From Jenna Orkin
Headlines
Amid Kyrgyz turmoil, a U.S.-Russia faceoff looms
Iran will strike U.S. troops if attacked: army chief
Iran unveils 'faster' uranium centrifuges - from Rice Farmer
Iran will not beg to avoid sanctions: Ahmadinejad
North Korea parliament meets, leader Kim skips session
Sparks Fly as China's Hunger for Coal Grows
Coal-Ship Traffic May Jump 67%
Europe
Greece pressured to accept aid as slump deepens
Greece needs concessionary rates from Germany: Soros
Greece Short-Term Bonds Shoot Up To 8%
Fitch Downgrades Greece, Endgame Imminent
North-South Divide May Hurt Euro Region More Than Greek Crisis
Special Report: How the U.S. cracked open secret vaults at UBS
Hungary Prepares for Shift in Power
Veering right.
Eastern German Project Provides Hope for Shrinking Cities
Going green.
US
Oil could give kiss of death to recovery
RECOVERY?!? WHAT RECOVERY? THE U.S. IS COMPLETELY SCREWED!!!
Sovereign Default Concerns Spike 40% For The Big Boys
Major U.S. banks masked risk levels: report
Surprise, Wall Street Banks STILL Masking Debt Levels At The End Of Each Quarter
Weekly Unemployment Claims Rise by 18,000 to 460,000, 4-Week Moving Average at 450,250
200K may lose benefits
Mortgage Rates Spike
Why Your Home Will Lose 13% Of Its Value In 2010
Ohio official tells residents to 'arm themselves' amid police cuts - from Rice Farmer
The Rich Are Different: They Default More Often - from Rice Farmer
This document blew the lid off subprime on November 7, 2006
Congressman: "I Don't Worry About the Constitution" Regarding Health Bill (Fox)
Congressman Lee Terry: 159 Boards and Bureaucracies Created by Health Care Bill
19-Year-Old Mayor Is Inspired by Ron Paul
On Plains, concern about another Dust Bowl - from Rice Farmer
Prescription Drug Overdoses Increase 65%
Journalist discusses value of citizen journalism
A subject which will become of increasing relevance as Collapse unfolds.
Internet/Intelligence
UK: Digital Economy Bill Allows Shutting Internet Sites That May Infringe Copyright
FCC Plans to Move Forward With Broadband Plan
Hacking the Smart Grid - from Rice Farmer
Bank of America Employee Charged With Planting Malware on ATMs
World
Climate Change Act Has Biggest Ever Bill
North African Islamic terrorist group threatens FIFA World Cup
McDonald's to Double Restaurants in China
Who Says This Blog Is A Downer?
Number of cars declines for the first time since Second World War
And...
Owl with Fear of Heights
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18 comments:
6 ways mushrooms can save the world
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html
Mike - I just watched YouTube clips of the Q&A after the December 4 screening at Lumiere Theater. It was so good to see you speaking and your answers were awesome. I also just got my copy of the book yesterday (which was redundant since I already had the previous Presidential incarnation, but my point in buying it is to give it away anyway). This comment is simply to say that it is heartening for this long time supporter to see a sea change of activity in the culmination of your work. - Culmination, not because you are "spent" in any sense, but rather, as you point out, the collapse is happening already and there is no more time.
I do have "kids" - adults now - and I have and am doing everything to ensure they navigate this crisis successfully. If we do, it will be in no small part to your work.
I can hardly wait to see the film - not for new information, but rather as a celebration of your hard won achievements.
more than making up for the decline in british autos:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/chinas-car-sales-rocket-almost-twothirds-20100409-ryfj.html
@cj (continued)
"if you were one year from retirement would you quit right away or wait the year to get "the package"? Maybe it's foolish, but I'm still hopeful for some kind of retirement"
Well, cj, isn't that the very point of it all? "retirement" ... "old paradigm" ... To where will you retire, might I ask?
You guys are going to keep holding on to the old ways until the bitter end; desperately clinging to the hope that some new technology will arise to save your precious way of life. Well, maybe it will, maybe it won't. The simple fact is that --by now-- you should know better than to keep looking for it!
LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW, GOD DAMMIT!! What do you see? Pristine forests? Fertile fields? Sparkling streams? When you close your eyes, what do you smell? Fresh air? Fragrant flowers? LOOK at what YOU have made! Why should any god forgive YOU? OR ME?
Ah, but there's no time for regrets... we have to act!
Well...
I came here because Michael C. Ruppert declared himself a "lifeboat builder". But I'm still waiting to see a blueprint! I'm a hell of a builder, ya know... I can probably knock one out in a few days (a couple of weeks, if you want it to really look nice)! You'll have to supply the materials, of course...
But, you guys don't have any plan... All I see here is a bunch of folks hanging over the railings, saying: "See, I told you there would be waves!"... Not only that; but pretty soon, you'll have to pay for the privilege of even being on-deck!
Plant gardens! Buy gold! Slap your neighbor around, and tell him that Glenn Beck is full of shit! What use is any of that in the face of total chaos?
How close to absolute global mass extinction will we have to come, before mankind realizes that maybe --just maybe-- progress was a bad idea?
So, y'all keep your jobs, and plant your little nest eggs; and keep hoping that brother Obama will find a way to buy us out of our own mess! Me, I'd rather make peace with my God. Seems the only useful thing to do!
I'm 21 years old, I'm just coming out of college, soon to seek employment... I don't have time for any of this! How to I establish myself with the world going to hell and the economy in the toilet?
The President of Poland getting killed while landing in a plane in Russia, while traveling to Russia to commemorate events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police...now that's pretty bizarre.
Re al Qaeda Group Threatens to Attack World Cup:
This is priceless! The CIA goes to work for White Nationalism. So who needs to organize a boycott when you have the CIA working for you to keep Whites away from the World Cup? The tab of financial expense for a media blitz picked up by the CIA. How courteous of them. BTW, membership in the AWB has spiked by 3,000 new members since Terre'Blanche's "murder." In a world of spiraling chaos/entropy and confusion, Black Swans are the norm, not the exception.
RE: Value of Citizen Journalism
'What about the problems? Mullins said: "Citizen journalism has made progress. But the problem sometimes has to do with credibility.'
Accuracy, bias and deliberate mis- and dis-information can waste the precious time that serious people try to give to current events. This blog helps a LOT because first, Jenna has a pretty sound mind and an eye for bullshit, and second, because there are thirty or more regular commentors reading and critiquing these stories. Without this kind of "peer review" of citizen journalists, you basically have a lot of semi-ignorant zines circulating rumors, and the mainstream media.
Think also how dependent we are on Wikipedia and other fast-food info outlets. It's easy to change a Wiki page and slant an article for or against an issue. Fortunately, it's also easy to correct bad edits, but when it comes to breaking news that might not happen fast enough.
Social networking sites offer a much-praised speed of circulation, but are also easily turned into rumor mills, and are subject to datamining and surveilance.
Furthermore, with news outlets anxious to follow Rupert Murdoch's lead and charge for access, we're likely to be left out in the uncertain terrain of second-hand news, where some blog says "The Wall Street Journal today reported that ..."
A recent story reported that the Texas Board of Education is changing the history books to de-emphasize Jefferson and add the severe Christian theologian John Calvin. So it's not just digital information that is likely to suffer from corruption. Never mind the delusions of those who consume the mainstream media, there is a huge danger to those seriously attempting to know the truth.
Keeping each other informed - REALLY informed, not just alarmed - is perhaps the best we can do, besides physical efforts like the planting of gardens and the jerry-rigging of alternative technology. I hope the FTW gurus are putting together a system that really improves this ability of ours, and extends it to others who can use the information and be useful.
It's a sacred calling, and you who provide this real value deserve our deep gratitude.
RE: Citizen Journalism
"I make friends with key people," she said. "I talk to the police, media contacts, and local transit people."
i.e. she is exactly like the main stream media, except that she works for free.
it IS important to do interviews with key people, but that includes the people who are often ignored by the main stream media, like real people, not just the professional PR hacks who get paid to lie and obfuscate.
Re "LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW, GOD DAMMIT!! What do you see? Pristine forests? Fertile fields? Sparkling streams? When you close your eyes, what do you smell? Fresh air? Fragrant flowers?"
Yes. Either do or don't do. "Trying" is a recipe for failure.
BTW, "mankind" is two contradictory things: 1. a wild hallucination; 2. a stupid brute.
When do we get the religious pitch?
"I'm 21 years old, I'm just coming out of college, soon to seek employment... I don't have time for any of this!"
Hoo-HOO! Har har har ...
Sorry, Zhyppers. I'm sure you're sincere, and they told you your college degree would "establish you" but in fact, there are too many degrees and not enough real jobs to do, plus the money's all disappearing into a maelstrom of previously hidden debt. So who's gonna pay you, and for what?
I hope you learned some good stuff in college. That might make you an informed and useful person. But you'd be advised to learn other things, such as gardening, motor mechanics, herbal medicine, how to make beer or cheese or tofu or something. Learn to cook, or crew on sailing ships till you're a competent seaman.
By all means, keep informed and share perspectives on the crises we're facing, so you'll have a better chance of not being wiped out by it all, and so being able to offer some real value to society in the short and long term. That's what I would call "establishing myself". Let's help each other on that, okay?
@eyeballs
"Never mind the delusions of those who consume the mainstream media, there is a huge danger to those seriously attempting to know the truth."
When it finally gets to the point that NOBODY believes a damned thing they see on network television, THAT'S when they'll start telling the truth!
Didn't I just hear Glenn Beck say "buy seeds"?
Regarding that Fox News article in which the Democratic politician said, "I don't worry about the Constitution", they never would have run that article if it had been a Republican politician who had said that instead. That's the price we're constantly paying for what they call their "fair and balanced" news.
Great advice eyeballs. I'm hoping that the new collapsenet will allow all the advice offered on this blog to be cached somewhere so that people can refer to it.
What trade to take up learning would be one area of interest I feel.
Perhaps we should be letting MCR know what we would like on the new blog. I notice he hasn't asked for any input from us, the people who read and post here.
Even if our ideas are shite and ignored, it would give one a greater sense of being in this together. What was that word again?
Oh yes 'COMMUNITY'
"...all the advice offered on this blog to be cached somewhere so that people can refer to it."
we're working on it, soggy
Yes, Sebastian, "trying" is what brought us this far! Shall we go the final mile?
@ Elmo, re "Shall we go the final mile?"
How can "we" not, "we" being mere passengers? The gig is programmed with end-game implosion and destitution. The only force that can defeat the Borg is the Borg itself. In a very odd twist, it is our ally. It must all play itself out. Squeamish moaning and hand-wringing is all to no avail. It is in around this point that we part political company with the tree huggers, egalitarians and other assortment of silly folk. German proverb: The wise man makes better use of his enemies than the fool does of his friends.
@ Zhyppers, yep, eyeballs offers you some good direction. I tend more to take a line of least resistance: you are fucked. The sooner you cop to that, the sooner you may discover a "solution" to this little life conundrum. Note the qualifier “may.” There are no guarantees and there most definitely are no freebies. Only a select few will get it. The balance will pretend that they have gotten it.
Wow! Elmo! Calm down. I'm sorry you don't like it that I still have hopes and dreams. Under all your snappy comebacks, I sense desperation. My little house slowly evolved over many years into a homestead. Got a few major kinks to work out, but maybe if I'm lucky I can get them worked out too. My son has learned all the same skills I have and can take over at any moment. I know how to do without because I grew up without. You don't miss things you never had. No cable, no TV, no cellphone contract, time payments, house payments, clothes dryer, cigarettes, booze - nothing. When you got nothing, little things look good. Think about what you have and how you could do something with it. Got nothing? Got skills? Make lemonade from the lemons. Got friends? Get your network going. Find someone you can relate to and start a system you can handle and go from there. It ain't going to happen all at once. It has to evolve. If you think any ONE of us has all the answers, then don't you think we'd already be in charge? I don't know how old you are, but the techno, let's-pretend-we're all-rock-stars, let mommy and daddy pay for everything while pretending to be adults generation is to have the hardest time getting adjusted to collapse. The fantasy world the media has created for you just isn't going to exist. Meet some people from eastern Europe or a third world country and see how happy they are and how they adjust on a daily basis with what little they have. I once had neighbors from Bosnia who came here right after their country was at war. They took a run down house and immediately worked it all over as a group, including the kids. They took down trees and made things out of the wood. They grew their own food and went fishing. And then they partied. They opened a repair business out of the garage. Within two years they were doing pretty darned good. Now, spend a day with some middle class American young people. No impulse to help, don't tell me what to do, don't ask me to do anything, I want my way and that's it. No resilience because they've had every whim indulged since birth. Everything is relative. If you're new to this Collapse model, you've got to go through the stages of grieving for a while. Maybe it will get easier for you in a few months. None of us really knows for sure what is actually going to happen or how soon, but we all know our current way of doing things will soon be the way of the past. Enjoy the things you can still do today while they're still available while getting ready to kiss them goodbye tomorrow. If you were a kid I'd say you might use some social work intervention.
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