Saturday, January 10, 2015
SAR #15010
Now and Then: The current drop in the price of oil is the inevitable result of trying to run a credit/debt based economy long past its sell-by date. All economies reach their limits and collapse. The good news is that declines tend to take a period of years and not everyone dies. There may be new economies in the future, just not one based on fossil fuels extracted on money borrowed from the future.
Datum: Americans now more likely to die from getting shot than in car accidents.
Positive Identification: Fox news anchor Shannon Bream was concerned that the hoods worn by the Paris shooters concealed their ethnicity, preventing us from knowing “what the tone of their skin was. I mean what if they didn’t look like typical bad guys?”
Fail: At Dartmouth, 64 students were caught cheating in an ethics class.
It's About Time: Mikhail Gorbachev worries that a major US & Europe vs Russia conflict over Ukraine is not only quite possible, but would quickly go nuclear. Bet the CIA didn't figure that in when it started this whole mess.
Vocabulary Lesson: Newly re-elected Speaker and 24 year veteran of the House of Representatives proudly proclaims “I am the most anti-establishment Speaker ever.” Which is only true if the establishment consists of solely of the man at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Post-Grad Studies: Far more Americans get educated in prison than in college. And gain useful skills, too.
Calculated Risk: If the only insurance you can afford has a deductible so high you put off medical treatment, why buy the insurance – other than to keep Barak happy? And if the government subsidies for these ridiculous “health plans” are terminated, so will the coverage – crappy as it is – for 9.6 million of the neediest. Don't worry,, the insurance companies won't stand for this hit to their profits.
Definition: Recovery, as an economic term, has come to refer to the period of time when gap between where the economy would have been and where it is today is no longer widening.
The Sporting Life: Nearly all (97% or so) of fracking outfits are operating at a loss at current prices. But inertia will keep the shale plays producing for six months before the slowdown kicks in. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait won't curb output to halt the fall. The global oversupply is 2 million barrels a day, US crude production totaled 9.13 million barrels a day last week, up about 1 million barrels from a year ago. Settle in for the long haul and watch the economic and social consequences mount.
Porn O'Graphic: The way we were. And are.
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As news spread that the gunned down policeman was a Muslim, the hashtag #JeSuisAhmed began spreading on Twitter in solidarity. One user, identified as @Aboujahjah, said: “I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.”
Most of the time I find our species' ability to rationalize away the nasty parts of religion to keep the faith depressing. However every once in a while it also reminds me that most of us have a little spark of decency, and perhaps that why I know the best Muslims and Christians are those who tend to skip service so they can take their children to a park or go fishing, instead of praying all the time to some blood thirst deity.
Isn't that pretty much the same as saying the best religion is staying away from organized religion?
My view: Anyone who speaks for God, lies. Anyone who knows what God wants is delusional. Any book that God writes is fiction.
We'd do well with a lot more decency and a lot less god.
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