JHK’s Three-Act Play
In the word-cloud of current events, the phrase “parasitic financial system” billows up to a degree that suggests even so-called thinking persons begin to understand what’s happening: that banking shenanigans are sucking the life out of advanced societies. That’s why Matt Taibbi’s metaphor of Goldman Sachs as “a Vampire Squid jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money” remains so potent years after it was minted.
Of course the pervasive accounting fraud and routine swindling that drive the banking “industry” are abetted by the phantom government “policy” of the Federal Reserve, an institution that 99.999 percent of the American public could not explain under threat of water-boarding. The bottom line is political and economic leadership that can only pretend the economy works, and the destiny of such pretense is the death of legitimacy – meaning the public’s faith in the system. Sooner or later either the public will revolt against such a system, or the system will just implode and leave the public floundering in a period of dreadful chaos.
Nobody capable of thinking through these rather abstruse matters believes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke anymore, and his demeanor in public is of a depressed person who has lost belief in himself and what he does. He announced last week’s policy salvo – the long-awaited QE-3 – with absolutely no conviction. The Fed will spend $40 billion a month in money created out of thin air to buy non-performing mortgages from banks eager to dump them and interest rates on new mortgages will fall to record low levels. This will supposedly “stimulate” the housing market.
Virtually nobody else out there in blog-and-pundit land will tell you what this so-called “housing market” is, so I will. It basically refers to suburban sprawl, which I have previously defined in two ways: 1) the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world, and 2) a living arrangement with no future. The first proposition is obviously a function of the second. Interestingly, one of the first effects of Ben Bernanke’s QE3 salvo was the inflation of oil prices to nearly $100-a-barrel, with a flow-through effect of gasoline above $4 at the pump, which only shortens the horizon of the suburban sprawl paradigm. Like the zombie banks choking on bad mortgages, sprawl is dead but doesn’t know it.
Unfortunately, the suburban sprawl system was interchangeable with the wormy old political chestnut known as the American Dream. Consider that the hysterical extremism ruling Republican politics derives from terror over the death of that flimsy dream – a home of our own, behind the strip mall! They can’t believe it’s over, that it’s lost its value, that they’re stuck with the losses, and they’re looking for someone to blame for it. All the rest of their blather is just the noise of dissociated anxiety – the religious idiocy, the exceptionalism fairy tale, the family values touted by closet cases, the military chauvinism.
Among the many tragic ramifications of the dynamic is that the final blowout of sprawl-building which ran roughly from the early 1990s to 2007 – and peaked, you may notice, with the final blowout of cheap oil ($11 a barrel in 1999) – became one of two intertwined activities that propped up the US economy. The other was, of course, the expansion of the financial “industry” to about 40 percent of all economic activity, largely based on fraud in mortgage issuance and the repackaging of that debt in booby-trapped bundles of MBS, CDOs, and other instruments that have been destroying banks, governments, retirement funds, and individual investment accounts like a long-running hemorrhagic fever. The results of that orgy can be seen now an over-supply of suburban buildings of all kinds (houses, strip malls, box stores) that will continue to lose value, and a banking system disabled by ruined balance sheets.
There’s no remedy for this except acknowledging losses on the grand scale, writing them off, making the necessary lifestyle adjustments to the write-offs, and making a fresh start with an economy based on something other than suburban sprawl building and banking fraud. American politics can’t accept this. Neither party understands the contraction underway throughout the industrial world and the very different future it portends.
Despite the pervasive fraud and incessant central bank interventions, there are routine operations of money that must go on for societies to remain stable. Checks or transactions have to be cleared, payments must be made, letters of credit must be issued to permit the exchange of goods and commodities between nations, bonds must be rolled over, markets must allow truthful asset price and interest rate discovery, currencies must hold their value. The terrible stresses being applied by central banks to avoid acknowledging systemic losses threaten to paralyze these routine operations of money. Too many things can go wrong now.
The fault lines for the moment are crackling along the margins, in foreign lands such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen. There is not a whole lot keeping this infection from spreading into Saudi Arabia. The Saud royal family leadership has passed from one king over eighty years old to another. Nobody knows what will shake out between Israel and Iran. One way or another, an awful lot of the world’s oil supply is at stake in that part of the world, and if that gets stoppered or blown up all the central bank machinations ever dreamed up will not avail to save Europe, North America, China, and Japan.
My guess is that the euphoria over QE3 has already passed. The Fed actions of last week will mean nothing except the steady erosion of dollar value, higher food and fuel costs for all us muppets, and increased mistrust between crippled banks, further crippling bank activity, including the routine operations that make civilized life possible.
Therefore, uncivilized life is not out of the question.
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James Howard Kunstler’s newest nonfiction book, TOO MUCH MAGIC, will be available in stores in July 2012. The book will be available at booksellers, large and small, online and off. To find out how you can help support local bookstores with your purchase, CLICK HERE. Other books:
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
New Paintings from the 2022 Season
Barrel Racers, Cambridge, NY
Just Out! The whole shootin’ match going back to 1987!
For autographed copies:
Battenkill Books, Cambridge, NY
Also at: Amazon, Barnes & Nobel
The Jeff Greenaway series of novellas. These rollicking, short books depict the misadventures of an eleven-year-old boy growing up in New York City in the early 1960s
Other Books by JHK
The World Made By Hand Series:
Book 1: |
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Book 4: |
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I take care of my myself and I take care of my loved ones and I pretty much ignore all the rest. At minimum I make sure to not become yet another victim of the system. Either that or I’ll be just another cog in the big flaming trainwreck that’s hurdling toward us.
http://evilspeculator.com
In the part of Vancouver, British Columbia where I live, we don’t have so much suburban sprawl. What we’ve got is “houses on steroids.” All over the west side of town, small-but-adequate older houses are being torn down and replaced with puffed-up monstrosities. Two have been a-building on my block this year, with 1-story structures being replaced by two-level homes that bulge out to the edges of the lot lines. I feel like the house we rent (not buying in this bubble market!) is a dwarf. It’s getting hard to drive down any of the neighbourhood streets because the hulking house and “laneway homes” (mini-houses facing onto alleyways, built behind big houses) have displaced all the garaged cars onto street parking. Everything is effectively a one-way street up here now.
People are starting to realize that housing is in a bubble here, but at the same time they hold onto the notion that “it’s different here.” I keep warning them, and you’d think they’d wise up after seeing the U.S. housing market collapse, but they’re counting on Chinese immigrant money to bail out the house frenzy here. I try to tell ’em that China is a bigger bubble, primed to blow, but it’s too much to explain. As long as the financial types can continue to baffle them with bullshit, the game goes on.
Third!
You wrong-footed everyone by posting a couple hours early this week, JHK.
But Jim, just down the road a piece, a huge billboard appeared suddenly in front of an abandoned strip mall from the late 1950s, announcing that a brand new strip mall is on its way. I already see the yellow tape and bulldozers showing up. It won’t be long now!
–WSP7
And as far as QE3 goes, how come none of the Teabaggers have been waving their fake muskets and real assault rifles in anger over these latest BAILOUTS?
“Bailout, bailout, bailout!” they were screeching when Treasury Skeletor Paulson TARPed Congress and when President Hopey kept General Happy Motors half-alive. But Uncle Helicopter announces he’s going to give $40 billion a month in cash-for-trash to the Too Big To Function banks, and there’s not a squeak.
Could it be because the ‘Baggers aren’t being told to whine by their corporate masters? That, and the fact that the financial world is made deliberately confusing, so the rubes are easily baffled, as you point out.
“1) the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world, and 2) a living arrangement with no future.”
That’s the answer to the second question I ask my students on the worksheet for “The End of Suburbia.” This stands in ironic contrast to the answers to the first question, which is “What does suburbia promise?” Space, convenience, affordability, upward mobility, and family life; in short, the (North) American Dream. My students almost invariably find the movie disturbing. The exception was the Ukrainian immigrant who observed that “peak oil was going to take away Americans’ toys and they’ll all cry.” She wasn’t scared, having already lived through the collapse of the USSR.
As for no one believing Bernanke, enough people did to make the stock market rally, something I placed in stark contrast on my blog to the events of four years ago, when we were partying like it was 1929. Of course, the way you put it, “Nobody capable of thinking through these rather abstruse matters believes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke anymore” still applies. The people on Wall Street aren’t thinking this through; they just want to make money.
In addition to writing about the contrast between September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and today, I also blogged about what you had to say about Cadillac’s CUE visual control system (you’re right about the stupidity of it, but it will sell), my college’s student essay competition, which is about Saving Detroit, a moment of silence for 9-11, and several entries about the election, including a couple promoting my writing at Examiner.com.
That’s it for this past week from Crazy Eddie’s Motie News. Happy Motoring–for now–from Detroit!
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/
Does any American really care what happens in Egypt, Libya or Syria? Other than feeling sorry for the 4 Americans who were killed, those middle eastern countries can go implode and most of us will not lose a wink of sleep. American won’t be sending troops over there because they have no oil. Arab Springs only get American attention if there is some underlying product there (like oil or uranium, etc.). Otherwise all those crazy people who think a comically bad, amateurish movie trailer (with fake beards and costumes from those Halloween pop up stores) insults Allah can riot and destroy their own infrastructure with no intervention from the western civilization. And the neo cons won’t be able to use Fear Tactics to push us into invading Iran. Iran can drop dead for all I care. No kid of mine is going to be shot at to save Exxon’s oil claims.
And if the financial system tanks, everyone goes down. At least in theory. The police won’t be paid anymore so I can’t imagine them serving eviction notices to the rest of us. The police and their families live in our suburbs. They are us. The cure (temporary as it may be) is simple and its already here — the economy is moving forward again. Maybe not in rural areas — rural areas are traditionally poor and are usually LAST in line for recovery but elsewhere things are happening. We’ve got new developments going up in the next town and new strip malls are being built. No empty store fronts exist anymore (at least not here at the Jersey Shore). Cars that get better mileage are on the road with higher standards demanded in the future. Amazon has opened two new warehouses for distribution giving NJ more lousy minimum wage jobs (but they are jobs). Maybe they will unionize.
Frankly I get depressed when I see giant McMansions going up with NO SOLAR panels — if you can afford these palaces why aren’t you thinking ahead on how to heat them or pay for the dwindling natural resources. I see Romney signs on rich people’s lawns and Obama signs on working class/middle class people’s lawns. Nothing is certain, of course. We may be doomed like every other empire or we may come out of this a little wiser on conserving resources. As long as the GOP keeps up its War on Women, Obama is certain to win and America will creep on at least a little bit longer.
Got to say Jim, I like pics of your garden and are very envious. It is a bit rectilinear and formal for my tastes, but it is what I would expect for your space. Still it’s good to have the connection with the soil. For some worthwhile reading to that effect check out “Life in the Soil by James Nardi and Out of the Earth by Louis Bromfield, some good stuff.
Also hope your recovery is progressing well.
Anyway, with QE4ever what’s to worry? The Fed will gobble up all the putrid financial BS they created like 25 cent tacos and then when good and ripe flush the entire mess into oblivion via cyberspace. Money is just a convenient illusion, works so long as we all believe it has value.
Tell me we can still believe it has value…
Oh well, the illusion was fun while it lasted, guess we may as well wake up!
Later CF’rs…
The Fed is buying up 40 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month.
We are in trouble, folks. Bernanke is not stupid. This is his Hail-Mary pass ahead of the budgetary cliff we’ll sail over, come January.
Got to say Jim, I like pics of your garden and are very envious. It is a bit rectilinear and formal for my tastes, but it is what I would expect for your space. Still it’s good to have the connection with the soil. For some worthwhile reading to that effect check out “Life in the Soil by James Nardi and Out of the Earth by Louis Bromfield, some good stuff.
Also, hope your recovery is progressing well.
Anyway, with QE4ever what’s to worry? The Fed will gobble up all the putrid financial BS they created like 25 cent tacos and then when good and ripe flush the entire mess into oblivion via cyberspace. Money is just a convenient illusion, works so long as we all believe it has value.
Tell me we can still believe it has value…
Oh well, the illusion was fun while it lasted, guess we may as well wake up!
Later CF’d Citizens…
“Frankly I get depressed when I see giant McMansions going up with NO SOLAR panels”
I’d be even more appalled to witness someone who is such an idiot as to build a McMansion WITH solar panels.
Must disagree with what appears to be an assertion by Kunstler that the non-viability of suburbia was the cause, or a cause, of the financial crisis. Oil is still cheap enough that suburbia is still viable in the near term as a form of social organization. It’s not suburbia that caused the financial crisis. The demise of suburbia will be yet another hammer blow to the developed world, especially the US, but it hasn’t really happened yet.
Jim, the mind change required to undo the mentality that built suburbia and financialized America is profound. One lever is education, for what it’s worth.
On the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, let’s start thinking about smashing the MBA-paradigm. Its methods are just too dangerous for rich, ambitious people to be out in public walking around with.
Here’s a radical alternative: coopBschool
Check it out at http://occupyMBA.com
OccupyMBA!
A small house within walking distance of a large mall with a grocery center is one of the best investments an American could make right now. Or two or three of them.
In the event of a gasoline disruption, their value would be greatly increased.
Jim, thanks as always for your insight. This week’s sneer quotes around “industry” and “policy” say it all.
Here between NYC & Philly, I’m hoping I’ve sufficiently set us up to thrive in the new normal: Preparation, caution, appreciation, love, frugality, simplicity, connection, community, and attention to emotional and physical health.
Do any fellow frogs sense this water’s getting warmer?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/world-verge-war
Mr. James,
This missive from the reality (not realty) bank of the raging, flood-choked Urubamba really nails the predicament of the wishful thinkers. First, we must admit that your voice is barely heard above the booming of Volkswagen-sized boulders crashing down the riverbed, but that certainly doesn’t lessen the alarming truths you’re shouting.
You sez:
“Of course the pervasive accounting fraud and routine swindling that drive the banking “industry” are abetted by the phantom government “policy” of the Federal Reserve, an institution that 99.999 percent of the American public could not explain under threat of water-boarding.
*************************
I believe this to be by design. It’s what mountebanks always sputter when caught in the sudden glare of the flashlight. “Can’t you see what I’m doing here is delicate and complicated?? Now, turn out that damn light and let me do this “Hard Work” (tm GWB) that is going to SAVE your ignorant ass!”
You sez, further:
“The bottom line is political and economic leadership that can only pretend the economy works, and the destiny of such pretense is the death of legitimacy – meaning the public’s faith in the system. Sooner or later either the public will revolt against such a system, or the system will just implode and leave the public floundering in a period of dreadful chaos.”
I would think it will turn out to be the latter, as no one seems willing to get on with any necessary “downscaling”. The desperation to maintain the status quo is becoming a noticeable malaise, taking on a curious edge of wide-eyed panic and hasty babblings of denial that anything is amiss.
*********************
You say mo’ yet!:
“Unfortunately, the suburban sprawl system was interchangeable with the wormy old political chestnut known as the American Dream. Consider that the hysterical extremism ruling Republican politics derives from terror over the death of that flimsy dream – a home of our own, behind the strip mall! They can’t believe it’s over, that it’s lost its value, that they’re stuck with the losses, and they’re looking for someone to blame for it. All the rest of their blather is just the noise of dissociated anxiety – the religious idiocy, the exceptionalism fairy tale, the family values touted by closet cases, the military chauvinism.”
Ouch and Holey Sheets, Man! Most unfortunately, you’ve nailed it. Spread the word; the shanty-town of lies is well and truly ablaze, and the fire company is drunk and fucked-out at their convention in Florida [somewhere].
**************************
Lastly:
” My guess is that the euphoria over QE3 has already passed. The Fed actions of last week will mean nothing except the steady erosion of dollar value, higher food and fuel costs for all us muppets, and increased mistrust between crippled banks, further crippling bank activity, including the routine operations that make civilized life possible.
Therefore, uncivilized life is not out of the question.”
Da Market, is stumbling and sputtering already, following an orgasmic spurting and pants-pissing version of “Happy Days Are Here Again”. It was all a ruse to bilk the last of the rubes anyway; those who are the big players know this full well.
Incivility is most assuredly to be expected. Blatant thievery (violation) is never taken lightly; thus the efforts to make it seem like arcane magic is going on in every accounting department in the benighted land. However, these efforts seem to be losing their efficacy this time, don’t they?
From what I read, some of the digital dollars are flowing to the lumpen, primarily the poor D voting ones being my guess. Ally the banking arm for Government Motors is making sub prime loans for autos. No word if they expect to be paid back. And I know of a young woman who via a divorce filed bankruptcy and then bought a Nissan that consumes 25% of her take home pay.
Here is the psychology of money, it must be held dear by the populace, and so after the party starts and the masses get giddy the banksters who face certain ruin must pull the punch bowl away from the masses, and make the masses desperate for the banksters’ product, Money.
I don’t know when this will happen, but it will happen as certain as the sun rises.
Ha!
“Misallocation of resources” anyone?
Amazing what we’ll tell ourselves is good for us, ain’t it? “I think I’ll use this heroin stuff more often; it seems to help me get a good night’s sleep.”
Most people will ignore the iceberg until it is too late. The consequences will be awful, but in the end it will all work itself out. We may not be here to see the other side, but that might be a good thing. It’s be a helluva run, you have to admit it was fun while it lasted.
Aimlow Joe was here
http://www.aimlow.com
The problem is not so much a lack of money as it is a lack of movement of same. Bernanke’s purchase of worthless paper is only a gesture – theater of a sort – and won’t have much effect on the overall economy. The banks won’t move the money because nobody knows what anything is worth, thus making collateral worthless. Meanwhile, overcapacity in business, and product saturation among consumers has destroyed demand. I mean, a new I-phone that is 20% thinner and 15% lighter…is that all you’ve got?. The damn things are too small to handle as it is!
Jim:
This new post following Bernanke’s foibles was not as hard hitting and vitriolic as I expected, but it will do. You didn’t mention that the Fed chairman’s action was also a ploy to insure Obama’s reelection. Romney’s not really running anyway but both parties and their bankster rulers need to feign a good contest to fool the electorate into feeling they still live in a democracy.
Read it and weep James….
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/its-not-a-clusterfuck-its-an-american-pussy-riot/
KulturCritic KulturCritic KulturCritic
Concisely put, B.C.!
Forget what I spluttered… ;o)
Another Goldman Sachs/government reach around. This may make you sick.
A Huge Housing Bargain — but Not for You
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11224917/a-huge-housing-bargain–but-not-for-you.html
I just heard from some friends who are trying to refinance the house they’ve lived in for 20 years that a mortgage company they’ve never heard of has a lien on the property. My friend who was understandably puzzled, did some digging on his own and thinks what happened is that the (well-known) company to which they’ve been making their payments somehow sold (in a bundle?) their mortgage to this other company, but, basically, FORGOT they did it. Duh. So who owns the mortgage? Have their payments to the purported holder of the mortgage counted? With this whole system so f**ked up, it really makes me wonder if any of us should even bother making our house payments, without some proof that we’re paying them to the right company.
In the event of a gasoline disruption, their value would be greatly increased.
Uh, dude? In the event of a gasoline disruption, how are products going to be delivered to the mall? And in a gasoline disruption, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, so they won’t have any money to buy stuff with. Even if it is delivered. Which it won’t be, even if there’s diesel for the trucks. Because there won’t be enough people with jobs. It’s the downward dynamic death-spiral of deflation.
JHK lays it out pretty well in “The Long Emergency.” A book which I gave my 20-something daughter two years ago, and she still hasn’t read it. Which is too bad, because she’s going to have to live in the Long Emergency world. I’ve already got my life arranged as well as possible (getting pretty good at growing food on small spaces up here in Canuckrainia, and when my wife and I immigrate back to rural Australia, we’ll do it even better.) It’s a damn shame when the people who will be most spattered with shit when it hits the fan don’e even want to admit that there IS a fan, mch less that they can smell any shit flying toward it.
“…the Federal Reserve, an institution that 99.999 percent of the American public could not explain under threat of water-boarding.”
This the key to their power. Most Americans believe the FED is part of the government. They have no idea it is a private corporation owned and run by and for the benefit of the big banks. Their dual mandate of fighting inflation and having full employment is just nonsense. If Americans understood how the FED operates they would be up in arms. It’s paramount for the FED to keep the sheeple in ignorance.
“Stoneleigh” of The ASutomatic Earth blog has a term for that kind of mortgage cock-up, PRD. It’s called “multiple competing claims to underlying real wealth.” You have a house. It’s real. But the mortgage may have been sold multiple times. Pieces of your house loan might have been included in tranches of mortgage-backed bonds to various parties. One got 50% of your mortgage in one bond, another got 25%, someone else got 33%…
What? That’s more than 100%! Welcome to the world of “infinite rehypothecation” as madman economic ranter Max Keiser puts it. The banksters have sold the same pig in a poke many times over. It’s all fraud. Except with a flaccid U.S. Attorney General like Eric Holder refusing to prosecute any financial terrorists, and state attorneys general merely pretending to start criminal investigations so they can be bought off with bribes (i.e. “fines the banks have to pay”) this shit is effectively legalized.
YOU know you’ve been paying your mortgage. But when some financial corporation with a flying squad of lawyers say your house is theirs anyway, who do you think is going to prevail in the eyes of the law?
Most Americans believe the FED is part of the government. They have no idea it is a private corporation owned and run by and for the benefit of the big banks.
I remember having an argument with my elderly mother and my uncle about just that topic. I cited chapter and verse about the FACTS to them, but they refused to believe. They do not have a computer, so I could not whip one out to wave any articles on the ‘Net under their noses. They are Republikkkans, so they would have refused to believe it anyway, because it came from the Internet. Which, as every kkkonservative knows, is full of lies.
Unless it’s sending them a multiple-forwarded chain e-mail that says Obama is a Muslim socialist Kenyan who’s going to impose sharia law on the United States. THAT, they find credible.
I don’t even bother explaining things to people who are not already clued in somewhat. It’s a waste of the calories I expend moving my jaw to do it.
“Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end”
-Jim Morrison, – 1966
” As long as the GOP keeps up its War on Women, Obama is certain to win and America will creep on at least a little bit longer.”
Oh for fuck’s sake put down your glass and walk away from the punch bowl. “War on Women”? Has it occurred to you that half of Republicans are women? And the ones who are not are married to women, and have daughters, mothers, nieces and friends, who are…wait for it…WOMEN.
Now shut the fuck up and go to hell where you ever must to get a clue.
One of the very interesting things about the housing crisis in general though is to look at home prices both within cities and in the ‘burbs and rural areas. Home prices in places that are dense, have mass-transit and a viable employment sector such as Boston, NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland OR and others seem to be maintaining their prices for housing at a pretty high level. In fact, I’m job-hunting and really considering a move back towards a more urban locale but can’t figure out how I’d afford to live in these cities. Housing prices in the boonies where I live have in no-way kept pace with the prices of even the most miserable urban housing.
So this makes me wonder in terms of how people whol live in the suburbs or rural areas will be able to afford to relocate to more urban locales that are not as car dependent? Will people be willing to move from their own home on acreage to living arrangements that they last experienced in college? I know this doesn’t seem too desirable to me; the prospect of sharing a cramped city apartment with multiple roomates once again….
So while some who are in the ‘burbs may in fact “get” what is happening, they may not have a good way to change their living arrangements. A frog in a pot of water that is being heated may in fact realize what is happneing but if the walls of the pot are too high he can jump all he pleases but he will still be cooked in the end.
“I…can’t figure out how I’d afford to live in these cities. ”
Therein explains the existence of the suburbs. They are an outgrowth of people seeking solutions for their economic well being. Period.
“… an economy based on something other than suburban sprawl and bank fraud.” -JHK
What else is there, besides fixin’ cars?
“Therefore, uncivilized life is not out of the question.” -JHK
Been to New Haven or Bridgeport lately? No civilization there to speak of, cloistered in Yale not withstanding.
–WSP7
Sorry to all for the double post.
The first one didn’t appear to be accepted…
LL
Sprawl. I haven’t seen the word spread around very much since 2007. Now of course with the need for jobs and the never ending mantra for growth it is popping up again. It was a nasty word then and it is a nasty word now. And what are we answering all this sprawl problem with. Cars that can get better mileage out of a gallon of gas and then rise the price of gasoline so all the fools can think the dream lives and to match the stupidity of all the hoopla of growth and jobs. Meanwhile ignoring what all this is doing to the planet and everything living on it. What a pathetic system we have created and then got caught in.
Many suburbs have some advantages which could be put to use. One such is plenty of land which could be converted to communal orchards, still leaving enough for individual garden and recreation plots. There would be no need to seize people’s lots, except away from the banksters; local govts. could allow property tax breaks for responsible use of land, such as planting useful trees, participation in community gardening efforts, participation in neighborhood watch and patrol efforts. While suburbs now are dependent on auto transportation, they need not be so dependent. Many are laid out on flat ground, with wide streets, which would facilitate walking, biking, small scale motorized transport for the elderly and disabled, and various kinds of public transport. Zoning laws could be changed to allow responsible small businesses, and the money which is now being used for building stadiums and parking garages could be used for startup loans; local hiring and residency requirements should be imposed, you don’t get to bring your entire tribe from afar and take money out of the community.
Unfortunately, in the USA, civic virtue has been replaced by fashion and ideology, so the chances that law abiding, responsible people will organize themselves to take control of their neighborhoods remain slim.
“Frankly I get depressed when I see giant McMansions going up with NO SOLAR panels ”
that is a joke and part of the problem… solar panels on mcmansions? really? perhaps you think renewables (with their LOW eroei) powering waste is somehow ‘green”?
that is part of the erroneous thinking that we can just substitute a different power source to operate our existing infrastructure… and honestly, that is just not possible… or even if it was wise.
the future is about frugality and consuming less… not more (in terms of solar) to compensate for waste and unconscious consumption.
todd
Well Todd, we substituted petroleum for whale oil when petro become more viable. We’re pretty clever about things like that. Invention being the mother of necessity. Rich people also need to make sure everyone knows that they are rich. So they build McMansions to make sure you and everybody else knows how rich and important they are. Why can’t they think a little bit ahead and let everyone know how rich and SMART they are by using solar power or geothermal or turbines, etc.
But maybe the rich don’t care if natural resources becomes so expensive that ordinary people (like me) can’t afford it. Maybe being warm and comfortable will become a luxury only the top 1% can afford. Unless the government intervenes and restricts how much natural gas or oil or food, etc. any one person can use. Like they did during WWII. Of course the rich will claim its class warfare!
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” … Kenneth Boulding, Economist
Sometimes I save News clippings. Last nite I read one I had saved:
Pennsylvania steel-mill now a [gambling] Casino.
Welcome to Hope n Change.
HUH? How does food get to the mall?
Food travels 100-2000 miles in the USA today.
anti,
I mentioned that last week. The Bethlehem Steel plant land now houses a Sands casino, owned by Sheldon Adelson. It was build more than three years ago, during the Bush administration.
What’s the problem? Food comes from grocery stores. In the mall. And McDonalds and Burger King. At the food court. Everyone knows this.
When the final word on Obama’s presidency is written the historians will concur that Obama’s single biggest failure as commander-in-chief was his inability to distinguish between friend and foe. The large banks and investment firms on Wall Street, who helped create the financial clusterfuck that brought down the global economy, were bailed out by those who were victimized by those same banks. Muslims in the middle east who overthrew corrupt, despotic dictators that had victimized them for decades found themselves victimized once again by newly-installed theocracies that were a million times worse than the old dictators and backed by the same American administration that had supported the overthrow of the old tyrants. After four years of compromise and accomodation, is there anything left of the promise of Hope and Change?
Right On!
BTW, there’s a good book at http://www.amazon.com/Suburban-Survival-Preparing-Socio-Econonmic-Collapse/dp/147834203X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346737613&sr=1-1
And so what?
Will you and anti-soak get with it? Casinos are hotbeds of evolution, re-deploying resources away from the unfit. It’s natural selection at work selecting against knuckleheads. Like stockmarkets.
To Orionoir
Last week you said:
“still, what if western capitalism were to revert to a literal understanding of judeochristian teachings re finance?”
“if there were no interest, not for savings nor for debt either, which, of course, are but sides of a coin of many sides, the future value of money might become an immediate thing, akin to grace.”
Interesting to speculate what would come out of it. A society where “interest” either for a loan or deposit is seen as grimy and socially unacceptable or maybe even illegal. I have to wonder how loans would get made. What would compensate lenders for the risk of borrowers not repaying a loan? How would deposit taking institutions make money from taking deposits? Or lending? I think that the word “interest” wouldn’t be used but a “fee” charged on the same basis would take its place. People don’t generally do things for free.
Maybe we can look at Islamic models but from what I’ve heard “interest” on loans is just re-named and gussied up to make it sound sharia compliant.
Very cogently argued and well written this week, JHK. My favorite part, for its conciseness, for it breadth of explanation, is this:
All the rest of their blather is just the noise of dissociated anxiety – the religious idiocy, the exceptionalism fairy tale, the family values touted by closet cases, the military chauvinism.
In one sentence you have identified what I consider to be the essence of our problems. It is good that we ended the war in Iraq and that we will be ending the war in Afghanistan in 2014 (assuming Obama is in the White House).
We need to end the religious idiocy, family values hypocrisy, and exceptionalism as well.
Do that and the economic part will take care of itself. Fail to do that and we may see a nuclear conflagration and worldwide economic disruption the likes of which the world has never seen. With Romney the hypocrisy, the exceptionalism, and the militarism will continue.
Mitt Romney is completely out of touch with the electorate:
In an interview with ABC, Mitt Romney offered his definition of the middle class. “Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less,” he said.
That kind of statement from Romney is why Obama is approaching double-digit leads over Romney.
If the entire reading public read your Magic Book, these black magicians would be strung up and hung in a fortnight. The foundations of the next economy of sustainability will then be laid.
But I highly doubt such a act of justice will occur. Yep, uncivilized it will become.
“Neither party understands the contraction underway throughout the industrial world and the very different future it portends.”
No, neither party wishes to admit it. I do not believe the people in charge do not understand what’s going on. Although anything is possible I suppose.
I believe that there are vested interests involved in keeping the status quo going as long as possible, and then some. Control of the American populace and their own wealth depend on it. What advantage is there to either party in admitting what’s going on and dealing with it like adults?
Yes, yes very astute Assoka. Very well said, yes, we need to end the religious idiocy, family values hypocrisy, and exceptionalism as well. Without a doubt. Let’s get on it now.
But there are other important matters we need to deal with, one of which is still outstanding because, Assoka, last week you said:
“Yes, I am fascinated by accounts of the past and how they influence our behavior. My decisions about health care insurance reimbursements, data back up software, car repairs, photovoltaic solar system installations, frequent flyer plans, credit card companies, smart phones, etc. are all informed by the example of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It just goes to show that human nature has not changed at all.[sarcasm off]”
And I replied:
“What’s this? You own a car? You’ve installed a photovoltaic solar system? You fly? In airplanes? You have credit cards? You have computer equipment? With data back up software, no less?
And we’re to believe that you do all this on 12 grand a year?”
You didn’t answer the question.
Seeing as you repeatedly trumpet your 12 grand a year income, are we to believe that you do all this on 12 grand a year?
We need to know how you stretch 12 grand that far. If in fact you do. Everyone needs to know. Really. We can all learn from this. There’s a lot of people in that situation.
Or maybe the 12 grand a year is all bullshit. So, how is it?
$12,000 is not bullshit. It is living in luxury, compared to where I have lived in less developed parts of the world. I live a normal USA life, like a king. I have wealth and zero debt. I have everything I need. All on $12,000 a year.
I have explained how I have done this many times, if you were reading. It’s not rocket science.
Be part of a community, grow part of your own food, simply your lifestyle, live in a self-built mud hut that requires minimal energy input for heating/cooling, and UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEEDS AND WANTS.
Very well said, yes, we need to end the religious idiocy, family values hypocrisy, and exceptionalism as well. Without a doubt.
===============
Did you intentionally leave out ending militarism and abolishing armies? You do not agree we need to do that, do you? You want status quo killing, just like the last 5,000 years.
Just spent a year without cable or internet..or phone, three miles from Cortez, Co.
Now due to spousal pressure I have grugeingly reconnected a bundle of all three:(
The first and only shocks…. how much Wolf Blitzer and Heidi Klum have aged.
The second thing I noticed… How much more DESPERATE advertising seems…. Like a middle age man trying to pick up on young honey’s unsuccessfully. Television ad’s have gotten kind of creepy and even a little pervie.
Third thing I noticed… how zombie like the “news” has become… again very creepy.
I think I might go back into my diving bell again
but then again, things have improved…Vlad seems to be gone!
Living Well & Peacefully on $12,000 a Year
http://medicinesux.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/living-well-peacefully-on-12000-a-year/
Hint: If you move to a moderate climate, build an adobe hut, and learn permaculture, you can live very well on $12,000 a year without having to chop wood or carry water. But this artist manages to live on $12,000 on a boat in San Francisco!
OK, I get it. No need to cook, ‘we’ have KFC via EBT.
Its not just da nooz but how the LA Times spins it!
No mentioning of the hallowing out of the US Industrial Base!
PARTEE ON!
‘ immigrate back to rural Australia, we’ll do it even better’
Did you see the pictures posted recently, of the pre preschooler down under, holding the ‘BEHEAD NON BELIEVERS’ sign while mama proudly took his picture?
I cant find the pix, but lots of news at:
http://sheikyermami.com
etcetcetc
‘Built’, MM.
‘build more than three years ago, during the Bush administration.’
What difference does it make when it was built?
Are all Billionaires Israeli? No, ‘just’ 40%.
[Radas figure, I quote].
Jim, you keep saying sprawl is over and I wish it were true but the “home builders” have not heard you. Our little family farm is 2/3 surrounded by this stuff and they keep closing in and keep calling with “expressions of interest” to buy our modest legacy for housing. One of the adjacent tracts will host the “metro home show” for our city next year with multi-acre lots and 5000-sq.-ft. fuckboxes. What will it take to make them stop? The actual, full-fledged zombie apocalypse? Please, make them stop!
Pretty soon it’s gonna cost more to drive to work than one gets paid. No matter. Some of us will still have jobs.
OK, where are those Kate Middleton topless shots?
Jim is beginning to sound more like Ron Paul every day (and that’s a good thing).
Not too many in the American body politic understand that the Fed is the de facto world communist party or more likely, world fascist party, affecting the economy in every nation through the Federal Reserve’s status as the world reserve currency. I get subjected to a few hours of Faux News a few hours every week at a client’s home and they blather on about the evil Obama, without ever divulging the real source of the problem: the Fed.
The failure to prosecute Jon Corzine of MF Capital for his inability to find $1.6 billion (with a “B”) in allegedly segregated customer funds is a clear, loud warning shot to everyone that if your money is in someone else’s hands (the stock broker, the retirement account, and soon to be commercial bank), it is no longer safe.
I’m a dog and we’re not so good with numbers, a moment before I comment please.
$40 billion a month is 40,000,000,000 * 12 / 365 = 1.314 billion dollars a day.
$1.314 billion…..
A short pause while I answer a phone call from quo-Bama’s campaign.
Where was I,
$1.314 billion / 311,000,000 (population of the US) = $4.23
But 311,000,000 is too high because I want the working population. A simple division corrects things. The participation rate is about 56%.
$4.23 / 0.56 = $7.55
Ok, I,m ready. I appreciate your patience.
Ben Bernanke has put a tax of $7.55 on every working American in the country. The money is desperately needed as there are some people who think they are rich but really they are not. We have to give them money before they find out that they are as poor as we are because they are friends of Ben and need our help.
Don’t worry about having to pay the tax because the money is going to be squeezed out of you every time you buy something over the years ahead. It won’t hurt and you won’t even know you are paying it. Hard to notice something that is taken away from you before you even get it.
A small price to pay to keep things exactly as they are for just a little while longer. We have to keep this band playing until the ship sinks. $7.55 a day is only about 5% of an average days wage for an American. We can all suck it up right? Missing a meal a day might be good for some people.
It’s comforting to know Ben cares about the health of Americans. It gives me a warm glow all over. Perhaps he should be rewarded for his concern. He likes money, I’m sure he’d like some more. How about we all chip in and give him some.
*****
There is another dog in the presidential race. His name is Jingo and I’ve never liked him but allegedly some asshole Israeli-American spent a lot of money making a film promoting his campaign. Don’t vote for him, that dog is really mean, steals food and that’s not the half of it.
☐ Obama
☐ Romney
☐ Jingo
✔ K-Dog
Write me in.
ALL food moves by truckers–i deal with them almost every day in my business-they are better informed than most people,including the edgeumecated..they are going home and stay when the shtf…so make sure you have what you’ll need.
Ben Bernanke has put a tax of $7.55 per day on every working American in the country.
Good post this week, Jimbo. I read a piece in this week’s Economist which had a sentence about America being less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, because, get this, we have shale gas. I guess someone should tell our aircraft carrier groups that they’re no longer needed over there. Apparently, we’ll just frack our way to energy independence. Of course, that’s economists for you. If you can’t have steak, well, then chicken is a perfectly good substitute ain’t it?
Since the banks are too big to fail and have been bailed out by the Fed time and time again, perhaps it is time they were fully nationalized and/or regulated as public utilities. The current casino model doesn’t seem to be working all that well.
I’d like to hear Jim’s take on derivatives. He talks a lot about mortgages, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. There is a multi-trillion dollar derivatives bubble. Some say that these obligations are many times the entire money supply of the planet, and here we are quantitatively easing ourselves into oblivion by shoring up this madness.
If you can’t have steak, well, then chicken is a perfectly good substitute ain’t it?
The lower on the food chain you can eat, the better for the planet. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it takes more than 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce a calorie of animal protein as it takes to produce the same amount of plant protein.
Raising animals for food gobbles up precious energy. Simply add up the energy-intensive stages of raising animals for food: (1) grow massive amounts of corn, grain, and soybeans (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop-dusters, etc.); (2) transport the grain and soybeans to feed manufacturers on gas-guzzling 18-wheelers; (3) operate the feed mills (requiring massive energy expenditures); (4) transport the feed to the factory farms (again, in gas-guzzling vehicles); (5) operate the factory farms; (6) truck the animals many miles to slaughter; (7) operate the slaughterhouse; (8) transport the meat to processing plants; (9) operate the meat-processing plants; (10) transport the meat to grocery stores; (11) keep the meat refrigerated or frozen in the stores until it’s sold.
As far as water goes, between watering the crops that farmed animals eat, providing drinking water for billions of animals each year, and cleaning away the filth in factory farms, transport trucks, and slaughterhouses, the farmed animal industry places a serious strain on our water supply.
Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.
It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegan diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a typical meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day.
Yeah, I suppose it wasn’t a good analogy. Shale gas isn’t a very good substitute for oil, or at least the infrastructure is completely lacking to make any kind of dent in our overall oil consumption.
The “American way of life” is unsustainable. We have to reduce consumption as part of a mandatory energy contraction. Fortunately, oil consumption in the USA is projected to stabilize over the next twenty years, or perhaps even fall somewhat. This is due to a combination of rising future oil prices, aggressive regulations being phased in to increase automobile fuel economy, and the mandated expansion of biofuels. Don’t look for the end of the suburbs anytime soon. They can kick this can down the road for several more decades, maybe a century.
asoka, I know you’re not one for worrying about the hobgoblins of small minds, but aren’t these two statements directly contradictory?
—
The “American way of life” is unsustainable.
—
Don’t look for the end of the suburbs anytime soon. They can kick this can down the road for several more decades, maybe a century.
—
The American way of life is more or less suburban. At least, most people live in suburban settings. So if the latter is unsustainable, how would it be that the can of the former can be kicked down the road for an extended period of time? You’re not making much sense.
There are two crises in modern America that point to the fragility of the suburban situation. The first was the housing crash, which evaporated much of suburbia’s household wealth and caused many mortgage holders to go underwater on their financing. This situation is a ticking time bomb. The second is the rapidly aging and deteriorating road and highway infrastructure here. The construction of this massive system, surely the largest of its type in the world and in all of history, facilitated the suburban boom during the 1950’s and beyond. Thus those in more dense areas were able to buy up houses on the cheap in the burbs for a fraction of what they would cost in an urban area, if available there at all. But the not so hidden cost was this behemoth of a road system that is difficult to maintain. Once you start to factor in the rising cost of oil and, basically, all the raw materials that go into maintaining it, the interstate highway system starts to look less tenable in the future.
Europe and Asian, at least certain places there, will not suffer as much from this problem, because they have rail systems, which though difficult to run at a profit, are a good fallback should car-based transportation start to founder. We have nothing like this here in the US. Say what you will about public transportation, but the highway system was a massive free infrastructure investment that made the whole auto industry possible. Without it, the way we get around would be completely different, and the car would not have achieved such dominance.
“free infrastructure investment”
To clarify, I meant that this was free for the auto makers like GM, not free in and of itself. Obviously, it is financed through tax dollars.
“they are better informed than most people,including the edgeumecated”
I assume that depends on which issues we’re discussing. Do you think they’re better informed about Peak Oil and related issues compared with the average person? I might agree with this statement, but a blanket statement comparing them with the “educated” is difficult to swallow.
“Pretty soon it’s gonna cost more to drive to work than one gets paid.”
What is pretty soon?
This is dependent on how far you drive, and in what kind of car, and how much you get paid.
So let’s say you make 8 bucks an hour, work 40 hours a week, and drive 30 miles each way to work.
That’s 8 hours per day * 8 bucks = 64 dollars a day.
Your gas expenses in a car that gets 30 miles per gallon with gas at ~$4 / gallon would be 8 bucks a day, or 2 gallons of gasohol.
So, in this hypothetical case, using a bottom of the barrel wage and assuming a long commute with upwardly rounded gas price, you’re working 1 hour out of 8 to pay for the transportation to work.
In other words, your statement is hyperbole (I guess you know that though). Gas would have to go up to approximately 32 dollars a gallon for it to eat up all the wages of this example person.
This doesn’t take taxes on wages into account, but still, you’re vastly overstating. Gas is not going to be that expensive anytime soon.
Furthermore, some people are not smart about what kind of cars they drive, and as gas continues to go up, they will learn the hard way that a small fuel efficient car is better than an oversized truck or SUV for commuting to work.
JAMES,
Loved your sentence pertaining to ‘religious idiocy, the exceptionalism fairy tale, fake family values, & military chauvinism.’ Isn’t this the Repub platform in a nutshell? Every time I hear the phrase ‘American exceptionalism’ I want to gag. Hell, even Chris Matthews is fond of using it. Yes we are exceptional. Exceptionally obese, exceptionally ignorant of the world, exceptional at video games, and exceptionally tatooed. Why would any other country want our antiquated form of government and decadent culture? Unfortunately, I don’t think we have it within ourselves to change before the SHTF.
Excellent small example of why it is way to early in the civilization game to count technology out.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-ucla-transparent-solar-film-could-be-gamechanger-20120727,0,4271267.story
There’s a reason why lending money at interest was historically despised by ‘right-thinking’ people: because it’s inherently extractive and mafia-like. It has come to be considered reasonable and constructive only because of the positive-sum conditions that have prevailed (for some) over the past 2-3 centuries of exponential growth. Now that game is drawing to a close, and the essential nature of the game is reasserting itself in all its brutality.
That’s neat, but what set of overarching civilizational problems do you think it solves? Be specific. Generating electricity is really the least of our worries.
Oil, maintenance. Having to buy two new tires and new rims because some taco in a delivery truck forces you to grind a curb. The true cost of driving is about fifty cents a mile on average. If someone has a better number throw it down.
That would be thirty bucks a day and rising while wages guess what,? Fall.
Factor in the $7.55 Ben Bernanke just took out of your pocket and things aren’t looking so good.
So: $64 – $37.55 = $26.45
Oh, forgot to tell you man. We won’t be needing you Friday’s anymore. Business is kind of slow you know. You’re down to 32 hours a week.
$64.00 becomes $51.20
$51.20 – $37.55 = $13.65
For some people ‘pretty soon’ has already happened.
Asoka,
You are also misusing statistics. However many soldiers were firing for effect at Gettysburg, it was adequate to get a significant percentage of both armies, (tens of thousands) killed. With automatic weapons far fewer would be needed today.
Likewise, your defense of the mobs in ME as a trifling number is disingenuous. While it may be a tiny minority in the streets, there are evidently significant numbers in agreement, or it wouldn’t be such a popular muslim activity, supported by elected officials. Likewise, your tiny minority theory doesn’t explain why the Imans in the Mosques are whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The “religion of peace” seems to be looking for a jihad around every corner, as a means to prove their religion “great”.
…..and that is f’ed up.
There should be a rule in the reality party that no technology should be considered to be a part of any solution to our myriad clusterfuck of social problems before the technology actually exists and is proven to work.
It is a matter of behaving responsibly, billions of lives hang in the balance. No exceptions.
How do we support more and more retirees with fewer and fewer workers?
How do we transition away from finite energy sources such as petroleum and natural gas?
How does the modern agricultural system survive absent cheap fossil fuels? What replaces it?
How can we manage the existing stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel in the next 100-200+ years, much less indefinitely?
How can we reliably prevent further nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukashima?
How do we prevent anachronistic, outmoded and dangerous ideologies like fundamentalist Christinity and Islam from poisoning and highjacking our political systems throughout the planet?
How do we prevent Tragedy of the Commons situations like the overfishing of the oceans?
How do we deal with the fact that fresh water is becoming scarcer and we are drawing down basically non-renewable aquifers for our water supplies?
How can we feed an ever-growing world population on an ever-shrinking agricultural land base?
How do we effectively deal with the now certain consequences of Climate Change or Global Warming?
How can societies provide jobs to their citizens when the trend is for technolgy to eliminate more and more humans from the workforce due to automation?
How do we fix a global financial and banking system that is based upon greed, trickery, and abstruse instruments, rigged to benefit insiders?
How do we deal with pollution on a global level, e.g. all the new coal-fired power plants that China puts online every year which affect air quality throughout the world?
How can the expectations of billions of people who expect a better living standard in the future be managed and downshifted when this may not be in the cards?
As a related question to the last, how do we tell American people that their standard of living, based on consuming 6x or more the per capita resources of everyone else on the planet, is likely to come to an end and will involve painful and drastic changes to their way of life?
How can we preserve the natural world on planet earth in any decent form when the human population pressure is ever expanding?
Can human society survive which such vast gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots” and can we manage the almost certain upheavals that will continue to occurr because of this gap?
Is more technology the answer to all these questions?
Seriously, take your best shot. I’m all ears.
A little solar panel for your window doesn’t cut it for me, but thanks for sharing. That’s a pretty ingenious invention.
Popcine – in the event of a gasoline disruption, how will the groceries get TO the conveniently located stores???
Point(s) taken. Your analysis is better, and mine is naive.
However, food, housing, and healthcare are much bigger parts of most household budgets, so that’s really where the pressure occurs. Gas is still a pretty negligible expense, overall.
As I indicated it was a small example, but the potential of decentralized electrical generation in significant magnitude, should be obvious to anyone.
I’m am not interested in arguing the future of civilization, my point has consistently been that no one really knows our fate. However, many people who should know better, have argued that ‘technology won’t solve our problems’, that is almost certainly true in the very long run, but here is my point.
In business there is something called a “mature industry”. For example, the toilet paper industry is “mature”, no one is expecting any earth shattering changes to create significantly improved products or create new demand in this field.
In terms of technology, including energy production, while no one knows exactly where to place us on the “innovative/mature” industry curve, few knowledgable people would suggest we are fully “mature”. If we were, products such as those described in the article would not be coming forward. Many innovative products, some likely game changers, are still in the pipeline.
This morning came upon a truly hideous-just happened wreck of a New hot rod Cadillac (like the type mentioned in last week’s JHK column) literally motored into and under the back of a semi-truck/trailer rig that was parked at a red light.
Judging by the profound carnage, smoke and steam erupting from the mortally wounded Pride of GM – The Mark of Excellence (remember THAT one, lol)It seemed to me the driver, well, she was obviously distracted Before the crash and Reealllyyy distracted After the crash especially the nasty beating she took by the airbag(s) deployment. They ambulance attendants were loading her into the meat wagon tied to a gurney when I went back passefd the scene much later on.
I surmise she will eventually be O.K., but I doubt it. . . The Cad was turned into junk in a few milliseconds, as designed. Oh well, they makem every day here in the USA.
Meanwhile, the truck suffered No Damage at all, except a loss of driver productivity. Just another load of Chinese-made cheese doodles
(with lead additive ?) headed for the local Wal-Mart, or maybe a load of high-fructose corn syrup headed for a fast ‘food’ outlet of your choice.
Seems like Darwin will have a lot of overtime on his hands once more cars like, in my personal opinion, the horrible GM line of over-priced government/taxpayer sponsored junk gets filtered out amongst the dumbell unwashed USA sheep in a hurry to get final wisdom from their dashboards. . .
Like Ford did a retro Thunderbird and now many generations of New Mustangs later, Maybe GM can bring back a retro first-gen Corvair of the swing-rear axle variety – that would give Ralph New Life and you wouldn’t have to rely on droughts, fires and floods, famine and pestilence to keep the mortuaries and headline writers of America humming.
Look for future headlines like this one: GM recalls 34555 million cars and light trucks to replace dashboards once a crafty ambulance chaser wins a Big RainMaker from hapless GM…
Enjoy the Depression ! Happy Motoring !
BTW — Asking what will replace existing technologies in a possible future, hardly makes any meaningful point. Ceasar didn’t foresee the advent of the F-16, that didn’t stop it from happening. We don’t know the future, that why it’s best to retain a little perspective on our views.
Maj,
Though we haven’t gotten there yet, I would think that in the event of a really major gasoline supply disruption, there will be rationing and other national controls implemented. And trucks that deliver food will likely be either subsidized or given priority. So the food is likely to keep on coming, would be my guess. We’re not so dumb that this isn’t possible to implement pretty easily, though I guess if the chips are allowed to fall where they may, then your worst case scenario could unfold.
There are other countries in the world that are in far greater danger from these types of scenarios, because they get their oil supplies from only a few countries. The US oil supply is remarkably diversified across domestic and international sources. I’m guessing it has the most external suppliers feeding into it out of all the countries on the planet.
Much more dire would be, for instance, Russia cutting off natural gas to Europe. They are the only supply of that commodity to that market. These are the more likely TSHTF scenarios. A US oil shock would probably mean that most of the rest of the industrialized world would be in far more dire circumstances.
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
However, food, housing, and healthcare are much bigger parts of most household budgets.
Points taken, but each of these items go up in cost in direct proportion to increases in fuel cost. A cost increase in gas viewed in isolation may not seem threatening in itself but it is in fact very dangerous. If gas suddenly doubled in price society would crash hard. The cost of food, housing, and healthcare might not double but they would rise beyond reach. The party would be over as the cost of these items reflected the doubling in gas price.
Shit Muddmike , You know who needs good steel? mostly the makers of a good smoke-stick. Preferably 7mm or above. What the f is wrong with this country? Give the people a dollar and you get a vote. Both parties are so f’ed up that we don’t have a choice. F them all. I talk to my friends and tenents and they have no clue. Either they don’t vote or they vote for the free dollar, on my dime! fuck them! I am a loser and the middle class will never win.!
“I’m am not interested in arguing the future of civilization”
Oh, come on. Sure you are, dale!
Your point was implicitly arguing that you believe technology, such as the one you linked (which is neat BTW), has the capability to solve the overarching problems of the future, that it should not be “counted out.”
And that’s fine, but please just admit it.
I know you believe we can’t predit anything with certainty. So why bother?
We actually can predict certain trends. All civilizations collapse and fall. This much is certain. Every great empire, like the Romans, has predicted the lifetime of their own civilization and has generally been far too optimistic about it. They fell harder and faster than they could have imagined. The devil is in the details of how fast, how hard, and with what consequences.
Our overall trajectory is not good and can easily be followed by paying attention to trends like non-renewable resource consumption on a global scale, massive extinctions of other species (mostly caused by us), rising human populations in areas that do not support them, and Climate Change, to name just a few alarming data points.
If you don’t think there is any predictive power in these facts, that’s completely naive and disingenuous. I would charge instead that you simply are not all that familiar with the data.
Not to resurrect our age old CFN debate (well hey why not), but that’s what makes something a fact. It has predictive power. That’s the basis for science.
And the sciences of ecology, biology, geology, and sociology are making some alarming predictions, based upon factual observation, that we should listen to and consider, rather than blithely ignore simply because we can’t entirely envision all the details or the twists and turns along the road.
Now, does that mean civilization disappears in a puff of smoke one day and everything goes Mad Max overnight? I seriously doubt it. There’s likely to be political structures that follow on fairly quickly if the trends of similar historical circumstances can be applied.
But it might mean that “reality” has some nasty surprises in store for us that we can’t simply wish away with better, faster gizmos.
Thanks for the discussion.
“Either they don’t vote or they vote for the free dollar, on my dime!”
Hey, a dime for a dollar. Sounds like a bargain to me!
Using that same “logic”, since the eco-structure hasn’t been completely destroyed by human activity, we should wait until it is to accept that possibility as “reality”. Nonsense.
Assuming there is any solution to our energy problems, solar will almost certainly play a part.
Turkle,
You do yourself a discredit. If you just want to hold forth on your views, fine….fire away. You don’t need to mischaracterize or insist that I said something I did not, to make your point, leave me out of it.
What the f is wrong with this country? Give the people a dollar and you get a vote.
The K-Dog presidential campaign has no budget. When it is all over with my cost per vote will be lowest of all. Corrupt politicians buy votes, honest politicians earn them.
? Obama (Expensive presidential vote, huge Budget.)
? Romney (Spending infinitely times more than I am)
? K-Dog (No budget at all, the virtuous choice.)
If you just wanted to share a neat news story with us, that’s fine, sir. But you made an implicit argument about techology in stating that it should not be “counted out” of saving our civilization or whatever (actually whatever point you were trying to make was a little fuzzy to me).
Thus, I decided to elaborate, because it is an interesting and pressing topic. I suppose if you want to be left out of the discussion, that’s fine, though I’m not sure why you come here if not to get into the mud pit.
And, actually, I was hoping you’d try to provide a counter-point to what I wrote, as you’ve got some interesting ideas in this area which I remember from past discussions, but, again, if you’re not down with it, that’s fine.
But, hey, you started it, anyways. What did you expect around here? 😉
Your Nonsense would have us use something before it exists.
To be fair, K, dale posted something about a newly developed technology that does exist. As to whether it will have a large impact in the future, that’s more of an open question and highly debatable.
“You don’t need to mischaracterize or insist that I said something I did not”
How did I mischaracterize your views, dale? From prior exchanges, I think that I understand your thinking on this type of issue pretty well, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
I guess I’ve been trying to avoid the “mud pit” scenario lately, but as I see that’s not possible with you. I place you in the ignore category. Done.
K-DOG,
I am not so sure about that $7.55 tax. The Fed is a private bank. It creates money like other banks in the fractional reserve system, by creating loans. Thus when a person takes out a mortgage the money is created out of thin air.
In the case you are stating, the Fed is basically borrowing from itself to buy the bad paper. Unless they are also creating Treasury Bonds to cover this, we are not on the hook. I am not sure who would be on the hook.
In the past few years the Fed has loaned trillions to banks in the US and Europe. This money was not covered by T bills.
Can someone else chime in on this? I am still looking to try to get a better understanding.
“I am a loser and the middle class will never win.!”
I guess when someone in the middle class “wins”, then they become part of the upper class. So they’re no longer what they were, or such is the dream.
It is interesting stuff but the efficiency is less than already existing technology. Advocating it as a solution is disingenuous and betrays a cornucopian bias.
“I place you in the ignore category.”
Oh, nooos, I’ve made dale’s ignore list. Whatever shall I do?
Okay, whatever floats your boat, daley-o.
At any rate, what do you want to discuss? Puppies and flowers? Magic technological solutions to all our future problems? Or nothing at all?
This comments section is a metaphorical mud pit. If you want to avoid getting dirty, then don’t post here. Your assertions, even the implicit ones, will not go unchallenged and unexamined.
Have a good one, at any rate. I’ll see ya around.
I understand what you are saying, but where did I advocate it “as a solution”? In more than one instance I said you ‘can’t predict the future’ so how could I be arguing it, or anything else, is a solution?
If there is any solution probably a thousand technologies such as that might constitute a solution, and that would be my point about mature vs. immature industries and technologies.
….I donno….maybe I’ve just lost interest in the attitude….see ya.
Mike,
Take a deep breath, try and take in the big picture. Rise up.
All money comes from somewhere and the more of it that’s around the less it is worth, that’s the way the real world works.
Padding the bank accounts of rich people impoverishes poor people because everything costs more as (surprise) there is more money around.
If you are the one with the padded bank account you come out ahead and will spend the rest of the day rationalizing how the system somehow benefits the poor.
If I call it a tax or ‘smoke blown up your ass’ what’s the difference, you loose and that six dollar burger you just ate is going to cost you $6.50 tomorrow.
A sad fact of life has always been that those with affluence will exploit and profit from the misfortunes of those less well off. When this happens in a civilization in decline it becomes one of the reasons for the civilization’s fall. As people become impoverished in such circumstances no attempt is made to correct the impoverishment. It is profitable to those having the advantages not to make changes, so they don’t.
Stir in a culture that thinks we will be able to plow fields and raise crops someday by downloading an appropriate iPhone app and we’re deep in do-do.
Getting back to the Fed. Details matter but we should not get lost in them. Remember the trees are part of a larger forest. If there is something about the forest I don’t want you to know about I’m going to make you talk about trees all day long.
Well not me personally, I’m not a dirty dog like that but I’m sure you get the picture.
✔ K-Dog
try and, uh, ‘try TO’.
Your right, for that I’ll be a bit sorry because you did not advocate it “as a solution”.
The Zeitgeist did it for you. You did not have to do a thing, all you had to do was post the link.
Most people did not even have to follow the link in order to feel good about a technical solution ‘right around the corner’. I know I didn’t and following the link was actually disappointing when reality did not match hope. I should have not clicked and just held on to the hope.
A Zeitgeist can be good or bad but the ‘spirit of the times’ is maintained by advertising mind control and memes or it would not be what it is.
Most people don’t understand technology, they believe in it because they don’t understand it.
You did nothing wrong yourself Dale. It is not your fault that men find hope a substitute for correct perception. But the tragedy is that now correct perception is needed to make any meaningful social changes.
I embrace technology but the promise of it is being used to deceive all the time.
Hiya Mike,
druly (as opposed to unruly) posted a link this morning. It’s on Cramer the Crammer’s site and reveals how [a part of] the scam is designed and perpetrated. I have no idea why he’s trying to salvage his shredded credibility by allowing such peeking behind the forbidden curtain, but there it is.
Here’s the link again:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11224917/a-huge-housing-bargain–but-not-for-you.html
It’s simply one of the vaporous vehicles by which the uber-wealthy siphon up REAL assets; round and round it goes; where it stops nobo…. oh yeah, it stops when somebody gets their ass kil’t!
Hope this shines some light on one small corner of your puzzlement. (It was a tiny epiphany to me; and a tiny one’s a start! ;o)
Did you see the pictures posted recently, of the pre preschooler down under, holding the ‘BEHEAD NON BELIEVERS’ sign while mama proudly took his picture?
There are jerkwads in every country, and some of ’em make stupid signs for their children to carry. I do not judge an entire country by the “Get a clue, morans!” crowd. I took care of many Muslims in the hospital where I worked in Melbourne, Vic. (I’m a nurse, which is why I can move from country to country) and they were no jerkier than any other type of patient. Still jerky at times, because when you’re in pain and worried about dying, it brings out your bad side. I worry less about fanaticism from Muslims in Oz than I do about crazy Christians in my native land, the United States.
In Australia,most people realize that at some level, they are interlopers. They are more embarrassed at acting all stroppy because hey know that they are immigrants who don’t belong there, so they’re less likely to be mindlessly nationalistic. There are always a handful of jerkwads, but more people are more concerned with “how do we survive while clinging to the edge of a continent that wants to dehydrate us and burn us out?”
So if the latter is unsustainable, how would it be that the can of the former can be kicked down the road for an extended period of time? You’re not making much sense.
=============
For several years I have said we have 47 years of oil left, now probably 43 or 42, which in geologic time is the blink of an eye.
In the long term the American way of life is unsustainable, but they can keep it going for a very short time period, i.e., a few decades.
If, in that time, alternatives are developed, and global population is controlled, neither of which I expect to happen, it might last a bit longer.
My scenario makes sense to me, as much sense as JHK’s scenario, which I’ve been following for 12 years with its weekly predictions of imminent collapse.
Turkleton: In your exemple, you forgot to add in many other costs of driving. How about the high cost of insurance, cost of maintenance and repairs, cost of the car itself plus loans, depreciation, tolls, & tires. I’m sure that I forgot a few. In other words, the cost of gas may be small in comparison to all the other expenses of driving. I agree that it does not make economic sense to drive 60 miles a day for $8/hr.
My attitude to solar research is that the budget for it’s development should be doubled or tripled or increased even more. I’m not against technology, I’m against false hope and the inappropriate reliance on it as the solution to all our problems.
Man (in general) thinks that there is an endless bag of technology from which to grab solutions to all our problems. But technology is not magic, technology exploits the physical laws and properties of the universe for our benefit. That is all technology can do. It can not change the laws of the universe and it must work within their limits.
Gadzooks!
Trees and forests, forests and trees; I do believe I got lost in the woods, the road diverged and I must have taken the wrong path, leading to confusion and an accidental dunking and dilution in an unmarked [and unremarkable] stream! Woe betide the traveler in the Clusterfuckian Wilderness! In its’ depths, beware the cornucopian horn that blats out the promise of gluttony beyond the dreams of kings forevermore! For whom does the horn blat? It blats for thee, poor soul, wandering in the Forest of Obfuscation and Misdirection…
Great change big reform nowadays medium can really tell this high the low or people not easy to see a face that should not spend money with the matchmaker to meet to the place is too tired to sweat the girl a glimpse of that boy riding a car tired head sweat look like you’re a pauper or not buy a new bye bye my kid off gas are riding a motorcycle run home home into the hospital into the Institute found a stone egg towards the car slammed.
.. Slammed… Handlebar hit at fetal smash small low head said nothing comes out of the house a mum old mom came before the mouth open. Children good boy the child behaved how so angry you say the boy tears Baba was my mother today.
So to meet the girl has the view that such children ride a car tired head sweat also say I am a pauper Mom Mom you said we should do the old mother hear heart sorrow’s child I no have buy old mom to stand in the place called the voice of old old thing things I said to you before you quickly borrowed car old man he did not neglect in a field.
I borrowed car old mother lead pig lead sheep old man moved a few bags of grain old two into the countryside and sell a pig to sell the sheep and then sold several bags of grain to sell things to calculate the full $three thousand seven hundred to take the money home to home call children well-behaved well-behaved children listen to me three thousand seven hundred yuan you have a bike five thousand I now still one thousand three hundred you into the town to do January enough money this guy say motorcycle in the very next day entered Cheng Jin factory work ten days know a girl nice doing here two months the girl got home he saw the father said she said see mother love the girl opened the words you hear my call aunt heart parents agree with this kiss but is a conditional gift gift twenty-six thousand Sanjin must buy all of a two layer small building indoor and outside decoration End.
.. … Old mother faintingly old man listening to a sweat (Continued) wrote here is a source of I’m a sweat until after the time writing a if it feels good to let his friend to see celebrities areAll rights reserved.
Belly is not responsible for the   source stream of network works;
That explains a lot.
The U.S. taxpayer will get pennies on the dollar for these homes and then be allowed to rent them back at market rates.
So the taxpayer then rents the home at market rate and the money paid stimulates the economy allowing the taxpayer to get a job so that they will be able to pay the rent.
I’m confused? Where does the taxpayer come up with money to stimulate the economy without depressing it first? I’m missing something.
I’m missing something or somebody’s getting ripped off.
Already, ol’spidey, (you shit-stain)?
What are you being paid to perform this trained monkey act?
Cocoon fly fly to the highest mountain in the deepest canyon over the most sad place but flies but that a small cluster of my obsession with butterflies flowers not because of the mountains are beautiful
nor the canyon enough hook people explore more than the sad not missing just one simple reason because butterfly fascination with the flower fragrance fascination makes the butterfly misted eyes search
beware the cornucopian horn that blats out the promise of gluttony beyond the dreams of kings forevermore!
=================
Get a grip, ozone!
Who on this blog is talking about “the promise of gluttony”? The theme of this blog is just the opposite: energy contraction, simple living, looking for a way to simply survive, not “gluttony”.
Asoka said,
The “American way of life” is unsustainable and may I add that, the UK’s progress on that road is accelerating fast too. Having run my own businesses here for a few decades; I have never before seen such a sharp and fast down turn as currently and very few around here, (correction – – – -none here) in the used to be affluent South of England, seem to have any clue about either a cure or of any alternative modus operandi. Many are now at the stage of being over the cliff and the thin air pedalling has begun in earnest.
Its not just in the expansion of the spread of resources where the waste lies, urban sprawl and all, its also in the individual’s failures to recognise what is happening in the bigger picture or just ignoring it. The elite are at the moment still cushioned from the ever increasing nasty realities being experienced by the lower orders.
An example.
A friend of mine last week returned to the UK from his son’s wedding in Seattle.
The son has married into the 0.01% elite group.
My friend’s financial situation could be described as comfortable, he owns a nice old house, sporty BMW on a smart block paved drive, no mortgage or large debts. However, he was shocked at the level of extravagance he witnessed. The brides dress a mere snip? at $18k, the whole one day extravaganza running out at around $180k. Can we take this to be a small final flourish of a falling empire? No,I don’t think so, the elite are not going to change their profligacy any time soon until that is, events force them to. I think about how that money spent in vane on vanity could have been utilised to benefit something/one more worthwhile. Let the jokers reply, I could do with a laugh!
Meanwhile (paraphrasing JHK) “Down in the murky green depths of Old Blighty’s North Sea”, its just been announced that the inventory of the mature cod stock (those over 13yrs old) is at an all time low, there are now under 100 to be found in the entire water mass. Soon, how ever much “one” is prepared to pay for a traditional cod n chips, in a few short years no amount of money will suffice. Yet instead of recognising the crisis and demanding sustainability, the neo Walmarts here are still advertising how environmentally caring they are, while selling North Sea cod and lately importing fish from as far away as the Pacific. How much longer can the former continue and how much energy does the latter consume?
Despite all the studies and warnings over many decades, our be-knighted leaders here still allow the rest of the European Union to empty the seas around the coasts of the UK. Much of European waters are in a similar condition. Come back Drake all is forgiven!
Only when, that which has been going down for decades, hits the elite for real, will they wake up and smell the coffee substitute. Then perhaps they will stop their posturing, supporting useless, fad causes and the like and get to grips with issues that are making our lives and that of our children’s untenable. By then it will be too late for the extinct species, which sooner or a little later, will include us.
I would like to think that JHK’s solutions of localism,less consumption,home made products, bartering and people’s banks etc is the answer, but my fear is that the base animal instinct of man and the culture of individualism is so ingrained that this system would not survive long, before someone/group broke rank to grab the lot and back to square one via the snake’s belly.
Now, just to educate the Right about the possible alternatives, would have to be by way of a feat of superhuman endeavour. Recently the stories of the greed and selfish stupidity of the global banks has increased and are all over media here. Yet a women that I built for, whose husband is a CEO in the City of London, accused me of being a Commie when I suggested that banks may serve us equitably if they were localised! Elitist right attitudes inevitably lead to, better all dead,(a position that is probably assured, the way we are going)than any hint of pink or red.
Though they pretend otherwise, the right fear the lumpenprole, but they refuse to see that ultimately, they are also stuck in the lump too.
To me it daily becomes more evident that nature has found our incurable weaknesses. Can there be a solution ?
If Eve had only known what that apple contained, a real oxymoron !
LOL!
You’re not missing a thing, sez I! ;o)
How could anything cooked up between WallStreeters, the bankers (along with their friendly Fed) and the gum’mint POSSIBLY turn out to be a huge swindle of the lumpen citizenry? After all, we’ve got representation, haven’t we?
Wait… if ordinary citizens were to rob all the banks and spread the cash around betwixt themselves, we could then afford to……… wha’da’ya mean they ain’t got no actual cash in there???
Good post.
Thanks for the update and observations.
Your perspective is heard and appreciated.
Thanks for the week’s work, JHK.
Things are happening, and you nail them well.
We live in interesting times, indeed.
Some things look small, in the telescope of current events – and we can but hope that they do not come to loom larger and larger. And you’re right about this one:
“The fault lines for the moment are crackling along the margins, in foreign lands such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen. There is not a whole lot keeping this infection from spreading into Saudi Arabia. The Saud royal family leadership has passed from one king over eighty years old to another. Nobody knows what will shake out between Israel and Iran. One way or another, an awful lot of the world’s oil supply is at stake in that part of the world….”
Indeed, JHK. One billion Muslims on this planet – and hardly ANY of them seem to have ANY sense of humor or perspective AT ALL concerning their “Prophet.”
But someone is pulling their strings, and we in the States tend to forget that. Protests don’t just happen, and then turn large and violent – all by themselves.
Hell – even in New York, 100 non-violent OWS protesters were just arrested – even though protestors were outnumbered and hugely outgunned by Law Enforcement.
And that’s in New York. All the more so in a monocultural police state like Egypt or Libya – somebody pulls the strings, carefully and for a reason.
Who? And Why?
And will this be important next month?
I hope not, but my concern increases.
Though they pretend otherwise, the right fear the lumpenprole
=================
They still fear Occupy Wall Street.
(Reuters) – Occupy Wall Street celebrated its one-year anniversary on Monday with a day of demonstrations that resulted in nearly 150 arrests…
If Rovian black boxes eat votes or if Romney gets elected by the Supreme Court, you will see Occupy Wall Street on steroids.
The numbers on the digital debt keep spinning and those running the formula on the machine think it still means something on how things should be working. Not only has the invisible hand taken a hike but the magic rabbit has been long gone from the old black hat.
Weee!What,me worry?
Who has increased the gross federal debt most?
January 20, 1993 (end of George H.W. Bush and beginning of Clinton): $4.188 trillion
January 19, 2001 (end of Clinton and beginning of George W. Bush): $5.728 trillion
January 20, 2009 (end of George W. Bush and beginning of Obama): $10.627 trillion
April 29, 2011 (closing date of the chart): $14.288 trillion
This allows us to determine how much the debt rose under each president:
Under Clinton: Increase of $1.54 trillion, or 37 percent
Under George W. Bush: Increase of $4.899 trillion, or 86 percent
Under Obama: Increase of $3.661 trillion, or 34 percent
Seems like Obama is doing better than his predecessors at controlling debt increase.
SOURCE: USA Office of Management and Budget
Good Fred – just out.
Even asoka..will like it – mostly.
And has Fred been channeling you, K-dog?
O”ur instinct, like that of Fido, bends us toward easy enmity toward outsiders. Note how quickly Americans came to hate Moslems (who return the sentiment) even though, as thoughtful commentators have pointed out in exasperation, the haters usually know nothing about Islam, have never met a Moslem, or been out of the United States. Rationally this makes no sense. It does make sense, though, for members of a small hunting band for whom strangers are usually intent on killing you and stealing your women.
This innate hostility toward outsiders explains why all the desperate attempts to impose “diversity” don’t work. People of different colors and cultures don’t like each other. To point out that this is really, truly, seriously stupid changes nothing. It’s how we are.”
http://www.fredoneverything.net/No_Hope.shtml
Ah, but the promise of cornucopian gluttony lulls many a dog to an untimely nap. The seductive promise of tasty treats just around the corner causes eyes to first droop and then close. Once closed eyes see not the obscene naked kings who plunder and take.
Anybody with half a brain, even a dog, knows we cannot all be billionaires or millionaires. But we can all live on $12,000 a year, and live well. That would be a considerable increase in income for the majority of the world’s population.
Having been de-industrialized by off-shoring the US economy has become dependent upon the realestate market. Think about it: that’s why immigration and refugee grotas have been kept so high and immigration laws have gone unenforced. Without the effect of that ongoing enormous influx sustaining continuous rising demand for housing property values would collapse, most particularly in the inner cities where where immigrants tend to settle.
Of course too, the growing job insecurity from population growth outstripping job growth (happening since the early 70s) translates to political pressure to cancel regulations protecting sensitive land areas.
American is no longer a sovereign independent nation retaining national self determination. Instead, we’ve become just another colony of trans national finance. Whoever wins the upcoming election will actually act as no more than a colonial governor.
Oh dearie me! An answer to an oft-hollered owlishly disguised query: “Whooo-who-who? Can’t you tell us whoooo?”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32464.htm
Let there be no further doubt of whose interests these questioners serve. When it’s denied, then may we believe… and never to nap without a nose to the wind again.
I’m goin’ to live on Sugar Mountain
with the barkers and the colored balloons,fuck the rest of ya all!! See ya!
Whoever wins the upcoming election will actually act as no more than a colonial governor.
And what is your stereotype of how colonial governors act? Many acted very morally. It would be much preferable to have a good colonial governor than to be robbed blind by corrupt politicians who were “elected” by media brainwashing enabled by the Citizens United decision.
Colonial governors seldom bore much resemblance to the image the public has long had of them – as strutting martinets in silly feathered hats. The majority of them were highly competent and hard-working administrators. A few were visionary innovators whose ideas brought huge benefits to the people whose lives they controlled.
SOURCE: RUNNING THE SHOW: GOVERNORS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE BY STEPHANIE WILLIAMS
Dale said: “Assuming there is any solution to our energy problems, solar will almost certainly play a part.”
Solar THERMAL systems could certainly play a part of meeting our energy needs. They are low tech and could be done cheaply. However, my fear is that as solar (thermal or PV) replaces our burden on fossil fuels, those in the energy business will raise prices to make up for the lost revenue. This is what has happened with low-flow water savers. The municipalities simply increased rates and service fees. What can you say! Life costs money.
I live in Taiwan and when I saw the Chinese-language newspaper yesterday with a big headline (some Chinese characters and “QE3”) I thought – hmmm, so they’re going to bring back the Queen Elizabeth 3.
Actually, it would make a good refugee ship.
Happy Constitution Day for those of you who care.
International Plaza and Bay Street
Worldwide Plaza and Bay Street is often a big upscale shopping mall located inside the Westshore home business district of Tampa, Florida. The shopping mall, which opened in 2001, was built to give vacationers an solution to shop and dine in high-class surroundings, although at the same time have the capacity to remain near Tampa Worldwide Airport (which borders the property). Middle A single was created in 1999, Center Two in 2001, and Center 3 in 2004. Center 4, which encompasses 247,000 sq (22,coco chanel biography,900 m2) of office area, was finished in 2008. Corporate Centers 1 via 3 are owned by Carter Property Conduite, Corporate Middle Four by Eola Cash, whilst the mall alone is owned by Taubman Facilities.
[edit] Bay Street
Bay Road consists of upscale places to eat, bars and cafes in an personal sidewalk café setting. Restaurants incorporate The Cheesecake Factory, The Richesse Grille, Champps, Gelateria Del Duomo, along with the Bar. Other restaurants located inside of your mall are California Pizza Cooking area and Nordstom Cafe Bistro.
This open-air area becomes a nightspot after shopping mall closing hrs, with the majority of the aforementioned places to eat open late. Furthermore, Bar Louie and Blue Martini are well-liked nightclubs with all the twenty- and thirty-something experienced group.
[edit] Section L
In 2008 Worldwide Plaza began working on the standalone undertaking in the edge of their house along Westshore Boulevard. Following plenty of months of building the shopping mall opened the Bay area’s initial, multi-story Crate Barrel along with upscale restaurant Ocean Prime. The actuel opened for online business in May perhaps 2009 and the location was provided the title Section L.
And for those who care about protecting the rights the Constitution guarantees: JOIN ACLU!
I’d say so.
True, oh so true and the only thing that makes this most true fact palatable is that we have the capacity as rational dogs to decide who is in out pack and who isn’t. If a another dog treats us right we get to treat them right. The color of their spot’s or how long their fur is doesn’t matter.
In the old days we didn’t get to choose who is in the pack or not. Now we do, it is a wonderful thing.
And we can choose to be what we are. Therein the rub becomes a scratch on the head.
my fear is that as solar (thermal or PV) replaces our burden on fossil fuels, those in the energy business will raise prices to make up for the lost revenue.
This is a valid fear for grid-tied active solar systems. The way to avoid it is to combine passive solar with thermal mass, like an adobe brick house, off the grid.
The heat from the sun is free and nobody will ever be able to “raise prices” on sunshine in a passive off-grid system. You never have to pay for that heat.
In the old days we didn’t get to choose who is in the pack or not. Now we do, it is a wonderful thing.
In the 1960s I chose the entire human race as part of my pack, and I have never regretted that decision. Muslims, Mexicans, atheists, believers, all are in my large, multitudinous pack.
You’re right that to completely remove ourselves from their control, we have to completely remove ourselves from needing them at all. But this is not possible. We are always in some ways dependent on others. Sometimes, we ourselves become the abusers too.
“If they don’t get you in the front, they will get you from behind.”
Good Fred, indeed! I have to slightly disagree with his total shunning of multi-culturalism. I’ve always found people from different cultures fascinating.
When my husband worked for the State Department in the l960’s and ’70s, I had the opportunity to speak to many “elites” from around the world (mostly women, the men were usally skirt chasers). These women, from Mexico, Honduras, Vietnam, Lebanon, China, Japan, Guana, Johannesburg, Poland, England, and even Estonia(!) had a very distanced elegance to them, something American women in no way possessed. American women in the not-so-distant past came off as somewhat removed, affected, self-possessed, and perhaps a bit vacant intellectually and comparatively speaking, of course.
“Actually, it would make a good refugee ship.”
It would, except that the ship is sinking fast.
I count one of the success of my life as being the avoidance of the daily automobile commute. But even at that, negotiating traffic even occasionally is one of the most spirit-crushing events a human must face.
How do people tolerate living in Southern California (or the Bay Area for that matter) and why would anyone voluntarily move there?
Anyway, I’m standing at the limber store the other day waiting for the forklift driver to go grab my order. This place is next to a very busy road and I notice what appears to be a homeless guy milling about the traffic light. He seemed to be pushing the button to cross the street every minute or so but he never actually crossed. What he did do though was smile defiantly at all of those commuters whose veins were bulging precariously close to rupture.
I figure this must be the Super Bowl of homeless entertainment events and it sure does slow things down. Down to zero in fact.
Women in GOP = Stockholm Syndrome. They are the dutiful ones who have accepted male authority. Even the ones who achieve high office (e.g., Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin) promote an Old Testament view. A lot of people don’t understand their own best interests. That half of Republicans are women is no more puzzling than some of the working poor being Republicans. They’re attracted by moral simplicity. It’s denialism. Wishful thinking. I’d like the world to be as simple as they say it can be if everyone would just get with the authoritarian program. But the world insists on being diverse and complicated. Which makes them really angry.
There you go again. 🙂 Just like JHK. How fast?
You are so right, I must have been staring at one of the trees n lost ma mind.
Bravo!
“And for those who care about protecting the rights the Constitution guarantees: JOIN ACLU!”
Asoka, we are not the STASI. Militant talk is not what the Constitution is about. True leadership is about understanding others and guiding them to truth.
That was a very lucid article. I had to stop and soak it in a few places. I paused longest here:
Abraham Lincoln, 1864.
And here we are 148 years later. The process nears completion before most people even knew it ever started. Politics are now defined as a race to the bottom and not man, dog nor beast is served.
‘Democracy’ – be nice if we had it. As Colin Todhunter says. It would be nice, then we could race to the top. Bottom feeders would not be tolerated.
When that’s the only control over your life you have that’s what you do.
“Militant talk is not what the Constitution is about.”
=================
Militant? That is a STASI attitude.
What good is having a Constitution that guarantees rights, if you are considered “militant” for wanting to defend constitutional rights?
ACLU defends constitutional rights for everyone. The ACLU protects those who are victims of STASI-like authoritarian abuses of power or abuse of power by any government agency or official.
PS.
Bottom feeders have rights, too. ACLU looks out for the rights of those who do not have power or money to defend themselves from official injustice.
The bottom feeders I was referring to are the perpetrators of official injustice. Bottom feeder refers to the fact that the current zeitgeist rewards corrupt behavior in politicians thus encouraging them to race to the bottom as one tries to outdo another at being the most corrupt.
A race to the top is characterized by a zeitgeist where truth and honesty is rewarded and politicians try and outdo each other at being the most virtuous.
? Obama (Racing against Romney to lie the most.)
? Romney (Racing against Obama to outlie his lies.)
? K-Dog (A satistical outlier yes, but this dog isn’t lying.)
Ever heard the word “civility”?
It’s going to be a tough winter for alot of folks. and dogs.
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“War on Women”? Has it occurred to you that half of Republicans are women?
=====================
The GOP refuses to understand women are simply NOT going to allow government to strip away the rights they’ve been living with for decades. Most astonishing is the fact that Republican women are so lost in their own delusions, fear and racism that they don’t get they are voting against their own best interests. Much like a battered woman defends a physically abusive relationship.
The GOP has introduced 916 anti-women bills since March 2011.
It was very good, this part was insightful,
The women you describe no doubt exposed you to many new ideas which allowed you more confidence to be yourself. Confidence perhaps to take a stand on an issue here and there that you might not have otherwise. Or perhaps knowledge not too?
Fred’s example is an extreme case of a man missing a brain lobe. A human who will never stand on conscience and who gives up on finding the ball.
The first time a dog takes one for the pack and stands for conscience is hard, something that Fred’s human example can never know. But upon living through the ordeal a second time is met with less fear and the benefit of personal empowerment is noticed for the first time. After that a dogs heart beats strong and proud as the soul is nourished.
The women you met must have had fascinating stories.
Here is a dog I think is really smart. He definitely can pull hard on the leash and take a walk in a new direction. He understands that basic social problems are not being addressed and provides some insight as to why. He explains that Obama has not been a total failure from a certain point of view and understands that very reason to also be why Obama cannot be truly successful. The last part is in my opinion.
Cornel West
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Things are looking up! There’s a new I Phone out, a revolutionary I Phone that’s transforming the world, a highly evolved device with the capacity to turn this economy around.
Hey Asoka, you like to defend and explain the actions of Muslims. So what’s the deal with Muslims blowing up World Heritage Sites in Timbuktu the past month or so? Remember some years back when they blew up the 1000 year old carved statue of Buddha in Afganistan? What kind of religion is this? It seems to me these people are like locusts, devouring and destroying everything around them. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.
–WSP7
What is this?
Good question, JHK. How about a set-up for total privatization of all things in the public domain?
These people don’t care about deficits. It will cost a $Trillion to convert social security to a privatized fund as we were told during W’s time, when this project didn’t get passed. But these guys are like an army that never stops fighting. They will keep trying.
The Republican party wants to plow through their agenda based on Milton Friedman’s economic theory, but they want you to worry about all the social issues. They are doing all they can to rig these elections. Stop people from voting and rig the voting machines ’cause they have an agenda and that agenda must be met.
Oh, they’ll all keep yapping about how necessary austerity is, let me explain.
The banksters are playing with these CDO’s which were about 1.4 Quadrillion in 2008, but the government enabled them to keep this thing going so, now it’s much higher. It’s based on nothing real, no real value. But the system is so far gone now, that if it stops everything crashes—Let it crash, already!!
They keep going because they strap countries into deficit, take their valuables as collateral and then lend more money to make them even more subservient. That’s a global system and its a nightmare. And bad news. It’s going to keep going and going. There’s no end to it. As long as countries with public domains exits this will never end.
And speaking of Matt Taibbi’s Goldman Sachs quote, they can’t wait to get their hands on social security! When they eat through that, there’s more public to privatization elsewhere.
Last night I saw a tape of Romney saying that 47% of this country lives on the govt. and he has no interest in them, they’ll never vote for him. He says he need 10% of the independents. So he’s calling those who get ss and medicare and those who are already in the depression thanks to the activities of Bain and those like them, leeches on gov’t.
Oh yeah, that who you want to be your president. The guy who offshores his money in the $23 Trillion private banking system.
Oh, and then they’ll take you to war!
Asoka said:
In the 1960s I chose the entire human race as part of my pack, and I have never regretted that decision. Muslims, Mexicans, atheists, believers, all are in my large, multitudinous pack.
***********************************************************
This is the entirety of your post. And it’s one of many reasons why I find you to be so beyond the pale. The above is nothing but wanton SELF ADVERTISEMENT. It’s one thing to espouse this or that belief or even to cite your qualifications earned through achievement in life. However, stuff like the above, said frequently by you, is like a politician patting a baby on the head. It’s cheap currency that is not earned or subject to the review of others. It requires no work, no expenditure of effort. You lose not a calorie of energy nor a dime of money.
This, in short, is the postmodern INTERNET PERSONA and it’s why I think democracy is vastly inferior to a republic. In a democracy, everybody votes themselves emperor and the deeply learned get upbraided by dilettantes all the time. Like your idiotic dismissal of a vast amount of data showing, without a shadow of a doubt and backed by Nobel Laureates, that our economy is still in a DEPRESSION and money is not changing hands, business investment is almost nonexistent, people are petrified for their jobs like never before after WWII, and there isn’t an iota of security for anyone … even those who’ve saved for a lifetime only to have people like Dr. Bernanke spit on the very kinds of people (savers) that a righteous economy should be nurturing.
While trying to trumpet yourself as an all-exclusive embracer of all humanity, you deny the terrible state of the average household. These two stances are utterly incompatible. Now the middle East is blowing up again. Because Mr. Bernanke has just printed more money and made food and fuel the world over go up in price. Your “recovery” … is KILLING us. And it won’t be long now before entire states and gigantic pension systems blow up while you still tell us it’s hunky-dory out there. You’re like a weatherman predicting zero chance of rain when it’s pouring outside. If only he’d stuck his ass out the window for 3 seconds.
Sigh.
E.
Good Morning, Ibendet.
Have you been down to lower Manhattan to observe this latest manifestation of OWS? I know you’re busy with work. I’m not sure if they’re still around today.
–WSP7
Remember the Yemeni and Syrian and Egyptian protests after QE TWO??? It’s no coincidence. Don’t buy the media’s demonization of Arabs. Much of this is because every time these evil bankers “save” us by printing money, they create an immediate speculative binge in commodities and many of these people are already pushed to the wall under normal circumstances.
The Federal Reserve is an EVIL institution which should be eliminated. Like no institution in the world, it promotes the interests of the “one percenters” and kicks the “ninety-nine percenters” squarely in the teeth.
Many people place far too much credence in the Jewish-run American media which seeks to make every last freaking Arab seem like he should be on Thorazine. We’ve seen what kind of world has been created by the Blankfeins, Dimons, Bernankes, Zuckerbergs, and Geithners of the world. Only liberal ostriches insist on putting their fingers in their ears and cry “me-me-me-me-me-me-me” to drown out this DELUGE of evidence.
I’m sick to death of a kind of denial that’s so ARITHMETICALLY absurd. Two percent of the American population is running five of six media companies and most of the banking system and we wonder why they have been KICKED OUT OF EVERY CULTURE THEY’VE OCCUPIED FOR FIVE THOUSAND YEARS. They’re intelligent people who don’t know the meaning of ENOUGH … and they never have ENOUGH power, ENOUGH money, ENOUGH influence. And they’ll push the envelope too far yet again and bring ruin to the United States of America.
E.
You lose me with the anti semitism, XXX5. Blaming everything on Jewish people is shopworn, and too convenient. And it doesn’t square with the Jewish people I actually know, who are all productive and patriotic citizens.
–WSP7
like Dr. Bernanke spit on the very kinds of people (savers) that a righteous economy should be nurturing.
There are some very high interest rates on Brazilian government bonds, in the 6-10% range I believe, you can probably get them at everbank, just google it.
peace peaceniks
We’ve seen what kind of world has been created by the Blankfeins, Dimons, Bernankes, Zuckerbergs, and Geithners of the world.
Zuckerberg’s success has nothing to do with evil Jewry. There are millions of folks that patronize that idiotic site – btw it’s stock has recovered nicely to over $21.
Fb is okay now and then, but give it a few years to become another myspace. It may also end up in the same drawer with the pet rock.
In other words, don’t blame the Jews for fb, just look in the mirror to see the real culprit.
peace peaceniks
Sorry I “lose you with my antisemitism”. I’m sorry that I actually notice who’s in charge of what relative to their percentage of people in the population … NOT!!!
The argument that you know some that are decent citizens is another logically fallacious argument of the form: If I know ONE good member of Group X, then, in general one can say NOTHING of the totality of Group X.”
Ironically, it seems that it takes a liberal education for people to believe the truly incredible … like we’re supposed to believe that the White Flight of the 1960’s to the suburbs was either a strange “accident” or because only honkies are racists.
Panic … you can believe whatever you want. Don’t let the evidence of large numbers daunt you in your quest to change what numbers mean.
E.
“…the Federal Reserve, an institution that 99.999 percent of the American public could not explain under threat of water-boarding.”
A 99.999 percent that includes all economists.
Another area where I believe I differ from Kunstler:
JHK is quite negative about our rail system.
However, the US is widely considered to have the best freight rail system in the world.
We certainly don’t have a passenger rail system that measures up to that of many developed countries. However, I believe a case can be made that is largely due to geography. Furthermore, what’s more important, freight rail or passenger rail. Freight rail is a means for efficiently delivering essential goods to the populace. Intercity transit, on the other hand, is largely a luxury item, allowing, for example, kids to dress up in costumes and attend anime festivals.
As to rail, people probably tend to be influenced somewhat by the circumstances of their own community. Kunstler witnesses the ruins of a rail system that supported a golden age of manufacturing that is now in ruins. Living in Vancouver Wa., I witness a rail system on which hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to expand the capacity of our port as well as expedite the flow of Amtrak trains heavily interwoven with freight traffic. We have heavily-used transcontinental rail lines running on both sides of the Columbia river.
I live in an area where rail is alive and well, in contrast to the situation in Kunstler’s neck of the woods.
And “Kunstlers neck of the woods” is where rail in America was invented!
It’s cheap currency that is not earned or subject to the review of others. It requires no work, no expenditure of effort. You lose not a calorie of energy nor a dime of money.
I think you’ve got it, XXX5!
No pain, no struggle, no effort is required to love. No peer approval is necessary. Love costs not a dime of money, and does not need to be “earned” (you must have an ingrained Protestant work ethic to even think that).
Loving only requires opening your heart, and no money or effort is required for that. There is no limit to the number of people we can love. This I hold to be self-evident.
It’s also why democracy works. Although I do understand why you prefer a republic, like the nascent USA, where only white male property owners can vote.
Democracy is our birthright, for all of us: women, Blacks, poor and homeless, etc. included. It is a self-evident truth that all of us are equal, with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Our ability to love is free, easy, and unalienable, just like democracy. Love is my declaration. Love has been my experience for seven decades. Love has led to my independence.
” Very well said, yes, we need to end the religious idiocy, family values hypocrisy, and exceptionalism as well. ”
So we now have two geniuses working in tandem. How lovely. And doing as you suggest really is quite brilliant. And what would be achieved? Well when you end “religious idiocy” you end the multiple benefits that the various religions provide, including, housing, clothing, food pantries and hospitals which care for the less fortunate amongst us. Great idea.
Family values? Heaven forbid there should be any “values” associated with the forming and foundation of a family. I mean, having no values is where we have arrived: 40% of children born out of wedlock (2007 figure), 40 million abortions, since Roe V Wade, and Elton John and his significant other raising a little boy (isn’t that special?).
And exceptionalism? What a concept. There are around 30 million people here illegally and millions more waiting to get in because? We are the norm? We oppress or are less fair than the systems they have fled? Genius indeed.
“Thus, I decided to elaborate…”
Nothing new there, fucktard. Now why don’t you decide not to. The only thing worse than a moron, is a moron with a megaphone.
Who is blaming “everything” on the Jews? Obviously there is plenty of blame to go around but that 2% or 3% of the population should have so much power is no coincidence. Do you really think that Elen Kagan should be on the Supreme Court? She’s utterly unqualifed and only got the job thru being Jewish.
What do you think of the Libyan Embassy being virtually unguarded – even though there were signs of a coming attack? Sounds familiar – kind of like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 doesn’t it? Face it, they’ve done it again and are turning up the heat to make an attack on Iran seem inevitable. Just conincidently, there is a huge fleet now in the area doing war games.
Who could expect anything else when the Jews and their enablers control our foreign policy?
“The lower on the food chain you can eat, the better for the planet.”
Great. So eat SHIT, asoka. You’ll be doing a world of good.
Same with the Hispanics: he knew some in the military and now he thinks he can’t criticize anything about them be it crime, illegal immigration, etc.
This is the sentimental character stucture that insures our downfall. Very, very common among White Americans.
WSP: you can’t be for everybody – that just makes you a White Asoka. You have to choose.
“Seems like Obama is doing better than his predecessors at controlling debt increase.”
Hey, moron. Bush was in office for 8 years. Obama? Not quite 4. Nice try. (Fucking idiot)
That kind of unmanifested love doesn’t save or feed anyone in itself. It has to ground into time, space, and circumstand to do good. And that involves choice (helping one and not another) and effort – lots of effort.
Truly amazing how you don’t understand something so simple. You really are expending alot of effort to repress such a simple truth. But I guess you have alot “invested” in not understanding this – like self image, political viewpoints, group affiliation with other new age retards, etc.
It’s fine to “enjoy the View” but don’t confuse it with politics, relationships, daily life etc.
“…but a blanket statement comparing them with the “educated” is difficult to swallow.”
And so too are the shit sandwiches you regularly eat but that doesn’t seem to deter you.
Remember, that lots of Muslims are now “Americans”. You can’t criticize them. Many are now in the military. As Wesley Clark said after the mass shooting by Hasan, the real tragedy is if diversity in the military is compromised.
This is the “America’ that you worship. The Westboro Baptist Church is correct about America btw – Christian soldiers are fighting for a Sodomite State. And believe me, the Jews find it delicious.
‘World Heritage Sites’ The graves of saints from centuries ago?
I saw something in the paper about ‘Muslims destroy Sufi grave-sites’.
Yes we both read the piece at Occidental.
Kagan, young [50?], leftist, ultra butch lesbian
[remember Janet Reno?], a benefactor of nepotism, so she will obey her handlers.
She sided with the California Initiative about
‘anti antisemitism’, so shes another anti constitutionalists. [gee, I just created a word].
I was being sarcastic.
Quite right Prog: Xenophobia is normal. Xenophillia is a disease of the mind. Yet tens of millions of PC people consider themselves the acme of sanity. Loving outsiders and hating your own people is not the standard of both sanity and success. We’re doomed.
“Ever heard the word “civility”?”
Ever hear the word “douche-bag”, as in Helen is a douche-bag?
I actually read all of the comments thusfar.
What kind of idiot am I?
Does anyone actually think posting stuff on a comments section will make any difference?
Just curious.
I’m working on a new theory of social “progress”: conservation of ignorance. We think that by abandoning ethnic loyalty and tribalism that we are growing. But in fact, the vast majority of the changees have just shifted to a new group, and an new tribal loyalty – an ideological tribe, be it the Communist Party or the Democratic. Or their opponents, the Republicans. Meanwhile the Hispanics can participate in any of these while simulataneously maintaining their old tribal allegiance. Who is going to win here? The Hispanics will take over the Democratic Party obviously. It is their vehicle.
The Jews have always acted in this way – using ideologies as Ethnic Vehicles. So it’s not the Hispanics, Blacks, East Asians, and South Asians are strange or uniquely bad: everyone does it except us.
We are the special ones, not the Jews. Jews are just better at the old game than just about anyone else. And the worst are a corruption of the best. I mean how crazy and dysfunctional to hate your own people in favor of others who appear (and only appear) to believe the same things as you? The other peoples of the world would never do it. Only we are this crazy and self destructive.
Xenophobia is normal – well within reason. Advanced cultures do allow for travel and trade. Different coutries and cultures can be on good terms with each other. Even some immigration, strictly regulated, is not out of the question if the race is the same and the culture not too different.
“She’s utterly unqualifed and only got the job thru being Jewish.”
Wrong. She got it because she is ultra-liberal.
Xenophobia is normal – well within reason.
=============
Jesus said:
Love God
(But God is of a different ontology, and, according to Radu perhaps xenophobia would be better than love)
Jesus said:
Love your neighbor as yourself
(But if the neighbor is of a different ethnic heritage, and, according to Radu, perhaps xenophobia would be better than love)
Jesus said:
Love your enemies
(But if the enemy is of a different race, and, according to Radu perhaps xenophobia would be better than love)
Jesus seems to be really out of line with his xenophilia, right Radu? What a nutcase, this Jesus guy, always talking about love of others.
We are the special ones, not the Jews.
==============
Jesus (a Jew!) said: I am the way, the life, the truth, and no one gets to the father except through me.
It does sound like he considered himself kinda special.
Are you a Christian, Vlad? Do you follow this false Jewish messiah?
Further Reading:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it/
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.it/
http://instantsingularity.blogspot.it/
You see, the worldwide economy and its models, targets, statistics, values, etc. are all based on the “American Economic Model”: And the Model is really precisely the American one, the USA model, as that is the model of Capitalism, Free Enterprise, Consumption, Innovation, Technology etc. that was really successful in the 20th century, that really fixed the baseline and ground point from which all other models and economies and societies and countries would then be measured.
But the model really only ever worked mostly in the USA: it is a case of Capitalism, but especially Consumerism in only one country, all other countries don’t come close, will never come close, cannot come close even if they wanted to. And why is this ? because no other country is set up like the USA, with large homes, single family homes, large so that you can fill them up with all kinds of junk made all over the world, 2 car garages, wide streets, front and back yards, etc. And manipulable wood homes, not made of concrete like most of the world where it is hard to modify your home, hence huge Home Depot stores with a huge selection of items, consumption of items and such.
Just compare this to so called successful countries that had “High Growth” for decades like Singapore or Hong Kong, or South Korea or JAPAN or Germany: compare their puny tight streets, small homes, mostly apartments but mostly small where you can’t fill them up with all kinds of random consumer goods bought constantly. Compare those countries that “Grew” economically and are successful economically to the USA: they all lack really huge Big Box stores full of stuff like in the USA, Malls all over the place, all kinds of stores and choices and huge activity of consumerism and such. But especially they don’t like to Buy Baby Buy, consume and buy and keep the game going as they do in the USA. Look at Germany, they have cash but they don’t like to buy all kinds of things (they are green and puny consumers etc.), where are all their Malls and their Home Depots ? where are all the huge shopping centers, where are all the big houses with 2 car garages, and such ? Same for JAPAN and Hong Kong and South Korea and most of Europe.
Singapore is a joke: you can’t even have a car unless you are rich since there are no parking spaces and such.
So in a world of mostly puny consumers, tight streets, puny homes, no Big Box stores, etc. green thugs who are afraid of Buying and Consuming like crazy for some religious ideology that believes that Nature is sacred, how is Growth going to be Sparked ? Who, aside from the USA is going to spark any kind of growth ? Like the joke of Chinese shopping centers full of stuff that no one can afford to buy and such.
Add to this the fact that most of the world is rigid economically, is not flexible as the USA (tight puny labor markets not hire and fire and always change like the USA, insecurity people have pumping up the cost of real estate like crazy since they have nothing else to base their security upon), is full of ideology, especially green and tree hugging ideologies that don’t want to Build Baby Build like Crazy (High Speed Trains, Skyscrapers, Rockets, Big Box Stores full of crap and such) and you can be sure that there will be no growth worldwide or very little growth, hence high unemployment and such.
That was From the Masterpiece:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=179180
I am the greatest genius of all time, the top, absolute best, Einstein is a puny fairy compared to me!
THE APE HEAD
I value Marlins comments but I do not agree with all of them.
If he saw the machinations of, oh, Gelbaum, Soros
and Adelman he might see things differently.
If he read the piece on Zuckerberg at Occidental Observer, or the piece on ‘dear’ Elena, his op
might be very different!
How do you explain the numbers of the SCOTUS?
3 of 9!
I thought the president was president of all the people. Turns out Romney thinks 47% of the public are moochers and of no use to him. Romney said it at an orgy at the home of a Minnesota Vikings player.
Dr. Jill Stein will be president of all the people and won’t be attending orgies at rich peoples’ houses.
.
.
KRISTOL: ‘Arrogant, Stupid’… Romney’s Explanation Of His Comments May Be Worse Than Romney’s Comments’
.
Romney has shown himself to be a sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the RAD CONSERVATIVE mania that has seized his party.
Romney believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it.
BHO vastly increased the number of soldiers we have in Afghanistan? Yes?
Still dreaming of Hope n Change?
Keep hoping , even though Obama promised to cut the deficit in half but piled $5? 6? 7? trillion on it.
Keep hoping even though he pledged to unite us but shattered us like glass.
Keep hoping thru violent flash mobs and speech codes.
There should be a minimum of seven Jews on the Supreme Court because we want the smartest people in the nation ruling from the bench.
CORRECTION
The orgy was at the home of an equity trader, Marc Leder (Romney’s type of folk).
Mitt Romney’s religious right sponsors may not be pleased to find out about the other kinds of activities that take place at Leder’s mansion: Marc Leder Ends His Weekly Bashes in the Hamptons With Naked Guests Cavorting in the Pool and Peforming Public Sex Acts.
“It was as if the Playboy Mansion met the East End at a wild party at private-equity titan Marc Leder’s Bridgehampton estate, where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.
The divorced Sun Capital Partners honcho rented a sprawling beachfront mansion on Surf Side Road for $500,000 for the month of July. Leder’s weekly Friday and Saturday night parties have become the talk of the Hamptons — and he ended them in style last weekend with his wildest bash yet.”
How does Romney decide to attend a fund raiser at a place like that? Seems to indicate a lack of good judgment and may have cost him the presidency.
“I thought the president was president of all the people. Turns out Romney thinks 47% of the public are moochers and of no use to him. ”
Not really. He was explaining the strategy that must be employed in order for him to get elected. He need not expend any energy for the asokas of this country. They would never vote for him. He stated he must expend his energies going after the undecided voters.
These are truisms that are understood by anyone with two brain cells still functioning. The fact that the MSM wants to make a big deal out of his comments merely drop them into the intelligence category associated with that of a glass of water. And, of course, you as well.
Not really, fucktard. Romney specifically referred to people who do not pay federal income taxes. That includes working poor, retirees and the disabled, including disabled veterans, along with students and some people suffering long-term unemployment after the Great Recession. It also includes some of Romney’s millionaire buddies.
According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, some 3,000 of the 76 million taxpayers that were expected to pay no federal income taxes in 2011 were members of Romney’s cohort, making nearly $2.2 million per year, which puts them in the top 0.1 percent income bracket.
Why is everyone so surprised? He was at a fundraiser attended by assholes and had to act like one because that’s his ‘base’. When you only support the interests of some of the American People your going to talk trash about the rest.
useless eaters.
Vote for a dog that is going to take care of all the people.
? Obama (Wall street dogs eat.)
? Romney (Only dogs who pay taxes eat.)
? K-Dog (All dogs eat even the 47%.)
you’re going to talk trash
“Romney specifically referred to people who do not pay federal income taxes”
You mean the takers? They aint’ gonna vote for him. Thats the plan, moron. The Democrats would love nothing more than to get 51% of the population paying no income tax because then the game (the 2 party system) is over. How unfortunate that a mere 47% pay no income tax. Whoa is you.
“Things are looking up! There’s a new I Phone out, a revolutionary I Phone that’s transforming the world, a highly evolved device with the capacity to turn this economy around.”
Can it plow fields and plant corn?
So if both parties are largely the same, what difference does it make?
“The orgy was at the home of an equity trader, Marc Leder (Romney’s type of folk).”
So one of the principle speakers at the Demotwatic convention, a convicted perjurer, who was the recipient of suck-jobs in the oval office, was worshipped for his “delivery.” And we are now supposed to get excited because some guests (not the host) of a fundraiser at an event that Romney did not attend acted like Bill Clinton? Oh, the outrage!
different colored handbasket?
You are suggesting that Mitt Romney and Barak Obama are the same? Or that Barney Frank or Paul Ryan are? Really?
No, not “takers” … retirees who paid into social security all their lives are receiving pre-paid retirement money, their own money. They are not taking from anyone, but many pay no taxes because social security pays below the poverty level. That is my case. I contributed for 45 years and now I am getting my money back, only to have Romney call me a freeloader. Ain’t true. Same goes for disabled, disabled veterans, etc. Romney has just insulted a shitload of Republican low-income voters, millions of Republican votes lost.
Here is an excerpt from Forbes:
Memo To Mitt Romney: The 47% Pay Taxes Too
“… let me make a few serious points about the 46.4% of American households who paid no federal income taxes for 2011. First of all, according to the Tax Policy Center, more than 60% of those non-income tax paying households did pay federal payroll taxes—meaning Social Security and Medicare taxes. (Considering all Americans households, including those that owed income tax, 62% paid more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes.)
What of the 18.1% of U.S. households that paid neither income nor payroll taxes? More than half of them were headed by a senior–in other words, by someone who paid payroll taxes and likely some income taxes too, in the past. (No, the amount the elderly have paid in does not cover the cost of the Medicare benefits they are now getting. And that is true despite the fact that in a Romney TV ad attacking Obamacare’s cuts to the growth in Medicare spending, an announcer seems to suggest otherwise, intoning: “You paid into Medicare for years, every paycheck…. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed healthcare Is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”)
Of course, it goes without saying, that those folks who aren’t paying federal taxes are almost all paying state and local taxes—state sales taxes, real estate taxes (either on their homes or built into their rents) and possibly state income taxes too, since those taxes tend to exempt fewer poor families than does the federal income tax. If they buy gasoline, liquor or tobacco, or have telephones, they’re also feeding the federal purse.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2012/09/17/memo-to-mitt-romney-the-47-pay-taxes-too/
The answer stars with an ‘n’ and is four letters.
I’ll give a hint. One letter is repeated.
n___
.
.
.
ends with an ‘e’
Both parties are going to play golf and let Jingo and his drones do all the work. Don’t vote for that dog. He is a sadistic cur.
? Jingo (Both Obama and Romney have him on the team)
? K-Dog (Jingo joins the unemployed.)
I’m saying that the national trajectory in most areas will remain unchanged regardless of which player makes it to the top. They both will get there with the assistance of very similar groups, lobbying efforts, cash payments, secret handshakes, whatever. Will immigration go down with either? No. Will we still be in the giant squeeze regarding social security? Yeah. Barney Frank or Ryan, neither one will do shit. No sandwiches, sorry. Did anything change with Obama? No. Thanks for playing. 🙂
Mitt Romney said:
“These are people who pay no income tax,” Romney continued, “My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
The 47 percent of Americans who currently have no federal income tax liability are either too poor to qualify for even the lowest tax bracket (but still pay federal payroll tax, and state or local sales taxes, gas taxes, and excise taxes), or they benefit from tax credits for the working poor, the elderly, or students.
Romney just smeared millions of Republicans, including unemployed Republican in those categories, who may now be ex-Republicans after being insulted.
Among those working poor are Republicans. Among those unemployed Republicans receiving benefits are, in Romney’s words, those who: “believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”
Like unemployment benefits.
Romney is toast. Idiot toast.
I’m with K-Dog. It’s a facade. btw, what does K stand for?
K-9 (canine)
I thought that, but thought there might be more to it. Like…D-Dog… If I join the party, do I get any treats? If I write in, I want to get it right.
And among those “who pay no income tax” are thousands of millionaires.
Although they average an income of 2.2 million dollars, they pay no income taxes, and believe they are entitled to government tax loopholes.
Romney just insulted those non-tax paying millionaires, too.
K-Dog was coined by someone who liked something I wrote (not here) a few years ago. My post involved global trade issues and how American minorities were being fucked by globalization.
The post had my real name at the bottom which starts with ‘K’.
I think it went something like.
Damn K-Dog you’re the man.
I liked it and thus K-Dog came to be.
so that’ll work at the ballot? Works 4 me, man.
Barney Frank, Good Lord Almighty! There’s an honest politician…not…Holy Shit. How many years did he swear that Fannie Mae was solvent?
May 9, 2012 WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae on Wednesday reported a $2.7-billion profit for the first three months of the year and will not need new taxpayer money for the first time since the government seized the housing finance giant in 2008.
Fannie Mae said the improvement in its finances came from a slower decline in housing prices, a lower rate of homeowners behind on their payments and fewer foreclosed homes on the company’s books.
“Today’s results exemplify the tremendous progress we have made since 2009,” said Chief Executive Michael J. Williams.
The most important thing is to buck the system. One could not vote at all but the P.T.B. are Ok with that. After the American revolution I believe voter turnouts were very low and non participation is just fine by the elites.
A K-Dog write in vote on the other paw can’t be ignored. Practically it may be of no value any more than a Ron Paul or Jill Stein vote but a K-Dog vote bucks the system much better.
.
.
.
Of course I would think so.
And if I won I’d be looking to find the most compassionate intelligent capable people the country has to work for me. I don’t play golf and if I did I wouldn’t four four years. My job would be to make sure everyone else is chasing the foxes and feeding the dogs. I’d keep both eyes on them, if I took a nap one eye would be open.
I’m talking about his statements when they were in deep kemo, before the bailouts, before the shit hit the fan.
As gasoline supplies become scarce, they will be rationed. First the military will get theirs. Next, trucks for vital industries … hospitals … grocery distribution centers … will get theirs too.
As for the rest of us, we will be expected to ride buses most of the time. Infrequently running government buses. What a drag!
We will still have gas for our cars, but not much. It will be rationed. Like many products were in WW2. We will go on living like this for years. Gasoline won’t disappear overnight.
That’s why a residence within walking distance of essential supplies will be a prize.
for four
or within a short sail.
First the military will get theirs.
==============
Military gasoline is going to be cut, too.
Big cuts in the military budget are coming because Congress could not agree to a budget. The Obama administration, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, has warned about what these cuts would mean for military readiness and urged Congress to find savings elsewhere.
Jesus condemned the Pharisees and thus was not a member of the modern Jewish Religion – who are Pharisees. So Jesus was not a “Jew” – you are confused.
Jesus followed Traditional Judaism (before the Talmud) in his youth. And then he began to teach the new way – the direct worship of God in spirit and in truth. Thus Christianity is the spiritual descendant of Traditional Judaism – and not Talmudic Judaism which is a perversion of everything.
So, Republican soldiers in combat zones who pay no income taxes and are moochers, part of the 47% that Romney (and CFN’s mistified) say are the “takers” …
Good luck with that.
The Romans executed Jesus, but they also executed many other nationalistic and religious Jews for speaking out against Roman authority and abuses.
There was nothing special about Jesus. He was just another Jew who claimed to be the Messiah but didn’t meet the requirements:
Be an observant Jewish man descended from the house of King David
** Be an ordinary human being (as opposed to the Son of God)
** Bring peace to the world
** Gather all Jews back into Israel
** Rebuild the ancient Temple in Jerusalem
** Unite humanity in the worship of the Jewish God and Torah observance
Because Jesus did not meet these requirements, from the Jewish perspective he was not the Messiah. Just one more Jewish preacher.
One can only assume that in taking care of yourself, you do not use any form of mechanical transport, or food that has been moved by mechanical transport, and if by some misfortune you need surgical intervention to save your life, you use a mirror and a kitchen knife.
You would certainly refuse such weaknesses as aneasthetics or antibiotics (they are produced by an industrial infrastructure)
if by some misfortune you need surgical intervention to save your life, you use a mirror and a kitchen knife.
Mirrors and kitchen knives are products of industrial infrastructure. They cannot be used if you want to say of your surgery: “I built it myself!”
“Many people place far too much credence in the Jewish-run American media which seeks to make every last freaking Arab…” As distinct from the Jewish-run media which seeks NOT to make every last freaking Arab…?
Still haven’t learned the difference between the restrictive clause and the non-restrictive clause, XXX5? The difference is not trivial.
In polemics, exaggeration can be a useful tactic–except when such exaggeration becomes flat out non-factual. The Jews “have been kicked out of every culture they’ve occupied for the last five thousand years…” you say. I didn’t know this. My impression was that the various expulsions of the Jews from various nations and regions began when one or more of the Julio-Claudian emperors expelled a portion of Rome’s Jews from Rome. But you happen to know otherwise, and what you know is that the expulsions had started three thousand years earlier. When were these expulsions, exactly? And from where? By telling us–by telling the world–you can make a truly original contribution to the historical study of the pre-Christian Near East. My advice: go for it.
Your syntax is atrocious. Interpreted as written, “kicked out of every culture they’ve occupied for the last five thousand years,” means that the Jews occupied this or that culture for five thousand years, and then, AFTER those five thousand years of occupation, they were kicked out. But that’s not what you mean. Here’s what you mean: for five thousand years the Jews have been kicked out of every culture they’ve occupied. See the difference?
By the way, how can a people get kicked out of a culture? Culture is an abstract object, not a piece of terrain with natural or artificial boundaries.
The errors of grammar I’ve just described are mere instances. You make numerous others. Your posts are splattered with them. Yet you see yourself as a connoisseur of English prose whose high state entitles him to look down in disdain at us CFN illiterates. More advice: get yourself a good grammar book and start studying it.
Jam47, don’t you know XXX5 was “Teacher of the Year”?
LOL!
Your explanation of proper use of commas, and how restrictive and non-restrictive clauses change meaning, is very good information. I hope XXX5 will get that grammar book, so he can make his communication more effective.
XXX5 is intelligent and has interesting observations to contribute. His lack of grammar is counterproductive to his purpose.
The Gay Ambasador was raped by the Muslims – both before and after his death.
Liberals (and that means most Republicans at this point) are insane to believe these people have any place in the West.
http://hillbuzz.org/breaking-news-two-sources-in-chicago-diplomatic-circles-identify-ambassador-chris-stevens-as-gay-meaning-state-department-sent-gay-man-to-be-ambassador-to-libya-64291/
Everything terrible is something that needs our love.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
I think you will relate to this travelers note:
I was in Africa a few times and noticed that Africans seemed to see me as a source of easy goods.
They would come up to me and demand that I give them my clothes, my hat, my shoes or whatever they fancied and where shocked when I didn’t agree.
That is how they see us, as the sugar daddies!
from the link:
Obama continues to borrow from China so he can spend it on people who hate us,
[And I add, as does Obama, he hates us as well].
“If I know ONE good member of Group X, then, in general one can say NOTHING of the totality of Group X.”
Classic case of an unwarranted pronoun shift, XXX5. Here’s the correct version: If I know one good member of group X, then, in general I can say nothing of the totality of group X. You should have repeated the “I.”
You have not, by the way, written the precise definition of the sweeping generalization/inadequate sampling fallacy that you think you have. And why do you show such fondness for this particular fallacy? This is the second time you’ve mentioned it in the last few days. There are others, you know, and they’re on display right here on CFN. Point THEM out. Your assumption of the title of CFN’s champion logician needs a bit more substantiation.
Hey “Mistified”:
The nasty and foul language you are spewing is typical Republican teabagger nonsense. For your next post, please have the decency to include a Moron Alert next to your moniker.
Something for me, you, KD and a few others that haven’t been sucked into the void of useless, symptomatic political and racial wankery (a pox on all their stinking distractions and putrid pontifications)…
Let us return to pondering “what it means” via the games of legally protected fraud and global manipulations, where the real dooms await behind a slowly rising curtain.
Multiple claims to underlying real wealth. (Just a portion of what we’ve been forced to accept as legitimate, that is nothing of the sort.)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/how-chinas-rehypothecated-ghost-steel-just-vaporized-and-what-means-world-economy
Chinese steel? That ain’t no “black swan”; someone knew very well what was real and what wasn’t…
SNOPES RUMOR SITE ON CHRIS STEVENS
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/stevens.asp
Misti, you’re one dumb son of a bitch. If you don’t like any of my posts, which is apparently the case judging by your virulent replies to them, then why do you always read and comment on what I write?
I have a solution to this conundrum, which seems to cause you so much mental anguish every week. If you see a post that starts with my user name, then just go ahead and skip it, seeing as how you are 100% certain it is going to be an a-front to your finely honed intellect. Why waste your precious time, right? And that way your gaping vagina won’t hurt so much from being forced to listen to my “megaphone”.
Or just go ahead and keep acting like a complete fuck-wit internet troll, if that’s what floats your boat. I know that’s what you do best.
Anyways, best wishes. Hope not to hear from you again.
–Turk
Golden rule, he with the gold makes the rules…or lack thereof.
As Confucius say….man who goes through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.
or something. That’s an interesting article. I was also just reading about the Chinese/Japanese dispute going on over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. There is some latent aggression coming out on the part of the Chinese, “where Sept. 18 is remembered as the day of the Liutiaohu (Manchurian) Incident that was used as an excuse by Japan to invade and occupy Manchuria.” from yahoo news. “In China, anti-Japanese demonstrations have now spread to as many as 100 cities as tensions mount over Japan’s purchase of islands it calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu. The islets, which were owned by a Japanese family, lie between the two countries.”
Don’t we have some island dispute with Canada that we can ramp up to get us all united agin? Joking.
Asoka, I just read today that a fragment of a papyrus written in Coptic and given to a scholar to examine, states, in part, “and Jesus said to his wife…”. It appears that many other early accounts of Jesus claimed he had a wife. Just think, if both he and his wife weren’t sterile, then there’s a good chance thousands of thousands of his ancestors are walking the Earth today. And if he really was Black, why, you might be his descendent.
BTW, I always thought Jesus has a good thing going. I mean, every nun is wedded to him, right? And people claim the LDS are weird with their polygamy. There ain’t no Mormon who ever lived had as many wives as Jesus.
Tabletop MUX
Concept: The PCs are provided with a time machine which can transport them into the past and return them to the present, but cannot travel into the future. The machine also will not travel further into the past than a set limit – assume 1000 years from the present for a rough estimate, the actual barrier yet to be decided. The PCs are a group of relatively ordinary people, and initially most or all will be strangers to each other.
Kicker: The machine can only be used a limited number of times. This limit is known to the PCs. It is up to them to choose what to do, and when/where to go.
Tone: Serious, but not dark and angsty. Humor that emerges from RP welcome. Something like the tone of a good episode of Buffy or the Stargate shows, ideally – What the PCs do (or don’t do) can be important and have serious consequences, but it’s not all grit and grimness.
Influences/Inspirations: Doctor Who (duh). Marvel’s Exiles comic. The late, lamented Journeyman television series.
The system used will likely be Cinematic Unisystem, or possibly BESM Third Edition. Playstyle will be “rules-light” most of the time, but a system (as opposed to complete freeform RP) is needed, because the nature of the premise requires some level of pre-definition of the characters and their skillsets, personalities, etc.
PLEASE NOTE: The GM politely requests that potential players not discuss character concepts, potential plans of action, and so forth among themselves OOCly prior to the launch of the game. A good deal of the fun should come from the characters ICly starting as a gathering of strangers, and from ICly deciding among themselves what to do next.
I always assumed Jesus had a wife, children, and a couple of prostitutes on the side. All that and the ability to turn water into wine. That Jesus cat was a hedonist!
Never really thought I might be a descendant… I would not want to be. Jesus is part of the triune God and the Holy Spirit raped Mary. I would not want to be the descendant of a rapist and mother fucker.
Lest their be any misunderstanding, if Jesus did not exist historically as a real person, I still like Jesus, as a mythical figure. He’s three, three, three gods in one!
I do feel sorry for Mary being impregnated against her will, in an act of non-consensual sex by the triune god.
CORRECTION
Lest ^there^ be any misunderstanding,
JUST WHO IS ROMNEY WRITING OFF?
It’s worth taking a second to look at some of the people who make up the nearly half of the country that Romney has so much disdain for. Who exactly are these people that Romney rips for not paying income taxes? The overwhelming majority are seniors, students, people with disabilities, or working families. They pay payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and more. Those working families include U.S. soldiers in combat, receptionists, firefighters, and clergy, just to name a few. Certainly, those folks aren’t short on personal responsibility.
Romney told a room full of big-money donors that Americans who don’t support him think they’re “victims” who don’t “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
Romney has said that “my job is not to worry about” the people who don’t support him. But America needs a president who will stand up for all Americans, not just the half of the country who agrees with him.
Romney has been vigorously denying President Obama’s claims that his tax plan would raise taxes on the middle class. Now, he’s been caught on video suggesting that low- and middle-income Americans are undertaxed.
(That one is especially problematic given the speculation about what’s on Mitt’s unreleased pre-2010 tax returns.)
There are more embarrassing moments on segments of the video. Romney jokes that he’d be more likely to win the election if he were Hispanic. He makes some awkward comments about whether he was born with a “silver spoon” in his mouth.
Romney is the most opaque presidential nominee since Nixon, and people have been reduced to guessing what his true feelings are.
This video provides an answer: HE FEELS THAT YOU ARE A LOSER. It’s not an answer that wins elections.
SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-17/today-mitt-romney-lost-the-election.html
Don’t we have some island dispute with Canada that we can ramp up to get us all united agin? Joking.
You don’t suppose that a large pile of steel with thermite burns all over it might be found to have been used as collateral for a loan do you? Too much to hope for I’m sure. The contract probably called for prompt disposal.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK! ZOMBIES!
“Security firm HALO Corp. announced yesterday that about 1,000 military personnel, police officials, medical experts and federal workers will learn the ins and outs of a zombie apocalypse, as part of an annual counter-terrorism summit , according to the Military Times.”
Basic military training, specialized military training, and now, ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE training!
ABOLISH THE MILITARY!
(21 countries have no armed forces)
PS.
Zombies mostly appear as plot devices in books, films, video games and TV shows. Zombies are not dangerous (just turn off your TV) and can be handled by local law enforcement.
We do not need a military or military zombie apocalypse training. We do not need more wasted tax dollars on the military.
CANADA
Sorry about that, must have been a typo.
Total Oil Spokesman Confirms Peak Oil/Peak Growth and a huge “miss” for 2020:
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Oil/8731523?ref=rocktrueblood.blogspot.com
This video provides an answer: HE FEELS THAT YOU ARE A LOSER. It’s not an answer that wins elections.
In Jamaica, they call the fat White Female Sex Tourists “Milk Bottles”.
Had a Black Cabi the other night. Instead of giving me back all my change, he kept a dollar for himself as a tip. I gave him another dollar as I intended to give him two (20%). I wasn’t mad – it’s what they are. I don’t expect anything else from them at this point – and otherwise he had been competent and helpful.
A White guy would give you back your change and wait for you to give him a tip or not. And I’d be angry if one tried what the Black did.
Much ado about little? But multiply it times a billion and it adds up. In ways big and small, Blacks are always tring to cut moral corners. It adds up – the first result being a lack of trust. And what can you do once that is gone? Blacks in Black Cultures live in a self maintained poverty and this is one of the reasons why.
Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem eliminates Peter Aerts
Overeem showed diversity with a K-1 victory over a legend like Aerts (photo: sherdog)
The K-1 World Grand Prix Final 16 event was broadcast on HDNet in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Although you could argue that K-1 kickboxing isn’t technically mixed martial arts, it’s so closely related and commonly appreciated that I feel compelled to comment. Plus, since most of us love watching great strikers, it’s some of the most fulfilling fighting out there. Well, the K-1 World GP is as big as it gets in the world of kickboxing, and they were whittling the field of 16 down to 8 in Seoul, Korea on Friday night.
Complete results will follow, but one particular match held particular interest for MMA fans, while sending shock waves through the kickboxing world. Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion, Alistair Overeem defeated the legendary Peter Aerts, knocking him out of December’s World Grand Prix for the first time in the event’s 16-year history. Yes, you read that correctly. Aerts qualified for the final 8 every year since its inception, until now. He won the entire tournament three times. Basically, you could call him the Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, GSP or (insert legendary MMA fighter’s name here) of kickboxing.
Overeem isn’t a stranger to K-1, as he’s had success in a few bouts prior. But he’s never done something of this significance within the sport. Moving into the World GP final is a big deal and it’s not like he’s going in without a prayer. Overeem overwhelmed Aerts with sheer power in their final 16 bout and his size suggests that he’ll be able to do the same to some of the other fighters who advanced.
Speaking of the other fighters to advance, reigning champion Remy Bonjasky defeated Melvin Manhoef to move on. Errol Zimmerman beat Glaube Feitosa, Ruslan Karaev defeated Kyotaro, Ewerton Teixeira squeaked out a decision over Singh Jaideep, Semmy Schilt battered Daniel Ghita, Jerome LeBanner out worked Musashi and Badr Hari had the only KO of the night over Zabit Samedov.
After all of the fights were finished, the fighters drew slots and opponents for the World Grand Prix Final, coming up on December 5th. They are listed below.
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“It was nerve racking at the get started and that i was a bit psychological. The initial touch from the ball was the scariest issue ever,wholesale jerseys nfl,” he mentioned. “But all players know they are there for a purpose. Walker has taken office, Wisconsin has misplaced more jobs than every other state within the country. We need to have to recall Gov. Walker on June 5 so that you can put an quick stop to his backward, job-killing policies.”.
Big doins’ last nite in NYC, the President of the US, with his hard earned and well deserved Nobel Peace Prize, yukking it up with Letterman, and partying down with JayZ and Beyonce! What a time they must’ve had!
Meanwhile, I’m listening to BBC, and the commentator is talking about the possibility of a 800 mile allied fighting retreat out of Afghanistan to the closest seaport, in the middle of winter, a disaster not seen since the Chosin fiasco in Korea in Dec. 1950. You’d think the destruction of 8 Marine Harrier jets on the ground, and 15 Marine personnel dead, as happened last week, would be news worthy to report. Apparently it is not. I had to tune into a foreign broadcast to get the full story. I do know about Romney’s gaffe’s, however, and the really swell time had by all last nite in Manhattan.
–WSP7
Marlin,
In answer to your question about the OWSers demos. I was out of town and missed it even though it took place on the next block from me.
______
You know you’re not living in a democracy with a free press when the the royal topless sunbather is more important than our fighting men and women, stuck in a quagmire that’s breaking our economy. The corporate media doesn’t think you ought to be focusing on the issues.
Also, just like to point out to you that Romney didn’t make any gaff at all. He told the truth. He is an oligarch and that’s who he represents.
They all do, but he’s one himself. That’s all you need to know.
The question is why are 47% of the people in the richest country in the world in such bad shape?
About the two state solution? He doesn’t want to be bothered with tough situations.
Romney wants to glide into and through a presidency much as he has with Bain. He never takes any risks and he won’t as president either.
You’re also not allowed to talk about any options other than austerity for everyone but the top playas. Max Keiser discusses the $23 Trillion in black bank accounts like the Caymans, Switzerland and Panama..(remember Panama?) and that’s where R keeps a chunk o’ change. They pretend that FDR never happened and that’s never an option–but keep in mind, that’s they economy we grew up in and it wasn’t half bad.
________
Suggested listening: Micheal Hudson:
http://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/audio/Renegade_Economi5ts_Hudson.mp3
and Max Keiser: http://maxkeiser.com/
Collateral Transformation (E341)
Vlad said:
WSP: you can’t be for everybody – that just makes you a White Asoka. You have to choose.
****************************************************************
The idea that people can be “universalists” actually creates more tension and strife in the long run because it overrides the kinds of basic genetic imperatives that create tribalism, which has existed since man left caves. Observe the “universalists” in American culture. They’re almost always highly philosophical white MANDARINS who are INSULATED from the problems of balkanization since they usually live in privileged situations. An irony, eh, that it takes an education to be STUPID enough not to know what dogs and cats know?! The humor of their “noble savage worship” is that they hate the whites trying to “help” them.
The irony of utopianism, like the Communist experiment, is that its ardent believers almost always foisted their universalism on others when they gained power and quickly turn into dictators. Look what happened to Jack Reed when he naively went to Russia and never was allowed to return to America.
That’s why I consider modern liberalism, especially the idea that you can just throw six or seven cultures together and get a truly high-functioning society, to be perniciously anti-biological. It’s natural to explore different cultures and for mixing to occur at a snail’s pace due to prudent paranoia. However, just tossing ’em in a giant salad bowl and expecting a perfect Cobb Salad to come out is rather typical of idealists out of touch with the idea that reality likes to be CAREFUL and SLOW about radical changes.
E.
Hey Marlin,
If you want to hear about the debauchery going on on the other side of the aisle fundraising go check out Elaine Supkis site:
Mittastrophe: GOP Hates Paying Taxes But Attacks People Too Poor To Pay Taxes
You will have to agree it makes the Democrats look like nursery school children in comparison.
Welcome to the age of Caligula.
Pull out the hammer and nails now.but I feel if, you don’t own property, or don’t pay federal taxes,you don’t get a vote. All politico types should be in for a specific term with no reelection. Those dopes spend billions and half their time running for reelection when they should be working for you and I. The big O traverses the country to the tune of $10,000,000.00 a day to wave his paw
and show his dental work. fuck that. He should be working.I’m fuckin’ grumpy today.
Dedicated to mistified…
Examples of Free Physics:
“…You’d think the destruction of 8 Marine Harrier…”
and
“8 Man”
are related because they both have the sequence of symbols “8 M”, so that is a connection point in an abstract, metaphysical world. Now do that with all sentences, all words, all parts of words, even letters, etc.
Like “agree it makes” is related to “Collateral Transformation (E341) ” since they both contain the letter “a”, now imagine all the ways those two sentences are connected on that hinge of a letter, how they can be combined in a metaphysical world, what incredible deep meaning that must be between them, etc.
Now imagine a number, any number that represents anything, like “53 miles” (from anywhere or to anywhere or anything), and “53 pebbles on Mars”, and imagine how those 2 numbers connect those 2 concepts, 2 chunks of matter, 2 delimitations, etc. And what incredibly deep meanings, what incredibly deep sensation circuits in a new Mind Brain Design can they be associated to and connected to, what paradise of pain/pleasure and other extensions and denotations and recursions, ever more recursions and inventions are possible!
And do that with atoms and electrons and pixels in an image and all else, all connected to all according to the quirkiest connections, all going ever higher, achieving ever higher states of existence and being, just like the imagined linear expansion of science inventing and discovering new physics ever day (like discovering a new thing like electricity, and then Maxwell equations and then General Relativity) all in one day, and then higher entities and discoveries all in an hour, then a second, ever going forward, ever faster, exponentially faster! the Instant Singularity achieving ever more, the dream of Infinite Science, imagine where we will be at in the year 500 trillion 1956 !?!?!?!?
And all of those connections become a New Brain as in Brainium, and a New Universe, invent ever more, be whacky and crazy, go for it Man, GO MAN GO!
FIRST GEAR ITS ALL RIGHT, SECOND GEAR HOLD ON TIGHT, THIRD GEAR YOU’RE OUT OF SIGHT, GROOVY MAN, GROOVY…
THE COCK, THE TURD SPEAKS ONCE AGAIN, THE APE MAN
That was from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=179812
And don’t forget:
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it
and
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.it
and good old:
http://instantsingularity.blogspot.it
THE 8 MEN,
THE COCK,
THE TRASH ENTITY
THE PIECE OF TURD
Thank you, Mrs. Soake. It’s important to remember that just because people aren’t paying income tax doesn’t mean they’re not paying taxes — they pay federal payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, for example. Once those taxes are factored in, the tax regime is basically flat. And the reason that most income tax nonpayers don’t pay is they simply don’t make enough income to qualify to pay. As one might expect, the map of states with the highest poverty levels resembles this map fairly closely. Many of them are also seniors, a highly contested voting bloc.
Just more than 10 percent of households pay no income tax because they’re retired. That is my case. I paid in during 45 years of working (pre-paid retirement benefits), and now I’m getting my own money back at $1,000 a month. I am not a “taker” or a “moocher” or a “loser.” I am wealthy (I have running water & electricity) and I am happy!
It is so sweet being retired!
Mornin’ grumpy RT,
Man, you just wiped out the South!
The top ten states where people pay no income tax are:
SOUTH CAROLINA
GEORGIA
FLORIDA
ALABAMA
MISSISSIPPI
ARKANSAS
TEXAS
NEW MEXICO
IDAHO
Do you really want to eliminate voters who live in the South just because they pay no income tax?
SOURCE: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/where-are-the-47-of-americans-who-pay-no-income-taxes/262499/
I’ll check out that site, Ibendet. I suppose this incessant money grubbing is just the nature of the system.
XXX5, speaking of John Reed, there’s a book (which I lent to a
friend and never got back. Now I even forget the title) about the several thousand Americans who travelled to the Soviet Union in the late 1920s to be part of the Workers Paradise, and were never heard from again. Nobody knew what happened to them. Turns out many were relieved of their passports and murdered in sheds right on the pier as ‘spies’. The rest were worked to death in the Gulag and in Gold Mining Camps at Kolyma. Only a few survived to return to the US, in the 1950s. Its really a sad story. Also, Big Bill Haywoods’ fate sounds alot like what happened to Reed, except Haywood was a fugitive who jumped bail. He couldn’t come back.
–WSP7
IDAHO has a high percentage of millionaires who pay no federal income tax.
RT, there are thousands of millionaires who pay no federal income tax. Should those millionaires be denied the right to vote because they pay no federal income tax?
About those Wobblies!
However, just tossing ’em in a giant salad bowl and expecting a perfect Cobb Salad …
============
Very good, XXX5! Now you are talking salad bowl and that is the correct metaphor. Each ingredient maintains its own identity, its own heritage, its own language, etc. but all together they create a delicious salad!
E PLURIBUS UNUM!
Out of many ingredients, ONE salad!
Hey RipT (& Oz, if you’re around) Get any of that storm last night? I’ve got trees down, branches broken off etc. Not as bad as last Oct., tho.
–WSP7
8man, what the hell is wrong with you?
The question is why are 47% of the people in the richest country in the world in such bad shape?
=======================
In that 47% are military personnel who are in combat zones and pay no federal tax.
In that 47% are people like myself who worked all their lives, paid taxes all their lives, got their ducks in a row, downsized, got out of debt, and live very well on $1000 a month, in comfortable homes, pursuing hobbies and enjoying aging… with indoor plumbing, electricity and food refrigeration, things Billions of people in the world would love to have.
Your premise is faulty. Not all the 47% are in such bad shape. And Romney is in error by calling them “victims,” “dependent on entitlements”
Damn right! I earned and paid for my social security “entitlement” … it’s my money, money I prepaid for my retirement, coming back to me.
Romney and his Ayn Rand running mate are completely out of touch with America. Romney said, a middle class income is $200,000 to $250,000. Who would vote for such a plutocrat?
When Romney was asked to describe what he considered “middle income” on a morning news show broadcast Friday, he said “$200,000 to $250,000 a year and less.”
The Romney campaign wasted no time in clarifying his statement. What Romney meant to say, the campaign said, was that middle household income was $200,000 to $250,000, not individual income.
Trouble is, the Census Bureau reported last week that the median household income in the U.S. is just $50,054 — 8 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the recession took hold.
We elect wealthy people to the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s a problem if their wealth keeps them from appreciating what life is like for the true middle class, let alone for the poor.
Asoka, all those southern states will be BLUE states in 20 years. The demographics of the South will make the South solid democratic territory.
Viva La Reconquista!
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Asoka, all those southern states will be BLUE states in 20 years.
The demographics of the South will make the South solidly vote democratic in the future.
Viva La Reconquista!
DEBACLE… GOP Senate Candidates Break With Mitt… Republican Consultant: ‘There’s A Feeling That This Thing’s In Free Fall’…
Ex-Bush Aide: ‘I Honestly Don’t Know What Romney Can Do’…
NOONAN: ‘Romney Campaign Incompetent… Time For Intervention’
There is only one way to save the GOP. Romney needs to step down to allow a Ryan/Rubio ticket.
Romney was governor of Massachusetts.
People in Massachusetts know Romney best.
Obama is leading Romney by 33 points in Massachusetts.
And Obama’s lead will increase given Romney’s free fall and Romney’s stupid remarks, remarks which he has doubled down on.
Romney is stupid enough to think he said something correct in writing off the 47%.
Romney is stupid enough to think he said something correct in writing off the 47% LIKE COMBAT VETERANS, DISABLED VETERANS, ENLISTED SOLDIERS WHO MAKE SO LITTLE THEY DON’T PAY INCOME TAX.
ROMNEY SAYS THOSE WARRIORS AND WOUNDED WARRIORS ARE MOOCHERS, VICTIMS DEPENDENT ON “ENTITLEMENTS”
LOL!
A solid plan, but not likely to get much traction.
;o)
I got your slogan right here! (@Slogans ‘R’ We)
“NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!”
(Hmmm, sounds strangely familiar, but that should do ‘er.)
Not too bad here; roaring winds and almost 3″ of rain. Trees down in W. Granville, I hear tell.
Last October, Ma Nature went on a tree-pruning spree, so that’s probably why we don’t have so much damage right now.
(Holler “Heya” to A-L for us.)
Damn, that wood ain’t a-gonna split itself! Is there an app for that?
MSNBC passed FoxNews in the 8, 9, and 10pm time slots this week.
People prefer MSNBC truth to Fox lies.
People are universally rejecting Romney, to the point they won’t even watch their own network.
MSNBC has told the truth about Romney and how flawed Romney is. Even right-wing talk radio is saying the ticket they really want is Ryan/Rubio.
Scott Brown knows Romney’s 47% comment is toxic and dangerous to his campaign. Obama is leading in the swing states because he offers a consistent message. Romney flip-flops from his previous liberal Massachusetts positions to his current Tea Party positions.
Republicans are pissed because they have spent four years trying to get people to believe Obama is foreign, Muslim, socialist, etc. and they have failed.
Obama’s 30 months of consecutive positive job growth in the private sector is a problem. (Instead of losing 700,000 jobs a month under Bush).
Republicans are getting their asses kicked in races all over the country.
Hey 03 We had a prtty good blow, 40 CM rain. nothing but twigs came down. All the heavy shit came down last Halloween, I don’t think I even lost a tomato! but I’ll have to check on that. Another beautiful late summer day here in MA! I don’t care one way or another but the middle east can do what they want, fight for allah , dress their women in black, ied themselves, It dons’t impress me. They just outta grow up, cry babies!Now my muslim postman will probably throw my mail away!
Well we were never a Democracy since Democracies are by definition Tyrannies as Plato said long ago. The people are after all, idiots, and would cheerfully vote away the whole Bill of Rights if properly coached to do that.
What right do Men have? They have the right to be ruled by those better than themselves – and those rulers are kept in check by Laws and Traditions. Thus the Republic.
“The people are after all, idiots…”
============
Come up with something original, Radu, and stop channeling Romney’s video.
ROMNEY QUOTES
“Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are.”
“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. … My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
“It’s hard to know just how well [the 2012 London Olympics] will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
“He [Obama] says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
“I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back.” –Mitt Romney, on the American auto industry, despite having written a New York Times op-ed in 2008 titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” in which he said if GM, Ford and Chrysler got a government bailout “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye”
Ok, before I finish my tomato sandwich, I never voted for a republic. I want a democracy where most people have a vote. I understand that if you give a person a vote he will always vote himself a free sandwich. So therefore, “F” him. if you have no skin in the game, Voters should include, property owners, federal tax payers, or persons with money invested in the federal system. Why should persons with no input into the system be allowed to vote as to how these funds are divested if the only reason is to leech off of your fellow citizens? Sorry if I offended anyone, but really dollars buy votes and that is all there is to it.I am sick of the taxes in this country.even my small town They tax us up the yazoo.I don’t use shit for services. I used some health ins. 3 years ago and they tripled their money on that deal. Rant over I gotta get back outside.
I had to tune into a foreign broadcast to get the full story.
Welcome to my world.
Remember shit for brains, both Jesus and Mary are sacred to Muslims. Mohammad knew about the Jew’s slander of Mary and condemned them for it in the Koran. Or Allah did if you believe that.
You never voted for a Republic because you weren’t alive back then – it was bequeathed to you as a Trust. Though you are a bit unclear about that, the rest of your post describes the Early American Republic very well. No unlimited voting by people who don’t deserve it. In other words, Democracy is only part of the system, not the whole of it.
Read the Constitution – you wont see the word Democracy anywhere. The Founders hated the very idea of it and their distaste was vindicated by the horrors of the French Revolution a few years latrer.
Jesus was Muslim. The word Muslim just means one who submits to the will of God, and Jesus was a Muslim.
Like Muslims of today, Jesus preached that his followers should adopt the “straight path” as commanded by God.
Where Islam differs from Christianity is in the “tricks” department (i.e., three, three, three gods in one). Islam sensibly rejects the ridiculous Trinitarian Christian view that Jesus was God incarnate or the son of God. Islam sensibly rejects that Jesus was ever crucified or resurrected, or that he ever atoned for the sins of mankind (like that is possible!).
Jesus was just another mediocre Jewish rabbi.
(a pox on all their stinking distractions and putrid pontifications)…
You mean the brand of tennis shoes Jesus Christ wore doesn’t interest you? Inquiring rabbis want to know, whats up with you ‽
You have to learn to love the goo, and may the goo be with you. And if that’s not enough to drop the scales from your eyes and make the sweet bird of truth chirp golden melodies in your ear remember the “Planet of The Apes” and the love of the bomb.
It’s cleansing purity will wipe your sins away.
So when the polo shirt guy carpet bombs the blog with his automated posts and the cabal of dumfuckery paves the screen with load after load of sticky stupidity try and remember.
It’s all good !!!!!!!
On the subject of your post. I realty like what Tyler Durden writes but this time it seemed a bit alarmist.
And remember too, at least we know where they are and what they are doing.
Who’s for K-Dog for president? Let’s have a show of paws.
How do you feel about term limits?
Or do dogs have feelings? Mitt would probably say no. 🙂
Jesus H, where do we start unpacking this bullshit?
“…where I have lived in less developed parts of the world…” – Assoka
Yeah, I’ll bet. You mean like where you were living, loving, dancing and crying with the poor? Spare us.
From what I’ve seen: 50 years ago 12 grand a year was generally a really good wage for a family of four.
40 years ago 12 grand a year was an OK middle/working class living for a family of four.
30 years ago 12 grand a year was roughly a starting salary for a recent grad with zero experience. Maybe two could live off that if they were careful.
With today’s prices 12 grand a year is living poor for one, not living in, um, “luxury”. Especially in a city of any size.
Again, from personal experience (far off younger days), this is just some of what living poor is: roach infested rooming-houses, shared facilities with garden variety unemployed but also menacing ex cons plus wrecked and sick drug addicts and, as an added bonus, whacked-out mental patients, routinely getting your food and other stuff stolen, scrounging for cut-rate, past-expiry grub and sometimes going without. You get by. With some luck you get out.
Car repairs? You wish. What living poor ISN’T is this: owning a car (what a sad, sick joke THAT is) unless it’s a 25 year old, uninsured, clanking, leaking, fix-it-yourself, POS rust-tank that you’re living in, nor having a telephone. A computer? A Smartphone? Any idea how ridiculous that sounds? What fucking planet do you live on anyway? Never mind photovoltaic solar systems (another howler). Credit cards? Christ give me strength. And living on a BOAT? Fuck me. Flying? Frequent flyer plans? You’re killing me.
Living poor can be done. People do it all the time. But on 12 grand a year you scrape by and it isn’t fun. You don’t live with all the doodads that you were talking about. What you mostly do is live without. Need vs wants? You have the sound of someone with NO idea.
Gotta tell ya College Boy, you come across like a pampered 20 year old. Wealthy parents? Sure sounds like it. That’s ok you don’t need to be embarrassed. Everybody comes from someplace whether it’s a festering, medieval hellhole ruled by murderers or a suburban enclave in a nice, modern democracy. The world is a heartless place so if your parents are connected make the most of it. Like Mitt did.
Oh yes, and we must end militarism. Tell you what Mr Ghandi, why don’t you book flights to Beijing and Tokyo, seeing as you have all this frequent flyer stuff and go talk some sense to them. Last I checked there’s a war brewing. Could turn out to be a real mess. So get going. Let us know how you make out. And then when you’re done with China and Japan go talk to your buddies in Iran. Get them to disarm too.
Permaculture my ass.
So what does the future hold?
Maybe, as you say, glorified loan sharking with no legal or regulatory or institutional shackles. After all regulation is bad. Right? Everyone knows or at least anyone with a brain knows the market is always right. Right?
So here’s the future: Want a loan? Need a loan? Go see Louie The Louse. Big bright store front. Can’t miss it. The deal? 6 for 5. Payable weekly and don’t be late. Or else.
Or else what? Or else The Louse’s collector who takes care of leaky mother-f*****s like you will saw off your dink. With a rusty sardine can lid.
mistified, and others.
Yes, the debt has gone up under Obama. The the recession has cut tax revenue, the Rethugs won’t let him eliminate the tax cuts for the rich, and he has been stuck finishing up Dubya’s wars.
Why don’t you compare his record with the master of debt, Reagan. When Reagan was first elected the national debt was less than $1 trillion. When he faded away 8 years later, the debt was almost $3 trillion. He almost TRIPLED the debt. Where were all the complainers back then?
Also, remember in Dubya’s first SOTU speech, he said he was going to completely pay off the national debt. Instead he doubled it.
Also, remember that CONGRESS controls spending, NOT THE PRESIDENT!
Since the Repukes have blocked everything in the Senate, almost NONE of Obama’s plans have gone through congress!
Obama has only added 60% to the debt.
Here is the WSJ article entitled:
“Obama spending binge never happened”
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor
Now that you have some facts, what do you say?
Don’t worry, mike. You’ll just be ignored. That’s how they roll. Any facts outside their paradigm are simply not given any airtime.
Obama is evil, and he killed Jesus. Doncha know?
Repubes are like drunks after a bender. They messed up the economy but awful, especially during Bush II, and now they have complete amnesia about it. For some reason, they actually think that their “solutions” should be given serious attention, when they screwed things up big time in the first place. It is like the drunk got in a wreck last night with the car after blacking out, but, hey, this morning it is all good. Gimme da keys!
Now, that said, of course Democrats played their own part in the overall fiscal mess. But you are correct to connect the worst offenses to Reagan and Bush II, for obvious reason. Clinton actually had (supposedly) balanced the budget by the time he left office, through a combination of spending reforms and tax increases. Now I can’t tell you for 100% certain if this is God’s honest truth or just some funky accounting, but surely the treasury was in much better shape in 2000 when he left it than in 2008 after Bush’s thorough fiscal reaming (massive tax cuts, two wars, Medicare Part D, etc.).
But, hey, Repubes are not into the obvious interpretation, because that would point back to, ya know, them. They have to obfuscate and spin to the Nth degree, because the truth is not so favorable for them.
Yeah, and Clinton was in during the repeal of Glass Steagall. How many quadrillions will that cost?
When I was in the sixth grade my teacher told me that some people believe that presidents should serve six years not four and be barred from any further re-election. The corrupting influence of a possible second term is thus eliminated. I always thought it was a good idea and never changed my mind. The six years is a compromise carrot to counter the argument that a single four year term is not enough time.
As things are not that way now all I can do is promise I serve only one four year term.
Term limits can fight the evolution of a professional class of elite politicians. From an ‘anarchist’ point of view all politicians should answer to the people and term limits are seen as an important tool to ensure transparency and fight corruption.
I support them.
that’s quad, with a q.
because the truth is not so favorable for them.
The president doesn’t make the laws, daytrip, so shouldn’t we blame that one on the Congress? Or do you think he should have vetoed?
I honestly don’t know that much about it, in order to place “blame” on Clinton. But the function of the Executive is not making or repealing laws. That responsibility lies with another branch of government.
He was there.
Right in the stinking middle of it.
But hey, what’s a few quadrillion between friends?
And our Colonel Nathan R. Jessep wannabe addresses the Court on “Code Red”.
Video Originally Posted September 19, 2012, that’s today.
“term limits are seen as an important tool to ensure transparency and fight corruption”
The problem I see with this approach is that it leaves the money influence unchanged and would actually strengthen it. Because if politicians can only serve X terms, then the ones who are really left with the longevity and knowledge are the lobbyists. Somehow this influence needs to be scaled back, but unfortunately, with recent Supreme Court decisions, we are going in the opposite direction. Now multi-million dollar anonymous donations to political organizations are the norm, and the money effect is greater than ever.
In the early days of the Republic, serving in the government was looked at as a public service. George Washington was extremely cognizant of conflicts of interest, to the point that he would not accept shares in the Potomac Company.
Here is his elegant explanation.
“When I was first called to the station with which I was honored during the late conflict for our liberties, to the diffidence which I had so many reasons to feel in accepting it, I thought it my duty to join a firm resolution to shut my hand against every pecuniary recompence. To this resolution I have invariably adhered. From this resolution (if I had the inclination) I do not consider myself at liberty, to depart.”
So he followed a personal code of conduct, which I believe was not all that unusual for his time. I notice this feeling of humility, which is almost entirely absent from our political culture.
Now, fast forward to today, and being a Congress-person is looked at as a fast track to the pig’s trough, where you get to eat your fill.
Somehow, we have entirely lost the idea that serving as a lawmaker is more of a public duty and not a way of gaining personal riches and influence.
Lobbyists taste good with butter and salt.
If I recall, it was a Republican Congress that repealed this law, so I don’t see how you can mostly blame him. I’d have to do more research to examine what exactly was his role, but you’re not exactly making a great argument here. Got any links I can peruse to support your point?
And I’m not altogether sure of that number, but I’ve seen it thrown around alot. I can’t even get a handle on a trillion, or a billion. Maybe it doesn’t matter, like deficits don’t matter. Maybe there is some sort of endgame where it doesn’t matter and it’s foolish to worry. Maybe I actually benefit from all of it, so I shouldn’t complain. Honestly, I really don’t know. But, it seems that Glass Steagall was put in for a reason after the depression, and it seems it was eventually removed, again for a reason, to play craps with “real” money, other peoples’ real money, that they had put in banks, that weren’t supposed to be able to just gamble it. But, that is now toast, we’ll see how it works out.
Well, I think his Treasury Secretary Rubin was a big cheerleader for it, as was Greenspan.
And if you can’t have a budget surplus during the raging 90’s, then your Keynesian economics aren’t worth dick.
And, he signed the fucking law!
Your absolutely right in isolation term limits don’t mean dittley. The entire political culture is wrong but fortunately those who support term limits can generally be counted on to come up with a few more improvements to try and transition the system into one in which virtue is rewarded.
And they don’t spend so much time and resources trying to get re-elected.
“When I was first called to the station with which I was honored during the late conflict for our liberties, to the diffidence which I had so many reasons to feel in accepting it, I thought it my duty to join a firm resolution to shut my hand against every pecuniary recompence. To this resolution I have invariably adhered. From this resolution (if I had the inclination) I do not consider myself at liberty, to depart.”
DAMN COMMIE!
If a politician only has a few terms, they will work fast to make sure they have a cushy job waiting for them we they are out.
It would be cheaper to pay former politicians a decent pension and have them do public service work. Then you would have to watch to make sure their friends and relatives don’t cash in on their work. Slimy types always find their way around the intent of laws.
ARRGH! International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Shiver my timbers!
Romney has apologized for his videotaped comments!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-apologizes-to-nations-150-million-starving,29603/
‘I mean this is where we have – where America could be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people. So we don’t have any option but to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.’
? Romney (No crazy dog left alive.)
? K-Dog (Knows Iranian dogs are not crazy, hot blooded sometimes, but not crazy.)
If your wondering where Obama is, he has taken the day off. Something to do with his campaign.
That mud is so runny i don’t know how you can even throw it.
Dude, which president was responsible for the raging 90’s? You’re not going to give Mr. Clinton any credit at all? Durp!
Last I checked there’s a war brewing. Could turn out to be a real mess.
===============
I’ve been reading your fear mongering since you posted here as Cash. You are always talking about enemies who don’t exist and wars that never happen.
In fact, we have lost a war since those days when you supported Bush going to war with Saddam.
You are fighting with ghosts.
“transition the system into one in which virtue is rewarded”
Hm, yeah. I understand the sentiment, but it isn’t going to happen, like, ever. Oh, well…
Last I checked there’s a war brewing. Could turn out to be a real mess.
==============
No, Rhino. In spite of what you and others on CFN try to sell: that human nature is violent and wars are inevitable, the facts paint a different picture.
Human nature has changed for the better.
The number of people killed in battle — calculated per 100,000 population — has dropped by 1,000-fold over the centuries as civilizations evolved. Before there were organized countries, battles killed on average more than 500 out of every 100,000 people. In 19th century France, it was 70. In the 20th century with two world wars and a few genocides, it was 60. Now battlefield deaths are down to three-tenths of a person per 100,000.
Peace has arrived. Times have never been better for human beings, though you would never know it if all you read was the doomster “we are so fucked” moaning and bitching on CFN.
You are always talking about enemies who don’t exist and wars that never happen.
Here is the link
Don’t know what went wrong the first time.
You say that because you are trapped in the Zeitgeist.
It’s not that I’m not giving credit, it’s that I’m giving a demerit. Bro. Lots of great shit on the upside of a bubble, rock on.
The downside of the bubble wasn’t what primarily killed government finances, which was the original topic of discussion. It was Bushy getting in office, passing massive tax cuts, and then starting two wars. Or am I reading it wrong?
Then there’s the 47%
If human nature is violent and immutable, as many here would have us believe. And if the human population has increased geometrically, as many here would have us believe.
Then, the conclusion would be that wars and deaths from wars would have increased over the years, with more deaths every year due to increase population and our immutable human nature. But that has not happened.
The number of people killed in battle — calculated per 100,000 population — has dropped by 1,000-fold over the centuries.
Why? Because war is stupid and human nature has changed. We have become smarter over the centuries. This has been objectively verified.
I’d say that in California, the downside of the bubble is hurting their finances. They are an extreme example, with more than their share of “the 47%” and more than their share of inflated real estate values. Who can afford these houses? Did wages rise 15% a year like housing prices in Golden, CO for decades?
And following the story of one man who got mad as hell and couldn’t take it anymore:
Roger Pion was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of driving with a suspended license.
Roger Pion, a Man Who Stood Up to Tyranny
You keep changing the topic, trip. We were talking about the federal budget. Maybe I wasn’t clear.
I happen to totally agree with you on California and the other state budghets. That’s because property taxes took a hammering with the collapse of the real estate market, and that’s the primary financing mechanism of most states.
“Who can afford these houses?”
Middle upper class, dual income families can afford (some of) them here if their finances are solid. Salaries tend to be higher, and people just put up with spending a greater percentage of their income on housing than elsewhere.
Also, a lot of wealthy foreigners are buying property in California as investment assets. Some of them sit empty. There are some wealthy, generally government-connected Chinese who come in and drop $1 million or more in cash (how you like them apples?) on a house in Palo Alto, for instance.
I’m not sure what this offhand comment is supposed to mean, but the thing about most of the people who pay no income taxes is that they don’t have much disposable income in the first place. A lot of them are poor, disabled, jobless, or retired, or all of the above. Some are in truly difficult circumstances, like disabled military veterans.
Hitting them with an income tax will not raise that much money. It would be likely to send some over the edge financially, where they will end up depending on government services anyways. I heard it stated on the news that 50% of those who pay no income tax are elderly on Social Security. I’m not sure I believe that statistic entirely, as it would mean that 25% of the country is in this situation (which is not believable to me), but there surely are a lot of people in that group.
That said, I think those who hold jobs should have to pay some level of income tax, even if it is a measely $50, just to keep the system fair. But the reason we talk about taxing the wealthy more than the middle class and poor is that this group has most of the money and has benefitted far more than others in the last 20-30 years from rising levels of income and assets. On the other hand, the incomes of the middle class have stagnated or retreated. So why would it make sense to tax them more than they already are?
Maybe you weren’t making the point I thought you were but I just wanted to put that out there.
There are some wealthy, generally government-connected Chinese who come in and drop $1 million or more in cash (how you like them apples?)
Viva La Reconquista Asiatica!
What goes around comes around, according to K-Dog. Now the Chinese return, as owners, in a nonviolent “reconquista.” Great karma!
My previous post was in reponse to September 19, 2012 5:19 PM
The subject was the hateful USA Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and how it has ultimately boomeranged.
Viva La Reconquista Asiatica!
I have this theory that the extremely violent types are slowly being eliminated from the gene pool. Like take the Nazi Germans, one of the most militaristic and violent groups in all of history. What happened to them? Well, most of the really mean ones ended up dead, somewhere on the plains of Russia or Western Europe.
There are probably some genetic predispositions towards violence encoded in our genes, and it makes sense that if the resulting phenotype is not an asset in a civilized world, that it would tend to be selected out. There could also be an effect having to do with imprisonment. Those who receive very long sentences or lifetime imprisonment terms are less likely to contribute to the gene pool in those circumstances.
As I’m sure you know, (and I claim no expertise), in Keynesian economics, you have surpluses when the economy is good, and you increase government spending during recessions to boost the economy, with the money you saved during good times. We have had boom period after boom period with deficits year in and year out. I think only one of the surpluses that Clinton had was true, the others had to do with Social Security inflows making it a surplus on paper. What do we do with SS surpluses? It seems that we spend them. There’s some 7th generational forward thinking applied. (sarcasm off). As for tax cuts on the wealthy, I agree that that hasn’t helped the finances of the country, regardless of what some of those flag wavers say about their patriotism. I also think Clinton came into office at the enviable time of new peace, we were just off the first Gulf War and cutting defense spending a lot. There’s where we saved some real money, so I agree with you there. As for Clinton’s and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, we’ll see the lasting results of repealing Glass Steagall, and it was on his watch, and he was as deeply involved as Gramm or Leach or Bliley, in my humble opinion. It doesn’t make him a bad guy, perhaps, and he’s cool, and he plays the sax. Shoot, what’s not to like?
As for links, here’s one from USNews.com
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis
“In 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. What happened over the next eight years was an almost exact replay of the Roaring Twenties. Once again, banks originated fraudulent loans and once again they sold them to their customers in the form of securities. The bubble peaked in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The hard-earned knowledge of 1933 had been lost in the arrogance of 1999.” James Rickards
James Rickards is a hedge fund manager in New York City and the author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis from Portfolio/Penguin.
soka, you will love this, apropos to your assertions RE: violence and humans.
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
“If human nature is violent and immutable, as many here would have us believe. And if the human population has increased geometrically, as many here would have us believe.”
Okay, there’s a couple weird assertions in there.
First, I’m not sure I know anyone who believes that human nature is immutable, if they have even a passing familiarity with genetics. Of course, it isn’t. It just changes relatively slowly (over thousands or even millions of years) depending on evolutionary selection mechanisms.
Second, human population has increased exponentially. This is not a belief. It is a fact and should be stated as such.
Good. Thank you for this.
I pretty much have figured that the top of the actual power pyramid in the US (or the world for that matter) are the financial oligarchs. And if they wanted this law repealed, they would have gotten it no matter who was in office. So not to completely remove blame from Mr. Clinton, but I don’t really think it would have mattered had he tried to put up a fight. He would have simply been swept aside.
And I’m not one to lump politicians as all great or all bad, at least not most of them. There’s a mix, just like in anything. (Hey, Bush set aside a large ocean wildlife refuge, so there you go.)
I just think the banking influence is so pervasive and overarching that I have a hard time “blaming” a politician if they simply go along on this bandwagon. In real terms, I don’t believe most of them have much of a choice about it, if they want to remain in office.
I hope that’s not too conspiracy minded. (I know JHK is allergic to conspiracies and all.) But if you just scratch the surface of how banking works and the Fed’s influence on the government, it makes a lot of sense to look at it this way.
http://www.amazon.com/Currency-Wars-Making-Global-Crisis/dp/1591845564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348090575&sr=8-1&keywords=Currency+Wars+rickards
4.5 out of 5 stars out of 139 reviews, rank 5,715 on Amazon, not too shabby.
Ok Turkle, that’s fine, but “what does it mean?”. Joking. I actually like Clinton, as a guy, but I’m with you on the fact that he went along with SOME bs there on the Glass Steagall thingy.
From the above quoted usnews.com article.
“In 1933, Congress passed Glass-Steagall in response to the abuses. Banks would be allowed to take deposits and make loans. Brokers would be allowed to underwrite and sell securities. But no firm could do both due to conflicts of interest and risks to insured deposits. From 1933 to 1999, there were very few large bank failures and no financial panics comparable to the Panic of 2008. The law worked exactly as intended.”
So let’s reinstate it. Like Jim says. That’s what it all means, bro.
Second, human population has increased exponentially. This is not a belief. It is a fact and should be stated as such.
Turk, while I appreciate your passion, it must be curbed and refined.
First, you must distinguish between geometric and exponential growth. In exponential growth there is continuous compounding. In geometric growth there is compounding at constant intervals. They are not the same.
Your assertion that population has grown exponentially is not a fact.
Meadows et al. (1972, 1992) embraced exponential growth. Malthus embraced geometric growth. Meadows actually went further, saying that the world’s population is really increasing “super- exponentially.” The main problem in describing population growth as an exponential series is the assumption that the rates remain constant through time. They do not.
The same problem is encountered with describing population growth as a geometric progression: it all looks good on paper, Turk, but actual populations seldom increase at constant rates. Populations typically have different (geometric) growth rates from year to year.
In population studies, there are always variables to consider that can affect rates, for example: changes through time in the proportion of people aware of sexually transmitted diseases, or the proportion of newly married couples using contraception, to name only two.
Geometric growth is actually a more useful measure than exponential growth because the collection of of?cial statistics on population size is inevitably periodic – at regular intervals such as census dates – and the intervening pattern of change need not be continuous and cumulative, especially where migration contributes substantially. (Tip of the hat to Progress4Spam: Viva La Reconquista!). Measuring growth somewhat crudely, as a geometric process, acknowledges the nature of the source data and the imprecision of estimates between dates.
Statistics on population growth or decline conceal most of the details of population change. Studies often need to go beyond appropriate measures of growth or decline to include reference to the components of population changes, such as population turnover.
Population turnover captures the total magnitude of changes in membership that a population experiences – the total of births, deaths, migration arrivals and migration departures – all of which are treated as positive numbers.
Great stuff, Turk! Thanks!
Pinker has brought together data that seem to disprove Cash/Rhino when he paints humans as violent. For example:
The rate of genocide deaths per world population was 1,400 times higher in 1942 than in 2008.
We are changing and improving and we are making the world a better place.
CORRECTION
Pinker has brought together data that seem to disprove Cash/Rhino, who paints humans as violent.
For example:
The rate of genocide deaths per world population was 1,400 times higher in 1942 than in 2008.
We are changing and improving, becoming more peaceful. We are making the world a better place.
Romney is TRIPLING DOWN on his comments to his rich friends. I love it!
Three GOP Senate candidates have broken from Romney.
One governor has broken from Romney.
Conservatives are scared, nervous… demoralized.
Senate Republican leaders refuse to answer questions… they are running scared.
The latest Pew poll has Obama up by 8 points.
Pew’s earlier polls reflected all registered voters. This survey marks the first by Pew Research in 2012 to report results for the narrower slice of voters deemed most likely to actually vote.
Romney judged 47 percent of the American people based on their income tax returns.
We should judge Mitt Romney based on his income tax returns — or his refusal to disclose them.
The 47 percent are not avoiding their tax bills using Cayman Islands tax shelters or Swiss banks.
Romney refuses to show his tax returns because he is hiding the awful truth: Romney is part of the 47 percent who have paid no federal income taxes.
Poll: Who cares more about your future?
66% . Obama
23% . Romney
POLL: Level of engagement of African Americans
70% . 2008
70% . 2012
Ooops, there goes another right-wing meme!
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I look at Yahoo News…phew!
Gaga has a meat dress…
Lindsay did a hit n run….
Outdoing the Spellings, in Florida, a 90,000 foot house! ‘The Queen of Versailles’ film or show?
Some billionaire and his bimbo.
MM, we expect better from you!
‘The the recession has cut tax revenue’
Pleeze, once upon a time that was a good paper, maybe.
Now it has crap like ‘Obamas the only prez w/o North European heritage’ [a lie]
and ‘Immigrants will save Social Security’ [another lie, why stop at one?].
Obama spending binge never happened…right…his 60% may be the tipping point into hyperinflation.
Asoka said: “Jesus was a Muslim” (in spirit for His belief in submission to God.)
As far as I am aware, Jesus never called upon the use of violence against the “enemy.” Where as, the prophet of the quran actively calls upon followers to use violence against the “infidels.”
Jesus was certainly not a muslim.
Saw Jerry my pug friend at the coffee shop on third street today on my way to the dog park where IRAN.
The owner was working and we got to talking. He had new T-shirts and we worked out a trade in which I got a T-shirt with the coffee shop name printed on the front.
I had to make do with an XL size as he had no shirts in the XLT size. He explained he did not have any in the XLT size and wasn’t going to get any.
He said “you tall dogs make up 47% of the population and you already have too many entitlements”. He said he was sick of it and that he had no sympathy for any of us and we were all just going to have to make do with the XL size.
He was kidding. He hadn’t actually known there was an XLT size before we talked. Being as I’m a tall dog, of course I’d know there was.
Yeah, well Jesus did not practice what he preached. When he came upon moneychangers in the temple he took them on as enemies. Jesus turned violent, disrupting their peaceful activities. Jesus violently overturned their tables. OK, property damage, disorderly conduct, not such a big deal. But then Jesus got really violent and went after the moneychangers by taking a whip to them. That is aggravated assault; felonious criminal activity, against people who were not threatening toward Jesus. Muslims only justify violence in self defense. Jesus attacked people out of the blue, because he wanted to, not because they were violent toward him. Jesus was a sicko.
I’m enjoying Connections, thanks. When it originally came out I missed it though Jacob Bronowski Ascent of Man series of that era which I did not miss was similar. At least so far.
Joseph Tainter would later echo James Burke from the ‘Faith in Numbers’ episode.
Apparently Roman government spending was out of control and the people could no longer afford ever increasing taxes. The empire fell apart and localized under barbarian warlords. It may have been a case of the devil you know being so bad that people made the unusual choice of choosing the devil they did not know.
James Burke has not presented all the modern ideas so far but it is uncanny how many he has introduced. Many ideas which are just being ‘discovered’ now were actually alive and well thirty years ago.
Thanks
Apparently Roman government spending was out of control and the people could no longer afford ever increasing taxes. The empire fell apart and localized under barbarian warlords.
This has zero parallel with the USA. Government spending is not out of control. Congress came to an agreement that deep mandated budget cuts are going to happen in January, equally cutting domestic and military spending. Taxes have been cut again and again in the last ten years, on the rich and the middle class and the poor. The USA is in zero danger of “falling apart” … there is zero chance of balkanization. There are no parallels with the Roman Empire.
“We are changing and improving, becoming more peaceful. We are making the world a better place.”
The Rwandans and Sudanese would probably take excpetion to this half-assed analysis. And ya might just want to whip your Funk ‘n’ Wagnalls and look up the Khmer Rouge while your on the subject of modern genocide.
ding-dong
I wasn’t feeling Steven’s talk until five-teen minutes into it then I loved it. There were so many untold tales behind his statistics in the first part of the talk I felt some of his conclusions were a bit sweeping and it irked me. But he pulled it all together in the last five minutes very well.
And some young men in Yemen and Libya and Pakistan who’s biggest crime is that of being young men. They have a different take on the Chicken Little children’s story these days.
One day while she is walking an acorn falls from a tree, and hits the top of her little head.
– My, oh, my, the sky is falling….
You mentioned you had Iranian friends. I remember an Iranian I knew many years ago who would get very mad when Americans assumed he was Arab. It wasn’t about how he felt about Arabs. It was about Americans being totally ignorant of the existence of a unique Persian Culture and how he felt about that.
Iranian terrorists Mr. Romney? Really. Ever hear of Darius the great Mr. Romney? Three thousand years of a unique and proud history with their own language called Farsi. They are Persians, not Arabs.
Iranian terrorists, he just made them up. Somebody needs to tell him there aren’t any. Haven’t been for decades.
I hope your personal situation is looking up.
I’ve seen this TED talk before. And I’ve responded to it on this blog before. The speaker tap dances around one of the most important reasons for relative modern peace between nations. He uses the word “deterrence”. This is just the “nice” way of saying military technology. One of the most important inventions of mankind was the nuclear bomb. It has effectively stopped the conquest of entire nations if not continents. Why do you really think that North Korea and Iran have been so hot to get them. I say that it’s primarily for defensive reasons despite what that whack-job Ahmadinejad says. He’s a politician too. So the race has been on. Your deterrence means nothing if you fall behind. But it looks like we’re coming to the end of the technical stalemate. Which is why murdering diplomats over a cartoon probably isn’t going to help.
What does it mean?
http://www.zubeworld.com/crumbmuseum/nat2.html
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You speak of Jesus as a “violent” person based on the ONE incident with moneychangers in the temple. Mohammed made a career out of caravan raiding, mayhem, murder, and pedophilia and I don’t see you saying ONE word against him.
Part of your sophistry is that you’d like to dwell on ONE sin of a good man rather than mention even ONE sin of a much less admirable character. This is part and parcel of what you call “thinking”.
E.
You say Jesus was a Muslim (in spirit, preexisting Islam by 660 years) and then this post about how “violent” he was towards the money changers. You conclude “Jesus attacked people out of the blue, because he wanted to, not because they were violent toward him. Jesus was a sicko.”
You have summed up Muslims very nicely.
Asoka: “This (Rome) has zero parallel with the USA.”
Gerald Ford famously said in a Presidential debate, “There is no Soviet domination over eastern Europe and there never will be.” It cost him the election.
Clearly, he was out of touch and so are you.
“Mohammed made a career out of caravan raiding, mayhem, murder, and pedophilia”
Exactly my point – (As far as I am aware, Jesus never called upon the use of violence against the “enemy.” Where as, the prophet of the quran actively calls upon followers to use violence against the “infidels.”)
I am glad you are enjoying JB’s works.
The “On The Road’ film will be opening up pretty soon. I’m looking forward to it.
I was at work when Obama appeared on Letterman. Was Letterman wearing knee pads?
Hey Asoka, sounds like you have an in with the Obama administration, with all the shilling you do for them. I watched a program on Nat Geo the other nite about the 1970 bombing of sculptor Rodin’s ‘Thinker’ outside the Cleveland Museum of Art. It was never solved, but a strong suspect was Obama confidant and friend Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. Could you enquire thru Obama if it indeed was Ayers who destroyed that statue and clear this thing up? Its still an open case.
Oil prices are going down because Saudi Arabis has ramped up production past 10 million barrels per day. This was something Matt Simmons in his book “Twilight in the Desert’ said should not be possible by this late date. Should this a little doubt on the Peal Oil theory?
–WSP7
Correction: “Should this cast a little doubt on the Peak oil theory”
Here is an article about the end of capitalism. It is a little long and rambling and it starts out with a French phrase. If it has French in it it can’t be any good at all, right? Damn surrender monkeys!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/20/the-waning-of-the-modern-ages/
The Weather Underground always took credit for their bombings and took pains to make sure nobody got hurt. The reason for their bombings was to make a political statement not to maim and kill.
I gotta say, when history can be rewritten so convincingly in spite of people being alive who remember how differently it clearly was then the bullshit that gets laid down when all the people who know the truth are dead must be enormous.
Sur la conrary mon ami.
E., Jesus says when someone does you wrong, turn the other cheek. Jesus says “love your enemies.”
Muhammad (peace be upon him), believed in self-defense. Give enemies what they deserve.
Who do you follow in your life?
When I provoke you on CFN, is your tendency to turn the other cheek? Is your tendency to love? Or is it to go thermonuclear against Asoka (as you stated in a recent post)?
I don’t care what you say. You are lying.
In your actions you have shown you follow Muhammad (peace be upon him) more than you follow Jesus.
New Census data prove the USA economy is not in a Depression, as XXX5 maintains against all evidence. Americans are on the move again after record numbers had stayed put. More young adults are leaving their parents’ homes to take a chance with college or the job market. Once-sharp declines in births are leveling off and poverty is slowing.
What does it mean?
The Census data shows the Obama economic recovery was for real. The country is not in a Depression. Polls also show people feel the country is going in the right direction economically. They don’t support the idea we are in an economic Depression.
DIRECTION OF COUNTRY POLLS
Is the country headed in the right direction?
42% YES 9/13-17/2012
21% YES 8/18-22/2011
During the period XXX5 says the USA is in an economic Depression, the number of people who feel things are going the right way doubled.
If we were really in an economic Depression, the number of people who feel things are going the right direction would have decreased, not increased.
SOURCE:
AP-GfK Poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. Sept. 13-17, 2012. N=1,512 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.2.
Redistribution? YES! Redistribution is constitutionally mandated by Article I Section 8 to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”
Tax monies are “redistributed” from our pockets to the defense contractors (“corporate welfare”) and from our pockets to those in need (for housing, health, etc.)
Does Romney want to go back to a Dow of 6700 under Bush, or does he prefer it at 13000 under Obama?
Redistribution is good for the country. Take from those who have. Give to those in need. Everyone is better off.
Hey KDog, how about when THEY BLEW THEMSELVES UP in that apt in Greenwich Village. Oops! And wrecked a perfectly good townhouse!
–WSP7
And I can vaguely remember a murdered Police Officer in a botched bank robbery near Boston about that time, too.
–WSP7
And I recently saw Todd Gitlin, a respected Columbia Prof now, shooting his mouth off about one thing or another.
The end of the blockquote covered that:
It was a miracle the women survived. The quote is from David Gilbert and I should have referenced it properly as I usually do.
There is an excellent DVD documentary on the SDS which I have seen which covers the townhouse incident in detail. Obama should watch it, he might learn something about Bill Ayers.
Some of the radicals went on to do dastardly deeds in other organizations. David Gilbert being one of them. That happened later and should not to be confused with the original SDS. Your memory is correct but the true chronology and assessment of individual responsibilities need to be respected. Searching for villains is like making an omelet, everything gets thrown together.
An omelet, I’m hungry. I’m going to go push my doggie dish around. Forty-Seven percent of us do that.
Yeah, they were in so much anguish about the murder of millions in Vietnam they ended up blowing themselves up. They were stupid for embracing the same violence they opposed.
What do you have to say about the slaughter in Southeast Asia the Weathermen were protesting? Or is your opposition to violence selective?
CORRECTION
What do you have to say about the slaughter in Southeast Asia the Weathermen were protesting? Or is your opposition to violence selective WHEN THE VIOLENCE IS BEING DONE IN YOUR NAME BY YOUR COUNTRY USING YOUR TAX DOLLARS. Then it’s OK?
He shot this off on his keyboard about the tea party:
And JHK on Republicans this week:
Coincidence ?
I think not !!!
The Weathermen were hard core Communists who were quite willing (by their own admission) to kill 20% of so of the American population. Also they wished to genocide the White Race by killing all White babies – again, by their own admission.
Interesting graph about Capitalist Slave Labor – which is amazingly similar to Communist Slave Labor. As the old Czeck saying goes, under Capitalism man oppresses man, under Communism it’s other way around.
http://www.wvwnews.net/page.php?id=9
Anybody know where Romney’s plane, OUTSOURCE ONE, willbe today?
Small potatoes compared to the carnage caused by the Israelis in their attack on the Liberty. President Johnson got on the line and told the airforce to let them sink it. Navy officials harrassed and threatened even badly wounded sailors and told them they would be courtmartialed and ruined if they ever breathed a word about the attack.
America was revealed in all its ugliness and corruption – far worse than the attack itself.
That’s funny it is parked in Noclue, FL near Miami. He’s down south preaching to his choir today.
That’s funny, it is
Good grief, so much bullshit, so little time. You need the stamina of a canal horse to get through the mire.
Cripes, Pinker. So, do you believe everything you read? Only if it accords with your own ideological bias I’ll bet. Did you read this stuff with a skeptical mind and critical eye? Did you read it at all? Did you read other views on the issue?
So, where do we even start with this? Let’s start with Burkhauser who is an economist whom I quoted in a prior post:
He says: “You have to make all kinds of decisions and assumptions; and your biases and ideology of course color what your assumptions are.” And he goes on to say: “But I’ll tell you the truth–and the truth is, and this is just the way we academics are, and I’ll admit it: the puzzle to me is how can you get such apparently wildly different visions with the same data?” And what Burkhauser says applies here.
So what about the collection of reliable data from past centuries? Let’s not kid ourselves, do you really want to make the assumption that centuries old data is accurate and complete? Should we not have to make allowances not only for the loss of data over time from deterioration of records but also for the normal human traits of laziness and sloth? Do we think that the numbers aren’t skewed by the agendas of the regimes or social structures in power at the time? How would we know? And how would we compensate for this? Do you really think it wise to extrapolate from European data as good or as bad as it is and assume that it applies to far flung societies that lived in radically different conditions? Do you really think it valid to look at levels of violence among modern day hunter gatherers and assume that the same levels of violence prevailed among ancient hunter gatherers who may have lived in very different conditions of plenty or scarcity?
Let’s look at one factor that may account for the decline of violence: the improving state of agricultural technology which didn’t abolish hunger but did improve matters. How would this have impacted the level of violence in the world? Did it remove or reduce the temptation to invade neighboring territories to steal other people’s land? How would we know? Did it reduce the level of social strife and violence within a society? How would we know? How would we know if there were other factors at work?
And what happens if the agricultural plenty disappears? Can’t happen? There was just a massive drought in the US which severely curtailed grain produciton. What if we have another one next year? How many more severe American droughts can the world absorb before we run into food shortages and as we saw a few years ago hoarding and food riots. What happens if general food shortages get people on the move? Will it result in violence?
People look at a slice of data and then attach narratives to it to explain what happened or why it happened. And of course the type of narrative comes out of personal ideological mindsets.
Let’s look at this business of violence declining since WW2. Let’s say that it has actually declined. But look at the world since WW2. You had three massive military powers, the USA, USSR and China flexing their muscles. Eastern Europe was under the boot of the Red Army and the KGB plus various associated internal intelligence agencies which ruthlessly crushed dissent. And ruthlessly bottled up a variety of inter-ethnic disputes which would have otherwise flared up. And which actually did flare up with the demise of the USSR and its shrinkage into modern day Russia.
Many would say that the USA sponsored various nasty dictators which did with their own countries what the USSR did in its own sphere. So maybe the threat of extreme violence by the USA, USSR, China and their various client states kept the level of mayhem down.
So you say down with these militaries. What if it was these massive militaries and the threat of extreme violence all along that kept the peace? There’s a school of thought out there that says it was the lack of engagement in world affairs by the USA that led up to WW1 and WW2. But subsequent to these wars it was the attention and involvement of the USA in world affairs and its occasional pounding of places like Korea and Vietnam and the Middle East that prevented more and bigger wars and holocausts.
So now we have this explosion of violence in the Middle East as various regimes come under attack from inside. Why is this? Is it because of the decline in US military power? Is it because of the perception of its decline? Is it because there’s a perception that the US no longer has the will to use its military? Is it because there’s a perception that the US will no longer support client states militarily? Is it the fraying as some might claim of the American empire? No matter which way you slice things it’s violence or the threat of violence at the core of these arguments.
There’s no alternate Earth out there where we could test different scenarios. Is there?
This argument by the Soake is completely specious to begin with. Prior to World War II deaths during war were primarily soldiers engaged in battle. As bad as the casualties of World War I were, the citizenry was unharmed. WW II was radically different – the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg and other German cities; the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Nazi death camps – all massive numbers of civilian casualties. And his claim is that humans have become less violent over the last hundred years or so?
There are lies, damned lies and statistics. The Soake is not here to illuminate, he’s here to obfuscate and for self-aggrandizement. Ignoring him is the best policy.
Thad
People living now are less likely to meet a violent death, or to suffer from violence or cruelty at the hands of others, than people living in any previous century.
Since 1945, we have seen a new phenomenon known as the “long peace”: for 67 years now, the great powers, and developed nations in general, have not fought wars against one another.
Rhino is wrong to think human nature is violent. Our nature is more the product of our culture than our biology.
War is stupid. Violence is stupid. There has been a dramatic decline in violence recently because we are smarter now.
Wanna see stupid and violent? Come live in the great outdoors with me in Los Angeles. I have tentative reservations for a space in either Obamatown or the luxurious Romneyville.
At the year’s midway point, crime rates in Los Angeles generally have continued their decade-long decline, according to police figures released Wednesday.
The crime totals were announced by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a morning news conference. They heralded the continued fall in violent crimes with Beck calling Los Angeles “the safest big city in America.”
Thanks for proving my point, Xhalor!
I see your point. You should probably try a toupe.
1. pointy-head
1. A person who, whilst most likely possessing above-normal intelligence, nevertheless annoys the living crap out of their friends and acquaintances due to a tendency to expound ad infinitum upon uninteresting topics, using lots of long words.
Example:Posts made by Asoka on CFN.
harassed
A LEO was killed by the FALN.
then Clinton pardoned them, and the released wanted yet more FALN freed.
Not sure if thats the case you refer to.
And Obongo maybe will release the blind sheik.
In reading about SDS and 1960s-70s bombings, I recall that the FBI was very concerned.
There were like 4 bombings a week or a month.
Capitalism is booming, in Red China.
Will the jet age bomb us back to the stone age?
[thats an Eisenhower misquote, I think].
‘Also, a lot of wealthy foreigners are buying property in California as investment assets’..
Like in Vancouver, where middle class Whites cant afford a house due to ‘speculators’ and riche asians.
rich
You better shut up since Muslims revere Jesus. I don’t want you to get sodomized before and after you get beaten to death like they did to the Ambasador in Libya.
riche to me.
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Beantown,
The fragment obviously does not provide earth-shattering proof of Jesus’s existence as a historical figure. The Greek god Zeus is widely known to have had a wife as well, as have gods too numerous to list here.
In the press release of this papyrus discovery, Dr. King “repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof that Jesus, the historical person, was actually married.” Nor should this fragment be taken as proof that Jesus was a historical person in the first place. So long as these artifacts are interpreted through the false lens of historicity, they will not make sense.
These tales do not represent literal history, and this fragment would serve as further evidence that we are discussing mythmaking here, not historical facts. The “Jesus Christ” of the Gnostic (and canonical) texts is a composite of characters, some real and mythical, compiled as the supposed historical speaker of numerous sayings that in reality are pre-Christian and proto-Gnostic.
Jesus has “of late become a black, a white supremacist, a gay, a woman, a heretic, a Mediterranean peasant…a ‘Cynic-sage,’ an Arab, as well as the husband of Mary Magdalene and father of many children.”
SOURCE: The Christ Conspiracy by D.M. Murdock,
and now Jill Martin solutions your closet dilemmas
You asked — and now she’s answering. I actually laughed out loud given that in the first picture you sent, it looks such as you cannot even get to your closet for the reason that you have a lot things. But let’s get this planning!
one) You have got also many shoes!! You have no idea what you have got. In fact, you cannot possibly know. It is advisable to have 10 pairs of shoes maybe fifteen but no more than that. Please, start out with that. Undergo and donate every pair of shoes you may have except for your fifteen preferred pairs you have got. There’s no way you wear over that frequently. I bet the majority of them are previous and unwearable.
2) Did I see a bird on one of your purses? How countless do you’ve? The same rule for shoes applies for baggage: You don’t require THAT many handbags. Only keep the most effective ones that happen to be in really good form, ones you in reality wear and items that aren’t completely dated. Stylish items that you simply by no means contact should be consigned or donated.
3) You should undergo your gowns and decide which are worthy of a place inside your closet. You will need to become capable to shop in your closet and that i want you to be able to view every thing. Take your initial phase right now. Not only are individuals plastic hangers so Bulky but they are taking on a lot area!three) You might have an excessive amount of stuff. You couldn’t possibly wear that each one in 1 month,louis vuitton purses for sale, not even a yr! Every day pick 10 issues you understand you don’t put on (be truthful with yourself) and soon sufficient you’ll have enough area to in fact see what you have!Tanks a lot! Enjoy your closet detox as a result of you are likely to really feel superb! XO
Phyllis Ingram, from Jacksonville FL, sent within this pic:Phyllis IngramJill Martin states:
Wowza! Hi Phyllis —
Thank you for sharing. I understand quite a bit of people can relate for your closet scenario so here are three guidelines to obtain you planning:
one) You will need to sort by means of your footwear. You have got also several and I am Confident you don’t wear all of them. Something you haven’t worn within a year goes in to the giveaway pile. Charities like “Dress for Success” would enjoy to possess your footwear so they will give it to most people who will need them. And guess what? Your closet will appear a complete good deal cleaner instantaneously!
2) Take the pile of clothes around the ground and take out anything that has spills, is stained, or is also huge or as well small on you — be honest! I wager you will find a lot of garments in that pile. Just handle that pile for now. Then every day tackle a distinct portion on the closet, so that you do not really feel completely confused.
three) Discard any hangers you are not working with — I see a few just laying about. Recycle them promptly.
Just start with these three things. Then each day, do three way more methods and you can have your closet detox very quickly! You may never ever say “I have nothing to put on once again!,” the moment you see what you truly HAVE! Fantastic luck.
Stephen said:
Exactly my point – (As far as I am aware, Jesus never called upon the use of violence against the “enemy.” Where as, the prophet of the quran actively calls upon followers to use violence against the “infidels.”)
***********************************************************
You can only do two things to an “infidel” (which is basically just a non-Muslim) … convert them or KILL them. I actually like the character of the many people from Islamic countries I’ve met in CA but, good grief, their “prophet” just isn’t in the same class as Jesus or Buddha.
Martin Lings was a Mohammedan scholar who wrote biographies of Mohammed and has spoken at THE Islamic Revival Conference. He speaks profusely about Mohammed’s violence and odd choice of “wives” yet he is REVERED in the Muslim world.
I often find myself separating my feelings about Islam from my feelings about Arabs because, actually, I kind of like Arabs. In my community, they tend to be very charitable and rather soft spoken. I just look at their religion as a product of their upbringing as it is for most people.
However, though I think Islam is a crazy as Mormonism, my personal experience with Muslims is actually very positive on the whole.
E.
Because I’m more bellicose than Jesus, you make yet another logically absurd proposition … that my ACTIONS show that I’m more a follower of Muhammad.
Most of you people need to take a basic course in critical thinking before you write such absurd posts with illogic at their core. Your assertion is like this:
“People eat more ice cream in the summer. People commit more murders in the summer. Therefore, eating ice cream causes murder.” Your conjecture is EXACTLY this loony.
Does this mean that Hitler was “Islamic” in temperament? Stalin? Mao? This site would be so much better off if such a consummate illogician as yourself would just vacate the premises. It’s bad enough that when we want to find a couple of morsels, we have to pass over dozens and dozens of your posts to find that “needle in a haystack”.
Thank God that there ARE at least a few sentient beings here. I guess I should be contented that the spate of blitherings about Ken Wilber, at least, appear to have died out. Philosophers, for the most part, especially the New Age variety, are the mandarins of our time. They don’t talk much about the physical world and invent new lexicons for old ideas (like the In-Itself vs. the For-Itself of Sartre) to appear like they’re innovating.
If the entire field of philosophy died, the world would have very little to weep over.
E.
Everything is a Mind, an Observer watching, but different kinds of Minds, wild and wicked Minds, and Observers, and everything has an associated Will Power and desire to Change and Modify according to His Desires (Not GOD’s which is the Master Model for most of the Man Brain’s BS) but you can mix Will Powers and Minds, and Designs and create Hybrids and Mixtures between Sense Organs and chunks of Mental Circuits and how they appear from Outside (not in the form of a Person but in the form of a Car Tire for example) but then changes again, and instead of the signals following the circuits of a Mind, it is Car Tires that are following the Signals and the signals may be Static Monolithic Chunks of Matter and the Mind may be an Ocean or the other way around and all mixed up and upside down and on and on.
The Car Tire is the Emotion, the rubber molecule number 143556 in point Z of the Car Tire is the entire “Person” (whatever that can mean, you invent it!), so even big and small and what is contained in what is confused, mixed up, change it all, decompose all, destructure all structures and mix them up and create new structures that then define a new Universe and corresponding Observer (or even not corresponding, and even there, all mixed, all confused, experiment to the maximum and so on).
Free Physics, like Free Jazz, crazy music, the more incomprehensible the better, the more pure noise the better and then every now and then some nice Progressive Rock chunks appear and so must be the Physics of the Future, the new way to decode the world, be crazy, do it man, do it, GO MAN GO !!!
But why change and do anything ? why is the new thing better than the old thing or the different thing better (as any set of things can be put on a line and set as the “old” or “worst” thing and the “new” or “better” thing or set as the starting point and target point expressing the direction of going to better, or expressing the direction a Will Power or Mind wanted it go (so all things have Minds and Will Powers associated to them, even a static crack on the wall is a mind and desire and direction saying it wants to keep on staying still, so then even Blind forces are pushing things to become “better” and are “judging” better and worst according to that One Bit Circuit, that One Transistor Circuit of Good and Bad, Better and Worse, Forward and backward and so on ?)) than anything else ? what is being compared to what if you can combine the entire set of entities into one thing (even the past history and future history, a slice of Time and Space as one entity along with all of the signals and subsets of delimitations arbitrarily defined by Matter, Events and Signals simply creating a Long Bit Set of Informational relationships)…but then create all kinds of new combinations of delimitations, delimit all in the most wildest ways, invent new entities based on new boundaries and new delimitations and relate them to other new entities and delimitations in the most wild and complex way, and go on forever, and create new brains based on this, and then new circuits in the new brains and then mix it all up and mix the sense organs and memories with rocks and car tires and ocean waves and chunks of the solar plasma (the 200 kilometer square solar plasma half way from the surface of the Sun to the center of the Sun) and so on…
THE APE JOB, 8 MEN
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=179812
and
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it
APE 8 APE 8
and
http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.it
APE 8 APE 8
and
http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it
APE 8 APE 8
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
Wow,
Just checked out a few of these posts—how dysfunctional can a blog get?
8man, you’re really one f—-d up dude, do you realize that?
Anyway, right now I’m trying to find out who Wilbur is.
What about current events in the Caliphate? Apocalyptic? Or just more BS that will be forgot next week? Things remain pretty calm in Saudi Arabia, so far.
Antisoak, I thought FALN was the Puerto Rican terrorist group that machine gunned congress and attempted to assassinate President Truman, with more machine guns, around 1950? Maybe that was a different PR gang. President Clinton let them all go in the 90s. Its pretty much a given that the Blind Sheik will be released if Obama is reelected. Only 5 people were killed in that first WTC assault; not enough murders to hold him for life.
–WSP7
Ya its really spun out of control, Ibendet; Jim will ground it again, for a little while anyway, Monday morning.
–WSP7
For heaven’s sake, will someone please put the ape (8) man out of his misery? OIL is the free energy everybody’s looking for, and it’s in decline, along with all the other energy technologies subsidized by it. How much less energy would we derive from coal if we had to mine, process, and distribute it with coal-fired machinery? Less than half of its current petro-subsidized output, and it’s another one of those cosmically-rare free energy sources, gifted by Nature and half a billion years of geologic time! The return on high-tech renewables is miserable in comparison. How much television will broken and irreparable solar panels deliver, I wonder, assuming there is even a signal to receive in the first place.
Your assertion is like this: “People eat more ice cream in the summer. People commit more murders in the summer. Therefore, eating ice cream causes murder.” Your conjecture is EXACTLY this loony.
My assertion is NOTHING like that. My assertion has nothing to do with causation/correlation. It has to do with simple class membership. Refer to Boolean logic and Venn diagrams. We are talking simple set theory.
Not to get all Sesame Street on you, we are talking which one of these is not like the other.
JESUS: “pray for those who persecute you and despitefully use you” “love your enemies” “turn the other cheek” JESUS=LOVE
MUHAMMAD: “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged” “Fight in the Way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits.”
“But if the enemy inclines towards peace, you (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah” MUHAMMAD=JUSTICE
Now, based on your ACTIONS, you are more in the self-defense Muhammad camp by temperament (thank you for that word). You are more in the “I like to go thermonuclear on Asoka” camp than the “love your enemies” camp.
You believe in self defense. You are more like a follower of Muhammad (peace be upon him), than a follower of Jesus.
Your arrogance also shows through. No one needs to take a course in critical thinking, or a course in logic, to see the simple Venn diagram truth of what I am asserting: one of these is not like the other. (sorry to go all Sesame Street on you)
Jesus: It is better to die than to kill. In a “kill or be killed” situation, it is better not to kill. Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! (John 18:11)
Muhammad: “Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.” (Qur’an:9:123)
SELF-DEFENSE: Mao, Stalin, XXX5, Hitler, Muhammad.
SELF-SACRIFICE: Gandhi, Asoka, Jesus.
My assertion has nothing to do with causation, or the ridiculous assertion that ice cream causes murders.
It is simple question of identification of where you stand when it comes to self-defense. You stand with Muhammad. I stand with Jesus.
I am not saying you are Muslim or I am Christian.
I am just truthfully identifying with which prophet we stand based on our “temperament” when faced with opposition.
One of these (Jesus) is not like the others: Mao, Stalin, XXX5, Hitler, Muhammad.
The Obama bounce is not receding according to 538.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/sept-20-obamas-convention-bounce-may-not-be-receding/
Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College are 76.1 percent, according to the forecast, up from 75.2 percent on Wednesday. Mr. Obama’s projected margin of victory in the national popular vote also increased slightly, to 3.4 percentage points.
Thaddeus Three Sticks. Brilliant moniker.
Anyway Three Sticks, others have told me to ignore him. But I kind of see engaging ASSoka as turd containment, you know, trying to manage sewage. Like the kind of shit cascading down Bullshit Mountain aka the Romney Campaign HQ (to use some of Jon Stewart’s terminology). Bullshit Mountain? Sure, so many of Assoka’s posts sound like shilling for the 1%.
Like this crap about living like a king on 12 grand a year with cars and smartphones and all the toys.
Doesn’t it fit into the 1% agenda of suppressing wages? It does to me. Spread the propaganda that 12 grand a year is living grandly, dressing beautifully, dining sumptuously, with all the modern conveniences. Frequent flyer points and everything.
This reminds me of the hideous regime that ran Romania before its faithful subjects got their fill. The poor bastards living under Ceaucescu’s boot were reduced to fighting over offal at government run food stores. Ceaucescu’s contemptuous take? I’m quoting loosely: “the population has all it needs”.
You know, Assoka will grandly tell us that if you know how to cook it, offal is delicious, that huge numbers of people across the globe would be glad of getting offal to eat. No doubt and yes, Imelda, sorry I mean Assoka – it’s delicious if you like it and if you do it right.
But, deliciousness or no, there’s the small matter of getting your fill. Well, the Romanian “population” evidently disagreed with Mr C’s views as to what constituted their “needs”. And Mr C was shot full of holes. Yes Assoka, violence is bad.
The 1% never learn do they? They end up losing their heads a la Marie Antoinette, getting stuffed down a mine shaft like the Romanovs but, no matter what, to the 1% enough is never enough and screw the lessons of history. Apparently the 1% don’t get it and, if they ever learn it, they soon forget: the bottom 99% need to get their fill, they need to feel like they’re treated fairly, they want reasonable prospects for their offspring or there’s hell to pay.
Triple T, you’re right about statistics. As Mr Burkhauser implied, academics encrusting the social “sciences” – so called – spend their time and our collective resources conjuring statistical mirages. You can fuck with numbers and torture “data” until it screams. Coupled with ideological fantasies and you don’t get additions to general wisdom but rather subtractions from it.
Jon Stewart on Bullshit Mountain: http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/jon-stewart-fox-coverage-romney-47-video-chaos-bullsht-mountain?akid=9422.105463.NmKoUY&rd=1&src=newsletter713913&t=3
It’s hilarious.
Oh and BTW – message to Assoka, you’re confused about me supporting the war in Iraq. I never supported it. You must have me mixed up with another poster. That’s OK don’t apologize.
And Lings kept on revering Mohammad too – and thought him the equal of Christ, Buddha, etc.
Lings, a Sufi, was by all accounts a lovely and learned man. I don’t get it either.
Oh and BTW – message to Assoka, you’re confused about me supporting the war in Iraq. I never supported it. You must have me mixed up with another poster. That’s OK don’t apologize.
================
You didn’t believe Sadaam had WMDs?
You didn’t support a war to take out an evil dictator?
Then your whole schtick is bullshit.
Oh that’s rich.
Lynyrd Skynryd betrays its fans and orignal members by denouncing the Confederate Flag.
http://www.amren.com/news/2012/09/fans-outraged-after-lynyrd-skynyrd-denounces-confederate-flag/
Good article about Obama being gay. He was well known in Chicago’s gay clubs: he liked to recieve blow jobs but never give them – that goes along with his narcicistic personality.
Michelle is thus just his beard. Turkelton might have a chance with her after all.
http://www.amren.com/news/2012/09/is-obama-gay/
Rush just said, A an executive order to control or even shut down the Internet is now near completion. Looks like he’s going to circumvent Congress again via Homeland Security. Anybody know more?
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Well if Rush said it THEN IT MUST BE TRUE!
Radu, you really are a total MORON.
Sorry all you actual morons, I didn’t mean to insult you, but typically try not to use swear words.
The seeds of Romney’s unique brand of conservatism, often regarded with intense suspicion by most non-Mormon conservatives, were sown in the secretive, acquisitive, patriarchal, authoritarian religious empire run by “quorums” of men under an umbrella consortium called the General Authorities. A creed unlike any other in the United States, from its inception Mormonism encouraged material prosperity and abundance as a measure of holy worth.
Your comment made more sense than most of the comments over the past day.
Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfathers before him, Mitt Romney was groomed for a prominent position in the church, which he manifested first as a missionary, then as a bishop, and then as a stake president, becoming the highest-ranking Mormon leader in Boston, the equivalent of a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Would we elect a Cardinal? Do we want a theocracy?
You didn’t believe Sadaam had WMDs? You didn’t support a war to take out an evil dictator? – Imelda
Geez Imelda, I’m confused. Why do you ask ? Should I have?
Maybe requiring belief (at least in public) in Iraqi WMDs and getting rid of Saddam all fit into the 1% world-view and the 1% agenda which maybe you would be more knowledge-able about than me.
So, Mrs 1%, tell us why it was so important to get rid of Saddam. Share your knowledge. The 99% have been puzzled about it all this time. At least I’ve been. I’ve seen no end of theories. Did Saddam not pay his club dues on time? Was he not blowing who he should have? Or did the plutocrats get tired of blowing Saddam? Was Saddam bucking for more? More status or respect? It’s all so bewildering.
You know, it looks more and more to me like an old-fashioned gang-land hit gussied up with armies and all. Like when the old Mustache Petes got sick of one of their own making trouble and shot him. And please don’t trot out that boring old story about it being all about oil. It’s stale.
But, frankly, I don’t support either what I can see of the triumphalist 1% world-view or the supremacist 1% agenda of general immiserization. Am I wrong about it? Should I support them/you?
And it’s not clear to me why anyone should give a shit what maniacs run what greaseball regimes. Aside from the unfortunates that live there that is. Maybe you can enlighten us on that point too. If the poor bastards ask for help should we help? And, in your own 1% world-view, what should it cost them?
There are bad people in the world. Dictators and imperial emperors. Armies preserve peace. Once you have armies, you should use them to take out bad guys. You should have supported war in Iraq. You should be talking about Japanese atrocities against China. You should support the use of nuclear weapons against civilians if you think it would save military lives. You should worship all things military. [sarcasm off]
Romney has lost control of his campaign. Lack of executive ability. To be President one needs executive ability. Romney “changes focus” every five days. His campaign has been “rebooted” several times. Romney doesn’t even have enthusiastic support from Republicans.
I saw Bill Clinton on tv yesterday saying something to the effect: “Mitt Romney wants to loosen the regulations on banks, the loosening of which got us into this mess.” He said it emphatically, with his little wheeze or whatever. He was raw. Problem was, those regulations that he’s talking about are the same ones that HE, himself, loosened that “got us into this mess”, as he so eloquently put it. Politics.
Eleuthero,
Since your retirement, E., you have become more strident against a lot of different groups: Jews, women, and blacks.
You don’t like Wilber. I get it. Why did you bring him up again? Because your shadow is emerging. Wilber is a know-it-all and so are you. (I confess that I too am narcissistic–I like to be right.)
You write, “Most of you people need to take a course in critical thinking.” You and Wilber can both be intolerably haughty and arrogant–but at least you don’t swear like Wilber.
Nevertheless, you have good observations. The point you made on the velocity of money a few weeks ago made me think. (Surprise, surprise!)
Take care, Jen
and the general American public is so poorly informed, they haven’t a clue. But if it was football….
I just watched “Founding Brothers”, a History channel dvd. Wow, how far we’ve come. Those guys really cared about their country. Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams. I’d put Bill Jefferson Clinton along with, maybe, Aaron Burr.
Philosophers, for the most part, especially the New Age variety, are the mandarins of our time. They don’t talk much about the physical world …
=============
Stop, XXX5. You are publicly showing your ignorance. It is so very obvious you have not read Wilber’s work. You do accuse Wilber of being a “new age” type philosopher, although nothing could be further from the truth. You accuse these types of being wishy washy with terminology.
For example, in chapter 2 “The Problem of Proof,” in the book EYE TO EYE, Wilber spends several pages just defining the word “data” and how data is related to knowledge.
I have to go now. My busy personal life is calling. But I’ll try to come back with more examples. XXX5, you owe Wilber a big public apology to lump him in with “new age” lumpen. I am being kind to you in suggesting you refrain from any further comments on Wilber until you have read him and understood him.
Some CFN observations:
JHK’s last few posts were terrific.
CFNers continue to post off-subject – a lot.
Spider is off his meds again.
I wish we could read more of BeingThere, Tripp.
What happened to Q? Can’t get on the blog, again?
Like to read more O3, WSP7 Ripped – come on New Englanders post more. Also Jen, Turk.
Like to see less of E (unless he gets a personality transplant), Radu, Anti.
Whatever happened to Bustin J?
I like reading K-Dog – still gonna vote for You.
New posters MuddMike, daytrip – keep them posts coming.
Like to hear more posters’ plans for when TSHTF.
All I said was the Rush said something – not that I agree with everything he believes. In fact, Rush is a very intelligent man, and very cunning as well. He poses as a Republican Outsider to lure the disaffected back into the fold.
Now since you believe that this very intelligent man is a moron just shows that you are the moron.
Off topic but a good personality test: Do you think that America should imprison people who question the orthododox Holocaust narrative as they do in Europe?
I haven’t read him in years and my previous computer was too primitive to get youtube. So when you guys brought him up I remembered to find him on youtube on my new computer. He has alot of good videos. He called the Maya savages just like the Aztecs. I like that. Do you know if he admits the low Black IQ – which means they can never advance since a reasonable IQ is the sine qua non of higher growth. Black Africa is stuck in red and will remain there until the Holy Spirit moves over the waters of their Being.
Yes Wilber has been scathing to the New Age Movement and its conflation of Quantum Physics with Eastern Religion – as well as its general credulity and intellectual laziness. And again for the record: he takes no disciples.
He does believe life is evolving towards Spirit – as a Traditionalist, I feel it is still falling away except for the rare individual who goes against the current (now a torrent) of this age. So Asoka like that optimistic part of his message. But he also believes in Hierarchy which Soak doesn’t get at all.
In a recent interview, a reporter asked Obama:
“Mr. President, After 4 years as President, what have you learned?”
Obama replied: “Well, I learned that you can’t change Washington from the inside.”
[This interview really happened, by the way.]
Which is better? The Leader in a straight jacket, or the Leader not in a straight jacket?
At some point, someone may come up with the idea of taking off the Leader’s straight jacket?
Rhino I was wondering who the 1% actually are? (Not trying to be provocative or bust your b-lls here) Last week I saw an article about Richard Gere and he was complaining about the 1%. Then I find out that Richard Gere himself is worth $60 million. Nobody says much about Spielberg or Oprah or other showbiz billionaires, or Gates, Richard Branson, Buffet, Larry Ellison, silicon valley zillionaires. But the Koch bros. and Waltons are insects who must be exterminated. It seems like it is how the money was made, and political affiliations, is what matters. Myself, I don’t care how much money somebody else has. That’s their business. Right now Curtis Jackson (50c, fitty) is my neighbor and one day last summer I saw JayZ and Fitty out front in the driveway. They were rather pleasant. But who knows, one day I might have to ge back to White Trash Life where I came from. I already have a pickup and a shotgun. I’m ready.
–WSP7
–WSP7
How about this for a new business idea?
Straight jackets for “normal” people….
In a recent interview, a reporter asked Obama:
“Mr. President, After 4 years as President, what have you learned?”
Obama replied: “Well, I learned that you can’t change the Mental Hospital from the inside.”
I see KW as a part of the NewAge Nonsense!
With his fawning over Adi Da, at least for awhile.
Check Taki Mag, the new article on London and UK.
Maybe this will post, not sure…………
Obamas lie
‘OBAMA said, in his Cairo speech:
“I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.’
Mr. Obama:
Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed?
Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians. [bureau of indigenous muslim affairs]
Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day?
Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights?
Didn’t think so.
Did Muslims fight for this country’s freedom from England? No.
Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America?
No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery. Your own ‘half brother’ a devout Muslim still advocates slavery himself, even though muslims of Arabic descent refer to black muslims as “pug nosed slaves.” Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family’s “rich Islamic heritage” doesn’t it Mr.Obama?
Where were Muslims during this country’s Woman’s Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture. So much so that often they are beaten for not wearing the ‘hajib’ or for talking to a man that is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women’s rights aren’t they?
Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazi’s in killing Jews.
Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001?
If they weren’t flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the middle east. No one can dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other news networks that day.
Strangely, the very “moderate” Muslims who’s asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11.
To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day.
And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the “rich heritage” Muslims have here in America.
http://elvisnixon.com/2012/09/18/muslim-contributions-to-america.aspx
Yoko, no last name necessary gives a Lennon Prize to Pussyriot.
She, and Ollie Stone went to Cuba to adore Fidel.
[an article may be archived at WSJ].
Yokos worth 600 million.
Mike Moores worth 100?M.
Ask Elena Kagan.
After that Cali Prop # [?], I say,………[censored].
And smart folks proof their posts, MM.
Radu,
I said that you were a moron, and you proved it again. Rush is not intelligent, he is just pure evil. He makes up bullshit and many people believe him. It doesn’t take intelligence to do that, just evil.
anti,
Oh, I’m wounded. Yes, I missed a comma. I guess you are channeling Q.
anti,
I guess you are not a smart person. I would have never guessed.
Yokos > Yoko’s
Moores > Moore’s
At some point, someone may come up with the idea of taking off the Leader’s straight jacket?
=================
By the way, Pucker, Romney said exactly the same thing in 2007 and used exactly the same words: you can’t change Washington from the inside.
The President is not a dictator. What Obama means is he cannot, by fiat, make changes.
But if a groundswell happens, and congress feels pressure, changes will happen. The changes originate from the outside, from the bottom up.
Proof? This is funny coming from you, anti soak.
But it would be better if we all just accepted that typographical errors, senior moments, etc. happen and just let them slide… if meaning is not changed, and communication is not corrupted.
Don’t call back the ghost of Qshtik, now that he has finally decided to leave CFN.
Obama’s comment that he can’t effect Change from the inside could also mean that he intends to create an external macro-economic environment sufficient to Change the system from outside? A Marxist approach….
As Mao said: “All under Heaven is in chaos. This situation is excellent.”
To be honest, I don’t want to live on some crappy, paternalistic socialist plantation where there’s zero freedom of speech and “all my emotional needs are met” by the plantation which gives me a crappy, petty bureaucratic job, an emotionally supportive group of friends who support each other in parroting the Party line, some crappy middle class apartment and some crappy middle class car, a wife who admonishes me for “thinking too much” and encourages me to suck up to the moron office Party official so that I can keep my dickless job and castrated identity. No Thanks!!!!
[At the annual Board of Directors meeting]
“But if we don’t need the people to do the work to make us money, and they don’t have money to buy the stuff that we sell, then what do we do with ’em?”
[Blank looks.]
“Well, we still need some people to do the cooking, the cleaning, the paper work, and to fix everything. And we need some people to tell us how great we are.”
LB said:
Wow,
Just checked out a few of these posts—how dysfunctional can a blog get?
**********************************************************
Oh … you mean you scrolled past the 50% of Asoka’s posts and then the gaggle that make up the other 50%. If you know of a good blog (they’re rare), please DO TELL.
E.
Asshole said:
One of these (Jesus) is not like the others: Mao, Stalin, XXX5, Hitler, Muhammad.
*************************************************************
Yes, I am a genocidal maniac as my resume clearly states. This is the end of your lengthy syllogism i.e., to “prove” that I belong with a group of genocidists. You’re really out of your fucking mind and the main reason why the number of legit posters goes down over time. You hog this blog … and not with wisdom but will illogic, harshness disguised as divine wisdom and love, and cherrypicked “facts” … all the while demanding we give chapter and verse.
You’re really a horrid human being and the spiritual veneer just makes you seem OILIER.
E.
SJM said:
You write, “Most of you people need to take a course in critical thinking.” You and Wilber can both be intolerably haughty and arrogant–but at least you don’t swear like Wilber.
*************************************************************
Swear words are POWER WORDS and if overused, they lose ALL of their power. It’s also unbecoming of an allegedly spiritual man to use such vulgar language with such frequency. And it is the frequency that really strikes one.
However, my carp against Wilber is the same as the carp I have against the entire field of philosophy. It renames old things with a new spiritual lexicon and then stands back and admires its inventions which don’t feed or clothe people, which don’t employ people or prepare them for employment, which have no practicality like the flush toilet, etc. etc.. Philosophy is what people do when they can’t be scientists, engineers, or insightful writers. They become obscurantists with convoluted phrasings which the masses think are “heavy?. Consider Nietzsche’s amazingly insightful statement about obscurantism: “The masses think a muddy pool is deep merely because they cannot see the bottom.” Now THAT is a philosopher worthy of SOME note.
My “arrogance” is not something my own friends would recognize as a central trait in me. This site will bring out bellicose behavior like none other because of the ignorance of mega-macro data (esp. with regard to race/ethnicity), lack of critical thinking skills, overposting by consummate egotists like Asoka, and, lately, this New Age baloney which won’t really affect anybody’s lives but it puffs up their perception of their own sophistication, and the amazingly low level of literacy … both scientific and literary.
I’ve been on many, many blogs and the bad eventually drives out the good in all of them. However, the net level of deep erudition here is very low and can usually be found in the posts on Monday until nighttime … and that’s about it.
E.
Plans for when the when TSHTF? What plans can the enfeebled old and the chronically ill make but to lay in a stock of extra-powerful sleeping pills and a bottle of Gravol to keep down the twenty or thirty pills that they force themselves to swallow when they just can’t take any more of their post-TSHTF torments?
The plans you have in mind are plans for living. Plans for dying have to considered too.
Asshole said:
Don’t call back the ghost of Qshtik, now that he has finally decided to leave CFN.
*************************************************************
I miss the whimsical sarcasm of Q. and his political pragmatism even if I often disagreed with him. He’s a mensch in my book and I’m sure that YOU aided, at least partly, in his decision to retire from CFN. You are like a GHOUL that hangs over this site and renders it plodding, heavy, and depressing.
E.
“…You’re really out of your fucking mind and the main reason why the number of legit posters goes down over time. You hog this blog … and not with wisdom but will illogic, harshness disguised as divine wisdom and love, and cherrypicked “facts” … all the while demanding we give chapter and verse.
You’re really a horrid human being and the spiritual veneer just makes you seem OILIER.”
-e/xxx5, to assoka..-
Very well said, E.
You’re really out of your fucking mind…”
==================
You do realize this is a compliment, don’t you?
Thank you, XXX5 for giving me this opportunity.
NO-MIND MEDITATION TECHNIQUE
One’s motto has to be to keep going!
One has to “step out” of the entire cognitive stream. In other words, as long as you are reacting and moving within the network of thoughts, you will continue to be lost in “the chase”. Close observation is not an effort to bring about the end of this chase, close observation IS the end of the chase.
A very effective way for understanding what is being pointed out here is by asking the question, “Am I inside or outside my thought?”. If you have “bought in” to what the thought is offering, you will find yourself lost and chasing, and as you as you become aware that you have “bought in” to the thought, in that moment you will be outside, in observation. Watching and rejecting in this fashion, intently, is meditation.
One final thought I want to share with you has to do with the the quote above: One’s motto has to be to keep going!. You have to be willing to stick to it with regard to meditation and spiritual growth. One week of meditation is not going to make you the Buddha. So integrate this practice into your daily life, practice quietly and consistently and enjoy it’s enormous rewards.
SAMASATI
Samasati is a term that Buddha used to encourage his disciples to remember to be aware in their daily activities. Samasati means a balanced presence, a centered awareness.
Try “Less Wrong”:
http://lesswrong.com/
Look forward to reading you on that site.
Yes, I am a genocidal maniac as my resume clearly states.
Getting cute to evade the point, XXX5. Really poor argumentation. Your resume was never at issue. What is at issue is that you share with the genocidal maniacs: an acceptance that violence must be employed at times. You share their philosophy of using violence for self-defense. Jesus doesn’t. Jesus cannot be on the list with you and the genocidal maniacs.
You hog this blog…
This is really funny, coming from a former computer science instructor. Electrons are endless. I use a small, finite number of them.
If I wanted to “hog” the blog, you would know it. I could post several thousands of times a week. If I wanted to “hog” the blog, my posts would not be legible, grammatical, mostly concise, and logically argued. I could flood this blog with gigantic, long, nonsense posts about down parkas or trillions of skyscrapers. But I choose not to hog the blog, because I value it as a place to discuss important issues.
Your assertion that I “hog the blog” is simply nonsense and does not represent reality. If you think the only decent posts are on Monday morning, then what are you doing arguing with me, attacking me with ridiculous and ad hominem name calling, ON FRIDAY NIGHT?
You are funny, XXX5, as a misanthropic character. Posters come and posters go, for lots of different reasons. You are assuming I have the power to make people go away. I do not think I have that power. In fact, I believe many people frequent the blog just to see what outrageous thing Asoka will say next. I think you fall into that category. I am actually helping CFN remain of interest to many people.
I am glad you have not left CFN. I hope you never leave. I am glad I have not ceased to be of interest to you, that you continue to read my posts.
I enjoy all your posts and read them with interest. Keep them coming, and I promise I will also. I think we are having fun. At least I can say I am enjoying CFN.
By the way, thanks for keeping all the focus on me with your constant ad hominem attack, instead of on focusing on issues like peak oil, EROEI, etc. It’s all about me. That is what you believe, according to your behavior. And you are a co-conspirator to keep it that way.
I am missing your passionate posts where you claim the end is imminent, and do so in all caps.
CRUNCH TIME IS HERE!
THE EURO IS COLLAPSING!
WAR WITH IRAN IS IMMINENT!
THE USA MIDDLE CLASS HAS DISAPPEARED!
WE ARE IN A FUCKING DEPRESSION!
ASOKA HOGS THIS BLOG!
You’ve got a lot more like this, and they contribute to the entertainment value of CFN.
Keep it up, XXX5! You are doing a good job!
JEWS ARE CONTROLLING EVERYTHING!
WOMEN ARE IRRATIONAL AND BELONG IN THE KITCHEN!
BLACKS ARE STUPID AND NEVER PASSED IN MY COMPUTER CLASSES!
CALIFORNIA IS A DISASTER!
WILBER IS A NEW AGER!
PHILOSOPHERS DON’T FEED OR CLOTHE PEOPLE!
You’ve got a lot more like this, and they contribute to the entertainment value of CFN.
Keep it up, XXX5! You are doing a good job!
Nope, but to deny it is either dishonest or dumb or gullible.
Interesting that no one has commented on the peaceful protests in Libya in which violent Islamic extremists were pushed out. I guess it doesn’t support the “Muslims are violent” meme on CFN.
BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 22 (Reuters) – A Libyan Islamist militia was swept out of the eastern city of Benghazi in a popular protest against the armed groups that ran into the early hours of Saturday morning, Reuters witnesses said.
500th!
97 are mine.
97 divided by 500 = 0.194, or less than 20%
The ratios would be reversed, with 80% mine, if it was true I am “hogging the blog.”
Want to dispute those facts?
Go ahead, make my day!
Was it 1980/ Hawks n Doves?
Neil Young sang ‘Im a Vampire, sucking blood from the earth, many barrels worth’ [or some similar].
I thought of that not in reference to peak oil, but to Asoka being a vampire here, and how eerie that song seems now.
I don’t think so. What are you people so afraid of if the six million figure is the Truth? From what I’ve heard there weren’t even that many Jews in all of German occupied territory – but if you admit that, the whole thing will begin to unravel – the whole tissue of lies. Also many of the “confessions” extracted from Nazi officials were the result of torture – you know that right? And thus their validity is in question to say the least.
Glad that you at least want to preserve our 1st Ammendment unlike Kagan and others. Do you not feel a shiver of horror when you contemplate her twisted body and mind? Or how about Napolitano – do you want to be ruled by such monsters?
Upthread MuddMike posted ‘the the’ in a line of text.
So whos zoomin who?
Many evil people are intelligent. You are very confused.
Madonna gave 4 million to start a school in Africa.
Blacks took the money and didnt build anything.
Agreed, but I dont even call it a spiritual veneer.
Pseudo spiritual would be a better term.
Him and his Osho.
He of the 100 gas guzzling Rolls Royce s.
Yes the Giant has feet of clay. Now he’s an Andrew Cohen afficionado.
The Obama Cult is the worst of all. He’s so transparently corrupt – and he was supposed to be just transparent. Last night I went to the Facebook page of a women I adored years ago: one of her likes is Obama.
I broke with another woman friend 4 years ago because she was trying to make herself some kind of Internet Priestess of the Obama Cult.
Oprah’s Africans did build a school – or she built it for them at least. She was asked why she focused on Africans and not Black kids here in America. She said that the ones here just wanted money whereas at least the ones there were excited about going to school.
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Asshole said:
Your premise is faulty. Not all the 47% are in such bad shape. And Romney is in error by calling them “victims,” “dependent on entitlements”
***************************************************************
It’s very amusing that you ally with the far Left yet you belittle what’s happening right now to the American middle class. If you really live in Brazil (or wherever the hell it is), how would you know about what’s happening on the ground here? Your lack of empathy is stunning and, as usual, you CROW about your luxurious lifestyle on $1000/month.
Half or more of your posts consist of bragging about your lifestyle, your insight, and your loving nature yet how can you be a loving person and be so unable to empathize with the destroyed American Middle Class?
You don’t even seem to observe enormous contradictions in your nature because you’re in rapt observation of your greatness though I’ve never seen what your great achievements are in life aside from hogging this blog.
You are why I agree with Vlad that democracies are a debasing of the commonweal and why only republics or even enlightened monarchies are a better alternative.
E.
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Petty good post about Islam in US history, Antisoak. That about sums it up.
Picked up a copy of ‘Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline”. Jim has an endorsement on the back cover. He previously wrote ‘Twilight of American Culture’ and ‘Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire’. So you get the jist.
Two things for now. Unlike Jim, Berman admires the South, not only the South of Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren, but the South Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis. Also, Berman walks the walk, as he has departed the US for Mexico.
More later. Gotta get ready to see Trinity vs Bates, Div. III football.
–WSP7
correction: Pretty good post …
Cutting taxes for the wealthy to create jobs is not going to do anything for job growth. Read one of the creators of supply side economics, Paul Craig Roberts. He’s being interviewed by Torture Magazine about what we’re doing around the world.
What you need to understand is that he separates the principles of supply side from neoliberal globalism which he says is turning the USA into a third world country. Please read his interview it’s truly an interesting read by one who was once in a powerful position and is now fighting everyday against the system.
[The era of jobs offshoring began. US corporations, pressed by Wall Street for higher profits, by large retailers such as WalMart, and by the cap that Congress placed on executive pay that is not performance based, moved the production of goods for US markets offshore where labor costs were a small fraction of US wages. This development caused profits to rise, but separated American consumers from the incomes associated with the goods and services that they consume. The same happened to professional service jobs, such as software engineering, Information Technology, and research and design. The ladders for upward mobility for Americans were dismantled. Wages and employment fell, medical benefits were lost, and careers disappeared.
The system by which First World corporations offshore the production of goods and services that they market in their home countries is called “globalism.” Globalism is turning the US into a third world country. For the past two decades, the only jobs the US economy has been able to create are in lowly paid domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders, and hospital orderlies. There has been no increase in real income for the bulk of the population. The gains in income and wealth are concentrated at the very top, and the distribution of income is now the worst in the developed world and worse than many Third World countries. The economy of the Reagan years is simply gone, disappeared.]
He talks about torture too. Its too important not to read.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/
Yes, Berman is of the pragmatic bent, and I’m sure you read MuddMike’s link to that Counterpunch essay.
The guy has definitely thought things through. (To put it offhandedly!)
The final evolution/mutation of [big “c”] Capitalism is the slickest manifestation (and infestation) of Fascism.
IMO, not so nice an oligarchical construct to live beneath the hob-nailed boot of. (To put it very inelegantly. ;o)
The Banking Cartel is just getting started collecting everything (every asset in the world) that they think is nailed down and owned by paper contracts. Will there be resistance to this tyranny by paperwork, or will legal niceties and retroactive decriminalization cover the greatest spate of thievery in history?
Thanks for the link.
I’ll have to read that soonish.
Here’s another analysis of the economic “problem”.
[Synopsis]
“University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today’s economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32494.htm
Is it over… or has the struggle just begun to delineate/define itself?
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Does anyone follow any death row inmates on Facebook?
Thanks.
Does anyone know of any Tibetan hermits on Facebook?
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Who are these dastardly one percent? Good question. Some say the top one percent of income earners. Some say top 1% of wealth owners. You’ve likely seen the stats, in the US they own 40% of the wealth and so on. But I guess you get to define them as you personally see fit.
You say it’s not your business how much money someone else has? OK, well you might want to think about the flip side to the question, how much money someone else DOESN’T have and whether there’s a connection ie some people hogging more and more and so others getting less and less. And where this is all leading.
Why does money matter? What matters is the relation between wealth and political power. I’m not saying anything remotely original here but it seems to me and a lot of others that as a result of this relation the interests of the wealthy elite prevailed. How so? Washington and other capitols adopted the ideology of free markets, de-regulation, offshoring, cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, loose monetary policies. And bailouts. No end of money for bailouts.
The justification for all this of course being “necessity”. No need to belabor the practical results. I don’t know about you but I’ve seen the progressive economic deterioration over the past 4 decades.
And, no doubt, you’ve seen assholes shilling for the one percent. Like Romney, privately disdainful of people that got hurt. You know, the contemptible 47%. Some of the shills say problem? What problem? Life is grand in the US and getting grander. The statistics and data prove it. You can live exhorbitantly on 12 grand a year. I read this shit and I want to puke.
Good for her, its her money.
Did you see the clip on Yahoo, ‘guy in Detroit points shotgun at Google mapper’?
A dead infant was found in a closet in the house
a few months back.
You should worship all things military. – Assoka
YOU should worship all things military. Because at the end of the day the military backstops the interests of the one percent. The military is the last line of defence between you and the pitchforks.
You should have supported war in Iraq. – Assoka
Really? I asked you about that already and you didn’t reply. Why? Too busy making money?
You should support the use of nuclear weapons against civilians if you think it would save military lives. – Assoka
You devalue the lives of civilians, you know, those ordinary people that you hold so much in contempt. The people that grow the food that you eat. You know, the 99%.
Because you see, the Japanese Army wasn’t going to play nice. The proof is in the tens of millions they killed, wounded and raped. People far away and of a different race. People you don’t care about. Dirt poor people. 99 percenters.
Try to think about the 99% for a change. They matter too, not just your precious one percent and the military which protects them. The nukes were a nasty thing but a lot of people argue that they decisively ended the war. How? By convincing the ruling 1% in Japan that the war couldn’t be salvaged. And in the end saved millions of lives. Of civilians, the 99%. But I know it’s really hard for a one percenter to give a shit about them.
Paul Craig Roberts you say? And where did Roberts think “Reaganomics” would eventually lead to? After all, Reagan was happily and busily eviscerating unions in the midst of Paul Craig Roberts presence.
Roberts may be pretty good at looking through the rear view mirror (and even at that, he still seems to have a blind spot regarding his beloved Reagan) and he seems to correctly feel a certain forlorn pulse in the American economy. But when it comes to assessing the future his touting of Reaganomics reveals him as lacking in that regard. To put it kindly, he is a long way from visionary status.
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Buck,
I couldn’t agree with you more. You know where I’m coming from.
PCR does have a dog in that supply-side race to be sure. He is protecting his own flank, here, but I still see him as someone who is deeply concerned at where we’re headed and is speaking out and hurting his own standing. I give him credit for that.
I’ll take what he’s saying about our present situation very much to heart. I don’t care if he is a supply-sider as long as he can honestly look this disaster we call a sovereign nation and call it for what it is.
E,
I think you have captured the relative failure of the New Age trend of the 80’s and 90’s to improve the self thru books and seminars. The human potential movement is drawing to a close because it didn’t work. At least it didn’t work for me. I tried to get over my faults by spending weekends at Esalen and various other really expensive getaways, but alas….here I am today with all my faults. I’m selfish at times, and prone to snits over stu