JHK’s Three-Act Play
Let it be remembered that, as the world was blowing up, Fashion Week gave the New York news media a case of the vapors. But let them tell it. In the immortal words of The New York Times’s Cathy Horyn: “…amid the parkas and the managed pant-suits there was a story here: the amount of embellishment and new technology….”
The mantra of New Technology is on everybody’s lips, of course. New Technology is the New Jesus. It’s descending from out of the holy ethers to float us across the rivers of Babylon to the New Jerusalem – although, now that fashion has got its hooks into the stuff, I dunno, it could be game over for New Technology. Nothing goes out of fashion like fashion. The same newspaper, by the way, tells us that “long-form blogs” are also joining the Dodo and Paris Hilton in the Museum of Extinct Curiosities. But I wouldn’t want to try this on Twitter. And the mosh-pit of Facebook seems an uncongenial place for my brand of high-toned comedy. I guess I’ll have to soldier on here.
Around the same time that Kanye West was perusing the gift bags at the Alexander Wang show on Pier 94, I heard a curious thing on NPR. Some cheeky young envoy from the realm of New Technology was complaining that the “public space” of Twitter and Facebook had to be respected world-wide as “the new town square,” and wasn’t it appalling that the authorities tried to shut these things down in places like Egypt, Algeria, and the lesser kingdoms of Arabia?
This is the kind of virtual thinking that passes for mental exercise these days in the land ruled by Lady Gaga. Hello. We (meaning the USA) do not run these foreign countries – I know it may come as a surprise to the paranoid conspiracy crowd. Even when these faraway places blow up and their former tyrants beat it to Monte Carlo, Zurich, or Riyadh, we do not step in and run them. We try to meddle a little, of course, but in the moiling red mists of revolution nobody even has the authority to pay attention to one of our perspiring attaches, and they don’t want to hear our bullshit anyway, even when it comes with a suitcase full of cash.
The idea that the rest of the world owes Jeff Zuckerberg and the creators of Twitter a certain respect is unrealistic, though it goes against the grain of our own First Amendment and the cardinal beliefs of Rachel Maddow. The clinical psychologists often speak of boundary problems – the inability to recognize where your stuff leaves off and the other person’s stuff begins – but what we’re seeing now in the American thought-sphere is explicitly geographic (and ethnographic) confusion. We don’t understand that we are not them, and they are not us.
Likewise, the infantile idea that these nations in the throes of revolt will slide from disorder into natural democracy like falafels into a pita pocket. What you generally get in political upheavals throughout history are protracted periods of confusion, factional fighting, and violence. More often than not, they resolve in the rise of a new tyrant, some figure who seems to know what he is doing when everybody else around him does not – which is the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience. Sometimes, the results are very unfortunate.
The world is now blowing up politically at the same time that it is blowing up financially, and there should be little doubt about the relation of these two conditions. At a time of rising resource scarcity (oil, metals, fertilizers), and capital scarcity (unpaid loans vanishing in the black hole of default), and raucous weather in places where grain crops usually grow (Russia, Australia, Argentina), you can be sure that things will get weird.
They are finally getting weird in the streets of the USA now, too. Wisconsin is surely just the first of many hashes that cry to be settled – and that state is not nearly as broke as Illinois, New Jersey, and California. A lot of stuff is shaking loose out there. Our charismatic leaders, alas, have been drawn mostly from category 3, and out of all their pretending comes a banking system that is flying apart like a Chrysler Slant Six engine that somebody poured Karo syrup into, thinking it might work as an “alternative fuel.” The reverberations will be felt in every household, business, and office in the land.
Some wags out there are even blaming Ben Bernanke for the worldwide rise in food prices, and the cause-and-effect relationship there is rather plausible. You juice the world money supply with an artificial $100 billion a month, at least, and the juice flows somewhere, lately into stock and commodity markets because who the heck wants bonds when no issuing entity has a prayer of staving off some kind of default, and the interest rates are a joke anyway.
Americans lost in the Techno-rapture and the inane transports of Fashion Week have no idea how fragile our vital supply chain system is. If the lands around the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea continue to fall apart politically, you can be sure that something required by the oil markets will get broken over there – whether it is an oil terminal, or a shipping channel, or a royal skull – and before you can say Mike Huckabee the shipments of food to America’s supermarkets will be interrupted, with predictable results.
This could be a helluva week. We’ve flattered ourselves for years about how wonderful it is that everything is connected in this world – the Tom Friedman fantasy about the eternal sunshine of the global economy. Now, we’re more likely to see the dark side of connectedness, as the planet’s goodie-bag deflates and folks in colorful costumes start fighting over what’s left.
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First!
SECOND!
Strange times indeed. Welcome to the Great Unmaking.
Right on Jim!
Gotta get up everyday and keep trying though, despite how fucked we are… right?
Here, now you can feel like your helping the cause.
This is a 30 second clip I’m sure will be laughed at, yet driving off the sun is a reality…
Please watch and vote
https://www.drivenissanleaf.com/Win/Vote.aspx?b=Y272Y85WBYZG
– Solar Guy
So well said and resonant with an argument I had this weekend.
Alternet.org had/has a story there on how new Wikileaks are about to release a story on how the Saudis have overestimated their remaing supply by FOURTY (40!) PERCENT. Peak oil was mentioned, and for an hour or so, I bantered with some asshat there who proclaimed he once beleived in Peak Oil, but did some google research and found that TECHNOLOGY will save us from PO because NEW TECHNOLOGY is getting oil out of the ground that couldn’t be gotten before – and therefore if we used that technology to get that oil, and frack every square inch of the US and make drilling platforms the new millionaire vista from Florida – we would all be saved. He claimed that PO is a ruse simply because of NEW FINDS and NEW Technology and the fact that US oil production rose for the first time in decades thanks to that new technology.
It is refreshing to read what you write/wrote because I know I am not alone in my thinking or beliefs that technology is not a godsend to deliver us from the NEW dark ages. But I do hold out hope that someone will invent a new technology to deliver me from paying taxes.
Here is the story on Alternet:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/149876/are_we_headed_for_massive_oil_price_spikes_leaked_cables_claim_saudi_oil_reserves_grossly_overstated/
New technology – can’t save you from a-holes, black holes, or reality……
I’ve exchanged my $1100/mo mortgage for $250/mo, better food, WAY less stress, better friends, more beach…in other words, downsized to a realistic, sustainable lifestyle…by moving to a warm country.
btw you people with your FIRST! & SECOND! are irritating morons.
there are tens of thousands of expatriated americans who’ve found some sanity overseas, get out of the System, stop playing their game
Excellent rant. Apparently the access to certain inane American self-flattery websites and “Two and a Half Men” culture has become a global human right to which no one can be denied. Check out this quick review of “GasLand”: http://www.lesswaiting.com/gasland.shtml
Good commentary as usual. I am appalled how the powers to be are so willing to spend the country’s money to protect the well of, and so willing to throw the middle class to the wolves. The debacle in Wisconsin brings that issue to the front page. If government approached the Wall Street financial fiasco with the same enthusiasm Wisconsin is displaying on its pensions and public employees union, then people would be hanging from streetlights on Wall Street. The differance in the approach is very revealing about priorities.
Couldn’t agree more with your take on the riots in Africa and the Middle East. How that will end up is anyone’s guess, but don’t count on a smooth transition to democracy. They may end up with a tyrant not to our likeing, and what then, another invasion to make the world safe for democracy?
But hey, the fashion world is much more important,so don’t worry, be happy. Right!
Great screed per usual. I hope everyone is buying Jim’s books to keep him in the bling.
Thanks Jim, for another great Monday morning essay, especially;
– the inability to recognize where your stuff leaves off and the other person’s stuff begins – but what we’re seeing now in the American thought-sphere is explicitly geographic (and ethnographic) confusion. We don’t understand that we are not them, and they are not us.”
The saddest this is that we in this country have a lesser chance of ever experiencing real Democracy than those poor people out in the streets, and under the guns.
Walking on icy Main Street of N. Hampton, Mass. yesterday … everybody, I mean everybody, young and old, walking along heads down looking or fiddling with their cell phones. The cell phone … now that it is connected to the internet … is where all wisdom is to be found and all questions answered.
Most Americans are more concerned about whats happening on “American Idol” than in the Middle east. I must admit I was surprised to see the Protests in Wisconsin. As you said, many states out there are in far worse shape than the cheese-heads…
Curious to see which State is next. My bet is on California.
Welles;
Which country?
-Marlin
CHINA is turning into the elephant in the room. After at least three years of extreme drought they WILL NOT be able to grow any grain (they have continued to try and seed the weather but there is only so much water out there). What happens when they need to feed 2 billion people this fall and winter? Will they begin to look North or South for food? Their deal with North Korea for a port looks like a giant takeover and the North Koreans will not be able to say no because they are starving too. Things look like they are coming to a head all across the world and nobody will be able to put any acne cream on it to make it look better. I look forward to the ZIT getting popped!
Great post today, JHK, but that’s why we keep reading you. You see through all the memes that are just holding false hope together before people wake up to the realities and they will.
Today I was watching C-Span and lo and behold a Republican called in to say that she couldn’t live without government assistance to her heating bills. What an interesting break-through. She said she was grateful for the assistance and never thought she’d be in that position. With 22.4% real unemployment and more to come with more mergers, this thing will start hitting critical mass.
About the labor issues in WI., the Republicans who play this game of fiscal responsibility have so far only gone after public commons issues and the left wing supported funding.
Their credibility is on the line for what they want to do about the giant privatized surveillance apparatus we pay untold amounts for and yet again our CIA didn’t have a clue about the middle east. Too busy looking at us and not on what’s going on out there—always the easy way out.
What will they (Reps) do about military spending? Or all those tax breaks and hand-outs to the corporate commies? Outside of trying to destroy the Democrats, what are their answers to the problems we face. Just the usual cut taxes to the wealthy and no regulations…Now that’s rich. Why did the center vote for these BS artists anyway?
_______
Elle Be Me, Great post. I miss reading your comments. They are always on target. Just because you can get a bit more oil out of the ground than you did in the past, you can’t furnish the growing economies in China and India on that.
Look, buy into it, or not. I don’t believe in resource scarcity anymore, I used to, the first posts on this site were me preaching to the choir.
I believe JHK’s view is too limited. Anyways, I may be 100 % wrong, that is fine, I can easily admit I 100 % suck, I really don’t care, I probably suck anyways…
If you want a deeper view, read my past posts and nameta9 or old6598 on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com.
check out:
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174320
Yes, these issues evolve, as usual, in an infinite regression of complexity. Then, I don’t know, something happened in the last decades. The US (and even the EU) from the 1950s to at least the 1980s had a ratio of minimum wage to rent at around 3 to 1. Not so anymore today. Has capitalism run out of gas, so to say ? Has technology automated away so much labor and optimized so many processes as to no longer provide enough “opportunities” ? Are there too few possibilities to make a profit, that you have to use ever more frauds and tricks like subprime loans ? Did globalization, with the entry of hundreds of millions of new, often educated workers change the situation forever ?
The old ideologies that worked for the US and EU from 1950 to 2000 can no longer be applied.
The reason I use the minimum wage (and you say no one makes, it, well then many are forced to work 2 or 3 minimum wage part times to make due, and in most of the world outside the US, like JAPAN, the EU, Latin America, etc. the situation is exactly as a said, most wages are minimum or low, most rents are very high, most of the time a wage is exactly equivalent to a rent) is because it represents a kind of BARRIER TO ENTRANCE. A fundamental barrier for any slob working the simplest job, 8 hours a day to live in some kind of house on his own with just that salary. It could be done in the US during the 60s, 70s and the US was capitalistic wasn’t it ?
If you have welfare queens, well that is a result of EXCESS CAPACITY, the system is rich enough to give them everything for free anyways. EXCESS CAPACITY is the result of decades of application of education, technology, science, optimizations in the worldwide production system. This has made it so that there are deep structural changes that are now evident: most of what the economy needs can be provided with very little labor, at almost any price point, from almost anywhere (also thanks to the internet, computers, communications) etc. This changes the ball game completely, this makes all of the previous models, free market, or socialdemocratic or communist mostly obsolete. The system is a new animal, with completely different forces at work, all of the old ideas are mostly useless.
Do I have a solution ? Maybe not, maybe I am 100 % wrong on everything, great, who cares, talking about this stuff is just a hobby for me. But the only thing I see that could really make a difference are large scale public – private entities bringing on large scale ambitious projects. Like the space program: why on earth didn’t obama invest heavily in this ? This is a great way to give “motivation”, “dreams” to kids, to advance technology, to create high class good jobs, to find new resources, to get new companies making new things, etc. This is one of those trends (not invest in large public space programs) that are insanely wrong to me, this is one of only a few possible real innovations. The trend should become large scale ambitious projects and programs, not little company owners being workaholics to build their McMansion.
EXCESS CAPACITY: look at all of those joggers, all of those working out in gyms, etc. If you used all of that muscle energy in production factories, how much more labor could be available ? If you used the joggers to run bicycles that generate electricity, how much more energy could be produced ? Maybe we need, hobby factories, where people, in their free time, can work an hour or 3 shifts on production lines, manufacturing cars, BUSES, whatever. A really nice workout instead of the gym and you feel productive and satisfied, you actually did some real work instead of the office stuff.
But there is another more subtle game at play here, by atomizing people, everyone is specialized in something so obscure that only he and some future boss can judge it and decide to eliminate that job, puts the blame and situation squarely on the shoulders of the atomized person: it is never the structure of society, the general workings of the economy that determine that he “lost his job”, but his personal failure, the general rules and structures of society are never questioned, when this is really the reason jobs are lost, because the general rules of the economy and society operate like this even though no collective action is possible, because everyone is such a specific individual. It makes me think about why websites like facebook and twitter are so sexed up in importance, are considered so cool: let people get used to short sentences, let them think in very short concepts, almost like small actions and reactions, so that they can never express deeper thoughts that can potentially question larger questions. It also makes me wonder, how so many in the US, losing their jobs, send out tens of resumes, have to find some new skill set to sale, are actually working in a sense, 24 hours a day worrying and trying to land some good paying job. So much effort, just to make people slide like worms on the ground. In this sense it is better in other countries, they may be poorer, but psychologically under much less strain, stress, guilt complexes, what they lack in material wealth, the US lacks in psychological well being.
Also, the talk of motivation, of people not wanting to “do something about” their economic situation never takes into account exactly what is available to do, namely odd, fluffy office jobs, call centers, salesmen, waiting tables, walmart or home depot clerk, etc. these are the majority of the possible choices, there really are not that many.
By working 60, 70 hours a week, you automatically force others to work just as much or be labeled lazy. Companies and the right wing loves this because they can make the hours longer and longer. So they guy next to you may “work 80 hours a week”, well, you don’t have enough motivation, you are then lazy even working 70 hours. Oh, but the guy over there works 120 hours, so everyone else becomes lazy, not motivated, etc. (reminds of the dot com slobs that worked like crazy). Don’t you see where this thinking goes ?
“We may in fact have hit peak fish at the same time we are hitting peak oil.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022002967.html?hpid=topnews
All very good points! I think that the Senate and our good old Prez should ok the cuts that the fuckstick house ok’d! Then we can just watch everything fall apart and burn.
I think you’re right on about the potential for another oil shock out of the middle east. ANY disruption to Saudi Arabia, and what the 1979 Iran revolution did to oil prices will be seen as a minor hiccup compared to where prices will go from here.
Still, getting rid of despots hated by America such as Reagan’s arch nemisis Gadaffi has got to be a good thing in the long run. Even Reagan couldn’t get rid of him with air strikes directly on his house.
And you’re also right, of course, how sad it is to see so many people around us fiddling with silly electronic phones, Ipods and other children’s toys when real issues like the global financial ponzi scheme, catastrophic climate change and peak oil are completely ignored.
(I don’t like reading fiction-but I’ll be first in line to buy your non-fiction sequel to ‘the long emergency’, once you write it- hint, hint!)
Dear Jim:
A long time admirer of your written word. Wish you the best in the maelstrom to come.
Dr. D
Don’t be on us! We’ve got the fiscal conservative Brown, i/o actor Arnold, now.
The view from California are that things are a goddamn mess and TPTB are proceeding to bluster and point fingers when they aren’t bailing with goddamn colanders. Thank god pot is legal with the standard, bogus, doctor’s note.
Sooner or later Moonbeam and the GOP minority that gets veto power in the legislature will shut everything down and the only people left with good jobs i.e. government workers will have nothing to do but cause a ruckus.
It’s not that we don’t have problems; it’s that solutions to those problems are deemed out of the realm of physics if they impugn upon the wealthy. Governments only work if you tax somebody and taxing the poor doesn’t cut it. Starving the poor doesn’t work well because the poor have matches and this state is flammable for six months of the year.
The Fail will continue until actual torches and pitchforks are set in motion.
LOL… how funny to tune into CFN and find fashion week mentioned right off the bat… it reminded me of my favorite diatribe from the movie’The Devil Wears Prada’ delivered by a perfectly bitchy Meryl Streep who is the editor of a US fashion magisine based on Vogue and it’s editor Anna Wintour.
It always struck me as a perfect illistation of what Americans think is important(stupid things like football stats, “smart phones”, and the latest dress fad)… the lines are delivered with the attutide of someone who has cured cancer.
(Miranda and her assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy snickers because she thinks they look exactly the same.)
Miranda Priestly: “Something funny?”
Andy Sachs: “No, no, nothing. Y’know, it’s just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y’know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.”
Miranda Priestly: “This… ‘stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? (That’s what we need here, a jacket)And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic “casual corner” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”
cant wait till gas hits 10 bucks a gallon.
lmfao
Will the long emergency turn into the immediate crisis? The long, slow descent into destitution is not working. What is needed is a shock doctrine in reverse, a shock which will create the necessary awareness for immediate change. However, it is not clear what this change will be as it might create even a more heightened sense of denial.
“Americans lost in the Techno-rapture and the inane transports of Fashion Week have no idea how fragile our vital supply chain system is. If the lands around the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea continue to fall apart politically, you can be sure that something required by the oil markets will get broken over there – whether it is an oil terminal, or a shipping channel, or a royal skull – and before you can say Mike Huckabee the shipments of food to America’s supermarkets will be interrupted, with predictable results.”
-Kunstler the Bold (Raconteur at large and Sovereign of the on-line nation of Clusterfuckia)
***************
‘Nother good ‘un, Mr. Kunstler!
I kept the coffee inside my mouth [and connected nasal passages], but just barely. The very mention of Huckabee as gen-yu-wine pres’den’shul material cracks me up every time. I guess I’m in love with absurdity; what’s that saying?
Meanwhile, in Dumbfuckistan, why do so few see the incredible danger in a GLOBAL supply chain? Because it’s gi-normous and complex makes it robust??
Just trying to entertain the thought that most think “everything’s fine; it’s all good [except for credit becoming a bit thin]” is getting tough. Sure, I gets me a cackle out of it, but it’s sounding a bit hollow and madness-inspired! Lawdy, it’s the beginning of withdrawal and de-luuuusion, I tells ya…
Keep on it; enjoying the podcast as well! Thanks much.
As far as his thoughts in the last 2 posts on the Arab uprisings, Jim neglects to honestly acknowledge the degree to which the revolt really is the product of human desire for a social order that is not a crude autocracy. These regimes are all marked by corruption, lack of opportunity and extreme disparities of wealth. Is food part of this? Seems likely but the students are not hungry, the doctors who are showing up to treat the wounded aren’t either. Actually Kunstler has mostly put downs for non Jews of the greater middle east and his analysis is tainted by cultural bias. Better to read Robert Fisk who lives there or academics from the region, Democracy Now or Al Jazeera. Perhaps we are a little embarrassed that in the US where we have similar concentrations of power and similar overlordship by a bloated military system there is little sign of widespread call for a new order.
Jim,
Really good commentary today. I am surprised though that you didn’t say something about yesterday’s victory by America’s youngest Daytona 500 hero. 🙂
More of the same I suppose. Anyway good points today all.
The calm before the inevitable storm has passed.
Right on Miss Forward!
http://www.gwabert.com/
That car isn’t running “off the sun”… the “solar” panels contribute as much sunlight to “running that car” as the dab of toothpaste you put on a brush and spit out contributes to the running of you.
That car runs on coal… Let’s ALL buy a “Nissan Leaf” and see just how fast the mountains of West Virginia get leveled…..
(if you don’t believe me look at what gas powered cars have done to Crane, Texas)
This sentence jumped from the article:
“Our charismatic leaders, alas, have been drawn mostly from category 3, and out of all their pretending comes a banking system that is flying apart like Chrysler Slant Six engine that somebody poured Karo syrup into, thinking it might work as an “alternative fuel.”
Couldn’t pay you enough for that one.
Thanks.
-Kunstler the Bold (Raconteur at large and Sovereign of the on-line nation of Clusterfuckia)
Hmmmm, might sound better as “the *VIRTUAL* nation of Clusterfuckia”, eh?
As we should have learned by now, through the magic of Madison Ave., “virtual” is so much sexier than “actual”. ;o)
“I look forward to the ZIT getting popped!”
The ZIT being 2 billion people not eating? You are an asshat.
It seems the middle west suffers from the same problems as the middle east and the good people of Wisconsin are finally saying enough. Although not ready to immolate themselves they are ready to say, “enough is enough”.
Technology has taken us far, so far that it has taken us away from some of the simpler, more common sense approaches to living. Instead we clutter our lives with technological gadgets that ultimately make us slaves to specialists. The car is a perfect example of this. The slant 6 engine Jim refers to once simple enough that a one could get under the hood and change a spark plug is now so complex that one is lucky to identify a spark plug.
Unfortunately this has popped up even in home construction. I have asked home owners if I could see their boiler, or heating unit…. and guess what they dont know where it even is. This is sad but true. I would like to send those of you interested in this sort of discussion to my blog. This blog entry http://greenovisionblog.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html
is about the latest style often found Dwell magazine about Prefabrication and how wonderful it is…. sorry I disagree… just another style that takes us further from simple regional understanding of materials and local knowledge, skills etc. Take a look at my blog here too… where I take apart The Ikea concept… scroll down
http://greenovisionblog.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
I wish our country was as stoutly built as a Chrysler slant 6. Years ago my friends and I amused ourselves by trying to destroy a slant six that was part of a rusty old Dodge Dart. We drained the oil, started her up, and placed a brick on the gas pedal, taking bets on how long she’d go before she seized up. We gave up after a half an hour and hauled the entire thing to the junk yard.
All the blank slate theory busybodies are exercising their conceits when it comes to the Middle East and its recent conundrum.
Libertarians and the progressives are perhaps the worst in this regard with their, “they really want to be like us” mentalities.
Here JHK will exercise the jewish caution towards Israel’s numerous neighbors and the liberal Kos types will show up bleating about how whites are verminous beasts and we are all equal anyway, blah, blah, blah. Conservatives will show up with the 101st rationale for dropping ordinance on the Arabs till they turn into harmless consumers ,”just like us.”
The American Empire of influence is predicated upon the Blank Slate Theory and the BST is built upon supersaturated quicksand. It’s toast.
“everybody, I mean everybody, young and old, walking along heads down looking or fiddling with their cell phones”
Same here…sheep lost in fake communities online as they walk around. Not good enough to be tethered to a computer at a desk and participating in fake communities like CFNation 🙂 Say, is there an iPhone app for Peak Oil?
What’s that Bruner SF novel, The Sheep Look Up? Google it…it’s our world.
One day soon, our sheep will look up. Gas nosed over $3/gallon here. The sheep will become alert at $3.50 and begin to baaaaah rather loudly. At $4 there will be a bit of biting at the shepherds. At $5? Killer sheep? At $10? Lots of mutton stew.
Our wooly-heads may notice sooner, however; I noted the much higher “basket price” at Kroger’s last week, and I did some math: 20% run-up in staples such as sandwich rolls, ham, ground beef, and, horror of horrors, chips. Did not check on Cheese Doodles.
Soda remains cheap, of course. And beer, thank God. Just keep sipping, and check out that new iPhone app!
“She said she was grateful for the assistance and never thought she’d be in that position.”
Hello…anyone with a brain there…hello…? The money still must come from SOMEWHERE. The Governor of Wisconsin went to the cupboard and just like Old Mother Hubbard, to his shock, the cupboard was bare. Why? Years of uninterrupted Democrat rule had stolen everything. EVERYTHING.
Take any city or state in America that is run by the Democratic machine. Every single one is bankrupt. Every. Single. One. So now, the bearers of bad news in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Ohio are Republican. They didn’t cause the fiascos but they must level with the electorate a try and fashion a way forward. You should get on your knees and pray they succeed.
These public “servants” that bray like pigs at the trough are in for a rude comeuppance. They were over promised by weak, dishonest legislators that were held captive by unions threatening to strike, should their outrageous demands not be met. Fuck ’em one and all. Fuck ’em and fire ’em. And change the goddamned laws so these ravenous bastards can’t work for the public “good” and be a member of a union. Collective bargaining and public service are incompatible, corrupt, bank-breaking and have led us down a road to ruin.
That car isn’t running “off the sun”… the “solar” panels contribute as much sunlight to “running that car” as the dab of toothpaste you put on a brush and spit out contributes to the running of you.
That car runs on coal…
If you help me win it suburbanempire, mine will “RUN OFF THE SUN”. And if you don’t the CRX I am converting will.
A LEAF takes 24 kWh for a full charge which gets you 100 miles.
A 5kw solar array, ~20 panels, will easily cover that in a day.
And yes I know it is all too late, the doom and gloom has arrived at our doorstep. But I still continue to PUSH ON, DO GOOD, and KEEP SMILING.
NOW PLEASE VOTE for something that will help change the world. Or just keep spitting up toothpaste was the analogy?
https://www.drivenissanleaf.com/Win/Vote.aspx?b=Y272Y85WBYZG
JHK,
I always look forward to your acerbic take on Clusterfuck Nation. Particularly the wonderful nuggets embedded within. This week’s:
“Our charismatic leaders, alas, have been drawn mostly from category 3, and out of all their pretending comes a banking system that is flying apart like Chrysler Slant Six engine that somebody poured Karo syrup into, thinking it might work as an “alternative fuel.” is another gem! In regards to the protests in Wisconson in reaction to that states Governor, isn’t he one of the several forward thinking Govenor’s who have turned their noses up at funding for high-sreed rail? I know full well your take on HSR James and I agree. It is far better to get our existing inter and intra city rails up and running (the ones that are out there rusting in the rain) which can be done now and far cheaper than HSR. But the hubris displayed by these Govenors is beyond the pale.
“That car isn’t running “off the sun”… the “solar” panels contribute as much sunlight to “running that car” as the dab of toothpaste you put on a brush and spit out contributes to the running of you. That car runs on coal… Let’s ALL buy a “Nissan Leaf” and see just how fast the mountains of West Virginia get leveled…..”
Right on Suburb, Check out this comment to “Crude oil jumps 4% as Libya protests spread” article on USAtoday.com.
“I just got my new Chevy Volt two weeks ago and no longer worry about what happens to oil pricing. They can eat their oil as far as I am concerned. More people will be purchasing the Volt because I received over $20,000.00 in rebates from the goverment and my state. I work 12 miles from my home so I have not put gas in it yet.”
Talk about ass hats; what is it going to take for Americans to pull theirs out and realize that happy motoring with electricity is as equally stupid as happy motoring with oil. Twenty grand in rebates to entice people to purchase electric cars; WTFG?
SNAFU
Isn’t it enough that you link to your site? Do we have to scroll through endless “something for nothing” philosophy?
“…$20,000.00 in rebates from the goverment”
Exactly. It is such a fucking great idea that you have to be bribed to the tune of twenty-thousand-dollars. So, us taxpayers all get together and help any MORON in our midst, who would buy one of these monstrosities, with a check for twenty-thousand-dollars.
We are asking, just begging for a real cosmic ass whipping.
Not much. The human body is not very efficient. It takes tremendous fitness to be able to maintain 300 watts for an hour. At 10 cents per KW hour (roughly the cost of electricity), your talking 3 cents in that hour. If you grew all the food in order to provide calories for that work, maybe you would have a slight overall gain in energy. Better to ditch your ICE toys & ride the bike instead.
“A 5kw solar array, ~20 panels, will easily cover that in a day.”
Ok, fine, but… That vehicle needs a road to roll along. I wonder if electric snow-plows will be capable of clearing the roads in winter ? Doubtful. I wonder if electric earth dump trucks will be capable of repairing the roads in summer ? There is the problem of the maintaining the highway infrastructure and it is probably a very energy intensive activity. If the entire context of Happy Motoring is considered, it looks somewhat dubious (to me)…
Marlin,
i’m in brazil, but you might substitute plenty of other central/south american countries, or sunny islands here and there.
for me the US *was* a great country a few decades back but became a society of obese, bloated, vacuous people who lost their dignity & are mostly just unthinking tax slaves dying to achieve some ‘dream’ that’s necrotic & toxic to one’s soul.
but at least social security will be there to take care of you right?
Problem is that we have a hybrid system. There was nothing wrong with the Keynesian model, that is if you had a good employment rate, progressive taxation and a national economy as opposed to Globalism and neoliberalism!
You can’t have it both ways–but we try anyway. We deliberately destroyed our national economy for the transnationals in both manufacturing and high end. Our media tells us we must go back to college again so we can get the sophisticated technical jobs, but they still won’t want to pay our rates in this country. It’s a losing battle.
We need the colleges to stay open to train the folks from the BRIC countries while we spin our wheels and get into more debt.–gotta love the game-plan.
They could end globalism if they wanted to but the continual scam will go on instead.
Now they are stealing from the tax-payers upwards to the black hole of the ultra-wealthy who have the meme of no taxes and no regulation. It’s an obvious way of stealing locally, state-wise and Federal taxes to the top echelon and then they’ll say we’re out of money. The pensions were fine, until they were destroyed by the mortgage fraud and who has the money now?
SO obvious, Tootsie, why don’t you recognize this?
Read the “Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, I’m tired of having to explain this from scratch yet again….
“..the ultra-wealthy who have the meme of no taxes and no regulation.”
A large fucking lie. A LIE. Yet it is repeated over and over But a LIE none-the-less. And I am supposed to find succor by reading a book recommended by a liar? I think not. Read on:
“Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and “the wealthiest 2%.” Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That’s about 7% of all returns; the data aren’t broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% — about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 — paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.”
So, somehow I am supposed to believe that 2% who are paying 62% of ALL FEDERAL INDIVIDUAL INCOME RECEIPTS, are NOT paying taxes? Fuck you. You are a liar.
Progs and Cons unite. While the circus rolls on and on, teachers strikes and Arab hanky panky absorbing our minute attention spans the super sneaks on Wall St. are stealing us blind.
Same in my little slice of GOP heaven where the politicians single out the unions while at the same time reward their contributors with tax dollars.
We are being played folks, the dem/repub Punch and Judy show is for entertainment purposes only.
Tootsie,
I’m bored already. I’m done trying to reason with you. If you haven’t figured out that there has been and is a balkanization taking place here, that’s your problem. I’ve been watching this for a very long time.
The top are not paying taxes tantamount to what they are making and we all know at this point that it’s not working. Between the globalism and the Milton Friedmanism, the wealth is going into fewer and fewer hands.
Your foul language does not suffice for argument. Isn’t gonna work because we all know what’s going on.
Over and out for the rest of the day…
Meanwhile, the countries that collectively comprise the fuel tank of the world economy are bursting into flames:
“The head of the Al-Suwayya tribe in eastern Libya threatened on Sunday to cut oil exports to western countries within 24 hours unless the authorities put an end to the oppression of protesters.”
“There are also fears that the unrest in northern Africa and the Middle East, which has already ousted the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents, could spread to Saudi Arabia.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/21/oil-price-climbs-libyan-unrest
To paraphrase Jim: we are one international incident away from going out of business as a civilization – the economy won’t work on $150 a barrel oil. Better stock up on Cheese Doodles and gasoline while they are still affordable…
I had a funny little thought last week… that someday in the not too distant future, we will look back at Facebook and Twitter with the same disdain as we now view Big Hair and Mullet’s from the 1980’s.
It is embarrassing to think that Facebook and Twitter could enact any real change in the world.
In my view they work to disenfranchise people from real communication. They work to create the beehive effect.
I quickly tired of FBing as myself. I created an account as Aimlow Joe and “friended” random people. I have to say that Icelandic people are some of the Friendiest in the world.
Good Times…
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
“The top are not paying taxes tantamount to what they are making…”
So it goes from “no regulations and no taxes” to “…not paying taxes tantamount to what they are making..” See how you lie. You are called on your lie and you run away.
You say, “I’m bored already. I’m done trying to reason with you.” But you haven’t tried to reason with me. You have tried to lie to me and get me to agree with your lie. There is a difference but you are too fucking ignorant and too much of a meat puppet to know the difference.
So, do everyone here a favor. Don’t just make it a “Over and out for the rest of the day…” Go away for good. We don’t need liars for the coming challenges our country must face. We need the truth.
“. . . long-form blogs” are also joining the Dodo . . .”. Jim, nothing succeeds around these parts as The Short Attention Span Theater. Try to pare down your wordy blog to just ten words or so. And, multiple syllable are not going to cut it, either.
Remember, this is a democracy. Everyone’s opinion is equally valuable. Try to follow the mainstream media’s example.
Hey lbendet,
You wouldn’t happen to be a Wisconsin, Democrat Senator would you? I mean with the running away and all.
Facebook might be worth perusing if you could find that one face among millions who has no “friend” but their own solitary notes written on a very lonely wall. Otherwise, it’s every Tom, Dick, and Betty behaving as if their own personal wall is the new world version of CNN and MTV. And they’re so damned popular; some of them acquire up to fifty friends a day! And who doesn’t want to be popular, or have their own fan club, right?
On the other hand, one person’s distinguished “long-blog” is another person’s checkout-stand tabloid:
http://ruskin.classicauthors.net/SesameAndLilies/SesameAndLilies2.html
Of course everyone involved in global warming are scam artists. These are just the first few to be caught:
“SEC Charges Seven in Global Warming Pump-and-Dump Scheme
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2011-46
Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a group of seven individuals who perpetrated a fraudulent pump-and-dump scheme in the stock of a sham company that purported to provide products and services to fight global warming.
The SEC alleges that the group included stock promoters, traders, and a lawyer who wrote a fraudulent opinion letter. The scheme resulted in more than $7 million in illicit profits from sales of stock in CO2 Tech Ltd. at artificially inflated prices. Despite touting impressive business relationships and anti-global warming technology innovations, CO2 Tech did not have any significant assets or operations. The company was purportedly based in London, and its stock prices were quoted in the Pink Sheets.
Hey Tootsie—
I’ve been saying the same things over and over again on this blog since May, but today you’re getting super-emotional
Question is Why?
What’s going on today with you that’s different than any other day I have written on this blog.
You and I will never see this situation the same way in eternity, so there’s no point in continuing.
Since I’m not a policy maker, there’s really no reason to go on this level of attack.
We are left to wonder what the problem is.
I don’t expect you to to enlighten me as to why you are on a war-path.
Just put in perspective. We’re all writing on here and we all have a right to our opinion…its not going to amount to a hill of beans.
It is weird how being first with nothing to say is a prize of some sort on this comment roll.
Anyway, Americans are generally deluded. They desire distraction from true reality and want to see a quasi-reality on television with behind the picture tube workers with cameras, and carts, and grips and gips. They prefer to watch fashion models and “stars” with fake boobs pour out of of hugely expensive gowns and costumes as they parade around one another stroking egos.
During all of this viewing the deluded American eats Cheez Curls, and drinks highly caffeinated or alcoholic drinks sitting in their Lazy Boys, appropriately named.
In the meantime, the world oppressors are pissing off their oppressed citizens. Yet, when you have nothing to lose, losing it might be worth something.
Union workers in Wisconsin are now pissed off, too; but, there are many who want distractions instead of standing up against domestic oppressors, such as the corporate oligarchs’ political mouthpieces.
The world is spinning faster than ever. Is this the Change We Can Believe In, Mr. President?
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
“Just put in perspective. We’re all writing on here and we all have a right to our opinion..”
First you lie about the top earners not paying taxes. I call you on it. Your retort is, wellllll, they aren’t paying enough. The you say you are going to leave our presence by posting, “Over and out for the day…” but you come back to post again. Another lie.
I’m sick of LIARS. So, just to put it in perspective, shut the fuck UP!
The “carbon trading” thing was always a bullshit way to “make money”…. pushed by the limousine liberals like Al Gore…. flying around the globe in a private jet yelling about climate change.
If the man were to be taken seriously he’d have moved to a small spread in Tennesee and started raising a few sheep and knitting while using sheep poo to fertilize his garden…..
Al Gore was the springboard for the ludicious idea that if you own a Hummer and I own a ficus that somehow you can pay me for the CO2 that your mobile version of Gary, IN spews out every inch it travels (and a few it doesn’t) and my houseplant provides you with an excuse to continue your bad habits.
It’s a bit like a drunk paying a mormen to spend time sober on the drunks behalf while the drunk continues drinking.
of course it’s a scam…. that was evident the second a douchebag with a big carbon footprint started pushing it as an option.
It is hard to know what impact events have on our day-to-day life. A few years ago, prices shot up, copper wire that I needed to run a few electric lines was expensive, insurance shot up for cost-of-replacement, gas shot up. I was in a panic. I thought, ok, now time to create some emergency supply, if nothing else than for peace of mind. Then…. nothing…. prices came down…. Now, we look about, check the price at the pump, and a penny here and there. One of these scares will turn out to be real. However, the system ups and downs are also a stress on the system, body politic, and central nerves.
Regarding the Daytona 500–the 20-year-old that won was asked what he did in preparation for the race. Apparently, he prayed to the Lord to help him win the race. Good grief. Magical thinking religion gets on my nerves.
SJmom
SJ Mom. The driver did not say that the Lord had anything to do with his win. In fact, he credited his team and luck. This race as in each race he’s run, he says a prayer prior to the start. Can’t imagine why anyone would have a problem with that.
66th!!!!
And make sure you check out my website with all the answers to all your problems:
http://perfectworld.com/
Yeah. Welles, living in Brazil is getting more expensive. I just read where Rio passed NYC as the most expensive place to rent an apartment in the universe. Will inflation follow in the nether regions of that booming country? The elites don’t like the peons having other than subsistence living no matter where you go. Isn’t that how the game is played? Just asking. Perhaps it’s time to move to another third world country? As for our leaders being part of #3 we all know they are meat puppets for the #1’s who know exactly what they doing. Robbing killing looting and enjoying every minute of it. It’s fun being international criminals.
Welles said: “btw you people with your FIRST! & SECOND! are irritating morons.”
Welles, I am glad you’ve reduced your monthly expenses. I did that last year, too.
On the other hand, I can’t explain, but it brings a smile to my face every time I see the “first” and “second”. Sometimes I wish there would be a few more.
I see them as a sort of Opening Bell for the discussions. They show enthusiasm and loyalty to the site. Yea, it’s silly. But I like the idea of some smiles as everything falls apart
Prayer is a part of ALL religions including Hinduism. God isn’t just a state of Consciousness – something that you can “get” but rather Being itself. You will “get” it when He or She decides you are worthy and/or ready. You could say “It” but that has negative connotations in our language. Surely if God is not a Person, He is not less than a Person either.
Faith and Devotion: the missing keys of Yoga in the West. We pick and choose here – leaving out several of the eight limbs of Patanjali. Use the acronym ACTS for the various types of prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication or petition. The young man’s prayer of petition was the prayer of a young man – but not innapropriate as long as he remembered to thank God if he won. Buddhism? A religion with rituals and chanted prayers invoking the Bodhisattvas for aid in place of God – all disdained by the Western meditators who want Enlightenment as something to put on their resumes.
American civilization continues to be torn apart at the seams. How long can life as we know it go on? Everything good that America has ever done seems to be being undone — civil rights, child labor laws, unions, reproductive freedom. All being beaten down because some people don’t want to pay taxes and want the federal government to shut down so old people don’t get their Social Security checks. How dare old people expect entitlements that they paid into!
In Wisconsin, Gov. Walker (newly elected Tea Bagger) gave two huge, unsustainable tax breaks to Big Business without having the funds to pay for them so he took the teachers’ funds and is now trying to outlaw union negotiation. Big Business will take those tax breaks and probably open some new factories in Mexico. In Missouri, Sen. Jane Cunnigham is trying to outlaw child labor laws so home schooled children can leave school at 12 and work full time. If Sen. Cunningham gets her way, we will have a new generation of illiterate, unemployable workers.
So if Saudi Arabia runs out of oil, the Banksters will still be in control (instead of in jail where they belong). According to Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stones (Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail) — EVERYONE is in on it. Apparently the SEC and the DOJ don’t want to bite the Bankster hands that will soon give them super nice jobs (all at our expense).
So the choices are for us working folks (those who actually fix, heal, teach, rescue, save, protect, invent) can either ban together and fight back OR we can all bend over and take whatever crumbs our Corporate Masters feel like dolling out. Wisconsin is seminal.
True. All real movement are founded by Leaders who lead by example. Gore is a pusher and a hypocrite. Pelosi with her personal use of airforce jets is too. Even if global warming is real, these people aren’t the ones to lead us into a new day. Rather they would have us be peasants and themselves as medevial Lords and Ladies.
“So if Saudi Arabia runs out of oil, the Banksters will still be in control”
Nope. Their institutions will be bankrupt. Oil is what backs every currency in the world and underpins every stock market. And Saudi Arabia could run out of oil next week if goes up in smoke. It would all be over more or less instantly. The price of oil would skyrocket to $300 or $500 a barrel overnight. Every business out there would go under. Game over.
And it could happen:
“the rising tide of violence around Saudi Arabia … could ignite a political blow-out of terrifying proportions in the world’s biggest oil producing country.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1358581/Middle-East-unrest-Uprising-oil-giant-Saudi-Arabia-peril.html
The world should be on the edge but I guess people are too spaced out to realize they are just one revolution away from being pushed back in time 150 years.
“Now, we’re more likely to see the dark side of connectedness, as the planet’s goodie-bag deflates and folks in colorful costumes start fighting over what’s left.”
Worth repeating. Just love the deflating goodie-bag.
JHK–Disappointing missive this week. I can’t believe you didn’t have more to say about the goings on in Wisconsin. Are you in virtual hiding with the Wisconsin dems?
On the one hand we have a feckless president who says on a weekly basis “To be clear, there are tough decisions to be made, blah blah blah”…and then he promptly does nothing. On the other hand we have a Governor who is actually acting in a responsible manner and addressing the issue head-on. Sure, he might be ramming legislation down our throats like a “We-Have-To-Pass-The-Bill-To-Know-What’s-In-It” congressman who is blindly pursuing a dangerous healthcare mandate…but at least he is confronting the tough decisions head on. Can’t say the same thing for Hope-And-Change.
Funny how you fear the ”cheeze doodlers in the Jesus belt” and “corn-pone nazi’s”. The real fear is dumbed down lefty union thugs who have been dumbed down by a generation of dumbed down lefty union thugs.
Can you imagine the media shrillness we’d be hearing, if the “racist and uncivil tea-baggers” showed up with vulgar protest signs (many of which are left behind as litter) and caused a state legislature to be closed down due to security concerns?
Thank God for Lefty Double Standards!
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent formm of goverment. It can exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, from that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilization has been 200 years. These nations have progressed though the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual strength
2. from spiritual faith to great courage
3. from courage to liberty
4. from liberty to abundance
5. from abundance to selfishness
6. from selfishness to complacency
7. from complacency to apathy
8. from apathy to dependency back into bondage”
Lord Alexander Tytler – So true that little can be added to it. One note: the 200 years is limited to a political regime not a civilization. After all many civilizations have lasted for thousands of years – with dynasties rising and following every couple of hundred as Lord Tytler notes. But since America has suffered a vast influx of unassimilated aliens just as we lost all capacity to assimilate them, it is exceedingly unlikely we will rise again to form another regime or dynasty. Rather we will break into a million pieces. Hopefully one or two of the shards will reflect a little of the glory we once were.
{He claimed that PO is a ruse simply because of NEW FINDS and NEW Technology and the fact that US oil production rose for the first time in decades thanks to that new technology.}
Liberty
Equality
Fraternity
“The world should be on the edge but I guess people are too spaced out to realize they are just one revolution away from being pushed back in time 150 years.”
If that means the end of the Banksters and the like, I would be willing.
A clean and better word is worth sacrifices.
Click on http://www.newjerseyprime.blogspot.com I have a worldview so pessimistic that I get the distinct that all this “unforeseen” “change” in the Middle East was not only forseen, but the agents of our “war on terror” have been very busy doing other things (while not finding bin Laden) like sparking uprisings… why?
To destablise Saudi Arabia of course… all part of that Kissinger Mistique popping up constantly for the past fifty years, and his plan to “Seize Arab Oil”…. we live in a world that men like Alan and Foster Dulles, Prescott Bush, and their devotees (the neo-cons) have carefully crafted for us.
distinct “IDEA”… sorry
Fraternité, ou la Mort!
“Can’t imagine why anyone would have a problem with that.”
That is because you are not a douche. Apparently SJmom is.
The silence on this blog about Madison has been deafening. The Peak Oil Liberals here know that Madison is the begining of the political battles inherent in the Contraction, but they can’t stand the idea that “their” people are on the wrong side here. So they say nothing. Likewise Mr Kunstler: he predicted all this years ago, but his bad guys are always the Corporations and the evil NASCAR Whites. He obviously can’t stand his party being on the wrong side of history. He’s actually still a member of the Democratic Party – he confessed it last year I believe.
Well if Saudi Arabia goes up in smoke here is what the world will look shortly after:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbWGoPEN9l8
The Banksters will be toast. But so will everyone else.
{He’s actually still a member of the Democratic Party – he confessed it last year I believe.}
confessions made under torture are invalid, although i hear the supreme court is aching to reverse this.
kuns –
“Our charismatic leaders, alas, have been drawn mostly from category 3, and out of all their pretending comes a banking system that is flying apart like a Chrysler Slant Six engine that somebody poured Karo syrup into, thinking it might work as an “alternative fuel.”
our ‘leaders’ know EXACTLY what they are doing…they are lining their pockets. as long as we pretend they are idiots, they will continue to get a pass from society as we love the weak and stupid…..
stop claiming the bankers are misguided or stupid or that our elected officials ‘just dont get it’….these people are grabbing as much as they can as fast as they can…..
okay…..EIGHTY-ONETH!
now for all the doomsayers out here, get over it, the world’s not ending, even if oil ‘runs out’ so to speak.
history shows one overwhelming response to scarcity, and that is technological innovation. we have scads of nuclear capability, yes there are risks, but they are very minimal if advanced tech is used.
i know it’s great fun to play the doomsday game but we’ve been here so many times before and we’re still chugging along better fed than ever. we survived:
deforestation of europe (wood being their oil)
arab oil shocks
oil at $147/barrel
ye ole depletion of whale oil
prolly many others i can’t think of
doomsters need to learn that:
1. jesus ain’t coming back
2. the world isn’t ending in 2012
3. technology currently available/advances will supplant energy needs as fossil fuels get scarcer
not to say the so-called economy in the US doesn’t suck & is not on a downward slide w/regards to living standards. it is. all my IT buddies lucky enuf to get work, after being laid off 6 mos. to 18 mos — reported earning 1/3 to 60% of their pre-2009 salary, myself included. that game’s mostly been played and we lost to h1b indians/chinese & outsourcing.
best advice i have for americans is to quit playing the empty-life game of slavework+taxes til death+debt, everyone just phuqqing DOWNSCALE, it’s the same as a 50% RAISE if you can cut your expenses by that amount, hell it’s more than a 50% raise given the stress you’ll throw out the window with it.
NEVER was i happier than when i ‘lost it all’ in the US, i was finally free and easy.
shalom
ps plenty of work teaching english (at least you ought to be able to do that) down here in brazil, gizexcellent beef and purty wimmin you ain’t never seen elsewhere folks, so do the bob barker and come on down.
peace to you all
…too all the idiots that repeatedly state..’they paid into social security so they deserve to get a check’…BULLSH*T…! no one paid into SS. they paid taxes and those taxes built roads, paid welfare, and bought bullets for police actions in foreign countries….no one paid into ‘social security’
there isnt a dime in a ‘social security account’…there are special treasuries that have to be redeemed by selling real treasuries into the market…..
Entertaining entry as usual Jim. Just a small item: the founder of facebook is MARK — not Jeff — Zuckerberg.
The idea that Facebook and Twitter are the new town square is rather amusing, considering that the center of these revolutions turned out to be the actual town square. Despite all these digital wonderlands, it was actual public places where actual flesh-and-blood people gather such as Tahrir Square that acted as critical catalysts for these acts of public solidarity and defiance. Middle eastern cities, being ancient, have places like these, where people can gather. Madison, Wisconsin, has a capitol building which serves a similar function (along with State Street). Given Jim’s career began as a critic of public spaces, I’m surprised he has not commented on this more. The political role of public spaces: Kunstlercast topic, anyone?
Another thing I’m surprised he hasn’t commented on is the fact that the Pentagon is spending our tax dollars sponsoring NASCAR. The tea party republicans don’t think that ending this funding is part of “fiscal responsibility” however, they’d rather just cut funds for poor women and infants. In fact, one senator received death threats for even suggesting that maybe funding NASCAR is not the best use of tax dollars in times of austerity:
http://politifi.com/news/Dem-Rep-Gets-Death-Threat-For-Saying-Pentagon-Shouldnt-Sponsor-NASCAR-1649430.html
You can’t make this stuff up!
I’ve been hearing that Saudi Arabia could go up in flames for years now. You’ve got an out-of-touch autocratic monarchy with a massive population of young, sexually repressed males with nothing to do. Gee, who could have seen it coming? Those of use who could see it coming have been warning for years now that this was going to happen, and when it does, we’ll be up sh!t creek without a paddle:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1358581/Middle-East-unrest-Uprising-oil-giant-Saudi-Arabia-peril.html#ixzz1EaA2wX1C
But, of course, the usual suspects didn’t listen and bought SUV’s instead.
Speaking of oil dependency, I’m not sure why Kunstler readers in their right minds would side with a right-wing reactionary like Walker, whose central campaign platform in Wisconsin was to eliminate the light rail link between our two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison. Jim is always talking about how we need to start investing in rail. This was the ideal spot and location. Many people need to commute often between Milwaukee and Madison (I’ve had to several times), and the freeway is a nightmare, especially in Wisconsin where we are pummeled with snow six months out of the year making car travel impossible and even deadly. The rail line made perfect sense: link Milwaukee (and by extension Chicago’s) businesses with UW Madison’s world-class research facilities. And in a time where we have very little money, This particular rail line was FULLY PLANNED AND FUNDED! They were literally ready to throw the shovel in the ground when Walker bent over backwards to put a stop to it. It was so ready to go, in fact, that a rail building company reactivated the old Tower Automotive plant to begin building rail cars for rail systems all over the Midwest, exactly as Jim and others have been advocating for years (although it was a Spanish company). After Walker was elected, they shut down production, laid off their workers and left the state. During the campaign, even Republicans pilloried his trip to Florida for a national road-builder’s convention, and road builders were a major contributor to his campaign.
Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-brothers funded propaganda outfit, bused in tea-partiers this weekend for pro-Walker rallies. Despite this horrible deficit we supposedly have, Walker has already passed millions of dollars in corporate tax cuts in this supposedly “broke” state, and he’s doing on the backs of last remnant of the middle class that still has decent salary and benefits. Right-wingers hate public employees because they can’t be outsourced to China and India or be replaced by cheap foreign labor like they’ve done to break the back of the rest of the working class. So they do what they’ve always done: play the working class against each other using resentment. The fact is that while middle class Wisconsin residents like me pay 6.5 percent of our incomes in state taxes, Wisconsin’s largest corporations pay an average of 2.9 percent! The rich don’t pay their share? Damn right! It’s easy to bash unions, but the demise of unions is the main reason why the Forbes 400 gets richer every year, while the rest of use get poorer and poorer. See this article:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/wisconsin-union-battle-a-convenient-distraction-from-the-real-culprit-in-state-budge-woes.html
State income taxes: http://wuerthwhilewilywakenings.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-on-wisconsin-larger-corps-have.html
And whatever you think of Krugman, he hits it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/opinion/21krugman.html?hp
hey, my nephew’s on chinese television…
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/kaN_iOlAJ6M/
———
errr, relevance to peak oil? well, me, i don’t watch a whole lot of chinese tv, so i am struck by how similar their consumerist classes are to our very own. seems optimistic middle class values have taken hold of urban china in a very big way… reminds me of america, c 1961.
——
who’s the neph? duh, he’s the only white guy on the frigging show. next question?
you’re right. if only democrats were in power, things’d change. they’re for the little guy
binary thinking=waste your energy ripping the ‘bad’ guy you’ve been matrix’d into hating
FAIL
Newfie;
Have several hundred gallons of gasoline stored away. This time I remembered to use stabilizer.
Where’s a good place to get cheesedoodles? Walmart? I like ’em fresh and crispy, served with Royal Crown Cola.
Got plenty of ammo, too. Do you think that will be necessary?
Please tell your audience sir what category you see yourself coming under.
“8. i forget what eight is for.”
I almost fell out of my chair laughing…deep, full-body laughter.
And I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them in concert in their hometown of Spokane, WA!!
Thanks. I needed that.
DENIAL is the new black!
Jim;
that chrysler slant 6 engine was a pretty good little unit. They put them in tractors for Christ sake! I had one in my 81 Dodge Ram Pickup truck, three on the tree. You couldn’t kill that goddam thing! I owned it until 1999.
Still, that was a good line.
“The crucial factor, however, is domestic opinion. First,
there is the why in the raison d’etat. The American people
instinctively felt that in Indochina the national interest was
not at stake and only the commitment itself made for
further commitment. Not so here. All would understand,
all those affected by inflation and unemployment, that is.
Second, performance. All agree that had the U.S. done well
militarily in Vietnam, public opposition would have been
limited to the tiny minority of those who oppose war, or
their own country, in all circumstances. The first group is
certainly entitled to its elevated conceptions, but the vast
majority of the people think otherwise. A neat and rapid
operation is possible in Saudi Arabia owing to the terrain
and the men, mostly absent. Moreover, the four required
divisions are fit, trained, well?equipped, and battle?ready.
On that score we need have no anxieties.”
-Henry Kissinger, on the planned invasion of Saudi Arabia
SuburbanEmp;
Did you see the posts last week about antique sewing machines?
hey, thanks tripp — i was going to make ten everything! everything! but then i figured absolutely no-one would get the ref and would just think i was insane as usual.
I have no doubts that the florida coastline will soon be speckled with Jewels that look and smell like oil rigs. I am also fairly confident that fracking will keep homes heated in the winter, as well as people using every last chemical and technology to keep the party going on. I get all that, I do. I don’t exactly look forward to the day when gas costs $7/gal and romaine lettuce will cost 10/head. I know tere are people out there trying to keep it all together.
But when I read that article on the Saudi Oil being 40% LESS….I got a little afraid. The technology to extract what is left out there can get the oil, out – SURE. But at what cost? I should have told the guy I was debating to FRACK HIS OWN WATER SUPPLY….for once you frack, you can never go back…so drink THAT! The Bitumen extraction from the tar sands isn’t exactly clean technology. It makes burning coal look like 2nd hand smoke from a cigarette.
Despite the technology wildcards and innovations, what we are left with right now, if SA is indeed in that predicament is a far more dangerous energy scenario – if we are willing to poison our environment so badly, beyond short-term repair (if it can be repaired) is boggling. Sure you can drive your car all you want – but if you cannot drink the water where you are, or anywhere near where you are, you don’t have much. So you drive to get more water, using more crapoil, and more and more land and water are destroyed…til you drive how far???? Until it is all gone….your gas, your water and your land. KWIM?
And I don not think that the person with whom I was “debating” had any scope of oil production/consumption outside the grasp of teh USA. If the people cannot afford to buy gasoline because we are so damn poor from our numerous national financial fiascos….there is always a higher bidder elsewhere who CAN afford what we cannot. People think that just because the oil is found here, we keep it….to keep ourselves afloat. The sooner people realize that nationality is meaningless and profit is king, the sooner they will wake up and not screech, “drill baby drill” KNOWING that if it is drilled here, it will be sold to the HIGHEST BIDDER – and that ain’t the US anymore….
If I ramble I don’t mean to….I just prefer to show how it is all connected….
Sorry C. Cruz…as a conservative who is sympathetic to the Tea Party movement, I (and many others) agree that Federal NASCAR funding should be cut.
What is interesting about your post is that–like many–you seem to have a very short memory:
It wasn’t so long ago that Democrats actively courted NASCAR fans. They became all the rage after Democrat Mark Warner won the Virginia governorship in 2001 partly on the basis of his assiduous attendance at NASCAR races. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrats were hunting down “NASCAR dads” (mostly Southern white males) for votes the way Republican were angling to secure the support of “soccer moms” in the 2000 election. After Kerry’s lackluster turnout in the South in 2004, Dem attention has waned. Basically “If we can’t curry favor, then F’em!” say the Dems. I say right on…time to start making those tough decisions.
PS–Funding should also be cut for the Army’s $5M sponsorship of drag racing. Strange how the Dem anti-NASCAR amendment fails to inlcude this as well. I guess they’re just NASCAR haters (when it’s convenient).
On top of all the bad news Detroit got hit with the biggest snowfall we’ve seen in over a decade. Over eight inches of the white stuff and Metro Detroit turns into one huge parking lot with nobody going nowhere very slowly. Not surprisingly, some local wags have ressurrected the idea of a light rail line going down Woodward from Jefferson all the way out to the infamous Eight Mile corrider. It’s a good idea and long overdue, but like every other good idea, it will come up against an insurmountable number of roadblocks because the white folks out in Bloomfield Hills don’t want blacks from the hood venturing north of Eight Mile.
The following viewpoint regarding scarcity and abundance is likely to sound very simple: like duh, who doesn’t know this. But that is because spiritual wisdom does not require great intellect to be understood intellectually. The tricky part is that understanding something intellectually is not knowing it, not living it or being it. This is because it is ignored, remaining unconscious, as it in direct conflict with conventional wisdom (bullshit) of the worldly-minded or ego-centered outlook. Spiritual-mindedness then remains unconscious or simply considered as something quaint, poetic, or naive when it does get expressed. Unless one sorts out and seeks to resolve these conflicting views and their values, the intellect will go onhabitually dictating how one will choose to live, to be. It has been said that the intellect can be a good servant, but it makes a terrible master.
Assuming the Creator (or creation) is benevolent, it is logical that what everything and everyone needs has been and pretty much remains available in abundance. What is not a necessity is logically scarce. Can I get a “Praise the Lord”? Physical world examples: water, air, soil, edible plants and animals, rare baseball cards, gems, gold, yachts–you get the concept. So, what has our culture chosen to value? That which is scarce. And we take for granted (and worse we waste and pollute) what is abundant. Something else that is abundant is ignorance or uncertainty. When it comes to this we tend not just to take it for granted, but to completely ignore its existence, and instead prtend we know and have certainty. Fortunately the compassionate Creator provided and abundance of lessons and an inherent ability to eventually recognize and appreciate our ignorance so that we may at least gain that wisdom.
Actually Vlad, I do pray. I pray for the greater good, and that all things will work together for good. At dinner my family prays–nothing formal or memorized…it’s more of a meditation and it changes every night. We ask for comfort for people we know are suffering from sickness. We give thanks for our food and the beautiful moments we have experienced (a sublime sunset for example), and kindness we have encountered.
Praying for good luck in a race when you’re tailgating at 200 MPH is folly. In one instance in this race someone nudged another car and the ensuing chaos resulted in 14 cars being wrecked to some extent.
I was irritated yesterday because I went to church and the sermon was on Jesus walking on water. I go to church because I love the music there. Yesterday was great, a Handel prelude and postlude, and the hand bell choir. I don’t know why Jesus would need to do magic tricks (walking on water) to impress his apostles? Maybe you have the answer, but I don’t. He sent those he most loved out into a storm in a boat. Why? Seems like an unnecessary risk to me….just like tailgating at 200mph.
Jen
George, you can be the first one to ride on a light rail line thru Detroit after dark. Let us know how it works out.
-Marlin
The propaganda is really working, then. God, that’s scary.
And where did that idiot get learn to be so naive and flippant about energy supplies? USA Today has to be one place. Garbage in, garbage out, garbage back in.
I’ve never seen another paper with remotely as large a circulation artlessly blow so much smoke up its readership’s ass. USA Today chronically parrots whatever talking points are in circulation at the moment, leavens them with barely relevant man-on-the-street comments and blather from so-called “experts,” and shamelessly publishes the resulting slop without any apparent editing other than cutting at random to fit the column space.
Even some of the investigative reports that I’ve read in USA Today, which are much better than its usual crap, had a truncated appearance. The editors seem unable either to edit for style and concision or provide extra space for relevant material, so they just pick a spot and cut.
Most of what is published in USA Today is lazy, pathetic hackwork. Most of USA Today’s mid- to large-market competitors, for all their shortcomings, strive for and usually meet much higher journalistic standards. At least we have some bulwarks against popular idiocy, although not in the tony high-rise district of Arlington.
LOL….I am sorry, but that made me laugh out loud!
The one re-assuring constant in the midst of chaotic events is the sky-is-falling rhetoric of James Howard Kunstler.
The man has announced the end of western civilization – and been dead wrong – so many times now that it will be a warning sign if he ever wakes up one morning and declares the state of the world peachy-keen.
My favorite Kuntslerism was when he predicted the stock market would fall to 3,000 a year or so ago – and then, when it went UP a few thousand points instead, had the nerve to say that, because of the falling dollar, 12,000 is the new 3,000.
So, of course, he was right after all.
Which is always the point of cranks who pretend to have a crystal ball. They are smarter than everyone else, can see into the future, and are always right.
Time’s up for the petrol car.
Time’s up for suburbia….
http://m.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/feb/21/arcade-fire-funeral-suburbs?cat=artanddesign&type=article
Here’s a potential infrastructure problem from hell: dam failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/science/22dam.html?_r=1&hp
The problem is not that we’re too poor as a society to repair decrepit dams and other critical infrastructure. The problem is that we’re too delusional and hysterical to do competent threat assessments and consequently have a lot of ass-backwards priorities.
Highway safety is a case in point. The measures needed to prevent most fatal highway accidents are known, but there often isn’t the political will to improve highway engineering, design, maintenance or signage, or to force the police to focus on drivers who are serious, imminent threats to public safety. So although our roads have become safer in recent years, they aren’t nearly as safe as they would be if the authorities were really serious and instituted proven safety measures.
Jim;
Checked out your photos of Atlanta. I thought General Sherman and the Yankees burned that place down. Looks like the Rebs rebuilt it … with concrete!
AMR;
Highway Safety? Half the drivers ’round hya (apologies to ozone) after 10 PM are drunk or stoned. The only highway safety is to stay-the-hell-home!
That is because you are not a douche.
=========
In HS basketball in the mid-’50s it was common to see a player make the sign of the cross before shooting a foul shot. Even though I was Catholic (at the time) this annoyed me … the implication, of course, was that he was asking the Prime Mover, The Un-caused Cause, The Creator of everything, to intercede (if necessary) by suspending the physical laws of the universe to make the ball go through the hoop … and what about the guys on the other team? How fair on God’s part would that have been?
One day a defender on the opposing team (an atheist or a Jew perhaps?) must have been thinking just like me. As he lined up along the keyhole to rebound the free throw attempt he made a dramatic sweeping sign of the cross to offset our guy’s sign of the cross. The crowd roared with laughter. It was an away game.
Hi Jim and all at CF nation
Well well things finally blew up in the good old US of A and someone in Wisconsin grew a pair. Good enough. Dear Gov Walker was just a little too arrogant- threatening the good people of Wisconsin with another Kent State type of intervention by the National Guard. Let’s not overlook the fact that some of the Libyan air force defected instead of bombing their own people. Now that’s something to cheer about.
As far as NASCAR goes it was a pretty good race. Good one Trevor Bayne I figure as long as there is enough oil left to fritter away on this sort of superfluos activity we are still a ways from complete break down.
Have a good one gang!
Loveday
The technology has existed for over a century to build electric road maintenance equipment. The problems are finding an electricity supply that is not cumbersome (i.e., avoiding frequent recharging or battery swaps or stringing power cords all over the work site) and is sustainable.
A more feasible plan might be to revert to animal and human power. It has been sufficient to maintain functional road networks as far back as Roman times. I imagine that with a bit of engineering oversight, the Amish would outperform most of PennDOT’s current contractors. Of course, once we reach the point that Amos and his boys are repairing the Turnpike with an old hay cart and a team of Belgians, there won’t be much reason to repair the Turnpike. The real action will be on the railroads.
Yes I did (and thank you) quite a set up she’s got there! I had forgotten that a standard industrial machine could easily be equipped with a foot pump… (some foresight on the part of the manufacturer?? or happy accident?)
Right on newworld. JHK asks what if our political system cannot solve situations… A good question indeed. At a party over the weekend someone said referring to Citizens United..”we’re doomed!”
I’m so glad, Jim, that I don’t have to go to Facebook or Twitter to find your scribbles…
they serve me well enough right where they are.
My blue Mondays require their little ray of sunshine that you provide, no matter how darkly.
(and I will hereby proceed to NOT pontificate upon the perils of technology wept upon as Jesus’ thorns…yow!)
Political history used to be boring. When joined up (as mentioned above) with economic history, it becomes more fascinating than Opra, more tantalizing than a triple-X rated Harlequin Romance. Luvly stuff.
…..not so much following the money, as much as avoiding the stench, rather in the manner of the streetwise pedestrian of Middle Ages Europe – knowing full well that shit rains from above.
It is a comfort, knowing that whatever happens the week before, Monday drops upon the mat a well-chewed bone, with enough scraps left over for a wholesome soup.
As B.B. King pointed out – the thrill is gone, from current events (but such astonishing amazements persist in the very wonder of such enchantments…the widescreen panavisioned IMAX’d and climaxed ineptitude of it all.)
Not to mention the curious echoing silences of non-response – once you wander far enough from the nearest sports bar.
(how the hell would we text if we didn’t have opposing thumbs?)
Funny how you conveniently leave out areas in fiscal crisis that don’t fit your Republican narrative. The Governator left CA in shambles, and lest you say that CA is really run by Democrats or Ahnold is a RINO, look at the hash the R’s have made of the Texas budget. When oh when will partisan suckers on both sides see that it has little to do with party? Follow the money.
“And make sure you check out my website with all the answers to all your problems:
http://perfectworld.com/ ” -S.Z.
========================
Shaka,
Thanks! I was thinking I’d have to be getting my “truth”[iness] from the RW idio-tards that prowl this site in hopes of “validation” for their cowardly and wildly improbable visions of a Big-Daddy Dick-Tater future. (They, of course, will be the new “select elite praetorian guard” with all the buggering they so fervently crave. Ah, chickenshits; wonderful fertilizer, wouldn’t you agree?)
blah, blah, blah.
You are right, my friend. There is much discussion today about austerity measures taken by WI (some delusional types still try to frame it as us vs. them, dem/repub.) and who is or is not paying enough taxes. I’m not going to argue any of that. I do know that someone has not paid enough into our system over many decades. neg $14 trillion at the fed level and many $billions at state levels.
I have a personal beef against coal extraction using mountain top removal. How come the feds have not gone after this? Some genius on this site should be able to enlighten me.
Also, speaking of coal, why isn’t that creep, Don Blankenship, who retired as CEO of Massey Energy, in jail for criminal negligence due to the deaths of miners under his employ?
Mr. Kunstler is right on as usual. I know we all like to comment and yet it feels like pissing in the wind. We are on a run away train driven by Robot Mutant greedhead business school spawn marching to the beat of greed, me first, and as is said what ever they do technology will come to the rescue. Yep pissing in the wind.
You know, it’s rather strange that you find tea party supporters (or sympathizers) on the Web site of a writer whose central issue is advocating the shift away from automobile dependence to other modes of transportation, especially rail transport. Of course, Kunstler has said we should get the freight rail system up to speed, because he doesn’t think we’ll be able to afford light rail. But these routes were fully planned, paid for, and “shovel ready”, as the saying goes. One these rail lines are in, we can keep them running, even in the event of financial catastrophe if we need to. With gas currently over three dollars, and the entire Middle East about to go up in flames, you think this might be good timing to connect our major cities by commuter rail. And who is on the front line of opposition to rail transport? Yup, the Tea Party:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/opinion/21mon2.html?ref=opinion
Oh, and I live in Milwaukee County, where Walker as county executive did everything possible to defund and bankrupt Milwaukee’s only public transport system (the same one I took to work today). He was mainly supported by suburbanites who presumably drive minivans. Don’t believe me? Here’s Walker’s lieutenant governor expounding on the important issues of the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0V5HFalZA&feature=player_embedded
My objection to Walker has nothing to do with Matrix reality, he’s a corrupt and incompetent politician who does nothing but prosecute the class war.
I understand the frustration at the waste, fraud and corruption in Washington. I’m no fan of how Obama’s performed thus far. But the tea party is just a well funded front group by conservative billionaires to distract the plebeians from their real enemies: Wall Street and corporate plutocrats who have captured the government. I’m glad you oppose our tax dollars going to fund NASCAR, but the post” tea party revolution” controlled House voted down attempts to end the funding 148 to 281.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/opinion/19collins.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Face it, Tea Partiers are just useful idiots.
You can point fingers, but try to look deeper at the situation. As my favorite poster, Turkle from San Fran pointed out last year, CA has a really ungovernable situation. CA has a 2/3’rds majority requirement on tax increases, propositions that force fund allocation, property tax bills that don’t reflect current values (unless you recently purchased the property) and the 3 strikes law that has increased the number of prisoners.
I could drone on about pensions and gov’t workers retiring at age 50 and other unsustainable budget issues, but I’ve commented on this in past weeks.
Ront,
You could leave out The Guiding Light (the LawdGotaMitey), and your bucket still wouldn’t leak. (Your argument would still hold water.)
Good goin’; I hear you.
That’s a good point – as I said, “a young man’s prayer”. As for the pastimes of Jesus Christ, remember there were many dimensions to them – the practical one not excluded. He walked across the water to get to his disciples who were in danger from the storm. Peter came out and then lost faith and began to sink. Was that not a profound lesson for him – and for us? Remember what Blake said, “If the Sun were to doubt, it would immediately go out.”
Another time they were out and a terrible storm came up and Christ just kept on sleeping. They woke him and he calmed the waters after rebuking them again for thinking that anything could happen to them with him there. I could be wrong but I just don’t remember Him sending his disciples into a storm and into danger.
The water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand, the multiple healings – all practical and compassionate acts. And yes for some such displays of power might increase their faith. But certainly one can not be sure – the Pharisees saw and accused him of being in league with demons. And others might have followed him on the basis of the power alone with little interest in the actual teacings.
The Confucian Lin Yutang was outraged as a boy when his relatives prayed for a sunny day for his graduation when the Country was in crisis due to drought. Selfish prayer is a problem for sure.
Jim’s mention of Fashion Week raises another pet peeve of mine (I seem to have lots of pet peeves): the entire concept, near universal among women but rare among men, of keeping up with “fashion.” Silly me, I believe clothes should be worn until they are worn out.
Every day in the NYT and on TV there are shots of skinny models, not all of them pretty oddly enough, showing clothes that no one I know would wear.
Professional runway modeling requires the ability to achieve a straight ahead expressionless thousand-mile stare (why this has become the standard I am not sure but it may relate to the inadvisability of a women making eye contact with anyone on the streets of NY) … and to walk with graceful confidence in absurd shoes as though stepping over furrows, placing the left foot slightly to the right of an imagined central line, and then the right foot slightly to the left of that line, and so on and so on.
As the model reaches a prescribed point she stops, juts out a hip on which the long thin fingers and perfectly polished nails of a hand are fanned out, does a whirling 180 with a haughty air, momentarily catching the eye of an attending buyer or two, and returns in like manner from whence she came.
No one in the natural world walks like this.
In the case of male models there is an added complexity in that they are generally gay but are expected to achieve an appearance of heterosexuality.
I became attuned to these things when I met my model wife-to-be in 1972.
I’m not sure what country you reside in, but in the USA we have something called the Schedule SE.It’s 13.3% above and beyond INCOME TAX.
Now get a fucking clue.
{I just prefer to show how it is all connected….}
JHK, great post this week. The kayro syrup thing is an urban myth, if you want to destroy an engine, bleach down the oil filler seems to be the way to go, at least according to MythBusters.
As for LARWBD, I’ve been road tripping a bit, and the things I seem to notice most are the numbers of dead abandoned cars along our interstates, and the gigantic potholes along said interstates.
{I’m so glad, Jim, that I don’t have to go to Facebook or Twitter to find your scribbles}
# 134
Nice week’s work, JHK.
Thanks as always!
Here’s my favorite part. You applied it to societies undergoing revolution, but it works as well for the slow revolution taking place in our own US society.
For example, these 4 categories of people have been visible here since 1980 or thereabouts:
“1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
-jhk-
Unfortunately, those leaders in category 1, beginning coincident or not, with the Regan Revolution, knew EXACTLY what they were doing as they outsourced everything and rejiggered the tax codes to favor financial whoring over productive work.
Because of the immense wealth and asset base of the United States – financial whoring was a successful strategy for a long, long time.
Eventually, the piper will be paid.
Or the pimps will be paid.
In my heart I know planned obsolescence (fashion) is silly. But darn it, I have wanted a St. John knit outfit ever since I graduated from college.
I’ll never get one because I’m not going to pay $1,200 for an outfit. But St.John’s styling is beautiful.
Jen
Hey, rude bastard. Are you sure you are responding to one of my posts? What did I write that requires me to get a clue?
Great fashion post!
Hey, BS, I think I figured it out. You think that all the funds paid into Schedule SE are just sitting there? The feds borrow against it. They may have promised to pay it back, but who knows when TSHTF.
Are you one of those Tea Party types that complain about federal spending and also bitch about no cost of living increase for SS?
Okay, think I mentioned this before, file it under the category of “who gives a damn?”. One of the finest motors to come out of Detroit was the famous “slant-six”. Myself, drove l961, 1963, 1966 Plymouth Valiants. Whenever I had a problem with said cars, mechanics (these were the days when they wore starched, white uniforms with the brand of gasoline they sold was embossed on their shirts, ran out to fill your tank, check your oil, wash your windshield, and check your tire pressure. These mechanics yawned in my face when I told them of a problem with the engine. I got a little indignant with one of these “gas jokeys” once. His response was, “Lady, there ain’t nothin about a slant six we CAN’T fix!” I learned to shut the fuck up after that. Don’t think I ever parted with more than a $20. when I had an “engine problem” with those cars!
I am driving a rental car this week, don’t ask why !
I already told the story anyway, I have a Camry,
ok the rental car is a Nissan Sentra. Smaller.
Since it’s new it’s Zippy. It’s not electric, but the steering is I am told. All I know for a fact is that I cannot stand the steering, electric or not.
Nissan makes good stuff, I just don’t like the steering and my god this Leaf is 32k. I am so glad I am not young in a way. I would be more lost than ever, where to start, where to go, what to do who to ‘be’.
I’ve always driven used cars, with one exception. got a great price on a new camry in 05.
It got totalled read ended by a Ford 3 fucking 50!
ford 350 v10. anyway that is another reason I think that the Leaf is too small of a car because of all of the jackasses, and most of them drive like jackasses in the big trucks. Scares me and makes me mad.
So I believe it costs way too much and is much to small. The zero emissions is cool, my 04′ camry has that, or the closest thing to it.
I like a car at least as big as those camrys.
no offense, Leaf not for me. And too small IMHO.
around town, probably ok, just watch out for inconsiderate drivers’ in big suvs, etc.
A friend of mine bought land in Dominican Republic and is building a small house there. Can’t think of the name of the area. It’s rural.
Anybody know anything about that country ? I know Haiti is on the other side of it over the mountain.
That old Chrysler Slant Six! What a beautiful torquey long-stroker of an engine.
A common mod in the old days was to bore out the jets in the Carter carburettor and run on atomised Cheese Doodles. You ended up with a half-way house, somewhere between Rudolph Diesel’s first engine (which ran on coal-dust – it killed him in the end..)and a low compression semi-diesel.
You had to retard the ignition about five degrees, and getting the right orifice in the idle-jet was tres difficult, which resulted in big cheesy-fart back-fires, a “lopy” idle, and a trail of yellow smoke-rings. Happy days!
Apologies Jonathan, I thought I hit the anonymouse comment button but replied to you instead. But I was replying to the below specifically( rather rude in it’s own tone as well):
“too all the idiots that repeatedly state..’they paid into social security so they deserve to get a check’…BULLSH*T…!”
And you agree with that, as if “idiots” don’t actually fill out an SE IRS form…AND PAY 13.3% beyond standard income tax ?
malthus,
loved your post but forgive me for pointing out the correct phrasing is “pissing against the wind”.
jammer
It’s just for fun. Who started it, was it Asoka ! That’s what I remember. Doesn’t matter, I’ve never been first. Haven’t tried tho.
Being relatively tall for the era (5’10), and needing some extra cash to get me through grad school, I went on a few casting calls for “actresses”, models and “extras” in Manhattan during the late l940’s, early l950’s. When they call them “cattle calls”, they aren’t kidding. I got rejected many more times than I ever got called. And when I did get called, it was excruciating work! All day long, walking around in heels, in confining dresses which almost mummified your ankles, and pounds of pancake on your face…for…a few dollars..a DAY! Nothing like the fortunes made by models today! We were picked over like Macy’s bargain basement left-overs! And the photographers pinched! One day, fed up, I took my over powdered face, silly frocked frame (sometimes we got the clothes in lieu of pay!) home on the NY/PHILLY metro car. I stumbled into the train in tears arriving at Suburban Station in Philly. Dad just looked at me, sighed, and said, “I’d never have let you go to New York if I knew they were gonna turn ya into a floozie!”
“no one paid into SS. they paid taxes and those taxes built roads, paid welfare, and bought bullets for police actions in foreign countries….no one paid into ‘social security'”
Wrong. They payed, and still continue to pay PAYROLL TAXES. You’ve confused income taxes with payroll taxes.
Please get a clue–idiot
An observation on food prices.
My family buys what I call edible “consumer products” largely in a grocery and fast food restaurants. They’ve been hollering and screaming about how much prices has risen, even complaining about the exorbitant prices of fast food “meals”. (Typically they like to buy from the various dollar menus.)
Meanwhile, I buy traditional food and prepare 98% of what I eat from the basic ingredients. Oddly, I have seen zero price increases in meat/dairy/eggs and in local organic produce, price declines. Real food should be going up in price too, but so far, it has not. Now, of course, most people would describe the food I buy as exorbitantly priced (with lots of time involved to get and prepare it), but priced in terms of what an hour of labor will buy, it has always cost this much. I think many people don’t realize that dropped in price was edible “consumer products” masquerading as food, and now those “consumer products” are going up in price, almost to the point where they are approaching the cost of food. For the price (even with extra labor), real food is a better value.
Good story on Alternet, thanks for the link. It expresses the PO thinker’s sentiment quite well – it’s not a theory, oil (and gas) are a finite resource and *will* run out: PO is mainly a debate over timing!
The time course of these events is years, possibly decades – and it’s natural that as the price of crude rises, so does the technology to extract more. There was a recent article in Scientific American of how we’ll extract ever more oil in the future – injecting solvents into the reservoir, injecting heat and steam, injecting biological agents (gasp) engineered to break up heavy oils. Putting aside the horrors these could wreak on groundwater and other side-effects, these technological marvels add to the costs of extraction – and require higher prices in the first place, to make them worthwhile.
I browsed over to PeakOilDebunked the other day to keep myself ‘fair and balanced’ – as usual came away unimpressed by the alternate view. The primary blog explained that since things are generally the same as in 2006 (at least in terms of oil consumption and pricing) that things are fine and that logically, PO is a hoax. What a relief. Happy motoring!
150th!
We are too damn busy chasing our piece of the pie to look up. Let them eat cake http://bit.ly/iaYN1J
No such thing as Highway Safety. At any time.
People drive like they are out to getcha. A friend of mine put it this way, that they don’t care and are out to commit suicide and don’t mind taking you out as well.
That is the way it feels out here in Beautiful West Coast California. The people really are not that nice. As a whole. And in Sillycon valley they are even more ruthless.
Driving is over rated, and the way most drive is sickening. And downright deadly dangerous.
DO NOT TAILGATE AT ANY SPEED. Thank You.
It is SO rude and dangerous. I don’t understand why CHP does not give tickets to those who do so.
Shit they do it. All the time.
oh well, I try to go out less and less these days.
I definitely plan and combine my trips to the store.
People are filled with Rage, and behind the wheel that is not a good combo, because when you are driving your Adrenaline is up, and you cannot stop yourself from reacting sometimes. It is very hard. damn near impossible.
I’ll try and calm down now. Driving is a hot topic for me.
Mike, I have sort of been seeing this too. Not much going up, with some exceptions: beer (though sometimes it goes right back to nice deals like $7/6-pack of New Belgium, or Blue Moon), avocados (for a couple of weeks they went from 40c each to 60c ea, maybe more of a crop yield issue, back to 40c now, even 30c for a little while last week), compari tomatoes (was $2.50/lb, now $4), .. and that’s all I noticed so far really. Haven’t noticed any change in spinach, onions, grapes, oranges. Beef seems to be about the same as last year, at the supermarket anyway, as does chicken (though I usually buy the pre-made rotisserie chickens from HEB (big chain in Texas) for $7 each — yeah, a whole juicy chicken ready to eat!) I don’t eat bread, so don’t know what’s going on there. Ice cream has stayed the same — B&J and Haagen Das has fluctuated between 2.50 to 3.24 for the last couple of years, usually right at $3, though I think haagen went from 16oz containers to 14oz..
now, I know things like wheat and potash are moving now, so I expect we will see increases this year. Clothes too, cotton almost 3x what it was a year ago
Speaking of essentials, tonight would be a good time to top up your gas tank!
I don’t know about all that zone, but this is I think an interesting fact. The Wisconsin Governor claims they are some 3 Billion $’s in debt. Why? Didn’t congress just “give” the Banking Elites 2 Trillion $’s? If congress can be so generous to dead beat bankers, why can’t they help out one of our finest cheesemaking states? Three billion dollars is .15% (that’s fifteen hundredths of one percent) of two trillion. Nothing! Point one five percent. Don’t tell me they can’t print that much money!! Bernanke could print that much in his garage on a sabbath’s night, for goodness sake.
{I am so glad I am not young in a way. I would be more lost than ever, where to start, where to go, what to do who to ‘be’.}
—-
for the longest time i drove a ’93 camry with a bunch of letters indicating how sporty it was. when the kids were little they bashed it incessantly as they used the driveway as their playground; it ended up looking like foil off a baked potato.
oh what a beast that machine was… eager engine, hard steering & suspension, rough sex transmission, plus a terrific radio. because the thing was so disreputable, everyone in the family, kids especially, begged me to get rid of it.
i used to do long commutes at odd hours of the night, and so i drove fast. as a kid my buds and i used to play this game: set the cruise control at 100mph, suspend it as any normal person would; then, as any normal person would not, hit ‘resume,’ see how long you can ride the bull, hopefully not in a 25mph school zone. (just kidding about the school zone.)
round numbers do hang round my brain. i used to go from stockbridge to boston (mass pike) at the famous buck. that car just ate it up.
——
my daughter goes to school with some rich kids. once, waiting in the main circle, a black limousine with a driver in livery picked up a carefree blond girl. it looked like so much fun. when liz came to the car i could just feel the shame on her face: dad in his camry.
Interesting that no one here has yet said what catagory they are in 1 thru 4.
I wish I was #1, but probably more like #4.
and sometimes #3.
I guess sometimes I know what I am doing and sometimes I don’t.
I think Political leaders would fall under #3, more often than any other. Good at faking it. And convincing others.
– on Wisconsin –
Individual State issues are always tedious for most everyone, especially residents of the other 49 States. But I am certain there are parallels between Wisconsin and my home state.
Three weeks ago, I described how corporate timber interests pushed through massive reductions in State of Georgia property taxes, some years back. These reductions were offset by income and sales taxes, collected and controlled mostly at the state level.
Property taxes are a stable source of revenue.
Property taxes favor local county control.
Georgia continues to cut state level corporate income taxes – apparently in a race to the bottom with Wisconsin and most other states.
But the collapsing economy means that income and sales taxes are way down. So Georgia is having a revenue shortfall.
But I’ll guarantee that the corporate timber interests in Georgia will never give up a single cent of their tax cuts.
Regardless of how State of Georgia services suffer. Or how the genuine interests of lifelong Georgia residents are compromised.
The SCOTUS decision on corporations made them legally “persons” – sadly.
Selfish to the end – like 2 year old child “persons,” except with immortality – corporate interests will ruin what’s left of a great free Nation.
Shaka,
Here’s a little more on that pretend “governor” who is only there to govern one thing: Destruction of the unions in the service of his paymasters, the Koch Bros. [Inc.] And what might they be about? I believe it would be summed up in two words: cheap labor. What a fine thing it would be to serve the Koch Bros., eh? (Of course it might involve a small adjustment in wages, but hey, we must sacrifice for those we love.)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/21-6
(I know, I know, CD is so one-sided it can’t stand up, but the basics of the issue are found here and there without too much strain.o)
“1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
-jhk-
{I wish I was #1, but probably more like #4. and sometimes #3.}
Hi C.CRUZ, You laid it out pretty well with regards to the Tea Baggers. I’m guessing that this may be the year when the various states finally have to come to grips with their budgets, and I’m sure the right wingers have their solutions in mind.(Wisconsin). My great grandfather was one of the first Teamsters here in Minnesota, and was in on the forming of the original union. The businessmen hired pinkertons and used the cops to go around town breaking up the organizing meetings and beat the hell out of the people at the meetings. The Union guys went home and oiled up pick axe handles & baseball bats, and went back the next day. He fought the cops and the Pinkertons in the “Battle of Deputy’s Run” , down on 26th & Nicollett Ave. They killed a cop and a pinkerton, and when they were done, they had the right to organize. The Teamsters are corrupt now, but the idea is still the same, sometimes you have to fight for what’s right. We may be heading back to those times again.
Caltrans has had some success in Humboldt County getting drivers to slow down on 101 between Eureka and Arcata. The non-limited access segment between East Eureka and the Arcata KOA has been designated a “safety corridor,” with a very clearly posted 50 mph speed limit and electronic radar displays. Rarely have I seen anyone drive recklessly on that segment or faster than 56 mph past the radar displays. That part of the highway isn’t the blood alley that it once was, because in a T-bone collision the difference between a 50 mph cruise speed and a 70 mph cruise speed can be the difference between fully recovering from injuries and going home in a box.
We have some aggressive drivers and really shitty roads up here, too, but it’s not all bad news.
Good thing Major League Baseball spring training is winding up for the new season.
Some of my friends and I refer to ostentatiously big pickups as “shlengtheners.” Seriously, a lot of men driving crew cabs or anything with a jacked-up suspension are using their trucks as codpieces. They are not subtle about using their trucks to prove their masculinity. And more than a few of them endanger themselves and all around them by driving aggressively for a further dong boost.
Around here at least, a lot of the ladies driving shlengtheners are trying to “cowgirl up.” It’s not usually the real cowgirls who are sporting redneck decals on their late-model highriders, either. I’d say it’s all a sick marketing trick by and for losers who know nothing about cattle.
One good effect of the recent uptick in gas prices is that fewer of these morons will be out on the roads. The Long Dong Silver crowd starts hurting enough to garage its auxiliary penises in times like these.
“shlengtheners” & Long Dong Silver crowd. Great descriptors. Thanks for the humor.
In the spirit of fashion week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoVbnv01Qek&feature=related
On a happier note –
We were out on our little slice of heaven, today – and we finished the last of the fruit tree prunings.
Just ahead of the peach blossoms, too. (Slow down trees – there are bound to be some more hard freezes coming to these Southern mountains!)
I can not be the only one who feels himself relaxing with the approach of spring and summer.
It’s time to rotate up last fall’s canned goods, and dig to the bottom of the freezer for orphaned cuts of meat, or packages of last summer’s fruit that can be brought forward before this year’s produce starts to come in.
No matter what may happen, with oil prices, and Egypt, and global cooling, or warming, or whatevergoodorbadmaycome –
I begin to relax – like my generations of farming, hunter-gathering, and cave dwelling ancestors before me – to realize that warmer weather, almost always, means happier days, better food, maybe even – better sex.
CF On, you all!
I know that some of you support the Good Doctor.
If so, now is the time to re-affirm that support:
http://www.libertypac.com
-AK
Mark. Zuckerberg’s first name is Mark. You’re confusing him with Jeffrey Zucker, the former NBC president.
“If government approached the Wall Street financial fiasco with the same enthusiasm Wisconsin is displaying on its pensions and public employees union, then people would be hanging from streetlights on Wall Street. The differance in the approach is very revealing about priorities.”
Amen, brother.
Scapegoating is alive and well in America.
“Hello…anyone with a brain there…hello…? The money still must come from SOMEWHERE. The Governor of Wisconsin went to the cupboard and just like Old Mother Hubbard, to his shock, the cupboard was bare. Why? Years of uninterrupted Democrat rule had stolen everything. EVERYTHING.
Take any city or state in America that is run by the Democratic machine. Every single one is bankrupt. Every. Single. One. So now, the bearers of bad news in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Ohio are Republican. They didn’t cause the fiascos but they must level with the electorate a try and fashion a way forward. You should get on your knees and pray they succeed.”
Hey Tootsie.
Sorry, but in the state of Ohio your little cupboard theory doesn’t quite work.
Education, for example, is primarily funded at the local level. We get an ever-lessening amount from the Feds, and what essentially amounts to a flat-fee from the State.
Our local school district has just put another property tax levy on the ballot, a) because they need the money to keep operating, and b) because they don’t know how much they can count on from the state, and expect that it will be decreasing.
So bottom line is that this is union busting, plain and simple.
“Curious to see which State is next. My bet is on California.”
A safer bet would be Ohio. Demonstrations already started today in our statehouse and will be going full steam by tomorrow when Senate bill 5 is introduced.
FWIW, the Ohio bill also includes police and fire. Equal opportunity union busting.
“The world should be on the edge but I guess people are too spaced out to realize they are just one revolution away from being pushed back in time 150 years.”
“If that means the end of the Banksters and the like, I would be willing.
A clean and better word is worth sacrifices.”
Unfortunately, seems like it’s going more the way of serfs and feudal overlords.
JHK wrote: “the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience.”
Comment: What would Jesus do?
Tripp,
Two questions for you this evening:
. What’s with all those bank failures in GA? Another one went under last Friday.
. Have you ever heard of “Biodynamic Farming?” From what little I know about it it sounds like Permaculture.
Mike Moskos, re: your observation on food prices…I’m curious where you live?
Q, crazy timing. I just stopped by to drop a link to my latest blog post, and noticed a post that looked like it was for me! And it was!
I haven’t a clue about the banks to be honest. And my opinion of biodynamic farming is that it’s a pretty kooky deal, full of crystals, and potions, and auspicious timing for planting. Not like permaculture at all really. Most permies are hard-core science types. And aside from me, pretty level-headed folks…
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/02/virtually-free-protein.html
New post over at Small Batch for the self-reliant types among us. Has gratuitous pics of my new bunnies in it too.
Now, it’s way past my bedtime…
Poor kid ! haha ! Reminds me of the movie Uncle Buck with John Candy. Funny !
Hey did you ever see the New Car, I think Highlander, commercial where one “cool” kid gets picked up in that and another kids dad pulls up in an old station wagon and the kid runs and dives headfirst into the back seat and hides. If you’ve seen it I am sure you laughed.
My favorite car was a 92 V6 Camry Wagon. With racks on top. Sad story. Should have replaced the engine and kept the car, but let it go instead. Have an 04 4 cylinder Camry now.
I love it, Great Stereo ! Nice ride. Good enough!
When we get older and hopefully grow up, we KNOW that those really aren’t the things that matter.
Also when young and asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I agonized. I just wanted to be me, and be happy, I wasn’t happy when younger. Troubled childhood. didn’t know Who I was how was I gonne be anything if I was nobody. This is a true story. I am sure I am not alone on this. Many kids feel this way. Too many.
I think the question should be “What do you want to DO to earn a living, when you are old enough ?” Especially for some / most kids these days.
Many People hide behind their personas / images, you know what I mean. And their Titles. I am a doctor, etc. They hide behind their work. And or lose themselves in it. Cops on Power Trips are the worst. Once I said to one “without that uniform and that gun you are a nobody”. It’s a long story I’ll spare you. He was just an ass****. A big bully in a Uniform CHP, with a fucking Gun. Nice ! and so freaking young.
Scares me. It’s a long story, and I just need to stop before I get started.
Now I am stalking you 🙂 !
That is the only emoticon I know so far !
What is ORIONOIR? Probably a stupid question.
Something I should know but don’t.
Good Night !
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Your Constitution is unique where it says that all men are entitled to the right of the pursuit of happiness.
That is what everybody wants, young or old.
You could be deprived of many material things that in principle not only make you happy, but in certain cases make you even unhappier, but still be happy.
What I do not agree with, is that all men are created equal.
In reality (and that is the good of nature) everybody is unequal, we are all individuals who have similarities, but are different in their similarities.
That is the base for building a society which is really democratic.
That every man is an individual and has the same rights as all others, one of them being the pursuit of happiness.
Individualism and freedom to reach the goal you want, that is real freedom.
A society build on the fact that there are no individuals, but what counts is the “State” the “Nation” not only kills the freedom, it also kills progress, kills the right to pursue one own happiness.
Because happiness is in the dream, in the effort to reach it.
Happiness is in what you do to be happy.
America was a great nation as long as people were free and had the means to pursue their goals.
That was the American dream, the dream of a better life for oneself and for one’s children.
Progress is made by individuals, not by nations.
” I begin to relax – like my generations of farming, hunter-gathering, and cave dwelling ancestors before me – to realize that warmer weather, almost always, means happier days, better food, maybe even – better sex.”
I just have to ask PoC…was the above just an “affected” attempt to annoy Q? I’m sorry, but it’s just too damn corny, even for you.
Besides, Love ain’t waiting till summer; it’s blooming in the right here and now–haven’t you been reading?
Are there any plans for a recall petition against Governor Walker? I’m well beyond the point of giving him the benefit of the doubt because he inherited a fiscal disaster. The man is acting like a jackass. If California were governed by an ultrapartisan provocateur who couldn’t stay off the warpath against public transportation and raised the specter of the Homestead Massacre in order to intimidate his opponents, I’d sign a recall petition at the first opportunity.
JHK wrote: “the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience.”
Comment: What kind of beer would Jesus drink?
Holy beer, made with holy malt in the City of Vatican and personally blessed by his holy highness the Pope Benedictus the 6th.
One question:
Do the pure spirits drink?
The violence in Libya has sent Brent crude to $108.20 and West Texas Intermediate to $91.42. It looks like we’re headed for a repeat of 2008:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil-20110222,0,7384546.story
By the way, the comments on this article are insane.
JHK wrote: “the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience.”
Comment: “Force Factor”
http://www.healthheadlines.com/article/content/fb_lgid=31&fb_lpid=1093&fb_itid=1856623&pid=100&fb_itid2=2669&nid=68&aff_id=20110222
Where are all the religious leaders of the Middle East that have been teaching their followers kids to blow us to shit?
I’m with Welles. Got out in ’85 during 2nd Reagan administration, cause I knew in my waters where this was all going. Call it a hunch.
Results: both kids born free, grew to healthy adulthood on national healthcare systems. My own health excellent too, BTW. Lived with less than my siblings, but grew more ‘inner capital’ from cross-cultural experience. Became self-sufficient and resilient without being classed as “wierd” or “commie” by my neighbors.
People ask me if I’d move back. What the fuck for?
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=174320
Silhouette, you describe capitalism quite well, you must know it well then. I don’t think I do too much, but anyways your description boils down to a system of constant change, in constant flux – strain, creative destruction, a constant shuffling of the cards, etc. The variables in the system are never ending, the actions and reactions never ending, but the only clear pattern is that of creating an ever richer rich class and ever more poorer people.
So, even following the right wing ideology, people are lazy, not motivated, the new normal is 60 hour work weeks, etc. then it is easy to see how you filter out all of those not able too, not willing too, not having the right skill set, too lazy, that suck too much, or whatever reason on earth that are not able to pull off 60 hour work weeks. So this redistributes more wealth to a smaller number of people who “deserve” more. But the pattern can keep on going on, the next new normal can be 80 hour work weeks, and the cycle continues, you filter out even more people, more wealth to fewer people, and on and on.
I often find it hard to imagine what on earth people have to do for so many hours, especially if it is really productive work, where you have a clear cut input -> manipulation -> output, but these are exactly the jobs that are disappearing in favor of vague, fluff, sales, whatever. Maybe alot of work consists of public relations, office politics, like the JAPANESE salary man that has to wait until his boss goes home at 10 at night, therefore he puts in a 15 hour work day (not sure if really producing anything).
But the bottom line is, what kind of end result will you get ? In the US maybe 10 million workaholics making a million dollars a year, 20 million not working at all, 70 million making 10,000 to 20,000 dollars a year (average slobs putting in an average 8 hours a day, they are really freeloaders if 80 hours is the normal, they should be grateful to get anything at all).
If this is what the right wingers want, great.
The entire concept of “a healthy economy” or “economic crisis” doesn’t even make sense then. The economy must always be in crisis mode, everything and everyone must constantly be under stress, to capture any kind of advantage, any kind of profit possible, any kind of new skill set that is presently needed (obviously extremely difficult, given that the skill set can get very technical and very specific very fast, and you may need many years to really acquire it, if you even have the natural – mental ability which most likely you don’t). Then the present US economy is really doing great, the more crisis, and inequality, the more unemployment the better it is, the more pressure to produce and “innovate”, always for the “common good” (which really means for the 10 million making a million dollars a year).
The US economy has never been so healthy as in the last few years, god bless!
But maybe, there really can never be any solution to the “economic crisis”, given that inequalities are natural (it is equality that must be enforced and imposed), so the winner take all will always dominate no matter what system, human nature is what it is, end of story. May the strongest win…
The US economy has never been so healthy as in the last few years, god bless!
With regards to:
The entire concept of “a healthy economy” or “economic crisis” doesn’t even make sense then. The economy must always be in crisis mode, everything and everyone must constantly be under stress, to capture any kind of advantage, any kind of profit possible, any kind of new skill set that is presently needed (obviously extremely difficult, given that the skill set can get very technical and very specific very fast, and you may need many years to really acquire it, if you even have the natural – mental ability which most likely you don’t, and by the time you acquired it it is no longer even needed). Then the present US economy is really doing great, the more crisis, and inequality, the more unemployment the better it is, the more pressure to produce and “innovate”, always for the “common good” (which really means for the 10 million making a million dollars a year).
Reminds me of how I hear that companies now need mechanical engineers or tool and die makers. I have been hearing this for decades now, wonder why they can never get the right amount of these…
Maybe because at a given interval of time many of these are layed off, and left not doing their job for a few years, making them “obsolete”, and then after, companies complain all over again, that there are not enough of them, and so on…
People ask me if I’d move back. What the fuck for?
Major LOL — This is precisely what echoes in my head each time I imagine being back ‘there’.
Cheerio!
Yes, ‘inner capital’ is precisely what these countries have that the Untied States do NOT have.
Americans can’t even fucking read or make change anymore for chrissake…epic country FAIL
The economy runs if people spend, the more they spend, the more they consume, the more is produced.
It doesn´t matter if they have to borrow more and more.
In a few words: you need to have sick people to have a healthy economy.
I’m thinking the unrest in Libya, even possibly civil war, is the Black Swan that JHK sometime writes about … combined with what’s happening in states like Wisconsin and Ohio … a series of events that crystallizes and shines a light finally on the predicament our Country is in regarding energy and excessive debt, making it clear to everybody.
One thing, though, the panic about rising crude shows how important oil still is the the west. Just last week, in some newsspeak happytalk, I heard Obama refer to petroleum as ‘yesterdays energy’, as if he had something waiting in the wings to replace it. I’ve been hearing about ‘alternative energy’ since my college days 35 years ago, usually by some smug, effete sonofabitch who acted like he knew more than everybody else. Well, where is this ‘alt energy’? You’ve had 40 years. We could use some know.
Still watching events in Wisconsin. I’ll say it again … public sector unions, what a scam on the body politic they are. One example … the town I grew up in, when I was a kid, didn’t even have a police force. We had one resident state trooper. There is pretty much the same population now, only difference, there’s a 25 man police force with patrolmen earning on the average $100,000 per year … bunch of punks with chips on their shoulders riding around in expensive new cars loaded up with sophisticated weapons busting everybody’s balls. For a number of years I was steward, then committeeman for my union, chief duty going around preventing people who should have been fired from being fired … Public Sector employees … what a bunch of leeches.
Last weekend 40 people, you heard that right 40 people, were were shot to death in Juarez, Mexico. That’s a pretty high death toll, indicative of war, not a mere civil disturbance, more that any weekend toll at any time during the Iraq war. And this is right on our border. Valuing his opinion, I’d like to see Jim’s take on the bloodshed in Mexico. Incidentally, where’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in all this chaos? The whole world is boiling up around us and I’ve barely seen or heard her. Remember 5 years ago George Bush was the worst idiot in the history of the world and she and her ‘team’ were going to conduct foreign policy ‘Smarter”? Remember? Do you think we forgot? If we only apologized, apologized to the whole stinking world. It was supposed to be all sweetness and light by now. And people believed this shit. What the hell happened?
Old6699, I’m reading your posts 2 & 3 times and I still can’t figure out what your driving at. I’m not that bright. Recently I read Oswald Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West”, and had to read that twice as well. To understand it. Best theory: Being a Gentleman Farmer is the highest form of existence in the civilized world. So Trippticket, you’re on the right track.
Watched ‘Winchester 73’ this weekend, 1951 film with Shelley Winters and Jimmy Stewart. Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis had minor, almost cameo roles.
Best line, Shelley Winters to Jimmy Stewart “May I have it. You never know when a girl might need a bullet”.
You said: “In reality (and that is the good of nature) everybody is unequal, we are all individuals who have similarities, but are different in their similarities.”
My take on the “All men are created equal” is not a statement of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or a biological statement. Of course they understood that not everyone is alike.
It’s more the idea of getting away from European models of royalty and aristocracy. We are in this new world born to achieve whatever we put our hearts and minds to without having to overcome a caste system. It presupposes that we can start from the same place and make what we want of our lives in a self-determined manner.
It’s great to at least start with that supposition as unrealistic as it is in practice. You gotta love them for trying!
People seem to like hierarchies, unfortunately and those who want more power and money tend to use hierarchies for their own benefit. Ultimately none of us are “ordained by god” and we are after all just flesh and blood.
Oh yeah, I see Code Pink, New SDS and the new Black Panthers have showed up in Madison. Only question is, Where’s Al Sharpton? The networks, except for Fox, hammered and lampooned the tea party rallies last summer. Funny, they’re covering the mob in Madison a little differently.
JHK wrote: “the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience.”
Comment: What kind of a pickup truck would Jesus drive?
“Comment: What kind of a pickup truck would Jesus drive?”
I’d have to with a bronco.
I understand that all men are created equal in the sense that all men have the same rights,
“People seem to like hierarchies”
it is not a matter of liking, it is a matter of being “different”.
Whichever society you analyze, you will always find some sort of hierarchies, there are everywhere people born to be the “leaders”.
That doesn´t mean that they necessarily need to be evil or dictators, they express the common “view” in the best way.
That is what a President or a politician should be, or a bank director.
That also doesn´t necessarily mean that they have to be paid 1,000,000 times the normal guy.
Or that they are entitled to have everything and the others nothing or almost nothing.
The good society is the one where everybody has his place and his right retribution.
All good societies begin this way and slowly degenerate, who has more has always more of more and who has less has always less of less.
Then who has more doesn´t want any other having more and misuses his power to forbid it.
Then there are revolutions and everything goes back at the right beginning and so on…
One should learn from the past, but one never really learns.
I am getting at explicitly this:
1) There is no need for alt energy: you need alt organization of living arrangements. That can be done quickly and easily and at a low cost. Case in point, build many hundreds of skyscrapers across the USA, and put, within the same building, nice apartments to live on some floors, offices or what have you on other floors, and on other floors stores to buy. In such an arrangement, you don’t even need much oil anymore since you don’t have to use cars much at all. Or anyways anything similar, any permutation of the above. And build a BUS network (and trains if possible), but especially BUSES, diesel – electric, or ethanol electric. This also curbs emissions, oil usage, creates economies of scale, etc. Also telecommuting to work, and similar. There are many options if it is really desired.
2) We don’t even need so much labor anymore given that the economy is now an automatic – optimized economy that needs very little real productive work to produce all it needs, therefore free salaries or something along these lines.
3) End the home ownership myth, install cheap rents, build homes with cheap rents or make them available (there are 10 million empty homes in the USA).
4) Free public health care.
5) Get rid of most of the right wing, capitalistic ideology as it is now obsolete, no longer pertains to an automatic, excess capacity, globalized economy that needs less and less labor.
6) Huge public, and public – private ambitious programs, like space exploration, high speed trains, skyscrapers, you name it.
7) Resource Scarcity is all false, the resources are infinite, technology will overcome any and all limitations (solar, wind, nuclear, genetic engineered bacteria that produce oil, fusion energy) especially if you mine the solar system and especially if you use many alternative social and urban organizations. Remember man is the infinitely programmable machine, the resources therefore are infinite. this living arrangement is only one quirk system possible amongst many hundreds of others possible. Study anthropology just to have an idea
8) Money doesn’t run out, it is an invention, it simply reflects social interactions, organizations and power structures, therefore money is also infinite.
9) Don’t buy into any of the myths this right wing ideology has been brainwashing everyone with for the last 100 years, namely, competition, the ever changing new skill sets, innovation (this yes if you innovate as described above), the more education means more work myth, democracy, and all the many myths I described in all my posts.
Now, go on and convince obama to implement all of this…
” I begin to relax – like my generations of farming, hunter-gathering, and cave dwelling ancestors before me – to realize that warmer weather, almost always, means happier days, better food, maybe even – better sex.”
-poc-
I just have to ask PoC…was the above just an “affected” attempt to annoy Q? I’m sorry, but it’s just too damn corny, even for you.
-buck-
LOL – that’s about the nicest thing anyone has said about me on CFN in a while! Gotta keep pushing those envelopes.
You think I got a little to much “optimism” into that post?
I did get a little carried away yesterday – watching the sap rise all around. And pruning those fruit trees, fig trees, and grape vines – taking the power of nature and throttling it down for my own purposes – yeah!
That thing about the “gentleman farmer” being the highest form of existence – I can second that notion, especially on a day like yesterday.
As far as “better sex” specifically – it’s an important part of the puzzle – for why something about American life has gone so far off the rails. Sex sells everything, but it’s not bringing happiness to very many people at all.
So I don’t mind bringing sex up on CFN.
We’ve talked about worse subjects here.
Agreed,
We had the right idea after the depression and WWII. If we go in the direction of purity in any system, we cause misery. The mixed economy we had worked for the majority of people. I am not interested in a welfare state, but I think dismantling the commons and all the checks and balances for the sake of the global economy was totally destructive to the middle class.
Corruption is part of our nature, but there comes a time when it throws everything off. When government, corporations, banks collude the people suffer.
We could make the right choices by utilizing our anti trust laws already on the books and reinstating Glass-Steagall, but will to do so by the leadership of this country isn’t there.
Again this morning I hear people discussing how we should compete globally. Do these people understand what they mean by this?
Do they understand the bottom line is that those who charge the least for their services wins? Where does that leave us?
All I know is that services are going up in price, rents are going up, houses will be going up. etc. Where does that leave a working public that h as to accept less and less money for their work?
What would Jesus drive, drink, etc.
driving –
“I’d have to go with a Bronco” – tripp
Yeah, no doubt! Or maybe a Mustang. Or a Mule or a Gator? OK, that’s probably enough of that.
Jesus would certainly have a great webblog.
And a cool Facebook page.
This does raise the interesting question about some of the other Greats of history would have turned modern society to the advantage of their ideas.
Thomas Paine and the “Common Sense” blog?
Geo. Washington emailing the Army at Valley Forge
John Hancock digitally signing the Declaration?
Makes you wonder where all the great leaders have gone, doesn’t it?
Anyway – why would Jesus buy beer? He could just turn water into wine.
Okay old 6699 you’re making your points & I’m not going to bust your you know what anymore, but, I still don’t see where all the resources would come from to implement a system like that.
The whole premise of this site is that resources are dwindling … just the opposite of what you seem to be saying … that resources are infinite.
Additionally, for what you suggest, wouldn’t it be necessary for a strongman leader to regimentalize and dicipline the population per Stalin in 1931 and Hitler in 1934? And perhaps eliminate people couldn’t or wouldn’t conform? It sounds like the recipe for another bloodbath.
Are there any CFNers here who understand Old6699 and agree with what he’s saying?
Those 4 Americans hijacked on their Yacht by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea … they were all just murdered.
Any body out there still telling us that Islam is a ‘Religion of Peace’?
I don’t know why, but I’m starting not to believe you.
I was thinking JC would drive a Ford F-150, maybe a HD F-350, with a Calvin and Hobbes sticker pissing on the Cresent Moon!
“Makes you wonder where all the great leaders have gone, doesn’t it?” We used to be a country run by intellectuals and now we are run by morons and actors!
Just reread these comments and it makes me look like a neo-con! Yikes! I’m actually a libertarian and not the tea bag type!
{I just have to ask PoC…was the above just an “affected” attempt to annoy Q? I’m sorry, but it’s just too damn corny, even for you.
-buck-
LOL – that’s about the nicest thing anyone has said about me on CFN in a while! Gotta keep pushing those envelopes.}
—-
here in self-centered city, i figured PoC was just throwing me a bone, wedging sex into the conversation.
do not even the heavyweights here — and i’m sure they don’t know who they are — power down their computers from time to time, put their considered opinions upon a shelf, walk out into this beautiful world?
for example, i always read lbendet’s posts with a careful eye, i’m confident in his or her judgement and facts, i’ve found the writing cumulatively instructive. still, i wonder if l ever bends it, even just a little bit.
I’ll take a Slant Six (225 CID) over anything the bankers create. Steel has intrinsic value, and the Slant Six was as reliable a motor as ever found its’ way under a car hood. (The GM 3800 isn’t too shabby in that regard, either.)
The world of things will reclaim our lives from the world of shadows and digits on screens. In what state we end up when the reclamation happens is the question to ponder.
Probably a donkey powered wooden two wheeled cart.
i see the messiah in a 1967 pontiac gto.
http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Pictures-c8408-pi14822132-1967-GTO.html
That’s a really good point. The US has about as much influence as Finland in this bun toss but so has the likes of Bin Laden and his Egyptian sidekick al-Zawahiri.
Trippticket, Orion, PoC et al;
friends;
It’s fun to banter back and forth about Jesus, postulating on what he would or would not drive … jab some jabs at the Christian religious fanatics out there …not being too religious myself it doesn’t bother me … besides religious people, Christians and Jews alike, are an easy mark … you can say anything you want to or about them … they won’t respond much, just turn the other cheek … meanwhile as an added bonus we get some morning yuks on the cloistered CFN … what’s not to like? … even Jim throws some jabs once in awhile … it’s all in good fun … what the hell. right …
Ok, but I warn you, Don’t ask anybody “WHAT WOULD MOHAMMED DRIVE’? That is, if you want to keep your head on your shoulders.
-Marlin
“here in self-centered city, i figured PoC was just throwing me a bone, wedging sex into the conversation.”
Actually, I was throwing that out there mostly with you in mind, orion. Or, more likely, with the delightful charms of JackieBlue in mind.
It is a funny thing. Under the umbrella of Peak Oil, over the past 8 months – I have watched, cheered, and thrown the occasional punch – as CFN has engaged in some roaring fistfights over some really contentious stuff.
Politics, religion, and race – the big 3 of contention – never mentioned in polite society – but debated on here to the point that it sometimes seemed that Demons in Hell must be participating in, or at least monitoring, the discussion thread.
But, despite my gentle encouragement; joyous, natural sex is a topic that seems to be off the CFN table, or something – even though our host is not shy about including it in his fiction.
I’ve got a couple of theories about this, but I’d like to hear from some other posters.
===================
and “heavyweights” – Lord a Mercy, orionoir – glad neither you nor I can never be considered to fall under such an awful sounding descriptor!
Your point is noted, Marlin:
“WHAT WOULD MOHAMMED DRIVE’?
There have got to be some Muslims out there, somewhere, with a sense of humor. They sure don’t make it into the news very often in the States, though. We seem to hear about the Muslim lunatic fringe pretty consistently. And 19 of the lunatic fringe did attract our attention on 9/11/01.
Ought to make somebody want to call up that preacher in Kansas and ask him what Mohamed would drive.
And then ask him what Jesus would drive.
And then ask him if he had ever considered the possibility that Jesus would be driving while gay, bi, or transgendered.
Anyone ever wondered what the genotype of Jesus would be?
XY is the genetic code for a “normal” male.
Y comes from the father’s (Father’s) chromosomes.
XY-? X?-? X(GodlyY)
I’m off (the website??) until tonight.
You are SO wrong. In Revelations (King James Version) it says that the Lord will descend from the heavens on a purple charger on the day of his second coming.
End of discussion. Jesus will drive a purple Dodge Charger.
Jen
Latest headlines from MSNBC: “NEW YORK — Stocks fell sharply Tuesday and oil prices spiked as investors became worried about increasingly violent protests in Libya.
Oil prices rose 6 percent to $95 a barrel after the uprising threatened the country’s oil production. Libya is the world’s 18th largest oil producer, accounting for 2 percent of global daily output. It also sits atop the largest oil reserves in Africa.
At least 250 people have been killed in Libya so far, according to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Key government officials have resigned and air force pilots have defected following a crackdown on protests in Tripoli, Libya’s capital.
Traders are worried that the unrest will spread to other oil-rich countries in the region or lead to higher gas prices for consumers. Governments in Libya’s neighbors Tunisia and Egypt have fallen in the past month and protests are continuing in other countries in the region including Yemen and Bahrain.”
Many People hide behind their personas / images, you know what I mean. And their Titles. I am a doctor, etc. They hide behind their work. And or lose themselves in it. – Jackie
Bang on. Also, the reality is that in the corporate and professional world you have to conform to a certain image. The man in the grey flannel suit, the organization man even if this terminology is really old.
Then you see that it’s all fake. The organization that hired you looks at you and wants only one thing, to either eliminate your ass from the payroll or offshore it to India.
You realize after about the third “restructuring”, watching your compadres get hustled out the door with a cardboard box under their arm that next time it could be you. When you’re young you’re optimistic, that it’ll always be somebody else gets it between the eyes and not you. And then you realize it’s not a question if “if” but rather “when”.
And you realize that this modern working world is a sinking ship with a greasy pole that everybody’s trying to scramble up to stay above the waves while Wall Street and CEO’s steal millions and billions from shareholders or workers or pensioners or the company coffers.
After decades of it the personal fakery is onerous. It’s an act. You’re not really your tightly wound work persona and you revile the relentless skull cracking regimen and bullshit life you’re living. Every merger/acquisition/divestiture/restructuring/system conversion that you busted your ass over was a total waste of time because it would inevitably all be undone in the next corporate tumult. It’s like wearing shoes that don’t fit and you want to get rid of them.
Are you a corporate drone like I was Jackie?
I pronounce “orionoir” as “iron ore”. And I really can’t picture you as a corporate drone. The image of a pasty faced, round shouldered, lungless sedentary doesn’t square with your writing.
pucker asked: Comment: What kind of a pickup truck would Jesus drive? trip then answers: bronco. then san jose mom ends with a charger. listen, i believe it paramount that for this level of discussion that the vocabulary be kept clean. fist off, a bronco is not a pickup nor is a charger. this thread takes on the parallel of the childrens game of telephone. that type of devolution in the discussion corrupts any validity.
Orionoir
I guess my cyber personality is rather pedantic! Ha, that’s really funny. Just like anyone else on this blog incl. JHK, I do have a sense of humor and am a well-rounded individual.
I never wanted to get personal on this blog–it’s not facebook ya know, but ok since people keep asking….Awright already, I’m a woman. Also a boomer. Wouldn’t trade the time I grew up for anything. I had a great time and still continue to enjoy my life.–phew I feel so much better now.
I work at home 90% of the time as a digital retoucher and artist an am working with a gallery toward a 4-person show of abstract art.
Why am I so adamant about what I write here? Because I’m over-compensating for the lack of information defining our global and financial – military hegemony. It all fits into our PO situation and monopoly capitalism. We are suffering and have been for a long time, although we didn’t really bear the brunt until 2008.
I am informed by many economists who are more Keynesian and believe we took a wrong turn when we embraced supply-side-global economics.
I was just visiting a website of Henry C.K. Liu. and recommend something he wrote in 2009:
How Supply Side Economics of a Low Tax Regime Pushes Down Wages.
http://www.henryckliu.com/page213.html
Yikes! You covered a lot of stuff with that post, and boy, it does look like a coalescing of a bunch of things, making the perfect shit-storm [coming soon].
So, just to pick one item [of many] that we’ve been painted into a corner by. (And really, not “the little people’s” doing; this was done for BIG MONEY and ALL THE MARBLES. Our inattention and complacency ALLOWED it to happen; I think there’s a difference, not an “excuse”.)
Sorry; here we go…
“One thing, though, the panic about rising crude shows how important oil still is the the west. Just last week, in some newsspeak happytalk, I heard Obama refer to petroleum as ‘yesterdays energy’, as if he had something waiting in the wings to replace it. I’ve been hearing about ‘alternative energy’ since my college days 35 years ago, usually by some smug, effete sonofabitch who acted like he knew more than everybody else. Well, where is this ‘alt energy’? You’ve had 40 years. We could use some know.” -M554
Let’s take a very brief skimming of the political “tone” of this issue.
Jimmy ‘the wimp’ Carter went on the teevee, wearing a sweater; said to turn down the thermostat, conserve fuel, and get busy on finding new sources of energy. Now, that would require an adjustment in “lifestyle” that was [apparently] non-negotiable, resulting in pissing and moaning, and general 3-year-old behavior in the infantilized “American People”.
So, when the RW corporatist, eco-raping, profit-gulping actors and their Republican toadies sensed that pouting, they knew just what to do.
— Candy, yes, candy for everyone, it’s “morning in America” (you stupid fuckers), and get them solar panels down off the roof. You don’t need that shit; there’s plenty of oil for all, forever! Let Unka Ronnie here, take care of you, and there will never be a day of discomfort again. …And if anyone should get in our way (unions, brown people, those who aren’t “profitable”, “commies”, etc.), Gawd he’p ’em, we’ll kick their sorry asses.
…And thusly were “the conservatives” led down the garden path by those who would take from them their birthright, their dreams, and their very future survival in the service of Almighty Mammon and the fevered, insane, world-domination dreams of St. Ronnie the Addled.
What was around that last bend in the garden path? Why look! A small clearing with a barrel on its’ side; two stakes driven into the ground on either side; and some lengths of rope. What do you think happens next? …Noooo, it’s not the Rapture, Poppets; noooo, it’s not a membership to the Wealthy Fuckers Club; and noooo, it’s not safety from all those people and things we’ve been carefully taught to hate…
C’mon, guess what happens.
Someday, I’ll make a journey to St. Ronnie’s grave, blubber a little for my FUBAR’ed former country, have a few [more] tots of whiskey, and piss on that fucker’s headstone. Hope it leaves a nice stink. (What was that, Suburban E., asparagus?)
Well now, I feel better; how ’bout you? ;o)
Oops, I think it was LLB with the “asparagus effect”. ;o)
You look at those chicks and you wonder where it is written that they have to look so skinny, even anorexic.
Ozone;
You better not try that peeing stunt!
President Reagan’s grave has security cameras all over the place fitted with special technology to identify unfriendly intruders.
THEY KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!
Just because you’re holed up in the hills in western New England, under 4 ft of snow, don’t think you won’t be found. You will be.
Just joking, Ozone.
Whoa!
We’re both “feeling better” about somethin’, one after t’other.
That can’t be good. This place is for venting spleen and bile. Mis-use of “product” infraction! ;o)
Mot people writing here are either impotent or frigid, as is most of the west and first world, so get over it.
Agreed, these 2 terms are cultural artifacts (impotence and frigidity), they don’t really exist in nature, they are mental – social constructions according to a youth driven sex model which is practically impossible to achieve for anyone.
In nature anyways the deal is, people get toghether, reproduce, end of story. If they do it once or a million times, at 13 years old or 90 who knows and who cares…
Anyways….
social security taxes are simple taxes….went to supreme court. do a little research you stupid f*ck!
LOL!
I think by the time I drag my sorry, seditious ass out there to do the dirty deed, nobody is gonna give much of a shit. Other fish to fry than worrying about the desecration of some damn-fool’s “spinning”-place, eh?
PoC,
Truth be told, I enjoy your posts on the nature world of Georgia–you write beautifully. And you’re pretty unflappable too; Asoka is the only one who has managed to throw you off you’re game, you of the rapidly flapping fingers. And speaking of Asoka, I hope everything is OK.
But back to Georgia. Have you ever heard of Guzton Borglum and the Stone Mountain carved Confederate memorial debacle? To make a long story short, the irascible Borglum, who eventually carved the Mt. Rushmore memorial, was literally chased out of Georgia by the State Patrol. Quite a character, to say the least.
Old6699;
You leave me puzzled???
-Marlin
Maybe I’m the odd man out here, but I really can’t stand NASCAR and its fan base, but I actually like Formula One racing. That latter is expanding eastward, with an F-1 race being planned for India in the future. How does F-1 racing fit into the established anti-sports bias of this CF?
And how much does it cost to have a fly-over of 4-5 F-18 Hornets (over a domed stadium no less!) or at a NASCAR event? I think the idea is to get young men at such events think the military is “cool.” Who is doing the cost/benefit analysis of the military “sponsoring” of such professional events?
Apparently anyone who pays into Social Security–and make no mistake, that is how the program is sold–and expects to receive a check at the appropriately designated moment, is either an “Idiot” or, according to Jonathan SS, a sympathizing “Tea Bagger”.
Beyond that, your original assertion is quite bizarre:
“.too all the idiots that repeatedly state..’they paid into social security so they deserve to get a check’…BULLSH*T…! no one paid into SS. they paid taxes and those taxes built roads, paid welfare, and bought bullets for police actions in foreign countries….no one paid into ‘social security’.”
And the best you can do is cite some arcane legal ruling (I do question whether you have the capability of correctly interpreting your citation) when you know full well the implicit social contract as understood by nearly anyone with room temp IQ over the last seventy-plus years.
In fact, millions of “Idiots” expect to receive a Social Security check every month–and they do.
But go take a look at a Schedule SE and carefully read what those collected taxes are earmarked for, instead of attempting to obfuscate your incredibly lame initial assertion in convoluted legalese.
Interesting questions.
…On the nascar deal, I don’t begrudge anyone enjoying it for the [mebbe-somebody’s-gonna-get-kilt] gladiator event that it is, I just have a bitch with its’ encouragement of resource wasting at the most blatant level. Why? Because the Big Boy producers WANT us to waste ’em. Why? Because it fattens their short-term bottom line. Why? …I dunno; ’cause I don’t understand that mind-set of unending, rapacious acquisitiveness.
Oh well, didn’t get too far with that, did I? ;o)
Please cite the “other provisions of law”
EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL SECURITY FROM ALL BUDGETS Pub. L. 101-508, title XIII, Sec. 13301(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104Stat. 1388-623, provided that: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of – (1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by the President, (2) the congressional budget, or (3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
Ozone;
That special racing blend used in NASCAR … its provided for free by the folks at Sunoco for the privilege of hanging up their banners around the stadiums. I understand it would sell for as much as $20.00 per gallon. It must be costing Sunoco quite a bit … I don’t think those 750bhp cars get too good gas mileage ‘specially at 200mph, but the company must think they get their moneys worth.
Cash stated: “Every merger/acquisition/divestiture/restructuring/system conversion that you busted your ass over was a total waste of time because it would inevitably all be undone in the next corporate tumult.”
========================
Yes, the whole notion of “change is good” that is nothing more than an excuse for management to prove they are “doing” something, that they are “making an impact” in their organizations — usually long enough to turn things upside down before they wander off to their next position in the corporation, or occasionally, are deemed unwanted by the corporation and are removed. All crap created to keep everything in flux whether existing organizations and processes are worth keeping or not. To call this approach to operations a mess is an understatement.
Cheers
Before reading any of the comments, I’d like to say thanks to James for not leaving for greener mosh-pits.
Make your stand right where you are, there’s no where else to go.
C. Cruz stated: “The idea that Facebook and Twitter are the new town square is rather amusing, considering that the center of these revolutions turned out to be the actual town square. Despite all these digital wonderlands, it was actual public places where actual flesh-and-blood people gather such as Tahrir Square that acted as critical catalysts for these acts of public solidarity and defiance.”
=============================
Strongly agree. The nonstop attempt to substitute virtual interaction for real interaction among citizens is insidious but apparently has been very successful in at least some of the western countries, and in the USA very much so.
What your comments imply is that these virtual town squares (like, um, this one we’re using) can be turned off on the whim of “the authorities”. It doesn’t take much thought to realize this setup is loaded in favor of the state/corporate establishment against any interests that citizens might have.
Also noteworthy is that interest in the virtual meeting places is probably scant (compared to western countries) in the countries where all the turmoil is taking place now — that is, the people in those countries still have public places to meet in person. The closest thing to such a meeting place in the USA anymore are the shopping malls, which conveniently happen to be the property of corporations and which the public can be locked out of if it pleases the corporation to do so. It is harder to lock down a genuine town square, marketplace, etc.
There are still functional cities in the USA with real public spaces, but unless one has lived in one of these cities, the knowledge of such spaces and their role in public activities is limited.
Cheers
Yes, I heard on Public radio…KCRW.
So, so much for public radio.
I have zero respect for prison guards and their union, And they are a major part of the uprising in Wisconsin!
The left siding with prison guards…a laugh.
You didnt eat that ‘rogue’ dog you shot, why would you eat rabbits?
Let see:
LA Times, Wash Post, Newsweek, Fareed Zakariah, Time etcetcetc.NBC Bla Bla Bla
wasnt ‘Bio’ Rudolph Steiners baby?
yes banks are failing, by the 100’s I believe.
so killing a cop is ‘fighting for whats right’?
@ Mr JHK – spot on as usual – but then I get and so love your high-toned comedy!
@ Newfie – spot on post matey – good link…thx
Tis the Saudi Royals now shi##ing themselves that the ole tribal wounds of past have/will now roll into there eastern (oil field/tech) region…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8294187/Mid-East-contagion-fears-for-Saudi-oil-fields.html
And yes those last week Wikileaks do seem to infer that some Arabian types have been telling (porkie-pies) think cockney-rhyming slang about real reserves, ahem, cough, well for decades actually…
‘Crude Awakening’ – was a well made movie (I bought it years ago) – was way ahead of its time and both Colin Campbell & Matt Simmons were on the money ages ago, (with geology/oil tech defo). But not a single OECD politico has EVER taken this info out there vocally, with the people they allude to represent – and hinted get ready folks…. TLE is coming.
http://www.youtube.com/user/pennyshares#p/u/7/-IXjd7ZOxJo
Some more of the movie tasters to view, here
http://www.youtube.com/user/pennyshares#p/u/5/eRWkD4t5q6E
This clip way-ahead of its time is bang on with what is unravelling now in the ME…
http://www.youtube.com/user/pennyshares#p/u/3/_bQlkZPRxKM
And the same movie too will tell you why tech at this late stage, will not save our collective 7bn peeps bacon…
And as far as I’m still aware not one single major, large audience, Western TV station network anywhere has EVER broadcast this whole film either…
(I wonder why?)
So come on ladies, get on yer backs you Yankee high-fructose-corn-syrup and taco-bell fuelled southern gals yawl, and start popping out those future (Hoo-Rah) ready to go Jarheads!
Camouflaged khaki the de-rigueur new black coming soon everywhere, no YSL goodie-bag required!
But who’ll be ‘controlling’ us free-soul-spirited libertine types sailing out there in the deep blue sea… eh?
I’m back in my temp home domain now of Plymouth UK, so twas good-bye to what was once St. Boloph, last week tis far warmer here… lol
We have a last-century memorial tucked away in Devonport, so no one with an iPhone ever visits there *sniggers* it’s in honour of a local guy whom ventured deep into the Antarctic…
Around the site is laid some words from one of his last diary entries, that read thus:
“We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last…
If only our US/UK leaders had the guts & right stuff to start thinking and talking out loud in a similar fashion…
(Dream on)
Be seeing you…
Banking Busts and Blunders:
http://problembanklist.com/
Have fun!
Back to Wisconsin …
Apparently, the whole thing is a plot by the Crotch brothers. What just occurred to me is that unlike most CEOs, they think beyond the next quarter. Interesting.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/21/947947/-The-Koch-Brothers-End-Game-in-Wisconsin
And, yes. I was responsible for “The Asparagus Effect” post. But, not that name. Which, I really like.
I also am responsible for the “Junk expands to fill the space allowed” meme, but I’ll let that one slide 🙂 .
{I never wanted to get personal on this blog–it’s not facebook ya know, but ok since people keep asking….Awright already, I’m a woman. Also a boomer. Wouldn’t trade the time I grew up for anything. I had a great time and still continue to enjoy my life.–phew I feel so much better now.}
—-
thanks so much for satisfying my curiosity, lbendet — i did sense a female vibe in your writing, but my radar isn’t 100%. (it’s a game i play whenever reading… guess the gender of the journalist… i’m right better than chance, but not a whole lot more.)
‘pedantic’ isn’t quite the word with which i’d tag you… ‘thorough,’ ‘well-informed’ but, alas, also ‘humorless,’ as in one who suffers fools not gladly. thus i thought you some kind of academic.
as jackieblue2u stated, a person becomes his or her persona. that can be liberating, albeit dangerously so. in real life, with occupations, some of us can compensate for our more distressing personal shortcomings; sometimes that’s a good thing.
i was afraid that when my dad retired he would cease to exist: if he wasn’t a doctor any more, who or what could he possibly be? when i was young i was ashamed of him — he had none of the easy social skills of other kids’ dads, he seemed a second-rate doormat in the world of good-natured shoulder-chucking men. then once i was with him in the hospital, i saw all these hardened nurses and young docs kissing his ass, i realized he was somebody. once, after a big race i had won, a middle-aged couple came up to shake my hand; of course i figured it was because i was such a star. the man said, your father, he is a great man. he kept repeating those words; he wouldn’t let go of my hand. turns out their daughter was dead, but i guess my dad had ushered her into the beyond with his signature compassion & integrity.
being on disability troubles my self-esteem, that’s for damn sure. still, i can’t get over how beautiful this world can be sometimes.
Puzzled ? It was with regards to:
From progressorconserve :
“But, despite my gentle encouragement; joyous, natural sex is a topic that seems to be off the CFN table, or something – even though our host is not shy about including it in his fiction.
I’ve got a couple of theories about this, but I’d like to hear from some other posters.”
He wants theories so:
Most people writing here are either impotent or frigid, as is most of the west and first world, so get over it.
Agreed, these 2 terms are cultural artifacts (impotence and frigidity), they don’t really exist in nature, they are mental – social constructions according to a youth driven sex model which is practically impossible to achieve for anyone.
In nature anyways the deal is, people get together, reproduce, end of story. If they do it once or a million times, at 13 years old or 90 who knows and who cares…
Take it or leave, put it in your pipe and smoke it.
think what the guy’s getting at is that SS taxes are not put away in any fund anywhere, the excess after paying out to SS recipients is just thrown in with general funds and spent immediately on something such as road building and whatnot, and the government literally writes on a piece of paper ‘We owe XXX to the SS Trust Fund’ for whatever it didn’t, but should’ve, placed into the mythical Trust Fund.
well now those pieces of special paper, when THEY need to be paid, are ‘funded’ by stripping the populace of its money via taxes.
look, SS is a vicious con, like most of .gov, sure people get paid a pittance of what they COULD’ve earned with the money, but the system’s design guarantees that it will implode, it’s analogous to a snake eating itself from the tail forward.
i’m just glad it’ll be there to take care of me though.
Last Word on
What Would Jesus Drive:
1970 Hemi ‘Cuda
All powerful, sign of the fish
R. Sox
qtips said, “pet peeves): the entire concept, near universal among women but rare among men, of keeping up with “fashion.” Silly me, I believe clothes should be worn until they are worn out.”
Something you should understand about women: they are basically creatures of habit.
A woman without make-up is like a woman undressed. Would you leave the house undressed? Likewise, a woman without the proper fashion would be shunned from the social circles.
The social circles are arrainged in a vertical position. From top to bottom, the prettiest, trendiest, and most exclusive groups, down to the fugliest and least attractive groups.
Since fundamentally, beauty is unearned wealth, or at least access to it, this is the simplest measure of one’s peer group.
Whereas, in the male domain, these vertical heirarchies exist, there is no advantage to physical beauty- in fact, it is most likely an impediment. A similar slavishness to fashions also exists in subtle terms- hair off the collar, no neckflames, suits, ties, shoes, etc.
In the female experience (as contrasted to the domain) the experience is defined as quality of life inversely proportional to time. Everything has a sell-by date, this idea is imprinted and programmed from an early age by society. A person hits milestones by which time they are expected to attain certain things, otherwise, they are failures and outcasts.
These milestones are patterned on time-points. These begin in primary school. Young children are thrown in a room and the competition begins. Who gets better grades than whom; who plays with who on the playground; who is taller than, draws with crayons better, runs faster, gets higher marks on the test, and so forth. Integral to all of this is the importance of appearance.
Appearance is enforced throughout the culture, in adults, primarily, and this is picked up by the children. They imitate the patterns of behavior of their parents. They get it from nowhere else. Appearance would not be a parameter of social status if it was not a prime expression in social mores.
When adults tell children “Appearances don’t matter” or even the old canard, “Be yourself”, it is of course, a lie, even if its best intentions are transmitted, the implication is that the adult world is a world of untruths and moral failure.
Anyway, back to the wimmen.
A woman is controlled by her biology to a much greater extent than a man. This is not so much a product of her essential physicality, but again, programming. A girl is taught very early on the distortions that she has a biological clock, that beauty fades and cannot be replaced, that her body is a capsule with a sell-by date. In other words, a woman’s beauty value is maximized by 18 and plateaus for a very short time and then declines rapidly by 40. This terrifying scenario is believed by most women. It is a message reinforced by other women, primarily, and then cultural messages.
A woman starts competing, these days, well before puberty. It does not end after the “prime years”, it is extended. The cultural mythology is filled with examples of this extended vanity.
And it is a very simple vanity. The worst aspects of it evolve a person who is, at worst, delusional and self-destructive. Since women take at face value in their formative years that their potential has its roots in a degenerating physicality, hitched to self-worth and therefore happiness, there arises a sort of morbid fatalism.
Women don’t spend an hour a day working out- no- because the body cannot be defended against time- and that would be hard work, which is a hallmark of lower classes and therefore, non-beauty. They spend an hour concealing, smoothing, blending, primping, and if they have money, boob jobs, butt jobs, crinkle-erasing, and so forth.
The terror of deterioration and the loathing of hard work deter women from a healthy self-concept. Most women, anyway. After a while, the exercise of makeup and fashion is an exercise in pursuing self-esteem. Obviously this is a false place ot pursue self-esteem.
Fashion is simply the adjunct to the attainment of beauty. It is couched in terms of “self-expression”, or even “taste”, but, this is manifestly untrue in most cases, as you would begin to wonder how developed a creative, individuated sense of self-expression could be when it is simply a mirror image of something else.
Where I live, the current thing is fur-lined hooded parkas, and skin-tight jeans, with boots of some kind. Yesterday’s trends are fading, like the hideous Huge Sunglasses trend, or before that, g-string and thong “Whale tails”. Heels come in, go out.
But fashion doesn’t stop at clothes- it continues into accessories- the studs, rings, necklaces- and the tattoos- the ubiquitous “tramp stamps”. What else- boyfriends, husbands, who are compared on their relative “merits”, Cars and SUVs, jewelry, number and type of children, cats or dogs, all the “lifestyle” accouterments… the wallpaper, the color of carpet, and so forth.
If a woman of this type is with a man that is her equal, you can rest assured that he is clothed in the appropriate “male” fashion. A fashionable woman would not tolerate anything less. Therefore many men’s “fashions” are actually aimed at women, who they adorn like all their other possessions. Women prefer suits because they want their man to look like the most successful men. If Donald Trump took to wearing Tu-tus, then that would follow. Also note that not a few men would take to tu-tus without a woman to command it thusly; a great deal of men are already subject to the tyranny of women by their absurd socialization which pedestalizes the female. Many men these days are fashion-hounds because of the increasing absence of the male from primary education and development.
Remember, these are all learned value scales, so, “Ken” dolls are the prototypical mate, and girls have a decades-long head start in the ways of dominating men and other women. They are given models of people to manipulate, and this is their primary talent and skill.
I have typed long enough here, but, suffice it to say that men live in a world created by and for women, like it or not, and no one will repeat this fact to anyone in polite company because it is anathema to the accepted belief. Consumer society’s values, and even capitalism’s values- are reflections of the feminine will.
The Consume-everything, regardless of the future, regardless of the common wealth, is a mirror of these female vices. The future simply isn’t important to such creatures. When their beauty runs out there is no point to life. Continuance was always a man’s concern. He was concerned because he was never sure if his children were his own.
I think the decline of men happened over time. It was a result of the enlightenment and increased technology, but also the intense negativity of popular culture against the male. As popular culture exerts its insidious effect on females, males get a different spectrum of dysfunctional and destructive programming. I would argue it is even more destructive that the programming for the females, as it results in mass body counts, mortality, morbidity, and more frequently, and mental illness. The separation of males from the sphere of children has been especially horrible. The alienation in first world societies has been in crisis for longer than many thought possible.
Yeah, and don’t forget the pinkerton. If you bother to check out the history, you’ll find that the cops, the pinkertons, and local businessmen attacked the union organizers without provocation the night before. The businessmen said they were all Communists. Back then, shooting union organizers was a pretty popular sport. The men went out to organize, & the cops & pinkertons showed up to kick their asses & got piss pounded instead. Too bad for them.
BustinJ you sure do know alot about women!
-Marlin
BustinJ,
I don’t agree with everything you say, but you do make some excellent points.
I’ve noticed that many of the women in my immediate neighborhood are into “Ladies Night Out” socials that involve “pampering.” Next week they are going to all get their nails done and drink wine. I was invited, but declined the invitation because 1)Mostly they bitch about men, and shamelessly gossip. 2)I work out in the garden too much, hence my nails get dirt under them. I keep my nails really short because it suits me. I don’t know why they think they need to be pampered on a regular basis?
This “Nail Night” is being organized by the uber-bitch across the street. She was a cheerleader and homecoming queen when she was in high school, then went on to become a sorority slut at Cal Poly (She has huge boobs!). No doubt some of the night’s conversation will be “Nail Jen” since I won’t be around to defend myself. (I feel a snit coming on…)
They also have botox parties. Yikes. Some women ask me if I’ve had botox because my skin is unusually wrinkle free for age 51. I tell them that my secret is Dial soap and a life of wearing sunscreen. They expect to hear that I use some $100 potion from Macy’s (you’d have to be into magical thinking to believe the outragious hype in some of those fancy cremes).
As for men’s fashion. I don’t know where you live, but in Silicon Valley, professional tech men wear Dockers to work. Very casual. I buy my husband Dockers and casual shirts because he doesn’t want to go anywhere near a store other than Fry’s Electronics or Best Buy. Seriously, he can go YEARS without buying a thing. I give up and go shopping for him when his pants get frayed.
Jen
{A woman is controlled by her biology to a much greater extent than a man.}
—-
bustin, you state a point of view well, but you seem oblivious to the existence of any other pov, a failing which i find unforgivable when writing about gender, race & class.
as an instructor of writing i used to tell my kids to red-pen “i think” and “in my opinion” from their work — after all, we know it’s what you think, you’re the one writing the essay. but in public discourse i think common sense imperes us to acknowledge respective limited fields of vision.
for example, not all women feel naked without make-up. i am well-acquainted with the type, but even in corporate connecticut she is in the minority. not all women feel stamped by a sell-by code, not all women are ruled by biology.
in a way, you’re like vlad, painting a portrait of the lazy pickaninny living for loose shoes and tight pussy — yes, the type surely exists, but no, it’s hardly representative of anybody.
in the nearby state university there are barbie dolls, for sure, but there are also plenty of man-haters, as well as man-eaters, dragon-ladies, shrinking violets, librarians in glasses, cum-slurping gutter sluts, girls next door, dressed for success ruthless corner-office seekers, jocks, more jocks, rocket scientologists… you name it. it takes all kinds, which is good, because we’ve got em.
are you young? then i forgive you. in prison or otherwise living not in the company of women? double forgiveness. sisterless, raised by wolves, singing in the vatican boys’ choir? if not, sheesh, get a clue: there are women exactly like you.
—-
oh, wait, now i remember what i was going to say, re {A woman is controlled by her biology to a much greater extent than a man} — you’ve almost got it right… please allow me to edit ever so slightly:
a man is controlled by her biology to a much greater extent than is she.
Didnt some fool from the Times write that bestseller?
‘THE HUMMER AND THE FICUS TREE’?
Bravo Bustin – you are a great Misogynist. And you have great potential as a general Misnathrope – if you could only get over your racial sentimentality. You are still trying for a place in the Liberal Tribe. Don’t bother – they’re dying. And they would never forgive you for your viewpoint of women anyway. Take a hint from Wells and get to Latin America where women still try to please men. Just watch out for the hustlers.
Yes theres an inevitable contraction for the US.
And its going to be very ugly.
But Wisconsin has been a hog farm for too long.
Lets not confuse pigging out with peak oil!
I cant find the post today above this about:
‘When i was young our town had 1 state trooper.’
Contrast this to Wisconsin [or was it Minn?]
THAT HAS A BILLION DOLLAR SUPERMAX PRISON WITH ONE INMATE.
That I heard on Public radio years ago.
Yet the libs side with the dreaded prison guards and their union.
Telling people not to generalize is the same as telling them not to think since a concept is a generalization. Yes of course caution must be used. There are over generalizations and there are different kinds of women. But in truth the male gender produces far more eccentrics – both higher and lower. The Bell Curve explains it well as usual. The mass of women are clustered right under the dome of the curve – far more than for men. Most men are there too – but far more men than women are at the lower and higher ends of the curve. Women see the large numbers of misfits, criminals, and retards and feel superior to men – all the while totally oblivious to the numerical dominance of men at the higher sectors of the curve especially the second and third standard deviations upwards (IQ’s of 115-130 and 130-145). In their defence though, there are far more men at the inferior end of the curve than in these higher areas. And of course it is easier to see what is beneath you existentially speaking – and much more fun…
Any thoughts on the Judge in Penn facing life in prison for being on the take from the ‘for profit prisons’?
Particularly with the goings on in Wisconsin [heroic prison guard protesters the left loves so in wisconsin].
Orionoir,
The world would be a dreary place without beauty and as someone who earned a BFA in painting I embrace it. Happily I still produce art and that is really where I live. Funny that you thought I was an academic.
Anyway I found your story about your dad, very touching and I also encountered someone who shook my hand in a similar way, saying “Your father is a Prince of a man”. It didn’t surprise me, though, he was smart, kind and funny–I lost him 23 years ago, right before I went to China.
When I went to the Great Wall, I kept walking beyond my friend and guide and found a small pavilion overlooking a particularly beautiful view of the mountains and sat for a while thinking about my dad. I could share this view with my family through photographs, but felt the finality of his passing in that I would never be able to share this with him.
OK, that was sad and serious. Honestly I have a more funny side–guess it didn’t come out in this post. Maybe next time.
Fascinating! Absolutely flip-flopping fascinating!
Ibendit
Lbendit
ibendit
lbendit
“I guess my cyber personality is rather pedantic! Ha, that’s really funny. Just like anyone else on this blog incl. JHK, I do have a sense of humor and am a well-rounded individual.”
-lbend-
I took your handle as Lbendet.
Orion, for understandable reasons, took your handle as Ibendet.
I would never, ever, in 1,000,000 years, have had the sensitivity or intuitive ability to deduce that you, Lbend, are female.
============
Which goes to part of my explanation as to why the CFN discussion thread is rather, shall we say – sexually muted.
Most of us on here project our own personalities like crazy. Therefore, Lbend, I just ASSUMED that you were male, right out of the chute, without another thought about it.
You are obviously intelligent. And you think, more or less, along the same lines of brilliant logic that inform my thinking.
But now that I know you are female, Lbendet – I just KNOW – KNOW, with Certainty – that you are gorgeous – physically and mentaly! It’s that projection thing operating, beyond my control, once again.
To be continued –
But you have to admit, this is very interesting!
What about the ultimate protest of the middle class. No one files a Federal tax return on April 15th. Millions of us – no return. Drag it on and then choke the system. What would happen if the trillion dollar military budget wasn’t funded? What kind of message would that send?
They already have our money, so it’s not a question of they can’t spend it. And now-a-days, even if we owed them money, the Fed can just print more and give it to the weapons brokers. Not worth much, but as long as the top executives, the upper 5 percenters got paper, they’d be ok with that. It’s all they are worth anyway.
Does anyone remember the chant, “Hell no we won’t go?” Well a bunch of us still ended up in the military, but it sure did raise a ruckus. And that’s just what they need in Washington – a message so blunt and so wide-sweeping that democrats and republicans can’t ignore it.
Like the stamp act revolt or the the Boston Tea Party (the real one), an act so demonstrative and
broad in scope that all the world would stand up and notice. The Americans are back, this time fighting tyranny within their own borders. Why they would have to send out the national guard after us and arrest us all. Millions of people going to court to jam the judicial system. The ten ton block that broke the system.
Wouldn’t it be something if the Wisconsin Statehouse protest worked its way across the nation and just like in the eastern countries it spread like wildfire. We can’t bail you guys out any more. We are broke, we are tired, we too want back the pursuit of happiness which you have stole right out from under us.
The Great Tax Revolt of 2011. I wonder if we have the guts.
{I could share this view with my family through photographs, but felt the finality of his passing in that I would never be able to share this with him.}
Everything is fine, just keep watching TV.
Actually, I think the Libya situation is a
tempest in a teapot. Over the short term,
Arabia has THREE Libyas worth of swing
capacity.
What really IS bothersome was today’s
announcement that the world corn demand
CANNOT be met because supplies are at
1974 lows.
Well, they don’t call this site CFN for
nothing.
E.
Chucky D
It could happen at some point when people are really hurting beyond listening to the platitudes they are given. They have to be at a point where nonsense like, We will be a nation of innovators is no longer going to keep people in line.
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a really interesting article back around 2008 describing the unemployed as going around with their laptops dressed in suits, too busy working to get a job to address the problem.
At what point does the charade get called-in by the majority?
Re: SS
Thanks for reiterating what I was trying to say. The fed gov’t borrows against the funds. I certainly didn’t mean to say that people should not expect to get payments, but that anything could happen (look at WI) when gov’t over promises they may have to under deliver.
Also, I never used the term “Tea Bagger”. I was questioning retirees that want less gov’t spending, as long as it doesn’t affect SS & Medicare (“Keep gov’t out of my Medicare!”).
E.
Re: Saudi Oil
Just came across this article on Energy Bulletin
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-02-22/oil-and-revolt-libya-%E2%80%94-what-if
Most of the people protesting in the ME right now simply want the right of self-determination, which is exactly what they are saying when asked why they are protesting. What could be more American than that? America invented this as the basis of governance. Some want Sharia law, but I do not get this impression from the protesters in Egypt, who are by and large focused on secular rights like voting and freedom of the press/expression. They want an end to corrupt, unaccountable regimes that do not follow the will of the people.
And the protesters are highly influenced by American culture, which is basically an open network where one can say whatever one wants, with the exception of extreme language like threatening the president. It was an American Google employee who sparked the protests in Egypt, which arguably began this whole chain of events. You may not realize it, but many in the ME when you get past the reflexive anti-Americanism due to policies like the support of Israel, actually want the same things as most Americans, e.g. the ability to vote and determine who is in charge, being able to express opposition and criticism, and to have open communication with anyone using the internet. These rights are highly appealing to most people.
The ME are realizing that it is not America which is the Great Satan but their own governments. I am not arguing that America has not done some really messed-up things in that region, especially the Iraq War, which was a catastrophe both for them and us. But for most countries, it is not American policies that are keeping them down but their own rulers.
The problem with censoring the internet is that to make it airtight, you have to shut it off entirely. It is oft said that the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. As you can see, the Egyptian and Libyan governments have had to completely shut off the internet in order to prevent people from interacting with each other.
Libya, for instance, bans political parties and allows absolutely no criticism of the regime. These regimes are incredibly and brazenly corrupt. The Egyptian leader supposedly has billions in offshore accounts in Switzerland. And many of these regimes are using police and soldiers with live ammo to put down protests, sometimes even grenades and air attacks.
What this does not bode well for (possibly) is Israel’s relations with some of its neighbors, including Jordan. Many of the protesters are calling for the severing of relations with that country. Maybe this is a good thing, because Israel should have to deal with the consequences of its actions and policies.
This all may also have an effect on oil exports when the dust settles. For instance, Libyan oil production has been shutdown as of now. New governments may not be willing to export as much as the previous ones, or they may nationalize their oil companies or boot out the multi-nationals. As usual, American politics in this area is primarily driven by oil.
I know you think Americans are cocksure about having an influence over ME politics, but I am not getting this at all. Obama said that he never thought that he would be able to determine the outcome in Egypt. Please see recent press conference.
What happens may depend on the country. Egypt is seeing a fairly orderly transition. If the Libyans keep up their protests, you may see full scale civil war, as Ghadaffi has vowed not to step down.
And actually, the US has enormous influence in Egypt. They are second on the foreign aid budget next to Israel. If you don’t think billions in aid is not a fairly big stick, I don’t know what would be.
“And the mosh-pit of Facebook seems an uncongenial place for my brand of high-toned comedy.”
Everything and everything happens on FB. There isn’t any one type of person to which it caters.
I don’t use Twitter either, but it has been enormously influential. You might as well call the Egyptian protests the Twitter Revolution.
“And people who don’t know what they are doing.”
I’m not sure how to interpret this in the context of your post. The people in the ME know exactly what they are doing and what they want. They want to be able to elect their own leaders, hold them accountable for their actions, and to be allowed to voice reasonable criticism without being flogged or having their businesses firebombed. They want to be able to organize their own political parties. They want to be able to peacefully assemble without getting shot at or have grenades thrown at them or get locked up in a torture dungeon.
I am not a neo-con by any means, but they got it right when they said that people naturally want democratic governments. And American being the first democracy (well republic actually), our culture is enormously influential there, whether you recognize that or not. People consider it a right to be able to communicate via the internet, and Twitter and FB are the primary tools, both of which (not coincidentally) were created by American companies.
The Saudi oil story is old news. See Twilight in the Desert. I guess Wikileaks provides some internal confirmation, but I think a 400+ page analysis by an energy expert is better evidence than a few diplomatic cables.
Mammar al-Gaddafi says, “Generations from now, Libya will be at the top! It will be the leader of Africa, Latin America and Asia; it will be the leader of the whole world!”
And you wonder why people want new governments? This guy is freaking nuts.
Jeez!
Such woman hating going on! Okay, yeah, we WOMEN like to dress in “style”. We know men expect some good looking legs lurking behind a skirt. Just a little secret, ya men out there…you like to get laid…guess what…? WE LIKE TO GET LAID, TOO! A little bit of powder, some lipstick, and a half decent set of gams gets us laid good and proper! (at least it used to work that way!) Oh, and yeah, San Jose Mom, we (OTHER) women are BITCHES! We’re just a few steps removed from the men when it comes to marking our territory! I’m not saying I’m particularly proud of this behavior from the “fairer sex”. We all inherited it from our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc. BTW, I liked that you don’t keep your nails “up”! Gardening is, to me, much sexier than a manicure! Let those neighborhood bitches sharpen their claws in their own fashion, and on their own time! No reason for you to give up a useful hobby to join in on the fray.
As for women and their influence on men’s fashion – okay, yeah…we ARE responsible! If it were up to women, (daresay it already is) men would look like gallon sized versions of Rosie O’Donnell! Can you say, “gag me with a spoon?” YUCK! Give me a man like “Tripp” any day of the week!!!
“The Great Tax Revolt of 2011. I wonder if we have the guts.” -ChuckyD
====================
Well, I suppose that all depends on how much one has to lose (think “asset seizure” and “liens”).
That’s the gun-to-the-head via the “justice” system they’ve got going for them.
Desperate measures can be mistaken for courage, and will certainly do the job at the crucial moment, but we’re just not in that kind of pain yet. I have no doubt it is coming, despite official reassurances to the contrary. Only one question is necessary to clear the whole issue. Is the govt. stockpiling enough food to feed the populace for [at the least] a year? If the answer is “no”, then you can see what they’re NOT considering. Hubris, ignorance and stupidity create a highly explosive and toxic mix when combined with times of scarcity and rampant uncertainty. (Keep an eye on the Rapture cults, if they suddenly expand their numbers, they’ll provide a sure clue that the fecal matter HAS ALREADY hit the oscillating air-circulation unit.)
Some have said that the Governor is pro-Corporation – and it may well be. But that misses the point: the contraction must come and it will call for sacrafice from everyone including Liberals. Who cares about the Teachers – there are no jobs and the schools are going to close. The kids will be better off without these repulusive Miss Grundies – all unconscious agents of the New World Order. Let the Liberals vote out the Governor if they like – it will all be the same in the end. And the Four Horsemen are coming for the Big Corporations as well.
Christ/Kalki/Mahdi will come after the Four and He will ride a White Horse. He came before as a suffering servant. This time He comes as a Conquering King.
Ha!
Well that’ll teach me to post before I read through everyone else’s!
Compact reply there; shutting the hell up now…. ;o)
“listen, i believe it paramount that for this level of discussion that the vocabulary be kept clean. fist off, a bronco is not a pickup nor is a charger”
-jammer-
Nice points, jammer –
My first concern was regarding, “fist off,” – because I thought that you were making some sort of funny veiled reference to the sexual atmosphere, or lack thereof, on CFN.
BUT, it’s likely that “fist off” was a simple typo.
And accuracy of posts is very important.
i appreciate your concern for the sort of car, truck, or other vehicle that jesus would drIve.
Thank you for your support.
Please post frequently.
a youth driven sex model which is practically impossible to achieve for anyone.
============
Translation: someone here’s gotta “woody” problem 😉
One more scary piece of supposition about the mysterious Ray Davis and what that harmless, regular guy might have been doing in the AfPak deal. (No, not Ray Davi[e]s from the Kinks; the pretend-diplomat, killer fellow!) WWIII anyone? We gots to get back on top somehow; seems like a good plan. Hoorah!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27548.htm
The interim Egyptian government immediately affirmed its intention to follow its international treaty obligations, including with Israel. Hm, could that be because they don’t want US and A to shut off the billions they get in international aid gravy? I’m thinking that could have something to do with it.
Not so with the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals.
“Is the govt. stockpiling enough food to feed the populace for [at the least] a year?”
Uh, no….
The modern food paradigm is “just in time” delivery, like most things these days. That means we don’t have a stockpile of food. Though I really don’t worry about food shortages in the USA all that much, at least not in the immediate future. The country is chock full of fat people, and we could probably lessen our consumption by a good 25% and still be fine. Just the food that goes to waste could feed a small African country. We could also simply cut our exports, which would screw over some other countries, but in truly desperate times it could conceivably happen. Also, people could stop eating so much meat, which could happen simply through economics as feed prices rise. We could also discontinue the ethanol boondoggle. Anyways, there’s a number of options for the US.
This is of course not the case in countries like Egypt and other parts of the Third World, which have faced bad problems with food supplies in the last couple years. I recall there was a Food Crisis a few years ago, and prices are starting to get up there again. Food scarcity and the Let’s just put it this way. If the USA starts having food supply problems, the rest of the world will have already gone Mad Max. Food scarcity and the accompanying rising prices will be a huge issue going forward due to continued overpopulation and changing crop yields from to climate change. Unlike the US, people in poor countries spend a big chunk of their budget on food, whereas it is a relatively small part of most American’s monthly expenses.
Let’s just put it this way. If the USA starts having big food supply problems like a lot of people starving in the street, most of the world will have already gone Mad Max.
Apologies for cut and paste weirdness with last post. You get my drift.
No worries; I’m diggin’ on your riff, daddy-o.
;o)
The thing about TSHTF is that it hits people at different times, because they are standing at varying distances from the oscillating blades. Some are in another room and won’t get hit unless it is a really powerful fan and a great big load of dookie. Others have on biohazard suits and they don’t care if they get hit.
I guess that’s stretching the analogy, but the idea that there will be some consensus on the issue is, I think, a flawed one.
I mean if you live in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, or the Congo, TSHTF a long time ago. You might already be walking around with one leg on makeshift crutches trying to find your next meal.
For everyone to reach agreement that everyone has been splattered, the world would basically have to get clobbered by a giant asteroid or something similarly catastrophic.
If James Lovelock’s predictions of drastic rise in temperatures and sea levels turns out to be correct and we all have to move to the North Pole, that would also probably do it. Though there would probably be some guy saying, “What do you mean TSHTF? I love it up here. It is so purty.”
People’s experiences on this planet vary quite a bit. Some people are living in a box under the freeway as we speak. Others are drinking bottles of champagne that cost more than the average world citizen’s yearly income. There’s a gigantic spectrum of experiences, especially regarding personal/national standards of living, so getting people to agree on overarching pronouncements about the planet can be kinda difficult.
Some people are just going to keep saying, “What me worry?” until they are actually flung headfirst into a gigantic vat of poo.
She was a cheerleader and homecoming queen when she was in high school, then went on to become a sorority slut at Cal Poly (She has huge boobs!).
==============
How’s chances that mayhaps you could like forward me some sort of like link, email address, or like cell number or whatnot so I can like confirm what you’re sayin about this bimbo? Actually these kinda gossipy bitches like disgust me. Wuddya say her cup size wuz?
^^^^ Dirty old man. 😉
I don’t mean to pile on, but does Q’s handle have any relation to an obsession with having a stiff rod in his hands?;)
“I’m with Welles. Got out in ’85 during 2nd Reagan administration.”
And where is your private paradise? Your inner capital is precisely what most Duhmericans would call “a lowered quality of life.” Which is why there has been no mass exodus to third world countries. There is though now a growing wave of baby boomers retiring south of the border and elsewhere, but it is more out of necessity than a desire to find utopia elsewhere. America is the last lifeboat on earth, but it’s being sunk on purpose by TPTB. I do believe there are small islands of serenity and security out there in the large world, if you can find them. I am with Vlad on the final hope for mankind appearing as a Conquering Savior restoring order to the universe. Until then I consider myself safe wherever I am under His watchful eyes.
the unemployed … going around with their laptops dressed in suits
===========
I’m confused, who was dressed in suits, the unemployed or the laptops?
Just watching Obama’s brother, the leader of Libya, reading from his green book on CNN and it brings to mind the scene in Apocalypse Now where Brando is reading poetry to Cpt Williard. You can’t land on Venus with fractions. And you can’t make up the stuff that’s going on now.
“In nature anyways the deal is, people get together, reproduce, end of story.”
I’m not sure about some of this, Old69.
An outsider, looking in, would think American society was oversupplied with sex – to the point that no one, anywhere in these United States was ever unsatisfied for more than a half hour or so.
But look closer and there’s the manufactured scarcity of unrealized desire – driving us frantically from our SUV’s to our teevee’s to our Cheeze Doodles.
I suggest those skyscrapers, Mars missions, and buses of yours will need lots of spaces for lots of sex.
If the outcome is to be anything like human happiness.
Qshtik,
Don’t get me going! Years ago a bunch of us women were out watching the kids (making sure they didn’t run out into the street, but also drinking cosmopolitans). For reasons unknown (she doesn’t have a pool) she comes out with her lawnchair wearing a bathing suit and a sarong. We are talking double D’s here, held up by strings. The get-together breaks up and later she saunters over to get her daughter at Kevin’s house. He looks at her and says something stupid like “Ah, carumba” (looking directly at her DD’s). Then she goes around saying that Jessica’s husband sexually harassed her. What a crock.
I could tell you many stories of her treachery. Last year she had a graduation party (8th grade) for her daughter. My daughter is a year older and the two of them used to be friends. We weren’t invited–no big deal. But the next day she brings us leftovers from the party. I’m sure she did it to make certain we knew that we weren’t invited and to rub salt in the wound.
My dream is that those DD’s get so long and saggy that she’ll have to tuck them into the waistband of her jeans. I hope it takes a crane-like apparatus attached to her ears to keep those boobs from the effects of age and gravity!
SJmom
(Oh Jen, where’s your Christian charity?)
This guy is freaking nuts.
===============
Colonel Qaddafi: aka the Daffy Qa Kernal
Chucky D –
That might actually work:
“What about the ultimate protest of the middle class. No one files a Federal tax return on April 15th. Millions of us – no return. Drag it on and then choke the system.”
-chucky-
Unfortunately, most of the honest to God, working class people, left in this country get a tax REFUND when they file their taxes.
It’s us rich capitalist bastards that have to PAY when we file.
I’ve been on record for months on CFN as saying that TPTB are really, really stupid – if they exist at all.
But on US Federal Tax policy – TPTB have been masters of Demonic psychological brilliance.
– Bastards!
JHK wrote: “the essence of human charisma, being a declension of the following:
1.) People who know what they are doing.
2.) People who seem to know what they are doing.
3.) People who pretend to know what they re doing.
4.) And people who don’t know what they are doing.
Most of the human race is composed of the fourth category, which is why the figures in the categories above them claim their attention and allegience.”
Comment: It may be blasphemy to suggest that Jesus, the son of the Lamb, would drive a Bronco? Shouldn’t He be drive’n a Dodge Ram?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Ram
Blasphemy!!! There is no such MOPAR. The correct color designation is Plum Crazy!
“Obama’s brother, the leader of Libya”
Huh?
Grammar Nazi alert! 🙂
And where is your private paradise?
==========
Well I don’t know about BeThe’s paradise … but Welles’s motivation for am-scraying to Brazil was to escape some kind of tax lien. That’s what he told us 6 months or so ago.
What kind of pickup truck does Obama drive?
Obama once told a prospective voter in North Carolina that he “…likes NASCAR.”
Jen,
Do you have any jpegs you can post?
Harv
I hope it takes a crane-like apparatus attached to her ears to keep those boobs from the effects of age and gravity!
===============
Maybe she could carry them around in a wheelbarrow.
BTW, I hope you realize my “cup size” remark was supposed to be funny.
About the guy who said “Ah, carumba”:
Decades ago there was an episode of Candid Camera (or some similar show). A guy gets on an elevator and standing there, straight faced and nonchalant, is a totally naked woman. They ride wordlessly till the elevator stops at his floor. As he steps off he turns to her and says “I love your outfit.”
I missed the pic of Tripp, although I think I saw Orionor’s…or maybe it was a young Johnny Wesimuller about to swim The Amazon.
Weissmuller*
Krugman has an interseting blog post…and the number twelve comment is spot-on:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/more-on-defense/
Just in a manner of speaking–soulmates in their dictatorial tendencies.
I spoke with Welles. He sounds blissfully happy there in Brazil. I guess a good woman will do that for you. And good steak too.
Me, I’m not ready to flee the homeland as of yet. Too many family ties. When the Chinese are amassing armies along our southern border, then I’ll board a plane to Dublin. I can always bartend in a pub for room and board.
If Obama is a dictator, I’m the King of Botswana.
Let’s just use the last guy for comparison.
George “You’re with us or against us” Bush gave the country two unnecessary wars, costing trillions of dollars in the long-term, and amounting to absolutely nothing but a bunch of angry or dead Arabs. Meanwhile, those who planned 9-11 got away. He took the international feelings of sympathy and goodwill following that event and proceeded to flush them down the toilet.
Bush actually said, “Things would be much easier if I was the dictator.” Does it get any clearer than that?
He also stated that he would have invaded Iraq if only his dog Barney agreed with him.
He rammed his neo-con agenda of perpetual global domination down our throats, him and I-controlled-eight-war-games-on-911 Dick “Shotgun” Cheney and “Stuff Happens” Rumsfeld, along with Paul “They will greet us as liberators” Wolfowitz.
I think it was mostly about giving the reach around to assorted “defense contractors” like Carlyle Group, Haliburton, etc. What is more fascist and dictatorial than tying private economic prosperity to global war?
So there you have an actual dictator, right out front with his little band of crypto-fascists and closet Nazis.
And now Obama is trying to give us….waaaaaait…..wait for it….waaaaaait…
Health care reform.
Oh, God, won’t someone save us from this heinously evil man.
I mean, WTF, were you in a coma from 2000-2008? Have you been sucking the juice out of Rush Limpblob’s bunghole?
Obama is definitely a corporate whore, like most high level politicians these days, specifically for the as-yet-unprosecuted perpetrators of one of the largest financial meltdowns in history. He was also far too soft with the military, which should have been yanked right out of Iraq and Afghanistan. If anything he’s far too conciliatory, especially with the insane, dingbat Republicans.
But a dictator?
GIVE….ME…A….FREAKING….BREAK.
Are you out of your mind or just joking?
Long before it even got to that point, which it never will because the two countries are economically co-dependent, America would vaporize the Chinese mainland with a few mouse clicks. They know this, and that’s why they haven’t taken back Taiwan or really done anything against the US militarily. America has the nuclear card, and it is a game winner. About the only thing they can do is play economic/cyberwar games and (maybe) once in awhile run a proxy war, which hasn’t happened since Vietnam. China is definitely not a threat militarily. Economically, it is a whole different story.
Not that America won’t go to hell all by its own self. We don’t need Chinese troops on the Mexican border in order to drown in our own filth.
Bustin, I like your analysis, interesting. It gets me thinking, for example about EXCESS CAPACITY. I think we have way too many clock cycles available in our mind, compared to the possible content that it can usefully use. Therefore, the mind is on a constant “content search”, it must constantly be occupied, in interaction, achieving something, transitioning from any start point -> path -> end point, the start and end points being any possible configuration of information the mind body – social constructs, perceive – invent – create.
But to calm it down, it can watch TV, or entertainment, especially all kinds of electronic entertainment, this very blog, being another form. The goal is to keep it busy all the waking hours, so maybe 10 hours of sleep and 14 hours of TV would be a fantastic achievement. But the greatest achievement of all, for the best possible form of civilization, would be something like 14 hours of sleep, deep sleep if possible, and 10 hours of total void, just existing and looking and doing absolutely nothing at all, staring in the void. That would be paradise, a hundred years like that would be the best possible life by a long shot.
Or you can try out various “Technological Singularity” experiments such as:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=162692
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=163667
…
“10 hours of total void, just existing and looking and doing absolutely nothing at all, staring in the void”
Heroin?
Reading up a little on the current situation in Libya.
Gaddafi has vowed to die as a martyr. It could get really interesting, in that he’s just completely wacko and willing to do anything to keep himself in power. I mean, he’s unleashed foreign mercenaries to kill his own people, among other things. That’s like a James Bond villain level of insanity and evil.
Excerpt from his little speech:
“These gangs, like cockroaches, they don’t represent anything. They’re not even 1 per cent of a million of Libyan people. They’re nothing. They’re one handful of people who are trying to imitate what’s happened in Tunisia and Egypt. They were drugged. They were given orders. These are cockroaches.”
They were drugged! They were given orders! These are cockroaches!
Ahahaha. Classic. You can’t make this stuff up!
That’s a great way to endear yourself to the population you lead, by calling them drugged cockroaches following the orders of unnamed entities.
Meanwhile, the entire eastern part of the country is no longer under his control, and the army is defecting to the opposition en masse.
Me, I think he’s about to get bitch-slapped by the long arm of mob rule, the most basic of democratic tendencies, and he definitely deserves it for all the insane crap he’s pulled over the years. But we shall see.
Three officers from the USCIS district office in Bangkok, Thailand, traveled to Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan to naturalize 98 soldiers, sailors and Marines during a ceremony on Jan. 29. See the pictures and read more at:
http://blog.uscis.gov/2011/02/uscis-naturalizes-98-service-members-in.html
“Muammar Qaddafi is history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution.”
Yay! He’s just straight-up bats*** insane. I love this guy.
Citizenship for service. Its like, so, Robert Heinlein. Or Roman Empire.
Bear in mind that the very nature of capitalism is EXCESS CAPACITY, a system that “accumulates capital”, because it is able to produce more than it can consume. The reason why there are trillion dollar debts and 100 trillion dollars in banks worldwide is because the system is so productive, high performance, optimized, automated and efficient as to be able to constantly produce trillions of dollars of extra money that doesn’t even know what to do essentially. And it does this with millions of people not even working (uh oh, there goes out of the window the myth that “hard work is needed for the economy”).
Not to even talk about the record profits :
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html
Anyways, get over it, don’t be fooled, money is infinite and resources are infinite, they are just being constantly hogged up by the rich, banks and capitalists and just being parked (maybe in properties, like the chinese do by building entire empty cities ?) to be used for fun stuff, eventually…
On a side note, here is a recipe for insanity, if you are looking for a job…
http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2493-Interviewing-Your-nonverbal-communication-can-wreck-your-interview/?SiteId=cbmsnhp42493&sc_extcmp=JS_2493_home1>1=23000
“America is the last lifeboat on earth…”
hahahahahahahaha
“I do believe there are small islands of serenity and security out there in the large world, if you can find them.”
HAHAHAHA HAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHH HUUU HUUUU!!!
My FRIEND, and you are my friend, I remember speaking to you, the Great Satan has wonders – wonders! – in hoodwinking you into believing that load of tripe. Man what subtle indoctrination has done to the population: “greatest country on earth”, “just try to start a business anywhere else”, “no one has freedom like we do”, “the light on the hill”. Extreme kudos to the american opinion manufacturers and govt/psyops/mainstream media triumvirate!
my friend, GET OUT and relax in central/south america, go to scandinavia and let your hair down, you have no idea of the quality of life that awaits you:
way less stress
access to medical care no questions asked
great healthy non-toxic food
svelter, more attractive people
more living, much less working
better social ties
or do you prefer to stay in the US Matrix of-
endless stress
endless high(er) taxes with very little in return
toxic food
toxic culture
bankrupt govt
insane wars
nauseatingly fat, IGNORANT populace
wrecked currency buying less and less
work 8 MONTHS a year to pay taxes
no work (economy~s BOOMING where i am)
dependency on CARS
failed “education” system
My friend, i sincerely wish you will take the red pill and WAKE UP, rejuvenated by your new-found freedome outside the shore of the US.
LISTEN to what people here who’ve moved abroad are saying….kids raised happy and healthy, way less stress.
STOP being a drone who~s only purpose is to lay tax eggs and burn yourself out, then collect a dog-food pittance when you~re 65 (OOPS they just raised it to 70/72/74 when it~s your turn), only to perish a doped-up wretch in some fetid, rancid ‘nursing’ home.
/rant off
shalom my friends
The whole world boiling up … in Libya … Bahrain … oil prices spiking … food shortages … 4 American Christian activists murdered on their yacht off Somalia … mob action in Madison and Columbus … earthquake in New Zealand … so I tune in to MSNBC to get their take on their events of the day … Chris Matthews was on … the entire program was about … SARAH PALIN … how stupid she is! … uninformed … a maniac … A DANGER TO THE REPUBLIC THAT MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS !!! … reminds me of 2 summers ago … I walked to local market to buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal … they were fresh out but had a NY Times 1 left … even tho I never read that effete, elitist rag I bought it. This was during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. I wanted their take on it. I got to the editorial page … you got it … every editorial about SARAH PALIN … not very flattering ones either. Nothing about the war. Sarah Palin is Ghengis Kahn, Caligula, Stalin and Hitler all rolled up in one … a poseur, a mountebank, disingenuous, ignorant, doesn’t read books, likes guns, is religious, nativist, racist, jingoistic, corporatist, doesn’t promote alt. energy, polarizing, indeed, represents everything bad in America now, in the past and in the future.
I have to say that I’ve seen same of the same thing on this site. For many, interest in energy depletion seems to translate into left wing politics. Why, I don’t know. It also seems to engender a visceral hatred, for some, of the United States itself, and of the American people, and advocating moving to foreign countries. To me its puzzling, but it reminds me of a decade or so ago … I always liked the theatre … but after Kramer’s ‘Angels in America’ was produced every goddam play that came to Hartford or Universities around here had a homo theme, no Shakespeare, no Moliere, no ONeil, no Shaw, no Chekov, … no nothing except shit about AIDS, homos, transgenders and all that other related bullshit I could care less about. So to go to the theatre you had to wear your AIDS ribbon (remember those?) and oh yeah, we’re trendy, we’re eclectic, we’re iconoclasts … we support special rights for homosexuals … WE ARE SUPERIOR BEINGS BETTER THAN YOU BECAUSE, AGAINST 10,000 YEARS OF HUMAN HISTORY, WE SUPPORT MEN MARRYING MEN. That’s about when I stopped going to the theatre.
Hey Vlad, does that remind you of the chapter in ‘Camp of Saints’
and the public swimming pool in Lyon?
And there is this;
“All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purpose of Government make it impossible for administration officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government-employee organizations. The employer is the whole people …
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT 1937
-Marlin
@ progressorconserve
*I suggest those skyscrapers, Mars missions, and buses of yours will need lots of spaces for lots of sex. If the outcome is to be anything like human happiness.*
You’re not a nostalgic wile-chile still longing for those hedonistic care-free sixties by any chance are you darling?
(Talking of sexualised space missions)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAoWAbNMcaI&
I found the above movie (DVD) wide screen remastered version for less than $3 gathering dust on a shelf at one of those ‘I’ve nicked a phone/lappie/xBox/BlueRay/PG game/memory chip now gimme-the-cash exchange’ shops, a few months back!
Yep the coming yacht build #17 will have a retractable LCD – and you do need a few larfs pre finally settling down snuggled-up in the master-suite of an evening, you know, let yerself go – live a little!
(Blockbuster as we all know filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection end of last year – I believe its still in operating receivership under Icahn), but finding film entertainment you don’t own for free might not one day be that easy….eh?
As to me; I’m just a simple, air-headed 5’8” of man-pleasing, ole-fashioned brunette yachtmaster navigatrix, small boobed, 2/3rds arse/leg to body ratio’d type. Mixed with a lot of lean muscle,(try winching up a main on ter tod) without it. (Though the new one’s self-furling), so will need to amuse myself some other way, flying/teasing the Spinny should do it…
Nails… you’ve got to be kidding right?
(Cheerleaders seem like dead-weights to me, but do make great fish food, all that puppy-fat).
And anyone lurking here seeking crew auditions needs to have a certain Ugo Tognazzi’ish quality about them, lol…
Anything less really will not do, so whass-up Bud’ guzzler boyz – look away now…
(But enough of distraction)
One thing you ‘all’ know now (watching the footage from the ME) is what’s guaranteed with citizen chaos (Mad Max’ness) is a swift militarised crack-down, state sanctioned or otherwise. Narco-gangs too are well geared for stepping in to fill a void when TSHTF…
(Black markets then go into overdrive)
So evening classes knowing how to strip down, grease, oil and service an AK47 quickly, in the dark a bonus might be a good idea….
That and how to breed fluffy adorable bunnies too – they make great snacks – cooked toasted and skewered…
Toodle-pip
Welles;
In Brazil, do you have 1st and 2nd amendment rights? Just wondering.
“In Brazil, do you have 1st and 2nd amendment rights? Just wondering.”
YES, and this comment points out the inbred belief that ONLY americans have these rights. “My aren’t we superior”.
——————————————-
In Brazil you can actually just walk up to the president of a nation of 190 million people and talk to him/her, shake their hand. TV comedians regularly do just that, waltzing up to the president/former president and joke around. No 3-month waiting list, security screening etc.
no country is the perfect one, but there are MANY lands worth living in.
{In Brazil you can actually just walk up to the president}
Orionoir;
Warren Devon?
-Marlin
– msnbc, the nyt, and Ms. Palin –
Nice post, Marlin. The quote from FDR concerning public employee unions is a good one. I have also become concerned that Federal employees and their salary/benefit packages are, basically – running ahead of reality – WITHOUT Union power being exercised.
msnbc bashing Palin – My counter argument is as close as FOX, where just 10 minutes ago I saw a panel who were completely CONVINCING that Obama is mishandling the Libya situation.
Remember Egypt became Obama’s fault pretty quickly on Fox, also – two weeks ago plus/minus.
==============
I think what we’re seeing for “news” and especially the opinion pages and pieces attached to “news” – is that attracting loyal listeners has trumped anything that even tries to resemble honest analysis, any more.
Maybe it was always thus – FOX worries me more because a substantial minority of people get their news 100% from FOX – and it’s on 24/7 in so many places.
Heck, FOX plays as background noise at most of the DOCTOR’S offices and restaurants around here.
And we wonder why there is an epidemic of stomach ulcers and high blood pressure! hah!
==================
I didn’t mean to get all political on you so quick, Marlin. You strike me as an honest, honorable American with conservative beliefs. Keep speaking up on CFN.
A voice like yours is needed here.
Welles;
Being part Portugese we have some relatives in Brazil who we still keep in contact with. When my mothers grandfather came here (in 1888) his brother went to Brazil. They seem to be pretty happy there.
Recently read ‘Lost White Tribes’ by Riccardo Orizio’ … about the 20,000 Confederate soldiers and their families who emigrated to the Brazilian interior after the Civil War. Their ancestors are still there, intermarried with Ukranian immigrants and of course native Brazilians … they hold on to relics like rebel flags, uniforms and muskets … wild …
The goal of the necessity of a huge population explosion is to let Free Willonium become the principle Mass – Energy form of the universe. When the number of elementary particles made up of persons (really entities of mass – energy configurations) exceeds the number of all the other mass – energy forms existing in the universe, the laws of physics will finally be defeated.
Therefore, we start at 10 billion people and try to accelerate the numbers by using giant reproducing labs where the fertility rates skyrocket (along with all other possible methods) so as to reach 10^100 people in a jiffy.
The resources are infinite, the universe large, so nothing is stopping us.
On a side note, even just one point where the laws of physics are defeated, namely only one free will can also do the trick…
You’re not a nostalgic wile-chile still longing for those hedonistic care-free sixties by any chance are you darling?
– alexandra –
To some extent, this does describe me, Alexa. In well fed, yet overmortgaged, America – I think sexual frustration leads to a lot of tension that boils up in some very unexpected places.
But the main purpose of the specific post you replied to was to ask Old69 to include some INFINITE sexual practices in his utopian vision for the future.
It would be GOOD marketing, if nothing else.
==============
On another, much more tragic and somber note, those 4 American lives lost off Somalia –
Do you think the original pirate attack was pure bad luck, or something more sinister. Two small boats – with one deliberately finding the other – over 200 miles offshore. It’s such a needle in the haystack exercise.
Pre-GPS, I’ve had trouble finding a second small boat even 5-10 miles offshore, in daylight – even though we both had radio contact and were TRYING to attract each other’s attention.
Hope you don’t mind my asking your opinion, but the question has been bothering me – and you are our resident blue water specialist.
Old6699;
I’ll ask once again, what the hell are you talking about?
Explain yourself, Sir!
PoC;
Thanks for those kind words. I should be around these parts a while longer. I stopped working on Nov. 30 so I’ve been hanging around for almost 3 months now … I can tell you my wife is getting sick of me being home all day while she go out and works … she makes comments like STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!! … for me its been an ordeal … snow drifts here counting plowed snow 20 feet high outside my window … I’ve actually had nightmares about it.
Anyway, first place I applied for a job I think is going to hire me … they called yesterday. It doesn’t pay as much as the Govt. job I quit of course … I got sick of that place after 25 years … same goddam people everyday, same conversations … Yankees vs Redsox … I had to go so when I became eligible (age 56) I put in my papers and that was that … applying for a job isn’t like it used to be .. you need pee test, bloodtest, homeland security check, FBI check, state police check, motor vehicle dept. check, lie detector test, all kinds of credentials and proof of former employment, 3 interviews, reliable references and other stuff I can’t remember … luckily i have a good record. I can’t imagine if I didn’t … nothing is forgotten now, nothing, now that computers are here.
I’ll be checking in on this site. Jim’s the best and there are many, many interesting posters here. Also, its a good place to have your ideas a prejudices challenged. Besides, there is nobody around here I can talk to about the issues … the issues that are on the forefront of CFN.
BustinJ- That was one hell of a nice long post yesterday. I’d say that I could concur 40% – which is a lot considering my CFN persona as an acknowledged lover of most all things female.
I’d say that you describe a certain *”TYPE”* of American female quite well. I suspect that you have a specific woman or two in mind as models.
While I was reading your post, Jerry Reed-1982, “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft,” kept playing in my mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja7mwvH5DNc
It’s not really any of my damn business – except to say that all women don’t fit your descriptions.
Some of them are a downright pleasure to live with. Can’t let you try out my favorite female on a full time basis, though – WHY NOT??
she’s already married!
HAW! HAW! HAW!
sorry ’bout that, man.
And, PoC you’re dead right about Fox news.
It does seems idiologically driven.
I don’t watch much of it except to admire the young, attractive blond and brunette on-air personnel.
Where do they find those girls?
‘She got the goldmine, I got the shaft’ That’s good stuff PoC.
How ’bout this “She actin’ single, I’m drinking doubles”
-Marlin
The girls on FOX – doubtless eye candy, Marlin!
News anchors in major markets – male and female – are chosen for “hotness,” anyway.
“And, PoC you’re dead right about Fox news.
It does seems idiologically driven.”
-marlin-
People still laugh about it for now, but enough FOX, over a long enough period, will cause some *warping?* – even of an intelligent, stable personality.
I can think of one smart friend and one smart family member. They both used to enjoy a good political discussion with me. But in the last two years – our friendly political discussions have inspired them into something that looks eerily like deranged hate.
I’ve never backed down from a friendly political discussion in my life, but with these two – I finally had to back off.
Weird, when I stop to think about it – I have talked myself out of some seriously tense situations in my life, with a joke or something to break the tension. But with these two old friends – nothing worked – and I finally had to unilaterally disengage before old friendship was damaged.
And yeah, some moderate drinking was involved.
And yeah, they both apologized the next day.
(two totally separate incidents, BTW)
But there can be something strange that happens to people who watch too much FOX.
I’m not sure hiding the alcohol away from FOX devotes is going to be a solution, either. hehe?
@ progressorconserve
*Do you think the original pirate attack was pure bad luck, or something more sinister.*
We fish hungry Euro types thought it would be all fine-n-dandy to send factory-fishing ships down there and hoover-up all their stock out… which errgh… call me naïve but wasn’t that likely to sorta piss-off the locals who’d be doing okayish off the ole going out there and fishing thing…for decades of family generation previously off the African coast-line?
So what could they to turn to next? Oh yeah piracy… a historically proven method of reliable treasure gaining, and it works… just ask those ‘banksters’ up there on Wall St!
(The hostage business in worth $1bn pa and growing) Any creative hedge-fund mangers on that yet?
That British couple (Chandler’s) irony in the name eh? Whom were seized back a few years ago were particularly dumb, (I couldn’t feel sorry for them at all) believe me, from the Seychelles yacht marina they left, everyone there warned them of the ‘danger’ of their planned route….and they were seized at least 600Nm off-coast. So they’d been warned repeatedly, no doubt with head-shaking not to venture anyways down there. And I believe their tiny boat was set to auto-helm no one on watch at the time – so they were boarded while they both slept…
Silly, silly…. silly…..
Most yachts carry radar reflectors way up the mast, and sails if big enough should give off a bounce signature, but even then to sail at night without a fixed watch is plain stupid. To think a 1000 TEUs container ship is going to change course or stop for you way-out in the ocean doing 35knts, even if you blip-up on there screen, you’re assuming someone really is watching – carefully…
Errrgh…no I don’t think so!!
But these pirates are well-funded, innovative, well equipped, well-fed, best navi/gps/tech, guns/RPG’s equipped so to find boats at night really ain’t going to be to difficult for them, they’ll also know there ocean down there very, very well…..
Read more here:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-07/ff_somali_pirates
Our new boat will have an AIS Transponder on too, but if we were ever likely or stupid enuff to sail into Asian or African known trouble hot-spots, that would be switched off, as would all navi lights, you name it, and minimal sail exposure too… tinkle, tinkle gently along…
It would also be all hands on deck, and be nicely equipped with enough firepower to make a boarding costly in man-power terms…
Business men ain’t dumb, and can be lazy too… once the odds and work level gets to great for the reward – they always head off for the softer targets, simples. That’s why cruise-liners packed full of rich retired elderly frail boomers is perfect source material…
(U’man nature – tells you all you need to ever know)
And to all other CFN’ers – sorry for shifting der fread off-tack, next one along please jibe it back…
Ta muchly…
{Warren Devon?}
Orionoir;
Warren ZZZevon, right, its been awhile.
Doesn’t get much play anymore.
-Marlin
You sensed a female vibe? I sure didn’t.
It’s like my gay friend, who has no gaydar, which I’m always teasing him about. I guess I have no femaledar.
Glad to know that Ibendet is female. I always enjoy her posts.
I have CNBC tuned in and all the sudden everybody is freaking out about oil. Crude is headed up close to $100 per barrel and Brent stands at $110. (Is brent the oil that comes from the North Sea?)
One question tho … first, world demand is almost 88 million BPD and rising. I didn’t realize it was that much. Saudi Arabia reports today that they have as much as 6 million BPD spare capacity and can make up any shortages emanating from Libya.
Do you think that’s accurate, or is it more bullshit?
I wear the same dress every year to the Xmas party. (17 years now). I got it at Montgomery Ward’s, and I like it.
This causes GREAT uproar at the hospital. I have had people I don’t even know ask me if I’m going to wear the same dress again this year.
The one who seems to be most upset is a good ol’boy, Vietnam vet, ex-coal miner, ex-rodeo clown, NASCAR lover, right winger racist.
One year I actually wore a different dress, a cute sequined number that my mother bought at a thrift store and gave to me.
After all the uproar, only 3 people actually noticed that I wore a different dress that year.
One of them, the redneck.
Also, only 2 or 3 of my co-workers wear makeup.
And we all wear scrubs and running shoes to work.
I quit using soap on my face at age 17, when I noticed that the commercials for cream pointed out that “soap can dry your skin, so you need to buy this cream”.
No soap, no cream. Problem solved.
Reminds me of a story I read about Germany in the 1930s. Some fellow, a non-German academic (I think), had some German associates or acquaintances. He said that they were fine people, good humoured and intelligent, but if you said “Germany” or “National Socialism” they’d get a set to their jaw, they’d puff out their chests and they’d get a far off look in their eyes. This was pre WW2. Losing themselves in the greater whole and losing their minds along the way.
Another: I saw on TV a documentary about Hitler and the rise of Nazi-ism. One clip showed Hitler, early in his political career, in a meeting with a group of corpulent German businessmen, obviously prosperous. Hitler got up to give a speech. He started slowly and quietly but he raised his volume and stridency as he went along and within a few minutes he was shouting and shaking his fist and the otherwise rational and decent German townsmen were on their feet shouting “Seig Heil, Seig Heil” and giving the Nazi salute. It was quite a performance. Hitler had them in the palm of his hand.
The point is that people are such sheep. Easily deranged like those fanatical Germans who threw their lives away for their mad Fuhrer. As Mr Kunstler said people are pretty much clueless and will follow those that just seem to or pretend to know what they’re doing. Thinking for yourself is hard.
So your buds listen to Fox News and get the same slant over and over. You have a group-think echo chamber. As Goebbels said repeat big lies often enough and people will think it’s the truth. Otherwise reasonable people adhere to nonsensical notions as the price of belonging to the club. Obama is a Muslim. Iraq had WMDs. Unfettered free markets. Greed is Good. And now the latest descent into lunacy, the right to carry concealed handguns on campus. It’s in the 2nd Amendment. All righty. It’s not my place as a foreigner really to tell you guys how to run your lives but I’m your friend whether you like it or not so I have to say it: this is craziness, amend the 2nd Amendment.
You get the same type of thing in colleges where you have campus leaders marinating their young charges in fashionable politically correct ideology and brining their souls in anti-Americanism. So you get a large contingent in your society whose instinct it is to Blame America First, to think of their country as an Evil Empire, to cast their own countrymen in the worst possible light and to think of every possible excuse when it comes to evils committed by non Americans. Anthropogenic Global Warming, er, Climate Change. The science is settled and irrefutable and must NOT be questioned. And it’s the same thing with the so called Theory of Evolution, a sorry assed shambolic mess of a non theory if there ever was one. Evolution happens. We see it under our noses. And the theory that purports to explain it does no such thing. But if you’re, ahem, “rational” and exercise evidence based thinking then you must BELIEVE. It’s either that or you’re one of those trailer park dwelling Christians. And that’s not a compliment.
People are people. Same phenom everywhere. Up here too in boring old Canada.
Hey Cash, the Left has its own AgitProp department!
And its pretty effective and ubiquitous, too.
Um, remember after Katrina?
When the government announced that it wouldn’t provide for its citizens? That we were all on our own? That everyone should have at least a week’s supply of food and water?
Old6699;
I’ll ask once again, what the hell are you talking about? – M554
Sounds to me like too much whacky tabacky. Has to lay off that shit for a while. Everything in moderation.
Sj Mom NOT a Douche.
You the Douch and a Bully.
Needs to grows up !
Some people on here are trying to help you do that. You are a sociopath it sounds like. Cuz you don’t listen to people who CARE.
You are not a safe person.
Not a nice person. I don’t like you here.
Not sure why you get to stay.
{world demand is almost 88 million BPD and rising. I didn’t realize it was that much. Saudi Arabia reports today that they have as much as 6 million BPD spare capacity and can make up any shortages emanating from Libya.
Do you think that’s accurate, or is it more bullshit?}