Comic Relief

This guy's band parody shots are pretty funny:
Andersen Ben-Hilliens Rock Paparazzi: The Pixies


"My Flashgun GOOONE to HEAVENS
he he
$5318008"

Wisdom of the Elders

This guy is heavy.

Some great quotes in here: “Fate is what happens when innumerable people make innumerable small decisions about other matters that have a collective cumulative effect that nobody intended.”
C. Wright Mills

Content is pretty terrifying, but I like his attitude, and the way he points out that feeling guilty about the situation we are in as a species is not a very useful way to go... he makes the analogy of a friend's dying mother who got involved in a religion that taught her she had contracted her disease due to lack of faith - and spent her final weeks in guilt-ridden misery.

He suggests that there's not much point in humanity doing the same - we children of the fossil-fuel age were pretty innocent in our decisions. Obviously we still need to do anything we can to mitigate the crash we are now facing, but we might as well do it with a smile on our faces!

He's definitely not an 'entertainer' but I recommend you put this on while you're doing the washing up or something.

Interview with William R. Catton, Jr.

YouTube - Peak Oil & The Four Futures - Tim Hudson

Interesting summary of future scenarios at the "Michigan's Future
Energy, Economy & Environment Conference" in Nov 2007:

YouTube - Peak Oil & The Four Futures - Tim Hudson - Parts 1 and 2

Beards get radical

Don't let appearances put you off, this man talks an amazing amount of sense:

YouTube - The Twilight of an Age

YouTube - AMERICANS ARE NOT DUMB

Lulz. Please prove this video wrong, yanks:

Temporary School of Thought Forever!

Thanks to everyone who came down, had a real blast and it was great to meet so many interesting folk.

For anyone who missed it - I wasn't able to tape the seminar, but you can enjoy the Powerpoint presentation below! No notes - I did the talk off the top of my head, but hopefully this will still be entertaining:

The Fun Side of Petrocollapse

Hey, doing another talk this Saturday at the excellent Temporary School of Thought - http://temporaryschool.org/
in Mayfair. It's a heavy subject but hey, you gotta laugh eh?

The Fun Side of Petrocollapse
A light-hearted take on the end of the world as we know it

Why did the economy just start falling apart? Where are we headed and what can we do about it? While the media blather on about the latest bailouts, the real story continues to unfold. Amazingly, there is a connection between the Mayan empire, cheez doodles and the Energy/Economic/Climate Crises!
Featuring clip from 'Crude Awakening' (Switzerland, 2006)

5pm Sat 24th Jan
39A Clarges Mews, Mayfair (right near Green Park tube)

Hope to see you there!

Cheers, Bill.

http://realfeal.blogspot.com

--------------

PS.
An amusing video of the Temporary School below:
http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/personal/a-quick-look-around-the-temporary-school-of-thought-1149
Not a bad article from the Londonist too:
http://londonist.com/2009/01/temporary_school_of_thought.php

End of Empire seminar

I'm doing a talk, 3pm this Sat (10th) here: http://temporaryschool.org/

My flyer / info below in case you missed it.

Also - Yeah we're in the paper!! (pretty much all the papers, today in London anyway ;)
Artists evicted from Mayfair squat move to �22.5m property round the corner | Society | The Guardian

---------------------------------
I'm gonna be giving a talk on the economic/energy crisis at The Temporary School of Thought. It's a week of free workshops/lectures/film screenings/life drawing classes etc. being put on by a bunch of young people in an unused building in Mayfair, from 5th-11th of Jan. Link below for listings + photos:
http://temporaryschool.org/

End of Empire Seminar - Bill Trible
3pm, Sat 10th Jan
39A Clarges Mews, Mayfair (right near Green Park tube)

I'll be screening a bit of this film as part of it: http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/ It's a barrel of laughs so come along!

They're looking for more folks to get involved so if you wanna do a talk, screen a film or run a workshop get in touch!

The Last Road Trip / Freakishly cheap gas? Nation broke? Just hit the road

Funny -

The Last Road Trip / Freakishly cheap gas? Nation broke? Just hit the road

Nice Pie

This one's been doing the rounds a bit lately - and in fact is out of date already - the bailout fee has doubled to roughly $8.5 trillion since it was made - so much that you could easily include the whole of WW2 in the pie-chart on the right (WW2 cost less than half what has been spent on the bailout so far at about $3.6 trillion.) That's right, I'll repeat it - THE BAILOUT COST MORE THAN TWICE WW2 FOR THE U.S. ... and they're still spending! In fact, it's cost more than every U.S. Government project of the past 200 years or so - combined. Hehe:


My conclusion is - the U.S.' economy is totally fucked. You can't just invent money equivalent to a couple of centuries of major government project spending in a few months and expect to get away with it. I think it's pretty likely the UK and most the rest of the world will follow suit, be interesting to see how that pans out. It takes 6 months or so for the effects to filter through to the real economy- we've just seen the beginnings of that now with Woolies going down in the UK etc., the first of many.

On a positive note, I joined my local LETS scheme, pretty excited about that! - Not expecting it to be able to feed me if the supermarket supply chain falters though :/

OUCH

'Revolution, food riots in America by 2012'

From Commodity Online:
"The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012. [...]"

Lighter news today from Jeremy Clarkson of TOP GEAR:
"Get an allotment!"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7766057.stm

Podcasts

Been enjoying these Kunstler podcasts lately:
http://kunstlercast.com

Always amusing, particularly enjoyed his sardonic take on the financial crisis:
http://kunstlercast.com/shows/KunstlerCast_33_The_Great_Bailout_2008.html



Also interesting is the C-Realm Podcast, just listened to this great interview with Greer about the 'Long Descent':
http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2008-09-17T16_54_27-07_00

Some other interviews about permaculture with the author of "Gaia's Garden", Toby Hemenway. I've been reading some great articles on his site.

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2008-10-22T18_59_49-07_00

Ugly Overload: Louse Tongue

Some comic relief here! I love this site, always a good laugh.

I imagine that when spotted rosesnappers go out on dates, one of the first things they ask each other--certainly before the first kiss--is if they have a sea louse tongue. That might be a deal breaker for some.

Only click this if you're in a gross mood:
Ugly Overload: Louse Tongue

Already cost more than World War 2!

... and over $14K for every person in America.

Financial Crisis Tab Already In The Trillions | Chris Martenson

Worse Than the Great Depression

Some cheery news here from Stephen Lendman at Global Research. I can't even comprehend a lot of it, but there are some good lines -

"What's known in the shorter term is what Michel Chossudovsky observes: "The financial crisis is deepening, with the risk of seriously disrupting the system of international payments. (This time) is far more serious than the Great Depression. All major sectors of the global economy are affected (and TARP and related schemes are) not a 'solution' to the crisis but the 'cause' of further collapse" - by design."

Worse Than the Great Depression?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11001

The Five Stages of Collapse - Presentation from Fifth Annual Community Solutions Conference

Dmitry Orlov in fine form giving the keynote speech at the Community Solutions Conference - he compares the collapse of the USSR with the present state of the U.S. and its likely outcome:

The Five Stages of Collapse
http://energybulletin.net/node/47157
(Slideshow + speech notes)

Permaculture

A journey to Brazil for the 8th International Permaculture Convergence reveals an ecological design strategy that is helping to free Latin American farmers from the corporate noose around their necks; the same noose threatening the world with climate chaos.

Peak oil gets a mention too!



Also, came across this blog- Lame name, top site - lots more ineresting videos:

http://infopatriots.blogspot.com/

Obama

I'm sure he'll put a friendlier spin on things than McCain would have managed, and even promises fractionally more moderate policies. Unfortunately I think he may prove to be the new Tony Blair. My only hope is the US economy will be so completely broke they won't be able to afford to commit genocide in the manner to which they've become accustomed. Glad I don't live anywhere the US/UK bomb in the name of 'freedom'. Did you know they actually made a 'freedom' model US army issue knife? They were going to call it "Operation Iraqi Liberation" till they realised that spelt "OIL."

Checkout Pilger's excellent writing on Obama in New Statesman magazine:

New Statesman - Obama is a truly Democratic expansionist
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/07/pilger-obama-afghanistan-news

Also, well recommend John Greer's "Long Descent", I've really been appreciating his wider perspective when keeping up on current affairs recently. Less sober but entertaining in a dark way is Dmitry Orlov's "Reinventing Collapse."

CUBA

This video=WOW:

Meat Loaf

http://jerseymike.org/2008/10/percentage-of-things-meat-loaf-would-do-for-love-and-other-graphs-to-make-you-chuckle/