the world didn't end (again).

[okgb]

Hey can we get the O.P. to update the timeline on the title so I can get more anxious
every time I see this post ?

 

[Junction]

John, unfortunately for me I am 17 hours ahead of you, but fortunately for you, you could keep your eye on the news and with the advanced warning the the end is really nigh, you can take appropriate measures for readiness.

But please say a prayer for those of us who go downunder first

Michael
Sydney OZ

 

[JohnRoberts]

Things like the end of the world are hard to plan for... What to do, maybe borrow a lot of money?

JR

 

[PRR]

> Dec 21,2012 -- Time to hurry up

No hurry. MS set back the clock.

Did Your Active Directory Domain Time Just Jump To The Year 2000? 19 Nov 2012

Behind the Random NTP Bizarreness of Incorrect Year Being Set InternetStormCenter Diary

Now, I can't set my digi-cam to year 2000, HTH did Windows Server 2003 believe it was rational to jump from 2012 to 2000?

While the Diary essay says "just ...resync your NTP server", it turns out to be a cascading problem. For a domain which did not notice the wrong date, the effects ripple into child domain controllers which won't replicate because some other server thinks "2000" can't be right. In fact it is so far wrong the info is discarded. Hence a week later "A new employee was hired and new accounts were created on the servers. However, the Exchange server will not create the new mailbox." After a couple days the admin broke-down and called MS. The call lasted most of the day.

So you have another 12 years to finish your projects. (And I better pay my Visa bill for the month...)

 

[living sounds]

Oh my, the end is near and North Korea has just discovered a lair of the elusive unicorn:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9714907/North-Korea-archaeologists-report-quite-unbelievable-discovery-of-unicorn-lair.html


8)

 

[JohnRoberts]

North Korea is easy to ridicule but it is truly a tragic situation for millions of people...  It seems like another huge opportunity to let South Korea drag them into the current century and raise their quality of life, not unlike unified Germany.

Unfortunately North Korea is worse off than pre-unification East Germany, and China likes the idea of having an anti-west, repressive regime N. Korea serve as a buffer along their border.

A free and open N. Korea would be one more thing for China to worry about, and they prefer to make other people worry about them, not worry about others, as their growing economic power makes them more aggressive about expanding their influence and claiming ownership of disputed territory in the pacific region. 
====
In addition to the unicorn sighting there was also some BS about the N Korean leader hitting multiple holes-in-ones during the same round of golf. Perhaps he was playing on an less than challenging miniature golf amusement park.

A strong economy, is the only real power to influence the world, and the west seems to be their own worst enemy these days.  :'(

JR

 

[living sounds]

Compared to North Korea, East Germany was a very nice place to live.

And I hope you're not implying I was making fun of the North Korean people's plight. Rather, this is about the delusional rulers producing bunk news. They have a long tradition of attributing (almost) superhuman deads to their leaders, BTW.


But I'm not so sure about the economy. Unrest over food prices has sparked the recent revolutions in the middle east. Similarly, an economic downturn might prove to be a serious threat to the Chinese regime.

The west has been on a wrong trajectory for decades now. The US has dismantled its industrial base, outsourced manufacturing, lowered taxes while increasing spending, allowed the (ultimately unproductive) financial sector to take over - and now among other problems owes a lot of money to China. With large scale investments in R&D and infrastructure and the raising of revenue things could be turned around. It has worked before more than half a century ago.

North Korea is easy to ridicule but it is truly a tragic situation for millions of people...  It seems like another huge opportunity to let South Korea drag them into the current century and raise their quality of life, not unlike unified Germany.

Unfortunately North Korea is worse off than pre-unification East Germany, and China likes the idea of having an anti-west, repressive regime N. Korea serve as a buffer along their border.

A free and open N. Korea would be one more thing for China to worry about, and they prefer to make other people worry about them, not worry about others, as their growing economic power makes them more aggressive about expanding their influence and claiming ownership of disputed territory in the pacific region. 
====
In addition to the unicorn sighting there was also some BS about the N Korean leader hitting multiple holes-in-ones during the same round of golf. Perhaps he was playing on an less than challenging miniature golf amusement park.

A strong economy, is the only real power to influence the world, and the west seems to be their own worst enemy these days.  :'(

JR

 

[Autophase]

Compared to North Korea, East Germany was a very nice place to live.

And I hope you're not implying I was making fun of the North Korean people's plight. Rather, this is about the delusional rulers producing bunk news. They have a long tradition of attributing (almost) superhuman deads to their leaders, BTW.


But I'm not so sure about the economy. Unrest over food prices has sparked the recent revolutions in the middle east. Similarly, an economic downturn might prove to be a serious threat to the Chinese regime.

The west has been on a wrong trajectory for decades now. The US has dismantled its industrial base, outsourced manufacturing, lowered taxes while increasing spending, allowed the (ultimately unproductive) financial sector to take over - and now among other problems owes a lot of money to China. With large scale investments in R&D and infrastructure and the raising of revenue things could be turned around. It has worked before more than half a century ago.

North Korea is easy to ridicule but it is truly a tragic situation for millions of people...  It seems like another huge opportunity to let South Korea drag them into the current century and raise their quality of life, not unlike unified Germany.

Unfortunately North Korea is worse off than pre-unification East Germany, and China likes the idea of having an anti-west, repressive regime N. Korea serve as a buffer along their border.

A free and open N. Korea would be one more thing for China to worry about, and they prefer to make other people worry about them, not worry about others, as their growing economic power makes them more aggressive about expanding their influence and claiming ownership of disputed territory in the pacific region. 
====
In addition to the unicorn sighting there was also some BS about the N Korean leader hitting multiple holes-in-ones during the same round of golf. Perhaps he was playing on an less than challenging miniature golf amusement park.

A strong economy, is the only real power to influence the world, and the west seems to be their own worst enemy these days.  :'(

JR

I only know 1 fact about Korea....... amazing food!

 

[JohnRoberts]

Compared to North Korea, East Germany was a very nice place to live.

Indeed it's all relative... N.Korea still puts a fraction of it's citizens into re-education camps where conditions are even worse than for the rest of the public, there.

I briefly visited East Berlin shortly after the wall came down and it seemed pretty bleak, but agreed no comparison to N Korea. I have never been inside N Korea, and have no desire to.

And I hope you're not implying I was making fun of the North Korean people's plight. Rather, this is about the delusional rulers producing bunk news. They have a long tradition of attributing (almost) superhuman deads to their leaders, BTW.

No not you, but the tone of the popular press is that N. Korea is a joke and harmless, while ignoring the scale of the human suffering there, and their illegal weapons proliferation to other rouge states.

Speaking of bunk news, the Onion, a humor/satire website in the US printed a joke story about the N Korean leader being the sexiest man of the year, and a Chinese news service picked it up and repeated it as straight news. 

But I'm not so sure about the economy. Unrest over food prices has sparked the recent revolutions in the middle east. Similarly, an economic downturn might prove to be a serious threat to the Chinese regime.

I would be careful about simple sweeping conclusions about complex issues, while food prices have put pressure on many countries around the world, where sundry food staples get subsidized by governments. Not only is food subsidized in some countries, but gasoline is also subsidized in some countries. The cost of both have gone up... (thank you ethanol). While the increasing taste for flesh as formerly poor countries get wealthier, consumes more of the low level food chain (corn, rice, grain) less efficiently as feed stock for cattle, that was previously consumed directly by humans. 

The arab street appears to be pushing back against Morsi's power grab (he is trying to rewrite the constitution already to introduce islamist rules). So the public can be motivated by more than just bread. I am a little surprised but encouraged, if this means a secular government has a chance to make it in Egypt.  Secularism seems to be waning around the region, but Egypt is a large and important country, so how this move by Morsi turns out is important for the entire region.   

The west has been on a wrong trajectory for decades now. The US has dismantled its industrial base, outsourced manufacturing, lowered taxes while increasing spending, allowed the (ultimately unproductive) financial sector to take over - and now among other problems owes a lot of money to China. With large scale investments in R&D and infrastructure and the raising of revenue things could be turned around. It has worked before more than half a century ago.

  ;D ;D  I think you said that before... while opinions vary about the path out of this hole, we can watch and see what happens under a second term of his leadership. I would really love to be proved wrong, by a roaring recovery, economic growth, and high private sector employment. 

Now that Elizabeth Warren is in the senate and on the banking committee, she'll make quick work of fixing the financial system. 


JR

PS: current thinking if the world does not actually end on Dec 21 and the congress has to actually deal with the fiscal cliff, is to wait until after Jan so the rates automatically go up, then the republicans can save political face by negotiating a lower than that new high tax rate, while higher than now. Rather irresponsible behavior by both sides IMO.

I need to add one more important leg to my 3 legged stool...  (1) tax revenue, (2) debt/borrowing, (3) spending. The important (4th) factor is economic growth. When the economy is growing at several percent, tax revenues automatically increase every year, so modest deficit spending can be tolerated.  While talking about future economic growth is not a precise science, current predictions suggest rather weak <2% best case GDP growth, and perhaps negative growth (recession) if the fiscal train wreck is not resolved. it is unthinkable that they wouldn't resolve this, but it is unthinkable that they would let it go this far, it appears they are hoping for the dec 21 end of the world scenario..

 

[JohnRoberts]

[
I only know 1 fact about Korea....... amazing food!

Kimchi or barbecue?

Remember to use different chop sticks for handling the cooked and raw dog meat....  8)

I had some kick ass Korean barbecue in Hong Kong.

JR

 

[Kingston]

Just thinking out loud that if a country has to deal with any apocalyptic lunacies like the one currently in fashion in government level announcements, isn't that kind of a give away that there's something severely wrong with the public education in said country.

There has been several announcements out there already. The Russians for one, I haven't followed if the US sank that far already but wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Gold]

Indeed it's all relative... N.Korea still puts a fraction of it's citizens into re-education camps where conditions are even worse than for the rest of the public, there.

They got nothin' on the good ol' USA as far as percentage of citizens incarcerated.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Indeed it's all relative... N.Korea still puts a fraction of it's citizens into re-education camps where conditions are even worse than for the rest of the public, there.

They got nothin' on the good ol' USA as far as percentage of citizens incarcerated.

Indeed numerically more perhaps 0.7% of US population while N Korea slave camps are only estimated at 200k or less.

I don't know how hard it is to immigrate to N Korea but that may be a viable option for the 0.7% here. While I suspect the food in prison here is better than what they get in N Korea, at least in the re-education camps.

There is this minor distinction that those incarcerated in US jails have been decided by a jury of their peers to have broken our laws. The unhappy campers in N. Korea often ended up there because of who their parents were or some vague displeasure of the government there. 

I have ranted about this high US jail population before too, and it is even worse than the statistics suggest. Our government passes so many federal statutes every year that it gets harder and harder to not accidentally be in violation of some federal law, and subject to a federal beef. This classically can be abused by bureaucrats who selectively enforce laws agains companies that are out of favor (Gibson?).

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the experimental drug courts in MS, where first time offenders can get placed into rehab instead of the gray bar hotel. Of course if they fail out of rehab they end up in a worse place. Decriminalizing pot could reduce this population but not easy to get hard numbers... far more arrested for possession than dealing but hundreds of thousands across the US.
=====

They are looking at making the lesser prairie chicken endangered and some speculate this is for leverage against gas and oil exploration.

http://times247.com/articles/eco-warriors-could-halt-jobs-over-prairie-chicken
http://www.kansas.com/2012/11/30/2586621/lesser-prairie-chicken-considered.html

I am surprised nobody cares about the budget battle?

President now wants to do away with borrowing limits as we are already at 100% of GDP.  Danger Will Robinson...

Oh well.. what's the worst that could happen?  ;D

JR

 

[riggler]

Hey so if I print some end-of-the-world drum tracks, anyone want to have some fun and make a song for the end of the world?
Then we can have some famous singer do their thing and raise money for the end-of-the-world fund.

"We are the world, and it is ending..."

Seriously maybe I will make some drum tracks.

 

[desol]

The countdown continues... 

 

[PRR]

> I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the experimental drug courts in MS, where first time offenders can get placed into rehab instead of the gray bar hotel.

Maine has had that for years.

They just shut it down (merged into another operation) to save money.

Drugs have been a BIG problem here. Shootings, burglaries, and almost every drug-store has been held-up for Oxy. This has to be a BIG expense. Some of it could be averted by INTENSE intervention on first offense. The previous drug court was showing good results. Wonder how much more it will cost for police investigations, incarcerations, etc with this "money saving" idea.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't know how much the legal price of Oxy matters but it is scheduled to come off patent some time next year so could get significantly cheaper. 

My 84 YO neighbor was trying to buy some with a valid prescription for his back pain and they gave him a hard time. I think he eventually got it, but it wasn't cheap and he wasn't partying with it... I wish he was at 84...  8) I feel like he was given a hard time because so many people abuse it.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Dec 21,2012

Time to hurry up finishing all those DIY projects.  ;D ;D

JR

For our friends in Oz the world may have already ended? Oh dear... calling OZ is anybody still there/

JR

 

[pucho812]

To prepare for the end of the world
1.go to the nearest table in your house.
2.get under the table.
3.tuck your heard between our legs and kiss your ass goodbye. ;D

 

[bruno2000]

???