Economic Recovery

The following chart is copied from Zero Hedge who attribute the data to the Energy Information Agency.

Unlike most government-supplied statistical data, this chart data has not been massaged with "seasonal adjustments", "birth-death adjustments", "chained inflation adjustments", or any other kind of spin.

The reader can judge for himself what kind of economic recovery the USA has been experiencing since the collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting stupendous responses by the Federal monetary authorities.

Incidentally, the reader may also question what has been trumpeted in major media and elsewhere as a great oil renaissance, the current reduction in crude oil imports, which is often extrapolated to predict total energy independence in a few more years.

my type

     I guess its safe to tell this story:

     Some little while ago, Star and I happened to be invited to a weekly session of Karaoke at a local redneck bar.
     Star of course was in her cups.  She did not mind a bit if everyone else there were so self-absorbed they hardly even noticed her.  She so enjoys being on stage, singing her heart out, and well, being the Star that she is.
     We happened to be sitting at a table with one other guy, the young man who invited us, and about seven women.  I guess that there just aren't that many guys who sing.  I liked the odds.
     One of the women started to introduce herself to me and familiarize me with her story.  She was likeable enough.  She was reasonably educated and traveled, even had a few insights.  Her experiences with Africa had been somewhat different than mine.  This woman was modestly attractive although she might be criticized for having one too many french fries upon occasion. What the ladies like to call "curvaceous" but the medical profession has other terms for.   But padding can be fun to play with.  And I'm always happy to get attention.
     The conversation continued, and Star kept on singing in the background.  Careful examination revealed to me that this woman was approaching that age of femininity where a whole lot  start to show signs of that "deer in the headlights" look, particularly those who are single, and most particularly those who have used their sexuality as a trading tool.
     Then, she had the audacity to suggest to me that Star was "not my type".  I suppose we don't fit the mold.  An old, troll-like white man from an NPR background and a very young, lithe woman from more of a club background.  But that's precisely why both of us like it so much.
     I just rankled at the suggestion that this strange woman who was focusing on me, knew about what my "type" was.  What did she know of what I had seen and done in the last 62 years?  What I had enjoyed, what I had accomplished, or the people who had hurt me and how they had done it?
     As the evening progressed and the waitress became more familiar with our empty glasses, the temperature in the room began to rise by several degrees.  This pudgy lump of Crisco in front of me was definitely starting to soften, even to liquify a little bit.  I can't say that I was not affected.  However, I began to surmise that her ulterior motive was to induce me to go home with her, thereby leaving Star to fend with herself.  Typical of a white woman to be thinking something so crude and unmannerly, I thought to myself.
     So I gave her my phone number and explained to her that I am not so crass to abandon any date to her own devices after bringing her out myself, and I turned back  to have a word with the center of my attention.
     When I next reversed my gaze, the bitch was already working on another man.  I of course never heard from her again.

       They still don't get it, do they?  Once you go black, you never go back.   And its not just because chocolate tastes so good.

Grillo

     This is supposed to be the land of the free, isn't it?  this is supposed to be the home of the brave, isn't it?

     Would someone please tell me why there has not been one american, not one, brave neough to get up in front of a crowd and say things like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eyCpidT53nY

hierarchies

     It seems to me that I can say there are three basic styles of peoplle participating in any kind of economy.  There are leaders, there are followers, and there are independents.
     It seems to me that the leaders who build new systems, new hierarchies, are great, gifted men with immense vision and strength .... we can be talking about a new industry, like Henry Ford built, a new system of government, like Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Madison, and all the founding fathers built ... we can be talking about a new religion, like Paul of Tarsus and all the apostles built.  Men whose strengths lie in inspiring others to change their direction and fall in behind.
     It seems like the far and away the most number of participants are the followers.  These are people who may be less gifted but their strength comes in doggedly cooperating for the sake of companionship and cohesion.
     And it seems like out in the fringes, most of them only tolerated by society, are the real thinkers, the artists, the musicians, the single shop keepers, the novelists, the movie directors, people who act alone and give everyone else the real meat of civilization, all the stuff that makes life worthwhile for everybody else,
ubt somehow it never seems to be absorbed and accepted and loved until after those individuals have passed on.  In their day they suffer different levels of ostracation labels and straightjackets of supposed madness and sometimes involuntary incarceration,  persecution, even crucifixion.

     And the problem comes in with hierarchies, institutions, organizations, that have some age to them, some level of expectation that they will always be around.  The problem always seems to arise, sooner or later, that inferior men, with inferior vision, less that selflessness, come into positions of power within the hierarchy.  Usually they are born into it, children and grandchildren of great men, who have the particular affliction that they always feel personally inferior to their forebears and feel the burning need to try to outdo them, but always the only way to accomplish that is to cut corners, introduce flaws, weaknesses, prejudices, little points of potential failure, until inevitably, just as night follows day, a nail falls out of a horse's shoe, of the general leading the army into battle or,a rivet made cheaply shears, the bulkhead gives way and the ship floods, a country priest sins against an altar boy and his higher-ups all try to cover it up instead of correct it, and the whole hierarchy collapses.

     And so it is now, with globalization, a worldwide economy, worldwide manufacturing, communication  and trade and distribution system.

     Can't you just feel it?

The Pope

     So ....

     Exactly why does anybody think we need a new pope, now that this one has resigned?

     I mean, what for?

     Whatever they were supposed to accomplish, if they have not succeeded after more than 2000 years, what makes them think it will ever get done?

     just askin .....

replacement

It is suggested by many that, within the lifetime of many people today, scientists and engineers will be building computers and robots so sophisticated that they will be able to think as well or better than any human being and they will completely replace humans in the workforce.

It is suggested by many that the typical adult male in our society thinks about sex approximately once every seven seconds.

So I am still waiting to see or have demonstrated to me a computer or robot which thinks about sex every seven seconds.

I am certainly looking forward to it, however.

directions

     I was out cutting and stackiing the day's supply of firewood, when I first heard them coming.
     I was pretty sure of the direction to look, the sound was not fooling me with echoes off the buildings or hills.  I looked up in the grey, snow-laden clouds and I looked and looked for a long time.  The barking, calling, crying for each other' assurances to stay in line increased in volume.
     Finally I saw them, high, so high, higher than a vulture would ever dream of flying, mucch higher than  the infernal helicopters constantly encroaching upon my security and freedom.
     They were snow geese, in a single near-perfect formation, well over a hundred of them.

     These were not the locals, in pairs or groups of seven out for morning rituals. They were not even the Canadian Geese from Toronto, migrating to the mangrove swamps of the Chesapeake.

    No, these were the long distance fliers, the serious travelers, the committed, the ones from Calgary, from Fort McMurray, from Lake Athabaasca.

   flying ....SOUTH?  towards Port-au-Prince, or Corozal Town .... on groundhog day?

um, do they know something that I don't ???????????

     (you must know that I perch my nest not only overlooking the main east west rail line of the country, but also under the main migratory path of miscellaneous different aviarians, particularly the geese ......)

     Aimlessly I wonder what the global warming scientists make of it ..... maybe they just don't pay attention because it does not fit with their preconceived notions of how things need to be for their self-aggrandizement ....