I would definitely give this guy a dollar:
 

 
Thanks to Chistopher McEwan!

 
I attended a Noam Chomsky lecture in the early 90s where he was explaining why he thought that the Wall Street Journal was the best source of information available at that time. The reason he felt this way was because the WSJ was a newspaper catering to the bigwigs of capitalism, and it wasn’t pretending to be anything else. With a little reading between the lines, you could see where things were going to trend or what the attitudes of the elites really were. I never forgot that and have always tried to read a wide variety of daily “business news” sources for this reason.

Today, via the often quirky Business Insider website, I came across an alarming presentation from Jeremy Grantham. Does his name ring a bell? Jeremy Grantham is a co-founder and the Chief Investment Strategist of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO), an asset management firm with more than $108 billion dollars in assets under their care. It’s one of the largest asset management firms in the world.

Grantham is noted for his prediction of various bubbles in asset classes and his knack for seeing which direction the market is moving in. Lately he’s turned very, very bearish. Now, Grantham’s insisting: “We’re headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.”

Summary of the Summary
The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.

Summary
Until about 1800, our species had no safety margin and lived, like other animals, up to the limit of the food supply, ebbing and flowing in population.
From about 1800 on the use of hydrocarbons allowed for an explosion in energy use, in food supply, and, through the creation of surpluses, a dramatic increase in wealth and scientific progress.
Since 1800, the population has surged from 800 million to 7 billion, on its way to an estimated 8 billion, at minimum.
The rise in population, the ten-fold increase in wealth in developed countries, and the current explosive growth in developing countries have eaten rapidly into our finite resources of hydrocarbons and metals, fertilizer, available land, and water.
Now, despite a massive increase in fertilizer use, the growth in crop yields per acre has declined from 3.5% in the 1960s to 1.2% today. There is little productive new land to bring on and, as people get richer, they eat more grain-intensive meat. Because the population continues to grow at over 1%, there is little safety margin.
The problems of compounding growth in the face of finite resources are not easily understood by optimistic, short-term-oriented, and relatively innumerate humans (especially the political variety).
The fact is that no compound growth is sustainable. If we maintain our desperate focus on growth, we will run out of everything and crash. We must substitute qualitative growth for quantitative growth.
But Mrs. Market is helping, and right now she is sending us the Mother of all price signals. The prices of all important commodities except oil declined for 100 years until 2002, by an average of 70%. From 2002 until now, this entire decline was erased by a bigger price surge than occurred during World War II.
Statistically, most commodities are now so far away from their former downward trend that it makes it very probable that the old trend has changed – that there is in fact a Paradigm Shift – perhaps the most important economic event since the Industrial Revolution.
Climate change is associated with weather instability, but the last year was exceptionally bad. Near term it will surely get less bad.
Excellent long-term investment opportunities in resources and resource efficiency are compromised by the high chance of an improvement in weather next year and by the possibility that China may stumble.
From now on, price pressure and shortages of resources will be a permanent feature of our lives. This will increasingly slow down the growth rate of the developed and developing world and put a severe burden on poor countries.
We all need to develop serious resource plans, particularly energy policies. There is little time to waste.

You can go through the entire presentation at Business Insider. His charts show long, long term patterns and trends. Numbers don’t lie. There is very definitely a cause for concern. I’d very very curious what the Freakonomics guys had to say about this…

 
My first reaction on hearing of the international “Slut Walk” movement was “brilliant.” About bloody time! What a horribly demeaning word, one loaded with judgement that denies a person the basic enjoyment of their own sexual activities and bodies. “Slut” is rife for reclaiming - because there is no term for a person who enjoys copious amount of sex that is not pejorative. Why not, as other social groups have done in the past, take an already existing term of abuse and strip it of its negative meaning? It’s hard to fathom that the word “slut” still holds so much power in this, the twenty first century. Are we still to feel shame for our sexual desires and appetites? Does Michael Sanguinetti believe that if all women were to suddenly don burkhas all rape would be wiped out? No, because a rapist will commit a rape regardless of what a person is wearing, slutty or otherwise - the risk factors lie with the rapists not the victim.  

So, my partner and I turned out for Slut Walk Manchester on last Friday evening, to show our faces and bodies and in some small way reclaim the place will live as being safe from harassment and abuse. Of course it’s only a small gesture but that in itself does not make it invalid or worthless. By all accounts Manchester is a very protest-friendly city, but the turnout of roughly a thousand was very healthy and exceeded expectations. We walked for over an hour, winding our way through the city centre streets, stopping traffic and emptying public transport. The reaction from passers by was supportive and not negative like I had assumed it would be, and even though no official license had been granted for the march by the council, the police were helpful and friendly, and guided the mass of people on their way rather than hemming them in.
 

 
The crowd was mixed, with a lot of men walking and a good range of ages (though most on the march were young). There were a handful of drag queens and queer activists as well - Manchester has a large gay population and an active male sex industry, so male rape is not uncommon. If I have one gripe it was with the placards handed out to the crowd by the Socialist Worker Party, an act that to me seemingly hijacked an apolitical march for its own ends. The placards read “No Means No” on one side, with “Clarke Must Go” on the other. Sure, Ken Clarke, the British Secretary of State for Justice made some very unwise comments on rape a few weeks ago, but I did not need the SWP to help me call for his resignation, or tell me that my body was my property. It just came across as petty point scoring. Other placards of interest held by members of the march included “Police Rapists, Not My Fucking Wardrobe”, “My Minge My Rules” and “Queer As in Fuck You (But Only If You Consent)”.

At one point during the march I was approached by a man for a cigarette an we got chatting. He seemed not to be of the typical student/protester mould, more a working class guy fond of a few pints, but I had noticed him before and though he might have been one of the organisers. As we were walking he asked me if I had been raped. I answered that thankfully I hadn’t, but I still wanted to show my support as I know people who have. Almost with a sense of confrontational pride he told me that he had been raped, and that it had happened while he was 9 years old and living in care. He asked me what the march was about and if it was specifically for women. He didn’t know what a “Slut Walk” was, he had never heard of it, he just happened to be in town and saw it passing. So I explained about the concept, the reclaiming of the word, and the comments on rape Ken Clarke had made. He kept clarifying that he was not gay - at first I thought this might have had to do the leather gear I was wearing, but soon realised it was more to do with the societal taboo of male rape and this man’s own experience of it. Eventually he turned to me, looked me in the eye and said he had never told another man about this before. I shook his hand. I understood where the confrontation was coming from - it was not with me but it with himself and the fact that he was facing up to a dark part of his own past he had buried for god knows how long. A part he probably would not have faced up to had it not been for the Slut Walk.
 

 

 
If you have a spare dollar or two and you fancy something to splash about on the water, then you still have time to put in a bid for the British naval aircraft carrier H.M.S. Ark Royal, as the deadline for bidding has been extended until July 6.

Vessel ARK ROYAL R07

Light Aircraft Carrier
Length: 210m
Beam: 36m
Draught: 5.8m
Current Displacement: 19000 tonnes
Estimated Metal Weight: 10000 tonnes inc. machinery
Estimated metal %: 95% steel

Location: HM Naval Base Portsmouth

Tender Closure: Wednesday 6th July 2011 at 10 am

More deatils here.

The Ark Royal is the 5th Royal Navy vessel to have the name of the original 1587 flagship that defeated the Spanish Armada. Though this Ark Royal was originally to be called the Indomitable, but as its 4th and more famous predecessor had just been decommissioned, public protest ensured the new aircraft carrier was re-named the Ark Royal.

Suggested plans for the vessel’s future use include: a nightclub, a school, an hotel, a prison and a heli-pad. I’m sure we can come up with something far more useful.

 
The Butthole Surfers live in concert, Mesa Arizona, July 1, 1996.

Tracks:

“Birds”
“Cough Syrup”
“Thermador”
“Pepper”
“Ulcer Breakout”
“Jingle of a Dog’s Collar”
“TV Star”
“Ah Ha”
“1401”
“Cherub”
“Cowby Bob”
“X-Ray”
“Out of Vogue”
“Hey”
“Space”
“L.A.”
“The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave”
“Creep in the Cellar”
“Let’s Talk about Cars”
“Goofy’s Concern”
“Watlo”
“Who Was in My Room Last Night”
 

 
Elsewhere on DM

The Butthole Surfers: ‘The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave’

 
Hacktivisit collective Anonymous uploaded a new video message yesterday to YouTube. Among other demands, Anonymous is calling for the chairman of the Federal Reserve board, Ben Bernanke to resign:

“Democrats have failed us, Republicans have failed us… It is time for us to stand up for ourselves… We must fight back against the organized criminal class.”

The action is being called “Operation Empire State Rebellion” but it has also been referred to as, “CTRL+ALT_BERNANKE.”

Anonymous has called for public protests beginning on June 14th, continuing “until Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke steps down.”

The Anonymous video message:
 

 
Mid-century, 5,000-square-foot home currently for sale in Beverly Hills, CA for the asking price of $3.95 million. The ranch-style home’s decor looks like it has been virtually untouched by time since the mid-60s. I can’t figure out if this home was “staged’ by a professional (who really wanted this place to stand out, or appeal to a certain kind of person) or if this how the current owners left it for the past 40 years? Whatever the case, I dig it

Read the full listing here
.

 

 
See more photos after the jump…

 
Drift is a short film by Max Hattler, a film-maker and artist who is:

“interested in the space between abstraction and figuration in the moving image, where storytelling is freed from the constraints of traditional narrative.”

Max works across film, video installation and live audiovisual performance, and has collaborated with music acts including Basement Jaxx, Jovanotti, Jemapur, The Egg, Ladyscraper, and his dad’s outfit Hattler. Drift is a beautiful and mesmeric film, which examines the human epidermis in close-up, re-imagining our skin, its hair and pores, as landscape - growing, changing, living.
 

 
The beautiful and talented Kim Sisters were one of the most popular acts of all in Las Vegas during the 1960s, although they are little remembered today. The group was comprised of three of the seven children of well-known Korean classical music conductor, Kim Hae-song. Their mother, Lee Nan-Young, was one of Korea’s most famous singers, best-known for her version of “The Tears of Mokpo,” a traditional folk song.

When their father was killed by the North Koreans during the war, their mother had Sook-ja, Mi-a and Ai-ja (then 11, 12 and 13-years old) form a vocal trio to entertain the U.S. troops and to help support the rest of the family. Speaking no English at the time, the girls sang phonetically and were given gifts of beer and chocolate bars which they could then trade on the black market for real food. The G.I.s would also gift the girls with American pop records that they would learn to perform.

When news of the singing Kim Sisters reached America after the war, the girls were invited to become a part of the “China Doll Review” at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas. Eventually the Kim Sisters became accomplished musicians playing a dizzying array of instruments in their glitzy stage show. They were the act on The Ed Sullivan Show more than any other performer, a total of 22 times. Sullivan made the Kim Sisters a nationally known act and soon they were making $13,000 a week. When Sullivan became aware that their mother was still in Korea, he generously intervened and helped her get a visa, the catch being that she had to perform on his program.

During the 70s, all of the Kim sisters got married and the act ended. Ai-ja Kim died of lung cancer 1987, but Sook-ja and Mi-a are still alive and living in America. They are rumored to be working on a documentary about their lives. I hope that’s true.

You can read a fascinating oral history of the Kim Sisters here.
 

 
None of the Ed Sullivan clips have made it to YouTube, sadly. Below is a clip of The Kim Sisters on the Hollywood Palace television show. Stay with it for when they all three start playing the xylophone together (or go directly to about 3:22 in). It’s pretty cool:
 

 
Thank you Douglas Hovey and Billy Beyond!

 
I don’t know the provenance of this photo, but I like it.

Update: The photo is of Redditor lolopalooza92‘s grandfather. Thanks, Greg!

(via Publique.de )