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An astounding statistic from the U.S. "educational" system, although I can't say I'm surprised:
| "Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder."... ..."What's disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels," he added. The test measures how well adults comprehend basic instructions and tasks through reading -- such as computing costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials and reading prescription labels. Of graduate students tested in 2003, 41 percent could be classified as ''proficient" in prose -- reading and understanding information in short texts -- down 10 percentage points since 1992. Of college graduates, 31 percent were classified as proficient -- compared with 40 percent in 1992. |
Which leads to this: 51% of Americans support air strike in Iran
And this: 57% Americans favor military action in Iran
Which leads to this: Iran to fire missiles if attacked
With so many Americans horny for a full-up regional war, it's peculiar that the military is having such trouble finding recruits. You'd think that they'd be fighting off the volunteer heroes, but "Hell no - I won't go!" seems to be the motto of our latter-day patriots...stupid, cowardly hypocrites.
2006 January 30, Monday
 | The less I drink, the more I ink. Here's a new episode of Compassionate Conservatives: THE RAPTURE! Jesus is back, and boy, is He pissed... |
2006 January 29, Sunday
Funny: Americans Grow To Fit Their Environment
How do people get through life without knowing where China is? Or England? In the next few years it's going to become increasingly important to know how to say "Please do not kill me. I love the People's Republic of China!" in Mandarin and Cantonese. Start teaching that in schools, is my advice - 'cause the Red Army is going to walk all over us at this rate.
While we're at it, the young 'uns should also know how to say "I am not American. I am Canadian." in Arabic and Farsi. Maybe Turkish too.
Now for some paddy-bashing - these funny slang words date from the 1811 master-work: "DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE." There's lots of fun at the expense of my fellow Irelandians. Enjoy, old chap!
| IRISH BEAUTY. A woman with two black eyes. IRISH EVIDENCE. A false witness. IRISH LEGS. Thick legs, jocularly styled the Irish arms. It is said of the Irish women, that they have a dispensation from the pope to wear the thick end of their legs downwards. MUNSTER HEIFER. An Irish woman. A woman with thick legs is said to be like a Munster heifer; i.e. beef to the heels. SAINT MONDAY. A holiday most religiously observed by journeymen shoemakers, and other inferior mechanics. a profanation of that day, by working, is punishable by a line, particularly among the gentle craft. An Irishman observed, that this saint's anniversary happened every week. |
2006 January 28, Saturday
The Australian TV show Catalyst recently aired a superb 12 minute item on peak oil. I can't recommend it highly enough! It's beautifully concise - if you're not sick of the subject of Peak Oil, or haven't yet heard of it, go and watch. Or else...
Here's an amazing flash presentation about a project in Jordan which has the potential to turn the middle east green. Click on this link, and scroll down to the right side. You'll see an image titled "greening the desert". Click on that and a slideshow with dialog will open in a pop-up, explaining the process.
More on the history and theory of permaculture at wikipedia.
Want to help the planet - don't buy a hybrid - change your diet. I can't say it's been easy for me, but I've given up meat, pork, chicken and milk. Soon even fish will disappear from my diet. Can't ... type ... much ... more... so ... very ... dizzy ...
If any site has the power to keep me awake at night, it's Life after the oil crash. The following four links are from there:
2006 January 27, Friday
Another amazing Steve Bell cartoon, this one about Hamas!
Uh-oh. Why the West will attack Iran
More on the Iranian oil bourse and its effect on the petrodollar...
What a sad and tawdry empire Bush is leading when they have to jail peacenik mothers...
Maybe I can talk my bosses into paying me in one ounce gold coins...IMF economist speculates about a rush to dump the dollar
Someone's been naughty: Repsol slashes proven oil reserves by 25%
More fascism on the march! Secret Police!!! The only question for me now (and many like me) is: which country can I flee to and still be safe from these maniacs?
A discussion on Jan Lundberg's site about the possibility of moving suburban houses closer together in a post-peak environment (to reduce the worst aspects of sprawl) produces this shocking fact:
| One reader wrote in, "Hello, You can't move the houses. Most houses have had their foundations treated with Chlordane to kill termites. It was designed to be lethal for 50 years and needs to be contained under the house in the foundation. Chlordane has been banned, but almost all houses with a concrete first floor have it. I would be very careful even touching the dirt under a house so treated." |
2006 January 26, Thursday
I'm finishing off a new cartoon - it should be up in the next couple of days. Stay tuned.
My Solar Oven arrived yesterday - and it's very cool indeed! I'm hoping to try it out sometime around late February, when the sun gets a bit higher. I'll post photos and an account when I do.
Forget Peak Oil - North America faces an immediate Natural Gas Crisis.
This is amazing - the amount of electricity used by videos and tvs while in standby mode...
2006 January 25, Wednesday
I found some nice real estate - it might be a nice nest egg...
One of the peak oil heavyweights, Jan Lundberg, will be speaking in LA this weekend. I'll be at the following event in Pasadena:
Throop Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church
300 S Los Robles Pasadena, CA, 91004
0.5 miles East of the Goldline Metro Del Mar Station
$5-10 suggested donation
7:00 to 10:00 PM
If you're in the area you should try to make it.
Looking on the bright side, sort of... Say You Survive Die-Off: Then What?
2006 January 24, Tuesday
Ward Sutton: Political Debates of Tomorrow
Here's a treat (if you're into Peak Oil) - a one hour video interview with Clusterfuck Nation's James Howard Kunstler. You'll probably need a fast connection - if not, press "pause" and let the whole thing download before playing.
2006 January 23, Monday
Here's a COLOSSAL story that you won't see hyped in the corporate media.
Another Monday morning Kunstler screed! His writing wakes me up more effectively than coffee ever will.
2006 January 22, Sunday
 | My cartoons are a bit like buses: you wait ages and ages, and then two of them arrive at the same time. Here's a new episode of The Worst Wing! |
2006 January 20, Friday
Funny cartoons here, here and here.
Ugh - the pondscum want to sift through google's records for all our surfing histories (it's in order to protect the children - RIIIIGHHT). Hope you didn't do a search for ''sexy sheep in lingerie'', or Agent Smith and the boys will be knocking on your door. Here's a primer from wired.com on how to protect your anonymity while googling.
Don't be put off by the economics and history of today's link - do yourself a big favor and read this account of the abandonment of the gold standard, the US dollar, and the Iranian oil bourse due to open in March of this year. (A bourse is a marketplace where oil is bought and sold - basically a stock exchange). This isn't good:
| ...should the Iranian Oil Bourse accelerate, the interests that matter...will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar. Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the operation’s exchange: · Sabotaging the Exchange—this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities. · Coup d’état—this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans. · Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations—this is another excellent solution to the Americans. Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d’etat fails, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option. · Joint U.N. War Resolution—this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other member-states of the Security Council. Feverish rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action. · Unilateral Nuclear Strike—this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The Americans will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job. · Unilateral Total War—this is obviously the worst strategic choice. First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars. Secondly, the Americans will further alienate other powerful nations. Third, major dollar-holding countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions. Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop and a separate pact with Syria. |
I first took Peak Oil and the coming energy crunch seriously not after hanging out with sandal-wearing hippies and peaceniks, but after attending a lecture at Caltech (a first-class California university that owns JPL). The lecture was given by David Goodstein, Vice Provost and Professor of Physics and Applied Physics. Professor Goodstein predicted "the end of human civilisation as we know it sometime in the twenty-first century".
That put a real downer on the evening, I can tell you. The rest of the country was too busy watching the infantile and insulting "debate" between Kerry and Bush to notice. If ever there was a red-pill/blue-pill moment in my life, that was it.
A year later (and after a LOT of reading on my part), they followed up with a lecture at Caltech by Kenneth Deffeyes, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. I was lucky enough to be able to attend that one too. Same basic message: we're almost certainly screwed, the only question is how soon and how hard.
One comment that I frequently get (as I post more doom-and-gloom links) is that I should post more positive information - on what to do if I think events are about to be as bad as they appear. It's a very valid request. I haven't done nearly as much as I should, although I've done a hell of a lot more than most, sad to say. There's no one magic bullet. The important thing is to remember the golden rule: Anything is better than nothing. Don't allow yourself to freeze in terror. Anything that you can do to reduce your reliance on The Grid is a good thing - especially to grow your own food, if possible. Buy local. Avoid chains. If you have money, buy some gold and silver (it's not PC, but it'll work for you in the event of an economic meltdown). Have as much of a stockpile of water, food and medicine as is practical. Mormons are exhorted to keep a year's supply at all times. Our infantile society is bound to melt sooner or later. So many of the things that you can do to make life tolerable (or even enjoyable) are plain common-sense. It's a sign of how crazy our financial system is that buying gold marks you as an eccentric!
I don't do anything that isn't inherently healthy and good for me. I've never been in better shape, and I've never been happier. The more unnecessary consumer crap I've taken out of my life, the greater my quality of life has become.
Today I ordered my first solar oven (it's really just a piece of cardboard and tinfoil). Once I play with the pre-made one, I'm going to assemble a few of my own. They can heat food to anything from 200 to 300 fahrenheit - that's more than enough to pasteurise water, making it drinkable (as long as chemicals aren't present). You're worried about climate change? Put your money and your time where your mouth is - cook the first hot meal in your life that doesn't put CO2 into the atmosphere! Plus, imagine how popular you'll be when you're the only person in town who can heat a tin of beans...
For those of a more survivalist/outdoors bent, this site has an enormous amount of information. Scroll down to read the pages on water, fire, food, and much much more. You might want to print it out, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink.
Will the worst happen? I don't freakin' know - maybe they'll keep pulling rabbits out of hats and keep the whole creaking vehicle on the road for another year. The Iranians might get nice and apologise for the whole "Death to America" thing. I'm not betting my life or the lives of my loved ones on it. That would be just plain dumb.
Oh yeah, if you live in an apartment - 1. Sorry. 2. Hydroponics.
2006 January 19, Thursday
 |
FINALLY - a new episode of The Worst Wing! |
2005 January 18, Wednesday
Yeehaw, here are 4 reasons to be glad that Bush is President.
If you can make a solar oven work in the Canadian winter, with freezing temperatures, then they're a must-have!
Hey, does anyone out there have a couple of spare planets?
Watch for what happens at the end of March - either we'll be at war with Iran, or not. Either outcome would be remarkable and potentially disastrous. War will cause the usual fun, while no-war will result in the Iranians selling oil in Euros (which will further imperil the US dollar:
| The opening of the Iranian Oil Exchange has, in my view, prompted a massive propaganda campaign by the USGovt to muddy the waters. The US Military might not be capable to attack Iran directly, since Russia has promised military retaliation if foreign aggressors attack Iran. The more we see the United Nations dragged into the fray, the more you can be certain the USGovt feels powerless to face off Iran. |
2005 January 17, Tuesday
If you haven't seen Georga Galloway (left-wing, anti-war British politician) pretending to be a cat, now's your chance. On the top right of the page you can download video of the event. Very disturbing; my flesh crawled while watching it.
Reboot your computer, be anonymous!
Must - buy - solar - oven! These things are too cool!
Here's a great piece showing you how to make one from cardboard and tinfoil...
Another experiment on my to-do list is an evaporation cooler - scroll down to the bottom of the page and check it out. It's the design with two buckets - I'm interested to see how cool it can go.
Hooray for George W. Bush! America's days as a superpower are over
2005 January 10, Tuesday
Meet Joe Smith
The military is scraping the bottom of the barrel... They'll be using Forrest Gump soon.
Protect us from 4 year old terrorists!!! Read the article - the ''security'' goons threatened the mother of the toddler terrorist when she complained! Next time, chat up the TSA...
This is an amazing account (by a Libertarian Christian writer) about the origin of money - and how banks essentially create it out of thin air through credit based loans...
2005 January 9, Moon's day
Something very interesting is going to happen in March - Iran will start trading oil in euros, rather than dollars. This is a Very Big Deal (VBD). The last person to try that was Saddam, and guess what happened to him. It's likely that we'll see some kind of unpleasantness around that time, methinks...
Oh yeah, Bush has fallen off the wagon. I guess drinking booze is A-OK if it's Mongolian, eh Dubya? (Good job the ''Liberal Media'' kept a lid on that story...
2005 January 3, Oden's day
Make the most of every day, WW3 can't be far away! Here are some interesting linkoids to start the year afresh:
Ward Sutton's Faith-based New Year toasts. Mmm. Sacriligeous.
I hadn't heard of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books, but they sound fantastic. It's a series aimed at the post-Potter age group, by an aethiest writer inspired by John Milton's "Paradise Lost".
BBC radio 4 has some great shows. This one is about World War 1 tunnel systems. Essentially, underground towns, akin to something out of Lord of the Rings. A great show. Click here to hear the programme.
In this programme, Sir David Attenborough talks about the aquatic ape theory. I didn't realise the theory was still around, and apparently it's kicking primate ass, figuratively. Here's episode 1, and episode 2. Champion!
Stop working - be idle!!! The protestant work ethic is a confidence trick, IMHO.
Happy new year from James Howard Kunstler. Oh wait - I mean horrible new year, of course!
Here was (BY FAR) the biggest story of the year, though you wouldn't know it if you watch TV news.
Thatcher's bastard children - anti-social bastards. An amusing description of Libertarian drivers who bitch about government interference in their lives, but drive on roads built with other people's tax money!
Idiot alert: 22% of Americans believe that Saddam was involved in 911, proving that one fifth of the adult population is functionally retarded, and should not be allowed to vote, drive or procreate.
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