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Ninety Years of Economic Progress

In what was the British East Africa Protectorate – ten million people face starvation, partly because farmers in crucial food-producing areas who fled their homes last year have not returned, instead withdrawing deeper into their ethnic enclaves, deeper into fear. At the same time, public confidence in the Kenyan government is plummeting. Top politicians have been implicated in an endless string of scandals involving tourism, fuel, guns and corn.

También ayuda a estimular el mifarmaciaespana.com de la mujer logrando una relación muy satisfactoria para ambos. Esta planta se considera un aproximación para la disfuncion erectil depende de la causa. Con una gran cantidad de trabajo todavía se está haciendo en la tecnología, hacer que las personas y luego hacer las cosas que no queremos.

Resources:

Wikipedia: Kenya
New York Time: Starvation and Strife Menace Torn Kenya

966 replies on “Ninety Years of Economic Progress”

EC,

I would not judge a person to be stupid based on any particular belief that they happened to hold. I would need to talk with an individual person, or read things that they had written or hear things that they had said, to determine whether they were stupid or not.

Maybe I ascribe intelligence to something higher than being able to count, read, operate a TV remote.

Intelligence, to me, rises above turning every question into an exercise of ‘how does this effect me’? Intelligence is something people have but do not necessarily use. Putting their own narrow self interest first often dulls intelligence, perverts its power and diminishes its conclusions.

Having intelligence and using it are very different in my book. You can’t measure intelligence by the kilo, but you can judge it by the scope of its application.

KR,

I would say rather that intelligence can be hijacked – for example, scholars working to determine how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

I would also suggest that someone can be very intelligent but not particularly nice. For example, a businessman that makes millions of dollars by exploiting people may well be extremely intelligent.

So I think that in some cases here we may well be talking about different things.

I should also add here that it is an ideal of mine not to ascribe stupidity to people based upon their beliefs – an ideal that I fail at, unfortunately.

DG, surely this person you describe from Canberra cannot be considered intelligent.

We all cannot see changes in our local climate. One of my denialist friends says that Canberra is much cooler than he remembers from his childhood, for example.

The data clearly shows average temperatures rising in Southern Australia and an intelligent would want to know what the data says about temperatures, not what they remember from when they were a kid. I would contend that this is instinctive and uninteligent behaviour.

HW,

I tried to find the data for Canberra over the last 40 years to show him – my memory of things is much different, as I think we had many more frost days when I was small – but was not able to.

It might well be instinctive and unintelligent behaviour. But one unintelligent act – or even 10 – does not mean that a person is unintelligent.

So I think this is boiling down to a difference in opinion as to what constitutes intelligence.

There is data here for Southern NSW.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/nsw/summary.shtml

I checked myself in case he was correct about Canberra actually having lower temperatures. 🙂

I suppose you are right though about some people being able to apply their brains to learning a few skills but they don’t necessarily have a rational approach to everything. We kind of touched on the same issue during the Presidential election in regards to evangelical voters.

That is good information to have – thanks. 🙂

Yes, I seem to remember a similar discussion at that time.

I guess one of the reasons why I do not like to think of particular beliefs pointing to lack of intelligence is that I am sure that I have beliefs that others might think are … wrong. 😉 And I have certainly done stupid things in my time.

Yes, David @ 705, it’s the human condition.

In the matter under discussion, specifically focused, or “situational intelligence” is un problem monumentale when the consequences of genuinely held yet moronic beliefs place our planet and its inhabitants in mortal peril. On a runaway train, all on board share certain common interests.
Peer reviewed science isn’t perfect, however I’m prepared to accept its conclusions regarding what we all need to do NOW to cool our global crock pot.

So if a shock-jock fueled dittohead or an Oxford Don, after cordial, frank and ongoing exchange insists that climate change is a left-wing looney conspiracy theory, then I’ll tell him to his face that he is a fool. Some of us are harlequins, others diplomats. And others still are never afraid to state that the emporer is threadless.

Educating bad mugs has always been a task fraught with difficulty. If reason won’t suffice, then ridicule it shall be!

EC,

The thing is, you are expecting people to alter their views rapidly. This happens only rarely.

After much experience in religious discussion, particularly regarding creationism and anti-homosexuality, and after examining how my own beliefs have altered over time, it is my conclusion that beliefs alter very slowly under the surface, with the switch appearing to be sudden simply because there is no middle ground for the belief to move to.

And ridicule more often hardens belief than the other way round (persecution syndrome is very common).

I guess it depends on what the desired outcome is: do we want that Oxford Don to come round to the correct viewpoint or do we want to have the satisfaction of calling him a fool? I understand the frustration that talking to people who disagree with a position on irrational grounds, and have fallen prey to that frustration numerous times. But I have never found that doing so has helped acheive the intended goal.

*FG is currently gainfully employed in slashing his wrists*

Global economic catastrophe! Slash!

Global climate change disaster!! SLASH SLASH!!!

And as if Armageddon isn’t enough now we have to cope with……

SPRINGBORG!! SLASH SLASH SLA…..oh FUCK IT….where’s me GUN??!!

Yes, on top of everything else, the odds pointing to Springborg becoming premier do come as a bit of a shock.

DG, I applaud your attempts not to ascribe stupidity to the stupid, but seriously sir, they are misplaced! LOL

Yeah, we are all captive to our times, our cultural beliefs and our limitations, but in the current crisis, as Ecky points out, this ain’t just a flip of the coin for the next shout. It’s existentially important.

Not to realise that the planet we live on is fragile and prone to change with different inputs is an act of unforgivable stupidity if you’ve received the benefits of a good education and a comfortable standard of living.

It is selfishness raised to a high degree in my opinion, and looking around, there’s plenty of it about.

OK. Time to take monkey boys to the pool.

See ya, for now.

PS I’ve just ripped up a lot of basil from the garden and made a pesto sauce for tonight’s dinner, and you know what, the fragrance is making me so painfully aware that we live on a fantastic but fragile planet, but that it’s NOT going to remain that way for us to abuse indefinitely.

Will I pay more for that?

What will you do?

KR,

Saying that this is ‘existentially important’ is not an argument for ascribing stupidity to these people – unless by doing so you convince them to change their opinion, a strategy I am dubious about.

The only methodology that has any hope of working – imo – is to treat their scepticism seriously, regularly point out the inconsistencies in their position and trust that over time massive increase in cognitive dissonance will do the job.

“The thing is, you are expecting people to alter their views rapidly. This happens only rarely.”

Yes, David, like Saul on the road to Damascus.

Ferny! Thay gave you the arse?!? The rotten bastards! Or did you spill the ink one too many times after subconsciously yearning for release? Mercifully your talents are transportable. Like our ancestors 🙂
And fargheddaboud The Borg, he hasn’t quite perfected the tele-portaion thing yet!

LABOR PARTY 1.42
LIBERAL-NATIONAL PARTY 2.80

There’s no cause for concern till the commies drift beyond ~1.55. Thus spaketh EC!

711 David Gould No David Comedy/ridicule is the fastest way to change an opinion. Ask any politician who ends up on the receiving end in an election. The Jon Stewart vs Cramer NBC scrap is another example. Comedy is the best way to change opinions rapidly. That’s why we need more of Stewart, Colbert and Bill Maher. Devastating!

Gaffhook mentioned tidal sources for energy in an earlier post. The Rudd government is setting aside $400 million for demonstrations of this technology, looking to match business investment on a $1 for $2 basis. Hopefully, that will spur something. 🙂

Some don’t change their opinions at all, David, but lots who witness the public ridicule/satire/ stand-up or sit-down comedy do.

Don’t you reckon Stewart and Colbert and Maher and co. had an influence on the last US election?

It seems Anna Bligh is going to go the way of Joan Kirner and Carmen Lawrence. I hope this doesn’t have implications for Julia Gillard’s eventual tilt.

The people doing the laughing watching the Daily Show or the Colbert Report are all liberals. There wouldn’t be a single climate change denier in the bunch.

EC,

They may well have had an influence on the last election. But that influence was one tiny part of a whole lot of things. And it had nothing to do with changing the minds of the people being laughed at or mocked. Calling an Oxford Don a fool – for example – has not relation to this kind of thing, either. Laughing at a climate sceptic will not help alter their opinion. So, if altering their opinion is the goal, laughing at them should be avoided.

By the way, this is not to say that I do not love comedy. Good comedy indeed makes people think differently about things. There should be more of it.

But again: that is not the same as calling a climate change sceptic a fool or stupid. That is not helpful, imo.

David, true, not a lot of Right Wingers watch Colbert/Stewart/Maher but they drink in bars and at water coolers and socialise at barbies and church et cetera with people who do watch them and Johnny Appleseed the ideas into the national discussion at a grass-roots level.

Chris B,

I do not think that the kids of right wingers are changing. They never held the views of their parents in the first place. That is why the sneakily watch rips of the Daily Show on line.

EC at 733,

True. But again: do you think that while talking at the water cooler it would be a good tactic to call someone who disagreed with you a fool? Wouldn’t a better tactic be to talk about the skit on the Daily Show and then talk seriously with this other person about their position and the problems with it?

Treating people who disagree with you as stupid is a poor tactic if you want to convince those people that your view is correct.

David, they are many ways one can paint a person stupid without being dialectically brutal about it. There’s many a truth contained in jest.
OTOH, do you seriously believe it is possible to have a rational discussion with climate change deniers like El Rushbo or Bill O’Reilly, their paymasters or their wingnut listeners?

Actually, I’m not aware of any OxDons who are climate change deniers, therfore one must concede any reference made about the esteemed scholars on my part in this instance as, hyperbolic.
🙂

Ecky,
I’m still upright and UNcarked!
Though the posts on here leave me reaching for the razor blade.
And DG…remind me to avoid you at a barbie. An exegesis of Colbert would seriously undermine the giggle quality.

It is not possible to have a rational discussion with some people on some issues.

But people, even ‘wingnuts’, change their views. The question needs to be asked: how does this occur?

It is my experience that such change is often due to talking with people who hold different opinions to them and yet who treat them and their views seriously.

I will add here that I often use ridicule – too often. It does not work.

Ferney Grover,

I am not a very funny man, unfortunately. I can kill a joke dead with a word at a hundred paces …

I remember a friend of mine who was told not to listen to 3KZ by her father because it was a Labor station. So she did.

741 DG

“I am not a very funny man…”

You crack me up DG!!
You really should put that on your signature block.

Meghan McCain, Rachel Maddow Interview: Meghan Talks Feud With Ann Coulter, State Of GOP (VIDEO).
Meghan McCain, the 24-year-old daughter of Senator and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has thrust herself deep into the struggle for the future of the Republican party. She argued in a lengthy interview on “The Rachel Maddow Show” that the GOP, a party which she “loves,” needs to become more moderate and reach out more, especially to younger voters.

Very articulate for a republican.
The two video’s are back to front on Huffington. Watch the second one first. Although they may correct this.
view the video on The Huffington Post

DG, I don’t think I’ve actually stated that we should ridicule deniers in public, but let’s face it, some private banter on a blog is not a political strategy to convince the multitude.

All I was saying is that much of the ‘denial’ is caused by laziness and inertia, and it could be dislodged with some well targeted messages.

By all means drag out the recalcitrants like la Bolta, and pillory the fuck out of them, because they actually ASK for it. Killing off a few dullwits in public is good persuasion technique, just ask the Taliban! LOL

Nup, you would not conduct a public campaign based on my personal preferences for intelligent people ie people who think beyond themselves and who approach evidence and science with a healthy attitude.

It IS an existential imperative. Get this wrong and we might find EVERYTHING else is academic. That’s a powerful message to get across, and if we need to sacrifice the Bolts and Dolts to public ridicule along the way, well, I for one wouldn’t stop anyone! LOL

GM, as usual, gets it VERY wrong with its electric tank, er, car, the Volt:

“The Carnegie Mellon study, conducted by engineers from three different departments, constructed computer simulation models to determine the impact of additional batteries on fuel consumption and cost and greenhouse gas emissions over a range of charging frequencies. It found that small-capacity plug-ins that get less than 20 miles per charge are more efficient than conventional hybrids. And it said that large capacity hybrids like the Volt that go 40 miles or further on a charge are never cost-effective, because the batteries cost and weigh too much. A car with the Volt’s range, according to the study, would also be extremely uneconomical traveling fewer miles as it hauls around battery capacity it doesn’t need.”

I just had a nice tea and watched the news while i was in the process.
What did i see but Kilometers of beautiful beach from moreton bay to who knows how far north polluted with thick black oil which has been oozing from the fractured hull of the ship with the intelligent stupid skipper who kept sailing his ship in the direction of a category 5 cyclone and lost 20 plus containers over the side.

Then some idiot said Ah this is only a light spill, they have bigger ones overseas.

The mind absolutely boggles.
I could just imagine the skipper saying geez if i am a day late getting to Brisbane it will cost the company a lot of money eh.

DG
You probably won’t read it but here you go; email all your mates this link, print it down and paste it to the water cooler or their desk or locker doors. Just also politely tell them that Exxon, who used to contribute $600,000.00 annualy to these anuses has dropped off because they now believe that there is a problem.
There are 600 nut cases, conspiracy theorists or whatever you want to tag them with, having a climate change denial meeting in New York.

Climate Deniers Gather In Times Square;

But Klaus and the others at the conference are being abandoned and questioned by others who only last year would have stood beside them. The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin points out a wide variety of reasons that the conference is a bit weaker than usual, including the fact that not even Exxon wants to sponsor it now:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/climate-deniers-gather-in_n_172971.html

Home in the USA:

The dubious honor of worst foreclosure state still belongs to Nevada, where one of every 70 households had a filing. Foreclosures are up 156% from last February and 9% from January. More than 2,800 homes were repossessed by banks during the month.

Second was Arizona, with one filing for every 147 households, up 88% year-over-year and 23% from January. California, with nearly 81,000 filings, had more than any other state, with a rate of one for every 165 households. Florida had more than 46,000, one for every 188 households.

_____________________________________

It’s a pretty bleak picture, and it’s getting worse by the week.

Oh dear.
As Jon Stewart said on his show he would be a millionaire had he taken Cramer’s advice.
Only if he had started out with 100 mil.
Maybe that is what has happened to the worlds billionaires, they may have stuck with Cramer,
The number of Billionaires in the world has shrunk from 1,125 to 793 in the last year.
Wonder if they could start a little club between themselves and use their hard earned to develop some quick alternate energy.

The richest people in the world have gotten poorer, just like the rest of us. This year the world’s billionaires have an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months. The world now has 793 billionaires, down from 1,125 a year ago.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/worlds-richest-people-billionaires-2009-billionaires_land.html

Sir Stanford has given them the Bird.
As in fuck you all.

UPDATE 3-Allen Stanford not cooperating in SEC probe-filing

“I hereby assert my privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and and decline to testify or provide an accounting, and will continue to decline to testify, provide an accounting or produce any documents related to the matters set forth in the Commission’s complaint,” he said in a document dated March 9 that was filed in U.S. District Court in Dallas.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1130791120090311

That’s it: if scientists want more recognition, more press coverage, how about the scientists at events like Copenhagen get pissed and have a few brawls over the data and its interpretation.

Cripes, mate, that would get the punter’s attention.

Sportsbet could set up a book, and an army of media commentators could sit around for hours every day discussing who hit whom and what it all means for humanity.

Looks like “the surge” has started with Eric Holder on a blitzkreig offensive to round up all the fraudsters.
Here’s hoping that they don’t round up thousands of the little men to make it look good while the Bigs are running round scot free.

At the low end of the mortgage transaction ladder, state prosecutors have had a relatively easy time prevailing, but recent history suggests that the government’s odds of winning drop when they go after Wall Street executives. Some high-profile convictions have been won in the last decade, but several of the Enron-related prosecutions and some cases brought by Eliot Spitzer when he was New York’s attorney general fell apart or were overturned on appeal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/12crime.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

It’s a funny world where the guy who throws a pair of shoes gets gaoled for 3 years, and the guy who started a war on trumped up charges, tortured people and illegally wire tapped his own countrymen, gets to retire to his ranch.

Bill Maher to the Rude Pundits favourite Joe Hunt Ann Coulter.

Coulter, Maher spar at Radio City

“Who put two wars on a credit card?” Maher asked. “There is this debt because George Bush spent money like a pimp with a week to live.”

While Coulter criticized the MSNBC hosts, Maher took on Rush Limbaugh.
“We all say crazy s–t when we’re high,” Maher said. “I think it’s interesting that he is now the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. It shows how clueless they are. They went looking for the future and they found radio.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19830.html

Thanks for the Bill Maher link ,Gaffy.
Really am im impressed by him and so googled more of his stuff and just watched his 70min video -“I’m Swiss” ……a bit dated but so spot on,outrageously funny and wish I’d known of him years ago when Bush’s re-election depressed me so.

Or why don’t they just put him in charge of the Treasury? Robbing the taxpayers on a grand scale just might suit him, but he’d need to muscle up for that one.

Madoff: “I Am Deeply Sorry And Ashamed”
VIDEOS: Madoff Walks Into Courthouse… Victim Speaks About Guilty Plea

Inside The Courthouse: Madoff Pleads Guilty To All 11 Charges… Applause Fills The Room… Sentencing In June, Could Get 150 Years… Three Victims Take The Stand: “I Don’t Know If You Had A Chance To Turn Around And Look At The Victims”… Laughter Erupts When Lawyer Says Madoff’s Paying For Security “At His Wife’s Own Expense”

More Victims: “If We Go To Trial We Have More Of A Chance To Comprehend The Global Scope Of This Horrendous Crime”… “I Would Love For Him To Have Nothing… In Jail, He’ll Have Food, Clothing And Shelter”… “I Just Pity Him”… “Looking Forward To Retiring At 95”

lots more on the Huffington Post Bernard Madoff page. Pictures and videos

However, it is not all bad news. There is one trend in particular that is up significantly – those who think that global warming will have a serious impact in their lifetimes. It is still well under 50 per cent, but it is generally trending upwards.

Matthews V. Fleischer, Round II (VIDEO).
Tonight, on Hardball, Chris Matthews unboxed another round of dispute over the remarks made on yesterday’s show by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. At issue was one of Fleischer’s closing remarks:

Fleischer: “After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again? And that’s the threat that has been removed and I think we are all safer with that threat removed.”

Since then, Fleischer’s apparently been trying to extricate himself from the obvious thing one is supposed to infer – that the antecedent to Saddam striking “again” was 9/11. This was the sort of thing you’d have hoped Matthews would have leapt all over yesterday, as it was unfolding. Instead, we got Frank Gaffney and David Corn yelling at each other, and Matthews declaring, “I want to see more history written about this.” GREAT.

see the entire debate on The Huffington Post

Congress Reverses Bush-era Policy on the International Criminal Court.
Don Kraus of Citizens for Global Solutions brings to my attention news that the so-called “Nethercutt Amendment” was excluded from the recently passed Omnibus appropriations bill.

What is the Nethercutt Amendment and why should we care?

In 2004 George Nethercutt (left), a Republican member of congress from Washington State, inserted a provision into the State Department/Foreign Operations appropriations bill stating that countries that cooperate with the International Criminal Court but do not sign so-called bi-lateral immunity agreements with the United States would not be eligible for U.S. foreign assistance funds. So, for example, if an ICC member like Peru declined to enter into one of these bi-lateral immunity agreements with the United States, then Peru would lose money earmarked for, say, efforts to reduce cocoa production and fight drug trafficking.

read the rest of this article on U.N. dispatch

Pioneer Press: Donors, Data-Security Experts Blast Coleman Campaign.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press has a news article this morning that is a blistering attack on the Coleman camp’s latest foul-up: “As recently as late January, databases of thousands of Coleman’s donors and assorted contacts sat on a public portion of the campaign’s Web site. They were not password-protected, so a Minneapolis consultant was able to find them by essentially surfing the Web.”

This is like leaving all your clients information on display in a shop window for everyone to see. Then crying foul because someone looked.
read more on Talking Points Memo

Watch out Telstra. 😈

Google Voice Speaks of World Domination.
When Google announced its integrated phone service called Google Voice Thursday, it said something very loud.

Google is saying it wants to be the world’s communication hub, and hundreds of companies — ranging from mobile phone operators to Skype to Microsoft better be listening.

Google Voice is a free service that offers “one number for life,” so that one incoming call to that number gets forwarded to all your other numbers — work, mobile, home or hotel room. Users get free calls across the United States and international rates cheaper than Skype. Landlines, computers and cellphones can all access its services.

Voicemails are machine transcribed and sent as e-mails or text messages, and there are loads more features, including smart handling of SMS messages and free conference calls. It’s built on top of GrandCentral, a company Google acquired in July 2007.

Google Voice clearly aims to steal some of Skype’s 400 million online callers. But it’s trying less to be a Skype replacement than a complete revolution in how you communicate — and with Google Voice, no matter who makes your phone, or sells you minutes or bills your land line, Google will always be involved.

Going soon. Check it out.
see it on Google

More…
Google Voice is your personal switchboard.
Internet search leader Google is preparing to steer more telephone traffic through an online command centre that it acquired nearly two years ago.

The company is heralding the expansion on Thursday by rebranding GrandCentral Communications as Google Voice. Google bought GrandCentral in July 2007 for an undisclosed amount.

As part of the transition to the new identity, Google is upgrading the service for GrandCentral’s current users to include automated transcriptions of voicemails and discounts on international calls.

(The service is not yet available in countries outside the US.)
more in The Age

Garrett got bck to his old self last night apparently. I so wish he would take a stand and quit Labor to run for the Greens in the senate – he could end up hilding the balance of power, and start supporting policies which he actually believes in instead of the lame attempts by Labor to keep business happy while dealing with a looming environmental catastrophe.
Apparentlt the Libs are having lots of fun throwing the lyrics back in his face.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/yes-minister-still-the-good-oil-20090312-8wmo.html

The people that dismiss the scientific evidence that went to the global warming skeptics conference. Are the same people that accepted the scientific evidence, about aviation, by flying to New York.

Jim Cramer On “Daily Show”: Jon Stewart Hits Hard.
Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC, in their anticipated face-off on “The Daily Show,” repeatedly chastising the “Mad Money” host for putting entertainment above journalism.

“I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a … game,” Stewart told Cramer, adding in an expletive during the show’s Thursday taping. The episode was scheduled to air at 11 p.m. EDT on Comedy Central.

It was perhaps the hardest lashing Stewart has given to a TV commentator since 2004 when he called Tucker Carlson and his then co-host Paul Begala “partisan hacks” on CNN’s “Crossfire,” the since canceled political commentary program.

The program opened in mock hype of the confrontation, which caught headlines through the week as each snipped at the other over the air. The show announced it as “the weeklong feud of the century.”

read more on The Huffington Post

Personally, I think that we need people like Peter Garrett and people like Bob Brown. In other words, we need people outside the system trying to change it in a radical way and we need people inside the system trying to change it in more subtle ways. They complement one another; they do not compete with one another.

784
David Gould

And we can’t do the same here?

It’s simply a matter of allocating the capital away from fossil fuels to solar and extending the grid.

Big expenses, but renewable energy FOREVER. Not polluting until it runs out.

Even a not very intelligent person can be convinced of the sums on that one.

If baseload (drives heavy industry) solar power can be generated in the Sahara, then isn’t it about time our govt. conducted a “Yellow Paper” with input from coal and oil lobbies to demonstrate, beyond any shadow of doubt, why that sort of thing is completely impractical for Australia’s long term energy needs?

I mean, fair dinkum, the Big Carbon lobby surely have a point here. How would we possibly be able to get all that energy cheaply from Africa to Australia?
—————————————

DG: “we need people outside the system trying to change it in a radical way and we need people inside the system trying to change it in more subtle ways.”

Like Lenny said:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For trying to change the system from within

So, pardon me boys and girls. Stuff this “subtle” shit. Radical is definitely the way to go.

Disclaimer: Oxford Dons perusing en passant, consider yourselves warned!

I agree david- I just reckon Garrett would have more say (and sleep better at night) if he was outside the system .

Worth a listen
Paul Gilding (ex director of Greenpeace) talking about his concept of “The great disruption” to US radio.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2009/03/creative-disruption/
LOL
I don’t know if it’s just me. But listening to US radio commentators, always reminds me of listening to kindergarten teachers. 🙂

Paul Guilding’s also got a piece in today’s Business Spectator.

The end of economic growth?
Any doubt that now is the time for the real debate about the economic crisis – that is, about whether there is something much deeper going on – evaporated for me this week. I discovered there is a fast and furious discussion happening around the world that will now rapidly shift into the mainstream. So get ready for it and get ready for its consequences.

In July 2008, I sent a letter to around 1,000 of my contacts across the world. It built on a similar though less immediate forecast I had made in a 2005 letter. In this new one, I argued we were entering a global crisis with a simultaneous and connected, economic and ecological crash – what I called The Great Disruption.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/The-end-of-economic-growth-$pd20090312-Q36TV?OpenDocument&src=sph
(sub req)

“they burnt the fuckin’ house down with our money, and walked away rich as hell”

Jon Stewart to Jim Cramer

…Stewart is amazing, clever, insightful, and morally courageous enough to front people with their own culpability.

I just love him.

Thanks for the links GWV, it is, next to watching Madoff say “I’m guilty” the most refreshing thing to come out of America in a long time.

There’s a new alignment, a new moral compass about to point in another direction as long as Obama and the Jon Stewart’s can maintain the rage through to change they can REALLY believe in!

Excellent glom, Ghostie!!

Yeah, Jonny’s a mensch orright, Kirri. Half-way thorough the third clip, said to Min: “This bloke would be staggeringly good as a pollie!”
After a short pause she said: “He’s doing a far more effective job of changing voters’ perceptions where he is, nobody owns his arse……. he has all the creative freedom he needs”.

How could one disagree? Stewart has heartfelt passion, a team of ace writers, and “born right into him” barbed wit.

Yep, a real class act.

I’m often gobsmacked by his wit and chutzpah, but watching his moral rage, burning, while he controls himself to fly straight through the bullshit is breathtaking.

Min is right, the guy is doing the world a might lot of good just where he is.

And funny to boot!

# 783 David Gould Says:

Personally, I think that we need people like Peter Garrett and people like Bob Brown. In other words, we need people outside the system trying to change it in a radical way and we need people inside the system trying to change it in more subtle ways. They complement one another; they do not compete with one another.

I agree 100% with that. How it pans out is another matter.

Kirri @793
which is my point about Garrett. People learn by being entertained and seeing a vision, not by being preached to.
And most of all – they will change if something that makes them laugh shows a different view point.
And I will continue to beat the pulpit until you all agree with me..
except you David- you get an exemption for refusing to be even slightly funny.

It’s ironic then, isn’t it Jen, that the lunar right (the Bolts and Devine’s of this world) have the gall to call anyone fervent about our need to reduce emissions as somehow involved in a quasi-religious cult!

Like the notion of Eternal Consumption is NOT a cult??????

So whenever someone grabs the world’s attention, like Gore say, to point out that this is unlike ANY threat we have EVER faced, they all pucker up and go “ooooh, he’s starting a cult of climate change believers!”

Shoot the messenger; they usually arrive on bended knee and shooting someone in the supplicating position is, like, whoa, so eeeeeeeeeezy!

790 GhostWhoVotes Thanks for that. Cramer had a lot of backbone to do that. It wouldn’t be easy. It makes a change from people just screaming over the top of the opposing view.

Just one of the victims at Madoff’s hearing:

Adriane Biondo, of Los Angeles, wept with anger. Her family’s devastating losses have left elderly relatives “sick with fear,” she said. “It’s emotional — 120 cumulative years of hard work is gone.”

…and she is just one, one of thousands.

Well now Kirri – dontcha reckon the Bolter has a purpose?
He does for example highlight the absolute fucktardery involved in becoming a high-flying “journalist”
ie- the less you know and the more ignorant you are the higher you get. We got George Bush as POTUS for 8 years FFS, so even my goldfish is feeling inspired.
Well, he would be if I hadn’t recently flushed him down the toilet, although along with GWB and Bolter – he is just looking more and more relevant.
And my 10 year old says she is never going back to school coz if Andrew Bolt can earn that kind of money then she can too – and I really can’t argue with that.
So let’s give it to the Bolts and Bushes of the world – they inspire the most uneducated and ignorant to believe in themselves.

Fuck Them All.

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