JHK’s Three-Act Play
A quickening of events pulses through lands where for so long time stood still, and the oil – what’s left of it – lies locked for the moment beneath hot sands – woe upon all ye soccer moms! – while Colonel Gadhafi ponders the Mussolini option – that is, to be hoisted up a lamp-post on a high-C piano wire until his head bursts like a rotten pomegranate. Then the good folk of Libya can fight amongst themselves for the swag, loot, and ka-chingling oil revenues he left behind. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton scowls on the sidelines knowing how bad it would look if US marines actually hit the shores of Tripoli (and perhaps how fruitless it might turn out to be). And Italian grandmothers across the Mediterranean wonder why there’s no gas to fire up the orecchiette con cime di rapa.
The fluxes of springtime run cruelly across the sands of Araby, clear into Persia where the ayatollahs’ vizeers toy with uranium centrifuges and thirty million young people wonder how long they will allow bearded ignoramuses to tell them how to pull their pants on in the morning. Along about now, I wouldn’t feel secure standing next to somebody lighting a cigarette in that part of the world.
Pretty soon we’re going to find out just how fragile things are in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there at the heart of things oily. Last week, King Abdullah wobbled out of his intensive care unit to spread a little surplus cash around the surging population, but let’s remember that their share of the oil “welfare” has been going down steadily in recent years – a simple matter of numbers really. Putting aside even the common folk, a thousand princes from dozens of different tribes pace restively in the background awaiting the struggle that must follow King Abdullah’s overdue transmigration to the farther shore. All along the western coast of the Persian Gulf and down toward the Horn of Africa, dark forces stir. Fuses sputter in Kingdoms from Bahrain to the Yemen.
Also last week, Wikileaks released papers signifying that Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves were quite a bit less than they had claimed. It was basically an old story, one that the late Matthew Simmons had published in 2005 just from poring over reams of production data from the Saudi oil fields. The difference in the Wikileaks story was that this time a Saudi Arabian oil ministry official confirmed the story. You can bet they are going to have problems keeping the flow rate up. They can sell off some stored inventory for a few weeks, but after that the world will know the truth: Saudi Arabia is in depletion and the oil markets will never be the same.
It hardly made an impression on a US public preoccupied with comings and goings of Charlie Sheen. President Obama wants to pretend that American life-on-wheels will just keep rolling along. He hasn’t so much as hinted to the US public that the time approaches when gasoline will have to be rationed either by high prices or odd-and-even licenses plates or some other method. Charming fellow that he is, his fecklessness in the face of disintegrating oil markets will go down in history as something like Nero’s musical solo while Rome burned down.
While these matters work toward deeper complication, Europe faces imminent rollovers of debt that can no longer be rolled over, and upcoming elections in Ireland and Germany that will begin to resolve an every-country-for-itself outcome for the debt follies of the EMU – and especially the big European banks, which may find themselves getting “haircuts” clear down to their jugular veins. Birds will be flipped to bond-holders and austerity will end up sounding like a kinder-and-gentler version of the gnarliness that really ends up happening.
By the way, for years I’ve proposed that the time would come when some of the European nations would not be able to depend entirely on the USA doing its dirty work in the Middle East to keep the oil flowing out. That time is now here. The café layabouts of Italy, the flaneurs of France, and the bratwurst-devourers of Germany may now have to militarize and get into the action in places where American boys have been bleeding out in the sand for decades. The truth is, we could stand some reinforcements. Something that smells an awful lot like World War Three is shaping up around the Mediterranean and spilling over toward the Indian Ocean. German cruisers are already out there plying the seas off North Africa while the ghost of Erwin Rommel scratches his head on the gritty shores of Tobruk.
Nobody knows how anybody is going to pay for World War Three, but perhaps it is in the nature of an historic crack-up blow-off that the accumulated treasure of generations just gets vacuumed out of every vault and hidey-hole to keep the pyre burning – fire being nature’s preferred dry-cleaning agent. The fate of a few quadrillion credit default swaps contracts may end up as tomorrow’s Flying Dutchman, a haunting enigma plying the vapors of eternity, sure to frighten juveniles of the marmoset-like humanoid creatures who succeed us up the evolutionary ladder.
Apparently nature likes to take its creations to the cleaners every so often, to clear the dross and detritus away. This is perfectly understandable, though one might prefer it happened to some other generation. The Baby Boomers were so effusive over the World War Two cohort because we probably thought we would never have to go through something like that ourselves. The Boomers expected nothing worse than a sequence of diminishing golf scores and blander meals as their horizons moved past assisted living to the final meet-up with God. Now, it turns out, we get to watch our grandchildren fight over the table scraps of the American Dream – such as it was: Chevies, burgers, reality TV, and all the mortgage obligations you could cram in the kitchen drawer.
It’s coming on springtime and things are breaking loose all over the place. I give Saudi Arabia three weeks before it starts to blow up. And even Iran might get the fever. Plan on a staycation this summer and start thinking about that garden because it’s not altogether certain that we’ll keep up the conveyer belt of Little Debbie Snack Cakes and other staples of the American table into the supernarkets when diesel fuel hit $10 a gallon and the truckers stay home to watch the Kardashian girls. I’m already getting hungry.
_____________________________
I’ve just finished writing a kick-ass screenplay about the downfall of a too-big-to-fail bankster (and the redemption of three teen-agers). As they say in Hollywood: think American Beauty meets Wall Street. Accepting inquiries, which I will sort out and forward to my agent. Serious professionals only need apply. Email me at jhkunstler@mac.com.
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Paintings from the 2023 Season
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neener neener
# 2
Read it and weep!!
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/the-crisis-of-language-and-the-language-of-crisis/
“The café layabouts of Italy, the flaneurs of France, and the bratwurst-devourers of Germany may now have to militarize and get into the action in places where American boys have been bleeding out in the sand for decades.” I don’t disagree with you generally, but this is offensive.
-Phut
Rationing by price it is – Americans live in a social darwinist world where the new-con ideology is triumphant. $5/gal gas is just a budget adjustment for the top quarter of the population w/adequate income. For the bottom quarter, it accelerates the fall into third world circumstances (with first world prices). The struggling middle could make adjustments (car sharing, let the kids play ball locally instead of all over the state in “travel” leagues, etc.), but I’ve been accused of being mentally ill for pointing this out to folks I know with “safe” jobs so I’m just trying to follow Orlov’s logic in doing as little as possible in the mainstream without being totally dispossessed…jai guru devai, om…
And in addition to my previous comment, you seem to be assuming that our duplicitous involvement in the Middle East over the last half century or so has been something other than counter-productive. That doesn’t seem like a safe assumption.
Great article.
Loved this line – “woe upon all ye soccer moms!” I can’t stand soccer moms.
JHC – you are just too funy:
hidey-place; meet-up; little-debbie cakes? IALMAO
“thirty million young people wonder how long they will allow bearded ignoramuses to tell them how to pull their pants on in the morning.”
Very well done this morning James! Thank you!
Yes, it all seems pretty serious. I’ve been watching the gas prices soar- might as well have the revolving numbers that they have on the tanks for the signs as well; saves them from changing them everyday.
I live in the far north and exactly how we can afford to heat our houses soon is not clear to me. We’ve had an awlful winter weatherwise, jobs are in short supply, unless one wants to work at the Dollar Store that is, and commutes to anywhere are long.
That said, the Republicans want to cut dollars from heating help for the poor- the spector of people having to choose between freezing to death or eating is really possible next winter here.
And of course, there is the impact that oil over $100/barrel will have on our “recovery” from the recession- which seems ot be a jobless “recovery” from what I can tell.
My car is on its last legs- gets 40 plus mpg too- scary to think about replacing it but being carless not an option here either.
The irony is that I’ve been P.O. aware for years, but still find myself caught up in it as I didn’t find a way out in time- to where though I’m not sure.
Wonder if Obama is wondering just why he wanted to be President so badly in the first place now? I know I would be……
Tenth!
Great column this week. Pomegranates do seem to be in right now.
Actually your term was “hidey-hole” !! Hilarious!!
hey Jim,
Good to hear about the screenplay efforts. I watched the Oscars last night, specifically to see who won the documentary category. I only saw two of them – “Gasland” and “Inside Job”. I figured “Inside Job” would win due to it’s slick production, Matt Damon voice-over and topical, in-your-face subject matter.
It would have been nice from a political standpoint if Gasland had won though. The financial mess has already happened but the disaster yet to come in Pa. (where I live; downstream on the Delaware River basin in Easton) will be Tom Corbet’s deal with the drilling industry to frack away our water supply and destroy the natural economy of the state in exchange for short term budget balancing (aka smoke and mirrors) that is, if they actually ever tax them enough to matter. A “Gasland” win would have put that story at the forefront of our national political discourse.
More to the point, this brings up the issue of merging these two key issues of energy supplies and national finance. As I watched last night I couldn’t help but wish someone would do the REAL documentary connecting the dots: energy shortages and their effect on the economic system – as you have so rationally pointed out. What are the odds of you getting something together with your numerous in-the-know colleagues along these lines for a documentary effort in the future…with some of your sinister humor mixed in, it could be an Oscar nominee next year.
They are already paying $8 or more for a US gallon of gasoline in Europe.
Are we ready to get our act together yet?
Perhaps not…
Anyway, if you are looking for a way to get your own house in order try
http://wanderingsagewisdom.blogspot.com
The USA has its own struggles: vis-a-vis Misssouri & Ohio. Will this spread to other states?
Just finished “The long Emergency” and once again JK has astounded me with his predictive forecasts.
About the meltdown that is happening… it is difficult to imagine what will happen to the folks that are not putting together the oncoming scenarios. I have been a long time advocate of reduction of our reliance on non locale resources. But people treat you as if you are crazy when you suggest that Walmart may not be as cheap as the consumer thinks.
It is true that our government will fracture much like the rock involved in “fraging” for natural gas… and the toxins that will boil up…. lots of anger and name calling on the way.
Also, so true on Hilary… I am sure she would love to personally land the troops, kind of a bulldog that one!
If you have not read any of Kunstler’s books read a few… I started with the “geography of nowhere”
a good introduction to how America has been developed in its entirety.
Enjoyed this post as I enjoy looking at a ‘super fund site’ something sublime about the grimness.
JK also in the long Emergency wrote about how out governments zoning and code system might be on the way out…. Have to agree I wrote a similar blog called “building codes are all right?” a few years back take a look… I have to agree our safety over engineered society is in for a few surprises. http://greenovisionblog.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
How much do you want to bet that the scenes in Libya will be repeated in the US in in a few years (or sooner) once the majority in this country realize how screwed they are?
Once big difference between the countries in the Middle East and the US is that once the revolt starts we won’t have to wait for army bases to become abandoned to get guns.
I can just imagine it now when the revolt starts and President Palin and VP Michelle Bachmann go on Fox TV after the internet has been turned off and call the new patriots commie, dope smoking, NPR listening, liberal perverts.
“the time would come when some of the European nations would not be able to depend entirely on the USA doing its dirty work in the Middle East to keep the oil flowing out. That time is now here. ”
This is one of the times I cannot believe what I read.
I never thought that the Middle East HAD to be forced to sell its oil, if Lybia wants to survive has to sell its oil, and while Europe is happy to buy, Lybia is happy to sell.
And also the price cannot be too high, because if it does, oil can stay where it is, peak oil or not.
Germany for example has tons and tons of coal, which becomes attractive when the oil reaches 30/40 dollars a barrel.
After that it gets convenient to use the coal.
It is true that there is the pollution problem, but pollution becomes secondary, when it comes to starving.
Dyeing for hunger is certainly more spectacular than for cancer, which has become normality now a day.
As for the dirty job, I guess many citizens (I come to say 99%) of Middle East and Europe would be very grateful if America decided to mind its own business, including derivatives and Credit default swaps.
I am sure we wouldn’t miss Wall Street and American troops.
I do not think that America made all its wars just for philanthropic reasons or for democracy sake.
I grew up with American TV.
I still remember when I was a child Rin Tin Tin.
I was shocked and really upset thinking of those poor Americans having to fight against the devil Indians.
After them it was the time of the communists.
Poor Americans they had to fight South America, Asia and lost so many “boys” just to bring democracy to the world.
Then it was time for the Middle East.
Of course it was mostly for democracy sake that they had to fight, certainly not for sucking the oil and all the resources they could.
I almost forgot the philanthropic mission they did together with the British to find a land, the “promised land” for the poor Israelis.
Who cares if it was Palestinians land?
It was NOT British, it was NOT American.
And now?
How ungrateful are the Europeans…it is time they do their dirty job by themselves.
Thank you Mr. Kunstler, I am sure that here, on the other side of the globe, many will be very happy.
But I am afraid that it won’t be this way.
If just the Americans could mind their own business…
I find the events going on in the world right now very scary. All these revolutions going on while, for the most part, food and fuel is still available and attainable for most. What happens when that changes and we are literally fighting to survive, not just fighting for change?
I can envision parts of World Made By Hand coming to fruition. I almost wish that I did’nt know what I know so that I can have a day without thinking of the coming world problem of Peak Cheap Oil. Maybe I will come down with a case of Normalcy Bias..
From where I am, I can see cruise ships coming and going, all loaded to the gills with 100’s of thousands of gallons of Bunker Fuel (low grade diesel). I know see these ships becoming floating condos in the future when it makes no sense financially to move them.
Its time to get your affairs in order and start living locally and growing food locally. We are going back to the lifestyle of the 1800’s in a big way….
If Saudi Arabia blows up in three weeks, the end is nigh. The creaking hulk of industrial civilization will not withstand a shock that grave. Which is why it won’t happen, and why spreading $36 billion on Saudi layabouts was probably a deft move.
I’m staring out my window at my neighbor’s house as it gets reroofed thanks to insurance money. Phoenix had a bad hailstorm last October and there’s been untold thousands of houses getting new roofs as a result. This “act of God” will not raise the individual homeowner’s premium but it will certainly raise everyone else’s including mine as the overall costs of doing business here are factored in. Phoenix is hellaciously hot in the summer but it hasn’t otherwise been a costly place to reside in. That appears to be changing along with the climate.
We are living on the cusp of momentous change, possibly a cataclysm. Of course, Americans being resolute dopes, we will neither prepare nor even think about impending change. Instead, we’ll keep voting Republican in the hope that the past can be restored and qualms allayed. Maybe this change is coming through the Middle East, or through our southern border, or maybe Peak Oil itself will finally break us. It may even be this year although I tend to think the timing is less important than the inevitability itself. We waited too long and now it’s too late except for blaming someone other than ourselves. It’s too late for an intervention but invasions do seem to improve our mood.
LOL! I just picked-up a new phrase:
“Now, it turns out, we get to watch our grandchildren fight over the table scraps of the American Dream…”
I love it! I guess it’s a variation of “Fighting over the table scraps of the 20th Century” (Kunstler, The End of Suburbia).
Yes, war is a poor chisel with which to carve peace and a layabout in any country is better than a gun toting a-hole IMHO
and… Muammar Gaddafi|Libya unrest|European Union
BRUSSELS: The European Union says that Libya’s strongman Muammar Gaddafi no longer controls most of oil and gas fields in the country.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Gaddafi-has-lost-control-over-oil-gas-fields-European-Union/articleshow/7596289.cms
“The European Union says that Libya’s strongman Moammar Gadhafi no longer controls most of oil and gas fields in the country.
EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said Monday that control over much of the oil and gas fields is in the hands of regional families or provisional regional leaders that have emerged from the revolt and chaos.
The unrest in the North African nation has sent shudders through global oil markets, with concern centering on the possibility that the unrest could spread to other OPEC members, triggering a major supply crunch that would propel prices forward and potentially undercut global economic recovery efforts.”
Wow, how easy it could be now to disrupt the lifeline for the West. It is going too fast on a direction of no return…
So, who really thinks that democracy will and even can unfold during a time when young people’s needs for employment/future can not be met in the traditional sense…?
There will only be fighting over the left overs from now on.
Democracy does best during a time of relative peace.
Great image Zaax; i concur!
Great essay this week JHK, you’re on a roll! As an aging Boomer myself, I wonder what the bill will be when our Karmic debt comes due. This is, indeed, no country for old men.
I forgot to post the link… “Gadhafi no longer controls most of oil and gas fields in the country.”
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LLQI8G0.htm
I am glad to see that the people of Wisconsin are finally waking up to the fact that the Brotherhood of Darkness wants to put them in company towns living on starvation wages.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
The reason those Frenchie flaneurs have the time to lounge about and the Deutsche Bratwurst eaters have the time to swill beer is that when they work they are more productive than we are. And so you complain that they use their earned time to enjoy life. Well such is the capitalist way. You earn you play. Ain’t america great. And we can’t even get our stories straight anymore.
There is a very good chance that JHK is right about gas moving up to $5 to $10 gallon soon. But it won’t be because of the instability of the Middle East. Its because speculators in NY, London and Hong Kong are currently jacking up the price because there might be a shortage because of Libya’s unrest. Might be a shortage someday but there isn’t right now so the speculators are laughing all the way to the bank and there is nothing we can do about it except bleed out our pockets for those lucky of us enough to have jobs we need to get to. Maybe OPEC will increase production; maybe the feds will release some of the reserves, maybe not.
Meanwhile American unions across the country are showing remarkable solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Wisconsin. Gov. Walker has two agendas here — destroy the unions and ALSO gain the ability to sell Wisconsin’s power plants to his cronies for no-bid contracts. So in theory he could sell all of Wisconsin’s power plants for $1 to his own dad who could then turn around and sell them to Communist China and pocket billions in profit! Legalized theft all made possible by the Tea Party.
According to last Sunday’s NYT, it gets worse. Not only is gas going up astronomically but water is now being contaminated by fraking. Fraking is removing natural gas from underground by pumping unidentified chemicals and fresh water into the ground. The waste water is simply poured back into the rivers, untreated and radioactive material is being dumped into the rivers as a result. Pretty soon drinking a glass of tap water will make us all glow in the dark. If you live in PA, this particularly applies to you.
“So in theory he could sell all of Wisconsin’s power plants for $1 to his own dad who could then turn around and sell them to Communist China and pocket billions in profit! Legalized theft all made possible by the Tea Party.”
Gosh – sounds an awful lot like Libya, Egypt… etc
I for one can’t wait for $10/gal gas to arrive. The crowds and the traffic here in the Bay Area are driving me nuts (even on my 4 mile, 8.5-minute daily commute). Weeding out a few of my financial inferiors from the driving public would be a blessing on those of us who can continue motoring ad infinitum even if it costs $100/gal.
The lines at Tahoe were very long this weekend (a huge snow dump and cold weather made for one of the best ski days all year on Saturday!). I’d bet half those people standing in line wouldn’t have driven up in the Suburban if the round-trip cost was something like $300 in gas alone.
BRING ON $10/GAL gas! It can’t come soon enough.
Signed,
The Bay Aryaan
Nice one Jim. Loved it bleak view, stunningly rendered…
“Along about now, I wouldn’t feel secure standing next to somebody lighting a cigarette in that part of the world. ” couldn’t help but lol at that one… I’ve been places (here in Australia) where I’ve felt like that bu then I always have been something of an ever so slightly paranoid “marmoset-like humanoid creature” ; )
The thing that has always bugged me about big car loving happy motoring countries like US and Aus is the unforgivably titanic waste of resources that’s involved conveying the hordes on their (mostly) trivial pursuits. Being something of a utilitarian cyclist, I just can’t get why it takes 2000 kg with a 200 kW engine (greater power than the *entire* peloton of the tour de france for example- and pardon my metric) to haul one lazy arse commuter to work, when a lowly cyclist can do it with a boiled egg, all the while achieving the same average speed for the journey. We really have the whole motor transport thing so wrong it’s shameful, especially so for urban and commuter settings. I don’t expect everyone to ride, but a happy medium of speed, power and weight would make everyones journey so much more efficient and the energy and cost savings would be enormous. Unfortunately It’s all starting to feel like it’s too late to fix and people instinctively indulging their motoring fantasies in their SUV’s are in effect”partying like its 1999″.
The time is coming when, likeslavery, hairstyles of the 1980’s, and other lapses of rational thought through history, the collective “we” will look back and wonder what the hell we were thinking…
Anyway, thanks for another enjoyable read.
We could not have had a worst President for the dawn of Peak Oil, except W. Obama is childlike in his understanding of science and technology.
Maybe Haley Barbour (R) gets it. The Mississippi Governor said yesterday on ‘Meet the Press’ that for the people of Mississippi, $4/gallon gas started their suffering before the Wall Street meltdown.
Phutatorius, I understand that the term, “cafe layabouts” is both stereotypic and offensive, however, the resentment is real. A rather huge percentage of the USA’s military defence budget goes to supporting NATO.
Because European countries have to spend less on defense, they can spend more on social services.
Because the USA has to spend money on defending much of Europe, there is much less for education, unemployment, health care and other desirable social services.
Bottom line? Our military budget indirectly subsidizes European social programs. Programs that we ourselves do not enjoy. In our position, how would you feel?
And speaking of trucks and truckers in general. and knowing you like the choo-choo trains, I put together a little compare/contrast photo spread of 60 years difference in the Saint Louis Passenger/Freight Rail Yards at Union Station.
But the “icing on the cake” is knowing the St Louis skyline with the additions of three nation-wide bank buildings, and insurance headquarters and enormous Federal building.
Everything that went wrong with the heart of America in two little old photographs.
Waste five minutes and take a look.
http://wp.me/18NrH
Oh yeah, FWIW We are already over $5 per gallon here in OZ. Currently it is just shy of AU $1.4 per itre and by my calculations a US gallon is almost 4 metric litres. And our dollar is higher than yours currently as well. I don’t mind if it goes up, but as we all there are alsosignificant repercussions of high oil prices that mean far more than just less monstertrucks on the road…
Anybody read the comments to the AOL news interview of JHK? I wouldn’t miss reading any essay or interview by JHK, as he always has much to say and says it so well. I always wondered what kind idiot would go for those cdroms that filled mailboxes and landfills about 10 years ago. The commentators did not address JHK’s searing insights directly or comprehend them in the least, but substantiated him saying Americans believe “the earth is like a bonbon with a creamy nougat center of oil”. The comments were just a Pavlovian response to the word oil — we have enough, Obama just won’t let us drill!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this tidbit found on Yahoo! News this morning. There was some scuttlebut about this a while back, but it seems Joule energy is ready to hit the big time:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110228/ap_on_re_us/us_growing_fuel
Interesting, it seems the skeptical scientist sees problems with the actual reclamation and harvesting of the oil produced – the same problem with nonconventional oil. The better question is – does it scale? While I don’t think there is any hope of this replacing oil due to the sheer massive amounts we need to use, it might be an effective way to fill the shortfall. I particularly love this quote:
Robertson talks wistfully about the day he’ll hop into the Ferrari he doesn’t have, fill it with Joule fuel and gun the engine in an undeniable demonstration of the power and reality of Joule’s ideas. Later, after leading a visitor on a tour of the labs, Robertson comes upon a poster of a sports car on an office wall, and it reminds him of the success he’s convinced is coming. He motions to the picture.
“I wasn’t kidding about the Ferrari,” he says.
And this tidbit:
Sims said he knows “there’s always skeptics for breakthrough technologies.”
“And they can ride home on their horse and use their abacus to calculate their checkbook balance,” he said.
No mention of the Madison protests. One of the lesser-known consequences of the bill stripping unions of their right to collective bargaining (except Republican-leaning ones) is the fact that the governor can unilaterally decide to sell off the state’s energy facilities which were built with taxpayer money to anyone he wishes without bidding (if we’re so broke, you’d think he’d want to get some money for these). It just so happens that one of the major campaign backers of Walker are the Koch brothers, who despite denying wishing to buy Wisconsin’s power plants, are already running ads through one of their many subsidiaries seeking experienced power plant managers in Wisconsin. I guess that’s part of the jobs Walker’s trying to create in place of rail construction jobs. The Koch brother’s investment is also paying off in Washington, where the EPA is being gutted by tea-party Republicans and passing laws making the regulation of greenhouse emissions illegal.
“Our military budget indirectly subsidizes European social programs.”
Who wants wars?
Who needs wars?
It would be MUCH, MUCH, better also for the Europeans, if the US spent its money in social programs, instead of making wars and killing thousands of people.
What advantages did the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq bring?
Saudi Arabia and Iran immediately upgraded the oil production.
I am sure they are very happy to sell more, especially at these prices…
It is not offensive, it is damn stupid, believe me.
Indeed, after years of no action, the world is suddenly full of action.
As energy expenses increase due to supply and demand dynamics, corporate profits decline. Since the government taxes profits, tax receipts also decline. But, since government spending generally isn’t cut, the government’s obliged to run deficits which drive massive borrowing (or the issuance of fiat currency).
If the debt incurred by all this deficit spending is ever to be paid down, the country’s going to need a smart work force. Especially so when considering that our kids are going to have to compete in a global arena where the likes of the kids of the Indian State of Kerala (some of the smartest kids in the world by the way) who are being educated to clean our kids clocks, so to speak; except in the NASCAR arena of course.
If our kids are not given a good education, they’ll be unable to compete and they’ll have no choice but to become vassals of somebody else’s smarter kids in the future.
Maybe we ought to consider importing smart kids from Kerala instead of useless trinkets from China? That way those kids from Kerala will be conveniently located to institute their inevitable vassalage.
http://www.gwabert.com/
As per usual a kool, klass, klever witty sum-up Jim….
Though it would seem some of our fellow Euro-brethren don’t ‘fully’ get the price that’s paid by the on the ground US military boyz to keep the folks back home in the OECDs in comfy-cosy blood free consumerism…
(And best-of-luck with that screenplay, Hollywood could do with some meatier, real bite future focused fodder)
Meanwhile back in Tripoli, no need to worry folks., Tony Blair’s been on the phone twice to the ‘brother colonel’ to advise him times up, leave the Big Brother House NOW. Though I think its all gone a tad ‘Saddam’ remember when he boldly stated “I am Iraq”…
You just have to love and admire a dictator’s sense of theatrical grandiosity!
But to echo your phrase JHK…. *Nobody knows how anybody is going to pay for WWIII* the US govt previously raided private gold hordes, and when war-footing is fully on the flow… your cash/assets becomes the ‘nations’ cash/assets… quick as a flash.
For the collective greater good of course, as the smarter poster’s here will know – the Govt rules/laws/taxes changes – due to emergency powers – can be altered for good within 24hrs or overnight…
(So if your lifeboat isn’t ready to slip into the water pdq, and quietly slip away – you will be caught out)
And if i were currently an (idle) 18-30 year-old, under-employed male youth, whether Muslim, Christian, Scientologist or Buddhist Chinese – graduate level down to the bottom-feeder skivvies – then I wouldn’t like to rate your chances, or bet that your ‘combat’ experience will be just limited to thumb-triggering pixel variety on the Xbox360, over the progressing decade.
Things are getting visceral and real – very quickly now!
But it will be boom-time for quack psycho-babble counsellor folk, for those/states that can still afford them…. to deal with the growing walking wounded, due to lifestyle meltdown and the onset of more serious civil wars, and vets of whatever, creed or colour making it to what was home.
But I think not the really grisly stuff is defo off a wee while yet…
The one area I currently disagree on with JHK is the ‘dirty’ military work – the private Co’s can handle that nicely and thank you very much OECD tax payers all…
http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/politics/8914-barak-bullahs-blackwater.html
Now back to oil…
A lot of folks too, still don’t get the deeper lurking danger point of depleting cheap high-grade fuel oils…
It’s not that we’ll ever run out of the cash to buy them, or the crude stuff itself… We won’t The FED and ECB’s simply produce cash out of thin air, so to some degree the market pb price is irrelevant…
Where it gets truly ‘scary’ is the return on ENERGY investment needed to get it out… of those difficult to reach, messy uber-deep sea places or crushing low grade ores, sands et al…
When that goes negative and at some stage it does, sooner rather than later, i.e. what’s too expensive in wasted energy terms used…
That’s when it’s game over, for happy-clappy motoring for the masses…
It would be like going out on a hunt for weeks on end with a few meals packed in yer haversack, to find nothing after six weeks lurking, searching apart from one rotting rabbit carcass…
So you’ve just wasted yer last vital energy supplies, time and few square meals on not finding more or the right food-stuff quality? Oh dear…
Now do you see the dilemma?
That shake-out is for sure-a-coming…
Great post, Jim. Good luck with the screen play. After watching Kirk Douglas last night all I can say is….I’M SPARTACUS!!!!
Um, it was the “Boomers” who tryed to warn this country that our way of life is a dead end – it was called the 60’s counterculture. Had it not been beaten and starved into submission, that counterculture could have transformed this country.
Instead, the reactionary power elites did all they could to roll back the gains of the 60s.
Back to the land, organic food, a renaissance of real spirituality, challenging racism and sexism, opposing the Empire and the corporate technocratic worldview – just about EVERYTHING good we have today came from the 60’s “Boomers” – all of it opposed by the WW2 generation that reacted with viciousness and hatred toward those who challenged their obsolete worldview.
Go back and listen to the Moody Blue’s album “A Question of Balance”, that came out in 19freakin70 to see just how far-sighted the “Boomers were. George Harrison was singing about those “who gain the world and lose their soul” and those are the people who won the 60’s culture wars and gave us all the crap that is destroying our country and our world today.
So give credit where credit is due.
Jim,
I observed quite a bit of hate mongering in your presentation.
Did the ADA read you the riot act and told you to get with their program?
@carlostheobscure
you’re right, and when people can’t afford $5 dollar gas the neo-cons and right wing clowns will go around saying that it is because these people are too lazy and don’t work hard enough.
Gabert said: “Maybe we ought to consider importing smart kids from Kerala instead of useless trinkets from China?”
===============
So the kids from Kerala can suffer American racism against non-whites, as previous professional immigrants from Kerala have suffered in the USA?
http://bit.ly/gFM5Rv
Maybe we should just let the USA racists die without trying to rescue them through the importation of intelligent people from Kerala?
Our elites are the ones who decided to turn this country into a global Sparta. If given the choice, how many people in this country would choose to spend that money differently? I’ll bet the majority
Looks like the world is being set up for a really giant paradigm shift. This usually spells war on a grand scale, as the recipients of the Fates’ favor change. Don’t worry, whatever happens, the propaganda will make the aggression seem quite reasonable, nay, unavoidable. Those of us who remain alive after the events will have lots of “facts” to discuss for decades. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Forget offensive. Where exactly have these American boys been bleeding? Exactly where they shouldn’t have been. In places where their bleeding was doing not a stitch of good like Iraq and Afghanistan. If Sadam was left to his own devices does anyone seriously think he wouldn’t have sold Iraqi oil or Kuwaiti oil?
Iraqis are grownups just like us and Sadam was a product of Iraqi society so he was Iraq’s problem. If he was misbehaving then it was up to Iraqis to deal with him. And if he was giving Israelis or Iranians a problem then let Israelis and Iranians deal with him.
If Americans wanted revenge against the beards running Afghanistan for 9/11 then go get revenge and kill a bunch of them. But to occupy the country? Foreign armies keep trying to invade Russia and Afghanistan and they always go home with their asses in a pail. Nobody learns from history.
The US did the world a huge service by deploying forces worldwide and keeping communism at bay. But the clock has been ticking and those days are long past. Time to close up shop and bring the boys home.
There was resistance to it for sure but how much of this counterculture was just a ten year temper tantrum over the fact that the world is not a nice place? And then what did we boomers bring? Disco.
Don’t bother accepting applications to promote your play, old boy, if no one will be able to drive to see it.
And Europe is more compact in general than the US- they don’t have the level of sprawl we have here. And they have a train system that functions pretty well- so big difference. Oh, and don’t forget they’ve had oodles of small car options for years, unlike here where we are drowning in huge behemoth cars and trucks- and watch the prices on small cars soar in response to the prices at the pump. I’m glad I like to drive a standard- gives me a fighting chance at a cheaper small car since most americans seem unable/unwilling to drive a stick shift.
how would i feel if i were european and the us was paying to help defend…pretty good. why not? by the way, whf are we defending for europe? and for that matter, what are spending money defending in this country? it appears to me we are on the offense. we should be renaming the military the department of offense.
bud,
love your post. graphics such as that are extremely powerful…j
It is funny how the first in line, those anxiously waiting to be the line leaders, have nothing to say or offer. It reminded me of third grade.
Anyway, the world is spinning so incredibly fast that there are those dearly holding on to the handles, like when we were kids at the park and riding and spinning those round-about spinning rides where you run in circles, jump on, and then, hold on for dear life.
Right now, the dictators are being flung off as the people spin the ride. The Saudis might be next, but it could take several months or more. I don’t see the Iranian people spinning the ride fast enough to eject the bearded wonders.
The Cheez Curl crowd in the US sit fat and sloppy as many of their peers in the public workers earning modest livings and hoping to hold on the slim pensions they have been paying into, get ejected by stupid TeaBagging drones spin the ride, too. I guess fewer workers will be able to buy anything with cash in the future. Debt burdens will mount as the rich count their interest gained.
Oil is being drained from the Earth, while Marcellus Shale gets sold to India and China instead of being used domestically.
Obama is raising $1B with the help of corporate oligarchs like his new found pal—Jeff-da’letch-Immelt, Mr. GE Tax Dodger.
More and more workers are flying off the spinning ride in the US instead of the corporate royalists.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
Could not possibly agree more. While the U.S. busys itself with meddling in other people’s affairs, the entire world goes up in flames. It’s like I tell folks, “If you play with matches, you’re gonna get burned…badly!”
Snide comment from JHK about the “layabouts” in Europe. Oh, yes, I’m sure the Europeans are ever so grateful for the largesse we’ve spread around the globe, what with commodity prices going through the roof and petrol prices soaring. And I hear they absolutely LOVE us in France! Would JHK prefer Europeans hang out tailgating at a NASCAR race, guzzling beer and grazing on cheez doodles? Or perhaps we can “reform” those troublesome Russians by prying the Vodka out of their hands and replacing it with a hammer and sickle? Lord knows we know best (I think it even says so in the King George the “W”s version of the “Bible-lite”). When is the rest of the world going to come to terms with the fact that the 1% of amerikan elites are smarter than them? Our little party has just begun. Did someone imply that the raping and pillaging of the Earth are complete? No? Then we haven’t completed our Manifest Destiny, have we? C’mon, U.S. citizens! You know our rulers only have OUR best interests at heart! So please worker harder and smarter. Word among our elites is that Libya will be on sale soon. You know how we love a bargain!
Well, it looks like the time is upon us and the shit is really hitting the fan … the day of reckoning has arrived.
If this was 10 years ago I would say, “lock and load”.
That was 10 years ago. Now I say, “Get your ass off the couch and start in on that garden”.
And you fathers and grandfathers in the CFNation, take care of those around you, ‘specially the little ones.
Trippticket and Ripthunder; last week in a few posts I mixed up your two handles. For this I humbly apologize … Ripthunder the medic from S. Mass. and Trippticket the poet/farmer from Georgia … now I got it straight. I’m a crazy, reckless typist and sometimed get ahead of myself.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
NATO costs for USA are about 100 billion dollars yearly. That is peanuts when compared to total GDP of NATO countries, well over 10000 billion dollars.
Peanuts even when compared to actual combined NATO European government budgets, 4000 billion dollars or more. 1-3 percent of government expenditures, depending on the country. Plus the fact NATO partners buy a lot of weapons from the USA.
In return you get global reach, Ramstein air base in Germany being one of the the main hubs of all European and Middle East operations. So your argument is just another myth.
Hi Jim and all,
Wow events sure are piling up! Gaddafi as creepy and crazily amusing as ever- blaming Al Qaeda and hallucinogens for the unrest in Libya, wonder what hallucinogens he’s been downing?
Meanwhile the folks in Wisconsin have been joined by people in all 50 states in their protest. Probably won’t be long before things get bloody, sooner if Gov Walker has his way along with the fired Indiana assistant AG( the use live ammo dude). But at least people are finally grasping the fact that the government is engaging in actions that severely harm 99% of the population and are fighting back.
the curse has arrived-interesting times are here
loveday
I echo the above sentiment about the photos you posted. The song I last heard at the local Y I frequent was playing “We’re on the Road to Nowhere”, by the Talking Heads. The pictures you posted really hit that nail smack dab on the head. Talk about a train wreck! Heaven help us!
ten buck a gallon gas with a 200 word limit on comments would be great . lmfao .
Marlin said:
LOL! This represents change I can believe in!
Thank you!
Asoka
CFN Adobe Mud Hut Post #2
Southwest Chapter
Myrtlemay said: “And I hear they absolutely LOVE us in France!”
===========================
You’d be surprised. Don’t believe the propaganda of the right wing on that one. When the French government for reasons of its own opts for a course of action that irritates the U.S. government, it is hardly reflecting the attitudes of its own people. I’ve had three encounters with French people regarding the relationship of the two countries, and each encounter was overwhelmingly positive.
Cheers
NATO has been and still is one of the most successful military alliances in history. Mutually very beneficial. Both sides got and are still getting a lot from the alliance in many ways from weapons research to combined intelligence gathering. Holland buys Apaches or Norway F-35 JSFs, those kinds of things employ a lot of Americans…
“If Sadam was left to his own devices does anyone seriously think he wouldn’t have sold Iraqi oil or Kuwaiti oil?”
The big problem, and in that way he wrote his death sentence, was that he wanted to sell the oil in EURO and not in Dollars.
And the Euro was a currency the Federal Reserve couldn´t print.
The value of the PetroDollar would have collapsed
Why should America want a war now?
For the same reason.
I guess that may be this is going to be the lesson US deserves.
Lybia is not so on sale as it looks.
Gheddafi is finished, but there are many Gheddafis ready to play his role.
US hasn´t learned the lesson of history: it is easy to build an Empire, impossible to keep it.
Huh? The leftist baby boomers took off the tie dyes after a couple of years and put on power suits a la Jerry Rubin. Some of them stayed in School and became the uber leftist professors who now determine ideology and policy. The Left won the Culture War hands down – the Right Wing is fighting a desperate rear guard action as it has for decades. The Tea Party is the first big victory in a long time.
You have to understand that the real vision and spirituality was never a mass market or “Woodstock” kind of thing. It was always very small. Most people don’t have it in them to voluntarily choose poverty and purity. So instead of organic farming communities, people buy their grocerites at the health food store. And instead of real spiritual traditions, people created the “New Age” movement. The Boomers weren’t beaten out, starved out, or bought out – they sold out.
wouldnt it be cool as sh*te if we get to be on germanies side in WW3…think how cool the uniforms will be…! we can be the brownshirts and the SS this time and totally kick the worlds ass!
we can draft all the laid off teachers into the military….but since they are all morbidly obese the costs for body armor will be huge.
maybe we can draft the san fran police that just shot a man in a wheelchair…man they are tough as hell…! or the cops that shoot the family toy poodle…?
WE ARE A NATION OF WARRIORS….!…we kick ass in video games….!
Good to hear (surprising, in fact)! I was watching an old movie about Marie Antoinette (an old MGM chestnut on TCM) last week. I simply LOVE the way the French “do” revolution! In a semi tribute to the actress who played her, Norma Shearer, (if you’re under 60, don’t ask!) I found myself almost feeling sorry for the French queen who awaited the guillotine at the end of the picture. Fairly good acting – and she was so much prettier than Gadhafi! Anyhoo, he makes for good Kabuki theatre – sort of like a Baby Jane Hudson on steroids.
… and always books like “Thriving During Challenging Times, The Energy, Food and Financial Independence Handbook” become indispensable to help you build resilience to the kind of shocks James predicts. http://www.cammather.com/books-dvds/thriving-during-challenging-times
“Think American Beauty” Think Kevin Spacey ooh lala. One of my faves.
You know I have a feeling JHK is correct about the shape of things to come. And that is is happening faster now.
Still I have no garden, cuz no land, and that bothers me. Time to hit up that relative that does ! haha.
The answer to survival is coming together, working together, and I see that happening for some, but all in all there are too many people crammed into too many small areas, and it just doesn’t seem like that is going to happen.
Wish I was somewhere else. I don’t like that feeling. There are farms, big and small all around me, Salinas valley, etc. Still the cost of Brussel Sprouts, organic, was 5.99 lb. Asparagas was more. Zucchini was 4.99 lb. Not kidding. Everything was double what it was last year.
And non organic is more than 1/2 of those prices.
Safeway is the highest, I don’t shop there anyway, I do prefer smaller stores, and or fruit and veggie stands. I know where to go for the best prices.
I am going to make a pot of veggie soup with beans and eat that for 3 days. That’s one way I make things go farther. I like to have a pot of soup around. Also I like Trader Joes’ for buying prepared foods, which are cool so don’t have to cook all the time.
Produce went from 2.29 lb, to 3.29 lb just recently there, zucchini, and Bell Peppers, etc.
Everything, overnight seemed like, at T’J’s.
We are in for serious changes.
My husband is in denial STILL,
go figure.
“You’d be surprised. Don’t believe the propaganda of the right wing on that one.”
There is one thing that is called politeness and is what helps people to have a social life.
And may be you are also a nice American.
Regarding Sarkozy, I hardly can imagine a better bottom licker, but, as when it comes to too much abundance, it doesn´t even look real anymore…
Love your name. I am beginning to feel that way also about cars.
I was rear eneded and have a fucking whiplash for life now.
Unsafe at any speed, Nader was right about that.
We need to slow the f*** down.
Myrtlemay said: “Good to hear (surprising, in fact)!”
========================================
You might like the notion of Marianne (I do):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne
Cheers
For those of us who have been saying “the end is near” and then giving examples and showing evidence that “something” is going to happen (environment/ financial/ global/ all of the above), only to hear that we need to be put on anti-depression medication – I think events unfolding are showing that very soon, the entire world will have to be put on anti-depression medication. JHK has given voice to this – even if his forecasts have been about as close as any given in the Farmer’s Almanac.
I am seeing it is time to switch gears and shift from looking for clues and discussing potential movements, to creating some real plans.
To the Boomers who brought us this mess (I am a child of boomers), thanks. To the Boomers who brought us organic gardening and called to end needless wars and to “wake up,” thanks. I was raised on hippie dippy sht and this summer, will break out the old Mother Earth News and start my garden…. while also stocking up on certain NRA approved products since, I like to think of myself more of a blend of Hippy-Dippy and Beatnik a la’ Hunter H. Thompson than a total Love Childe.
Stay loaded.
http://schwerpunkter.wordpress.com
Jim,
As always an excellent commentary. Your humor is infectious. I always like to speculate on the unintended consequences of dramatic changes that we now see unfolding in Northern Africa and the ME. For decades we supported with arms and money the dictators of the region, and now we are the zealots of democracy. Who is to trust us once the dust settles, the new governments or those that are able to keep the change at bay? New regimes, even if democratic, may not want to forget decades of abuse by our clients and be unwilling to embrace us with open arms. How soon we forget Iran. Those that survive will come to the conclusion that we can’t be trusted, and that we will turn on them in a minute. Dependency on their oil makes whores of us all. They need our oil dollars, but others, such as China, also want their oil, and have the benefit of no long history of being an adversary. Might they sign long term contracts with China, and freeze us out completely? Only time will tell, but when you sell your soul, you never know what you will end up with.
Patrizia said: “Regarding Sarkozy, I hardly can imagine a better bottom licker,”
=============================
Or a better clown than Berlusconi, eh?
But the Italians are a great people as well. It is just all these politicians who seem to be so irritating to regular people everywhere.
Ciao Signora
Let’s have a steam punk world powered by coal with lots of huge smoking chimneys. As Peggy says, “So Pretty”. Whole new schools of painters will create masterpieces of post, post industrial landscapes. Black smoke curling up against the sunset is something we’ve missed out on. All this will help create jobs for the chimney sweeps too let’s not forget.
All the forgoing is just making the best of a bad bargain until we can build a hundred nukes or so. We should have done that decades ago but the leftist loons stopped it. And of course, wind and solar farms can help too but nuclear is the Man. We just need zero tolerance for greed and incompetence since we will be playing with the very forces of Nature. It must be death or life imprisonment for any caught putting the public at risk in any way.
If ever there was a time to take to heart the endless warnings we have been reading for the last umpteen years from the likes of JHK, Matt Savinar, and the Drudge Report, it’s now. You would have to be stupid, or extremely gullible to just keep on keeping on with the facts staring you in the face. I have silver and gold and I have stockpiled food, bullets and guns. I have a solar oven, water purifier, and two turbo diesel cars that have run on the fuel I make in my garage for over three years but I am STILL scared shitless. When reality finally hits the masses and the realization of what has come to pass on our society and world takes a firm hold, it freaks me out to ponder what will come next and how we will deal with it. I am not normally a violent person but will fight hard for what’s mine and probably to the death for people I love but one desperate person with a weapon stands to take all I have prepared for if my resolve falters at the wrong time for even a minute. This is a bad time for old baby boomers like me! Good luck and god bless……EVERYTHING IS FINE, JUST KEEP WATCHING TV.
Well, as bottom licking, nothing to envy to the French…
Patrizia, I think you rather adroitly skirted the point of my reply; your choice.
Cheers
I was among the sea of humanity at the Capitol in Madison on Saturday. I was optimistic that this turn out
of concerned American workers would finally make people wake up to the “REAL” world happening around them.
I think NBC gave it 7 seconds airtime this morning. Back to sleep everyone, Charlie Sheen is whining he can’t get
$2 million an episode anymore and Lindsay Lohan ran out of jewelry to hock.
Torn80 said: “I think NBC gave it 7 seconds airtime this morning”
======================================
Yeah, well look at who owns the networks. It sure isn’t regular people.
Cheers
I fully understood your reply and I am afraid I have nothing to add.
I hear ya, but also your attitude scares me,
and angers me.
People DO drive too much in general.
But those who make less than you STILL need to work and make a living and drive to work to feed their children. God I hope you don’t have any.
You driver a beamer or what ?
You are not better than them. I rarely react like this. I am from the fucking bay area. I got out years ago. Also white. BFD.
You sound like the guy who was yacking about all the caviar etc. at some big party he threw.
So what.
Caviar tastes like s*** to me.
Why do you feel the need to rub it in folks faces?
Conspicuous consumption, good luck with that one.
Great you have a shit load of $$$.
Trying eating it, or ******* it. Or hugging it.
There I said it for the rest who feel the same but won’t post it.
You sound young and I hope you are, because there is still a chance you may grow up and wise up.
Looks like you pushed my buttons a little.
Patrizia said: “I fully understood your reply and I am afraid I have nothing to add.”
================================
Understand. Personally, I believe that individual behavior varies quite widely from group behavior. That’s why it is easy to like individuals from any country but to not like entire countries as a whole.
Cheers
JHK said, “the oil – what’s left of it – lies locked for the moment beneath hot sands – woe upon all ye soccer moms…”
Are you listening, Orionoir? Do you not have three daughters? What debt peonage keeps you in the Interstate corridor?
And the French could have had Le Pen – what a tragedy. Sarkozy stole his talking points and promised the French France – but without any sacrafice on their part. As if the Muslims are just going to take of their hijabs and start drinking wine and eating pork because of official displeasure. The imitation is the deadliest enemy of the real.
Swerpunkter
Hey haven’t you heard those antidepressants have many side effects, suicide and increased violence among them. I read that every school shooting in this country was perpetrated by folks on antidepressants. Adding them to the water may be an elite goal, but boy, they really should maybe rethink that, after all violence can go to Wall Street too.
have a great day
loveday
I think France will have its pluses and minuses in the times to come. Hard times there will probably bring out open conflict between various groups in France, the Muslims being one of those groups.
One interesting thing about France is the amount of electrical power that is nuclear-generated. If times get hard, they may be able to keep the lights on even if the heat is weak or off. That assumes that large concerns like nuclear plants will still be operating in a TLE-like scenario.
Cheers
Signing long term contracts?
That’s kinda funny, reminds me of the ‘larf’ that is holding paper/pixilated on screen gold or silver virtual stocks…
Errrgh no ole boy…… when the SHTF its control of the ‘physical’ stuff that really counts…
Orwell always had it sorta right me thinks…. the tri-powers that be Oceania, and Eurasia and Eastasia…
Just because a contact states something….?? You think you’ll get it….that is just so beautifully trusting…. not religious are you too?
Its simple if you have and uber-powerful Navy, so lets say you link the US fleets and UK’s RN with the rest of the Euro boat pack…. then you can neatly escort tankers in any direction you like/want…. with the right encouragement…
Oh, but meanwhile China & Japan have been steadily increasing in their NAVY power too…
(So the Russian could be a swing naval playa)
The miss-mash of all this is fun to think on, but for sure we’re all going down the last-man-standing route that’s the no brainier….
NATO’s about to prevent any loyal military pilots to Gaddafi doing any oil field bomb runs, with the no fly zone…. which means a BIG STICK carrier group and AWACs have to be off coast Libya 24/7 now – and they are.
The old allies’ politicos do know how serious this is all getting….
And if the gloves do need to come off – you betcha they will!
Before Saudi will come Algeria, which is itself teetering on the edge. Libya may be resuming oil shipments, but keep in mind that these shipments are essentially already bought and paid for. The question of who basically controls the country’s distribution complex, who takes payment for new shipments, is still fundamentally unresolved, and likely will become even more so as tribal leaders start jockeying for position as Gaddafi’s successor.
If and when Saudi Arabia goes postal (look for late March) there will be American troops in Riyadh. The US has no choice. Saudi has been important from a psychological standpoint as well as an economic one, because it could play the part of the swing vote within OPEC to insure that oil stays in the sweet spot of US$60-$80. The longer that oil stays north of $95, the greater the likelihood that the illusion of Saudi’s ability to increase production will be tested.
Admittedly, most oil importing countries already know how shaky Saudi really is, but for the oil companies, the illusion is critical, because once Saudi is proven to be a lie, their ability to control the markets drops significantly … and then the fun begins.
On Walmart – very interesting story in the business pages last week that Walmart had its 7th consecutive
quarter of declining same-store sales!
Due to Walmarts savings from things like Wisconsin
Gov Scott Walker’s $140 Million tax break for Walmart and other Corporations leading Wisconsin into debt so they can destroy their public workers,
Walmart still made a profit.
Walmart’s explanation was that people were going to the local Dollar store for smaller amounts.
Hmmmm
Maybe the real reason is Kunstler’s prediction from
years ago – some people have figured out that it does not really pay off to save $1 if it costs them
$5 to drive to the bigbox exurban Walmart!
I agree.
I was born in Italy, but all my father´s family (including my grandfather) was and is in America.
My grandfather was the only one to come back to Italy.
I have a lot of relatives in California and I was there myself many times, so I personally love America and have nothing against Americans.
Nevertheless I hate war and I sincerely fear that there will be a new bigger one.
There was never a war that produced something good, there never will be one.
And there is so much suffering and injustice just for nothing.
…meanwhile, here in S. America we have lots of sun, great healthy food is very cheap:
lettuce – 36c a head
tomatoes – 80c a pound
watermelon – 14c a pound
fantastic beef – 80c to $3 a pound
comfortable 3-brdm house: $20-100k
gas….sorry, about double the US price…oh but we grow our own gas as sugar-cane methanol, don’t need any stinkin’ oil from the bearded ignoramuses in the middle east…
it’s all about self-sufficiency, when will you get it? REDUCE, CUT DOWN, GROW YOUR OWN, put a phreakin’ rain barrel under your spouts
independency is much easier than you think…
just paid my mortgage today on my 2-bdrm apartment, a whole $202.
renting a house on the beach for carnaval, 11 of us together, lots of fun, sun, surfing, bar-b-que & beer.
all you americans can enjoy your backward soul-killin’ country
peace to you tho’
Kurt Cagle said: “If and when Saudi Arabia goes postal (look for late March) there will be American troops in Riyadh. The US has no choice.”
It was troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia that led to 9/11 … causing Bush to withdraw said troops, to prevent more towers from coming down in the USA. If the USA sends its troops back to Saudi Arabia again, it will see what “opening the gates of hell” means.
There will be no USA boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia.
I’ve heard the “move to S America” mantra before. And it’s great for men who speak Spanish. Not so great if you don’t, & certainly not a nice place for any woman who doesn’t have a man to “protect” her.
Look at the persecution of Brigitte Bardot for standing up for France against the Muslim invaders. Not by them – but by her own People! She is a true Marianne even though they want to destroy her statue.
I should like to point out that JHK forecast, in effect, the consequences of a Ghadaffi. JHK has written and said many times that there is no elasticity remaining in the oil market. Because of this, JHK opines, even small political and economic perturbations will cause wild swings in the price of oil. The wild upward swings may be followed by downward swings too, when demand has been destroyed by the prior upward swings. We will be whipsawed by fluctuating oil prices. The net result of this will be to suppress investment, since future energy costs will be difficult or even impossible to estimate. All part of TLE.
What did folks think of the AWARDS show last nite?
Freind of mine says the bash at SOHO HOUSE was really something….
Oh the Head of the UN was reaching out to the Hollywood crowd ‘asking for more movies about global warming’
First they kill the Prophets, then they honor them.
go for BB!
bravo, guess several hundred million native women don’t stand a chance in s. america, funny how they’re adored down here, ever so much more sensual than american women, dress 3000% better.
can’t even learn basic spanish? thought america had such a great educational “system”.
in which s. american country did you live to gain such insight, or was it in a womens’ studies class.
shalom anyways
Why the quotation marks? A woman does need protection down there against all those Latin Lotharios and Dance Hall Sheiks. Or she can make friends with one or more of them and they will protect her.
That news made the headlines of LaTimes [and many others].
They were aghast a ‘nationalist’ would lead France.
Gadhafi…the Mussolini option… Sic semper tyranis
If being White is a BFD to other races (and it is), then it is a big BFD. It only takes one to make a fight. And objective reality doesn’t care about your subjective resistance or feelings.
Btw, I don’t care for his attitude either. The wealthy are not the friends of the America. They will flee the country if things get really bad.
if the raccccism is sooo badd why do they move to..US,Canada,Europe?
L.A. 20 years ago had very few Indians, now we have 100,000+?
Al Klein said: “JHK opines, even small political and economic perturbations will cause wild swings in the price of oil.”
JHK said: “I give Saudi Arabia three weeks before it starts to blow up.”
=============
I for one, appreciate the concrete time frames now being discussed … as they are falsifiable. By March 21 we will know.
Our military budget indirectly subsidizes European social programs
arent we in turn subsidized by the chinese note holders?
Best and worst dressed at the Oscars Natalie Portman looked perfect in plum, while Halle Berry channeled Hollywood glamour.
see:Yahoo
very enlightened, the ignorance here is earth-shaking
btw, in all seriousness, have you had a dna-swab test done to verify your blood is pure? what will you do when you find chocolate dna in you? for there is (highly likely) no racial purity
put your purity to the test, are you afraid of the results. other than that i find most of what you write eloquent and well said.
shalom
“It hardly made an impression on a US public preoccupied with comings and goings of Charlie Sheen.”
Timeless. We should have been reading Baer’s Sleeping with the Devil and discussing the fragility of the Saudi “nation” a long time ago.
But that was too complicated. Now it’s time to learn some history lessons, and fast.
Pass the Little Debbies! They are the Cheese Doodles of the 2010s.
Sorry, It wasn’t my intention to upset you. As I said, I heard that it’s hard for women & anyone who doesn’t speak the language (no-brainer that!)so no, I haven’t lived in a SA country, nor have I taken a woman’s study class. It’s just that your solution isn’t so easy for all of us. I had basic Spanish for a couple years & I sucked.
Vlad – the quote marks indicate irony.
Expect gas rationing by 2012.
That’s according to oil geologist Dr. Jeremy Leggett, now head of a UK solar company, in this Radio Ecoshock interview Friday.
http://www.ecoshock.info/2011/02/oil-versus-light-jeremy-legget.html
Don’t think so? The Philippines is already talking gas rationing right now.
Leggett also points out the Saudis may need most of their oil for their own electricity generation needs in the next few years. Not much left for export.
Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org
Oh, and by the way, Leggett confirms that the recent BP-Rosneft deal makes the Russian Kremlin the biggest holder of BP stock.
Guess who’s the biggest supplier of oil to the U.S. military? BP.
So that puts the Kremlin in charge of oil for the Pentagon. What an upside down world!
Alex
Radio Ecoshock
Brazil sounds cheaper than much of Latin America. If someone knew Spanish, could they understand and be understood in Portuguese Brazil?
White traits are recessive – it’s usually pretty easy to see if someone has been tarred by the brush. The rulers of Brazil are olive skinned Mediterranean Whites who are obviously aware of the value of their genetic and cultural heritage.
I know – but the irony doesn’t make any sense. Protection is a real thing which should be valued. I know, I know – it’s men protecting women against other men; the enemy protecting you against the enemy. That mindset is so dysfunctional that one must shake one’s head in wonder. Feminism is a profound disorder in the body politic that also has profound dysgenic ramifications. Or perhaps eugenic since the hard core wont be leaving many of their genes behind. There is a silver lining to every dark cloud.
Thanks for schooling me on my punctuation.
You really are a fine fellow. People like you usually have UFO experiences – can you describe your’s? Much of Brazil is a “window” area. No doubt the Aliens (Nephilim) will come and offer to solve our energy crisis. But will be the price?
First!
LOL
Right-on JHK!
The only answer to peak-oil has been staring everyone in their denying faces since god was a boy, and it has nothing to do with the solar energy, wind farm or nuclear energy boondoggles – the billion-ton gorilla-in-the-room is overpopulation and the answer is die-off. Religions of various stripes have been fervent promoters of profligate breeding for… generations, and now the offspring are coming home to roost the breeders are becoming bleeders. Not only the Catholic church has been trying to win the religious dogma wars by outbreeding their competitors, the Muslims and Hindus have been at it as well. It beggars belief that people so poor would opt to raise families with eight, nine or ten hungry mouths to feed – a form of child abuse I think is more immoral than any other kind. Now we have the crunch, the disenfranchised progeny of the poor in the Middle East and North Africa are demanding their fair share of the pie so they too can have eight, nine or ten kids.
The eventual sharing of the oil pie currency will ensure that those formerly poor slobs in the oil-states demand more of everything including the energy they now export, energy that the rest of the world covets more than anything else. Western powers would’ve been happier to see the oil states go through a violent population-destroying civil war than a democratic peaceful transition, Libya is the opposing example they can use as a guide. Unfortunately the civil war is likely to be relatively bloodless as each town overrun by the opposition will soon find they too really want a Libya without Gaddafi, amazing how loyalties change when death is the only other option.
The very worst case is now headed towards the bankers and their minions, certain irreversible decline and no way to spin it into some other excuse for their existence. Rome is burning and no-one is even noticing the flames.
Howdy Marlin, no apologies needed. People confuse me other people all the time, mostly handsome bodybuilder types!I know gas is expensive but I had the day off and couldn’t resist a little road trip up into the hills. I ice storm was beautiful. Thankfully not as much damage as in 2008,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2008_New_England_and_Upstate_New_York_ice_storm that one was a mofo!
Rippedthunder
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2008_New_England_and_Upstate_New_York_ice_storm
Well……………something is in the mix. More and more people are getting nervous.
My mother-in-law has asked for the first time in ages if our kids will ever be baptized….then she asked my husband the other day if we ever had our house blessed…..and maybe it needed an exorcism.
She believes “we are witnessing the end of days” I’ll agree we’re all witnessing an “interesting time” but I don’t think Christ with his four horsemen are on their way. But change IS in the air and I don’t mean just the weather. It is an undercurrent, a feeling and it is getting closer….quite close if my Fox News, republican loving, in-laws are feeling it.
We are all in for a change – from energy depeletion to unrest among the masses and retalitory events from those who are currently in charge. Jim is right in saying to start your garden and get ready. The ride is about to get a whole lot bumpier……
Change – and nobody said it would be the happy-feely kind is on its way. For some it looks like the 2nd coming, for others more like a revolution…and for others still a complete re-arrangement oif life as we knew it. But it is coming…and the people are beginning to sense it.
JB2U; Sorry to read how you’re letting these posts get to you. James is, I believe, is the same douche who goes on this site bragging about his new dream car BMW, the mansion and the unhealthy food at his parties. He’s one cocky Bastard.
I had some j***ass in a 330i pull in front of me this morning. I go around him and he immediately floors it, goes by me in the center lane (used for turning left, only), pulls in front of me and finishes by going up the center lane again past the guy I’m following. All this, in a residential area with posted 35mph.
QUIZ:
What’s the difference between a porcupine & a BMW?
The porcupine has it’s pricks on the outside.
Right On!
As a fellow Survivalist, my background is similar to Jim Rawles at Survivalblog (except that I’m still on the books, with an active sec. clearance, as a US Army Intell. Officer).
My website is http://www.suburban-self-reliance.com. Within days, this website will be going dark, permanently for OPSEC reasons, due to the accelerating rate of local and global events.
Like alot of readers here, I’ve been researching Peak Oil, collapsed civilizations, etc., and have written extensively on the subject.
Also, if you know anyone in the Portland, OR area who needs any razor wire:
http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/grd/2232369923.html
Cheers,
Jerry
OK, I figured it out (I’m a new commenter, anyway).
If anyone wants to visit my site before it goes dark (due to recent trigger events):
http://www.suburban-self-reliance.com
Jerry
Nice weeks work, JHK. You hit most of the major chords on the keyboard of disaster and collapse. That makes it hard to know where to begin to thank you.
I was concerned about this section concerning Pres. Obama:
“Charming fellow that he is, his fecklessness in the face of disintegrating oil markets will go down in history as something like Nero’s musical solo while Rome burned down.”
-jhk-
At first I feared for your spirit, old man, as though you had been watching too much FOX and had experienced FairandBalanced BrainRot – and thought to blame Obama for Egypt and Libya, and everything else.
Then I realized that you were probably referring only to “disintegrating oil markets” as they affect the US. So I have to admire your US centrism, I suppose.
But the last National level politician who tried to do something worthwhile to stabilize oil markets and energy in the US was Carter. “Don’t be another Jimmy Carter” is now part of the permanent mantra for of all of our perennially pandering politicians.
The dark of night that now approaches – is the sunset that had to inevitably follow “Morning in America,” in 1980.
Things will likely get much worse – before Americans gain the experience that forces them to make things better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pslD0gwrvXc
Milk delivery in a “World Made by Hand”
I love Jim and all the people who write from various parts of the world with various ideas about the topic of doom and change. On the other hand, what if, just what if, all these looming disasters lead us to a BETTER PLACE. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people needed other people enough that they trusted and cooperated with each other. Think about the end of cell phones and actually looking at someone when they are talking or you are talking. OMG!!!What a disaster. What if, your neighbor who you thought was a shit, turned out to save your life or offer you his food or shelter when you may need help. OMG!!!Is this disneyworld???? don’t get me wrong, there will be drug crazed individuals who will kill no matter what. But what if you never meet up with that garbage? Its not only about hording, being scared and worrying about if YOU will make it. Its about helping each other to live a good life, one worth living. You don’t need millions of dollars or a tankful of gas to enjoy your family and friends. I have faith in people to a point, when under duress most people pull together. If you look in the mirror people, maybe the enemy is you.
Jim;
I wouldn’t count on the Germans on picking up the slack to do any fighting in the middle east alongside the US Army and Marine Corps. They got their asses kicked too bad back in ’45 to recover so soon, thanks in part to Ripthunders father, PoCs father and my own father.
Also we were in some NATO ops with the German Navy in the 70’s & 80’s. Their sailors were in some sort of mariners union … had long hair … didn’t mind telling their own POs and even officers to F–k off if they didn’t like an order, ships not clean, ragtag uniforms … no, the Germans didn’t win any wars in the past and they won’t win any in the future.
Salute, Jerry and Ripthunder.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
It is interesting that you gave JHK a pass on Marines invading Tripoli, Libya.
Yet you suggest to the poster, Mr. Cagle, that US forces on the ground by invitation of the Saudi Arabian government are a bad idea.
“If the USA sends its troops back to Saudi Arabia again, it will see what “opening the gates of hell” means.”
-asoka-
Apparently, mass murder is OK if it is for a cause that Asoka supports.
Jim, relative to your screenplay, what are you looking for? A producer? Director? Production company? Partner?
Pilt
The election of Ronnie Reagan was the culmination of the the plutocratic elites strategy to roll back all democratic gains of the 60s along with the New Deal.
As we read in a Counterpunch article today by Jeffery Sommers,
“The United States has had three major economic crises the past century. The last one was in the 1970s and represented what the late Harvard political scientist and US policy advisor, Samuel Huntington, referred to as the “Crisis of Democracy.”
“By “crisis,” Huntington meant there was too much democracy, both economically and politically. Turning upside down fighting Bob LaFollete’s, (or Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential candidates) statement that the “cure for the ills of democracy was more democracy,” Huntington argued that democracy ifself was the problem.
“It was a straight shot back to John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government published in 1690, whereby popular rule was only to be exercised by the rich as a class on their own behalf. For Huntington the public’s calls for increasing equality, again, both economic and political, was the great danger.”
I know what you are saying but it aint that simple. What I am saying is that there wasnt sufficient political-economic power in the hands of the counter-culture to stop the Empire and replace it with democracy. It’s the same reason political change is so difficult today: the concentrated wealth-power upholding the status quo is able to keep people from overthrowing the system. Banksters get bailed out and get million dollar bonuses while the middle class gets the bill. So tell me again, who won the war?
Hey Marlin, I get a kick out of your description of the German Navy in the 70-80’s. at the time when I started at the FD in ’79 all the guys wore a spit and polish uniform, shiney shoes, spiffy belt, badges, you get the idea. All the officers were ex WWII men, IE: follow orders or take a hike out the back door. We had a foundry behind the station. A real dinosaur pit, piles of coal, smoke stacks and our cars covered with ash every day. Saying at the time was “you don’t like it here go to the foundry.” Guess what? I don’t think anyone ever left. Foundry is now gone, outsourced. The new guys could give a shit, and bunch of softies as far as I am concerned, and the officers all want to be their friends and will not step on toes.It drives me insane. My original deputy chief was a B-24 pilot, shot down over Gremany and spent a few years in a POW camp. I’ think you would be hard pressed to find a 24 YO american who would put up with that s**t! We are soft, I say Soft!!!!
JHK says, “the good folk of Libya can fight amongst themselves for the swag, loot, and ka-chingling oil revenues he left behind.”
How much ka-chingling we talking about? 1.5m bbl/day * 365, 547,500,000 bbl/yr, * $110/bbl = $60,225,000,000 yearly revenue.
Revenue per person: $10,037. Libyan Per capita GDP: $13,000. How much does the man in the street see? Jack and shit probably.
$ said,
“Tell me SNAFU, shouldn’t a scientific theory that’s worth a damn be able to predict and if it can’t do that shouldn’t it be able to explain past events? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that this theory of evolution is in such a state that it can do either? And be gentle with me, I’m just a sorry assed accountant.”
Allow me to lay it out for you, cash. The theory of evolution is the basic underlying principle of biology. The amount of support this theory has is impossible to accurately convey to you. The body of work is enormous. The theory describes everything we know about life and how it develops. It explains how speciation occurs. It is used in predictive modelling.
I am a %100 Athiest. It is no religion at all.
Now I am going to tell you a creation story:
Hundreds of millions of years ago, near a volcanic vent at some depth in the ocean, ribonucleic acids were formed by the agglomeration of simpler compounds in the presence of thermal energies. This probably happened in a sort of chimney where a temperature gradient allowed for a range of temperatures.
These ribonucleic acids are everywhere, all over the world, in every living cell, and free-floating. These molecules are self-catalyzing, meaning that they can organize free compounds around themselves into more RNA. Successive accumulations of RNA formed macro-molecules that had increased catalytic function and increased complexity.
The appearance into our mix of RNA of lipid-like molecules, oil, that is, Texas Tea, came from the vents underneath from exrteme pressures and depths. These polarized molecules distended, relaxed, unrolled and re-rolled ascending through temperature gradients and formed spontaneous structures called micelles which on occasion happened to trap RNA and other compounds inside.
In some way enough of these combinations occurred to have created a soup of micelles and RNA, macro-RNA molecules and other assorted compounds to create a prototypical cell with a macro-RNA moleculuar structure that coexisted within and without to some degree, creating new environments for small molecules to exist in.
As these prototypical celluloid structures evolved, created by conditions in the environment and catalytic activity of the novel arrangements of molecules within the celluloid precursors, different sets of catalyzing enzymes were created.
At some point in time an RNA enzyme catalyzed an adjacent piece of RNA, deoxygenating the 2-prime position on the ribose, creating a similar molecule, but one more stable as the new molecule was not self-catalytic.
This was apparently advantageous and by this time enzymatic action had created a set of bases with which to attach to the ribose, forming the nucleotides of DNA. These then continued to co-evolve in the soup with RNA until a more sophisticated structure emerged- the addition of catalysing DNA-based molecules, proteins. Soon, DNA enzymes, proteins, were catalysing more and more reactions, creating more and more proteins. The envelope of creation was widening, pushing out into new territories of environmental conditions. The newer, more complex molecules were subject to random mutation effects, accomplishing otherwise impossible conformations of tertiary structure.
For example, in the Earth’s early existence of a thin atmosphere we would be less shielded to radiation from space. Even today, particles called cosmic rays invisibly rain down, with a mass small enough to pass through our bodies and other solid objects, but enough energy to knock a proton off a molecule like DNA.
So, these new proteins gained new catalytic ability and began making new types of molecules which made existence in various different environments possible.
Within this soupy stage of proto-life, there were ostensibly enough free-floating molecules around that could be chemically reduced or oxidized, otherwise fuel for an energy-releasing reaction, that made it possible for these small reactions to be carried out in sub-molecular space.
What the collision of two planets did was inject the system with enough Energy to allow the Earth to become as a battery- an artificial arrangement, unbalanced.
As the multitudinous actions of atomic nuclei decomposing, and the prodigious flows of electron gasses streamed through a matrix of hydrogen dioxides and all these various molecules, over a long period of time is that a macro-molecule was created, composed primarily of RNA, but also proteins and lipids, in micelles, that the DNA double-helix, as we know it, was begun. This Adam & Eve piece of DNA was passed back and forth between RNAs and proteins and used to catalyse more proteins which eventually gave rise to more catalysis and more proteins and this helical molecule became longer and longer.
This was the first day of creation.
Today, it is instructive to realize that we are all just an agglomeration of these fundamental molecules, we are still daily hammered by cosmic rays, our RNA is still catalyzing reactions within our cells which are basically little water filled drops of oil. And DNA is now the tickertape that runs the show, the RNA is kind of free agent or messenger.
If RNA shows up at the show, it is usually an interloper, a virus- a piece of RNA without any of the cellular components to reproduce- and we, eukaryotic beings, wards of vast colonies of other eukaryotes, bacteria, and fungal organisms, deploy sophisticated systems to police our personal solar system against intruders and attackers.
The DNA in our human cells is maintained by proteins created to maintain the integrity of the instructions. But it is not perfect. Sometimes viruses get in. Sometimes there is an invasion, and viral DNA is cut and pasted into a sequence. Upon recombination the viral code is neutralized by other proteins re-encoding around the error, but the piece remains like galactic graffiti.
Thus it is that the RNA world was likely ruled by what we would probably recognize today as viruses. When we take a sample and run it through various machines to amplify and read what is there, we see bits and pieces of DNA from organisms never grown in any lab.
Yes, humanity knows very little about quite a lot. There are creatures in the world which cannot be seen and have never been observed- but we know they are out there because these unique patterns keep showing up in the background.
The various specialties in science have converged to give a deeper and deeper understanding of what we have learned and what we know, how we detect and analyse and compute and rationalize and ultimately prove- that evolution is not a theory, but a fact. It is like the theory of gravity or the theory that a hot plate will burn you if you touch it.
To that end, the first artificial cell was created. A long molecule of DNA, written using a computer, that catalysed the appropriate reactions, was inserted into a bacterial cell whose own contents were vacuumed out. It proceeded to grow, divide, and multiply, taking the instructions with it. This DNA was deconstructed and read back as proof. In the “artificial DNA” was a message:
A quote from James Joyce: “To live to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life”.
Disco may be dead, but the boomers’ arrogant, vindictive, scorched-earth approach to politics and culture isn’t.
Some observers argue that one of Obama’s electoral strengths in 2008 was that he was the only viable candidate who wasn’t still fighting the Vietnam War. Not decisive, I’d say, but there certainly was something to it. Clinton and McCain had a lot of baggage from the culture wars of the 1960s. Clinton spent her entire campaign trying to distance herself from her own radical past and manufacture working-class street cred, while McCain cast himself as a war hero running against an unpatriotic hedonist. Obama was the natural choice for people sick of listening to boomers snipe about Nam.
I think this dynamic subtly helped Bill Clinton, too. Being ganged up on by a bunch of angry VFW partisans must have helped him win over people who were sick of listening to decades-old complaints about draft dodgers, most of whom had been pardoned en masse by Jimmy Carter.
I’d say this is one area where the silent majority has long been ready for the combatants to bury the hatchet. Which they won’t do. They’re too sure of themselves and consumed by bitterness to move forward.
This is especially true of Vietnam veterans. This is not because they’ve veterans; the WWII and Korea cohorts aren’t so busy licking old wounds. It’s more that they were the most obvious losers in a decade-long domestic cultural war, followed by decades of cultural cold war, and they’re pissed about it. The lax generational mores probably help, too.
A relative of mine who worked as a VA psychiatrist periodically examined patients for PTSD pension renewals. Some of them truly were broken men. One fellow had panic attacks whenever he described the horrors he had faced in the Bataan Death March. This was in the 1990s, so he had been scarred for life. These vets were generally reluctant to discuss their trauma because they found it hellish. They deserved their pensions, and it was a damned shame that they had to be put through hell again in order to satisfy the bureaucrats.
Vietnam Veterans, on the other hand, often methodically read from lists of PTSD symptoms that they had been given by sleazy veterans’ groups. Some of them started the litany by saying, “Well, let me tell you about my trauma!”
Some veterans certainly got genuine PTSD in Vietnam; war will do that. In my relative’s experience, though, they were far outnumbered by the despicable malingering con artists, whose pensions, incidentally, were almost never denied, regardless of the psychiatric opinion.
My take is that the malingerers figure they got a raw deal at a time when everyone else was evading duty, so they’ll get theirs now, no matter how low they have to stoop.
A former campus police chief for my Alma Mater was still fighting the Vietnam War in 2003, when he illegally ordered a student to remove a “Fuck Bush” poster from her bedroom window. When her attorney cited a precedent declaring a “fuck the draft” poster protected speech, the chief started yelling about how he didn’t like the precedent because it concerned the Vietnam draft and he was a Vietnam veteran. I don’t think it was coincidental that Chief was a Vietnam vet and was so easily set off by something so tangential to the war. (He and his successor were both criminal rogues, so it was good riddance when they were fired in ’04 and ’05.)
I don’t think we’ll bury the hatchet on this conflict until we’ve buried the jackasses fighting it. It may be a long, annoying wait.
Vlad,
Are you being serious with Asia? “Nephi”lim sounds like a Book of Mormon thing.
Jen
Oh yes, I DO drive a BMW M3. Best car on the road!
But unlike Johnathan I don’t feel the need to drag race peons driving econo-boxes. I figure their life is bad enough as it is, why rub their nose in it? Surely they can see me driving past in my superior German automobile, surrounded by supple leather and completely oblivious to their pitiful plight.
I only ever race worthy opponents — people like me, in fast expensive cars. Its beneath me to even acknowledge the existence of inferior drivers on the road.
“How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs;
our land is ploughed by tanks and foot marching.
How is our glorious country sown?
Not with wheat and corn.
How is our glorious land bestowed?
And what is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is deformed children.
What is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is orphaned children.”
The Glorious Land, from “Let England Shake” by PJ Harvey, released 15-Feb-2011.
The album is themed along English WWI experiences, relevant to this day.
jhk writes: {Charming fellow that he is, his fecklessness in the face of disintegrating oil markets will go down in history as something like Nero’s musical solo while Rome burned down.}
—-
not to quibble re wordchoice, but, to quibble re wordchoie… in my humble opinion, markets *destabilizie* before they disintegrate. just like people. what i believe we are seeing in oil & other commodities& fx surrogates is destabilization. which is a whole lot of fun. disintegration, otoh, is depressing as hell.
ProCon said: “Apparently, mass murder is OK if it is for a cause that Asoka supports.”
=====
Apparently? What a misreading of Asoka the pacifist!
What I said was people who play with fire get burned.
What I said was people who live by the sword die by the sword.
What I said was boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia will lead to more 9/11’s in the USA.
I never said mass murder is OK.
The CIA calls 9/11 events blowback. They can be expected. They are revenge. That is not to in any way justify it.
People attack the USA they can expect to have mass murder visited upon them by the USA military. I did not support the USA bombings.
The USA military sends troops to Saudi Arabia it can expect to see more 9/11’s. I will not support Al Qaeda’s bombings.
But I am enough of a realist to see what happens.
” Meanwhile back in Tripoli, no need to worry folks., Tony Blair’s been on the phone twice to the ‘brother colonel’ to advise him times up, leave the Big Brother House NOW.”
Who are these very familiar names that keep “solving” the world’s problems, year after year, decade after decade?
…..And wake me when it’s over….
Yet, the question begs to be asked whether these developments in the Mid East plays perfectly into our hands and what set it in motion almost out of nowhere. Oh right, commodity price escalation.
Remember our state department thought the youth in Iran would overthrow the theocracy. So far not so, but maybe this is the theory in real time not in Iran, but in the countries around Iran. Hey, the principle worked, wrong country! (& who’s next)
What if the modernization and institution of free trade had unintended consequences in the oil market? Something that somehow got overlooked? Could that even be possible. I’m sure we work with all kinds of models to see how the dynamics would work if something were to be set in motion.
Curiously, Sec. of Defense Robert Gates has just made comment that anyone who suggests full-scale war using our military in the future needs to have their head examined.–Ha! you just have to laugh.
JHK discusses the Europeans taking some action for their oil. From an article by Pepe Escobar in Asia Times Online back in Nov. It didn’t include the ME at that point…
[Be afraid. Be very afraid. At the Lisbon summit this Friday and Saturday, a gargantuan, innocuously sounding, self-described “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America” that happens to be a Cold War relic sits in its own nuclear-adorned couch to speculate what it is actually all about.
In this otherwise Freudian scenario, the guest of honor is United States President Barack Obama, who imperially presides over the other 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, all duly acknowledging their tributary vows and commitments on everything from European-wide missile defense (subjected to the US global missile shield) and permanent stationing of hundreds of US nuclear bombs in Europe to the turbo-charging of cyber warfare (subjected to the Pentagon’s new Cyber Command), a blitzkrieg of navy patrol stunts on the globe’s strategic sea lanes, and the spread of military bases guarding strategic nodes of Pipelineistan.
In short: the menu in Lisbon is a Pentagon steak with bearnaise sauce. Indigestion guaranteed – and no money (as in overvalued euros) back.]
——-
Well, something’s brewing. Maybe a giant reset…And (please) wake me when it’s over. Will it all be recognizable?
Lbendet posted: “the guest of honor is United States President Barack Obama, who imperially presides over the other 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies”
===========
Obama is president of the world. I remember during the campaign he traveled around the world and great record-setting crowds received him with warmth.
Obama is the elected president of the world, so he should “imperially preside” over the 27 NATO nations. And we should be proud of him and how he is embraced world-over.
Asoka,
That was a quote from an article by Pepe Escobar describing the new role for NATO down the road..
Thank you Bustin,
An old retired rocket engineer bows to your obviously greater knowledge of evolution and adroitness of explanation.
SNAFU
“I almost wish that I did’nt know what I know so that I can have a day without thinking of the coming world problem of Peak Cheap Oil.”
Yes. That.
To all those commenter’s – offended by references to which soldiers blood will be spilled for your happy motoring – GET A CLUE
go visit any VA hospital and try convincing the legless and eyeless that no other western power should put its young men in harms way – – except the US – so that you can continue driving cheaply
signed by a Persian Gulf Vet who knows that back home it’s all just a videogame for bored suburbanites
“I for one can’t wait for $10/gal gas to arrive. The crowds and the traffic here in the Bay Area are driving me nuts (even on my 4 mile, 8.5-minute daily commute). Weeding out a few of my financial inferiors from the driving public would be a blessing on those of us who can continue motoring ad infinitum even if it costs $100/gal.
The lines at Tahoe were very long this weekend (a huge snow dump and cold weather made for one of the best ski days all year on Saturday!). I’d bet half those people standing in line wouldn’t have driven up in the Suburban if the round-trip cost was something like $300 in gas alone.
BRING ON $10/GAL gas! It can’t come soon enough.”
Wow.
So you don’t care if people suffer and starve, so that you can drive 4 1/2 miles to work without disturbance from fellow commuters?
People like you *are* the problem.
Certainly you’re not stupid enough to think you’ll have a job to drive to or that your wads of cash will have any value?
true confession: i read the comments before i read jhk’s piece. for weeks now i slap my head and say, christ, it’s his best yet. this time i say so doubly and doubly again. ow! ow!
beautiful imagery… as for the screenplay, i’ll pay $12 when it’s on a screen near me.
James, The Bay Aryan;
In one of JHK’s books he states “everybody drives or nobody drives”.
What he meant I think is that if fuel becomes to expensive for ordinary folk to use their cars they might not be too happy about paying taxes to maintain roads so rich people like you can zip around in your shiny Beamer.
Meanwhile their own wrecks sit parked in the driveway, out of gas.
Some of the more unstable amongst us might resent it to the extent that they drop a molotov cocktail on your shiny Beamer from a highway overpass, or greet you with a few loads of buckshot as you pass by on the street, ruining your shiny German paint job and making you late for your important business meeting.
I have nice vehicles, too, but I keep a low profile and keep my mouth shut.
Just sayin’, that’s all.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Pretty cool, SNAFU-
I remembered you were an engineer, and I was pretty sure that it was in an aeronautical field – then you come up with this:
“An old retired rocket engineer bows to your obviously greater knowledge of evolution and adroitness of explanation.”
-snafu-
That gave me a good chuckle. I always thought you were probably smart enough to be – in the common vernacular – a rocket scientist. (Especially after you busted me on the flying fire truck story months ago on CFN – chuckle, chuckle)
And I concur 100% with you about Bustin’s post. That’s what I was asking somebody to do last week. BeanTownBill did the same sort of thing concerning quantum mechanics and the Big Bang theory two or three weeks ago, now.
The only thing I’d take issue with on Bustin’s post is the following single line:
“I am a %100 Athiest. It is no religion at all.”
-bustinj-
I suggest that Atheism (a la Richard Dawkins) does have at least one characteristic that is associated with the other Great Religions in their heyday – that being Freedom from Doubt.
============
Here is the important thing – and why this belongs on CFN so early in what looks like another good week. Militant (religious) Atheism has chosen to make atheistic Naturalist Evolution the battleground for a final battle with Religion in the US. And atheism can win all the important battles. They have a body of case law on their side that goes back to Scopes vs Tennessee.
But this forces a false dichotomy on the American public. What should be science and religion becomes science verses religion. And an unfortunate Whole Bunch of American voters will pick their religion – hands down – over logic OR science. This leads to such things as Pres. George W. BushII.
Bottom line – in the push for 100% faith in atheistic evolution – the Atheists become as divisively doctrinaire – as the Catholics were in the days of Galileo.
Always leave a little room for doubt.
OR
Never trap a rat.
– one of these sayings applies, here – we won’t know which one for another 50 years or longer.
America has PLENTY of oil and gas. the problem is that the Al Gore greenie types dont want Americans to have it. they tie our oil firms down so they cant produce oil and so we have to go to the middles east. Rush spoke about this last week. Rush said if we just cut regulation and red tape we would be swimming in gasoline. this has been scientifically proven we have reserves to last CENTURIES! gas would be about 50 cents/gallon in the USA. but the Al Gore and Soros liberals dont want this cuz their agenda is to destroy this country with their greenie socialist policies. they dont like cars and freedom, they like government-run transportation. just like Stalin!
so the problem we have with wars in middle east then THAT is because of liberal people. as Americans pay thru the nose for gas it will become clear to them who is to blame and then it wont be pretty. Americans have had enough of this crap and need real leadership.
hard times coming. and someone is going to pay!
#157
Right at this point in the thread I’d have say, “never trap a rat,” is the more appropriate saying.
ProgressorConserve: “And atheism can win all the important battles.”
======
I agree with you, Procon. And coincidentally, I am now reading a book called: THE GOOD ATHEIST: LIVING A PURPOSE-FILLED LIFE WITHOUT GOD by Dan Barker and seems to be a response to Rick Warren. (ISBN 978-1-56975-846-5, Ulysses Press, 2011)
You had mentioned Paul Newman, I think last week, and the book has a quote about Newman that seems to make Newman out to be an atheist:
“Although Paul Newman had no religion as an adult, his father was a non-practising Jew and his mother was a tolerant Christian Scientist who didn’t mind that her sons were not following her faith.” (page 46)
Patrizia from Europe does make a good point,- who needs the wars? But even more to the point, who needs the oil? Big mistake for America to go down the path of sucking up all the middle east oil over the years. It ruined our economy is what it did. Like a heroin addict needing more and more till it kills em. Had we gone with nuclear energy we would be so much better off today.
The energy density of oil allowed this great nation to blow bubble after bubble. Wouldn’t it have been so much nicer to have lived through a slower growth economy without the booms and busts.
San Jose mom, the Nephilim are named in the Old Testament books of Genesis and Numbers. They are the offspring of angels and human women, and are the beings described as “There were giants in the earth in those days.”
James, get over yourself. If you drive with attitude you’re going to pay dearly somewhere down the road. Your car doesn’t make you a better person — it’s an attitude like this that leads right to driving while talking, while texting, while drinking, eating breakfast, putting on makeup, heaven knows what else. It’s not attractive and it’s neither cute nor funny. I know, I shouldn’t take the bait, but I also drive a fine German automobile. It’s a 2003 VW Jetta Turbo DI. It’s got 109,000 miles on the odometer and has never given me a lick of trouble. And it gets 50+ miles to the gallon of diesel fuel and it’s zippy and quick. It’s got cloth seats and the body is dinged all to hell from my tour of duty in Brooklyn, but it has never failed to start. Even all this long, dire winter, after a night of sub-zero, it turns right over and says thank-you-ma’am, where to?
What I’d like to know is, if Gadhafi is so powerful, how come he only got to be a colonel?
After you finish here, might I suggest that you
Goggle
“Grow your own food”…
The reason Gahafi “only was a colonel” was that he identified with another Colonel, Nasser and he wanted to be as much like him as possible.
Earth to JIL! I think you stumbled onto the wrong site. People here like to engage their brain. We mostly don’t listen to the rants of RW radio or Faux News. If people want to believe Limblow as the gospel, I feel for our nation’s future.
Hey James, you should comment on JIL’s post. He sounds about as delusional as you. Your brain is probably a little soft because I smoked you in my M Coupe the last time I saw your M3 on 280 in Cupertino.
“But at least people are finally grasping the fact that the government is engaging in actions that severely harm 99% of the population and are fighting back.”
Wrong. The gov WAS involved in actions that severely harm 100% of the people and that is/was bankruptcy. And those that wish to prance around with their widdle fists in the air and bitch about “the man” and their little, pathetic, non-rights (joining or not joining a union is not a “right”) are the very fucktards that have helped bring us to the brink. FUCK the very idea of unionized government employees. It doesn’t work. Strike that, it can’t work.
Tootsie said: “FUCK the very idea of unionized government employees. It doesn’t work. Strike that, it can’t work.”
==========
So, let’s imagine a state with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force, say Texas.
Let’s imagine a state which has engaged in low spending, say Texas.
Let’s imagine a state with low taxes, say Texas.
George Bush’s state, Texas.
The high school graduation rate is 61.3 percent.
Texas is 43rd out of 50 in state rankings.
Texas ranks fifth in child poverty in the USA.
Texas leads in the percentage of children without health insurance.
Only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
How is Texas going to prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education?
But things are about to get much worse.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus. But the truth is Texas has a huge budget gap.
Seems like low taxes, low spending, non-union is not a recipe for success.
I say FUCK the very idea of non-unionized government employees. It doesn’t work. Strike that, it can’t work.
Obama told the governors that he does understand that different states may have better options specific for their states and as long as these states come up with a healthcare plan that provides at least the coverage of the Federal Law without raising the deficit, states will be able to opt out of the healthcare reform bill in prior to 2017 where this option was codified in the law.
Obamacare ties healthcare reform to the budget and gives the states options. The Tea Party wants fiscal responsibility and states’ rights: so does Obama. And now it is the law of the land.
Obama is the only President to be successful in laying a national framework for healthcare. Previous efforts by both Democratic and Republican presidents failed.
Texas under Bush and Perry failed big time and now has a $23 Billion deficit. So much for cutting spending, lowering taxes, and a non- unionized workforce … that strategy is a recipe for failure. Texas is the proof.
80 percent of the Libyan oilfields is under the control of the protest movement in Libya and oil export shipments have resumed out of Tobruk.
The Gadhafi regime obviously has lost control and once again the lesson should be learned that violence cannot stop the human spirit.
Ideas cannot be killed with bullets and power does NOT come out of the barrel of a gun … not even when jets are used in the strafing of civilians.
Violence fails (see ten years of USA violence in Afghanistan: FAIL).
Nonviolence is the only way to peace.
The same douche, cracks me up. That’s what I was thinking, it’s that guy again.
here’s a car story :
I am in a Ford Fiesta, yep I had one of those way back, going up hiway 17, it’s 2 lanes. No one around so I was in the fast lane. Then a guy in a Mazda Rx7 comes up FAST zoom zoom behind me, really fast, and so I pull over to the right lane, AT THE SAME F****** TIME HE DOES. You know the morons that come up right behind you THEN change lanes FAST.
So we basically both pull into right lane at same time, really pissed him off, so he pulls around to the fast lane again and pulls in front of me AND SLAMS ON HIS BRAKES. I was fast and stopped in time.
HE FLIES AWAY. I WAS PISSED OFF ! Adrenaline pumping and all that.
What could I do, having a Ford Fiesta probably saved my life. I wanted to kill him. I was younger and I might have tried. Thank God I wasn’t in a faster car, he’d have been dead or more likely me. Jail or dead, both would suck.
Excuse the language. Or enjoy it.
I mean what a Dick, a guy in a Mazda RX 7 vs. young girl in Ford Fiesta. Can you say BULLY ?
Bullies suck.
I called the CHP.
This Asshole says ‘did you have your blinker on?’
cuz if you didn’t AND if there were witnesses, even tho the guy was flying it would have been BOTH your faults. In this case.
Ya can’t win I tell ya. Do the right thing and you still take the fall or part of it.
Driving and cars are over rated. We are completely brainwashed into loving cars.
The older I get the less I like them.
That poster got to me a little, but I didn’t think about him all day, and I won’t lose sleep over it. He obviously gets off on being a jerkoff.
🙂
I had a boyfriend with a Beamer, oh AND a Porsha
that’s PorSHA. not Porsh.
And yes he was a prick.
Well you do have great taste in cars, too bad you don’t know how to drive like a decent human being.
Cupertino ? beamer ? Porsche ? omg you ARE my ex.
shit !
Hey jonathanss, run the guy down, he’s my ex maybe.
Thanks !
Hey jonathanss, run the guy down, he’s my ex maybe.
Thanks !
“thirty million young people wonder how long they will allow bearded ignoramuses to tell them how to pull their pants on in the morning.”
Thankfully our ignoramuses are clean-shaven. How belittling would it be to have bearded ignoramuses tell us how to live. Although it is somewhat embarrassing to have their minions fondle our genitals at the airports.
“It hardly made an impression on a US public preoccupied with comings and goings of Charlie Sheen.”
Whose comings and goings should they be preoccupied with? The First Lady’s trips to Vail? The sing-a-longs at the white house?
“and upcoming elections in Ireland”
Done. Bankster party voted out. New party installed. Probably same as the old. When’s the last time an election anywhere changed anything?
“Something that smells an awful lot like World War Three is shaping up”
Be patient. The guns of August will come. Perhaps by July or next December–who knows? Now with gays in the military maybe the next great battle will be fought over uniform fashion.
not sure how that happened. meant for Jonathanss, and it went thru for both of you.
🙂
Smuggle in your own pop corn and soda.
That’s what I do.
# 176 ! I think.
$10 diesel/$8 gas: Yikes that means the buses in Miami will be ever more packed. I guess it will mean that the neocons/vocal teabaggers will reverse themselves and clamor for more buses and more transit subsidies. Watch how fast they relax the laws on taxicabs; all those one-passenger SUVs on our roads will suddenly become efficient taxis, carrying the 8 people they were designed to carry.
$10 diesel/$8 gas: Yikes that means the buses in Miami will be ever more packed. I guess it will mean that the neocons/vocal teabaggers will reverse themselves and clamor for more buses and more transit subsidies. Watch how fast they relax the laws on taxicabs; all those one-passenger SUVs on our roads will suddenly become efficient taxis, carrying the 8 people they were designed to carry.
James, old bean … really liked your digs
at the Eurobums. Really. Do these folks
think that retirement at 55 with an opulent
pension and cradle-to-grave protections are
possibly in their postmodern economies. I
mean, only GERMANY has remained something
of a manufacturing powerhouse but most of
these countries have also outsourced their
labor to Eastern Europe and Asia.
Also, whatever the Arabs may think of us,
Europe is a lot closer so they blow up Orly
Airport or a subway in Spain or a tram in
Britain. Whatever is ready-to-hand. We’re
certainly in mega-deep doo-doo here in 15-
miles-per-gallon-ville but we’re damned lucky
to have a country (Canada) that we can plunder
(no, I don’t support that but anyone who thinks
we won’t do it has no realpolitik) which is as
harmless as a kitten.
Europe has North Africa on its southeast flank.
The Middle East off of its southern and southwest
flanks, nutty countries right next door (Turkey?),
and a Russian Federation whose depletion problem
for oil is severe enough that nationalization of
that resource isn’t far away. Western Europe
depends on just about everyone else for metals,
oil, and natgas.
This should not be cause for a rousing “huzzah”
that we’re isolated over here. I suspect the
only difference between Europe and the US is
that one collapses in H2 2011 and the other in
H1 2012. It’s like saying that a 1.5 grade on
a one-to-ten-scale is better than a 1.0. True.
But they’re both miserable failures.
The big surprise in store for H2 2011 is that
about twenty states are going to beg Bernanke
for QE3 money and the worst part of the
foreclosure crisis that the banks are stringing
out like the scum they are, lies just ahead.
E.
I’ve been reading here and there that the less one has the shorter the fall. Just today I was talking to a woman who works part-time making nine grand a year. She told me that she and her daughter are able to live on that, but that if she ever lost her job due to municipal cutbacks she would be in a world of hurt.
I’m thinking that it might not be how far one falls, but the fragility of the one taking the fall. And nine-thousand a year for a single mom and daughter is about as fragile as it gets. Sad to think about.
E. said:
The operative word being suspect … but nonetheless I like how CFNers are becoming so emboldened that they are making concrete near-term predictions that can easily be proven false.
Of course, E. is playing it a bit safer, falling back on the familiar Friedman units. In six months or a year, it is pretty safe that no one will be calling E. on his prediction.
But JHK now has made a prediction of a blow up of Saudi Arabia in 3 weeks … by the end of March. Much riskier because even on CFN memories can stretch out to March 21.
JHK said today: “I give Saudi Arabia three weeks before it starts to blow up.” Operative word for CFN apologists will be “starts” … not “blow up.”
In Germany you go into pension at 67 and they are talking of 69.
In the Netherland they were talking about 74.
In Italy is already 65 and France 60.
I guess it would be more honest to say there will be no pension for anybody, just a little to survive for the ones who need it.
Africa is very close to Europe, from South of Sicily you can clearly see Tunisia and Lybia, as from Spain.
That is why Italians tried to have a good relationship with Gheddafi.
The need is mutual.
We BUY, they SELL.
The discusiion was about the price.
The problems with the Middle East were ALWAYS caused by the Americans meddling with the most extravagant excuses.
War should always be the last resort.
I do not know what 9/11 really was, I believe more to the theory of the internal job and if I was an American I would even fear much more, because thinking that the people who are elected to protect me can arrive to that point wouldn´t let me sleep.
The best thing would be to let the Egyptians, the Tunisians, the Lybians and the Iranians to deal with their own government.
Do they come to America to tell you what is the right type of society?
And before bringing democracy to the world you should look at what kind of democracy you havee in your own country.
I forgot to tell you Mr. Kunstler that most of the ones who still cook the orecchiette (hand made) con cime di rapa, do it on a wood (local wood) stove.
The ones who use the gas live in houses similar to yours and eat a food that is much similar to yours, spaghetti and salsa di pomodoro Made in China.
Have you ever seen inanimate matter come together and become life? Has anyone? If so, why can’t they recreate the process in the laboratory? Sounds like just a bedtime story for materialists to me – not science. Life comes from Life. I’ll stick to Genesis.
I wonder if the former head of exploration of Saudi Aramco, Sadad al-Husseini, got a visit in the middle of the night from the Thought Police ? In an interview last week in the Arab News, he “confessed” he was wrong to doubt the ability of Aramco to increase production forever and a day:
http://arabnews.com/economy/article267042.ece
Rather curious that he would suddenly change his mind after so many years. My guess is the Thought Police in the Magic Kingdom reminded him of where his pension checks come from and that they might stop appearing in his mailbox if he did not cease and desist with his warnings about imminent oil decline in the Land of Sand. Any thoughts ?
re speaking spanish in brazil, the languages share a grand affinity & knowing one helps immensely in learning/understanding the other.
you’d have to slow your speech down somewhat, but it’s easily doable. by way of analogy, i’d posit it’s akin to canadian french vs. european french, or taking a southerner with a heavy drawl and pitting him up against a scotsman with his small-town english variant, they’d understand each other in the basics but there’d be difficulty involved.
Frið to you all
Some say Saudi Arabia is more Important to U.S. interests than Hawaii, Germany, and certain New Yorkers. We wait and wonder.”
my apologies for getting steamed, gotta unlearn that oh-so-american pastime, it’s so nice to hear older folks duke it out verbally, the worst you’ll hear is ‘aw your’re fulla baloney’ lol
btw it took me 3 years to fully exit the US, wasn’t so easy but hell is it ever worth it. USA is so overrated. learn spanish/portuguese and come on down
???? (those interested can look it up)
{the more unstable amongst us might resent it to the extent that they drop a molotov cocktail on your shiny Beamer}
———
have you seen the price of a molotov cocktail these days? it’s not just the nickel deposit on the bottle, it’s all the friggin excise taxes, user fees, molotov permits, etc.
Jane Russell
Duke Snider
RIP
—————————————————-
Last week somebody brought up ‘Nice Gams’, as well as a ‘fulsome rack”. I’m not sure who it was, but they might as well have been describing Jane Russell in her prime.
If you want to know what Joe Sixpack thinks of the oil situation (price, availability etc.) tune in to AM700 “Americas Trucking Network” with Bubba Bo out of Cincinnati between 1AM and 5AM. Its a 50,000 watt national talk show directed at drivers all across the US. Yes, you get your share of Meth addicts calling in … that’s to be expected. The calls are all over the place, but the consenses is that there is plenty of oil, its being found all over the place, and the current high price is a scam orchestrated by Wall Street, Big Oil, Arabs the Government, environmentalists, Hugo Chavez, trilateral commission, Israel, the Russkis and some people and org. I forgot. You get the feeling listening that these folks cannot imagine life without their 5 mpg semis plying the highways … and they’re not going to easily let go of it.
It all spells trouble.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Really? People still believe that some F*ckstick 2000 years ago is lord! I can’t stop laughing!
“She believes “we are witnessing the end of days”
ElleBeMe,
Same with my M-I-L and she’s believed that for over 30 years, at least. She’s 85 and senses that things are going from bad to worse. Not the kind of change she had hoped for.
A few days ago in a conversation, she used the word “prepared”. I couldn’t believe it. To my knowledge, she has never used that word and she’s never been prepared for anything unexpected. She was only speaking of getting her oil lamps in working order and maybe her concern is just with the upcoming spring storm season, but hey, it’s a start. Maybe she’s putting back a little extra food too.
The true Prophet!David Byrne
Life During Wartime
Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I’m getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstore, lived in the ghetto,
I’ve lived all over this town
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
this ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain’t got time for that now
Transmit the message, to the receiver,
hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,
you don’t even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,
everything’s ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nightime,
I might not ever get home
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
this ain’t no fooling around
This ain’t no mudd club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain’t got time for that now
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there
I got some groceries, some peant butter,
to last a couple of days
But I ain’t got no speakers, ain’t got no
headphones, ain’t got no records to play
Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can’t write a letter, can’t send a postcard,
I can’t write nothing at all
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
this ain’t no fooling around
I’d like to kiss you, I’d love you hold you
I ain’t got no time for that now
Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
we blended with the crowd
We got computer, we’re tapping pohne lines,
I know that ain’t allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don’t know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
we make a pretty good team
Don’t get exhausted, I’ll do some driving,
you ought to get some sleep
Get you instructions, follow directions,
then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are
notebooks? They won’t help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,
the burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
don’t want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don’t take no chances,
you better watch what you say
“Texas Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus. But the truth is Texas has a huge budget gap.”
Uh huh. And had he not been “tough” are you suggesting that Texas would be in better shape?
Texas, is a border state. Texas, has been swamped with illegals that suck services from taxpayers. If Texas were allowed to deal with their border, Texas would most likely be a paradise.
“…Let’s imagine a state with low taxes, say Texas.
George Bush’s state, Texas.
The high school graduation rate is 61.3 percent.
Texas is 43rd out of 50 in state rankings.
Texas ranks fifth in child poverty in the USA.
Texas leads in the percentage of children without health insurance.
Only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
How is Texas going to prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education?…”
Question: How does facilitating, apologizing for, defending and in general making possible the entry of Central America’s surplus population into Texas help this situation?
Or that of any other state?
With real unemployment approaching 25%, how can a multiculturalista claim that allowing millions of poor people into our country can improve the situation? Come on, I really want to know. Please, are there any spokespersonthings out there that can explain why “immigrant rights” helps the situation of the un/underemployed American? I’m all ears.
“Obama told the governors that he does understand that different states may have better options specific for their states and as long as these states come up with a healthcare plan that provides at least the coverage of the Federal Law without raising the deficit…”
No fucking shit? Well if that is truly the case and Mr.Obama believes that the states may have “better options” than he having come to this realization, should take his Obamacare, set a match to it, and he and his lovely wife can grill some kale from the WH garden over the flames.
But that is not what Mr. Obama believes. Mr Obama believes in a single payer system. He is on record saying so. He merely wants to set the states up. So, one of the more liberal states will move towards a single payer plan. Then he’ll throw it to the courts. “Well”, the argument will begin, “We can’t have citizens in state “A” receiving benefits in such and thus a fashion while the citizens in state “B” don’t. I mean that isn’t fair.” So the courts will end up intervening. Obama will subvert the legislative process and do an end run through the courts. Why? Because he is a devious idealogue that cares not one whit bout the democratic process. He wants what he wants. And he’ll obstruct any one and any thing that gets in his way. Period.
“So, let’s imagine a state with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force, say Texas.”
Tell you what fucktard, lets imagine a state the subscribes to your prescription for success, an overwhelmingly UNION workforce. Michigan. End of story. Now shut your fucking yapper.
Bustin J,
Thanks for the reply. What I would say about processes that occurred 3 to 4 billion years ago is this (and this is coming from a garden variety accountant who reads things like Scientific American so my scientific knowledge is deficient): science is all about evidence. What happened 3 or 4 billion years ago is a matter of hard evidence. After all these eons anything that you can come up with is of necessity fragmentary and sparse. Without evidence you are in the realm of speculation. There’s nothing wrong with that but without hard evidence it remains speculation and not fact. If there is a theory about what happened there are two routes, either replicate the process in the lab or dig the evidence out of the ground.
I would also say this. To my knowledge scientists started unravelling life’s blueprints in the 1990s. I keep reading that to this date nobody even knows for sure how many genes humans have. I would suggest that nobody has any deep knowledge about how DNA works. I would say that the surface has only been scratched. I don’t need to tell you that the DNA molecule is exceedingly complex with billions of little bits to it. Yes, a lot of work has gone into it and I would suggest that nobody is remotely close to a full understanding of it. How do I get this idea? I constantly see articles about new and wondrous discoveries about the functioning of DNA. That is why I say that there is only a highly fragmentary understanding of the evolutionary process without an understanding of its biochemical underpinnings.
Also this: science and religion are about two different subjects. Religion is about how you live your life, science is about how the universe works. There is no conflict between the two. The writers of religious texts were not scientists, they were not concerned with historical accuracy, they were either writing a tribal saga about the ancestors to today’s Jews or writing stories to convey ideas about human nature or moral issues.
MessianicDruid, if you’re out there, you want to put in your .02?
Scientists get embroiled in these ludicrous debates about Adam and Eve with religious believers. If you are a scientist then you should realize something. What a lot of people cannot accept is not that humans are descended from apes. What they cannot swallow is what scientists constantly imply explicitly or implicitly: that existence has no purpose, that human existence is meaningless, that there is no “why”, that there is no creator or ultimate cause.
Scientists have to remove themselves from these rancourous arguments. You have nothing to say about the “why” of existence and you should make it explicit. You have no argument with a Biblical narrative written by people with no interest in scientific matters. You can legitimately say yes the Biblical narrative is correct in its broad strokes, time had a beginning, the universe had a beginning, humanity had a beginning, science can say with some proof that humanity is all related, that we all have an ancestor in common, but as a scientist my interest is in the mechanical details of creation and the universe. The interest of the scientist is not in God or in how people should behave or worship, it is in how the universe works and in these matters objective evidence is the be all and end all. And then walk away from the discussion.
“But this forces a false dichotomy on the American public. What should be science and religion becomes science verses religion.”
Our culture’s addiction to either/or thinking is very problematic. It creates unnecessary conflicts. Replacing this pattern of thinking with “and/both” fosters real freedom and choices. It will also require one to be an outcast and to be misunderstood by those who remain caught up in the dichotomies and conflicts. It ain’t gonna be easy, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I think the following holds true for those who identify with their beliefs and opinions, be they atheist or fundamentalist religion-based:
“People’s ideas about God and spirituality are so far-fetched, fantastic, and funny.” -Meher Baba
Johnnie-boy, my man. I have bad news for you. Your little M Coupe is barely a 5-second car… while my 4-door M3 clocks in at just over 4.3 seconds, 0-60. I could blow the doors off your POS with 4 people seated and the A/C on.
Whoa…. what do you mean, “we” kemo sabe?
You are speaking for yourself.
I, just as American as you, do NOT think that the US military is in Europe to “protect” them.
Shouldn’t that excuse have gone done with the Berlin Wall? Really?
Cause that was the excuse for 40 years! Now what is the reason? Does it even matter to the brainwashed that the original reason is gone now? For 20 frigging YEARS!!!
Read some Chalmers Johnson, dude.
The US military-industrial complex is very profitable. The war profiteers are very powerful. They control Congress.
That is why the US has bases in 60 countries, at least, and personnel in 156 countries.
Americans are just as productive as Europeans, but our productivity goes to further enrich the 1%, instead of decreasing our hours or increasing our vacation time.
The 1% gambles the excess profits, leading to speculative bubbles and bailouts. We now are watching the first IMF riots in the US. To be continued.
And then you sit around and complain about workers having it so good in other countries?
Jeez.
James, Bay Aryan boy, my man;
Can your M3 outrun Buckshot? Buckshot clocks in at about 1300fps.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
JHK, my, you are cheerful this morning. Glad to read a more upbeat post.
Understood. Sometimes I get worked up on CFN too.
Dream on Marlin-man. You couldn’t even afford the gas and bridge tolls to get to where I’m at.
jerry – you need to close that sh&tty site today. …….dont wait…!
you have no content…just blah blah blah…..
if you are closing the site down …why try and drive everyone to it….not only are you a troll but you are a troll with a bad site.
you have a kit shown and you have toothpaste, a toothbrush and ear plugs..? i could think of a dozens items i would rather have with me in an emergency.
It was some of the Boomers, kitaj.
There were also the George Bush and Dick Cheney boomers, groomed to secede the worst of the previous generations.
Who, most certainly, did not all fight the hippies. There were some who were the gurus, the leaders, the ahead of the crowd thinkers.
Jerry;
Just joking with you. Actually my Son-in-law has a BMW Alpina. Nice car but not good in this snow.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
It was called the Department of War until after WW11, when the US turned to a war economy.
Then, in a beautiful Orwellian move, they changed the name to Department of Defense, as they started invading multiple countries.
They also changed the name of Armistice Day, the day that celebrated the “end of war”, to Veteran’s Day, a day to genuflect to those clueless enough to participate in US imperialistic wars.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
“Obama will subvert the legislative process and do an end run through the courts. Why? Because he is a devious idealogue that cares not one whit bout the democratic process. He wants what he wants. And he’ll obstruct any one and any thing that gets in his way. Period.”
And his predecessor wasn’t?
At least a single-payer system is something for the masses, rather than solely for the benefit of the elites, which is what his predecessor’s agenda was.
I fully agree.
Oil was what blocked progress.
If we hadn´t had so much oil at such a cheap price we would be much more ahead with alternative energy.
I even think that many inventions were blocked and paid, just to shut them down, because oil is such a good business.
Oil also was a disgrace for the country which had it.
It made rich just a few, while the mass had to suffer wars and whatever else.
Employment is driven by private sector hiring, and with Obama the private sector is doing better than it did under Bush.
New orders and production rose at manufacturing companies in February, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s monthly Report on Business, released Tuesday. As demand for certain goods appeared to be strengthening, 61.4 percent of manufacturers reported that business in February was better than in the previous month. That figure, which handily beat economists’ expectations, is a high unseen since the heady days of May 2004.
“Manufacturing appears to be red hot,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. He added that growth in the sector is “supported by improvement in consumer spending in the U.S., but also by an improvement in global demand.”
Indeed, economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded for the 19th consecutive month, according to the ISM.
Gee, from reading CFN comments you would think manufacturing in the USA is dead. You would be wrong.
Obama’s policies seem to be good for the USA economy.
Religion isn’t just about morality. It also deals with ultimate issues. And surely the origin of life is one of these. Now if life began by chemicals getting friendly with each other and maybe getting zapped by lightening – shouldn’t it still be happening? And shouldn’t it be repeateable in the laboratory? Such replication is one of the criterion of science. To my knowledge, none of this has happened.
Now I don’t insist that chemical proceses played no role in early life. I merely insist that they were not the origin. The lesser cannot give birth to the greater. But the Supernatural makes use of the Natural. For example, maybe after the original creation of life, God allowed for evolution – both natural and guided. Once primates were highly evolved, perhaps then they were “ensouled”. Or perhaps it was guided evolution alone that brought us to where we could ask “Why” and “Who am I”. In any case, we are certainly not like other animals even though we share a genetic lineage with them.
On your debate with Wage a la Serbia, check this out: a distinguished Serbian intellectual who spoke out against Muslim propaganda has been denied entry into Canada. The Muslims don’t like him!
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/02/25/banned-from-canadistan/
Asoka — god love him — Asoka’s recipe for economic success appears to be:
* Higher spending
* Higher taxes
* Union workforce
(Asoka correct me if I’m wrongon this, I gleaned it from your post)
I’d wager a company looking at high taxes, unionized workforce with its threats and demands, will just say effit & move to where it has much less/none of the above hurdles to clear to be able to function.
Above is said in an objective manner only.
Reality of today is that tons of economic activity can be farmed out to extreme low-wage areas of the world and americans HAVE NO CHANCE OF COMPETING.
Point in case: I needed a very small programming fix for a website. I advertised online. American quotes came in at $200-600, Indian programmer solved it for me for $25, or EIGHT TIMES LOWER THAN THE BEST U.S. BID, and 24 TIMES LOWER THAN THE HIGHEST U.S. BID.
That said, it would benefit the US economy greatly if US companies would hire US workers who’d spend their money on US-made products, benefiting folks at home. Cannot happen though, for obvious reasons. THus the call by some for trade barriers.
So given this, everyone’s gotta get flexible and learn a skill that’s not outsourceable, e.g. massage, fixing shyte, tutoring, use your imagination. Me, among other things I started selling plants online, something I never thought I’d do, and made a few grand.
It’s hard work online selling is, and no guarantee of recompense. But working in US industry is a dead issue, as is the ‘public sector’ job, which is dying before our eyes as tax revenues have dried up massively and pensions are unsustainable w/o drastic cuts. Everyone needs to give back 20-30% (yes I know the bankers should give back 100% and not even have a job).
Asoka’s contention that manufacturing is red hot is laughable though, unless you’re blind everything you see tells you there is no “recovery” as 40 MILLION families are on foodstamps & employment has been DECIMATED.
Who believes gov’t statistics anyway Asoka? They exclude energy and food from inflation, two gigantic costs for every household, who’s moronic enough to swallow that nonsense?
peace anyways
He wouldn’t need to: just wait for you on the ridge alongside the road. Maybe you’re not so rich after all. The really wealthy are frightened of what is coming and are digging in or leaving. Read Barton Biggs.
Wage said: “That is why the US has bases in 60 countries, at least, and personnel in 156 countries.”
===========
And, where there are USA bases, there are rape-crisis centers.
The USA military is not honorable.
The USA military is despicable and corrupt.
Blowback from USA military actions will lead to the downfall of the USA.
Meanwhile, the trillions spent on the USA military empire (the most wasteful user of petroleum on the planet) has already bankrupted the USA.
Welles said: “Who believes gov’t statistics anyway Asoka?”
==========
I am not citing government statistics. I am citing the private sector Institute for Supply Management, you know the people who supply business. They know. You can believe them.
Welles, I am intrigued by your reports from Brazil, but as I already know Spanish I would prefer a neighbor country. Would Colombia be a good choice?
peace, Welles.
Have you traveled all through South America? Is there much coming and going between Brazil and the other Countries or are they worlds unto themselves? I’ve heard that the Portuguese character is less emotional than the Latin but that might not apply to all the groups that comprise Brazil.
Many White Men have tired of the rigors (often self imposed) of Western Culture and have “opted out”. One thinks of Gauguin in Tahiti. Prometheanism takes its toll and can easily become Epimetheanism – as in fact it has all over the Western World. You are in a great Tradion of “slack” – which is the White Man’s tao. Funk is the Black Man’s. Mucho thanks.
I don’t remember talking to Wage about Serbia but that blurb was interesting anyway. I hadn’t heard about that guy getting the boots.
Yugoslavia was one fiasco Canada should’ve stayed out of. I don’t know how you feel about it but IMO Germany, France, the UK, Italy etc had more than enough muscle to sort the place out. And if they didn’t have it in them then why on earth did Canada expend lives and money? Actually was the US on the ground in Bosnia etc? I can’t remember, it’s been too long.
I guess you’re right about ultimate issues. But to me religion is about something different than science. The way I see it our minds are built to figure out how to survive and that requires that we understand the world around us. That’s where science comes in. To make a long story short, we’re built to understand the “how” and not the “why”. So for thousands of years we flounder and flail and come no closer than when we started. I think understanding “why” is for the next level of evolution.
If you want to get “science fiction-ish” about it, maybe people like Jesus or Moses or Buddha or Mohammed made the evolutionary jump. They would be like men that could see colour in a colour blind world. So if you were them how would you convey the idea of “colour” to people that are blind to it? Similarly with “purpose”. How do they convey in ordinary language concepts that we ordinary folks just do not have the neurological means to process? Another analogy might be music. Can you create a tune Vlad? I can’t. I could sit at a piano for a thousand years and not be able to come up with one. Yet there are people that have the ability.
“But to me religion is about something different than science. The way I see it our minds are built to figure out how to survive and that requires that we understand the world around us. That’s where science comes in. To make a long story short, we’re built to understand the “how” and not the “why”.”
I like how you worded this. I have always had trouble communicating why my faith is not contradicted by scientific findings. You’ve come close to what I can’t verbalize.
Ooookay there Vlad. All dem rich folks are livin’ their lives in fear of “what’s coming.”
I’m looking into my crystal ball. I see the future…. Yes, its clear to me now … What’s coming is this: I continue to make more money, and consume more resources, than you.
Is it only me that sees a gorgeous irony lurking within male d#ck size comparison banters… here within CFN of all places, when it comes to the “my chariot is BIGGER, BETTER more uber POWERFUL than your one”…
*sniggers*
I know spring is just off the horizon, but I see the rutting season is in full-swing already… eh?
(Very impressive stuff boyz)
And what’s suddenly with this need to ‘chapterise’ your abode region stuff aka Harley Hog Gangs? All part of the strange in-bred need of hierarchal male bonding… perhaps we could all hook-up with Skype/webcam for some virtual arm-wrestling contests….??
(Meanwhile back on planet earth)…
Here in the UK the public roads are probably at there very worst tarmac condition – EVER!! There’s no money left to fix em,its vaporised, gone just like NORTH SEA OIL – discoville 1980s – quality infrastructures long gone now…
Now, yep in the bad-ole-days I too have to fess-up to having actually managed two consecutive italian 155mph+ 6speed exoticas, company sponsored, (that even way back then)… and were talking pre-reading TLE, if you hit a bad patch of road, you’d bottom out and crack a carbon spoiler…(ouch)
(They were both great wheelie male-babe magnets though, but occasionally less-brite clods at petrol stations would comment “taking the ‘hubbies’ car out are you darling!”)
But back to the relevant point – a Lambo driver now would need to jack-it-up gawd knows how high – and put the uber-knobblies-tyres on just to deal with the ruts and mega holes we now have on our UK highways… we have in fact record numbers of ordinary peeps suing councils for micro-car wheel/tyre damage as it is, doing just 30mph…
And from what I remember last year, driving through the US (personally) on cruise-control 65mph last Sept in AZ, heading up H17 to the Grand Canyon. – nope I don’t really remember the roads being pancake-flat – tip-top condition tarmac for an uber-kraut cruiser to pull testosterone stunts, so just where are you pulling these F1 style tricks James I wonder?
But for rich-boyz toyz here ‘track days’, well that I can sorta comprehend, with everyone heading in the same direction… as a mater of fact I’ve driven many Euro circuits – the Ring is the ‘ultimate’ – watch someone do it well here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDwEmwWd4M&
But back to Arizona in the summer roads at 43c+ they were so slippery only serious grip tyres would do, and watching mega-rigs char-grill there brakes to cinders heading back down to the Valley floor, smoke pluming is a sight (frightening) that I’ll never forget…
(Nihilistic driving, you bet) and the skid marks made me realise that some were not pulling it orf…
Oh…and for anybody wondering, what I’ve driven myself for the last 5 years, a Brabus Smart Car actually… (brilliant)… fits in sideways on Brit city-centre car parking spaces, drives traffic/parking/ticket offence wardens nuts!
Jackie, don’t let him get to you.
I think this is the clown that was bragging in past weeks about how much money he has. You know what, in my experience, the more people brag about it the less they have of it.
I warned him over and over that if he really is wealthy to enjoy his good fortune and to shut up, that it’s nasty to flaunt it when so many others are having a rough go, that he is tempting fate by mouthing off, that I’d seen guys like him hit a patch of rough luck and bite the dust. Everyone is one or two screw ups from the unemployment line and disaster. But nope he keeps on and on. So be it, he’s been warned.
Asoka,
Colombia has gotten scads better, Medellin even gets good reviews from expats there, they’ve significantly cleaned up their act, and are getting lots of foreign investment as a result.
I’d check out Honduras & Nicaragua though, and ESPECIALLY CHILE, which my freedom-seeking friends say is marvellous culturall, viticulturally and gastronomically. Heck I’ve thought of going there from here in Brazil.
No country is perfect, but lots are worthwhile & offer a huge payback in terms of less stress, lower prices, healthier, happier societies.
No rose colored glasses, you’ll see some shyte that’s appalling, and lots thats glorious, and have a sense of relaxation and “phuque no one bothers me here, i can do what i want”
kind of neat that no “terrorists” seem much interested in these countries btw, everyone just gets along and no one much gives a rat’s patootie about your skin color. refreshing
Vlad, Brazilians are much much less “Latin” than the other Central/South American peoples, none of that hotblooded nonsense, they’re even wary of colombians etc
Far as the Slacker tradition, I work more from here than I did back in the states, I just don’t quite get the point of remaining in a dead-beat country that’s destroyed itself (and lots of other places) in so many ways. for me, US is
epic FAIL
Bottom line welles, how can one get by down there without fluency in Portugese?
You’ve come close to what I can’t verbalize. – BICO
That’s the thing. With a lot of these questions, insight taunts us from the edge of our rational minds. But it’s like a wisp of smoke, the more we try to reach out and grasp it the more it eludes us. And when someone seemingly has a flicker of understanding, language fails them. Big thinkers spend lifetimes pondering and get nowhere. I think it was Stephen Hawking that said he has an idea of how the universe works, but what is it that breathes fire into the equations?
the White Man’s tao
==========
Vlad stepped from the shower and dried himself with a tao.
#227 or there abouts-have to disagree on one thing Jim,us truckers wont be watching the big butt girls-we will be the only ones allowed on the hiways to move what little food there is-or to move massive amounts of war materials…..
Vlad seems awfully interested in South America– is he looking for a wife?
Welles, can you fill us in on the female situation?
A few years ago I recall reading that Marianne Williamson, this new age, positive-thinking guru type, led a campaign to change “Department of Defense” to the “Department of Peace.” Apparently a tweak of words would solve a whole lot of problems.
Oh well.
Jen
I drive a 2004 Honda minivan. It’s a fabulous vehicle and it’s frumpy styling renders it invisible to cops! Vying for a coveted parking spot, or need to get into another lane on 280? This is the car for you James. Mercedes drivers wither back into submission because a minivan announces, “MAKE MY DAY BUCKAROO. It’s my van or your car!”
In a four-way stop sign situation, the driver with the car who doesn’t give a hoot, gets there first.
SJmom
Car accident free since 1997
Yes! I remember a macho man telling me he bought his Ford F250, whatever, so he’ll be the baddest on the road. That at a 4-way stop, everyone will let him go first.
Are you done laughing? And here I always thought it was the person with the POS car that went first!
From the Wall Street Journal: “Crude-oil futures shot higher Tuesday on concerns that Middle East unrest is spreading to major oil-producing states.
Light, sweet crude oil for April delivery settled $2.66, or 2.7%, higher at $99.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude oil on the ICE futures exchange settled $3.62 higher at $115.42 a barrel.
Oil markets focused on reports of increasing violence in Libya, where opposition forces and those loyal to Moammar Gadhafi continued to fight for control of the country. But its potential spread to wealthier countries that produce a larger portion of the world’s crude supplies–such as Iran and Saudi Arabia–pushed U.S. futures toward $100 a barrel.”
-fuel rationing-
For passenger cars – I do not believe that will ever happen. Rationing and price controls go back to the era of Gerald Ford and the “Whip Inflation Now” buttons – for those who have a memory left.
Those ideas were a dismal failure in the *slightly* more compliant and *much* less populous 1970’s.
No chance of their working now.
My mom told me of people who BRAGGED about how they worked around such things as mandatory fuel rationing and “silk stocking rationing” toward the end of the war – and that was during freakin’ WWII with the greatest generation, for Pete’s sake – as that generation would have employed invective in print.
and, endofworld – you are probably correct that there’s a plan on paper to triage diesel down to “essential and/or military?” services and to distribution level trucking companies.
Whether a government plan that has never been tested will work when implemented on a nationwide scale – is another question – And one unlikely to be answered in the affirmative without a lot of pain, and trials, and errors.
Poc says, “I suggest that Atheism (a la Richard Dawkins) does have at least one characteristic that is associated with the other Great Religions in their heyday – that being Freedom from Doubt.”
The “Great Religions” in their heyday and onwards, were lead by people who knew what they were preaching was bullshit. They knew there was no God. They were swindlers, grifters, and liars. There was plenty of Doubt at the top. The ruse was easy as long as you never appeared to lose that pious public persona.
Atheism “waging war”? Are you kidding?
Here is who is threatening to wage war, a disciple of the “Prince of Peace”:
jesusislord: “Rush spoke about this last week. Rush said if we just cut regulation and red tape we would be swimming in gasoline… this has been scientifically proven…. THAT is because of liberal people… as Americans pay thru the nose for gas it will become clear to them who is to blame… someone (liberal people) is going to pay!”
Backlashes against long hairs, scientists, liberals, in other words, people less likely to believe in mainstream religious propaganda has periodically spiked throughout history. The persecution of non-religious or “other”-religious people throughout history has been widely documented. These people should not be appeased.
There will be a spike in violent retaliation against people not perceived to be conservative, sooner or later, as scapegoating happens in the wake of peak oil.
Binnebrook says, “What I’d like to know is, if Gadhafi is so powerful, how come he only got to be a colonel?”
I watched the “exclusive” interview he did yesterday for CNN and all I could think while wathcing him (“De people, dey love me! There are no protesters!”) is that he, and the other powermongers of the middle eastern countries fell for an outdated model of power. They believe in the divinity of royalty.
Ghadafi is as stupid as Mubarak, they both failed to recognize that retirement from public service and a career in corporate governance would have given them all the benefits of power, none of the headaches, and none of the accountability. They are just “useful idiots” for the rear power brokers- international corporations.
Ghadafi, CEO, would have had zero repercussions. Ghadafi, Araby King, is going to get the Guillotine.
Vlad: “Have you ever seen inanimate matter come together and become life? Has anyone? If so, why can’t they recreate the process in the laboratory? Sounds like just a bedtime story for materialists to me – not science. Life comes from Life. I’ll stick to Genesis.”
Why stick to genesis: Artificial life has already been created.
You take a lipid membrane with some organic chemicals in it, the non-living, non-reproducing structures in a bacterial cell. 100% dead, not-life stuff.
Then, you assemble a piece of circular DNA from deoxynucleic acids, using chemical synthesis. 100% dead stuff.
You take a teeny-tiny turkey baster and squirt the DNA into the cell and Presto, the cell comes alive and reproduces, metabolizes, thinks bacterial thoughts and dreams bacterial dreams.
So, that takes care of your questions, does it not? Ask me some more questions, if God doesn’t answer.
and then you die !!!
just like every other lesser soul you would spit on
enjoy your empty eternity
On 2/28 at 1:45AM near the end of last week’s thread Asoka concluded a reply to me with this paragraph:
If you had been reading my posts, you would already know there is a Mrs. Asoka. I have mentioned her before. She is Black. She is divine. I’m in love.
I have read virtually every comment written at CFN since July 2009 and I don’t recall Asoka ever saying that he was/is married. Can anyone confirm what Asoka says? If yes, and if possible, can you also copy and paste an excerpt?
SJ Mom and others – I totally agree that an older model vehicle is far more intimidating in almost all vehicular situations – though extra mass can be a good thing, except at the gas pump..
I’ve decided James the Bay Aryan is just here as a wannabe rich guy – and just trying to agitate or troll the thread. Nothing he is giving us adds anything or even makes a whole lot of sense.
And Alexandra – what on Earth is wrong with the sign off chapter “call signs” – whatever the proper term should be? Whizzing contests go with a internet site dominated by big brained folk with a bias toward the XY genotype, but still: ?
Alexandra, you should try as your logoff:
Alexandra
CFN United Kingdom Chapter I
Blue Water Division
I’m going to have to start keeping a record of CFN handles that belong to females, BTW. Someone upthread said, “her car always started for her.”
(Rough, rough paraphrase) – but I located yet another CFN female – who I would never have guessed from the handle.
PoC
CFN Southeast Region US – Chapter I
Pragmatic Historical Division
Science/Religion Subchapter
(title needs some work, eh?)
And there is this;
It was announced today that Chris Dodd, former Senator D CT, 30 years in the Senate, Senate finance commitee chairman when the economy was melting down, was hired as the lobbyist for the Hollywood movie industry. Pay: $1.5 million per year.
When Dodd left the Senate in Jan. he owned 6 houses, including a mansion on he Irish Gold Coast. This on a salary of $175,000 per yet. He was cited as being a ‘friend of Angelo’ Mozillo of Countrywide fame.
Democrats, party of the people. What hypocrite scum they are.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
I have just one word to say to you: free willonium.
$ FinanceisLord says, “Bustin J,
Thanks for the reply. What I would say about processes that occurred 3 to 4 billion years ago is this (and this is coming from a garden variety accountant who reads things like Scientific American so my scientific knowledge is deficient): science is all about evidence. What happened 3 or 4 billion years ago is a matter of hard evidence. After all these eons anything that you can come up with is of necessity fragmentary and sparse. Without evidence you are in the realm of speculation. There’s nothing wrong with that but without hard evidence it remains speculation and not fact. If there is a theory about what happened there are two routes, either replicate the process in the lab or dig the evidence out of the ground.”
You seem to be unaware that the determination of DNA’s role in life is based entirely on physical evidence. There is no speculation- in Science it is called “Fraud”. Speculation is a specie you’ll find in Genesis. You simply aren’t aware of the existence of powerful chemical and atomic-based methodologies that exist to determine extant relationships between “fragmentary” evidences like those found in fossil records. You lack understanding. That is the barrier to knowledge here.
As for Evolution, it is a theory tested time and time again.
The origin of life theory is also a theory. I would argue that it is better than the Genesis theory the same way that the Sperm-egg theory is better than the Stork theory. All the concepts contained in that theory of the origin of life are compatible with known facts, compatible with observations, and so forth.
“I would also say this. To my knowledge scientists started unravelling life’s blueprints in the 1990s.”
That is completely incorrect. Scientists started unraveling life’s blueprints long before this. Some might argue Leeuwenhoek’s first microscope. anatomical dissections by DaVinci and others. Or maybe simply Watson & Crick’s determination of the molecular structure of DNA.
I keep reading that to this date nobody even knows for sure how many genes humans have. I would suggest that nobody has any deep knowledge about how DNA works. I would say that the surface has only been scratched. I don’t need to tell you that the DNA molecule is exceedingly complex with billions of little bits to it.
“Yes, a lot of work has gone into it and I would suggest that nobody is remotely close to a full understanding of it. How do I get this idea? I constantly see articles about new and wondrous discoveries about the functioning of DNA. That is why I say that there is only a highly fragmentary understanding of the evolutionary process without an understanding of its biochemical underpinnings.”
You have things exactly backward. The biochemical underpinnings of evolutionary processes were worked out first.
The functioning of DNA is a highly complex system, with lots of moving parts interacting. Incomprehensible? Perhaps, but it is incomprehension of the same type as when any layperson looks upon of art of an expert and doesn’t understand what he is looking at.
There are books on the subject, very good ones that expound some of the findings in lay terms. Genome, by Matt Ridley is a good one.
Like any complex subject, it takes a lot of learning to begin to understand it. Your assertion that it is not understandable is as false as the claim that no one understands it.
I can only guess what your particular barriers to understand are. I suspect they have something to do with the brain damage you sustained in your career in the “dismal science” of finance.
Obama ( W ) will subvert the legislative process and do an end run through the courts. Why? Because he is a devious idealogue that cares not one whit bout the democratic process. He wants what he wants. And he’ll obstruct any one and any thing that gets in his way. Period.
sounds and looks like a page from the bush (the cheerleader from andover) doctrine…
Welles,
Thanks for the info. I have been to Medellin — best weather I have ever experienced. But it has over two million people and I’m looking for something a bit smaller.
Maybe I’ll check out other smaller Colombian cities, like Popayan (250,000) or Armenia (390,000)
The tropics are calling me.
Popayan temperatures are mild, from 50 to 80 degrees — every day and every night of the year, since it’s only four degrees from the equator. Photos here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popayan
I don’t mind earthquakes at all. Besides, they had their big one in 1983.
Vlad, you’ll stick with Genesis? I admire you a lot, Vlad. People call you a racist, but what I see is a valiant man. You care where others don’t, and you notice what others pretend not to see. And you have the courage to say the unsayable. Yet you lack the courage to go it alone without the consolation of religion. Why is that? Of all the frothy confections that have ever been put to parchment, the Book of Genesis is easily the worst offender. Not a single thing in it can be taken as literally true. It’s not even a good deception. It’s so hopelessly, incompetently botched, it even contains two accounts of creation, one after the other, neither of which can be taken seriously. If you take Genesis seriously, then you can’t be. Sorry.
I have just one word to say to you: free willonium.
===========
That’s two words.
But earregardless, I don’t understand.
“Atheism “waging war”? Are you kidding?
Here is who is threatening to wage war, a disciple of the “Prince of Peace”
-bustin-
Apparently you missed the irony at the end of my post, Bustin, where I offered two reasons for atheistic science to “compromise” with religion:
1. Always leave some room for doubt
2. Never trap a rat
Then old Mr. jesusislord posted that diatribe and I followed with “never trap a rat,” as the better of the two reasons.
Most of the problems in the World have been caused by people who were Absolutely 100% Certain of Something Very Important.
I hate to see the Atheists make that mistake.
I agree with Cash about 80% as to the reasons why.
I agree 100% with Ront about T/F dichotomy-type thinking and the mess we are in because of it –
pure atheists are forcing a unnecessary dichotomy on the body politic of the US – and this is causing bad outcomes – in elections and policy.
That is all.
Obama wants what he wants. And he’ll obstruct any one and any thing that gets in his way. Period.
=============
I sure hope so.
Obama is doing the peoples’ business and what Obama wants is health care, housing, jobs, rapid rail, infrastructure, education, etc. for everyone.
The Old Testament is Jewish.
[I’m not]
Yes Tootsie, anyone who looks at the[grim] reality of the situation has to agree with:
‘Texas, is a border state. Texas, has been swamped with illegals that suck services from taxpayers. If Texas were allowed to deal with their border…’
[Well over Janet N’s dead body].
You didnt mention Mexico is imploding and maybe the US and Mexico will finally merge, as US troops go there to attempt to quell the Narco Terrorists.
Well then tell me you are a Marcionite. Are you? Really? If Christians in late antiquity had had the stomach for it, they would have disabused themselves of the Tanakh. End of.
lighten up Honey
In Texas they say “big hat, no cows.” He’s probably leveraged to the moon – mortgaged his house to buy his car. Like that Shania Twain song, he goes out every night and kisses it good night.
The high school graduation rate is 61.3 percent.
so way better than we Angelinos!
and remember ‘graduating’ AND BEING ABLE TO READ ARE 2 DIFFERENT THINGS.
buddism is from hinduism
christianity from judaism.
i did read some of ‘ myths of the bible’ book..how old jewish stroies are from other religions!
Amazon.com: Deceptions And Myths Of The Bible (9780806511245 …BUT, when it comes to doing some comparative religion, this book points out very succinctly where a lot of those Bible myths originated and it wasn’t on Mt…………..etc
That’s a shit answer, even for you. I’m guessing now, but I reckon you’re a sucker for “spiritual warfare”. It seems so real, doesn’t it? Recall that conversion experience you had? So real. And this world. It’s a battlefield. Seems so real, doesn’t it? Look, if you want to be a grown-up, and I mean IF, forget about that stuff. Consider that, if you minus your vanity, there’s not a damn thing left. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
Hey, here’s a thought: you think you have a shot at heaven? Ask yourself this: what part of you do you think deserves to survive? If you’re even half honest, you’ll realize there’s nothing. Nothing.
asoka,
i am trusting you know i was quoteing tootsie. as far what btother obama want’s is unclear. it is notable he never mentions the poor…
Maybe it’s not supposed to be taken literally. In any case, Man is more than just chemicals. Evolution may be real but I reject that it the purely mechanical thing Darwin believed.
So you admit Willonium is a word? I have defeated you. Your ignorance of this “imaginary” particle posited by Old is lamentable. Just because it wont fit into your ledgers you dismiss it! O ye of little faith!
Read Harold Covington about the dire need for religious tolerance among racially conscious Whites. Agnosticism and Free Thinking are parts of our classical Western Tradition. Hateful Atheism is not. Atheism is not proveable in any case. Agnosticism is the position of the intellectual qua intellectual. Atheism is indicative of an emotional need – and in it’s social structure and prosletizing it is much like a religion. Indeed I believe it serves as such for many of its adherents.
Vlad, you know what’s been on my mind lately? Paul taking the unknown god literally. Man, I can’t tell you how much I’m irritated by the account in Acts of Paul’s silly antics about the unknown god. It’s the classic curate’s egg: good in part. I’m thrilled when he gets to the bit about the winking god. Then he fucks it up completely with a call to repent. The whole point about an unknown god is that he makes no demands. And if he’s smart, he’ll keep it that way. No man of any pride will suffer a deity too incompetent to issue a coherent dispensation getting some loud-mouthed fool to start barking unsubtle commands.
It’s like, we lived in a golden age, a flute in the morning, and a chime in the night. We scented wisdom in the whisperings of the leaves. THEN A DONKEY CAME BRAYING AND WE GOT DOWN ON OUR KNEES.
Do you know what Aryan meant originally? Before it meant White? It meant noble. Is flaunting your wealth noble? Even the old robber barons had more decency and dignity.
Great 21 century war looming…
In lieu of JHK’s post this week Celente has a similar view.
[The Middle East protests have fueled more than just a change in Democracy; it looks like these political outbursts will affect the gas pump as well. There are reports that crude oil could rise up to 200 dollars a barrel. The role of the Federal Reserve, interest rates and the potential oil crisis out of the Middle East could be detrimental to the United States economy.]
Reset the button:
Ya think we might default when our inflation gets out of control?
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/03/gerald-celente-great-21-century-war.html
The high cost of gas may be driving customers from Wal-Mart to closer stores, but Wal-Mart is also being hammered by a drop in perceived discretionary income. Fewer of its customers are willing to go into hock for widescreen televisions and other luxuries; they’re cutting back to essentials, mostly food and toiletries. That ruins same-store sales.
I haven’t seen details for this year, but based on data I’ve seen in previous years I doubt that Wal-Mart would be in the red without sweetheart tax breaks. The chain aggressively shutters unprofitable, or even underperforming, stores and micromanages its workforce and supply chain. My understanding is that food items in particular are not loss-leaders at Wal-Mart, since the chain usually charges less competitive prices for food than for most other items. Diesel prices are the only cost that I can imagine causing Wal-Mart to run at a loss without tax breaks, but I doubt they’ve reached the point at which Wal-Mart can’t compensate by cutting other costs.
The $140 m tax break that you mentioned is a drop in the bucket for Wal-Mart, which has routinely had quarterly profits in the billions. Wal-Mart’s real socialist gravy train is the WIC and EBT programs. Wal-Mart’s staff and customers are both disproportionately reliant on food stamps and welfare. Likewise, Medicaid absorbs many of the health care costs that Wal-Mart externalizes by providing such poor insurance to its employees, and other socialized medical programs indirectly defray the costs that Wal-Mart externalizes onto hospital emergency rooms.
God points Bustin. It is fascinating how everything just starts to work when you put it together. But it still seems like the manipulation of life rather than the creation of it. Where did the DNA acids come from? And the “organic matter” with the lipids? If you guys can create everything, why do you want to take stem cells from fetuses? Are you not listening to Lucifer’s whisper, “Ye shall be as gods”? Is this what you want? To be worshiped? I will not serve.
Hola a todos,
perdonen por expresarme en Español.
Soy ciudadano de España y la situación en nuestro pais esta llegando a un punto limite:
La gasolina ya cuesta 1,30 euros el litro y hay mas del 20 % de la población sin trabajo.
Además de la posibilidad de un estallido social, no es descartable una invasión por parte de Marruecos.
Hi everyone,
excuse me for my bad English.
I am a citizen of Spain and the situation in our country is reaching a limit point:
Gasoline already costs 6.8 $/gallon : and there are more than 20% of the population without work.
Besides the possibility of social unrest, is not ruled out an invasion by Morocco.
Vlad, as you damn well know, it was Jesus of Nazareth who said, “Have ye not heard, ye shall be as gods?” Your ignorance is astounding. Lucifer doesn’t whisper. Stop suckling at the teat of Jewish paranoia. Lucifer is the morning or evening star. He has no light of his own, but ushers in the light of the rising sun, or reflects the light of the setting sun.
Your post to asia is more Christian than Pagan. They thought themselves fucking great. You, like Paul, see nothing but failure. Christianity – real Christianity – is very hard on the old self image. More so than Judaism or Islam perhaps even though they have the same concept: in ourselves we are nothing. It’s all grace, baraka, prasad (sanskrit). The Muslims say it’s too hard; that We only think of ourselves as wretched sinners and creatures and never as the beloved of God. Judaism might say the same thing but they are too narrow to really care. Only the Jews are the apple of His Eye. I sometimes agree with the Muslims that real Christianity (not the current milktoast vileness) is unbalanced and impractical; never letting a man be a man; not clearly acknowledging that He meant us to be the Lords under Him. Nor am I comfortable with the hatred Christians have for their ownn Pagan ancestors who had wonderful qualities – ones that they have lost completely. And of course even Traditional Christianity as a Universal Religion, leaves us open to conquest from other races in a way Hinduism cannot and Islam WILL not.
But it is my Tradition and I need a connection to God. A man can’t create this – he must join what has been established from above. A few men might be able to find their own connection but I am not one of them. So I am left in place that doesn’t entirely suit me and as far as the Race question, torments me.
Back to the orignal point: I left Christianity for many years. During that time I came to believe (through experience) that everyone was an asshole, myself not excluded. I had a startling realization one day: I had formulated on my own and in my own way the Doctrine of Original Sin. And I knew from study that every religion had its own version of this to a greater or lesseer degree. We are just not right as we are. As Charles Bukowski said, “Humanity, you just don’t have it”. All this paved the way for my reentry back into Christianity. In some ways I love the Eastern Traditions more – but they are not the Traditions of the West. I love Sufism for example. But you can’t separate that from Islam – and I will not support the growth of Islam in the West.
From Obama’s Inauguration Speech:
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
http://ind.pn/i2b5bc
Obama is in synch with CFN : nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect
Google the words “Bay Aryan” and read the first hit (by the illustrious wife-beater and author Jim Goad).
and now something completely different, for your reading pleasure, may I present:
THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS
by John M. Allegro (1970)
If Christianity leaves us open to conquest by other races then kick it in the head. Fuck sakes. What are you waiting for? Does the god that you are so determined is looking out for you care about the preservation of your kin? Has he made this plain to you? Or are you scrabbling in the wainscoting of British Israelism or Christian Identity or some other vainglorious make-believe? This is a very lonely battle you are fighting. You have the entire culture against you. Women flee from you, most of them anyway. Why are you still doing this, Vlad?
Americans are going psychotic. It’s scary but true. Abetted by propaganda from crafty big business PR hacks and the GOP, or from various extremists on the left, a number of us are going absolutely fucking psychotic.
People who purposely retreat into a parallel world from which they exclude distasteful facts are functionally psychotic. The radio callers you described are effectively every bit as psychotic as the fellow I chatted with at the corner of Century Blvd. and La Brea Ave. who suggested that the planes flying just overhead might not be on final approach to LAX. Just as homeboy’s hypothesis about some unidentified space warp over the 405 can be rejected after a few minutes observing planes from different vantage points, pat conspiracy theories about oil can be rejected after a cursory review of the relevant geopolitics, economics and petroleum geology.
The big difference is that homeboy admitted to “traveling between universes right now” and recognized the validity of my reality-constrained universe, in which damn straight the A340 was on final approach to one of the north runways, using ILS and the three standard dimensions. Nothing short of a miracle will get an equivalent concession from people who believe that we’d be able to endlessly tap Earth’s creamy nougat center of abiotic oil if only the environazis would let us.
It’s not a matter of correcting flawed science or reforming degraded theology, either; that rubbish is a secular article of faith. Questioning it is heresy and treason. It finds a natural home with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who presides over an ideological cult.
People who approach the world in that manner are very, very dangerous. Their worldview is far worse than run-of-the-mill superstition because it’s more delusional and more dogmatic.
It’s damning that our presumptive corporate overlords would have us skip superstition and have us descend directly from rationality into batshit insanity. Any society that does enough of that will collapse.
Keep paying attention to the world, folks. We’re screwed if someone doesn’t do it.
The bigger ticking time bomb in the Arab world is not the current turmoil, which is serious enough, but more serious is the built in future expectations of those who are overthrowing their despotic leaders. Even if everything goes relatively smoothly in the transition to some form of democratic governments (as unlikely as that is), the built in assumption of those who will have fought for their new forms of government is that things will get better for them economically. And they might, very marginally, but not near enough to satisfy their web and global media induced and lust for the material toys of the western world. The House of Saud has satiated its loyal subjects by flowering them with the glittery things the western world has created from the oil gladly purchased, but how will those who don’t have the House of Saud to play Santa respond when they discover that for all their efforts, they still have very bleak futures without the glittery baubles they’ve seen on the web and TV? When they discover that they are attempting to joining the modern consumer driven party just as that world is about the implode…it will be fertile ground for the rise of something far worse than Kadafi, if one could imagine something worse, and I can.
Vlad,
Back in the 1980’s I read Albert Schweitzer’s, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus,” which I found very enlightening. However it strips away most of Gospels as an accurate guide to what Jesus was all about. I like Schweitzer because his philosophy shows a reverence for life–which we have lost in this modern age.
For me, the bible comes down to a Jesus quote after he came down from a mountain after fasting and praying for 40days/nights,”I and the Father are One.” This gives me a sense of wonder and hope to think that we can fall into a sense of oneness with the universe.
Jen
Recovering Mormon
Ordained Deacon (Prebyterian USA)
Buddhist (non-dual philosophy)
“Maybe it’s not supposed to be taken literally. In any case, Man is more than just chemicals. Evolution may be real but I reject that it the purely mechanical thing Darwin believed.”
When one is dreaming, are there any chemicals in any of the bodies one may encounter? The physical world that is the normal conscious waking experience, according to the cosmological literature I have read, is a manifestation of an inner subtle or energy world. This energy world is accessible through subtle senses, a higher conscious experience than that of a normal person. The energy sphere is sustained and it manifests out of the mental sphere. All three sphere are independent yet integrated as well. Beyond all the spheres is what one can call Soul. Thus a human being is surely much more than a chemically driven machine. I look forward to when conventional medicine gets a firm grasp of this. Then we will really see some healing. Most ailments and symptoms, particularly chronic ones, in my opinion have a psychosomatic root. If this interests you, check out the books of John E. Sarno, MD.
You sound like a Luciferian. He temped Eve that they could be a gods if they would but eat of the Tree.
Christianity holds out the promise too – overtly expressed in Orthodoxy and called Theosis. But in contrast with Lucifer, the godhood is under God and in communion with Him. To want godhood apart from Him is to fall as Lucifer fell.
Join what is above? Alan W Watts spoke truly when he called Christianity a politically ordered cosmology. Ascent structures are for those who have internalized authority and feel lost if they don’t have someone to obey, and preferably someone to obey them. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I understand the conservative impulse, the sense of horror that one is betraying the dreams and hopes of those who have gone before, but the real horror lies in the realization that it is too late to preserve these outward forms; the life has already gone out of them. They belong to yesterday.
Why am I doing what? Being a Christian or supporting the White Race? And do woman flee from me personally or from White Nationalists or Christian Identity?
Martin asks:
“Hey, here’s a thought: you think you have a shot at heaven? Ask yourself this: what part of you do you think deserves to survive? If you’re even half honest, you’ll realize there’s nothing. Nothing.”
-martin-
Jen answers:
“For me, the bible comes down to a Jesus quote after he came down from a mountain after fasting and praying for 40days/nights,”I and the Father are One.” This gives me a sense of wonder and hope to think that we can fall into a sense of oneness with the universe.”
And along the way, Vlad comes up with a wonderfully thought provoking post on religion.
Real nice, Vlad – If you’re reading, BeanTownBill – that’s what I’m getting at when I say that Vlad is an honorable man.
=========
To answer your question for myself, though, Martin – it is the part of me that may be God (god?) that deserves to, using your words, “survive.”
And if it can not Survive – it will still forever drive me to try to live a honorable life.
Good stuff, CFN!
I know some of you won’t agree, and I’ll never understand exactly why.
ah, the seductive siren call of the speech writer. rhetoric is the pablem for the weak of mind. it’s the implementation that requires yomen effort…btw, the inagural speech was two years ago. tossing a bone even to the poor necessitates a nod sooner than every two years. also, by refering the “people of poor nations”is he including the worlds largest debtor nation as being of the tribe?
You are a secret Buddhist who goes to a faux Christian Church for the sake of the music and to give your kids a moral foundation. I get it and I salute you to a certain extent. But I’m interested in Christianity in a deeper sense – not as just an inferior version of Buddhism. And neither Buddhism nor Christianity can defend a Nation under invasion as our’s is. Buddhism is not grounded here anymore than it was in Ancient India. The monks, gays, and intellectuals were slaughtered by the invading Muslims while the real primoridal religion of India hung on and even beat back the Muslims at times. Buddhism always attracts the “airy” types. They have created a completely fake American version sans traditional morality and rules. Buddhism did take root in East and South East Asia however.
Needless to say, Christianity has been utterly subverted by Globalism. The idea that different Peoples have the right to have their own Nations has been thrown out – even though it was affirmed by Augustine, Aquinas, and the Protestant Divines. The “Churches” pay lip service to believing in borders even as they help third worlders subvert our Laws – even setting them up in previously all White areas. The Lutherans are some of the worst – they wont even publish Luther’s book “The Jews and Their Lies”. They have no interest in Lutheranism anymore and only exist to subvert the West with immigration. Completely taken over by the Dark Forces in other words.
Asoka – springboarding off Vlad’s earlier post – I would truly enjoy hearing your thoughts on how Sufi Mysticism fits into the bigger picture of World Islam.
Also – what is it about Saudi Arabia that causes a statement like this from you, who is normally so pacifist?
“It was troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia that led to 9/11 … causing Bush to withdraw said troops, to prevent more towers from coming down in the USA. If the USA sends its troops back to Saudi Arabia again, it will see what “opening the gates of hell” means.”
-asoka-
There are US troops all over the Arab world. The US Seventh Fleet is based in Bahrain. Yet, something about Saudi Arabia inspires violence from Islam, a religion of “Peace.”
I sense that you may be uniquely qualified among CFN posters – to address these questions.
Thanks!
I went out with Lara for awhile but she kicked me to the curb. Nothing do with White Nationalism or Identity. Strictly “personal”. Years later she sent a message via a mutual friend that we should hang out. I smirked as an answer. In life some things must be over and don’t deserve resurrection.
There. Are. No. Christians. Haven’t you worked it out yet? Stop parading before the void.
they are called the holy cities. mecca and medina located in saudi arabia. the residency of militeristic infidels on holy soil creats a burr under the sadle so to speak…
vlad, what’s with the reminiscing ?
are we imbibing a little too much sauce tonite ?
PS my daughter is 23
I have to wonder why James is taken so seriously by some. Personally, I think he’s joking, parodying the stereotype if you will. On that count, I find him rather funny.
Speaking of ostentatious displays of wealth, Asoka mentioned Osho last week, once known as Rajneesh of Antelope Oregon. It was a commune and all of his followers wore red. Remember Bhawgwan, he had something like 28 Rolls Royce’s . He was so far above materialism, or so he claimed, that he was flaunting the absurdity of it all. Their group was also real big on transcendence via cathartic excess: beat the snot out of each other in order to get it out of the system.
Personally, I think Rajneesh was far more effective in delivering his message via the written word–The Mustard Seed being one of his better efforts.
Vlad: So you admit Willonium is a word?
Q: I never thought about it one way or the other but since you’re making it a big issue I checked Dictionary.com and it does not appear there. I also googled “free willonium” and there are several references to it but most of them are from “I Love Philosophy” and “ClusterFuck Nation.” If all the references were traced I wouldn’t be surprised to find the source was Eight/Old 69.
Vlad: I have defeated you.
Q: I didn’t know we were in some kind of competition but if it makes your day … well, I concede defeat on the willonium thingy.
Vlad: Your ignorance of this “imaginary” particle posited by Old is lamentable.
Q: I am sorry I’m such an ignorant stupid old man.
Vlad: Just because it wont fit into your ledgers you dismiss it!
Q: It is simply beyond my mental powers. You might as well ask Leon Spinks to explain why E = MC squared.
Vlad: O ye of little faith!
Q: Faith in what?
Read with interest the latest blog and couldn’t help wondering how it must be like when things get messy.We in New Zealand have had an earthquake and getting back to normal is and has been challenging at best. The lack of food water and power and the self resourcing that you have to do is very tiring. the basic things that we all take for granted has gone. The fact that infrastructure is struggling to get back on it’s feet and that thousands still have no basic necessities echoes what awaits us if fuel is scarce. The parallels are scary, no fuel , traffic jams, no food, no sanitation, liquifaction, and raw sewerage. The end result here, in the last week has been a zombie effect and a resignation that things will never be the same.
yes rajneesh. affectionately refered to as “bags”. didn’t he also gain the company of many of the feminine flowers of the commune?
Ca$h said, “Also this: science and religion are about two different subjects. Religion is about how you live your life, science is about how the universe works. There is no conflict between the two.”
If that was the case, then Galileo wouldn’t have had a goon squad show up at his door after positing the positions of the planets. There has always been a conflict. Religion understands the threat Science poses to its claimed position as sole arbiter of wisdom. They may be two different subjects, but we have brought them together for this little conversation, haven’t we? They go together like bread ‘n’ butter. Religion’s absurdities highlight the brilliant successes of Science. The philosophy of Science developed out of the epistemology of ancients debating religion.
“The writers of religious texts were not scientists, they were not concerned with historical accuracy, they were either writing a tribal saga about the ancestors to today’s Jews or writing stories to convey ideas about human nature or moral issues.”
Because someone writes a fanciful story, that person is qualified to comment on human nature and moral issues? I think not. These texts are filled with examples of what today would be considered morally repugnant ideas. Back then, no one knew what was what, why or how- it must have been- and apparently was- incredibly profitable to scam artists and grifters.
The mass of humanity was led by the nose by people who knew exactly what they were doing- exploiting the gullibility and ignorance of people. As a master Ponerologist might put it, “Evil” people. Was the text, in hand, used to lead these sheep in and of itself, evil? Parts were. Mostly it was just bullshit.
To teach a child today that we did not evolve from lower life forms, that they were created by God- and act, as adults, as if such a thing was believed, is to practice the most wicked form of child abuse there is. The adult in this case is either ignorant, or a liar. If he is ignorant, then he passes on ignorance, and fails as a parent in the continuance of human knowledge- he is a tool of an evil agenda- the religious agenda. If he is a liar, he is a perverted sort of evil freak- an agent of the regime of ignorance. In either case, the chief motivators are typically vanity. Vanity for one’s prejudices to be exact. Sometimes it is intergenerational abuse, the abuser simply repeating the abuse he has received.
The human need to know things in an environment of ignorance was exploited. That is repugnant, then, as now.
“Scientists get embroiled in these ludicrous debates about Adam and Eve with religious believers. If you are a scientist then you should realize something. What a lot of people cannot accept is not that humans are descended from apes.”
Oh, I accept that. I don’t see that as any reason to stop. I think people are quite prejudiced when it comes to apes.
Today, the realization that we are in fact animals, I believe, is integral to fulfillment as modern human beings. Our failure to accept that we are no more divine than any of the numerous species we are destroying is the biggest part of the problem: the demise of the biosphere.
The fact that we are apparently the only creature with the ability to moralize underscores the fact that any moral or ethical failures on the planet are our own, and most importantly, we are responsible. Christianity teaches the transcendentalist idea that we don’t have to be responsible. It is an attractive idea to people who are morally deficient.
“What they cannot swallow is what scientists constantly imply explicitly or implicitly: that existence has no purpose, that human existence is meaningless, that there is no “why”, that there is no creator or ultimate cause.”
I think that there is a certain amount of existential terror that comes with the knowledge of our physical reality, but at the same time, we are well equipped to ignore it after the brief sensation passes. Those that cling, staring into the abyss of the apparent utter pointlessness of life are congenitally brain-damaged in a precise way. They are known on the playground of life as “scaredy-cats”. You will find their specie anywhere, hanging back from the precipice. They lead safe, uninteresting lives. They cling to security-blanket agnosticisms in many different guises. From an evolutionary perspective, this trait makes sense. Timidity and meekness is adaptive, a survival instinct. Just another reason the biosphere is going down and so few voices willing to utter warnings. Could it be we’ve bred out all the independent, imaginative, passionate people in the stampede toward lifestyles of safety and “abundance”? Manifestly not. It just appears that way due to the distribution.
The normal response to the horrors and dangers of existence is easily found- the stimulus, once applied so intensely, has its volume turned down. Once, we feared being flung through space. Now, people climb in their cars and think nothing of it.
The first, initial reaction to the pointlessness of existence is shocking. Then, we become inured to it. It becomes pleasant. We find meaning in our lives and in the relationships with people and with the Earth. At least, that is how it naturally goes. More often today, we simply roll along, seeking succor in baseless and insipid things.
I think children have a built-in resilience that adults forget is there. In adult haste to prevent their own disquieting feelings, which they cannot process, they lie to their children, who can in fact manage and process the truth. This is again a chilling example of the kind of perpetuation that this style of abuse engenders.
“Scientists have to remove themselves from these rancourous arguments. You have nothing to say about the “why” of existence and you should make it explicit.”
I like what Sagan said, “We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” Perhaps his words would have more resonance if he had been nailed to a cross. Then again, a review of his work is inspiring enough to develop a robust reverence for life and indignation toward those who would threaten it.
You are very doctrinaire. What makes you think I speak as a scientist? I speak as a man. You squeak as a choirboy. In their repeated pronunciations on the role of man in the world, and the meaning of life, religious people prove their vision is stale and arbitrary. It has nothing to offer the imaginative, the sensitive, the curious, the intelligent, or the moral.
“You have no argument with a Biblical narrative written by people with no interest in scientific matters. You can legitimately say yes the Biblical narrative is correct in its broad strokes, time had a beginning, the universe had a beginning, humanity had a beginning, science can say with some proof that humanity is all related, that we all have an ancestor in common, but as a scientist my interest is in the mechanical details of creation and the universe. The interest of the scientist is not in God or in how people should behave or worship, it is in how the universe works and in these matters objective evidence is the be all and end all. And then walk away from the discussion.”
I am not only a scientist. I am a philosopher and an artist. When I argue about religion or God I am nothing but a man with ideas. I have not used science to prove there is not a god, I have used it to show that life did not require a divine origin. The very fact that we are all the way back in the range of several billions of years in our characterizations of this time in history is evidence that religion and its arguments have been crushed and beaten back beyond its fall-back positions. On the origin of life, it is religion that has been kicked out of the issue because it has failed to explain itself coherently.
It lost the 6,000 year old war, the Noah’s Flood war, the 6-days creation war, the speciation war, the lineage war, the creation war, etc. and so forth. Science is in a position to decide when and how and even “WHY” life began eons ago because it knows how to explain things. Luckily, because of the form and process of Science, it has a methodology this is an explanation which provides real- as opposed to false- insight about the universe- which is a real “Value-added” service, as opposed to the “Value-addled” service of religion. Logic and reason carries value in that it is a coherent explanation.
Religion will always be with us, though- there is a market for it. There will always be people clamoring for the vain, self-flattering falsehoods and fantasies to fulfill whatever personal agendas they have. There will always be people interested in the pat, stupid, pithy answers religions provide. They stood in the way of progress for tens of thousands of years and they remain a formidable obstacle to survival in the future.
On the bright side, the fog of clusterfuck nation remorselessly works itself toward destruction of the planet- and yet, we can enjoy the fruits of millions of man-years in human investigation, to grasp secrets of the universe locked away, hidden for millenia. It may turn out yet to be too late to save it all from the slaves of dogma.
So stop talking about it? I think not. I think Science is a wonderful thing, but tend to think that scientific technologies or knowledge alone will be insufficient to save humankind from destruction. On the evidence, I believe that the only way we can save ourselves is a wholesale alteration in our basic values. In this respect, religion is an absolute failure, as it does not respect or recognize the imperatives of nature, of human survival.
If you like his writings fine.
But several books point to what he was..
The Bagawan was a scammer and his followers the scammed.
And it was 90? rolls, aiming for 365.
He [in 1985?] also had a MILLION DOLLAR WRISTWATCH.
Im so deep into Hinduism I cant go back!
So many of the religions are from it [jain,sikh,buddist].
However the style I like ‘aint the harry krishna’ variety.
nor osho.
woman is WAY more than chemicals!
anyone whos had an OBE knows that as fact.
read MEHER BABA.
Religion isn’t just about morality. It also deals with ultimate issues. And surely the origin of life is one of these. Now if life began by chemicals getting friendly with each other and maybe getting zapped by lightening – shouldn’t it still be happening? And shouldn’t it be repeateable in the laboratory? Such replication is one of the criterion of science. To my knowledge, none of this has happened.”
Expand your knowledge and you will find it had happened, and does happen. Very famous experiments showed “organic” molecules being formed from simpler common compounds in conditions replicating early Earth. Does this information fill your heart with a burning desire to know more. Do you leap for joy at the discovery that your ignorance reveals vast unexplored expanses of truth for the taking? Why or why not. Discuss.
“Now I don’t insist that chemical proceses played no role in early life. I merely insist that they were not the origin. The lesser cannot give birth to the greater. But the Supernatural makes use of the Natural.”
These “lesser” cannot give birth to the “greater” is a meaningless scale and relationship. You have just enough of an idea of thermodynamic entropy to completely misunderstand it.
As I described, the collision of two planets forming Earth was all the energy needed to create the potentials for all the “higher order” things we see all around us. That collision was the “higher power” involved. It precipitated the awesome complexity of physical chemistry playing out across this thin membrane shell on a chunk of lifeless rock.
To play this game you have to restrain yourself from reaching for the supernatural rationale until you can find the eminently reasonable explanation. If you are just filling in the unknowns with this function, you are not bridging any gaps, but only making yourself comfortable in familiar illusions.
“For example, maybe after the original creation of life, God allowed for evolution – both natural and guided. Once primates were highly evolved, perhaps then they were “ensouled”. Or perhaps it was guided evolution alone that brought us to where we could ask “Why” and “Who am I”. In any case, we are certainly not like other animals even though we share a genetic lineage with them.”
We don’t just share genetic lineage- see phylogeny– we share the same DNA. The same. We are very similar, especially in our capacity for pavlovian conditioning. Marketers take advantage of that similarity. Mice, rats, and pigs have such similar organ function and design, drug makers use them as “guinea pigs”.
The only rationale I can see in artificially separating the two is to maintain a superiority or partiality toward one or the other in one’s personal views. The way of seeing the animal as equal in and of itself, is superior to my tastes. It is a hallmark of more sustainable cultures. The maltreatment of animals (including mismanagement of resources and habitats) seems to be a hallmark of less sustainable cultures.
As the world’s fisheries are now depleted to 1/10th of their previous abundance-
As we are critically endangering and destroying species at a rate never encountered in the history of the planet-
I make the humble suggestion that the dominant culture, and its view of animals, is decadent, morally repugnant, despicable, a hallmark of false ethics, poor judgment, and most especially poor taste. The only difference between the nations and cultures of the world today, is the relative rate at which each is destroying the world.
By the way, the 5’8″, small-boobed Yacht captain last week gave a perfect explanation for something presented in simplistic moral and ethical terms in the news lately- Pirates off Somalia.
For years- decades- EU countries exploited fish stocks off the Somali coast, taking advantage of the absence of government. They were observed emptying the ocean of fish, destroying everything, including all the critical and endangered animals like turtles and whales with their high-tech boats. The main offenders were the Spanish, but lets not get technical- they are under the auspices of the EU. Anyway, their ecocide destroyed the capacity of the ocean to provide the thousands of small fishermen whose livelihoods depended on catching, eating, and selling fish. It is just another story among many of the absolute Rape of Africa that has been going on for millenia. The policy of the EU was to look the other way. That informs us as the value their culture places on animals and nature. It informs on the decadence of their culture, and, since it is a market-driven consumer culture, informs us of the basic nature of all such cultures.
For this reason I say that the EU is a rapacious. For this reason I say that Africans are in fact, “unlucky”.
Here is what I came across in the food aisle: a bag of fish fillets. The label read: “Alaskan Seafood. Wild Caught- sustainable. Product of China”. How reassuring! A douche-bag culture with no respect for animals or nature has got my best interests in mind! What flattery! Obviously I am one of God’s favorites! Otherwise why would I exist?
Flad: “In any case, Man is more than just chemicals. Evolution may be real but I reject that it the purely mechanical thing Darwin believed.”
That is a contradiction. The purely mechanical thing was in fact, an evolutionary process.
Whats the big fear of chemical processes or “mechanical” which is to say, physical, processes being the basis of life?
Can you not find enough proof of yourself as something less than divine by self-examination using a mirror?
What “We” are, the mystifying greatness of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, is a glorious illusion. An illusion made possible by our unique brains. Ego is a blessing and a curse. It does provide a convincing illusion that we are more than just chemicals. It unfortunately seems to motivate people to use that precedent to make other bullshit claims, like, we have souls that depart when we sleep and fly away to other realms where we sip flower nectar with interesting strangers from other astral planes with whom we occasionally have sex and awake to find ourselves in a wet spot.
Adrian,
It must be awful. Stay strong & take it day by day.
asia said: “If you like his writings fine.
But several books point to what he was..”
========
Which books, asia?
I have read many of Osho’s books. Did you know there are more than 650 books by Osho in 55 languages? Did you know that Osho’s entire works have been placed in the Library of India’s National Parliament in New Delhi. (Osho is one of only two people in India’s history to have that honor; the other is MKG.)
Two nice, loooong posts, to Cash and Vlad, Bustin.
I generally concur with you, probably 95%. You get the science correct. Where I think you get it wrong is by conflating Organized Religion of the dueling monotheistic varieties presently engaged with destroying the planet – with the tolerant loving vibrations that some of the world’s philosophers have expressed.
Two points of order:
1. You keep referencing, “As I described, the collision of two planets forming Earth was all the energy…,” as though it were established fact. My cosmology, like a lot of my classroom science, is a little dated – but, I don’t recall this “collision of two planets” as being part of Nebular Theory – which is current best theory of origin of the Solar System.
So called “Collision” or “Impact Theory” is one of a couple of ideas concerning Earth’s Moon – but I’ve never heard it carried further as an explanation of life on Earth.
So, if this is a new addition to scholarly type research on life on Earth – would you kindly provide a website reference.
2. Regarding –
“The mass of humanity was led by the nose by people who knew exactly what they were doing- exploiting the gullibility and ignorance of people. As a master Ponerologist might put it, “Evil” people. Was the text, in hand, used to lead these sheep in and of itself, evil? Parts were. Mostly it was just bullshit.”
I get your point, but you’re overreaching in two ways, IMO. One is that the religious leaders were likely only slightly less “gullible and ignorant” than were their flocks. Maybe the head honchos were, some of the Popes for example – but not most of the preachers, deacons, etc. They were just folks trying to do the best with the world as they understood it at the time.
Also, at least when speaking of Buddhism and Christianity – when you dig through all the “bullshit” you find at the bottom of the pile – two men who were “enlightened” to the point that their original words and thoughts would have benefited anyone as a guide for living.
That Sagan quote is a good one. I remember hearing it for the first time when Cosmos was first released. That sentiment by Sagan, “”We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” – informs part of my views on religion to this day.
Now my post is getting to be as long as one of yours, Bustin. But these concepts deserve lots of JHK’s electrons, if anything does.
And you write damn well. Do you have a blog or website?
Regards,
PoC
they are called the holy cities. mecca and medina located in saudi arabia. the residency of militeristic infidels on holy soil creats a burr under the sadle so to speak…
-jammer-
Thanks, jammer, I thought of that. Although it’s hard for the Western mind to comprehend a “holy city” that would inspire that level of desire for violence. The US was not invading mecca, anyway – they would be in Saudi Arabia by the invitation of one faction or another of the Muslim Saudi government or ruling families. Just as was the case when BushI put them in SA for Desert Storm I – if memory serves.
I’ll be interested in Asoka’s perspectives.
adrian evergreen,
Best wishes to you and your country as you recover from this earthquake. I can only imagine what it must be like…
A dress rehearsal of sorts for the low/no fuel future that awaits?
Thank you for sharing your experience and please post again and keep us apprised of how things are progressing. I think we could learn a lot from you.
Welcome, Cameta
Can you tell us more about the situation with Morocco? Why would they invade Spain?
Marlin554 –
You said something about how our dad’s generation beat the Germans so badly that they were never going to get back into the fight – or words to that effect.
True enough, Marlin – and I also think that the otherwise insane Stalin wanted the partition of Germany and of Berlin so he could keep Russia’s foot on the neck of the Germans, permanently.
But Germany may yet come back in a fearsome way, now that reunification has been completed. 80,000,000 people, in the heart of Europe, and still a cultural and racial monolith compared to the rest of the continent.
IF the US and NATO collapse – Europe may discover that US power was a check on German power for all these years.
In addition to BMW – did you know that perhaps the world’s best chainsaw, Stihl, is manufactured wholly in Germany. Can anybody name a good “US” chainsaw that is not made at least partially in China or elsewhere?
Watch the Germans.
Bustin,
Again I applaud the astuteness of your arguments and jocularly anticipate your further exploits.
As Hoffer pointed out in “The True Believer” the tendency toward “belief” predominates over rationality in most if not all humans and is most likely circumstantially initiated.
SNAFU
ProCon said: “I’ll be interested in Asoka’s perspectives.”
======
ProCon, my perspective comes from my experience.
My perspective is this: I am large, I contain multitudes.
You ask about my being a Sufi … I change my religion regularly.
I am a Sufi on some days. I am a Hindu on other days. I am a Buddhist some days. I am a Christian, I am Quaker, I am Unitarian, I am a Jew, I am agnostic, I am a Muslim, I am an atheist, I am a neo-sannyasin (Osho), I am pagan and aboriginal and animist. I am a non-dualist.
I embrace them all … and certainly do not feel any of them are worth killing for. I don’t even think their teachings justify killing.
My perspective is that Truth is nondual and in the essential, mystical central teachings of all I embrace … I find a union.
And the ethical guideline is “do unto do others as you would have them do unto you” which kind of rules out bombings, snipering, torture, assassination, immigrant bashing, joining national armies, joining violent resistance movements of any kind (patriotic militias, Al Qaeda, the Weathermen, etc.)
Osho’s philosophy: “Live! Love! Laugh!”
“It was troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia that led to 9/11 … causing Bush to withdraw said troops, to prevent more towers from coming down in the USA. If the USA sends its troops back to Saudi Arabia again, it will see what “opening the gates of hell” means.”
-asoka-
“I embrace them all … and certainly do not feel any of them are worth killing for. I don’t even think their teachings justify killing.”
-asoka-
There is a resonance in your writing when you talk about Islam that I do not sense at other times. And you keep suggesting in various threatening ways that the US government will respond to “suitcase nukes in American cities” or the “gates of hell” in a rational manner.
Obtaining rational behavior out of the US government has been a generally unrewarding exercise for well over 100 years.
That is all.
Two awful shorrrt replies, to Currency and Dalv, Justin Bay.
For the most part I vehemently disagree with them, without question 87.73%. You get the philosophy wrong. What I conjure you get right is by not mixing up dis-organized Science of the harmonious multi-theistic species long ago betrothed to creation of the solar system – dis-joining the intolerant heinous vibes that all the Milky way’s psychologists have failed to convey … etc etc etc
So spake Snowflake, the Great Facilitator of ClusterFuckin Conversation and Percentage Quantifier of Agreement and or Disagreement re same and concluded as follows:
And with any luck we can entice Asoka to grace us with his opinion in these matters as he is so demonstrably qualified. Thanks in advance to Asoka and by extension his African American spouse of whose existence we have recently been apprised, and also to any other fine writers as well, of which CFN is inordinately blessed, for chiming in with their $0.02. (I must take a dump now and catch some ZZZs but will check back tomorrow to see if I can lend further direction to this highly interesting conversation.)
ProCon said: “Obtaining rational behavior out of the US government has been a generally unrewarding exercise for well over 100 years. That is all.”
=========
Obtaining rational behavior out of radical religious fundamentalists of any stripe is equally unlikely. That is all.
Asoka
CFN Adobe Mud Hut Chapter #2
Southwest Region
Hey Jim! John Feier here, reporting live from Saudi Arabia. Remember me? I’m the guy who once asked you for some money to go to China. Well, I’m making my own money for airline tickets now. I still intend on returning to Asia. I’m seriously considering Indonesia.
It seems to me that if there are any undercurrents of pre-rebellious discontent here, people are still being careful not to show it. However, the fact so many non-anonymous Saudis are getting on Twitter and Facebook to voice their opinion, shows that the Saudi government’s ability to control such thought is gradually waning. With the rest of the Arab world blowing up, it makes it easier for any Saudis who are not happy to make a stand. Hindsight is 20/20, but we should have realized that if the Arab world was going to do this, they would have done it as a group of nations all at once simply because it’s easier to stand as many than it is to stand alone. This is especially true in places like the Arab world, where the psychosocial inclination leans towards a group-centered worldview, as opposed to an individual-centered worldview, as it is in America (eg., “get your own,” John Wayne, Bush’s ownership society, etc.). America must become more group-oriented in order to overthrow the stranglehold of the military industrial complex and the super-rich.
Signing off for now,
John
This, the (Christian) “Golden Rule”, is quite aggressive in tone – and can also be in practice. Better to observe the much less intrusive “Silver Rule”, e.g. “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” (one of a myriad variations as espoused be almost all other religions).
The latter is actually much more all-inclusive, the former implicitly imposes limits on what is doable.
John66 said:
I doubt … even with Facebook and Twitter … that JHK’s prediction of Saudi Arabia “starting to blow up” in “three weeks” will come true.
But now we have a close deadline to test JHK’s prophecy: March 21. The Saudi royalty only has a few days of peaceful reign left.
First the Saudis lost their oil, now (within 21 days) their domestic tranquility. Sucks to be Saudi royalty.
Je vais à mon café local, dans l’espoir de discuter de “La Sorcière de Hébron” Je vais quitter ma copie signée à la maison que l’auteur se sent un tel débat à une perte de temps. Apparement je suis censé être hors viols et pilliaging.
Signing off for now,
========
I am trying to understand what is gained by typing “Signing off for now,” to conclude your post. It seems that simply clicking the Submit button after the last sentence accomplishes the same thing. Or perhaps it’s an indication that you’ll be having more to say on the topic at another time?
Going to bed now,
Q
This, the (Christian) “Golden Rule”, is quite aggressive in tone
==========
I believe it was in one of Elvis’s early movies (Jail House Rock?) that he said “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you only do it first.”
I think there was also a scene where a bartender says “It’s customary to tip” and Elvis says “Yeah, well I’m startin’ a new custom.”
“The café layabouts of Italy, the flaneurs of France, and the bratwurst-devourers of Germany may now have to militarize and get into the action in places where American boys have been bleeding out in the sand for decades.”
I think you will find that European soldiers die regularly in Afghanistan:
“Troop contributors include Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and most members of the European Union and NATO also including Australia, New Zealand, Azerbaijan and Singapore. The intensity of the combat faced by contributing nations varies greatly, with the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Denmark sustaining substantial casualties in intensive combat operations.”
Being Danish and English, I certainly cannot recognize the picture being painted here, since dead soldiers arrive home regularly. That being said the economic situation in england and denmark is critical and the bill for the army is very burdensome
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/8355902/British-troops-on-front-line-in-Afghanistan-told-they-face-the-sack.html
I think you’ll find a similar situation for the Danish army
http://www.b.dk/krigen/forsvaret-skal-spare-700-mio
(I wonder how many danes follow JHK – for those who don’t read danish, it says that the military is up shit creek without a paddle, economically speaking)
AMR,
We stopped off at a WalMart on the return leg of our trip to your Town, Eureka. First time ever, a shocking cultural experience, no windows, the “Blue Light Special” is everything in the store under the hideous deliberately dim fluorescent tubes. The bathroom had a diaper vending machine and a changing table…that’s the Men’s room BTW.
Plenty of pesticides, Chinese plastic and sad looking people. Looked at the garden tools, a limited selection of Chinese junk, and this in the middle of the Sacramento Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas on earth.
Re food stamps and WIC…guess who profits off the credit cards that value is loaded onto?
J.P. Morgan:
“Speaking of reaping millions from misery, the food stamp racket pays off just as well as the war racket. The economic parasites profit off of food stamps:
Food Stamps: JPMorgan & Banking Industry Profit From Misery
“JPMorgan’s division that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010. As the head of this division, Christopher Paton, says, ‘This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.’ According to the company’s most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010.”
From the excellent and long
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-analysis-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-coming-a
Jeg vil slutte sig til militæret og gøre min del for at stjæle ressourcer Mellemøsten fra dem, der ejer dem, men jeg er for gammel, og det ville kræve mig at sætte mine bukser på.
Ups, forgot this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force
Incidentally, I had an email exchange with JHK some months back where I claimed that denmark was weathering the economic crisis well compared to other European countries. James was doubtful – I guess he was right. The deficit is now huge and the economy is beginning to shrink
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/EuroEconomicNews.aspx?Id=1563222&SM=1
But I worry that recession is gonna return to the UK and the US also
http://www.latimes.com/sns-rt-britain-growth-updlde71o1i2-20110225,0,7842461.story
I am pretty sure the US is going the same way, oil prices and the political impasse and taken into account.
Religion, to be what humanity needs it to be, has to go beyond mythological narratives to a more direct experience of what God is. Otherwise it becomes mired in stale ideology and fundamentalism. Meditation is a “science of religion”, a laboratory as it were in which one may conduct experiments to ascertain what God is. Or isn’t. Hindus don’t call their religion Hinduism in India but “Sanataan Dharma” which means ‘that which is true’. While Hinduism can be dogmatic and fundamentalist, at its best it is “Sanataan Dharma” a religion based on direct experience. I think religions of the future will have to become more like this if we are to survive, and long term I think humanity not only will survive but thrive. Long term I’m optimistic, short term…we’ll see.
Iona
Vlad,
You should take a trip out to see some of God’s Creation, or, the climax of chemicals coming together at Muir Woods in Mill Valley, home of some of the last redwoods.
It is one of the more beautiful parts of America with fine weather, clean air, good local water and thousands of hard core activists doing serious gardening and preparation for Transition. The refugees from all over trustfundlandia that arrive here are fun to watch too.
Especially amusing is the Zen Center at Green Gulch. The raise great vegetables and do good work. However, the sight of so many women who used to work in NYC delicatessens running around with shaved heads, saffron robes and titles of gender free respect is quite amusing, especially on Sunday when they have “services”. You will see the parking lot–$5 charge of course–full of luxury cars, usually BMWs and Benzs along with the beat up little junkpiles with the blankets and other clutter in them that says “living in car”.
K-dog, are you playing with google translate 🙂
I am not particularly in favor of having the military in Afghanistan, I am merely pointing out that the European countries consider themselves at war and have the dead soldiers and traumatized vets to prove it.
http://politiken.dk/indland/article1208186.ece
That being said, I have always wondered about the moral claim of owning something merely because it is beneath you. Why is it more yours because you are vertically distanced from it than horizontally distanced?
55 MPH speed limit mandated in Venezuela this week, Chavez did it to reduse fuel consumption
If the US is smart we will follow suit.
Boy there is a whole lot of Gee-bus goin on at the CFN cafe this week….
Si assume JHK è corretta. Pago il mio domani scheda caffè perché mai il proprietario mi permette di avere più di tre settimane di ritardo. Quando i reali sauditi iniziare a trattare con il tipo di problemi Gheddafi ha già e il mondo intero va in merda sarò facilmente essere in grado di pattinare lontano dal disegno di legge. Bratwurst gratuitamente.
“Why is it more yours because you are vertically distanced from it than horizontally distanced?”
Vertically distanced or horizontally distanced maters little the appropriate question is in which country does the oil lie.
Hint, it ain’t yours or mine but if one advocates anarchy I suppose that doesn’t matter either.
And horribly misquoting our former president GWB
“sovereignty means that; it’s sovereign. I mean, you’re a — you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.”
K-dog, I think you are right about Saudi, there are already rumors about protests that have sent their stocks 7% down since yesterday and oil back up.
Some shia clerc was arrested had he could be the centre of some unrest apparently and Facebook is awash with new saudi pages.
That being said, I think it is a futile exercise to send soldiers to the region. Just think of the algerian experiences the french had between 1954-62. The british and Suez. It was futile – nothing good will come of it.
But the european countries are in a bind here: who wants tonnes of battle hardened troops home just for them to become unemployed? Most likely they would join the growing ranks of overeducated, unemployed youth in radicalization.
In fact I don’t think the US is aware how easily Europe is drawn towards the extreme political right. Even a country such as the UK is a powder keg of extremism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/27/support-poll-support-far-right
http://allmediany.com/details_article.php?art_id=459
Don’t get me started on the other european countries where they have front national, geert wielders freedom party, ect.
“K-dog”, what does that stand for btw?
My English is not good, but I can hardly understand what you want to say in Italian.
Nevertheless I agree with what you say.
In principle the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are NOT European wars, I guess the European soldiers are there for two reasons:
1) this is the toll to pay for selling weapons to US and the more wars, the more weapons (war is a GREAT business)
2) The soldiers are there to earn some money to pay the mortgage home…
If they asked the European citizens (which is what they should do if we had a REAL democracy) 99% would vote no.
The 1% are the ones who have a profit out of the war.
What I fail to understand is how the American people still cannot see reality, which is that they are brainwashed in the name of the “country” and in the interest of very few psychopats.
Regarding who owns what I would just say that NOBODY owns anything.
We can use some earth and air for the time we live.
After that it goes back to where it came from.
Quite some time ago on another website far far away in another Galaxy I was anointed with the moniker by an admirer for advocating truth justice equality and brotherhood with my fellow man be he white yellow brown black or female. I still believe in the principle and frankly have a hard time with the racist bullshit JHK apparently tolerates from some on this site. Alas such is the price of tolerance.
K is the first letter of my name and I’m a dog. Mans best friend, a loyal member of the pack and all that. Dogs have many fine qualities.
I advocate that which pulls people together and promotes peace and prosperity. I shun that which drives people apart and promotes pain and suffering.
Confucius I say get out of my way, I choose Che.
You asked.
Well, I agree with you on many of you points here K-dog. That being said, JHK seems decidedly moderate in comparison with some other blogs. I followed Nature Bats Last for a while, but they turned out to be practically a death-cult. Good grief – in comparison JHK is merely sarcastic and morose. I’m gonna be disappointed if there are a lot of racist comments from the debaters.
Patrizia, you are definitely right that most europeans want the soldiers home.
There is one thing we all own and thats our immortal soul. But if nobody owns anything can I have your shit? The American in me says I can never have enough shit and that your shit is my shit.
Oops sorry – It’s time to summon my inner K-dog and remember you too are a special flower with rights to all your hard earned shit.
The ‘nobody owns anything’ statement is actually quite fascinating. That’s a blade that cuts both ways. Volumes can be written about it.
Sarcastic and morose always makes for good drama.
My Italian statement was along the lines of now being a good time to rack up lots of goodies on your credit card at your local cafe. With Saudi society about to implode in a matter of weeks who cares about paying bills that will never come due. The cafe will be out of business and closed.
Vegas baby, party on.
I agree JHK makes for hilarious reading 🙂
JHK sometimes reminds me of marvin the paranoid android.
“”What? happened?” said Ford.
“Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it,” said Marvin.
“And what happened?” pressed Ford.
“It committed suicide,” said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.”
LOL
Marvin is not really so smart. A truly intelligent soul is able to transmute boredom and depression into positive forces because that is the smart thing to do. Raise ones self up by the bootstraps as the saying goes. Be the master of ones own ship.
Marvin is intelligent by standards of western culture. By standards of the east he is an unenlightened failure.
That’s the trouble with being a bigoted, white supremacist god believing Luddite, and no doubt anti-abortion too!!
*why do you want to take stem cells from foetuses?*
That’s sooo old-hat science now, (they’ve gone way past that) and Gee Dubyah… the berk with his Christo right influencers/handlers tried to legislate to stop your US brightest moving forwards…
In fact for the clever cultured organ transplants going on now you need to harvest your ‘own’ stem cells, and that has become a done deal…
So progressing advanced bio-tech sciences is the work of the devil eh Vlad?
Yes the earth is flat, and the centre of the universe folks,, and Mr. Krandz i suggest you apply for a seat (in the no doubt to come) in some of the more backward looking places – imagine CFN’ers a post apocalyptic Inquisition…
“Heresy… heresy… heresy, tis the work of Lucifer himself I tell thee”…
And now doubt soon after, “She floats… she swims… a WITCH – just as I told you!!” With Vlad and his male pals commanding the wood pile ready and make sure she’s tied to the stake nice and tight… lol
Actually what I think he (secretly) pines for is a Lord Summerislesque role… with gal’s all blonde white-n-virginal, nymphets available to the noble master and of course 110% totally compliant…
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi838205721/
(It’s the future folks)
Be seeing you….
…S. America didn’t even “exist” for me a few years back, other than being an oddity from geography class. Never imagined I’d be living here, speaking the language, eating alligator and standing in the wonderful heavy warm rain for an hour if I want to.
Just goes to show you you don’t know what you’re missing, which in a nutshell is why folks tired of the rat race in the states should chuck it and try greener pastures.
where i live’s actually a first-world city in terms of infrastructure, education, quality of life, so folks don’t take the alligator reference to mean we’re jungle-dwellers here, it just ain’t so.
our maid takes care of the clothes, cleaning up, cooking twice-thrice a week, costs a total of $30 or so, plus she’s great fun to talk to, just another strong family link created, it’s wonderful.
y’all come on down now ya hea’?
eace-pay
“The cafe will be out of business and closed.”
There were cafe before oil and there will be cafe after oil.
In Europe if you do not have money to cover the expenses the credit card doesn´t work…no way to have anything for free, not a free lunch and not even a free coffee…
Hidey ho, fellow cluster fuckers! Maybe one of these days before long life will slow down enough for me to come back to the conversation. In the meantime you can get a taste of my particular brand of insanity at:
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/03/full-circle-systems-ponder.html
Mushrooms, perennial thinking, and a bit about nuts…you guys should like that.
Tripp out.
Watching Buffett (not Jimmy) on CNBC this morning. He’s optimistic about everything, just the opposite of us.
West Coast, typical excellent post on N. Cal., same with AMR in S. Cal. They got smart people out there on that left coast.
Welles, did you see my post last week on the ‘Confederatos, decendants of the 20,000 Confederate soldiers who emigrated to Brazil and are still there? You ought to locate those folks and look them up. Tell them Marlin says hello.
PoC, point taken on Germany. JHK says pretty much the same thing, “the Germans won’t be down forever”.
Cleitophon says “I think you will find that European Soldiers die regularly in AfGhanistan”.
In our media here losses in Afghanistan are always announced as ‘Nato troops killed’. But if you keep listening its always, always American soldiers and Marines who were the ones killed. In fact I understand that, except for the British, European troops are expressly forbidden by their Govts. to engage in actual combat with the enemy. They fill mostly support roles.
In this, what the late Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington called a war of civilizations, it us who are bearing the brunt of the fight in blood and treasure. And when it comes down to it … the United States (despite Obama) and Israel are the only 2 countries left with any balls who are willing to defend their own interests and the interests of the west. When you come to think of it, though, when you consider Western Europes’ large and restive Muslim population, it abandonment of its Christian roots and of any pride in its own past and traditions, Europes impotence is not surprising.
When I see posts on CFN from Europe criticizing us for this and that, I’d like to remind you once again of the sacrifices we’ve made on your behalf … 100,000 dead 1917-18 (including a great uncle, killed 4/20/18 Seicheprey), 250,000 dead 1942-45
and the heroic efforts during the cold war to keep the Soviets from overrunning you, possibly closing down you sidewalk cafes.
Patrizia, I’m surprised you forgot about that. I think a little appreciation is in order.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Regarding the ‘CFNation Post 1″ BS, I did it mainly just joking around in what, really, is a site dedicated to serious matters. But also to possibly hook up in real life with some of the posters who are from around here, who seem like pretty interesting people.
Also, from my college days, when we were always being admonished (from the left) to Organize, Organize, Organize!!! … if bad stuff happens like many of us think it soon will, its not a bad idea, perhaps, to have some organization … to link up with like minded people and kindred spirits, for mutual aid physic and material.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Well all I can tell you is that there are many dead Danish soldiers not only that, there have been quite a few issues with shell shocked soldiers committing murder and stuff like that, not to speak of all the men who end up in prosthetic limbs and what not – the metal cases who come home and live alone in the woods. Denmark has been hit hard on the Afghanistani front, Ill tell you that for nothing:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640680/
WestCoast – Does JP Morgan actually make $5+ BILLION in NET revenue from their administration of the food stamp program? I mean, I can certainly understand if that were GROSS revenue, but net? If your figures are correct, this is a disgusting tragedy. In any case, why is this function handled by the private sector at all? This is clearly a public responsibility, not a private, for profit, function.
Kunstler is writing on Ecstasy. James, you are violating my 12th grade English teacher’s rule of using “gobbeldygook”, a too florid hand, and violating rules of rhetorical writing by prevarication.
The “jesusislord” poster is writing on Crack. These are the people who will crackup first and obscure the love of Jesus into a Christian version of Jihad.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174407
”
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174320
We have huge excess labor capacity, millions of people of all ages are kept idle, because capitalism and all of its ideology has to keep as many people as possible outside of production. And even with so many people idle (and therefore they start breaking up countries like Libya) we still have huge excess capacity in all productive endeavors. When they do get a job and work, most of the work essentially produces nothing, but gives the illusion of actually working (it is mostly all public appearances, office politics, bitching about the bitch co worker, etc.).
Capitalism must repress the huge labor potential that is available, make a few hog up workaholics jobs, reinforce the inequality and keep millions out of work. But all of this labor potential could be used for high speed trains, skyscrapers, rockets in space colonization, you name it there is a huge amount of things that could be done for the common good.
This is the real essence of the social – political – economical system we live in: deny work (really a salary) and activity to as many people as possible, THEN TURN AROUND AND GIVE THE UNEMPLOYED SLAVES THE BLAME OF IT ALL, PUT ALL OF THE BLAME SQUARELY ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE UNEMPLOYED BY MAKING UP A NEVER ENDING LIST OF FLAWS THEY HAVE: NOT SKILLED ENOUGH, NOT EDUCATED ENOUGH, NOT FLEXIBLE ENOUGH, NOT INNOVATIVE ENOUGH, TOO EXPENSIVE, TOO LAZY (120 work weeks are the new “normal” didn’t you get it slob ?), etc. etc, you name it. the list can go on forever. And since people love, really love, to put down and find any kinds of flaws in anyone else, you have your greatest ally in the lowest instincts people have: the desire to beat up others.
And if all else fails, you can always put in “bad personality”, “not pretty or sexy enough”, “not connected enough” (since you have to be connected with IPHONES and IPADS 24 hours a day to reply to all the mega huge pile of fluffcrap corporations worldwide waste their time on). But the reason why corporations waste their time on all of this huge amount of fluffcrap is because real productive work is no longer needed in such an optimized – automatic Technological Economy, and it will increasingly be so.
But by keeping more and more people out of work because it is “always their fault” (you will always be able to find a fault no matter what), the right wing thugs let those few that work become workaholics, and even deeper right wing thugs themselves since they have to do the work of all of those lazy slobs, that, according to the capitalists, choose not to work, when in all truth are kept out of the productive process because the precise human type desired can be so specific and rare, that it is very easy to keep them all out. Just your hair color could keep you out at this point.
There are way too many people available compared to the amount of work that is needed, but this system is set up to create a war amongst the poor, everybody against everybody else.
The obvious solution is free salaries, cheap rents and the distribution of work amongst as many people as possible, and hobby factories where people go in and work for fun manufacturing all of what will be needed to colonize the solar system (with so many millions of idle and bored people worldwide having too much time on their hands, you would find more than you can use even for free, just look at the open software stuff).
And huge, ambitious public private projects like trillions of skyscrapers, high speed trains, trillions of rockets, the colonization of the galaxy, you name it, any and all things possible. Go for it, obama, change you can believe in, we need it, do it. JUST DO IT, MAN!
”
Marlin writes:
“When you come to think of it, though, when you consider Western Europes’ large and restive Muslim population, it abandonment of its Christian roots and of any pride in its own past and traditions, Europes impotence is not surprising.”
That’s a pretty rounded off/generic assertion there, Marlin. Very Vlad like. What sort of traditions would you suggest Europe resurrect? It sounds like the big, hard, Dick of militarism. Where mothers lay prostrate in their own backyard, wailing for their sons and husbands after the rape of war. Two major ones,in fact, in the previous century.
Perhaps less pounding of the war drums will slowly restore the former culture you lament. After all, who wants to build a cathedral when the bombs are dropping.
OLD,
You’re absolutely right. Now, in many instances, the unemployed face credit checks when reapplying into the work force. Is there anything, more cruel and diabolical?
I salute your intellect, your message, and your enthusistic delivery. You have the truth on your side.
Marlin,
Easy to be optimistic when you’re a gazillionaire.
Buck Stud;
There was more to European culture than militarism … you know that as well as I do. And as European Christians become co-equals with their Muslim guests, or maybe even a minority, I don’t see the possibility of any kind of cultural restoration at all.
As for the Cathedrals you mention, well … those are easily converted to Mosques … take a look at Constantinople and the little Chapels across the English countryside.
ODL6699, once again, WTF are you talking about?
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
“In any case, why is this function handled by the private sector at all? This is clearly a public responsibility, not a private, for profit, function.”
Al,
I’ve wondered this myself. Any idea how we can get an answer to this question? Would any of our congresscritters know?
lol
n/m
Cynical and Al K,
You can not be serious (John McEnroe)! You’re kidding, right? You’re pulling our leg. The Govt does virtually nothing. They hire the for-profit business world to do it for them. And thank God they do. The profit motive is the cause of expertise and efficiency.
When the Govt steps outside of the legitimate functions of Govt – military, police, the justice system, etc – they generally contract the work out to businesses with the appropriate expertise. The Govt merely manages the procurement process … and they don’t do a particularly good job of managing either.
You are talking as though if the Govt handled the food stamp program using Govt employees, Govt infrastructure, Govt written software, etc and eliminated the element of profit that is earned by a private sector business the whole thing would cost the tax payers much less.
This is beyond insanity. I interfaced with Govt for 26 years and I’m telling you you don’t want the Govt doing the actual WORK of the food stamp program.
The real question you should be asking is should there be a Govt funded food stamp program? in the first place.
If that was the case, then Galileo wouldn’t have had a goon squad show up at his door after positing the positions of the planets – Bustin
Much like what we see on campuses nowadays when people refuse to get with politically correct orthodoxy. We don’t burn people at the stake on college commons but give it time.
You keep telling me what a solid evidence based edifice evolutionary theory is and I keep asserting my doubts. You and I aren’t getting anywhere.
I’m not arguing against “science” or evolution. I am arguing that some science, like evolutionary theory (and climatology for that matter) are in their early stages, that researchers in these areas need to be a whole lot of HUMBLE about what they know and about how “good” current theories are.
Even in the hardest of the hard sciences there’s vociferous debate. Suddenly luminous matter seems to be just a very small proportion of matter in the universe. So what’s the rest? Cosmologists aren’t shy about saying they don’t really know yet. String theory? A lot of supporters and a lot of detractors. Why was the large hadron collider built at gigantic cost? Because there’s a lot that’s unsettled in physics. So why is evolutionary theory any different? Why is it immune to challenge?
Why can’t I challenge it? Because of the forces of orthodoxy exerting their will. On this issue Thou Shalt Not QUESTION. This area along with climatology has been infested with ludicrous political posturing. This is nothing more than tribal rivalry. Light vs Darkness. The hidebound traditionalist vs the hip intellectual. Left vs right, north vs south. This is laughable. And it’s not about science.
Read Meher Baba? That’s cruel, Asia.
Credit checks, background checks and drug tests. They do it because they can, they do it because nobody complains. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is an anachronism lost in a country with a forgotten past. I’ll suffer the indignity along with you but I’ll give no sympathy. Freedom is earned and withers in this corn-pone land. We have no patriots willing to shed their blood and stand up and be counted. Plenty here are willing to shed blood but not their own. So bend over and take it for it is what we deserve.
welles said: “where i live’s actually a first-world city in terms of infrastructure, education, quality of life…”
===========
I can vouch for what Welles is saying.
I have traveled all over Brazil, from Manaus to Iguazu Falls.
The city I loved the most was Curitiba (with Bahia being second).
But I could not understand the language, so I felt more comfortable in other parts of South America, where Spanish is spoken.
Listening to BBC … a few minutes ago … the one last remaining Christian Govt. official in Pakistan, Minister of some post, was gunned down this morning on the street … assassinated … also, Khaddafi’s air force strafing rebels in oil producing area, knocking out infrastructure. A whole bunch of other stuff going on, too … none of it good … like my wife said to me this morning when the newscaster announced $4 per gallon gas in some parts of the country … “We’re F—-d”!
But what I want to know … who is crazier, Khaddafi or Charlie Sheen? …
For all you CFN posters, foreign and domestic, who complain about US presence overseas … there is an alternative … Its this … we bring our people home … roll up the borders and seal them off … become Fortress America … instill some dicipline in our people … we have enough resources to last a long time … tell the rest of the world to go to hell … they don’t like us anyway … who cares …maybe that’s what it will come to in the end… that’s what JHK thinks will eventually happen anyway … let the rest of the world sink into its morass of ignorance, poverty, and violence … including Europe, without us.
How about that, BustinJ, would you like that better?
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Not cruel at all. Check it out! http://bit.ly/fXI5o1
Baba was alright.
I’ll cast my vote for Charlie Sheen for such a sense of entitlement is rarely seen.
It sounds like the big, hard, Dick of militarism. – Buck
Maybe the two wars took the vim and vigour out of it. Killed off the best of its young manhood and left the runts of the litter. Left the survivors thinking if this is what western civilization is about then screw it, who needs it. Colonalism? War? Holocaust? No more. Can’t be bothered even to do that most human of functions: procreate. Too much trouble (like I should talk).
You may not like what Europe was in the past but you might like even less what the future has in store for it if present trends continue. The continent looks like it’s being repopulated by people that do not appear to be suffering from an excess of existential self doubt, from cultural traditions that are very different from those in Europe nowadays. Or you might be OK with it, I don’t know.
I’ve heard some talk about doing something to “save” Europe’s art works before it’s too late, the best of the western tradition. You can’t move cathedrals but you can sure move Michelanglo’s David or the Pieta. Can you picture Notre Dame cathedral or Saint Peter’s Basilica as mosques? Can’t happen? Would everyone cheer if the Pope and his gang of fiddlers and diddlers was rousted out? Maybe. But maybe you should give a thought to the alternatives. Would they be any better?
“let the rest of the world sink into its morass of ignorance, poverty, and violence … including Europe, without us.”
Are you aware of what you write?
I meant cruel in that reading his turgid sludge can be painful. He did no harm anyway.
Also on BBC,
Gunman Opens Fire on Bus carrying US soldiers in Frankfurt.
1 soldier killed. 1 bus driver killed.
This news should make some of you happy out there. After all, aren’t American soldiers all brutal thugs? I read that on a post on CFN.
The gunman in question is, surprise, a Muslim from Kosovo.
We are at war on many fronts, not just in Iraq in and Afghanistan. Places like Texas, where the good doctor, a major in the US Army, murdered 10 soldiers after shouting Ali Akbar. What, do you think we forgot about that already?
There’s no place to get news like BBC.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Dude it was a joke – I mean get a life. Sometimes you remind me of Bartelby the Scrivner – the hybrid offspring of Bob Cratchit and the unreformed Scrooge. Get out of the counting house. Put more coal on the fire. Enjoy. Look up at the billions and billions of stars. Thank the chemicals for your chemicals. You are star stuff. You are golden. You’ve got to get back to the garden (yard work). In the process, you will generate more Free Willonium – but no hoarding. The Free Willonium Man will be by to collect for the “Community”.
What kind of Hinduism do you like or follow? I’ve been to Baba Birthdays and read the Discourses.
Hey Uber Bitch – spend some time with me and I’ll teach you to love your race. Not only will I fufill you as a woman, but hopefully give you your biggest role yet as Natalie Portman put it. It’ll be great. I’ll domesticate you, teach you to cook and clean, and teach you Philosophy.
============
Now that’s an insult. Tootsie, pay attention and learn how it’s done.
et tu, Vlad?
I think that James is pulling our legs.
Just like I think you were pulling our legs last week when you lusted after Harriet.
Cause you live in Idaho now, where men are men and sheep are scared.
And it’s “big hat, no cattle” not cows.
Or are you implying that you have a thing for the cows, also?
Whoooah, there MarlinFive54…
Before we go all Sarah Palin about screaming out the patriot act, you seem to be forgetting one wee small fact…
You Yankees are one of the ‘very’ most wasteful, energy-pig type appetite nations on the planet, (per capita) you consume VAST amounts of fuel…
You’re structured for car functionality only – as the defacto way of consuming life goes – and throw-away/take-away in the daily routine for 90% of the people I’ve observed there… is the ONLY norm…
(And I’ve visited your shores East & West twice in the last 9 months)
When Cantarell Field finally coughs, splutters, wheezes to droplets and dies, your right-wing politico Hawks will be looking to invade Brazil and Canada to keep your 22mbpd habit going…
(no joke)
And as an empire in decline, if you don’t think seriously about engaging in some form of national population control soon -your demand for fuel can only go one way… lemming like…
That’s the trouble with mouthy addicts, temper tantrums are all very well and good – but your nations voracious appetite for car/truck fuel will bring it to its knees…
And oft in the ME – when the sh#t truly hits the fan for real – its the SAS who come in and clean up the mess for you US types, like when they did by retaking an afghan fortress from rebelling prisoners…
Where the US senior officer in charge had completely ‘lost’ made a hash of it… the prisoners killed him pdq as a matter of fact.
So facts ole man – use them more before sounding off eh?
And don’t forget we Brits have been running a world class army/navy (at officer lever) for centuries now, and we once owned your country too…
And Europe is not overrun by Muslims either – where do you CFN’ers get this stuff from – Vlad the font of all knowledge when it comes to things tan, olive-dark and black and brown?
That reminds me must get some Green&Black’s in!
Preach, Sister Alexandra!
It is about time someone called Marlin and Vlad on their fear-mongering and misleading generalizations.
You were just the person to do it! Thank you.
Can you comment on this claim in today’s Daily Mail?
“Joule claims, for instance, that its cyanobacterium can produce 15,000 gallons of diesel full per acre annually, over four times more than the most efficient algal process for making fuel. And they say they can do it at $30 (£18.45) a barrel.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1361814/Scientists-make-diesel-fuel-using-sun-water-carbon-dioxide.html
Thanks.
If true the energy crisis is over.
Beneath his charming and genial Midwestern Exterior, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a reptile just like the rest of them. He makes noises every now and then such as, “There’s a class war and my class if winning over the middle class and it shouldn’t be” (approximate quote). But then he goes and gives billions to Africa. Also he expressed how disappointed he would be if Lloyd Blankfein stepped down. And as far as any kind of prosecution against these guys – well that’s not even in his vocabulary. Apparently he’s a genius -but none of his genius is for the benefit of his country or his people.
Um, how about New York City?
Although most of the rest of the country professes to hate New Yorkers, the destruction of 3 towers in New York City has led to most Americans embracing the murders of over a million Muslims.
No my dear, I lust after Harriet only as she is your avatar. And if Ewe don’t stop posting sexy pictures like that, well I’m just have to post some of My Glorious Self. As Blake said, the lust of the Goat is the Glory of God.
Wage said: “the destruction of 3 towers in New York City”
Wage, didn’t that third tower kinda just fall all by itself? {wink, wink}
I would not blame the Muslims for that one.
Asoka said: “I would not blame the Muslims for that one.”
==============
Actually, Asoka, Muslims are a peaceful people. If you are looking to place blame, place it on 19 Saudi religious fanatic extremists who went against Islam, a religion of peace.
But leave “Muslims” out of it. The murder of over one million Muslims is just that: murder. And the USA soldiers/sailors/airmen who committed the murders are war criminals.
Let’s ask Kinky Friedman, but I think you’re wrong. Cows is the way I heard it – and to my “ear” it sounds better. Cows is a viable word meaning a plurality of individuals. Very different than the bluntly plural and impersonal cattle. Likewise persons is a word albeit much overused by obnoxious liberals. Sociology studies groups. Psychology, individuals. Social Psychology studies persons – individuals relating to other individuals.
You know the species arrogance that Bustin describes?
We Americans have a further refined version.
Only Americans count. Only American lives are valuable. Americans single-handedly won both WW1 and WW11. Americans keep the world safe for democracy, get to define and enforce all “human rights” issues, and may bomb anyone that our Dear Leader desires.
Any other questions?
Yes I knew a guy who drove a big old truck, and so people stayed clear of him. That’s one way to solve that problem.
My car had 2 dents in it when I bought it, runs like a champ and checked out all greens. I had it checked out before I bought it. Learned this the hard way.
Cars are going to get dinged in parking lots, etc.
Those big ‘ol plastic not cheap bumpers, can’t stand them. I want my old camry (s) back with the real black bumpers.
But love my ’04.
I think peak oil is the best thing ever to happen. SUVs will disappear. Middle East dictatorships will cease to matter. The corporate business model of shipping raw materials all over the globe will break down. So too will shipping jobs to the most impoverished and desperate labor bloc and suppressing wages and benefits everywhere else. Oil companies will lose their clout. Ridiculous commutes and poorly planned McMansion suburbs will no longer be viable. No more petrochemicals or industrial agriculture. No more plastics. No more climate change. We will pave less and grow more; drive less and pedal more. Frankly, I see utopia on the horizon. Now let’s all go out and buy SUVs so we can hasten the collapse of the oil economy!
Yay!!!
I don’t hate New Yorkers’. I like East Coasters.
anyway, yes, it’s not the Muslims’as a whole, it’s the Muslim Extremists, Fundamentalists that are the Violent ones. Like the fundy Christians’, just too close minded and everyone is wrong except them.
Some Christians’ and some Muslims are good people, probably most. Just not the fundies and the extremists. Both are extremely screwed up and do not make the World a better place. IMHO.
That was 2 soldiers murdered today, not 1. My mistake.
Alexandra says, “We Brits have been running a world class navy for centuries now …”
What Navy? You just decommissioned your last aircraft carrier. All your Harrier jets are gone. As far as I know you don’t have a navy.
And if it was so world class, why did we have to save your asses in 1918 and again in 1944?
So you spent a couple weeks here … now you think you know all about us.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
I am on the Central West Coast, and trying to smartin’ myself up here.
For Reals.
I agree also. Many great inventions were undoubtedly blocked. People probably died for inventing them.
I really like your posts Patrizza. You have a good mind. Smart Thinker.
I complain, K-Dog!
I personally have never had to take a drug test, a background check or give my fingerprints.
I point this out all the time to the young ‘uns.
Do they not realize how much freedom has been lost? In just the last decade or so?
I don’t know when all this bullshit started, but when I moved here in 1993, it hadn’t started yet. It’s creeping totalitarianism, and they do it one person at a time, so that there can be no collective resistance. It’s submit or no job.
And now with the rapeascans and groping!
How much will people put up with?
Did you say you were in Salinas? Lotta gang action there…
“Only Americans count. Only American lives are valuable.”
That sounds a little bit like Mussolini.
Also at that time Italians (and Germans) were the best.
There are a lot of similarities.
Also at that time the war was paid by the mass with money and lives, but just a few got profits.
I do not want to discuss about value, certainly it never stops to astonish me to see how the situations are the same, the wars are the same, and the American people always fall into the same trap.
The mass pays and the few (weapon producers and oil corporations)have huge profits.
I probably am an Agnostic. But here’s the thing.
I read this somewhere. I read alot. Some of it I action remember.
I was in an Old Thunderbird with a friend of my mothers’ driving, I was about 11.
She decides to pass a car, and we almost get in a head on. I am in the back seat thinking I am going to die, and I am talking / praying to God. “God please don’t let us hit this car.”
What I mean is when you come really close to death do you think of God as I did ? I think there is something to that. I believe in God, I don’t believe the Jesus story tho. If he was here, he’s not coming back, cuz that is NOT possible. And he probably was a make believe person made up by people who wanted power and control over the masses. Or maybe a guy that was talking about Love when most others were killing eachother. But the only son of God ? Died for my sins ? Thanks ! But I don’t get that one AT ALL.
God yes, maybe. Jesus No. IMO.
WHAT is God ? That’s a good question. I always thought for as long as I can remember, that this whole world is like One Big Mind. Since I was 5 or so. Still seems that way to me.
I think more like a Quantum Physisist on this topic.
MIND WAVE by Fred Alan Wolf ’85, stuck with me.
I never read anything else by him, and could NOT understand a word of Stephen Hawking, or The String Theory. They lost me there.
I posted this exceptional American thing before I read Marlin’s perfect expositions of it.
Thanks, Marlin.
Europe now has a population of around 25% Muslims.
This number grows esponentially because they are the only ones who make children.
In Italy 50% of the new born are extracommunitaries.
The big problem of Muslims is not that they are particularly bad people, but the fact that they do not integrate.
They live in their communities, women are obliged to wear the burka and follow their laws.
Last year two islamic girls were killed by the father because wanted to marry an Italian.
What will look like Venice without the Venetians, or Milano without Milanesi?
Yes I agree he came across better in books. I read a couple and thought they made sense. Don’t remember now so much, but could relate back then.
Was surprised when he came across the way he did on TV, in Oregon and all that stuff.
I want there to be a God passionately and equally passionately, you do not. Atheism is your religion. Like Stephen J Hawking, you hope that there is not God – to me, a bizzare and alien mindset. The position of the intellect alone (without intuition) may well be agnosticism. The arguments for God are convincing to those who are already half convinced. And the design in Nature is evident to one who is already a Believer or almost one. But likewise, you cannot prove your No God position. So if you were what you propose to be namely a steely eyed intellectual, you would be an Agnostic. But no: you have a Message of no Meaning. And because of that, I can’t trust you completely in these areas where I admit you know more than me.
Unlike what many scientists seem to think, science doesn’t interpret itself. The findings need philosophical reflection to reveal their meanings. But I can’t reflect upon what I haven’t studied in depth so I must retreat or terms of wrestling, tap out. I concede the battle but not the war. As I said to Cash, there are Intelligent Design people in Genetics – including the Director of one of the Human Genome Projects. He wrote a book about it, but I can’t recall his name or the title. And my books are still in storage. Sorry. The Director of the other Genome Project also wrote a book too – he’s like you. So there you go. An old girlfriend of mine was a proud scientific materialist – really into it as a self image and an aesthetic. How did she put it? Consciousness is an epiphenomenon, a non-substantial product of matter like foam is of beer. Drink deep my friend – to the dregs of bitterness in the Tavern of Despair – proud that you can hold your Liquor while others fall of their barstools. But you wont see me there – I prefer the Tavern of Ruin and along with Omar I drink the Wine that was bottled before Adam was.
Let me explain something to the agnostics here.
I was brought up by an atheist Dad. And, by the way, Jackie, when he was in a literal foxhole, and a Japanese pilot was flying over him, having just killed the guy in the next fox-hole, my Dad did NOT think of God, although, at the time, he was Mormon.
He thought “I’m going to die now”.
Anyway, because I was not indoctrinated as a child, I have no more need to “keep an open mind about God” than I have to keep an open mind about Thor, or Zeus, or tree spirits.
Those who were imprinted early with the Big Man in the Sky theory, and can’t overcome it totally, really can’t speak for those of us not so brainwashed.
I can, indeed, be an atheist, not an agnostic.
No problem.
Sorry about your inabilities, but it has nothing to do with me.
I wanted one of those, I had the next best thing a 92 camry wagon v6. The bigger ones. With racks.
long story but I let it go, and wish I wouldn’t have.
You Never see those honda vans, the early ones. or camry wagons 4 sale. for a reason. they Rock.
Try not to get nasty – I know it’s hard for you. If you ever do achieve astral projection, then you will know. And this whole discussion will be rendered academic. People leave their bodies all the time during operations; tell the nurses and the doctors what they were doing, wearing, etc. My sister is a nurse and she admitted as much. Of course no one is encouraged to examine what all this means and very few do. Certainly not my sister.
You can say whatever you want to – and believe it too. But the question is whether you have the intellectual right to say it. That’s a different question – one of intellectual ethics as opposed to angry rebellion in the name of Marxism.
My mother used to say: I do not believe there is a God, but I pray the same…you never know…
I get all of the free produce I want from TJs by going to their dumpster (go after they close but before the trash truck comes, generally between 10 PM and 4 AM but midnight is always a safe bet if you don’t want to be seen). They generally throw away bananas in huge quantities almost every day, as well as bread, apples, citrus, and all kinds of dented or damaged produce (i.e. egg cartons with a single cracked egg or crushed cereal boxes). You can even get lucky and score lots of fresh coffee or other luxuries. And if you shop at their dumpster around the holidays, it’s very predictable…you’ll find tons of squash and pumpkins around Halloween, turkeys and ham for Xmas and Thanksgiving, etc. You’re going to need to find some friends to share with though. When you find a couple hundred loaves of whole grain bread and can’t stand to see it go to waste, it becomes a logistical problem very quickly. My wife only allows me to go once a week (usually on a weekend although any night of the week the take is great) because otherwise, I can’t keep up with cooking, freezing, or juicing all of the produce.
I don’t believe there is an Easter Bunny or Leprechauns either but I believe in them just in case.
What will look like Venice without the Venetians, or Milano without Milanesi? – Pat
There is a large contingent of people that would condemn you for asking such a question.
Can you just stop bleating how ungrateful we Europeans are and get your troops out of Europe? Thank you.
Wage, How much will people put up with? you ask.
Apparently quite a bit. The price of the modern soul is shamefully low. If more people understood that absence from totalitarianism has more to do with freedom than doing whatever it is your heart desires the situation would be far different. Sadly that is not the American mime.
A good time for my favorite Dietric Bonhoeffer quote.
And what does that have to do with credit checks, background checks and drug tests? Just about everything.
Your papers please.
Yes Muslims are fine – in their own lands. If we let them they will end Western Civilization. Why do people find this so hard to believe? It’s not like they haven’t tried before. As for the Demographics – it’s like pond scum that doubles in size every day. By the time you notice it – it’s one eigth of the pond. By the time you call someone to do something about it, it’s one quarter of the pond. By the time the guy gets out there to clean it, it’s the whole pond and the fish are already dead.
Our Elite have sold us down the river; betrayed Western Civilization in the hope that they can create a Global New World Order. And the Sub-Elite, the Mandarins like Alexandra who do their bidding, just want to enjoy the goodies that are still available in this decadent and dying Civilization. From them we can expect nothing but the willfull blindness and biting scorn of the jaded egotist who can’t stand anyone getting in the way of their fun.
The most common boy’s name in Oslo, Norway is Mohammad. But keep having fun, Alex.
In the 1970’s there were a few good/great ones visitng, even living in the USA.
I doubt all of em are dead
[some are ..chinmaya,
nirsagdatta, anadamoi,.. kirpal..who technically was sikh.]
I blame Maharishi, who showed folks how much gold could be gotten from suckers …
so now we have sri ravi shankar, oshos people, deep pockets chopra.
A friend [u.s. born ] even met gnana anaanda..
see ‘guru and disciple’ book by a christian monk.
Yr answer is in yr statement!
‘The big problem of Muslims …’ ..IS THAT THEY BREED LIKE RATS.
It is racist Vlad who pointed out how mexicans/muslims do this…’ON THE WHITE CHRISTIANS DIME’.. I think is his phrasing.
Low birthrates in Europe were no problem..till they added in Immigration and multiculturalism.
Lowest birthrates = Korea,Japan,Italy,France.
The most common boy’s name is Mohammad.
I think for newborn males thats true of Europe as a whole as well…
whos alex?
Vlad said: “Our Elite have sold us down the river; betrayed Western Civilization…”
============
WESTERN NEWSPAPER REPORTER: What do you think of Western Civilization?
MKG: “I think it would be a good idea”
Your “Western Civilization” murdered 20 million people in the 20th century, between communists, fascists, and capitalists.
Why don’t you leave the 21st century to people who are not so obsessed with material greed and vapid superior “culture” … to people who are not so enamored of alcohol and loan sharking and militarism.
$$ asks,
“Much like what we see on campuses nowadays when people refuse to get with politically correct orthodoxy. We don’t burn people at the stake on college commons but give it time.”
That is complete bullshit. I am writing to you from a college campus. We have a group here called “Jesus Folk”. They sing songs into microphones on the square. Nobody attacks them. What there is on college campuses is a plurality of views. Holding disparate views are people with bold postures, meek postures, militant postures, conservative postures, and so forth and so on. There is no homogeneity. Debate has declined because there is a movement toward cliquish behavior brought about by insular social structures like Facebook friend groups. This generation walks and thumb-types at each other. They are a bit lacking in verbal acuity. You can bang on the the youth, but college campuses remain peaceful places where people respect each other’s right to promote their ideas (for the most part).
“You keep telling me what a solid evidence based edifice evolutionary theory is and I keep asserting my doubts. You and I aren’t getting anywhere.”
I’m getting somewhere. I had to combine a bunch of different concepts to put together a coherent story of the creation of life, something I’d never done before. Just kind of riffing on a theme. Of course, there is a wikipedia page for that, offering a much better explanation. keyword: “RNA world”.
Now, more to your point. A bit of basic philosophy: there is no way to convince anyone of anything they don’t want to know, comprehend, understand, or accept. There is no natural law that describes a method of forcing someone to adopt your conclusion, accept your argument. Basically, no one can change anyone else’s mind- that is their prerogative. The historical record is littered with folks who refused to accept new information, new views, new perspectives, new truths, new evidence, and so forth and so on. It is a fact of life and I accept it.
It has been explained to me that Conservativism acts as a sort of fundamental skepticism in the face of change as a sort of Devil’s advocate. What is doctrine can be explained by psychological bias (as I have explained previous weeks) and this philosophic mechanism. I suppose it would be a propos to mention that “blessed is he who believes but does not see”.
My interpretation of that scripture is that one is blessed rather than vexed when the mechanic fixes their automatic transmission. You leave the lot either with a confidence to continue your life, assured that, despite your massive ignorance toward the specificity of the functional integrity of the transmission, you can forget about the particulars and simply believe that all is well. Your mind at ease, you are “blessed”. Or, you can choose not to believe, and be vexed with the constant, nagging suspicion that the transmission will seize and explode while travelling down the highway at high speeds.
What has been repaired for you, in these gifts of knowledge, have been the fabric of reality, whereby before it was a patchwork of fiction and facts, a world where, within those parameters, there was no way of knowing when a supreme being might curse you, causing the Earth to open beneath your feet, casting you into the fires of hell, or, agents of supernatural origin playing a game of manipulating matter in the service of ecclesiastical goals. Now, you can breathe free as there are no more gaps in the fabric of knowledge, no room for the supernatural, no reason to believe in absurdities, and you can be blessed in the light of the awesome profundity and true value of the nature of reality as a continuum of material and mystery. You may be but a pimple on the ass of the Universe, you may be a convoluted sort of worm, but your dog thinks highly of you. And that is somewhere to start.
“I’m not arguing against “science” or evolution. I am arguing that some science, like evolutionary theory (and climatology for that matter) are in their early stages, that researchers in these areas need to be a whole lot of HUMBLE about what they know and about how “good” current theories are.”
Science is built, brick by brick, on the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people, millions if not billions of man-hours. The roots of science are absolutely ancient. When you say “some science” you are committing a sort of fallacy. Climatology is a specialisation but it is is based on chemistry and physics, which are based on math and logic. Your assertion that they aren’t sophisticated enough to take their findings seriously is ludicrous.
As for humility, there is nothing more humbling than the practice of science. Scientific theory is based on facts found in hard evidence and have been thoroughly debated and vetted. Valid scientific findings are pithy, painstaking, specific, and concise.
Scientists making wild claims are subject to investigation. Einstein didn’t get a pass when his proofs proved light was subject to the force of gravity- many people spent lots of time, effort, and money to prove it. Likewise, the inventors of a novel sort of cold fusion reactor will not be paraded through the streets as saviors until their findings weather the withering skepticism of the scientific community.
What is humility? It is not proven by refusing to accept what we know. It is not proven by irrational disregard for the facts. It is not proven by blind acceptance to prevailing attitudes, tastes, or values, especially when in opposition to measurable reality. Humility in terms of scientific practice is rigorous adherence to what can be proven as true. In theorizing, toward what is reasonable based on the facts.
Refusal to accept facts is vanity- you prefer your prejudices and prior beliefs to new theories based on facts. Vanity a species of pride, pride being the opposite of humility. Who is lacking humility here? You accuse scientists with reasonable theories as not humble enough? I suspect no information will ever be sufficient.
“Even in the hardest of the hard sciences there’s vociferous debate. Suddenly luminous matter seems to be just a very small proportion of matter in the universe. So what’s the rest?”
Don’t ask questions about the nature of reality if you don’t want to know the answer.
“Cosmologists aren’t shy about saying they don’t really know yet. String theory? A lot of supporters and a lot of detractors. Why was the large hadron collider built at gigantic cost? Because there’s a lot that’s unsettled in physics. So why is evolutionary theory any different? Why is it immune to challenge?”
Evolutionary theory has more, broader support. Cosmological evidence and string theory are harder to observe or measure. Evolutionary theory does not depend on a complete understanding of the nature of dark matter. Evolutionary theory is immune to challenge because all prior challenges have been defeated. That is how science works.
There is not a 50/50 consensus among scientists. it is more like 95/5. For unified theories like string theory, among experts there is no consensus as of yet. As for physics, quite a bit is settled unless you’re talking quantum physics.
“Why can’t I challenge it? Because of the forces of orthodoxy exerting their will. On this issue Thou Shalt Not QUESTION.”
I patiently answer your idiotic questions for which there are a multitude of sources available for your own edification; yet you are not motivated to find them yourself. Why is that? There are no “Forces of Orthodoxy”- you are engaging in a popular sort of garden-variety paranoia of the kind that characterize people who have been marinating too long in bullshit beliefs. None of your challenges are effective because you can’t foment a coherent challenge to the data. You have no arguments. You stand on a conservative platform that says simply, “I cannot be swayed by new evidence. I will not accept new theories. No arguments are cogent enough. Everyone is out to get me. No one is prostrate and humble enough in approaching me.” You are an ass.
“This area along with climatology has been infested with ludicrous political posturing.”
Find the politics in the Wikipedia page for RNA world. ???
“This is nothing more than tribal rivalry. Light vs Darkness. The hidebound traditionalist vs the hip intellectual. Left vs right, north vs south. This is laughable. And it’s not about science.”
Don’t be ridiculous. It is about science. It is about reason, and rationale, and logic, and truth. Very perceptively, it is about darkness and light. Good and evil. Corruption and merit.
We have not had a political debate. This has been philosophy. Politics is a performance in the Arena of rhetoric. I have disdain for politics where it obstructs progress toward a saner, more sustainable vision of the future. I do believe that there are many in the conservative camp who obstruct action on climate evidence because they want power. They don’t necessarily believe what they say they believe. They are simply pandering to their base. They are liars, victimizers, panderers, grifters, con artists. Some are authentic believers in the 6,000 year old world, created in 7 days, like Vlad, who believe in literal interpretations of the Bible. They are the fundamentalists. On the other hand, you have a more reasonable cohort which recognizes climate change and global warming as facts and priorities.
This is all beside the point. If you are claiming I am advocating for scientific evidence because I am a patron of some tribal affiliation, you are just casting aspersions. It has nothing to do with the issue we are discussing.
Anyone wistfully tearing up at the shared human aspiration for freedom when they get their BBC rendering of revolts in the middle east must be clueless…. do you think the US/UK CIA people are just sitting around cheering democracy?? How infantile…. the CIA guys are running these shows to promote US/UK imperialism and cheaper access to oil/gas
@ Asoka…. no problem matey…. anytime!
@ Edpell, ironic that the ‘Daily Wail’ such a ghastly UK celeb fodder focused rag should pick-up on that one, but then again the Co’ mentioned seeks uber-cash investments…. but remember Branson’s put a lot of his dosh into Bio-fuels, but a month or so back put all his shares in Virgin Atlantic up for sale? Now what does that tell you?
@ MarlinFive54…. I would agree on the hardware issues a lot is going, going, gone now…. as one would expect… you’ll be following suit… soon, my dear, boast not.
But the devils in the detail, I said ‘officer’ class material. That means those with the right-stuff, brains-n-bark to give out the quality orders. Britannia Royal Naval College (Dartmouth) down the road from me, has been training world-class naval officers since 1863 in fact.
And I hate to point-out, that when your uber-clod great-leader Gee Dubyah – a few fair years ago – was invited to review the Guards at the Palace with Prince Philip by his side…. the d#ck-weed showed his complete lack of protocol, and total ignorance by walking fixed face ahead, and did to actually look, glance or review at all any of the at attention men… which is what he had been specifically invited to do!!
Breeding, breeding, breeding….. (and I know daddy was a rich Texan oil man that handed him everything on a gilded plate)….but oh deary me… that particular offspring was really JUST so disappointing…
Which of course finally brings me onto my beloved Vlad, I always save the best for last….darling.
*sniggers*
What can I say?
You had me at philosophy. And I’ll kneel gently down in front of the altar of your superior knowledge, bow, worship and whimper gently while being blessed and service by your superior male stature, “you’re the king, you’re the king BABY”…
And shortly after, as I slip a floral pinny on, after neatly fixing my hair, you can boast down to the boyz at the club “She cooks as good as she looks, Ted!” And I’ll just die sweetie, if I don’t get all your tips and recipes for domestic bliss, Mr Krandz.
But forget all this Natalie P malarkey, she’s jewish, (I ain’t) and tiny to boot… Think of me as being far more Sigourney W, Ripley’ish like. So if you really think yer man enough, whack on the Wagner – and let’s dance!
But who are you kidding matey?
I could never be your type… I’m not blonde, virginal, naïve and locked into small talk about fluffy-kittens. And by the way I was taught to cook properly at Wycombe Abbey years ago, though i hate to brag.
So probably best to leave it at that, just a wet dream.
{when you come really close to death do you think of God as I did ?}
But James…it’s Must See TV.
You want me to be left silent when all the sheep gather at the water cooler to baa-aaa? How will I know what to say and how to respond if I haven’t received my Daily Dose of RW Corporate Socialist Propaganda?
How will I know which celebrities to hate, which to love, and which to love again after the briefest possible, yet still profitable to our Leviathan Aristocratic God-like Rulers, time-period in which to hate them, then love them again, such that it is profitable to the RW Authoritarian Corporate Socialists who run things?
You are asking a lot. To stop running with the herd in water cooler land is to risk being pounced on by a lion when you’re alone and late leaving the watering hole.
Know what I mean, guy? You play an alpha lion on CFN. Not sure I am convinced, tho’. Maybe it’s just some excellent sarcasm, in which case I doff my hat.
Disrespecting or thinking outside the pathetically narrowing confines of Corporate Socialist Propaganda and Permissible Thought, bought and paid for 24/7 on CNNFOXGEMSNBCABCCBSCNBCPRAVDALIES, is inviting shunning by the sheep, few if any of which are ever seen near CFN’s dusty batwing doors, thank God.
You have no right to ask people to stop believing Corporate Socialist Infoganda and Celebrity Fellatio and Cunnlingus by Proxy through “journalism”.
What a silent world it would be. Nothing to talk about. Ever notice how relatively few people can carry on a conversation that’s even comprised of 50% of their own thoughts with any competency?
In the last 30 years, the number has dropped precipitously, more than I ever thought possible in a Free Nation. People cut and paste their conversations, and the Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity crowd has pretty much forgotten how to think for themselves at all, anymore.
But then again, the former United States of America is “free” (guffaw) in the same way a Hollywood Movie Set of a western town is a bustling metroplois.
Push on it just the tiniest bit, and the paper thin lies topple over like a bad joke.
Dear Bustin,
If you had even the slightest understanding of the spiritual side of man, you wouldn’t be writing this overly wordy junk every day. Nobody died and put you in charge of facts determination for mankind. Science is not, be all end all for everything.
If you had even the least concern for other people’s feelings, you’d knock some of this off. I used to read you, I’ve stopped.
All this talk of livestock reminds me of a joke….
Q: What is the difference between a Scottish sheep farmer and the Rolling Stones?
A: One says, “Hey, you get off of my cloud.” The other says, “Hey McCloud, get off of my ewe.”
Jen
Mr. Krandz said, “I want there to be a God passionately and equally passionately, you do not. Atheism is your religion. Like Stephen J Hawking, you hope that there is not God – to me, a bizzare and alien mindset. The position of the intellect alone (without intuition) may well be agnosticism. The arguments for God are convincing to those who are already half convinced. And the design in Nature is evident to one who is already a Believer or almost one. But likewise,
“you cannot prove your No God position. So if you were what you propose to be namely a steely eyed intellectual, you would be an Agnostic. But no: you have a Message of no Meaning.”
You cannot prove a negative. But I know the arguments for the existence of God fall short of the standard. I have looked for but have not found evidence of God anywhere. The proponents of God’s existence have no convincing argument, no irrefutable evidence. What I am, is an athiest. I do not say I do not know; I know for fact and can prove that every argument for the existence of God is equivocal. Agnosticism, formally known, is the position of saying that the case may be that there is a God. I am not making that case. There is no God.
Camille Paglia commented that Christianity provided a sort of cosmic, dramatic backdrop for humanity which was necessary for people to lend meaning and support life, a cosmic narrative. I think this the need filled by religious stories and worldview. The Earth used to be filled with all sorts of creation stories and pagan gods and narratives. These all lent color and meaning to life. Today, the range of possibilities is much reduced. Still, I find athiesm to be freeing from the confines of a comfortable story. What stories inform my life are my own prejudices or tastes, as you, yours.
I like Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I like reading about the Gallic cultures, wondering about the Druidic religions, the Native american beliefs, and others. All good stuff. Being an athiest does not mean shedding any essential part of being human, but it does mean that life itself has more meaning.
I like some of Dawkin’s quotes. For example, what exists in the real world? Real beauty, for one. Real truth. My life, in reality, has real meaning. Athiesm requires “Real” thinking, real courage, real compassion, and so on. In order for there to be a real future, we have to accept real evidence, act on real values. The future is threatened by people who disavow the real, who refuse to deal with reality.
If I would ascribe to any organization of thought, secular humanism would be it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
“And because of that, I can’t trust you completely in these areas where I admit you know more than me.”
Unlike what many scientists seem to think, science doesn’t interpret itself. The findings need philosophical reflection to reveal their meanings. But I can’t reflect upon what I haven’t studied in depth so I must retreat or terms of wrestling, tap out. I concede the battle but not the war. As I said to Cash, there are Intelligent Design people in Genetics – including the Director of one of the Human Genome Projects. He wrote a book about it, but I can’t recall his name or the title.”
His name is Francis Collins. He was co-chair of the Human genome project. He was not favorably profiled in Craig Venter’s autobiography, A Life Decoded. Venter went to great lengths to charitably portray him, but, he came across as a sort of starched-collar, bow-tie petty bureaucrat, repeatedly getting in the way of progress. He was beaten to the punch by Venter’s team in the sequencing. Here’s some quotes by him:
Cash? Et tu, Chimpy?
“The Director of the other Genome Project also wrote a book too – he’s like you. ”
That would be Craig Venter. Yeah, like me, but different.
So there you go. An old girlfriend of mine was a proud scientific materialist – really into it as a self image and an aesthetic. How did she put it? “Consciousness is an epiphenomenon, a non-substantial product of matter like foam is of beer.”
…hence the primacy of matter. Hence the primacy of this biosphere, this planet, clean water, unpolluted soil, wild life. Really and truly a worldview grounded in solid ethical principle.
All this is under threat. Religion is no longer a matter of personal consequence when it compels careless action and objectionable inaction. Religion as doctrine aimed at children, especially in respect to their role as inheritors of the world is especially heinous. The world must learn to respect science if it wants to exploit it. That is the lesson in this project of taking the world to the brink of disaster.
People need to understand and trust in the new authority on things-not-seen: science. If science says, Do this but not that, it should be obeyed in good faith. It sounds religious in nature but is not. Science does not say, this is how you should pray, this is who you should pray to, and so on. It says, this is where CO2 comes from, this is how much you need to reduce, etc. Like a crew on a ship in the night heading through a storm, these commands need to be implemented without question. We need leadership, and that is lacking. We need a system totally different from the short-term corporate profit model. Eons of religion brought us to this place, the anti-rational, anti-intellectual residue of history. And it will take us straight over the cliff, like it has in all those past civilizations.
That’Sri SRI Ravi Shankar – two sris asia…
Concerning BustinJ’s writings on evolution, Ctemple says:
“If you had even the least concern for other people’s feelings, you’d knock some of this off. I used to read you, I’ve stopped.”
That is truly unfortunate, ctemple. BustinJ gets his science correct to +/- 99%.
Where you and I would agree, ctemple, is that Bustin’s militant atheism detracts from the rest of his message – but that does NOT mean that his message or his scientific facts are incorrect.
Ctemple – I’ve got to say that you, here, are doing a pretty job of symbolizing what is wrong with American thought and voting patterns as regards logic and science – which is part of why BushII got two terms.
Bustin – take the sharp edges off your atheism and more people will listen to you. And more people really need to listen to you, Bustin.
Religion and science are two different things.
Trying to use Atheistic science to fix religion –
– Is just driving us over the cliff, faster.
Alexandra;
The Libyan rebels could use some help. Perhaps your vaunted navy could lend a hand. Or is this another mess the the USA is going to be stuck cleaning up? We already have a half dozen warships in the area.
You say President Bush shows ‘poor breeding.’ Really? I just read yesterday your Prince Andrew was best buds with Khaddafi’s son, the brigade commander ordering the massacres and airstrikes on his own civilian population. As a matter of fact Andrew was an honored guest in Tripoli. And the Libyan Prince was seen out on the town in London, partying down with Prince Andrew. (Prince Andrew? What the hell is all this bullshit Prince this and Queen that?)
Should I be surprised? Wasn’t Prince Edward, in the 30’s, a confirmed Nazi and good friends with Goering and Himmler?
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
Oh, Alexandra, we were wondering, since your Royal family is such good friends with the Libyan first family … do they have an invite to the Royal Wedding?
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
I thought this was a peak oil site. at least it was when I began reading a few years back. Now it has become some sort of quasi-religious debate site. not cool. Get over your trivial meaningless bull-shit! We have some serious shit comin’ down. Hey Tripp,I tried the mushroom thing up here in the Northeast. I could not get them to take.My logs never produced!. I still have high hopes for a few of the mushroom compost patches I have planted( lets keep our fingers crossed)! Anyway the sap is flowing again, today, And I have a batch boilin’ right now. Probably a late night!!! Hard freeze tomorrow so no sap till who nows when !!
Rippedthunder
CFNation Post 1
Northeast Chapter
In 1990, a Kuwaiti girl testified, with real tears, in front of Congress about the 300 premature babies thrown from their incubators by the evil Iraqis.
This testimony was used to whip up Americans into a blood-thirsty revenge mode.
Although, it did seem that 300 was an excessive amount of premature babies. WTF? I worked in a NICU in San Francisco, which drew sick babies from many places in Northern California, and we only had 20 incubators.
This turned out to be a lie. The girl was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, coached by Hill and Knowlton to give lying testimony. She was nowhere near Kuwait at the time.
Bush 1 also told the Saudis that Iraqi troops were massing on the border. This was also a lie.
Now we’re told that Quaddafi is bombing his own people.
The Russians say he isn’t.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27594.htm
Who you going to believe?
RT said: “Get over your trivial meaningless bull-shit! We have some serious shit comin’ down.”
===========
[sarcasm on]
I want to echo this urgent call. For years CFN has been talking about TSHTF. Time is up, folks. We now have only three weeks to get our affairs in order as JHK has predicted that within three weeks (20 days now) Saudi Arabia will start to blow up … and that is the death knell for America. Without Saudi oil we are toast. This is serious so Ripped Thunder is right that we need to stop talking about religious shit (I am guilty) and start planning for our very physical survival as human beings. This is serious. Time is up. The time to act for survival is NOW! [sarcasm off]
I am only imitating the urgency I have felt on this site for the last ten years. Always the same fear. Religion could actually be a useful survival mechanism. I am experimenting with fasting and meditation. When TSHTF I won’t be panicking and I will be able to survive with no store-bought food and I will be able to thrive in spite of a stressful environment.
Om Mane Padme Hum!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv8bHRHYyvM
This video is only 4 minutes but it is large and contains multitudes.
Not sure if i saw this joke here or not: An Engishman, a Scottsman, and an Irishman walk into a pub and they all order an ale.a fly happens to land in each of their beers. the englishman pushes his ale aside with digust and orders another. The Scotsman simply removes the fly and continues to drink his ale. The Irishman grabs the freakin’ fly by the throat and screams spit it ,spit it out,you theivin’ bastard!! I work with a bunch of Irish guys and they are the best. Sorry, no offense meant!
Hi, Marlin.
You’re absolutely right about Prince Edward, I am almost certain from memory. One or two mouse-clicks at most will confirm.
However, I think it behooves us to remember that the Nazis’ greatest American Allies were the current Royal Family of America, the Bush Family.
Take 20 minutes to listen to this very credible and well-researched BBC radio documentary and see how much tinfoilhattery you think it is.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml
More info available through Googling the Trading With the Enemies Act of 1942 (and “Bush”, of course).
As always, have your bullshit detector on high and reject any information which does not sufficiently corroborate through additional research.
But I think you will find that, considering this has been completely blacked out from the “liberal” media for almost 80 years, the amount of credible information in the Age of the Internet, that it was a real sequence of events long covered up by FDR and the Washington Generals.
If you really want to fill my wallet and bring a smile to my face, I’d be happy to bet you $1000.00 plus travel expenses that we could find the 1934 “Smedley Butler” proceedings of the McCormack-Dickstein House UnAmerican Activities Committee if we drove down to DC.
(no payoff if we aren’t allowed in the archives or otherwise can’t get to see the records but they still exist – that’s a push)
Having said all that, and I wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t strike me as that rarest of breeds these days, an intellectually honest conservative who’s not a neocon asshole or a Beck/Hannity Brickheaded Teabagger, I think most of the most knowledgable and conscious CFNers have come to realize that Democratic and Republican Parties are just the Harlem Globetrotters and washington Generals in the Population Docilizing Game Show put on for the the mentally shattered and broken remains of a once-proud people.
Kucinich/Paul in 2012! I’d even vote for Paul/Kucinich 2012!
Who am I kidding? The American People? Vote for someone the RW Corporate Socialist Media didn’t tell them to first?
OTOH, if somehow they DID get elected, we could all amuse ourselves by counting the days until an awful Al Qaeda (and his dumber brother George W. Qaeda) terrorist blows AF1 out of the sky in a shocking security snafu, just like 9/11, where Mohammed Atta’s passport came fluttering out of the sky in pristine condition.
😛
– too much religion on CFN –
I understand your frustration RT. But the bossman hisself, JHK posits in his fiction that religion will play a – strange and major – role in a genuine post TSHTF situation.
I tend to agree with him. Societies under genuine stress related to food, sickness, or death – are very likely to turn (return?) to religion. In this regard, strongly felt and militant atheism may be yet another one of those things facilitated by peak oil.
I’m a sort of happy, carefree Thomas Jefferson style Christian/Agnostic. I consider this debate informative with a humorous edge to it.
Sometimes it seems that our CFN atheists have as reduced a sense of humor as the fundamentalist Muslims are accused of having.
Let me try a little humor, then.
“keep an open mind about God” than I have to keep an open mind about Thor, or Zeus, or tree spirits.”
-wage-
I’m with you on Zeus, Wage. He was a mess – always changing into the form of some other creature and mounting some female human or otherwise screwing up human affairs.Good riddance.
And Thor? Maybe lightning, causing thunder, is a better scientific explanation – but I still don’t like to go out during heavy lightning if I can avoid it, regardless.
But tree spirits? A tree is just as much alive as your or I – don’t turn your back on those tree spirits or a limb might fall on your head.
“That’s a joke. I say, that’s a joke, son!”
-foghorn leghorn-
Asoka, I am not a nihilist. I would like the truth. Where do you live ,what do you do, and what is your vast experiance in life which allows you to debate with infinite wisdom individuals on this site. Nothing specific. Just some freakin’ clue that you know what you speak of. I am in the Berkshires. One of the most beautiful parts of the country, If you can forgive the draconian MA. laws. Born shortly after WWII , I have been in public service since 1979 as a firefiefighter/EMT full time. I guess I have been on the government gravytrain for over 30 years now. Someone has to pick up the pieces if you know what I mean. My family has a long history of public service. My Dad was a WWII Combat Vet. I do not think I ask much. I look forward to an honest answer.Speak up or shut up!Lets hear your story. I can can give dates , units, actions, etc.etc
Good one Rippedthunder!
Q: Why did the Brits bring so many sheep back from the Falkland Islands?
A: War brides.
Jen
ALAN WATTS, me and him go way back.
I read all of his books back then.
Changed me for the better, IMHO.
One smart guy.
Also Stuart Emery
You Don’t Have To Rehearse To Be Yourself.
Boz Scaggs : “you can be anyone you wanna be, so why you wanna be someone else?”
Also I heard something goes like :
If you behave as if there is a God, when you die you’ll be fine.
If you behave as if there isn’t a God, when you die, you could be in big trouble.
You get the drift.
when you die you get the dirt. PERIOD!
Still waiting for Asoka!!!!!
POC: I think you are right to honor the tree spirits. One day humans will wake up to a mattress stuffed with little bits of worthless green paper and a landscape devoid of anything useful. But man, oh man, will we have plenty of religion to discuss. Good friggin’ lord!
Ripped: Asoka has caused more BP rates to rise than any other poster on this infernal thread…some claim to fame for a Buddhist. You have better things to do…
Jen: That’s hilarious! (To an American anyway). You know the one about Bill Clinton getting two razorbacks for Hillary and Chelsea, don’t you? The SS agent congratulated him on a fine trade.
jackieblue: Boz Skaggs was a wise man. I’m guessing he brought either gold or frankincense, ’cause who the hell needs myrrh.
Personally, I don’t need a god to keep me in line. I’m a grown up responsible human with a mind set on mending some of the damage our forebears have wrought upon the landscape.
While Senator Palpatine here (Old 8M) turns the green Earth into Coruscant in his deranged visions of dumbfuckery (thanks O3!), some of us will be busy with the real order of the era: regreening the planet, and recovering our senses. Back to that responsible grown up human thing again, sorry. What a killjoy I am.
Hancock said:
No need to go to DC …
Smedley Butler is on FaceBook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9282890411
One of the tiny little problems I have with paving the Earth’s surface with high rise towers is the fact that everything humans need to live is produced by the plants and animals around us. The forest’s job is to provide soil, water, and clean air. No forest, none of that other stuff.
Make it in a lab, or import it from other planets, you say? It’s too damned energy intensive. We’re talking about exponentially MORE energy spent to accomplish what used to be done for us for free by Nature. We can’t even maintain those things when they’re free! And if the planet is covered over by people filling 100 story towers, how many more humans is that to feed than the already large load on Earth’s still-barely-functioning systems? You going to import all the oxygen, freshwater, and food for a trillion people? From where exactly? Pandora? On ships powered by what exactly? Unobtainium? You’re not thinking clearly, son.
How ’bout this as an illustration of my point: The insurance industry has repeatedly claimed, at the present rate of increase, that the cost of mitigating the damage done by natural disasters will equal the GDP of the entire world by 2060. What would be left to constitute an economy if we spent everything we made on repairing infrastructure damage caused by expanding populations and an increasingly destabilized climate? Climate that depends on forests, functioning oceans, and healthy mineral cycles for stability? See, these are silly things to talk about, because we will never reach such a point. A system that can destroy itself will, but long before we ever reach a point so absurd as the world’s entire GDP going to disaster repair.
You can’t live on a dead planet. We are part of the planet, and we will not survive without our biosphere. You are not that bright, and your words are not worth bold-facing. Please go back to first year physics and start over.
RippedThunder said: “I look forward to an honest answer.Speak up or shut up!Lets hear your story. I can can give dates , units, actions, etc.etc”
==========
Thanks for the choice. I choose to shut up.
Seriously, RT, we are on the anonymous internet here and I am playing … until the situation gets so bad the internet goes down due to peak oil, peak electricity, needed to run server farms.
I really do not understand peoples’ need to have “dates, units, actions” etc unless what you need is to pigeon hole somebody. E. has also expressed this frustration with his plaintive cry: “we don’t even know who or what you are!”
Take TrippTicket’s advice. Ignore Asoka. You have better things to do.
CORRECTION
I am playing … until the situation gets so bad the internet goes down due to peak oil, peak electricity, needed to run server farms WHICH COULD BE ANY DAY NOW WITH A BLACK SWAN EVENT, AN ALIEN INVASION, A METEORITE HITTING EARTH, A NUCLEAR WAR, PEAK OIL DUE TO SAUDI ARABIA “BLOWING UP” IN 20 DAYS AS PREDICTED BY JHK THIS WEEK.
“It sounds religious in nature but is not.”
“Commandments and {scientific} doctrines of men” are by definition, religious.
Hancock – glad you’re back!
Hopefully Wage will check back in before too long, too.
Because have I got a conspiracy theory for us!
I can say with doubt that approaches 0%, that the Bush family forms a conspiracy. Certainly old man Prescott conspired to make George HW BushI the leader of the free world. And certainly Prescott and BushI would have conspired to pass that legacy onto W The YoungerII, or else to that other kid – Jeb the Bubba0.
I mean – If my great grandfather, who I never met
– could conspire with my grandfather and my mother – to arrange to pass title to a little piece of Georgia real estate to me, with the understanding that, OF COURSE, I would make every effort to pass it onto one of my sons with an understanding that he would make every effort to pass it onto one of his children –
– which child only my son and I have ever met.
I mean, damn, that run on sentence up there is a sort of hide-in-plain-sight conspiracy that every family on the planet would do if it could.
So there’s no doubt that the Bushes attempted to play the inheritance game on a world/historical scale, and they certainly succeeded at the game.
Unfortunately Bush the Younger seems to have kicked over the game board – but that’s another issue for another day.
============
And we don’t have to go so far as the Bushes having Kennedy killed, or Reagan shot, or whatever. The real facts have had a bad enough outcome since 1992.
“Thanks for the choice. I choose to shut up.”
-asoka-
Excellent choice, asoka – now stick with it for a few years, please.
ProCon said: “Excellent choice, asoka – now stick with it for a few years, please.”
===========
How many years?
Freedom of speech is an American value that our brave servicemen and servicewomen are fighting to defend.
I have the freedom to shut up for as many minutes as I decide necessary. Then I will speak again.
Years? You do have a sense of humor!
Do you know what heaven is? Heaven is the smell of sap boilin’ on a wood fire with three feet of snow outside and the night sky as black as coal with “Orion” and his dogs lookin down at you as you piss your name in the white crystyline landscape. Owls and Coyotes in the backnoise. Most of you can not even imagine such a scene. That is New England!
srisri as in blingbling
OK, then Asoka – I’ll answer RippedThunder’s question since you will not.
============
I am a Sufi on some days. I am a Hindu on other days. I am a Buddhist some days. I am a Christian, I am Quaker, I am Unitarian, I am a Jew, I am agnostic, I am a Muslim, I am an atheist, I am a neo-sannyasin (Osho), I am pagan and aboriginal and animist.
-asoka-
Sorry, dude – you are almost as Muslim as Muhammad was. That’s the only explanation for a violent statement like this:
“It was troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia that led to 9/11 … causing Bush to withdraw said troops, to prevent more towers from coming down in the USA. If the USA sends its troops back to Saudi Arabia again, it will see what “opening the gates of hell” means.”
-asoka-
You will not be able to show CFN a similar level of violent rhetoric related to any of your other stated belief systems. These include:
Hindu/Buddhist/Christian/Quaker/Unitarian/Jew/agnostic/Muslim/atheist/neo-sannyasin/pagan/aboriginal/animist.
You can not show violent rhetoric in any of your many, many posts on CFN that are NOT related to the religion of “Peace” – Islam.
Go ahead if you can – repost an ENTIRE unedited post where you imply, even obliquely, that “suitcase nukes” or the “gates of hell” are a good idea for any part of the globe other than an American city – and warranted by any other religion than Islam. I will wager you can not do it.
Discussion of Islam reveals the real Asoka.
It has done so many times in the eight months that I have been exposed to your writings.
You need to admit it to yourself and to CFN.
This website could use a good Muslim – angry or otherwise.
hey Asoka, I am just about finishing up the syrup, first run will be grade A light. I prefer the later dark runs, more flavor and texture, drop me a line and I will send ya a pint. extra light grade A on the house. Use a PO I won’t even know were you are at. I am a kind fellow as I am sure you are a fellow in Kind! Anyway I finish the syrup on the stove and it is almost done. Live long and prosper, RP
Do you know what heaven is?
yes rt…the berkshire range…and i don’t have to imagine…j
As always, my R-r-r-r-r-rebel Friend (said in the voice of Grand Moff Tarkin of Star Wars fame) it’s good to pop in now and again, and if I read anyone’s posts on these sudenly interminably long double-sized threads lately, they’re yours.
(that don’t mean we’re buying curtains or anything, Robert E.)
That’s a nice conspiracy theory, Libtard Johnny Reb. Has just the right amount of non-coincidental, non-conspiratorial action to be quite believable. I like it.
My own personal beliefs on all CTs are ultimately agnostic (unless I get to officially waterboard Dick Cheney’s old rheumatic ass, which seems unlikely), but I lean towards more coordination between aristocratic douchebags and great families of aristocratic douchebags of all kinds, particularly the Alpha Male and the Alpha Female kind.
How much more? Get me Dick Cheney or Poppy Bush, a kiddie pool, some plastic sheeting, a funnel, and a vidcam. I’ll have all the straight dope from Satan’s Little Helper himself in 20 minutes.
Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine, and I care less and less every day about it all. Life is good and too short to waste. Does it matter whether Dutch Commie van Der Lubbe burned the Reichstag, with every conceivable form of ID on him, or whether Goering’s boys set it and set him up?
Uber-Lefty all-talk (w)ussies that the German Commies turned out to be (at least after the Commie-Freikorps fights of ’19-’21 took out their few real fighters), the patsy theory seems more likely, IMHO.
Note to Homeland Security Neocon/Neolib Douchebags Henchmen: I’m joking, fuckos, about Cheney! And what the fuck are you doing monitoring an inoffensive site like this? Waterboard Dick Cheney and find out if he was behind 9/11! Or did he just arrange to drop the ol’ guard down so that his pal Bin Laden’s patsies got the job done? Go to it, stooges.
How’s that for letting the CT genie out of the bottle? Dick “Satan’s Little Helper” Cheney having intimate knowledge of exactly how 9/11 was pulled off from front to back? I’d bet my house on it.
Until I, or someone, waterboards Cheney as a VERY Unlawful Enemy Combatant against the old USA, which he is, we can’t know.
Where to take this converstaion from here? How ’bout the sick nationwide celebrations that are about to take place over the 150th anniversary of the fight against human chattel slavery and treason of the Civil War, a war which most everyone knows (at least with their unconscious minds if not their conscious minds) has be re-fought and the original outcome reversed, perhaps helping human extinction along a little faster than it would be coming otherwise.
All except for the reimposition of slavery, but here your Reb Plantation Owners’ descendants compromised and let the Yankee Corporatists set up one of their feudalistic Company Store and Wall Street Total Corruption setups, circa 1880, which jibes nicely with the KKK-South’s own use of the virtual slavery method of sharecropping at that same time.
Nice of your Southern Gents to yield to the Yankee Bluebloods like the Royal Bush Family (if they’re Texan, then Vlad-Cartman is a Rabbi).
Lot of peasant money still to be hoover-vacced up still. This was a mighty country. So mighty they’ve been looting the shit out of it for 31 uninterrupted years and it took until 2008 for the scam to even begin to truly unravel.
31 years of lies, deceit and theivery from the Bush Royal Republicans and their Democratic henchmen, including their Houseboy and current Throne Warmer, that Kenyan Muslim Corporate Socialst who can boil the Reb Blood like no other, even though he has been spectacular at batting cleanup for the RW Corporate Socialist Agenda.
Whew! That was fun! Knew there was a reason I keep popping back in here from time to time.
What do you say to all THAT, my R-r-r-r-r-r-rrrrrebel F-r-r-r-r-r-r-iend?
=================================================
“Here’s try one of these Jamaican cigars, Ambassador. They’re pretty good.”
“No thank you. I don’t support the work of Imperialist Stooges.”
“Oh, only Commie Stooges.”
–Exchange between the Soviet Ambassador and a US Admiral from the movie “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
“Gentlemen. You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!”
–President Murkin Muffly, from the same movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeqVGP-GPM
syrup is exra light, not so much to my taste, i much prefer the extra dark.sells for less but much better flavor!
“I will send ya a pint. extra light grade A on the house. Use a PO I won’t even know were you are at.”
==============
You are very kind. I lived in Vermont for a couple of years and had my fill of maple syrup … and “Mud Season”
I can get extra light grade A from the local food coop. I wouldn’t want you to spend hard-earned money to send me a pint … but I do appreciate the offer.
Asalaam Alaikum, brother.
ProCon, the last thing I want to do is shill for exoteric religion, Islamic or non-Islamic.
The USA military is full of people like the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army’s top-secret Delta Force Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin.
Boykin was the deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence under Bush. He, like many in the military, is also an outspoken evangelical Christian. You may remember that Boykin appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.” He said his god was bigger than the Muslim god.
It’s wrong when Christians are anti-Islamic, and it’s wrong when Muslims are anti-Christian.
If you want a Muslim on this website, I can give it a try … but not with anger.
Allahu Akbar!
Asalaam Alaikum, brother.
Trippticket,
I know this sounds like corny wu wu, but when I go for walks, I get a sense of a tree — almost a
a spiritual impression. On my dog-walking route, I just love noticing the yearly cycle of trees.
I have a sixth sense about when a tree is in distress–before the signs are obvious. A few of my neighbors call me “the plant whisperer.”
“Two Tablespoons of Sul-Po-Mag, and I’ll follow-up next week.”
Jen
You are too good a guy to waste time on Resident Impediment. Which is the wonderfully descriptive name ProgorCons labeled asoka with long ago and it’s all I ever use to describe him because he’s such a douchebag as bad as any RW douchebag here and maybe even just a little bit WORSE.
He’s been lying quiet for awhile, like a Venus Fly Trap, trying to find someone to engage him in his phony loop-de-loop brand of mendacious bullshittery. At least from what I’ve seen.
“Don’t give the prick the satisfaction.”
–Clint Eastwood “Heartbreak Ridge”
Hancock1863
CFNation Post 6 & 7/8ths (semi-active; possible dues lapse)
Mid-Atlantic Chapter
Hancock said: “he’s such a douchebag as bad as any RW douchebag here and maybe even just a little bit WORSE.”
=========
Wow, Hancock, that is incredible!
BTW, you should not even mention me because that only give me more attention and encourages me. Completely ignore the Resident Impediment. That is my advice to you. You may continue to namecall and label others as you wish, as you do, most frequently as RW Authoritarian Socialist Corporatists. I thought Q’s advice was very good: create a macro so you just have to hit one key to call someone a RW Authoritarian Socialist Corporatist.
Ishq Allah, Ma’bud Allah!
Asalaam Alaikum, brother Hancock.
The United States military and NATO forces continue their slaughter of children.
Today nine innocent Afghan children who were collecting firewood for their families during this cold winter, murdered by USA military and NATO forces.
“Is this the way to fight terrorism and maintain stability in Afghanistan?” Karzai asked in a statement Wednesday.
Tribal elders claimed NATO forces have killed more than 50 civilians in recent air and ground strikes.
An Afghan government investigation found that 65 civilians died in coalition operations in a remote part of the province.
The infidel invaders and decade-long occupiers always say the same thing: “it was an unfortunate accident.” But as it happens regularly, these “unfortunate incidents” are not accidents.
I totally agree, ProgorCons, this site could indeed use a good Muslim.
Or even just an actual Muslim, and not some pimple-faced patholgical-serial-lying white college student or other form of punk, whatever his race, creed or color is.
Someone who can do more than read from the Book of Google.
(in the days when I used to expend/waste much more time and brainpower on CFN, I pictured RI and 8M being cut from pretty much the same cloth – if not literally skinny youthful weasel punks then grown men with the souls of said same)
Yecch. Either way, I didn’t realize how much my occasional glances at RI’s yammering (him I stopped reading in more than the tiniest doses and glances months before I cut down on my overall CFN) have made me wish for a real actual Muslim to talk to about their perspective on all this stuff.
Until you mentioned it. Not only that, bet a REAL Muslim would be able to shred RIs False Face in no time.
Because you know as well as I do that Googling only goes so far and that anyone with actual real knowledge of a thing, even on the internet without the help of body language and tells, can pretty well smoke out a lying fraud after only so long with the minute details that can’t be Googled. (yes, there are still some facts that can’t be Googled, amazing as that sounds)
OTOH, who gives a fuck? Baiting dolts, assholes, douchebags and liars only gives so much entertainment and is ultimately a waste of time.
I’d much rather spend my time in banter and chat with CFNs uncommonly large contingent of decent human beings. (for an anonymous internet chat board)
why do u guys get in pissin match’s? let’s get along and try to figure this shit out. I’ ve got guns,bread and butter, syrup, sugar, and grain. perhaps instead of fightin’ over some stupid relgion we can be friends???????
Nice reply, Hancock! I’ll say that I concur about 85.5% – mainly just to piss SnowflakeII off a little bit more.
And if you’re not shilling for a grand conspiracy theory anymore –
And asoka is not shilling for Muhammad –
Perhaps my work on CFN is approximately 65% complete
I especially liked this part, Hancock:
“Where to take this conversation from here? How ’bout the sick nationwide celebrations that are about to take place over the 150th anniversary of the fight against human chattel slavery and treason of the Civil War, a war which most everyone knows (at least with their unconscious minds if not their conscious minds) has be re-fought and the original outcome reversed, perhaps helping human extinction along a little faster than it would be coming otherwise.
All except for the reimposition of slavery,…”
-hancock-
Concur 99.97% (this is fun, too) on both counts – the celebrations of the Civil War generally are pointless and misdirected, AND except for the slavery question – the wrong side won, from the standpoint of REAL human freedom and the looming likely collapse of human life on Earth.
Treason, though? In a country founded on treason in 1776.
All that word means is that the winning side always writes the histories.
=============
I don’t know about Cheney and 9/11 – I still think the US govt was clueless until 9/12 or 9/13. Did Cheney and Bush and the gang then cover some big stuff up? Yeah, no doubt – but I don’t think that’s the sort of grand intentional CT that changes history.
I’d like to see somebody waterboard Mr. Cheney just to hear him admit that he was drunk when he shot that guy with that shotgun. But he’d keel over with his last heart attack long before the water ever hit the board. Another chicken-shit chicken-hawk, was VP Dick. I have no idea why these bastards keep getting into positions of power.
Now, stick around for a while HC’63.
We’ve posters to annoy!
PoC
And btw, you forgot to mention RW authoritarians and RW authoritarianism, BOTH – someone is going to be very disappointed.
ProCon said: “I’d like to see somebody waterboard Mr. Cheney just to hear him admit…”
===========
This is another indication of the sick and soul-less nature of Western Civilization.
As a faux-representative of Islam I must condemn absolutely the use of waterboarding under any circumstance for any reason whatsoever.
It is especially offensive when referenced to Mr. Cheney, who has had several heart operations, and would likely not survive: waterboarding would surely be his death sentence. As a faux-representative of Islam, a religion of peace, I condemn such torture.
Besides, have you forgotten that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month
and Abu Zubaydah got “refreshed” 83 times in one month?
Apparently waterboarding is not effective.
Dang, RT – sounds good –
“let’s get along and try to figure this shit out. I’ ve got guns,bread and butter, syrup, sugar, and grain. perhaps instead of fightin’ over some stupid relgion we can be friends???????”
I know I’m heading to your place if global warming cooks the North Georgia mountains beyond the point of supporting life in the next few summers!
And seriously, you lead the way to better dialog and someone will likely follow you.
We get in pissing matches mostly because we’re male – so on CFN we joust with words instead of our antlers, or whatever.
And I keep trying to engage asoka just to help him learn some honesty and to stop some of the impediments to honest dialog that he often interjects.
And also, on a related note – I believe that someone keeps misquoting Emerson as saying, “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
That is very wrong.
It is correctly quoted as, “A FOOLISH consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
That one word “foolish” in front of “consistency” forms the divide between a honorable thinking person – and a worthless fool.
ProCon said: “I’d like to see somebody waterboard Mr. Cheney just to hear him admit that he was drunk when he shot that guy with that shotgun.”
First of all, asoka, it’s a joke, you jackass!
Secondly, you did not read any of the nuance about VP Dick’s heart condition that I put in the post to make it obvious that it was a joke.
American humor is something else that you can’t google, I see.
Secondly – Cheney should have had enough honor to admit some of the wrongs he has done – including the probable hunting under the influence.
And Cheney’s the one who likely OK’ed your Sheik’s waterboarding – soulless, indeed?
ProCon said: “And I keep trying to engage asoka just to help him learn some honesty and to stop some of the impediments to honest dialog that he often interjects.”
=========
Impediment is in the eye of the beholder.
Usually the dialog here is interrupted because you stop it, and derail it, through your decision to engage in ad hominem attack against me.
Physician heal thyself … or cast the beam out of your eye … but stop thinking you can judge “honesty” on an anonymous website.
Makes you look silly.
ProCon said: “it’s a joke, you jackass!
Secondly, you did not read any of the nuance about VP Dick’s heart condition”
=========
ProCon, first, waterboarding is not a joking matter.
Second, namecalling is beneath a southern gentleman such as yourself.
You may have an anger management problem. If so, please get help. May Allah bless you.
“Usually the dialog here is interrupted because you stop it, and derail it, through your decision to engage in ad hominem attack against me.”
asoka
So calling you Muslim was an ad hominem?
That’s insulting to 1 billion folks, isn’t it?
And, “The Resident Impediment” is not an ad hominem, either. It’s a slightly humorous sobriquet – based on your actual words and behavior on this website.
==========
Remember, RI, this is all just divine play.
“Second, namecalling is beneath a southern gentleman such as yourself.”
asoka
That is true. I do hate to besmirch the name of such an animal as a jackass.
“You may have an anger management problem. If so, please get help. May Allah bless you.”
asoka
I’ll take my blessings from God, not Allah. Thank you anyway.
I’m ready to quit this. But I know you will likely have to have the last word.
ProCon said: “Remember, RI, this is all just divine play.”
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I’m glad you are taking this divine play seriously!
🙂
Thanks for playing, ProCon.
I also appreciate Hancock’s decision to play this evening.
Tosbeho ‘ala khair
CORRECTION
Tosbeho ‘ala khair, ProCon.
.
RI Asoka
CFN Adobe Mud Hut Chapter #2
Southwest Region
SnowflakeII? I guess I missed the bestowing of that gem (Lisa Simpson’s cat, right?). Whom is SnowflakeII?
Not Cartman, I’m guessing. Didn’t you just say he was a man of honor?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5j8Jioan1w
Anyway: first question: who is SnowflakeII?
Gotta love this gem of yours:
Gosh and golly gee whiz, mister! Ego much? Or are you just running for the title of Jeebus Christ of CFN? 😛
I AM still shilling for it – you just finally internalized the difference between ironclad certainty and strong speculation. (contrary to Fox “News”, there is one)
Not many American people can make that distinction these days, and I blame Corporate Cable TV News spreading critical thinking disorder virally for 25 years or more, among other things.
Everything is either/or. Every answer is yes or no. Everyone repeats the thoughts of others, so few are having thoughts of their own except about celebrity gossip and missing pretty white women. 3/4s of all Americans couldn’t pass an 11th grade Amereican History Test. (less among Hannidiots and Beckerheads) 49/50ths of all Americans couldn’t pass a 1973 11th grade civics exam, I guarantee it.
Naturally, the dominance of Fox News and the rest of the RW Lie Machine has greatly accelerated the process in the last 12-13 years.
And there are better things to do than run for Jeebus of CFN. But that’s just my opinion. Knock yourself out as much as you like. It’ll keep me coming back to read and post at CFN from time to time.
All right – THAT TEARS IT! Tomorrow morning, you get in your car and drive promptly to Gettysburg Battlefield Park. I will do the same and I will meet you around the Copse of Trees at the site of Pickett’s Charge.
We will exchange picture IDs, to make sure we are who we say we are. My DL says “Hancock 1863″, which is actually my given birth name before I changed it to Dickface.
After the pleasantries are formalized (I get to slap your face with a dueling glove that has several horseshoes in it), you will trot back to Seminary Ridge and relive the experience of your ancestors while I get to play all those immigrant Yankee Hirelings (lousy Paddies!) in II Corps.
Because I am a Yankee Gentleman (meaning I have no passel of brown kids with my face running around ’cause I ain’t a nogood Confederate slave-raper), I will even let you choose the weapons. Guns, knives, brass knucks or bare knucks.
I’m guessing, if your biologists’ hands are like mine (which is to say soft, pink, and a little brittle compared to someone who works outside with their hands and brawn more) and nothing like what they were at robust youth’s age 20, you’ll prefer the guns or knives over knucks, bare or brass.
OTOH, if you are willing to break your biologists’ knuckles on my jaw, then I’ll be willing to break mine on yours.
If these terms are amneable, suh, then let me know.
Here’s what I look like, just so you can find me when you get there: I am about 6’10”, 315 lbs. of muscle. My face has a number a scars, from during my service with the French foreign legion in Morocco in the 1930s.
Bet you didn’t know Claude Rains’ character in Casablanca was based on me.
But even through the scars it’s clearly visible that my face is the spitting image of Col. Joshua Lawrence Chaimberlain, evil immoral Bluebelly invader.
Anyway, just let me know if that’s all good with you, then I’ll see you at Gettysburg tomorrow.
“By God! By God! They’re running, sir! All the way back to Richmond!”
-Capt Ellis Spears to Col. Joshua Lawrence Chaimberlain, Jul 2nd 1863, Little Round Top
ProgorCons, ProgorCons…
(facepalm)
I can’t believe you let yourself get sucked into his shit again. Slap yourself in the face for doing so to remind you not to do it again next time.
Talk about him, if you must, don’t talk TO him.
It’s not so hard to do.
Engaging in debate with someone is only truly worthwhile if the person is honest in their representation of themselves and their positions, whatever those positions may be.
Otherwise, it is only worthwhile to have any contact with them for the purposes of your own entertainment. And then, YOU bait the fool, don’t ever let the fool bait you.
I’m not saying I’m perfect at this, but the older I get the better I get at it. Now that I am no longer a member of Team Left but my own man again, there’s fewer places for a fool to get a foothold in my psyche.
You fucked up. You let yourself be baited by a fool and with no positive entertainment value to yourself.
But it’s OK. We all make mistakes. The trick is to be smart enough not to keep repeating the same mistakes.
See you at Gettysburg tomorrow!
Edpell, you will not find this to be a friendly place to announce techno-miracles. CFN believes in doom and the CFN catechism does not allow for hope.
Since Joule plans to break ground on a ten-acre demonstration facility this year, and they could be operating commercially in less than two years, this would be an excellent opportunity for those among us who have money to invest.
The main objections I would imagine from the CFN “scientists” are scalability, sustainability, and efficiency (EROEI).
Basically you are talking about biological hydrogen production, which does face a major challenge: the presence of uptake hydrogenase and lack of sustainability in the cyanobacterial hydrogen production system.
It could be that Joule has overcome this by using marine cyanobacterial species like Leptolyngbya valderiana BDU 20041 or perhaps Dichothrix baueriana BDU 40481 or maybe Nostoc calcicola BDU 40302.
L. valderiana BDU 20041 may actually be promising since it can produce hydrogen even in 100% nitrogen atmosphere (85% of the hydrogen produced in argon atmosphere). That is a high rate of production of hydrogen in a nitrogen atmosphere by a cyanobacterium, which makes it possible to develop sustained hydrogen production systems.
L. valderiana BDU 20041 is a dark hydrogen producer which uses the reductant essentially supplied by the respiratory pathway for hydrogen production. Using inhibitors, this organism produces hydrogen due to the activities of both nitrogenase and bidirectional hydrogenase, without ‘uptake’ hydrogenase activity.
Up until this Joule article you cite the problem with organisms has been that they had low levels of bidirectional hydrogenase, possessed considerable ‘uptake’ hydrogenase activity and hence could not release much hydrogen either in argon or nitrogen atmosphere.
If Joule has solved this, then, as you say, “the energy crisis is over” and the people of the book can stop their stupid wars, and stop fighting for the liquid stuff under the sand.
Edpell, one other thing you will probably encounter in CFN reaction to any kind of techno-miracle is the nearness of TSHTF. This week JHK is saying we are 20 days from Saudi Arabia blowing up.
Although biological hydrogen production is an ideal system because it is a renewable energy source and gives clean fuel, many of CFN would probably maintain that we don’t have enough time left and, at best, biological hydrogen production may only be a good supplement to oil reserves, which, as the CFN catechism says, are peaking or have peaked (in other words, and this is the CFN mantra: “we are so fucked!”)
Thank you for sharing it though. It is refreshing to have a solution offered on this peak oil site.
Their filth will be compounded like their interest until it becommith the filth of all ages; for lo, he who lies down with whores arisith a whoremonger. And he who shudders and twitches in the street, shuddering in fits of sweat-slicked prophetic ecstasy, is doomed to stand outside the velvet rope forever, never admitted to the club.
Sorry about that Wagelaborer – I now know my place in the order of the universe: 10 paces behind the glorious Americans. hahaha 🙂
I am looking forward to seeing what happens with american triumphalism, as the american empire collapses…yikes.
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Great-Powers/dp/0679720197
Ripthunder;
You’re absolutely correct about your stompin’ grounds up there … Western Mass., the Berkshires, one of the best places on earth. I have a copy of Chard Power Smith’s “Housatonic, Puritan River”, published in 1945, a rare book … much of it about Stockbridge. Melville, Hawthorne, the Sedgwicks … it was (and is) a cultural center as well as beautiful, ‘specially in summer and autumn. We’ll meet up sometime this spring, maybe at the bar in the Red Lion Inn. Just yesterday picked up a copy of a book about Gen. Ephraim Williams, a Rev. war militia officer from Mass., who Williams College was named after.
I apologize if my posts to Alexandra, in Great Britain, were a little to harsh. Rereading them today I do come off as a bit of a jingo. Two things though: my interest in peak oil and energy depletion does not translate, for me, to a dislike and repudiation of my own country. I remain a patriot, as I can see almost all of you are in your own way, even Asaka. Second, the World wars are a personal and sensitive subject to me. In the 2 previous generations before me all of my relatives, all of them, uncles, great uncles and both grandfathers served with the US Army in Europe. My own father never really recovered from events in France and the Rhineland, although it was in Korea where he was wounded. And as I mentioned earlier one uncle was killed in WW1 at Seicheprey in the first German-US engagement of the war, as a member of the 26th Yankee Division, Teddy Roosevelt, Jr.s Division. I heard all the stories and know about the sacrifices that were made. So when posters from here say this and that about the USA, unflattering words, that’s one thing. That’s your right. But I don’t like it when Europeans, of all people, say the same thing.
JackieBlu, I enjoy your posts. You’re part of the West Coast Chapter of CFN, Post 4, Central California Division.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
{smell of sap boilin’ on a wood fire with three feet of snow outside and the night sky as black as coal with “Orion” and his dogs lookin down at you as you piss your name in the white crystyline}
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point of fact: san jose mom 51 is unable to write her name in the snow. she would not get past J.
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as for cfn qua “peak oil” all the time, nothing whatso anything else ever any of the time, the good, the bad & the ugly: hey, you, get offa my cloud.
you want the truth
One more thing, I’m not anti-European. My own wife is from Spain and we owned a compound (house) there until last year. Her mothers family escaped the fighting of the Spanish Civil War by going to France. She has relatives in both places, as well as some Basques. Various relatives from both countries frequently visit and stay with us for long periods of time. Spanish is the first language here, French Second. English is the third language. I don’t understand either Spanish, Basque or French, but since its mostly female relatives who show up, I don’t really want to know what they’re talking about.
-Marlin
CFNation Post 1
New England Chapter
JHK sez:
“Apparently nature likes to take its creations to the cleaners every so often, to clear the dross and detritus away. This is perfectly understandable, though one might prefer it happened to some other generation. The Baby Boomers were so effusive over the World War Two cohort because we probably thought we would never have to go through something like that ourselves. The Boomers expected nothing worse than a sequence of diminishing golf scores and blander meals as their horizons moved past assisted living to the final meet-up with God. Now, it turns out, we get to watch our grandchildren fight over the table scraps of the American Dream – such as it was: Chevies, burgers, reality TV, and all the mortgage obligations you could cram in the kitchen drawer.”
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Brilliant! …as was the entirety of this weeks’ clear-eyed speculations.
I’m hoping readers of CFN can see how many of their “issues” are addressed so succinctly in your writings. This one paragraph alone is a prime example. You gots yer evolutionary/natural/man-made disaster quotient; yer “why we fight” theme; yer expectations of the psychology of previous investment; and the horror of watching true desperation come to family and friends. (The fact of it happening to ourselves can be observed with some dispassion, interestingly enough.)
Do you sometimes feel a chilling “turning of the screw” with such well-turned and well-considered phrases? Brrrr! As a reader, I have to say that the thrill of partaking of them is certainly better than most of Hollywood’s offerings (except for the culture-revealing “comedies”)!
Thanks again for another sparkling riff o’ the week.
“…but the Al Gore and Soros liberals dont want this cuz their agenda is to destroy this country with their greenie socialist policies. they dont like cars and freedom, they like government-run transportation. just like Stalin!”
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The wail of a 4-yr-old who’s had their Big Wheel locked up for “not sharing”.
I have always had an inkling it would come to this; historically, it’s all the rage. (Double entendre alert.)
Lock and load, M-F’s, I ain’t goin’ down easily in the face of such complete blind idiocy. Pro-active should be a word of warning, not political nicety. Beware.
Wow!
Nice lecture, Bustin.
As before, I could follow most of it; that recommends it highly. (Though some grinding of gears and burning of wire insulation was observed. ;o)
Pie in the face politics
In the last day, I responded to a posting by a friend who posted a clip of Soupy Sales getting a pie in the face.
I fondly recall standing on a street corner talking to my friend about Soupy in 6th grade, as I would later be discussing Vietnam and politics in High School, so I have a soft spot in my heart for Soupy and pies in the face.
I made an amusing comment and before I knew it, a guy I don’t know started FBing me about his love for the old Three Stooges clips and a long interaction ensued. We’re now FB friends. This morning I got on the computer and watched several clips he set up for my perusal and wanted comment. I mentioned how I got a good laugh and this was a good break from my usual subject of Peak Oil, politics and finance. That said I found the slapstick inspirational when I reflected upon the latest political noise generated by our Republican Presidential wannabes.
Which brings me back to the circus we call elective politics in this country.
In the fall I had a field day laughing at the absurdity of the Right wing kooks such as Carl Paladino, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell–a spectacle to be sure, but now we’re getting into presidential elections for 2012 and the Republicans are lining up to do what-exactly? Run on total falsehoods.
The meme that Obama wasn’t born here and doesn’t share in Christian American values is getting new juice as these clowns are self-destructing. Sure the rabble on the right want to hear the lies, it gets them riled up, afterall at what point does a candidate bear the responsibility for telling the truth and winning on the merits of debate?
Mike Huckabee has joined the fray of absurdity in his statement that Obama was raised in Kenya and shares the historical context of the Mau Mau uprisings, and not the American point of view and love of Great Britain.
When called down on this he tried to switch to Indonesian and madrasas, but he already mentioned the Mau Mau, so too late, my friend. You stepped in dog poo and all the denial and blaming the media isn’t going to get you out of this one. Stop usinjg the corporate media as your whipping boy and take some responsibility as a leader and a religious man, but no, that would be too high-minded and adult and we can’t have that.
Problem is, this meme of Obama not being a citizen has gone so far, that some states are considering not putting Obama on the ticket! At what point does Obama step in and make the record straight that these statements are libelous and must stop.
Like John Kerry before him (they never learn to fight back) he has allowed this nonsense to go on without abatement.
He has never directly taken these jingoistic lies, which somehow look true if he doesn’t take umbrance. That’s the trick. Oh, it’s so absurd I wouldn’t lower myself to address these accusations.
Think again. The populous of this country is pretty low level in the intellect department.
Maybe it’s time to throw a pie or two back!