Bye-Bye google

http://www.desgringueler.com/degringolade/

The new blog is up and running on a server farm somewhere, it isn't perfect, but until I can get my own server up and running, it will just have to do.  It appears to work just dandy so far.  So, I think that I will just put up a link here for a week or two and then just go over and stop posting here.  I'll leave everything up here, as a archive of things past, but I have also moved the old posts over to the new place.

The only bummer is that I haven't been able to figure out how to bring all the comments over.  I have the most recent fifty over there, but that is it.  All of the comment will remain here so they won't be lost.

I am hoping that the folks who link to me will notice the change in venue.  Needless to say, I am going to send them the new address so that those of you who exhibit the poor time management skills necessary to take to time and read this screed  can find me again.

Even semi-celibate old men are stupid

Having testicles is like being chained to the village idiot. I wish it wasn't so, But the fact just sits there.  Mute embaressment all around.

I have the good fortune to work in an area with a heavy population of attractive and intelligent younger women.  These youngsters have adopted me as one of their own as I speak with them as adults and don't openly try to chase them.  The reason that I don't chase them is the somewhat unwelcome realization that they probably aren't attracted by my aging, obese, scarred and broken body.    

However, certain parts of my body resist this charitable description and insist that, if I would only get off my duff, a little procreation is there for the taking.

Idiots, as I stated before.

I wonder when they will shut up?

The train has left the station

I have no problem with the science behind global warming.  You can scream like a little girl and believe some dope somewhere who has taken his finger out of his nose long enough to tap out a claim to have "disproved" the science behind it, but it will not get you anything.

It is happening, and its effects will persist for centuries.  It will pass, but not in your lifetime.  And you know what else?

It doesn't matter if you believe it or not.

You see, global warming is the kind of shit we hate here in the good old schizophrenic USA.  It is complex.  It has multiple causes. it behaves in a non-linear fashion, replete with feedback loops, attractors, oscillations, and all kinds of crap that make the average Joe clutch his temples and wish fervently he had paid more attention back there in middle school where they tried to introduce him to algebra.

But on top of that, it is our favorite kind of problem too.  The kind where we really don't have any control over the issue, but we feel we have to do something about it.  Makes for great political theatre and grave pronouncements, but the truth is that there is really nothing that can be done and all the pronouncements are just kabuki theatre, being performed to piss off one side of the argument or the other.

We'll adapt.

Our grain belt will move north.  Canada will get fairly nice.  It will absolutely suck living in the Maldives.  Maybe England will be able to make some decent wine.  Maybe the Sahel will continue getting green.

But, you won't adapt if you ignore it or deny it.  You gotta pay attention and make the adjustments.  If you don't, I'm even cool with that.

'Cuz you see, if you and your little group of inbred piglets aren't capable or seeing the facts and adapting to them, you/they will die off, along with that odd strain of DNA that makes up the natural experiment we refer to as "your lineage".  And if that happens, there will be more for me and mine.

Magisteria

This post is a bit of a blather...forgive me in advance.  The plot wanders about a little too much for my taste, but right now I really don't give a crap, and I suspect, neither do you.  

Anyway;

I am getting very bored by folks in the doomy-financial blogosphere ranting about how crooked things are now.

Huh?

Look cherubs, the game has always been rigged.  Has been since the time of Gaius Gracchus and probably hearkens back to Solon.  What happened in the last fifty of so years is that there was enough disparity in money, energy, and military power between us folks here in the good ol' USA and the rest of the world that the Bon Temps did in fact roullez for everyone here in the USA.

Well cherubs, it was never meant to last.  Once the rest of the world got off of dead center after having had the crap kicked out of them in the second world war, things were going to have to come a little bit back to balanced.

Now, if the forever upwards folks are right (and the data doesn't look too good for their side of the argument) then the rest of the world will just catch up with us and we will all move together into a golden future.

Those of you who read me regularly now which side of this issue I am on.  We here in the good ol' USA have had a nice party while the rest of the world was getting up.  The rich folk took a respite from butt-fucking the poor folks here and went throughout the world screwing the poor folks there.  Gave us low-lifes a nice breather and we managed to catch up a bit.  Burned through a lot of energy stocks during the party and lived comfortably large.

Then the nineties happened and scuzzy bastards such as your humble correspondent started taking apart US factories and productive capacity and moving to not quite third world countries so that the "Shareholders" could reap rentier income from the unwashed masses here in the US by paying ten cents on the dollar to little brown folks who were truly grateful for the jobs.

The "aughts" (2000-2009) brought around the uncomfortable realization that the growth that we were getting used was little more that burning through the planets stored resources at a mind-boggling pace.  The end conclusion that lots of folks seem to be coming to is that perhaps the party is over and we might have to deal with a touch of a nasty hangover.

So, now it looks as though the game is up.  The median wage here in the US is being painfully adjusted to the rest of the world's standards, and the Hoi Polloi here are getting a painful education in how the world usually works.

I expect that during the next little bit we will see some right-wing populism, some left-wing populism, some corporo-fascism, some syndico-anarchism and a whole bunch of other 'isms coming out of the woodwork.  These will be dusty and malformed at first.  Living large has shut down our collective political intelligence and allowed sloppy and self-serving thought to predominate in the limited political spectrum that we have remaining.

'Cuz you see folks, our current stunted and corrupt political system isn't up to the task of reforming itself.  There has not been any thought placed into the political system we now inhabit, only pandering to the "core" and self-aggrandizement.  The elected officials are now merely the servant class of the wealthy.  They have the power and we don't.  What is going to happen is that the full spectrum of political thought is going to be trotted out and chewed over by the country as a whole.  A new set of political goals and constraints is going to be put in place.  This is going to remarkably ugly and painful.

Americans, in the next while, will be dusting off old thought systems and trying to find new ones to recover the political system from the asshats who dominate it now.  The first couple of efforts will be pretty sorry, but we will get the hang of it.

Adrift

I cannot shake the thought that the cold times are coming. The feeling of malaise now doesn’t seem to want to leave. I cannot say that I am depressed as I am about as happy as I have ever been, but the sense of foreboding around me just seems to deepen.

More and more I am thinking that there is a reckoning coming. Not just for my pathetic excuse of a job or my less than excessive lifestyle, but for the society that I swim in. There does not seem to be any sense of accountability, spin rules all. But the reckoning will be a spasm, and the really hard part will be to weather the storm and wait until things settle down.

The real issue is that there is no concept of restraint. The zeitgeist is that there can be no constraints on the individual. But this allows too much room for the flawed vessels that make up our race to move in. We consume and consume, unwilling to take less or to save because there is no future, only the infinite now.

We rationalize the things we buy as necessities, somehow different from the self-serving opulence of the past. But it is all the same, subtle differentiations of class and power designed to make those around you aware of your status.
When we come to the reckoning, we will be in a crisis, because all that we have built is a reaction to the past.

We are the new puritans, creating a set of oh-so-carefully crafted mores and enforcing them with a puritan’s zeal. But there are no roots to what we have created. We threw out the baby with the bathwater. So the past can provide us no guide to find our way out of the morass, and the sad set of rules we have created will not be up to the task.

So we use up our finite resources because we don’t know what else to do. We spend energy extravagantly to fuel our mobility and freedom and our drive for the cult of the self, and by doing so have shackled the future to less.

One of the paths which we strayed from

This is a very good message for what I have been talking about. How dependent are we on a system primarily controlled by large corporate interests? How much of the internet is controlled by large companies and barely disguised quasi-governmental entities. How easy would it be to shut down communication on the net.

The net was designed in the beginning to be robust in the case of an attack.  Now it has been reduced to a advertising medium.

Think really hard after watching this.  See what is possible.  Yes, it blew apart, but the lessons are there should anyone pay attention.

I think that you should seriously consider the discussion at minute 18:30.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3145680396796021272&ei=QEuJS8bMO5TMrAO_o7yMBw&q=fidonet&client=firefox-a#

Now this is worth a listen

http://popup.lala.com/popup/432627065039840422

A Marvelous Poem

Next up: the wonderful Boomers Storm by D.M. Lambert
(Copyright 2010 by DM Lambert).
Boomers listen and do absorb,
you are the problem, you did gorge,
the debt you made, is now a rage,
to the piper, it must be paid.

You did worship, the god of mammon,
and like a fish, we're all now salmon,
following, a god of lies,
in histories grave, we soon will lie.

Don't you see, the horizons cloud,
moving faster, towards the crowd,
children crying, going hungry,
millions suffer, tents and sundry.

You said that we, could have it all,
debt to the sky, ahead of the fall,
But thats ok, they said to us,
you are fine, just us, do trust.

Now we're not Congress, no we're not,
debts to the moon, we go to pot,
they say to all, it'll be ok,
clouds do gather, not here today.

A hurricane gathers, around the land,
generation zero, does try to stand,
what it means, they just don't know,
they filled your minds, all full of glow.

You went to class, and they did too,
a criminal act, they said to you,
that debts can grow, unto the sky,
a trick they pulled, upon your minds.

Cycles of history, they do flow,
unto minds, of men, you know,
they deceive and they do fool,
we're in the mud, and left with gruel.

The good times of credit, do not last,
after the good, does come the fast,
its different this time, they did proclaim,
we knew better, but went insane.

We the boomers, created the fall,
boomers must change, one and all,
we must find, a life without sin,
of he who dies, with the most toys wins.

What is it with Mel Gibson

You know, I have been reading blogs and this gloomy stuff for quite a bit now, and one thing is starting to strike me. The propensity of tin-foil hat type to see themselves in a Mel Gibson role. I was reading one of my favorite commentators today (I gave him money when he was here in Oregon) and I'll be damned if he didn't compare himself to Mel.

It is weird. Folks, survival and getting by in a hard world is not a spectator sport, it is not suitable for a hollywood megamovie. Handsome leading men are mostly makeup, and folks will make a lot more mistakes than they care to think about. It is the rare person who can tip the hangman.

My experiences tell me that grand heroic gestures get cut apart by the opponent the vast majority of the time. If you are serious about getting through situations you drop all that nobility crap and figure out the most efficient and risk-effective means possible. You stay low and keep your wits about you.

So, I am not telling you how to run your life, or how to set your self image, but I hope folks realize just how silly they look when they try to imitate hollywood.

Clocks

Dmitry Orlov wrote a very interesting piece today about the direction and uses of current industrial society. I would strongly advise giving it a read.

That being said, now lets consider the humble watch. It is difficult, it not impossible to find a high quality non-quartz, mechanical watch. Think about that. All of the watches on folks arms and in pockets; all the clock on walls are the residue of a very fragile industrial ecosystem.

Then think about the watches made by Tompion and John Harrison. These didn't require the resources of an industrial juggernaut. They were made in the early eighteenth century and kept time well enough to allow for celestial navigation. I can't imagine a daily use that would require greater accuracy. They weren't made with modern metals, such things were 150 years away.

I am thinking that this kind of product may well be the next wave. The possibilities are legion; Simple, non-electronic sewing machines. Tub washers with mangles. Local Glassblowing. Edison batteries lasting for decades. The honorable mimeograph machine.

In a series of books by Eric Flint et al, the protagonists in a highly entertaining and improbable soap opera deal with this kind of stuff. I would recommend them highly for anyone looking into the future.

Teeth

I always wanted to be one of the folks with great teeth. My dentist informed me yet again that I was not one of them.

Modern dentistry, when likened to auto repair facilities, tries to more like a high-cost body shop. The dentist told me he wanted me to pay him on the order of $10,000 to bring it back up to his standards. I told him that I was looking for a slap of body filler and a tune up.

Since I have the money and he doesn't, we are doing it my way, so his boat will have to wait for someone else to make its payment.

By the way....Read this  and switch to Linux

Thank God it is sunny

This year I am not going to be nearly as ambitious with my garden. That way maybe I will be more efficient and get better quality results.

#1 Son is going to be in charge of potatoes, garlic, and cooking greens. I figure that we will be able to do six to eight tire stacks of potatoes.

#2 Son is going to be in charge of the three sisters

The old geezer is going to be in charge of tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.

So today is go out for a walk..thank God it is finally sunny, then do the initial dig and lay in a bunch of fertilizer. I think that I am going to go searching for a big black tarp and once the fertilizer is spaded in, cover it with a black tarp to collect heat and let the weeds sprout and die off. Just an experiment, I'll tell you how it goes.

I am going to go with Ronnigers for the seed potatoes this year, I don't see any reason no to try as many varieties as we have tire stacks. I'll get the garlic there as well.

The corn and squash will come from Victory seeds up here in the NW. I'll get the scarlet runner seeds from my buddy Paul who has been saving seeds for >10 years.

Tomatoes,cucumbers and lettuce and will come from seed that I have on hand. I haven't had success yet with growing tomatoes from seed, but I'll be damned if I will quit trying.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Spent the week nursing a boy. 102 F. temperatures are nothing to sneeze at.

But mostly I have been pondering the nature of preppers and their habitual political leanings. To be blunt, there appears to be no apparent thought to the process, merely a knee-jerk "anti-Communist" "pro-freedom" set of leaning that really doesn't make sense in the current modern political climate.

We have entered the final stages of capitalism as envisioned by Marx and Engels. The capitalists (owners of production) are doing their level best to make sure that the workers are in thrall and kept there. I cannot think of a better way of describing the process that is occurring. Yet the preppers see everything as a commie plot to take their freedoms. Shit. The communists here in the US are so damn lame that they couldn't take their own temperature, let alone your freedoms.

Yet whenever someone stands up and say that capitalism is fucking us over, they are labeled as a godless commie and the dumb-fucks on the lunatic fringe of the prep movement go all John Birch. They would rather kill a commie who has an excellent handle on the nature of the problem than listen to him. Sure, Marx and Engels had some less than stellar ideas about how to solve the inherent contradictions of capitalism, but you sure can't begrudge them their absolutely right-on and prescient description of the depredations of capitalism.

So, I would highly recommend that y'all back off of the comrades. Hell, I think that if you listen to them without mindlessly bouncing dated and invalid screeching out of your yap, you might find that they are on the same side you are.

Again, this does not mean that I agree with communist theory at all levels. Hell, I think that even the Commies are embarrassed by how badly the term was misused in the twentieth century.