The Heretic
2014-12-17 15:49:45 UTC
The Heretic sat at his table, paging through a tablet with a bored finger. Wattsupwiththat.com is a climate skeptic website. He was a fan.
"There is a wonderful website run by a BLM employee as a hobby, down at Folsom Dam called WattsUpWithThat. Folsom Dam, near Sacramento and next door to Folsom Prison (Blues) of Johnny Cash fame, supplies both drinking water and hydroelectric power through its huge reservoir, capturing the American River. The water released from the dam is so cold in the 100'F summer heat that rafters get hypothermia riding the rapids downstream into Sacramento. People get drunk while tubing and their beer stays cold floating beside them but people drown too. Somebody gets pulled out of a certain famous rapids there, sometimes because they were diving after their beers and getting caught in a vortex. Saw a corpse there once. Kinda awful, floppy flash of feet and gone once more. The Sheriff's department has a diver for retrieving bodies from the site.
"Anyway, the website debunks fake climate claims by citing counter claims that provide proof, usually data but often mathematics. And when claimants of the Global Warming Cult see their claims come to nothing, again, the blogger reminds us so we can have a good laugh at them getting caught lying again. As the Global Warming Cultists have been insisting the Earth will catch fire by 2012, and claim its never been this hot before like during the Medievil Warm Period, the Jurassic and Creataceous Periods, and most of the Quarternary Period that wasn't ice age, as well as talking to Paleontologists and Geologists who have plenty of boring published books on paleoclimate. Ones with data prior to the current cult, without the romance of fund raising with anti-human communists who know best because they said so and want your money so you can live in mud huts while they ride around in Tesla limos and feel superior because they CARE MORE than you. Folks who aren't in the climate business because of its lucrative parties and use of good booze and hookers, those who know about climate with the proper perspective of history find current climate rather dull. Not worthy of panic. Panic gets hookers, no doubt, but hookers plus academia leads to alimony payments and child support and paternity suits. Climate science as practiced today is the modern equivalent of greasy sleaze evangelists with a tent, preaching to scared old ladies, fleecing them, then fleeing town before the law catches up. Climate science is a scam. It isn't science, its a con game with made up numbers and bad predictions that only get published if they scare people. Real science says: Sorry, not scary after all. But that doesn't sell aspirin on the 6 o'clock news, does it? The trouble with being cynical about people is you are never quite cynical enough. This makes me sad.
"In the real world, we're between glaciers, and it's happened several times in the past. Our species predates the ice ages. Same as polar bears, who evolved before the ice ages, and then adapted to live in ice or on land. The polar bears are rather indifferent to this because they can sprint 40 mph, which is faster than people can run, so catching game on the tundra is not that hard after all. And since the ice is coming back this fine winter, with snowy owls seen into the Midwest and even South due to the cold, it looks like the Warming Cultists have done a great job milking their contributors into realization it is a con game after all. And isn't that hilarious?
"I got surprised by a couple things over the last 15 years. First was that the public didn't panic over oil shortages. Killing the economy killed most of the demand for oil so the price didn't rise as much as I thought it would. Stands to reason is a wonderful phrase which accurately describes how reason has little to do with market forces or crowds. So I was wrong there.
"Right now, the stock markets are getting pounded because The Saudis are dumping cheap oil onto the market internationally, in hopes of accomplishing the assassination of Putin, the defunding of ISIS, and the bankruptcy of American Fracking operators who need a certain price to stay in the black because fracking is more expensive than regular drilling. They can't keep doing it forever, but they can hurt a lot of enemies and maybe buy up fracking teams right now and retain control of oil in the USA long term, betting the USA won't nationalize foreign owned fracking companies that sell out to Saudi investors.
"The other thing that surprised me is most of the cyberized computer technology we thought would be so amazing became everyday and commonplace. Most of the best hackers are in poor countries that can't afford to buy missiles, and they attack entertainment companies that mock their fearless leaders. Those Kim Jongs are getting lampooned hard, by James Bond and now Saturday Night Live, and why not? Murder your ex-gf because she banged someone new? Really, fat boy? Hackers used to be so interesting, but now they're kinda pathetic. There's an entire building in CHina with hackers funded by their Military, who borrow from those script kiddies we used to mock in the 90's. China allegedly has antisattellite weapons, supersonic wave cresting antiship nuke missiles, 300 mph rocket torpedos that can't be dodged, and the worlds's largest air force. But the USA and Japan have the largest drone fighter squadrons in the world, and the hours of dwell time over target do for air power what snipers and artillery do to area denial. And its possible the Chinese weapons are fake, after all. Ronald Reagan claimed the USA had active missile defense, aka Star Wars weapons, and bankrupted the Soviet Union with the help of the Saudis dumping oil so the USSR couldn't afford to buy the exotic materials required. It was a sneaky way to end the Cold War, but it worked. Now the Russians are trying to rebuild the empire by pissing all over their neighbors and threatening to wipe out Ukraine in hopes of getting easier control over Kazakhstan and the other stans and control more oil, bully eastern Europe and threaten to turn off the heat to Europe in Winter. Again, winter is important. Russia is overt about their desire to hurt people for power. Saudi hurting Russia may convince the billionaire oligarchs to assassinate Putin to end this dumping. Or they may wait until the Saudis bleed. They have to stop eventually. Then the oil price rises again, the fracking operations get back into the black, and all is well. Probably.
"I am also surprised that overt communism has become the defacto Democratic Party. They attack the middle class, they offer just enough to the poor to get votes, but actually impoverish more people than ever in history, and the useless pricks just keep voting for them anyway. I suppose its because in the two-party system, the middle is abused or ignored, and only the rich and poor get any interest by politicians, who care about campaign contributions, laws which leave them either profit or exceptions to continue profiting, or votes to stay in power and keep getting those contributions. It used to be illegal, called Pandering not so long ago. Why doesn't the media remember this word? Didn't politicians go to jail for pandering in the old days? Wasn't that illegal? It is baffling.
"I think the best news today is that the general incompetence and viciousness of the federal government is reducing its own influence and value. Eventually, states will individually be the only ones who care about their domestic problems, and with the federal govt only HURTING people, never helping, they won't be allowed to interfere with local issues, so people will stop paying attention, and more importantly, stop enforcing taxes to a fedgovt that is openly malicious and tyrannical. Will the midwest care about Washington DC where they don't fund farm subsidies anymore? The population is getting older, and illegals don't pay social security taxes so that's doomed too. Without a middle class, theres no real tax base. And without tax base, there's little funding for abusive govt. Even education is a scam today because a college degree actively hurts you via student loan payments, since you get paid the same as a high school graduate, minimum wage. And most jobs are part time now, too. No benefits. Some are even "on call" which is terrible when you want to make rent or buy food. Around here, the only growing industries are home health care assistants and pot growers. That's it. Picture that. Many of those growers are shifting into living in RVs, when they get enough money to buy a used one cheap, then rebuild it themselves. I see a lot of those around, now. Some are even made out of wood, with shingles and caulking compound. Amazing, really. These are the cyberpunks of today. Pot growers with laptops and smart phones, reenacting Walden Pond, only its Walden Grow. Someday I'm sure those guys will write their adventures and publish them as best selling NYT novels.
"The fact that USA has the lowest labor participation full time employment rate in history is worrying. One hopes that the unemployed are educating and developing hobbies into businesses that haven't gotten big enough for taxes yet, but thats probably optimism. 3D printing has lots of interesting potential for home business, using the right materials (not plastics), as does CNC machining, which can be put into a garage, same as many kinds of assembly welding and home businesses constructing trailers and refurbing RVs to turn over for a profit once done. Being able to drive away from bad taxes is more valuable than the 4x inflating housing market, where buying a home is losing a LOT of money once the bubble bursts. Which it will. The Boomers are being forced into retirement by sickness and poverty, and they are selling their retirement fund houses for what the market will bear, which isn't much when most couples are getting minimum wage. Economically, America is going to get gut punched again, both on housing values and T-bill collapse. Thank the current president for that. When you attack the image of the USA, you attack the value of its bonds, and those eventually dump because they are a bubble. And Japan holds the most of them. A quadrillion dollars in bonds. Picture that. Now imagine them dumping those for Yuan-gold bonds from China, who is importing tons of gold to shore up their currency, same as the Russians. Oops!
"Bored now," admits Ghost, Rune, and Goobs. GodEater is already snoozing. Mambo and Troubadour look vaguely sick, having caught the implications.
"Yes, I'm sure economics is dull. It defines our future, after all," mocked The Heretic. "But don't let me keep you awake. Feel free to sleep through the future."
He peered out into the storm. The brief snow was melting in the drizzle. Not time for the snow mobile yet, at least, but the .338-08 Browning BAR, with the 20 round magazine and scout mounted scope would do for the grizzly bear problem recently discovered after a Berkeley fascist started importing maneaters from Yellowstone because they looked pretty. The joggers and babies terrorized, briefly before being eaten, had little recourse. Black bears displaced by the grizzlies were coming into the Sacramento suburbs, down on the flatland. That is bad because they run 40 mph and weigh 300 pounds and most pistol rounds only make them angry. And what female jogger carries a 44 magnum on the chance a black bear will try to kill them for breakfast?
"We live in strange times."
"There is a wonderful website run by a BLM employee as a hobby, down at Folsom Dam called WattsUpWithThat. Folsom Dam, near Sacramento and next door to Folsom Prison (Blues) of Johnny Cash fame, supplies both drinking water and hydroelectric power through its huge reservoir, capturing the American River. The water released from the dam is so cold in the 100'F summer heat that rafters get hypothermia riding the rapids downstream into Sacramento. People get drunk while tubing and their beer stays cold floating beside them but people drown too. Somebody gets pulled out of a certain famous rapids there, sometimes because they were diving after their beers and getting caught in a vortex. Saw a corpse there once. Kinda awful, floppy flash of feet and gone once more. The Sheriff's department has a diver for retrieving bodies from the site.
"Anyway, the website debunks fake climate claims by citing counter claims that provide proof, usually data but often mathematics. And when claimants of the Global Warming Cult see their claims come to nothing, again, the blogger reminds us so we can have a good laugh at them getting caught lying again. As the Global Warming Cultists have been insisting the Earth will catch fire by 2012, and claim its never been this hot before like during the Medievil Warm Period, the Jurassic and Creataceous Periods, and most of the Quarternary Period that wasn't ice age, as well as talking to Paleontologists and Geologists who have plenty of boring published books on paleoclimate. Ones with data prior to the current cult, without the romance of fund raising with anti-human communists who know best because they said so and want your money so you can live in mud huts while they ride around in Tesla limos and feel superior because they CARE MORE than you. Folks who aren't in the climate business because of its lucrative parties and use of good booze and hookers, those who know about climate with the proper perspective of history find current climate rather dull. Not worthy of panic. Panic gets hookers, no doubt, but hookers plus academia leads to alimony payments and child support and paternity suits. Climate science as practiced today is the modern equivalent of greasy sleaze evangelists with a tent, preaching to scared old ladies, fleecing them, then fleeing town before the law catches up. Climate science is a scam. It isn't science, its a con game with made up numbers and bad predictions that only get published if they scare people. Real science says: Sorry, not scary after all. But that doesn't sell aspirin on the 6 o'clock news, does it? The trouble with being cynical about people is you are never quite cynical enough. This makes me sad.
"In the real world, we're between glaciers, and it's happened several times in the past. Our species predates the ice ages. Same as polar bears, who evolved before the ice ages, and then adapted to live in ice or on land. The polar bears are rather indifferent to this because they can sprint 40 mph, which is faster than people can run, so catching game on the tundra is not that hard after all. And since the ice is coming back this fine winter, with snowy owls seen into the Midwest and even South due to the cold, it looks like the Warming Cultists have done a great job milking their contributors into realization it is a con game after all. And isn't that hilarious?
"I got surprised by a couple things over the last 15 years. First was that the public didn't panic over oil shortages. Killing the economy killed most of the demand for oil so the price didn't rise as much as I thought it would. Stands to reason is a wonderful phrase which accurately describes how reason has little to do with market forces or crowds. So I was wrong there.
"Right now, the stock markets are getting pounded because The Saudis are dumping cheap oil onto the market internationally, in hopes of accomplishing the assassination of Putin, the defunding of ISIS, and the bankruptcy of American Fracking operators who need a certain price to stay in the black because fracking is more expensive than regular drilling. They can't keep doing it forever, but they can hurt a lot of enemies and maybe buy up fracking teams right now and retain control of oil in the USA long term, betting the USA won't nationalize foreign owned fracking companies that sell out to Saudi investors.
"The other thing that surprised me is most of the cyberized computer technology we thought would be so amazing became everyday and commonplace. Most of the best hackers are in poor countries that can't afford to buy missiles, and they attack entertainment companies that mock their fearless leaders. Those Kim Jongs are getting lampooned hard, by James Bond and now Saturday Night Live, and why not? Murder your ex-gf because she banged someone new? Really, fat boy? Hackers used to be so interesting, but now they're kinda pathetic. There's an entire building in CHina with hackers funded by their Military, who borrow from those script kiddies we used to mock in the 90's. China allegedly has antisattellite weapons, supersonic wave cresting antiship nuke missiles, 300 mph rocket torpedos that can't be dodged, and the worlds's largest air force. But the USA and Japan have the largest drone fighter squadrons in the world, and the hours of dwell time over target do for air power what snipers and artillery do to area denial. And its possible the Chinese weapons are fake, after all. Ronald Reagan claimed the USA had active missile defense, aka Star Wars weapons, and bankrupted the Soviet Union with the help of the Saudis dumping oil so the USSR couldn't afford to buy the exotic materials required. It was a sneaky way to end the Cold War, but it worked. Now the Russians are trying to rebuild the empire by pissing all over their neighbors and threatening to wipe out Ukraine in hopes of getting easier control over Kazakhstan and the other stans and control more oil, bully eastern Europe and threaten to turn off the heat to Europe in Winter. Again, winter is important. Russia is overt about their desire to hurt people for power. Saudi hurting Russia may convince the billionaire oligarchs to assassinate Putin to end this dumping. Or they may wait until the Saudis bleed. They have to stop eventually. Then the oil price rises again, the fracking operations get back into the black, and all is well. Probably.
"I am also surprised that overt communism has become the defacto Democratic Party. They attack the middle class, they offer just enough to the poor to get votes, but actually impoverish more people than ever in history, and the useless pricks just keep voting for them anyway. I suppose its because in the two-party system, the middle is abused or ignored, and only the rich and poor get any interest by politicians, who care about campaign contributions, laws which leave them either profit or exceptions to continue profiting, or votes to stay in power and keep getting those contributions. It used to be illegal, called Pandering not so long ago. Why doesn't the media remember this word? Didn't politicians go to jail for pandering in the old days? Wasn't that illegal? It is baffling.
"I think the best news today is that the general incompetence and viciousness of the federal government is reducing its own influence and value. Eventually, states will individually be the only ones who care about their domestic problems, and with the federal govt only HURTING people, never helping, they won't be allowed to interfere with local issues, so people will stop paying attention, and more importantly, stop enforcing taxes to a fedgovt that is openly malicious and tyrannical. Will the midwest care about Washington DC where they don't fund farm subsidies anymore? The population is getting older, and illegals don't pay social security taxes so that's doomed too. Without a middle class, theres no real tax base. And without tax base, there's little funding for abusive govt. Even education is a scam today because a college degree actively hurts you via student loan payments, since you get paid the same as a high school graduate, minimum wage. And most jobs are part time now, too. No benefits. Some are even "on call" which is terrible when you want to make rent or buy food. Around here, the only growing industries are home health care assistants and pot growers. That's it. Picture that. Many of those growers are shifting into living in RVs, when they get enough money to buy a used one cheap, then rebuild it themselves. I see a lot of those around, now. Some are even made out of wood, with shingles and caulking compound. Amazing, really. These are the cyberpunks of today. Pot growers with laptops and smart phones, reenacting Walden Pond, only its Walden Grow. Someday I'm sure those guys will write their adventures and publish them as best selling NYT novels.
"The fact that USA has the lowest labor participation full time employment rate in history is worrying. One hopes that the unemployed are educating and developing hobbies into businesses that haven't gotten big enough for taxes yet, but thats probably optimism. 3D printing has lots of interesting potential for home business, using the right materials (not plastics), as does CNC machining, which can be put into a garage, same as many kinds of assembly welding and home businesses constructing trailers and refurbing RVs to turn over for a profit once done. Being able to drive away from bad taxes is more valuable than the 4x inflating housing market, where buying a home is losing a LOT of money once the bubble bursts. Which it will. The Boomers are being forced into retirement by sickness and poverty, and they are selling their retirement fund houses for what the market will bear, which isn't much when most couples are getting minimum wage. Economically, America is going to get gut punched again, both on housing values and T-bill collapse. Thank the current president for that. When you attack the image of the USA, you attack the value of its bonds, and those eventually dump because they are a bubble. And Japan holds the most of them. A quadrillion dollars in bonds. Picture that. Now imagine them dumping those for Yuan-gold bonds from China, who is importing tons of gold to shore up their currency, same as the Russians. Oops!
"Bored now," admits Ghost, Rune, and Goobs. GodEater is already snoozing. Mambo and Troubadour look vaguely sick, having caught the implications.
"Yes, I'm sure economics is dull. It defines our future, after all," mocked The Heretic. "But don't let me keep you awake. Feel free to sleep through the future."
He peered out into the storm. The brief snow was melting in the drizzle. Not time for the snow mobile yet, at least, but the .338-08 Browning BAR, with the 20 round magazine and scout mounted scope would do for the grizzly bear problem recently discovered after a Berkeley fascist started importing maneaters from Yellowstone because they looked pretty. The joggers and babies terrorized, briefly before being eaten, had little recourse. Black bears displaced by the grizzlies were coming into the Sacramento suburbs, down on the flatland. That is bad because they run 40 mph and weigh 300 pounds and most pistol rounds only make them angry. And what female jogger carries a 44 magnum on the chance a black bear will try to kill them for breakfast?
"We live in strange times."