November
1 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
As I said the move today was a short one. We left our camp that had been home for the past four plus months at our usual departure time. The breakfast stop along the way was at the Horseshoe Cafe & Bakery which has a good omelet although a bit expensive.
There were very few people there when I arrived but they were standing in line waiting to be seated when I left. Benson is a very popular winter home for the snowbirds so I may experience this a lot. Not only in the limited number of restaurants but also at Safeway, my grocery store of choice here.
The Park is only about a quarter full and is not at the top of the snowbirds list which is one of the reasons that I selected it. The St. David camp was an alternative but after the stay there in May I decided to come here. We will see how it is for a winter camp.
The route was only 25 miles: AZ82, AZ90, Cooperative Way (changes names a couple of times), S. Ocotillo Ave, E. 4th St, N. Ocotillo & westside entrance to the Park.
The quote is from a good article that is well worth reading. The underlining was done by me, replacing a link that brought up another of his postings from June 13, 2021 with a photo of the Wall Street Journal article that I have converted to text. Note: I learned a lot doing this conversion. Perhaps I will write more about that process some other time.)
I know, it may sound too harsh, but let the actual science give answers and give competent forecasts, with totally corrupt Western STEM and a "science" of opinions by illiterate hacks with humanities degrees. It is about time somebody started to think about consequences, such as EU is facing now, and this is just the beginning. Gektin, especially through such a powerful platform as Roskosmos, is unequivocal about the necessity to provide new data which already is streaming and is being made available through the international network of hydro-meteorological information. You can sell obvious bullshit of anthropogenic climate change to Western public school students who are busy discovering new genders, rejecting their white privilege and reciting main postulates of Critical Race Theory, you cannot sell this shit in Russia to people who actually know the real science and how models are created. Russia has all the tools necessary to prove a complete corruption and cowardice of West's "science" which long ago lost any integrity and honor. Here is what modern Western “science” is busy with*. That is why they hate Russia so much.–Why They Hate…, Andrei Martyanov*Why America Has the World’s Dimmest Bright Kids
By Chester E. Finn Jr. (WSJ 25 February 1998)
Banish forever the consoling thought that, however mediocre the educational attainments of the average U.S. child, “our best students are still the best in the world.” That’s the way many in the school establishment have explained away a ton of evidence of meltdown in American primary and secondary schooling. But they’ve just lost their excuse. It turns out that U.S. high school seniors — including the best and brightest among them—are the worst in the industrial world in math and science. It also turns out that the U.S. is the only country where kids do worse the longer they stay in school.
Today the U.S. Department of Education officially releases the damning data, which come from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, a set of tests administered to half a million youngsters in 41 countries in 1995. But the results have trickled out. We learned that our fourth-graders do pretty well compared with the rest of the world, and our eighth-graders performance is middling to poor. Today we learn that our 12th-graders occupy the international cellar. And that’s not even counting the Asian lands like Singapore, Korea and Japan that trounced our kids in the younger grades. They chose not to participate in this study. Twenty one countries took part in the 12th-grade tests of general knowledge of math and science; 16 took part in advanced math and physics. They comprise the industrialized Western world (Western Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), plus Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia and South Africa. The general knowledge tests were not ultra sophisticated: Questions were “designed to measure general knowledge and skills necessary for citizens in their daily life.”
A typical math problem looked like this: “Experts say that 25% of all serious bicycle accidents involve head injuries and that, of all head injuries, 80% are fatal. What percent of all serious bicycle accidents involve fatal head injuries?” The student had to choose between four possible answers. Only 57% of U.S. students got the right answer, vs. an international average of 61%. On general math knowledge, the U.S. placed 19th, surpassing only Cyprus and South Africa. In science, our high school seniors came in 16th, with Italy, Hungary and Lithuania also trailing.
The results for advanced math and physics were even worse. In these categories the test taking population was the cream of the crop. Just 14% of American seniors even qualified for the math test; they had to have taken (or be taking) pre-calculus or calculus. The U.S. came in second worst, besting only Austria.
Likewise, in physics, only 14% of American youngsters qualified. They came in dead last among 16 nations. Narrow the test taking population further, down to the most advanced science students (in the U.S., those taking Advanced Placement physics), and performance improves a bit. Three nations trailed us. But, as the study’s report explains, such students “represent a much smaller proportion of the age cohort in the United States than… in most of the other countries.” (Barely 1% of all U.S. high school students take AP physics.)
The public school establishment is already at work concocting excuses: They will blame parents, or leaky school roofs. or inadequately equipped labs or a short- age of “certified” teachers. They will demand more money and propose more programs. No doubt the Clinton administration will use these results to press for some of its pet projects.
But the failings revealed by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study cannot be explained away by lack of resources or corrected by more of the same. The U.S. has been “reforming” its schools for the better part of two decades. Whttp://edwardfrey.com/camp/24-6-21.htmle’ve tried a hundred different programs and a thousand gimmicks. We’ve poured countless billions of dollars into the schools. Yet i’s now clearer than ever that none of these nostrums has worked—and a lot of them have made matters worse.
The public school system as we know it has proved that it cannot fix itself. It is an ossified government monopoly that functions largely for the benefit of its employees and interest groups rather than that of children and taxpayers. American education needs a radical overhaul. For starters, control over education must be shifted into the hands of parents and true reformers—people who will insist on something altogether different rather than murmuring excuses for the catastrophe that surrounds us.
2 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
I did some more techie “stuff” yesterday. I’m not sure that it is an improvement or not but I will give it a few days. In the past I have connected my Garmin watches to a desktop of a laptop via a cable and the data was then imported to Garmin Connect. What I did yesterday was install the Garmin Connect Mobile app on my Fire 8 and then Bluetooth paired it with my Garmin watch.
When I finished my afternoon walk I saved the data on my watch and then selected Sync. It took a lot longer than I was expecting but finally all the data for the morning and afternoon walks showed up on my Fire 8 in the Garmin Connect Mobile app. It might be easier but was not any quicker.
This morning the data uploaded much quicker when I clicked on the Garmin Connect Mobile app so I’m encouraged. The data presentation looks really good on the Fire 8. It also gives me some sleep analysis that the Garmin Connect site does not. I like it!
I like this quote. Now it is not a question of not knowing the past, it is destroying the past and then trying to plan for the future.
“Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past is like trying to plant cut flowers.” — David Boorstin
You know how they throw the ball into the crowd after they win the game? That’s not allowed in bowling.
I know that now!
3 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The low yesterday morning was 41° which did not feel all that cold while we were doing our walk. However, I was cold inside Desperado at 8:00 where I found that it was only 42. It was Wave 6 heater time. This morning the low was 37.6° and a little warmer than yesterday at 8:00 but I fired up the Wave 6 again. Forecast to be colder tomorrow.
We walked up to the computer repair shop where my Chromebook has been resting for months. The repair guy said that he had finally received an email that the keyboard was being shipped and would be here next week. That was good news because the Raspberry has been suffering slow web page loads for the past couple of weeks.
I’m considering getting a replacement for it but hate to spend the money. However, the ‘money’ will just buy less and less ‘stuff’ so it is probably just as well to spend it now. Not at Amazon however.
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
“A grounded and expansive examination of the American economic divide … It takes a skillful journalist to weave data and anecdotes together so effectively.” — Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
An award-winning journalist investigates Amazon’s impact on the wealth and poverty of towns and cities across the United States.
Alec MacGillis’s Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
Ranging across the country, MacGillis tells the stories of those who’ve thrived and struggled to thrive in this rapidly changing environment. In Seattle, high-paid workers in new office towers displace a historic black neighborhood. In suburban Virginia, homeowners try to protect their neighborhood from the environmental impact of a new data center. Meanwhile, in El Paso, small office supply firms seek to weather Amazon’s takeover of government procurement, and in Baltimore a warehouse supplants a fabled steel plant. Fulfillment also shows how Amazon has become a force in Washington, D.C., ushering readers through a revolving door for lobbyists and government contractors and into CEO Jeff Bezos’s lavish Kalorama mansion.
With empathy and breadth, MacGillis demonstrates the hidden human costs of the other inequality—not the growing gap between rich and poor, but the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions. The result is an intimate account of contemporary capitalism: its drive to innovate, its dark, pitiless magic, its remaking of America with every click. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
It has become even worse since this article was written. What are the serfs going to do?
The Devastation Of The Middle Class: It Now Takes 53 Weeks Of Median Wages Every Year To Pay For Basic Needs by Tyler Durden, Wednesday, Aug 19, 2020
The stock market is back to all time highs, but for ordinary Americans the standard of living has not been worse in decades, if ever.
As Bank of America points out, while the recent covid shutdowns has thrown the economy into disarray with millions laid off and living on government stimulus checks, life for the vast majority of workers – i.e., those who comprise the country’s middle class – was already precarious before the pandemic, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Cost of Thriving Index.
Consider that in 1985 it took 30 weeks at the median wage to pay for big fixed costs like housing, health care, a car, and education; fast forward to today when it takes a mathematically impossible 53 weeks of a 52-week year to buy those things.
Either this is a lie or only a partial truth. Was the sub not using its sonar? Even if the seamount was uncharted the sonar should have located it. I would like to know “The Rest Of The Story”.
A US Seventh Fleet investigation has determined that the Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut “grounded on an uncharted seamount while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region” in early October.
4 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
I have the distiller working again. That is about the only thing that will be doing any work in this household today. I cooked some garbonzos and yellow split peas yesterday and will have some cranberry beans and red hominy in the Thermal Cooker later today and overnight.
Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to the Benson Animal Shelter and talked to them about their adoption policy. They have no problem letting me adopt a dog to live in Desperado. So they are a possible shelter along with Sierra Vista where I can get a dog. The other reason for stopping there was to inquire about walking on the municipal golf course. They are located within the overall golf course area. They thought it would be no problem.
Went up to the Club House and asked the same question and was told it would be fine. So this morning we walked around the 16th, 17th and 18th holes. This will probably be our usual morning walks. We start walking in the dark and the traffic on N. Ocotillo was a bit more than I wanted to do in the dark with a very narrow shoulder.
Are you undecided or confused about the federal budget, federal spending or the need for a higher debt limit. Here are a couple of lessons that may clarify the issue for you.
Lesson # 1:
Federal Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt (budget deficit): $1,650,000,000,000
Total federal debt: $29,271,000,000,000
Recent federal budget cuts: $38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove “8 zeros” each time, and pretend it’s a household budget:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $292,710
Total budget cuts so far: $385
Lesson # 2: Here’s another way to look at the debt ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood…and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do …
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the crap?
Kunstler is not very positive but he is optimistic. This is a good article; the quote is the closing paragraphs.
It’s a grim outlook, I admit, but you could see it coming over the horizon from a thousand miles away. Where I differ from other observers is that I doubt that any sort of extreme government surveillance state can be imposed on the public under these conditions. The people will be too pissed-off and, anyway, the current regime will be broke and out of mojo — possibly to the degree that it has to be shoved aside. “Let’s Go Brandon” is serious business. It’s the end of something.
In the background lurks this virus thing, and the insane vaccination program it prompted. We know that people have been harmed by the vaccinations, but not how many people altogether will be affected moving forward. The possibility, though, is for a nation both broke and sick struggling to get through a dark passage of history. Stay nimble, stay local, stay reality-based, be helpful, be honest, be brave, and be kind to each other. We’ll get through it.–Chilling Bigly, Jame Howard Kunstler
This article tells it like it is with not much positive spin and not much optimism. “We’re counting on magic to put it all right, and if that doesn’t work, then the real world’s revenge will be something to behold.”
We’ve entered a peculiar phase in American history in which illusions of wealth and control are the favored distractions from the unraveling of the real world economy and social order.
Printing trillions of currency units can’t restore the global supply chain or social cohesion, Rather, jacking phantom wealth to the moon is only accelerating the collapse of the social order and the economy even as it accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of solving real-world problems.–Revenge of the Real World, Charles Hugh Smith
5 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: November 5, 1933
The shopping trip to town this morning was a little over one mile. I could walk there but Patches is not up to carrying the groceries back.
The grocery gathering at Safeway took a little longer although I had used this store back in May. Only one non-dairy yogurt in the large containers and it was a brand that I have never bought before. It is also made with coconut milk which I have never tried before. No raw almonds, everything else I wanted was available. More juice and chips on the shelves here than at Fry’s with more non-dairy milk available as well.
Our walk this morning was around the 15th and 16th hole on the gold course. There was a long walk between those two holes plus a short steep climb up a hill. The tees for the 15th hole are at the top of that hill with a short distance to the green. My guess is that there are many golfers that drive over the green.
…some of America’s claims to greatness are definitely valid—but even when it is explicitly not the best, its propensity for grandiosity still overtakes discourse despite all facts negating such a state of affairs. This trait manifests itself most profoundly at the levels of what can broadly be defined as America’s intellectual class, sometimes called intelligentsia, and its political and business leaders.
…the average American representative of what passes in the U.S. for its political and intellectual elite is, to reapply Leo Tolstoy’s observation about the English, “self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore always knows what he should do and knows that all he does… is undoubtedly correct.” — Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Chapter X, Book IX — Disintegration by Andrei Martyanov
So, there we are. The United States is troubled by a pandemic that the government seems unable to respond to which has produced record unemployment and bankruptcies. Meanwhile, guns and liquor and even coins are in demand while frightened citizens are building home defenses. And much of the government at all levels acts like it is either on the side of or afraid of the destroyers. America certainly has always had flaws but it was once a land of opportunity where people could prosper and enjoy more freedom than nearly anywhere else. Those days are gone so just relax and turn on the evening news. Watch a once proud country with a resilient and hard-working people come apart before your very eyes.–A Nation Falling Apart, Philip Giraldi • July 21, 2020
The most beautiful words in the English language are “freeze warning in effect.” Forget Shakespeare. This is true poetry. — ClarissaShe needs help, this is a serious mental problem.
6 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The morning lows are staying in the 40s — just. However, it seems like it is taking longer to warm up after the sun comes up. Staying in the 40s until 8:00 or later. That is not so good. But it then gets up into the 80s in the afternoon rather than the forecasted 70s. That is also not so good.
I finished cooking the cranberry beans and red hominy yesterday. Have sampled them and the beans cook up to look very much like pinto beans but have a better flavor. The red hominy is still al dente and has a different flavor than your usual hominy. I may cook it separately from the beans next time and see how that works out.
That is about all that is going on here. I’ll be doing more reading, which is all that is planned.
You can shrug what JHK has to say as being just ‘conspiracy theory’ but what if he is right? For my part I think my chances are better even IF I get the Coronavirus® than if I get the “jab”.
Citizens have a right to object to this, and to the illegal vaccine “mandate” invoked by the pugnaciously stupid “Joe Biden” regime. There is an awful creeping suspicion in the USA and in other countries that people who have received vaccinations are beginning to present fatal cardiovascular and neurological illness in large numbers, and that an attempt is underway to cover all this up. There is likewise a growing body of evidence that the vaccines and “boosters” incrementally disable the human immune system so that later in the winter of 2021-2022 millions of people will be at risk of dying from Covid variants and virtually any other disease that comes along, including cancers. How many of us are prepared for that?–Woke Gets Whacked — But Hold the Victory Lap, James Howard KunstlerThis too may be considered “conspiracy theory” although BMJ is a very well known and trusted medical journal with a reputation for the truth that far surpasses The New York Times. Please read to get an idea of how well the Pfizer phase III trial was performed prior to the FDA granting emergency use of their Coronavirus® vaccine. James Howard Kunstler may not be wrong.
In autumn 2020 Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive, Albert Bourla, released an open letter to the billions of people around the world who were investing their hopes in a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine to end the pandemic. “As I’ve said before, we are operating at the speed of science,” Bourla wrote, explaining to the public when they could expect a Pfizer vaccine to be authorised in the United States.
But, for researchers who were testing Pfizer’s vaccine at several sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the cost of data integrity and patient safety. A regional director who was employed at the research organisation Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial. Staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding. After repeatedly notifying Ventavia of these problems, the regional director, Brook Jackson, emailed a complaint to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ventavia fired her later the same day. Jackson has provided The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails. — Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial by Paul D Thacker, investigative journalist for the British Medical Journal (BMJ)
Starving nations, assassinating political and military leaders such as General Soleimani, conducting bloody overthrows of legitimate governments—these are all tools from America’s arsenal of “spreading democracy’ and upholding the “rules-based order.” Those tools have zero relation to any pseudo-intellectual constructs such as geoeconomics and have everything to do with raw power plays designed to achieve the main Clausewitzian object of war—“to compel our enemy to do our will.”* For America, most of the world is the enemy. The more independent and powerful any nation is, the more it is viewed by the American elites as hostile. — Disintegration by Andrei Martyanov
*Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976)
7 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Another day with more of the same in store. I did try a different walking route yesterday afternoon that provides a change. It is the right distance and will be good during daylight hours but not as a morning walk because it is along N. Ocotillo.
It is still a bit cold now but I need to get out and do holding tank dumps and add water when it warms up. That is all that I can see on my agenda for today.
For nearly two decades and over three administrations, U.S. foreign policy has assigned American soldiers to reckless, counterproductive, miserable and even impossible tasks. It has asked them to act well outside their rightful purpose and oath of enlistment. It has tasked them with battles unconnected to U.S. interests and neglected constitutional safeguards. It has asked our troops to kill and be killed as instruments of aggression rather than defense. The Biggest Insult to the American Military Is Our Foreign Policy, Bonnie KristianBut she makes a mistake; the United States has been involved in wars of aggression since the Korean War, and even before the two world wars. This is more than a century-long record of doing anything but defending national interests. And whose interests were they, indeed? Assumptions are not good tools for sound foreign policy and prosecuting a war. U.S. elites have proved themselves incapable of learning this for far longer than “nearly two decades.” But does the U.S. military represent the American nation or is it merely a tool of transnational corporations and global financial institutions for furthering their agenda?
Today, the answer to this is obvious, it is the latter. Not only are American wars a racket, they are wars that are conducted contrary to real American national interests—if one assumes that there is an American proto-nation still in existence and its overriding proto-national legitimate interests are security, guaranteed survival that is, and prosperity. — Disintegration by Andrei Martyanov
If you don’t hear from me for the next few days it is because I got an email that says in part, “you were listed as a beneficiary to the total sum of Twelve Million Five Hundred thousand British pounds in the codicil and last testament of our deceased customer.”
8 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Our walk this morning was on the golf course again. This time we walked the 17th hole, part of the 18th, the 1st and then the same part of the 17th. We stay strictly to the golf cart paths and have seen some course workers and they have waved so we seem to be accepted.
I ordered a computer screen stand and received it on Friday. When I got around to putting it together on Saturday I found that I was missing 3 screws that were needed. Sent an email to the supplier yesterday asking them to mail me the missing items. That project is on hold.
Therefore, I’ll just have to continue reading the books that I have on my Fire 8 and what I find when Internet browsing.
The United States doesn’t have a nation anymore. Not even close, and if the magnificence and power, through visual representation, of the nation’s cathedrals is any indication, the United States has become as a tasteless boxy post-modernist mega-church preaching prosperity gospel. It is fake, it always was, and it cannot stop the disintegration. Because in the end, it is the spirit of the nation, of its people, which decides the outcome, even when everything seems to be lost. Whether America will find this spirit remains to be seen, but in the end, it is the only way America will be able to preserve itself as a unified country and stop its disintegration.The quote above is the closing paragraph or a very good book. I have quoted from it during the past few days and include some reviews below.
Everything else will follow from there. — Disintegration by Andrei Martyanov
“The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals.” — Clarity Press
“Andrei Martyanov is in a class by himself… His new book, Disintegration, completes a trilogy. And it’s a stunning departure. Here, Martyanov, in meticulous detail, analyzes the imperial decline thematically — with chapters on Consumption, Geoeconomics, Energy, Losing the Arms Race, among others, composing a devastating indictment especially of toxic D.C. lobbies and the prevailing political mediocrity across the Beltway. What is laid bare for the reader is the complex interplay of forces that are driving the political, ideological, economic, cultural and military American chaos…” — Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
“Andrei Martyanov’s third book discussing the collapse of the US Empire looks into the social and economic phenomena which all contribute to that collapse. Disintegration is a multi-level analysis of the crisis which is now so clearly plaguing the USA of 2021. I consider Disintegration a “must read” for every US patriot who wants his country to overcome its current difficulties and for every person on the planet who wants to avoid a full scale war between Russia and/or China and the USA. Indeed, if you want to get a superb summation of what is *really* going on in the United States — read all of Martyanov’s books.” — The Vineyard Saker
“Martyanov shows that America’s disintegration is irreversible because the ruling elites are an organic part of the calamitous sources of dysfunction that have destroyed the country…The destruction of American unity and foundational beliefs is only one reason that the United States is disintegrating. Martyanov provides a number of other causes of our disintegration. One is that not only the US but the entirety of the Western world is no longer capable of providing competent leadership. This failure is general and not limited to government. Martyanov likens the Western world to a “Warhol can of Campbell’s Soup, which is nothing more than a ‘school of pretense.’” The West’s 15 minutes of fame is up.”” — Paul Craig Roberts
The Internet is surely a remarkable thing. Still, if a fifties sci-fi fan were to appear in the present and ask what the most dramatic technological achievement of the intervening sixty years had been, it’s hard to imagine the reaction would have been anything but bitter disappointment. He would almost certainly have pointed out that all we are really talking about here is a super-fast and globally accessible combination of library, post office, and mail order catalog. “Fifty years and this is the best our scientists managed to come up with? We were expecting computers that actually think!” — The Utopia Of Rules by David Graeber
Before I bought a ticket to London to collect my portion of the £12,500,000 I checked the IP address of the email that I received. I was very disappointed when I found that the email was sent from someplace in the USA rather than from London.
I was born at night but not last night. The phishing effort asked only for “your current telephone and fax numbers and a forwarding address”. That is just to set the hook, the next email would ask for some amount of money. Stay alert out there!
9 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Oou morning walk today was in the gold cource along holes 16, 14 and part of 15. this route is almost 2.5 miles so I’ll probably not be getting to the 13th hole.
I received a computer screen mount a few days ago and thought that I was missing three screws. Got a response from the supplier today that said the screws were mounted on the end of the pole. I never thought to look there, I was looking for them to be with all the other screws and spacers that were enclosed in plastic wrap.
So I got the mounting bracket attached to the support pole. Then there is a screw clamp that mounts to that which can be screwed up to the bottom of the desktop. However, the desktop that I am attempting to mount it to is my lap desk which has a top that is too thin. I found some shim material that I used under my chair to protect the floor; I think it is going to work. Why do all my simple projects turn into tasks?
I’m going to quit working on that for today while I’m ahead. Do some more reading which is not subject to my messing it up.
Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms?
To answer these questions, anthropologist David Graeber—one of the most prominent and provocative thinkers working today—takes a journey through ancient and modern history to trace the peculiar and fascinating evolution of bureaucracy over the ages.
Provocative and timely, the book is a powerful look and history of bureaucracy over the ages and its power in shaping the world of ideas. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
10 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
We did what has now become our routine walking route when not on the golf course. It is a little over two miles and reversible. We will mix these two routes in with walking the golf course and maybe not get too bored.
All of the routes look rather flat except the climb up the steep hill to the 15th hole tees. However, I climbed a little over 1,000’ this past week. It is a gradual slope from the golf course to Ocotillo Rd which adds up when you climb it once or twice a day.
I finished putting the computer screen desk mount together yesterday. The second half of the process went together easier than the first half. I have it mounted on my lap desk which makes it much heavier although I like it a lot more than the simple mount that came with the screen. That one did not mount and would slide around on the desktop. I’m looking at places where I can mount the screen and get the weight off the desk.
That is all that I plan on doing today. There will be a shopping trip to town tomorrow which will add some excitement to my week.
“Odd thing it is — the word ‘experiment’ is unpopular, but not the word “experimental”. — That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
Want some evidence that this is true? Do an Internet Search using the search term ‘Covid experimental vaccine’ then using the term ‘Covid vaccine experiment’. Do you see the difference? Experiment is not just unpopular, it is considered antivaxx when used in association with Covid. Intriguing?
11 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
We started our trip into town with a stop at Safeway first. I had a short shopping list and got everything except non dairy yogurt.
Or maybe I should say I didn’t get what I wanted. There was one large container of coconut milk yogurt and a few small containers of Silk almond milk in various flavors. I got the coconut milk and almond milk in vanilla.
Then just up the street was my breakfast stop at the Farmhouse restaurant. I got their veggie omelet which was better than I remember it being before and the home fries were very good. The waitress was a different one from what I remember and a much more pleasant one also from what I remember.
Then almost next door was Wal*Mart where I checked out their non dairy yogurt offerings; they are as bad or worse than Safeway. But my primary reason for stopping was to get a 6’’ USB-C to USB 3.1 Female adaptor cable, sometimes called a USB-C to USB 3.1 Female Dongle. I was successful in getting that so the stop was worthwhile.
On 16 August 2021 I said “I am hoping that this book will add to the points raised by Greer that our secular religion of progress has a theological base.” I then quoted a long passage from the Preface in The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie.
That was probably the last thing in the book that I really understood. Michael Allen Gillespie is a Professor of Political Science and Philosophy and wrote this book for his peers; certainly not for someone like myself. I read it off and on for these past months online at archives.org while threatening to give it up many times. I can not recommend the book because I did not understand it.
I have copied the book promo and a review by someone that apparently does.
Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests. Taking as his starting point the collapse of the medieval world, Gillespie argues that from the very beginning moderns sought not to eliminate religion but to support a new view of religion and its place in human life. He goes on to explore the ideas of such figures as William of Ockham, Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes, showing that modernity is best understood as a series of attempts to formulate a new and coherent metaphysics or theology.
“Bringing the history of political thought up to date and situating it against the backdrop of contemporary events, Gillespie’s analyses provide us a way to begin to have conversations with the Islamic world about what is perhaps the central question within each of the three monotheistic religions: if God is omnipotent, then what is the place of human freedom?”—Joshua Mitchell, Georgetown University — From goodreads.com
“Don’t you understand anything? Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That’s how we get things done. Of course we’re non-political. The real power always is. — Miss Hardcastle speaking in That Hideous Strength by C S Lewis
12 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: November 12, 1933
I could feel that it was colder this morning than it has been. It was only after we got back to Desperado and I could go online that I found that the low had been 34.2°. That is getting down in the temperature range where I’ll be wearing my thermals. The 10 day forecast is expecting the lows to stay around 40 - 43 but I know it will be lower than that.
I probably should have done laundry while I was in town yesterday. Will make another trip on Monday and get that done plus check on the Chromebook repair status.
That is all I have planned for the near future other than a lot of reading. Both books and web browsing.
An idea that is not new but perhaps it’s time has come.
But if the union is to remain in existence, it should be reformed such that it resembles much more the Articles of Confederation or the United Nations, a federation in which the coordinating authority has few powers that it can wield over the region-nations that are part of it, and in which each of those participating will have a veto that it can use to stop any action — legislative, executive, or judicial — from going into effect.–Reconsidering Regionalism in the United States, Walt Garlington for the Saker Blog
Nota bene: there are many voices that are sounding the same alarm that CHS is writing about here, and has written about for a long time. What is different is that CHS does not say that it is going to happen tomorrow; he gives it a couple of years.
Which is more valuable: Wall Street's debt/asset bubbles or the global empire? You can’t have both, so choose wisely.
The contrarian bet is [that] the Deep State finally awakens from its troubled sleep and decides the Empire is more valuable than the bubbles, skims, scams, rackets, etc. and so the dollar will have to be defended regardless of the cost to those benefiting from its devaluation. Very few are willing to take that bet now, but let’s get comfortable and watch the printing-borrowing-trillions / devaluation game for a few more years and see how it plays out.–The Contrarian Trade of the Decade: The Dollar Refuses to Die, Charles Hugh Smith
I think The night Wind gets it right in this article; certainly ‘Rittenhouse is a marked man’.
None of this bodes well for Mr. Rittenhouse. The RINOs are hoping that the extraordinary incompetence of the Prosecution will lead to an acquittal. It may happen, but Rittenhouse is a marked man. The Elites want a human sacrifice, and they’ll have one. And when that happens, Rittenhouse will have as many ‘Conservatives’ at his back as all the other human sacrifices had (i.e. none). Rittenhouse only matters to the Right so long as his case is a useful talking-point for them. Beyond that, he’s expendable. Guilt or innocence don’t make any difference any longer; and neither does Right or Wrong; or Justice or Injustice. Trials today are conducted only to give the illusion of Justice. Most Americans today have no idea what the actual purpose of a Judiciary is and could care less.–The Rittenhouse Case And The Rino Punditocracy, The Night Wind
13 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The low this morning was the same as yesterday (43.2°) but felt warmer. Maybe I’m becoming hardened to the lower temperatures. Not likely but maybe.
The only News from the Park is that my westside neighbors have left and I now have an open space on that side. There was also a prefabricated tiny house moved in behind me and to the east along the south property line. It is much wider than all the tiny houses that I have seen but they did bring it in on a trailer. If I were to hang up the keys it is something that I think I would like.
I don’t know why I have not done it before. I have been reading books online at archive.org using the Raspberry which is not my first choice for reading books. It finally registered in my slow thinking that I could do the same thing using the Fire 8. So, I now have another book that is only available online bookmarked on the Fire 8 and will be reading it online an hour at a time if available.
That is all for today. Not much going on other than the routine.
14 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The open space on my west side has been filled. A huge 5th Wheel Toy Hauler with multiple slides has now filled that space. There was not much of a view on that side and that beast does provide some afternoon shade so it is not all bad. Haven’t talked to either of the couple that came with it from WI (if I can believe the license plates). The snowbird flights are arriving.
I’ll not do much of anything today. There will be laundry to be done tomorrow and I’ll see if my Chromebook is fixed or when it might be. Perhaps make another stop at Wal*Mart and see if they have any raw almonds or peanuts in the shell — Safeway does not.
The third novel in the science-fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis. This final story is set on Earth, and tells of a terrifying conspiracy against humanity.
Jane seeks help concerning her dreams at a community called St Anne’s, where she meets their leader — Dr Ransom (the main character of the previous two titles in the trilogy). The story ends in a final spectacular scene at the N.I.C.E. headquarters where Merlin appears to confront the powers of Hell. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
I think CHS called this right. He has been right about a lot of things but does not specify a time when it will happen. If he does then you need to take special attention.
As I write this in mid-2016, energy is once again relatively inexpensive: the world is awash in oil, and natural gas and coal prices are low. Technological innovations such as fracking, and cheap credit to fund the expansion of energy production, have led to a surplus of energy that has pushed the price down.
But this doesn’t change the fact that the oil that was the cheapest to pump and refine has been depleted, leaving the future only the oil that is more costly to pump and refine. The current era of low energy costs will end, as demand soars when prices are low (we waste what is cheap and conserve what is dear) and expanding production depletes what is left of the cheap-to-access oil.
In effect, the status quo needs cheap energy to function. — Why Our Status Quo Failed by Charles hugh Smith
15 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Well, I managed to successfully complete two out of the four things I wanted to do in town today. There was breakfast at the Horseshoe then doing laundry. Both of those items on my list were successful. The failures were finding peanuts in the shell or raw almonds at Wal*Mart or getting a fixed Chromebook.
I might also count a successful walk on the golf course this morning before going to town. We did holes 17, 18, 1 and 2 this morning for a total of slightly over 2.5 miles. About a mile of that distance was just getting to and from the gold course. I don’t know if we will be able to visit all 18 holes or not because of that extra mile just getting there and back.
If we measure academic achievement by the issuance of a college degree, but the process of earning that degree does not measure real student learning, then what are we measuring with college diplomas? What we’re really measuring is the students’ ability to navigate an academic bureaucracy for four or five years. Since we’re not measuring useful learning, we have no way to hold colleges accountable for their demonstrable failure to teach useful skills.
The key point here is systemic success or failure arises from our choices of what to measure and what thresholds we set as meaningful. Whatever we select to measure and deem important, participants will optimize their choices and behaviors to reach the rewards that are incentivized.
… The ontological imperative of the state is to expand its control. The State has only one mode of being, expansion. It has no concept of, or mechanisms for, contraction.
From the state’s point of view, everything outside its control poses a risk. The only way to lower risk is to control everything that can be controlled. This is how nations fail: centralized power attracts elites who then steer the state and its central bank to serve their interests, at the expense of everyone below the apex of power. — Why Our Status Quo Failed by Charles Hugh Smith
16 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
It is still a bit cool out there in the shade. While in the sun it is fine but I need to be in the shade part of the time while dumping the holding tanks and adding water. I think I’ll wait a little longer.
It was warm enough (36.5°) while doing our walk this morning. A little over 2.6 miles that included the golf course hole #13, part of 14, part of 15 and 16 twice. Had to do #16 twice to get to and from #13.
I’ll go into town again tomorrow for my regular shopping plus another stop at Wal*Mart. I need to get a Thermo Cube TC3 for my basement heater setup. Probably should have bought it some weeks/months ago but it is now nearing the time when I will really need it. Freezing nights will soon be here.
This was written in 2016 which I think was a good call considering the situation in the USA, and the world, now. I added the underline.
The end-state of financialization is financial servitude to debt, a state I call neofeudalism, as the fundamental relation is debtors who are in lifelong servitude to those who own the debt. This is feudalism but without the stability and relative security of feudalism. In neofeudalism, the debt-serfs cannot depend on lifelong employment or shelter. The modern debt-serf has no real security until he reaches old age, and that security is contingent on the state being able to borrow unlimited money to fund the retirement and healthcare of a rapidly aging populace.
There is nothing in the system to limit debt to youth or middle age; financialization inevitably generates lifelong indebtedness. Thus Social Security may be less about financial security for the elderly and more about providing elderly debtors with enough income to service their debts.
… The initial stage of collapse is decay: services become unreliable; shortages appear, households react defensively by hoarding essentials and cash, and the state increases its repression of dissent.
The only way to quiet disgruntled insiders, elites and state dependents is to print more money to reflate speculative bubbles and fund more state spending. — Why Our Status Quo Failed by Charles Hugh Smith
This thread will probably get taken down for being antivaxx. But is it just a coincidence or might there be some cause and effect that these athletes are dying from cardiac arrest.
German news agency compiles a list of 75 European athletes who have died “suddenly” in the past 5 months since being fully vaccinated. Hmmmm… Tweeter Thread by D. O'Genius>
Puns are fun!
My friend was whining about his car, but I was in no mood for a Saab story.
17 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
We walked holes #3 & #4 on the golf course this morning. They were short holes but it was almost two miles round trip getting to them. It would have been even longer if I had used the cart path but used service roads to get to them.
Then our first stop in town was at Safeway where I got everything on my list. There was non-dairy yogurt in the big containers and there was more than just one of them. It is cashew milk yogurt which is very thick compared to the other non-dairy milk yogurts that I have tried.
The stop at Wal*Mart was another failure. I was hoping that they had the Thermo Cube in the store but they did not. I have ordered it online with the delivery to be in a couple of weeks — maybe.
I ordered more coffee from my roaster in Bisbee, AZ. They delivered it to the Bisbee Post Office on Monday. It then went from Bisbee to Tucson to Benson to Bowie to Tucson to Benson and is now out for delivery. Maybe I get it around noon today — maybe.
Getting online orders delivered when you do not live in a sticks-n-bricks can prove to be “interesting”.
Our status quo—the pyramid of wealth and power dominated by the few at the top—has failed and is beyond reform.
This failure is not rooted in superficial issues such as politics or governmental regulations; the failure is structural.
The writing is on the wall for us to read:
We are doing more of what has failed spectacularly.
We are implementing emergency measures as permanent policies.
We receive diminishing returns on status quo solutions.
We suffer declining social mobility.
We have a loss of social cohesion/shared purpose.
Our status quo is not only failing to solve humanity’s six core problems—it has become the problem.
Since this failure is now inevitable, something is coming to replace it. It is urgent that each of us understand why our status quo has failed, and why the usual menu of reforms can’t stop this failure, to prepare ourselves for the radical transformations ahead. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
18 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The walk this morning was around the perimeter of the Benson water treatment complex. It was mostly on the golf course service roads. These are better than the cart path if you want to stay out of the mud from the overnight sprinklers watering the golf fairways. I think they are also shortcuts between golf course holes if you know which one to take.
It was cold this morning (33.1°) but didn’t feel that cold. I may need that Thermo Cube before it gets here if the lows continue to drop. No worries — HA The forecast shows that the lows will be in the upper 30s and the lower 40s.
There is nothing planned for today, just the usual routine. Maybe get another package delivery tomorrow. This time from FedEx if the tracking is reporting correctly.
An oh so true meme. Just say NO!
It’s funny how we were raised not to be peer pressured into taking experimental drugs and now we’re being peer pressured into taking experimental drugs.
In July, 2021, the CDC published an analysis of 14 kids aged 12-17 who died after being vaccinated. They listed the causes of death as: pulmonary embolism (two), intracranial hemorrhage (two), etc. and then changed the topic. No discussion. No nothing. The message they attempted to send was: “there is nothing to see here folks, move along.”…
I wanted to document, for the record, that there was plenty to see there.
Let’s start with intracranial hemorrhage. In the entire 30-year history of the VAERS system, there are no reports in that age range dying from intracranial hemorrhage.…
Statistically, the cause of death for those 14 kids they analyzed could happen by chance… maybe 1 in billion. But nobody did the math to let us know that.
These kids died and the CDC didn’t even do an analysis to determine the chance of that happening by random chance. Why not? I know the answer. Because if they did the calculation, it would be an admission that it didn’t happen by chance. Then they’d have to explain what did kill those kids. By not doing the calculation, they basically sweep it under the rug. The press never asks. Problem solved.–Why can’t anyone explain how these 14 kids died after getting vaccinated?, Steve Kirsch
19 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: November 19, 1933
It was a little warmer this morning than yesterday but continues to be below 40° although the forecasts are all over 40. That changes by this time next week with the forecast lows to be just above freezing. My guess is that it will freeze then, maybe even before then.
I have some oat groats in the Thermal Cooker this morning and when they are ready for future breakfasts the pot will be used to soak some red hominy. That will get cooked tomorrow and maybe even the next day if it is still chewy. I’ll then cook some of the cranberry beans, also called borlotti beans, and mix them with the hominy when done. This will be the base for my succotash ‘linners’.
That is what I have planned for excitement today. Maybe receive a package later in the day and the Thermo Cube now expected to arrive on Monday.
Since the jury in this trial can not seem to arrive at a decision I sense that it may be a hung jury. That should be good enough for more riots since it is not a guilty decision. Meme: “The truth is they’re not after Kyle Rittenhouse, they’re after your right to defend yourself against armed hostiles they support.”
That’s also why, if Rittenhouse is not convicted under Wisconsin law, I expect the Department of Justice to bring civil rights charges against him. The powers that be dare not allow him to get away with armed self-defense. It’s as simple as that. No matter how justified his conduct under existing law, it must be discouraged, lest others do the same thing. In so many words, the laws are less important than politically correct policies, and must be interpreted and applied only in the light of those policies.… I can only conclude by pointing out that if you know you're going to be targeted for defending yourself, you have two choices:
Submit to being terrorized, possibly injured, even perhaps killed by those favored under the politically correct dispensation.
Stop them regardless. After all, if you know you’ll be charged with a felony for defending yourself, then every felony after the first one is effectively “free”. They can only punish you so much — so why hold back?–Bayou Renaissance Man, Peter Grant
20 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
I have the red hominy in the Thermal Cooker now. Maybe it will be done by the end of the day; if still chewy I’ll bring it to a boil again and let it cook overnight.
Also have the distiller working again. I’m having a problem with the start switch on it. The thermal switch seems to be working fine but the spring loaded button that I push does not always start the boiler. Always something in this age of planned obsolescence. That spring button costs $4 before shipping; I bet it would cost $100 or more to have someone fix the problem.
Received my delivery of peanuts in the shell from nuts.com yesterday. It was delivered by FedEx, I think, but they left the box at the office rather than bring it to my space here in the Park. The other FedEx delivery I had here came to my space — you never know.
This quote is from a speech by John C. Calhoun to the Senate during the Mexican–American War. They did not take heed of what he said then nor would they do so today.
I must say I am at a loss to see how a free and independent republic can be established in Mexico [or any country] under the protection and authority of its conquerors. I can readily understand how an aristocracy or a despotic government might be, but how a free republican government can be so established, under such circumstances, is to me incomprehensible. I had always supposed that such a government must be the spontaneous wish of the people; that it must emanate from the hearts of the people, and be supported by their devotion to it, without support from abroad. But it seems that these are antiquated notions—obsolete ideas—and that free popular governments may be made under the authority and protection of a conqueror. We make a great mistake in supposing all people are capable of self-government. Acting under that impression, many are anxious to force free governments on all the peoples of this continent, and over the world, if they had the power. It has been lately urged in a very respectable quarter, that it is the mission of our country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the globe, and especially over this continent—even by force, if necessary. It is a sad delusion.
It is pun time.
Studies show that cows produce more milk when the farmer talks to them. It’s a case of in one ear and out the udder.
21 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Th morning low was 43.3° which felt rather nice. Maybe I’m becoming acclimated or have lost all feelings. Still only 46 at 8:00 while sitting in Desperado is cold, fired up the Wave 6.
The beans have soaked overnight; they will soon be brought to a boil and then into the Thermal Cooker for the rest of the day. I think that will be enough to cook them. If not, reboil and let them cook overnight.
That is all I plan on doing today other than the routine.
Israel is one of the countries with the highest percentage of their population that have been “fully vaxxed” plus they are leading the world with the number of their population that have also received the “booster jab”. So why does the US government want to emulate what they have done? Is it that they wish to also emulate higher hospitalizations and deaths? That seems to be what they do want.
“What the “Covid Pandemic” has taught us is that we can only have ZERO TRUST in the medical establishment, politicians, and media. These corrupt people have agendas totally different from public health.” ‐ Paul Craig Roberts
They [Israel] are seeing a waning of immunity not only against infection but against hospitalization and to some extent death, which is starting to now involve all age groups. It isn’t just the elderly. It’s waning to the point that you’re seeing more and more people getting breakthrough infections, and more and more of those people who are getting breakthrough infections are winding up in the hospital. — Dr. Anthony Fauci, November 12, 2021 podcast session with the New York Times
This is the essence of politics. Politics is that dimension of social life in which things really do become true if enough people believe them. The problem is that in order to play the game effectively, one can never acknowledge its essence. No king would openly admit he is king just because people think he is. Political power has to be constantly recreated by persuading others to recognize one’s power; to do so, one pretty much invariably has to convince them that one’s power has some basis other than their recognition.–The Sadness of Post Workism, David Graeber
22 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
It was a balmy 45.3° this morning. Very nice and the forecast has been revised with slightly warmer mornings for the next 10 days. I do hope the weather guessers get it right.
I dumped holding tanks and added water soon after breakfast. That is all I plan on doing today. Resting up before my shopping day in town tomorrow. HA
It is unbelievable that all the generals that served in Afghanistan and all the generals that were in the Pentagon could not understand this during the 20 years that US troops were there. I provided the underlining.
The troops’ national feeling (enthusiasm, fanatical zeal, faith, and general temper) is most apparent in mountain warfare where every man, down to the individual soldier, is on his own. For this reason alone mountainous areas constitute the terrain best suited for action by an armed populace. — On War by Carl von Clausewitz
Keep in mind that the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) reports only a small percentage of all events. Perhaps these fetal deaths will wake people up to the dangers of the Coronavirus® vaxx.
Fetal deaths following COVID-19 shots injected into pregnant women continue to increase, as there are now 2,620 fetal deaths reported in VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System).
When we run the exact same search in VAERS and exclude the COVID-19 shots, we find 2,225 fetal deaths following ALL vaccines injected into pregnant women for the past 30+ years.–2,620 Dead Babies in VAERS After COVID Shots, Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News
Vince would get my business.
Albert Einstein’s little brother Frank was an absolute monster. — Vince The Sign Guy
A techno pun.
My Blueooth speaker stopped working so I threw it in the lake, now it’ syncing.
23 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The trip into town was quick today. The grocery stop at Safeway was done first where I got almost everything I had on my list. Their produce section was rather bare in places and I could not find any fresh spinach. Picked up some frozen as the alternative but there wasn’t much of that either. Who would have thought that spinach would be in short supply?
I have had a couple of email exchanges with the company that sold me the distiller that I have been using. They offer warranty service and sell replacement parts. But I haven’t been able to get an answer to the question “What will you charge to repair my distiller that is out of warranty?”
Meanwhile, I have removed the Start Button that was not starting anything and can press the thermal switch with my finger and get the distiller to work. So I may just live with it that way until something else fails.
Australia has now entered Stage #7. Is the US very far behind at Stages #5 & #6?
Ten Stages Of Genocide
1 Classification: People are divided into “us and them.”
2 Symbolization: People are forced to identify themselves.
3 Discrimination: People begin to face systematic discrimination.
4 Dehumanization: People equated with animals, vermin, or diseases.
5 Organization: The government creates specific groups (police/military) to enforce the policies.
6 Polarization: The government broadcasts propaganda to turn the populace against the group.
7 Preparation: Official action to remove/relocate people.
8 Persecution: Beginning of murders, theft of property, trial massacres.
9 Extermination: Wholesale elimination of the group. It is “extermination” and not murder because the people are not considered human.
10 Denial: The government denies that it has committed any crime.
I don’t think Darrell Brooks Jr, the Waukesha, WI SUV driver, should be charged with anything; certainly not arrested and prosecuted. After all he has been subject to systemic racism which gives him a free pass with that Get Out Of Jail Card. Although his trial would be another great rioting and looting opportunity. Don’t let a crisis go to waste you know.
24 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The temperature was near 50° when we started our walk this morning but got colder the longer we were out there. The low of 45.9° happened after we finished our walk. Strange morning with a little rain in the dark early hours that did not register with the local Weather Underground reporting station — probably just a trace.
I have hulled barley and oat groats cooking in the Thermal Cooker. The past week or two I have been eating just cooked oat groats and that has not been as good. I’m glad to be going back to my old recipe.
I think this book will appeal to anyone who enjoys travel, adventure, archaeology, history, detective work, discovery, the ancient classics, National Geographic type readers, sailors and anyone interested in boats, inventors and every type of thinker. Yes, all of those. And more.
Something to ponder from a good blog posting by someone that I have started to follow.
Communists make man simply a material being, neglecting his soul completely, but the strict capitalist view does the same thing, making of man nothing but a free consumer in a giant emporium of endless goods and services from which he can choose. Both visions are false, and there is a great danger in exalting too highly the purely material side of life as modern capitalists do. For if gaining material goods is presented as the highest goal of life, then mankind, without any spiritual discipline from Christianity, will happily go the path of least resistance to obtain those goods. In other words, he will one day happily trade his hard, honest work that he has been giving in exchange for a paycheck for a welfare check that requires less exertion on his part from the comrades of a Communist government.–Beware the Effects of Becoming “Business-Friendly”, Walt Garlington
25 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Thanksgiving Day for me is just another day. However, it started with a light rain when we stepped out to do our morning walk. We were getting rather wet and Patches was doing the dog shake to get it off. Therefore, I called for a retreat to Desperado and we did only a potty walk. Maybe get to do our afternoon walk although it looks very threatening to rain some more.
I'll be driving to Sierra Vista tomorrow to pick up a package that the Tucson VA Pharmacy sent to my address there. I tried to get the delivery sent here but that did not happen. I’ll try again in December and see what happens.
No link to this quote; I have copied the post in its entirety including the formating.
The EU High Representative Josep Borrell has just made a very telling admission, check out this video. Here is the interesting quote (at about timestamp 29:00, stress added): “And we western people, US and EU, we have been ruling the world because we were the standard setters, we were fixing the standards, we are the masters of how technology was working. And from steel-mills to trains, railways to everything warfare, we were the standard setting. If we are no longer the standard setting, we will not rule the 21st century.”
Ahhh, finally!!! You heard it from a top level and very official representative of the West: the current tensions are about maintaining the western hegemony over the world. Back to the (1930s) future… QED. Andrei @ The Saker
I wonder what von Clausewitz would have thought if he could see the army of today. Artillery has been replaced with missiles for the most part. Cavalry was replaced by tanks by WWII but they have in turn become almost as obsolete as the cavalry. Wars also no longer focus on enemy troops; the entire opposing population is targeted then explained away as it being “collateral damage”.
An army composed simply of artillery, therefore, would be absurd in war. An army consisting simply of cavalry is conceivable, but would have little strength in depth. — On War by Carl von Clausewitz
John Michael Greer may have described the underlying goal for the Great Reset. Depopulation and a return to feudalism with the Elite once more the lords of the manor. I added the underline.
Over the course of three centuries, an increase in the crude death rate of one percent per annum, given an unchanged birth rate, is sufficient to reduce a population to five percent of its original level.… Birth rates are subject to complex pressures and vary up and down depending on the specific pressures a population faces, and even small increases in infant and child mortality have a disproportionate effect by removing potential breeding pairs from the population before they can reproduce. — Dark Age America by John Michael Greer
26 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: November 26, 1933
The trip to Sierra Vista provided an excuse to stop at Sunny D’s for breakfast. Then I had to wait a few minutes before the UPS Store opened and I could get the package that the VA sent there rather than here.
I arrived in Sierra Vista a little early because we cut the walk short again. No rain but it was cold (33.4°) with a forecast of 37-39. I had on my padded camouflage jacket and wool cap so the upper body was warm enough but my legs were getting very cold . The forecast low for tomorrow is the same so I’ll be wearing my thermal bottoms tomorrow morning.
I distilled one more gallon of water yesterday to see if the distiller was working. I can make it start now that I have removed the start button by pressing the thermal switch with my finger. It seems to work just as well as before — I fixed it. HA
Probably the most recent example of this was the collapse of the USSR. But all the talking heads assure us that “This time is different”.
Thus elites, shall we say, “misunderestimate” exactly those crises and sources of conflict that pose an existential threat to the survival of their class and its institutions, precisely because they can’t imagine that an existential threat to these things could be posed by anything at all.
The irony, and it’s a rich one, is that the same conviction tends to become just as widespread outside elite circles as within it. The illusion of invincibility, the conviction that the existing order of things is impervious to any but the most cosmetic changes, tends to be pervasive in any mature society and remains fixed in place right up to the moment that everything changes and the existing order of things is swept away forever. The intensity of the illusion very often has nothing to do with the real condition of the social order to which it applies. — Dark Age America by John Michael Greer
27 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The low this morning was almost freezing (32.9°) but I was dressed for it. Had my thermals on as well as what I have been wearing and that made the difference. It will probably freeze every morning for the next 3 or 4 then warm up to the upper 30s if the forecast is anywhere close to being right. It may be time for me to get my Thermo Cube working.
I’ll be staying close to the Wave 6 the rest of this morning until it warms up. More reading and maybe get started on my month end routine.
Is the development of cryptocurrencies a sign that ‘people begin looking for ways to meet their own economic needs outside the existing system’ is now happening? I have not quoted from the book but JMG also has some very interesting things to say about what happens to the trust in science as the decline in civilization begins.
A fully developed feudal system takes several centuries to emerge. The first stirrings of one, however, begin to take shape as soon as people in a declining civilization start to realize that the economic system under which they live is stacked against them and benefits, at their expense, whatever class of parasitic intermediaries their society happens to have spawned. That’s when people begin looking for ways to meet their own economic needs outside the existing system,… — Dark Age America by John Michael Greer
This quote is from the book cited that was published in 1967. Sadly nothing has changed in 55 years.
There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world. We have the opportunity to set an example of generous understanding in our relations with China, of practical cooperation for peace in our relations with Russia, of reliable and respectful partnership in our relations with Western Europe, of material helpfulness without moral presumption in our relations with the developing nations, of abstention from the temptations of hegemony in our relations with Latin America, and of the all-around advantages of minding one’s own business in our relations with everybody. Most of all, we have the opportunity to serve as an example of democracy to the world by the way in which we run our own society; America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, should be “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” but “he champion and vindicator only of her own.” … — The Arrogance of Power by J. William Fulbright
28 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
I got another month’s of Will Rogers weekly articles formatted yesterday. That is one of my month end routines. Today I might get the bathroom cleaned and the floor washed. That is another routine at the end of the month.
I was right about it freezing this morning. The low was 30.7° and had only warmed up to 41 by 8:30. Any cleaning that will be done will have to wait for it to get warmer. The walk was done while wearing my thermals again and did not feel too cold. However, even with the Wave 6 doing its thing my hands are cold. Old age and poor circulation does not help. HA
That is all we have happening here today. I’ll go to town for my usual shopping trip tomorrow.
I agree with everything that JMG says in this quote with the exception of e-books. I have found them to be the best technological advance for book ‘printing’ since Gutenberg’s innovated book printing system.
The habit of insisting that science is a single package, take it or leave it, is paralleled by the equivalent and equally specious insistence that there is this single thing called “technology,” that objecting to any single component of that alleged unity amounts to rejecting all of it, and that you’re not allowed to pick and choose among technologies—you have to take all of it or reject it all. I field this sort of nonsense all the time. It so happens, for example, that I have no interest in owning a cell phone, never got around to playing video games, and have a sufficiently intense fondness for books printed on actual paper that I’ve never given more than a passing thought to the current fad for e-books.— Dark Age America by John Michael Greer
Dr. Ute Bergner, a physicist who is a member of the Thuringian state parliament in Germany, commissioned statisticians to investigate the relationship between vaccination and excess mortality in the 16 German federal states.
The statisticians found that the states with the lowest percentage of the population vaccinated had the lowest excess mortality. In contrast the state with the highest vaccination rate (66%) had the highest rate of excess deaths.
“The correlation coefficient is +0.31. In the eyes of the two data scientists this is ‘astonishingly high.’ Especially since the believers in the vaccine are claiming the opposite but provide no proof for their notion of ‘protection’. One should at the least expect a different relationship: the more vaccinations, the lower the mortality. After all, the intention was to protect people.”–German Statisticians Find the Same Result in Germany as the UK Health Security Agency Reports: It Is a Pandemic of the Vaccinated., Paul Craig Roberts
29 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
The house cleaning was done soon after noon yesterday. Most of the morning was spent putting the Raspberry Pi computer away and relearning how to use the Fire 10. I know there must be a better way than what I did to get my Bookmarks set up. I still don’t have them all on the Fire but have the ones that I use the most.
I had a short shopping list for Safeway this morning so the gathering process went quickly. Breakfast was then had at the Benson Cafe where I got them to modify the Spinach Omelet that was on the menu. No meat, no cheese, just eggs and spinach.
It was freezing (31.3°) again this morning as I predicted. The official weather guessers continue to forecast the lows to be in the upper 30s or lower 40s; no freezing in their predictions.
After decades of missed opportunities, the door to a sustainable future has closed, and the future we face now is one in which today’s industrial civilization unravels in the face of uncontrolled climate change and resource depletion.
Dark Age America, then, seeks to map out in advance the history of collapse, giving us an idea of what the next five hundred years or so might look like as globalization ends and North American civilization reaches the end of its lifecycle and enters the stages of decline and fall.
In many ways, this is Greer’s most uncompromising work, though by no means without hope to offer. Knowing where we’re headed collectively is a crucial step in responding constructively to the challenges of the future and doing what we can now to help our descendants make the most of the world we’re leaving them. — Dark Age America by John Michael Greer
30 November 2021
Red Barn RV Park
Benson, AZ
It was not just moving Bookmarks to the Fire 10 that I had to relearn. I also must learn how to use the Google docs app once again. There is also the problem with Vivaldi desktop and Vivaldi mobile operating differently. Maybe in a week or two I’ll be functioning as well as I was with the Raspberry?
I plugged in the basement heater last night and don’t think it was called upon to work. The Thermal Cube turns on when the temperature reaches 35° and the low this morning was 35.1. Probably stayed above freezing just because I did plug in.
I don’t think it will be much warmer for our morning walks now while I am here. The afternoon walks however are great. Patches likes them both; her kind of weather in the morning and not too bad in the afternoon.
I am not as extreme antivaxx as Adam seems to be with his “not any vaccine” position. However, I’m in full agreement with his position on “not this vaccine”. His entire posting is worth reading.
What the events of the last eighteen months have shown me is that the medical/pharmaceutical industry is not to be trusted on any level and on any subject. I will partake of their products only if I am absolutely desperate, and even then I will try and take as many opinions as I am able. Because they are indeed opinions, as they have always been. And it is indeed an industry, as it always has been. And they do not care about your health and welfare. They care about their bottom lines and not exposing themselves to government penalties.–Not this vaccine, not any vaccine, Adam Piggott