2012 ~ Apocalypse Postponed ...Again

One of the first posts I wrote on this blog back in March 2012 was about the National Geographic TV show "Doomsday Preppers." I had watched a couple of episodes and was amazed at the level of fear and paranoia in these hoarders of spam, rice and guns.

Prepping for the Doomsday Olympics

I wrote:

. . . these people longing for Armageddon don't laugh very much.They are deadly serious about everything and just want to show off their mad survival skills in the end-of-the-world Olympics. They've given up on life, music, and fun in favor of fear mongering.
. . . I couldn't help but feel a little disturbed that one family has enough food for the next 20 years while other people are eating out of dumpsters. But this philosophy isn't about helping the "other people" - the belief is that the weak ones are going to be destroyed by the next disaster while the self-sufficient strong survive. Doomsday Prepping begins at home and ends at home. Like their brethren in the Republican Party who don't believe in "sharing the wealth" or "that dang socialism," Doomsday Preppers live in the Narcissistic States of America.

At the time I was thinking about Paul Ryan's budget and the whole Ayn Rand philosophy as something that drives these clannish survivalists. But now that both the election and the Doomsdays - Dec. 12 or Dec. 21 - have come and gone with nothing unusual happening, these folks now seem like regular old Tea Party members to me.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, they fit right in with Todd Akin and the other anti-science people, the unskewed polls people who reject the math in front of their eyes and believe what they want to believe. Their love of ammunition hoarding is second only to that of Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, and if they aren't vapor-locked in their underground bunkers right now, they are cheering on the Congressman who refuse to do anything while a great country takes a dive over a man-made fiscal cliff.

Many now say it's a "New Age" instead of the end of the world. Where will the Doomsday Preppers fit into that scenario? They don't consider "peace and quiet" a plausible future, so I imagine that they really are doomed to be marginalized just like the anarchy-based Tea Party and the Gun-Loving GOP. The New Age will sail on without them, and good riddance.

Mr. Rogers Goes Viral (Again) After Newtown Shooting

Photo by Jim Judkis
I'm such a huge fan of Mr. Rogers, and I can't imagine what he would think about the way some are shrugging off this massacre of young children as just "business as usual" in America.

But with the magic of video, Mr. Rogers is still around spreading his wisdom. There happens to be a video he made after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy beseeching parents to realize the effect that the news coverage has on the minds and emotions of children. The original doesn't seem to be around on the internet right now, but I bet PBS will put it up soon. For now you can see a clip of it in the video discussion below.

There is also an amazing picture (see above) that was taken for magazine spread and went viral on Facebook just hours after the shooting. It truly captures the innocence of childhood, and gives us hope that not everyone in the world thinks guns are the answer to everything. I would HATE for any child to believe that.

PBS has the story:

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world."

On Friday, 170 Million for Public Broadcasting posted the image and quote on their Facebook page. Since then, the post has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people and shared more than 90,000 times on Facebook.

The quote was taken from a timely video in which Rogers advises parents on how to help their children during times of tragedy....

. . . Photographer Jim Judkis captured the photo in 1978 at The Children's Institute in Pittsburgh, then known as the Memorial Home for Crippled Children. On Tuesday's NewsHour, Judkis's daughter Maura Judkis talks about the virality of her father's photo.

California Earthquake Swarm

There was a swarm of over 100 earthquakes in the past 24 hours in Southern California, some of them as high as magnitude 5.4, which is pretty strong. Tonight there was also a strong earthquake off the coast of El Salvador with a tsunami warning, but it's probably unrelated.

This is one of the largest swarms in the state since the 1970s. And overnight they are still rocking in the town of Brawley, California east of San Diego.

USGS Real Time Earthquake Map
USGS Recent Earthquake List for the World



Story from KTLA.com

The earthquakes began about 10 a.m. with a 3.8 magnitude temblor three miles northwest of Brawley, according to the USGS.

In the next 40 minutes, 11 additional quakes struck with a magnitude from 2.0 to 2.9.

The quakes picked up in intensity after noon, when a series of earthquakes were registered ranging from a magnitude of 2.0 to 5.4.

Residents in the desert communities near the California border to Mexico and Arizona reported feeling the quake, as well as residents as far as Monterey Park, Fullerton, Costa Mesa and San Diego.

A handful of buildings in downtown Brawley had minor damage after an earthquake swarm rattled the area Sunday, officials said. No injuries were reported.

Brawley is located about 16 miles from El Centro and 92 miles from Tijuana. In the last 10 days, there have been six earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.

These folks sure are strangely calm - I would have been out the door and down the road after the first one! *eep*



From the San Jose Mercury News

The city of Brawley activated an Emergency Operations Center and many of its 25,000 residents were on edge into early evening, City Councilman Sam Couchman said.

"Residents were a little jumpy all day,"Couchman said."It's over 100 degrees, but many left their residences and stayed outside seeking any shade they could."

. . . Sunday's series of more than 200 earthquakes, which scientists refer to as a swarm, all emanated from a small stretch of fault line about three to four kilometers long near Brawley, about 16 miles north of El Centro, according to Lucy Jones a United States Geological Survey seismologist.

"It's characteristic of the seismology of the Imperial Valley," she said.

Warnings About the Eurozone

The Republicans can blame President Obama or do-nothing Ben Bernanke for all the economic problems, but this mess in the Eurozone gets worse week after week, and while you can possibly put blame on the Bush Administration and Wall Street for starting the crisis in Europe, this is also a political problem that only those countries can solve. However, while we wait for that to happen, the angst and fear emanating from the Eurozone make the markets seem unstable even on a good day, and every weekend there is some dire warning just before the Monday opening. This week is no different.

A few weeks ago, Mario Draghi, European Central Bank President, made a speech promising to do "whatever it takes" to save the Euro. But his words didn't calm the markets, which instead reacted negatively. They just aren't buying what he is selling, so to speak. Then he spoke again last Thursday, to mixed reviews.

"It's pointless to bet against the Euro," he said.


Can Draghi Turn the EU Ship Around?

Draghi, when he spoke late last week in Frankfurt, did not step away from his sweeping “whatever it takes” reassurance of the week before. In fact, he reaffirmed that the ECB would enter the bond markets to keep sovereign borrowing rates down. And he put this every which way he could. The central bank would “undertake outright open-market operations of a size adequate to reach its objective.” Interest rates, he said later, “that are related to fears of the reversibility of the euro are unacceptable, and they need to be addressed in a fundamental manner.”

What changed? Nothing of consequence. Draghi spoke a little more technocratically, offering details and leaving behind the billboard headlines. He implicitly acknowledged a target yield on European sovereign debt. That amounts to another commitment to whatever it takes.

In the meantime, Germany’s central bank president, Jens Weidmann, repeated that Germany was against the ECB’s latest thinking about bond buying.

Meanwhile: Italy's President is in a panic, and sees the Euro collapsing:

Mario Monti Sees Euro Alliance Dissolving

Monti, in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine published yesterday, said that disagreements within the 17- nation euro area are detracting from the policy response to the debt crisis and undermining the future of the European Union.

“The tensions that have accompanied the euro zone in the past years are already showing signs of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” Monti told Der Spiegel. While he backed the ECB’s willingness to address “severe malfunctioning” in the government bond market, Monti said the problems “have to be solved quickly now so that there’s no further uncertainty about the euro zone’s ability to overcome the crisis.”

. . . Monti told Spiegel that he intends to stay in office until April 2013, when Italy is due to hold elections, and he hopes he “can save Italy from financial ruin until then, with the moral support of some European friends, and Germany foremost. But I say very clearly: moral support, not financial.”

An article reprinted on CNBC from Financial Times hints that Spain might actually be leaving the Eurozone:

Wall Street Warned of Possible Euro Exit

The eurozone continues to be the predominant concern of US bank executives, ahead of the faltering US recovery. Last summer the worsening of the eurozone crisis produced wild swings in US banks’ stock prices and led the Securities and Exchange Commission to demand they provide more disclosure of assets in Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal.

. . . Last week the speculation on whether Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, would take more aggressive action to tackle the crisis produced further gyrations in US stock prices.

One senior Wall Street executive said his bank was approaching derivatives counterparties to say: “‘We’ve got this contract, it’s in euros, what I want to know is in the event that Spain were to be redenominated are we going to end up being adversaries on this or can we just agree that this is a euro contact? Let’s just move it to London law so we each agree that we know where we stand.’

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Cryptic Comments About Health Care Ruling

Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg made some rather mysterious comments about the Supreme Court ruling coming up in the next few weeks about Obama's healthcare plan. It's so cryptic because she doesn't want to give away the "surprise, so it's anyone's guess what she means by this. And she makes a broccoli joke? Well, I guess she can afford to joke with her pal Tony Scalia when their health care plan is guaranteed by the government. But what happens if Tony and the other Conservatives have "chopped off" insurance for millions of citizens and the peasants take to the streets in chaos? I'm sure the Judges can foresee that scenario and are buying airline tickets out of the country in expectation of a decision no matter which way they rule.

From Talking Points Memo

“The term has been more than usually taxing, some have called it the term of the century,” Ginsburg said. In the next few weeks, the court must decide around 15 cases, including the high profile cases over health care and Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Ginsburg called it “flood season.”
“As one may expect, many of the most controversial cases remain pending,” she said. “So it is likely that the sharp disagreement rate will go up next week and the week after.”

Ginsburg cracked a joke about the health care case and the individual mandate. “If the individual mandate, requiring the purchase of insurance or the payment of a penalty, if that is unconstitutional, must the entire act fall?” she said, then offering up the alternative to throwing out the whole law because of the mandate. “Or, may the mandate be chopped, like a head of broccoli, from the rest of the act?”

The reference to broccoli was a jab at critics of the individual mandate, prompting laughter from the liberal-leaning audience. The issue of “severability,” whether or not the rest of the law can stand if the mandate is struck down, is one of many questions the Court will rule on in the health care case. Critics have argued that the mandate would create a slippery slope, ultimately allowing the government to require Americans buy broccoli in the name of public health.

Ginsburg also spent time talking about the importance of dissents, causing Court-watchers to perk up. “I have spoken on more than one occasion about the utility of dissenting opinions, noting in particular that they can reach audiences outside the court and can propel legislative or executive change,” Ginsburg said.

 By Jen Sorenson of Slowpoke Comics

Uncertainty in the Eurozone Confuses Markets

As I wrote a few weeks ago, even if the Germans kick Greece out of the Eurozone and they go back to the drachma and a future of austerity, there are other countries in the same shape waiting in the wings. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland . . . know one really knows where the ripples with stop. It's a dangerous time for the world economy. Yesterday the markets seemed happy that Spain will get a $125 billion bail-out - today, not so much.

This article describes the volatile situation succinctly:

Spain, Italy in market storm ahead of Greek vote
12 June 2012 | 14:45 | FOCUS News Agency

Madrid. Investors pounded Spanish and Italian debt on Tuesday, beset by grave doubts over a Spanish banking rescue and fears of a looming Greek exit from the eurozone, AFP reported.
Despite eurozone powers striking a deal Saturday to extend Spain a banking sector rescue loan of up 100 billion euros ($125 billion), the alarm gripping bond markets showed no sign of relaxing.
Two major concerns stood out: doubts over Spain's outlook even with the mega-loan and this Sunday's Greek elections, which in a worst-case scenario could send Athens back to the drachma.
It was impossible to say how things may turn out, said Edward Hugh, an independent economist based in Barcelona.

Governor Scott says Florida Will Sue Homeland Security for List of Voters to Purge

This guy is all kinds of crazy. Even with his popularity dropping and all his Election Officials in mutiny, he can't stop the purge. He's the Captain Queeg of Florida looking for his strawberries illegal voters.

From Talking Points Memo

“The Florida’s Secretary of State office wil be filing a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to give us that database,” Scott said. “We want to have fair, honest elections in our state and so we have been put in a position that we have to sue the federal government to get this information.” The move comes after Scott disregarded a request from the Department of Justice on Wednesday to abandon efforts to purge eligible voters.

Neil Cavuto, who conducted the interview, pressed Scott on why many of those who objected to the purge were Republican election supervisors. Cavuto also noted that other prominent Florida Republicans, notably Sen. Marco Rubio, were notably silent on the purge.

Gun Nut Fever and Motor Mouth Madness

From Candidate Mitt Romney's Son on Twitter

Ted Nugent, aging Michigan rocker and hunting afficiando, is now being investigated by the Secret Service for saying scary violent things about President Obama and other people in government. No one should just laugh and take this lightly.

In the 1970s, Arthur Bremer planned to assassinate Richard Nixon before eventually setting his sights on George Wallace, shooting and rendering him a paraplegic. He wrote in his diary that he wanted "To do SOMETHING BOLD AND DRAMATIC , FORCEFUL & DYNAMIC, A STATEMENT of my manhood for the world to see." That could be the sentiment of any famous killer from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley to the Columbine Killers.Let's recall that Jared Loughner, who tried to kill Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona,  wrote on an envelope"I planned ahead" and that was considered enough for federal officials to toss him into jail and determine if he was mentally ill.

Sometimes thinking and talking about assassination leads to assassination.

I hope that helps someone out there understand why Ted Nugent is under investigation. Words matter. Anyone is free to criticize the President or urge people to vote against him, but telling a crowd of gun nuts that shooting the president is the only answer, then you begin to sound like John Wilkes Booth jumping into a crowd yelling "Sic Semper Tyrannis' (Thus be to tyrants)." Lincoln actually died - remember? John Kennedy died. Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King were all assassinated by people who planned ahead. Ronald Reagan almost died. This isn't a joke.

Obama, he’s a piece of sh-t, and I told him to suck on my machine gun … Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b—t … Any questions? Freeeeeeeeeeeedom!!!!!”
~ Ted Nugent on stage in 2007, quoted in EW's List of Ted Nugent's Most Outlandish Quotes

I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions? ...(if you don't) get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don't even know what you're made out of....If the coyote's in your living room, pissing on your couch, it's not the coyote's fault. It's your fault for not shooting him.
~ Ted Nugent in April 2012, speaking to the NRA, quoted on Yahoo News

We are aware of the incident and we are conducting appropriate follow-up.
~ Secret Service Head, Brian Leary, also quoted by Yahoo News

The Romney campaign told NBC News that, contrary to Nugent’s claims, they ‘never solicited his endorsement,’ although clearly, they were pleased about it at the time.
~ MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, quoting the Romney campaign Here

Prosecutor Angela Corey Stands Her Ground for Victim Trayvon Martin

State Prosecutor Angela Corey announced yesterday that George Zimmerman will be charged in the death of Florida teenager, Trayvon Martin. It's been a very long 45 days, and I'm glad the waiting is over for the sake of the entire country. In choosing a charge of Second Degree Murder, Corey is taking a strong stance against Florida's sketchy "Stand Your Ground" Law, which enables nearly anyone to claim self-defense when a shooting occurs.

 Zimmerman's original attorneys quit on Tuesday in a bizarre public press conference. His new counsel, Mark O'Mara says that his client will plead Not Guilty to the charges, (Source: WFTV News)

Orlando Sentinal: Key Quotes, Questions and Answers 
CNN: What Happens Now that Zimmerman has been Charged?

"This case is like many of the shooting deaths we've had in our circuit. If Stand Your Ground becomes an issue, we fight it, if we believe it is the right thing to do."
 Transcript of Corey's Speech on Scribd
 

George Zimmerman's Abuse of 911

Here's a list of George Zimmerman's 911 Calls.  Daily Beast: The 46 Calls of George Zimmerman

Like Gladys Kravitz from the old Bewitched show, he was the eyes of his neighborhood, seeing danger in potholes, in kids playing, in people having parties or even just walking down the street. It's hard to tell just what he thought these people were doing, but there seems to be a pattern of profiling anyone with dark skin. I had some neighbors like these once, but thank God they only griped about kids and never took it upon themselves to run down and shoot one of them.

Prepping for the Doomsday Olympics

Out of boredom, I watched a few episodes of the show Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic Channel. Instead of hoarding junk or kittens, these folks stockpile food and ammunition for when the "Government Declares Martial Law." Well, at least that's what one woman in Utah said was doing as she proudly showed off her stun gun, her tower of boxes full of food and water, and her emergency backpack in case she needed to head for the hills.

 In another episode, a man was driving his wife and daughter crazy by cluttering their house with huge plastic jugs full of rice. Funnily, his wife was an expert on survival, having grown up in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. Her remarks were a nice counterpoint - she said she would survive differently in an emergency, by killing a rabbit, catching fish, or stealing food if she had nothing to eat. And having escaped from an evil internment camp to come and live in the United States, I can see why she doesn't really want to hear about her husband's visions of Armageddon, or give up and live in the underground bunker (cave actually) with a big metal door into which he proudly led his reluctant family. It looked like a death trap to me, some place a control freak could lock up women basically and feed them rice till they all die. I think that poor woman should take her daughter and go find a husband who likes to tell jokes.

 That's one thing I noticed - these people longing for Armageddon don't laugh very much.They are deadly serious about everything and just want to show off their mad survival skills in the end-of-the-world Olympics. They've given up on life, music, and fun in favor of fear mongering. Yes, they may think they are the logical ants who are working hard for an inevitable future while we foolish grasshoppers fiddle and play, but even from a religious standpoint they are forgetting that the Bible says to "take no thought of what you eat or drink." Or how about the story of the Loaves and Fishes? I couldn't help but feel a little disturbed that one family has enough food for the next 20 years while other people are eating out of dumpsters. But this philosophy isn't about helping the "other people," the weak ones who are going to be destroyed by the next disaster. Doomsday Prepping begins at home and ends at home. Like their brethren in the Republican Party who don't believe in "sharing the wealth" or "that dang socialism," Doomsday Preppers live in the Narcissistic States of America.

Don't get me wrong - I want to take care of me and mine, too. I shiver at thoughts of the Yellowstone Super Volcano, Nuclear Fall-Out or a Viral Pandemic. But having lived through horrible tornadoes and hailstorms this year here in Tennessee, I know that when it is my time to go, I'm gone. God isn't going to ask permission before he blows away my house, and no stun gun can stop that either. I am much more worried about strong winds than the "Gummint."

We have a very simple emergency box: some canned goods, matches, charcoal, aluminum pans, candles, and a radio. No stun gun, sorry. My husband and I figure ordinary life is scary enough with making our kids paranoid enough to shoot any human who "threatens" the family compound. That's the ultimate in-crowd/out-crowd Group Think that leads to another Waco massacre or Jim Jones Cult mass suicide. Us versus Them - survival of the fittest. It's interesting that most of these folks probably don't even believe in evolution even while preaching social Darwinism, and they also forget that maybe God has a sense of humor. If they had any introspection at all, they might smile inwardly at the absurdity of their actions. Don't they recall the Millenium 2000 scare when civilization was supposed to grind to a halt? Never happened, and millions of people had to eat crow - whoops, sorry - had to eat stale cereal and canned tuna for years because they had used up all their money while "prepping."

I'm sure this show gets good ratings for National Geographic. But I wonder what they are highlighting here? Is it the social phenomenon of our divided society or the psychological phenomenon of people drinking too much Wingnut Kool-Aid?