for ridiculous spectacle. An Arnold versus Hilary professional bitchslap fest might even get me to pull the television out of the closet and pay for a few months of cable so I can watch the whole horror show unfold live.
There's also some good stuff from some of Kunstler's commentators on the state of American men I feel is worth highlighting:
- . . . in writing about the rise of women to positions of power, we've neglected a strange trend in the other direction: the growing disproportion between male and female college enrollees. About 55% of college students are now female. In some schools, the trend is reportedly close to a 40/60 split. What's going on here? One guy, Leonard Sax, says that it might be due in part to an environment saturated in plastics, which can "mimic" estrogen. He's got some articles up on the net.
- Some people I've talked with have noticed that their own sons seem to be uninterested in the whole school/career project. They don't see what's in it for them. My wife and I noticed years ago that among our circle of friends, whose children are mostly young adults now, the females have done better than the males in and out of school. A lot of the young men we know have just dropped out of the competition and are doing dumbass jobs like parking cars and pumping gas. But it isn't just anecdotal any more. Articles are now being published about this mysterious trend, and what it might mean.
- Maybe what is going on here isn't all that mysterious. Maybe its not just that men are dropping out of a system that is set up to screw them over. This is fanciful, but maybe they are withholding energy from a system which they feel has no future, without necessarily being able to articulate that feeling. Men will sacrifice their health and lives working at crappy, physically-dangerous jobs--or crappy corporate jobs which entail different kinds of hazards--to provide (for) women and children . . . but men will only continue to do this as long as they can believe in the project.
- Men work and compete for the approval and admiration of other men, as well as to attract and care for women. And it goes without saying that if work, whatever its meager intrinsic rewards might be, has turned another man into a human wallet for his ex-wife . . . his ex-wife's lawyer, a couple of realtors, the tax man, and the universities with their soaring costs, . . . you might not want to follow briskly in (those) footsteps.
Best,
Matt
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- . . . the true reason for this war is the control of energy resources. This is due to the fact that the geology, the richness in gas and oil, are concentrated in the Muslim countries. He who wants to monopolize them, must hide behind this type of manipulations. We cannot say that there is not a lot of oil left because the global production - the ’peak oil’ [12] - is going to arrive probably before 2020, and that therefore oil must be taken from Iraq, because people would say that children must not be killed to obtain oil. And they are right. They can’t be told, either, that in the Caspian Sea there are huge reserves and that there is a plan to create a pipeline that would go to the Indian Ocean but, given that it’s is not allowed to go through the South of Iran or the North of Russia, it must pass through the East, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, and therefore, this country must be under control. That is why Muslims are labelled as "terrorists".
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Peak Oil and Energy
- The answer is "yes." Remember, the founding father's set up a system where the upper class would be free to "pursue happiness", which regardless of your definition of happiness generally means getting more money. Money, of course, is just a proxy for energy. In other words, the founding father's set up a system that only functions properly when net-energy flows are increasing. It's probably no coincidence that our democracy was functioning at its best between about 1945 and 1970 when yearly increases in per-capita energy availability were at their highest level ever, both here and throughout the world.
- So what happens when you can't go out into the frontier and take energy (land) from Indians or just explore for energy in places like Texas? Well you got to take it from whoever has got it. That is exactly what is happening and (unfortunately) will continue to happen into the foreseeable future.
Emphasis added:
- . . . some of you are probably wondering how you are supposed to remain hopeful in the face of these enormous tasks. Here's the plain truth, folks: Hope is not a consumer product. You have to generate your own hope. You do that by demonstrating to yourself that you are brave enough to face reality and competent enough to deal with the circumstances that it presents. How we will manage to uphold a decent society in the face of extraordinary change will depend on our creativity, our generosity, and our kindness, and I am confident that we can find these resources within our own hearts, and collectively in our communities.
- "You'll forgive me if I sound a little shrill," began Professor Michael T. Klare, the author of "Resource Wars" and its sequel "Blood and Oil", who directed his presentation at the 2006 Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference at Boston University to the families and loved ones of young people under 25 "who may chose to or be coerced to put on the uniform of the United States military."
- Volatile words that could easily be construed as un-American, but meant to "speak truth to power, " as another speaker at the conference, Randy Udall of the distinguished Udall family of politicians and environmentalists, put it.
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Conspiracies, Crime, Corruption
- One thing the article fails to mention was that Bush Sr. was vice-president from 1980-to-1988. In other words, by the time we get to 2008 there will have been a Bush or Clinton in the White House for 28 years. So the article is actually wrong, if Clinton wins in 2008 and serves two terms, we will have gone 36 years with either a Bush or Clinton in the White House.
- Even more amazing - and not completely out of the question mind you - is if one of the Bush clan like Jeb runs in 2012 or 2016, it could be even longer, maybe 40 or 44 years with a Bush or Clinton in the White House.
- At first it was hailed as a victory for civil liberties. But last week’s announcement that warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency has come to an end means less than it first appears.
- Let us remember that when the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, another Texan, wanted to escalate the war against North Vietnam, in 1964, it fabricated a tale about a maritime incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, which many historians believe never happened. Congress was then steamrolled into passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was used by the Johnson administration, and later by the Nixon administration, to escalate U.S. military involvement in Indochina. Tens of thousands of young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died as a consequence of this resolution.
- And the same scenario is repeating itself today.
- If you're one of those tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists worried about black helicopters spying you on the night, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news? There probably aren't black helicopters spying on you. The bad news? There will soon be a small army of space blimps spying on you instead.
- National Security Action Memoranda 263 was issued by John F Kennedy on October 11, 1963. It was Kennedy’s last NSAM policy directive issued on Vietnam. Simply stated, it called for a withdrawal of 1,000 troops, combatants, from Vietnam. Beyond that stunner, was Kennedy’s firm ambition, made known to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the generals, to withdraw the balance of the troops by the end of 1965. The NSAM document, Scott points out, is on the screen of Stone’s JFK for six seconds, fast enough in film time to see, but merely a blip to fully understand. And to watch it morph, supposedly following in Kennedy’s directive steps to NSAM 273, is mind-boggling. This National Security Action Memo was issued only two days after Kennedy’s death by Lyndon Johnson, giving General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the permission to escalate “to insure victory” and take the “war North.”
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Geopolitics, War, And Conflict:
- This incredible documentary by former “60 Minutes” producer Barry Lando chronicles the horror that 13 years of U.S.-backed sanctions wrought on Iraq, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands—many of them children.
- As with WWI troop escalation, the "Big Push" in Iraq will likely do nothing to end the war and much to light the fuses of future ones.
- Even if there is no open military attack, a financial war on Iran has already begun, partly by squeezing Tehran's access to international banking and partly by keeping the price of oil low. The political repercussions are already visible in the rising criticism of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, amid fears of social unrest.
- A drug-resistant bacteria that is infecting wounded US soldiers in Iraq -- and has spread to civilian hospitals in parts of Europe -- accidentally evolved in US military hospitals in Iraq, Wired Magazine will report in a massive expose on Monday.
- Oil-rich Kirkuk province in Iraq will decide in a referendum whether or not to be absorbed into the Kurdish autonomous region. Turkey is dead set against the idea, and as the date approaches for the decision, Ankara is stepping up its warnings of "intervention".
- China's purported feat of "killing" one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile is aimed at Taiwan as much as at demonstrating progress in force modernization. It is a more subtle form of military muscle-flexing, which may get better results politically on the island than outright intimidation
- China's satellite killer has caused consternation in Moscow. Space-based technology was one area where Russia still felt like a superpower, but now China can potentially threaten the one Russian asset that still gives it enormous strength and confidence.
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- In a dramatic fiscal policy move, China has decided to diversify disposal of its whopping US $1 trillion foreign exchange reserve, setting up a company to handle the investment of the funds in overseas markets.
Very insightfull stuff:
- "Renting is just throwing money away." FALSE, renting is now much cheaper per month than owning. If you don't rent, you either:
- A. Have a mortgage, in which case you are throwing away money on interest, tax, insurance, maintenance. (or)
- B. Own outright, in which case you are throwing away the extra income you could get by converting your house to cash, investing in bonds, and renting a place to live. This extra income could be 50% to 200% beyond rent costs, and for many is enough to retire right now.
- Either way, owners LOSE much more money every month than renters. Currently, yearly rents in the Bay Area are about 2% of the cost of buying an equivalent house. This means a house is returning about 2%, and it is a bad investment. Pretty much any other investment is better. If you don't like risk, put your money in US Treasuries at 5%.
- In effect, landlords are loaning the purchase price of a house to their tenants at a 2% interest rate. This is a fantastic deal for renters. When it is possible to borrow a million dollar house for 2% yearly rent at the same time a loan of a million dollars in cash costs 6%, plus 1% property tax, plus 2% maintenance, something is clearly broken. I would think every rational businessman would take the extreme discount renters are enjoying.
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Global Warming, Climate Change, and the Environment:
- Human-caused global warming is here - visible in the air, water and melting ice - and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.
- After five years, doctors have definitively established a link between work at ground zero and chronic respiratory illness. But experts have been slower to officially link deaths to the exposure.
- year into a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Ford Motor Co., Upper Ringwood, NJ residents have hired experts from the "Erin Brockovich" case to prove the auto giant is responsible for a legacy of pollution and sickness.
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Health and Alternative Medicine:
I think I might have a slight case of this, my guess is some of you may also.
- Although Internet Multitasking Syndrome is not a known medical disorder (I just made it up five minutes ago), it is not uncommon for people to become so immersed in their online activities that their cognitive abilities wane. After hours starring at a screen, flipping between web pages and information outlets, people can develop a feeling of anxiety, stress and a decrease in mental performance, said John Suler, author of The Psychology of Cyberspace. "There are limits to how much information one person can process," he continued.
I'm going to go ahead and give this a try, hopefully there are no weird subliminal messages in it although if you ever wanted to design something that you know people are going to download and listen to, this would certainly be it.
Update, Tuesday 1/23/2007: I tried this and I think may actually work although I can't say for sure as I listened to it while my morning hits of caffeine were kicking in. As far as there being any subliminal messages in it, I have been hearing voices and doing lots of twitching but no more than usual so I guess it's okay to listen to:
- I created and I'm posting here a 20 minutes duration brainwave file [in MP3 format] that I called "Coffee Replacement" because of its feature to keep you in an energizing state giving you a "caffeine" energetic boost. Use this session when you wake up in the morning or when you need a boost of energy.
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Relocalization and Preparation:
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Miscellaneous Stories of Interest:
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