Myths

First there is this read.

The myth of renewable energy | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

You see, if you want the truth, you have to go first to folks who can actually count past three and don't have a skin in the game.  These are getting more difficult to find by the day.  The Bulletin is still on my "fairly truthful list" with only a reasonable modicum of self-serving and propaganda.

The data supporting the use of renewables was always there for anyone to see.  The big problem has always been that renewables were not efficient, nor sufficiently energy-dense, nor gave sufficient EROEI to make them anything but a  placebo for those in anxious denial of their toy being taken away.

Look, electric cars won't cut it, corn-powered cars won't cut it, algae diesel cars won't cut it.

The only thing that folks don't want to see is that their cars will be going away.  Thirty years from now there will not be a quarter of the cars on the road that we have now.  Just ain't gonna happen anyway else.

This will put us back at the point where we we fifty years ago.  I went out and dug up data from the FedGuv, and in 1950, there was one car for every 3.5 people.  This seems about right to me.  Now there is a car for every 1.24 persons.  Sounds bloody absurd to me.  So, what I figure is that over the next thirty of so years, we will drop to around one car for every four persons.  Lets figure the population will be around 350 million at that time, so we will drop to around 80 million cars.  This way we will lose around 160 million cars off the road.

The cars that remain will be efiicient, except for the ones which tote the rich folk around.  There have never been that many rich folk.  1% is about right, and the fuel use average will probably go up to 70/80 mpg range.   When you factor in the loss in numbers and the gains in efficiency,  we will probably use in the range of 3 million barrels a day for transportation vs the current 14 million barrels a day.

Because in the end, energy will make us throw away our toys.

Extinction and Other Such Balderdash

So, Survival Acres is a great read.  But sometimes folks get a bit revved up and go saying things that are just plain silly.  I was over at Trout Clan Campfire and read this and then went to survival acres and read this.

Guys, there will be a lot less of us soon (soon being in a hundred or so years) but extinction?  Really?

The way that we are living has to stop, there has to be a bunch of us gone, but that doesn't translate into extinction.  That is just classic overshoot and reset.  Granted, there will be worse case-scenarios where we lose 90% off the population, but that will just bring us back to levels seen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Earth abides, and man will abide with it.  This idea of extinction is unworthy of thought really.  There is always a small chance of it, asteroids occur.  But I think the same frame of mind that makes one lean toward believing in a vengeful God is the same frame of mind that makes one long for extinction.

It is a desire to smite "evil".  It is the fucking Calvinist horseshit that infected this country early and hard is what plays here.  It is the same shit that made people burn witches to save them and allowed slavery to occur because the slaves were predestined to damnation anyway.  It is the same shit that makes folks long for extinction of your family of man.

It is a desire to have everything erased so that "good" can take hold.  Sorry folks, that dog just won't hunt.  What is seen as good and evil is just personal taste for the most part.  Zero-sum games like resources and riches are transient things that move around according to subtle variations in rules and circumstances.

The big trouble here in blogoland is that we are a bunch of folks raised at the pinnacle of an empire.  We have come to believed that our self-indulgent, fatuous, and excessive lifestyle is the only means of survival available.  It is not, it is just all that we have ever known.  It is also wildly divergent from the lifestyle of 90% of the current world population, let alone the 99.5% of all humans who ever lived.

What will happen is that populations will recede.  Probably won't be all that sudden.  Lifespans will shorten, famines will reappear, women will stop having too many babies, men will stay unmarried.  Oh, there will be some fast slides as wars and  such play their hand.  But there will always be someone surviving.

I think that the key is to make it be you and yours, not them and theirs.

Strategist, Strategy, Tactician, Tactics

Here in America, we are at the beginning of a dialogue.  The dialogue consists of opposing sides in the millenniums-old argument  concerning the structure of a political economy.

The political economy is the sea that we swim in on a day to day basis.  It doesn't have any particular nobility in and of itself.  It is not a sentient being.  It appears to be just be the expression of the sum of the methods used by individuals to further themselves in a country.

Now, as soon as I said those two words in the same sentence, some of you will turn off the ear switch and navigate away from this page.  The phrase has distinctly Marxist tones in this day and age.  When you mutter the words represented by the fell runes "political economy", you are a member of the liberal elite, mouthing parlor-pinkisms into the vulnerable ears of the Hoi Polloi.

But we are now in the thrall of a government of corporations.  Our erstwhile democracy has been usurped by a cabal of corporate chieftains whose sole motive is the maximization of their own wealth and the power and prestige of their corporations.  That is our government.  The republic that is our ideal is a sad thing, being somewhat akin to the heavy facepaint on a whore.

Here in the US, we have a system which appears to center on large institutions which service the upper quartile or so of the country.   The benefits of the current system are collected by the top from the bottom of the pyramid.  There is a limited flow in and out of the protected top tier, but this is kept at a minimum, probably to provide a simulacrum of opportunity.

So really, what we have is a political economy that is predicated on farming the lower classes to enrich the rentier class.  The rich have purchased the corporations and lawmakers to create a seamless front that is currently impregnable.  But the more that the upper class strip-mine from the rest of us, the more delicate and vunerable the edifice will become.  It really doesn't take that much effort to squint your eyes and imagine the Ancien Regime and the Jacobins coming to your town soon.

The recent Occupy movement claims to represent the 99%.  I really think that the percentage really is more in the 60-75% range.  The remaining middle class realizes that their access to a pretty good lifestyle depends on staying in the good graces of the corporate masters.   They also are the folks who have the education and contacts to perhaps make the move into the corporate-master career field.

What is probably going to happen is that the Occupy movement will go to ground for a while.  If they have a lick of sense and any organizational skills whatsoever, they will work heavily on recruitment, training, and strategy.  Get through the winter and start again in the spring.

Things are going to continue getting dicey.  Keep your head low and stay out of the cross-fire is my only advice.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks everyone for reading this stuff.

Thanks for comment and keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Thanks to my regular reads for the ideas.

Thanks to Fox News for showing me the wrong way.

Thanks to my kids for keeping me sane.

Thanks to my little world for keeping me alive and kicking.

Police

First:  Here is the article

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFB27Cxw9P5tjIij1_UNsryussWg?docId=b72ae00653b24152a26ca5892b08c2a4

Now; I am stunned at this part:

After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques. 

"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.

Curling in a ball to protect yourself constitutes a reason to beat the shit out of a person?  Pulling your arm away?

The police are getting out of control in some areas.  Keep an eye on your own public servants to insure that they don't join this madness.

Bob Schieffer is a dick

OK, I have given more money to Ron Paul than I have ever given any candidate.  There:  Financial Disclosure

I am not one of the Ron Paul Rabids (RPR, trademark pending).  I think that he would be, at best, a mediocre president, but everybody else who is running would be flat out terrible.  Ergo, he is the best of breed in this sorry pack.

The MSM hates him, because he gives lie to the bullshit that they have been purveying for the last ten years.

Bob Schieffer tried desperately to catch Congressman Paul (note that he never addresses him as such) wrongfooted and failed miserably.

He is a dick

Oh yeah

The Semantics of Equity, (or, a rambling post full of non sequiturs)

Because we have managed to make it all confused.  The nature of that confusion cuts to the core of our country's schizophrenia.

n. pl. eq·ui·ties

1. The state, quality, or ideal of being just, impartial, and fair.
2. Something that is just, impartial, and fair.
3. Law

• Justice applied in circumstances covered by law yet influenced by principles  of ethics and fairness.
• A system of jurisprudence supplementing and serving to modify the rigor of common law.
• An equitable right or claim.
• Equity of redemption.

4. The residual value of a business or property beyond any mortgage thereon and liability therein.
5.

• The market value of securities less any debt incurred.
• Common stock and preferred stock.

6. Funds provided to a business by the sale of stock.

________________________________________

You see, the same word that we use to define justice is the same word that we use to define the acquisition of wealth and status.

What one part, by far the larger part of our country wishes is the emphasis on definitions one and two.   (BTW, we will call these folks the "current losers") The have this odd idea thatthe system should  be just, impartial, and fair.   Our fellow losers own just a very small part of the country and there appears to be a concerted effort to relieve us of the remainder which lies in our hands.

To the country's current owners, this is a very bad dream.  The corporations and the wealthy have made a holy mission out of the extraction of wealth from the aforementioned "losers" and their whole hearted opposition to any idea of fairness in the tax code or the playing field brings them out in a cold sweat.

I really think the thing shifted into high gear with the good old standby, "the ownership economy".  This was a seismic shift in thought back there in the late 90's and early "oughts".  What you owned was your value.   Oh granted, there have always been those who felt that only those who owned something was deserving of the vote, but now we are getting back to it.

So the whole purpose of this hastily-wrought piece of fluff is a reminder that maybe, just maybe, we are primarily doomed as a Republic because we can't seem to differentiate between concept of fairness and the imperatives of "mine".

Apparently this guy is the current republican frontrunner

It is going to be a monumentally bad election

First there is this.

The guy is a sleazebag in every way.  No wonder the right is so enamored with him.

From Wikipedia

Ethics sanctions
Gingrich is the only Speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.^[63]
During his term as Speaker, eighty-four ethics charges were filed against him; eighty-three of them were dropped.^[64] The remaining charge concerned a 20-hour college course called "Renewing American Civilization" that Gingrich had taught through a tax-deductible foundation, Kennesaw State College Foundation. Allegations of tax improprieties led to two counts "of failure to seek legal advice" and one count of "providing the committee with information which he knew or should have known was inaccurate" concerning the use of a tax exempt college course for political purposes. To avoid a full hearing, Gingrich and the House Ethics Subcommittee negotiated a sanctions agreement. Democrats accused Gingrich of violating the agreement, but it was forwarded to the House for approval.^[65][66] On January 21, 1997, the House voted 395 to 28 to reprimand Gingrich, including a $300,000 "cost assessment" to recoup money spent on the investigation.^[67][68]
The full committee panel did not agree whether tax law had been violated.^[69] In 1999, the IRS cleared the organizations connected with the courses.^[70]

And the capper:

Gingrich addressed his past infidelities by saying, "There's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."^[128][129]

Far be it from me a to claim a perfect life.  But this guy is big time fucked up.

Over to John Stewart for his take

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - No Really, They Can't Decide
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

This Just In

Ministry of Truth states emphatically that US is not a police state

Nittany

Man:  I am so disgusted by the Penn State mess that I could vomit.

I really have no love of college football.   I played at Utah for 3.2 years and left without a tear.  The game is corrupt and self serving beyond belief, but I never, ever thought that it could be taken this far.

If I were the trustees of that college, I would close the program for good.  If a school takes a fucking game so seriously that pedophiles are protected to save the reputation of the program, that school and program cannot be saved.

I really hope my kid goes to a small school

Oil is Back At $100

Forget all the nonsense that you are hearing about saving this or bailing out that.

45 minutes long.

Worth every second of your time

Gnawing at the bit

OK:  This one here will require a touch of thought.

Common Dreams, which is my absolute favorite hippie-dippie newsource (and this is by no means a pejorative term, merely descriptive) have come out with the following article.

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/09-5

Now, they are dissing the scientist as "never worked on nuclear weapons".  I will give them that one.  But for Gods sake, lets look at what he does for a living.

Nanodiamonds.

What that means is that this guy has probably more working knowledge in the application of conventional explosives than just about anyone.  He could probably design an implosion squeeze system for a nuclear weapon in his sleep.

What I think is that Iran is trying desperately to gain access to a nuclear deterrent.  Hell, with our record of invading countries and Israel's record of sabre-rattling and attacks, they would be fools not to do so.

But I really can't see how this would effect us.  The genie is out of the bottle.  I am more worried about the Russian arsenal and the interface between India and Pakistan than some vaporware "bomb" that the Persians are trying to develop.

So, what we are seeing here is an attempt to discredit a source for political purposes.  But the political issues that we must deal with are not well served by this kind of specious attacks.

Back Writing on a Day off

Just haven't been into it this week.  The whole damn thing is going apeshit in slow motion and the games that the bankos and the politicos play are getting stale.  I am tire of commenting on the same.

The local environment is saner and constrained.  Much easier to get a handle on.  Money is getting tighter week by week.  Getting by is getting more of a tightrope act.  Such is life.  Things will probably get worse before they get any better, better learn to deal.  Mostly life lately has been the formulation of strategies to make do with less.

You see, that is going to be the fate for a while.  It will be a fate shared by a majority of the folks you and I know.  The rules will be quite simple.  Make do with less, perhaps a lot less.

I am kind of irritated at the prospect.  Being a crabby old man who has watched the game being played for a long time,  I can turn my 20-20 hindsight to the rear and see where the mistakes were.  I missed a lot of the opportunities to make my nest plusher at this point.  But in truth, the things that I might have had that others call their own are the things that are in play right now.

Sorry Folks

I am just kinda tapped out, nothing here...stay calm...move along.

Saturday's Important Stuff

Guy Fawkes Porter BJCP Style and Style Guidelines 12-B Porter, Robust Porter Min OG: 1.048 Max OG: 1.065    Min IBU: 25 Max IBU: 60    Min Clr: 22 Max Clr: 42  Color in SRM, Lovibond Recipe Specifics Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00 Total Grain (Lbs): 12.00       Anticipated OG: 1.064 Plato: 15.58 Anticipated SRM: 25.5         Anticipated IBU: 43.3       Brewhouse Efficiency: 75  %    Wort Boil Time: 60  Minutes    Pre-Boil Amounts Evaporation Rate: 15.00  Percent Per Hour    Pre-Boil Wort Size: 5.88  Gal    Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.054  SG 13.35 Plato Formulas Used Brewhouse Efficiency and Predicted Gravity based on Method #1, Potential Used. Final Gravity Calculation Based on Points. Hard Value of Sucrose applied. Value for recipe: 46.2100 ppppg % Yield Type used in Gravity Prediction: Fine Grind Dry Basis. Color Formula Used: Morey Hop IBU Formula Used: Rager Additional Utilization Used For Plug Hops: 2 % Additional Utilization Used For Pellet Hops: 10 % Grain/Extract/Sugar % Amount Name Origin Potential SRM 12.5 1.50 lbs.  Crystal 80L    1.033 80 4.2 0.50 lbs.  Chocolate Malt America 1.029 350 83.3 10.00 lbs.  Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2 Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon. Hops Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time 0.50 oz.  Willamette Pellet 14.70 33.9 60 min 0.50 oz.  Cascade Pellet 5.75 6.8 30 min 0.50 oz.  Cascade Pellet 5.75 2.7 10 min Extras Amount Name Type Time 0.25 Oz  Irish Moss Fining 15 Min.(boil) Yeast Mine Own Yeast...Fermentis and Nottingham mixed and passaged a couple of times Water Profile Profile:    Profile known for:    Calcium(Ca): 0.0 ppm Magnesium(Mg): 0.0 ppm Sodium(Na): 0.0 ppm Sulfate(SO4): 0.0 ppm Chloride(Cl): 0.0 ppm biCarbonate(HCO3): 0.0 ppm pH: 0.00 Mash Schedule Mash Type: Single Step    Grain Lbs: 12.00    Water Qts: 24.00 Before Additional Infusions Water Gal: 6.00 Before Additional Infusions Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 2.00 Before Additional Infusions Rest Temp Time Saccharification Rest: 148 120 Min Mash-out Rest: 0 0 Min Sparge: 0 0 Min Total Mash Volume Gal: 6.96 - Dough-In Infusion Only All temperature measurements are degrees Fahrenheit.

Saturday Night Fare

Cuz I really miss the 80's & 90's

Can't think of much too saay

Mostly, it is getting stale.  I am sick of the ongoing and hyperventilating crises and the end of the western world as diligently documented by the doomers and others.

I am not so intellectually puerile as to start listening to mainstream media.

I am completely aware of the government and differing political parties takes on the issue and feel that they are all fantastically full of shit.

I think that this weekend, I will do laundry, clean house, brew beer and play World of Warcraft and pay no attention to the nonsense surrounding me.

See Y'll Monday, nothing this weekend unless something tickles my funny bone.

Don't take it too seriously

The occupation movement is serving its purpose.  It is a starter, not a finisher.

OK, I'm fat, so what?

Again Kunstler pisses me off.

When I go out in America, I see fat people and skinny people both.  When I was in Germany during the last six months of my time in the Army, I got to meet a bunch of fat folks there too.  When I went up to Sweden, there were fat people there as well.

Kunstler is a prick sometimes.  He is a prophet of peak oil doom whose carbon footprint involves so much jet travel that he could personally power a small town for a year.  He decries the shallowness of American suburbia, then goes out and wades in the shallows of personal appearance.

But he is the same as everyone else in America.  Content in their own righteousness and ability to see the motes in other's eyes.  Like all of us, he is a hypocrite.

But I have a question to ask him.  Who maintains the greater sins against his fellow man.  A man who uses the equivalent of fifteen or twenty years of my children's inheritance jetting about the world preaching sustainable energy use, or a underemployed, poorly educated serf with a fondness for Whoppers.