I am noticing your posts have much more bite than usual, both here and there. Is there more up than what appears on the surface? It ain’t my business, but sometimes someone else just noticing that you are feeling contentious and attitudinal can be validating. It ain’t all about 9/11 or us dumbassed southerners is what I am saying…
Or are we doing Fight Club tonite??? There is a jackass over at JHKs place who wants to fight if that is what you would like?
There is no mockery here. I do feel like you are more pissed than how you normally choose to share yourself with us. You okay?
Hi MOU, thanks! I’m good, no worries, just hard headed sometimes.
You need to keep an eye on Asoka though. Every once in a while, look out. I was at a Zappa concert with him a few years ago, up on Lake Geneva. I told him not to bring in his flare gun. He doesn’t listen to me though. We were drinking some of his homemade Ouzo that night, waiting for the Mothers to come on stage, and he gets up on some chick’s shoulders and starts chanting “McGovern! McGovern!” He’s such a nut. The rest is history. Smoke on the water. Fire in the sky.
JR,
You gonna watch the movie about chopper?
If so, check the cinematic effects when they take speed – quite realistic.
Unfortunately when he flops his cock out to his ex-girlfriend and the detective they had to use a dildo or strap-on or something ‘coz even though it was rated ‘R’ they couldn’t show a real penis – go figure. Anyway, that scene totally loses its meaning.
For the others reading this, you just have to watch it.
Okay, you want critical, here it is…so the fuck what if the blog was “totally disorganized.” The real problem is that somewhere you have stopped having fun. It is yours. Fuck being a people pleaser. I respect your head, dude, you have great insight, but if you force your mental process into the shape of someone else’s expectations (read that “your perception of someone else’s expectations”) you will block your own natural creativity. It becomes a performance. Fuck that. Your brain works the way it works. When you try to please others you interfere with “having fun” and you will feel pressure and then you will get writer’s block. Fuck organization. Just be you. If your numbers are going up somewhere then what you are doing is kinda working, isn’t it? Don’t need to look good. What would Tucker Max say about this?
“Johnny, you’re being a pussy. Snap the fuck out of it, bitch.”
JR, I’m glad you enjoyed “City of Ghosts” (2002). I still remember the peculiar mood that this movie evoked.
[This is from an interview with the producer, Michael Cerenzie. I know… this is fucked up for me to be posting this… but it seems important. Bunn Bunn put me up to this.]
“Pulling off the deal for City of Ghosts, which also starred James Caan and Gerard Depardieu, got Cerenzie voted one of Variety’s 50 Creatives To Watch. “The funny thing was I hadn’t even started shooting my first picture yet. I thought that it was joke. I thought they were calling me because my subscription was overdue.”
***
When the reporter from Variety met with Cerenzie for the interview he forgot to bring his business cards with him. “So now I think this is a joke. When he asked how I got into the business, I said, ‘Well, I started selling crack, then I moved over to heroin.’ He said, ‘Michael, this is a real interview.’ I actually called Variety and was told he was their special editions person. So finally I realized it was real.”
But Cerenzie felt it was totally undeserved. “It made me look at Hollywood in a different way. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong here. I know fifty men and women who have more talent than me that deserve this award.’ I’ve never really told that to anybody, but that was what was in the back of my mind. I said, ‘You know what? What I’m going to do is instead of saying I don’t feel I deserve this, I’m going to actually earn it.’ Sam Mendes had this. Spike Lee had this. So I thought I’d better raise the bar in the kind of film I was going to make.””
Agree with the others. If you want to see disorganized, have a look at TFM (the blog or the IRL version). Now *that* is disorganized.
Do what you do because you want to do it. The minute you stop, you stop being true to yourself. Hey, if you need some time to regroup, take a break. Just say hello on Monday mornings to let us know you’re OK.
You, JR, can be a real shit. What I like about you is that you are smart and have the courage to tell your truth. It is deadly beautiful. I drink it up. Here, there, what ever, all of it is just a head trip, keep it up. None of it matters. All of it matters desperately.
Love is everywhere
Inside a wine bottle
In a Carlin routine
In a B-47
I even fell in love with Jimmy Carter tonight thanks to someone posting as Jim e on JHK’s blog.
Everywhere!
Dave basks in the spotlight of EEofDC’s attention.
Sweetness abounds!
Everywhere!
Love is the plan, the plan is death. As Carlin said, a Zero sum game. Attach, detach, whatever it takes. Take it all too hard or not.
Love is everywhere.
Hope you can hear me. I am just another node of consciousness speaking to you. Nothing special. And still… love is everywhere.
Not a romance novel
Not a chick flick
Not a hallmark card
In a romance novel
In a chick flick
In a hallmark card
Everywhere.
Slow down, you move too fast, ya got to make the feelings last…
Paul Simon
What’s the inside scoop on this? Are the pro-train folks just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?
Mayor and governor trade barbs over rail
Transit: Mayor takes on critics
STORY SUMMARY »
Mayor Mufi Hannemann implied yesterday that he is viewed unfairly whenever he assails critics, such as anti-rail leaders, because of his racial background as a Samoan leader.
Hannemann also called Gov. Linda Lingle “wishy-washy” yesterday, arguing that her support of an anti-rail movement contradicts her previous stance on the issue.
Lingle said this week that she likely will sign a petition to let voters decide whether to stop the city’s $4 billion rail transit system.
Lingle also criticized Hannemann yesterday for personally attacking rail opponents, saying that if he has a good argument for the project, he should calmly lay it out.
EE, sorry to take so long to respond, I just read your comment here. Mayor Muf is pushing rail hard, it’s the one topic he’s truly emotionally involved with. Our repub gov keeps trying to act like Bushco Light, Bushco with a brain. I’m biased for the rail, but would probably short its chances of ever getting completed. It may become like one of those large moi (tikis) that never got out of the quarry on Easter Island. We’ll see.
I have no way of saying this politely, but the “butt cheek” kissing here is a little overwhelming. And some people really appear to be content with their own talents and intellects. It makes for interesting if not tired/predictable reading. You should try to keep the bigger picture in mind more often if you want to make this site important reading [and if it’s just your own personal playground then treat it so].
But I am not here to slander what is being discussed – there is worthwhile discussion. Just think of it as constructive feedback.
“I have no way of saying this politely, but the “butt cheek” kissing here is a little overwhelming.” Note to regulars: please tone down butt kissing.
“And some people really appear to be content with their own talents and intellects.” Well, what do you propose? That we should hate ourselves for not being moron talented or smart? I don’t know how to remedy this one. I guess what you are trying to say is some of us are smug. Maybe, but then again, maybe it’s you, dear. [OK, some humility, please, everyone!]
” It makes for interesting if not tired/predictable reading.”
Thanks. Yes, after awhile, one can get a handle on other’s POV. We monkeys are smart that way.
Wow, DMD, it occurred to me that if we just electrify all our transit, use biofuels for critical transport and food production, practice conservation, promote various solar, nuclear and gravity (e.g., tidal) power schemes, and close all nutrient pathways into recyclable loops, whilst limiting our population growth and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding all future, wasteful warfare, we just might have a chance of making it through this apparent bottleneck with oil and gas depletion, nutrient and soil loss, habitat destruction, and rapid climate change.
Then again, people are kinda slow to make changes.
If we could expend less fossil fuel per kill, perhaps the die off from the war would be an energy net gain? Cleaner, greener, warfare. We will need to get with Nudge on that. Or Gunslinger and his virtual warbots.
Habitat destruction to destroy the habitat destroyers. Will it scale?
“Wow, DMD, it occurred to me that if we just electrify all our transit, use biofuels for critical transport and food production, practice conservation, promote various solar, nuclear and gravity (e.g., tidal) power schemes, and close all nutrient pathways into recyclable loops, whilst limiting our population growth and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding all future, wasteful warfare, we just might have a chance of making it through this apparent bottleneck with oil and gas depletion, nutrient and soil loss, habitat destruction, and rapid climate change.
Then again, people are kinda slow to make changes.”
Changing transportation to electricity won’t solve the pollution riddle nor do I believe there is a “bottleneck” to get through towards the other side simply by using alternatives, but at least your epiphany is hopeful.
Korn: always choice music here in the cluster fuck nation.
DMD, if you are really JHK, then I promise to be less of an ass kisser, cut way back on the smug, and will try mightily to be less predictable in my commentary. It would be my way of showing you a modicum of the respect you, sir, deserve.
OTOH, if you’re another CFN regular in disguise, I’ll probably just slip back into my old bad habits soon enough, anyway.
“DMD, if you are really JHK, then I promise to be less of an ass kisser, cut way back on the smug, and will try mightily to be less predictable in my commentary. It would be my way of showing you a modicum of the respect you, sir, deserve.
OTOH, if you’re another CFN regular in disguise, I’ll probably just slip back into my old bad habits soon enough, anyway.”
Either way, it doesn’t really matter does it? Kind of like how this site doesn’t matter. Then again I’m not just some crazy nihilist that raves about relativism and how words and actions don’t have real meaning because I was raised in the Cluster Fuck. They do, and I was. But that is immaterial.
God is genius. I am God. Lick my shoes. Woe to he who disagrees with my wrath. And so on.
And who are you, the threaded suit that came to life? I was just reading through the archives and there is a lot of personality speculation and drama to your little club. Please don’t associate me with those people – I would die if I knew that happened.
No I don’t know who you are, nor do I get off on “messing with your minds” because I don’t generally stoop to hiding behind cowardly facades or presuming my attacks would be that deft or funny. I really am a Hollywood movie, filmed in 1989 — or I could be JHK, or OEO for the matter.
I’m not a science genius nor do I pretend to be. I can only barely spell my own name. When I need help editing my grammar I’ll be sure to contact the site administrator. I hear the customer support here is stupendous. This is on word from the online energy community.
Hi group, looks like the Club is going private. Regardless of that minor detail as to how anyone should be able to read it that way I like this new trend. Soon all of the threads will be this way – or not, and then I’ll go back to reading Rense.com. There world is a mysterious place.
DMD
-I like international food as much as the next person
Good thinking Dr Doom. Everyone else be sure and send me your email addresses. I want to be kept in the loop too. I know soon I will have posting privileges and will do the same for you as well.
Good day, gang. Do me a favor please and don’t freak out if I stop with the early AM time slot at CFN .. and thanks for all the emails the last time I disappeared from there. My work hours will be changing to earlier for the next few weeks. But I’ll try to do the gas price stuff by noontime or by evening at the latest.
Thanks for asking. I thought of it as bait. Any one can type the initials JHK. You could be Jimmy Hendrix Kowalski. I am playing with you to see if I can tell.
You left a message that you are washing a load of bow ties. You could be mocking Kunstler, or yourself because you are Kunstler. So if you are not Kunstler but pretending to be Kunstler, you can interpret it as a cut down, as in “a load of crap.” Spelled out, that would be “How is your load of crap (impersonating Kunstler) coming along?” Trouble is, I could be very, very wrong and you could be JHK. In which case, you can tell us how the load of bow ties are doing! Do you starch them? Or discuss whatever it is you are working on. This is a great group here.
I tried to leave it open ended because I don’t know who is posting. Your response has already eliminated some possibilities. You asked before attacking. Thanks.
An interesting thing if you are JHK. I wonder if folks will act like themselves or act differently if they think he is here? If you are an impersonator, this is still a good thought experiment. If you are him, it is a huge compliment that this alternate site has been created by Johnny. If you are him, you may or may not like it, you may or may not like us, but first and foremost, before you come in and start telling everyone that there is too much ass kissing going on for your taste, or making other pronouncements and judgments, you might start by acknowledging the enormous honor this little den of iniquity represents. JHK, (if that is who you are) a community has formed around you and your ideas. I have benefited tremendously from your work AND interacting with this community. It may look like a bunch of goofing and posturing, but these are social bonds forming between folks. That is how it happens in face to face interaction too. These bonds are what will get us through the Long Emergency, if we get through it. You are free to have contempt for that, but acknowledge the compliment.
To summarize:
If you are a troll impersonating JHK- Fuck you.
If you are JHK- Welcome, big time, but please don’t roll up so heavy, at least at the outset.
I hate those blogs where everyone goes all sycophant and kisses the author’s ass, don’t you?
MOU, if thats who you are: you are thinking too much trying to wrap your brain around this little mystery you and others have created, and not me. It is precious though and I am happy for your powerful online bonds you have created.
Sycophant is bad, of course
— almost as bad as those who can’t keep their attitudes in check. Since I am not impersonating anyone and merely posting here as I see fit under my own god-given name, I’ll assume your ‘fuck you’ was a meaningless jab and shake it off into the wind like so much settled dust in a stale room.
“Since I am not impersonating anyone and merely posting here as I see fit under —–>my own god-given name”
“Driving Miss Daisy”
“Thank you,
DMD”
______________
Thinking too much, been accused of that before.
The “fuck you” was unnecessary. Folks everywhere on the web are free to post whatever names they see fit and should be able to do so without being abused for it. Sorry.
As for the mystery, I think we co-constructed it with you. No animosity is intended by this observation, but you have yet to post a name that I would call a “god-given name.”
“As for the mystery, I think we co-constructed it with you.”
MOU, that’s correct. I started this with a wild speculation. If DMD is JHK and having some fun with us, fine, if it’s someone else playing along, that’s fine too.
But seriously, there are an awful lot of bits flying around the interweb, lots of trees being slaughtered and ink being slung to explain, at least to some, the obvious.
You can’t explain. For some reason you don’t want to own your part in it. Something is co-constructed if we both participated in it. You set the ball in motion by posting as DMD. You have furthered it by posting JHK. We react. Co-constructed.
Maybe we are in a David Lynch film. As DMD morphs into MOU, MOU may press the submit comment button and become JR or Uncle Remus. Lets have a go at it. Press…
I can’t explain? Please. I did sign my name as DMD; at least you have that part right. You attributed my writing to be that of JHK’s, I later played along. It was silly of you and/or others, period. You most likely are just being difficult. If that is the case – “fuck you”. If not, then I apologize and will, in the future, be more careful not to contribute to the confusion which you find yourself facing in this pleasant little blog-o-sphere you call home.
“But seriously, there are an awful lot of bits flying around the interweb, lots of trees being slaughtered and ink being slung to explain, at least to some, the obvious.”
And sometimes you can’t explain even the obvious to people. They’re too busy stroking their false egos or sucking on a delusion here or there in the Clusterfuck and never owning it for themselves.
My name is Gary Michael McMurtry, I am a professor of geological oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, a tax-paying US citizen, and fellow human inhabitant of Planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy. Married, two kids, with a mortgage.
My name is Gary Michael McMurtry, I am a professor of geological oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, a tax-paying US citizen, and fellow human inhabitant of Planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy. Married, two kids, with a mortgage.
UR, actually, most of this information is available on Google or by clicking on my CFN handle. Th email address is quite public, but we have mighty firewalls erected.
JR, if you are open to questions and positive feedback regarding your site, there is one thing that comes to mind right now while I am looking at it. The quotes you have placed on the left side of the page seem rather random and meaningless. You might consider removing them because they add no impact to the site, but rather tend to detract from it. The only other thing I can think of is an automatic spell-checker, but that is probably asking for way too much.
“I leave the “gamez” and “pwn3″-ning people to other, more mature and intelligent individuals who are capable and well versed of that past-time.”
Pardon me for saying, but it must be more than coincidence that a link to a site called the “fail blog” is connected to this one. I admit it did have me wondering.
Good, you should delete more posts. Why not have a deleting frenzy? ;-)
This thread has devolved, admittedly. And I guess I should take part blame just for being around. If CFN is not the love blog, and ZK is not the love blog, then?
He has got a pretty good system on blogspot. He blogs for a certain period of time and then retires the post to the archives where he has everything indexed and linked by topics. He doesn’t close down the comments section, so you can go back to the beginning of his blog and always add commentary.
Now you’re being unfair, as usual. “Dr Doom”, I presume, posted a message using my name, so I did it back and now you post a whole thread chastising me about it. Tell me that isn’t the height of ridiculousness and hypocrisy, as I’ve seen it done several other times as well. But I guess in your little “fight club” rules only apply to others. Have fun kicking it with your fellow homies.
It does basically boil down to six-year-old bullshit, sad to say, and I won’t engage it further. I don’t really ask for a lot, except maybe please don’t come stalking me telling me you want to bash my brains in – that isn’t too much to ask for is it?
Dude. Can’t you answer the friendly questions that JR and MOU posed? JR has asked you if there’s something he can help with with. MOU asked what you want. You’ve chosen to not respond to either of those, which pings my troll detector. But it’s an overly sensitive device, and I often won’t pay attention until the pings become a near-constant tone. But anyway.
If you’re looking to stir the $#!+, this can be a combative bunch who won’t back down from a scrap. But that’s the CFN side of things. At CFN, we (between bouts of in-chatter) try to educate other folks about the need to reduce one’s dependence on non-sustainable energy sources. This site is, as I understand it (correction if necessary JR, please), is where we educate *ourselves*. A little in-fighting is part of the deal — like I said, this is a scrappy bunch — but not the primary point.
Dr.Doom on CFN, ZK;
D3PO on TOD (also a name used by others in reference to me on CFN, ZK sites;
Gary McMurtry (my given and family names) on ASPO-USA.
I NEVER post as anyone else. I don’t do sockpuppets, period.
“why was the paper published without peer review? ”
Doom-
Monckton claims that it had been reviewed.
Monckton has asked for an apology. In a letter to the APS President Arthur Bienenstock, he writes:
“If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had;
Well, it either was or was not peer reviewed. What does the responsible *editor* say in this matter? Monckton is apparently one of the co-authors. His/her word in this matter is not as compelling as the editor in charge.
Alllrighty, where’s JR? I sent him another rant yesterday morning. I’m troubled by the slow lag time. Perhaps he fell out of the coffin again. Oh well, I have to go into Beantown later today, Maybe I’ll find him there by accident.
Holmes, if you’re a dumbass, you’re my favorite dumbass ever! If the He doesn’t call you a douchebag or threaten to kill you at least once, then you’re pretty much irrelevant.
Doom, did you catch the press conference for the release of WTC7 investigation report yesterday? You can watch the whole thing on c-span.org. The Q&A gets hot when reporters push on demolition hypothesis.
They attribute collapse to thermal expansion brought on by the heat of burning building furnishings. They lay out a chain of events culminating with column failure in the building core. You aren’t going to buy this explanation.
The document is out for public review on NIST website. The public comment window is very short, and ends in Sept sometime.
Thanks SB, I’ll check it out. Sounds like a cover-up, which many of us suspected would occur. Wonder how they explain the apparent squib charge pattern caught on video?
If we compare these two explanations for the collapse of the towers it is immediately apparent that they are different in a particularly significant way: the fire based official explanation is a series of events, [21] like links in a chain, while the explosive based explanation is a parallel set of scientific studies of evidence. When challenged they behave in very different ways:
If an explanation is in the form of a chain it is only necessary to prove one link wrong to destroy the case. In contrast, with a parallel set of explanations it is only necessary to prove one explanation correct to establish the case. What do we find? It has already been pointed out that links 2 to 6 of the official explanation are incorrect and link 1, about the fireproofing, has been strongly disputed.[22]
In the case of the alternative explanation we have a list of 10 studies which show that certain observations can only be explained if explosives were involved. Just one of these is enough to make the case. There are now hundreds of scientists, including architects, engineers, demolition experts, physicists and other specialists, who are arguing that the case for explosive demolition has been more than adequately made and who are calling for a truly independent investigation.[23]
Given the devastation in the Middle East [24] which flowed from this tragedy, should we not all be calling for a new investigation? If we do not, does the evidence not suggest that we will be at risk of being called complicit in the development of a ruthless regime by future generations?
I’m still home sick with this damn flu, so I’ve been reading and sleeping. I found this letter (linked below) to be particularly well written on the subject of the WTC collapse, by Dr. Frank Legge. Here it is: http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/f/LeggeLastTry4.pdf
JR, if you want to move or remove this 9-11 stuff, it’s OK with me. I’m just exploring this on-line journal at the moment, and attempting to share. My conclusion so far: we’d better try to fix this damn country or we should leave it asap and try to move as far away from it as possible.
My conclusion so far: we’d better try to fix this damn country or we should leave it asap and try to move as far away from it as possible.
So says the guy way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean :D
Hawaii and Alaska have the best chance of surviving in one piece the fall of the US. Assuming that Hawaii can deal with less oil and Alaska is not wipe off the planet in some stupid war like action.
Ah, roach, unfortunately, Pearl Harbor and associated military bases are still considered high-value targets, which places me about 20 miles from ground zero.
Yes, the flu sucks, and I think I poisoned myself breathing dried organic compost without a dust mask on. To make matters worse, I proudly made the stuff.
SB, I finally found the link to the short presentation by Dr. Sunder on the NIST WTC-7 report and the Q&A. It sounds like a unique series of events, including an issue of thermal expansion of the steel beams not previously recognized, contributed to the collapse of WTC-7. Not sure if that’s going to get them off the hook on the twin towers collapse or an easy explanation of steel spherules and thermite residues in the WTC dust. It will be interesting to hear a reply by Drs. Jones and Legge.
I’ve seen another episode of the excellent BBC series ‘What a Waste’ and the program focused on cycling on Bogotá. During Enrique Penalosa’s administration (he’s an urban planner) great strides were made to pedestrianize the city.
Drivers were encouraged to ditch their cars and use public transport, walk and to cycle. The former mayor said that public transport made the city more democratic, socially equitable and was good for low income people and the environment.
Money saved by building cycle ways instead of roads was invested in schools, libraries and parks.
Here’s a link with some more details that were in the program:
Constraints to further public transport development were:
There were too many people and not enough investment – each year Bogotá spends $350 million on public transport whereas Madrid a city of similar size spends $1.4 billion; and
Bogotá’s new mayor believes the solution is to build new roads.
There were some good articles under that link – I liked this one on enegry expended to get food
“Surely at some point, let’s say between $50 and $500 per barrel of oil, it no longer makes any sense to simultaneously export and import food high in embodied energy.”
Is this GM guy full of it or what? No response so far from the article’s author.
“Nice article. I wonder about the meaning of the “actual production” versus the “Hubbert trend” in the Reynolds piece that is illustrated here. They are both production over time curves. The Hubbert trend would assume the extraction technology at the date of estimation, and the “actual production” would in theory estimate with advanced extraction technology unknown to Hubbert or earlier researchers. However, the “actual production” over time in the plot is less than that estimated by Hubbert until it is near the peak. That would only be so if the producers gradually slowed production on purpose, which is unlikely based upon past experience, in general (there are some exceptions, in Saudi and OPEC, for example).
What is shown is the same overall reserve, just shifted forward in time. If there is indeed advanced production that extracts more oil or gas than would have otherwise been attainable, then the area under the curve grows, and the peak is shifted forward in time if the rate of extraction is held constant. If the rate of extraction increases, but not the efficiency of extraction, then the production curves are backwards, and the Hubbert trend becomes the actual trend.
Price is a trivial dependent variable of the resource (geology) and extraction (technology). It is just a manifestation of demand.”
Comment by Gary McMurtry – 3 Sep, 2008 03:56 am
I’m around but had a house and financial CF this week. I was doing some spring cleaning and discovered a faulty window sill had meant moisture had run down a wall onto my bed and carpet and ruined them through mould.
For about ten minutes I thought about banging my head on the concrete but came to and decided to go to plan B instead. Saw your When the Levee Breaks vid and that brought me up short – the people featured would kill for my small problem. Serendipitous or what?
The vitriol from Screaming Mute took me aback but I agree with MOU that maybe there’s more than meets the eye. If she needs kudos for being a female Rambo then so be it, but it’s the old chestnut that no man is an island. It’s great if she’s such a generalist and has a bit of nous but we need our specialists too – I want my doctor to be qualified not just some person who fancies the idea. Fuck it, if a male with more heft wants to help me change a tire then great, I can always shout him a drink. One-upmanship quickly palls – people need to get it together and help each other out.
Read an excellent article in the paper entitled ‘Gluttons table set by central banks’ which stated that (paraphrased):
The world’s central banks have tried to save the world whenever the going got tough for the past 20 years. An orgy of debt no matter what the risk has got many in the shit, both banks and individuals, but not to worry, the central banks would step in and absolve lenders of any responsibility.
Central banks, and the Fed in particular, have become so addicted to growth each year that they have sacrificed a tenet of sound central banking. It seems they no longer care whether lending is within prudential bounds and believe that you can have continual economic growth and low inflation.
The two final paragraphs read:
It had to happen – with so much debt being created, house prices setting records compared with incomes, a correction was going to occur. But the key question is whether this is the last big correction? The extent of their bailouts has got even more pathetic this time as the central banks try at all costs to avoid a recession – which they’ve failed to at last.
So when the dust settles, are we set to embark on an even more spectacular asset price bubble and an even larger cheque for taxpayers to fund when the inevitable bailouts occur again?
UY, I’m bookmarking your forum. It looks like you’re working on some serious and interesting aquaponics projects. Are you going to write a book or article about what you are doing/learning? Jusayin
(Having been ousted from my backstage perch, I roam aimlessly amongst the cabling, empty bottles of hooch and knickers tossed by audience plants. Yeah, as young et al. say, if I may paraphrase, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna do something, anything.)
Doom, I’ve been reading Jim Willie’s Hat Trick Letter for a little over a year now. He’s been pushing Canadian mining stocks and silver for quite awhile, remaining convinced as he is that Masters of the Universe or something of the sort are conspiring to keep their prices down. Notwithstanding, I much prefer his commentary to Mogumbo Guru’s (sp?).
JW correctly called the Lehman collapse many months before it happened. (From what I understand, the guy lives in Costa Rica. Maybe he and dale hang out, watching elephants play in the jungle and such.) It looks like he’s expanding his franchise now with a weekly “Jim Willie’s Perspective”.
I just can’t believe, however, that the Chinese, Arabs, etc. are going to take pennies on the dollar and pursue a dangerous course of action that would bring about a default on U.S. Treasuries, rather than think more long term and instead demand more and more of a controlling interest. I mean all of these assholes calling the shots — especially if you believe in the international cabal of coordinated elites meme — are going to work together to try and prevent wars and preserve status quo, at least so long as there appears to be enough energy to go around. That said, I still think that JW’s assertion that a new form of money (based on a basket of currencies including Euros, Rubles, Yen and something from the middle east) is in the planning stages is more of a logicians fantasy than a likely reality. If creditor nations cut off the tab, they would practically be doing Obama a favor. Carter Doctrine, baby! Change we can believe in is, well… changing into a different kind of change in response to changed circumstances! Isn’t that was change is all about?
Anticipating a further drop tomorrow, think I’ll go set up a limit order for some oil futures option(s). In view of the vortex of outstanding uncertainties, I’d better go super long, as in 2011 or later.
Holmes, there is iron in your words, kimosabe. Yup, the Carter Doctrine, baby! I *just* can’t see the US military leaving the oil and gas rich ME-Central Asia, ignoring our nuclear capability, all our high-tech military hardware and quietly returning home to police unruly Americans. I don’t know how it will all shake out, but being flexible with “the power of change” will be important.
Here’s what I can guess:
sorry scott and dave, CTL ain’t even gonna come close to saving us. We are maxed out on coal right now. I’d be more bullish on ethanol.
A smart strategy would keep those oil lifelines open, and would focus on reigning in Chinese and Indian economic aspirations, with an eye on the compressing US economy, hopefully keeping it from imploding, if possible. “You foreigners got a problem with our currency? Go ahead, make our century!”
Gonna have to beef up the border with Mexico. Maybe play hardball with Hugo. Use the military for that stuff.
Yup, I think the market has a few more multiple hundred point drops waiting, plus a few more rallies. Pump and dump time.
sorry scott and dave, CTL ain’t even gonna come close to saving us. We are maxed out on coal right now. I’d be more bullish on ethanol.
eh, ethanol has had it’s day in the sun, imo. people will throw $ at something else next. CTL? , don’t know of course. but i think it’s a pretty good bet. the nazis liked it.
saviors? how about redemption for my fucking sins while we’re at it?
what will happen eventually is(circa 2020?) the locals, deprived of benefit and profit, will start to blow up coal trains and such. miners are trained in the use of, and have access to various explosives. of course they will really be terroists who hate freedom and such.
in times of expanding energy availability, the locals would have been integrated into the larger economy. this is no longer possible. depending on the the available energy within the remaining coal deposites, they will either be wiped out, forced into an extended guerrilla type engagement, or large scale coal extraction efforts will be abandoned(circa 2050?).
at some point the locals will resume small scale extraction, and maybe even some “outside” trading, the new globalism is born.
dave, i’m trying to save you and scott some money. read the book Big Coal. the coal mining business is tapped out. it’s really a coal train business, at scale. the railroads are tapped out. CTL won’t scale. what you’ll get are some boutique demo plants, near the mines. moron than that, there’s no capital around for the infrastructure needed, unless it’s nationalized. and why not, everything’s going to be government owned soon, anyway. then maybe, if our foreign investors/owners will allow the expense. but then, they may just take their coal back to china and india, ME, etc.
I just got my most recent 401K statement. Looks like fodder for stand-up comedy. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so pissed off. It’d be one thing if I’d never offered an opinion over the past 18 months. Quite another that I have offered opinion after opinion over the past 18 months. The investment experts are locked in a self-reassurance consensus trance. Om. Jai guru deva. Om. Nothing’s gonna change my trance. Nothing’s gonna change my trance. It’s funny sorta.
Greenspan, what can I say. Whatever could anyone be thinking when they were thinking in the context of experts: whatever were they thinking when they thought themselves as experts? Reminds me of a RAND study surveying Experts that came back 80% HOPING
okay thal- I am pulling out all the stops now. I have a compilation disc and a stevie ray vaughn disc for ya. Now what? Not much of a blues fan myself so I have no idea what’s good and what’s not- does this all need to be done via youtube?
Thal- I’ve got Eric Sardinias, Shannon Curfman, Walter Trout, Jake Andrews, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Stevens and Murder Blues- lots of artists to choose from but youtube doesn’t seem to have very good selections as far as I can see. ..
From what I understand, Izzy Stradlin wrote most of the GNR songs. The new song kinda reminds me, structurally, of “You Could Be Mine”. I listened three times. Best enjoyed at maximum volume, to be sure. Not bad. Nice and crunchy. Fucking Buckethead (maybe) showing off.
Anyhoo… the music industry is definitely on the ropes. Honestly, I can’t think of any truly ground significant performers who have debuted in the rock n roll genre in the last ten years (probably longer). If I could travel back in time to relive any ten year interval, it would probably be 1964-1974, mostly for the music.
Glad you like my generation’s music. After rock’s heyday, circa 1975, we got Disco, the Bee Gees, John (I’m gonna puke) Revolta dancing up a storm, (Disco sucks, BTW), then we got soft rock (as played by soft headed boys with even softer weenies) and fucking Rap “music”, which might as well be Gramps McCoy signing “Old Mule Rivers” in black face (sorry, if I offend here, I like all colors and cultures, Obama’s getting my vote).
Meanwhile, the great ones are either (a) dead or (b) washed up graying shells of themselves, like Keith Richards, for example, who’ll soon need oxygen on stage. So, I agree that rock’s pretty much over, and it does indeed reflect upon our changing culture, not necessarily changing for the better, in fact hitting brick walls everywhere we collectively turn.
dave, i’m trying to save you and scott some money. read the book Big Coal. the coal mining business is tapped out. it’s really a coal train business, at scale. the railroads are tapped out. CTL won’t scale. what you’ll get are some boutique demo plants, near the mines. moron than that, there’s no capital around for the infrastructure needed, unless it’s nationalized. and why not, everything’s going to be government owned soon, anyway. then maybe, if our foreign investors/owners will allow the expense. but then, they may just take their coal back to china and india, ME, etc.
doom,
none of this matters. all that matters is if someone, dosen’t even matter who, starts throwing $ at it. others will follow suit. think beani babies.
besides, i have a lot more of my assets in coal and oil proper, than in CTL. but if it hits, then so do i(think google). if not, that’s way the cookie crumbles.
As best as I can tell, proper atonal music, in a perhaps oversimplified characterization, requires placing all of the wrong notes in all the right places, and catching yourself before inadvertently slipping into something funky or melodious. Anyone smart enough to play games with notes and competently adhere to the above or similar considerations can call themselves a composer, I guess. Sure, why not?
Do ya think tone loc uses a tone row matrix? (a purely rhetorical question)
i think that giving up the middle class is what most of america is frightened of. this is a legitimate fear in mind. no fun to be poor.
from the tenor of the story, i’d say that that guy’s biggest enemy was himself. he had a kind of all or nothing mindset. he needed the JOB and the PERCS and the associated STATUS to be OK. there’s lot’s and lot’s of ways to stay warm dry and fed on a low income low status job, or series thereof.
of course, at some point those are tough to come by also.
Dolan shoulda just told them he was doing research so they’d promptly kick his ass and take his cash — get it over with already. I can’t think of any even marginally credible sob story that these people would likely have any sympathy for. And why would ya want to tell one anyway. Maybe to stop your ass from getting kicked, or to get an extra serving of soup, or something. Maybe they just want to be entertained. You never know who your audience is. Whatever it takes is what some of us might learn in time.
That article was the best thing I’ve read all week.
The meltdown if nothing else will allow people to be real instead of keeping up appearances and all the stress that goes with it.
Recently a work mate couldn’t afford to take her kids away in the school holidays (2 week period) to the usual holiday haunt but couldn’t bring herself to tell them saying they had to catch up with house maintenance. It’s sad when people feel ashamed of the simple truth – there’s going to be many in the same boat so why fight it?
AU
Cool Indian clip – was George Michael moonlighting? The guy certainly had the posturing down pat.
dave, i totally agree on this “poor guy” Dolan. agree with MOU that it was an interesting article. Holmes, i bet he did get his ass kicked a few times.
he had some good advice, especially on cars being expensive. but, what a loser. we’re supposed to believe he lost a college job in an interview because of his appearance and smell, even the pitch of his voice. i bet he made that part up. he admits being in that system before, so he knows how the game is played. how much does deodorant cost? i also bet he made up the reason he lost the job–to the “insider”. BS.
in the end, he musta got his laptop back from the pawn shop, courtesy of his generous brother. lucky asshole. i think about those out there who don’t come back. their journey ends some very cold night in a cement culvert.
Doom, good points. I contend, knowing in the back of his mind (as Dolan did) that he ultimately had the safety net of his brother to fall into, he indeed was a tourist. Maybe his pride drove him into it. You might say his life was a complex system, or a microcosm of one. Eventually, once enough interdependencies were tangled up, he finally realized that it was going to take a lot more than a few hundred dollars to bail him and his wife out of this mess… so he further delayed asking for help (still holding onto shame, maybe). Then the creative person in him started to relax and take note of the things going on around him. “Eureka! That’s what this was all along! Research, dammit. I am a social scientist! I work, the genius that I am, in ways that even I don’t fully understand until I’m several months into the project. Okay. Now I’ll get on the horn to big brother and explain what went down.”
Holmes, that’s about right. History at all levels is written by the winners.
Reminds me of this survival guy episode filmed someplace out in the SW for the Discovery Channel. He had his camcorder and was all alone (supposidly) except for his emergency cell phone. In the end, when it became apparent he wasn’t going to make his goal, i.e., he was going to die out there, he calls in an air strike, packs up and goes home. Made a nice hour program. The kids and I especially enjoyed watching him eat a cooked horny toad he trapped.
I need to email you. You and Doom make good points. As a sociologist, I see him as performing an identity, that all of them telling each other stories are performing identities. There are two fronts the identities must be performed on, with others, and with one’s “self.” Being homeless is a lot of stigma; sucks but it is true. That has to be Negotiated with the outside world to gain access to resources (both material resources and identity/status resources) and it must be Negotiated with oneself. We need stories of self that have continuity otherwise we become pretty fucked up and depressed or worse. The telling of the story becomes huge. We make identity claims on these sites all the time. Some of the biggest fights that erupt are over who has the right make identity claims and who has the right to claim identities for others.
I don’t feel sooo hung up on whether Pauper was the “real deal” or not. In participant observation (how I do my work) you can be anything from a total observer to a participant to going native/becoming the phenomenon. The argument that he was not the real deal is just as valid as the argument that he could have been telling himself he “had outs” and was “not the real deal” as forms of denial/survival. Ultimately, I must challenge that dichotomy as “not real” but a cultural artifact of being in the position. Minute to minute he is “really in the shit” and then “not like these people.” Just like jobless/homeless people do anyway. The idea of questioning if the experience is real for you or not would be a “real” part of the experience for many people on the way down. No us, no them, no real, no not real, only identities we try on for size, minute by minute, to get us through the day.
I believe he looked into the face of the abyss.
I have been homeless myself a great deal as a child, and a few short periods of time as a teenager on my own (once in my early twenties for a couple months), couch surfing, as an exotic dancer. No terror at all, it was just how it was. I could always dance, I always tried to avoid it. Exotic dancing, working construction, being a graduate assistant, and being a professor are the only jobs I was ever able to hold for very long. I got fired from or quit a whole lot of other stuff.
MOU, I knew these depth charges from dave, Mary, Doom and me would bring you to the surface!
I agree. A whole lot of self-image stuff seems to be key to Dolan’s narrative. A set of radically changed circumstances, on one hand, can be frightening. It can also be liberating to be free of the shackles of things that continually redirect you to seeing a particular image of yourself, or toward insisting in your own mind that you are inextricably a part of (or associated with) something. Yeah, he looked into the abyss (sort of) and probably gained familiarity with other versions of himself that he might not have known too well before.
FYI, if Dolan is the guy I think he is, he also wrote this book…
Does being on Prozac fatally dilute the Shamanic experience (for lack of a better term) of full emersion in an underworld of sorts, getting your body (life) torn apart, etc.? On second thought, maybe he didn’t learn a damn thing.
i’ll tell ya though, the equity and commodity drop off between say, midaugust and midsept. was kind of sureal to me. it was one of those things that, intellectually, i knew would happen. but when it did, wtf?
this past summer, when oil was at 150, i was absolutely sure that we would see $100, or even $90 oil again. but $60 oil? maybe $50 oil. no, i didn’t see that. i woulda said, no way.
you do get stuck in the stories that you tell yourself.
Holmes said: “A whole lot of self-image stuff seems to be key to Dolan’s narrative. A set of radically changed circumstances, on one hand, can be frightening. It can also be liberating to be free of the shackles of things that continually redirect you to seeing a particular image of yourself, or toward insisting in your own mind that you are inextricably a part of (or associated with) something.”
I understand what you’re saying but I think Dolan’s point, and maybe MOU’s ,would be that our self-image is fabricated based on our position in society. When your position in society is stripped, materially and psychologically, what do you have left? I think ‘radically changed circumstances’ may be a good thing for people unhappy in their current lifestyle- perhaps they will reevaluate things. However, freeing yourself of shackles does not usually entail the possibility of freezing to death overnight.
I am not particularly sympathetic to homeless people. I tend to think they made their own bed. That is probably true in most instances, but, despite our individual insistence that “it can’t happen to me” it’s scary that all of us in the middle class may be just a hair’s-breadth away from some catastrophe that would reveal to us to the more intimate and sordid details of homelessness.
I liked the article, tried to put myself in that place, stayed away from the Prozac, but understood the value of staying warm, added the value of staying cool in hot weather, and considered being hungry enough to eat a pregnant cockroach. What I’m not hearing here is commentary about the cops. The mentality of these guys often degenerate to kicking those already losing. A power trip. It’s pathological that way.
Consider the case of Paris Hilton. There’s a whole set of citizens that share the conviction that once arrested and confined, she deserved rape, humiliation, and torture no matter the insignificance of her “crime”. “Serves her right” they say.
Wimpy humans can get very violent when they sense they can kick someone without fear of getting kicked back, or they think they can talk someone else into doing it for them, or they have a badge, a taser, lynching rope, a pen and ticket pad, or a gun.
Everyone in the homeless situation is different. When I was homeless with my parents, my mother was mentally retarded and my father was a, well, criminal is a word…he was a thief and a sex offender.
Thank God for the people that felt sorry for me. Or Kali. Or one of those other cool Hindi Gods. You get my point.
When I was a homeless teen, dancing and making money, and hating being pawed by men, and quitting and getting other jobs I was too immature to handle and being homeless and dancing… wonder what you’d think of me then? What of my background? Father had sex with me and my mother. Not going on in my teens, but it was still a logic structuring my inner show.
The short stint in my 20’s was a choice, pragmatics, waiting to get into my graduate program where I had an assistanceship waiting for me. By now, I don’t need sympathy, I am saving my money, those who care for me know it and are helping me out till I can get in to my program. I was to keep me out of dancing. All good. But I am homeless (mind you, as a homeless person, I keep your house immaculate, fix you meals, and try to disturb you as little as possible. I also kicked in money. In those situations, we always parted ways friends, to this day).
TP, I don’t mean to ream you. I honestly think if you met me as a little girl or a homeless teen you would have compassion for my situation. Don’t doubt that for a second. But the story “matters” does it not? And when you see a homeless person you do not always know the story.
I am supposed to be a dead hooker or drug addict. I am an example of the system actually working. There is nothing special about me. I got love from strangers (social workers and others) at the right time. So it is really hard for me to give up on anyone.
I have given up on George Bush. But even here, if he came out to the country, owned his errors, apologized, and started working the rest of his life to try to set it straight, well, I might even have hope for him!
oh yuck, I feel like I’m on the wrong end of everything tonight. Believe it or not, cops are people too! Ok, that’s lame, I know.
Police officers have quotas, despite the fact that it’s illegal. And, at least around here, you have to submit an activity report. So it makes sense that vagrants, teens and other people that might be breaking the law will be attended to by the police. How else would you ensure that they are doing their job? Most of the “bad” cops I know are only bad cause they’re lazy, sleeping on the job when they should be out on patrol.
Dolan didn’t say he hadn’t broken any laws, just that the law was enforced at inconvenient time in his life. Isn’t that usually the way? Of course there are officers that do terrible things and take advantage of their position of power. But most just want to get through their day and go home to their families; they are really not out to get you!
dave, I’d been telling myself for quite awhile that this collapse of the markets could/would/should happen, but I too got caught off guard a few weeks ago… maybe thinking that for some reason things wouldn’t unravel so rapidly, well at least not prior to the election. Guess I really went for the bait on that one. If I couldn’t afford to lose it, then I wouldn’t have invested it. (That’s the story I’m telling myself these days. What a lie.)
tipping, I’m hearing you. When the lower rungs on that hierarchy of needs ladder start snapping under your feet, concerns over abstract shit such as self-image often get the old heave ho.
thal, cops as agents of personal change. Enzymatic sentient forces that descend upon the freshly made vulnerable, to help pummel them into a less lofty version of their former selves. To protect and serve, indeed.
MOU, how can you tell yourself that you’re not special? Please forgive me for saying this, but that is absolutely insane. Seriously. You may never know how much you inspire us.
Counterpoint, I have had some really good cop interactions in my lifetime. My dad got busted for stealing gas, I cried, the cops let him go after feeding us, getting us gas, and driving all of us to the Canadian border. A cop used to pick me up hitchhiking when I was a teen and he would drive me to where I was going because he was always worried about me. It was him that looked into my father’s background and showed me a printout of just how bad my dad was. He never tried anything nor seemed like he even wanted to. Most men did.
Mind you, I have had bad cop interactions too. Really scary abusive stuff. I guess like my post to TP, and I know I am telling you what you already know, each story is different, not all people take advantage of the weak. I wouldn’t be here if that was the case.
Dave,
These are the stories I tell myself. And that is a story too.
All,
This is the identity I perform in response to your identity performances, this evening.
oh MOU- now you’re really gonna hate me after reading my next comment…
I feel that you seized upon my comment that “I am not particularly sympathetic to homeless people” but that was not my main point. I am not unsympathetic to all homeless (and I’m not backtracking here), but you have to admit that the majority of homeless are a result of alcohol and drug addiction. There are, unfortunately, a lot of mentally ill that are homeless but I think that is a result of our idiotic health care system.
In any case, I do not wish to give offense and I can certainly empathize with your difficult childhood/adolescence. Everyone has a story, yours is more horrific than mine but we have more in common than you would think.
Yes, MOU, correct. The police, as individuals, are not all one way. I have good stories, as well. It supports my confusion when I attempt to extrapolate general human tendencies to specifics. Reductives to Inductives. Does reason really exist?
Call me a sap, but I think/feel/impugne that there are trustworthies and those that should be not. It’s not a matter of station, power, or whatever, but more basic. I trust that. I’ve loaned, I’ve saved, I’ve gone out on a limb. Most of the trustworthy I’ve ever known have been those without a certifiable credit score. ‘Most’ never equals ‘All.’ That’s all.
No way I could hate you. If I focused on one thing too narrowly, I am sorry.
There is a question I have to ask, “Why are they addicts?” I have come to it that all addiction is about numbing out. My husband the shrink calls it “self medication.” I find that profound. An organism is trying with the resources at hand, to fix itself. May not be wise, but for me it transforms it into something that I can no longer be judgmental about.
That means there is something painful one is avoiding/treating. Now that does not mean that I don’t hold them responsible for the consequences of their choices, but they drink, dope, fuck, eat, nintendo, work, etc. to avoid/alleviate something else.
I think these kids addicted to video games are escaping. Too much hypocrisy in reality. At least in video games there is black and white, fair and unfair, justice, good guys and bad guys, something stable…
My son will go to play after we have had an argument. When we are connecting, talking, laughing, debating, it never crosses his mind he wants to play. I can almost gauge how well he is doing by his desire to engage with his DS.
Pain, little or big. The society itself is sick. Addiction is a symptom. Homelessness in those cases are a product of society. There is also the idea that some folks really don’t have access to the same resources as others.
Now, aggressive panhandlers, this is another matter. I have had some bad experiences where I hunted them down and got my revenge. I can be compassionate, but there must be boundaries.
Thal, Poet Friend,
I hear you on the instinct thing. And on the “All” stuff too.
Holmes,
About special… the problem is if one says I am special, then that gives folks permission to write off all the other little MOUs out there because this MOU was special and she was always going to make it anyway because of her special qualities. I really would not have made it. I needed the extra attention I got. So do all children.
So I am not special. I am white. I am female. I am not threatening. I was grateful. I was probably rewarding to work with because I did soak it up and improve. I was starved and desperate, a bit of trouble, but a people pleaser too. Anytime I tell my story, I make it a point to say I am not special. Or else everyone is.
Okay, I won’t call you “special”. I hate that word too. “Exceptional”, “atypical” or perhaps “statistically aberrant” might have been a better choice of words in descending order. We can agree to disagree.
But even if I did seek to malign you with a compliment suggestive of perhaps a commendable personal trait may have played a role in the ongoing panorama of your life, that does not in any way imply or suggest that help, attention, etc. should not be given to others (little MOUs). I’m not sure where you got all that from. Peace out. Rock on. Stay cool. Etc.
It’s the little mous that are the key. Therein are the conflcted, and relevant, lessons, if one is ready to learn. Bless your heart. Just sayin’. Fast forward.
“I have been homeless myself a great deal as a child, and a few short periods of time as a teenager on my own (once in my early twenties for a couple months)…”
MOU-
You’ve written about this a number of times over the last year, mostly on CFN, and I thank you for that. This was the first time (at least in my dotage that I remember) you included more details about your parents and their stories.
You are strong, girlfriend. No denying that!
Homelessness is a multi-faceted “issue” and the homeless run the gamut. One of my good buddies runs an org here in DC that deals with the homeless and works to get them connected up to services they need. My sense is that it isn’t homelessness that is so bothersome to “regular” folks but all of the attendant features–the dirt, degradation, mental illness, health hazards, etc.–of that condition which cause people to run in the opposite direction or to become abusive.
We’re all just passing through here, anyhoo (as Dave would say), so why get your knickers in a twist over anything–it just uses up too much energy.
EE, have I told you of my brief stint as a guest scientist on a German research ship? I was friends with the chief scientist, hence the invite.
We were cruising between stations in the North Fiji Basin. One day he spies me relaxing on the upper deck, dressed in my Hawaiian work clothes, Tee shirt, shorts and flip flops (aka Samoan work boots). So Peter says “Gary, you look like a tourist!” Moi (picking up on some disdain in those words) replies: “Peter, we’re all tourists!” He just walked away.
feelings of compassion, like feelings of hate, anger, distane, like everything else in the universe, are contingent. i’d say that it’s very difficult to consiously and reliably and consistantly bring about the right conditions to foster the “desirable”, whatever those might be, feelings.
not that that it’s technically difficult, per se. or that the various underlieing neccesities aren’t known, but that the neccesities themselves are contigent phenomena. (compassion, for example, is easy when everyone is warm dry and well fed. not that it can’t exist under other conditions, but it’s certainly less and less common as conditions, which are always contingent, deteriorate.)
all i can say is something like: stick to the basics(energy, food, strategic metals) and you’ll be ok. ya, like i know.
anyhoo, at some point, i think, the markets will just be too unstable. the only thing worth playing will be some thing like vix(that’s a joke). my own magic number is oil at 180 – 200, particularly if that happens within the next year or 2. those numbers might be completely meaningless any farther out than that, due to inflation and such.
if you have a run in with a cop after he just had a fight with his wife, or he’s hungry and tired, or has a hangover, ect., just lay face down and put your hands behind your head, no problem.
if you’re under 40, and in reasonably good condition, run away.
as a general rule, the less that those around around you are able to control thier emotions, the more important it is for you to do so. at least that’s my general rule.
unless you want to, for some reason, get caught up in the moment. then just go with it.
suck to be self aware. you start to think about this stupid shit.
not that you can actually be self aware, i guess. what’s to be aware of? where or what is the self? blahblahblah. not that it’s not fun to think about sometimes.
p.s. — I appreciate your point about 180-200 being a number that’s applied to present circumstances. I believe you are referring to a price point, in terms of 2008 dollars, when the price of oil may be too cripplingly high for the system to carry on, thereby transforming the rules of the speculative game yet again and probably in ways that will be very difficult to predict. (There might not even be the same currencies in use a few years out. I’m not telling myself that story just yet, but some commentators obviously are.)
Yep, I’m mulling an TEOTWAWKI story over today. Let’s see if I can find some time to write it as a ZK post. Hint: it may be a lot closer and a steeper cliff than many imagine. If correct, oil may never sell higher than $147 in 2008 dollars.
Agree with Holmes that special is not the right word for you so will have to go with two – fucking amazing. To be where you are without rancour shows how rock solid you are.
You’ve shown that with some help along the way and grit despite difficulties victory is sweet, if hard won.
I heard Obama went back to Chicago to be with his family today. Halloween. I had this vision of two kids trick or treating with Papa standing in the background, wearing an Obama mask. So somebody giving out candy asks who they are, and the older child, dressed as a princess, says”I’m Malia!’, then the younger girl, as a Cow-girl, says ‘I’m Natasha!’, and then Obama peels off his Obama mask, revealing his true Obama-hood, and laughs diabolically. I think this would be funny, but it may freak-out the candy giver.
ya, but robert plant was born to suck my dick. that’s what he told me anyway. so i had to kick his ass. but then he wouldn’t leave me alone. i finally learned to just ignore him.
I had a feeling this would happen. I know it sounds a little like a conspiracy theory, but I just felt like someone didn’t want him getting too close to… something. NOw that he is out of power, no sense in pursuing it anymore.
“Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.”
“The bottom line is that, assuming further credit losses from global recession take U.S. and EU tier-one bank capital back to where it was before state injections and capital raisings, then financial-sector credit would have to shrink 37% just to keep leverage constant at precrisis levels — that’s how you get global depression.
But government is now part of bank management. Government intervention could manage to limit the credit decline to less than 10%, at the cost of more capital injections, further longer-term guarantees of liabilities, tolerance of higher leverage within socialized banks, and not a little credit “dirigisme,” i.e., directing banks to lend.
This will avoid the global depression that many fear, but at the high long-term cost of a socialized financial system. And it still heralds a very long, gray, global recession as the world learns to use less capital to meet its needs.”
A new movie just released. “Admiral”, the quest of Aleksandr Kolchak to rule Russia. Civil war. For love is strong as death. Trailer looks pretty good. Although a collaboration with 20th Century Fox, it will probably never be released in U.S. Except maybe on DVD.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t see any chimps running around excitedly waving their rebate checks several months ago. I know, I know… even when I sit very very still and concentrate as hard as I can, I still don’t resemble a check cashing facility.
Look, people… we’re all adults here… let’s dispense with technicalities and admit that that which from my perspective could only be assessed as a prodigiously rumored burst of trickle down was, in its final effective effectiveness, little more an urban legend (like the punching of transsexuals and such). If you really want to be purely academic, I mean think about the fact that no one staked me to sit on my furry ass or to do the other things that I envision myself doing.
One more thing… I just want to say that I really appreciate ZK contributors such Mary and Bif who lately have shared some really great stories and thoughts.
How monkeys ever used to live without crosscut shredders, electronic bill paying, and drive-through car washes that you pay for at the pump is one of the greatest mysteries that ponder these days.
Got dammit! Fucking English. If I was writing this shit in Spanish the verb would have covered my lack-of-subject ass. As I like to say, I’m illiterate in at least three languages.
Hummm…..maybe…..one thing for certain, i don’t miss posting amongst the maroons hanging out over at CFN these daz. Bunn, you should take it for a spin. I’d be afraid to hand it over to dave, though. OTOH, he practically moderates the site as it is.
tipping, don’ worry baby. I’ll remotely activate thal’s gps device. That way we can get a good fix on him before he unintentionally swaggers into an enemy combatant facility thinking that he’s just agreed to coach girls basketball and dance camp (such places really do exist, so say my sources).
If he’s already made his way to Romania or Russia, it would be rhythmic gymnastics instead (I guess).
dave is just about the only one of us here who still consistently engages (or attempts to engage) with the current CFN denizens. Hats off to you, dave, I think.
you know, with global warming, and the higher latitudes warming faster than the tropics, then the atmospheric delta-T is getting smaller between the poles and the equator, and the trade winds should slacken, bringing less weather and precipitation to the islands.
so why, when i tell a physical oceanographer this idea, they tell me “Gary, it’s moron complicated than that”? what’s so complicated about it? i know weather is noisy data, but there must be trends to climate.
you know, with global warming, and the higher latitudes warming faster than the tropics, then the atmospheric delta-T is getting smaller between the poles and the equator, and the trade winds should slacken, bringing less weather and precipitation to the islands.
hard to say what the end result will be. just as a fer instance, more heat might be available to do work, ie, produce and maintain a trade winds. this is just a single fer instance.
i think that about the best one can say about anthropomorphic GW is something like: yeah, we’re sure to fuck things up in one way or another. that’s what we do best.
higher temps overall definately means more moisture in the atmosphere. where it will be dumped as paterns change, and paterns always change, is something of a crap shoot in my mind.
what you’re saying would definately be true if one could assume that gradient pathways, or routes, will be maintained.
another fer instance: the gulf stream pumps a lot of heat into the northern latitudes, thereby reducing the temperature gradient between the equator and the north pole. if this flow is shut off due changes in the mineral content (again, who knows, it’s justa fer instance) the overall tempearture differential could increase.
if you really wanted to get into, i think you’d have to critque the specifics of the model. personally, i wouldn’t waste my time. i’d just kinda nod and say: yeah, that’s nice. then i’d go back about my business of trying to fuck 20 yo women. they often want to experiment with anal sex at that age. so that’s a plus.
“Australians could face ‘pay as you dump’ charges as part of a Toilet Tax. It’s all in the name of “sustainability” – and part of a growing eco-movement to replace flushing conveniences with smelly and unhealthy inconvenience.”
dave, thanks, i guess, that Logan article depresses even me. i hope i’m not keeping you from your experiments with 20 yo women. i recall conducting similar experiments with 25 yo women. they acted all surprised and like they were virgins, ha ha, they probably had 10 boyfriends before i came along, pun intended.
Uncle Remus, before we go too overboard with the shit recycling, it may perhaps be worthwhile to work the math on all this organic recycling and see how much energy consumption is really offset. it could save us getting our hands all dirty.
we need to start reducing our populations. we should do this voluntarily before it becomes mandatory, with nature calling all the shots. who’s population will be first to volunteer to save our planet? shall we do it by lotto?
UR,
I got a permit to shit for ten years (we’re on septic).
Anyone comes to inspect for some pay as you dump shit, they can go down to the chook shed and breathe deeply.
Then again, the septic tank is 2000 litre, could hold a body or two…
But you should always be respectful of your partner, y’know pay for a taxi in the morning, their turd tax after butt sex – all good manners.
Doom, could be that a side effect of “smelly and unhealthy inconvenience” will be to attenuate coital ardor. Or everyone claiming to be French. [shrug] In which case, our socialist future would be apropos.
Yarra, yes, good manners. Which likely falls into the same category as common sense.
Hey MOU! I knew that thread would dissappear eventually; I might have to start a black box archive of ZK posts that JR deletes after sobering up : ) Just kidding JR, though blackmail can be a lucrative business…. hmmm
I have a financial question- it’s been thrown around that the best bay to invest in oil is through an etf but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with Energy mutual funds? I was looking at “portfolio composition” of a fund that lists the majority of holdings in “integrated oil and gas” I’m not sure what that means- can someone illuminate me, por favor? (fyi the other listings included oil and gas -equip and svcs, – drilling, -exploration and production, refining and mkting and strg and xportation) Perhaps integrated just means companies like Exxon or Royal Dutch Shell? Thanks in advance
Tip. By integrated they mean companies engaged in all of the upstream (exploration and production), midstream (transport and refining/processing) and downstream (wholesale/retail) activites. So yes, you would be buying major oil and gas companies.
i wish. glad you found that program. i met the film crew in Seattle for my interview on their way back from Lituya Bay, Alaska. that tsunami was the record at over 500 m run-up, but we’ve since found much bigger ones that hit the Hawaiian islands about 100,000 years ago. and, Lituya Bay event was confined to an estuary, whereas the Hawaii ones were in the open ocean, therefore much larger.
Ahh, the potty-mouthed pollack has spoken again, and with all the usual refinement of that 20-something generation. This current run of links to perpetual-motion free-energy stuff won’t last long.
Nomouth, that animated rabbit seems to have it going on. We should get him on the team. And those wacky Poles too.
Yeah dave, here’s an example of working too hard to be funny. All I can say about it is that tourists sicken me. These sorts of European jackoffs do too.
On second thought, maybe this shit IS funny and I’m just not cool enough to get the joke. What next? A Plantation Petting Zoo in the heart of Dixie? These Europeans deserve to be destroyed.
What was that you saw in WSJ, Holmes? An article about Lufthansa being set to buy Austrian Airlines? Didn’t something like this happen before about 70 years ago? Where’s the gotdamm reportage?
The lack of acorns around here is forcing gray squirrels to eat anything they can find. They are getting into garbage cans, climbing out onto the ends of thorny hawthorn tree branches to eat the haws, raiding bird feeders and chasing away smaller squirrels. Still, I am seeing some huge fat and healthy squirrels around. Point? It apparently pays to be big, bad, bold and acrobatic during a bottleneck.
bunnbunn,
thanks for the casting some insights on to my personal identity crisis.
fucking parents told me they fled polska under ‘refugee’ status to escape the commies. then my mom happens to slip me out from beneath her whorish panties in some mountain valley called furstenfeld?
i used to blame recessive genes, but now i really know why im teutonic and theyre – well inferior.
i can’t click to send… I have this strange feeling of love in my right arm.
Nomouth, you mean you weren’t whelped over there in the Fatherland? Shame on me for making that misassumption. But, hey, there’s no harm in being Teutonic or partway so. My dad grew up in a rather infamous European dictatorship of the last century. Had lots of interesting & scrary stories to tell about it too. I would call it a blessing to have at least one parent who didn’t grow up here in Duhmerica, where practically no one knows how to do stuff.
The nice Chinese lady at the local dry-cleaner was telling me how most people in China know how to sew stuff if they need to .. and she was somewhat amused at seeing all the American ladies who buy those $2000 Bernina / Husquevara machines and then don’t even know how to shank a button, duh.
I saw them at the What White People Like website. What is up with these “vegetables”? They have basically no flavor. They are not hot, as peppers are supposed to be. They give you gas if you eat them, and they are expensive unless you raise them yourself. Why are they so popular? Is it their color (red, yellow, green, purple) or their shape? They are kinda big. They suck, IHO.
Dave came home from the pub late one Friday evening stinking drunk, as he often did, and crept into bed beside his wife who was already asleep.
He gave her a peck on the cheek and fell asleep. When he awoke, he found a strange man standing at the end of his bed. ‘Who the hell are you?’, demanded Dave, ‘and what are you doing in my bedroom ?’
The mysterious man answered, ‘This isn’t your bedroom and I’m St Peter.’
Dave was stunned. ‘You mean I’m dead !!! That can’t be, I have so much to live for – and I haven’t said goodbye to my family. . . You’ve got to send me back straight away.’
St Peter replied, ‘Yes, you can be reincarnated but there is a catch.
We can only send you back as a dog or a hen.’
Dave was devastated, but knowing there was a farm not far from his house, he asked to be sent back as a hen.
A flash of light later, he was covered in feathers and clucking around, pecking the ground.
‘This ain’t so bad’, he thought until he felt this strange feeling
welling up inside him. The farmyard rooster strolled over and said,
‘So you’re the new hen, How are you enjoying your first day here ?’
‘It’s not so bad’, replies Dave, ‘but I have this strange feeling
inside like I’m about to explode.’
‘You’re ovulating’, explained the rooster. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never laid an egg before.’
‘Never’, replies Dave. Well just relax and let it happen’.
And so he did and after a few uncomfortable seconds later, an egg pops out from under his tail. An immense feeling of relief swept over him and his emotions got the better of him as he experienced motherhood for the first time.
When he laid his second egg, the feeling of happiness was overwhelming and he knew that being reincarnated as a hen was the best thing that ever happened to him . . . Ever!!!
The joy kept coming and as he was just about to lay his third egg, he felt an enormous smack on the back of his head and heard his wife shouting…
‘Dave, wake up, you drunken bastard. You’ve shit the bed !!’
“The lack of acorns around here is forcing gray squirrels to eat anything they can find. They are getting into garbage cans, climbing out onto the ends of thorny hawthorn tree branches to eat the haws, raiding bird feeders and chasing away smaller squirrels.” -GB
Hey, GB! Good to see ya here.
Here’s an interesting article from the “Post” last Sunday on the dearth of acorns:
My Squirrel-PAC down on the Mall is in pretty good shape but the poor little critters are in for the shock of their lives in about six weeks when our nation’s capital becomes a gigantic blowout.
i’ve always kind of admired the eastern europeans. time to be a nazi, ok no problem. time to be a communist, ok problem. time to be a capitalist, sure, why not?
how about… pro-colonial populationists. makes prefect sense to me (especially if combined with alzheimers)
self-cannibalizing excretologists. on the throne of a dilemma, to be sure. but hey… it could work for awhile
I’m not trying to be funny, just fooling around with some paradigm shift potentialities that we all might want to prepare ourselves for. Scratchpad. Honestly, people… nothing to see here. As you were. Carry on. God Save the Queen. Etc.
Hmmm, I tried but I scrolled through four pages of “I really don’t give a shit” comments. Ah well, Asoka probably needs to get fucked anyway. I think I like Ryan Crocker(from other posts); don’t know if it’s despite or in spite of Nudge. Now, that Howard Effing Beale, he is one sexy effer!
I just posted this and it disappeared.
Postus-interuptus…
JHK,
While I enjoyed reading this post (you are a wonderful writer), you make me hopeless, not hopeful. You are trying to shape the discourse around this movement and you insist on insulting a certain segment of the population. Your judgmental attitude will not make them want to consider the options you suggest. Why alienate anyone, anyone at all?
The only answer I can come up with is that you have not thought through what it is you would like to accomplish with this work. Your ego is SUV sized and burning up the atmosphere. Deflate it or suffer being pinned down in a tattoo parlor while thugs decorate you with neo-con propaganda. Or maybe they will just link you with a Madoff fund or something and turn you lose on Wallstreet with the words “SEC Regulator” tattooed to your forehead.
I am being silly, but I am trying to make a point– why single out people who wear sagging jeans or tattoos as deserving of so much contempt when the problem is people who wear Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Channel, Fendi, or Rolex?
I wonder when he starts writing his weekly piece – Sunday night? I dunno, I couldn’t do it every week. Then again, he doesn’t participate in the discussion, so that probably makes it easier. Maybe he should downshift to a fortnightly or monthly article.
Another Churchill gem (from parliament)
“Mr Churchill, you are drunk”
“And you, madam, are ugly”
“Mr Churchill you are VERY drunk!”
“And you madam, are extremely ugly – but tomorrow I shall be sober”
She has a wealthy beau who pays her credit card bills and other incidentals, but she is thinking of telling him she is through with him. She has no savings and has refinanced her home repeatedly, always adding to indebtedness and then putting the money into a shop she owns that has never come close to earning a dime. Now she is up all night worrying about money. “Terrified,” as she put it. She wanted me to tell her what to do.
Holmes. That column by Stein was unusually dark for him. He’s always been such a big cornucopian perma bull. Stein was encouraging people to get into and stay in the markets in 2007. He was writing in his personal finance column that the only thing that could stop a long term upward trend of the market was nuclear war. Well since 2007 the Dow has dropped 6000 points and I haven’t seen any mushroom clouds yet. He deserves his place in Dickipedia.
Bif, yeah… I was thinking the same thing. Clearly Stein’s tone is different. I never too much took him seriously before, but he is a funny guy… and he definitely can write.
Doom, if you go missing here for a week or so, I will consider. ;-)
They have worked hard in Zimbabwe, or as well as anyone can. I think its been extremely difficult in getting aid and assistance to people. There is much hope that the new government there will be more effective. But you know how that goes.
Experience has demonstrated that it takes a substantial amount of time–and repetition–for folks to absorb a concept before embracing it. (That curmudgeonly old amygdala at work.)
So without fear of boring the geniuses here at ZK, I’ll propose once again my suggestion for dealing with the banking and finance offenders–all of the scofflaws knowingly engaged in naked shorts, Ponzi/pyramid investments, mortgage-backed securities, OTC derivatives, etc.
The Martha Stewart Solution
No violence, no prisons. House arrest with an implanted chip or tracking device–provision of the basics (food and shelter)–in exchange for “public servitude” to the government until the losses generated by each individual are returned to the public coffers.
Choice of two assignments: 1. Remaining in the US and working with low-income/poor populations to help rebuild their communites in a sustainable way or 2. Working with similar poulations overseas.
Not saying that I’m a genius (no self-respecting god would allow himself to be saddled with such a label) (and maybe I’m missing something in the fact pattern), but how is either
1. Remaining in the US and working with low-income/poor populations to help rebuild their communites in a sustainable way or
2. Working with similar poulations overseas
going to make any money to effect the restitution? I mean maybe the ill-gotten gains already been spent, baby doll.
I just read this quote in the comments section on Orlov’s blog:
“You could take all the capitalists and bankers, including those in Wall Street, and bury them, and you would still be facing the same fundamental problems.”
Look, a null hypothesis, just waiting to be tested. Darling, could we write a grant proposal? Puhleaaaze? We will need to conceptualize and operationalize the term “same fundamental problems” but I think we can be pretty clear on the independant variable and the treatment. We could switch up burial with other things such as lynching and see if it affects the outcome.
And it wouldn’t be rioting or revolution. It would all be in the name of science.
And when IRB loses their pensions, I bet they will approve it. ;-) You only worry about human subjects if they are human.
MOU, I think we should try for an NSF SGER, as they fast track those, no normal peer review, to expedite them. Time is not on our side here, as the subjects could be lynched and their heads impaled on poles at almost any moment now.
I suspect the null hypothesis is correct. Nothing much will change, as the damage was done long ago, and we are now living with the aftermath of the effect (those loud popping sounds were bursting bubbles).
I’m going to attempt to pull the remainder of my 403b on Tuesday AM. No sense watching it all evaporate.
My two cents: Orlov is both funnier and more correct about the future than that Florida windbag.
“…going to make any money to effect the restitution? I mean maybe the ill-gotten gains already been spent, baby doll.” -bunnbunn
Bunn-
My all-knowing and delightful overlord, forgive my jump from Point A to Point Z.
1. Money does not necessarily equate with value;
2. Sieze and calculate the monetary measure of the ill-gotten gains (homes, cars, boats, trips, etc.);
3. Translate into tangible and intangible equivalents (cleaning up pollution, community service, education, food production, etc., etc.);
3. Assume that your only cost for this new “workforce” will be monitoring, food and basic shelter and that it will undoubtedly be with us for some long time.
yes EE, there are definitely other forms of restitution such as the intangible equivalents you mention. In some instances, for example, if the criminals were tasked with educating people about something, the resulting good or benefit might eventually scale to some kind of equivalent (putting aside, for the sake of discussion, the difficulty in measuring such things). We need to put you in charge of administering this program. But don’t make it too much fun for the villains, lest you inadvertently entirely remove the punitive aspect. Perhaps this is where Martha and I diverge, but I don’t have time to be concerned solely about whether an optimally happy face purported solution has been presented. Most of these cretins are never going to be able to provide adequate compensation for the damage that they’ve done.
hmmm?, ya! president’s day. little known fact. licoln used to love fried black people thigh meat for lunch. sometimes he’d put it on rye with a little saurcraut and mustard, particlarly if the particular negro happened to be named ruben. he prefered field hand over house nigger. he never recorded the reasons for this preferance.
I could not add high enouph the number of times I have to remind people that Lincoln did not give a flying fuck about the slaves. If he cared so much for human rights of non white males the end of the civil war would have also ment then end to the Indian Wars.
“Most of these cretins are never going to be able to provide adequate compensation for the damage that they’ve done.” –bunnbunn
Bunn, m’love-
I sense your bunny blood pressure rising, much as mine used to do before I started to reframe my interpretations of the world around me (remember, I’m that much older than you) over our perceived collective injuries as a society from the actions of others, particularly in the “finance” area.
It seems to me that the blowup of the finance/banking system is simply the latest in a series stretching back over millenia each time society reached its limits.
Some day we may actually be grateful that these financial dimwits unequivocally proved–once again–that you can’t live on nor sustain illusion.
Now we are a global neural network and the “shock” of limits is calling for a paradigm shift worldwide in what is valuable. Time will tell if the human race is flexible enough to make an about-face and survive it.
P.S. My reference to Martha was about her period of “home confinement” with a tracking ankle bracelet after her jail time. Boesky, Milken, and their ilk haven’t changed one whit.
Just cause bunnbunn is a young godling, does not mean he can’t learn a thing or two from his worshipers.
Do you think it was a conservative, tasteful, yet fashionably demure ankle bracelet? Or was it large, tacky, and neon? A wise judge would have her suffer something ghettolicious to expand her horizons. Then again, you can’t really cure “white,” can you?
Everyone should get out of the market and pull their money out of everything NOW. All investments you can get out of. Punish them with the numbers. Give them nothing. Don’t float this balloon baby, we’ll gun it down.
If everything is collapsing any way, what does it matter?
LET IT FALL
WE WITHDRAW
Come on, they want a war, lets give them one.
Tax Rebellion
Withdraw all funds from the banks you can.
Withdraw from all the investments you possibly can.
Buy PMs.
You guys have fun with pretend war over here. They are building a case for this shit. Do you support nationalization? Is there a way you can do any of the warfare I suggest?
LET IT FALL
WE WITHDRAW
I am so pissed. They are stealing absolutely everything.
Actually, my husband, a psychologist, thought the same things about Obama too, early on. My husband has a dark side to him I call “cult leader.” Everywhere he goes, they want to make him the leader. We don’t go too many places any more. Unlike Obama, he does not jockey for it. Anyway, he spotted that (and the needs that get fed with that shit) in Obama.
Thanks for your reply. I like “real.” A lot. Medicine.
Just a little gratuitous advice from some random site that I’ll probably never find again.
The author doesn’t offer remedies (other than advice to invest in commodities). His statements that “They are only concerned about the next election cycle” has been used by others to claim that democracy itself it the problem. I have some far simpler solutions:
1) Ban Lobbying. It is blatant bribery. How in the world did our society decide that bribes were acceptable. There is nothing free speech about trading money for political favors at the expense of the public. What did we expect would happen when we made fundraising/corruption a prerequisite for public office? If we publicly financed all campaigns, and banned all gifts to public officials, the investment would yield exponential returns in terms of government integrity and competence.
2) A Balanced Budget Amendment. Make it a crime for Congress to spend more than the government takes in unless a well defined short term state of emergency is declared — by the supreme court. This relatively simple step would practically ensure currency stability, remove an economic doomsday weapon from China’s hands, and wipe out the national debt within a generation.
3) Align tax incentives with the changes we desire. Tax hikes on cigarettes and alcohol have been proven to reduce consumption of those products. Why not tax gasoline to reduce our economic dependency on hostile dictatorships? Offset a gas tax with a cut in the income tax. Net results: More incentive to be economically productive and earn income. Less incentive to waste gasoline while funding terrorists. Why tax manufacturing businesses at 35% and hedge fund speculators at 15%? Are we trying to discourage manufacturing and encourage AIG-style speculation? You get more of what you encourage. Duh.
4) Equal Justice for All. Corrupt politicians, lobbyists, and financiers should go to the same prisons as convenience-store robbers and for the same terms. The public should be outraged that there is no justice for people with wealth or connections.
5) End Earmarks. This is where the pork comes from. It’s hidden in budget documents thousands of pages long and placed there anonymously by paid-off congresspeople. The opportunity for corruption is obvious.
6) Refuse to Fight Oil Wars. “Spending” tens of thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars spent to secure oilfields in dictatorship nations that support terrorism offers no return on investment for the public, only for oil and defense firms and their lobbyists. The trillions spent on the Gulf War and Iraq have done nothing for the public, except increase the national debt burden on their children, thousands of whom lost a parent in “the sandbox”. No “made in China” pseudo-patriotic magnetic bumper ribbon will change that fact.
There you have it. Six relatively minor steps that would lead to a stable currency, the end of the national debt, a more competent government, a less corrupt government, and a more functional society. No crackpot economic theories or radical revolutions needed.
The trick is getting the population to demand these changes – the same population where 60% of people haven’t read an actual book since high school.
Well EE, what was the random site? Those six steps sound very reasonable to me.
I have spent the last 48 hours cleaning my house cause I have a big day tomorrow! Thanks everyone for being supportive despite my idiosyncrasies… If I’m not around for a little while it’s not because I don’t think you guys are awesome, I’m just busy readjusting to married life. Then again, maybe I’ll finally be able to have some time to myself!
as a young child, say 1958 thru 1963, i wouls go to the drive in with my parents and my asshole brothers. i remember being dressed in bunny pajamas, the kind with the feet sown in.
inthe early 70’s i would go with my asshole buddies and do drugs and smoke pot and stuff.
of course, i got my forst blow job at a drive in, circa 1972? something like that.
drive-ins were a chance to get a lot of stuff that you can’t get (as easily) at malls, because the latter are too well lit and they have security cameras and shit.
oh well, they served a purpose, and were fun while they lasted. sometimes the movies were good, too.
Air Force jet crashes in California
Story Highlights
F-22A fighter jet crashed 35 miles northeast of Edwards AFB around 10:30 a.m.
The one-seater was on a test mission when it crashed; status of pilot unknown
At $150 million apiece, the F-22A is the most expensive Air Force fighter
From Mike Mount
CNN Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) — An Air Force F-22A fighter jet crashed Wednesday near Edwards Air Force Base in California, Air Force officials said.
The single-seater crashed about 10:30 a.m. for unknown reasons, the officials said.
The status of the pilot was unknown.
At $150 million apiece, the F-22A is the most expensive Air Force fighter.
The fighter was on a test mission when it crashed about 35 miles northeast of Edwards AFB, where it was stationed, the Air Force said in a news release.
In 2004, an F-22 Raptor crashed on a training mission in the Nevada desert. The pilot ejected and was not hurt, though the jet was destroyed.
The plane was designed in the 1980s to provide a stealthy method to enter Soviet air space and strike Soviet bombers if the USSR attempted a nuclear strike.
Once the Cold War ended, the Air Force found a new mission for the F-22 as a long-range fighter with a sophisticated stealth design and state-of-the-art equipment that no other plane could rival.
However, the rising cost of the plane and numerous design and software problems threatened the program, which was almost killed by Congress.
In the end, the aircraft survived, and most of the problems were fixed, except for the price tag, which forced the Air Force to buy fewer aircraft.
As Craig Kilborn used to say, “Well, it’s happened again.”
March 26, 2009 — Updated 1626 GMT (0026 HKT)
Pirates hijack two chemical tankers off SomaliaStory Highlights
Pirates hijack two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia
23,000-ton Norwegian-owned M/V Bow-Asir captured
M/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned vessel also seized
(CNN) — Pirates have hijacked two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the past 24 hours, the European Union Maritime Security Center said Thursday.
The 23,000-ton Norwegian-owned and Bahamian-registered M/V Bow-Asir was captured 250 miles east of the southern Somali city Kismayo on Thursday morning, the security center said in a release.
The M/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned and Panamanian-registered vessel with 19 crew members, was attacked approximately 450 miles east of Kismayo on Wednesday afternoon, the security center said.
Officials have issued an alert site notifying all vessels in the area to be aware of the increase in pirate activity.
taleb update:
To Taleb, Scholes’ academic work, which enabled the widespread use of complex derivatives, was like “giving children dynamite.” “This guy should be in a retirement home doing Sudoku,” Taleb says. “His funds have blown up twice. He shouldn’t be allowed in Washington to lecture anyone on risk.”
“You need to calm down. You may be right. But nothing is going to change because you are pissed.
I learned this the hard way over a number of years when nobody joined me while getting banned from website after website.”–JR, from above post.
Not picking on you JR, in fact, I applaud your responses to MOU above. It was stellar.
BUT, when you were banned at CFN, and you started ZK, several folks did indeed join you at this site, and here we are, baby. So, I logically conclude that some folks do indeed give a fuck.
“BUT, when you were banned at CFN, and you started ZK, several folks did indeed join you at this site, and here we are, baby. So, I logically conclude that some folks do indeed give a fuck.” –Dr. Doom
Yup… yer right, Doom. We may not “give a fuck” in the way that JR does. In fact, since we’re all individuals, it’s probably a given that our egos will ensure each one of us clings with a death-grip to those ways. Here’s my current way:
A venture capitalist friend of mine asked me in a recent discussion about the financial meltdown, “who will be the new financiers?”
I answered immediately, “the new financiers will be the high-level information and knowledge brokers – and they will aggregate the new research on global change processes and lead in structuring the deals now creating the growing green economy.” Today information and media drive markets.
These new financiers are already operating unseen by traditional Wall Streeters and asset managers. They are largely invisible to current financial players and governments because information is their prime currency; rather than money. The new deal-makers value the role of honest, well-managed currencies that remain dependable stores of value and mediums of exchange. Money is a special kind of information, not a commodity in itself, but rather a brilliant invention of the human mind. When backed by real-world goods and service, as well as strong contracts, money can accurately track and score human ingenuity, productivity and transactions interacting with the natural wealth of resources of our home: Planet Earth.
The problem with money is keeping it honest and keeping its “promise to pay” firm. From the goldsmiths who over-lent against their piles of gold held in storage for their customers, to the kings who shaved of the edges of coins and today’s bankers who create our money out of thin air, we humans have found many ways to debase our currencies.
Human activities grew from traditional barter, mutual aid and gifting to the invention of money back around 3,000 BC. Our money evolved from clay tablets, shells and cows to metal tokens, gold, silver, today’s paper money and electronic currencies that are blips on millions of financial trading screens.
As we expanded worldwide with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Europe 300 years ago, our need to trade and exchange grew exponentially. This required expanding our money systems of exchange. Gold, which backed most currencies in growing international trade, became too constricting – there just wasn’t enough of it. Many traders turned to silver and other precious metals. Soon, the lack of gold led governments to issue paper “fiat” currencies backed only by promises and a fraction of actual gold. Some countries shut their “gold windows,” including the USA in 1971, and restricted their citizens from owning gold.
Our current financial crises go beyond those earlier contractions, panics and recessions caused by the lack of gold or sufficient supplies of credible paper money. Central bankers have learned the lessons of the Great Depression. The money supply must keep up with, not surpass, the expansion of production and trading as a country grows and its real economy progresses. Today, the interlinking of all countries’ economies due to the globalization of finance and technology caused money-creation to go wild, leading to a credit bubble and mountains of debt.
Computerization of finance and markets speeded up trading to seconds; satellite inter-linkage of round-the-clock stock and commodity exchanges led to the explosion of derivatives contracts, ever more exotic “securitization” of packages of mortgages, student loans and credit card debts. Risk-analysis was relegated to ivory-tower mathematicians’ algorithms which ignored real-world conditions. All this multiplied the creation of money and credit exponentially.
Reckless, poorly regulated financial firms on Wall Street sold their dubious, toxic “securities” to gullible investors and pension funds (which should have known better) around the world. For example, the bets on who might default, called credit default swaps, grew unregulated to now comprise $683 trillion of contracts (Bank for International Settlements December 2008) – while real global production measures only the $62 trillion of global GDP (IMF October 2008).
The resulting crises were predicted by me and others over the past decades. All that money and debt creation led to illusory gains and today’s inevitable losses and “de-leveraging.” The bubble in finance and money itself has popped. Central bankers and financiers, schooled in the world’s leading business schools and economics departments focus on money and global monetary circuitry. They were rarely taught that money was simply one form of information – now deeply devalued as all the new forms of money-creation went wild.
Today, we see central bankers printing money on TV. No amount of ink and paper can print enough new money to close the hole between that $683 trillion of false promises and the world’s real GDP of $62 trillion. The only issue is who will take the hit. Up to now, the political influence of financial sectors has forced taxpayers to bail out financiers. The blatant unfairness and stupidity of this has caused huge outcries from outraged citizens. Those billions given to irresponsible bankers could have financed universal healthcare and college education. This is the end of finance based only on money and fiat currencies. We now know it’s about priorities and values.
Enter the new financiers: those high-level information and knowledge brokers who understand our Information Age and the great transition from the fossil-fueled Industrial Age to our new Solar Age. Overloaded money-circuits have broken down and the huge new volume of transactions in the past decade have migrated to the internet. Pure information-based exchange and sharing has led to the new hybrid economic model described by experts, including Lawrence Lessig’s Remix (2008), Yoichi Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks (2007), Don Tapscott’s Wikinomics (2008), Verna Allee’s Knowledge Evolution (1997) and my own work (www.ethicalmarkets.com). This hybrid economy is half the old money-based competition and half information-based sharing, cooperation and exchange. From electronic stock exchanges, Instinet, Archipelago, NASDAQ, Knight and Entrex to Google, e-Bay, Craigslist, Amazon, Facebook and Wikipedia, we are seeing how money-obsessed financiers are trailing behind. The new financiers: those high-level information brokers go beyond economics to understanding whole systems and the human family on planet Earth.
Money may return to its honest base, reflecting real world values of Main Street productivity but may never again be the dominant medium of exchange. Just as gold remains valuable but can no longer support the new volume of human transactions. Money will be superseded by all the new digital currencies already circulating from local exchange trading systems (LETS) and complementary currencies like “Berkshares” and “Wirs” in Switzerland to Freecycle and many other barter sites, cell phone networks and radio shows. Incumbent money-circuit players will try to get regulators to shut down these upstart, disruptive technologies and competitors. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, shut down the website Prosper.com which boomed by facilitating local residents and businesses in lending to each other.
The new financiers are operating these new digital trading platforms in many countries. Many designs for global digital currencies are on the way. They will complement the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, another pure information-based currency for international development which is still conceptually tied to gold. The new financiers will show why the old financiers and central bankers can no longer have a monopoly on money and its creation. Information-based currencies and trading platforms will operate wherever necessary for evolving human communities so as to match needs with resources and create jobs – from local and regional to national and international exchange.
Today’s financial “crisis” is facilitating the evolutionary jump to the next stage of human development – shifting from faulty, money-measured GDP growth to the cleaner, greener sustainable economies. Governments are realizing that they must now also correct those money-based indicators and GDP national accounts to adopt the new Quality of Life Indicators. Pension funds have realized their errors in chasing only short-term money returns and are demanding that companies report their performance beyond the old single bottom line of money to the triple bottom line, including progress on social, environmental and governance performance. Welcome to the Information Age.
Effing is polite speak for Fucking. Howard Fucking Beale (I called him that once), Frank Fucking Zappa, John Fucking Wayne. It’s a form of street respect. Really, JR, you need to hang with truck drivers more often.
Dexter? A sitcom on HBO? I thought HBO was for watching movies and soft porn. Oh, and Bill Mahr, Maaahrrrrr. And George Carlin reruns on the Comedy Channel.
Well, I’m the first to admit that I don’t know doodle about F1 racing. Looks expensive (gotta be good, then, right?) and a tad dangerous. I don’t watch them for the gore. I know you guys don’t also.
On this topic, I will admit being turned off to NASCAR when I realized that the cars under the fake bodies were no moron than bigger, clunkier F1 racers. Seems a bit disingenuous, like posing.
Happy to know you did some time behind thee wheel. I did construction about that time of my life. Damn near killed myself, so took an early retirement from such work and doubled up on the book learnin. That experience and Nam hanging over our young heads made the college work worth all the challenges, despite the competing calls of drugs, sex, fast cars, fast times.
I beleive you were addressing Hamilton when you said this:
“I feel for you, Brother. I’ve felt that way just yesterday. Complete despair and hopelessness. It hurts. It becomes a physical pain. Depression is no joke.”
Tell old Doomie your problems. I promise to be more sincere than that old Magic Eight Ball under your bed. Cough it. I’m waiting, scotch rocks in hand.
OK, so you’re paranoid. A lot of us social animals are, to varying degrees. And that’s when times are good. When times are bad or dicey, even, paranoia looms large. “Paranoia rules the streets, into your mind it will creep, nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong, ….[Buffalo Springfield, circa 1968].
I’ve held but not shot a Thompson. Heavy gun. I’d recommend a lighter, compact Israeli model, like the ones the Secret Service body guards use.
Still trying to get JR to meet in Boston before the place gets nuked. I’ve long since moved west of the city so as not to be downwind of the fallout cloud. Err, and that’s if we’re lucky enough to get a relatively “clean” bomb too.
Mandatory geiger counter checks at the 128 and 495 ring roads. “It’s all contained.”
Nudge, I thought the real threat to Boston was a LNG tanker explosion in Boston Harbour. Maybe that’s what’s keeping our chief editor up late at night?
Not if it was serious work. Who needs a guy always questioning your underlying motives, primal beliefs and undying faith in capitalistic growth-based economics on a finite, populous planet whilst trying to concentrate on the right combination of blasting caps and plastic? No thanks, that’d be like inviting the wife to come along.
Well, I know I’m invited, and I’m flattered, really. My work keeps me real busy. It could just about dominate all of my life, but I don’t let it. Really, lately I’ve been working seven days a week. Mostly part-time on the weekends, and be a parent/husband. I try to get some licks in here, sorta like dave.
I keep hoping it will let up and I can write moron. Maybe in a few weeks.
Sez you’re actually operating out of Vladivostok. What gives?
That’s probably where my assigned FSB spies are monitoring all my transmissions. On Monday, I’ll have to blow that by my Russian lab tech to get her reaction. She’s got a green card, so she can’t be a spy, right?
Err, Doom, that plan has Unintended Consequences written all over it. From what I heard, all you’d get is a strangled Asoka left (as a joke) in some sort of lurid sexual pose with an equally dead dummy-boy “infestor” from Idaho.
Doom, does anyone make waterproof SPF 500 sunscreen? That’s the sort of stuff I’d need.
Uggh, the last time I got carded it was by some wrinkly-looking chick in the town next door. I started laughing hysterically, which only irritated her. Tried to explain that I was born not long after JFK rode by the grassy knoll ~ and she missed the reference. After seeing the drivers license, she asked me how, and I said it had something to do with avoiding that fricking bright sunlight outside.
So .. does anyone make SPF 500 that doesn’t look like white paint or giant lead screens? Err, I suppose really thin gold leaf might do.
Damn, dude. I already posted a link to stuff about the KERS flywheels as a first comment under my F1 Primer post. (No point in reinventing the wheel. Just sayin’.)
And somewhere else a few days ago I said that KERS was optional in 2009, mandatory in 2010 unless of course the rules get changed again. How much more technical do you want? You looking for a cad or Solidworks drawing or something?
Also, isn’t it amazing that the Fed administration is seemingly so hard on the auto industry, which at least makes useable stuff with its energy allowance, and only slaps the hand of the finance industry, which almost singlehandedly brought the whole house of cards to its knees? Gee, no wonder when so many of them are embedded and in bed with the administration.
I would not call a 20 million dollar retirment package falling on one’s sword kind of exit. The guy destroys GM then gets paid extra? I call that stealing.
When the house of cards falls from its knees to its face I hope that Wagoner has a spot in Peru waiting for him. Because he is going to be a poor man when the cards are a mess on the floor.
Fuck Target National Bank. Fuck Bank of America.
Target credit card sends me a letter, stating my interest rate is going to be 24%. Usury!On a card with no balance due, last charge 11 months ago. Fuck you, Target! I cancelled it last week. Then, tonight, BoA sends me a letter stating my interest on one card is going from 7.99 to 13.99 percent. So I go online, to check out what my other BoA cards’ rates are (I had three CCs fron BoA). One card doesn’t appear online. WTF? I’m holding the card in my hand, it expires next year. So I call them up on the ‘phone. The missing account was cancelled in January. News to me. I ask the nice lady if I was sent any notification. She says “No, the comments here show that no letter or email was sent telling you that the account has been closed by us. It wasn’t closed due any risk regarding your credit worthiness, it was closed to reduce Bank of America’s outstanding credit available to it’s customers”. So one card is going from 7.99 to 13.99, one card has been cancelled. I tell her that it was a good thing I didn’t try paying for a restaurant bill in front of my friends as the means to learn that the card has been cancelled. She agreed. So she tells me that she will lower the third card from 12.99 to 9.99 fixed rate, but can’t lower the recently raised card’s rate. WTF?
Just venting.
I keep my cards in case I am unemployed and need them to get me through after savings run out. Otherwise they are empty or paid off monthly. They raised my rate too. I told them I was canceling the card, my call was for that purpose. They had to “talk me out of it.” I started the process, vented, the whole bit. They lowered it back down. They also gifted me some frequent flyer miles. They also offered me a 1.99% on a balance transfer (no balance to transfer).
You may be able to get your old rate back by writing them and telling them you do not agree to the terms of the new arrangement and therefore you are shutting the card down.
AU and MOU I feel for you guys… almost. Drop the whole credit card idea altogether if you can. I have been lucky enough to have never had the need for a credit card. Just another way for the system to own you. Keep it simple, just say no to credit cards. So what if I can’t rent a car? I’ll hitchhike if need be. I’ve done a lot of that. Helps to be young, carefree and single though. At least I’m single.
I keep thinking about that GB. I used credit cards to pay off my house and student loans. They let me have a whole lot of money at 1.99%. They were the reason I was able to get out of debt so fast and own my house immediately. Every other day I tell myself I will just get rid of them. But what if something huge comes up? I have a child and because I have paid off everything and I am totally debt free they will loan me a barge load of money. If things get FUBAR, a credit card or so could be a bridge that gets my family out of something bad and into something better.
So for now, they stay. But yeah, it is a vulnerability. If someone steals my identity right now, they can do me some damage. There is merit to what you say.
I’m poor. I have no real savings. I need credit cards for emergencies. In the past, this has been $3000 for dental work, and $4000 for a new transmission for my car (out of warranty, yet still owed the bank, so I couldn’t junk it). Also, paid for additional college classes on plastic. I’ve not used them for non-emergencies for 5-6 years, just been paying them down. That’s how I ended up with zero balances resulting in the banks either cancelling them, or raising the rates. I’m not profitable enough for them.
After the commercial real estate crises this summer, the credit card defaulto-rama is on the national agenda for the fall, according to my notes.
P.S. I was a bill collector for a couple of years. I’ve seen what happens when people try to live on the plastic when unemployed. I don’t recommend it. Pretend you are already maxed out, and take the next step; when in a hole, stop digging.
P.S.S. I gave up on hitching 25 years ago, when it took 3 days to go from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo, which is about 200 miles. Maybe when gas is rationed, hitching will come back.
We re-arainged our payments based on a change in days we are paid. So every thing is moved up a week. So on the first day where the old payment scedual would have been due… The fuckers call and say we are late.
Cool stuff. Clearly, that machine is beyond my abilities to build, and the heddles it makes are not the kind I want. Those kind can be bought at around 50c apiece. Part of what I wanted to find out is if it’s possible to make this sort of stuff using only simple tools/materials and without reference to anyone’s patent bank.
This stuff (old expired patents) is in the public domain for your and everyone’s benefit. So you don’t need to reinvent the wheel quite so often (plus it’s sometimes interesting to see how we used to build machines back in the old days). The quid pro quo aspect of the patent system: limited monopoly granted in return for required eventual dedication of the technology to the public. People used to say that future wars would be fought over intellectual property rights. Ha ha.
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money*.” Cree native saying.
Good news & bad news on the oil exploration front. First the good news: per a geophysicist friend who gave a seminar yesterday, there is about 12 years supply of light, sweet crude off the South Atlantic coasts of Brazil and Angola, at current global consumption rates. The bad news: development will be expensive and production is about 10 years off. Most of it sits in deep water, >2500 m water depth, and is locked up under thick salt deposits that are hard to drill through. Amazingly, the oil was formed from shallow, probably brackish lakes during the initial formation of the South Atlantic (rifting, like the Red Sea) over 120 million years ago.
“Amazingly, the oil was formed from shallow, probably brackish lakes during the initial formation of the South Atlantic (rifting, like the Red Sea) over 120 million years ago.” –Dr. Doom
Well, Hay-soose, Doom! What the f*ck are we waiting for–let’s get in there and defile the beejesus out the place before it’s too late. I vote we nuke both locales and then skim the slicks when they hit the surface.
Yup, the news just keeps getting moron better for Brazil and Angola. Nukes not necessary, but drilling through salt is apparently a bitch, not to mention the water and overburden depths. They may be like the Canada oil sands, with very low to zero or negative net energy.
Here FYI is an exchange on TOD that I was involved with today. I’m D3PO.
JoulesBurn on April 25, 2009 – 4:41pm
There are probably infinite ways to define capitalism, but I would contend that the simple charging of interest on loans is capitalism — getting money for doing nothing except tying up capital. And interest goes back further than Christianity.
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hightrekker on April 25, 2009 – 7:51pm
We are talking about ownership of the means of production, not interest.
Profit is extracted through surplus value on labor.
But, I agree, as long as interest is involved, economies need to expand to pay that interest off.
That has been arranged in numerous ways.
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D3PO on April 26, 2009 – 12:00pm
“Profit is extracted through surplus value on labor.”
Which means the person(s) receiving the profit have selfishly kept it for themselves and not distributed it back to the labor which produced it, or they charged too much for it in the first place. Either way, it is disgraceful behavior.
Lovely campfire post, BTW. Totally agree with it, but there are too many humans now to go backwards, and most of the damage to the planet has been done.
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[new] hightrekker on April 26, 2009 – 1:25pm
Actually, it is about the people doing the labor keeping the profit, not having someone take it from them. If you participated in the organization and creativity of the process, you are also part of the labor process. If you just abstractly own the means of production through a financial instrument, you are extracting wealth.
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[new] kyhardhead on April 26, 2009 – 5:35pm
“Interest” is only another form of “profit”; both are equally illusory, just another iteration of a perpetual-motion machine. Until humans get the Second Law in their bones, there will be no change, just more rainbow-chasing.
The vast diversity and exuberance of life on Earth is nearly all down to the energy profligacy of the Sun (the small remainder due to Earth’s own energy surplus, and that mostly in the distant past). THAT is the only real “profit” we have ever had, and can ever hope to have. Any culture without this realization, and its honoring, at its core is doomed, regardless of whatever other merit it may have.
Humans have lived, and “thrived” (or at least vastly increased our numbers), by usurping whatever pockets of current and past “profit” we have discovered, in the forms of cultivated biomass and fossil fuels. Our numbers are now so great, and the usurpations now so extensive, that The End has come into view, at least for those with eyes to see. It may, and probably will, take generations to unfold, but it has begun, and cannot now be stopped, even with all our cleverness.
But, in my view, that is a Good Thing, and our only real hope. Nothing short of a hard crash, with 95%+ population loss, will ever disabuse humans of the pathological notion that they can get something for nothing.
We got a drug
We’re gonna try it out on you
Won’t make you die
It’ll getcha just a little bit sick
[Chorus]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it’s three days old
(Goin’ on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And years
Barely got the time now
To stay on the job
Double up the dosage in your water supply
Make you even sicker ’til you’re slippin’ away
Getting all depressed
It’s getting all your friends
You can’t get it up
For nothing that’ll rock the boat
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
Slip it abroad
Keep a-slowin’ down the USSR
But meanwhile
We’ll keep an eye
On what it’s doin’ to you
[Chorus]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it’s three days old
(Goin’ on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And years
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
Flew
Through
You
“Mahalo to the University Health Services (UHS) for their service today in light of the one UH Manoa student testing positive for H1N1 Influenza A virus, as reported yesterday. UHS saw slightly more than 50 people today with a variety of health concerns; in those individuals with influenza symptoms, no Influenza A virus was detected based on the rapid detection test.
That is reassuring. However, because H1N1 virus is in the community, all of us must remain vigilant and continue to take necessary precautions to prevent infection and spread (see http://www.manoa.hawaii.edu). Also, if you have influenza symptoms (flu always causes a fever, and is often accompanied by cough, sore throat, fatigue and aches/pains), seek medical care, and practice social isolation by staying at home or in your on-campus residence hall or dorm room to prevent spread of the disease.
UHS will resume its regular schedule and be closed on Sunday. It will be open at 7:45 a.m. on Monday morning (see http://www.hawaii.edu/shs).
Aloha! Chancellor VSH”
What’s going on? Is this like a dress rehearsal for the real deal? If it’s no moron serious than the regular flu, what is the bid deal?
My semester, thank God, is over and I don’t teach this summer. I can run my journal from home. I do have some grad students working on theses, but that is it. Hope you can stay away from the office. Nothing like hopping into the viral cesspool and seeing what gets blended up.
Oddly, you may be the right age to survive this thing, not so young as the ones dying (the young immune system goes nuts as you probably know), not too old to be frail and vulnerable that way. Was that politically incorrect to say? Is there a pie for that one?
Good luck colleague. Stay healthy. We need you in these here parts.
My hair is mostly white now, and I could lose some weight, but I am as strong as an ox. I’m a bit like that picture of the angry old man drawn by da Vinci. Was it a self-portrait?
No, the bigger threat is the real possibility of faculty furloughs, for perhaps up to 32 days, and we’re hoping they mean calendar days. If they do that, I expect many of our best and brightest to vote with their feet. Several in our school and department have already announced they are leaving UH.
Tourism shrinks –> state income shrinks –> state departments shrink –> state university shrinks. The math is simple, the effects are dire.
I hear that, I really do. They talk about our talent (in Memphis for Christ’s sake) leaving for elsewhere. I’m always getting emails that try to get me to join the union. What a joke. Never mind it is not legal for state employees to unionize. Where is elsewhere? They got another planet or something to go to? I’m serious, no where to run to baby, no where to hide.
But when they start talking pay cuts, I am grateful to have a job. Other assholes whip out that leaving shit. Know what I say? Bye! Makes the rest of us safer, nit wit.
You guys are a state college, like us. The tax revenues are in the toilet. You should see the CA numbers, something like down over 50% sales tax, 48% payroll. So screwed. It’s coming for us all and us state people are not entitled to more than the private sector. We work at the leisure of the taxpayers. If they hurt, we should hurt. Nothing else makes sense, but so many folks are sooo defendant on those checks being a certain number that they can’t see the bigger picture and cut down on their consumption. I’m ranting, but this shortsightedness, this misplaced egotism, could really ego us all out of jobs.
You are right, the math is simple, the effects are dire, bro (not grandpa pie). I’ve seen your picture on line. You look sturdy to me!
There’s a page I’ve been watching to keep up with this Mexican Flu thing, though it seems we should really call it the UPL Flu now since, clearly, we are the country with the flu-control problem: http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/
The link is rather interesting. The UPL is in the process now of moving up from 2x to 3x the number of cases seen in Mexico. No other country seems to be having this problem. Even in Mexico the number of cases seems to be leveling off or at least rising proportionally more slowly than here. What gives?
The CDC numbers, out later today, will probably corroborate this. (see http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/) I’ve been too lazy to do the same spreadsheet from day to day to see which states are having the biggest percentage upticks. The last time I looked at it, the numbers showed that 7 states accounted for around 75% of the cases. It was a strange mix of border states and rich northern states.
MOU, thank you for that excellent point about how there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It’s not as if there’s any “planet prosperity” you can flee to anyway. (Dale may be disappointed when he lands in Costa Rica and is promptly eaten by the natives. Is he depending on them remaining friendly to rich Yankee outsiders? Ixnay that.) Things are unwinding most spectacularly everywhere these days.
Looks like we’re back to the meteor strike theory again….
Humanity will survive the worst that influenza can throw at it even without intervention. With modern intervention, its effect declines dramatically. But the key problem of pandemics was revealed in this case: The virus spread well before information on it spread. Detection and communication lagged. That did not matter in this case, and it did not matter in the case of HIV/AIDS, because the latter was a disease that did not spread through casual contact. However, should a disease arise that is as deadly as HIV, that spreads through casual contact, about which there is little knowledge and for which there is no cure, the medical capabilities of humanity would be virtually useless.
Hey, Nudge, Thanks! My confirmation bias works again–it all comes down to money in the end. Too bad they always forget that pesky law of unintended consequences until AFTER they’ve screwed the pooch.
Hey bunn, Bif, howz about a pictorial tribute to the late great Farrah Fawcett on ZK? She was always pretty to look at. Dunno about Jacko, he seemed a weird boy, even by ZK standards. I know, standards, what standards? Had a few good pop numbers.
I think I am Indestructible. No visits, doc or dentist in a couple of decades. Mr. O, May I please opt out!
This is for you guys and the best of the Nanny state, ” I am worth more Dead than Alive”. LET ME GO W/O HEALTH INSURANCE!
Last time I checked my bankroll,
It was gettin’ thin
Sometimes it seems like the bottom
Is the only place I’ve been
I Chased a rainbow down a one-way street… dead end
And all my friends turned out to be insurance salesmen
J PRINE
Jim e, fuck that, what do you think of Contador headed into the final week (Mt Ventoux!) and how about those Schleck brothers? You know what I’m talking about.
Mr. Bif, The Good Saint, Never a better… Every time a see a green jersey (Liqui) I think of you. If RICO knows who Contador is Contador will win it. My last French cycling excursion was from the sweet (home of the nougat) Montelimar to the Med. and even though the MISTRAL was pushing me down I saw the VENTOUX and circled it! I see Fireworks on the 25th! On this day I see hope for a good teammate, Armstrong.
“There are signs medical pot’s increasing business legitimacy is crowding the market. A 20-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley now has close to 100 places to buy. “So many dispensaries have come along, the prices are dropping,” says one operator, Calvin Frye. Two years ago, his least expensive pot was about $60 for an eighth of an ounce. Now it is $45.”
——–
The stuff is effectively legal.
I’ll send Holmes over with his camera to get some pictures of this. But first he’s going to need a pot card and a new passport. Rahm’s hyperruthless illegitimate nephew is the summer intern; we’ll get him on it straightaway.
Everyone sing with me… “Newclusterdam heeeere I come!”
-bamaearl wrote:
Mr. Armstrong deserves much respect but who is the greater teammate? Not in the past but today?
I have said since his return that he needs to play pretty. This team has four riders within a minute of the Maillot Jaune. It is Lance’s race to win when Alberto fails, Levi’s when Lance fails and Andreas’ when all else fails.
When they leave the sweet city of Montelimar and head to that lower Alp in the East, this race will be decided and I predict that Contador will chop down his rivals just as the French did the trees on the top of VENTOUX!
If I were Lance I would be proud to be Alberto’s teammate and the only way Lance will win is to do whatever he can for his teammates…
7/13/2009 11:07:54 PM
Never been a Lance fan, but Jim-e, I have to agree that he has played the role of super domestique in great form, and has been a good sportsman throughout. Like him or not, he is still the true patriarch and boss of the peloton.
Sadly my favorite riders Jens Voigt was badly hurt yesterday in the decent of Col du Petit Saint Bernard. Onto the pavement hard and at 55mph. I couldn’t bear to watch the slow mo replay. I have felt the pain of that kind of road rash and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Wow Jim e, nice ride. I’d kill for the opportunity to descend some switchbacks in the Alps. Probably isn’t going to happen though at this rate. But you never know.
Bunn, its the last American dream, really, photos are a must in this situation.
What? Jim-e get a hold of yourself. We don’t care about no stinkin’ WARING. We’ll descend from the Alps like sleek lycra-coated banshees at high speed, regroup into echelon formation, and enter Monaco like gentlemen. If they can’t deal with that, fuck’em. We’re Americans goddammit. And we don’t need fancy hotels or guns, we live in teepees and play banjos for crying out loud.
Boom mikes are sometimes included in a shot because the film, when projected, is supposed to be matted, that is, the top and bottom of the frame is cut off in the projection booth. This makes for a sharper edge in the image. If you see the boom in the theater, the projectionist is messing up; in a dvd, the transfer was poor.
I was a projectionist as a work-study job at college, back in the day. Sweet job. Projecting movies, handing out equipment, helping the profs steal scenes from film to transfer to those new fangled VCRs. Took the Nagra that the film dept. had to a Dead concert. http://www.archive.org/details/gd79-05-12.glassberg.vernon.18874.sbeok.shnf
(not my recording)
“C’est un Nagra. C’est suisse, et tres, tres precis”
I guess you guys are thrilled watching old gladiator movies with the soldiers wearing Rolexes and the sky filled with jet contrails. The English dubbers could never get the sound synced properly either, so we used to get high on pot, kill the sound, and make our own dialog.
That’s where some of those precious barrels of oil got consumed.
Looks like the upcoming production of “The Long Emergency”, written by JHK, has got its first volunteers for the roles of Marie Antoinette & chums.
August 5, 2009 —
GOLDMAN Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employees to avoid high-profile spending, as The Post reported — but his wife evidently didn’t get the memo.
Laura Blankfein and her friend Susan Friedman, wife of another Goldman honcho, Richard Friedman, caused a huge scene at Super Saturday in the Hamptons last weekend when they arrived at the event before the noon start time and balked at waiting in line with the other ticket-holders.
“Their behavior was obnoxious. They were screaming,” said one witness. Blankfein said she wouldn’t wait with “people who spend less money than me.”
Another observer said the women were so impatient, it was as if they were waiting on line for a kidney transplant instead of a charitable designer clothing sale.
Friedman shouted at the event organizer, “You have lost so much money because of this . . . Why should we be treated like the $650 donors?”
Sources said Blankfein and Friedman had bought tables with blocks of tickets going for $833 apiece, as did many of the women who were waiting patiently in line, happy to raise $3.4 million for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
In the end, the hot-headed duo got in at 12:03 p.m., three minutes after those who arrived before them.
No word on how much of their husbands’ money they spent. But Lloyd Blankfein — wary of bad publicity over the big bonuses he and his colleagues expect to collect at year’s end — has called for an end to conspicuous consumption.
A Goldman Sachs executive was quoted in yesterday’s front-page Post story, “[Blankfein] wants to make sure we’re not being seen living high on the hog.” A Goldman Sachs rep did not respond to requests for comment left at the offices of both Lloyd Blankfein and Richard Friedman.
“The English dubbers could never get the sound synced properly either, so we used to get high on pot, kill the sound, and make our own dialog.”
We used to do the same thing with B grade horror flicks and martial arts movies. Get the el-cheapo weekly hire, tape over the write-protect hole, stick a microphone in and voila.
Best thing was when you got bent and were watching a movie that we’d hired before but couldn’t remember doctoring.
Not that I’m a gossiper .. oh, what the heck .. but I noticed a few interesting things in Jimbo’s column this week:
– his use of the word “we”, and not in the imperial sense of the word;
– his mention of an invite to cape cod;
If I had to take a guess on the combined meaning of this stuff, perhaps Jimbo really has hooked up with Kris Can after all. She lives somewhere here in Mass.
Nudge, she’s not blond, but she would make a fine trophy wife. Heaven knows Jimbo needs some female companionship, on and off the road, just like a certain other fellow we both know and appreciate.
Doom, there are plenty of non-blonde Stepford, err, trophy wives out there. In Jimbo’s case, since he’s not horribly rich or important, it’s not as necessary for his TW to have the WASPy, country-club looks that might be needed elsewhere, like in the rich spots of SoCal.
The other thing you may have noticed about Jimbo and his writing is that he seems to end a relationship roughly around the same time that he finishes a given book .. ie, he starts off with the dedications to [whoever], and by the time the book hits the stores he’s already broken up with [whoever]. Poor Sally was a victim of the finishing of WMBH. Who’s gonna be next? Will Kris Can be the sacrificial victim Jimbo needs in order to get through whatever book he’s doing next? I’m pleased to note they’ve managed to hook up despite the way it began with his public comments about her [gun] rack.
Huh, makes me want to get all these gals together for a support group .. we can make up some “I dated James Howard Kunstler and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and a book dedication” type apparel. (as the token participant who’s thus far avoided a relationship with JHK, I will volunteer to be the moderator .. once I understood that Jimbo can obviously be very charming when he wants to be [translation: when he’s trying to get laid] it seemed a sensible decision to, uhh, can the idea of interviewing him .. maybe it’s safer just to stalk him at ASPO gatherings?)
Department of Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
Thursday, October 1, 2009
3:00 pm, Room 200 Oceanography/Physics Building
Massive Volcanic Flank Failure, Megatsunamis, and Quaternary Climate Change
Gary McMurtry,
University of Hawaii
Abstract: It is hard to comprehend the size and destructive power of the ‘megatsunamis’ caused by the rapid failure of island flanks, continental margins, or bolide impacts. Oceanic volcanoes have erupted and created landslides over many millions of years, but within the Quaternary, flank failures appear to have responded to changing climate in the orbitally-forced glacial-interglacial transition period. In the case of very large shield volcanoes like Mauna Loa, Hawaii, failures also appear to correlate with finer abrupt transitions from cooler-dry to warmer-wet climate within interglacial periods: there is evidence that Mauna Loa’s south and west flanks failed in marine isotope stages 5 and 7, in a series of sections with a ca. 25,000 year recurrence, similar to Earth’s precession period. Previous paleoclimate work has tied Earth’s precession period to a powerful moisture feedback of temperate-latitude glacial ice, and suggests that precession dominates sea surface temperature variations at lower latitudes. This orbitally-forced climatic effect could increase the likelihood of groundwater saturation inside porous volcanic flanks during more frequent and powerful storms, especially in the subtropics, suggesting a probable mechanism for flank collapse. Mauna Loa’s flank failure started soon after its rapid edifice build-up at 250-300 ka BP, as evidenced by the Punaluu landslide. Two subsequent ‘megatsunamigenic’ landslides at 225 and 200 ka BP were followed by a 65 ka ‘rest period’ associated with the stage 6 glacial. Flank failures resumed at 135 ka BP, followed 25 ka later by the last megatsunamigenic failure at 110 ka BP (the Alika 1 and 2 landslides). The most recent Mauna Loa landslides appear to be the Ka Lae East and West, that likely occurred >32 to 60 ka BP, although no associated tsunami deposits are known. Globally, flank failures of oceanic volcanoes are recognized at the 100-ka eccentricity period of glacial-interglacial transitions back to nearly 1 Ma BP. These include hotspot and island arc volcanoes in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. These events imply a global megatsunami hazard, although such deposits are not well known outside of Hawaii, with the possible exceptions of sites on Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Canary Islands.
After the seminar, please join us in room 404, the Zaneveld Conference Room, for coffee and cookies, and to meet with the seminar speaker.
D3PO, thanks for the detail. I had to read that 2x to get it correctly. I suppose there isn’t time to have Roland Emmerich’s production crew (of the past production “Day After Tomorrow” and future production “2012”) to do a few video vignettes to show the effects of these megatsunamis, is there?
Nudge, I have a computer animation of the Alika 2 waves propagating from a “God’s eye” point of view that I often show. The best “on the ground” sequence I’ve seen is in the movie “Deep Impact” with Tia Leone. Always room for improvement there.
the only thing i really want to know is how m judge could go from producing bevis and butthead and office space, to making a piece of shit like king of the hill.
Brandon | September 18, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply
I’m still alive.
I’ve found a small sanctuary known as love for now. Been weening off the amphetamine… been finding little moments in time where my mind is a nice place to be and by extension this life, the people in it, etc, but it’s hard.
Been making great strides in my deprogramming from cult mind control… can’t go into too much detail now.
John Farmer’s book: “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11″
(CINCINNATI, Ohio) – In John Farmer’s book: “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11″, the author builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version… is almost entirely untrue…
The 9/11 Commission now tells us that the official version of 9/11 was based on false testimony and documents and is almost entirely untrue. The details of this massive cover-up are carefully outlined in a book by John Farmer, who was the Senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission.
Farmer, Dean of Rutger Universities’ School of Law and former Attorney General of New Jersey, was responsible for drafting the original flawed 9/11 report.
Does Farmer have cooperation and agreement from other members of the Commission? Yes. Did they say Bush ordered 9/11? No. Do they say that the 9/11 Commission was lied to by the FBI, CIA, Whitehouse and NORAD? Yes. Is there full documentary proof of this? Yes.
Farmer states…“at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened… I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. This is not spin.”
The 9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, was the Republican governor of New Jersey. He had the following to say… “We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth. . . ” When Bush’s own handpicked commission failed to go along with the cover up and requested a criminal investigation, why was nothing done?
9/11 Commission member and former US Senator, Bob Kerrey, says, “No one is more qualified to write the definitive book about the tragedy of 9/11 than John Farmer. Fortunately, he has done so. Even more fortunately the language is clear, alive and instructive for anyone who wants to make certain this never happens again.”
With the only “official” 9/11 report now totally false, where do we go from here? Who is hurt by these lies? The families of the victims of 9/11 have fought, for years, to get to the truth. For years, our government has hidden behind lies and secrecy to deny them closure.
In 2006, The Washington Post reported…”Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission…”
What does Farmer’s book tell us? Farmer offers no solutions, only a total and full rejection of what was told and his own his own ideas concerning the total failure of honesty on the part of the government, a government with something to hide.
AU, Nudge set up a permanent 911 thread (as permanent as can be in the bloggosphere) over at Future Townies. I’d like to see this posted there, as well.
Two, more probably three of the four ZK editors are into denial over 911, so I doubt this post will get much response here.
in fact, if those norda pilots are anything like me, they like to lie. especially if they’re out at the whorehouse when they’re supposed be in the hanger polishing the various knobs and buttons on there areoplanes.
“inquisitiveness on all other matters large and small”
Yeah, you got me there. Recently I even thought about searching, purely out of curiosity, for additional prior art to your patents (i.e., relevant references not considered by the examiner [them gubmint workers with finite time to devote to each case almost always miss something!$!]), but managed to resist the urge.
p.s. — I’m not in denial about anything, and certainly not about the potential for government employee/actor incompetence.
You might want to consider the possibility that your thinking has been unduly influenced by your emotions, long-held political beliefs, and general predilection toward presuming, for all things imaginable under the sun and moon and stars and even not thought of yet, the existence of shadow enterprises working in clandestine ways to advance malevolent treasonous agendas.
A good part of most deal making naturally happens “behind the scenes”. And eventually some figurehead surfaces for a signing ceremony, to break a bottle of bubbly across the bow of a boat, etc. As a practical matter, for undertakings having any degree of complexity, how else can it be?
Thus, in keeping with the same brand of logic that compelled our ancestors to assay witch status with accepting water, all earthly activities other than standing on a street corner wearing a sandwich board and ringing a bell necessarily constitute a conspiracy.
repo man is one of my favoite movies of all times. emilio is way better than charlie. if he comes out in favor of 911, then you can count me in too. that dick cheney is nothing but a two timing cunt anyway. i hear he’s been hanging out with m. kadhafi; you know how i feel about him, scary, scary.
BunnBunn, so even if the producers of the official 9/11 investigation tell you that its bullshit, there is no need for a honest re-examination of what happened? Either the now discredited 9/11 Commission Report, which was stonewalled by Bush, and cost less than Starr’s investigation of Clinton’s blow-job, is sufficient, for your curiosity, or it isn’t. What does Alex Jones and Charlie Sheen have to do with it, when the former NJ Att’y General, and 9/11 Commission member says it is bullshit? Alex and Charlie may be wackos, and call the official story BS, but this doesn’t mean that the official story isn’t BS.
Farmer isn’t the only 9/11 Commission member to find fault with the official story. Let me ask you, do you believe the official story? If so, why, when the damn authors of said story say it is bullshit. If you don’t believe the official story, why not a second investigation?
“So AU, I’m curious… what are your thoughts re: the mandatory health insurance in your state?”
I’m against it. It is a tax on existing, unlike other taxes, it can’t be avoided. I doubt the subsides to the working poor will be sufficient. I’d prefer a single payer system paid by general taxes, with the option of private insurance together with a tax credit for those that want to buy their own insurance.
I believe in health care rationing. No million dollar efforts to gain one week more of life. No triple bypass for 87 year olds.
Actually, I was referring to Steven Jones, not Alex Jones (Doom can clue you in).
The 9/11 Commission Report certainly could be and probably is flawed to some degree, but that doesn’t mean the relevant conspiracy theories are true.
If I had been a Commission member and thought that the report was criminal or fraudulent, I would have resigned immediately and demanded that my name be disassociated with the report. Yes, I certainly can attack their credibility, especially when they start popping up years later with books to sell.
If Obama wants another investigation, he will ask for it. Obviously someone fucked up. Even so, I think that there are better uses of taxpayers’ money than calling for a second investigation, such as helping working poor pay for their health care. But that’s just me.
“Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.
In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.”
My poor little bunny- even facetious remarks are gonna result in more aggravation than they’re worth. prolly more than three dumb mutherfuckers here think those others are even more dumber mutherfuckerers- but hey, my math could be off.
Doom, if you are in love with Steve Jones and his “work” so much then have dave give you some ideas about how to love it more. Leave me and my denial out of this.
Here’s a few snippets from the Newsday review of Farmer’s book “Ground Truth”, that I grabbed from Amazon. [the URL is a mile long, but you can look it up easy enough]
“…the author concludes that the failure to detect and prevent the attack lay in the [bureaucratic] nature of modern government.”
“…Farmer’s conclusion that bureaucratic government does not adapt fast enough to changing missions to be effective…”
“…he transcends easy generalizations to expose the fault lines in contemporary governance and point the way to fundamental reform.”
[yawn]
We already knew (based on the statements of some commissioners in recent years) that they were stonewalled and misled/ lied to, so in that regard the book sounds (I haven’t read it) hardly groundbreaking, though it does sound like Farmer may be serving up some fresh examples.
Cornered and caught with its pants down (regarding ineptitudes, possible missed opportunities, and negligence) the government created a kangaroo commission and then treated it as such. Standard. In this case, yes, especially deplorable. Still the book seems of little use for truth squad nanotech ninja believers given the summary of his mundane conclusions in the Newsday review.
Is Farmer donating the profits or are they going in his and the publishers pocket? I haven’t been able to Google up anything one way or the other.
I read the John Farmer interview by Brad Friedman 9/11/09.
[Some excerpts]
BF- Do you think there was proper accountability brought to the folks who did drop the ball before 9/11?
JF- Well, you know, I think, again, if you read the book as a whole, I think if there’s a villain in the book, other than Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, who are- we can never forget are the principal villains, but it’s- it’s bureaucracy itself. And I don’t think enough has been done to sort of ‘reinvent’ government, that was the term used in the 90’s, and it was a recognition that, you know, in the post cold-war period, the threats were likely to arise asymmetrically and there was a need to reconfigure government, and there were efforts being made but they didn’t go far enough and they were not effective, so, uh- the answer to your question, in my view, is I think a lot more needs to be done, and it has to be at a very, very fundamental level because bureaucracy is the enemy of preparedness- and if I were gonna state one conclusion from the book, that’s what it is.
BF- So, it was, as you see it, it was bureaucracy- incompetence, perhaps- not necessarily malfeasance or misfeasance by these folks?
JF- Well, you know, if you had, for example, one agency that was- that was really responsible for the whole thing, and it totally screwed up- and- and- and I could see, then, you know, wanting to ‘let the heads roll’ kind of mentality. But when you see, as I detail in the book, in agency after agency, in department head after department head of varying degrees of abilities- and across departments- across crises, ‘cause you had the same thing Katrina- different departments- you realize they all had one thing in common, and that it an inability to cope with this creature that- that, you know, we’ve come to call bureaucracy- and when you have failures on that scale, I don’t think it really benefits anybody to start scapegoating people, because I think that actually, uh, lets bureaucracy off the hook.
BF- Well, you know, there’s a difference between ‘scapegoating’ and ‘accountability’- I mean, when people are warned, time and again, and as we understand the Bush Administration was warned do you feel that they- your feeling is that didn’t respond to those warnings from Richard Clarke and so forth, simply because, oh, it’s such a big bureaucracy out there?
JF- I think you have to go before that- you can go- by the time that President Bush took office, remember, that the Al Qaeda conspirators had essentially ‘run the gauntlet’ of our trillion dollar early warning system. They had managed throughout the 90’s to elude detection by the NSA, the CIA, by one of the hundreds of military bases that we have stationed around the world to provide early warning. They had managed to go through- get through customs, they had managed to get into the country- so that by the time the summer of 2001 came along they had basically run the gauntlet through every better-funded department than FAA and NORAD, and at the end of the day, we had probably two of the least well-funded organizations in the government that ended up having to fight the war that day.
***
BF- And are you satisfied, finally, with the answers to those discrepancies and why they existed, why NORAD did fail on that day?
JF- Well, you know, I think you have to distinguish between what they actually did that day and what they- and, and what the- the government told people they did, uh, because, uhv, you know, y-y-once you- and what the book does, at a level of detail the Commission couldn’t because the material was still classified at the time the Commission Report came out, and has since been declassified- it lays out exactly who said what to whom, and how the reaction took place, uh, and you basically are left with a lot of empathy for these folks, um, in NORAD, who had to react on the fly- to a situation they were not really trained to react to.
let’s not act rashly here bunnbunn. i think we all need to sit back and wait to hear what e. estavez has to say on the matter. cooler heads must prevail.
Hi. Why was my last comment on this thread deleted? Who deleted it and for what reasons? My comment was a reply to Bif and included a repsonse to a comment made by Holmes/bunnbunn. Why was it deleted?
“My suggestion is to set up an area for conspiracy theories or the like…”
EE, usually I like your ideas, but what’s the point of that? Just to turn this place into another CFN or truther magnet site? I’ll be packing my bags and going elsewhere the day that happens. Is there no sanctuary from that shit anywhere?
And Doom, if you want to know why your comment got erased it is because I’ve had it with your ceaseless attempts to disclose my personal information in a public forum. You stick to the facts and leave my real world identity out of this argument and we won’t have any problems. okay? You want me to reciprocate in kind, leveraging every fucking point that I have to make off something that relates to your profession, personal circumstances, etc. Just keep it up. Keep attacking the status of the commentator, rather than the content. Believe me, you are equally vulnerable to this sort of attack, so shut the fuck up if you can’t stick to the merits of the discussion and insist on taking every little piss ant opportunity to impugn my personal status. Go ahead and post your comment again. If you keep trying to divert the discussion toward revealing personal information about me or any other poster, I will redact those portions of your remarks so long as I am empowered to do so. My motivations and beliefs are fair game. Can’t you understand the difference between motivations and beliefs and blabbing your mouth off about people’s personal information in a public forum? For fuck’s sake you’ve been doing this forever and keep getting slapped for it and still don’t get it. Go ahead and keep sparring with me, leveraging your arguments with my personal facts, as you seem compelled to do for your own personal and petty reasons. Henceforth, I will take whatever measures I need to put an end to this shitball style of exchange.
I’m rather confused. I started this with “Sorry to bring this up again. Ignore it if you want to, nothing will be done about it. Does anyone still believe the official story?”
Doom then says some here on ZK are in denial regarding 9/11.
BunnBunn goes ballistic, claiming that he is not such a naive bunny to not understand the incompetency government is capable of, and of course the 9/11 Commission Report is flawed. Bunn cites the commission questioning whether criminal actions were committed by witnesses lying under oath. Says O can call for a new investigation if he wants to, but, as far as BunnBunn is concerned, …uh nothing, no call for a new investigation. Reading between the lines, BunnBunn doesn’t want a new investigation, since he writes -“fraudulent” 911 Commission Report- and “Well, if 2.5 Men and a Baby Hooker Luvin’ Charlie fucking Sheen is demanding a new investigation, you had best get cracking, BHO”. This condescending tone makes plain Bunn’s viewpoint that there is no need for a new investigation. It seems that BunnBunn doesn’t believe the official report, knows that it is full of lies and spin, but doesn’t feel the need for a true accounting of the murder of ~3000 Americans, and the root rationale for a coupla pissant wars, abrogation of the Bill of Rights, etc. There can’t be a conspiracy, ‘cuz, uh…, LEAVE ME ALONE!
Then there is all this Dr Doom vs. BunnBunn “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe” IRS/ Patent Office / personal info / please go get a room for yourselves crap.
Dave chimes in with a logical fallacy, a feeble attempt to denigrate anyone that questions 9/11. A strawman argument. I’m surprised that Dave doesn’t claim he was operating the hologram projectors down in lower Manhattan on that morning, diverting attention away from the cruise missiles that hit all three of the buildings that collapsed.
Here’s a syllogism for Dave:
The Commission Report explains 9/11.
The Commission Report is flawed.
Therefore, we don’t have a complete explanation of 9/11.
It seems that BB thinks only two views are possible- the Official Story, flawed as it may be, and Dick Cheney personally planting nano-thermite behind each urinal in the WTC. It’s confusing, sometimes Bunn seems to say we are being lied to, and other times, Bunn seems to be saying anything beyond the Official Story is paranoid rubbish. There are many different alternate explanations, not all theories involve thermate and pre-planned demolition. I can see the attraction to physical evidence proving the involvement of the US government in 9/11, but it is not the only path of investigation possible leading to a government complicity. I think there is a lot of dis-information designed to lead people to call 9/11 questioners crack-pots. This muddies the waters. False dichotomy. The Offical Story is one of incompetence. I thought ZKers knew what “limited hangout” means.
Perhaps I’m all wet, and you denialists are really agnostics- we will never know, it is futile to even discuss the possibilities, it is like arguing over the number of angels that can dance on a pin, the truth will never be known, therefore, why bother.
“Sorry to bring this up again. Ignore it if you want to, nothing will be done about it. Does anyone still believe the official story?”
A: retards don’t understand the differeance between matters of fact and logic.
B: many people are incapable of making such distinctions.
C: many people are fucking retards.
“The Offical Story [flawed as it may be] is one of incompetence.”
AU, you said it yourself. This is consistent with everything that I’ve said (although you seem to be confused by some of what I’ve said, which I guess is not that unusual [even for me].) I certainly don’t think there are only two views. I sought out and read an interview with Farmer to better understand his updated thinking. You should ignore the peripheral histrionics. I don’t know what else I can tell you.
As to whether I “want” a new investigation or why I might want one. Well that’s a more complicated topic that I may address at another time. Got to run…
Flaws can range from minor errors made in good faith to lies and deception.
Concrete examples of these lies can be easily googled.
It is ironic that some people that are aware of Peak Oil, a concept denied by many, are unable to reflect upon their own resistance to exploring the contradictions contained in the implausable 9/11 story offered by our government.
Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
i may be sorry for asking some questions, but here goes. what’s so implausable about the “official story”, so called? why would one think it so implausable? the story seems both plausable and relatively consistent to me. how does the story relate to “gross incompetance” on that day? what are you even referring to, that the airliners weren’t shot out of sky by norad interceptors? maybe you think that before the fact intelligence was ignored when shouldn’t have been? does this constitute “gross incompetance”?
i think the denial lies with those who refuse to believe that this caper accutally got pulled off, and pretty much as described. they want something more, when there is nothing more. “no, that can’t be true. you’re wrong. there has to be more to it.” sorry, but that’s about what there is. it’s like those who denie the possibility of overshoot and dieoff. there’s your denial.
Thanks for the ASPO link, dave. The NY Times article that JR mentioned a few days ago is an interesting companion piece (yeah, why not… I’ll call it that) to al Husseini’s excellent discussion.
“what’s so implausable about the “official story”” Dave asks.
I don’t have time to write a new synopsis, so I’m goning to cut n paste from various sources.
here it goes:
The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.
That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we’re talking about.
That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so there’s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!
That Jonathan Bush’s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it’s still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.
That George Bush’s brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.
That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama’s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things – one of those crazy things.
That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.
That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history’s little aberrations.
That one of George Bush’s first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps, even as the group’s guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.
That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.
That the company PTECH, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America’s Terrorist Watch List in October 2001, had access to the FAA’s entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack, means he must not have been such a threat after all.
That whistleblower Indira Singh was told to keep her mouth shut and forget what she learned when she took her concerns about PTECH to her employers and federal authorities, suggests she lacked the big picture. And that the Chief Auditor for JP Morgan Chase told Singh repeatedly, as she answered questions about who supplied her with what information, that “that person should be killed,” suggests he should take an anger management seminar.
That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration’s energy policy which bore implications for America’s military, circumventing the established infrastructure and ignoring the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.
That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, is simply poor planning and unfortunate timing. Fortunately the error has been corrected, as the order was rescinded shortly after 9/11.
That in the weeks before 9/11, FBI agent Colleen Rowley found her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui so perversely thwarted that her colleagues joked that bin Laden had a mole at the FBI, proves the stress-relieving virtue of humour in the workplace.
That Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear on the surface odd, but undoubtedly there’s a good reason for it, quite possibly classified.
That FBI informant Randy Glass, working an undercover sting, was told by Pakistani intelligence operatives that the World Trade Center towers were coming down, and that his repeated warnings which continued until weeks before the attacks, including the mention of planes used as weapons, were ignored by federal authorities, is simply one of the many “What Ifs” of that tragic day.
That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent, senior-level warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and governments – including those of Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Afghanistan and others – of impending terror attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the pressing need for a new Intelligence Czar.
That John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 on account of security considerations had nothing to do with warnings regarding September 11, because he said so to the 9/11 Commission.
That former lead counsel for the House David Schippers says he’d taken to John Ashcroft’s office specific warnings he’d learned from FBI agents in New York of an impending attack – even naming the proposed dates, names of the hijackers and the targets – and that the investigations had been stymied and the agents threatened, proves nothing but David Schipper’s pathetic need for attention.
That Garth Nicolson received two warnings from contacts in the intelligence community and one from a North African head of state, which included specific site, date and source of the attacks, and passed the information to the Defense Department and the National Security Council to evidently no effect, clearly amounts to nothing, since virtually nobody has ever heard of him.
That in the months prior to September 11, self-described US intelligence operative Delmart Vreeland sought, from a Toronto jail cell, to get US and Canadian authorities to heed his warning of his accidental discovery of impending catastrophic attacks is worthless, since Vreeland was a dubious character, notwithstanding the fact that many of his claims have since been proven true.
That FBI Special Investigator Robert Wright claims that agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution, that the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and that he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism, sounds like yet more sour grapes from a disgruntled employee.
That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.
The suggestion that securing a pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House’s calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.
That Afghanistan is once again the world’s principal heroin producer is an unfortunate reality, but to claim the CIA is still actively involved in the narcotics trade is to presume bad faith on the part of the agency.
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
That Porter Goss met with Ahmed the morning of September 11 in his capacity as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has no bearing whatsoever upon his recent selection by the White House to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
It’s true that George HW Bush and Dick Cheney spent the evening of September 10 alone in the Oval Office, but what’s wrong with old colleagues catching up? And it’s true that George HW Bush and Shafig bin Laden, Osama’s brother, spent the morning of September 11 together at a board meeting of the Carlyle Group, but the bin Ladens are a big family.
Newsweek’s report that senior Pentagon officials cancelled flights on Sept 10 for the following day on account of security concerns is only newsworthy because of what happened the following morning.
That Mohamed Atta attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell Air Force Base, that Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School, that Saeed Alghamdi attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey merely shows it is a small world, after all.
That Lt Col Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs of the Defense Language Institute during Alghamdi’s terms, was disciplined, removed from his post and threatened with court martial when he wrote “Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is…contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain,” is the least that should have happened for such disrespect shown his Commander in Chief.
That Mohammed Atta dressed like a Mafioso, had a stripper girlfriend, smuggled drugs, was already a licensed pilot when he entered the US, enjoyed pork chops, drank to excess and did cocaine, was closer to Europeans than Arabs in Florida, and included the names of defence contractors on his email list, proves how dangerous the radical fundamentalist Muslim can be.
That 43 lbs of heroin was found on board the Lear Jet owned by Wally Hilliard, the owner of Atta’s flight school, just three weeks after Atta enrolled – the biggest seizure ever in Central Florida – was just bad luck. That Hilliard was not charged shows how specious the claims for conspiracy truly are.
That Hilliard’s plane had made 30-round trips to Venezuela with the same passengers who always paid cash, that the plane had been supplied by a pair of drug smugglers who had also outfitted CIA drug runner Barry Seal, and that 9/11 commissioner Richard ben-Veniste had been Seal’s attorney before Seal’s murder, shows nothing but the lengths to which conspiracists will go to draw sinister conclusions.
That Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, was so incompetent he could not fly a Cessna in August, but in September managed to fly a 767 at excessive speed into a spiraling, 270-degree descent and a level impact of the first floor of the Pentagon, on the only side that was virtually empty and had been hardened to withstand a terrorist attack, merely demonstrates that people can do almost anything once they set their minds to it.
The mention of Israelis with links to military-intelligence having been arrested on Sept 11 videotaping and celebrating the attacks, of an Israeli espionage ring surveiling DEA and defense installations and trailing the hijackers, and of a warning of impending attacks delivered to the Israeli company Odigo two hours before the first plane hit, does not deserve a response. That the stories also appeared in publications such as Ha’aretz and Forward is a sad display of self-hatred among certain elements of the Israeli media.
That multiple military wargames and simulations were underway the morning of 9/11 – one simulating the crash of a plane into a building; another, a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings – and took many interceptors away from the eastern seaboard and confused field commanders as to which was a real hijacked aircraft and which was a hoax, was a bizarre coincidence, but no less a coincidence.
That the National Military Command Center ops director asked a rookie substitute to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11 is nothing more than bad timing.
That a recording made Sept 11 of air traffic controllers’ describing what they had witnessed, was destroyed by an FAA official who crushed it in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, is something no doubt that overzealous official wishes he could undo.
That the FBI knew precisely which Florida flight schools to descend upon hours after the attacks should make every American feel safer knowing their federal agents are on the ball.
That a former flight school executive believes the hijackers were “double agents,” and says about Atta and associates, “Early on I gleaned that these guys had government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose,” and was visited by the FBI just four hours after the attacks to intimidate him into silence, proves he’s an unreliable witness, for the simple reason there is no conspiracy.
That Jeb Bush was on board an aircraft that removed flight school records to Washington in the middle of the night on Sept 12th demonstrates how seriously the governor takes the issue of national security.
To insinuate evil motive from the mercy flights of bin Laden family members and Saudi royals after 9/11 shows the sickness of the conspiratorial mindset.
Le Figaro’s report in October 2001, known to have originated with French intelligence, that the CIA met Osama bin Laden in a Dubai hospital in July 2001, proves again the perfidy of the French.
That the tape in which bin Laden claims responsibility for the attacks was released by the State Department after having been found providentially by US forces in Afghanistan, and depicts a fattened Osama with a broader face and a flatter nose, proves Osama, and Osama alone, masterminded 9/11.
That at the battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded on three sides, Special Forces received no order to advance and capture him and were forced to stand and watch as two Russian-made helicopters flew into the area where bin Laden was believed hiding, loaded up passengers and returned to Pakistan, demonstrates how confusing the modern battlefield can be.
That the White House went on Cipro September 11 shows the foresightedness of America’s emergency response.
That the anthrax was mailed to perceived liberal media and the Democratic leadership demonstrates only the perversity of the terrorist psyche.
That the anthrax attacks appeared to silence opponents of the Patriot Act shows only that appearances can be deceiving.
That the Ames-strain anthrax was found to have originated at Fort Detrick, and was beyond the capability of all but a few labs to refine, underscores the importance of allowing the investigation to continue without the distraction of absurd conspiracy theories.
That the White House balked at any inquiry into the events of 9/11, then starved it of funds and stonewalled it, was unfortunate, but since the commission didn’t find for conspiracy it’s all a non issue anyway.
That the 9/11 commission’s executive director and “gatekeeper,” Philip Zelikow, was so closely involved in the events under investigation that he testified before the the commission as part of the inquiry, shows only an apparent conflict of interest.
That commission chair Thomas Kean is, like George Bush, a Texas oil executive who had business dealings with reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mafouz, suggests Texas is smaller than they say it is.
That co-chair Lee Hamilton has a history as a Bush family “fixer,” including clearing Bush Sr of the claims arising from the 1980 “October Surprise”, is of no concern, since only conspiracists believe there was such a thing as an October Surprise.
That FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds accuses the agency of intentionally fudging specific pre-9/11 warnings and harboring a foreign espionage ring in its translation department, and claims she witnessed evidence of the semi-official infrastructure of money-laundering and narcotics trade behind the attacks, is of no account, since John Ashcroft has gagged her with the rare invocation of “State Secrets Privilege,” and retroactively classified her public testimony. For the sake of national security, let us speak no more of her.
Odds of government being caught off guard on 911 AND successfully “solving” the case within an hour after the attacks- 70,000,000 to 1?
“NORAD was also conducting another war game entitled Operation Northern Vigilance that involved stationing fighter aircraft in northern Canada and Alaska to stave off the threat of the Russian fleet flying over the arctic. Due to this exercise only 14 figher aircraft were left to protect the United States on September the 11th.” ( Only goes to show that we won´t be caught off guard by the russians. )
That a hijacker’s passport survived the explosion and was found in the debris
That the Massachusetts Air Guard pilots scrambled to New York that morning went there at a fraction of their top speed, thus ensuring that they would get there too late, is just proof that the people who live on the Connecticut coast and complain about sonic booms are rich liberal weenies who care more about quiet mornings than America’s national security.
That those two pilots’ testimony before the 9/11 commission was and remains classified is just an unfortunate result of our national security needs.
– a flight school drop out managed to execute a high speed, high G fighter pilot maneuver into the nearly empty, under reconstruction part of the Pentagon despite the refusal to rent him a single engine plane the previous month (they said he had no flying skills),
– the absolute failure to scramble interceptors in a timely fashion, despite decades of well-established military and FAA procedures. The fact that Bush stayed in a second grade classroom reading about a “Girl and her pet goat” instead of cancelling the event and pretending to be commander-in-chief is damning evidence of prior knowledge by Bush, his staff, the secret service and the military hierarchy (or at least a faction of it).
– why the General in charge of Air Defense received a PROMOTION to run the “domestic” use of the US military (the “Northern Command,” established October 2002)
– why the planes that eventually were scrambled traveled much, much slower than they are capable of traveling, especially in an emergency (ie. after the second tower was hit but before the Pentagon)
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the alleged leader of the alleged terrorists (“alleged” because several of those names were identity thefts – the people named are still alive, according to the BBC and several other media sources).
– why Bush showed no reaction when told of the attacks, and kept reading to second graders (and why his aide, Andrew Card, didn’t even wait to ask for a reply from the “President”)
– long standing ties between the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, the Saudis, al-Qaeda, and between the Bush and Bin Laden families
– why the director of the “commission” to investigate 9/11 is a business partner of Osama bin Laden’s brother in law (Gov Thomas Kean, formerly of New Jersey, is a director of Amerada Hess, which is invested in the Saudi consortium to build the fabled pipeline across Afghanistan …) Even Fortune magazine has picked up on that.
– why the Bush regime interfered with the investigation of al-Qaeda before 9/11, something that FBI whistleblowers, journalist Greg Palast and FBI counterterrorism director John O’Neill charged.
From the questions for Thomas Pickard:
Please explain why the July 10, 2001, Phoenix memo got no farther than FBI headquarters. Why wasn’t the Phoenix memo shared with “threat subgroup” of the interagency Counterterrorism Security Group?
From the questions for Louis Freeh:
Why weren’t the flight schools shut down, or the terrorists deported, if the “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools” for years, as reported in the Washington Post, September 23, 2001…………..
Bill Clinton, former President of the United States
Why wasn’t bin Laden brought to the United States for trial when the Sudan offered to extradite him?
Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States
Please discuss the intelligence and concerns which spurred your contact with Saudi Arabia in 1999 and 2000 to request that the Saudis and the Royal Family stop funding charities that were contributing to the Al Qaeda…[and] describe the steps the Clinton administration had planned to take in order to convince the Saudis to comply with our request to stop the flow of charitable funds to terrorists
Governor Jeb Bush
posted May 2, 2004
1. Why was the Florida National Guard called up in the state of Florida on September 7th, 2001 in order to help handle “civil disturbance” and “acts of terrorism”? …………………………………………………………………………………
3) Why isn’t Saudi Arabia on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism?
4) Why are the FBI and CIA seeking to exclude evidence about Saudi involvement with terrorists (See Exclusive: CIA and FBI press Congress to exclude intelligence on the Saudi role with 9/11 terrorists by Linda Robinson and Edward T. Pound: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/usinfo/press/saudi.htm )
5) In what ways might our government’s policies toward Saudi Arabia have
contributed to September 11th?
6) Why was Saudi Arabia given preferential treatment above all other
nations in immigration? (Visa Express)
· What was the reason for creating the Visa Express?
7) Why were the Saudi relatives whisked out of America so quickly when
other planes were grounded after the attacks?
· Who gave permission for them to leave?
8) On September 9th the president had a war plan on his desk to go into
Afghanistan.
· What was the origin of this plan?
· Why was this plan drawn up even before the September 11th attacks?
9) Intelligence was told in March of 2001 to back off investigating terrorists.
· Who gave the order?
· Why?
10) Why did Donald Rumsfeld, immediately after the September 11 th attack, say that Saddam Hussein was involved?
13) What is the truth about the arrest of El Atriss who sold fake IDs to two 9/11 terrorists? There are discrepancies between the NY Times and Washington Post accounts of his arrest and release.
· Atriss is an Egyptian national who committed a crime. Why hasn’t he been deported?
14) Who were the terrorist informants working with the FBI?
a.) What did the FBI learn from them?
b.) What were the 9/11 warnings provided by these informants?
c.) What was done with these warnings to protect the American public?
· Why did Mahmood Ahmed, Director of Pakistan’s secret service, the (ISI) order Saeed Sheikh to wire $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta?
· What was Mahmood Ahmed’s relationship with Al Qaeda?
· Where did the money come from?
· Did officials in Pakistan know in advance about the terrorist attack?
· On September 11 th , Mahmood Ahmed had a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., with House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen, Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham. What were they discussing?
Three hijackers obtained visas under an accelerated approval program, called Visa Express at travel agencies in Saudi Arabia. Visa Express had only been in place for three months before September 11, 2001. Saudi Arabia is the only country with known terrorist risks which had this accelerated approval. Who initiated this process and what was the reason given for instituting the program? Why were incomplete and erroneously filled out visa applications of the hijackers approved?
FAA
1. A flight attendant on AA#11 notified her supervisor within the first few minutes of the plane being overtaken. What was the name of this supervisor? What exactly did he do with this information? Why was NORAD not immediately notified? What are the names of the individuals whose responsibility centers upon notifying NORAD in situations like this–on the local, regional, and national levels? Why was the protocol not followed?
2. Why were these four planes able to evade all radar ? Even when the transponders are disconnected, a plane is still able to be located by its “skin” on radar screens.
3. Was there a gun on AA#11? FAA executive summary stated that a gun was fired. This report was thereafter redacted. What is the truth?
4. Where did the information about box-cutters come from? How do we know that the terrorists were armed with these? Furthermore, why was the American public told after 9/11 that box-cutters were allowed on planes, when we have since come to find out that they were specifically listed as airline contraband? Who is responsible for this disinformation?
5. Where are the “black boxes” and the transcripts from all four crash sites? Why has the FBI not invited the NTSB into the investigation?
6. Nine of the hijackers were selected for special security screenings, two for irregularities in identification documents, six for extra-scrutiny by a computer screening program and one because he was traveling with a questionable individual. What exactly were the irregularities in identification? Which two had these irregularities? What is the name of the individual who made the decision to let these two men board the planes? What was done during the course of the detainment of these two individuals? What questions were asked? Was anything confiscated? With regard to the remaining seven hijackers, what was the list of questions asked of them? Who interrogated them? Was anything confiscated? What is the name of the individual who permitted these men to board the planes? Where are the logs and records and incident reports from these detainments?
8. Where are all transcripts from Air Traffic Control? Where are all logs and records from the FAA?
Secret Service
1. Why was President Bush not immediately evacuated from the Sarasota school, but rather was permitted to remain in the building after the second building was hit and this nation was under attack? Why was protocol not followed? Was President Bush deemed to be in the “zone of danger”? If so, at exactly, what time was he put in the “zone of danger”?
2. Where is the log and record of the Secret Service agents? Where is the incident report?
NORAD
1. At precisely what time was NORAD notified of each plane being hijacked? What was their response? What is the name of the individual who determined from which bases the F-16s should be scrambled from? What are the names of the pilots of these f-16s?
2. Whose decision was it to not utilize the F-16s’ weapons?
3. Whose decision was it to not fly the F-16s at maximum speed?
4. Why didn’t the F-16s intercept the hijacked airliners?
5. Please draw up a chart of NORAD’s response to the Payne Stewart Lear jet incident vs. the 9/11 incident. Why was protocol not followed on 9/11? What is the name of the individual who did not follow protocol? Where are the transcripts from the F-16s? Where is the log and record from NORAD?
6. What satellites were orbiting North American airspace on 9/11? What exactly does the satellite imaging reveal? What companies own these satellites? Where are the records and logs for these orbits?
FBI/CIA/NSA
1. At a point in time when there was a “high level of chatter” why were the NSA warnings not translated on time? What information was contained in the warnings, specifically?
2. What agency obtained the photo of Atta at the ATM machine in rural Maine less than 48 hours after September 11th? Was Atta under surveillance? Where are the logs and records from the Boston FBI field office for the months June through September?
3. What degree of probable cause was Moussouai being held under when he was arrested in mid-August? What is the name of the individual who turned down the request for the search warrant? What is the name of the supervisor who was overseeing the Moussouai case? Where the transcripts from the original detainment hearing for Moussouai?
4. What is the name of the CIA operative who delivered Bin Laden to an American hospital in Dubai in July of 2001?
5. What is the name of the individual who decided to fly the Bin Laden family back to Saudi Arabia on the night of September 11th?
One of the more interesting omissions in the huge report is its failure to so much as mention the total collapse of the 47-story steel-framed skyscraper to the north of the World Trade Center complex, the first-ever collapse of a steel-framed high-rise building to be blamed on fires.
One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers:
the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart. These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. [emphasis added]
The Kean Commission (9/11 Commission) was created only after 14 months of pressure from September 11 victims’ families, who for their efforts at first got the failed nomination by George Bush of Henry Kissinger as chairman. He declined, but the Commission consisted of appointees with obvious conflicts of interest, and was seriously underfunded ($14 million as opposed to the $67 million devoted to investigating Clinton’s stray member or $30 million for the space shuttle disaster). Its work was met with resistance from the White House. Bush met with the Commission only on the condition that he be questioned in the Oval Office, jointly with Cheney, and off the record.
The executive director and thus head of research for the Kean Commission, Philip Zelikow, is a close associate of Condoleezza Rice (they co-authored a book) and was a Bush 2000 transition team member who participated in meetings on the terrorist threat. He has now returned to Rice as a top aide at the State Department. The Family Steering Committee tracking the hearings called for his resignation due to grave conflict of interest in March 2004; this unfortunately went unreported in the major media and was completely ignored by the Commission.
Kean Commission member Max Cleland dropped out of the proceedings in December 2003, saying “Bush is scamming America” and that he didn’t want to participate in a cover-up by the Commission of what the government knew about 9/11 in advance. (Off the record he has since said the Bush administration knew the attacks were coming.) This also got near-zero press coverage.
The 9/11 Commission Report goes so far as to suggest that the issue of terror financing is irrelevant: “To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.”
The plain, sad reality–I report this following four full days studying the work–is that The 9/11 Commission Report, despite the vast quantity of labor behind it, is a cheat and a fraud. It stands as a series of evasive maneuvers that infantilize the audience, transform candor into iniquity, and conceal realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation. Because it is continuously engaged in scotching all attempts to distinguish better from worse leadership responses, the Commission can’t discharge its duty to educate the audience about the habits of mind and temperament essential in those chosen to discharge command responsibility during crises. It can’t tell the truth about what was done and not done, thought and not thought, at crucial turning points. The Commissioners’ immeasurably valuable access to the principals involved offered an extraordinary opportunity to amass material precious to future historians: commentary based on moment-to-moment reaction to major events. But the 567 pages, which purport to provide definitive interpretations of the reactions, are in fact useless to historians, because a seeming terror of bias transforms query after commissarial query–and silence after silence–into suggested new lines of self-justification for the interviewees. In the course of blaming everybody a little, the Commission blames nobody–blurs the reasons for the actions and hesitations of successive administrations, masks choices that, fearlessly defined, might actually have vitalized our public political discourse.
Sober or otherwise, you are so right to encourage AU. He and I are slowing beginning to understand each other.
For example, AU (to follow up on my prior cryptic comment), a part of me would very much be jumping up and down with glee at the thought of another investigation, especially a super diligent and broad in scope sort of mandate for inquiry virtually guaranteed to inculpate people going back through multiple administrations (at least three).
You wonder why Obama is “cool” to the pleadings of Sheen and others? No you don’t wonder. You know damn well that too many of BHO’s sponsors would find themselves in the net.
That said, I still think that the money would be better spent on helping the working poor, hell, any poor, pay for health care. A real investigation would practically shut down our government and cost a lot more money (and also other types of “costs” that are less easily quantified now and further down the road) than the first one.
Independent of the amount of resources that could theoretically or actually be thrown into this kind of witch hunt, I still think that we are kind of already at a point of diminishing returns and trails cool, memories fade, etc. I would wager that a great many careers have already been destroyed behind the scenes and out of the eye of the press. Believe me, adjustments have been made. Could further adjustments be made? Of course. Would an additional investigation, given the totality of its likely consequences, help bring a net improvement in things via enhancements to national security-oriented adjustments and the like? I doubt it.
“Sober or otherwise, you are so right to encourage AU. He and I are slowing beginning to understand each other.” –bunnbunn
bunn-
Hm-m-mm-m. Have I mixed something up? I thought AU was one of the Ladies of ZK.
Politics, Power, Privilege, Petroleum, Playacting, Posturing, etc…. I urge you all to read this article on how the very rich–and the very powerful–are different from you and me and live their lives in complete fantasy.
Wow! William Manchester! I definitely have to read this.
I’ve tripped over my unit before, but if I’m wrong about AU, god help me… I’ll have to start getting more sleep. (Moreover, I hereby extend a provisional apology to AU, to the extent that being unjustly accused of maleness constitutes, in much of the western world, anyway, arguably, an implication of defectiveness.)
Besides the truth regarding 9/11, I’d like to see some vengeance.
I cut n pasted ‘cuz Dave kept on poking me with a sharp stick. If I merely said there’s many implausable points, google them yourself, Dave would not do that.
If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
“Both to external examination, and chromosomally, I’m male.” –Autonomous Unit
AU-
Humbly begging your pardon!! I clearly have you confused with someone else that can be “acronymed.”
bunn-
My rationale for posting the Jackie/Manchester piece earlier was to continue the dialogue I started in response to Bif’s postings on some other thread. Bif blew me off but I’m a persistent little rascal as he well knows. What I’m attempting to understand for my own edification is how our perspective changes over time and how that process is or isn’t affected by imagery, among other things.
As an adjunct to that, I’m equally interested in written and spoken communications for the same reason. Manchester hit the nail on the head, IMHO, about Jackie being a great tragic actress. She played “roles” her whole life but was she–the chain-smoking, shopaholic, nasal-voiced arriviste–really anywhere to be found in them?
And, JR, along the same vein, here’s a little treat for you on another fraud:
The Echoes of War
A Conversation With Doug Casey
Q: Doug, I hear you’ve been reading the obits recently – what’s on your mind?
Doug: Yes, I couldn’t help but note the long and generally favorable obits on Robert “the Strange” McNamara, at age 93. The obituaries ranged from glowingly positive to, at worst that I read, neutral. I was shocked and disgusted by these things. I considered the man to be a classic sociopath and a war criminal, among other things. He was one of the worst human beings ever to have lived.
Q: Don’t pull your punches, Doug…
Doug: Well, I have to say that I take his death a little personally. In life, I find that the things I regret most are not the things that I’ve done – although there are some of those – but more than that, it’s the things that I haven’t done. And one of the things I regret having not done was back in about 1995, when McNamara gave a speech at the Aspen Institute, promoting his book. I wanted very much to ask him a question. Usually, I’m pretty bold about these things, but this time, I just didn’t do it.
The question I wanted to ask him was this: “Mr. McNamara, how is it that after nearly destroying the Ford Motor Corporation, then destroying Viet Nam and almost destroying the United States, and then going on to be the president of the World Bank, where you made great strides towards destroying the world economy, how is it possible that today you can be held in high regard and stand up in front of this audience without being pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables?”
Q: So what happened? Did he leave before anyone could ask questions?
Doug: One of the few things I can say in McNamara’s favor is that he actually took questions. I believe I could have gotten a chance to ask my question. I honestly don’t remember why I didn’t do it. It was just one of those moments in which I didn’t do what I almost always do, which is to confront these people whenever I have the opportunity.
McNamara was actually an anti-libertarian in many ways. You know, he started his career as a statistical analyst evaluating the success of bombing raids in Germany and especially in Japan. He was a big promoter of raids on civilian population centers, like the carpet-bombing of Tokyo, in which 100,000 people died in one night, and it really served no useful purpose at all.
Q: Do you know why he advocated that?
Doug: It’s a good question, because he later said that he had a conversation with Curtis LeMay, his immediate superior, in which they discussed the fact that if the U.S. had lost the war, it would be Americans who would have been tried as war criminals, not Tojo, Goering, and those guys.
So, apparently, he considered the moral implications of his criminality, but… he didn’t learn a thing. He advocated the same thing in Viet Nam – but the start of his war crimes was in World War II.
He then went to the Ford Motor Company. It’s often said, especially if you read the recent obituaries, that he “saved” Ford, along with eight other wiz-kids that were in the Air Force with him. But I don’t think that was true at all. The fact that McNamara and these other number crunchers were hired by Ford is, to me, indicative of the start of the collapse of the American auto industry. Previously, American cars were generally very good. The founders were car guys. They understood the way engines work and suspensions work, etc. They liked driving them, and liked racing them, and enjoyed them as products. That’s when cars were good. But McNamara was a bean-counter.
Look at it this way: he was directly responsible for the Edsel, which even today, fifty years later, is still known as the biggest disaster in American automotive history. It was his personal baby.
The only reason earnings went up while he was at Ford was that he was the first of these guys to pinch pennies, fire people who weren’t efficient enough, and do accounting tricks. That sort of thing. He was a non-car guy, running a car company.
To me, it’s shameful, the way people credit him with saving Ford.
And then they go on to talk about Viet Nam, for which he was directly responsible for the way we conducted that war. But there were other things before that. He was behind the Bay of Pigs invasion, and he was primarily responsible for the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He’s the one who came up with MIRV missiles, which made the Soviets believe that the U.S. was planning a first strike against them.
But his record in Viet Nam, of course, was a total and complete disaster.
Q: Surely the obits aren’t absolving him of that? Almost no one views the Vietnam War positively these days.
Doug: Well, they all seem to point out that he had moral qualms about it. But my guess is that they weren’t moral qualms at all. Here he was, attacking a simple peasant army that was living on dried rice and had basically nothing but hand-carried weapons, mounting B-52 raids, using all kinds of the highest-tech weaponry of the day, and spending gigantic amounts of money, just to kill peasants. So it doesn’t seem to me that he had any moral qualms. I think he wanted to get out of Viet Nam because he could see how hopelessly stupid it was.
Talk about stupid. Here’s a man that was highly intelligent – he was very, very smart – but he was totally lacking in wisdom. He had no common sense at all. He was a complete fool, the type of guy that I would have loved to see confronted by Mr. T, saying, “I pity the fool!”
He was a very intelligent fool.
Q: So of course they made him the head of the World Bank.
Doug: Yes, and when he was there, he quadrupled its size. It was him who was more responsible than anyone else for the fetish they developed for building steel mills in parts of Africa that were on opposite sides of the continent from coal supplies, etc. It was another disaster.
His career is a series of unmitigated disasters, and still, he’s held in some kind of regard today.
To me, this is a sign of how totally dishonest society has become. These obituaries should show that the guy was a sociopath, a criminal, and a loser, but instead they maintain a united front in speaking no ill of the dead.
Q: Do you really think it’s political correctness of sorts about respecting the dead, or is it that the journalists of today, being largely products of the U.S. public education system, are simply too ignorant or too biased to see the man for what he was?
Doug: That’s a very good question. It could be that the average person writing these editorials – and they are the establishment now – basically agrees with his views and methodology. So they can only nit-pick technical issues around the edges, while they should be attacking the very core of what he stood for.
Anyway, I’m sorry he died… before I had a chance to ask him that question.
I blame myself: I consider it one of the great omissions of my life.
Q: Maybe you’ll have a chance if there’s such a thing as reincarnation.
Doug: Yes, perhaps. He’d come back as a cockroach, and I might have a chance to squash him.
Q: Just so.
Doug: So, we’ve lost one warmonger, but there are plenty more. The U.S. is making exactly the same mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan as it did in Viet Nam. It’s almost a cookie cutter copy. We’re using all this high-tech junk – $200 million fighter planes, $2 billion bombers, etc. – to fight a primitive peasant army on their own ground. It’s exactly the same thing as Viet Nam. I don’t see any significant differences at all.
And just as Viet Nam was a major step closer to bankruptcy for the U.S. back then, what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq is the same – but on steroids, because the junk we’re using is much more expensive than it was back then.
Q: So, you don’t believe our savior Obama is going to pull the soldiers out?
Doug: There’s not a chance in hell.
Think about the gigantic bases they’ve built in Iraq. I mean outside the Green Zone. They’re huge and can only signal an intention to stay for good. And the same thing is happening in Afghanistan. This is all going to end badly.
I hesitate to call myself a political handicapper, though I did predict that Obama would win, but I do think he’s going to be a one-term president. Things are going to be so bad by the time the next election comes around.
Q: Can you quantify “end badly” for us?
Doug: The war with Islam is going to heat up for the same reason the Cold War with the Soviet Union escalated under McNamara. The more the U.S. attacks them, the more they feel threatened and feel they have to counterattack. And when they do, the fearmongers in this country feel threatened, and it keeps escalating.
I don’t see any reason for it to de-escalate at this point, though I’ve got to say that in this respect, Obama is at least marginally better than Bush. At least he doesn’t talk in such a hostile and antagonistic way.
Q: And he speaks English – he can even pronounce the word “nuclear.”
Doug: Yes, that’s right. But I don’t see things turning around at all. In other words, all these secretaries of defense and such will be taking lessons from McNamara, not learning from his mistakes.
Q: When do you think this might really heat up?
Doug: Well, for one thing, forget about Obama and his promise to win this war. The threat has metastasized; it’s not just al-Qaida anymore, but now it’s thousands of people all round the world. It only takes two or three guys to get together to hatch a plan. It’s sort of like “open source” warfare. They don’t need a commander in chief in Redmond, Washington, telling them how to design their warware; there are thousands of war entrepreneurs out there now, making their own designs, driven by what the U.S. is doing.
Q: That makes sense, but again, the timing is critical. In our business, being too early is the same as being wrong.
Doug: That’s correct, but at the same time, you have to diagnose the trend correctly, which I think we’re doing. That said, I think people likely to be plotting against the U.S. have a longer time frame than Americans do. Americans want things done now. Instant gratification. Those on the other side are willing to plan and take their time assuring their revenge. And they understand that the longer the U.S. keeps spending, the more it’s going to be bled to death.
At some point, somebody is going to get hold of one or more nuclear devices, or maybe a biological weapon, from one source or another. There are many possible ways that could happen. Then they fly it into the U.S. on a commercial airliner and detonate on landing, or load it in a perfectly harmless-looking commercial boat and set it off as soon as the boat docks. I think that’s the way it’s likely to happen; they don’t need ICBMs nor cruise missiles to mount an effective nuclear attack. But the time, place, and means are impossible to predict. There are millions of people out there now with chips on their shoulders. A lot of them are going to be plotting stuff for all kinds of reasons. So, you can’t realistically say what will happen; all you can say is that it’s inevitable that something will happen.
Q: Sounds like another good reason to move to Argentina. But what other investment implications are there?
Doug: Things haven’t changed much: buy gold, buy silver, and diversify your assets internationally. That’s the basic step. After you have a firm foundation with those things, you can start looking at speculations. Use the chaos to your advantage.
Q: Given how Vietnam-like wars tend to push the states that wage them towards bankruptcy (this happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well), is there a particularly leveraged way to short the government’s solvency of the sort you write about in The Casey Report.
Doug: Shorting the dollar and shorting long-term Treasury bonds are fantastic long-term bets. That’s especially so for shorting long-term Treasury bonds, as interest rates are still very close to their all-time lows, being artificially suppressed by Federal Reserve buying. That’s a one-way street where you can get huge leverage on your money, if you have a time frame of a couple years. That’s the best single bet I can think of.
EE, I’m sorry, would never intentionally just blow you off. I swear. I do remember your comment from a few days ago on the acorn vid thing. But to be honest I wasn’t sure exactly where you were going with it. Plus I’m easily distracted by all these Youtubes. Please elaborate.
If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
no, first i’d say: “yeah, well let’s see it”.
then i’d laugh at the scrambling around looking for something that can only be found on rense.com. whatta douchebag.
no, really au, do you really expect me to wade through those piles of garbage, fantasy, rumor, conjecture, inuendo, etc.,etc., that you posted further up.
let’s stick to the passport maybe. what might that mean, in your mind anyway?
One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers:
the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart. These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. [emphasis added]
so, i pulled this out of that pile of shit, kind of a random. this is just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant by the the 911truthers. the exterior structural elements of the towers served 2 primary purposes, to distribute lateral loads and to support verticle loads imposed by the ends of floor trusses. primary verticle loads were supported by a core of central columns. although stairs and elevators were grouped in this area, this was hardly a “hollow steel shaft”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
anyhoo, the core of the 911truth story, as opposed to the “official story” is something like: armies of ninja explosive experts, somehow, at the direction of some government offical, planted tons of explosives, all while remaining unobserved(and without leaving a single bit of physical evidence, show me a single detonator, just one). in the mean time, other GO’s where setting things up for the hijackers to both get the planes and ordering pilots to not shoot down civilian airliners, even though they’d never been used as a weapon before, so they had no reason to consider shooting them down in the first place. and let’s forget that various muslim groups had been trying to bring down the towers for at least the last 10 years or….
Or alternately, make up a list of those undeniably guilty of heinous treachery, crimes against humanity and your plain garden variety treason, exclusive of any 9/11 conspiracy, but likely a part of it, given the aforementioned manifestations of their various and respective character flaws or lack of human genome.
Then start offing them. They are bright conspiratorially inclined swine, they’ll calculate the link between the unknown unknowns, news will spread quickly within the incestuous cabal and as their ranks diminish in assorted gruesome, tawdry or Peckinpawesque ways, birds will likely begin to sing.
Blantant disregard for the law of the land is a two-way street.
Actually, it would seem too good for that particular bunch of rabble. Think of the dead pool dollars for our non-negotiable American Way of Life! Gawd, what a true conservative legacy.
♪ God Bless America (Come on sing it with me!)
Land that I love… ♫
AU:If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
Dave:no, first i’d say: “yeah, well let’s see it”.
then i’d laugh at the scrambling around looking for something that can only be found on rense.com. whatta douchebag.
no, really au, do you really expect me to wade through those piles of garbage, fantasy, rumor, conjecture, inuendo, etc.,etc., that you posted further up.
let’s stick to the passport maybe. what might that mean, in your mind anyway?
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For those reading this, Rense is a crack-pot, low-rent version of Art Bell, with anti-semitism thrown in for go measure.
Of course, only douche-bags, and asswipes get their info from CNN and the BBC. These sources are like Rense.com, ya can’t trust them. Unbelievable. UFO’s and shit.
Go to the authority, the US government.
“MS. SUSAN GINSBURG: Beginning with passports. Four of the hijackers passports have survived in whole or in part. Two were recovered from the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania. These are the passports of Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al Ghamdi. One belonged to a hijacker on American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed. A fourth passport was recovered from luggage that did not make it from a Portland flight to Boston on to the connecting flight which was American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Abdul Aziz al Omari.”
‘One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers: “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. ” ‘
This is from the Official 9/11 Commission, describing the construction of the WTC. Sorry if this was unclear.
Your response:
“…primary verticle loads were supported by a core of central columns. although stairs and elevators were grouped in this area, this was hardly a “hollow steel shaft”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
is exactly my point. The fucking commission doesn’t know what it is writing about, it is in error, on a really basic fact.
dave:anyhoo, the core of the 911truth story, as opposed to the “official story” is something like: armies of ninja explosive experts, somehow, at the direction of some government offical, planted tons of explosives, all while remaining unobserved(and without leaving a single bit of physical evidence, show me a single detonator, just one).
Really? You better read my long list again, cuz there is no mentions of ninjas or explosives. Many 9/11 truthers think that the controled demo theory is dis-info.
just one more little cut n paste, showing a 9/11 truth site that doesn’t believe in ninjas: http://www.oilempire.us/demolition.html
demolition theories
NOT needed to prove complicity
once the fact that 9/11 was allowed to happen was established (which was documented within a few weeks of the events), everything beyond that is merely detail.
the position of oilempire.us is that the towers were intentionally demolished by the Bush administration, but the method of destruction was allowing (and possibly steering) Flight 11 and Flight 175 to crash into the buildings. The sober and fantastical claims for explosives, thermite, and even exotic unconventional weapons are not supported by peer reviewed, independently verifiable investigations and are an enormous distraction from solid evidence. The core of the case for complicity has nothing to do with the collapses.
Farmer supports the opposite of complicity. Then why did you cut and paste that initial shit that started all this? Was it just basically to reinforce that the government lied, even though you would disagree with what he says they lied about?
You raise interesting things, but you’ve never been clear (at least to me)with where you’re going other than that a whole boatload of people lied, which I would say we already know. If the OilEmpire web site captures it then that might clear a few things up I guess. Because of all this I think you and dave have not exactly been sparring over the same thing. Where dave is going with pulling your chain I don’t quite know either, but all the shit is frustrating to read I’ll tell you.
Anyway I was looking at the oilempire link and its interesting that organizations and people apparently like yourself are concerned that the whole demolition ninja wacko stuff is discreditting the movement for renewed/complete investigation. It (ninja demo truth) certainly turns off my interest in about two seconds, I’ll grant you that.
Personally I think its unlikely that there was any deliberate enabling of the event, but rather if enough stones got turned over you might find that a new administration was pre-occupied with its newly aquired power and agenda, and because of its arrogance, mis-aligned priorities, and ineptitude might have missed a shot at possibly heading this thing off. Hard to say. The deer in the headlights response to Katrina might have provided another glimpse into the same kind of lack of forsight, weak leadership, and a resulting sheer depth of ineffectiveness in preparing for or handling crisis.
“Was it just basically to reinforce that the government lied, even though you would disagree with what he says they lied about?”
Yes. Another reason for re-investigating 9/11.
I don’t know what really happened on 9/11, beyond the obvious.
We should know.
I am angry that people like dave think they know all the facts they need to know to form an opinion regarding 9/11, when, in fact, they don’t.
dave thought the idea of a passport being found in the rubble of the towers is so absurd, it must be false, you’d have to go looking for a picture of the passport on a tin-foil hat site. Well, its part of the Official Story, isn’t it?
Its ironic that dave called the Official Story’s description of the central support columns of the WTC towers
“… just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant by the the 911truthers.”
Uh, dave….
those “lies, half truths and distortions” are the product of your taxpayer dollars at work, not 911truthers.
The two examples dave ” pulled this out of that pile of shit, kind of a[t] random.” didn’t work out so well, did it?
the passport wasn’t found in the pile of rubble. it was found down the street. if you bothered to look at what i posted you’d know that i know that. but so what? i’ll still ask you the same question as before, what does that mean? how might that be significant? just because you, or some other dipshits, don’t belive it’s possible, some entire new investigation is required? you’er going to now investigate the investigators? who’s going the investigate the investigators of the investigators when they come up with an answer that dosen’t resonate in your little fucking pin head?
as far as the structural description of the towers goes, it sucks no matter who wrote it. so let’s reinvestigate.
so, anyway au, i spent about 10 minutes trying to find that strutural quote, then gave up. maybe you can point it out to me.
anyhoo, honestly, this is first time i even looked at this thing. browsing through it, my first impression is that it’s just pretty standard buearocrateze(sp?) you know, blame shifting, ass kissing, making plain facts unneccisarily complicated, etc., so does that warrant a redo? is it going to change the fact that 19 or 20 guys managed to hijack some planes, fly them into some buildings and the buildings fell down. and what about that passport? i mean really, a lot of trees were killed for this one already.
dave:”so, anyway au, i spent about 10 minutes trying to find that strutural quote, then gave up. maybe you can point it out to me.”
Note to chapter 9, footnote #1
9 Heroism and Horror
1. For the WTC’s layout, see Port Authority diagrams, “World Trade Center Concourse Level,” “Concourse Level,” and “Plaza Level,” undated. For the number of square feet of office space, see Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” undated. For the number of workers and passersby, see Port Authority briefing (May 13, 2004).
For the dimensions, see FEMA report, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” undated. In addition, the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart.These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building.The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. Ibid. For stairwells and elevators, see Port Authority response to Commission interrogatory, May 2004.
dave, you share Bush’s original stonewalling viewpoint. Nothing to see here, move on.
Let me presume to summarize your thoughts.
You’d expect to find a photo of a hijacker’s passport only on a crackpot’s web site, but you aren’t concerned to see it in the official report. You call the structural description of the towers “just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant “, not knowing at the time you wrote this that it was provided by the Official Story. You don’t hold the Official Story in very high regards, do you? But that’s ok, because we can’t have endless recursive investigations. One flawed investigation full of lies, half truths, and distortions is sufficient.
The extent of your personal 9/11 inquiry has until now, not included the official report and not included the well known miraculous passport. I guess this level of shallow reflection explains your opinion that the purpose of investigating 9/11 is to somehow “change the fact that 19 or 20 guys managed to hijack some planes, fly them into some buildings and the buildings fell down.” and not to find out what really happened. The past can not be changed, therefore, no need to know the past. Understanding history is of so little value.
A little cognitive dissonance, here? You ridiculed both the pastport issue and the commission’s discription of the WTC construction before you knew these nuggets were part of the Official Story. But the Commission’s report is ok by you.
I’ve had enough of the ad hominems, I suggest the awarding of points for this round, and returning to our corners.
no, i supplied indepent verification of the passport story from a source that i consider reliable. that’s what i did.
i admitted the comission’s, if that was the only structural description of the towers in the report, sucked. it’s over 500 pages, haven’t read, and i have no intention of doing so. you want more?
so keep crying for a redo. do you really think that you’re going to get something better?
and you still refuse to think about why, or why not, the passport is significant. was it blown clear or planted? what do you think? and why might it matter? i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.
i think that one of the hijacker’s buddies planted it to make sure that the right people got credit. that’s what i think.
Dave wrote:”i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.”
I brought it up in the sense that it was mentioned in a list of hundreds of anomalies. You highlighted it.
Dave wrote:”no, i supplied indepent verification of the passport story from a source that i consider reliable. that’s what i did.”
What do you mean? The links to the photos, BBC, CNN, and the Commission’s report were provided by me, not you.
Implausable events do occur. They are just unlikely to occur. The more implausable events strung together, the more likely I am to not believe.
Details of rescuers’ grisly finds since Tuesday began to emerge. Among them were a pair of hands, bound together, found on a rooftop, authorities said.
The New York Times reported Saturday that one rescuer found the body of a flight attendant, whose hands were also bound. Another worker told the paper he had found the remains of people strapped in what seemed to be airplane seats.
Dazed firefighters showed the strain of their fruitless hunt for life. “They’re drained,” said Greg Shriver, a firefighter who traveled down from Connecticut to help. “They have to rest up to go back. They’ve lost a lot of brothers.”
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FYI: There were several other Saudi hijacker passports found in varying states of preservation according to the pieces I read. One was at the Flight 93 site in PA.
A friend of mine who lives within blocks of the former WTC was being evacuated when the second plane hit. She wound up having a single finger drop on her and subsequently turned it in to authorities. The finger was DNA tested, and matched that of a woman who worked in the WTC. My friend ultimately conversed a number of times with the deceased woman’s husband.
My niece and her boyfriend were both working in Lower Manhattan and had to walk from there back up to their apartment somewhere up near the GW Bridge over the Hudson.
As I posted at least once at CFN and maybe here, I could see the smoke from the Pentagon out my apartment window, I wandered around town the rest of the day with a friend (it was a ghost town except for the camoflaged humvees and their soldiers), and watched the Pentagon burn that evening from a friend’s roof; I know folks who worked there–some of whom had to get home on foot and whose colleagues were killed in the building.
If I were a gambler, I would wager that with this situation–much like the Kennedy and King Assassinations but even more hyper-real–everyone in this country had a different perception and experience of what happened that day, including the terrorists and their immediate victims.
That’s part of what I’ve been trying to articulate, Bif. What are the effects of the media on our perceptions and our reality. More later on this.
Dave wrote:”i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.”
AU:I brought it up in the sense that it was mentioned in a list of hundreds of anomalies. You highlighted it.
Let me clarify. Dave highlighted it by mocking me. I first posted a long list, then justified cut n pasting it because if I got into specific details, like the passport issue, dave would only mock each issue I brought up, and I didn’t have time to do an original post on all the questions I have. I gave a fictional response from dave as an example of the mocking I correctly knew would be his response.. Dave then firmly bit into that hook(the passport issue), although I really wasn’t trolling for a bite. Dave picked the faulty discription of the towers’ construction all by himself.
no, you just don’t look; and you still can’t form a thought about it, can you? i mean shit, i gave a very plausable explanation, what’s yours? dick cheney left it there to throw the fbi off his trail? i’m going back to douchebag for you.
oh yeah, i forgot. you don’t know how to think for yourself. that’s why you need another set of government geeks to package things the way you want to see them in another report.
here i’ll pick one for you. since you went through all the trouble of copying the work of some other pin heads. wait a minute. here, i think that this is first on your list:
“The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.”
so if mr. springman’s claims are valid, at a minimum he should be able to at least produce a set of names, maybe cia operatives and “al-qaeda” members. maybe give it to alex jones so he can post them on his web site, i guess. if he was half way good he would have dates. if he was real good, he have copies. otherwise, he has accusations.
so if i read this asshole right, he left the state department in 1991. names no names. has repeated the same pakastain and sudanese story over and over again to any shitstain on earth who will listen, like you au, for the last 18 years. this is good. go ahead, pick something, you piece of dogshit.
wo fat not understand round eyes. Beat each other over head for water over dam and under bridge. wo fat just want pretty blonde with blue eyes and small feet to walk on wo fat.
Do you want me to “pick an anomaly” or do you want to talk about the visa office in Saudi Arabia?
dave wrote:”so if mr. springman’s claims are valid, at a minimum he should be able to at least produce a set of names, maybe cia operatives and “al-qaeda” members.”
Why don’t we just let the 9/11 Commission tell us about al-qaeda members getting visas? That’s fair, right?
Tell me why you doubt the granting of Visas in S.A. couldn’t be controlled by the CIA.
Tell me why you doubt Michael Springman, who complained about this before 9/11.
Conclusion
The Director of the FBI testified that “[e]ach of the hijackers … came easily and lawfully
from abroad.” The Director of Central Intelligence described 17 of the 19 hijackers as
“clean.” We believe the information we have provided today gives the Commission the
opportunity to reevaluate those statements. Based on our evaluation of the hijackers’
travel documents, the visa process, the entries into the United States, and the compliance
with immigration law while the attackers were here, we have a few observations.
Considered collectively, the 9/11 hijackers:
· Included among them known al Qaeda operatives who could have been
watchlisted;
· Presented passports “manipulated in a fraudulent manner;”
· Presented passports with “suspicious indicators” of extremism;
· Made detectable false statements on their visa applications;
· Were pulled out of the travel stream and given greater scrutiny by border
officials;
· Made false statements to border officials to gain entry to the United States; and
· Violated immigration laws while inside the United States.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm
My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for them to return.
…
The INS
Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.
With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers’ visas should have been unquestionably denied.
Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the “classic over-stay candidates”. A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, “Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances.”
Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, “classic overstay candidates still received their visas.” I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect.
Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply “student” failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the US wrote “myself” and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in the US as simply “hotel” or “California” or “New York”. One even listed his destination as “no”.
Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11th, 2001.
Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn’t happening?
Wo Fat, thank you for referring to us merely as “round eyes”, which, as a pure physical description unladen by any connotations of slavery (at least in this culture ~ it may have a different meaning there) unlike “whitey” or “darky”, is still more polite than the connotative phrase used among your people, “dog eyes”. Yes, we are dogs .. dogs that invent nuclear weapons and dogs whose imperial ambitions will probably decay with a half-life of 50 years or more, if the British experience is any example. All imperial ambitions eventually transmute to lead over time, as shown in the example of Rome.
so asswipe, again, what came out of your list was a whiny piece of shit, kinda like you. but, when you go to the report, which you want to replace, you get information that you consider valid, cause it happens jives with your preexisting biases.
so anyway, you said there are hundreds of anomolies, so called, by you, and you you went to some retard website and cut and pasted a bunch. so pick one that you want to talk about. there must be one besides dick cheney’s passport that you want to talk about.
dave, concentrate!
I thought you wanted info on the Saudi Arabian visa office, and how the US was ‘loosey-goosey’ on passing visas out to known terrorists.
Anyways, the 9/11 report doesn’t question how the ‘magic passport’ was found.
What are you implying? No CIA operatives work undercover at US Consular offices? Who is being niave here?
Dave wrote:”so anyway, you said there are hundreds of anomolies, so called, by you, and you you went to some retard website and cut and pasted a bunch. so pick one that you want to talk about. there must be one besides dick cheney’s passport that you want to talk about.”
My fav?
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta
The ISI director, Mahmud Ahmed, was on a two-week visit to Washington and met for breakfast at the Capitol on Sept. 11 with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees, Bob Graham and Porter Goss.
After 9/11, Graham and Goss oversaw the 858-page report of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11, in which the term ISI never occurs, at least not in the 75 percent of the report remaining after “redactions.”
The 9/11 Commission report fails to mention reports of a Pakistani connection, not even to explain them away, but at least it offers this gem:
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
Deep Throat said:”Follow the Money”
no wait, there aren’t any ‘conspiracies’ in the government.
au, i wouldn’t be surpised, nor would i care, if visas are or were tossed out the window in bulk. again, this is one of your “anomolies”, that was obviously addressed by the report that you want thrown out.
i mean, if even dip shit out there, even you, knows that cia guys work at cousuls, how is that an anomoly in any sence of the word. isn’t it just kind of business as usuall?
My fav?
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta
The ISI director, Mahmud Ahmed, was on a two-week visit to Washington and met for breakfast at the Capitol on Sept. 11 with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees, Bob Graham and Porter Goss.
After 9/11, Graham and Goss oversaw the 858-page report of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11, in which the term ISI never occurs, at least not in the 75 percent of the report remaining after “redactions.”
The 9/11 Commission report fails to mention reports of a Pakistani connection, not even to explain them away, but at least it offers this gem:
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
Deep Throat said:”Follow the Money”
no wait, there aren’t any ‘conspiracies’ in the government.
———————————————————————————————–
yeah, well, so what’s your point. that mahmood ahmed gave mohammed atta $100K. maybe, don’t know, but i’m sure they had all sorts of funding sources.
do you think that ahmed, if he did acctually contribute to alqueda, was there filling in graham and gross on thier plans, or are you impling that ahmed was getting the ok from graham or something to that effect? if so, again, you’d have to explain your reasoning to me. what go you want to do with rumor and inuendo, breath it in and shit it out, Iguess.
i mean really, do you have any idea of how many rumors are are started every day in dc based on who had lunch with who? i’ve seen very reliable estimates of 55 quadrillion, per day. you can look that up on google if you want.
none of this means there is no conspiracy or intrigue out there. fuck, from what i know politicians and women live for the drama. this is all why wires are used. if you coulda been there at breakfast with your handy little tape recorder, you would be a fucking hero right. alex jones would be blowing your dick on the front page of his web site right now. another lost opportuinty in the life of a 911 loser, i guess. of course they might have been just talking about thier golf scores. then you’d still be just a loser like you are already.
it’s kinda fun, i guess. espesially when you post such stupid shit and have no clue of what you’re talking about. makes me feel better somehow, curious phenomenon.
are you somehow offended? if you are, that’s just another sign of what a stupid piece of shit you are. you should think about that a little. oops, sorry, i keep forgetting that you lack that capacity, thinking that is. you’re real good at copying and pasting real stupid shit though. i always give credit where credit is due.
dave, you say 9/11 happened, more or less, as the official story describes it.
I say the official story has so many errors and ommissions, I can’t believe it.
The question is not “what don’t you understand?”
The question is what you think I don’t understand.
“you post such stupid shit and have no clue of what you’re talking about”
Just cuz it stinks, and comes from an asshole, doesn’t mean its stupid shit. Maybe its good shit.
We’ve been talking about 9/11. You claim I have no clue.
So clue me in, if it pleases you. As a kindness to a lesser.
They told me I was ‘trainable’, back in my school days.
“I say the official story has so many errors and ommissions, I can’t believe it.”
well, like what? when we start pulling apart you list of so called anomolies they just fall apart.
here, we’ll try once more:
how does the found passport constitute an error or anomoly? just because you don’t believe it came off the plane, does that automatically mean that it didn’t? if it didn’t come off the plane, where do you think it came from? why might you think that? etc.
the guy from the state department was listed as some sort of anomoly when he just recounting business as usuall, and he, and i guess you, don’t like business as usuall. bau is not anomolus and how might that detract from the report or the account contained there in?
the fact that some senators had breakfast with someone who is alleged to have contributed to the highjackers means what? that assholes can start rumors?
the commission report contained a poor description of the towers’ structural system. i agree, that should be corrected.
etc.
so, you see, as you go through your list of errors and anomolies, so called, and begin to deconstruct them individually, even minimally, they look more and more like the pile of shit that they are. you may not see it that way, and all i can do is feel bad for you.
but this is not the primary problem with your stance, imo. the primary problem is that if one set of government geeks and liars produced a crappy report, and it probably is a crappy report, what on earth makes you think that you’re going to get anything other than another crappy report from a different set of geeks and liars? you’ll put someone unbiased, like maybe alex jones, in charge in? don’t be so stupid.
charlie sheen makes a lot of money. you and him should get together, decide on what you want investigated, and do it yourselves. i guess.
passport:
Barry Mawn, the director of the FBI’s New York office, says police and FBI found it during a “grid search” of the area.
[CNN, 9/18/2001]
However a senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission later claims it was actually discovered by a passerby and given to an NYPD detective, “shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed.” [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004]
They can’t get their stories together. Whom to believe?
Of course, it’s possible the passport wasn’t a plant. Not likely, though. Just one of those things, in a series of low probabilities. Ever get a full house? Ever draw a full house five hands in a row?
The guy from the state department stating that it is business as usual for visas to be given to al Qaeda members is BAU. Ok, I’m with you there. Not an anomaly.
“the fact that some senators had breakfast with someone who is alleged to have contributed to the highjackers means what? that assholes can start rumors?”
Someone? He was the head of Pakistani intelligence. Who was not mentioned in the 9/11 report. Nor was the money that funded the attack, ‘cuz that’s not important. Even though we know bin Laden was funded thru Paki channels when fighting the Soviets.
“Some senators”? Like Sen. Porter “I’m not qualified to work at the CIA” Goss? The future head of the CIA? You knew that, right? Like you knew the passport could only be found on rense.com? As part of your exhaustive research into 9/11? You know enough to make up your mind, firmly, and stick with it. The fact that you call it a “crappy report”, without reading it, demonstrates your perspicacity.
I believe 9/11 was our Der Reichstagsbrand. As a good citizen, I’m sure you have no problems with that. I mean,
what could be the consequences?
yeah, i do feel bad for you au. anyhoo, like i also said, you should go find another set of geeks and liars and put together another report. good luck.
i believe that 911 should be renamed as dick cheney’s birthbay and that everyone should get the day off. at least all the assholes with a job should get the day off. you can count me out on that one, thank you very much.
They can’t get their stories together. Whom to believe?
Of course, it’s possible the passport wasn’t a plant. Not likely, though. Just one of those things, in a series of low probabilities. Ever get a full house? Ever draw a full house five hands in a row?
shoot au, i told you a long time back in this thread, one of the highjacker’s buddies on the ground planted it. geesh, i have to do all the thinking and all the cooking around here.
“Some senators”? Like Sen. Porter “I’m not qualified to work at the CIA” Goss? The future head of the CIA?
i always thought that the first rule for a political appointment was that the appointee be as ill suited for the position as possible. just call me mr. wrong again.
anyway, i also figure that i should head up your new commission when you get that going. i’m perfectly unbiased. in other words, i don’t give a fuck who did or didn’t do whatever.
Someone? He was the head of Pakistani intelligence. Who was not mentioned in the 9/11 report. Nor was the money that funded the attack, ‘cuz that’s not important. Even though we know bin Laden was funded thru Paki channels when fighting the Soviets.
show me one place ever in my whole fucking miserable life when i said that the money’s not important, you dirty lieing cocklicker. wait till i get with dick C. on this. he feels the same way as me and we’re sure to get to bottum of this. ok, that was quick, but dick says you should name me and the jones twins to your new commission. we want nothing but the truth.
The guy from the state department stating that it is business as usual for visas to be given to al Qaeda members is BAU.
yeah, the famous pakastani cab driver from nyc, only about 5 million of them, all alqueada of course. hadji, planted the passport on vessy street. seen him with my own eyes, but the fbi dude told me to shut my face.
then there’s e skinny black guy from the sudan. saw him living under a bridge and dropping id’s in minneapolis just last week.
yeah au, you’re way to smart for me. you got your shit together and your bases covered, firing on all cylinders no less. if you ever form a committee to form a new commission, can i be on it? you get to call the meetings to order of course.
“show me one place ever in my whole fucking miserable life when i said that the money’s not important, you dirty lieing cocklicker.”
I quoted the 9/11 report about money.
Try to read with comprehension.
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
I quoted the 9/11 report about money.
Try to read with comprehension.
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
so i said this?
but yeah, ok, how does that change anything? i mean the motherfuckers got the $ someplace, right? or they wouldn’t have been able to pay for thier flying lessons or buy thier tickets, right? maybe they got good tips for driving fares aimlessly around manhattan. boy you are the stupidist one yet.
maybe senator gramham gave that pakestaini dude $100k at breakfast and then told him, “here’s an extra 10 spot. but this is just between me and you, right? just like when you drove me around with that hooker, right?”. yeah, that’s what happened.
au, how many different ways can i say this? go get another report done if you don’t like the one you got, you and charlie sheen, maybe the jones brothers too. i’ll even help out on the steering committee, as long as the budget allows for enough single, lobster tails and hookers. but don’t keep trying to put words in my mouth, nor your dick niether, i don’t swing that way. but if you got a 18 yo daughter, chances are that i’d fuck her till the cows come home. ok?
If I could figure out a way to effectively control (kill) voles in the garden I could rule the world…or become rich…or at least successfully grow carrots and potatoes. And I would share half the carrots with bunnbunn.
You are a good man, GB, and destined for great things. I’ve often wondered if there is an economical and effective form of appropriately permeable barrier that can be positioned in the soil to foil all directions of burrowing varmint attack. In theory at least this would stop the underground assault, it would seem. As for above ground, well… how about a squadron of bikini girls positioned around the perimeter and armed with bb-guns? The hole, if you will, in this aspect of the plan is the cost of feeding and watering the women, and having to further equip them with active-IR goggles for the nightshift. Over and out.
oh oh, I volunteer to feed and water the bikini women, and supply them with BBs. they might need sunscreen lotion applications at regular intervals, also. Bunn and GB can split the carrots and potatoes.
No sunscreen needed. No BB guns, either. The bikini women will be working only at night, the vole is nocturnal. They will catch the beasts with their bare hands. Equal Opportunity Employer. Payment is one rutabaga per shift. Ladies, please contact Bunn, my agent.
Zulu Kilo
Hi St. Bif,
I am noticing your posts have much more bite than usual, both here and there. Is there more up than what appears on the surface? It ain’t my business, but sometimes someone else just noticing that you are feeling contentious and attitudinal can be validating. It ain’t all about 9/11 or us dumbassed southerners is what I am saying…
Or are we doing Fight Club tonite??? There is a jackass over at JHKs place who wants to fight if that is what you would like?
There is no mockery here. I do feel like you are more pissed than how you normally choose to share yourself with us. You okay?
Hi MOU, thanks! I’m good, no worries, just hard headed sometimes.
You need to keep an eye on Asoka though. Every once in a while, look out. I was at a Zappa concert with him a few years ago, up on Lake Geneva. I told him not to bring in his flare gun. He doesn’t listen to me though. We were drinking some of his homemade Ouzo that night, waiting for the Mothers to come on stage, and he gets up on some chick’s shoulders and starts chanting “McGovern! McGovern!” He’s such a nut. The rest is history. Smoke on the water. Fire in the sky.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9042
oh, go on, have a laugh on a Friday afternoon…
JR, if I ever even implied you were disorganized with this blog, well, please forgive my hasty jump to conclusions about you.
JR,
You gonna watch the movie about chopper?
If so, check the cinematic effects when they take speed – quite realistic.
Unfortunately when he flops his cock out to his ex-girlfriend and the detective they had to use a dildo or strap-on or something ‘coz even though it was rated ‘R’ they couldn’t show a real penis – go figure. Anyway, that scene totally loses its meaning.
For the others reading this, you just have to watch it.
“oh, go on, have a laugh on a Friday afternoon…”
Bartender, I’ll have whatever they are having.
Johnny,
Okay, you want critical, here it is…so the fuck what if the blog was “totally disorganized.” The real problem is that somewhere you have stopped having fun. It is yours. Fuck being a people pleaser. I respect your head, dude, you have great insight, but if you force your mental process into the shape of someone else’s expectations (read that “your perception of someone else’s expectations”) you will block your own natural creativity. It becomes a performance. Fuck that. Your brain works the way it works. When you try to please others you interfere with “having fun” and you will feel pressure and then you will get writer’s block. Fuck organization. Just be you. If your numbers are going up somewhere then what you are doing is kinda working, isn’t it? Don’t need to look good. What would Tucker Max say about this?
“Johnny, you’re being a pussy. Snap the fuck out of it, bitch.”
How is that for critical?
“this blog is totally disorganized.[…] At the current rate, in 2 months this blog will have a higher Alexa rating than ASPO-USA.”
D00d, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I second MOU @ 1930 hrs.
JR, I’m glad you enjoyed “City of Ghosts” (2002). I still remember the peculiar mood that this movie evoked.
[This is from an interview with the producer, Michael Cerenzie. I know… this is fucked up for me to be posting this… but it seems important. Bunn Bunn put me up to this.]
http://www.insidefilm.com/michaelcerenzie.html
“Pulling off the deal for City of Ghosts, which also starred James Caan and Gerard Depardieu, got Cerenzie voted one of Variety’s 50 Creatives To Watch. “The funny thing was I hadn’t even started shooting my first picture yet. I thought that it was joke. I thought they were calling me because my subscription was overdue.”
***
When the reporter from Variety met with Cerenzie for the interview he forgot to bring his business cards with him. “So now I think this is a joke. When he asked how I got into the business, I said, ‘Well, I started selling crack, then I moved over to heroin.’ He said, ‘Michael, this is a real interview.’ I actually called Variety and was told he was their special editions person. So finally I realized it was real.”
But Cerenzie felt it was totally undeserved. “It made me look at Hollywood in a different way. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong here. I know fifty men and women who have more talent than me that deserve this award.’ I’ve never really told that to anybody, but that was what was in the back of my mind. I said, ‘You know what? What I’m going to do is instead of saying I don’t feel I deserve this, I’m going to actually earn it.’ Sam Mendes had this. Spike Lee had this. So I thought I’d better raise the bar in the kind of film I was going to make.””
Agree with the others. If you want to see disorganized, have a look at TFM (the blog or the IRL version). Now *that* is disorganized.
Do what you do because you want to do it. The minute you stop, you stop being true to yourself. Hey, if you need some time to regroup, take a break. Just say hello on Monday mornings to let us know you’re OK.
You, JR, can be a real shit. What I like about you is that you are smart and have the courage to tell your truth. It is deadly beautiful. I drink it up. Here, there, what ever, all of it is just a head trip, keep it up. None of it matters. All of it matters desperately.
Love is everywhere
Inside a wine bottle
In a Carlin routine
In a B-47
I even fell in love with Jimmy Carter tonight thanks to someone posting as Jim e on JHK’s blog.
Everywhere!
Dave basks in the spotlight of EEofDC’s attention.
Sweetness abounds!
Everywhere!
Love is the plan, the plan is death. As Carlin said, a Zero sum game. Attach, detach, whatever it takes. Take it all too hard or not.
Love is everywhere.
Hope you can hear me. I am just another node of consciousness speaking to you. Nothing special. And still… love is everywhere.
Not a romance novel
Not a chick flick
Not a hallmark card
In a romance novel
In a chick flick
In a hallmark card
Everywhere.
Slow down, you move too fast, ya got to make the feelings last…
Paul Simon
Experience is all we have.
Thanks again for the blog.
That’s how Jim Morrison wanted to die. He was close.
King George.
Hey, Doom-
What’s the inside scoop on this? Are the pro-train folks just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?
Mayor and governor trade barbs over rail
Transit: Mayor takes on critics
STORY SUMMARY »
Mayor Mufi Hannemann implied yesterday that he is viewed unfairly whenever he assails critics, such as anti-rail leaders, because of his racial background as a Samoan leader.
Hannemann also called Gov. Linda Lingle “wishy-washy” yesterday, arguing that her support of an anti-rail movement contradicts her previous stance on the issue.
Lingle said this week that she likely will sign a petition to let voters decide whether to stop the city’s $4 billion rail transit system.
Lingle also criticized Hannemann yesterday for personally attacking rail opponents, saying that if he has a good argument for the project, he should calmly lay it out.
Full story:
http://starbulletin.com/2008/07/04/news/story04.html
Watched a movie on telly the other night…
“You kill bugs good, Rico”
EE, sorry to take so long to respond, I just read your comment here. Mayor Muf is pushing rail hard, it’s the one topic he’s truly emotionally involved with. Our repub gov keeps trying to act like Bushco Light, Bushco with a brain. I’m biased for the rail, but would probably short its chances of ever getting completed. It may become like one of those large moi (tikis) that never got out of the quarry on Easter Island. We’ll see.
I’m going long on electric bikes and food.
I have no way of saying this politely, but the “butt cheek” kissing here is a little overwhelming. And some people really appear to be content with their own talents and intellects. It makes for interesting if not tired/predictable reading. You should try to keep the bigger picture in mind more often if you want to make this site important reading [and if it’s just your own personal playground then treat it so].
But I am not here to slander what is being discussed – there is worthwhile discussion. Just think of it as constructive feedback.
With that I humbly say carry on (my wayward son).
Thanks,
DMD
“I have no way of saying this politely, but the “butt cheek” kissing here is a little overwhelming.” Note to regulars: please tone down butt kissing.
“And some people really appear to be content with their own talents and intellects.” Well, what do you propose? That we should hate ourselves for not being moron talented or smart? I don’t know how to remedy this one. I guess what you are trying to say is some of us are smug. Maybe, but then again, maybe it’s you, dear. [OK, some humility, please, everyone!]
” It makes for interesting if not tired/predictable reading.”
Thanks. Yes, after awhile, one can get a handle on other’s POV. We monkeys are smart that way.
Smug is a good word, thanks.
Yes, love yourself for your less than moron talents, but never be content with your intellect – that’s what I tell all of my proteges anyway.
And ‘humility never hurt a monkey’.
Wow, DMD, it occurred to me that if we just electrify all our transit, use biofuels for critical transport and food production, practice conservation, promote various solar, nuclear and gravity (e.g., tidal) power schemes, and close all nutrient pathways into recyclable loops, whilst limiting our population growth and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding all future, wasteful warfare, we just might have a chance of making it through this apparent bottleneck with oil and gas depletion, nutrient and soil loss, habitat destruction, and rapid climate change.
Then again, people are kinda slow to make changes.
Dr. Doom, Nudge, Saint Biff,
If we could expend less fossil fuel per kill, perhaps the die off from the war would be an energy net gain? Cleaner, greener, warfare. We will need to get with Nudge on that. Or Gunslinger and his virtual warbots.
Habitat destruction to destroy the habitat destroyers. Will it scale?
Was that smug?
I sortta saw it as irony and hopelessness, obfuscated by humor. I’m that kind of Monkey.
KoRnpone
“Wow, DMD, it occurred to me that if we just electrify all our transit, use biofuels for critical transport and food production, practice conservation, promote various solar, nuclear and gravity (e.g., tidal) power schemes, and close all nutrient pathways into recyclable loops, whilst limiting our population growth and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding all future, wasteful warfare, we just might have a chance of making it through this apparent bottleneck with oil and gas depletion, nutrient and soil loss, habitat destruction, and rapid climate change.
Then again, people are kinda slow to make changes.”
Changing transportation to electricity won’t solve the pollution riddle nor do I believe there is a “bottleneck” to get through towards the other side simply by using alternatives, but at least your epiphany is hopeful.
Korn: always choice music here in the cluster fuck nation.
I understand though. If I was called out for being an ass-kisser I would probably feel a little defensive about it as well.
And I think smug is still inaccurate.
DMD, if you are really JHK, then I promise to be less of an ass kisser, cut way back on the smug, and will try mightily to be less predictable in my commentary. It would be my way of showing you a modicum of the respect you, sir, deserve.
OTOH, if you’re another CFN regular in disguise, I’ll probably just slip back into my old bad habits soon enough, anyway.
Maybe DMD is really “dave” hiding being some capitalization? I’m stumped.
behind. Damn typos.
“DMD, if you are really JHK, then I promise to be less of an ass kisser, cut way back on the smug, and will try mightily to be less predictable in my commentary. It would be my way of showing you a modicum of the respect you, sir, deserve.
OTOH, if you’re another CFN regular in disguise, I’ll probably just slip back into my old bad habits soon enough, anyway.”
Either way, it doesn’t really matter does it? Kind of like how this site doesn’t matter. Then again I’m not just some crazy nihilist that raves about relativism and how words and actions don’t have real meaning because I was raised in the Cluster Fuck. They do, and I was. But that is immaterial.
God is genius. I am God. Lick my shoes. Woe to he who disagrees with my wrath. And so on.
Therefore you are wombatmissle back from the dead or his evil clone. Please don’t mess with our minds, wombo.
And who are you, the threaded suit that came to life? I was just reading through the archives and there is a lot of personality speculation and drama to your little club. Please don’t associate me with those people – I would die if I knew that happened.
Thanks
What floats on water?
Daisy Duck!
Who are you sir, that knows so much of science!?
No I don’t know who you are, nor do I get off on “messing with your minds” because I don’t generally stoop to hiding behind cowardly facades or presuming my attacks would be that deft or funny. I really am a Hollywood movie, filmed in 1989 — or I could be JHK, or OEO for the matter.
I’m not a science genius nor do I pretend to be. I can only barely spell my own name. When I need help editing my grammar I’ll be sure to contact the site administrator. I hear the customer support here is stupendous. This is on word from the online energy community.
Hi group, looks like the Club is going private. Regardless of that minor detail as to how anyone should be able to read it that way I like this new trend. Soon all of the threads will be this way – or not, and then I’ll go back to reading Rense.com. There world is a mysterious place.
DMD
-I like international food as much as the next person
Sorry, that’s “the”, approximately 64 chars back.
Yes, WTF with the lock out on the thread, “OMFG, I just peed myself”? Was that intentional, JR?
My advice: keep it wide open here, and go email with personal-confidential stuff.
Good thinking Dr Doom. Everyone else be sure and send me your email addresses. I want to be kept in the loop too. I know soon I will have posting privileges and will do the same for you as well.
Signing out,
DMD
Good day, gang. Do me a favor please and don’t freak out if I stop with the early AM time slot at CFN .. and thanks for all the emails the last time I disappeared from there. My work hours will be changing to earlier for the next few weeks. But I’ll try to do the gas price stuff by noontime or by evening at the latest.
Yikes, do we have JHK here among us? Too cool. :)
Nudge, perhaps, time will tell.
DMD, you can get our email addresses by simply clicking on our CFN handles. At least that’s how mine works.
If you really are JHK, I have not doubt that you will soon have posting privileges here.
Thank you, dear kind sir. I am very technically disinclined. Your services are much appreciated though.
I’m currently washing a load of bow ties and will probably return shortly.
John Hinkley Kennedy,
How is your load coming along?
“John Hinkley Kennedy,
How is your load coming along?”
Is that supposed to be some kind of cut-down? Just curious.
Thanks for asking. I thought of it as bait. Any one can type the initials JHK. You could be Jimmy Hendrix Kowalski. I am playing with you to see if I can tell.
You left a message that you are washing a load of bow ties. You could be mocking Kunstler, or yourself because you are Kunstler. So if you are not Kunstler but pretending to be Kunstler, you can interpret it as a cut down, as in “a load of crap.” Spelled out, that would be “How is your load of crap (impersonating Kunstler) coming along?” Trouble is, I could be very, very wrong and you could be JHK. In which case, you can tell us how the load of bow ties are doing! Do you starch them? Or discuss whatever it is you are working on. This is a great group here.
I tried to leave it open ended because I don’t know who is posting. Your response has already eliminated some possibilities. You asked before attacking. Thanks.
An interesting thing if you are JHK. I wonder if folks will act like themselves or act differently if they think he is here? If you are an impersonator, this is still a good thought experiment. If you are him, it is a huge compliment that this alternate site has been created by Johnny. If you are him, you may or may not like it, you may or may not like us, but first and foremost, before you come in and start telling everyone that there is too much ass kissing going on for your taste, or making other pronouncements and judgments, you might start by acknowledging the enormous honor this little den of iniquity represents. JHK, (if that is who you are) a community has formed around you and your ideas. I have benefited tremendously from your work AND interacting with this community. It may look like a bunch of goofing and posturing, but these are social bonds forming between folks. That is how it happens in face to face interaction too. These bonds are what will get us through the Long Emergency, if we get through it. You are free to have contempt for that, but acknowledge the compliment.
To summarize:
If you are a troll impersonating JHK- Fuck you.
If you are JHK- Welcome, big time, but please don’t roll up so heavy, at least at the outset.
I hate those blogs where everyone goes all sycophant and kisses the author’s ass, don’t you?
Peace, whoever you are…
MOU, if thats who you are: you are thinking too much trying to wrap your brain around this little mystery you and others have created, and not me. It is precious though and I am happy for your powerful online bonds you have created.
Sycophant is bad, of course
— almost as bad as those who can’t keep their attitudes in check. Since I am not impersonating anyone and merely posting here as I see fit under my own god-given name, I’ll assume your ‘fuck you’ was a meaningless jab and shake it off into the wind like so much settled dust in a stale room.
Thank you,
DMD
“Since I am not impersonating anyone and merely posting here as I see fit under —–>my own god-given name”
“Driving Miss Daisy”
“Thank you,
DMD”
______________
Thinking too much, been accused of that before.
The “fuck you” was unnecessary. Folks everywhere on the web are free to post whatever names they see fit and should be able to do so without being abused for it. Sorry.
As for the mystery, I think we co-constructed it with you. No animosity is intended by this observation, but you have yet to post a name that I would call a “god-given name.”
Welcome DMD.
DMD, et al,
My CFN tag has a work e-mail address, so might bounce if you send through some attachments (I know no which). Send text first.
“As for the mystery, I think we co-constructed it with you.”
MOU, that’s correct. I started this with a wild speculation. If DMD is JHK and having some fun with us, fine, if it’s someone else playing along, that’s fine too.
MOU, your apology is accepted. As for this co-constructed notion: it’s patently silly, but I like to play along sometimes.
Thank you DD and UY.
DMD,
Why is it silly?
Oh come now, I hate having to explain the obvious to people.
“having to explain the obvious to people”
growth industry?
“growth industry?”
Now you’re really being silly.
Well, it is Friday.
But seriously, there are an awful lot of bits flying around the interweb, lots of trees being slaughtered and ink being slung to explain, at least to some, the obvious.
>Now you’re really being silly.
I’ll see your silly and raise you a ludicrous… oh, wait. Crap. I lost the link. Spot me ’til Monday?
“Crap. I lost the link”
Gawd I hate that….
DMD,
You can’t explain. For some reason you don’t want to own your part in it. Something is co-constructed if we both participated in it. You set the ball in motion by posting as DMD. You have furthered it by posting JHK. We react. Co-constructed.
Maybe we are in a David Lynch film. As DMD morphs into MOU, MOU may press the submit comment button and become JR or Uncle Remus. Lets have a go at it. Press…
I can’t explain? Please. I did sign my name as DMD; at least you have that part right. You attributed my writing to be that of JHK’s, I later played along. It was silly of you and/or others, period. You most likely are just being difficult. If that is the case – “fuck you”. If not, then I apologize and will, in the future, be more careful not to contribute to the confusion which you find yourself facing in this pleasant little blog-o-sphere you call home.
who r u
“But seriously, there are an awful lot of bits flying around the interweb, lots of trees being slaughtered and ink being slung to explain, at least to some, the obvious.”
And sometimes you can’t explain even the obvious to people. They’re too busy stroking their false egos or sucking on a delusion here or there in the Clusterfuck and never owning it for themselves.
“who r u
http://youtube.com/watch?v=l_FZVD5lsAw”
Ah, there we go with more links. Perfect.
If that was a rhetorical question, I would reply for everyone as someone with too many stretch marks on my ass from keeping my head down in it.
DMD,
What do we need to own. Say it.
My name is Gary Michael McMurtry, I am a professor of geological oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, a tax-paying US citizen, and fellow human inhabitant of Planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy. Married, two kids, with a mortgage.
Oh hey, it’s “To Tell The Truth”!
My name is Gary Michael McMurtry, I am a professor of geological oceanography at the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, a tax-paying US citizen, and fellow human inhabitant of Planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy. Married, two kids, with a mortgage.
UR, actually, most of this information is available on Google or by clicking on my CFN handle. Th email address is quite public, but we have mighty firewalls erected.
Now, will the real DMD please stand up!
Yeah, I know. Just having some fun.
>My name is…
You look a lot different without the iron mask & green cape/hood.
A.B.
Don’t be fooled. He was hooded for his doctorate.
“Driving Miss Daisy,
Is there something I can help you with?”
JR, if you are open to questions and positive feedback regarding your site, there is one thing that comes to mind right now while I am looking at it. The quotes you have placed on the left side of the page seem rather random and meaningless. You might consider removing them because they add no impact to the site, but rather tend to detract from it. The only other thing I can think of is an automatic spell-checker, but that is probably asking for way too much.
Regards,
DMD
“I leave the “gamez” and “pwn3″-ning people to other, more mature and intelligent individuals who are capable and well versed of that past-time.”
Pardon me for saying, but it must be more than coincidence that a link to a site called the “fail blog” is connected to this one. I admit it did have me wondering.
Good, you should delete more posts. Why not have a deleting frenzy? ;-)
This thread has devolved, admittedly. And I guess I should take part blame just for being around. If CFN is not the love blog, and ZK is not the love blog, then?
JR-
Check out this blog (it’s how I linked to JHK’s website a few years ago) created by a buddy of mine:
http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/
He has got a pretty good system on blogspot. He blogs for a certain period of time and then retires the post to the archives where he has everything indexed and linked by topics. He doesn’t close down the comments section, so you can go back to the beginning of his blog and always add commentary.
Now you’re being unfair, as usual. “Dr Doom”, I presume, posted a message using my name, so I did it back and now you post a whole thread chastising me about it. Tell me that isn’t the height of ridiculousness and hypocrisy, as I’ve seen it done several other times as well. But I guess in your little “fight club” rules only apply to others. Have fun kicking it with your fellow homies.
DMD, Johnny,
Dr.Doom did not do it, I did. Things were getting really weird. I was making a point about trust. Sure backfired.
Johnny, if you need to be pissed at someone, it is me. If you need to ban someone…
Meanwhile, DMD, you missed my point and jumped to conclusions pretty quick. Glad I did not see what you posted as Doom.
Meanwhile, lets not get too distracted. Inquiring minds want to know…like Johnny asked…
What do you want?
And I’d like to hear from you about what we won’t own for ourselves.
It seems that conversation could end up going somewhere productive.
It does basically boil down to six-year-old bullshit, sad to say, and I won’t engage it further. I don’t really ask for a lot, except maybe please don’t come stalking me telling me you want to bash my brains in – that isn’t too much to ask for is it?
Thanks, have a good day, life, etc.
Dude. Can’t you answer the friendly questions that JR and MOU posed? JR has asked you if there’s something he can help with with. MOU asked what you want. You’ve chosen to not respond to either of those, which pings my troll detector. But it’s an overly sensitive device, and I often won’t pay attention until the pings become a near-constant tone. But anyway.
If you’re looking to stir the $#!+, this can be a combative bunch who won’t back down from a scrap. But that’s the CFN side of things. At CFN, we (between bouts of in-chatter) try to educate other folks about the need to reduce one’s dependence on non-sustainable energy sources. This site is, as I understand it (correction if necessary JR, please), is where we educate *ourselves*. A little in-fighting is part of the deal — like I said, this is a scrappy bunch — but not the primary point.
FYI, I post under three names:
Dr.Doom on CFN, ZK;
D3PO on TOD (also a name used by others in reference to me on CFN, ZK sites;
Gary McMurtry (my given and family names) on ASPO-USA.
I NEVER post as anyone else. I don’t do sockpuppets, period.
Johnny,
I think that DMD is not around. Are you willing to leave my post above, MOU, on July 20th, 2008 at 12:21 am, up one more day and then take it down?
I will be out of pixel world for a while to go sit on a mountain.
Thanks for all you do.
wow, didn’t know that this stuff was here either.
Jim’s post is up. n00b free, adult swim. Have at it.
American physicists warned not to debate global warming
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/21/monckton_aps/
UR, why was the paper published without peer review? The responsible editorial staff should be reprimanded and/or removed.
BTW, nice spell checker, JR. I see you’ve been listening to DMD-JHK. Keep the fav quotes in the sidebar, though.
“why was the paper published without peer review? ”
Doom-
Monckton claims that it had been reviewed.
Monckton has asked for an apology. In a letter to the APS President Arthur Bienenstock, he writes:
“If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had;
Well, it either was or was not peer reviewed. What does the responsible *editor* say in this matter? Monckton is apparently one of the co-authors. His/her word in this matter is not as compelling as the editor in charge.
Alllrighty, where’s JR? I sent him another rant yesterday morning. I’m troubled by the slow lag time. Perhaps he fell out of the coffin again. Oh well, I have to go into Beantown later today, Maybe I’ll find him there by accident.
new search engine
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=james%20howard%20kunstler&sl=long
JR-are we cool dude? Last we “spoke” I think you were sending a SWAT team to my house and I said I’d cut ya…. All in good fun, I hope.
No thanks needed; I just thought that maybe you were weirded out or sumthin’ cause (eeew!) I’m a ‘girl’
Holmes, if you’re a dumbass, you’re my favorite dumbass ever! If the He doesn’t call you a douchebag or threaten to kill you at least once, then you’re pretty much irrelevant.
You know I aim to please, Holmes! It was my first (and only) Bollywood movie–“Bride and Prejudice.” No kissing allowed, which is kind of refreshing.
So how are you???? I was online when the temblor struck your area. Didn’t Bunn give you any signals?
Doom, did you catch the press conference for the release of WTC7 investigation report yesterday? You can watch the whole thing on c-span.org. The Q&A gets hot when reporters push on demolition hypothesis.
They attribute collapse to thermal expansion brought on by the heat of burning building furnishings. They lay out a chain of events culminating with column failure in the building core. You aren’t going to buy this explanation.
The document is out for public review on NIST website. The public comment window is very short, and ends in Sept sometime.
Thanks SB, I’ll check it out. Sounds like a cover-up, which many of us suspected would occur. Wonder how they explain the apparent squib charge pattern caught on video?
explain the apparent squib charge pattern caught on video
Dust bunnies, do to low quality illegal imagrants being bad janitors.
Saddly some people might think what i just wrote as not a joke.
Comparison and Conclusion
If we compare these two explanations for the collapse of the towers it is immediately apparent that they are different in a particularly significant way: the fire based official explanation is a series of events, [21] like links in a chain, while the explosive based explanation is a parallel set of scientific studies of evidence. When challenged they behave in very different ways:
If an explanation is in the form of a chain it is only necessary to prove one link wrong to destroy the case. In contrast, with a parallel set of explanations it is only necessary to prove one explanation correct to establish the case. What do we find? It has already been pointed out that links 2 to 6 of the official explanation are incorrect and link 1, about the fireproofing, has been strongly disputed.[22]
In the case of the alternative explanation we have a list of 10 studies which show that certain observations can only be explained if explosives were involved. Just one of these is enough to make the case. There are now hundreds of scientists, including architects, engineers, demolition experts, physicists and other specialists, who are arguing that the case for explosive demolition has been more than adequately made and who are calling for a truly independent investigation.[23]
Given the devastation in the Middle East [24] which flowed from this tragedy, should we not all be calling for a new investigation? If we do not, does the evidence not suggest that we will be at risk of being called complicit in the development of a ruthless regime by future generations?
From: http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/911andProbabilityTheory17Legge.pdf
Link to video of Jone’s announcement of thermite residue find in WTC dust:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/13090?page=1
Everbody has a carbon toe print. That’s explains why everybody’s gone “green”, yet nothing seems to have changed.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/08/19/ghg-reporting-practices-of-most-industries-overlook-75-of-emissions/
[squinting]… Sorry about my spelling. Can’t find my glasses, can’t see.
I’m still home sick with this damn flu, so I’ve been reading and sleeping. I found this letter (linked below) to be particularly well written on the subject of the WTC collapse, by Dr. Frank Legge. Here it is: http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/f/LeggeLastTry4.pdf
JR, if you want to move or remove this 9-11 stuff, it’s OK with me. I’m just exploring this on-line journal at the moment, and attempting to share. My conclusion so far: we’d better try to fix this damn country or we should leave it asap and try to move as far away from it as possible.
My conclusion so far: we’d better try to fix this damn country or we should leave it asap and try to move as far away from it as possible.
So says the guy way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean :D
Hawaii and Alaska have the best chance of surviving in one piece the fall of the US. Assuming that Hawaii can deal with less oil and Alaska is not wipe off the planet in some stupid war like action.
Doom, sorry abouit your convalescent condition. The flu in August? Suckola.
Did you happen to see the Q&A from the NIST press conference? If so, was it spicy or what?
Ah, roach, unfortunately, Pearl Harbor and associated military bases are still considered high-value targets, which places me about 20 miles from ground zero.
Yes, the flu sucks, and I think I poisoned myself breathing dried organic compost without a dust mask on. To make matters worse, I proudly made the stuff.
SB, do you have the link to the NIST Q&A?
SB, I finally found the link to the short presentation by Dr. Sunder on the NIST WTC-7 report and the Q&A. It sounds like a unique series of events, including an issue of thermal expansion of the steel beams not previously recognized, contributed to the collapse of WTC-7. Not sure if that’s going to get them off the hook on the twin towers collapse or an easy explanation of steel spherules and thermite residues in the WTC dust. It will be interesting to hear a reply by Drs. Jones and Legge.
Doom, WTC7 press comference below:
http://cspanjunkie.org/?p=265
Full coverage.
I’ve seen another episode of the excellent BBC series ‘What a Waste’ and the program focused on cycling on Bogotá. During Enrique Penalosa’s administration (he’s an urban planner) great strides were made to pedestrianize the city.
Drivers were encouraged to ditch their cars and use public transport, walk and to cycle. The former mayor said that public transport made the city more democratic, socially equitable and was good for low income people and the environment.
Money saved by building cycle ways instead of roads was invested in schools, libraries and parks.
Here’s a link with some more details that were in the program:
Constraints to further public transport development were:
There were too many people and not enough investment – each year Bogotá spends $350 million on public transport whereas Madrid a city of similar size spends $1.4 billion; and
Bogotá’s new mayor believes the solution is to build new roads.
Crazy beggar.
JR
Here’s the link from Google re screening times – don’t know if that helps.
http://www.bbcworldnews.com/Pages/Programme.aspx?id=194
There were some good articles under that link – I liked this one on enegry expended to get food
“Surely at some point, let’s say between $50 and $500 per barrel of oil, it no longer makes any sense to simultaneously export and import food high in embodied energy.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7553958.stm
JR, here is a comment recently made by this guy “Gary McMurtry” on this post: http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2008/08/Oil-Prices-and-the-Mayflower-Problem/
Is this GM guy full of it or what? No response so far from the article’s author.
“Nice article. I wonder about the meaning of the “actual production” versus the “Hubbert trend” in the Reynolds piece that is illustrated here. They are both production over time curves. The Hubbert trend would assume the extraction technology at the date of estimation, and the “actual production” would in theory estimate with advanced extraction technology unknown to Hubbert or earlier researchers. However, the “actual production” over time in the plot is less than that estimated by Hubbert until it is near the peak. That would only be so if the producers gradually slowed production on purpose, which is unlikely based upon past experience, in general (there are some exceptions, in Saudi and OPEC, for example).
What is shown is the same overall reserve, just shifted forward in time. If there is indeed advanced production that extracts more oil or gas than would have otherwise been attainable, then the area under the curve grows, and the peak is shifted forward in time if the rate of extraction is held constant. If the rate of extraction increases, but not the efficiency of extraction, then the production curves are backwards, and the Hubbert trend becomes the actual trend.
Price is a trivial dependent variable of the resource (geology) and extraction (technology). It is just a manifestation of demand.”
Comment by Gary McMurtry – 3 Sep, 2008 03:56 am
JR
Did you receive those links re Mae West? I can forward them again if you want – if not bothered let me know.
JR
I’m around but had a house and financial CF this week. I was doing some spring cleaning and discovered a faulty window sill had meant moisture had run down a wall onto my bed and carpet and ruined them through mould.
For about ten minutes I thought about banging my head on the concrete but came to and decided to go to plan B instead. Saw your When the Levee Breaks vid and that brought me up short – the people featured would kill for my small problem. Serendipitous or what?
The vitriol from Screaming Mute took me aback but I agree with MOU that maybe there’s more than meets the eye. If she needs kudos for being a female Rambo then so be it, but it’s the old chestnut that no man is an island. It’s great if she’s such a generalist and has a bit of nous but we need our specialists too – I want my doctor to be qualified not just some person who fancies the idea. Fuck it, if a male with more heft wants to help me change a tire then great, I can always shout him a drink. One-upmanship quickly palls – people need to get it together and help each other out.
Read an excellent article in the paper entitled ‘Gluttons table set by central banks’ which stated that (paraphrased):
The world’s central banks have tried to save the world whenever the going got tough for the past 20 years. An orgy of debt no matter what the risk has got many in the shit, both banks and individuals, but not to worry, the central banks would step in and absolve lenders of any responsibility.
Central banks, and the Fed in particular, have become so addicted to growth each year that they have sacrificed a tenet of sound central banking. It seems they no longer care whether lending is within prudential bounds and believe that you can have continual economic growth and low inflation.
The two final paragraphs read:
It had to happen – with so much debt being created, house prices setting records compared with incomes, a correction was going to occur. But the key question is whether this is the last big correction? The extent of their bailouts has got even more pathetic this time as the central banks try at all costs to avoid a recession – which they’ve failed to at last.
So when the dust settles, are we set to embark on an even more spectacular asset price bubble and an even larger cheque for taxpayers to fund when the inevitable bailouts occur again?
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4188
Check it, new system up & running!
Shed looks heaps different now.
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4188
UY, I’m bookmarking your forum. It looks like you’re working on some serious and interesting aquaponics projects. Are you going to write a book or article about what you are doing/learning? Jusayin
(Having been ousted from my backstage perch, I roam aimlessly amongst the cabling, empty bottles of hooch and knickers tossed by audience plants. Yeah, as young et al. say, if I may paraphrase, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna do something, anything.)
HIP,
Compared to some of the other systems on the forum, anything over a thread would be egotistical…
Holmes, are you quoting Neil Young et al.?
Start with a simple aquarium…
Angus Young et al.
Better luck next time!
As Biden sez, there will be a test at the end of this election.
Holmes, according to this guy, there may not be an America waiting at the end of this election: http://www.contraryinvestorscafe.com/broadcast.php?media=141
Doom, I’ve been reading Jim Willie’s Hat Trick Letter for a little over a year now. He’s been pushing Canadian mining stocks and silver for quite awhile, remaining convinced as he is that Masters of the Universe or something of the sort are conspiring to keep their prices down. Notwithstanding, I much prefer his commentary to Mogumbo Guru’s (sp?).
JW correctly called the Lehman collapse many months before it happened. (From what I understand, the guy lives in Costa Rica. Maybe he and dale hang out, watching elephants play in the jungle and such.) It looks like he’s expanding his franchise now with a weekly “Jim Willie’s Perspective”.
I just can’t believe, however, that the Chinese, Arabs, etc. are going to take pennies on the dollar and pursue a dangerous course of action that would bring about a default on U.S. Treasuries, rather than think more long term and instead demand more and more of a controlling interest. I mean all of these assholes calling the shots — especially if you believe in the international cabal of coordinated elites meme — are going to work together to try and prevent wars and preserve status quo, at least so long as there appears to be enough energy to go around. That said, I still think that JW’s assertion that a new form of money (based on a basket of currencies including Euros, Rubles, Yen and something from the middle east) is in the planning stages is more of a logicians fantasy than a likely reality. If creditor nations cut off the tab, they would practically be doing Obama a favor. Carter Doctrine, baby! Change we can believe in is, well… changing into a different kind of change in response to changed circumstances! Isn’t that was change is all about?
Anticipating a further drop tomorrow, think I’ll go set up a limit order for some oil futures option(s). In view of the vortex of outstanding uncertainties, I’d better go super long, as in 2011 or later.
Holmes, there is iron in your words, kimosabe. Yup, the Carter Doctrine, baby! I *just* can’t see the US military leaving the oil and gas rich ME-Central Asia, ignoring our nuclear capability, all our high-tech military hardware and quietly returning home to police unruly Americans. I don’t know how it will all shake out, but being flexible with “the power of change” will be important.
Here’s what I can guess:
sorry scott and dave, CTL ain’t even gonna come close to saving us. We are maxed out on coal right now. I’d be more bullish on ethanol.
A smart strategy would keep those oil lifelines open, and would focus on reigning in Chinese and Indian economic aspirations, with an eye on the compressing US economy, hopefully keeping it from imploding, if possible. “You foreigners got a problem with our currency? Go ahead, make our century!”
Gonna have to beef up the border with Mexico. Maybe play hardball with Hugo. Use the military for that stuff.
Yup, I think the market has a few more multiple hundred point drops waiting, plus a few more rallies. Pump and dump time.
dave, will old Joe be able to learn the ropes?
not sure what you mean.
my guess is that joe biden(is that who you’re talking about?) has his moves figured out well in advance.
sorry scott and dave, CTL ain’t even gonna come close to saving us. We are maxed out on coal right now. I’d be more bullish on ethanol.
eh, ethanol has had it’s day in the sun, imo. people will throw $ at something else next. CTL? , don’t know of course. but i think it’s a pretty good bet. the nazis liked it.
saviors? how about redemption for my fucking sins while we’re at it?
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2a2d0788c12154cccc2cb6b2a35ca588
i would have to bet that the EPA will say that the proposed rule changes do comply with the clean water act, &ct. 2:1.
if they turn down bush, they’re sure to do it for obama.
what will happen eventually is(circa 2020?) the locals, deprived of benefit and profit, will start to blow up coal trains and such. miners are trained in the use of, and have access to various explosives. of course they will really be terroists who hate freedom and such.
in times of expanding energy availability, the locals would have been integrated into the larger economy. this is no longer possible. depending on the the available energy within the remaining coal deposites, they will either be wiped out, forced into an extended guerrilla type engagement, or large scale coal extraction efforts will be abandoned(circa 2050?).
at some point the locals will resume small scale extraction, and maybe even some “outside” trading, the new globalism is born.
but then there are big nucular boombooms, so who knows?
pray for plague.
financial tsunami
peak oil hurricane, population explosion, climate catastrophy
dave, i’m trying to save you and scott some money. read the book Big Coal. the coal mining business is tapped out. it’s really a coal train business, at scale. the railroads are tapped out. CTL won’t scale. what you’ll get are some boutique demo plants, near the mines. moron than that, there’s no capital around for the infrastructure needed, unless it’s nationalized. and why not, everything’s going to be government owned soon, anyway. then maybe, if our foreign investors/owners will allow the expense. but then, they may just take their coal back to china and india, ME, etc.
I say use the coal as dust to make the water dirty.
Then catch haretail at the surface.
mmm, prehistoric-looking….
I just got my most recent 401K statement. Looks like fodder for stand-up comedy. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so pissed off. It’d be one thing if I’d never offered an opinion over the past 18 months. Quite another that I have offered opinion after opinion over the past 18 months. The investment experts are locked in a self-reassurance consensus trance. Om. Jai guru deva. Om. Nothing’s gonna change my trance. Nothing’s gonna change my trance. It’s funny sorta.
John McCain could win this if he could be coherent a sentence at a time.
Hold your breath on that one.
anonymous, is that you?
Greenspan, what can I say. Whatever could anyone be thinking when they were thinking in the context of experts: whatever were they thinking when they thought themselves as experts? Reminds me of a RAND study surveying Experts that came back 80% HOPING
that would not be exposed as frauds. Stick a microphone in front of a fraud, and all you get is ‘oink’?
I need to hear some new music. Who’s offering?
I’ve got nothing thal, but what do you like or what genre are you looking for?
delta blues. the real stuff.
Just officially released (hell must have finally frozen over)… crank it up!!!
Guns N Roses — Chinese Democracy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQ5-8ctG4c
thal, you’ll like this better.
thal, sounds like you need a drink, too. take it easy, my friend.
did anyone get my joke about anonymous? just curious.
uh, no Doom, what did you mean by that, exactly?
Just kidding dude… I wonder who our anonymous caller is anyway.
4 people.
everybody, nobody, somebody and anyone.
okay thal- I am pulling out all the stops now. I have a compilation disc and a stevie ray vaughn disc for ya. Now what? Not much of a blues fan myself so I have no idea what’s good and what’s not- does this all need to be done via youtube?
Thal- I’ve got Eric Sardinias, Shannon Curfman, Walter Trout, Jake Andrews, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Stevens and Murder Blues- lots of artists to choose from but youtube doesn’t seem to have very good selections as far as I can see. ..
Done is not finished.
There will still be a million Les Pauls plugged into a million Marshalls for a while yet.
P.S> where you born in the year of a sexual position?
I always thought you were about my age – didn’t know it was that close.
P.S. no sensehammer intended.
From what I understand, Izzy Stradlin wrote most of the GNR songs. The new song kinda reminds me, structurally, of “You Could Be Mine”. I listened three times. Best enjoyed at maximum volume, to be sure. Not bad. Nice and crunchy. Fucking Buckethead (maybe) showing off.
Anyhoo… the music industry is definitely on the ropes. Honestly, I can’t think of any truly ground significant performers who have debuted in the rock n roll genre in the last ten years (probably longer). If I could travel back in time to relive any ten year interval, it would probably be 1964-1974, mostly for the music.
*truly significant new artists*
Sorella’s in Jamaica Plains- excellent breakfast joint.
Glad you like my generation’s music. After rock’s heyday, circa 1975, we got Disco, the Bee Gees, John (I’m gonna puke) Revolta dancing up a storm, (Disco sucks, BTW), then we got soft rock (as played by soft headed boys with even softer weenies) and fucking Rap “music”, which might as well be Gramps McCoy signing “Old Mule Rivers” in black face (sorry, if I offend here, I like all colors and cultures, Obama’s getting my vote).
Meanwhile, the great ones are either (a) dead or (b) washed up graying shells of themselves, like Keith Richards, for example, who’ll soon need oxygen on stage. So, I agree that rock’s pretty much over, and it does indeed reflect upon our changing culture, not necessarily changing for the better, in fact hitting brick walls everywhere we collectively turn.
Sorry if this sounds negative in any way.
dave, i’m trying to save you and scott some money. read the book Big Coal. the coal mining business is tapped out. it’s really a coal train business, at scale. the railroads are tapped out. CTL won’t scale. what you’ll get are some boutique demo plants, near the mines. moron than that, there’s no capital around for the infrastructure needed, unless it’s nationalized. and why not, everything’s going to be government owned soon, anyway. then maybe, if our foreign investors/owners will allow the expense. but then, they may just take their coal back to china and india, ME, etc.
doom,
none of this matters. all that matters is if someone, dosen’t even matter who, starts throwing $ at it. others will follow suit. think beani babies.
besides, i have a lot more of my assets in coal and oil proper, than in CTL. but if it hits, then so do i(think google). if not, that’s way the cookie crumbles.
Then catch haretail at the surface.
?
jammin’. kinda like jerry g and bob w.
you know i’m apolitik, even antipolitik, but i couldn’t resist this.
acctually, after watching that, it makes a lot more sense as to why america wants to present something other than a white face to the world.
As best as I can tell, proper atonal music, in a perhaps oversimplified characterization, requires placing all of the wrong notes in all the right places, and catching yourself before inadvertently slipping into something funky or melodious. Anyone smart enough to play games with notes and competently adhere to the above or similar considerations can call themselves a composer, I guess. Sure, why not?
Do ya think tone loc uses a tone row matrix? (a purely rhetorical question)
http://exiledonline.com/tips-for-new-paupers/
My Looney bun is fine Benny Lava
the best Bollywood on Utube.
Almost 9 million views.
AU, that was great. I’m forwarding the link to my Fijian friends!
Catchy tune.
“You need a Bunn to twirl the knife Benny Hanna.”
ya pauper, i liked that article. lucky for me, i’ve had a lifetime of practice.
i think that giving up the middle class is what most of america is frightened of. this is a legitimate fear in mind. no fun to be poor.
from the tenor of the story, i’d say that that guy’s biggest enemy was himself. he had a kind of all or nothing mindset. he needed the JOB and the PERCS and the associated STATUS to be OK. there’s lot’s and lot’s of ways to stay warm dry and fed on a low income low status job, or series thereof.
of course, at some point those are tough to come by also.
some raga for the morning maniacs. i’ve always said that those hindu cocksuckers have coolest gods.
Dolan shoulda just told them he was doing research so they’d promptly kick his ass and take his cash — get it over with already. I can’t think of any even marginally credible sob story that these people would likely have any sympathy for. And why would ya want to tell one anyway. Maybe to stop your ass from getting kicked, or to get an extra serving of soup, or something. Maybe they just want to be entertained. You never know who your audience is. Whatever it takes is what some of us might learn in time.
Pauper
That article was the best thing I’ve read all week.
The meltdown if nothing else will allow people to be real instead of keeping up appearances and all the stress that goes with it.
Recently a work mate couldn’t afford to take her kids away in the school holidays (2 week period) to the usual holiday haunt but couldn’t bring herself to tell them saying they had to catch up with house maintenance. It’s sad when people feel ashamed of the simple truth – there’s going to be many in the same boat so why fight it?
AU
Cool Indian clip – was George Michael moonlighting? The guy certainly had the posturing down pat.
Ya’s gots ta think ahead…Palin-Hughley 2012!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/10/24/dl.hughley.elon.rally.cnn
This guy’s very lucky he didn’t get his ass kicked. Didn’t interview any skin heads, that’s why.
dave, i totally agree on this “poor guy” Dolan. agree with MOU that it was an interesting article. Holmes, i bet he did get his ass kicked a few times.
he had some good advice, especially on cars being expensive. but, what a loser. we’re supposed to believe he lost a college job in an interview because of his appearance and smell, even the pitch of his voice. i bet he made that part up. he admits being in that system before, so he knows how the game is played. how much does deodorant cost? i also bet he made up the reason he lost the job–to the “insider”. BS.
in the end, he musta got his laptop back from the pawn shop, courtesy of his generous brother. lucky asshole. i think about those out there who don’t come back. their journey ends some very cold night in a cement culvert.
Doom, good points. I contend, knowing in the back of his mind (as Dolan did) that he ultimately had the safety net of his brother to fall into, he indeed was a tourist. Maybe his pride drove him into it. You might say his life was a complex system, or a microcosm of one. Eventually, once enough interdependencies were tangled up, he finally realized that it was going to take a lot more than a few hundred dollars to bail him and his wife out of this mess… so he further delayed asking for help (still holding onto shame, maybe). Then the creative person in him started to relax and take note of the things going on around him. “Eureka! That’s what this was all along! Research, dammit. I am a social scientist! I work, the genius that I am, in ways that even I don’t fully understand until I’m several months into the project. Okay. Now I’ll get on the horn to big brother and explain what went down.”
Holmes, that’s about right. History at all levels is written by the winners.
Reminds me of this survival guy episode filmed someplace out in the SW for the Discovery Channel. He had his camcorder and was all alone (supposidly) except for his emergency cell phone. In the end, when it became apparent he wasn’t going to make his goal, i.e., he was going to die out there, he calls in an air strike, packs up and goes home. Made a nice hour program. The kids and I especially enjoyed watching him eat a cooked horny toad he trapped.
Hi Holmes,
I need to email you. You and Doom make good points. As a sociologist, I see him as performing an identity, that all of them telling each other stories are performing identities. There are two fronts the identities must be performed on, with others, and with one’s “self.” Being homeless is a lot of stigma; sucks but it is true. That has to be Negotiated with the outside world to gain access to resources (both material resources and identity/status resources) and it must be Negotiated with oneself. We need stories of self that have continuity otherwise we become pretty fucked up and depressed or worse. The telling of the story becomes huge. We make identity claims on these sites all the time. Some of the biggest fights that erupt are over who has the right make identity claims and who has the right to claim identities for others.
I don’t feel sooo hung up on whether Pauper was the “real deal” or not. In participant observation (how I do my work) you can be anything from a total observer to a participant to going native/becoming the phenomenon. The argument that he was not the real deal is just as valid as the argument that he could have been telling himself he “had outs” and was “not the real deal” as forms of denial/survival. Ultimately, I must challenge that dichotomy as “not real” but a cultural artifact of being in the position. Minute to minute he is “really in the shit” and then “not like these people.” Just like jobless/homeless people do anyway. The idea of questioning if the experience is real for you or not would be a “real” part of the experience for many people on the way down. No us, no them, no real, no not real, only identities we try on for size, minute by minute, to get us through the day.
I believe he looked into the face of the abyss.
I have been homeless myself a great deal as a child, and a few short periods of time as a teenager on my own (once in my early twenties for a couple months), couch surfing, as an exotic dancer. No terror at all, it was just how it was. I could always dance, I always tried to avoid it. Exotic dancing, working construction, being a graduate assistant, and being a professor are the only jobs I was ever able to hold for very long. I got fired from or quit a whole lot of other stuff.
MOU, I knew these depth charges from dave, Mary, Doom and me would bring you to the surface!
I agree. A whole lot of self-image stuff seems to be key to Dolan’s narrative. A set of radically changed circumstances, on one hand, can be frightening. It can also be liberating to be free of the shackles of things that continually redirect you to seeing a particular image of yourself, or toward insisting in your own mind that you are inextricably a part of (or associated with) something. Yeah, he looked into the abyss (sort of) and probably gained familiarity with other versions of himself that he might not have known too well before.
FYI, if Dolan is the guy I think he is, he also wrote this book…
Does being on Prozac fatally dilute the Shamanic experience (for lack of a better term) of full emersion in an underworld of sorts, getting your body (life) torn apart, etc.? On second thought, maybe he didn’t learn a damn thing.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/willie102308.html
ya, i always tell myself not to get stuck in my own story. that’s another story that i tell myself.
i’ll tell ya though, the equity and commodity drop off between say, midaugust and midsept. was kind of sureal to me. it was one of those things that, intellectually, i knew would happen. but when it did, wtf?
this past summer, when oil was at 150, i was absolutely sure that we would see $100, or even $90 oil again. but $60 oil? maybe $50 oil. no, i didn’t see that. i woulda said, no way.
you do get stuck in the stories that you tell yourself.
it’s an over reaction. that’s the story i’m telling myself lately.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/78934
Holmes said: “A whole lot of self-image stuff seems to be key to Dolan’s narrative. A set of radically changed circumstances, on one hand, can be frightening. It can also be liberating to be free of the shackles of things that continually redirect you to seeing a particular image of yourself, or toward insisting in your own mind that you are inextricably a part of (or associated with) something.”
I understand what you’re saying but I think Dolan’s point, and maybe MOU’s ,would be that our self-image is fabricated based on our position in society. When your position in society is stripped, materially and psychologically, what do you have left? I think ‘radically changed circumstances’ may be a good thing for people unhappy in their current lifestyle- perhaps they will reevaluate things. However, freeing yourself of shackles does not usually entail the possibility of freezing to death overnight.
I am not particularly sympathetic to homeless people. I tend to think they made their own bed. That is probably true in most instances, but, despite our individual insistence that “it can’t happen to me” it’s scary that all of us in the middle class may be just a hair’s-breadth away from some catastrophe that would reveal to us to the more intimate and sordid details of homelessness.
I liked the article, tried to put myself in that place, stayed away from the Prozac, but understood the value of staying warm, added the value of staying cool in hot weather, and considered being hungry enough to eat a pregnant cockroach. What I’m not hearing here is commentary about the cops. The mentality of these guys often degenerate to kicking those already losing. A power trip. It’s pathological that way.
Consider the case of Paris Hilton. There’s a whole set of citizens that share the conviction that once arrested and confined, she deserved rape, humiliation, and torture no matter the insignificance of her “crime”. “Serves her right” they say.
Wimpy humans can get very violent when they sense they can kick someone without fear of getting kicked back, or they think they can talk someone else into doing it for them, or they have a badge, a taser, lynching rope, a pen and ticket pad, or a gun.
I, pauper is the same as I, dinar. I, think.
He sure has some scary article links.
I, scared.
Stanley Milgram
http://www.cba.uri.edu/Faculty/dellabitta/mr415s98/EthicEtcLinks/Milgram.htm
I’m unsure whether we have more or less to fear from the incumbents or the innovators.
TP,
Everyone in the homeless situation is different. When I was homeless with my parents, my mother was mentally retarded and my father was a, well, criminal is a word…he was a thief and a sex offender.
Thank God for the people that felt sorry for me. Or Kali. Or one of those other cool Hindi Gods. You get my point.
When I was a homeless teen, dancing and making money, and hating being pawed by men, and quitting and getting other jobs I was too immature to handle and being homeless and dancing… wonder what you’d think of me then? What of my background? Father had sex with me and my mother. Not going on in my teens, but it was still a logic structuring my inner show.
The short stint in my 20’s was a choice, pragmatics, waiting to get into my graduate program where I had an assistanceship waiting for me. By now, I don’t need sympathy, I am saving my money, those who care for me know it and are helping me out till I can get in to my program. I was to keep me out of dancing. All good. But I am homeless (mind you, as a homeless person, I keep your house immaculate, fix you meals, and try to disturb you as little as possible. I also kicked in money. In those situations, we always parted ways friends, to this day).
TP, I don’t mean to ream you. I honestly think if you met me as a little girl or a homeless teen you would have compassion for my situation. Don’t doubt that for a second. But the story “matters” does it not? And when you see a homeless person you do not always know the story.
I am supposed to be a dead hooker or drug addict. I am an example of the system actually working. There is nothing special about me. I got love from strangers (social workers and others) at the right time. So it is really hard for me to give up on anyone.
I have given up on George Bush. But even here, if he came out to the country, owned his errors, apologized, and started working the rest of his life to try to set it straight, well, I might even have hope for him!
oh yuck, I feel like I’m on the wrong end of everything tonight. Believe it or not, cops are people too! Ok, that’s lame, I know.
Police officers have quotas, despite the fact that it’s illegal. And, at least around here, you have to submit an activity report. So it makes sense that vagrants, teens and other people that might be breaking the law will be attended to by the police. How else would you ensure that they are doing their job? Most of the “bad” cops I know are only bad cause they’re lazy, sleeping on the job when they should be out on patrol.
Dolan didn’t say he hadn’t broken any laws, just that the law was enforced at inconvenient time in his life. Isn’t that usually the way? Of course there are officers that do terrible things and take advantage of their position of power. But most just want to get through their day and go home to their families; they are really not out to get you!
dave, I’d been telling myself for quite awhile that this collapse of the markets could/would/should happen, but I too got caught off guard a few weeks ago… maybe thinking that for some reason things wouldn’t unravel so rapidly, well at least not prior to the election. Guess I really went for the bait on that one. If I couldn’t afford to lose it, then I wouldn’t have invested it. (That’s the story I’m telling myself these days. What a lie.)
tipping, I’m hearing you. When the lower rungs on that hierarchy of needs ladder start snapping under your feet, concerns over abstract shit such as self-image often get the old heave ho.
thal, cops as agents of personal change. Enzymatic sentient forces that descend upon the freshly made vulnerable, to help pummel them into a less lofty version of their former selves. To protect and serve, indeed.
MOU, how can you tell yourself that you’re not special? Please forgive me for saying this, but that is absolutely insane. Seriously. You may never know how much you inspire us.
Thal,
The cop thing sickened me too.
Counterpoint, I have had some really good cop interactions in my lifetime. My dad got busted for stealing gas, I cried, the cops let him go after feeding us, getting us gas, and driving all of us to the Canadian border. A cop used to pick me up hitchhiking when I was a teen and he would drive me to where I was going because he was always worried about me. It was him that looked into my father’s background and showed me a printout of just how bad my dad was. He never tried anything nor seemed like he even wanted to. Most men did.
Mind you, I have had bad cop interactions too. Really scary abusive stuff. I guess like my post to TP, and I know I am telling you what you already know, each story is different, not all people take advantage of the weak. I wouldn’t be here if that was the case.
Dave,
These are the stories I tell myself. And that is a story too.
All,
This is the identity I perform in response to your identity performances, this evening.
MOU, you have more regard for potential repentants than I could ever. The desert rose.
oh MOU- now you’re really gonna hate me after reading my next comment…
I feel that you seized upon my comment that “I am not particularly sympathetic to homeless people” but that was not my main point. I am not unsympathetic to all homeless (and I’m not backtracking here), but you have to admit that the majority of homeless are a result of alcohol and drug addiction. There are, unfortunately, a lot of mentally ill that are homeless but I think that is a result of our idiotic health care system.
In any case, I do not wish to give offense and I can certainly empathize with your difficult childhood/adolescence. Everyone has a story, yours is more horrific than mine but we have more in common than you would think.
damn, TP, you ARE making sense. If you’re thinking you’re on the wrong end of anything, well I’d say double down.
Yes, MOU, correct. The police, as individuals, are not all one way. I have good stories, as well. It supports my confusion when I attempt to extrapolate general human tendencies to specifics. Reductives to Inductives. Does reason really exist?
Call me a sap, but I think/feel/impugne that there are trustworthies and those that should be not. It’s not a matter of station, power, or whatever, but more basic. I trust that. I’ve loaned, I’ve saved, I’ve gone out on a limb. Most of the trustworthy I’ve ever known have been those without a certifiable credit score. ‘Most’ never equals ‘All.’ That’s all.
TP,
Word.
No way I could hate you. If I focused on one thing too narrowly, I am sorry.
There is a question I have to ask, “Why are they addicts?” I have come to it that all addiction is about numbing out. My husband the shrink calls it “self medication.” I find that profound. An organism is trying with the resources at hand, to fix itself. May not be wise, but for me it transforms it into something that I can no longer be judgmental about.
That means there is something painful one is avoiding/treating. Now that does not mean that I don’t hold them responsible for the consequences of their choices, but they drink, dope, fuck, eat, nintendo, work, etc. to avoid/alleviate something else.
I think these kids addicted to video games are escaping. Too much hypocrisy in reality. At least in video games there is black and white, fair and unfair, justice, good guys and bad guys, something stable…
My son will go to play after we have had an argument. When we are connecting, talking, laughing, debating, it never crosses his mind he wants to play. I can almost gauge how well he is doing by his desire to engage with his DS.
Pain, little or big. The society itself is sick. Addiction is a symptom. Homelessness in those cases are a product of society. There is also the idea that some folks really don’t have access to the same resources as others.
Now, aggressive panhandlers, this is another matter. I have had some bad experiences where I hunted them down and got my revenge. I can be compassionate, but there must be boundaries.
Thal, Poet Friend,
I hear you on the instinct thing. And on the “All” stuff too.
Holmes,
About special… the problem is if one says I am special, then that gives folks permission to write off all the other little MOUs out there because this MOU was special and she was always going to make it anyway because of her special qualities. I really would not have made it. I needed the extra attention I got. So do all children.
So I am not special. I am white. I am female. I am not threatening. I was grateful. I was probably rewarding to work with because I did soak it up and improve. I was starved and desperate, a bit of trouble, but a people pleaser too. Anytime I tell my story, I make it a point to say I am not special. Or else everyone is.
Okay, I won’t call you “special”. I hate that word too. “Exceptional”, “atypical” or perhaps “statistically aberrant” might have been a better choice of words in descending order. We can agree to disagree.
But even if I did seek to malign you with a compliment suggestive of perhaps a commendable personal trait may have played a role in the ongoing panorama of your life, that does not in any way imply or suggest that help, attention, etc. should not be given to others (little MOUs). I’m not sure where you got all that from. Peace out. Rock on. Stay cool. Etc.
It’s the little mous that are the key. Therein are the conflcted, and relevant, lessons, if one is ready to learn. Bless your heart. Just sayin’. Fast forward.
“I have been homeless myself a great deal as a child, and a few short periods of time as a teenager on my own (once in my early twenties for a couple months)…”
MOU-
You’ve written about this a number of times over the last year, mostly on CFN, and I thank you for that. This was the first time (at least in my dotage that I remember) you included more details about your parents and their stories.
You are strong, girlfriend. No denying that!
Homelessness is a multi-faceted “issue” and the homeless run the gamut. One of my good buddies runs an org here in DC that deals with the homeless and works to get them connected up to services they need. My sense is that it isn’t homelessness that is so bothersome to “regular” folks but all of the attendant features–the dirt, degradation, mental illness, health hazards, etc.–of that condition which cause people to run in the opposite direction or to become abusive.
We’re all just passing through here, anyhoo (as Dave would say), so why get your knickers in a twist over anything–it just uses up too much energy.
EE, have I told you of my brief stint as a guest scientist on a German research ship? I was friends with the chief scientist, hence the invite.
We were cruising between stations in the North Fiji Basin. One day he spies me relaxing on the upper deck, dressed in my Hawaiian work clothes, Tee shirt, shorts and flip flops (aka Samoan work boots). So Peter says “Gary, you look like a tourist!” Moi (picking up on some disdain in those words) replies: “Peter, we’re all tourists!” He just walked away.
LOL, Good comeback, Doom! He probably took you literally–in too many ways.
This one’s for you!!
A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.–Thomas Carlyle
feelings of compassion, like feelings of hate, anger, distane, like everything else in the universe, are contingent. i’d say that it’s very difficult to consiously and reliably and consistantly bring about the right conditions to foster the “desirable”, whatever those might be, feelings.
not that that it’s technically difficult, per se. or that the various underlieing neccesities aren’t known, but that the neccesities themselves are contigent phenomena. (compassion, for example, is easy when everyone is warm dry and well fed. not that it can’t exist under other conditions, but it’s certainly less and less common as conditions, which are always contingent, deteriorate.)
holmes,
all i can say is something like: stick to the basics(energy, food, strategic metals) and you’ll be ok. ya, like i know.
anyhoo, at some point, i think, the markets will just be too unstable. the only thing worth playing will be some thing like vix(that’s a joke). my own magic number is oil at 180 – 200, particularly if that happens within the next year or 2. those numbers might be completely meaningless any farther out than that, due to inflation and such.
if you have a run in with a cop after he just had a fight with his wife, or he’s hungry and tired, or has a hangover, ect., just lay face down and put your hands behind your head, no problem.
if you’re under 40, and in reasonably good condition, run away.
as a general rule, the less that those around around you are able to control thier emotions, the more important it is for you to do so. at least that’s my general rule.
unless you want to, for some reason, get caught up in the moment. then just go with it.
suck to be self aware. you start to think about this stupid shit.
not that you can actually be self aware, i guess. what’s to be aware of? where or what is the self? blahblahblah. not that it’s not fun to think about sometimes.
it’s all contingent.
unintended consequances, i love those.
“Peter, we’re all tourists!” He just walked away.
LOLOLOL. Doom, you are almost as BAD as Holmes.
This Bud’s for you!
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/Navy-is-given-new-power.4628685.jp
looks like the brits are being tapped to do the dirty work. the russians will have to wait thier turn i guess.
p.s. — I appreciate your point about 180-200 being a number that’s applied to present circumstances. I believe you are referring to a price point, in terms of 2008 dollars, when the price of oil may be too cripplingly high for the system to carry on, thereby transforming the rules of the speculative game yet again and probably in ways that will be very difficult to predict. (There might not even be the same currencies in use a few years out. I’m not telling myself that story just yet, but some commentators obviously are.)
Yep, I’m mulling an TEOTWAWKI story over today. Let’s see if I can find some time to write it as a ZK post. Hint: it may be a lot closer and a steeper cliff than many imagine. If correct, oil may never sell higher than $147 in 2008 dollars.
MOU
Agree with Holmes that special is not the right word for you so will have to go with two – fucking amazing. To be where you are without rancour shows how rock solid you are.
You’ve shown that with some help along the way and grit despite difficulties victory is sweet, if hard won.
Shine on.
Still mulling…
mullet
Great Society, Part Deux.
It’s the war, stupid.
Say goodnight, Dick.
Anyone see this posted on TOD the other day?
(future lumpenproles for Nudge)
http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~prajlich/forster.html
Well we don’t know about the bees still, but at least now we have an explanation for the bats.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081030/sc_nm/us_bats_fungus;_ylt=An2rcfT2fTG1pQnZU4WcTpqs0NUE
I heard Obama went back to Chicago to be with his family today. Halloween. I had this vision of two kids trick or treating with Papa standing in the background, wearing an Obama mask. So somebody giving out candy asks who they are, and the older child, dressed as a princess, says”I’m Malia!’, then the younger girl, as a Cow-girl, says ‘I’m Natasha!’, and then Obama peels off his Obama mask, revealing his true Obama-hood, and laughs diabolically. I think this would be funny, but it may freak-out the candy giver.
Because I fucking feel like it!
The dogs of doom are howling more…
No Quarter
Sexy goddamn guitar.
Sing my soul baby, as only a guitar can. Give it to me. Jaaaazz. I am your hostage. Love me up good. Do it Jimmy, do it.
ya, but robert plant was born to suck my dick. that’s what he told me anyway. so i had to kick his ass. but then he wouldn’t leave me alone. i finally learned to just ignore him.
some kind of wierd masculine/feminine shit going on there. awakens my primal asskicking instinct. not sure why that is. all limbic and shit i guess.
I had a feeling this would happen. I know it sounds a little like a conspiracy theory, but I just felt like someone didn’t want him getting too close to… something. NOw that he is out of power, no sense in pursuing it anymore.
Feds won’t charge Spitzer in call-girl scandal
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27578390/
dave, u animal.
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
“Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.”
This guy does a credible job of identifying and parsing salient issues relating to the deleveraging topic.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122611122832410627.html
“The bottom line is that, assuming further credit losses from global recession take U.S. and EU tier-one bank capital back to where it was before state injections and capital raisings, then financial-sector credit would have to shrink 37% just to keep leverage constant at precrisis levels — that’s how you get global depression.
But government is now part of bank management. Government intervention could manage to limit the credit decline to less than 10%, at the cost of more capital injections, further longer-term guarantees of liabilities, tolerance of higher leverage within socialized banks, and not a little credit “dirigisme,” i.e., directing banks to lend.
This will avoid the global depression that many fear, but at the high long-term cost of a socialized financial system. And it still heralds a very long, gray, global recession as the world learns to use less capital to meet its needs.”
http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=qHi3vkXls1I
A look at Obama’s campaign funding should tell us about his ownership, assuming it’s all reported.
Everything’s gonna be alright, cause asoka sez so.
Seems to me an interesting story is developing about the potential loss of car making abilities in car culture nation, on its 100th anniversary.
Here’s another: America defeats Communism in Asia, then decides to try it at home.
Interesting times, thanks Chinese seer.
A new movie just released. “Admiral”, the quest of Aleksandr Kolchak to rule Russia. Civil war. For love is strong as death. Trailer looks pretty good. Although a collaboration with 20th Century Fox, it will probably never be released in U.S. Except maybe on DVD.
http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=w6dwXSMhAxs&feature=related
Anyone know what happened to thal yet?
Zombie Defense
http://www.major-malfunction.com/maj_malf_5u_019.htm
“Admiral” is available as a torrent on the Pirate bay with english subtitles, if you’re into such sharing.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t see any chimps running around excitedly waving their rebate checks several months ago. I know, I know… even when I sit very very still and concentrate as hard as I can, I still don’t resemble a check cashing facility.
Look, people… we’re all adults here… let’s dispense with technicalities and admit that that which from my perspective could only be assessed as a prodigiously rumored burst of trickle down was, in its final effective effectiveness, little more an urban legend (like the punching of transsexuals and such). If you really want to be purely academic, I mean think about the fact that no one staked me to sit on my furry ass or to do the other things that I envision myself doing.
One more thing… I just want to say that I really appreciate ZK contributors such Mary and Bif who lately have shared some really great stories and thoughts.
How monkeys ever used to live without crosscut shredders, electronic bill paying, and drive-through car washes that you pay for at the pump is one of the greatest mysteries that ponder these days.
*that I ponder*
Got dammit! Fucking English. If I was writing this shit in Spanish the verb would have covered my lack-of-subject ass. As I like to say, I’m illiterate in at least three languages.
Hummm…..maybe…..one thing for certain, i don’t miss posting amongst the maroons hanging out over at CFN these daz. Bunn, you should take it for a spin. I’d be afraid to hand it over to dave, though. OTOH, he practically moderates the site as it is.
tipping, don’ worry baby. I’ll remotely activate thal’s gps device. That way we can get a good fix on him before he unintentionally swaggers into an enemy combatant facility thinking that he’s just agreed to coach girls basketball and dance camp (such places really do exist, so say my sources).
If he’s already made his way to Romania or Russia, it would be rhythmic gymnastics instead (I guess).
dave is just about the only one of us here who still consistently engages (or attempts to engage) with the current CFN denizens. Hats off to you, dave, I think.
you know, with global warming, and the higher latitudes warming faster than the tropics, then the atmospheric delta-T is getting smaller between the poles and the equator, and the trade winds should slacken, bringing less weather and precipitation to the islands.
so why, when i tell a physical oceanographer this idea, they tell me “Gary, it’s moron complicated than that”? what’s so complicated about it? i know weather is noisy data, but there must be trends to climate.
dave, help, please.
Y’all hear about this?
Pirates take ‘super tanker’ toward Somalia
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/11/17/kenya.tanker.pirates/index.html
“Gary the global warming goat”
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ugtJEQ40A&feature=dir
This is even funnier if you’re from Oz…
Uncle, I’m so proud they named that goat after me.
Yarra
Cool flick – the 13 amp wire crack was a laugh.
Nudge will adore the SUV bit.
you know, with global warming, and the higher latitudes warming faster than the tropics, then the atmospheric delta-T is getting smaller between the poles and the equator, and the trade winds should slacken, bringing less weather and precipitation to the islands.
hard to say what the end result will be. just as a fer instance, more heat might be available to do work, ie, produce and maintain a trade winds. this is just a single fer instance.
i think that about the best one can say about anthropomorphic GW is something like: yeah, we’re sure to fuck things up in one way or another. that’s what we do best.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~vawter/PhysicsNet/Topics/Thermal/WorhHeatIntEner.html
despite a lower temperature gradient.
higher temps overall definately means more moisture in the atmosphere. where it will be dumped as paterns change, and paterns always change, is something of a crap shoot in my mind.
http://www.dieoff.org/page78.htm
this is what we do, fuck things up. imo.
what you’re saying would definately be true if one could assume that gradient pathways, or routes, will be maintained.
another fer instance: the gulf stream pumps a lot of heat into the northern latitudes, thereby reducing the temperature gradient between the equator and the north pole. if this flow is shut off due changes in the mineral content (again, who knows, it’s justa fer instance) the overall tempearture differential could increase.
if you really wanted to get into, i think you’d have to critque the specifics of the model. personally, i wouldn’t waste my time. i’d just kinda nod and say: yeah, that’s nice. then i’d go back about my business of trying to fuck 20 yo women. they often want to experiment with anal sex at that age. so that’s a plus.
Thank god you got back to anal, Dave, I was worried you were going all techno on us.
Yarra & dave
“Australians could face ‘pay as you dump’ charges as part of a Toilet Tax. It’s all in the name of “sustainability” – and part of a growing eco-movement to replace flushing conveniences with smelly and unhealthy inconvenience.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/20/carbon_cult_war_on_toilets/
dave, thanks, i guess, that Logan article depresses even me. i hope i’m not keeping you from your experiments with 20 yo women. i recall conducting similar experiments with 25 yo women. they acted all surprised and like they were virgins, ha ha, they probably had 10 boyfriends before i came along, pun intended.
Uncle Remus, before we go too overboard with the shit recycling, it may perhaps be worthwhile to work the math on all this organic recycling and see how much energy consumption is really offset. it could save us getting our hands all dirty.
we need to start reducing our populations. we should do this voluntarily before it becomes mandatory, with nature calling all the shots. who’s population will be first to volunteer to save our planet? shall we do it by lotto?
UR,
I got a permit to shit for ten years (we’re on septic).
Anyone comes to inspect for some pay as you dump shit, they can go down to the chook shed and breathe deeply.
Then again, the septic tank is 2000 litre, could hold a body or two…
But you should always be respectful of your partner, y’know pay for a taxi in the morning, their turd tax after butt sex – all good manners.
UY, thanks for the video link. Loved that SUV line .. “the only time it’s ever been off-road is when the driver’s texting behind the wheel ..”
*snort*
Doom, could be that a side effect of “smelly and unhealthy inconvenience” will be to attenuate coital ardor. Or everyone claiming to be French. [shrug] In which case, our socialist future would be apropos.
Yarra, yes, good manners. Which likely falls into the same category as common sense.
Got cob?
Is that too cheek?
Nudge,
I’ll see your *snort* and raise you a chortle.
more on pirates…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122731000016149251.html
Bunn Bunn,
I left Tipping Point a message under “I’m gonna try this again” and I can’t get the thread to come up.
Hi Tipper!
MOU, said thread appears to be history. Hopefully, you saved your message and can repost it elsewhere. ~BB
Hey MOU! I knew that thread would dissappear eventually; I might have to start a black box archive of ZK posts that JR deletes after sobering up : ) Just kidding JR, though blackmail can be a lucrative business…. hmmm
I have a financial question- it’s been thrown around that the best bay to invest in oil is through an etf but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with Energy mutual funds? I was looking at “portfolio composition” of a fund that lists the majority of holdings in “integrated oil and gas” I’m not sure what that means- can someone illuminate me, por favor? (fyi the other listings included oil and gas -equip and svcs, – drilling, -exploration and production, refining and mkting and strg and xportation) Perhaps integrated just means companies like Exxon or Royal Dutch Shell? Thanks in advance
Tip. By integrated they mean companies engaged in all of the upstream (exploration and production), midstream (transport and refining/processing) and downstream (wholesale/retail) activites. So yes, you would be buying major oil and gas companies.
Thanks Bif; I knew I could count on you ; )
George, I thought you were dead, or at least on vakay.
hey doom, do your students offer to fugger you often?
i wish. glad you found that program. i met the film crew in Seattle for my interview on their way back from Lituya Bay, Alaska. that tsunami was the record at over 500 m run-up, but we’ve since found much bigger ones that hit the Hawaiian islands about 100,000 years ago. and, Lituya Bay event was confined to an estuary, whereas the Hawaii ones were in the open ocean, therefore much larger.
Smart monkey finds black hole discovery useful, until…
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk&fmt=18p
bunnbunn?
ive found you
fucking polacks are silly.
Ahh, the potty-mouthed pollack has spoken again, and with all the usual refinement of that 20-something generation. This current run of links to perpetual-motion free-energy stuff won’t last long.
Nomouth, that animated rabbit seems to have it going on. We should get him on the team. And those wacky Poles too.
Yeah dave, here’s an example of working too hard to be funny. All I can say about it is that tourists sicken me. These sorts of European jackoffs do too.
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/07/02/monochrom-nazi-petti.html
On second thought, maybe this shit IS funny and I’m just not cool enough to get the joke. What next? A Plantation Petting Zoo in the heart of Dixie? These Europeans deserve to be destroyed.
What was that you saw in WSJ, Holmes? An article about Lufthansa being set to buy Austrian Airlines? Didn’t something like this happen before about 70 years ago? Where’s the gotdamm reportage?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122834410051377213.html
(A hiatus needs a hiatus when my friend JR is bemoaning circumstances in general. But, for the record, I’m still officially in idle mode.)
testing… uno, due, tre
off all the indignities… software that dares to moderate a god
Nudge,
Are you calling me an abstract piece of art from the 40/50’s? That’s pretty cool. Colourful, fluid barf.
Aw, c’mon. I thought we were BFFs now? Don’t deny you wanted to be that duck for even a second.
The lack of acorns around here is forcing gray squirrels to eat anything they can find. They are getting into garbage cans, climbing out onto the ends of thorny hawthorn tree branches to eat the haws, raiding bird feeders and chasing away smaller squirrels. Still, I am seeing some huge fat and healthy squirrels around. Point? It apparently pays to be big, bad, bold and acrobatic during a bottleneck.
bunnbunn,
thanks for the casting some insights on to my personal identity crisis.
fucking parents told me they fled polska under ‘refugee’ status to escape the commies. then my mom happens to slip me out from beneath her whorish panties in some mountain valley called furstenfeld?
i used to blame recessive genes, but now i really know why im teutonic and theyre – well inferior.
i can’t click to send… I have this strange feeling of love in my right arm.
Nomouth, you mean you weren’t whelped over there in the Fatherland? Shame on me for making that misassumption. But, hey, there’s no harm in being Teutonic or partway so. My dad grew up in a rather infamous European dictatorship of the last century. Had lots of interesting & scrary stories to tell about it too. I would call it a blessing to have at least one parent who didn’t grow up here in Duhmerica, where practically no one knows how to do stuff.
The nice Chinese lady at the local dry-cleaner was telling me how most people in China know how to sew stuff if they need to .. and she was somewhat amused at seeing all the American ladies who buy those $2000 Bernina / Husquevara machines and then don’t even know how to shank a button, duh.
First in peace, first in war .. Furstenburg
I am always curious about other country’s social structures. What’s the underlying reason for their discontent?
Bell Peppers
I saw them at the What White People Like website. What is up with these “vegetables”? They have basically no flavor. They are not hot, as peppers are supposed to be. They give you gas if you eat them, and they are expensive unless you raise them yourself. Why are they so popular? Is it their color (red, yellow, green, purple) or their shape? They are kinda big. They suck, IHO.
Joke for Dave:
Dave the hen
Dave came home from the pub late one Friday evening stinking drunk, as he often did, and crept into bed beside his wife who was already asleep.
He gave her a peck on the cheek and fell asleep. When he awoke, he found a strange man standing at the end of his bed. ‘Who the hell are you?’, demanded Dave, ‘and what are you doing in my bedroom ?’
The mysterious man answered, ‘This isn’t your bedroom and I’m St Peter.’
Dave was stunned. ‘You mean I’m dead !!! That can’t be, I have so much to live for – and I haven’t said goodbye to my family. . . You’ve got to send me back straight away.’
St Peter replied, ‘Yes, you can be reincarnated but there is a catch.
We can only send you back as a dog or a hen.’
Dave was devastated, but knowing there was a farm not far from his house, he asked to be sent back as a hen.
A flash of light later, he was covered in feathers and clucking around, pecking the ground.
‘This ain’t so bad’, he thought until he felt this strange feeling
welling up inside him. The farmyard rooster strolled over and said,
‘So you’re the new hen, How are you enjoying your first day here ?’
‘It’s not so bad’, replies Dave, ‘but I have this strange feeling
inside like I’m about to explode.’
‘You’re ovulating’, explained the rooster. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never laid an egg before.’
‘Never’, replies Dave. Well just relax and let it happen’.
And so he did and after a few uncomfortable seconds later, an egg pops out from under his tail. An immense feeling of relief swept over him and his emotions got the better of him as he experienced motherhood for the first time.
When he laid his second egg, the feeling of happiness was overwhelming and he knew that being reincarnated as a hen was the best thing that ever happened to him . . . Ever!!!
The joy kept coming and as he was just about to lay his third egg, he felt an enormous smack on the back of his head and heard his wife shouting…
‘Dave, wake up, you drunken bastard. You’ve shit the bed !!’
“The lack of acorns around here is forcing gray squirrels to eat anything they can find. They are getting into garbage cans, climbing out onto the ends of thorny hawthorn tree branches to eat the haws, raiding bird feeders and chasing away smaller squirrels.” -GB
Hey, GB! Good to see ya here.
Here’s an interesting article from the “Post” last Sunday on the dearth of acorns:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112902045.html
My Squirrel-PAC down on the Mall is in pretty good shape but the poor little critters are in for the shock of their lives in about six weeks when our nation’s capital becomes a gigantic blowout.
Block party!!!
Bit of growth happening….
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4188&p=162714#p162714
Can we get some sort of Special Dispensation or a Carbon Credit Waiver for the travel necessary to get to the block party?
i thought that the nazi petting zoo bit was pretty funny. i loved the way the nazi stayed in character.
i’ve always kind of admired the eastern europeans. time to be a nazi, ok no problem. time to be a communist, ok problem. time to be a capitalist, sure, why not?
theocracy? that works.
feudal monarchy? oh, you mean like when the local bishop got tired of sending shit to rome? who could blame him?
well phelps, some humor theorists say that all jokes must have some element of truth, i guess.
time to feed the squirls. my work nevr ends.
dave, thanks for explaining, now I unnerstand.
how about… pro-colonial populationists. makes prefect sense to me (especially if combined with alzheimers)
self-cannibalizing excretologists. on the throne of a dilemma, to be sure. but hey… it could work for awhile
I’m not trying to be funny, just fooling around with some paradigm shift potentialities that we all might want to prepare ourselves for. Scratchpad. Honestly, people… nothing to see here. As you were. Carry on. God Save the Queen. Etc.
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Well, UY, could you tell us how you really feel?
I guess I have to go read that other blog now….
Hmmm, I tried but I scrolled through four pages of “I really don’t give a shit” comments. Ah well, Asoka probably needs to get fucked anyway. I think I like Ryan Crocker(from other posts); don’t know if it’s despite or in spite of Nudge. Now, that Howard Effing Beale, he is one sexy effer!
Crisis & Collapse – Dmitri Orlov
Radio Ecoshock
[audio src="http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/economy/ES_Orlov_2.mp3" /]
You’ve got an audience now that CFN is down – so post something already.
CFN is only partly down
The older threads work
I just posted this and it disappeared.
Postus-interuptus…
JHK,
While I enjoyed reading this post (you are a wonderful writer), you make me hopeless, not hopeful. You are trying to shape the discourse around this movement and you insist on insulting a certain segment of the population. Your judgmental attitude will not make them want to consider the options you suggest. Why alienate anyone, anyone at all?
The only answer I can come up with is that you have not thought through what it is you would like to accomplish with this work. Your ego is SUV sized and burning up the atmosphere. Deflate it or suffer being pinned down in a tattoo parlor while thugs decorate you with neo-con propaganda. Or maybe they will just link you with a Madoff fund or something and turn you lose on Wallstreet with the words “SEC Regulator” tattooed to your forehead.
I am being silly, but I am trying to make a point– why single out people who wear sagging jeans or tattoos as deserving of so much contempt when the problem is people who wear Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Channel, Fendi, or Rolex?
“Your ego is SUV sized and burning up the atmosphere.”
Such is the lot of Latter-Day Prophets it seems.
“the problem is people who wear Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Channel, Fendi, or Rolex”
Or more properly, think that wearing them is significant in some way. It is of course, in a parochial, inbred sort of way.
Jimmy is suffering pre traumatic stress disorder – a symptom of not believing your own shit.
Or is it too much belief in himself?
Thus he can not look at his own work more critically or take constructive criticism as well as he should.
It often does seem as if he dives into mode that puts his ideas and what not on par with the txrenegade joker.
I wonder when he starts writing his weekly piece – Sunday night? I dunno, I couldn’t do it every week. Then again, he doesn’t participate in the discussion, so that probably makes it easier. Maybe he should downshift to a fortnightly or monthly article.
Oh yeah, and I posted on CFN the two words Johnny Rico and I didn’t get the spam message.
if anyone’s interested JHK’s predictions for 2009 are up.
Another Churchill gem (from parliament)
“Mr Churchill, you are drunk”
“And you, madam, are ugly”
“Mr Churchill you are VERY drunk!”
“And you madam, are extremely ugly – but tomorrow I shall be sober”
Aloha
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275493079711741.html
Donovan, that post belongs in the Cultural area.
Aloha,
Dr. Doom
Pardon the fuck out of me.
That Ben Stein… what a card.
Holmes. That column by Stein was unusually dark for him. He’s always been such a big cornucopian perma bull. Stein was encouraging people to get into and stay in the markets in 2007. He was writing in his personal finance column that the only thing that could stop a long term upward trend of the market was nuclear war. Well since 2007 the Dow has dropped 6000 points and I haven’t seen any mushroom clouds yet. He deserves his place in Dickipedia.
Bif, yeah… I was thinking the same thing. Clearly Stein’s tone is different. I never too much took him seriously before, but he is a funny guy… and he definitely can write.
Doom, if you go missing here for a week or so, I will consider. ;-)
Cultural area would be a bit cruel. Thats where I keep my off-spec stuff and nerdy pop youtoobs. Don’t do that to him.
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=282&Itemid=1
Not 99.9%, 100%!
Because we burp up the CO2 in the soft-drink!
It takes Balls to announce the frightening truth: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4571944/Ed-Balls-minister-fears-rise-of-fascism-amid-economic-gloom.html
The revolution will not be televised, but the die-off will.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/feb/11/zimbabwe-gold-panning-starvation-food
“Who will dig for the old people?”
AU, incredible, thanks for posting this.
I send checks to Oxfam. I think its probably the best and most effective of the relief groups.
http://www.oxfam.org/development/zimbabwe
They have worked hard in Zimbabwe, or as well as anyone can. I think its been extremely difficult in getting aid and assistance to people. There is much hope that the new government there will be more effective. But you know how that goes.
Taleb has started a facebook discussion on the blowup….
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51818722129
Experience has demonstrated that it takes a substantial amount of time–and repetition–for folks to absorb a concept before embracing it. (That curmudgeonly old amygdala at work.)
So without fear of boring the geniuses here at ZK, I’ll propose once again my suggestion for dealing with the banking and finance offenders–all of the scofflaws knowingly engaged in naked shorts, Ponzi/pyramid investments, mortgage-backed securities, OTC derivatives, etc.
The Martha Stewart Solution
No violence, no prisons. House arrest with an implanted chip or tracking device–provision of the basics (food and shelter)–in exchange for “public servitude” to the government until the losses generated by each individual are returned to the public coffers.
Choice of two assignments: 1. Remaining in the US and working with low-income/poor populations to help rebuild their communites in a sustainable way or 2. Working with similar poulations overseas.
Not saying that I’m a genius (no self-respecting god would allow himself to be saddled with such a label) (and maybe I’m missing something in the fact pattern), but how is either
1. Remaining in the US and working with low-income/poor populations to help rebuild their communites in a sustainable way or
2. Working with similar poulations overseas
going to make any money to effect the restitution? I mean maybe the ill-gotten gains already been spent, baby doll.
Her Docktor Doom,
I just read this quote in the comments section on Orlov’s blog:
“You could take all the capitalists and bankers, including those in Wall Street, and bury them, and you would still be facing the same fundamental problems.”
Look, a null hypothesis, just waiting to be tested. Darling, could we write a grant proposal? Puhleaaaze? We will need to conceptualize and operationalize the term “same fundamental problems” but I think we can be pretty clear on the independant variable and the treatment. We could switch up burial with other things such as lynching and see if it affects the outcome.
And it wouldn’t be rioting or revolution. It would all be in the name of science.
And when IRB loses their pensions, I bet they will approve it. ;-) You only worry about human subjects if they are human.
MOU, I think we should try for an NSF SGER, as they fast track those, no normal peer review, to expedite them. Time is not on our side here, as the subjects could be lynched and their heads impaled on poles at almost any moment now.
I suspect the null hypothesis is correct. Nothing much will change, as the damage was done long ago, and we are now living with the aftermath of the effect (those loud popping sounds were bursting bubbles).
I’m going to attempt to pull the remainder of my 403b on Tuesday AM. No sense watching it all evaporate.
My two cents: Orlov is both funnier and more correct about the future than that Florida windbag.
“…going to make any money to effect the restitution? I mean maybe the ill-gotten gains already been spent, baby doll.” -bunnbunn
Bunn-
My all-knowing and delightful overlord, forgive my jump from Point A to Point Z.
1. Money does not necessarily equate with value;
2. Sieze and calculate the monetary measure of the ill-gotten gains (homes, cars, boats, trips, etc.);
3. Translate into tangible and intangible equivalents (cleaning up pollution, community service, education, food production, etc., etc.);
3. Assume that your only cost for this new “workforce” will be monitoring, food and basic shelter and that it will undoubtedly be with us for some long time.
EEofDC
We can start with the CEO of Peanut Corp. He can pick peanuts to replace all the illegals leaving Georgia
yes EE, there are definitely other forms of restitution such as the intangible equivalents you mention. In some instances, for example, if the criminals were tasked with educating people about something, the resulting good or benefit might eventually scale to some kind of equivalent (putting aside, for the sake of discussion, the difficulty in measuring such things). We need to put you in charge of administering this program. But don’t make it too much fun for the villains, lest you inadvertently entirely remove the punitive aspect. Perhaps this is where Martha and I diverge, but I don’t have time to be concerned solely about whether an optimally happy face purported solution has been presented. Most of these cretins are never going to be able to provide adequate compensation for the damage that they’ve done.
hmmm?, ya! president’s day. little known fact. licoln used to love fried black people thigh meat for lunch. sometimes he’d put it on rye with a little saurcraut and mustard, particlarly if the particular negro happened to be named ruben. he prefered field hand over house nigger. he never recorded the reasons for this preferance.
historical fact.
Irrefutable
I could not add high enouph the number of times I have to remind people that Lincoln did not give a flying fuck about the slaves. If he cared so much for human rights of non white males the end of the civil war would have also ment then end to the Indian Wars.
Simple fact for all the Lincoln lovers.
Oil tanker attacked off Nigeria
Armed men in speedboats have abducted a Romanian crew member after an attack on an oil tanker off Nigeria’s southern coast, security sources say.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/01/20091219320627635.html
“Most of these cretins are never going to be able to provide adequate compensation for the damage that they’ve done.” –bunnbunn
Bunn, m’love-
I sense your bunny blood pressure rising, much as mine used to do before I started to reframe my interpretations of the world around me (remember, I’m that much older than you) over our perceived collective injuries as a society from the actions of others, particularly in the “finance” area.
It seems to me that the blowup of the finance/banking system is simply the latest in a series stretching back over millenia each time society reached its limits.
Some day we may actually be grateful that these financial dimwits unequivocally proved–once again–that you can’t live on nor sustain illusion.
Now we are a global neural network and the “shock” of limits is calling for a paradigm shift worldwide in what is valuable. Time will tell if the human race is flexible enough to make an about-face and survive it.
P.S. My reference to Martha was about her period of “home confinement” with a tracking ankle bracelet after her jail time. Boesky, Milken, and their ilk haven’t changed one whit.
EEofDC
Niiiiice.
Just cause bunnbunn is a young godling, does not mean he can’t learn a thing or two from his worshipers.
Do you think it was a conservative, tasteful, yet fashionably demure ankle bracelet? Or was it large, tacky, and neon? A wise judge would have her suffer something ghettolicious to expand her horizons. Then again, you can’t really cure “white,” can you?
Martha showing some leg
Sexy!!!
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1100413,00.html
First Roubini, now Fucking Greenspan.
Greenspan backs bank nationalisation
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e310cbf6-fd4e-11dd-a103-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Everyone should get out of the market and pull their money out of everything NOW. All investments you can get out of. Punish them with the numbers. Give them nothing. Don’t float this balloon baby, we’ll gun it down.
If everything is collapsing any way, what does it matter?
LET IT FALL
WE WITHDRAW
Come on, they want a war, lets give them one.
Tax Rebellion
Withdraw all funds from the banks you can.
Withdraw from all the investments you possibly can.
Buy PMs.
You guys have fun with pretend war over here. They are building a case for this shit. Do you support nationalization? Is there a way you can do any of the warfare I suggest?
LET IT FALL
WE WITHDRAW
I am so pissed. They are stealing absolutely everything.
“Nobody gives a fuck.”
I think that is coming together for me tonight.
Your reply is spot on.
Actually, my husband, a psychologist, thought the same things about Obama too, early on. My husband has a dark side to him I call “cult leader.” Everywhere he goes, they want to make him the leader. We don’t go too many places any more. Unlike Obama, he does not jockey for it. Anyway, he spotted that (and the needs that get fed with that shit) in Obama.
Thanks for your reply. I like “real.” A lot. Medicine.
Take care.
“Take care” might be disconcerting, but “Take care of yourself” is even more problematic, I’m afraid. So I think we’re headed in the right direction.
I once said “con cuidado” to a Spanish speaker. She just kind of shook her head and looked away like I was the biggest dork on the planet.
I always used to think that a language barrier is a beautiful thing. As much as it may handicap me, I still believe it to be true.
“If you show your face again, let it be I who does the witnessing.”
Splendid! Uncle Remus has returned.
bunn, where did to spot Uncle Remus?
bunn, where did YOU spot Uncle Remus?
Et to, Brutus?
http://www.thestreet.com/video/10465193/cramer-nationalization-would-crush-america.html
This is Cramer. You decide.
Cramer the bigest dolt in all of CNBC? Kudro is a close second maybe worse.
“From Beverly Hills to shoveling manure on a farm, or How my salary changed but only the location of my job, not the basic tasks”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/26/economy.survivor.farm/index.html
“…we want to see the High School Musical heartthrob subject the galactically-talented thespiatrix to a shotgun divorce.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/27/total_recall/
Eye of Sauron?
Just a little gratuitous advice from some random site that I’ll probably never find again.
The author doesn’t offer remedies (other than advice to invest in commodities). His statements that “They are only concerned about the next election cycle” has been used by others to claim that democracy itself it the problem. I have some far simpler solutions:
1) Ban Lobbying. It is blatant bribery. How in the world did our society decide that bribes were acceptable. There is nothing free speech about trading money for political favors at the expense of the public. What did we expect would happen when we made fundraising/corruption a prerequisite for public office? If we publicly financed all campaigns, and banned all gifts to public officials, the investment would yield exponential returns in terms of government integrity and competence.
2) A Balanced Budget Amendment. Make it a crime for Congress to spend more than the government takes in unless a well defined short term state of emergency is declared — by the supreme court. This relatively simple step would practically ensure currency stability, remove an economic doomsday weapon from China’s hands, and wipe out the national debt within a generation.
3) Align tax incentives with the changes we desire. Tax hikes on cigarettes and alcohol have been proven to reduce consumption of those products. Why not tax gasoline to reduce our economic dependency on hostile dictatorships? Offset a gas tax with a cut in the income tax. Net results: More incentive to be economically productive and earn income. Less incentive to waste gasoline while funding terrorists. Why tax manufacturing businesses at 35% and hedge fund speculators at 15%? Are we trying to discourage manufacturing and encourage AIG-style speculation? You get more of what you encourage. Duh.
4) Equal Justice for All. Corrupt politicians, lobbyists, and financiers should go to the same prisons as convenience-store robbers and for the same terms. The public should be outraged that there is no justice for people with wealth or connections.
5) End Earmarks. This is where the pork comes from. It’s hidden in budget documents thousands of pages long and placed there anonymously by paid-off congresspeople. The opportunity for corruption is obvious.
6) Refuse to Fight Oil Wars. “Spending” tens of thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars spent to secure oilfields in dictatorship nations that support terrorism offers no return on investment for the public, only for oil and defense firms and their lobbyists. The trillions spent on the Gulf War and Iraq have done nothing for the public, except increase the national debt burden on their children, thousands of whom lost a parent in “the sandbox”. No “made in China” pseudo-patriotic magnetic bumper ribbon will change that fact.
There you have it. Six relatively minor steps that would lead to a stable currency, the end of the national debt, a more competent government, a less corrupt government, and a more functional society. No crackpot economic theories or radical revolutions needed.
The trick is getting the population to demand these changes – the same population where 60% of people haven’t read an actual book since high school.
Well EE, what was the random site? Those six steps sound very reasonable to me.
I have spent the last 48 hours cleaning my house cause I have a big day tomorrow! Thanks everyone for being supportive despite my idiosyncrasies… If I’m not around for a little while it’s not because I don’t think you guys are awesome, I’m just busy readjusting to married life. Then again, maybe I’ll finally be able to have some time to myself!
I don’t think it’s Hawaii, Bif. Maybe New Zealand.
Is anyone else old enough here to recall some of these?
I really miss car culture extremis.
We got your money.
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/we-got-your-money/
The daily reckoning
That happens be something several of us here read often. Interesting to see you read it too.
Somebody else said:
”
“Members of Congress should be compelled to wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers, so we can identify their corporate sponsors.”
Of course, it would never work. The print would be too fine to read.”
as a young child, say 1958 thru 1963, i wouls go to the drive in with my parents and my asshole brothers. i remember being dressed in bunny pajamas, the kind with the feet sown in.
inthe early 70’s i would go with my asshole buddies and do drugs and smoke pot and stuff.
of course, i got my forst blow job at a drive in, circa 1972? something like that.
car culture extreme? just plain old car culture, i’d say.
f1 and nascar are extreme. not that there anything wrong, per se, with extreme. i’d say.
drive-ins were a chance to get a lot of stuff that you can’t get (as easily) at malls, because the latter are too well lit and they have security cameras and shit.
oh well, they served a purpose, and were fun while they lasted. sometimes the movies were good, too.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/25/california.crash/index.html
Air Force jet crashes in California
Story Highlights
F-22A fighter jet crashed 35 miles northeast of Edwards AFB around 10:30 a.m.
The one-seater was on a test mission when it crashed; status of pilot unknown
At $150 million apiece, the F-22A is the most expensive Air Force fighter
From Mike Mount
CNN Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) — An Air Force F-22A fighter jet crashed Wednesday near Edwards Air Force Base in California, Air Force officials said.
The single-seater crashed about 10:30 a.m. for unknown reasons, the officials said.
The status of the pilot was unknown.
At $150 million apiece, the F-22A is the most expensive Air Force fighter.
The fighter was on a test mission when it crashed about 35 miles northeast of Edwards AFB, where it was stationed, the Air Force said in a news release.
In 2004, an F-22 Raptor crashed on a training mission in the Nevada desert. The pilot ejected and was not hurt, though the jet was destroyed.
The plane was designed in the 1980s to provide a stealthy method to enter Soviet air space and strike Soviet bombers if the USSR attempted a nuclear strike.
Once the Cold War ended, the Air Force found a new mission for the F-22 as a long-range fighter with a sophisticated stealth design and state-of-the-art equipment that no other plane could rival.
However, the rising cost of the plane and numerous design and software problems threatened the program, which was almost killed by Congress.
In the end, the aircraft survived, and most of the problems were fixed, except for the price tag, which forced the Air Force to buy fewer aircraft.
As Craig Kilborn used to say, “Well, it’s happened again.”
March 26, 2009 — Updated 1626 GMT (0026 HKT)
Pirates hijack two chemical tankers off SomaliaStory Highlights
Pirates hijack two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia
23,000-ton Norwegian-owned M/V Bow-Asir captured
M/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned vessel also seized
(CNN) — Pirates have hijacked two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the past 24 hours, the European Union Maritime Security Center said Thursday.
The 23,000-ton Norwegian-owned and Bahamian-registered M/V Bow-Asir was captured 250 miles east of the southern Somali city Kismayo on Thursday morning, the security center said in a release.
The M/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned and Panamanian-registered vessel with 19 crew members, was attacked approximately 450 miles east of Kismayo on Wednesday afternoon, the security center said.
Officials have issued an alert site notifying all vessels in the area to be aware of the increase in pirate activity.
taleb update:
To Taleb, Scholes’ academic work, which enabled the widespread use of complex derivatives, was like “giving children dynamite.” “This guy should be in a retirement home doing Sudoku,” Taleb says. “His funds have blown up twice. He shouldn’t be allowed in Washington to lecture anyone on risk.”
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/03/26/mr-taleb-goes-washington
For those about to fail, we will chide you.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29923316/
“You need to calm down. You may be right. But nothing is going to change because you are pissed.
I learned this the hard way over a number of years when nobody joined me while getting banned from website after website.”–JR, from above post.
Not picking on you JR, in fact, I applaud your responses to MOU above. It was stellar.
BUT, when you were banned at CFN, and you started ZK, several folks did indeed join you at this site, and here we are, baby. So, I logically conclude that some folks do indeed give a fuck.
“BUT, when you were banned at CFN, and you started ZK, several folks did indeed join you at this site, and here we are, baby. So, I logically conclude that some folks do indeed give a fuck.” –Dr. Doom
Yup… yer right, Doom. We may not “give a fuck” in the way that JR does. In fact, since we’re all individuals, it’s probably a given that our egos will ensure each one of us clings with a death-grip to those ways. Here’s my current way:
“THE NEW FINANCIERS”
By Hazel Henderson © 2009
A venture capitalist friend of mine asked me in a recent discussion about the financial meltdown, “who will be the new financiers?”
I answered immediately, “the new financiers will be the high-level information and knowledge brokers – and they will aggregate the new research on global change processes and lead in structuring the deals now creating the growing green economy.” Today information and media drive markets.
These new financiers are already operating unseen by traditional Wall Streeters and asset managers. They are largely invisible to current financial players and governments because information is their prime currency; rather than money. The new deal-makers value the role of honest, well-managed currencies that remain dependable stores of value and mediums of exchange. Money is a special kind of information, not a commodity in itself, but rather a brilliant invention of the human mind. When backed by real-world goods and service, as well as strong contracts, money can accurately track and score human ingenuity, productivity and transactions interacting with the natural wealth of resources of our home: Planet Earth.
The problem with money is keeping it honest and keeping its “promise to pay” firm. From the goldsmiths who over-lent against their piles of gold held in storage for their customers, to the kings who shaved of the edges of coins and today’s bankers who create our money out of thin air, we humans have found many ways to debase our currencies.
Human activities grew from traditional barter, mutual aid and gifting to the invention of money back around 3,000 BC. Our money evolved from clay tablets, shells and cows to metal tokens, gold, silver, today’s paper money and electronic currencies that are blips on millions of financial trading screens.
As we expanded worldwide with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Europe 300 years ago, our need to trade and exchange grew exponentially. This required expanding our money systems of exchange. Gold, which backed most currencies in growing international trade, became too constricting – there just wasn’t enough of it. Many traders turned to silver and other precious metals. Soon, the lack of gold led governments to issue paper “fiat” currencies backed only by promises and a fraction of actual gold. Some countries shut their “gold windows,” including the USA in 1971, and restricted their citizens from owning gold.
Our current financial crises go beyond those earlier contractions, panics and recessions caused by the lack of gold or sufficient supplies of credible paper money. Central bankers have learned the lessons of the Great Depression. The money supply must keep up with, not surpass, the expansion of production and trading as a country grows and its real economy progresses. Today, the interlinking of all countries’ economies due to the globalization of finance and technology caused money-creation to go wild, leading to a credit bubble and mountains of debt.
Computerization of finance and markets speeded up trading to seconds; satellite inter-linkage of round-the-clock stock and commodity exchanges led to the explosion of derivatives contracts, ever more exotic “securitization” of packages of mortgages, student loans and credit card debts. Risk-analysis was relegated to ivory-tower mathematicians’ algorithms which ignored real-world conditions. All this multiplied the creation of money and credit exponentially.
Reckless, poorly regulated financial firms on Wall Street sold their dubious, toxic “securities” to gullible investors and pension funds (which should have known better) around the world. For example, the bets on who might default, called credit default swaps, grew unregulated to now comprise $683 trillion of contracts (Bank for International Settlements December 2008) – while real global production measures only the $62 trillion of global GDP (IMF October 2008).
The resulting crises were predicted by me and others over the past decades. All that money and debt creation led to illusory gains and today’s inevitable losses and “de-leveraging.” The bubble in finance and money itself has popped. Central bankers and financiers, schooled in the world’s leading business schools and economics departments focus on money and global monetary circuitry. They were rarely taught that money was simply one form of information – now deeply devalued as all the new forms of money-creation went wild.
Today, we see central bankers printing money on TV. No amount of ink and paper can print enough new money to close the hole between that $683 trillion of false promises and the world’s real GDP of $62 trillion. The only issue is who will take the hit. Up to now, the political influence of financial sectors has forced taxpayers to bail out financiers. The blatant unfairness and stupidity of this has caused huge outcries from outraged citizens. Those billions given to irresponsible bankers could have financed universal healthcare and college education. This is the end of finance based only on money and fiat currencies. We now know it’s about priorities and values.
Enter the new financiers: those high-level information and knowledge brokers who understand our Information Age and the great transition from the fossil-fueled Industrial Age to our new Solar Age. Overloaded money-circuits have broken down and the huge new volume of transactions in the past decade have migrated to the internet. Pure information-based exchange and sharing has led to the new hybrid economic model described by experts, including Lawrence Lessig’s Remix (2008), Yoichi Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks (2007), Don Tapscott’s Wikinomics (2008), Verna Allee’s Knowledge Evolution (1997) and my own work (www.ethicalmarkets.com). This hybrid economy is half the old money-based competition and half information-based sharing, cooperation and exchange. From electronic stock exchanges, Instinet, Archipelago, NASDAQ, Knight and Entrex to Google, e-Bay, Craigslist, Amazon, Facebook and Wikipedia, we are seeing how money-obsessed financiers are trailing behind. The new financiers: those high-level information brokers go beyond economics to understanding whole systems and the human family on planet Earth.
Money may return to its honest base, reflecting real world values of Main Street productivity but may never again be the dominant medium of exchange. Just as gold remains valuable but can no longer support the new volume of human transactions. Money will be superseded by all the new digital currencies already circulating from local exchange trading systems (LETS) and complementary currencies like “Berkshares” and “Wirs” in Switzerland to Freecycle and many other barter sites, cell phone networks and radio shows. Incumbent money-circuit players will try to get regulators to shut down these upstart, disruptive technologies and competitors. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, shut down the website Prosper.com which boomed by facilitating local residents and businesses in lending to each other.
The new financiers are operating these new digital trading platforms in many countries. Many designs for global digital currencies are on the way. They will complement the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, another pure information-based currency for international development which is still conceptually tied to gold. The new financiers will show why the old financiers and central bankers can no longer have a monopoly on money and its creation. Information-based currencies and trading platforms will operate wherever necessary for evolving human communities so as to match needs with resources and create jobs – from local and regional to national and international exchange.
Today’s financial “crisis” is facilitating the evolutionary jump to the next stage of human development – shifting from faulty, money-measured GDP growth to the cleaner, greener sustainable economies. Governments are realizing that they must now also correct those money-based indicators and GDP national accounts to adopt the new Quality of Life Indicators. Pension funds have realized their errors in chasing only short-term money returns and are demanding that companies report their performance beyond the old single bottom line of money to the triple bottom line, including progress on social, environmental and governance performance. Welcome to the Information Age.
EE, drop me an email. Do you have my addee?
Effing is polite speak for Fucking. Howard Fucking Beale (I called him that once), Frank Fucking Zappa, John Fucking Wayne. It’s a form of street respect. Really, JR, you need to hang with truck drivers more often.
BTW JR, Nudge and EE still think you are HEB. Have to admit, it took me awhile, and a big hint from HEB himself, to convince me you were not him.
You must both be happy knowing that a kindred spirit it out there, roaming the land, but you two have hooked up on the internet. Mind clones.
You talking to me, bro? Wot, you talking to me?
Dexter? A sitcom on HBO? I thought HBO was for watching movies and soft porn. Oh, and Bill Mahr, Maaahrrrrr. And George Carlin reruns on the Comedy Channel.
Well, I’m the first to admit that I don’t know doodle about F1 racing. Looks expensive (gotta be good, then, right?) and a tad dangerous. I don’t watch them for the gore. I know you guys don’t also.
On this topic, I will admit being turned off to NASCAR when I realized that the cars under the fake bodies were no moron than bigger, clunkier F1 racers. Seems a bit disingenuous, like posing.
Happy to know you did some time behind thee wheel. I did construction about that time of my life. Damn near killed myself, so took an early retirement from such work and doubled up on the book learnin. That experience and Nam hanging over our young heads made the college work worth all the challenges, despite the competing calls of drugs, sex, fast cars, fast times.
Hey, so what’s so bad about talking to me all the time?
I beleive you were addressing Hamilton when you said this:
“I feel for you, Brother. I’ve felt that way just yesterday. Complete despair and hopelessness. It hurts. It becomes a physical pain. Depression is no joke.”
Tell old Doomie your problems. I promise to be more sincere than that old Magic Eight Ball under your bed. Cough it. I’m waiting, scotch rocks in hand.
OK, so you’re paranoid. A lot of us social animals are, to varying degrees. And that’s when times are good. When times are bad or dicey, even, paranoia looms large. “Paranoia rules the streets, into your mind it will creep, nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong, ….[Buffalo Springfield, circa 1968].
I’ve held but not shot a Thompson. Heavy gun. I’d recommend a lighter, compact Israeli model, like the ones the Secret Service body guards use.
Still trying to get JR to meet in Boston before the place gets nuked. I’ve long since moved west of the city so as not to be downwind of the fallout cloud. Err, and that’s if we’re lucky enough to get a relatively “clean” bomb too.
Mandatory geiger counter checks at the 128 and 495 ring roads. “It’s all contained.”
Nudge, I thought the real threat to Boston was a LNG tanker explosion in Boston Harbour. Maybe that’s what’s keeping our chief editor up late at night?
Not if it was serious work. Who needs a guy always questioning your underlying motives, primal beliefs and undying faith in capitalistic growth-based economics on a finite, populous planet whilst trying to concentrate on the right combination of blasting caps and plastic? No thanks, that’d be like inviting the wife to come along.
Well, I know I’m invited, and I’m flattered, really. My work keeps me real busy. It could just about dominate all of my life, but I don’t let it. Really, lately I’ve been working seven days a week. Mostly part-time on the weekends, and be a parent/husband. I try to get some licks in here, sorta like dave.
I keep hoping it will let up and I can write moron. Maybe in a few weeks.
Abe & Louie’s. Get enough coffee in him Nudge and he’ll think he was up all night at the Buena Vista in San Francisco drinking Irish Coffees.
Surely there must be a good place for Irish Coffees in Boston? I know, and don’t call you…
“you live in or near Oil City, PA.” Huh? Try that routine on me, please, as a test.
Doom, go figure, the same service is way off on your IP location too. Sez you’re actually operating out of Vladivostok. What gives?
Sez you’re actually operating out of Vladivostok. What gives?
That’s probably where my assigned FSB spies are monitoring all my transmissions. On Monday, I’ll have to blow that by my Russian lab tech to get her reaction. She’s got a green card, so she can’t be a spy, right?
Okay, but let’s at least try. Let’s kidnap dave and torture him*. Who knows? He might just fess it all up. Worth a try, I’d say.
*How best to do this? Put him in a small room with asoka and dale?
dave, just kidding about the abduction and torture stuff. best leave that shit to professionals.
Err, Doom, that plan has Unintended Consequences written all over it. From what I heard, all you’d get is a strangled Asoka left (as a joke) in some sort of lurid sexual pose with an equally dead dummy-boy “infestor” from Idaho.
Doom, does anyone make waterproof SPF 500 sunscreen? That’s the sort of stuff I’d need.
Uggh, the last time I got carded it was by some wrinkly-looking chick in the town next door. I started laughing hysterically, which only irritated her. Tried to explain that I was born not long after JFK rode by the grassy knoll ~ and she missed the reference. After seeing the drivers license, she asked me how, and I said it had something to do with avoiding that fricking bright sunlight outside.
So .. does anyone make SPF 500 that doesn’t look like white paint or giant lead screens? Err, I suppose really thin gold leaf might do.
Damn, dude. I already posted a link to stuff about the KERS flywheels as a first comment under my F1 Primer post. (No point in reinventing the wheel. Just sayin’.)
http://www.f1technical.net/features/11805?sid=9caa2876814667af5c80ce5ff8d69665
And somewhere else a few days ago I said that KERS was optional in 2009, mandatory in 2010 unless of course the rules get changed again. How much more technical do you want? You looking for a cad or Solidworks drawing or something?
Hey MOU, This article is for you!
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6397/
Gotta get the sequel, the editor’s book called “Can I Recycle My Granny?”
“A senior Obama administration official has told NBC’s John Yang that General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was asked to step down by the administration.”
Bet Wagoner didn’t see THAT coming…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29946290/
Donovan, Wagoner should have fallen on his sword long ago. Now they will do it for him. Sob, poor chump.
Also, isn’t it amazing that the Fed administration is seemingly so hard on the auto industry, which at least makes useable stuff with its energy allowance, and only slaps the hand of the finance industry, which almost singlehandedly brought the whole house of cards to its knees? Gee, no wonder when so many of them are embedded and in bed with the administration.
Wake up, chumps.
Gots to be embarrassing, having POTUS essentially can his sorry civilian ass.
I would not call a 20 million dollar retirment package falling on one’s sword kind of exit. The guy destroys GM then gets paid extra? I call that stealing.
When the house of cards falls from its knees to its face I hope that Wagoner has a spot in Peru waiting for him. Because he is going to be a poor man when the cards are a mess on the floor.
Fuck Target National Bank. Fuck Bank of America.
Target credit card sends me a letter, stating my interest rate is going to be 24%. Usury!On a card with no balance due, last charge 11 months ago. Fuck you, Target! I cancelled it last week. Then, tonight, BoA sends me a letter stating my interest on one card is going from 7.99 to 13.99 percent. So I go online, to check out what my other BoA cards’ rates are (I had three CCs fron BoA). One card doesn’t appear online. WTF? I’m holding the card in my hand, it expires next year. So I call them up on the ‘phone. The missing account was cancelled in January. News to me. I ask the nice lady if I was sent any notification. She says “No, the comments here show that no letter or email was sent telling you that the account has been closed by us. It wasn’t closed due any risk regarding your credit worthiness, it was closed to reduce Bank of America’s outstanding credit available to it’s customers”. So one card is going from 7.99 to 13.99, one card has been cancelled. I tell her that it was a good thing I didn’t try paying for a restaurant bill in front of my friends as the means to learn that the card has been cancelled. She agreed. So she tells me that she will lower the third card from 12.99 to 9.99 fixed rate, but can’t lower the recently raised card’s rate. WTF?
Just venting.
I keep my cards in case I am unemployed and need them to get me through after savings run out. Otherwise they are empty or paid off monthly. They raised my rate too. I told them I was canceling the card, my call was for that purpose. They had to “talk me out of it.” I started the process, vented, the whole bit. They lowered it back down. They also gifted me some frequent flyer miles. They also offered me a 1.99% on a balance transfer (no balance to transfer).
You may be able to get your old rate back by writing them and telling them you do not agree to the terms of the new arrangement and therefore you are shutting the card down.
I agree, fuck them. Only, AU, really do it.
Hard.
AU and MOU I feel for you guys… almost. Drop the whole credit card idea altogether if you can. I have been lucky enough to have never had the need for a credit card. Just another way for the system to own you. Keep it simple, just say no to credit cards. So what if I can’t rent a car? I’ll hitchhike if need be. I’ve done a lot of that. Helps to be young, carefree and single though. At least I’m single.
I keep thinking about that GB. I used credit cards to pay off my house and student loans. They let me have a whole lot of money at 1.99%. They were the reason I was able to get out of debt so fast and own my house immediately. Every other day I tell myself I will just get rid of them. But what if something huge comes up? I have a child and because I have paid off everything and I am totally debt free they will loan me a barge load of money. If things get FUBAR, a credit card or so could be a bridge that gets my family out of something bad and into something better.
So for now, they stay. But yeah, it is a vulnerability. If someone steals my identity right now, they can do me some damage. There is merit to what you say.
I’m poor. I have no real savings. I need credit cards for emergencies. In the past, this has been $3000 for dental work, and $4000 for a new transmission for my car (out of warranty, yet still owed the bank, so I couldn’t junk it). Also, paid for additional college classes on plastic. I’ve not used them for non-emergencies for 5-6 years, just been paying them down. That’s how I ended up with zero balances resulting in the banks either cancelling them, or raising the rates. I’m not profitable enough for them.
After the commercial real estate crises this summer, the credit card defaulto-rama is on the national agenda for the fall, according to my notes.
P.S. I was a bill collector for a couple of years. I’ve seen what happens when people try to live on the plastic when unemployed. I don’t recommend it. Pretend you are already maxed out, and take the next step; when in a hole, stop digging.
P.S.S. I gave up on hitching 25 years ago, when it took 3 days to go from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo, which is about 200 miles. Maybe when gas is rationed, hitching will come back.
The credit card thing is pretty fucked up
We re-arainged our payments based on a change in days we are paid. So every thing is moved up a week. So on the first day where the old payment scedual would have been due… The fuckers call and say we are late.
Hello fuckers look at the new payment dates.
Glen Beck at his best
Silly question for the ZK contingent: is there any interest here in stuff like the following?
http://futuretowniesofamerica.blogspot.com/2009/04/loom-work-jig-for-making-heddles.html
Consider it an experiment-in-localism gone overboard! :)
Nudge, Google is everywhere…
http://www.google.com/patents?id=K45NAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=United+States+Patent+1948129#PPA8,M1
Cool stuff. Clearly, that machine is beyond my abilities to build, and the heddles it makes are not the kind I want. Those kind can be bought at around 50c apiece. Part of what I wanted to find out is if it’s possible to make this sort of stuff using only simple tools/materials and without reference to anyone’s patent bank.
http://housebarra.com/EP/ep02/18bone.html
This stuff (old expired patents) is in the public domain for your and everyone’s benefit. So you don’t need to reinvent the wheel quite so often (plus it’s sometimes interesting to see how we used to build machines back in the old days). The quid pro quo aspect of the patent system: limited monopoly granted in return for required eventual dedication of the technology to the public. People used to say that future wars would be fought over intellectual property rights. Ha ha.
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money*.” Cree native saying.
*unless you’re a rabbit.
BunnBunn .. thanks for the clarification. Some of us actually enjoy reinventing the wheel :)
Hey, weren’t those future wars supposed to be fought over water? Or oil? Bring on the Carrot Wars! ;)
Old saying. Never get involved in a bootleg war in Asia.
For those not reading CFN these days:
Good news & bad news on the oil exploration front. First the good news: per a geophysicist friend who gave a seminar yesterday, there is about 12 years supply of light, sweet crude off the South Atlantic coasts of Brazil and Angola, at current global consumption rates. The bad news: development will be expensive and production is about 10 years off. Most of it sits in deep water, >2500 m water depth, and is locked up under thick salt deposits that are hard to drill through. Amazingly, the oil was formed from shallow, probably brackish lakes during the initial formation of the South Atlantic (rifting, like the Red Sea) over 120 million years ago.
“Amazingly, the oil was formed from shallow, probably brackish lakes during the initial formation of the South Atlantic (rifting, like the Red Sea) over 120 million years ago.” –Dr. Doom
Well, Hay-soose, Doom! What the f*ck are we waiting for–let’s get in there and defile the beejesus out the place before it’s too late. I vote we nuke both locales and then skim the slicks when they hit the surface.
Yup, the news just keeps getting moron better for Brazil and Angola. Nukes not necessary, but drilling through salt is apparently a bitch, not to mention the water and overburden depths. They may be like the Canada oil sands, with very low to zero or negative net energy.
i guess it’s still too early to tell if dave’s prayers have been answered: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html
Here FYI is an exchange on TOD that I was involved with today. I’m D3PO.
JoulesBurn on April 25, 2009 – 4:41pm
There are probably infinite ways to define capitalism, but I would contend that the simple charging of interest on loans is capitalism — getting money for doing nothing except tying up capital. And interest goes back further than Christianity.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-History-Of-Interest-Throughout-Time&id=160818
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hightrekker on April 25, 2009 – 7:51pm
We are talking about ownership of the means of production, not interest.
Profit is extracted through surplus value on labor.
But, I agree, as long as interest is involved, economies need to expand to pay that interest off.
That has been arranged in numerous ways.
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D3PO on April 26, 2009 – 12:00pm
“Profit is extracted through surplus value on labor.”
Which means the person(s) receiving the profit have selfishly kept it for themselves and not distributed it back to the labor which produced it, or they charged too much for it in the first place. Either way, it is disgraceful behavior.
Lovely campfire post, BTW. Totally agree with it, but there are too many humans now to go backwards, and most of the damage to the planet has been done.
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[new] hightrekker on April 26, 2009 – 1:25pm
Actually, it is about the people doing the labor keeping the profit, not having someone take it from them. If you participated in the organization and creativity of the process, you are also part of the labor process. If you just abstractly own the means of production through a financial instrument, you are extracting wealth.
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[new] kyhardhead on April 26, 2009 – 5:35pm
“Interest” is only another form of “profit”; both are equally illusory, just another iteration of a perpetual-motion machine. Until humans get the Second Law in their bones, there will be no change, just more rainbow-chasing.
The vast diversity and exuberance of life on Earth is nearly all down to the energy profligacy of the Sun (the small remainder due to Earth’s own energy surplus, and that mostly in the distant past). THAT is the only real “profit” we have ever had, and can ever hope to have. Any culture without this realization, and its honoring, at its core is doomed, regardless of whatever other merit it may have.
Humans have lived, and “thrived” (or at least vastly increased our numbers), by usurping whatever pockets of current and past “profit” we have discovered, in the forms of cultivated biomass and fossil fuels. Our numbers are now so great, and the usurpations now so extensive, that The End has come into view, at least for those with eyes to see. It may, and probably will, take generations to unfold, but it has begun, and cannot now be stopped, even with all our cleverness.
But, in my view, that is a Good Thing, and our only real hope. Nothing short of a hard crash, with 95%+ population loss, will ever disabuse humans of the pathological notion that they can get something for nothing.
“Government Flu” by Dead Kennedys
We got a drug
We’re gonna try it out on you
Won’t make you die
It’ll getcha just a little bit sick
[Chorus]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it’s three days old
(Goin’ on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And years
Barely got the time now
To stay on the job
Double up the dosage in your water supply
Make you even sicker ’til you’re slippin’ away
Getting all depressed
It’s getting all your friends
You can’t get it up
For nothing that’ll rock the boat
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
Slip it abroad
Keep a-slowin’ down the USSR
But meanwhile
We’ll keep an eye
On what it’s doin’ to you
[Chorus]
Got a head cold
Got a chest cold
And it’s three days old
(Goin’ on forever)
Make you hazy
Make you lazy
Drive you crazy
For days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And days and days and days and days and days
And years
The government flu
The government flu
The government flu
Flew
Through
You
Hey, the kitty’s jest tryin ta make a living.
http://www.flixxy.com/wildlife-adventure-cougar-bear.htm
Got this today from our Furher:
“Mahalo to the University Health Services (UHS) for their service today in light of the one UH Manoa student testing positive for H1N1 Influenza A virus, as reported yesterday. UHS saw slightly more than 50 people today with a variety of health concerns; in those individuals with influenza symptoms, no Influenza A virus was detected based on the rapid detection test.
That is reassuring. However, because H1N1 virus is in the community, all of us must remain vigilant and continue to take necessary precautions to prevent infection and spread (see http://www.manoa.hawaii.edu). Also, if you have influenza symptoms (flu always causes a fever, and is often accompanied by cough, sore throat, fatigue and aches/pains), seek medical care, and practice social isolation by staying at home or in your on-campus residence hall or dorm room to prevent spread of the disease.
UHS will resume its regular schedule and be closed on Sunday. It will be open at 7:45 a.m. on Monday morning (see http://www.hawaii.edu/shs).
Aloha! Chancellor VSH”
What’s going on? Is this like a dress rehearsal for the real deal? If it’s no moron serious than the regular flu, what is the bid deal?
Doomy,
My semester, thank God, is over and I don’t teach this summer. I can run my journal from home. I do have some grad students working on theses, but that is it. Hope you can stay away from the office. Nothing like hopping into the viral cesspool and seeing what gets blended up.
Oddly, you may be the right age to survive this thing, not so young as the ones dying (the young immune system goes nuts as you probably know), not too old to be frail and vulnerable that way. Was that politically incorrect to say? Is there a pie for that one?
Good luck colleague. Stay healthy. We need you in these here parts.
Ha ha ha, Grandpa Pie, Grannie Pie.
My hair is mostly white now, and I could lose some weight, but I am as strong as an ox. I’m a bit like that picture of the angry old man drawn by da Vinci. Was it a self-portrait?
No, the bigger threat is the real possibility of faculty furloughs, for perhaps up to 32 days, and we’re hoping they mean calendar days. If they do that, I expect many of our best and brightest to vote with their feet. Several in our school and department have already announced they are leaving UH.
Tourism shrinks –> state income shrinks –> state departments shrink –> state university shrinks. The math is simple, the effects are dire.
I hear that, I really do. They talk about our talent (in Memphis for Christ’s sake) leaving for elsewhere. I’m always getting emails that try to get me to join the union. What a joke. Never mind it is not legal for state employees to unionize. Where is elsewhere? They got another planet or something to go to? I’m serious, no where to run to baby, no where to hide.
But when they start talking pay cuts, I am grateful to have a job. Other assholes whip out that leaving shit. Know what I say? Bye! Makes the rest of us safer, nit wit.
You guys are a state college, like us. The tax revenues are in the toilet. You should see the CA numbers, something like down over 50% sales tax, 48% payroll. So screwed. It’s coming for us all and us state people are not entitled to more than the private sector. We work at the leisure of the taxpayers. If they hurt, we should hurt. Nothing else makes sense, but so many folks are sooo defendant on those checks being a certain number that they can’t see the bigger picture and cut down on their consumption. I’m ranting, but this shortsightedness, this misplaced egotism, could really ego us all out of jobs.
You are right, the math is simple, the effects are dire, bro (not grandpa pie). I’ve seen your picture on line. You look sturdy to me!
dependent on checks that is.
Good morning MOU & Doom:
There’s a page I’ve been watching to keep up with this Mexican Flu thing, though it seems we should really call it the UPL Flu now since, clearly, we are the country with the flu-control problem:
http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/
The link is rather interesting. The UPL is in the process now of moving up from 2x to 3x the number of cases seen in Mexico. No other country seems to be having this problem. Even in Mexico the number of cases seems to be leveling off or at least rising proportionally more slowly than here. What gives?
The CDC numbers, out later today, will probably corroborate this. (see http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/) I’ve been too lazy to do the same spreadsheet from day to day to see which states are having the biggest percentage upticks. The last time I looked at it, the numbers showed that 7 states accounted for around 75% of the cases. It was a strange mix of border states and rich northern states.
MOU, thank you for that excellent point about how there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It’s not as if there’s any “planet prosperity” you can flee to anyway. (Dale may be disappointed when he lands in Costa Rica and is promptly eaten by the natives. Is he depending on them remaining friendly to rich Yankee outsiders? Ixnay that.) Things are unwinding most spectacularly everywhere these days.
Looks like we’re back to the meteor strike theory again….
Humanity will survive the worst that influenza can throw at it even without intervention. With modern intervention, its effect declines dramatically. But the key problem of pandemics was revealed in this case: The virus spread well before information on it spread. Detection and communication lagged. That did not matter in this case, and it did not matter in the case of HIV/AIDS, because the latter was a disease that did not spread through casual contact. However, should a disease arise that is as deadly as HIV, that spreads through casual contact, about which there is little knowledge and for which there is no cure, the medical capabilities of humanity would be virtually useless.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090504_geopolitics_pandemics
EE .. hi, thought you might like this one:
http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/live-avian-flu-virus-placed-in-baxter-vaccine-materials-sent-to-18-countries/
Scary stuff.
Oh, and the number of reported Mexican cases took a 2x upward jump since I posted that thing earlier. Sheesh.
Hey, Nudge, Thanks! My confirmation bias works again–it all comes down to money in the end. Too bad they always forget that pesky law of unintended consequences until AFTER they’ve screwed the pooch.
The Laws of Unintended Consequences serve as sort of a leveling effect among those who might otherwise be too dang clever for their own good.
In conspiracies as well as secret plots, the saying “All’s well that ends” applies equally.
Campion has left the base.
Yeah, baby! Put down that cheeseburger and get to work!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2009/06/15/moos.maher.rant.cnn
her voice is a little light for my tastes; but i liked the song.
Hey bunn, Bif, howz about a pictorial tribute to the late great Farrah Fawcett on ZK? She was always pretty to look at. Dunno about Jacko, he seemed a weird boy, even by ZK standards. I know, standards, what standards? Had a few good pop numbers.
Michael Jackson’s influence was world wide, as seen in the official ZK music video.
So, Benny Lava is Hindi for Michael Jackson? Truly a star of international proportions.
I get tired just watching that video.
Check out the fire at the bottom of Halemaumanu Crater at night here: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cam3/
Updated cam shots in the daylight shoe the gas plume.
Geology is so cool.
Hot Damn! I found a site that plays Hawaii Five-O complete classic epidoes in high-res feed. I may be gone for awhile.
http://www.cbs.com/classics/hawaii_five_0/
episodes….?
Book’em and torture’m Dan-o.
The old pineapple drip board technique….works every time.
Da Man, Colin Campbell, on Peak Oil: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2521422940285513454
Good night and good luck.
Hello, from the deep south: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-M9gipm9s&feature=related
I think I am Indestructible. No visits, doc or dentist in a couple of decades. Mr. O, May I please opt out!
This is for you guys and the best of the Nanny state, ” I am worth more Dead than Alive”. LET ME GO W/O HEALTH INSURANCE!
Last time I checked my bankroll,
It was gettin’ thin
Sometimes it seems like the bottom
Is the only place I’ve been
I Chased a rainbow down a one-way street… dead end
And all my friends turned out to be insurance salesmen
J PRINE
Mr. Kunstler, What do you think?
Jim e, fuck that, what do you think of Contador headed into the final week (Mt Ventoux!) and how about those Schleck brothers? You know what I’m talking about.
Thanks for the platform Johnny Rico – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l23lxYFpu3c&feature=related
Mr. Bif, The Good Saint, Never a better… Every time a see a green jersey (Liqui) I think of you. If RICO knows who Contador is Contador will win it. My last French cycling excursion was from the sweet (home of the nougat) Montelimar to the Med. and even though the MISTRAL was pushing me down I saw the VENTOUX and circled it! I see Fireworks on the 25th! On this day I see hope for a good teammate, Armstrong.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124829403893673335.html
“There are signs medical pot’s increasing business legitimacy is crowding the market. A 20-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley now has close to 100 places to buy. “So many dispensaries have come along, the prices are dropping,” says one operator, Calvin Frye. Two years ago, his least expensive pot was about $60 for an eighth of an ounce. Now it is $45.”
——–
The stuff is effectively legal.
I’ll send Holmes over with his camera to get some pictures of this. But first he’s going to need a pot card and a new passport. Rahm’s hyperruthless illegitimate nephew is the summer intern; we’ll get him on it straightaway.
Everyone sing with me… “Newclusterdam heeeere I come!”
“Calvin Frye”… the jokes practically write themselves.
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
@St. Bif- I have never seen three better riders than I did today.
Saint Bif said:
Jim e, fuck that, what do you think of Contador headed into the final week (Mt Ventoux!) and how about those Schleck brothers?
I think as I posted here (jim e was taken)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/12/AR2009071201953_Comments.html#
-bamaearl wrote:
Mr. Armstrong deserves much respect but who is the greater teammate? Not in the past but today?
I have said since his return that he needs to play pretty. This team has four riders within a minute of the Maillot Jaune. It is Lance’s race to win when Alberto fails, Levi’s when Lance fails and Andreas’ when all else fails.
When they leave the sweet city of Montelimar and head to that lower Alp in the East, this race will be decided and I predict that Contador will chop down his rivals just as the French did the trees on the top of VENTOUX!
If I were Lance I would be proud to be Alberto’s teammate and the only way Lance will win is to do whatever he can for his teammates…
7/13/2009 11:07:54 PM
Never been a Lance fan, but Jim-e, I have to agree that he has played the role of super domestique in great form, and has been a good sportsman throughout. Like him or not, he is still the true patriarch and boss of the peloton.
Sadly my favorite riders Jens Voigt was badly hurt yesterday in the decent of Col du Petit Saint Bernard. Onto the pavement hard and at 55mph. I couldn’t bear to watch the slow mo replay. I have felt the pain of that kind of road rash and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Wow Jim e, nice ride. I’d kill for the opportunity to descend some switchbacks in the Alps. Probably isn’t going to happen though at this rate. But you never know.
Bunn, its the last American dream, really, photos are a must in this situation.
Finally, natural, organic relief for my glacoma condition is here! Where do I get my prescripton filled?
D3PO- Give it a week or two… for your local pharmicia you had best learn barter. jim e
You smart people… What of modern health neglect? Who wants to Ride their bicycle?
what odds?
The Good News: gasoline to remain affordable in foreseeable future.
The Bad News: you may not have a job, making said gas expensive, anyway.
ppg, ppb?
SAINT BIF, IF YOU GET THE CHANCE TO TRAVEL, I RECOMMEND A YEAR WE ARE NOT A WARING. JH
What? Jim-e get a hold of yourself. We don’t care about no stinkin’ WARING. We’ll descend from the Alps like sleek lycra-coated banshees at high speed, regroup into echelon formation, and enter Monaco like gentlemen. If they can’t deal with that, fuck’em. We’re Americans goddammit. And we don’t need fancy hotels or guns, we live in teepees and play banjos for crying out loud.
De horror, de horror…!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/07/24/dnt.or.mayor.bares.too.much.kgw
Woman looks like man but doesn’t see it or care.
My new wallpaper:
(not my art)
Boom mikes are sometimes included in a shot because the film, when projected, is supposed to be matted, that is, the top and bottom of the frame is cut off in the projection booth. This makes for a sharper edge in the image. If you see the boom in the theater, the projectionist is messing up; in a dvd, the transfer was poor.
I was a projectionist as a work-study job at college, back in the day. Sweet job. Projecting movies, handing out equipment, helping the profs steal scenes from film to transfer to those new fangled VCRs. Took the Nagra that the film dept. had to a Dead concert.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd79-05-12.glassberg.vernon.18874.sbeok.shnf
(not my recording)
“C’est un Nagra. C’est suisse, et tres, tres precis”
This was a cute splice job, not great but cute.
For John/Chris
Sgt Hartman VS Jack Nicholson
MOU, who the fuck is John? You mean Johnny?
I guess you guys are thrilled watching old gladiator movies with the soldiers wearing Rolexes and the sky filled with jet contrails. The English dubbers could never get the sound synced properly either, so we used to get high on pot, kill the sound, and make our own dialog.
That’s where some of those precious barrels of oil got consumed.
Tom Sizemore apparently was the shits. Reminds me of another scene stealer, the ultimate Joker, Heath Ledger. He even topped Nicholson’s Joker.
Why did OEO bring him (Sizemore) up, apparently out of the blue? Why does mention of these two great actors inevitably bring out the gay discussion?
Apologies for the off-topic material, but I can’t resist:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/08/laura_blankfein_and_kathy_fuld.html
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08052009/gossip/pagesix/goldman_sachs_wives_hate_to_wait_183044.htm
Looks like the upcoming production of “The Long Emergency”, written by JHK, has got its first volunteers for the roles of Marie Antoinette & chums.
August 5, 2009 —
GOLDMAN Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employees to avoid high-profile spending, as The Post reported — but his wife evidently didn’t get the memo.
Laura Blankfein and her friend Susan Friedman, wife of another Goldman honcho, Richard Friedman, caused a huge scene at Super Saturday in the Hamptons last weekend when they arrived at the event before the noon start time and balked at waiting in line with the other ticket-holders.
“Their behavior was obnoxious. They were screaming,” said one witness. Blankfein said she wouldn’t wait with “people who spend less money than me.”
Another observer said the women were so impatient, it was as if they were waiting on line for a kidney transplant instead of a charitable designer clothing sale.
Friedman shouted at the event organizer, “You have lost so much money because of this . . . Why should we be treated like the $650 donors?”
Sources said Blankfein and Friedman had bought tables with blocks of tickets going for $833 apiece, as did many of the women who were waiting patiently in line, happy to raise $3.4 million for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
In the end, the hot-headed duo got in at 12:03 p.m., three minutes after those who arrived before them.
No word on how much of their husbands’ money they spent. But Lloyd Blankfein — wary of bad publicity over the big bonuses he and his colleagues expect to collect at year’s end — has called for an end to conspicuous consumption.
A Goldman Sachs executive was quoted in yesterday’s front-page Post story, “[Blankfein] wants to make sure we’re not being seen living high on the hog.” A Goldman Sachs rep did not respond to requests for comment left at the offices of both Lloyd Blankfein and Richard Friedman.
Maybe Congress will make Climate Change illegal?
Nudge, one wonders if the Guillotine will be making a comeback?
Paging Madame Lafarge ..
“The English dubbers could never get the sound synced properly either, so we used to get high on pot, kill the sound, and make our own dialog.”
We used to do the same thing with B grade horror flicks and martial arts movies. Get the el-cheapo weekly hire, tape over the write-protect hole, stick a microphone in and voila.
Best thing was when you got bent and were watching a movie that we’d hired before but couldn’t remember doctoring.
P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.P.S. Rico delenda est.
Scared?
I am, I could be earning a highpaying job in the exciting world of LAtin!
Saturday night vid clips.
There’s two clips above.
not knocking it, but i never could get off on space porn.
liked the mp bit. the big bang as some kind of giant coochee explosion, a cosmic orgasm. that’s a cosmology that i could get behind.
well, time to change dad’s diaper.
I kin haz better clips tonite:
See how we find cops in their native habitat.
Not that I’m a gossiper .. oh, what the heck .. but I noticed a few interesting things in Jimbo’s column this week:
– his use of the word “we”, and not in the imperial sense of the word;
– his mention of an invite to cape cod;
If I had to take a guess on the combined meaning of this stuff, perhaps Jimbo really has hooked up with Kris Can after all. She lives somewhere here in Mass.
Nudge, she’s not blond, but she would make a fine trophy wife. Heaven knows Jimbo needs some female companionship, on and off the road, just like a certain other fellow we both know and appreciate.
Doom, there are plenty of non-blonde Stepford, err, trophy wives out there. In Jimbo’s case, since he’s not horribly rich or important, it’s not as necessary for his TW to have the WASPy, country-club looks that might be needed elsewhere, like in the rich spots of SoCal.
The other thing you may have noticed about Jimbo and his writing is that he seems to end a relationship roughly around the same time that he finishes a given book .. ie, he starts off with the dedications to [whoever], and by the time the book hits the stores he’s already broken up with [whoever]. Poor Sally was a victim of the finishing of WMBH. Who’s gonna be next? Will Kris Can be the sacrificial victim Jimbo needs in order to get through whatever book he’s doing next? I’m pleased to note they’ve managed to hook up despite the way it began with his public comments about her [gun] rack.
Huh, makes me want to get all these gals together for a support group .. we can make up some “I dated James Howard Kunstler and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and a book dedication” type apparel. (as the token participant who’s thus far avoided a relationship with JHK, I will volunteer to be the moderator .. once I understood that Jimbo can obviously be very charming when he wants to be [translation: when he’s trying to get laid] it seemed a sensible decision to, uhh, can the idea of interviewing him .. maybe it’s safer just to stalk him at ASPO gatherings?)
Fall 2009 Seminar Series
Old Dominion University
Department of Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
Thursday, October 1, 2009
3:00 pm, Room 200 Oceanography/Physics Building
Massive Volcanic Flank Failure, Megatsunamis, and Quaternary Climate Change
Gary McMurtry,
University of Hawaii
Abstract: It is hard to comprehend the size and destructive power of the ‘megatsunamis’ caused by the rapid failure of island flanks, continental margins, or bolide impacts. Oceanic volcanoes have erupted and created landslides over many millions of years, but within the Quaternary, flank failures appear to have responded to changing climate in the orbitally-forced glacial-interglacial transition period. In the case of very large shield volcanoes like Mauna Loa, Hawaii, failures also appear to correlate with finer abrupt transitions from cooler-dry to warmer-wet climate within interglacial periods: there is evidence that Mauna Loa’s south and west flanks failed in marine isotope stages 5 and 7, in a series of sections with a ca. 25,000 year recurrence, similar to Earth’s precession period. Previous paleoclimate work has tied Earth’s precession period to a powerful moisture feedback of temperate-latitude glacial ice, and suggests that precession dominates sea surface temperature variations at lower latitudes. This orbitally-forced climatic effect could increase the likelihood of groundwater saturation inside porous volcanic flanks during more frequent and powerful storms, especially in the subtropics, suggesting a probable mechanism for flank collapse. Mauna Loa’s flank failure started soon after its rapid edifice build-up at 250-300 ka BP, as evidenced by the Punaluu landslide. Two subsequent ‘megatsunamigenic’ landslides at 225 and 200 ka BP were followed by a 65 ka ‘rest period’ associated with the stage 6 glacial. Flank failures resumed at 135 ka BP, followed 25 ka later by the last megatsunamigenic failure at 110 ka BP (the Alika 1 and 2 landslides). The most recent Mauna Loa landslides appear to be the Ka Lae East and West, that likely occurred >32 to 60 ka BP, although no associated tsunami deposits are known. Globally, flank failures of oceanic volcanoes are recognized at the 100-ka eccentricity period of glacial-interglacial transitions back to nearly 1 Ma BP. These include hotspot and island arc volcanoes in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. These events imply a global megatsunami hazard, although such deposits are not well known outside of Hawaii, with the possible exceptions of sites on Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Canary Islands.
After the seminar, please join us in room 404, the Zaneveld Conference Room, for coffee and cookies, and to meet with the seminar speaker.
Coffee and cookies? Followed by cold beer and pretzels, I hope.
D3PO, thanks for the detail. I had to read that 2x to get it correctly. I suppose there isn’t time to have Roland Emmerich’s production crew (of the past production “Day After Tomorrow” and future production “2012”) to do a few video vignettes to show the effects of these megatsunamis, is there?
Nudge, I have a computer animation of the Alika 2 waves propagating from a “God’s eye” point of view that I often show. The best “on the ground” sequence I’ve seen is in the movie “Deep Impact” with Tia Leone. Always room for improvement there.
One minute you’re dry, the next, wet.
Doom-
What are “Ka”s, “BP”s, and “Ma”s… I think someone should make an edible volcano punchbowl with champagne substituting for the lava.
EE, sorry, us geological types are so full of jargon!
ka = kilo anon = 10^3 years
Ma = Mega anon = 10^6 years
BP = Before Present
Thank you, and please come to my seminar and speaker’s party if in the area!
Good call on silver when it was below $11. recently, dave.
http://www.silverseek.com/quotes/yearsilver.php
gold and silver are my only friends; they’ve been good to me. all the rest can just go fuck themselves silly. that’s what i say.
no matter how much oil i use, no matter how hard i pull, no hardon. what anybody gets outta this stuff, i just don’t know.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=pictures+of+the+universe&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=L02mSoirCuKK8QbhxsHrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1
the only thing i really want to know is how m judge could go from producing bevis and butthead and office space, to making a piece of shit like king of the hill.
Before I forget, Happy “Patriot’s Day” everyone!
(although I think they should really call it “Martyr’s Day”)
Dick Cheney Treasoner’s Day?
Black Swan- False Flag Day?
Never Trust Your Government Again Day?
BOY, Americans Sure Are Gullible Day!
Operation Northwoods Fo’ Real Day
“Operation Northwoods For Real” Day works for me.
children love boggeymen. some love obl, others love dick cheney. i still get nightmares from thinking about m kaddaffi. i just love him.
Brandon stopped by the CFN blog
Brandon | September 18, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply
I’m still alive.
I’ve found a small sanctuary known as love for now. Been weening off the amphetamine… been finding little moments in time where my mind is a nice place to be and by extension this life, the people in it, etc, but it’s hard.
Been making great strides in my deprogramming from cult mind control… can’t go into too much detail now.
“I’m still alive”
God bless him. If it ever comes down to a last man standing, I hope its Brandon.
Hitchens, the attentive babysitter I’m sure. Probably not the first to cure colic with bourbon though.
Last man standing, Omega Man, roams the suburban streets by day, kicking down doors and rummaging medicine cabinets.
Sorry to bring this up again. Ignore it if you want to, nothing will be done about it.
Does anyone still beleive the official story?
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september112009/911_truth_9-11-09.php
The 9/11 Commission Rejects own Report as Based on Government Lies
Gordon Duff Salem-News.com
How long have we watered the Tree of Deceit with the blood of patriots?
John Farmer’s book: “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11″
(CINCINNATI, Ohio) – In John Farmer’s book: “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11″, the author builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version… is almost entirely untrue…
The 9/11 Commission now tells us that the official version of 9/11 was based on false testimony and documents and is almost entirely untrue. The details of this massive cover-up are carefully outlined in a book by John Farmer, who was the Senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission.
Farmer, Dean of Rutger Universities’ School of Law and former Attorney General of New Jersey, was responsible for drafting the original flawed 9/11 report.
Does Farmer have cooperation and agreement from other members of the Commission? Yes. Did they say Bush ordered 9/11? No. Do they say that the 9/11 Commission was lied to by the FBI, CIA, Whitehouse and NORAD? Yes. Is there full documentary proof of this? Yes.
Farmer states…“at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened… I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. This is not spin.”
The 9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, was the Republican governor of New Jersey. He had the following to say… “We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth. . . ” When Bush’s own handpicked commission failed to go along with the cover up and requested a criminal investigation, why was nothing done?
9/11 Commission member and former US Senator, Bob Kerrey, says, “No one is more qualified to write the definitive book about the tragedy of 9/11 than John Farmer. Fortunately, he has done so. Even more fortunately the language is clear, alive and instructive for anyone who wants to make certain this never happens again.”
With the only “official” 9/11 report now totally false, where do we go from here? Who is hurt by these lies? The families of the victims of 9/11 have fought, for years, to get to the truth. For years, our government has hidden behind lies and secrecy to deny them closure.
In 2006, The Washington Post reported…”Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission…”
What does Farmer’s book tell us? Farmer offers no solutions, only a total and full rejection of what was told and his own his own ideas concerning the total failure of honesty on the part of the government, a government with something to hide.
——more at above URL—————-
AU, Nudge set up a permanent 911 thread (as permanent as can be in the bloggosphere) over at Future Townies. I’d like to see this posted there, as well.
Two, more probably three of the four ZK editors are into denial over 911, so I doubt this post will get much response here.
fuck, i lie all the time. that means that i blew up the wtc’s. how could it be otherwise? i’m glad that that farmer guy finally caught on.
the funny thing is, i lie even when i don’t have a good reason to lie. maybe farmer can figure out the reason for that; nobody else can.
in fact, if those norda pilots are anything like me, they like to lie. especially if they’re out at the whorehouse when they’re supposed be in the hanger polishing the various knobs and buttons on there areoplanes.
anyway, i bought and read that book last week. i don’t feel like talking about it though.
“inquisitiveness on all other matters large and small”
Yeah, you got me there. Recently I even thought about searching, purely out of curiosity, for additional prior art to your patents (i.e., relevant references not considered by the examiner [them gubmint workers with finite time to devote to each case almost always miss something!$!]), but managed to resist the urge.
“slow death of america”
Now, a lower case “a”… yet another cut. ;-)
p.s. — I’m not in denial about anything, and certainly not about the potential for government employee/actor incompetence.
You might want to consider the possibility that your thinking has been unduly influenced by your emotions, long-held political beliefs, and general predilection toward presuming, for all things imaginable under the sun and moon and stars and even not thought of yet, the existence of shadow enterprises working in clandestine ways to advance malevolent treasonous agendas.
A good part of most deal making naturally happens “behind the scenes”. And eventually some figurehead surfaces for a signing ceremony, to break a bottle of bubbly across the bow of a boat, etc. As a practical matter, for undertakings having any degree of complexity, how else can it be?
Thus, in keeping with the same brand of logic that compelled our ancestors to assay witch status with accepting water, all earthly activities other than standing on a street corner wearing a sandwich board and ringing a bell necessarily constitute a conspiracy.
Ha ha, speaking of actors…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1212543/Charlie-Sheen-demands-speak-Barack-Obama-9-11-government-cover-up.html
Well, if 2.5 Men and a Baby Hooker Luvin’ Charlie fucking Sheen is demanding a new investigation, you had best get cracking, BHO!
Nothing against hookers.
repo man is one of my favoite movies of all times. emilio is way better than charlie. if he comes out in favor of 911, then you can count me in too. that dick cheney is nothing but a two timing cunt anyway. i hear he’s been hanging out with m. kadhafi; you know how i feel about him, scary, scary.
mulmar has never recovered the same swagger he once had ever since ronnie almost took him out with a smart bomb.
bunn bubb, looking for prior art like that sounds a lot like the IRS going over your old tax returns ever so closely. cold sweat time.
BunnBunn, so even if the producers of the official 9/11 investigation tell you that its bullshit, there is no need for a honest re-examination of what happened? Either the now discredited 9/11 Commission Report, which was stonewalled by Bush, and cost less than Starr’s investigation of Clinton’s blow-job, is sufficient, for your curiosity, or it isn’t. What does Alex Jones and Charlie Sheen have to do with it, when the former NJ Att’y General, and 9/11 Commission member says it is bullshit? Alex and Charlie may be wackos, and call the official story BS, but this doesn’t mean that the official story isn’t BS.
Farmer isn’t the only 9/11 Commission member to find fault with the official story. Let me ask you, do you believe the official story? If so, why, when the damn authors of said story say it is bullshit. If you don’t believe the official story, why not a second investigation?
“So AU, I’m curious… what are your thoughts re: the mandatory health insurance in your state?”
I’m against it. It is a tax on existing, unlike other taxes, it can’t be avoided. I doubt the subsides to the working poor will be sufficient. I’d prefer a single payer system paid by general taxes, with the option of private insurance together with a tax credit for those that want to buy their own insurance.
I believe in health care rationing. No million dollar efforts to gain one week more of life. No triple bypass for 87 year olds.
Actually, I was referring to Steven Jones, not Alex Jones (Doom can clue you in).
The 9/11 Commission Report certainly could be and probably is flawed to some degree, but that doesn’t mean the relevant conspiracy theories are true.
If I had been a Commission member and thought that the report was criminal or fraudulent, I would have resigned immediately and demanded that my name be disassociated with the report. Yes, I certainly can attack their credibility, especially when they start popping up years later with books to sell.
If Obama wants another investigation, he will ask for it. Obviously someone fucked up. Even so, I think that there are better uses of taxpayers’ money than calling for a second investigation, such as helping working poor pay for their health care. But that’s just me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101300.html?sub=AR
“Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.
In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.”
My poor little bunny- even facetious remarks are gonna result in more aggravation than they’re worth. prolly more than three dumb mutherfuckers here think those others are even more dumber mutherfuckerers- but hey, my math could be off.
I love you, tip!
(now that my IQ has dropped 40 or so points, here’s an oppertunitee 4 sum of U 2 uhhtack.)
Doom, if you are in love with Steve Jones and his “work” so much then have dave give you some ideas about how to love it more. Leave me and my denial out of this.
hands down, alex is way sexier than steve. i think.
Here’s a few snippets from the Newsday review of Farmer’s book “Ground Truth”, that I grabbed from Amazon. [the URL is a mile long, but you can look it up easy enough]
“…the author concludes that the failure to detect and prevent the attack lay in the [bureaucratic] nature of modern government.”
“…Farmer’s conclusion that bureaucratic government does not adapt fast enough to changing missions to be effective…”
“…he transcends easy generalizations to expose the fault lines in contemporary governance and point the way to fundamental reform.”
[yawn]
We already knew (based on the statements of some commissioners in recent years) that they were stonewalled and misled/ lied to, so in that regard the book sounds (I haven’t read it) hardly groundbreaking, though it does sound like Farmer may be serving up some fresh examples.
Cornered and caught with its pants down (regarding ineptitudes, possible missed opportunities, and negligence) the government created a kangaroo commission and then treated it as such. Standard. In this case, yes, especially deplorable. Still the book seems of little use for truth squad nanotech ninja believers given the summary of his mundane conclusions in the Newsday review.
Is Farmer donating the profits or are they going in his and the publishers pocket? I haven’t been able to Google up anything one way or the other.
I read the John Farmer interview by Brad Friedman 9/11/09.
[Some excerpts]
BF- Do you think there was proper accountability brought to the folks who did drop the ball before 9/11?
JF- Well, you know, I think, again, if you read the book as a whole, I think if there’s a villain in the book, other than Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, who are- we can never forget are the principal villains, but it’s- it’s bureaucracy itself. And I don’t think enough has been done to sort of ‘reinvent’ government, that was the term used in the 90’s, and it was a recognition that, you know, in the post cold-war period, the threats were likely to arise asymmetrically and there was a need to reconfigure government, and there were efforts being made but they didn’t go far enough and they were not effective, so, uh- the answer to your question, in my view, is I think a lot more needs to be done, and it has to be at a very, very fundamental level because bureaucracy is the enemy of preparedness- and if I were gonna state one conclusion from the book, that’s what it is.
BF- So, it was, as you see it, it was bureaucracy- incompetence, perhaps- not necessarily malfeasance or misfeasance by these folks?
JF- Well, you know, if you had, for example, one agency that was- that was really responsible for the whole thing, and it totally screwed up- and- and- and I could see, then, you know, wanting to ‘let the heads roll’ kind of mentality. But when you see, as I detail in the book, in agency after agency, in department head after department head of varying degrees of abilities- and across departments- across crises, ‘cause you had the same thing Katrina- different departments- you realize they all had one thing in common, and that it an inability to cope with this creature that- that, you know, we’ve come to call bureaucracy- and when you have failures on that scale, I don’t think it really benefits anybody to start scapegoating people, because I think that actually, uh, lets bureaucracy off the hook.
BF- Well, you know, there’s a difference between ‘scapegoating’ and ‘accountability’- I mean, when people are warned, time and again, and as we understand the Bush Administration was warned do you feel that they- your feeling is that didn’t respond to those warnings from Richard Clarke and so forth, simply because, oh, it’s such a big bureaucracy out there?
JF- I think you have to go before that- you can go- by the time that President Bush took office, remember, that the Al Qaeda conspirators had essentially ‘run the gauntlet’ of our trillion dollar early warning system. They had managed throughout the 90’s to elude detection by the NSA, the CIA, by one of the hundreds of military bases that we have stationed around the world to provide early warning. They had managed to go through- get through customs, they had managed to get into the country- so that by the time the summer of 2001 came along they had basically run the gauntlet through every better-funded department than FAA and NORAD, and at the end of the day, we had probably two of the least well-funded organizations in the government that ended up having to fight the war that day.
***
BF- And are you satisfied, finally, with the answers to those discrepancies and why they existed, why NORAD did fail on that day?
JF- Well, you know, I think you have to distinguish between what they actually did that day and what they- and, and what the- the government told people they did, uh, because, uhv, you know, y-y-once you- and what the book does, at a level of detail the Commission couldn’t because the material was still classified at the time the Commission Report came out, and has since been declassified- it lays out exactly who said what to whom, and how the reaction took place, uh, and you basically are left with a lot of empathy for these folks, um, in NORAD, who had to react on the fly- to a situation they were not really trained to react to.
let’s not act rashly here bunnbunn. i think we all need to sit back and wait to hear what e. estavez has to say on the matter. cooler heads must prevail.
My suggestion is to set up an area for conspiracy theories or the like and folks that want to engage in that type of discussion can.
Do any of you guys and/or gals have an account with Harper’s?
Hi. Why was my last comment on this thread deleted? Who deleted it and for what reasons? My comment was a reply to Bif and included a repsonse to a comment made by Holmes/bunnbunn. Why was it deleted?
“My suggestion is to set up an area for conspiracy theories or the like…”
EE, usually I like your ideas, but what’s the point of that? Just to turn this place into another CFN or truther magnet site? I’ll be packing my bags and going elsewhere the day that happens. Is there no sanctuary from that shit anywhere?
And Doom, if you want to know why your comment got erased it is because I’ve had it with your ceaseless attempts to disclose my personal information in a public forum. You stick to the facts and leave my real world identity out of this argument and we won’t have any problems. okay? You want me to reciprocate in kind, leveraging every fucking point that I have to make off something that relates to your profession, personal circumstances, etc. Just keep it up. Keep attacking the status of the commentator, rather than the content. Believe me, you are equally vulnerable to this sort of attack, so shut the fuck up if you can’t stick to the merits of the discussion and insist on taking every little piss ant opportunity to impugn my personal status. Go ahead and post your comment again. If you keep trying to divert the discussion toward revealing personal information about me or any other poster, I will redact those portions of your remarks so long as I am empowered to do so. My motivations and beliefs are fair game. Can’t you understand the difference between motivations and beliefs and blabbing your mouth off about people’s personal information in a public forum? For fuck’s sake you’ve been doing this forever and keep getting slapped for it and still don’t get it. Go ahead and keep sparring with me, leveraging your arguments with my personal facts, as you seem compelled to do for your own personal and petty reasons. Henceforth, I will take whatever measures I need to put an end to this shitball style of exchange.
Your comment is the only comment from anyone that I have ever censored.
If anyone should apologize, it is you, but that’s not what I want.
Adios.
911 is cool, retards love it.
I’m rather confused. I started this with “Sorry to bring this up again. Ignore it if you want to, nothing will be done about it. Does anyone still believe the official story?”
Doom then says some here on ZK are in denial regarding 9/11.
BunnBunn goes ballistic, claiming that he is not such a naive bunny to not understand the incompetency government is capable of, and of course the 9/11 Commission Report is flawed. Bunn cites the commission questioning whether criminal actions were committed by witnesses lying under oath. Says O can call for a new investigation if he wants to, but, as far as BunnBunn is concerned, …uh nothing, no call for a new investigation. Reading between the lines, BunnBunn doesn’t want a new investigation, since he writes -“fraudulent” 911 Commission Report- and “Well, if 2.5 Men and a Baby Hooker Luvin’ Charlie fucking Sheen is demanding a new investigation, you had best get cracking, BHO”. This condescending tone makes plain Bunn’s viewpoint that there is no need for a new investigation. It seems that BunnBunn doesn’t believe the official report, knows that it is full of lies and spin, but doesn’t feel the need for a true accounting of the murder of ~3000 Americans, and the root rationale for a coupla pissant wars, abrogation of the Bill of Rights, etc. There can’t be a conspiracy, ‘cuz, uh…, LEAVE ME ALONE!
Then there is all this Dr Doom vs. BunnBunn “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe” IRS/ Patent Office / personal info / please go get a room for yourselves crap.
Dave chimes in with a logical fallacy, a feeble attempt to denigrate anyone that questions 9/11. A strawman argument. I’m surprised that Dave doesn’t claim he was operating the hologram projectors down in lower Manhattan on that morning, diverting attention away from the cruise missiles that hit all three of the buildings that collapsed.
Here’s a syllogism for Dave:
The Commission Report explains 9/11.
The Commission Report is flawed.
Therefore, we don’t have a complete explanation of 9/11.
It seems that BB thinks only two views are possible- the Official Story, flawed as it may be, and Dick Cheney personally planting nano-thermite behind each urinal in the WTC. It’s confusing, sometimes Bunn seems to say we are being lied to, and other times, Bunn seems to be saying anything beyond the Official Story is paranoid rubbish. There are many different alternate explanations, not all theories involve thermate and pre-planned demolition. I can see the attraction to physical evidence proving the involvement of the US government in 9/11, but it is not the only path of investigation possible leading to a government complicity. I think there is a lot of dis-information designed to lead people to call 9/11 questioners crack-pots. This muddies the waters. False dichotomy. The Offical Story is one of incompetence. I thought ZKers knew what “limited hangout” means.
Perhaps I’m all wet, and you denialists are really agnostics- we will never know, it is futile to even discuss the possibilities, it is like arguing over the number of angels that can dance on a pin, the truth will never be known, therefore, why bother.
“Sorry to bring this up again. Ignore it if you want to, nothing will be done about it. Does anyone still believe the official story?”
no, those premises lead to a flawed explaination as a conclusion. This is the way i would write it:
the comission report purports to explain the 911 event.
all human efforts contain flaws
therefore, the commission report is flawed.
A: retards don’t understand the differeance between matters of fact and logic.
B: many people are incapable of making such distinctions.
C: many people are fucking retards.
actually, that syllogism is inconsistant. point out my error and win a prize; i’ll tell you what REALLY happened to the wtc’s.
hint: i was lieing about the nucular reactor that me an’ cheny built in the basement.
“The Offical Story [flawed as it may be] is one of incompetence.”
AU, you said it yourself. This is consistent with everything that I’ve said (although you seem to be confused by some of what I’ve said, which I guess is not that unusual [even for me].) I certainly don’t think there are only two views. I sought out and read an interview with Farmer to better understand his updated thinking. You should ignore the peripheral histrionics. I don’t know what else I can tell you.
As to whether I “want” a new investigation or why I might want one. Well that’s a more complicated topic that I may address at another time. Got to run…
Flaws can range from minor errors made in good faith to lies and deception.
Concrete examples of these lies can be easily googled.
It is ironic that some people that are aware of Peak Oil, a concept denied by many, are unable to reflect upon their own resistance to exploring the contradictions contained in the implausable 9/11 story offered by our government.
Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2009/09/interview-with-sadad-al-husseini/
i may be sorry for asking some questions, but here goes. what’s so implausable about the “official story”, so called? why would one think it so implausable? the story seems both plausable and relatively consistent to me. how does the story relate to “gross incompetance” on that day? what are you even referring to, that the airliners weren’t shot out of sky by norad interceptors? maybe you think that before the fact intelligence was ignored when shouldn’t have been? does this constitute “gross incompetance”?
i think the denial lies with those who refuse to believe that this caper accutally got pulled off, and pretty much as described. they want something more, when there is nothing more. “no, that can’t be true. you’re wrong. there has to be more to it.” sorry, but that’s about what there is. it’s like those who denie the possibility of overshoot and dieoff. there’s your denial.
Thanks for the ASPO link, dave. The NY Times article that JR mentioned a few days ago is an interesting companion piece (yeah, why not… I’ll call it that) to al Husseini’s excellent discussion.
“what’s so implausable about the “official story”” Dave asks.
I don’t have time to write a new synopsis, so I’m goning to cut n paste from various sources.
here it goes:
The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.
That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage is quite likely true, but this is the United States we’re talking about.
That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so there’s no need to rehash all that. That was then, this is now!
That Jonathan Bush’s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it’s still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.
That George Bush’s brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done alright for themselves.
That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama’s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just one of those things – one of those crazy things.
That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.
That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history’s little aberrations.
That one of George Bush’s first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps, even as the group’s guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.
That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.
That the company PTECH, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America’s Terrorist Watch List in October 2001, had access to the FAA’s entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack, means he must not have been such a threat after all.
That whistleblower Indira Singh was told to keep her mouth shut and forget what she learned when she took her concerns about PTECH to her employers and federal authorities, suggests she lacked the big picture. And that the Chief Auditor for JP Morgan Chase told Singh repeatedly, as she answered questions about who supplied her with what information, that “that person should be killed,” suggests he should take an anger management seminar.
That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration’s energy policy which bore implications for America’s military, circumventing the established infrastructure and ignoring the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.
That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, is simply poor planning and unfortunate timing. Fortunately the error has been corrected, as the order was rescinded shortly after 9/11.
That in the weeks before 9/11, FBI agent Colleen Rowley found her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui so perversely thwarted that her colleagues joked that bin Laden had a mole at the FBI, proves the stress-relieving virtue of humour in the workplace.
That Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear on the surface odd, but undoubtedly there’s a good reason for it, quite possibly classified.
That FBI informant Randy Glass, working an undercover sting, was told by Pakistani intelligence operatives that the World Trade Center towers were coming down, and that his repeated warnings which continued until weeks before the attacks, including the mention of planes used as weapons, were ignored by federal authorities, is simply one of the many “What Ifs” of that tragic day.
That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent, senior-level warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and governments – including those of Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Afghanistan and others – of impending terror attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the pressing need for a new Intelligence Czar.
That John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 on account of security considerations had nothing to do with warnings regarding September 11, because he said so to the 9/11 Commission.
That former lead counsel for the House David Schippers says he’d taken to John Ashcroft’s office specific warnings he’d learned from FBI agents in New York of an impending attack – even naming the proposed dates, names of the hijackers and the targets – and that the investigations had been stymied and the agents threatened, proves nothing but David Schipper’s pathetic need for attention.
That Garth Nicolson received two warnings from contacts in the intelligence community and one from a North African head of state, which included specific site, date and source of the attacks, and passed the information to the Defense Department and the National Security Council to evidently no effect, clearly amounts to nothing, since virtually nobody has ever heard of him.
That in the months prior to September 11, self-described US intelligence operative Delmart Vreeland sought, from a Toronto jail cell, to get US and Canadian authorities to heed his warning of his accidental discovery of impending catastrophic attacks is worthless, since Vreeland was a dubious character, notwithstanding the fact that many of his claims have since been proven true.
That FBI Special Investigator Robert Wright claims that agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution, that the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and that he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism, sounds like yet more sour grapes from a disgruntled employee.
That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.
The suggestion that securing a pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House’s calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.
That Afghanistan is once again the world’s principal heroin producer is an unfortunate reality, but to claim the CIA is still actively involved in the narcotics trade is to presume bad faith on the part of the agency.
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
That Porter Goss met with Ahmed the morning of September 11 in his capacity as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has no bearing whatsoever upon his recent selection by the White House to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
It’s true that George HW Bush and Dick Cheney spent the evening of September 10 alone in the Oval Office, but what’s wrong with old colleagues catching up? And it’s true that George HW Bush and Shafig bin Laden, Osama’s brother, spent the morning of September 11 together at a board meeting of the Carlyle Group, but the bin Ladens are a big family.
Newsweek’s report that senior Pentagon officials cancelled flights on Sept 10 for the following day on account of security concerns is only newsworthy because of what happened the following morning.
That Mohamed Atta attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell Air Force Base, that Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School, that Saeed Alghamdi attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey merely shows it is a small world, after all.
That Lt Col Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs of the Defense Language Institute during Alghamdi’s terms, was disciplined, removed from his post and threatened with court martial when he wrote “Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is…contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain,” is the least that should have happened for such disrespect shown his Commander in Chief.
That Mohammed Atta dressed like a Mafioso, had a stripper girlfriend, smuggled drugs, was already a licensed pilot when he entered the US, enjoyed pork chops, drank to excess and did cocaine, was closer to Europeans than Arabs in Florida, and included the names of defence contractors on his email list, proves how dangerous the radical fundamentalist Muslim can be.
That 43 lbs of heroin was found on board the Lear Jet owned by Wally Hilliard, the owner of Atta’s flight school, just three weeks after Atta enrolled – the biggest seizure ever in Central Florida – was just bad luck. That Hilliard was not charged shows how specious the claims for conspiracy truly are.
That Hilliard’s plane had made 30-round trips to Venezuela with the same passengers who always paid cash, that the plane had been supplied by a pair of drug smugglers who had also outfitted CIA drug runner Barry Seal, and that 9/11 commissioner Richard ben-Veniste had been Seal’s attorney before Seal’s murder, shows nothing but the lengths to which conspiracists will go to draw sinister conclusions.
That Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, was so incompetent he could not fly a Cessna in August, but in September managed to fly a 767 at excessive speed into a spiraling, 270-degree descent and a level impact of the first floor of the Pentagon, on the only side that was virtually empty and had been hardened to withstand a terrorist attack, merely demonstrates that people can do almost anything once they set their minds to it.
The mention of Israelis with links to military-intelligence having been arrested on Sept 11 videotaping and celebrating the attacks, of an Israeli espionage ring surveiling DEA and defense installations and trailing the hijackers, and of a warning of impending attacks delivered to the Israeli company Odigo two hours before the first plane hit, does not deserve a response. That the stories also appeared in publications such as Ha’aretz and Forward is a sad display of self-hatred among certain elements of the Israeli media.
That multiple military wargames and simulations were underway the morning of 9/11 – one simulating the crash of a plane into a building; another, a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings – and took many interceptors away from the eastern seaboard and confused field commanders as to which was a real hijacked aircraft and which was a hoax, was a bizarre coincidence, but no less a coincidence.
That the National Military Command Center ops director asked a rookie substitute to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11 is nothing more than bad timing.
That a recording made Sept 11 of air traffic controllers’ describing what they had witnessed, was destroyed by an FAA official who crushed it in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, is something no doubt that overzealous official wishes he could undo.
That the FBI knew precisely which Florida flight schools to descend upon hours after the attacks should make every American feel safer knowing their federal agents are on the ball.
That a former flight school executive believes the hijackers were “double agents,” and says about Atta and associates, “Early on I gleaned that these guys had government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose,” and was visited by the FBI just four hours after the attacks to intimidate him into silence, proves he’s an unreliable witness, for the simple reason there is no conspiracy.
That Jeb Bush was on board an aircraft that removed flight school records to Washington in the middle of the night on Sept 12th demonstrates how seriously the governor takes the issue of national security.
To insinuate evil motive from the mercy flights of bin Laden family members and Saudi royals after 9/11 shows the sickness of the conspiratorial mindset.
Le Figaro’s report in October 2001, known to have originated with French intelligence, that the CIA met Osama bin Laden in a Dubai hospital in July 2001, proves again the perfidy of the French.
That the tape in which bin Laden claims responsibility for the attacks was released by the State Department after having been found providentially by US forces in Afghanistan, and depicts a fattened Osama with a broader face and a flatter nose, proves Osama, and Osama alone, masterminded 9/11.
That at the battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded on three sides, Special Forces received no order to advance and capture him and were forced to stand and watch as two Russian-made helicopters flew into the area where bin Laden was believed hiding, loaded up passengers and returned to Pakistan, demonstrates how confusing the modern battlefield can be.
That the White House went on Cipro September 11 shows the foresightedness of America’s emergency response.
That the anthrax was mailed to perceived liberal media and the Democratic leadership demonstrates only the perversity of the terrorist psyche.
That the anthrax attacks appeared to silence opponents of the Patriot Act shows only that appearances can be deceiving.
That the Ames-strain anthrax was found to have originated at Fort Detrick, and was beyond the capability of all but a few labs to refine, underscores the importance of allowing the investigation to continue without the distraction of absurd conspiracy theories.
That the White House balked at any inquiry into the events of 9/11, then starved it of funds and stonewalled it, was unfortunate, but since the commission didn’t find for conspiracy it’s all a non issue anyway.
That the 9/11 commission’s executive director and “gatekeeper,” Philip Zelikow, was so closely involved in the events under investigation that he testified before the the commission as part of the inquiry, shows only an apparent conflict of interest.
That commission chair Thomas Kean is, like George Bush, a Texas oil executive who had business dealings with reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mafouz, suggests Texas is smaller than they say it is.
That co-chair Lee Hamilton has a history as a Bush family “fixer,” including clearing Bush Sr of the claims arising from the 1980 “October Surprise”, is of no concern, since only conspiracists believe there was such a thing as an October Surprise.
That FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds accuses the agency of intentionally fudging specific pre-9/11 warnings and harboring a foreign espionage ring in its translation department, and claims she witnessed evidence of the semi-official infrastructure of money-laundering and narcotics trade behind the attacks, is of no account, since John Ashcroft has gagged her with the rare invocation of “State Secrets Privilege,” and retroactively classified her public testimony. For the sake of national security, let us speak no more of her.
Odds of government being caught off guard on 911 AND successfully “solving” the case within an hour after the attacks- 70,000,000 to 1?
“NORAD was also conducting another war game entitled Operation Northern Vigilance that involved stationing fighter aircraft in northern Canada and Alaska to stave off the threat of the Russian fleet flying over the arctic. Due to this exercise only 14 figher aircraft were left to protect the United States on September the 11th.” ( Only goes to show that we won´t be caught off guard by the russians. )
That a hijacker’s passport survived the explosion and was found in the debris
That the Massachusetts Air Guard pilots scrambled to New York that morning went there at a fraction of their top speed, thus ensuring that they would get there too late, is just proof that the people who live on the Connecticut coast and complain about sonic booms are rich liberal weenies who care more about quiet mornings than America’s national security.
That those two pilots’ testimony before the 9/11 commission was and remains classified is just an unfortunate result of our national security needs.
– a flight school drop out managed to execute a high speed, high G fighter pilot maneuver into the nearly empty, under reconstruction part of the Pentagon despite the refusal to rent him a single engine plane the previous month (they said he had no flying skills),
– the absolute failure to scramble interceptors in a timely fashion, despite decades of well-established military and FAA procedures. The fact that Bush stayed in a second grade classroom reading about a “Girl and her pet goat” instead of cancelling the event and pretending to be commander-in-chief is damning evidence of prior knowledge by Bush, his staff, the secret service and the military hierarchy (or at least a faction of it).
– why the General in charge of Air Defense received a PROMOTION to run the “domestic” use of the US military (the “Northern Command,” established October 2002)
– why the planes that eventually were scrambled traveled much, much slower than they are capable of traveling, especially in an emergency (ie. after the second tower was hit but before the Pentagon)
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the alleged leader of the alleged terrorists (“alleged” because several of those names were identity thefts – the people named are still alive, according to the BBC and several other media sources).
– why Bush showed no reaction when told of the attacks, and kept reading to second graders (and why his aide, Andrew Card, didn’t even wait to ask for a reply from the “President”)
– long standing ties between the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, the Saudis, al-Qaeda, and between the Bush and Bin Laden families
– why the director of the “commission” to investigate 9/11 is a business partner of Osama bin Laden’s brother in law (Gov Thomas Kean, formerly of New Jersey, is a director of Amerada Hess, which is invested in the Saudi consortium to build the fabled pipeline across Afghanistan …) Even Fortune magazine has picked up on that.
– why the Bush regime interfered with the investigation of al-Qaeda before 9/11, something that FBI whistleblowers, journalist Greg Palast and FBI counterterrorism director John O’Neill charged.
From the questions for Thomas Pickard:
Please explain why the July 10, 2001, Phoenix memo got no farther than FBI headquarters. Why wasn’t the Phoenix memo shared with “threat subgroup” of the interagency Counterterrorism Security Group?
From the questions for Louis Freeh:
Why weren’t the flight schools shut down, or the terrorists deported, if the “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools” for years, as reported in the Washington Post, September 23, 2001…………..
Bill Clinton, former President of the United States
Why wasn’t bin Laden brought to the United States for trial when the Sudan offered to extradite him?
Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States
Please discuss the intelligence and concerns which spurred your contact with Saudi Arabia in 1999 and 2000 to request that the Saudis and the Royal Family stop funding charities that were contributing to the Al Qaeda…[and] describe the steps the Clinton administration had planned to take in order to convince the Saudis to comply with our request to stop the flow of charitable funds to terrorists
Governor Jeb Bush
posted May 2, 2004
1. Why was the Florida National Guard called up in the state of Florida on September 7th, 2001 in order to help handle “civil disturbance” and “acts of terrorism”? …………………………………………………………………………………
3) Why isn’t Saudi Arabia on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism?
4) Why are the FBI and CIA seeking to exclude evidence about Saudi involvement with terrorists (See Exclusive: CIA and FBI press Congress to exclude intelligence on the Saudi role with 9/11 terrorists by Linda Robinson and Edward T. Pound: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/usinfo/press/saudi.htm )
5) In what ways might our government’s policies toward Saudi Arabia have
contributed to September 11th?
6) Why was Saudi Arabia given preferential treatment above all other
nations in immigration? (Visa Express)
· What was the reason for creating the Visa Express?
· Prior to Sept. 11, Visa Express permitted approximately 97 percent of Saudi applicants to obtain visas without face-to-face interviews http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73485,00.html
7) Why were the Saudi relatives whisked out of America so quickly when
other planes were grounded after the attacks?
· Who gave permission for them to leave?
8) On September 9th the president had a war plan on his desk to go into
Afghanistan.
· What was the origin of this plan?
· Why was this plan drawn up even before the September 11th attacks?
9) Intelligence was told in March of 2001 to back off investigating terrorists.
· Who gave the order?
· Why?
10) Why did Donald Rumsfeld, immediately after the September 11 th attack, say that Saddam Hussein was involved?
13) What is the truth about the arrest of El Atriss who sold fake IDs to two 9/11 terrorists? There are discrepancies between the NY Times and Washington Post accounts of his arrest and release.
· Atriss is an Egyptian national who committed a crime. Why hasn’t he been deported?
14) Who were the terrorist informants working with the FBI?
a.) What did the FBI learn from them?
b.) What were the 9/11 warnings provided by these informants?
c.) What was done with these warnings to protect the American public?
· Why did Mahmood Ahmed, Director of Pakistan’s secret service, the (ISI) order Saeed Sheikh to wire $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta?
· What was Mahmood Ahmed’s relationship with Al Qaeda?
· Where did the money come from?
· Did officials in Pakistan know in advance about the terrorist attack?
· On September 11 th , Mahmood Ahmed had a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., with House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen, Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham. What were they discussing?
Three hijackers obtained visas under an accelerated approval program, called Visa Express at travel agencies in Saudi Arabia. Visa Express had only been in place for three months before September 11, 2001. Saudi Arabia is the only country with known terrorist risks which had this accelerated approval. Who initiated this process and what was the reason given for instituting the program? Why were incomplete and erroneously filled out visa applications of the hijackers approved?
FAA
1. A flight attendant on AA#11 notified her supervisor within the first few minutes of the plane being overtaken. What was the name of this supervisor? What exactly did he do with this information? Why was NORAD not immediately notified? What are the names of the individuals whose responsibility centers upon notifying NORAD in situations like this–on the local, regional, and national levels? Why was the protocol not followed?
2. Why were these four planes able to evade all radar ? Even when the transponders are disconnected, a plane is still able to be located by its “skin” on radar screens.
3. Was there a gun on AA#11? FAA executive summary stated that a gun was fired. This report was thereafter redacted. What is the truth?
4. Where did the information about box-cutters come from? How do we know that the terrorists were armed with these? Furthermore, why was the American public told after 9/11 that box-cutters were allowed on planes, when we have since come to find out that they were specifically listed as airline contraband? Who is responsible for this disinformation?
5. Where are the “black boxes” and the transcripts from all four crash sites? Why has the FBI not invited the NTSB into the investigation?
6. Nine of the hijackers were selected for special security screenings, two for irregularities in identification documents, six for extra-scrutiny by a computer screening program and one because he was traveling with a questionable individual. What exactly were the irregularities in identification? Which two had these irregularities? What is the name of the individual who made the decision to let these two men board the planes? What was done during the course of the detainment of these two individuals? What questions were asked? Was anything confiscated? With regard to the remaining seven hijackers, what was the list of questions asked of them? Who interrogated them? Was anything confiscated? What is the name of the individual who permitted these men to board the planes? Where are the logs and records and incident reports from these detainments?
8. Where are all transcripts from Air Traffic Control? Where are all logs and records from the FAA?
Secret Service
1. Why was President Bush not immediately evacuated from the Sarasota school, but rather was permitted to remain in the building after the second building was hit and this nation was under attack? Why was protocol not followed? Was President Bush deemed to be in the “zone of danger”? If so, at exactly, what time was he put in the “zone of danger”?
2. Where is the log and record of the Secret Service agents? Where is the incident report?
NORAD
1. At precisely what time was NORAD notified of each plane being hijacked? What was their response? What is the name of the individual who determined from which bases the F-16s should be scrambled from? What are the names of the pilots of these f-16s?
2. Whose decision was it to not utilize the F-16s’ weapons?
3. Whose decision was it to not fly the F-16s at maximum speed?
4. Why didn’t the F-16s intercept the hijacked airliners?
5. Please draw up a chart of NORAD’s response to the Payne Stewart Lear jet incident vs. the 9/11 incident. Why was protocol not followed on 9/11? What is the name of the individual who did not follow protocol? Where are the transcripts from the F-16s? Where is the log and record from NORAD?
6. What satellites were orbiting North American airspace on 9/11? What exactly does the satellite imaging reveal? What companies own these satellites? Where are the records and logs for these orbits?
FBI/CIA/NSA
1. At a point in time when there was a “high level of chatter” why were the NSA warnings not translated on time? What information was contained in the warnings, specifically?
2. What agency obtained the photo of Atta at the ATM machine in rural Maine less than 48 hours after September 11th? Was Atta under surveillance? Where are the logs and records from the Boston FBI field office for the months June through September?
3. What degree of probable cause was Moussouai being held under when he was arrested in mid-August? What is the name of the individual who turned down the request for the search warrant? What is the name of the supervisor who was overseeing the Moussouai case? Where the transcripts from the original detainment hearing for Moussouai?
4. What is the name of the CIA operative who delivered Bin Laden to an American hospital in Dubai in July of 2001?
5. What is the name of the individual who decided to fly the Bin Laden family back to Saudi Arabia on the night of September 11th?
One of the more interesting omissions in the huge report is its failure to so much as mention the total collapse of the 47-story steel-framed skyscraper to the north of the World Trade Center complex, the first-ever collapse of a steel-framed high-rise building to be blamed on fires.
One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers:
the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart. These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. [emphasis added]
The Kean Commission (9/11 Commission) was created only after 14 months of pressure from September 11 victims’ families, who for their efforts at first got the failed nomination by George Bush of Henry Kissinger as chairman. He declined, but the Commission consisted of appointees with obvious conflicts of interest, and was seriously underfunded ($14 million as opposed to the $67 million devoted to investigating Clinton’s stray member or $30 million for the space shuttle disaster). Its work was met with resistance from the White House. Bush met with the Commission only on the condition that he be questioned in the Oval Office, jointly with Cheney, and off the record.
The executive director and thus head of research for the Kean Commission, Philip Zelikow, is a close associate of Condoleezza Rice (they co-authored a book) and was a Bush 2000 transition team member who participated in meetings on the terrorist threat. He has now returned to Rice as a top aide at the State Department. The Family Steering Committee tracking the hearings called for his resignation due to grave conflict of interest in March 2004; this unfortunately went unreported in the major media and was completely ignored by the Commission.
Kean Commission member Max Cleland dropped out of the proceedings in December 2003, saying “Bush is scamming America” and that he didn’t want to participate in a cover-up by the Commission of what the government knew about 9/11 in advance. (Off the record he has since said the Bush administration knew the attacks were coming.) This also got near-zero press coverage.
The 9/11 Commission Report goes so far as to suggest that the issue of terror financing is irrelevant: “To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.”
The plain, sad reality–I report this following four full days studying the work–is that The 9/11 Commission Report, despite the vast quantity of labor behind it, is a cheat and a fraud. It stands as a series of evasive maneuvers that infantilize the audience, transform candor into iniquity, and conceal realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation. Because it is continuously engaged in scotching all attempts to distinguish better from worse leadership responses, the Commission can’t discharge its duty to educate the audience about the habits of mind and temperament essential in those chosen to discharge command responsibility during crises. It can’t tell the truth about what was done and not done, thought and not thought, at crucial turning points. The Commissioners’ immeasurably valuable access to the principals involved offered an extraordinary opportunity to amass material precious to future historians: commentary based on moment-to-moment reaction to major events. But the 567 pages, which purport to provide definitive interpretations of the reactions, are in fact useless to historians, because a seeming terror of bias transforms query after commissarial query–and silence after silence–into suggested new lines of self-justification for the interviewees. In the course of blaming everybody a little, the Commission blames nobody–blurs the reasons for the actions and hesitations of successive administrations, masks choices that, fearlessly defined, might actually have vitalized our public political discourse.
Sober or otherwise, you are so right to encourage AU. He and I are slowing beginning to understand each other.
For example, AU (to follow up on my prior cryptic comment), a part of me would very much be jumping up and down with glee at the thought of another investigation, especially a super diligent and broad in scope sort of mandate for inquiry virtually guaranteed to inculpate people going back through multiple administrations (at least three).
You wonder why Obama is “cool” to the pleadings of Sheen and others? No you don’t wonder. You know damn well that too many of BHO’s sponsors would find themselves in the net.
That said, I still think that the money would be better spent on helping the working poor, hell, any poor, pay for health care. A real investigation would practically shut down our government and cost a lot more money (and also other types of “costs” that are less easily quantified now and further down the road) than the first one.
Independent of the amount of resources that could theoretically or actually be thrown into this kind of witch hunt, I still think that we are kind of already at a point of diminishing returns and trails cool, memories fade, etc. I would wager that a great many careers have already been destroyed behind the scenes and out of the eye of the press. Believe me, adjustments have been made. Could further adjustments be made? Of course. Would an additional investigation, given the totality of its likely consequences, help bring a net improvement in things via enhancements to national security-oriented adjustments and the like? I doubt it.
er, ok, my cups are fucking full at the momoment. i’ll sleep, take some dex, and we’ll see what we can do.
“Sober or otherwise, you are so right to encourage AU. He and I are slowing beginning to understand each other.” –bunnbunn
bunn-
Hm-m-mm-m. Have I mixed something up? I thought AU was one of the Ladies of ZK.
Politics, Power, Privilege, Petroleum, Playacting, Posturing, etc…. I urge you all to read this article on how the very rich–and the very powerful–are different from you and me and live their lives in complete fantasy.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/death-of-a-president200910
Wow! William Manchester! I definitely have to read this.
I’ve tripped over my unit before, but if I’m wrong about AU, god help me… I’ll have to start getting more sleep. (Moreover, I hereby extend a provisional apology to AU, to the extent that being unjustly accused of maleness constitutes, in much of the western world, anyway, arguably, an implication of defectiveness.)
Both to external examination, and chromosomally, I’m male.
Besides the truth regarding 9/11, I’d like to see some vengeance.
I cut n pasted ‘cuz Dave kept on poking me with a sharp stick. If I merely said there’s many implausable points, google them yourself, Dave would not do that.
If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
“Both to external examination, and chromosomally, I’m male.” –Autonomous Unit
AU-
Humbly begging your pardon!! I clearly have you confused with someone else that can be “acronymed.”
bunn-
My rationale for posting the Jackie/Manchester piece earlier was to continue the dialogue I started in response to Bif’s postings on some other thread. Bif blew me off but I’m a persistent little rascal as he well knows. What I’m attempting to understand for my own edification is how our perspective changes over time and how that process is or isn’t affected by imagery, among other things.
As an adjunct to that, I’m equally interested in written and spoken communications for the same reason. Manchester hit the nail on the head, IMHO, about Jackie being a great tragic actress. She played “roles” her whole life but was she–the chain-smoking, shopaholic, nasal-voiced arriviste–really anywhere to be found in them?
And, JR, along the same vein, here’s a little treat for you on another fraud:
The Echoes of War
A Conversation With Doug Casey
Q: Doug, I hear you’ve been reading the obits recently – what’s on your mind?
Doug: Yes, I couldn’t help but note the long and generally favorable obits on Robert “the Strange” McNamara, at age 93. The obituaries ranged from glowingly positive to, at worst that I read, neutral. I was shocked and disgusted by these things. I considered the man to be a classic sociopath and a war criminal, among other things. He was one of the worst human beings ever to have lived.
Q: Don’t pull your punches, Doug…
Doug: Well, I have to say that I take his death a little personally. In life, I find that the things I regret most are not the things that I’ve done – although there are some of those – but more than that, it’s the things that I haven’t done. And one of the things I regret having not done was back in about 1995, when McNamara gave a speech at the Aspen Institute, promoting his book. I wanted very much to ask him a question. Usually, I’m pretty bold about these things, but this time, I just didn’t do it.
The question I wanted to ask him was this: “Mr. McNamara, how is it that after nearly destroying the Ford Motor Corporation, then destroying Viet Nam and almost destroying the United States, and then going on to be the president of the World Bank, where you made great strides towards destroying the world economy, how is it possible that today you can be held in high regard and stand up in front of this audience without being pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables?”
Q: So what happened? Did he leave before anyone could ask questions?
Doug: One of the few things I can say in McNamara’s favor is that he actually took questions. I believe I could have gotten a chance to ask my question. I honestly don’t remember why I didn’t do it. It was just one of those moments in which I didn’t do what I almost always do, which is to confront these people whenever I have the opportunity.
McNamara was actually an anti-libertarian in many ways. You know, he started his career as a statistical analyst evaluating the success of bombing raids in Germany and especially in Japan. He was a big promoter of raids on civilian population centers, like the carpet-bombing of Tokyo, in which 100,000 people died in one night, and it really served no useful purpose at all.
Q: Do you know why he advocated that?
Doug: It’s a good question, because he later said that he had a conversation with Curtis LeMay, his immediate superior, in which they discussed the fact that if the U.S. had lost the war, it would be Americans who would have been tried as war criminals, not Tojo, Goering, and those guys.
So, apparently, he considered the moral implications of his criminality, but… he didn’t learn a thing. He advocated the same thing in Viet Nam – but the start of his war crimes was in World War II.
He then went to the Ford Motor Company. It’s often said, especially if you read the recent obituaries, that he “saved” Ford, along with eight other wiz-kids that were in the Air Force with him. But I don’t think that was true at all. The fact that McNamara and these other number crunchers were hired by Ford is, to me, indicative of the start of the collapse of the American auto industry. Previously, American cars were generally very good. The founders were car guys. They understood the way engines work and suspensions work, etc. They liked driving them, and liked racing them, and enjoyed them as products. That’s when cars were good. But McNamara was a bean-counter.
Look at it this way: he was directly responsible for the Edsel, which even today, fifty years later, is still known as the biggest disaster in American automotive history. It was his personal baby.
The only reason earnings went up while he was at Ford was that he was the first of these guys to pinch pennies, fire people who weren’t efficient enough, and do accounting tricks. That sort of thing. He was a non-car guy, running a car company.
To me, it’s shameful, the way people credit him with saving Ford.
And then they go on to talk about Viet Nam, for which he was directly responsible for the way we conducted that war. But there were other things before that. He was behind the Bay of Pigs invasion, and he was primarily responsible for the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He’s the one who came up with MIRV missiles, which made the Soviets believe that the U.S. was planning a first strike against them.
But his record in Viet Nam, of course, was a total and complete disaster.
Q: Surely the obits aren’t absolving him of that? Almost no one views the Vietnam War positively these days.
Doug: Well, they all seem to point out that he had moral qualms about it. But my guess is that they weren’t moral qualms at all. Here he was, attacking a simple peasant army that was living on dried rice and had basically nothing but hand-carried weapons, mounting B-52 raids, using all kinds of the highest-tech weaponry of the day, and spending gigantic amounts of money, just to kill peasants. So it doesn’t seem to me that he had any moral qualms. I think he wanted to get out of Viet Nam because he could see how hopelessly stupid it was.
Talk about stupid. Here’s a man that was highly intelligent – he was very, very smart – but he was totally lacking in wisdom. He had no common sense at all. He was a complete fool, the type of guy that I would have loved to see confronted by Mr. T, saying, “I pity the fool!”
He was a very intelligent fool.
Q: So of course they made him the head of the World Bank.
Doug: Yes, and when he was there, he quadrupled its size. It was him who was more responsible than anyone else for the fetish they developed for building steel mills in parts of Africa that were on opposite sides of the continent from coal supplies, etc. It was another disaster.
His career is a series of unmitigated disasters, and still, he’s held in some kind of regard today.
To me, this is a sign of how totally dishonest society has become. These obituaries should show that the guy was a sociopath, a criminal, and a loser, but instead they maintain a united front in speaking no ill of the dead.
Q: Do you really think it’s political correctness of sorts about respecting the dead, or is it that the journalists of today, being largely products of the U.S. public education system, are simply too ignorant or too biased to see the man for what he was?
Doug: That’s a very good question. It could be that the average person writing these editorials – and they are the establishment now – basically agrees with his views and methodology. So they can only nit-pick technical issues around the edges, while they should be attacking the very core of what he stood for.
Anyway, I’m sorry he died… before I had a chance to ask him that question.
I blame myself: I consider it one of the great omissions of my life.
Q: Maybe you’ll have a chance if there’s such a thing as reincarnation.
Doug: Yes, perhaps. He’d come back as a cockroach, and I might have a chance to squash him.
Q: Just so.
Doug: So, we’ve lost one warmonger, but there are plenty more. The U.S. is making exactly the same mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan as it did in Viet Nam. It’s almost a cookie cutter copy. We’re using all this high-tech junk – $200 million fighter planes, $2 billion bombers, etc. – to fight a primitive peasant army on their own ground. It’s exactly the same thing as Viet Nam. I don’t see any significant differences at all.
And just as Viet Nam was a major step closer to bankruptcy for the U.S. back then, what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq is the same – but on steroids, because the junk we’re using is much more expensive than it was back then.
Q: So, you don’t believe our savior Obama is going to pull the soldiers out?
Doug: There’s not a chance in hell.
Think about the gigantic bases they’ve built in Iraq. I mean outside the Green Zone. They’re huge and can only signal an intention to stay for good. And the same thing is happening in Afghanistan. This is all going to end badly.
I hesitate to call myself a political handicapper, though I did predict that Obama would win, but I do think he’s going to be a one-term president. Things are going to be so bad by the time the next election comes around.
Q: Can you quantify “end badly” for us?
Doug: The war with Islam is going to heat up for the same reason the Cold War with the Soviet Union escalated under McNamara. The more the U.S. attacks them, the more they feel threatened and feel they have to counterattack. And when they do, the fearmongers in this country feel threatened, and it keeps escalating.
I don’t see any reason for it to de-escalate at this point, though I’ve got to say that in this respect, Obama is at least marginally better than Bush. At least he doesn’t talk in such a hostile and antagonistic way.
Q: And he speaks English – he can even pronounce the word “nuclear.”
Doug: Yes, that’s right. But I don’t see things turning around at all. In other words, all these secretaries of defense and such will be taking lessons from McNamara, not learning from his mistakes.
Q: When do you think this might really heat up?
Doug: Well, for one thing, forget about Obama and his promise to win this war. The threat has metastasized; it’s not just al-Qaida anymore, but now it’s thousands of people all round the world. It only takes two or three guys to get together to hatch a plan. It’s sort of like “open source” warfare. They don’t need a commander in chief in Redmond, Washington, telling them how to design their warware; there are thousands of war entrepreneurs out there now, making their own designs, driven by what the U.S. is doing.
Q: That makes sense, but again, the timing is critical. In our business, being too early is the same as being wrong.
Doug: That’s correct, but at the same time, you have to diagnose the trend correctly, which I think we’re doing. That said, I think people likely to be plotting against the U.S. have a longer time frame than Americans do. Americans want things done now. Instant gratification. Those on the other side are willing to plan and take their time assuring their revenge. And they understand that the longer the U.S. keeps spending, the more it’s going to be bled to death.
At some point, somebody is going to get hold of one or more nuclear devices, or maybe a biological weapon, from one source or another. There are many possible ways that could happen. Then they fly it into the U.S. on a commercial airliner and detonate on landing, or load it in a perfectly harmless-looking commercial boat and set it off as soon as the boat docks. I think that’s the way it’s likely to happen; they don’t need ICBMs nor cruise missiles to mount an effective nuclear attack. But the time, place, and means are impossible to predict. There are millions of people out there now with chips on their shoulders. A lot of them are going to be plotting stuff for all kinds of reasons. So, you can’t realistically say what will happen; all you can say is that it’s inevitable that something will happen.
Q: Sounds like another good reason to move to Argentina. But what other investment implications are there?
Doug: Things haven’t changed much: buy gold, buy silver, and diversify your assets internationally. That’s the basic step. After you have a firm foundation with those things, you can start looking at speculations. Use the chaos to your advantage.
Q: Given how Vietnam-like wars tend to push the states that wage them towards bankruptcy (this happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well), is there a particularly leveraged way to short the government’s solvency of the sort you write about in The Casey Report.
Doug: Shorting the dollar and shorting long-term Treasury bonds are fantastic long-term bets. That’s especially so for shorting long-term Treasury bonds, as interest rates are still very close to their all-time lows, being artificially suppressed by Federal Reserve buying. That’s a one-way street where you can get huge leverage on your money, if you have a time frame of a couple years. That’s the best single bet I can think of.
Q: Makes sense – thanks for your time, Doug.
Doug: Always a pleasure. Till next week.
EE, I’m sorry, would never intentionally just blow you off. I swear. I do remember your comment from a few days ago on the acorn vid thing. But to be honest I wasn’t sure exactly where you were going with it. Plus I’m easily distracted by all these Youtubes. Please elaborate.
If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
no, first i’d say: “yeah, well let’s see it”.
then i’d laugh at the scrambling around looking for something that can only be found on rense.com. whatta douchebag.
…at the asswipes…
no, really au, do you really expect me to wade through those piles of garbage, fantasy, rumor, conjecture, inuendo, etc.,etc., that you posted further up.
let’s stick to the passport maybe. what might that mean, in your mind anyway?
Bif-
Have too much on my plate right now but will tackle later. Luv you’re Afghanistan map… now there’s some evidence!
a passport found down the street means what? that it came off the plane? that it was planted? if it was planted? by who? for what reason?
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091201passportfound
One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers:
the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart. These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. [emphasis added]
so, i pulled this out of that pile of shit, kind of a random. this is just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant by the the 911truthers. the exterior structural elements of the towers served 2 primary purposes, to distribute lateral loads and to support verticle loads imposed by the ends of floor trusses. primary verticle loads were supported by a core of central columns. although stairs and elevators were grouped in this area, this was hardly a “hollow steel shaft”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
how much more research you want me to do for you?
au, how old are you? just curious.
“One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers: ”
acctually, this sentence might be more interesting. what report is being referanced? maybe you can find that out au?
anyhoo, the core of the 911truth story, as opposed to the “official story” is something like: armies of ninja explosive experts, somehow, at the direction of some government offical, planted tons of explosives, all while remaining unobserved(and without leaving a single bit of physical evidence, show me a single detonator, just one). in the mean time, other GO’s where setting things up for the hijackers to both get the planes and ordering pilots to not shoot down civilian airliners, even though they’d never been used as a weapon before, so they had no reason to consider shooting them down in the first place. and let’s forget that various muslim groups had been trying to bring down the towers for at least the last 10 years or….
anyhoo, have fun.
EE, you mean the colorized 3D physiographic relief map? Who doesn’t love those!? But that was bunn’s doing, not mine.
Or alternately, make up a list of those undeniably guilty of heinous treachery, crimes against humanity and your plain garden variety treason, exclusive of any 9/11 conspiracy, but likely a part of it, given the aforementioned manifestations of their various and respective character flaws or lack of human genome.
Then start offing them. They are bright conspiratorially inclined swine, they’ll calculate the link between the unknown unknowns, news will spread quickly within the incestuous cabal and as their ranks diminish in assorted gruesome, tawdry or Peckinpawesque ways, birds will likely begin to sing.
Blantant disregard for the law of the land is a two-way street.
Ahhh… an old fashioned proscription. Sulla would be proud.
Actually, it would seem too good for that particular bunch of rabble. Think of the dead pool dollars for our non-negotiable American Way of Life! Gawd, what a true conservative legacy.
♪ God Bless America (Come on sing it with me!)
Land that I love… ♫
Jeebus, I’m getting all choked up.
Alright, come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
Then, there is this little jewel of a link tucked away over on The Big Picture…
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/09/full_text_of_newsmax_column_suggesting_military_co.php?ref=fpblg
Praetorian? Praetorian?
Dave,
uh-oh, now you’ve done it.
AU:If I said it’s amazing they found a hijacker’s passport in the rubble of the WTC, in 500,000,000 lbs. of concrete, steel,computer print-outs, etc, Dave would say, ” Yeah, I know. It took me 45 minutes one day to find my car keys”.
Dave:no, first i’d say: “yeah, well let’s see it”.
then i’d laugh at the scrambling around looking for something that can only be found on rense.com. whatta douchebag.
no, really au, do you really expect me to wade through those piles of garbage, fantasy, rumor, conjecture, inuendo, etc.,etc., that you posted further up.
let’s stick to the passport maybe. what might that mean, in your mind anyway?
—————————-
For those reading this, Rense is a crack-pot, low-rent version of Art Bell, with anti-semitism thrown in for go measure.
here’s a picture of the passport
here’s picture of Satam al Suqami’s visa:
here’s the BBC’s page from Sunday, 16 September, 2001
scroll down about half way.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1546927.stm
CNN’s page:
archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/17/inv.investigation.terrorism/
I suggest searching for the word “passport”, to make things easier to find on the web page.
Of course, only douche-bags, and asswipes get their info from CNN and the BBC. These sources are like Rense.com, ya can’t trust them. Unbelievable. UFO’s and shit.
Go to the authority, the US government.
“MS. SUSAN GINSBURG: Beginning with passports. Four of the hijackers passports have survived in whole or in part. Two were recovered from the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania. These are the passports of Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al Ghamdi. One belonged to a hijacker on American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed. A fourth passport was recovered from luggage that did not make it from a Portland flight to Boston on to the connecting flight which was American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Abdul Aziz al Omari.”
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-01-26.htm
dave:”let’s stick to the passport maybe. what might that mean, in your mind anyway?”
I think they should be making the flight-recorder ‘black-boxes’ out of the same material as Saudi Arabian passports.
‘One of the more interesting distortions of the report is its sole structural description of the Twin Towers: “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. ” ‘
This is from the Official 9/11 Commission, describing the construction of the WTC. Sorry if this was unclear.
Your response:
“…primary verticle loads were supported by a core of central columns. although stairs and elevators were grouped in this area, this was hardly a “hollow steel shaft”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
is exactly my point. The fucking commission doesn’t know what it is writing about, it is in error, on a really basic fact.
dave:anyhoo, the core of the 911truth story, as opposed to the “official story” is something like: armies of ninja explosive experts, somehow, at the direction of some government offical, planted tons of explosives, all while remaining unobserved(and without leaving a single bit of physical evidence, show me a single detonator, just one).
Really? You better read my long list again, cuz there is no mentions of ninjas or explosives. Many 9/11 truthers think that the controled demo theory is dis-info.
just one more little cut n paste, showing a 9/11 truth site that doesn’t believe in ninjas:
http://www.oilempire.us/demolition.html
demolition theories
NOT needed to prove complicity
once the fact that 9/11 was allowed to happen was established (which was documented within a few weeks of the events), everything beyond that is merely detail.
the position of oilempire.us is that the towers were intentionally demolished by the Bush administration, but the method of destruction was allowing (and possibly steering) Flight 11 and Flight 175 to crash into the buildings. The sober and fantastical claims for explosives, thermite, and even exotic unconventional weapons are not supported by peer reviewed, independently verifiable investigations and are an enormous distraction from solid evidence. The core of the case for complicity has nothing to do with the collapses.
Sorry Dr Doom, if you are still with us.
So what have we learned today, class?
dave is an ass?
no, we knew that before, didn’t we?
I’m 52 years old, and feeling it, too.
Barkeep, I need a drink.
Farmer supports the opposite of complicity. Then why did you cut and paste that initial shit that started all this? Was it just basically to reinforce that the government lied, even though you would disagree with what he says they lied about?
You raise interesting things, but you’ve never been clear (at least to me)with where you’re going other than that a whole boatload of people lied, which I would say we already know. If the OilEmpire web site captures it then that might clear a few things up I guess. Because of all this I think you and dave have not exactly been sparring over the same thing. Where dave is going with pulling your chain I don’t quite know either, but all the shit is frustrating to read I’ll tell you.
Anyway I was looking at the oilempire link and its interesting that organizations and people apparently like yourself are concerned that the whole demolition ninja wacko stuff is discreditting the movement for renewed/complete investigation. It (ninja demo truth) certainly turns off my interest in about two seconds, I’ll grant you that.
Personally I think its unlikely that there was any deliberate enabling of the event, but rather if enough stones got turned over you might find that a new administration was pre-occupied with its newly aquired power and agenda, and because of its arrogance, mis-aligned priorities, and ineptitude might have missed a shot at possibly heading this thing off. Hard to say. The deer in the headlights response to Katrina might have provided another glimpse into the same kind of lack of forsight, weak leadership, and a resulting sheer depth of ineffectiveness in preparing for or handling crisis.
“Was it just basically to reinforce that the government lied, even though you would disagree with what he says they lied about?”
Yes. Another reason for re-investigating 9/11.
I don’t know what really happened on 9/11, beyond the obvious.
We should know.
I am angry that people like dave think they know all the facts they need to know to form an opinion regarding 9/11, when, in fact, they don’t.
dave thought the idea of a passport being found in the rubble of the towers is so absurd, it must be false, you’d have to go looking for a picture of the passport on a tin-foil hat site. Well, its part of the Official Story, isn’t it?
Its ironic that dave called the Official Story’s description of the central support columns of the WTC towers
“… just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant by the the 911truthers.”
Uh, dave….
those “lies, half truths and distortions” are the product of your taxpayer dollars at work, not 911truthers.
The two examples dave ” pulled this out of that pile of shit, kind of a[t] random.” didn’t work out so well, did it?
au,
the passport wasn’t found in the pile of rubble. it was found down the street. if you bothered to look at what i posted you’d know that i know that. but so what? i’ll still ask you the same question as before, what does that mean? how might that be significant? just because you, or some other dipshits, don’t belive it’s possible, some entire new investigation is required? you’er going to now investigate the investigators? who’s going the investigate the investigators of the investigators when they come up with an answer that dosen’t resonate in your little fucking pin head?
as far as the structural description of the towers goes, it sucks no matter who wrote it. so let’s reinvestigate.
no, really au, if your only agenda is a reinvestigation, fuck it, go for it. then we can reinvestigate the reinvestigation.
Click to access 911Report.pdf
so, anyway au, i spent about 10 minutes trying to find that strutural quote, then gave up. maybe you can point it out to me.
anyhoo, honestly, this is first time i even looked at this thing. browsing through it, my first impression is that it’s just pretty standard buearocrateze(sp?) you know, blame shifting, ass kissing, making plain facts unneccisarily complicated, etc., so does that warrant a redo? is it going to change the fact that 19 or 20 guys managed to hijack some planes, fly them into some buildings and the buildings fell down. and what about that passport? i mean really, a lot of trees were killed for this one already.
you’re 52? i had you pegged at about 16. just goes to show how wrong i can be.
anyhoo, i’m sorry i called you a douchebag. you’re just kinda confused and stupid, that’s excusable.
dave:”so, anyway au, i spent about 10 minutes trying to find that strutural quote, then gave up. maybe you can point it out to me.”
Note to chapter 9, footnote #1
9 Heroism and Horror
1. For the WTC’s layout, see Port Authority diagrams, “World Trade Center Concourse Level,” “Concourse Level,” and “Plaza Level,” undated. For the number of square feet of office space, see Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” undated. For the number of workers and passersby, see Port Authority briefing (May 13, 2004).
For the dimensions, see FEMA report, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” undated. In addition, the outside of each tower was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns; the centers of the steel columns were 40 inches apart.These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building.The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped. Ibid. For stairwells and elevators, see Port Authority response to Commission interrogatory, May 2004.
for searching a pdf file, use the little binocular thingie
implausable events do occur. they are just unlikely to occur. the more implausable events strung together, the more likely I am to not believe.
It was a good thing that hijacker flipped his passport out the window at the last moment, yes?
dave, you share Bush’s original stonewalling viewpoint. Nothing to see here, move on.
Let me presume to summarize your thoughts.
You’d expect to find a photo of a hijacker’s passport only on a crackpot’s web site, but you aren’t concerned to see it in the official report. You call the structural description of the towers “just one example of the lies, half truths and distortions foisted upon the ignorant “, not knowing at the time you wrote this that it was provided by the Official Story. You don’t hold the Official Story in very high regards, do you? But that’s ok, because we can’t have endless recursive investigations. One flawed investigation full of lies, half truths, and distortions is sufficient.
The extent of your personal 9/11 inquiry has until now, not included the official report and not included the well known miraculous passport. I guess this level of shallow reflection explains your opinion that the purpose of investigating 9/11 is to somehow “change the fact that 19 or 20 guys managed to hijack some planes, fly them into some buildings and the buildings fell down.” and not to find out what really happened. The past can not be changed, therefore, no need to know the past. Understanding history is of so little value.
A little cognitive dissonance, here? You ridiculed both the pastport issue and the commission’s discription of the WTC construction before you knew these nuggets were part of the Official Story. But the Commission’s report is ok by you.
I’ve had enough of the ad hominems, I suggest the awarding of points for this round, and returning to our corners.
au,
no, i supplied indepent verification of the passport story from a source that i consider reliable. that’s what i did.
i admitted the comission’s, if that was the only structural description of the towers in the report, sucked. it’s over 500 pages, haven’t read, and i have no intention of doing so. you want more?
so keep crying for a redo. do you really think that you’re going to get something better?
and you still refuse to think about why, or why not, the passport is significant. was it blown clear or planted? what do you think? and why might it matter? i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.
i think that one of the hijacker’s buddies planted it to make sure that the right people got credit. that’s what i think.
Dave wrote:”i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.”
I brought it up in the sense that it was mentioned in a list of hundreds of anomalies. You highlighted it.
Dave wrote:”no, i supplied indepent verification of the passport story from a source that i consider reliable. that’s what i did.”
What do you mean? The links to the photos, BBC, CNN, and the Commission’s report were provided by me, not you.
Implausable events do occur. They are just unlikely to occur. The more implausable events strung together, the more likely I am to not believe.
AP–September 16, 2001
Details of rescuers’ grisly finds since Tuesday began to emerge. Among them were a pair of hands, bound together, found on a rooftop, authorities said.
The New York Times reported Saturday that one rescuer found the body of a flight attendant, whose hands were also bound. Another worker told the paper he had found the remains of people strapped in what seemed to be airplane seats.
Dazed firefighters showed the strain of their fruitless hunt for life. “They’re drained,” said Greg Shriver, a firefighter who traveled down from Connecticut to help. “They have to rest up to go back. They’ve lost a lot of brothers.”
———————————————————————————————-
———————————————————————————————-
FYI: There were several other Saudi hijacker passports found in varying states of preservation according to the pieces I read. One was at the Flight 93 site in PA.
A friend of mine who lives within blocks of the former WTC was being evacuated when the second plane hit. She wound up having a single finger drop on her and subsequently turned it in to authorities. The finger was DNA tested, and matched that of a woman who worked in the WTC. My friend ultimately conversed a number of times with the deceased woman’s husband.
My niece and her boyfriend were both working in Lower Manhattan and had to walk from there back up to their apartment somewhere up near the GW Bridge over the Hudson.
As I posted at least once at CFN and maybe here, I could see the smoke from the Pentagon out my apartment window, I wandered around town the rest of the day with a friend (it was a ghost town except for the camoflaged humvees and their soldiers), and watched the Pentagon burn that evening from a friend’s roof; I know folks who worked there–some of whom had to get home on foot and whose colleagues were killed in the building.
If I were a gambler, I would wager that with this situation–much like the Kennedy and King Assassinations but even more hyper-real–everyone in this country had a different perception and experience of what happened that day, including the terrorists and their immediate victims.
That’s part of what I’ve been trying to articulate, Bif. What are the effects of the media on our perceptions and our reality. More later on this.
Dave wrote:”i mean shit, i didn’t bring it up, you did.”
AU:I brought it up in the sense that it was mentioned in a list of hundreds of anomalies. You highlighted it.
Let me clarify. Dave highlighted it by mocking me. I first posted a long list, then justified cut n pasting it because if I got into specific details, like the passport issue, dave would only mock each issue I brought up, and I didn’t have time to do an original post on all the questions I have. I gave a fictional response from dave as an example of the mocking I correctly knew would be his response.. Dave then firmly bit into that hook(the passport issue), although I really wasn’t trolling for a bite. Dave picked the faulty discription of the towers’ construction all by himself.
no, you just don’t look; and you still can’t form a thought about it, can you? i mean shit, i gave a very plausable explanation, what’s yours? dick cheney left it there to throw the fbi off his trail? i’m going back to douchebag for you.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091201passportfound
so pick another anomaly; your choice. we can talk about it, you fucking shit eating retard.
oh yeah, i forgot. you don’t know how to think for yourself. that’s why you need another set of government geeks to package things the way you want to see them in another report.
here i’ll pick one for you. since you went through all the trouble of copying the work of some other pin heads. wait a minute. here, i think that this is first on your list:
“The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.”
so if mr. springman’s claims are valid, at a minimum he should be able to at least produce a set of names, maybe cia operatives and “al-qaeda” members. maybe give it to alex jones so he can post them on his web site, i guess. if he was half way good he would have dates. if he was real good, he have copies. otherwise, he has accusations.
http://www.infowars.com/transcripts/springman2.htm
so if i read this asshole right, he left the state department in 1991. names no names. has repeated the same pakastain and sudanese story over and over again to any shitstain on earth who will listen, like you au, for the last 18 years. this is good. go ahead, pick something, you piece of dogshit.
i’m sorry, i meant, you piece of “fucking” dogshit.
wo fat not understand round eyes. Beat each other over head for water over dam and under bridge. wo fat just want pretty blonde with blue eyes and small feet to walk on wo fat.
Do you want me to “pick an anomaly” or do you want to talk about the visa office in Saudi Arabia?
dave wrote:”so if mr. springman’s claims are valid, at a minimum he should be able to at least produce a set of names, maybe cia operatives and “al-qaeda” members.”
Why don’t we just let the 9/11 Commission tell us about al-qaeda members getting visas? That’s fair, right?
Tell me why you doubt the granting of Visas in S.A. couldn’t be controlled by the CIA.
Tell me why you doubt Michael Springman, who complained about this before 9/11.
Look at this visa application:
http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document100902f.asp
Click to access staff_statement_1.pdf
Conclusion
The Director of the FBI testified that “[e]ach of the hijackers … came easily and lawfully
from abroad.” The Director of Central Intelligence described 17 of the 19 hijackers as
“clean.” We believe the information we have provided today gives the Commission the
opportunity to reevaluate those statements. Based on our evaluation of the hijackers’
travel documents, the visa process, the entries into the United States, and the compliance
with immigration law while the attackers were here, we have a few observations.
Considered collectively, the 9/11 hijackers:
· Included among them known al Qaeda operatives who could have been
watchlisted;
· Presented passports “manipulated in a fraudulent manner;”
· Presented passports with “suspicious indicators” of extremism;
· Made detectable false statements on their visa applications;
· Were pulled out of the travel stream and given greater scrutiny by border
officials;
· Made false statements to border officials to gain entry to the United States; and
· Violated immigration laws while inside the United States.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm
My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for them to return.
…
The INS
Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.
With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers’ visas should have been unquestionably denied.
Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed males. They were, in short, the “classic over-stay candidates”. A seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine, “Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances.”
Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, “classic overstay candidates still received their visas.” I am holding in my hand the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect.
Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply “student” failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the US wrote “myself” and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in the US as simply “hotel” or “California” or “New York”. One even listed his destination as “no”.
Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11th, 2001.
Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn’t happening?
Wo Fat, thank you for referring to us merely as “round eyes”, which, as a pure physical description unladen by any connotations of slavery (at least in this culture ~ it may have a different meaning there) unlike “whitey” or “darky”, is still more polite than the connotative phrase used among your people, “dog eyes”. Yes, we are dogs .. dogs that invent nuclear weapons and dogs whose imperial ambitions will probably decay with a half-life of 50 years or more, if the British experience is any example. All imperial ambitions eventually transmute to lead over time, as shown in the example of Rome.
(no, I’m not blonde)
so asswipe, again, what came out of your list was a whiny piece of shit, kinda like you. but, when you go to the report, which you want to replace, you get information that you consider valid, cause it happens jives with your preexisting biases.
so anyway, you said there are hundreds of anomolies, so called, by you, and you you went to some retard website and cut and pasted a bunch. so pick one that you want to talk about. there must be one besides dick cheney’s passport that you want to talk about.
why don’t you look through the report and see what the commission had to say about the passport, since you have no ides of your own.
i guess you only want to replace the parts of the report that you don’t like, i guess.
dave, concentrate!
I thought you wanted info on the Saudi Arabian visa office, and how the US was ‘loosey-goosey’ on passing visas out to known terrorists.
Anyways, the 9/11 report doesn’t question how the ‘magic passport’ was found.
What are you implying? No CIA operatives work undercover at US Consular offices? Who is being niave here?
Dave wrote:”so anyway, you said there are hundreds of anomolies, so called, by you, and you you went to some retard website and cut and pasted a bunch. so pick one that you want to talk about. there must be one besides dick cheney’s passport that you want to talk about.”
My fav?
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta
The ISI director, Mahmud Ahmed, was on a two-week visit to Washington and met for breakfast at the Capitol on Sept. 11 with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees, Bob Graham and Porter Goss.
After 9/11, Graham and Goss oversaw the 858-page report of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11, in which the term ISI never occurs, at least not in the 75 percent of the report remaining after “redactions.”
The 9/11 Commission report fails to mention reports of a Pakistani connection, not even to explain them away, but at least it offers this gem:
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
Deep Throat said:”Follow the Money”
no wait, there aren’t any ‘conspiracies’ in the government.
au, i wouldn’t be surpised, nor would i care, if visas are or were tossed out the window in bulk. again, this is one of your “anomolies”, that was obviously addressed by the report that you want thrown out.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD08Aa01.html
i mean, if even dip shit out there, even you, knows that cia guys work at cousuls, how is that an anomoly in any sence of the word. isn’t it just kind of business as usuall?
My fav?
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI, must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and was not meeting with senior Washington officials over the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
– On the morning of 9/11, Sen. Graham met with the head of Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA), who is alleged to have sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta
The ISI director, Mahmud Ahmed, was on a two-week visit to Washington and met for breakfast at the Capitol on Sept. 11 with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees, Bob Graham and Porter Goss.
After 9/11, Graham and Goss oversaw the 858-page report of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11, in which the term ISI never occurs, at least not in the 75 percent of the report remaining after “redactions.”
The 9/11 Commission report fails to mention reports of a Pakistani connection, not even to explain them away, but at least it offers this gem:
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
Deep Throat said:”Follow the Money”
no wait, there aren’t any ‘conspiracies’ in the government.
———————————————————————————————–
yeah, well, so what’s your point. that mahmood ahmed gave mohammed atta $100K. maybe, don’t know, but i’m sure they had all sorts of funding sources.
do you think that ahmed, if he did acctually contribute to alqueda, was there filling in graham and gross on thier plans, or are you impling that ahmed was getting the ok from graham or something to that effect? if so, again, you’d have to explain your reasoning to me. what go you want to do with rumor and inuendo, breath it in and shit it out, Iguess.
i mean really, do you have any idea of how many rumors are are started every day in dc based on who had lunch with who? i’ve seen very reliable estimates of 55 quadrillion, per day. you can look that up on google if you want.
and that’s just the lunch time rumor mill. breakfast is huge, bigger even. you’d have to use bing to find the answer.
none of this means there is no conspiracy or intrigue out there. fuck, from what i know politicians and women live for the drama. this is all why wires are used. if you coulda been there at breakfast with your handy little tape recorder, you would be a fucking hero right. alex jones would be blowing your dick on the front page of his web site right now. another lost opportuinty in the life of a 911 loser, i guess. of course they might have been just talking about thier golf scores. then you’d still be just a loser like you are already.
JR, here’s some further zombie stuff for ya:
http://www.zombiehunters.org/
GB will likely spot the giveaway in the text area right away.
dave, are you angry at me?
Why do you call me names?
Have you been hugged today, if I may get personal?
Why do you call me names?
it’s kinda fun, i guess. espesially when you post such stupid shit and have no clue of what you’re talking about. makes me feel better somehow, curious phenomenon.
are you somehow offended? if you are, that’s just another sign of what a stupid piece of shit you are. you should think about that a little. oops, sorry, i keep forgetting that you lack that capacity, thinking that is. you’re real good at copying and pasting real stupid shit though. i always give credit where credit is due.
here au, fred will brighten your day. does that make it all better? of course it does.
I’m not offended, why should I be offended? I may be foolish, but not stupid. This I know.
Well, be a pal, and toss me a clue. Spell it out for me in simpill, mispeled words that I can understand.
well, what don’t you understand?
dave, you say 9/11 happened, more or less, as the official story describes it.
I say the official story has so many errors and ommissions, I can’t believe it.
The question is not “what don’t you understand?”
The question is what you think I don’t understand.
“you post such stupid shit and have no clue of what you’re talking about”
Just cuz it stinks, and comes from an asshole, doesn’t mean its stupid shit. Maybe its good shit.
We’ve been talking about 9/11. You claim I have no clue.
So clue me in, if it pleases you. As a kindness to a lesser.
They told me I was ‘trainable’, back in my school days.
“I say the official story has so many errors and ommissions, I can’t believe it.”
well, like what? when we start pulling apart you list of so called anomolies they just fall apart.
here, we’ll try once more:
how does the found passport constitute an error or anomoly? just because you don’t believe it came off the plane, does that automatically mean that it didn’t? if it didn’t come off the plane, where do you think it came from? why might you think that? etc.
the guy from the state department was listed as some sort of anomoly when he just recounting business as usuall, and he, and i guess you, don’t like business as usuall. bau is not anomolus and how might that detract from the report or the account contained there in?
the fact that some senators had breakfast with someone who is alleged to have contributed to the highjackers means what? that assholes can start rumors?
the commission report contained a poor description of the towers’ structural system. i agree, that should be corrected.
etc.
so, you see, as you go through your list of errors and anomolies, so called, and begin to deconstruct them individually, even minimally, they look more and more like the pile of shit that they are. you may not see it that way, and all i can do is feel bad for you.
but this is not the primary problem with your stance, imo. the primary problem is that if one set of government geeks and liars produced a crappy report, and it probably is a crappy report, what on earth makes you think that you’re going to get anything other than another crappy report from a different set of geeks and liars? you’ll put someone unbiased, like maybe alex jones, in charge in? don’t be so stupid.
charlie sheen makes a lot of money. you and him should get together, decide on what you want investigated, and do it yourselves. i guess.
xxoo
dave
passport:
Barry Mawn, the director of the FBI’s New York office, says police and FBI found it during a “grid search” of the area.
[CNN, 9/18/2001]
However a senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission later claims it was actually discovered by a passerby and given to an NYPD detective, “shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed.” [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004]
They can’t get their stories together. Whom to believe?
Of course, it’s possible the passport wasn’t a plant. Not likely, though. Just one of those things, in a series of low probabilities. Ever get a full house? Ever draw a full house five hands in a row?
The guy from the state department stating that it is business as usual for visas to be given to al Qaeda members is BAU. Ok, I’m with you there. Not an anomaly.
“the fact that some senators had breakfast with someone who is alleged to have contributed to the highjackers means what? that assholes can start rumors?”
Someone? He was the head of Pakistani intelligence. Who was not mentioned in the 9/11 report. Nor was the money that funded the attack, ‘cuz that’s not important. Even though we know bin Laden was funded thru Paki channels when fighting the Soviets.
“Some senators”? Like Sen. Porter “I’m not qualified to work at the CIA” Goss? The future head of the CIA? You knew that, right? Like you knew the passport could only be found on rense.com? As part of your exhaustive research into 9/11? You know enough to make up your mind, firmly, and stick with it. The fact that you call it a “crappy report”, without reading it, demonstrates your perspicacity.
I believe 9/11 was our Der Reichstagsbrand. As a good citizen, I’m sure you have no problems with that. I mean,
what could be the consequences?
yeah, i do feel bad for you au. anyhoo, like i also said, you should go find another set of geeks and liars and put together another report. good luck.
yeah au, i’m sorry you’re right. the fbi was running around to different crash sites and dropping id’s at random. how could i be so fucking stupid.
http://www.rense.com/general68/ree.htm
I believe 9/11 was our Der Reichstagsbrand.
i believe that 911 should be renamed as dick cheney’s birthbay and that everyone should get the day off. at least all the assholes with a job should get the day off. you can count me out on that one, thank you very much.
They can’t get their stories together. Whom to believe?
Of course, it’s possible the passport wasn’t a plant. Not likely, though. Just one of those things, in a series of low probabilities. Ever get a full house? Ever draw a full house five hands in a row?
shoot au, i told you a long time back in this thread, one of the highjacker’s buddies on the ground planted it. geesh, i have to do all the thinking and all the cooking around here.
“Some senators”? Like Sen. Porter “I’m not qualified to work at the CIA” Goss? The future head of the CIA?
i always thought that the first rule for a political appointment was that the appointee be as ill suited for the position as possible. just call me mr. wrong again.
anyway, i also figure that i should head up your new commission when you get that going. i’m perfectly unbiased. in other words, i don’t give a fuck who did or didn’t do whatever.
Someone? He was the head of Pakistani intelligence. Who was not mentioned in the 9/11 report. Nor was the money that funded the attack, ‘cuz that’s not important. Even though we know bin Laden was funded thru Paki channels when fighting the Soviets.
show me one place ever in my whole fucking miserable life when i said that the money’s not important, you dirty lieing cocklicker. wait till i get with dick C. on this. he feels the same way as me and we’re sure to get to bottum of this. ok, that was quick, but dick says you should name me and the jones twins to your new commission. we want nothing but the truth.
The guy from the state department stating that it is business as usual for visas to be given to al Qaeda members is BAU.
yeah, the famous pakastani cab driver from nyc, only about 5 million of them, all alqueada of course. hadji, planted the passport on vessy street. seen him with my own eyes, but the fbi dude told me to shut my face.
then there’s e skinny black guy from the sudan. saw him living under a bridge and dropping id’s in minneapolis just last week.
yeah au, you’re way to smart for me. you got your shit together and your bases covered, firing on all cylinders no less. if you ever form a committee to form a new commission, can i be on it? you get to call the meetings to order of course.
“show me one place ever in my whole fucking miserable life when i said that the money’s not important, you dirty lieing cocklicker.”
I quoted the 9/11 report about money.
Try to read with comprehension.
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
Thanks for all the clues.
I quoted the 9/11 report about money.
Try to read with comprehension.
“To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance… Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
so i said this?
but yeah, ok, how does that change anything? i mean the motherfuckers got the $ someplace, right? or they wouldn’t have been able to pay for thier flying lessons or buy thier tickets, right? maybe they got good tips for driving fares aimlessly around manhattan. boy you are the stupidist one yet.
maybe senator gramham gave that pakestaini dude $100k at breakfast and then told him, “here’s an extra 10 spot. but this is just between me and you, right? just like when you drove me around with that hooker, right?”. yeah, that’s what happened.
au, how many different ways can i say this? go get another report done if you don’t like the one you got, you and charlie sheen, maybe the jones brothers too. i’ll even help out on the steering committee, as long as the budget allows for enough single, lobster tails and hookers. but don’t keep trying to put words in my mouth, nor your dick niether, i don’t swing that way. but if you got a 18 yo daughter, chances are that i’d fuck her till the cows come home. ok?
…enough single malt…
some cool clips of old movies.
modern metal
may we all be blessed with sudden and violent death, praise god.
no, not all die violent death now. Not until wo fat score with blond, blue eyed, young nubile girl with small feet. This take a while.
jimbo is aunt jehmima’s husband and sambo’s uncle?
Jimbo = JHK
http://www.jimbo.info/weblog/
yeah, i shoulda known; this guy drives a fairlane, the last great american automobile, by the way.
Everyone can get a job, even in a recession.
If I could figure out a way to effectively control (kill) voles in the garden I could rule the world…or become rich…or at least successfully grow carrots and potatoes. And I would share half the carrots with bunnbunn.
You are a good man, GB, and destined for great things. I’ve often wondered if there is an economical and effective form of appropriately permeable barrier that can be positioned in the soil to foil all directions of burrowing varmint attack. In theory at least this would stop the underground assault, it would seem. As for above ground, well… how about a squadron of bikini girls positioned around the perimeter and armed with bb-guns? The hole, if you will, in this aspect of the plan is the cost of feeding and watering the women, and having to further equip them with active-IR goggles for the nightshift. Over and out.
oh oh, I volunteer to feed and water the bikini women, and supply them with BBs. they might need sunscreen lotion applications at regular intervals, also. Bunn and GB can split the carrots and potatoes.
No sunscreen needed. No BB guns, either. The bikini women will be working only at night, the vole is nocturnal. They will catch the beasts with their bare hands. Equal Opportunity Employer. Payment is one rutabaga per shift. Ladies, please contact Bunn, my agent.
This is the best thread.