Tom Slaughter's Posterous Blog

What Will Peak Oil Really Look Like?

What will the collapse of industrial civilization look like? I guess the inclination is to imagine it as something dramatic, Hollywoodish like the movie 2012. But then I read...

The point that has to be grasped just now, it seems to me, is that this (the world as it is now)  is what peak oil looks like. Get past the fantasies of sudden collapse on the one hand, and the fantasies of limitless progress on the other, and what you get is what we’re getting—a long ragged slope of rising energy prices, economic contraction, and political failure, punctuated with a crisis here, a local or regional catastrophe there, a war somewhere else—all against a backdrop of disintegrating infrastructure, declining living standards, decreasing access to health care and similar services, and the like, which of course has been happening here in the United States for some years already.

What Peak Oil Looks Like - John Michael Greer

I read that and thought, 'right'.

The boys who cry “Holocaust”

When hawks begin beating the drums for war in the Middle East, Israel is usually a big reason why. That was true in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and it is doubly true with the current  hysteria over Iran. Despite disingenuous claims to the contrary, the only reason the U.S. is even talking about war with Iran is Israel. As the invaluable M.J. Rosenberg, who knows the working of the Israel lobby as only a former card-carrying member can, notes, “It is impossible to find a single politician or journalist advocating war with Iran who is not a neocon or an AIPAC cutout. (They’re often both.)”

Read it all

True Grit

Maria put True Grit on our queue and it arrived yesterday. I totally uninthused. However, we watched it tonight and I'm thinking - this is really good.

I then noticed that it was a Coen brothers production and all made sense.

Those guys really are the best going in American cinema.

10 prairie oysters.

Thanksgiving 2011, Pleasantville

(download)

Click here to download:

thanksgiving-2011-pleasantville-utaExiGnpbiDcgFpaEEA.zip (2.08 MB)

Seven Billion ... And Rising

The population of our planet reached 7 billion sometime around Oct. 31. Walter Bello, a progressive Filipino economist has written a good piece on this milestone - and emphasizes, correctly in my view, the failure of the 'left' to take global population seriously.

It is worth reading.

Parents 80th!

It was fun.

(download)

Click here to download:

parents-80th-DvwpDGdJAoCseChmtFuk.zip (4.78 MB)

Death of Gadaffi

There are many good commentaries on this event around the internet.

Two I find completely on the money are:

Circuses Without Bread by Graig Murray former member of the British foreign service.

and

My man, Glenn Greenwald, one of the few voices of sanity left in the blogosphere: A remaining realm of American excellence

The Crazy Stranger

Really great movie. French guy goes to Romania to find his father's favorite gypsy singer. He doesn't find her, but does find a lot more among the Roma.

One thing that struck me about this movie, is that there is no score - the music only happens when the muscians in the movie play. A great effect.

10 pierogies - but as always, your mileage may vary.

By the way, I streamed this movie on Netflix.

Source Code

Sometime back I rented, streamed (whatever) a movie called Moon. I thought it was an excellent independent Science Fiction movie.

The director was Duncan Jones. David Bowie's son, as it happens. He is also a philosopher.

I have been so desperate that I have been cruising the documentaries at Netflix.

I remembered that a student recommended Source Code. I surfed over to Amazon and it was available for streaming. So, I took the plunge.

I really enjoyed it. And the sensibility is the same (which I liked) as Moon.

Moon had one actor. Source Code features one event played over and over by a dead helicopter pilot.

If you are looking for a boy meets girl via the miracles of quantuum mechanics as well as a good action movie, this maybe what the doctor ordered.

But you don't need to know any quantuum mechanics to enjoy this movie.

10 pierogis.

Too Much Monkey Business

Just watched 12 Monkeys - I think I saw it years ago but was too stupid to understand it.

Really good movie - that's despite the fact that it has in lead roles, mind you, two of my least favorite actors - Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

Directed by Terry Gilliam, one of the original Monty Pythons (he did the animations and was the only American).

It is a time-travel movie, and I am still trying to work out whether that aspect of it works. There seems to be a big causal loop involved. Here's what I mean - Cole travels to the past in order to find information on a virus that eventually kills 5 billion people. In so doing, he meets a guy in a mental hospital and gives him the idea of finding a virus that will wipe out humanity. That guy may communicate that information to the actual person who does unleash the virus that kills 5 billion humans.

Ok, the actual movie. Bruce Willis is, well, Bruce Willis. He kicks some.

Brad Pitt is good as a crazy guy.

This movie is grim - so, proceed with caution. But I am still giving it 9 pierogies with sour cream and onion sauce.