All topics.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 23, 2026, 06:01 PMTDoS - You have one warning.  I don't want to hear another peep out of you about peak oil for 1 week.

A challenge!!!

Quote from: K-DogThis thread is about an actual ongoing energy crisis, and is not about your whining never ending rant about peak oil definitions.  Which is really just a veiled way of pissing on the Diner.  You could at least find an appropriate topic to post in instead of venting your sociopathic affinity for the dark side here.

I accept the challenge!!

Higher costs aren't an ongoing energy crisis, certainly not for you, me or RE. For poor people, every change in prices is a crisis, inflation causing them to suffer "always" crisis. You and I, spending 20K on heat pumps, us having some nice 4 wheeled hardware (mine doesn't even run on liquid fuels) are doing fine. And our taxes pay for RE to do what he does, I doubt they will feed him smaller portions of peas and carrots because fuel costs are going up.

Approproate topic to post on...okay...how about the varied types of Apocalyptians, those who suffer from a near religious belief in it regardless of facts, logic, science etc etc, and the reasons why?

Quote from: author=RE on Mar 23, 2026, 06:31 PMNor are facts always factual.

ha-ha <yawn>

AI SAY:A fact is something that is known to be true—an event, condition, or piece of information that can be proven through evidence, observation, or reliable verification.

I'll stick with the FACTS of a "fact" in this matter.

Your word games aren't near as clever as they used to be. You doing all right? I would love to come visit, but the wife is getting a little antsy about me wandering too far, I got sick twice last year that stuck around and were new experiences. Another trip to Prudhoe with a stop off in Anchorage would be great but I don't think she'd let me.

QuoteHigher costs aren't an ongoing energy crisis, certainly not for you, me or RE. For poor people, every change in prices is a crisis,

I am not exactly what your point is.  Fact is Americans do not have enough on average to provide long term security for themselves.  Living in a tent at 80 is not where I want to be.  How much does the average American need to make sure that does not happen.  Whatever the number is most Americans don't have it.  Working part time makes that less likely.  It significantly plugs up the drain and tops off the tank.

The average retirement balance for a 65-year-old is roughly $609,000 in America, but the median is only $200,000.  A small percentage of Americans have millions, but the majority of Americans are far from having it made in the shade.  And health care can break an average American at any time.

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 24, 2026, 05:01 PMI doubt they will feed him smaller portions of peas and carrots because fuel costs are going up.

WRONG!  Our portion sizes have shrunk by about 25% and we are getting lower quality meats and more meals with no meat at all.  Food inflation has been hitting tthe food budget heere quite hard.

RE

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 24, 2026, 05:07 PMAI SAY:A fact is something that is known to be true—an event, condition, or piece of information that can be proven through evidence, observation, or reliable verification.

Tell that to Faux Newz,  MAGA, Climate Change Deniers, Trumpsky and everyone else who claims they have the facts.  With AI and Deep Fakes facts can be quite hard to ascertain.   Seeing is not always believing.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 24, 2026, 05:22 PM

QuoteHigher costs aren't an ongoing energy crisis, certainly not for you, me or RE. For poor people, every change in prices is a crisis,

I am not exactly what your point is.

That an energy crisis, as related to energy costs, are different for those in the situation you, me and RE are in, versus perhaps J6P, or the poor, to whom a $400 unexpected expense, or suddenly their fuel bill doubling, is a crisis.

Quote from: K-DogFact is Americans do not have enough on average to provide long term security for themselves.

Could be a fact, sounds reasonable, but first you would need to define what "provide long term security for themselves" might mean. If it means, everyone with a solid job deep into life, saving along the way, and enough to cover medical expenses and mortgage/rent/food a car and utilities and whatnot until death, well....that would be nice. Social Security was supposed to help provide these circumstances. I'm betting that many Americans might not be able to provide all of these items until death, let alone pass along a few bucks to the kids.

Quote from: K-DogLiving in a tent at 80 is not where I want to be. 

Same here. Good thing you aren't living in a tent then. You planned well. Not all do.

Quote from: K-DogThe average retirement balance for a 65-year-old is roughly $609,000 in America, but the median is only $200,000.

I understand skewed distributions very well, and I have no answer for why some people do better, or worse. If it were a matter of simple brain power, RE would have monetized his first website and be dining with Brazos as a consultant as to how to take over the rest of the world right now. It isn't all about brains, sometimes it is, combined with other skills and talent, and sometimes just luck. Timing. I bought some gold back in the early 80's, dumbest investment ever but I was young and stupid and had a car to trade and it looked like the world was ending. Stagflation was a bitch, get gold! Began investing in 401k's back when they became legal. Always contributed. The wife will enjoy any lifestyle she likes when I croak and it has nothing to do with the PMs. 

Quote from: K-DogA small percentage of Americans have millions, but the majority of Americans are far from having it made in the shade.  And health care can break an average American at any time.

Health care can be a bitch. I can carry mine into retirement I beleive, but damned if I know for sure. Medicaid is taking good care of my mom when she is ill.

I'll stick with the Hunter Thompson approach if at all possible.

Quote from: RE on Mar 24, 2026, 05:43 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 24, 2026, 05:01 PMI doubt they will feed him smaller portions of peas and carrots because fuel costs are going up.

WRONG!  Our portion sizes have shrunk by about 25% and we are getting lower quality meats and more meals with no meat at all.  Food inflation has been hitting tthe food budget heere quite hard.

RE

Interesting. Well, you have my condolences. But remind me, along the course of your life, how much did you think about the long term, the kind of investing K-Dog and I have done, the availability of 401k's while teaching and during your working years, was any of that a concern to a primarily single person throughout their life? I know it wasn't a big deal to me when I was single, it was all motorcycles and fun, but then I got older.

Did you buy into doom so hard you didn't prepare at all for non-doom, other than whatever minimum requirements were deducted from your pay during working for the man years? And on a cost basis, was that to your advantage? In other words, you didn't pay in much, and the kind of care you are getting is far beyond what you paid in? Which makes your decision extremely financially advantageous towards cash when you could use and enjoy it in the past, versus now where you really can't because of circumstances.

Quote from: RE on Mar 24, 2026, 06:05 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 24, 2026, 05:07 PMAI SAY:A fact is something that is known to be true—an event, condition, or piece of information that can be proven through evidence, observation, or reliable verification.

Tell that to Faux Newz,  MAGA, Climate Change Deniers, Trumpsky and everyone else who claims they have the facts.

Don't stop there. Throw in Doomers since at least Earth Day 1970. And every gang that came out with the internet selling endtimes that never happened. Political crap and biased news aren't the only pimpers of facts that aren't.

Quote from: REWith AI and Deep Fakes facts can be quite hard to ascertain.  Seeing is not always believing.
RE

Facts are as stated...but I will grant that AI and social media has screwed things up mightily, as have our individual preferences to only sample from internet sites and social media that we agree with. Very few of us make damn sure to know what our detractors are saying, writing and researching, but it is quite critical.

You don't learn dick from your mindless sychophant friends. You learn best from enemies who are intelligent and degreed and know as much as you do on a topic. Anything less in my world is intellectual masturbation. Why do you think I started hanging out with doomers in the first place? Because however unlikely it might be, they might actually KNOW something of value on occasion. And I would never have learned it if I just interacted with friends or the intellectually similar.

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 27, 2026, 04:30 PMWe must be smart enough not to support their narrative, and to do that we must be able to smell the shit💩.

I completely agree! But this isn't your first realization is it? Didn't you have the same angle with just run of the mill neocons decades ago? How could anyone mistake them for the real deal?

Unless..someone just utilizes whatever evidence they can configure to support a belief? A pre-existing internal  thought/feeling/prediliction, that just drives them to....BELEIVE.

It is the only explanation I have been able to come up with those who, after 2-5-10 busts in collapses and dooms just...can't....stop....finding it. In the morning paper detailing the military adventure of the week, a bad econnomy or stock market, like the 2008 recession in conjunction with claims of resource depletion of topsoil and phosphorous and clean water, etc etc. All configured into doom. When really, they are recessions. Bad times. Just high unemployment. Poor politicak leadership.

But if you get the right mind-bending lens of personal belief involved....all DOOMS!

Especially not the mockery, pity and terror it provokes in others. It now seems clear there was internal disagreement about launching this war in the first place, and that there's now widespread internal bewilderment about how to end it.  Trump and Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and whomever else were lured into this war by Benjamin Netanyahu, pushed into it by the billionaire donors of the Israel lobby and, more than anything else, seduced into it by massive institutional incompetence and their thoroughly unfounded belief in their own awesomeness. As one Bluesky poster put it in early March, those guys believed they could wage and win a war easily just by being "based chads" (i.e., white dudes with retrograde attitudes about literally everything) who would avoid all the weak, woke, DEI-informed mistakes made in previous conflicts by such lily-livered libtards as, um, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Well written and accurate take down of the ongoing buffoonery and stupidity that characterizes the Trumpolini presidency, along with the institutional failures of the rest of Da Goobermint and the Press that are supposed to protect democracy from wannabee dictators.  Should be required reading for everyone who voted for the Cretin-in-Chief.

RE

QuoteShould be required reading for everyone who voted for the Cretin-in-Chief.

They

Quotebelieved they could wage and win a war easily just by being "based chads" (i.e., white dudes with retrograde attitudes about literally everything) who would avoid all the weak, woke, DEI-informed mistakes made in previous conflicts by such lily-livered libtards as, um, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Trump has taken "ignorance is strength" as far as it can be taken.  Embracing the dark side has taken Trump as far as he can go.  Time for the crash.  This part is priceless:

QuoteAn Iranian military spokesman taunted Trump last week, rejecting an American 15-point peace plan by asking: "Has the level of your inner struggle reached ‌the ⁠stage of you negotiating with yourself?"

But to do his badness Trump does not negotiate with himself.  That is too much like introspection, and Trumps rejection of all things intellectual won't have any of that.  Success for Trump is reduced to getting what he wants.  You would like to think there is more to Trump, sadly there is not.  There is no thought of others at all except on how their light can reflect on him.  Not a lot of thought of anything except winning, which Trump confuses with making a deal.

QuoteThe MAGA worldview proudly refuses to engage with history, expresses contempt for all forms of academic or professional expertise and embraces a metaphysical faith in its god-emperor's ability to reshape reality to suit his needs or desires.

In other words, Satan worship.