ol remus and the woodpile report

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Here's the link to the official Woodpile Report water purification unit, water not included.

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Regime-speak

You're about to be lied to by the regime when they say ...

growing support for
mounting opposition to
the reality is
the larger question is
the more important question is
the bigger issue is
broader implications
our nation's children
fully funded
linked to
touched by
raising awareness
on some level
demand action
a new study shows
in denial
marginalized
the American People
sends a message
reaching out
inappropriate
off our streets
history shows
the failed ...
arguably
greater diversity
disenfranchised
people of color
insensitivity
social justice
cycle of poverty
most vulnerable
disproportionately
economically disadvantaged
disparate impact
oppressed minorities
the struggle for
solidarity with
outreach
stakeholders
shared values
root cause
working families
underserved populations
diverse backgrounds
vibrant community
too many
too often
a hand up
cycle of poverty
cycle of violence
give back
a positive step
positive outcome
best practices
non-partisan, non-profit
speaking truth to power
making a difference
statistics show
emerging consensus
a poll by the highly respected
reaffirm our commitment to
voicing concern
are speaking out
redouble our efforts
giving voice to
empower
enhance
making bad choices
have issues
divisive
inclusive environment
commonsense solutions

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Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals
Tactics of the Left

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.

Rule 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag.

Rule 8: Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period.

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.

Rule 10: Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Rule 11: If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

Rule 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

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Choose one

kings-comp-check-one

America's Ruling Class

Angelo Codevilla's essay America's Ruling Class - and the Perils of Revolution at the American Spectator is really getting a lot of attention. And it deserves attention, it's one of perhaps four or five essays this year that will be remembered and cited well into the future. Even 'though Remus is skeptical of Codevilla's concluding optimism—elections? really?—he recommended it in the previous Woodpile Report, and he recommends it to you now. Bring a lunch, it's a long read. Here are some excerpts:

Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally. For example, the health care bill of 2010 takes more than 2,700 pages to make sure not just that some states will be treated differently from others because their senators offered key political support, but more importantly to codify bargains between the government and various parts of the health care industry, state governments, and large employers about who would receive what benefits (e.g., public employee unions and auto workers) and who would pass what indirect taxes onto the general public.

And,

The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance. The clash between the two is about which side's vision of itself and of the other is right and which is wrong. Because each side—especially the ruling class—embodies its views on the issues, concessions by one side to another on any issue tend to discredit that side's view of itself. One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable.

And,

The ruling class denies its opponents' legitimacy. Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the ruling class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class's claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above. They do this in the hope that opponents, hearing no other characterizations of themselves and no authoritative voice discrediting the ruling class, will be dispirited.

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Remus

Although Remus stepped aside in favor of putting this essay front and center, he still has a few words for you. They're posted at Eternity Road, here.

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Renegade local economies

Stoneleigh at The Automatic Earth writes of what lies in our near future. Snippet:

The combination of credit drying up on the one hand and global trade wars on the other is an extreme threat to our vulnerable supply lines. Add to that the general upheaval created by severe economic disruption, which can easily lead to increased physical risks to transporting goods, and the longer term potential for much higher energy prices, and we could see an outright collapse of global trade in the approaching years.

The benefits of self-sufficiency will be seen in places where it still exists. So long as the whole supply chain is local, localized production means being able to maintain access to essential goods at a time when obtaining them from overseas may be difficult or impossible. It is currently more expensive, but the relative security it can provide can be priceless in a dangerous world.

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To protect and defend who?

Taking pictures of police on duty is being prosecuted as a crime in more and more places. Making videos of police is even more heinous, they call it wiretapping. One man who posted a video of his own arrest on the internet had his home raided, his PC confiscated and now faces 16 years in prison. Another man was arrested for illegal photography when he took a picture of an officer who had entered his home without permission or cause. Even the legacy press is getting antsy, see these articles in USA Today and the Washington Post.

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The Ackerman hits the fan

"Liberalism is not taught in journalism school, it is expected."
Ashley Stinnett

The citizenry has less respect for journalists than for used car salesmen, maybe even even less than for educators. Persons of fifty years have known the press as partisan activists all their lives. We needn't look far for the reason—the press are partisan activists. The lacquer-thin objectivity wore through a couple decades ago. But only recently have they openly presented themselves as America's Commissioners of Correct Thought and revealed an ambition to be its enforcers as well.

Daily Caller recently ran some confidential emails by journalists in the legacy press—they like to call themselves the mainstream media—sent during the Obama campaign, emails that pretty much prove the press functions as an interconnected web of partisans using their employers as the delivery system for coordinated attacks. The term slanted doesn't begin to cover it. For instance, this is an excerpt from their conspiracy to cover up the Rev. Wright story:

"It's not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright's defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."
Spencer Ackerman, when at Washington Independent

The author of this particular email, Spencer Ackerman, currently writes for Wired's Danger Room—he presents himself as an expert on national security issues—and runs the Attackerman blog at FireDogLake. As an illustration of the incestuous nature of the press, Ackerman's former venue, the Washington Independent, is part of The American Independent News Network, in turn founded by David Bennahum, a former staffer at Wired, which is Ackerman's current venue.

Amusingly, The American Independent regularly wins what they like to call 'prestigious awards' from the Society of Professional Journalists, which "aims to ensure that journalists adhere to high standards of behavior and decision-making while performing their work." Nobody need wonder why olde tymme news outfits are on a death watch with these kinds of standards.

JournoList, the forum (member list here, photos of members here) from which these emails were leaked, has been junked in favor of another, um, collective called CabaList. Same birds, different wire, aside from a bit o' purging. CabaList is said to be more secure, at least not the porous venue JournoList was. We'll see.

Related article: what Fred Barnes, one of the proposed targets in the Ackerman email above, has to say about all this.

Related articles: what the mainstream media journalists were emailing to each other the night Obama won the Presidency—two pages of political tingly legs—and how the legacy press shaped and coordinated their attack on Sarah Palin the very day she was announced as McCain's candidate for Vice President.

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HuffPost tries a Dorothea Lange

Presenting a video from Huffington Post's Bearing Witness 2.0 Project, first-hand accounts from middle class families "who are struggling to stay afloat in the recession."

She's so bright and well spoken, so earnest and sincere, so experienced and worldly, so degreed in Justice, Law and Society—Remus can't imagine why this young lady hasn't yet found a managerial job in "stuff like human rights issues". Some agency should reach out and give her a chance to use her skill set, perhaps to demarginalize an underserved population of diverse backgrounds. Stuff like that. She's earned it, she's a tough and seasoned survivor. Learn of her struggle in her own words:

"After graduating this May, I had planned to take some time off before working full time again—travel, paint, work on learning a new language. Nearly two months ago, I started seriously sending out applications. Weeks passed without hearing anything, so I went to Costa Rica. I figured if I had to wait anyways, it might as well be in a new country. But here I am, back in the United States, and unemployed."

O the Humanity! Here's the video.

Side note: Remus says HuffPost tries a Dorothea Lange because he never misses an opportunity to expose Ms. Lange's manipulation and misrepresentation of good but vulnerable people. She was a committed Progressive who used—and perhaps conceived—her Depression-era photographs as cloying illustrations for mainly fictitious narratives calculated to further her cause and herself. Ms Lange shamelessly exploited and betrayed her subjects in order to exploit and betray her audience.
Example here.

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Water purification

A good friend of Woodpile Report mentioned he was considering a high-capacity Berkey water purification unit, which is pretty much the gold standard, but he was deferring the purchase because of the high price. This reminded Remus of the po' folk's water purification unit we featured some long time ago at yer ol' Woodpile Report International Headquarters & Jiffy Screen Door Repair Service. We've gotten away from documenting our projects and had no clue where to find the article so we called in a team of forensic paleontologists and, once exhumed, Remus rearticulated the bones and posted the article here. From time to time he gets a request for this article so the link has been restored. It's in the left hand column.

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Overheard

What the road to Hell is paved with - The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Washington Post, November 8, 2006

There's plenty of money out there; don't fall into the trap of this whole deficit argument. The only question is how to spend it.
Anthony Van Jones, at Netroots Nation convention, via Daily Caller

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and — I believe continue to be in too many ways — essentially a nation of cowards.
Eric Holder, Attorney General, Justice Department Black History Month 2008

When Pelosi became speaker in January 2007, the annual budget deficit was $160 billion. When she finishes her term in January, this year's deficit will be more than $1.5 trillion. [A trillion is to a billion as an aircraft carrier is to a tounge depressor - Remus]
Ed Rollins, CNN

Godwin's Law - As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
(Michael Godwin, 1990).

July 22, 1931, CBS television begins - NY Mayor Walker officially opens the Columbia Broadcasting Co.'s first nationwide television broadcast Tuesday; the station, W2XAB, "will give a daily sight and sound program beginning Wednesday."
Wall Street Journal, July 22 1931, via News From 1930

The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses. As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything.
Phil's Stock World

We're so doomed - Why did this central bank effort [stimulous, zero interest and bailouts] fail so spectacularly? Why not one hint of hyperinflation? Simple. The credit bubble was imploding (and continues to implode) and credit losses sustained worldwide faster than the sum total of all additional artificial money created.
Steve Moyer, Ponder This

Shirley Sherrod - Given the clear and undeniable facts about what Sherrod believes when it comes to race relations, it's impossible to take her seriously as a uniting force. Given the ease at which she dispenses racially divisive comments, it's impossible to take her seriously as an arbiter of race in America. And given her blanket accusations of racism against anybody she disagrees with, it's impossible to take her seriously at all.
Stephen Gutowski, Human Events

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It's just the way it was

1939-Oklahoma-Muskogee
Muskogee Oklahoma, 1939

A street in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1939. A haircut for 40¢ in 1939 was the equivalent of $6.27 today. The hamburger advertised at 5¢ is a bargain, that's 78¢ today.

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Here's a NASA map of probable power outages should a solar flare hit the earth, and the article that explains it. Check your region's vulnerability.

Municide - John Galt has some great comments about Ann Arbor Michigan spending $850,000 on artwork while laying off firemen. Nobody can be righteously offended like John Galt.

Bank failures are at 103 for the year, not quite twice last year's total at this time. Here's the benchmark, total for all of 2009 was 140.

The FDIC has made the temporary bank deposit insurance increase to $250,000 permanent. They say it's so we won't have to worry. They didn't say what we won't have to worry about. They didn't have to.

The FDIC, once funded by "Member FDIC" banks, is maneuvering for unlimited Fannie Mae-style funding to bail out the insolvent among them. Perhaps more importantly, it draws in more, um—customers that would otherwise bury their bucks under the chicken house. They still don't get it that FDIC is broke, as is Fannie Mae, and FHA and on and on.

A former CIA chief says an attack on Iran is all but inevitable.

It's not often that Jared Taylor is interviewed about "race realism" without the interviewer framing it in disclaimers, apologies and insults but Jamie Hines of the Dallas Examiner has managed to do it. Even NPR quoted Mr. Taylor without scare quotes. Ironically no mention of Taylor can be made at—get this—Free Republic. Finally, James Webb has an article in the Wall Street Journal about how the equal rights movement turned openly racist.

Worth watching - The teaser for Runaway Slave. Video (5m 11s)

1935-2010. Kodachrome. R.I.P. The last roll has gone through the last operating processing equipment. Yes yes, digital is wonderful, but it takes the graph out of photography. Photography can still be done without electricity, none at all, and it was for its first half-century. Now electricity is both means and result.

Swedish divers have found thirty bottles of champagne some 230 years old on the bottom of the Baltic. Thought to be the premium brand Veuve Clicquot, a wine expert described the perfectly preserved wine as tasting "fabulous".

CNN has joined the attack on bloggers.

Here's a great how-to article that ol' Remus overlooked until just now, Homemade MREs. It's over at Accept The Challenge, here.

So you think you know Vivaldi, Four Seasons and his other delightful confections. Try this piece. Such a nize boy, who knew Antonio had a dark side? And how 'bout a suite from a guy few have heard of, Johanann Fasch, more's the pity. Fully the equal of his mega-famous contemporaries.

Cap and Trade will become law. It's a done deal. Here's how.

Studies performed by the Food and Drug Administration revealed that 90% of medications tested were perfectly fine to use 8-to-15 years after the expiration date. There was apparently no danger in the grand majority of cases ... The exceptions were mostly in liquid form (antibiotics included, but also insulin, nitroglycerine and some others).

The seven dumbest deaths in recorded history. Wherein you'll learn how stuffing snow into a chicken killed Francis Bacon. And many other stories. Make that six others.

Utah may prosecute state workers who compiled and released a list of illegal aliens collecting benefits.

The Obama Cadre has made their choice, and it's Shirley Sherrod, a shameless race-bating opportunist who loves the camera and shoots from the hip. The left's all-race-all-the-time strategy (notice the name isn't the National Association for the Advancement of People) has gotten them stuck with a Typhoid Mary this time. From all the groveling apologies we'd almost imagine she needed the job. It is revealing how Ms. Sherrod became so wealthy—yes, another shakedown. This is from an announcement of Ms. Sherrod's July 2009 appointment to her USDA position:

"RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack." Source.

Who owns the Federal Reserve

It's estimated only five out of a hundred people know the Federal Reserve is no more a government agency than is Federal Express. Even so, we rarely get to see who actually owns it. This guy claims to know, as of 2003 anyway.

"The Federal Reserve Banks are a privately owned consortium controlled by the eight major stock-holding families: The Rothschilds of England and Germany, Moses Seif of Italy, Lazard Freres of France, the Warburgs of Germany, Kuhn-Loeb of Germany, Goldman-Sachs of the United States, Lehman Brothers of the United States, and the Rockefellers of the United States."
(Andy Gause, andygause.com, 2003, via JR at Zero Hedge)

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Mystery man

Photo: Eric Reynolds fantagraphics.com

Who is this guy? This is a recent picture, taken in the south of France. His identity is at the bottom of the right hand column. See? Remus knows you never read the side columns.

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