Nancy Nall is appalled but not surprised her former paper, The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, has endorsed Donald Trump. It's a qualified endorsement that really favors Pence.
(Interestingly, a commenter at Nancy Nall's blog recently suggested Clinton and Trump be moved aside for a Pence-Kaine contest.)
My alma mater, that excuse for a newspaper that should be made to surrender its Pulitzer Prize, used just that argument to justify its endorsement of Trump on Friday. I knew it was coming; I mean, the editorial page editor has been pee-dancing (Roy’s priceless phrase) around Trump, mainly over GUNZ, WHICH HILLARY IS GOING TO TAKE AWAY, JUST LIKE OBAMA DID. [...] It’s a pathetic argument, which seems to run this way: Yes, Trump is a problem, but Pence! And Hillary is SO BAD. So vote Trump, because Pence.
I’m so embarrassed to have ever worked there. My new resume line is that I worked at “the News-Sentinel, a Knight-Ridder daily which, sadly, no longer exists.” It’s true. What’s left is a shopper.
Here's the Wikipedia list of newspaper endorsements in the 2016 presidential election.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Croatia has a young left-populist political movement rooted in protesting foreclosures—now questioning NATO, EU https://t.co/ZrWZlpUjdX
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) October 27, 2016
Pierre Omidyar disrupts Philippines Constitution, funds anti-Duterte media. Prepping another Ukraine revolution? https://t.co/8r9MHL33ol pic.twitter.com/UEQD95cXbY
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) October 27, 2016
#TheGreatIndoors off to decent ratings start https://t.co/lPtekgnun4
— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) October 28, 2016
(It's a good show.)
Enter, carrying a bear … @GreatIndoorsCBS pic.twitter.com/IWNPa4sEB9
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) October 27, 2016
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Various Links
Dennis Kucinich asks in The Nation: "Why is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling For More War? Look at Their Donors."
Remembering Tom Hayden, Jack Chick, and Kigeli V of Rwanda, among many others.
A Circuit Court judge dismissed 3 counts in felony theft case against Hawai'i County Mayor Billy Kenoi @HawaiiNewsNow LIVE in Hilo #HINews pic.twitter.com/cjaxKpgKwU
— Mileka Lincoln (@MilekaLincoln) October 25, 2016
Remembering Tom Hayden, Jack Chick, and Kigeli V of Rwanda, among many others.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Kunstler: Slouching Towards Election Day.
Kunstler: Slouching Towards Election Day.
It’s getting hard to give a shit about this election, though you might still care about this country. The damage has been done to the two long-reigning political parties and perhaps that’s a good thing. They deserved to be dragged into the gutter and now they can either go through a severe rehab or be replaced by as-yet-unformed coalitions of reality-based interests.
Trump did a greater disservice all-in-all to the faction he supposedly represented. Their grievances about a grift-maximized political economy were genuine, and Trump managed to make them look like a claque of sinister clowns. This cartoon of a rich kid with no internal boundaries was unable to articulate their legitimate complaints. His behavior during the so-called debates verged on psychotic. If Trump loses, I will essay to guess that his followers’ next step will be some kind of violence. For the moment, pathetic as it is, Trump was their last best hope.
I’m more comfortable about Hillary — though I won’t vote for her — because it will be salutary for the ruling establishment to unravel with her in charge of it. That way, the right people will be blamed for the mismanagement of our national affairs. This gang of elites needs to be circulated out of power the hard way, under the burden of their own obvious perfidy, with no one else to point their fingers at. Her election will sharpen awareness of the criminal conduct in our financial practices and the neglect of regulation that marked the eight years of Obama’s appointees at the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The “tell” in these late stages of the campaign has been the demonization of Russia — a way more idiotic exercise than the McCarthyite Cold War hysteria of the early 1950s, since there is no longer any ideological conflict between us and all the evidence indicates that the current state of bad relations is America’s fault, in particular our sponsorship of the state failure in Ukraine and our avid deployment of NATO forces in war games on Russia’s border. Hillary has had the full force of the foreign affairs establishment behind her in this war-drum-banging effort, yet they have not been able to produce any evidence, for instance, in their claim that Russia is behind the Wikileaks hack of Hillary’s email. They apparently subscribe to the Joseph Goebbels theory of propoganda [sic--P.Z.]: if you’re going to lie, make sure it’s a whopper, and then repeat it incessantly.
The media has been on-board with all this. The New York Times especially has acted as the hired amplifier for the establishment lies — such a difference from the same newspaper’s role in the Vietnam War ruckus of yesteryear. Today (Monday) they ran an astounding editorial “explaining” the tactical necessity of Hillary’s dishonesty: “In politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools,” The Times editorial board wrote. Oh, well, that’s reassuring. Welcome to the George Orwell Theme Park of Democracy.
Of course neither Trump nor Hillary show any signs of understanding the real problems afflicting the USA. They don’t recognize the basic energy equation that has made it impossible for industrial economies to keep growing [Emphasis mine.--P.Z.], or the deformities in banking and finance that result from official efforts to overcome these implacable conditions, namely, the piling up of ever-greater debt to “solve” the problem of over-indebtedness.
The beginning of the way out of this quandary will be recognition that the federal government is the greatest obstacle for America making the necessary adjustments to a world that has changed. If Trump got elected, I’m convinced that he would be removed from office by a military coup inside of a year, which would be an epic smash-up of our political machinery per se, comparable to the period 44 BCE in Rome, when the republic crashed. Hillary would bring a more measured discredit to the system with the chance that our institutions might be rehabilitated — with the cherry-on-top being Hillary’s eventual impeachment for lying, a fate that her husband and the late Richard Nixon both wiggled out of one way or another.
It’s getting hard to give a shit about this election, though you might still care about this country. The damage has been done to the two long-reigning political parties and perhaps that’s a good thing. They deserved to be dragged into the gutter and now they can either go through a severe rehab or be replaced by as-yet-unformed coalitions of reality-based interests.
Trump did a greater disservice all-in-all to the faction he supposedly represented. Their grievances about a grift-maximized political economy were genuine, and Trump managed to make them look like a claque of sinister clowns. This cartoon of a rich kid with no internal boundaries was unable to articulate their legitimate complaints. His behavior during the so-called debates verged on psychotic. If Trump loses, I will essay to guess that his followers’ next step will be some kind of violence. For the moment, pathetic as it is, Trump was their last best hope.
I’m more comfortable about Hillary — though I won’t vote for her — because it will be salutary for the ruling establishment to unravel with her in charge of it. That way, the right people will be blamed for the mismanagement of our national affairs. This gang of elites needs to be circulated out of power the hard way, under the burden of their own obvious perfidy, with no one else to point their fingers at. Her election will sharpen awareness of the criminal conduct in our financial practices and the neglect of regulation that marked the eight years of Obama’s appointees at the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The “tell” in these late stages of the campaign has been the demonization of Russia — a way more idiotic exercise than the McCarthyite Cold War hysteria of the early 1950s, since there is no longer any ideological conflict between us and all the evidence indicates that the current state of bad relations is America’s fault, in particular our sponsorship of the state failure in Ukraine and our avid deployment of NATO forces in war games on Russia’s border. Hillary has had the full force of the foreign affairs establishment behind her in this war-drum-banging effort, yet they have not been able to produce any evidence, for instance, in their claim that Russia is behind the Wikileaks hack of Hillary’s email. They apparently subscribe to the Joseph Goebbels theory of propoganda [sic--P.Z.]: if you’re going to lie, make sure it’s a whopper, and then repeat it incessantly.
The media has been on-board with all this. The New York Times especially has acted as the hired amplifier for the establishment lies — such a difference from the same newspaper’s role in the Vietnam War ruckus of yesteryear. Today (Monday) they ran an astounding editorial “explaining” the tactical necessity of Hillary’s dishonesty: “In politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools,” The Times editorial board wrote. Oh, well, that’s reassuring. Welcome to the George Orwell Theme Park of Democracy.
Of course neither Trump nor Hillary show any signs of understanding the real problems afflicting the USA. They don’t recognize the basic energy equation that has made it impossible for industrial economies to keep growing [Emphasis mine.--P.Z.], or the deformities in banking and finance that result from official efforts to overcome these implacable conditions, namely, the piling up of ever-greater debt to “solve” the problem of over-indebtedness.
The beginning of the way out of this quandary will be recognition that the federal government is the greatest obstacle for America making the necessary adjustments to a world that has changed. If Trump got elected, I’m convinced that he would be removed from office by a military coup inside of a year, which would be an epic smash-up of our political machinery per se, comparable to the period 44 BCE in Rome, when the republic crashed. Hillary would bring a more measured discredit to the system with the chance that our institutions might be rehabilitated — with the cherry-on-top being Hillary’s eventual impeachment for lying, a fate that her husband and the late Richard Nixon both wiggled out of one way or another.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
For $25, I'll call you up and sing the Mediocre Presidents song from the Simpsons https://t.co/HgqZJi2dS6
— sick transit, gloria (@samknight1) October 21, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
Byron York
From @DavidAFrench: 'The Price I've Paid for Opposing Donald Trump.' https://t.co/as9IDhTYuI (Spoiler: It's mostly about tweets.)
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 21, 2016
Folks: Of course I read French's article. That's why I said it was mostly about tweets…
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 21, 2016
Folks: It is my opinion that there is too much complaining about mean, ugly, even vile attacks on Twitter. 1/2
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 21, 2016
And those people showing up at your house, or breaking into your phone line, hack? @ByronYork @DavidAFrench https://t.co/nbpcNLIlrr
— Matt Hipple (@AmericaHipple) October 21, 2016
Nevertheless, not every opinion needs be expressed. So I regret my @DavidAFrench tweet, because there was no need for comment from me. 2/2
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 21, 2016
@ByronYork @DavidAFrench you should regret it, what he and his family have been through is beyond the pale
— Rollcast (@Rollcast) October 21, 2016
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Cyberorthodoxes say robots should be baptized right at the factory. Cyberbaptists say that we should wait till robots would get conscious pic.twitter.com/SehzHQb8Hp
— English Russia (@EnglishRussia1) October 16, 2016
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Piko-Taro: "PPAP"
I've never heard of this song till about ten minutes ago when I saw this headline.
Billboard: "Piko-Taro's 'PPAP' Is the "Shortest Song Ever on Billboard Hot 100."
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
On Rural Flight
From Hattie's Web:
It is a pity to let large areas of the country become depopulated as the natural resources are used up and cheaper labor is available elsewhere and to have able-bodied people reduced to living on the dole or scratching out a living with marginal small businesses or lousy jobs as prison guards in private prisons. What does Clinton have to offer them? They are not part of her base. Of course Trump has nothing for them either, and that is their blindness, to believe that Trump will usher in a new era that would honor them as the backbone of America, as in the mythical good old days.
----------
Rural flight explained.
----------
Perhaps the depopulation of rural areas is not permanent. What if people start to move back?
Rural Futures: Relocalization
It is a pity to let large areas of the country become depopulated as the natural resources are used up and cheaper labor is available elsewhere and to have able-bodied people reduced to living on the dole or scratching out a living with marginal small businesses or lousy jobs as prison guards in private prisons. What does Clinton have to offer them? They are not part of her base. Of course Trump has nothing for them either, and that is their blindness, to believe that Trump will usher in a new era that would honor them as the backbone of America, as in the mythical good old days.
----------
Rural flight explained.
----------
Perhaps the depopulation of rural areas is not permanent. What if people start to move back?
Rural Futures: Relocalization
Monday, October 17, 2016
So she wants industrial cartels, wage freezes, forced overtime, rationing, and a ban on strikes? https://t.co/0gToUVxUXB
— Thaddeus Russell (@ThaddeusRussell) October 14, 2016
Kunstler: The Odor of Desperation
Kunstler: The Odor of Desperation.
It must be obvious even to nine-year-old casual observers of the scene that the US national election is hacking itself. It doesn’t require hacking assistance from any other entity. The two major parties could not have found worse candidates for president, and the struggle between them has turned into the most sordid public spectacle in US electoral history.
Of course, the Russian hacking blame-game story emanates from the security apparatus controlled by a Democratic Party executive establishment desperate to preserve its perks and privileges . (I write as a still-registered-but-disaffected Democrat). The reams of released emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and other figures in HRC’s employ, depict a record of tactical mendacity, a gleeful eagerness to lie to the public, and a disregard for the world’s opinion that are plenty bad enough on their own. And Trump’s own fantastic gift for blunder could hardly be improved on by a meddling foreign power. The US political system is blowing itself to pieces.
I say this with the understanding that political systems are emergent phenomena with the primary goal of maintaining their control on the agencies of power at all costs. That is, it’s natural for a polity to fight for its own survival. But the fact that the US polity now so desperately has to fight for survival shows how frail its legitimacy is. It wouldn’t take much to shove it off a precipice into a new kind of civil war much more confusing and irresolvable than the one we went through in the 1860s.
Events and circumstances are driving the US insane literally. We can’t construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to us and therefore we can’t form a set of coherent plans for doing anything about it. The main event is that our debt has far exceeded our ability to produce enough new wealth to service the debt, and our attempts to work around it with Federal Reserve accounting fraud only make the problem worse day by day and hour by hour. All of it tends to undermine both national morale and living standards, while it shoves us into the crisis I call the long emergency.
It’s hard to see how Russia benefits from America becoming the Mad Bull of a floundering global economy. Rather, the Evil Russia meme seems a projection of our country’s own insecurities and contradictions. For instance, we seem to think that keeping Syria viciously destabilized is preferable to allowing its legitimate government to restore some kind of order there. Russia has been on the scene attempting to prop up the Assad government while we are on the scene there doing everything possible to keep a variety of contestants in a state of incessant war. US policy in Syria has been both incoherent and tragically damaging to the Syrians.
The Russians stood aside while the US smashed up Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. We demonstrated adequately that shoving sovereign nations into civic failure is not the best way to resolve geopolitical tensions. Why would it be such a bad thing for the US to stand aside in Syria and see if the Russians can rescue that country from failure? Because they might keep a naval base there on the Mediterranean? We have scores of military bases around the region.
It’s actually pretty easy to understand why the Russians might be paranoid about America’s intentions. We use NATO to run threatening military maneuvers near Russia’s borders. We provoked Ukraine — formerly a province of the Soviet state — to become a nearly failed state, and then we complained foolishly about the Russian annexation of Crimea — also a former territory of the Soviet state and of imperial Russia going back centuries. We slapped sanctions on Russia, making it difficult for them to participate in international banking and commerce.
What’s really comical is the idea that Russia is using the Internet to mess with our affairs — as if the USA has no cyber-warfare ambitions or ongoing operations against them (and others, such as hacking Angela Merkel’s personal phone). News flash: every country with access to the Internet is in full hacking mode around the clock against every other country so engaged. Everybody’s doing it. It is perhaps a projection of America’s ongoing rape hysteria that we think we’re special victims of this universal activity.
It must be obvious even to nine-year-old casual observers of the scene that the US national election is hacking itself. It doesn’t require hacking assistance from any other entity. The two major parties could not have found worse candidates for president, and the struggle between them has turned into the most sordid public spectacle in US electoral history.
Of course, the Russian hacking blame-game story emanates from the security apparatus controlled by a Democratic Party executive establishment desperate to preserve its perks and privileges . (I write as a still-registered-but-disaffected Democrat). The reams of released emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and other figures in HRC’s employ, depict a record of tactical mendacity, a gleeful eagerness to lie to the public, and a disregard for the world’s opinion that are plenty bad enough on their own. And Trump’s own fantastic gift for blunder could hardly be improved on by a meddling foreign power. The US political system is blowing itself to pieces.
I say this with the understanding that political systems are emergent phenomena with the primary goal of maintaining their control on the agencies of power at all costs. That is, it’s natural for a polity to fight for its own survival. But the fact that the US polity now so desperately has to fight for survival shows how frail its legitimacy is. It wouldn’t take much to shove it off a precipice into a new kind of civil war much more confusing and irresolvable than the one we went through in the 1860s.
Events and circumstances are driving the US insane literally. We can’t construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to us and therefore we can’t form a set of coherent plans for doing anything about it. The main event is that our debt has far exceeded our ability to produce enough new wealth to service the debt, and our attempts to work around it with Federal Reserve accounting fraud only make the problem worse day by day and hour by hour. All of it tends to undermine both national morale and living standards, while it shoves us into the crisis I call the long emergency.
It’s hard to see how Russia benefits from America becoming the Mad Bull of a floundering global economy. Rather, the Evil Russia meme seems a projection of our country’s own insecurities and contradictions. For instance, we seem to think that keeping Syria viciously destabilized is preferable to allowing its legitimate government to restore some kind of order there. Russia has been on the scene attempting to prop up the Assad government while we are on the scene there doing everything possible to keep a variety of contestants in a state of incessant war. US policy in Syria has been both incoherent and tragically damaging to the Syrians.
The Russians stood aside while the US smashed up Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. We demonstrated adequately that shoving sovereign nations into civic failure is not the best way to resolve geopolitical tensions. Why would it be such a bad thing for the US to stand aside in Syria and see if the Russians can rescue that country from failure? Because they might keep a naval base there on the Mediterranean? We have scores of military bases around the region.
It’s actually pretty easy to understand why the Russians might be paranoid about America’s intentions. We use NATO to run threatening military maneuvers near Russia’s borders. We provoked Ukraine — formerly a province of the Soviet state — to become a nearly failed state, and then we complained foolishly about the Russian annexation of Crimea — also a former territory of the Soviet state and of imperial Russia going back centuries. We slapped sanctions on Russia, making it difficult for them to participate in international banking and commerce.
What’s really comical is the idea that Russia is using the Internet to mess with our affairs — as if the USA has no cyber-warfare ambitions or ongoing operations against them (and others, such as hacking Angela Merkel’s personal phone). News flash: every country with access to the Internet is in full hacking mode around the clock against every other country so engaged. Everybody’s doing it. It is perhaps a projection of America’s ongoing rape hysteria that we think we’re special victims of this universal activity.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Evan McMullin
If the election is close, then we can block both Clinton & Trump from getting 270 votes & take this election to the House.
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) October 16, 2016
It's a long shot but not impossible. In Hawaii, he's not on the ballot and write-ins aren't allowed.
Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
Some Irish writers comment on the decision of the Swedish Academy to award Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature. Most approve but a few vigorously dissent.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Differing visions for the post-fossil fuel future at recent Oberlin conference. https://t.co/Zf3XBBpxpV
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) October 13, 2016
Peak Oil Review: A Midweek Update - 14th October 2016 https://t.co/3vemSLHedq (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) October 13, 2016
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Today on #TheReal from @EmpireFOX it's @BREZOFFICIAL !!! pic.twitter.com/ycECReYBF6
— Loni Love (@LoniLove) October 7, 2016
"He’s not Barack Obama, is he?" This is about Trump's ill-fitting suits, but that line sums up 2016 perfectly.https://t.co/3w8W761cUj
— Wendy Felton (@wendymfelton) October 13, 2016
Wendy Williams the other day noted his tie is too long.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Monday, October 10, 2016
Kunstler: Wounded Elephant.
Kunstler: Wounded Elephant.
Last night’s debate raises some interesting questions, such as: would the Romans have elected Caligula if given the chance to vote? Can the Republican party recover from Donald Trump? If the party poobahs “pull the plug” on Trump, as some are threatening to do (that is, cut off funds to his campaign), will they go down the drain with him anyway? Is the USA a nation or just the world’s biggest comedy club? Where is the Deep State when you really need it?
That odor wafting across the land is the smell of Republicans with their hair on fire. Yet the gloat of astonishment on Hillary’s face as she witnesses the Queeg-like crack-up of her rival will eventually fade as she discerns the wreckage awaiting her in the oval office. Weep for your country!
The only good to come out of this sordid election is the certainty that a lot of political debris will be swept away in the Fourth Turning [Link added by me.--P.Z.] underway. Out of the miasma of idiocy and posture that is this election campaign, the hard-edged realities of our time will emerge and the TV audience will come to the stark recognition that it is not just another mere entertainment.
The other major nations of the world are not so much ganging up on America, as Hillary would have it, but reasonably attempting to ring-fence the mad bull that the USA has become — as the two candidates vie to start World War Three with China and Russia respectively. The last resort of the scoundrels in today’s version of the “yellow press” is to blame Russia for attempting to meddle in our election. War, children, it’s just a shot away.
It is getting to be too late to sort out all the confusion sown by this horrific campaign. From here on its really more a matter of the dust settling. In background of it all looms the train-wreck of global finance, which will be the true determinant of what the American people will have to do in the years ahead. During the weeks of the election distraction, the European banks struggle to conceal their insolvency while the politicians of Euro-land desperately try to paper over the cracks in these fracturing institutions. Few can tell what is actually happening in China’s banking system, but it’s sending out ominous tremors that are hard to ignore. But be sure it is all daisy-chained right into Wall Street and the US banks. The potential for wrecking markets and currencies around the world is extreme at this moment. It may only be a matter of whether it happens before or after the election.
Then we’ll see what happens when financial institutions can’t trust each other. Trade stops. Economies crumble. Pretenses evaporate. If it gets bad enough, the shelves of the supermarkets go bare in three days and you’re living in a permanent hurricane disaster without the wind and rain. Believe me, that will be bad enough. Hillary, if elected, will not get to play FDR-2. Rather, she’ll be stuck in the role of Hoover, the Return, presiding over a freight elevator of an economy with a broken cable. Expect problems with the US dollar. Expect “emergency” actions. Expect the unintended consequences of those actions.
If there is one outstanding upshot of these “debates” it must be their staggering failure to reassure the American public that they can expect effective leadership through the hardships ahead. There must be many others out there like myself wondering who will emerge from the rubble? I suspect it will be someone we haven’t heard of before, just as Bonaparte was unheard of in France in 1792. This is not entirely a nation of clowns, though it feels like that lately. [All emphases mine.--P.Z.]
Last night’s debate raises some interesting questions, such as: would the Romans have elected Caligula if given the chance to vote? Can the Republican party recover from Donald Trump? If the party poobahs “pull the plug” on Trump, as some are threatening to do (that is, cut off funds to his campaign), will they go down the drain with him anyway? Is the USA a nation or just the world’s biggest comedy club? Where is the Deep State when you really need it?
That odor wafting across the land is the smell of Republicans with their hair on fire. Yet the gloat of astonishment on Hillary’s face as she witnesses the Queeg-like crack-up of her rival will eventually fade as she discerns the wreckage awaiting her in the oval office. Weep for your country!
The only good to come out of this sordid election is the certainty that a lot of political debris will be swept away in the Fourth Turning [Link added by me.--P.Z.] underway. Out of the miasma of idiocy and posture that is this election campaign, the hard-edged realities of our time will emerge and the TV audience will come to the stark recognition that it is not just another mere entertainment.
The other major nations of the world are not so much ganging up on America, as Hillary would have it, but reasonably attempting to ring-fence the mad bull that the USA has become — as the two candidates vie to start World War Three with China and Russia respectively. The last resort of the scoundrels in today’s version of the “yellow press” is to blame Russia for attempting to meddle in our election. War, children, it’s just a shot away.
It is getting to be too late to sort out all the confusion sown by this horrific campaign. From here on its really more a matter of the dust settling. In background of it all looms the train-wreck of global finance, which will be the true determinant of what the American people will have to do in the years ahead. During the weeks of the election distraction, the European banks struggle to conceal their insolvency while the politicians of Euro-land desperately try to paper over the cracks in these fracturing institutions. Few can tell what is actually happening in China’s banking system, but it’s sending out ominous tremors that are hard to ignore. But be sure it is all daisy-chained right into Wall Street and the US banks. The potential for wrecking markets and currencies around the world is extreme at this moment. It may only be a matter of whether it happens before or after the election.
Then we’ll see what happens when financial institutions can’t trust each other. Trade stops. Economies crumble. Pretenses evaporate. If it gets bad enough, the shelves of the supermarkets go bare in three days and you’re living in a permanent hurricane disaster without the wind and rain. Believe me, that will be bad enough. Hillary, if elected, will not get to play FDR-2. Rather, she’ll be stuck in the role of Hoover, the Return, presiding over a freight elevator of an economy with a broken cable. Expect problems with the US dollar. Expect “emergency” actions. Expect the unintended consequences of those actions.
If there is one outstanding upshot of these “debates” it must be their staggering failure to reassure the American public that they can expect effective leadership through the hardships ahead. There must be many others out there like myself wondering who will emerge from the rubble? I suspect it will be someone we haven’t heard of before, just as Bonaparte was unheard of in France in 1792. This is not entirely a nation of clowns, though it feels like that lately. [All emphases mine.--P.Z.]
Sunday, October 09, 2016
Some Links on Russia
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov speaks on relations between his country and the West.
#SYRIA Report of the Russian Centre for reconciliation of opposing sides(October 9) https://t.co/os9y7sUIsk pic.twitter.com/IDhJyFy5NV
— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) October 9, 2016
Putin on current US-Russian confrontation. "This isn't about Syria. It began with Yugoslavia." I.e. this was years/decades in the making. https://t.co/FTMFQcSm06
— Roland Oliphant (@RolandOliphant) October 16, 2016
Today's Debate
My twitter feed is a mix of Republicans and Democrats. Those two camps are apparently watching two different debates.
— George Hawley (@georgehawleyUA) October 10, 2016
(I don't know if he follows Nall and Coulter. I'm only citing them as examples of the disparate response to the debate, which I am watching, actually, while I work.)
Can this team not find the Sudafed?
— Nancy Nall Derringer (@nnall) October 10, 2016
NO MODERATORS AT NEXT DEBATE!
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 10, 2016
Saturday, October 08, 2016
Work Ahead
Another debate between Clinton and Trump airs tomorrow at three, Hawaii time. I might watch, or not. What I see is lots of work, of all kinds, that everyone has to do. One thing I've done the last few months is weed and mulch some of our potted plants, almost every day. It's as simple as picking up fallen leaves and putting them in the pots to decay and enrich the soil. One day I pulled out stands of ferns that were choking one of the plants. They're doing nicely, and I know I have to take and post some photos of them.
Another major project is decluttering. The task of going through books, CDs, etc. and donating them, trading them in at the used-book store. I see others trying to pare down (hello, Hattie). Part of this: much too much stuff. And realizing that a great deal of content can be found online, or at the library.
The other work that everyone should do is learning about civics, history, current events. Again, a wealth of information is online, and at the library. And talk to others. Not everyone will be deeply involved in politics, but everyone should have at least a basic understanding of these subjects.
I enjoy work, actually. (And I like vegetables, too!) If I weren't busy with many other things, I'd post here daily with Nallian fluency.
Another major project is decluttering. The task of going through books, CDs, etc. and donating them, trading them in at the used-book store. I see others trying to pare down (hello, Hattie). Part of this: much too much stuff. And realizing that a great deal of content can be found online, or at the library.
The other work that everyone should do is learning about civics, history, current events. Again, a wealth of information is online, and at the library. And talk to others. Not everyone will be deeply involved in politics, but everyone should have at least a basic understanding of these subjects.
I enjoy work, actually. (And I like vegetables, too!) If I weren't busy with many other things, I'd post here daily with Nallian fluency.
Resort Architecture
With all the tawdriness in the news, let us look at nice things:
Binz, the largest resort on the German island of Rügen.
Resort architecture "or Bäder architecture (German: Bäderarchitektur) is an architectural style that is especially characteristic of spas and seaside resorts on the German Baltic coast."
Binz, the largest resort on the German island of Rügen.
Resort architecture "or Bäder architecture (German: Bäderarchitektur) is an architectural style that is especially characteristic of spas and seaside resorts on the German Baltic coast."
Friday, October 07, 2016
What the hell is a US Senator doing telling someone they "aren't welcome" to travel freely? https://t.co/oWAXPZ6BIJ
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) October 6, 2016
This is what it's like to live in an ideological bubble. https://t.co/Rh5buXS1mz
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) October 5, 2016
I said months ago that Weld is a stalking horse for Hillary, and I was right: https://t.co/oW5QBWAY5B https://t.co/PLZWa1H4Y9
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) October 5, 2016
Thursday, October 06, 2016
Giuliani & Ailes in Cleveland theater district today. Is it a performance-art tableau vivant of Thomas Nast, George Grosz or Victor Juhasz? pic.twitter.com/yjb7xWKLVH
— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) October 4, 2016
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
The Emerging Megaregions
By IrvingPlNYC (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Arizona Sun Corridor
Cascadia
Front Range
Wasatch Front (could merge with the Front Range)
Northern California
Southern California
Texas Triangle
Great Lakes
Gulf Coast
Florida
Piedmont Atlantic
Northeast
Monday, October 03, 2016
Proyect vs. Blumenthal
Get your popcorn.
Louis Proyect: "Max Blumenthal Follows Ben Norton Down the Bloody Primrose Path."
We'll see if Blumenthal replies to Proyect. Though he concedes anti-anti-Assadism has been "confined to marginal websites, including some very unsavory ones."
Update: He does, sort of.
Louis Proyect: "Max Blumenthal Follows Ben Norton Down the Bloody Primrose Path."
We'll see if Blumenthal replies to Proyect. Though he concedes anti-anti-Assadism has been "confined to marginal websites, including some very unsavory ones."
The fear factor is why analysis challenging regime change has been largely confined to marginal websites, including some very unsavory ones
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 3, 2016
Update: He does, sort of.
Cheer on Al-Nusra and bash the left for failing to do the same https://t.co/m6WVl1TvWh #WokeSyriaHandbook
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 3, 2016
Kunstler: Sizing Up the Endgame.
Kunstler announces he'll vote for Hillary, but he's not with her, and never will be with her.
Kunstler: Sizing Up the Endgame.
All Hillary had to do last week was show up and stand at a podium for ninety minutes without swooning while Donald Trump barked and grunted his way through the half-assed press conference we like to call a “debate.” It was all I could do to keep watching the nauseating spectacle. It made you want to reach out and whap your TV upside its head, or maybe just shoot the fucker, like Elvis used to do.
The torment of who or what to vote for has become unbearable. I’d considered casting mine for Johnson / Weld, until Gary Johnson demonstrated that the front end of his brain is missing. Aleppo? Wasn’t he one of the Marx Brothers? I sense that Jill Stein of the Green Party is more Social Justice Warrior than EcoWarrior, and the last thing I want is for the rest of America to become one big college campus rife with trigger warnings and micro-aggression persecutions. Vote for Trump? Not if you chained me to the back bumper of a Toyota Landcruiser and dragged me over six miles of broken light bulbs. Hillary? Make that nine miles, and throw down some carpet tacks.
But wait a minute…! Here’s something to consider: a proposition put out by David McAlvany on his podcast last week: To Understand Election 2016 You Have to See 2020. (The new podcast is posted on Wednesdays, so to listen after Oct 5 you’ll have to click back a week.) The idea is that the winner of the presidential election is sure to be the biggest loser because the global economy is in the process of tanking, Long Emergency style, and the global finance system is going down with it. Whoever presides over this fiasco from the White House is going to be a bigger bag-holder than old Herbert Hoover in 1929.
The salutary part of the story is that such an epochal crack-up will sweep the establishment out of power. In the present case, this means discrediting the crony-capitalist, revolving-door grifters of the Wall Street / Washington axis, plus the neo-con military empire-builders bent on starting World War Three for profit, plus the economic central planners of the Federal Reserve whose desperate meddlings have nearly destroyed the necessary operations and meaning of money. And the cherries on top to get thrown out with the rest of this giant shit sundae would be the campus cultural Maoists. In short, vote for Hillary and let history flush them all out of the system.
A vote for Trump would let the aforesaid villains and bunglers off the hook because supposedly Trump represents free market business interests, and if he got elected they would be blamed for the economic and financial cataclysm which has been in motion for going on for two decades — and has accelerated mightily under the genial Obama. Whatever else you might say about free markets, had they been allowed to operate naturally, a lot of dead wood might have been cleared out of the financial forest by allowing failing institutions and companies to crash and burn. Instead, they were artificially propped up and hosed down with bailouts and other accounting frauds at all costs. The cost turns out to be the coherent workings of markets.
There can be little question that Hillary represents so much that has gone wrong in American public life under the Baby Boomer regime. The fact that she will be the oldest president ever at inauguration itself says a lot about the limitless cupidity of the Boomer political gen. They just don’t know when to stop. It’s history’s job to stop them now, nature’s way, by seating them at the banquet of consequences for all their poisonous cookery and quackery.
Watching these lamebrain debates, you get the impression that the folks running things, including media stars like the debate moderators, lack the slightest clue about the gathering economic storm. They are too busy reading the false weather reports posted by the Fed and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both Hillary and Trump seem to believe that we can winkle our way back to a 1962-style economy if we click our ruby slippers three times. That is not going to happen.
There are too many people on-board the planet and too few resources to keep them all going. It’s hard to say whether we might have managed the necessary contraction, say, starting back in the 1970s when the writing was on the wall and a truly honest president (one Jimmy Carter) spelled it out in plain English. We blew it, electing Ronald Reagan to enable the final feeding frenzy of the techno-industrial age.
Now it’s up to natural forces — and their galloping horsemen — to get the job done. So let us by all means throw out votes behind Hillary and let her rip so we can move on from there sooner rather than later and find new ways to remain civilized in the coming disposition of things.
Kunstler: Sizing Up the Endgame.
All Hillary had to do last week was show up and stand at a podium for ninety minutes without swooning while Donald Trump barked and grunted his way through the half-assed press conference we like to call a “debate.” It was all I could do to keep watching the nauseating spectacle. It made you want to reach out and whap your TV upside its head, or maybe just shoot the fucker, like Elvis used to do.
The torment of who or what to vote for has become unbearable. I’d considered casting mine for Johnson / Weld, until Gary Johnson demonstrated that the front end of his brain is missing. Aleppo? Wasn’t he one of the Marx Brothers? I sense that Jill Stein of the Green Party is more Social Justice Warrior than EcoWarrior, and the last thing I want is for the rest of America to become one big college campus rife with trigger warnings and micro-aggression persecutions. Vote for Trump? Not if you chained me to the back bumper of a Toyota Landcruiser and dragged me over six miles of broken light bulbs. Hillary? Make that nine miles, and throw down some carpet tacks.
But wait a minute…! Here’s something to consider: a proposition put out by David McAlvany on his podcast last week: To Understand Election 2016 You Have to See 2020. (The new podcast is posted on Wednesdays, so to listen after Oct 5 you’ll have to click back a week.) The idea is that the winner of the presidential election is sure to be the biggest loser because the global economy is in the process of tanking, Long Emergency style, and the global finance system is going down with it. Whoever presides over this fiasco from the White House is going to be a bigger bag-holder than old Herbert Hoover in 1929.
The salutary part of the story is that such an epochal crack-up will sweep the establishment out of power. In the present case, this means discrediting the crony-capitalist, revolving-door grifters of the Wall Street / Washington axis, plus the neo-con military empire-builders bent on starting World War Three for profit, plus the economic central planners of the Federal Reserve whose desperate meddlings have nearly destroyed the necessary operations and meaning of money. And the cherries on top to get thrown out with the rest of this giant shit sundae would be the campus cultural Maoists. In short, vote for Hillary and let history flush them all out of the system.
A vote for Trump would let the aforesaid villains and bunglers off the hook because supposedly Trump represents free market business interests, and if he got elected they would be blamed for the economic and financial cataclysm which has been in motion for going on for two decades — and has accelerated mightily under the genial Obama. Whatever else you might say about free markets, had they been allowed to operate naturally, a lot of dead wood might have been cleared out of the financial forest by allowing failing institutions and companies to crash and burn. Instead, they were artificially propped up and hosed down with bailouts and other accounting frauds at all costs. The cost turns out to be the coherent workings of markets.
There can be little question that Hillary represents so much that has gone wrong in American public life under the Baby Boomer regime. The fact that she will be the oldest president ever at inauguration itself says a lot about the limitless cupidity of the Boomer political gen. They just don’t know when to stop. It’s history’s job to stop them now, nature’s way, by seating them at the banquet of consequences for all their poisonous cookery and quackery.
Watching these lamebrain debates, you get the impression that the folks running things, including media stars like the debate moderators, lack the slightest clue about the gathering economic storm. They are too busy reading the false weather reports posted by the Fed and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both Hillary and Trump seem to believe that we can winkle our way back to a 1962-style economy if we click our ruby slippers three times. That is not going to happen.
There are too many people on-board the planet and too few resources to keep them all going. It’s hard to say whether we might have managed the necessary contraction, say, starting back in the 1970s when the writing was on the wall and a truly honest president (one Jimmy Carter) spelled it out in plain English. We blew it, electing Ronald Reagan to enable the final feeding frenzy of the techno-industrial age.
Now it’s up to natural forces — and their galloping horsemen — to get the job done. So let us by all means throw out votes behind Hillary and let her rip so we can move on from there sooner rather than later and find new ways to remain civilized in the coming disposition of things.
Sunday, October 02, 2016
And the worst thing about that memory—I cited Baudrillard. Needed it on the CV, tired of getting rejected. It felt like citing Nostradamus.. pic.twitter.com/m5EIjW0M5N
— The War Nerd (@TheWarNerd) September 29, 2016
Friday, September 30, 2016
Tweets (Mainly) on Archives
Medium: On Archivy (Occasional Writings About the Archive).
Croatia : Lengsfeld for #opening #archives of #Yugoslav communist secret service https://t.co/JbgleWYrkm
— ICA (@ICArchiv) September 27, 2016
Antigua and Barbuda : Repair work has stopped at the National #Archives https://t.co/KyO66qy8JL
— ICA (@ICArchiv) September 27, 2016
South Africa - Documenting narratives: #Photography as an archival tool https://t.co/mpV2a76byo #archives #image
— ICA (@ICArchiv) September 27, 2016
A look back at #ICASeoul2016: Creating value with #digitalpreservation https://t.co/Ifk8imms2C pic.twitter.com/wWydrMbud9
— Preservica (@Preservica) September 21, 2016
#Digital #Preservation Awards 2016: The Finalists https://t.co/07joOpyT8S #archives
— ICA (@ICArchiv) September 21, 2016
#Disaster! How #Archives Face the Unthinkable https://t.co/BLsXtBXZcs
— ICA (@ICArchiv) September 16, 2016
When does "documentation" become "surveillance"? Where does preservationists' responsibility lie? -@ng_yvonne #NEHplayback
— Gotham Scholar (@gothamscholar) September 30, 2016
Challenge of Web archiving: when does a public health event "start" & "stop"? #DCHDC
— Gotham Scholar (@gothamscholar) September 20, 2016
Your colleagues are precious - do not squish them in the rolling shelves. #Archives #healthandsafety pic.twitter.com/mOlQOOoiK1
— Moving Image Archive (@scotsonscreen) September 20, 2016
New Post- #ThenandNow: Archival Mashups. Mixing past and present @Historypin @onthisspotblog @archivesnext #archives https://t.co/8zVVVQs3PS
— Emily Lonie (@EmilyLonie1) September 1, 2016
This is fantastic! https://t.co/IbtK8rsN3w
— Kate Theimer (@archivesnext) August 30, 2016
New Post- #ThenandNow: Archival Mashups. Mixing past and present @Historypin @onthisspotblog @archivesnext #archives https://t.co/8zVVVQs3PS
— Emily Lonie (@EmilyLonie1) September 1, 2016
Thursday, September 29, 2016
India vs. Pakistan
We support the strike by India. We support the government on its stand on Pakistan: Mulayam Singh #IndiaStrikesPak
— IndiaTodayFLASH (@IndiaTodayFLASH) September 29, 2016
#IndiaStrikesPak as Special Forces of Indian Army neutralised over 40 Pak terrorists during #SurgicalStrikes. Right way PM #ModiPunishesPak. pic.twitter.com/fOIWpKnynu
— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) September 29, 2016
BBC News: "Kashmir Attack: India 'Launches Strikes Against Militants'."
Is the Second Cold War About to Heat Up?
The language in this NYT editorial on Putin recalls old edits on Milosevic & Saddam. They're preparing us for war https://t.co/PqWU7YvHCF
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) September 29, 2016
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
After the Debate: An Assortment of Tweets
Don't be lulled into false security by your Twitter feed. There are a bajillion other feeds that are exactly opposite of yours. Vote!
— Cullen Bunn (@cullenbunn) September 27, 2016
Oh my God. Trump's campaign is furiously deleting his Tweets from back in his timeline. Holy shit. #WinstonSmith #Debates2016
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) September 27, 2016
If Trump's social media team carry on like this, he's not going to have any tweets left. #debatenight
— Redeye (@PaulChaloner) September 27, 2016
Trump social media team deleted the tweet. The Internet never forgets you morons. pic.twitter.com/hXy10P5Asb
— Redeye (@PaulChaloner) September 27, 2016
Last night's debacle shows why the Dems & GOP created the #debates commission to keep their competition from being heard. #OccupyTheDebates
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) September 27, 2016
There still is hope. Let me in the second debate. #debates
— Gov. Gary Johnson (@GovGaryJohnson) September 27, 2016
Gary Johnson hid in a room, shouted at a reporter & didn't to speak to the crowd at a debate watch party @twitter HQ https://t.co/OZX1BHXQdE
— Alex Leo (@AlexMLeo) September 27, 2016
Gary Johnson’s Post-Debate Reactions Live at 10:15 a.m. ET! https://t.co/EYd0XemkEq
— reason (@reason) September 27, 2016
Who told Hillary Clinton to keep smiling like she’s at her granddaughter’s birthday party?
— David Frum (@davidfrum) September 27, 2016
Oh dear me, I seem to have said something problematic.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) September 27, 2016
I would be fucking stunned if @chucktodd ever once appeared to be even slightly prepared to do his jobhttps://t.co/4DaZZAlmdy
— TBogg (@tbogg) September 27, 2016
His economics plan was written by Club for Growth; Federalist Society handed him judges' list, etc https://t.co/ItV08sDcQK
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 27, 2016
Did Holt make a conscious decision to allow Trump to cut him off and plow thru his questions or is it a sensibility thing? #debatenight
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 27, 2016
#worktherefsworks https://t.co/sb1gqCankI
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 27, 2016
TV Ratings Monday: First presidential debate draws huge audience https://t.co/Z9w9Yq8mq2
— TVbytheNumbers.com (@TVbytheNumbers) September 27, 2016
Reasonable assessment. #debatenight https://t.co/1qzO5WAIbE
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) September 27, 2016
Why even Republicans think Clinton won the first debate https://t.co/hYPXoH8AFj via @powerpost
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2016
I kept my promise and didn't watch the debate. So Hillary wore red and Donald a blue tie? What's up with that?
— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) September 27, 2016
Monday, September 26, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
India vs. Pakistan, etc.
While people are blathering about Skittles and Brangelina, CNN asks, "Could India and Pakistan Go to War?"
-----
Lighter but still substantial:
"Your Vote for Jill Stein is a Wasted Vote."
"Your Vote For Jill Stein Is Not A Wasted Vote."
-----
Lighter but still substantial:
"Your Vote for Jill Stein is a Wasted Vote."
"Your Vote For Jill Stein Is Not A Wasted Vote."
Krugman vs. Johnson
So, are there really Sanders supporters now backing Gary Johnson? Have they looked at the Libertarian platform? pic.twitter.com/dgrIrj9B9D
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 27, 2016
Paul Krugman Reveals What Libertarian Gary Johnson Really Stands For—and It's Terrifying @alternet https://t.co/hVmAlMzsJV
— jp (@Jpdawe7) September 21, 2016
Paul Krugman on Gary Johnson, https://t.co/6IMGx7fla3
— tylercowen (@tylercowen) September 20, 2016
https://t.co/O641bBcsDW They know that we see them for who they are. Let's show them. No more lesser of two evils. #LetGaryDebate
— Paul Andrews (@HappyDadster13) September 21, 2016
----
"The Myth of Gary Johnson" by someone named Judd Legum.
A Reading Guide to Lefty Panic Attacks About Gary Johnson https://t.co/p35ADAqEhW
— reason (@reason) September 23, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
.@GovGaryJohnson says the free market will solve climate change. What planet have you been living on, Gary? https://t.co/8h7AtyfQSd
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) September 20, 2016
One could say the same of her.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Someone forgot to thank Obama.https://t.co/KPA1FDSyQH #ThanksObama
— TBogg (@tbogg) September 19, 2016
Is he suggesting Obama unilaterally made gas cheaper?
Kunstler: Slowly, Then All at Once.
Kunstler: Slowly, Then All at Once.
The staggering incoherence of the election campaign only mirrors the shocking incapacity of the American public, from top to bottom, to process the tendings of our time. The chief tending is permanent worldwide economic contraction. Having hit the resource wall, especially of affordable oil, the global techno-industrial economy has sucked a valve in its engine.
For sure there are ways for human beings to inhabit this planet, perhaps in a civilized mode, but not at the gigantic scale of the current economic regime. The fate of this order has nothing to do with our wishes or preferences. It’s going down whether we like it or not because it was such a violent anomaly in world history and the salient question is: how do we manage our journey to a new disposition of things. Neither Trump or Clinton show that they have a clue about the situation.
The quandary I describe is often labeled the end of growth. The semantic impact of this phrase tends to paralyze even well-educated minds, most particularly the eminent econ professors, the Yale lawyers-turned-politicos, the Wall Street Journal editors, the corporate poobahs of the “C-Suites,” the hedge fund maverick-geniuses, and the bureaucratic errand boys (and girls) of Washington. In the absence of this “growth,” as defined by the employment and productivity statistics extruded like poisoned bratwursts from the sausage grinders of government agencies, this elite can see only the yawning abyss. The poverty of imagination among our elites is really something to behold.
As is usually the case with troubled, over-ripe societies, these elites have begun to resort to magic to prop up failing living arrangements. This is why the Federal Reserve, once an obscure institution deep in the background of normal life, has come downstage front and center, holding the rest of us literally spellbound with its incantations against the intractable ravages of debt deflation. (For a brilliant gloss on this phenomenon, read Ben Hunt’s essay “Magical thinking” at the Epsilon Theory website.)
One way out of this quandary would be to substitute the word “activity” for “growth.” A society of human beings can choose different activities that would produce different effects than the techno-industrial model of behavior. They can organize ten-acre farms instead of cell phone game app companies. They can do physical labor instead of watching television. They can build compact walkable towns instead of suburban wastelands (probably even out of the salvaged detritus of those wastelands). They can put on plays, concerts, sing-alongs, and puppet shows instead of Super Bowl halftime shows and Internet porn videos. They can make things of quality by hand instead of stamping out a million things guaranteed to fall apart next week. None of these alt-activities would be classifiable as “growth” in the current mode. In fact, they are consistent with the reality of contraction. And they could produce a workable and satisfying living arrangement.
The rackets and swindles unleashed in our futile quest to keep up appearances have disabled the financial operating system that the regime depends on. It’s all an illusion sustained by accounting fraud to conceal promises that won’t be kept. All the mighty efforts of central bank authorities to borrow “wealth” from the future in the form of “money” — to “paper over” the absence of growth — will not conceal the impossibility of paying that borrowed money back. The future’s revenge for these empty promises will be the disclosure that the supposed wealth is not really there — especially as represented in currencies, stock shares, bonds, and other ephemeral “instruments” designed to be storage vehicles for wealth. The stocks are not worth what they pretend. The bonds will never be paid off. The currencies will not store value. How did this happen? Slowly, then all at once..
We’re on a collision course with these stark realities. They are coinciding with the sickening vectors of national politics in a great wave of latent consequences built up by the sheer inertia of the scale at which we have been doing things. Trump, convinced of his own brilliance, knows nothing, and wears his incoherence like a medal of honor. Clinton literally personifies the horror of these coiled consequences waiting to spring — and the pretense that everything will continue to be okay with her in the White House (not). When these two gargoyle combatants meet in the debate arena a week from now, you will hear nothing about the journey we’re on to a different way of life..
But there is a clear synergy between the mismanagement of our money and the mismanagement of our politics. They have the ability to amplify each other’s disorders. The awful vibe from this depraved election might be enough to bring down markets and banks. The markets and banks are unstable enough to affect the election.
In history, elites commonly fail spectacularly. Ask yourself: how could these two ancient institutions, the Democratic and Republican parties, cough up such human hairballs? And having done so, do they deserve to continue to exist? And if they go up in a vapor, along with the public’s incomes and savings, what happens next?
Enter the generals.
The staggering incoherence of the election campaign only mirrors the shocking incapacity of the American public, from top to bottom, to process the tendings of our time. The chief tending is permanent worldwide economic contraction. Having hit the resource wall, especially of affordable oil, the global techno-industrial economy has sucked a valve in its engine.
For sure there are ways for human beings to inhabit this planet, perhaps in a civilized mode, but not at the gigantic scale of the current economic regime. The fate of this order has nothing to do with our wishes or preferences. It’s going down whether we like it or not because it was such a violent anomaly in world history and the salient question is: how do we manage our journey to a new disposition of things. Neither Trump or Clinton show that they have a clue about the situation.
The quandary I describe is often labeled the end of growth. The semantic impact of this phrase tends to paralyze even well-educated minds, most particularly the eminent econ professors, the Yale lawyers-turned-politicos, the Wall Street Journal editors, the corporate poobahs of the “C-Suites,” the hedge fund maverick-geniuses, and the bureaucratic errand boys (and girls) of Washington. In the absence of this “growth,” as defined by the employment and productivity statistics extruded like poisoned bratwursts from the sausage grinders of government agencies, this elite can see only the yawning abyss. The poverty of imagination among our elites is really something to behold.
As is usually the case with troubled, over-ripe societies, these elites have begun to resort to magic to prop up failing living arrangements. This is why the Federal Reserve, once an obscure institution deep in the background of normal life, has come downstage front and center, holding the rest of us literally spellbound with its incantations against the intractable ravages of debt deflation. (For a brilliant gloss on this phenomenon, read Ben Hunt’s essay “Magical thinking” at the Epsilon Theory website.)
One way out of this quandary would be to substitute the word “activity” for “growth.” A society of human beings can choose different activities that would produce different effects than the techno-industrial model of behavior. They can organize ten-acre farms instead of cell phone game app companies. They can do physical labor instead of watching television. They can build compact walkable towns instead of suburban wastelands (probably even out of the salvaged detritus of those wastelands). They can put on plays, concerts, sing-alongs, and puppet shows instead of Super Bowl halftime shows and Internet porn videos. They can make things of quality by hand instead of stamping out a million things guaranteed to fall apart next week. None of these alt-activities would be classifiable as “growth” in the current mode. In fact, they are consistent with the reality of contraction. And they could produce a workable and satisfying living arrangement.
The rackets and swindles unleashed in our futile quest to keep up appearances have disabled the financial operating system that the regime depends on. It’s all an illusion sustained by accounting fraud to conceal promises that won’t be kept. All the mighty efforts of central bank authorities to borrow “wealth” from the future in the form of “money” — to “paper over” the absence of growth — will not conceal the impossibility of paying that borrowed money back. The future’s revenge for these empty promises will be the disclosure that the supposed wealth is not really there — especially as represented in currencies, stock shares, bonds, and other ephemeral “instruments” designed to be storage vehicles for wealth. The stocks are not worth what they pretend. The bonds will never be paid off. The currencies will not store value. How did this happen? Slowly, then all at once..
We’re on a collision course with these stark realities. They are coinciding with the sickening vectors of national politics in a great wave of latent consequences built up by the sheer inertia of the scale at which we have been doing things. Trump, convinced of his own brilliance, knows nothing, and wears his incoherence like a medal of honor. Clinton literally personifies the horror of these coiled consequences waiting to spring — and the pretense that everything will continue to be okay with her in the White House (not). When these two gargoyle combatants meet in the debate arena a week from now, you will hear nothing about the journey we’re on to a different way of life..
But there is a clear synergy between the mismanagement of our money and the mismanagement of our politics. They have the ability to amplify each other’s disorders. The awful vibe from this depraved election might be enough to bring down markets and banks. The markets and banks are unstable enough to affect the election.
In history, elites commonly fail spectacularly. Ask yourself: how could these two ancient institutions, the Democratic and Republican parties, cough up such human hairballs? And having done so, do they deserve to continue to exist? And if they go up in a vapor, along with the public’s incomes and savings, what happens next?
Enter the generals.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Some Links
(Update: I removed the tweet mentioning the book The End of the Vietnamese Monarchy and the tweet by Lillias White, singer. I added a few on kale guacamole.)
Merkel Suffers Drubbing in Berlin Vote.
"Merkel to drop 'We can do this' from her speeches."
Watching Wonder Woman last night with Leif Garrett guest-starring as twin singers, I learned of this song by him:
From the 1978 album Feel the Need (Scotti Brothers Records).
Merkel Suffers Drubbing in Berlin Vote.
"Merkel to drop 'We can do this' from her speeches."
Peak Oil Review: A Midweek Update - 15th Sept 2016 https://t.co/wEYjpnltoF (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) September 15, 2016
#Yahoo Toronto: 'Frantz,' 'Toni Erdmann' Stars New Faces of German Film Campaign https://t.co/u5hyglmj4f
— ArtsMusicMovies (@ArtsMusicMovies) September 11, 2016
100,000 fewer cars in L.A. in 5 years? Here's how it can happen. https://t.co/SJyypH4YLa pic.twitter.com/H44IZdbWOK
— Time Out Los Angeles (@timeoutla) September 16, 2016
@mstharrington I am going to troll the whole internet with my new book, “Guacamole Should Have Kale In It”
— James Hare (@harej) September 17, 2016
We heard it was #NationalGuacamoleDay! Beet Chips? Kale guacamole? Count us in! #GotRhythm… https://t.co/IYC4n8W8T5
— Rhythm Superfoods (@RhythmSuperfood) September 16, 2016
7 Guacamole Riffs Made With Everything from Kale to Crickets, Plus a Must-Try Pineapple… https://t.co/coPWlhb5KW pic.twitter.com/XysKUdNM9k
— Bravotv (@Bravotv) September 2, 2016
Animator and People’s Artist of Russia Yury Norshteyn celebrates 75th birthday. Congratulations from the President https://t.co/oU0UguwXbr
— President of Russia (@KremlinRussia_E) September 15, 2016
Watching Wonder Woman last night with Leif Garrett guest-starring as twin singers, I learned of this song by him:
From the 1978 album Feel the Need (Scotti Brothers Records).
Saturday, September 17, 2016
A PeakProsperity Interview with Kunstler
Why Kunstler seems to harp on money, finance, etc. He discusses the presidential race too.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
Kunstler: Signs of Desperation.
Kunstler: Signs of Desperation.
Idiocy and mendacity are a bad combo in the affairs of nations, especially in elections. The present case in the USA displays both qualities to near-perfection: on one side, a boorish pseudo-savior in zero command of ideas; on the other side, a wannabe racketeer-in-chief in full command of her instinctive deceit. Trump offers incoherent rhetoric in opposition to the current dismal order of things; Clinton offers empty, pandering rhetoric in defense of that order. Both represent an epic national drive toward political suicide.
The idiocy and mendacity extend to the broad voting public and the discredited elites pretending to run the life of the nation. The American public has never been this badly educated and more distracted by manufactured trivia. They know next to nothing. Even college seniors can’t name the Secretary of State or find Switzerland on a map. They don’t know in what century the Civil War took place. They couldn’t tell you whether a hypotenuse is an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral. Their right to vote is a danger to themselves.
The elites operate in their own twilight zone of ignorance, only at a loftier level, flying on wings of sheepskin. Submitted for your approval: Harvard wizard Kenneth Rogoff’s new book, The Curse of Cash. This is the latest salvo in the international campaign to herd all money into the control of central banks and central governments, supposedly to make central planning of the economy more effective — but really for the purpose of extending the fallacy that the mis-pricing of credit and collateral (that is, of everything) can save the current incarnation of crony capitalism, and more to the point, save the fortunes of the racketeers running it, along with the reputations of their intellectual errand boys. Henceforth, all “money” transactions would be traceable, allowing unprecedented power for authorities to regulate the lives of citizens.
It remains to seen whether the American public might be snookered into this scheme, which already has some traction in Europe. Of course, Europe is headed into some interesting political heavy weather of its own in the months ahead, and there is plenty of reason to think that even the docile people of Denmark and Sweden might eventually revolt against the central bank regime if they see the Germans do it.
Aggravating matters is the hyper-complexity of our current financial arrangements, much of it in the service of deliberately mystifying the masses. Does the public understand the rationale behind zero interest rate policy (ZIRP)? Not any more than they understand the interaction of gluons and quarks or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It is one of the abiding mysteries of our time, for instance, that a group like AARP, purporting to represent the interests of retired persons, has offered not a peep of pushback to ZIRP, which has pounded retired people dependent on savings into penury. Of course, this might be explained by the pervasive racketeering feature of our current national life: AARP is an insurance racket masquerading as a citizen interest group. Or, stretching credulity to suppose that AARP is honest, perhaps the org’s executives don’t understand that zero interest on savings equals zero income to savers.
Kenneth Rogoff tries to justify his war on cash by invoking two of the era’s favorite bogymen: terrorists and drug dealers. Cash, he says, allows this axis of evil to do its thing(s). This is a ruse, of course. If currency is eliminated, these outfits will turn to gold and silver, it’s that simple. And so will everybody else, by the way. The real reason to abolish cash and herd all money into central banks is to permit the authorities to confiscate it one way or another, either by unavoidable taxation or by “bail-ins” — declaring deposits to be “unsecured loans” that can be repudiated in the event of a financial “accident.”
The results are already in for this experiment: “money” becomes more and more dishonest, that is, it cannot be trusted to represent what it pretends to stand for: an index of account and a store of value. Its role as the basis of capital formation is so impaired that real capital (i.e. wealth) cannot be generated, meaning that none of the credit issued as “money” will ever be paid back. Zero interest rate policy eventually equals zero interest paid. “Money” based on loans that won’t be paid back loses its legitimacy. Herding all the “money” onto central bank computers only allows for more three-card-monte maneuvers to conceal the bezzle. It would be much harder to hide the destruction of value in circulating paper currency. Eliminating currency as a medium of exchange can only lead to the repudiation of “money” — which will beat a quick path to the repudiation of all authority. And there is your recipe for really suicidal political disorder.
One more thing this week: why exactly are America’s Clinton-invested political elites inveighing so strenuously against Russia and its president, Mr. Putin? The US has gone out of its way to provoke Russia militarily the past several years. We foolishly sponsored the revolution in Ukraine that has left it a failed state — and which prompted Russia to reclaim the Crimea, historically its own territory and the site of its strategically crucial warm water ports. We continue to run NATO war game exercises along Russia’s borders. We fly surveillance planes in their airspace and then act surprised when Russia sends up fighters to remind us where we are. We hold naval exercises in the Black Sea and wonder why the Russians buzz us. Are we out of our minds? How would we act if the Russians flew their planes over Catalina Island or held naval war games off Hampton Roads? Who does the US policy elite think they’re kidding?
These memes in financial and foreign policy are dangerously crazy and dishonest. They are doing a good job of making the US political establishment look like a claque of fools and outlaws, and laying a red carpet for the election of Trump, the fake savior… the apotheosis of the fabled Greater Fool.
Idiocy and mendacity are a bad combo in the affairs of nations, especially in elections. The present case in the USA displays both qualities to near-perfection: on one side, a boorish pseudo-savior in zero command of ideas; on the other side, a wannabe racketeer-in-chief in full command of her instinctive deceit. Trump offers incoherent rhetoric in opposition to the current dismal order of things; Clinton offers empty, pandering rhetoric in defense of that order. Both represent an epic national drive toward political suicide.
The idiocy and mendacity extend to the broad voting public and the discredited elites pretending to run the life of the nation. The American public has never been this badly educated and more distracted by manufactured trivia. They know next to nothing. Even college seniors can’t name the Secretary of State or find Switzerland on a map. They don’t know in what century the Civil War took place. They couldn’t tell you whether a hypotenuse is an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral. Their right to vote is a danger to themselves.
The elites operate in their own twilight zone of ignorance, only at a loftier level, flying on wings of sheepskin. Submitted for your approval: Harvard wizard Kenneth Rogoff’s new book, The Curse of Cash. This is the latest salvo in the international campaign to herd all money into the control of central banks and central governments, supposedly to make central planning of the economy more effective — but really for the purpose of extending the fallacy that the mis-pricing of credit and collateral (that is, of everything) can save the current incarnation of crony capitalism, and more to the point, save the fortunes of the racketeers running it, along with the reputations of their intellectual errand boys. Henceforth, all “money” transactions would be traceable, allowing unprecedented power for authorities to regulate the lives of citizens.
It remains to seen whether the American public might be snookered into this scheme, which already has some traction in Europe. Of course, Europe is headed into some interesting political heavy weather of its own in the months ahead, and there is plenty of reason to think that even the docile people of Denmark and Sweden might eventually revolt against the central bank regime if they see the Germans do it.
Aggravating matters is the hyper-complexity of our current financial arrangements, much of it in the service of deliberately mystifying the masses. Does the public understand the rationale behind zero interest rate policy (ZIRP)? Not any more than they understand the interaction of gluons and quarks or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It is one of the abiding mysteries of our time, for instance, that a group like AARP, purporting to represent the interests of retired persons, has offered not a peep of pushback to ZIRP, which has pounded retired people dependent on savings into penury. Of course, this might be explained by the pervasive racketeering feature of our current national life: AARP is an insurance racket masquerading as a citizen interest group. Or, stretching credulity to suppose that AARP is honest, perhaps the org’s executives don’t understand that zero interest on savings equals zero income to savers.
Kenneth Rogoff tries to justify his war on cash by invoking two of the era’s favorite bogymen: terrorists and drug dealers. Cash, he says, allows this axis of evil to do its thing(s). This is a ruse, of course. If currency is eliminated, these outfits will turn to gold and silver, it’s that simple. And so will everybody else, by the way. The real reason to abolish cash and herd all money into central banks is to permit the authorities to confiscate it one way or another, either by unavoidable taxation or by “bail-ins” — declaring deposits to be “unsecured loans” that can be repudiated in the event of a financial “accident.”
The results are already in for this experiment: “money” becomes more and more dishonest, that is, it cannot be trusted to represent what it pretends to stand for: an index of account and a store of value. Its role as the basis of capital formation is so impaired that real capital (i.e. wealth) cannot be generated, meaning that none of the credit issued as “money” will ever be paid back. Zero interest rate policy eventually equals zero interest paid. “Money” based on loans that won’t be paid back loses its legitimacy. Herding all the “money” onto central bank computers only allows for more three-card-monte maneuvers to conceal the bezzle. It would be much harder to hide the destruction of value in circulating paper currency. Eliminating currency as a medium of exchange can only lead to the repudiation of “money” — which will beat a quick path to the repudiation of all authority. And there is your recipe for really suicidal political disorder.
One more thing this week: why exactly are America’s Clinton-invested political elites inveighing so strenuously against Russia and its president, Mr. Putin? The US has gone out of its way to provoke Russia militarily the past several years. We foolishly sponsored the revolution in Ukraine that has left it a failed state — and which prompted Russia to reclaim the Crimea, historically its own territory and the site of its strategically crucial warm water ports. We continue to run NATO war game exercises along Russia’s borders. We fly surveillance planes in their airspace and then act surprised when Russia sends up fighters to remind us where we are. We hold naval exercises in the Black Sea and wonder why the Russians buzz us. Are we out of our minds? How would we act if the Russians flew their planes over Catalina Island or held naval war games off Hampton Roads? Who does the US policy elite think they’re kidding?
These memes in financial and foreign policy are dangerously crazy and dishonest. They are doing a good job of making the US political establishment look like a claque of fools and outlaws, and laying a red carpet for the election of Trump, the fake savior… the apotheosis of the fabled Greater Fool.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Not This Year
One may or may not agree with the premise of this column, but I like that he points out the good in Johnson and Stein. It's a refreshing change from the countless posts about how clueless and bad they are.
Can a voter of conscience vote for a 3rd party candidate? Not this year. My NYT column on Johnson and Stein. https://t.co/YPCvJUOKEK
— Timothy Egan (@nytegan) September 9, 2016
Blood Sand
The Force Awakens is on five different channels and I'm watching Blood Sand.
— S.B.ToOns (@SBToons) September 11, 2016
You made the right choice.
9/11, Fifteen Years Later
On the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, what else can be said?
Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and a seventh building was constructed in the mid-1980s.
Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and a seventh building was constructed in the mid-1980s.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Figuring Out Twitter Background Photos, Part 1
In case you wondered what was that photo Nancy Nall uses as the background for her Twitter. I knew it was a heavily-marked up page from a speech, then I figured it was an Obama speech about health care.
Obama Revisions."
The photo itself.
Obama Revisions."
The photo itself.
Friday, September 09, 2016
The Aleppo Gaffe
Behind ridicule of Gary Johnson's #WhatIsAleppo moment is the fear that he's not as interested in bombing Syria as Beltway thinktankers are.
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 8, 2016
Wow... @nytimes reporter calls Aleppo the capital of IS while making fun of @GovGaryJohnson
— Gissur Simonarson (@GissiSim) September 8, 2016
for his gaff... wow...https://t.co/gHRMevEfC0
Started my day by setting aside any doubt I’m human. #WhatIsAleppo? My statement: https://t.co/CDKbaA288l
— Gov. Gary Johnson (@GovGaryJohnson) September 8, 2016
Do Americans know #WhatIsAleppo or who Gary Johnson is? | https://t.co/x0LVeBtiTe
— The Slaves Singing (@williamcson) September 9, 2016
"Gary Johnson's Aleppo Gaffe Is an Inexcusable Blunder, But Hardly Unique to Presidential Candidates."
Americans did not know or care what #Aleppo is until they could use it to mock someone else for not knowing it. https://t.co/LYKDQrw9NC
— Kiran فاطمہ Opal (@KiranOpal) September 8, 2016
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
Barry
"Upper West Side With You" pic.twitter.com/GoB0kvrItC
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) September 7, 2016
The movie has been in the works for months.
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
CliFi and Other Things
Peak Oil Review - Sept 5 2016 https://t.co/WfADOFpP7D (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) September 6, 2016
Once the Largest Farming County in US, Los Angeles’s Agricultural Roots Laid Bare in New Book https://t.co/kGqFMNQqY0 (@buildresilience)
— Post Carbon Inst. (@postcarbon) September 6, 2016
The latest The Transition Initiatives Daily! https://t.co/8sRKVGB4Aw Thanks to @SustainableHarb @TransitionStAlb @TransitionMK
— Transition Network (@transitiontowns) September 2, 2016
The latest The Transition Initiatives Daily! https://t.co/r0DTJWwzJk Thanks to @CFTransition @TNCBudeAssembly @twestcombe
— Transition Network (@transitiontowns) September 1, 2016
A new genre, clifi (climate fiction):
#clifi imagines stories that can be told about the causes and effects of climate change.
— WetheHums/ Sune (@WetheHumanities) September 5, 2016
Monday, September 05, 2016
Kunstler: A Pleasant Lull.
Kunstler: A Pleasant Lull.
A pleasant lull lies over the land where today fewer people labor honestly — and some labor gruelingly for too little — while a matrix of rackets sustains the illusion that our living arrangements have a future. Is Quarterback Colin Kaepernick on the minds of the millions moiling around their backyard barbeques? I applaud his refusal to stand for the national anthem, though not for the reasons he stated. Rather, because I’m sick of vulgar symbolism in a dark moment of a fraying culture that demands more than cheap talk and lame gestures.
In case you’re wondering, the reason we’re subject to all these repetitions of The Star Spangled Banner is not for love-of-country but something quite the opposite: the fear that its promises are empty. Ever wonder why every public official in the land has to wear a flag lapel pin? Should it be necessary for the president of the US to signal his devotion to duty? Wouldn’t we normally just assume this to be the case? No, it signals the widespread and generalized anxiety that the national condition is dire and that we don’t have the confidence or the clarity to face the challenges of the time. President Obama might as well wear a crucifix or a bulb of garlic in his lapel.
In this presidential election year especially, Labor Day serves as a sort of collective deep breath before the plunge into a season of political anguish. The number of potential voters disgusted with the choice between two clueless monsters of egotism must be epic. If WalMart held a sale on bullshit filters, they might stand a chance of turning a Q3 profit. Otherwise, expect economic performance to be increasingly frightening even if The New York Times and CNN continue to spin out tales of unicorns jumping rainbows.
Events, not personalities, are going to demonstrate where things are at in the late-stage techno-industrial crack-up at hand. The shamans at the Federal Reserve have exhausted their repertoire of incantations for levitating the financial markets and, more ominously, the value of the US dollar. The prankish god they serve has arranged things so that the very faith needed to sustain their illusory influence will run down the drain as November 8 creeps closer. They must be getting awfully nervous down at the Eccles Building.
The sudden bankruptcy of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Company [Link added by me.--P.Z.] ought to send shivers down the scaly spines of globalism’s cheerleaders. Fragility is everywhere in this unraveling network of gigantic, far-flung promises and obligations. The former middle class of America has lost its ability to absorb anymore smart phones or Kardashian brand Pure Glitz hairspray©. They’re pacing grooves in the faux hardwood floors of their McHomes through reams of unpayable bills trying to stave off the re-po squad while Grandma slips into a diabetic coma. These are the good folks who supposedly comprise 70 percent of the so-called economy, a.k.a. “consumers.” You can stick a fork in them — and maybe we’ll hear a few reports of that on Tuesday when the holiday barbeques smolder their last.
More concerning, though, are the conditions of the banks. When their true insolvency is revealed — which may coincide with the height of the election season — look out below. The bankruptcy of one measly shipping company will look like a zit on the ass of a diving blue whale as countless trade operations seize up for lack of confidence that they will ever be paid. Then what?
Then we are forced to pay attention to the actual dynamics now at work in the world. Or be driven crazy by our refusal to get with the program. I tend to think we’ll opt for the latter. We’re too unused to reality. We’d rather crash and burn than change anything about our behavior, or even our perception. Both Trump and Hillary are perfect avatars for this date with a hard landing. The disorder both of them are capable of inducing will be a spectacle for the ages.
A pleasant lull lies over the land where today fewer people labor honestly — and some labor gruelingly for too little — while a matrix of rackets sustains the illusion that our living arrangements have a future. Is Quarterback Colin Kaepernick on the minds of the millions moiling around their backyard barbeques? I applaud his refusal to stand for the national anthem, though not for the reasons he stated. Rather, because I’m sick of vulgar symbolism in a dark moment of a fraying culture that demands more than cheap talk and lame gestures.
In case you’re wondering, the reason we’re subject to all these repetitions of The Star Spangled Banner is not for love-of-country but something quite the opposite: the fear that its promises are empty. Ever wonder why every public official in the land has to wear a flag lapel pin? Should it be necessary for the president of the US to signal his devotion to duty? Wouldn’t we normally just assume this to be the case? No, it signals the widespread and generalized anxiety that the national condition is dire and that we don’t have the confidence or the clarity to face the challenges of the time. President Obama might as well wear a crucifix or a bulb of garlic in his lapel.
In this presidential election year especially, Labor Day serves as a sort of collective deep breath before the plunge into a season of political anguish. The number of potential voters disgusted with the choice between two clueless monsters of egotism must be epic. If WalMart held a sale on bullshit filters, they might stand a chance of turning a Q3 profit. Otherwise, expect economic performance to be increasingly frightening even if The New York Times and CNN continue to spin out tales of unicorns jumping rainbows.
Events, not personalities, are going to demonstrate where things are at in the late-stage techno-industrial crack-up at hand. The shamans at the Federal Reserve have exhausted their repertoire of incantations for levitating the financial markets and, more ominously, the value of the US dollar. The prankish god they serve has arranged things so that the very faith needed to sustain their illusory influence will run down the drain as November 8 creeps closer. They must be getting awfully nervous down at the Eccles Building.
The sudden bankruptcy of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Company [Link added by me.--P.Z.] ought to send shivers down the scaly spines of globalism’s cheerleaders. Fragility is everywhere in this unraveling network of gigantic, far-flung promises and obligations. The former middle class of America has lost its ability to absorb anymore smart phones or Kardashian brand Pure Glitz hairspray©. They’re pacing grooves in the faux hardwood floors of their McHomes through reams of unpayable bills trying to stave off the re-po squad while Grandma slips into a diabetic coma. These are the good folks who supposedly comprise 70 percent of the so-called economy, a.k.a. “consumers.” You can stick a fork in them — and maybe we’ll hear a few reports of that on Tuesday when the holiday barbeques smolder their last.
More concerning, though, are the conditions of the banks. When their true insolvency is revealed — which may coincide with the height of the election season — look out below. The bankruptcy of one measly shipping company will look like a zit on the ass of a diving blue whale as countless trade operations seize up for lack of confidence that they will ever be paid. Then what?
Then we are forced to pay attention to the actual dynamics now at work in the world. Or be driven crazy by our refusal to get with the program. I tend to think we’ll opt for the latter. We’re too unused to reality. We’d rather crash and burn than change anything about our behavior, or even our perception. Both Trump and Hillary are perfect avatars for this date with a hard landing. The disorder both of them are capable of inducing will be a spectacle for the ages.
Sunday, September 04, 2016
Eddie Money feat. Ronnie Spector, "Take Me Home Tonight."
Released in August 1986 off the Can't Hold Back album, "Take Me Home Tonight" was Eddie Money's biggest hit, peaking at number four. It brought Ronnie Spector to a new audience. And its enduring popularity as an arena-rock staple means a rendition by some high-spirited young men in Tom Boggioni's neighborhood this Labor Day weekend annoys him no end.
Neighborhood bros getting Labor Day weekend started by loudly singing Take Me Home Tonight on the rooftop deck. #FuckMyLife
— TBogg (@tbogg) September 2, 2016
Saturday, September 03, 2016
Some Things
I've been growing a tamarind seedling over the past two months and repotted it yesterday. It might be several years before it matures and yields fruit, but it's nice to see it develop. Some other plants we have weren't doing that well till I built up the soil simply by putting fallen leaves in their pots.
Le Pen promises a referendum on the EU if she's elected president.
Barbra Streisand's new album Encore debuted atop the charts.
---Streisand’s real triumph here is that her numbers were entirely from sales, not streaming. She sold 150,000 CDs and digital downloads. Her streaming numbers were minimal.
Waking up early Wednesday, I turned on MTV and saw the video for this song, also called "Barbra Streisand", (which I've never heard of, and thought was new).
The Wall Street Journal: "Oklahoma Earthquake Felt in Several U.S. States, as Oil Wells Draw Scrutiny."
Temblor of 5.6-magnitude centered in area tied to underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling
USA Today: Oklahoma Quake Prompts Shutdown of Gas-Linked Wells.
Le Pen promises a referendum on the EU if she's elected president.
Barbra Streisand's new album Encore debuted atop the charts.
---Streisand’s real triumph here is that her numbers were entirely from sales, not streaming. She sold 150,000 CDs and digital downloads. Her streaming numbers were minimal.
Waking up early Wednesday, I turned on MTV and saw the video for this song, also called "Barbra Streisand", (which I've never heard of, and thought was new).
The Wall Street Journal: "Oklahoma Earthquake Felt in Several U.S. States, as Oil Wells Draw Scrutiny."
Temblor of 5.6-magnitude centered in area tied to underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling
USA Today: Oklahoma Quake Prompts Shutdown of Gas-Linked Wells.
Thursday, September 01, 2016
The Lull Between T.S. Madeline and Hurricane Lester
Hurricane Madeline was downgraded to a tropical storm and swept the island yesterday. There were heavy rains and high winds, especially in Waimea, Kawaihae, Waikoloa, and South Point (Ka Lae). Most of the town was closed as a precaution. Hurricane Lester is nearing the island. As of yesterday afternoon, it was a category three hurricane on a west-northwest path. Lester is forecast to weaken to a category one as it passes by the island to the north.
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