Occasionally we find an "epiphany" story.....#1 is one of these......
1/ Every economic measure, every company report and every country is fixated on growth....indeed our future as a nation assumes we will continue to grow economically, and grow, and grow.....but as this challenging story from the Guardian says this cannot continue ad infinitum. And won't.
As the story says, even if we ignored all of the issues facing this planet [climate change, species extinction etc.] our society, based on growth and consumption cannot continue.
If you are over 50, you should read this because you won't yearn to be young again with all the shit coming down the pike......this is truly a great article.
'The mother narrative to all this is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere subplots.' Photograph: Alamy
Let us imagine that in 3030BC the total possessions of the people of Egypt filled one cubic metre. Let us propose that these possessions grew by 4.5% a year. How big would that stash have been by the Battle of Actium in 30BC? This is the calculation performed by the investment banker Jeremy Grantham.
Go on, take a guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand in the Sahara? The Atlantic ocean? The volume of the planet? A little more? It's 2.5 billion billion solar systems. It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse.
To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created. Ignore if you must climate change, biodiversity collapse, the depletion of water, soil, minerals, oil; even if all these issues miraculously vanished, the mathematics of compound growth make continuity impossible.
Economic growth is an artefact of the use of fossil fuels. Before large amounts of coal were extracted, every upswing in industrial production would be met with a downswing in agricultural production, as the charcoal or horse power required by industry reduced the land available for growing food. Every prior industrial revolution collapsed, as growth could not be sustained. But coal broke this cycle and enabled – for a few hundred years – the phenomenon we now call sustained growth.
And here is the final paragraph, the excerpt that will get you thinking.....or not.......
The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth's living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century's great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.
2/ What a pleasure it is to watch an intelligent interview.....Chris Hayes sits with Neil De Grasse Tyson for Part 1 of a conversation that I found to be full of wisdom about science, alien life, the universe and dark matter.....eight minutes of eye opening thoughts from Tyson....fascinating.
And if you read the first story which I hope you did, keep this in mind when you listen to Tyson.....
If you wanted to spend your Friday night watching two very smart guys get seriously wonky about the biggest scientific mysteries of the universe, all you needed to do is tune into the last few minutes of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. Cosmos hostNeil deGrasse Tyson joined Chris Hayes to share his thoughts about the scientific advancements he thinks will be more profound in the decades to come.
The two men discussed “dark energy,” the possibility of organic life on Mars and the probability that somewhere out there aliens are watching The Honeymooners. Hayes promised more of their interview on Monday’s show, including discussions about climate change and creationism, about which we know Tyson has some very strong opinions, so you’ll want to check back in next week for our coverage of that.
3/ Australians do some incredibly powerful Public Service announcement commercials, and they show them on their TV channels. Can you imagine the outcry if they ran this on any US station?
A one minute spot for the prevention of child abuse.....
4/ The President is expected to announce restrictions on coal utilities emissions this week, and the Republicans will fill the airwaves with doom and gloom. Paul Krugman explains what the real economic consequences will be so you can cut through the bullshit.
Next week the Environmental Protection Agency is expected toannounce new rules designed to limit global warming. Although we don’t know the details yet, anti-environmental groups are already predicting vast costs and economic doom. Don’t believe them. Everything we know suggests that we can achieve large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at little cost to the economy.
Just ask the United States Chamber of Commerce.
O.K., that’s not the message the Chamber of Commerce was trying to deliver in the report it put out Wednesday. It clearly meant to convey the impression that the E.P.A.’s new rules would wreak havoc. But if you focus on the report’s content rather than its rhetoric, you discover that despite the chamber’s best efforts to spin things — as I’ll explain later, the report almost surely overstates the real cost of climate protection — the numbers are remarkably small.
Specifically, the report considers a carbon-reduction program that’s probably considerably more ambitious than we’re actually going to see, and it concludes that between now and 2030 the program would cost $50.2 billion in constant dollars per year. That’s supposed to sound like a big deal. Instead, if you know anything about the U.S. economy, it sounds like Dr. Evil intoning “one million dollars.” These days, it’s just not a lot of money.
Remember, we have a $17 trillion economy right now, and it’s going to grow over time. So what the Chamber of Commerce is actually saying is that we can take dramatic steps on climate — steps that would transform international negotiations, setting the stage for global action — while reducing our incomes by only one-fifth of 1 percent. That’s cheap!
Alternatively, consider the chamber’s estimate of costs per household: $200 per year. Since the average American household has an income of more than $70,000 a year, and that’s going to rise over time, we’re again looking at costs that amount to no more than a small fraction of 1 percent.
One more useful comparison: The Pentagon has warned that global warming and its consequences pose a significant threat to national security. (Republicans in the House responded with a legislative amendment that would forbid the military from even thinking about the issue.) Currently, we’re spending $600 billion a year on defense. Is it really extravagant to spend another 8 percent of that budget to reduce a serious threat?
And all of this is based on anti-environmentalists’ own numbers. The real costs would almost surely be smaller, for three reasons.
5/ Todays guy video - this opens with a forward camera on a Kawasaki motorcycle on an Autobahn going almost 300kph [185 mph] and an Audi RS 6 Wagon passes him!
Holy tamoly......two minutes of ahoooooghah!
6/ This is interesting....another story you won't see in the US media about an internet encrypting service anyone can use so the gub'ment can't track you. It's caller Tor, and it's free.....
I wish I was savvy enough to use it......
Tor: internet users who wish to employ the privacy tool can download the Tor browser bundle. Photograph: Magdalena Rehova/Alamy
Until this year, the internet privacy tool Tor was scarcely heard of outside the tech community. Since revelations about the surveillance strategies of US and UK spies, Tor has become a focus of criticism, accused of facilitating a dangerous "dark web" of paedophiles, drug dealers and arms traders.
But while the NSA has tried to crack its security, Tor's principal source of funding has been other parts of the US government. While a criminal contingent may use the site to disguise identities, its creators point to a wider group of legitimate users including journalists, activists, law enforcement professionals, whistleblowers and businesses.
In a year Tor has grown from 500,000 daily users worldwide to more than 4 million users, provoking an increasingly public debate along the way.
What is Tor?
The Tor project is a non-profit organisation that conducts research and development into online privacy and anonymity. It is designed to stop people – including government agencies and corporations – learning your location or tracking your browsing habits.
7/ A lady comedian with an aggressively female act - ladies you might like this one, guys not so much although she certainly is pretty....five uncomfortable minutes....
8/ A most interesting story from the Daily Kos about how Fox News may have shot itself in the foot......it's had a huge ratings drop since Karl Rove was on Hannity and accused Hillary Clinton of having brain damage......
Think about it - he was accusing a woman in her late 60's of having performance issues after two days in the hospital, and the average Fox viewer is almost 70.....
Fox News has fallen and it can't get up. Ratings for the month of May 2014, have just been published, and the numbers are devastating for Fox News. While still occupying the top slot among the cable news networks, Fox saw about a quarter of its audience dissolve across every demographic group and time period.
Every Fox program in primetime dropped by double-digits, with Bill O'Reilly taking the deepest dive. Sean Hannity posted some of his lowest numbers ever in his new 10:00 pm time slot. And Megyn Kelly's new, and highly anticipated, primetime show failed to improve on the ratings performance of her predecessor.
To be sure, Fox was not the only network to see declines. In fact, CNN had an even larger dip. The news was much better for MSNBC who was down the least of all the cable news networks. They lost a relatively insignificant five percent of total viewers, but actually saw increases for Morning Joe, and for Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in primetime.
For Fox to post numbers that they haven't seen since August of 2001 (before 9/11) is a painful blow to both their reputation and their bank account. But they have even bigger problems. The viewers that do tune in to Fox are significantly older than viewers of their competitors. Fox News has always had the oldest skewing audience in cable news. With a median age of 68.8 years, Fox's audience is over six years older than either CNN or MSNBC. It's even worse for their top rated program (O'Reilly) who's average viewer is over 72 years old. And their Great Blonde Hope (Kelly), who was specifically brought in to draw younger viewers, also exceeded Fox's average with her typicalviewer voyeur being over 70.
To be sure, Fox was not the only network to see declines. In fact, CNN had an even larger dip. The news was much better for MSNBC who was down the least of all the cable news networks. They lost a relatively insignificant five percent of total viewers, but actually saw increases for Morning Joe, and for Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in primetime.
For Fox to post numbers that they haven't seen since August of 2001 (before 9/11) is a painful blow to both their reputation and their bank account. But they have even bigger problems. The viewers that do tune in to Fox are significantly older than viewers of their competitors. Fox News has always had the oldest skewing audience in cable news. With a median age of 68.8 years, Fox's audience is over six years older than either CNN or MSNBC. It's even worse for their top rated program (O'Reilly) who's average viewer is over 72 years old. And their Great Blonde Hope (Kelly), who was specifically brought in to draw younger viewers, also exceeded Fox's average with her typical
9/ This is most amusing, especially if you live in the South.....three minutes of charm and venom........
Sh%t Southern Women Say, Episode 1
10/ You look at all of the brand names in the supermarket, and some of you try to support the ones not owned by Big Ag.....here's a list of 19 brands that you may want to avoid.....
Are you buying certain brands thinking you are supporting small eco-friendly, health conscious companies? Think again.
These companies are all owned by large corporations that manufacture toxic food and consumer products. Do you really want to support them?
1. Blue Moon beer
This first one hopefully doesn’t come as a shock but it’s sad to say that many people were and are actually fooled into believing that these come from a micro brewery. The clever artsy ad campaign must have been what did it.
Owned by: MillerCoors Brewing
11/ Modern dance is sometimes incredibly expressive, and this six minute routine from a dance troupe is well done......
This is the performance of "The Company" at Vibe XIX 2014. Can't tell if they are robots or humans...
3,500,060 views
It's also part lighting / optical illusion. The way the lighting hits the beige / lighter pants draws your eyes downwards and makes the movements appear sharper. Wearing lighter bottoms than tops causes your eyes to naturally be drawn to the legs, which move more in sync than upper bodies in dancers. Don't get me wrong, they are brilliant; the person in charge of their wardrobe and lighting did their homework.
12/ Ho hum - just another silly climate scientist pointing out how South Florida and New York will be affected by rising sea levels, with maps and detail showing which sections will be uninhabitable within decades.
For you climate deniers - I have a nice buildable lot on Key Biscayne for sale going cheap - any takers?
The news: Climate change might be hitting major metropolitan areas harder and sooner than you think. Two new reports show that Florida and New York are expected to have serious problems within the next few decades and may look totally different by the end of the century.
Florida: University of Miami professor and climate change expert Harold R. Wanless warnsthat ongoing construction in south Florida might be occurring in areas that will eventually be taken over by the ocean. NOAA's 2012 National Climate Assessment projects a rise of 4.1-6.6 feet in sea levels (1-2m) by 2100, reaching 2 feet by 2050 and 3 feet by 2075.
This kind of sea-level rise would render nearly all of the world's barrier islands uninhabitable and flood deltas where millions of people live. In Florida, stretches of prime tourist beaches will simply be swept away. What's more, Wanless writes, the current scientific understanding of rising seas indicates that ocean levels will actually rise in quick pulses rather than a slow-but-steady creep, making coastal flooding-preparations much mroe difficult.
These maps show projected sea levels over the next 84 years. Entire islands will be more or less destroyed.
13/ No apologies for putting this in again........the definitive version of "Stairway To Heaven".....wonderful!
Led Zeppelin, from left, keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, stand as the Star Spangled Banner is played during the Kennedy Center Honors Gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
There have been some mighty horrible renditions of Led Zeppelin‘s Stairway To Heaven, but when Nancy and Ann Wilson of Heart performed the song in front of the three remaining members of the legendary British rock band at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony on Dec. 2, it made Robert Plant cry tears of joy.
(The band was being honoured by President Barack Obama alongside David Letterman and Dustin Hoffman.)
Watch it and understand why. When the choir kicks in and Ann Wilson wails Plant’s famous “And as we wind on down the road…” you might shed a tear or two yourself.
14/ Mount Dora made another list this week, Buzzfeed's list of 11 small Florida towns to visit.......and remember, we're 160 feet above sea level!
Woop woop!
Located more centrally in Florida, Mount Dora is a sleepy little town with enough charm to knock you off your feet. The historic downtown area is packed with boutiques, local coffee shops, and events like the annual art festival. If you’re in the mood for some southern charm, and wraparound porches, then definitely stop here.
Where to stay: For a little slice of history, stay at the 130-year-old Lakeside Inn (President Calvin Coolidge vacationed there for a month!) Or for a cozier stay, try the Heron Cay B&B.
Where to eat: You can devour a pulled pork sandwich and top it off with some key lime pie at Sugarboo’s BBQ. Or grab some authentic Cuban food at Copacabana.
What to do: Do you like antiques? Get ready to shop in the two enormous markets. Then grab a Mount Dora brew at the brewing company. Or take an eco boat tour around Lake Dora and learn about the Spanish moss. There’s an adorable farmer’s market with fresh seafood, local crafts, and produce.
Where to eat: You can devour a pulled pork sandwich and top it off with some key lime pie at Sugarboo’s BBQ. Or grab some authentic Cuban food at Copacabana.
What to do: Do you like antiques? Get ready to shop in the two enormous markets. Then grab a Mount Dora brew at the brewing company. Or take an eco boat tour around Lake Dora and learn about the Spanish moss. There’s an adorable farmer’s market with fresh seafood, local crafts, and produce.
Todays video - a classic Stephen Colbert where he interviews GK Butterfield, from North Carolina......
Stephen Colbert unveiled a new edition of "Better Know A District" on Monday's show, and it was chock-full of racial misunderstandings, confusing questions and barbecue taste tests... like all of his best segments, really.
Sitting down with North Carolina Representative G. K. Butterfield, things got off to an awkward start when Colbert was confused by the congressman's race (Butterfield is the son of mixed-race parents and identifies as African-American). But once that was over, Colbert got right to the tough questions: why Butterfield is prejudiced against the 1% (the REAL minority in America) and why he wants to make six-year-olds pay more for cigarettes.
Todays redneck jokes
Redneck Engineer Exam
I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about how dumb people are in the
South, and I challenge any so-called "smart " Yankee to take this exam:
1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will
support a 10 pound possum.
2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in
your front yard?
(A) '65 Ford Fairlane
(B) '69 Chevrolet Chevelle
(C) '64 Pontiac GTO
3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at a capacity of 20 gallons
of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to condense
the product?
4. A woodcutter has a chainsaw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density of
the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot is 2.3
acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweiser's
will be drunk before the trees are cut down?
5. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24-inch centers with a field
rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The
porch floor is 1-inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many
dogs will be killed?
6. A man owns a Georgia house and 3.7 acres of land in a hollow with an
average slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown
children place a mobile home on the man's land and still have enough
property for their electric appliances to sit out front?
7. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep slope
on a secondary road at 45 MPH. The brakes fail. Given average traffic
conditions on secondary roads, what is the probability that it will strike a
vehicle with a muffler?
8. With a gene pool reduction of 7.5% per generation, how long will it take
a town which has been bypassed by the Interstate to breed a country-western
singer?
I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about how dumb people are in the
South, and I challenge any so-called "smart " Yankee to take this exam:
1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will
support a 10 pound possum.
2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in
your front yard?
(A) '65 Ford Fairlane
(B) '69 Chevrolet Chevelle
(C) '64 Pontiac GTO
3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at a capacity of 20 gallons
of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to condense
the product?
4. A woodcutter has a chainsaw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density of
the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot is 2.3
acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweiser's
will be drunk before the trees are cut down?
5. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24-inch centers with a field
rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The
porch floor is 1-inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many
dogs will be killed?
6. A man owns a Georgia house and 3.7 acres of land in a hollow with an
average slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown
children place a mobile home on the man's land and still have enough
property for their electric appliances to sit out front?
7. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep slope
on a secondary road at 45 MPH. The brakes fail. Given average traffic
conditions on secondary roads, what is the probability that it will strike a
vehicle with a muffler?
8. With a gene pool reduction of 7.5% per generation, how long will it take
a town which has been bypassed by the Interstate to breed a country-western
singer?
Todays quickies
I didn't make it to the gym today. That makes five years in a row!
I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.
You know that tingly little feeling you get when you really like someone? That's common sense leaving your body.
Todays guy joke
A woman walked into the kitchen to find her
husband stalking around with a fly swatter.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"Hunting Flies" He responded.
"Oh. ! Killing any?" She asked.
"Yep, 3 males, 2 Females," he replied.
Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell them apart?"
Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell them apart?"
He responded, "3 were on a beer can,
2 were on the phone."
2 were on the phone."
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