What kinda phone you got?

I assume no one's really that surprised by this.  I mean, it's been in the works since the previous administration when the republicans thought it was a good idea.  It's to keep up safe, remember.  Duh.  Terrorists!

Actual Photo of Osama.  I'm pretty sure.

Still, it was driven home to me this week how ready the Feds and, more terrifyingly, the locals are to implement martial law.  Ready, hell.  More like eager.  I was in a class called MGT 312.  Our scenario, as befits a hospital, was preparing for a case of pandemic flu.  During the first part of the project, before the flu was even in the United States, we had people jumping over themselves to say, "We have to close all roads into our county, and we need to call Washington for the national guard."

Never mind that we'd actually call Gov. Perry for the guard.  Details.  Not important.

Shutting down access to the only veteran's hospital within hundreds of miles, because there was a flu in Mexico was the first answer. Not preparing to serve the potential influx of sick, not working with the locals to figure out what resources they need and whether we had or could get them, but jumping down a hole, pulling it in after us, and shooting anyone who tried to get in.

When I asked what our legal justification was for closing the roads, the answer FROM THE GUYS FROM FEMA was "we've already got that."

"WE'VE ALREADY GOT THAT."

That's it folks.  We're fucking done.  It's going to be an interesting few years coming up.

An eloquent proposal for solving the problems in Detroit

To whit: "git off yo' ass."


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Detroit, a case study in collapse

Apparently, Detroit is in worse shape than previously thought.

We’ve been collecting operating deficits at about $18 million to $20 million a year. That’s nobody’s fault

, I think, frankly, the mayor and the council has done the best they can with what they have. The city has probably cut as much as it can cut to the bone now, and so its been trying to operate on the basis of borrowing short-term loans all the time,” he said. No one's fault? Surely it's someone's fault.

 

The answer to Detroit?  Send camera crews and watch it burn on  TV. 

Fear the Future

This is most likely where we are headed.

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real "strategic" danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization. To remap the political earth the way it will be a few decades hence—as I intend to do in this article—I find I must begin with West Africa.

Soon enough, this will be the only option left to us.

Festivities in London

Looks like they're having fun! Some "youths" have been playing silly buggers in london recently, in a rare example of the british stoicism and stiff-upper-lippedness falling to the wayside in exchange for shenanigans and tomfoolery.



These guys know how to party, amiright?!

 I'm sure these are just the growing pains that any open and free society must go through, and really, isn't it nicer now that there are so many different ways of expressing English culture? Multi-culturalism will save us all some day.


Looking good enough to riot over!







































Still, it's not as if these hijinks ever get out of control, is it?  And it's all for a good cause, right?  They're showing THE MAN(c) that they're serious about their politics and will not stand by for hooliganism.




Let's show the man that shooting a criminal will be punished by the theft of trousers!

 

We'd hate for people to think we weren't serious about justice, right?  I mean it's not like innocent people are being caught up in a rabid over-reaction to the shooting death of a criminal, right?  After all, it's apparently not about that anymore, now it's about unemployment and "social justice."  We think.  For now, anyway.

"Hijinks"

Detroit: collapse case study

The city of Detroit is planning to focus city services on neighborhoods "with more people and a better chance of survival."  This is rational, and will probably be effective, and will undoubtedly cause the mayor to be killed by an angry mob of "youths."

Is this how a slow collapse would look?  While the article says that Fire/EMS and Police services will continue throughout the city, I would suppose that neighborhoods that have more of what little money Detroit is able to scrape up invested in them will receive priority.  It's not even that hard to do, simply close the outlying substations, and consolidate precincts.  That way police patrol is necesssarily centered in the areas that have "a better chance of survival" and if there are competing calls for Ambulance or Fire Services, the ones nearest the substations (and likely the hospitals) will be served first.

It's called triage.  No one likes it, but it's fairly often necessary, and it's why if the collapse of the western world were a band aid, I'd prefer to rip it off, rather than take it off slowly.  Either way, it's going to hurt, and there will be HUGE injustices, but the sooner it's done, the sooner we can rebuild.

Good news? Maybe. Probably not.

China appears to be in at least as much trouble as the rest of us.  Does this signal good news in that they won't be able to buy us out entirely?  To my mind, it says they'll be far more belligerent when we default.

Louisville, KY

Is it still called looting if its done by the government?