tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70738635978371981972024-03-12T22:15:56.163-07:00latent sanitylatent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.comBlogger264125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-67618692944239443262017-08-16T09:44:00.001-07:002017-08-16T09:53:36.982-07:00CharlottsvilleNo good will come of this. None at all.<br />
<br />
The statues were not harming a single person, they were not trampling upon anybody's civil rights or liberty or equality or anything.<br />
<br />
But they stood silently as a reminder to all of us of the horrific bloodshed and property damage, when the creeks and rivers ran red and the only beneficiaries were the vultures, whose children's children still guard our blue skies.<br />
<br />
Very near to Charlottsville is Monticello, the plantation owned and run by Thomas Jefferson. Even with 140 slaves on his property, the man still could not figure out how to make a profit, and he died deeply in debt and did not free any of his slaves upon his own death. Are you all going to pull down all of the statues of him, next, including the memorial on the Washington, D.C. mall? Are you going to ban all of his writings, including the Declaration of Independence? What the hell do you people think you are doing?<br />
<br />
There were family members who died, their faded photos, their names, maybe a few trinkets still remain. There is no sense at all in desecrating their names. We may all agree that the cause for which they died was not honorable. Times have changed, and lessons have been learned. But ask yourselves, how many of us will like for our own heroes today to be treated the same way (as they certainly WILL be, in time....)<br />
<br />
No good is going to come of this. No good at all is ever going to come of self-righteousness.<br />
There will be repercussions until both sides are grievously damaged and heartily sorry.latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-23986090827290298722017-02-21T05:22:00.002-08:002017-02-21T05:22:59.416-08:00Today I learned ...(source: A Time-Life book titled <b>FLOOD </b>and copyright 1981)<br />
<br />
This image:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFT3wGES_gc-IXgv8Rh4P1hgk89QaAuffF5jk7SLhZT7GNJVfQj4XuGq7-5irVoCk8V1HB2N-jQIZUSxOEQGz_CJETVs5PDPQF2LzbzTvzuVBchKeION_xyFsxFpszxr4RD43wD3yM_aWP/s1600/yellow+river.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFT3wGES_gc-IXgv8Rh4P1hgk89QaAuffF5jk7SLhZT7GNJVfQj4XuGq7-5irVoCk8V1HB2N-jQIZUSxOEQGz_CJETVs5PDPQF2LzbzTvzuVBchKeION_xyFsxFpszxr4RD43wD3yM_aWP/s640/yellow+river.jpg" width="331" /> </a></div>
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<i>(For scale reference, the distance from the top of that little map to the bottom is approximately 800 miles or 1300 km.) </i></div>
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<i>"</i>The notion of blasting open the dike must have seemed like the only recourse to the Kuomintang general who on June 6, 1938, was confronted by Japanese troops preparing to advance from near Kaifeng against the key railroad junction of Chengchou at the village of Hua-yuan-k'ou, the general ordered his troops on June 9 to break down the main dike of the river.</div>
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The result was beyond his darkest imagining. Far from merely creating a local flood that would stop the Japanese -- as it assuredly did -- the breach sent the entire Yellow River pouring to the southeast. The deluge covered more than 9,000 square miles, drowning an estimated 500,000 Chinese and leaving six million homeless. The plain remained flooded for seven years; when Japan surrendered, two million acres of fertile farmland were still waterlogged."</div>
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Meanwhile, the dear precious folks on Reddit are very, very concerned today about a single "abused" dog suffering starvation and ticks ....</div>
<br />latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-40596754344611983932016-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:002016-10-18T06:00:14.302-07:00dirty little secret<br />
70 years ago, the United States had built a hugely efficient network for transporting goods from almost anywhere to almost anywhere else. We called it the railroads.<br />
<br />
Then, someone got the bright idea that a lot more money could pass through a lot more hands, if they tore it all up, built Interstate highways and long distance trucks. The highways required much, much more land. They required much, much more equipment and materials, steel, asphalt and cement to build. The trucks required many, many more operators - truck drivers- one per 40 tons instead of one per 40,000 tons. The trucks required much, much more fossil fuel to operate.<br />
<br />
So we destroyed over 2/3 of our track and rolling stock and we eliminated almost all of the passenger handling at the same time.<br />
<br />
You want to know what this global warming thing is really about? After the USA suffered brutal losses and huge casualties in the War on Poverty, and then took even worse losses in the War on Drugs? Now they are asking the good citizens to make a War on the Weather?????<br />
<br />
just follow the money. ?Back in my day, Physics was a high school course. Now, they teach either Swedish massage or organized football instead. Consequently most people don't really understand energy, so they can be easily fooled. I was speaking to a group of college-educated liberals the other day who genuinely believed that solar energy is free (but gasoline is controlled by a corporate monopoly, an equally-horrendous fallacy).<br />
<br />
So here is a crash course for you all:<br />
<br />
Suppose that you have ten acres of land.<br />
<br />
Gasoline as an energy source, is akin to knowing that there is a single stick of TNT buried about a foot deep on your land. Nowadays, we even have all the electronic and other equipment to locate exactly where it is. All you have to do is to dig it up.<br />
<br />
Solar, as an energy source, is akin to knowing that a million kitchen matches have been scattered all over your land. If you want it, all you have to do is to go out and pick them up. A lot of them. Where it gets really interesting is if it is raining, or snowing, or even if it is just night time and you don't have a flashlight. Oh, one other thing -- they don't keep well either and they are very, very difficult to move from place to place....<br />
<br />
Of course I grasp, too, the madness of crowds. You all were manipulated before, you will be manipulated again. I can still take the train from my house if I want to go to Washington, D.C. and say what I have to say to someone. I don't bother very often though because I already know I will be branded as having some kind of mental illness or something .....so I'll just stay at home, by the fire that heats my house a whole lot warmer and cheaper than these foolish heat pumps ...latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-41219424281090330642016-08-28T17:42:00.002-07:002016-08-28T17:42:23.282-07:00Homo Sapiens is an invasive species The fossil records show evidence of other species which were so successful in their design that they became so overpopulated that they overwhelmed their environments, their food resources and everything, and drove themselves into extinction. We are not the first to take that path. It is not merely the fact of our intelligence which makes us so successful, but rather our intense (and often vehemently denied) aggressive instincts. Homo Sapiens began pulling away from the other primates starting about two million years ago when they began to stand and walk erect. Their mouths and teeth became smaller, and their guts smaller. They discovered MEAT. It was a whole lot easier to digest and to get the needed nutrients... the only thing was, it had to be caught, it had to be outsmarted, and then it had to be killed. So that is when and why our brains started to get bigger.<br />
<br />
The fossil and DNA records strongly suggest that the indoeuropean strain of homo sapien were responsible for the genocide of the neanderthals across europe and northern asia, maybe 40,000 years ago, possibly accounting for the myth of Cain and Able in the hebrew tradition. We did not like the competition.<br />
<br />
Now comes the day when we are using up resources of all kinds at such a headlong rate that our own extinction is clear to see for anyone with any perspective.... the seas are massively depleted of fish, the air sees fewer and fewer birds, the numbers of every species of large animal on earth are declining at alarming rates, the air is more and more polluted, the water as well, the environment is overrun with the volumes and varieties of unnatural drugs, acids, alkalines, plastics, petrochemicals, poisons of all kinds, fertilizers, radioactive isotopes, and all the other remarkable inventions our technology has invented but never bothered to figure out how to dispose of.<br />
<br />
Mother Nature is exceedingly patient and slow-moving. She counts seconds in millions of years.<br />
Plastics and all our other synthetic material manufacturing will all break down and disappear without a trace in a thousand years or so. All of our skyscrapers, bridges, and most of our other edifices will be totally gone, without a trace, within about ten thousand years. Stone monuments may take a little bit longer to wear down but within fifty thousand years they, too, will be gone. Chances are we won't even leave behind any fossil remains, most species never do. On a planet that has been around for 5 billion years, this is hardly more than an instant. Meanwhile, the remaining species, especially insects, will hardly even notice when we are gone.<br />
<br />
Though we have done quite a bit of damage and will probably do even more before we expire, the odds heavily favor a complete recovery. and it won't even take that long, it will take even less time that it took us to evolve from the first Australopithicus who got up and walked away.<br />
<br />
I can't wait.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-60270818491442924302016-06-06T09:39:00.004-07:002016-06-06T09:39:59.840-07:00sexismso ...<br />
<br />
There are so many guys these days, around here, who actually WANT to be pussies ...<br />
<br />
...and that doesn't tell you anything?<br />
<br />
That doesn't tell you what is wrong here?<br />
<br />
That still doesn't tell you that we have ceded too much, far too much, power, too much privilege, too much leverage, to the genus of the species known for its timidity, its fear, its complacency, its immobility in the face of need?latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-42133156924157715692016-03-27T05:11:00.000-07:002016-03-27T05:11:02.798-07:00Joy After the resurrection, "The Powers that Be" refused to be outmaneuvered. Having been soundly beaten in the public opinion polls, their initial reaction seemed to be surrender ...and Christianity spread throughout the western world ... but Truth was never their favourite tool, instead they found ways to insinuate lies and deception into the very core teachings of the new church, to corrupt the very words, language, and concepts even as they seemed to support them ... individuals like Emperor Constantine, Saint Augustine, the august members of the Nicene Council, the Popes, and later on King James, John Milton, and others, they all managed to subtly alter the message that Jesus had delivered, in ways delicate but powerful...<br />
<br />
Darkness will never be destroyed ... emptiness, utter stillness, and absolute zero will always be just around the corner. They are not forces, they represent the absence of force. They are not people, or gods, or devils, there is no intelligence behind them. Those people who teach that pain, suffering, and loneliness can be eliminated forever, they have an insidious desire to teach people utter hopelessness as they begin to suspect that that message itself is a lie.<br />
<br />
"He is Risen"<br />
<br />
Joy unbounded.<br />
<br />
It is what it is, it can be brought forth in every thing, in every person, in every place, and time. There is nothing else worth living for, nothing that can be made to be permanent, nothing that lasts, certainly there is no scientific basis whatever for the mathematical concept of "eternity". It is ephemeral, it is ethereal, it is the mists rising from the grass in the morning that will burn off in the afternoon.<br />
Ours is the potential, the possibility, to create happiness, new, in the people around us. Jesus showed us more ways to do it. Don't try to make it into more than it is, do not try to capture or keep it or turn it into stone, else you will lose it forever.latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-29791978563293408492016-03-20T06:14:00.002-07:002016-03-20T06:14:36.035-07:00happiness Happiness is fleeting! Run! Run for your lives! Catch it while you can.<br />
<br />
Because only the ending, only termination, only death, can last forever ....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-13034371933679836712015-10-06T14:45:00.003-07:002015-10-06T14:45:45.647-07:00Police I came home from my morning shopping trip, parked in my driveway, and duly noted a police cruiser parked on the side street by my house. I got out quietly and looked around, up and down the street, in yards, and down the alley, but saw no one. the police car was unoccupied.<br />
There's been incidents. There was a fire down the street just two weeks ago, arson, and the man and the woman found both shot to death in their car. There was the awful incident a few years back where a man shook his baby to death, and later we all learned that he had fled another state, another wife, another life, after having done the same thing. One of my neighbors was strung out on heroin before wrecking his car, his marriage and his life; that house is still abandoned. Another was known to have clogged the sewer lines with hypodermic needles. Even one of my own roommates called the police after some kind of staged suicide attempt.<br />
So, I walked quietly around to the front of my house. there, on the main street, was another cruiser and an unmarked squad car parked right across the street. But this was near the middle of the day, there was bright sunshine and hardly any traffic. Nothing was moving and there were no sounds. I looked at my neighbor's house, everything seemed to be in order. The hardware store was quiet.<br />
After a minute or two of waiting, and still hearing nothing, seeing nothing, I ventured in to the hardware store.<br />
The cashier was on top of the situation. He had it all scoped out.<br />
<br />
"They are having lunch together at the pizza shop", he stated boldly.<br />
Just then one of the officers passed by on the sidewalk. "How's it going?", he asked. <br />
<br />
I think there is a lesson in there, somewhere ....<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-88348890040236731082015-05-16T10:47:00.003-07:002015-05-16T10:47:45.985-07:00"The Death of Money"James Rickards, Penguin, 2014.<br />
<br />
I highly recommend, he's extremely informative and thought-provoking, although I disagree with some of his conclusions.<br />
Here's an excerpt that I won't argue with:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"There are few more tendentious comments on gold than the a priori<br />
statement that a gold standard cannot work today. In fact, a well-<br />
designed gold standard could work smoothly if the political will existed to enact it and to adhere to its noninflationary disciplines. A gold standard <br />
is the ideal monetary system for those who create wealth through <br />
ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and hard work. Gold standards are disfavored<br />
by those who do not create wealth but instead seek to extract wealth
from others through inflation, inside information, and market
manipulation. <br />
The debate over gold versus fiat money is really a debate between<br />
entrepreneurs and rentiers."</span>latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-55520591186238616892015-03-04T10:35:00.000-08:002015-03-04T10:35:00.652-08:00whydoes it take so long<br />
for everybody else to grasp<br />
what a disaster the crude oil price drop is for the economy of the USA?<br />
<br />
which is mainly based upon financial gimmickery,<br />
and as such is highly vulnerable to price drops in land<br />
and defaults in oil company debts<br />
and large numbers of layoffs in<br />
one of the few growth industries we had left<br />
<br />
<br />
?<br />
<br />
Back in the day, the stock market actually was a good predictor<br />
of economic conditions to come.<br />
Are we at the point now where the great majority of stock holdings<br />
are in the care of people who don't understand what they are doing?latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-74448763938871942122015-02-17T16:31:00.000-08:002015-02-17T16:31:13.149-08:00Racismyou know, its the very favourite tool of the kings, the oligarches ... lets get the poor white people to fight against the poor black people, so that we can rule and control all of them ....<br />
<br />
but you know, the way things are going now, with populations in every region easily and instantly able to pick up and relocate to any different region, anywhere on the globe, and with the old rules about sticking to your own kind now in complete tatters and so many children ensuing who cannot lay allegiance to any group of any kind but can only bear the label "mixed", and bear it with pride ....<br />
<br />
it won't be long now, not long at all, just a few more generations, before any sentiment or generalization along such lines will sound so archaic, so ancient, that people will faint believe that anybody ever behaved in those silly ways ....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-57949433711371213872015-01-30T09:03:00.001-08:002015-01-30T09:03:35.181-08:00contortions this is hilarious. The contortions that the western mainstream media is trying to go through to put some kind of favorable spin on the situation.....<br />
<br />
Greece, and the Ukraine, and Russia now have a gun pointed at the heart of our system ... either the west surrenders and GIVES both Greece and the Ukraine the money that they request, or else they get it from Russia. If they get it from Russia then all of the Greek debt and Ukraine debt held by the IMF and the ECB and the western banks, goes into default, and that's enough to tip the whole system into disaster.<br />
<br />
I just can't wait to see how Fox News words this little imbroglio......latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-59487287620827536672015-01-23T10:59:00.003-08:002015-01-23T10:59:41.380-08:00Olio PetrolioOlio Petrolio sat on a wall.<br />
<br />
Olio Petrolio had a great fall.<br />
<br />
All the King's bankers<br />
<br />
and all the Bureau of Printing and Engraving's inket printer pens<br />
<br />
could not put Olio Petrolio back together again!latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-66769802028853355722015-01-23T06:04:00.003-08:002015-01-23T06:04:37.214-08:00They say history never repeats, but sometimes it rhymes.Recommended reading:<br />
<br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia<br />
<br />
I simply cannot believe that this is happening again, exactly the same way.<br />
I guess the schools in the USA have deteriorated so far, degenerated into little boot camps,<br />
that not even the elite schools for the well-to-do and future leaders of our nation teach<br />
any modicum of history. (Or literature: "War and Peace" is well worth the time and effort....)<br />
<br />
This time around, western civilization is at risk. Looks to me like its already lost.....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-25915955913972339242015-01-19T07:04:00.003-08:002015-01-19T09:06:00.997-08:00moods I am miserable this morning. I just feel horrible. Third day in a row. There is nothing going on, that I know about. I feel like I am bleeding from every orifice.<br />
Yesterday, we made just fabulous music in church. We all had so much fun. If religion is the opiate of the masses, then the people I worship with have managed to distill the finest heroin available anywhere....<br />
... and it made no difference at all to my mood. I felt horrible before I went and I felt horrible when I got home. I feel as if I'm staying at a hotel in downtown Kigali in about May of 1994.<br />
<br />
After all these many years of managing this, I have finally come around to thinking about my experiences as a "gift". this even though I understand that the primary reason that I am this way is that I developed empathy as a defense mechanism to be aware of impending tirades and terror from my parents. I must have been born with the propensity but their imperious abuse certainly nurtured and developed this sixth sense of mine to a fine edge.<br />
<br />
You might have thought that at least *one* of the myriad counselors and psychiatrists who had attended to me for all those many years, at least one of them would have picked up on the fact that my moods are a reflection, that they don't originate with me and they don't even belong to me, but that I am only acting as the reflector, the receiver. However, if you thought that, it would be because you make the same fundamental mistake about their real roles that I did for so many years. Psychiatrists are not hired or paid for by the patients, no indeed, they are hired and paid by the parents, the teachers, the police and other authorities who do not wish to deal with the difficulties they have spawned on account of their own hypocrisies. The real goals and motivations of the psychiatrists is to make individuals be more tractable, more congenial, easier to cope with, quieter. They have no reason whatever to want to really help or "cure" these people. That is why they have so little hesitation about using powerful drugs, electric shock, surgery, or whatever other damaging, destructive and harmful means they can invent to permanently maim people if that will help to achieve their real goals.<br />
<br />
I'll save that rant for another day.<br />
<br />
I was well past 50 when I began to really realize that I am an empath. I receive other people's emotions, in much the same way that your nose receives information about a pestilence, an infection, a putrescence, a poison. At times I can be genuinely psychic, receiving feelings from people far distant from me. Like ammonia to your nose, I can be almost overcome if something is intense enough. But, like your nose, I cannot usually isolate the source of the affliction, I must rely upon other sources, other senses, my eyes, ears, or even touch, to identify where the smell is coming from. In the case of emotions, its still, even now, a bit of a challenge to verify that the source is outside of me rather than coming from my own body. On occasion I even adopt physical aches and pains, back aches, fatigue, asthma, or other bodily distress symptoms. Once I'm pretty sure its not "me", then I still have to figure out who is sending to me., and sometimes it can takes weeks or longer to find out. It can be someone I am living with. It can be someone I am close friends with. It can be some family member or some long lost girlfriend that I have not even seen or talked to for months or even years.... or ... since I spend so much time reading myriad news sources and commentary, and focusing upon macro and worldwide economic issues which affect millions of people rather than isolated political figures who have much less importance than they or their detractors or the media say they do ... it can be the markets.<br />
<br />
That is why I can be such an accurate prophet. Its not because I can really see the future, although many times it seems that way. Its because I can feel what the people in power are really feeling, and so I know what they are going to do before they do.<br />
<br />
A slight aside here. The reason why I am not rich is very simple. I do not want to be very rich. Its a royal pain in the ass to have to make all those decisions all the time and to have powerful, aggressive individuals after you, trying every trick in the book to take it away from you all the time. I have been, in times past, rich enough to know what that's about ... rich enough that when there is a general bus, metro and taxi strike in Paris, the manager of the hotel where I'm staying gives me his personal car to use. I could go on but you know. Its a royal pain in the ass, Jesus was not just preaching when he talked about being rich being a terrible experience. You would think that the very, very rich of this world would be smart enough to figure that one out, but they can't because they have this horrible addiction...its much worse than heroin ... I am digressing again, sorry.<br />
<br />
That's why, if I need money, I can always get it out of the markets. Always.<br />
<br />
I don't have any girlfriends right now, have got them all out of my home and out of my blood, haven't had any for years. I may have just outgrown all of that misery, for good and all. My friends are doing fine and my family members are bumbling along as usual. So this mood which is pounding me like a nor'easter has got to be coming from the high up muckty mucks. I was not just kidding about cheap oil being a black swan.<br />
<br />
Look out below ....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-58019761105001813262014-12-14T15:26:00.002-08:002014-12-14T15:26:40.032-08:00History I guess that poor, unfortunate hebrew fellow who scratched out the first stick figures on Mt. Sinai, which later went on to become the foundation of the alphabets for the greeks, the romans, the indo-european nations, and even arabic and even geeze .... he really need not have bothered.<br />
<br />
Some things in history just happen over, and over, and over again, as if none of us had any access at all to history books recording the mistakes of our forebears. You would have thought one tower of Babylon would have been enough, but no....someone had to go and build the World Trade Center, didn't they ....<br />
<br />
In particular, a great idea, great statesmen, leaders during trying times who bring men together to perform spectacular feats ... this has happened so many times, so many, many times ....egypt, the persian empire, ancient greece, the seleucid empire, the babylonian empire, the roman empire, so many times .... the spanish empire, the swedish empire, the french empire, the british colonial empire, the ottoman empire ... so many times ... the Third Reich, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ... economic successes lead a people to begin to believe that they, as a people, are better than everyone else, that their system is better than everyone else, and that therefore the whole world needs to be "enlightened" and liberated ... and, just as sure as night follows day, they abandon the very principles that they originally began with and which helped to make them great and powerful, they build up their military, and build, and build, they raise torture and abuse, spying and extortion, not only of foreign citizens but also their own, they bankrupt themselves on the enormous costs, and they collapse into oblivion....<br />
<br />
So goodie, I guess we get to do it again, huh. This time will be a doozie ...latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-68166562082860530522014-12-12T05:12:00.003-08:002014-12-12T05:12:51.374-08:00Obama Maybe its me, but my perception of this president is there has been more "coloring" of the reporting about him, more shading of the truth, more outright fabrication and lies, than any other president in my lifetime, if not for the entire history of the country.<br />
<br />
Many, many others have weighed in on the subject of whether he has been the best president, or the worst president, that we have ever had. I don't even need to say on that score.<br />
<br />
In my vocation as prophet, I know I've already said what I think to a few people. but not even those who respect my judgement gave it much credence. When I said, back in the beginning of 2001, that the presidents desire to make war against Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with terrorism and nothing to do with WMD and everything to do with oil, they scoffed, they pooh-poohed me, hardly anyone even noticed, nobody remembers anymore. When I said, back in the beginning of 2006, that the next president would be a black man, not even my black friends thought I had anything substantial to contribute, the whole campaign was either Hillarious or Algorithm.<br />
<br />
And there's only 5 or 6 people who ever read this blog, so it doesn't matter either. I wrote about the black swan of deflation but the markets kept on going up, but at least Zero Hedge wrote the same thing a few days later. Now, several weeks later, the markets have just begun to figure out that cheap gas may not be such a wonderful thing after all.<br />
<br />
So I can put this out there confident that no one will read it, let alone act upon it. There won't even be any black SUV's with shaded glass pulling up outside my door to whisk me away.<br />
<br />
Barak Obama may or may not be the best, or the worst. Historians can sort that out 50 years from now. What you all need to know is that he will be the last President of the U.S.A.<br />
<br />
Its been good to know you all. I'm checking out soon. Your lives are about to get very interesting .....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-90706124196087285772014-12-09T15:29:00.000-08:002014-12-09T19:37:40.985-08:00bad news<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMpdIBFDroswUvdfbTOhwtR9Q2jXQ3LNpddO1HELLsYIx6Sopo6yywKuosDKptugx5lrGbzR0hRvNq0XdaoDOy9Rvm76UqqyoNGEoaHq0nCz9OhgCCnPVsodlda4FYJ2kwqutFnuWrxjV/s1600/DSCN5153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMpdIBFDroswUvdfbTOhwtR9Q2jXQ3LNpddO1HELLsYIx6Sopo6yywKuosDKptugx5lrGbzR0hRvNq0XdaoDOy9Rvm76UqqyoNGEoaHq0nCz9OhgCCnPVsodlda4FYJ2kwqutFnuWrxjV/s1600/DSCN5153.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
well,
<br />
I just wanted to tell everyone
<br />
that there's not going to be much of a Christmas for very many people
this year.
<br />
<br />
It all began last year
<br />
when Santa's wife divorced him.<br />
Due to the biases of the local courts nowadays,<br />
the judge ignored Mrs. Claus long reputation as a dithering alcoholic
<br />
and awarded her a substantial child support payment,
<br />
taking up all of Santa's money for toys and elf-labor.
<br />
<br />
He had to rent a room from me because he could no longer afford
<br />
his quarters at the North Pole.
<br />
<br />
He is also suffering from diabetes,
<br />
probably due to all those plates of cookies and milk.
<br />
and the prodigious effort of maintaining the belly that shakes like a
bowl full of jelly.
<br />
<br />
What's worse is
<br />
that he has major back problems now
<br />
from carrying around those bags of toys
<br />
and also from climbing up and down all those chimneys.
<br />
He is due at the hospital tomorrow for the first of several surgeries.
<br />
<br />
Sadly, he won't be able to take the sleigh there.
<br />
You see, last week,
<br />
one of his reindeer was hit and killed by a car,
<br />
while another was shot by a hunter.
<br />
Blitzen was so upset about it
<br />
that he got blitzed and then wrecked the sled trying to escape the cops.
<br />
<br />
He is so far behind on his rent now that he is looking into
<br />
a new career as an actor,
<br />
to see what kind of accommodations can be provided
<br />
for someone who acts as so crazy that he gives away everything he has ....
<br />
maybe three hots and a cot, maybe even morning, noon and nightly pills
on the side ...
<br />
and slippers and even jackets which have no arms. ....
<br />
<br />
so, anyway,
<br />
have a merry day,
latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-19909543037622706592014-11-23T06:34:00.001-08:002014-11-23T06:34:42.395-08:00I wood, but I won't.<blockquote cite="mid:20141122.172324.466.0@webmail-beta01.vgs.untd.com" type="cite">
<div>
<a href="http://twistedsifter.com/2014/11/lifelike-wood-sculptures-by-bruno-walpoth/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.walpoth.com/wood.html</a></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</blockquote>
any artist who tried to do work like this in this country would immediately get jailed<br />
as a voyeur, child pornography, sex fiend.<br />
<br />
Nowhere is there simpler evidence of the sickness here ....<br />
<br />
<br />
I am reading "The Painted Girls", by Cathy Buchanan,<br />
a novel about the desperately poor young girls <br />
who served as Edward Degas' nude models and<br />
Emile Zola's walk-ons ....<br />
<br />
its real.latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-72485455023187883162014-11-20T05:44:00.000-08:002014-11-20T05:44:39.895-08:00Maybe I am just crazyMaybe I am addled in the brain.<br />
Or a genius. We will see.<br />
<br />
I think that the black swan that all of us have been waiting around for,<br />
is here. All around us, in fact, everywhere.<br />
<br />
We just none of us see it. Not yet.<br />
<br />
The central banks have been so confident<br />
of their abilities to kindle inflation,<br />
and all of the rich who are relying upon them,<br />
that they have omitted one critical detail.<br />
<br />
It is not enough to print a huge amount of money, to encourage inflation.<br />
You have to give it to the people.<br />
If the ultra rich hoard all of it, as they have been doing,<br />
then there is no stimulus to demand<br />
because those people who would spend the money<br />
have less and less and less of it to spend.<br />
<br />
I think we are now facing collapse, total collapse,<br />
from deflation, and credit defaults,<br />
and it could happen very, very quickly<br />
once more people begin to realize what I am saying ....<br />
and they will not be able to bring themselves to bail out the common man,<br />
because they are too fixated upon screwing him ....<br />
<br />
-chiz<br />
<br />latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-31875294528670114062014-11-06T08:06:00.001-08:002014-11-06T08:06:27.569-08:00weather There are lots of people -- call them investors -- clinging to the notiion that across North America, this coming winter will resemble last winter. Human nature was ever thus, expecting the most immediate future to closely resemble the most immediate past. sometimes things do work out that way, however, after periods of extremes events are far more likely to revert to the norm than they are to continue on in the extreme.<br />
<br />
This time last year, I had already burned through over a cord of firewood. As of today, there have been only five mornings so far this season when I have wanted a fire in the furnace and by midmorning the warmth has been sufficient to let it go out.<br />
<br />
This time last year, the spot price for natural gas was around $3.40 and I was crying about how ridiculously low that was. Right now its around $3.90. I say that that is high, and I've put my money where my mouth is. <br />
<br />
We shall see. (Unless, of course, everything else goes south just a bit more quickly than we presently expect it to ....)latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-62187623193053437912014-10-20T03:14:00.003-07:002014-10-20T03:14:30.926-07:00turnaround I turned around my portfolio late Thursday afternoon. It is now 115% long, absolutely no hedges.<br />
<br />
My reason for doing so is my personal conviction that there is going to appear on the scene, perhaps in Brussels or someplace, some obscure entity who happens to have unlimited access to a printing press and who has a yen for certain currencies -- perhaps japanese and/or european.<br />
<br />
So I benefitted from the strong rally on Friday. I apologize to both of my readers for not posting this information earlier here. <br />
<br />
Indeed this morning the Japanese stock market is booming, up over 3%. Across Europe, however, there is still a lot of red ink.<br />
<br />
My inclination is that the powers that be do not intend to reverse the recent trends but perhaps to halt them and sustain the current levels.<br />
<br />
My buddies are solidly convinced that the drop in crude has been deliberately engineered to punish the bear. Guilty parties meet customarily in Riyadh. Belatedly it dawned on them all that the so-called free world pumps a lot more oil than the russians and the iranians do. the recent price drops are threatening to bankrupt some seriously large and probably indispensable entities, such as Mexico, Venezuela, and the Republic of Exxon. I am betting very, very heavily that the present price is an absolute bottom and in fact, within three years we will have the next oil shock.<br />
<br />
It will start out profitable and end up a disaster.....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-27896903276360419292014-10-16T05:26:00.002-07:002014-10-16T05:26:38.911-07:00where is the bottomI cannot give you a number. Not even a ballpark.<br />
<br />
I can tell you that we are not even close, yet. Yesterday's recovery, from down 460 at 1:30 to a close of down 175, will all be wiped out today.<br />
<br />
This I can tell you ... when the teleprompter of the united states gets up in front of the cameras and tells everyone that the situation is hopeless and he thanks everyone for the good times, then, it will be there .....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-3079957227414721042014-10-15T04:31:00.000-07:002014-10-15T04:31:36.904-07:00the magic drop of water One of the nicest things about Ebola is that it will kill rich people faster than poor people.<br />
<br />
The deal is, rich people are so incredibly helpless. they must surround themselves with servants and sycophants who wait upon their slightest whims and fancy. They cannot do anything for themselves, not cook, not get dressed, not drive, not shop. I swear, the very richest cannot even wash their own bums.<br />
<br />
All those people circling around them all day long, every day, it only increases the odds of transmission. Trapped inside their steel and glass, their office cubicles, their forced air controlled humidity and temperature, it is nothing but a fancy, expensive, inescapable prison. Death row.<br />
<br />
I closed out my short on United Airlines, two days ago. Yesterday they got a nice dead cat bounce. It'll head back down today, but I've got bigger fish to fry.<br />
<br />
I shorted JP Morgan Chase. Biggest short position I have ever taken. This is going to be so much fun. I am going to make a killing.....latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7073863597837198197.post-86332766483677204282014-10-12T06:14:00.000-07:002014-10-15T04:32:35.010-07:00under biological attack by US Government okay, I am not a conspiracy addict .... I do not subscribe to the level of intent and malevolence stated by this article, but I present it to my discerning readers for thoughtful consideration.<br />
<br />
http://www.intellihub.com/2002-american-medical-association-study-concludes-ebola-marberg-best-bio-weapons-choice-use-populace/<br />
<br />
Yes, I believe that many of the actions of my government constitute pure evil. However, in many or most cases, this evil is more the result of thoughtlessness, irresponsibility, and a general lack of discipline and personal character. I do not believe that the people which are directing our destiny have pre-planned the ultimate outcomes. They are not that smart and they are certainly not that erudite or worldly. Most or all of them really believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too. They are not Gods.<br />
<br />
But I have said what I have said, and I will stand up here and repeat it for all three of my readers: the central planners, the architects of globalization, have messed up, and while they may be terribly good at mitigating small or medium-sized disasters, it is inevitable that the day will come when something will be big enough that they can't deal with it. It is inevitable just as if you throw a rock up in the air, it will come back down. this has happened over, and over, and over again, in the history of mankind. Nothing is different this time except the scale of the endeavor and the number of people on earth dependent upon it. I guarantee you, again, that within thirty years time the number of living people on this planet will be reduced by at least half.<br />
<br />
Even if they successfully contain Ebola, or keep it in Africa, there is something bigger waiting in the wings. Every battle like this that they win only means that the failure will be that much more devastating.<br />
<br />
On a long-enough time frame, everything goes back to zero. No matter how many diseases we find cures for, no matter how safe we make our cars and airplanes, no matter how much we improve our agriculture,and no matter how much we pretend and fantasize, everybody still dies in the end.<br />
Life would be a lot better if so many people had not completely lost sight of this simple fact of life. But it is what it is.latent sanityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17139625169850577450noreply@blogger.com0