JHK’s Three-Act Play
A merica takes pause on a big holiday weekend requiring little in the way of real devotions beyond the barbeque deck with two profoundly stupid movie entertainments that epitomize our estrangement from the troubles of the present day.
First there’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which depicts the collapse of civilization as a monster car rally. They managed to get it exactly wrong. The present is the monster car show. Houston. Los Angeles. New Jersey, Beijing, Mumbai, etc. In the future, there will be no cars, gasoline-powered, electric, driverless, or otherwise. Mad Max: Fury Road is actually a perverse exercise in nostalgia, as if we’re going to miss being a nation of savages in the driver’s seat, acting out an endless and pointless competition for our little place on the highway.
The other holiday blockbuster is Disney’s Tomorrowland, another exercise in nostalgia for the present, where the idealized human life is a matrix of phone apps, robots, and holograms. Of course, anybody who had been to Disneyland back in the day remembers the old Tomorrowland installation, which eventually had to be dismantled because its vision of the future had become such a joke — starting with the idea that the human project’s most pressing task was space travel. Now, at this late date, the monster Disney corporation — a truly evil empire — sees that more money can be winkled out of the sore-beset public by persuading them that techno-utopia is at hand, if only we click our heels hard enough.
Another theme running through both films is the idea that girls can be what boys used to be, that it’s “their turn” to be masters-of-the-universe, that men are past their sell-by date and only exist to defile and humiliate females. That this message is really only a mendacious effort to rake in more money by enlarging the teen “audience share” for the reigning wishful fantasy du jour is surely lost on the culture commentators, who are so busy these days celebrating the triumph and wonder of transgender life.
The reviewers are weighing these two movies on the popular pessimism / optimism scale. These are the only choices for the masses: whether to be a “doomer” or a “wisher.” Both positions are cartoon world-views that don’t provide much guidance for continuing the project of civilization, in case anyone is actually interested in that. It’s either rampaging id or the illusion of supernatural control, take your pick. I find both stances revolting.
Anyway, it’s interesting that the real Fury Road of the rightnow runs from Syria into Iraq starring ISIS. There is a growing sentiment in the news media (including the web, of course) of a sickening déjà vu with these developments. The old familiar talk of air strikes and ground troops infects the wifi transmissions. Maybe we should think about sending Charlize Theron over there with a few vestigial male sidekicks to load her assault rifle. How else to git’er done? Nobody knows.
Memorial Day is a dreary moment to have to face this onrushing calamity of rocket-propelled medievalism rampant — all those poor American soldiers blown up and mangled the past twelve years. It’s also interesting that the news media is totally out-of-touch with the biggest prize on the great gameboard: Saudi Arabia. You think ISIS overrunning Iraq is bad news? Wait until the ordnance starts flying around Riyadh. Notice, too, that there’s no news coming out of Yemen on the base of the Arabian peninsula, a failed state with a population nearly equal to its neighbor. If we have any idea what’s going on there — and surely the Pentagon and NSA do — then it’s not for popular consumption.
This is ironic because if the trouble happens to spread into Saudi Arabia — and I don’t see how it will not — then we’ll find out in a New York minute how America’s future is not about monster trucks, cars, dirt bikes, holograms, phone apps, and all the other ridiculous preoccupations of the moment.
Note: JHK’s 2014 Garden Report is finally up
The new World Made By Hand novel
!! Is now available !!
“Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist
My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books…
or Amazon…
Also: Published as an E-book for the first time!
The 20th Anniversary edition
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Amazon Kindle …or … Barnes & Noble Nook …or… Kobo
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
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Paintings from the 2023 Season
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Yemen gets neutroned!
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/a-neutron-bomb-dropped-on-yemen-by-iaf.html
I came across that too, though I couldn’t find another site about it.
Now that ISIS claims it can get a nuclear bomb within a year we might as well start singing “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn!
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away
So will you please say “Hello”
To the folks that I know
Tell them I won’t be long
Oh, James, you touched on two icons of our failed “project in civilization”, feminism and transgenderism. Are you in for it now, man. The chi-chi’s are going to take of you for that “intolerance”.
Back to the failed project; there is no more civilization. The gloves are off and it’s now mano o mano. May the best mad max win.
It’s “mano a mano”, translated to “hand to hand”.
Thank you! There is a phrase that has ingratiated itself into the common American vernacular. Ironically, it is quite emblematic of the the larger dysfunction/ignorance – because it sounds like “man to man. Fuckin’ goofs.
It does mean hand to hand and in Spanish means “to do something together”. Pretty much the exact opposite to what Americans have distorted the phrase. Why? Because it would be immently too difficult to actually learn and apply a foreign phase beyond the spoon-fed media tripe.
Kind of like when they pronounce “foyer” as “foy-er” (otherwise known as an entrance vestibule) as opposed to “foy-ay”. You know, the proper way since it is a French word. Or, the misapplied notion that Americans have bailed the French and they are quitters. Pay attention to the visit of L’Hermoine and learn your goddamn history – g’dammit!
Did this ignite a rant? No apologies.
Meh, I don’t correct the French, Italians or Japanese when they take an English word and put their own spin on the pronunciation in their own language. Get over it. Whenever some moustachioed Roman waiter tells me that it isn’t pronounced “expresso” I give him a clip behind the ear and a swift kick in the natiche.
BC–
Good points. Then there’s the Catholic university with the name that will sadly be forever mispronounced by Americans: Notre Dame.
The French fought the mighty Germans to a standoff by 1916. A negotiated settlement would have been useful then, but the Americans in 1917 sent 2 million troops, setting the stage for Germany’s unconditional surrender, followed in a mere 15 years by the Third Reich. My apologies for a poor Reader’s Digest version of history.
Seems most of JHK’s posts have a comment saying people will come after him with pitchforks, but this place is only visited by people who mostly agree with him. I have yet to see pitchforks.
Visited? This site has a bad case of kook lice. It’s not the author’s fault. Can’t blame him that the unemployed and retired that have taken permanent refuge here are blind to their own hypocrisy. Dreaming of the end of 21st century life and technopundrity… yet posting hourly… about everything but the author’s chosen topic of discussion.
Puffery meter has just gone berserk.
Puffery? I didn’t flatter the host, I merely did not hold him responsible for the crowd that gathers.
Puffery is a term common in contract law, which means a claim made by the seller that is not enforceable in court by the buyer.
If I say to the buyer, “This is the best widget in the world,” the buyer cannot sue me for breach of contract (and win) when he finds that there is a better widget than the one I sold him. That is because my statement was mere puffery, the type of exaggerated claim that is to be expected from an eager seller.
On the other hand, if I stated that the widget is super-light, weighing only 5 grams, when the widget I delivered actually weighed 10 grams, I would be cheating on the specifications and could be held liable for breach of contract.
Heh – good point. Seems like every “tomorrowland” gets things in the future 90% wrong – I suspect Mr. Kuntsler’s “World Made by Hand” will be the same – might be interesting to see what his 10% correct predictions turn out to be…..
They really get going when he touches upon anything that even implies race. Like his columns on Ferguson and Baltimore.
Many very disturbing comments.
The game plan and how we are playing it.:
“First Strike” Attack against Iran? Washington’s “Missile Defense” Deal with the Gulf Monarchies
U.S. on Wrong Side of History: This new Gulf states agreement is dangerous, provocative, destabilizing and very expensive.
[All of these MD systems will be “interoperable” with the Pentagon’s existing programs. It will all be run through the US military space satellite system. That means the Gulf states will pay for the US to build a region-wide MD system that is actually aimed at Iran, Syria, and Russia and fully controlled by Washington.
MD is a key element in US first-strike attack planning – its the shield that is used after a Pentagon sword is thrust into the heart of another nation’s military forces. When the attacked nation attempts to fire a retaliatory strike it is then that the MD systems are used to pick off the remaining military capability thus giving the Pentagon a “successful” first-strike.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/first-strike-attack-ag…/5450150
Absolutely – because technological whizz-bangery has bought us so many spectacular military sucesses – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, ?Yemen….
Remarkable how resistant to whizz-bangery determined goat herds armed with 1950’s era Soviet man-carried weapons have turn out to be – over and over again.
And guess what . . . . .
The Goat-Herders are still banging their goats.
Care to join them?
The US government is definitely getting ready for something big in a military way. Including inside our own borders.
Will be really strange to see anti-war demonstrations with a woman in the White House!
And the outline given here doesn’t even attempt to describe the horrors that will result from this.
Think Germany 1945.
JKH, Thanks for today’s Post, good points, all.
And glad to see your page restored.
That you, San Jose Mom (Mormon/Chauncey Gardner)?!?
Awesome post this week JHK – I’m not quite sure where to begin…
“In the future, there will be no cars, gasoline-powered, electric, driverless, or otherwise.”
What will high schoolers do, post-auto, to show they “passed the bar?” How will they earn their ‘stripes?’
“The other holiday blockbuster …”
Hmm, not happy I bought my bro theatre tickets for his B-Day…
“if only we click our heels hard enough”
Toto, Africa. Big Country, We’re Not In Kansas Anymore (haha Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland)…
“celebrating the triumph and wonder of transgender life”
I still can’t get my head around chopping up your ‘bits’, because you (self) loathe…
“continuing the project of civilization”
There’s something to be said, about non-extinction of the human race.
Let’s be real honest – stick a fork in it, Mickey-J, you’re LONG done (gone – RIP). The clearcutting of the entire planet is our utter demise. No more forests, mass-extinction of uncountable species, river-silting, soil depletion/concretization, etc ad nauseum. So many ‘unfavorable’ feedback loops – may as well mine, frack and nuke…
PS – “flying around Riyadh” brings to mind a nice Al Stewart tune…
Oh, JHK, I actually spent $15 on Mad Max, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. And we had to sit through 30 minutes of advertising for TV programs!
JHK is absolutely right, and this mess cost at least $150 million! The saddest thing is that it’s a hit. But really, hardly a decent movie out of Hollywood this year.
JHK is also right on the mark re: Di$ney!
And it really looked to me like Tom Hardy felt like, “What the hell am I doing here?”
Just curious, James: I assume you must actually see the movies you occasionally skewer. If so, how can you stand it? It must be a dreary chore, indeed.
Also, I happen to live in a community that is known for accepting and honoring (I wouldn’t say “celebrating the triumph and wonder of”) transgenders, along with other people the broader culture has mostly cast aside. Although they may make others uncomfortable, or inspire some sense of pity, what’s the trouble in trying to make them less uncomfortable and more accepted? Sort of like what we’ve done with others who’ve in the past had to reside in closets and attics, like the wheelchair-bound, the senile, Downs’ Syndrome persons, etc.?
I was expecting our host to opine about Grexit, but I was hoping he’d mention these movies. I should be careful what I wish for; I might get it
As for which viewpoint, “wisher” or “doomer” is winning, the weekend box offices for “Tomorrowland” vs. “Mad Max: Fury Road” suggests that optimism isn’t selling as well as dystopia. In its first weekend, “Mad Max: Fury Road” grossed $44.4 million, while “Tomorrowland” grossed $32 million. Of course, it may not be the message, but the execution. The “Mad Max” movie is being critically praised, while “Tomorrowland” got tepid reviews despite the critics wanting to like it. They got turned off by Brad Bird’s Objectivism and Damon Lindelof’s fascination with overcomplicated back stories both bleeding through into the script and spoiling the fun. “Pirates of the Caribbean” “Tomorrowland” isn’t.
As for ISIS AKA The Sith Jihad, they got double billing with the Men’s Rights Advocates (MRAs) in Reactionary movements for the fourth year of Crazy Eddie’s Motie News. The MRAs objected to Charlize Theron’s character and organized a boycott. I’m sure The Sith Jihad would agree with them.
It was an even split in the manosphere on Theron’s character and the movie. I myself liked the movie and as for Theron only an actress as good as her IMO can pull off the Chick Fu without it seeming silly. And the Chick Fu routine is silly, even chicks hardly care about such nonsense.
Like I’ve said in two posts here today, America’s politics is who can flatter teenaged white girls the most, and you seem to win the internet for the day with your comment. (even though they really don’t want to be warriors they still think it flattery, they would rather be the gorgeous lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whitley and her glamorous and have her drama filled life)
Interesting that flattering teenage girls includes treating them as nothing but objects – OR female warriors.
You do realize that these female characters are actually there for teenage boys, don’t you? You know, props with tits!
I’ll be damned glad when people are treated – and portrayed – simply as people.
They focus on girls and women because they watch the most TV, they spend the most on consumer goods, are the most likely to vote Democrat – in short they are the most gullible.
You can’t keep the Republic without Patriarchy. And that means an end to women voting.
Good luck running that solution past your wife. Or my wife, for that matter. Women, gays, transgendered, liberals, Jews – apparently the focus of all that is wrong in America today. Why can’t they just bow before the inevitability and power of your undiluted testosterone?
KHOR,
…Which brings to mind:
Those who most fervently seek power over others are those who should most concertedly be denied it. 😉
Scapegoating is as old as DNA!
In a movie like “Mad Max” I have a difficult time determining which content is aimed at teenage boys and which at teenage girls.
But clearly ALL of it was aimed at adolescents!
It’s the critical praise for “Mad Max” I do not get. Peter Travers has gone on at length in two issues of Rolling Stone, praising this movie and its special effects. That movie was so obviously stitched together, held together with duct tape and a quickly added-on story. The directing sucked, as did the photography. And I thought, if you looked closely, that the special effects were cheap – not at all seamless, and I could even detect herky-jerky movements when characters moved.
And it sure looked like either Miller had a problem with his male lead or Tom a problem with him, or both. I have never seen a movie work so hard to keep its male lead off camera. He even got partial inclusion in some shots – head-on shots with his face “bleeding” off the screen. And the four waifs in the back seat – looking some strung-out models an a Calvin Klein ad. Why were they there? Indeed why was anything in this movie there? B movies in the forties and fifties, made for less than a million bucks had great camera work. AND they told a story.
The most important thing to say is that there was almost NO dramatic reason for what was on screen. It’s just about a visual thrill. No story – except that green citadel bit so obviously an after-thought. Even the 3-D sucked.
FTR I have been for gay liberation for decades and I am as straight and conservative as anyone. That said there is a gap between the propagandized version and reality. And due to political correctness is has grown exponentially with no end in sight, soon I expect that gays can only be referred to in terms that would make a monk’s love of Jesus seem like bitter hatred.
But again in America the political propaganda is aimed at teenaged girls, get them on your side get their parents and enjoy at least short term power. So in the end nothing good will come of gay liberation, just another rendition of Mean Girls, pettiness, avarice, selfishness instead of wisdom, responsibility and accountability.
No you aren’t – by definition. Gay rights means Gay marriage which means the right of Gays to adopt children – which is of course monstrous. And of course it means teaching all about Gays sex in Sex education. Conservative? In a pig’s eye.
You are vile and contemptuous beyond belief.
A representative, disgusting example of all that is wrong with this society.
Piss on you, goat-dick-licker.
Best not to play this person’s game and engage in name calling.
Lowers you to the level of a middle-school kid yelling insults across the playground.
Your premise is flawed. You are saying that people who procreate are inherently better parents than those who do not? Or are you saying the notion of gay sex is paramount in what a parent teaches his children? Gay is genetic. Men do not turn me on. Never have, never will. It doesn’t move. Period. What is monstrous is your notion that you traverse the Earth as the zenith of human development. If gays want to marry, let them. If they want to raise children, let them. It’s none of your goddam business to tell other people how to live.
Oh, and reason and things like facts won’t work either. This person will say things that make clear to him/her that, e.g., only Black folks – or recently, Muslims – riot and commit violent acts.
Apparently white Christians are all angels, already “saved,” and they never commit a violent act.
This writer is thus totally ignorant of history – but also thinks everyone else is as well. Thus reason is pointless.
I myself wish that heterosexuals would consent to teaching ALL their children about sex.
Then I wouldn’t have to deal with all the social problems that result from the incredible ignorance this stance represents.
You heterosexuals have had thousands of years to get your reproductive act together and you still can;t get it right?
And I have to listen to a bunch of old men talk about “trans-vaginal ultrasounds”? Now THAT is monstrous. These guys have fathered children and they don’t know anything about how their wives bodies work?
Remember, this is a heterosexual world. Please stop blaming the rest of us for your problems! You make these messes. You clean them up. Queers and Black folks can’t do all the heavy lifting in America!
I have no problem with homosexuality. Whatever floats your boat. However, the word “transgender” is nonsensical. If you feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body, that’s what you are – a man. No amount of genital mutilation surgery and daily hormone injections changes your DNA.
Lawfish – Take that Bruce Jenner! You’ve become a clown.
Excuse me but – clowns in the world of human sexuality? No one or group has a monopoly on that.
It seems to me, e.g., that male heterosexual politicians just can’t keep their dicks in their pants!
Well, no, but I think the problem is that you confuse “transgender” and “homosexual.” Both are members os a group that is marginalized and hated because of sexual or gender issues.
We Queers (my preferred word for ALL of us) have a big tent – LGBTQ, etc. But, you see, we deal with human sexuality – hence, the big tent.
We are all “queer,” but not all of us are “homosexuals.”
Hope that helps.
Bang-on as always, Jim. Hello $5/gallon gas soon?
On the weekend I got the Network Solutions page that said your domain name had expired. Don’t do that. I can’t handle a world without CFN!
What’s so special about $5/gal? We had that in Canada, $1.35/L for almost a year IIRC (CAD and USD were close to parity then, too).
And yet these car clowns were still commuting to their office jobs in F150’s. $5/gallon won’t change anything. I’m not even sure $10/gallon will change anything. Not overnight. It’ll be a slow attrition where the poorest are gradually priced out of driving.
And apparently sitting in traffic jams on six- and eight-lane “freeways” twice a day just to get to and from work won’t change anything either.
“Pitch Perfect” out grossed Mad Max, but PP would seem to buttress your viewpoint as well.
Its kind of ironic that America’s politics is always down to protect the girls, flatter the girls, spoil the girls, make sure the girls have a nice safe shopping trip with not too much fat shaming when walking past the Victoria’s Secret shop.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the above, but it is silly to think that people locked into that mindset can put their minds to serious endeavors at this point. It is part of our mythos, tame the land so Little Missy can go shopping with her friends. Its always been there, even in my youth there was always a Barbara Stanwyck protecting her Linda Evans or a Marshall Dillon as backup.
But today the adults have refused to grow up and instead they allow a girl to walk about Columbia U with a cheap mattress and the notions of accountability and responsibility are buzz words for oppression.
I can remember visiting Disney’s Tomorrowland in the mid 60’s. What I most remember about the depressing experience is the onscreen figures prattling on about the wave of the future being the multitude of techno-savy rest homes that will mushroom throughout the country to take care of our old folks. No more burden on the families. The prediction became a reality.
Just another “bait and switch” – America’s MO!
Almost too easy – these movies were practically made for the Peak Oil blogosphere to analyze and ‘deconstruct’.
The points are valid, though. Is there any film that has ever gotten it right, or even close to right?
Regarding ISIS – yeah, that’s the story that nobody wants to talk about. Zero Hedge had this article on ISIS:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad
Don’t know how accurate it is, but it is worth thinking about.
In fact a friend told me part of this story included Libya, and somehow the US was actually involved in trying to ship Libyan arms to Syrian insurgents!
I’d believe anything right now. E.g., I am pretty sure the CIA created ISIS to “keep things going” in the Middle East War Zone. Obama has sold billions of dollars in WMDs to the region – to some pretty ugly states, like Qatar. $11 Billion worth to Qatar and they don’t even have a million people.
So where is all this disturbing, catastrophic information regarding “ISIS” coming from? Surely not the same media who sold the last war? Do we even question the source and motivation anymore?
Perhaps an alternative view is worth at least contemplating:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/24/1387323/-Is-ISIS-Disintegrating
Oh, yes, the very same media in fact. Joining the GOP – and please notice the silence of the /democratic Party in this. Quislings.
The first Mad Max (1979) has the most realistic view (in the series) of civilization’s collapse, with the mayhem occurring against a background of indolence and silence. A signature set-piece has the bikers entering a town whose people are so passive they let one of their own be bullied and dragged away.
“…if the trouble happens to spread into Saudi Arabia — and I don’t see how it will not — then we’ll find out in a New York minute how America’s future is not about monster trucks, cars, dirt bikes, holograms, phone apps, and all the other ridiculous preoccupations of the moment.” –JHK
Yes, it could be the best thing to happen to us. No more gas-guzzling SUVs, trucks, etc. at $10 a gallon gasoline. $200 or more for a barrel oil would focus us on survival and energy. Suddenly, overnight, all the renewable and sustainable forms of energy would become even more glaringly cost-effective long-term alternatives to fossil fuels.
As an added benefit global warming CO2 levels are stabilized then reduced, because the oil stays in the ground, under Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, instead of being burned to contaminate our environment. It could be a win-win situation if Daesh reaches Saudi Arabia.
Sorry to have to tell you this but CO2 levels will not be reduced anytime soon, even if we stopped using all oil overnight. March of 2015 was the first time the world-wide average of CO2 was over 400 ppm. Well, the first time in over 800,000 years or maybe even as long as 20 million years. You see, the carbon we have released into the atmosphere (and oceans and soil too) will be there for thousands of years.
As for the future? I can’t see any way 7 to 10 billion people can exist without releasing one hell of a lot more carbon. It doesn’t matter if it comes from burning oil, coal, natural gas, fart gas, weeds, wood, charcoal or dung.
Sorry to have to tell you this but CO2 levels will not be reduced anytime soon, even if we stopped using all oil overnight –Pogo
Sorry to have to tell you that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion by the 28 member states of the European Union decreased by 2.5% in 2013 compared with 2012, according to Eurostat (Luxembourg). Emissions deciined in 2012 by 1.6% compared with 2011. BTW, atmospheric emissions of CO^ account for about 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions.
Those are facts, not wishes. It is actually happening… right now..
So Europe is proving that it is possible. Europe has also embraced alternative renewable zero emission energy sources. Only took them years to reverse things, not thousands of years, and that was done without completely eliminating fossil fuel consumption. There are lots of carbon mitigation strategies and an emerging international consensus. Later this year there will be a conference in Paris, France on developing more ways to reduce CO2.
It is excellent to hear that the EU has made tangible progress in actual new CO2 emission reductions. But I do believe Pogo has a valid point in noting that the emissions recently released are going to stay around for a long time, and CO2 levels will also be dangerously elevated for a long time, too.
If we want to see the levels in the atmosphere start to fall, it is not just a matter of reducing new emissions. It is having something around that actually makes use of all this extra CO2. And that something is, I believe – lots and lots and lots of vegetation – as much as we can plant.
If we had fewer monster parking lots around the Mega Mall of Shop ’til You Drop, and replaced those with some trees, perennial shrubs, etc., we might start to see actual progress in reducing what CO2 is in the atmosphere.
But until then, making a bit of progress on reducing new emissions added won’t do much to bring the atmospheric levels down. It will be at best a kind of rear-guard holding action.
Thanks for the reply, wpa–ccc.
While the reduction of CO2 in the EU-28 part of the world is encouraging, one should not overlook the fact that world-wide CO2 continues to increase each year:
2013 9.9 billion metric tonnes (GtC)
2012 9.7 billion metric tonnes (GtC)
2011 9.47 billion metric tonnes (GtC)
……
2006 8.37 billion metric tonnes (GtC)
The latest reading from Mauna Loa puts CO2 at 404.30 ppm.
There was a goal at one time to keep annual CO2 at 350 ppm. (See Bill McKibben and 350.org web site). Climatologists considered that goal might help to keep overall warming at 2 degrees Celsius. We blew right past that! We, meaning all of humanity, will never see 350 ppm again.
The current heat wave in India and the historic floods in Texas may have converted a few to the alter of science.
It would be wonderful if something really meaningful happens at the Paris conference later this year, but I don’t have high hopes. We have wasted about 15 years…starting with the Bush administration’s repudiation of the Kyoto accords.
News out today (05/27) about how the Montreal Protocol of 1987 literally saved our collective asses by phasing out the more harmful chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). That’s before we began shooting the messangers.
It is pie in the sky to think any of our extractible fossil fuel will be left in the ground, unburnt. Therefore ALL our fossil fuel will be turned into CO2 eventually.
Therefore reducing our RATE of production of CO2 makes no difference to climate change in the long run . For example: Instead of reaching 500ppm CO2 in “x” years it may take us “x + 10” years, when the effects are measured in 1000s of years.
The media have fooled you again. Made you think that the rate of CO2 emissions is important when in reality we are totally hooked on burning the lot eventually.
Unfortunately, I do not live in Europe, but rather am stuck with leadership that sprouts nonsense about how God is causing climate change so there’s nothing we can do about it.
The real scary thing to me is that this mumbo jumbo doesn’t get much of a counter argument – at least not among our oh-so-smart political class.
So do stack the rest of the planet – with the US prominently displayed – up against Europe when you say these things. This is a problem that may NOT have a solution – precisely because of all the stupid things humans have done all in service to the profit motive. The point of no return is behind us already, somewhere near that bridge to nowhere, that set of fraudulent “values” we were sold that turned out to be nothing but marketing slogans.
I never heard of ‘Tomorrowland’ until today. But I read The New Yorker review of the new Mad Max flick and it was very positive. So I stayed away, opting instead to see ‘Ex Machina’. This turned out to be an absurd albeit delicious little sifi thriller, unequaled in the artificial intelligence genre going all the way back to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Thumbs up for ‘Ex Machina’.
Watch the Battle of Ramadi – remixed
Wahhabism as practiced in beheading-friendly Saudi Arabia is and will continue to be the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadism let loose in the Middle East and beyond. That especially applies to its latest social media-friendly spectacular, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
ISIS/ISIL/Daesh – to the “civilized world” consternation – has seized Ancient Silk Road pearl Palymra. UNESCO is “concerned.” The White House is “worried.” Palmyra is a strategic crossroads in the center of Syria which will allows the fake Caliphate to launch attacks in all directions and harass the Syrian government’s vital axis, from Damascus to Aleppo. They have already taken over the crucial Syria-Iraq border control point of al-Walid, in Syrian territory.
Moreover, over a third of Palmyra’s 200,000 residents have already been turned into refugees. Hundreds have been made hostages. The macabre beheading show is on. Is the Empire of Chaos — which, in thesis, is at war with the fake Caliphate — doing anything to save Palmyra’s priceless Roman ruins from possible, imminent destruction by Wahhabi-drenched barbarians? Of course not.
And the same applies to Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, roughly 110 km west of Bahgdad, which the U.S. did not “lose” because it never had. While ISIS/ISIL/Daesh gloated about their victory with megaphones at all the major mosques, the Pentagon was spinning this “is a fluid and contested battlefield”, and insisted on “supporting (the Iraqis) with air power.”
Cue to gleaming Toyota convoys of Caliphate goons laughing their Kalashnikovs off while they make their mark on the “fluid and contested battlefield.” The Pentagon may “support” anything they want with “air power,” but bombing won’t disrupt the fluidity. The Pentagon has run out of targets. ISIS/ISIL/Daesh are not sitting ducks; they are an asymmetrical guerrilla very apt at redeploying in a flash.
ISIS/ISIL/Daesh invested in a lot of strategic planning to take Ramadi. The symbolism is far-reaching; a major defeat not only for Baghdad but also for the “leading from behind” Empire of Chaos, even though a clueless Barack Obama insists “we are not losing” the fight against the Caliphate.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi is finally starting to get the picture. He met with leaders of key Shi’ite militias — who will have to do the heavy lifting crossing the Euphrates and trying to retake Ramadi before the Caliphate goons decide to advance towards holy Karbala, which holds the tomb of Imam Hussein, the martyred grandson of Prophet Muhammad. It’s a race against time because ISIS/ISIL/Daesh may also try to control nearby Iraqi military bases and weapons depots.
As for Sunni tribal sheikhs around Ramadi willing to fight the Caliphate, they were — and remain — fuming because they never received promised weaponry from Baghdad. Besides, no one knows why the Iraqi Army on site did not get air support; helicopter gunships would have turned scores of Caliphate goons into minced meat.
Al-Abadi finally acted by removing his early ban for the Shi’ite militias to operate in hardcore Sunni Anbar province; they did that in the first place obeying a command by revered Ayatollah Sistani.
Meanwhile, the head of the Badr Corps and overall commander of the Shi’ite militas, Hadi al-Ameri, is sure that taking back Ramadi is easier than campaigning north of Baghdad in Salahuddin province — where the militias, alongside the Iraqi Army, recaptured Tikrit and Beiji from ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. In both cases, Empire of Chaos bombing played a minimal role.
Al-Abadi also met with Iranian defense minister, Brig. Gen. Husain Dehqan, in Baghdad; he stressed both Iran and Iraq are fighting (Sunni) terrorist extremism; and crucially, he said, “we do not support the war on Yemen,” which puts Baghdad in direct conflict with Riyadh.
It gets even better; al-Abadi has gone to Moscow, where he hopes to get plenty of support — and weapons. After all, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is crammed with Chechens. Moscow wants the Caliphate smashed; as it thrives, there is a direct threat of a jihadi renewal in Chechnya.
So now the stage is set for the Battle of Ramadi — remixed; Shi’ite militias plus Sunni tribals, the odd American adviser, and discreet help from Iran and Russia, against Caliphate goons, many of them mercenaries, lavishly supported by assorted wealthy Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf.
As far as the Empire of Chaos goes, Divide and Rule remains the sweetest game in town.
http://atimes.com/2015/05/wahhabis-go-nuclear-literally/
You follow the same news I do.
JHK sez:
“Now, at this late date, the monster Disney corporation — a truly evil empire — sees that more money can be winkled out of the sore-beset public by persuading them that techno-utopia is at hand, if only we click our heels hard enough.”
Damn! Someone finally agrees with my assessment of DisneyCo. that I’ve held, lo, these many years! Pandering and Propaganda in service to Mammon the Omnipresent.
And DizCo. is a starkly-etched standard-bearer in the war on reality:
” Our corporate masters know that our obsession with hope—the irrational belief we are headed toward some glorious future—causes us to ignore reality and remain disempowered. And this is why they peddle the myth of inevitable progress across the cultural and political spectrum.” -Chris Hedges
I noticed the reference to “heel-clicking”, too. Touchy thing, heel-clicking. Do it gently with some good souls nearby, wave a wand around, whisper ‘there’s no place like home’, and heel-clicking is quite a good thing.
But on the other hand, slap the heels together as hard as you can, stand up real straight while you do it, scream ‘ISIS shall fall, gas will be 10 cents a gallon, and our way of life is the best on earth’, and march away – and I have my doubts as to whether that mission will succeed.
Good distinction, Russ! 🙂
“Anyway, it’s interesting that the real Fury Road of the rightnow runs from Syria into Iraq starring ISIS. There is a growing sentiment in the news media (including the web, of course) of a sickening déjà vu with these developments. The old familiar talk of air strikes and ground troops infects the wifi transmissions.” — JHK
To reiterate (Peakfuture, upthread),
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad
*and*
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41943.htm
It’s critically important to realize where these blood-drenched ideas in human form gestate/metastasize and how they’re brought into the world. Evil? We got your evil right here. Divide and Conquer is now the only effective tool of the US’s invincible military. (Maybe that should be, “Divide, Destroy and Destabilize for future plunder and weapons sales”… who TF knows what the strategy is in the quest of world domination? The tactic is all too clear.)
It’s disaster Capitalism. Thank you Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Business!
JHK,
Thanks for an important and trenchant piece that *should* bring a bit of deeper thinking on this, our Day of the Dead and reflection on the wastes of war (and maybe, why we fight them).
Except for the usual brief bumper-sticker platitudes, and some rah-rah flag (Made in China®)-waving, this day is not much spent on thoughtful reflection of those who truly gave their lives on behalf of this nation. And perhaps rightly so: Since the beginning of the Cold War, at least, soldiers have died vulgar deaths for the cause of corporate profit and an imperialist U.S. bully. With the elimination of the draft, these poor bastards are more-or-less willing sheep for the slaughter. I am so sick of hearing “thank you for your service” and “these heroes died for our freedoms.” When was the last time Americans defended and fought at the actual borders an invading, hostile force bent on destruction and occupation?
To me, the real heroes are the volunteers, underpaid teachers, nurses, cops and firefighters who work hard—sometimes against absurd obstacles—to actually make this a better place.
Good point! Since the end of the draft, I’ve wondered about the term ‘all volunteer army’. The military is made up of workers (soldiers, sailors, airmen,etc…) and professionals (officers and NCOs). Every one of them is compensated with pay and benefits, and none are coerced into service. I guess there’s nothing wrong with any of this, but how dose such an arrangement constitute ‘volunteerism’?
Are cops and firefighters really “underpaid”? For example, in Denver Colorado, a Firefighter First Grade earns 75,000 per year, Second Grade earns 80 percent of that. San Diego,etc and other cities have a similar pay structure. Oh, and they work two days on and three days off, etc and much of that time is spent hanging around the firehouse and yes, they get paid to sleep while on duty. Great medical/ retirement benefits for these poor underpaid workers.
So no, I don’t think firefighters are underpaid and many smaller municipalities would get along just fine with an all-volunteer fire fighting force.
Hey Buck, You’ve got that right. It’s great work if you can get it. We worked 24 hours on, 24 hours off, 24 on and then 5 days off. 42 hours a week. on an 8 day schedule. I retired at 55 with 33 years service. I get $116 a day just for getting out of bed and I was a lowly private. The higher-ups get much more. We did sleep on the job. The mattresses sucked so we all bought nice comfy ones. I had my own room with cable TV and internet. But the good comes at a price, It sucks having tones wake you up at 3 am and going from 0 to 100 in two minutes. Not good for you. I’ve picked up dead friends and relatives. Been frozen and stuck to the ground in zero degree weather, bitten by protective dogs multiple times, slashed by broken gas, burned by melting tar down my back, etc. etc. I could go on all day with stories. I would do it again if I could.
I was listening to ‘AM’. In California – The city had the road crew making 100K to 300K a year.
How? Unlimited overtime.
Painting roads at nite.
‘Staggering’ overtime pay found in L.A. Department of …
http://www.latimes.com/…/la-me-ln-transportation-overtime...
Los Angeles Times
1 day ago – Workers in a division of Los Angeles’ Department of Transportation … concerns some of the extra pay may have been claimed improperly, according to a new audit. … said, department officials were unable to show that ………
It’s worse than that: the last few wars were enacted while America is being invaded from Mexico. The Veterans are largely asleep at the wheel – otherwise they wouldn’t be going to the other side of the world while the war is right here at home.
The veterans are not asleep at the wheel. They don’t make the policy. The idiots in Washington, and especially those behind the curtain who fund them, have brought America to its knees. The day of reckoning is coming – soon.
Perhaps. But in which case, they should stop their sons from joining up. And if they were really virtuous, they would refuse to go overseas at all. But of course that’s too much to expect from Yes men. So much for their vow to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC.
We’re not even supposed to have a standing army – for just this reason. And they’ll soon be coming for the American People.
Sorry to have to tell you this but CO2 levels will not be reduced anytime soon, even if we stopped using all oil overnight –Pogo
Sorry to have to tell you that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion by the 28 member states of the European Union decreased by 2.5% in 2013 compared with 2012, according to Eurostat (Luxembourg). Emissions deciined in 2012 by 1.6% compared with 2011. BTW, atmospheric emissions of CO^ account for about 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions.
Those are facts, not wishes. It is actually happening… right now….
So Europe is proving that it is possible. Europe has also embraced alternative renewable zero emission energy sources. Only took them years to reverse things, not thousands of years, and that was done without completely eliminating fossil fuel consumption. There are lots of carbon mitigation strategies and an emerging international consensus. Later this year there will be a conference in Paris, France on developing more ways to reduce CO2.
JHK hit the nail on the head with every sentence. In regards to the triumph and wonder of being transsexual, only 4% of the population identifies as LGBT. But to watch TV sitcoms and the news you would think they were at least 50% of the population.
So why are they getting such a big push?
Well, not long ago we would have been lead to believe Tea Baggers must have been 50% of the population. Why portrayed as such? Serves a purpose, I guess.
But honestly, your reference to ‘why are they getting such a big push?’
Please. Let’s keep it clean, shall we?
Tea Baggers? Wash out your mouth or in this case, your dirty fingers.
Because in the entertainment business they have influence well beyond their numbers.
Not only that, Hollywood is owned by the same people who own the media: the Jews. And they love to portray White men in the worst possible light. By the time a woman is 21, she has watched thousands of hours of White Men portrayed as fools, wimps, and savages. Think that doesn’t alter her perception? They believe. So do White male feminists – the ultimate victims, embracing their own humiliation.
STABBED 140 TIMES BY HIS ‘FOSTER KID’
Dillard, 55, who also fostered troubled children, was found beaten and stabbed to death Friday in his Jeffersontown home, and police charged one of his former foster kids with murder.
As world chess champion Garry Kasparov’s designated greeter at the National High School chess championship in Lexington one year,
Steve Dillard walked in with the famed Russian to a standing ovation.
Janos– that’s an absurd and scurrilous statement. You sound no better than a common Nazi when you say things like that. — JHK
Try this book for starters. Many Jews have admitted as much.
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Their-Own-Invented-Hollywood/dp/0385265573/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432612746&sr=8-2&keywords=neil+gabler
Are the Jews the only people on Earth worthy of your defense, because I have never seen you take up for anybody else. Not the Palestinians, not the American Indian, not the Vietnamese, not the White Russians, not the Cambodians, nobody not ever, only and just the Jews. Why is that Kunstler? Are you Jewish? Even Marlon Brando said the Jews run Hollywood. Is he a Nazi too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yxWeBJnCBI
The Gay Rights movement disguises the spread of “at-will employment” through-out the United States. Now, your employer can fire you for any reason at all, including your political views and religious convictions. Americans read all the news about gay rights and are led to believe that America is becoming a “more free” place where more types of minorities are protected. The reality is that NO ONE in America has any rights left in the work-place, so “gay rights” are largely irrelevant. Sure, they can get a parchment proclaiming “marriage,” and thus avoid the paperwork that was previously required to share property and make medical decisions for each other. But in the world of employment, no one has any rights anymore.
It’s too early yet, but I can’t wait for the coming explosion in homosexual divorces. The lawyers are already salivating.
Women are advancing because the males are too busy with their easily available porn to bother studying. Pharmacy schools, med schools and vet schools have mostly female students. At least pharmacy and vet. Med schools are having more and women. The problem from what I read is they do not remain in the profession long. So, women are getting the majority of college degrees. They are the dominant characters in books and movies. We are having a continual culture shift in which males are being replaced. Oh well. Want fries with that? What is the answer for men? Join a motorcycle club of course.
Wow your casual hatred is amazing. You really believe everything the media tells you. And of course you support Affirmative Action and mass immigration which puts White Men at the bottom – and you then blame him and not the system. You are equal parts delusion and hatred. Too hateful to even want to know the truth.
You have an amazing ability to read into a few words ideas that are not there. Nothing wrong with your imagination. And for the record, you are the one evidently “hating” Jews and no doubt you are big on conspiracy theories and the hidden truth. I do believe that excellence should prosper regardless of sex and race. If the girls are studying harder, then they get the rewards. I also seem to detect that you are for affirmative action for white males. You really make no sense.
RB meet Janos/Vlad. He rarely makes sense.
White Men don’t need affirmative action, especially if we had our own countries again – but even if not. We can compete if the playing field is level. But it isn’t. You don’t care about fairness or you’d see that.
Corrupt Governments always pick sides. Naturally they’re going to favor those who need them the most – that’s how to maximize their own power. And of course the Jews and Liberals will favor their own in hiring and admissions once the minorities are put through.
“If we have any idea what’s going on there…”
I don’t think anyone who lives on this side of the pond has much of a clue, least of all the uniforms in the Pentagon or the various spook organizations that purport to provide “intelligence”.
Or, if they do have some idea, the images captured through Ameri-centric lens come out like the those of funhouse mirrors from the amusement parks of our optimistic youth, that is, ludicrous, comical distortions. And, yeah, those funhouse depictions of overseas people provide the informational basis for the unending calamity of American foreign policy.
So, as we sit and ponder Mr. Kunstler’s weekly offering, the question is this: on the basis of misshapen views and deformed data, what monumental fuck-up is being cooked up right now in the corridors of power in Washington?
Obama studiously authorizes a whack here, a drone strike there. No boots on the ground, no mass deployment to clean out the rat’s nest, no sir. But when does war-fever become too much even for the famously detached Obama? Will there be a Lusitania or Pearl Harbor? No drama Obama. We’ll see.
Over at zerohedge they’re saying that ISIS is threatening attack on U.S. soil via the purchase and delivery of a Pakistani nuke. Is the Pakistani officer’s corp so compromised that such a scheme has a realistic chance? Who knows?
In this sense the ISIS boys have their thinking caps on. If they really mean to pull it off, say it out loud and do it in plain sight. Best way for nobody (especially the blind men at the CIA) to see it coming.
On a lighter note, Seymour Hersh ignited a shit-storm by writing that the Pakistanis were aware of American plans to rub out OBL. Good for Hersh, a good laugh that is.
Well, shouldn’t be much of a surprise? What possible use could OBL have been to the Pakistanis? Yeah, he did his bit for Muslim pride. Those airliner attacks were an audacious piece of work. Remember? Exultation all around the Muslim world. That’ll show ’em they crowed. But then what? Is the movie over?
So, I could imagine the Pakistanis getting royally sick of the beard and his gang. Kill OBL? Sure, no problem, what day, what time, what’s the cover story? You want to bet they served him up? OBL dead, dead, dead. I can imagine the celebration in Islamabad.
In any case, I remember a television report shortly after the snuff claiming that locals living around the OBL compound were told by cops a couple hours ahead of the hit to stay indoors and shut off their lights. Of course, this news died and was never resurrected that I know of. I haven’t read Hersh’s account so I don’t know if he mentions it.
Where you see ISIS strategy, I see manufactured consent. Let’s see, reportings of ISIS on the verge of nuking America at a time when the NSA just lost their lawful provisions to spy on every American without some modicum of due process (not that laws will actually stop the NSA). What better way to get America to accept domestic spying than by pointing out the obvious alternative: getting nuked. Meanwhile, ISIS has been talking about nuking America from day one; nothing has changed in that regard. But to suddenly lend credibility to this idea with “media reports” is, well, interesting timing to say the least.
I agree with very little of JHK’s world view, but I do love reading his dark humor.
Dammit, Kunstler. How can you ignore important spiritual events like the greatest moral leader since Gandhi visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Canon Fodder? Have you no conscience, sir?
Was that “cannon” or “canon”? Either way, a victim of ‘point and shoot’.
JHK, maybe you should write a screenplay as an antidote to Fury Road and Tomorrowland. I’m sure it would be great what with your writing chops. I saw Fury Road and kind of liked it just for the action. I thought the guy playing guitar was a fine touch. The sadists in that movie seem to have nothing on ISIS, though. Those guys are pure monsters riding roughshod over the Middle East like the gang in Cormack McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
http://www.dailystormer.com/nickelodeon-hires-black-cuckold-fetishist-to-make-interracial-childrens-sitcom/
White girl becomes quarterback of the boys football team. She’s a star and all the boys adore her. The problem: all the White boys are nerds and geeks. Only the Black boy is normal and masculine. Who is she going to choose? And perhaps they’ll rub it in by having her get involved with one of the White players first before she sees the light.
The war against White Men by the Tribe is relentless. And they focused on our Achilles heel – our women. Viable Cultures keep their women under control. They cannot/will not control themselves.
“Many of these experiments on in-group bias have been conducted around the world, and almost every ethnic group shows a bias favoring its own. One exception: Africans.
Researchers find that in contrast to other groups, African-Americans do not have an unconscious bias toward their own.”
One commenter noted the use of the word “unconscious”.
Blacks are completely conscious of their racial solidarity.
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/05/our-biased-brains/
Yeah, ridiculous interpretation. Blacks like White Women – as do Arabs and Asians. All culture value fair skin and see it as high class. Blacks, being on the bottom, want to better themselves by breeding up – or more likely, debase us by breeding us down. One of the lawyers of the Knoxville defendants defended his client against the charge of racism by saying he had a White girlfriend. That could only work with people hopelessly out of touch with the reality on the streets, or even of their owner lower selves. Yet the same people would never say the reverse, that a White slave owner wasn’t a racist because he had relations with a Black slave. They would use the same fact to confirm his racism.
About the faces, I’ve heard the opposite: that Black toddlers are more afraid of Black faces.
East Asian men might seek White prostitutes but hesitate to marry a White. They have racial pride. Same with South Asians. Arabs are so mixed it doesn’t matter to them – as long as she was willing to convert to Islam.
There’s a surprise ending.
She goes for one of the lesbian cheerleaders.
Nice! You ought to write for Hollywood. But you are ahead of the curve, at least at that age group. They wont be pushing actual Lesbianism for the pre-teen girl masses for a few more years.
This movie is for teenage girls. Super Girl struggles with her identity and relationships – even as she saves the world. Her love interest looks to be Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy (“call me James”) is Black. Of course.
http://www.dailystormer.com/supergirl-hot-empowered-blonde-beta-friendzone-white-male-alpha-negro-male/
According to one source, the passenger manifest of Epstein’s private plane, The Lolita Express, has Clinton traveling to Orgy Island 17 times. What did he do there one wonders? Dershowitz is also involved evidently. I hope he gets his comeupance because he once interfered with Bill’s prospects with a woman.
http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971
All it will take is one photo showing Clinton in a compromising position with a fourteen year old cherub. I mean Bill, not Hillary.
Or the same cherub passing an FBI lie detector test about how Bill bit her lip (that is apparently his sexual calling card).
Of course, all this might tick off his GF, “The Energizer”.
I really hope someone in the media is following Bill closely like they did Gary Hart.
That one photo of Hart with Donna Rice on his lap on the dock where the “Monkey Business” was moored was all it took to make him go home.
I read an article today about how O’Malley is waiting in the wings for some straw to break Hillary’s electoral back. One leaked email, getting a hold of “the server” etc. Plus the letter he has where Bill Clinton was telling him that he is “a rising star who should one day make it to The White House” is helpful.
I think Hillary jumped the shark when she said, “What difference does it make?!” as to whether it was the “video” or just some hoodlum trouble makers strolling the streets of Benghazi the night Chris Stevens and four others were murdered that was the reason for the attack.
Same here in the Land Of The Yellow Brick Road.
Your scenario is a realistic one, given what I know of the mindset of car-loving Strayans. We have almost no home-grown petroleum here. Plenty of coal though; no sign of any oil from coal plants yet. Great that we have 75 F-35s on order; they’ll save the day!
Phew!! You nailed it this week Jim!
brh
At the Memorial Day ceremonies today on The Town Green … I enquired of some of the younger vets, “So, what do you think of events in Iraq, seems all that was gained has been lost, and in short order too”?
Nobody had much too say about it. Some just shrugged.
Here you go BRH, on display is some of that fearsome male Russian pugilistic prowess that you were going on about a few months ago in regard to gay American military personnel: (And Janos, you might want to shield your eyes from a real ass kicking, “Matriarchal” style.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=38&v=GNTstH7Yai4
Nobody ever said Russian Broads ain’t tough, Buck.
And highly attractive, too, until about the age of 29.
brh
I’ve already accepted in my heart that in all probability (99.99%), Rhonda Rousey could defeat me in combat. She’s little but she’s big. But the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than she.
An interesting & very literal “Smack Down”… Also: richly deserved.
Not sure what influence The Matriarchy had in this example – unless you wrote that to inflame the hissing many-headed hydra of Janos’ insecurities… But you wouldn’t do something like that, would you?
/s
😉
Cheers!
The film industry is best ignored. It’s dead as an art form, lest one has a soft spot for retro fluxus video installation BS. It’s all commercial repackaging only stupider and louder.
Disney is evil because it has joined the silicon valley plantation masters in demanding, and actualizing, American STEM workers replaced by Indian indentureds. Apparently, their overpopulation costs us our jobs as well as our health, because the US has indoctrinated the masses to believe that we need GMO foods to feed the world’s insane populations. At what price the sanctity of unrestrained human life? Rethink GMOs if you think the science is good, or monocultures are good, or monopolistic ownership of seeds, of life, is good. Fine, you can have those opinions. But why is their end-game, more and more people, good? Let me guess; more consumers to buy debt and watch awful films.
And Jim, the ordinance is already flying around Riyadj, witness that hellacious car comb that exploded last week, killing dozens. I suspect it won’t be the last one. Don’t have any real hard evidence, but I think Saudi Arabia is not all that stable IMO, and it wouldn’t take too many more bombs to topple the Saud family; what or who would replace it is anybodys guess, maybe the new Caliphate run by ISIS. After that their resources would almost be unlimited, with plenty of swag to buy nukes from Pakistan, NKorea or anybody selling them on the open market.
brh
Baltimore, Maryland, May 26, 2015
29 people shot Memorial Day Weekend, 9 fatal.
This is a little puzzling, seeing as how the arrest of 6 police officers was going to ‘restore peace to our city’. The Artist formerly known as Prince wrote and performed a song imploring the authorities (by which he meant the Crips and Bloods) to ‘take away the guns’. 29 people shot in a single weekend is pretty impressive, casualties you might expect in a low level war like the ones the US fought in the Philippines in 1900, or against the Seminoles in Florida in 1835. On the home front, in Emerald City, Hartford CT, there’s gunfire every night in the state with the strictist gun control laws in the US. Who cares about gun laws tho when most of the weapons they use down ther are stolen anyway? There appears to be a direct correlation between the temp. on the thermometer and the amount of drive by shootings on any given night; the hotter it is the more gunfire you will hear and the more the casualties will pile up. Brace yourself, this is shaping up to be the summer when it all unravels, when we see the result 50 years of social engineering thru urban welfare policy fall in upon itself, leaving burned cities smoking ruins.
brh
BRH,
Just my opinion but your post above would be better without the last sentence. The rest of the paragraph had your idiosyncratic blend of fact sprinkled with sardonic snark, but then you shift into prognosticator and extrapolative sensationalist mode, puncturing the whole with the sharp point of hyperbolic excess.
No doubt there will be increasing murder and violence during the sweltering months–nothing new there–but “50 years of social engineering thru urban welfare policy fall in upon itself, leaving burned cities smoking ruins”?
It almost reads as if you’re bored and in need of some ‘entertainment’;after all, Disney and Hollywood just ain’t delivering the goods anymore.
Very prescient, Buck. The presses are down again and I’m just killing time here till they get them going again, at the same time perussing the papers that have arrived from NY and Boston, reading the news, most of it bad and causing gloomy and apocalyptic thoughts.
Its almost as if you could read my mind from where ever you are, inside the USA I presume.
brh
What do you make of ‘Chemtrails’?
This is from ‘left mainstream’ and propaganda.
there are some good comments,
https://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/kylie-jenner-has-some-questions-about-chemtrails-154817355.html
Hollywood used to be worth couple of air-carrier battle groups in American informational psycho-historical war on the rest of the world. It was softening the future battle ground much better than cruise missiles or bunker-busters.
Now it has all but gone to shitters, along with F-35 fighter jet program. I can’t watch a single Hollywood movie produced after 911 for more than 10 minutes.
The movies will improve somewhat if you knock down a six pack of Icehouse and smoke a couple of bowls before viewing…..
I’ll stick with my trusty flask, than you! 😉
Movies today suck.
I have to say that the same goes for much of the music since 9/11. Especially country, I’m told.
Hello ‘Team CFN’!
I really don’t have much time for going to an actual movie theater these days [*], and watching mainstream movie-fare is not high on my list of priorities anyway. Observing them can only serve to quantify this nations rate of descent, so why pay a premium to be a captive audience for bad marketing?
Regarding this however:
“This is ironic because if the trouble happens to spread into Saudi Arabia — and I don’t see how it will not — then we’ll find out in a New York minute how America’s future is not about monster trucks, cars, dirt bikes, holograms, phone apps, and all the other ridiculous preoccupations of the moment.”- J H K.
ISIS taking down the House of Sa’ud would be a game-changer. A few months ago it didn’t look like ‘ISIS’ had the moxie to get anywhere out of their geopolitical cesspit, but they seem to be like a little ‘ship ‘o’ Reavers that could’. It wouldn’t even be the first time that third-stage collapse of a civilization was jump-started by seemingly incoherent & disorganized throwbacks – but those are all ‘must-have’ qualities for any self-respecting barbarian horde.
The problem here seems to be reaction time – whether because ISIS was supposed to ‘serve a purpose’ and got out of control, or because some decision-maker still believes they can control ISIS and the knock-on effects of what they’re doing.
*At this point I’m reminded of that saying about sowing and reaping…*
Changing the subject to global warming [**], here’s an interesting active graphic regarding the status of CO2 in the atmosphere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbgUE04Y-Xg&sns=fb
…Put’s things in perspective, yes?
Have Fun this Week!
—
[*] unless it’s a few-and-far-between date-night and they have a bar – so as to eliminate unnecessary side-trips 😉
[**] I’m including this because we’re officially over the 400ppm – and that radically restructures the timetable for how fast ocean-levels rise, remaining infrastructure crumbles and waves of refugees flee. Basically climate change is a nice big ‘horsefly’ in our collective ‘ointment’…
A gang could live off robbing its neighbors, but not a state
In 934 BC, in the Middle East emerged Neo-Assyrian Empire. For almost two hundred years its kings fought with their neighbors (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). But in 745 BC Tiglath-Pileser III became the king of Assyria. He was an outstanding administrator and military commander and was able for the first time in history to form an army in the modern sense of the word.
As a result, for three or four decades the Assyria became master of not just the Middle East, but the Oikumena – the entire known world at the time. Its army terrorized neighbors with impunity, and the word of the Assyrian king was the law for all within the reach of his warriors. The Assyrians were invincible. Modern Americans, in comparison with them are just a pitiful semblance of a hegemon.
At one point, between 626 and 609 BC the Assyrian empire collapsed with a terrible crash. And after 612 BC, when the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, was taken by storm it was already just about finishing off the surviving troops, the fate of the state has been determined.
The economy of Assyria just could not withstand victorious wars. Huge amount of loot, endless columns of slaves and refugees, all the strength of the Assyrian kings and even the power of the army, successfully fighting against the whole world for three years even after the fall of the state have not saved Assyria, and the Assyrians were totally exterminated that no trace of them left.
A gang could live off robbing its neighbors, but not a state, but have you seen a gang that existed for centuries? The very structure of the gang and its focus on the robbery does not allow that. So as soon as the United States in the second half of the XX century finally made a choice in favor of the economy of looting its neighbors, the issue of their elimination became only a matter of time. Perhaps the rest of the world would long ago have sent America into oblivion, but its crush would generate too much rumble and debris so everybody would get affected. Therefore, until recently, all tried to somehow convince the US that it is time to live in a new way as a real state and not as a gang. But it did not happen, and the world began to prepare.
The only chance that would allow the United States to postpone its own death for a couple of decades, and during that time to try to work something out was to draw into a war all of its potential competitors, without fighting themselves.
http://cont.ws/post/89671/
Do most of Americans suffer from undiagnosed gang economy guilt syndrome? Just like the war-guilt syndrome most of the Germans are suffering from? Would that explain their passion of trying to explore ridiculous economical and monetary theories in constant search for eternal answer, which, in fact, is lying in plain view right under their nose?
Priviet FitM,
That is an interesting comparison of the USA to the Assyrians, and appreciated.
re | “Do most of Americans suffer from undiagnosed gang economy guilt syndrome?”-f.
The 1/10th-of-1-Percenters controlling US puppets-of-state have an incredible mish-mash of contradictory, self-defeating agendas. They are indeed like a “gang” on their way out. It’s looking worse than the end of that old Bogart classic “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”.
The problem of what controls the power of sociopaths used to worry me – until I saw the answer: They Do.
Cheers!
“So as soon as the United States in the second half of the XX century finally made a choice in favor of the economy of looting its neighbors, the issue of their elimination became only a matter of time.”
==
Yes, but there is much much more to it than some might even imagine, and it involves our very cosmos:
Much of the Assyrian army was destroyed during their second siege of Jerusalem, and by the same “god” they worshiped, their planet god “Ner-gal” (Hebrew translation: candle-wave) or Mars. In the near collision with Mars, Earth was shaken off its orbit and a new calendar had to be devised.
Rome was just being born, its founding father, Romulus, was killed in that event. The date was the 23rd of March 687BC, first day of Passover as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures during the reign of Hezekiah, a date and month the Romans dedicated as holy.
For more, see Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky.
For the purposes of this topic, after stating the premise of “all men” we must immediately divest ourselves of the concept of “all men”. No idea is more modern in the invidious sense. Men vary tremendously in their definition of freedom and in their capacity for it. The men with the greatest capacity, those who will be the rulers, must needs accept a strict way of life if they would rule and set an example for those below. Those with less capacity will have less responsibility – and be compensated by having more freedoms in the lower sense, of eating, drinking, and begetting.
Anti-Platonics often say that he wanted Communism for everyone. Not so – just for the Guardians and Philosophers. Their children would be raised in common and not in families. Everyone else would have the freedom to live as private families. If someone didn’t experience that as Freedom but only as bondage, then perhaps they were ready for a higher kind of life. Certainly some people would be moving up and some moving down. Some of those born to the Elite would not want the life just as George Bush Jr didn’t want to join Skull & Bones and didn’t like the Eastern Patricians at all. Or think of the French King who liked to fix clocks. Perhaps a case of misplaced caste? But how are we to fix such things? It strains the limits of human nature to expect a Patrician to consign his child to a lower caste. Perhaps as Strangelove said, it must be decided by a “computer” (a human one or mentat). Only then can we leap over the mind shaft gap of modernity and its aversion to genetic reality.
Theres an absurd movie on tv called,
‘Akeelah and The Bee’.
It’s about a really, really, really, really smart black girl from South Central LA who (along with her really, really, really, really smart Mestizo friend) goes on to the National Spelling Championship.
When the first big competition begins, the first kid to be eliminated is, of course, a blue-eyed white girl.
Ya think theres a message here? Some propaganda?
Meanwhile, the Islamic State by a number of parameters starts to strongly remind of the brown plague of the XX century – the Nazism, and Syria and Iraq are reminiscent of Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Munich Agreement.
Accordingly, Saudi Arabia is very similar to Poland, which helped Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia and even took part in it only to become the next victim of a terrible man-eating predator.
However, this time it is hoped that since permit of Poland is not required for the passage of troops to Czechoslovakia, Russia will not imitate the Soviet Union in 1939, and quickly finish off Ukrainian Nazis to succeed in time to prepare for the reception of “dear” guests from the Islamic State, in spite of another failure of the League of Nations, sorry, the United Nations.
http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1927151.html
What great writing this week JHK.. good stuff my man..
Suspend disbelief for a moment:
A Barclay’s analyst has recently predicted a 40% decline in auto sales going forward the next 25 years as autonomous vehicles replace the multitude of single-driver, single-purpose cars. Imagine the breadwinner being driven to the office park and the autonomous vehicle returning empty or more likely picking up an Uber-style fare along the way to the stay-at-home mom off to yoga,the organic food market, and soccer practice.
Certain classes of vehicles will remain in traditional roles (work trucks) although perhaps not actually piloted by a human being.
Source: Jon Markman, Money and Markets, quoting Brian Johnson of Bloomberg reporting on Barclay analyst Keith Naughton.
Markman writes:
“While the Detroit Big 3 will still have pickups and vans (their most profitable segments), they will be challenged in” the markets for family autonomous vehicles and shared vehicles, Johnson wrote. “We see this as a further lid on the prospects for” traditional, mass-market automakers.
“This is a really big deal and it’s going to happen. Other organizations that will have to start preparing now for this future are parking lot owners; auto dealerships; auto insurers; auto finance companies; municipalities that depend on taxes from auto dealer rows; auto workers; mall owners who have devoted tens of thousands of acres to parking; and emergency rooms that deal with the results of thousands of auto accidents.”
“One big danger is the threat of cybersecurity attacks on robotic vehicles. Could a hacker lock someone in their autonomous car unless they agree to pay a ransom by PayPal?”
I guess Markman has not considered the death of Michael Hastings.
Continuing the suspension of disbelief and ignoring geopolitical chaos, Rex Tillerson some time ago estimated that oil will be available until about 2050. Presumably by that time electrons and algae will power the autonomous vehicle — if even necessary, and assuming that capital exists to maintain the automotive infrastructure.
Isn’t it pretty to think so?
I strongly believe that the future of oil will be not in transportation or energy generation, but in petro-chemical industry (production of materials and fertilizers).
Oil will not end, but will become much more expensive due to the fact that ready-available reservoirs are getting exhausted and it is not cheap to pump oil in the Arctic.
And even if it ends, it is always possible to synthesize it using energy input from nuclear reactors out of any source if carbon (like coal or even atmospheric CO2) and hydrogen (water) – Germany has mastered the process in the 1940s.
Currently, the nuclear energy is being actively suppressed due to geopolitical power play under the cover of “green energy”, but everybody in sane mind know that it is the only energy alternative for the humanity. Of course, the ancient reactors of the 1950s design that we have today will have to get replaced.
Transportation got to go full electric, public and individual (car) alike. I am personally convinced that the use of individual transportation will be discouraged due to its low efficiency, may be to weekend out-of-town rides to your place where you learn to grow some tomatoes and potatoes.
Back many decades ago when I was in high school, I had a friend whose father was a chemist working for duPont. I remember once while having dinner at my friend’s house, his father remarked that if we realized what could be made from oil, we would also realize that using it as a fuel is criminal.
You don’t have to take too many steps back to see that the world we live in was not constructed because it makes sense. It was constructed because it is profitable to certain people.
Interesting scenario, and compelling – if you ignore the collapse of consumer worldwide..
For instance what would the office-park commuter pay with? What job would he be going to? With what income would the stay-at-home mom pay for her day of recreation and home-making? I hope the writer of this article got paid enough to set a little aside, because he’s going to need it. The market for writing self-serving b-s for clueless imperials doing clueless imperial b-s is ‘tapering’…
Capitalism requires consumers. Thanks to the greedy f*cks running this one, the supply of those is going fast.
By “worldwide” you mean in US? China is turning to develop its own internal consumer market, higher salaries starting to allow that. The Russian tourists on the Island, before the collapse of the ruble due again to geopolitical power-play, were spending like there is no tomorrow. (Now that segment of tourism is dead, almost).
In US the only way to revitalize the consumer market without drowning everybody in debt, is to start re-building infrastructure like there is tomorrow, that would a have a massive multiplying effect on different businesses.
Of course, first we need a semblance of some international law and order, and quite frankly, I am not too optimistic that we going to get there sooner than in a generation or two.
Good luck to us all.
Going to disagree with JHK about Fury Road.
If someone could produce fuel after a Collapse (as his Foxfire Republic manages to do in A History of the Future) some freak warlord would get his lackies to rip apart the wrecks of computerized modern cars and return them to the purity of chassis, motor, and shell.
Max is set close enough in the future (30-40 years after Collapse) that parts would be around, even tires and hoses stored in old buildings. They’d be worth a mint to some wasteland-king.
That’s what the Max films have been about: everything, especially people, as resources. That’s the brilliance of Miller’s vision in the films: if gas and bullets and water became precious, some manipulator like The Lord Humungus or Immortan Joe would make a religion out of hoarding them, giving them out as favors, along with female slaves, to his warriors.
The new film’s feminist message is a different issue; I enjoyed it for the spectacle of non-CGI battles with stunt men and dieselpunk autos.
Joe,
re | “If someone could produce fuel after a Collapse (as his Foxfire Republic manages to do in A History of the Future) some freak warlord would get his lackies to rip apart the wrecks of computerized modern cars and return them to the purity of chassis, motor, and shell.
Max is set close enough in the future (30-40 years after Collapse) that parts would be around, even tires and hoses stored in old buildings. They’d be worth a mint to some wasteland-king.”-sj.
As Wm. Gibson put it: “The Future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed”.
I’ve seen the ‘mad max’ scenario repeatedly in the 3rd World: in the Toyota battle-trucks of the ME, Africa and Central America, re-purposed diesel power-plants of abandoned main-battle tanks and the endless cannibalization of 1st World castoffs and stolen goods.
Competing with *that* is the scrappily-surviving world of agrarian technology – draft animals and wind/water/muscle powered tools & machines. This is a future that exists in the present & can be observed at close-range – with all its moving parts on display.
I agree with JHK’s primary themes & overarching premises. However, there is a flaw in the ‘Union Grove’ scenario: it vastly under-estimates the power of ‘hi-tek rednecks’ to keep those wheels a-turnin’ decades past Global Civilization’s sell-by date. Having that ‘hi-tek’ barbarism competing with an “enlightened nineteenth century” isn’t be pretty, but it is a more fully visualized scenario-build.
Cheers!
MD, from the clues you drop it seems you’ve really been around, perhaps with one of of the armed service branches, or an intelligence organization. Just an observation. Not asking you to identify which.
brh
I saw Tomorrowland with my family this weekend. The primary message of the film was to stop bitching about the future and do something to fix it. Leaving the theater with my mother- a Disney-soaked baby-boomer with a wish-upon-a-star mentality- we argued about what “doing something” might mean. She enjoyed the 1960’s jet-pack infused techno-future portrayed in the film, and wished we’d invest in that type of future (she actually mentioned monorails). I saw doing something as diminishing our fossil fuel dependence by contracting our cities, living smaller, investing in rail… the usual Kunster/New Urbanist stuff. Unfortunately, my answers, though more realistic, were lost on her. At best, she simply didn’t get it. At worst, she thought that kind of future was going backward rather than forward. As a 300+ woman with bad knees who stops her car at the mailbox rather than walking there, I think my preference for moving forward felt tiring and burdensome to her as well. Unfortunately, I think her thoughts represent the majority. That’s the real hurdle… creating understanding and buy-in.
On an additional note, I am a transgender woman, and I didn’t take what you said personally. I think men are in very serious crisis at the moment. Men have incredible creative energy/potential, and it is being squandered squandered on video games, empty masculine assertions (tattoos, piercings), man caves, etc. I think the messaging in our culture has convinced many men that they are nothing more than a stupid bag of base appetites… near-Neandrathal in nature. Men are setting the bar very low, as evidenced by school performance and college enrollment. I enjoyed your cast on Man Caves, and I’d love to hear more from you on this subject. I think it’s a dialogue our culture needs to have very soon. Unfortunately, you can’t have it without being accused of attacking or devaluing girls/women. I don’t think you have to hold one gender down to allow the other to succeed, though.
“No doubt there will an increase in violence during the sweltering months …” — Buck Stud
Buck, it gets hot here, too, in these woodsy suburbs, but we don’t grab our rifles and go out gunning for our neighbors, no, we might grab a few cold beers, sit out on the patio, tune in the Red Sox game, at the same time remembering the bitter cold of winter, just a few months previous, and soak in the summer warmness.
Theres’s two parallel ways of life here, lived just a few miles apart, one bloody, violent and short, the Hobbsian way, in the city, the other peaceful, respectful and relatively prosperous. I doubt if the twain will ever meet.
brh
BRH, It’s no mystery what you’re getting at– you’re invoking the Cultural Deficiency Theory. You’re basically inferring that blacks are prone to greater levels of violence than whites because they are inferior. Moreover, the fact that exceptional levels of violence occurs in predominantly poor black urban areas validates the theory on two counts: Blacks are not violent because they reside is awful ghettos; they live in run down, violent ghettos because they are inferior– culturally deficient if you will.
This is how I read your posts and without much interpretation between the lines; the intent is pretty obvious.
But assuming you’re right, what does that mean for “justice” in society? After all, if blacks–according to you–truly are “deficient” then that suggests their actions and fate–violence and propensity for crime–is more or less “determined” and not as a result of “free will”. Thus punitive punishment is unjust because one would be punishing a product of God–from the perspective of divine creation/religion– whose fate was sealed via the almighty–determinism.
One really can’t have it both ways. That is to say, invoke the cultural defieceincy theory on one hand–their fate is determined– while punishing them for their actions on the other–their crimes were committed under the auspices of “free will”.
And since Janos mentioned ” The Republic” up thread, recall that the Socratic definition of justice is ‘to make better’.
Why the high levels of violence, then? And how can anything good develop inside a community where the inhabitants spend all their time shooting each other. Would you open a business there? Buy a house? Move in? Most likely not.
How would you explain the event yesterday in New London, CT, formerly a Yankee whaling port, where submarines were invented, now a public housing welfare colony where English is seldom heard and Spanish is the dominant language, a 4 year old girl and her 17 year old female babysitter were gunned down after walking out of their federally subsidized apt? An atrocity right? but it hardly even raised eyebrows here; its what we’ve come to expect.
brh
Buck,
In our enlightened Criminal Justice System, the purpose of incarceration is “warehousing”, not punishment. Hence, no problem regarding determinism.
The Tomorrowland Of The Past And the Mad Men Vision For The Future
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nomiprins/2015/05/26/the-tomorrowland-of-the-past-and-the-mad-men-vision-for-the-future/
Great minds think alike, to Nomi it is all advertising. I don’t own a TV so they can’t get to me and I am selective about what movies I watch.
If we want to see the levels in the atmosphere start to fall, it is not just a matter of reducing new emissions. It is having something around that actually makes use of all this extra CO2. And that something is, I believe – lots and lots and lots of vegetation – as much as we can plant.
yes folks, i said it many many times in my past incarnations here (welles, rube-i-con etc) that everyone should plant a tree.
it will make a huge difference to the planet, for the better. here in brazil we have a 9-ft. lime tree growing from a seed we planted, plus a Boldu boldus, Boldea fragrans (Baldina, aromatic (reminiscent to camphor and cinnamic acid) and slightly bitter) plant thats morphed into a tree its gotten so tall and spread out.
these two are helping clean the atmosphere plus a host of other benefits.
its as simple as next time you eat an apple or orange just kick a hole in the ground with your heel and spit the seeds into it.
i personally throw all my seeds into the grass here, avocado seeds, the leftovers of watermelons, tangerine etc.
hopefully its all growing, fertilized by the countless empty green coconuts i throw on top of them after drinking the coconut water and they decompose.
all great stuff, in this infernal heat.
fodase
“that suggests their actions and fate–violence and propensity for crime–is more or less “determined” and not as a result of “free will”. Thus punitive punishment is unjust” –Buck
Our current definition of free will, i.e. libertarian free will, is a modern concept that means something like the ability to choose between more than one viable option or action, in which the choice was “up to the chooser.” So dragging in Socrates and Plato is not really appropriate.
The dominant materialist worldview today denies the existence of free will. Brain chemistry, neural pathways, DNA, genes, etc. make us act as we do, not free will. Free will is an illusion we have.
Additionally, the ideologies that fueled the 20th centuries genocidal dictators (fascists like Hitler, who Janos defends) were based on some form of genetic determinism. So determinism should be a vital concept for Janos to preserve.
Sign the petition to allow South African Whites the right to return to Europe. Countless other people are designated as refugees and allowed to immigrate to Europe. But Whites who are being slowly genocided are denied – even though they would fit in much more easily since they are Westerners. And of course the genocide could speed up at any time. Yet incredibly, most White Liberals still refuse to admit that racism against Whites exists. Perhaps because their “metaphysic” denies that it can? Talk about living in your head and not the real world.
Sign it: https://www.change.org/p/european-commission-allow-all-white-south-africans-the-right-to-return-to-europe
Report on BBC America earlier today states the EU has a plan to distribute emigrants coming by boat across the Med from Africa and the ME to all nations in Western Europe. The numbers are unlimited.
The door’s wide open. Let’s see how long these vaunted Welfare Democracies survive this onslaught. They get what they deserve.
Meanwhile, yes, 600,000 white SAfricans sit in refugee and squatters camps, many of them children whose parents were brutally murdered on their farms by roving gangs of Africans. Its not too nice in these camps, as they are regularly raided by gangs with whips and guns from nearby cities. Back when I was in graduate school, and Anti-Apartheid protests were all the rage around campus, I wonder if this was what all the fervid self righteous students had in mind?
I don’t know if Bono is still showing up in SA with songs like ‘Kill the Boer’, and ‘Bring Me My Rifle’. If so, its highly irresponsible.
brh
Hegemons like ancient Rome always got too full of themselves and the traits of piggishness, complacency, arrogance, increasingly far flung military adventurism, and belief that it would be of infinite duration proved to be Rome’s undoing. They thought the Goths were basically brutal, paganist slackers, much like good sports teams often take an under talented foe for granted and lose simply because they lost their hungry edge. The Battle of Hadrianople in 410 A.D. killed 45,000 Romans (equivalent on a per capita basis to losing 1,000,000 people in one battle today) and Rome was a mess that was put out of its final misery by the Vandals (also a Goth tribe like the Gauls who won the Battle of Hadrianople) in 600 A.D..
I’m well aware that people try to compare this period in history to others and the American tribe to others but Rome is just so, so fitting. Though we’ve won essentially no wars at all after WWII (sorry but I have a hard time thinking of Iraq as a “victory” given the cost and the total destabilization of the central Middle East), there is this tremendous complacency in the well fed of the world (the USA, the EU, Japan, Oceania, and parts of South America) that the US will endlessly pony up the trillions with a great cover story involving liberal sprinkling of words like “liberty” and “freedom” to ensure that the angry, the unstable, the atavistic, and the envious won’t ever endanger our supply of anything at all.
I’m fairly sure that most Americans couldn’t find Yemen on an unmarked globe and likely don’t know the difference between Riyadh and Reykjavik. We only know that the grocery shelves remain eternally full, the gas stations never run out, and we’ve got hundreds of channels of mind-numbingly stupid “entertainment” like “Ice Road Truckers” and “Bar Rescue”.
Depending on who does the counting, we’ve got an enormous number of military bases (662 according to the 2010 DoD “Base Structure” report) in something like 38 countries around the globe. We use about 20% of the world’s energy but only have 5% of its population and it’s not like we use the energy for really USEFUL stuff like manufacturing.
Jim is absolutely right. One major kerfuffle like the fall of Saudi to Wahhabists and suddenly the first thread of the ill-woven sweater comes apart at the seams. It will be a Black Swan event. Meanwhile, the rank and file of America are increasingly poor (16% on food stamps??) and suicide is rising … also just like Rome. While the many cornucopians on this blog have declared victory and gone home with their rubber duckies, they cannot see what is before their very eyes.
Saudi Arabia is the Whore of Babylon. Mecca sits atop 7 mountains. The Kaaba has 7 heads and 10 horns and was renovated by the Bin Laden Group. The Beast will come to hate her, and burn her with fire, and consume her flesh.
Russian leadership is determined not to let 1941 to repeat again
The laws adopted last week by Kiev’s Rada allow disclosure of classified information on the joint Russian-Ukrainian arms development, including missile technology, and the possibility of their transfer to third countries, and, finally, block access to Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria – all links in one chain and should accelerate Russia’s entry into the war in Ukraine. As much as Russia tried to avoid direct participation, it will not be possible for much longer.
The only thing you can do – is to better equip the army of NovoRussia, putting modern systems in place, and to provide full informational (satellite) support to the future battles, which, no doubt, will unfold this summer.
On the Russian side is secretly prepared technical breakthrough in the modernization of the Russian army and navy, especially in supersonic missile technology, and very solid gold and foreign exchange reserves, making the Russian economy much more stable to fluctuations in global energy prices.
Analysts who know the capabilities of modern Russian Army estimate that the complete destruction of everything that moves and has Ukrainian military markings would take no more than 3 days, after which the pilots will start the hunt for individual Hummers and other trifles with fork coloring.
The Russian leadership is now playing for time; every day brings in additional combat equipment and new battle systems. War is inevitable, and not only in Ukraine. The threat of Islamic State escalates from Afghanistan to former Soviet republics, the situation in Caucasus could worsen at any time, but now we can safely say that 1941 will not be repeated.
We are rather in 1938 of the twentieth century, at the historic crossroads. In some places the war is in full swing, the formation of planetary alliances is not finished yet, but the main front lines are clearly visible, and Russia is prepared much better than it was seventy years ago.
Obama: Russia’s position toward Ukraine has become more aggressive
According to the head of the White House, for the NATO alliance comes “complex and very important time”
WASHINGTON, May 26. TASS
Russia “takes a more aggressive stance” on Ukraine. This opinion was expressed on Tuesday, by US President Barack Obama during talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
According to the President, for the alliance comes “complex and very important time.” Obama is convinced that NATO will continue to support Ukraine.
http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1996411
US kidnapped FIFA officials in Zurich, Switzerland
ZURICH — Swiss authorities conducted an extraordinary early-morning operation here Wednesday to arrest several top soccer officials and extradite them to the United States on federal corruption charges.
As leaders of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, gathered for their annual meeting, more than a dozen plain-clothed Swiss law enforcement officials arrived unannounced at the Baur au Lac hotel, an elegant five-star property with views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. They went to the front desk to get keys and proceeded upstairs to the rooms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-arrested-on-corruption-charges-blatter-isnt-among-them.html
Obviously, for FBI is much more important to straighten up the international soccer, than to clean up the Wall Street mess.
They better know not to give Russia the World Cup next time
Thanks to the “Restructuring of Government” during Clinton’s term, the banks were declared the governments greatest client. When William K. Black responded by saying that it was the people who were the govt.s client, the others said, “No, you are mistaken, it’s the banks that are the govt. biggest client.”
I would say that they have created a monster with no control, but a slap on the writst–they get to pay fines on 0% interest on the people.
Yes, indeed. There will be no arrests made on banking fraud.
They break the law with impunity while quickly changing the law to suit themselves.
The US forces the system on the world.
BT,
For those totally dependent on/under the sway of this “system” the outcome looks grim.
As JHK avers, and MD has shown above,
(MisterDarling May 26, 2015 at 1:03 pm #)
the “system” has already sown the seeds of its own destruction and the sprouts are just beginning to break the surface.
The formal basis for the initiation of the case and claiming jurisdiction over it is that suspicious transactions went through US banks.
Meanwhile, all mutual settlements in dollars go through American banks (correspondent accounts) (and the currencies of several countries that use the financial system of US as a basis for their own banks). So the arrest of the officials of the international organization demonstrates not just a desire to extend America’s jurisdiction throughout the world, but also technical means to track the suspects.
And yet another lesson to the world: do your mutual settlements by any means, but try to avoid dollars, because any transaction could be declared suspicious and the funds frozen, and participants could be even arrested – almost on any payment.
When I was in high school they told me I would be going to the moon on lunar vacations with my kids. Missed it by that much!
“Yes, indeed. There will be no arrests made on banking fraud.
They break the law with impunity while quickly changing the law to suit themselves.” — Being There
Large banks represent the crucial and indispensable part of crypto-colonial management system, so there is no way they could be prosecuted. Fined – yes, but not prosecuted.
No matter who thinks what, banking and finance exercising looting mechanism over the colonies is the real American economy.
The return of the golden billion
Almost everybody knows by now that Hollywood is engaged in brainwashing. I’m sure many will recall a turnover of traditional blockbusters, when the “good guy” heroically rescues his friend “from the clutches of the” enemy by believably deceiving him. So it goes in Shrek-3, so in Focus. This dramatic technique is not new, but they use it now as a roller stamp on the brain.
And what the golden billion has to do will all that? The fact that this method divides people into two categories: the ones who are ready to accept lie as the norm in certain circumstances and those who are ready to actively apply the lie. First are prepared for the role of “electorate” and the second are put through the next phase – to check their willingness to serve.
The willingness to serve is checked very simply and efficiently – by committing a crime. Not necessarily heavy, but enough to get some hard time. On the one hand – it is a ticket to another life, a sort of party membership card and on the other – an effective means of future control.
This technique in action, we see all the Western leaders. Firstly, they start already with a criminal past, and secondly – forcing to commit crimes during the struggle for power.
No better are the European leaders, the fate of Strauss-Kahn explained everything clearly.
But the golden billion by itself is not going to happen. Not only the crowd needs to acquire the necessary awareness, it needs to be prepared for the actual separation. This, too, Hollywood has long been preparing – disaster and apocalyptic movies prescribe patterns of behavior in extreme situations. In such moments there is no time to think, so the templates are automatically played back in case anything happens.
You do not need to go far – fresh Mad Max. And no matter what template the audience will choose – good or bad, the choice will be in fact no choice, but the pre-programmed desired template of the golden billion.
http://semenischevvs.livejournal.com/280710.html
A great message. I actually went to Disneyland in 1960, and reading Journey to Nowhere pretty much confirms what it was like for me. There were crowds, crowds, crowds. I couldn’t get on the monorail. I took some other rides…a ship called the Columbia, Mr. Toad…and it all seemed very canned to me. We passed an Indian village with mechanical pow-wow sounds and barking dogs…reminded me of ‘Rags’ in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
I had a lot more fun that night, when my brother and I stayed with my cousins in the garage while the grown-ups stayed in the house. We kids stayed on cots, a smell of army surplus everywhere, telling stories as shadows reflected on the walls. Lots of fun.
Mad Max…never got into it. All the driving, driving…reminded me of a cartoon series I saw as a kid of racing cars. All kinds of ridiculous designs and drivers, just some kind of endless driving. I think the real collapse will be like World made by Hand, with no gas, and everything gets local real fast, and everyone hungry. The weirdos in a Mad Max world, living in a desert, would starve very quickly.
It’s like a manual the army put out on nuclear war. ‘Nuclear war won’t mean the end of mankind, but it will mean the end of most people reading these words.’
Tomorrowland…that sounds old, but I do miss some plan for space travel. Really, we should have been to Mars by now, but in the 80’s, all space plans just stopped, as though we couldn’t progress beyond the shuttle. There are physical problems, since there’s so much distance out there, and the human body can’t cope with radiation and when we leave gravity, our bones weaken, but it is sad we’ve just given it up.
Movies suck? I think Pitch perfect was a great film, well scripted and had a lot of strong characters and good story. having dealt with acapella groups, the movie caught it. it helped Elizabeth Banks, the producer, actually sang in one. I haven’t seen PP2. it probably won’t be as good.
I did see Far From the Madding Crowd. I still think the 60’s version with Julie Christie is better, and a BBC version in the 90’s, but this one wasn’t bad, although the actress playing Bathsheba wasn’t much to look at.
On the other hand, the new Avengers came out. Like John Podhoretz said in The Weekly Standard, it’s like a Chex Mix movie…salty, an industrialized mix of this and that, you eat it and forget what it was.
I’ve written screenplays, and they’re hard to sell. I’d like to ask you: what kind of movie would you like to see?
As a just-barely boomer, I grew up with the space program. I have always been fascinated by the Apollo program and have read volumes on it. The Apollo program showed what this country could do if it decided to beat another country to a stated goal and the people actually got behind it. It was a spectacular accomplishment.
However, it was a stunt and nothing more. Adding humans to interplanetary exploration is useless. All it adds are exponentially higher costs and risks. The Mars landers and other non-manned spacecraft have given us all the information we could possibly have gotten from sending humans there, with none of the risk, and at a fraction of the cost.
In the end, though, even those programs need to be shelved. They are gross wasters of what scarce fuel we have left and it should be obvious to anyone paying attention that: 1) we are not going to the stars; 2) there is no other life in our solar system; and 3) the only place we will ever mine natural resources is on Earth. Sad to say, but the era of space exploration needs to end sooner rather than later.
“…but Rome is just so, so fitting.”
Therian, there are really no strong correlations between Rome and the USA. Here are some of the major differences:
LONGEVITY
The rise and fall of Rome took place over 1,000 years with the final 200 years in decline. The USA has only existed for 237 years and has only been a superpower for about 100 of those years. If we are Rome, this means we have 763 years left to party! Good news for Cornucopians!
IMPERIALISM
The Romans conquered all of Eastern Europe, much of Western Europe, a large portion of northern Africa and much of the Middle East. They did it without cars, phones and internet, but coordinating such a vast empire was a logistical nightmare leading to Rome’s fall.
USA NEWSFLASH: Manifest destiny is over! The USA hasn’t colonized any part of the world since 1959 when Hawaii became the 50th state. We’re not in the business of colonizing the world or ruling foreign lands. Yes, we are overextended on the military front and do not need to police the world, but this is dramatically different than what the Roman Empire did through directly conquering and establishing their own leadership in other parts of the world and then attempting to maintain direct control over those regions.
POLITICAL INSTABILITY
The leading cause of the decline in the Roman Empire was political instability. The Roman Empire was generally fragmented between East and West and this lack of unification led to instability as time went on.
The United States is a stable Constitutional Republic. No rule by Emperors here, no overt slavery, no first or second triumvirate, no Brutus stabbing Caesar in the back, no overthrow of one government for another. United States government has proven remarkably stable with time. The foundation of our Republic is strong and stable. There is no first or second triumvirate, no Brutus stabbing Caesar in the back, no overthrow of one government for another….There is only a stable progression of leadership chosen by the people and for the people. For heaven’s sake, we elected a Black president… could that have happened in Rome?
ECONOMIC DOMINANCE
The USA is still one of the dominant economic powers throughout the world, even though China is #1 as the largest economy. Our GDP per capita is almost 6 times China’s. Nominal GDP is 23% of ALL world output. If you combined ALL of the BRIC nations you’d still have an economy smaller than the USA’s. We export more goods and services in the course of a year than the entire nomina l GDP of Russia. Thanks to both legal and illegal immigration USA innovation and output will not be collapsing any time soon, despite CFN’s weekly issue of failed predictions of collapse… for the last 20 years.
We do not resemble Rome in its decline, Therian. … The comparisons are apples and oranges.
If China makes a 100 pairs of sneakers, sells it to Wall Mart for $1 a pair and Wall Mart sells it in US for $20 each, China gets $100 added to its GDP and US gets $1900.
US GDP numbers are even more bloated than its stock market – it’s simply produced by other countries.
Exscotticus, you have a good point, it’s awfully convenient about the timing of that article. No secret, after all, that the web is a cess-pool of propaganda and misinformation.
Actually, I was trying to be sarcastic, but, sarcasm not being a strong point, I guess I failed. My bile was directed at so-called intelligence organizations and their masters. My suggestion was that, given the “intelligence” inability to see what’s happening in the clear light of day, could ISIS do worse than openly declare their intent, whatever it is? Or maybe the ISIS intent is to deceive and misdirect, to lay out bait, to see if it’s taken? I wouldn’t know. Do you? Does anyone at Langley?
I mean, the big-thinkers in Washington aren’t very bright. Peering through the distorting lens of Washington group-think, seeing what they want to see, they’re so easily misinformed. They thought they could decapitate Iraq and that what would take shape, with a bit of direction from Paul Bremer, would be a pluralistic democracy complete with topless sunbathing on the banks of the Euphrates. You know, like a Mesopotamian Sweden. The US military could have stayed in Iraq ten more years or a hundred more years. With knuckle-head leadership, would it have done any good?
For years Assad was the bad guy. Then the ISIS beards rolled up in their trucks. Now ISIS are the bad guys and Assad the good guy. Are US jets bombing Assad’s forces? Do you grok this?
We’re amazed to hear people say that ISIS rule is seen by a lot of locals as a reasonable alternative to what came before. And, as if to further elaborate on our ignorance, people (like Aayan Hirsi Ali) point out that it’s not just angry young men in ISIS, there’s a lot of diversity in their ranks, male and female, young and poor, older and well established and well-to-do.
Yeah, I know, “diversity” is a leftist buzzword, especially in liberal academies. Use of this term wasn’t meant to justify ISIS. I just couldn’t think of anything better. I’m having an off day I guess.
Right now I’m trying to figure out who the enemy is, EastAsia, Eurasia, or Oceania. Its in a state of flux, and seems to shift depending on the day of the week.
brh
Memorial Day, the time when we remember what our veterans have done for us. Iraqi vets, all gave some, some gave all. and tricky Dicky got 39 billion smackers. Long live the system, patriarchy or whatever it’s called, long live it.
Until every person on the planet accepts responsibility for the problems of our species, nothing will improve or get better.
No, men don’t have a sell by date. Neither do women, as a matter of fact, both probably get better with age. According to M. Williamson in Sacred Romance, men and women need eachother. Maybe some types of men (and women- see above) should have a sell by date. (I know Janos, what about Williamson, she’s a woman and she writes a out love and men and women, that’s the problem.)
“Until every person on the planet accepts responsibility for the problems of our species, nothing will improve or get better.” –barbisbest
Yes, every person. But men and women are not equal.
Men have made a mess of the world because they are ruled by their testosterone, with all the genocidal consequences. Women are superior to men and women should be given control of the political apparatus in every country in the world. Men should be prohibited from holding political power for at least 100 years to compensate for the effects of so many centuries of violent and oppressive patriarchy.
I won’t list all the characteristics that make women superior to men. Just look at men’s human trafficking of women and children; look at the militaristic violent world men have created.
Just like old times having Asoka preen his politically correct social image. Yeah, right, dude women are “superior” [sic]. Everything in your apartment … EVERYTHING … was invented by a man. I don’t care if we’re talking your toilet, your TV, the manufacturing processes for ALL of your clothes, your kitchen gadgets, your computer, your your your your ….
That “testosterone” that you’re making such a big issue of isn’t just used by males to kill. That’s a really stupid generalization but rather in keeping with your long-term style.
Speaking of women in positions of power. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has shown she is not afraid of arresting people wearing Armani suits and Rolex watches. The banksters should be trembling with fear.
Thank you, President Obama, for appointing Loretta Lynch.
…
You need to be sacrificed to the Goddess. Don’t you want to? No? What’s wrong with you? That’s just your male privilege talking.
.’ Women are to men and women should be given control of the political apparatus in every country in the world. Men should be prohibited from holding political power for at least 100 years to compensate for the effects of so many centuries of violent and oppressive patriarchy.
I won’t list all the characteristics that make women superior to men. Just look at men’s human trafficking of women and children; look at the militaristic violent world men have created.’
Thank you wpa-ccc for your words. but, men and women do still need eachother I believe. It was Pete Seeger who said in an interview a dozen years ago, “the human species has a 50/50 chance to make it. and the only way it will, is if men of money see women working with children growing food and thinking, why was i such a fool.” That, in essence, is the diving feminine.
It’s interesting that I wrote about the system, as I just saw a video about something new under the link. http://www.thenextsystem.org. Is it time for something new, should we, dare we? Who knows. Thank you
I meant the Divine Feminine, oops. There is Divine masculine too, and divine feminine in all men, XY you know.
Thank you for your honesty. You started out talking about equality for the sexes and ended up talking about Female supremacy. That’s exactly the what Feminists really believe. The equality stuff is just a veneer.
Women need men? As slaves to work in the fields. The Global Elite won’t need either since their utopia is going to be high tech. And since they created Feminism as a weapon, I think they’re the real enemy. Don’t get me wrong though: Feminism has wreaked utter havoc on the Western World and caused unspeakable suffering. You can take pride and comfort in that at least.
Strange then, that Seeger was an ardent supporter of Stalin, who murdered his own wife, and cast tens of thousands of women, mostly peasant women, into the Gulag. Few survived.
Seeger was a fraud who ran flak for Stalin almost to the end of his life. Then after Communism collapsed he pivoted, on a dime, to radical environmentalism.
brh
There was a Muslim bloke with a full beard working at the 911 Memorial at the New York City, World Trade Center last Tuesday. True story. I told an educated, middle aged, blond New York woman this story and she remarked: “That just shows how open and accepting we are.”
Seawolf, Hollywood made BRANDON apologize.
for a mainstream view, from Joel Stein,
Who runs Hollywood? C’mon –
articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19
December 19, 2008|
‘JOEL STEIN … movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” down from nearly 50% in 1964. … Jews totally run Hollywood.’
ooops, ‘Brando’.
I say rich people own the media.
Chomsky agrees.
Like—-I’ve even noticed on TV shows like MSNBC’s “Lockup” that they only film in locations where there are going to be large numbers of white or hispanic inmates, or at least few black, such as Iowa, etc…
All of this combines to create an atmosphere where the average unawakened white viewer does not connect blacks to the amount of crime and dangers seen in every large city.
The lower jaw of the media wrench is these black newscasters, black narrators, black commentators, TV shows, movies, and most importantly these unbelievably ridiculous commercials.
Constantly depicting blacks as having intact, caring, two parent families, well behaved children who excel in school, holding high IQ professions such as engineers, chemists, and the like, paying their insurance policy on time, meeting with their financial adviser to plan their retirement, engaging in white recreations like sailing or mountain biking …. none of that is done for the benefit of blacks or to market products and services towards blacks.
Those kinds of images and roles are solely for white consumption.
They exist so that whites can imagine blacks being just like them, and will self-police themselves and their thoughts if they ever drift toward having a “racist” observation, should they ever notice that is not how blacks are in real life.
PS, ‘none of that is done for the benefit of blacks or to market products and services towards blacks.’
There is an absurd You Tube. One Blake Shelton singing his hit
song, The Boys Round Here.
At the county hee haw, its the Blacks that add life.
In a country music clip. WTF?
Good observation. More and more Blacks are present at the Country Music awards, even doing duos with the stars. They’re beginning to do to Country what was done to Rock – merge it into a Black/Hispanic mainstream.
The Palo Alto Daily Post yesterday showed that, contrary to common belief that big tech moguls are the highest-paid plutocrats, 8 of the top 10 are media moguls. They just keep a lower profile than the likes of Jobs or Ellison. Most media products just seem like psy-ops to instill “truths” in people’s minds that aren’t true or to give a tacit sanction to creeping hipsterism in language like white people using Ebonic cliches (“Whut up, Holmes?!”, “That Chevy is dope!!”).
I enjoy your posts, Malthuss.
In a meantime, fights are already going deep inside Saudi territory
Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters, allies capture Saudi base
Fighters from Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement together with members of the allied popular committees have taken control of a Saudi military base in retaliation to Riyadh’s ongoing air campaign against their country.
Ansarullah fighters and forces of the popular committees recaptured the base in the al-Makhrouq region of the southwestern Saudi province of Najran during an operation late Monday.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/05/26/412879/Ansarullah-Saudi-
Iraqi army, allied forces capture 100s of ISIL militants in Anbar
Iraqi army troops and allied forces have captured hundreds of ISIL militants in the western province of Anbar.
New video footage shows Iraqi security forces, backed by members of the allied Popular Mobilization units, having captured hundreds of Takfiri ISIL militants in the country’s conflict-ridden western province of Anbar.
The video, aired by the Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen news network on Wednesday, shows ISIL militants lined up in a desert area on the outskirts of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, located about 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/05/27/413060/Iraq-army-ISIL-militants-Anbar-Ramadi
For twenty years the nuclear power industry of the United States was fueled by Russian weapons-grade uranium practically free of charge. According to “Megatons to Megawatts” Program in the framework of the agreement “Gore – Chernomyrdin” Russia handed over to the US about five hundred tons of nuclear fuel.
From February 1993 to present the Russian Federation “earned” on this contract 11.9 billion dollars. However, the true value of this amount of uranium 235 is, according to various estimates, from eight to ten trillion dollars! In other words, Boris Yeltsin and Viktor Chernomyrdin gave the Americans the Soviet nuclear fuel at the price of a thousand times cheaper than its actual cost.
The contract ended on 14 November 2014 when the last shipment of Russian nuclear fuel was shipped from Saint Petersburg to Baltimore on “Atlantic Navigator”.
New understanding of the war, officially promulgated in the operational doctrine of the US Army “Victory in a complex world 2020-2040” does not necessarily include the presence of clearly defined enemy, ally, and even the use of lethal weapons. “Hard confrontation of the future will be in an unfamiliar environment and unfamiliar place. This army will confront the unknown enemies, members of the unknown coalitions“. According to one of the developers of the concept, a former commander in Afghanistan, General Barno, “We will have to operate in an environment where it is impossible to establish the exact time of the start of any war, no moment of its completion”.
The boundary between peace and war is absent. This state of “peace war”, when everything is vague, changeable, fluid and hybrid as the Americans like to say. And where does the enemy end and ally begins, no need to bother. And the evil “Islamic state” is the same tool of American interests as any Ukrainian “Right Sector” or the Kiev’s government of Yatsenyuk. And the owners will decide when it’s time to dispose of the tool – all considered part of official US military doctrine.
http://americasdonewrongs.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-new-us-war-total-war-against-russia.html
Is American brass going totally bonkers?
Indeed we are.
Here’s a great little article by Michael Hudson where he calls our activity in the Ukraine, “grabitization” It’s the perfect terminology for our global neoliberal “war by other means”.
http://michael-hudson.com/2015/05/ukraine-labor-dares-operation-vulture/
Michael is a great guy, but he is after all a bean-counter and looks at everything from accounting stand point.
It is all way beyond that.
Funny, I don’t see MH in that light.
He’s an economic historian and professor with some interesting career choices in his early years.(He’s not an accountant.)
Janos Skorenzy
May 28, 2015 at 12:00 am #
“Thank you for your honesty. You started out talking about equality for the sexes and ended up talking about Female supremacy. That’s exactly the what Feminists really believe. The equality stuff is just a veneer.
Women need men? As slaves to work in the fields. The Global Elite won’t need either since their utopia is going to be high tech. And since they created Feminism as a weapon, I think they’re the real enemy. Don’t get me wrong though: Feminism has wreaked utter havoc on the Western World and caused unspeakable suffering. You can take pride and comfort in that at least.”
Women do need men Janos, and vice versa. And if feminism has caused unspeakable suffering, than that’s a shame too. But studies suggest that matriarchal societies are generally happier, in other words, countries governed by females. Angela Merkel comes to mind, although Germany has its’ troubles and is sure to have more in the not-to-distant future. Good luck to the echilon with that techno utopia, it ain’t gonna happen.
Thank you for repeating my post again – it bears repeating.
You think Germany is a Matriarchy? Most people think it is a Democracy where both sexes can vote or run for office. Whatever it is, it’s doomed since it has surrendered to Islam. Its future will not be Western, but rather a Middle Eastern Patriarchal Theocracy.
And in fact, any country which becomes a “matriarchy” (there are only a few small tribes that actually fit the bill) or in more real terms, a welfare democracy run by female worker insects and fat baby mommas but actually ruled by corrupt men, is doomed since female values cannot maintain a nation.
But just for fun, say we created a Matriarchy run by Feminist intellectuals. Women would find themselves attracted to the men who rejected the system – and uninterested in the male drones droning on about how good she looks, and what the baby said. Women love Patriarchs or rebels – Patriarchs in training. They want to get with the alpha males. Thus Patriarchy is the natural order of things – and the naturally the system which meets women’s needs.
Let me thank you again (am I not polite? Women love polite men! (as slaves)) for your honesty. Most Feminists are far too savvy and discrete to say they want Matriarchy. You charge in where demons fear to tread.
During a meeting with the Secretaries of the Security Councils of the BRICS countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed himself unusually harsh remarks against the United States, writes Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten. He rightly accused America of the expansion of the “Islamic state” and the attempt on the sovereignty of other nations. There is no doubt that the words of Putin will be followed by concrete actions, writes the author.
“We know what is happening, for example, in the Middle East, in North Africa; we know the problems associated with a terrorist organization, which has appropriated the right to be called the ‘Islamic State” (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL),” Putin said during a meeting with security officials from the BRICS block in Moscow.
“But there was no terrorism in the countries where it [IS] flourishes today before an unacceptable interference from the outside happened, not sanctioned by the Security Council of the united Nations,” he stressed.
Russia’s president describe the consequences of such interference as “serious,” with the Islamic State currently controlling territory in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
http://rt.com/news/262249-isis-putin-brics-un/
Summer-Fall of 2015 many political experts and analysts predicted as the time of the decisive battle between the US and Russia (option – and China), between a unipolar Western world order and new world order with several “centers of strength”.
I sold the farm and took my woman where she longed to be
We left our kin and all our friends back there in Tennessee
I bought those one way tickets she often begged me for
And they took us to the streets of Baltimore
-Bobby Bare ‘The Streets of Baltimore’, 1966
5/272015
Hartford, CT
10 shootings, 5 murders in past 12 days, also fatal stabbing last night in the ‘Blue’ package store.
Today the Mayor, Pedro, married to a dude named Juan, announces crime is down and things are getting better every day.
That’s where we’re at in this point in time; where it goes from here is anybody’s guess. From the looks of it, however, the project of civilization has come to an end, round these parts anyway.
brh
Watching what is happening in distant Syria and in my native Ukraine, it is impossible not to marvel at how effectively the energy of young people is used by modern extremist movements. It appears that neo-Nazis in Ukraine and Islamists of Islamic State attract young souls using the same training manual – faith in God, love for the country, fighting for your friends, and the desire for justice. But each of these high principles in practice is turned upside down – to the absurd, to the crime. Under the guise of religion ideas of destruction and death, total hatred are introduced. So wonderful young people who could benefit tremendously from their land and humanity go kill and destroy.
And do it with inspired minds, sparkling eyes and considering themselves heroes. Without realizing it, they become sectarian.
Why is this possible? How does it happen? The reason is simple – lack of true values, this constructive ideology in the mass consciousness. All holy is spat upon and blackened by many years of liberalization: the church, the state, traditions, motherhood, family, partnership – all has been the subject of criticism and mockery. State is bad, all the officials are thieves; family and motherhood is a burden and vulgarity; tradition – the brake for a progressive society …
Everything around is destroyed, there are no guidelines, nothing sacred. Men corrupted and placed in a corrupt morass of consumerism. Entire peoples are deprived of ideals, traditions and heroic examples. Free people of free World turned out garbage rats, fighting for a meatier piece.
But inside every human being, especially young people, God laid the pursuit of ideals. Everyone at the first conscious steps towards a mature spiritual life is given eternal questions and is looking for the perfect answers. Often it requires not just dreams and thoughts, but real creation, and incarnation of ideals here and now. This is a natural need for a person. No less than the need for food and water.
Lie disguises itself as truth and thereby kills it in the hearts of men. The history is age-old. Its implementation is obvious and even trite, but now is seen with particular clarity how highly efficient it works. What terrible scenes have become realities for the very reason that destructive lies have not been stopped in time and the emptiness of souls has not been filled.
http://russkiy-malchik.livejournal.com/624046.html
Hello Back-Row (and co.),
re | “MD, from the clues you drop it seems you’ve really been around, perhaps with one of the armed service branches, or an intelligence organization. Just an observation. Not asking you to identify which.”-brh.
In my case; With the military and as a contractor with military and law-enforcement stakeholders.
Regarding the blend of high and low-tech I mentioned, I’ll give you some examples from one time period: I rented a house in a Honduran town for a year. I’d wake up at dawn with a sway-backed white horse chomping the grass that grew on the street-side of the property. Two or three times a month the owner would get a job for the nag and hitch her up to a buckboard wagon – generally they were local hauling jobs for food and a little cash – and the rest of the time the nag would just free-range the neighborhood…
My neighbor across the street ran a small store out of the front of his house. His overhead were two freezer-meat-lockers (he had the only refrigeration in the neighborhood) and his “truck” (as he called it jokingly) was a Chinese cargo bike – the kind with the enormous basket up front and the drop-down U-shaped steel-tube kick-stand that props the whole vehicle when deployed so it takes a hurricane to knock them over. The bike was a legacy of a deceased shop-owner and had been in continuous heavy service in that neighborhood for 20+ years…
My security sub-contractors were 2 El Salvadoran ex-military guys (brothers). Their equipment was another mix of old and new: 2 machetes apiece and 1 Taurus .357 w/a 4″. I paid them in cash, bullets and medical supplies. They were smart, capable wiry little men and had trained themselves to hit bulls-eyes with those machetes at 10 meters… Which meant that they could ‘silent kill’ a lookout *w-a-y* before he could draw and fire when they stood up ‘all of a sudden’ from the underbrush.
When they rode with me into the mountains (near the Guatemalan border). A guy would come down out of the jungle riding a saddle-mule, pulling a string of 5 burros…
My communications were another mix of old and new – try getting secure commo when the local military IS ALSO the telephone/telex/internet provider… You find work-arounds.
That’s how everything was.
So you killed off your ColdN and Kdog aliases (and associated blogs)? Having a hard time getting *hits*? I suspect as much – but you’re doing a h3ll of a job shutting down the discourse here (along with your racist compadre and ‘his’ assorted sockies). All I really had to read in your prior post was, “My security sub-contractors were…” Nice, a 0.01%’er, building a fortress in one of the last remaining forested areas (SHOCKING)!
Oh, and replying to yourself (one last thought) – so ‘gauche!’ [wink/wink/nudge/nudge]
ZrCryp,
You are the one CFN’er whom I have never understood W T F they were talking about… You’re aiming this B-S at the wrong person(s). There are corporate/gov’t socks here… But I am not one of them.
First & Last clarification,
Cheers!
Little bit of ‘Mosquito Coast’ by Paul Theroux in that Post, MD, with a little bit of ‘Dog Soldiers’ thrown in for good measure.
Honduras right now leads the Western Hemisphere, maybe the entire world, in murder per capita, a dangerous place to say the least.
brh
Hello BackRow,
“Little bit of ‘Mosquito Coast’ by Paul Theroux in that Post, MD, with a little bit of ‘Dog Soldiers’ thrown in for good measure.”-brh.
What I wrote was only the truth. By the way, the movie (Mosquito Coast’ was shot in Toledo District of Belize – which is actually nice and civilized in comparison to the real Mosquito Coast down around Bluefields and vicinity… But that can be workable – if you know some Garifuna.
“Honduras right now leads the Western Hemisphere, maybe the entire world, in murder per capita, a dangerous place to say the least.”-brh.
Honduras is a dangerous place – it’s the place that Mexicans go when they need ‘cheap labor’. The only place poorer than it in this hemisphere is Haiti, and Haiti might be safer (b/c they’re not as heavily armed as the Hondurans).
😉
One last thought:
“try getting secure commo when the local military IS ALSO the telephone/telex/internet provider… You find work-arounds.”-me, just now.
This might make you consider how ‘3rd World’ the USA has become… And that’s a problem, because the whole old 3rd-World political-elite was leaning against the US’s for support.
The “doom vs. wisher” outlook is a false dichotomy. However, I understand the psychology behind it since the average comprehension or interest in complex systems regarding economics, the environment, and politics are shallow.
The best way to convey complicated or intricate issues with Americans is to put topics into cartoon form and nothing beyond an elementary school level of reading comprehension.
Alongside the intellectual deficiency, Americans are deeply involved in lifestyle addictions and obsessive consumerism which strongly stress attention to the bottom 3 rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and little more.
Combine the lack of education and lifestyle addictions with an overlay of methods of cognitive denial (e.g., political correctness), and the end result is a population not too different from Keanu Reeves’ character “Mr. Anderson” from the Matrix trilogy.
Quite true. There can only be two sides of any idea for Americans. Anything is either true or false. And that nicely ties into the good/bad and like/dislike parts of our brain – making for snap decisions and general idiocy. And it is exactly ties into our two party system – my team vs your team mentality. One is right and the other is wrong.
Believe in free markets or go to hell. Believe in global warming or be out in the cold. Believe in the six million (and not one less) and you are a denier.
And it is self perpetuating. It’s not just that Americans are dumb, even the smart ones hate to think about anything important. They might be brilliant in their hobbies of sports analysis or engine repair, but try and get them to think about anything else and you are the enemy.
I’ve often made a comment about a particular change in American social life among intellectuals i.e., that an attempt at in-depth conversation is now an imposition. I taught at a college for 23 years and, frankly, I grew astonished toward the end of that stint at how narrow the knowledge base of people has grown. They might be savants in their area of specialization but get them an inch outside of their niche and they’re either lost … or IRRITATED.
In the America that existed through the 1970s, high schools required 4 years of math, 2 years of a foreign language, 4 years of English, history, chemistry and physics, and no squirming out of things via loopholes. College educated people could not be the sort of people like the ones graduating from wretched schools like the California State Universities (e.g., San Jose State U.) who can literally be illiterate upon graduation. A friend’s daughter showed me an essay written by a senior at SJSU and it would have been an embarrassment for a fifth grader in the 1950s and 1960s.
That’s why nuanced conversations with gray areas are becoming an anachronism. Without a knowledge base, people simply collect a collage of beliefs and argue from that perspective rather than from the perspective of a broadly educated human being. A college degree now is not worth the paper it is written on as far as being a guarantee of a true scholar. It’s the age of the peevish specialist who jealously guards his little sinecure.
Here in Silicon Valley, tech geeks are often the product of an education which never taught them how to speak, write, or be a civilized, mindful social being. They’re not taught critical thinking either which is why even their computer code lacks focus and a clean logical line of thinking from start to finish. It’s spaghetti code with comment sections in pidgin English. Sometimes it’s a marvel that anything works at all.
A true Liberal Arts education is something only a few people are interested in having, but one cannot trust anybody to vote without it. Thus I reject Democracy, root and branch. One of the Presidents of Harvard admitted as much. They were just turning out well trained bureaucrats at best – and some inner barbarians as well.
The question is deep. One can teach smart women to understand statistics and even use them in their work. But use them on political questions? I doubt it. Math doesn’t move their souls and will never be part of their inner being. They can’t be trusted to vote. Needless to say, many men have the emotional souls as well. As Hitler said, the crowd is a woman.
Sometime after WW1, there was a quiet revolution on campuses. College men became much heaver and more muscular. In other words, the standards were lower. Later, they were even lowered at the Phd level. And this is all long before the lowering you witnessed. You saw the terminal process of a long disease.
San Jose State 1964-1968, 1970-1972.
Yeah…what he said….
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19
Mr Stein says, I had to scour the trades to fine five Entertainment executives in high positions who weren’t Jewish. And then they refused to talk to me out of fear of offending their Jewish colleagues. Smart men. One of the secrets to surviving in Hollywood is to know the score but never mention it. Likewise in Academia, one has to know about Black IQ and never mention it. Our Civilization is based on Lies, much like a building built on sand. It cannot last. The waves are coming.
The FIFA case: Taxation without Representation
The Declaration of Independence included the charges put forward by the Founding Fathers against the British Crown that King forced the colonists to live according to the laws, which they could not influence.
The logic of the Founding Fathers of the American State was as follows: a person can only be judged according to the laws which he participated in making, be it by referendum or through a representative in parliament. The founders of the United States considered this issue important to the extent that they became separatists and fomented an armed insurrection against the British Crown.
The case of FIFA is a glaring violation of that principle. What does the court in Brooklyn have to do with corruption and kickbacks in the non-profit organization, which is registered in Switzerland? Among the victims of the alleged violations committed by functionaries of FIFA there currently no US citizens, there is no evidence that a crime occurred in the United States, there is no connection whatsoever between the United States and FIFA. US prosecutors are very loosely interpreted the notion of jurisdiction and using precedents when the use of a US bank in the process of transferring money or American internet server in E-mail correspondence considered sufficient grounds to American courts poking its nose into other people’s criminal cases.
By this logic, Islamic State has the right to judge all Americans by Islamic laws, since the fuel tank of American cars have gasoline made from Arab oil. Or due to the fact that American bankers are using Arabic numerals! It is clear that the legal arguments US prosecutors – it is pure, distilled nonsense, which is supported by the American media.
http://politrussia.com/world/ssha-terroriziruyut-futbol-544/
Wow! Is “the end of the project of civilization’ still on the CFN Agenda. According to the British press there’s a bloodbath going on in Palmyra, Syria right now that equals anything that occurred on the Eastern Front in 1941. Public beheading spectacles, mass shootings, point blank executions with bazookas, rape, stoning of homosexuals need I say more? You all know … Why is it during the Bush years everytime a grenade detonated it lead the news, now there’s silence except in Great Britain? After this ends, if it ever ends, I predict a lot of hand wringing and bitter recriminations, like what happened after Rwanda. Remember that, only a little over 25 years ago? Right now the FiFa scandal leads the news, as if anyone here gives a sh-t. (You ain’t seen an Elitist until you seen an EU or FIFA elitist). And speaking slaughter, anarchy and blood violence, 38 people murdered and counting in Baltimore since May 1, including a young mother and her 8 year old son shot in the back of the head execution style. Take a moment and ponder that, think about what it means. Maybe the end of civilization as we have known it for all these years.
This what many of you voted for. How do you like it now ladies and gentlemen?
brh
‘Women need men? As slaves to work in the fields.’
No Janos, to work in the fields together, where the sound that we hear will be the sound of our voices, singing.
I say
You are so gay. Listen to this: Ken sits down with Warren Farrell, the father of the Men’s Rights Movement. They both agree that men are being condemned for power that they don’t have. Much like Whites I might add.
Part two: how Women’s Studies takes some of the brightest young women and turns them into shrews and bitches – future hags and harridians.
You don’t even know what your own guru believes. Typical.
http://in.integralinstitute.org/landing/warren_farrell/index.html
Four coming bifurcation points:
1. Negotiations on Iran: the agreement must be (or not be) signed by June 30
2. The decision of the IMF (likely to be before 30) on the tranche allocation for Ukraine
3. The meeting of the Bilderberg Club in Australia (10-14 June). Rumors circulate that the United States will be represented by Jeb Bush – big and unpleasant surprise for the Clinton clan, if it is really so.
4. The EU’s decision to extend sanctions against Russia
Fodase, interesting, past incarnations, huh. I know I’ve had my share.
My best to Homo Sapien.
Nice writing for the past few weeks, JHK. I appreciate what you do.
I also appreciate the ability to comment and read comments. It’s too bad that so much is (IMO) being lost due to the layout of the nested comments. For example, “Ed” made a trenchant comment late on the 28th. His idea was, truly, something that I have not seen addressed anywhere in the media or on the blog-a-sphere. You might repeat it somewhere else, Ed, because very few people are going to notice in among Monday’s CFN comments.
Anyway, that’s not really why I signed on, but the following is:
This hit Drudge this morning http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150529/eu–russia-kremlin_propaganda-4010c316ef.html and I wondered where we @ CFN might go to find such a person?
And I do like many of your posts, FM. They have the ring of truth, to me, oftentimes. They are also a little long and a little strident, sometimes.
OK, that’s it. I’m out ’till otherwise. No, hold on – got one more link for O3 and a few other prepper-types if I can find it. Stand by.
“and I wondered where we @ CFN might go to find such a person?”
May I make a suggestion?
Here you go, folks: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-danger-that-there-will-be-no-big-event_05282015
I’m actually thinking the above is what’s going on now, and is likely to continue for an indeterminate (perhaps very long) period of time. The US is on a long downward slide, IOW. Some sections are sliding into something like rural Mexico, except cold, unfriendly, and geographically dispersed. Densely populated sections are sliding toward a cross between Ferguson and New Dehli, India. Some small sections of the US have already slid into a gated and glittering version of Paradise on Earth. Those later sections have a higher proportion of psychopaths and their genetic progeny, exercising control over those of us in the other sliding sections.
BTW, I’m not a regular reader of STTFplan. I discovered this news feed, http://www.newsblok.com/ , which is very diverse and broad ranging. It was NewsBlok that drew my attention to the link I just posted.
Thanks, P4w,
I was taught to hope for the best *WHILE* preparing for the worst.
As you might have guessed (;-)), my trust level regarding those that have been tasked with coming up with the next Big Idea that’s going to save us all has been seriously degraded (and degrades incrementally, by the day as I look around).
BTW, this would include political Big Ideas, like some of the constipated and thoroughly discredited ones espoused on this very comment section. What’s to trust? Agents, trolls, skullduggery, endemic (and exponentially growing) corruption, “patriotic” assassination……….etc.
IMHO, anyone trusting in the present ruling institutions [in this now-benighted country] is living in a Fool’s Paradise of the most dangerous kind.
Narcotic aspect of Democracy. Introduction.
Use of drugs as a political argument was initiated by Britain in the 19th century. In the 20s-30s of the 19th century the active development of trade with China has put British Empire on the brink of collapse. Tea was gaining popularity on the island and in continental Europe, bringing huge profits to traders. Not less popular was silk that, in addition to the aesthetic qualities, possessed property of repelling lice from the body. For Europeans, whose culture at that time completely missed the concept of cleaning and hygiene, silk underwear was almost the sole means of a relatively quiet life without parasites.
But pretty quickly a problem emerged, that almost led to the collapse of the entire European financial system. Chinese required silver to pay for silk and tea. That pretty quickly led to a significant depletion of metal from the financial system in Europe and threatened to leave it without any money. Using only gold was woefully inadequate for the functioning of stable finances despite the appearance of paper money substitutes.
The problem was extremely acute and resolved almost by an accident. It was discovered that in addition to silver Chinese people willingly took opium in payment. The problem of opium consumption in China is not quite fairly associated only with the British. Opium was known in China long before them, but it was used only as a medicine.
The British quickly realized all the prospects of opium smuggling, and actively contributed to the replacement of silver by opium in silk and tea trade. This has ultimately resulted in two wars, known as the Opium Wars.
When China was trying to stop the imposed purchase of opium, it shook all human rights defenders. Living in London, the victims of the totalitarian regime of the Chinese emperor exiled dissidents Sia Ka Nav, In Ba Ka Lin and Xiao Pa asked the gracious Empress Victoria to send troops and destroy a couple of Chinese cities to protect the human rights and support fight against corruption. The British monarch, traditionally a defender of the “Western Values”, despite the sign “Entrance with dogs, blacks and Chinese is strictly prohibited” at the gates of Westminster, allowed them to kiss the floor and granted personal reception of the petition on the need of invasion, gathered by the Foundation on Lin Ba-based creative class in China.
Then the Royal Navy came to the shores of China, made a “surgical” bombardment against terrorists (civilians, of course, were not affected). British Peace Corps disembarked and moved to Beijing, making a juicy barbeque out of Chinese on the way. The ATO (anti-terrorist operation) triumphantly ended with the signing by the Chinese government act of Free Trade of British opium, the payment of reparations and compensation to the English crown and to dissident exiles. Good guys once again saved the world from the bad guys.
As a result of this trade and the associated two Opium Wars, Britain acquired the ownership of Hong Kong Island, the southern part of the adjacent Kowloon Peninsula, and dramatically changed the balance of power in Europe’s finances. In its favor, of course. The opium trade has enabled the British to quickly compensate for the loss of silver, and to increase its volume at a profit by selling already in Europe, and at the same time enhancing its political position on the continent.
Therian,
I know a young chap, a recent business grad from a respected university. And guess what, he doesn’t do cursive. I wonder, how the fuck do you write university exams, where time is your worst enemy, without being able to write? Is it all multiple choice, are the questions oriented towards three word answers, or maybe diagrams, or maybe stick figures?
The complaint of a content free education, free of fact, free of memorization, free of exertion, isn’t recent, it’s been around for a while, in fact, for decades. But I think the complaint has validity and the problem is getting worse, not better. The cluelessness of the young isn’t a figment of the imagination, it’s real. I know, I’ve seen them.
I don’t grok it, maybe it’s possible to acquire a four year degree and know next to nothing at the end of it. Maybe this is why so-called “selective” universities charge sky-high tuition. It’s a con. You buy your way into the club, you buy the degree, you learn the hand-shakes and code words and, no matter that you don’t know shit and are as helpless as can be, you’re now on the inside. Maybe they admit people on the basis of having the money, their wholesome, all-round, all-American wonderfulness. That and who’s yo daddy. To get in you need the shine and polish of being the right type, of coming from the right place, of having the right parents. It’s a class thing IOW.
And, being a paid up member ie a quarter million for four years, the grads have every incentive to keep their hole shut about their uselessness. They pretend and act otherwise. No matter that the institution fills their head full of steam about their chosen-ness and intellectual grandiosity, I’ll bet most of the grads deep down know otherwise.
Maybe there’s a class whose upward social and economic momentum (ie their parents had connections and money) propelled them to places they couldn’t have attained on their own. But what do they have besides parents with money? An education that chiefly consists of learning attitudes, of learning social awareness, of how to smile, how to carry one’s self handsomely, how to enter a room, while remaining as great a blockhead as ever? These people with soft minds and soft hands won’t stay at the top.
They crow about globalization. The American upper class benefitted from it handsomely. But only temporarily. See, it works both ways. Because the competition from those foreign places that under-cut American working classes will under-cut the American upper class. There are foreign places with ruthlessly competitive educational systems that do not graduate witless ninnies. Quite otherwise. I’ve seen those grads too.
Good questions and hypotheses, V. I can attest that in computer science I was one of a minority of instructors that required code writing in exams. Even in computer science and math, instructors don’t want to invest time for grading so they give exams that can be scantron’ed. Sad truth is that instructors are getting as lazy as their own students.
Mark Bauerlein’s book “The Dumbest Generation” is not just some philosophical polemic with no supporting evidence. It’s FULL of supporting evidence. With few exceptions, reading itself is dying. My theory is that any reading is perceived as useless if it cannot be translated into immediate financial gain … like reading a tech manual to update a skill set.
Huxley’s “Brave New World” has been oft-cited to the point of being hackneyed but there’s no denying that we’re raising a world of idiot savants who can write C++ or Python but who can’t read or talk about learned discourses in any subject outside of their micro-specialty. I think the world we’re heading into is a variant of Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy”. Of course, Judge used exaggeration and a futuristic metaphor to describe a process that is manifestly occurring in the present.
As for the class structure of America, Joe Stiglitz pointed out years ago, with tons of numerical evidence, that whatever class you’re in, that’s where you’re going to stay. Social mobility in America is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. Since college degrees are given out like candy now with incredible dunderheads being presented even advanced degrees, even degrees don’t translate into upward social mobility.
In the 1950s and 1960s it was a common perception that only about 10% of kids were “college material”. Now, way more than half of all kids go to community colleges and 4-year universities. Since the mindset of administrators, given the increasingly smaller sizes of successive generations, is to encourage the giving of good grades and degrees to anyone with a beating pulse. They couch their unethical modus operandi in the language of giving “opportunity” but as we can see clearly all over the world, and certainly in America, it’s a nonexistent carrot at the end of an illusory stick.
Hello Volodya,
“They crow about globalization. The American upper class benefitted from it handsomely. But only temporarily. See, it works both ways. Because the competition from those foreign places that under-cut American working classes will under-cut the American upper class. There are foreign places with ruthlessly competitive educational systems that do not graduate witless ninnies. Quite otherwise. I’ve seen those grads too.”-v.
Astute observation, as is generally the case with you.
Cheers!
Some say the universe is a conscious organism. If one accep
If one accepts that, then one has to consider that our society is just
Sorry for the partial posts; I guess I have a fat finger. I suspect that the universe’s experiment with civilization is evolving faster and faster, and everything we see around us is our reaction to it. In other words, as nasty as things appear to be, it’s all normal, given our current position on the evolutionary spectrum.
We will either adapt to reality or we won’t and perish. Humans can be very surprising, so even though we seem to be self-destructing, we just might get our shit together in time. It surely will interesting to be around in the future to see what happens. IOW, metaphorically just sit back and watch the show.
P4W: SHTF Plan is populated by some of the most paranoid, frightened and and dumb (wrt critical thinking) people I’ve ever seen. Either the host is the same, or he is pandering to the fear of these people. Almost every article catastrophizes problems to the extreme. I read the blog for amusement sometimes.
We don’t often agree, Bill, but I’ve always found various survivalist ideas to be half-crazy to totally bonkers. It’s as if they feel that they can hoard ammo, food, or any other vital items without desperate neighbors touching their stash. It’s pretty obvious that unless you’re the most clandestine person on earth, people will know roughly what you’ve got and they’ll steal it and/or kill you.
Then there are the “I’ll live 100 miles from the nearest town” bunker mentalities. If there are food and fuel crises, being in the middle of nowhere is THE worst decision you can make because you won’t be anywhere near distribution points for vital goods. Of course, they all claim they’ll learn farming on the fly, too, and, of course, they don’t account for droughts and floods.
I’ve always felt that spending life in a paranoid state of endless preparation for a disaster whose true form nobody really knows, is a prescription for a very miserable life.
Therian,
re | “We don’t often agree, Bill, but I’ve always found various survivalist ideas to be half-crazy to totally bonkers. It’s as if they feel that they can hoard ammo, food, or any other vital items without desperate neighbors touching their stash. It’s pretty obvious that unless you’re the most clandestine person on earth, people will know roughly what you’ve got and they’ll steal it and/or kill you.”-th.
-Or, that their bunker-mates won’t turn on them and ‘renegotiate the distribution of power’… There’s a price to be paid for not having other people around: no recourse, no ‘plan b’.
I didn’t think about them turning on each other but it’s only human if “Plan A” goes awry and nothing less than survival is at stake. Since many bunker type survivalists tend to have dubious mental health at best, mutinies would appear to be the end result more often than not.
Responsible people have a supply of food on hand so as not to be a burden during shortages.
Does framing it in terms of the public good make it more acceptable? Both personal survival and civic mindedness are valid but you may not be able to accept the former. Send away for some Government brochures and they will tell you to do the same thing.
Sorry, but I’m going to take some [aggravated] umbrage with this very narrow, un-nuanced self-satisfied commentary on “da preppers”.
Personally, I don’t spend my time in worry or fear. (You might wonder that there is satisfaction in growing plants in the actual earth without petroleum inputs and being able to build things for the use of a coming generation or two, or people that may be right here, right now, but I swear there IS.)
I guess my lack of critical thinking skills lead me to where I am now, but the very weak evidence for your faith in somebody else endlessly providing for you shows a weaker cognition of your fragile layer cake of interdependent and absolutely temporary urban existence. It’s almost as if your forbears were not exposed to the Great Depression. Maybe it’s not a “comfortable” subject to bother a beautiful mind with?
When things get dicey, I’d rather be where I am than in nearly any city you’d care to name. (…And I’ve seen a LOT of them, worldwide.) Remember, in case you’ve forgotten, the only thing that never changes, is that everything changes.
I do hate to bring this up, but it’s time for me to respond to the Jewish comments that have been piling up here recently.
Yes, it is probably true that Jews are very infl
What if the truth is “anti-Semitic”? Does it cease to be true? Or does it cease to be anti-Semitic? Face it, it’s a nonsense word that means whatever you people want it to mean. The problem (for you) is that not all of you agree on it anymore.
Jews control Hollywood. You take the Foxman approach to deny, deny, deny no matter how ridiculous you sound. Mr Stein is tired of being absurd and prefers to crow about it.
If the Hollywood executives loved America that would be one thing. But they are now foisting race mixing on little White girls on Nickolodeon. They obviously hate White America with a passion.
Here I go with the fat finger again, and again, I apologize. To continue:
Yes, it is true that Jews are very influential in the media, the entertainment industry and in business. There are also many Jewish lawyers and doctors. So what? Really, thinking there’s some kind of nefarious Jewish agenda is exactly like the commenters on SHTF Plan who I mentioned in my last post.
I’m not going to comment further on scurrilous (to use a favorite JHK word) remarks, as that would engage me in endless back-and-forths with distasteful persons. It’s just that after many anti-Jewish comments I sometimes get tired of hearing the same old shit. Genug! (Look that up in your German to English dictionary.).
Thank you Bean Town Bill for your articulate comment above about the anti-semitic stuff, and so forth. Well said!!! Belated Happy Birthday, too.
Why, thank you.
He can’t argue his position so he just calls me a name and runs. Barb, a status quo junky like most women, loves it.
But she’s in favor of social change you say. Exactly – social change has become the status quo. Permanent Revolution as the Maoist put it. And the more things change the more they stay the same. As long as White men are the ones getting hit, it’s business as usual.
“Children of Men”. This reminded me of a movie I saw in 2006 or so, called “Children of Men”. I thought it was going to be a good film, but as the movie progressed I wanted to puke.
The premise was that in the year 2027, all of Western Civilization had become sterile and there were no new births. A bunch of fighting was going on and immigrants from third world countries were trying to move into the UK– and of course, the citizens who wanted to keep them out were portrayed as horrible racists, as I recall.
And then the end of the movie– we were supposed to cheer as the one pregnant woman in the world– a black African woman– is shepherded to safety: our lone ray of hope.
This movie angered me so much with its ridiculous anti-white sentiment– and the fact that such an ending was supposed to be a “hopeful” and “happy” ending– it was beyond the pale. I kept thinking “I can’t be the only person who feels like this movie is offensive to every sensibility”– but I heard little criticism of it.
Hello again FitM (and Co.),
re | “By “worldwide” you mean in US? China is turning to develop its own internal consumer market, higher salaries starting to allow that. The Russian tourists on the Island, before the collapse of the ruble due again to geopolitical power-play, were spending like there is no tomorrow. (Now that segment of tourism is dead, almost).”-f.
Interesting viewpoint about China’s internal demand. You might want to check this out;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/we-travelled-across-china-and-returned-terrified-for-the-economy
The whole offshoring and global consumer market ‘thing’ might have worked if China hadn’t concentrated wealth quicker and tighter than oligarchs in ‘The West’…
Consider the fact that the poorest Chinese Central Committee member is richer than the richest US Senator, and their Gini Coefficient is far higher than ours – and ours is no longer workable (in the Developed Nation sense of the word).
Cheers!
You should not expect the Bloomberg to give big credit to the main US competitor, but 2 things stand out:
1. China’s steel and metals markets – it may be slowing down, but at least Chinese have a plan – the biggest project of all times, New Silk Road, that would consume so much steel and copper that they probably will have to add new factories.
2. Interest rates. Whenever you hear a Bloomberg “specialist” talking about interest rates you have to keep in mind that US does not want other countries to lower their interest rates to equal or below the US rate, so they would have to borrow American printed dollars, not Chinese printed yaun – that is the foundation of crypto-colonial looting that has a technical term of “carry trade”. Same goes to bank reserve requirements.
Definitely all countries have their share of problems, the question is where the main development vector is heading.
“Many folks I know fear martial law as the defining moment, but fail to notice it is already occurring — subtly — but not quite yet on a nationwide basis.” — Paylie Roberts via P4W link
Bullshit. Paranoid delusion. Ignores reality. Y’all are ignoring the reality of President Obama’s executive order banning military weapons for police forces. It just got more difficult for police to arm themselves like soldiers. Obama’s executive order is to de-militarize law enforcement, curtailing the federal programs that provide weapons of war to local police.
Get real, people. Unless you want to read shtfplan for amusement, as Beantown correctly observed.
What you’re not seeing are joint police/military exercises in municipalities (yes, Palo Alto and Mountain View too) all around the US. Municipalities can’t afford to militarize the police so what’s actually happening is the the military is being “police-ized”. Gotta have something to do between wars!!
I’m not one of these kooks that think like a survivalist (read my post above re survivalism) but wealth concentration has never failed to create social breakdown everywhere it has occurred. If you want present day examples just research the current state of Mexico as a really extreme example.
Obama’s executive order is just a PR stunt to “prevent” something that was financially impossible anyhow and the Federal government is already too far out on a fiscal limb with foreign military adventurism to give 100,000 municipalities of every imaginable size tens of millions of bucks of military ordnance.
Please listen to a great interview between a FB friend who is a reporter for Community radio and Richard Wolff on world economy:
http://www.radio4all.net/files/CPRmetro@gmail.com/4910-1-RICHARD_WOLFF_052515_china_EM_limited_mono.mp3
I love Wolff’s term “historical amnesia”. When ideological enemies like China and the USA are in a deadly economic embrace that neither wants, both sides will look for an out. Hence China’s newfound buddy, Russia. China wants a slow exit from its chumminess with us because they’re not idiots and realize that the rapid decline of the American middle class means that their ability to live off of our consumption has an expiration date.
I also liked Wolff’s analysis that elites are wealthy enough to be insulated from the consequences of their bad decisions. Part of that insulation is simply globalism and offshoring. They don’t even know what they’re doing to their own countrymen as long as they’re doing well.
I also enjoyed Wolff’s correct attack on the far Right whose talking points reflect a belief that the America of 2015 is the America of 1960 which is sufficiently delusional to warrant the schizoid label. Thanks, BT.
“I do hate to bring this up, but it’s time for me to respond to the Jewish comments that have been piling up here recently.” — Beantown
Beantown, I am also appalled by the antisemitic comments.
The CFN comments denigrating democracy, women, gays, Blacks, immigrants, transgendered, socialists, communists, foodstamp recipients, labor unions (except police unions), Mexicans, Muslims, pacifists, lesbians, mystics, etc. also damage CFN’s repute.
In general the level of cynicism and jaded opinion on CFN is not justified by actual events on the ground. The facts, seen clearly, give us great reason for optimism. Things are getting better and better.
INFANT MORTALITY
Only half a century ago, more than 100 children of every 1,000 who were born perished within a year. That figure has plunged 80 percent.
WARFARE
In the 1500s and 1600s, the world’s great powers warred against one another more often than not, and almost constantly during certain periods. Over the past several decades great-power conflict has been the exception rather than the norm.
AVERAGE GLOBAL LIFE EXPECTANCY
Around 30 years from the Upper Paleolithic to 1900. In 2010 the global average life expectancy was 67, and it is on the cusp of reaching 68.
GLOBAL LIVING CONDITIONS
Until the Industrial Revolution the great majority of humanity scratched out a miserable subsistence from the Earth by farming from sunup to sundown. They had no electricity, no refrigeration, no painkillers, and no means of travel or communication faster than a horse.
People have more leisure. The typical Dutch citizen works 40 percent fewer hours per year than in 1950.
People enjoy better housing: Twenty-three percent fewer people in Bangladesh live in slums now than in 1995.
They get more education: Worldwide, the mean number of years of schooling an adult had received in 1980 was 4.7. By 2011 it was 7.6.
Women’s circumstances are improving: Gender wage gaps are shrinking, and the number of women in ministerial-level positions is growing.
If only we could see the data objectively: http://humanprogress.org
Therian: “Since college degrees are given out like candy now with incredible dunderheads being presented even advanced degrees…”
There is also a decidedly anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, anti-university graduate flavor to comments on CFN, which could explain some of the refusal to look at the data. Or to even understand what data is. Data are the facts as they are, what is given, reality. Refusing to believe the data just means CFN is out of touch with reality.
data (n.)
1640s, plural of datum, from Latin datum “(thing) given,” neuter past participle of dare “to give”
Data’s validity depends on the source. For example, your insistence that the ERoEI on wind power is 20:1 is absurd since that index for wind in no way takes into account the mining of ores or the creation of bulk metals using the mined ores in order to eventually end up at a finished turbine blade. ERoEI is a flawed index but nowhere worse than in alt energy.
“I know a young chap, a recent business grad from a respected university. And guess what, he doesn’t do cursive. I wonder, how the fuck do you write university exams, where time is your worst enemy, without being able to write? Is it all multiple choice, are the questions oriented towards three word answers, or maybe diagrams, or maybe stick figures?” –Volodya
Interesting observation regarding cursive writing. I have always believed that cursive writing elicits a ‘recursive’ journey through the recesses and depths of a given writer’s soul. Almost as if the graphic twist, turns, and undulations of the pen wring out that ‘little bit extra’ that remains stultified and dormant within the acute, dry confines of printing and typing. Indeed,according to fable and legend, the ‘Taoist Talisman’ via calligraphy, could cause ‘strange events’ to occur if the “Chi” were powerful enough.
The larger point being that the flowing circularity of cursive engenders a more complete and unified ‘mind’body’ experience which possibly releases deep seated memories, insights and emotions that are ‘lodged in the far corners of a given individuals being.
Printing and typing is like driving a spike into the ground: blunt and linear. Cursive is like an auger that spins out richer soils of thought via the spiral sojourn.
Not to imply that people trained in cursive need to write that way in order to write thoughtfully and creative; not at all, their “cursive circuits” have already been installed. But for those never afforded the opportunity to learn cursive writing I do have to wonder.
Therian: “For example, your insistence that the ERoEI on wind power is 20:1 is absurd…”
Therian, are you aware that the most reliable form of evidence avialable is a meta-analysis of studies? Such a meta-analysis of 50 different analyses was done. The average ERoEI for just the operational studies is 19.8. Forgive me for rounding up from 19.8 to 20. My insistence is not “absurd” … it is data-derived.
“This analysis reviews and synthesizes the literature on the net energy return for electric power generation by wind turbines. Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio of energy delivered to energy costs. We examine 119 wind turbines from 50 different analyses, ranging in publication date from 1977 to 2007. We extend on previous work by including additional and more recent analyses, distinguishing between important assumptions about system boundaries and methodological approaches, and viewing the EROI as function of power rating. Our survey shows an average EROI for all studies (operational and conceptual) of 25.2 (n =114; std. dev=22.3). The average EROI for just the operational studies is 19.8 (n =60; std. dev=13.7). This places wind in a favorable position relative to fossil fuels, nuclear, and solar power generation technologies in terms of EROI.”
SOURCE: Kubiszewski, I., Cleveland, C. J., & Endres, P. K. (2010). Meta-analysis of net energy return for wind power systems. Renewable Energy: An International Journal, 35(1), 218-225.
Just because you throw around terms like “meta-analysis” doesn’t alchemically remove the objection. The study you cite analyzes 119 wind turbines. One-hundred-nineteen. That’s like making a generalization about a town of 225,000 people based upon a study of 119 of them (that’s about how many wind turbines exist). It’s statistically unsound. The quote you give says nothing about the ERoEI flaws that even Wikipedia, hardly a rabid right wing organization, deals with in an honest way.
Wind is a good source of alternative power but there are two problems with it: Acreage used and exponential loss of power with increasing distance from the source. Even the US gets 10% of its power from wind power but it has taken 48,000 turbines just to get that. On the upside, about 59% of the kinetic energy from wind can be converted to electrical power. That’s really good.
An average 2 MW turbine costs $3.5 million. So the cost of 48,000 is roughly $168B. 🙂 No wonder they need subsidies. The cost of a turbine large enough to power ONE home is $35K-$50K. Makes solar look cheap on a per-home basis.
In an ideal world with no economic constraints, wind looks fabulous especially from an efficiency point of view. In the real world of real economics, it’s dicey.
Speaking of free speech, my household watches it quite a bit, Free Speech TV. Some of you may be interested in viewing the film Freedom on June 2 and 3 at 9 PM on that station. It was created by the same people who produced the film Fuel which one a Sundance Film Award.
Truth and Beauty forever.
Therian: “The study you cite analyzes 119 wind turbines. One-hundred-nineteen. That’s like making a generalization about a town of 225,000 people based upon a study of 119 of them”
So, a Ford Mustang car reviewer only drives one car, yet there are thousands on the road. Do you say their sample is not valid? What if they drove 119 models of Ford Mustangs over 30 years and did a meta-analysis? Better? Or still “statistically unsound” to say anything about Ford Mustangs?
There are 55 companies making wind turbines. If the average number of wind turbine models made is four models we have 220 models of wind turbines. 30 years of studies from 1977 to 2007 of 119 wind turbines (sample size of 50+% of existing models) is statistically sound to say something about wind turbine efficiency.
But you are making my larger point. Even the most reliable evidence that is the result of a meta-analysis of studies done over 30 years, that is peer-reviewed, scientific, etc., is suspect on CFN.
Only 97% of climate scientists are in agreement? Aha! There is doubt! The science is not settled! And those liberals believe the science. Don’t they know those damn climate science degrees are given out like candy to dunderheads. NOT.
Same goes for CFN reaction to main stream media. What passes for critical thinking on CFN is irrational, paranoid, cynical, ignorant (not data-based), or cynical resistance to the dominant reality consensus. You know what is REALLY going on. You are not duped so easily. I guess it makes you feel special.
“Same goes for CFN reaction to main stream media.”
I guess this assertion sort of sums you up in a way that miles and miles of counter-argument never could have. Anyway, I ‘ll let you get back to corporate toads posing as journalists, Sport.
Unfortunately, we have Congressmen who bring snowballs in to the US legislature to prove that climate change is not happening (as one example). Another example: the recent war in Iraq was one son’s war of revenge against a dictator who had attempted to kill the father. Both father and son were in the office of the President.
Science and scientists are not the problem, and neither are intellectuals, artists, poets, or any number of well meaning, intelligent people.
If I could wave a magic wand and somehow make the US political system relevant, and the majority of the people in the US competent– then I would. But I don’t have any magic wands– and the I don’t believe that the majority would want to change from watching the shadows on their cave walls.
Buck has your number. Yes, a sample size of ONE is called an ANECDOTE and it’s not a valid argument form nor is it statistically valid.
If CFN is “cynical” it lives in a world of data cherrypickers and has earned its cynicism honestly. I note that you completely skirt around ALL of the economic data I gave regarding cost per standard turbine and even for a single home. It’s incredibly prohibitive.
Then, as usual, you jump into a non sequitur about climate change and the general traits of CFN which has NOTHING to do with my post about wind power which is targeted, doesn’t jump to other topics, and is not a podium to shout about the entire blog.
This is why I should really put your posts on permanent IGNORE. You can never stay on topic, you address only those points where you feel you’ve got an edge, and you don’t even have the critical thinking skills to realize that a sample size of one is not valid for the purposes of making global points.
You do all the things I’ve mentioned knowing what you’re doing which makes you intentionally mendacious. You talk of peer reviewed research as if a scientist like myself never read any. And you can take one thing to the bank: If there’s any member of this blog that is conversant with the use of statistics and data to LIE, it’s yours truly because I AM A STATISTICIAN.
You always polarize arguments and I assure you that I’m not an opponent of wind power but every argument you make makes your rhetorical adversaries seem like their viewpoints are as extreme as yours in the opposite direction. That’s why it’s a waste of bytes dealing with you.
Opinion
US Elections of 2016 are important in that they either put the world on the brink of nuclear war, or open the way to a relatively peaceful and negotiated settlement of all contentious world issues.
The position of the Bush clan is clear and distinct – the power on the American continent and the recognition of the legitimate rights and interests of other global players, mainly Russia and China.
In domestic policy, it is unconditional and radical reduction of the debt burden by reducing military spending and spending on numerous welfare programs, including those for blacks and big banks.
That is, with the coming to power of next Bush, country to begin a mass genocide against parasites of all sorts, from welfare kings and queens to virtual bubble moneylenders. The expropriation of the expropriators will be very likely main theme of his first presidential term. Otherwise, America will not crawl out of debt, which has grown during Obama’s presidency significantly. And you could forget any notion of the “New World Order”.
In the case of Clinton’s victory the current festivities will likely to continue, albeit briefly. That is the essence of the unfolding election drama. And because with every passing day the power of the United States is reduced, and their dependence on the world grows, the time remaining before the elections will be almost guaranteed to be used to the maximum, “rocking the boat” and worsening problems elsewhere outside the United States.
It is a very dangerous time. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal in the forest, which has not been finished off in time.
Actually there is a growing trend in consolidation of the interests of Russia, China, and, indirectly, Great Britain caused not so much by common interests, but by the danger emanating from the crazed US.
Ironically, Russia has never had truer enemy than Britain. But for some irony in the critical moments of history Russia and Britain are always on the same side.
http://cont.ws/post/90657
Therian: “Data’s validity depends on the source.”
No, that is a misunderstanding of the meaning of data. The data (what is given in reality) for example, Newton’s law of universal gravitation, is what is true, verfiably true.
It absolutely does not matter who says Newton’s law of universal gravitation is true. It could be the government, the mass media, an undergraduate with a beating pulse, CFN, Albert Einstein, Asoka, Donald Trump, etc. It does not matter who says the law of gravity is true… the truth of the statement will not be altered. The source of the data is completely irrelevant to validity because data, by its etymology, is a given.
data (noun)
1640s, plural of datum, from Latin datum “(thing) given,” neuter past participle of dare “to give”
Newton was a British cultist kook, his “law of universal gravitation” was derived by some tinkering from Kepler’s Third Law.
Buck: “I guess this assertion sort of sums you up in a way that miles and miles of counter-argument never could have.”
Buck, data and argument are very different. You can save miles and miles of argument and counter-argument by just simply seeing the data (what is given). Nice try, Buck. Remember that the fundamental hermeneutical method is philolological, “Sport.”
argument (noun)
early 14c., “statements and reasoning in support of a proposition,” from Old French arguement “reasoning, opinion; accusation, charge” (13c.), from Latin argumentum “evidence, ground, support, proof; a logical argument,” from arguere “to argue”
Asoka Krugman,
First off, what MSM media would we be discussing? Fox News, CNN, etc, etc, etc. There is a wide variance in the interpretation of data among the various media organizations.
And are you declaring, for instance, that ‘economic data’ rest upon the same foundation as “Newton’s law of universal gravitation”?
You raise “the hermeneutical method ” –interpretation- -and then present data as a “what is given” truth as if it is infallible, autonomous, and quarantined from others factors such as context which leads to varying degrees of consensus regarding “the data” such as the case with economics. Your declaration also disregards GRADATION of certainty in terms of “The Data” in many situations.
Joseph Goebbels had his data and he also had plenty of head nodding Asoka’s who bought into the interpretation of Herr Goebbels in the same way you seemingly buy into Fox News, CNN, ABC News.
But thanks again for displaying your ignorance of philosophy in spite of your attempts to come off as knowledgeable. You cite the “hermeneutical method” in your post to me seemingly unaware that just a few posts up you declare “data” as ‘what is given in reality’ and not something subject to interpretation as Therian correctly mentioned.
OOOPS!
I would say nice try “Sport” but it really wasn’t impressive. In short, you’re a sophist, not quite up to the task of debating in a truly philosophical manner–although you do make good points from time to time. Read up on Hume’s Fork.
Very admirable that you’re trying to reason with this guy but I’ve had it with his “bait and switch” argumentative technique where he avoids certain points that he can’t refute and then goes off on non sequiturs totally unrelated to your post.
It’s so pedantic and high-handed, too, for him to DEFINE “data” for us as if he’s the only one who knows what it is. He most certainly IS a “sophist” and your post is spot on. As for me, his latest bunch of cherrypicking and non sequiturs just reminds me of years ago when debating with him was a futile as it is now.
‘But thanks again for displaying your ignorance of philosophy in spite of your attempts to come off as knowledgeable.’
Thanks.
Were true words ever posted here?
BREAKING NEWS: Ukrainian troops began the powerful shelling of Donetsk during school proms
The situation on the western front has deteriorated.
The evening of 29 May, when students celebrate graduation and walk the streets in large towns and cities, Ukrainian troops began intensive shelling.
http://rusvesna.su/news/1432927352
I dedicate this to JIm K, heres an ‘eyesore’,
abandoned-supercars-of-dubai [thats a mouthful, when spoken],
http://www.gleems.com/520011/gleems-looks-at-the-abandoned-supercars-of-dubai/
Now THAT is a really filthy Porsche.
See today that for the first quarter of 2015 the US economy shows ‘no growth’.
Which is puzzling because almost every economic, real estate, auto sales report I hear on the news begins with “Now that the the US economy is improving …”
Not being an economist, I wonder, with interest rates at 0 since 2009, and the population increasing 25 million every 10 years, how can there be ‘no growth’?
brh
brh: “almost every economic, real estate, auto sales report I hear on the news begins with “Now that the the US economy is improving …”
brh, haven’t you learned yet that the main stream press lies and the government lies and bankers lie and politicians lie and academia lies? You can only trust opinion on blogs and web pages! /sarcasm off
I’d even trust a banker or a politician before I’d trust YOU.
Narcotic aspect of Democracy. The Bush Clan
Economic and political power of the Bush clan has been built on three pillars. The first is oil. The second is the consolidation of the entire Spanish-speaking Diaspora of America and through it the distribution of influence onto Latin America. The third is ….
The accent of HW Bush in politics is largely due to the failure of the Democratic Kennedy administration policy on Cuba. Putting on the support of local people and their friendly relations with the United States, Bush has greatly contributed to the development of the Colombian drug mafia and the mass production of cocaine.
It was his figure behind the powerful Medellin cartel and its founders Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.
The logic of Bush has been quite interesting. He aimed at replacing the supply of heroin from Southeast Asia under control by the US Army and his political opponents Democrats with the cocaine supply from Latin America.
To this end, Papa Bush has developed tremendous activity. He agreed with one of the leaders of China Deng Xiaoping on joint action against the clans of the Golden Triangle, at the same time patronizing supply of cocaine to the United States from Latin America.
China has been forced to close their eyes to the military operation by the Vietnamese against the Chinese-backed Pol Pot in Cambodia. At the same time, Bush provided Vietnamese the guarantee of non-interference in the process from the United States.
In fact, the Golden Triangle was destroyed by the Vietnamese, but with very quiet US support. At the same time, Bush has managed to spoil the relationship between Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
” that men are past their sell-by date and only exist to defile and humiliate females. ”
Sillies, spirit runs through all living things, male and female, and the fruits of it! There is no “sell-by” date for this. That’s only in Hollywood, and that’s not real!! Only spirit and the fruit of it are real.
Janos Skorenzy
May 29, 2015 at 6:28 pm #
“He can’t argue his position so he just calls me a name and runs. Barb, a status quo junky like most women, loves it.
But she’s in favor of social change you say. Exactly – social change has become the status quo. Permanent Revolution as the Maoist put it. And the more things change the more they stay the same. As long as White men are the ones getting hit, it’s business as usual.”
Janos, please read my comment above. It’s good to be a white man in the U.S. now! Come on. You’re wrong here, Janos. That’s not what I mean!!!! I’m just not in favor of denigrating those who are Jewish, women, men, native American Indians, period.
Your level of ignorance is bottomless. Whites used to be over 90% of the population. Now we’re in the low 60’s at best. We’re being genocided. And all the new jobs go to immigrants. The real unemployment rate is over 20%. And the Blacks are getting more violent against us by the day.
In terms of the sexes, millions of White Men have been driven out of their homes and away from their children by White Women, thanks to the divorce industry and the laws which favor women over men.
You don’t want to denigrate anybody? But you already have. And you let Hollywood get away with cultural assassination of your race. The system plays favorites. And if you’re with the system (and you are because Feminism is), then you do as well, implicitly by your support if nothing else.
White Women were the most coddled group of women in history. So the Elite came up with Feminism to break up the family, get women working, and not have to pay men as much. Your career is slavery. And most women would give their eye teeth to have the deal their grandmothers threw away. And of course they blame men for their own stupid choices and for what the Elite did.
Sure White Men are largely the ones on top – and the price of that is betraying their own race, culture, and nation. The Jews don’t betray themselves so the implication is obvious: they are the dominant group.
‘so the implication is obvious’
Or do you mean not so obvious?
Obvious to those who look. If you don’t look, you can’t see. The price of admission to the Elite for a White Man? Complete abnegation of all loyalty to his race, nation, and culture. The Jews are not required to do this and don’t do it. Who is going to make them? Evidently someone makes Whites do it though. Who else but those who don’t have to do it. This line of thought is of course buttressed by the amazing number of Jewish Billionaires (40% of American Billionaires) and their position in key industries as well as American policies both at home and abroad.
Similar conditions pertain throughout the English speaking world. Jewish dominance seems somewhat less on the continent but it is by no means negligible.
You used to be a believer, a comrade, a contenda. In honor of THAT man (and Burt Lancaster), I offer you this: a picture of the young Black actor in the show Bella and the Bulldogs. Now look at the letters in the background. What do they spell? And he’s pointing at you Malti – and at all of us palefaces.
http://nick.mtvnimages.com/nick/properties/bella-and-the-bulldogs/characters/troy-about-thumb-web.jpg?quality=0.75
Will you not then, believe? Unless you believe, you cannot know. As Blake said, If the Sun were to doubt, it would immediately go out.
Therian: “but I’ve had it with his “bait and switch”
Promises, promises.
Pointing out 19.8 is almost 20 is not bait and switch.
Pointing out etymology to seek greater understanding is not bait and switch. You seem to just need to win argument… But you do it by stubbornly repeating false information, ERoEI being the latest example.
Therian: “but I’ve had it with his “bait and switch” …
Promises, promises.
Pointing out 19.8 is almost 20 is not bait and switch.
Pointing out etymology to seek greater understanding is not bait and switch. You seem to just need to win argument… But you do it by stubbornly repeating false information, ERoEI being the latest example.
..
The Nixon impeachment, the Nuclear Missiles with separable warheads and Hillary Clinton
Almost before anybody else the danger to democracy in US from its own defense industry was expressed by the Commander-in-chief of the armies of Britain and the United States in Europe during World War II, US President Eisenhower. It is an irony of fate that in the struggle against the global “war party” Putin’s Russia and Obama’s United States are allies again.
Yes, and START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which the outgoing Bush Sr. still managed to sign before Hillary Clinton managed to reign in the White House as first lady, was primarily aimed at the prohibition of technology of separable warheads.
And who knows, if Hillary Clinton wouldn’t prevailed in a few months to the White House as first lady, the START-II would be ratified, that would prevent the Yugoslav tragedy, and the seizure of the maternity hospital in Buynaksk, and the abandonment of restrictions on the construction of missile defense that made the Ukrainian tragedy inevitable.
But before Hillary Clinton’s role in the Watergate scandal could be disclosed at least in a purely hypothetical way, we must talk at least at the basic level about the relationship of separable warheads with the impeachment of President Nixon and the role Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in it, who was responsible to the hawks of Military Industrial Complex for the destruction of the Russian missiles R-39 (RSM-52) installed on submarines of project-941 and were the USSR answer to this technology.
The fact that decisive progress in this technology had been made by US in the early ’70s, and the specter of a world power again loomed before the hawks’ eyes, despite the 3000 aircraft and helicopters downed in one month in Vietnam.
President Nixon in 1972, just with a sigh of relief after the end of the Vietnam nightmare signed the START-1, strictly limiting the construction of missile defense, apparently refused to give the green light to this project that threatens to derail all his achievements as President.
And immediately an agent nicknamed “Deep Throat” notified the editor in chief of “The Washington Times” Ben Bradley that aides of President Nixon were going to install wiretapping equipment in the headquarters of the electoral campaign of the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party George McGovern, located in the Washington hotel “Watergate “.
At this point, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind, which later led to the failure of the policy of detente, has become a cheap comedy, as the nickname of the agent clearly refers to pornographic films of the same name, and suggests that the agent had the appropriate skills, in detail shown in this film.
The young attorney who managed to “crack” President Nixon, despite the fact that there was no direct evidence of his involvement in the installation of eavesdropping equipment was one Hillary Clinton and the “Deep Throat” was the FBI’s Assistant Director Mark Felt. The latter, however, for 30 years, refused the honor, despite the fact that it was “Deep Throat” who was a real hero, who showed that democracy in America that the President may be put on his knees in front of a young woman named Hillary Clinton, and not vice versa as in the movie “Deep Throat”, were a young woman named Linda Lovelace who looked very similar to Hillary stood the entire film on her knees in front of various men.
27-year-old graduate of Yale University began her fabulous career with the interrogation of the acting President of the United States and refused him the presence of his lawyers during these interrogations.
And her ex-boss Jerry Zeifman, today regrets that when he fired her, he did not report her unethical behavior to the mighty Bar Association or to the Rodino Committee and hints that if lawyers were allowed to Nixon, the last was likely not to resign, the policy of detente would continue for much longer, and the Soviet Union would enter the third millennium arm in arm with the United States.
It is not surprising that soon after these events, the lawyer married a classmate, who was rumored to be the illegitimate son of the governor of Arkansas Winthrop Rockefeller, and soon he inherited the position.
1974. Hillary Clinton as assitent of Rodino Committee and John Doar presents demand of impeachment to President Nixon
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/121020065344-01-hillary-clinton-1020-horizontal-gallery.jpg
“Putin’s Russia and Obama’s United States are allies again.”
CFN wisdom says Putin and Obama are both puppets of TPTB. Yes, Putin is nothing but a puppet and will be allied with whomever TPTB decide.
Therian, I meant to address your point about micro-specialization also but I went astray. And you’re right about that also.
I’ve worked in places where, if you showed any amount of general knowledge outside the specific work function, you know, like when you’re just shooting the shit at lunch or in a bar after work, you’re immediately challenged, how do YOU know, and you’re derided, as in “OK Cliffy” (the character on Cheers).
The only acceptable topics of conversation being sports, work matters, gossip like who’s boffing who (or is it “whom”, can never keep that straight, help me Buck or Qshtik).
One time I made the mistake of mentioning a number, the national debt. And one woman immediately jumped at me, how do you KNOW this stuff? And I said, ok, like you I have no special access, I just watch the news and read the fucking business pages where such matters are discussed regularly and just generally keep my eyes and ears open and shouldn’t you be doing the same? She had no idea that debt was an issue at a time when countries were keeling over because of over-indebtedness. It was really disturbing hearing such cluelessness in a business environment where reading the business pages should be a base requirement before you show your face in the office in the morning. Yeah, the biz pages aren’t un-adulterated truth, in fact, much is self serving bullshit, but at least you have an idea of the cons the con artists are touting.
Once, in reference to a particularly gifted athlete, I made mention of fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fibers. It was just a brief mention like in a five word sentence. And I was met with first, uncomprehending looks, and then a derisory chuckle. Fast twitch? Slow twitch? Where did I get this, are you a DOCTOR, I was asked. And I replied, we learned it in high-school health class, the implication being, you empty-skulled moron, where the fuck did YOU go to school?
I tell you, it was (and is) disturbing, the level of general IGNORANCE about damn near everything. And, by “ignorance”, I mean in the sense of the root word IGNORE. Just IGNORE everything around you, live life as if with blinders.
And there’s no possible excuse. All those years of basic education in the three r’s, four years of high school where you supposedly acquire knowledge and reasoning skills, years of expensive “higher” education and what do we get? Innumerate zombies that cannot fucking manage a household budget, something that demands basic arithmetic and common sense.
See, the problem is serious because the knuckleheads have no ability to independently assess what alleged authority tells them because they have no knowledge base, be it historical or in science or what have you, that is, outside a narrow area. So they have no ability, or worse still, no will to make a try at analyzing, is this guy telling me the truth, is this guy talking shit to con me out of money, has this guy got a vested interest, and so end up like sheep led to the slaughter.
After all, the real estate and mortgage mess didn’t come out of nowhere, there had to be multitudes that couldn’t or wouldn’t question what they were told, had no ability or will to judge and who walked face-first right into it.
Ok, I’m no high falutin’ intellectual and don’t pretend to be and there’s no point putting on airs because the second you lay pen to paper or open your mouth you get found out. But Jesus H Christ I’ve met older guys with just grade school that can intelligently talk about public matters and life in general. They have coherent views on things, experience and knowledge and wisdom they’ve picked up and are a pleasure to talk to and spend time drinking with. More so than the degreed and polished so-called professionals I’ve had the displeasure to know.
Now take it home: you want such boffos voting? And stop being so humble – most people have always been like this. What we used to have was an Elite that was for the nation and intelligent yeomen capable of voting, whether educated in the school sense or not. The education system probably now works to decrease the number of such voters by confusing people with false ideologies. Certainly the media does the same.
How long is an elite that is “for” the nation going to stay that way? How long does it take before it occurs to the elite that there are no real fetters on their power, that they can do what they want, take what they want, much like our own elite is doing now?
Our own elite became adept at plunder under the cover of the rule of law and the veneer of institutional checks and balances. They provide the distractions, the games and entertainments, and year by year, they steal everything out from under our noses.
What happens when the elite drops any pretense, does away with universal voting rights and civil rights explicitly becomes an oligarchy, run by and for the oligarchy, with a hierarchical system of class rights and privileges? What then? They’ll steal the shoes off your feet. You can say that de-facto, we’re there now.
But there are degrees of lousiness. How much worse will things get when it becomes explicit? Do you think anyone in the elite will champion your own personal interests? I don’t think so. You’ll get run over like the rest of us.
I would rather the “boffos”, as you call them, smarten the fuck up, smell the coffee, understand what’s happening to them.
But your last point is largely correct, the “education” system is doing the opposite.
The Boffos can’t smarten up – the average White IQ is 100. And you know how dumb that is. Now by definition, half the White population is even dumber. They need an Elite to lead them. One loyal to them as a man is loyal to his own stomach or feet. All of the castes working together like the organs of a healthy body make for “the Great Man” or a working hierarchical society.
This is National Socialism – the answer, the only answer….
Since each successive generation after the Boomers gets smaller and smaller, colleges in their desperate search for revenues, give increasingly dumber people degrees. They do so with the cover story about the “opportunities” created by a college education. Nonetheless, professors are being besieged by larger classes of increasingly lower intellectual talent and they’re being pressured to be generous graders.
I’m one of the “bad guys” who didn’t give in. In my last five years, it was commonplace for me to give, say, a midterm in which the “A” through “F” frequency distribution in a class of 50 might be 5, 10, 5, 15, 15. Yup … a “C” grade would have the LOWEST frequency and many of the “F” grades would have joke scores like 13% or 19%.
Colleges have morphed into glorified vo-tech schools for learning a “trade” like the old vo-tech track in American high schools of the 1950s and 1960s which were designed to funnel kids into the skilled trades (auto mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, etc.). In said morphing, alas, colleges have changed their rules about what is required of their degree recipients or they’ve watered down basic language competency classes (English!!) so that the new generation of immigrants can pass.
Janos, if you had read some of the essays of college juniors and seniors that I’ve seen in the last ten years you’d CRINGE. These essays show scattered, undisciplined, unfocused thinking, a stunning lack of knowledge base, vulgarity (one essay I read two weeks ago to do a favor for a friend had “fuck it” in it), and spelling and grammatical proficiency at sub-middle-school levels.
I don’t know if the elite WANT us dumbed down but that’s what they’re getting, by hook or by crook.
Have you read the First Ladies Thesis?
The one that got her a degree?
Actually, I have not. But I’ll look for it!!
Also the managerial class can’t stand anyone else having prestige. They hate tenure and want to turn Professors into “knowledge workers” who have to bow and scrape just to make a living. Just like they turned Pilots, once godlike figures, into just another class of grunts.
I see that your social experiences are very similar to mine. Yes, what is it with this “How do YOU know?” crap? It’s like they’re compounding the sin of ignorance with the sin of aggression while, in quoting a piece of data, you’re guilty of NOTHING! God forbid that someone actually has a knowledge base in their brain.
By the way, I was a sprinter in college who was subjected to a flotation test to determine my fast/slow twitch muscle percentages. It’s been mainstream knowledge for about FOUR DECADES. Again … if you know a fact before your accusers know a fact then, instead of people wanting to LEARN, they challenge your credentials or the truth of the fact you’re citing instead of going home to look it up later.
My Uncle Ed had a high school education but he is an avid reader (and who reads anymore??). He’d run circles around approx. 90% of the degreed people I know in debates about a wide range of subject from history to art to music. He doesn’t have a pretentious bone in his body so he’s modest about what he doesn’t know. And that’s what chaps MY hide is that challenging YOUR knowledge just to be an obstreperous dill hole seems to be the dominant conversational modus operandi of 2015.
The problem is that the “Self Esteem” Movement has combined with an increasingly narrow education to create a couple of generations of dummies WITH HUGE BELLICOSE EGOS. I can handle a big ego in a person who’s earned it to some degree but not from these peevish specialists whose knowledge base is thin as a razor.
Buck, you’ve thought about cursive writing in a deeper way than I would have. You have a point, there are elements of artistry and self expression in it that I don’t think are there with printing or typing. I think also that in learning as a child there’s the development of hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.
But see, I have memories of exam writing where you have to get down as much as humanly possible as coherently as possible to build up as many marks as possible and for that you need speed. And I was thinking of it in those terms. I don’t see how you can be fast enough with just printing answers. In some subjects, like in math or stats, you can do it. But not in exams where you have to get through three essay questions in three hours where the questions tend to be voluminous and are intended to test the depth and nuance of the student’s reasoning and knowledge. I remember having to write two exams in one day and being utterly drained at the end of it. No bloody way to do it without cursive.
I hear ya Voloyda; those on-the-spot essay questions with a time limit demand a certain adroit facility of hand that the more cumbersome printing lacks. Still the hand shouldn’t jump ahead of the mind and I suppose that’s the beauty of those types of tests: like threading the eye of a needle while moving 100 mph.
I have noticed that my own cursive has become far more generic over the years from a lack of doing. Maybe I should get a big sheet of paper, some vine charcoal, and start swinging my arm large and free while writing my name. Incrementally, I will transition from large to small and from the fugitive freedom of vine charcoal to the precise demands of the pen until the bank clerk no longer accepts the reinvigorated flair of my signature. The Catholic nuns of yesteryear might approve, but the rest of society, perhaps not so much 🙂
Remember when you went from high school to college and “college ruled” paper had skinnier distances between lines? I had lousy cursive so I tried to make it more legible in high school by writing taller letters. I don’t know how my professors in college could read my scrawl.
The “Palmer Method” of cursive writing was taught at the elementary school level, in the US, before WWII.
Mister Darling, thank you, that was a very nice compliment. You know, I come back here frequently in spite of the mass of garbage from trolls intent on decrapitating this site.
And I don’t care if this sounds like a mutual congratulation society (I hope JHK doesn’t get nauseated) but I come back here for the commentary from people – besides our esteemed host – whose experience and insight is above and beyond mine. You’re in that group.
Hello Volodya (and like-minded/capable),
RE | “Mister Darling, thank you, that was a very nice compliment. You know, I come back here frequently in spite of the mass of garbage from trolls intent on decrapitating this site.”-v.
As I mentioned to another CFN-er, I’m not here to convert or spy on anyone, just to have interesting conversations with people – and get viewpoints and info I can’t come up with on my own…
Always a pleasure!
Cheers!
Ah,that there were sell-by dates. See you all on Mackinac Island.
“Yes, Putin is nothing but a puppet” – wpa
I hope, ccc, that soon we shall be able to talk a little about that, in particular about some interesting results of objective surveillance of US air space during one fateful day in September almost 14 years ago.
A better economic metric than the labor force participation rate is the prime age labor force participation rate, which is not skewed by students or boomers retiring…
The prime age labor participation rate has been increasing since 1948 and has actually gone down recently. You can view it in this chart:
http://wp.newrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/prime_age_labor_force_participation-27.png
Postcards from Collapse:
Abandoned Brothels:
http://scribol.com/anthropology-and-history/7-creepiest-abandoned-brothels-on-earth/1
and it seems to be accompanied by ‘interesting’ “private chat” offers… uh-huh 😐
Postcards from Collapse:
Abandoned Supercars:
http://www.gleems.com/520011/gleems-looks-at-the-abandoned-supercars-of-dubai/?utm_source=outbrainALL&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=GleemsRSS
file under: ‘when the bill comes due’…
Hello FitM (& Co.),
re | “1. China’s steel and metals markets – it may be slowing down, but at least Chinese have a plan – the biggest project of all times, New Silk Road, that would consume so much steel and copper that they probably will have to add new factories.”-f.
Yes, this is one fine point. The past 40 years of wealth concentration required that the Chinese __Build Up__ productive wealth-creating infrastructure, whereas the opposite was true in the USA. As it stands, China remains ready to adapt, redirect and increase their productive efforts whereas the real ability to do that in the NAFTA zone has atrophied. They have more than a plan, they have the __Means__ to gain and maintain strategic advantage.
This might explain the full-spectrum foreign policy tantrum that the neo-con dominated portions of the current administration are throwing right now (re: TPP, South China Sea shenanigans, etc.).
Where this lands in the longer run is not a happy place for global finance dominated civilization, but patch-worked regional trade and finance. The biggest regional common market will be Eurasian, based on our trajectory.
Cheers!
Frankiti
“Visited. This site has a serious case of kook lice.” Kooks, geeks, nerds, patriots, seekers of truth, know-it-alls, know nothings, retired persons, mystics, collapsetarians, the unemployed…it takes all kinds to make a compelling blog. No, it’s not the authors fault he has a verrrrry interesting blog.
To stay on point, those new movies out this weekend, the culture is in the media. Terrifying.
Barb, which category fits you?
Why Greece is not defaulting?
But really, why? It should have been a year ago – immediately after the parliamentary elections. Then, in April of this year. Then – in May. And all the way. Maybe analytics look somewhere else and something is not getting analyzed? Something like that, to varying degrees of irony, is increasingly expressed in the comments to various economic forums. Over the last six months, Greece demonstrates a truly phenomenal financial unsinkability. What magical secret did the Athens learn? And that they did, there is little doubt. And it really exists. Only the secret is not in Athens. The Greeks are conveniently tapped into a gold mine. It should be noted that they do it with inimitable impudence.
The Troika requires reform program from the Greeks. The Greeks come up with one. The Brussels immediately clutches its head. Except raising the tax on wealthy, about which there is no objection, the rest goes directly contrary to the recommendations of lenders. OK – say the Greeks, and slowly rework everything. Well, as in small details. The main plan of Athens remains the same. Troika rejects it again. Then the story is repeated.
Events moved on more or less predictable scenario exactly before the end of the second week of April 2015, when Greece put on the table its most lethal trump card: “Dear lenders, there is no money in the treasury. The upcoming installment in a week, we pay nothing. Give us more money or do as you wish”.
Troika gives in and transfers the money. Athens received additional 1.4 billion Euros, which immediately went to the full repayment of the April’s debt. Formal negotiations between Greeks and Troika to refinance current debt and the allocation of a new came to nothing. The Greeks once again posted triggered trump card – there’s no money. We pay nothing. And … May 12 Greeks get new money to pay 774 million euro debt to the IMF.
According to some estimates, in less than five months of this year the ECB bought up all kinds of debt in excess of 224 billion Euros! Why so fast? Just because in June Greece helped by the Troika will still stand. Against the background of such an emergency operation of the European printing press, to throw in some half a billion is not a biggy.
But in July the entire euro zone will be shaken worse than the eruption of Yellowstone. If by this point the ECB does not have time to buy up the lion’s share of the debt of the European Union and supranational banking entities, the massive discharge by their current holders will bury not only the euro as a common currency, but is likely to bring down the entire political structure of the United Europe.
The most likely prospect is aptly described in Goldman Sachs analytical report: «We believe that the negotiations could drag on for the whole of May and continue even in June, but it will be a tough deadline on July 20 when the Greeks will have to pay 3.5 billion Euros to the ECB. We believe that Greece will not find that kind of money. Over time, the volatility of the debt markets of peripheral Europe will increase because day by day, investors will realize that the probability of default and a Greek exit from the Euro zone is growing. We believe that spread of yields on the bonds of Italy and Spain to the yield on German Bunds will expand by 200-250 basis points. ”
The last sentence is the most remarkable. Translated into plain English, it means that with very high probability the public debt of Italy (fourth economy of the EU), and Spain (respectively, the fifth) will turn into junk.
In short, what is now happening in the EU is so characteristic of modern action movie. A ship is sailing through a stormy ocean. The team is frantically rushing things, trying to fix everything that you can fix, close all that can be closed to prepare everything you can prepare. Someone pulls the lifejacket. Someone frantically hides valuables in waterproof bags.
In the midst of all this Greeks occasionally stand in a pose: give us the money or we will not close the hatch, or lower the life boat and sail ourselves! And on the horizon rises a monstrous wall of water, against which some one-time billion looks a trifle annoying. Here you are, just do not mess underfoot!
http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1929016.html
Here’s a Headline custom made for CFNation:
“Opec under siege as ISIS threatens world’s oil lifeline”
We might be finding out sooner rather than later how ‘energy independent’ we are here in the US.
brh
“Opec under siege as ISIS threatens world’s oil lifeline”
Funny headline! I went outside to check… but the sky is not falling.
Where do you find this stuff, brh? The timing is perfect for The Patriot Act debate tomorrow.
That was in The Guardian, which I believe is out of Australia.
“That was in The Guardian, which I believe is out of Australia.” –brh
Wasn’t Australia the setting for the Mad Max movies? Perfect!
Well, Baltimore did it, 40 murders in the month of May.
Just in the nick of time, too. The last one didn’t come in until yesterday, the 31st, the last day of the month.
Way to go Baltimore!!!
Americans Greatly Overestimate Percent Gay, Lesbian in U.S.
PRINCETON, N.J. — The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans’ 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year
http://www.gallup.com/poll/183383/americans-greatly-overestimate-percent-gay-lesbian.aspx
All it remains now is just to fill the gap. Are you ready?
On the issue of peak oil. In the competition a trained mower with hand scythe won a landslide victory over opponent equipped with power-mower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA5yWw3xQkw
So when oil is over in some countries, there is a lot of work can be done with high efficiency by using the good old hand tools. Fortunately for the mankind there is no need to spend a lot of oil on training.
Good news for American War Hawks: FDA APPROVAL OF FIRST DRUG TO TREAT RADIATION SICKNESS
http://somvweb.som.umaryland.edu/absolutenm/templates/?a=3090&z=41
Narcotic aspect of Democracy. Democrats like cocaine, but they like heroin better
After Bush defeat in the elections of 1992, the situation has changed again. The Democrats who came to power in the US have done everything to avenge the previous defeat. The Medellin Cartel was destroyed; Bush Oil Empire was hit through collusion with the Saudis to drop oil prices. It took Bush clan 8 years to restore the power. President of US became George W. Bush Junior.
There is a lot of speculation that the invasion of Afghanistan under his rule after the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York was designed to capture control of the Afghan heroin production. But this is not true. The provocation originally aimed at channeling attack by the United States against the Saudis, which should, in turn, provoke chaos in the Middle East and the destruction of Israel.
But with some Russian assistance, Bush chose a different tactic, proved to be more effective. He undertook the indirect strengthening of Iran as the main force opposing the Saudis in the region. Double blow for Iraq and Afghanistan has weakened sharply hostile to Iran countries, which significantly strengthened Iran position and put on the agenda a possible war between Iran, Saudis and their satellites in the region. The situation immediately led to increase in oil prices. Russia won, Bushes won, among other things, they took control of the oil supply from Iraq.
But in 2008 the in power in the United States once again came to the Democrats. It immediately led to an increase in the production of heroin in Afghanistan under the control of the US Army. The good achievements, experience and sales channels since the time of the Golden Triangle have not gone away. Remembering how much power and financial resources Bushes acquired over the supply of cocaine, the new US government did not hesitate to use this experience. In fact, most of the funding for Islamic militants in the Middle East and the so-called Arab Spring, has come from drug trafficking from Afghanistan.
US Troops in Afghanistan lovingly inspect the poppy field under their protection
http://anti-nato.com/media/internal/wide/fotoalbom-prestupleniya-nato-17.jpg
Until 2007 US troops weren’t allowed to even __discuss__ opium production in Afghanistan, so this is a refreshing change. I’m generally in favor of transparency.
😉
Cheers!
Bill Gates plainly explains how he is going to finish off 10 to 15 percent of the world population. From the horse mouth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc-20VK9TbA
No kidding, watch the last minute of the video.
Once again your “extrapolations” are nothing short of sensationalized hyperbole, if not the paranoid ravings of bus stop lunatic. From the very first commentary post in the clip:
“What Mr. Gates said is simple to understand: he mentioned that population growth would be reduced by 15/20% due to improvements in the life quality of people, the same way it has happened in developed countries where families choose to have less children. Anyone distorting that message clearly demonstrates that they have their own scare mongering agenda.”
Think about it Fincal: What type of country does population growth typically explode in?
Did he know what he was saying?? If we “do a really good job on vaccines we can LOWER population by 10 or 15%”??????
A new American TV show will start on June 8th on the ABC Family Channel call “Becoming US”. It’s a reality TV show about a father who becomes a woman and a daughter who becomes a son. American society has obviously gone off the deep end.
…sycophants, miscreants, unemployed small town newspaper editors. Yes, it’s quite the blog you have here young man.
Therian: “Did he know what he was saying?? If we “do a really good job on vaccines we can LOWER population by 10 or 15%”??????”
Therian, you are misquoting Gates, even though you are using quote marks. At the end of the video Gates clearly mentions three things. You have omitted two of them in your misquote. And what’s with all the question marks? Do you have a vendetta against Mister Gates?
You are intentionally misleading CFN. The third thing Gates mentions, reproductive health services, justifies your use all caps, but you chose to omit Gate’s words in your misquote. I guess vaccines are the scary thing you wanted to have people focus on, typical of the paranoid, anti-scientific mindset on CFN.
Y’all deserve the medieval times you mistakenly think we are returning to, as you already have the mental framework.
I’m not INTENTIONALLY misleading CFN, dill hole. As is your usual, you then talk about the “medieval times” that I “mistakenly think we are returning to”. Show me ONE quote where I’ve said that. One. Asshole. You misquote EVERYONE here but if I’ve misconstrued Gates it was an honest mistake and not the evil intent you imply.
Funny thing about YOU, WPA, is that you don’t catastrophize what’s going on in America or the world but you catastrophize PEOPLE HERE WHO DISAGREE WITH YOU. Unlike “the world”, which is kind of an abstraction consisting of no one person in particular, we individual members of CFN are NOT an abstraction.
Either learn to be civil or LEAVE.
What is a “Dill Hole”?
Pucker,
I think that was a pseudo-tactful way around saying “Dick-Hole” as in “Shut your dick-holes”. . .
Have you ever watched ‘Archer’? Lana uses this term in episode ‘El Contador’.
‘Archer’ is quite amusing (and brief @ 22min/episode, so it’s great for airport waits).
Cheers!
Bingo!!
So a “Dill Hole” is a Urethra?
“…if I’ve misconstrued Gates it was an honest mistake and not the evil intent you imply.”
It may be simple inattention to detail, or an inability to listen, or an ignorance of what quotes marks mean. You acknowledge your error, but you go a step too far, and you are uncivil about denying your actions.
You mislead CFN with sensationalized hyperbole, strings of question marks, using all caps, name-calling, anti-intellectual insult, stubborn clinging to and repetition of misinformation, denigrating and ignoring peer-reviewed evidence, etc.
No use trying to deny it. You have been this way for years. Although we have enjoyed periods of respite, you seem not to have a life again, as the frequency of your posts attests.
A guy like you accusing ME of hyperbole is a laugh. I asked you to show me ONE post of mine where I said that we were returning to medieval times. Because you’re fundamentally a snake in the grass, you skirted this giant falsehood because, as I’ve said dozens of times, you’re not about truth. You’re about winning arguments.
Another hilarity is YOU, who used to be Asoka, the guy who wrote 40% of all CFN posts, telling me to “get a life” when my average posting volume has never approached a tenth of your old average.
Enjoy this post as it is the VERY LAST POST I’ll be lured into. You can say what you’d like but Finca below shows the ACTUAL QUOTE which certainly, and I’ll be tactful here, CASTS DOUBT about the meaning of the quote because the “that” being referred to is obviously POPULATION. Gates might have merely made a gaffe but when his first sentence refers to a dangerously high population that’s heading up then what is this 10-15% “lowering” he’s speaking of? Personally, I think it’s a revealing Freudian Slip. At any rate, your denunciations, as usual, fall flat on their ass.
Have a nice day.
“Once again your “extrapolations” are nothing short of sensationalized hyperbole” — Buck
Now, let’s take a look at what Mr.Gates really said:
“But let’s take a look. First we’ve got population. The world has today 6.8 billion people, that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”
By “lower that” Mr.Gates was not referring to “population growth”, but to “population”. Being a physical member of that population and far beyond my prime, you could excuse me, Buck, by taking those words a bit suspiciously.
But you’re probably right, and Mr. Gates was far from referring to reduction of population by means of tainted vaccines (I have nothing against the vaccines in general), by genetically modified food, by lack of accessible medications or health care, or by simply humanitarian carpet bombing using ammunition with depleted uranium.
I really don’t know what the f*ck he was trying to say and tend to think that he’s just a egalitarian heck who really just shoots his mouth off and we should advice Mr. Gates to do what he does best: stealing (or buying pennies on the dollar) other people’s ideas and cramming them into monstrous software contraptions, that are more buggy than they are usable and require updates every 5 minutes or so, becoming more unusable with each one.
Vaccines are full of crap and are one of the factors in the explosion of autism in the United States. Is this happening in Europe and Russia, do you know?
Tremendous artistry is possible here. Vaccines could introduce something that would combine with a disease released later making for high levels of mortality. As long as they plausible deniability what do they care? I mean these are people who are fine with civilian bombing and late term abortion. There’s very little humanity left – thus the plague of pedophilia among the Western Elite.
Janos, I was fully vaccinated for all relevant deceases in USSR, never had any problem with that. My daughter same in States, no problems there.
It is possible that some vaccines from some producers are tainted, but it needs careful investigation. I don’t have any prove for or against that.
Overall, vaccination is one of the greatest achievement of modern medicine.
The problem with conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism is that there’s no longitudinal study which shows any need for alarm about that. There actually have been studies linking excessive, early-life TV watching with Asperger’s Syndrome but, as the old saying goes in statistics, correlation is not causation.
At some point in modern life we are in a position where we have to trust someone about something. Paranoia can be debilitating because where does it end? Bank tellers can use our account numbers. Credit card company employees can buy stuff in foreign lands with our card number. The doctor might have it in for us and instead of giving us insulin for our diabetes he makes a deliberate mistake of giving us inulin which is used for kidney measurement. You can see where I’m going with this. Paranoia can never get quenched.
I don’t think a bunker mentality is helpful in navigating the shoals of modern life because there are too many intersection points with too many people who, if they’re off ill will, can cause us damage. You might as well proceed as if people will do the right thing and deal with it when they don’t. Otherwise, a life of paranoia is likely to be far more crippling, socially and emotionally, than the consequences of a few ill deeds.
Well said Therian. And it reminds one of Kant. Specifically, that ‘doing the right thing’–and assuming that others will too as you mention–is the only way for a rational society to exist. For instance, his famous example on lying. If everybody started lying then lying would no longer have any power and would lose effectiveness because nobody would assume anyone was telling the truth. Thus it is irrational and is not so much an issue of ‘morality’ as it is of “reason” and rational conduct.
Buck: It makes sense to trust people like yourself – but not people of other races who have other values perhaps and are, in any case, going to favor their own. Only Whites would favor others over themselves – like geese who have imprinted a beach ball as a mother or mate.
Remember when a birthday party meant your mom baking a cake, dixie cups full of ice cream, neighborhood kids coming over, games in the back yard, a few small presents, everybody singing happy birthday?
Birthday parties seem to have changed in America, seem to have gone thru some kind of strange transformation.
Sat. May 30, 2015
“6 people shot at Birthday Party in New Haven.”
Judging from the names, this seems to have been a birthday party, Latin American Style, which makes sense for New Haven, a ‘Sanctuary City’, where illegals without papers needn’t worry about trivialities like visas, passports, birth certificates or green cards. No, benefits are still available no matter where you come from or how you got here, because we have big hearts, and this is who we are.
Which lead me to believe the resources are limitless, that all this talk of another $60 billion deficit is BS, the coffers are full, full enough that if the entire 3rd world, all 4 billion of them, showed up in one of our ‘Sanctuary Cities’, they could be signed up for foodstamps, section 8, WIC, free tuition at state U, free cell phones etc. That is of course if you take it to its logical conclusion.
brh
http://www.dailystormer.com/all-female-ranger-candidates-fail-calls-to-change-standard/
Mighty morphin’ power rangers. Ladies look great in berets, though they’ll have to allow more choices in color to go with the diverse skin tones. Barb is going to enlist in the officer’s program.
what can you say?
Chinese Elite Marines, Russian spetznatz, ISIS Holy Warriors, Boko Haram … they say enlist as many ladies as possible into the US Army Ranger Program, yessir! In fact get rid of the men, ‘specially aggressive white men from rural areas in the west and midwest who know how to shoot and played football in HS. They like their girls about 5’4″, 125 lbs, green or blue eyes, chestnut or blond hair, long legs, full breasts.
brh
19-23 years old. No girls from Vassar or Smith, as ISIS is not issuing any ‘trigger warnings’ before they give orders.
RE: ‘Grexit’
“Why Greece is not defaulting?”-f it m.
Actually, this question is strategically irrelevant at this point. Both sides of the issue (Troika & the Greek Reps’) have waited too long to stabilize the situation.
If Greece tries to extend & pretend longer, they will fail as a state. If they cut and run to the Eurasian/SCO/BRICS-bloc they destabilize NATO and there will be real fallout.
This is what happens when Finance has too much say. They live in a permanent disconnect from flesh and blood reality. Things get FUBAR and the bankers run & hide ’til the dust settles.
What do I say? Never let the friggin bean counters to run your business, or your country
Therian: “… correlation is not causation. At some point in modern life we are in a position where we have to trust someone about something. Paranoia can be debilitating because where does it end?”
Very well said, Therian. If I recall correctly, this is what the poster who went by the handle Asoka used to say with some frequency.
I agree with this, and go even further. I trust BLS statistics because the government is very transparent and upfront about their methodology.
“used to go by the name of Asoka …”
You mean yourself?
brh
Too funny the way he evades the obvious. He has the same talking points, the same data cherrypicking style, the same way of polarizing arguments until you’ve been accused of saying something you didn’t, and the same launching into non sequiturs to deflect attention from points he cannot refute.
But noooooo … it’s not him. ;~)
No…