10:26 – Barbara is doing very well, even after cleaning house yesterday. She’s up and walking around frequently. She’s checking her work email a couple of times a day, and keeping busy labeling/filling containers for science kits.
It seems that the communist Syriza party has won the Greek election, coming within at worst one or two seats of an absolute majority, with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party placing third. Given that Merkel and the Germans despise Tsipras and the Greeks, this is unlikely to end well. Merkel believes, wrongly, that Tsipras is bluffing and that in any event the eurozone has the necessary mechanisms in place to survive Greece crashing out of the euro; Tsipras believes, wrongly, that Merkel is bluffing and that the troika will allow Greece to default on its debts and still remain in the eurozone. At this point, the best that anyone can reasonably hope for is that both sides negotiate calmly and arrange an orderly exit from the euro for Greece. That may actually happen, but I think it’s much more likely that one or both parties will misjudge and the result will be a disorderly exit from the euro for Greece. That’s going to be ugly, and the row of dominoes toppling as the contagion hits Italy, Spain, Portugal, and eventually France will be uglier still.
The ECB’s QE policy announced on Thursday was much larger than expected, but still far too little far too late and with far too many conditions and limitations on it. Draghi’s vaunted “bazooka”–at a third the percentage of GDP of the QE in the US and UK and years too late–is likely to be a damp squib.
We knew this was coming, did we not, along with the following dominoes. I can’t put my finger on it but I suspect something even bigger may blow up this coming summer. It’s almost like that ‘perfect storm’ analogy that gets overused.
Very nice day again here with blue skies and sun and no wind. Apparently southern New England, NY and NJ are about to get hammered by what the weather barkers are calling a historic-level blizzard. We may get half a foot, tops, on the bay here. Usually our winter worries revolve around ice storms coming down from O Kanada and sweeping across the north end of Lake Champlain and the Islands. Those knock down tree limbs and power lines bigtime.
“Obama Films Anti-Oil Drilling Video–From a Jet”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/26/obama-films-anti-oil-drilling-video-from-a-jet/
“On Sunday, President Barack Obama released an anti-oil drilling environmental video shot aboard Air Force One–an aircraft that has a 53,611 gallon fuel capacity.”
Obola is an idiot. He is better than you and me.
These bastards do this chit all the time; Algore swans around the country to all his estates via his jets; Michael Moore is a gigantic carbon footprint just by himself; and Obola, like most libtard/commie hypocrites, does exactly the things they tell the rest of us NOT to do.
I wouldn’t even watch or read phony nooz crap like this; all it does is generate our own bile and venom and cause ulcers and haht murmers and brain farts. We’re better off listening to music and reading whatever we like to read.
They play us for fools; don’t let them.
One of the places we were considering relocating to was the Asheville, NC area. Until Barbara read a news article that said the Obama family planned to relocate there after he’s no longer president. I thought it was a bit extreme to rule out an entire area because Obama would be there, but upon consideration, I think she’s right. I have no desire to live in an area with a permanent SS presence.
I have no desire to live in an area with a permanent SS presence.
Especially with that jerk Obama. Anytime he goes anyway roads all around him are closed, streets blocked and a general disruption to anyone close by. His sense of privilege at the expense of others is extreme.
Here’s a bit from one of the Sovereign Man site’s emails today:
” Roman Mairano had just married his sweetheart, and now he was eager to find a way to support her and their future family. Both he and his new bride had come from very humble backgrounds. And hoping to build wealth, he began looking for new opportunities. Roman went to a few wealthy contacts in the city and pitched to them that he had a plan to transport lumber to a city where there was a great deal of construction happening. He offered that if they would back his venture financially, he would give them three-quarters of the profits upon his return. They agreed. And in the year 1155, Mairano sailed with a shipload of lumber from Venice to Constantinople.
The venture was a success, as was the follow-on venture. Soon he was able to finance most of the journeys himself and keep a higher proportion of the profits.”
It then goes on to detail a little how Venice was once a free state and then got all messed up due to State interventions, etc., etc.
So my questions are: How does young Roman, from a very humble background, have “wealthy contacts in the city”? And how did he know about the busy construction activities all the way out in Constantinople?
This is, to me, like unto other of Sovereign Man’s, and similar advice; “First, get a million dollars. Then….” Or, “First, have a few wealthy contacts who can front you the dough. Then…”
And of course since our own regime is so effed up and about to really put the screws even harder to us, we should bail out to a foreign country somewhere that is still free, etc., etc. And then we’re back to Square One: “First, get a million dollars….”
What about some ordinary working-class or middle-class schmuck who’s already burned through any savings or retirement just to pay the bills and stay afloat in his mortgaged and now underwater house? Or the other tens of millions who have no way of affording the pricey advice, let alone being able to move to Chile or San Marino?
The unwritten thing here is that all those folks are written off. Period. Sink or swim, baby!
Play by the rules, do your duty to God, family and country and then fuck you.
Is it any wonder so many are bitter and angry and depressed?
Reminds me of Ten Year After’s best-known track: “Tax the rich, feed the poor, ’til there are no rich no more…” TYA gets my vote for the Top Ten list of under-rated bands.
Agreed. Alvin Lee was, along with the late Johnny Winter and also Carlos Santana, probably one of the fastest rock guitarists, ever. I had all their records when I was a kid but never got to see them live.
“Panicked super rich buying boltholes with private airstrips to escape if poor rise up”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/panicked-super-rich-buying-boltholes-5044084
According to
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/bugging-out-vs-hunkering-down/
and
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/break-free-with-reality-five-common-piles-of-prepper-bs/
, bugging out is bad, very bad.
“Some survival writers suggest relocating as far away from other people as possible – this is what I call the “cabin in the woods” survival philosophy. Living in the backwoods is great, now, but in the aftermath of a long-term disaster or economic collapse, those “squared away” in the wilderness will become targets.”
“And guess what… you’ll be on your own. No one will come to your rescue – if the looters manage to take control of your isolated cabin in the woods, they can stay for as long as they want and do what ever they want to you and your family, and no one will hear your screams for help.”
“Robbers, thieves, rapists and murders will seek out isolated retreats, because of there isolation, I know this goes against what some other self-appointed “survival guru” has repeatedly told his readers, but recent history and common sense prove that I’m right. Armed and organized home invasions will be a constant threat for isolated families.”
If you do bug out, a very small town (less than a thousand people) more than 50 miles away from large cities sounds good. But very difficult to find here in Texas unless you go to west Texas. Maybe a small town of less than 10,000?
I’ve occasionally looked in on Sovereign Man, and always come away with the kind of impression OFD has. The ideas sound good on the surface, but the tiniest bit of probing and you discover that they really don’t hang together – or, at least, they are poorly argued. It’s not a site I bother to visit…
Greece will be an interesting adventure. People forget that Greece has gone bankrupt five times in the past two centuries, not counting various currency devaluations. There are all sorts of ways the current situation can develop, but the most likely (imho) is for Greece to try to blackmail Germany, fail, leave the Euro, and declare that they will not repay their debts. It will be weasel-worded, but will factually amount to their sixth bankruptcy. From that, Europe can recover – and it will send a strong signal to all the other weak countries that reforms are not optional.
Now, if only all the other debtor countries would reform – which is to say, every single country in the EU, with the exception of (iirc) Estonia.
There is a remote chance that France and other countries will pile on Germany and do whatever it takes to keep Greece in the Euro. I sure hope not, because forgiving Greek debt will lead immediately to forgiving Portuguese and Italian debt, followed all too quickly by others. A domino effect that would likely drag the whole Eurozone down…
“A domino effect that would likely drag the whole Eurozone down…”
Exactly. And eventually, maybe not for a longer time, the northern Euro tier and the UK.
“But very difficult to find here in Texas unless you go to west Texas. Maybe a small town of less than 10,000?”
Hunker down in a smaller town far enough away from the metropole nightmare shaping up down there, amigo. But that said, you’ve got other considerations than most of the rest of us do and that’s very important, too.
I dunno what to tell ya; you know the area fah bettuh than I do; the obvious preference is for already having established oneself in such a place by now; moving to it now or next year or in the next five years and y’all always gonna be the noobs in the ‘hood. Who bailed and took up the new life as a sort of second or third choice. You dumped your first choice and now you wanna grab the homely chick who’s been sitting in the corner all night paring her toenails.
At least around here they know us as similar working- and middle-class New Englander and north-country New Yorker, one of us former enlisted scum in the nay-shun’s mercenary forces. And we’re Christian Catholics who can speak some French, too.
Especially with that jerk Obama. Anytime he goes anyway roads all around him are closed, streets blocked and a general disruption to anyone close by. His sense of privilege at the expense of others is extreme.
Don’t blame our jerk-in-chief for that. It has been going on for a long time with presidents of both parties. Harry Truman and Eisenhower were the last citizen presidents. It has got progressively worse since then.
Rick in Portland
What Mr. rick said; the imperial presidency has been the thing since at least Truman, the former artillery officer in the Great War, i.e. the first phase of the New Hundred Years War. Or maybe it’s the New Two Hundred Years War.
And of course the previously marginalized and discriminated against Incumbent and his gorgeous and brilliant wife pull out all the stops in their luxury and vacation spending and trips all over the world. It’s not a bad gig, so long as you do what you’re told and can project occasional sincerity to the right crowds.
It has got progressively worse since then.
Indeed it has. When OButtwad was here a couple of weeks ago his entire route was blocked from any traffic, major roads, thus forcing everyone on side streets. When OButtwad was in Nashville they shut down I-40 from downtown Nashville to the airport causing major problems. Why they could not just bring his helicopter and use that rather than roads is beyond me.
Oh wait, I know. He wanted his adoring throngs to see him drive by so his royal subjects could bow down. If you had a sign protesting him you were ushered out of the area. The man is clueless. He has no idea what it is like to sit at a red light, to buy gas for that monster vehicle of his. He has no idea if what is like to be a normal person. He gets up, his bed sheets are changed, he pees and immediately his toilet is cleaned. He thinks everyone that has a job lives like he does so he sees no problem in taking from those people and giving to the lazy. After the lazy and stupid elected him.
I really don’t think we will be any better off with Billary or any of the other cretins that will be competing for office, lying to all of us during the campaign, then doing what the hell they want, while enriching themselves while in office.
We’ll see. I suspect Greece will actually prove wise to support Syriza. Barring some kind of societal breakdown, I think the future contains far more integration for Europe, and Greece were smart enough to vote in debt cancellation at the last opportunity to do so. In theory, they’re still a sovereign country at the minute. They’ll pay a price, but nothing as steep as some of you guys have repeatedly speculated. They’re getting their suffering out of the way now, while it’s just about bearable.
Indeed it has. When OButtwad was here a couple of weeks ago his entire route was blocked from any traffic, major roads, thus forcing everyone on side streets.
When G.W. visited Portland while he was in office, they did the same thing. Then there was Bill’s famous haircut on the tarmac at LAX. The current jerk-in-chief visited Portland a while back and went to visit a suburban business near where I work. They flew him by helicopter from Portland International to a G.A. Airport near where I work. We could see him in the distance. No traffic disruption then.
Rick in Portland
“…lying to all of us during the campaign, then doing what the hell they want, while enriching themselves while in office.”
As some of us keep saying, they’re all the same and voting only encourages the bastards (and we stupidly validate their depredations).
We have nobody. Not a soul. And yes, I’m all too familiar with the argument that we ought to vote for the lesser evil; gee, even if Candidate B is a total thieving son of a bitch, he’s still better than the evil commie so that’s how Ima gon go…
Or we could become super-libertarians and just keep chipping away for centuries until we can somehow pull more than 3% of the vote.
And of course, if we don’t vote, we can’t complain! Guess again. Not when it’s becoming like the old Soviet Union by the week here. Soon they’ll have a candidate get in and even though only a few thousand party apparatchiks voted for him or her, the media will breathlessly inform us that it was a total landslide and the candidate now has a Mandate, which is a holy thing, doncha know.
Count me out.
And yes, I’m all too familiar with the argument that we ought to vote for the lesser evil;
The lesser evil is still evil. We need a “none of the above” option.
Rick in Portland
There it is.
Couldn’t agree more, and it’s been ‘none of the above’ for a very long time now.
The fewer peeps vote, the less validation the bastards have and at least the long sorry pretense is finally over.
We’re a corporate fascist oligarchy doing our best to become a miserable banana republic.
Looks like NYC is going full shutdown for the “blizzard”.
I saw some pictures of people cleaning out Whole Foods. Someone posted “call 911, they’re out of kale!” lolololo
Then there’s Bill Nye the “Stupid Science” Guy:
“I just want to introduce the idea that this storm is connected to climate change.” – Bill Nye on MSNBC.
LOL!!! It’s snowing in the Winter, call 911 they’re out of kale!!!!
I wonder if NYC will even try to keep up plowing the streets, or just close everything until it melts. Talk about the perfect time for a mass die off in NY.
Next in NYC:
Shot on site/sight if seen out and about during the curfew.
Thanks, MrAtoz, you cracked me up pretty good just now!
I pity the fools!
My siblings down in MA are also having a good laugh; the lemmings are fanning out to raid all the stores of bread and milk and, no doubt, more cases of that shitty Murkan lager.
We ain’t gettin’ squat here; one or two inches of flakes blowing around off the lake whiteout, who cares?
Lemme see if I got enough kale…nope!
Oh how will I manage?
Wow, IBM is laying off 43,000 employees at 10,000 per calender quarter:
http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/
I was briefly discussing that with both of my phone interviewers today; I believe that pretty much cuts the IBM employee army roughly in half by the time it’s done. Yet they announce all kinds of new cutting-edge stuff daily.
And the several thousand RHEL servers I helped to support in VT and NY are now being supported, and exclusively so, by people in India and Slovakia, no Murkan scum need apply nor are they allowed to touch the machines anymore. Pretty funny, a major DOD contractor that made us jump through hoops with the security clearance charades.
Buh-bye, Big Blue!
More lulz:
The Army is charging Bergdahl with desertion according to reports. Maybe even sympathizing with the enemy.
What’s Obuttwad gonna do now after basically giving him a bj on TV? ” I’m the CinC leave the poor hero alone.” Then nominate him for SecDef.
If the Army is charging him, there is a serious case. He’s toast unless Obola steps in. A pardon anyone? Even before Obola steps down.
Enough kale?
Easy ’cause that would be zero.
“If the Army is charging him, there is a serious case.”
Indeed. And when his own fellow unit guys reported on his behavior that should have been the kicker. There should have been no tee-vee appearances with the supposed CINC. Now watch the lefty and pro-hadji media get all upset.
Just another example of Obummer the collaborator giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
So what Senior Officer is going to have the cojones to apply the UCMJ to the Commander In Chief and put him in chains in Fort Leavenworth? None, because there are no more cojones in the senior ranks.
Correct. Careerist perfumed princes, all.
And they’ve been weeding out the senior and middle ranks anyway to dump those who just won’t get on board with all the new malarkey. Ditto in the police departments. The good guys are retiring early or just bailing outright.
More like the old Soviet Union every day; soon it’ll be faceless gray bureaucrats, exhibiting what the late Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil,” ruling over a horde of brainless thugs and beasts with uniforms. Our very own orcs.
Obama isn’t subject to the UCMJ. What you’re describing would be a coup d’état.
Technically you are correct, using a literal reading of who the UCMJ applies to. But as “Commander In Chief” he should be held to the spirit of the law. Put Obummer in a cell with Bergdahl, birds of a feather.
Well, Obummer has used his phone and the Pentagon is backtracking on Bergdahl. Just more evidence for the non-existent prosecution.
Maybe Bergdahl will slip in the shower.
I wouldn’t care to be in Bergdahl’s shoes right about now…or his shower clogs.
And to think they executed Private Eddie Slovik.
We live in very different times, and for the worse.