From Jenna Orkin:
Financial Crisis
Washington's Dilemma: This Isn't a Recession, It's a Collapse
Mobius Says Derivatives, Stimulus Money May Trigger a New Financial Crisis
Americans Now Pariahs Of Foreign Banks
The Doctrine of Preemptive Bailouts and the Biggest Bailout You Haven't Heard About: Treasury Plan C and the $3.5 Trillion You Will Be Paying (from Rice Farmer)
Goldman Sachs' Mark of the Beast
JPMorgan Earnings Soar as It Finds Profit in Slump
Global Confidence Declines as Unemployment Surge Counters Fiscal Stimulus
Young hit by soaring jobless toll soars to record levels
Pay us off or we blow up the plant, say French workers
At a Factory, the Spark for China’s Violence
'Groundhog Day' as 1,200 more Lloyds jobs go
US pension fund sues rating agencies over $1bn losses
Airwaves Feature Pawn Shops, Plastic Surgeons as Auto Dealer Ads Decline
U.S. small business funding dry, getting drier
California's needy may bear brunt of budget crisis
Los Angeles accused of criminalizing homelessness
Al Capone Style Plan to Curb Britain's 30B Pound Crime Industry (from Rice Farmer)
Michael Huffington Suing Carlyle
Boiling the Frog
As usual, Paul Krugman is in the vanguard of the MSM to catch on to what Peak Oil advocates have been warning of for years. But it is in reference to his economic policies that the following article was written: Krugman best taken in reverse
It stands to reason that the cheerleader-in-chief of the Keynesian brigade should also prove to be the most self-contradicting reverse indicator of true economic direction or workable economic policies. All that said, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman of the New York Times is the commentator for everyone to peruse and understand; for it is in doing the opposite of whatever he recommends that salvation could arise. (Jul 13,'09)
Japan's Robots Join Ranks of Unemployed
Swine Flu
H1N1 pandemic spreading too fast to count: WHO
The Big Question: Is swine flu mutating, and how worried should we be?
Has swine flu started to mutate?
U.S. to spend another $1 billion on flu vaccine
Energy
Why we'll run out of oil sooner than we think
Producer Prices in U.S. Climb More-Than-Forecast 1.8% as Gasoline Surges
Morgan Stanley Raises 2010 Oil Forecast to 85$
Verleger Says Oil to Collapse to $20 This Year on `Devastating' Crude Glut
Miliband Promises More Green Jobs But Vespas Wind Turbine Plant Is Closing
Exxon Says Algae Fuels Project May Cost Billions
Military/Technology
Experts: Cyberstrikes Originated from Britain, Not North Korea
Chechen Rights Campaigner Is Killed
US battleship arrives at Georgian port for military exercises
Russian oil expert jailed in Turkmenistan - report
Al Qaeda Vows Revenge on China After Uighur Riots
Twitter Hack Raises Flags on Security
This, a few days after Twitter was declared essential for national security.
Children urged to join Belfast riots by texting
Classified Intelligence Leaks, 2001-08
From Wikileaks: "Nuclear accident in Iran may lay behind mystery resignation"
Two weeks ago, a source associated with Iran's nuclear programme confidentially told WikiLeaks of a serious, recent, concealed nuclear accident at Natanz. Natanz is the primary location of Iran's nuclear enrichment program.We have reason to believe the source was credible however contact with this source has been lost. We would not normally mention such an incident without additional confirmation, however according to Iranian media and the BBC, today the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadehhas resigned under mysterious circumstances. According to reports, the resignation was tendered around 20 days ago.Contact: wl-iran@ljsf.org
Resources/Environment
Latest Study Reveals Larger Than Thought Chernobyl Effects
Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.(from Rice Farmer)
Crops-for-Chemicals Barter Creates Liquidity for Farmers in Russia, Brazil
Burmese pythons plague Florida
My recent exchange with Arch Druid John Michael Greer about the relationship of women to industrial society. It's something of a surprise, he seems to have a bit of blind spot on the issue . . .
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kimspages.org/blogspot.htm#18th_July_2009
for the past five days, i've seen a broken stoplight on a busy intersection every day.
ReplyDeleteWhat follows is over simplified, somewhat like a child's bedtime story, there are things about Physics, normal or Quantum which
ReplyDeletehave to be accepted unless you have the knowledge & equipment to do the testing. I will try to avoid the latest and more challenging information which is still being tested; And may never be proven, considering the cost, & crumbling infrastructure.
Science Illustrated Magazine is running a series which should confuse most anyone, it is not snake oil or an easy read,
you try & put it into words in your college dictionary, or commonly used. Pages Quoted are from; Programming The Universe
The 2 laws of physics:
# 1. Energy: The ability to do work, has the nature of being conserved, it is never lost; BUT can never be restored!
# 2.Entropy: The information (Mostly invisible), which
instructs,describes, & controls (among other things), how and how much Energy is used. P. 40 end of par. 2! Entropy is always
increasing as energy is consumed!
Energy always was, can't be lost, can be "conserved" (reused in a
modified form-with less effectiveness), it can not be restored; what becomes of it? It becomes Information; which must increase.
This is why your battery "dies", and your Computer gets slower-&
slower. There is no software to find/remove its "unseen information"!
Now we need to understand "Meaning"; everything from the "Bit" (the smallest), to the unknown beyond the Universe/"Infinity" (the largest)!
Everything computes/operates by "rules of meaning", 1/on/yes/positive,
can never be, 0/off/no/or negative. If there is a doubt the "system" "Halts", becomes confused/stops/crashes. Normally Bits, atoms, DNA, rocks, and the universe all see ambiguity as a flaw/bug. You ether play
by the rules or you do not exist
We humans thrive on Ambiguity,
"Things" as opposed to "thoughts" demand that "ON" can never be "off". With things there is never a MAYBE! "Java's" dictionary will never equal one Human guide to behavior, or words; "Basic" needs no Thesaurus!
I can understand the consternation (which one of the 16 "meanings"
apply), that my thoughts generate.
We are still in pre-School about Quantum Physics behavior, the
Laws/meaning of the contradictions we observe as commonplace in the
Quantum/Universe scale, but can not apply at the human level. This in itself is a contradiction we can't,will not see; if the laws apply anywhere they must apply everywhere!
Now things become complicated; this is still a story, based on Q.P., but still exemplary.
Rack up a Snooker or pool game; using a "Quantum" cue stick "break' the balls/bits around the table.
Now we must value or apply meaning to what we have, these are words I
apply to my thoughts, you may see/"mean" something else:
The table becomes space/spirit/life.
The cue stick is motion/effect/time.
The balls therefore are Things, Atoms/planets/people!
The action between the cue & balls has become affect. A 4th dimension?
The Balls at this point/"moment?" have been positioned by the affect of time, somewhere in space/spirit/life. Remember we are
applying/detailing, Entropy/information, not energy, so things can remain static/immobile.
Now we add the/a Player, the one that "positioned" the balls/people;
HE/SHE is outside/uninvolved with the Table/life. They can go away, & return at any "time"; the future,possibly the past (it's just a story).
Next.
..."And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it[goldman] gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print#
Who says the Grand Awakening isn't fixxin' to descend upon us!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31981559/ns/us_news-life//
California sprouts 'green rush' from marijuana
ReplyDeleteThe fact that "[t]he world's largest publicly traded company [Exxon] plans to spend $600 million over the next five or six years to develop biofuels from algae with its partner Synthetic Genomics Inc (SGI), a privately held company focused on gene-based research", is as scientifically verified an indicator as we're likely to get that the principle of Peak Oil is ... (what?) ... (a useful concept?)... (a certainty that has arrived?)... a word-term worth playing up to influence the audience to an at least rhetorical $600 million.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSN1426347920090714
As to whether Peak Oil eventually or ever proves true, it obviously has become another useful ingredient in T hypothetical PTB's hypothetical grand cosmic ruse; and thus like all other information of this genre within the current state of the human condition's operational paradigm, will remain, as long as it needs to, scientifically obscured. Meaning (amongst a whole gob of other things): scientific methodology is currently merely a developmental tool -- not the answer -- for helping us determine "the big picture's" how, what, and why. And that one always belongs to the audience.
Here are a couple of clips on PROMIS. Although somewhat dated, it does no harm to dust these off and bring them up front every now and then. Should there be such a creature as a visitor to this blog who has not read Rubicon then it might be time to wakie, wakie.
ReplyDeleteThe INSLAW Affair
The notion of "all the resources of the state" takes on massive proportions. We, on this side of the fence, hold the great equalizer, i.e. the royal flush of civilizational collapse.
Should the collapse not be severe enough to render everything onto a level playing field, then we may as well grab our marbles, go home and begin to learn how to pay homage to The Borg.
Kim, that's interesting exchange. I wouldn't agree with you when you say JMG has a blind spot in that place. It sounded to me less like a conversation between the two of you and more like two parallel monologues defending your points of view. I hear your points. He also made some important ones in that exchange. Just my two cents on the matter....
ReplyDeletemat
I've read Mike's latest book (brilliant), but it stirred a faint recognition of something missing from the discourse. What? I think all pleas to/reasoning with the-powers-that-be will fail. Their very structure is energy intensive. The top of the pyramid has to expend huge amounts of fuel to control the bottom, and accumulate wealth. Whereas webs just hang together because, well, they want to. It's their nature. Problem is, to-day most guys don't have a visceral/emotional understanding of webs, and what their place in one would be. I think Sharon Astyk begins to explore this, in her post "Peak Oil, Gender & Power":
ReplyDeletehttp://sharonastyk.com/2008/08/03/peak-oil-gender-and-power/
I also know (and maybe Jenna would concur), that groups of women can get down to our (metaphorical), "Emotional knickers" very quickly, and talk about the most intimate stuff (causing much hilarity and mutual recognition). My hubby accepts this, and rolls his eyes at my "Women's stuff" (he's happy to leave me to it), while freely admitting a similar group of guys would NEVER discuss the ability to have orgasms in your sleep, and who you happened to be dreaming about at the time (creating, as I recall, hoots of laughter). I think this "Female bonding" has powerful biological roots, which is why I find Aboriginal concept of "Women's business" and "Men's business" so fascinating. I think it points to a time when society wasn't "Held together" by hierarchies, but by webs. Arch Druid John Michael Greer airily dismisses this pre-history as "Inkblots," on to which we project our utopian dreams. But that's not true. Australia was colonised just over 200 years ago (not even a heartbeat of time), and the oral history/memory is still alive and vibrant. So guys, there is an alternative, it's not a toss up between pyramids and chaos. I start to explore this here:
http://www.kimspages.org/whywomen.htm
Sebastian Ronin...That's some interesting stuff on "The INSLAW Affair", but for some reason your link didn't take me to the video. There are three consecutive 5-minute videos on it, and here are the links that I found to them:
ReplyDeletePart 1
Part 2
Part 3
Thanks for that comment Matt. Good point. It felt a bit like that to me as well. It's not (I think), that John Michael Greer's perspective is untrue - just that it's lacking a vital dimension (in my opinion). You know how the role of oil in our society is so ubiquitous, that swathes of people don't even "See" how vital it is to our most basic assumptions - I guess unpaid "Female labour" has the same "Ordinariness," rendering it "Invisible." Perhaps we need several "Red pills" - on money, energy, 9/11 and women . . . Interestingly, Richard Heinberg is wide awake to this stuff (though his beautiful soul is awake to most thhings):
ReplyDelete"Finally, feminism, led by such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gloria Steinem, has given a voice to the half of humanity that has long been silenced. This is important in itself as a basic human right, but it also has the effect of balancing the female properties of synthesis and cooperation with the male tendencies toward analysis and competition. The solutions to our social and ecological dilemmas will require a better balance between what have been seen as men's strengths and those associated with women."
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/a-new-culture-emerges/390
The top-performing letter that predicted the Crash of 2008 now predicts a confiscatory Franklin D. Roosevelt-style "bank holiday."
ReplyDeletequote
In its current issue, HSL reports rumors that "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days."
unquote
but why not pound sterling? too risky?
The re-elected Indonesian President has blamed a failed political rival for the latest Jakarta terrorist bombing. The West is already habitually blaming it on Islamic Terror and scoffs at suggestions otherwise:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smh.com.au/world/flustered-yudhoyono-links-rival-to-killings-20090719-dpka.html
The murky links between Islamic Terror and the Indonesian military were documented on Australian TV some years ago but the story has been pulled from the network's own website.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1085
This is brilliant, Goldman Sachs are scum . . .
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwWy4E6I04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQrYa_NKQQ&feature=related
@KimB: a similar group of guys would NEVER discuss the ability to have orgasms in your sleep
ReplyDelete... I think you may be missing an angle here. Guys like Greer, who do deep Nei Gung etc., probably do know how to have a variety of interesting orgasms in various states of consciousness. :)
If orgasms in sleep, at a distance, with no physical stimulation, whatever and so, are all to be 'women's work' in your definition... that's no fun.
The men I know don't have a problem speaking about things like that, indeed they can be quite into it. :)
I'll read the post you linked to though.
7,20,09
ReplyDeleteBoxes, Boxes; I have been boxed in. If I don't come out of one box & return to the box I should be in, I will not get any Ice Cream, Oh my!
I wrote this out, then decided not to post it-- AND then changed my choice again.
This has to be said; The way Money/position works is to keep everyone in place, I say box, you can use whatever $5.00 derogatory term you want, it all comes out
the same! I pray that when your life is on the line you are not looking for someone's degree!
I am 74 yrs. old on the twenty second, you don't want to know what I have thought/am thinking
now! I have lived a full life. If I can improve one persons chances of serviving (MY spelling),
i (small) will not mind being on your "out list".
Try Compassion, as another word for AMAE. I will be away for a few days, blessed Future!!
Look up 7,18 for the comics.
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/stonesoup
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/speedbump;_ylt=ArSQppgl6hjG.F4hhx.q4TOcocwF
How money works!
http://www.centredaily.com/business/story/1404396.html
Just another BOX!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090717/ap_on_re_us/us_transgender_hate_crime_4
I do not post here to exercise/display my ego, never have, you will never find perfection
in my posts; do you want me to write 100 times, I will never misspell lose again?
This blog is about surviving, does anyone listen to Glen Beck? Last night he said, this is not a direct quote, that we are in collapse like nothing since the Roman Empire.
He said there were things he knew that he could not tell us, there were things he suspected, that there were things he did not know; that he would tell us, "when the time was right"!
He then quoted the book "Survivors" that "Those who survive are those who can and do think the impossible", he said there would come a time when you had to decide, that no one else
could do that for you. I disagree with Glen more than not, but it's the first time I have heard the MM say anything that dangerous; I still do not trust the $$$ man!
You want my life in order, you want the correct words, the crib sheet to the test, "The lies
My teacher told me"? I am not a "Teacher", I've always been a "Learner" (WHAT?).
Someone who guides you into thinking beyond, discovering something I never thought of.
There are 3 books to read, but you will not!
"The giver".
http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/productPromo.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&productID=BK_LILI_000046
"As a Man Thinketh". Free E book!
http://www.asamanthinketh.net/
"The Anatomy of dependence". Takeo Doi Died on July, 6, 09.
"I set about using my idea that amae might be vitally important in understanding the Japanese mentality," Doi wrote in his book.
"I soon became convinced that it provided a clue to all kinds of things that had hitherto been obscure."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090706/ap_on_re_as/as_obit_doi
I have not found a review of the book, or a definition that covers the full meaning of the emotion.
RandD calls it "Self limiting"; the book is 175 pages! Just to define this Quantum emotion.
I just wanted to pop in and say; KimB, thank you. I followed your link and read your conversation... Wow, I was ignorant to that whole aspect. And I would extrapolate that out to most animal life! The uncompensated services/time of the female. I'll be damned. And with all the names you dropped and books you mentioned, I feel a torrent of enlightenment coming on for me. Tip 'o thee iceberg so to speak. So, thank you for your free services... AND for the edification. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'll be damned, I think I may have just managed to squeeze another morsel of social redeeming value out of this den of hypocrisy! he he he.
May the wave function of possibilities collapse to your desired reality.
-NB Patton.
Hi Nnonnth, grinning at your comments ;-) Maybe another example would be useful? You obviously move in different circles to my hubby. Aussie blokes aren't known for their sensitive qualities. Anyway, groups/pairs of women will often depart for the public loo en masse, and/or easily strike up a friendly (and maybe reasonably intimate/humorous), conversation with a completely unknown woman in the communal privy. My other half reckons any guy showing similar characteristics is on very dangerous ground (e.g. likely to get a punch on the nose). I'd also recommend a very funny book (left me chortling in recognition), about some basic differences between men and women, "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It," by Barabara & Allen Pease. And NB Patton, thanks soooo much for that glowing feedback. Made my morning . . . ;-)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@KimB -- ah, the joys of stereotyping! As far as 'what to do' about all this paperback-level gender identity is concerned; well first off, I prefer not to take the social role that's handed to me, along with everyone else who's interesting.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that goes with being a spiritual person, something the 'typical Australian male' no doubt considers sissy woowoo. :) But then, not everyone has the good fortune to have been initiated into spirituality by my first teacher, Glenn Morris aka 'Doctor Death', hall of fame martial artist:
http://www.hoshin.com/drmorris.asp
... who used to say that spiritual progress requires integration of your opposite-sex inner pole, so 'get in touch with your inner princess.' lol Whether he discussed it in the crapper with other men I couldn't say, but if he did, being punched in the nose wasn't the result so far as I ever heard. He certainly wasn't formal about the whole thing; I guess a brittle surface masculinity held together with beer didn't strike him as that macho...
His lady, too, seemed to prefer him in touch with the feminine rather than separated from it by cultural decree, for that matter.
But I digress.
I find reductionist societal stereotyping of gender to be less than helpful in developing self knowledge, true manliness, true womanliness, or anything else that's likely to be useful on the downward slope.
Especially after the internet goes bye-bye, I'd put one-hour orgasms for either sex in the 'useful' category. But popular opinions on gender proclivity not, any more than popular opinions on economic progress. They just don't seem to fly for me.
Coincidentally, a fellow spiritual person just showed me an interesting article from the Baltimore Sun...
Violence by women against their male partners is often ignored or not recognized as domestic violence. Law enforcement, the judicial system, the
media and the domestic violence establishment are still stuck in the outdated "man as perpetrator/woman as victim" conception of such violence. Yet more than 200 studies have found that women initiate at least as much
violence against their male partners as vice-versa.
... etc.
Ah yes, stereotyping! Just in case you're having trouble fitting into yours, now you can buy books telling you how to do it properly by genetic decree! Useful.
But not my thing really. And you should hear my wife on the subject... but that's another story.
Well nnonnth, I seem to have touched a nerve. This stuff often does. Thanks for the opportunity to sharpen my thoughts, these are not trivial issues (as I’m sure you understand). In a nutshell (firstly), my premise is women had huge economic power, the remnants of which were temporarily/partially extinguished during The Witch Burnings (Jared Diamond’s method teaches us to look for material/economic causes, vis a vis conflict); secondly, newly arising and exclusive groups of women (not based on pre-existing patriarchial forms, such as corporations/church), more easily form a flat “Web-like” structure; thirdly, “Women’s business” isn’t about excluding/dominating men, it’s about creating a space for women to breathe and grow – because (sadly), mixed groups usually/often become “Pyramids,” usually/often dominated by men. Fourthly (and lastly), though I love my hubby to bits, there are some things I can only find through my female (or gay), friends. “Sex & The City” (the film), was such a huge success (I believe), because it was/is rooted in these archetypal memories around female bonding. Hubby and I were visiting York (UK), when the film premiered there. We’d gone to see another movie (he wasn’t into chick flicks), but the queue of women for the premier was phenomenal, never seen anything like it. Seemed like hundreds (snaked right out on to the street), and the very rare guy was totally conspicuous in a sea of oestrogen. It’s not really rocket science to understand women and men do have “Differences” (both physiological and psychological), and that tribal/ancient societies expressed this primal diversity in culture and organisation. However, it’s only in the last 6,000 years or so that these “Differences” have become marks of inequality. As for guys (and girls), of course there are huge individual variations – something like the frequent (and unique), eddies and swirls in a river, but taking a birds-eye view, the overall current is unmistakable. Personally, I think it’s about letting both men and women gravitate towards what they’re most comfortable with (and best at), valuing these primal aspects equally, and celebrating/allowing the eddies and swirls . . .
ReplyDeleteOh I certainly think men and women have differences, the problem is that I don't think our culture is very good at telling us what they might be, and that any characterization tends to be confounded the next moment with an interesting exception.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, just because it's not my thing, doesn't mean it can't be yours. As you say, whatever makes people comfortable.