Every so often I get some grand emails from folks out and about who have a great person-to-person look at the world which is often vastly different that what comes over corpgov teevee. Take this one from Iraq, just for instance:
“Jorge! Thought I’d use the Spanish version as I’m soon to relocate (long with 80% of my expat co-workers) to Costa Rica. If you recall, I was the one giving you the intel scene from Kuwait a time back, and have since November come back “Up North” to Iraq as the $$$ scene in Kuwait had pretty much flat lined when the economy took a big dump last fall. Big dump in that the majority of contracts weren’t being renewed, (individuals that is… the Corporations had the same amount of work, they just started doing the ‘more with less’ thing again and saving $$$ on personnel.) Thing is, once one is addicted to the 86K +/- tax free, it’s damned hard to go back to “Dilbert’s World” in the cubes, and especially harder seeing that there just ain’t no jobs out there for a former soldier to have.
Tinfoil moment makes me think that’s part of the reason we keep in wars left right and centre… the CorpGov can’t afford to unleash a quarter million heavily trained troops into the workforce… think what happened after Gulf One (1990) when Haich Dub the First riff’ed about 3 divisions back into civvies… I was one of them back then and spent two years almost dying to get back in uniform. Nowadays, the troops have BT-DT (been there done that) and most if not ALL of them have ‘trigger time’ and face time killing the enemy. Scary concept to try and close down the wars and get it into a “Dogs and Soldiers Keep Off The Grass” eh? Unlike the wars of times past, this ‘Columbine Generation’ doesn’t fear anyone in power, and are so well trained that it makes me wonder that if the Lefties in the Obama world realize that they HAVE to keep these kids busy, lest we see what you and Cliff have been charting vis-à-vis the revolution meme.
Otherwise, Iraq is no less dangerous than Detroit. Actually, I drive downtown in my unarmored Chevy regularly, unarmored myself and no weapon either. I wouldn’t in Detroit. Baghdad hosted its first tourist group in like 30 years a few months ago, and besides the occasional flare up of the retards who think it’s fun to shoot mortars at the FOBs, the amount of violence is negligible. This stated, it means I’ll probably have someone trying to nab me and cut my casaba off on YouTube but eh… realistically, its mellowed… and I speak this as a ‘homeboy’ as I’ve been here off and on since the end of 03, and if it wasn’t for the heat and lack of decent water, I’d stay longer.
My hopes however, is that we got to war with, oh say Turks and Caicos… or even Jamaica… I heard them Ire-Boys been giving Florida some eeeeevil looks… I say we invade, and I’ll help secure the crops…. Er… the beaches… yeah that’s it… Toke… er… Talk to you later!
Ah, some fine economic and political content to gnaw through here. First off, you’re absolutely right about the Columbine generation now defending the country. A goodly number have figured out that the reason the Obama administration is still signing war spending measures (and the latest one is in process of being rubber-stamped) is that there’s no way that any of the powers that be want a well-trained – let alone fearless group of Constitution defenders showing up. Why, that’s about the worst nightmare that could come along.
The answer, is, as Orwell put it so well thirty-odd years back, is ‘permanent war for permanent peace…” Except’in of course, there ain’t no peace because no profit in that.
If you think the world is facing a pandemic of swine flu this fall (we are) and that when the second leg down of Depression Two begins, that will be the most serious threat to the nation ever, then think again.
I’d offer that the most serious threat to America is that people are starting to think and no matter how many wars, how much fluoride in the water, no many how many people Big Pharma can get addicted toi pain pills, no matter how many former soldiers will be put on ‘can’t own a gun list’ because of ‘combat stress’, and no matter that within a year the free expression on the internet wi9ll disappear as a last-gasp attempt by the current ruling paradigm to buy self-preservation by tearing up the rights of free speech, there will still be a few folks who will ‘get it’.
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Still, your idea of invading the Caribbean makes total sense. I, for one, will volunteer to do a little wall diving off Grand Turk…and say, is the Kittina still there? And what ever happened to ‘the Colonel’ who used to hang there?
Yes, I can see the need to take Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica, too. And SunSplash in Montego Bay? Why, all them rasterboys gotta be sharin’ de ganj mon. Could perhaps the Benedictines learn a bit about religious agriculture from ‘em, I wonder?
I’m afraid, however, that this idea to liberation of the rum & ganj islands is unlikely. More in line with current thinking, we’re still paying for liberating The Hamptons and other haunts of the rich & blingfull. Until we start printing up bailout vouchers for places like Telluride, Vail, and Jackson Hole up in veep Dick country, plate’s kinda full. Oh, and we still gotta get at Iran’s oil, too…speaking of which…
Oh, since you’re in ‘Raq, don’t forget to say “Hi” to the local alphabet agency folks for us. I’m admiring their fine orchestration of tweets and texts to whip up the opposition in Iran. Helluvit is, though, that what they’re learning there about flash mobbing is exactly why the Internet/texting/and SMS may not have a long future here in the once Home of the Free.
Freedom’s a fine thing, and all. But where’s the profit in that?
Cash For Clunkers
Good article on the cash-for-clunkers bill that’s coming down the pike. I only have two problems with it.
1. It rewards people who were NOT sensitive to the environment since the threshold is you’ll only get the credit if your combined MPG is 18 MPG or less. And…
2. Our old Daewoo Leganza which I’m about to put a replacement radiator in after that wolf/coyote took out the old one on the highway last week has a combined 21 MPG rating. George is screwed for doing the right thing, again.
Is this like the whole new way of the world? Do right, get screwed?
Well, I see where there’s a different rule for pickups, and my 2001 Dodge Ram would qualify so maybe a new farm truck is the sheep trail to be chosen. Maybe I’ll just keep patching up the ‘Woo… Got anything without electronic engine management?
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Send comments to george@ure.net
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For Your Money’s Worth:
Obama’s Reconstruction Problem
This may sound a little odd – to be talking about the reconstruction plans of the Obama Administration, since there hasn’t been a big enough disturbance to the economy to require any ‘reconstructing’ yet. But, since I have a few clues as to what will be in the next predictive linguistics update, and because the second leg down in the derivatives disaster will likely be pulling into view before September, I figure it’s as good a time as any to consider how America’s future could work out. In the process, I’m guided to some extent by After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies
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MyGroPonics
My commodity broker JB Slear has nailed a great solution for people who living in apartments and condos who want to become at least partially self-reliant when it comes to raising food: An ultra-high efficiency micro-hydroponics system using readily available local parts. 25-pages and plenty of pictures to turn you into a farmer no matter where you live (Great if you have back problems, too…)…or if you just want to fill up the back yard with MyGroPonics trees and feed the neighborhood… $10 bucks here…
Maxa-Cookie Manager
Maxa-Tools has provided us with a free demo – which you’re welcome to try – of their dandy cookie manager tool that I use here on all my computers. It shows both the browser-specific and the newer browser-independent cookies. Quite happy with it.
Here’s the download link for the free demo:
www.urbansurvival.com/setupMCMstdGU.exe
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those pesky ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I took over 1,000 cookies off my son’s machine that he swore was clean. It ran much faster.
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“Live on $10,000″ Updated
What? You haven’t ordered the ebook “How to Live on $10,000 a year — or less”? Suit yourself. We’re all going to live it shortly, anyway. I just thought you might like a heads up by reading about how to do it before you get pink-slipped. But, suit yourself OR visit www.liveontenthousand.com or, click one of the following button:
Yep – still possible. I also took a bit of additional material that was pertinent from recent issues of Peoplenomics and included them. The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the aforementioned dollar amount, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you make a little more than that and do some active savings… Click here for the page with more details on it.
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