Monkeyfister

If you're giving thought to voting for Fred Thompson for Preznit, please, listen to Rachel first:





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I like it. Go let Demeur know your ideas. It'd be a wonderful day if WalMart workers across the country all suddenly got the sniffles, and a touch of the flu, if truckers everywhere just stopped their trucks wherever they were, if the Pentagon's Civilians called in sick... You get the picture. Wouldn't even have to complicate it with a "buy nothing" day... That would happen on its own. Here's a sort of starter graphic.

via Demeur

It seems that our pleas for an end to the Iraq war, universal health care, and trying to stop the permitting of Mexican truckers free reign of our nations highways has fallen on deaf ears. So what can we do? We can organize and start a nationwide work stoppage.

Write letters to your Local Unions. Talk about it at your local bar/pub, at the gym, at the barbecue, and get buzz rolling. Organize. It starts down here. I'd think that October 17th would be a good day. The 25th anniversary of The Solidarity Movement protests in Poland, that shut down Poland, and brought down Communist/Soviet rule. We all need a day off... why not take it off together?


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Labels: Corporate Disobedience, October 17th, Organize, Solidarity

Pygalgia Is Onto Something...


Go have a read.

UPDATE: ... and his follow-up.



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Labels: George W. Bush, Osama binLaden

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And just read the post below to see what -4,000 jobs did to the Markets. That Free Market magic is fucking AWESOME!!! [/neocon]

Damn. It feels just like 2001, post 9/11--Enron/WorldCom/Anderson, et al. collapsing... Posting Mass layoffs nearly daily... Here it comes again. Boy. That was some "Recovery/Boom/Bull Time," eh? wow. i feel so unimpressed.

Well. Here we go...

Countrywide May Cut Staff by 12,000 as Demand Wanes

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's biggest mortgage company, may reduce its workforce by 10,000 to 12,000 in the next three months, a 20 percent cut.

New mortgages probably will drop 25 percent in 2008 from this year's levels, the Calabasas, California-based company said in a statement today. IndyMac Bancorp, the second-biggest mortgage company, said earlier today its workforce will shrink by 1,000 jobs, or about 10 percent.

Countrywide's cuts are the biggest in the mortgage industry during the worst housing slump in 16 years. More than 15,000 jobs have been eliminated this week alone as National City Corp. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. disclosed reductions. More than 100 mortgage companies have sought buyers or halted lending since the start of 2006.

Countrywide's managers ``are taking the steps they need to take in light of the much lower origination volume,'' said Blake Howells, who helps manage $2.6 billion at Portland-based Becker Capital Management Inc. including Countrywide shares. ``The company had been actually criticized in the analyst community for growing their headcount.''

The company's stock fell 27 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $18.21 at 4:17 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The company's shares have lost 57 percent this year. The stock changed hands for $18.38 in extended trading.

``These decisions are being made with the utmost attention and sensitivity to the impact they will have on our company and our people,'' said Countrywide President David Sambol in the statement.

Yeah. You betcha.


UPDATE: Do you need more links for today's posts? I'll provide them if needed. I just assume that we've all been watching this together, and already know the details.

UPDATE 2: Invictus Has More



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Labels: Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Peak Energy, Real Estate Crash, Sub-Prime Crash, Sub-Prime Lending, Suburban Sprawl, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

It's about the lyrics not the video... I s'pose. One of the things that I do like about the music of the 1980s-- for all of its excesses, some of the better musicians were able to put really heavy and important messages in their product. Just the thought of this type of song going into an album these days would be anathema. Looking back to my High School days in the 80s, in the midst of the Reagan/Bush I era, I find it troubling that in all reality, I was more free then, than now. Silly mischief that would otherwise, then, have been written off as boys being boys, is now a Federal Felony. Back then, I thought that we would be more free. I thought that we'd have lots of time to spend in our tight-knit communities. Times change. Anyhow... Here's Hugh Cornwell, from the soundtrack to "When the Wind Blows." The video is posted in the archives somewhere. I'm sure it's easily searchable.



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Labels: Nuclear War, When the Wind Blows

Wow. Today, a whole load of shit hit the fan.

Here's our recipe for Totally Screwed US Economy Fricassee:

Start with one ridiculously skewed Earnings Distribution, where 2% of the people control 40% of the wealth.

Immerse the lower 98% remainder in heavy health care and consumer debt. Market heavily.

Into the lower 50%, insert easy to get Adjustable Rate Home Mortgage loans at under 5% interest, be sure that these mortgages' interest rates reset to the higher, current rate, all in a 2-year period. Sweeten with property over-valuation, and then leaven with cheap Home Equity loans.

Secure that leavening by deregulating the Markets, fold in unregulated Hedge Funds to add food to the leavening.

Keep in a dark, dank place away from casual observance until 2007.

Meanwhile, make the sauce: Over-develop housing. Escalate property over-valuation. Outsource jobs. Begin an Ethanol Production Program that inflates the cost of staple foods. Don't include this inflation in the core inflation, reserve that for later. On the other side of the world, continue to escalate a futile elective war. Print $200 Billion or more based on nothing at all yearly to fund it. Keep it off-budget.

At first sign of implosion, print lots and lots of money based on nothing at all, and offer it dirt cheap to cover the Bonds based on the bad loans.:

via James Kunstler's Clusterfuck Chronicles Daily Grunt.

September 7, 2007

John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics (Shadowstats.com) is a great website presenting a more reality-based picture of the US economy by analyzing the discrepancy between government numbers and actual numbers. He charges a subscription, but it's worth it. You get monthly reports and intermittent bulletins. Today's example is a good one -- and an unabashed advertisement for the site.

Money Supply Growth Explodes

Fed Liquefaction Pushes August M3 Growth Towards 14%

This afternoon's money supply release showed seasonally-adjusted M2 for the week-ended August 27th up by $64.9 billion to $7.400 trillion. M2 now has risen by $111.1 billion for the last two weeks, rising at an annualized fortnight growth rate of 48.2%.

Depending on the large time deposit numbers due for release on Friday (tomorrow) afternoon, annual M3 growth for August could jump to 14.0%, up from July's 13.0%, and up from my early August estimate of 13.6% made last week.

Despite the Fed coming close to its formal 5.25% fed funds target in the last couple of days, the liquidity crisis continues, and the financial markets remain extremely unstable and dangerous. Once again, watch the dollar!

Additional detail will follow this weekend.

Continue to print and add bogus money to the bogus bonds based on bogus credit. Wait and see as new housing starts stop, as well as existing home sales. Remove from oven, add the sauce, suggest a Federal Rate Cut...

Dollar hits 15-year low after sharp drop in payrolls

The dollar slid to a 15-year low against major currencies on Friday as data showed U.S. payrolls fell last month for the first time in four years, raising recession fears and pressure for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

Traders dumped the dollar after the government said the U.S economy shed 4,000 net jobs last month, the first contraction in employment since August 2003. It also revised downward estimated job gains for June and July.

The payrolls data followed a larger-than-expected decline in July pending home sales reported earlier this week -- more evidence that a credit crunch that began with losses on bonds tied to risky U.S. mortgages was starting to put the brakes on growth.

Continue to print bogus money to support sagging bonds based on bogus money. Cut Federal Rates to ensure that China, Saudi Arabia, Japan Indonesia and other countries will dump the dollar as the rate falls.

Repeat as needed. Hyper-inflation will result by the spring of 2008 if this recipe is left unchecked.


Prepare.


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Labels: Collapse, Credit Crisis, Global Economy, Peak Energy, US Economy, Wall Street Fairy

I bet he's singing with Beverly Sills right now.

via Reuters

MODENA, Italy (Reuters) - Legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to the masses with his powerful voice and jovial personality, died on Thursday of pancreatic cancer, aged 71.

Although his health had been failing for a year, the death of the bearded tenor, known as "Big Luciano" because of his 127 kg (280 lb) bulk, saddened everyone from impresarios and critics of to fans who could barely afford tickets.

"There were tenors, and then there was Pavarotti," said Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.

One that always makes me a little weepy... The Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan and Pavarotti-- Ave Maria:




And we're still stuck with Henry Kissinger.


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Well. There's an interesting headline, eh? Have a read of this...

via Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. bomber mistakenly flew with at least five nuclear warheads over the United States last week, but the Air Force on Wednesday said the flight never threatened public safety.

Still, President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were alerted on Friday morning to the mistake, according to Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

Gates also has received daily updates from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley on a probe to determine how the mistake occurred.

"It's clearly important enough that the secretary was informed of it and that he has requested daily briefings from Gen. Moseley as to what they are doing to fix the problem and to get to the bottom of the problem," Morrell said.

"I can also tell you that it's important enough that President Bush was notified of it."

Neither a media leak, nor a Military accident.


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Labels: Nuclear Stupidity, Nuclear Weapons

What an incredible tale.

via Baghdad Burning

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

I'm just glad that she and her family are safe.


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Labels: Riverbend

Oops.

Our friend, Cernig, of The Newshoggers has the whole story. I think it's pretty clear what's happening. I also think that we all need to cue the laugh-track every time George decides to yap his trap about Iran. I also think that this ad needs to be mass-produced as a fantastic protest sign for September 15th.

Obviously, it was all good back when Iran was led by an official member of Team Thug USA, properly installed via coup d'etat arranged by Kermit Roosevelt, and the CIA. But, since, over these thirty years or so, we've not been able to re-install a puppet, those nuclear plans need to go. Sweet. We'll finally be able to really show them by bombing Iran into piles of cement and bone, and implant our man to oversee the rubble, the rabble, and the oil-flows once again.

What's not to like?



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Labels: Bush Administration, Bush Agenda, Dick "dick" Cheney, Iran, Nuclear Power, Shah, Team Thug USA

William Kristol gets it from a Military Wife on C-Span.




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The Style Council

Are you gonna try to make this work
Or spend your days down in the dirt
You see things can change -
Yes an walls can come tumbling down!

Governments crack and systems fall
cause unity is powerful -
Lights go out - walls come tumbling down!

Lyrics Here



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Go read and listen to this from Shayera.


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Labels: Excuse The Mess That Was My Brain, Freedom, Liberty, Shayera, Stand Up

Right now, there are hundreds and hundreds of Robins in the back yard. It's freaky how many there are... bob, bob, bob... stop! bob, bob, bob... stop! Hundreds of them out there doing it. It's like Busby Berkeley and Federico Fellini dropped acid with Friz Freling, and made a Mass Bird Ballet Cartoon...

Way too cool to sit and watch. I tried to take pictures, but, it is very dark and cloudy, and promising rain, and the pics turned out just dark.

It certainly has put me into a better frame of mind, tho'!

bob, bob, bob... stop! bob, bob, bob... stop!



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Labels: My Life As It Is, Nature

Tonight's homework.

Like our friend, RussBLib says, It'll fuck you up."

via Empire Burlesque

Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead
Written by Chris Floyd
Sunday, 02 September 2007

Put your hand on my head, baby;
Do I have a temperature?
I see people who ought to know better
Standing around like furniture.
There's a wall between you
And what you want -- you got to leap it.
Tonight you got the power to take it;
Tomorrow you won't have the power to keep it.
-- Bob Dylan

I.
Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

---

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

It is well-nigh impossible to imagine a force in American public life today rising up to thwart the Administration's will on any element of its militarist and corporatist agenda, including the arbitrary launch of an attack on Iran. What's more, even if some institution had the will -- and made the effort -- to balk Bush, it wouldn't matter. As the New York Times noted a couple of weeks ago:

…Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, "is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president's Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence."

More at the link.


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Labels: American Fascism, Collapse, Corporatocracy, Empire, Republican Eliminationism, Republican Values

Richard Heinberg has a New Book Out this week. This is a portion of the Introduction. The rest is at the link.

via The MuseLetter #185

This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; several existing volumes serve that function (including my own The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies).3 Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which the event is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas in order to better navigate this perilous time.

Our socio-historical context takes some time and perspective to appreciate. Upon first encountering Peak Oil, most people tend to assume it is merely a single isolated problem to which there is a simple solution - whether of an eco-friendly nature (more renewable energy) or otherwise (more coal). But prolonged reflection and study tend to eat away at the viability of such "solutions"; meanwhile, as one contemplates how we humans have so quickly become so deeply dependent on the cheap, concentrated energy of oil and other fossil fuels, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have caught ourselves on the horns of the Universal Ecological Dilemma, consisting of the interlinked elements of population pressure, resource depletion, and habitat destruction - and on a scale unprecedented in history.

Petroleum is not the only important resource quickly depleting. Readers already acquainted with the Peak Oil literature know that regional production peaks for natural gas have already occurred, and that, over the short term, the economic consequences of gas shortages are likely to be even worse for Europeans and North Americans than those for oil. And while coal is often referred to as being an abundant fossil fuel, with reserves capable of supplying the world at current rates of usage for two hundred years into the future, a recent study updating global reserves and production forecasts concludes that global coal production will peak and begin to decline in ten to twenty years.4 Because fossil fuels supply about 85 percent of the world's total energy, peaks in these fuels virtually ensure that the world's energy supply will begin to shrink within a few years regardless of any efforts that are made to develop other energy sources.

Nor does the matter end with natural gas and coal. Once one lifts one's eyes from the narrow path of daily survival activities and starts scanning the horizon, a frightening array of peaks comes into view. In the course of the present century we will see an end to growth and a commencement of decline in all of these parameters:

* Population
* Grain production (total and per capita)
* Uranium production
* Climate stability
* Fresh water availability per capita
* Arable land in agricultural production
* Wild fish harvests
* Yearly extraction of some metals and minerals (including copper, platinum, silver, gold, and zinc)

The point of this book is not systematically to go through these peak-and-decline scenarios one by one, offering evidence and pointing out the consequences - though that is a worthwhile exercise. Some of these peaks are more speculative than others: fish harvests are already in decline, so this one is hardly arguable; however, projecting extraction peaks and declines for some metals requires extrapolating current rising rates of usage many decades into the future.5 The problem of uranium supply beyond mid-century is well attested by studies, but has not received sufficient public attention.6

Nevertheless, the general picture is inescapable; it is one of mutually interacting instances of over-consumption and emerging scarcity.

Our starting point, then, is the realization that we are today living at the end of the period of greatest material abundance in human history - an abundance based on temporary sources of cheap energy that made all else possible. Now that the most important of those sources are entering their inevitable sunset phase, we are at the beginning of a period of overall societal contraction.

This realization is strengthened as we come to understand that it is no happenstance that so many peaks are occurring together. All are causally related by way of the historic reality that, for the past 200 years, cheap, abundant energy from fossil fuels has driven technological invention, increases in total and per-capita resource extraction and consumption (including food production), and population growth. We are enmeshed in a classic self-reinforcing feedback loop:

Fossil fuel extraction

--> more available energy

----> increased extraction of other resources, and production of food and other goods

------> population growth

--------> higher energy demand

----------> more fossil fuel extraction (and so on)

Self-reinforcing feedback loops sometimes occur in nature (population blooms are always evidence of some sort of reinforcing feedback loop), but they rarely continue for long. They usually lead to population crashes and die-offs. The simple fact is that growth in population and consumption cannot continue unabated on a finite planet.

Go read. There is plenty of good news that starts right after this excerpt. This is Heinberg's Call To Action (James Kunstler's and mine came yesterday-- it seems to be in the air), and worth the read of this introduction at least. I've pre-ordered the book, and look forward to reading it.


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Labels: Peak Energy, Peak Everything, Peak Oil, Richard Heinberg

It started early this morning, when I turned on the radio, expecting to hear Air America's "Young Turks," and instead heard some bullshit sports yatter. No more Air America in Memphis, it seems. sigh.

Next, I realized that I had forgotten my security ID after driving two miles down the road...

Finally, once on the big road to work, there were two accidents. One was very odd-- a Penske truck had its entire hood buried in the back of the Craftsman "NASCAR Challenge" simulator bus-thing. They were both in a left turn lane. Odd. Took time. I was over an hour late for work this morning. Grrrr.

I'm better now, tho'.

So, how was your day?


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Labels: My Life As It Is

This week, Mr. Kunstler examines the broader scale of the credit crisis as complicated by the realities of Peak Energy, and issues a call to action...

via Clusterfuck Nation

What does reality command? Well, first of all (and especially for the benefit of the enviro-progressives I have met recently, who want gold medals for buying hybrid cars) we'd better drop the idea that there is any way whatsoever to preserve our system of happy motoring. The car as a mass market phenomenon, and enabler (dictator, really) of all our daily life arrangements, is finished. We'd better find something else to talk about, or the American future will amount to little more than a colossal circle-jerk on an increasingly unfixable freeway. I am hugely worried (obviously) that even the intelligent-and-educated fraction of our society cannot focus on anything but how to keep all the cars running. A failure to drop this, and move on to more practical endeavors, will lead automatically to a failure of reasonable politics in this country. It is already manifest in the abysmal failure of the Democratic candidates for president to address the looming oil import crisis that will certainly be underway as soon as any of them is inaugurated.

Reality commands that we prepare to rebuild our small towns and small cities and downsize our gigantic metroplexes. Reality commands that we get serious about local food production and local economies. Reality commands that we rebuild the kind of public transit that people will be grateful to travel on. Reality commands that we prepare to rebuild our harbor facilities for a revival of maritime trade, using ships and boats that do not necessarily run on oil. Reality commands that we put an end to legalized gambling, in order for the public to re-learn one of the primary rules of adult life -- that we generally should not expect to get something for nothing.

The trouble we are seeing in the financial sector is largely a result of blowback from tens of millions of people who tried to get something for nothing. It is a circumstance that is now beyond the control of the Bushes, Paulsons, and Bernankes. Their intended-to-be-soothing statements on Friday will not hold back the implosion of cascading defaults and cumulative insolvency. A few "poster children" may be symbolically rescued to try to prop up confidence in this-or-that paper, but an awful lot of other people and institutions will just go down, unfortunately, because of their own bad choices.

A strange new meta-reality will assert itself in America: that shit happens. We will see the ruined people and feel bad about them, but we will not be able to un-do the shit that has happened to them, that they have brought upon themselves. This is how the idea of moral hazard returns to a society that has lost its way. Meanwhile, there is too much to do for the survivors to sit around wringing their hands and being crybabies. You can start by taking all the mental effort that you are currently wasting on the subject of cars, and how to run them on fuels other than gasoline, and instead focus your energy on how to rescue our political institutions so that a truly informed public can reconstruct a bankrupt society into a living and credible republic.

More at the link.


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Labels: James Kunstler

MadSat sends along this interesting tale of how the families were removed to create the Land Between The Lakes in Kentucky.

Land Between the Lakes:
A Story of Colonialism in Kentucky

I remember neighbors hurrying in with the excited news that Babe Williams had blown the windshield out of a government truck with her old shotgun. Miss Babe, in her '60s by that time, had never married and ran her family farm by herself, raising a few cows, hens, and her prized turkeys. She had sworn she would not leave her home. It, like most of our farms, had been in the family for generations and she could not comprehend being anywhere else. The government men were approaching her two-story frame house to present her with the condemnation papers. She told them to get back in their truck but they ignored her. One barrel, the story went, took out the windshield; the second barrel offered enough reason for the government men to scramble to their truck and head back towards wherever it is government men come from. I soaked up the story in wide-eyed amazement, trying to picture the whole scene. This would have been about the time I began first grade, but it made a lasting impression on me. The adults seemed to express a mixture of sympathy and concern. "What will they do to her now?" "She shouldn't have done that." "What choice did she have?"

About a month or so later the news arrived via excited neighbors: They burned Babe's house! Government men had persuaded her to come in for a meeting. They convinced a local man whom she knew and trusted to take her to the meeting, for Miss Babe never did own a vehicle. The man later swore he believed the meeting was legitimate. When they discovered there was to be no meeting they headed back to Miss Babe's place. Rounding the curve at the top of the ridge they saw the smoke. According to the man doing the driving she slumped in her seat and hung her head, but said nothing. They had pushed her house into a pile with a bulldozer and set it afire--all her possessions still inside.

A most interesting story.


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This little beauty, of the Reduviidae Family-- considered the "True" Bugs. This specimen is prowlin' around my Winter Squash vines. I hope he sticks around, and invites some buddies to help out versus tomato worms, and cabbage worms a bit later. These little creatures are absolutely fantastic to have in the garden, as they are voracious bug and caterpillar eaters-- but, you don't want one to bit you... it really hurts, but it's not harmful.

Click for bigger image.





More from What's That Bug.com



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Labels: Gardening

For Whig





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PSoTD tagged me to say a little about Labor Day. To say a little, I'll just say, "Organize." But, then there's all this:


In this age of Globalization, while American jobs are being sent overseas, while the Corporatocracy seeks the lowest possible Labor costs, it is vitally important that American Laborers-- Union and non-Union alike, stand strong and firm on our bottom line. Fear is not an option any more.

Since the rise of Globalization some 25+ years ago, or so, the Corporatocracy has changed the face of the US economy into something unrecognizable. The DOW-Jones Industrial Average used to be the indicator of the strength of the US economy, as all of the DJIA companies used to be US Corporations. But no more. Now, those companies have re-located their headquarters to mailboxes in foreign countries, where they skate US taxes and regulation. Now, they are "Multinational" corporations, not beholden to the US alone. They no longer are the barometer of US economic strength. That honor lies solely in the hands and the heart of the US Laborer-- from roofers to steelworlkers, Stagehands to stenographers, Union Shops to the Mom & Pops. WE are the strength of America, and we are under attack.

We are told that if we ask for higher pay, that the company will shut the doors and move overseas. We are told that we should be happy to have the job that we've got. We're told to mind our manners, and know our place as button-pushers, lever-pullers, and paper-pushers. That has got to change.

Whether we like it or not, whether we even see it or not, we are all a part of the Labor Movement now. Back at the turn of the last century, workers banded together, faced incredible resistance from their Corporate Robber-Baron Overlords-- even violence, but they fought on, went on strike, walked-out, sat-down... and won a better life for our nation's workers.

It took the Corporatocracy nearly 100 years to devise a way around the Unions, all the while doing their best to weaken and corrupt Union leadership, and to break the the Labor Movement completely. They haven't quite yet succeeded-- there is still plenty of hope. But none of us can afford to merely hope from the sidelines, any more. It requires action.

Two years ago, my workplace was supposed to switched from the current "GS" System, to Rumsfeld's rotten legacy-- the NSPS System. The Unions have been fighting it, and our conversion has still not happened. What strikes me most about this process is the reactions to it from my co-workers. All but a tiny handful fear and loathe the idea of NSPS. The training for it has been terrible. Everyone knows that it will be a mess, that they will lose job security, and quite possibly face pay cuts, but, no one complains publicly. Everyone knows that it is the Unions that are fighting for our (non-Unionized) workplace, but yet, they nearly all recoil at the idea of simply joining AFGE-- let alone Unionizing the workplace. Nearly all of them will bad-mouth a Union whenever they can, even knowing it is the Unions fighting for them. I just can't understand the mindset, so I joined AFGE back in June, and support it as much as possible. I encourage everyone to simply organize. It doesn't need to be "organizing for a Union," just within a shop, or a workplace, in your neighborhood, or in your town. Operate and negotiate as a group, there's more power in it than anyone imagines-- until they do it. We must do what we can.

It's like this: Once upon a time, a Unionized Northern State might lose a factory to the Right-To-Work South, Union jobs were lost in the north. Now, all of our jobs are subject to be lost to the Right-To-Work Rest Of The World at the hands of the Multinationals. We're all in the Union now, whether we like or not. In the big scale of things, it will be our pay, our health care (or excuse for it, anyway), our environment, air quality, living conditions, working conditions and overall standard of living that will lower to the competitive levels of say-- Liberia... or Haiti-- and not the other way around. Unless we change it, now.

Labor Day reminds us that united and organized, we can be strong. It's time to stop just hoping from the sidelines-- it's time for each of us to take some action. A little goes a long way, if we all do it together.


Solidarity.



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Labels: Labor Day, Labor Movement

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This is really quite cool. An audio oscilloscope goes through a full harmonic sweep. The salt crystals organize themselves to the "geometry" of the tones.



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Labels: Science

This is a PBS FRONTLINE production. Runtime: ~1hr.

From the talker:

One day in 1968, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed ... all » groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, its lasting impact on the children, and its enduring power thirty years later.

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For Lambert...


This is 12 vines growing in four one-foot boxes in a row, up twine.














That's a lot of Winter Squashes on just a few of the vines. If I need to, I can make little slings for larger squashes, or melons. I grow my tomatoes and beans the same way.:



















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Labels: Gardening