ancona
Praying Mantis
Happy Sunday everyone. I so look forward to the weekends anymore, simply because work has become incredibly frustrating. We’re working on razor thin margins and competing against two dozen or more firms for work that for many years was competed among just four or five of us. When Friday hits, and the noon milestone passes, I begin to relax, knowing that I have two whole days without hassles and aggravations. Yesterday was ultra-hot, with 95% humidity at 92 degrees, so we got the obligatory 4pm downpour which cooled everything off and pulled all that moisture down to the ground. We sat over at Scotties house drinking beer and talking about nothing in particular until supper was ready. This morning is much the same, with a heavy haze betraying the humidity and a cacophony of insects singing the song of their peoples. I intend to accomplish even less today than I did yesterday, and I plan to enjoy doing it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the constitution lately as a result of the George Zimmerman [media] lynching, and I find myself getting worried. I worry about a society that permits emotion to override the founding principles of our nation; screaming for the blood of a man who was exonerated by a fair and impartial jury. I worry about our president and attorney general, each of whom still fans the flames of discord, rather than laud the system within which this man was found not guilty. They don’t like the trial outcome so they have decided to find another way to railroad this man, irrespective of the trial outcome. I worry about the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom are working to foment dissent, hatred and racial division in the black community, rather than work to change those things which are the real reason for many of that communities ills. The rule of law seems to be fading away as the tenor of crowd sourced justice takes root. George Zimmerman was found guilty by our president on national television before any of the well washed “facts” came to light and months before discovery was completed. I have never seen a person wielding as much power as our president say or do anything this irresponsible, unfair and evil in my entire life. The complicit media worked itself in to a veritable frenzy of ‘white guilt’, tripping over one other in an effort to prove they are not racists. We have started slipping down that slope folks, and it is not going to be a smooth ride.
So what is there to say about the Middle East? Well for one thing, all of our meddling, bombing and support of the ‘wrong side’ has caused multiple nations to completely boil over in to a giant ball of fuck. There really is no other way to describe it. We have managed to completely destabilize what was for all intents and purposes, a completely stable quarter of the globe, and we’ve done it in four and a half short years. Libya was a self-supporting country with possibly the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Gasoline was subsidized and cost just a quarter a gallon, electricity and water service were free. Get that? They were free. Education all the way through college? Free, as a result of the sharing of the countries oil revenues. Have a disability that prevents you from working? No worries mate, the government provided you with a sort of disability benefit consisting of a flat to live in, the aforementioned utilities, and a monthly check for other necessities. In addition to all of this, Libya had no external debt at the start of the “revolution”, which ended up effectively destroying a large swath of the nations infrastructure, plunging the country in to a very deep depression, along with creating sectarian divides and religious hatred. I am still unsure of the reasoning behind toppling Ghadaffi, and cannot follow the thought processes behind the “no-fly zone”, but what I can do is observe and gather my own facts. The way I see it, America has become a big fucking bully interested in one thing only; getting her way at any and all costs. Why Obama wants to see the entire world hate us is beyond my limited ability to comprehend. Now, we’re meddling in Syria, yet another country we have no business messing with. They have done nothing to the USA, yet Obama is foaming at the mouth looking for any justification to send arms to the “rebels”, who by the way are nothing more than fundamentalist Muslim freaks, hell-bent on turning Syria in to another seventh century misogynistic backwater. Despite proof to the contrary, this administration insists these rebels want nothing more than to lift their fellow Syrians up to a better place. We often hear the term, ”low information voters” which is a nice way of calling someone an illiterate idiot. What we have in this administration is a bunch of “low information democratic leaders” and something concrete needs to be done to change the make-up of this government before they burn it all to the ground. Does anyone really believe we have any business whatsoever in Syria, or any other nation for that matter?
Lots of news over the past few weeks has hit the wire with little fanfare, but many of these ‘information dots’ can be connected in to very frightening lines, all of which point to something terrible. We all know what happened in ’08, and we all know how much it cost in real terms to keep from blowing apart at the seams, but what many do not know is that none of the systemic problem that brought us to the brink in ’08 have been fixed, and in actual fact, things have been permitted to get far, far worse in every respect. “Bank holding companies” have doubled down like a drunken gambler in Vegas, hoping to get lucky and walk out a winner. I read a website called Zero Hedge, which I find publishes information without all the sugarcoating and breathless, inane, poorly informed commentary offered by the MSM. Day after day I see all the signs and signals illustrating just how shitty the economy is and how unstable the world banking system has become. Just this weekend it was unilaterally decided by some technocrats in an office tower someplace in Europe, that Cypriots with greater than 100k euros will have 47% of their money stolen from them to pay off bad investments and poor decisions by the banks themselves. These motherfuckers are so brazen and arrogant that they think there will be no serious repercussions. The articles I read most recently quoted some faceless individual saying, “We think this is fair for everyone involved and that when all is said and done, the depositors will realize that it was all for the best”. Really dude?!?!? Best for whom exactly? Until the people stand up to these cocksuckers nothing will change, and they will continue to take it up the ass. It won’t get real until they start hanging bankers from streetlamps.
America is in a state of slow motion collapse; that is a hard fact. The City of Detroit is now in federal bankruptcy court, which will set the precedent for what I suspect will be many, many more large municipal bankruptcies in the future. In the most recent council meeting, the cities leaders could only agree unanimously on one thing, that they should demand that Eric Holder place the full weight of the Justice Department towards railroading George Zimmerman on civil rights charges. Faced with financial ruin, and the very real prospect that accrued pension obligations, as well as future obligations will be severely truncated, and the almost certainty that all existing union obligations and agreements will be declared null, the city council of Detroit unanimously agreed to railroad a man declared not guilty by a fair and impartial jury. Do you see the irony here? The next cities to default can probably be determined by the prevalence of unions and how much power they yield. If this judge does the right thing, and he voids all contracts, allows the city to default on all bonds, then pays out percentages to debt holders based upon nothing more than total owed, then it will be a victory. If emotion is permitted in to the courtroom, and if the unions and bondholders are permitted to hold the city hostage, then a total, all out collapse will certainly occur. This is going to be a hell of a show folks, so I am going to suggest following it through because there are more on the way, many, many more.
On the local front, my firm has secured several term contracts, which are line item bids, where we have a price per square foot, a price per gallon or price per unit for removal of everything from asbestos containing materials to lead based paint to contaminated soils. My demolition division also won a contract with Orange County Code Enforcement, which will have us demolishing crack houses, abandoned commercial properties and structures that are partially burned out and/or dangerous. This places us in the unusual position of being ahead of the curve for the next three years, presuming of course that the tax base remains stable enough for the various municipalities to actually fund the projects. That said, my pay has remained stagnant for five years now but prices keep climbing up. I suppose I should count myself among the lucky few, but I can’t help but be furious at the bastard bankers that put us in such a precarious financial state to begin with. The fact that NO BANKERS have gone to jail doesn’t help much either.
On a lighter note, at the beginning of the week, I was asked to take samples of some material that has been slowly appearing on the heat shield of the Apollo 14 Command Module at the Apollo Saturn Museum. It turned out to be a slight salt film that had been drawn out slowly over time as a result of…..well……dropping in to the ocean from outer space. That was right up there with the coolest things I have ever been given an opportunity to do. When you look at pictures of these things you are only getting a tiny portion of the intensity of the object. When I say that, I mean that when standing right next to it, peering inside and looking at all the titanium rivets, it gives you a chill to the bone. This thing circled the fucking moon man! Looking at the heat shield from eight inches away, you can understand the intensity of re-entry in to earths atmosphere by seeing the sacrificial ablative material that is partially melted away, and the honeycomb containment grid that had to be made of asbestos to withstand the temperatures encountered by a capsule full of astronauts travelling faster than a .50 caliber bullet by three orders of magnitude. This is the kind of shit that wipes away a whole quarter of negativity and makes it all worthwhile.
When America finally wakes up from their collective stupor, I think it’s going to be too late to do anything other than watch it all fall in to a burning, steaming pile of rubble. All you have to do is listen to any group of people at a party or gathering for a few minutes. We have become pretty self-absorbed as a nation, more concerned with ourselves than we are with the societal construct around us. When the shit does eventually hit the fan, I hope people will be able to learn how to deal with one another, putting aside their own selfish needs for a little while to work with each other. Surviving the coming collapse will not be fun, but it will be worse if everyone is too selfish to help one other.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the constitution lately as a result of the George Zimmerman [media] lynching, and I find myself getting worried. I worry about a society that permits emotion to override the founding principles of our nation; screaming for the blood of a man who was exonerated by a fair and impartial jury. I worry about our president and attorney general, each of whom still fans the flames of discord, rather than laud the system within which this man was found not guilty. They don’t like the trial outcome so they have decided to find another way to railroad this man, irrespective of the trial outcome. I worry about the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom are working to foment dissent, hatred and racial division in the black community, rather than work to change those things which are the real reason for many of that communities ills. The rule of law seems to be fading away as the tenor of crowd sourced justice takes root. George Zimmerman was found guilty by our president on national television before any of the well washed “facts” came to light and months before discovery was completed. I have never seen a person wielding as much power as our president say or do anything this irresponsible, unfair and evil in my entire life. The complicit media worked itself in to a veritable frenzy of ‘white guilt’, tripping over one other in an effort to prove they are not racists. We have started slipping down that slope folks, and it is not going to be a smooth ride.
So what is there to say about the Middle East? Well for one thing, all of our meddling, bombing and support of the ‘wrong side’ has caused multiple nations to completely boil over in to a giant ball of fuck. There really is no other way to describe it. We have managed to completely destabilize what was for all intents and purposes, a completely stable quarter of the globe, and we’ve done it in four and a half short years. Libya was a self-supporting country with possibly the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Gasoline was subsidized and cost just a quarter a gallon, electricity and water service were free. Get that? They were free. Education all the way through college? Free, as a result of the sharing of the countries oil revenues. Have a disability that prevents you from working? No worries mate, the government provided you with a sort of disability benefit consisting of a flat to live in, the aforementioned utilities, and a monthly check for other necessities. In addition to all of this, Libya had no external debt at the start of the “revolution”, which ended up effectively destroying a large swath of the nations infrastructure, plunging the country in to a very deep depression, along with creating sectarian divides and religious hatred. I am still unsure of the reasoning behind toppling Ghadaffi, and cannot follow the thought processes behind the “no-fly zone”, but what I can do is observe and gather my own facts. The way I see it, America has become a big fucking bully interested in one thing only; getting her way at any and all costs. Why Obama wants to see the entire world hate us is beyond my limited ability to comprehend. Now, we’re meddling in Syria, yet another country we have no business messing with. They have done nothing to the USA, yet Obama is foaming at the mouth looking for any justification to send arms to the “rebels”, who by the way are nothing more than fundamentalist Muslim freaks, hell-bent on turning Syria in to another seventh century misogynistic backwater. Despite proof to the contrary, this administration insists these rebels want nothing more than to lift their fellow Syrians up to a better place. We often hear the term, ”low information voters” which is a nice way of calling someone an illiterate idiot. What we have in this administration is a bunch of “low information democratic leaders” and something concrete needs to be done to change the make-up of this government before they burn it all to the ground. Does anyone really believe we have any business whatsoever in Syria, or any other nation for that matter?
Lots of news over the past few weeks has hit the wire with little fanfare, but many of these ‘information dots’ can be connected in to very frightening lines, all of which point to something terrible. We all know what happened in ’08, and we all know how much it cost in real terms to keep from blowing apart at the seams, but what many do not know is that none of the systemic problem that brought us to the brink in ’08 have been fixed, and in actual fact, things have been permitted to get far, far worse in every respect. “Bank holding companies” have doubled down like a drunken gambler in Vegas, hoping to get lucky and walk out a winner. I read a website called Zero Hedge, which I find publishes information without all the sugarcoating and breathless, inane, poorly informed commentary offered by the MSM. Day after day I see all the signs and signals illustrating just how shitty the economy is and how unstable the world banking system has become. Just this weekend it was unilaterally decided by some technocrats in an office tower someplace in Europe, that Cypriots with greater than 100k euros will have 47% of their money stolen from them to pay off bad investments and poor decisions by the banks themselves. These motherfuckers are so brazen and arrogant that they think there will be no serious repercussions. The articles I read most recently quoted some faceless individual saying, “We think this is fair for everyone involved and that when all is said and done, the depositors will realize that it was all for the best”. Really dude?!?!? Best for whom exactly? Until the people stand up to these cocksuckers nothing will change, and they will continue to take it up the ass. It won’t get real until they start hanging bankers from streetlamps.
America is in a state of slow motion collapse; that is a hard fact. The City of Detroit is now in federal bankruptcy court, which will set the precedent for what I suspect will be many, many more large municipal bankruptcies in the future. In the most recent council meeting, the cities leaders could only agree unanimously on one thing, that they should demand that Eric Holder place the full weight of the Justice Department towards railroading George Zimmerman on civil rights charges. Faced with financial ruin, and the very real prospect that accrued pension obligations, as well as future obligations will be severely truncated, and the almost certainty that all existing union obligations and agreements will be declared null, the city council of Detroit unanimously agreed to railroad a man declared not guilty by a fair and impartial jury. Do you see the irony here? The next cities to default can probably be determined by the prevalence of unions and how much power they yield. If this judge does the right thing, and he voids all contracts, allows the city to default on all bonds, then pays out percentages to debt holders based upon nothing more than total owed, then it will be a victory. If emotion is permitted in to the courtroom, and if the unions and bondholders are permitted to hold the city hostage, then a total, all out collapse will certainly occur. This is going to be a hell of a show folks, so I am going to suggest following it through because there are more on the way, many, many more.
On the local front, my firm has secured several term contracts, which are line item bids, where we have a price per square foot, a price per gallon or price per unit for removal of everything from asbestos containing materials to lead based paint to contaminated soils. My demolition division also won a contract with Orange County Code Enforcement, which will have us demolishing crack houses, abandoned commercial properties and structures that are partially burned out and/or dangerous. This places us in the unusual position of being ahead of the curve for the next three years, presuming of course that the tax base remains stable enough for the various municipalities to actually fund the projects. That said, my pay has remained stagnant for five years now but prices keep climbing up. I suppose I should count myself among the lucky few, but I can’t help but be furious at the bastard bankers that put us in such a precarious financial state to begin with. The fact that NO BANKERS have gone to jail doesn’t help much either.
On a lighter note, at the beginning of the week, I was asked to take samples of some material that has been slowly appearing on the heat shield of the Apollo 14 Command Module at the Apollo Saturn Museum. It turned out to be a slight salt film that had been drawn out slowly over time as a result of…..well……dropping in to the ocean from outer space. That was right up there with the coolest things I have ever been given an opportunity to do. When you look at pictures of these things you are only getting a tiny portion of the intensity of the object. When I say that, I mean that when standing right next to it, peering inside and looking at all the titanium rivets, it gives you a chill to the bone. This thing circled the fucking moon man! Looking at the heat shield from eight inches away, you can understand the intensity of re-entry in to earths atmosphere by seeing the sacrificial ablative material that is partially melted away, and the honeycomb containment grid that had to be made of asbestos to withstand the temperatures encountered by a capsule full of astronauts travelling faster than a .50 caliber bullet by three orders of magnitude. This is the kind of shit that wipes away a whole quarter of negativity and makes it all worthwhile.
When America finally wakes up from their collective stupor, I think it’s going to be too late to do anything other than watch it all fall in to a burning, steaming pile of rubble. All you have to do is listen to any group of people at a party or gathering for a few minutes. We have become pretty self-absorbed as a nation, more concerned with ourselves than we are with the societal construct around us. When the shit does eventually hit the fan, I hope people will be able to learn how to deal with one another, putting aside their own selfish needs for a little while to work with each other. Surviving the coming collapse will not be fun, but it will be worse if everyone is too selfish to help one other.