Conceptual Transitions in Energy
February 2, 2014Of the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666 Friend us on Facebook Published on the Doomstead Diner on January 27, 2013 Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside the Diner The difficulties involved in transitioning off of the current Energy Paradigm of fossil fuel usage are immense. So immense in fact that many of the pundits writing on the subject these days think we have a Hopeless situation here, and NOTHING can really be d...
The Great Moving Adventure
Off the keyboard of RE
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
Published on the Doomstead Diner on October 19, 2014
Discuss this article at the Doomsteading Table inside the Diner
Note: If you are not a fan of LONG personal stories of Life in the Age of Doom, you should probably skip reading this article.
For a variety of reasons, in the last week I moved out of the domicile I have been living in basically since moving up here to the Last Great Frontier nearly a Decade ago now. What follows is a Diary/Chronicle of this Moving Adventure, published over the last couple of weeks inside the Diner Forum.
Once I determined to move, I pondered on several possibilities, including moving in full time to my Bugout Machine, pictured above. However, the problems with living full time in one of these contraptions are LEGION, even in temperate climates, so this concept has always been a “Last Resort” idea for me, and as nasty as things look these days with Ebola and a Crashing Stock Market and Oil Prices, at least up here we are nowhere NEAR the “Last Resort” scenario…YET!
Figuring out just where to move to and what the parameters are for decent resilience [...] Continue Reading…
Ebola: I See Dead People 3
Off the microphone of RE
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 12, 2014
Discuss this Rant at the Environment Table inside the Diner
Don’t miss the prior articles and rants on Ebola
Ebola: I See Dead People 2
Ebola: I See Dead People
Snippet:
…Far as travel to and from the rest of Africa is concerned, it also needs to be curtailed drastically. Non-essential travel like Tourism needs to be ended until the Pandemic is brought under control. Land transmission across borders there is quite easy, and folks with means in Guinea for instance who want to GTFO of Dodge will sneak across borders by land, get fake passports in another African country, and then make the trip somewhere else outside of Africa. If only 1 in 100 of those is an Ebola Carrier still asymptomatic, they will bring the disease wherever they go to.
Of course, nothing of the sort here in terms of real restrictions on travel has been implemented as of yet, and beyond that the response from all major Goobermints has been pathetically slow and ineffective, well evidenced here in the FSoA by the stupid pronouncements from POTUS Telepromptus Obama-sama reassuring Amerikans we got nothing to worry [...] Continue Reading…
Sinking Titanics: Euro, Yen & Oil
Off the microphone of RE
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 7, 2014
Discuss this Rant at the Podcast Table inside the Diner
Snippet:
…Looks like the FOREX and Commodities markets are finally catching up to reality, and our friends in Eurotrashland and Japan are getting squeezed first and hardest. I”ve long held the position that these currencies would collapse before the Dollar does, which is one of the key reasons the Dollar doesn’t hyperinflate, despite QE and all the rest.
It’s amazing to me these currencies hold any value at all these days, the main reason for this is inertia, along with the inability of people in the investment biz to grasp that the whole model of industialization is failing.
There all all sorts of Hindenberg type signs going on here at the moment, besides the crashing Yen and Euro, Oil has been getting hammered for the last week, and now Gold & Silver have dropped to around 4 year lows, and likely have a good deal further to fall as well, though there are likely to be upward bounces as well due to short covering and numerous other games played in volatile makets by speculators…
For the [...] Continue Reading…
The Mix of the VIX
Off the keyboard of John Ward
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
Published on The Slog on October 18, 2014
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
THE SATURDAY ESSAY: there’s no consumer credit or liquidity funds left folks….and the Vix knows it
CORRECTIONS: THE MARKETS KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THAT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
For those too young (or late) to realise it, The Slog as a brand name is derived from the term Bollockslog. Following last week’s end of the beginning of the end of globalist neoliberal mercantilist claptrap, you may have noticed that the bollocks has been spewing forth from the defenders of this foundation-free and entirely idiotic ‘model’ of capitalism. But we should not be deceived.
Two inalienable truths remain for critics of this economic construct to keep banging on about:
1. The world economy has been 100% dependent on sovereign debt and consumer credit for the best part of fifteen years.
2. The current system’s ability to find finance via banks and bourses is not sustainable without constant injections of taxpayer monies.
This second point is really the killer, but both are fundamental. We are being asked to believe in/support/accept or whatever a system of economic activity that works like this: [...] Continue Reading…
Either you’re the Butcher or the Cattle
Off the keyboard of Jim Quinn
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
Published on The Burning Platform on October 16, 2014
Discuss this article at the Kitchen Sink inside the Diner
I know many people have no interest in watching the boob tube because 99% of the programming is either mindless drivel or government sanctioned propaganda. It’s the 1% that reflects the deeper themes and moods engulfing our society. Television shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead reflect the darkening mood of this intensifying Fourth Turning. I wrote one of my more pessimistic articles called Welcome to Terminus in April regarding the season four finale of the Walking Dead series. I essentially argued we are approaching the end of the line and the world is going to get real nasty.
In the six short months since I wrote that depressing article, we’ve seen men beheaded on Youtube videos by terrorists no one had ever heard of at the beginning of this year. Somehow a ragtag band of 30,000 Muslim terrorists, using American military equipment supplied to fight Assad in Syria and taken from the Iraqi Army when they turned tail and ran away, have been able to defeat 600,000 Iraqi [...] Continue Reading…
Ebola Double Feature
Off the keyboard of Michael Snyder
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Economic Collapse on 10/15/2014 & 10/17/2014
Discuss these articles at the Medicine & Health Table inside the Diner
If A Few Ebola Cases Can Make The Stock Market Crash This Much, What Would A Full-Blown Pandemic Mean?
Is Ebola going to cause another of the massive October stock market crashes that Wall Street is famous for? At one point on Wednesday, the Dow was down a staggering 460 points. It ultimately closed down just 173 points, but this was the fifth day in a row that the Dow has declined. And of course Ebola is one of the primary things that is being blamed for this stunning stock market drop. Since September 19th, we have seen the S&P 500 fall about 7 percent and the Nasdaq fall nearly 10 percent. The VIX (the most important measure of volatility on Wall Street) shot up an astounding 22 percent on Wednesday. So many of the ominous signs for the markets that I wrote about on Tuesday are now even worse. If a handful of Ebola cases in the United States can cause this much panic in the financial world, what would [...] Continue Reading…
We’ll Know by Christmas
Off the keyboard of Jason Heppenstall
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on 22 Billion Energy Slaves on October 15, 2014
Discuss this article at the Medicing & Health Table inside the Diner
“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.” Douglas Adams
As I write this the WHO is saying that the number of cases of Ebola in West Africa is likely to ramp up to 10,000 new ones every week by December, with around seven out of ten people who contract it dying from it. “Don’t worry,” seems to be the message being purveyed down from on high “This will have little impact in the technologically advanced rich nations.”
I’m not so sure.
Straight away I’ll admit that, obviously, I’m not a doctor or a specialist in contagious diseases. A majority of people will read that last sentence and say “Therefore you have no right to talk about it.” If you’re one of them, then bye. However, I do have a firm grasp of the exponential function, and a [...] Continue Reading…
The Oil Drama
Off the keyboard of Ugo Bardi
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Resource Crisis on October 16, 2014
Oil prices: data up to Oct 06 from EIA, updated to Oct 15 according to www.oil-price.net/.
Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside the Diner
Are we going to see a repeat of the 2008 oil price collapse? It is still too early to tell, but, clearly, something is moving in in the oil market: something big; as I discussed in a previous post.
If prices really collapse, the consequences could be devastating for the profits of marginal producers, especially for “non conventional” resources such as shale oil, tar sands, heavy oil, deepwater and the like. Unless the dip were to be very short lived (as it was in 2008), it would necessarily result in a fall in the production levels. That would be, of course, a disaster for the world’s economy.
The oil drama is playing in front of us: we can only watch as it unfolds.
Petroleum/Economic Endgame
Off the keyboard of Steve from Virginia
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Economic Undertow on October 8, 2014
Figure 1: classic doomsday scenario as fuel prices begin to decline below what drillers require to bring new fuels to the marketplace. Fuel shortages do not drive prices higher; instead, capital depletion is reflected by the parallel decline of purchasing power. Customers are unable to gain credit while banking/finance systems break down. (Chart by TFC Charts, click on for big.)
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
Every part of the world is experiencing distress as modernity requires cheap fuel and other resources to squander. Since 2000, waste- for- pleasure confronts resources increasingly priced in line with their value; resources that are becoming too costly to waste. Sadly, we humans never figured out alternative uses for our capital, the time to find such uses has run out.
Failure (Financial Times):
Sumitomo’s US shale oil foray turns sourBen McLannahanSumitomo Corp of Japan has drawn a line under its disastrous two-year foray into shale oil in the US, with writedowns connected to the project almost completely erasing its full-year earnings.On Monday, Sumitomo, the fourth biggest of Japan’s trading companies by market capitalization, said that [...] Continue Reading…
Vaccines: Penalizing the Unvaccinated?
Off the keyboard of Anthony Cartalucci
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
Published on Land Destroyer on October 15, 2014
Discuss this article at the Medicine & Health Table inside the Diner
October 15, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci – LocalOrg) – Slate has enthusiastically supported vaccinations and in particular, establishment talking points and narratives regarding them, as well as a particular focus on dismembering mainstream anti-vaccine views. In a recent article titled, “Endangering the Herd,” Slate argues that those refusing to receive vaccines should be penalized, and the act of refusing to be vaccinated be criminalized.
The article would claim:
Parents who don’t vaccinate their kids may have the most heartfelt reason in the world: fear for their own children’s safety. But the basis for that fear is simply unfounded, and their decisions are putting other kids directly at risk. The bottom line is that the government’s interest in protecting children from getting the measles should trump parents’ interest in making medical decisions for their kids
In an attempt to lend credibility to the article’s premise – particularly that fears of vaccinations are unfounded – it cites a fictional television show and repeated assurances from governments that there is no link between vaccines and otherwise unexplained conditions like [...] Continue Reading…
Twin Peaks: Stock-Market Fear, Oil Panic
From the keyboard of Thomas Lewis
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
First published at The Daily Impact October 14 2014
Gasoline is below three dollars a gallon and the stock market is at an all-time high. Well, yes, that was last week but still. What could be wrong with this picture? Like a face that has had way too many plastic surgeries, this one is stretched a little thin, with eyes bugged out and droplets of sweat all over it. The market, which all concerned promised would go up and up and never come down (Does anybody remember them saying the same thing about real estate? Anybody?) has lost 7% of its value in a week and, yesterday at least, could not pull out of the nose dive. A 10 percent drop is a correction. Twenty percent is a crash. And the low gas prices are being celebrated by everyone but the frackers who brought them to us. For them, low oil prices mean almost-immediate ruin.
The stock market stampede has not yet begun in earnest, but the lightning strikes are getting closer, the [...] Continue Reading…
A Caliph in a wilderness of mirrors
Off the keyboard of Pepe Escobar
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
THE ROVING EYE
Originally published in Asia Times on October 15, 2014
Discuss this article here in the Diner Forum.
I’m aiming at you, lover
Cause killing you is killing myself
– Orson Welles (director), The Lady from Shanghai,1947
He’s invincible. He beheads. He smuggles. He conquers. He’s the ultimate jack-of-all-trades. No Tomahawk or Hellfire can touch him. He always gets what he wants; in Kobani; in Anbar province; with the House of Saud (which he wants to replace) trying to make Putin (who he wants to behead) suffer because of low oil prices.
If this was a remake of Orson Welles’s noir classic The Lady from Shanghai, in the mirror sequence the lawyer (American?) and the femme fatale (Shi’ite?) would also get killed; but The Caliph of Islamic State would survive as a larger than life Welles, free to roam, plunder and “give my love to the sunrise” – as in a Brave Caliphate World shining in “Syraq” over the ashes of the Sykes-Picot agreement.
He’s winning big in Iraq’s Anbar province. The Caliph’s goons are now closing in on – of all places – Abu Ghraib; Dubya, Dick and Rummy’s former Torture Central. They are at a mere 12 [...] Continue Reading…
Love and Survival
From the keyboard of Morris Berman
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Dark Ages America on August 3, 2014
“When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. ”
-The Dalai Lama, Nobel acceptance speech, 1989
By late July, 2014, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had been living in Mexico for almost eight years with Washington, D.C., license plates on my car, and if I wanted to apply for permanent resident status in Mexico, which I did, I would have to drive up to a Customs station at the border and “nationalize” my car, i.e., get Mexican plates. Frankly, I have never cared what passport I was carrying, or what driver’s license plates I had, as long as I could move around freely; but as I had no intention of returning to the U.S. except to visit, it seemed that the time was ripe for sorting things out with Mexico. The plates would enable me to become a permanent resident; or so my immigration adviser told me.
A little background info here: when I moved to Mexico in 2006, I was quickly “adopted” by a family in the town where I set up shop. It has been a very [...] Continue Reading…
Climate Reaching Critical Mass
Off the keyboard of Jaded Prole
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
First Published on The Jaded Prole, September 6, 2014.
Discuss this article here in the Diner Forum.
I hate summer. The torpid heat we usually suffer through for months in Norfolk takes a heavy toll on me. This has been a much cooler summer for us than usual, even a little chilly at times. I’m not complaining. Unfortunately, while we got a break this year the unusual weather is symptomatic of changes to the environment that bode ill. Places that normally have mild and even cool summers, like the Pacific Northwest, western Canada, northern Europe and parts of Siberia had much hotter summers than usual. A report from NASA’s Earth Observatory stated,
“Records for high temperatures (mid-30s°C, mid-90s°F) were approached or broken in Latvia, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden in late July and early August. Searing temperatures also dried out forests and fueled wildfires in Siberia; in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and California; in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Northwest Territories; and even in Sweden. At the same time, cool air moved from high northern latitudes into much of the U.S., setting record-low daytime and nighttime temperatures [...] Continue Reading…
Real Life is Not Spin Art
From the keyboard of James Howard Kunstler
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Originally Published on Clusterfuck Nation October 13, 2014
The authorities keep emphasizing that the nurse who caught ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan was sealed in her haz-mat suit the whole time she cared for the poor fellow and blah blah nobody knows how she could possibly catch the darn thing…. But the newspapers and cable news networks are not asking: What about all the people, ordinary civilians, that this nurse was consorting with off-work, after she took off her haz-mat suit and, let’s say, at some point stopped by the Kroger Store’s fabulous steam table display of take-out goodies behind the helpful and reassuring sneeze-guard on her way back home? It sounds like a new Netflix drama –The Fatal Mac and Cheese.
If one more person in that chain of circumstance falls ill, Rick Perry will have to ring-fence Dallas faster than you can say Guadalupe Hidalgo and then we’ll be off to the quarantine races in America. It will be interesting to see who’s shorting the airline stocks a few hours from now. I’ve got to pass through Dulles airport tomorrow myself, and then two more foreign hubs after that, [...] Continue Reading…
Ebola & the Management of Mass Psychology
Off the keyboard of Brian Davey
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on FEASTA on October 8, 2014
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
Public Health or Public Relations Crisis?
In the discussion about Ebola there appears to be a public relations message that we are all expected to accept that it is far less likely to run out of control in “developed countries” which have healthcare systems. In an article yesterday the chief concern of the Guardian‘s health editor, Sarah Boseley, was one of the management of mass psychology, the headline being: “Spanish Ebola case requires rapid response to allay western fears. It is important to ascertain exactly how Madrid nurse was infected to prevent inaccurate scare stories circulating on the internet.”
As one person commented after this article:
“No, it’s important to prevent the frigging ebola virus from infecting more people, especially medical staff and their families.”
In a potential epidemic situation like this we really all are in this together and it irritates the f*** out of me when journalists, officials and managers see it as their main job to “reassure the public”. This is because this “reassuring the public” starts from a presumption that everything will be OK [...] Continue Reading…
A United State of Incompetence
From the keyboard of Thomas Lewis
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
First published at The Daily Impact October 6, 2014
A wise man once told me (no, wait, it was me, talking to myself) that when something bad happens, like a plane crashes, or Congress passes a law, it is usually for one of two reasons: a dark conspiracy by evil people, or rank incompetence. “If there is any doubt about the cause,” he, or I, said, “always assume incompetence. You will almost never be wrong.” The case is being illustrated these days with dismaying frequency.Ebola in America. Get off a plane from Liberia, go to a hospital in Texas and tell them you’ve just come from West Africa and are desperately ill, they give you an aspirin, send you home and tell you to hug and kiss all your friends and family, it will make you feel much better. (Only that little tiny last part is made up. The rest of it, I wouldn’t dare.)When it becomes obvious that you do in fact have the Ebola virus, they put you in isolation, lock down your family under armed guard [...] Continue Reading…
Petroleum/Economic Endgame
Off the keyboard of Steve from Virginia
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Economic Undertow on October 8, 2014
Figure 1: classic doomsday scenario as fuel prices begin to decline below what drillers require to bring new fuels to the marketplace. Fuel shortages do not drive prices higher; instead, capital depletion is reflected by the parallel decline of purchasing power. Customers are unable to gain credit while banking/finance systems break down. (Chart by TFC Charts, click on for big.)
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
Every part of the world is experiencing distress as modernity requires cheap fuel and other resources to squander. Since 2000, waste- for- pleasure confronts resources increasingly priced in line with their value; resources that are becoming too costly to waste. Sadly, we humans never figured out alternative uses for our capital, the time to find such uses has run out.
Failure (Financial Times):
Sumitomo’s US shale oil foray turns sourBen McLannahanSumitomo Corp of Japan has drawn a line under its disastrous two-year foray into shale oil in the US, with writedowns connected to the project almost completely erasing its full-year earnings.On Monday, Sumitomo, the fourth biggest of Japan’s trading companies by market capitalization, said that [...] Continue Reading…
(Deceiver) How Jesus’ Brother Killed Millions Of Chinese
Off the keyboard of Stuck in New Jersey
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Burning Platform on October 10, 2014
Discuss this article at the History Table inside the Diner
BACKGROUND
I won’t spell them all out, but I hope you see the many similarities between China in the 1850′s and the USA today.
Chinese Superiority Complex
Westerners shown as a pig and goat and being executed by Chinese officials during the Boxer Rebellion
Chinese folk, throughout most of their history, believed they were the only civilized country on earth, and that they were surrounded by uncouth, illiterate barbarians. They were the greatest nation on earth. They said Europeans have more hair than monkeys, noses larger than anteaters and they all smelled worse than dead bodies. Some even believed European women were so ugly that they became pregnant by staring at their shadows. The disgust for everything not-China exists to this very day …. Chinese Internet forums are filled with anti-Western diatribes, all allowed and encouraged by the State’s censors. One Chinese proverb states: “We can fool any foreigner.” The Chinese have a special venom reserved for Blacks. To read more about Chinese xenophobia, click the link at the end of this article [...] Continue Reading…
Japan Gets ONGED!
Off the microphone of RE
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Aired on the Doomstead Diner on October 10, 2014
Discuss this Rant at the Podcast Table inside the Diner
Great Screen Saver!
Let’s Go Hiking!
It seemed like a good Parking Spot yesterday!
Onged Definition:
Having your society systematically destroyed by a combination of Natural and Man Made Disasters, Population Overshoot and Resource Depletion.
Snippet:
…All things considered, it’s a pretty quiet day today in the world of collapse, besides the fact the first Out of Africa case of Ebola transmitted in Spain to a local nurse, and the fact yet ANOTHER Super Typhoon is bearing down on the Nips, following just a week or so behind the path of PhanFone, this one called VongFong. The next one is sure to be HongKongLongDong. LOL.
This is another one of those Picture Perfect Cyclonic Storms that make great Screen Savers for the Doomophile TM, and it’s even bigger than Haiyan which devastated the Phillipines in 2013, which itself was a good deal larger than Katrina was.
So basically what you have here for the Nips is something an Order of Magnitude or so larger than the equivalent of NOLA being hit by Back-to-Back Katrinas. To be fair, the reason Katrina caused [...] Continue Reading…
Germany & Japan Hit the Skids
Off the keyboard of Michael Snyder
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Economic Collapse on October 8, 2014
Pigs on the Wing in Japan & Germany
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
Serious Financial Trouble Is Erupting In Germany And Japan
There are some who believe that the next great financial crash will not begin in the United States. Instead, they are convinced that a financial crisis that begins in Europe or in Japan (or both) will end up spreading across the globe and take down the U.S. too. Time will tell if they are ultimately correct, but even now there are signs that financial trouble is already starting to erupt in both Germany and Japan. German stocks have declined 10 percent since July, and that puts them in “correction” territory. In Japan, the economy is a total mess right now. According to figures that were just released, Japanese GDP contracted at a 7.1 percent annualized rate during the second quarter and private consumption contracted at a 19 percent annualized rate. Could a financial collapse in either of those nations be the catalyst that sets off financial dominoes all over the planet?
This week, the [...] Continue Reading…
Pure War in Tehran
Off the keyboard of Pepe Escobar
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
THE ROVING EYE
Originally published in Asia Times on October 8, 2014
I’ve just spent a frantic week in Tehran. Before departure, I had made a conscious decision; only one book in the backpack. Maximum concentration. I ended up choosing Pure War, the 2008 reprint by Semiotext(e) in LA of the 1983 Paul Virilio classic I had picked up at the revamped Foyles in London a few days back.
For a roving correspondent, going to Iran is always extra-special. Getting a press visa approved usually takes ages. This was my sixth trip – and I had no visa. Just a number, tied to a visa at the airport. Until the last minute, I thought I’d be deported from Imam Khomeini International – back to Abu Dhabi, which is now pretending to bomb The Caliph. Then, a small miracle; a VIP room, a visa in 10 minutes and the next I know I’m zooming into an eerily deserted Tehran at sunrise on a Friday, past the psychedelic space station decked in green that is Imam Khomeini’s shrine.
Why Virilio? Because he was the first to conceptualize that with the explosion of asymmetrical warfare, Total War had [...] Continue Reading…
Miami Beach, October 9: Apocalypse Foretold
From the keyboard of Thomas Lewis
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
First published at The Daily Impact September 8, 2014
The projected sea-level rise of the next quarter-century or so because of climate change will occur, albeit briefly, in Miami on Thursday. On that day, the alignment of the sun, earth and moon will produce a King Tide — the highest high tide of the year, a full foot above normal, or about half the sea level rise Miami is expected to experience by 2060. Construction crews are racing to fit plugs in the city’s stormwater drains that dump into the sea and, suddenly, provide a conduit for rising seawater directly to the streets, and to complete installation of four enormous pumps with which to fight the incoming tide. (By pumping the water where? Um, back into the rising sea. Isn’t that a little like bailing one end of a boat into the other?) Thus we get a preview not just of sea level rise, but of the hapless human response to it.
Actually, the [...] Continue Reading…
Cometh the Pestilence
Off the keyboard of Michael Snyder
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Economic Collapse on October 6, 2014
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
There Will Be Pestilences: Why Are So Many Deadly Diseases Breaking Out All Over The Globe Right Now?
Ebola, Marburg, Enterovirus and Chikungunya – these diseases were not even on the radar of most people coming into 2014, but now each one of them is making headline news. So why is this happening? Why are so many deadly diseases breaking out all over the world right now? Is there some kind of a connection, or is the fact that so many horrible diseases are arising all at once just a giant coincidence? And this could be just the beginning. For example, there are now more than a million cases of Chikungunya in Central and South America, and authorities are projecting that there will be millions more in 2015. The number of Ebola cases continues to grow at an exponential rate, and now an even deadlier virus (Marburg) has broken out in Uganda. We have gone decades without experiencing a major worldwide pandemic, and many people believed that it could never happen in our [...] Continue Reading…
How to Destroy a Great Empire
Off the keyboard of Ugo Bardi
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Resource Crisis on October 6, 2014
The Pythoness of the Oracle of Delphi told to King Croesus that if he were to attack Persia “a great empire will be destroyed.” Croesus did just that, but the great empire which fell was not the Persian one, but his own.
Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside the Diner
Unleashing the oil weapon against Russia: how to destroy a great empire
Do you remember the old Soviet Union? Dubbed as “The Evil Empire” by Ronald Reagan in 1983, it disappeared in a puff of smoke in 1991, crushed under a mountain of debts. The origins of the financial collapse of the Soviet Union are rather well known: it was related to the fall of the oil prices which, in 1985, went down from the equivalent of more than 100 (today’s) dollars per barrel in 1980 to about 30 (today’s) dollars and stayed low for more than a decade. The Soviet Union was relying on oil exports for its economy and, in addition, it was burdened with huge military expenses. It just couldn’t take a drop of more than a factor of three [...] Continue Reading…
Shale Oil Boom Breaking Down
From the keyboard of Thomas Lewis
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @Doomstead666
First published at The Daily Impact October 1, 2014
Recent research suggests that fracking causes earthquakes; they have no doubt of that at the fourth largest trading and investment company in Japan — Sumitomo Corporation — which has just experienced a Magnitude 10. The profit Sumitomo expected to make this year, a hefty $2.27 billion, has been all but wiped out. News of the disasteratomized 13 per cent of its stock value in one day. Its credit rating went to “negative.” And almost all of this was caused by hideous losses incurred in fracking for tight oil in Texas.
Sumitomo samurai rolled into Texas just two years ago (seems like only yesterday) with a $2 billion dollar investment in the Permian shale-oil play, in partnership with Devon Energy of Oklahoma. So here we have Japan’s fourth-largest trading company, along with one of the largest US fracking companies, going into the (potentially, according to the oil interests) richest tight-oil basin [...] Continue Reading…
“I’m not going away”: James Risen unloads to Salon about his government foes
ISIS in Texas?! ABC Fails an Easy Factcheck
Tornados Attacking in Swarms. Is Climate Change to Blame?
Isis and Ebola: the twin threats that reveal our impotence
Supreme Court allows Texas to use voter ID law
Six charts on the shocking rise in inequality
What will it take to rein in Big Money?
Dark Money Concentrates In Small Number of Pivotal 2014 Races
Amid Assurances On Ebola, Obama Is Said To Seethe - NYTimes.com
Russia is conducting a massive McDonald's purge
Leaked draft confirms TPP will censor Internet and stifle Free Expression worldwide
First on CNN: Obama will name Ron Klain as Ebola Czar
Retreat from the Water’s Edge
The Brain Cancer Rate for Girls in This Town Shot Up 550%—Is a Defense Contractor to Blame?
The Saudi oil war against Russia, Iran and the US
More than 48 million Americans live in poverty, Census Bureau reports
"More Money Than I Could Count": Mitch McConnell's Very Special Relationship With Lobbyists
Hong Kong police dismantle protest sites in dawn raids
Gotcha: Chicago Generates Millions In New Tickets By Shortening The Time Of Yellow Lights
Traveling While Arab
If the GOP Wins the Senate, Expect a Total Assault on Reproductive Rights
A Supersecret Spacecraft Comes Back to Earth After Two Years
High-speed rail: California Supreme Court eliminates hurdle
The Making of Ferguson
JUSTICE: COURT FINALLY OVERTURNS MARISSA ALEXANDER’S 20 YEAR SENTENCE
Harvard Researchers: Every 64 Days There's A Mass Shooting
The Truth Laid Bare
Seven Underwater Surprises Exposed in Dried Out California Lakes
Warren Buffett Has Begun Dumping Stock In The World's 2nd-Largest Retailer
Cleveland Area Schools Cancel Classes Over Ebola Concerns
U.S. accused of hiding chemical weapons exposure to its own troops
Fossil Fuel Train Wreck: Kuwait Buys Stake in Tar Sands Production
Rachel Maddow: Chevron Spends Big Bucks to Buy Local Election
Rate of Mass Shootings Has Tripled Since 2011, Harvard Research Shows
We're Going to Execute a Man Who Subpoenaed Jesus While Representing Himself Wearing a Purple Cowboy Suit
CIA Study: Arming Rebels Rarely Works
Orphaned by deportation: the crisis of American children left behind
2nd Texas Health Care Worker Has Ebola
Hong Kong police beat protester in violent crackdown on demonstrations
Wealth Gap: Just $3,650 Puts A Person In Top Half of Wealth In The World
While the United States deals with its first Ebola patient who contracted the virus domestically, it must address its larger responsibility for tackling the disease internationally.
Christian Right’s Vile PR Sham: Why Their Bizarre Films Are Backfiring on Them
Will the Right to Be Forgotten Inspire Repressive Regimes to Expand Internet Censorship?
NIGHTMARE: 70 STAFFERS CARED FOR DALLAS PATIENT
Ferguson Protesters Hold Surprise Rally at Upscale Shopping Mall
Drone Maker Unveils Smartphone-Controlled Device
Cyclist 'executed' in broad daylight in NYC
STUDY: Four Northern California Faults Primed For BIG Quakes
AWKWARD: Turkey DENIES U.S. base deal in place to battle ISIS
THIEL: We're in govt bubble of 'massive size'
17 arrested in St. Louis as sit-in against police brutality proclaimed ‘unlawful’
Columbus gets his comeuppance: Why his holiday is in deep jeopardy
Them That's Got Shall Get
Edward Snowden Speaks: A Sneak Peek at an Exclusive Interview
'What's in the box?' Scientist questioned by incredulous Fargo TSA agent for having Nobel Prize in his carry-on
Health worker who treated Dallas patient tests positive for Ebola
Millions of Voiceprints Quietly Being Harvested
Morales wins third presidential term in Bolivia
California’s war on endangered species: Why its most water-dependent creatures are worth saving
The dangerous truth about Wall Street’s favorite new company
