to the intelligence of readers here at CFN.
White women are doing the procreating.
The truth is ALL women are doing the procreating as they have since the beginning of time however, recently the number of non-white births in the US has exceeded white births for the first time.
I can safely predict that having these less rosy facts pointed out, Asoka will now say that he is GLAD that non-white births exceed white births. This is his favorite ploy in pissing off Vlad.
Gramps concerned about *niggah* births. You do *INTRIGUE* me, *SPELL-CHECKER*… So a flood of niggz oncoming?!? (haha U *racist*)
Asoka, in your recently adopted persona as “janet” should we assume that all your previous markers still hold true?
i.e.
Are you still black?
Did you have your tubes tied on Earth Day when you were 18 years old?
Did you travel extensively in India and dance with the whirling dervishes?
Do you STILL contain multitudes?
Do you STILL find consistency to be foolish?
Are you living near the Mexican border in case life in the US becomes too shitty that you can quickly escape?
Did you build and live in an adobe structure?
Do you prefer pretending to be a woman than pretending to be a man?
Are you still a vegan or vegetarian and former fruitarian that eats one meal per day?
etc?
etc?
Ahaha!!! Q – you *GOT ME*! Smooth as “silk”/./ Hehe, did I spell?!? (and no, I didn’t poast for the past month – since 4th July)
One time I went to Bunker Hill for Bunker Hill Day. Just as the ceremony was about to begin, two busloads of Black kids pulled up. They disembarked from the buses and proceeded to ignore the National Anthem and subsequnet ceremony. They didn’t even bother to climb the little hill. Instead, they and their Black Teachers focused all their energy on getting ice cream and sodas down on the street.
It might just be *ME* – but I think we *succeeded* in shutting down the socks tonite!!! And it might have *JUST* been me, but I think Q and prog had a *LIL* to do with it as well (tripp to ban!)!!!
LOL!
I must say I am learning a lot about this Asoka character. I may go back and read some more of his past posts.
Your pretending daze R over, sockie. We know who U R. Admit it, and play* with us!!! (or at least, keep your spams to less than 50%)…
Scrolling and not seeing you/carol every 95% makes my day. I know you got all those mastah-debatah files, *both sides*, wishing to be released – but we’ve heard all that SH! B4. SRSLY – we have *HEARD* it all B4.
The fact you and sockie shut the F* up gives me great pause (*credence*) it’s as if you’re almost *human*…
Asoka-Janet-Carol et al … your output here is prodigious, immense! … unbelievable! … only a fool would write so much for free … you probably should move on to a place where you would be paid for your efforts!
Just a suggestion.
BRH
They are being paid. They are a neo-con tag team.
We see a lot of this on the gardening fora, from Monsatan’s paid stooges.
Yes, I wonder how the ‘bennies’ are? What promises have been made?
What happened was, Ja’Soka was gradually losing its’ mojo of garnering [at least a few] responses, so a heavy-hitter with a bit more writing acuity, style, and nastier aggressive streak was brought in to lay a bit of stick about and pretend to have ‘serious conversations’ with the Ja’Soka persona, thus clogging up even MORE bandwidth.
Great ‘job’, you paid pricks.
(The strangest thing here is that they probably enjoy their ‘work’. This is what we’ve come to… that such ‘work’ is probably easily available. After all, the techniques for these psy-ops was imported directly from E. German Stasi operatives.)
You *MUST* poast those music vids of yerself (srsly)!
HAHAHA!!! Mon-SATAN!!! hehe, GMO cult (Read:*CULT*)
It really *suxors* that there’s no way to link to individual poasts *NE-MOAR*, liek back in the *good ole daze*… I’d link janet responding to *self*, or carol responding to *self* (can we say *SOKER*)…
The reply function works that way by threading conversations. Pity not everyone here uses it.
Also, every comment has a unique link. For example, the one of yours I’m replying to has this one.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-dreamtime/comment-page-3/#comment-154776
Even without threading, it will still refer back to the original.
They disembarked from the buses and proceeded to ignore the National Anthem and subsequnet ceremony.
HaHa! Unlike you though, I’m sure they can spell subsequent correctly. The appropriate thing for them to have do would have been to collectively squat down and defecate on the “sacred” hill, and then proceed to Washington’s and Jefferson’s graves to do the same. Now that’s a field trip.
1966 – dig it! (tune in, turn up *DROP OUT*…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbVMZGzBWuc
Janet? *JANET*@!@
It really *suxors* that there’s no way to link to individual poasts *NE-MOAR*, liek back in the *good ole daze*… I’d link janet responding to *self*, or carol responding to *self* (can we say *SOKER*)…
There is a way, you just don’t have the intellect to pull it off. Get back in your jumpy seat where you belong, you racist rapist. You add nothing to the conversation/discussion. I bet you’re sitting in your F-110 with your i-pad sucking back a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade as you avail us with your incipient political fury, skid marks and all. Skid marks in the britches and F-110s go together like strawberries and vanilla icecream on a hot summer eve.
an affront to the intelligence of readers here at CFN.
Intelligence? Now that’s hyperbole.
No one would ever want to see my sister-in-law in a swimsuit. (Shudder!)
Don’t kid yourself, there are all kinds. For example, I’m sure ZrCrypDiK would find her attractive and would like to see her in her swimsuit. Hell, he’d probably like to see her in a thong.
I know there are people who are enjoying the photos the New York Post ran of Sydney Leathers, Anthony Weiner’s virtual girlfriend, in a swimsuit. The photo Wonkette reprinted was very unflattering, but even then, there were commenters there who found her appealing, even if the motivation was “look at who Anthony Weiner is endangering his career and marriage over. WOOF!” I have to admit, she does have a pretty face and cleans up nicely.
Unfortunately for those interested in more evidence that we live in what JHK himself called on the first page of comments a “trashy and meretricious culture,” I don’t have any of those photos at my blog. Instead, I have video of Laci Green of Discovery News, speaking of women with pretty faces who clean up nicely, describing the latest findings about sex addiction, along with a short discussion of whether Weiner is a sex addict–not that it matters. Men with the name Weiner shouldn’t be texting photos of their penis, especially if they want to be Mayor of New York. The jokes just write themselves.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/07/weiner-lives-down-to-his-name.html
SRSLY? I think IX would like to jack off to her – but not *ME* (you douche) BTW, who is she, NE-waze…
I get it, San jose mom!@! Yeah, her sister’s *BEEFY*!!!
San Jose’s sister-in-law with her friend…..heading South where she belongs and will feel at home. Wake Up, America!!
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/002588895/1937414007_fat_girls_pickup_truck_xlarge.jpeg
The Real News Network is reporting that the Syrian Army has captured the city of Homs.
Naturally, our govt. is on the wrong side. Maybe upscale Janet will be among the first to welcome a cannibal commando refugee family to her gated enclave.
Sock spammers!!! Do you have a *SOUL*? Just *ASKIN*…
No they *DON’T* – and they’ll never respond – douche. (wake the F* up dumb @$$)
Naturally, our govt. is on the wrong side.
The fact you buy into a notion of “sides” shows your prejudice, and the fact you play into the charade of blaming evil government shows your inability to get to the root. The government is the enforcement division of corporations, and it also serves as a foil and whipping boy for right-wing retards who fail to see the elephant in the room. Sides are created and supplied in order to create a 24/7 strategy of tension. Take a candle and burn both ends. Tails you win, heads you win. Speaking of souls, that’s soulless.
My reply will keep you at a *mere* 75% hit rate. *SUCK IT*!!!
Carol/Janet (SOKER) *CONFUSED* – they got a reply other than *THEMSELVES*. Sorry sockies. You will not own this page. *PERIOD*.
Leary’s tunin in/turnin *ON*!!!
Fisk gets dangerously close to the answer as it relates to Syria with this latest piece.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/robert-fisk-by-taking-sides-within-sides-rifkind-risks-a-repeat-of-balkans-mistakes-in-syria-8708001.html
But let’s be in no doubt why we want to arm the rebels. If the civil war in Syria is worthy of intervention, ours is defined by one major fact: we want to give more guns to the rebels because, for the moment, the Assad regime is winning. Our masters now tell us we must “balance” the forces – which is intriguing. It means we don’t really care to end the war. We just don’t want the rebels to lose it. So the war will go on. And sending more guns into Syria will maintain this bloody status quo.
WoW!!! How do you do those links! Quite mysterious – you @$$hat.
They are being paid. They are a neo-con tag team.
Wow. And you claim to be able to think critically. As well-read as you obviously are, you haven’t learned to think critically at all. Lord Shang and Mao Zedong were right, too much reading can be harmful, and you’re living proof.
And there U R again – mysterious@@@
What is it with you and the Chairman? I suppose I should not be surprised to see that one of the 20thC worst serial murderers attracts your attention.
(The ‘Carol’ entity reveals herself for what she is, another serial killer groupie, an Alyssa Rosenbaum wannabe.)
I say to you directly, so you can’t pretend you didn’t see it: I think you are incapable of work, and the very idea of the re-enchantment of daily life and the world made by hand scares you right out of your mind. There is something so pathetically eager-beaverish about your posts here, the excessive attention to duty of an incompetent who has never not been fired from a job, which convinces me you must not be just another lonely keyboard tapper.
Notice how the ‘Janet’ entity is holding back a little now? You had best read the writing on the wall if you want to keep this gig.
Hey ZrCrypDiK, you nutjob, maybe you can head on over to the previous thread and tell the “statistics professor” there’s a new thread. I nearly pissed myself when I saw this. And this guy has a PhD? No wonder the collapse is coming any day now.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/requiem-for-detroit/comment-page-8/#comment-154671
I have no idea WTF you babblin’ Yeah, that’s the *DETROIT* link I finally poasted on, twice, Sunday (after a months’ HIATUS).
You not impressed with my *METHANE* spam? O – I think I get it *KNOW* – you think I am *E*. I do feel for that poor soul – but alas, even *THOUGH* he sounds liek me – he is not *ME*. He spammed irony (no poasts for 3 days, yet he wants regulation akin to *4-5 poasts a day*)…
You silly *SOCK*!!! Keep on keepin’ on, spammer.
*MENTAL NOTE*
“It would at least signal a rapprochement of truth with reality.”
Dream time; what a wonderful picture.
But that very phrasing of truth with reality dashes any hope of dream time, which is exactly your point; lost over these many posts.
We’re not even close to a rapprochement, IMO, any time soon.
We’re still in the decline mode and descending quickly into the abyss.
When the bottom point is reached; only then will it be possible for action. Action is the end of words and the beginning of change, IMO.
The very fact that the ‘intelligence network’ can hire permanent poo-flingers should be an indicator that the pedal is still hard against the metal, and will continue to be so until the wheels fall off. (Sharp elbows and propaganda for now. Later on… not so sweet and easy.)
I think lots of pain is going to be doled out before anyone has any intention of learning anything. Is that ‘human nature’, or have we been carefully trained not to see further than upcoming mealtimes or the next wondrous purchase?
There is still a lot of money riding on us not seeing farther than the next mealtime or purchase.
Then there are the loudmouths like ‘Carol’ who, being incapable of work themselves, hate the whole idea of the re-enchantment of daily life, and the wannabe elite, like ‘Janet’ whose entire bogus prosperity depends on continued debt-fueled consumption by (formerly) working class saps.
Not so sweet and easy indeed. Which means, the more we can get built now in the way of sustainable, resilient, under the radar localized systems of providing for ourselves and our neighbors, the harder they will be to tear down. You cannot hope to oppose tanks, bombs and automatic weapons, but you can, just maybe, make the costs of their use higher than the rulers can easily afford.
Don’t give up on your two acres yet. You might enjoy meeting the nice and capable folks at some of the gardening for a.
http://www.idigmygarden.com
Personal attack from the Carol/Janet, not that elegant and refined ‘Janet’ would ever stoop so low, duo means that one must be doing or thinking something which the aristocracy finds inconvenient. Far better to follow the example of the ‘Janet’ half, and genuflect at the altar of Famous and Important Academic Celebrities without putting oneself to the trouble of reading and understanding their works, not even those intended for a popular audience.
What these shills really can’t stand is anyone whom they consider to be inferior to their important selves presuming to a have an inner life divorced from commercialized so-called “popular”, actually imposed from above, culture, and practicing any of the arts of self reliance.
…For that comment, you will soon receive a strange and twisted Orwellian/Rovian amalgam of a retort/reply.
(It’s generally the old wheeze, “I know you are, but what am I?” in a new coat of paint.)
Suitable for framing for my bathroom wall?
Just for curiosity’s sake:
Why would our resident sharp-stick-in-the-eye be monitoring last weeks comment thread just to take a poke at E.?
Fraud (with [very] malicious intent).
…And I suppose they’re “just having a giggle”, not trying to elbow out and ostracize. (Let’s be clear though. There will never be a commonality to edge him out; only a pretended one; a ‘clear majority’ of two.)
You ‘people’ are lower than whale shit at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
When you sleep, do you dream of someday becoming a real person? Or would that be one of your nightmares?
I think lots of pain is going to be doled out before anyone has any intention of learning anything.
Ummmm…hello! Lots of pain has been doled out since before the beginning of history. Life is many things, and one of those things is pain, like it or not. Lars von Trier handles this nicely in his excellent movie, Antichrist. Pain is a central theme; both physical and psychological pain and man’s nature, and nature’s nature and man’s relationship with nature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65lNqV48dU
is anyone whom they consider to be inferior to their important selves presuming to a have an inner life divorced from commercialized so-called “popular”,
Ha! Don’t pretend your prejudicial bigotry, so transparently on display here, is somehow divorced from popular commercialization. It’s the height of commercialization.
Janos Skorenzy sez:
“One time I went to Bunker Hill for Bunker Hill Day. Just as the ceremony was about to begin, two busloads of Black kids pulled up. They disembarked from the buses and proceeded to ignore the National Anthem and subsequnet ceremony. They didn’t even bother to climb the little hill. Instead, they and their Black Teachers focused all their energy on getting ice cream and sodas down on the street”
Priceless! Someone on this thread once mentioned a black parent questioning a white teacher about the fifth grade field trip to the National Mall. The black mom sez something like, “She don’t need no mo god dam clothes! Ya’ll don’t need to be spendin mah money goin to no “national mall!”. Tee hee. 😀
Hey, look, Poppy’s shaved his dome. Doesn’t look half bad, but seriously, what self-respecting, caring parent would allow their child to sit on the lap of a monster like this? Ewwwww…..
http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/HW-and-toddler.png
I mean, look at Poppy’s expression. He hasn’t felt that good in years, and yet the media focuses on Weiner’s sexting with another consenting adult.
along with a short discussion of whether Weiner is a sex addict–not that it matters. Men with the name Weiner shouldn’t be texting photos of their penis, especially if they want to be Mayor of New York.
Neon, to tell you the truth, I knew nothing of the Weiner spectacle until it was mentioned here, and even then, I’ve looked into it no further. Before anyone mentioned that name here, I didn’t even know the guy with the funny name existed….that’s how out of the mainstream I am. And let me tell you, the more you distance yourself from the mainstream, the more clearly and objectively you can see it for what it is. People who immerse themselves in it can’t see the forest for the trees.
I’m sure they can spell subsequent correctly.
Highly unlikely……nor do they even know what subsequent means. Run a test on Rachel Jeantel.
The appropriate thing for them to have do would have been to collectively squat down
If you want to have this^ sentence read properly delete the first “have.” As a wannabe writer, “Carol,” you do a lousy job of proofreading.
I just returned from a lengthy “happy motoring” trip through the Rocky Mountain region to visit friends, family and enjoy outdoor recreation. But I also observed an intensive, visible display of “dreamtime” resources gobbling: the huge traffic of coal trains running the network of rails of eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. It had a quality of industrial-sized desperation. Loaded trains heading east, one after another in the Platte River Valley passing empty trains, one after another, heading back to the coal fields of Wyoming and Montana for more of the untold millions of tons of those states to be burned up in the power plants dotting the nation.
Jim must have finally attracted the attention of the disruptors.
The noise we see above is a technique used to discourage discussion of topics that -someone- wants shut down.
Perhaps Jim or an assistant can try to remove irrelevant comments, and block disruptive users.
I suspect Jim is pretty hands off here, and this will remain the wild west.
Don’t let the greedheads win!
Found it and linked to it below. I’m guessing janet is also Pucker, is that correct janet? If so, who else are you? Q Schmuck? I’ve always suspected you were. Still, I don’t hate you. I think it’s a neat idea. Be as many people as you wish. I’ll just continue to knock all of them down like bowling pins.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/american-anxiety/comment-page-3/#comment-153501
If you want to have this^ sentence read properly delete the first “have.” As a wannabe writer, “Carol,” you do a lousy job of proofreading.
It’s advisable if it’s just a single word in quotes to leave the comma outside of the quotes. Please proofread before providing proofreading advice next time.
As far as “wannabe” is concerned, it takes one to know one. I’m sure in retaliation you’ll post another excerpt of your somnolent memoir.
It’s advisable if it’s just a single word in quotes to leave the comma outside of the quotes.
Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp
No, they don’t, it’s a stylistic choice. Pointing to a link that calls itself grammar doesn’t make it so. I once put any punctuation marks inside quotes, regardless, but now I only do it when it’s a phrase or sentence being quoted, not when it’s a single word. Not to mention, it also looks more aesthetically pleasing to keep it outside the quotes when it’s a single word, but then, since when were you ever interested in something looking good?
Pointing to a link that calls itself grammar doesn’t make it so.
“Carol” is an authority unto herself.
What does your “authoritative” source say about inappropriate use of, and overuse of, the quote function? If you don’t know, perhaps you should research it because you’re guilty of both charges.
It’s advisable if it’s just a single word in quotes to leave the comma outside of the quotes.
Are you quoting from an authority in the field or is it something you just made up?
No response necessary, the question is rhetorical.
BTW, in the phrase leave the comma outside of the quotes the word “of” is unnecessary and can be eliminated.
Highly unlikely……nor do they even know what subsequent means.
Why would that be, in your estimation? Because they’re black? Racist much? Of course you do. Bunker Hill is irrelevant. The Dreamtime is over. It’s time to wake up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ2yXWi0ppw
The noise we see above is a technique used to discourage discussion of topics that -someone- wants shut down.
Agreed. People do not want to read, or partake in an honest discussion of Obamacare. Speaking of healthcare, Morgan Spurlock, aka Inside Man for CNN, recently did a program on the cost of growing old and dying. It was excellent. Here’s a sneak peak. I like this guy. He’s a male who’s not afraid to cry. He’s in touch with his feelings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgb2pwRkddQ
Why would that be, in your estimation? Because they’re black?
Sadly, yes.
David Foster Wallace, among his many accomplishments, did a great service to any teacher whose curriculum includes significant amounts of written English. In his essay, “Authority and American Usage”,* he describes the difficulty he had in teaching “Standard Written English” (SWE) to students raised in other dialects of English, especially “Standard Black English” (SBE). The essay includes a version of the spiel he gives to these students, excerpted briefly here:
In class… you will have to master and write Standard Written English, which we might just as well call “Standard White English” because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated, powerful white people. … In this country, SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE. This is just How It Is.
Here is the link from which the above was excerpted. It’s not excessively long. I highly recommend you and others read it.
http://miles.oppidi.net/diss/?p=146
Well that’s deal breaker for many Blacks right there. I once say a 60 minutes segment about a Black guy teaching chess to young Black kids. Taking the White side was a huge issue for many of them. It’s simply impossible to exaggerate the animus of popular Black culture towards Whites. Look at the ridiculous names they make up so they don’t have our names.
And as in any hatred of this kind, the more we give the worse it will get. By acting as we are guilty, we just cement the idea in their minds that we are guilty and owe them everything. Of course at a deep level they may “know” that this isn’t true, and that just makes them hate us even more. People always hate those whom they have wronged.
In short, Blacks are poor thinkers and lovers, but very good haters. We would be advised to separate ourselves form them by any means necessary.
Complainer said: “The noise we see above is a technique used to discourage discussion of topics that -someone- wants shut down.”
Carol said: “Agreed.”
Carol, these guys who pop in to make off-topic posts to complain about what others are doing or saying are the ones who are discouraging discussion of topics.
They are so preoccupied with their ideas about who is who that they have nothing substantial to contribute to what is what or how or why.
According to these bozos I am Asoka, Adequatio, Carol, Nichole, Kamarah, K-Dog, ozone, BRH, Q, E, etc.
As anti dod said (and I may be anti dod, too), all the conversation appearing on CFN is just me talking to myself … and getting paid for it!
It’s hilarious to read what supposedly intelligent people are capable of believing.
Carol, these guys who pop in to make off-topic posts to complain about what others are doing or saying are the ones who are discouraging discussion of topics.
Agreed…..and thanks for the link. I don’t really care who anybody is or isn’t, it’s the ideas, and discussion of them, that matters, don’t you agree?
According to these bozos I am Asoka, Adequatio, Carol, Nichole, Kamarah, K-Dog, ozone, BRH, Q, E, etc.
Ha!! I have noticed progress4banning hasn’t included adequatio in his list. Why do you think that is? I liked adequatio and miss him/her. I wish he/she would come back.
I liked adequatio and miss him/her. I wish he/she would come back.
^These sentences demonstrate something fundamental about the personas of “Carol” and Asoka/et al. Namely, the fear that a label will somehow rob them of credibility. In this instance we are talking about the most elemental of labels, gender. The first words from the baby doctor’s mouth are “It’s a girl” or It’s a boy” but our two entities find these labels too restrictive.
Suitable for framing for my bathroom wall?
I’m betting the following is on more than a few bathroom walls:
For a good time call Nastarana @867-5301.
Seriously though, I was certain you used an outhouse. I’m surprised to learn you have a bathroom.
Snobbery rears its ugly head. I do actually have a bathroom, and, guess what, I pay for it myself; I am not living on he charity of Uncle So and So who made his pile in, let me guess, was it the garment trade, or perhaps commodity speculations?
No sex work here, too plain, too bad tempered, too outspoken.
I have nothing against the ladies who make their living n the oldest profession. It is one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. A few smart ladies manage to keep their earnings and retire to live well. Good for them.
Interesting point by Kipling: the whole Arab/Israeli conflict goes back to Abraham’s unwillingness to stand up to Sarah, whose hatred drove Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/07/rudyard-kiplings-the-burden-of-jerusalem/#more-41169
Steve Cohen is in hot water. Multi-billionaire hedge-fund owner who pocketed money through insider trading. He bought off SEC to make prosecution unlikely. He thought he was home free, until Obama came along.
Obama has put someone in charge of SEC, Mary Jo White, who is not a pushover. She is prosecuting Cohen for failure to supervise his hedge fund managers. Doesn’t sound like a serious charge. It’s not like he’s going to jail. But it can lead to Cohen being barred from doing business on Wall Street. Ouch! There are many ways to go after crooks when their is political will. Just like they got Capone for IRS violations, not murder.
Obama is bringing law and order to Wall Street and billionaires are not immune.
when their is political will.
“their”… hahaha
Mary Jo White may be great in her role at SEC but she still looks like a circus roustabout to me…not that there’s anything wrong with that.
That could be useful in dealing with the sort of MOTUs who naturally assume that plain=stupid.
^There are many ways to go after crooks … when there is political will.
The first words from the baby doctor’s mouth are “It’s a girl” or It’s a boy”
This is yet another example of how out-of-touch you are. The majority of couples these days opt to know the gender of their precious ones with the first or second ultrasound thus precluding a practically automated announcement from the doctor before he/she says “next”.
janet : He bought off SEC to make prosecution unlikely.
Q Schmuck: Mary Jo White may be great in her role at SEC but she….
Interesting. Two different posters coincidentally leave out the crucial “the” before SEC and instead go with the British version where the “the” is absent before general nouns representing establishments. For example, Brits are noted for saying something to the effect of “I went to hospital” rather than “I went to the hospital.” Now, who would be British and posting as both janet and Q Schmuck? I can think of only one person. It’s all good either way. I like it. It sure beast the hell out of the otherwise boring shit that’s offered up at places like NBL.
^beats
“Interesting. Two different posters …”
Two? I made the error twice because I am Q. Don’t you know Q. is my creation, one of my many identities? I created Q. (who used to be a pool hall lounge-about character) to have a sparring partner on CFN. LOL!
It’s cool either way.
David Foster Wallace, among his many accomplishments,
He was a pompous, selfish, arrogant, over-rated ass……like most writers, wannabe or “accomplished.”
CORRECTION:
David Foster Wallace was a pompous, selfish, arrogant, over-rated ass, verbose and in severe need of an editor.
It sure beast the hell out of the otherwise boring shit that’s offered up at places like NBL.
I know. NBL is weird. It’s like NBLers think Nature is doing stuff to us as if there is us and there is Nature, a dualism. Nature’R’Us, but that eliminates any sense of Sturm und Drang the CFN drama queens are addicted to.
San Francisco is thinking of imitating North Dakota in creating its own bank. Banking is profitable. By being the bank owner San Francisco will will able to lower taxes and pay for services instead of going into debt like other cities have. More states should imitate North Dakota, which has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the USA.
San Francisco will will able to lower taxes – Asoka
Interesting error. Do you have an attention problem?
Nastarana, are you Indian? Do you speak Hindi? Cool!
motu —n. derogatory (Hinglish) a fat man or boy.
No,
MOTU is Masters Of The Universe, ie, the likes of Jaimie DImon.
Here’s a sneak peak.
“Carol” screws up again. It’s peek.
TPTB are uniting the American people!
Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, conservatives and liberals, hawks and doves unite to show their opposition to U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war in a nonpartisan rally at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City.
Yes… Oklahoma City!
Is anyone here discussing this week’s posting by Jim?
I remember when the comments here were mostly related to it, but it seems like the continuation of a pie fight is going on.
Oh well. Better luck next week.
WRT this weeks column:
I’ve been waiting for this whole rotten house of cards to come toppling down ever since The Long Emergency came out.
Jim thinks there will be signs of change in a few months. I can only hope so.
We can’t build something better until the wreckage of the current mess is hauled away.
Q. this proves I am not Asoka. Asoka didn’t make errors like “their” and “there” or “will will”
I know. NBL is weird. It’s like NBLers think Nature is doing stuff to us as if there is us and there is Nature, a dualism. Nature’R’Us, but that eliminates any sense of Sturm und Drang the CFN drama queens are addicted to.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I try to read the comments there, but I just can’t do it. I either fall asleep or feel nauseous, so I rarely peak in anymore.
TeeCee said: “I’ve been waiting for this whole rotten house of cards to come toppling down ever since The Long Emergency came out.”
I’ve been waiting since the Club of Rome report came out in the 1970s. Hope you are enjoying the wait as much as I have.
Janet
Is anyone here discussing this week’s posting by Jim?
I’m game. Where do you want to start?
How about GOLD?
Looks like a whole buncha’ people are about to get schtupped on their gold contracts.
Look, we have no bananas. But we’ll give ya some pictures of The Queen. OK?
Let’s see how polite they will be this time.
JP Morgan?
No one thought that Lehman Brothers or the Arthur Anderson firm was gonna go away either.
I’ve been waiting since the Club of Rome report came out in the 1970s. Hope you are enjoying the wait as much as I have.
A lot has changed in the past forty or more years, hasn’t it? I bet you didn’t shave your pussy back then like you do now. The wide bush was in. THOSE WERE THE DAYS! When you could go all WOOLLY MAMMOTH. Now, via peer pressure, you’re coerced to go all prepubescent. If you wait long enough, the wide bush will come back in style, especially if this shit finally does collapse and the world made by hand manifests.
“Carol” screws up again. It’s peek.
“Shit,” “Q” “Schmuck” “got” “me” “again.” “He”/”she” “is” “good,” “isn’t” “it?”
Pathetic.
How about GOLD?
Okay, that’s a good start. I don’t own any, nor do I own any gold stocks. I’ve never bought into that ruse. Those who did are going to be taken to the cleaners, just as those who are invested in the stock market who aren’t Plutocrats will be. If you’re not a Plutocrat, invest your money in people, and if you can’t get yourself to do that, then invest it in booze and drugs, but please, anything but gold and stocks, because if you invest it in gold and stocks, you’re handing it to the Plutocrats to build bombs that will be dropped on your head and the heads of everyone you know and love.
I do actually have a bathroom, and, guess what, I pay for it myself
That is so cool! I can’t believe you have a coin-operated bathroom just like they do in many parts of Europe. You’re so Cosmopolitan; I apologize for misjudging you.
I conclude that the comments you did not address or answer are, indeed, true.
You do hate work, and
You are being supported by complaisant relatives.
Nor have you or the ‘Janet’ entity ever denied being paid to post. You have both ridiculed and scoffed the idea, but not denied.
Looks like the two of you could use some better insults to throw at each other, or at least any Objectivists you see around here.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/11/day-in-exquisite-insults-of.html
BleatToTheBeat said: “How about GOLD? Looks like a whole buncha’ people are about to get schtupped on their gold contracts.”
There is something obscene about using schtupped in the same sentence with precious metal contracts. The two don’t mix.
schtupped: carnal knowledge, coition, coitus, sex act, sexual congress, sexual intercourse, sexual relation, copulation, intercourse, relation, congress – the act of sexual … No! Not on the gold contracts!
“There is something obscene about using schtupped in the same sentence with precious metal contracts. The two don’t mix.”
Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan’s dominatrix, might not have thought so, but she was a weird one.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/11/ayn-rand-on-love-and-sex.html
Notice how the ‘Janet’ entity is holding back a little now? You had best read the writing on the wall if you want to keep this gig.
More threats. Like ozone. Care to elaborate on what you mean by this?
Like maybe she does not want to be too close when you flame out. You never do know when enough is enough, do you?
Carol said: “I bet you didn’t shave your pussy back then like you do now.”
I didn’t shave it then and don’t shave it now. I prefer natural. That goes for legs and underarms, too. How many hours do you spend shaving your legs? Tweezing your brows? Rubbing zit cream into that persistent pimple that just won’t go away? Women spend 72 days shaving their legs over the course of a lifetime, meaning approximately 1,728 hours. What’s more, shaving also ranked as women’s most hated beauty ritual, with 35 percent of women polled saying they loathed shaving their legs more than anything else.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paloma-goni/i-dont-shave_b_3568790.html
That goes for legs and underarms, too.
You too? That’s me. I abhor shaving. In fact, so much so, I don’t even shave my facial hair to the point I have a beard and mustache. Freedom’s just another word for never having to shave.
“I have a beard and mustache.”
I do, too. I even know the science of how sexy they are on me, although I have my doubts they look as good on you.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2013/05/discovery-news-on-science-of-beards.html
Nastarana said: “No, MOTU is Masters Of The Universe, ie, the likes of Jaimie DImon.”
My bad. Thanks for the clarification. I make mistakes and learn every day!
Carol said: “I don’t even shave my facial hair to the point I have a beard and mustache.”
Have you noticed how CFN is like Rush Limbaugh, the entertainer?
Rush is not informing (he admits as much: “Mar 2, 2009 – RUSH: Okay, so I am an entertainer”). Rush is entertaining.
CFN is a lot like that. Mondays. Cool metaphors. A little scare about the coming collapse. A thrill thinking about how bad things will be… then wait until next Monday. CFN is great entertainment as long as you don’t take it seriously… you know, like the laws of physics or something. It’s just beautiful prose, for over a decade now.
Collapse, collapse, I love thee so… wherefore art thou?
Collapse, collapse, I love thee so… wherefore art thou?
Yes, it’s like religion….that ‘ol time religion, and like in the old days, after mass there would be a picnic and a lynching or two. It was all part of the festivities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqoJLpfr2ao
Message for Rhino:
Snowden is still at large and not in custody of the USA.
MOSCOW The father of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said on Russian television that he is grateful to the Kremlin for protecting his son.
This is not what the authoritarian Rhino thought would be the outcome.
TPTB MESSED WITH THE WRONG STUDENT
SAN DIEGO — A 25-year old college student has reached a $4.1 million settlement with the federal government after he was abandoned in a windowless Drug Enforcement Administration cell for more than four days without food or water, his attorneys said Tuesday.
The DEA introduced national detention standards as a result of the ordeal involving Daniel Chong, including daily inspections and a requirement for cameras in cells, said Julia Yoo, one of his lawyers.
A 25-year old college student has reached a $4.1 million settlement
I hope he takes my investment advice and invests that handsome sum in people or booze and drugs as opposed to gold and stocks.
^Legal drugs, of course, like marijuana in Washington and Colorado…and hopefully the entire U.S. and world before too long.
What kind of booze and drugs do you buy?
I’m a teetotaler and don’t use drugs, not even legally prescribed pharmaceuticals. TPTB aren’t making any money with me.
I should have quit you
A long time ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtrCnUu43Cc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqbXOO3OiOs
ie, the likes of Jaimie DImon – Nastarana
It’s Jamie and the second letter of his last name is lower case.
Read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and learn the importance of getting people’s names right; remembering people’s names is key.
Fortunately, I have no interest in either winning friends or influencing people. UnAmerican, I know, not to be sociable.
And ‘Free Y’rself from Positive Thinking’ as well!
All I’m trying to do is post a link to my website so you can find what Snowden has been up doing but it took five full minutes for this page to load.
My connection has ssssssllllllloooooooowwwwweeeddd way down. I don’t know why. Too bad because if you follow my link a lot of strange happenings around here get explained. – K-Dog
A Possible Explanation
If you are allowing all of your programs to update in the background, this produces a lot of drag on your system resources.
If your computer has a single core processor and you are running an anti-virus program continuously, from time to time, you will experience some serious drags in processing power.
Even with newer, multi-core processors, your system can be overwhelmed by multiple threads of executing programs.
You may want to examine the number of programs that are updating themselves automatically and opt to update some of them manually.
This does take a certain amount of discipline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2BIf12xnQ
There is the truth as the Chinese wisdom states if you stay on the same path you will get where you are going. We are on the the downward spiralling staircase to hell of collapse. People don’t want to hear this ,who could blame them . They do want to hear a more promising message ,and that is not given except by the pundits who are apologists for the political economic systems that got us on the downward spiral in the first place.We need a new or in reality the most fundamental of truths ie. to have a system that can achieve sustainable dynamic balance. Your whole conditioning has been in duality politically the right vs. left economically have vs. have nots even in religion we have our God vs. the the other aka Devil. Indeed a sad situation unless we realize we can align with reality.
“…We’re witnessing the implosion of the American hive mind.
This is what comes of divorcing truth from reality, and that process is exactly what you get in the effort to replace authentic economic activity with accounting fraud and propaganda…” -JHK
As a frantic and panicked knock-on effect of this is a desperate attempt to prop up the status quo by any and all means.
If the status quo should dissolve, there are a large number of fools who have no useful skills to ply in a world of reality. This doesn’t bode well for them. Example: What kind of ‘work’ do we find for the carol-ja’soka tag team? We couldn’t use them in leadership positions of any kind, because they’re too invested in spite and dreams of power over those they feel inferior. Defense? They probably didn’t do so well on the range or in basic, which is probably why they ended up in positions of status quo [useless fucking waste] boosterism. (I hardly find that even close to a ‘skill’, I don’t know ’bout you.) Manual labor? Faaaar beneath their dignity, I’m certain. Accounting? Nah, they’d be wanting to oversee the ‘creation’ of those numbers, not carefully recording them.
See where I’m going here? A big bunch of what was formerly known as ‘productive activity/work’ is going to be unwanted, irrelevant and a distinct waste of time and energy.
Can you imagine that the descriptor of ‘propaganda agent’ as a job title in a decentralized world where practical ideas, food and ammunition are the main currencies would be a positive? I really can’t. The only thing it might get you is shunned.
There’s desperation in the air. Those invested heavily in the current M.I.C. paradigm see the weight of numbers going against them as the goodies get sparser and those in charge get more parsimonious. Thus the flurry of lies, disinformation, division, distraction and stunning truckloads of fraud. These are the only tools left in the toolbox, aside from armaments in the streets. Those come out AFTER all trust has finally been lost.
We’re witnessing the final blizzard of bullshit before the hammer comes down.
OCCUPATION: Foole
ozone said: “We’re witnessing the final blizzard of bullshit before the hammer comes down.”
I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months.
K-Dog said: “if you follow my link a lot of strange happenings around here get explained.”
I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months.
Bob said: “We are on the the downward spiralling staircase to hell of collapse.”
I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months.
Janet (to the chattering parrots)
I will go so far to predict that…
I will go so far [as] to predict that
ie, the likes of Jaimie DImon – Nastarana
It’s Jamie and the second letter of his last name is lower case.
That’s just Nastarana being antisemitic again. She and I don’t share the same views about antisemitism. Her spelling of Jamie was just her channeling Jesse Jackson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNz5XnvZHhk
And here I was thinking Dimon is a Scotsman!
janet, thank you for posting that Nina Simone Strange Fruit video. It was touching and moving. Let me share this one from Dinah Washington. It reminds me of Nastarana, and since a rose is mentioned in it, I believe it’s fitting….and touching and moving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-GMG6xhtY
What are the best ‘prepper’ sites?
And thanks to all of you for hanging in here, despite ‘entity’ running SO MUCH interference.
Simply google “prepper sites” (whilst thou still canst ;)).
Sift and glean from there to those sites where they look like they might have half a clue as to what they’re doing, and they’ll recommend others. Onward and outward…
(You WILL, of course, be tracked and quite likely flagged for conducting such a search, but, what the hell… join the club of hundreds of thousands! 575,000 results for “prepper sites”.)
anti dod, do not listen to ozone. He is not helping you to find what you are asking for: not 575,000 sites, but 50 of the BEST prepper sites.
http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/rise-of-the-preppers-50-of-the-best-prepper-websites-and-blogs-on-the-internet_02012013
If you want the BEST information, you should ask me not ozone.
janet is correct anti dod and don’t worry about us flagging you. You were flagged long ago. We know all we need to know about you. You’ve been processed and categorized so you can breath easy and visit whatever site you like without fear. Your fate is already baked in the cake as they say.
I forgot to add, out of the top 50 sites janet provided we run 49 of them. The holdout is run by a former employee who does it for kicks to pass the time in retirement.
“I will go so far to predict that the recent national mood of wishful fantasy is running out of gas and that a more fatalistic view of our manifold predicaments will take its place in a few months.” -JHK
Nice to see that Ja’soka has finally decided to pretend to understand that there might actually be a consensus ’round these parts on the approach of Nemesis.
Oh! We aren’t presenting contrary opinions to JHK? Well that’s just too unfortunate. We wouldn’t want Ja’soka’s ‘job’ to be endangered; it’s all it has left if it desires to be fed, housed and clothed by its’ masters. “Sit!” (at the keyboard); good dog; here’s your cookie.
Like anti dod you’ve also been flagged but we don’t know how to process or categorize you because none of us can figure out what the hell you’re saying or talking about. We’ve put some of our brightest code breakers on your case and after days and weeks even, they throw up their hands in frustration and walk out. We’ve concluded you’re harmless because if we can’t understand you surely nobody else can either except maybe the Chinese spammer.
In other words?!? (stooge) You pretenders don’t scare us geezahs. It might work wif da *YUN’gunz* – but not so much with us 50-70+. Give it up sock, we know *EXACTLY* who U R. I’ll bet you couldn’t even *DANCE* with teh best of us (you Sh!tter).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EiMUPdtFXI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUG-G8LLr38fQUNZU8K0t-EA
Here’s a very interesting interview from Greg Hunter with a lady I’ve not heard of before, Catherine Austin Fitts. The most inquisitive posters here will have already heard of her, but for those who haven’t… Greg Hunter often has some quality guests who calmly and astutely scramble his ideological eggs; at least he’s great at givin’ them an opportunity to speak their minds.
Anyhow, CAF’s disposition doesn’t appear to be way out of touch, but I’m interested in what say some of you in response to her ideas. To me, this interview expands on some of the notions alluded to in Paul Craig Robert’s recent commentary with GH regarding how the Master Manipulators are trying to avert the type of dire global collapse we all fret/hope for.
It raises the question: didn’t the collapse already happen in ’07-’08 and everything since has just been the building of the so called new paradigm? If there was some event that were to occur today that by all rights should end it once and for all, wouldn’t they just pull some other trick out of their asses? There is no such thing as a rule book – Constitution – anymore, right? And no one imagined 20 plus trillion in bailouts last go round – what’s another few trillion?
I mean, I remember hearing David Stockton talk a while back, and instantly thought he was full of shit and mildly retarded for thinking that trillions of dollars of toxic assets could have been handled in simple bankruptcy court – bailout was the only option. But he had a book to sell and has now receded to the background in irrelevance, so what’s actually been happening all along as all these shitty bubble’s have simply been re-inflated? Did that money just disappear into a black hole as Charles Hugh Smith has suggested?
If there were another collapse scandal they sure as hell wouldn’t send the failures to bankruptcy court now. So what’s left? Yeah, they might let some of us starve, but they sure the hell won’t let our military go to waste before one final hoorah.
CAF makes *good* sense as she describes how this new “Breakaway Civilization” has taken shape – how a 2nd industrial age in the US where all the old liabilities are abandoned to the old system is underway – Detroit, anyone? Of course it’s a dastardly set of scams and schemes we’ll witness no doubt, but we all know they’re doin’ it anyway. CAF seems careful not to come off as a Pollyanna-type, as she passively acknowledges that the middle class is gonna be forced to keyster those liabilities in some fashion.
Clearly, we ensure ecological collapse nevertheless in whatever new techno-industrial age that pounds the final nails in the human species’ coffin; however, my guess is, after just a couple years lookin’ at this shit, the status quo and privileged hierarchy will possibly remain until the very end. The slow burn?
CAF is one of the messy-but-workable transition to NWO types, instead of the familiar and, in my personal view, more frighteningly compelling Dmitry Orlov collapse Gurus – so a grain of salt is recommended no matter your preferred flavor. It’s just an interesting, contrary POV without being Pollyannistic, if that makes sense. It didn’t come across as a series of rosy premises to me, but please do weigh in.
No question thangs could sure still git ugly though. Sorry for the ramble.
-UFIA
The time will soon come when we all must deal with the
Konglomeration of Irreconcilable Lying Lizards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDIT55KeKc
Thanks Bleat… Always on the look out for movies like this.
Another link:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/i-am-fishead-are-corporate-leaders-psychopaths/
She has Solari.com and is on Coast to Coast radio regularly.
UFIA, thank you for providing this video. it’s actually somewhat along the lines of my own thinking. I’ve believed for quite a while that dangerous times are a comin’ – as a result of the stress produced, and the adjustments needed, as a consequence of rapid technological advance.
CAF’s is basically saying that the traditional economy and its trickle-down effect into the current zeitgeist will give way to a new economic structure based on new technologies and investments.
CAF’s slow burn seems more reasonable to me than a swift civilizational collapse, but I have the feeling she’s wearing rose-colored glasses. It appears that she’s seeing past the process and envisioning the end result. She’s looking at the big picture, which is critically important to do, for it paints an ultimately positive future. However, she’s skipping past the expected part of the vast human suffering that will occur.
These will be harrowing times fraught with the frightening possibility of catastrophe. I think societal pressures will build to the point where something very bad could happen. Not saying it will, but it could. I’d say the probability is 50-50.
Certainly ecological disaster could result, but nothing is a given. My own outlook is optimistic, not only because I expect a good ending, but also because I can’t live in a world where I’m constantly afraid we are all doomed.
Anyway, thanks for contributing something substantial to the comments section, rather than the 95% drivel usually posted here.
She is a regular on C2C.
He is not helping you to find what you are asking for: not 575,000 sites, but 50 of the BEST prepper sites.
janet, I haven’t checked, but if the the following is not on that list, it should be.
http://www.backdoorsurvival.com/salt-in-the-prepper-pantry/
Isn’t that a great name? I wanna be your backdoor man. Surviving sodomy? What does that even mean….backdoor survival? What about garage door survival, or front door survival, or side door survival….or bedroom window survival?
One of the very first things I did when I first started prepping was to bolster my pantry with basic staples that could be used for variety of purposes. When it was suggested that I store salt, and lots of it, I was a disbeliever. After all conventional mainstream wisdom had taught be that salt was the bad guy. Or was it?
I made it my mission to determine whether is salt a good thing, a bad thing or simply something best treated as an item to “use in moderation”.
https://www.facebook.com/thesurvivalwoman
^Eyes Wide Open
Backdoor Survival was #7 on the list of the 50 BEST prepper sites.
I still can’t believe ozone told anti dod to “glean and sift” from 575,000 sites. Maybe ozone is a double agent pretending not to be a DoD agent. Or maybe he just doesn’t know how to utilize Boolean operators in a Google search? Who knows? But it was a piss poor response to anti dod.
I agree, it was an inconsiderate response. What kind of friend does such a thing? That’s not the kind of friend I want for The End.
At least you got a list of 10 socks to count on, when that *HAPPENS*!!! (hah!)
Ah yes, there it sits, the apex of mature, distractionary pigeon-holing:
“I know you are, but what am I?”
Good one, Ja’soka; good JOB! Now eat your graham cracker and drink your milk because it’s nap time.
so you can [breath] easy
haha
easy breasy – socky!!! (racist)
UFIA,
BT alerted us all to CAF long ago.
Pay attention.
Janet
They have been trying to assassinate CAF for years now to include poisoning her. She must be on to them. Why else would they do such a thing?
http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2009/03/catherine-austin-fitts-somebodys-been.html
Fitts: “In 2004, I wrote a letter to Condoleezza Rice about 9-11, that got picked up by UPI and sort of caused consternation to the administration and then June 14th I had litigation against the federal government. We won the big case against the federal government on June 14th and I got a signal from my lawyers that the Department of Justice wanted to settle and I had arranged a Swiss bank account because I didn’t want the money in the US. I was just concerned that once we won and anybody had to pay us, they’d pull another dirty trick. So I faxed the signature pages back to the Swiss on June 16th and suddenly, Dennis, the next two days, Halliburton was the number one user on my website by a huge amount, not a little amount but a huge amount and then that third day I was poisoned very badly. Some of my doctors think they were trying to kill me.”
Host: “You were poisoned?”
Fitts: “Yes.”
Host: “What was the poison?”
Fitts: “We don’t know. I was poisoned four times during the litigation. Three were arsenic and the fourth was probably a lead concoction; we can’t figure it out. We know what my tests show. The normal lead content is 1.7 times, my original was 47. My nutritionist couldn’t believe I could even walk. But it was pretty bad and when things like that happen, you’re busy trying to survive, your not busy trying to ‘Oh, how can I document this?’ Because these aren’t the kinds of things you can document, we’re talking or goes–you know how do you call? You can’t call the local police, you can’t go see the Department of Justice. What do you do? You do the best you can, but you’re in a situation which we’re all in. The government is no longer the authorities we go to when you’re in danger. They’re the Sheriff of Nottingham. We need to run and hide from them, protect our assets from them.”
But you do not agree with CAF on gold, Carol.
CAF says, “I don’t think the people who run the U.S. military or run the United States government are going to say we’re happy to collapse rather than go to war. They are going to go to war. They’re going to shake somebody down.” Fitts goes on to add, “I think gold is the greatest form of insurance you can have during this transition period.”
Maybe she has economic resources at hand to stockpile gold. Most of us worry about just getting enough food on the table for our kids while living from paycheck to paycheck. CAF sounds like a one per center to me.
Carol said of ozone’s inane response: “What kind of friend does such a thing? That’s not the kind of friend I want for The End.”
It is a dangerous thing to do. Ozone is courting trouble by not helping someone who is only looking for the BEST prepper sites. By not helping, by actually virtually flipping anti dod the bird and telling him to “sift and glean” through 575,000 sites (like we have that much time before collapse!), ozone is creating enemies. At least we are being warned ozone cannot be depended upon. Word spreads thanks to the internet. During collapse ozone won’t want enemies. His very survival depends on collaboration… not showing exactly how irrelevant he is. Then again, maybe ozone just doesn’t have the requisite skills. Either way, ozone will be toast if he continues to act as he is acting. Some humans, who are part of nature, are not going be forgiving of his shit.
And that ends my anti-encomium.
And none too soon. Obfuscation and stench were becoming overwhelming. I found the fifty sites all by myself and didn’t need help from anyone. My paws can GOOGLE and I can go from there. I figured I’d take a chance on getting tracked. take myself a walk on the wild side.
Now you’ve got toys. The XKeyscore training documents at K-Dog are eight years old now. I imagine the well funded software teams have left that toy with a few revision levels in it. A dot dot wonder. Let me take a wild guess, you can target internet and phone using the same program now. All kinds of fancy plug-ins in five years.
Boys on the payroll are probably looking at the Guardian documents at the ancient history. If they still laugh.
– looking at the Guardian documents and laughing at them as if they were ancient history. If they still laugh.
Methinks K-dog needs a lil pat on the back (I’ll come at you OPEN PALMED)… hehehe!!!
How did you possibly find those sites by googling, “prepper sites”??
Golly gee, it was so hard that I gave up after .14 seconds!
(I’ll just ask the Ja’soka entity next time; it knows all and its’ info is iron-clad gum’mint approved!)
😉
Miss Janet, if you are taking names and addresses, please be aware that I, for one, want nothing to do with your future dystopia of the select.
K-Dog said: “Let me take a wild guess, you can target internet and phone using the same program now. ”
K-Dog, I’ve got a slow, aging computer. You’ve got a case of paranoia and over-rated self-importance, like anyone in the government would care what you are typing.
take myself a walk on the wild side.
Some people get cheap thrills from their imagination.
OK, K-Dog, I’m going to throw you a bone. We here at the agency (in Virginia, of course) know how words become signifiers. When you have an experience, K-Dog, (a signified), the Agency immediately knows what word (a signifier) forms in your brain to represent that experience.
Of course, I cannot reveal how we know your thoughts. But our technology is much more advanced than you can even imagine. We don’t need to rely on software. Software is 20th century. We’re way beyond that and know what is going on inside your head.
How do you like that for obfuscation and stench?
Have a good night’s sleep, K-Dog.
But you do not agree with CAF on gold, Carol.
I don’t really know what she thinks or says. I do know she used to hang with that freak, Ruppert, but beyond that I never paid much attention to her namely because she was former Wall Street. I don’t trust a former Wall Streeter anymore more than I trust a former CIA officer or a former politician or cabinet member. About the only former anything I trust is Frank Serpico, the former New York City police officer who took on the corrupt police department (redundant, I know) back in the early seventies. I own the movie and watch it every other year to center my perspective.
Speaking of Ruppert, I actually watched the documentary with/about him and his views called, of all things, Collapse. I think it should have been named Thank You For Smoking
because that is where all the action was……Ruppert chain smoking through-out the entire thing. Shit, I think he must have gone through three packs and it was as though he were making love to each cigarette such was his passion for them. Either way, it was an expose about the mentally ill and their reliance on cigarettes to get them through the day as much as anything else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoZ0RvwjYF0
Say now! That’s the absolute weakest ‘critique’ I have ever read!
Good JOB. (You’re living “up” to our expectations.)
Obama: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
Janetasokacarol: “If I were a dog, I’d behave like this one.”
http://www.perthnow.com.au/lifestyle/home-garden/dog-eats-paralysed-man8217s-testicle-while-he-sleeps/story-fnhqg9vj-1226689510173
By the way, they euthanized the dog, severed its head, and sent it in for rabies testing.
And the man was treated at St. Bernard Hospital.
You guess this is all a hoax like janetasokacarol.
Ban the Trolling Twosome, JHK.
You guess this is all a hoax
I’m thinking much of it is. JHK’s one of the few sane people to carry this message of collapse. The majority of the rest are either insane, hucksters/hoaxers, or both. How many of you believe aliens, not the ones from Mexico or any other country but rather from outerspace, live amongst us? I’m going to bet that more than a few who post here probably believe that but would never come clean about it. Well, CAF believes it, and since many of you here believe everything CAF tells you to believe, I must conclude that you believe aliens from outerspace walk amongst us. Hardly any of you have any objectivity or credibility. Choose your sources more wisely, or better yet, think for yourself rather than having your thoughts handed to you by the ‘former’ (note the use of single quotes versus double) handmaidens of Plutocrats.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/print.html?path=HL0209/S00126.htm
The $64 Question: What’s Up With the Black Budget?
The Real Deal with Catherine Austin Fitts
I met with a group of high level people in the military in the process — including the Undersecretary. According to John, the purpose of the plan — discussed in front of several military or retired military officers and former government officials— was to help the Navy adjust their operations for a world in which it was commonly known that aliens exist and live among us.
When John explained this purpose to me, I explained that I did not know that aliens existed and lived among us. John asked me if I would like to meet some aliens. For the only time in my life, I declined an opportunity to learn about something important. I was concerned that my efforts with Arlington could boomerang and be connected with the smear campaign and the effects that I was managing. I regret that decision. At John’s suggestion I started to read books on the topic and read about 25 books over the next year on the alien question, the black budget, and alien technology.
That, my friends (even though you’re really not my friends), is classic, calculated disinformation/misinformation. Giant red lights should be flashing in your thick skulls, but instead you gobble it up like a dog chowing down on its paralyzed owner’s testicle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6rQDvRsCkI
Carol, that article was weird but nonetheless interesting as I knew nothing of CAF before last night. At the very least it seems like CAF was smart enough not to entirely take the bait in what sounds to me like a set up aimed at making her seem crazy. And I’d like to know if you can substantiate this claim a bit more:
“Well, CAF believes it, and since many of you here believe everything CAF tells you to believe, I must conclude that you believe aliens from outerspace walk amongst us.”
********************************************************************************
Other than that your posts about CAF don’t amount to much more than your usual libelous vandalism. Here’s the full context of the article to which you linked:
“I had to drop from the project due to the need to attend to litigation and the physical harassment and surveillance of me and some of the people helping me. This process —which turned out to be incredibly time consuming — I now believe was connected with the black budget/slush fund activities connected with FHA and Ginnie Mae at HUD. (See, “The Myth of the Rule of Law”)
John then asked me if I would join the board of the Arlington Institute.When I attended one of my first meetings, I joined in discussion with about 10 people which included James Woolsey, former head of the CIA in the Clinton Administration, Napier Collyns, founder of Global Business Network and former senior Shell executive, Joe Firmage, John, and other members of the Arlington board. The main topic of discussion was whether or not the major project for the coming year should be a white paper on how to help the American people adjust to aliens existing and living among us. I said nothing — just listened. Not that long after, I dropped from the board due to the continued demands related to litigation with the Department of Justice and their informant.
To cut a series of additional long stories short, when I talk with my few sources from the military and intelligence community, I hear the same themes:
1. Aliens exist and live among us;
2. In part for this reason as well the accumulated investment over the last 50 years, the technology we have access to through the black budget is far more advanced than is commonly understood;
3. The black budget/slush fund construct was created to deal with this issue, which is why reasonable people thought selling drugs to the children who were US citizens was the better of several options — including the option of telling the American public the truth and funding the expenses on budget.
As a result of these experiences, here is my framework for dealing with this very large pile of uncertainty.
ONE OF THE THREE FOLLOWING POSSIBLE SCENARIOS MUST BE TRUE
SCENARIO #1. ENTRE NOUS: The alien question is the single largest and most expensive disinformation campaign in the history of our race. A portion of the human race has advanced technologically so far beyond the rest of us — and is attributing various things to aliens as a way of managing their resulting risk—that we have become as aliens to each other. To fully understand this scenario, we need to try to understand the use of individual mind control such as criminal hypnosis to effect financial and government fraud and corruption and the truth, whatever it is, of wider subliminal programming and brainwashing. These are slippery subjects for most people to deal with unless they have the training and ability to do so.
% PROBABILITY SCENARIO #1 IS TRUE ______ (You fill in)
SCENARIO #2 — HOLY COW!: Aliens exist and live among us. Planet earth is subject to the politics, economics and laws and/or lawlessness of a larger system or systems. The transfer of advanced technology into a society that has not evolved governance and legal systems to manage a world with the presence of such technology and the influence of such other system(s) helps to explain current events. To fully understand this scenario, we must also try to understand the use of individual mind control such as criminal hypnosis to effect financial and government fraud and corruption and the truth, whatever it is, of wide subliminal programming and brainwashing. Again, these are slippery subjects for most people to deal with unless they have the training and ability to do so.
% PROBABILITY SCENARIO #2 IS TRUE ______ (You fill in)
3. SCENARIO #3 — MUDDLED: Some combination of (1) and (2) above.
% PROBABILITY SCENARIO #3 IS TRUE ______ (You fill in)
TOTAL % PROBABILITY OF SCENARIOS #1,2 & 3 BEING TRUE 100%
Could my experiences with Arlington and the Navy or any subsequent contacts fit with a disinformation scenario? Absolutely. I have no evidence to support any scenario. The only evidence I believe I have is my experience dealing with tremendous amounts of money siphoned off over the years, whether through Iran-Contra S&L, HUD and BCCI fraud, or the latest round of money missing from the federal government in the last five years. This is all documented in the articles below. This cash flow and the operations and syndicates it appears to fund are important to what drives the governance and allocation of resources in this country and around the globe. There is a reason that power and money are centralizing and the rich are getting richer. I want to know what it is.
Whichever scenario is true —and I do not know which one is —- if we had the truth it will help us grapple with 9-11 and the War on Terrorism. It would also help us better understand all the efforts to press for centralization of economic and political power that have grown as the black budget has grown since WWII. The reality is the possibilities of why 9-11 occurred and how it was operationalized are impacted by the facts of the US black budget and the advanced technology it has developed. Why would sane and even decent people think it was the best option for the good of the whole?” -CAF
-UFIA
If this isn’t proof that Putin’s a pussy errand boy, nothing is. He’s in bed with them….doing their bidding…..making Snowden’s ‘temporary’ asylum conditional upon Snowden refraining from leaking anymore ‘secrets.’ What’s the matter, pussy Putin, you afraid those ‘secrets’ might reveal you for the errand boy you are? I think so, you fraud, and it probably explains why you recently tried to pull another one of your macho PR stunts to cover up the fact that you take it up the ass like all the rest.
http://news.yahoo.com/edward-snowden-got-asylum-russia-lawyer-says-121914081.html
MOSCOW (AP) — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden left transit zone of a Moscow airport and entered Russia after authorities granted him temporary asylum, his lawyer said Thursday.
Anatoly Kucherena said that Snowden’s whereabouts will be kept secret for security reasons. The former NSA systems analyst was stuck at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.
The U.S. has demanded that Russia send Snowden home to face prosecution for espionage, but President Vladimir Putin dismissed the request.
Putin had said that Snowden could receive asylum in Russia on condition he stops leaking U.S. secrets. Kucherena has said Snowden accepted the condition.
Stalin is rolling in his grave.
Once again: “I know you are, but what am I?”
That button was worn off in 3rd grade; why do you super agent provocateurs keep pushing it? Is that the general public’s maturity level these days… or just your handlers’?
Errand Boy and Fraud indeed.
Thought provoking posts, carol – those last two.
Snowden has no “secrets” from the Government – which, after all, created all these secrets in the first place.
And I’ll guarantee you that the Russians know everything that Snowden has by now. So, most of this is all multi-national horse trading and a PR campaign by now.
==========================
And all free people are entitled to think Crazy Thoughts from time to time. That includes O3, K9, and anyone else. Janetasoka is NOT entitled to shout down these partially formed thoughts – not over-and-over and week-after-week; at least not on JHK’s commercial webspace. Which is why Janetasoka should be permanently banned by JHK if he won’t stop.
As for you, “carol,” many of your Crazy Thoughts are expressed in nasty homophobic sexual metaphor.
“cover up the fact that you take it up the ass like all the rest.”
-“carol,” to Vladimir –
Why do you do this, “carol.” It’s certainly not for clarity.
sea kelp
P4W,
Here’s a conjecture that may or may not come from the perspective of ‘the crazy’:
It’s my observation that the general thrust of “carol’s” belittling and acerbic posts is to convince you that if you’re a ‘intelligent person’, you’d realize that you have absolutely no power over your own life. (Hinting of the subtext, written across the sky, “Surrender Dorothy”. Give up, stop trying to affect anything outside of the current BAU. TPTB have got you by the short hairs.)
Meanwhile, this is an entity that’s distinctly attempting to control commenters to a blog by blatant derision. (Turning them into NON-commenters.) So this entity is operating in the very center of a dichotomy. I, for one, do not trust this position to be any kind of arbiter of the truth. Schemes, lies, fraud.
This is a site for independent thinkers and actors. Historically, that’s assumed to be dangerous to established institutions. It very well could be. Especially since the ‘ideas’ for the operation of the social machine now come from the ossified and completely self-interested psychos who run these institutions from the top of a huge, extractive pyramid, instead of organically coming from those who have to live life at reality’s ground-level. (This would be where give-a-shit about one’s fellow humans comes from; it’s a simple matter of practicality.)
BTW, I’m not crazy; I’m just “misunderstood” and profoundly paranoid! 😉
Hahaha, great song for the day, ‘Zone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCUmSijiWxA
“BTW, I’m not crazy; I’m just “misunderstood” and profoundly paranoid!” – Oz
I just received my membership card for that club in the mail, too. Freaks my peers, family, and teachers out like a mo fo. it’s a wonder they let me out in public sometimes… lol
UFIA,
Our club’s only redeeming characteristic is that none of us trusts anyone else enough to appoint any of their compatriots to ‘leadership’ positions! 😀
O3 k9 K9
WOW, automatic subscripted digits.
First thing – besides the absence of the Chinese Spammer – about JHK’s new software that is completely positive.
P4W,
Help a guy out here. What be automatic subscripted digits?
(Color me technologically ignorant… ’cause I AM.)
I tried looking it up, but was instantly flummoxed and befuddled. I’ll look again, just out of mule-headed-ness.
Ah, now I see from re-reading the Wiki entry.
Sub-SCRIPTed, regarding a piece of script that’s “sub-ordinated” to the previous character. Sort of “halfway beneath” as the opposite of the placement of a numerical exponent, which would be sort of “halfway above”.
(Now you’ve gone and made me use my thinker-organ thingie. Don’t do that any more, it’s very painful; I coulda had some kind of vessel ‘splosion!)
“the technology we have access to through the black budget is far more advanced than is commonly understood” –CAF
There you have it. Confirmation from an insider. We will never run out of energy. This is what I have been saying all along. No reason to fear the future. Don’t worry be happy. Relax.
Miss Janet, if you are taking names and addresses, please be aware that I, for one, want nothing to do with your future dystopia of the select.
Miss Nastarana, I am not taking names and addresses. I respect your privacy and 4th amendment rights.
Miss Nastarana, I am not part of any “select” and do not even know what you mean by “dystopia”
Miss Nastarana, all I have ever asked is that people not allow themselves to be manipulated by fear.
Miss Nastarana, I do not work for any government agency. I am self-employed, a homemaker, and do not receive a paycheck from anyone.
Miss Nastarana, I hope this helps you to relax and feel safe. Nobody is out to get you or make you suffer.
And I’d like to know if you can substantiate this claim a bit more:
It’s obvious and self-explanatory to anyone with more than a couple of brain cells. I have nothing against people believing aliens walk amongst us, UFIA. If that’s your thing, and it seems it is, then go for it. Shit, people believe in a thing called “God” and believe he sent “his” only “son” (it couldn’t be the daughter, could it?) to walk amongst us, so why not aliens as well. It’s all good.
UFIA, have you been poisoned with lead and arsenic as well? What about JHK? He speaks truth to power and yet I don’t see him talking about aliens and poisonings. Sure, he’s had a lot of surgeries, but that’s just normal wear and tear, not some shadowy, nefarious forces out to get him for speaking his mind.
You guys love to have the bejesus scared out of you. It explains your gathering around the campfire 24/7 for the next, latest and greatest ghost story. Meanwhile, Rome burns…..eternally.
And do me a favor and cut out your “ignorance” schtick. It’s obvious you’re being coy. You knew all about CAF. I know you did. The question is, how did I know. I’ll let you answer it.
Wrong on all counts, Carol.
I already know that you’re simply stringing together a host of unfounded accusations to bait me into some sort of disingenuous challenge, and therefore should pay no attention, but I’m bored at the moment.
I truly missed any mention of CAF on this site before yesterday. However, I can see why one would doubt this as most of the material I offer for comment comes from mutually appreciated sites – sources I only learned of from visiting here in the first place. Most of the time I realize that what I’m cluing into is old news, but because I lack the analytic capacity to synthesize and expound upon much of the material in an original way I simply resort to listening to my intuitive hunches when I find something that dials into a line of reasoning I’d like to explore. The bigger brains around here flesh out the ideas in invaluable ways for me; even the deceptive double speak you engage in points out an occasional detail that makes me question something in a useful manner – though that’s not to be mistaken as praise.
That’s about it, Carol. I’m probably the weakest, most undisciplined, and unfocused intellect ’round these parts. Funny thing is I’m a high school drop out and a graduate student – go figger. Guess I’m one of the dumb-luck-idiot-successes that wiggled through the small cracks in the social wall. At some point that’ll catch up to me, but for now I’m just playing the game others designed.
Gawd, Alien hybrids, 9/11 Troofers, CIA assassination fears and all the other pejorative conspiracy nutter labels you and dipshits like yank-O can toss out don’t really apply to how I see the world, but my deep instinct and proclivity toward skepticism, cynicism, and plain old paranoia does keep me questioning – everything. That’s close enough to crazy in the long run I ‘spose.
True enough though, I do enjoy a good fright now and again, but if anything that simply tells me that I still have the capacity for emotion, which distinguishes me from the NPD types such as yourself. And it’s also true that the NPDs of this society would simply shrivel and die were it not for the The Golden Rule Enablers of the world. The class of enablers far outnumber the class of psychos, socios, and ordinary narcissists often disproportionately blamed for fukin’ everything up, so I myself have fuked up in givin’ you the satisfaction of a reply, but oh well. I’m not out to win, Carol. I have no stake in the outcome. You can have all the blood you wish.
Now, let the others go back to providing you with the job security you’re really after, I’d just quickly bore you and fail to give you the reaction your superiors expect.
-UFIA
Which is why Janetasoka should be permanently banned by JHK if he won’t stop. As for you, “carol,”…
P4W, are you now thinking Carol and Janet are two different persons?
Janet
There you have it. Confirmation from an insider. We will never run out of energy. This is what I have been saying all along. No reason to fear the future. Don’t worry be happy. Relax.
I so love it when you get them tangled in their metaphorical jockstraps. In the spirit of Keith Jackson, they start stumbling and fumbling. But, but , but……….
Ozone, I can help you out here, if you’re not too proud to receive tech help from a homemaker. You know how you can make bold text or italics text by placing a b or i inside those pointy brackets?
Superscript is done by placing sup inside the brackets, and subscript is done by placing sub inside the brackets.
I don’t know why people are hiding this information from you. You may be the target of a disinformation campaign… LOL!
Help a guy out here. What be automatic subscripted digits?
I can’t believe I even converse with a moron who doesn’t even know this. Eat more salmon.
You quite neatly make my case about your ‘purpose here’ for me.
Good JOB; here’s your cookie!
(You can cease ‘conversing’ with me without any hurt whatsoever. Go right ahead; a few less of your posts would be quite welcomed.)
I don’t know why people are hiding this information from you. You may be the target of a disinformation campaign… LOL!
It’s those aliens who walk amongst us, doncha know! They can’t touch you though if you own gold. Buy gold. It will inoculate you against everything….the collapse, aliens…even death.
Which is why Janetasoka should be permanently banned by JHK if he won’t stop. As for you, “carol,”…
Will you please leave JHK be. You remind me of those vampiric leeches in Cool Hand Luke who wouldn’t leave Luke alone. They lived their empty lives vicariously through him. Inspiration wasn’t enough, they had to have every last drop of him until he finally told them to leave him the fuck alone.
Janet
Well there you have it. Carol Newquist signs off as “Janet”. Asoka you are such a shitwit. You need to spend more time with your hundreds of Muslim friends with whom you have lived, loved, laughed and cried. I really do feel sorry for you since you have nothing better to do than hang out here. 24/7
Debt
Hi Caroljanet! Or is it Janetcarol?
They can’t touch you though if you own gold.
Not just gold. Buy provisions. Stock up your basement with 10 years of food and water.
No just gold and provisions. Buy guns and ammo. When TSHTF your neighbors (the ones you are on speaking terms with now and seem nice) will become Hobbesian barbarians as soon as their stomach starts growling. They will notice all the lights are out except from your house (because you invested in thousands of dollars of generators and gasoline) and they will start plotting. Soon the neighbors will band together, hungry hordes of neighbors, and they will start toward your house. Why? Because you were stupid enough to buy gold, provisions, guns and ammo … and eventually you will have to sleep. Lights out. Boo!
Jesus, don’t make me wet my pants like that!
Dammit, Janet, I know exactly which of my links to recommend for you, the only one I have about preppers so far.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2012/01/preppers-in-reuters-and-national.html
I would have linked to an entry about Guido Sarducci (“My advice is to buy shovels and start digging.”) but I don’t have one. I’ll have to correct that oversight one of these days.
P4W, do you see yourself as a self-appointed protector of JHK’s “commercial space”? Why don’t you let JHK worry about it? Week after week there is free expression of ideas and you are the only one who week after week is calling for banning people like Janet. Boring.
Carol
When I see CAF, the word ‘fit” does not come to mind.
“commercial space”?
You’re good……REAL GOOD!
JULY 2013: ‘Nobody’s ever seen it this wet this long’–southern farmers reeling from endless rainfall…
But according to Tea Party Patriots and Conservatives global warming is a hoax. These 100-year storms that come every other year now, these droughts and these deluges, are just part of a naturally occurring cycle. Why, the Arctic has melted before, 55 million years ago. See, humans are not the cause of global warming. It’s just part of a 55 million year cycle. Idiots.
With Too Much Rain in the South, Too Little Produce on the Shelves
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/us/too-much-rain-in-the-south-too-little-produce-on-the-shelves.html?_r=0
With Too Much Rain in the South, Too Little Produce on the Shelves
Yeah, and last time I checked, Ford F-110s don’t float especially when they’re loaded down with bloated, obese cretins who don’t know what automated subscript is.
When I see CAF, the word ‘fit” does not come to mind.
CAF is a “money manager.” She counsels people on how to structure their portfolios. She utilizes fear to keep herself in business. She produces nothing of value. She is part of the problem that JHK speaks of regarding capital formation. (At least Asoka built mud huts where people could live comfortably.)
CAF is a parasite and a paranoid. That she even has an audience is a sad commentary of 21st century America.
500th!
Good work this week!
especially when they’re loaded down with bloated, obese cretins who don’t know what automated subscript is.
And are too stupid to know how to use what Tim Berners-Lee invented for us to find out.
I suppose it is my fault. I could have given ozone a list of 575,000 web sites on automated script and told the bastard to “sift and glean” through them. But I’m not that mean… or average… or mediocre.
But I’m not that mean
No, you’re not, in fact, you’re quite the contrary; you’re one of the nicest people I know. You give and expect nothing in return. Unfortunately, that’s a rare quality is the U.S.
janet, even though this new software seems to give these techno-morons Fitts, I like it. What about you?
Dreamtime in America is a time of bullies.
If You Still Don’t Think We Need Feminism, You Should See The Signs These Girls Were Bullied For
http://www.upworthy.com/if-you-still-dont-think-we-need-feminism-you-should-see-the-signs-these-girls-were-bullied-for
janet, here’s my backdoorsurvival strategy tip of the day. Eat more fruits and/or vegetables and less meat….and elimnate all meats that are preserved with Sodium Nitrite; it increases substantially the risk of colorectal cancer, hence the backdoor.
http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/health_articles/myth-or-fact-hot-dogs-cause-cancer
Processed meats, including hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats, are linked to increased colorectal cancer.
Both nitrate and nitrite, however, form nitrosamines — a known carcinogen — when mixed with protein-rich foods like meats. Nitrosamines create cell damage in the body.
Snyder says that even when eaten in moderation, hot dogs are a risky food. She points to research showing that eating 3.5 ounces of processed meat every day (24.5 ounces per week) increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 36 percent when compared to someone who eats no processed meat.
In addition to trimming all processed meats from your diet, Snyder recommends practicing these healthy lifestyle habits to reduce colorectal cancer risk:
Reduce alcohol consumption.
Exercise regularly.
Maintain a healthy weight.
Eat more fiber.
Consider healthier alternatives to traditional hot dogs, such as vegetarian hot dogs, or cook fruits and vegetables on the grill instead.
I selected a palatable link for the racists here; Duke. I figured they would click on anything authoritative with the name Duke in it. Wasn’t that nice of me to think of them like that? I’m trying to model your magnanimity.
janet, even though this new software seems to give these techno-morons Fitts, I like it. What about you?
I am agnostic. I am glad we don’t have the white supremacist trolls, anti-immigration trolls, Chinese spammer trolls, and other trolls anymore. Occasionally some here still function as troll-bait.
Because I have a family to care for and an active life in the community, I can’t be going back over all the conversations to see if new posts have been made. So, the conversation threading feature does mean some posts are never read. No great loss. And easily defeated when posting by clicking on the bottom reply button.
If You Still Don’t Think We Need Feminism, You Should See The Signs These Girls Were Bullied For
Those intelligent, well-adjusted human beings at that link are not abiding. Don’t show that to Orlov cuz if you do, be prepared to ferry him to the emergency room so he can be treated for his conniption.
Wasn’t that nice of me to think of them like that?
Very nice!
You may have saved the lives of countless South Beach and Paleo diet carnivores!
My backdoor diet advice: GOMBBS
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-gombbs-greens-onions-mushrooms-berries-beans-and-seeds.html
No great loss. And easily defeated when posting by clicking on the bottom reply button.
Yeah, the imbedded reply feature is a turn-off and comments do get missed as a result, but other than that, it’s an improvement, and I like the minimalist background and elegant font. Your family is very lucky to have a person as special as you looking after them. If only the world was made up of more people like you…..it would be a better place.
Holy crap! Every post on this page is Asoka! Dude, you’ve finally taken over. Congratulations! This is your blog, not JHKs.
Snowden is f-cked! Russia has allowed him in for 1 year. Can you imagine what a sickening, fearful thing it is to be wanted by the Feds? Long after the world moves on and Snowden is forgotten, he will still be a wanted man. Many, many people have travelled to Russia for political purposes, never to be seen nor heard from again. But Snowden will not simply disappear; he is too well known, a celebrity if you will. No, rather like earlier exiles Big Bill Haywood, Wobbly Organizer, and John Reed, Journalist, he will mysteriously die an early death, from natural causes of course, when he no longer serves a purpose. Russia is a hard place; those boys play for keeps.
–BRH
No, rather like earlier exiles Big Bill Haywood, Wobbly Organizer, and John Reed, Journalist, he will mysteriously die an early death, from natural causes of course, when he no longer serves a purpose. Russia is a hard place; those boys play for keeps.
Russia is not what it was under Stalin, that’s why I said Stalin is rolling in his grave. If we take the story at face value, and I’m not saying anyone should because there’s always more than face value, then Putin is essentially silencing Snowden for the U.S., hence he’s an errand boy of the Plutocracy and will take it up the ass when told to bend over. Sandy Krolic lives in Russia and he seems to be getting along just fine. He travels back to the U.S. several times a year without much interference, if any, or delay…and he’s quite critical of the U.S. Your assessment doesn’t square with his experience. How do you explain that?
Good question about Krolic. Don’t know. Maybe Putin finds him useful … for the time being.
Do you think President Obama should cancel his travel to Moscow in early September for a bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin immediately before Russia hosts the G20 summit in St. Petersburg?
Why not? Wouldn’t you want to meet the real most interesting man in the world any chance you could?
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/10/vladimir-putin-most-interesting-man-in.html
Do you think President Obama should cancel his travel to Moscow in early September for a bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin immediately before Russia hosts the G20 summit in St. Petersburg?
If this question is directed at me, I would rephrase it to say “will Obama cancel his travel to Moscow….?” No, he won’t. Putin’s handling of Snowden has shown him to be a feckless paper tiger who cooperates behind the scenes. In that respect, the meeting with Putin is very much in keeping.
Long after the world moves on and Snowden is forgotten, he will still be a wanted man.
Really? This week JHK says this week: “in a few months.”
Once TSHTF in a few months, the economy crashes, banks fail, the government falls, the military disbands because they aren’t getting paid, the FBI and CIA disappear (they won’t work without pay), the NSA computers fail from lack of maintenance, the federal justice system disintegrates, etc. … nobody in law enforcement will be concerned about Snowden.
The USA will be history, just as Khrushchev predicted on November 18, 1956: Russia will bury the USA.
What the [lazy, tattooed, drug-addicted] bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. –concluding statement in Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto
But I don’t think anyone here really believes JHK’s prediction of “in a few months.”
Putin’s handling of Snowden has shown him to be a feckless paper tiger …
Putin showed he is a coward with his overreaction to Pussy Riot.
August 1, 2013: “The Pussy Riot rockers jailed for performing an anti-Putin song in a cathedral might be pardoned by the president under a general amnesty this year. The Kremlin human rights council has created a working group to identify inmates to be pardoned by President Vladimir Putin to mark 20 years of the Russian Constitution, Izvestia reported Thursday.”
Russia is a hard place; those boys play for keeps.
So how do you explain the existence of an anti-Putin political protest movement? Why hasn’t Putin eliminated all of those involved?
All four of GM’s brands ranked above average.
GM has the best quality in the entire industry.
I guess Obama was right about GM. The cars are better now.
Detroit’s Big 3 automakers saw a strong sales performance in July.
General Motors, the largest of the three, saw a 16% sales gain. Ford and Chrysler are both reporting 11% sales gains for July, making it one of the best performing months in years.
Here’s are the details for each:
General Motors
General Motors’ 16% gain was even stronger when sales to individual customers are taken into account. They were up 23%. Each of GM’s four brands posted double-digit increases in sales to individual customers, the sales that matter the most.
The Red States are the taker states
(they get more from the federal government than they send in taxes).
The Blue States are the donor states.
Chris Christie kicked Rand Paul’s ass in their recent exchange. When Christie reminded Paul that Kentucky is a taker state and New Jersey is a donor state, Paul decided to end the exchange.
I’m not complaining about Kentucky. The persistent phenomenon of red state socialism should be supported. Even though Republicans talk about “small government” and “rugged individualism,” red states benefit from a one-way flow of dollars from Washington, a federal gravy train disproportionately provided by blue state taxpayers.
But hypocrisy or no, that is as it should be. Because when it comes to health care, education, public safety, needed infrastructure and so much else, Americans’ mutual commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot end at the state line.
You know how you can make bold text or italics text by placing a b or i inside those pointy brackets?
Only italics works for me. I have been unable to bold any text since this site was revamped. I will make one more attempt at bolding below.
This is a test.
Nope, didn’t work.
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/
And – no offense intended to K9 and O3.
Ban janetasoka, JHK – and the CFN dialog will slowly improve.
And you will get more page visits from people who might buy a book.
Ban the Trolling Twosome.
Yet another test.
Nope, didn’t work.
Methinks you should have your eyeglasses prescription checked.
So, is Asoka, adequatio really “janet”? Let’s go back in time to perhaps find the answer: Source: Clusterfuck archives, May 8, 2013:
adequatio replied to comment from lucky 13 | May 8, 2013 3:45 PM
I knew someone who died on a fruit diet
============
Lucky 13, the botanical definition of a fruit is anything with seeds in it.
You will not die on a fruit diet if you eat botanical fruits, things like avocados, green peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, etc. in addition to the citrus fruits and the berries and bananas and all the other fruits, especially if you also eat seeds and nuts
Now let’s review a posting by “Carol/janet”:
Carol Newquist
August 1, 2013 at 1:29 pm # janet, here’s my backdoorsurvival strategy tip of the day. Eat more fruits and/or vegetables and less meat….and elimnate all meats that are preserved with Sodium Nitrite; it increases substantially the risk of colorectal cancer, hence the backdoor.
http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/health_articles/myth-or-fact-hot-dogs-cause-cancer
Processed meats, including hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats, are linked to increased colorectal cancer.
Both nitrate and nitrite, however, form nitrosamines — a known carcinogen — when mixed with protein-rich foods like meats. Nitrosamines create cell damage in the body.
Snyder says that even when eaten in moderation, hot dogs are a risky food. She points to research showing that eating 3.5 ounces of processed meat every day (24.5 ounces per week) increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 36 percent when compared to someone who eats no processed meat.
In addition to trimming all processed meats from your diet, Snyder recommends practicing these healthy lifestyle habits to reduce colorectal cancer risk:
Reduce alcohol consumption.
Exercise regularly.
Maintain a healthy weight.
Eat more fiber.
Consider healthier alternatives to traditional hot dogs, such as vegetarian hot dogs, or cook fruits and vegetables on the grill instead.
********************************
You be the judge 😀
Carol signed off as Janet up thread at 12:01 PM.
Time capsule continued….Asoka said (back on October 1, 3:27 AM:
“Islam is still a religion of peace…just because some minority of the world’s one Billion Muslims engage in violence does not change the fact that Islam is a religion of peace.”
Putin showed he is a coward with his overreaction to Pussy Riot.
Yes, I agree. At least he’s considering pardoning them now, but still, he’s a coward. Uncle Joe wouldn’t have gone so light. They’d be dead by now if Uncle Joe was still in charge. Like I said, he’s rolling in his grave.
Pussy Riot is awesome. Here they are, topless, cutting down a cross with a chainsaw. Sheer brilliance, and a great set of tits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rDo1Ml_iCM
Russia is a hard place; those women play for keeps.
janet, here’s a video from a great all-female band. I thought you would appreciate it considering the link you left earlier about Feminism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P32tdGuYEiY
You’re the only one here, I think, who will appreciate it…..well, you and of course, the ever bold and brash Q Schmuck.
One word review:
Somnolent.
Here’s Putin’s macho PR stunt to try and convince the public he doesn’t bend over for powerful Western interests as he’s doing in the Snowden spectacle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379096/Vladimir-Putin-strips-waist-macho-hunting-trip.html
“Me big man, me kill animals and fish with latest and greatest equipment and tour guides. Me put strong, vibrant beautiful women behind bars when they talk back. Me big man. Really, I am. I’m a big man. See? See how big I am? Sure, I’m getting flabby from all the vodka, but I’m still very brave. Right? Aren’t I brave? Tell me I’m brave. Please. Please tell me I’m brave and not a coward. The naked photos of me hanging all over my villa aren’t enough to convince me. You must tell me I’m brave. You must tell be you fear me. Pass the vodka. Give it to me before it’s all gone. What’s the matter with you? You could have saved some for me, asshole! Uri, go back to the SUV and grab another case of vodka. Make it snappy, you piece of shit. I’m thirsty!! I WANT MY VODKA! GET ME MY VODKA NOW OR I”LL HAVE YOU ALL SENT TO SIBERIA!! Leonid, did you remember to pack my teddy bear? What? Speak up when I’m talking to you. You did? Where is it? Please put it on my bed in its pajamas on top of the pillow. I want it to be there when I pass out tonight. I love my teddy. Which one of you laughed? Uri, was that you? It was you, you son of a bitch. You don’t have a teddy? That’s sad, really it is. Everyone should have a teddy. Leonid, order Uri a teddy from Amazon, just not the same one as me. I want mine to be unique. What’s for dinner? No, I don’t want any of this shit we just killed. I want Five Guys. Dmitry, have some Five Guys flown in from America. I want the bacon cheeseburger. Not the little hamburger, somebody did that last time and I was pissed, the regular bacon cheeseburger with two patties and a large order of the cajun-seasoned fries. Make sure it’s cajun-seasoned. Last time some numbskull got the plain and I hate the plain. Boris, come over here and lick my nipples. Pasha, it’s time for my neck rub. Come on! What the hell are you all waiting for? Let’s go! I want to see some action around here! Move it!”
Beautiful, just beautiful! How can anyone respond to your horse manure, you freak?
So it’s official. “Carol”, “janet”, “Asoka”, “Adequatio” are all one in the same. “janet” claims to be a homemaker. How many homemakers (with a family) have the time to post 24/7 on a website? I’ve been out of school for over 6 weeks with no other responsibilities (job, family, etc.) and I still don’t have time to spend every waking moment trolling this site (not that I’d want to). Jeezus, what a sick bastard!
“Here’s Putin’s macho PR stunt to try and convince the public he doesn’t bend over for powerful Western interests as he’s doing in the Snowden spectacle.”
More gay bashing from our dear “Carol”.