Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

We Went to Arizona: The Energy Crisis Will Shock You

0:06
It’s a choice:
0:07
pay your utility bill or eat.
0:13
[Narrator] In the face of record heat,
0:15
Americans are cornered.
0:17
Nearly a third of American families were unable
0:19
to pay their energy bills for at least a month last year.
0:22
[Resident] My utility bills are double what they were a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhCu_o-duQo

[Higgenbotham]

What’s more, these same researchers pointed out that there are straightforward ways to cut carbon emissions sharply without plunging the world into medieval conditions. Grants and zero-interest loans, for example, could have been made available to insulate and weatherize millions of poorly insulated American homes, businesses, and factories. The dilapidated US passenger rail system could have been repaired and expanded, so that taking the train would become the easiest and most pleasant option for a huge share of short and mid-range journeys, replacing far more energy-intensive flights and freeway time. National right-to-farm legislation could have removed the regulations that keep many Americans from growing a share of their own food, sharply decreasing the amount of food that has to be transported over long distances.

These and other measures could have been done for no more money than has been poured down the ratholes of solar PV farms, gigantic wind turbines, and electric cars. The result would have been an actual decrease in the carbon dioxide emitted by people in the US, and it also would have provided other benefits, such as creating a great many working class jobs. Such measures were discussed in great detail online and in conferences, and their benefits documented. Yet when climate change hit the big time, none of them seem to have been considered for a moment. Instead, all the funding and hype went into measures that would not, and did not, do anything to slow climate change. The Shirky Principle suggests that this is not an accident.

The difficulty, of course, is the one that Arnold Toynbee pointed out all those years ago: societies that fail to solve their problems end up being dragged down by them. People who have to trudge through their days in perpetual ill health because it’s profitable for big industries to keep them sick won’t have the energy to deal with crisis conditions when those arrive. A society that deliberately leaves millions of people mired in hopeless poverty cannot count on the labor or loyalty of those people when push comes to shove. A nation that spends all its time creating enemies abroad, so that its national security bureaucracies and its munitions industries can keep on gobbling up an inflated share of tax money, has only itself to blame if those enemies gain the upper hand—and a world that loves to talk about climate change but avoids doing anything effective to forestall it will have to pay the costs of agricultural failure, coastal flooding, and the eventual abandonment of trillions of dollars of (literally) sunk costs.

The logic of the Shirky Principle is forceful and pervasive enough that it deserves to be included in any discussion of how civilizations fall. Again, Toynbee’s assessment is worth taking seriously here. Over and over again, down through the millennia, civilizations have staggered down the long slope into ruin even when there were obvious things they could have done to turn aside from that unwelcome fate. The fact that institutions so often preserve the problems they are supposed to solve may go a long way to explain why.

https://www.ecosophia.net/a-neglected-f ... lizations/

[Higgenbotham]

In my opinion, the government doesn't need to get involved with helping people pay or reduce their utility bills. That just encourages waste, resulting in higher costs in the long run.

People need to take responsibility for their usages. During our first Summer in the new dark age hovel, there were quite a few days hovering near or over 100 degrees; certainly not as many as in Arizona, though. However, in Arizona I would have worked harder to save on electricity. With a minimal amount of work, our highest electricity bill was $116. It was a little uncomfortable in the hovel at times with the temperature set at 79, 80, or 81.

Closing the border and mass deportations would take some of the pressure off of costs. Probably moreso than anything else that could be done.





As far as the energy companies go, there is a lot of waste and rubber stamping by government utility regulators. It will require a strongman to correct that.

[Higgenbotham]

As far as the energy companies go, there is a lot of waste and rubber stamping by government utility regulators. It will require a strongman to correct that.

Out of $61 total, there is only $8 worth of gas usage on this bill. The base charge is $48 (rubber stamped by the public utility regulators with multiple increases over the past year) and the taxes are $5.

[Higgenbotham]

James "The Dude" Duderstadt passed a couple days ago. During his tenure as President of The University of Michigan, he initiated race-based admissions standards that have since been overturned.

The standards for 1995 are shown below, first for blacks, second for whites.





A white woman who fell within the "automatic admit" for blacks was denied admission. She sued the University and Duderstadt himself.

https://www.cir-usa.org/case/gratz-v-bo ... dmissions/

Upon his passing, few hailed him as a great leader. The winds of change.

https://europeanconservative.com/articl ... it-sounds/

But those crude partisans see something real that the more sophisticated among us do not.

In the postwar decades, America’s university system has been one of its greatest strengths. But under the long march of the social justice militants through educational institutions, the universities have become factories churning out frightened conformists who are afraid to debate or advance real scholarship. The examples are legion, but it’s worth reading this new, long report in The New York Times about how the University of Michigan has spent a staggering $250 million on DEI programs, with nothing to show for it except the creation of a vast authoritarian bureaucracy that has transformed the campus into a cesspit of fear, grievance, and alienation.

[Higgenbotham]

Mark Halperin on Why He Thinks Trump Will Win and the Left’s Mental Collapse

https://youtu.be/vV_WDBqE8VI?t=6918

I wonder if this election could be the trigger for the market crash?
If a huge fraction of the population is headed for a mental collapse,
perhaps their risk tolerance will go down. What do people think?

Eight years later, after being dragged from courthouse to courthouse, two assassination attempts and being labeled a “fascist” by his opponents daily, Trump has a real chance at another victory against long odds. The Daily Caller spoke to various experts across the political landscape about what to expect if that happens. From violence in the streets, to Democrats’ plans to contest a Trump win, to the media meltdown, to election lawfare from Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias, they all predicted a much more dangerous and extreme response this time around if the “threat to democracy” is democratically elected.

McGinniss told the Caller he is preparing for unrest across the country that will be more intense than what was seen in 2016. He says nearly a decade of persistent anti-Trump messaging will be an accelerant for extremism.

“[We’ve been] told that, effectively, our country is going to be under a dictatorship if Trump wins,” McGinniss told the Caller.

He predicted that violent activists throughout the country would target the nearest avatar of the government they could find, whether that be federal courthouses or police precincts.

Julio Rosas, a national correspondent for The Blaze who has years of experience covering riots and social unrest, had a similar prediction, adding that migrants who have been let into the country under the Biden-Harris administration may join in big cities such as New York and Chicago. Above all, Rosas said protests can be expected because violent demonstrators have never learned their lesson.

“Why it’s a guarantee the left riots is because they’ve gotten away with it for so long,” Rosas told the Caller. “There hasn’t been that huge government crackdown, like January 6.”

McGinniss said he has seen the warning signs of organized protests in the event of a Trump victory. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, an influential figure among House Democrats, hasn’t committed to certifying a Trump victory, telling Axios that he would only move forward if the former president “won a free, fair and honest election.”

Such comments led McGinniss to warn that Democrats are already preparing to hit the streets, especially if the party apparatus attempts to cloud the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

“In that case, you’d see not just pockets of rioting and stuff, but you’d see actual organized, ‘stop the steal’ style stuff,” McGinniss said.

“When that happens on the left, we all know, once the sun goes down, there’s a whole other group of people who [come out],” he added, noting that “more chaos” helps their chance at “keeping Trump out of office.”

Raskin’s comments also caught the attention of conservative election integrity advocates and Trump allies.

“It sounds like Jamie Raskin is trying to start a civil war,” Mike Davis, a Trump-aligned lawyer and founder of the Article III Project, told the Caller.

History indicates that the Raskins and rioters of the world will be egged on by corporate media.

“The Atlantic story is a great preview of what we can expect, which is pure hysteria over Trump being a fascist that’s going to use the military to force his will into existence against the American people,” The Spectator’s Washington editor Amber Duke told the Caller. Duke was previously a media reporter and then White House correspondent for the Caller.

The Atlantic story that Duke highlighted was published Tuesday by Editor-In-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who alleged that the former president praised Hitler while also disparaging a deceased veteran and her family. Instantly, the family, their lawyer and former Trump administration officials pushed back on the story, with figures close to Trump denying he had made the comments. Vice President Kamala Harris ran with it anyway, giving a rare unexpected address to push the fascism narrative. (RELATED: The Atlantic’s October Surprise On Trump Implodes After Denials Galore From Everyone Involved)

Duke believes this line of attack will intensify as critics paint the former president as a “dictator, a fascist who will never give up power.”

The Harris campaign also appears ready to engage in legal battles after the election. In August, the vice president hired back Marc Elias, one of the party’s top lawyers. In 2020, Elias played a leading role in hundreds of lawsuits seeking to make it easier to vote and undo Republican efforts to make elections more secure. He did the same in 2022, engaging in nearly 50 lawsuits in an effort to change election laws to Democrats’ liking.

In March, Republicans and their lawyers were concerned about the security of November’s election. Compared to Democrats, the Republican National Committee has been decades behind on the issue because of a 1982 consent decree that forbade them from engaging on many election integrity initiatives. But once that consent decree was lifted in 2018, the party began to rebuild, and by 2024 a fully-funded and staffed election integrity department was created. This cycle, the party has filed more than 100 election integrity lawsuits on issues ranging from removing non-citizens from voter rolls to implementing stricter checks on ballot validity.

A Trump campaign official previously told the Caller that what happened on the election integrity front in 2020 will not happen again in 2024.

Davis agreed.

“President Trump learned his lesson from 2020 … He has hired a very good legal team led by David Warrington on his campaign, along with a very good legal team led by RNC Chairman Michael Whatley,” Davis told the Caller.

Davis said the legal teams were being far more proactive in getting injunctions against Democratic initiatives this time around: “That was the mistake in 2020: they didn’t get injunctions … They’re doing it this time,” he added.

But Republicans agree that regardless of what work they do before Nov. 5, Democrats will turn to lawfare in the days and weeks thereafter if Trump prevails in the election.

“Democrats have used the claim of voter suppression to oppose every good election reform. Every reform proposed, whether it’s voter ID … cleaning up voter rolls, they always claim that’s voter suppression,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow focusing on election integrity at the Heritage Foundation, said, adding that data shows when voter ID is required, turnout goes up.

“But what I expect is that in any state where they lose, if it’s a close loss, they’re going to make general claims of voter suppression,” Hans explained.

He predicted that wherever an ID requirement was used or people were turned away from the polls, “the voter suppression claim” will be a fixture of Democrats’ post-election narrative.

To defeat Democrats in the legal arena, Davis said the key is for Trump supporters to turn out early.

“Early voting is crucial because it guarantees that your voters can actually vote and don’t get disenfranchised on Election Day,” Davis explained, adding that early voting allows the Trump campaign to spend more resources on voters who haven’t turned out yet.

Duke predicted that early voting will be the crutch Democrats use to cope with a Trump victory. She explained she recently heard the argument that because journalists are reporting turnout numbers ahead of time, they are “suppressing turnout” before the election even arrives.

“I guess the Democrats are going to be against early voting because it didn’t go in their favor this time around,” Duke remarked.

Violence in the streets, a media meltdown and lawsuits would be predictable results of a second Trump victory. Security concerns may not be top of mind, but former Secret Service members said they should be.

Three months ago the former president took a shot to the head. Since then, reports have shown the Secret Service is not in a position to adequately protect him. The former agents warned that Trump could be in more danger as the 47th president than ever.

“This is uncharted territory for the Secret Service. I’ve never seen a threat landscape like we see now directed against President Trump,” former secret service agent Tim Miller told the Caller.

Miller explained that right now everyone is worried about “the guy on the roof with a rifle,” but he raised concerns about a car bomb, a plane, a biohazard attack — all things Trump could be susceptible to if the Secret Service isn’t prepared. And as of right now, he told the Caller, it seems as if they are not ready to handle the magnitude of the situation. (RELATED: Despite Skyrocketing Budget, Secret Service Can’t Seem To Find The Money To Protect The President)

“The Secret Service ought to be the most technology-savvy organization in all of government, and yet they’re 10 years behind the Department of Defense in terms of drone technology,” Miller told the Caller.

Miller compared agents’ lack of experience with drone technology at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania rally to a pro football team showing up to a game without a ball.

Miller made it clear that he didn’t fault the officers themselves for being ill-prepared, rather he saw the leadership to blame.

Rich Staropoli, a former Secret Service agent, told the Caller that Trump’s high-profile family and global threats will bring additional security concerns not considered under the Biden administration. The biggest issue, however, is the agency’s lack of ability to retain officers.

“When I was there, we never had a problem going to other federal agencies and saying, ‘hey, we need a dozen guys. We need 50 guys,'” Staropoli told the Caller, adding that help was provided and legalities were sorted out later.

“Where’s the hesitancy in doing that? But it’s obvious it isn’t being done. That’s a problem,” Staropoli continued.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/10/27/2024 ... ie-raskin/

[Higgenbotham]

I don't know whether a Trump win will cause the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country. I think not actually, but Halperin is probably in a better position to have an opinion on that than I am.

What seems possible to me, though, is that if Trump gets in and deportations are started, the half of the population that has been stomped on for 50 years by the managerial elite class won't be satisfied with just deportations of illegal aliens once they get a small taste of revenge; they are going to want more. Or let's just say there is a good possibility they will want more. The logic could be something like, "It's not the illegal aliens who were out to get us, it was the corrupt cronies who enabled the border to be overrun. Let's get them out of the country too."

The darkest backup plan the Elites seem to have in their list of options is that of resistance which could take a war-like turn. Some months ago, Tucker Carlson discussed this prospect with a guest who revealed that the Elites were game-planning war-like scenarios in response to a Trump victory, building off the precedent of similar scenarios which the Elites game-planned for leading up to the 2020 elections. An in-depth look at one of these Elite game-planning sessions revealed very disturbing thought processes on the part of those who were participating; thought processes which seem rooted in strategizing for a brutal domestic conflict. The kind of domestic conflict which the Elites have ignited in other areas of the world such as Africa, Southwest Asia, and Eastern Europe. It would appear that the Elites are resolved to destroy America’s self-governing structures through violence as a last resort, should all other efforts to maintain their grip on power fail.

The Elites cannot permit the people of America to take back control of their own governance. Too many plans will be in peril, too many criminal agendas in danger of being exposed, too many schemes for wealth and power will be destroyed. While Trump himself will not accomplish any of these results, the Elites clearly fear that a successful return to the White House on his part would ignite a domino effect which would lead to the American people eventually accomplishing those ends themselves. That is why there is a real desperation on the part of the Elites to stop Trump. It is not Trump himself that they truly fear, it is what his victory might inspire others to achieve which has them in utter panic.

https://keepgovlocal.substack.com/p/wil ... eal-winner

In the here and now, Trump will make more difference than that, but, like I said, Trump is just the figurehead who leads the movement, he is not the movement itself, and he even admitted that. The figurehead is of minor importance; it is the movement that is noteworthy. If Trump were to be jailed or killed, the movement will continue after some sputtering and another figurehead, probably a stronger and more ruthless one, will emerge, just because things are generally on the decline. Same with Putin.

Wait until you see Trump's replacement. You will like him a lot less. The new figurehead will be more ruthless because he will know that he has to be.

Or figureheads plural.

[Higgenbotham]

In key swing states, the lines at food banks are growing longer

From rural Michigan to midsize towns in Pennsylvania and affluent suburbs in Wisconsin, food banks are reporting record levels of need that has been steadily increasing over the past several years.

“I’m seeing people that have never visited a food pantry in their life,” Gamauf said. “It’s not just the cost of food increasing, it’s the increase across the board — it’s their electric bill going up, their rent going up, all their basic needs, like insurance, have increased.”

In central Pennsylvania, where Arthur said his food banks are serving as many as 275,000 individuals a month, housing costs have become a major pressure point on household budgets.

“It’s a different demographic of working people, not people on disability or unemployed or who have other factors contributing to their food insecurity, but folks who are working and just struggling,” Gould said. “Those are the families that I did not see regularly pre-Covid, and now they’re waiting in line with their kids monthly at the food pantry.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-e ... wtab-en-us

...as the new dark age tightens its grip.

[Higgenbotham]

More related opinion below the quote.

I don't know whether a Trump win will cause the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country. I think not actually, but Halperin is probably in a better position to have an opinion on that than I am.

What seems possible to me, though, is that if Trump gets in and deportations are started, the half of the population that has been stomped on for 50 years by the managerial elite class won't be satisfied with just deportations of illegal aliens once they get a small taste of revenge; they are going to want more. Or let's just say there is a good possibility they will want more. The logic could be something like, "It's not the illegal aliens who were out to get us, it was the corrupt cronies who enabled the border to be overrun. Let's get them out of the country too."

The darkest backup plan the Elites seem to have in their list of options is that of resistance which could take a war-like turn. Some months ago, Tucker Carlson discussed this prospect with a guest who revealed that the Elites were game-planning war-like scenarios in response to a Trump victory, building off the precedent of similar scenarios which the Elites game-planned for leading up to the 2020 elections. An in-depth look at one of these Elite game-planning sessions revealed very disturbing thought processes on the part of those who were participating; thought processes which seem rooted in strategizing for a brutal domestic conflict. The kind of domestic conflict which the Elites have ignited in other areas of the world such as Africa, Southwest Asia, and Eastern Europe. It would appear that the Elites are resolved to destroy America’s self-governing structures through violence as a last resort, should all other efforts to maintain their grip on power fail.

The Elites cannot permit the people of America to take back control of their own governance. Too many plans will be in peril, too many criminal agendas in danger of being exposed, too many schemes for wealth and power will be destroyed. While Trump himself will not accomplish any of these results, the Elites clearly fear that a successful return to the White House on his part would ignite a domino effect which would lead to the American people eventually accomplishing those ends themselves. That is why there is a real desperation on the part of the Elites to stop Trump. It is not Trump himself that they truly fear, it is what his victory might inspire others to achieve which has them in utter panic.

https://keepgovlocal.substack.com/p/wil ... eal-winner

In the here and now, Trump will make more difference than that, but, like I said, Trump is just the figurehead who leads the movement, he is not the movement itself, and he even admitted that. The figurehead is of minor importance; it is the movement that is noteworthy. If Trump were to be jailed or killed, the movement will continue after some sputtering and another figurehead, probably a stronger and more ruthless one, will emerge, just because things are generally on the decline. Same with Putin.

Wait until you see Trump's replacement. You will like him a lot less. The new figurehead will be more ruthless because he will know that he has to be.

Or figureheads plural.

Here:

i think people are really misunderstanding the trump phenomenon.

they ask "how can you like this guy!?!"

but this is the wrong question.

the correct question is "do you want to burn the existing system to the ground and is this an appropriate agent of retribution to do it?”

and an awful lot of people have become awfully emphatic in their answers on this one because the preening, entitled arrogance of the most useless and unaccountable aristocrats in human history and the debacle upon debacle they ceaselessly beget have passed the point of tolerability.

and it has awakened nemesis.

trump is not the savior.

he’s not our idol, our favorite person, or the guy we want to borrow power tools from.

“the donald” is the agent of nemesis called down by the hubris of soychild leviathan playing at totalitarianism and trying to call it joy.

welcome to the age of genghis trump.

he is here because we want mean tweets and funny movies and HR departments that care about something other than gender identity.

he's here because we are sick to death of scolds and disingenuous diktat.

you don’t need to like him.

he is the righteous retribution brought down by the ceaseless depredations of the state and its wokester brownshirts into liberties, lives, and livelihoods.

he's the avatar of no one being able to swallow any more DEI or nanny state, the societal immune system engaging to destroy an invading pathogen.

it’s astonishing that the left is so deluded that they are still trying this.

calling him hitler and felon and trying to arrest him and telling wild tales about his allegedly incipient military takeover seem the sum total of their talking points but (especially in such conspicuously choreographed lockstep) such tactics will just trigger the immune system more intensely because such facile and self-serving fear mongering issuing forth from the mouths of an industrial talking point complex bent on preserving the destructive regime that trump would lay low does not ring the alarm about don, it rings the alarm about those seeking to thwart retributive goddesses and escape the furies who hound malefactors in her name.

pro tip:

once she is invoked, you cannot escape nemesis by doubling down on hubris.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/genghis-trump

Now, if those who desire retribution could put a meaner, nastier bastard than Trump in charge to get even more retribution, wouldn't it make sense that they would do it?

In the first page of this Dark Age Hovel, the settling of long standing scores was mentioned:

A Dark Age (which the world is now irreversibly entering into) is a time when long standing scores that have not had a chance to be settled for decades or centuries are finally settled once and for all.

this is not about trump.

it's about dismantling a machine under which no one wants to live anymore.

will the orange avatar succeed at this herculean task? perhaps. perhaps not. perhaps to some degree. but with him there is a chance and with kamala there is none.

times are changing and tides are turning.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/genghis-trump

[richard5za]

Hello Higg,

Just wanted to say hello again, and I see that you continue to post interesting projections of the future.

The Presidential election now only days away seems to set up two completely different trajectories for America and therefore globally.

It seems neck and neck. In terms of your projections does it actually matter who wins?

Best wishes to you, Higg.
Richard