.
Many people believe that humans can have a sustainable future by using solar panels and wind turbines. Unfortunately, the only truly sustainable course, in terms of moving in cycles with nature, is interacting with the environment in a manner similar to the approach used by chimpanzees and baboons. Even this approach will eventually lead to new and different species predominating. Over a long period, such as 10 million years, we can expect the vast majority of species currently alive will become extinct, regardless of how well these species fit in with nature’s plan.
The key to the relative success of animals such as chimpanzees and baboons is living within a truly circular economy. Sunlight falling on trees provides the food they need. Waste products of their economy come back to the forest ecosystem as fertilizer.
Pre-humans lost the circular economy when they learned to control fire over one million years ago, when they were still hunter-gatherers. With the controlled use of fire, cooked food became possible, making it easier to chew and digest food. The human body adapted to the use of cooked food by reducing the size of the jaw and digestive tract and increasing the size of the brain. This adaptation made pre-humans truly different from other animals.
With the use of fire, pre-humans had many powers. They spent less time chewing, so they could spend more time making tools. They could burn down entire forests, if they so chose, to provide a better environment for the desired types of wild plants to grow. They could use the heat from fire to move to colder environments than the one to which they were originally adapted, thus allowing a greater total population.
Once pre-humans could outcompete other species, the big problem became diminishing returns. For example, once the largest beasts were killed off, only smaller beasts were available to eat. The amount of effort required to kill these smaller beasts was not proportionately less, however.
In this post, I will explain further the predicament we seem to be in. We have deviated so far from the natural economy that we really cannot go back. At the same time, the limits we are reaching are straining our economic system in many ways. Some type of discontinuity, or collapse, seems to be not very far away.
[1] Even before the appearance of hunter-gatherers, ecosystems around the world exhibited a great deal of cycling from state to state.
Many people are under the illusion that before the meddling of humans, the populations of different types of plants and animals tended to be pretty much constant. This isn’t really the way things work, however, in a finite world. Instead, the populations of many species cycle up and down, depending on particular conditions such as the population of animals that prey on them, the availability of food, the prevalence of disease, and the weather conditions.
Even forests exhibit surprising variability. Many undergo regular cycles of burning. In fact, some species of trees, such as the giant sequoias in Yosemite, require fire in order to reproduce. These cycles are simply part of the natural order of self-organizing ecosystems in a finite world.
[2] A major feature of ecosystems is “Selection of the Best Adapted.”
Each species tends to give birth to many more offspring than are necessary to live to maturity if the population of that species is to remain level. Each of the individual offspring varies in many random ways from its parents. Ecosystems are able to keep adapting to changing conditions by permitting only the best-adapted offspring to survive. In favorable periods (suitable weather, not much disease, ample food, not too many predators), a large share of the offspring may survive. In less favorable periods, few of the offspring will survive.
When selection of the best adapted is taken into account, a changing climate is of little concern because, regardless of the conditions, some individual offspring will survive. Over time, new and different species are likely to develop that are better adapted to the changing conditions.
[3] The downsides of living within the limits provided by nature are easy to see.
One issue is that every mother can expect to see the majority of her offspring die. In fact, her own life expectancy is uncertain. It depends upon whether there are nearby predators or a disease against which she has no defense. Even a fairly small injury could lead to her death.
Another issue is lack of shelter from the elements. Moving to an area where the weather is too harsh becomes impossible. Our earliest pre-human ancestors seem to have lived near the equator where seasonal temperature differences are small.
Without supplemental heating or cooling, humans living in many places in the world today would have a difficult time following the way of nature because of weather conditions. As we will see in later sections, it was grains that allowed people to settle in areas that were too cold for crops in winter.
In theory, there are alternatives to grain in cold climates. For example, a small share of the population might be able to get most of its calories from eating raw fish, as the Inuit have done. Eating raw fish is not generally an option for people living inland, however. Also, in later sections, we will talk about the difference between the use of root vegetables and grains as the primary source of calories. In some sense, the use of grains provides a stepping stone toward big government, roads, and what we think of as a modern existence, while the use of root vegetables does not. Eating raw fish is similar to eating root vegetables, in that it doesn’t provide a stepping stone toward a modern existence.
[4] Animals make use of some of the same techniques as humans to compete with other species. These techniques are added complexity and added energy supply.
We think of complexity as being equivalent to added technology, but it also includes many related techniques, such as the use of tools, the use of specialization and the use of long-distance travel.
Animals use many types of complexity. Bees build hives and carry out tasks divided among the queen bee, drone bees, and worker bees. Many birds fly to another continent in winter, in order to gain access to an adequate food supply. Chimpanzees use tools, such as waving a stick or throwing a rock to ward off predators. Beavers build dams that provide themselves with an easy source of food in winter.
Some members of the animal kingdom, known as parasites, even leverage their own energy by using the energy of other plants or animals. Such use of the energy of a host is subject to limits; if the parasite uses too much, it risks killing its host.
While animals other than humans may use similar techniques to humans, they don’t go as far as humans. Humans employ a variety of supplemental materials in their tools. Also, no animal other than humans has learned to control fire.
[5] Pre-humans seem to have learned to control fire over 1 million years ago, allowing humans to gain an advantage in killing wild beasts.
Richard Wrangham, in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, makes the case that the controlled use of fire allowed the changes in anatomy that differentiate humans from other primates. With the controlled use of fire, humans could cook some of their food, making it easier to chew and digest. As a result, the teeth, jaws and guts of humans could be relatively smaller, and the brain could be larger. The larger brain allowed humans to compete better against other species. Also, cooking food greatly reduced the time spent chewing food, increasing the time available for making crafts and tools of various kinds. The heat of fire allowed pre-humans to move into new areas with colder climates. The heat of fires also allowed pre-humans to ward off some of the impact of ice-ages, which they were able to survive.
James C. Scott, in Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, explains that being able to burn biomass was sufficient to turn around who was in charge: pre-humans or large animals. In one cave in South Africa, he indicates that a lower layer of remains found in the cave did not show any carbon deposits, and hence were created before pre-humans occupying the cave gained control of fire. In this layer, skeletons of big cats were found, along with scattered gnawed bones of pre-humans.
In a higher layer, carbon deposits were found. In this layer, pre-humans were clearly in charge. Their skeletons were much more intact, and the bones of big cats were scattered about and showed signs of gnawing. Who was in charge had changed! We know that human controlled fires can be used to scare away wild animals, burn down entire forests if desired, and make sharper spears. It shouldn’t be surprising that humans gained the upper hand.
[6] Grains, because of their energy density, portability, and ability to be stored, seem to have played a major role in the development of governments and of cities.
Scott, in Against the Grain, also points out that early economies that were able to grow grains were the economies that were able to place taxes on those grains, and with those taxes, were able to fund governments offering more services. Grains are a storable form of energy for humans. They are portable and energy dense, as well. It was grains that allowed people to settle in areas that were too cold for growing crops in winter. The year-to-year variability in production made storage of reserves important. Governments could provide this function, and other functions, such as roads.
If we analyze the situation, it is apparent that the existence of grain crops provided a subsidy to the rest of the economy. Farmers and their slaves could grow far more grain than they themselves required for calories, leaving much grain for trading with others. This surplus could be used to feed the population of cities, such as Rome. It was no longer necessary for everyone to be hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers. There could be new occupations such as merchants, teachers, carpenters, and sailors. Many more goods and services in total could be produced, and the population of cities could grow.
Cities, themselves, provide benefits, because they allow economies of scale, and they allow people with different skills to mix. Geoffrey West, in his book Scale, notes that larger cities produce disproportionately more patents. Thus, technology is advanced with the growth of cities.
It might be noted that root crops, even though they could provide most of the same food energy benefits for humans as grain crops, did not help economies grow in the same ways that grain crops did. This, likely, was part of the reason that they were not taxed: They produced no excess benefit to give back to the government.
Root vegetables are not as helpful as grains. They are less energy dense than grains, making them heavier and bulkier for transport. They do not store as well as grains. In early days, root crops could be about as efficiently grown by individual families as by farmers specializing in such crops, making it hard to leverage the labor that went into growing root crops. In fact, there was less real need for government with root crops: There was no way to store supplies of root crops in case of poor harvest, and there was little need for roads to transport the crops.
[7] The added energy benefits of grain crops created a situation where the grain was “worth” far more to customers, and to the economy as a whole, than what would be indicated by their cost of production.
There is a belief among economists, and among much of the population, that the selling price of a commodity will be determined by its cost of production. In fact, the example given in Section [6] indicates that back in the early days of grain production, grain’s selling price could be far greater than its direct cost of production, with the difference going into taxes that would benefit the government and the economy as a whole.
In fact, there was a second way that the usage of grain was helpful to governments. The efficiency of grain production, transport, and storage reduced the need for farmers. Former farmers could offer services not previously available to citizens, often in cities. Income from the new jobs could also be taxed, to give governments another stream of income.
[8] The use of coal and oil also produced situations where the value of energy products to the economy was far higher than their direct cost of production, allowing these products to be heavily taxed.
Tony Wrigley, in his book Energy and the English Industrial Revolution, indicates that with the use of coal, farming became a much more productive endeavor. The crop yield from cereal crops, net of the amount fed to draft animals, nearly tripled between 1600 and 1800, which was the period when coal production ramped up in England. Coal allowed the use of far more metal tools, which were vastly superior to tools made from wood. In addition, roads to mines were greatly improved. Prior to this time, few roads were paved in England. These improved roads helped the economy as a whole.
Oil is known today for the high taxes it pays to governments. The governments of oil exporting countries are very dependent upon tax revenue relating to oil. When the selling price of oil is low, this results in a crisis period for oil exporting countries because they have no other way of collecting adequate tax revenue to support the programs for their people. For a short time, they can borrow money, but when this alternative fails, governments are likely to be overturned by their unhappy citizens.
[9] The economy tends to move further and further away from the natural order (described in Sections [1], [2], and [3]) as more energy consumption is added.
Even though the natural order would be sustainable, it doesn’t represent a situation that most people today would like to live in. In fact, most humans today could not live on completely uncooked food, even if they wanted to. While a few people today eat “raw food” diets, they often use a food processor or blender to reduce the amount of chewing and digesting of raw foods to a manageable level. Even then, their weights tend to stay low.
If energy products are available at an affordable price, humans find many ways to use them, to stay away from the natural order. Some examples include the following:
- To provide transportation, other than walking.
- To pipe clean water to homes.
- To make growing and storage of food easy.
- To allow homes to be heated and cooled.
- To allow medicines and vaccines.
- To allow most children to live to maturity.
[10] Because energy consumption is important in all aspects of the economy, the economy seems to reach many kinds of limits simultaneously.
There are many limits that the world economy seems to reach simultaneously. The underlying problem in all of these areas seems to be diminishing returns. In theory, these issues could all be worked around, using increasing energy consumption or increasing complexity:
- Too little fresh water for an increasing population.
- The need to keep increasing food production, with the same amount of arable land.
- Increased difficulty with insect pests, such as locusts.
- Increased difficulty in dealing with viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- Overfished oceans so that farmed fish are required in addition.
- Ores of metals of ever-lower grade, requiring more processing and leading to more waste.
- More expensive techniques required for the extraction of fossil fuels.
- Many unprofitable businesses; much debt likely to default.
- Too few jobs that pay well enough to support a family
- Governments unable to collect enough taxes
Energy and complexity work together to leverage human labor, in a way that the economy can make more goods and services in total. Unfortunately, we cannot use complexity to make energy. Technology (which is a form of complexity) can convert energy to useful work and, through efficiency gains, increase the percentage of energy that is available for useful work, but it cannot make energy. If we add more technology, more robots, and more international trade, we likely will need more energy, not less.
The net impact of all of these issues is that to maintain our economy, we really need an ever-increasing quantity of energy. In fact, energy consumption likely needs to grow more rapidly than population simply to keep the system from collapse.
Wind and solar certainly cannot meet today’s energy needs. Together, wind and solar amount to about 3.3% of the world’s energy supply, based on BP estimates for 2019. Furthermore, wind and intermittent solar certainly cannot be sold at a price high above their cost of production, the way grain, coal and oil have been sold historically. In fact, wind and solar invariably need the huge subsidy of being allowed to “go first.” They actually are reliant on a profitable fossil fuel system to subsidize them, or they fall completely “flat.”
[11] The problem, as the economy reaches limits, is too few goods and services being produced to satisfy all parts of the economy simultaneously. The parts of the economy that especially tend to get shortchanged are (a) governments, (b) energy producers, and (c) workers without special skills who are selling their labor as a form of “energy.”
When economies are doing well, the price of energy products tends to be high. These high prices allow very high taxes on energy products. They also allow significant funds for reinvestment for the energy companies themselves. Indirectly, these high prices allow a significant share of the goods and services made by the economy to be transferred to these sectors of the economy.
In addition, energy products allow non-farm workers in many areas of the economy to produce their goods and services more efficiently, thereby helping push up the wages of common laborers.
As economies reach limits, there is, in some sense, a need for more energy in many sectors of the economy. The catch is that the “wages” and “profits” needed to purchase this energy aren’t really available to provide the demand needed to keep energy prices up. As a result, energy prices and production tend to fall. Government-imposed limitations, intended to stop the spread of COVID-19, may also keep energy demand down.
Governments often fail, or they get into major conflicts with other governments, when there are resource shortages of the kinds we are currently encountering. Today is in many ways like the period of the Great Depression, which preceded World War II.
[12] Perhaps warm, wet countries will be somewhat more successful than cold countries and those without water, in the years ahead.
I showed a chart in my most recent post, Energy Is the Economy, that illustrates the wide range of energy consumption around the world.
If fossil fuel energy falls, I expect that the parts of the world with cold temperatures will experience particular difficulty because they tend to use disproportionately large amounts of energy (Figure 2). Their citizens cannot get along very well without heat for their homes. Winter becomes very dark, if supplemental lighting is not available. Walking long distances in the cold becomes a problem as well.
The warmer countries have a better chance because they do not require as complex economies as cold countries. They can feed at least part of their population with root crops. Walking is a reasonable transportation option, and there is no problem with months on end of darkness if supplemental lighting is not available. For these reasons, warm countries would seem to have a better chance of passing through the difficult times ahead while sustaining a reasonable-sized population.
Bolonoro’s usual odd style: don’t complain if Pfizer vaccine turn you into an alligator
http://www.google.com/amp/s/in.news.yahoo.com/amphtml/turn-alligator-jair-bolsonaros-bizarre-075900296.html
It will be difficult for twitter, Facebook, and Google to keep all the comments such as these off the internet.
Gail,
If there were never a comment on these services would it matter? What is important goes over the internet and I don’t think these firms own the wires, air, etc.
You own your site, banks own theirs, Amazon owns theirs.
Am I the only one finding Google less and less useful in that many of the searches go to sponsored sites? Finding a website for a hotel can be frustrating, one has to jump through a number of hoops.
West has a surprisingly short life span for corporations, there is a necessity to constantly innovate or stagnate. One could say restricting ideas is a bureaucracy which is a cost, not an income stream.
To date, my takeaways from West are the the maintenance cost of any organism, organization, and the need for constant innovation in a corporation and a civilization, and the need for a shorter and shorter time between major innovations. A half life is fine until one is down to the last atom, end of life.
I am not sure who here first brought up West, but that reference and others are good reasons to read the comments.
Dennis L.
I find google search gives zero results for politically incorrect questions. I find Yandex work just fine.
Thanks for the tip!
Yandex is Ruskie. Putin will know everything you search for! 🙂
There is an informative new site available that plans to give facts and figures showing that the “Green New Deal” is not feasible. It can be found at
http://www.realgnd.org
The people involved include
Dr. William Rees, known for his study of the human ecological footprint
Alice Friedemann, known for her blog posts and books, such as “When Trucks Stop Running”
Dr. Paul Sutton, who in the Geography Department at the University of Denver. He collaborates with scientists to make spatially explicit valuations of ecosystem services.
The woman who brought this together is Ms. Megan Seibert. She has an M.S. in Systems Science / Environmental Management from Portland State University and an international studies and engineering B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy.
They plan to do a Biophysical Analysis and an Action Plan. Their approach sounds to be very much EROI oriented. https://www.realgnd.org/research
Unfortunately, I don’t think the EROI approach actually gets anywhere. It is the quantity of net energy per capita consumed that is important. The quantity of net energy needs to keep growing rapidly over time, to offset ever-rising diminishing returns. EROI attempts to determine whether a given type of energy gathering approach produces any net energy at all, but the calculation is not all-encompassing, so it is not very helpful.
The net energy of coal from China is what has saved the world economy since China joined the WTO in late 2001. China’s coal supply started to level off in 2012 to 2013. We need a rapidly growing supply of extremely inexpensive-to-produce energy right now. Furthermore, that energy supply must provide the energy types that today’s devices use.
We will have to wait and see what this site comes up with. Finding a solution to a predicament that has no solution is pretty much impossible, unfortunately.
H/T to peyton:
[Quote] . . . Alice Friedemann — in her late 60s, child-free by choice, possessor of actual hard-science background, and prolific writer[.] She still comes up with suggestions for positive action, but she isn’t idiotic enough to believe anything will actually be done.
Population
Enact a national one-child policy, encouraging the global community to do the same
Make all forms of birth control (including those for men) free, and in the case of non-surgical forms, available over the counter
Make abortion free and widely available
Pay women/couples a significant financial incentive to have one child or none
Educate children and adults alike about the harmful impacts of overpopulation and its central role in our overshoot crisis, shifting from a human-centric view of the world to an inclusive view that honors and respects all life
Replace the taboo surrounding population with a moral imperative to make it a front-and-center social topic
Given our moral responsibility for global restitution, provide financial assistance to countries who seek it in order to help enact similar policies [End quote]
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/megan-siebert-at-realgnd-org-what-to-do-list-part-1/
Demand for fossil fuels falls even lower; economy collapses even faster. Is this good?
And remember, children, those who follow Alice Friedemann’s advice will eliminate themselves from the gene pool, and we breeders will inherit the Earth. That is the ineradicable human predicament.
Right, USA is going to adopt a one child policy, like China.
‘gonna happen’
She does not seem to understand how capitalism works, as a profit and growth based economic system; or the present situation of ‘mature’ capitalist economies, with collapsed productivity growth and the need for ever more labour to grow GDP and to keep the system going.
Even Trump admitted about a million more workers to USA per year – not because he was enamoured of the trend but because the USA economy now relies on that even to survive, as do all other ‘mature’ economies.
If she wants to reduce the population of ‘mature’ economies then we would need to dump capitalism for a socialised economy that is not pre-programmed to profit and growth like capitalism – like China (well, not really, any more).
‘gonna happen’
Otherwise, reduced consumption would just crash systemic profitability even quicker, as Gail points out.
And as Norman points out, it would all involve strict social control in USA, over everything from procreation to production and consumption, like China.
‘gonna happen’
Sadly she is ‘idealistic’ and not ‘realistic’. Her ‘ideal’ seems to be a staunch version of CCP prior to ‘Xi thought’.
It is mainly moral posturing: ‘look at what a ‘virtuous’ person I am, you should all emulate me, that would solve things.’ People do make money out of virtue-signalling, like Harry and Megs and untold others, from celebs to churches and everything in between.
The collapse of the global population will happen as a result of collapse, not as a preventative measure. Because we ‘failed’ to avoid that, not because we ‘attained’ it.
“ The collapse of the global population will happen as a result of collapse, not as a preventative measure. Because we ‘failed’ to avoid that, not because we ‘attained’ it.”
Color me confused. Isn’t a preventative measure an effort to avoid failure?
The global population will collapse as a result of energetic-economic failure; it will not be attained as a measure to avoid energetic-economic (or ecological) failure.
There will not a successful global policy to deliberately reduce the human population for political goals; and industrial civilisation will collapse in any case, all the quicker if consumption is reduced and systemic profitability collapses as a result.
This will not be a situation that we will ‘manage’ to ‘prevent’, it is one that we will ‘suffer’ as a consequence of ‘failure’.
No doubt that may seem counter to expectations as humans are often interpreted as potentially and actually ‘in control’ of our predicament but that is not really the case in this situation.
Industrial civilisation, capitalism in particular, has allowed us to express our inherent organic drives, and like many species we have ‘overshot’ our population relative to the capacity of our niche (fossil fuels) to sustain it.
It happens in nature (where we are) all the time. Populations expand and then they contract, and sometimes they collapse; eventually they all go extinct.
We are in ‘Seneca’ situation of impending economic and population collapse, and that will not be ‘prevented’ by ‘measures’.
Is that clearer?
Smith,
You and your wife have one child, the population is not growing per your model, how much of your child’s wealth can he/she spare for your retirement? Can you cut your living expenses to say 10% of his/her salary?
As we age, we slow down, medical issues come up(that is called maintenance and its energy cost is why we die), we are off work, our capital sits idle, does not make a return.
What happens when you die(assuming a male, we die earlier), how does your wife support herself? Off of other single child parents if she is childless? Do they wish to share part of their child’s 10% with you?
We are back to the teepee being cut to ribbons and the old woman turned out to walk the plains until eaten by the metaphorical bear and recycled. We humans can be recycled, our elements were formed in the stars, once we decompose they again become available for use. they literally are as good as new.
From memory, up until say the 1830’s, average age at death was only 35 or so. With all those huntergathers, how did they live after they could no longer kill an animal? Who shared their hard won energy in the form of fresh meat? I cannot run a four minute mile now, yourself?
When your child looks at supporting his child or you and your wife, who comes first?
Realities of a growing economy, make analysis simple, make it local.
Dennis L.
This sounds like China’s problems. With one child families, people need to plan as if they will work until the day they die. If a woman needs a husband to do this, she ends up with the problems you discuss.
am reading and absorbing stuff from that site, all laudable and absolutely correct. and very interesting
then one reaches the line—if we initiated a one child policy by 2045, world pop would be 3.5 bn by 2100.
which is more or less correct.
but no mention of the trauma in getting there, or the fact that to initiate such a programme would involve ‘control’ on an unimaginable scale.
its as if the acceptance of the one child policy will be as universally accepted as having Gates’ vaccination, then obediently queuing up outside the Soylent Green factory to be rendered down as feedstock.
Wish science wish politics and wish economics. Again.
Control invariably involves controllers, and controllers always have an inflated opinion of their essential duties.
Imagine the Controlcorps. There—I just invented the name for them.
As if humankind is going to change 50000 generations of acquisitive breeding in a single coming generation.
we will change of course, but only if it is forced upon us
Complete control is perfectly feasible, at least in certain regions of the globe.
We have evidence of that all the time. What creature is easier to train and manipulate than Man?
But it all, surely, overlooks the fact that there is already a plan, perhaps deluded, but it is being unfolded right now by very powerful actors. And they can move to coercion, direct or indirect, with impunity whenever they please.
Moreover, we didn’t get here through rational planning, and we will not be able to get out of the trap we have made (or that Nature has made?) by such means.
we have evidence of ‘mass control’ all the time
agreed
but every one has ended in catastrophic failure
In,”The Limits to Growth,” the modelers assumed that they could pick a number of allowable births for each year, based on the expected deaths for that year. These allowable births would be allocated back to individual countries. As far as I could figure out, the result would have been fewer than one child per family, given how low the average age of the population was at that time. Needless to say, no one took up the suggestion of a major cutback on births in 1972, when the book was printed.
Now, we have a hard time even mentioning the idea to the many lesser-developed countries who are the ones producing the huge number of extra people. The wide disparity in the number of births per mother around the world is the reason for the immigration crisis of recent years.
the main recreation for many people is baby making
which is as nature intended it to be
And admittedly, the finest recreation to be had! LOL!
true true
though I’ve been try to cut down lately
West at the end of his book looks at the role innovation plays in the growth curve we have all enjoyed; it is huge and needs to occur at increasingly short intervals.
We have one last available innovation from earth, move all production to space asap, save spaceship earth. Global warming is real, death of fish is real, depletion of resources is real, we do not have to solve tomorrow’s problems with today’s technology.
West at the end is pessimistic, hopeful but not an optimist. My theory is, “What do we have to lose?”
Dennis L.
Re; EROEI, I think if the math worked out then Renewables like wind and solar would be profitable enough that investing in them would be a no-brainer. But it isn’t so hence we have subsidies. Just as the fracking boom is not profitable, I think that indicates what one might call an “effective” EROEI of below 1. That is to say we’d be better off if we hadn’t had the fracking revolution. Wind and especially solar aren’t much different I’m afraid. But I think it’s way past time to think much of it.
“Queues at Dover [UK] reached 20 miles today with long traffic jams in Calais through the night as thousands of lorries – many full of Christmas gifts and food – tried to cross the Channel amid chaos at Britain’s container ports…
“A container of goods from China to Felixstowe is now at $10,000 (£7,500) per load – four times the usual rate.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9067309/Truck-tailbacks-stretch-20-MILES-Dover-Thousands-lorries-queue-ferries.html
“A flood of mail and online holiday purchases is overwhelming the U.S. shipping system. An estimated 6 million packages a day are being left stranded…
“”Our entire industry is underwater because of the demand,” said Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/usps-shipping-delays-ups-fedex-holiday-packages/
What a mess! Shippers who can’t use boats have to use trucks (lorries), but it takes a whole lot more of these. Supply lines for containers have been messed up for a long time. I don’t think that Europe has been exporting a high enough volume of goods in the containers to get the containers back to China, leading to too many empties in Europe.
I wonder what happens when there are border tariffs to add to the mess.
Just ~170-250yrs ago a toll booth was still placed at almost every corner, bridge, town gate on major route, .. Perhaps we are going to revisit that model pretty soon..
And that feels almost like “yesterday” – roughly ~1.5x sets of “modern” fourth turnings or ~3x “old” fourth turnings ago..
This popped up on my News feed….
Here’s How Much Emergency Cash You Need Stashed If an Emergency Happens
Jaime Catmull
Thu, December 17, 2020, 12:40 PM ES
Why You Need a National Emergency Fund
Part of being prepared for any contingency, big or small, is having a reserve of emergency cash at your disposal at all times. When you can’t rely on accessing your funds electronically, you’ll need some legal tender to buy food, gas or other necessities.
“The rule of thumb I advise my clients is to keep $1,000 to $2,000 in cash in case banking operations are shut down due to a national emergency or catastrophe,” said Gregory Brinkman, president of Brinkman Financial in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
,Regular emergency savings should be stashed in some kind of savings, money market or certificate of deposit account. Your savings for a national emergency fund should be kept mostly in cash.
“Avoid the stock market because you can lose (your national emergency money) right when you need it the most,” Prakash said.
,“There is a price to putting away a large amount of money for a rainy day: That price is inflation, which has averaged about 1 to 2% per year in the last few years,” Prakash said. “To minimize loss from inflation, it’s wise to not keep too much of your emergency fund at home in physical cash.
…..“Cash is still king across all kinds of crises. Therefore, you want to ensure you have an amount on hand to help you in case it’s necessary for purchasing some necessities,” said Jason Powell, real estate and securities attorney at EstateInvesting.com. “However, you may also want to look into trading some of the cash you have for silver, gold and other assets that may be valuable in the coming year or near future.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-emergency-cash-stashed-emergency-174030356.html
One may wish to add a pile of lead 😉 to the PM…
Seems the word is out…get ready, get set….TSHTF…YaowZaaa….
Good luck 🤞
If I were in the UK, I would be more worried about having the food I needed available than I would be worried about cash on hand. At some point, nearly all of us may be in that position.
I would too. And am worried….here in sunny ☀️😎 South Florida and plenty of food banks….yes stock up on food pantry among other items.
Please read the article link for further information and instructions
right now, most people think only of ff energy as being unaffordable
but food energy is bound to slip into the same category, it will become less and less affordable for more and more people
I’m happy this Christmas because the container of goodies from England arrived and the After Eight mints are on the shelves in Ikari Supermarket after an eight-month absence.
I bought 10 boxes!
your prepping supplies are sorted then
“China’s power supply is struggling as winter temperatures plunge. Is the ban on Australian coal to blame?
“China’s coal imports on the whole have been on a downward trajectory according to official Government statistics — in other words, it’s not just Australian coal that has been having trouble entering China’s market.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-18/china-electricity-power-shortage-hunan-zhejiang-australia-coal/12993418
“Global coal demand is poised to rebound next year as the economy recovers and the U.S. and Europe may see the first increase in consumption in several years, the International Energy Agency said.
“Despite the global shift toward economies based on renewable energy, the dirtiest fossil fuel looks set to keep its role as the world’s biggest power source although its share will slip to 35% in 2021 from 36.5% last year.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-18/global-thirst-for-coal-to-return-once-pandemic-ends-iea-says
I don’t really believe in “Global thirst for coal to return once pandemic ends.”This is an IEA claim.
I don’t think that the ban on Australian coal has anything to do with the problem. According to this article,
“By November, more than 60 vessels carrying Australian thermal coal were held up in Chinese waters because they weren’t able to offload their cargo, according to Bloomberg shipping analysis data.”
These were ships from many parts of the world, according to other articles. Beijing is trying to get the selling price (within China) of coal up by keeping out imports. Coal prices are low around the world. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work very well.
Also, the article says,
“In Hunan, authorities said the province of more than 67 million people had reached the electricity grid’s maximum load, with a predicted gap of 3 million to 4 million kilowatts of energy during winter’s peak period, according to local media.”
Grid limits are causing a problem (for importing electricity from elsewhere), partly because there is not enough local coal to burn (probably because of the low prices). Also,
Depending on wind and hydropower is risky business! They often don’t come through when needed.
“Could you ever have conceived of a holiday week in the United States where the airline industry would have burned through just half the amount of jet fuel that it used a year ago?
“According to the EIA, jet fuel demand from commercial passenger jets leaving U.S. airports over the 2020 Thanksgiving week was roughly 600,000 barrels per day. This compares to more than 1.2 million barrels per day over the same week a year earlier.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Airline-Slump-Still-Dogs-Oil-Demand.html
“Saudi Arabia’s economy shrinks for fifth consecutive quarter…
“The world’s largest oil exporter is facing a dual crisis this year as the pandemic and lower energy prices strain its finances and the private sector.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/17/bbsaudi-arabias-economy-shrinks-for-fifth-consecutive-quarter
Someone benefited from low prices though!
“Nine independent traders operating from their homes in Essex made $660m (£500m) in a single day of trading oil futures when prices briefly went negative earlier this year…
“Their success has caught the eye of regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington DC who are examining Vega Capital…”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/12/11/nine-essex-oil-traders-made-660m-prices-plunged-red/
Mind you, they are not mom and pop traders. Probably already rich to begin with
Saudi Arabia has more problems than low oil prices. According to the article,
“economists have said austerity measures including spending cuts and a tripling of value-added tax will continue to weigh on growth.”
These will prevent the internal economy from bouncing back.
“Japan has sold 80 tons of gold used for minting coins to another arm of the government to fund part of its huge stimulus package to combat the coronavirus crisis, government officials told Reuters.
“Saddled with public debt twice the size of its economy and tax revenues hit by the pandemic-induced recession, the finance ministry is under pressure to find non-tax revenues to cover the rising cost of spending to deal with the health crisis.”
https://japantoday.com/category/business/Japan-sells-gold-to-fund-part-of-its-stimulus-package
“Japan’s core consumer prices dropped in November at their fastest pace in a decade as the coronavirus pandemic hit demand, stoking fears of a return to deflation and wiping out the benefits former premier Shinzo Abe’s stimulus policies.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-economy-inflation/japans-consumer-prices-fall-at-fastest-pace-in-decade-stoke-deflation-fears-idUKKBN28S05T
According to the article,
“The Japanese capital Tokyo, faced with acute strains on its medical system from the COVID-19 pandemic, raised its alert level to the highest of four stages on Thursday as the number of new cases spiked to a record daily high of 822.”
Acute strains on the medical system from 822 cases in Tokyo? This is a little hard to believe. The vast majority of these cases won’t need to be hospitalized. If the number of new cases were at the US level, there would be 6,119 new cases on average each day (based on Tokyo’s population of 9.3 million). At the EU level of new cases, the expected number of new cases each day would be 2,742.
The EU and US have very similar levels of deaths per 100,000: 0.799 for the US and 0.782 for the EU. The expected Tokyo number of deaths per day from COVID for COVID-19 would be about 73 or 74 per day, at EU-US levels.
Thank you for this news feed and morning 🌄 roundup today Mister McGibbs👍.
Like Investor, traveler and author, Jim Rogers often says in interviews…Gold is looked upon as an antique relic of the past and has little use in commerce…but us peasants, just the same, know better
You are welcome, Herbie!
Another somewhat confusing article but FWIW: “We must never repeat the staggering global $6 trillion cost of lockdown:
“The cost of lockdowns globally has been so vast because we failed to boost our economies’ resilience.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/12/18/must-never-repeat-staggering-global-6-trillion-cost-lockdown/
“Europe’s politicians need to stop any talk of the European Central Bank cancelling debt it buys as part of its asset purchase schemes, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said on Thursday.
““A cancellation of national debts would constitute a clear violation of the European Treaties,” Schnabel said in a Twitter Q&A. “The debate is harmful and should be stopped.””
https://uk.reuters.com/article/ecb-policy-debt/please-drop-any-talk-of-debt-cancellation-ecbs-schnabel-says-idUKKBN28R2AM
“Thirty-five European Union lenders analysed by the bloc’s banking watchdog didn’t hold enough easy-to-sell US dollar assets to cover their projected dollar cash outflows as of end-June.”
https://www.risk.net/risk-quantum/7725196/post-covid-crisis-eu-banks-have-thin-dollar-liquidity-buffers
This all sounds very dodgy to me:
“Ireland, home of Europe’s biggest banking crisis, has emerged as key to helping Greek banks shift problem loans off their balance sheets in recent years.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/greek-banks-use-dublin-to-move-up-to-54bn-of-risky-loans-1.4439933
It is hard to imagine that these Irish “Special Market Vehicles” will do well, as energy supplies dwindle.
So, where are all of the easy-to-sell dollar assets going to come from?
“Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” (Thomas Hobbes) And how many divisions can Isabel Schnabel command?
Hot on the heels of their “Great Reset” treatise, the WEF is now talking up a circular economy for car-manufacturing. Totally clueless:
“A circular economy is an economic system that aims to eliminate waste throughout an entire value chain – including throughout manufacturing, production and use. Its value comes in preserving raw materials and eradicating waste altogether…
“Embracing the circular economy has become even more critical since COVID-19 has hit economies hard, putting pressure on consumers and manufacturers and driving home the need to be watchful of resources.”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/how-the-circular-economy-could-forever-change-how-cars-are-made/
Perhaps we can outlaw diminishing returns!
““The story we are basically telling ourselves is that the economy is this perpetual motion machine where you can just push a button in a central bank somewhere, and no matter what kind of economic challenges you are facing in the real economy, you can just wash that away with the creation of nominal money,” says Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.”
https://www.globalcapital.com/article/b1ppn8r4tgxyy5/rich-countries-will-learn-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-debt
he’s been plagiarising my best lines again
Great lines!
Remember when China moved mobile crematoriums to Wuhan during the outbreak?
On the job application was written: You cannot be afraid of ghosts and demons. You might hear screams.
They eradicated the virus the Chinese way.
The Western response to the outbreak has been chaotic. We might as well take the vaccine…or shall we go for herd immunity…or maybe do lockdowns…or just lay down and die.
The disease they had must have been vastly more deadly. This problem may have been made worse by not having any idea regarding which medicines might work.
Remember when China moved mobile crematoriums to Wuhan during the outbreak?
And built a special hospital in five days?
For a disease that killed less than 5,000 Chinese people?
Seriously?
These texts are mostly 2018-2019 upto early-mid 2020s due to delayed translation from Spanish, perhaps some ideas didn’t age well, but some concepts and hints are pretty much spot on. Anyway it’s very interesting perspective from that part of the world, I guess it was linked previously, but now in bulk it’s better “absorption” reading..
https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2020/08/12/20-reasons-to-prefer-degrowth-to-the-green-new-deal-as-a-political-option-to-address-the-collapse-of-civilization/
https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2020/08/04/antonio-turiel-diesel-is-coming-to-an-end/
https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2019/12/22/open-letter-to-fridays-for-future-its-time-for-action-but-what-action/
https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2020/11/05/screen-new-deal-and-the-world-after-covid-a-technological-dystopia/
The folks in Spain don’t understand that energy scarcity of all types is occurring right now. It comes through low prices.
We really don’t have a choice between Degrowth and the Green New Deal. The outcome is chosen for us by our self-organizing system economic system. Our plans are pretty much for naught, except if we can somehow figure out a way to live within the outcome nature provides for us.
Boris is preparing celebrations for the centenary of NI. Kevin over at Spiked recounts the support of the British state for the ethnic cleansing of Catholics (Irish) in the NE of Ireland in preparation for the partition of Ireland. There is a question over whether it is acceptable for Boris to celebrate the foundation of a sectarian state through the ethnic cleansing of the native population.
> Remembering the Belfast Pogrom
The systematic expulsion and murder of Catholics in 1920-22 must not be forgotten.
…. This was a terror campaign lasting 20 months from 1920 until 1922. It was unleashed against Catholics in the greater Belfast area to ‘teach them a lesson’, and silence all opposition to the establishment of a Northern Ireland state. The pogrom involved large-scale expulsions of Catholics from their workplaces and from districts where they were a small minority, and violent attacks on isolated Catholic populations (1). Hundreds of innocent men, women and children were killed by loyalist murder gangs, many of whom were members of the temporary police force known as the Specials. Belfast Catholics were left traumatised and terrified by the scale of the murderous brutality brought down upon their heads.
And it was all carried out with tacit approval from on high. There is evidence that Unionist leaders like Edward Carson and James Craig indulged first in incitement, and then offered support to the pogromists in the terror’s aftermath (2). British leaders in London did nothing to stop it. They left Craig in control, and largely turned a blind eye to pro-regime outrages (3).
…. The entire Catholic population of Belfast at the time was 93,000. In the following days and weeks, this fell dramatically.
As news of the expulsions spread, violence broke out in different parts of the city. Mobs several-thousand strong moved from the shipyard to attack the small Catholic enclave of Short Strand and its church of St Mathews nearby. As the fighting escalated, both sides fought hand-to-hand, threw sticks, bricks and bottles, and used guns and bombs. Several people were killed. Catholic homes and stores were raided and burned in the north and west of the city.
The orgy of destruction against Catholic and Rotten Prod [socialist] property in Ballymacarrett in east Belfast was on a mass scale. On the second night, loyalist violence, which had hitherto been more spontaneous, became coordinated and developed into a campaign of religious and political cleansing (5). So systematic was it that the Ballymacarrett area in the east, once a very mixed area, was transformed into a Protestant monoculture….
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/18/remembering-the-belfast-pogrom/
…. But rather than call for an end to the violence which he had incited, Craig demanded the establishment of a Special Constabulary (the Specials). This effectively turned the pogromists into an official, armed police force.
London approved. Winston Churchill, secretary of state for the colonies, supported the move, and the British cabinet agreed to Craig’s request. The Specials were an entirely Protestant force, comprising recruits from the Ulster Volunteer Forcemen and the Orange Lodges. Speaking in parliament, Devlin was in no doubt as to the Specials’ function. ‘The Protestants are to be armed’, he said, ‘their pogrom to be made less difficult. Instead of paving stones and sticks they are to be given rifles.’
At night, the sky was red with the flames of Catholic homes on fire in different parts of the city. As the Belfast Pogrom continued, the Daily News reported practically all of the damage had been done to nationalists’ [Irish] property and that few if any Catholic premises were left standing in Belfast, apart from in the Catholic stronghold of the Falls (8). Reporting on the July/August violence of 1920, the Daily News described ‘five weeks of ruthless persecution by boycott, fire, plunder and assault, culminating in a week’s wholesale violence probably unmatched outside the area of the Russian or Polish pogroms’ (9).
Each month the toll of dead and injured continued to rise. A refugee crisis was precipitated by the many thousands now evicted from their homes, as entire districts were religiously cleansed. Catholic enclaves came under nightly attack, particularly the small area around the Short Strand in east Belfast, where there were numerous attempts to burn down St Mathews church. The ‘Bone’ district of Oldpark, Clonard, and also York Road in the Docks area, were other small Catholic areas that came under constant siege from snipers and arsonists. As sectarian attacks continued during 1921 and 1922, and families fled, many retreated to the area around Weaver Street.
The Weaver Street killings….
…. I was seven years old in 1972, when one night I was woken up, and wearing only my Y-fronts, forced to flee with my family through the front door, while being jeered by a loyalist mob. They gave my family 10 minutes to get out or they would burn down our house. We lived in Ballymacarrett. And just like those families who fled Ballymacarrett in the Belfast Pogroms of 1920-22, we would never return.
If the planning for the Northern Ireland 2021 Centenary celebration is any indication, British officials remain as ignorant of Northern Irish history as ever. They even chose to brand the centenary with an image of Seamus Heaney – a bizarre blunder of epic proportions. Even the dogs in the street know that Ireland’s greatest poet was opposed to partition, describing the unionist state as sectarian and akin to a caste system.
The calamity of the centenary launch reflects the 100 years of calamity that is partition. Whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Dissenter, we are capable of so much better than the Northern Irish state. It’s time for a new conversation about Ireland’s future. It’s time for a united Ireland.
@deer meat
For a month or 6 weeks you might conserve meat with salt. It should be stored in a could place though. If you HAVE salt. Water it before cooking. In summer fish and meat might be dried by the sun.
I think the archeologic assumptions are false. It does not make sense to me. The neolithic revolution is a try to verify the narration of the bible.
I think our past was much more complex and even hunter-gatherer build cellars and mouse-free grain depots and made shoes and clothing for the kids. If you look to Africa just fetching water for the family is an act of a few hours.
We have a false perspective as we admire pyramids and towers and wars and machinery and big reichs instead of good living conditions for all. And we are obsessed with death. All remains we find we interpret as death cults.
Yep, for example the reconstruction of Otzi’s wardrobe showed he had pretty much “membrane” like outdoor quality, layered clothing on his last trip.. Obviously not 3D printed but cleverly utilizing available natural resources.
European hunter-gatherers (cro magnon) had bigger brains. The presumption is that our brains have got ‘more efficient’ as they got smaller but there is no evidence for that. HGs constantly lived on their wits.
Studies have shown that the rise of farming was accompanied by mass malnutrition, and other studies have shown that malnourished mothers whose growth is stunted are liable to die in childbirth if the baby has a large head. So, in a round about way, farming may have selected for smaller heads and brains. The human body as a whole shrunk due to the farming.
In which case, our smaller brains may not be because they are ‘more efficient’ but because we went through several thousand years of malnutrition and the selection of smaller heads (and bodies) – and also we did not need to live on our wits like HGs.
On the other hand, the brain to body ratio has increased and the correlation between human brain size and intelligence is debated.
> Farming to blame for our shrinking size and brains
(PhysOrg.com) — At Britain’s Royal Society, Dr. Marta Lahr from Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies presented her findings that the height and brain size of modern-day humans is shrinking.
Looking at human fossil evidence for the past 200,000 years, Lahr looked at the size and structure of the bones and skulls found across Europe, Africa and Asia. What they discovered was that the largest Homo sapiens lived 20,000 to 30,000 years ago with an average weight between 176 and 188 pounds and a brain size of 1,500 cubic centimeters.
They discovered that some 10,000 years ago however, size started getting smaller both in stature and in brain size. Within the last 10 years, the average human size has changed to a weight between 154 and 176 pounds and a brain size of 1,350 cubic centimeters.
While large size remained static for close to 200,000 years, researchers believe the reduction in stature can be connected to a change from the hunter-gatherer way of life to that of agriculture which began some 9,000 years ago….
…. Agriculture however does not explain the reduction in brain size. Lahr believes that this may be a result of the energy required to maintain larger brains. The human brain accounts for one quarter of the energy the body uses. This reduction in brain size however does not mean that modern humans are less intelligent. Human brains have evolved to work more efficiently and utilize less energy.
https://phys.org/news/2011-06-farming-blame-size-brains.html
Also, brains consume a huge amount of calories, so smaller brained persons would have needed less calories to survive – which may have been selected for in the context of farmer malnutrition.
Likely the decline in overall body size is due to the selective pressures of farmer malnourishment – smaller bodies, fewer calories. Farming shrunk us – and our brains.
What is the relationship between the brain size and intelligence?
Birds in general, and particularly crows, have a small brain but a high intelligence. What a model of efficency!
The human brain is powerful but not effective. We should learn more from Nature and birds.
I think we have a higher expectation in life than building nests, sitting on branches , scrounging on bird tables,
and getting eaten by bigger birds
But we lost sustainability by the way!
true
their grandparents were dinosaurs
they had it all
all our conspiracies
neatly packaged
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation
Laughing quietly at last sentence, nice Norman.
Dennis L.
I guess dinosaurs have lived much longer than we human, at least so far.
true
in that respect they are much smarter
Norman you seem not understanding what I mean. There are many ways to be “smart”, the one we know is not the only one. We left sustainability behind because of our intelligence. This is our curse, and may be our fate.
Unless this is a blessing in disguise, like she says
Good point!
I have heard that the Japanese people are now tending to get shorter. The women, especially, tend to be low in weight but long-lived. I wonder if the three go together: long-lives, lower weight, and shorter height tendencies. Smaller brains may fit into the mix as well.
Brain size is limited by head size—until we evolve sufficiently to keep our brains in our pockets—and head size is limited by female hip size.
How is brain size related to intelligence? Well, consider the following:
Physicist Albert Einstein’s brain was of only average weight (about 3 pounds).Irish writer Jonathan Swift’s brain weighed 4.4 pounds, about 50% more than the average, and French intellectual and Nobel laureate Anatole France had a brain that weighed barely 2 pounds, just two-thirds of the average weight and less than half the size of Swift’s brain.
Glad we’ve cleared that one up.
There is a robust positive correlation between brain size and intelligence but it is not the only factor that contributes to outcomes.
“Overall, larger brain size and volume is associated with better cognitive functioning and higher intelligence.[1] The specific regions that show the most robust correlation between volume and intelligence are the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes of the brain.[9][10][11] A large number of studies have been conducted with uniformly positive correlations, leading to the generally safe conclusion that larger brains predict greater intelligence.[12][13] In healthy adults, the correlation of total brain volume and IQ is approximately 0.4 when high quality tests are used.[14]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence#Brain_volume
I suppose hat sizes would go along with this. I know I always need to find an extra large hat size for my husband, who is a college professor (Ph. D. in math; teaches computer science).
we perhaps forget that nature takes millions of years to evolve a species, then a while longer to decide that species is a waste of space, then a few more million years–perhaps less, to dispose of that species and make room for something else
Well, it does seem intuitive that a decline in brain size may lessen the fitness of the species to the survive in the long-term. Who knows?
Perhaps the trend will reverse after collapse if H-G becomes necessary, and it will eventually produce an approximation to the robust cro magnon HG of the past.
Our best bet may have been to clone all of the cro magnons that we could find the remains of, in preparation for the collapse, but I am not sure that is even possible let alone ‘gonna happen’.
Hopefully H. s. extinction can be avoided in Europe.
Norman, you are an old stuck-in-the-mud gradualist.
Punctuated equilibrium is the thing these days.
Punctuated Equilibrium Explained
Punctuated equilibrium is a theory that states that evolution occurs primarily through short bursts of intense speciation, followed by lengthy periods of stasis or equilibrium. The model postulates that nearly 99% of a species’ time on earth is spent in stasis, and change happens very quickly.
So, if a species appears in fossil records for about 10 million years, it is likely that speciation occurred over the span of fewer than 100,000 years. Once complete, however, the model suggests that there is little morphological change after the speciation event. The species will then maintain a period of stability, called stasis, for a long period of time.
It seems that humans are still subject to intense genetic change and thus still in the period of speciation. Maybe we will reach ‘stasis’ or maybe we will just go extinct first?
If there is a lot of radiation in the future, for example from spent fuel pools, this could increase the genetic variation and thus the likelihood that some will survive.
Tim, you know not of what you speak
if, like me, you had been around at the time of the dinosaurs you would know differently
as it happened, nature herself decided I was a species worth saving, genetically speaking, and by a further twist of fate, find myself here on OFW to set historical records straight.
that said, the asteroid strike 60m years ago was bummer
I remember it like it was only yesterday
Thanks for the link. I had been aware of this change in brain size.
I worked at NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute. I am not ignorant of the possible risks. I’m a numbers guy. I will take the theoretical risks of the vaccine over the real risks of covid-19 which has already carried off my brother-in-law. I am 78 with congestive heart failure.I want to thank all of you vaccine doubters. The more people who refuse to take the vaccine, the sooner I will get my shot.
Yes good idea. You are at risk. But for healthy people, bad idea:
Dr. Michael Yeadon “All vaccines against the SARS-COV-2 virus are by definition novel. No candidate vaccine has been… in development for more than a few months.” Yeadon then went on to declare, “If any such vaccine is approved for use under any circumstances that are not EXPLICITLY experimental, I believe that recipients are being misled to a criminal extent. This is because there are precisely zero human volunteers for…whom there could possibly be more than a few months past-dose safety information.”
Your quite welcome. Feel free to help yourself to all following vaccines allocated for me also! Im generous that way.
With the increasing energy efficiency, the renovation of the historical buildings in the cold climates becomes an increasing problem. Especially when the building was a commercial one, used for providing accomodation, has quite big dimensions and its design can not be altered using insulation due to the state protection of the historical monuments.
One example from the spa town Trenčianske Teplice in Slovakia where a functionalist architecture gem from the first half of the 20th century is delapidating. Its location under the northern slope is also not a favourable one:
https://d3i9l7sj72swdx.cloudfront.net/ciernediery-sk-web/2017/02/IMG_8847.jpg
https://www.ciernediery.sk/liecebny-dom-machnac/
In English:
https://abandonedrecreation.com/machnac/
“There are not many buildings in Slovakia, which can be admired for representing the principles and philosophy of functionalist architecture. In the 1930´s, the sanatorium Machnáč was built for and named after ‘Pojišťovna soukromých úředníků’ (insurance company for private clerks) in Prague. After winning a tender of architectural design in 1929, the author Jaromír Krejcar was assigned with task. The architect´s initial intention was not a patch on the progressive building we can be amazed by nowadays. Its location at the end of the park and its not ideal cardinal orientation were the reason to deflect from the initial vision of a three-wing monoblock facing the park with its longer side. The new design shaped a more extensive irregular T- ground plan. The T´s vertical base included the day part: kitchen in the basement, restaurant on the ground floor, café and reading room on the first floor and sunny terrace on the roof. The T´s horizontal roof became the accommodation part, with rooms overlooking the park and accessible from a spacious corridor lighted through strip windows.”
How can you add thermal insulation to a functionalist building like this hotel and make it profitable?
I think the big issue is people being afraid to use the buildings, not lack of insulation. Drafty buildings are ideal from a ventilation point of view. With the advent of antibiotics, we thought that we could live with “tight” efficient buildings, but we really cannot. Microbes keep evolving away from our attempts at defense. We have more and more antibiotic resistant bacteria, for example. We have already passed through the brief time period that we could assume that we humans could have complete control over unwanted germs.
Friday the 18th is 45 days after the election. A report from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on foreign threats to the election is due out on that day, and depending on its contents, the President may use his special executive powers under the Insurrection Act of 1807 and declare a State of Emergency. Michael Lewis reports.
Among other juicy items. Lewis reports that Forbes has reported that Bill Barr has received over 2 million dollars from Dominion Software over the past decade.
https://youtu.be/aFM8PYkmUZE
However, it has also been reported that Intel Report on election interference will not be turned in on time due to reported dispute, so we may be on tenterhooks for even longer.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/12/17/intel-report-on-election-interference-will-not-be-turned-in-on-time-due-to-reported-dispute-1006668/
I believe the report is a nice to have but not required for the president to act under EO 13848 and seize the assets of Zuckerberg, Gates, Google, Twitter, Dominion, etc.
Not to mention operation snow-globe where Hillary was caught taking an 18 million dollar bribe to be used to keep her on leash to Obama.
As Q says “Trust the plan” It keeps ratcheting up in a beautiful progression. I believe we are watching WW3 between two world class nations. A info war / cyber war / bride war.
Keisers mentioned Turchin with his observation-prediction that maverick top elites start to challenge-eat other members of the elite in the last stage towards collapsing empires. That being said, getting closer, I doubt we are at the pin point of true open gloves regime toppling / crumbling stage for the US, it will probably freewheel for another half or full decade – it now largely depends on the outside “support” – when RoW pulls the rope it’s over, no rush, as they need time extra for themselves as well..
thanks, good to know.
perhaps the report will be delayed until late January, too late, or even after January 6 when Congress confirms the electoral votes.
or the report will conclude no significant foreign interference, since the D interference (hundreds of thousands of fake votes) was domestic.
TPTB are well aligned: Deep State, D party and even some R party, MSM, lefty American billionaires, anti Trump globalists.
the odds are poor for truth to prevail.
We will see what actually happens. I have a feeling that things could unfold slowly, over time. Biden could start his term of office, and only later some of the worst things start coming out, for example. Nothing seems to happen as quickly as most of us think it will.
yes.
the MSM seems to have now been allowed to begin reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop/tax evasion/kickbacks to Joe stories.
it looks to be preplanned.
start the stories rolling now, get to a level where moderate Biden must resign by spring or summer, and then far left Harris takes over.
she looked totally unelectable early in the primaries, and this became the plan.
Biden will resign, on the plea that he ‘needs more time to spend with his family’……in prison.
A guess only. People need networks, friends, making waves is bad for a person’s livelihood, one goes with the flow. Reporters want to be invited to the parties, be thrown a scrap now and then, negative reporting and one is off the A list, no stores, soon no job. It is human, nice life, wife not happy, life not happy.
Dennis L.
sure.
perhaps our overseas friends are aware or unaware that more than 90% of American journalists are liberal democrats.
it seems to go with the profession.
probably good to be on the inside, especially when their preferred party is elected and in office.
but then the difference between journalism and propaganda becomes very obscured.
More than 90% of college professors seem to be liberal Democrats as well. The reporter can then say, we only follow the science.
“ more than 90% of American journalists are liberal democrats”
Which is nuts. Hmm… a media run by one party, where have I seen this before? Scary.
HUH? They had 45 days. You meet deadlines. You tailor the complexity of your work to the deadline not visa versa. These are the elite. The feared and respected KRAKKEN. THE HORROR.
Ok sarge ill take the hill after my soy latte. So… Nothing will come of it. Let me guess report out after JAN 6. Did anyone really expect anything different? Whats a babble Mandarin course cost?
Its over. A “dispute” in the report. Great . This was supposed to be it. The truth. The deal . This is what went down. By the steely eyed secret agent krakken.
Instead more parallel universe bs. And the fact checkers and MSM will decide which is correct.
We were told these guys had the goods. That they would vanquish the balrog like Gandalfs his staff revealing truth with brilliant light!
More BS in a world of BS. Its over.
All hail queen Kamela!
Frodo failed.
The great eye has conquered.
I have witnessed the strong emotions including anger as my father gets to that age. Logical calm thought processes are discarded for FEELINGS. FEELINGS are reality.
Seriously. Biden. Seriously.
God help us. Someone wake me please. Canada will you take me? Saskatoon maybe? Im a refugee!!!
His majesty has spoketh:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55347021
“Sweden, which has never imposed a full lockdown, has seen nearly 350,000 cases and more than 7,800 deaths – a lot more than its Scandinavian neighbours.
Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said he agreed with the king’s remarks.
“Of course the fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” Mr Lofven told reporters.”
Sweden officially suck. Directly from the prime minister and his majesty.
But lockdowns ruin lives. Here in the UK they have ruined thousands of lives. People have lost their jobs. They couldn’t pay the rent and were made homeless. Why doesn’t anybody care about that? Why must the consequences of illness for a tiny minority be forced to ripple out onto so many of the wider population?
And yes, I do have compassion for the tiny minority. Money for care should indeed be ramped up for them. And yes, I could be one of them, given that I have a BMI of 29 and am over 60. But this is a war, and in a war you can’t avoid casualties. The point is to minimise casualties. The manner of the lockdowns has maximised casualties, and not just in a medical sense. If Britain had prosecuted the Second World War like that, fewer casualties today would have meant more casualties for the future, and we would probably have lost the war. Fortunately, we had an intelligent strategy back then. Not so nowadays, and thousands of the population without the COVID virus are suffering. This is the worst policy mistake in the UK since our adherence to the gold standard in the 1920s and early 1930s, and probably even worse in its consequences than that. We are needlessly ravaging the economy and killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Gail
re your latest post, I think you’ll find this radio talk interesting The Meaning of Work,, about the relative ratio of work hours in hunter gatherer societies, relative to our own time:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000q8z9
People have been saying for a long time that hunter-gatherers worked very little. This author says that they worked about 15 hours a week (men and women) at gathering food.
My view is that with our rising population, we have encountered diminishing returns. We need to work a whole lot more, to keep the whole system operating that allows us to get food. This is especially true in the areas that depend on grains and agriculture and cities. We keep building dissipative structures that need to be fed. This is the reason for the protestant work ethic.
And I doubt whether hunter gatherers would think of their “food quest” (as it was put on the podcast) as work at all. It was likely just part of their everyday lives. Also, as James Suzman put it, our current notion of “work ethic” only began with agriculture.
How does James Suzman know?
“And I doubt whether hunter gatherers would think of their “food quest” (as it was put on the podcast) as work at all. ”
Mike, this is romantic beyond words.
Incredible frustration on my part, we have so much wishful thinking be it hunter gathers(wear a loin cloth through the brush, hard on the balls), or some sort of agrarian society – think Indians of mesoAmerica who had human sacrifices to encourage crops. The less successful lived in the bush, when given a chance it would appear a city was easier.
The whole point of West is networks, a hunter gather has a very small network, very hard to make it alone, humans always need a group, 200 seems the right number, Dunbar and now West. 200 at 12 deer per year need 2400 deer per year – it doesn’t work. Back to burning the teepee of the squaw who lost her man and turning her out of the village. Demographics by age, no children, shorter life. Can’t support a squaw? Well, no sex for you.
I see hunting close up, the deer is returned to camp in a gasoline powered side by side with a box behind. The camp is a heated house with hot water, a shower and indoor plumbing along with a microwave for snacks, beer in the frige.
Modern society is pretty nice both physically and morally.
The moon is sounding better and better and the lunatics are not those supporting shooting the moon.
Dennis L.
Dennis,
I’m not sure what you think is romantic. That hunter gatherers wouldn’t think of their food quest as work? My comment wasn’t an attempt to paint an idyllic existence, just that it is probably impossible to compare what we think of as work and something that might have been equivalent 10,000 years ago. It was likely just part of everyday life. It’s probably impossible to even compare a modern hunter gatherer tribe today with how they were 10,000 years ago.
I don’t know what you mean by “West” as I haven’t followed all threads here.
I doubt you’d need 200 to make a viable tribe (I suspect that’s about a factor of 2 out). But remember that there weren’t many humans at the time that all of them were hunter gatherers. As they survived, as a species, for hundreds of thousands of years, I’m sure that finding food wasn’t as difficult (usually) as you seem to imply.
Geoffrey West, “Scale,” well researched, well footnoted, very interesting graphs.
200 is Dunbar’s number, it keeps turning up. It is the maximum number for personal trust between members, more and it becomes casual friendship, limit of brain to organize more than 200 people.
Found this regarding band size,
“The term ‘Plains Indians’ refers to many different tribes of American Indian people who lived on the Great Plains of North America. Each tribe was made up of different ‘bands’ with the size of each band ranging from 20 to hundreds of people.”
https://www.tutor2u.net/history/reference/structure-of-plains-indian-society
Please excuse my “romantic” comment. So much in life seems to be expressed in opinion, I always try and find what I call “The real rule book.” I can be somewhat direct.
Regarding hunting, I have people hunt my land, there are cameras all over, the hunters know the land, etc. There are days they go out and see nothing. Mama would not be happy.
Dennis L.
Gail,
West presents some convincing graphs that the larger the city, the more efficient it is in using resources. I cannot speak for hunter gathers, but country life is a heck of a lot more expensive than city living.
My view is we are seeing diminishing returns due to the demographics – too many old, too few young.
This, that author states 15 hour work week. You can’t run a garden on that, men hunt, this is basically two days. How long does a deer or other wild animal last? A deer might feed a family for how many days?
“To estimate the intensity and amount of physical activity during hunting and fishing for the Qaanaaq Inuit we tried to measure heart rate during hunting and their everyday life activity.
Unfortunately it was not easy to monitor heart rate because sometimes the hunters travel for many days or weeks without turning back to Qaanaaq and we experienced that they leave without warnings if they hear of good hunting possibilities. Thus it turned out to be logistically impossible to achieve good quality data on physical activity in the hunter population.”
The workweek of 50-60 hours of the other group in this experiment at Thule Airforce Base suggests it was not as hard as wrestling a “bar” for dinner, or a sea lion, or even trying to fish for dinner.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3417641/
I didn’t review this 15 hour article, it does not seem logical or real to me. This seems more romantic thinking from afar. Recall please the Inuit when no longer useful was recycled through a polar bear while sitting on an iceberg. Hopefully when the bear came along it was a frozen dinner.
Summary, on my land with a corn fed dinner, I doubt there are enough deer for more than a couple of months at best and that assumes they don’t move on due to all the gun shots – and a gun is a heck of a lot easier than a spear or whatever.
Dennis L.
Got curious about this one, went to a hunting site and found this which seems reasonable:
“4 people x .5lbs/day-person x 210 day/yr = ~400lbs
210lbs is roughly 4 days of consumption/wk
400 lbs = (120 lbs live weight x 60% after processing) x (X #deer)
= roughly 6 deer to do the job
Obviously, you’d need about double the deer if you wanted to eat only venison.”
https://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/threads/how-many-deer-to-feed-a-family-of-4-for-the-year.522157/
So this takes a healthy man and wife and two children – deer can outrun an old man or woman, demographics again. It also assumes perfection, nothing goes wrong.
One is probably going to need some potatoes, etc., garden and then, what does one do with the meat when the temperature is above freezing? I assume the comment above uses a freezer.
This looks like a really hard job to me, maybe you only work 15 hours per week due to exhaustion. What does one do when the inevitable injury occurs? Follow the herd? Well, what if the herd is on someone else’s territory, now factor in war time, war dance time, lost arrows due to war time. Overhead, always overhead.
I think whomever came up with 15 hours does not know what he/she are talking about. Cities are easier, even rats move to the cities. Note cities predate oil.
Moon looking better to anyone?
Dennis L.
Dennis, interesting post.
We can bring it even a bit further, imagine that left over carcass… 40% after processing… partly went to feeding dogs and or just slowly fed the biomass in the area (fishing settlements could fertilize early “gardens-orchards” with their garbage). That rhymes today as posh energy excess rich civilizations tend to feed all sorts of helpful “dogs” aside.. and when they vanish for lack of resources..
In the wild a carcass lasts about three days. Coyotes at night. birds during day. insects take the rest.
Its the animal kingdoms gwahar.
The most romantic moment of hunting comes about 5 minutes after the animal stops breathing. Simultaneously all the ticks and parasites realize the host is dead and crawl off the body. The exodus is impressive if you have no conception of the volume.
Thats what will happen to OFW doomsters soon
“Protestant work ethic” is chiefly connected with the colder, northerly climates. Basically the short growing season was amended by winter “down time” only occupation (making tools, textiles, ..) for local-regional markets that lead to (over) specialized manufacturers 24/365 and eventually global economy based on fossil fuel inputs.
Norman,
Check out this video, short, couple or retired school teachers(retired at 55, with health benefits, were upset when they turned 65, healthcare costs increased). Still want to chase after some animal with a spear? Golf cart to the nearest happy hour after a hard day of par 3 golf seems like more fun than a hunter-gather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyiN3kdrpBc
The Villages continue to expand, I look at what is for sale, it goes very fast.
Ah, a nice sleigh(make that golf cart ride) in the Christmas season. Wouldn’t chasing an animal in a loin cloth be more fun?
Relax, Norman, the lights are all LED and the electricity is renewable by FPL or whatever it goes by now, lots and lots of wind, spend it or lose it.
Merry Christmas to all,
Dennis L.
Went back to the hunter gather thing and hours worked/week.
Gave up on lifespan, too many different numbers some say 70, some say 35, Wikipedia wasn’t there.
Looking at teaching as a profession, in the US 6.64 hours per day teaching,180 days school year, 1195.2 total class room hours or 22.98 hours per week work – with retirement at 55 and I think 75% pension(I was a union teacher early on) plus healthcare to 65, dental care here in Rochester schools. Do the average workweek to 75 according to your taste.
Those who have looked at the link to the villages and this teacher couple, they have a nice “lifestyle.” Golf carts get very high mileage so they are already very “Green.”
I know it is about to all end, but they have been doing it for some time, there is an ex UPS truck driver who has been doing it longer.
Youtube is incredible I dance passably well, The Villages have dances, probably could do “Daddy’s Bolero” with not too much work, sort of a non traditional bolero, great to maintain flexibility incase I have to man the bow and arrow. My partner would be able to move around the kitchen, don’t you know? There is something besides doom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPTVUFu5Zyw
It is not necessary in today’s society to work one’s self to death, it has been done, it can be done. Teacher is a middle, middle class job. I rebut the guy who says we have to work harder than a hunter gather. Yes, it may end, but these optimists have had a nice lifestyle and some good memories. Also, it seems possible to be so smart one loses sight of what works in real life.
Dennis L.
Interesting discussion between Chris Martenson and ‘Ice Age Farmer’. If I understood IAF correctly, he is saying that this year the US govt has deliberately kept the price of soybeans very low so that they are being sold overseas, mainly to China, eventually leading to shortages. As the main use of soybeans is animal feed, this will lead to the culling of farm animals. Only watched the first 22 min.
They do not discuss it, but this also suggests that China’s floods this year did destroy huge amounts of grains, something the CCP denies, but their actions suggest otherwise.
World Running Out Of Soybeans? Ice Age Farmer Issues Warning
Speaking of China food shortages. Posted today by Dreadopedia (American -based, China-focused YT channel):
Is China Facing a Food Shortage?
I haven’t listened to this. We should not be shocked by low food prices, including soy beans, IMO. Without as much food being used for commercial use, less meat is being used in total. This would lead to less soybeans being needed.
We are dealing with a whole lot of low commodity prices. Governments don’t necessarily have much control over them.
CBT, Jan beans 11.95, actually a fairly good price 60 bu per acre, $720/acre gross revenue(less basis), rent $200/acre, rest to cover costs and profit.
I’ll take that. My guess is commodity prices will boom in 2021.
Dennis L.
only edible ones
Need oil to plant, harvest, move to market, move to port, move to overseas market.
Dennis L.
Of course. We should expect a big spike in jet fuel consumption around the dates of Davos next meeting.
Partial guess as to where all the money is going.
China must have some sort of US obligations, bonds, bills, etc. secondary to all the stuff we are importing based on container shortage. They sell securities(interest rates rise?), purchase beans. Farmers make more money, farmers spend money on equipment, etc. When times are good this is normal, Deere sells more equipment, workers get overtime, purchase stuff, stuff increases in price, inflation in stuff. Farmers are also adding to bin capacity this year, say $1M investment, allows them to hold crops off the market for better prices – shortage. Contract to watch Nov 2021, currently about $10.72/bu, no basis.
Oil is up, buy Exxon it is still somewhat low, everyone hates Exxon, loves electric cars, rocket ships are a good long term investment, perhaps ahead of the market?
From what all you are saying here, we are cooked with BAU in more ways than one, off to the moon. Good news for farmers, can’t grow beans on the moon. Always look for that win-win.
Dennis L.
When the U.S. nullifies all Treasury obligations to China because of their info war cyber war attack on the U.S. China will have less cash on hand.
Leave out April 2020, cattle futures are pretty much unchanged since 2014.
Dennis L.
Gail, food is for eating, does it make any difference if food is eaten at home or in a restaurant?
See note on futures below, not much change, looking at graphs for nearby cattle contracts they are about the same range for the last six years. Markets are wonderful things, they adjust.
Dennis L.
A lot more food is wasted when it is used by commercial groups. Also, those groups give bigger servings. Getting rid of banquets, restaurants, school lunch rooms, and many other commercial uses saves a lot of food. Less meat means less grain to feed the livestock.
Gail, thanks, this is nauseating observation I missed somehow in its full scope, it again points back to cold blooded analysis how to structure a triage and that’s exactly how it looks like. I doubt it’s just a coincidence.
AI delivery fleet e-van by Amasghoul with “individualized” shopping cart consisting of little bit of micro greens, edible worms etc. pushes the efficiency way higher vs individually owned big displacement pickup driving one or two persons to restaurants..
And that was the over optimistic techno cult scenario anyway.. In reality it will be more like ~17th century scene where a bag of spoiled flour was dropped on the corner of poor overcrowded neighborhood by the masters.
My father (who grew up in Madagascar) used to say that insects in the flour added to the nutritional value.
Keeping insects out of food will be another issue that will become more difficult in the future.
Here’s the unsettling part about this whole Covid 19 vaccine fake-out. You have a Dr. on CNN saying don’t be alarmed if you hear of the Elderly dying a few days after taking the vaccine. Why kill someone with a vaccine dose(s) when they could live longer without it? In other words “it’s for your own good even if we kill you faster with the vaccine. You can’t make this bullsh*t up but this is how tyrants operate. They don’t care about people, only an agenda which is what Covid 19 has become. Because even Klaus Schwab has repeatedly said that Covid 19 can be used to implement and further his Great Plans plans for great gains.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/disease/should-the-elderly-get-vaccinated/
Good one Rodster. Thanks.
“When The Elderly And Frail Die After Receiving The COVID Vaccine
What if it’s your mother or father?”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/jon-rappoport/when-the-elderly-and-frail-die-after-receiving-the-covid-vaccine/
‘It’s quite natural, however sad, for the very elderly and frail to die of COVID, in fact anything might well carry them off at any time.’
‘You beast! You cold, cruel, callous monster! You…. deplorable! We urgently need a vaccine for the poor dear elderly, the vulnerable!’
‘Hey presto, here’s the vaccine! But you musn’t be at all distressed if you hear that elderly people who have survived thus far keel over after their jab. And people with allergies who were quite happily going about their lives. It’s natural, and unfortunately unavoidable, if we are to Save Everyone and Stay Safe (TM)!’
The monster can’t help revealing its face, can it?
They can keep and pretend the lie regarding Covid until the lightbulb turns on in the heads of The Plebs. At that point it’s revolt time and it is coming. There was another US Democrat politician who was photographed inside a restaurant without a mask on while she demands everyone else wears a mask. Hypocrites !
The rules don’t apply to them only the little people.
The satanists seem to gain some glee from openly telling the victims what they are going to do to them.
Schwab’s WEF tells us you will own nothing, you will have no privacy, and you will be happy.
Well, in 2008 I heard a rich banker say:
‘This is what happens for letting poor people think they can own things!’
Ownership only permitted while they get their superior cut, easily withdrawn.
Was this was a reference to GWBs “ownership society” from the early 2000s?
It is evidence to me of the elite/corporate flailing where we have this 180 degree turn now in the WEF.
Doesn’t have the same ring though does it: “you’re all gonna be chattel for the overlords”
I doubt that bankers understanding is particularly deep.
Former Living the Good Life Home of Helen and Scott Nearing that was given to Stanley Joseph is sold!
For twenty-five years, ‘Forest Farm’, on the Cape Rosier peninsula, was the homestead of Scott and Helen Nearing. Back to the land icons, a wave of like-minded people followed- seeking ‘how to live simply in a troubled world’. When Helen was in her 70’s and Scott in his 90’s, they built again, a stone house on an adjoining parcel, today known as the ‘Good Life Center’. The Nearings sold ‘Forest Farm’ to Stanley Joseph, who worked the land, improved the homestead, and made his mark. He and his wife wrote a beautiful book, ‘Maine Farm’ a year of country life, which described their life as it circled around the rhythm of the seasons.After 40 years in the Joseph family, Forest Farm is for sale. The farm consists of almost 20 acres, with several acres in open and lupine fields, 175′ ocean frontage on Orr’s Cove, a farm pond, and a simple 3 bedroom Cape-style house. There are two outbuildings, one used for storage and workshop, and the second building for storage. Stone walls measuring five feet high in places and originally built by the Nearings to enclose their gardens still exist, but are in need of repair. A very special property with important historical significance to the area.
https://realtyofmaine.com/listing/1472860/380-harborside-road-brooksville-me-04642/
Went for around $550,000 clams…
Helen Nearing was taken back by the land prices around her place…
Remarkable people…helped him get established by selling it to him for what they paid back in the 1950s after he refused to receive the property as a gift
Interesting that they let the Nearing’s stone walls go to ruin.
Back to the landers came and went but when they realized that this life required actual physical labor for half of each day most didn’t last. The Nearings believed communism was the answer but unfortunately most people could not live up to their example.
Like taking 🍭 candy from a 🐥 baby
CBS News…
Online brokerage Robinhood Financial is targeting young, inexperienced investors and pushing them to make thousands of trades on its platform, Massachusetts securities regulators claim in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
Although Robinhood markets itself as millennials’ gateway to the stock market, the company uses “gaming strategies to manipulate customers” to trade more in order to boost its fees, according to the suit.
“For example, one such advertisement contains a clip of a young adult stating, ‘I’m a broke college student, and investments might help my future tremendously,'” the lawsuit states. “In another example, another young adult says, ‘I didn’t know anything about investing before I started using Robinhood. As soon as I set up my account, I had a free stock, so I immediately was an investor’.”
Not to worry, we are all hook 😉 winked thinking 🤔 it’s actually not confetti 🎊 wealth
This warms my little bitty Doomed Heart💖
IPO Scam Proves ECONOMIC COLLAPSE Is Inevitable!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBBpIzrfsU
George Gammon on YouTube channel The Rebel Capitalist explains the end.
How nice of him….to explain it all again ….George needs to come visit here for all the dots
Excellent video, well explained.Thanks for the link Herbie
And to think I wasted going to earn my degree in Business…George has one of the best financial this is what’s going on channels.
Everything they won’t teach you in a University!
Interesting fella, George, is and sometimes speaks of his past failures and how he fought back to get back on top….
The SolarWinds Orion cyber attack has basically left the entire US government network and systems in control of hackers. This is worst cyber attack ever.
https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/supply-chain-attacks-and-nation-state-pwnage-a-primer/
The US is finished.
Upcoming will be a false flag that takes out the internet in the US.
Get ready slaves.
There have been quite a few articles written about this problem.
https://apnews.com/article/solarwinds-fireeye-hack-explained-07e55dfd7fb9e6de96b55a7788eaa93e
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/12/solarwinds-hack-could-affect-18k-customers/
The impact of oxidative stress damage induced by the environmental stressors on COVID-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7586125/
“The ongoing pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a substantial stressor that is greatly impacting environmental sustainability. Besides, the different pre-existing environmental stressors and coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)-related stressors are further worsening the effects of the viral disease by inducing the generation of oxidative stress. The generated oxidative stress results in nucleic acid damage associated with viral mutations, that could potentially reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 management, including the vaccine approach. The current review is aimed to overview the impact of the oxidative stress damage induced by various environmental stressors on COVID-19. The available data regarding the COVID-19-related stressors and the effects of oxidative stress damage induced by the chronic stress, exposure to free radicals, and malnutrition are also analyzed to showcase the promising options, which could be investigated further for sustainable control of the pandemic.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection pathogenesis is related to oxidative stress as a response to aggression
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7357498/
“Since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, a great effort has been made to understand this serious disease. Thousands of studies are being devoted to understanding its epidemiology, its molecular characteristics, its mechanisms, and the clinical evolution of this viral infection. However, little has been published on its pathogenesis and the host response mechanisms in the progress of the disease. Therefore, we propose a hypothesis based on strong scientific documentation, associating oxidative stress with changes found in patients with COVID-19, such as its participation in the amplification and perpetuation of the cytokine storm, coagulopathy, and cell hypoxia. Finally, we suggest a therapeutic strategy to reduce oxidative stress using antioxidants, NF-κB inhibitors, Nrf2 activators, and iron complexing agents. We believe that this hypothesis can guide new studies and therapeutic strategies on this topic.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342043095_Oxidative_Stress_Associated_with_SARS-Cov-2_COVID-19_Increases_the_Severity_of_the_Lung_Disease_-_A_Systematic_Review
https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/a-promising-lead-for-preventing-severe-forms-of-covid-19
These ideas are promising to the medical community only if they can lead to high priced solutions that they can make money off of.
Reducing oxidative stress by using cheap solutions, such as increased consumption of vitamin C. will be ignored, I am afraid.
The article says, “The good news is that these medicines are already on the market.” Will the low priced medicines that are already on the market be tested as quickly as others? I doubt it.
Good😂😜luck with that
This year’s economic shutdowns have done little to reduce the world’s carbon emissions. While pollution has dipped, greenhouse gases keep accumulating in the atmosphere, locking in future decades of climate disruption and extreme weather. A recent United Nations report says the so-called emissions gap — the “difference between where we are likely to be and where we need to be” on climate policy — is as big as ever.
As for who’s chiefly responsible for the gap, it’s the global rich, the report says. Just 10% of the world’s population emits nearly half of the world’s carbon pollution. The top 1% of income earners around the world, a group that includes 70 million people, account for 15% of emissions — more than the 3.5 billion people in the bottom 50%.
Global rich must cut their carbon footprint 97% to stave off climate change, UN says
BY IRINA IVANOVA
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/carbon-footprint-wealthy-people-97-percent-cut-un/
Can someone tell President Elect that Mister BAU is in the top group of contributors
It is my understanding that it takes a very long time for a dip in current CO2 emissions to have an impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.
“Global rich must cut their carbon footprint 97% to stave off climate change, UN says” This means that the global rich needs to stop heating their homes and stop using transportation other than walking, I expect. It is a deal-killer.
Probably also means not using toilet 📜 tissue
Is it true most folks in the world do not wear shoes but only flip flops?
I WANT my BAU….thank you, Gail, for pointing out the practical aspects that are often intentionally ignored
“Global rich must cut their carbon footprint 97% to stave off climate change, UN says.”
A parable. Many years ago, there was a debate in the French Assembly on the death penalty. One liberal do-gooder after another rose and spoke in favour of its abolition: it was cruel, uncivilised, even un-Christian (of course, if the Emperor Augustus had abolished the death penalty, there would be no Christianity, but let’s overlook that.)
The another deputy rose, and people groaned, because he was the hardest, crustiest, and most unregenerate of all hard liners. “I rise to support this motion, …” he began, and the chamber was astonished. What had happened to him? Bribery? Blackmail? A sudden conversion on the Road to Damascus?
But he continued: “.. yes, I support the abolition of the death penalty, but on one condition: that the murderers abolish it first!” He received a standing ovation, and the motion went down in flames.
So I come to my modest proposal. Yes, the “global rich” should reduce their carbon footprint by 97%, but on one condition: let the UN reduce theirs first.
Boy, Aren’t Weee Clever?
Ben Elgin and Zachary Mider
Thu, December 17, 2020, 5:00 AM EST
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/real-trees-behind-fake-corporate-100026847.html
(Bloomberg) — Jack Branning is a prosperous Mississippi businessman, with commercial interests stretching from Hattiesburg to Baton Rouge, La. He’s seen a lot of deals in his 89 years, but few were as curious as the one he was offered back in 2013.
That’s when a forester walked into his office in Vicksburg and inquired about 1,700 acres of former soybean fields he owned nearby. The man worked for GreenTrees LLC, a small company that says it combats climate change by reforesting thousands of acres of farmland along the lower Mississippi River. GreenTrees says it pays landowners to convert their croplands to forests, tallies the planet-warming carbon absorbed by those trees, and then sells credit for the carbon reductions to big corporations that want to offset their own greenhouse gas emissions.
GreenTrees couldn’t reforest Branning’s land, because he’d already planted trees there more than a decade earlier thanks to a government conservation program. But the forester said the land still qualified for carbon payments. In effect, GreenTrees was offering to pay Branning for doing something he’d already done—and then take credit for it.
“It worked out good for a guy like me,” says Branning, who’s collected thousands of dollars from the deal so far. “I had the trees there anyway, and they were not going away.”
GreenTrees calls itself the largest carbon reforestation project in North America. It has signed contracts with more than 550 landowners since its inception 13 years ago, and claims its payments cause landowners like Branning to plant and then protect forests, thereby taking credit for the carbon dioxide soaked up by their trees.
GreenTrees then sells these credits, known as carbon offsets, to some of the world’s biggest corporations, including Royal Dutch Shell, Duke Energy, Norfolk Southern, United Airlines, and the Walt Disney Co. The corporate buyers can use the credits to say they’ve reduced their own carbon footprints. Bank of America, MetLife, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and Boston Consulting Group are among the companies that have purchased GreenTrees offsets to help represent that their operations are “carbon neutral”—meaning they’ve zeroed out their contributions to global warming.
But interviews with 17 participating landowners, as well as an examination of hundreds of pages of contracts and project documents, reveal that GreenTrees usually takes credit for trees that were already planted, or would have been planted anyway. Because GreenTrees’ payments aren’t causing most of the carbon sequestration to happen, the climate benefits claimed by the project are inflated. That means corporations buying offsets from GreenTrees aren’t really cutting their greenhouse gas emissions as much as they contend.
It’s another example of how carbon offsets—an increasingly popular tool used by thousands of companies to declare improved environmental performances—sometimes fall short of big claims. The Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest environmental group, has developed offset projects that generate millions of dollars in revenue to preserve forests that aren’t in danger of being harvested. Unlike the Conservancy’s projects at the center of a Bloomberg Green investigation, which maintain they’re protecting existing trees, GreenTrees takes credit for the planting of new forests.
Both cases illustrate how weak rules and a lack of oversight can plague the offsets market, just as many corporations and policymakers try to increase their supply to help meet aggressive climate-change targets. The global airline industry, for instance, is poised to launch a program next month that will eventually spend billions of dollars on carbon offsets to help flatten net emissions from international air travel. Some credits from GreenTrees and the Conservancy will be eligible for this program.
🤑 President Elected Joe Biden says We’ve Only Just Begun!
Mostly all Window Dressing, the Scientific Community knows it’s too late anyway 🤣, just going through the motions to keep employed
Carbon credits remind one a little of the sale of Indulgences by the medieval Church – buying virtue and the Get Out of Hell card. In this case, Climate Hell.
The version of the story I heard is that the sale of indulgences was indirectly a voluntary tax on the rich. The rich would buy indulgences, giving the church more money to spend on things like building buildings. Thus, the powers that be were able to create a hidden tax of the rich, so that there would be more jobs for the poor. I thought that was a clever idea. Or perhaps just the way a self-organizing system works.
Regarding carbon credit, fossil fuel producers always pay very high taxes because historically they have been very, very beneficial to economies. Carbon credits are yet another tax on fossil fuel. They allow some of this benefit to the economy to be transferred where the government chooses. Carbon credits differ in a couple of ways from traditional taxes: (a) They primarily go to subsidize projects in poor countries (rather than within the country, itself, thus providing more jobs in those poor countries) and (b) They are a way of making users of fossil fuels feel virtuous, allowing them to continue using fossil fuels with a clean conscience. There is no evidence that the carbon credits are increasing forestation of low income countries. Instead, World Bank data shows that deforestation of low income countries continues, while forest cover of high income countries continues to grow. A subsidy that helps one plot of trees grow simply offsets more harvesting of trees on other plots of land. They add to the “churn” required for GDP to grow.
There are some type of subsidies that are feeding the Tesla empire. In a sense, these are carbon taxes placed on ICU cars and given to Tesla and other electric cars, to encourage electric car makers in their operations. This allows another type of vanity buying by the rich. Their second or third car can be an electric cars. Electric cars are in no way sustainable, either.
“But interviews with 17 participating landowners, as well as an examination of hundreds of pages of contracts and project documents, reveal that GreenTrees usually takes credit for trees that were already planted, or would have been planted anyway.”
This type of program is just a way to funnel money to favored recipients. Help them increase their spending on whatever they like.
carbon offsets. what a scam. “carbon neutral” such bs.
Re: Scottish independence
A fresh poll out today shows record support for Scottish independence, and it is the seventeenth poll in a row to show majority support.
SNP is set for a massive majority in the Holyrood parliament at the May 2021 elections (fast approaching now) on a platform for a second independence referendum, and it is set to win every constituency seat bar one. The poll shows that most want the referendum to be held within the next five years.
Gail’s thesis that UK is particularly liable to break up due to declining energy consumption per capita, as the dissipative system tends to ‘find ways’ to do what it ‘wants’ to do to maximise the dissipation of less energy, seems to be borne out.
> Scottish independence: Savanta ComRes poll shows Yes support at record high
THE latest poll on Scottish independence support has found the percentage of people who want to leave the Union at a record high for a second time.
The survey from Savanta ComRes, on behalf of The Scotsman, also puts the SNP on track for a decisive majority at next year’s Scottish Parliament election.
The party could win every constituency seat apart from one, the figures reveal.
With “don’t knows” removed, support for independence is at 58%, according to the polling company – the same figure was seen in an Ipsos MORI poll back in October. Including the “don’t knows” the poll shows Yes on 52% and No on 38%.
Forty per cent of people also want a new independence vote in the next two years, with 15% calling for one within five years and just 6% saying there should be a decade before a fresh referendum.
About 12% say indyref2 should take place beyond a decade and 16% say there should never be another vote at all.
On Holyrood voting intention the SNP looks set to gain eight seats – taking them to 71 – while the Tories and Labour are on track to lose eight and five seats respectively.
The results are strong for the Scottish Greens too, who would gain five seats and take over from the LibDems as the fourth largest party in the Parliament.
Savanta ComRes associate director Chris Hopkins said the voting intentions are the “obviously the most striking parts of this poll”, with the SNP set to gain a majority “under a system designed to limit such executive power”.
He went on: “With the SNP’s likely hegemony in Scotland showing very little sign of abating, all evidence points at this stage towards Scotland voting Yes if they were granted another independence referendum and, on this evidence, it may not be that close.”
….
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18950904.scottish-independence-savanta-comres-poll-shows-yes-support-record-high/
Starlings’ aerial antics behind mystery of Scots’ power outages.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/17/starlings-aerial-antics-behind-mystery-of-scots-power-outages
If a society is used to lots of power outages (and not making aluminum), starlings causing outages will be no problem. I have my computer backed up with a battery to cover for outages of a few minutes. It doesn’t work for days on end, however.
> Why does Amnesty want to silence women like me?
Trans ideology has become the new theocracy, and TERFs the new heretics.
…. Our group is part of a grassroots global resistance to trans activism. It always strikes me how activists often refer to themselves as ‘the great-granddaughters of the witches you did not burn’, alluding to the mass femicide of the early modern period from 1450 to 1750. We, too, recognise the continuum. Except in Ireland, we need only glance over our shoulders to remember 70 years of systematic torture, abuse, shaming and incarceration of women and children.
The last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1997. Babies were taken from their unmarried mothers and sold. Many others were left to die and were buried in mass graves or their bodies were given to medical colleges. This was state-sponsored torture of women and children on an industrial scale. But the church did not kidnap those women. Their families handed them over, having been brainwashed or cowed into acquiescence. It was a triad of state, church and society. It suited the state to outsource social care to the religious orders because it meant that it did not have to build a welfare state, giving the church free rein.
In the same week that the chilling letter signed by Amnesty demanded that we be denied political representation, our minister for children (who recently tried to seal the administrative files that catalogued the state’s role in that systemic human-rights violation of women and children) did not mention or mark International Children’s Day. He chose instead to commemorate Trans Remembrance Day, despite the fact that there are no reports of any trans-identified person ever being murdered in Ireland.
As the descendants of the old theocracy, in our bones, we recognise the new one. Self-ID was essentially passed by stealth. We were not consulted. But we will be heard.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/17/why-does-amnesty-want-to-silence-women-like-me/
As with most races these days, I don’t have a dog in it, but I have noticed that the TERF v Trans conflict is the most toxic and bitter bar none on social media.
I have no idea why it is steeped in such vitriol but it it is.
Harry, it is called “narcissism”. Trans people are mentally disordered; they reject the biological truth that sex is immutable: XX you are female, XY you are male. And narcissists cannot bear to be disagreed with or contradicted; they will respond with insult, anger, and abuse, from within their impenetrable wall of self righteousness.
Here is an article you might find helpful:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm
It is my understanding that there are a few people whose sex at birth is ambiguous. They may have both types of sex organs, I believe (or none?) The doctor and parents need to assign a sex at birth. Sometimes, the half-grown child decides that their decision was incorrect. In these cases, there would seem to be a legitimate reason for sex change.
As usual, Gail, you are correct. There are also people with odd sex chromosomes, such as XXY or XYY, But these are a tiny minority, who should indeed be treated as special cases.
But Bruce Peter Reimer is an example of the more typical case. After a “”botched” circumcision (all circumcisions are botched; as Maimonides said, that is their purpose, but this one destroyed most of the boys sex organ). He was then surgically converted into a “girl” and raised as one. It became a classic case of successful sex reassignment, but it was a fraud. He persisted in behaving lime a male, renamed himself “David”, and finally committed suicide.
The argument seems to be that the Irish state does not have a good record when it comes to safeguarding its citizens regarding the family. Rather it has a recent history of an imposing a dogmatic state orthodoxy that was highly detrimental, particularly to women (the constitution states that their ‘place is in the home’) and especially to single mothers and their kids.
The mothers were incarcerated for life in church owned factories, kids were sold on by the church, and untold thousands of infants were buried in unidentified mass graves at church ‘homes’ (a cesspool was found to be a mass grave.)
The same state is now imposing a new dogmatic state orthodoxy without any democratic mandate and Amnesty International is calling for opposing voices to be silenced. There are serious questions about the negative impact of the new ‘trans’ legislation on women and on youngsters that could well be aired in a climate of debate.
The Irish state, being what it is, is interested only in the imposition of orthodoxy. And given its record, the Irish state needs to be called out for the dogmatic, undemocratic, harmful set up that it is. Ironically, the past and the new orthodoxy are two sides of the same coin of the undemocratic, dogmatic state.
I wouldn’t know about any of that, but Joni Mitchell did write a rather good, if emotionally bruising, song about the Magdalene laundries:
Very moving. Joni has such a lovely voice and it is a shame that she felt the need to sing of such sad matters. Good for her for speaking out. Thanks.
A lot of so called witch burning and femicide in history does not actually happen https://www.tektonics.org/af/crimeline.php
“The UK government is relying heavily on a consumer-led surge once the vaccine rollout gathers pace. Bullish fund managers are betting on it…
“[But] the average household is seeing savings fall, not increase, and the poorest are falling into debt.”
https://www.ft.com/content/21650315-3d0b-48a2-bdab-f80270c6e05f
“America’s biggest companies are flourishing during the pandemic and putting thousands of people out of work. A Post analysis found 45 of the 50 biggest U.S. companies turned a profit since March.
“The majority of firms cut staff and gave the bulk of profits to shareholders.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/50-biggest-companies-coronavirus-layoffs/
“Anything goes in whacky world of emerging market debt:
“The coronavirus vaccine euphoria sweeping world markets is fuelling a mad dash into developing world debt that is shattering all previous boundaries and records, and shows no sign of slowing.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/markets-emerging-bonds/graphic-anything-goes-in-whacky-world-of-emerging-market-debt-idUKL8N2IV55X
“Banks are loading up with loans that are unlikely to be repaid, teeing up Europe for a post-pandemic credit crunch, the European commission has warned.
“As measures were unveiled to avert a freeze in consumer and business lending, the commissioner for financial services, Mairead McGuinness, said bank balance sheets risked being subsumed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/bad-loans-of-banks-risking-credit-crunch-warns-european-commission
BBC
China biodegradable plastics ‘failing to solve pollution crisis’
Joel Gunter – BBC Newst
Thu, December 17, 2020, 4:10 AM EST·4 min read
massive increase in biodegradable plastic production in China is outpacing the country’s ability to degrade the materials, according to a new report published by the charity Greenpeace.
China – the world’s largest producer of plastic waste – introduced bans earlier this year on several types of non-degradable single-use plastics, prompting manufacturers to ramp up production of biodegradable versions.
According to Greenpeace, 36 companies in China have planned or built new biodegradable plastic manufacturing facilities, adding production capacity of more than 4.4 million tonnes per year – a more than sevenfold increase in less than 12 months.
In the absence of controlled composting facilities, most biodegradable plastics end up in landfills, or worse, in rivers and the ocean,” said Greenpeace’s East Asia plastics researcher Dr Molly Zhongnan Jia.
“Switching from one type of plastic to another cannot solve the plastics pollution crisis that we’re facing,” she said.
China’s e-commerce industry is on track to generate an estimated 5 million tonnes of biodegradable plastic waste per year by 2025, when the country’s single-use plastic bans come into effect nationwide, the charity said.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has in recent speeches stressed the importance of reducing plastic waste, but many major Chinese cities have little or no infrastructure in place to cope with the expansion of biodegradable plastics production.
There is a solution edible plastic chicken nuggets! See, no need for those little buggers
“In the absence of controlled composting facilities, most biodegradable plastics end up in landfills, or worse, in rivers and the ocean”
In other words, they don’t really work. Building the new plants just dissipates more energy.
So why don’t they deposit stuff like this 30 feet down in abandoned mine cavities?
It’s cheaper to deposit it 30 feet down stream. But it is labelled biodegradable so maybe it will dissolve faster in to the food chain.
Plastic can be turned back into fuel. So why not? It would reduce the rate of decline.
Reuters
U.S. airlines closing in on new government assistance package
David Shepardson and Tracy Rucinski
And they said there was no Santa….yes. Ssnta Sammie🤑
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO Dec 16 (Reuters) – U.S. airlines are on the brink of receiving a four-month extension of a government assistance program that is expected to provide another $17 billion to fund payroll costs, congressional aides told Reuters.
A roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief bill still under negotiation would allocate $17 billion to airlines and allow them to bring back more than 32,000 workers furloughed in October, after a prior six-month $25 billion measure expired on Sept. 30…..
Airline workers would be paid retroactive to Dec. 1 and airlines would have to resume flying to some routes they stopped operating after the aid package expired, congressional aides briefed on the talks told Reuters. Airline workers could not be furloughed through March 31 as a condition of the assistance
This is dumb, to bring back workers? That will have to be let go again in ,four months?
Must be a misprint
Actually, it would be almost impossible to do this because the round of playoffs have already gone through the system. Many laid off workers have bumped into other cities based on seniority.and rules under their union contract. Plus travel loads are NOT coming back, especially business travel
Fast Eddy, if you are listening, what do you think of Q?
Since adopting Great Barrington advice of focusing protection on the at-risk people in July, deaths per capita in Sweden have plummeted from 5th in the world to 22nd https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
No lockdowns. No masks. Just protect the old and sick.
Who needs a vaccine?
Taiwan for sure won’t need a vaccine. You see, they exterminated covid. Compare that to the country of pippi longstocking and the Kling & Klang (Tegnell & Giesecke) “strategy” of doing jack shit, well, beside denying the populace basic supplies during a pandemic, such as proper face masks.
Sweden: from having the worst covid response in IC, to, well, still being the worst in IC.
In July Sweden was 5th. No lockdowns. No masks.
Then they adopted focused protection in July.
They are now 23rd (dropped another place this week).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
No lockdowns. No masks.
If the world would follow them Covid would be over in a couple of months.
Yeah, the delusions of the ‘herd’ didn’t quite pan out. Now about 7k old dudes and dudettes was brutally murdered by the institutionalized sociopathy.
I wonder if the tune would be different if those 7k would be children. Yeah, I suppose “Kling and Klang” would spout less drivel and nonsense during the FHM therapy sessions broadcasted by the socialist engineering programming tool “public disservice”
What a disgrace, atrocity and incompetence compared with the Taiwanese no BS strategy and tactics of covid EXTERMINATION.
Got some more questions on that topic? I would be pleased to help.
😬👍
Covid data ’exaggerating’ risk, 500 medics and academics write to Boris Johnson
Nearly 500 academics and researchers have written an open letter to PM Boris Johnson saying that the UK’s official data is ’exaggerating’ the risk of Covid-19. The letter also dismissed the talk of the second wave of coronavirus as ’misleading.’
It is signed by immunologist Dr Charlotte R Bell, paediatrician Dr Rosamond Jones, consultant surgeon and Keith Willison, Professor of Chemical Biology at Imperial College.
The letter reads: ‘The management of the crisis has become disproportionate and is now causing more harm than good.
‘We urge policy-makers to remember that this pandemic, like all pandemics, will eventually pass but the social and psychological damage that it is causing risks becoming permanent.
‘After the initial justifiable response to Covid-19, the evidence base now shows a different picture.
‘The problem of functional false positive rates has still not been addressed and particularly in the context of low prevalence of disease whereby false positives are likely to exceed true positives substantially and moreover correlate poorly with the person being infectious.
Alongside this we have the issue that it is normal to see an increase in illness and deaths during the winter months.
‘It is notable that [the] UK death rate is currently sitting around average for this time of year. The use of the term ‘second wave’ is therefore misleading.
‘We have the knowledge to enable a policy that protects the elderly and vulnerable without increasing all other health and economic harms and which is not at the expense our whole way of life and particularly that of the nation’s children.’
The open letter was organised by the parent campaign UsForThem and Recovery, a new group opposing strong coronavirus restrictions.
It comes amid warnings that the country needed ‘dramatic action’ to reduce Covid-19 transmission, despite the Government’s ‘ghastly’ presentation of data to justify the latest lockdown.
They haven’t grasped it yet, have they, we have entered the age of the Perpetual Pandemic.
Nice, almost cosy, endemic diseases are so yesterday.
Also, the age of Post-Truth, so their expertise is really quite utterly irrelevant.
They need to get out of their ivory towers and mix with the real movers and shakers.
Did they consult with Uncle Bill and Aunt Melinda? Or Jeff Bezos? Of course not!
I’ve been waiting for someone to speak up about this. Encouraging to see some sane comments from the medical field! I hope this will catch on.
Dear Chancellor Dr. Merkel,
We, the signatories, are doctors from all areas of healthcare, who have been serving people in practices and clinics for decades. During this time, we have witnessed more than one seasonal infection in Germany, most of them with far more severe conditions and significantly more deaths than since January 2020 from COVID infectious diseases. Together we serve approx. 70.000 people.
The circumstances of the coronavirus wave in the FRG have been perceived differently than the media and the ongoing warnings of politics, which were unjustified in fact, presented to the public for months.
Predictions of individual advisory virologists with millions of seriously ill and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Germany have not been true in any way.
In the practices, hardly any infected patients were infected and if, then with normal, mostly mild progressions of virus flu. The hospitals have been more empty than ever before.
There was no overload of ICU. Doctors, doctors and nurses were skillful in short-term work. Initially, we found the wave of the virus running towards us to be threatening and were able to understand the infection protection measures.
However, there are months of secured evidence and facts that this wave of the virus is only slightly more intense than an ordinary seasonal flu and must be considered much more harmless than, for example, influenza infection in 2017/2018 with 27.000 deaths in Germany. According to the data situation, there hasn’t been a threat to the German population from Covid-19 for months.
This must be the reason to return to normal life in Germany – a life without restrictions, fear and infection hysteria.
We’re increasingly seeing older people with depression, young children and adolescents with severe anxiety and behavioral disorders, people with severe conditions who could have been cured in timely treatment.
We notice disruptions in interpersonal cooperation, hysteria and aggression caused by fear of infection, there are more and more vigilations and denunciations of ′′ positive swab victims ′′ – all this leads to an unprecedented tension and division of the population.
The development of additional severe chronic diseases is foreseeable. These diseases with their severe consequences are expected to far outweigh the possible Covid-19 damage in the FRG.The signatories therefore call on those responsible for health care and politics to discharge their responsibilities for the people of our country and immediately avert this threatening development.
We demand an immediate revision of the available data by an independent panel of experts from all relevant specialized groups and a prompt implementation of the resulting consequences for the people of our country.
We demand that ineffective and possibly even harmful anti-infection measures be stopped immediately and that mass testing is meaningful (e.g. Currently, 1,1 million tests / week, of which 99,3 % negative, cost per week: EUR 82,5 million) to be audited by a panel of independent experts.
We demand to intensify the protection of risk patients and only from them, where every viral infection can take a dramatic course – the healthy, immune competent population does not need protection beyond the general hygiene and health measures that have been known and proven for generations.
Children and adolescents in particular need contacts with viruses to ′′ format ′′ your immune system. Coronavirus has always existed and will continue to exist. Natural immunity is the weapon against it. On the other hand, the mouth-nose cover demanded by politicians does not have a solid scientific foundation.
We call on politicians and medical professional representatives to refrain from daily public warning and fear machines in the press and talk shows – this creates a deep and unsubstantiated fear among the population.
The Bundestag has gem. § 5 IfSG identified an ′′ epidemic situation of national scope Obviously, the conditions for this are not fulfilled anymore. We therefore call on the members of the Bundestag to lift this statement immediately and thereby to shift the decision and responsibility for this to where they belong: into the hands of the democratically legitimate Parliament.
If there is an independent free press in Germany, we call on them to research in all directions and also allow critical voices. Opinion formation can only take place if all voices are heard without value and facts and figures are neutral.
Through daily contact with the people entrusted to us and many conversations, we as doctors working at the base of the population know that the hygiene awareness of people has grown so far through the experience of this virus wave that normal hygiene measures without coercion will be sufficient in the future.
Drawn:
Dr. Robert Kluger
Dr. Bruno Weil
Dr. Antonia
Dr. Felix Mazur
Dr. Katharina Hotfiel
Dr. Christine Knshnabhakdi
Dr. Hanna LübeckHeiko Strehmel
Dr. Norbert Bell
Dr. Heinz-Georg Beneke
Dr. Hans-Jürgen Beckmann
Dr. Thomas Hampe
Dr. Luke Mine’sRadim Farhumand
Dr. Tillmann Otlerbach
Dr. Ulrich RebersDr. Dr. Hubert hair
Dr. Verena Meyer-RaheDr. Dr. Manfred Conradt
Dr. Matthias KeillchPhv.- Doz. Diploma Psych. Dr. Dr. Christian Wolff
Dr. Holger Schr
Dr. Michael KühneDorothe G öllner
Dr. Wolf Schr
Dr. Ernst Schahn
Dr. Michael SeewaldStefan KurzKonrad Schneider-Trench Schroer
Dr. Anna Pujdak
Dr. Stefan S ällzer
Dlpl.- Med. Holger Dreier
Dr. Norbert Katte
Dr. Thomas Gerenkamp
Dr. Flllp SalemDominik jokes
Dr. Karsten Karad
Dr. Georg RüwekampSchmidt Krause,
Dr. Elizabeth Kiesel
Prof. Dr. Henbert Jürgens
Dr. See Christine Jürgens Less
Bravo for them!
‘Less severe than the influenza of 2017-18’ !!
And here we see the true, shameless, evil of Bill Gates and his mendacious complacency over the pressing need for further lock-downs and for keeping the scare going until 2022.
So, rational and expert pressure is mounting against governments – what happens next?
Maybe lock-downs will crumble in Europe, leaving only the US under the boot of Big Pharma?
Somehow, I doubt it. Too embarrassing for them to U-turn on this.
Thinking about the children: first they had Greta and their teachers telling them they were going to die horribly due to inaction on climate change, and then COVID. It must be terrible.
Nope
I have it on good authority that Bill Gates is financing vertical veggie farms for future conversion into Soylent Green factories.
French Nobel prize winner: ‘Covid-19 made in lab’
A controversial French Nobel prize-winning scientist has accused biologists of having created SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – in a lab, but the wider scientific community has so far refuted the claim.
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-Nobel-winner-Luc-Montagnier-says-Covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab-laboratory
The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test: How to Mislead All Humanity. Using a “Test” To Lock Down Society
https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-rt-pcr-how-to-mislead-all-humanity-using-a-test-to-lock-down-society/5728483
Crimes Against Humanity, fraudulent PCR Tests Taken To Court – Interview with Lawyer Reiner Füllmich
https://theduran.com/crimes-against-humanity-fraudulent-pcr-tests-taken-to-court-interview-with-lawyer-reiner-fullmich/
Taiwan tested and traced the pandemic into oblivion. Compare that to the Swedish “response”, or lack thereof.
So now if one infected person enters the country they start over again.
In Sweden, yes. In Taiwan no, because they would savage that pesky little outbreak before you could say “Kling and Klang”.
🤘😬🤘
this song (“best” one minute song ever?) just because it’s by The Vaccines:
> ‘Severe’ crackdowns on freedom of speech at a THIRD of universities: One in three colleges including Oxbridge and St Andrews are imposing strict restrictions, report claims
More than a third of British universities are imposing ‘severe’ restrictions on freedom of speech including Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews, a report by think-tank Civitas claims.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9061241/Severe-crackdowns-freedom-speech-universities-report-claims.html
———
This is getting worse and worse.
Yet we supposedly live in a free society that values free speech – just make sure that everything that you say is approved first.
It is no different from China really in that regard. You are free to speak, so long as it is approved speech.
The wheel of history started to spin much more faster in 2020. We are presently in the midst of a revolutionary process, even though most people have not noticed it yet. At the end of it, all of our steps will be supposedly guided by a showy electronic collar.
Exactly: we are now being distracted by the cloak, having weakened by repeated stress and blows, while the matador positions his sword for the final thrust.
Who knows, it might even come at the end as some perverse relief to the tormented animal?
More and more people are beginning to see it, or parts of it, (Zachary Denman for on has made some excellent short films on this theme) but then will come the dreadful realisation that they are quite powerless to resist these changes.
Little by little, or by way of sudden changes that destroy whole sectors and ways of doing things overnight almost (as we have just experienced!) and their job will be done.
We will often be in shock, and so all the more easy to control and indoctrinate.
Suicide of one form or another will remove those who cannot adapt.
Russias “controlled pilot” ten times as large with the sputnik V as USA with MRNA with military personnel.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/12/us-military-starts-vaccinating-troops-behind-russia-and-china/170653/
Heathrow is getting its third runway
just as we’re running out of affordable fuel
Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether they can get investors who are convinced of a long-term return, and whether they can overcome further legal challenges.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/12/16/expansion-heathrow-just-global-britain-needs/
…. While international tourism might be expected to recover once the pandemic has waned and a vaccine is widely available, the same is unlikely to be said for business travel. Companies around the world have been required to operate remotely and many may continue to do so.
London’s position as a leading financial centre and airline hub has long been an argument for more capacity in the South East, with Heathrow chosen over Gatwick after an exhaustive assessment of their relative merits. The project, estimated to cost £20 billion, will be privately funded but the pandemic has ravaged the revenues of the airport and potential investors, many of them from overseas, will doubtless be taking a hard look at their likely long-term returns.
In addition to the cost of Covid, the entire aviation industry will need to adapt to the net-zero carbon targets that triggered the latest legal challenge, with environmentalists claiming the Government failed to take these into account in allowing the scheme to proceed. The Supreme Court, overturning an earlier ruling, said it was not required to, but the campaign to stop the airport is not going to be wound up. The construction will now have to go through a planning process during which new challenges on the grounds of environmental impact will be raised, with the airport required to show the project complies with the UK’s climate change obligations….
Never be finished. It will be about as useful as Berlin’s new airport/disaster
I agree
Difficult to see how it can go ahead in the current economic environment. Every company that has anything to do with Heathrow must be hurting financially just now.
Sounds like good news. Wonder what the catches might be.
> Army’s 99.99pc effective disinfectant spray kills coronavirus in less than a minute
Virusend, already distributed to services personnel, is being tested for use in hospitals
The British Army has pioneered a Covid disinfectant spray which has proved so successful it will be sold to the general public.
The Virusend disinfectant formula has been found to kill all coronavirus strains in less than a minute and was proven to kill SARS-CoV-2 in 99.99 per cent of cases.
Now more than 50,000 bottles of the handheld Virusend disinfectant are being deployed to military personnel across the country who are working alongside the NHS at coronavirus testing stations as part of the military’s ongoing support to civil authorities.
It is already being used at testing sites in Medway and Preston and can be purchased online for £7.99.
It uses compressed air instead of VOC flammable gasses and is fully recyclable and fully re-useable.
It produces a much higher density spray than anything currently on the market and allows the holder to use the bottle in any direction, even if it is upside down.
The product was developed in conjunction with and partly funded by the British Army in addition to a £180,000 InnovateUK grant from the Government’s specialist team which has been funding projects in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Army asked Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LTSM) to conduct tests at its Bio Security Level 3 Laboratory, where experts certified that Virusend kills at least 99.99 percent of coronavirus in 60 seconds.
Dr Grant Hughes from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine said: “Our tests show this product is highly effective at reducing SARS-CoV-2.
“This significant reduction is seen within one minute of contact with the virus, meaning Virusend is highly effective at inactivating SARS-CoV-2.”
The spray is also undergoing clinical evaluation at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in seven clinical environments including, A&E, Covid positive and low risk wards, intensive care and operating theatres….
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/16/armys-9999pc-effective-disinfectant-spray-kills-coronavirus/
The bugs will evolve and beat it. Pesky things.
Dennis L.
Always look on the bright side….
Virusend – Unless the air is misted everywhere a person is in contact with other people it’s no better than any other product that kills the virus (outside the body). Remember, most people are getting sick from breathing in someone else’s virus.
Interesting, Gail! Worth reading. One quote: «Some may be concerned that the relationships in figures 1 and 2 are “just correlations” that do not necessarily imply any underlying mechanism or causality. We disagree. All science is ultimately based on correlations—between dependent and independent variables, model predictions and empirical measurements, or experimental treatments and controls. Any mechanism or causation comes from logical inference. We infer that energy limits economic activity through direct causal mechanisms. The evidence for this inference is presented above and comes from three sources: (1) theory, the application of the second law of thermodynamics to complex adaptive systems; (2) data, the robust relationship between per capita energy use and per capita GDP across both space (the 220 nations of the world) and time (24 years); and (3) analogy, the similarity between biological and socioeconomic metabolism. We find the last to be especially compelling. Just as a body has a metabolism that burns food energy to survive and grow, a city or national economy has a metabolism that must burn fuel in order to sustain itself and grow. Just as higher metabolic rates are required to sustain and grow larger, more complex bodies (Kleiber 1961, McMahon and Bonner 1983), so higher rates of energy consumption are required to sustain and grow larger, more developed economies that provide greater levels of technological development and higher standards of living. Some may be concerned that the relationships in figures 1 and 2 do not reflect what is “really important,” which might be some aspect of quality of life rather than GDP. However, nearly all measures of economic activity and standard of living are closely correlated with both GDP and energy use (figure 3; for additional variables, see figure S2 in the supplemental online materials at http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.1525/bio.2011.61.1.7 ). These include measures of nutrition, education, health care, resource use, technology, and innovation. These relationships are not surprising and reflect mechanistic underpinnings. It takes money and energy to train engineers, MDs, and PhDs; to produce vaccines, drugs, and medical equipment; and to construct and maintain road, rail, airplane, cell phone, and Internet networks, hospitals and research centers, parks and conservation areas, and modern buildings and cities. The ecological footprint, an aggregate measure of per capita resource consumption and waste production, also increases with energy use and GDP (figure 3; Dietz et al. 2007».
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-relationship-between-per-capita-energy-use-and-per-capita-gross-domestic-product_fig1_225183204
excellent comment Sven with cited sources. I shouldn’t speak for Gail but she has said virtually all of these relationships exist within this dissipative structure or non linear networked complex monster we call our economy and our “civilization.” Gail along with many other folks like Nate Hagens and JM Greer have made these points repeatedly over the years also. Gail’s worry(often stated) is what happens when fate, scarcity, depletion, war, pandemic etc pulls the energy plug on this tub. What happens then pardner? Once that happens, growth stops, population drops, economic activity, and ,consumption swirls around the drain and katie bar the door.
Thanks for the information!
This is a reference to the article called, “Energetic Limits to Economic Growth,” by Jim Brown et al. from the University of New Mexico. I know Jim Brown. In fact, he invited me to spend two days down at the University of New Mexico in February 2012. This paper was published in January 2011. I know that I have seen charts very similar to this by him and his students. Jim Brown found my writing, probably on TheOilDrum.com, and invited me to come down and give a talk to him and his students, as part of a lecture series they were having at that time.
Sven,
This is not in accordance with West,
“Just as higher metabolic rates are required to sustain and grow larger, more complex bodies (Kleiber 1961, McMahon and Bonner 1983), so higher rates of energy consumption are required to sustain and grow larger, more developed economies that provide greater levels of technological development and higher standards of living.”
Wales live longer than mice as their metabolic rates are lower, there is a graph in West’s “Scale” page 3 which illustrates this – metabolic rate plotted against body mass is a straight line log log. Heart rates vs body weight are a similar straight line – large is more efficient and lives longer.
Cites seem to behave the same way, larger cities require fewer gas stations per capita, innovation measured by patents (p. 27 also scales the same way, the slope is greater than one, log log. Income in cities scales with a slope greater than one, income against population. Cities are more efficient and wealthier the larger they become. Total resources used by cities plotted against population log log have a slope less than one by about .15, income has a slope greater than 1 by about .15.
West had quite a group, they went around, collected data, and it is couterintuitive.
The slopes seem to all be related, across cities and life itself. With life, it is measured in heartbeats, a billion is the limit, the smaller the animal, the faster the heartbeat. Take the mass of a mammal and one can predict the lifespan and the heart rate.
Kleiber et all are incorrect, the rates actually decline when normalized against population.
1/4 or a multiple thereof keeps recurring for reasons unknown. With life it seems related to the distance blood can diffuse from capillaries – it is constant in mammals.
I am at page 334, West recognizes the limits to growth but his numbers suggest even with collapse, larger cities will be wealthier and more efficient than smaller ones. I will need reread this book and take notes, it is a very good basis for understanding how things work.
Dennis L.
How’s the old ticker ticking over? According to Zhang and Zhang, heart rate is important, but it isn’t everything:
From a diverse sampling of mammals of all sizes, we see that body mass (weight), heart rate and lifespan are strongly correlated in mammals (Figs. 1 and 2). Very small mammals like mice, rats, and hamsters have the highest HR and lowest life spans. Large mammals like elephants and whales have the slowest heat rates and the longest life spans. Humans, however, represent a distinct outlier in this relationship. Given an average human HR of 60–100 bpm, we should have similar life spans as tigers and giraffes (Zhang, 2006), or about 20 years. As it is, however, our hearts can make about 3 billion beats in a lifetime. Why can humans achieve a significantly higher number of heartbeats per lifetime than other mammals? Are humans physiologically or biologically different than other mammals in some way that allows us to‘‘break’’ the relationship seen in Fig. 1?
The most plausible answer is no, because it has to be pointed out that there are several caveats to the data point representing humans. For a majority of human history, average life span has been less than 30 years (Anon., 2008a)(Fig. 4). A life expectancy of 70–80 years in humans is mainly representative of developed nations in recent decades only. Acquisition of knowledge and development of technology in health care, disease prevention and treatment are primarily responsible for the increase in lifespan in these countries. In the United States, for example, the life expectancy was reportedly below 50 years around 1900, but was close to 80 years in 2007 (Anon., 2008b). Given the fact that life expectancies of 40–50 years is still seen in some countries that lack adequate healthcare and disease control (Anon., 2008b), it is clear that the separation of human lifespan from other mammals (Fig. 1) is largely attributable to acquired knowledge and skills in disease control and prevention, which has drastically lengthened life expectancy over last 1–2 centuries. In modern society, failures in the cardiovascular system are not necessarily fatal; modern medical practices such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, pacemakers and many pharmaceutical drugs pro-long life and save a great number of people who would have died without intervention.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23486438_Heart_rate_lifespan_and_mortality_risk
It’s also closely correlated with the obscene rich circles.
Apart from other undisclosed things (frequent check ups, hormones, antioxidants, blood filtering, ..) they are also on ~near starvation diet on purpose, eating very tiny amounts with long duration brakes between meals so “the hunger effect” aka immune activation of various bodily systems functions properly, say performing at least ~9hrs pause over the night and bit less during the day light.
Obviously the diet sources are checked regularly for micro pollution be it from water or animal forage (land, lake, sea), but that’s all sourced on selected (none – very low) impacted natural preserves anyway.
However, despite all such precautions one of reoccurring problems is said to be confined into the problem of hiring and keeping dependable servants for the long haul. As one of the most common “clawback – retribution” acts of former disgruntled employees is to spread token layer of feces onto various daily used household items and furniture inside the mansion and overall property bldgs.
I think I read somewhere that a mouse and an elephant’s hearts beat the same number of times over their respective average lifetimes
Mouse HR 310-840 beats per minute,
“When the elephants were standing quietly under ordinary conditions of feeding, the rates averaged 30 beats per minute. The lowest rate was 22 and the highest, 39 beats. This latter was found with the only elephant that presented any disciplinary problem and is explained by her extreme nervousness.”
Make a mouse HR 10-20x that of an elephant, life span 1-3 years, “African elephants have a median of 56 years in the wild”
Whale HR “During these deep, grub-hunting dives, the whale’s heart rate see-sawed wildly, pumping as many as 34 times per minute at the surface and as few as just two beats per minute at the deepest depths — about 30% to 50% slower than the researchers expected. According to a new study published yesterday”
Life span in wild of Blue Whale 80-90 years.
I leave the math for others.
West is well worth a read, “Scale” seems very well researched, I like numbers, he is a numbers guy. I have not looked a his references, they are listed at the end of the book and are extensive. I need to reread it, make notes. What is fascinating for example is the number of gas stations/population scales the same across continents which implies to me it is a very basic number. Cities are more efficient, slope 1.15 log log.
Trivial point, people will spend about an hour commuting to work, more or less. Take into account average vehicle speed in cities is 25mph, walking speed 3mph and one gets an estimate of physical city size which is fairly accurate – across time and across continents. He mentions Venice which was made for walking, I suppose LA would be the other extreme.
Dennis L.
I’m enchanted with the billion heart-beats notion: ‘What will I do with my allotment today – perhaps the last I shall get?’ is a perhaps a good question while shaving in the morning.
When uncertain, take a nap, sleep on it, reduce heart rate, gain another day to act on your dreams. Always see the positive.
Dennis L.
‘Pandemic Hope’
Good morning, good morning! Ready for your jab?
‘He’s a lovely man!’ said Lucy to Mab;
But Bill sterilised them both,
With what came from his lab…..
(Apologies to Siegfried Sassoon,and to real poets (JMS!) in general).
More seriously: what in the age of resource and ecological crisis, and advancing automation,AI, etc, is the point of maintaining such a large human population?
Genetic experiments.
I’m a positive thinker: this means that they won’t polish us all off, not just yet.
These things are still in their infancy, after all.
Haha that’s a good idea. For the sake of Science!
I’m quite serious: for most of us our only asset as ‘useless eaters’ – and economically-crippled consumers – might be as experimental genetic material.
Well, I’m certainly up for breeding experiments to make a Master Race to go to the stars! Elon, bring on the girls!
I used to think the reason we needed to have so many people was to increase the number of geniuses ( very rare subset of humanity). Then I learned that Renaissance Florence had the same population as Croydon so that theory went straight to the shredder
Oh God, Croydon……..
No, no Renaissance likely there.
Yes but, you think Croydon is as bad as it can get and then you go to Luton or Swindon and realise it’s not. Soulless modern disaster areas.
“Renaissance Florence had the same population as Croydon”
I was not going to say anything.
Florence is blessed with some excellent architecture such as the Basilica of San Lorenzo, but Croydon has Luna House, which houses the Home Office’s Visa and Immigration Division.
Did I every tell you about the time my wife paid them a visit to get an extension on a student visa? No? Well, the long and the short of it was that after a two-hour wait, she was given some suspicious looks by a large and aggressive black lady of Afro-Caribbean origin who eventually consented to give her an extra week and banged the visa stamp down on her passport as if it was a hammer aimed at a nail.
for a delicate girl from Kyoto the encounter was a traumatic one.
Xabier,
It seems to me this is not that different from being described as hopeless sinners who are only saved by the grace of God.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Dennis L.
Recently they had Maria Bartiromo talking to some general about the Chinese “gene-editing” their soldiers.
Seems like these rumors are being placed for a specific reason… Horror, then acceptance?
Its technical name is predictive programming, i think. To me it seems a plausible theory. After all, Hollywood has always been, among other things of course, a fantastic and glorious propaganda machine.
The ‘neo-eugenics’ of USA after WWII was very much aimed at the benefit of the state. The rationale was not so much to improve humans, like gene editing, but to address social issues, to save tax payers money and to boost the economy.
Only in 1979, after media attention and court cases, did the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare issue guidelines that required informed consent for sterilisations. Some states still conduct ‘consensual’ sterilisations on social undesirables, like offering drug addicts $300 to be sterilised.
USA was the first country in the world to enact eugenic laws and one of the last to (sort of) outlaw it.
Note: it is estimated that there were about 80,000 (not 140,000) compulsory sterilisations in USA up to 1979, half of which were after WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
> …. After World War II, eugenics and eugenic organizations began to revise their standards of reproductive fitness to reflect contemporary social concerns of the later half of the 20th century, notably concerns over welfare, Mexican immigration, overpopulation, civil rights, and sexual revolution, and gave way to what has been termed neo-eugenics.[91] Neo-eugenicists like Dr. Clarence Gamble, an affluent researcher at Harvard Medical school and a founder of public birth control clinics, revived the eugenics movement in the United States through sterilization. Supporters of this revival of eugenic sterilizations believed that they would bring an end to social issues such as poverty and mental illness while also saving taxpayer money and boost the economy.[92] Whereas eugenic sterilization programs before WWII were mostly conducted on prisoners or patients in mental hospitals, after the war, compulsory sterilizations were targeted at poor people and minorities.[92] As a result of these new sterilization initiatives, though most scholars agree that there were over 64,000 known cases of eugenic sterilization in the U.S. by 1963, no one knows for certain how many compulsory sterilizations occurred between the late 1960s to 1970s, though it is estimated that at least 80,000 may have been conducted.[93] A large number of those who were targets of coerced sterilizations in the later half of the century were African American, Hispanic, and Native American Women.
JMS, I meant to reply to myself there (the comment below). Sorry for the mistake.
I wonder if the vax the soldiers get is the same as the civilians get? As long as your tweaking DNA might as well fix brakes and throw a super charger on.
The video comes across as a state propaganda video against another state, which is ironic seeing as it criticises China for being a militant, propaganda state.
To paraphrase:
“China has a BIG military. Gene editing = Chinese military aggression = world domination. USA would NEVER order the population to the state like that.”
Well, USA has a BIG military too, it spends twice as much on it as China does. And it is already the global hegemon that constantly fights wars around the world to maintain its own geopolitical interests.
USA had eugenic policies from 1907 into the 1970s, and around 140,000 were forcibly sterilised, not to improve them like gene editing but to get rid of their line once and for all. The targets in the second half of the century were disproportionately black, Hispanic and native American women.
The very video itself is an attempt to order the USA population to the state as ‘loyal’ citizens in its hostility toward another state.
So, take a look in the mirror.
I have an excellent target group for an aggressive eugenics program. Yes, oh yes, all useless eaters in the bourgeoisie herd of fakery and sanctimony.
Hell yes, let’s do that. Balls to the wall. *snip*, *snip*. 🤘😬👍
Thanks for the compliment, Xabier, but I don’t deserve to be called more than ex-poet, former poet, unpoet, since I’ve been retired for a long time from that verbal ring.
Side question that comes to my mind at your mention of S. Sassoon: why does the war literature of the WWI seems much better than that of WWII? AFAI, there are no poems or memories of the second war that compare to W. Owen, R. Graves, E. Jünger, etc. The best “war literature” related to WWII was written not by soldiers, but by victims and prisoners: P. Levi, Klemperer, R. Antelme, etc. This subject could make a fine master thesis, and I bet it has already been written (many times in fact).
AFAI = AFAIK
Well, JMS, I looked up more of your poems, and thought them first-rate for what it’s worth – for instance, ‘Visit to the Uffizi’. My Catalan cousin has given up writing poetry, too, spiritually crushed by his jacuzzi and swimming pool business….
Yes, I’ve also found that the real harvest of WW2 consists of civilian stuff, and memoirs and diaries. Why that should be I don’t have any idea. There are some decent novels, various trilogies of course, Catch 22, etc, but the poetry seems negligible in comparison. Same for painting.
Maybe the extreme shock of the trenches and truly massive slaughter after the Edwardian Golden Afternoon helped the literary and artistic muse, whereas WW2 succeeded two decades of dreariness and a much more proletarian and pessimistic world. And talent does go in waves somehow.
I’m very fond of Sassoon, as the man who taught me to restore books was his binder when very young: he remembered him as a great gentleman – odd as he truly was – who always sought out the head binder for a chat on his visits, as he knew that he too had been in the trenches – most unusual in those days when class distinctions were so strict.
He used to call round with Sir Geoffrey Keynes ( the brother of Maynard) who was a true hero in the 1914, war saving many lives with experimental treatments on his hours off.
And I have a signed copy of his ‘Heart’s Journey’ which a binding pupil kindly gave me – a very small crabbed signature, the sign of a rather difficult person one would say!