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Many people believe that installing more wind turbines and solar panels and manufacturing more electric vehicles can solve our energy problem, but I don’t agree with them. These devices, plus the batteries, charging stations, transmission lines and many other structures necessary to make them work represent a high level of complexity.
A relatively low level of complexity, such as the complexity embodied in a new hydroelectric dam, can sometimes be used to solve energy problems, but we cannot expect ever-higher levels of complexity to always be achievable.
According to the anthropologist Joseph Tainter, in his well-known book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, there are diminishing returns to added complexity. In other words, the most beneficial innovations tend to be found first. Later innovations tend to be less helpful. Eventually the energy cost of added complexity becomes too high, relative to the benefit provided.
In this post, I will discuss complexity further. I will also present evidence that the world economy may already have hit complexity limits. Furthermore, the popular measure, “Energy Return on Energy Investment” (EROEI) pertains to direct use of energy, rather than energy embodied in added complexity. As a result, EROEI indications tend to suggest that innovations such as wind turbines, solar panels and EVs are more helpful than they really are. Other measures similar to EROEI make a similar mistake.
[1] In this video with Nate Hagens, Joseph Tainter explains how energy and complexity tend to grow simultaneously, in what Tainter calls the Energy-Complexity Spiral.
According to Tainter, energy and complexity build on each other. At first, growing complexity can be helpful to a growing economy by encouraging the uptake of available energy products. Unfortunately, this growing complexity reaches diminishing returns because the easiest, most beneficial solutions are found first. When the benefit of added complexity becomes too small relative to the additional energy required, the overall economy tends to collapse–something he says is equivalent to “rapidly losing complexity.”
Growing complexity can make goods and services less expensive in several ways:
- Economies of scale arise due to larger businesses.
- Globalization allows use of alternative raw materials, cheaper labor and energy products.
- Higher education and more specialization allow more innovation.
- Improved technology allows goods to be less expensive to manufacture.
- Improved technology may allow fuel savings for vehicles, allowing ongoing fuel savings.
Strangely enough, in practice, growing complexity tends to lead to more fuel use, rather than less. This is known as Jevons’ Paradox. If products are less expensive, more people can afford to buy and operate them, so that total energy consumption tends to be greater.
[2] In the above linked video, one way Professor Tainter describes complexity is that it is something that adds structure and organization to a system.
The reason I consider electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to be much more complex than, say, electricity from hydroelectric plants, or from fossil fuel plants, is because the output from the devices is further from what is needed to fill the demands of the electricity system we currently have operating. Wind and solar generation need complexity to fix their intermittency problems.
With hydroelectric generation, water is easily captured behind a dam. Often, some of the water can be stored for later use when demand is high. The water captured behind the dam can be run through a turbine, so that the electrical output matches the pattern of alternating current used in the local area. The electricity from a hydroelectric dam can be quickly added to other available electricity generation to match the pattern of electricity consumption users would prefer.
On the other hand, the output of wind turbines and solar panels requires a great deal more assistance (“complexity”) to match the electricity consumption pattern of consumers. Electricity from wind turbines tends to be very disorganized. It comes and goes according to its own schedule. Electricity from solar panels is organized, but the organization is not well aligned with the pattern of consumers prefer.
A major issue is that electricity for heating is required in winter, but solar electricity is disproportionately available in the summer; wind availability is irregular. Batteries can be added, but these mostly mitigate wrong “time-of-day” problems. Wrong “time-of-year” problems need to be mitigated with a lightly used parallel system. The most popular backup system seems to be natural gas, but backup systems with oil or coal can also be used.
This double system has a higher cost than either system would have if operated alone, on a full-time basis. For example, a natural gas system with pipelines and storage needs to be put in place, even if electricity from natural gas is only used for part of the year. The combined system needs experts in all areas, including electricity transmission, natural gas generation, repair of wind turbines and solar panels, and battery manufacture and maintenance. All of this requires educational systems and international trade, sometimes with unfriendly countries.
I also consider electric vehicles to be complex. One major problem is that the economy will require a double system, (for internal combustion engines and electric vehicles) for many, many years. Electric vehicles require batteries made using elements from around the world. They also need a whole system of charging stations to fill their need for frequent recharging.
[3] Professor Tainter makes the point that complexity has an energy cost, but this cost is virtually impossible to measure.
Energy needs are hidden in many areas. For example, to have a complex system, we need a financial system. The cost of this system cannot be added back in. We need modern roads and a system of laws. The cost of a government providing these services cannot be easily discerned. An increasingly complex system needs education to support it, but this cost is also hard to measure. Also, as we note elsewhere, having double systems adds other costs that are hard to measure or predict.
[3] The energy-complexity spiral cannot continue forever in an economy.
The energy-complexity spiral can reach limits in at least three ways:
[a] Extraction of minerals of all kinds is placed in the best locations first. Oil wells are first placed in areas where oil is easy to extract and close to population areas. Coal mines are first placed in locations where coal is easy to extract and transportation costs to users will be low. Mines for lithium, nickel, copper, and other minerals are put in the best-yielding locations first.
Eventually, the cost of energy production rises, rather than falls, due to diminishing returns. Oil, coal, and energy products become more expensive. Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for electric vehicles also tend to become more expensive because the cost of the minerals to manufacture them rises. All kinds of energy goods, including “renewables,” tend to become less affordable. In fact, there are many reports that the cost of producing wind turbines and solar panels rose in 2022, making the manufacture of these devices unprofitable. Either higher prices of finished devices or lower profitability for those producing the devices could stop the rise in usage.
[b] Human population tends to keep rising if food and other supplies are adequate, but the supply of arable land stays close to constant. This combination puts pressure on society to produce a continuous stream of innovations that will allow greater food supply per acre. These innovations eventually reach diminishing returns, making it more difficult for food production to keep up with population growth. Sometimes adverse fluctuations in weather patterns make it clear that food supplies have been too close to the minimum level for many years. The growth spiral is pushed down by spiking food prices and the poor health of workers who can only afford an inadequate diet.
[c] Growth in complexity reaches limits. The earliest innovations tend to be most productive. For example, electricity can be invented only once, as can the light bulb. Globalization can only go so far before a maximum level is reached. I think of debt as part of complexity. At some point, debt cannot be repaid with interest. Higher education (needed for specialization) reaches limits when workers cannot find jobs with sufficiently high wages to repay educational loans, besides covering living costs.
[4] One point Professor Tainter makes is that if the available energy supply is reduced, the system will need to simplify.
Typically, an economy grows for well over one hundred years, reaches energy-complexity limits, and then collapses over a period of years. This collapse can occur in different ways. A layer of government can collapse. I think of the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991 as a form of collapse to a lower level of simplicity. Or one country conquers another country (with energy-complexity problems), taking over the government and resources of the other country. Or a financial collapse occurs.
Tainter says that simplification usually doesn’t happen voluntarily. One example he gives of voluntary simplification involves the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century. With less funding available for the military, it abandoned some of its distant posts, and it used a less costly approach to operating its remaining posts.
[5] In my opinion, it is easy for EROEI calculations (and similar calculations) to overstate the benefit of complex types of energy supply.
A major point that Professor Tainter makes in the talk linked above is that complexity has an energy cost, but the energy cost of this complexity is virtually impossible to measure. He also makes the point that growing complexity is seductive; the overall cost of complexity tends to grow over time. Models tend to miss necessary parts of the overall system needed to support a highly complex new source of energy supply.
Because the energy required for complexity is hard to measure, EROEI calculations with respect to complex systems will tend to make complex forms of electricity generation, such as wind and solar, look like they use less energy (have a higher EROEI) than they actually do. The problem is that EROEI calculations consider only direct “energy investment” costs. For example, the calculations are not designed to collect information regarding the higher energy cost of a dual system, with parts of the system under-utilized for portions of the year. Annual costs will not necessarily be reduced proportionately.
In the linked video, Professor Tainter talks about the EROEI of oil over the years. I don’t have a problem with this type of comparison, especially if it stops before the recent change to greater use of fracking, since the level of complexity is similar. In fact, such a comparison omitting fracking seems to be the one that Tainter makes. Comparison among different energy types, with different complexity levels, is what is easily distorted.
[6] The current world economy already seems to be trending in the direction of simplification, suggesting that the tendency toward greater complexity is already past its maximum level, given the lack of availability of inexpensive energy products.
I wonder if we are already starting to see simplification in trade, especially international trade, because shipping (generally using oil products) is becoming high-priced. This might be considered a type of simplification, in response to a lack of sufficient inexpensive energy supply.
Based on Figure 2, trade as a percentage of GDP hit a peak in 2008. There has been a generally downward trend in trade since then, giving an indication that the world economy has tended to shrink back, at least in some ways, as it has hit high-price limits.
Another example of a trend toward lower complexity is the drop in US undergraduate college and university enrollment since 2010. Other data shows that undergraduate enrollment nearly tripled between 1950 and 2010, so the shift to a downtrend after 2010 presents a major turning point.
The reason why the shift in enrollment is a problem is because colleges and universities have a huge amount of fixed expenses. These include buildings and grounds that must be maintained. Often debt needs to be repaid, as well. Educational systems also have tenured faculty members that they are obligated to keep on their staff, under most circumstances. They may have pension obligations that are not fully funded, adding another cost pressure.
According to the college faculty members whom I have talked to, in recent years there has been pressure to improve the retention rate of students who have been admitted. In other words, they feel that they are being encouraged to keep current students from dropping out, even if it means lowering their standards a little. At the same time, faculty wages are not keeping pace with inflation.
Other information suggests that colleges and universities have recently put a great deal of emphasis on achieving a more diverse student body. Students who might not have been admitted in the past because of low high school grades are increasingly being admitted in order to keep the enrollment from dropping further.
From the students’ point of view, the problem is that jobs that pay a sufficiently high wage to justify the high cost of a college education are increasingly unavailable. This seems to be the reason for both the US student debt crisis and the drop in undergraduate enrollment.
Of course, if colleges are at least somewhat lowering their admission standards and perhaps lowering standards for graduation, as well, there is a need to “sell” these increasingly diverse graduates with somewhat lower undergraduate achievement records to governments and businesses who might hire them. It seems to me that this is a further sign of the loss of complexity.
[7] In 2022, the total energy costs for most OECD countries started spiking to high levels, relative to GDP. When we analyze the situation, electricity prices are spiking, as are the prices of coal and natural gas–the two types of fuel used most frequently to produce electricity.
The OECD is an intergovernmental organization of mostly rich countries that was formed to stimulate economic progress and foster world growth. It includes the US, most European countries, Japan, Australia, and Canada, among other countries. Figure 4, with the caption “Periods of high energy expenditures are often associated with recession” is has been prepared by two economists working for OECD. The gray bars indicate recession.
Figure 4 shows that in 2021, prices for practically every cost segment associated with energy consumption tended to spike. Electricity, coal, and natural gas prices were all very high relative to prior years. The only segment of energy costs that was not very out of line relative to costs in prior years was oil. Coal and natural gas are both used to make electricity, so high electricity costs should not be surprising.
In Figure 4, the caption by the economists from OECD is pointing out what should be obvious to economists everywhere: High energy prices often push an economy into recession. Citizens are forced to cut back on non-essentials, reducing demand and pushing their economies into recession.
[8] The world seems to be up against extraction limits for coal. This, together with the high cost of shipping coal over long distances, is leading to very high prices for coal.
World coal production has been close to flat since 2011. Growth in electricity generation from coal has been almost as flat as world coal production. Indirectly, this lack of growth in coal production is forcing utilities around the world to move to other types of electricity generation.
[9] Natural gas is now also in short supply when growing demand of many types is considered.
While natural gas production has been growing, in recent years it hasn’t been growing quickly enough to keep up with the world’s rising demand for natural gas imports. World natural gas production in 2021 was only 1.7% higher than production in 2019.
Growth in the demand for natural gas imports comes from several directions, simultaneously:
- With coal supply flat and imports not sufficiently available, countries are seeking to substitute natural gas generation for coal generation of electricity. China is the world’s largest importer of natural gas partly for this reason.
- Countries with electricity from wind or solar find that electricity from natural gas can ramp up quickly and fill in when wind and solar aren’t available.
- There are several countries, including Indonesia, India and Pakistan, whose natural gas production is declining.
- Europe chose to end its pipeline imports of natural gas from Russia and now needs more LNG instead.
[10] Prices for natural gas are extremely variable, depending on whether the natural gas is locally produced, and depending on how it is shipped and the type of contract it is under. Generally, locally produced natural gas is the least expensive. Coal has somewhat similar issues, with locally produced coal being the least expensive.
This is a chart from a recent Japanese publication (IEEJ).
The low Henry Hub price at the bottom is the US price, available only locally. If supplies are high within the US, its price tends to be low. The next higher price is Japan’s price for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), arranged under long-term contracts, over a period of years. The top price is the price that Europe is paying for LNG based on “spot market” prices. Spot market LNG is the only type of LNG available to those who did not plan ahead.
In recent years, Europe has been taking its chances on getting low spot market prices, but this approach can backfire badly when there is not enough to go around. Note that the high price of European imported LNG was already evident in January 2013, before the Ukraine invasion began.
A major issue is that shipping natural gas is extremely expensive, tending to at least double or triple the price to the user. Producers need to be guaranteed a high price for LNG over the long term to make all of the infrastructure needed to produce and ship natural gas as LNG profitable. The extremely variable prices for LNG have been a problem for natural gas producers.
The very high recent prices for LNG in Europe have made the price of natural gas too high for industrial users who need natural gas for processes other than making electricity, such as making nitrogen fertilizer. These high prices cause distress from the lack of inexpensive natural gas to spill over into the farming sector.
Most people are “energy blind,” especially when it comes to coal and natural gas. They assume that there is plenty of both fuels to be cheaply extracted, essentially forever. Unfortunately, for both coal and natural gas, the cost of shipping tends to be very high. This is something that modelers miss. It is the high delivered cost of natural gas and coal that makes it impossible for companies to actually extract the amounts of coal and natural gas that seem to be available based on reserve estimates.
[10] When we analyze electricity consumption in recent years, we discover that OECD and non-OECD countries have had amazingly different patterns of electricity consumption growth since 2001.
OECD electricity consumption has been close to flat, especially since 2008. Even before 2008, its electricity consumption was not growing rapidly.
The proposal now is to increase the use of electricity in OECD countries. Electricity will be used to a greater extent for fueling vehicles and heating homes. It will also to be used more for local manufacturing, especially for batteries and semiconductor chips. I wonder how OECD countries will be able to ramp up electricity production sufficiently to cover both current uses of electricity and planned new uses, if past electricity production has been essentially flat.
Figure 7 shows that coal’s share of electricity production has been falling for OECD countries, especially since 2008. “Other” has been rising, but only enough to keep overall production flat. Other is comprised of renewables, including wind and solar, plus electricity from oil and from burning of trash. The latter categories are small.
The pattern of recent energy production for non-OECD countries is very different:
Figure 8 shows that non-OECD countries have been rapidly ramping up electricity production from coal. Other major sources of fuel are natural gas and electricity produced by hydroelectric dams. All these energy sources are relatively non-complex. Electricity from locally produced coal, locally produced natural gas, and hydroelectric generation all tend to be quite inexpensive. With these inexpensive sources of electricity, non-OECD countries have been able to dominate the world’s heavy industry and much of its manufacturing.
In fact, if we look at the local production of fuels generally used to produce electricity (that is, all fuels except oil), we can see a pattern emerge.
With respect to extraction of fuels often associated with electricity, production has been closed to flat, even with “renewables” (wind, solar, geothermal, and wood chips) included. Coal production is down. The decline in coal production is likely a big part of the lack of growth in OECD’s electricity supply. Electricity from locally produced coal has historically been very inexpensive, bringing the average price of electricity down.
A very different pattern emerges when the production of fuels used to generate electricity for non-OECD countries is viewed. Note that the same scale has been used on both Figures 9 and 10. Thus, in 2001, the production of these fuels was about equal for OECD and non-OECD countries. Production of these fuels has about doubled since 2001 for non-OECD countries, while OECD production has remained close to flat.
Figure 10. Energy production of fuels often used for electricity production for non-OECD countries, based on data from BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.
One item of interest on Figure 10 is coal production for non-OECD countries, shown in blue at the bottom. It has been barely increasing since 2011. This is part of what is now tightening world coal supplies. I am doubtful that spiking coal prices will add very much to long-term coal production because truly local supplies are becoming depleted, even in non-OECD countries. The spiking prices are much more likely to lead to recession, debt defaults, lower commodity prices, and lower coal supply.
[11] I am afraid that the world economy has hit complexity limits as well as energy production limits.
The world economy seems likely to collapse over a period of years. In the near term, the result may look like a bad recession, or it may look like war, or possibly both. So far, the economies using fuels that are not very complex for electricity (locally produced coal and natural gas, plus hydroelectric generation) seem to be doing better than others. But the overall world economy is stressed by inadequate cheap-to-produce local energy supplies.
In physics terms, the world economy, as well as all of the individual economies within it, are dissipative structures. As such, growth followed by collapse is a usual pattern. At the same time, new versions of dissipative structures can be expected to form, some of which may be better adapted to changing conditions. Thus, approaches for economic growth that seem impossible today may be possible over a longer timeframe.
For example, if climate change opens up access to more coal supplies in very cold areas, the Maximum Power Principle would suggest that some economy will eventually access such deposits. Thus, while we seem to be reaching an end now, over the long-term, self-organizing systems can be expected to find ways to utilize (“dissipate”) any energy supply that can be inexpensively accessed, considering both complexity and direct fuel use.
The US is trying to present this as though China has made a promise not to supply any weapons to Russia and that it would be breaking international law if it did.
Also that sanctioning China would be a problem for China but not really for the US and Europe, as though we have other options for cheap goods.
Islamabad: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief has asked the Pakistan government to ensure that it taxes the rich people and protects the poor people by offering subsidies only to the most deserving people.
“My heart goes to the people of Pakistan. They have been devastated by the floods that affected one-third of the population of the country,” IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that concluded on Sunday.
gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/imf-chief-asks-pakistan-to-tax-the-rich-and-offer-subsidies-to-poor-1.93989171
and not just the floods, either, lady …
In respect to woke nonsense of the West in his address last Tues the evil Vlad stated:
Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that.
synchronicity
last night just finished my recent big read, Cervantes’ saga of madness. After some months of now ended amusement I’m sorry there’s not more. At the end, Quixote is cured of his madness by defeat of arms and sent home in ignominy. He rapidly declines and passes
But this is fiction.
Meanwhile, in our simulacrum, is there a cure for the craziness of the elite?
@CTG in one of your comments last month you referred to a movie the Truman Show which had been on my list to view so I did so. Cervantes is divided into two parts, the second presents a staged simulacrum within which his worship’s madness is enacted. It’s a brilliantly funny contrivance, exactly the same in which Truman is set forth.
In the donut universe of force fields, to ignore truth and imbibe blandishments, the only non-chemical explanation to me how means by which Kristalina Georgieva could attain sleep, dreaming of her condition as an individually crafted setting of personal pitfalls and rewards through which she sails invulnerably. For the non-elite, “suffice to say that, many of us have been churning out reams of data for nearly three years, and it tends to bounce off the force-fields built into the wiring of the lalalalalalalalalalaaah brigade.”
(John Ward) therealslog.com/2023/02/20/analysis-ethiopian-political-genocide-ukrainian-biolabs-a-trail-all-the-way-back-to-marxists-at-the-core-of-covid19/
From WSJ:
U.S. Considers Release of Intelligence on China’s Potential Arms Transfer to Russia
Western nations have intelligence that Beijing might end its self-imposed restraint on weapons supplies to Moscow
Pretty much confirms early stage of WWIII
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-us-and-russian-nuclear-arsenals-have-evolved
How US And Russian Nuclear Arsenals Have Evolved
Both sides have enough to kill everyone, I am afraid.
Yes, agreed.
Thanks for another month of OFW, your efforts are greatly appreciated and the fact you are not paid makes the comments and posts free from outside financial influence.
Dennis L.
“Both sides have enough to kill everyone, I am afraid.”
It seems that we are heading blindly in that direction because those in power don’t even recognize the idea that we could alienate everyone. They see this all as a chess board or a video game.
This is a gem from the 70s, like today:
Paul Simon: Have A Good Time
Yesterday, it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life’s a mess
But I’m having a good time
I’ve been loving and loving
And loving
I’m exhausted from loving so well
I should go to bed
But a voice in my head
Says “Ah, What the hell”
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it’s all overdone
Exaggerating this, exaggerating that
They don’t have no fun
I don’t believe what I read in the papers
They’re just out to capture my dime
I ain’t worrying
And I ain’t scurrying
I’m having a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Maybe I’m laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I’m blind
To the fate of mankind
But what can be done?
So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless the standard of livin’
Let’s keep it that way
And we’ll all have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
https://youtu.be/UtEm14zt3Ug
if only I really liked the music, I would have nominated that for the BAU Tonight Baby Theme Song.
This is behind Chris Martenson’s Paywall but you get the idea.
https://peakprosperity.com/the-hidden-pfizer-safety-report-is-quite-bad/
“The Hidden Pfizer Safety Report Is Quite Bad
Peak Insiders
By Chris Martenson on
February 22, 2023
18
I understand why the TGA wanted to hide away the Pfizer “safety” report that was referred to in my most recent public post about the child vaccine deaths in Australia. It’s bad. Really bad. There are massive safety signals on every single page. Women are 2:1 more likely to have reported adverse events than men. Unacceptable country differences appear showing a profound and systemic underreporting was happening. The authorities did nothing, and they alerted nobody. They hid it all and only grudgingly released the safety data when forced by FOI.”
From WSJ:
Brazil Suspends Beef Exports to China After Finding Mad-Cow Disease
Farmers are concerned about a possible drawn-out beef ban by China, the biggest buyer of Brazilian meat
Any excuse to stop international trade, especially as over the long distance from Brazil to China.
This sounds like the US is pulling Brazil’s strings to cause more trouble for China since they said they will come to the military aid of Russia.
This is very strange. I lived in Brazil, and there beef is 100% grass fed and finished. You need to feed ground beef heads to finishing animals to get such cases.
Any excuse to stir up trouble.
Yes, I also find it very strange that there is a stop after only 1 case and also that it is the supplier stopping the trade and not the client…
Brazil just went through a similar problem two years ago with China. Imports were cut off for three months. They know that China will not let in meat it there is any chance of mad cow disease, no matter how remote.
Many thanks for the information
Also from the WSJ:
U.S. to Expand Troop Presence in Taiwan for Training Against China Threat
The Pentagon is helping Taiwan focus on tactics and weapon systems that would make the island harder to assault
Not many troops there now, but leverage their use by using them to train the Taiwanese forces. Sounds like Ukraine.
I have heard that in Taiwan hardly anyone worries about a Chinese invasion. The tension is all imaginary, cooked up by the US and its media.
This confirms my belief that the Chinese mad cow disease is a bunch of BS. The US is having Brazil make up stuff to cause economic problems for China. In other words, Neocons gotta Neocon.
cardiologist warns more people in their 20s and 30s are showing up with heart attacks and heart disease
Jim Liu, a cardiologist at Ohio State University, explains why heart disease is on the rise among young people.
Several studies have indicated young people are dying from heart attacks at higher rates than in the past.
Sedentary lifestyles, vaping, poor sleep, and chronic health conditions might be behind the trend.
People between 25 and 44 have experienced a nearly 30% increase in heart attack deaths since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a 2022 study conducted by Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles suggested.
Another study from Johns Hopkins, published in 2018 that reviewed 28,000 hospitalizations for heart attacks over a 20-year period, found the rate of heart attacks for women aged 35 to 54 increased, even as the overall mortality rate for heart disease decreased.
…..One cause could be the recent rise in obesity, said Liu. The prevalence of obesity rose from 3% pre-pandemic to 4.4% between 2020 to 2021, per federal data, as more people increased their alcohol intake. Young people are already prone to more sedentary lifestyles, and Liu said the pandemic may have led to even lower rates of exercise.
“Because of the pandemic, people may be a little bit less active, maybe eating worse,” Liu said. “So that could possibly translate into worsened blood pressure, increased weight, and long-term healthcare problems, specifically cardiovascular.”
…said young people may also be unaware of some of the less talked about risk factors for heart disease. For instance, the doctor said vapes and e-cigarettes can stress your heart just as much as regular cigarettes can. Other risk factors that might put young people in particular at risk for heart disease are illicit drug use, poor sleep, and chronic conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and HIV, the doctor said.
Not one mention of the rat juice vax… Surprise!
Today is the last day for commenting and it is a very hard work to write something every 3 weeks on a very depressing topic.
We may be getting close to rapidly moving events and I’d humbly suggest that if Gail doesn’t want to open up an open comment thread between her essays that someone else does so, and I mean a strictly finite thread just to fill the dead time while Gail writes. Maybe it won’t even get used much until things get heavy, at which point Gail might change her mind regarding the dead time and the backup thread becomes obsolete. Just a thought in favor of continuity of internet addiction.
Hopefully I can write a post fairly quickly. There is a lot going on that I could write about.
Very good, thank you!
How about an article when the SHTF and oil collapses?
We always look forward to a new post!
4 days until the vote that potentially makes the WHO global overloards.
6 days and we’re in March. What a month that could turn out to be and should settle the war/no war argument(whilst possibly settling a war as well).
8 days and it’s national ‘i want to be happy ‘ day. They might just be laughing at us😂
That should say national ‘i want you to be happy’ day.
although k himself is very adept at writing something depressing on a daily basis.
human beings gonna be human.
in my opinion, cold hard facts and related expressions of the Reality of irreversible degrowth and imminent collapse are often energizing and life-affirming.
at least here and now in the 2020s.
the 2030s are gonna be…
2030s will be different. Higher cost for fuel. Higher cost for food, electric, heat, travel, shipping. Hence less of all the mentioned. White percentage to less than 50% in all nations. AI leadership in California, China, London. AI that passes the Turing Test. Declining populations in China, Europe. Increasing population in US, South America, Africa, India. Stable population in Russia, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, Japan.
But Deagal Report….?
All these predictions!
Going to be fascinating for as long as I stand.
https://hillmd.substack.com/p/deagelcom-predicts-up-to-80-population
The Deagel Report no doubt put together some kind of model, but I question how accurate it is. This is a more complete list of its forecast.
https://www.ahava528.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Deagel-Analysis-updated.pdf
According to the Deagel, Lebanon is a country with expected rising population between 2019 and 2025. (One of the few.) According to Deagel, there will be 20% population growth between 2019 and 2025, reaching a population of 6.6 million in 2025.
If I look at UN population estimates for Lebanon, peak population was 6.5 million in 2015. It fell to 5.9 million in 2019, and to 5.6 million in 2021. In the UN’s Medium forecasts, Lebanon’s 2025 population is shown to be 5.2 million, which is a continuation of the country’s fall in population. This sounds a whole lot more reasonable than the Deagel forecast.
It is hard to kill off people as quickly as Deagel forecasts, unless there is a nuclear bomb or some other huge unforeseen major event (meteor hitting, for example).
From the WSJ:
Natural-Gas Prices Plunge, and Drillers Dial Back
Prices for the fuel have fallen by two-thirds since mid-December
So much for rising natural gas prices leading to rising production, and increasing amounts of natural gas available to sell to Europe!
Deflation?
Dennis L.
We know that “demand” will be very low.
In some situations, low demand means deflation. Or maybe some things become “worthless” overnight.
Certainly, debt defaults look like they will be a big part of what is coming along, and they seem to go with falling asset prices and loss of jobs.
But I don’t know what is ahead. My guess is that the US$ will lose its standing as reserve currency, meaning that trade with other countries will likely to fall remarkably. There will be many more broken supply lines.
My guess is that the US government will either issue a lot of US$ or it will issue digital currency, in more limited quantities, useful only for selected goods. The latter seems more likely. This may change the inflation/deflation equation.
As you know I disagree that the dollar will lose reserve status. The great flight to safety into the dollar *is* the financial driver of the great global dollar deflation. All the Fed has to do to make that happen is keep raising rates or, at least not ease them too much.
In Michael Every’s daily that ZH picked up this morning (second day in a row), he linked to a pdf of his own, from January, that argues this point. Every is the best I’m aware of on this topic. Seven page pdf:
https://pub.raboresearch.rabobank.com/public/r/Nz2uwd3xwwmWCVIDFY8ETA/SqJk9pugnuq7_mbTW+EEBw/Efcru+1v_cg8rq2UTLNb6w
If oil production needs more efforts (and thus costs more) to pump put the oil offshore or from under ice or by fracking, parts of the economic production have to be spent on the same amount of oil like before. But those parts cannot be used to make fridges or haircuts. Thus overall productivity declines – while GDP and oil production values dont change.
When overall productivity declines people get less for their money/work. But they cannot reduce food and commuting to their jobs. So they buy less. Producers sell less, this leads into a recessive downturn cycle.
Now if we have two blocks, one has oil that is expensive to extract and the other has oil that is cheaply to extract, the later has an advantage over the first. It can build tanks, lead war, invest into solar and make fridges, while the other cannot.
If a recession is not followed by an upturn because it is structural, a lot of financial assets cannot be repaid. In a permanent decline capitalism is impossible.
In the moment the markets realize they switch over to Russian assets.
There are two ways to fight this problem. Firstly, to forbid investments (sanctions) and secondly, to win the resources of the rescource-rich contrahend.
De Santis said, Biden had no war objectives. Oh, yes, he has! I think it is too late, though, as NATO has no oil to invest into weapons and war. We will see.
I think that the very tight supply of US$ will push buyers to other currencies. Our policies are bringing the result on ourselves.
“useful only for selected goods”
The CBDC for food, electric, and taxes. Hard currencies like Yuan and Ruble for gasoline, heating oil, cars, air travel. Divide the society into haves and have nots. This will really reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. The have nots in cities. The haves in the good part of cities and in high density “villages”. Low density housing bulldozed (New York State keeps talking about this), except with the purchase of a five million dollar residency permit.
Everyone, with some exceptions, vax for low fertility and shorter life span.
Reminds me to rememberable the year 2019?? when OPEC+ desperatedly tried to ramp up prices to help US fracking. It was not possible without reducing demand.
There is a curve price-production and a curve price-demand like for every product. They meet in some point. As oil i opposotion to any other product limits the economy a structural decline of production must lead to a structural recession, one, that is not compensated after by a following upturn. As a consequence of a longtime recession oil production costs will raise, because needed spare parts will raise in costs due to effects of scale. In the moment the structural recession starts, there is no surplus to invest into alternatives.
For years now, I cannot understand why anyone should not see that! But the German Minister of Foreign Affairs had asked Putin for a 360° turn in Ukraine. Perhaps this problem is also structural.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/iraq-drop-dollar-yuan-trade-china
Also: https://thecradle.co/article-view/21770/iraqi-central-bank-to-drop-dollar-for-yuan-in-trade-with-china
Iraq To Drop Dollar For Yuan In Trade With China
The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.
. . .
The Iraqi central bank has been on a mad dash to compensate for a dollar shortage in local markets. This crisis prompted the cabinet to approve a currency revaluation earlier this month.
Last year, the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began enforcing stricter controls on international transactions by Iraqi commercial banks, forcing them to comply with specific SWIFT global transfer system criteria to access their foreign reserves.
The move was allegedly meant to “curtail money laundering and the illegal siphoning of dollars to Iran and other heavily sanctioned [West Asian] countries.”
However, the sudden rules change for Iraqi banks sent the economy reeling as 80 percent, or more of Iraq’s daily US dollar wire transfers could no longer be completed.
. . .
Since the war in Ukraine started, several nations in the Global South have begun to move away from the US dollar in bilateral trade with China. Many others have chosen to boost their Chinese yuan reserves at a time when the hegemony of the greenback continues to weaken.
To paraphrase famous football coach Bill Walsh, it is better to de-dollarize one year too early than one year too late (original quote was about trading players).
Here’s a way to have fun…
In Canada you get these spam calls – it’s a real person – some guy gives me a 20 second spiel – I say – are you vaxxed though?
Yes … then I inform him that he’s taken a Rat Juice death shot and that he is gonna die from a heart attack or stroke…
The great thing is … they listen…. it’s so much fun!!! Can’t wait for the next call
Hahaha, that reminds of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry returns a call to a phone spammer.
UK: Supermarkets shelves lie empty with fruit and veg rationed
“He added that the supermarket industry had also suffered from the government’s decision to exclude it from its energy support scheme.”
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/asda-morrisons-introduce-purchase-restrictions-vegetables-supply-issues/
Dry run for Holodomor — prepping the MOREONS for the extermination … feed them shots of empty shelves now … so that when The Time Comes… they will be conditioned to expect this … and they will stay home and wait for the food trucks — that won’t come..
And starve.
Don’t be upset — starvation is better than being raped murdered and roasted.
That would be a really nasty way to exit the shit show. Starvation is a gentle death.
Do not rule out the Super Fent… that’s The Best Death. A happy ending if there ever was one.
My bigger concern is the snow storm I am looking at out the window and how I will get to the ice rink in this mess.
Get some snow shoes for the family! With huge snow loads you can hardly walk ten steps. I hate it to be locked! I’d have more respect towards the storm and the avalanches.
Some years ago we made photos because the snow was higher than the kids. School was non-obligatory but someone said, of course you will go! We build snowmen on the way and the reduced teacher staff just laughed and said, that’s the old way!
No damage to have 30kgs of flour in the house, though. Here more or less everybody has. Last winter, our neighbour, who is more a city boy, decided to start prepping and bought 30 eggs. We laughed so hard!
Storing fresh eggs well is actually harder than storing good hard cheese, e.g. Gruyere, Grana Padano, Manchego, Pecorino. A clue … cheese sellers proclaim proudly that it’s been ‘aged’ for at least 6, 12 or even 18 months. Then the supermarket puts a ‘best before’ date only 8-10 weeks away on the label, ha ha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rquN6jKxwR4
These are the gigantic greenhouses in Kent he mentioned.
Grow your own fruits and vegetables! Of course, only the rich can afford their own green house and have a suitable place to put one. The greenhouse will need fertilizer and perhaps a little heat as well. Lots of complexity involved. It will need insecticides, to keep down unwanted insects and other pests.
The rich don’t have time for that and they live in their own little monetary bubble where they think money will make any problem go away. So they sweep the thought under the bed. Can’t wait for Karma when the food zombies show up.
Reread Jane Austen’s Emma
Mr. Knightley, the largest landowner of the area, had no time for farming
The farming was done by his servant Martin
Yup, there you go !
In Austen’s time the man-to land ratio differed according the what was produced, but about 98% of the population was involved in agriculture in some way
in other words, the small surplus produced by that 98% supported the other 2%
Most aristos had no time for farming
I live in the north. Looking out the window at the foot-plus of snow from last night. In the summer I garden all day to produce basically a few extra salads for us and a lot of flowers for the bees. I think cold places will ultimately look like the UK grocery store pix (without supply chains).
Is it last day for this round?
Not enough world supplies to go around, since imports of fruits and vegetables are energy-intensive.
The Covid lockdowns and lunatic politicians who want to eliminate industrial farming due to their panacea to solve climate change. See the Netherlands.
The vegetable shortage in the UK is not widespread. I wouldn’t know about it if I hadn’t seen pictures on Twitter.
The shelves in my area are well stocked. Friends in other parts of the country report the same.
Great to hear that!
Much the same here in Eastern England, although certain items are now variable in their vailability in the one supermarket I visit.
Organic eggs are less abundant, organic chicken has simply disappeared for months – plenty of the other type – organic porridge oats went and came back and went away again. Same with flour over the last few months. Paracetamol has also vanished. Fresh orange juice disappeared for few weeks, but is now in stock.
Little discontinuities, nothing that would alarm anyone – yet!
Here at OFW we exaggerate everything to make the world look what it will look like in 2030.
Quite so: OFW auto-predictive programming!
This week is the first time in the last three years that I have seen the egg section in our local Sainsbury’s supermarket empty, and veg section mostly empty. I think it was yesterday that the Automatic Earth had a YT video from a UK food grower saying that the reason there was a lack of veg (in the UK) was because the supermarkets refused to give the growers (of lettuce, tomatoes etc) a fair price, and the food growers were better (losing less money) growing nothing over winter when their heating requirements were much higher / too expensive. There was a YT video a few weeks ago of an egg producer who said exactly the same thing – the egg shortage (in the UK) is to an extent manufactured, because the supermarkets won’t pay enough for the food growers/farmers to make a profit. Indeed, the price of eggs here has remained remarkably low, and now there is a shortage.
To some extent fruits and vegs have elastic demand, that is they can be mostly substituted (I eat only about 100 grams of mized sauerkrauts a day, otherwise it is milk eggs and meat). But food as a whole is by definition very inelastic. I wonder what people replace them with.
The shortages have been growing for some time. I’ve asked staff about it and most seem unaware, until I point out that they’ve moved items around multiple times and each time things are moved, the shelf area that the product covers gets smaller. The shocked recognition is slightly unnerving though, as I had assumed that they knew.
This article blames the weather in part, which is bizarre. We’ve had a very mild winter so far and lately it’s been more like spring weather.
Multiple articles about the issue in the grocer.
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fruit-and-veg/wholesale-fruit-and-veg-prices-soar-amid-shortages-in-supermarkets/676497.article
February weather has been remarkable (UK), more like April. Very warm.
NZ north Island cold and wet summer. Even the cyclone was cool weather.
Maybe we are all heading towards erratic seasons; annual (food) plants don’t cope well with that. Some need a winter chill to activate them, some need minimum summer temps.
The Maunder minimum preceded a period of plague years IIRC.
‘Most areas suffered drought and plague in the 1640’s, the 1650’s and again in the 1670’s, while the winter of 1684 was the wettest recorded in the eastern Mediterranean during the past five centuries, and the winters of the later 1680’s were at least 3° C cooler than today.
In 1687 a chronicler in Istanbul, Turkey reported ‘This winter was severe to a degree that had not been seen in a very long time. For fifty days the roads were closed and people could not go outside. In cities and villages, the snow buried many houses. In the Golden Horn [major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul], the snow ‘came up higher than one’s face.’
The following year, floods destroyed crops around Edirne [close to Turkey’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria], ruining the estates that normally supplied the imperial capital with food. In the 1640’s and 1650’s, a civil war gripped the British Empire.
This war combined with the effects of a series of failed harvest that led to famines, and plague epidemics killed approximately a quarter of a million people in England, Scotland and Wales or 7% of the population.
The population in Ireland alone fell by 20%.’
This time it may save us!!
https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/10/05/physicist-upcoming-grand-solar-minimum-could-wipe-out-global-warming-for-decades/
We will see. We aren’t very good at figuring out exactly what will happen.
The supermarkets causing the shortage sounds plausible.
I have signed on to a veg and egg box delivery scheme from a local farm. They seem to have plenty of produce.
Huh? Dutch (Netherlands) data CONFIRMS what we knew, what Ioannidis (Stanford) documented in 2020, what I, Oskoui, Risch, McCullough, Tenenbaum wrote in AIER 2020/2021, young had near zero COVID risk
Near zero risk for severe outcome or death, we were clear & Atlas was clear yet we locked down the healthy & well, the younger, middle aged, kids, while still failing to protect the vulnerable elderly
https://palexander.substack.com/p/huh-dutch-netherlands-data-confirms-456
Remember when norm was hysterically insisting the children must be injected?
hahaha…. but if you kill all the children norm… what will the pedos do?
Lay off Norm. We all know that Norm did not hysterically insist that children must be injected.
Norm is OK. He just refuses to jump on the damn vaxs wagon which is fine.
The Japanese are masters of producing dolls for that kind of purposes
Check out the MOREONS hahaha.. keep in mind … you are bobbing around in sea of these kinda fools https://www.eugyppius.com/p/new-york-times-readers-confront-the
More Boosters More Masks? It’s working so well.
Hey hang on … why didn’t tens of millions die BEFORE the jabs started? Wasn’t Covid more dangerous then as well?
Wrecked immune systems … and now:
https://hiddencomplexity.substack.com/p/persistent-drug-shortages-in-2023
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1238,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F05b62d03-adb5-43ae-82f4-5132aef165d2_715x337.png
UEP. We will soon be entering The Extermination Zone. All preparations are being finalized now
One question being raised is why pharma is already building dozens or 100s of mRNA factories around the world. If the jab ‘failed’, what are these all for? Is the WHO predicted to bring in a ‘pandemic treaty’ so that everybody has to be injected to buy food, draw the state pension, get Universal Credit …?
Or does pharma expect to inject people for every single ‘illness’ in future instead of giving them a patented pill. Just wondering …
“innovative partnership models” please better say we had the witches stick pins in the appropriate effigies.
War! And rumors of war!
The Military Summary channel has made the unusual move of recording a second video in one day.
In this 10-minute video, Dima says that the Russians have announced that they are expecting the Ukrainians to attack the Russian enclave of Transdniestria (officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic), which he thinks they could accomplish in a couple of days.
The place is apparently choc-a-bloc with old Soviet-era munitions that could help the Ukrainians keep shelling the Russians for the next year.
He further speculates that the Russians may attempt a military coup in Moldova in order to counter the Ukrainian move.
https://rumble.com/v2al1kk-ukraine.-military-summary-and-analysis-2023.02.03-part-1-morning.html
Interesting, thanks. It seems like suddenly everybody feels like things have escalated in a major way yet nothing has actually happened. Things that make you go hmmm.
Seems to me there’s an inconsistency in his analysis. He says the Ukrainian ground attack on Transdniestria would be under a false flag. That doesn’t sound like a realistic option for Ukraine. It could easily be debunked by Russia. False flags incidents are incidental, they’re not military campaigns.
Russian invading Moldova in response would be worse than Ukraine having another year’s worth of that particular ammo.
The only way this whole scenario makes any sense imo is if this whole war is operating under the Degrowth Agenda (DA).
We are in a very dangerous situation!
https://thesaker.is/the-dire-significance-of-putins-feb-21-speech/
“Russia currently has a window of superiority in both nuclear offense and defense that NATO is rapidly trying to close. It is not in Russia’s interest to allow NATO to close the technology gap in air defense and ICBM offense.
The world is now on the threshold of nuclear war. Russia keeps warning the West. The West keeps ignoring the warnings and doubling down. The immovable object is meeting the unstoppable force.”
Saludos
el mar
As Bossche’s Mutation arrives … they launch the missiles…
Exquisite!
A blinding flash of light, wiping most of us out in a split second, might be exquisite. But the powerful don’t like us well enough to allow that. We may more likely be kept in our miserable state for the foreseeable future.
The use of nuclear force doesn’t sound good at all.
War now or war later is the only choice every country has said some European political science guy 150years ago. Is my chance of winning better now or better if I wait.
el mar
That essay is tantalizing but extremely conventional thinking. Old paradigm thinking. It’s what happens when you get led down the garden path because you refused to let-in the pure reason of peak oil theory all those years ago.
‘The West’ is not acting irrationally. It is acting as the antagonist in the play. To think that the Western MICs have been overcome by total madness is foolish. For him to say that the Nordstream affair is evidence of structural madness on the part of ‘the West’ is foolish. If we understand peak oil then we can understand that the Nordstream affair is a highly rational way to facilitate the hard decoupling of an East-West globalized trade system that is rapidly becoming unaffordable.
It was inevitable that the peak oil community’s geopolitical analyses of collapse would decouple from all the other analyses that refused peak oil, because peak oil is the root of the problem, so all non- peak oil analyses are rooted in fundamental falsehoods – first falsehoods rather than first truths.
What he had to say at the beginning, about Putin talking existentially, was important though; it did signal that the Starfish Prime type warning shot can probably be expected, unless they’ve decided to go straight to the ACTUAL nuclear scare when the time is right. How big the nuclear scare is, that they’ve planned, we can never know. We can presume though that it won’t put the nuclear power industry in existential danger.
“The Price Has Gone Up, And Quality Has Gone Down”: People Are Sharing The Things That Rich People Have All But Ruined For The Rest Of Us
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/absolutely-ridiculous-people-sharing-things-204602711.html?guccounter=1
Sat, February 18, 2023 at 3:46 PM EST·7 min read
If you think back to childhood (or even just back to a few years ago), it’s clear that many things in life that were once intended for the masses have become wildly more expensive.
Recently, I shared a list of several things that have been all but ruined by the rich. And as it turns out, the BuzzFeed Community had a lot of opinions and things they wanted to chime in with. So, here are even more aspects of life that the wealthy have pretty much destroyed for the rest of us.
1.”Cereal! It used to be a cheap kids food. Now, it costs $6-$7 for a single box where I live.”
Brands like Wranglers and Levi’s. Prices went up, but quality went way, way down across the board. In high school, I was able to buy Levi’s for maybe $10, and they’d last until they actually fell apart. But the last time I bought a pair, the denim just pilled up immediately. It’s actually hard to find any clothes that don’t do that nowadays.”
Politics. The amount of money spent on political campaigns is ridiculous. It could run some smaller countries for a year. There should be limits on how much each party can spend on their campaigns.”
Cheap cuts of meat. Long gone are the days when you could buy pork belly, lamb shanks, oxtail affordably. Thanks for that, TV chefs, and your ability to make the price of these formerly bargain ingredients quadruple in a single episode. Looking at you, Jamie Oliver!
The internet. Once upon a time, you knew the only people online were people who genuinely wanted to be part of the community and subculture. Then, the rich found out about it, and now, the internet has become nothing but ads, subscriptions fees, and data gathering.”
Live sporting events. A fun day out with a friend at an NFL game will run you around $500. Alternatively, you could watch it on your big screen TV at home which has better play-by-play and angles than being at the game where you end up watching half of it on a monitor anyway. Unless I get tickets for free, I don’t even bother going to sporting events anymore.
Coffee. It used to be cheap, and you only had two choices when you ordered it — regular or decaf. It was a blue collar, working person’s drink… an office worker’s drink that was easily affordable. Now, coffee is wildly expensive
Housing. In the old days, people only bought houses if they intended to live in them. Now, you have rich people looking to invest in real estate, so the rich buy up all the affordable housing, driving up the prices and creating scarcity.
Much more in the article…coffee is the killer for me ..now they want $4.00 for a cup at some places…like bottle water…
Hockey shin pad tape – half the size vs last time I was in Canada >>>> same price
I was complaining to the shop guy – WTF is with the half used rolls? He says bro – this is the new normal … pay same get half.
Oh … suck it up …
Herb, you’re correct, but I guess there’s really little we can do about it.
“So, don’t cry. Dry your eyes, the tears will do no good.”
US government officials are finally starting to ask questions. “Senator Accuses FAA Of Ignoring Potential Vaccine Dangers To Pilots“
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/senator-accuses-faa-ignoring-potential-vaccine-dangers-pilots
It’s not my Job…
If the FAA is not responsible, why do they make pilots (commercial and private) pass medical exams or yank their flying license? What about the airlines who coerced pilots to get the experimental vax and fired those who did not? I only see massive cover-up and higher risk a commercial pilot has a heart attack and kills a bunch of passengers. Cover your *** is more important than safety and risk.
I posted an article the Arline’s are STILL requiring new hires to be doubled tapped with the rat juice! Unbelievable
Injecting the military as well as babies and commercial airline pilots.
It’s either supreme Stooopidity — or Extermination.
Choose
Emirates Airlines are doing a job fair to attract new pilots because there’s currently a global shortage for airline pilots.
So the Govt is maintaining there are few deaths, no gun crime, no looting, no problems in cyclone damaged parts of NZ.
Social media says otherwise, so social media is closed down.
Now will the morons who got injected wake up a little bit and realise the Govt-media-police nexus is their keeper, not their servant?
Probably not.
Too bad.
Harden up and bend over.
Don’t folks in NZ have guns to protect your selves? I know about half the houses in the neighborhood have hand guns. A neighbor told me a story of how one night someone come on the property late at night so he went out with the shotgun and fire in his general direction. He got the idea and left quickly.
What do you guys in NZ do? Go outside and make scary Maori noises?
Crime has a particular pattern in NZ.
White collar crime also.
Follow the culture, find the culprits.
The schelling point below national govt appears to be the gangs.
Not local govt.
Definitely not civil defence.
The police are merely enablers for the gangs.
Wake-up sheeple, the wolves are out.
Mere theatre: judging by the supine conformity in NZ over the last 3 years, they are ‘all blow, no show’.
It’s the lean, silent, types you have to watch out for, not these gibbering buffoons.
This is how one responds to this ranting bullshit.. turn their lights out:
https://youtu.be/nK8OEXialPE
Governments everywhere need to project the “All is well” narrative, whether or not it is true.
This is poignant.
Canada’s youngest athletes, ages 6-13 are dying suddenly: COVID-19 vaccine mandates for children playing sports were a crime…
Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccines are banned for kids under 18 in Scandinavian countries…
https://makismd.substack.com/p/canadas-youngest-athletes-ages-6?
These could have been your kids or grandkids.
Say their names.
And never forget why they died and who orchestrated their murders.
Make it personal.
Tim, I sincerely believe we must keep the record of who did this but so far I have no idea who did this. We need a book of the dead to remember the murderers.
That link appears highlighted in red … and when I hover I am informed it’s a suspicious link…
That means it’s true and I should click it
My Take…
I believe COVID-19 mRNA vaccines severely damage the immune systems and hearts of young children. This damage may take 6-12 months to fully manifest.
Not surprisingly, Canadian health authorities are trying to pretend these sudden deaths of Canada’s youngest athletes are not happening.
However, they can only ignore this serious problem so long.
The graphs below show 2-dose mRNA uptake on the left and booster mRNA uptake on the right, as percentage of all Canadian children ages 5-11, and 12-17.
The Canadian government stopped publishing these graphs in January 2023.
VAIDS never rests… it’s like rusting from the inside out hahaha f789 em.
I can’t imagine many of them are boosted; so is this a result of just 1 or 2 dog-sh!t jabs?
Powerful juice if this is the case.
Going to be quite a year for the sheeple if the little jabbers pop-off!
There is a huge lot to lot variation (1000x) in this substance. It is not a pharmaceutical rather a DOD bio weapon counter measure which is 100% unregulated, uncontrolled in manufacture. It is solely up to the DOD if they accept the product. I am not aware of them rejecting any lots for any reason.
The WHO, CDC, state health departments, county health departments have no right, no authority, to test, regulate, stop any of this substance that the DOD has contracted for. Do we trust the DOD?????? I know I do not.
At least initially, 5% of the lots accounted for all the kills.
Truly a range-finding operation.
They will refine, in good time, and a death will merely be the cost of a dime.
Cheaper than a bullet, and they lined up for it.
Taking a cue from nature. A real virus optimizes itself for transmissibility with a “bias” towards less lethality.
These vaxxes/spike protein weapons have to follow the same strategy. If one batch is too lethal, it will easily and quickly alert people. If it is not lethal enough, then it looses the battle to the development of herd immunity.
This could explain the variations in these batches.
But there is a a secondary force at play here and that is the propaganda of encouraging the need for more vaxxes. New injectees are required to keep the medical Ponzi going, as acquired herd immunity is like the increasing redemptions in the Ponzi, but also, vaxxes are required as vehicles to inject the hitchhikers ( nano particles, graphene, chemicals or other forms of RNA added to the cocktail ) along with the spike protein mRNA.
And then comes the need for medical IDs as to verify vaxx status which in turn integrates with financial records, passports, CBDC.
It is a daisy chain of control measures.
@Hubbs
I worry there is even another mechanism: the vaxx apparently creates damage but not always symptoms. There has been this Thailand study where they had checked up youngsters before and after vaxx and about 10% had scarfs on their heart. These wont lead to symptoms but of course in 30 years they might be heart patients. High loads of auto-antibodies might also show effect only in some years. We know so little, did the jabs contain all the same ingredients? Some professionals doubt it is impossible to produce them in such a short time. Were there differences between countries?
If you were vaxxed and you feel it might have done some damage, it might be a good idea to compensate the damage load on your body with natto, healthy food and sports. We can not always avoid stress to our bodies and we were never promised to live forever. But we can do what is possible!
Lucky them… they got the most potent Rat Juice.
Better than starving to death
Ban sports. Encourage them to lay on the sofa watching Tee Vee
sweetest sappiest most lovely and lovey dovey love song ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmnDXRJ7btE&ab_channel=CarelMendoza
life is short, enjoy it.
or as someone once said:
“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
This made my day.
c’mon people, bAU tonight, baby!
kind of makes you want to break into song:
DJ Orff, it’s a remix!
drum machine too, must sound great with expensive headphones!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pGVdOQxidE
why not use lots of energy resources to make this stuff?
remix the bAU tonight, baby!
Let’s do a simple “off the cuff” calculation:
One expensive headphone:
200grams of plastic, battery, electronics and some copper. Say a conversion factor of 20:1. This equals about four liters of oil equivalent.
Now lets do the same calculation on that godawful SUV of yours:
2500kg of mostly useless jank for Rapacious Primates clinging to the myopia of ordinary and needing to project convenience, statuses and prestiges. Yep, that’s about 50.000 liters of oil.
See the difference? Four liters compared with 50.000 liter, no? Anyway, in the mean time:
“YOLO!
Within temptation is truth!
Hypers gonna hyper!
MOARons gonna moaron!
Tryhards gonna tryhard!
All retch and no vomit!
In perpetuity!
🙏
“
— Oat Jesus
🤣👍👍
one more!
thank you, Gail, you are the best!
Yes, thank you Gail! As Davidinamonth says, you are the best.
This music is something I like a lot. I looked it up on Wikipedia. According to it,
There seem to be many different sets of words to this music. One of them is
(Dialogue)
Astronaut 1: It never gets old, huh?
Astronaut 2: Nope.
Astronaut 1: It kinda makes you want to…
Astronaut 2: Break into song?
Astronaut 1: Yep. (Two astronauts on a space walk)
I love the mountains,
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (twice)
An African tribe dancing, with one getting near the camera
I love the planet
I love real dirty things
I love to go fast
I love Egyptian kings
I love the whole world
And all its craziness
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (twice)
I love tornadoes
I love arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
It’s such a brilliant place
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (repeating until fade)
It sounds like the song celebrates both the natural world and the world made possible by fossil fuels.
Without a television, I have not paid much attention to televised material.
You won’t love the mountains when,
From their rude and simple huts,
Mountaineers descend, to carve out your guts.
You’d best run from the mountains,
When fierce men, savage and unseen,
Spring an ambush in a dark and deep ravine…….
A two-coin set containing domed silver coins from the United States Mint and Royal Australian Mint to honor the July 20, 1969, Moon landing by American astronauts is now available from the RAM.
The set, with a 10,000-edition limit, comprises Proof examples of the 2019-S Apollo 11 50th Anniversary copper-nickel clad dollar, struck at the San Francisco Mint, and a Proof 2019 Australian Moon Landing silver $5 coin struck at the Royal Australian Mint.
Wonder who I posted this for?
I was looking for a kitchen book on eBay, and I was offered a Meghan-and-Harry-wedding commemorative coin. So much for AI.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m570.l1313&_nkw=Kitchen+Think%3A+A+Guide+to+Design+and+Construction%2C+from+Refurbishing+to+Renovation&_sacat=0
I don’t know people have a problem believing America landed on the moon.
It was an impressive but ultimately meaningless stunt.
I remember after that they launched Skylab and people were bouncing around in there. They couldn’t really think of anything for them to do. ‘Space manufacturing’ and other such nonsense was talked about.
But we are inspired to boldly go where no man has gone before …fortune favors the brave… William Shatner
Can someone ask William how they got past the Van Allen Belts?
Seems they lost that tech when they dumped all the Apollo stuff into the incinerator ‘to save space’
The Apollo missions marked the first event where humans traveled through the Van Allen belts, which was one of several radiation hazards known by mission planners. The astronauts had low exposure in the Van Allen belts due to the short period of time spent flying through them.
Astronauts’ overall exposure was actually dominated by solar particles once outside Earth’s magnetic field. The total radiation received by the astronauts varied from mission-to-mission but was measured to be between 0.16 and 1.14 rads (1.6 and 11.4 mGy), much less than the standard of 5 rem (50 mSv)[c] per year set by the United States Atomic Energy Commission for people who work with radioactivity.[37]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#:~:text=The%20Apollo%20missions%20marked%20the,time%20spent%20flying%20through%20them.
How many people believe this?
Well, Fast Eddie asked and that’s NASA’s explaining it. I can’t determine if it’s possible or not, I’m no scientist.
I don’t have the inclination to probe further…
I was alive around ten years old when it was done watching on a little black and white TV set and thought it was no big deal agreeing with Withnail why go there in the first place!
Have you seen this?
i have seen it. it’s garbage.
Which part(s)?
How about the part where they have James Van Allen explain how the counters for radiation malfunctioned when they sent a probe into the Van Allen belts.
Discuss
i dont really have 3 and a half hours spare to sit through it, sorry.
the moon landings happened.
Wait.. first you said you watched “American Moon”, then you said you don’t have time to waste watching it. Which is it?
If you actually watched it, what do you take issue with?
What explains the astro ladies using hair spray to make their hair stick up?
What explains the wires and rigging used to help astros do their trademark flips?
When you realize every story we are fed is purposeful deception, things make a lot more sense.
Wait.. first you said you watched “American Moon”, then you said you don’t have time to waste watching it. Which is it?
I mean I’ve watched it before but I do not have time to sit through hours of it again trying to find the part eddy mentioned.
It’s trash. Produced by morons and aimed at morons.
Wait, you spent three and a half hours watching trash? Well, either you’re a masochist or you have too much free time that you don’t know how to fill. Unless, of course, it wasn’t until the last minute of the movie that you realised, shit, this is trash for morons.
Wait, you spent three and a half hours watching trash?
i watched it once and reached the decision that it was trash.
i gave it a chance.
Withnail
With great freedom comes great responsibility. You talk trash about ‘trash’ and you become responsible for your trash talking. All you have to do in this instance is refute the Van Allen belt argument. You don’t have to rewatch the epic.
Me, I’m not in a position to judge the moon landing subject, but naturally I have my doubts. And the the earth is not flat.
Sorry, what you say doesn’t add up. I’ve never needed three and a half hours to conclude that a movie is trash, I usually get it within the first 15 minutes. In this case, I watched the whole movie. So either you’re not as smart as you seem, or you’re lying a little bit. Anyway, doesn’t matter.
All you have to do in this instance is refute the Van Allen belt argument. You don’t have to rewatch the epic.
the astronauts took a dose of radiation going through the van allen belt but they were travelling very fast so were not in the belt for long.
i dont care if someone somewhere some time said that the van allen belt would kill them all.
Sorry, what you say doesn’t add up. I’ve never needed three and a half hours to conclude that a movie is trash, I usually get it within the first 15 minutes.
let me explain this again. i said i would give it a chance, so i did. i watched it all because someone asked me to. i watched it to the end, as they requested.
Withnail much obliged.
it always is
gets worse as eddy gets desperate to get noticed
Porsche’s Plan to Produce (Nearly) Carbon-Neutral Gasoline in Texas
227
Jim Motavalli
Tue, February 21, 2023 at 11:30 AM EST
Porsche on to something? Last June, the German automaker announced that it was investing $75 million and acquiring a 12.5-percent stake in HIF Global LLC, a Chilean company that is producing what’s called “e-fuel,” sustainably-produced gasoline and other conventional fuels produced unconventionally—using hydrogen produced via wind power and captured carbon dioxide (CO2). Fossil fuels for transportation appear doomed globally because of their major contribution to climate change, but HIF thinks it can produce viable replicas in a process that is “nearly” carbon neutral. When burned, e-fuels will still produce tailpipe emissions, of course.
…..location in southernmost Chile makes sense because the wind blows there 270 days a year. In the pilot phase, HIF plans to produce approximately 34,000 gallons of its e-gasoline and send it to Porsche for use in motorsports events such as the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, as well as at the company’s experience centers. But by the middle of the decade HIF says the plant will be capable of producing 14.5 million gallons of fuel annually. Two years later, the company says the plant will be up to its full capacity—145.3 million gallons of gasoline and methanol.
But Chile is just the start. HIF is also building a plant in Australia, in northwest Tasmania, producing enough fuel annually to decarbonize five million vehicles. And there’s a third one in Texas. Yes, Texas. The state may harbor some suspicion about fossil-fuel bans, but it is also home to one of the country’s best wind resources—the state’s High Plains region alone has more than 11,000 wind turbines.
The $6 billion plant will be built by the Houston-based U.S. arm of HIF near Bay City, Texas. The Peyton Creek Wind Farm, a huge 151-megawatt facility, opened in Matagorda County (where Bay City is located) in 2020. Bechtel is working on front-end engineering and design of the HIF plant, with construction to begin in the first quarter of 2024.
Jalpokin.com
The rich can drive their cars forever.
No they can’t. There won’t be any roads and the wind turbines to produce this fuel won’t last long. Not to mention no tyres or parts available.
OK, maybe for the 2030 decade…at least we can HOPE
They shall be carried in palanquins, then, supported by relays of slaves; while behind the curtains they toy with their catamites.
If a person counts all of the embedded energy in the complexity of this whole plan, it is hard to believe that it is “carbon neutral.” It certainly demands a functioning international trade system, too, among other things.
This is a good idea, the climate neutrality is just a narrative. But to create energy dense gas via hydrogen from solar panels means to be able to use the old infrastructure, farmer’s equipment for example, and to store excess energy loads. No need to invest into electric machinery or a huge grid.
But – this techology is not very efficient. I guess there is 70% energy loss. And: without BAU solar or wind technology seems impossible.
Ai!!! https://t.me/downtherabbitholewegofolks/66317
DID YOU KNOW: Blue Cross Blue Shield pays pediatricians a $40,000 bonus for fully vaccinating 100 patients under the age of 2.
BUT pediatricians lose the whole bonus unless at least 63% of patients are fully vaccinated, and that includes the flu vaccine.
https://wellnessandequality.com/2016/06/20/how-much-money-do-pediatricians-really-make-from-vaccines/
Thanks for the info !
Bless their little greedy hearts…like they are unaware of the adverse effects..
No doubt in my mind, concentration camps like the Nannies had, will be set up again with no,lack of willing administrators to process the “clients” as they will termed…very professional..
Norman will like this one!
Dr. Paul Anderson says:
The real POTUS, POTUS Trump just landed in Ohio, while Biden toured Ukraine with the cross-dresser pump wearer dancer, Trump came where Biden should have been; real slap in the face Brandon delivered. Listen to the community speak out.
https://twitter.com/sav_says_/status/1628460981264302080?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://twitter.com/ChuckCallesto/status/1628460500865409025?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The best POTUS is one with acting experience. Cuz
No more nonsense.
Anyone who talks nonsense gets shot. That is our ‘social contract?’
no justice, no peace Until that day we will continue to get killed.
Consult the “Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabet” to decode the Alternative Facts, lol.
Many of you will have seen this already, but I’ll post if for the record.
S Korea breaks record for world’s lowest fertility rate, again
The number of babies expected per woman in South Korea dropped to 0.78 last year, down from 0.81 a year earlier.
The figure is the lowest among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which had an average rate of 1.59 in 2020, and far below 1.64 in the United States and 1.33 in Japan the same year.
The South Korean capital, Seoul, logged the lowest birth rate of 0.59.
The plummeting birth rate has stoked worry that a declining population could severely damage the South Korean economy – the world’s 10th largest – because of labour shortages and greater welfare spending as the number of older people increases and the number of taxpayers shrinks.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/22/s-korea-breaks-record-for-worlds-lowest-fertility-rate-again
Lower than Japan! The population will drop fairly quickly with that birth rate. There will be barely anyone to take care of the many old folks.
Wasn’t Covid supposed to ‘take care of’ the old geezers unable to project as effectively anymore?
I agree with you there, Gail. That birthrate is barely a third of what would be needed to keep the population stable.
On the plus side, grandparents won’t have to fork out as much in presents for the grandkids, and there will be a lot less birthdays to remember.
Are we living Utopia Season 3?
Utopia for those who are unaware
https://thepiratebay7.com/torrent/36395532/Utopia_(2013)_Season_1-2_S01-S02___Extras_(1080p_BluRay_x265_HEV
If population declines, so will GDP. I doubt, they can ramp up productivity by industry 4.0 to compensate 1/3. If GDP falls, debts cannot be paid back. Then Yen will struggle.
Is the same going on in Europe and the US or had the Rat Juice different ingredients? If not troubles with the currency system and on the financial markets look unavoidable.
Also a way to lead a war.
0.59 the quality of life must suck in Seoul. Don’t have kids when you are being used as a slave. I believe Korea is less than 100 years from feudalism and it shows.
Sweden reports a 8.3% decline:
“Compared with the previous year, the number of births decreased with 9 529 or 8.3 percent. It was the lowest number of births since 2005.”
https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/statistical-news/swedens-population-2022–population-changes2/
Looking at molten salt reactors but I’m not sure of the progress.
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210912-why-china-is-developing-a-game-changing-thorium-fuelled-nuclear-reactor
Kind of remarkable :
they require only about 1,000 kilograms of salt fuel for every 1 gigawatt of electricity generated each year. A traditional solid fuel nuclear reactor requires about 250 tons of enriched uranium to obtain the same energy)
I’d say a huge incentive.
I’m not sure why waste can make them last:
(In addition, in theory, molten salt reactors can also use waste from other nuclear reactors as a fuel source. The waste generated in a normal reactor year can make the molten salt reactor last about 250 years)
thorium being more abundant is promising but it’s adds complexity ; it has to be processed into U233.
China doesn’t seem to care about the technical problems:
It’s a long term investment so maybe they don’t think there’s an energy problem ie: by their acts of demolishing new cities.
Why are we still talking about unicorn energy solutions when the economic problems are already so pressing?
Some people will grasp onto whatever nonsense BBCCNN feed them… cuz they need hope — otherwise… despair
We are well into the Nitty Gritty Phase of UEP.
Pull the f789ing trigger… come on Elders… we want to be put down… enough trannies flashing packages. End it
I think you misunderstood the concept. In their respective types of reactors, water or molten salt are the coolants, and uranium or thorium are the fuel.
But it’s true that high nuclear baseload could be used to reduce the consumption rate of fossil fuels, thus buying us more time. Seemingly no one here believes that it would help, even though I find it obvious. It’s probably moot in the US as we’re not taking the necessary steps in that direction.
My argument:
If you were to have much higher baseload electricity generation, then you no longer need as much battery storage as is required for the wind and solar fantasy renewables economy. You could replace most transportation and heating with electricity. This would increase electricity usage from the present 20% of all energy consumed, in turn buying us some more time to develop substitutes for fossil-fuel-dependent technologies. If on top of massive nuclear rollout you return to 1950’s consumption rate per capita and deport the 40+ million illegals, you might buy decades for the US.
Substitutes for tar in asphalt, natgas-sourced hydrogen for ammonia fertilizer production, ubiquitous plastic use, and so on are examples of problems that would still need to be solved.
I see thorium reactors as a great thing. They will help China and India. The US is suicideing so is forbidden to try.
But it’s true that high nuclear baseload could be used to reduce the consumption rate of fossil fuels, thus buying us more time. Seemingly no one here believes that it would help, even though I find it obvious.
We can’t afford to build them. The resources needed to construct just one nuclear power station are colossal. Then there’s the fuel.
Here you can see annual amount of commissioned or decommissioned nuclear generation capacity by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country#/media/File:Nuclear_Energy_by_Year.svg
Thorium takes care of fuel availability – if it works – and China has shown it is promising.
This chart shows that China is able to build massive amounts of nuclear every year, not quite matching what the US did in the 70’s and 80’s. If we can’t even do that again today, with 2x the population and all the R&D that has taken place over the interim, then we are well and truly f***ed. Resources are not an issue so long as dollar remains reserve currency – we can import them.
Thorium takes care of fuel availability – if it works – and China has shown it is promising.
It doesn’t work. A few weeks of operation and your reactor vessel will need replacing.
We would already be using it if it was viable.
Mermaids?
Discuss
They don’t work. The molten salts destroy the reactor vessel too fast.
got a reference? Oak Ridge ran a thorium reactor. I do not know the total run time off hand.
For a few hours in total they did.
https://flibe.com/
See web page for info on the startup, Flibe Energy, building a molten salt thorium reactor.
see this for good videos on why fluorinated Lithium salt is a good coolant and how waste products can be removed on the fly allowing long term operation with on the fly refueling.
https://flibe.com/resources/
Just a scam like pretty much all startups.
I don’t even need to ask if they have built a reactor because of course they haven’t.
Anyone posting that kinda stuff on OFW… well… that’s like burning the words I’m a Duumbbb Asss on your forehead
Unless of course it was meant as sarc… (I’m offering a way back)
How many reactors have they built and operated?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODea3YaTmKw
Video by Kirk president of Flibe Energy covering alloy for the MSR.
How many reactors have they built and operated?
In 2017 they got money from the department of energy to test chemistries for removing nuclear waste products from the salts (two salt solution). I would guess to test removal they need to generate nuclear waste in the salts. They are doing this at PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I would guess they made a simple primitive test article. Time will tell.
In 2017 they got money from the department of energy to test chemistries for removing nuclear waste products from the salts (two salt solution).
6 years ago now.
This ‘startup’ is a dead duck.
How many unicorns are there in the wild?
also covers the fuel cycle
Have they built a reactor or not?
He’s (Withnail’s) right, you know!
https://thebulletin.org/2022/06/molten-salt-reactors-were-trouble-in-the-1960s-and-they-remain-trouble-today/
Let’s dedicate a day to discussing total nonsensical things… like these reactors… unicorns… what we’d do if a fairy showed up at the door and handed one a sack filled with 100M $$$ in crisp bills… what’s the first thing you’d buy?
How much fun would this be!
ten eddies in twenty minutes
I wish i had something important to say
This is my all time favourite
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181119-why-flammable-ice-could-be-the-future-of-energy
It’s right up there with Operation Warp Speed hahaha… Safe and Effective vaccine – in less than a year
What kinda special re tar d believes this stuff????
oh right.. a MORE-ON.
The bulletin article is bleak but no point in abandoning since there’s no better option. If China succeeds the USA will will still have insects. And there are a lot of Chinese here to teach your kid’s mandarin.
Some comments:
WA’s Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) . The FFTF was a molten sodium cooled atomic reactor which succesfully conducted tests related to this technology for several years.
The main thing blocking further development is more prototypes. We can not perfect the technology without prototypes. In the US and some other countries governments make it very difficult to build new types of reactors. This is a significant bureaucratic problem in the US that is very expensive. Just to get a license. So it will take government assistance to modernize its nuclear policies to match new technologies. Then some investors may have much more interest. The bureaucracy is the major problem in the US. China is now developing this and other Gen 4 reactors. Such as a working, gas cooled, pebble bed reactor already running. Though MSR reactors have much greater potential. Modern PWR reactors will not work in space. Some Gen 4 reactors can be much more compact and easier to operate. China will soon be the world leader in nuclear energy technology. The US will lose its superiority.
What do you know, my music has become a geopolitical issue and neither BBC nor CNN had any say.
No surrender to the British State.
We is the Russian state
Classic and typical mainstream media /ISP spin and disinfomation. I didn’t even bother reading this.
https://www.yahoo.com/?start_url=homescreenicon&requesttype=appshell&apptype=pwa
I looked I am still spinning
We is the children of the
For the first time
We are the survivors
Bob Marley was diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma which ultimately claimed his life. Knowing the warning signs of this rare form of melanoma, finding it and treating it early enough can make the difference between life and death.
Legendary Jamaican singer, musician and songwriter, Bob Marley, was born on February 6, 1945. Sadly, Marley did not celebrate as many birthdays as he should have. He died of melanoma in 1981 when he was only 36 years old.
It’s easy to see how he missed the warning signs. When a dark spot appeared under his toenail, Marley attributed it to a soccer injury. He probably did not imagine the spot could be serious, but it was. The spot under his nail was a rare, aggressive form of skin cancer called acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM).
Most melanomas are caused by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun or from tanning beds. But ALM, which develops on hairless skin such as under nails, on the soles of the feet or palms of the hands, is more likely caused by genetic factors. While ALM is rare overall, it is the most common form of melanoma found in people of color.
If Marley’s cancer had been detected early, it could have been treated and possibly cured. Instead, his melanoma spread, or metastasized, to other areas of his body and tragically cut his life short.
https://www.skincancer.org/blog/bob-marley-should-not-have-died-from-melanoma/
C’mon everybody knows Marley was dispatched by the Agency. What are the grounds for this suspicion of mine? Reading “rief History of Seven Killings” and the conviction that rich and famous nuisances rarely die at age 36 without a little outside help. If Roman tradition claimed that Jesus committed suicide in jail, I would be the first to say, nah, they probably crucified him.
JMS
Yep. His family is on record saying that none other than the son of the head of the CIA, who was a hip, young reporter that had somehow befriended Bob to some degree, was invited to Bob’s family compound which was quite an honor. Don’t remember if it was for an interview or not. The ‘reporter’ gifted Bob a pair of very fine football boots and when Bob put one of them on, something sharp pricked his toe and he yelped. They didn’t really think anything of it at the time, but when the foot cancer developed starting in that very same toe they put two and two together and eventually came to the (tentative?) conclusion that it was a radioactive delivery system. Then as I recall he went to Germany for some alternative treatment and people complained that the doctor was a quack and a former ‘nazi’ lol. There’s a good article on it out there somewhere.
Bob was leading to many black and white men astray in his call for a mass exodus from empire. I imagine he was asked to stop but refused, like Chapelle. Now, though, that the sea change is upon us, they’re just letting Kanye do his thing, it seems.
“If Roman tradition claimed that Jesus committed suicide in jail, I would be the first to say, nah, they probably crucified him.”
Laughing quietly.
Dennis L.
That old Bulgarian poisoned umbrella in the toe routine?
Of course, Bob Marley could have retired quietly after faking his death. And he may have even popped up again in celebrity land in another role.
I think there is a little island somewhere in the tropics where a lot of these officially dead celebs hang out away from the constant attentions of paparazzi and fans. That would make a lot of sense. After all, who needs this kind of adoration?
Tim, CIA hit.
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/i-killed-bob-marley-ex-cia-agent-confesses/
This article says nail in pair of sneakers. I have also heard nail in a pair of boots gifted by son of CIA director.
someone springs to mind
Gail may have been the first to note that Covid served as a nice cover for economic and energy decline. And how did the perpetrators implement Covid? Mostly through propaganda and fakery (such as tests that deliver overwhelming rates of false positives and often declaring Covid as the cause of death when it didn’t apply).
Many of us doubt the scope and intensity of the war in Ukraine. How does it exist and continue in the minds of so many? Propaganda and fakery (such as fake videos).
Many here also speculate that world war is coming, and that the powers that be may want one, to cover further decline and/or to usher in a new global regime. But how can they have a hot war (short of a quick nuclear exchange) with scarce surplus energy? I think the answers might be the same as for Covid and Ukraine: propaganda and fakery. If Covid and Ukraine were successful in duping people, why wouldn’t this strategy work for a broader war? It would explain fuel and food shortages, broken supply chains, and many other problems. And it would involve the same social psychological mechanisms that propelled Covid and get people to do things they might not otherwise do.
You know, I wasn’t taken in by the Covid psy-op apart from half-believing some of the false claims at the beginning, but I’ve totally fallen for the Ukraine psy-op. And yet everything I know about it comes from videos, news reports, speeches by politicians, and commentary by journalists or other observers.
I must confess to getting a flash of satori when I read your comment.Yes, the Ukraine War could be fake in terms of its scope and intensity. It could even be as fake as the moon landings for all I know.
I will of course continue to listen to the Military Summary Channel and to Alexander Mercouris as daily BGM, but from now on it won’t be the same.
Tim & DB, I think about these issues a lot. If the government/media states “there is a world war, stay in your home,” how would one really know it is true? After the covid narrative, so much of the Ukraine narrative seems questionable. Thanks for the thoughtful commentary.
I guess the only way we could know whether a war is real is when bodies of troops come home, supposedly killed in battle (or by the jabs?). I don’t have the link handy, but I read recently that Ukraine has lots of wheat to export from last year’s harvest. How does that happen in a war zone?
Most of Ukraine isnt a war zone, thats how.
Try doing some research about where in Ukraine the war is and why.
How does one research it? Go to BBCCNN?
There are selected areas — like those buildings we saw in that one clip months ago — you know – the one with the tanks blasting away and old buildings — there was nobody inside… no bodies outside… the tanks just randomly rolled around shooting at them… cuz?
Makes for a nice photo opp for the drone that was filming it…
It’s rainy cats dogs and nuclear missiles … + the super markets are empty .. and army snipers are shooting anyone who breaks curfew…
Stay home – the food trucks are coming
Fun times ahead?
I don’t think that a world hot war is really possible. They run out of ammunition to quickly. Nuclear bombs are too damaging to everyone. Instead, it is a war involving less trade. It may involve the financial systems.
I agree also. But I think for people in general to accept steeper decline and further loss of liberty, the powers that be need a cover story — and a fake war would seem to fit the bill. It also seems to be what they have been preparing people for — war of the West against Russia and/or China (and perhaps Iran).
You are probably right.
Don’t you worry about ammo getting low. Just continue down the tech ladder from fancy drones, to artillery pieces, onwards all the way down to broadswords, flint tipped arrows, and ultimately flying sticks, stones and frozen feces.
https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg
(See my point?)
It’s par de course for Rapacious Primates heavily engaged in Monkey Business. The projections are all very glamorous and sophisticated. It’s oh-so-easy to get impressed by the Myopia of Ordinary.
In the mean time:
(etc.)
🤣👍👍
I hope your right, some of those running things may have a screw loose.
Dennis L.
We are running out of ammunition but Russia and China can still produce it for the moment I think.
Hmmm… the US is running out of ammo? You believe that?
Cuz why?
Making all of this ammunition helps keep demand for fossil fuels up. Also employment.
I agree. The permanent state of emergency is a fundamental political tool to try to manage the inevitable degrowth, through a controlled demolition of the present economic, financial and political system. Destruction of demand is the name of this game. And wars & pandemics are the perfect camouflage for that world of scarcity that awaits us, justifying in the eyes of the plebs all the measures of exception, containment and austerity that the decrease in energy surpluses necessarily imposes. In fact, wars, pandemics and such other political events are so necessary that, like God, they don’t even need to be real to be effective.
Governments everywhere need a believable narrative.
Remember Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007? She had known something already.
To implement measures they must be suited to solve a real existing problem. The Covid narration is a win-win-situation for governments, Big Pharma and Big Tech to deal with energy decline. The critical movement offers nothing else than back to BAU.
Apparently there are powerful people that believe they can go on with their personal BAU, if they squeeze-out others. Looking to the victims they are somehow right.
I doubt though, that this could work on the longer run as it lacks to tangle the structural problems of economic and technical decline. Decline will accellarate faster than they can squeeze-out. They are tricked by their elite concepts, they believe they could pump out the last oil, while the squeezed-out are only dumb and useless people. They don’t see that chance put them into their positions and that they are the same dumb. To win the lottery is no proof of superiority.
Is all, even Tainter, not already anticipated with Gossen’s law?
This vid is a bit more speculative. Rather than a war between the FRBNY and commercial banks, the fast pace and persistence of interest rate increases may be an effort to salvage dollar supremacy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_LHGPLP-Q
NATO and Russia are having a war in the middle of Europe – of course I am f emotionally distressed.
‘It is getting hard to be someone but it all works out.’
Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, wrote this as a tribute to Timothy Leary: “When You’re a Free Man.” (bandmate Ray Thomas’s “Legend of a Mind” was also dedicated to Leary)
This somber tune applies to all of humanity.
The costs for the repair of the environment are going only up.
E. g. I always think about the toxic waste disposal site on the bank of the river in the northern Slovakia that flows southwards. If this site remains unattended, the arsenic will be washed downstream constantly. And all your efforts for cleaner environment are futile.
https://e.dennikn.sk/641004/do-rieky-orava-este-aj-po-polstoroci-unika-arzen-na-skladku-chcu-vozit-novy-odpad/
The growth of the population can be stopped e.g. by the state policy like in China or by the diseases, but the destructed environment remains.
Jesus went into the desert = Jesus faced the results of the environmental destruction
Then he started his activity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temptation_of_Christ
Israel seems to have been much less of a desert in Biblical times than it is today. I question the “environmental destruction.”
The environmental destruction can be caused also by clmt chng.
The lush greenery turns into desert: the human environment is destroyed.
we created a version of god who told us the world was ours to do with as we pleased
we wrote it down as proof
the gods of various indigenous tribes seemed to hold a different view on the arrangement—but we white anglo saxons knew better
didn’t we?
My university batchmate grew up in that village in the neighbourhood of that toxic waste. She decided to remain celibate and joined a religious community.
MG. Have worried about you today. Remember, a Doomer Not a Gloomer be. You know interesting (yes and despairing) things about the world. I can tell you have a spiritual boat to paddle. Hang in there.
Our form teacher at the college also entered the same religious community with the accent on the Christian-Jewish relationships. She worked at a communist planning institute, i.e. in the area of the cybernetics during the end of the communist era in Czechoslovakia before 1989:
https://www.mojpribeh.sk/pribeh/daria-miezgova/?lang=en
The fall of the communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989 had a strong environmental accent. One of the leading figures of the Velvet Revolution was the current minister of the environment:
“Ján Budaj is a Slovak politician and environmental activist. He is mostly known by his participation in the Velvet Revolution. Currently, he is the Minister of Environment serving from 21 March 2020, currently in the cabinet of Eduard Heger.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1n_Budaj
If you have to solve the pollution, the resources for maintaining the agriculture are being spent, too.
Pollution isn’t solvable. It’s not possible to clean it up without creating even more of it. Entropy at work.
We can bury it deep in the ground, but that requires the amounts of energy we do not have.
Thus pollution control is consuming increasing amounts of energy.
And using the energy that way would create even more pollution.
I am dismayed by the death of 300,000 Ukrainians and 50,000 Russians. I am more dismayed by the prospect of the next year 300,000 more dead Ukrainians and 50,000 more dead Russians. A new normal?
Will the rain of a thousand cuts (the endless fires and explosions at food, electric infrastructure, trains, etc.), caused by a lack of energy to maintain the system, slow the US war machine? What crazy actions will Biden take to boost his voter appeal?
3 million male draft age people cross the southern border each year. Tell them yes you can be an American but you must first serve one year in the Ukrainian army.
Same for Europe make them pay for their entry to the promised land.
Europe can do the same.
It’s just more fake numbers … just like Covid deaths.
Cheer up
Like the autumn leaves that blew away.
B/c you are not here.
hey Mirror,
was there a part 3 to Putin? I don’t seem able to access the site of your original link
blocked? denial of service? too busy?
thx
Excellent choice, Mirror. I was almost about to post this. It is one of my favorite songs of all time. We too may “become refugees burdened with boxes and bundles.” The song writing of Wayne, the vocal of Hayward, and the narration of Burton in the context of the the Martian invasion are very powerful. The follow up song “Thunderchild” really complements this.
That would be me screaming hysterically at the front. /s
On the eve’ of war.
MSCPlanet
PLANET
https://www.msccruises.com/en-gl/About-MSC/MSC-Sustainability/Planet.aspx
At MSC Cruises we believe cruising can be more sustainable. From introducing cleaner fuels across our fleet to producing freshwater on board, we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible at sea. Our growing fleet is a statement of our commitment to the future of this planet.
Decarbonising our marine operations is a core element of our sustainability strategy.
To demonstrate our commitment to this we have in place an ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2050, which goes further than the current IMO (International Maritime Organizartion) ambition of 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.
Reducing Carbon Intensity
We currently estimate that we will meet the IMO (International Maritime Organization) intensity ambition of a 40% reduction by 2027 – three years earlier than the industry target date of 2030 set by the IMO and adopted as a goal by CLIA.
Since decarbonizing marine operations is one of our main priorities our ambitious goal is to reach zero emissions by 2050.
….Leading the energy transition
New technology and low carbon fuels are fundamental to our carbon reduction strategy. This is why in November 2022 we delivered MSC World Europa , one of our latest ships and one of the most environmentally-advance ships at sea. MSC World Europa is powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), reducing carbon dioxide by 25%, virtually eliminating Sulphur oxides and particulate matter, and reducing nitrogen oxides by up to 85%.
Our sustainability programme is organized around four key pillars: Planet, People, Place and Procurement.
Browse our Sustainability reports and find out what we do to promote sustainable cruising….
The Love Boat……..I believe WE CAN….join the new religion with global corporate plan
Leaving the Planet better than when we found it…sure we are…
I know that one academic paper (authored by Adam Brant of Stanford University) claims that LNG, when sent by ship to Europe, has a CO2 footprint that is bad, or worse, than coal. A lot of methane is burned off on the trip, among other things. But it makes a good sustainability story.
Julie of Love Boat fame … was a cocaine addict who serviced a number of the LA Kings – at the same time.
I know someone who was called up for a few games and he witnessed this happen at Jamie Farr’s house
Julie is a very dirty girl…
So, Julie new role was being a chicken head…
Sad, saw a YouTube video on her and you are correct..
She was only 23 at the time when she got the part, flat broke and her mother died recently. Of course, at that time blow was readily given out in Hollywood…it got her good…
I saw her on Larry King back in the day – she was recovering and said she ‘did some things she was not proud of’…
hahaha… like? She should write a tell all book
Too bad video, like for Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, was not available back then. Today if she was young, she would be rich with a Fans Only club…
Boy, have times changed, I shutter to think of the flip flop we have had in what we call decent,
But we will be judged in the end times🤧 .
Saint Peter has a lot of explaining to do when I reach the Pearle Gates…doubt he’ll have any answers and say talk to the “Man”..
I feel like I am living in a time warp back to the 1960s. Whatever personal evolution one might make makes absolutely zero difference to how the world behaves. I am over that. The human world has to explore the implications of itself and its own behaviour, and evolution takes place on a much broader basis than just oneself.
I am sad today at the way that ppl are attacking each other here over British State MSM war propaganda. I am cut to the heart. Friend against friend. But the BS does not give one sh/t about that. They will happily get untold millions killed on the battlefields, so they obviously do not care about the carnage that they do to personal relations within their own society.
It is the world that we are living in. And I have never argued that it should be otherwise. We all have to pay for this.
Yes, it is sad that people do this when goaded into it by the MSM—which is the main direct interface between the people and their rulers.
As a rule, I try to stay well away from people, rulers and the MSM. That probably goes some way to explaining why I am as out of touch and not quite right in the head as old Ben Gunn, the character in Treasure Island.
In any case, I haven’t been monitoring any MSM war propaganda very much. So I don’t have any idea if this a purely British thing or if other countries also put out state MSM war propaganda, and if so, how does it compare with the British stuff.
I also question the independence of the British State. Isn’t it controlled by some higher entity?
My local authority puts out lots of US sustainable development propaganda. Its PR materials appear to consist 50% of glossy pamphlets extolling the virtues of pursuing the SDGs. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t come up with this line of PRing all by themselves. They were given the instructions, reference materials and funding and told to get on with it.
These days, are national governments any more autonomous or sovereign than local governments? A bit more? Even less? Totally?
Word of the day: Lockstep.
Whoops! US => UN
“EV batteries are the next point of tension between China and the US
“Over the past few decades, China has established itself as a world leader in the electric vehicle industry. Its control of refined materials for battery cells and advanced battery-making technologies is so all-encompassing that Western automakers who want to transition out of gas cars won’t be able to do it without turning to Chinese-made batteries.
“As a result, battery technology is becoming increasingly politicized in both the United States and China. Ford’s recent announcement it was building a battery plant in Michigan with Chinese battery giant CATL wasn’t without controversy, and the deal could still be derailed—proving that China’s advantage in battery tech will only become more relevant in our daily lives going forward.”
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/22/1069032/ev-batteries-politicization-china-us/?truid=d588ee1e36faed18b0f602ee9f2f16c7&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=&utm_content=02-22-2023&mc_cid=581466a3c0&mc_eid=662b7fd83b
Part of why I think, like Gail T. says, “globalization” supply lines will “break down”, & these fantasies of ever-increasing complexity will evaporate.
Trying to keep a US battery plant operating is going to be difficult because pretty much everything will need to be imported at some point in the supply chain. We don’t mine very much. Our energy supplies are enough for consumers, but not for a whole lot more industry. Wind and solar don’t add much of anything to the total energy supply.
We need globalization to continue to keep up battery production. If there aren’t enough materials to go around, there is no chance we will be able to get them.
Our energy supplies are enough for consumers, but not for a whole lot more industry.
That’s right. American energy is used to keep the suburban consumer economy going.
Keeping ICE factories running have same problem and theyre more complex.
Doesn’t China have more of an energy problem than us?
Ford’s new plant will focus on making LFP batteries, which use iron rather than the cobalt and nickel used in the other main type of lithium battery.
(It looks like a lot of patents are expiring)
Not that it’ll make much of a difference.
the Chinese burned through their energy surplus to achieve massive growth
then they blow it up, because it was a total waste.
https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1628279588567543809?s=20
If you’re going to do a WTC—do it in style
China destroying an unfinished high rise!
At least they could have produced a few Godzilla movies while it was done…
Just some nitpicking.
The article states
“Note that the high price of European imported LNG was already evident in January 2013, before the Ukraine invasion began.”
I guess that should be ‘January 2022’.
USA ‘invaded’ UKR when it did the ‘Maidan’ coup and violently overthrew the elected government so that it could use its proxy forces to attack Russian civilians in the Donbas, threaten the security of Russia on its borders, and push Russia into the UKR war, so that USA/ NATO could try to eliminate Russia as a geopolitical rival. It all goes back to USA intentions in 2014 and preceding. That it is not working out that way for USA/ NATO is another matter. Europe is some seriously patsy poodle and it will pay for the choices that it has made b/c the world is not inherently ordered to the advantage of any party and it depends on how realistic the policies are. The basic conceptual framework goes back as far as Homer.
Yes! Exactly!
An Englishman saying “Europe is some seriously patsy poodle” priceless.
I am you and you are me. I am the Walrus.
coo coo cachoo
ooooooohhhh https://wolfstreet.com/2023/02/21/mortgage-rates-near-7-for-spring-selling-season-prices-of-existing-homes-fall-13-from-peak-sales-drop-to-lowest-since-2010/
Quote from article:
Maybe it will pass, and maybe it won’t.
So why haven’t flights to China returned faster?
https://viewfromthewing.com/air-travel-is-roaring-back-everywhere-so-why-not-between-the-u-s-and-china/
Corporate travel is down, and that was driving airline desire to fly there. Apple was the primary customer for United’s San Francisco – Shanghai service. It’s no surprise that flight has come back in a limited way.
Tensions have been mounting between China and the U.S., and opportunities to do business there are more limited. Indeed, opportunities for the Chinese to do business in China are more limited now than they were earlier in Xi Jinping’s time in power. Being a billionaire in China has similar excess mortality as billionaires in Russia.
China has only just passed its major virus wave after pulling the band aid off of Zero Covid. An unknown seven figure number of people died. Many people still aren’t allowed to go there.
China imposed strict limits on flights from the U.S., ostensibly as part of its Covid protocols. In response the U.S. imposed limits on flights to the U.S. by Chinese airlines. Those have been modestly relaxed.
Before the pandemic these flights weren’t always profitable. Chinese airlines flew to the U.S. to squat routes (China won’t allow more than one of its airlines to fly a given route, so Chinese carriers would start a route to block others from getting there first.) In the 15 years leading up to the pandemic the number of flights between the U.S. and China quintupled. That meant very low fares.
There is another reason. It’s more costly now for US airlines to fly to China from the Eastern half of the US, with the Russian airspace closed to them. Without access to the polar routes (which the Chinese airlines can still access), they’re simply uncompetitive on US-China routes
Interesting readers comments in the link too.
“It’s more costly now for US airlines to fly to China from the Eastern half of the US, with the Russian airspace closed to them. Without access to the polar routes (which the Chinese airlines can still access), they’re simply uncompetitive on US-China routes”
Good point!