JHK’s Three-Act Play
When you’re out of the country, as I was last week, it’s good to know that the home folks are keeping up with the Kardashians and bravely venturing into the blood-splattered chambers of cable TV’s latest hit, Bridal Plasty – where candidates for marriage are transformed from Holstein cows into inflatable sex toys by magic surgical technology – not to mention all those humble guardians of freedom who kept the parking lots of WalMart safe for consumerism in the wee small hours of Black Friday. These are, after all, perilous times.
Elsewhere, Ireland and the rest of Europe wore themselves out with soul-searching all week over how to handle national bankruptcy within a currency system that bears only a schematic relation to reality. Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon’s wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season? As of Monday morning, Ireland has been commanded to, er, bend over and pick up the soap, shall we say, for about a hundred billion euros in loans that will not be paid back until a mile-high ice-sheet covers Dublin (something that might happen sooner rather than later if the climate mavens are right).
We’ll see how this bail-out goes down with the French and German voters, too, who have to pay for it, after all, especially as Portugal, Spain, and Italy line up at the cash cage for their cheques (and bars of soap). Of course, a few more basis points in the interest rate spreads could prang the whole Euro soap opera – does anybody really believe this game of kick-the-can will go on after New Years? I’m not even sure it goes on past this Friday, but I am a notoriously nervous fellow.
Meanwhile, I happened to turn on CNN in my hotel room way out in Western Australia to see that Kim Jong-un, 25-year-old heir presumptive to North Korea’s ailing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, was looking to start World War Three. I guess that would show everybody who’s boss now, though one wonders why the Chinese don’t send someone to Pyongyang to club the young prankster upside his head. I mean, what’s in it for China if the world goes up in flames? There will be that many fewer customers for battery-operated plastic zombies and their renowned salad shooters.
I rather enjoyed my time in Perth, the city comfortably most far removed from any other major population center on Earth. So I figured if a nuke or two got loose up in Korea, I’d end up like Gregory Peck in On the Beach – in a city of fabulous beaches! In fact, the villas along the Indian Ocean coast there reminded you of Malibu circa 1958, before we turned all of Southern California into a shrine to the goddess of free parking.
It was late spring down in Perth. The sun was glaring down through that hole in the ozone, and metallic Christmas trees materialized in the hotel lobby a few mere meters from real palmettos where parrots roosted. The locals all complained to me about the inadequacy of their public transit, but at least they had public transit, and it seemed to work pretty darn well to me. I took the fast and silent light rail car from the jive-plastic casino / convention center / hotel complex where I stayed, built on a reclaimed landfill (“rubbish tip,” they say down there) along the River Swan, a few kilometers down the line to a charming and immaculate central light rail station at the center of Perth.
This city center had two major shopping streets where cars were kept out, and several bistro-lined alleys and arcades cut laterally through the blocks, all jammed with people and lined by local retail establishments not affiliated with the giant chain stores that have, in contrast, turned commerce in America into a catatonic monoculture of mindless bargain-seeking. I don’t exaggerate when I say that there was more action in this modest precinct of Perth than in all of Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Baltimore put together. The sad state of the urban scene back home really struck me there.
It was reinforced when I ventured about seven klicks down the light rail line to the neighborhood of Freemantle, once a separate port city where the River Swan meets the ocean, but now more of a neighborhood of expanding Perth. Free-o, as they call it, had several intersecting shopping streets of its own, jammed with people at three in the afternoon, including schoolchildren in natty uniforms, and definitely had more going on in a few blocks than all the pathetic old downtowns of Albany, Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo combined.
Western Australia is thriving these days as China’s ore pit. They can’t sell enough iron, copper, nickel, and other hard stuff to the economic 900-pound gorilla to the north. These riches have jacked the Australian dollar nearly to par with the $US, and provoked a housing bubble that looks outwardly every bit as dicey as the ones that already blew up at home, not to mention Ireland and Spain. Heavy equipment operators commute weekly hundreds of miles from the mining fields to Perth, where they spend freely on boats, flash cars, and other toys, and take out giant mortgages. The region seems to exist in a delirium of riches for the moment, and I had to wonder what would happen there if the Euro crapped out, and the global banking system seized up and letters-of-credit for moving ore shipments became harder to get.
A few Australians seemed nervous about it, too. Their cities back east – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane – were not enjoying quite the same profit bonanza as the Perthies (or Perthtonians, or Perthtarians, or whatever they call themselves) are doing. The ten-year-long drought that has hammered the country -temporarily relieved this austral spring back east, but still going strong in Perth – is a scary problem in a region that has always been rather dry. Farmers in the old wheat belt outside Perth are shutting down their operations in despair, and they used to export a lot of food to the Middle East and China, so folks in these faraway places will feel Australia’s pain. Perth officials blandly expect the city to keep expanding (a lot!) but they are already resorting to expensive de-salinization plants for drinking water. Anyway, I’m suspicious that this monkey business in Korea lately is only the beginning of a set of disorders that will afflict the Asian division of the global economy, while Europe struggles with whatever money turns out to be for them, and poor old America drowns in unpayable debts – and perhaps turns politically psychotic in response.
I rather expect the eco-ayatollahs to take a dim view of all my travels lately. But, hey, the planes were going to leave whether I was on them or not. And I was glad to see a far-off corner of the world that many civilians will never get to. So bugger off. Finally, it was no small irony, given all that was going on in the world last week, to be in the home territory of the now-famous black swan. This one’s for you, Nassim Nicholas Taleb!
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yeah!
first
sorry andrew, i WAS first, but i had a problem with my connection there.
but you were definitely second. well done!
As an official eco-ayatolla, I might pass on Jim Hansen’s and James Lovelock’s position on air travel: as long as there is no price on carbon and oil remains cheap – if you don’t burn it, somebody else will. Spreading the word is a worthwhile thing to do. However, getting ourselves accustomed to making do with much less is also a valuable training.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill.
Oh my! Andrew and simon are such little devils! Shut the hell up…you think any gives a rat’s ass who is first here?
You probably should have read the “Times” before posting to your blog.
The latest particular set of Wikileaks documents couldn’t have been made public at a more opportune time.
Of late I’ve had this lurking sense that something was about to happen that would allow those who’ve been bracing at the bit to go to war with Iran beat their drums san souci.
This most assuredly was that something and I doubt there’s any way to un-fuck it now!
Just a quick note v. ‘Eco-Ayatollas’.
No one cares.
No one.
….and perhaps turns politically psychotic in response…..
should that be politically psychopathic?
Twilight of the Psychopaths
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28939
Glad you had a good trip to Australia… As for Korea, I wouldn’t believe everything the media tells you – like usual, they only tell one side of the story. I think a lot of us may see economic collapse sooner than the U.S. or the EU as a whole: http://www.lesswaiting.com/localized-collapse.shtml
James Crow; you’re absolutely right, wtf does it matter who commented first today – or any other day for that matter! I was wondering, does anyone know if Jim Kunstler himself ever reads these comments? Many of them are directed towards him but I wouldn’t think he’d take the time to sort through all the bullshit to read the useful comments… (I realize that this is one of the non-useful ones!)
Jimbo, look on the bright side. North Korea is doing us a favor. We need them. More at The Nothing Store
Interesting read today, JFK. Welcome home, for what it’s worth. Visited Australia myself about twenty years ago. Found the Aussies most charming with a lot of grit – something we “Yanks” had at one time, and at some inexplicable point, lost. Couldn’t for sure tell you when that was exactly, but it’s gone – maybe for good.
I’m trying to weed through all the Wikileak leaked stuff, while feeling my face flush red with embarassment. We are the school yard bullies of the world, playing with some equally cruel, crazy, you fill in the blanks, “folks”. We are fat, pampered, protected, bossy, and just plain ole mean. Oh, and kinda dumb too, I might add. There’s an old saying, “Don’t shit where you live.” or something along those lines. We are global now more so than ever. I don’t kid myself. I’m a little too old to do that anymore. We pretty much have always been a-holes when it comes to world diplomacy. I came to that conclusion several years ago, having been, briefly, a some what low-level “insider” in D.C. many years ago. I didn’t think then that we could possibly sink any further into the abyss – but ya know, with age comes, what, wisdom? If that’s what I’ve got, I’m a fairly sorry case for it. Anyhow, welcome home! Your deck chair, sir, if you care to use it, is starboard. Now relax, and listen to the fine orchestra playing. A bit cold today, sir. Can I fetch you a blanket? Pay no attention to the screaming of the other passengers. I’ll slip a five spot to the band and have them crank it up a bit louder.
Sparrow wrote:
I was wondering, does anyone know if Jim Kunstler himself ever reads these comments?
Yeah, I read the comments, though I don’t lurk-and-linger much, and I get bored by the personal spats that go on between all y’all.
–JHK
Jim –
Always great to hear you comment on cities and transit and the public realm. It’s where your voice seems the clearest…
Pilt
another excellent piece on the psychos who run your country….
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political_Ponerology/Ponerology101_Psychopath.html
So tell me, why is it that people in washington – like, say, Obama, dont at all look worried that TEOTWAWKI is just around the corner? What does he know that we dont?
The transnation corporate elite-plutocracy obviously has access to the highest levels of intelligence on things like Peak Everything and climate change, so it is hard to imagine they dont know what is going on.
The Pentagon and the military-industrial-media complex has certainly made it clear that they intend to be in business in the future, and are certainly making plans on how they are going to operate in our Brave New World of resource depletion, climate change and over-population.
Either they are totally stupid and without a clue or they have A Plan, at least for their own survival. Perhaps they have already decided to sacrifice a huge chunk of the human population. But yes, it is possible that this can could be kicked down the road for quite a while yet.
The 2012 election promises to be the most expensive freakshow in the history of the human race, and I think the system will creak on long enough for that spectacle to take place. Call the next two years, The Long Look In The Mirror, whereby humanity will get a glimpse of just how ugly it will get if we do not transcend our adolescent worldview.
Sorry, should have been JHK, NOT JFK. Guess I’m remembering an event years back, around this time of year. Remember it very well. Still picturing Jackie in that fine pink suit, pill box hat, 47 years ago. Oh, wait! I think I remember when we Americans lost our “grit”!
Thanks for the report from Down Under, Jim. It’s good to hear of a few sunny locations where relative sanity prevails.
Were you tempted to leave the Untied States and set up shop in the Land of Oz? I would be.
Ah, but the problems started here, so we must do our part to resolve them, eh? — and try to stay out of the way of the hypnotized mass of zombies who still believe that Peak Oil is just a technical problem that American ingenuity can resolve.
Cheers.
Think I mentioned it before, but I’ll repeat it. When in the land of OZ, I was fantasizing about moving there (Sydney or Melbourne were the only places I got to see). Was told I didn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell unless I married a fellow there….NO TAKERS!
aw hell, heres the main page… read away!
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political_Ponerology/Political_Ponerology_page.html
Another nice piece of work, JHK.
And, Lordy, how do you come up with stuff like this?
“candidates for marriage are transformed from Holstein cows into inflatable sex toys by magic surgical technology”
And thanks for the picture of the “black” swan – although the one pictured at the end of the blog has a distinctive *brownish* look to it. Who knows, maybe that’s even more appropriate!
And the “climate mavens,” may be right or wrong concerning the whole global warming/cooling thing.
The way climate researchers let their work be twisted and spun in the wind is dismal, even if their results are straightforward.
One thing’s for sure, more CO2 is going to be heading skyward over the next decade. Currently only 4% of US coal is exported. That number will be going higher – depending on the theorizing of another branch of a dismal science – economics.
And if peak oil isn’t a bit of a problem, hold on for peak coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_coal
Keep on CF’ing!
And what’s with the desire to be first, 2nd, last, or whatever? And what’s with the complaining about it. Sometimes a man’s gotta scroll!
22nd!! That’s twenty-second, hah!!
We are caught in the web of duality ,only viewing things in the context of opposites. Our politics is left and right our economy is grow or shrink our religions are good and evil(God and the Devil).Our fear based Ego is aligned with the status quo beliefs and ideologies.No one wants to be left out; go along to get along. We will vote in the politician that promotes the status quo dream.Reality sucks ,balance ,dynamic equilibrium ,sustainability are fearful to the Ego.Reality doesn’t give a dam about the dream so sit back and watch the conflict on your big screen tv with all the comforts of misplaced resources the fun is just beginning.Happy Landing.
One thing about the Aussies…they sure know how to burn the petrol:
http://www.roadtrains.com.au
Yeah, there’s nothing in it for China if the world goes up in flames.
But they are not happy about the US running war games off their coast, either.
And if crazed mini-mes in North Korea have to be the ones to take a stand, I can’t see China slapping them down.
Why would the US ruling class want to take the world down?
It’s worked out well for them in the past, as Bush told Argentinian president Kirchner (may he rest in peace).
“”Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon’s wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season””
I truly enjoy your writing Jim (your fiction also!).
I was in Perth in 1983 and just speaking with my American accent brought me free Swan Lagers everywhere – (before Australians realized just how wonderful they are – they used to “”look up”” to yanks)
The Banks – the banks – the banks…. and nary a conviction or even indictment anywhere…. whilst the public(s) bears the brunt of Austerity, taxes, service cuts and economic depression…. I remember some well articulated ideas in your 2005 Masterpiece “The Long Emergency” about how the first rumbling effects of post-Peak-Oil would be in finance… you are a great writer Jim and have one of the most urgent, important and refreshing perspectives to share – Thank You. Please share more.
Jim, you missed the big story of the week while on vacation: that Max Kaiser has started the ‘Buy silver to kill J.P.Morgan’ campaign. Kaiser estimates that JP Morgan has trillions of dollars of short positions in the silver market, betting the price of silver will go down.
He has started, and the masses have carried through on the idea, of demanding silver for delivery which will drive the price of silver up and put J.P. Morgan in bankrupcy court. If everyone just goes out and buys just 1 silver coin, the silver market whice is leveraged 45 to 1 will implode, JP Morgan will not be able to deliver on their silver delivery contracts.
Buy some Aussie silver coins as collectables while your out there- help bankrupt J.P. Morgan.
regarding.. what do they know that we don’t… ask the laid off auto workers in Detroit.. as tptb kept them cranking out gas guzzling suv, etc. and fighting improved CAFE standards for all the past 10 years, when any executive worth his bonus would have seen the writing on the CFN blog that those days were disappearing into the rear view mirror
“Kim Jong-un, 25-year-old heir presumptive to North Korea’s ailing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, was looking to start World War Three.”
I beg to differ. I know we’ve always thought that WW3 would involve soaring missiles and mushroom clouds, but I think we’re already in the midst of WW3 and the shadowy forces who foment war are winning — without firing hardly a shot (at least in comparison to other wars).
Their goal, as always, is to profit from war and even they know that there is nothing to be gained for them from dueling nukes. Instead they have conducted economic warfare — and they’re winning. First, they saturate the banking system with toxic securities, creating a bubble of unsustainable debt, and thereby bring banks and governments to their knees.
Once that’s done, they blame the working people for the problem and offer to “bail out” the bankrupt countries — but only if they’ll cut wages, eliminate social programs, privatize the infrastructure, and a host of other things that will bring about a domination of the populace to a degree that couldn’t be accomplished with war. They call it “austerity.”
It’s proceeding apace in the US — oddly enough cheered on by the very people who will suffer the most — and now the sights are set on Europe. Even the normally sane Paul Krugman this morning said that Spain’s problems were due in part to the soaring wages. I wonder if Krugman has even been to Spain. About 60 percent of the people make 1,000 euros a month and are just getting by. Wages are not, in fact, soaring. Contrary to right-wing propaganda, Spain’s problems did not come from their health care or education or their pension system. Spain was doing fine until the bankers and developers decided — and were encouraged — to emulate the US housing/lending/toxic security bubble.
But one country after another is falling, and falling faster than any military leader could hope for. Pretty soon, the forces of unrestrained corporate capitalism will dominate most of the industrialized world to the detriment of the 90 percent of people who aren’t among the financial elite. WW3 will have ended without one mushroom cloud.
I might check that angle out. Tho I have heard that many of the men there are super macho and wife beaters. Scary shit.
Been there done that. Doing that, in a way.
really a drag.
I wouldn’t be looking to Australia as a refuge even were it easy for a Yank to get admitted to work and live there.
Yeah, Perth, alone among Australian cities, has taken steps to improve its prospects in the oil-short times ahead. I approve of pedestrian-only areas and investment in modern, efficient public transit. But no place dependent upon desalinization for water is going to have good prospects. I’ll take an American burg, no matter how decrepit and decimated, located on the Great Lakes or along the Mississippi anytime.
People who think that they can escape the vicissitudes of the LE by emigrating to some place that is supposedly more advanced and/or reality-minded than the U.S. (admittedly a place dominated by magical thinking and nostalgia for the Golden Age c.1965), are just as delusional as the techno-fantasists and cornucopians. For one thing, any population with a grasp of reality will strictly limit immigration, and isn’t about to let its country be flooded with immigrants from the U.S. or anywhere else, especially Australia, which is notable for its tight controls on immigration.
Time to stop fantasizing about how much better off you’d be in Australia, or Brazil or Canada, or wherever, or even Europe. Europe, for example, does things efficiently and has preserved its beautiful old towns and cities because most countries there have not till recently had the resources to tear down and rebuild every 20 years, and these countries are already feeling besieged by the immigrants who’ve flooded them in the past 20 years. Do not expect a warm welcome in these places. Worse, these countries are already notoriously resource-constrained and even their economy and efficiency will take them only so far when supplies grow really tight.
Time to start making the most of what we have, and figure out how we can start to correct the mistakes of the past 50 years. No place is going to be “better” for most folks out here, and no one knows just how things are going to shake out, except that there will be a lot less of everything for everybody. You surely won’t do any better among complete strangers in an alien culture than you will do right in your own city, so if that place isn’t just impossible because of, say, the lack of water, or utter impossibility of making a living, you are most likely better off staying put.
Yes, they are a different breed than American men. Don’t know about the wife beating part – sorry you had to put up with that shit – but I will tell you this- they are (or were) absolutely crazy for American women. As a poster said earlier today, they will buy you beers just to listen to your American accent. One guy came up to me in a bar and said, and I’m dead serious, “Is it alright if I just walk up to you and start talking?” Fairly good pick up line for me (it doesn’t take much). Incredibly wild sex! By the way, “Foster’s” beer to them is akin to Old Milwaukee here.
i was not sure if JHK read the comments, but since he does i would like to tell him how much i enjoy his monday morning blog. i have read the long emergency it is a real eye opener.
i would also like to tell JHK pay no attention to the people who critise you and your work they are ignorant and afraid, though i have no pity for them.
i think it would be great if JHK had a 2x weekly column in say the new york times, but would they let him tell the truth the way he tells it or would the editors tell him what they told the late great molly ivins ” you can’t say that”
thanks for the monday morning blogs i hope you write them for years to come.
Thanks for reminding me of the late, great, Molly Ivins. Classy old broad! Ya brought a smile to my wrinkled up old face! Now I’m off to the gym to shed some Thanksgiving pounds. Cheers!
“Yeah, I read the comments, though I don’t lurk-and-linger much, and I get bored by the personal spats that go on between all y’all.”
–JHK
Ditto!!!
Thanks Jim for this take on Australia. I had pretty much written that country and continent off as being too hopelessly dependent on fossil fuel and rainfall to think that they had any chance at all, though of course, I’ve never actually visited.
I still don’t think that they have much of a chance of a decent transition, but no more or less so than the US does and at least now I have some extra respect for their way of thinking, at least in Perth.
Regarding the CFN comments, I too wade into them rather quietly. I jump over most, but occasionally find some gems such as Laura Louzader’s contributions.
If only we could get you into a major print audience. Even if the rhetoric had to be toned down a bit, I think you would be a major addition to any paper.
Ang, I left a comment for you at the tail end of last week’s comments section.
Cheers!
Most interesting missive, JHK!
Yes, I was wondering when that drought (and accompanying massive depletion of the aquifer) would shut down [mono-cultural] agriculture in the western areas.
I would also be interested to know how your expositions are received “down-under”. Perhaps we’ll hear about those particulars in the podcast.
Let us know, if so.
Thanks again.
“So bugger off”
—
F-U too, JHK.
You can’t make up this kind of irony.
Self-congratulatory, ego-whores like you will rationalize your excesses till the end-of-time.
All-the-while grousing about the foolishly evil unsustainability of it all.
Therein lies the real rub.
Erik Curren, over at TransitionVoice.com, recently worried (1) that, “economic doomerism could itself doom the peak oil community and the Transition movement to the status of a minor apocalyptic cult”.
But the problems run much deeper than this, from the do-as-I-say not-as-I-do (because, of course, I’m special, oh-so important and simply above-it-all) types like JHK to the omnipresent nine-eleven-was-an-inside-job moonbats like Richard Heinberg, Jan Lundberg, Matthew Savinar, Michael Rubbert, Carolyn Baker, Alex Smith, and an offensively counterproductive host of others.
If Erik Curren were sincerely worried about The Peak Movement (such as it is) he would do well to dig deeper while confronting the mind-viruses infecting the “peak community”.
But, obviously, we’re not made of the necessary sterner stuff.
So pablum it is!
Mmm, yummy!
Enjoy!
—
(1) And let’s call the, “Stoneleigh Effect”, what it really is: having so much smoke blown up your arse that you believe your own badly researched and poorly supported theories to the point of dogmatic gab gigs and video sales (you must be so very proud!).
—
And, in response to, “teddyboy46”, I’m neither, “ignorant” or “afraid”.
What I am is appropriately angry and frustrated with the kind of hypocritical, counterproductive, ego-driven, mythical, conspiradroid bullshit that pervades the so-called, Peak Movement!
Yeah, “on the beach – eh?” That’s the ticket.
What I ponder about repeatedly is more about interdependence, and the scale of efficiencies that a world short in oil will sustain.
No “feel good” community garden nor downtown “walkable” market place is going to keep heat in the home or food on the table.
We need a plan. We need it yesterday. And we need to be testing it to see if that it can possibly work!
Figure out where in the world the populations exist with the least outside energy inputs. See what we can garner from those conditions to understand the costs associated with living where we currently live.
We’re burning the fuel necessary for transition on jet vacations and SUV rides to the malls.
I guess the simple equation might weigh:
I’m surprised that JHK reads the comments.
Even when it’s over 600?
Most people are completely ignorant of the system to which they’re consigned to. They have zero situational awareness. They parrot the latest script put out for them to parrot, like unthinking automatons, ignorant, emotionally propagandized thru and thru.
But for those that are still curious, you might want to read this:
Toward an American Revolution:
Exposing the Constitution and other Illusion
– http://goo.gl/S3CTG
The paradox of believing the beginnng of the decline is nigh, yet living in he present is amply illustrated by the foregoing comments.
Consider: they are spawned by an essay of unparalleled foreboding,they run the gamut from the childish need to be “first” which is a response that can only come from someone who hasn’t read the foregoing to the 39th (or whatever) which berates the author for continuing to live in the world.
There it is, isn’t it? We live in the world knowing full well change is coming, in form exactly we know not but in some form tha will make huge and permanent changes to what we know now. So we can either continue what we know (and enjo)until it is taken away by force, or we can anticipate what we are not sure of and start to live uncomfortably now.
I thin k I will continue ambling unsustainably for a little while longer. And apparently J H Kunstler will too while his children argue about who he loves the mostest.
Australia is just so damn interesting. As a Canadian, I feel like Australians are my cousins, being as both countries are members of the Commonwealth, meaning we are former colonies of England and still carry strong traditional allegiances to “King and Country” even if the king is Queen Elizabeth II.
Certainly we have those who would prefer Canada sever her ties with Britain, just as Australia has, but even if we did it wouldn’t change our histories or sensibilities. Too bad our heritage couldn’t save us from nearly wholesale absorption into the lurid American dream machine.
You have to live in a dream world to build whole cities in places without water and still expect to have a fresh water swimming pool. Saw a real estate show about a nice white collar American couple buying a home in Australia, and they toured fabulous, American looking neighbourhoods that looked like that, pools and all.
It’s not just sad, it’s crazy and stupid too. The pioneers who came to Canada and Australia knew enough to build settlements beside a creek, pond or lake. Technology has provided benefits at the cost of basic common sense in cases like this, and the financial costs are about to come due.
Meanwhile we have another royal wedding to prepare and pay for. This is when the real monarchy haters come out to bray at the moon. All part of the fun here in the colonies.
“I get bored by the personal spats that go on between all y’all. – Mr K
I think all the rastlin’ is fun.
If you find this site annoying and frustrating, I have a suggestion for you.
STOP READING IT. Then you won’t be unhappy and the rest of us won’t have to read your rather hysterical rants.
Related to what Jim was saying about the midwestern cities….On Saturday and Sunday I drove into Detroit via newly paved Michigan Ave. to King’s bookstore. I hadn’t driven into Detroit in a long,long while. I was glad to see bike lanes had been added to Mich. Ave., but on both days, granted it was cold, but bright and sunny, I did not see one biker. What struck me about the drive intyo Detroit was the emptiness…. little traffic, few pedestrians…. lots of open space, abandoned buildings, many with beautiful ornate brick work. Here and there a few have been restored. I drove by the site of Tiger Stadium, now an open lot, the diamond still visible and the flag pole…still standing in right center field. Exclamation point… Hopelfully Detroit has finished bottoming out.
Robert Parry, urging caution and skepticism –
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/56-56/4070-on-korea-here-we-go-again
Me too.
Meanwhile we have another royal wedding to prepare and pay for. – Grouchy
Slumming with the “royals”.
“House of Windsor” my bloomin’ arse. That gang is English? If they are then so am I. Tried to cover up their real origins: The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, those German upstarts. Real life version of the Adams Family. And now marrying a commoner? Victoria, if she’s watching, must be incandescent. The ancient bloodlines are getting exceedingly thin don’t you think? The old Brit aristocracy were contemptuous and who can blame them.
Charles the future King, “Dumbo” to his classmates.
But I’m waiting for the invitation. I’ll turn it down of course. Respectfully and regretfully. One must be civil. I’ll claim a prior engagement. They’ll understand I’m sure. But really who can be bothered?
How about you? Will you go?
“the planes were going to leave whether I was on them or not.”
amazing
cry doom til doomsday, yet still patronize Dooms-R-Us, all the while displaying no more irony than “f*ck ’em if they can’t take a joke”
wle
“…will not be paid back until a mile-high ice-sheet covers Dublin (something that might happen sooner rather than later if the climate mavens are right).”
JHK, the email that ended our correspondence was the one where I asked if you had taken a rapid ice age onset into your equations for picking a spot to settle.
I believe your response was “Oy Gevalt!”
Now you’re openly propogating that meme? Man, you owe me a personal email some time. Something asking about how the weather in middle Georgia is at least. Or better yet, a ringing endorsement over at my blog;)
Tripp out.
“try to stay out of the way of the hypnotized mass of zombies who still believe that Peak Oil is just a technical problem that American ingenuity can resolve.”
We’ve got the knowhow, we can do it. Consumerism leads to lots of cardboard boxes. Exactly what we need for affordable housing!
Mika,
No doubt you’ve heard that Iranian nuclear scientists are being assasinated in Tehran.
Who do you think did it, the Mossad or the CIA?
My money’s on the Mossad.
Since someone else brought up JFK:
The death of hope and grit in the USA occurred when he was murdered by the CIA acting on behalf of the military industrial complex we had been warned about. Our acceptance of this event and the subsequent coverup signalled a caving in to a full time war economy, the rise of the 1% elite and our role as slaves to that system.
In 1961-1963 the NSA and Joint Chiefs of Staff were actively urging Kennedy to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. He refused and instead communicated privately with Krushchev and Castro for peace, defusing the Cuban missile crisis and leading to the Test Ban Treaty. The final straw was his decision to withdraw from Vietnam, which lead directly to his murder in Dallas and to 50,000 American deaths when LBJ reversed that decision.
We can only wonder what a radically different world we would now inhabit had he lived. All the details are in James Douglass’s “JFK and the Unspeakable”. Every American should read it and weep – I know I did.
After reading some of the comments on this blog one concludes that the moneys came down from the trees too early and should go back up for another million years or so until they’ve learned how to be civilized. It is obvious that the human race isn’t going anywhere interesting. Don’t pass Go, Don’t Collect $200, Go directly (back!) to the Stone Age. We sure as hell are not going to make it to Alpha Centauri.
This past weekend, after all the family gorging rituals were over, my brother and I drove out to the Alabama-Georgia state line to participate in the killing and butchering of a rather large pig he had purchased. Both of us wanted to learn how to dress and carve a pig into its primal cuts. We had deer stew in the hunters’ abbatoir, 2 bowls for me, and a few red velvet cake balls with white icing that the property owner/ZZ Top groupie had just made. Pretty good actually. A cold beer after we put the knives away, and we loaded up about 250 lbs of hog in 5 coolers, and hit the road back to Atlanta.
Next day, we gathered with several other 30-something down-techers, carved up the hams and shoulders, ground and seasoned them, and made over 100 lbs of salami, plus loads of Italian sausage seasoned with the red pepper sauce we canned in quarts the last time we got together, and bratwurst for lunch immediately after making them. Grill was too hot, and the skins split open making an ugly presentation, but they were by far the best brats I had ever sunk my teeth into. By far. And it doesn’t get any fresher. On the hoof to bratwurst in about 24 hours. And we have enough for the rest of the year now, to go with the bread and cheeses we’re all starting to make.
Jim’s job is to convey the gravity of the sitation and get your attention. It’s up to the rest of us to figure out how to get along in that world made by hand.
Tripp,
I don’t mean to butt in but I’m curious about this Oy Gevalt business. Is Mr K giving any credence to this impending ice age hypothesis? Just curious. You don’t hear a whole lot about it. Usually it’s the opposite, impending doom from over heating.
JHK, great post this week.
There really is a BridalPlasty show in the works.
And I thought the “Alaska Gold Rush” reality show about a bunch of guys who are trying to strike gold before they lose their houses was the bottom of the barrel. To paraphrase Lewis Black: If you find me watching either one of those, you have my permission to shoot me in the head, you’d be doing me a favor.
You weren’t the right color, May. They have massive immigration for Non-Whites. Evidently, Australia is to be one of the refuges for the International Elite after everyplace is destroyed. So naturally they have to transform the place – turn it into a multi-cultural chaos that will be easy for them to rule. All the lovely cities will soon look like Tijuana, Cairo, or Hong Kong. And all the while the new Aussie Elite will be raving that diversity=strength and the old guard will be saying that the new people just have to learn to drink beer, surf and sunbathe. New stylish hijab bathing suits will need to be devised! The foolishness of the would be defenders of Western Civilization never ceases to amaze me.
I can just see you croching down and drinking right out of the Miss is sip as if it was a crystaline, alpine steam. Love that diry water – Chicago your my town. Seriously though, it is a fascinating place. So diverse! There will dozens of competing communities after the breakdown. Better vote for King Rahm to keep order.
Why were the Elite so obsessed with Vietnam? JFK himself seems all over the place from what little I know about him. At one point near the end he spoke out against the Conspiracy. But earlier he talked about World Goverment and the United State disarming.
I’ve had the thought that JFK’s inability to dislodge Castro from Cuba led directly to his killing and Krushchev’s backing down in the Cuban missile crisis led to his own ouster.
Seems to me that the shooting in the middle of a plaza was a message that, whoever the plotters were, they did not give a damn what anyone thought, they were not afraid of anyone, they were utterly confident they would not be caught and they were going to do what they were going to do.
I can’t believe that a loser like Oswald pulled this off. Some people thought it was the Mafia but I don’t think so. My money’s on a conspircay of military/CIA/someonewithalotofmoney. It would have to have been a small group, utterly committed and who trusted one another to attempt something as monumental as this. A conspiracy involving a lot of people I think would have fallen apart or risked detection.
But once the shooting happened I think that a lot of others implicitly realized what was afoot and they did the smart thing: covered the whole thing up, discarded or suppressed evidence, blamed it all on Oswald, all in the interest of personal self preservation and in the interest of political stability. I think they were paranoid and scared stiff of who might be next or of what might follow.
I think that everyone was afraid that if they tried to upend this garbage can nobody knew what exactly would fall out. I think they were afraid of the possibility of more killings, an explicit coup d’etat/military takeover. The plotters got their way. They changed the course of events to suit their own ends.
Why were the Elite so obsessed with Vietnam? – Vlad
A big puzzle to me also. To me Vietnam was/is a shitty little hole not worth the bones of a single American serviceman to paraphrase Bismarck (I think it was Bismarck). The domino theory? Piss on it, they should’ve let the Russian and Chinese commies take over all of southeast Asia. Bankrupt them even faster. To me Vietnam was a fight not worth fighting.
Vlad, sweetie, Chicago is not located near the Mississipi.
It is located on Lake Michigan and I’m a block from the beach. I’m acquiring a small home water treatment system (for about $400), in case Chicago is unable to maintain its current level of services.
As for Rahm “keeping order”- his petition is being challenged because of his residency and I hope he’s disqualified to run. This guy is the King of tax and spend. No hope of balancing the budget with that guy in office. We have better qualified people, though I’m not happy with the selection of candidates. The police like Chico, who has balanced the budget of all city agencies he has run, and that is who I’m supporting for Mayor.
Who did the honors? How did you feel? Did the pig make eye contact – they are extemely intelligent after all. I have trouble with killing just as you used to have trouble with shit. I certainly hope someone said a prayer for the pig or at least thanked his spirit for the gift of the meat. As Buddha said, “all creatures love life, all fear death. Therfore do not take life or cause others to”. But if you must, know that it sacred because of the sacrafice made. Thus Lady Gaga’s meat dress was an abomination – as is our whole factory farming system. As is trophy hunting and putting ones foot on the body as if you defeated him fair and square.
I applaud the bull who jumped the stands in Spain and caused mayhem. I respect the Massai warriors who used to go out and fight a lion with just a spear. Now that is an accomplishment. If you do that, you can get your picture taken with your foot on the body. And even take the head. It’s no dishonor to the lion to be killed by such a great warrior.
Miss MyrleMay; Left you a billet-doux at the end of last weeks thread. 😀
Ah, yes. Molly Ivins. Boy, do I miss her. And, Florence King. Diametrically opposed, I know, but ladies who spoke their minds with real style and panache.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish my daughter, Sabrina Silk Billinghurst, a happy birthday, on the occasion of her twenty-second.
World War Three will not seem the same unless it is started by the Germans.
James Kunstler wrote:
Meanwhile, I happened to turn on CNN in my hotel room way out in Western Australia to see that Kim Jong-un, 25-year-old heir presumptive to North Korea’s ailing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, was looking to start World War Three.
(It is hard to read the ‘i’ and the ‘l’ as ‘Il’, but I think one rule makes it necessary, the one that states that the words in a title are capitalized if important, and still capitalized if they are hyphenated. You hyphenated in an attempt to go to lower-case. Don’t.)
The German tendency to start the few World Wars we have had (and Kuntsler tends to love his infinity, always saying “normality”, never using “normalcy” part again (let’s go up and find a split infinitive)…
That didn’t happen, and the pesticidal nature of JHK’s writing (bars of soap and your ass thus implicated, buggering off, that sort of thing), has caused me to rethink whether a lover falls to one or the other side. One might love infinity, be loving infinitives, and be hating to see them split.
Is it important? Well, I know that it would be nice to merely refer to writing and not have to write it, and the “central intelligence” of some word is generally in the center, and the same goes for sentences. I’d go past split infinitives (to boldly go), to the area where I can say, “I want my Teaneck ashtray or the equivalent of”, and, “We ate corn on the”, and you will still know.
Don’t borrow anybody’s ashtray from Pyongyang. The price on eBay is going to skyrocket.
“I borrowed a cigarette out of your pack,” said my cellmate.
“I want it back,” I told him.
“I’m getting a pack later today; I’ll pay you back,” he said.
“I don’t want to be paid back. I want that one“, I emphasized.
“Uh, I don’t have it. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Forget about it,” I told him.
Two weeks later I had one of my homies accompany me out to the yard, where my cellmate was laying on the grass. I squirted lighter fluid on him and lit a match, dropping it right on him. He died and I missed my release date.
Now what’s so all-fired bad about debt slavery?
Youse all bangin’ beaver wherever it may occur?
Check it out. The Germans have such a wonderful idiom for the expression of complaints that it is incumbent upon us to stimulate it. We get guffaws and yocks galore, they just keep sounding more and more pitiful, pathetic, and frankly, too damn cute for words, with their “Mein Kampf”, their posturing, their rolling Rs. It cracks me up.
To overly dramatize, roll the eyes and gesticulate, that’s the key to Germanization.
All we need when addressing the Teutonic grievance is to parlay vous in the following manner:
“Ist das nicht un glockenspiel?,” says Larry.
Ja, das ist un glockenspiel,” says Moe.
I actually lose the focus in non-legendary reports until I sort out why it does what it does. There are too many proxies on a killing field, perhaps. Now, the North Koreans are not protesting at the gates in Seoul, not in Pyongyang either, since they are not free to do any of that.
More people than Kim Jong Un are trying for WWIII, and they are protesting at the gates in Seoul because they reside there legally. To legally reside and yet to firmly oppose must mean that the Korean will kill another Korean once that Korean (“B”), has killed some of A’s Koreans. Let nothing else suffice. It happens all the time. It’s a rule. They’ll kill us, but they won’t drag us all into it.
I’m more excited to tell you I found out where Central Asia is. JHK started to conflate the Middle East and Central Asia. Wherever we are at war at, …well, out of the three, Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran, you can see (ok, Pakistan), they end in -stan. That means, “the place of”, so, Turkmenistan means “the place of the Turk.”
But this entire collection has it: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.
Afghanistan is not fair, it is doing okay on getting news coverage, not those others.
Look what’s just to the south (I want to split that: to Southern-fry. To recklessly Southern-fry). These are definitely not in it: Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal.
Technically, we are at war in Central Asia. We are getting out of it, because we are going to Iran, then, and not because we are getting out, period.
But the religion of these people is all that is open to them to join. Their government doesn’t respond to their plight. It’s indifferent. It’s a dictatorship. That religion is Islam, and the radicalization of Islamic people has proceeded apace throughout the world, or their part of it, for the past decade more than before, by people like us. We did that.
Well, Stephen, aren’t we j’accuse!, methinks too much?
Okay, here’s what they say (Hikmatulloh Saifullohzoda, spox for the only “official” Muslim party in Central Asia, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikstan, agrees: “When authorities put pressure on religious people, they sometimes respond with anger against the authorities’ violent behavior. IOW, they are forced to react this way. If you treat these religious people by moderate means, I don’t think they would behave in violent, extremist or radical ways.” Then it goes on to call this a ‘simple but hard-earned truth’.
I do not see the USA mentioned in that, so, dude possibly was not agreeing with me. It says the following above that; it must be to blindly agree whenever it appears below, pre-internet. OTI, to agree with the comment below yours, in many cases is to say, “We both love heavy metal, I agree with whatever you say, Homes. Go.”, since the latest one appears first.
He agrees with this jibber-jabber here: “…that the Uzbek regime is to blame for the spread of religious extremism in the country because they arrest and insult both guilty and innocent people. People join extremist groups to express their protest to the regime.”
page 154, RADICALS, REPRESSION & REVOLUTION, in the graphic novel Silk Road to Ruin (Is Central Asia the New Middle East?), by Ted Rall.
I like the cult of the suicide bomber. In this, arms are not “pouring in”, funds are not “pouring in”, to Hezbolla. That’s not making the difference. You just can’t coerce someone who has nothing to lose. That’s the difference. How dare anyone denigrate the purpose of someone who is doing something by claiming it is being done for money.
Silk, this is your heyday. I warn you never, ever tell me to get with the program. I’ll program you as witness to your own private Hiroshima, daughter.
Hello,
“I rather expect the eco-ayatollahs to take a dim view of all my travels lately. But, hey, the planes were going to leave whether I was on them or not. … So bugger off.”
That is very lame.
The book “The Long Emergency” was instrumental in raising awareness among many people (including myself), so I have always felt a measure of gratitude and reticence to criticize some of Jim Kunstler’s weaker texts. Unfortunately, that reticence has been fraying for a while and when I read the quote above, it approached the breaking point.
Sad state of affairs.
“I can just see you croching down and drinking right out of the Miss is sip as if it was a crystaline, alpine steam. Love that diry water – Chicago your my town. Seriously though, it is a fascinating place. So diverse! There will dozens of competing communities after the breakdown. Better vote for King Rahm to keep order.”
You’re an idiot.
We just don’t know what’s going to happen. Sometimes we can’t even make educated guesses. But ice age.. well, a possibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation
Basically, there’s so much fresh water being dumped in the oceans, that the salinity goes down and the ocean conveyors slow or stop.
Kind of like what happened in “The Day After Tomorrow” film.
There’s just so damn much going on, both ecologically and politically. How about those methane out gassings? You can make yourself nuts planning for every eventuality.
Plan and prepare as much as you can but don’t expect to be prepared for every eventuality. Stay loose, embrace change. No one has “the” answers.
But, you know all that. 😀
Why?
Unless you’re living off the land in Montana Unibomber-style, then you’ll be participating in our modern, fossil-fuel based society. Everyone does to some extent or another.
And as I’ve said in the past, I believe JHK thinks that air travel is a good use for oil.
Damn, SEB, TLDR;
Get your own blog for Pete’s sake.
I had expected at least one Road Warrior quip out of JHK while he was in Oz.
And *I* am most surely the Eco-Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rollah…Ruler of the Wasteland, Lord Humungus, etc. etc.
Where’s my hockey mask and post-Apoc interceptor?
I need to see the film again.
It’s Tuesday morning here on the east coast of Australia and as usual I get my Tuesday morning’s dose of JHK, for perspective, before breakfast. I wish I’d been able to bump into JHK in Perth, a city I haven’t seen up close for a long while (more than twenty years). I’d have suggested a close look at the green belt in the south western part of the state that has changed rather for the worst – last time I was there I was involved in building one of the largest aluminium (aluminum) smelters in the world (at that time). Not strangely, at that time I thought I was doing something productive – you live and learn I suppose.
A funny thing about the black swans, they used to arrive here on Tuggerah Lakes only during summer, at the end of their annual migration east, but about five years ago most of them decided to stay – something to do with the weather and the drought I suspect; I’ll be doing something similar when the big do-do hits the big fan, any day now looking at the current state of affairs.
I don’t know about others here but I have to admit enjoying the kerfuffle created by the most recent Wikileaks illumination, a treasure trove of verifiable ammunition in “the troll wars”. I’m looking forward to JHK’s take on the revelations and reactions should he bless us with his observations.
Another good resource on this subject-
http://kpfa.org/archive/id/65569
I would agree with that, I lurk quite a bit and don’t comment all that much, but I get really tired of the name calling and the endless arguing over race and religion. Also people with 100 word vocabularies and they throw in the word fuck eight times in two paragraphs.
That would be Boston, Vlad.
There is no Kunt in Kunstler. That’s all you need to know. Although it isn’t deliberate (the keyboard of many ppl won’t recognize the fact of typing ‘s’. Another go: Kunsler. Pull!
“There’s just so damn much going on, both ecologically and politically. How about those methane out gassings? You can make yourself nuts planning for every eventuality.”
Oh you noticed;) The web of considerations and preparations can get pretty overwhelming. That’s why it’s imperative that people settle down and move slowly. So they can learn by practice and familiarity. And that’s why I think it’s important to start preparing in some way right away. You’re already heading down that path, LLB, as are most others who hang out here.
Mika,
No doubt you’ve heard that Iranian nuclear scientists are being assasinated in Tehran.
==
Actually, I didn’t. You’d be surprised, but I don’t follow that propaganda BS. Iran is a 100% US petrodollar story. The fsckers at the CIA want to sale it as another war to “protect Israel” and they got their man, Netanyahu, to quack the tune for them. If Israel thought it needed to take on Iran, it would’ve disabled Iran long ago. Iran is an economic basket case, it wouldn’t take much to put it on its back. Targeting Iran’s oil/gas facilities would have been very easy to do, and it would have finished Iran economically. Israel didn’t do that, so as I suspect, this BS is a 100% US petrodollar story. Same as Iraq and Kuwait.
When I leaned about the CIA spy ship, USS Liberty, and I learned that the US was giving the Egyptians realtime information on Israeli troop deployment, bases, military strength, etc., and I learned about Kissinger’s “let them bleed” policy, and I learned about Israel’s request to take out the Egyptians in ’73 being denied and Israel’s neck deliberately being put on the chopping block, I understood who and what the US gov really is. The US is NOT an ally or a friend of Israel, quite the opposite. And faster Jews and Israelis learn this and act accordingly, the better.
Reply to Turkle
You mention that everyone participates in modern society.
That is true, but there is still something shocking in seeing a person take an active role in raising awareness about Peak Oil and our general predicament, then turn around and write “But, hey, the planes were going to leave whether I was on them or not.”
I must wonder if Jim Kunstler is not embarrassed by the contradiction and attempted to pre-empt critical remarks with a vulgar put-down.
But perhaps that hypothetical embarrassment is the saving grace, the sign that he is aware of the contradiction and will probably think about it before buying a plane ticket. Who knows? Perhaps I am grasping at straws.
Ciao,
FB
There is one poster in particular (whose name rhymes with “bad”) who is constantly getting slapped down for his repugnant and off-topic race-baiting on every story. But like the Black Knight from the Holy Grail, he returns week after week to bite everyone’s knees off.
I haven’t seen any religious arguments on here lately, but I can start one if you like.
“Religion is bunk.” -Thomas Edison
How about it?
And ^the faster..
I have done that-to sheepishly get my own blog-Turkle:
http://sbillinghurst.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/black-necked-swan/
And I agree with whatever ctemple says next.
I was so fried I thought black was a color!
I just need one more pull to do this: Kunstler. It better work.
Oh hi, Vlad.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of other people is a tiresome game. Everyone is hypocritical to some degree or another. If your logic was followed to the nth degree, then one couldn’t eat, drive a car, or do almost anything in modern society, because everything is based on oil and other fossil fuels. The only way to completely divorce oneself from this system would be to hunt and gather in some wilderness (say northern Canada).
Anywho, I don’t see how believing in Peak Oil means that you shouldn’t use airplanes. Like I said previously, JHK believes (presumably) that jet planes are a good use for oil. After all, you cannot take a train to Australia. Perhaps you could get there by boat, but that would be a bit impractical.
JHK,
Loved the line, “Before we turned all of Southern California into a shrine to the goddess of free parking.”
I stayed far away from mall/parking lots during the Thanksgiving Weekend, and read the “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest” by Stieg Larsson. I needed to quietly recover from hosting my entire family for Thanksgiving.
My Mormon mom from Salt Lake City was here, and out of respect for her, we had a alcohol-free meal. China, linen, crystal…the works. I cooked for two days. Everything was cooked from scratch and since I had guests most of the day I made lots of fancy appetizers. I was shocked when my guests/family arrived with their DOGS! OMG! I was cooking with a pack of four dogs underfoot. At that point, I poured myself a quick shot of tequila to calm my soul. My well-educated family is turning into a bunch of hillbillies.
Last year, the four of us went to a Michelin-rated restaurant in Saratoga for Thanksgiving dinner. But lets face it, turkey is turkey no matter how you cook it up (Mine was hickory smoked on the Weber BBQ with rosemary and lemon).
———
This Wikileaks thing is a big disaster…especially the fact that the King of Saudi Arabia asked America multiple times to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. (Good thing we didn’t grant the King his wishes.) I’d like to throttle the twirp that betrayed the U.S. Hope he rots in jail.
Jen
(still in a snit about all the dogs)
Australia is the last “wild frontier” of Western Civilization. But they’re setting themselves up to be economically raped. Or at least, a few at the top are doing so. They have the playbook of the US western expansion to read from, and most of the plays boil down to “get in front, run like hell, take what you can get, and get out quick. Bonus points for not looking back.”
Annihilation in all its myriad manifestations is now the main export of the USA.
San Jose Mom 51:
That was a fun contribution to read. Were you channeling Erma Bombeck by any chance? 🙂
Reply to Turkle
I have already agreed that we all participate in modern society.
My point is that we should avoid excessive contradictions because they destroy credibility. That would be too bad because Jim Kunstler has some interesting things to say.
FB
Good post, as usual, JHK, but your last paragraph was a pathetic attempt to excuse your travelling. If you’re travelling to spread some awareness of our predicament, fine. But to say the plane would have gone with or without you is a non-argument. By taking such trips, you support such activity, similar to buying vegetables and fruit from far away places, out of season, supports an unsustainable world trade.
Tony: I’ve already given my life-time globe-hopping carbon credits to JHK and Al Gore. I will never fly, ever. Additionally I almost never drive and built an electric bicycle for my 30 mile commute. Yes it’s meaningless in the grand scheme, but these guys are making a difference that I cannot make, and I don’t begrudge them flying if they can spread the word or even just collect more material to share with the rest of us. Just my $.02 of course, not saying you are incorrect. Your point needs to be heard as well.
THE DANGERS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
so i was listening to A.M. radio last nite. turns out due to ‘fears’ of [gasp] racial profiling PORTLAND refused to work with the F.B.I. for many years to counter [muslim] terrorists..
and hahaha the 19 year old is a muslim immigrant who hates us!
hahahahahahah
Simon
The US has been psychopathic since Vietnam, playing the cultural & economic bully all roun the world, with nil recognition of its condition. Now, psychosis is setting in – a state of irrational blithering and paranoia, as the national cognitive dissonance starts to pull the seam apart.
you did mention the Illuminatis planned ‘kill off’…any more news?
and if they wanna live there why would they flood it with turd worlders?
Asia RE Portland:
Basic logic still applies; correlation does not indicate causation. The world remains largely a random walk.
what about the riots against the muslim rapists there?
the ‘we grew here / you flew here’ signs?
American women. I’ve been thinking about this awhile now. Goddamn if there is not an epidemic of fugliness in this country, that goes straight to the bone. I guess I’m old fashioned. I think inner beauty is something special. But somewhere around 30, modern women just fall apart mentally. They are not prepared to age well, or at all, really. Fashion never ages, in fact, it ages in reverse, getting younger every year. Even the Au naturel woman you assume would be mentally solid is a closet case. They’re ALL CRAZY! (Thanks to a female friend for validating this.)
Plastic surgery seems an economical option if you’re not going to eat right, exercise, and buy cosmetics and fat-hiding fashion accessories in huge quantities.
So what’s wrong with “Bridalplasty”? They’re doing it for themselves. This is self-empowerment at its purest. Ostensibly the husband-to-be already agreed to get married, right? This is just her gift to herself so she can push the moment of betrothal to ecstatic heights of personal fulfillment.
Women that get P.S. love the result. They certainly have the best of both worlds: indiscriminate unhealthiness of the mental and physical variety, and more and more reasons to spend more time obsessing about themselves, which is their primary activity in life, in front of the mirrors: the bathroom mirror, rear-view mirror, compact mirror, reflecting shop-glass mirror, facebook, twitter, etc…
By the way, one of the reason America is short of general practitioners is because a plastic surgeon can clear a million dollars a year. Do you have any idea of the proportion of fabric-covered titties you see everyday are the product of these operations? Imagine if you owned a pair of these. You’d play with yourself all day.
LMAO.
it is indeed ironic that a champion of local living, fierce critic of far-flung suburbs, should, in his celebrity, end up traveling more in a year than I will ever in my whole life. rather than discourage the travel, i encourage a compassionate reconsideration of suburbanites, for they are just doing their jobs, too. they, too, make difficult decisions between “bad” and “also bad”. and you could take it a little easier on us southerners, while you are at it 🙂 we will all live contradictions, in some fashion or another, and our own contradictions are a call to compassion for others contradictions – and it is compassion that will make this world a better place, for us, our neighbors and for friends on the other side of the planet.
Cash, I don’t claim to understand all the variables. Don’t know who could. The Arctic thaw, the Great Conveyor, the Milankovich calculus…too big for me. But what I think is that 99% of recorded human transactions have taken place since the last ice age ended, and we have gotten way too big for our britches over the last 10,000 years. I don’t think it would take much to shock the system. We’re due for the next round, and there are so many positive feedback loops developing in the climate cycles, that something is bound to give. I just think that when it does, the Earth will precipitate our nonsense out of its geologic solution with snow and ice.
But I’m preparing for both; no one can know how this one will go. I just think our species has grown mighty complacent with this nice weather we’ve been having for the last 12,000 years or so. As for JHK, I don’t know how much credence he gives the ice age scenario, but this essay seems to suggest that it’s a conscious consideration in his calculus anyway.
I think it’s worth mention if for no other reason than to help keep everyone from stampeding north and trampling you guys like it was Black Friday at Mal-Wart!
As you’re well aware, we evolved near the equator where temps are milder, and were only able to move into the temperate latitudes because of improvements in technology. But sustaining those niceties in such a forbidding environment is expensive energetically, as I think Vlad would be quick to second these days. We keep our entire house warm enough with a small cabinet infrared heater. So, in classic energy descent fashion, I think we’ll slowly move back to places that require less energy to maintain a basic physical comfort level, put out a little by the summer heat or not.
“I applaud the bull who jumped the stands in Spain and caused mayhem. I respect the Massai warriors who used to go out and fight a lion with just a spear. Now that is an accomplishment.”
I can agree with that. This fight was unfair though, pig against .22 to the forehead. I didn’t do it, wasn’t my pig, but I can assure you I thanked the pig for her sacrifice. Just didn’t want to garble the story up too much in a small space.
I did mention while we were preparing the hog that America would probably be full of vegetarians if we were all responsible for killing the meat we eat. Only seems right to me to be in close contact with that facet of my existence. But surely only the most demented among us would enjoy killing.
“So bugger off!”
Glad to see you picked up some of the local lingo when you were down here, JHK, ya bastard (that’s a term of endearment BTW). I would also have accepted: “Get a dog up ya, ya wowsers!”.
Mika, thanks for this link which you gave me yesterday, and of which I read a little. Most people say that when one gets old they dwell more in the past. I’m wondering if that’s untrue. As one gets older and older, the more one has dealt with the everyday issues of staying alive – to the point that the mind has gotten used to thinking about the present, and not so much the past.
I say this to you because I wrote that the US Constitution was a good idea. Of course that’s not true. Reading that link reminded me of my 1960’s roots. I learned then that the American Revolution – as described in American history books – was a sanitized version of what really happened. I just forgot.
I’m going to read the whole book a little at a time so I can pick up some tidbits I don’t know. Thank you for reminding me of what I forgot.
That being said, I might agree with one of the Founding Fathers’ basic tenets: That the masses are not capable of making intelligent decisions for themselves. Readers of this blog lament that the populace allows all the stuff that’s going down now to continue happening, and ask why they do. I have a theory about that, but I’ll put it in another post later.
That the elite, who really rule, are bringing down the house all over the world shows me that they aren’t really rational – why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? So if both the elite and the masses aren’t capable to run things, who is?
May you RIP, Frank Drebin.
In terms of fuel consumed to move one passenger 1000 miles:
A loaded commercial aircraft is more efficient per mile than either a passenger car or a BUS.
A loaded commercial aircraft is only slightly less efficient than commuter rail.
And a loaded commercial aircraft is MUCH more efficient than a passenger ship.
Look it up yourselves, if you don’t believe it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation
Of course, none of these things will move without fuel, but that’s another question.
John Foster Dulles envisioned a monolithic world Communism. So, the SEATO Treaty. That led to our involvement there–fully justified by the treaty. After the war, the new Vietnamese government admitted that they had indeed been doing a sub-rosa job of invading, even in the JFK era; Nixon was factually correct about that, even though his numbers were less than the actual.
The ice age idea comes from the possibility of melt-water from the Arctic diverting the Gulf Stream farther south of the present path of the current. The colder water is denser and would act as a barrier. The Gulf Stream’s warm waters keep Britain from having s climate more like that of Scandanavia.
And “Corona” beer is to Mexicans, what Busch Light is to us. Oh, that’s right, most Americans now love Pat Piss Light beer.
Tritto !!!
We got us a doosey who brings her “precious” bull dog to work. Nothing is more pathetic than watching a grown woman (and major ass-kisser) wipe her dog’s ass with the boss cooing over the two of them. I feel your pain.
Here is a situation that I wanted Jim to be aware of. The Governor elect of Ohio has just canceled a program which would have provided rail services to the major metropolitan areas of Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. This would have probably provided rail services to other areas in Ohio as time went by. I couldn’t believe it when Governor elect John Kasich asked Washington to allow him to cancel Ohio’s program and let him give back millions of dollars to Washington. Now, other states are competing for this money. This is the typical Republican agenda. Save money when it benefits the middle class and poor, but spend, spend, spend when it benefits the Elite and Rich.
Jim, the Australian economy hums along purely on debt and disposable income…when these forces are contracted in the very near future you’ll see 50% unemployment because our workforce purely services the housing sector only..the dirt in the ground only supports US/European demand and when that starts its terminal decline Australia will default.
Remember the scene from the movie “Road Warrior” set in post-collapse Australia where the survivors fight it out on the highways of the Outback and scavenge for gasoline? I like the scene at the opening of the film where Max (played by Mel “Anti-Semitic” Gibson) has the pedal-to-the-metal and is eating out of a can of dog food while his mongrel dog looks on licking his chops. The Thanksgiving Dinner of the future.
“From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thankful
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you’ll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you — for everything.
I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
Max: “Yah wanna get outta here?! Talk to me.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4TdPxOXuYw
I see that Barack’s got the CIA’s patented new “Crap-Master 2000” propaganda mega-phone:
“From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thankful
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you’ll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you — for everything.
I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
Jen said: “This Wikileaks thing is a big disaster”
If you haven’t done something wrong, you have nothing to fear from Wikileaks.
This Wikileaks thing is good for openness.
Wikileak info-dumps have revealed Pentagon war crimes and State Dept. lies and hypocrisy.
Next Wikileaks is going to reveal the manipulations and crimes behind the financial industries dealings and criminal bank behavior.
And after the Pentagon, the State Dept., and the Finance Sector, Wikileaks will continue to bring sunlight to the dark doings of criminals and sociopaths.
If you haven’t engaged in wrongdoing, you have nothing to fear from Wikileaks. Clinton, Bush, Obama and the banker boys have plenty to fear.
Now I have to get back to correcting Wikipedia articles that are biased, full of errors, and unsourced.
D’oh!
Kunstlercast #135: The Long Emergency Down-Under
Well, that answers me own query, I’d say. ;o)
On to some buggery or ‘nother…
Excellent comment Bustin .. top to bottom.
Jen said: “This Wikileaks thing is a big disaster”
—
American foreign policy is the disaster. Wikileaks is just shining a flashlight into the cesspool.
If we are so ashamed and concerned about the behavior being uncovered, why not be angry at the perpetrators rather than the organization/person who brings these actions to light?
“That the elite, who really rule, are bringing down the house all over the world”
This assumes someone or something is “in charge” of the house in the first place, which is a big assumption. The real world is more like anarchy, over which no single person has much control.
Take, for instance, the housing meltdown and the financial crisis. No one person or organization caused these. They were the result of the combined actions of millions of people.
Ditto with problems like resource depletion, pollution, etc.
Yeah, just like the forests. If we don’t log them someone else will, so what the hell.
I am a born and bred Aussie, living in the hinterland outside Adelaide, South Australia. We don’t worship “seppos” over here these days. “Seppos” as in septic tanks, as in Yanks, as in North Americans. Those of you who have visited parts of Australia many years ago would see changes. We don’t worship you, but our entertainment culture very much emulates the US – the big TV networks import a lot of the US shows and it seems everyone is celebrity and reality TV mad. To be honest, we hardly ever see American tourists. All the tourists are German or Netherland backpackers or WWOOFers. Plus there’s still a fair crop of Kiwis who can live and work here without a passport.
It’s not all rosy in the land downunder. We are one of the most urbanised nations on earth. Over 80% of Aussies live in our capital cities or the suburban wasteland surrounding them. We very much embraced the post war prosperity era “ideal” of personal car ownership and quarter acre blocks in the burbs. Adelaide, a city of just over 1 million, had a fantastic light rail hub and spoke network along all major arterial roads from the CBD (Downtown to seppos) until they ripped it up in the 50s and 60s. People complained that the trams slowed down progress for the cars and the overhead power cables were ugly. Well, there’s nothing uglier than ten thousand cars idling in the city gridlock twice a day.
Most of our politicians don’t believe human induced climate change is real, let alone wanting to do something about it. There’s a dual economy in full swing here. One economy is our resources activities. We are China’s mining bitch, no doubt about it. People in any way connected with digging stuff out of the ground and shipping it to China are making loads of cash and flinging it around with worrying abandon. Our other economy is smaller, more subdued and shows cracks in the foundations. This is the western services economy, which is a much smaller version of the teetering dinosaur that is the US economy. Manufacturing and trades are in decline. We are half a nation of small businesses, all fighting for a shrinking slice of the hairdressing, nail polishing, travel consultant, garden maintenance, dog washing action.
As Jim astutely observed, our housing bubble has yet to burst. Many families are paying more than 30% of household income in mortgage payments. Our shipping, like the US, is largely by diesel truck, or Road Train as we call the bigger ones. We do still have a functioning national rail system, but it’s a shadow of it’s pre WW2 former self.
We have over 50% of the world’s known Uranium deposits, but we don’t process or use it to generate electricity. We sell it as ore on the international market. We have huge deposits of rare earth metals but these have been undeveloped in the past. With China now hoarding all of theirs, this will be the next resources boom for Australia, particularly in selling to Japan. But we will not capitalise on this by building a high tech manufacturing industry, we’ll just dig them up and sell them.
Per capita energy and water use is second only to the US. We build desalination plants which use huge energy inputs, while rainwater gushes out to sea from stormwater runoff.
We lock up asylum seekers (refugees) who arrive by boat from Indonesia in overcrowded detention centres for up to two years while we reject their claims.
And we have exhausted much of our arable topsoil around the capital cities with too much tree clearing and too much monoculture grain production.
We are affable, friendly and easy going. We remind Americans of life in the states in the 1970s.
There are glimmers of hope emerging. The federal govt has commissioned a transport and sustainable city makeover study. In my state, the govt has articulated a 30 year plan including transit oriented development and walkable hub cities with mixed use zoning. This is in the early stages of public awareness, but I hold hope for a better future. I was able to afford 50 acres of prime farmland in a high rainfall area within 1 hour’s commute of the city here in Adelaide, so there are opportunities for those who think outside the affluenza box.
America has excellent freshwater prospects. If you live on a river or great lake, stay put, learn to grow your own food and get to know your neighbours. You’ll probably survive.
Well, just got back from a long day working on site, so I hope I don’t repeat anything already said.
Economist Michael Hudson has been trying to help countries who have been ensnared by this pernicious global system of debt for the last two years. He has suggested that these countries don’t get themselves into debt peonage, but it looks like this is the next stage of neoliberalism: austerity while the international banksters enjoy the wealth created by the debt of others.
One can only hope that everybody wakes up and rejects this system and call it what it is.
Max Keiser also had an Australian economist last spring talking about their own mortgage nightmare. Not surprised to hear about it.
WikiLeaks “Betrayed the US”??? Excuse me, but I don’t consider that a betrayal. I think he is a modern-day hero. Thank God for the Internet and for people who are willing to take the risk to expose the insanity that goes on in our governments.
What to call people from Perth?
Good students of Oz would realize that they are called “sand gropers”.
Don’t ever underestimate how resourceful we are over here. It would be a great place to end up marooned on the beach. We’d probably just organize a big beach party – so long as it included great food and beach cricket we’d be fine.
Nah, SA beaches would be better eating. We’ve got a massive glut of Rock Lobsters now that China has banned Australian Lobster imports. Turns out we export the vast majority of Lobster to those guys. Now our industry will collapse. Oops! But a big win for the Lobster population then…
Hello there, Nathan. I’m your Canadian cousin, and I commented earlier in the day that since we’re fellow members of the Commonwealth, I feel a connection to your country. After reading your post I am even more convinced. Your description of Australia could apply to Canada too. We have vast resources that we simply export rather than use to develop our own industry. We are willing followers of all American follies and most of our politicians have their heads in the tundra when it comes to either climate change or Peak Oil.
We love our big cars and monster homes and shopping malls, Wal Mart especially, just like the USA. We’d rather open another beer than think about the future and we lock up our refugees too, even the ones that have crossed the Pacific Ocean in leaky rusty tankers to get here.
Seventy five percent of us live on the southern edge of the border, right next door to the USA. I’m sure the climate had something to do with that in the past, although now it may just be for easier access to the cheaper junk we can buy down there on our weekend trips.
We will all pay dearly for our wasteful and unthinking excesses, no matter where we live. Good luck with your farm though, it should sustain you for the forseeable future. I’m just glad I live on the shore of Lake Ontario, we won’t run out of fresh water anytime soon either.
Turkle, while no single person is in charge, those that set policy, particularly in the private sector, act in concert. For instance, in the mortgage quagmire, of which I am fairly knowledgable, one lender makes a decision to lower their underwriting standards and soon has a great influx of business. Other lenders see this, so to compete, they too similarly lower underwriting standards. Soon every major lender is doing it, and we have a runaway market doomed to crash. But who made these decisions? Very high-level executives. All the big lenders didn’t sit down to plan this together, it just happened, as a logical conclusion.
Just to clear something up. Viet-Nam was about PROFITS for the ruling, banker elite. JFK was going to cut into the PROFITS, so he had to go. Warfare means PROFITS for the plutocrats of America. Nothing else. Endless war, endless PROFITS.
I think the 23 year old army guy that gave it to Wikileaks is a complete jerk.
If I told my best friend about the truly horrible cooking abilities of mother-in-law, I wouldn’t
want it blabbed to the world.
Honest to God, when we visited the mid-west in the summer, someone gave her some freshly picked green beans and she proceeded to BOIL them for an hour. I could go on and on about her strange ideas about what should be in the fridge. In my world, I am permitted to break the speeding laws on a hot day in order to get fish and poultry from the store into my fridge. Grandma doesn’t have to deal with my kids as barf in a 737 because of food poisoning. I think perhaps my in-laws have developed a third-world tolerance of bacteria. We certainly haven’t. :0
Jen
In a million, billion years, I am sure they don’t read this blog!
That being said, I might agree with one of the Founding Fathers’ basic tenets: That the masses are not capable of making intelligent decisions for themselves. Readers of this blog lament that the populace allows all the stuff that’s going down now to continue happening, and ask why they do. I have a theory about that, but I’ll put it in another post later.
==
Bill, that kind of thinking leads to where we are today. That’s what that book is all about. (I’ve posted an even better pdf version. See my NOVEMBER 29, 2010 12:23 PM). I’m one of those readers on this blog that not only laments the general apathy of the US population, but also lambastes it on a regular basis. People are starting to awaken, there’s no doubt about it.
Btw, WikiLeaks smells to me as a CIA con job. As does San Jose Mom 51.
To the other Aussies on here. Stop spruiking Australia. Thanks. Not all roses here for 15 years at least.
Thanks Jim for not lambasting a certain car breakdown.
Endless war, endless PROFITS.
==
And with endless war and endless profits, comes endless debt and endless slavery.
The news is trying to spin the Black Friday numbers as good news. Black Friday, Black Swan…
I just got a full time job after 17 months unemployed, I even got more money than the last one. But I am Wang Lung now, saving my silver coins in a hole in my wall. I won’t spend what I don’t have to. But I am afraid, it’s too late to try and sew a parachute.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Hulu – Dirt! The Movie – Watch the full feature film now.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/191666/dirt-the-movie
Well everywhere I’ve gone over the last couple of years were cutting back on city services. Bet Chicago is no different. You may well see basic services fail – the garbage six feet high on the steets after a couple of weeks. And then the rats, yes the rats Laura. They will grow as big as cats. And the police will go on strike and then the gangs, yes the gangs. Middle class people (Whites) will be hunted through frozen trash filled streets. This is my vision – it will come true sooner rather than later. If you wait too long to get out, you wont be able to. Maybe you could get a small boat to escape in since you live so close to the Lake.
You just don’t like me talking to other women.
He is like King Louis of France who was King when the Revolution hit. He liked to fix clocks. Charles is an avid gardener – watched his special on organic gardening last week.
Caste usally follows descent but not always. Sometimes sudras (workers) are born to Kshyatria families and vice versa. If Louis was a sudra, Charles would be a vaisya or farmer. The true, ancient caste system determined caste by manifested quality not by birth alone.
Escape from Chicago, starring Vlad Kraps.
Escape from Chicago, starring Vlad Kraps.
==
And Popa (ass is Russian) Ratzinger.
Soylent,
I definitely wouldn’t say I “spruiked” Australia. And you’ve illustrated one of my points. A more American word than Spruiked might be hard to come up with on short notice.
What’s the point of promoting a place when:
1. We have quite enough people here already thanks very much.
2. Our immigration policy wouldn’t allow the average yank to stay here anyway.
It’d just be mean. I wanted to point out that wherever you find yourself, perhaps it’s best to put down roots and do what you can to make that place a happy existence for you and yours.
“Bet Chicago is no different.”
Because you think Chicago is on the Mississippi River, I’m going to assume you haven’t got a clue about anything else that goes on there.
“You just don’t like me talking to other women.”
I’ll mail order you a woman if you quite posting to this blog. Deal?
Welcome back, Seb.
“I agree with whatever Turkle is going to say next.”
You made my day!
Even if you are being completely sarcastic.
Which I suspect you are.
Quite true – if you are going to eat meat, killing it yourself is more righteous. Squeamishness is not an adequate moral principle.
I’m glad you shot the pig in the head – nothing is crueler than the kosher/halal cutting of the throat and letting the animal bleed out while alive.
Jim… I am so grateful to you for not blithering on and on about Sydney, thankyou, thankyou, Jim… I begged you a few weeks back and you complied, oh thankyou, Jim..
And please, Jim.. no more about Australia… we like to keep ourselves to ourselves, and reading some of the truly outlandish comments from americans about Australia on this blog, it looks like we are succeeding at that. I just don’t think any country on earth can afford to have Americans eyeing it off as some sort of escape or new frontier or whatever americans are calling the rat run these days..
So .. back to AMERICAN problems, please , Jimmy. So much more wierd and wonky for a days read.
But the populace has allowed everything that’s happened for the past 220 years. Sorry, but I don’t have the faith to believe in the masses. I’m not sure I have the faith to believe in any group to competently straighten things out.
Yeah, the US citizenry might rise up and throw out (or worse) the bad guys, but do they have the ability to establish a true democracy?
Good question – you think that they’d moderate their actions so as to maintain some standard of living for the average person in society. After all, they like to leave their kids in places like Cambridge, Ma or New Haven, Ct. And they themselves like to come into town now and then for the symphony or to go shopping. If things keep progressing as they are, they wont be able to much longer. The Central and South American gangs specialize in kidnapping. And undoubtedly, the Blacks will pick it up from them as well. Perhaps it really is “endgame” and they accept that the world as we know it is almost over with.
Check out this video from Dr Duke about the Zionist role in the takeover of Europe. It has an interesting segment about Jared Diamond’s hypocrisy.
http://www.davidduke.com/general/new-duke-video-how-zionists-divide-and-conquer_20489.html
Hey little guy Mika (short for Mikro?),
Yea, I’m in the CIA….Culinary Institute of America.
Who the fuck cares if you were “first”? Seriously?
James, if I knew you were in town I would have invited you over to my permaculture pad, in this sandy, sunny and solitary State (of WA) for a cuppa and a biscuit.
Don’t want to pick nits (unfortunately, I just can’t help myself), but Perth is the second most isolated capital city (with a population over 1 million). Auckland, New Zealand, is the remotest capital city in the world, being 14 kms further away from Sydney, as the crow flies, than Perth is from its nearest large neighbour, Adelaide. New Zealand is known as the land of the long white cloud, but Oz is definitely the land of the long weekend, with Aussies generally being a lazy mob, compared to folks in other parts of the world.
“I rather expect the eco-ayatollahs to take a dim view of all my travels lately. But, hey, the planes were going to leave whether I was on them or not.”
Holy crap. Did Kunstler actually SAY that??
Isn’t that kind of like saying that it’s OK to buy some of the last remaining fish from badly-depleted, over-harvested, endangered fisheries that are on the verge of collapse, because, well … “the fish they sell are already dead, whether I buy them or not!”
Yeah, right.
It’s easy to feel superior to anyone who dares question you, though, by simply calling them an “eco-ayatollah”. Take that, all you bastards who actually try to live your lives as if it has an effect on our planet!
Saw your comment on last week’s post, Tripp. Left one there for you as well.
But the populace has allowed everything that’s happened for the past 220 years.
==
That’s true. 300 millions people and 2 political parties, which are really one political for the corporate and money elite. WTF! There needs to be a change in culture. I’ve already said that. A cleansing with hellfire and an awaking.
But,..
“Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? It’s quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer, and why they should buy harmony with their suffering.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
You stink.
..2 political parties, which are really one political ^party for the corporate and money elite..
Auckland (my home town) is not the capital of NZ, Wellington is (and has under 1m people). And despite Australia’s national myths, I seem to recall it actually comes out fairly high on the hours worked per year league chart.
You should have stayed.
Yeah, the US citizenry might rise up and throw out (or worse) the bad guys, but do they have the ability to establish a true democracy?
==
I think the best solution is that of the old City State. Mega cities will need to be carved into smaller cities. Very importantly, people need to learn about and understand the Central Banking Warfare/Welfare model. This is a very important mechanism by which imperialism functions.
Debunking Money (part 1):
Money, Myth, and Machiavelli
Council on Renewal
– http://goo.gl/mrmm
I just left a message at the end of last week’s post for cavepainter, responding to his rigid ideas about “sovereignty” “citizenry” and “democracy” re: “illegals”
Shouldn’t there have been a subject in that sentence Mr. Shtik, like: that was a good comment Bustin, or I think that was a good comment Bustin?
JHK,
No more Monday Mornings.
You are an Artist.
POST at your will.
When inspiration strikes.
That should give the ol’ “First” some real internet meaning.
Sorry to interject here folks, I know we’re in the ‘happy hour’ phase of comments where the regulars roost.
But I’ve been doing a Google Search for the term “Riots” for a few weeks and I’m compiling a chart. Last Monday it returned 440,000 results. This week-532,000 results. A trend? Lemme see here…
Hold on guys- This email just came in from Mr. Ben S. Bernanke:
This is to inform you that a Bailout fund amounting to US$ 4.5 Million United States Dollars in your name is approved and ready for payment release to you as the beneficiary of the Fund.
view attached message for full details and get back to me. Thanks
Well, if this is true, I’ve achieved the American dream version 2010, and as Jimmy Morrison used to say at some of his live shows “I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames”
Americans don’t know how to riot anymore. We turn political outrage into looting, in other words, a shopping spree. Even French pansies know how to do it. They shut down their entire country, because of some pension modifications. You can take away habeas corpus from Americans and send them to die in some ME hellhole, and they’ll just yawn and go back to watching “Dancing with the Stars.”
I agree with you, Solar Dude. This whole Monday morning thing is a bit quaint, like we’re reading some meat space periodical that comes out once a week.
Everything is explained in William Catton’s “Overshoot” book. Read it and weep, clusterfuckers.
No, but seriously-
If you buckle down and create a homestead taking all the factors in about PO and it’s attendant social implications, and you marry a woman who is completely signed on and is in fact a self-described survivalist- be real careful. Unintended consequences indeed.
@Pucker – Obama’s “Thankful”
The freedoms and security we enjoy?
I see the Patriot Act as the Sedition Laws (under 2nd president John Adams) dressed in new clothing. TSA is now extending their tentacles into all public transit systems (trains and buses). And if you complain you are going to be treated as a domestic terrorist and sent to FEMA gulag? I do see it coming. Meanwhile the sheeple are sleepwalking their way into facism. I no longer fly. If I can’t drive I don’t need to go. If I weren’t old and in bad health I would either localize or join a sucession movement. Probably both. I agree with previous posts. We lost our grit and guts after the sixties. I must admit, I do miss the sixties.
Jill in Berkeley
Hey Tripp, can you recommend this book?
Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett Markham
Here is a summary of its content? Have you read it?
Actually, if enough people quit flying the airlines will cancel flights.
You got it Bill – if the Founders were alive today they would be considered Fascists with all their talk of tradition, duty, and love of country. And Democracy? Merely a part of the Republican system. They loathed the idea of a Democracy per se as you indicate. Not everyone is loyal enough or educated enough to vote. As Aristotle said long ago, a degree of leisure is necessary as well to keep up with the issues. And of course that ties in with having money. The poor are natural democrats always ready to bankrupt the treasury if allowed to. They should not be allowed to vote until they better themselves. Citizenship is something to be earned on the battle field, in the classroom, and in the workplace. If you allow everyone to vote, you get what we got – a system which elects corporate shills like Bush and Obama. Democracy comes down to rule by the mob – and the those who control the mob.
Lets not get all misty eyed about the 1960s.
Wikileaks is this generation’s weather underground.
Thats a hell of a pipe bomb you’ve got there, Julian 😀
(pfc. Bradley) Manning told his correspondent Adrian Lamo, who subsequently denounced him to the authorities: “Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public … Everywhere there’s a US post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. Worldwide anarchy in CSV format … It’s beautiful, and horrifying.”
Wikileaks, 11/30/2010
Vlad, I’ve noticed that people who isolate themselves from the larger society as you do tend to be very paranoid and prone to lurid “Mad Max” fantasies of chaos and violence in the big cities. I don’t believe things will play out this way, but I do believe that people will realize how threatened they are and at last act to preserve their communities. Right now, they think it’s someone else’s job to maintain order and assure their safety in their houses and neighborhoods, but as this country deteriorates materially, they will realize that if they don’t take care of their own communities themselves, that no one else will, and will become much more “proactive” in defending their cities from the kind of elements you’re talking about, and that I encounter once in a while.
Chicago’s recent spate of violence directed against the police (6 dead in the past year!), combined with the financial difficulties this formerly well-managed city is having because of massive diversions of public monies to private purposes via TIF financing and other “gimmes” for the connected, has at last shaken our population out of its complacency and apathy.
The city will no doubt suffer reduction in services when things grow tight, but everyone will be suffering everywhere. We’re all preparing for a major belt-tightening, and to do more ourselves. Certain things will cost more and maybe they should have all along. Time to meter water for single family homes whose owners let the sprinklers run all night in rainy weather, and why not, since multi-family buildings have been paying for metered water forever. Same with trash collection- time to charge home owners by the dumpster, since larger properties have always had to engage private haulers.
As for the violence and the gangs- it’s amazing how the gangbangers run scared from any real show of force. Middle-class people are mostly not bothered even when they live close by gang activity, as I do, where I rarely see these losers except in certain pockets of the area. These guys are interested only in each other and in controlling their “turf” as it relates to their illegal commerce, mostly in drugs. 90% of the killings in this city are gang members killing each other, which is why so many citizens are so complacent about the shootings here. I am not- letting these guys “just kill each other off” means allowing them to make their own laws, and we should not be surprised when they get out of control.
I have a feeling that as our difficulties increase, our “normal” population will be less and less tolerant of the crap, like gang violence, that never seemed relevant before because most of it takes place down in the “wild 100s” neighborhood, or in some other pocket of the city where I almost never go, or only between gangers. People will demand, and get, more civil order because they won’t be able to insulate themselves from it as easily as they could in more affluent times.
hope you got to meet The Doctor!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremantle_Doctor
I wish I could write prose which only fits in a small space, like a pill.
Qshtick, thank you so much for singing my praises late last week.
Q, you had asked for the reason I was banned, and how I was able to rejoin under my same name. There is no slot on this website for the reason. Reasons are often given on sites with moderators, though, but this one has a single owner. I estimate that the reason was that Kunstler got fed up. He banned a lot of ppl that day. In future, we must consider Mr. Kunstler’s pet peeves. You cannot just trash him or the Jewish side of his culture, threaten to assault him, or come out clearly in need of psychiatric help. He has these spindly little projecting nerve endings, like an amoeba. He is actually “author and blogger James Howard Kunstler”. That’s what it says above the door on his cage.
My soap opera life has taken a bad turn where I now drink. I always sober up, but the moment for responding to another post is right away, not removed until later. I like rhubarbs, but JHK wins those from his superior angle on it, saying this week for example that he is “bored” with the fighting that we supposedly do in the comments section. You are not to be bored; that’s the worst thing you can do. You are supposed to get mad, and saying you are bored makes me madder still.
I got up this morning early because my wife and son vs. myself do not live in the same place, and she put me on ice, saying she doesn’t want me there every day. I mean, the economic downturn is real. There are a million tragedies, right? That’s the subject of this blog, how we are in a free-fall zone, spending like crazy, and about to eat shit. I’ll sit on unemployment for two years, okay first, not that I was drinking when I was laid off. I was unemployed, not self-employed like Jim, I am a father, and my self-respect can only take so much. I got cancer. What did you expect, that Kunstler was just blowing smoke up your ass? So, my oncologist put me on Vikodin and Oxycodone. Yum-yum, I wish I was Rush Limbaugh. I sold most of the pills, but the few I took put a dent in my sobriety. The rest was history. You can’t make a normal drinker out of an alcoholic.
Now at 8 a.m. I have to call in order to rip someone a new one. Did you know that insurance doesn’t cover it all? They used a quarter-mil to put the cancer in a nascent state, now I am not really here, literally, living on borrowed time. They want $9,000 and I have news for them.
Imagine the struggle for the right to die. Oh boy, I told them I want the death without pain (you know, “the”? I think I’ll have the truffles with white wine sauce you mentioned?). Nah, not doctors and hospitals. They’d all rather I see the shrink who can help me with my issues, when actually … what can I say? They intervene, they lock you up. I’ve seen this movie before.
I liked the football player who dropped the game-winning pass. He was interviewed using the second person (“You drop the ball!”. Can’t you say, “I dropped the ball”?). Then he is tweeting to God, sayin’ why you wanna do me lahk dis?
Ah, Qshtick, it’s going to be one of my good days, know whutta mean, because of you. FYI, the common internet usage of B& for banned, I tried it, like I might try, from me 2 U, and these are powerful good, a powerful force for good in the world. So is Julian Assange, but, hackers of course try to make the internet indispensable. It’s all where your system of orientation and devotion take you (until you discover there’s only your body, the one minor flaw in The Plan), along with of course the size of your pupils, and whether you are cognizant of set, setting and expectation.
B& has the additional punchline of V&, for vanned, which is the real-life equivalent of banned, meaning arrested.
There exists a book of these, but I can make a weapon out of a thick book, or a pencil, so…
I saw Zbig Brzezinsky on PBS where they were talking about the effects and implications of the wikileaks. He said it’s catastrophic but not serious.
He also said that he suspected intelligence agency involvement somewhere in the leakage process, manipulating it to the advantage of some country or other.
I don’t think he meant CIA but rather a non American spy agency. He said that what pointed to spy agency involvement was that certain of the disclosures were emphasized like the Chinese saying that North Korea was economically finished, that a few years after the current leader dies it will collapse and that it should be reunified with South Korea under South Korean leadership. He said that maybe these spooks were seeding wikileaks.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec10/weakileaks2_11-29.html
Thanks for the link, A.
Anything with [the extremely bright] Vandana Shiva in it is very much worth a look!
The US is NOT an ally or a friend of Israel, quite the opposite. And faster Jews and Israelis learn this and act accordingly, the better.
– Mika
You can trust Americans to look after themselves first. I’ve said for a long time that Israelis have to develop the military and economic wherewithal to survive on their own.
I agree, Iran is an economic basket case but the problem is it’s run by loons. Or so it seems to me. Do you trust nukes in the hands of loons? Maybe Israelis misjudged Iran. Maybe Israelis doubt they have the strength or the national will to deal with Iran.
Seems to me there’s a tug of war there between Beards that want to go back to the 1100s and non Beards that want to move forward. I think the average non Beard there might get in the street and chant Death to America but if you ask him in private where he wants to live or go to school and what do they say? New Jersey. So I think there’s hope. But I think there’s also peril.
The ancient Greeks, Romans and Byzantines all fought the Persians and we’re still at it 2500 years later. People change their costumes but nothing much changes. The Persians are really tough guys and I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll be going at it tooth and nail with them a thousand years from now.
“I saw Zbig Brzezinsky on PBS where they were talking about the effects and implications of the wikileaks. He said it’s catastrophic but not serious.” -Cash
That would mean it’s a very “bad” thing for the oligarchs. If this sum’bitch tells you everything is going swimmingly, check your chest for laser-sighting dots.
BTW, glad to hear he’s keeping his name out there [for future reference]. His “grand chessboard” needs a right good kicking over.
“…[Zbiggy] said that maybe these spooks were seeding wikileaks.” -Cash
Ha! Classic! I’m thinking he knows whereof he speaks (if you get my drift). That is so typical of nasty bastards: accuse others of what you do yourself, thereby deflecting focus and accountability.
‘Ever notice how the same actors keep showing up to “educate” us plebes about the “dangerous world” out there, and how we desperately “need” them to keep us huddled masses “safe”? Christers, they’ve been around since freaking NIXON, and won’t go away! (Somebody get me Unka Donny Rumsfeld on the blower…)
How in the hell do these guys live so long??? A deal with the Devil, or something worse?
Ps. Oz-dwellers, beware of showing up on “folks” like Zbiggy’s radar screens; it literally means death and destruction (and lots of it). If you’re gonna supply the Chinese, get quiet about it.
Geez Ozone you’re so cynical.
I agree there’s no clean hands out there. I laugh when I hear the term “international law”. I think the term “war crime” is even funnier. Bush “illegally” invaded Iraq? Convulses me, I roll on the floor.
To me the international arena is a big school yard with no adult supervision, where absolutely anything goes, and all the schoolboys are armed psychopaths. There’s two things that matter out there and that’s money and guns. Money to buy off your rivals and guns to kill them if they don’t stay bribed.
I don’t know who the wikileaks folks are but if I were them I’d hide out. They’ve pissed off a lot of really nasty people.
I did a quick search: “WikiLeaks CIA”
Came up with this:
YouTube – Is WikiLeaks A CIA Operation? 1/3 – http://goo.gl/BwJvO
I listened to all 3 parts. It pretty much mirrors my thinking on the subject.
You can trust Americans to look after themselves first. I’ve said for a long time that Israelis have to develop the military and economic wherewithal to survive on their own.
==
Every time Israel tries, the US deliberately suffocates that effort.
One thing I have to disagree with Kunstler on.
Shale gas is real. What is the consequence?
The Long Emergency will be postponed for 2-3 decades.
Assuming of course that the US hasn’t become such a total idiocracy that we are too clueless to even make the small changes needed to retrofit a gasoline-based transportation system to natural gas based.
… join a sucession movement.
========
secession
ATTENTION ALL CFNers:
Go to Dictionary.com and read the definitions and spelling for succeed and secede and various offshoot words. Also, click on the little horn symbol and listen to these words properly spoken.
I will try my best to resist making corrections involving these two words in the future. – Q
Shouldn’t there have been a subject in that sentence Mr. Shtik
==========
Good point Ctemp;o)
He said it’s catastrophic but not serious
==========
I hope the interviewer had the good sense to ask for an explanation of that sentence.
Soak, I haven’t read it, or even heard of it. From the synopsis it sounds like a good overview and teaser for the self-reliant lifestyle, although I can’t imagine covering all the topics it mentions in any kind of detail. That’s pretty much what I’m shooting for: 80-90% food self-reliance and the equivalent of 10-20k in income from the land. Although we’re trying to upgrade our land holdings from 1/4 acre to 5 acres with a pond.
No need to make more though just because we have more land, since money is energy, and I just don’t want to spend it.
I’d say to check it out!
It’s pronounced the same, and/but, it is SEB, because (it’s directed energy), I go with the initials of a lot of people—one of them is Thomas Alva Edison (TAE)—such that they can lurk within text, accidently. Someone mentions TAE, this week or last, on a converstation-starter, but the word “bunk” is so far in the dim past that I can’t name the right old movie I saw it in. The best word for how TAE has not filled the space I left him (my fault), is that I now need to “grok” him a bit more (Stranger in a Strange Land). Most people need to be imaginary beings out of the universe preceeding this one, and our clue to that is the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements. My color is antimony. My neighbor is Te, Edward Teller. “Hating”, is just to say “Hey, Tin.” and everybody knows Tin.
My mind is now whirling. I either forgot completely, or am subject to fabricate and substitute. I’ll substitute with a bang:
I remember. This is a cautionary tale: Don’t be an idiot. Not you, Kranz, the rest of you. “Reality”, this is a certain thing. The end of it washes up on the shore where you are (some woman (they are not fugly, they’re liars. The “weaker sex”. Well, what’s your strategy? Are there not nine ways to skin a cat? (Aw, Vladdy, I’m paring my audience down with every breath I take) goes, “the city”, and it is Barstow. Babe, if there were water in the desert we’d have found the Lost Dutchman gold mine by now. A perchlorate shower, ha ha ha ha. How about the misnamed “fetal alcohol syndrome”, diagnosed when you are a teenager, some kind of catastrophe? Well, I guess. Pickled is a chemical process. You say don’t do X, we gotta do Y. It’s reality. The science of hanging with objects composed of reality itself, from the stars, is chemistry. Like, gee, what’s depleted in the biosphere? Are you thinking safes full of loot are sinking into quicksand, no matter how you grab at them? In your dreams. It’s helium, one big object leaving earth on a steam train, a molecule at a time. We’ve hit peak helium.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Boy are you folks hick. He is the same as an atom as it is a molecule. Bet me.
So I cover reality.
I wanted to say to you, Kranz (I forgot your old name, but I have it somewhere), the development of your writing makes you ‘most improved’ for this site. Hands down. You take your time now and it’s a pleasure to read.
One dude has the temerity to audaciously compare this with the 1960s. Yes, I loved 1969 best. I just want to ask you what year today is yesterday’s 1966? 2008? Well, it has been a whole week since JHK recommended There Will Be Fuel. He more like poured fuel on it. It’s all dangerous, not merely hazardous. It is like the housing bubble, the way they all lie. It’s a stake in my heart. I used the NYT, now it isn’t fit to line a birdcage. This article notates the 2008-2035 period, lamming from the present as fast as you can get.
In 1966, there was President LBJ writing to himself not to kill 58,000 Americans. The Post-It Notes came out since then—so did Velcro. My son will never learn to tie his shoes—but how do you write don’t kill 2,000,000,000 people? It won’t fit on the note! It’ll slop over onto the refrigerator!
Oh me, oh my. I was lying all before. Considering the context, we can use a handful of characters and a half-dozen clicks and reconfigure ourselves on a black people’s website and talk about this and that, how I am …
No, I’m not a redneck cracker poor hillbilly. I am doing quite well, got a college education, it makes your life better, see? I pay my own way, not minding treating myself now and again. See, I don’t traipse through the airport with my clan of seventeen daughters hotting up over the upskirt video (bad reference), “swathed in Muslim garb”, are you with me, Vlad? Feel me?
Seventeen refugee daughters in 0.00002 generations becoming 117 people.
“Saw your comment on last week’s post, Tripp. Left one there for you as well.”
Thanks, Ang, but I’d have a hard time besting Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden” I think. Great read, and thought-provoking, lots of fantastic ideas to work from.
I’m in the very early stages of a book, but for now it looks like it’ll be more of a fiction novel based on a permacultural future. We’ll see how it goes. I’m getting ready to start farming in earnest next year – beef, goats, eggs, mushrooms, berries, herbs, etc – and we’re close to trading our car in for a horse and cart too!
My connection to industrial society is fraying around the edges…
What’s that you say?
73 degrees in Macon, GA, this afternoon?
The poor are natural democrats always ready to bankrupt the treasury if allowed to.
==
Why should there be a treasury to bankrupt? Why not get rid of the whole gov mafia edifice, the corruption that it breeds, the power politics, war, etc?
Reading the recommended article, via Kunstler (the Brett Favre of word synch), from last week. Bro? I’ll wait. If you don’t read his stuff, we don’t have much to talk about.
So, in there you are going to see how Saudi Arabia, well, that’s less oil than we get from shale. Uh-huh!
Um, don’t we need all the oil we get from Saudi Arabia just to heat up the oil shale so the oil flows out of it?
This is more oil. Oh, I see. A smidgeon more, a doubly mortgaged future, a ship blockade, an IED…
They ask me how a guy can get off from a woman’s shoe. A shoe man knows these things.
—Bukowski
People must have never seen the haze hanging over Burlington, PA from the tailings piles burning. The background is close in the pic. You are going to put that tailings pile on a cookie sheet and roast it, but I have to sleep on a cookie sheet in this cell and I can’t make a shank out of a steel strap—when you HEAR THE KNIVES SHARPENING ON THE CONCRETE FLOOR, that’s your ass—the pencil I stick in your ear, when I creep on you while you are sleeping.
[Jim Morrison fucking so many girls he has an out-of-body experience and it isn’t in-out, it’s left-right]
Can you watch a movie with Truman Capote in it? Man, I can’t. That mouth gaping open, like some people talk but you can see if they was eating, the lips pulled over the teeth, folding back into the gaping maw, strings of slobber …
What I got from Cablegate so far is not repeat not.
I reread your comment, “shale gas is real”. Oh, well, the whole article wasn’t about shale gas, #2, Kunstler has covered gas—it is nonrenewable on the BP Fixit (Corexit) fluids’ untold havoc when you pump it down there. #3, you just know they are going to slip that word “gas” in there and poor you if you thought that meant gasoline. #4 don’t get the court before the hoarse. We may need the helium in that gas, now that’s what’ll be flared off. It’s no secret there’s no high-temperature superconductor. Liquid nitrogen is high-boiling….quantum computers are still dust in the cosmos…there’s no other universes to exploit yet.
People from without the 1960s don’t know what wig-wam means. Well, can I have your ear? Supposing you wuz believin’ when you crashed, and come to and realize, hey. I got a new horrible, a new parable of horrible putting what I thought was horrible in focus.
Take losers and failure. Assuming the failed lose is a disastrous conclusion.
That is, our local events included a dancing bear and, well, this house is cold—was cold, it’s later—and it musta been fifty. I mean cold! It’s always cold. All winter. It’s fifty once or twice, all along the coast.
But now, we had a DUI driver, 17, who paralyzes and blinds an 18-month old, whose hospital bills are running $30K per day. The media does this to me.
I wake up and remember a failed attempt to rocket bomb a big muckety-muck in Al Qaeda. We killed 21, mostly children. I know, the reasoning is specious and circuitous. Ah, not I repeat not are we a loser. I am sure you will find a heaven full of demigods to satisfy our every whim, and a big rock candy mountain.
Turkle, it just galls me to have you. I hate Turkle, I hate Turkle, I hate Turkle. Does anybody else hate this guy? Look what you always do: You comment as a spoiler, slicing and dicing off parts of the person as if they should have gone back in time, and now it’s too late. Too long, didn’t read. Get your own website.
However you likeded it, man—or she-spoiler. I aim to please. Did you know there’s a Sherry Turkle? A psycholgist who writes about the robot moment, when you can pour out your soul to a real listener, Model XV-3125.
I had you as based on being a Turk. Now I think of it as turtle.
No, but that’s all okay. I actually don’t mind. In fact, I had unplugged my computer and lost a longer post. The idea of what they say next is actually safer than agreeing with the alternative, which is something they said before, which could be 100 million times more palaver.
You take care of yourself, man or woman.
I am way out on a limb. I didn’t write this blog. I’ll never learn to write where it will stay. I just hope Mr. K, Mr. Arrant, will underwrite me on my responding pastime.
“Geez Ozone you’re so cynical.” -C.
Really? I had thought “it” was just extreme paranoia. ;o)
“I agree there’s no clean hands out there. I laugh when I hear the term “international law”. I think the term “war crime” is even funnier. Bush “illegally” invaded Iraq? Convulses me, I roll on the floor.” -C.
That’s also my general reaction to these Orwellian “revelations”! Hey, ya gotta laugh to keep from screaming in terror…
“To me the international arena is a big school yard with no adult supervision, where absolutely anything goes, and all the schoolboys are armed psychopaths. There’s two things that matter out there and that’s money and guns. Money to buy off your rivals and guns to kill them if they don’t stay bribed.” -C.
Talk about “in a nutshell”. Good one. What happens if nobody gra-jee-ates (to a supposedly wiser way of doin’ things)? Dang, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel…
think of it as turkey..you the prince of name games..
also run the story of going to UNLV to meet the german ‘scientist’ by us again!
How are you going to keep a horse or pony?
COST? city permit? food?
my dog was costing me 1,000$ a year. and weighed about 70 pounds.
just because someone is labeled ‘paranoid’ doesnt
mean things arent crumbling.
im definitely not paranoid ….however if i look at tv/magazines i feel very out of…that world thats shown there’
[thank god]
Since American culture has been in existence almost 400 years, I don’t think it could be changed very swiftly, and we don’t have much time to try to turn things around. I don’t want to see the hellfire you wrote about – too many people would die and even more suffer horribly.
City-states or smaller governmental regions may eventually come into existence because our system is horribly overextended, bloated and hyper-complex – unless some positive development unexpectedly occurs that allows us to manage our society effectively and justly. I don’t believe this’ll happen. I’m not a techno-fantasist, but I do think technology is what will eventually save us, but only after some scary times.
Central banking and mega-corporations don’t work. Instead of Too Big Too Fail, what we really have is Too Big To Succeed). What we need is a French Revolution type of change to remove the bad actors and rewire the government to be truly just.
Vlad..this may be true….but arent they the ones being ‘bred to death’ by mexicans and muslims?
is it self hatred? [as others have noted thats the liberals disease]..
if the illuminati ruins australia where will they
themselves go?
there are like 10 million jews on the planet..and a billion muslims!
any comments from anyone?
clearly the 1965 immigration act ruined the usa
Central banking and mega-corporations don’t work.
==
Central banking and mega-corporations do work. You’re just not one of the persons it is intended to work for. Central banking and mega-corporations work the same as all centralized power structures work. Central banking and mega-corporations work by disenfranchising the common people and directing resources from the many to the few. Central banking and mega-corporations are just another form of imperialism and theft.
Getting immersed in that neo-nazi crap will cause you cancer of the soul. Are you dumb, or what? “Doctor” (what a laugh) Duke is a sicko, and anything he says is worthless. NO – worse than worthless: Evil. Thre’s just enough impressionable fools around to keep him marginally in the public eye.
Webster Tarpley: The Next Decade | Gerald Celente Trends Blog – http://goo.gl/H6Azc
Very interesting talk by Webster Tarpley.
56 degrees and raining here in Hatfield, Pa., home of the smiling porker. Don’t think the boys down at Hatfield Meats are worried about those hogs coming off the truck, and you shouldn’t either. I had hot leek bratwurst last Wednesday on the grill, and it was wonderful also.
They work in the intermediate term, but long-term they collapse under their own weight. They are like viruses, which die through too much success: When viruses ravage the body, the body dies and they die with it. The megabusinesses are so greedy they will take too much away from the average folk and bring the whole system down.
When viruses ravage the body, the body dies and they die with it.
==
I wish it was so. But that’s not the case, Bill. It’s not the case as science presents it, and it’s not the case as history presents. Many bodies have died, many civilizations have died, but the same virus still persists since recorded time.
See if you can still get a copy of the book”None dare call it treason”,there may be one or two copies around, that escaped the book burning festival that the guilty missed.
Mika suggested, “Is WikiLeaks A CIA Operation?”
Perhaps. Chomsky is suggesting that a bigger hurt on the US could be the pollution in Falluja, causing mass cancer, also reported this week.
In some ways, a sanctioned leakage kicks the diplomatic process in the ass. It could be that the CIA has decided that a leak is better than just assassinating Assange, based on the info and fallout they analysed.
I don’t think it was engineered, but once underway, it was evaluated and then accepted.
The CIA probably long ago recognized that the data would never be recovered. Even now, Assange has released an “insurance” file on the global P2P networks containing all 200,000+ documents under a strong encryption. In effect, he or his allies could choose to release the key to open all the documents as a tactical response to governments attempts at prosecution.
The Media is going on a feeding frenzy. Here we have 200 released articles that all have to be researched and assessed for publication. In effect, a global deep throat for a cadre of the global business class that otherwise has to work for a living. Now, they can surf Lexis-Nexis with documents in hand, crafting articles from reports. Only 1/1000 of the article pool has been opened; already you have massive response by the media across the board. The great thing about it is that secrets revealed make great headlines. And of course, the drama that plays out internationally and the speculation that follows.
When I said Wikileaks is this generation’s Weather Underground, I mean that it is clear that technology is now disrupting the entire system top to bottom. We are really moving into a new geopolitcal age here. The dynamic is going to be much wilder than the milieu of the 1960s. What is going to happen?
How about your next presidential dark horse candidate elected primarily from a grassroots campaign, publicized for free primarily through YouTube? Its coming, baby.
How about the anarchic global network of hackers and tech administrators that stand behind Assange’s wikileaks disrupting world diplomacy? They’re here, they’re powerful, and no one can control them. They read your emails.
No, no, there are no free rides at Small Batch. Everyone earns their own keep, and a draft horse would be no different. Steadily building soil humus, feeding chickens, pulling our load to market, bearing my wife, who would derive more pleasure from that than almost anything else on Earth. Almost? Surely?? But it does require that you saw the bit about purchasing 5 acres closer to family, and getting the hell out of this ghetto while the gettin’s good. Where we’re heading, and with the collection of fodder species we will oversow, we should be able to graze year-round in rotation.
Looks like DDOS attacks are blocking access to Wikileaks. Too little, too late, kids! The cat is out of the box.
Bustin J, you just don’t understand the power of money. You need to deal with that part of the equation, because everything else will be subsumed by it.
I meant those viruses still in the body at the time of the body’s death.
The cat is out of the box.
========
bag
“How about your next presidential dark horse candidate elected primarily from a grassroots campaign, publicized for free primarily through YouTube? Its coming, baby.”
From your mouth to God’s ear.
I think the Elite feel no connection with us at all – as if they were a race unto themselves. They may feel more connection to other Elites, say the Arab or Chinese, than they do to their own people. The thing they don’t realize is that they wont be able to compete with
these other Elites who haven’t jettisoned their people. In other words, in their effort to become all powerful, our Elite are well on their way to becoming a head without a body. They seem to gambleing everything on an attempt at World Goverment – a foolish gambit in my view. The Asian Elites are not willing to submerge themselves – especially if the price is the miscegenation of their peoples. Also they probably fear that the Judeo-Masons will want dominance. Beyond that, some of the Asian Elite might even love their people – what a horror. Heads are supposed to hate their own stomachs and feet – don’t those foolish Asians know that?
The Jews are crazy to have filled Europe with Muslims. Crazy. I’ve heard that they are begining to reconsider Muslim immigration to America. How to explain it all? Golda Meir said that the Palestinians hated Isreali Children more than they loved their own children. I think the Jews are often like this: they hate us more than they love themselves. So much so that they often act irrationally.
I watched a special about a custody conflict between a Jewish American Father and a rich, powerful Brazilian Family. The mother has taken the son and run back to Brazil. This seems to be a pattern. Anyway, the Brazilian Elite don’t even go down into the streets in the big cities – they take helicopters from one building to another. What a way to live. Why would our Elite want to import this kind of savagery and poverty into America? But they do, they do.
Funzel said:
Funzel, this book, which I first read in the 60’s, was not burned or banned. It is widely available for purchase and in libraries today.
Not that the book is worth reading. Stormer was a conspiracy theorist who thought America was being destroyed by (take your pick): Communists, the One World Socialist Conspiracy, politicians, educators, modern art, water fluoridation, etc.
People like Stormer live their lives in fear. Enemies are everywhere!
I meant those viruses still in the body at the time of the body’s death.
==
And those viruses are taken in by bacteria and carrion eaters and on and on it goes. Cycle after cycle.
You better have a firearm to protect yourself. But then the problem becomes what to do when your outside the house. It’s probably pretty hard to get a concealed carry license. And even then – if mugged you might not be able to get it out of your purse. So I suggest what Victorian Women used – long hat pins. You might have to grow your hair so as to conceal it. And of course adopt some kind of Neo-Victorian Steam Punk fashion that incorporates hats.
Antimony is better than Acrimony at any rate. Sometimes I feel like a metal but sometimes more like a noble gas. We all have to evolve towards gold – the most highly evolved element. It does not decay. Rust and mold cannot touch it. It toils not, nor does it spin, bit I tell you that Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed as It. Nevertheless, mundane investors are almost unanimous at this point in saying that silver is a better investment. There seems to be less of it and it has an incredibly large role in hi-tech manufacturing. Gold, the alchemical “tears of the sun” is mostly for ladies bosoms. Or is it that we just haven’t figured out how to use it yet? Stargate!
Is an anti-semite someone who hates or Jews or someone Jews hate?
How come there no such word as anti-gentile? Do you really doubt that there such? Or do you just grant Jews complete carte blanche moral superiority?
Now if Dr Duke quotes the Talmud or a living Jew as saying that gentiles are just animals – is that an anti-semetic statement? Just for quoting? Do you follow the philosophy of the European Courts “that the Truth is defense”? Many men (seldom women) in Western Europe are in prison for thoughtcrime you know. And it’s coming soon to a courthouse near you. Remember that old phrase “the free world” – what a fucking joke.
box is grammatically correct are you expanding your repetoire what’s your bag cracker box
It’s both. And if you’re going off on this track, at least spell anti-semitic correctly.
Anti-gentile is a word. It just isn’t used hardly at all compared to anti-semite. Which is hardly fair in that there are 14 million Jews and over a billion gentiles.
The so-called free world was never free. But there was and still is a modicum of liberty.
In respect of Obama’s Gross-All-Over, insincere Thanksgiving Day message to the American people below, I am wondering what readers might have to say regarding the psychology underlying such grotesque insincerity? I’ve never studied psychology, so I can’t adequately describe Obama’s obvious mental dysfunction. I understand that Obama’s father used to routinely beat his mother and that Obama was abandoned by his parents and was raised by his white grandmother who frequently used the “N-Word” when addressing him. Thank you.
“From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thankful
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you’ll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you — for everything.
I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
Procon,
This is a response to an earlier post of yours.
Intellectually, I’m definitely not a conspiracyphile. But I have to tell you, I’ve always been suspicious of the JFK assassination.
The main reason: Somewhere around that time, it was announced that many of the files pertaining to the killing wouldn’t be made public for 75 years. If it was a one-man killing why wait that long? BTW, the same thing for MLK. It’s hard to believe a dufus like James Earl Ray could pull off such a hit on his own.
What were you doing on 11/22/63? I was taking a college chemistry mid-term; the bastards wouldn’t even give us a day off.
I’ve heard that they are begining to reconsider Muslim immigration to America.
========
Vlad was riding the subway to his regular tuesday evening white nationalists meeting downtown. At 104th and Broad two men with telltale noses, orthopdic shoes and wearing purple ball caps discretely embossed in gold lettering with the words “Member of the Jewish Elite,” and looking for all the world like blood relatives of Bernie Madoff, boarded Vlad’s car and sat in the seats immediately in front of him. Vlad cringed and squirmed involuntarily but overcame his revulsion in order to lean forward and eavesdrop.
In a barely audible yiddish-tinged whisper the man on the left said to the other “we are crazy to have filled Europe with Muslims. Absolutely meshuga. And I’m beginning to reconsider Muslim immigration to America.”
The man on the right said “I’m starved … you interested in stopping off for a bagel and cream cheese?”
Vlad, we get it. Da Joooz are bad. Bad bad bad. The Africans are inferior. The Latin Americans are inferior. The Whites are superior to all. The Vatican imperialists, the Nazi imperialists, the British imperialists, the Yankee imperialists, the old aristocracy psychopaths are good. They have divine right to lord over everyone and steal anything they want from everyone. Did I cover all the bases?
box is grammatically correct
=========
Yes, but the well-known expression ends with the word bag, not box.
Hey, Vladdie.
Too bad you weren’t born in Germany around 1920. You would have had a gay old time in the SS executing undesirables. Nowadays, your opinion about the “vast Jewish conspiracy” is shared by old-what’s-his-face from Iran, a hardcore Muslim. But you don’t like them either, I guess. You think they are secretly in league with the Jews, I guess. Weird, huh?
Any-who, I’m kinda wondering how you expect to be at all happy or successful in your life living in America, if you don’t like black people, Jews, or Arabs (Hispanics either). There are more than a few here. You’re kind of the odd man out, being such a hardcore Nazi racist. That’s not really how most people roll these days. It doesn’t work too well as far as dealing with actual people in real life.
You might want to try moving to Northern Canada like I suggested before. There you can establish Vladistan, where you won’t let any dirty Jews or brown people past your border. Furthermore, it would isolate you from the rest of mankind, which would be a boon to all of us.
Hope you had a good Thanksgiving, when we celebrate how the inferior Indians saved the superior white Pilgrims from starving to death.
Happy clusterfucking.
—
Yes,
but if the cat was Heisenberg’s cat in a box:
Was it dead or alive?
Tripp,
Pardon for asking, but have you heard all the
internet noise about Senate Bill S510, which
purportedly would ban home and local gardens and
supposedly put food production under the Dept. of
Homeland Security? Bullshit or something more
sinister?
-J
Eleuthero and other solar skeptics,
What if something like the following was real?:
(from Whiskey and Gunpowder)
Recently, alternative energy analyst Jeff Siegel hopped on a plane to Florida and got a first-hand account of what he calls “the most disruptive technological discovery in the energy market today.”
Shrouded in secrecy for years, the company finally unveiled its solar window at a Florida university lab this past September.
Not only is this new solar window 300% more efficient than rooftop solar panels, this window can actually generate electricity from artificial light!
That’s right… it doesn’t need the sun! It turns light emitted from a lamp into electricity.
As you’ll see, the demonstration of this earth shattering technology was so profound that major news outlets like CNBC already are calling it energy’s “silver bullet.”
-J
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s510/show
“Small farms and food facilities that do less than $500,000 in sales annually and sell most of their food locally would be exempt from most of the new regulations in the bill.”
So it doesn’t ban home and local gardens.
What were you doing on 11/22/63? I was taking a college chemistry mid-term;
==========
I was pulling the lunchtime-fill-in shift in the cashiers cage at Duluth AFB, Minn and eating a leftover piece of chocolate cake from my 23rd birthday the day before … when it happened.
Wow, you people are old. 😉
But don’t forget about the passive income the Internets can provide! Think e-book, baby!
(Only half joking…but promise you won’t build a website telling all the world how you built a six-figure income from your e-book while you slept & dreamed sweet permaculture dreams!)
Any claims of a single energy “silver bullet” should be taken with a grain of salt. They are always accompanied by a lot of wishful thinking and assumptions.
Oil currently provides 90% of transportation fuel. When you consider only cars, the percentage is even greater. But solar power provides electricity, not liquid fuel. You need an electric car in order to use this energy directly. I have not done the calculation, but I imagine that the electricity generation required to power a significant fraction of the earth’s vehicles with electricity would be enormous. And while solar does provide electricity, it is extremely intermittent, dependent on weather, location, and time of day. Therefore, fossil fuel or nuclear based plants are required to provide power when solar is not available, so you’re right back where you started.
Now I’m going to paraphrase some things from Matt Savinar’s “The Oil Age is Over.”
To provide for America’s current energy needs would require 300 square miles of solar panels. Such a project is not currently within the realm of the doable. Even then, the additional requirements from electric cars makes this estimate a low one.
The areas suitable for solar generation are typically hot. Transmitting power out of these environments to far flung places is tremendously inefficient and difficult.
Most solar panels require silver paste, which is liable to increase in price over time, thus increasing the cost of solar power.
All that said, I like the idea of solar power. I think it works well if you can get it put on your home. My friend says he is likely to be able to meet 80% of his energy needs with newly installed panels. The “break even” point is about 7 years. Solar can do nice things in on-site power generation.
Then again, I live in California. It is really sunny most of the year. Will the same thing work in Minnesota? Nope.
The fact of the matter is that fossil fuels are tremendously energy dense. While we call obtaining them “production”, I’ll follow William Catton in calling it “extraction.” In other words, they are a non-renewable resource that we mine. And they provide a tremendous amount of our current energy consumption for a fairly low cost of retrieval. Claiming that one magic technology is going to completely solve the problem of fossil fuel depletion is a bit naive, I’d say, given the way we use them.
I’d ask the following questions about the solar windows…
Cost of installation?
Cost of maintenance?
How long do they last?
How efficient are they?
When will it be commercially available?
How much power do they produce?
How do they tie into a buildings electrical system?
They are a neat idea. I just wouldn’t look to them for solving all the world’s energy problems.
Do you have a link to that article? I’d like to check it out, especially the claims about being “300% more efficient.” That doesn’t sound believable to me, but you never know…
At Vladdy’s white Nationalist meeting he and his Neanderthal tattoo’ed skin head buddies all agreed on the need to rise up and destroy these inferior races who were destroying America.
After the meeting Vladdy and a couple of his fellow cretins retired to the local steakhouse where the cousin of one of the cretins was the manager. There they they enjoyed some very well priced beers and a tasty steak served by sexy Latino waitress. Each one of them stared at her full lips and perky breasts and beautiful arse. None of them commented but each fantasized about ‘having’ her but quickly put those thoughts out of their mind lest their buddies suspect what they were thinking.
They commented on the great steak and fries served in this joint and its value for money, not realising the chef is black and the consortium of four owners are made up of an American Jew, a Chinese, a Russian and a Fillipino immigrant.
They went their separate ways at 1.am whereupon Vladdy popped into the Quick E Mart for a pack of 20 and some gum. The Iraqi shopkeeper served him with a scowl but nevertheless thanked Vlad for shopping at his store, Vlad grunted.
As he walked to the subway a patrol car containing a black and a latino officer cruised by.
As he neared the subway his thoughts turned to the Latino waitress and he grew angry at the thought of all those women who had rejected him. Nevertheless his urges got the better of him and he headed to the familiar brownstone building with a pink light over the entrance.
Latisha (his favourite) was free and after paying $60.00 he lost himself in her firm coffee coloured body. (Q that’s how we spell favorite and colored)
Two minutes later (sorry Vladdy I know its cruel but I couldn’t resist), OK three minutes later Vladdy headed for the subway.
The white subway driver caused the car to shudder as it left the station and Vlad cursed the damn f#cking filth that was invading his country and making it so unbearable to live!
But then he smiled as he fantasized how he and his white Knight brothers would put all the filth including those damn Liberals up against the wall and make the founding fathers proud.
He continued to fanatsize how he would hunt down those Builderbergers, deal with that pesky world government and invade the Vatican and effect regime change…
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/09/spray-on-solar-window-unveiled
Hehe, that was good reading. I eagerly await Part II.
Thank You, I’ll write part II soon.
I love showing Vlad the Impaling Emperor without his clothes.
“He continued to fanatsize how he would hunt down those Builderbergers…”
Bilderbergers
“He continued to fanatsize how he would hunt down those Builderbergers”
fantasize
Very sloppy of me!
Thanks for pointing that out. Next time I’ll be sure to check my work before submitting it.
FD
Isn’t “ten-fold” a thousand percent? Maybe one of you who are good in math would know. And those of you good in physics can just continue to deny that technological advances will help and continue to talk about “energy density” and “EROEI”
Here is a link to a peer-reviewed article from a journal published by the American Institute of Physics, so it should be acceptable to those who are believers in the “laws of physics”:
http://link.aip.org/link/JRSEBH/v1/i1/p013101/s1
Fabrication of organic solar array for applications in microelectromechanical systems
They were not that important. Please continue to produce Vladful novelistic impressions.
I was just imitating Q for a moment.
Your meaning was clear and that is what counts so as not to be an impediment to good communication.
Thanks for that.
Nevertheless, when one writes something that will be read by a number of people, one should be mindful of correct grammar and spelling, especially when writing a criticism of someone else (such as my criticism of Vlad’s narrow mindedness).
Its all a bit of fun. JHK’s weekly missives are interesting, he writes them and sits back and watches, a bit like feeding the chickens. Watch as they scramble for the grain and cluck and squawk and peck each other.
Eventually converting your house to solar energy will require a trip to the local grocery store to buy a few cans of spray for $50. That will be the point at which 80 millions single detached residential homes can be easily converted.
I also reported a few weeks back on perpetual solar flight. I know, I know, the “laws of physics” don’t allow for it, but it has been demonstrated in a solar night flight. You read that correctly: A SOLAR NIGHT FLIGHT.
Name any other vehicle that can transport a human being for 26 hours and at the end of the trip the vehicle has more energy than when it started, which should not be possible, according to the “laws of physics” crowd.
Sure, it will be a while for the technology to be commercialized and widespread and cheap. But the proof of concept has been done, publicly, in a way that can be verified and repeated.
That will be the point at which 80 million single detached residential homes can be easily converted to solar energy, by the homeowner, with a guaranteed positive EROEI.
“a bit like feeding the chickens. Watch as they scramble for the grain and cluck and squawk and peck each other. ”
Wonderful image! Very apropos of the weekly CFN experience.
Um, asoka, that plane has like 40 hp. I don’t think it is going to be replacing an Airbus A340 anytime soon.
Thanks for the info on the spray-on solar films. That’s very interesting stuff. Still, you’d have to “wire” the windows to your electrical system, so there is more to it than just buying a spray can of “Instant Solar Spray Film.”
I didn’t mention EROEI for solar. A lot of the problems I mentioned are still there even with a factor of X more efficiency or power output.
But, still, I’m not really a solar naysayer. I think it has a lot of potential, and great things are being done with it now. I would just caution anyone from thinking it is going to make all the world’s energy problem’s suddenly disappear.
No, you’re being unfair as usual. I admit the Anglo-Americans have a substantial role in the Conspiracy. I believe it’s less than the Jews but I’m open to discussion. And I have heard about the Black Nobility of Southern Catholic Europe who preceded the Rothschilds. Who knows how powerful they are – you say they it all comes from them. But what you are unwilling to admit that the Jews have any role or any blame in all this – and that shows very bad faith indeed.
This is the way it is going to be: advances will start cascading by a rate of tenfold. Faster, cheaper, cleaner, ubiquitous. That seems to be the trend.
The coming energy advances will be multifaceted and synergistic.
The dogmatists who cite the “laws of physics” will not interfere, nor will CFN doomster pessimism stop the inevitable advances from becoming reality.
We are on the brink of an era that we cannot even imagine, an era that will solve so many problems, so quickly, that it will cause doomsters to enter a state of psychological depression, as their dream of a dog-eat-dog Mad Max societal dystopia fades farther and farther away from possibility, making a “World Made By Hand” seem so quaint as to be the stuff of novels, because it is so far removed from the reality of cheap and clean and renewable energy sufficiency.
Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20020601-48.html#ixzz16qRI1x3S
We are now in an interim stage. Green shoots are sprouting. The harvest will be divine.
Thank you for the extra minute with Crackisha. Seriously thought, jungle fever is the worse thing that can happen to a White Nationalist. As Krishna teaches, caste mixture is the forerunner of universal destruction.
Turkle
I agree with your comments, about being cautious but you have to admits its an awesome step in the right direction.
The cost of solar photovoltaic modules (non subsidised) has reduced from in excess $6.00 per watt capacity 10 years ago to $3.51 today.
See Solar Buzz
http://www.solarbuzz.com/Moduleprices.htm
As soon as the cost of solar photovoltaics (whether crystalline modules or spray on applications) reaches a point where the payback from the electricity produced/saved is 3 years or less every home will have an installation unless the home owners are brain dead. Business owners on the other hand will act as soon as the payback reaches about 6 years.
Bring on the research and development, I look forward to a bright (excuse the pun) solar future.
(it still won’t be the silver bullet to solve our energy problems but it will be a few silver pellets of the overall buckshot that will be the energy solution.)
Turkle, predictably, said: “Um, asoka, that plane has like 40 hp. I don’t think it is going to be replacing an Airbus A340 anytime soon. ”
Pop quiz: How many people could the first fossil fuel powered airplane carry? I am speaking of the first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air airplane that flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903.
I can just imagine people at Kitty Hawk shaking their heads and saying: “Um, if God had intended people to fly, She would have given us wings.”
But thanks for confirming my statement that we are on the verge of an era which we cannot even imagine.
Twenty years ago who was talking about residential solar energy from a spray can.
This reminds me of the movie, The Graduate, where the word was “plastics”. Today the word is “nanotechnology” Did you read that this solar energy does not require metal?
Asoka Turkle
Its 3.25 am on your side of the world, 7.25 pm on my side.
Don’t you guys sleep or are you on night shift??
“Pop quiz: How many people could the first fossil fuel powered airplane carry? I am speaking of the first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air airplane that flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903”
Good point from the Kitty Hawk to the A380 which can carry 520 passengers.
Imagine the possibilities in 2030.
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.
“Its 3.25 am on your side of the world, 7.25 pm on my side. Don’t you guys sleep or are you on night shift?? ”
3.25 on the east coast. .25 on the west coast (midnight)
I am so excited about the possibilities of solar that it is difficult to sleep at all. 🙂
That should read from Kitty Hawk not “the Kitty Hawk”
12.25 am sounds a whole lot better 🙂
This one is for Cash, who claims the USA southern border is “undefended” in spite of the vigilant efforts of thousands of border patrol agents, national guard troops, ICE, ATF, FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, etc.
Don’t you feel safer now, knowing the Border Patrol is on the job?
We are wasting millions and millions… who knows, maybe billions of dollars to “defend” a border. Money that could be better spent to meet human needs, create real, productive employment, etc.
No more borders! No more “sovereignty”! No more wars on drugs. No more wars between nation states.
Freedom of movement on the Planet Earth!
When seen from outer space, Earth does NOT have any national border lines drawn on it.
The Earth is one organic entity, foolishly divided up by non-existent invisible lines which are then fought over by temporary human inhabitants of the Planet. (temporary includes all of us)
As wagelaborer once said: “First I’m an Earth citizen, then an American.”
As Asoka once said:
I welcome those who are tired, those who are poor, those huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
SOURCE: Emma Lazarus
Emma was an American writer of Portugese-Jewish ancestry whose 1883 poem, “The New Colossus,” is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
More Mexicans! More Muslims! More Africans! More Asians! More Europeans! More melting pot! The more multiracial and multicultural, the merrier.
The USA is not a white anglo-saxon male protestant country. We cannot keep people out (or in) by putting up border fences. We cannot solve real human problems by spending billions of dollars throwing money at “defending the borders.” That kind of spending is non-productive and has no multiplier effect.
We are the world.* We are Emma Lazarus’ children. We are descendants of the ones who made a brighter day by exercising their freedom of movement on the planet. So let’s start giving. Let’s give that freedom and respect to those who are still arriving. There’s a choice we’re making… we can make the choice to be welcoming and friendly. We’re saving our own lives by helping others. That is how we’ll make a better day. Not by putting up fences, borders, and divisions. The world has enough of that already.
* SOURCE: Michael Jackson – We Are the World lyrics
Apropos of Black Swans. Black Swan Theory can be turned on its head. Black Swan Theory is about something that falls outside the realm of regular expectations, for example, perpetual solar flight or home solar from a spray can that generates clean renewable energy at half the cost of coal.
Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan Theory can support a positive view of the future. Just as everyone in the world assumed all swans were white, until a black swan was spotted, everyone on CFN assumes we are bound by the classical laws of physics. Once exceptions begin to occur, new possibilities emerge outside the normal paradigm.
Nassim Taleb urges us to beware of the unknown unknown, saying people tend to overestimate what they know and underestimate the uncertainty that is derived from those things they don’t know.
Again, this can be turned on its head. The future is unknown. Just as people in Kitty Hawk in 1903 could not imagine Boeing 767 passenger jets, we should beware of making negative predictions based on the unknown. The future is equally ripe with unknown positive possibilities (actually more so, since there are more white swans than black swans)
Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan theory actually supports increased immigration, open borders, and multiculturalism. Taleb uses the study involving fire hydrant pictures to illustrate that people who were given more information often formed a wrong opinion of what the object was early on, and then clung to that idea tenaciously, even in the face of new and better evidence.
People tend to filter their experience to support what they think they already know. There is a solution to this problem of seeing only what we want to see: Live in a multicultural, multiracial open-border world where it is easy to actively seek out viewpoints that contradict our own. Take advantage of multiculturalism to learn to appreciate perspectives on the world different from your own.
Nassim Taleb, in his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable quotes something attributed to Emil du Bois-Reymond, who said, “ignoramus et ignorabimus” — we are ignorant and will remain so. As Mika once said: Until we are not! Education is possible, whether auto-didact or institutionally derived.
We can’t know what we don’t know, but acknowledging that you don’t know everything can actually give you an advantage over those people who prefer to proceed through life confidently knowing the wrong things. Turning Black Swan theory on its head allows you to be open to opportunities for good changes, for changes that lead to human survival. Not just to survive but to thrive as human beings.
In summary, though rare, Black Swan events can be effectual and impactive in a positive way.
That is to say, Black Swan events can be beneficial, can change history for the better, in ways that are rare in history and completely unexpected. Black Swan events include pleasant surprises, gifts from the unknown unknown.
Vlad, I have never experienced problems with street crime in Chicago in 25 years, though I am on the streets a lot, often quite late at night, to shop and take buses and trains, in a “marginal” neighborhood. Worst thing that ever happened to me here was having money taken out of my purse at a rock club when I was rather drunk, decades ago. White girl took it while I was staring at the stage, not watching my purse.
Chicago is a reasonably safe city, in most parts of town. I make a point of staying out of the other parts and have no business in them in any case. My own neighborhood is a mixed bag, and we are working intensely on bettering the situation, with much improvement over the past 10 years. Getting caught in the crossfire between a bunch of goons who aren’t aiming for you but don’t care what they hit is the chief danger from gangs, and being armed won’t help you there.
Was mugged and robbed in my home town of St. Louis rather a lot, like about every two years, which was one of the reasons I moved. That, and so I could live in a REAL CITY with top-tier urban amenities and dispose of my car. My purse was snatched frequently, and I was held up at gunpoint once. The last mugging was a sneak attack at knife point- the mugger hid behind the monster oak tree by my bldg. and picked me off as I strolled by bearing 20 lbs. of groceries,and I can only say that if I’d had a gun, my assailant would have picked it off me and used on me, because he took me from behind, by surprise, slipping a huge strong hand over my mouth and pinning my arms as I threw my load to get free. This was in St. Louis’ ultra-trendy and expensive West End, where I lived. It has not improved since. I was able to buy time by struggling like a maniac and put him on the run; and can tell you that being alert and vigilant on city streets does a lot more to help you avoid trouble than having a gun does.
Amazing the people who think that carrying a firearm will solve their security problems. You have a right to do it and I would not drive the interstate or live in a house in a remote area without one, which is why I don’t go out to those places. But most people manage to do more harm to themselves or their kids than they do to a burglar or mugger, with the things. Nothing like coming home to greet a housebreaker who is sitting on your sofa holding one of your own guns on you, or the thing is locked in a gun safe when you need badly to get your hands on it. I’d rather rely on my alertness and streetsmarts on the street, and on “passive” defenses at home, like living on the 2nd floor or above in a decently-secured building with solid core doors and dead bolts and no windows over landings or stairwells.
“Pardon for asking (no worries), but have you heard all the internet noise about Senate Bill S510…”
I’ve heard the cries of injustice pop up a few times here and there. Fortunately for us, whatever the bill says, the market realities of our time have gone viral, and the people will not be subdued.
One recurring peaceful thought that I get a lot of mileage out of is that, to my mind at least, peak energy means peak energy. Plain and simple. It means that regulation, which requires energy, will be harder to pay for. It means that raping the planet for its remaining resources, which depends on oil burning equipment and a robust consumer base, will be more difficult. It even means that spending energy to capture more (Iraq/Afghanistan) yields an increasingly lower return. We’re 4 years into that trend already.
Peak energy = peak exploitative ability. Apply that to deforestation, or mountain-top removal coal mining, or Senate Bill S510. Nature at large is in recovery, and since we’re a legitimate part of Nature, the only thing keeping us from taking part in the healing is the ability/allowance of TPTB to keep us cowering in fear.
That’s how I view S510. Hope that wasn’t too obtuse…
“The US is NOT an ally or a friend of Israel, quite the opposite.”
‘It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.’
On politeness and repetition –
BeanTown, I’m trying to formulate a response concerning conspiracy theory. You believe there’s something strange about the JFK assassination. I do not. I will work something up and try to make it relevant and NEW for this website.
I do wish Asoka would consider this concept.
In the future the laws of physics will not apply.
In the future the laws of physics will not apply.
In the future the laws of physics will not apply.
Saying it repeatedly does not make it true, A.
We need at least half a billion people in the US.
We need at least half a billion people in the US.
We need at least half a billion people in the US.
Sorry, doesn’t make it true, Asoka.
Try this, instead:
Typing repeatedly does not change reality.
Typing repeatedly does not change reality.
Typing repeatedly does not change reality.
Typing repeatedly does not change reality.
Well, I had a very interesting time in Perth a few years back. I was on one of the beaches and all of a sudden I noticed that there were only white people on the beach.. No hispanics, no blacks, just people like me. I felt an immediate relaxation as I realized that the energetic vibe of people with the same cultural values / mores as I were all hanging out together.. It felt wonderful! I’d been so multi-culturally brainwashed here in the states, that I’d forgot that I’d forgotten, how relaxed and easy it was when you don’t have predators around, folks wanting your money, or people who have a different cultural base than you do. Diversity is great.. but there’s something to be said for being w/ your own tribe..
Oh gods, that was funny!!@! but seriously, I think only 1 minute would suffice for vlad-the-bad.
Oh, you forgot the flugie salad dressing the Phillipno salad bar fixer makes just for them.
Geesh, he’s such a looser….
& his little buddy Unka Treebeard too.
And they are expected to be the next Adams in the Brave New post-Mad Max World Made by Hand(job)?
Man, there are going to be a heck-of-alot of little, blond & blue-eyed retarded kids running around….
Oh well…..
“He continued to fanatsize how he would hunt down those Builderbergers…”
Bilderbergers
fantasize
============
Asoka, I’ll thank you to NOT encroach on my schtick. Stick with your own schtick which is inconsistency and contradicting yourself.
John, I’m afraid you’re right.
“….people like me. I felt an immediate relaxation as I realized that the energetic vibe of people with the same cultural values / mores as I were all hanging out together….. I’d been so multi-culturally brainwashed here in the states….”
I lived through school desegregation in the south in the ’60’s. The idea was that if you desegregated the schools – that all the children would become color blind/race neutral/whatever.
And if it screwed up my generation, TPTB/SCOTUS/whatever thought that was worth the sacrifice because the NEXT generation of kids would become race neutral.
Well, that hasn’t worked out. Here we are 50 years later. All one has to do is visit any racially integrated high school in America at lunch. There will be the black kid’s tables, the white kid’s tables, the El Salvadoran’s tables, the various Asian tables (Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.)
As a college educated product of the ’70’s, I work REALLY hard at not being a racist, overt or covert.
But I’m a realist.
You can’t change the laws of physics.
You can’t change basic human nature – if that is in fact what is operating here – and John, it may be.
Thank you for the extra minute with Crackisha.
===========
Brilliant come-back Vlad … I laughed my ass off. I will tuck away in a brain fold the name Crackisha and use it in some propitious future moment as though I, myself, had coined it. Apologies in advance for the plagiarism.
It’s a wonder that so many smart people believe that Australia’s economic growth is organic. The fact is as you mentioned, the whole wagon is hitched to China’s fake economy. When that Ponzi scheme ends there will an abundance of buggering down under.
Tripp – not obtuse at all – optimistic, though.
Peak energy – “… means that raping the planet for its remaining resources, which depends on oil burning equipment and a robust consumer base, will be more difficult.”
=============
I agree, but have to argue that “more difficult” is NOT the same thing as *impossible.* Billions of humans concentrated in some very dynamic and powerful cultures (US, China, Europe) are going to be using all their power and ingenuity “raping the planet” for its last dwindling resources.
So help me; Tripp, you are the ultimate optimist. And you seem to have a historians view of the near future – *It will be bad, but it will be over soon – like within the next 50 years.*
You talk about the regenerative power of nature. I agree. We could take CFN on a journey around the Piedmont of Georgia. We would all see tiny remnant traces of a huge exploitative farming, extractive, and mercantile culture that existed from 1800 until about 1960. It is now GONE. The remnant traces are little piles of rock where fields were cleared and houses and barns once stood. Shallow, dry, and overgrown wells wait for the unwary or unguided. Small and peaceful, family cemeteries slowly vanish as time moves forward.
All true enough, nature will eventually recover in some form; but most of the rest of the planet is still on the upward trajectory of growth. They aren’t going to let some energy problems even slow them down – until it’s too late.
Eggs! I was melting some butter in the trusty old cast-iron skillet this morning, getting ready to crack our last 3 “free range organic” eggs (yeah right) from the supermarket into it, when I heard a familiar cackle out back. Our June pullets were scurrying away from the hedgerow along the property line when I stepped out onto the side porch. The “I just laid an egg” cackle was unmistakable! But there were 5 of them! Little light brown eggs laid by our 2 Dark Cornish hens in a makeshift nest in the leaves. I gathered them up, showed them excitedly to my wife and daughter, rinsed the leaves off, and cracked them one at a time into a white bowl where I could scrutinize them for health. Weather’s been wonderful, and fresh eggs can last for days, if not weeks, so they all checked out just fine.
And they went smashingly with the hot bread just coming out of the oven.
Now, about that $5/lb “organic” supermarket butter…
We did the same here in Canada except it was the US economy we hitched our wagon to and an artificially low Canadian dollar. Now the real estate Ponzi scheme ended in the US, the Loonie is near par with the USD, our manufacturing base is wrecked, we have an official national rate of around 8% unemployment.
But our real estate market hasn’t yet imploded having been kept alive by artificially low interest rates. If and when mortgage rates get reasonable: look out below.
We’ve seen two bad real estate collapses in the 1980s out west and in the 1990s in Southern Ontario. But if we have another collapse it will be such a huge, huge, shock. Why? People don’t remember. They live their lives in 5 minute slices. Plus real estate always goes up. Right?
Our western provinces are doing fine with commodities like oil, potash etc. If China chokes watch them go down the shitter. When commodity prices fall they don’t touch the sides.
“All true enough, nature will eventually recover in some form; but most of the rest of the planet is still on the upward trajectory of growth. They aren’t going to let some energy problems even slow them down – until it’s too late.”
You are absolutely right, locally, but the net trajectory of the whole is what gives me hope. Locally, destruction may or may not increase, but the net flux of the biosphere following global energy peak is in the direction of recovery (with perhaps a little more lag time for deforestation and population as we reallocate dwindling resources in those directions).
If not, what’s all the fuss about?
Tripp said: “the net flux of the biosphere following global energy peak is in the direction of recovery…”
There is no “global energy peak” as long as we continue to inhabit a solar system with a shining sun, as long we have alternate sources like thorium. There is a fossil fuel energy peak blip as we transition to a post-fossil fuel era. Optimism is justified.
Shouldn’t 98% of Americans Be A Majority?
http://bravenewfilms.org/taxcuts/?akid=1352.1078154.d3HMxe&rd=1&t=1
So SB510 exempts $500,000.00 in sales.Big deal!How long will it take( with a good size tomato selling for 3 bucks right now) before we reach the magic number,due to galloping inflation,to once again stick it up the peoples ass by trickery and deceit legislation?
The Tester-Hagan Amendment, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) (who is an organic farmer), exempts farms from the FDA regulations proposed in SB510 that sell directly to consumers, restaurants, or retailers within state lines.
It would also apply to producers who sell within 275 miles and make less than $500,000 annually.
The exemption would be withdrawn if it is found that the producer is connected to a food-borne illness outbreak.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
If you want tribal warfare just keep encouraging the development of contending tribes. Works every time.
I think those guys with the separate tables are asserting their separateness because they’re being told to do it, that it’s ok, and that it’s more than ok, it’s their right and it’s their obligation. Diversity right?
Hip intellectual lefties, progressives, ivory tower thinkers, haters of the US, haters of Anglo Saxon culture and western culture in general think this is wonderful. I do not. I think it’s moronic, it’s destructive, it’s divisive, it’s corrosive. These total fucking morons have no idea what they’re unleashing. They are not encouraging integration they are encouraging segregation (have you ever heard of Sotomayor referred to as American? I haven’t). It makes me laugh that they have no idea that they personally are in peril. Do they seriously think that they can keep their privileged positions here on this continent? Don’t they know the knives and guns will come out for them too?
Getting people that look different to get on is monumentally difficult. Then dickhead social engineers come along and tell people no, no, no keep your ancestral ways, keep your ancestral tribal identities, Anglo Saxon white man is evil, he’s vile, he exploits you, this is a “post national” state, it’s a “post modern” state, you aren’t really American, there, that’s a good little ethnic, what a wonderful little ethnic dance, how adorable. Yes and your garlicky, unbearably spicy food is mmmm, mmmm, good.
Besides being unbearably patronizing these idiots apparently have no idea that these good little ethnics are every bit as vile, murderous and exploitative as Anglo Saxon white man. How do I know? In the progressives’ bestiary I’m a good little ethnic myself, I don’t count as a full citizen. To them, you see, I’m not qualified to speak or think, I need to be told how to think, what to say, I have a funny surname so I need a community spokesman, oops, spokesperson.
I think the key is to get liberals and multiculturalists to shut the fuck up about multiculturalism. What you get out of it (different tables? shit we’ll be lucky if it just ends there) is what you just cited. The party line has to be welcome to America, now speak English. Social and national solidarity in other words.
You are a silly person.
More evidence the Fox News is managed by science haters who stopped paying attention in school in 4th grade.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/01/rumor-roundup-nasa-discovered-alien-life/
“…have concluded that the announcement will tie into the quest for life on the Martian moon Titan.
Everybody get it? – the Martian moon Titan?
“box is grammatically correct” -Vlad
=========
“Yes, but the well-known expression ends with the word bag, not box.” -Q.
C’mon, Q., try to be more like Vlad and think outside the bag. ;o)
Cash said: “If you want tribal warfare just keep encouraging the development of contending tribes. Works every time.”
Cash’s Corollary: If you want peace, eliminate all the other tribes.
Which has not worked in over 5,000 wars in 3,000 years.
Grow up and learn to live in, accept, and celebrate the real world we inhabit, which is multicultural.
There are six Native American tribes where I live. Their development is supported and they do not war with each other. We have evolved beyond warring tribes.
As soon as we eliminate nation-states we will be able to evolve beyond warring nation-states to one world with no war.
Those brains belong back where they can do the most good – their own country. It has been noticed how Africans who manage to become nurses and doctors always want to stay in Europe or America. So Whites have to go and serve the suffering of Africa. As usual. Don’t you think there is something wrong with this picture? There are a few honorable exceptions but by and large the spirit of service has not emerged yet (it is an evolutionary thing) within the Black Race. Dr Schweitzer was right: the few Blacks that are willing to work hard do so for themselves and their family. Everyone else can go to the devil. Thus their countries will remain undeveloped in the real sense of general prosperity and infrastructure. It may someday change, but not in this Age of the World. Of course if the Chinese take Africa, then it will. They will be the “Africans” then. And Blacks will begin to diminsh in the areas the Chinese control.
Hi Vlad. You say:
“It may someday change, but not in this Age of the World. Of course if the Chinese take Africa, then it will.”
You are encroaching on my inconsistency shtick. This must mean you are also large and also contain multitudes. 🙂 It is OK, in my mind there is room for all of us to peacefully coexist.
If the Chinese take Africa, if the Chinese end up controlling 4/5 of the world’s land mass, then we will arrive at the elimination of nation states must more rapidly than I anticipated.
Thanks for your optimistic message!
You argue my points very well. Now just go the last logical step and admit the minorities should never have been brought in to begin with. At this late date, no one can say it’s just to work. Many of them are on welfare and unemployment here. And in Europe, they’ve been pouring in for years despite double digit unemployment. No, it’s political with the express intent of changing the West forever beyond any possibility of repair. The program you argue against is the exact reason they are here.
Because you’re not a Christian and you were an accountant, you have too high a regard for the way things appear to be. The many diverse nations of Europe share a cultural heritage – and a genetic one. That this counts for nothing with you is beyond strange but actually tragic. And even uniting these peoples was difficult. To then try to acculturate Somalis and Haitians was and is ridiculous.
CORRECTION
we will arrive at the elimination of nation states muCH more rapidly than I anticipated.
But if everyone speaks Chinese and even begins to look Chinese, where is the diversity? Back to the drawing board Professor Whoopee.
Vlad said: “And even uniting these peoples was difficult. ”
You’ve got it, Vlad! All those tribes, factions, ethnicities, with different languages, different cultures, different customs, etc. WERE UNITED INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION.
That is the evolutionary impulse. Toward one world with no war. It will happen.
Vlad said: “where is the diversity?”
Vlad, thanks to miscegenation there will be a thousand shades between yellow and black.
I’m going to make a bold statement: China controls mainland China. Does that mean there is no diversity there?
China now has 55 ethnic minorities, each maintaining their own rich traditions and customs, and all are part of Chinese culture. If China controls all the Earth’s land mass, even more diversity will be present… but no war.
I don’t know, Cash
“I think those guys with the separate tables are asserting their separateness because they’re being told to do it,…”
===============
It’s when they are NOT told what to do that they segregate themselves.
I watched my sons go through public schools. Their lunch tables were fully integrated through 5th grade – because they ate with their own little class of 25 or so kids.
After that, 6th-12th grade their whole school day was integrated EXCEPT lunch. You’d see integrated classes, lockers, sports teams – no choice given, therefore racially mixed.
But at lunch, where kids got 20 whole minutes to hang with whomever they chose – kids always segregated themselves at the different tables by race.
So my point, in case you missed it, was that 50 years of social engineering has failed to impact the average student’s *racial?* view of himself – as made manifest by his choice of lunch companions.
=======
And notice I’m using the term “integrated” as distinguished from *multicultural.* There is nothing wrong (and it’s too late to change it, anyway!) with public institutions being racially integrated. Multi-culturalism is a different kettle of fish.
I’m with you that celebrating, encouraging, – especially EXAGGERATING – cultural differences is not desirable for institutions in a successful society. It may be that the celebration of Black History MONTH is having a pernicious effect on the goal of a integrated and productive US society.
I wonder how many people actually grasp this – I certainly just now thought of it.
Thanks!
Energy creates the society, not the other way around, as I think the myriad quagmired “solutions” on offer shows. The only things to gain any real attention lately have been ethanol and biodiesel (notice a pattern developing here?), both of which are complete jokes. It’s fun for the avant garde family in town to collect the used french fry grease and make biodiesel, I’m sure, but it can’t go much farther than that.
Remind me again how thorium is going to get the happy motoring culture on the road to “recovery”? You forget that I think energy descent IS recovery for us. What would we continue for? More cancer? More diabetes? Something altogether uglier that we don’t even know about yet? Trying to convince me that more energy means recovery, in any real sense of the word, is like trying to convince a deaf mute that the world would be much more beautiful if he would just gouge out his eyes.
We’re too good at harnessing energy. We’re bloody geniuses at it. If we could run our economy as well on something else as we can oil, it would be phasing its way in already. As it is, every new idea is just getting trounced by reality, one-by-one.
There’s a demand implosion going on right now that I think is hard to grasp. Everybody I know, even the most astute investors among them (and I mean multi-millionaires in my own family, so first-hand knowledge here), is taking it on the chin. And not just in the States, but all over the industrial world. My grandparents just lost a boatload they had invested in a local bank that closed its doors. A demand implosion is easy to twist into whatever version of “optimism” one wants.
Where my optimism gets cloudy is when I see all my folks who possess the financial means to right the family’s ship for good getting tighter and more gun-shy because of what the market’s doing to them. Money possesses them, and it will not be kind to any of us, neither the ones who love it, nor the ones who want to trade it for life support systems as fast as possible, for everyone’s benefit. I think it’s fiat’s final little fuck you to reason.
If you want to ride the next wave, albeit a shorter wave than this has been, you’ll need to find another economy in another country that isn’t wrapped up so tightly in the psychology of previous investment. Because from where I sit, we just blew our wad on “gilding the off-ramps of our interstate highway system,” as JHK pegs it.
Does it really make sense to you that an individual power system for every home is somehow cheaper energetically than a streamlined regional grid running on the greatest fuel ever known to man? Or that high-tech battery-filled cars cost less environmentally than simple steel boxes? Especially when the infrastructure is already in place for the latter and not the former? And we’re going to do all this on declining energy?
It’s all going to make one helluva head-shaking monument to our stupidity one day.
But that’s OK because, no matter how afraid of it people are today, it’ll mean that we’ll be rapidly coming back to our senses. Your brand of “optimism” makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
Incorrect. I am a Tantrik Master like Sting. I could easily plow through a whole room full of Black Girls – if that were my will. But it is not.
Dee, you are a Muggle. And you love your mud bloods. Why did the Communist/Capitalists usually beat us in the 20th century? Because of Muggles like you. Because you wanted your warm pools and green lawns complete with brown pool boys to serve you. You Muggles chose comfort and the lies of capitalist bougeosie morality over the Truth of Nation and Race. And now the check is due.
I think those guys with the separate tables are asserting their separateness because
===========
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
Huh, you are a battle hardened veteran. And Saint Louis was just named the most dangerous city in America last week.
Don’t be afraid of guns. And don’t believe what the leftist media says – they have saved many people. The leftists only publish the accidents.
Many women are arming themselves – you should too. An armed populace makes a standing army unnecessary. Such an armed yeomanry was the vision of the founders – and the vision you seemed to be indicating in your last post. You said people weren’t going to stand for the punks acting up. So if the police are cut back, who is going to stop them and how? Only an armed populace stands a chance since the gangs are armed.
When guns were banned in England, the rate of home invasions soared. Having property isn’t enough to maintian freedom – weapons are needed as well. Otherwise a standing army is made necessary and that bodes ill for freedom. Sooner or later, the police themselves become a branch of that standing army. That is now happening. All the TV shows try to make police breaking into peoples homes and throwing them around seem cool.
I agree that other precautions are necessary and I applaud your moment to moment mindfullness of your immediate enviorment.
Sarah Palin is a moron but she looks great working out with a rifle.
Quite Q. Why do the Black students sit together? Because they want to. And any Liberal White who sat down and tried to engage them would be considered a punk ass clown. I invite all Whites to listen, really listen to Blacks, go to their stations and web sites. They consider themselves a separate people, a nation waiting to be born. Dreams of reparations are still dancing in their heads. And what will happen when it becomes clear that not only are reparaions not going to happen – but the free ride is over? They will be enraged beyond all imagining and they will take to the streets to burn and kill.
Fair enough, I understand what you’re saying.
To me there’s a racial element and a cultural element. But, in my opinion, when you try to encourage cultural difference and segregation you end up making racial animosities worse. People are naturally tribal plus violent and prone to not using their heads.
I think part of the reason that black-white racial integration didn’t work or hasn’t worked yet is that you’re being impeded by different factors. You have the weight of history and the animosity that comes out of that plus there’s the natural tribalism ie the self segregation that you described in the schools. There’s economic factors also. People from different economic strata don’t tend to become friends or marry as easily.
But I think there are other factors at work in the opposite direction ie natural sexual attraction. Guys like novelty. White boys and Asian chicks can’t keep their hands off each other. I know this from experience (my wife is Asian) and from observation. Half the Asian girls in these parts have white boyfriends or hubbies. But, having said that, the history of Whites and Asians isn’t as shitty as that of whites and blacks.
What I see around here is a lot more White-Black hookups than in the past. You used to see black guys and white girls together. Now you see white guys and black girls. I think that history is becoming history at least around here. That clock ticks remorselessly and events move on. I think that as Blacks are coming up the economic scale that Blacks and Whites are more likely to see each other as mate material. I’m also seeing Black-Asian hookups.
Personally I have great faith in people’s natural horniness to accomplish racial integration. I get really upset when this multi-culti crap sets people in different silos and sets them against one another. They end up enemies instead of kin and countrymen.
“Birds of a feather flock together.” – Q
Agreed, they do. Sometimes they have the IQ of birds.
I’m interested to hear your view.
I wrote an interview with Jim that appears in the December issue of Transition Voice, out today: Interview: James Howard Kunstler
I hope you’ll come check us out. Transition Voice does cover the Transition movement, but we are not ourselves the transition mouthpiece. We also cover peak oil, climate, the economy, and communications, among other fun stuff.
Best,
Lindsay
Woops, looks like my html didn’t hold. Here’s the link: http://transitionvoice.com/2010/12/interview-james-howard-kunstler/
To then try to acculturate Somalis and Haitians was and is ridiculous. – Vlad
No it’s not ridiculous. A buddy of mine is an immigrant from Somalia. Devout Muslim, university grad from a US university, came to Canada many years ago. Highly skilled, well respected. Married with kids. A good guy all around.
Our prior Governor General was from Haiti. She was a journalist working at the CBC. She was picked as Governor General by our prior Prime Minister. I have no idea why he thought she’d be good for the job but she absolutely caught fire. Immensely popular. Very effective.
Vlad, the human mind and brain are enormously adaptable. Human behaviour is enormously elastic. You’re way too hung up on skin colour. I’ve read that subsharan blacks are genetically the most diverse people on Earth. So does “race” even make any sense as a concept? I’ve read that people in New Guinea and Australia are the most genetically different from Africans of any group on Earth. Yet they too are “black”. Maybe race is relevant in that people can tell by looking at you where your ancestors came from. But, in my own experience, that’s about all its good for.
“Thank you for the extra minute with Crackisha.”
My pleasure, and I agree with Q, that is an excellent comeback.
DeeJones though, thinks you should get a minute less 🙂
But
“I am a Tantrik Master like Sting. I could easily plow through a whole room full of Black Girls – if that were my will. But it is not.”
Now that’s a big call Vladdy.
Tantrik Monster! More like Racist Monster.
You would quite literally cr#p in your pants if you were confronted with a room full of eager Black Women (Girls! No, let’s leave paedophilia to your White Knight buddies.)
Those references to Krishna, and questioning Cash’s christianity yet thinking Sarah Palin is an idiot
are interesting.
You’re one twisted monkey!!
I’m keen to hear your thoughts on religion and I’m pretty sure a couple of the CFN’rs are too. Care to enlighten us on your religious thoughts/views/beliefs?
“Dee, you are a Muggle. And you love your mud bloods. Why did the Communist/Capitalists usually beat us in the 20th century? Because of Muggles like you. Because you wanted your warm pools and green lawns complete with brown pool boys to serve you. You Muggles chose comfort and the lies of capitalist bougeosie morality over the Truth of Nation and Race. And now the check is due.”
==
Vlad your reference to Muggles and mud blood is very disappointing. taking your literary references from Harry Potter speaks volumes about your intellect.
Its bourgeois not bougeosie.
BB..what does semitic mean ?
I have wondered why the media uses [always incorrectly] that term, but i have NEVER seen them use the term antichristian.
rush limbaugh today was taking on the smithsonian and its ‘ants on jesus’ ‘art’ [serious cough]
asking why doesnt the art director TRY TO FIND
even one person wholl do a mohamed with ants to display.
all this anti christianity [i am not a christian]
but never once have i heard the word used. not even by elrushbo.
yes its a classic.
and why did ezra pound get locked away?
a police state…’the more you terrorize peeps the easier it is to bring in fascism’!!!
bob dylan, circa 1983:
UNION SUNDOWN
‘growing yr own food will be against the law’
looser….????????
you 2 are oil and water…why bother ‘communicating’ with each other
I think you meant loser, as opposed to your loose use of the English language resulting in your choice of the word looser.
Me thinks a conspiracy is afoot!!
Vlad Mika
are you also Asia?????
3 names one brain,Phew!!
I might have underestimated you!
Cash is very wise.
he took the rose colored glasses off!
Have either of you read of Clintons time as a student at [harvard?]..
he was the only white whod sit with the black law students.
no..i am quoting Dee
this wasnt asked of me but i am answering.
i am not vladmika
i am not vlad
i am not miss miska
i am me…..alive and well in socal
JHK doesnt allow conspiracy theory here!
‘they take helicopters from one building to another’
in the press here you will NEVER know what south africa is really like!
i hear from those who had to flee.
like the slums of brazil but id guess much worse.
OK
I’ll take your word for it. your reference to a Vlad Mika spat made me suspicious.
Oh my I’m seeing conspiracies behind very post. 🙁
Sigh, I should get myself a cup of coffee and relax!
Excuse my ignorance but I assume socal means Southern California.
and you 2 tie for #1 birdbrain.
Vlad said:
“Sarah Palin is a moron but she looks great working out with a rifle.”
I don’t believe Sarah knows her way around any sort of firearms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8jx6_yuFgw&playnext=1&list=PLE00C8745B5EF202C&index=12
Clip above is from Sarah’s Alaska, or something like that. Notice the following:
1. Sarah shoulders her shotgun before calling, “Pull!” This blocks her view of the clay pigeon as it comes into range.
2. Double barreled weapon is slightly too large for her and they never show her shooting – this indicates to me that she probably has flinching and recoil issues
3. Daughter Bristol has the same weapon – they are sharing one shotgun – come on – they are Republicans?? – in Alaska?? – with one gun????
4. Daughter keeps her finger INSIDE the trigger guard when not shooting – Jeesus H Chrrisst on a Crutch – somebody get these goofballs a firearms instructor before they hurt their film crew!
Or maybe SHE could shoot Dick for us?!
Asia
Such hostility!!
Did your mother feed you crab apples when you were a a kid?
“Don’t be afraid of guns. And don’t believe what the leftist media says – they have saved many people. The leftists only publish the accidents.” -Vlad
Please get your mind out of the left/right paradigm of “arm-ed-ness”. I know a LARGE contingent of the dreaded “libruls” that are armed to the friggin’ teeth and are quite well versed [and practiced] in their usage. Whether you’re down widdat or not makes not a whit of difference; it be what it be.
If you think only the military, authoritarians, and gang-bangers are armed; you gots another “think” comin’.
Hey! Nice writing Ms. Curran.
Thanks for the link… it am now bookmark-io-ed.
Keep a’goin’.
People like yourself and Tripp give me a more tempered branding on my innate ass-holery (tm MM).
;o)
“Incorrect. I am a Tantrik Master like Sting. I could easily plow through a whole room full of Black Girls – if that were my will. But it is not.”‘
“Tantrick Masterbator is more like it.
Really, I just can’t picture the woman that would willingly, without pay, have sex with you.
And Stink, really, perhaps the worst, most boring so-called musician I can think of. Geeez.
And sorry for the looser v loser boo-boo up thread. Surprised Q didn’t jump all over that shit.
Now get back to your secret masterbatory fantasies about little black girls.
Say, were you a member of the Aryan Nation in prison? In fact, are you still in prison? Or is it just one in your mind.
So long, Dee
Cash says:
“Personally I have great faith in people’s natural horniness to accomplish racial integration. I get really upset when this multi-culti crap sets people in different silos and sets them against one another. They end up enemies instead of kin and countrymen”
==============
I tend to agree with you concerning the horniness factor.
I guess that makes you and me advocates of miscegenation. Sorry about that, Vlad.
One of my mom’s uncles (born 1875 or so) fathered a son with his black gulfren’ around about 1910. I’ve still got black half-cousins in Georgia. Some of them have become very successful, from what I’ve heard. So I guess I can honestly say I come from a long and successful line of miscegenators. 😉
===============
And yeah, I don’t know where the great experiment known as *forced school integration* went off the rails. And I was one of the little lab rats living the freakin’ experiment in 196? in Macon, GA.
I went to a junior high school that was being integrated rapidly and forcefully by court order. At the same time that the junior highs and high schools were already segregated by sex.
It was exactly like going to school in prison.
I’ll have to tell y’all about some of it, sometime.
O3 – you’re on a roll!
Kudos to Ms. Curren! I agree.
Armed liberals – exactly right!!
Social liberal, fiscal conservative, – with libertarian tendencies and well armed – there are a lot of us just like that.
We’re sort of quiet in my region because the social conservatives have us outgunned right now – maybe that’ll change someday
‘I think that as Blacks are coming up the economic scale that Blacks and Whites ‘
actually i think since crack/gun proliferation blacks have gone way backwards.
I have no doubt that’s true. But that doesn’t make what I said about the leftist media untrue. It just means liberals often say one thing and do another. Or more precisely, make rules for other people they have no intention of living by themselves. Goldman Sachs employees in NY all were offered licenses to carry – something very difficult for the average New Yorker to get.
But that’s liberal pers se, just elite privledge vs non elite. I know the elite are largely beyond these designations of left vs right but only use them to divide us. It’s working.
In Boston, Judge Garrity took his children out of public school when the program expanded to include his area. Responding to criticism, he said that his behavior as a private citizen had no relation to his beliefs and actions as a judge. Thus the Western Tradition of thousands of years of leading by example was extniguished. The vileness of our Elite has no limit.
You say:
“In Boston, Judge Garrity took his children out of public school when the program expanded to include his area”
Yep, the arrogance of our leadership – do what I say do, not what I do – is astounding.
No argument from me on that one, Vlad.
Did you note in my post that I have 4/5 black 3rd half-cousins once removed living in *OUR* home state of GA. Maybe that will explain my visceral response when you suggest a black colony in Mississippi, or whatever.
That’s a non-starter. Never gonna happen except over my dead body sort of thing.
Harry Potter deals with moral issues in a young adult format in a way that’s enjoyable for older people as well. Don’t be such a snob. The views in the movies are far more inspiring than propaganda pieces such as Schindler’s List or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”.
But I chose the movie because the sound of the word muggle sums up Dee very well. The m followed by the double g’s are very invocative. As you are no doubt unaware, some sounds have intrinsic or mantric meaning.
This event I do remember. He actually “set an example” at the time, with many, many upper class and upper middle class parents following his lead. The middle and lower classes, as usual, had no choice for their children, although many turned to Catholic schools as an “opt-out”.
Now for, “Where were you in ’63?” Living in the D.C. suburbs (still have some kin there), eating hamburgers with my children at White Castle (no Vlad, it wasn’t named that for being a white only establishment). Was there with a girl friend, also with kids in tow. The black guy who provided counter service to us came from the back of the restaurant with a horrified look on his face. My friend and I just looked at him, wondering what had placed him in such a sudden state of shock. He told us that President Kennedy had just been shot. Then he looked away, vacant. Remember it as though it were yesterday. My friend and I just looked at each other and wept. Yep. Tragic, sorrowful day.
BTW, Google just informed me that today is the anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus. CFN, I don’t know how much more of this racial stuff I can take. I know, I know, I hear it. “So go away and die, ole bitch!” Might just do that. 😉
Cougar_W, as I said, spreading awareness is a justifiable use of air travel (and other long distance travel) but JHK seemed to be struggling to justify his travel by using the stupid argument that the plane would have gone anyway. Of course, he may have been trying to be humorous, but I’ve come across that non-argument so often (I even used to use it myself) that I try to call it when I see it.
Got it, and thanks! Saw “The Women” as a child when it was first released, and then much later on TCM. Excellent cast, witty dialogue…worth another viewing IMO! Mom was just mad about Norma Shearer. I kind of felt like she simpered too much in this and other movies. Pretty girl, though.
Lindsay, nice piece. I didn’t know anyone loved the old bugger quite that much! But I can tell you I show up here every Monday morning, and hang around to talk most of the week too. I probably spend more time here than I do at my own blog!
But what you transition folks are doing is world-class, and you ought to know that there are plenty of people out there in your corner. Several of them haunt these pages, helping you promote the idea that as humans exiled from natural rythms there is much to gain from energy descent.
Thanks for the link!
Vlad said: “The m followed by the double g’s are very invocative.”
evocative
As you are no doubt unaware, some sounds have intrinsic or mantric meaning.
==
If you say so.
“If you think only the military, authoritarians, and gang-bangers are armed; you gots another “think” comin’.”
I have a Winchester pump-action 12 gauge shotgun under the edge of the bed, and I’m as liberal as they come, by some definitions!
Second and Final part of the Vladdy Chronicles
Vlad reached his apartment at about 2.30 am and immediately switched on his computer.
While he waited for it to boot up he smiled as he looked at his bookshelf containing his literary store of knowledge, the full Harry Potter series, a well thumbed copy of Mein Kampf, a worn but lovingly bound printout of the Protocols Of The Elders of Zion and a pile of well thumbed issues of Ebony Jugs and Coochie.
Selecting CFN from his list of favourites he noticed no-one had responded to his posts from earlier in the day except that damn Dostoyevsky, Turkle and DeeJones, “Liberal c#nts with no race pride” he fumed.
Tired but not sleepy he switched on the tube and considered watching an episode of Nascar Life but chose the Gerry Springer channel instead.
The show featured a black family all on welfare and every one of them obese. The issue at hand was that the mother had fallen pregnant to the daughter’s 17 year old boyfriend who already was a father of 2 one of which was with his sister; he added for good measure that he was also bisexual.
Vlad laughed as they tore into one another, punching and scratching and felt satisfied that this abomination would soon be remedied through action from the White Knights.
After the swearing behemoths were led from the stage a new family drama was featured.
This episode featured a white family where the father had impregnated both his daughter and his daughter in law. The family was mostly thin (and on welfare) as their collective crack habits didn’t allow much accumulation of excess meat.
After the son physically attacked the father and the GS security men separated them, they stood shouting abuse at each other panting heavily from the exertion. At that point the obese mother (the only fat one) with no front teeth shrieked at the father that she was happy that she had f#ucked her son, given what he (the father) had done. At that point the father tore into the son fists flailing, for this violation of sacred family boundaries….
At this point Vladdy laughed out loud and switched off the Television. Heading for his bedroom, he was unaware of the irony in his attitude to this vile cretinous white family versus the equally vile cretinous black family he had only 20 minutes before pictured through the crosshairs of his imaginary rifle.
As he entered his bedroom he stopped, came to attention and gave a Nazi salute to the Aayrian Brotherhood flag stuck to his bedroom wall.
Climbing into bed he considered pleasuring himself but having recently been with Crackisha he thought he’d give it a miss until the morning.
Sleep came quickly but the recurring nightmare came back. In this nightmare he saw thousands of Blacks, Mexicans, Indians and a few preppy white Liberals, marching towards him from across a field, with the intention of devouring him. He stood there firing his machine gun and calling for backup but when he looked behind him all he could see was his White Brotherhood comrades, having dropped their weapons running for the hills.
He woke up screaming, covered in sweat and breathing heavily, but relieved that it was all a dream.
He thought about pleasuring himself but no amount manipulation or fantasizing about Crackisha would give him the rigidity he desired.
He sighed and thought about his day ahead as a janitor at the local college, amongst all those university educated know it all liberal f#ckwits.
He muttered, “their day will come”
HOW DEBT-FUELED GROWTH DESTROYS ITSELF … by E.
Blinder of the St. Louis Fed went on TV today
to declare that QE-fueled growth is going to
“lead to a STRONG recovery in 2011”.
These guys really MUST be smoking better shit
than I can obtain. The problem is that the
grand total of QE1/TALF/QE2 at $3.3 trillion
has only enhanced employment marginally, has
only drawn out the pain of the housing collapse,
and contains the seeds of its own destruction.
The problem is that this Treasury-fueled “binge”
can only “succeed” at the cost of rekindling
food and fuel commodity inflation. What kind
of “recovery” will it be if the Dow returns
to 14K (not out of the realm of possibility)
but U6 unemployment remains above 16% (with
U3 stubbornly above 9%) and no sign of life
in the construction industry. What kind of
“recovery” will it be if gasoline goes to
$5 in a year? It’s a rule of thumb in 2010
that $85/bbl for oil is the breaking point
for the economy and today it closed above $86.
Thus, the “recovery”, such as it is, is laying
the groundwork for very severe inflation in
around 3-5 years (as government debt always
does) while in the here-and-now, work prospects
improve only marginally and the deflation of
stuff like tech gizmos and appliances is more
than counterbalanced by inflation in everyday
items (except clothing) needed for survival.
I’ve never seen such an enormous amount of
money create so little end result. Oddly
enough, if EVERY household in America
received a $40,000 check (around 150,000,000
households), the cost would be six trillion
… about double the totality of the QEs
and TALF, this would totally erase the
nation’s ENTIRE installment credit balance
AND leave much left over for retail spending.
The problem is that the government’s machinations
have put the money in the wrong hands and,
strangely for a Democratic Administration, left
the working family with almost nothing at all
to show for it.
E.
Are you emotionally attached to this distant cousin? The Black Land we imagine would be large – a swath cutting through many Southern States. You’re probably already in it so don’t worry. This is among the best land in America. You can stay if they let you. I’m sure you’re not a hypocrite like Turkel who doesn’t think Blacks should have their own Countries.
Hypothetical: if you had a child with a Black Woman, would that child be close to you genetically? Closer than your White Neighbor next door? Or would you have just cast your seed into an alien womb whose offspring will have very little to do with you?
Final? Why? You are weakening – too much masturbation. You misspelled Aryan.
Only final as in writing a little piece of fiction that probably closely resembles your life.
I will however continue to pick apart your vacuous posts.
Thanks for pointing out my spelling Aryan incorrectly, I’ll take that as a complement.
Weakening due to masturbation, on the contrary, masturbation is quite invigorating, you should know, as the only women who will have sex with you are those who demand cash upfront.
E. asks: “What kind of “recovery” will it be if gasoline goes to $5 in a year?”
A recovery in which people drive less, pollute less, and do not congest the roads as much?
Hypothetical: if you had a child with a Black Woman, would that child be close to you genetically? Closer than your White Neighbor next door? Or would you have just cast your seed into an alien womb whose offspring will have very little to do with you?
====
If I fart in Australia is it likely to cause a hurricane in downtown Seattle? If I think I’m an idiot, am I one really? If I eat a slice of cheddar cheese, will the Queen of England attend church this Sunday?
Vlad you’re an idiot.
“…even more diversity will be present… but no [more] war.”
Yes, after you dispose of all opposition, there would be no more war. Borg is as Borg does.
I thought it was an act. I was wrong.
You really do view every single aspect of human life through a distorting prism of skin color consciousness.
You ask:
“Hypothetical: if you had a child with a Black Woman, would that child be close to you genetically? Closer than your White Neighbor next door?”
===============
This is silly. The child would have half of my excellent gene pool. The crack addled white trash *White Neighbor* next door has a whole lot less of my gene pool – especially the useful parts outside of the shallow end.
Besides which, the hypothetical Black Woman who carried my hypothetical child would be highly intelligent and cute as a little black button. 😉
Blood is thicker than water.
And blood is red, not white or black, BTW.
Lucky you got to see Australia before the CHICOMS take it, in about 20 years. Then again, by then they will probably own most of it anyway. Thankfully, you missed the fires and dust storms.
I have a Winchester pump-action 12 gauge shotgun under the edge of the bed
==========
Bob (a co-worker back in the day) was the son of a NJ State cop so there was always a weapon or two around the house. Bob’s word to the wise was “if there’s a gun in the house and a kid in the house it’s inevitable that kid will locate that gun and will fire it.” Be VERY careful.
“It’s a rule of thumb in 2010
that $85/bbl for oil is the breaking point
for the economy and today it closed above $86”
Why is that a “rule of thumb”?
In other parts of the planet, gas is quite a bit more expensive than in America, and those economies are not “broken,” as far as I can tell.
$5 a gallon gas isn’t really going to break anyone either.
Well, some say all the “helicopter money” pumped into the economy prevented it from collapsing.
Then there was “quantitative easing.” It basically means…we just created a fuck load of money out of thin air to buy our own bonds. Neat trick, huh?
Who knows. I am not privy to all the backroom shenanigans that take place at the various regional Federal Reserve meetings. I heard that the number of $700 billion was picked “because it is a really big number.” So it isn’t exactly rocket science going on here.
The banks seem to be doing a whole lot better after their approximately $1 trillion stimulus.
The states are hanging in there after they got stimulated, too.
GM is doing a lot better.
But I don’t know how much longer the whole thing can slouch along. As long as we don’t default on the interest payments on the national debt and can pay back bonds as they come due…I guess things will be fine. Right?!
I think a little bit of inflation is the least of our worries.
The whole shebang seems like an epic clusterfuck in the making to me, but, then again, I tend to look at things through a scanner darkly.
Turkle, in reviewing your posts of this week, and your posts last week, I think you are making too much sense. This sense making harshes the doomster buzz.
Get with the program Turkle … as JHK says this week: “these are perilous times” and your sense making is not helping up the fear level. Just the opposite.
Myself, I am surprised we have arrived at Wednesday without the shit hitting the fan. Maybe tomorrow, and for sure within one Freidman Unit, because these are perilous times.
🙂
You’re right: all things are connected. Does not the poet say, thou canst not touch a flower without troubling a star.
Turkle said: “Then there was “quantitative easing.” It basically means…we just created a fuck load of money out of thin air to buy our own bonds. Neat trick, huh?”
Very neat, Turkle!
As you know, the United States Constitution specifically reserves the right to “coin money” (and now virtual money) to the Federal Government. So, QE is perfectly OK.
Eliminating the Federal Reserve and returning money creation to the Federal Government scares the bankers because it decreases their power. This amounts to nationalizing money itself.
Review of the US heritage reveals the role played by fiat money, Colonial Scrip, in leading to the colonial revolution once Great Britain outlawed it. Prosperity turned to financial contraction.
To finance the Civil War President Lincoln refused to finance via the banks and loan interest, so the US created fiat money through the Greenbacks – money backed only by faith in the US Government. Fiat money is neat! Very useful!
If a national government is ultimately constitutionally responsible for the economic well being of its multicultural peoples, then it must create and control its money.
One step would be to eliminate the Fed and to replace Federal Reserve Notes with US Notes.
In any event, QE is cool!
A Letter from Out Here…
An occasional observation of what’s happening in my little corner of the world. To bring the uninitiated up to speed, a small (17,000) western Washington town half way between Seattle and Portland, 2 1/2 miles off I-5. In a very conservative rural county.
The downtown building stock is a Edward Hopper (or JHK) wet dream. Mostly brick buildings from the early 1900s. I run a small used bookstore along the main stretch. In the past two weeks I have taken in around $25. I am open 6 days a week from at least 10-5.
There is little foot traffic even though this used to be thought of as “the Golden Block.”
In a three block stretch of this street seven large commercial buildings are for sale. One more dropped off the market but was not sold. I would have heard. Two more are not on the market, but I hear are in serious tax trouble. Another fellow is fighting to make his mortgage payment and is underwater. My neighbor two doors down “owns” his building, but the other day I got a misdirected piece of mail, a post card from the county asking if he has “forgot” his 6 month chunk of property taxes.
This morning I looked out on the empty street and thought to myself “The town is dying.” It’s not dead yet, but I think after Christmas we will see a lot more empty spaces. It’s still a long way to the bottom, but unless someone takes a torch to their building on a windy night and we loose a large chunk of the downtown, I think something else will take it’s place.
It’s natural to want your children to look like you – only Whites would doubt themselves on this or allow themselves to be doubted. So what if all blood is red? It all looks the same but it isn’t in reality. A rat’s blood is red too. And if you were to have a mulatto child, it would be far more different from you than your White neighbor. It would look different and there would be even deeper differences that you can’t see. Often you can judge a book by its cover – if you have read alot and know books. Otherwise, appearances are deceiving.
asoka,
I appreciate your positive attitude, even if I don’t share your “cornucopian” viewpoint regarding solar energy and the like. The one thing that we have the most control over in life is our attitude. I like that you bring a good sense of humor, also. Some people here take themselves waaaay too seriously (his user name rhymes with “bad”).
Anywho, regarding TSHTF…
Have you heard this saying?
A recession is when your neighbor loses their job. A depression is when you lose your job.
In other words, the personal perception of whether TSHTF depends on whether or not you’ve gotten hit by any fecal matter.
If you’re currently living in a Haitian refugee camp and worried about getting cholera, I’d say you got splattered with a serious amount of shit already. Similarly, you have gotten poo flung at you if you’re currently residing in, say, Mogadishu.
If, however, you are living in a technologically advanced nation like America, with free time to write a bunch of stuff on Kunstler’s blog, you’re probably shit free…at least for now.
Even then, when TSHTF for everyone (or most people), being covered in shit will become the new normal, because everyone else will smell of it, too. I’m thinking of places like 3rd world slums, where conditions are pretty horrible. But yet people still manage to survive and are not crying that it is the “Apocalypse” because they live in a shanty town. They just get used to, uh, smelling bad.
Oh, and on a side note, if TS does not HTF, I will not be depressed. I will be happy, as will most people, even the doomers. The idea that the TS would soon HTF has irked me for some time now. But human society seems rather resilient, as least for the time being.
Okay, I think I’ve taken the whole fan + flying shit analogy about as far as it will go in one post.
Good night!
Well, Bad Craps, the president of the United States is a mulatto, and he is clearly far more intelligent, compassionate, and mature than you, not to mention successful. He’s gotten a lot done in the last two years. Your dumb progeny, assuming you have any, will read the history books and weep. (Yeah, yeah…I know…Obamao is a commie socialist hater of the white man. Spare me the tea baggery, please.)
So what does that say about your whole theory of the innate superiority of white people?
Apparently, it doesn’t apply very well to you.
I didn’t quite understand all that ranting, SEB…but I feel your pain. I’m really not a bad guy, at least not for this blog. I’ve never killed anyone. And I don’t advocate race war. I also change my underpants everyday.
And Turkle…no idea what it means. Nothing really. I just thought it sounded funny.
Slice and dice? Um, yeah, I inline parts of other people’s posts that I’m responding to…what does that have to do with going back in time? That’s the natural thing to do when you’re responding to one sentence of a 4 paragraph post. Quoting the whole post would be a bit gratuitous and pointless.
I take back the “TLDR;” because I’m guilty of textual surplus myself. I was just feeling lazy.
Nice blog by the way. But I don’t get it. If you hate me, why do you agree with whatever I’m going to say next?
“Or would you have just cast your seed into an alien womb whose offspring will have very little to do with you?”
Wow, Vlad…can I have some of what you’re smoking?
Or better yet, tell me what you’re smoking so I make sure not to inhale.
If, however, you are living in a technologically advanced nation like America
Then, you have already been shit on by the lack of a single payer health system, you have already been shit upon by a military that takes 50% of national discretionary funds and shits them down rat holes, and you can look forward to more shitty conditions as Republicans cut away at whatever social safety net remains in this country.
I have a sense of humor, but I am not blind to the suffering around me, nor to my own suffering, in these United States.
Having time to write things and send them over the inter-tubes is fun, though, and a luxury given how much of the world does not have internet access … or even electricity.
Thanks for extending the metaphor, Turkle. Good night!
You wrote :
” And if you were to have a mulatto child, it would be far more different from you than your White neighbor.”
How so? your white neighbour (Q we spell neighbor this way) would still be a crackhead addict and your child would be a combination of you and your partner’s looks. You and your partner would inculcate your family values into the child and that child would love you two as much or more than you love him/her.
Your white neighbour whether a crackhead or an ordinary law abiding citizen would have less than 1% in common with you than your “mulatto” child.
Clearly the racial prism through which you see the world blinds you.
You wrote:
“Often you can judge a book by its cover – if you have read alot and know books. Otherwise, appearances are deceiving.”
What a banal hackneyed phrase. You truly are about as dim as an earthworm.
Yep I nows dem books awrite. I been reeding an riting sins i waz fiften yers old. I nows dem boks so wel I can juj ani bok juss by cing dat covr. My duddy on de over hand dont no dem boks cuz he got no ejamacashyn lyk me so he be deseevd by dem apeerncs al de tym.
I thought this quote from Assange was apropos
[blockquote]
And where does the U.S. fall between the two categories? He said, “It’s becoming more closed” as a society, and its “relative degree of openness … probably peaked in about 1978, and has been on the way down, unfortunately, since.” That, he said, was a result of, among other things, America’s enormous economy, which calibrates power in the U.S. in economic, or as he said, “fiscal,” terms. He pointed out that, today, China may be easier to reform than the U.S. “Aspects of the Chinese government, [the] Chinese public-security service, appear to be terrified of free speech, and while one might say that means something awful is happening in the country, I actually think that is a very optimistic sign, because it means that speech can still cause reform and that the power structure is still inherently political as opposed to fiscal. So journalism and writing are capable of achieving change, and that is why Chinese authorities are so scared of it.” On the other hand, in the U.S. and much of the West, he said, “the basic elements of society have been so heavily fiscalized through contractual obligations that political change doesn’t seem to result in economic change, which in other words means that political change doesn’t result in change.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2033887,00.html#ixzz16wrOle6f
[/blockquote]
Assange talked about WikiLeaks’ founding principles — and the evolution of the original conception of how the online conduit for whistle-blowing documents would work. In the beginning, in 2006, given the huge amounts of raw, “quality, important content” the site was providing, he said, “we thought we would have the analytical work done by bloggers and people who wrote Wikipedia articles and so on.” Analyzing secret Chinese data or internal documents from Somalia, he said, was “surely” more interesting than blogging about “what’s on the front page of the New York Times, or about your cat or something.”
But, he said, “when people write political commentary on blogs or other social media, it is my experience that it is not, with some exceptions, their goal to expose the truth. Rather, it is their goal to position themselves amongst their peers on whatever the issue of the day is. The most effective, the most economical way to do that, is simply to take the story that’s going around, [which] has already created a marketable audience for itself, and say whether they’re in favor of that interpretation or not.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2033887,00.html#ixzz16wsXWdD4
Its coming, beantown!
The great big ice cream truck in the sky.
80 new flavors, every month,
An international blog of sensitive state secrets…
infos on governments…
big banks…
Youtube president is coming soon, Ahhh lawdy!
“As you know, the United States Constitution specifically reserves the right to “coin money” (and now virtual money) to the Federal Government.”
The word “coin” does not include the idea of print or create out of thin air. The money has to have some productivity or value to support it. In coining money the money has intrinsic value {the metal} which everyone recognizes. It is when this is ignored that havoc results.
It is time to observe a Jubilee.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/living-economies/532
Our government can issue it’s own money based on the people’s productivity. Metals will still circulate as money. Local currencies can circulate as well as our ability to barter. A few months of sorting things out is far preferable to a fraudulent debt burden, designed to destroy us and allow the wealthiest thieves on the planet to basically steal our homes and all the natural wealth, which is our birthright.
In the Jubilee ancestoral land is also returned to the people. Each extended family is allotted a parcel of land so that they can work and live together {if they will} and provide for themselves. Large parcels for large families and smaller parcels if the land is highly productive. Some families in America have never had their own land, meaning they have always been in economic bondage to the rich.
A well thought out plan to make such a transtition is very much doable. Can you imagine?
New World Order map:
– http://goo.gl/r6UDV
Simon, I’m interested in your comments regarding the question of whether many of our leaders may be psychopaths.
Question 1: Do you think that our society actually produces psychopaths?
Question 2: Do you think that the grotesque insincerity and obtuseness of Obama’s Thanksgiving address below indicates that Obama may be a psychopath? Thanks.
“From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thankful
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you’ll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you — for everything.
I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
“it’s inevitable that kid will locate that gun and will fire it.” Be VERY careful.”
Should I be offended by the general assumption that lib’ruhls don’t know how to use and store a firearm safely? Probably. Especially considering that I’m an Air Force expert marksman on the M16 and M9. Though neither can put the fear of god into an intruder like pumping a 12 gauge within earshot.
Thanks anyway for the words of advice though.
That’s probably one of the more insightful political maps I’ve ever seen!
Thanks for the belly laugh on a cold Thursday morning deep in Jesus and Meth.
My pleasure, Tripp. 🙂
Have a great day, y’all.
Yep – map is awesome – with some truth under the humor.
I had skipped over Mika’s link until Tripp flagged it to my attention.
Thanks guys!
Now I’ve gotta go look for Jesus and watch out for meth.
Or maybe look for meth and watch out for Jesus?
OK, Pucker, I’ll play.
You have posted that Obama speech umpteen times this week. Upon what do you want us to comment?
Looks like pretty standard political boilerplate to me.
I’ll freely admit that Obama has screwed up some stuff in a major way.
But every time a National Crisis hits the news my first thought is how thankful I am that BushII is not in charge.
I thought about rewriting the whole Obama speech in the words of BushII:
“….and we’re thankful that the Terror Alert is Orange….and them Iranians don’t have nuc-U-lar power yet….”
But that’s a lot of work – and probably only funny to me — LOL, damnit!
Bottom line, Pucker, tell me what you want criticized and I’ll try to help you out with it if I can see it.
“Now I’ve gotta go look for Jesus and watch out for meth.
Or maybe look for meth and watch out for Jesus?” -PoC
…Or, USE a big bunch o’ meth and be absolutely convinced I’m SEEING Jesus, in poi’sun!
;o)
Ps. I’m pleased to be considered a member of the freakish slice of the great U-nlimited S-upply of A-ssholes! (…Boids of a feather, as you might guess.)
Beats the hell outta being “normal,” don’t it?
Brilliant map. Stoner’s Land appeals to me most.
First hard frost of the season this morning shut down a few summer herbs, and the remaining tomatoes and peppers. Hopefully that was it. I think we’re going to need a greenhouse soon!
lol Shore do!
…Especially after viewing videos of moronic “consumers” fighting tooth and nail to get them Big Box bargains on Black Friday. Wow, how can this possibly be called civilized, in any sense of the word? (Instructive, however.)
The word “coin” does not include the idea of print or create out of thin air. The money has to have some productivity or value to support it. – MD
Thanks MD for that lesson in basic common sense. Now if we could only get you into the Fed somehow.
LOL!
And very appropriate, as MD is great at making stuff up.
I checked the dictionary for coin as a verb:
a. To form, fashion, or convert into (as metal is made into coin).
There is no notion of value inherent in coining. Forming, or fashioning, or converting (as in the expression “to coin a phrase”) only produces something of value if value is perceived in the mind of the recipient. It has been that way for thousands of years.
Fiat money works. Printed money, or money “coined” from electrons (i.e., quantitative easing) works, precisely because there is no inherent link between coining and value. We are in the 21st century now, and coining happens through electronic QE. That is 21st century reality.
(Q we spell neighbor this way)
=======
Dostoy, I’m well aware of the British penchant for tossing a superfluous u into words like labor and neighbor and for the non-sensical arrangement of the letters e and r at the end of words like theater and for laughable pronunciations of certain words such as shedge yoo ul for schedule … and such.
How’s that Tea Party thingy workin’ out for ya?
In the United States Congress the 52 members of the Tea Party caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.
SOURCE: Citizens Against Government Waste
[blockquote]
=======
Bust, your attempt at doing a “blockquote” failed because you used the wrong type of brackets. You must use the less than symbols. This goes for bolding and italics as well.
You must use the less than and greater than symbols.
Western Pennsylvania translation.
FIFO
Fucking Idiot From Ohio
World Cup Soccer translation.
FIFA
Fucking Idiots From America.
Congratulations Qatar!
That was a really interesting little talk. What do you make of this Assange fellow? Do you think he’s a CIA stooge? I’m not sure what to think about him. What do you think about that young army guy they arrested? Do you figure he’s an Oswald type patsy?
Say Vlady, I kinda like muggle, it rhymes with snuggle, which makes me think of that cute little bear in the fabric softener commercials.
!
ewww, did you wash your hands first?
And I love the Offend Everyone Map.
Your pal, Dee
What I would really like to see is a similar dump of Chinese and Russian diplomatic burblings. I like to see their view on things straight from the horse’s mouth.
I hear that there’s going to be a dump of stuff from a major US bank. That ought to be interesting. None of it should be surprising though.
I’d like to know where the money is coming from. We know now that it was Vatican financiers that were bankrolling Marx. I want to know who’s bankrolling Assange, and who’s bankrolling the bankrollers. There’s the front. There’s the front behind the front. There’s the front behind the front behind the front. And so on. We need to peel this onion, ’till we get at the truth.
whats chicoms?
and how is australia?
[also known as ‘new china’]
No, you’re being unfair as usual.
==
My language:
Vatican imperialists
Your language:
Da Jooz
My language:
Nazi imperialists
Your language:
Da Jooz
My language:
British imperialists
Your language:
Da Jooz
My language:
Yankee imperialists
Your language:
Da Jooz
My language:
old aristocracy psychopaths
Your language:
Da Jooz
But I’m being unfair. Whatever, Vladik.
‘intelligent, compassionate, and mature’
Bhahahaha….if thats yr description of BHO then you are posting at the wrong blog lady [or lad].
The key to most mysteries is to follow the money. I know nothing about this Assange chap. But you’re right, he has to have a source of money and support.
And I wonder about his motivation. Do you believe what you read about him? Do you believe what he says about himself? Even if his backers are rich or powerful he must know that he’s pissed off some really shitty people. If Putin can happily knock off pesky journalists why would he hesitate with Assange? I cannot imagine that the Russki secret service has got any scruples whatsoever on the matter. Same with the Chinese or your own lovely Mossad.
The other mystery is Assange’s grunts. What motivates them? Is it money? Is it hate? What is their ideology? They can’t all be rich or connected or shadowy intelligence types. They must know they’re hunted.
shedge yoo ul – they learned to say it this way at grammar shool.
They also say leftenant instead of lewtenant.
Where did they get the F in leftenant? Same place as the R in colonel (kernel).
I cannot imagine that the Russki secret service has got any scruples whatsoever on the matter. Same with the Chinese or your own lovely Mossad.
==
They don’t. You’re absolutely right. And I don’t believe in coincidence. So let’s see:
1/ Putin, from an obscure low level KGB apparatchik becomes the most powerful and richest personality in Russia
1/ Putin is now allowing US logistical support through Russia. The same people who guarding the opium fields in Afghanistan and are poisoning Russia, are given full logistical support by Putin
3/ Iran. Putin is fully on board with the Americans, even though it is clearly against Russian interests. Putin will not allow weapons to the Iranians so they protect themselves against an American attack.
Putin, like that fscking egg face Netanyahu, is a CIA agent. You can take that to the Vatican bank.
If Putin , as you say, is operating against the interests of his own country (like American financiers or captains of industry) then I don’t think he’s doing it because he wants to be friends with the CIA. There has to be money in it for him or property or some reward.
I don’t think he would take that kind of risk for nothing. For sure Putin is formidable, he commands men with guns that get depressed if they’re not planning to kill somebody. But as nasty as Putin is I have to believe that he has rivals in Russia just as nasty as him, that have their own loyalists, that hate his guts, that Putin crossed at some point and that want him out or suddenly and “tragically” deceased.
Wonderful story – you should be a novelist or a short-story writer.
There’s no ‘if’ about it. He’s a CIA agent. The guy stole at least $40 billion from the Russian people, and not a word about it on the US propaganda channels. Ask yourself, why is that?
Just wait. Your time will come, too.
“And very appropriate, as MD is great at making stuff up.”
PKB. Did you read Michael Hudson?
“Now if we could only get you into the Fed somehow.”
No thanks. Don’t you smell that smell.
Awwllll righty then !
Nothing escapes energetics laws. If we’re beyond peak, and I certainly think we are, an economy that built itself on growth will not survive. More money doesn’t mean more energy. More money just means less energy represented per dollar. (Been heading that way for a long time already actually. At least since 1968 when we left the silver standard.) You can’t trick Mother Nature with your economic theory. She’s not going to buy it.
I know you’ve been waiting for something big to happen for so long that you have a hard time seeing the system collapsing around you. But despite the fact that you’ve been expecting it for decades, we’re only 4 years beyond peak oil, and it takes a while to turn a globe-sized economy. I wouldn’t get too comfortable in your Homo-sapiens-uber-alles mentality. But that’s just me.
The new Johnny’s seed catalog came yesterday. I can’t put it down. Horticultural porn for me. These guys are keeping up surprisingly well with what’s happening in the home-grown movement.
Cash, the section on Asian melons made me think of how your tastes run in the garden…
There’s the front behind the front behind the front.
=========
Spoken like the true grand conspiracy goofball that you are. One can never get to the ultimate source of a conspiracy. It’s like the universe: there’s galaxies, then solar systems, planets, atoms, electrons, quarks and who knows what’s next.
Messianic Druid wrote,
Our government can issue it’s own money based on the people’s productivity. Metals will still circulate as …
In order to write that, he had to be exceedingly ignorant. However, I have always thought of the druid as just this sort of person. Stonehenge is their achievement, and, to me, a circle of rocks is as dumb as a box of rocks.
Now do I continue, in case more of you are like that? Alright, “it” is a pronoun. We don’t make plurals on “it”, and if you think about it, you may figure out why. Of course, my wife is worse; she doesn’t say, “That’s what it was about.” She says, “That’s what it was about it.” She’s actually no stupider than the druid, because in both cases they were right for a second and could not stand success. They ruined it.
Without plurals for “it”, we are free to leave out the apostrophe when denoting possession. “It’s” is a contraction of “it is”, every time. He throws this freedom away, celebrating ignorance in the Bush style, deliberately divisive and polarizing. I know short little Texans, and Bush is just one we somehow never captured and stomped into some adherence to the rules of conduct.
Well, you, Turkle, are more like that than Druid is. I did not mean that you sliced and diced the text, you slice and dice people. I knew that from last year, i.e. my efforts are described as incoherent rants. You can’t take back what you said, partner. It’s too late! With my thoughts posted, your comment was that it was too long. I can’t go back in time to rewrite it, and that’s what going back in time has to do with the issue. A person going back in time has to be sliced in half while one half stays here, n’est pas?
This column is 53 characters wide, and that’s too narrow.
I wish I was living back then. I’d ride out to Stonehenge under a full moon and catch those Druids and drag them all away to slavery, because I sleep the sleep of the righteous.
What does it say about that place on the map of the new world order? Okay, they are inbreeders.
You said you change your underwear, Turkle, but you are fond of LOL, LMAO (besides TL,DR). You laugh with your mouth wide open and the bad breath coming out, and all the underwear changes in the world won’t help that.
Now here I am twiddling my thumbs “dealing” with someone who is determined to waste my time. That’s what I mean by a “spoiler”.
I said I hate you and you tried to mitigate it, saying you’re not repeat not, a badguy. Hey, the one they call turkle’s not a bad guy, folks. News flash.
Why would I agree with whatever you say next? Because, now you are in a dilemma. Do you appease? Or, do you go for the jugular? What a person said last is constitutionally deficient, inferior to what he thinks now, but what he says next is what he thinks now, as now is ongoing.
I can’t write without using my efforts to produce correct English. It was fifty years ago I learned a good deal of my pronouns.
The criticism of the British is specious. It wasn’t Turkle. It isn’t the spelling, it’s the thinking. Australians talk like the English criminals they descended from. Americans are, I don’t know what it is, paranoid from the get-go, probably. If you don’t speak your mother tongue as the mothers do, you aren’t comfortable in your own skin.
You have to think as you would talk, and the last word you thought resonates as you pause. If that word, was “thing”, to an American he may hear the reverb as “think”, and that’s a misdirected command. So, the sods in Liverpool call it “thing-guh”, “thingie”, anything to hit that hard ‘g’ sound. They can get a lot higher on weed and still look normal. They can maintain better. If we all talked like them drugs might be legal.
In fact, how to escape the linearity of thought and cut to the important way of treating a subject is the basic way of writing a blog like Kunstler does.
Kunstler uses metaphors and these are fiction. But, they work as one final play on words. When metaphors are picked up and ran with, they destroy. The title this week doesn’t say, “Black Swan Theory”. Controversially, it takes the existence of the particular theory (fiction) for granted. Even “that particular” thing, you being worried about it means treating it exhausts the effort better expended upon the most important thing.
Your best bet is not to comment using my name. Think of me as a dragon, Chinese division.
BTW, people, I had the experience of preparing to forego life-saving treatment because my co-pay was $9,000. But, when I called them they had recalculated it as $400. They said that I should have received another bill. I told them I cried and stopped opening my mail after that first bill. Beware the sentiment “rest in peace”. They won’t let you die in peace, in the main.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
What are you, the thought police for CFN?
I’ll think whatever I want about the president. You go ahead and keeping being angry and bitter at the entire world. I don’t mind.
Hey MD
I think whatever it is that you are smoking, is interfering with your medication.
It is probably best not to mix the two!
I have good dental hygiene, too, SEB.
Go ahead and hate me if it makes you feel better about yourself. Whatever gets you through the day.
Schizophrenic is no way to go through life, son.
Mika
Putin is definitely CIA as he and I regularly have lunch together in the CIA staff canteen, bot only when he is able to break away from his front as Russian President and ‘ostensibly’ go fishing and hunting.
Julian Assange on the other hand is not on the CIA staff payroll but we do use him on a fee for service basis on the odd occasion. Whilst Julian is a “freelancer”, you were right on the money, his main client/backer is the Vatican Bank.
Julian does however “consult” to the Bilderbergers, but his favourite client of all is the Illuminati.
Pardon me while I take a drag from my spliff made from a rather special weed called ‘conspiracy stardust’
Can anyone else feel the love in here today?
I feel it in the air like the love of Jesus.
HAAAAAlelujah
The love is surrounding me and lifting me up…
Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Or it may seem that way because we have veered so far from reality and are in the land of fiction.
The fiction that gold and silver have intrinsic value, the fiction that money has to be backed by metal, the fiction that the southern US border is undefended, the fiction that money is energy, the fiction that Assange has to have some ulterior motive other than what he states is his motive, the fiction that money is important and/or a prime motivator in life, the fiction that it matters what color skin you have, the multiple fictions of multiple conspiracy theories involving the Jews or the Vatican, etc.
“Dostoy, I’m well aware of the British penchant for tossing a superfluous u into words like labor and neighbor and for the non-sensical arrangement of the letters e and r at the end of words like theater and for laughable pronunciations of certain words such as shedge yoo ul for schedule … and such.”
=======
Q I cudnt agree wt u mor. I h8 al des sprflus vowls an funi arangd letrs. American englsh is dfunitly betr thun Britsh english but betr stil wud b texting
englsh lik im do ing now.
NEW LIFE FORMS DISCOVERED
NASA concludes the press conference by saying to that future discoveries could be on the horizon.
What was announced today “fundamentally change the knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth”
Next up: future discoveries re: the laws of physics.
“Science never sleeps.”
“Science Never sleeps”
=========
Hah!
Science is nothing but a cover for all those rent seeking elitist PHD’s seeking government handouts and ultimately a quest for world domination. I mean just look at that pesky IPCC.
Science should be banned.We know all we need to know already.
Jesus will fill in any blanks and answer all our prayers and the Holy spirit comes to me through the medium of a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Exactly.
It is even better when one is genetically similar rather than just culturally similar to the folks by whom one is surrounded. I have a nearly impossible time communicating with young black males, not that I would even want to anyway. Have found white and asian females are much easier to deal with. Major racial differences are a much bigger obstacle to communication and harmonious living than gender, age, and most cultural differences. Young black males of the pure darker varieties in particular tend to be the most violent and incorrigible due to their combination of very low iqs, around 67 on average in sub-saharan Africa, and very high testosterone levels. Thus they have criminal impulses, short-sightedness, a lack of restraint, and a lack of ability to communicate verbally. They are born criminals so it is not surprising the prisons are full of them.
Unca Treebeard
You and Vlad/Mika should form a club.
TBU said: “They are born criminals so it is not surprising the prisons are full of them.”
The first time I visited a large USA prison and saw so many Blacks and Hispanics, I remember thinking Whites must not commit crimes.
I’m off on holiday and don’t plan on reading this blog again until January.
so
Seasons greeting, Merry Christmas, Felice Navidad to all you Clusterfuckers out there.
Vladdy/Mika – Enjoy the holidays take a break from your paranoid conspiracy theorizing. Send my warmest regards to the rest of the gang at the White Knights.
SEB – Lay off what you are smoking and take your meds as prescribed
Unca Treebeard, there’s a new members drive by the White Kinights this christmas (as they dream of a whites only christmas), give Vladdy/Mika a shout he’ll get an application form to you, you should automatically qualify for membership however.
JHK – write something on the American shoppers’ penchant for trampling store clerks underfoot who stand in the way of a good bargain at dem big box stores.
Bye now
White folk have funky smell. I doesn’t say nuthin to my white girlfriend ’bout it though, because that’s that the kind of guy I am.
Bye, Dostoyevksy.
Regards to Maria Dmitrievna Isayeva
Vlad’s peeps… 😀
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013580178_apuskkksnowman3rdldwritethru.html?syndication=rss
A *NEW* conspiracy theory. Started by me. Spread it far and wide over the Net. It’s right up there with “death panels.”
All this zombie mania is actually a deep dark plot by the powers that be. Come the keyhole event, cannibalism won’t seem so … icky. 😀 Please feel free to embroider.
“SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!”
LLB said: “Come the keyhole event, cannibalism won’t seem so … icky.”
Cannibalism is now a sacred rite practiced every week by millions while repeating words like: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life”
So the Vatican is obviously in on this zombie mania.
The gold bubble will burst when you least expect.
Sell your gold now (unless you bought it at $300 or less)
“You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all — not some — all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 ExxonMobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take?” –Warren Buffett
@dragon: You are “straining out gnats and swallowing camels.”
Woe to you MD, a supposed teacher of the Bible, who in reality is a hypocrite who is concerned with gold, the Fed, “coinage”, etc. while neglecting the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You have been blinded by that which glitters and by your hatred of secular government.
So in other words, everyone is guilty except the Jews? Ridiculous. I hope you don’t really believe this crap. Are you one of Cass Sunstein’s mind fuckers?
Have you ever lived among Blacks? If not, maybe you should shut up. Btw, one third of all the people hung in the South over the course of a century were White. I’m not advocating for this kind of rough justice, but it was their system at that time. This statistic is pretty much in accord of what we know about the respective rates of Black and White murderers and rapists – just on the off chance that you are interested in the Truth of the matter and in being fair. A long shot in other words.
Yes the bubble will burst – when we have a new currency based on gold/silver. Sell at the peak before the new currency comes in. Don’t feel bad – you’ll just be getting back some of the value that the Bankers stole from you.
Mr. K. This is getting to be a huge waste of time.
Silver has alot of high tech uses. And gold is beautiful and used in ornaments. Is there an irrational element? Sure a big one, especially in gold. Man is not a completely rational being. And he will not become one in the future. Thus the love of gold and silver is a “sure thing”. And it’s a sure thing that they will not only retain their value but will continue to increase in value.
Btw, White do commit crimes just not nearly as often as Blacks do. Sorry.
There are better ways to spend your time generating wealth: rebuild civlization to your liking, in ways that do not depend on “happy motoring”.
There are open source plans available for all the machinery you need at:
http://www.openecology.org
Watch the 2 minute video.
OpenEcology (œ) is a community of people developing open source tools anyone can use to generate wealth from nature’s abundance.
When whitey do commit crimes they be big ones and they against often against nature, like the recent GOM oil spill. Did any BP execs go to jail? I doesn’t remember…
Not a single BP executive has been arrested, punished or even fired.
Damn right.
What you weak gutless deluded whites don’t really is that black people HATE you. I mean they really hate you. They don’t just want to take what you have but they want to take you out. And they are physically stronger and faster than you too. Since whites and asians are smarter they do better academically and financially, but in a physical fight the black would usually win.
Fuck you, you miscegenation-advocating piece of shit! You are as back as ashole-sucka!
Black women are repellant and the idea of being with them is like bestiality.
Yeah, I was seeing a black chick one season, but I wouldn’t do it with her because she turned me off.
Black women are just beasts.
Now some northeast Asians look alright. My son’s mom is Taiwanese and she is classy, crazy, but of good family.
My daugher’s mother is German, Polish, Czecho-Slovackian, and Polish by background. The girl’s name is April Tara and she is very fair with dark hair, not an Aryan, but definitely a white girl, almost 4 weeks old now.
I find it disgusting just disgusting to see whites and blacks together, such as in that seen with 007 and Grace Jones– revolting. How could he do it with her?!
Really!
Piss off asshole! You are on my enemyies list now!
The use of “just weights and measures” is, by definition, just. Fractional reserve banking {the way our “money” is created} is fraud. Loaning money that you don’t really have and then confiscating collateral after you get everyone in debt, and then you quit loaning “money”, is theft. Both fraud {loaning for usury} and theft{stealing} are sins.
Showing people their sins {law-less-ness 1 John 3:4} so they can change their minds is merciful. I faithfully encourage people to be self-governing, then they wouldn’t need anything secular. A government that will steal for you, will also steal from you. We reap what we sow.
I can’t stand those black and mulatto scum bag idiot devil children in the roller skating rinks and around town. They are moronic, delinquent, extremely rude, repellent, pernicious rats.
Couldn’t said it better myself. Very good, MD.
but what will the yearly upkeep on a horse be?
So in other words, everyone is guilty except the Jews? Ridiculous.
==
That’s right, Vladik. Everyone is innocent, except Da Jooz. Because we all know that whatever handful of showcase Jews in whatever political group they are associated with, those handful of Jews always represent “Da Jooz”.
MD, this reply indicates you are a masterful wordsmith.
You have convinced me of your righteousness and I retract everything I said about you. You are a faithful servant of God.
Now, if only there was a God.
Why should he care as a white with a multimillionaire in the family? He should have accepted the offer of 12 acres in upstate Georgia, but the damn community college job kept him from moving.
Actually, I over did that last post, naming the name of my daughter and the bg of the mother, but she won’t did this up, and folks here won’t do anything.
g
My comments are embedded after Turkle’s
statements:
T:
The banks seem to be doing a whole lot better after their approximately $1 trillion stimulus.
E:
The banks APPEAR to be doing a whole lot
better. Yet because of their indulgence
in businesses now in severe overcapacity,
they are almost totally RELIANT on depositors.
They drove a ton of future demand into the
present. But the real issue is that the
FASB has suspended mark-to-market accounting
ONLY for financial firms … which tells you
that their assets are shit.
T:
The states are hanging in there after they got stimulated, too.
E:
Yet 40 or 50 are still in debt. Many are
floating emergency bond issues just to get
them through until July 1. Like CA’s $10B
new float. They’re hanging … by the hair
on their chinny-chin-chin.
T:
“GM is doing a lot better.”
E:
Same problem though … future demand driven
into the present via things like “cash for
clunkers”. This ROBS from the future.
T:
But I don’t know how much longer the whole thing can slouch along. As long as we don’t default on the interest payments on the national debt and can pay back bonds as they come due…I guess things will be fine. Right?!
E:
That’s the problem with “kick the can” tactics.
Where does it end?? When we have a quadrillion
bucks of debt?? Watch what happens if a
“strong recovery” (Blinder, St. Louis Fed)
happens in 2011. Rising rates and rising
commodity prices will cause MASSIVE loan
defaults.
T:
I think a little bit of inflation is the least of our worries.
E:
For NOW!!! Problem is that we’re “buying” a
present at the cost of destroying a future.
Watch what happens in a few years when our
sovereign debt is downgraded. Dead country.
T:
The whole shebang seems like an epic clusterfuck in the making to me, but, then again, I tend to look at things through a scanner darkly.
E:
You’ve got that right!! Despite all of human
history warning us about sacrificing futures
to keep parties going in the present, we’re
just repeating the same old hackneyed errors
on a MASSIVE scale.
E.
“You have convinced me of your righteousness…if only there was a God.”
God is my righteousness.
E: “They drove a ton of future demand into the
present.”
They did no such thing. Future demand remains untouched.
Where do you get your information on the future? You have a crystal ball?
Austrian MP Ewald Stadler Blasts Turkish Ambassador
– http://bit.ly/dUge2H
Good rant. But why were the Turks accepted by the millions in the first place? Why are the Mexicans accepted by the millions into the US? Let’s have a little honesty in the discussion.
Well, yes I have lived among black folk. Just like white folk some are fine people and some should be put down in the street like rabid dogs.
Mrs. Martin, my first grade teacher was black. She taught me how to read. Years later I ran across her by accident and expressed deep felt gratitude.
Gee, guys. Sorry I set him off with my cannibalism comment. It’s like he has Tourettes, or something. Little fella just has to respond to EVERY post.
I think I saw some disinformation on Wikipedia. Somewhere. See the shiny thing? Fetch! 😀
No one going to pick up my meme about zombie mania being a conspiracy to desensitize us to rampant cannibalism in the coming keyhole event?
Sigh. I am SO disappointed in you guys and gals. 😀
LLB said: “Little fella just has to respond to EVERY post.”
Yes, and they are intelligent, witty, relevant, and brief responses often with good links and cited sources. Thanks for noticing!
Now I have to go find that disinformation in Wikipedia and correct it. Thanks again.
Wonderful story – you should be a novelist or a short-story writer.
===========
Awwwww Beeeaan! How Sweeeet!
LOL. A Legend in His Own Mind 😀 .
Fetch, boy, fetch!
You know there’s the way the world is and the way you think it should be and if these two diverge a lot, you are setting yourself up for unhappiness and conflict, unless of course you can and will do something about it, which most won’t.
Like thinking black and white people shouldn’t fuck. Um, really, what business is it of yours? Why do you care? You might not like the idea so don’t do it. But unless it harms you in some way, wtf are you doing worrying about it?
I have more important things to worry about than getting mad about people of various races getting it on.
Isn’t this like saying it is wrong for Poodles and Rottweilers to make puppies? It is just as absurd. If two organisms can mate and make non-sterile children, then they are in the same species. And there is nothing wrong with it biologically. Get a fucking life already and stop worrying so much about people who are just a bit different than you. You’ll be far happier in the little amount of time you have to exist on this planet.
Your answers/comments were better than my post.
I think we mostly agree on what will happen in the future. The time scale is the only thing up for grabs. Personally, I’m surprised the financial system has lasted this long in its current form though it probably wouldn’t have without all the billions from heaven rained down by the Fed.
What will happen with “kick the can” in terms of our deficits is that at some point these massive debts will not be paid, and we will default. That could be TSHTF territory.
E: “They drove a ton of future demand into the
present.”
Asoka responded:
“They did no such thing. Future demand remains untouched.
Where do you get your information on the future? You have a crystal ball?”
*************************************************
Sorry but I don’t correspond with cheesy
provocateurs with multiple personality
disorder. Especially when their economic
knowledge can be placed in a thimble …
with the full space of the thimble still
available.
E.
Indeed, “kick the can” has a finite lifetime,
especially when you get these brilliant
announcements from various White House officials,
that the deficit will “only” be 2.5% of GDP by
… 2021.
This is like saying: “We are slowing our rate
of acceleration into the brick wall. We’re
heading into it at 200 mph right now but
aren’t you reassured that when we hit it we’ll
only be going 250 mph instead of 350 mph”.
This is a Kafka-esque level of “reasoning” by
the keepers of our economic gates. Then again,
since I see little sanity in other areas of
the public sector (education, state bureaucracies,
etc.) it would be unreasonable to expect that
all the insanity is localized in one place.
This really is the SECOND DARK AGE. It will,
however, be darkly amusing to see the Jiminy
Cricket optimists excoriating the pessimists
for a few years more. These are the sorts of
beings who insist that a house 99% full of
termites is sound because the outer edifice
hasn’t fallen over.
E.
E
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Our leadership can’t even wrap their heads around this–it’s so huge. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that our unpaid liabilities are $70.7 trillion.
Oh–and by the way we are still bailing out banks both here and internationally. All this double speak I believe is for the benefit of the IMF, who may take out financial toys away from us if we don’t figure this out. That’s what I think all this positive “Jiminy Cricket” spin is about. Anyway if they lie to themselves don’t expect them to tell the truth to you.
My only disagreement with you is that it isn’t just government, it’s the private sector as well that’s patently dishonest. We always seem to get a limited view of things, as if we weren’t global. You might have noticed in all this discussion of job creation and getting our financial house in order, there is no mention of outsourcing jobs and no barrier to entry, so I don’t see anything but a slow downward disintegration.
Now the political season for 2012 is gearing up and all the usual suspects are out hawking their books and going on the TV. It’s all about celebrity and so far, our fair Palin is way out in front. In any case with this political infotainment, I don’t expect to see any good leadership in our future. Great nations don’t stay great in this climate.
The only thing I would possibly sell my gold for would be a 10 acre parcel with a fair amount of hardwoods. The problems there are,taxes,and I think someone will cut down my trees when I’m not around.
Seems pretty clear to me that money now has two different meanings depending on one’s position in society. For government operatives money is essentially a relatively meaningless number. It has been utterly disconnected from real value having been created. Same thing holds true for the rich. The game has been rigged so that if you have lots of money, getting more is not terribly difficult. Once again, for them, money is decoupled from any real contribution (on their part). Now for the rest of us, well, we have to grub and slave for few bucks to pay the bills. Money for us is directly connected to work and created real value. I’m sure the roofers who just put a new roof on my house would agree.
We now effectively have a modern feudalism. Not much different from what the Soviets created, where the apparatchiks had cars and could buy at the foreign stores in the USSR and everybody else (the workers) worked like slaves. We see how that ended. I suppose we can look forward to the same outcome – collapse.
Treebeard, there are people out there that would say you’re guilty of miscegenation. They would call you the same names you called me. They would say many of the same things about your Taiwanese wife that you say about black women. But you would object saying that your Taiwanese wife was a beautiful and fine girl and not deserving of abuse. And your racist detractors would react with disgust. So I would suggest that sexual preferences are a personal matter.
Vlad and I disagree on this same issue but stay civil in our exchanges. We’ve locked horns many times in the past.
I don’t mind what you say about me. You’re entitled to your opinion. So I’m on your enemy list? Fine by me. So as of now you’re on my “scroll past” list. You want to make peace that’s fine too. The door’s open.
Schizophrenia is a great way to get out of going to Vietnam.
modern feudalism
==
It’s been like that for at least 300 years.
It’ nice to know somebody is enjoying nice weather. Up here in Detroit it’s a deep freeze and much of the midwest is buried in 19 inches of snow. Anyways, the big news up here in Motown is Green: Green energy, green cars, green architecture etc. The Chevy Volt was finally unveiled to a gullible nation, with GM’s Chief Executive Liar [CEO] making all kinds of outrageous promises that it would save the American dream of unlimited auto-mobility. A number of multinational corporations, lured by generous government incentives, announced they were moving to Michigan to build wind turbines that would provide cheap, clean energy and start a green-energy bonanza that would turn Michigan into a Wind-power utopia. And there was the usual talk of schools, city halls and other public buildings being retrofitted with the latest energy-saving gimmickry.
I see you are a Bible-thumper. I’ve already been mistreated plenty by the Holy Rollers. I was trying merely to insult your Druid half. I don’t know much about them, and from you, I obviously never will hear anything worthwhile.
But, you must have learned that at your mother’s knee and thought it was a whiz-bang retort.
Nobody’s learning anything out of the Bible. It is a complete fraud, “arrant nonsense”, as JHK calls the NYT article, “There will Be Fuel.”
I hate the Bible.
What really seems surreal is how Julian Assange has lost every ounce of support he had, and everyone is willing to give him up to the pigs.
You must deserve enslavement.
The internet will never fulfill its promise to free us.
You used to struggle for freedom, and now you work the other side? Uh huh, I see.
Ain’t nothin’ new.
Our Price System economy works best in a scarcity environment,when there is scarcity there is room for growth.With technology and science, a society can evolve to a situation of abundance with the resulting seizing up of the flows of money and goods and services.Kilowattt hours replace the man hour and the markets are saturated.The second world War was a saviour for the Price System .War is one of the better ways to create scarcity you destroy what you produce. Built in obselesensce is another great strategy and in the finacial markets you can create bubbles by giving credit so anyone can buy ,even a house.
As we realize these techniques have consequences in the long run ,though they do produce great growth and profits shorter term. If we stay on the Price System agenda then we should evolve back to a low energy agrarian scarcity society. We will evolve to this state from which we came as we use up the energy and material resources that a high energy technological society requires. The man hour will now replace the Killowattt hour ,a world made by hand,which gives us scarcity and the opportunity for growth though never in an industrial mode.The Price system can once again function in an environment for which it is best suited.
There was another possibility and that required giving up the Price System and allowing our science and technology to be applied to the operation of the social mechanism.Marion King Hubbert saw this and and was a member of the Technocracy movement ,and as I understand was one of the authours of the Technocracy study course.
We are so conditioned into the Price System that for the vast majority they could not conceive of a different means of operation.Humans probably haven’t evolved to the point where they they can objectively rationally and realistically understand their situation. We give the operation over to the economists and politicians to operate the poltical economic system.Hopefully they can lead us back to the past peacefully .
We are in the habit of stacking blacks up against a tree to test how many are penetrated by bullets from a new rifle.
Whites took over the world, bro. Don’tcha suppose there is something inside us drove that, over and above pure size?
The only thing about Native Americans that made replacing them a good thing was that 20,000 of them wound up dead.
Blacks stayed alive. They worked. But they won’t fight alongside you.
Going from the principals outlined above, how to keep Wikileaks alive is, I think that I acquire the physical addresses of people who hide behind anonymity on the internet and wait for them on the sidewalk in front of their houses.
I think if a man wears armor against bullets, he must be shot in the head. Cum ci cum ca.
I think if I place super glue on a key and jam it in a lock, then break the key off flush, this will disturb the homeowner’s complacency.
I think if you want to pull a burglary, you hold your fingers over the lens on the flashlight, just letting enough light to see by leak out. You do not repeat not shine the full light around the room (and across the windows).
[The new one is left out]
I’d like to “read a novel” about guerilla war in the United States, when a great many more, but smaller attacks, render the infrastructure useless.
Because, you have a whole generation of formerly anti-war people, former drug users, who now advocate for more crackdowns simply because they are not the targets. Their values have been compromised by too many creature comforts.
Yeah, it isn’t “whatever” I am smoking (which has the answer, “I don’t know what ‘whatever’ is, but I will assume that it wasn’t stated because it is too bad for words, and I will let my perverted imagination run wild, and the tale will grow when I tell it. I’m a gossip.”
It’s marijuana, $360 an ounce. They sell it out of “dispensaries” all over town (San Diego).
I don’t take medication prescribed for me by psychiatrists. I believe I have that right under the “Patient’s Bill of Rights.”
For the interim before I release my new monkey-wrenching trick—maybe CIA already has it—here is what a raster is:
a scan pattern (as of the electron beam in a cathode-ray tube) in which an area is scanned from side to side in lines from top to bottom; also : a pattern …
Just so you do not walk away knowing nothing; you probably think rast– leaves only rasta (Rastafarian). Now it has somewhere technological it can go, “raste—”
I wisht I could use words I made up. Since I’m a dragon, I like “allege”, to transform into “alligate”, for how an alligator interrogates. Anything of that nature, deriving from alligator ethics, is “alligatorial”, but that is inelegant, and my new offering evokes many other words related by minimum transformational operations on the letters. This form of subliminal or subconscious terror can be used to establish a climate of intimidation, chilling free speech.
The slur, “whatever you’re smoking”, is transparent in its naiivete. I know you want whatever I’m smoking, but this isn’t for you. There is none left.
Unfortunately, we have to dig through history that hasn’t happened yet, bwaaah ha ha h aaaa! The economy crashed! This isn’t like 2005. But I want to see it when people have to change their jockey shorts they are so scared and demoralized—and feeling betrayed—by events.
I sharted. Got to go away now.
You say you’ll change the constitution
Well you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
Dear CFNers,
I would not want Asoka’s recent riffs on gold, silver and other metals used in coinage to go unremarked upon.
Asoka would love to go back in time and convince the vast human hordes of the past 3000 years that they were fools for thinking gold has value. But all these people would not need to give this non-issue a second thought. The metal is, and has been, desirable due to its beauty, its usefulness, its indestructibility and its relative scarcity. This is so perfectly obvious to any thinking being that, to this very day, gold is considered “intrinsically” valuable. And so it will be in future millenia.
It is everything that fiat money isn’t. It cannot be created out of thin air and so it is the bane of socialists. It shackles their grandiose social schemes. Thus, they would have you believe ink-decorated paper or electronic computer entries are more valuable than gold.
Asoka, we know you’re a smart cookie and we wonder why you insist on denigrating your own intelligence with this periodically-expressed anti-gold nonsense: namely, the role gold, silver and other metals play as money. BTW, gold is trading at $1,407 and silver at $29.22 per ounce as we type.
Mika, it may well be that the modern form of feudalism has been around for 300 years. I would like to know to what this timing corresponds, in your opinion. Notwithstanding, I believe modern feudalism has been exquisitely refined in the last 50 years, helped along by advancing technology and modern marketing. Nowadays we have effective serfs who would vehemently assert how free they are. Behold the wonders of modern marketing!
“I see you are a Bible-thumper. I’ve already been mistreated plenty by the Holy Rollers.”
So have you thrown away your inbox, or do you automatically expect more mistreatment {guilt by association}?
“I was trying merely to insult your Druid half. I don’t know much about them, and from you, I obviously never will hear anything worthwhile.”
My use of the term “druid” just indicates someone who seeks “oak-knowledge”. Druids were tireless in pursuit of wisdom {the use of knowledge}.
“But, you must have learned that at your mother’s knee and thought it was a whiz-bang retort.”
No, and no. Just accurate.
“I hate the Bible. Nobody’s learning anything out of the Bible.”
Cause and effect.
“Ain’t nothin’ new.”
You left out “under the sun”.
The metal (gold) is, and has been, desirable due to its beauty, its usefulness, its indestructibility and its relative scarcity. – Q
Totally agree.
Bernanke and the Fed are climbing Everests of idiocy with their monetary policy. What with all the lunatic numbers being bandied around with all the QE2-ing and fro-ing it seems that they are even managing to scare some of the boys and girls in Congress who are calling for the Fed’s mandate to be scaled back to only deal with inflation/price stability. Great idea. Do it rfn. The fewer things the Fed has to do the fewer things it can mess up. But first I think they need to replace Bernanke.
The fact that the price of gold is where it’s at is a real vote of non confidence in the Fed and other central banks.
Have you seen the numbers that were just published about Fed loans/aid to the various banks during the crisis? These guys are off their rockers.
Q, to be more explicit {for Asoka’s benefit} one could say, the “dollar” is trading at $1,407 per ounce of gold and at $29.22 per ounce of silver as we type. It’s the “dollar” that is being measured {and found wanting}.
Mene, Mene, Tekal Upharsin
I sharted. Got to go away now.
==========
Would that be simultaneously shitting and farting?
Your posts make me wish I could reach that wonderful state that you appear to have reached: of utter unconcern for being clearly understood.
Gold. The rich hate it because they have no chance of snatching it out of my hand (unless they kill me)unlike their ability to steal my 401K, stocks, and entitlements by a stroke of their collective keyboards.
At its most basic, money is a medium of exchange. It’s a way to balance out relative values, in the absence of a direct means to provide value-for-value. Ultimately, value is directly related to labor.
I spent x hours to make this chair, you spent x months to grow and harvest this wheat. It becomes very complicated to determine how much wheat would equal the value of the chair. with very many factors to consider, such as supply of each item, present need, etc. If for some reason I have stored a year’s worth of wheat, I might offer a lot of wheat for the chair, but my neighbor, who has only 3 weeks of grain stored, might offer only a very small amount of wheat for the chair.
Clearly, a standard of relative value must be set. This is money. The form of the money is arbitrary. As long as people accept this medium of exchange, all is ok. So money can be gold or silver or paper bills or coins, etc.
I remember reading an Uncle Scrooge comic when I was a kid. Donald wants to play a trick on his uncle, so he makes up a phoney news story that says the government will no longer use bills as money, but rather fish. So Scrooge, being Scrooge, goes out and converts his entire money bin to fish. You get the point.
Problems with money occur when the value of the medium of exchange isn’t stable. As an example, supposedly a new suit has cost around around an ounce of gold for most of the past 400 years. You can’t change the characteristics of gold so that it changes in value. You can with paper bills: You can add zeroes to the size of the bill, and you can print up much more of them. The value of paper currency can be changed overnight, and it often does – or at least over a relatively short period of time. This doesn’t lead to stability.
In fact, paper money is probably the least stable form of money. Gold is much more stable. You can’t add zeroes to a bar of gold. But it isn’t foolproof – remember the plot of Goldfinger.
I think what will happen in the near future is that paper money of various countries will become the first change of standard. It will happen this way because it requires the least effort to put in place. For a short period this will work. But paper money inevitably loses stability unless great care is expended to keep it the same value. Eventually the world will go on a gold standard. The problem with that is gold is very scarce, and the majority of people won’t have any.
Unless the world comes up with a new medium of exchange that hasn’t been used before, even gold will fall by the wayside.
If there’s an interim period between the world’s monetary collapse and the introduction of a new medium of exchange, then barter, as in the old days, will make its reappearance.
cant find yr post about ‘seed catalogs’
will there be a time when people wont sell plants/ seeds because theyll be the most valuable [edible] commodity?
I rarely reply to yr ‘posts’ but this one is so sick!
you welcome a government that killed 70 million or more people [and continues to kill baby kill] as ‘ the rulers of the planet’..?!..wtf?
‘ angry and bitter at the entire world’…nah, thats you!
and yr comments about people in slums surviving..sure some survive.
do you know how in the x ussr poeples life spans decreased?
and in nepal..as of 30 years ago life expectancy was 45 or so!
My inbox? Yeah, if I understand you, I do get spam from my Christan friends. I contacted them to say goodbye, and they immediately began forwarding postcards of angels and saying that they were praying for me. I said that as long as we were both alive, I find it difficult to believe that if I ask for you to talk to me that it is really better if you pray. You’re wasting the precious time we have left together. Not only that, the safety and efficacy of medical science is damaged by putting a higher priority on soul preserving techniques rather than the quality of life of the person. The overt claim to save the soul is masking a covert intent to torture the individual. Priests should be banned from hospitals, but hospitals themselves are actually fortresses with guards, so hospitals are not places people go to die or be cured. They’re prisons. Having priests hanging around will hold back progress in euthanasia.
“Druid” is uncommon enough I thought you meant it. “Scholar” would of worked. “Messianic” is a word found in Rock ‘n Roll, rhymes with satanic.
Comparing gnats and camels is not accurate in any way. People just look funny swatting away flies. Two ways of comparing the threat from eating gnats and camels exist: i. the gnat can be composed of so many atoms, ii. the gnat can be composed of so many biopolymers. The numbers aren’t small, so the additional threat from something of 100,000 times the mass, is to emphasize that two quantities differing by five orders of magnitude differ by a lot. They don’t, and in those days they didn’t know that. They also did not know that disease came from microbes. Since they could not get anything right, everything they said was irrelevant. Their world view polluted whatever wisdom they otherwise might have had. We have fine shades of meaning and cannot be sure that situations and objects are not complex rather than simple.
I was wrong on my spelling of naivete. I read that word, stored the sound, then spelled it myself. I got buncombe from P. J. O’Rourke, so, if TAE said, “Religion is bunk”, I am at least as far as 20 years back, in a quest to confront Edison in 1911. “Bunco” is a word used by O’Rourke. I don’t like PJO. He’s right-wing. Edison would have invented the light bulb, invented the motion picture, but the implications and current development of the latter means just watching movies is probably better than inventing them. Bunk is a term frequently applied to drugs. At one time they were all bunk. They weren’t missing, however.
This is over forty years old:
Now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s bible
Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with good Rocky’s revival.
So, you say if I hate the Bible I don’t get anything out of it. You don’t say there’s anything in it.
Gideon’s intent is the only thing spoken to in these lyrics. Bible folk appear to dress up and act charitable on Sundays, leaving only six days a week to do murder.
You’re around, you fuck up and feel remorse, you say so and I have heard repeated excuses from you until I am certainly not going to forgive you. But to you, humbling yourself seems like something new. You forget pretty quick. I wasn’t saying there’s nothing new under the sun. Your failures are nothing new, that’s what I was saying, now it is spelled out, because you couldn’t take it in hint.
Missionaries set out to do good, and ended up doing well. Religion is not only untrue, the amount of good is vastly outweighed by the amount of harm it has done.
The readily-available example for how to inflict
suffering in the course of achieving good is “Jesus died for your sins”. So, with that suffering knocked down, we can proceed to the next example of when suffering is supposed to be justified, and eventually smash that idea. If I don’t say I’m suffering, perhaps I’m not, eh? Then your interventions can be seen as assaults.
I believe modern feudalism has been exquisitely refined in the last 50 years,
==
Hi Al,
You’re correct. I use the phraseology “central banking warfare/welfare model”, “imperialism”, and “fascism with a smile”. But I’m glad that Americans now are starting to awake and see past the “smile”. As to when and how it began, let me recommend to you the following read:
Life Inc. by Douglas Rushkoff
http://rushkoff.com/books/life-incorporated
My basic premise goes a little further than that described by Doug. I believe that we’re still fighting the 30 Years War, just that the players involved become more sophisticated and learned to use clever proxies and multiple false fronts. I wish I could elaborate, but I’m a terrible typist. 🙂 If you follow(ed) enough of my posts, you should get the various tidbits in support of that thesis.
Here is a direct link to Wikileaks Cablegate:
http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html
This morning’s news claimed that Sweden pulled the plug on Wikileaks’ servers. If this link works, I guess that is not true.
I suspect that hackers don’t go down that easily.
Regarding our nation’s prospects for a future the greatest threat is people subscribing to religion based edicts to have as many children as eggs delivered down women’s fallopian tubes. The Constitution now restricts imposed birth control, but we damned sure could craft immigration policy against immigration into our country of religious groups or sects that embrace such edict. Permitting immigration of such groups amounts to government support of such religions and beliefs, since their practice of high birth rate will assure their eventual political dominance.
Thanks for the link. What continues to (surprise, surprise, surprise) amaze me isn’t the nasty little exchanges from our government about the world power elite, nor the fact that they are so pissed off about the releases that some are calling for Assange’s assasination (stupid, incorrect term). No, what gets me is that so many American, make that amerikan journalists continue their focus on Assange’s character, choosing to focus on his sex life rather than the content of the leaks. Then again, I shouldn’t be surpised. The power elite have bought off everything – media, government, big corps., etc. Meanwhile, I have to go to the Guardian to find out what’s in the leaks. Amazon just disassociated itself from him. My fellow Americans are playing with their ipods, buying ever more sparkly party frocks made in Indonesia, and engaging in more mental masturbation than ever. The alarm clock just went off – WAKE UP!
More on this at Deninger’s site. Also, Elaine Supkis has an excellent article today on her site, The Culture of Life News.
US population has invrease 50% to 70% [depending on which figures are more accurate]
IN 45 YEARS……….4.5 Decades.
when Us population hit 300 million rags like USA today and LA Times ‘ celebrated’ this milestone being passed.
1/3 of the latinos in US are minors.
[not miners SEB]
I, too have been mistreated by Born Again Christians. The worst treatment I’ve ever had is from them. Married into a family of ‘them’. and it has been a nightmare. Holier than thou, NOT, and just f***** up.
I never have believe in The Bible Story. I do refer to it as The Holey Dribble. Makes no sense whatsoever to me. Never did, never will.
I think a long time ago a few guys concocted the story to have control over others. power and control and $$.
Also their are some Good people around who call themselves Christians’. but mostly I think Religious people are deluding themselves, and there are alot of Hypocrites who call themselves Christians. They can be Wicked and Evil and call themselves Christians.
Just glad to not be one of them. I probably shouldn’t post this but here I go.
Hi Myrtlemay,
You say:
Wikileaks is only four years old. It has exposed corruption and illegal activities in Iceland, Peru, Australia, and other places in the world. It is not anti-USA.
Now Wikileaks releases never-should-have-been-classified-secret-in-the-first-place USA information (and redacted information to protect people) and Wikileaks is attacked non-stop and threatened with death. The USA government is inept if it cannot protect supposedly secret information. Most of it is secret to protect the government and cover-up malfeasance.
The USA cannot stop WikiLeaks. If they arrest Assange, there will be an increase in the rate of the release of secret information. Assange has thousands of helpers to make this happen.
There are too many transparency activists working now to stop the movement. There will be more and more openness and less and less secrecy.
Passage of the Dream Act will constitute a subordination of the citizens’ will (as expressed in our legislated immigration policy crafted and enacted by elected representation) to that of foreign nationals who have chosen to violate that policy. Passage of that act or any other amnesty will amount to surrender of sovereignty, hence an annulment of sovereign citizen entitlement. In effect a symbolic “disappearance” of the citizenry. On that account I will make concrete such betrayal by having my name removed from voter registration role. I will also advocate a general campaign of like action by all other “erstwhile” citizens to illustrate that no longer are we willing to be ping-ponged between the Democratic and Republican parties on basis of which is perceived as the lesser of two evils. This action would illustrate refusal to participate in a process contrived only to effect self mockery.
December 7th is (or rumored to be) something like a “Take Your Cash Out of the Banks” day. That’s not the official name, but you get the idea. Pissed off folks abroad are planning to send a message to the Big Boys of the banking elites (Wells Fargo, etc., etc.) that commoners are no longer going to transact business or place their cash with these blatant, outright frauds. In short, our European cousins have some gonads. I really hope they do this. On this side of the Atlantic, we’re still arranging our deck chairs, waiting for the next “Big Thing”, or at least a recovery. When, oh when will Americans get tired of this continual rape of the earth, our security, rights, and freedoms? oops…got to go. My ipod is waiting…oh, my friend “Sheila” is ringing in on my cell…Oh god, it’s important. Seems that she’s at the supermarket and wants to tell me that Folgers coffee is on sale.
“Regarding our nation’s prospects for a future the greatest threat is people subscribing to religion based edicts to have as many children as eggs delivered down women’s fallopian tubes. The Constitution now restricts imposed birth control, but we damned sure could craft immigration policy against immigration into our country of religious groups or sects that embrace such edict.” -C.P.
Wow, a little on the “Trojan Horse” side of effecting an actual policy, but that’s uniquely brilliant!
I’ll grant you that the reaction to a crisis is often more dire than the crisis itself, but this would make legislators have to slow down and THINK a bit, for a change.
Cave, I’m in complete agreement with this:
“Permitting immigration of such groups amounts to government support of such religions and beliefs, since their practice of high birth rate will assure their eventual political dominance”
Now, some will argue that European Catholics were such a group back in the heyday of Ellis Island. Maybe, maybe not – AND that was before this pernicious multiculturalism that blocks social integration.
STOP ALL IMMIGRATION – THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THE US ALREADY. And anyone with a counterargument answer this question – HOW LARGE SHOULD US POPULATION BE ALLOWED TO BECOME??
At some point we descend to third world status.
At some point we cease to export food.
At some point US population is a cause of social and environmental global disaster.
STOP THE MADNESS!
O3 and Cave – you’re both correct!
National leadership should treat US population like a complicated game of chess and plan several moves ahead.
Sadly, not gonna happen. Instead of chess, our leadership is playing tic tac toe – over and over – election after election, quarter after quarter –
Short sighted, self serving
Idiots!
Myrtle, you say:
“…Assange’s character, choosing to focus on his sex life rather than the content of the leaks…”
Prosecutors are political animals.
Juries are stupid.
“Sex is bad, OK, you sick little monkey.”
(TM Mr. Garrison from South Park)
Why should Assange be tracked for something complicated and probably legal – like putting documents on the internet??
NAH – he let his willie go free at the wrong time – that’s something *any jackass* can prosecute.
I don’t work for money.
For example, 10 shares of Netlfix which I bought at $166 I sold at $207.80 about 16 days later, earning over $400.
Ok. I never married her though.
g
Cave, I’ve got to respectfully but LOUDLY disagree about this idea of yours:
“I will make concrete such betrayal by having my name removed from voter registration role.”
Sorry, man – WRONG MOVE!
If all you have is repub and demoncrat jackasses – then vote for the Green or the Libertarian.
Write in DonaldDucktheConservativeIcon, for all anyone cares.
And get to know and vote for the best of the men and women downticket. These races are important to people’s lives. And – if this “descent” thing comes to pass your local sheriff will be an important person for you to know.
============
BeanTown – I’m still percolating some ideas on conspiracy theories. But right now I’ve gotta quit CFNing for the evening and go be sociable somewhere.
=======
Y’ALL CAN ALL NOW STOP SCROLLING – IF YOU ARE SO INCLINED!!!
=======
I wasn’t expecting a reply to that.
It was geared towards libtards rather than scitzophrenics also.
“When, oh when will Americans get tired of this continual rape of the earth, our security, rights, and freedoms?” -MM
Now then, Myrtle, I’ll give you 3 guesses as to the answer to that question… and the first 2 don’t count! ;o) (Final Jeopardy theme plunks, tocks, and hoots along in the background.)
piss Christ part 2:
O THE L.A. TIMES!
Should illegal immigrants be able to obtain driver’s licenses?
AND “Fire In My Belly.”
Should the Smithsonian have removed David Wojnarowicz’s video, “Fire In My Belly,” from the National Portrait Gallery?
Yes. I don’t want my tax dollars going toward an exhibit featuring disturbing religious imagery. No. It’s not up the Catholic League and conservative Republicans to decide what counts as art and its meaning.
[Credit: Screenshot of David Wojnarowicz’s video, “Fire in My Belly,” on YouTube.]
Twitter: @latimesopinion
Facebook: latimesopinion
• Smithsonian Pulls Controversial Crucifix Video After Congressional Complaint
The Times chose not to show even the blandest of the Danish Muhammad cartoons in 2005. More recently the Times chose not to print the Non Sequitur “Where’s Mohammed” cartoon, even though only the title that alluded in any way to Mohammed. But today the Times argues for exhibition of the “Fire in my belly” work, posts images of it, and links to it, on this website. It seems the Times editorial policy is, “No terror, no respect.” For the record, I would like you guys to publish what is newsworthy rather than not.
Your poll may give skewed results. You placed a positive next to a negative in the first option (Yes. I don’t….) – There is no need for the preceding “Yes”.
Simply omit the “Yes” and leave the “I don’t want my tax dollars…etc..etc…”
I don’t understand. If depicting the prophet Mahoma in any ridiculous, sacrilegeous way is O.K., what would be any different in a country that is supposed to proclaim the separation of church and state be an issue. There is an adage that says: If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. We should be more outrage with America that bullies other countries about not going after our war criminals, or no option if off the table. Not prosecuting our war criminals is thousands of times worst than the depiction of Christ in any shape or form. This like America is too busy with trivia pursuit to go after war criminals and yet, this frail democracy of ours will not think twice about rattling the chains of other nations that behave more civil, and legal than us. Something is rotten in Denmark, I mean, America.
Although I voted, your poll is slanted in the correct answer is lacking: The Catholic Church did not object to the video, the objection was the use of public funds to portray it. If the “artist” wants to show this on his own nickel somewhere else, Catholics can object to it’s content, but know full well that the Constitution allows it to be shown. Aside from all this, we refer to President Truman: “If that’s art, I’m a Hottentot
Congratulations Dee – you’re a girl after all. You should go out and buy a snuggie, one of those ridiculous blankets with arms that they’re pushing right now. Seriously though, almost all women are muggles – that’s why they need men so they’re not wrapped up in mugglery 24/7. When men become muggles, the whole game is over. The unfortunate society begins to collapse and is quickly conquered by outsiders long before any possible renaissance could begin.
if the guy in Fla. had called his koran burning art and sent a video to the smithsonian would they given him $ and calle dit ‘art’?
me thinks not.
i especially like this post from the above:
‘The Times chose not to show even the blandest of the Danish Muhammad cartoons in 2005. More recently the Times chose not to print the Non Sequitur “Where’s Mohammed” cartoon, even though only the title that alluded in any way to Mohammed. But today the Times argues for exhibition of the “Fire in my belly” work, posts images of it, and links to it, on this website. It seems the Times editorial policy is, “No terror, no respect.”
‘European Catholics were such a group back in the heyday of Ellis Island’
this canards been offered to me by someone with a masters degree!
‘remember the Irish, the latinos will assimilate’
[kinda like alfred e neuman saying ‘dont worry’]
well the irish before the english killed em off were 5? million.
azalanders are 200 million and rapidly growing.
see their racist/terrorist ‘art'[mural] at the latino center cal state northridge.
Yes there are good and bad in both races – just far more good in the White Race. And that’s not just my personal, anecdotal experience but the conclusion of objective study by a whole branch of psychology – the branch that stayed close to real, measureable science. Briefly Blacks have lower IQ’s and morality tends to vary directly with IQ. Again the word “tends” is key – not all choose to live up to what they know is right.
You’re an old guy – you must remember Albert Schweitzer, the Mother Theresa of his time. He has been put down the memory hole because he concluded after decades of experience that Blacks were a lesser race.
Africans are not “inferior” to anyone. If Mr. Schweitzer, or anyone else, thinks Africans are “savages,” they are mistaken.
Although Schweitzer used several different German words to refer to Africans, none of those would be translated as “inferior” or “savage” today, but rather as “black” or “native” or “primitive”.
In some translations into English (particularly those by Mrs. C.E.B. Russell) she used the word “savage,” which is as mistaken and regrettable as it is offensive.
It’s not art at all, but “tansgression” a kind of static “performance art”. The alleged artists get a huge kick out of the taxpayer having to fund this crap. Their leftist allies are willing to pony up a few dollars to take in the crap with many an ooh and aah. The openings are basically tribal get togethers and celebrations for having screwed Americans once again.
Now what would happen if funding was cut and the “artists” had to display in their own homes or galleries. Who would come? No one. It’s no fun, no transgression if ordinary people aren’t being screwed. The supposed afficionados of all this wouldn’t come even though they think they like it. What they really like and are eager to support is spitting in the face of Western Man.
Muslims must be kept out of Europe and America
Vlad said: “What they really like and are eager to support is spitting in the face of Western Man.”
Western Civilization did not begin in what we think of as the West. It did not start in Paris or Berlin or London or Prague or Brussels or Stockholm.
Western Civilization grew out of the achievements of dark-skinned and black-skinned peoples who lived in Mediterranean breezes, and in the sun and desert of Northern Africa.
The skin of “Western Man” who founded Western Civilization is not white skin. It is skin with a lot of melanin, and melanin gives Black people excellent physical, mental & spiritual ability.
Melanin refines the nervous system in such a way that messages from the brain reach other areas of the body most rapidly in Black people, the Original People.
It is just more political correctness whose goal is the humiliation, dispossession, subjugation, and eventual destruction of the European populations.
Geoff
TBU laments: “eventual destruction of the European populations.”
European populations who are mostly people of former colonial empires …
… won’t be long now before Christians are replaced by Muslims, whites are replaced by dark-skinned, and the former imperialists become a harmless minority population, to be preserved and treated kindly for historical research purposes, kind of like the Amish in the USA.
Alhamdulillah!
The supposed afficionados of all this wouldn’t come even though they think they like it. What they really like
========
is playing young art sophisticates, sipping cheap white wine from plastic stemmed glasses and munching on celery and baby carrots dipped in innocuous white sauce as a dinner substitute and planting air-kisses on “the artist” and an acquaintance or two.
So let’s suppose a big space rock about 10 miles in diameter is discovered by atronomers. Its orbital elements show that there’s an 80% chance it will impact Earth in about 3 years – an extinction event.
Ok, the world’s people have to get cracking and figure out what to do about it. My question is, will we able to cooperate to give ourselves the best chance of survuval or do we squabble and get nothing done, or do we go out in an orgy of drinking, drugging, sexing and violence? Just curious to see if anyone has an opinion.
TBU said: “Muslims must be kept out of Europe and America”
LOL!
You livin’ in the Dark Ages, bro. That ship done sailed and landed long ago.
Ain’t gonna happen that way. Eventually each human will have genetic elements of all the races. We’ll all be shades of gold and skin color will cease to vary, except for a small percentage of throwbacks who’ll be looked upon with curiosity.
Tough shit to all you racists.
“Druid is uncommon enough I thought you meant it.”
The druids considered the oak to be the most noble of the trees because of it’s usefulness to man. A growing knowledge of Christ Jesus and his teachings are the most useful thing a person can pursue.
“Comparing gnats and camels is not accurate in any way.”
Your insistent on examining minutia and ignoring gargantua and my attempt to make you aware of it were both fulfillment of type.
“So, you say if I hate the Bible I don’t get anything out of it.”
There are two kinds of people that can’t understand the Bible. One doesn’t want to, the other has something in his head that hinders him.
“I wasn’t saying there’s nothing new under the sun. Your failures are nothing new, that’s what I was saying, now it is spelled out, because you couldn’t take it in hint.”
The phrase is another biblical insight which you claim to hate, but is nonetheless true. Confess sins to one another, not for one another.
“Religion is not only untrue, the amount of good is vastly outweighed by the amount of harm it has done.”
Here again, another piece of the truth which you ignorantly ascribe to yourself, rather than Jude. But, I hold you faultless, since you suffer from centuries of man-made religious influence wherein the Adversary beguiled those with an unguarded predilection to wickedness to obfuscate the light of Truth, with only limited success.
MD said: “But, I hold you faultless”
You gonna give her a pass on original sin, too?
“Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.”
20% chance it will miss, 70% chance it lands in the ocean. My place is at 888 feet above sea level. This is {IMHO} minimum elevation for safety. Don’t count on cooperation or help.
MD said: “But, I hold you faultless”
And SEB replied “Whew, that’s a relief!”
“You gonna give her a pass on original sin, too?”
Did Adam’s sin cause us to have sinful souls or mortal souls? In Romans 5:12 Paul explains this principle very clearly, though many church theologians have missed it:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because [eph’ ho, “on which”] all sinned-”
Paul says here that sin first entered the world through Adam’s sin. But what did “all men” inherit from Adam? Was it Adam’s SIN that was passed down into all men? NO. It was death, the liability for Adam’s sin. No one is born with a “sinful soul” or a “sin nature.”
In other words, we did not inherit a sin nature from Adam. We merely inherited the liability for Adam’s sin. The reason we are mortal is because we are made liable for a sin that Adam committed. And so we die, not as a result of our own sins, but as a result of Adam’s original sin. Sinful souls are not passed down from generation to generation by procreation. The only thing passed down is MORTALITY, or Death.
We are not mortal because we sin. We sin because we are mortal. Which is the cause, and which is the effect? Paul says at the end of Romans 5:12 that “DEATH spread to all men,” ON WHICH we ourselves sin. Death is the cause; our personal sins are committed as the result of death in us.
Everything that was lost in Adam, is restored in Christ. Our “pass” just needs to be claimed. We all get one.
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/BOOKS/creations/Chapter13.cfm
Beantown said: “Its orbital elements show that there’s an 80% chance it will impact Earth in about 3 years – an extinction event.”
This is a difficult problem. We can’t “follow the money” because there is no money involved. We can’t buy gold or guns to survive. Nor will permacultural practice help. We can’t blame it on the Jews or the CIA or the Vatican or any of the usual conspiratorial suspects.
But I bet we could take the global warming approach and argue for three years about whether it is real science, whether it is caused by humans or not, whether it is part of a natural cycle, whether it is God’s way of wiping us out (“fire next time”) for being sinful and unrepentant, etc.
MD said: “The reason we are mortal is because we are made liable for a sin that Adam committed.”
We are not mortal and there is no death. Adam is a figment of someone’s imagination.
There is only transformation of energy as stated in the first law of thermodynamics: energy can be transformed and our energy can be changed from one form to another (what people commonly refer to as “death”), but energy cannot fundamentally be created or destroyed so we continue in some form or other.
Because of our mind we always divide everything into opposite polarities. Night and day, birth and death, they are all one process but the mind cannot conceive it. Mind is intrinsically incapable of conceiving of the oneness of life and death, of light and darkness.
Death is a fiction, you have never died. Yes, you have changed your form many times. You have changed your house many times, many times. But you have never died. Have you ever seen yourself dying? It is always somebody else who dies.
MD said: “Our “pass” just needs to be claimed. We all get one.”
Our pass is the first law of thermodynamics and no claim check is needed.
Are you going to go against the laws of physics? I have become a big believer in Newtonian physics (as a result of helpful comments on CFN) … for practical matters in the material world.
I’ve been letting things drop and they always fall downward, so gravity seems to work without a claim check as well.
will there be a time when people wont sell plants/ seeds because theyll be the most valuable [edible] commodity?”
I don’t think so. The big players are already able to charge more for their offerings than they could in the past, especially the horticultural outfits, but plants propogate as fast as the human mind shifts. In two years I’ve seen a few mental shifts around this joint. And in that time I very easily could’ve set them up with damn near everything I had. And I would benefit from it as well, by increased ecosystem support in their gardens.
We’ll just need a lot more people doing it. And fortunately that doesn’t seem to be a problem so far.
Tripp, the other day a guy told me not to buy seedless grapes because they don’t have “hormones” or they have “hormones” … I couldn’t tell because he was mumbling.
So, are “seedless” anything (watermelon, grapes, dates, etc.) part of the conspiracy to keep people dependent on the supplier and unable to plant their own from the seeds?
I respect the blacks and Mexicans more for advocating the proliferation of and take-over by their mentally inferior lines. The ones who deserve true loathing are the liberal enemies within.
TBU laments: “eventual destruction of the European populations.”
European populations who are mostly people of former colonial empires …
… won’t be long now before Christians are replaced by Muslims, whites are replaced by dark-skinned, and the former imperialists become a harmless minority population, to be preserved and treated kindly for historical research purposes, kind of like the Amish in the USA.
Alhamdulillah!
Damn. I am impressed.
You sound like an old testament prophet.
What is your position in real life?
Have you been to a seminary school, by chance?
Progressorconserve wrote: “Looks like pretty standard political boilerplate to me.”
In a way, your comment above proves my point. Our brave young American men and women are risking their lives in wars, and Obama farts a grotesque, insincere boilerplate stinker in their faces, and on Thanksgiving invoking God, no less! The Audacity (of Hope) of it!
And people are so obtuse that they can’t see how horrific it is.
I’m afraid that Obama’s upbringing has spawned something dark and demonic in him. Perhaps it was his drunk father beating his mother? Perhaps it was the fact that he was abandoned by his parents to be raised by his grandmother? Perhaps it was his white grandmother addressing him with the “N-Word”? Perhaps, it was growing up with his CIA parents in Indonesia when the CIA helped Sukarno wipe out over 100 million Indonesians suspected of Communist sympathies? Demonic….
Typo – Change 100 million to one million. That should be: “Perhaps, it was growing up with his CIA parents in Indonesia when the CIA helped Sukarno wipe out over one million Indonesians suspected of Communist sympathies? Demonic….”
Morning CFN’ers…
Thought I’d focus on with Mr Bill’s question of the yesterday…
RE: EELE…
Will we able to cooperate to give ourselves the best chance of survival?
The Copenhagen climate debacle and the current financial G20 shenanigans tells you all you need to know (just as ever always) its every nation state for its self…
But small groups, individual families, solo loners et al will go there own ways or clump together to make a best show of it…
Many will not have a clue as to what’s coming, think that Thai beach pre hit Tsunami pic, with people looking out to sea with the big wave wall of foam fast approaching, with people playing on the sand, ambling along, sunbathing and enjoying the holiday…
Many I have no doubt, will flock to churches, places of worships and fall to their knees making prayers to the multitude of multi-coloured deity’s to show mercy and grace, as zero-hour, then minute approaches.
Many too will indulge in the ensuing chaos to practice all kinds of weird-n-wonderful-skulduggery…
And the pre-selected uber-elites will be army marshalled to deepest safe storage, or so they’ll believe till the nuclear style winter abates… some decades later.
But once more I ask what’s new, with any of these play-out scenarios?
The answer = none
The Question really is, what route of action (if any) are you gonna to be tacking?
Who really are you?
And what do you really want?
Must dash now, as I have an interior plan, internal heating/AC and Raytheon navigation spec of a pirate ship to agree and finance, terribly real as an issue right now…
(Not hypothetical at all)
It’s a big place out there amongst Gaia’s oceans, so free of ghastly fat stupid people and the deafening bullshit.
(Well okay apart from onboard those dreadful cruise ships
And with climate change comes storms and winds – perfect fuel for a tri-sail rigged 50ft+, not sure about seeking the visual comfort of the odd Black Swan?
Me I’ll be out there with the Albatross…
*sniggers*
Be seeing you…
Alexandra asks: “Will we able to cooperate to give ourselves the best chance of survival?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-AbRTYNhI&feature=related
Pucker –
Obviously you and I are part of the problem.
I see standard political boilerplate.
You see an egregious “fart” in the face of the military.
You do realize this was a letter from Obama to his hardcore DNC type supporters.
For him to mention the military indicates genuine gratitude (hmmm) or political calculation (probably).
Regardless, I don’t see ANYTHING out of line or insulting in these words concerning the military:
“I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
So help me out, Pucker. What am I missing?
WHAT IS *FART-LIKE?* ABOUT THESE WORDS?
I think Asian melons are yummy. How about you?
Nice little post, Bean:
“Ain’t gonna happen that way. Eventually each human will have genetic elements of all the races. We’ll all be shades of gold and skin color will cease to vary, except for a small percentage of throwbacks who’ll be looked upon with curiosity.
Tough shit to all you racists.”
=============
And I think you are correct in your assessment of Asoka as *some sort* or racist. He shape shifts around to much for me to be certain – but there’s something there and it’s not as beautiful as he likes to pretend.
Moving on to your post, though, Bean. Sounds like a nice color-blind world. And you are an optimist. I have begun to think (thanks in part to CFN) that it’s human nature to exaggerate differences.
I was at a Mexican resort in Tulume about 3 years ago. It was big, well-run, well-capitalized and all-inclusive.
Management and high profile positions were occupied by “white” native born Mexicans of Castillian descent. Most public contact positions (bartenders, etc were occupied by typical native born racially mixed Mexicans.
The worst jobs were laborers. Every morning a six man crew came out early. They cleaned up a huge pile of beach debris that drifted in over night. They dug a hole in the sand. They buried the debris. Every morning they did it again.
They were the darkest of dark skinned native born Mexicans.
So Mexican society is more obviously, visibly racist than is US society. Even though to a observer from the States – raised multiculturally – they all just look *Mexican.*
As an aside:
Very interesting that there were no illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Panama etc. working at this resort. Mexican govt. won’t tolerate this.
They force illegals to sneak through to the US where the govt. will tolerate illegals.
It’s a strange world, but it’s the world we have.
Making a run for it?
Struggling with the notion that you are not a number? Yearning for freedom? You have my sympathy.
Well, good luck.
Be seeing you…
And Bean, I meant to add –
Even a completely “*lilly white*” society will stratify itself on some basis. You have your high society whites, your yeomanry, your crackers, your rednecks, and your white trash. Neither group will have much to do with the others. Each group has a – mild to major – fear of the others.
I’m in a position to know this first hand.
I grew up in a society like this.
And some version of it is still visible everywhere in the US – to anyone who has eyes to see.
Provocative post about the 10 mile asteroid plunging toward Earth in 3 years.
Only a TINY TINY minority of engineers and politicians would be in a position to know all the facts and do something about them.
Most of the rest of us would sacrifice and sacrifice out of fear of the *other.* (*asteroid?*
A few people would enrich themselves at the expense of the rest.
Sounds like the world today – except more focused!
I recall that both Bill Clinton and Ronald Regan sometimes wished for a *threat?* from outer space to unite the people of Earth against a common problem.
If BC and RR can dream like that – I guess we all can!
ProCon said: “A few people would enrich themselves at the expense of the rest.”
What would the motivation be to enrich oneself knowing death was imminent?
Do you really think people would spend their last time on earth working, investing, taking risks, and stressing about markets to accumulate a few more electronic zeros on their balance sheet?
I think the impulse would be in the opposite direction: to spend all you can to make your last time on earth as pleasant as possible.
ProCon, let me focus it even more. What if it were three months, or three weeks, until the exinction event?
How many people do you think would want to spend their remaining time at the office, or engaged in schemes to “enrich themselves at the expense of the rest.”
At some point people will realize just how unimportant striving to make more money or striving to accumulate more gold is.
And we are all headed toward an event which will radically transform our physical/mental makeup… we just don’t know when.
Re: comments about the bible. After reading Job, I was disgusted with a god who would gamble with the devil over a boast he (god) made about one of his creations. The part where god gives Job some replacement children for the ones Job lost is particularly vile. The bible is a book written and collated by men in order to advance their own agendas.
“…if it were three months, or three weeks, until the exinction event…”
BeanTown raised the hypothetical – and he mentioned (paraphrased, I’m in a hurry) “drinking, drugs, sex, and violence…”
Drinking, drugs, and sex might be nice in a case like this. Not violence, though; I hate violence!
People who resort to violence should be tortured and killed! (Now you see, that’s a joke! 🙂 )
Seriously, A, what I envision is based on my understanding of human nature – partially my own nature, but especially the nature of the large mass of humanity.
You are on CFN to brag about your own enlightened nature. You are perfect and mystical in every way. We get it, ALREADY!
I’m not on here to brag. I’m here to gain understanding. Sometimes you help; often you impede.
==========
In summary, it is part of the nature of some humans to enrich themselves at the worst of times. These people have gone by various names through history – war profiteers, Yankee slave traders (yeah, southern ones, too – another joke!), politicians, etc.
Besides that, I’m an optimist, too. A 10 mile wide asteroid hitting the planet in the middle of the Pacific might be survivable to – my country, my region, my family, and myself – I would plan accordingly.
Human nature, man – You better learn to understand it and embrace it if you ever hope to change it in the World at large.
Have a nice day!
“And with climate change comes storms and winds – perfect fuel for a tri-sail rigged 50ft+, not sure about seeking the visual comfort of the odd Black Swan?
Me I’ll be out there with the Albatross…” -Alexandra
I hope you’re considering naming the vessel, “Albatross”, or even, “The Black Swan”.
Great names, even if you might be a bit superstitious. I’ve found “bad luck” names to be exactly the opposite. (I had one of those vans with the inboard engine, known [colorfully] as a “suicide van”. Being that it was flat black, I had a Jolly Roger flag and the name, “La Machine de la Mort” painted on the front in white. When the poor thing gave up its’ ghost in a freak accident, the offending ‘phone pole had entered the cab [with the crumpled sheet metal and windshield] hard by the engine cover! As for my corporeal being? Not a friggin’ scratch; walked away.)
Best of luck with the “set-up”. …Mmmm, leave the luck out of it, on second thought. ;o)
MD wrote;
“Comparing gnats and camels is not accurate in any way.”
Your insistent on examining minutia and ignoring gargantua and my attempt to make you aware of it were both fulfillment of type.
Let me tell you about fulfillment. First, what is a metaphor? This is to put two dissimilar things together and say that they are alike. Language is full of them. It is what language is all about. The two things are not supposed to be the same.
Is it not just possible that sometimes when we say that someone is a prime candidate for the laughing academy that we mean it metaphorically? They don’t really have a disease requiring them to be hauled off to a nuttery, a place to store nuts, just maybe (putting it as modestly as possible)?
Should metaphors find fulfillment as if they are reality and not fiction, truth rather than pernicuious lies?
That’s good, because Julian Assange seems to me like an albino gay Alice in Wonderland, against lesbian dyke Red Queens of the stripe of his Prime Minister, and Hillary Clinton. Therefore, his accusers have squashed that metaphor by making it rape. This is the freakazoid limitation. Why is it ‘gay and lesbian’ anyway? Aren’t lesbians gay? Well, I own some, and they are justifiably sebsbians.
That’s fine, but you should be hospitalized with broken bones for it, and religious adherents must be cleaned out of society, and often are.
I’m not still talking to you, am I, Ira? Well, I was rantin’ and I’m still wantin’ this track. Wait.
Let me go smooth up in ya.
I thought executions were legal, and assassinations not. No? Okay, fine.
I want you to succeed and fulfill your personality.
I encourage you to self-educate your ignorant ass (why am I not saying this to Turkle? He really galls me), and I am no longer going to do it after this.
I said accurate, that’s literal (verbal, veritable, true, exact, precise, regular, real…
Actual, undeviating, veracious, undisputed)
Charlie Manson, you are on pipe. Hang up (the “cell” phone) and drive.
He is on pipe. That’s why it’s not funny. Is this still the one who can’t do pronouns like a cartoon Chink? How come he can talk about wood and I can’t go straight to Nazis and Hitler and heil?
This is the end, isn’t it? It took a long time to sign in.
Among the antonyms to the word (probably literal), in addition to metaphorical, we find the following: Wrong, erring, misleading, mistaken, false, erroneous, deceiving, untrue, delusive, beguiling, fallacious, unsound, lying, distorted, unreal, allegorical, allusive, colluquial, symbolical, figurative, and mythical.
But not arrant. Is Kunstler just Szasz with extra shit all over him?
Champ, gnats and camels and the eyes of needles and camels, Scooter, these are metaphorical.
I don’t want you to be unfulfilled. Let me go deep up in ya:
Actually, as the examples cited illustrate, everyone who speaks uses metaphors, just as everyone uses nouns and verbs and prepositions—even persons who do not explicitly understand the character of these speech elements. Hobbes (of Calvin and Hobbes) saw clearly the benefits and risks that thus accrue to us as a language-using species (never mind going to people Szasz quotes, they’ll get me for sedition)…
penultimate point:
[No agreement on literal meaning exists]
[The abuse of literalizing metaphors exists]
[Humor depends upon the subtle switching of criteria for classifying things to exist]
[The word aponym does not exist(DNE), or else I could not say Chinese was an epithet]
Baudelaire’d’ve been Fauxdelaire in the Christian universe.
Takin’a bath in …what I said. Man, the social animal. Forgetting termites for a moment, have you ever seen something more unlimited hydroplane than > one humans?
For words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.
-Hobbes
Don’t make me get out Charles S. Peirce (“purse”), Mr. Semiotics. He’s in the frontspiece of one of Szasz’s minor satellites:
What a thing means is simply what habits it involves . . . there is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.
Edit out your negativismo, but leave words like problem and habit.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a metaphor need not be, and usually is not, an isolated word or phrase, such as might be suggested by the examples I have offered, instead, a metaphor—or a set of related metaphors—is often elaborated into an extended and sustained form, called allegory, parable, fable, model, myth—or even science.
Szasz, I want you, baby. Do you take shorthand?
In my book, The Myth of Mental Illness, I have tried to show that psychiatry is a myth built on the metaphor of mental illness and its extensions, such as psychiatric diagnosis, prognosis, hospitalization, treatment, and so forth.
I don’t care who told me. I can’t retrieve the allegory that puts the word notorious in perspective, or gross. I’d like an immediate increase of ten IQ points right here (taps head). I’m channeling people smarter than me, and I can’t make sense of it.
The morning dawned anew.
The Protestant bone is connected to the stake bone.
eucharist, transubstatiation . . .
Dying of a broken heart is cancer.
A man dies and his young son is told that he went to heaven. However, when a man dies and goes to heaven, his going is not the same sort of action as that entailed in his wife’s going to Italy, nor is heaven the same sort of place as Rome.
I lied off some of the shunt forces to do with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, where the basis for this common form of mass murder, what the right wing does best, was always on ethnic grounds. The Jewish question was not so much asked. They upped periscope before the war, not after it started. They didn’t need Lebensraum.
“The bible is a book written and collated by men in order to advance their own agendas.” -stlhdr
I completely agree with your assessment. Enlightenment “might” have been the objective of some of its’ authors; but enslavement turns out to be the ultimate result of their efforts.
I try to remember that many of its’ former chapters were expunged. Perhaps those chapters weren’t magical enough? Ah, the intellectual ghetto of the authoritarians reflects a “heaven on earth”, eh? (That’s what I continue to see and hear, anyhow.)
I think I mainly despise their self-assured smugness. “Heaven’s waiting for me; and you don’t get any. Nyah-nyah-nyah, so there.”
I am sad to report that I have never tasted an Asian melon. I would expect them to be delightful though!
Ha! Methinks a double entendre is a’stewing here.
(At the very least.)
“”Heaven’s waiting for me; and you don’t get any. Nyah-nyah-nyah, so there.””
My wife worked with a lady in Florida who, when asked how she was today, always replied, “blessed and highly favored.”
I always thought that was the most arrogant thing in the world to imagine about yourself. I’m with you, O3, I prefer the curiosity, rigor, and humility of the agnostic community.
When people ask me about my religious persuasion I tell them I’m a “militant agnostic.”
I don’t know, and neither do you!!
“Methinks a double entendre is a’stewing here.”
Double entendre? Oh, I really shouldn’t, I’m trying to lose weight;)
“My wife worked with a lady in Florida who, when asked how she was today, always replied, “blessed and highly favored.” -Tripp
Gak! Was there a lot of bleeding […from the biting of the tongue]?
“I always thought that was the most arrogant thing in the world to imagine about yourself. I’m with you, O3, I prefer the curiosity, rigor, and humility of the agnostic community.” -Tripp
Damn! There you go; being reasonable again. That’s so “Founding-Fathers” of you. ;o)
Very off-topic, but:
Is Julian Assange facing imminent arrest? …Or is it imminent kidnapping [and rendition]?
See now; it’s all in the framing.
Comparing gnats and camels ………………
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didn’t need Lebensraum.
==============
Huh???
Lately I’ve been trying not to advertise who I am on my car, but I broke down this weekend and put a sticker on the Camry that says:
“Vote With Your Fork”
Then went straight away and voted, six times, for Krispy Kreme to stay in business.
Well, you know what they say, you can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her…
…sit through the opera.
Sure is nice to see Arsenal atop the leaderboard again. Even if it is only until United make up their game against Blackpool. Although B’pool have shown moments of brilliance this season too. I’m pulling for another one of those moments for them at home against the red devils.
Gooners eyeballing the silverware…’tis a good day in north London…I mean, unless you’re a Hotspur fan…
Not without almost peeing in her pants apparently.
Bumper stickers…. I’ve been thinking about putting one on my truck in response to the “Gun Control is Dropping a Liberal at 500 Yards.”
Mine would say “Well Armed Liberal.”
But then I thought better of it. Let “them” be surprised 😀 .
Here’s a bit of trivia I would’ve never come up with in a nicer neighborhood. Did you know rats consider soap (homemade olive oil soap anyway) to be a better famine food than peppers, onions, and garlic?
We should start an e-column on curious tidbits you might benefit from during energy descent. Like I’m now thinking, peppers and aliums must just be repulsive to rats if they’d prefer to eat soap, so could I juice them and spritz the place down? Would my house make them nauseous? (Would it make ME nauseous?) As much as seeing a rat in the kitchen does??
Folks in the real estate game say that sauteeing peppers and onions just before people come over makes them happy and pliable. The people, not the peppers. Makes me wonder if there’s not a subconscious connection between the smell of onions and peppers and a distinct lack of rats.
I think I’ll give it a shot. Got cold down here, and the little buggers started thinking our house seemed like a good port in the storm I reckon. Sheesh!
Little things you MIGHT never need to know…
Oh, and I just reread this and no, I don’t mean juicing the rats and spritzing the place down, I mean the peppers and aliums!!
Spritzing the place down with rat squeezin’s would just be weird.
I listened to Jim on the C-Realm podcast last night. The part I found interesting and thought provoking was about “nostalgia for the present.”
He was talking about how some of his characters in “Witch of Hebron” occasionally fall into musing about the good old days. The kids take life as it is, but the oldsters can remember what life used to be like. One comment that stuck with me from Sterlings series “Dies the Fire” was that the older folk from “before” seemed to feel the cold more acutely.
Then Jim started talking about nostalgia for the present. That sometime in the first two years of “getting” peak oil you start getting nostalgic for things that might be lost. The fellow who was interviewing him gets that way over hot showers.
I knew exactly what they were talking about. It wasn’t until I was older that I started taking REALLY GOOD CARE OF MY TEETH. So, now I need two kinds of floss to keep them in good shape. I wonder what I’ll do when it’s no longer available. I get nostalgic for the present.
Any of you out there experience something similar? What are you pre-missing.
You need a cat 😀 I used to have to run a trap line about every six weeks for the mice. And, once, when they were doing some renovation across the street, rats!
Then, I got the cat. Have only seen one mouse in 7 years or so. And, kitty nailed it. I really think the mice can smell the cat and steer clear.
Thinking a bit more about “nostalgia for the present” it occurred to me that it might be useful in the future. Every evening I have a small handful of walnuts, two small squares of dark chocolate (organic, free trade, etc.) and a bit of candied ginger. For health reasons.
Well, the walnuts have just about priced themselves out of my reach. The chocolate is getting there. When TSHTF I think we can forget about seeing chocolate for a very long time. Walnuts can be obtained locally. (Then why are they so damned high?) Ginger is do-able.
I guess what I’m saying is after taking care of the basics, are there luxury goods that one might be able to develop a trade in. There will always be people around with more money or interesting and useful things to trade and maybe that “nostalgia for the present” can be useful.
Say I need an iron pot. Maybe the blacksmith has a hankering for tea. Tea can be grown in this area. Just about anywhere camellias can be grown. There is one local nursery that carries tea plants, acclimated to our climate. If one thinks ahead and establishes some tea bushes …. Or, even that ginger. Ginger can be grown in pots, but how many people do?
I knew a man who lived out a ways in our East County. He has hydro, solar and wind power. A fairly good sized greenhouse with 3 artichoke plants. That were producing. How much would an artichoke be worth (running with butter) to someone who had a real artichoke jones, but hadn’t seen an artichoke in ten years?
Little note that starts with silver:
Since we came off of the silver standard in 1968 the US dollar has been based on nothing more than the perceived strength of the economy.
For enough someones like me, i.e. people who would like to see the economy stop devouring all the topsoil, forests, and freshwater before it kills us, all we have to do to stop the machine is to stop perceiving the industrial economy as strong. No other whizz-bang headline news necessary. By definition it’s that easy. Instead we start building a different kind of economy right around us, based on a different stewardship paradigm. One where neighbors interact in commerce and society, and trade goods and services amongst each other, keeping damn near all of the currency in town.
The fitness of the household economy has very little to do with the formal one, though loads of people would love to convince us otherwise. Goldman-Sachs and Halliburton can absolutely disintegrate, and smiles would still fill the dinner table on Main Street. I think we just have to divorce ourselves from the idea that this larger, parasitizing, socioeconomic structure is bringing real value to our lives. I really don’t find that it does.
I could see this idea of relocalizing and scaling back operations to the skeletal elements scaring the hell out of people who don’t feel like they have something useful to offer to that kind of conversation. Good thing there’s always time to teach an old dog new tricks. I think Lewis and Ozone are Greer fans already, and surely some of you others are too, but for anyone who’s not, John Michael Greer has a forum called the Green Wizards Project, that encourages people to learn outdated, sometimes arcane, skills that will become necessary again in an energy descent world. I like the sound of “falconing” (for keeping pest birds away while fruit crops are ripening), but I’m pretty sure that’s not my personal calling. I’ve just been following his other blog, the ArchDruid Report, for a little while now, but certainly feel like we’ve touched on the subject of Green Wizardry enough times around here that someone might want to get officially involved in that community.
Just throwing it out there. Little recruiting pitch for potential Green Wizards.
Rubius Hagrid: “You’re a green wizard, Ozone. And a thumpin’ good’un too I’d wager, once you get trained up a bit.”
“How much would an artichoke be worth (running with butter) to someone who had a real artichoke jones, but hadn’t seen an artichoke in ten years?”
I think about this sort of thing a lot, and we actually already have our first tea plants. If the nursery you’re referring to is Raintree, that’s where ours came from, but they are prohibitively expensive to buy a decent crop’s worth, so I’m establishing a few while I learn to propogate them and care for acid-loving camellias. Half an acre of local organic tea would be mighty valuable in a south Georgia suddenly cut off from the supermarket. Camellias grow well down here too.
I think what will separate the well-to-do from the lumpenprole in the future is access to a greater variety of memories or spectres of the industrial years. And the older one is the greater the nostalgia. Like Jim mentioned in World Made By Hand, when they got so excited about hotdogs, burgers in actual wheat buns, and strings of electric light above the gathering. Not exactly luxuries by today’s standards.
We have so much luxury today that it’s almost more like a mental illness. But what will I miss? Sure would be nice to be able to run a fridge/freezer for a while longer. And a washing machine.
When we build our last farm next spring, we are only putting electricity in a library/office/pub-type room to keep books dry and have a little escape from the searing heat, and a few outlets on the kitchen wall just outside of that climate-controlled room. We’ll try to run ceiling fans off of a single small motor with belts, but other than that, no electricity in the house. I’m thinking $20 power bill tops (in today’s money).
I suppose if even that went down we’d just adapt.
Yup. Raintree. I’ve never been out there, but their on-line catalog is pretty cool. They’re out in the east part of the county and pretty high up. They get wicked snow up there when we don’t have any down here in the lowlands.
Edible bamboo, anyone? 😀
Another thought I had was dry land rice. I think you have (or had) rice down in the south. Nice wild stuff up in Minnesota. But out here, it would disappear and be another luxury product.
Yeah, but I’d say overall you guys will have one of the highest levels of food variety on the planet out on the northwest coast. Especially with Raintree in your corner. It’s a cool place – the orchard, and Morton itself; you should go check it out.
The point of my asteroid post was to use this as an extreme example of what we are facing today: Society’s reaction to a problematic future in a time of extreme stress.
In my hypothetical situation, I was thinking that if different societies couldn’t even cooperate in trying to save the human race when it is in extremis, then our civilization, which faces a much less immediate threat in the real world, is doomed. Happily, I didn’t get that negative reaction from the posters here, so maybe there is hope. And you are correct, I am, at the core, an optimist.
“The bible is a book written and collated by men in order to advance their own agendas.”
The things written aforetime were written for our learning. The Lesson of Job is the subservience of Satan, who needed permission from God to do anything to Job. God gave him such permission in 2:6 and 7.
“So the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.” Then Satan went out from the presence of YHWH, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”
What follows is a commentary on the reason and purpose of suffering in the earth. Job had three friends who each argued from a different point of view, but none of them understood the mind of God.
Eliphaz argued from human experience: you reap what you sow in life, so Job’s troubles are because he must have sinned.
Bildad said his problem was bad karma: Job’s troubles are because he sinned in a past life and is now paying for it in this present life.
Zophar argued from human merit: all are born rebellious and are responsible to purify their own hearts to avoid these judgments of God. Wisdom and purity will merit God’s favor.
Almost all men would answer in one of these three ways. The religions of the East argue like Bildad. The Greek philosophers and many Christians would argue like Zophar. Phariseeism and much of modern Christianity would argue like Eliphaz. Yet they all fell short of understanding the mind of God, because they did not comprehend the plan and purpose of God. Only Elihu had the answer, which is summarized:
“You think that you are more just than God. You have said there is no gain in trusting in His righteousness. You have questioned if perhaps there is more profit in NOT following Him. When men are oppressed by a tyrant, they cry out for help, but no one ever seems to ask God for answers. When they do, He does not answer because of their pride in thinking that God is unjust and unfairly treating them. If the righteous are bound in the stocks with trials, it is that he may show them their deeds and their sins which have sprung from pride. In this way he opens their ears and instructs them to turn from their iniquity. If they hear His voice, they will prosper in peace and righteousness; if not, they will perish by the sword and die not knowing why. So take heed. Do not tell God, ‘You have done wrong.’ Remember to extol His work, rather than tell Him how to run the universe.”
As it turns out, Job’s troubles came only because God wanted us to understand that we must not be bitter toward God for allowing us to have adversity. We must not accuse God of being unfair or unjust toward us.
When evil comes upon us, our pride immediately begins to surface, treating God as though he were unjust. Such an attitude presupposes that we know better than God what justice really is. And so God sends adversity upon us, even to the breaking point, in order that we may obtain a deeper understanding of the His ways. We learn that His “injustices” are only temporary, and that He knows how to turn these “evils” into good.
Once we really begin to believe this, we enter upon the true life of faith, where we view all our adversaries ultimately as tools, to train us as His sons and daughters. That is the place of rest.
On my ‘to do’ list. I don’t know about Morton. We’ve had 7 murders in the county this year (all time high) and at least 5 of them were out Morton way. It’s getting real Jerry Springer, out that way.
If I do go for something kind-of-country it will be a little closer to town and one or two valleys north.
LLB, I can’t pre-miss anything if I have it now. I can’t mourn my future losses. That would be akin to when someone first realizes their parents are a fair amount older than he or she, and in all probability, they will have to go through the experience of them dying. Do they, now in the present, get sad every time they see their mother and father because they know they’ll eventually attend their funeral?
I’m not perfect, and sometimes I do yield to a type of future loss. Of all the movie comedians, I loved the Marx Brothers the most. They made 13 or 14 movies, and every time I saw one for the first time, I was sad because that meant I had one less new experience to look forward to.
I can tell you, though, that I would miss being able to have chocolate any time I wanted it.
“If I do go for something kind-of-country it will be a little closer to town and one or two valleys north.”
So Mt. St. Helens then? You were right, there is no perfect place to ride out TLE. Surely today’s mobility is one of the best countermeasures, so natural disasters will probably be a lot more effective at working out that pesky population problem than they are now. If your whole region got driven out by an eruption, which of your half-starved neighbors would take you in?
I’m guessing Morton’s problem is the same as every other logging town’s. Nobody needs lumber. Property is dirt cheap, and bar fight rates sky high in St. Maries, Idaho too. We almost bought a place in the mountains there on an old logging road. Talk about isolated. Only the elk and cougars would hear you scream. I might be cavalier, but I’m not that cavalier.
You seem like a nice man, MD. If I was a believer, I’d never presume to know the mind of God. But I am not a believer. It is beyond my intellectual and spiritual capability to conceive of a God who would allow the deaths of 6 million innocent people, and for those who survived, an entire lifetime of endless emotional damage. If some survivors made a life for themselves afterward, and maybe experienced some good, it was by their own efforts or good fortune, not because God decided to turn off the misery valve. Stating that God is showing an innocent six year old boy his sins by letting him suffer horribly, is an incredibly cruel thing to say.
Suffering exists in the world because the universe is impersonal. It also allows happiness to exist. It is the random play of events and our own efforts that give rise to both happiness and suffering. Human brains are hardwired to try to find reasons for everything, and have problems dealing with randomness and probability. Creating the concept of a god provides answers to things people can’t explain otherwise.
“I can’t pre-miss anything if I have it now.”
No, no, Bill, it’s an exercise in getting you to appreciate what you have more, to think of these things in terms of luxury and not entitlement, not to fantasize about their absence. At least that’s how I see it.
TT:
can you post [ at yr site or facebook] pix of yr neighbor-hood..
the blocks / avenues aournd the street you live on?
and how did you find yr house? state auction?
North, Tripp. North. Mt. St. Helen’s is south. Boy, I hope I never get lost in the woods with you 😀 . Aww, St. Helens is done for another 500 years. All though, they did have a 4.5 earthquake out around Morton a couple of weeks ago. Not connected to the Mountain, according to the U of W. Of course, we’re right past the thresh hold of the 8.5s that hit this area from time to time. The last one was in 1701 and they run every 300 – 500 years.
I’ve got two sets of friends that might take me in. But, I’d rather not ask. Rather take care of myself.
Ah, lumber. Of course, the official line is “It’s the damned Spotted Owl.” Part of the problem is you have some old bull of the woods who has 6 kids and they have six kids each and he just don’t understand why there aren’t enough jobs in the woods. And, of course, the whole corporatization of the lumber industry. We know how well that goes. AND getting less money for raw logs then shipping finished lumber overseas. At the time all that was going on, only one (small) mill in the State of Washington cut to metric. Duh! But, in public, I’ll stick to the company line “It’s the damned Spotted Owl.” 😀
I do admire the loggers. Those guys have the most dangerous jobs in America. Every time I see a pair of cork boots at the local thrift stores, I wonder if they cut them off a dead logger. I have a pair of sandals that DID come from a guy that was killed in the woods.
Cougars … and bears. (and lions and tigers, oh, my!) A concern. The cougars are around. In a little valley just outside of town, some old guy flipped his ATV and broke his pelvis and shoulder. He crawled into a ditch and strained the water through his hat. When they found him two days later, he was kind of delirious and kept talking about cougars. They found the tracks of two or three cougars around him in the mud. They must have been well fed as his old dog managed to keep them off.
Bears are a problem. Even close to, or in town. Black bears. But there have been grizzly sightings on the south slope of Mt. Rainier, which is eastern Lewis County. I have a very credible friend who saw one. They must be very timid and steer clear of people. Then there’s Big Foot …
When things start quieting down (SHTF) the wildlife will move back in with a vengeance. They do give me pause, when I think of moving too far into the boonies.
I don’t think I’m explaining it very well. JHK did it so well. Which is why he’s JHK and I’m me 😀 . I guess. There’s a link to the podcast on the main page. Look for C-Realm.
I could do that. Changing fast right now though. Those houses across the street are going up quickly! Don’t have a clue who is going to spend 75k in this hood, much less 175k for the more expensive models. Hundreds, if not thousands, of houses are empty all over this burg, and the gov thinks a wise use of its money would be to build mixed income housing in crackville. Let’s force em all together and see what happens. Yeah, they’ll make great squat houses after not selling for a year or two. Maybe the rats can move back in over there where they came from.
We bought this place off of Craigslist for 3000 bucks, cried a little when we saw it for the first time, and then got busy. Hoping to sell it for 25 in a few months and head home to south Georgia to settle permanently on enough land to feed my crew, my mother, and my sister and her two. The other local family members have big parcels that I’ll help them develop over the coming years so I don’t have to feed them too.
I’ll let you know when I post some pics.
My last comment is for Asia, sorry.
Progressorconserve wrote: “So help me out, Pucker. What am I missing?
WHAT IS *FART-LIKE?* ABOUT THESE WORDS?”
Obama’s Thanksgiving message to the American people including our brave men and women fighting in foreign wars is “FART-LIKE” because Obama’s words are grotesquely insincere. The Audacity (of Hope) of it all! Particularly, when Obama addresses U.S. soldiers. Read Woodward’s “Obama’s Wars”. Obama knew when he committed to the surge that it would not work and Obama, in fact, wanted at the time to pull out of Afghanistan. Instead, Obama sent more US troops into Afghanistan simply because Obama is too weak to stand up to the military. It was an insincere political FART. Gross-All-Over!
Obama’s lack of sincerity indicates a vacuum in his soul, a dark, black emptiness, perhaps, indicative of the lack of love is his upbringing. When he literally bows down to authority figures (“Just tell me what you want me to be.” Obama.) indicates a desperate need for approval by authority as well as a Fascist kind of sedomasochism.
“From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thankful
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you’ll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you — for everything.
I also hope you’ll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack”
ProCon said: “He shape shifts around too much for me to be certain…”
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.
Typos – Change sedomasochism to SADOMASOCHISM; Change “…lack of love is his upbringing…” to “lack of love in his upbringing…”
Obama’s lack of sincerity indicates a vacuum in his soul, a dark, black emptiness, perhaps, indicative of the lack of love is his upbringing. When he literally bows down to authority figures (“Just tell me what you want me to be.” Obama.) indicates a desperate need for approval by authority as well as a Fascist kind of sedomasochism.
Tripp, my sense is that you call most material things luxuries, and that self-sufficiency is very important to you.
I don’t consider much of what I own luxuries. Those that are I deeply appreciate. I think my luxuries are the following:
A custom-made computer – but I really need it for my business.
A wall-mounted 42″ TV.
An Ipod to listen to my favorite music
A Kindle to read books (I bought it to save money as I read a lot, and I can get books cheaper on Amazon.com this way – sorry, LLB)
A 2004 Nissan Z350 roadster. When I was a kid, all the cool, Fonzie-like guys had hot rods and got the prettiest girls. I had neither, I wanted them, but I didn’t have the money. So when I hit my mid-life crisis, I got the car. I long-ago got the pretty girl, I married her. My Z is the only expensive big-ticket luxury item I’ve ever owned. In the 7 years I’ve owned it I’ve put on 14,000 miles, so I’m not exactly burning up all the oil supplies. But I feel so good when I do drive it. I wasn’t entitled to it, I bought and paid for it.
I guess you can say anything above living in a tent, with only basic necessities, is a luxury. So if TSHTF, that’s what I could end up with – basic necessities. But until then I’m gonna enjoy what I’ve worked for.
Well if it’s not “your wish is my command” then it’s a “stay the course, I’m the decider” type of Emersonian foolish consistency. The production has gotten so outlandish that I wonder how people can talk about it with a straight face. Do you still think 2 different teams are running the puppet show?
My step father thinks I’m being irresponsible by not caring about federal politics; I think caring at this point is sort of like watching the last 2 men on earth fight about who killed the last woman!
Hey there all you CFN kats and kittens…
Has anybody recently beat one of those automatic red light camera tickets?
I beat one of these back in 2003 in LA. This more recent one was in Santa Cruz County, CA. It really is distressing to have a government agency try to fleece you for about $500 in this way. No officer present; revenue enhancement to be sure! Any information is much appreciated.
“Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions…”
-H.D. Thoreau
Creating the concept of a god provides answers to things people can’t explain otherwise.
==
It also creates a very good cover for economic, social, and politically nefarious agendas.
Tripp,
I thought that camellia sinensis couldn’t live through a freeze. Or do you have these tea plants in a green house?
I’m a tea-head big time. I would love to grow some but it usually freezes a few nights out of the year here.
Persevere,
Debt
I didn’t suggest that you shouldn’t. I think what industrial humans have done up until now was pretty much the way any biological population behaves in a system with loads of free energy. My comments eminate from the perception of a tidal shift in that reality, and one that will redefine the term luxury for my generation, and my children’s, and so on for as long as it takes to reach equilibrium.
Your demographic should come to terms with the idea that you got most of it. That someone who lived between, let’s say 1950 and 2025, participated in the consumption of half of the planet’s oil supply. And good for you. Well chosen birthday. I would’ve done the same. We all would have. But to suggest that your life will be available to all if they just put in the work, is insulting. Not that it doesn’t make watching the ball game on the 42″er a bit more palatable. I get that. But we’re responding to real energetic limitations in our environment now. If we still have TV to watch, on any sort of set, by the time I’m your age, I’ll be surprised.
There’s no reason for the older generations to feel guilty, you did nothing wrong. But I do think it’s foolish for someone my age to expect to inherit a similar reality. Or to buy the story that we could, if only we’d just work harder. My cohort group needs to put on its big girl panties and get busy putting all the carbon back in the soil where it’s useful. It’ll probably take a few generations to accomplish that task before we can count our remaining population and discuss our 22nd century trajectory.
When you discover that all the money you worked so hard to leave us has no real value, I hope it doesn’t hurt too much. I don’t mean that in a snotty way, I’m being serious. When you discover that you made origami out of the planet’s real wealth remember what I said about it being a natural biological progression. That’s just the shitty reality under the last scratch-off window of your generation’s lottery ticket. And honestly I hope it’s stomachable. Makes mine churn just thinking about it.
No, I’ve got them in the ground outside, and through 26-ish degrees to date they’ve been fine. The Sochi, Russian tea (Camellia sinensis) I have is hardy to zone 7, so 0 degrees F. More or less. My olives are hardy to only about 14, but they advertise them as hardy to zone 8, or +10F. Bit of a stretch, but still, tea should handle occasional frost with no problem. Grow away, dear friend. I see a proliferation of really fine small batch teas in the future.
Trippticket wrote: “The production has gotten so outlandish that I wonder how people can talk about it with a straight face.”
I agree….
Which leads me to wonder why is it that many people are so obtuse as not to recognize how farcical, horrific it has become?
One wonders if our society is actually manufacturing psychopaths? Wasn’t there a book written several years ago entitled “Snakes in Suits”, in which the author argued that our corporate forms of organization actually encourage the production of psychopaths, and that psychopaths thrive in corporate environments?
“If I was a believer, I’d never presume to know the mind of God.”
But you presume that believers claim to. If you were a believer, you would have learned that God’s mind is infinite and therefore impossible for a finite creature to know. What we know, or believe, as some insist, is simply what God has communicated small portions of His will and plan to a few of the faithful according to their callings {ie: need to know basis}.
“It is beyond my intellectual and spiritual capability to conceive of a God who would allow the deaths of 6 million innocent people, and for those who survived, an entire lifetime of endless emotional damage.”
Is it not presumptuous to believe that He must conform to your limitations?
Is it not presumptuous to believe that He must conform to your limitations?
==
Then what’s the point? Why do we need to care about or worship such a being?
MD said: “God has communicated small portions of His will and plan to a few of the faithful according to their callings”
I think the rest of the communiques that have been given out by God to a few faithful {on a need to know basis} are soon to be made public in a major WikiLeaks release.
And that’s your idea of divesity, right? As the Greek orator said of the Romans, “They make a desert and call it peace”.
It’s a good idea pragmatically also. The FDIC can close the banks for sixty days anytime they want. So everybody should have that much money under the mattress just in case of such a bank emergency.
Your clarity is Greek. But unfortunately, many people want America and Western Civilization to die. And even stranger, many of the posters even think that America can continue without Whites. American Culture is the result of a thousand years of development in England and Northwestern Europe. To think that other peoples will just casually adopt or value it is absurd. Cash and Prog think that the schools and institutions will do the job. But are they? No. And they are in decline and will only get worse. And it’s a false idea to begin with – culture is transmitted primarily through the ordinary family process. Without that Foundation, state institutions are impotent. If the Foundation was still strong, maybe some non-Whites could be brought along – but without it, the America just becomes a grab bag for competing ethnes. Sword land in other words.
Nope, what I’m saying is that racially speaking, there will be little or no diversity. In other genetic respects,we will be as diverse as we’ve always been. Unfortunately for you, there won’t be a white race, and a black race to rail against, just a human race. But don’t worry, cultural differences will still exist, and you can pick and choose those you want to be prejudiced against.
That’s good to know. My information source was a little Chinese woman in a tea shop.
“How much per ounce is this tea?” I would ask.
“Figh dollah!” She barked back.
“Is it possible to grow tea plants around here?”
“No grow tea where freeze! No can grow tea where freeze!” More barking.
I’ll check out the Raintree site.
Thanks!
No, I wasn’t saying that believers know the mind of God. I was trying to state that if one believes in God, one could not know the mind of Him.
“Is it not presumptuous to believe that He must conform to your limitations?”
Again, if I were a believer, your statment would be true. Since I am not, your point is moot.
Pucker said: “Obama’s lack of sincerity…”
Obama was sincere enough to make a trip to Afghanistan to thank the troops in person.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/12/03/a-surprise-visit-troops-afghanistan
The recent Pentagon survey found 70% of the troops are OK with gays and lesbians. Support our troops and support their gayness and lesbianism.
To Cash & Prog Inc, Ltd – Undertakers of Western Civilization; and for all my peeps out there: Billy, Bean, Luke, Wage, Dee Dee, Dale, Turkey, Soak the Black Superman in diapers – all y’all – you know who you are: BLENDAU!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u-mihtgTm0&feature=player_embedded
Long live miscegenation!
Had a long conversation, just today, with an ex-Army Ranger now National Guard. He was in two minds. He thought that DADT should be repealed. Wasn’t a big deal. But he felt that people who came out in the Service would be in real danger. From that 30%.
So I suppose there will be a few martyrs, then a few executions or life sentences. The whole dreary spectacle. Then things will reach an equilibrium and people ten years from now will wonder what was the big deal.
When I was a kid in Portland, Oregon, we had a huge camellia bush next to the front porch. I can remember 1/4″ layers of ice (those infamous Columbia Gorge ice storms) covering every leaf and blossom. We got a kick out of peeling the ice off the leaves (a perfect impression) and sucking on them. No flavor. Just entertaining ourselves with the wonder of it all.
The bush was never harmed or even “set back.”
I think if I had tea bushes, I might cover them at night if it got down to -20 or so.
No biggie, Beans :D. Books will be around long after Kindle’s or any other kind of reading device is gone. And, a lot of people (more every day!) can’t afford the initial investment of a Kindle. I sell any of the mass market paperbacks (the small ones) for $2 a pop including tax.
And, as I often say, I drop a book on the floor, (or, fling it against the wall, hard, in frustration or anger) pick it up and keep on reading. Try THAT with your Kindle.
Every guy needs toys. I don’t begrudge you yours. And congrats on getting the girl. My toys run more to books, Weller pottery, miniature houses and glass pumpkins. Etc.
I had a friend once who had a Nissan Z, just like yours. Sweet machine. I’m happy with my 2004 Ranger. Short bed, standard trani, no air and less then 50,000 miles. Gets 28 to the gallon. The cheapest truck I could get that still had an engine (at least, I think it’s an engine) and not a cage of squirrels under the hood.
“dirty institutions.” I like that.
Don’t know why, but it made me think of John Waters film, “Dirty.”
Asoka said: “Obama was sincere enough to make a trip to Afghanistan to thank the troops in person.”
I recall Bush, Jr.’s trip to Iraq many years ago for a photo-op. The photo showed W delivering to the troops a roasted turkey, which turned out to be made of plastic.
Another aspect of Obama’s bizarre insincere personality that I can’t understand is that he appears to be a homosexual who lives-in-the-closet. Having to live a dual-life must force one to disassociate one’s personality from oneself and to act in very insincere ways. Always pretending.
“Then what’s the point? Why do we need to care about or worship such a being?”
Outgrow your limitations rather than worship them. We are still being created. Think of yourself as a caterpillar instead of a butterfly.
“I was trying to state that if one believes in God, one could not know the mind of Him.”
Then, on this, believers and unbelievers can agree. Could He communicate a small {man-sized} portion of His mind {will} to man?
My “limitations” define who and what I am. I’m not interested in being anything else. You can take your “butterflies” and shove’em.
You know – if you look around the TSHTF is already in effect for many countries. My understanding is that there are some real pissed off people in Spain right now.
And I think there are quite a few Irish and Greek taking some soap to the the back side as well.
Who would have thought that a new world order could sort of “spring up” without notice, capable of extorting all the developed nations of the world through skulduggery among the legislatures and bribes to the public executives.
The events of the last two years are going along way in obscuring and complicating any chance of “1st world” nation’s response to Peak Oil.
Some earlier comments touched on the necessity of using distinctive language in relating and communicating a response to PO. My own perspective that nation-states that have clearly defined political-cultural subdivisions will do better that semi-homogeneous groups.
The US, in its diversity is pretty well screwed.
“You know – if you look around the TSHTF is already in effect for many countries. My understanding is that there are some real pissed off people in Spain right now.”
Like Heinberg says, energy descent is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed yet.
And I agree that “nations” will overcome adversity a lot better than “countries” will. I just tend to think you can pick your (racial, ideological, whatever) tribe and settle in for TLE a lot more effectively within the existing political boundaries than most people think. No revolution or emigration required. Remember, if energy descent is real, it’s just a matter of time before the “United States” is nothing more than a memory. It takes a shitload of energy to hold a multi-cultural empire together. So I think balkanization is a foregone conclusion.
And probably the main reason I’m getting out of Macon, GA. The majority (65%) here is black, and it’s not that I don’t like black folks, I like lots of them, but their culture is very different from mine. Took living here to realize that. They don’t even eat the same foods at Thanksgiving that we do. (How many of you whiteys had ham, collard greens, and mac and cheese?!) So I’ll very kindly excuse myself from their party and go hang out with my family, who can pity me for my misguided perception of the world. Until they realize that I’m actually saving their asses.
“It also creates a very good cover for economic, social, and politically nefarious agendas,” which men {who may even believe that they are being faithful} would usurp the power to enforce by convincing themselves that they were gods {qualified to make rules for others}. It is the wars of these petty tyrants that are destoying the earth. All are accountable.
“My “limitations” define who and what I am. I’m not interested in being anything else.”
Dead things do not grow. Thank God for resurrections.
Dead things do not grow. Thank God for resurrections.
==
Dead things are dead for a reason. And I don’t need to thank god for anything, including your lies, political machinations, and fairy tale stories.
Woke up this morning and opened the bedroom curtains to find that bastard dog in the chicken yard again. My current lineup of birds can get away from dogs very effectively, so I wasn’t too worried about them, but I could smell revenge in the cool morning air.
I grabbed the first pair of long pants I saw, pulled on some socks, went out to the living room and slid on my shoes. Quietly, I slipped out the double French door into the front garden with my 12 gauge and a pocket full of shells. A stout breeze was blowing west to east, from the dog toward me, so I knew I could get back there and surprise that prick. And I did. He had slipped under a different part of the fence that he now had no access to with me coming, and made for his old standby escape under the church fence. Too bad I had already sealed that hole up tight.
BLAM!! popped the shotgun, dropping the dog’s rear end to the ground behind him. He started whimpering, and my compassionate side welled up through the loathing and retribution, so I loaded another shell into the chamber. I approached him carefully, wary of any wounded predator, and got a clear comfortable shot to the head.
BLAM!! popped the shotgun again. And the Rottweiler/Chow mix with the evil gray eyes laid out and was gone. At that point I started looking around for my birds, which were all up in the trees above the fray, safely watching their personal terrorist die in the back corner of their paddock. I waited about 10 minutes, felt like about 10 minutes anyway, and then got a shovel and started digging.
That dog was responsible for the death of a lot of livestock on our little urban farm – my breeding trio of French black copper Marans that weren’t the athletes the others were, my favorite chicken of the group, the white Polish crested pullet named awkwardly before her sex was identified, David Bowie, 2 young turkey poults, several of my Dark Cornish meat cockerels, and most poignantly, our goat Briggsy. I pissed on that dog’s skull and then buried him in the rich loamy sand of the back paddock to feed the trees.
A killer died this morning, and another was born. I haven’t shot an animal with a gun in 20 years, but it’s time to get serious about survival. And my survival ultimately depends on a functional collection of livestock – livestock that makes the vegetable part of a food system run without fossil fuel inputs. The days of our culture’s ability to separate us from the ugliness we all engage in, meat eater and vegetarian alike, are drawing to a close. I just hope I don’t ever have to kill a human.
Effective fences will be my next focus, and I’m leaning towards old General Washington’s advice of planting honey locusts every 6″ to create a rooted, thorny, living fence that can also be coppiced for fodder, hard lumber, and firewood.
Ever more integrated systems are what energy descent will require of us.
I sometimes use a bow and arrow to harvest pests on my property. It can be just as deadly and doesn’t alert the neighbors. Congrats on stopping the goat-killer.
“Dead things are dead for a reason. And I don’t need to thank god for anything, including your lies, political machinations, and fairy tale stories.”
I am pre-missing our caterpillar arguments.
I’m sure JHK already knows this, so this is for the rest of you. Nascar’s Dale Earnhardt JR just won the most popular driver award for the 8th consecutive year. He is one of the worst drivers in the series, finishing 25th last year and 21st this year. Seems odd but The sponsor of this award is “Hamburger Helper” So why wouldn’t they try to help? That’s what they do. He comments “Each year I win it it just means more and more…” Nascar itself cannot possibly be helped. It’s perfect.
“I am pre-missing our caterpillar arguments.”
Nice.
I’m pre-missing your resurrection in to a butterfly.
“I sometimes use a bow and arrow to harvest pests on my property.”
The 12 gauge is on loan for now. When I buy I’m thinking about getting a take-down recurve bow.
Any advice?
What about close combat training? Anybody here familiar with these “condition black” techniques?
This is all the training you need, Tripp:
– http://youtu.be/2ScvAJG51V4
I can’t win any arguments.
Look, Messianic Druid was using a metaphor from the bible to claim that I was constantly worried over little minute things while at the same time I was swallowing whole huge lies.
But look, the “little thing” in this case was an apostrophe. Oh yes, they’re little, and easy to learn. But, he didn’t do that. Since I did it fifty years ago, I just don’t feel like waiting for him to catch up. I weakened. I was wrong. I should wait the fifty and bring just him up to speed.
No, I intend to use Mr. Druid for espionage, and he should get out there and bring in vital intelligence. He should be good for something.
Druid, this is your chance to redeem yourself. Act like I’m Hillary Clinton. Go into the switchgrass in Somalia and pounce on lions. They know something they’re not telling.
Qball, you took my post out of context. I had not planned on it being read that way, using the end of the last sentence to complete the first. Does it read any better sideways?
All this is minor, to say the least. We wonder whether saying the United States is failing and may soon cease to exist means the same to some readers as saying that you intend to attack it and bring it down, because it goes that way in many discussions with Americans. I think it is generally felt that writers who have nothing constructive to write should write nothing.
I am one of them. I claim the US deserves to be destroyed and all of us with it because I am its enemy, and I believe there does exist a fate worse than death. It would be nice if some of these metaphors died. Until then, I’ll suffer them.
Maybe I’m wrong. Let me see that flag again. Let me see a big smile.
It takes no talent to criticize.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
I will just give up. I’ll go to the hospital and turn myself in. I need to start doing time without having a trial.
Yesterday, I thought I could make a breakthrough, and have ways of calling things lies just from the language making them up.
Use “was gay” in a true statement.
My only advice would be to buy second-hand, like I did. Is the take-down feature really needed? Lots of good, hardly-used, one-piece recurve bows out there for dirt cheap or being given away by old-timers. Mine is lightweight, 45# pull, easily stored, and does the job.
No, the take-down feature is not necessary. Just thought I’d avoid the same mistake I made with fishing poles years ago. Hard to travel with 7-8 foot rods, but this is only 60-ish inches so a lot easier anyway.
You’re a man, right, SR? I always thought your handle sounded more feminine, when it’s really just more…um…legumous. I love scarlet runner beans by the way.
So you find that 45# does the trick? What about feral pig hunting? Would it do that job? I’m all for second-hand, so I’ll take a look around!
Seb, you’re a superfreak! Sometimes I read your posts just for the mindfuck.
Thanks, Mika, very instructive!
Since energy descent is our future, here is a cheap way to have energy without being dependent on the grid. On sale now (for a limited time?)
http://amzn.to/dYjpEc
This seems like a nice place to start for experimenting with frugal off-grid energy.
60 watts for 300 bucks? Whew! A friend of mine in OK City built a fridge that runs on 100 watts, but this is definitely for small time uses. Frugal indeed. Not that powering a CD player wouldn’t be lovely now and then. I’d certainly pay $300 now for access to my music in the future.
Tripp said: “this is definitely for small time uses”
After the SHTF and the grid shuts down, you will be very happy to have an alternative like this. Eventually those with 60W will be the middle class.
Do you know of a cheaper way to get 60W off-grid?
MD wrote: The things written aforetime were written for our learning.
I’d go further. Future events cast their shadow on the here and now. That’s why comets are accurately recognized as harbingers of doom.
You can see things happening now with great portent for the future, in a chicken’s entrails, tea leaves, or a crystal ball.
Rabbi, you are a seer, a vizier, an advisor. Why should we worship a scumbag? We should worship you. Not you, perhaps, but at least the clarity of your vision.
The Presidential astrologer in the Nancy Reagan era could actually decide which dates were auspicious ones for carrying out affairs of State.
In Salem, Massachusetts, as recently as the spiritual reign of Increase Mather, it was found that a witch’s apparition did indeed appear to afflict innocent sufferers with the shakes, a burning sensation, etc. The use of these eyewitnesses who definitely saw that it was in the shape of the local midwife, the thing that was doing this still informs our methods of eyewitness testimony today. The fifty or so witches convicted then resulted from taking the testimony of the first of the accused to break, who then implicated the rest, because Increase said he wasn’t so sure about the tetimony. He needed more, we supplied more. Now you have the testimony of the accessories and accomplices who actually pulled the crimes with the suspects. These are subject to lesser punishments. It’s very scientific. We use it today.
Although Rev. Mather had doubts about using white magic against black magic, common sense prevailed and some experiments were performed involving a cake with urine in it, I think from a dog which was sent into the spirit world, came back and peed, and then the victim ate the cake and somehow the case was proven thus wise.
It was all extremely scientific, trust me. Numerous examples abound proving it. They are too numerous to mention. They are beyond the scope of this.
Messiah, is there a clause that states messiahs must martyr themselves? We will do it, gladly because of the fulfillment of scripture.
Somebody get a rope.
Vlad Krandz, will you support my heroin habit? Please, I beg you.
How? Leave that up to me. Let’s meet and hang out together. All I need is your moral support.
Do you need a pill to fall asleep? Do you sleep with your wallet on your right side? Do you sleep on your right side? Maybe you should take two pills.
Want some heroin? Sure, I can do that. How much do you weigh? I want to put the right amount in the spoon.
Whoa, hi mom. Why is Vlad laying on the living room carpet with all of the frozen pea packages and steaks from the freezer in his armpits and in his crotch? I don’t know. He did not weigh as much as he said, I guess.
Nope, sounds good to me. Although I still question the real costs of building PV panels, even a little electricity would go a long way in that situation.
The bit about Nancy Reagan’s astrologer always freaks me out. Don’t these people have any need for coherence in their lives?
And your indictment of Vlad cracked me up.
Look; America has become a military cult, completely different from the civilian culture we were when my brothers came home from WWII — anxious to get out of their uniforms and back into civilian clothes and life.
Even up into the early 1960s a military career was looked down upon as the refuge for those too slough and lacking in ambition to actually “earn” a living in the private economy. When I graduated from high school in 1956 academic counselors would routinely recommend to the low achievers enlistment into one of the branches of the military, hoping that maybe the prison compound likeness of military installations and regimentation might succeed in either awakening more ambitious goals or at least give orderly structure to lives otherwise amiss.
Now though, militarism is worshipped as a value in and of itself, completely removed from critical examination of purpose of mission. Even the most cretin of character is now celebrated as ennobled by simply putting on a uniform.
Militarist is what and who we’ve become as a nation, willing to dedicate vast portion of national wealth to special and exclusive treatment of those who have “served”, essentially making it an elevated and privileged class above civilians not distinguished by such (so called) service.
Hell, we’re now even anointing foreign nationals as above ordinary civilians; by a hitch in our military they gain instant citizenship with all the exclusive life-time perks and benefits of this special class (simulacra French Foreign Legion).
The question seems to be, has our transition into a militarist society been consequence of media “dumbing down“ of the public (the American populous has always borne an anti-intellectual streak) rather than serving to inform and educate, or has the media been commandeered to the role of propaganda organ for promoting military campaigns and adventurism in service to a drastic shift is national identity from that at the outset of the republic? Egg or chicken first, maybe?
In either case, is anyone willing to estimate how much refugee load our nation will take on from our most recent militarist adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq – that is, when our folly there comes to its inevitable end and we pull out? My guess is a couple million at least. It will be interesting to witness how well these, from a culture where graft and corruption is integral, will assimilate. Of course, large families are the rule too.
They are delightful. Ozone is getting suspicious.
Go Gunners!
How about that Nasri? Have to think that some big clubs are going to come sniffing around.
If he keeps knocking the back out of it like he’s been doing, Wenger might have a hard time holding onto him! I was fooled – I didn’t give him that much credit at the start of the season. Kept wondering why I wasn’t seeing Rosicky more. But I think he’s made his point to me. Unbelievable!
Tripp, we have to start thinking about not having easy access to an electrical grid and we need to voluntarily engage in energy descent.
A 60W PV set up can be used to charge batteries for lighting, cooking, and heat.
Infrastructure Investment
A Wood Gasification Stove (burns small wood pieces efficiently for cooking) http://www.woodgas.com/woodcooking.htm
LED Lantern/Flashlight (for energy efficient area lighting, can be hand crank type)
Composting Toilet (humanure recycling)
Water Purifier (type depends on location)
Rechargeable AA batteries (for stove, lights, small radios, etc), for use in solar charging stations.
So, now you can eat in a lighted area and have clean water, without being connected to a grid.
Our great-great-grandparents would have appreciated the simple efficient technology we have available to us in the 21st century!
Dude, you are talking to someone who uses nal for now, tal for towel, tomarl for tomorrow, melk for milk, and warsh for wash, in the pronunciation, so don’t get your hopes up.
To my disappointment, but not surprise, Wikileaks is “down”. This I had to find out by reading The Guardian”. Now, this little gem, courtesy of Pravda:
“In my recent article Ward Churchill: The Lie Lives On (Pravda.Ru, 11/29/2010), I discussed the following realities about America’s legal “system”: it is duplicitous and corrupt; it will go to any extremes to insulate from prosecution, and in many cases civil liability, persons whose crimes facilitate this duplicity and corruption; it has abdicated its responsibility to serve as a “check-and-balance” against the other two branches of government, and has instead been transformed into a weapon exploited by the wealthy, the corporations, and the politically connected to defend their criminality, conceal their corruption and promote their economic interests; and, finally, that the oft-quoted adage “Nobody is above the law” is a lie.
Some critics were quick to dismiss my article as politically motivated hyperbole. But with the recent revelations disclosed by Wikileaks, it appears that this article did not even scratch the surface, because it is now evident that Barack Obama, who entered the White House with optimistic messages of change and hope, is just as complicit in, and manipulative of, the legal “system’s” duplicity and corruption as was his predecessor George W. Bush.”
If anyone had told me back in the ’70s that I’d have to go to Pravda to find out what the U.S. government (I started to type “my” government, but quickly changed it to U.S. – it ain’t my government no more. Perhaps never) was REALLY up to, I’d have called them insane. Alas, it was I who was insane all these years and didn’t really know it. SEB…Got any extra doses of that heroin ya so freely gave to Vlad? Not too much, now. Just get me (mentally) out of this weird and wacko place that once was America. Dad always told me that one of the most sacred parts of the Constitution was freedom of the press. That if we, as a country, ever lost that, we’d be going down the shitter at an exponentially high velocity. Damn, I’m glad he’s not here to see what’s going on.
BTW, read that Paypal has severed its relationship with Wikileaks. It’ll be interesting to monitor the sites who are critical of our government to see if they sever their ties to Paypal.
Britain is our (“our” meaning the US and Canada) mother country and deserves our respect. The Brits laid the foundation stones and they are our immediate cultural forebears. The Anglo world made massive contributions to American Civ and you can’t minimize it ie look at your political institutions. You have an elected King, a House of Lords and a House of Commons. You just call them by different names.
But don’t minimize the contribution of the non European, non Anglo world either. Be reasonable is what I’m saying. Give some credit where credit is due.
IMO American Culture would be nowhere without Judaism and Christianity as part of its foundation and they did not originate in Britain. Neither did the Latin alphabet and did you perchance notice that half the English language is derived from Latin?
I could also make the point that our mathematics would be an impenetrable morass without the concept and use of zero which came from the Hindus and Arab worlds via an Italian mathematician called Fibonacci. ie Sifr (Arabic), zefiro (in Italian) and zero (in Venetian dialect)
And where would we be without Greek philosophy underpinning the way we see the world? I’ve heard it said that if science is the application program, philosophy is the system software.
But I’m not a historian or a philosopher or a mathematician. I’m just a miserable accountant.
Use “was gay” in a true statement.
======
Although Rock Hudson played heterosexual leading-man roles throughout his Hollywood career we all came to know that in real life he was gay.
But, that aside ….
The purpose of my reply (Huh??) was to indicate that the meaning of your entire comment, from “Comparing gnats and camels” right through to the final words “didn’t need Lebensraum,” was a total mystery to me and I assume, and hope, to the rest of this CFN community because if they too were not mystified I would feel quite dumb and inadequate.
To tell the truth, I did understand parts of your comment like the fact that our speech is made up almost entirely of metaphors but dozens of other sentences left me entirely baffled. (I liked your riff on the apostrophe in “it’s” but that was in an earlier post, not the post currently in question.)
The thing I wonder is whether you are capable of writing in the clear but insipid manner of the rest of us (excluding Asia, of course) … not that I’m suggesting you do so.
asia wouldn’t be asia with capital letters punctuation and all that its part of his charm
Congrats on nailing the bastard. Oh, I don’t know. I think if I moved to a new place I’d pop off a few shots just to let the neighbors know I WAS armed.
Re: Living in a mixed neighborhood. Just before everything fell apart, I was looking at a couple of nice little houses. Dead end street, backed up against a hillside.
But, the (expanding) barrio is only a few blocks away. And, I’m beginning to think in terms of “last” move. I have Mexican friends and like most Mexican people I have met. But I just don’t want to be the last little old white guy in the barrio.
America just shafted mother England big time. Purchasing Cadbury Chocolate, a very old Brit company, the new U.S. owners are “restructuring” its business dealings to Switzerland, depriving the U.K. of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and customs. So much for loyalty. ;0)
I’m sorry you had to do that – I’m totally identifying here and am freaked out. When my dog died several years ago, my heart broke wide open. I now love all animals intensely. Fascists are famous for their love of animals, nature, and their hatred of people. Actually, my “initiation” included people to a lesser extent. Some people anyway.
The dog was innocent. He couldn’t help what he was. Those teeth were there for a purpose and those jaws wanted to close. You are innocent too – just did what you had to. What a universe -it runs on death. Long ago in my father’s garden, watching the wasps sting the Tomato Catepillars and lay eggs into their living flesh, I knew that I was in a realm of horror.
Did the dog have a collar? Does he belong to someone? Obviously there could be serious legal issues if someone saw you.
I can see it both ways: Assange and Co are traitors to the West but the West is so corrupt that it deserves to be exposed. That’s east. The hard part is the possible “collateral” damadge in places lie China. If they find out who leaked their stuff the person could die.
At the end, Timothy McVeigh admitted that he felt pain over what he called “the collateral damadge” – the children in other words.
And this has happened to tens of millions of White Americans – and they get not a dime’s worth of sympathy in mass culture. So the Whites internalize it and “take it like a man”. And then damn to hell any Whites who speak out against it. It’s life in America – a slow motion tragedy accelerating into a train wreck.
It illustrates the difference in conditioning between intelligent beings and animals. With animals, if you stop rewarding a behavior, it will “extinguish” or fade away. With people, once conditioned they maintain their own conditioning by the internal and external use of expletive keywords such as “Nazi”, “Racist” “Rush Limbaugh” etc. No thought is required. Each conditioned person keeps tabs not only on himself but his neighbor. The Masters meerely have to monitor the population and reinforce when and as necessary.
“Tripp, we have to start thinking about not having easy access to an electrical grid and we need to voluntarily engage in energy descent.”
You’ve seen my blog, haven’t you? Subtitle: Permaculture, Transition, Relocalization, Energy Descent. I’m as voluntarily engaged in energy descent as anyone out there. Maybe not as far along as some, but as engaged in the pattern.
I give you my honest opinion about how viable I think a technology is. And I don’t think PV is a lower energy option than what we have. A little for critical uses seems appropriate, for if/when the grid goes down, but I’m just really leery of its use and claimed benevolence in the energy picture. I don’t think solar is anything more than a transition tool. [Shrugs] Use it if you need it. Hell I might use just enough to keep a fridge running for as long as I can.
Refrigerator and chainsaw would be my top 2 industrial tools of choice in the long view.
And a chainsaw on a farm MIGHT even be one of the few good uses of ethanol actually available. If you had one that could burn it. Don’t rule this stuff out. Just don’t count on it to keep things normal.
You’re no philospher dude. I didn’t finish but I got some training. Ideas and inventions can move across boarders without the complete dispossesion of the recieving party. In order to get the alphabet from the Semites, the Greeks didn’t have to be taken over.
Sorry to be condescending, but I’ve got to pull rank here. You have the IQ to understand -what is lacking is objectivity. Philosophy means the love of truth. Instead of that – which comes from objectivity and brings even more – you are fascinated. By what? You tell me. Is it a vicarious love of power, an identifying with the Empire? An attempt to justify your own bohemianism – rebellion agaisnt the Church, your Father, Italian Culture? And then the acceptance of multiculturalism in its place along with a Chinese wife?
In any case, you refuse to admit what is increasingly obvious: it’s not going to work. It’s not working now – how is it going to work in the future when things are worse? Your partner Prog sounds like he is starting to get it; Tripp is already there.
You always argue from individuals to universals. The Liberal way and an error – especially in matters sociological. One swallow doesn’t make a summer and a few sucesss stories doesn’t make a society. One of my heroes is Hirsi Ali. I think she’s not only brave, but very kind and beautiful. But the average Somali Woman is tribalistic moron with five little moron kids in tow. You think they’re all potential Hirsi Ali’s. Not in this world, Cash, not in this world. Only in your Platonic World of Liberal Ideals. Liberalism is religion for many, albeit a false one. Is that it? Are you a religious man after all?
Try this again. I got one of those “Thank you for your post. It is being held for the moderator to check.” Yeah, sure. Have had those before, and the post just disappears into the void 😀
Any-whozit … The National Geographic, last issue (The Migration Issue) had an interesting article about all kinds of neat gizmos. Mostly things developed in third world countries to make life better or safer. The issue got away from me, but I’ll get it back because I want to check some of them out.
Not in that issue, but I ran across an article about a water purifier that just involved a configuration of some clay pots. So, I went to Amazon to see if I could get a lead on them. All they had were all kinds of plastic and chrome jobs that usually required reloads of expensive filters.
Sigh. Leave it to mankind to make it all complicated and shiny. Where’s the computer chip? The 200 page manual?
I know, right? But simplification is already swinging. We get to rediscover all the less complicated, (and less lucrative), ways to do things.
Get Art Ludwig’s book “Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds”. It’s one you’ll probably need one day anyway. And on page 13 is a photo of a Cuban stone water filter in a wooden cabinet that I think is really cool. I’m hoping to reproduce it one of these days.
I’d like to dedicate today’s number one golden oldie to our U.S. Congress: Ray Charles’ “Money”.
asia wouldn’t be asia with capital letters punctuation and all that its part of his charm
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Good imitation.
No longer is it about your business versus my business. Instead, it’s about your supply chain versus my supply chain.
A “currency” has thus been expanded in definition to mean much more than just stock of ownership in a particular economy. But it is also a reflection of the quality of supply chain mechanisms associated with that particular economy.
My question, therefore, is this: If we’re going to have a tremendous amount of a particular part of our economy outsourced to a particular other economy, then why not have the same currency? And if the manufacturers want to go to another country after that, then let’s combine with that economy.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t they try that with the euro? To this, I respond that the problem with the EU is that it took on too many nations at once. If we start out with one country (China), and then work our way SLOWLY with… the others (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, etc.), we could manage to pull this off. But like Rod Stewart sings, “The first cut is the deepest.” We will need to take a hit in our standard of living. Do you want to do this slowly or do you want to get it over with as soon as possible?
And REMEMBER!! Just like any other relationship, in order to keep supplier loyalty, we must have shared goals and we must have communication.
the Govt [ i.s.o. ‘ asound that can kill someone’]
now looks at plants….MAYBE THERES 4 TO BE MADE HERE:
new breed that’s 270 times hotter than a jalapeno blows away the notorious “ghost chili.” Military eyes IT….
hottest chili pepper.
Yes, the Naga Viper, the latest claimant to the world’s-hottest-pepper crown, outdistances its predecessor, the Bhut Jolokia, or “ghost chili,” by more than 300,000 points on the famous Scoville scale of tongue-scorching chili hotness. Researchers at Warwick University testing the Naga Viper found that it measures 1,359,000 on the Scoville scale, which rates heat by tracking the presence of a chemical compound. In comparison, most varieties of jalapeño peppers measure in the 2,500 to 5,000 range — milder than the Naga Viper by a factor of 270.
[Related: Most dangerous food ingredients]
You might think the Naga Viper would hail from some part of the world with a strong demand for spicy food, such as India or Mexico. But the new pepper is actually the handiwork of Gerald Fowler, a British chili farmer and pub owner, who crossed three of the hottest peppers known to man — including the Bhut Jolokia — to create his Frankenstein-monster chili.
“It’s painful to eat,” Fowler told the Daily Mail. “It’s hot !”
I never thought I’d say this, but I have learned a valuable lesson about human nature from you. Not from the idea that some people are genetically superior to other people; I don’t believe that for a second, and there’s no reason to try to convince me of it. But somehow you’ve reminded me, woken up a cellular understanding, something like that, that multi-racial/ethnic/religious cultures are a product of extreme energy use, and not the ancestral condition. And that in a descent context, that system will also break down, just like banking and federal law. Or that it will balkanize just like political boundaries will.
But our major difference seems to be in our take of the delicate dance between dinner and death that is Nature. You see it as a “realm of horror” and I see it as the most beautiful synergy of complex ecologies one could ever hope to have the gray matter to imagine. Life and death are just part of the dance. They harbor no latent terror because they are inevitable. Fear of the inevitable is irrational. Death and decay are just as vital to birthing as life and growth are.
GO GROW SOME HOT PEPPERS…..someones gonna make $ on them.
‘Obviously there could be serious legal issues if someone saw you’
I doubt it..the dog was a killer, roaming. trespassing…..So I doubt theres be a problem if his guns registered.
I thought it had been a dog pack.
It was 2, and this was the leader. I see him most often. I’m glad he’s gone.
And I doubt anyone will ever make anything of it around here. Last time they killed a chicken and I ran them off I yelled (to no one really) that if they came back I was going to kill those bitches. A voice across the street said “go ahead.”
Google “ponerology”. There’s a whole theory of Sociology that in an any highly structured society or organization, psychopaths will tend to rise to the top. They can even recognize each other and cooperate. Presumeably, in less structured societies, they are held more in check – harder to hide what they are perhaps.
“You can see things happening now…”
“Daniel Tammet’s unique powers of perception effectively demonstrate that the answers to so many of our problems are literally right before our eyes but we simply don’t notice them. Perhaps a change in perception is what the world needs most, instead of an increase in more brute-force technology.”
http://www.cryptogon.com/backchannel/?p=85
Pucker –
You continue to attack Obama for his “fart” like words in print at Thanksgiving to the military.
I continue not to see it – – – And/But my rejoinder to you was going to be to ask you what you would think if W Bush had said those exact words.
Well, what would that make a difference??
If it makes a difference – then you are a republican/conservative/partisan – and nothing I can say to you will ever make a difference in your (screwed up?) view of the world.
However, since you mention W’s flight into Iraq and the hypocrisy of the plastic turkey – I’d like to continue the dialog.
It is quite possible that all of our national leadership have pathological personalities to one degree or another.
Read “Bush on the Couch.” The man manifests many mental problems. Sadly, he inflicted them on the US and the Globe for 8 long years. 25% of the country still thinks he was great. ??
Obama certainly has some mental quirks. These are becoming more visible (read pathological??) as he grows into the responsibility of the Presidency.
I don’t know where we go with this discussion. I’m a social liberal/libertarian. I can readily acknowledge SEVERE FAULTS in liberal political leadership.
If conservatives could acknowledge faults in BushII, and Reagan – maybe we could get somewhere with all this.
Agreed, Asia –
It’s gonna vary some by state, but in Georgia a dog on your property can be killed at the discretion of the property owner and no criminal action is possible.
Depending on circumstances, the owner might try to sue for the value of the animal in a civil proceeding. But what’s the value of a goat killing feral dog??
He might wind up owing Tripp money, instead.
And Tripp, good story. I’m sorry you had to kill that animal – but it was justified and necessary, from everything you’ve explained here.
Tripp
Only problem I know of you might have in GA is discharging a firearm within 200 feet of a public road. That is illegal – far as I know, statewide.
Cities may have stricter ordinances.
If that should come up, and I doubt it will, get your mind wrapped around the idea that the dog was a threat. He/she was, btw – to you, your property, maybe your child. (shudder)
Calmly state to any law enforcement officer who asks, “I felt threatened by that animal and was forced to kill it.” Don’t back down from that statement.
That should take care of any problems, I’d think.
I can ask no more. You have made my day. Considering how hard it is to show anyone anything, I feel a sense of satisfaction. In a real culture, I probably would have been a Teacher. As it is, I’ll be lucky not to end up on the streets.
I feel the same about you. I hope you write your book about your ultimate social vision. I’ll gladly order a copy.
I can see the Beauty of the whole too. It’s when I focus on the details that I have a problem. The Beauty of the System doesn’t overcome the suffering of man, beast, and worm. Luckily I believe there is a God transcendant to the system. Thee is mercy at the end when the prey disidentifies from the suffering. People who have been in the jaws of sharks and crocodiles say as much. And that’s just the first stage. After that, beings see the Being of Light and the Tunnel. Why would Nature provide this “brain chemistry” – as the Scientists so glibly assert? It serves no Darwinian purpose. I know the brain has opiates – so their claim as far as the relief of pain and the spacing out sound plausible. But not the subsequent vision.
“in GA is discharging a firearm within 200 feet of a public road.”
I often wonder what goes on in the minds of legislators. I do not understand why the ban is for 200 feet.
Sound from guns probably travels more than 200 feet. Bullets go further than 200 feet.
Why would they choose 200 feet? Is it just that way because it’s Georgia? Or is there a reason?
“After that, beings see the Being of Light and the Tunnel. Why would Nature provide this “brain chemistry” – as the Scientists so glibly assert? It serves no Darwinian purpose.”
Every biophysical reaction doesn’t have to serve a Darwinian purpose. Hallucinations resulting from ingesting mind-altering drugs don’t serve a Darwinian purpose, yet it happens. When the body is on the verge of death and biological systems start going awry, it is reasonable for the brain to misfunction and produce an hallucination; and since death is the same phenomenon for every human, it’s understandable that the same hallucination would result. We don’t know if this phenomenon occurs as everybody dies; we only know from the survivors.
“In a real culture, I probably would have been a Teacher.”
This is a real culture. As real as any and bigger than most. It’s just not your ideal of culture. Or perhaps you ended up in the wrong part of history. It’s not my ideal culture either. I wonder if ideal, in whatever sense of the word seems appropriate to us, is something that could ever be attained now, carrying the burden of knowledge that industrial humans take back to the garden with them. I don’t think we know MORE than our distant ancestors did. We’re not smarter than they were. We just have an incredibly panoramic view of our species that may play the role of baggage in a low energy future.
Who knows. My grandchildren’s ignorance of the daily goings-on of the planet may be the bliss I never get to taste. Still, I wouldn’t trade this period of history, at my age, for any other. How much more alive I feel right now than I did in the growth pattern!
And I applaud anyone who can find true happiness in the maelstrom. Whatever their social persuasions. Who am I to judge right from wrong?
200 feet – It’s just a number, A.
Could be 1000 feet – sounds and bullets would still carry that far.
I tried to look it up for you and couldn’t find it.
Statewide seems to be 50 yards. (150 feet)
Jurisdiction where I lived and worked for 25 years IS 200 feet (therefore more restrictive) and I conflated the two, apparently.
Many cities have a prohibition against firearms discharge. (That’s where Ol’ Tripp would have to use his bow, I guess.
Here’s a famous city in GA with an especially interesting and onerous firearms requirement:
http://www.kennesaw-ga.gov/visitors/about-us
“Kennesaw once again was in the news on May 1, 1982, when the city unanimously passed a law requiring “every head of household to maintain a firearm together with ammunition.” After passage of the law, the burglary rate in Kennesaw declined and even today, the City has the lowest crime rate in Cobb County.””
Tripp said: “I don’t think we know MORE than our distant ancestors did. We’re not smarter than they were.”
As individuals we are no smarter and some of us (I’m thinking of myself) may be considerably dumber.
But as a society we do know MORE than our distant ancestors. For example, we have more knowledge about the microbiology of soil. That knowledge may help us in developing permaculture on small plots.
Distant ancestors had the knowledge necessary to survive and were not limited to farming a plot, so extensive knowledge was not necessary.
Ok. Throughout history there have been at least 5 classes:
the ruling class, the ownership class, the overlords, the truely old-monied upper class, royalty
the lower upper class, the mercantile class, the neuvaux riche, a supporting and competing class; can also be aristocratic, and established, a nobility
the professional class, the upper middle class, the gentry, often urban,… I suppose your yeomen would fit in here.
(Modern American middle middle (teachers, police, etc) and lower middle white collar workers would fit in next, but these are historically not well represented classes.
the working class, the proletariat, the working poor, the upper lower class… Your rednecks would fit in here.
the truly low class: homelesss, slaves, landless laborers, and criminals. White trash would go here.
Where do crackers fit in?
Oh, I completely agree. We have far more catalogued knowledge and technology built upon the technology that was built on that knowledge. But they knew as many things probably. Just about different items, like maybe way more about edible and medicinal wild plants than I do. Some people here think Australian aborigines are the dumbest of the dumb, but they make brilliant mental maps of terrain that we could never muster. Who can say which is objectively more important? The culture assigns the value based on what they’re good at generally.
I mostly meant the knowledge of all the other members of our species, the different hair, eyes, and skin, body shapes, the dress, the languages, the dances, the environments, the local beasts, and the food and political systems. So much to know so suddenly about who we are. And a lot to take with us back to village life, don’t you think?
When you discover that all the money you worked so hard to leave us has no real value,
I WISH someone would leave me some $$$ anyway !
Definitely tho I agree with you that it is an insult to hear things like “if you just work hard enough, you can live the American dream”, be a success. It’s a bunch of B.S. for most of us.
Especially the younger ones.
Times are very different now. I know a guy who retired young from A big corp.in the 80’s. not sure what year… got out so Lucky, I mean LUCKY, retired young, great ‘offer’, pension, add SS to that and they are sittin’ pretty. They are the ones that think others’ are lazy or just aren’t trying hard enough. Pisses me off. and Stingy, omg, so stingy they are.
There IS such a thing as Luck to a degree for sure. Once Oprah said “There is no such thing as Luck!” wtf ? It blew my mind. She’s one of the Luckiest Women in the world. whatever, I am rambling. She ain’t all that, she got LUCKY.
‘Times aren’t even CLOSE to ‘back’ then. Like the 80’s. So much Greed and Narcissism, and lack of caring for others in general.
I enjoy your posts. I try not to post too much because I don’t have the ‘smarts’ others have. At least I know it !
Seasons Greetings
and some of us (I’m thinking of myself) may be considerably dumber.
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Oh hogwash and balderdash Asoka … you think no such thing.
I always read your posts.
So what are you going to do, dear JackieBlue? What’s your place in all this? I hope if you’ve read my posts for a while that you’ve at least learned a few things NOT to do!
I would say yes. But ‘Conspiracy’ NO.
It looks like a Fact to me.
It is being done, and for what other reason than to Control the Agriculture ?
It’s nice to hear a positive outlook, and I sure hope you are ‘right.’ I will go to the link.
Where do crackers fit in?
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At our place they fit into an airtight jar and are brought out with wine and cheese when guests drop in.
hi jackie,
I enjoy your posts. Don’t worry about “smarts” … people have smarts in different areas and nobody is as smart as they would like others to think. I am also ashamed at how little I know about things and with age I seem to know less and less!
Fruits that are seedless probably have a marketing advantage over the kind with seeds, but from my experience the ones with seeds are tastier. Some of the new varieties seem to have little flavor at all.
I read something about this by Vandana Shiva from India. She is an expert on the subject.
Yes, Seeds will be extremely valuable and hard to get. I happen to ‘believe’ that will be the case.
Jackie2Blue, you said:
“Definitely tho I agree with you that it is an insult to hear things like “if you just work hard enough, you can live the American dream”, be a success. It’s a bunch of B.S. for most of us.
Especially the younger ones…Times are very different now.”
I think, perhaps, you’re right. It truly breaks my heart to see my grand kids finish their post secondary educations, at a mind boggling dollar amount, only to find themselves living at home again with mommy and daddy. At one of my granddaughter’s age, 23, I was already married, in grad school, and hubby and I were planning our first baby. Of course, this would be the ’50s, and although we didn’t have much money, we knew my husband, who had just passed the Pennsylvania Bar exam, would find a lucrative position in either private or public practice (he chose public, which brought us to the fair city of Washington D.C. in the late ’50s-’60s). Even then we struggled to find the proper place to raise a family. I guess my point is that we HAD a chance to do this. I suspect this isn’t the case for most young people today…….terribly sad!
You’re funny ! I took it the way you meant it.
I DO the same thing alot.
Thanks for the tip. I Love Onions and Garlic also.
Goes good with fried Rats !
haha
We should start an e-column on curious tidbits you might benefit from during energy descent.
Tripp, why not do that along with your blog?
I have questions/comments that I’d share, but here is not necessarily the place, even though we often get off topic. I’m guessing others would join in as well.
I prefer agnostics also.
I know people who say say “jesus will help us pay the rent.” wtf ? I loaned them the money to pay the f’in rent and they THANKED JESUS !
wft? once tho they actually thanked me when I helped out.
Strange people these Christians’. But the ones’ that get me are the ones who try and save me or pray for me. Waste of time ! And pretty egotistical if you ask me.
Most Christians’ are too ‘special’ for me to hang with.
Progressorconserve wrote: “I continue not to see it – – – And/But my rejoinder to you was going to be to ask you what you would think if W Bush had said those exact words.”
I believe that there is a philosophy professor at Princeton University who wrote a short book entitled “On Bullshit”. I understand that he wrote the book because Bullshit has become so ubiquitious in our society that the people no longer see anything strange, or out-of-the-ordinary about it. I suppose that one sign of a society’s slow Collapse would be that most people would become very obtuse and fail to see the signs of Collapse, including the collapse in leadership?
I totally agree with you (again). MD does seem like a nice man. Even ‘tho’ he is A Christian.
You seem like a nice man, MD. If I was a believer, I’d never presume to know the mind of God. But I am not a believer. It is beyond my intellectual and spiritual capability to conceive of a God who would allow the deaths of 6 million innocent people, and for those who survived, an entire lifetime of endless emotional damage. If some survivors made a life for themselves afterward, and maybe experienced some good, it was by their own efforts or good fortune, not because God decided to turn off the misery valve. Stating that God is showing an innocent six year old boy his sins by letting him suffer horribly, is an incredibly cruel thing to say.
Suffering exists in the world because the universe is impersonal. It also allows happiness to exist. It is the random play of events and our own efforts that give rise to both happiness and suffering. Human brains are hardwired to try to find reasons for everything, and have problems dealing with randomness and probability. Creating the concept of a god provides answers to things people can’t explain otherwise.
EXACTLY ! I was so much happier when I realized this. The world IS impersonal. I have a friend who is mad at God for punishing him. I tell him it’s nothing personal (what he’s going thru), like his health,or whatever, that he’s not being punished, but he can’t wrap his brain around it. oh well.
You think like me, or I think like you. AND everyone WRITES better than me !
Hey Tree,
Thanks for the elaboration and amplification.
Generally quintiles are a good mechanism for organizing complicated topics. I just posted off the tip of my head – 5 famous categories of 1940’s through 1950’s whites that I remembered:
High class whites, yeomanry, crackers, rednecks, and poor white trash.
I didn’t conduct a study for the category names, I just *made them up,* to fit into the quintiles.
Maybe crackers and rednecks could be in the same category – by your divisions. maybe?
In which case yeomanry would be divided into shopkeepers and working farmers tending their own lands.
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So interesting question – but sort of trivial in the scheme of things, unless one is a student of pre-integration Southern white sociology.
I do think social class is very important.
I think it is largely unexamined by the average American.
*We* tend to conflate social class and race – and both topics seem to frighten *us* away from further consideration.
We have developed a mythos of social mobility in this country. Maybe it had a basis in fact at one time – facilitated by cheap and abundant energy.
I would add my voice to that of Vlad and Tripp – multiculturalism (American style) looks to be incompatible with energy descent.
It may be that the myth of social mobility will also be incompatible with energy descent as well.
CFN can refer to Joe Bageant for a unique examination of social class in America.
Pucker,
Are you trying to argue politics or sociopathy?
I can argue either, but not at the same time.
So pick one, and I’ll be off and running with you!
I am very sorry you got a ticket from that f’in thing. musta been on 41st. ave.
did you do a california stop, or did you flat out run it ?
there was talk about making a california stop a $100 fine, and a full blown run $500. my husband says he didn’t hear about it passing in the laws.
but may be worth you’re checking out.
if you were making a turn and did a ‘rolling’ stop, you may be able to talk it down in price.
I got a Huge ticket in CA for being in the carpool lane, years ago. took me 1 block to figure it out. it WAS misleading and the signage was changed before my court date. it was a stakeout or whatever you call it. $400 bucks. I was PISSED. I took pics and went to court, and I said the amount of this fine is the only crime here. he did knock it down to $36.00. but if I did again, was gonna get the total amount. anyway
I hope you can talk it down. Those auto things are all over CA.
Jackie said “It’s nice to hear a positive outlook” in response to an Asoka comment.
=========
The post by Asoka on Dec 1st at 3:15AM to which you referred contained the following paragraph:
We are on the brink of an era that we cannot even imagine, an era that will solve so many problems, so quickly, that it will cause doomsters to enter a state of psychological depression, as their dream of a dog-eat-dog Mad Max societal dystopia fades farther and farther away from possibility, making a “World Made By Hand” seem so quaint as to be the stuff of novels, because it is so far removed from the reality of cheap and clean and renewable energy sufficiency.
And then, Jackie, Asoka’s post at 2:08PM today included this sentence:
Tripp, we have to start thinking about not having easy access to an electrical grid and we need to voluntarily engage in energy descent.
Re-read both comments in their entirety. It’s enough to make your head spin.
Asoka is the most shamelessly inconsistant and self-contradictory person you will find at CFN and his response to this accusation is a quote from Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Well then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”
Always keep a grain of salt handy when reading anything from Asoka.
On my earlier reply to Jackie, I forgot to mention that my generation had a very large scale degree of homophobia, alcoholism, drug abuse, and highly secretive pattern of wife beating. Just wanted you to know that if I painted AMERICA 1960 as a cool, happening place to be, it really wasn’t all that grand. Pretty phony, in fact. I was one of them…briefly. Stay strong, and CHIN UP, girl! You, Tripp, and all the other youngsters (including Q!) are gonna be alright after all – que Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I was playing out in the street, a little girl then.
but I remember everyone being SAD. Seems like times changed THEN. The end of innocence for me.
Maybe America ?
Asoka is the most shamelessly inconsistant and self-contradictory person you will find at CFN.
======
inconsistent
LAST ? !
Wow, Jackie –
Thanks for replying to BTB’s post to me concerning the day of the Kennedy assassination.
I was in third grade, myself. End of innocence for America? – I’m not sure we Americans were ever really that innocent.
But you’re right that something happened to America that day. It changed the course of our history – changed Viet Nam – changed the civil rights movement – changed everything.
That’s why so many look for a conspiracy to explain the Kennedy shooting – and many other seminal events. It’s just so impossible to believe that one man, one rifle, and a couple of bullets could be so – important.
I had never “met” and carried on a conversation with an honest-to-God (god?) conspiracy theorist until I encountered this website.
My first inclination as a logical left-brained individual with a background in the sciences – was to attempt to prove their conspiracies wrong. That may be an incorrect approach for this website. I know I unintentionally *offended* a couple of people on this blog with whom I otherwise have much in common. (Hey Wage and Hancock! 😉 )
So now I’m going for more nuance myself.
And I have come to believe we are ruled by an aristocratic elite of some form or another.
I just don’t believe they hold world-wide meetings to arrange assassinations and things.
(grin?)
And for right now, in the words of Forrest Gump,
“That’s all I have to say about that.”
I don’t think I’m dumb, although like Asoka said, I find I know less and less the older I get. If I’m not dumb, and you think like me, you must be smarter than you say. Think positively about yourself
ProCon said: “And I have come to believe we are ruled by an aristocratic elite of some form or another.”
Have you seen the movie “Collapse” directed by Chris Smith? It is a documentary in which investigative journalist Michael Ruppert talks about the link between energy depletion and the collapse of the economic system that supports the entire industrial world.
By the way, ProCon, thanks for the explanation about the 200 ft law re: firearms.
Jackie, it is a time-honored tradition on CFN to announce First and Last. Don’t let anyone try to tell you it is egotistical or off-topic.
Thanks for playing this weekend!
I am also ashamed at how little I know about things and with age I seem to know less and less!
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OMG, pulleeeze. I feel like I’m wading through bullshit up to my earlobes.
It’s a sad day on Clusterfuck Nation when the resident grammatoligist fails to pick up on “neuvaux riche”.
“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit,” Harry G. Frankfurt writes,
http://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122946/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291614586&sr=1-1
Q said: “OMG, pulleeeze.”
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If you intend emotion, you should use an exclamation mark.
If you do not intend emotion, you should spell please correctly.
when the resident grammatoligist fails to pick up
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grammatologist
when the resident grammatoligist fails to pick up
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grammatologist
Purposefully spelled incorrect to allow a face-saving maneuver. Well done.
Absolutely outstanding post, Cavepainter
Cavepainter said: “Now though, militarism is worshipped as a value in and of itself, completely removed from critical examination of purpose of mission.”
Very well said, cavepainter!
Pucker,
I see that On Bullshit was written in 1986, so you must not be making a political statement about Obama or “liberals”, or those who are pro or anti military. In other words, you just happened to pick Obama’s words to the military this Thanksgiving as a random example. ??
I’ll agree with you that American life is largely in the charge of purveyors of bullshit.
Obama may be the point man right now, but he’s part of a long line of them – maybe this line stretches back into prehistory. It may stretch forward to the end of human time on earth – maybe beyond, if one believes in that sort of thing.
So even if I totally agree with you.
What do we do about it?
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!
Wikileaks continues to be under political pressure (I say political rather than legal because as far as I can tell, the organization has not been indicted or formally charged with wrongdoing), and I found it impossible to get through to their new Swiss site this morning. But there are now lots of mirror sites up all over Europe. The documents are also being made available via torrents that can be picked up through peer to peer (p2p) networks. Presumably the more important cables are in the “insurance” file available at the various wikileaks mirror sites and also via torrents, and which founder Julian Assange says has been downloaded 100,000 times. An encryption key will be disseminated if anything happens to the organization. –http://www.juancole.com
You would cry too if it happened to you!
It’s your party, so you can cry… if you want to.
I would cry too, if it happened to me.
HA! I’ve played all my records, ya’ll keep dancing all night…but leave me alone for a while…………oh, never mind…night night!
Night, night, Myrtlemay … like in this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyQVjGdJ60g
We gonna continue all night long here.
Yep, me too Myrtle – g’night.
I’ve been up extra late “saving the world by blogging.”
And I had to help Tom Hanks save Private Ryan tonight.
I almost never watch TV. I rarely go to movies. I saw this movie for the first time at the theater when it came out back in ’98. I just watched it for the second time just now.
I plan to never watch it again. Some of it is just too goddamn real.
We’ve got a family member in Iraq. I sure will be glad when he gets the hell out of there.
And CavePainter – glad some others mentioned it. What you said about our overly reverent attitude about our military was well reasoned – and very true.
ProCon, I’ve got a family member in Iraq, too. He says the prospects are he will re-up at the end of his first year. Doesn’t seem like we’ll be leaving Iraq anytime soon.
Do I contradict myself?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ1nMqZKcGI
Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.
G’Night, John Boy! 😀
Last!
“As it turns out, Job’s troubles came only because God wanted us to understand that we must not be bitter toward God for allowing us to have adversity. We must not accuse God of being unfair or unjust toward us.”
God allowed Job’s children to be smitten on a BET. God replaced Job’s children with some new ones = Repelling to the nth degree. You worship that one, as for me, I believe the pharisees who put that book together had no understanding of the creator.
“I know people who say say “jesus will help us pay the rent.” wtf ? I loaned them the money to pay the f’in rent and they THANKED JESUS !”
Not so fast, Asoka! Bwahahaha!!
As a University of Florida alum, I’m probably one of the only one of that cohort that was glad to see Tim Tebow graduate after winning 2 national football titles and a Heisman trophy.
Why, pray tell? Because it chaps my hide that people spend their entire lives in the weight room, on the practice field, and watching film on opponents, just to give all the glory to Jesus Christ.
I could see giving him that credit if you had never played football a day in your life, and you walked on and played magnificently at that level. That seems reasonable.
But if you’re going to give all the credit to Christ, why not blame Jesus when the opponent (let’s say Alabama in the 2009 SEC championship) hands you your ass?
[With ESPN interviewer]
“Yeah, I played my tail off and prayed that the lord would reward his good and faithful servant, and all I got from that bastard was a broken rib. Thanks anyway, dude.”
See, I could get down with that. At least it’s honest.
Purposefully spelled incorrect to allow a face-saving maneuver. Well done.
============
incorrectly
Thanks Stud for purposefully providing yet another error for me to discover. You’re a prince. BTW, re the original foh pah, it’s gnuvoh reesh.
Well, CFN, it’s 10:00 a.m., and JHK just posted for the new week.
This is the first comments thread in several weeks that I wish could continue.
I understand the hard core religious folks – or at least I understand that they’ll never change their minds.
I understand the atheists – I’ve even tried to believe that way myself. I think a honest hard core atheists may have courage I never want to understand. Or maybe I just know my own mind and know my own default setting under extreme stress is toward some sort of religious faith. Nothing except my personal extinction will change this fact.
I do wonder why so many liberals and atheists seem to embrace conspiracy theories. There’s a connection – a correlation, for sure. But is is chicken/egg, cause/effect, or random. To me this is a worthy topic of exploration on these threads.
I know JHK hates conspiracy theory – but I do wish he would examine why they exist AND why he hates them so.
Finally, IMO, we’re never coming completely out of Iraq and Afghanistan. TPTB in US government have turned military affairs into a sometimes lethal sporting event. Most Americans watch and occasionally root for the home team. Only a move away from the volunteer Army would change that – and with draft age sons – I’m not gonna advocate something like that in hopes that it would give the US a saner foreign and military policy.
This week is in the record books.
This post may not be LAST.
It is, however, number
736 AND 737!
Go figure! 😉
yikes 700+ posts in 7 days
make you think
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