I take a bemused attitude these days about all the johnny-come-latelies. Here something that I have been doing quietly for decades is gradually coming to the fore, its actually almost the "in" thing to do. Wow.
Just a couple of words for you. All you who have guns ... have simply never understood the first thing about human nature. Granted, its gonna be a bit squirrly when things first fall apart. But a gun only does one thing, really .... it acts as a magnet for a bigger gun. He who lives by the gun will die by the gun. Not my choice.
Noodles and rice. Lts and lots. Gonna be a fair number of folk who die of scurvy. Ugly way to go, mates. Worse than the gun, even.
Fishing down by the river. Sure. Read up on cholera, while the internet still works. By the way, you better have a permanent source of water. Not the river.
I was out today adding to my supplies. I know some of you are damn well stocked. But I'm sure there aren't too many of you who've got tampons.
This is gonna be so much fuuuuuuunnnnnnnn.............
Monday, October 22, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Apple
I have never even owned a cell phone, let alone a proxy brain (isn't that what a "smart phone does? seems like all the people who use them have forgotten entirely that they used to be able to think). Sorry folks, but it simply serves no purpose in my life, no need, no want, I can still eat, sleep, work and play without the slightest inconvenience for not having one.
When, years ago, Apple's stock trajectory began to resemble the take-off of an ICBM, the second part of the journey was already inherent to many people, it was only a matter of time.
This quarter, not only Apple but Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and now Google have all taken tremendous hits. I must say I don't know of any instance where a whole sector collapsed again like this when the previous collapse was still lingering in peoples' memories.
But it occurs to me that, aside from the budding industries of "personal trainer", dietician, massage technician, and call girl, this was the last bastion of US superiority and economic power and prestige ....
It is only a matter of time now before we hear urgent pleas for the government to bail out Apple.
Look out below.
When, years ago, Apple's stock trajectory began to resemble the take-off of an ICBM, the second part of the journey was already inherent to many people, it was only a matter of time.
This quarter, not only Apple but Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and now Google have all taken tremendous hits. I must say I don't know of any instance where a whole sector collapsed again like this when the previous collapse was still lingering in peoples' memories.
But it occurs to me that, aside from the budding industries of "personal trainer", dietician, massage technician, and call girl, this was the last bastion of US superiority and economic power and prestige ....
It is only a matter of time now before we hear urgent pleas for the government to bail out Apple.
Look out below.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Bomb bomb bomb! Bomb bomb Iran
In the entire history of mankind, has there ever evolved a more supreme irony?
The (still, though perhaps not too much longer) majority of US residents call themselves "Caucasians" or even "Aryans". The state of the educational system inn the culture is in such a shambles that the great majority of them have never even heard of the Caucasian Mountains and couldn't find them on a globe if their lives depended on it.
Even fewer of them recognize the roots of their own supposed core philosophies/theologies. While the name "Zoroaster" or more commonly, "Zarathustra" may evoke faint recognition, there can't be more than one american in a thousand who can state that it was he who definitively first introduced the dichotomy of "good and evil" into man's thinking (the proverbial bite of apple). Fewer still recognize that his life predated the captivity within Babylon whereupon most of the Old Testament was first written down.
From his day forward, the history of mankind became the struggle between those who believe that life is a struggle between good and evil, and those who don't.
(Needless to say, those who ascribe to the first party have been "winning", up until recently. They have labelled all those who don't to be "savages", aborigines", and other such debasing terms, they have enslaved them, massacred them, or simply overrun their homelands and taken everything away from them that they need for survival. It goes without saying that every person who believes that life is a struggle between good and evil believes himself to be aligned with the forces of good,no matter his actual impact upon the world. Hitler believed that.Joseph Stalin believed that. Jesus believed that. Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, et al believe that.)
The very core beliefs which US residents hold to be so dear, the "moral values", their fundamental compass, all of those ideas happened to originate with the ancient Persian people. According to ancient recordkeeping, the very first bankers in the world, loaning money at interest in return for collateral such as slaves and land were Jews in captivity in the city of Babylon, thriving in the Persian Empire. The first astronomers, the first mathematicians came from the same "golden age", discovering the paramount utility of the number zero and the theorem of squares later falsely claimed by Pythagoras.
In governments, the concept of "Freedom of Religion" which some supposed was invented by Thomas Jefferson, actually was first put into practice by Cyrus the Great and first applied in allowing the remnant to return to Israel and even giving them the funds to rebuild their temple. Cyrus also generated the theory of annexation and full rights; his system of satraps and satrapies was the model for Roman and later US annexation and empire-building, wherein each new conquest came under the same rights, privileges and taxes as all the older ones.
The label "Pharisee" is perhaps much more familiar to the majority who label themselves "Christian" Whether or not any of them obey their own rules and laws is immaterial, they simply believe that they have the right to persecute others for failing to do so but can do whatever they choose themselves with impunity because God forgives them. But though so many know the word, so very few understand where it came from ... for the rules and laws of the Pentateuch were encoded by Ezra into the governing "laws of the government" in the language of the Persians which is still today known as and pronounced with an "f" instead of a "p", i.e. "Farsi" or "Pharisee".... and while Jesus belittled their importance, the tradition has only gained more and more favor and impact since then.
So now,
now that we have reached and passed "peak oil", though there are still a fair number of folk in denial, now that virtually all of our ruling, intellectual class recognizes that along with it "peak civilization", "Peak technology", "Peak science", and of course "Peak Population" have come and gone, now that the collective knowledge of the body of citizens of the supposed world superpower is hurtling towards idiocy, the said government of the said dominant world economic and military power is marching relentlessly towards war, towards devastation and destruction, with its very own cultural and philosophic and, yes, moral, beginnings... the City of Rage, now called Tehran, nestled in the foothills of the Caucasian Mountains ....
from a distance, its pretty funny .....pretty damn funny ....
The (still, though perhaps not too much longer) majority of US residents call themselves "Caucasians" or even "Aryans". The state of the educational system inn the culture is in such a shambles that the great majority of them have never even heard of the Caucasian Mountains and couldn't find them on a globe if their lives depended on it.
Even fewer of them recognize the roots of their own supposed core philosophies/theologies. While the name "Zoroaster" or more commonly, "Zarathustra" may evoke faint recognition, there can't be more than one american in a thousand who can state that it was he who definitively first introduced the dichotomy of "good and evil" into man's thinking (the proverbial bite of apple). Fewer still recognize that his life predated the captivity within Babylon whereupon most of the Old Testament was first written down.
From his day forward, the history of mankind became the struggle between those who believe that life is a struggle between good and evil, and those who don't.
(Needless to say, those who ascribe to the first party have been "winning", up until recently. They have labelled all those who don't to be "savages", aborigines", and other such debasing terms, they have enslaved them, massacred them, or simply overrun their homelands and taken everything away from them that they need for survival. It goes without saying that every person who believes that life is a struggle between good and evil believes himself to be aligned with the forces of good,no matter his actual impact upon the world. Hitler believed that.Joseph Stalin believed that. Jesus believed that. Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, et al believe that.)
The very core beliefs which US residents hold to be so dear, the "moral values", their fundamental compass, all of those ideas happened to originate with the ancient Persian people. According to ancient recordkeeping, the very first bankers in the world, loaning money at interest in return for collateral such as slaves and land were Jews in captivity in the city of Babylon, thriving in the Persian Empire. The first astronomers, the first mathematicians came from the same "golden age", discovering the paramount utility of the number zero and the theorem of squares later falsely claimed by Pythagoras.
In governments, the concept of "Freedom of Religion" which some supposed was invented by Thomas Jefferson, actually was first put into practice by Cyrus the Great and first applied in allowing the remnant to return to Israel and even giving them the funds to rebuild their temple. Cyrus also generated the theory of annexation and full rights; his system of satraps and satrapies was the model for Roman and later US annexation and empire-building, wherein each new conquest came under the same rights, privileges and taxes as all the older ones.
The label "Pharisee" is perhaps much more familiar to the majority who label themselves "Christian" Whether or not any of them obey their own rules and laws is immaterial, they simply believe that they have the right to persecute others for failing to do so but can do whatever they choose themselves with impunity because God forgives them. But though so many know the word, so very few understand where it came from ... for the rules and laws of the Pentateuch were encoded by Ezra into the governing "laws of the government" in the language of the Persians which is still today known as and pronounced with an "f" instead of a "p", i.e. "Farsi" or "Pharisee".... and while Jesus belittled their importance, the tradition has only gained more and more favor and impact since then.
So now,
now that we have reached and passed "peak oil", though there are still a fair number of folk in denial, now that virtually all of our ruling, intellectual class recognizes that along with it "peak civilization", "Peak technology", "Peak science", and of course "Peak Population" have come and gone, now that the collective knowledge of the body of citizens of the supposed world superpower is hurtling towards idiocy, the said government of the said dominant world economic and military power is marching relentlessly towards war, towards devastation and destruction, with its very own cultural and philosophic and, yes, moral, beginnings... the City of Rage, now called Tehran, nestled in the foothills of the Caucasian Mountains ....
from a distance, its pretty funny .....pretty damn funny ....
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Saul of Tarsus
I suppose that I will be pilloried for saying this. Maybe even crucified (God! Do you people never learn! What happens when you martyr somebody!!!!) It needs to be said.
As a preamble, I just finished reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. The gorilla was spot-on. My ideas may sound unfamiliar to you but I'm certainly not the only one to understand the world this way.
The fundamental problem with the Christian religion ( among other, related philosophies and social systems) was Paul. Jesus set a wonderful example for us all and I suppose he never expected that Paul would come around and fuck everything up the way he did.
Its not that he said anything wrong. I am not even uncomfortable with his male-superiority bias. Paul shared some great understandings ... of Jesus' message, of the way things are in this world, of God's purpose for all of us. The problem is, in their heart-of-hearts, most people on earth were already born with those understandings. Paul's entire error was in setting himself up as an authority. As declaring himself the boss.
As implying that everyone else is inferior and cannot and does not already commune with God directly. Really, that whole episode with the blindness and everything, he never changed his fundamental message (of persecuting those who love), the only thing he did was to change his clothes.
Last week the church mens' group met at the local all-night restaurant. We all had a great time together, catching up on news, gossip, and sundry developments, laughing and joking. Then we all took a time out while pastor delivered his obligatory pompous, dictatorial lesson and all the men fidgeted and squirmed in their seats while letting his message pass in one ear and out the other. When he finally shut up, then all of us went back to joking and playing and we all split up with the feeling of a great evening well spent.
The whole Christian fellowship adopted the model of Paul as teacher, as authority, as judge. But God never intended for any man ever, ever to judge any other, and Jesus even said so and it was written down as such. God never intended for any of us to ever have judges or managers or popes or ministers or governors or presidents or executioners. Most of all God never intended for fathers to beat their children and force them to serve the parent. He meant for quite the opposite, for the parents to serve the children, because the children represent the future.
Now, because everything that everybody practices down here is inside-out, mankind is approaching self-annihilation. At least, civilization is just about to become completely undone. As Ishmael would have put it, we are all about to spit out that bit of apple which gave us all the unfortunate fallacy that we could all be judges of others, that we know what only God can really know, which is what is evil and what is good, and therefore we can mete justice upon others. Financially and economically, all the old people with their stocks and bonds, their pensions, their social security and medicare, have raped and robbed all the young people of all of their future, and the best times in the history of mankind, of science, technology, and economic advancement, are now behind us .Soon, those who survive will be able to go back to the search for (the tree of) life, the riotous abundance, the crazy diversity, the nutty screaming grieving shouting laughing insanity that God made us to be a part of in the first place.
As a preamble, I just finished reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. The gorilla was spot-on. My ideas may sound unfamiliar to you but I'm certainly not the only one to understand the world this way.
The fundamental problem with the Christian religion ( among other, related philosophies and social systems) was Paul. Jesus set a wonderful example for us all and I suppose he never expected that Paul would come around and fuck everything up the way he did.
Its not that he said anything wrong. I am not even uncomfortable with his male-superiority bias. Paul shared some great understandings ... of Jesus' message, of the way things are in this world, of God's purpose for all of us. The problem is, in their heart-of-hearts, most people on earth were already born with those understandings. Paul's entire error was in setting himself up as an authority. As declaring himself the boss.
As implying that everyone else is inferior and cannot and does not already commune with God directly. Really, that whole episode with the blindness and everything, he never changed his fundamental message (of persecuting those who love), the only thing he did was to change his clothes.
Last week the church mens' group met at the local all-night restaurant. We all had a great time together, catching up on news, gossip, and sundry developments, laughing and joking. Then we all took a time out while pastor delivered his obligatory pompous, dictatorial lesson and all the men fidgeted and squirmed in their seats while letting his message pass in one ear and out the other. When he finally shut up, then all of us went back to joking and playing and we all split up with the feeling of a great evening well spent.
The whole Christian fellowship adopted the model of Paul as teacher, as authority, as judge. But God never intended for any man ever, ever to judge any other, and Jesus even said so and it was written down as such. God never intended for any of us to ever have judges or managers or popes or ministers or governors or presidents or executioners. Most of all God never intended for fathers to beat their children and force them to serve the parent. He meant for quite the opposite, for the parents to serve the children, because the children represent the future.
Now, because everything that everybody practices down here is inside-out, mankind is approaching self-annihilation. At least, civilization is just about to become completely undone. As Ishmael would have put it, we are all about to spit out that bit of apple which gave us all the unfortunate fallacy that we could all be judges of others, that we know what only God can really know, which is what is evil and what is good, and therefore we can mete justice upon others. Financially and economically, all the old people with their stocks and bonds, their pensions, their social security and medicare, have raped and robbed all the young people of all of their future, and the best times in the history of mankind, of science, technology, and economic advancement, are now behind us .Soon, those who survive will be able to go back to the search for (the tree of) life, the riotous abundance, the crazy diversity, the nutty screaming grieving shouting laughing insanity that God made us to be a part of in the first place.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
okay, the coming presidential election
Given recent actions and statements from the federal reserve,
it matters not a tinkers damn who wins this election.
but I like this line: "They are both telling half-lies all the time now.
Politicians who lie are hiding the truth. But these guys have forgotten where they even put it."
I have been reading a book entitled "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn ....its a cute premise encapsulating dynamite conclusions. He basically divides the entire philosophy/religion/metaphysics debate into two camps, the leavers and the takers (shades of Ayn Rand??????) and he makes a damn good case that the takers are hurtling towards self-destruction. It gets deep, he identifies Cain, the one who adopted agriculture and hence, a stable residence, as the first taker and Able, the hunter/gatherer, as the first leaver, and the mark of Cain is that of white skin ..... something I have thought privately myself but never dared to say to anyone .... it was published in 1992....
You don't have to agree with everything he says but you really ought to entertain his line of thinking ....
Yesterday I was looking at all the babies and very pregnant women attending our local town fair, yesterday, and silently wondering to myself what odds I would give that any of them reach adulthood. Maybe on in ten. Maybe ....but I doubt it .....
I have been reading a book entitled "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn ....its a cute premise encapsulating dynamite conclusions. He basically divides the entire philosophy/religion/metaphysics debate into two camps, the leavers and the takers (shades of Ayn Rand??????) and he makes a damn good case that the takers are hurtling towards self-destruction. It gets deep, he identifies Cain, the one who adopted agriculture and hence, a stable residence, as the first taker and Able, the hunter/gatherer, as the first leaver, and the mark of Cain is that of white skin ..... something I have thought privately myself but never dared to say to anyone .... it was published in 1992....
You don't have to agree with everything he says but you really ought to entertain his line of thinking ....
Yesterday I was looking at all the babies and very pregnant women attending our local town fair, yesterday, and silently wondering to myself what odds I would give that any of them reach adulthood. Maybe on in ten. Maybe ....but I doubt it .....
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