from the Reverse Engineer, Doomstead Diner
Discuss this article at the Cooking Zone Table inside the Diner
This Sunday Brunch article is in a new format for me, it begins with a brief synopsis of significant Collapse newz events which have occured over the last week in a few different areas. My partner Surly uses this format in his “Week in Doom” articles, and it is a very successful format, although he writes in greater length and more detail in his analysis than I will be doing in this Newzwire.
Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.
Editor’s note: This article is written in Gonzo Journalism style, which includes rough and crude language as part of a satirical meme. In this particular post, some of the themes are pointedly anti-Trump, so Trump supporters be forewarned or don’t read at all if you don’t like to be aggressively confronted.
Normally, I could write a full Blog on any one of the topics covered below, but I am doing the newzwire instead here, for reasons which will become clear after you finish the latest synopsis of Doom Stories.
Geopolitics
Manafort Lies, Loses Plea Deal
Pauly isn’t looking too Dapper these days, is he? Having been found Guilty of lying to the FBI, he is now facing 17 to 24 years in a Federal Penitentiary. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. One of his associates was quoted as saying Pauly was going to die in prison. The worst part of this story is that the taxpayers will be footing the bill for Pauly’s room & board until he does actually buy his Ticket to the Great Beyond, or maybe Pulls his own Plug. The best part of the story is that the Noose is pulling tighter around the fat neck of Donalditry Trumpovetsky.
Trumpovetsky Signs Budget Deal, then Declares “National Emergency
Even fucking Ann Coulter has turned on El Trumpo over this Fiasco, saying:
‘Ann Coulter Fires Back at Trump: ‘The Only National Emergency Is That Our President Is an Idiot’
I might remind you Ann Coulter is no Liberal, she’s as Right-Wing as you get, coming in slightly to the right of Mussolini. This whole bizness is going to split the Repugnant Party and the whole gruesome mess is going to be held up by a slew of Lawsuits coming from such notables as the ACLU and the Governor of California, to name two so far who have announced their plans to file. There will be more of course.
Besides that, the Demodopes are bound to introduce bills in CONgress to prevent His Trumpness from unilaterally repurposing funds allocated by congress, which under the articles of the Constitution has the Power of the Purse. Many Repugnants side with the Demodopes on this issue, fearing the Blowback that comes down the line when (not if) a Demodope gets elected as POTUS. How about a National Emergency declared to try to put a stop to Gun Violence? You can make a better case for this as an emergency than a few Wetbacks crossing the border, which is actually way down from its Peak Years in the early 10s.
Heather Nauert Withdraws from consideration as Ambassador to the UN
Another Blonde Hottie has turned down the Pussy-Grabber for a prestigious position in Goobermint. Trumpsky is not very successful with the wimmen these days, despite supposedly being a Billionaire. More like a Billion in Debt would be more accurate. She of course is only the most recent recruit by Trumpini to either withdraw from consideration, quit a position she/he foolishly took to begin with, or get FIRED for not being a syncophant and yes-man to His Greatness.
Who the fuck would work for this asshole? He doesn’t listen to anybody, he doesn’t read any of the briefings, he only knows what Sean Hannity on Faux Newz tells him. Then his governing amounts to firing off a dozen Tweets every morning and barking orders to all his underlings. He a self professed “Dealmaker” who can’t make a fucking deal! If he went on the Let’s Make a Deal show with Monte Hall, he would be sure to pick the wrong door.
Who needs an Ambassador to the UN anyhow?
Economics
Airbus Dumps the A360
A huge flying White Elephant goes to its grave after just 11 years in production, following closely on the heels of the recent cancellation of the Boeing 747. The 747 however at least lasted since the 70s when it was first produced. The failure was baked in the cake from the beginning economically, even forgetting about Peak Oil.
There simply aren’t enough people flying to any given destination often enough to pack an A380 full of passengers, which you have to do to show any kind of fake profit in that industry, which like the automotive industry has been debt financed and gone through multiple bankruptcies and Mergers & Acquisitions over the years. Anybody else here remember PanAm and TWA? I actually flew on PanAm several times back in the 60s, to and from Brasil for visits home when we lived there. I got off the #7 Flushing line of the NYC Subway innumerable times at Grand Central Station, which the PanAm building was built over. Driving a car on Park Avenue in NYC, you actually drive THROUGH the PanAm building! That building is also a huge White Elephant, another relic to be of the Age of Industrialization.
Sears back on Life Support, “Fast Eddie” Lampert resigns as CEO
Sears besides being a victim of the shift from Brick & Mortar retailing to online shopping was also gutted by Fast Eddie as a Leveraged Buy Out, and in its latter years was more of a REIT than a retail establishment. Sears has been on the road to Bankruptcy for the last decade, but is one of those “too big too fail” entities so the banksters kept lending more money despite the fact the company never showed a profit in the whole time.
In this latest attempt to keep this corpse breathing, Fast Eddie proposed to “save” Sears and “save” Jobs by buying the performing assets of what is left of the company and offloading its liabilities, namely its Pension Obligations to Da Goobermint Pension Guarantee Corporation. Another great example of “Privatize the Profits, Socialize the Losses”.
The latest chapter in this saga has Fast Eddie resigning as CEO, and Sears still being kept alive.
Climate Change
500,000 Cattle Drown in Queensland Floods
These very same cattle were kept alive the last couple of years of drought by hand feeding them, and many if not most of these ranchers are already in deep debt. Replacing these cows which cost $2000 each is just about unthinkable, particularly with the risks which Climate Change are bringing to that neighborhood. We are witnessing the end of the era of copius consumption of beef, so if you are a Meatosaurus, get it now while you still can.
1500 Dairy Cows Die in Washington Snowstorm
Not as huge in numbers, but equally devastating to the Dairy industry in Washington, 1500 Dairy Cows died in the recent Snowtorm they had there. This also is bad newz for Alaska, since we get just about all our Dairy products plus most of the rest of our produce barged up here from Washington, or from Mexico. There was a Dairy here in Alaska when I first moved here a decade ago, but it closed about 2 years after I arrived. I suspect the price of milk, butter & cheese will be going up around here.
The only crops that grow well around here are tubers like Carrots and Potatoes, and also Cabbage does pretty good. Just about everything else has to be grown in a hothouse. One can only hope that when SHTF Day arrives, we’ll be able to maintain some form of trade with WA, otherwise we’ll be back to a diet of mostly Fish like the Inuit and Aleut of the old days. Fortunately, I love Fish. 
An “Atmospheric River” flows over SoCal
Fresh off their years of drought and this summer’s record breaking Wildfire season, SoCal is now experiencing a train of torrential rain known as an “Atmospheric River” amongst the Meteorologists Weathermen. What this means to a mountainous neighborhood recently denuded of trees is mudslides, rock slides and avalanches, along with a new round of “Mandatory Evacuations” for people stupid enough to still be lving in that neighborhood. About the only place with a large population I can think of that is in a worse position as far as Climate Change is concerned is Saudi Arabia, now up to around 30M Homo Saps, up from around 1M at the beginning of the 20th Century. Most of them are not Sheiks who will take their Private Jets and GTFO of Dodge when things get bad, they are Foreign Workers paid slave wages who will be left to twist in the wind. In all likelihood though, the neighborhood will break out into internecine warfare before that day comes.
Internecine warfare in CA is not on the horizon at the moment, although the battle between the Goobernator of CA and Trumpini in the courts over the Wall boondoggle is just beginning. That should provide even more Mud Slides than an Atmospheric River.
Psychology
A new Postal Shoot-em-Up in Aurora, Illinois
We got a new Postal Event in Aurora, Illinois this week, this time by a disgruntled worker who was getting Pink Slipped. Have we heard that story before? In this case, the shooter knew he was getting the axe, and came prepared to take revenge on the spot .on his boss and whoever else in the place he had a beef with.
It also turns out he was an ex-Felon who managed to purchase the gun legally, in IL no less! Also notable in this case is that apparently the gun was equipped with a Laser, which makes accurate shooting a whole lot EZier for anybody. No doubt now some idiot will say “Guns don’t Kill People, Lasers do” and there will be a demand to ban Lasers, which is preposterous because you can duct tape a laser pointer to any gun at all.
Is this a manifestation of collapse since we have been having Postal Events going back into the mysts of time? It is in terms of its frequency of occurence. The more people who are losing their jobs and feel hopeless, the more likely it becomes that one of them will decide to lash out. So expect to see more of these events as Collapse presses onward.
OK, so now let’s get to the reason I just did a brief overview rather than my usual in-depth analysis of any given topic for this week in collapse. As regular readers of the Doomstead Diner know, this February marks the 7th Anniversary of the Doomstead Diner Blog & Forum. In Celebration of that Anniversary, I decided to cook up a FEAST worthy of such an Auspicious Occasion. I never expected the Diner would still be covering Collapse after 7 years, most blogs go around 4-6 years before the blogger suffers burnout or just runs out of new things to say. In the last couple of years, I didn’t think I would even live long enough to see the 7th Anniversary of the Diner. At least not from this side of the Great Divide.
So, I have been engaged for the last few weeks practically full time preparing, cooking and videoing the various dishes I have chosen for the “4 Courses of Apocalypse” Diner 7th Anniversary Dinner, which actually still is not finished. So there is still time to join us Inside the Diner to enjoy the full meal with us and discuss Collapse around the dinner table. Definitely better than the conversation you will get at Thanksgiving Dinner with your Climate Denying family or the July 4th BBQ with obese friends & relatives discussing MLB Batting Averages and Strikeouts, and betting on who will make it to the World Series.
Producing the videos for this Celebration Dinner gave me a NEW Brainstorm! I would create a NEW product for the Diner, a Cooking Show where the chief subject of conversation while cooking would be some of my favorite collapse related issues, Homelessness, Food Pricing & SNAP Cards, Emergency Preparedness, Prepping, Bugouts, Food Transportation & JIT Delivery, along with many other topics as well. In a sense, it is a visual version of the Audio-only Rants I used to do on the Diner Soundcloud Channel. The internet has over the time period we have been running the Diner morphed from mainly a Reading medium to a Visual one as Bandwidth and speeds have increased.
I had a request also Inside the Diner to re-publish more of the archived Audio Rants, so here is one from 3 years ago, the War on Cash I & II. As relevant today as it was back then:
All the archived Interviews and Rants can be found on Diner Soundcloud.
The Diner also runs several other websites as well, there is Diner YouTube, Diner Facebook, Diner Twitter and the Diner Reddit Newzchannel, r/GlobalCollapse on Social Media. (And guest posts on some other websites such as Global Economic Intersection, where uou are reading this now.)
Whatever is your choice of ways to use the internet, the Diner has a product for you!
So, if you didn’t guess by now from the video at the beginning or the Feature Photo, the main topic here for today is the new Cooking Zone of the Doomstead Diner, starring as Chief Cook & Bottlewasher the Crippled Cook of Collapse, RE.
The Cooking Zone is a work in progress, I am not a professional photographer or videographer. The closest I came to that was as the Photography Editor for the Columbia Spectator back in my College years. For the rest of my life, I was just an amateur hobbyist. I never did any videography until the digital cameras came out when I started making short videos of skills I was teaching my gymmies and how to teach and spot those skills. No editing, and the vids were max about 2-3 minutes long. This is a much more complex undertaking, requiring I learn a bunch of new skills and also invent some new ways of doing things that I know the Pros do, but I don’t have the money for the equipment they use to do those tricks.
I made some mistakes with the first season of videos I did, the main one being of all the cameras I own, I chose to use the worst, oldest and cheapest of them, simply because it was the easiest for me. Sadly, that camera which I fondly called “El Cheapo” which has been a Workhorse for 5 years since the 1st Diner Convocation in Texas in 2014 has numerous issues now, among them a faulty auto-focus, a faulty automatic lens cover, a faulty zoom switch and a faulty mode selector. Time for Retirement for that camera! So the new Season of the Cooking Zone will be using two of my better cameras, a JVC Sports Vidcam and a Sony I have named the Pocket Powerhouse. It’s one of Sony’s line of pocketable cameras that has many of the features of DSLR Camera, along with an AMAZING 30:1 Optical Zoom! The new season of the Cooking Zone is already looking a whole lot more Professional than the early trials.
The new Season also features an upgrade to the set I use for Food Preparation, that is what the Header video is about if you didn’t watch it. The new set is more functional and looks more professional, and enables me to get some camera angles I couldn’t get before. You won’t miss any details of the techniques used in the cook and the ingredients used in the recipes with the new set.
If you enjoyed the Rants I used to do on Soundcloud, you should enjoy the new Cooking Zone of the Doomstead Diner. It’s NOT just about cooking and recipes, that just serves as a backdrop for me to discuss issues of collapse I find important. The recipes are real though, the techniques are real and the food is GOOD! Although unfortunately I can’t eat very much of what I cook due to a depressed appetite as one of my symptoms. Still, I always do eat at least a few bites of whatever it is I cook up on the show to see how it tastes.
As a Bonus here, I leave you with a Trailer for the first Episode of the new Season, the Trucker Basic Breakfast. Regular Diners know that I was an OTR Trucker as one of my many careers over the 40 year span of my working life before I became a Cripple, and the techniques I developed living in my Freightliner for 7 years are very handy ones to know if you ever have to do a Bugout from your Doomstead due to such disasters as Floods, Wildfires or Earthquakes. We actually had a major earthquake up here on the Last Great Frontier a couple of months ago which you probably read about it. I have been through many earthquakes over the decade since I moved here, but none of them ever really scared me. This was a totally different experience, and it is TERRIFYING. I moved faster than I have in a couple of years fueled on Adrenaline to get out from under my digs, which I seriously thought would collapse on my head.
You want your Bugout Machine packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice, when the local Firefighters knock on your door at 3AM and tell you to EVACUATE NOW! You don’t want to be Homeless and without resources with just the clothes on your back. Although losing your home and perhaps your life is bad, it happens pretty quick in such a situation. Homelessness is a form of Slow Death, and has been one of my greatest fears since I became a Cripple and lost all source of income for 7 months before I finally was approved for SSI. I was one of the “lucky ones” also, only 40% of Disability applicant for SSI are approved on the first try, which takes at least 5 months. If you are looking at a second try another 40% are approved after over a year, but 20% are left to twist in the wind in perpetuity. The only reason I was able to survive this period was because I had a Nest Egg, enough money to carry me through with no income for 7 months. How many Amerikans have enough money to last for 7 months with no income? Answer, not many. Most Amerikans don’t even have a month’s worth of bills in savings to carry them through. They don’t make enough money to have savings, in fact they generally go deeper in debt every month they are alive. Even with my Nest Egg though, there were many nights during that 7 months I had Nightmares that I would end up as a Homeless Cripple Freezing to Death on the Streets of Palmer Alaska .
I hope you join me for a meal at the Cooking Zone as we begin this new Adventure in communicating the issues of collapse in a new medium.
.
