Wow, ain't seen it yet.  It's time for a green technology thread!   As an avid lover of organic chemistry, [hey man], I did an "A" in organic chemistry I.  Of course I've messed up on some "experiments" in my youth., Like that rush to the hood beaker of somehin' going wrong  with making "poppers".  No, Rags, don't use nitric acid mixed with amyl alcohol.  Oops, wrong acid, I think it shoulda have been nitrous acid, not, no, uht uht no, nitric acid.  Bad experiment resulted in stinky, stinky, NOx fumes.  Here's an awesome, if I may say so, turning trash [assorted plastics], into treasure, into essentially, "light oil". 

https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint...5_0004.pdf

And...  How about diesel typed fuel. May the circle now complete. Stop the natural resource deplete.

https://www.scribd.com/document/23600246...ation-CLPD

Gotta keep Amtrak on schedule, right?

The following article is an example of how certain US Muslims invite things like the Muslim travel ban and various other "Alt-Right" outrages.

I am not "blaming the victim" but if Muslims want to be treated well, this type of shit needs to be squelched:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post...857ba97b71

'A Detroit emergency room doctor has been charged with performing genital mutilation on young girls in what is believed to be the first criminal case of its kind brought by U.S. prosecutors.'

Same goes for other crap like honor killings, arranged marriages, human trafficking, and various anti-Western/anti-government violent conspiracies.

In the aftermath of the airstrike in Syria I read this from a poster at American Conservative who questions whether Assad was responsible for the recent chemical weapons use since last time we accused of doing this (in 2013) it turns out we were wrong. When questioned on this he responded with

I suggest you take a close look at Robert Parry’s discussion of the matter. As he points out, the NY Times recently dropped the alleged 2013 Syrian use of chemical weapons from its list of atrocities. Why? Because the factual basis for the allegation fell apart. Yet the allegation is still being made, including by people in the media who ought to know better.
See Parry’s article at https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syria-sarin-claims/ .
And then take a look at Ray McGovern’s piece at https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/11/the-syrian-sarin-false-flag-lesson/ .
Look also at the articles linked in both pieces, especially https://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/29/nyt-backs-off-its-syria-sarin-analysis/, discussing how the NY Times backed away from its earlier claims concerning the 2013 chemical attack, and especially at
Seymour Hersh’s article at https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line and the report both Seymour and, eventually but sotto voce, the NY Times cited:
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.pdf.

What do people think? Particularly Jordan and Warren.

Finally I can now start this list.

It took a while.

Thing #1 - responding to Syrian use of WMDs (in this case, banned chemical warfare).

To be continued ....

Someone as revolutionary, and, harboring such destructive urges, as the Alt-Right / Duginist faction adherent, is not a true Rightist. Their beliefs and operational plans are antithetical to the true Right notions of "King and Country." They have a wrecking ball mentality and want to conserve nothing. They are bomb throwers in the worst tradition of the Jacobins. Here is a brief history of how they become a creditable (albeit negative and deplorable) force in the US:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2...ves-214518

'The hidden history of Trumpism suggests that the president-elect may be not simply an opportunistic showman but the leader of an at least semi-coherent ideology—a new iteration of the populist and nationalist paleoconservatism that has long lurked in the shadows of American politics. Now, for the first time since the isolationist 1930s, this ideology commands real influence, and for the first time in our history, it will enjoy favor from a sitting president. The prospects could not be more ominous. '

A new source of hydrocarbons from trashy used plastic:

https://phys.org/news/2017-04-oceans-pla...-fuel.html

Hmmm.... I like this. I'm sure there's enough tossed plastic to make lots of hydrocarbons by pyrolysis of waste plastics, from pretty much anywhere.  May the oceans, landfills, plastic recycling programs be another way to get ourselves off that damned Mid East oil. Here's yet another reason to impose an oil import fee. What would be really cool is to start mining landfills for stuff to pyrolyze into hydrocarbons.

Heh, Rags love pyrolysis. Burn, baby burn.

Evolution of popular music from Transcendental Awakening to current era: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9VvaKNW28

I watched Larry Summers on Charlie Rose; not that I agree with him on everything, but he made the good point that Trump's budget cuts for arts and science do the opposite of "make America great again." The greatness of a nation, what it's remembered for, is its culture, Summers reminded us. When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts; that is focused on commerce and technology. For me, the psychedelics, the human potential movements, the new age spirituality of the Awakening period of the mid-sixties and seventies, represented the chance for the USA to develop sensitivity, to learn to appreciate beauty, to unleash creativity, for the USA culture to bloom. Now, as the people who lived through those years get older, I wonder if this breakthrough has borne fruit, or when it might happen again. This sensitivity, this new light, seemed to vanish through the 3T/Reagan-Bush era, and now our nation's priorities are consumed with either making money through unleashing commerce from government restraints again, or else the need to resist this and get political in our 4T. Good business skills and political decisions are not enough to "make America great." It must be our culture, and we remain the "nation of dollar trappers with no past or future," as Oswald Spengler once called us.

We've probably seen this before, but I don't remember. Here they are, Strauss and Howe explaining their theory, their books, and us: the forum; with some of the participants in The Fourth Turning Forum gatherings that we were invited to, but I didn't make it. Strauss mentions David Kaiser at the beginning. And Howe mentions "cusps" too! Posted by the former webmaster of the former forum.





"Boomers, look out, some of your worst tendencies are about to come to the fore." Well, Mr. Trump seems to have fulfilled THAT prediction by Mr. Howe.

"ha ha very ideological people shy away from the forum" well, not so much now! Maybe why Howe doesn't like us too much anymore.

Neil Howe: "most of what the internet is used for is pretty trashy. Here's an example of something where you can bring out the best in people, and get people to communicate things that are really important to them." That last phrase is still true, and this forum is still better than any I have found.

Go blue-boomer Steve!

Strauss was a political comic, and it strikes me it would have been interesting if he was around today, at a time when Seth Myers, John Oliver, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert are the voices of truth and wisdom today; about the only alternative to the breitbart/limbaugh crowd.

"History always bends" says William Strauss. "If you believe the Tofflers of the world, everything today is just going to be multiplied into the future. History is never that way."

"The next bend will be a very decisive one"

Which means also that S&H probably would have predicted that our forum would get more ideological. After all, in a time of decision, people take sides.

Quote:WASHINGTON ― The Republican-led Congress is jamming through a measure to overturn the Obama administration’s rules that would have banned telecom and cable companies from sharing customers’ personal information, including web browsing history, without their consent. 

The House is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday. Its companion passed the Senate last week on a 50-48 vote, largely on party lines. If the House passes the bill and President Donald Trump signs it into law, internet service providers will win a regulatory victory. But advocates say consumers can kiss network privacy goodbye.

“ISPs will be able to sell your personal information to the highest bidder...and they won’t have any real obligation to keep your personal information secure, either,” said Gigi Sohn, who served as counselor to former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013 to December 2016.

The FCC adopted rules last October that required companies like Comcast and Verizon to get their customers’ explicit permission before they could share “sensitive” data like Social Security numbers, information pertaining to children, or health information. Under the rules — which are not yet in effect — companies also had to tell customers and law enforcement if a potentially harmful data breach occurred. (Verizon is the parent company of The Huffington Post.)

The bill uses the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to undo any regulation within 60 days of its finalization, while also barring agencies from writing a “substantially” similar rule after the original one has been overturned. That means there’s a chance the FCC might be banned from regulating ISP privacy issues in the future, said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, a grassroots group.

Trump ran a populist campaign, but his vision for the FCC, a government agency that is supposed to protect consumers from predatory telecom and cable companies, is shaping up to be the opposite, consumer advocates say. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has also opposed the Obama administration’s privacy rules as commissioner.