email archives		2007, September 30, Sunday. School rentacops break the wrist of a 16 year old girl. Her crime: dropping cake on the floor. Her mother called for the pig to be arrested. They arrested the mother. They arrested a kid who filmed it on his celphone. They arrested his sister, just for being there. They called the black girl a "nappy head". Soon, they'll arrest us just for reading about it. If you fly on budget airlines, maybe avoid this one. The link has video clips of the plane's right landing gear collapsing on landing. It's a Canadian made Bombardier Q400. Room for one more? Arctic Melting accelerating... "So much ice has disappeared that the Arctic today looks much like what scientists thought it would in 2050. It’s as if the atmosphere hit the fast-forward button." Rubbish. You can't believe what you read in the liberal media. Go buy an SUV. Mammoth hair produced DNA bounty. Our scientists must redouble their efforts to clone the wooly mammoth before our hi-tech civilisation collapses. That way, our caveman descendents will be able to hunt them to extinction. Again. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 29, Saturday. U.S. federal regulators shut down NetBank. This was an online bank without a "bricks and mortar" street presence. Nevertheless - drip, drip, drip. Protecting Jupiter from Terrorists! The Homeland-Security-Loonies ran through NASA a few weeks ago, confiscating posters of the Saturn V moon rocket (I kid you not). Now they're banning access to the Galileo Space probe. I feel safer already. Save us from Environmentalists like these: A pair of mediocre "Techno-fixers", passing themselves off as geniuses. More consumption will save us! Want to proove yourself a genius? Explain how (barring off-world colonies), an economic system predicated on eternal growth can continue on a finite planet. And answer, there came none. Ocean fertilisation with iron. How did nature survive 4 billion years without humans to "help" the old lady along? Here's how we save the oceans: STOP POLLUTING THEM. STOP OVERFISHING THEM. It's not that difficult. Praise be to this Marxist apparition. PROOF, at last, the MARXISM is the ONE TRUE FAITH, and those lumpen proles who fail to follow the PATH will suffer never-ending torment under the CAPITALIST YOKE. Smackdown: U.S. Navy vs. Myspace kids. Young folk today "grew up hearing nothing but praise, all the time, everywhere. Recent childhood has been defined by ego-stroking... [They] can get disgruntled if not praised for simply 'showing up' at work," according to the report, which calls the millenials "a 'coddled' generation." I hope this doesn't damage the U.S. Navy's self esteem... CNN shares a pet peeve: Obnoxious garage doors. I'd refuse to live in a house where the first sight is an ugly garage door (or three). What this says to a visitor is: "You better have 4 wheels and an internal combustion engine. Servant's entrance is around the back." Humans = mental. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 28, Friday. Humor, extra black, no sugar: Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma. Isn't it nice to hear the Bushies support mass public demonstrations - when they're TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY! China is warned of Three Gorges Dam Catastrophe. They were warned about this years ago. They didn't listen. With any luck, the f*cking things will collapse (when everyone's at the Olympics). The impressive Colombian ecovillage Gaviotas. A bit too much emphasis on pumping aquifers for my tastes, but very interesting nonetheless. Beats Cocaine and Farc and all that shite. Creepy tour of a British nuclear bunker. It beats DisneyWorld - it's a lot less scary. Fewer queues too - though that might change if Bush trips and pushes the Red Button by "mistake". Then, the bunker owner will have a captive audience, so to speak. INSERT DR. STRANGELOVE REFERENCE HERE. Artificial lights making people stupid. Sweet suffering... power cut. People panic. What is that wierd cloudy thing across the sky? Terrorists? It's the Milky Way galaxy, you de-natured dolts. "Awesome. I thought that was just a candy bar." How does a Muslim pray in space? If you're in Earth orbit, just face towards Earth. Like, du-uh. Moon, again, face towards Earth, you'll do fine. Mars - now there's a buggerfest. You're going to Hell, to lick Satan's sulfurous sphincter forever. Blowing a hole in a comet: Part 2! Deep impact fired a missile into the comet to see what would happen. Too much dust was kicked up, and little was seen. Another probe is being sent to make a return visit to re-image the smashed comet. I expect to see lots of scaffolding, and several dozen leprechauns, giving the finger. Most terrorists have badges, nightsticks, and tasers. How many of you have been killed by a terrorist? How many of you have been harassed pointlessly by a cop? I rest my case. In pictures: Nazis unwind at Auschwitz. Ah, partying like it's 1939. And yet, it was 1945...the Red Army was only a few miles away when the photos were taken. The Nazis had denial, just like us! Classic Nazi board games. Here's a plan: they should re-issue the games in the US...just swap "America" for "Germany", and "Iran" for "England". No need to change the maps. Most "consumers" are too f*cking dumb to know the difference! "Yay! I got "Iran War Death Game" from Santa!" Survivalacres: I've lost track of the time. Let me help. It's Germany, 1936. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try to cross the Swiss border, with as much gold hidden on your person as possible. This website will self destruct in five months. Oy vey: Immigration detention centers. Yes Virginia, they do shoot brown people. I know, they'll only lock up "bad" immigrants. And if they happen to have kids, welllll......... READ AND OBEY: Top 10 reasons not to eat pigs. I'm sorry for all the pork I ate in my previous life as a fat, selfish prick. I can't bring my BLT sandwiches back to life, or save them from being dropped, still-living into scalding water...but if I can persuade 10 of you guys to stop eating pork, I'll achieve some porcine atonement. OBEY. (I've been reading about Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 27, Thursday. A great Disney cartoon from WW2, in which Mickey Mouse battles gonorrhea. A grim prediction of What WW3 might look like. (Thanks Skeeve). discuss here. Brzezinski: US in danger of stampeding to war with Iran. Bush's speeches have the foreign names spelt out Foe-Net-Ick-Lee: Heaven forefend that he mangles the names of Sarkozy, say, or Mugabe. We know this thanks to a snafu by the White House staff who mistakenly allowed a few journalists to glimpse a draft of the President's address complete with phonetic spellings in brackets to assist him with names of people and places. In the correct version for the press, they had been erased. Safe from Mr Bush's famously dyslexic tongue, therefore, were the Presidents of France [sar-KO-zee] and Zimbabwe (moo-GAH-bee]. The speech-writers, whose names and even telephone numbers were also posted at the end of the wrongly circulated version, also helped him with the capitals of Zimbabwe [hah-RAR-ray] and of Venezuela [kah-RAH-kus]. Yet, Mr Bush was sometimes left to his own instincts. While prompts were provided for Kyrgyzstan [KEY-geez-stan] and Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], he was offered no such help with Sierra Leone or with Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader in Burma. He made two runs at the latter and mangled the former, seemingly renaming it Syria Leone. (A member of his axis of evil, surely.) Deer Pres ee dent Bush, I think yoo are an iddy ot and a cruk, hoo shud be put in jail fur ever. Spend $150 billion to make a Space Station, then abandon it after five years. Here's a beautiful quote that sums it up nicely: "NASA must complete the ISS so it can be dropped into the ocean on schedule in finished form." Robert L. Park Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 26, Wednesday. Thanks Bert in Austria for the $50 donation! And thanks Travis for this hysterical screenshot from CNN.com: Fear No Man! Learn the Welsh martial art of Lapp Goch! Via lifeaftertheoilcrash.net: The Top 10 inventions of the Middle Ages. I've been doing some research for my peak oil cartoon. The movie goes beyond PO, to deal with exponential growth and concomitant mayhem. My reading involved looking up grain and fish statistics. Oh, happy times. Anyway, I read a paragraph that got me thinking the unthinkable: Hunger in America? (by which I mean starvation). I've been trying to find facts on the Peak year for world fishing stocks, excluding aquaculture. The most recent year for world figures is 2003. I have no idea why they don't have figures more recent than this. The stories of fishing collapse around the world are numerous. I'd really like to have that data. Oh well. Maybe we'll never see it. Best I could make out is that the peak year to date is ~2000. Previous peak fish estimates of the 1980s didn't include China or Peru, for some reason. Anyhow, here's what I dug up, in no particular order: Where are the fish? World's fish supply running out. All seafood will run out in 2050. Get ready for Peak Grain. Grain production. Sorry to depress the bejesus out of you. That's what I've been reading. I could murder some crab cakes right now. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 25, Tuesday. I love Big Brother, and his excruciating pain ray. Can you survive a Zombie Apocalypse?. I only got 56%, and there I was thinking I was a badass. Blimey: Tornadoes cause chaos in England. A tantalising teaser from a paid-article: Parallel universes make quantum sense A must see documentary (for me): In The Shadow of the Moon. I expect better from McClatchy: Weak dollar could help US exports. What exports? Reality TV? Fried chicken? Crazy blonde junkie starlets? NEWSFLASH: America exported it's manufacturing base already. Sheesh. An overwhelming majority blame humans for climate change. Now, just how far are they prepared to go to solve it? Stop flying? Heheheh. Rising seas threaten U.S. history. It might be more accurate to say they threaten the U.S. future. Looney Tunes: Peak Oil conspiracies. Possible caves on Mars. The Peruvian meteorite story continues. Very interesting Nasa document (pdf) showing possible configurations for future lunar rovers and bases. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 24, Monday. Bush thinks that Mandela is dead. Ooh, it's looking more and more like an early election in the UK. Good. Any excuse to see the tories kicked in the bollocks, good and hard. If Gordon Brown loses (anything's possible), he will be the second shortest-lived PM - only 120 days. What can you say about this? Northern Rock still lending ‘recklessly’ Despite provoking the worst banking crisis for decades, the bank last week offered a reporter posing as a first-time buyer a £180,000 mortgage even though he had a salary of only £30,000. The loan was at least £30,000 more than other leading lenders were prepared to offer. Repayments for the loan would have accounted for more than 60% of the fictional buyer’s take-home salary. It's OK now, because the British Government will bail them out if they run out of money, AGAIN. (Don't worry though, I doubt we'll see anyone go to jail. That's for the working classes, not bank managers). From the U.S.: What the big banks aren't telling you -- yet. With credit markets still largely frozen, unemployment rising and major corporate expenditures slowing to a halt, every indication suggests that a surprising number of major financial firms, including Wachovia, Washington Mutual and Bank of America, will come up short of expectations in October, kicking off an unpleasant autumn for investors. This bodes ill for 2008...the huge number or ARM resets that occur in March (only six months away): I think we can call March '08 the "McMansion Peak". The world should know the meaning of the word "sub prime" soon enough. Here's the same info presented as a cartoon... Cryptogon: Fears for global economy propel gold price. Saudi Riyal reaches a 21 year high. FSN has a great interview with Richard Heinberg (about 1 hour). Heinberg's new book "Peak Everything" should be fun reading. I need to head to WalMart and buy a PVC Jesus. Better a toy Jesus than thongs for children. Behold, a civilisation on the cusp of collapse. I can't wait. What startles her now -- now that she's married, with a baby of her own -- is how young the eroticization starts. She shudders at a line of bibs and onesies on display at cafepress.com that proclaim: I'm too Sexy for my diaper! Meanwhile, a quick Google-surf yields, at speakupdesigns.com, child-size tees that read PROPERTY OF PIMP UNIVERSITY. "PIMP" is twice the size of the other words, in case passersby almost miss the point. Hello Kitty preteen thongs and Hasbro Pussycat Dolls dolls shock Shalit, as do crimson-lipsticked Bratz Babyz and department-store padded pushup training bras. Is it time to cut back on babies? Global Swarming. Answer: YES. One of the tedious arguments about population growth is that we should focus on reducing population in the first world, over that of the third. First world growth is undeniably the prime mover behind planetary destruction, but that doesn't get the poor nations off the hook. Overpopulation is overpopulation, and if you don't agree, then I'd humbly request you venture to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where you can attempt to save the mountain gorilla from being machine gunned by third world humans living low on the food chain. More on the collapse of arctic sea ice. American nutjob conservatives would have us believe that the hottest year on record was 1934 (as though 100 years of the industrial revolution couldn't have had an effect by then). If 1934 WAS the hottest year, funny how the Northwest passage wasn't open at the time. I imagine the passage could have been useful during the buildup to WW2. Guess nobody noticed. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 23, Sunday. Sunday meat:       Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 22, Saturday. More mystery meat:       Electric Politics interviews Paul Craig Roberts. More scary from cryptogon: Economy Facing ‘Colossal Problem’ The top military recruitment lies. U.S. military cemetary running out of space. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 21, Friday. Damn, but reading the economic news nearly gave me a panic attack today. I came close to running out for a bottle of brandy, I kid you not. Imagine my glee when I found a delightful site which has volumes of pages of futurology, dating from the 1930s through to the 50s.       Ran Prieur offers a nice comparison between 1975 and 2007 (for younger folk who might not be able to remember things like privacy). Oil hits $84. Gold futures top $745, as dollar hits new low. If anyone thinks that gold's rise is due to the dollar's decline, this dollar/euro chart should disabuse you. Climage change much worse then predicted. Small gestures will not save the planet. People can make informed decisions in the knowledge that, say, a return flight to Australia will have the same climate-change impact as 730,000 plastic bags or 176,000 overfilled kettles. Oh come on, people are too delusional to know what's in their own interest, nevermind the Earth's. They want the cheap fucking holidays on the other side of the planet, and they don't care how many species get fried in the process. People don't even have the GUTS to stand up for themselves any more. Exhibit A: Pub customers happily line up for drug testing. Exhibit B: Motorists pressured to give blood and saliva samples by PRIVATE company. Exhibit C: U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read Exhibit D: Big Brother is watching us all. Exhibit E: Approval rate of congress: 11%. As high as 11%? Then why do "the people" not vote for a third party? They waddle into the booths every two years and vote for Scumbag Party A or Scumbag Party B, then drive home and go back to diet of fried shite. Yay for FREEDOM! The Police State is right here, right now. People get the government they deserve. A generation of spoiled, narcissistic materialists deserve no better than to get tasered, and harassed at airports by simian brownshirts. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but naught will be done to stop it. I salute our feudal overlords. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 20, Thursday. Don't tell Joe Q. Public about Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright Consider this: In 2000, when Bush took office, gold was $273 per ounce, oil was $22 per barrel and the euro was worth $.87 per dollar. Currently, gold is over $700 per ounce, oil is over $80 per barrel, and the euro is nearly $1.40 per dollar. If Bernanke cuts rates, we’re likely to see oil at $125 per barrel by next spring. There's a chat about this in the forum. Brain surgery changes boy's accent. Maybe they could give brain surgery to our political and financial overlords in Washington and New York to make them not-crazy? Batten down the hatches: A Force-5 Financial Hurricane is on the Way. Consider this: In 2000, when Bush took office, gold was $273 per ounce, oil was $22 per barrel and the euro was worth $.87 per dollar. Currently, gold is over $700 per ounce, oil is over $80 per barrel, and the euro is nearly $1.40 per dollar. If Bernanke cuts rates, we’re likely to see oil at $125 per barrel by next spring. Cheer up: Preparing for Peak Oil on a Budget: Preparing for peak oil can be relatively easy, since the preparation is 75% mental, 15% physical, and 10% fiscal. Don’t be flabbergasted at what to do. Quit asking should I buy solar? Should I buy an axe? Should I buy a gun? The answers are no, no, and no. If in fact, billions of people will die, look at all the stuff that will be left behind. So, don’t buy it, pick it up off the ground when others leave it behind. More good stuff: 100 things you can do for peak oil. As long as I can get some chocolate lego, all will be well. And as long as brave police are assaulting and arresting great grandmothers for unkempt lawns, the Homeland will sleep soundly. I'm so glad I'm being paid in Canadian dollars... Canada's currency, nicknamed the loonie after the image of the national bird on the one-dollar coin, has risen about 4 percent against its U.S. counterpart since June 12 amid growing speculation that losses related to U.S. subprime mortgages would prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. Of the 16 most traded currencies, none has done better than the loonie's 13.5 percent gain against the dollar this year. It reached a 30-year high of 97.66 U.S. cents today. The currency has rebounded from a low of 61.80 cents in January 2002. Paul Craig Roberts: America’s Hegemonic Status Slipping Away A country that offshores its own production is unable to balance its trade. Americans are able to consume more than they produce only because the dollar is the world reserve currency. However, the dollar’s reserve currency status is eroded by the debts associated with continual trade and budget deficits. The US is on a path to economic Armageddon. Shorn of industry, dependent on offshored manufactured goods and services, and deprived of the dollar as reserve currency, the US will become a third world country. Gomery notes that it would be very difficult—perhaps impossible—for the US to re-acquire the manufacturing capability that it gave away to other countries. It is a mystery how a people, whose economic policy is turning them into a third world country with its university graduates working as waitresses, bartenders, and driving cabs, can regard themselves as a hegemonic power even as they build up war debts that are further undermining their ability to pay their import bills. Spooky video of an earth-sized solar feature that looks like a trilobyte. Review of DiCaprio's eco-documentary, The 11th Hour. Sounds good. Conservative, religious TV host thinks the earth is flat. For real. Video. Why Liberals are smarter than Conservatives. If the future is going to be in any way bearable, a lot more people are going to have to follow the example of pathtofreedom. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 19, Wednesday. One of the regular posters to the forum, "Swampman", knows a thing or three about finance. (Trust me, I know his RL identity - he's a bit of a guru). Swampy has posted as petrifying a link as could be hoped for: Cold Turkey for financial Addiction You can read "highlights" by yours truly (or post your own): here. I'm not out to start a run on a bank. Suffice to say that the big boys are scared and sweaty. Stay calm, be responsible, but look our for yourselves. Trust No One. This is written by a former Reagan appointee: America Is No More The question we should all ask is why did a United States Senator just stand there while Gestapo goons violated the constitutional rights of a student participating in a public event, brutalized him in full view of everyone, and then took him off to jail on phony charges? Kerry’s meekness not only in the face of electoral fraud, not only in the face of Bush’s wars that are crimes under the Nuremberg standard, but also in the face of police goons trampling the constitutional rights of American citizens makes it completely clear that he was not fit to be president, and he is not fit to be a US senator. Usually when police violate constitutional rights and commit acts of police brutality they do it when they believe no one is watching, not in front of a large audience. Clearly, the police have become more audacious in their abuse of rights and citizens. What explains the new fearlessness of police to violate rights and brutalize citizens without cause? The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected. President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights. Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress. Just as Kerry allowed Meyer’s rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence. How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered? Much of the commentary on the taser incident focuses on the fact that the young man was disruptive, or irritating, or a "jerk". We've set the bar pretty damned low, if that's sufficient for punitive electric shocks. Cynthia McKinney comments on the incident. Hitlery Clinton has a plan for American healthcare: COMPULSORY INSURANCE - as in, you're forced to pay for private insurance. What a left-wing radical! Cartoon version of The Road to Serfdom (ideology alert!). Nice account of a trip to Iran: 1001 Iranian Delights...a counterpoint to the "Third Reich" comparisons one often hears emanating from the Fourth Reich. More amazing ApocaLego. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 18, Tuesday. Finally, something funny: Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? (via Singlenesia) Freakish and amazing photos of Saturn's moon Iapetus. Mind-boggling: Mammoth dung, prehistoric goo may speed warming. Wouldn't it be hysterically funny if wooly mammoths, hunted to extinction by us, drive us to extinction 10,000 years later? Oh, how I'd chortle. Australia says some water cuts permanent: Banned forever will be the practice of hosing pathways and the daytime use of sprinklers to water lawns and gardens. Ha. I used to see people doing this in L.A. all the time. The cluelessness of Homo-Idioticus knows no limits. Ya gots to water concrete, else it might die or sumthin. Banking crisis fear spreads: The worst hit of the other banks was Alliance & Leicester, which tried to stem fears that it would be the next bank to seek emergency funding. Bradford & Bingley was another to feel the pain. The slump in Alliance & Leicester's shares raised fears of its customers making mass withdrawals of their savings in a second run on a British bank, and the Leicester-based mortgage lender had to act quickly. Cryptogon has a grim take on this, which is worth reading. Gnrgh: Experts ponder: Wider chairs, plumper derrières?. Strahan Interviews Former US Energy Secretary: We are all peakists now. Ah, Kunstler. Delivering more of the milk of human kindness: No, the American public, including the cheerleaders in the media, have only themselves to blame for the bitter harvest now underway in the asset and credit markets. And thus it would be salutary thing for Baby Jeezus, or the forces of nature, or whatever powers guide the universe, to now kick the shit out of them, so to speak, financially, because that is exactly what the American public is full of, from top to bottom, from George W. Bush at his lonely desk on Pennsylvania Avenue to the pitiful, bankrupt householders of Orange County and Boca Raton. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 17, Monday. Wow - John McCain is every bit as loopy as Bush: Arizona Senator John McCain has taken criticism of anti-war group MoveOn.org to a whole new level: He is suggesting that the organization “ought to be thrown out of this country.” Slight problem, John: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. What part of The First Amendment do you not understand? - Maybe he should change his image - grow a little moustache, get a nice brown jacket, a flashy armband (in red, white and black), boots, and a snappy marching band. I've still got some funds in Washington Mutual (an American bank). I use them to pay bills - this site's hosting, and storage fees. Wamu were mentioned as one of the banks in trouble due to the liquidity crisis. How odd that I've been unable to log in to their online banking page for about six hours. Yeah, it's Sunday, but it doesn't exactly instill one with confidence. Here's hoping your financial staff are working diligently to maintain liquidity... Update: service restored between 12.15am and 9.35am, Monday. Another interesting week: World’s Banks Hit for $30 Billion in Credit Crunch Some superb cartoons to cheer us up:       If you wanted evidence that America is coming apart at the seams, this gallery of photographs of wounded U.S. soldiers is proof enough. Not the images (some of which are difficult to look at) but the comments that follow. Pro-war and anti-war visitors (all of whose live lives depend on colossal amounts of petroleum) bitch at one another with all the grace and intellect of a pack of hyenas. Truly sickening. Rot them. The Cato Institute agrees - that the vitriol is out of control. Funnily enough, a member of the Cato Institute once referred to me as an "angry nut" and hurled veiled accusations of anti-semitism in my direction. My guess is that they know vitriol when they see it! (I started a thread about this on the forum a few months back). A TV treat from Merrie Olde England: Supermarket Secrets part 1 (one hour). Supermarket Secrets part 2 (one hour). The information in these shows is just as applicable to the U.S. and Canada, from what I've seen. The Food-Industrial-Complex in all its horror. More from Mr. CB:       An old post from cryptogon (backed up on archive.org): Resistance on the Brink of Oblivion. World Oil supplies to run out faster than expected. Old hat for most, but another mainstream PO story. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 16, Sunday. Greenspan: Iraq war was for oil. Finally, the truth. That wasn't difficult Alan, was it? Wearying: Bush setting America up for war with Iran. Alan, you WILL tell us whether the planned attack on Iran is also about oil? Preferably BEFORE they attack... Holy crap: Angry savers force Northern Rock to be sold Northern Rock, the crisis-hit bank under siege from thousands of its customers, was preparing itself last night for a sell-off, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. Northern Rock is besieged by worried savers The battle to save Northern Rock Small businesses under threat One plan being worked on by City bankers was to divide the company's £100 billion mortgage portfolio between the other major banks, in what would amount to a private-sector rescue of the lender. In scenes not experienced for decades, police were needed to keep the peace at branches across the country as increasingly angry and desperate investors rushed to withdraw their funds. However, despite many queuing from before dawn, scores were sent away empty-handed when cashiers ran out of time to serve them. If something similar begins in the U.S., there'll be pandemonium... The Banking Crisis just keeps rumbling: Some estimates suggest there could be up to $1 trillion of losses on sub-prime mortgages; and the complexity of the legal packages they've been poured into means it may take months to work out where the buck stops. Many are traded off-screen which makes monitoring their true value difficult, in some cases impossible. Given the continuing problems in the US it is unlikely Northern Rock will be the only British bank to be forced to go cap in hand to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street... ...queues of anxious customers were forming around the block outside branches of Northern Rock to withdraw their savings. It was an unprecedented sight that conjured up images of the run on the bank in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life But there was no Jimmy Stewart to reassure worried savers. 'They tell you not to panic, so of course you're going to panic,' said one customer outside the Golders Green branch, in North London last Friday. 'My life savings are with this bank and I do not want to lose it.' Thousands more customers were withdrawing their funds online, in what was certainly Britain's first virtual bank-run. By the end of Friday, insiders reckoned up to £1bn of Northern Rock's £24bn in deposits had been sucked out... ...If Northern Rock went bust, the Bank believed confidence in the entire financial system would be shattered. It was, as the saying goes, 'too big to fail.' What if Northern Rock goes bust? Pluto flips out at Disneyland. I've been waiting for this: Burning water and other myths (commentary on the recent "energy from saltwater" story): ...the most fundamental, the most critical question about the whole business leaps out at you so immediately that its absence from these reports, whether they be on Pennsylvania's JET-TV or on PhysOrg.com, is staggering. Can you get more energy out than you put in? I can answer that right now: no. You start with water, you break it apart into its constituent elements (hydrogen and oxygen), and then you recombine them by burning. Yes you can do that. Hydrogen, indeed, is the promised fuel of the new clean energy economy. But making hydrogen from water takes more energy than you can ever recover from burning it. Extracting net energy from this total cycle is impossible, if you believe in the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Otherwise, you have the basis of a perpetual-motion machine. A scheme to sequester CO2 on the seafloor. Hm. Too late, methinks: Greenland sees bright side of warming. "I could buy broccoli in the shops for the first time this year," says Buuti Pedersen, a 52-year-old artist who was born and lives in the southern town of Qaqortoq. "And the potatoes are big, fresh and tasty - much better than the ones that come from Denmark." Potatoes have been grown in southern Greenland for several years, but because of global warming they can be planted earlier, which means better yields. Local farmers are now selling a surplus to the rest of the country. "There's been an explosion of potatoes," says Lene Holm, a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which is overseeing a project studying how climate change is affecting local communities. "There are also many more flowers, like the Alaska Lupin. You can see more green further up the mountains as the glaciers retreat. People are ringing up the national radio station about birds they had never seen here before." I need to animate a little cartoon of me smashing my head off the table: Greenland has signed a memorandum of understanding with the US company Alcoa to build a huge aluminium smelter using the country's plentiful water reserves. "All of this can help us to reduce our economic dependence on Denmark," says Ms Hammond, "and could eventually lead to political independence." It never ends, does it? Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 15, Saturday. Which, I wonder, is the more offensive? Praise God for the gift of laughter. More bank panic: British bank rocked by panic withdrawals. I wish I had heroic jack-booted stormtroopers to protect me when I'm driving down the street in my bullet-proof, bomb-proof limo. Life's just not fair, y'know? Maybe he was getting ready to shoot some bullets into these protestors? Alan Greenspan loves Ayn Rand...shudder... It'll be like "Death In Venice": Cholera spreads in North Iraq. Civilain deat toll in Iraq: ~1,000,000,000. Cryptogon finds the scariest stories: Minot Air Force Base Airman Died While on Leave. Another: Bush gives horned hand salute during moment of silence. Sociopath. More on the Northwest Passage, courtesy of global warming. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 14, Friday. Vote for Mike Gravel: "I'm prepared to tell you that Americans are getting fatter and dumber," the former Alaska senator told comedian Bill Maher, one of the debate's moderators. "I have no problem saying that." Some amazing logistics on the U.S. battle against Iraqi IEDs. This visible universe (all 14 billion light years). Be sure to click the "zoom in" button. And the punchline is that religious crazies would have us believe that god make the whole thing just so he could give us one little planet. Danish architecture firm makes Lego Towers. Coastal flooding - A Visual guide. Select your city, rollover the photos for a before and after. Man made chemicals responsible for a 2:1 ratio of girls to boys in the Arctic. Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you... Gorillas are winning the race to extinction. We're doomed: How governments can encourage people to have babies. It's called Ecocide, people. Or Omnicide, if we really go at it. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 13, Thursday. Put a guy in a blue shirt, give him a badge, and have him harass people for bogus security reasons. Jump Pavlov! Sit Pavlov! Good doggie! NOTE: Any half intelligent terrist would do this - dress up in a fake uniform, make fake ID (laminate it - that way it's "real"), and you can pretty much do anything you like. You could probably get the civilians to do your dirty work for you: "Hold this package. Wait five minutes, then push red button." The German battleship Graf Spee, 1:20 scale, as a canoe. (Via growabrain). Hm. US troops who criticised Iraq war strategy killed in Baghdad. I missed this first time around: Tony Blair sings Things Can Only Get Better. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 12, Wednesday. Thanks Nicolas C. for the $20 donation!       More evil joy from violent acres - the 911 halloween party hell. Review: Renewable energy cannot sustain a consumer society. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 11, Tuesday. Of course America is doomed. It's built on an Indian Graveyard. The War on Terror is over. We Lost. The banks aren't in Happyland just yet: 10-day debt timebomb. OK, some grim news: Deforestation in the Amazon. What gives me the drive to continue is the certain knowledge that technolgical civilisation will soon collapse. Let's see you chop down the rainforests with your bare hands, a-holes. Some good: I read about a British millionaire who became so fed up with the rainforest destruction that be bought 400,000 acres of the Amazon, to protect it. I did a bit of googling and stumbled across a most worthy organisation - the "World Land Trust". They use your donation to buy land that's being threatened, thereby warding off scumbags with bulldozers. Here's a good entry page, showing their ongoing projects. A $50 donation allows them to buy an acre, $25, half an acre (obviously). David Attenborough is a patron. Sounds like a decent outfit - they've been around for quite a while (already having bought 350,000 acres) and seem fairly low profile. FINALLY, a candidate I can vote for: This is why I love Irish politics. New Zealand: Anti-depressants given to babies. Being born onto this Hell-Planet (instead of The Joy-colony of Epsilon Eridani or The Euphorian Moons of Zingon-5 would depress the crap out of any newborn). Welcome to Earth, inmate #6234934038. Step this way for your implants and infant loans. Pray that you can pay them off, or you'll end up in the Thermal Depolymeriser machine. RFID tags (chips that The Powers That Be want to stick under our skin) are linked to tumors. The Western diet is under fire as Cancers rise. What kind of filth hunts a polar bear for SPORT? I'd happily hunt a certain two-legged pest, given the chance. Credulous egotists will do their bit for the war - by wearing a tie. You couldn't make this up if you tried. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 10, Monday. The Onion's videos are getting sharper: The Skull F*#king Bill Of 2007 More: Human head found in Hamburger. The VOID = trouble for cosmology. More Bush idiocy: You say OPEC, I say APEC, let's call the whole thing off. Eat microwave popcorn, then die. Indian software firm outsourcing to the U.S. A grim prognosis for Canada's fabled tar sands (aka "oil sands"): What we have here is arguably the most environmentally destructive activity man has ever attempted, with a compliant government, insatiable demand and an endless supply of capital turning it into "a speeding car with a gas pedal and no brakes." It sucks down critical and rapidly diminishing amounts of both natural gas and water, paying neither for its consumption of natural capital nor its environmental destruction, to the utter detriment of its host. And all to eke out maybe a 10% profit, if it turns out that the books haven't been cooked, and if the taxation structure remains a flat-out giveaway. All of that, just to produce enough oil to offset the declining conventional oil production in the rest of Canada. Maybe. And that, my friends, is what I call the oil junkie's last fix. An act of sheer desperation to stave off just a little longer that inevitable day when we are forced to realize that the fossil fuel game is truly over. No more rabbits in the hat. Done. More energy moronitude: Biodiesel Misconceptions. Melting Greenland Ice cap is triggering earthquakes No wonder Thatcher wanted a return to Victorian values - children forced to work 17 hours a day, and happy to do so. A UK documentary uses computers to lip-read Hitler's home movies. (If time is short, fast forward about 25 minutes to get past the unnecessary build-up). An amazing time lapse video showing 35 years of city development in Japan. Anyone who thinks that this kind of growth can ever be sustainable needs their noggin examined. I can whip out the occasional doggerel from time to time: Cublicle Blues for white guys. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 7, Friday. "Riverbend" (the anonymous Iraqi girl who runs the Baghdad Burning blog) has finally left the country, along with her family. Here's her account of their forced emigration to Syria. I'm glad she got out safely. But, it never f*cking ends, does it? Syria fires at Israeli aircraft. Bremer implies that Bush is a liar. El Presidente? Dishonest? NO! U.S. deports the parents of dead soldiers. Support the Troops, Deport their Mothers. Nice critique of the US news blackout from Iraq. Way to go, liberal media! If Katie Couric can shop in Baghdad (wearing a flak jacket and surrounded by an armed escort) then how bad can it be?. Beautiful Egyptian funerary portraits from the Roman Era. I often wonder about the loss of painted artwork from the Classical Era - statues survive, but paintings rot, for the most part. Some of these images are flat and crude, others are eerily lifelike - like something from the 15th Century. (Via growabrain). Here's a great image from the Opportunity Rover on Mars. Here's a direct link to the hi-res photo. I've seen first-hand what the American "medical" industry does to Cancer patients. If I ever get The C, I'm checking out. I'll not be used a a pin-cushion/guinea pig/wallet to put the brats of the industry owners through Harvard or Yale. Joe Bageant has a story with a moral: Impossible to escape US medical mafia Kristina, an expat woman in our village in Belize, recently was diagnosed with cancer. She was shipped back to the US by concerned family members where she died seven weeks later. Her parents carried a one million dollar limit health insurance policy for her. I am told that in six weeks the U.S. medical mafia consumed the entire million and left her so broke she could not even have hopsice care during her last week of misery. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 6, Thursday. "First they ignore us, then they ridicule us, then they fight us. Then we win." Mahatma Gandhi "First they fight us, then they ridicule us, then they ignore us. Then we lose." James H. Crackerbarrel, last elected President of the U.S.A., February 13, 2021. Following Crackerbarrel's capture, all future American Presidents would be selected by the Supreme Court - of China. After two weeks of hiding, the half deranged leader was found by the People's Liberation Army in the basement of the U.S. Mint, desperately hand-cranking a printing press ... a feeble attempt to fill one last wheelbarrow with dollars. From "Democracy's Dunces, 2000-2050" by Chu-yu Soong. Beware of Ron Paul. The writer doesn't put it so...politely. I'd be fascinated to read some of the far-right pamphlets mentioned in the above article. Steve Bell mocks King George the High, again:       Jan Lundberg spells it out: Oceans dying; Fresh water supply to plummet The related situations for fresh and salt water can be approached separately, as they usually are, but there is more in common between them than just being in dire shape with no remedy in sight. The common denominator for the whole world's water crisis was not identified at this conference, although half the people there might have agreed privately that the problem is the plague of modern humans and their filth and selfishness... ...Another issue brought forward at Blue Salon is that of virtual or invisible water as a component of products traded globally, whereby certain agricultural items may reflect vastly different amounts of water used in production. (The same is true with energy content, from petroleum usually, that is embedded in products, packaging and transport, including renewable-energy system-products imagined to be free of the petroleum infrastructure.) A mind-blowing comparison of food items' virtual water component: one potato has 25 liters. One hamburger has 2,400 liters. Electric Politics interview about the Climate Change debate. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 5, Wednesday. Major thanks to Kurt L., Lars L., and Bernhard S. for donations of $20, $25 and $19.84 respectively. (1984 = wicked sense of humour!) Greatly appreciated - glad you guys approve of yesterday's post on the peak oil cartoon in progress. Every penny gives me the confidence to make the leap, and give up my day job. Steve Bell cartoon: The Surge. America: Not even in the top 15. Even Ireland is more democratic, and we have a de facto permanent government. A mind-boggling list of Republican perverts. I've nothing against perversion; hey, it's fun. But why on earth do they have to be such judgemental F***ing hypocites? Photo fun: Valet parking me hole. It took my brain 1 minute to process this image. I tend to be wary of gizmos, but this tiny cooker looks interesting. More evidence of the abject failure of the Imperial occupation of Iraq: CHOLERA. UK cops are now allowed to taser children. Ground based telescopes are giving Hubble a run for its money. This is why I don't watch TV: David Caruso's worst lines from CSI Miami. The pain...the pain... Prairie grassland could soon fade. By fade, read "die". Spectacular DARPA Airships: The Walrus. Here's more. More war-pron: Diesel subs. Interesting to note the situation vis-a-vis Iran/Israel. Israel has nuclear armed subs, to ensure it a "second strike" capability. This alone makes a nonsense of the idea that any Muslim state could attempt to wipe Israel off the map, unless they were willing to suffer complete annhialation in return. Not that reason counts for anything these days. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 3, Monday. Even more mystery meat. Click 'em and weep:     Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 3, Monday. I posted a link to boingboing's soviet mouse story last week. (That's it on the left - a real wrist-cracker). Courtesy of Pavel, one of my Russian(? - sorry Pavel, I can't remember!) readers, here's some info on the more usable MILITARY version, above, right. Subject: soviet MOUSE No, man, that was a lousy civilian version. ;) This is the REAL MOUSE: milspec heavy shilded cable, cast metal construction, virtualy indistructable, totaly useless. Hey, I know what I'm talking. I used one! P.S. In the background you can see 4.5V battery. And in a follow-up email: Hehe... Just look at SIZE of that thing!!! We called them a RAT. It's not "fit in your hand", it's your hand laying on top of it. Weight... hard to tell... with or without "tail"? Overall feeling is sliding half-brick around table. Military specs, you know ;) Here's link to battery you can see behind mouse. Judge for yourself :) http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?C=SEO&U=SiteMapByDept&ModuleNo=31494 It's almost 20 y/o design and really might be powered by that lantern battery. And when everything else fails, it will make deadly swing weapon! A polished and entertaining 2 hour lecture by Joel Salatin (a no B.S. farmer). He abandoned the "Organic" label some time ago, after it was co-opted by big-agriculture. VERY interesting if you have even the slightest green bent. (Via cryptogon.com). Mmm. Organic, free-range mystery-meat:     Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 2, Sunday. Pro-Bush guest post, required under HR1-147: "The Internet Fairness Act", 2006. Timmy Timkins writes: I just found thse photos of terreists in IRan plotting tok ill me and my family: Herez a jihadi getting redly for a suicider bom. mre freedom haters going out for a walk. The on in front has anthrazx.. The man on the rigth wnts to cut off mi moms hed.. Theys' shouting about how they wnat tok ill us all and blo up ameraka.. suiciders. wTF? a GRENADE!!! Filed wit antrazx. the old lady could hav any thing under that drses. A nuck bom.. Oh man. one dude could like so totally kil them now. One spurt from gun adn ratatatat the terreist die.. GO BUSH! GO FREEDOM! RING FREEDOM RIGN!! Timmy's a good kid, but he's a bit confused about geopolitics and the subleties of Iranian culture (not to mention Peak Oil and the "Strategic Ellipse"). I don't know how many times I've told him that the Iranians aren't Arabs, and aren't allied with Wahabi Saudi fundies, but he just thinks I'm trying to trick him with liberal propaganda. He swears he's going to join the Army when he gets out of school, but I don't believe him. Oh yeah, the people in these photos (and thousands like them) are in greater danger than ever of being liberated from their skin, thanks to the war-criminals in D.C., who seem to be intent on killing yet more brown skinned people. At least any new outrages against Iran will have the support of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, and their "progressive" supporters. THE OIL MUST FLOW. Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2007, September 1, Saturday. Holy Hell: The Dirt on Soil Erosion. This is a testament to the sheer unsustainability of exponential population and economic growth. I wonder how many billion people will have to die before the idiots understand this? Although food production has more or less kept pace with population growth by increasing 50 percent between 1980 and 2000, it is unclear whether we'll have enough food to feed the estimated three billion more mouths in 2050. To do that, Arnalds said, we'd need to produce more food within the next 50 years than humankind has during the last 10,000 years combined, which might be a nearly impossible task considering global food production per hectare is already on the decline. One of the reasons for that decline is that soil degradation produces growing shortages of water. (No soil and vegetation, no way to keep moisture locked in). Cryptogon: Wheat reaches record high. Food demand and climate straining soils. How to escape from zombies! Pine Beetles destroying the Pacific NorthWest. Want to help green a few square feet? Beware the grass nazis! Hilary Clinton wants to nuke Iran. Get this evil harpie a straight jacket! Mitt Romney wants to nuke anyone, but doesn't want to get drawn on specifics. Another grade-A F#!king Lunatic. Remember the previous Evil Empire that we wanted to nuke? They couldn't even design a usable MOUSE. Welcome to the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad: This is the largest US Embassy built – roughly the size of Vatican City – and at $600 million (£300 million) the most expensive. At a time when millions of Baghdadis outside the green zone receive only a couple of hours of water and electricity daily, Iraqis observe that this project has been completed on time, on budget, and is entirely self-sufficient with its own fresh water supply, electricity plant, sewage treatment facility, maintenance shops and warehouses. “People are very angry,” said one young Iraqi. “It’s for the Americans, not for the Iraqis.” There are two office blocks that will house 1,000 staff, six apartment blocks containing 619 one-bedroom units, spacious residences for the Ambassador and his deputy, a school, shopping centre and food court; a swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts; a gymnasium, cinema, beauty salon and social club. This is known because the architects – Berger Devine Yaeger, of Kansas City – posted drawings on its website briefly until the State Department ordered their removal. The embassy was built with imported labour. This year a congressional committee heard charges that First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting told a planeload of Filipino construction workers that they were flying to Dubai to build hotels and did not admit that they were heading for Baghdad until they had taken off, forcing them, in effect, to work there. Top 20 reasons not to move to Dubai. Oh wow. Avoid. Toxic ship-paint additive banned — after 40 years. Better late than never. Thanks for all the cancer, you sacks of filth. Nice one: Safe toys you can make. Follow the link to the site - makes me wish I could knit (and I'm man enough to admit it). Permalink --- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. previous posts - about us - contact