G’day everyone,
Ozboy here. The United States mid-term elections are just one week away, and the mounting resentment many Americans feel about the way their country is being governed appears certain to be made clear at the polls. One of the great safeguards of Western democracy is the fact that no matter how self-serving, incompetent or corrupt we find a government to be, as citizens we can exact the ultimate justice at the ballot box.
Or can we? As a foreigner, I don’t feel confident making in-depth prognostications on the U.S. electoral system. So today, I’ve invited one of LibertyGibbert’s American readers to share with us her insights into what might be going on behind the scenes. If her speculation is anywhere close to the truth, the implications for democracy in the world’s most powerful nation are truly shocking.
Msher, the floor is yours…
Until they headed out last week to campaign, this Administration and this Congress have acted as if they don’t care what happens to their re-election. Did they really not care? Did they really think a couple of weeks of campaigning is enough. OR is there something else: a nefarious plan as to how to win when it counts, in 2012?
This Administration and this Dem Congress have passed an unpopular health care bill, an unpopular stimulus bill, and have made a concerted effort to demean tea party protestors. Their record is so unpopular that most members dare not run on their record of the last couple of years. Obama in addition has purposefully put himself on the opposite side of popular issues. Examples: the mosque in New York – which he could have stayed out of completely. The immigration law in Arizona that his Justice Department is suing to stop. Cap and trade which will raise the price of electricity (in his words, make it “skyrocket.”). Michelle took an expensive vacation to Spain during recession and the BP oil spill. These are not the actions of an Administration or Congress that care about voter opinion.
The commentators are all speculating on how the Dems could have gotten to a place where they will lose Congress, or at least the House. It is assumed that the Dems didn’t understand this would happen, that they were somehow out of touch with the voters, that they will be crippled by coming gridlock between Obama and a Republican House.
I think that’s all nonsense. The Dems were never out of touch with the voters. They take polls and know exactly what the voters are thinking. I have a different theory for speculation: Have the Dems been willing to lose the House in November because they have a plan? President Obama can bypass any gridlock and govern through Executive Order, then the fix is in so that in 2012 they will keep the presidency and take back Congress and never lose either again.
For the Aussies and Brits, an Executive Order is an order by the President, which if constitutional (as determined by the Supreme Court), has the force of law. Executive orders have been issued in almost every area of governance. Here are some examples. The Emancipation Proclamation, perhaps the most famous, freed all slaves living in the Confederacy. In 1948, President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 integrating the military and mandating equality of treatment and opportunity. Wars have been fought upon Executive Order, including the 1999 Kosovo War. (Although to date, all such wars have also had authorizing resolutions from Congress. The extent to which the president may exercise military power without Congressional authorization remains an unresolved question.) When the House of Representatives passed a cap and trade bill, but the Senate did not, President Obama simply issued an Executive Order for the EPA to set new higher fuel efficiency standards for trucks. The federal government’s actions in connection with the BP oil spill were undertaken under various Executive Orders. International agreements that do not rise to the level of “treaties” can be signed under Executive Order. (The one possible check is If spending outside of funds already allocated to agencies is required, the president may need Congress to appropriate the money.)
Does this sound like a gridlock the Dems can’t live with for two years? It doesn’t to me. Why do I say two years? Why am I assuming that despite their growing unpopularity, the Dems will retain the White House and take back Congress in 2012? Because I fear the Dems have put things in place to assure themselves of winning both 2012 and forevermore afterwards.
- The “SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT,” a George Soros-backed project started in 2006 to elect far left Democrats to the state offices of Secretary of State. That is an office that virtually no one pays attention to. A bad oversight. Elections in America are controlled by the respective states and their secretaries of state – not by the federal government. These officials have many functions, but in 38 states their main one is to serve as the state’s chief elections official. THEY CONTROL WHO CAN VOTE, WHAT HAPPENS TO BALLOTS AND THE ACTUAL VOTE COUNT. Al Franken’s recent close-margin Democratic victory occurred in a state where the Secretary of State was financed by this Soros backed project.
http://www.secstateproject.org/about/http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Secretary_of_State_Project
- The 2010 Census was for the first time run out of the White House, rather than the Chamber of Commerce. Why? I don’t know; the MSM let the Administration off the hook without making them explain. The United States Census is taken every 10 years and the results are used to allocate House seats among the states, electoral votes, and government program funding. In counting the population, it is not possible to count everyone, for example, the homeless. Dems also claim that minorities are under-represented in the count because they are afraid to come to the door. So all sorts of arcane extrapolation methods are used to compensate for the “missing” voters and arrive at final population numbers. Most conservative observers believe the statistical methods used increase the number of supposed “missing” Hispanic and inner city voters. Once the apportionment of seats among the States is determined by the Census Bureau numbers, individual state legislatures, redraw the boundaries of the respective voting districts in their state for each House seat apportioned. The districts for state legislatures are also redrawn based on the new Census Bureau data. If the Administration pushes for counting formulas that over-assume large numbers of missing homeless and minority voters, non-existent liberal populations will get voting power at the expense of legitimate conservative individuals.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/11/dems-downplay-obamas-plan-oversee-census/
http://www.demography.state.mn.us/documents/Redistricing.pdf
- More and more states are allowing people to vote early by mail. No ID needed. Need I say more about the fraud potential? (An obvious one: ballots stolen out of mail boxes before or after being filled out.) About 28 states allow this form of vote.
Now who has confidence in the integrity of the 2012 or any future election?
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
I do. Executive orders, while followed to the letter, turn around and bite the Prez on the backside more often than not, if they are flakey. Nixon’s paper plane fight of exeutive orders with Congress in his last term was a classic example of that. You can make a good case for the argument that he E.O.’d himself out of a job, and that Watergate was just frosting on the biomass cake.
The arguments over who administers elections and how is as old as the Republic as to a large extent we invented the racket in the very first place, in its current incarnation, those some lovely Hogarth cartoons from the 18th century come to mind instantly respecting the conduct of elections. The presence of the electoral college as a tool for over-riding the popular vote constitutes a more damning and annoying “let them eat cake” aspect of the Yank system of elections than anything you cited here, that and the fact we have no vote of no confidence option for dropping a Prez down a manhole if he or she is another type of hole. We also need national referenda on line item issues. It is not fair that an entire political system has to be turned upside down or good politicians’ lives derailed over a single issue when a popular referendum could be conducted.
I also think it ought to be law as in most Western countries that Americans have to vote in all national elections or they go to jail. It always makes me feel stupid to have wasted years of my youth defending the right to vote of the American people, and maybe only 20-30% of them show up at the polling booth. With that type of turnout, one can say with certainty that the actual will of the people has yet to have ever been executed at the polls in our entire history, as less than half the population have ever voted for every election to date. If they don’t want to vote for any of the candidates, NONE OF THE ABOVE works fine at the polling booth.
*though instead of those.
msher another possibility is an executive order immediately legalizing illegal immigrants this would add 5-15 million new democratic voters to the rolls, there are already grumblings of this. However is it not true that congress can over ride an executive order by vote by passing a law to nullify it.
Another possibility is they know the economy is going to get so bad it is best to let the Republicans take the wrap for it, Obama is now talking fiscal responsibility. They could also be counting on the tea party movement losing steam and fizzling out after this election.
Msher, great article, though I don’t have time at the moment to follow up your supporting links (doing up a long list of ‘pay-attention-to-video’ questions for my husband’s high-school class). Certainly I have no particular faith either in the Democrats’ belief in democracy (ironic, yes?) or Obama’s commitment to same: one has only to recall the speeches and the executive actions of his administration and beyond (e.g. Clinton) to be rendered less than sanguine. The Left wants equality of outcome and by god they will trample every other virtue to achieve it. Freedom, democratic deliberation, the even-handed application of the law, due and impartial reverence for the Constitution as written (not as fantasized about), and the real rights of real minorities have no claim on their concerns. What the Left really wants is to ram and jam us all into a coerced majority of equally burdened and unfree subject people — the Socialist man — and then we shall see just how much — really, how little — the rights of minorities matter to them.
I voted by mail the other day, Republican down the line. Marco Rubio for Senate. There was a question about redistricting which, again, I don’t have time to discuss, save to say that the question as put on the ballot sounds most reasonable (the first line of it is unassailable — it’s like asking ‘do you want fairness’?), but the rest is a weasel way to weasel more Democrats into power. Having been forewarned, I voted No.
Walt as a quick historical aside did you know British soldiers once held a session in 1812 in the above building, a lively debate by all accounts, apparently some of the incumbents did a runner for some reason.
Amanda,
I linked to a piece on Margaret Mead on the old thread.
A bit more on its author:
John Horgan, who came to Stevens in 2005, is an author and freelance writer who has been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, Discover, London Times and other publications around the world. Horgan holds a BA in English from Columbia University’s School of General Studies and an MS from Columbia’s School of Journalism. He was a senior writer for Scientific American from 1986 to 1997 and now writes a blog, called “Cross-Check,” for Scientific American online. His honors and awards include the 2005 Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion; the Science Journalism Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1992 and 1994); and the National Association of Science Writers Science-in-Society Award (1993). His writings have been featured in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 editions of The Best American Science and Nature Writing.
JOHN HORGAN is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. A former senior writer at Scientific American (1986-1997), he has also written for The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Discover, The London Times, The Times Literary Supplement, New Scientist, and other publications around the world. He writes the “Cross-check” blog for Scientific American, does video chats for Bloggingheads.tv and writes a column for BBC Knowledge Magazine (see links at left).
His book Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2003. Reviewers have called Rational Mysticism “a marvelous book…Horgan tackles this impossible subject journalistically–critically but with an open heart” (New York Times Book Review); “a splendidly written, beautifully organized, honestly and passionately argumentative book, balanced on the cusp between belief and unbelief” (Globe and Mail); and “a hyper-intellectual road flick…Spike Jones directing” (Skeptic Magazine). See the outtakes from the book posted on this site.
His first two books are The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Science in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, Broadway Books, 1996, a U.S. bestseller translated into 13 languages; and its followup The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation, Free Press, 1999, which was a finalist for the 2000 British Mind Book of the Year and has been translated into eight languages.
He is the co-author with the Reverend Frank Geer of Where Was God on September 11?, edited by Robert Hutchinson, Brown Trout, 2002. He contributed essays to Within the Stone, a collection of photographs of mineral cross sections by Bill Atkinson, one of the creators of the original MacIntosh computer.
Horgan is currently doing research on the widespread belief that human warfare is inevitable. He would appreciate any input on these topics, especially recommendations for relevant reading materials, organizations, individual sources, etc.
SB
SB: Saw your previous post and will read this one when I get time. Logging off now. Just FYI: no, the friend of a friend is not the author of that article. Cheers and thanks, Amanda
I want NONE OF THE ABOVE on ballot papers……..game over.
Amanda
A piece of fraud I didn’t talk about with respect to mail-in voting – Are you sure that your ballot and bushels of others won’t somehow disappear between now and next week?I’m not so sure about my own ballot which I mailed a couple of days ago.
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Crown
Executive Orders have to be “constitutional” which means….anyone’s guess. Exeutive Orders are not mentioned in the Constitution. Congress is supposed to legislate and the President is supposed to exercise executive power – and when those two things collide, the U.S. Court has to figure it out on a case by case basis.
The major case so far is described accurately here:
“Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v Sawyer (1952) arose when President Harry Truman, reponding to labor unrest at the nation’s steel mills during the Korean War, seized control of the mills. Although a six-member majority of the Court concluded that Truman’s action exceeded his authority under the Constitution, seven justices indicated that the power of the President is not limited to those powers expressly granted in Article II. Had the Congress not impliedly or expressly disapproved of Truman’s seizure of the mills, the action would have been upheld.”
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/separationofpowers.htm
Here’s another case, showing it’s anyone’s guess, because it depends on Congess’s reaction.
“Dames and More v Regan (1981) considered the constitutionality of executive orders issued by President Jimmy Carter directing claims by Americans against Iran to a specially-created tribunal. The Court, using a pragmatic rather than literalist approach, found the executive orders to be a constitutional exercise of the President’s Article II powers. The Court noted that similar restrictions on claims against foreign governments had been made at various times by prior presidents and the Congress had never in those incidents, or the present one, indicated its objection to the practice.”
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/separationofpowers.htm
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Walt
Why do you want ignorant people who don’t care to vote? I am 180 degrees opposite. I think there should be a civics and current events test before anyone can vote. If we think idealistically soldiers also fight to protect freedom of speech and freedom of religion and the other bill of rights rights. In other words, even if it isn’t to protect the right to vote, a soldier is still fighting for the freedoms and benefits of his countryman.
Msher
As an ignorant person who believes that it does not matter who you vote for, you get a politician, can I ask you, if those too ignorant to vote will still have to pay taxes?
No taxation without representation or something springs to mind, there was a war about that, wasn’t there?
NoIdea
crown
Sorry, I didn’t directly answer your question about Congress overr iding an Executive Order. Yes – Congress can pass a contrary law – but then what if the President vetoes it? But I think the Courts given the cases I cited would go with Congress ASSUMING the subject matter was in the Constitution as a matter for the legislature. There are some gray areas where it’s not clear whether something is an executive or legislative function.
Noidea
Well in the U.S. only about 60% of households pay taxes, and the other 40% geto to vote without paying taxes. When they vote, they tend to vote to spend the money of the 60%, often on benefits for themselves.
I don’t think requiring a little knowledge violates “no representation without taxation.” But the courts would say my idea is unconstitutional. Civics and like tests were struck down as part of the civil rights movement because they were believed to penalize blacks. But here’s what I am really against” “Get out the Vote” campaigns. If someone doesn’t care enough to want to on their own, I think it’s insanity to encourage them to do so. Personally, there have been times and issues where I intentionally refrained from voting because I believed I wasn’t informed enough to cast a good vote. In my opinion, the criticism of me should be not that I didn’t vote but that I hadn’t taken the time to become informed.
Sounds exactly like what has happened in the UK over the last 13 years – coincidence or what?
Well…at least Amanda gets it. Americans taking back their country is a process of evolution rather than revolution. Personally, I’d choose the revolution option…but then, I’m exceptionally well armed. As much as I’d like to blame Obama for all the ills in the world, he isn’t the cause of them…he only exacerbates them. America has been sliding towards socialism since the mid-60s. Reagan didn’t stop the slide but he threw out an anchor in the 80s that slowed the descent.
Americans are willfully blind to what will end our wonderful republic – entitlements. No one wants to do away with “free stuff from the government” programs. No politician dare try. Entitlements and military spending (40% of which is essentially foreign aid) constitute over 60% of our national government budget. This will be our undoing.
All the puff and bluster over the SOS (Secretary of State) project is not as ominous as it sounds. Joseph Kennedy once said “it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.” Voter fraud is a reality in the USA…Geez…just look at Al Franken! But this is real hard to pull off on a broad scale when everybody is watching.
A Presidential Executive Order carries all the legal weight of a bucket of spit. I have no doubt that this is the way Obama will try to govern, but I predict it will fail. True…Obama has painted himself into a corner and as a cornered animal Obama (and by extension the Democrat party) is very dangerous when threatened. All the Republicans need to do is let them remain in the corner and starve.
Thank you
Msher, Walt, Crown and Amanda plus others
Your posts and insight are most useful and I shall now see the forthcoming mid term elections in a different light.
I can follow the logic of msher’s argument since in the UK the labour party have encouraged open house to immigrants, allowed them preference for jobs and housing, all in the name of multiculturism.
Manipulating boundaries, postal votes and allowing illegals to become legit are all options for past, present and future for our Labour party manipulators.
I was quite happy to have a LibCon coalition in the UK since the financial crisis had to be addressed and it needed Conservatives to keep the money city suits happy and the Libs to keep the Unions in check. – We will see soon if it works out! Note in France the Unions are very effectively challenging a government which I believe is conservative.
I believe the coalition was necessary to save us from the IMF and a financial disaster, which was the overriding risk.
The Dem plans thus as msher suggests could be based upon a large amount of manipulation and skulduggery, however, I would be interested in any views about how the rest of the world may react to this deceit. As an example if the dollar tanks I can see China being very upset and reacting.
We live in a world economy and what happens in the USA, UK, EU and China are all interlinked, particularly with finance, resources, trade and of course AGW.
If msher is right then the law of unintended consequences my come into play and upset the best laid plans, on the other hand we could all take a further step towards a New World Order!
Hopefully the power of the internet will allow the worst of these mischiefs to be defeated.
motm
Sorry forgot to mention. — Well done msher
— Thank You Oz
motm
Finally! Msher is exploring the important issues TV commentators and even most bloggers are afraid to address. There has been an assault on democracy from the Left for many years. The unions, community organizers, and ignorant, self-righteous liberals have stolen elections and given powers to those who have nothing but contempt for the will of the people.
Republicans are generally too weak to even fight, much less overcome, the vote fraud that dominates elections. My family and I are hoping that the Tea Party activists will go to the polls as volunteers on election day and prevent some of the more egregious vote fraud that we witnessed in behalf of Gore in 2000, and that we know goes on all the time.
We’re thankful for this commentator’s courage. These are frightening times and people must expose and speak out against abuses.
Reports of vote-rigging in last May’s election.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1271457/General-Election-2010-Postal-vote-fraud-amid-fears-bogus-voters-swing-election.html
There were also reports of postal votes from the armed forces going “missing”!
Thanks for the low-down on the Mid-Terms msher – I understand a little better now.
msher the last time anybody tried wield executive power and rule by decree was Charles 1st when he dispensed with Parliament and that did not end very well for him.
Since the founders of the Republic did not intend to repeat the mistakes of the UK I think perhaps the use of executive privilege has been extended way beyond it’s original intent and purpose.
It should be noted that in this election the postal ballots of military personnel overseas may not be counted for at least 8 states as they “accidentally” missed the deadline on sending them out. To a democrat denying someone the vote is no big deal but it may not be wise to upset your military at some point they will refuse to obey orders because frankly they will be illegal.
crownarmourer says:
October 26, 2010 at 5:40 am
They did a nice job of re-decorating it, and had there not been lots of whitewash the building would have been named to this day the Charcoal and Burnt Ashes House. It was those effing Greenjackets did the worst damage the beggars LOL, them and the Geordies. Freed the manservants and maids and invited them to come back to Lower Canada with them (I had dinner with a descendant of one of those servants who left for Canada at that time at Victoria’s in Calgary, an Estabrook from Nova Scotia), gave away the library to local merchants and kept the best books for themselves, and as dinner was on the table when Madison and his cronies took to the hills, they helped themselves and inviting the newly freed slave servants to join them before burning down the barn.
Msher, ignorant people pay taxes too. There is no aristocracy of the “We know better than others and therefore we only have the right to vote” variety here, and if there is, they deserve a black eye or two just to explain to them what country this is. Shit on people who say this or that group has no right to vote or should stay away. I helped kill lots of Asian communists who thought that was the right way to be toward the ignorant and unenlightened, and I am sorry I did not have the privilege of doing the same here.
Liberty and justice for all is only part of it. Voting for all is also part of it.
This is why, to me, even though it does directly affect me, it is not a bad thing altogether for the States to go completely flat effing broke beyond the point of no one’s credit card working anymore. As long as people can hide out in the hills or the burbs in relative comfort, nothing will be done to rectify the present problems. Left and right, we have all been arseholes in our dealings. We all deserve to share the consequences.
crown
I missed the story of the 8 states with too late military ballots. I’ll try to find it later and see if the secretaries of state were from the Soros project.
Re executive power extending further than intended – yes, undoubtedly. Hence, all the references to “the imperial presidency.” I think one’s view of that, though, is heavily colored by whether you approve of the particular president or not.
The term “executive privilege” has a specific meaning, not the general meaning you’re giving it. It is the right of the members of the Executive Branch to resist subpoenas and other demands of Congress. I have never specifically studied that, but it is really murky and unpredictable.
Reminds me of that howlingly funny butt-crack bluejean 12-stepper militia “rebellion” in Oregon at a farm where the police surrounded the place, demanding they surrender, and for four months the standoff continued with the militia commandante woodchuck issuing grand edicts daily which the press dutifully published (this was the early 1990’s). Finally the guy in charge of the Montana Militia, Col. Blitzer, shows up, and come to find out, that Oregon militia had been surviving almost solely on non-planting crop subsidies from the US Department of Agriculture and owed taxes on those commodity subventions.
Both sides of the fence are equally dumbtarded, ethically challenged, dope and alcohol challenged, and divorced, usually multiply, and neither Party at the moment, including the Tea Party, are rock-solid hierarchies of competence. Half of Congress as a whole could not pass a simple piss test for substance abuse. Their clerks and assistants have to. May as well play it out with what we have and see what happens.
Thank you for your insight msher. Interesting times ahead.
I completely agree with the point made earlier that ill-informed voters are a detriment to the well-being of the general population.
When rock stars rally their fans to vote, it’s inevitably a joke. Bruce Springsteen, for example, seems like a well-intentioned guy, but oh so dumb. Yet, he can influence people who otherwise have no knowledge of the issues into canceling out the votes of those who have some understanding of how government works–like, higher taxes reduce, rather than increase revenues.
And unions! Do we really want union leaders instructing workers on how to vote? (That is to say, early, often, and Democrat.) I want to see as many people as possible vote, but they should be encouraged to educate themselves first.
Again, it’s great you’re dealing with this issue of circumventing democracy. Everyone needs to think about it and figure out how to deal with it.
AngeloftheOdd
Given some of my comments, I want to be clear that I do not despise minorities or the poor or even the ignorant. To the contrary, I wish everyone prosperity and a good life. It’s just that I think the Dem politics and the politics of the welfare state are disastrous for the middle class, the poor, the minorities and the ignorant.
To follow up on something in your first post: I don’t know why commentators who get paid to commentate – and get lots of attention when they are provocative, haven’t been speculating on what I’m speculating about. The Soros Project is of record, so is the mail in vote, and so is the idiosyncrasy in the 2010 Census.
If you can only see your opponent as a cardboard cut-out, evil and stupid person, you’ll lose the war. Such a viewpoint may work for the troopers but not for those in charge of the campaign. You’ll get them killed and lose the war.
While amusing in an armchair sort of way, the idea of President Obama ruling America by Diktat is a non starter and while he’s not a particularly astute politician, I grant him and his advisers a lot more acumen than that. If you have a significant portion of people in society who are disenfranchised either literally or through subtler means such as gerrymandering (or Executive Orders), what inevitably happens in a democracy is civil protest, because at the end of the day, they will become politicised. This always starts as campaign demanding ‘civil rights’ and once started, cannot be stopped and will only grow bigger and bigger unless one of two actions are taken. The first and sensible option is to grant them their civil rights. The problem stops there. Period.
The second option is to use force to suppress the movement. This always converts a peaceful civil rights movement into a guerrilla war. Since you’re now fighting against the very people of a country, it’s inherently un-winnable but drags on for a decade or more before you’re obliged to hand them their rights anyway, in some sort of honour saving fig leaf deal. The British took the sensible option in India and the stupid option in Northern Ireland. America took the sensible option with the Civil Rights movement and the stupid option in Vietnam. This is politics 101.
Barring some miraculous intervention, Obama is doomed. These elections are going to be a Democratic bloodbath and everyone in that party knows it. Their priority is now mitigation, which is why they’re distancing themselves from their own leader with an almost indecent haste. They’re not planning for a 1012 election because they already calculate, correctly, that it’s un-winnable. Two more years of Obama at the helm and all of it drag assing along the bottom of a recession. They’re already figuring out a strategy for 2016 and the real problem they’re going to have then; how to beat a Republican president who will by that time be perceived as the man who not only saved America from the ravages of an incompetent Obama but got it out of the recession as well. That’s a tough nut to crack. I wish them luck with it.
So, if we’re going to do a bit of political analysis, let’s stick to Realpolitik.
Pointman
Dr. Dave says:
October 26, 2010 at 7:10 am
“Obama has painted himself into a corner …………. All the Republicans need to do is let them remain in the corner and starve.”
In this country successive Labor/Socialist/Marxist Govts have painted themselves into that proverbial corner. All they have to do is…….. wait for the paint to dry.
Then they come slithering out of the shadows again. They rely on short memories and Spinmeisters to work their magic at reinventing their image, but the end-game is always the same. Profligate waste, generational debt and changing society to give them ongoing power.
A massively bloated parasitic Bureaucracy will always vote for their meal-ticket. Our Opposition Leader Abbott sealed his fate when he declared austerity measures would include slashing 20,000 Federal Public Servants’ jobs.
Relaxing immigration laws has seen a tsunami of ever-so-grateful constituents who vote Labor for life. Welfare recipients aren’t going to give up their seats on the Socialist Gravy Train either.
The will of the Majority is worthless. Abbott received a majority vote but Labor seized Govt by forming a Coalition with the Greens who only rated 11% of the vote but whose Minority Policies are currently dictating Labor direction.
Oh … and BTW … our military votes “went astray” too, due to the cut-off date for lodging them was “overlooked”. Ooops. Isn’t that stretching the bounds of coincidence a little too far? First the US then the UK and now OZ.
pointman
The president doesn’t have to rule by Diktat. He can do what he really needs/wants to by Executive Order and let other things wait for a couple of years. I stand by each of the three sources of fraud I mentioned. Whether they are sufficient in 2012 or not until 2016 I can’t tell. My point is partly the interest of speculating about 2012, but more important, the more real grim reality of the pieces of vote fraud which are being put in place. There is a point – especially if you add amnesty and citizenship to illegals, where the Dems will have stolen the democracy. 2012, 2016, 2020? The only question is which year.
Just listening to radio news……Labor slams Abbott for promoting “Populist Policies”.
Maybe you can help me Msher – isn’t Democracy all about such “popular” policies reflecting the will of the majority?
Our PM Jooolya Gizzard said yesterday that such policies weren’t always good for the nation and it was her job to “lead” the Govt in another direction – for our own good undoubtedly. Seems the “majority” is irrelevant.
pointman re northern Ireland you do realize that just before the IRA decided to go for a cease fire and talks. They had been so infiltrated and some serious lock up forever charges about laid at the door of the leadership that effectively they had been defeated.
Talks were allowed to go ahead as it is best to come to political settlement unless you want the same thing starting over again 20 years later.
msher says:
October 26, 2010 at 10:04 am
pointman
MSher, ruling by Executive Order for two years is ruling by Diktat. I’m not interested in the veracity of sources, I’m doing politics here. What you may get away with in front of a judge is entirely different from what you’ll get away with in dealing with the America public.
Persuade me of a major fault in my political analysis of the situation and you may be able the persuade me that the US Military or National Guard will open fire on a demonstration by a Tea Party (called a Civil Rights movement in my analysis) of American citizens. If Obama goes the route you’re positing, then that’s what it will come down to. He and the Dems know it too. Realpolitik.
Pointman
crownarmourer says:
October 26, 2010 at 10:16 am
Crown, I realise Northern Ireland is a sensitive subject but when it comes to politics, I give the straight assessment. If anyone out there wants me to play dumb, it ain’t going to happen. It may not be nice but the reality is the Nationalists there now have proper representation and indeed more than nominal positions of power in the governance and legislature of the province. You don’t get that if you were on the verge of defeat. What you would get is annihilated. Like it or not, accomodation was reached on all their points.
Pointman
Pointman
I wasn’t talking about veracity of sources, I was talking about veracity of analysis of the fraud that is being put in place. I stand by my analysis of the fraud that is being put in place.
Executive Order is nothing new. Many presidents have used them. Most are non-controversial and routine. Under the 2012 scenario, the Obama would lie low, not do a lot and just wait it out until 2012 (or 2013 when the new congress was sworn in). But I repeat, the more important point is the fraud which in one coming election year or another will steal our democracy.
In the Viet Nam War, National Guard (and police) opened fire at student protestors. I do think this is different. But there is also something else different. Most government agencies now have their own rather secretive swat teams. i have no idea of their leanings. Whether they would shoot at American citizens or not I don’t know.
But what does shooting at tea party protesters have to do with anything I am saying?
For goodness sake MSher, re-read my analysis and find fault with it or not, but don’t faff around please or make silly debating points. Come back with something substantial or have the good grace to retire.
Pointman
Politics is all about getting voted into power. If you don’t get voted in, you’re a loser – that’s it. There are no prizes for second place; it’s defeat any way you cut it. All political analysis starts and ends with that. No matter how high-principled a politician is, that’s the imperative they’ve got to work with.
When they’re in power, the imperative is to stay in power as long as possible. The good ones hope they may do some good when they’ve achieved that pinnacle and they usually do. The bad ones just hope to rewrite mediocrity in their foundations and autobiographies.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:12 am
“Politics is all about getting voted into power.”
and staying long enough for the pension to kick in……..
Marcus
mlpinaus says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:28 am
Last time I looked, anyone who becomes PM of the UK automatically acquires a pension of £48k per year plus perks. It’s a club and they look after their own …
“Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss …”
Pointman
All the points addressed here relate to “Why Aliens Don’t Visit Us…” as explained in the following short film. Good stuff.
http://www.thesmalls.com/members/litecore/films/aliens-dont-visit-us-because-.go
pointman
I have made my points. They are valid. I can’t answer your points because they are not relevant to mine. And I don’t have a clue what the point of your second post is.
I’m not going to retire, and I’m not going to fight with you, regardless of what you choose to say next.
msher says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:41 am
Regarding your response, if you want to do conspiracy theory, this isn’t the blog or I thought it wasn’t but you’ve obviously been given a platform to do so. I’m bitterly disappointed, to say the bloody least …
Pointman
pointman in 1922 after the IRA was down to it’s last few rounds of bullets literally the Irish free State was born; a few more days fighting and they would have been completely defeated. The British government yielded to the inevitable because it had been promised before the Great war and they got tired of shooting what were basically there own people. So they went to the negotiating table.
Likewise in Northern Ireland, likewise in Malaya, Kenya and many other places. It will be the same in Afghanistan as well the US will basically kick the crap out of them then in the same breath negotiate a settlement such is the nature of real politics it gets messy real quick.
No one begrudges Catholics having a real voice in Northern Ireland politics but don’t make the mistake of buying into the myth of the IRA they were just a bunch of thugs making a nice little earner through extortion and drugs, just like there Protestant counterparts.
Hi guys,
Re the Msher-Pointman exchange. First may I say — and I get no kickbacks nor brandy at Christmas — that I think Msher is the Goddess of the Blogs.
As to the latter controversy, may I venture to suggest that the point of P’s second post is that any politician needs political legitimacy? And I do mean any. Even Hitler tried to get the votes, or arrange things so that he would (even though a few hardy souls insisted at various times on voting Nein). Saddam Hussein wanted votes as well: we all knew that the 99% in favour, or whatever it was, had been coerced, practically on pain of death, but he felt the need to go through those motions anyway. Every leader needs to justify his power — not only in his own mind (easily done) but in a publicly-recognized, official capacity that gives some sort of sanctified aroma to what he subsequently does as Big Cheese No. 1. Of course, truly free people will say, even at peril of losing their fortunes and lives, that the cheese stinks. The question is whether we are at a time in American history and the adventures of the West when ‘give me liberty or give me death’ seems quaint, stupid, and baffling, while ‘I’ll take the stinky cheese, just give me a burger to put it on’ is a phrase that seems to make sense.
It doesn’t, of course. But if the American people had been thinking straight, they wouldn’t have chosen Obama.
P. S. I just want to add that in the past — through the vast bulk of human history — getting votes was never a consideration. You just grabbed power any which way and then you claimed you had a link with the holy (think of the coronation of British kings, which up to our current monarch includes not only holy blessing but some kind of sanctification). It shows the power of the idea of democracy that only the most repressive and backward regimes of the Earth can ignore it. That even Hitler and Hussein felt that they needed some veneer of popular consent shows how indispensable it is to the effective gaining, and even wielding, of power.
crownarmourer says:
October 26, 2010 at 11:54 am
Crown, I don’t wish to belabour the point but if “the IRA was down to it’s last few rounds of bullets literally” in 1922 they would have been annihilated. I don’t know where that particular piece of folk “wisdom” came from but the reality was that they were the recipient of a massive inflow of funds from ex-patriate and second generation Paddies who left or had to leave Ireland and arrived wherever they arrived with nothing but an abiding hatred of England. Not nice but that’s the reality.
Politically, the Crown was in a terrible situation. The ordinary soldier simply refused to do the draconian suppression of the “civil rights movement” so they formed the Black and Tans (essentially death squads) to do it. The same stupid strategy and several years later they were forced to cede to the natives what was theirs anyway. Keep believing stupid history, which ignores the facts in front of your eyes today, and you’ll repeat it. I’ll stop here.
Pointman
Pointman: I know very little about the Irish-British civil war (which essentially is what it is, yes?). But it seems to me that if I were Wizard of the Earth — it’s not a democratically selected office — I would have said to the Protestant Brits in Ireland: ‘Look. I know this is your home. But you’re latecomers. And to the extent that you are British, Britain is over there, not here. This is not part of Britain. If you really want to be part of Britain, then you will have to up sticks and *move* to Britain — otherwise it’s going to be murder and mayhem and Darkness at Noon. But you are inherently in a weak position, since there is a sense that you’re not really the Natives but your opposition IS. Best to accept that now, for the good of everybody. You’ll like mainland Britain. It’s free and it’s beautiful and the people are really nice’.
Would they have listened? I don’t think so.
Amanda says:
October 26, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I recall making the the same point substantially to a Boer Sud Afrikaner at a dinner party when Apartheid was in its heyday. He told us that it was all organised and everyone was happy. I pointed out to him that there were twenty two million blacks and half a million whites; didn’t he think at some point they’d get politicised? Naw, don’t worry about it, he replied, it’ll never happen. Pik Bothe saw what was coming at him and his people and took the sensible solution to the “civil rights movement” in their country and avoided the bloodbath. He did it early before there was no other choice. Never got a Nobel for it either but he saved a lot of bloodshed. Realpolitik 101.
Pointman
Pointman: Well yes, but in addition to prudence, ‘Realpolitik’ also smacks of amorality. Whereas I think that in both our examples, but especially and obviously in the South African one, justice was involved. Indeed, in the South African case, justice was paramount.
By the way, and I don’t think I’m alone in this — I was always a bit puzzled by the American passion for Irish independence. Or puzzled at their sense that the ordinary Brit in England, Scotland and Wales was some sort of greedy overlord wishing to deny another people their freedom. When I was growing up, nobody cared or thought about Ireland. It wasn’t Britain. It was nothing to do with us. We weren’t trying to hold on; the Protestants in Ireland wouldn’t let go, and our government (for understandable if unfortunate reasons of sovereignty — law is law) couldn’t let go, either. But as English people, what did we get out of it? Nothing. It was someone else’s fight and yet somehow we were always put in the wrong.
Amanda says:
October 26, 2010 at 1:02 pm
” ‘Realpolitik’ also smacks of amorality.”
Yes it does but I wouldn’t term it amoral, though that’s how it may be percieved by the electorate. If you accept politics as the “Art of the Possible”, then it’s not amoral, it’s just doing the sensible thing despite your ingrained principles or the principles of your party. The Russians did withdraw the missiles from Cuba but only after Kennedy agreed to withdraw the missiles from Turkey as part of the deal. Everyone saved face and had a good story to tell their electorate. No megadeaths. That’s a win-win for everyone. Realpolitik.
Pointman
Amanda
Buttercup thanks you and will send you nice, fresh kill at Christmas.
Pointman is right I am into conspiracy theory – something that I have heretofore (is that a word?) confined to things that were demonstrably and publicly said or done. Here I am indeed talking about the shadows. And I don’t know that I’m right – I labelled this speculation. But something is up. Politicians aren’t behaving how they would be expected to – precisely as you said, they should want approval and legitimacy and they haven’t. Vote fraud being put in place I’m certain of, but what else I’m not sure. I hope my speculation will spur other speculation and maybe this thing can be figured out.
mlpinaus above said that all politicians want is to get stay in office long enough to get their pensions. I disagree that that’s true in the U.S. right now. This is also ideological – the battle is being fought whether America stays as it has been traditionally or becomes a social democrat country subject to supranational governance.
Amanda says:
October 26, 2010 at 1:06 pm
The politics of England versus Ireland?
Pointman
Amanda about 5 million people in the mainland UK are of Irish descent, and most them apart from a handful of nutters and chip on their shoulders people get on fine with everyone else back in Blighty. In fact we all seem to get on quite well even with the Irish themselves.
For some reason it is the spud famine refugees in the USA that have issues although they never want to move back “home” for some reason. They quite happily gave money to blow up people but apparently that was okay but the reality of giving aid to terrorists was brought home on 9-11 and it wasn’t very nice when it happened to you and yours.
I probably shouldn’t say what my Irish friends think of there cousins overseas.
It’s getting on tonight but I have read you, Msher, Pointman, Crown, and I just want to say for now that you are all Texans in my book. And believe me, from someone that has lived five years in Texas, which is ‘Justice’ and ‘Freedom’ in the language of some deity, that is no little praise.
Farmer Braun wonders what it is that is left of democracy that could possibly be in danger of being stolen. Certainly in his country, very little, but then that country was the first to allow women to vote. Any flowering will be followed by decay so that the ground is cleared for the new seeds. So perhaps in the U.S, flowering has recently occurred. Farmer Braun wonders whether or not the corpse of democracy in the U.S. is only just beginning to decay, that Msher should just now have noticed an unpleasant odour.
Does Obama twitter? The Prime Minister of Godzone does so . That is so that he can keep the loyal subjects aware of what he is thinking ( and by inference, what they also should be thinking) from nanosecond to nanosecond.
Farmer Braun has not had a T.V. in the house for nearly 40 years now, preferring the news content available on radio, but if he wakes at sparrow-fart once more to hear the (pre-recorded) P.M. on the clock-radio tell him that the sun will rise today, he may be forced to resurrect the wind-up clock-work model. A cuckoo might be more palatable, if not making more sense.
Farmer Braun expects that txt (sic) voting is just around the corner, because the skills required to hold a quill, even to pause pensively over a qwerty, may already be lost.
The quivering hordes can easily receive a personal tweet from the P.M, reminding them that there is an election tomorrow, and that every celebrity (“because you deserve it”) ought to set an example by voting. On the Big Day itself, a reminder from P.M. John, that “u cn vte 4 me bi presin teh y ke nw,” to ensure that your voice will be heard, is all that will be required. Because “ur opnyun mattaz 2 me. ”
[Disclosure statement: Farmer Braun has used the services of a translator in the preparation of this post]
Of course, intelligent people will not be sent such a text. The P.M. will not waste his time on minority groups. Besides, a lot of these so-called intelligent folk do not have cell-phones, having found them to be both unnecessary and annoying, and such folk are, in general ,not supportive of “majority rule”. Few of them will be seen at “Party Central” (” Hey, you’ll luv ert”) [apologies to Frank Zappa] , the new booze barn , yet to be erected on the waterfront to accommodate the hordes arriving for the Rugby World Cup. And none of these so- called “intelligent folk” have wanted to be friends on the P.M’s Facebook page. So these “unhelpful” people can vote at one of the manual polling booths, all of which are located within one hour’s drive from your home. Manual booths reporting results more than one hour after the close of polling will have their counts subjected to review and possible disqualification. This is necessary because of the possibility of tampering with this antiquated method of voting.
Farmer Braun lives at the bottom of a no exit road and has a river boundary on three sides of his farm. Sometimes he ponders the possibility of having the road become no exit in both directions.
Hello msher !
Many thanks for your masterful interpretation of why democracy in America might be doomed in the relatively near future. The three issues you deal with are certainly to be worried about and can / might / will lead to a theft of democracy or, at the very least, its structural weakening as a viable means of governance in the USA.
Amerloque is tired of the epithet “conspiracy theorist”, or the condescending qualification of a more subtle, nuanced point of view of a given situation or event as “conspiracy theory.” (Actually Amerloque is more than “tired” of this: he is frankly pee-ohed about it.) It seems to be a case of confusing “conspiracy theory” with “elements of conspiracy”.
Hence Amerloque has no qualms in asking himself, during or after an event or a series of events, “Could there be more than meets the eye in this ? Might there be wheels within wheels ? Are there facts which are being deliberately kept hidden ?” In many cases the answers to the above questions are a resounding “yes”. Is Amerloque then a “conspiracy theorist” because he has asked the questions ? Or because he has searched for one or more answers to the questions ? Or because he has found verifiable facts and events which are hidden or unrevealed – perhaps by design, perhaps by chance ? It just won’t wash.
Whether the Twin Towers or our current Manchurian President, whether the JFK assassination or the pre-World War II financing of the Nazi party in Germany, whether AGW or Pearl Harbor – there are legitimate questions to be asked and answered. In some cases, of course, no satisfactory answer will be forthcoming. That most assuredly should not impact the raison d’être of the questions !
Having lived here for over 40 years, Amerloque has been witness to how “democracy” (i.e., the will of the people as evidenced by the much-praised ballot box) can be subverted, censored, modified, redefined, misinterpreted, and quite simply, ignored. He has come to think that “democracy” is simply a habit, an artifice of philosophical construction that only works if all the participants believe in it – in the same way. A look at French experience over the past few centuries suggests that in French eyes regimes and constitutions are relatively transient affairs: Absolute Monarchy, Revolution, First Republic, Consulat, First Empire, Restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, Orleanist Monarchy, Second Republic, Second Napoleonic Empire, Third Republic, (Occupied Vichy Government), Fourth Republic and, today, enfin, the Fifth Republic. Whenever their form of government displeased the French, they went back to the drawing board. They certainly did not choose “democracy” every time. They chose what they thought would work. (There is a Sixth Republic in the works, apparently: a new kind of “democracy”, if reports are to be believed.)
Of course in the USA we have had the same Constitution for something over 200 years, the same way of governance, the same “democracy”. It is more ingrained. We also have the same idea, for the moment, of what might be termed “democratic values”. That does not mean that US “democracy” will be the same in the future – or, as they say in the financial world, “past performance is no guarantee of future results”.
If the US economy were in good shape, your three points would be, perhaps, attenuated, since people’s attention could be mustered and focused on their substance.
Yet today the economy is not good shape and when people are struggling to put a roof over their heads and three squares on the table, they really don’t have the time or energy for political philosophy. If, of course, they are truthfully unable to house and feed their own, even with an almighty struggle, they will pay attention to politics – at its most basic level. It won’t be pretty.
What you describe is not happening in vacuum. There are other strong forces at work in the US today: the TARP, quantitative easing, bank/company bailouts. The MSN and the educational system (both dumbed down to produce gullible, malleable populations). Obamacare (insurance cancelled and/or insurance premiums up, consolidation of heretofore independent hospitals, clinics and doctors into fewer hands) and AGW.
Because what you described is not happening in a vacuum, then, but are subject to other forces, your scenarios may prove to be eerily prescient – unfortunately.
Bravo msher – a job well done !
Best,
L’Amerloque
Msher, I’ve seen what you’re talking about at work here locally in the last election. We live in the most conservative county in the state. We didn’t get enough polling booths in the last election – three to four hour waits. I saw people simply bailing out of the line because they had to get back to work or had to pick up kids from school. We had one of the lowest turn-outs ever.
After the elections, questions were asked. Turned out there was a “mix-up” at the Secretary of State office. Somehow polling booths got sent to the wrong place – sorry, it won’t happen again, we promise.
Msher, what you wrote is so important it needs a bigger audience. Wish I knew more about how these things worked. Wonder if you could get it on Pajamas Media or National Review… or maybe Breitbart?
Anyway, great piece!
There’s another aspect to this that people don’t realize – even if and when we elect a Republican government, the bureaucracy is still 90% leftists, and they have learned very well how to manipulate Republicans so that they aren’t effective in reversing the ever-increasing power of the federal government. We have a long struggle ahead to restore limited representative government.
Burgess is right. This post should be widely disseminated. Voters need to know how their will is being circumvented or ignored.
Where power exists, conspiracies arise to seize it. To think otherwise is naive.
There’s got to be outrage in the electorate and it won’t happen unless writers inform the public of their jeopardy. Thanks, Msher.
BTW, I don’t think “conspiracy theory” is quite the right term. Too much of it is there for anyone cares to see.
This is “Machine Politics” nationalized. Sure there’s some secrecy involved here and there, but the whole thing is too big and ugly and “out there” for a true conspiracy.
Thank you msher for putting together in a succint manner, all I had already read about and feared.
I also have been worried about the Executive orders and wondered whether they can be overturned and some of the people here seem to think they can. Hopefully so.
It is fraud I am most concerned about, the illegals and the fact that NO ONE in the POLLING stations, ask for PROOF of who you are? Just check your name and address so someone could pretend he/she is me? I have only been a citizen a short time and voted once so it is relatively new to me. Forgive me if I sound naive. Also, the fact that the ACORN group is alive and well under different names. And the thugs maybe out in force. The so-called Justice dept. has let them off scot-free. What is this? APPROVED VIOLENCE AND THUGGERY?
Another point, about the military ballots. Illinois happens to be one of the States so involved. They ‘forgot???????’ But hand delivered the ballots to the felons in the prisons, who will probably vote demoncrap! I understand that New York State has done the same. As we all know Illinois is one of the most, if not the most, corrupt state in the Union.
This president for me is the very worst since I came to this country—a lazy good for nothing except spend other people’s money seems to be the only thing he is good at. AND FOOLING THE PEOPLE! The only one I believe who has deliberately hidden his birth, schooling and life from the public. No wonder we ask why?
I hope and pray that Nov. 2nd will be decisive and that the Obama one will be FORCED to accept the consequences. Surely there would be lawsuits ad infinitum if he does over ride the people with his Executive orders?
IT TRULY IS A FRIGHTENING TIME FOR ALL OF US.
I WISH YOU COULD PUBLISH THE ARTICLE BY MSHER IN THE MSM!!!
THAT WOULD BE SO GOOD!
The SCMP is reporting …
///
A dialogue on climate change?
LAI SEE
Howard Winn
Oct 26, 2010
The Civic Exchange is organising a high-powered four-day climate change conference in early November. Called the “Climate Dialogue Conference”, there is an impressive list of speakers including Jim Hansen, head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute, one of world’s foremost climate scientists. But we couldn’t help noticing there are no prominent climate sceptics on the programme….
(Requires registration to read the entire text.)
http://tinyurl.com/22ltjee
In the news…..
http://www.newbernsj.com/articles/machine-91656-screen-voter.html
I think I’ll repair to the saloon bar until the paranoia dies down.
Pointman
Pointman how long have you been an Obama supporter?
crownarmourer says:
October 27, 2010 at 4:38 am
“Pointman how long have you been an Obama supporter?”
Crown, I’ve known for some time that you weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but now I’m beginning to suspect that not all your little doggies are on a leash. You want to rumble? I’m well up for it.
Pointman
Pointman you’re the one with the artistic bent, it is just natural that you would reveal your liberal leanings. What is the big give away is when you called the opposition names such as paranoid. This is a default tactic used by the left to stifle debate by name calling or belittling.
When it comes election time,
And you don’t like the choices,
There’s always something you can do:
Go make funny noises!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHLwVvghso Smells like victory!
crownarmourer says:
October 27, 2010 at 4:50 am
“Pointman you’re the one with the artistic bent, it is just natural that you would reveal your liberal leanings” – As I said, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Still burning over the ticking off I dished out to you when you betrayed the trust of your site’s visitors?
Pointman
pointman I ate my humble pie on the bad web ettiquette and I am not afraid to apologize for it like a real man would, I admit my mistakes to myself and to others.
Also you immediately resort to name calling and insults that reveals a very insecure personality, nothing clever about name calling after all 6 year olds do it all the time.
Name calling? Well, welcome to the new DT blog, complete with dumned down poster, conspiracy loons and flame wars. I have to admit that the line of logic that says that a person who can paint and write intelligently means they’re a liberal could only be posited by an idiot but on consideration, that would be an insult to that honourable confederacy of dunces. You do know, they may decide to chuck you out?
Pointman
Pointman
THis is an attempt to bridge what might be a mistunderstanding of the U.S. system. When you talk of a president ruling by DIKTAT and my talking about using Executive ORders, we might be thinking different things. The president doesn’t govern in the sense that a prime minister does. The legislature is independent and can and usually does initiate legislation. If the president doesn’t sign a piece of legislation or vetoes it, the legislature can override the president. As far as I can think of, there is nothing that a president MUST do – he could go play golf for 4 years. But assuming the president chooses to be engaged, he is in an interesting position: He is the Chief Executive of federal agencies (that do the work of government) that were created by Congress, given their powers and authorizations by Congress and are funded by Congress. They are also staffed and run by career bureaucrats who are the ones who really know how things work. So the president is in an odd position of it not exactly always being clear when he can do something or order the agencies to do something of his own accord, or Congress should do it. It is in that gray area that presidents have from the beginning used Executive Orders. Some have used many more than others – but increasingly since Roosevelt, presidential scope of action has increased. There are now many books written along the lines of “the imperial presidency,” dealing with exactly that. It would not be particularly unusual for a president with a hostile Congress to do as much as he could by Executive Order. If he had to do less, waiting for the next election, he would just do less.
The vote fraud part of what I wrote – what’s being put in place – that is pretty much public record (which is why I gave links). I think most Americans would say there is vote fraud. It is part of the popular legend/culture that Joseph Kennedy bought – of all places – Illinois – for his son John, to give him the presidency. There are vote fraud investigations in a number of places throughout the country. And you don’t really think do you that it is coincidence that military votes are the ones to be mailed too late?
If you want even handedness, I would say that Republicans don’t do much in the way of vote fraud, they concentrate more on lobbying and campaign donations (although Dems and Obama got much more money in the last election from business interests, especially Wall Street). Right now the big money donations are almost equally split between Democratic unions and Republican interests. BUt I would say traditionally, lobbying was wht Republicans looked to to get policies favorable to them.
If you want a hole to knock in my speculation about the Dems not caring about 2010 it would be that they appear to be going to lose some key House and Senate personnel, including the Senate majority leader. Did he agree to lose (and he was responsible for some of the Senate actions that most angered the American public and gave rise to my speculation)? No, I don’t think he agreed to sacrifice himself, and I would point to that flaw in my speculation myself.
This is just explanation, not to re-open debate or fight with you. This is meant as a courtesy to try to bridge what might be a gap of communication between us earlier. Take it or leave it, but I won’t pursue it or fight about it or respond to any hostile or demeaning responses.
One thing is for sure: voter turnout will be much greater than usual.
Nice work, though I disagree on several points, Msher. The point needed to be made, and you did so. Bravo.
Or brava, to please the leftards LOL
Burgess says: the bureaucracy is 90% leftist.
Farmer Braun thinks: Whatever. The bureaucracy is 100% elitist.
No paranoia down here Pointman. The shrouds have been drawn over the corpse.
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 5:40 am
MSher, I have lived and worked in America and know very well how the organs of state should work and indeed, how they actually work. Leaving aside the election rigging element of your post (a process endemic to all electoral systems), the thrust of your argument was that Democracy was in danger of being subverted by some sort of coup de main.
My analysis showed what would almost certainly follow, should any such strategy be attempted but it also emphasised that the Democratic Party would think of it on exactly those lines. They wouldn’t touch anything like that with a barge poll and indeed would flush Obama down the toilet in an instant were he ever to attempt anything like it.
Anyone trying to pull a stunt like that on the America I know and love would find out in very short order why it’s still called the land of the free.
Pointman
Crownie, you didn’t have to grass me up to your Mommie.
Pointman
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 5:58 am
Hiya Farmer. We all know there’s no such thing as Paranoia don’t we? Don’t we … ?
Pointman
Executive orders are strange things in American politics. They have the effect of law but are not really law. Further they are always trumped by actual legislation which becomes law. A good example is the Executive Order Obama signed to buy enough votes to pass the healthcare legislation in the House. This order was purely symbolic and essentially meaningless. It stated that no federal funding shall be used for abortions. But explicit in the healthcare bill was funding for “reproductive services”. So as soon as Obama signed the healthcare bill his executive order was trumped by actual law.
Another example of ruling by executive fiat would be directing the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions. The Senate did not pass the Cap & Trade bill. Bummer if you’re heavily invested in the Chicago Climate Exchange (like so many of Obama’s supporters and pals). Obama plans to get around this by simply directing a federal agency to do what the country’s legislators refused to do. The Executive Order is about Obama’s only option with a Republican controlled House.
Pointman is correct, however. The potential for backlash is very real. Obama will have to exercise the Executive Order very, very carefully. For one thing they are subject to court challenges. More importantly they piss people off. If Obama reaches too far he could easily cause irreparable harm to the Democrat party and completely destroy any hope he has for reelection in 2012. The election in 2012 could usher in an even bigger Republican wave. A lot of Democrat Senators are up for reelection in 2012. If the Republicans could win the White House and super-majorities in both houses of Congress they could essentially reverse everything Obama has done almost like it never happened. He is NOT a popular President so he must be very careful about the use of Executive power.
Makes one wonder what the buildup to 2012 will be like. Not that far away.
I’m taking it easy for a couple of days until my new spec’s come in. Anyone else having a spot of bother with the old computer screen?
Msher,
“Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v Sawyer (1952)
Over 400 production plants were seized during WW II by the National Guard for not meeting production quotas, but the subtext and reality of the situation was altogether different that as presented by the history books. Lots of the seizures were thin ruses just to allow the women and girl apprentices a break for two weeks or so during wartime when vacactions were verboten altogether. This happened at Mueller Brass, and the sorrily-tranparent ruse was a source of great levity to the small town of Port Huron, Michigan. Workbenches were made into luncheon tables for the troops who “seized” the plant and BYOB was the rule, while areas in the warehouse were cleared for dancing and local variety show bands were brought in. Warrants of seizure were loudly read from tabletops by drunken officers, while shopgirls disappeared into dark corners of the factory with the occupying troops with a bottle or two for company. Star workers proudly displayed homemade stickers on their chests which said “goldbrick,” “gremlin,” or “leaker.”
Mum had pretty good memories of the defence work that paid for the house I grew up in.
Great story Walt – you’ve made me spill the coffee – Oz 😀
*than
pointman you still resort to name calling, I merely asked a question “how long have you been an Obama supporter?” notice the question mark at the end it means it was a question not an exact statement so much for your grasp of the English language you pride yourself on. You deride anyone that ever disagrees with you, when when anyone remotely derides you the argument has degenerated into a squabble apparently.
You can not have it both ways.
Msher makes some valid what if points that may or may not turn out to be true that is what is under discussion. Her theory could be right or wrong time will tell but like all theories find time to poke holes in it, if it is a bad theory then it will fall.
As for paranoia don’t worry about paranoia you forget my in laws hob nob with the extremely rich and powerful and when they want to play silly buggers with our lives they can and do if it suits them. To them we are just things to played with and discarded when they feel like it, the game is purely one of power and control with money just being a way of keeping score.
So don’t be paranoid be very very scared of these people some of them are not nice at all. I know I am and keep well away from them for good reason.
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:12 am
What a charming corner of secret history Walt.
Pointman
Pointman
What do you think the Soros effort to put Secretary of States into the state offices is? I think that got Al Franken elected as Minnesota Senator by either 626 or 325 votes, after a circus of lost ballots suddenly being found in trunks of cars. The Soros website specifically talks about electing “reform minded” secretaries of state. Of all the mechanicisms I find sinister, it is the Soros effort, because voters pay no attention to who their secretary of state is and no very little about how the vote in their state is actually conducted. That effort alone in my view is enough to subvert democracy.
What would happen if the Soros effort pays off and there was a Congress and Administration that tried to go even further left and worse corrruption than this past year (e.d., the Nebraska and Florida deals on Obamacare) I don’t know. That’s what you were speculating about – some sort of tea party, perhaps armed?, rebellion? I don’t know. It is clearly true that the country is now sharply polarized between a left and a right, with the left having moved ever more leftwards. I don’t know what the right does if the far left controls the election mechanism. I don’t know whether they would even realize a “coup” had occurred. MSM plays down or ignores all the incidents where likely Republican votes are somehow lost or disqualified.
(I don’t know where you lived and how long ago. The coasts and some of the former industrialist states are Democrat and the coasts are mostly really far left Democrat. It is astonishing to me what the years of indoctrination in the schools has done and how far left younger voters and liberal professional classes consider “center” to be and how big the core of leftist voters is.)
Incidentally, I don’t think it would be Obama trying anything – well, except maybe the Census. I don’t think he is a principal. Someone identified him early in life to mentor and get into elite schools despite lousy grades, then groomed him for office. This isn’t a crazy theory – it’s demonstrably true. He was a relatively poor kid who went to HAwaii’s top prep school, then from Occidental, a nothing school, managed to transfer to the Ivy League, despite lousey grades. That takes an angel or sponsor of some sort. It’s whoever those people are who would be pulling what i’m talking about. I assume Soros is one of them, given that he backs the most subversive effort of all.
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 6:20 am
For what it’s worth, Farmer Braun has been out of line for so long, that he no longer cares. Bring it on he says. Strange to say, no one wants to give him a platform. Oh well.
crownarmourer says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:22 am
Crown, I don’t recall having called you anything but I’m equally sure by this stage you’ve totally convinced yourself that I have. However, you know that feeling you get when some doggie starts humping your leg with great enthusiasm but not much talent? Well, I’m beginning to feel like that leg. Go away.
Pointman
For what it’s worth, Farmer Braun has been out of line for so long, that he no longer cares. Bring it on he says. Strange to say, no one wants to give him a platform. Oh well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE4HGlmtOcg
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:34 am
Farmer boy, I have the suspicion you’re still up for the fight and would acquit yourself quite nicely, thanks very much. No dark alley fights with you mate. I’d want you where I could see you … LOL
Pointman
It is also surpassingly weird that what afflicts the political sphere, a clampdown by leadership to control remaining resources for economic creativity, should be so closely mirrored by the creative community, nowhere more clearly than in the animation industry.
Check this out from an online cartoon animation journal. Interesting dynamic:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/the-end-of-the-creator-driven-era.html
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:42 am
Farmer Braun has always had a soft spot for the Blue Merle/ Fox Terrier cross. Hardy little souls . Difficult to bring to heel though. Sportco .22 is best.
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:23 am
Some of those stories really need to be told. The one story hidden by history I most bitterly resent is the great work Dorothy Parker did, the presumed terminal drunk and wastrel of American literature, as the leading lioness of the relentless crew who created the scriptwriters’ union, the Writers Guild of America. She did excellent film work, lots of it uncredited as she edited other people’s work, and without her there would be no Hollywood, and writers would be working for $200 a week plus all the coffee they could drink in a corner warehouse area of the studio lots.
Stephen Mamet of the National Writers Union Local 1981 of the UAW is working on a history of their membership, of which she was also a founding matron back in the days of no social safety net at all.
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:32 am
MSher, If you seriously think that the average American would fail to notice that his country had suffered a coup d’état and didn’t know it because the MSM hadn’t told him, then I can only say you’re spending too much time blogging and should get out and about a bit more. Go on. Buy yourself a chillidog, go to the ballpark, kick some leaves in the Fall, talk to some people. They’re not idiots you know. Quite a lot of them (even the uneducated ones) are actually quite perceptive in their own peasant way. In point of fact, when they get really pissed off …
Pointman (and I want mine with onions)
Pointman: Interesting (well, very mildly) that you write like an Englishman (Irishman?) all the time yet you wrote ‘leash’. Brits say ‘lead’. Did you have a dog while in America? Or do you live with an American that insists on ‘leash’? None of my business of course; but we say ‘lead’ in my household even though Mister is from New York because I say ‘lead’ so he does, too. After all, you lead the dog with it.
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:59 am
No argument from me re Dorothy Parker. She was retrospectively rubbished because she was a very able woman who had a big effect in what was a man’s industry at the time. She didn’t fight for the ‘wimmen’, she faught for the industry and the people who really produced the product. Her only failing was she died before women were recognised in any industry, which gave those brave souls the opportunity to sully both her work and her memory.
Pointman
Amanda says:
October 27, 2010 at 8:08 am
You’re too sharp Amanda but maybe I was in Shakespearian insulting mode. You know the bit – Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war …
Pointman
“faught” – Doh! If that keeps up I’m going to have to stop typing freestyle. Come to me my little spell checker …
Pointman
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:51 am
Farmer boy, you do realise that Sportco crack has alienated all the dog lovers in the blogosphere? Do you have any Squirrels yet in NZ btw?
Pointman
Pointman
What I said was that people don’t know who their secretaries of state are. Yes they would then notice that the votes were seriously off, but, on the other hand, there wasn’t an uprising in Minnesota over Franken’s election.
But we are going in circles and it’s time for me to get out and around, in any event.
Pointman hell shall freezeth over before I hump any part of your anatomy. In fact Heaven as well to be doubly certain, I’m sorry you are just not cute enough to meet my impeccable high standards, which would involve being a woman and an ex model.
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 8:47 am
Doglovers might not understand the bond between the cattle drover and his dogs. But when old Blue gets the those cows moving as only he can, the unfortunate fact is that you may never see your cattle again. Breaks a cattle-mans heart, but you’ve gotta stop them.
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 9:15 am
MSher, well done. I was beginning to lose the will to live.
Pointman
crownarmourer says:
October 27, 2010 at 9:49 am
Well poochie, all the usual punctuation quibbles aside, that makes me a very happy leg …
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 8:18 am
Dorothy Thompson had the radio career Walter Winchell or Walter Lippmann wished they could have had. She was the editorial print voice of America from the 1930’s through to the end of WW II, yet she is hardly mentioned at all in today’s journalism classes. Little does Frances Perkins get a mention, yet more than any onther single person, she crafted from scratch the structure of both the USA workplace and our postwar social safety net, pensions and retirement systems.
She wasn’t a quota hire prima donna either.
But then, they smoked and smelled rather badly sometimes in those days, especially of sweat from the workload, so they don’t merit mentioning, apparently.
*other
On topic, watch my business field take off like a Wile E. Coyote slingshot and rollerskates rocket after the mid terms and the GOP kicks a few reg’s in the arse. Another 80 billion in new power plant construction finally unleashed will make a big difference for lots of jurisdictions here.
Likewise I don’t think anyone will be surprised that many entrepreneurs have been holding out until the business clime proves more congenial. That pile of idle but well-planned-out deployment capital will hit the market by Dec 1 too.
While this question “Stealing Democracy?” appears in this blog to exclusively apply to the USA, Farmerbraun’s superlative commentary on the New Zealand experience at 6:10 pm……
“Farmer Braun wonders what it is that is left of democracy that could possibly be in danger of being stolen.”
……and our experience in Australia of power being seized by a Labor/Green Coalition established only after our Election, there remains the question of Why?
What could possibly be the End-Game of such elaborate machinations and manipulations of “democratic” processes to seize Government?
Try this on for size……….
“NORFOLK ISLAND will introduce the world’s first trial of a personal carbon trading scheme.”
….“addressing climate change provided an opportunity to tackle the linked problem of obesity”…..
….“Professor Egger’s team has been awarded a $390,000 Australian Research Council grant to conduct a three-year study of the effectiveness of the scheme, which will start next year”….
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/islanders-lead-world-on-personal-carbon-test-scheme-20101026-172ea.html
“In the second year, the researchers hope to add food to the scheme, ranking products on their health cost as well as their carbon cost.”
Ignore these ripples on the CAGW pond at your peril.
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 9:51 am
Hey, keep it down Farmer boy. All that guff about drover’s love for their dogs and stuff. Crownie may still be around and you know what happens when he gets excited. Us guys in Wallawoora were thinking of paying you lot a visit.
Pointman
Love it. LOVE it – Oz 😈
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:31 am
Love the video…… Joooolia, Thatcher like, should see herself as Glorious Leader….
Marcus
Just another ripple…………
Carbon labelling comes to the supermarket.
“AUSTRALIA’S first formal system of carbon labelling will be introduced today – and it has already revealed that olive oil imported from overseas has a similar carbon footprint to oil made from olives grown here.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/carbon-labelling-comes-to-the-supermarket-20101026-172eg.html
“Although imported oil registers much higher ”food miles”, meaning more energy has to be spent shipping it to Australia, this was generally offset by more traditional farming practices in Europe. Most of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by food occur during the farming, not when the products are shipped to supermarkets, the study found.”
This is an outright lie. A member of my family owns an olive grove and vineyard in the Hunter region of NSW. The olive harvest is cold-pressed on-site by a mobile bottling plant. As long as my backside points to the ground, there is no way that product racks up more “emissions” than the “food miles” involved in shipping olive oil from Italy, Greece or Spain.
And nary a splash registers……….
Here’s some amusing comments here on the touching demise of Paul the octopus.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/world-cup-2010/8087309/World-Cup-2010-Paul-the-Octopus-dies.html
Better him than me, I always say.
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:59 am
Cheer up, Blackswan. It will give people something to larf at us aboot in 2075.
“And nary a splash registers”……….
No. I think we have been dumbed down, while I was not looking, into a reality TV junk food generation, with the MSM concentrating on celebrity “issues”……
Marcus
I remember the shakeout of all the rooll-your-own proviate power plant developers in the mid-1980’s who thought they woudl make a fortune out of the US Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1979. Half the beggars went broke and folded by 1990, the other half sold out to the utilities by 1995. Most staff at private plants to this day have to have second jobs to catch up with a public ute workers’ payroll earnings.
*private :>p
2015 will be a similar “What was I thinking?” moment for the greentard investors, if not earlier.
Just as mid terms are a “What Was I Thinking in 2008?” moment for millions.
I would have made a fortune doing Burma Shave highway ads.
There rests Paul the Octopus.
Too tough to die, too dead to live.
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:03 am
Cheer up? I’m so p*ssed off about all this crap.
But Pointy’s Kiwi video brightened me up no end…lol
Let’s see if I can’t find some Methodist jokes on the net…..
mlpinaus says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:48 am
Yep Marcus, she may need her very own ‘Falklands’ victory to save her ass in a few months otherwise he won’t even get a head start …
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:17 am
That’s the spirit Swanny. Nothing like a bit of gang warfare to life everyone’s spirits! We all know it makes sense.
Poointman
Hey Walt, even the effin Hippies needed some guys with hammers and nails to build the stages. Same ol’ shit kickers.
Pointman
Yes!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py28H6xITFE&feature=related
Couldn’t find any.
Anyway, it’s time to start thinking about Xmas gift shopping:
http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist.420211718
Farmerbraun, you like Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi and the gang?
Here was the song most played at the Poem Bar on Creep Street in Iwakuni during Operation Linebacker II, when we had every scooter from the First Marine Air Wing deployed to carriers for that circus. 12 on 8 off for almost two weeks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtrEL3Ry3X8 Sounded better on the jukebox, but you can’t tell people that. Maybe it was more due to the people you were with.
The Poem was the nexus and meeting place for real live Communist spies for the North (it was legal for them to enter and leave Japan at will), the National Lawyers Guild, and a US group who supplied material aid to the NVA and ran a fishing boat and a couple of bespoke yachts off the end of the runway to track the markings and wing ordnance of USMC aircraft, etc. That sort of place. They’d buy you a drink. Laugh was on them for that two weeks, heh, heh.
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:42 am
Been there,…. sort of done that… pity most of them would have evaporated in a sea of chemicals and vomit….
Marcus
Leslie West has his own guitar school and has taught steadily for the past 30 years. Gigs now and then.
The Great Fatsby, they called him.
West, Bruce and Laing were the best band he ever worked with, technically. Caught them in 1972 in D.C. Great show.
Guys,
We have ALL been in ‘the wrong line of work’, as is proven by the fact that Victoria’s Secret is charging $250 for their super-duper, coloured-diamante bra. I mean, it’s very pretty and all, but a studder-gun and a bag full of rhinestones and I could do this myself for a handful of bucks. I suppose it’s a special-occasion bra and it had better be, at that price. It’s the same bra they sell for $50-$55 normally (which is steep enough). You’d better enjoy those rhinestones!
Look at their business (go on, let me twist your arm): Honestly, it’s bits of elastic, machined lace and printed cotton, and some moulded foam and wire. That’s the bulk of what they sell. Inexpensive, plentiful materials and probably the labour is inexpensive as well. Tremendous mark-up. Yes, I know they pay the models. The photographers must make a mint, especially. But whoever thought of V. S. was brilliant. I’m just sorry it wasn’t me!
http://www.victoriassecret.com/ss/Satellite?ProductID=1284544917411&c=Page&cid=1284548333492&pagename=vsdWrapper
Farmerbraun says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:42 am
The pics bring back a lot of memories and good ones. All was full of love
and then the machine kicked in.
Pointman
There’s no finer reading than P.J. O’Rourke with his Irish up. Check out this
Oz
He sure makes it sing.
Hiya Amanda. I think the sex shop et al was invented by a woman I had the good fortune to meet. Her name was Beate (Beate Uhse-Rotermund in full). She went from a widowed ex-luftwaffe pilot with a child and no prospects to a very rich person by opening sex shops from 1946 onwards. Everyone else copied her idea but nobody else could be her. She was quite unique in my experience and I’ve met a lot of people.
Pointman
O’Bruin……..
“Anyway, it’s time to start thinking about Xmas gift shopping:”
Bad Santa………
Yes, I read that Oz. A bit of overstatement does tend to highlight one’s point. His theme is partly what I was getting at in my post at the top of the blog about minorities: that Dems love minorities because as minorities they are useful voters and useful levers of power; but what they would really like is for all those fractious and fragmented minorities to be snowballed into a much more useful majority, fully committed to socialist rule, at which point any remaining (i.e. dissenting) minorities will have a very hard time of it. Minorities, at that point, will no longer be the darlings in whom all virtue resides.
By the way, I hope you don’t mind my post about Victoria’s Secret. I only put it in because the discussion had wandered off-topic anyway, and I just got a catalogue in the mail the other day and I couldn’t believe the prices they’re charging. When you get past the glitz, it’s pretty amazing. But then think how rich Anita Roddick (of The Body Shop) became by selling soaps and lotions and other low-tech, essentially low-value items.
Ozboy says:
October 27, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Interesting date on that piece.
Pointman
And speaking of low-value, the prize goes to Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and all those other colas and fizzies. If I am not mistaken, it’s nothing more than syrup, delivered to a locality, where it is then mixed with water and carbonated (unless it’s factory-canned). Either way, it’s a pretty slim reed for an empire. And yet…..
Pointman: I’m glad you had the good luck to meet her and I’m sure she’s responsible as you say, but I’d hardly describe V. S. as a ‘sex shop’. Good lord. No such emporium has ever had my money or my custom, one way or another.
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Youch Swanny! that’s a clip. Where can I get her for Christmas?
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Waaah!! The Un-Santa at Sony Music Group put a big red bar through this video and stopped it ten seconds into it LOL
Well, as every woman knows, the wrapping of a present is very important. After all, it shows you care. Of course, it’s the unwrapping that blokes like but let’s not go there …
Pointman
No, I’ll go there. The Art, of course, is unwrapping the present in a way that’s commensurate to the care with which it’s been prepared. Slowly, with a lot of giggles and fun.
Pointman
Pointy
For your Christmas stocking…..
Saw her in Sydney 40 years ago…. she sure could emanate sparks.
Ozboy says:
October 27, 2010 at 12:32 pm
You’re right. Fine writing.
Hmmmmm…..
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:12 pm
As the lady says……….
Good stuff, Farmerbraun, from good daze, er, days. LOL
Wow. They are still doin’ it…
http://www.mountainrockband.com/main.php
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Yep, Swanny, she’s sooo good. She warbles in the right way but her French has a slight accent. Not her first language?
Pointman
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:27 pm
It sure was Walt. I recently read in the history ( eek) of N.Z. rock and roll,” Stranded in Paradise”, that what we ( Billy T.K. and Powerhouse) were doing back then is called acid rock. And I thought we were Buddhists. Well something like that anyway. It seems so quaint now, but one night we were playing away in our usual condition, when suddenly a squad of D’s comes busting(sic) in; there’s one for each guy in the band ( I have this great memory of a pig peering inside my saxophone “he must have it in there somewhere”); and a whole squad for the patrons, who all get interviewed to find out if they have been drinking alcohol and “how many Mam?’ This is in the days of 10 p.m closing. Only in N.Z. The only ones to make a killing that night were the smarties who crawled around under the tables when it was all over.
Sitting here reading through all the posts, seemingly from a bunch of old fogies with nothing better to do than blog insults at each other, I was reminded of last Sunday night dinner with my family.
I thought, having just had a stroke which I was lucky enough to survive relatively unscathed, I should discuss with my loved-ones my wishes should I not be so fortunate if it ever happens again.
So I explained to them how I never ever wanted to end up like a vegetable, immobile, permanently reliant on a machine and utterly dependent on a constant flow of liquids into my body.
I beseeched them if I ever ended up like that for them to be merciful, turn me off, and let me slip away.
So they unplugged my laptop, emptied my cask of wine down the sink, and told me to go to bed.
Walt
Thanks for story of Youngstown – that part isn’t in the law books!
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Didn’t know so I Gargled…… born on the proverbial cotton plantation in St Carolina and grew up in Harlem. You never know do you?…
memory vault says:
October 27, 2010 at 2:13 pm
G’day MV
Great to see you. That’s a goodie….lol
Welcome back, MV! As everyone is posting their favourite tickles and pron, thought I would put up my favourite brand of gearhead pron, appprenticeship training at the Bentley works:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/7560063/How-to-become-a-Bentley-apprentice.html
Commonwealth craft at its finest, in the workshops where the real Empire is built to this day.
It what’s hit you is the aftermath of the ammonia works you went up to sweat at, ask the doctor about blood chelation.
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 2:14 pm
If you go to the US Army Military History Institute website, don’t get lost in the digital corridor of archives! Somewhere there is a whole section devoted to Rosie the Riveter and her whole gang of patriotic hardworking lovelies.
BTW, from 1938 to 1952 were the only years women’s per capita pay was greater than the man’s, for obvious reasons: he was working for 50 bucks a month behind a machinegun while she was drilling different holes into steel for 5 to 8 times that. You’ll never hear that from the libber liars.
It’s one of the reasons for the peace of the 1950’s. Mum and her pals could have stayed on at the plant. They didn’t want it. The commie leftards in union management wanted them to stay, even begged them to do so. Ten to twelve years of deferred domestic life away from any chance of living family lives made for a massive demand for the little pink house with the white picket fence. 12 to 16 hours a day 6 days a week in a defence plant for a decade made for a different type of PTSD the annals of which will never be written that only babies could cure.
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ahec/index.cfm
Bear. LOL Beat, also. G’nite, all.
Blackswan per your olive oil and food miles did they factor in the massive EU subsidies to small farmers for half an acre of Olive trees it’s a major earner for the Mafia in Sicily.
Pointman…. woollyworrier is an imaginary place in your head you trying for Jerry Springer?
For those of you who aren’t aware, OZ is currently formulating a national curriculum for our schools.
It’s just been announced that Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” will for part of the English studies.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/why_are_schools_promoting_this_deceitful_film/
To raise awareness of the issue, “Climate Change” will also be included in Maths, Science and History.
Somebody please tell me again how “climate change” is dying a natural death.
Memoryvault unfortunately we have have won the war but Hitler is in his bunker moving imaginary armies around we are the battle of the bulge phase this is exactly where you guys are….
bb
Things will get better the war is nearly over…
memory vault says:
October 27, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Not only but also……. they say they are going to include Aboriginal Dreamtime in the Science curriculum. Science???? I guess it figures that they would include one religious mythology with the other being CAGW, but Science???
crownarmourer says:
October 27, 2010 at 3:55 pm
This issue isn’t about dollars, subsidies or value of product – it’s ONLY about the “carbon footprint” of food production.
It has begun with olive oil – it is part of food labelling policy, to give product a Carbon Rating. It will be on every product across supermarket shelves.
The Govt (OZ & NZ) refuse to allow labelling for GM produce, or chemical contaminants in food from Asia, particularly China, where human sewage is a common fertilizer and formaldehyde is the most commonly used food preservative.
If every product is labelled for a Carbon Rating what is the point? Unless it’s to levy AGW taxes. And what’s the response?……
Nary a ripple, let alone a splash…..
When you live in a small island community, or a larger island, or even a country with a small population, you are often used for “pilot projects”, launching products or marketing concepts. Responses, take-ups and “acceptance” are carefully recorded and analysed by marketing gurus.
“Resistance”, objections or dissatisfaction are also analysed, not necessarily to improve the product, but to craft the “spin” which will negate opposition.
Earlier today, @ 10.28 am, I posted a link that included “addressing climate change provided an opportunity to tackle the linked problem of obesity”…..
CC now “linked” to obesity. No response.
“Professor Egger’s team has been awarded a $390,000 Australian Research Council grant to conduct a three-year study of the effectiveness of the scheme, which will start next year”…. This character is being paid $130,000 a year to STUDY the project – no mention of the costs to IMPLEMENT the scheme – all taxpayer funded. Alarm bells anyone? No response.
“In the second year, the researchers hope to add food to the scheme, ranking products on their health cost as well as their carbon cost.” Not only will FOOD be included in the Carbon Credit count, but the HEALTH COSTS will be included also. Still not interested?
Have another go………
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/islanders-lead-world-on-personal-carbon-test-scheme-20101026-172ea.html
This is the REASON Govts will go to any lengths to seize Control.
Any comment or reaction anyone?????
Blackswan
The lunatics are running the asylum. (© Fun Boy Three)
I see a clinic full of cynics
Who want to twist the people’s wrist
They’re watching every move we make
We’re all included on the list
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
No nuclear the cowboy told us
And who am I to disagree
‘Cos when the madman flips the switch
The nuclear will go for me
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
I’ve seen the faces of starvation
But I just can not see the points
‘Cos there’s so much food here today
That no one wants to take away
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Take away my right to choose
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Take away my point of view
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Take away my dignity
Take these things away from me
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Take away my family
Take away the right to speak
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Take away my point of view
Take away my right to choose
¿NoIdea?
Does anyone else feel like this?
Sorry about the embedding – you know I can’t seem to make it into a link!
Morning All by the way, I’ve been catching up on everything you’ve all been posting since I left. Amanda – I’m not sure the Victoria’s Secret site is good for mv at the moment, don’t want to give Thumper any problems do we??
Small communities are Free-Range Focus Groups.
Small communities who live in pristine environments and have been persuaded that they are “helping to save the planet” and whose co-operation and feedback are of critical importance, are more than likely to oblige.
In a few years (maybe in time for the next election), we’ll be persuaded that “after extensive community consultation” the program “has proven to be widely accepted” and “successful in reducing our Carbon Footprint” with the BIG clincher being “You can MAKE MONEY out of it”.
Done Deal.
Wonder what old Fletcher Christian, that infamous mutineer, would make of his descendants being made tools of the Carbon Establishment.
Blackswan.
I reckon Greece is too busy with it’s own problems to find funding for Carbon Credits, but you never know – the EU might have other ideas!
At the moment we are just scraping by. One of my friends who runs the security at our airport has just had his salary cut by 10% for the second time!!!!
………..and winter’s on the way. We’re already foraging for “horta” and trying to grow our own food, so hopefully the obesity problem won’t hit here!
NoIdea says:
October 27, 2010 at 8:32 pm
G’day NI
That about sums it up. They’ll be sending the guys to fit me out in a new jacket soon – you know, the style with the extra-long sleeves that tie up in the back.
Aaaaarrgh!!!
Hello Mel
Titanic is right….lol
I was reading this morning about the EU sending their own Security Forces in to Greece to turn back the tsunami of Turkish/Afghan/Iraqi illegals who are using the place as a stepping stone to the rest of Europe. Apparently a lot who are caught are being returned to Greece as the point of EU entry rather than the country of origin, and you guys are really overwhelmed.
It wouldn’t help that both the EU & the UN are critical of the standard of overcrowded accommodation provided for their detention.
Well, we saw on the DT discussions early this year wherein the Lisbon Treaty allows for EU Security to come into any member country as directed by the EU.
Stay well, stay warm, stay safe.
Uh oh, I forgot. They keep telling me to “cheer up”. OK, I’m smiling now……..
‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’
“The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives. In the U.S., the prospect of the Republicans winning the House of Representatives raises the specter of hearings on the integrity of climate science and reductions in federal funding for climate research.”
“At the same time, we were treated like rock stars by the environmental movement. Our 15 minutes stretched into days, weeks and months. ”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/high-priestess-of-global-warming-no-more-former-warmist-judith-curry-admits-to-being-duped-into-supporting-ipcc.html
An interesting piece which could be read as a Mea Culpa, repositioning or a scientist with integrity doing some honest engagement with skeptics.
Pointman
Wind turbine giant Vestas cuts 3,000 jobs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11625339
So much for green jobs …
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 9:39 pm
What a great link – “the numerous discussions in the blogosphere” also received a mention as changing her course.
We never did find out who the Knight in Shining Armour was at the UEA who leaked the emails – what a champion.
Nary a peep about any of this in OZ – just dismissed as “irrelevant” because the “science is settled”. Sooooooo frustrating.
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:04 pm
They’re saying it’ll be cheaper to make the turbines in Spain, but it wasn’t clear whether it’s Vestas who’ll be making them. Maybe some more outsourcing for China or Patchy Poo with their cheaper labour.
University climate research: MPs hold follow-up session
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/news/101018-uea-ev-session/
This could be an interesting meeting.
See it here http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=6785
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:19 pm
“We never did find out who the Knight in Shining Armour was at the UEA who leaked the emails – what a champion.”
They will never “catch” him because it’d be the last straw for them and they’re not that stupid.
Pointman
meltemian
Hi. The other day when I was offended by whatever troll calling me a “poor kid,” it was because it was just so ludicrous to even take seriously. It just made me laugh. On one of the other DT blogs there is aranting, obscene, hate filled poster, who addresses everyi American as you moronic, obese, fraudster, muderous American. So I was thinking how pathethic a mere “poor kid” is!
______________
blackswan
I have lots of thoughts about the carbon labelling, but they’ll have to wait til a little later today. It’s just what every consumer demands when they walk into the store: “I need to know relative carbon footprints!” Not! That it will be used for taxation, for sure. That paying to get the product measured by someone raises the price, yes. More later.
Get’s very interesting 25 mins in.
Pointman
This may turn out to be a duplicate. The computer ate my first try at posting it.
meltemian
Re the troll who called me a “poor kid.” It just seemed so lame, it made me laugh. There is aposter on another DT blog is is caling all Americans, “moronic, obese, fraudster, murderous, ignorant idiots.” Now there is someone who doesn’t like me and my country men.
__________
blackswan
A lot of thoughts about the carbon labelling. Exactly what every customer demands when they walk into the store – not! For sure, to lead to taxation. Also, higher product cost as someone gets paid to do the measurement. More later in the day.
Pointman says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Cameron’s 60 million pounds Sterling won’t buy 30 megawatts of generating capacity. Even if that money was deployed to buy 2% of loan value guarantees, there is a bit of a crunch on for that sort of financing at the moment.
Funny how the coal, natural gas fired and nuclear projects have no problems getting financial placements LOL Maybe this proves out the somewhat arguable contention that not everyone on the planet has yet gone completely bonkers.
As Churchill stated, “It is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.”
On or about Nov. 5 Stateside, I forecast without benefit of hockey sticks and charts that lots of pretty new thermal plants and nukes are going to get proceed-to-build orders. From there, the European enterprises will follow suit.
Wonder how long it will be from that point until the greentards start getting tailored for dynamite vests and that other silly rubbish. Enquiring minds need to know.
I rather like the idea of “An Uncomfortable Truth” being added to school curriculums, also. This clinches the reality the thing will never be read nor viewed.
Another epic poem NI. Thanks for sharing. Funny how, with all the risibly-misnomered entertainers there are supporting the green fraud, so little creative work is being done by them in support of their propaganda machine unless it is grossly over-paid and unwatchable in character. So far we have had exploding children, hanged little girls, cities hit with monster tidal waves, and an entire end of the world movie epic, as well as tonnes of phoney-baloney over-earnest literary klunkers from the greentard side of things.
Not one has earned a comment to the effect that, “Gee, that was moving and fun to watch. Think I’ll watch it again,” to my knowledge.
I have to admit I lost it completely for about a half hour when the little girl having the bad dream saw a polar bear’s paw sticking out of a crevasse in the middle of a desert.
P.J. O’Rourke worked on or provided in toto the film scripts for most of the genuinely funny “National Lampoon” films, including “Animal House.” Wish he would pitch a global warming script and get it placed. I would be willing to wager it would be a corker. Russell Brand would be perfect playing the archetypical greentard.
Chevy Chase would make the perfect Pauchari.
Jack Black as Gore?
Bob Hoskins as the Michael Mann hockey stick huckster, or the UEA department head.
But without John Belushi playing James Delingpole… (sigh) …it just wouldn’t be the same – Oz
Glaxo whistleblower gets £60m payout
http://www.sharecast.com/cgi-bin/sharecast/story.cgi?story_id=3779542
I wonder if the Climategate whistleblower will every get some reward?
Pointman
As the Governator is now available for film work shortly, he could play himself, standing on the beach and blowing in to direction of offshore wind turbines, trying to get the things to turn while small children look on laughing at him.
*the Katy Perry would be great as a Senator Boxer terminal-leftard type who came to power on the weight of her looks..
Onto the to-do list.
I’m sure we could fit “So what’s your point?” into the dialogue at several key points as an in-joke for the benefit of the UK.
So who “does” Cameroon and the Gizzard, I wonder?
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 28, 2010 at 2:44 am
Stan & Ollie.
Pointman
They’re both dead, but these days with digital technology, that is not a problem LOL
Ollie’s a better fit for the Mann character. Huhne for Stan.
In Nevada, they’ve discovered ballots that were pre-marked for a straight Democrat ticket. We know for a fact that liberals do this everywhere.
Have people stopped caring? Is democracy really dead? Except for the Tea Party, where is there the will to fight? Msher made some very frightening points. And what happens to America affects everyone.
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:16 pm
There is a common type knocking about Europe who’s idea of politics starts with everything American is bad and proceeds from there. If you listen to their political ‘arguments’ and simply substituted Nig**r or Jew for American, they take great offense. It does moderate the invective, especially when you point out their ‘politics’ are simply the worst sort of chic Racism.
Pointman
An ode for the trolls at the DT, it did not last long…
Aphids And some Icarus wings
Molasses like masses, treacle and tar
Mollusks like misses, sheep in a jar.
On frail wings of vanity and wax
With a mountain of maybes, no facts
Like Icarus, who had to pay?
The way that Icarus thought and prayed
With melting wax and feathers brown
And the quiet of the fall down
Soon there’ll just be feathers
Blown on wind and whether’s
Icarus is not a tee shirt or a swan song
He might own the sky, but he is wrong
Like Icarus ascending, on wonderful, foolish arms
The squirming coil, a jesters siren no waxen charms
Green swarms of aphids charging fast
Into the monstrous blades upon the mast
Like bats they are endangered and doomed
Like cats under threat from swords loomed
No damn moderation is able to slice
Cut away the truth, see the kitten killing lice
Preaching leaches love the red
Bloody killers worshiping the dead
Extinct species returning from the past
Piltdown heroic Steve, he truly is a blast
Alarmist suicide cults are nothing new
When they want genocide, this means you
Discredited and broken threat of fear
No shred of evidence this is as clear
As the sky above our head on a hot day
Or when it’s overcast cold dull and grey
How much longer must this go on?
Hell frozen over and still it is warm?
NoIdea
One from Nevada…
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralstons-flash/2010/oct/26/angle-campaign-attorney-reid/
A democrat Secretary of state is allowing the law to be broken, of course it must be paranoia.
As usual, British cinema is ahead of the curve. Check out the loglines of these films in development, especially Cold Sea Rising:
http://www.balagan.biz/scripts.htm
No tapdancing wind turbines here LOL!
msher says:
October 27, 2010 at 11:16 pm
When American troops show up to pull Europe’s feet out of the fire again after WW III, I am sure they will express appropriate gratitude for the Hershey bars and ciggies.
Might even be able to get a hot date with Carla Bruni for a box of Twinkies LOL
I think the UK will take a pass on it, though. All it takes is for The Dave to say, “Well, not this time, thanks” and pull the plug on UK involvement with the Ewe altogether.
The UK would have an almost-balanced budget if they pulled out tomorrow.
Erm, didn’t he promise a referendum on EU withdrawal at one time?
That’s the Big Red Button he needs to press. I wouldn’t mind THAT splatter at all, either.
Pointman @3:30 am
Re poster who hates Amerians
I replied to the effect that that poster should stop using his computer, google, Word, his TV and his microwave if he felt that way. The reply was “all science is European and I was too stupid to know that.” He/she asked if I want to debate that. Actually I will, on another day. My answer will be to the effect that I will be glad to cede climate science to the British, but Nobel Science Prizes since WWII have been x per cent to American-born Americans, and besides, because I was listing inventions and he should stop using his telephone and electricity too. I’ll get around to that debate. I’ll throw in Walt’s point too, pointing out that it was pretty stupid of us to rescue Britain since it has just given itself voluntarily to Germany/France.
You know, speaking in Nobel Prizes, interesting that no Nobel Science prizes have gone to “climate science” “discoveries.”
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 28, 2010 at 4:36 am
Mornin’ Walt
I liked this one………….
“The Heidlemeyer Contingency
Political Drama about a clandestine organisation working with the UN and World Governments to steer the world on a better course.”
Get the Prodooser to gimme a call….. I’m good for a dollar or two.
NoIdea says:
October 28, 2010 at 3:54 am
Another goodie. Icarus indeed.
crownarmourer says:
October 28, 2010 at 4:23 am
That’s really interesting and proves one of msher’s points.
When the Sec of State is the one breaking the law, who is going to bring a prosecution? And why is the Republican author of the piece appealing for $80K to hire lawyers and scrutineers? If the Constitution and the Law are being trashed, why would they not be rushing to defend it – gratis?
They’ll get away with it because they can.
Angelof the odd:
Leftards are like the sort of vermin who check out books from the library they don’t like just to burn them. They are trying to trash the copyright, energy regulation by democratic institutions, lawful borders, defence organizations, and the entire life support system of Western democracies, from overloading the social safety net to smashing industry. Democracy interferes with their vandalism effectively, so they are out to trivialize and destroy that, too.
If they followed the money trail it would point to Red China and India.
Msher,
“it was pretty stupid of us to rescue Britain ” I emphatically did NOT say that. We didn’t enter the war until it was obvious the UK had it cinched, with our LendLease aid. We would have been lost without the British forces providing operational guidance and leaadership, on land, sea and air. G_d forbid I even think it.
I don’t even consider British nor Irish nor Scots nor Welsh as Europeans.
The USA did not even provide the UK with aid following WW II, yet we did to Germany France and the rest of the mainland bar stewards. When we pulled the pluf on Lend Lease that was that. I packed cartons of canned food along with Mum for England in the early Fifties as a little boy (C.A.R.E. packages, they were called) because they were going to England, home of our family’s church and therefore our people (remember when people thought that way? I still do, after my own fashion).
*plug
I was personally thanked by the export manager of Babcock Power plc in 1984 for the Florida orange he got for Xmas in his stocking which his Mum had got through C.A.R.E. I’ll never forget that.
I’d support giving California back to Mexico before I would consider cutting ties with the UK or the Commonwealth. There’s a useless leech state if there ever was one, like Georgia, a net-loss Federal taxpayer liability for the next fifty years.
Hi Walt
You were telling us about this many months ago…………………..
“Greens accuse gas industry of hiding real effect of carbon emissions”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greens-accuse-gas-industry-of-hiding-real-effect-of-carbon-emissions-20101027-173qt.html?autostart=1
“the companies behind these gas projects claim that gas is a clean energy, but they don’t talk about the massive emissions that are caused when gas from high-CO2 gas fields is processed and that CO2 is stripped out and vented to the atmosphere.”
The video piece, interestingly called Counterspin, yeah right, has the interviewer enthusiastically agreeing with the Green Senator who actually says “Climate Change…… We didn’t make it up.”
Oh no, and I’ve just had my brekkie – excuse me………
msher
You have figured out the How of Hucksters seizing power and control – this is the Why…….
“The European Commission is planning to clamp down on a €2 billion ($2.8 billion) carbon trading scam involving the deliberate production of greenhouse gases which the fraudulent manufacturers are then paid to destroy.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/chinese-firms-blamed-in-huge-greenhouse-gas-scam-20101027-173yh.html
The EU clamping down? Who’d have thunk it? Any bets on the whole charade having any legs? After all, it’s money, money, money, money……..
But hey, at least they can be seen to be trying to do SOMEthing, so they aren’t culpable, right?
As 007 said; Never say never………..
“THE Russian military may play a new role in Afghanistan under plans being drawn up between NATO and Moscow.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/russia-maps-out-return-to-afghan-campaign/story-e6frg6so-1225944406468
From Russia with lurve……..
“Ending ban on ‘killer weed’ to save billions”
* George Soros
* From: The Wall Street Journal
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/ending-ban-on-killer-weed-to-save-billions/story-e6frg90x-1225944378328
Save billions in law enforcement and Make billions more by taxing it.
In some parts of OZ I can have up to 10 seeds/plants of weed for “personal use” – if I grow a single tobacco leaf, I’d be hit with a ton of bricks.
A truly “dopey” population would be great for George. I’m told it’s good for arthritic pain. Maybe I’ll conduct my own “clinical trials”……..
Walt
I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to make it sound like you said it was stupid to rescue
Britain. And I don’t think so either. My mother, grandmother and maternal relatives are English and many were in England and my father was a GI stationed there. I just would say that to needle the anti-American about becoming a province of the EU.
__________________
blackswan
I have several of your posts to reply to. This is a day where I am really trying to concentrate on other (real) computer work, so I am only doing really easy posts that don’t break my concentration. Yours need real thought because there is new info. to digest and new ideas to formulate. I’ll probably leave them til tomorrow.
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 7:33 am
I also mentioned back in November 2009 at the JD blogspace about all pipeline and consumer grades of natural gas per API spec are allowed ot have 8% molar weight CO2 as a pass-through component, so combining the products of combustion plus the pass-through CO2 pegs natural gas as having almost double the CO2 emissions per dekatherm of fuel value than coal. Also natural gas generates double the rate per dekatherm of fuel value of nitrogen oxides than combusting coal, so it is actually a dirtier fuel than coal in real terms.
99% of the ecotards wouldn’t know a valence from a curtain rod, so the point isn’t really taken by anyone. I’ve a tech paper from the EPA on the subject of both processing emissions and pass-through CO2 but I don’t think the ecotards could read it.
The only thing relating to carbon emissions I object to is the wastage of a recyclable product, of which fertilizer is the most readily manufacturable. When there is a global shortage of fertilizer by a factor approaching 30% , I think that is the only tragedy.
You can, by envirotard commie logic, accuse the pinkpony socialists of genocide when they recommend underground sequestration, as the CO2 could be made into fertilizer to feed the developing world.
*from which instead of of which
That’s why we love you Walt……..
Even though your “techy” stuff makes my head hurt, you’re generous enough to put it in “lay” terms that even folks like me can geddit.
Thank you.
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 28, 2010 at 9:27 am
“You can, by envirotard commie logic, accuse the pinkpony socialists of genocide …”.
Their eco ego trip killed real people; I saw it. Nothing virtual or computer modelled – real people dying the real death. All we can do is fight it knowing they’ll never end up in a court of law but perhaps there’s a higher court. Wishes …
Pointman
Black Swan. re Norfolk Island.
Farmer Braun has never left Godzone, so finds it difficult to get the good oil on international goings-on, but one of the godwits returning from Alaska for the summer here, did pass over Norfolk and was able to tell me of the mood of….. hmmmm…. euphoria?… utopianism?…. whatever it is, that is currently affecting these folk, who really do live in a world apart.
Recently there have been a few hug-fests of the “organic” variety held on the island by a mainlander (Queensland) who recently bought property there and is an enthusiast for AGW among other things. I know very little about the sustainability of the Norfolk occupation but I suspect that the external inputs which keep this place livable are not insubstantial. I would imagine that fresh water might be an issue there.
Knowing this recent immigrant to Norfolk as I do, I am not at all surprised to hear that there is enthusiastic talk about the C (12) word, obesity ( he has children), health, and legal tender( there, I said it).
What I am suggesting is that this enthusiasm for “green” on Norfolk will subside, unlike the enthusiasm for public funding of the “trough”; that will never happen. A decent drought there might bring the inhabitants back down to earth.
Pointman says:
October 28, 2010 at 9:46 am
So too in OZ. A taxpayer-funded ceiling insulation program directly resulted in the deaths of four young men – three by electrocution from stapling into live wires and the fourth, a 16 year old from heat exhaustion when the temps were at 40 degs C and calculated at over 60 degs in the roof cavity.
Nobody has been charged with industrial manslaughter – the Minister responsible has been promoted. One politician (involved in the program led by KRudd & Gizzard) said the stimulus package was urgent – “We didn’t have time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, it wasn’t our fault.”
The question remains, just Who will bring prosecutions when the architects of the True Climate Catastrophe are in Govt?
I understand there might be a big voter fraud story finally breaking in the MSM. Fox has already covered this. The Attorney General, Eric Holder, has through one of his deputies told the Voter Fraud Division of the Justice Department that no fraud against white voters will be prosecuted. Two attorneys from the Division have already testifed to this – and again, Fox covered it. But MSM didn’t, and even Fox didn’t make a big deal out of it. I think because it’s racial even Fox is afraid to go to heavy on it. But according to Hillbuzz, a blog written by capital hill staffers who used to work for Hillary but have now become conservatives, the scandal is going to break nationally. I don’t know whether they are right or not. But if so, that will be a very troublesome story for the Obama Administration, and a very troublesome problem for race relations in the U.S. It also says that I’m right – that the Dems have big plans for vote fraud. Crownarmourer mentioned on James’ blog that the Druge report is full of vote fraud stories. I haven’t seen it yet.
Farmerbraun says:
October 28, 2010 at 10:08 am
Thanks for your thoughts on that point – we can only hope you’re right. But there is still some bloke being paid $390K for the “study” and no disclosure of the costs of the program.
Hopefully it will “die in the bum” and the Islanders will wise up, not to mention Tourists who are to be included. Worried about the drought scenario – the poor buggers will be convinced it’s AGW…. lol
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 10:09 am
The architect’s of disaster nearly always get away with it. The people who pay the price are their footsoldiers or their footsoldiers’ victims. But sometimes, and it is sometimes, “there’s going to be a reckoning”.
Pointman
Here’s one of them there more gooder T-shirts fer Election Day!
http://www.cafepress.com/dd/34189634
This one’s even more gooder. Hyulk!
http://www.cafepress.com/+dear_socialists_tshirt,404617324
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 9:34 am
Thanks, but I am beginning to think that the only real reason any of this greentard BS got any traction at all is that there are no more Isaac Asimov’s and a dozen other popularizers of actual drilled-down technical knowledge writing for anyone anymore. There is nothing in science or engineering that cannot be explained in “clear” to anyone with and by anyone with a nine-hundred word vocabulary and a passing mastery of Algebra I and II. That was the entire point of the beginning of both enterprises in the first place.
The second sentence’s deliberate negation by the educational institutions of the West for the sake of filthy lucre and keeping out the great unwashed from the corridors of wisdom is the greatest scientific fraud of the New Millenium.
Pointman
A BIG PS on the insulation ………
At least 210 house-fires have been directly attributed to insulation batts being tossed over down-lights. As incorrectly laid batts are the cause, home insurance has been void in many cases.
The Real Climate Catastrophe has nothing to do with global temperatures……
So, at what age does greentardedness and the whole megillah of terminal weirdness start? That drive to create a world not in tune with the cycles of nature and the demands of reality?
Well, let’s take a look at what has been freaking me out for the past two days.
Here’s the new My Little Pony:
Here’s the original from the Eighties. Notice the original had boy and girl ponies. The new ones don’t:
Now read the comments made by viewers below for both videos.
Should I be bothered by this? I am reading too much into this?
*Am I
Maybe the real question I should be asking myself is:
If someone comes up to me and says they are going to poke a stick of dynamite in their arse then light the fuse in yon open field, should I:
A) try to talk them out of it, or
B) tell them to hold on for a bit while I go set up bleachers and sell tickets for the event?
No pressure.
Walt
I preferred the “gooder” shirt – Bricko Bummer’s snappy green uniform in the other one looks like an Indonesian soldier, you know, the guys who murdered 5 Australian journalists before they overran East Timor. Lots of massacres, slash and burn there before they “annexed” West Papua. Funny that. When Saddam tried the same thing in Kuwait he was in deep doodoo. The uniform must be made of teflon…….
I trust this may find an appeciative audience here:
Admit it, Scouse – that’s you there, right? – Oz
I’m worried about you Walt………
“what has been freaking me out for the past two days”
Two things are freaking me out.
1) The Cygnet had a whole bunch of that stuff in the ’80s. (Has she been damaged?)
2) The Comments revealed that grown people are actually collecting it and arguing over its merits. Merits?
As for the boy/girl running over meadows versus rainforest thingy – it seems to be par for the course. Barbies are what nightmares are made of….lol
Scouse Billy says:
October 28, 2010 at 11:27 am
It’s appreciated…
Watch for “I like the Boy…..” Aussies were so naive then..lol
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 11:29 am
Maybe it’s me. None of that stuff connects with anything I have seen in my life, but then I have never had a family of my own. The stuff to which we were subjected one could argue was more toxic and, well, Grimm.
The best proof kids are everything-proof is that they make it through meghours of this stuff yet still grow up to be contributing members of society, after a fashion. I think.
Maybe there’s room for me in the Aboriginal tribes in the outback. This is all too complex for me.
Perplexed Bear says:
October 28, 2010 at 12:54 pm
There are a lot of mansions Walt. I’m sure you’d be welcome at most including the black fella’s one too.
Pointman
Are you aware of Charles Rosen’s book, Piano Notes, Pointman? Notwithstanding what Rosen says about performing and the cues that the audience feeds on, watching G. G. behind the piano seems almost indecent.
By the way, I shall never — ever — ever mention on this blog again bras, leopard prints, diamantes, thongs, sexy older men, or secrets, whether Victoria’s or someone else’s. That is my solemn oath (kiss my hand, Blackswan). However, I make no promises about other blogs.
Meltemian, hi. I haven’t got to the Vegemite yet. It waits on the cabinet shelf, visible through the glass door, whispering of lands unknown, of exotic places unvisited and tastes untasted…. well it was sent from Tasmania, anyway. But as you say, it’s probably just like Marmite only — this is my bet — Marmite has a fruitier tang. We shall see.
Walt at 11:12: LOL
I hope you would tell him/her you want a bring a friend to join in, or some such uninterpretable remark, and then like run like hell to get out of there…
Amanda says:
October 28, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I don’t think you should commit yourself to some sort of blog chastity. I certainly wouldn’t. It’s part of the mix of a good blog and if you play your cards right, you never know your luck girl. Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Bordello breakout – very roughly translated …
Pointman
Every man has his tradegy …
Pointman
Pointman, in the video clip Mozart says ‘rubbish’ — subtitled ‘basura’. I know that word. There only a handful of words I know in Spanish: hasta la vista (thanks, Arnie), hola amigo (thanks, C!), quesadilla (which I learned not to pronounce as kway-etc.), all the usual foodie terms, el jefe, and basura. That’s what comes of living in a town with a lot of Mexicans when you want them to take out your trash!
Perplexed Bear says:
October 28, 2010 at 12:54 pm
“they make it through meghours of this stuff yet still grow up to be contributing members of society”…….
They sure do – they contribute through being mega-consumers – of everything, and one (of anything) is never enough. All that crap is about Must-Have “collections” – Ponies & Barbies for girls, Pokemon Cards & Tonka Trucks (or whatever) for boys. That’s why Maccas Happy meals for kiddies have a little plastic toy inside, but the “series” only lasts a week or two and you have to keep stuffin’ down those burgers to complete your “collection”. Ya’ll come back now ya hear.
I used to talk to my kids about advertising from when they were really little and whining about some “must have” that everyone else had. I was such a mean parent. The Cygnet majored in Marketing and excelled….lol. It seems she had great perception of the “big picture”. Gee, I missed my calling.
As for the Aboriginal Tribes – we could learn much from their old ways – they had no concept of personal “ownership” – everything belonged to the group. And they all belonged to the Rainbow Serpent, creator of all things.
Blackswan so you are telling me aborigines were proto communists? At least there glorious leader was conveniently elsewhere.
I am really nonplussed that the level of political discourse on this blog has been so well-spoken, non-sophomoric, mature and free of spontaneous sneering malice, so I thought I would dredge the sludge of the InterNet to find material to put American political discourse back on its proper and traditional footing.
Courtesy of the Boston Phoenix, here is “Gay Tea Party Witch Sex: Three Tales of Erotic Politics.”
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/110643-gay-tea-party-witch-sex-three-tales-of-erotic-pol/?page=1#TOPCONTENT
No Quebec lesbian assassins, Captain Sherlock. You will just have to settle for US Congressional ones LOL! I love the John “I Really Didn’t Help the North Vietnamese Kill American Troops” Kerry schtick, in particular.
BTW, this little journal pretty much covers the Zeitgeist of Boston in as much depth as anyone can stand. It is still the seething quagmire of percolating chaos finding expression in varying degrees of craft it has ever been. What is funny is how Hahvard has responded to the injection of millions and millions of dollahs from the Saudis and from other M.E. friendly desert sprites. The townies’ kids are dispersing to the Midwestern USA to places like University of Michigan and Iowa State. It will be Hahvard Community College and Institute for Call Centre Technology in five years, at this rate. Gotta love the place.
Blackswan,
One thing Cygnet could freelance on a level to meet BMW payments quickly is brokering ad placements from one direction and selling ad company capabilities in the other with her existing contacts in the industry, if she was a successful marketeer.
It’s a great cure for burnout, too: she can come back to her old employer and put it right in their personalities sideways. Forgiveness may or may not be the great healer, but revenge certainly is.
Bad Taste Bear says:
October 28, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Hey Walt,
I found “the sludge” to be “bad taste” – but on that link was a review of the new documentary “The Inside Job” about Wall St – bloody brilliant……….
“I couldn’t believe how low Wall Street had sunk,” says Ferguson, a seasoned entrepreneur and software developer who sold a tech start-up to Microsoft in 1996 for $133 million. “I had a fair amount of contact with investment banking by virtue of my being in the software industry in Boston. But [I never would have believed] that investment bankers would design securities specifically to fail so they could profit by betting against them . . . I interviewed a number of investment bankers, and many had absolutely no sense of doing something wrong.”
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/109939-waiting-for-repo-man/
Where can I see it?
All we need now is similar tell-all exposure of the AGW Hucksters and Fraudsters and it’s Game Over. Fantastic.
Bad Taste Bear… as for the dynamite up the jacksie I would watch from the bleachers idiocy deserves to be rewarded and watched from a safe distance. Not that I have ever done anything on the same lines that seemed like a good idea at the time but the hair on my lower legs has gone forever. I learned a very valuable lesson in physics in reguards to gasoline bonfires and cold down draughts at night. Funny in hindsight but the flames spreading at 1 foot at ground level are etched into to my memory. Socks would have been so handy that night.
Walt,
Our beautiful Cygnet was an IT Consultant for a Multi-national in Canberra involved in some major, major mega-million dollar installations. She’s looking at her options for enrolling at Tas Uni next year and moving in another direction maybe.
You and I both know it takes a lot of energy (and bile) to take revenge effectively – she’s a sweet person who has neither. But she’s reeeal smart, and she’ll find her way. Thanks for thinking of her. Parenthood – it’s simply the end of “self” as we knew it.
Seeing her back here in her home-town, happy and making plans with her beau (they’ve been together 5 years now) is all good. The rest of it duzzen madda.
Agreed, Blackswan.
Water balloons from the 10th floor doesn’t take a lot of bile. Good bombsights maybe LOL
Crown, LP gas is worse. It follows the ground and when it goes off there is no escape, but whole trailer parks (caravan parks, I should say) all have their individual tanks, all of which are leaky.
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 4:14 pm
THAT story is set in Boston, too. The serious global banking is all done there for that sort of fraud. It takes ten years for those flowers of evil to bloom for all to scent their fragrance.
Are those the jungle flowers that give off the scent of rotting meat, the better to attract the carrion munchers?
Bad Taste Bruin
If I was going to the trouble to drop balloons from the 10th floor, I’d make it worth my while by making sure there was something a little more than water in them. I told you, I’m a mean swan. I hiss.
I agree with your observations that had you so nonplussed and sent you on a sludge dredging mission. But look at what a gem you found….I’m intrigued by that Ferguson Wall St doco.
G-day all,
Having too many busy nights in a row to visit. I hope to have time to chat soon. The interesting posts come fast.
Msher, I believe the Democrats are out of touch, but for some reason (perhaps their control of the media and Hollywood or their masterful spin-doctoring) they are able to turn people to their side just in time for the elections and Democrats manage to keep loyalty among their members. The whole politically correct thing has them convinced their $#!+ doesn’t stink and prolongs their delusions. But I do agree that they are plotting and planning their next election strategy, and will pull a win in 2012 if conservatives and libertarians aren’t careful. I’m a Montanan stuck in California. It’s hard for me to be optimistic that we can take back our country from these evil mini megalomaniacs.
For your enjoyment, a few links
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/republicans-kind-of-suck-which-is-why-they-will-win-huge-in-november/
Cheers
T.
A Montanan? I’ve never been to the USA, but if there’s one place there I’d love to visit it’s the Big Sky State – Oz
When we first moved here from the “big smoke” nearly 30 years ago, bemused locals asked us Why?, as they were used to many of their own youngsters heading north in a generational brain drain.
We said we were “refugees”. They thought we were smart-arses. We were absolutely serious. In the past decade many, many have joined us – and usually for the same reasons.
Today showed me another reassuring example of why it’s the best move we’ve made.
In northern Tasmania a bunch of young thugs driving a stolen car and suspected of a spate of armed robberies, were chased by Police who spiked their tyres. The suspects fled and were found hiding under an elderly man’s house.
On the TV News tonight we saw the arrests, the crooks being put into the cars and ……. the neighbourhood crowd who’d gathered, including kids and teenagers on bicycles, all broke into a spontaneous round of applause and a cheer ….. for the Police.
In Sydney in recent times, similar scenarios have resulted in riots, with Police calling for reinforcements, being belted with bricks, bottles and petrol bombs by the neighbourhood trash, eager to protect their own.
I love Tasmanians.
Amen – Oz
Looks like they should have gone to a church:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324275/Western-couple-mocked-infidel-wedding-minister-luxury-Maldive-resort.html
Stop Global Dumbing Now says:
October 28, 2010 at 6:04 pm
G’day T
“I’m a Montanan stuck in California” – we “feel your pain”. I’m with Ozboy, love to see Montana, but it would have to be a “Beam me up Scottie” arrangement as air travel holds no joy for me.
That Pajamas link was Brilliant – and says it all really.
It even came up with a terrific new word – “suckitude” meaning “sheer incompetence plus arrogance.” I love it. It should become our mantra.
It’s almost as good as No Idea’s “cerptitude” which means pretty much the same thing but usually applies to Climate Change Clowns.
We’ll save Suckitude for Politicians.
Thanks T.
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 28, 2010 at 7:11 pm
“Looks like they should have gone to a church:”
Moral of the story – Lay down with dogs you get up with fleas, expensive ones at that.
Church? Not necessarily. We were married under willow trees, on an island, in a lake with (funnily enough) black swans cruising around the waters edge. That green “cathedral” was all the church we needed. Best all-weekend party we’ve been to.
Must do it again sometime….LOL
Blackswan says:
October 28, 2010 at 5:58 pm
If you were a journalist, you could get the entire story needed to pry apart the clam containing the pearl of truth concerning the real deal about globby warming just through bar-hopping in central Boston over a couple of weekends. It all started there at BBH on Dorchester Street just a block from where the very first Ponzi scheme, perpetrated by THE Mr. Ponzi, took place.
All these Biggus Dealus transactions which are ruining the known Universe are registered with the SEC and other agencies, but journalists aren’t made of the same stuff they used to be to the extent that they would lift a finger to track them all down, not to connect the dots conspiracy style but to put together an accurate picture of what really happened. It does not take a genius to sort it out, just a library card and half an idea of what you are looking for.
If there is one salient characteristic shared in common with all the major issues of today it is the miserably lazy-minded and transparently concocted coverage of those same issues by today’s journalists. Even money sez 90% of them have not a library card, nor read more than a book a year unless it is a bodice-ripper or police procedural. Fully half the online papers appear to lack checkers or copy editors.
I need a therapist after spending ten minutes at the Daily Flail. They put the abuse into self-abuse LOL
Why does not a killer clown entrepreneur from the media business launch something called the “Insane Wretch-Inducing Made-Up Look Up Their Skirts News Network ?” People would respect their integrity for maintaining truth in advertising and I do not think the name would hurt sales.
Correcting an error in my post of Oct. 29 @10:21 am
I said that the Department of Justice policy of not prosecuting vote fraud against whites has already been discussed by Fox and testified to. I got careless there. I think it is the DOJ policy of not prosecuting voter intimidation of whites which has been exposed. The revelation which is rumored to be coming is that the policy goes much further than that and extends to actual voter fraud not being prosecuted.
Anyway, here is what fall looks like in Binghamton, NY. This is on my normal somewhat daily trudge route across the Chenango for foodies and cafe hanging out. Amazing quality you can squeeze out of a phone camera these days. I used Photoshop to push the saturation about 10%, sharpened it once, boosted contrast 5%, then did the colour adjustment toward yellow, green and red about 10% away from baseline.
Any other fall pix? I am all “relevanted” out today. All my socially responsible brain cells are down at the corner 24-hour boozateria getting legless.
Walt,
Pop in for a chat about the nutter from the above …
Pointman
Hiya,
Did we come across this back in April? Been so much under the bridge since then, I really can’t remember:
COLLEGE GIVES FILES OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS TO POLICE
http://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/169578/College-gives-files-of-climate-change-sceptics-to-police
“Detectives are interviewing all those who legally used the FOI Act to request information from the Climatic Research Unit, questioning them about their scientific and political beliefs.
One of those targeted said: “It’s alarming – I thought it was a bit heavy-handed. My understanding is everyone who put in an FOI request to the university has been contacted.
“The police were looking for a conspiracy. They felt there had been an organised group of people bombarding the university with questions. I would have appreciated more of a briefing before launching into questions about my political beliefs.”
Another, businessman Sebastian Nokes, said he had been called by a detective who “wanted to know what computer I used, my internet service provider, and also to which political parties I have belonged, what I feel about climate change and what my qualifications in climate science are. He questioned me at length.”
Mr Nokes’s FOI request had asked for details about the training given to scientists to disclose information and for copies of any emails suggesting they had withheld information.” Etc.
rastech says:
October 29, 2010 at 2:34 am
Hi Ras, we covered it at the time as I recall. They were just going through the motions. They know it was internal.
Pointman
Thanks Pointy. 🙂
Stop Global Dumbing Now says:
October 28, 2010 at 6:04 pm
My favourite contemporary historian is from University of Montana, David Clay Large. I especially liked “Where Ghosts Walked,” where he addresses the rise to power of the Third Reich in the context of the history of the city of Munich in much the same way one would write the history of the Students for A Democratic Society, the Weather Underground, and other leftard societal saboteurs within the context of the city of Chicago.
Do you miss your pygmy pony and dental floss farm?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ialhaxhr7iA Yippe Yi Oh Kai Eh.
Best hitchiking run I had in the 1960’s was on either Route 15 or Route 33, the road which followed the Columbia River through the foothills of the mountains of Montana coming into Helena. The photogenic glittering beer-commercial streams and small waterfalls with the purple mountains in the distant background were stunning, and the water did indeed taste like wine on that dusty road.
Hi, Pointy. Sounds like John Chuckman from Kelowna, BC again. Time to saddle up the horses and oil the Winchester again. (Sigh).
Pointman:
I do believe this is one you’ll like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqbWJ1ZMO84
A.
Yes, I like most things she did. She had a wicked sense of humour and had a sideline joke career as the infamous Darlene Edwards, butcheress of songs. Listen for as long as you can …
Pointman
LOL (several times). It was so awful I had to listen to the end!
Well it’s like this— My brother-in-law and sister-in-law recently came back from Australia and they explained they had been a little puzzled by some of the signs they saw.
Driving along they kept seeing road-signs proclaiming “DON’T BE A TOSSER” and another time while going for a meal they were greeted by “NO THONGS” which caused a moment of ‘how do they know?’
These are not the sort of signs we Brits are used to seeing!! Explanations were forthcoming but it just goes to show how differently other countries use words.
Typical Chuckmania follows:
REMEMBER THE happy days of yore, when right-wing reactionaries were bigots and left-wing progressives were enlightened? Times have changed, as this e-mail, from Canadian YellowUnderpants columnist John Chuckman, shows:
“Tim,
“Couldn’t help thinking you’re one of those guys that went to Vietnam and slit the ears from murdered peasants.”
I was only following orders, John. Of course, I was only three years old in ’68, but I made damn sure to get as many of those commie ears as I could. I brought them home in my Structo Dumper Truck.
“And I’m sure you’re in the forefront of making life miserable for third-world refugees in Australia.”
Every day I drive to Woomera, in South Australia, to set fire to their lodgings. Lately they’ve been saving me the trouble by lighting the fires themselves.
“Fundamentalism must figure into your complex makeup, too. Do you speak in tongues and roll on the floor like Ashcroft or just follow the teachings of the good Rev. Falwell?”
Both! I also blow up abortion clinics and defile synagogues. Australia is the Deepest of the Deep South, you know.
“Do you have a boxed set of Tammy Faye’s greatest hits?”
No, but I’ve got her ears. Old habits from ‘Nam are hard to break.
“At any rate, you do demonstrate that that potent mix of ignorance and arrogance is not the exclusive intellectual property of American Appalachian Throwbacks. Australia apparently has its own branch of the family. May we call them Outback Hominoids?”
You are very funny, John! And you share the same inaccurate assumptions common to your kind everywhere. Your wing of the global smugness movement may be known as the Lesser White Nerds of the Great White North.
UPDATE. Oklahoma reader Kerry K. writes:
“Got just two words for our Canadian brother J. Chuckman: Get Fucked!
“It’s bad enough that we have to tolerate our own bags o’ shit, but hearing the same crap from the Brits and Canucks really irritates me. You know, there was a reason we tossed King George’s damn tea into Boston Harbor! Now, if we could just treat the Chuckmans of the world in the same manner.
(INTEL BEAR’S NOTE: John Pukeman ran off to Canada to dodge the draft, and when Carter his soulmate and gay lover extended amnesty, no one in CHICAGO wanted him back, including his relatives).
“Oh, and I AM a Viet Nam vet. Never did get my ear collection. Hey, maybe Chuck would like to provide me with a starter set. Always hopeful.”
OK guys,
To illustrate what I was saying 12 hours ago – maybe I’m psychic…….
“The Riot Squad was called after a large crowd jeering on a fight between four females in Waterloo got out of hand.
The brawl attracted a large crowd, which turned on police as they tried to break it up in the inner Sydney suburb.”
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/riot-squad-called-to-brawl-in-waterloo-20101029-175zu.html
And you thought I was exaggerating.
I’m seriously thinking the world has gone completely over the edge – the point of no return – past a tipping point – complete suckitude (thanks T)…..
Bet you blokes are glad you aren’t “in this man’s army”…..
“THE military is considering paying about $10,000 of a sex change operation for a soldier.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/sex-change-operation-could-be-on-the-adf/story-e6freuzr-1225944891378
“The ADF has previously funded up to a dozen breast augmentation and reduction operations in recent years in which female sailors received funding assistance to address “psychological” issues about breast size and confidence.”
When the Leftard Warm & Fuzzies have infiltrated the System to this degree, what’s a bit of vote-rigging? (Not completely OT Oz) Long bows are regularly drawn here at LibertyGibbert. No probs – Oz
G’day everyone,
Chapter 15 of Pointman’s Line of Descent is out now. You can view it from the Rare Scribbling menu at the top or just click here.
Amanda at 4.11am.
Soothe your nerves with this. I couldn’t find the Jo Stafford version, which is hauntingly beautiful.
Ozboy having visited Montana or at least one portion of that large state it is something you would like and there is nothing for miles just one isolated farm house after another. Small towns few and far between. So if you want to get away from people that is the place to be although I understand the winters can be nasty. If I ever get the time and the money I’m going on a mega road trip all over the USA.
Crown: I would be more interested in Wyoming (home state of Dick Cheney) and Idaho, both Republican strongholds. C. has been to both and says they’re both stunningly beautiful states, Wyoming particularly. And again, hardly anyone there.
Pointman: May I ask, if Line of Descent was written years ago, why are the chapters only coming out piece by piece? Are you revising? I’ve read a few: very good descriptions.
Farmerbraun: Thank you.
Amanda says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:04 am
It’s good for Ozboy’s blog to feed chapters every few weeks, it maybe keeps people checking in. I don’t revise old pieces. I like them as they were written, imperfect or not.
Pointman
Farmerbraun says:
October 29, 2010 at 8:38 am
If it don’t make you sing, it’ll make you tap along.
Pointman
Meltemian: Those signs really said that?!?
Well, thongs can = flip-flops. What should they say: thong footwear, I guess.
Uh-oh. You got me! I’m not supposed to be mentioning th*ngs.
Pointman: Good policy. Otherwise, you unpick this and you unpick that and soon you end up with an unravelled mess. Better to think of something new if so inclined and start afresh.
Amanda says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:19 am
Hello Amanda
“Don’t be a Tosser” is to discourage people from throwing rubbish from their cars, or worse, lighted cigarette butts – frequently the cause of runaway wildfires. The pun isn’t lost on us – if you trash the place, you’re a Tosser.
As for the other, you’re right – one could refer to one type of thong as footwear, and the other as – anal floss. Eye of the beholder I guess.
Pointman says:
October 29, 2010 at 10:11 am
G’day
Good strategy – except I’m too impatient for a good yarn to be a good serial reader. You do such a great job of building to the next cliffhanger. I’ve been going to give you a hurry-up-what’s-next a few times, but me Mam taught me it’s rude to ask for a gift.
Thank you.
PS – I’m lovin’ the squirrelly bits…lol
Blackswan:
‘Don’t be a tosser’ is actually a really clever anti-litter message — right up there with ‘Don’t mess with Texas’, which has the same meaning.
As for thongs as, ahem, bottom floss, I suppose that’s in the imagination of the beholder. Ever worn a thong? It’s might comfortable. :^)
Blackswan re Pointman’s story: I had a similar thought.
For all you wannabe Texans out there….
….. in the Trailerhood.
Amanda
I only “do” dental floss….lol
Blackswan: I’ve just bought a Waterpik. I hear it’s better! Not for wearing, though.
I just tried the Waterpik. Don’t think much of it. :^(
Don’t all rush out and buy one.
Never mind, it’s not really for me, anyway.
Amanda it works great if you have any gaps between your teeth and gets out crud left behind that normal flossing doesn’t. For me it works great.
Ozboy why not let Pointman do a guest post I’m sure he has one or two ideas, he writes well and would be interesting to hear from his point of view on any subject for example art, politics or global warming. No I am not being sarcastic either and no I don’t want to pick it apart for the heck of it either. I promise only to agree or disagree depending on the argument and if I disagree then I had better to make my case logically if I have one to make. Pointman is back on form so I expect it to be good if he chooses to write one.
New post…. http://knottedprop.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/2010-elections-are-the-democrats-a-bunch-of-banana-wranglers/
Crown,
Why don’t you do a guest post here? 🙂
Locusts because pointman would extract the urine at my bad punctuation due to not paying attention in class that day and coming up with posts is harder than it looks. I has to be inspired. I needs practice first. I only do stream of consciencenous blogs which would be great if I was William S Burroughs.
Crown,
Completely understandable. For similar reasons I feel more content translating the words of others rather than spouting my own.
Locusts Lotus Litany
Spurting spouting
Flowers from a fountain
Hippy love beads
Acidic hate creeds
Keep on shouting
Crying at a mountain
Deny me natural needs
Give me unnatural seeds
Don’t stop counting
Piles of bodies mounting
Evil satanic deeds
Starving never feeds
Overwhelming peer pouting
Fill the cracks with grouting
Who are these weeds?
Who holds their leads?
NoIdea
Pointman
Thank you for another cracking chapter in Line of Descent.
Each and every one is a spellbinding cliffhanger.
When is a film adaptation going to be made?
NoIdea
I watched a BBC documentary last night…..
The Virtual Revolution – Enemy of the State?
presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski.
For someone like me, who knows little about the Internet, it was most interesting and informative. It described the origins of the concept which began as an initiative of the US Military in a quest for Communications Security and the outcome which has been a matter of “unintended consequences” harnessed to a cause, any cause – any information when so widely distributed, becomes “supercharged”.
The civil unrest in Iran in 2009 was featured, camera phones and tweets flashing images of rioting and deaths around the world in real-time, exposing an ugly encounter which would never have seen any publicity in earlier days.
Also featured was the recent earthquake catastrophe in China; news of similar disasters once-upon-a-time would never have been reported to the outside world, but today the graphic images from camera phones and video cameras brought help, as well as real evidence that Govt buildings survived while dozens of shoddily built schools collapsed killing many hundreds of children, with residential blocks also destroyed lending weight to citizens’ demands for inquiries into building standards.
The program focused on China for a while – most interesting.
It seems China’s paranoia about the Web is not about Western information coming in – it’s ALL about information being sent out from within.
China employs 300,000 “internet commentators” to conduct surveillance, insert opinion pieces on websites, gauge knowledge and send tweets, each “piece” being paid the princely sum of 50 cents, the commentators known as The 50C Army.
Their mission is to “guide public opinion in a certain direction”.
They go on “fishing expeditions”, placing certain subjects on websites and then evaluating responses and assessing the level of knowledge, or resistance, involved.
The program also covered the situation in Estonia, where civil unrest with the local Russian residents created retaliation from an unstoppable Russian bot-attack that shut down Estonia’s entire banking and internet system for a time.
I don’t know any Estonians but we do have contact with Locusts. He might well be able to shed some light on the 50 cent army and how they go on fishing expeditions and plant information on international internet sites, to gauge reaction.
The program also looked at Twitter – how it began as the “mouthpiece of celebrity drivel” but has become a “weapon of revolution”. Politicians have certainly got in on the action, disseminating their electioneering messages very cheaply to many thousands of constituents.
Al Gore was interviewed in the program, waxing lyrical about how the web “inspired resistance in Iran”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it will also “inspire resistance” in America and has become a “toolbox for protest” against the Democrats in Government. Time will tell.
Swan,
Comments on China are fairly on the mark.
Hi Oz, trust all is well, don’t know if you are aware of this, sorry if you are. Appears to be down to Garry Egger of Southern Cross University in northern New South Wales,
Funny how Norfolk keeps cropping up!
Could be comming your way soon! If you let it.
“Norfolk Island to trial world’s first personal carbon trading scheme”
“Norfolk Island, a former British penal colony in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is to become the first place in the world to trial a personal carbon trading program.”
“During the trial, residents will use the card when they pay for petrol and power. Those who use fewer units by walking or cycling instead of driving or using less electricity at home will be able to exchange any remaining credit at the end of the year for cash.”
“Over time the number of carbon units handed out on the cards will go down, forcing individuals to work harder to maintain a low-carbon lifestyle.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8092210/Norfolk-Island-to-trial-worlds-first-personal-carbon-trading-scheme.html
Pointman
Just read chapter 15 – Don’t keep us in suspense, we want more!!!
NoIdea says:
October 29, 2010 at 8:08 pm
“When is a film adaptation going to be made?” Looking at it with a fresh eye, the dialogue is certainly up to scratch. Might be an idea okay. Thanks btw.
Pointman
meltemian says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:13 am
Hi Mel. Ta. The next chapter is the start of the second half of the book, the all action part and the suspense really gets ramped up.
Pointman
Pointman
Oh No – I don’t think I can take it!
Green Sand
Two thoughts about the personal carbon trading plan.
1) It sounds like it was imposed on the residents. Do we know whether they consented to this? The article doesn’t discuss this. It says “researchers decided it would be” the ideal place. That’s democracy in action!
2) I wonder if the researchers hold some kind of patent on some version of this scheme. I bet they do.
msher says:
October 30, 2010 at 1:48 am
In answering Green Sand @ 11:02 pm, you say “I wonder if the researchers hold some kind of patent on some version of this scheme.”
Consider this;
In Silicon Valley there is a Software Company established through Al Gore’s venture capital Kleiner Perkins, called the HARA Group. HARA’s CEO, Amit Chatterjee has said that they are developing software that allow “businesses” to calculate “energy efficiency” and the carbon footprint of their “energy, water & waste”.
This software, through his partnership’s provision of seed capital, is owned by Al Gore. In 2009 (with cap & trade in the pipeline) Chatterjee said that by 2015 the Carbon Market in the US would be worth a Trillion Dollars and that their software would reap HARA at least 10% of that.
In Australia, the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER) first annual reporting period began on 1 July 2008.
Corporations that meet an NGER threshold must report their:
* greenhouse gas emissions * energy production * energy consumption
* other information specified under NGER legislation
This assessment and reporting mechanism is part of the UN’s Agenda 21.
Building on that, The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is an emissions trading scheme which will use a cap and trade mechanism. Earlier this year the KRudd Govt announced they would delay the CPRS till 2012 when Kyoto expires.
Any Business or Govt would need some form of software to calculate emissions in a uniform and comparable manner. Enter the HARA Group. Any scheme that measures individual personal “carbon footprint” would need similar software. Enter the HARA Group or similar entity.
Another major concern for me in the Norfolk Island “experiment” is that they will include Food and the HEALTH CARE COSTS of food.
Greensand’s link from the UK Telegraph gave a passing nod to the Researchers’ statement that obesity and CC are linked….. “It is recognising that both obesity and climate change have similar drivers”…..
but does not reveal that
“In the second year, the researchers hope to add food to the scheme, ranking products on their health cost as well as their carbon cost” as my link earlier in this thread stated.
Nary a ripple, nary a splash.
Chronic disease is linked to climate change, Professor says – 18/03/2009
http://www.scu.edu.au/news/media.php?item_id=1269&action=show_item&type=M
Now this is most enlightening…………
“The idea of a Personal Carbon Trading scheme was first developed in England at Oxford University but they had not been able to develop a successful methodology for testing the idea.”
http://www.scu.edu.au/news/media.php?action=show_item&print=on&item_id=1641
“They will be able to recover the money that is left on their cards if they are frugal with it or they will have to pay extra if they go over. It’s quite fun because they can actually make a bit of money while they are out there if they do the right thing.”
Wow, we haven’t heard THAT before – “they will have to pay extra if they go over.”
“Another big question that we need to answer will be ‘is it acceptable to the public’? We will know in that time whether the people on the island think it is a good idea or not.”
Like I’ve said – a Free Range Focus Group.
“Then we can take it to the Australian Government and say, look, these people tested it and they do or don’t think it is a good idea. If they have problems then hopefully we can sort those problems out. If they are in favour of it then it would justify scaling it up to a country level and ultimately to a world level.”
“The good thing that Norfolk Island has going for it is the population has strong ideals and beliefs about the environment.”
Garry Egger has post-graduate qualifications in behavioural biology and is Professor of Lifestyle Medicine and Applied Health Promotion.
This “Lifestyle” Guru (apparently known on campus as Professor Trim) has dipped his begging bowl into the Climate Change Slush Fund.
What a Champion!!!! Could soon be coming to tap YOU on the shoulder.
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 29, 2010 at 9:23 pm
“Swan, Comments on China are fairly on the mark.”
I just bet they are.
I clicked on your funny little new avatar for a closer look and what did I find?
“ourmaninsichuan – I am a man, and I am in Sichuan.”
Exactly Whose man is Our man?
Talking to people off-blog, I mentioned that Line of Descent was a novel I wrote after abandoning work on what would have been its ‘prequel’ novel. I wrote a few thumbnail sketch chapters of it before moving off the idea.
Would anyone be interested in reading them? Bear in mind, the book was never completed but it would be nice for the chapters to see the light of day. They won’t compromise anything in Line of Descent and maybe they’ll fill in the wait for the next chapter.
Pointman
Blackswan @4.34 a.m.
farmer braun wonders about the suitability of Norfolk Island as the subject of sustainability studies (assuming that this carbon footprint study is a sustainability issue).
Apparently there are no current environmental issues on the island. But farmer braun understands that fresh water is limiting because of the porous rock. Lined dams should solve this.
One wonders how sustainability is achieved with exports of $1.5 million and imports of $18 million.
Farmer braun thinks that sustainability might encompass more than just carbon footprints.
http://www.indexmundi.com/norfolk_island/#Geography
Pointman says:
October 30, 2010 at 5:36 am
Yay!!! Gimme, gimme, gimme……..
Told you I love a good yarn. More politely, Yes please.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 5:36 am
I honestly don’t think this has anything to do with NI’s environment at all.
Like everything else about Climate Fraud – this is about People, their mind-set, their susceptibility, their acquiescence, if you will.
It’s hard to imagine a more pristine environment for human habitation than NI.
There is also the “nudge factor” of 30,000 visitors a year from all over the world. An introduction of an “idea” that will “ripple” home with them, creating first novelty value then acceptance. Of course it’s always good to “be seen” to be establishing your Environmental Credentials these days, and what better way than an actual Carbon Card.
This is how this crap gets in “under the radar” – a small excerpt from a Media Release in the newspaper, a novelty for tourists, environmentally conscientious folks who think they are “doing the right thing” and Bingo! Bob’s your Auntie!
I reckon this is more like a “stealth bomber” and highly indicative of the end-game in Climate Fraud.
Personal tracking of EVERYTHING we buy, eat and use and an arbitrary cost being attached to ALL of it, with penalties to be paid if you exceed your allocation.
It’s all in the Media Release – read it carefully. It’s about People, not Places.
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 6:19 am;
I apprehend that you think the footprint of those tourists who support the lifestyle of the NI inhabitants will not be counted. Similarly the imported food ( NI is self sufficient in beef and poultry products) has a freight footprint. If these are not counted, then reduced footprints are possible.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 6:31 am
In an earlier post on this thread I drew attention to the fact that Food Miles are NOT going to be counted on Carbon Labelling of imported olive oil to OZ.
They can put on or take off anything – they can include or exclude anything. Maybe they picked it up from the UEA/CRU – include whatever suits you to get your “modelling” statistics to say anything you need it to say.
It’s this System that needs to be aborted before it ever sees the light of day.
The Sun goes down and a guitar echoes across the valley.
Pointman
Pointman,
Here is the format guide for the WGA East and West. Please use in lieu of FD.
Click to access SPFormat.pdf
Spoke to two other agents about the FD issue, and this is where they sent me.
Back to my keyboard (sigh) LOL
Looks tricky. Isn’t. Once you set your margins and spacing, Bob’s yer uncle.
NOTE: They are bitchy about the typeface, for sound reasons they explain in the text. There is a free download at http://www.hp.com for Dark Courier 12 point font here, which is an industry-acceptable alternative to the $100 buck download.
BTW, forced trades either by the state or individual are illegal. First test case the SEC and its offshore affiliate regulatory agencies will slap down any and all forced trades. Game over. They know this. That is why they are doing the stealth bit. Forced carbon trades have been formally by treaty rendered illegal, as have been all securities trades, since Feb 2008.
This was done principally to prevent governments from doing what they usually do when they go broke: exercise eminent domain to seize industrial properties. Note the bailouts in the USA and UK were not forced. The bailed-out had to agree under contract. Ford took a pass on the bailout as well as several banks.
My exported RTF version flew nicely, though, Pointman. You’ve only one set of margin settings to worry about, and the scene nomenclature. DON’T USE “CUT TO” between scenes. For amateurs only. If you have to use it, you need a re-write LOL!
Don’t worry, it gets worse. That’s why they pay the money they do for scripts. As much as 100-200 mil hangs on 120 pieces of paper.
On A4, you still have the usual 113-120 ppg for the filmplay, properly formatted.
When I place mine, I am going to the UK and buy Ceri Radford din-din. It all started on her blog in 2006. Her man probably has knuckles as big as walnuts so I may have to take him along, too.
Blackswan,
“Professor of Lifestyle Medicine and Applied Health Promotion.”
Those are credentials? Probably has a Masters in graduate student bonking and a PhD in bhongology as well.
Professor Easy A is probably his nickname.
blackswan
” “It is recognising that both obesity and climate change have similar drivers”
I don’t understand this. Do you know what they mean?
msher says:
October 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
“Do you know what they mean?”
G’day msher,
Good grief – how can anybody know what they mean? It just seems to be part of the inexplicable whole. I haven’t found any causal link between one thing and the other in the Media Release, except you won’t get fat if you walk or ride a bike.
Doh! And this Prof Trim is getting paid $390K for his “study”. No mention of cost to implement the program or Who owns the Software (re your earlier comment) that will track individual consumption.
msher says:
October 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
“I don’t understand this. Do you know what they mean?”
Stop being an dipstick MSher. They mean that some people are non-standard but they know they can improve them or remake them. In their world, there’s a ‘proper’ human being who’s of the right physio-type, the right weight, the right moral outlook, the right smartness quotient and who’ll aspire to being as they want.
Those ‘some’ people are us. All of us. That’s why they’ll always lose in the end but the question is, how many of us get wasted before their current ‘big idea’ runs its course.
Pointman
Seeing that Co2 is currently trading on the CCX @ 0.05 cents per metric tonne, just who stands to make the promised money out of accepting Personal Carbon Credit Cards?
Pointman: Maybe it was a rhetorical question.
G’day Walt
Thinking, thinking……I can feel a Script coming on.
Set on a balmy sub-tropical Isle somewhere in the South Pacific……..
Some nerdy guy by the name of Trim turns up and has this hare-brained scheme for making money………
Nah, nobody would ever go for it.
Another stupid question like that Msher and I go back to calling you Hank.
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:23 am
5 cents per Tonne? Outstanding. Last time I looked it was 10c. That should destroy the BBC pension fund. What goes around, comes around.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:19 am
G’day Pointman
As I replied to Farmer Brown earlier, this isn’t about the Planet, Carbon or even fat arses – it’s about People – and how to sell ’em a pig-in-a-poke while slipping a stiletto between their ribs.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:26 am
Possibly. When I do rhetorical, it’s obvious because I take care and time before I post. I go with what people actually post, not what they may possibly mean or interpretations therof. This isn’t the DT or maybe it is these days.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:31 am
Read it and grin……..
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/market/data/daily.jsf
Msher
The easiest to understand is to go to a primary school like I did last week (dropping off grandchildren, staying for an hour).
In my hour at the school I saw 21 teachers.
Of these, four could be said to be of “normal” build; six were “fat”, and eleven could only be described as grotesquely obese. For instance, a male and female teacher, walking side by side, could not enter building together through oversize double doors that were both open. They had take enter singly, as together they were too wide.
The man was mid-twenties, the woman maybe thirty.
These are the “do-gooder” teachers who ban anything not deemed “healthy” from the kids’ lunch boxes and the school tuck shop.
They are the same fat paragons of virtue who subject their charges to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” as “scientific fact”.
So, obviously there is a link between obesity and climate change.
Pointman: Just for fun, and since you are in Wallawoora and I can’t draw you into a seance — though I think you would be perfect for one, as long as you kept your temper — I am going to give you a tarot reading based on one card. You may ignore it of course, of make of it what you will.
The card I have drawn for you is Two of Swords. They are crossed, and in my favoured deck they are held by a blindfold woman standing by a crashing sea in a cloudy, windy, moonlit sky. What does it mean?
Well, in one reading, it means ‘arrival’: X marks the spot. You have been on some sort of a journey, a sojourn or exploration, and now you have reached a destination — if not exactly the destination you expected. You are uncertain of where to go from here. You have arrived, but every arrival means that a new choice must be made, a further path taken; and you are now weighing up, without having full possession of the facts, which way would be more profitable, or more rewarding.
The moon is there — a light in the darkness — but then again it is cloudy, there are facts obscured. But there is a high wind, and the energy of the rolling sea — and once you have decided, nothing will hold you back.
The blindfold figure is wearing silk — a gown, a cloak, a sash, an armband. She is not a pauper; she is, though a traveller, well provided-for. There are riches, though not anyone could glimpse them. She is not studded with jewels. Her riches and resources are somewhat hidden. But if she needs to, she can spend. That is a metaphor.
I mentioned two further paths, but it’s actually more complicated than that. The swords suggest duality, which perhaps means two sides of the same coin, or two faces, like the god Janus; but they also point in separate directions. And there is more than simply duality: there is the sea — the ‘magic carpet’ to the rest of the world beyond, to future possibility, to the unknown. There is the suggestion that beyond the obvious choices, there are other options if you are willing to pursue them, to wait for them.
The ‘sword’ suit in the Tarot governs action. Courage and responsibility, the willingness to risk. But there can be no responsible courage without thought and reflection.
That’s my reading.
too many ‘ofs’, like too many notes. —-> ‘or make of it’…
memory vault says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:43 am
G’day MV
So obvious – now why didn’t I think of that?
Seen Our Man about anywhere? You know the bloke. The bait’n’switch joker.
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:23 am
“Seeing that Co2 is currently trading on the CCX @ 0.05 cents per metric tonne, just who stands to make the promised money out of accepting Personal Carbon Credit Cards?”
The credit will be real, but like a credit card, the bill will have to be paid in full, in real cash, at the end of the month….. this is the way to sell it to the masses, who mostly have lost the ability to add 2+2 without help….. you won’t get to accept it either, like the National Broad Band….. it will be yours to have to enjoy..
Marcus
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:37 am
Totally agree Swanny. My problem is that while their activities are impinging on our lifestyles, they’re also impoverishing and killing people in the developing world as we blog this. It is about people and people who can’t defend themselves and how many can be saved before this vile idea dies the death. Even as the Juggernaut rolls to a stop, the policies are killing real human beings.
Pointman
mlpinaus says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:52 am
G’day Marcus
Yeah, this opt-in opt-out choice is but a fleeting “flog-it-to-’em” chimera. It will evaporate.
Pointman says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:53 am
Pointy
I seemed to be in a revolving door here, or shouting down a well, so we’ll see if Watts or JD want to make something of it.
Maybe I am just a paranoid old chook – I know, my palm is itching – anybody got an old Romany Lady handy?
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:59 am
I hope so… I normally shut up, but I see in the Advertiser this morning that Professor BarryMcGaw is proposing to cut the history of the Vietnam war and the women’s movement from the history curriculum…. the Adveriser is the worst paper in the world, but this dumbing down … These topics, to my limited comprehension, defined the 60’s and 70’s…. so a credit card for right now seems so ……2010. Just go into debt for Gaia…… Shut up Marcus….
Marcus
Pointman
Hi Pointy. You’re right. As I’ve maintained since the beginning, and rammed down izen’s throat whenever possible, it’s all about killing people.
I read in a news item this morning that there are now six million people in Pakistan/India reliant on humanitarian aid to survive, as a result of the recent floods.
That aid all comes from the very “developed” nations (like OZ, the USA, Canada etc), that the the do-gooders want to send back to the stone age with their “sustainable” crap.
So that’s six million people who would be sentenced to death just in one place at this particular time if the these mass-murderers get their way.
Paranoid am I?
“STAFF at a Chinese language newspaper in Brisbane, where a shot was fired through a window, believe its coverage of controversial issues in China may have motivated the attack.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/chinese-language-newspaper-attacked/story-e6freuyi-1225945456757
“Mr Matas will speak about illegal organ harvesting from practitioners of Falun Gong in mainland China, at forums next week.”
The 50 Cent Army, “internet commentators paid to guide public opinion in certain directions”, should be out in force methinks.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:45 am
Fun stuff. A friend of mine, who’d spent some time taking a can opener to my psyche, dragged me off for a Tarot reading. The reader decided I came down to a “King of Cups”. I read the profile which looked a lot like http://www.learntarot.com/ckg.htm and was quite pleased. We left there quite amicably, especially me.
The first thing she said out of sight of the reader was “You flukey bastard, you’ve done it again. You’re nothing like that.” I had to agree. Don’t like that sort of Witchcraft anyway.
Pointman
mlpinaus says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:12 pm
“Shut up Marcus” – DON’T do that.
Hey Marcus, we’re just getting wound up here. I’m good and bloody cranky now – have to put that got-the-sh*ts adrenalin to good use….LOL
Pointman: It ain’t witchcraft. It’s interpretation. Actually I think it’s respectable because it doesn’t claim to be based on anything but human experience, and doesn’t claim any predictive power (hence no real time frame — you can’t ‘predict’ outside of time). There are four interpretations, each removed yet related to the other: originator of the deck comes up with the ideas, represented by suits and individual cards. Artist interprets those ideas and tinkers with the iconography: what to put in, what details to give, what to change, what to keep the same from deck to deck. The reader (in this case, me) looks at the generally accepted meanings and the specific art and interprets both and becomes a storyteller in her own right, using the ‘story’ of the card. The listener or querent then interprets what the reader tells him in light of what his life is actually like. So at each stage, room is given for further interpretation or story-telling. No one is dictating. But then again, no one is making the whole thing up, either. In that way it is fundamentally not the sham of astrology.
memory vault says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:14 pm
What I really hate is, I know the problem is immediate but all I can do is post to some effect. It’s like trying to stand on the brakes of an ocean liner and knowing it’s going to take four miles to judder to a stop. For all those four miles, it’s running over real people in the sea.
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Yes, as I said earlier, a certain, natural fury is a kind of rest state for me…. and now you…LOL. One spends 60 or so years being educated, making a life, then now is the time to reflect, but the buggers won’t shut up and go away… And as the content of this blog shows, the powers that be out there are so…. diss-apointing
Marcus
P: Anyway, I thought what I wrote was pretty good. You’re the sort of chap that scoffs at the bear story round the campfire while everyone else is oohing and ahhing or giggling. Have a marshmallow well done and falling off the stick.
Blackswan says:
October 30, 2010 at 11:23 am
Well, eckshully, it depends on which bourse one is trading and what precise commodity. The Euro carbon airpoints are trading at around 13.5-15.0 a whack as they are underwritten securities. http://www.pointcarbon.com EUA’s and SCER’s are underwritten by the individual states in a collective pool of covered bets with the funds to cover those bets lodged in the money vaults of Deutsche BankenburgerundFries MitDat, which is what all Germany will be doing when the bottom falls out. Notice the monthly trend to the right of your screen.
Last one to cash out is a methane emission from a week-dead skunk’s sphincter.
BTW, ALL state-sponsored carbon trades are backed by the state, that is to say, your tax dollars.
I am presently downloading the movie “Zulu” from the ancient Roman Website Youbus Tubus. Sort of advance training for what this neighborhood will be like when the welfare cheques bounce LOL
You wouldn’t happen to have a Martini-Henry .45/70 laying about, would you? That must have felt rather like getting whacked by a Mack truck, even by the person firing it.
Pointman
Actually we can do a lot more than that.
Give me a couple of more weeks mending, and I’ll explain all.
One of the few upsides to three weeks in Intensive Care is you get plenty of time to just lie around and fully consider various possible courses of action.
Many-Headed Bear.
Actually, my dad had one which went to my brother-in-law when dad passed on.
Not much ammo though – maybe twenty rounds.
Bye, guys.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:38 pm
No. I’m the one who tells the stories around the fires. There is a spark in us and we can’t be programmed, reformed or improved. We are as we are and Mystisim is the bit no computer will ever understand. It can be programmed to do a simple crossword but a cryptic one? Forget about it. The best chessplayers still thrash computers but can’t explain why they’re grandmasters. We can’t be ‘computed’.
Pointman
Pointman
The Uncarved Block of the Tao. It’s in all of us.
memory vault says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Stay where you are mate and catch your breath. You’ll come back stronger and it’s your head we need after all.
Pointman
pointman, amanda
My earlier question as to what they mean by climate change and obesity having the same driver was quite literal. Obviously they have some theory they are going to push to link the two, and I don’t know what the theory is. Is is as limited as use of the automobile instead of walking mean cars puts carbon emissions into the air and deprive people of exercise, so the automobile is the “driver” they are talking about? Or do they have some wider, more encompassing theory. Industrialized life, which brings us the auto, a TV to sit on the couch in front of, and pre-packaged food, all implicated in both carbon emissions and obesity? Or something completely different?
Obviously their purpose is to put the two under the same umbrella for propaganda and funding purposes. So what is it they are going to say to make that link? “If you breathe you emit carbon, so stop breathing” doesn’t work. Because the fact that you breathe doesn’t necessarily mean you are obese.
__________________
Memory Vault
Sorry to hear about your illness. Glad you have recovered.
Holey Moley Walt
“BankenburgerundFries MitDat” – I nearly bloody choked to death on my lunch.
I know from nuthin’ when it comes to the parallel universe of High Finance and Banksters, but I know when my b*ll-sh*t antennae are zinging.
Lock & load – Kaboom!
Sorry, Blackswan. My literary muse is Imogene Coca.
Msher: I didn’t know what your question really meant, since I’d only arrived on the blog and hadn’t read what went before (and still haven’t). Basically, without knowing the details, I was just putting in a good word.
P: We can’t be computed: No. The truths of human life can’t be ‘computed’ like mathematical equations. In desperation, Donald Crowhurst at sea tried to do it. It didn’t work. His body was never found. Sweet dreams, and may all your toast be spread with butter, marmalade, and Vegemite (not all on the same slice of toast, of course) :^).
It’s actually not very funny. Again, if they had plonked all that ready into making machined metal parts and training youf to run the machines, everyone would be larfin’ now. It’s also not as if we don’t need canals re-dredged, roads built and bridges repaired.
Any political leader now who said, “We’ll deal with all this carbon crap when everyone is working and we have the ante to deal with it. My people who elected me come first before anything” would win maybe not a Nobel Prize or an Oscar, but the eternal gratitude of a generation of citizens. Their picture would go on the wall without anyone being paid to hang it up.
‘Stay where you are, Maxfield!’ — a line from Zulu.
msher says:
October 30, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Congratulations Hank. You’ve just made the plausible explanation they needed or possibly didn’t need. I’m sure they’ll get further research funding to establish the link.
Pointman
Please do not take the “Zulu” comments as racist blarney. All this ill-motivated type of crowd phenomena follow an identical pattern of leadership and deployment, even ad hoc extempore affairs. My lot had to deal with riots by civilians against military installations in Japan and in Panama, and there’s not a lot of difference but for the projectiles tossed. The leftists in Panama messed up once and cut loose with a volley of gunfire. From that point on very open displays of being unarmed were made by them henceforth.
Irrational violence is an equal-opportunity employer.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 1:32 pm
It really is an impossibly good piece of film making, right down to the quality of fabric of the uniforms which were wool felt which wicked splendidly in hot climates just like Dupont Duron does for our troops in Afghanistan. You’ll note from newspix that they are well and truly buttoned up to the neck with the sleeves down, too.
The reason second-hand clothing stores make a mint is post 1980 or so, fabrics manufacture globally went to blazes. It is quite funny to read in the DT of fashion disasters where a 3,000 pound Sterling gown comes to bits on showing the thing in public. The first Yank or British firm which adopts mid-1950’s fabric manufacturing techniques with the same quality of feedstock will blow everyone else off the market.
Walt, I don’t believe it: I had just typed out a reasonably detailed post to you, and somehow I hit the Escape button and lost it. (Esc. is near the exclamation key, that’s how.) There was a compliment in there to you. Make up one, whichever you like. I’m sure it will fit.
As for clothing standards and their decline, your comments echo those made to me by an appliance-repairman in Houston, who said that in the 80s, American appliances were high-tech, high-quality, durable, and reliable, and that subsequently they had fallen off a cliff. He also asked me whether I had the manual for an oven that was at least 50 degrees F off. Now, if I’d had the bloody manual, would I have paid the $70 call-out fee just so he could come and tell me he couldn’t fix it?!
Pointman says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:58 pm
“I’m the one who tells the stories around the fires.” – Amen to that.
Is buying Tarot cards “for the artwork” the same as buying Playboy for the “articles”?
The more you eat, the more carbon you respire, and the fatter you get. Can’t be.
Blackswan Mr Clever: Of course it bloody isn’t! I draw/paint with watercolour pencils. I like to have interesting subjects. I’m also intensely interested in what makes people ‘go’. I also like fiction. I like a bit of mystery, fantasy, imagining, something outside of the everyday. I’m forward-looking, thinking of possibilities. I write and create. I like to look deeply or lightly into things — sometimes at the same time. I’m open to new experiences, and like to find out what they can tell me or reveal to me. Even the ancient Greeks were intrigued by aspra grammata, literally white letters, secret writing. “Once in a while you can get shown the light/ in the strangest of places if you look at it right” — The Grateful Dead.
Starving to death on the couch should gain sainthood for the committed emissions -saver. Exercise is out; it increases respiration. Don’t eat; don’t exercise. Farct if I know.
Anyway, I don’t think there ought to be ONE guy round the fire to whom falls exclusively the story-telling privilege. A group around a fire is a community of friends, and should alternate at listening and speaking. Even as they all drink, smoke, enjoy their marshmallows. And who knows what else.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 2:11 pm
The end-game is that we “expire”, become a carbon-sink and return to the earth. Excessive human exhalation is the root-cause of AGW, dontcha know?
There’s a thought – will cremation attract prohibitive Carbon Pollution taxes?
They’ve already started “natural” cemeteries in meadows where the corpse is wrapped in bio-degradable shrouds and a tree is planted over the grave, the better to “feed” from the body, thereby restoring the “natural balance” for a better world.
Simple really.
Amanda @ 2.19pm
And who knows what else? For that intimate fireside duo.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Hugh Hefner liked “to have interesting subjects”…. and was … “also intensely interested in what makes people ‘go’.”
“A group around a fire is a community of friends, and should alternate at listening and speaking.” Very, very true. However…..
“since I’d only arrived on the blog and hadn’t read what went before (and still haven’t). Basically, without knowing the details, I was just putting in a good word.”
In the blogosphere “listening” equates to “reading” to understand what the conversation is about, and a considered response contributes greatly to a rich exchange of ideas.
BTW – Aussies don’t toast marshmallows over the fire – we chuck in kangaroos, lizards and the odd parcel of witchetty grubs…..mmmmm yummy.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Wow, who was that? If you type something after the link, it shouldn’t embed like that and we’d get some more info.
It’s too good.
Amanda says:
October 30, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“Oooga Booga!” is another line from “Zulu.” Just kidding.
Anyway, don’t forget to vote next week! Won’t need Tarot cards to predict that outcome.
Back OT….
Tea Party’s mad hatters give hope to Democrats
http://www.smh.com.au/world/tea-partys-mad-hatters-give-hope-to-democrats-20101029-177j1.html
“Tea Party candidates could stand in the way of a Republican clean-sweep in next week’s midterm congressional elections, with a number of candidates in Senate races struggling against their more seasoned political opponents.”
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Blackswan,
…but no cane toads.
Ballot Bear
“…but no cane toads.”
Sheesh…. do you think we’d eat something yukky?
O K I get it. It was Chet Baker. Probably Bill Evans on piano.
That’s better.
Red Alert, Red Flags, Sound the Sirens, Into the Bunkers……….
Government department blocks access to site that keeps track of what MPs say
“A site which makes it easy to keep a track of what MPs have said in parliament has been blocked by a government department.”
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/government-department-blocks-access-to-site-that-keeps-track-of-what-mps-say-20101029-176h2.html
“Employees at the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service have been denied access to OpenAustralia.org on the grounds that it has been classified as a blog by its third-party internet filtering system, according to the site.
Mr Landauer contacted Customs for a response as to why the site was being blocked by the department’s filtering software.
Examples of blogs, it said, included commentary on particular subjects such as news or politics, online diaries, photo blogs and audio and video blogs.”
If this doesn’t get some reeeally clamourous attention in the MSM – I give up.
Black Swan@3.14p.m.
Sort of left, sort of comic
http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2010/10/this-years-halloween-costume/
.
Blackswan
Actually Blacky, far being a Red Alert, that’s the best news I’ve had all day. Maybe all week, in fact.
Yes, I agree with you – just one more way the guvmint is trying to censor what we read on the net. But they were doing that anyway, and we knew about it.
Now look on the bright side.
A group of volunteers has put together a website that keeps track of everything our pollies say. Every lie, everything. It even has a database searchable by keywords (try “climate change” – I just did – it’s fun).
But up until yesterday probably a dozen people knew about it.
Now, thanks to the heavy-handedness of the OZ Customs dept, and the stupidity of the SMH in reporting it, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Aussies know about this wonderful new resource.
Now excuse me a while, I’m going back to OpenAustralia.org to play a bit more.
Blackswan now you are into my area of expertise and yes the sites could have been blocked for that very reason and by accident by the third party company it happens all the time.
However they DO have the capability to white list the blog and allow access if it stays blocked either they are lazy or are up to something.
At work we had to block most blogging sites because of the URL structure and we could not discriminate between the porn blogs and the non porn blogs in this case it should be opened.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Thanks. That just sent me down memory lane – Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan….
Sooo good.
Comics? My son tells me they’re “graphic novels”. I liked it better when graphic novels were about “the ghost who walks”….lol
memory vault says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:10 pm
That’s why we luv ya MV………
I’m a plodding reactionary – you’re the lateral thinker…lol
Will my blood pressure survive if I too give it a shot?
Blackswan I suggest relaxing sometimes in the world of the internet sh*te happens and the left hand does not know what the right is doing. If it stays blocked for more than a week then get worried you are talking government employees and more than likely don’t know how to fix the problem as they are taking what the provider sends them as a default. Or heaven forbid have outsourced it to India where they really give a damn.
crownarmourer says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Hi Crown
How about “they are lazy and/or are up to something.”?
Not that I’m a paranoid cynic or anything..lol
Blackswan
Depends what you search on.
I got a giggle out of “climate change” and “carbon”. Then I followed up on one of my pet peeves – using “children” and their wellbeing as an excuse for just about anything.
“Children” returns four times the hits of “climate change”. And sure enough, most of it is “for the sake of the children” type bull.
MV,
Good on ya. Sounds like a buncha fun.
I fink if the Australian military forces did for real the video about invading NZ militarily that act would probably put paid to the entire Oz greentard movement.
Blackswan,
I think you would like a lot of the graphic novels out there, especially the one about Scud the Disposable Assassin. http://scud.com/
Speaking of which, wonder where Scud1 has been hanging about. Seen him on the Donkey Teeth JD blog lately?
Blackswan I’m as paranoid as the next man and naturally don’t trust the gub’mint in this case keep an eye on it, more than a week then begin to suspect the bar stewards. It literally is a 15 minute fix although some tools differ there are 5 major suppliers of this software. I always wanted to block the word ‘wood’ for it’s American connotations as slang for something that men suffer from. I work for a paper company although my CEO may not have seen the funny side of it. What is worse there is a subdivision in the city I live in called Morning Wood.
You might wish to check this site out, as I believe you can get bound copies of ALL the Phantom comix here in hardcover or through a link, freshly re-issued on archival grade paper, just the thing for firelight, a reading lamp, a brew and the crickets chirping out back.
http://www.fantagraphics.com/
This is a comics artist, tradesman and worker site, as well as a global comics online outlet.
Talking of invading Godzone, if your new P.M, Gorgeous Ghoulya, has some spare time , we’d love to see her. A lot of the boys are keen to show her a good time.
Ballot Bear says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:32 pm
My boy-chick tried fruitlessly to explain that stuff, but seeing as I’m obviously a bit slow on the uptake, I just get “confused” about the appeal.
BTW Walt, I’ve been meaning to ask you for days – are your eyes any better?
Eyes are a “thing” with me since I had my cornea seriously jabbed out by a cranky magpie many years ago. It took about five years to heal. Still, I wore my eye-patch at a rakish angle……lol
Been wondering how you’re doin’.
Farmerbraun says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Jeez Browny, she’d be lurvin’ it. We’d rather the bit with the throats at the end.
G’day all,
Sorry I’ve been AWOL for a bit; I’m typing this aboard the Spirit of Tasmania; we sail in one hour. I hope to be back in my office tomorrow afternoon, a new thread in about 40 hours give or take a few.
Hang in there folks, I’m a-comin’
Oz
G’day Oz
Have a smooth crossing – and a safe drive home – it’s p’sisstently raining right now.
G-day all.
Blackswan
I’m glad you enjoyed the article. Suckitude is a great word and so appropriate to both our governments. In California the suckitude is so rampant and thorough that it can be declared a true Suckocracy.
I think you would enjoy a visit to Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Lots to see and do especially if you like outdoor recreation. You my just be the only swan I’ve ever heard of who hates to fly. The swans in Montana love to fly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8u4hJo5stM
Oz
I hope you do get the opportunity to visit the US someday. Your “Be Prepared” post made me smile when you described “bands of right-wing nut jobs in camouflage fatigues and web netting, inhabiting armed compounds” because that is more a Montana militia stereotype than a Texas one. The people there may not be as friendly as they are down under (yes, I visited as a teenager, but never made it to Tasmania) but they are far nicer than Californians.
Walt O’Many Names Bear
I love Frank Zappa! That was a new one for me, thanks. I do miss the dental floss, but not the pygmy ponies. A video for election day for you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76IGLi6jWI&ob=av3e
Amanda
If you and Mr. A. do get to travel to MT, WY, ID, I can make a few recommendations. Cody, WY for it’s cheesy cowboy Buffalo Bill museum, Thermopolis, WY for the dinosaur digs, Chico Hot Springs Resort in MT, Virginia City, MT for the vigilante history and melodrama, and of course Yellowstone is in all three.
Fenbeagle
I enjoyed your last few posts, especially the Pachoochoo. I am quite partial to big-nosed, floppy-eared hounds.
Locusts
On a previous thread you thought you wouldn’t fit in here. I think you would fit in quite well in most of the US and Western Canada. But in California the smoking and spitting habits would get you ostracized. I’ve been here 28 years and I still don’t fit, which is good because if I ever did my mom would come, grab me by the ear and drag my a$$ back to Montana screaming “I didn’t raise a kid of mine to behave like that!”
Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time to go back and comment on your previous thread. I read your China posts with great interest.
msher
Thank you again for your post. We’ll see how things play out in the next few days.
Goodnight all.
Thanks for asking, Blackswan. The lutein, co-enzyme Q-10, biotin, glucosamine, and the soymilk to serve as the protein building blocks for the above to work has resulted in stopping the retinal bleeding, to the befuddlement of my cute apprentice Ukrainian-trained female doctor. I mentioned by dietary efforts and my special-order high-intensity UV-screening molasses-coloured sunspec’s which she took a look through. She mentioned that where she came from, that was standard practice to use specialty amino acid supplements, vitamins and diets, but not here. She asked where I learned, and I said I asked the Ukrainian salesperson at the Syracuse Vitamin World store what to do http://www.vitaminworld.com I moved from every six months to annual checkouts.
Te downside is my prescription has slid downward about 20-30% to the bad, and there is nothing to do about the internal eye fluid pressure. I am scheduled to get my Kermit the Frog uberflaps growing out of my eyelids cut away sometime next month when the burn specialist plastic surgeon comes in on his rounds. I’ve new specs on the way.
Typing is tough and reading is almost impossible without aspirin, which is all I ever take for anything, and draw the line on three a day max. The times I’ve needed antibiotics they kick right in, and I usually have to throw away half the bottle.
Life is good. Nostrovia!
Stop Global Dumbing Now says:
October 30, 2010 at 7:05 pm
G’day T……… (note the apostrophe rather than a hyphen – we have to get you guys to have the right Aussie accent …LOL)
This swan loves to fly (did enough of it over many years), I just loathe being jammed into modern commercial flights with no leg-room to speak of. The worst of it are the airports. In the past 9 years security issues are one thing, but incessant flight cancellations and delays are beyond my patience.
Give me that ferry crossing any time. Right now Oz is probably lying back in his bunk having a well-earned snooze. Only way to go.
memory vault says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:29 pm
MV – “for the sake of the children” type bull.
You said it. Drives me nuts, and plumbs about the same depths as seal pups, polar bears and pandas.
If you’re feeling calm and philosophical try: http://www.1millionwomen.com.au/Board-of-Directors.cfm?ruuid=#
Check out Board of Directors, Advisory Board and Ambassadors. It’s a Who’s Who of every Green/Socialist with a set of ovaries and a couple of dudes who wish they had ’em too.
Quick, where’s my BP meds……….
crownarmourer says:
October 30, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Gee Crown, Woody Allen would never get a mention………not a bad thing really.
Stop Global Dumbing Now
Really glad you like the posts! I can’t offer a great deal on the Climate Change Warm Front, but it’s nice to be able to entertain you guys!
Swan
Whose man is our man? You should know the answer to that!
I need a little space that is not necessarily related to Global Warming to show others who don’t care much for the subject. There’s a time and a place for engaging people in controversial intellectual debates, and before they promise to give you money is probably not always the best time! So I’ve followed Manonthemoor, and Crown’s lead and set up a blog. I’m still working on the format, but it can be found here:
http://ourmaninsichuan.wordpress.com/
I’d love everybody’s feedback on it, especially regards to the layout, and whether or not they can see the Chinese characters! Like I said work in progress!
Here is a little translation I did this morning, from my morning newspaper:
Yesterday was the Coldest Day in 10 years
Yesterday, temperatures in Chengdu only managed to reach 10.1°C. This peak temperature was reached in the morning, after which temperatures declined again, by evening reaching 9.5°C. Combined with rain that fell on and off throughout the day gave Chengdu the coldest 28th of October in 10 years.
It was so cold that even dogs refused to eat.
Yesterday, starting from early morning, fine rain fell throughout the day, the rate never exceeding a third of a millimetre per hour. The surface of the roads was always wet, and sometimes the rain fell, and sometimes it didn’t, like the Apricot Flower Rain from the old stories where the clothes never become truly wet. Men wore hats, and tried to avoid taking their umbrellas. Women walked along the roads holding umbrellas above their heads, yet the fine rain was blown under their umbrellas by the southerly wind. Even fashionable girls were forced to wear thick scarfs and heavy woolly hats.
It was not only people: even dogs curled up like cats preparing for winter. The previous evening Miss Li’s Teddy Dog refused its food. “Normally, whenever he sees food he jumps all over the place, but yesterday he wouldn’t even acknowledge his dog food.” Miss Li found that the dog had curled up in a corner, shivering. Yesterday morning, the dog which normally gets up at 8 o’clock refused to leave its bed, “He just wouldn’t wake up, he was still hiding in his bed when I went to work.”
Why did the temperature fall? Sichuan Province Specialist Meterological Station worker said that this was down to “Autumn Rain” brought about by the arrival of a cold front; rain clouds settled on the city, and blocked out the heat giving sunlight…etc.
_____
The people of Sichuan, along with those in many other provinces, have no access to heating in the winter. So if it is 10°C outside, it is 10°C inside too. In fact sometimes it feels warmer outside in the cheaper homes, as tiled floors tend to attract cold, and are not as friendly on the feet as a deep shaggy carpet is…
______
I went back to the scene of the riots this afternoon, and there were loads of police holding guns, and a couple of shotguns as well. I was too busy to find out what was going on, but it looks like I’m missing out on some fun!
Those winds should of course read northerly rather than southerly, I thought I’d been extra clever and got it right by swapping it round, but obviously not.
Right this is going to get confusing now!
Intel Bear says:
October 29, 2010 at 1:39 am
Walt,
Thanks for taking us on a stroll with you across the bridge on your morning coffee quest.
It’s very beautiful. The second shot from the bridge reminds me of the Huon river in southern Tas lined with willows. I’ve never seen an entire hillside forest in autumn gold (except on film). Do you have a car? That walk looks perilous if it’s all ice and snow.
Really sorry to hear about your eyeballs Bear. Hope they can be sorted out.
Locusts says:
October 30, 2010 at 8:16 pm
I rarely ask questions I know the answer to.
It’s good for you to “have a go” at your own site – there are five rectangles at the top with little numerals in them – are they supposed to be Chinese characters?
If so, they don’t show up here.
“The people of Sichuan, along with those in many other provinces, have no access to heating in the winter. So if it is 10°C outside, it is 10°C inside too.”
Do you really mean Zero heating AT ALL? Wow. Hard to imagine. Let’s hope this cooling doesn’t get too much deeper.
Swan,
Thanks for the feedback, yep those rectangles are supposed to be characters…
Yes there is no heating here. -15 is bearable if you have heating in your house +10 barely is without!
Locusts
October 30, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Delighted you have decided to create your own blog, your efforts deserve a permanent independent place on the internet.
I continue to lurk and watch events as they unfold, but since AGW watching AND contributing can become a full time occupation,and other things have to take priority.
NoIdea
I hope you will take note of Locusts efforts since you work is more than worthy of a separate blog, if only as I have done to create a repository for your work.
Pointy
I watch with a little concern your interchange with hank, msher has at least taken the trouble, effort and opportunity to make a blog topic post on LG and interact with it.
I look forward to a blog topic post by pointman to demonstrate you are made of the same mettle, it goes without saying that your work also deserves its own blog as with Noidea even if it is only a repository for your work.
Walt and MV
I read with concern about your health problems and hope your are both now improving. Hopefully Oz will one day arrange a second blog topic post by MV and perhaps Walt has a contribution to make as well.
Oz
LG continues to reach parts that other blogs cannot reach, thank you. I can only encourage the idea of any of out regulars being offered the opportunity to make guest blog posts.
motm
Locusts says:
October 30, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Hi Locusts, I like your site. A few thoughts on navigation, constructive I hope. Put a ‘Home’ button in the same position on every page so people can get back to the top when they’ve done a ‘continued here’. Add a ‘back’ button at the end of each sub-page.
If you click on ‘I Step in to the Fray’, then click on the ‘After Taxi’ button at the bottom of the page, you get the taxi story but only the first half of it. Not what you intended I think. Still can’t see the 5 Chinese characters. They come out as rectangles.
Pointman
Eyeballs Bear says:
October 30, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Walt,
Human nature to take things like eyes for granted until they’re at risk. Sounds like you’ve been having a tough time of it. I’m sorry, and wish you well in your treatment and recovery.
Odd about the glucosamine and aspirin helping eyes – they work a treat on arthritic joints as well but alas, my eyesight hasn’t improved. All the best Walt.
PS Walt,
I went to your vitamin link and am surprised at the prices being so much lower than here, although I don’t know why – volume and all that. I’ve been buying the Glucosamine/MSM/Chondroitin combo in powder form in big 1 or 1.5 kilo sizes that are so much cheaper and last for many months. When I’m having an extra-creaky day I toss a couple more spoonfuls in – then I can leap tall buildings at a single bound……Nah, maybe it’s just a placebo…lol
The WSJ on the election.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303284604575582313970757590.html
Looks like the Dem. candidates are trying to campaign without associating themselves with party policy. Survival at all costs I suppose …
Pointman
I saw some comments on James’ blog about what one gets (or doesn’t get) for posting. I would just like to thank ozboy for the beach house, Bentley and of course the check for having written this article. They will cushion my later years nicely.
Clues to When CEOs and Politicans Are Lying to You
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curious/201010/clues-when-ceos-and-politicans-are-lying-you
Some interesting findings. I’m certain they’re true !
Pointman
pointman @11:51 pm
The unpopularity of the last two years’ programs pushed by the Dems is what the first 2 paragraphs of my article are about. The MSM acts as if this is some sort of surprise to Dem candidates, and I say it isn’t. They hear from constitutents and do constant polling, so they’ve known what’s coming.
Hank
msher says:
October 31, 2010 at 12:05 am
Do you have any feel for how many incumbent Dems decided not to run for a further term?
Pointman
Blackswan: You are so unwarrantedly patronizing, it’s amusing. Also, I mentioned Playboy once in a throwaway comparison. You mentioned it or its founder again, and again. Now why would that be?
I love these people — you are not alone — who like to tell others how they should be on the blog: how they should approach it, what their attitude and style and content should be, whether their punctuation’s good enough, whatever. A pointless exercise, but it never stops them. For instance, on the question of grammar alone, I wouldn’t bother to tell Blackswan that ‘lay down with dogs’ is a strictly speaking uneducated use of the transitive verb where the intransitive (‘lie’) is required, notwithstanding current American inability or unwillingness to distinguish between the two. But I’m not here to correct people’s grammar or indeed anything else about them.
SGDN: Yellowstone–super. And thanks for the recommendations.
Walt: I think you’ll fine that the actual line was ‘Ooga booga booga’. Which means ‘These grass socks are really chafing my legs!’ Whereas ‘ooga booga’ means ‘let’s go get us some!’
Hi, Blackswan and MOTM. Thanks for your concern. It is coming along better than expected. My vision is not good enough to allow of driving, though as you know there are millions of people on the road with obstructed or reduced visison capabilities still driving…a lot of them traffic police LOL Winter urban forest walks in silent midnight snowfalls where you can hear for miles are something one should not miss. One of my big annual events is to do this routine Xmas Eve, as there is nothing and no one out and about except the odd police cruiser, if even that. I have flushed deer downtown, and lots of rabbit and various smaller predators (bobcat and fox, especially bobcat around here. No problem finding and buying a bobcat/housecat hybrid in Binghamton or Syracuse LOL Tough on the furniture and the dogs, though).
I grew up in the snow, so it really isn’t a big deal to take a fall now and again, but you have to dress for it and know how to take it. Those thick leather car coats the Sopranos wear aren’t for looks, it is for protection against bone breaks when you slip on urban ice in cities made of marble. The worst ice is always in parking lots from car traffic compacting the snow, and usually people take a dive getting in and out of their car LOL Grabbing the car door going down only makes it worse.
Amanda,
I agree on the translation. If you get a chance, though, Gargle “Zulu choir.” They have amazing voices. They give “Songs of Praise” a good run for their money.
The thing we are doing wrong is not posting links to the blog to search engines based on our topic selections. We would have more exposure if we did.
If I do a topic for OzBoy to review for a post, it would be on something other than AGW, as from what I see, it is going the way of all suburban leftard white-flight drivel that passes for thought and will be on the bonepile with the hula hoop and mood rings in less than six months. Simply put, the math associated with infinite numbers of interacting microscopic simultanieties being used as a predictive tool for macroscopic phenomena’s behaviour is not there, and institutions like the Isaac Newton Institute which take on these sort of pre-math symbolic logic issues in depth (and have since the Royal Society was formed) agree that it may not be possible to solve these sorts of predictive math functions within the framework of present known math systems. Boeing has two parallel supercomputing Crays for addressing how various wing NACA profiles generate trailing-edge fractal turbulence which results in wingtip and trailing edge vorteces eddies, yet these computerized fluid dynamics problems address only an area and space of around 100 yards by 100 yards by 100 yards with only the remotest degree of predictive accuracy. It is idiotic that this could be duplicated on a planet-wide basis in the absence of even knowing what is the engine which drives weather variation, if “engine” and “driver” are even relevant terms for discourse. Just defining with accuracy how compressible fluid turbulence behaves in a boiler combustion chamber or in a gas turbine combustor pot is pusing the boundaries of known science, though there are superb computerized fluid dynamics analytical tools on the commercial market. Ask someone who programs these fluid flow analytical tools if they can do with those programmes a decent job of predicting weather patterns on even a citywide basis and they will start throwing furniture at you. It is really a dead issue, like time travel and psychic levitation and developing cars which run on the drivers’ human methane emissions: there are plenty of things out there to waste one’s life on which are fun and even useful that should take higher priority.
I would rather do something on how libertarianism, though sort of an unconsciously self-contradictory term in that it asks for people to act independently but also as a political group–most things in life that work make no sense at all, is the lesson to be learned, they just do, that’s what most women know instinctively. Reason does not rule the roost, and maybe that is for the best in most cases–balances the political environment against extremism of all varieties. Libertarianism also evinces the genuine tolerance leftardism lacks entirely. I hate movements, though, even anti-movements. Movements are replete with the logic of “Is that a real poncho, or is that a Sears poncho?” which made people so wacky back in the day, drugs and rock and roll or not.
AGW is like ethnic persecution in that this sort of madness is how the formerly upwardly mobile deal with the failure of the economy and its management to provide employment adequate to the dreams and aspirations of the people at large: specific and identifiable and problems soluble only through hard work, perseverance and self-reliance take a back seat to blameology, victimology and finding someone else’s hard got earnings to ransack. In the Twenties, an artist named Georg Grosz did a ten panel cartoon for “Simplicissimus” Magazine, a humour magazine of the day not unlike the pre-1971, pre-Hollywood “National Lampoon,” entitled “How Do I Become Rich?” He illustrated a list of options in a way still relevant today: “Marry A Rich Widow,” “Become A Film Star,” “Form A Political Party,” “Borrow Money From the USA to Pay Off War Debts,” “Win The Lottery,” “Pick Up Cigar Butts,” etc., but the last panel was best. It was captioned “Anything But Work,” which showed the back of a bare-chested miner going at a mineface with his pick. The Nazis did not like him at all. (You couldn’t get an honest day’s work out of Schicklybooger; he didn’t even write “Mein Kampf, ” Alois Drexler did…then Shitler had him killed for the royalties. Sounds like the Dem’s and the leftards, doesn’t it? They wouldn’t be caught dead on a construction site or in an everyday factory or food processing plant with all those smelly honest-sweat-soaked workers. True socialists all).
It would be amazing to see Fenbeagle take on a reprise of this theme. That ten-panel would place nicely with the “New Yorker” or “Private Eye” or “The Spectator.”
pointman @ 10:25 am
No, I don’t know how many Dem. incumbents aren’t re-running. But I think I see what they thought they were going to do this time = garden variety fraud. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, who is way behind in his race, is relying on the public employees union – the SEIU (“service employees international union.”). Their leader visits the White House once a week for lunch with Obama, more than anyone else other than Biden. It turns out SEIU members send out the ballots in Nevada. As as been posted above on this thread, so far 5000 mail-in ballots in Nevada have been found where it was pre-marked for Dem. candidates including Reid. That doesn’t happen “accidentally.”
In California. Senator Barbara Boxer, a very senior Dem, has been sending out letters to teachers asking them to get students to volunteer in her campaign. That is so illegal for a Senator to do. Not that I think anything will happen to her. It was an inadvertent mistake.
I believe more incumbent Republican officials resigned before the 2008 elections, believing they would be hurt by the anti=Bush mood in parts of the country. That goes along with my contention that Republicans seek to get their policies by methods other than vote fraud.
Walt sez: I hate movements, though, even anti-movements. Movements are replete with the logic of “Is that a real poncho, or is that a Sears poncho?” which made people so wacky back in the day, drugs and rock and roll or not.
LOL
Walt sez:
I hate movements, though, even anti-movements. Movements are replete with the logic of “Is that a real poncho, or is that a Sears poncho?” which made people so wacky back in the day, drugs and rock and roll or not.
LOL
Walt: sorry about the repetition; WordPress to its old tricks.
Re ‘knowing how to take it’. Poor old Dr Atkins of diet fame, though eating all the right things and in wonderful health, died about age 70 when he cracked his head, having slipped on black ice on his driveway. An inch to the left or right and he might be alive today.
Msher: Just thought I’d mention that I normally DO read you, here and at the DT. However, one cannot read everything written by even one’s favourite commenters: there are only so many hours in the day and I spend too much time online as it is. The fact that I give you the thumbs-up and the benefit of any doubt regardless just goes to show my respect for you (and liking).
Pointman says:
October 31, 2010 at 12:04 am
It’s funny also how absolutely starkers the authors of articles for “Psychology Today” so obviously are. Would you trust any of them to pilot a cruise ship, work with an EMT ambulance crew, or run the control room of a nuke reactor? (Shudder) I am sure that lot, if subalterns at Rourke’s Drift, would command the British troops to give the attacking Zulus a big hug.
They look like they sleep in their clothes from being over-“medicated” themselves.
Or maybe I’ve dated too many psych majors. Just don’t, I’m telling you!
Amanda says:
October 31, 2010 at 2:50 am
I think the Greek action word applicable in Dr. Atkins’ case is “hubris.” Most people born before 1930 would have been happy to have seen age 40. 70 is not always a bad time to check out, either, necessarily, though there is never a “good time” to do so.
Knew lots of fellow Marines who made a point of eating tonnes of meat with no veggies or fruit, though, as part of their weightlifting routine. They really smelled incredibly bad when they sweated, and all the time. My nightmare was spotting for them on the reclining dead lifts. Phewww.
The worst stench emanated from the fish-and-seafood-only types. They could win any “armpits at ten paces” duel with ease, even after a half-hour in a sauna, even if their opponent wore a gas mask.
I’ll spring for a burger or two now and again, and I like bacon with brekkies also: not every day, though. Food supplements I take owing to age and incipient and present infirmity; my body no longer synthesizes the stuff in the pills I take.
Chacun a son gout. Works for me, not for everyone.
If you want to see how devestating a simple experiment can be to a whole profession, look up the ‘thud’ experiment. They gave up psychoanalysing people after that and just handed out tranqs and happy pills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
The volunteers all had to admit they had psychological problems to get their freedom back. That included the experiment’s designer, who spent two months locked up BTW.
Pointman
Funny Dr. Adkins didn’t find out what the word “peritonitis” means first hand, either. He had to have been breaking the rules he set for others. For dietary consultants to do so is almost always the rule, not the exception. I don’t believe Dr. Kellogg ever ate a bowl of ceral with milk in his life.
*cereal Knowing Dr. Kellogg was from Michigan clinches it for me LOL
Walt, dear, what ARE you talking about? Sounds intriguing, but I have no only the vaguest idea. Which should please Mr Snooty no end, since he thinks that already.
BTW, what Atkins advised in its most extreme form was for dieters who really needed to lose weight, not as a total way of life. Someone I know (NOT me!) tried it, and it worked. Eventually he ate less fat and more salads, but still kept the carbs down. But for a long time he was on full-bore Atkins (is that a word?) and that’s what got his engine of weight loss running.
The little known follow up was the Coup de Grace. A prestigious Psychiatric Hospital challenged the experimenter to send more recruits, they’d spot them. They subsequently identified 41 people who were faking it and chucked them out.
The experimenter then informed them he’d not sent them a single volunteer.
Pointman
* that began as ‘no idea’, but was meant to be ‘only the vaguest’ — if you mean to imply that the Atkins diet leads to bad teeth and gums.
BTW, some aspects of the economy do show some promise. Prommise of what, is hard to tell.
For instance, GM has replenished its pension funds, turned record profits, and has made decent headway in paying down its bailout loan to the Feds:
http://detnews.com/article/20101029/AUTO01/10290389/GM-spiffs-up-finances-for-IPO
Some things never change, though. Sigh.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20101030/METRO01/10300352/Area-Bonnie-and-Clyde-suspected-in-recent-bank-holdups
Oh, I see: peritonitis is rather away from teeth and gums. Look, I can’t help the fact I’m healthy and just don’t know about these things!
They can’t run that security camera picture. That’s racial profiling LOL
LOL We’re all having our own ‘conversation’ here. Brings new meaning to the idea of ‘chat room’. We’re all chatting, just not to each other!
*promise
Walt, have just seen now your response about Atkins — why did it not show up before? And I ‘refreshed’. Weird.
Anyway, thanks for that amusing rundown of male smelliness. I always wondered why nature couldn’t make mankind a bit sweeter, esp. the sex that likes to keep its armpit hair long and luxurious. (God knows why: men would look better shaven.) I mean, what is the evolutionary benefit of giving people, and esp. men, armpits that cause one to wish prompt evacuation of the surrounding 15 feet in Florida on a hot day? Is that man going to attract anything other than bluebottle flies and the stray undiscriminating mosquito? I like men on the whole but wish at times they could be a little less repulsive. LOL
Walt sez 70 is not always a bad time to check out
Oh good lord, Walt, don’t let my friend hear you say that. He was 67 in February and he’s feeling old and hating it, not least because he works in part for the Coroner’s Office, when not being a big-shot scientist, and thus he cuts up cadavers that used to be older than he but are now about the same age. I’ve told him to stop working at the Coroner’s Office. Take ’em out to the graveyard and do it on a slab at night! Just joking. I said, ‘look, it it’s getting you down, don’t do that’. Personally I think he ought to be spend more quality time around me. That’s the sort of thing to make him feel younger! [Wicked laugh]
Hi, Amanda. The going theory is that those hairs are supposed to be the second main wicking and atomizer hair-patch for airborne transmission of male pheromones. That makes male body hair seem even grosser, doesn’t it? With a lot of guys, you can’t tell if it’s hair or a strange form of colour-coordinated mold or super-thin worms slithering out of their pores.
Male ear and nose hair is a delight as well. Some guys could braid their ear and nose hair on the tops of their heads and put ribbons and bows in them as a variation of the Donald Trump combover.
Amanda, there’s a reason there are still men’s gyms and women’s gyms. I can’t speak for the women’s gyms, but when three or four guys get together for a workout, you can bet after two or three sessions not a single detail of each others’ anatomy goes unmocked. I don’t think you would be surprised to note that one of the main sources of weight room injuries are people starting to laugh at a comment when they have a substantial weight up over their heads. Almost all the comments made are not fit for mixed company.
Amanda
The only deck I could find with a standing woman and a stormy sea was The Llewellyn Tarot (based on Rider-Waite) with a Welsh twist. Is this the one you use?
In most decks the woman is seated in the Two of Swords.
I first noticed the Tarot from the deck made by Aleister Crowley, (as men go, one of the truly repulsive (and bald) ones, he scared Hitler!) the Thoth Tarot deck.
The following is not from the Thoth deck.
A female figure sits blindfolded, as she calmly balances two swords across her shoulders. Behind her is a large body of water and above her is the moon.
The woman’s seated position, in combination with the crescent moon, recalls the High Priestess card, and we find a link as well in this card’s representation of the characteristic feminine strength of intuition. The woman’s blindfold and the sea show a necessity to rely not on immediate stimuli but on deeper thoughts and feelings, that part of the unconscious mind that we call our higher self.
Her seated position, when conceptually paired with the balanced swords and the blindfold, may also recall the Justice card. Yet here the concept of justice is not one of retribution, but of making decisions that are balanced, moral and that we trust to be harmonious within and without ourselves.
Unlike the “hoodwinked” woman held captive on the Eight of Swords, this card depicts a woman in control. The scene and the discipline of her pose do more to suggest that she has placed the blindfold on herself, as is done in many cultures, ritualistically, to encourage reliance on the other senses (for example the use of blindfolds in martial arts).
The woman is blind in her situation, but she is safe, not only unafraid, but centered. She wields powerful weapons, but they are not held in a position that is threatening to her or anyone else. The moon and the sea reinforce this sense of calm and equanimity.
This is a card of meditation, not of action. The crossed swords point to different possible directions, but for the moment the character is looking inward rather than outward and in the possession of an awesome power that protects her until she finds the direction to apply it.
Is this my reading for you?
NoIdea
Well I’ve just read from where I left off yesterday – this gets more surreal by the moment! You’re right Amanda, I’ve lost track of all the threads that keep coming and going.
Pointman- are you trying to tell us you are not Wise, Calm, Diplomatic, Caring and Tolerant? (never did understand tarot cards)
Amanda – I’m with you on the hairy armpits thing, don’t know about the men but I have several european female neighbours (no names – no pack drill) who give me a funny turn when wearing strappy tops!!!
Walt – how awful for you not being able to drive, my sister had a cataract operation and couldn’t drive for a while and she reckoned it was the knowing she COULDN’T that was worse than not doing it. She doesn’t do much driving anyway but was desperate for the ban to end.
Can’t post much at the moment as Mr M has just been to the dentist with a tooth-abscess and he’s like a “Bruin” with a sore head, growling! Have to administer paracetamol and sympathy………
As a throwback to an hairier era, may I just point out that the vast abundance of nasal and Aural hair that comes with increasing age, is actually just a genetic disposition designed to prevent arachnid attacks whilst sleeping.
If one grows ones nasal hair to the correct density it can be used as an effective odiferous BS detector.
With the correct level of personal grooming, including but not limited to shampooing and conditioning, one can arrange ones ear fluff to become a genre specific music filter. With a Gaussian gauge that enables only decent music through, I have to listen to Lady Gaga backwards…
One possible translation…
“They starve above, above. They model it on the arts of Lucifer. Won’t you leave me? They starve above, above. They follow you and the one you love – not funny. (…) HELP ME PLEASE!”
Is it much better backwards?
Or is it just me?
NoIdea
meltemian says:
October 31, 2010 at 4:55 am
Hiya Mel. At times, I’ve been all of those things but unfortunately never at the same time nor for long. Such is life …
Pointman
Meltemian — sympathize with you completely on the man-with-tooth thing: Mr A. had one extracted yesterday, under sedation, which he swears by; much better than the beginning of the year when he had to have two root canals at once. The pain leading up to those was like torture (infection), and nothing really did the trick to take it away. At least we in modern times can get relief eventually. Just imagine what it must have been like in past ages. In fact, people must have been readier for warfare and bloodshed and beating each other up, not only because they hadn’t invented the Enlightment, but also because they were so grumpy on account of being in pain so much of the time. And hungry, in many cases, too.
Walt, it’s also true that armpit hair prevents chafing, when you consider the moisture and heat friction that occurs when the arms are moving/working. I just wish that Nature could have devised something cuter, like felt tassels or something.
Re: the gym. My mother’s lover took us all to his gym. Pale bodies with lots of hair and no one had the least idea about fashion. They exercised — I kid you not — to an orchestral piece that sounded somewhat like this piece, only stompier and funnier (I’ll never forget it):
The scene was such that it put me off gyms for life.
NoIdea: Well, well, well. You are correct: it’s the deck you name. I defer to your superior knowledge, not least your ability to relate one card to another (the Major Arcana). As to myself, I’m not sure that ‘power’ is a word that applies: if anything the Hanged Man would seem to signify…. Also I would ask, while taking your correction about meditation rather than action, though fundamentally our readings are on the same track: can one be truly safe or balanced and sure of being ‘in the right place’ if one is blind, whether wilfully or not?
Amanda/NoIdea,
Tarot cards won’t help you with me I’m afraid. Waylon Jennings got me about right – “I’ve always been crazy cos it’s kept me going insane …” or “one step ahead or behind”
Pointman
That’s fine, P. They’re really for thinking about one’s own situation. Anyway I thought I’d shoot my arrow and see where it landed.
meltemian says:
October 31, 2010 at 4:55 am
A couple of well-timed and rebounding two-handed whacks with a rolling pin or a cast-iron fry pan also doth wonders when soothing ye savage fanged manbeast.
Walt LOL Why can’t she just try Ibuprofen?
Amanda
It has always been my concern that I may be travelling fast. The direction just guessed at.
Is there a “right” place?
Will we know when we get “there”?
The veils of perception can swirl and confuse us much more than a mere blindfold.
Because, we can actually see things that are not there, just because we want to see them, we are all at risk of treading an unsafe path.
The way may look clear and safe, traps normally do.
When one can truly “know” where they are headed then one is (or should be?) truly committed.
I feel perhaps we are all, kindred spirits grasping in the darkness, at patterns we can barely comprehend.
When action is called for, it is through meditation and careful thought, that unintended consequences can be mitigated through the maintenance of equilibrium.
In other words, predestination makes life meaningless and you may as well embrace the incomprehensibility of why there is air.
If we truly know our direction why are we here?
NoIdea
Amanda, I would rather presume the why of the Medieval period being the way it was, which is well supported by copiously supplied and corroborated evidence, is that the people who lived in the Middle Ages in Europe and elsewhere were such complete and total arseholes that the plagues, the tremendous urban fires, the mini-Ice Age, and the religious wars of that age were the best proof we have that there is some form of moral and ethical order in the Universe.
NoIdea: You had me (kind of spookily) with you about innocent-seeming traps. . I thought some months back that I was just wishing someone I knew ‘happy birthday’. Fateful decision, but how was I to know that? But ‘predestination’ is a concept best left to others. I don’t know what that can mean when we all have wills and we don’t know outcomes. So everything was ‘meant’ to happen in the sense that it did happen. None of it’s meaningless. I can see how my decisions, and other people’s, have led to one thing or another, even if I wish it had been otherwise. Even the sad things make sense. But that’s looking at life in hindsight. I want to know: what happens next?
No Idea,
Great poem based on the twinned philosophy of “You take the wheel, I’ll take the pedals, and Alf here will shout directions, as soon as we open another bottle” and “It seemed to be a good idea at the time.”
Bear at 7:22, I knew you were hilarious but I didn’t know you were cruel!
Amanda says:
October 31, 2010 at 7:25 am
The simple answer to what happens next is, Whatever you like.
Scary concept, isn’t it? That’s why the Middle Ages lasted as long as they did.
7:25: I wish!
7:34: And they had all that swinging armpit hair and bad breath getting in their way.
That’s why people want to put everyone back in the cage now, anyway they can, whether it is AGW, its bankroller Islam and Chinese communism, leftardness, and tribalism gone mad. They fear this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-d5x-CiTUs Talkin’ bout…
Which reminds me, I am going to sort out where my polling station is.
Now.
Amanda says:
October 31, 2010 at 1:21 am
“it’s amusing” – I’m glad you haven’t entirely lost your sense of humour.
“unwarrantedly patronizing” – perhaps “unwarrantably” is the word you were looking for, when “sardonic” might have sufficed.
“again, and again. Now why would that be?” – I referred to the publication once and its publisher once. Exaggeration doesn’t serve one well, nor does the asking of cryptic questions, especially when the intended inference is to denigrate one’s choice of reading material. Having never bought a copy of the magazine in question, I can only put its mention down to a colloquial idiom.
“uneducated” – that’s a fairly subjective matter isn’t it?
Please Miss, the dog ate me homework – honest.
Perhaps it’s just a Wild Colonial trait that makes us so uncouth. If I ditch the witchetty grubs on the fire and try marshmallows, will I get some “couth”?
Blackswan: I’d say ‘don’t ever change’ but it wouldn’t be necessary! I never said Aussies were uncouth, nor do I think so. Quite the contrary. However, you obviously enjoy having your feathers ruffled by me, and I’m glad that I can do something for you.
Blackswan says:
October 31, 2010 at 9:18 am
G’Day Swanny,
Pointman
Pity…Ozboy’s bar and grill used to be such a friendly, inviting place. Lately it has become a veritable chat room for a few and a wearisome repository of the drivel of a failed British author (and painter of self portraits). It’s too bad, really. The idea was a good one.
Dr Dave
Things are slow because there hasn’t been a new post.
As Ozboy has explained, he has a life to live outside the bar and grill.
Rather than your empty criticism, why don’t supply a guest post yourself, to help things along? You have in the past posted on several interesting topics.
Pointman.
You’ve brought a whole new meaning to “blonde jokes”.
Dave, if I remove myself from the chat, will that help?
Oh dear, out of the blue, dreary “Dr.” Dave with his insipid taste in music and cruiser-weight insights wants to start a flame war. I wonder why? Did I insult Sir Elton or something?
I’m actually quite accomplished and while I might paint and write and enjoy them thoroughly, I’ve also got a few bits both before and after my name. But all that guff’s irrelevant when you post; you’re back to ground zero. People judge you on what you post and I feel no need to add any authority before or after my handle. I leave that to the low esteem types or the liars.
Which one are you “Dr.” Dave?
Pointman
Amanda. You stay exactly where you are, m’dear. I’ll deal with him.
Pointman
Memory Vault,
I’d love to contribute to a real conversation. Alas, lately my attention is focused on issues uniquely American…I fear such issues would bore my UK an OZ brethren to tears. My criticism is not entirely “empty”. When I first stumbled onto this site I was greeted with warmth and enthusiasm. Lately I have noticed some distinctly nasty exchanges. There is also a profound tendency for “threadjacking”…a series of comments that veer decidedly away from the core content of the article posted.
Ozboy is a good sort. I shall never forget his welcome to the site. In fact, nearly everyone was very welcoming and friendly. Within a month I was met with what I can best describe as a belligerent, obnoxious, drunk. To be expected, I suppose. Libberygibbert doesn’t have the luxury of a team of 24/7 moderators.
I’ll think about this. Right now I’m writing several pieces about Libertarian issues. Perhaps I’ll bounce one off Ozboy and see if he likes it. Until then I just hope the usual patrons of the bar & grill remain civil.
Dave
Aww, why can’t we just…get along?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_79fnYlU7F0&NR=1 For my money, I would rather think of of Pointy and Blackie as successful fathers and husbands, Dave. Everything else is just frosting on an already-rich cake. Where’s your Pulitzer, meatball?
Holy shit, Pointman! Whatever made you think I was referring to you? A little touchy, eh? Why don’t you go back and pound Crown for an inadvertent error. I’m quite sure he hasn’t spent enough time in sackcloth and ashes. As if the rest of us haven’t endured a steady supply of meaningless, obscure and talentless music that YOU have provided…with nearly every other post.
Get over yourself! You deride anyone who dares to disagree with you. You’re a pompous jackass. Fortunately there is a veritable plethora of other sites to visit. I just feel sorry that Ozboys’s site got hijacked. Like I said…it’s a pity. It used to be such a friendly place.
Dr Dave
My comment still stands – contribute.
Threadjacking (and yes it does happen here) only occurs because the original subject matter runs out of puff.
So add something – surely one cannot be deeply immersed in both USA issues and Libertarian philosophies without having at least touched on the subject of “democracy”, which after all, is what this thread is about.
You don’t want to see it hijacked – then contribute and kick the original thread along.
Since it appears to be bicker time again maybe I should throw in something worthwhile to bicker about.
“Stealing Democracy – The Fallacy of This Article”.
The inference of Msher’s article is basically that we are losing something called “democracy” which here and elsewhere has been defined simply as “majority rule”. This loss – through theft – of this valuable commodity called “democracy” is then equated as the root cause of most of our current political woes.
Dare I suggest that the truth is somewhat opposite? That is, it is the erroneous and highly dangerous belief that we live in “democracies” in the first place, which forms the basis of our political strife. An erroneous and highly dangerous belief which, unfortunately is shared by most – including all the regulars here.
Some of us live in the UK. It is NOT a democracy. It is a Monarchy. Some of us live in the USA. It is NOT a democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. Some of us live in OZ. It is NOT a democracy. It is a Constitutional Monarchy.
These are not just fancy titles, or word-substitutes for “democracy” or “majority rule”.
They are titles for specific forms of government that, each in their own way, came about to specifically AVOID the possibility a “majority rule” (amongst other things).
“Democracy” is a dangerous and destructive form of government. Don’t believe me?
Take a closer look at the disaster and mess we find ourselves in. Far from being the result a loss of “democracy” it is the product of a surfeit of it.
memory vault,
Of course you are correct and accordingly I feel humbled. I’ve been wrestling with some issues regarding the legalization of marijuana but I am completely unaware of the legal issues in the UK or OZ. I have another burr up my ass about octogenarian legislators…too old to drive, but OK to make law.
Pointman – I want to apologize to you if you were offended by my comments. I should never have called you a pompous jackass. That was wrong and I should have known better. Please forgive my outburst.
Dr. Dave says:
October 31, 2010 at 11:07 am
Ah, judging from your reply, a liar but more accurately, a fantasist. The question remains though, why suddenly the big attack on poor me? Why the ‘failed author’ bit and more interestingly the addition of the British adjective? Chip on shoulder xenophobia?
Of course – you’re a failure. You had big ideas about yourself and your boundless talents (as did no doubt your doting Mommy) but the world never seemed to notice you.
Pointman
Um, reading this dialogue is a bit like watching a car crash — can’t take my eyes off it, even though it’s hardly a pretty sight.
Dave, a few thoughts. First, we had a lot of argy-bargy (though not nearly so angry as this) on the Delingpole DT blog months back, over the question of ‘On-topic’ and ‘Off-topic’. Some people would get cross about ‘off-topic’ comments. However, as I said then and as I say now, it is neither possible nor desirable to be strictly ‘on-topic’ all the time. One wants to respond to what others have said; one wants to share new information that may be tangential but still seems valid; one wants to share a joke; one wants to socialize; one wants a Night Shift (let your hair down in the evening hours). All of these things went on in James’s blog — which made it the rivetting and richly rewarding blog it became. I was there when only a handful of posters posted, long before it became the sprawling behemoth it now is. I’m suspicious of people that want to apply rules to it because we never had any rules, and the blog is always what the contributing people want it to be. That means everybody.
You’ll note that at the beginning of this thread we were on-topic and responded directly to the article (as I did, myself). Then, when we had essentially said our all on that topic, we started to drift. (On other websites than this, what you call ‘threadjacking’ is called, with less ire and resentment, ‘thread-drift’.) This is a natural feature of the blog; and I’ll tell you something: it’s a sign of the success of Ozboy’s blog that it happens. That’s right: it’s a sign of success! It means that sufficient numbers of people — regulars, which any thriving blogneeds — keep coming back and want to continue talking with one another and engaging one another somehow. The blog does not essentially go ‘dead’ for significant periods between Oz’s posting of new articles. To me, that is one marker of how his blog has ‘arrived’ — the fact that it draws people for different reasons at different times of day in different moods from different continents.
Finally, I think it’s a mistake to demand that we all spend our time in serious earnest about any given subject. Now, you may wish that some people were discussing things in serious earnest while others were being frivolous and off-topic; but Oz’s blog isn’t big enough for that yet. It took quite a while, and of course the full resources of the UK’s most preeminent newspaper, for James to achieve a blog like that. What happens here (usually) is that we are all more or less serious and on-topic for a while, and then our attention moves to other things. It’s the ebb and flow that makes the blog a satisfying place to visit. If you don’t find this ebb and flow satisfying, perhaps you’d be better off giving your time, which I’m sure is valuable to you, to a campaign of some kind — volunteering, writing to your elected representatives, starting your own website, etc. I would love to think that Prime Minister Cameron is listening closely to our pearls of wisdom, on those occasions when our oyster actually makes one — but somehow I doubt it. Rather than getting cross at us for being human, perhaps you should stay for the parts you enjoy and then expend your energies elsewhere, where they can do the most good.
Best wishes,
Amanda
Pointman
More than once I’ve fended off criticism of you here Pointy. Some of it has been justified. I’ve done because I consider you a very like-minded soul and I know how easy it is to become frustrated to the point of rage.
Dr Dave has now apologised.
I’m quite sure you can be just as big about it.
Dr. Dave says:
October 31, 2010 at 11:24 am
I’m suffering severe time lags in Wallawoora and posted before I saw your olive branch. We’re quits.
Pointman
Dr Dave
Can’t speak for the UK, but the legalisation – or otherwise – of dope is something of a hot topic here in OZ.
Since my pathetic attempt to steer the thread back to “democracy” seems to have fallen on it’s face, you want to share some thoughts on weed?
MV: I have to disagree about the U. S. A. not being a democracy. It is the textbook example of a representative liberal democracy, while also being a constitutional republic. Or, if you like, it’s a representative consitutional democratic republic, or a republican democracy, or a Lockean liberal representative democracy with a damn fine Constitution (especially since the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment!).
Dave, how are you doing? We haven’t really met, but then there are no introductions. All I know about you is the music you put on the jukebox. I can see that you write well. Maybe you learned something about me.
Nice to hear from you,
regards, farmer braun
Farmerbraun: Dave puts up great music to the Juke Box and is a fine member of the Bar & Grill. He’s got a bit fed up with us but perhaps he’ll decide we’re not so shabby after all. Anyway we’d like him to hang around, if he will.
Pointman,
Again…I apologize. It’s way too easy to become “involved” in something that really doesn’t matter. There’s no point in us feuding over the inconsequential. I’d much rather fight over something “real”. So what do you say we come up with a topic worthy of warfare? The ball’s in your court, buddy.
Amanda
Actually Amanda, unfortunately I agree with you. Regrettably today the USA, the UK and OZ are all run as “democracies”.
That’s why and how we are all in the mess we are in.
It is not how it’s supposed to be. One of the two main purposes of your Constitution and Amendments, and the OZ Constitution, and the UK Bill of Rights, are to ensure that simple “majority rule” cannot happen.
The Jets have had a spat. But they’re still the Jets, aren’t they?
MV: That’s why we have an Electoral College — no direct election of the president — and also why we have the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial functions. Unfortunately, no democracy can be the rule of the all-wise (let’s face it, it gave us Jimmy Carter and it gave us B. Obama — to say nothing of what it gave you in England). But as Churchill said, it’s the worst form of government except for all the others.
Sorry, you personally are not in England, are you? Hard to keep track sometimes on an international blog. I’m sure the Aussies have had their share of disappointments. The current lady included.
Dr. Dave says:
October 31, 2010 at 11:53 am
Like I said, we’re quits. I apologise too.
WTF, it ain’t a good bar without the occasional fight. Blessed be the peacemakers MV, for they shall inherit both sides shooting at them. But not in your case mate. Pump up the vol.
Pointman
Dave: I think you’ll appreciate this more than Pointman’s selection (which let’s face it, is dreadful): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8C4AIFgUg
Cheers, A.
Or better than that, the delicious Diana Ross et al: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3bjMtqpGBw
A.
Amanda says:
October 31, 2010 at 11:53 am
Well I’d happily admit to the “drunk” charge but belligerent and obnoxious; I didn’t notice it , so had to assume it was me.
Drug laws/education are a special interest of mine. In the music world you see it all; at least I thought I had. At “kindy” (Psych. major) I payed special and devoted attention to the topic, but in those days I thought everything would come right; if there really was a problem. As we know, nothing did come right, because, in my view, the lies continued. The result is the mess we have today.
Amanda
It still does alter the fact that our written rules for government are specifically designed to prevent “majority rule” come what may – on each and every matter.
The reasoning is simple – if a majority can decide on each and every thing, no matter what, then government is sooner or later usurped by whoever has the most influence with the majority.
Which is exactly how we got in this mess is the first place with the rise of the influence of the MSM – what you call “The Fourth Estate”.
Various vested interests gained control of the MSM and thereby influence the “majority” in what they think they want.
In OZ politicians get elected one or more issues, and then claim a “mandate” to enact laws on whatever they think fit.
The whole global warming / climate change issue is a glaring example of this. It has reached the point that it has because at some time the “majority”, or at least what could be claimed as a majority, were hoodwinked into believing all the crud put forward as “science”.
OK…we averted a bar fight…for now. So let me ask a bunch of stupid questions. Just what are the laws regarding marijuana in the UK and OZ. I’m sort of a die hard Libertarian. I don’t smoke pot (I drink beer) but I support the right of idiots to smoke pot if they want to. This opinion is met with great scorn and derision in the US. Trust me…I ain’t no hippie. Our Constitution provides absolutely no provision for the federal government to deny an individual the right to ingest ANYTHING. Oddly, it is perfectly legal for a citizen to huff lacquer thinner but illegal to smoke marijuana. You can legally get shitfaced drunk on whiskey in your own home, but not stoned by smoking a joint. Where is the logic?
I’ll just toss it out there and see what other folks think.
memory vault says:
October 31, 2010 at 12:21 pm
If the ‘outing’ of Climategate proved one thing, it was the power of the internet and although climate ‘science’ was the immediate victim, the real casualty I believe was the credibility of the MSM. It is now a totally subverted medium which tried to kill the story by not mentioning it. In previous times, this would have done the job but not in these days.
We are or will be, the new MSM. Let’s hope we don’t end up a lapdog like the old MSM.
Pointman
Dr Dave
You sum it all up in the following line – “Our Constitution provides absolutely no provision for the federal government to deny an individual the right to ingest ANYTHING. ”
And yet they do.
Memory Vault
Of course you are right that the U.S. is a republic, and to be accurate I should have written “stealing the republic.” We are a representative democracy. In the House of Representatives, the population is directly represented according to population. In the Senate, the representation is according to State – each State has two Senators regardless of population. (This was a compromise between the big colonies and small colonies at the time of the founding of the country and writing of the constitution.)
Separation of powers protects against majority tyranny. When we have a split President and Congress, there is gridlock. I.e., no consensus, then government can’t do much. That is one of the criticisms of the Executive Order – it gets around that separation of powers and that gridlock.
Protecting against majority rule takes another form in the U.S. – the Constitutional Bill of Rights which protects every citizen against government, and minorities against majorities. Changes in the Constitution take more than a majority: Article V of the Constitutions requires either 1) 2/3 of the both Houses to propose Amendments , and then 3/4 of the State Legislatures have to ratify the proposed amendment, or 2) or 2/3 of the States to apply to Congress to call a Convention for proposing Amendements and 3/4 of the States have to attend and approve.
However, at the state level, we are a hybrid, as referenda are permitted by the states. It takes a certain number of signatures in a petition, then a measure is put on the ballot for direct voting. Troll Steven Dobbs was railing on the Hannan blog that democracy – i.e., referenda, leads to uninformed opinions and chaos.
But republic or not, our votes are supposed to count. Why do you say that democracy is the cause of the problem? How has that led to absence of referendum on the EU in the UK and the Lisbon Treaty?
______________
Dr Dave
I was for the legalization of marijuana and could give and can still give a whole litany of reasons why the war on drugs is doing way more harm than drugs themselves. One thing may have changed my mind: George Soros is funding the movement in California to legalize marijuana. I believe he actively wants what is bad for the U.S. and so if he supports something, that makes me against it.
P.S., I am on the blogs for the substantive discussion, not the social networking. I objected somewhat to so much of the social networking on James’ blog because that is the standard bearer for skeptics – and it shouldn’t seem like a private club for regulars. But this blog is, in effect, a private club – with newcomers welcome. It is not at this time the standard bearer for skepticism, but the private effort of Oz. It can be anything Oz wants – and there’s no reason it can’t be a mix of both substantive discussion and social interaction. It’s possible to participate in the part that interests you and not in the part that doesn’t. But you never know: I had little interest in the social chitchat part until I realized blackswan has black swans. These are creatures that thrill me. It was fantastic to be able to ask questions of someone who actually lives with them. So there I was in social chitchat. You never know when something might turn out to be really interesting to you. I have had my own share of run ins with Pointman. Small price to pay for an otherwise good experience. But no fun to be on the receiving end, and I wish no one ever was.
If anyone is in the brain-stretching mood, how the coal industry is adapting to the inability to the US Federal government to formulate and ground passable policies combined with NIMBY opposition, loss of demand for power, and tightening of limits on emissions is a very precise parallel paradigm to how government fumbling, anti-marijuana reg’s, regional advocacy groups and court clashes over legislation combined with similar punitive actions taken agains these “carbon emitters” LOL has resulted in a similar resultant: de facto business as usual.
http://www.powermag.com/issues/features/U-S-Coal-Fired-Power-Development-Down-but-Not-Out_3036.html This quick four pager is highly non-technical yet pungent and to the point. The business paradigms for the coal power plant industry and the marijuana industry in the USA are not that different, as both involve mass consumption over a broad spectrum of users, tight regulatory control, lots of interests who either want to stomp both out completely or are advocates for them, and there is what I would call a “perfect non-storm” of tug-of-war style homeostasis.
This more than anything characterizes the nature of American political interaction on a practical, de facto basis. The ballot box and the holy writ of democratic “scripture” have little to do with how people do business, anymore than a prevailing religion influences the de facto community moral ethos. The Rome of the Medici’s was a perfectly religious state. Lucretia Borgia never missed a mass at the same time she was mising up lethal cocktails for her beaux. Oliver Cromwell’s cannon at the Boyne had “God Is Love” embossed on the mouths of the barrels.
While legislation, media advocacy or opposition, and other political actions are pertinent, they portray and control less than 2-3% of the actual “plays” and transactions in both businesses. The massive difference is, of course, is that it is not illegal to generate electric power anywhere with coal. It IS illegal to sell, distribute, or use marijuana. That doesn’t seem to have slowed down usage or sales whatever.
What is going on in most explorations of the political dimension in times like these is the search for new paradigms, so I thought I would through this in.
*of
*mixing
*throw :>P
As a side note, the presumption on the part of the wind farm hucksters that private developers of natural gas fired power generation units would step up to the plate at the same time as new capacity of wind generation was installed has proved out to be wrong. Indeed, it appears there is no stampede to put in new combined cycle natural gas fired plants for peaking or grid stabilization to accommodation the variability and instability of wind based non-dispatchable power. As a result, the rate of wind project cancellation as a percentage of the number of planned projects overall is worse for the projected long term than that for coal plants. Had the wind community the integrity to present its offerings honestly from Day One, that wind power needs an equal capacity of gas turbine power to prove out to be economic in anything under 40 years, has been their undoing, IMHO.
My current parallel and time consuming research on underground carbon sequestration alternatives shows me also that not a lot is really being reported in the news of what is really going on. It is the iron and steel industry which is going to use the heat of their smelters to make syngas out of CO2 + steam that is the major option being quietly developed using existing technology, entirely under the radar of the carbon fraudsters. All these underground CCS schemes are not moving forward for very real reasons, not least of which that no one believes, if they are a player, that they are really going to go in except as underground petroleum extraction method reinforcements.
This in turn leads me to think that a solution to the need for people to escape their current reality through biochemically self-induced folding into themselves like reverse origami of the brain will arise, not in the form of a new Insane Clown religion or new “scientific” rationalization of mass butchery for the sexual thrill of it, but which will be something Beaver Cleaver families, edgy, wedgy, ironic, and epically gaunt fashionistas as well as biker metalheads as disparate but co-existing communities shall find acceptable. There’s not a 3rd way, just a 10 to the nth power number of ways, in which this can be made to work for all.
I need not point out that in lieu of any form of leadership in this respect, people are sorting the latter multiplicity of ways out for themselves.
Dr. dave@12.30 wrote:. Our Constitution provides absolutely no provision for the federal government to deny an individual the right to ingest ANYTHING.
Farmer Braun always assumed that the above fact was the reason that the U.S. invented the crime of substance ABUSE ( because all abuse is by definition bad ) and then decreed that the USE of certain substances was always ABUSE. So it is possible to have it both ways. No lawyer would be surprised by this sort of sophistry.
But the idea of substance abuse points to the way out of the present quagmire, even though it will never come to pass, because the only rational view must be that no substance is inherently good or bad. We know that heroin is a much better analgesic in the most painful terminal cancer situations because it’s non-habituating; morphine is crude and habituating. Similarly if you are close to kicking off and the family is coming to say goodbye, the Brompton cocktail (heroin, cocaine and ethanol) is just what the doctor would order if he could legally do so. (Those of a literary bent will recall the usage in The English Patient). My point is that there are no bad drugs. Everything has a use and can also be abused. We might argue about methamphetamines in non-medical situations.
So, back to the recreational drug use. Obviously no problem between consenting healthy adults in their own home, provided there is no compromise to normal functioning and responsibility. Drug abuse is a medical/psychological condition requiring the same interventions that apply to any other permanently debilitating treatable condition. Everyone knows all this, right? So we are not the problem. The problem is going to be defining abuse.
So what about juveniles?
Substance abuse was never about substance abuse. Substance abuse is adaptive behaviour through which people cope with the intolerable. It is a monkey wrench purpose-designed for the threaded gripper head to fall off every time.
Bear with Multitudinous Interchangeable Heads
Hi Walt,
Totally OT but a long time ago now you were in the process of finding and eliminating duplicate files on your HD. At the time you sang the praises of a piece of software for the job.
Any chance of reminding me?
Let me see if my new gravatar works.
Not yet.
ah that did it.
Walt: Substance (ab)use is adaptive behaviour through which people cope with the intolerable.
Farmer braun: That was the conclusion of the La Guardia study into marijuana usage. It showed no long-term ill effects and it was considered to be a coping mechanism for those whose situation could only be described as bleak and hopeless. It enabled them to keep functioning; so in no way was it abuse. In my book that was legitimate use; whatever gets you through the night.
Memoryvault you mention the 4th estate and the MSM, I suppose the first obvious case of someone trying to influence the public to promote an agenda was William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish American war in 1898, Hearst was an American imperialist in the classic sense of the word and cynically saw an opportunity to sell newspapers. He beat the drums of war to stir up public opinion against the Spanish. So for over 100 years we have had a MSM with an agenda sometimes good sometimes bad. It was a radio station host that helped stir up ethnic hatred already simmering in Rwanda that helped push that country into Genocide.
For the last 15 years another medium has come into being the internet which for the first time allows the plebs to have their say and that has upset the apple cart and it is noticeable in the USA sales of MSM newspapers have dropped as have the number of people watching the big networks news broadcasts.
However attempts are under way to control this new beast the POTUS now has special powers to close down the internet for “emergency” reasons which are not defined. Australia has was or is enacting a great firewall to control the beast under the guise of “protecting children”. The genie is out of the bottle and they are trying desperately trying to stuff it back in. It will not work as there are too many ways to get around them.
farmerbraun…. maryjane has only once been shown to kill someone due to actual abuse it took the man 20 years of smoking it constantly from dawn to dusk to build up to such levels that could kill him.
It was originally banned because it was an easy target in the USA after the repeal of prohibition. Black people in the South were forbidden from consuming alcohol in many counties so they fell back on smoking maryjane as a way to cope with the hard realities of life and was their drug of choice. Mexican farm workers in the South West also favoured it’s use. So being minority’s with little say it was decided to target this drug for political reasons ie keeping the ATF (alcohol tabaco and firearms) in business after prohibition. the MSM was co-opted to promote a climate of fear that basically your wife would be raped by a black man or it caused mental illness and led to murder.
OK folks, drug liberalization it is. New guest post here
Cheers
Ozboy
Hi, Farmer Braun. Well….dealing with the problem is how you deal with the problem. For instance, someone set up a line of coke at an important corporate celebration by one of my labour pimp’s clients I was invited to back when I was rented out by the big temp agencies, so I pulled out my cell phone and called the cops right then and there. Got my arse beat, but on balance, I enjoyed the melee which ensued. The dopee is still in the slam. That agency doesn’t call me anymore for some reason.
Whoa, crownarmourer. That baby is getting huge! Any attempts at words yet?
MemoryVault: Here is the link to all their cool freeware (the paid suites I want, too).
http://www.clonecleaner.com/HCCLITEheat.zip Read the following dadburn manual, too, before you punch the keys. http://www.clonecleaner.com/hcc105.pdf
I ended up with exactly one of every file properly sorted yet also a zillion orphaned and empty folders, which is a nuisance. I went from 130 gig’s of duped files and folders to 62 gig’s or so in less than overnight. I would get the freeware for the Handy File Tool and use that first prior to launching the torpedoes on acing out the dupes: http://www.handyfiletool.com/HFTheat.zip Read this manual over, too. http://www.handyfiletool.com/hft104.pdf
Both are just intuitive enough to twitch you into False Confidence Land and do something irreparably stoopid, if you are not careful.
Dr. Dave,
This is like a replay of 1968, to see this recycling of black victimization as a means of societal control through controlling reefer, and the film was funny at the time. 42 years later, easily a third of all those dead now from my high school class are there owing to various encounters with and/or direct issues with dope of a non-prescription basis. No one is falling for that again. You must be in your 30’s or so or you would know better. You were not there. I was. Dope got traction as a means of staving off the downward mobility which threatened college bound kids in the late 1960’s. It made money fast and quickly. The major market was white. The dealers were white. The wholesale fronters were white. Black dopers went their own way and never the twain met. The crossover market didn’t kick in until the mid 1980’s with Latino dealers entering the market directly. It wasn’t a conspiracy of the state. No one had a gun put to their heads to use the stuff.
You tell a black man he is a dope user because the state exploited him and therefore de facto made him a doper and he’ll laugh his butt off, and maybe give you a clenched fist salute in mockery.
I don’t even think about it. If someone shows up around me with dope it ends the same way every time. It’s one of the shortlist of issues I am at one with the Communist Chinese and Singapore about.
Walt the grandbairn is ahead of the curve at the moment he can sort of say Elmo la la la and da, he is about 3 months ahead of where he should be but does not have formula.
As he is of native Alaskan heritage my theory is you have to grow fast or die in a cold climate. Contrary to what you would think native Alaskans are tall because of the high protein diet.
Here is his current taste in music….
Here is what I want to show him but for some reason I will get into trouble.
bb
Walt,
I’m 53 years old. Trust me…I was ‘there”. I actually have a blast talking about “old times” with my old friends. We all turned out about the same. Not a pitiful loser in the bunch. One kid I remember was a complete stoner. He sold a bunch of LSD and very nearly got busted for it at the age of 15. Before he graduated from high school he decided he wanted to be a physician when he grew up. His folks sent him to Albion (one of Michigan’s most expensive private schools) where he earned a B.S. with honors. Then he joined the Air Force and let them send him through medical school. He stayed in the Air Force even after his residency in internal medicine and is today a full bird colonel working in the field of biologic terror threats. This was the kid who always had a gram of hash to spare.
Afternoon everyone,
I love Sundays – the place is always full of friends and neighbours coming and going – bit like the Bar & Grill really.
When our first caller arrived I was in the midst of a bit of repartee with Amanda, gee it was good – now I’ve done some catch-up so I just deleted it. Suffice to say that my feathers only get ruffled over matters of importance such as a threat to me or mine (AGW); personal criticism isn’t one of them as I can usually give as good as I take. Acutely irritating people just give me an itch I need to scratch. However I do enjoy a soft tickle under my beak now and then.
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