There really isn't much more to say on the Peak Oil story. The Peaknic's have won. There is no need to gloat - the revolution will not be televised... and it will likely take longer than the hard core doomers would have liked.
"Peak Oil" was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Before being Peak Oil aware, or age of industrialization aware, or age of TV aware, or age of Government Control aware... whatever you wish to call it... I was on the same self-destructive trajectory as anybody else. Moderately overweight and in my mid- 40's, I compared myself to the people around me... next to them I looked like Jack LaLane... meanwhile I was searching for a heart attack, or a perpetual bad back, or whatever it is that brings prosperous professionals low in their 50's and 60's... then I moved to the farm and slowly began to deindustrialize my life. I had some sad help - one of my hero's on Wall Street died of a heart attack at 62, with hundred's of millions of $$ in the bank, a huge belly, and while I was not privy to his medical charts... wanna bet on diabetes and erectile dysfunction et al? Shortly afterward, portly Matt Simmons took his final jacuzzi trip to the sky...
As it turns out, you do need enough money... but as you get older you need your health and vitality more... these guys would have been better off having gone broke and forced to engage in manual labor - they might have made it well into their 80's... but it was not to be.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, literally at the ranch, my recently de-industrialized lifestyle was yielding payoffs I hadn't really calculated or given much thought to. Without really trying, I lost 20 pounds... then I figured, hey let's do a "hard cut" and finish off that last 10lbs... bang, it was off. Working around the farm my weight is back to my weight at age 20 (I am 51). On the other hand, I don't make money like I used to... but with care and budgeting and frugality, I think we can maintain this lifestyle and still provide the kids with educations and weddings and such... there will be no profligate spending, and we won't miss any meals... the real issue has been the incredible yield in my LIFE in not being a fat, middle aged, industrial worker/automaton/troll.
We still have cable TV, though I personally NEVER watch it (Never is a strong word... less than an hour per month). My wife likes to have the cartoon channels for the kids, but I would like to take a baseball bat to the cable box. I do watch Youtube videos and netflix documentaries and the occasional movie... but their just isn't time for industrialized "home entertainment" on the farm.
I've got the meat/dairy/eggs/vegetable thing down... HOWEVER... We spend roughly $300 to $400 per month on organic fruit... so I cleared a soft fruit garden. I had a good thing going with 3 plum, 10 peach, and 5 apple trees, but the goats got out 2 years ago and killed more than half of them... I had intended to get a real orchid going this spring, but it might be too late... but back to the soft fruit... I planted 12 Blackberry, 15 Blueberry, 10 Grape vines, 2 large raised beds of Strawberry, and Rasberry is going in today. I don't expect much yield until next year, but one has to start somewhere. Bananas and Citrus will be coming from Publix in any event.
Total "garden" area is now over an acre, which is a lot of work. To this I intend to add by renting several acres to plant field corn for livestock feed. I am also going to sell our pleasure horses and buy a pair of mules. Draft horses eat too much, but a couple of mules should be supportable. I will let you know.
You simply cannot do this without equipment. Either you have a tractor/draft animals and implements or you will not be raising significant amounts of food. Period. "Gardening When It Counts" just ain't gonna cut it. A de-industrialized lifestyle is not completely de-industrialized. Even horse drawn implements are creations of industrialization. Also, freezers. I have 2 massive chest freezers, and they are full. In addition to canning, which I hate, we freeze much of our produce... 50 heads of broccoli take up an awful lot of room in the freezer, and we grow that much each spring AND fall. Boy, would I ever miss those freezers. I could easily give up central heating and cooling, but not the freezers.
The biggest savings besides direct food costs will be when we can get down to 1 vehicle (we have 2). I have to cut down on driving significantly... my wife does not seem to share my anti-driving sentiments.
Lastly, we have been keeping meat rabbits... one of the best things we have done. They are much easier to process than a chicken, give more and more tender meat, and growing their feed is easy. We seem to eat 2 o4 3 per month, and find that 1 buck and 2 does will provide all we can eat.
The American Energy Crisis
Inter-Race Crime
The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case has sparked outrage and protest across the U.S. I have no opinion on that specific case and I am confident that that case will get a very thorough investigation without my help.
After the Trayvon Martin killing and the subsequent protests, I did what any self-respecting observer of the human condition with OCD would do.
I went to the FBI web site and reviewed tables on interracial crime in America. What I found was so disturbing that I am still somewhat disheartened. I had several conversations with people on Facebook about the data, but those inclined to the Mainstream Media's view either suggested that I made the data up, was some kind of White Supremacist, or refused to engage further.
BTW... I am really not a White Supremacist. My wife is not white, and my kids are bi-racial (my wife is not black... more of a delicious mocha cappuccino... not sure if that is the right shade for inclusion in the National Association of Colored People... always curious about those folks... what color, exactly?). I would describe myself as a middle-aged-white-pacifist-Libertarian with a fetish for organic farming. I am not motivated by racial issues. I AM motivated by violence issues - or perhaps better said as non-violence issues. I reject militarism, capital punishment, abortion, and each and every other example of institutional AND individual violence. I do respect the Right to defend one's loved ones and oneself. End of disclosure and disclaimer.
OK? So.... after reviewing the data at the FBI's website I will start with this assertion: The idea promulgated in the media that Black people suffer violence at the hands of White racists in overwhelming numbers is a fabrication. Here are the statistical facts:
A White American is 52.5 TIMES more likely to suffer a violent assault or murder by a Black American perpetrator than is a Black American to suffer violence from a White American.
Black Americans murder White Americans at 18X the rate that White Americans murder Black Americans.
(CORRECTION!! The above 2 data points, are stated poorly... what I should have said was this: The African American community creates/manufactures inter-racial violent criminals at 52.5X the rate that the White American Community manufactures inter-racial violent criminals. When it comes to inter-racial murderers, the African American community manufactures inter-racial murderers at 18X the rate that the White American community manufactures/creates interracial murderers for the period 1990 to 2010. In 2010 alone, that multiple dropped to 14X.)
For the past decade nearly 35,000 White women have suffered forceable raped each year by a Black Perpetrator. The number of Black Women suffering a forceable rape by a White Man averaged less than 10 per year. 35,000 to less than 10.
Gang rapes of White Women by Black Men - about 3000 per year. Gang rapes of Black Women by White Men? Virtually unheard of, with the glaring exception of the Duke rape case.
The number of White Women murdered each year by Black Men averages over 500 per year. The number of Black Women murdered by White Men is less than 10 per year.
In fact, ALL White Male violence on Black Women is statistically non-existent (not saying it does not happen... just saying lottery wins are far, far, far, more common statistically)... and White Male violence against Black Males is only slightly more common statistically.
OK. I think you got the idea. Did any of you know the extent of the problem? Me neither. Of course, we all know about the number of Black men in prison, parole, or probation... but most of us really didn't look under the hood. Well, the above numbers are what I noticed when looking under said hood. I left out commentary and just gave you the numbers. That the Mainstream Media does not publish either the numbers OR the commentary is an outrage. Worse, the Mainstream media issues forth propaganda about the relatively rare violence that Black Americans' suffer at the hands of White Americans.
A greater outrage is the lack of outrage in the Black community. Young black men want justice for Trayvon Martin, and rightly so. If it is found that he was murdered, George Zimmerman should and will be prosecuted. If it is found that Martin was smashing Zimmerman's head on the ground and was shot in self-defense, Zimmerman should and will be exonerated. That is the definition of justice. I should think that the African-American hunger for justice would be extended to the victims of all violent crime. It simply is not - and that is an outrage.
Those are the facts.
Here comes the assertion (and please leave your hysteria at home... I will so stipulate that I am ugly and my wife does dress me funny... now that we've got that out of the way, can we have a rational discussion of the assertion absent the ad hominem attacks?)
Thinking about those facts I wondered why the Left/Democrats, which are dominant in the MainStream Media, would censure this data from their publishing. Look, if President Obama beats the GOP by 59% to 38% among women and presidential elections are won by just a percentage point or 2, by mathematical necessity the Left/Democrats are disproportionally female and the Right/Republicans are disproportionally male. Get that?
So why would a party/political affiliation dominated by white women refuse to publish or discuss this very public data? Why are 35,000 rapes and over 500 murders of their daughters, sisters, and mothers not worthy of public discussion?
In a word - Abortion.
Black Americans make up 14% of the population, yet vote nearly 100% for Democratic candidates. Without the Black vote there IS NO Democratic party. In the absence of nearly 100% of the Black vote going for BHO, Mitt Romney is the next president. The Democratic party is willing to negotiate on any and every issue except one - Abortion - and it seems to me that they are willing to censure discussion of the above data in exchange for control of the Liberal/Democratic party for the purposes of keeping the world safe for Abortion.
My sense of this is that anyone refusing to acknowledge this is contributing to the violence. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. It is said that Holocaust occurred because good men looked away. I will always refuse to look away.
After the Trayvon Martin killing and the subsequent protests, I did what any self-respecting observer of the human condition with OCD would do.
I went to the FBI web site and reviewed tables on interracial crime in America. What I found was so disturbing that I am still somewhat disheartened. I had several conversations with people on Facebook about the data, but those inclined to the Mainstream Media's view either suggested that I made the data up, was some kind of White Supremacist, or refused to engage further.
BTW... I am really not a White Supremacist. My wife is not white, and my kids are bi-racial (my wife is not black... more of a delicious mocha cappuccino... not sure if that is the right shade for inclusion in the National Association of Colored People... always curious about those folks... what color, exactly?). I would describe myself as a middle-aged-white-pacifist-Libertarian with a fetish for organic farming. I am not motivated by racial issues. I AM motivated by violence issues - or perhaps better said as non-violence issues. I reject militarism, capital punishment, abortion, and each and every other example of institutional AND individual violence. I do respect the Right to defend one's loved ones and oneself. End of disclosure and disclaimer.
OK? So.... after reviewing the data at the FBI's website I will start with this assertion: The idea promulgated in the media that Black people suffer violence at the hands of White racists in overwhelming numbers is a fabrication. Here are the statistical facts:
A White American is 52.5 TIMES more likely to suffer a violent assault or murder by a Black American perpetrator than is a Black American to suffer violence from a White American.
Black Americans murder White Americans at 18X the rate that White Americans murder Black Americans.
(CORRECTION!! The above 2 data points, are stated poorly... what I should have said was this: The African American community creates/manufactures inter-racial violent criminals at 52.5X the rate that the White American Community manufactures inter-racial violent criminals. When it comes to inter-racial murderers, the African American community manufactures inter-racial murderers at 18X the rate that the White American community manufactures/creates interracial murderers for the period 1990 to 2010. In 2010 alone, that multiple dropped to 14X.)
For the past decade nearly 35,000 White women have suffered forceable raped each year by a Black Perpetrator. The number of Black Women suffering a forceable rape by a White Man averaged less than 10 per year. 35,000 to less than 10.
Gang rapes of White Women by Black Men - about 3000 per year. Gang rapes of Black Women by White Men? Virtually unheard of, with the glaring exception of the Duke rape case.
The number of White Women murdered each year by Black Men averages over 500 per year. The number of Black Women murdered by White Men is less than 10 per year.
In fact, ALL White Male violence on Black Women is statistically non-existent (not saying it does not happen... just saying lottery wins are far, far, far, more common statistically)... and White Male violence against Black Males is only slightly more common statistically.
OK. I think you got the idea. Did any of you know the extent of the problem? Me neither. Of course, we all know about the number of Black men in prison, parole, or probation... but most of us really didn't look under the hood. Well, the above numbers are what I noticed when looking under said hood. I left out commentary and just gave you the numbers. That the Mainstream Media does not publish either the numbers OR the commentary is an outrage. Worse, the Mainstream media issues forth propaganda about the relatively rare violence that Black Americans' suffer at the hands of White Americans.
A greater outrage is the lack of outrage in the Black community. Young black men want justice for Trayvon Martin, and rightly so. If it is found that he was murdered, George Zimmerman should and will be prosecuted. If it is found that Martin was smashing Zimmerman's head on the ground and was shot in self-defense, Zimmerman should and will be exonerated. That is the definition of justice. I should think that the African-American hunger for justice would be extended to the victims of all violent crime. It simply is not - and that is an outrage.
Those are the facts.
Here comes the assertion (and please leave your hysteria at home... I will so stipulate that I am ugly and my wife does dress me funny... now that we've got that out of the way, can we have a rational discussion of the assertion absent the ad hominem attacks?)
Thinking about those facts I wondered why the Left/Democrats, which are dominant in the MainStream Media, would censure this data from their publishing. Look, if President Obama beats the GOP by 59% to 38% among women and presidential elections are won by just a percentage point or 2, by mathematical necessity the Left/Democrats are disproportionally female and the Right/Republicans are disproportionally male. Get that?
So why would a party/political affiliation dominated by white women refuse to publish or discuss this very public data? Why are 35,000 rapes and over 500 murders of their daughters, sisters, and mothers not worthy of public discussion?
In a word - Abortion.
Black Americans make up 14% of the population, yet vote nearly 100% for Democratic candidates. Without the Black vote there IS NO Democratic party. In the absence of nearly 100% of the Black vote going for BHO, Mitt Romney is the next president. The Democratic party is willing to negotiate on any and every issue except one - Abortion - and it seems to me that they are willing to censure discussion of the above data in exchange for control of the Liberal/Democratic party for the purposes of keeping the world safe for Abortion.
My sense of this is that anyone refusing to acknowledge this is contributing to the violence. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. It is said that Holocaust occurred because good men looked away. I will always refuse to look away.
Various Data Points
Total gasoline consumption declined year over year, and is confirmed here in the year over year decline in total Vehicle Miles Traveled in the U.S., down 1.2% 2011 over 2010.
Total rail tonnage is down month over month February 2012 over 2011, and year over year 2011/2010.
Electricity production (and hence consumption) was down big year over year (4.5% in 2011 over 2010) and January over January 2011/2012 was off a staggering 7.5% (some of that has to be attributed to lower electric heating demand due to the warm winter here in the U.S.)
Here is an excellent chart from "ycharts" on electricity generation over the past 5 years.
"Trucking Tonnage" is bucking these trends. Or maybe not. California is home to 1/8 of America, and their taxable diesel sales for fiscal year 2011 (which ends November 30) was down from 2010 (but it was sharply increasing in 2nd half of 2011).
To be accurate the big increase in trucking came in December, 2011 - and (if accurate) it was whopper. Also (if accurate) the decline in January 2012 was a whopper.
Total rail tonnage is down month over month February 2012 over 2011, and year over year 2011/2010.
Electricity production (and hence consumption) was down big year over year (4.5% in 2011 over 2010) and January over January 2011/2012 was off a staggering 7.5% (some of that has to be attributed to lower electric heating demand due to the warm winter here in the U.S.)
Here is an excellent chart from "ycharts" on electricity generation over the past 5 years.
"Trucking Tonnage" is bucking these trends. Or maybe not. California is home to 1/8 of America, and their taxable diesel sales for fiscal year 2011 (which ends November 30) was down from 2010 (but it was sharply increasing in 2nd half of 2011).
To be accurate the big increase in trucking came in December, 2011 - and (if accurate) it was whopper. Also (if accurate) the decline in January 2012 was a whopper.
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