I come in peace. Shoot to kill...

I guess I've still got a few things to resolve...

Whilst it's clear to me that I'm utterly mad, I see the rest of the world no saner either. What passes for sanity these days seems to me to be nothing more than the unthinking participation in history's greatest evil whilst pursuing one's own ever more selfish and hedonistic interests. And against this is ranged a whole spectrum of religious lunatics thinking their God wants them to kill the "enemy".

I see so much which just makes me want to scream!

Like, just for instance, here we are (Australia) prancing about on the global stage, wanking on about how Japan should stop whaling and we're taking part in the biggest war crime on earth.

We're destroying the planet (and ourselves) at break-neck speed whilst we get oh-so-concerned about battery chickens and a whole raft of frivolous "rights", none of which will mean zip if we don't all sort out the big problems first.

We cultivate willful ignorance and denial about what havoc globalised capitalism is wreaking just so we can maintain the lifestyle we've become so addicted to, or lust after an even "better" one.

And how about me, I rant about nonviolence endlessly and engage in ever more vitriolic verbal warfare with well-meaning innocent people merely because I'm so rage-filled at what I see happening and the disagreement and confusion about what the problems are and what should be done about them, and the urgency of it all.

A thousand agendas pulling in a thousand different directions while humanity kills its own habitat as time runs out. I see that democracy has become its own worst enemy and a certain road to ruin. And yet I cannot see a viable alternative.

I feel the need to keep ranting, but I have no idea who I should be ranting at.

I can see it ending nowhere except in a real-life dramatisation of Munch's Scream.

I'm in hell... And I can't even write well... Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!

dang my yang...

The following comment was detected in the blogoshere: "The world has had quite enough yang energy, war, rape, violence, etcetra."

Bollocks.

Last time I searched the internet, yang energy was defined something like this: "The Yang energy is masculine in nature and is described as light, dry, directed, focused, logical, and action oriented."

Of course Jesus, Ghandi, King, and Chavez were all yinnified woosses, right?

Yeah... And then there were Boudicca, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Ann Coulter...

Well, dang my yang!

ooooh... how dare you attack me...

Wankers.

Everywhere, wankers.

Big, hairy-palmed wankers.

Right now people I thought I cared about are accusing me of "attacking" them. I feel attacked. They claim I am "abusing" them. I feel abused. They feel invalidated. I feel invalidated.

So what is this thing about feeling "attacked" and how seriously should we take such feelings?

Well, here in the blogoshpere we have a perfect laboratory for examining this.

Especially here in the Left Wing Bloggers Forum. We "progressive" bloggers love to attack those labelled as conservatives, Christians, anti-abortionists, homophobes, capitalists, etc, etc, etc etc,...

Yeah?

Well, if it's OK for us to attack them, why is not ok for them (or even cynical lefties) to attack us? And what do we mean by "attack" anyway?

If someone is challenging your points of view, or your beliefs, or your values, etc, etc, why is this perceived as an "attack"?

Isn't the unstated thing here an attitude which says something like "it's ok for me to be critical of your views, but you must not be critical of my views, or I will accuse you of being a heinous, attacking perpetrator". i.e. a form of intellectual fascism? Or, how about "it's ok for me to invalidate your value system, but you must not invalidate my value system"? Talk about a moral superiority complex.

So, what's all this shit about feeling "attacked" about anyway? Isn't it just a way of saying "my pet ideas must not be challenged or I will vomit all over you"?

Puerile idiots!

Grow a brain!

Yuze can all get fucked!

shane howard... you legend...

Just finished watching Australian Story on ABC-TV.

They featured Shane Howard. You know... Goanna... Solid Rock...

Yeah...

That song never fails to either make me cry or make me so angry I want to smash something.

Speaking about how he came to write the lyrics of Solid Rock, Shane spoke of a time he was out near Uluru, and he said "In a big landscape you can think big thoughts"

And that made me think of something Link said. I have hunted high and low but I can't find where she said it. You there, Link?

our values...

Much as been made by the propagandists using our Prime Minister as a sock puppet about "values". You know, those things that make us "superior" to those with different "values"...

Just now I left a comment on this topic over at Gianna's blog and I liked it so much I thought I'd dump an abridged version here as well:

Our values? Which ones?

The values that say we can march into any part of the world, set up our megacorps, strip their resources, bugger their habitat, their culture, their values, their women and their kids, and piss off again when we're done?

The values that flog the corrupt myth that Western style "democracy" is some sort of magic bullet that must be fired into them at point blank range and against their will?

The values that say our unsustainable, resource-stripping, globe-buggering lifestyle must prevail, and their simpler, more subsistent, more sustainable lifestyle must be corrupted by "progress"?

(And please don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm talking about any religion here.)

Mutters to self: "People, hypnotised by mere moments in history..."

Sigh...

It's not easy being an eclectic (or should that be "electric"?) philosopher...

So much sophistry, so few bullets...

Benjamin Franklin...

Gore Vidal... I love the man...

I've selected this quote mainly to embed in this blog that famous comment by Benjamin Franklin about the limitations of the American Constitution (and therefore American "democracy"):

It was Benjamin Franklin, of all people, who saw our future most clearly back in 1787, when, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, he read for the first time the proposed Constitution. He was old; he was dying; he was not well enough to speak but he had prepared a text that a friend read. It is so dark a statement that most school history books omit his key words.

Franklin urged the convention to accept the Constitution despite what he took to be its great faults, because it might, he said, provide good government in the short term. "There is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

dead donkey...

A hillbilly called Kenny moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for
$100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

The following day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry, son, but I have
some bad news. The donkey died."

Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me back my money.

The farmer said, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I spent it.

Kenny said, "OK. Just bring me the dead donkey."

The farmer asked, "What are you going to do with him?"

Kenny answered, "I"m going to raffle him off."

The farmer said "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"

Kenny responded "Sure I can. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."

A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with
that dead donkey?"

Kenny answered, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars
apiece and made a profit of $998.00."

The farmer asked, "Did anyone complain?"

Kenny said, "Just the guy who won, so I gave him back his two dollars."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of a corporate giant.

(Compliments of Mike B.)

my spirit weeps...

Just finished watching Lateline on the ABC. They featured sexual abuse of Aboriginal children by pedophiles within their community, and the resounding inaction by the bureaucracies whose job it is to get involved.

Near the end of the program Mantatjara Wilson, a female elder of the community, said "My spirit weeps."

And so did mine...

for deirdre...

Deirdre loves black cockatoos. I photographed this one in a tree behind our place about two months ago.

where do I get one?

And there's more where that came from...

Update: I originally attributed this to Ron (who used to have a blog called Mountain Murmurs) but it appears that I now have to give a hat-tip Lavatory Rodeo, or Flutey... Ahhh bugger it... Yuze can all get stuffed! The link to the primary source is shown and the rest don't count. Boy, have I got the shits with wannabe bloggers at the moment! (Truth be known, I've probably got the shits with me!)
.

out of the closet...

Ok, time to come out of the closet. Some of you already know this, or have guessed it, so I may as well go fully public here.

I suffer from clinical depression, generalised anxiety disorder, and PTSD. These have been deemed to be war related and as a result I receive the full Veterans Disability Pension (such as it is).

Why am I telling you this? Because I am sick and tired of some people's pop psychology "diagnoses" directly or indirectly labelling veterans such as myself as malingerers, welfare parasites, misfits, and worse. Sick of it! Piss off! Go screw yourselves!

These days there's a hard political edge to such vilifications and I'm getting pretty pissed off about it, as a previous post has already indicated...

Back off you idiots or recruiting numbers will drop so low you'll need to re-introduce
press gangs to fight your next round of resources-stealing wars.

Of course the reason they're doing it is because the cat's out and it's costing them trillions to continue their vile abuse of patriotism..

breaking the spell...

Daniel C. Dennett has written a book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Here's a snippet of the review by New York Review of Books:

For Dennett, the visions of saints and mystics are worthless as evidence, since they are neither repeatable nor testable. Dennett is examining religion from the outside, following the rules of science. For him, the visions of saints and mystics are only a phenomenon to be explained, like falling in love or hating people of a different skin color, mental conditions that may or may not be considered pathological.

The second section of the book is the longest and contains the core of Dennett's argument. He describes the various stages of the long historical evolution of religion, beginning with primitive tribal myths and rituals, and ending with the market-driven evangelical megachurches of modern America. Looking at these evolutionary processes from the outside, he speculates about ways in which they might be understood scientifically. He explains them tentatively as products of a Darwinian competition between belief systems, in which only the fittest belief systems survive. The fitness of a belief system is defined by its ability to make new converts and retain their loyalty. It has little to do with the biological fitness of its human carriers, and it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the beliefs. Read the whole review here

Blame Ron, he emailed me the link!

wanna play charades?

Found it at Rosey's blog.
.

years of training...

It must take years of training to get them to hold their mouths "just so"...

Found the image at Sky News whilst browsing Muppet Lord's blog.

Now there's two undiagnosed cases of PTSD if I ever saw any... Talk about "walking wounded"...
.

you're beautiful...

(Apologies to James Blunt)

You'll need to enable (((sound))) for this one...

Compliments of Boynton.

Compliments of Ron.

Of course, I don't need to tell you that you can right-click (or ctrl-click for Mac) on the links, and select "Save Link As" (or "download linked file" for Mac) if you want to download these files to your pooter. You did know that, didn't you?

on using plain english...

Communication... What is the intent of our way of communicating? That's what I'm on about here. To highlight the issue, I'll identify three types of communicator:

The Plain Speaker: Intends to be understood by as wide a spectrum of people as possible.

The Intellectual Snob: Intends to exclude "the uneducated" or put himself above his readers/listeners by using big words like some sort of code intended only for the illuminati (sorry for the big word here, but if you don't understand it, you can piss off!).

The Obfuscator: Uses big words to confuse or to avoid having his arguments or statements challenged. The obfuscator is often an intellectual snob trying to get away with a bit of intellectual dishonesty rather than admit his error in logic.

Both here in the blogosphere and at cocktail parties, Plain Speakers are a rarity, vastly outnumbered by Intellectual Snobs and Obfuscators. When forced into "polite" conversation with such low-life, Intellectual Snobs and Obfuscators will quickly put Plain Speakers in their place and thereby quite rightly silence them.

Have you noticed this?

Is it any wonder I'm so hostile?

And then they say, "You're hostile, Gerry. Calm down or we won't talk with you."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Update: A new species has been identified:

The Sycophant: Pores over dictionaries and all sorts of "authoritative" texts and websites, and hangs on every word The Intellectual Snob utters, in order to "learn the lingo" well enough to impress the pants off his hero. He's the guy who almost throws his neck out nodding enthusiastically every time The Snob speaks.

Late Update: Expert opinion just obtained by this blogger indicates that an incredibly large percentage of Intellectual Snobs adopt the arrogant and superior stance they do as a result of subconscious overcompensation for a huge undiagnosed inferiority complex.

Makes perfect sense to me...

they're quite mad you know...

If you want to get a bit more of a handle on just how nuts the US has become, read this !

how much for da liddle blog...

My blog is worth $16,936.20.
How much is your blog worth?

(This little amusement will remain here for about two weeks, and after that you'll have to go way down near the bottom of the right hand sidebar to find it. Jawohl?)

blogs at nineteen paces...

I commented on a blog item over at Daniel's blog but he deleted my comment, apparently because it contained spelling errors (can you believe that?) I suspect it was because I exposed the utter bullshit in his post.

So, here's his blog post, in its entirety, and under it is my new, spelling-improved and slightly longer comment. Read both and then you'll be able to figure things out for yourself, something Daniel tried to deny you the opportunity of doing on his blog:

NINE SEVERED HEADS!

The nine severed heads found near Bagdad are something that most normal people would find grotesque, entirely unacceptable. But then so are the results of an American or British bomb falling on an Iraqi civilian's house (except there is probably far less to identify).

Trying to imagine what type of people could commit such atrocities is beyond me yet once they were happy, loveable children playing with toys. What changed them? What motivates them? How do they manage to live with themselves?

Two main causes stand out: RELIGION and NATIONALISM. Both involve belief:
1. Belief in the fantasy of some supernatural God (one of many) who is waiting around with a grand list of rewards for the true believers when they die and
2. Belief in the imagined superiority of a nation (or race or racial group within a nation).

The outcome of conflicting beliefs is mirrored in the daily horror of Iraq. The Muslim Shiites and Sunnis, ironically, are at each other’s throats (obviously with swords) because of racial and minor religious differences.The ‘Christian’ Coalition of the Willing, who believe fervently in their twin Gods (the one in the Bible and the one in Wall Street), and also believe they are superior beings and deserve a far greater share of the world’s resources than anyone else, are doing their fair share of killing too (but, modestly, they don’t keep casualty figures of Iraqis). And all the time Ben Laden’s radical Islamic crew is stoking the fire.

What can we learn from this unresolvable nightmare, this repetitious human catastrophe? Perhaps that religion and nationalism between them create most of the world’s problems.

Getting rid of, or negating, the influence of both religion and nationalism might just lead us to world peace!

Daniel tries to narrow the causes of war down to religion and nationalism. So what are we to make of this neat and tidy idea for achieving world peace?

Well, let's think about it for a bit... He wants to get rid of religions and nations. He seems to be suggesting a global atheist dictatorship (now where have we heard that one before?) Does he think anything other than a dictatorship (with him at the helm perhaps) could demolish religions and people's sense of nationality?

A global government which outlaws religions? Is this the old marxist/stalinist/maoist/polpotist dream revamped?

I knew Daniel was an atheist, but I didn't know he was planning a global purge of religions. What would he purge next? Falun Gong? Feng Shui? Reflexology? Astrology? Aroma Therapy? Critical comments on blogs? The mind boggles.

But Daniel is running a bit of a scam here. He wants us to believe that atheists with world-conquering aspirations don't engage in bloody wholesale butchery.

Excuse me!

Communist Vietnam waged a brutal war against Communist Laos. Communist Vietnam even invaded Communist China (go figure that one).

Then there's what Atheist Stalin did to his own people. Ditto Atheist Mao. Ditto Atheist Pol Pot. I could go on, and on, and on... No, Daniel, atheists are bloody mass murderers for their cause just like anyone else. No frigging difference.

I notice it completely escapes Daniel's attention that the real problem is how people resolve their differences, not that they have differences. Religions can co-exist peacefully and generally do when extremists are not at the helm. Extremism (like that which would seek to purge the world of religions), is the real problem. Moderates cause no trouble at all. In fact, the nonviolence movement is made up of moderates from all religions and most "isms".

Daniel would do well to read up a bit about conflict resolution methodologies. And then he could read the writings of Cesar E. Chavez, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jnr. And then perhaps he could stop being a war-mongering extremist control-freak pretending to be interested in world peace.

(Hope there's not too many spelling mistakes in this)

keep it simple, stupid...

Ok, I'm still tilting at this windmill called atheism. It is proving to be somewhat troublesome. Rosinante, Sancho, and many of you poor readers, must be getting pretty bored by now. Alas, such is the nature of a hard day's tilting.

So this is for those few resolute souls who, for whatever insane reason, are still reading...

Before we get to atheism though, I need to re-assert that it is fair enough, when debating the existence or nonexistence of a god*, to group the debatees into three clearly defined groupings, and I use the terms theism, atheism, and agnosticism. The meanings I attach to these terms are fully explained in the post "sophisticated atheism".

And this is where all hell broke loose. I was accused of all sorts of crimes against philosophy. I learned a few things too.

I learned that Austin over at atheism.about.com (or whoever he got his ideas from) has pulled a neat philosophical swifty. It is slick. It nearly had me fooled.

They've neatly killed agnosticism as a distinct third category. You can be an "agnostic atheist" or an "agnostic theist" (by their definitions) and lo and behold, they relegate pure agnosticsm to virtual irrelevancy as a distinct third category. Nice stunt. But it's merely a meretricious mind game. It only works if you accept that we can infinitely obfuscate what an atheist or a theist is. It is up there with arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This brings me back to Occam's Razor and the assertion that for the purpose of this debate it is not necessary to create more than these three categories:

[1] the assertion that there is a god

[2] the assertion that there is no god

[3] no assertion one way or the other

As I see it, it really can be argued at such a basic level. I fail to see the need to create more categories for the purpose of this debate. To me, anything else is obfuscation, quibbling, or equivocation.

Now here's the interesting thing: Generally speaking, theists have no trouble accepting this, agnostics don't have any trouble accepting this, but most atheists go nuts at this proposition, and I think I know why: That definition would leave atheists wide open to the assertion that their belief system is just that - a belief system. And they hate belief systems with a vengeance. Belief systems are unscientific.

But, there's a dilemma: Having taken a "scientific" position, they would be obliged to provide proofs for their assertion. They know they cannot do this, and so they try a thousand and one bits of sophistry (and they're damn convincing) to claim that the burden of proof for the assertion that there is no god does not lie with them. That's the con. That's the scam. That's the intellectual dishonesty right there.

Rather than backpeddle, recant, and admit they are actually agnostics, they reify new definitions (sects) such as "agnostic atheism", "weak atheism", etc., just so they can still wear that treasured atheist lapel badge. It seems that calling yourself a straight-up agnostic is just too damn politically unsexy.

If you admit that you have no frigging idea one way or the other, you can't really say they (the Christians, etc) are categorically wrong. You can only do that if you claim to know they are wrong. Therefore religion bashing would be pretty silly. Peace might break out.

Not only do I say that atheism is in every sense of the word a religion, but I argue that it is the most devious and fundamentalist one of the lot. It seeks to eradicate every religion or spiritual belief on earth. It is totally materialistic and nihilistic. It pretends to be scientific but it is not. It is pseudo scientific.

The deviousness is that they will not admit it outright and have developed endless tactics to avoid having to do so. When you push an atheist with questioning, they always take up refuge in a position that "accidentally" appears to be indistinguishable from agnosticism (but they go to great lengths to still call it "a form of" atheism), but they are nothing like agnostics.

Agnostics don't feel the need to wage an endless ideological war on religions or spirituality, whereas most atheists can't seem to stop themselves.

Atheists are jihadists for materialism.

* or gods

Oh what fun it is...

I've been having a lighthearted banter with Arthur and Bruce these last few days, and it's a real joy to be able to chew the fat with such clever and sophisticated lads, let me tell you.

No exponential theorising and ad infinitum neoredefining going on there, readers. Oh no... Parsimony is the rule with these dudes. They shave so close with poor old Occam's Razor, that they look like Little Aussie Bleeders. Pass the styptic pencil, please...

And so, in the spirit of Platonic Love, I have left them this comment on Arthur's blog:

I still hold out great hope, because I believe that you two young whippersnappers are actually intelligent, that one day I will be able repair the synaptic damage done by the lobotomising effect of the atheist sophistry you guys have been subjected to.

My first difficulty is to get you to approach what I'm saying with an OPEN mind.

So, for the next six months or so, provided you try honestly and real hard, that's about all I can hope for. Such is the lobotomising effect of atheist philosphy.

But as the synapses form new links, by Christmans I might actually have you able to take your first look at the world of philosphy with OPEN eyes.

After that, the rest will fall into place naturally, and you'll very soon thereafter have your first-ever philosphical epiphany, namely that of experiencing the unutterable joy of realising that you are actually agnostics, and proud of it!

I'll then happily and proudly induct you into the Agnostic Pride Movement at a ceremony, the highlight of which is that you will each trepane the symbolic skull of an atheist with a 24mm drill bit. The applause will be deafening.

This is what awaits you, my newfound friends... You may now quiver with excitement.

I think I'll have fun playing with my new friends.

I'm excited...

infamy...

Infamy is a form of fame. All publicity is good publicity.

Thank you, Austin Cline. You're a little darling... Lotsa love, Gerry.

P.S. Of course, he fell right in when he said, "It should be noted that at the top Gerry’s blog it states that nothing he writes can be believed. I suspect that that’s the only true statement he’s written." But... but... but if that's a true statement, then it isn't true to say "nothing in this blog can be believed". Welcome to the world of paradox, Austin. Next week I'll help you come to grips with your cognitive difficulties regarding atheism.

on fellatio, shaving, and spades...

"Why are people so averse to waxing philosphical?" Mr Miyagi once asked The Kid...

The word philosphy, as most of us know, means "the love of wisdom". And who in their right mind would not love a bit more wisdom, eh? And what better way of fast-tracking your way to wisdom than engaging in philosophical discussion with philosophers. And who's a philosopher? Well, I am, of course, silly!

A philosopher is also someone given to quoting famous philosophers ad nauseam. Who's a famous philosopher? Well, there are so many of them that you can lend credence to almost any point of view by quoting one. For instance, there's a couple of famous philosophers called Arfur and Bwuce, and you can have a huge amount of fun quoting them.

Philosophical discussion is fun, isn't it? Aren't you getting excited already? I am! [adjusts the clothing in the vicinity of his nether regions]

So what's any of this got to do with fellatio? Well, fellatio, as some of you probably know, is the art of fellatious reasoning (also known as sophistry), and getting their reasoning skills polished is very imprortant to philosophers. Hence, when your reasoning sucks, you are said to be performing fellatio.

People with inquiring minds are to be treasured, for they shall inherit the wisdom. Pauline was one such person. She's such a famous querant that to ask the question "Please explain?" is nowadays known as "doing a Pauline". Have you done a Pauline lately? I have...

Many philosophers shave. When shaving, the use Occam's Razor is highly recommended, but you need to be a bit careful. You could cut yourself. Occam's Razor is also highly recommended when shaving others, but watch out, or you could easily cut their throat. Very messy... Blood everywhere...

Once you get comfortable with philosophical discussion, one of the first things you will notice upon entering a room where such a forum is being held, is that there are a lot of spades everywhere. Everyone in the room has brought one with them in order to show it off. And they've all given them such pretty names. Many riveting hours of discussion can be initiated by asking the question "Oooooh, that's *such* a nice spade you've got there Arfur, what's it called?"

(To be continued...)

blogs at twenty paces!!!

The hubris of some bloggers...

So I left him this comment:

Arthur, firstly let me say how ecstatic I was to notice that you had visited my blog. However, ecstasy soon turned to horror when I read this blog post.

I hereby put you on notice that I shall deconstruct the sophistry underpinning your central argument in due course - if I really have to.

The rules of engagement compel me to offer you one chance, and one chance only, to publicly recant and admit to your shameful use of sophistry.

If you have not done so within twenty four hours of your original post i.e. 6.20am Monday morning Perth time, I shall post my deconstruction of your argument here.

Tally Ho, Old Chap !!!

Honour demands it !!! ;-)

After Action Summary: Poor Arthur has lost the plot. He started out trying to posit a "fourth position" but he has failed to sufficiently differentiate his position from that of agnosticism, and therefore, after the invocation of Occam's Razor, he found his throat had been metaphorically cut from ear to ear. Now all he does is slag off at agnostics and hurl ad hominem about willy nilly. He doesn't have the honesty and strength of character to recant. That's what I call intellectual dishonesty. I also call it piss-weak atheism.
Bzzzzt... You lose, Arthur... Next !!!

For The Record: Arthur is now playing the victim to his blog audience. First he warns me (on his blog) not to make a nuisance of myself (thereby virtually silencing me), then he comes over here and tries to continue the debate he squibbed out on over there. So I tell him to bugger off and that I'd be happy to continue the debate where it started i.e. on his blog.

Next (after being told to bugger off), he posts another rant here, which I duely deleted. Then, lo and behold, he starts waffling on his blog about how he's apparently now "made an enemy", and how I've deleted his comment (forgetting, of course, to tell his readers the full contextual shebang. ) But will he open up the debate again on his blog? No way, yeronner, he knows he's stuffed and he dare not enter into further debate because he knows now what awaits him...

incoherent rant fn(5,6,1)

[1] Ok, those of you who can Google and have googled "peak oil", "hubbert curve" and "oil depletion", and have joined the dots the right way, will have realised that the global economy, and our precious "superior" lifestyle, will cease to exist after the CRASH which will come sometime in the next three to five years.

[2] I was going to post some sort of great Personal Survival Plan, but people will work out for themselves that they'll need to get away to somewhere where they can subsist by growing their own food. Cities will become crime-riddled disaster zones. The countryside will not be able to support the millions who will head out of the cities to scratch for a living. Thinking it won't happen will not save you. Thinking that the lunatics who run things will be able agree on what's needed to fix things is a delusion of the mentally impaired.

[3] So, by the time the shit hits the fan, if you aren't nicely ensconced in a little dead-end valley in some really out of the way piece of good farming land with its own good water supply, and you haven't yet developed your subsistence fruit and vegetable plot (and that takes about three to five years to set up, so guess when you'd have to get started), you'll be what we here in Australia call "ratshit".

[4] Now, not everyone will have the means to go buy their own piece of good dirt in a good secluded place, but those who are thinking that they'll sell their house and buy a small farm had better realise that this has to happen right frigging now. Why? Because by the time the signs become evident to most people, no one will give you zip for where you're currently living, and where you want to go will have become hellishly expensive (supply and demand). And anyway, having bought your little survival farmlet is only the beginning. As I said, it'll take you three to five years of city-slicker-mistake-making to grow enough to feed you and yours.

[5] If you think that staying where you are is smart, then you must know something I don't, or you must be filthy rich and living in Fort Knox.

[6] The last depression in the thirties? That was sheer luxury compared to what's coming.

[7] The emergency measures your wonderful fatcat leaders will put in place? Friend, they are going to be too busy getting a free ride to some rich dude's secure enclave to bother about you.

[8] Public transport? Forget it. You're dreaming or deluded.

[9] Soon this kind of blog post will be outlawed on the grounds of causing "unwarranted panic". The bastards who run things will shut the public side of the internet down or price it up so that only the rich and privileged will be able to communicate through it. Slavery will be how the rest of us will earn our keep.

So what's the point of this post?

[10] Well, to convince you sell up NOW, buy a farm and get busy. And to get you thinking about afterwards... For those who have not starved to death, been murdered, or committed suicide, there will be an "afterwards"...

[11] If during this coming depression, the masses don't dismantle the capitalist system and set up some kind of communal system which prevents the rich and greedy from dominating production, then it'll be curtains forever. Forever. Have you noticed that each recession and depression have been times during which the rich have inceased their stranglehold on the means of production?

[12] After this one that's coming, because the beast has now gone fully global, they'll own you, your government, your land, your water, your babies, and your babies' babies. Nice things like "good working conditions" will have disappeared for all but the essential few needed to service the rich.

[13] Keep bad-mouthing communism. Keep bad-mouthing socialism. Whatever you do, don't do the intellectual hard yards to explore alternatives to capitalism (such as Parecon). Don't inform yourself. Don't get politically active. Don't concern yourself with these things. Leave that to others. Someone will come along and look after you. Your job will be safe. Your suburb will be fine. It won't be as bad as that lunatic over at diogenesian discourse says it will. He's lost it. He's ranting.

[14] OK, I'll put it to you another way: A depression is a breakdown. A breakdown is an opportunity for breakthrough. If the coming depression is not used as an opportunity to throw out capitalism once and for all, you will be a slave to it forever. For an alternative to capitalism to come out of the coming depression, you, yes YOU, will need to get active on the left side of politics, wherever you are, RIGHT NOW, so that there is a viable and cohesive movement for change already established when the shit hits the fan. And when I say "the left" I don't mean Labor (or the Dems in the US), they are parties committed to capitalism. And why engage "right now"? Because Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. And then, in three to five years' time, when you're busy dismantling capitalism in all its forms and installing the alternative, remember that Peaceful People Power is the way to go about it.

[15] But who am I kidding... The only people reading this either already agree and are involved in social change, or they like having a giggle at my rants, or they are working for the spooks and glad they're getting paid for having to read this shit. Imagine that. Getting paid to read this shit.

[16] Anyhow, now you can't say you weren't told. From here on in, you can't say you didn't know. You can only say "I failed to act whilst there was still time because I was busy 'thinking positive' and convincing myself this wasn't going to happen." Psssttt... Heard of the Boy Scouts motto?

the squirrel from hell...

I never dreamed that slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential
neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect.

I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow
traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from
under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.

It was a squirrel, and it must have been trying to run across the road when
it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no
time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close.

I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a
squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the
impact.

Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of
themselves!

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on
his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his
beady little eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he
screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!"
or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short
of spectacular...

He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in
the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would
have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack.

Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity.
As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans,
this was a bit of cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing
some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a
T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet
residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And
losing... I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I
finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil
rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I
recoiled from the throw.

That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It
really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the
pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have
headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary
squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel.

This was the EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with
the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an
amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather
antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my
left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all.

His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled,
to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one
hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back
unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the
throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one
result. TORQUE. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very
good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.

The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in .. well . I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in
jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and
roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential
street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back. The man
and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder. With the sudden
acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and
try to get control of the bike.

This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did
not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had
not yet figured out how to release the throttle. my brain was just simply
overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect
against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient
attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI
attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my
full-face helmet with me.

As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite
sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel,
however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with
shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in
jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring
at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail
sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now, the screams are
probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled
him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This
time it worked...sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of...so to speak.

Picture a new scene...

You are a cop...

You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and
parked with your windows down to do some paperwork.

Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a
torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove,
moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder, roars
by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into
your police car.

I heard screams.

They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front
wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a
cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street.

I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back).

I really would have.

Really...

Except for two things.

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about
me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol
car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back,
doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the
car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street,
aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not
interested in me. They often insist on "letting the professionals handle
it" anyway.

That was one thing.

The other?

Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery
from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back
window, shaking his little fist at me.

That is one dangerous squirrel.

And now he has a patrol car.

A somewhat shredded patrol car...but it was all his.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off
of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best
to just buy myself a new pair of gloves...and a whole lot of Band-Aids.

(Stolen from the internet. Author unknown.)

the spooks have spoken...

CIA... ASIO... GCHQ...

Still reading?

Ok... (Are you there, Echelonman?)

You might be interested...

You might even know...

What the NSA is...

If you don't, go read Bamford's Body of Secrets, and when you've fully grocked the extent to which the US, and therefore the western world, is in the firm grip of the cryptocracy (on behalf of the military industrial complex), come back here and read on.

On 30 May 2006, the NSA released the second and final installment of Vietnam era materials, in particular, materials relating to "the Gulf of Tonkin incident".

Those of you who are not historically challenged would know that this was the "incident" which the US used as a pretext for starting what we have come to know as The Vietnam War. And three million Vietnamese died.

Three million Vietnamese died.

Three million human beings were murdered.

3,000,000 mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters.

Multiply this by about thirty to get a rough idea of the aura of grief generated by this act of unspeakable mass murder (it was for their own good and "in our interests", a real win-win situation, you understand...) And I murdered a few of them myself. My government says I should feel proud and patriotic, but then they would say that, wouldn't they? My crime was that I was young and fully in the grip of the propaganda of that era. My guilt still haunts me. Every day. As do the memories...

Can I sue the NSA? Any attorneys out there willing to work on a no-win-no-fee basis to have a go at these bastards for a few million?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...