rigorousintuition.ca

Dennis Haysbert is a calm reassuring African-American who for the past year or so has been the soothing pitchman for Allstate Insurance.
He is also the President of the United States.



Well, apparently Allstate considers him a lame duck.





Mayhem is coming.




.

IanEye wrote:Mayhem is coming.

yes it is too bad we won't have money to by your insurance.


edit to add

The illusion of freedom will continue for as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, then they will pull back the curtains and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. - Frank Zappa

I got the sick feeling in my tummy this whole thread title/theme will be looked back upon as "tragically synchronistic"

AWESOME....I LOVE those guys!!!!

mayhem, it's been here

great synchromystic catch, though

Seemslikeadream posted:

The illusion of freedom will continue for as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, then they will pull back the curtains and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. - Frank Zappa

I haven't seen that quote before, maybe a double feature, Mayhem & Zappa!

On a more somber note, there is a lot of talk about the 'Summer of Rage', we'll see if it gets any coverage in the MSM.

Anytime a company does something like this, I say CREEEEEEEPY!

Noun

* S: (n) mayhem (the willful and unlawful crippling or mutilation of another person)
* S: (n) havoc, mayhem (violent and needless disturbance)

MEMO TO ALL STATES! YOU SHALL HAVE MAYHEM!

anothershamus wrote:On a more somber note, there is a lot of talk about the 'Summer of Rage', we'll see if it gets any coverage in the MSM.

Naw, too hot for that:



err, on second thought:

The day drags by like a wounded animal
The approaching disease, 92 degrees
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head
The approaching unease, 92 degrees

Long ago in the headlines, they noticed it too
But too late for the loved ones and nearly for you...

Shaky lines -- on the horizon
Snaky thoughts -- invade each person
Watch the red line -- creeping upwards
Watch the sanity line weaken
The volcanic depths of Hades' ocean
Bubble under, these crazed eruptions
It wriggles and writhes and bites within,
Just below the sweating skin

I wondered when this would happen again
Now I watch the red line, reach that number again
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head...

Drink the water with jagged glass
Eat the cactus with bleeding mouth
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

Shaky lines -- on the horizon
Snaky thoughts -- invade each person
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

The day drags by like a wounded animal
The approaching disease, 92 degrees
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head
The approaching unease, 92 degrees
Long ago in the headlines, they noticed it too
But too late for the loved ones and nearly for you...
Shaky lines -- on the horizon
Snaky thoughts -- invade each person
Watch the red line -- creeping upwards
Watch the sanity line weaken
The volcanic depths of Hades' ocean
Bubble under, these crazed eruptions
It wriggles and writhes and bites within,
Just below the sweating skin
I wondered when this would happen again
Now I watch the red line, reach that number again
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head...
Drink the water with jagged glass
Eat the cactus with bleeding mouth
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees
Shaky lines -- on the horizon
Snaky thoughts -- invade each person
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

beeline wrote:

anothershamus wrote:On a more somber note, there is a lot of talk about the 'Summer of Rage', we'll see if it gets any coverage in the MSM.

Naw, too hot for that:

Snaky thoughts -- invade each person
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

A little bit hot

Wait...isn't the guy in those ads...Dennis Duffy the Pager King? From 30 Rock? It is. Dang.

anothershamus wrote:Seemslikeadream posted:

The illusion of freedom will continue for as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, then they will pull back the curtains and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. - Frank Zappa

I haven't seen that quote before, maybe a double feature, Mayhem & Zappa!

On a more somber note, there is a lot of talk about the 'Summer of Rage', we'll see if it gets any coverage in the MSM.

This is as good a place as any to post something that I've wanted to post for a couple of days, but not sure where (and not add to thread proliferation). I am in the middle of reading Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter is avowedly uninterested in woo, but as a scientific treatment Collapse is quite interesting. A relevant theme is the tension that results from the need of elites to legitimize their rule. As a society is on the upswing, legitimacy is essentially achieved through bribery. Also, Tainter takes a more-or-less positive view of complexity, in that he posits that complexity arises as a solution to a collective problem, so that initial increases in complexity will in general be seen as beneficial by the entire polity. However, as complexity increases further, the marginal costs of complexity increase and the marginal benefits decrease, so that (among other things) bribery becomes more difficult. Coercion must take its place. However, coercion is ultimately even more expensive than bribery, and difficult to maintain because of diminishing resources, so at this stage a society becomes extremely unstable and vulnerable to collapse.

Using this paradigm to understand what is happening to us, it seems clear that the present decade has been about the transition from a state of increasing returns on complexity to one of decreasing returns, which necessarily triggers the transition from bribery to coercion, i.e. the "brick wall" to which Zappa refers.

I also wonder about this in the context of Magnasanti, the in-silico (Sim City) dystopia created by Vincent Ocasla that could in theory last 50,000 years. I wonder whether the longevity of Magnasanti is made possible only by a constant and large energy subsidy? If Magnasanti is impossible without the subsidy, then our own Ahrimanic civilization will be ultimately self-limiting. If Magnasanti is possible without such a subsidy, then Tainter's model is wrong (at least in certain highly artificial circumstances) and humanity may be doomed after all.

Has anyone else here read this book? I'd be curious to know what people here think about it. I personally think that the very scientific/mechanistic treatment given by Tainter is not inconsistent with a poetic/mystical interpretation of collapse that he severely criticizes. Thoughts??

After reading this thread yesterday we had a very sudden and very severe thunderstorm and hail sweep through town and as I rode my bike home in the sun all I could think was how much it looked like complete and utter mayhem.

Things I saw:
An 8' x 3' x 1' marble slab benchtop removed from its marble slab base, lying about 2 feet away, broken in half, as if Zeus himself had just smashed it. There was no tree around it.
400-year old oak, split perfectly in half.
Two huge trees with their entire root systems uprooted in the park.
A neighbor's house smashed by a tree, with kids playing on the tree.
Canopies and anything that wasn't bolted down well were all destroyed.
Flooding everywhere, general debris and silt and leaves.

My friend who works on the 38th floor of a building downtown said she watched undulating waves of water crash across the sky and into the side of the building. Lounge chairs at a rooftop pool across the street were lifted up and thrown off the top of the building, 30 stories up. Visibility during the storm was reduced to something like 40 meters, at best.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7506312

Oakland police hold riot response exercise
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tags:
OPD, oakland, crime, johannes mehserle, oscar grant, east bay news, laura anthony

Laura Anthony

OAKLAND, CA (KGO) -- Oakland police would like to think there will not be any violence after the verdict is announced in the Oscar Grant case, but based on riots in the past, the city is preparing to handle any reaction that might erupt.

One hundred fifty Oakland police officers in full riot gear participated in mock riot exercises at the Port of Oakland Friday morning.

The massive exercise was designed to make sure Oakland is ready, but some along 17th Street wonder if the police will really get there in time if there is trouble.

"This is a refresher course we'll call it, and make sure that everyone has their equipment, make sure that it all works and make sure that everyone remembers exactly how crowd control techniques work," OPD Special Operations Lt. Michael Poirier said.

Besides Oakland police, the exercise included 200 officers from other agencies, along with the California Highway Patrol and Oakland Fire Department.

"The fire department is actually supporting the police department and making sure that we have check in and staging and communications taken care of, instead of just having them come in and react," Oakland Fire Department Capt. Melinda Drayton said.

Other agencies would be called, depending on location. For instance, if a riot happened in north Oakland, Berkeley might be called in to help.

Last year, violent demonstrations followed Grant's killing and former BART officer Johannes Mehserle's release on $3 million bail. There is concern that similar events could occur after a verdict is reached in Mehserle's Los Angeles murder trial.

Along one block of 17th Street, dozens of windows were shattered by a splinter group of protestors, who also set dumpsters and cars on fire.

One business owner thinks this big show of force ahead of the verdict sends the wrong message.

"It's like you're sending the negative, that it's going to turn out the way that people don't expect and that part bothers me," Sharon Pierre said. "Because if the police prepare, then inside people are preparing, thinking the worst."

"If he's not convicted of murder, then there should be some kind of reaction," Oakland resident Jada Phillips said. "I'm not saying it should be a negative reaction, but there should be some kind of reaction from our community."

Despite the scale of Friday's exercises, Oakland police say it did not cost the city anything extra and was done without any overtime.

As for the business owners along 17th Street, some say they will not take any chances and plan to board up their windows ahead of the verdict.
(Copyright ©2010 KGO-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

slomo wrote:I also wonder about this in the context of Magnasanti, the in-silico (Sim City) dystopia created by Vincent Ocasla that could in theory last 50,000 years. I wonder whether the longevity of Magnasanti is made possible only by a constant and large energy subsidy? If Magnasanti is impossible without the subsidy, then our own Ahrimanic civilization will be ultimately self-limiting. If Magnasanti is possible without such a subsidy, then Tainter's model is wrong (at least in certain highly artificial circumstances) and humanity may be doomed after all.

The longevity is possible because it's a computer simulation that doesn't deal with real humans at any point. You cannot design a human-proof environment -- God tried, it didn't work out for It, either -- and this is also why Jacques Fresco's Venus daydreams won't amount to much more than pretty paintings. All of these engineered solutions are great, unless you plan on putting humans inside of them.

(BTW, I tried the Tainter, couldn't get through it...just don't know enough to evaluate WTF he's talking about, nor did I trust the sourcing on his numbers.)