Follow the link to experiment with 144 apoc-a-variables, such as “China Unloads US Treasuries”, “December [...]]]>

Shall we play a game? While I think that Slate’s Apoca-matrix of end of the world options skews too heavily on the side of survivability, I may be too enthusiastically pessimistic due to my own engagement with the subject.

Follow the link to experiment with 144 apoc-a-variables, such as “China Unloads US Treasuries”, “December 12, 2012″, “Swine Flu” and “Ocean Acidification”. Personally I tend to go with “Megadrought”, “Climate Migration” and “Overpopulation”, but I’m a classic “too many people” apocalypticologist.

Technorati Tags: apocalypse, your moment of apocalypse, Slate, The Apocalypse Matrix

From the ever brilliant BldgBlog, we get former KGB analyst Igor Panarin’s envisioning of the distribution of Post-American America, as explained in the Wall Street Journal.  Panarin predicts that the US will “disintegrate” in the Summer of 2010 and that it will break into six regions.  While Panarin’s handy map seems both naive [...]]]>

From the ever brilliant BldgBlog, we get former KGB analyst Igor Panarin’s envisioning of the distribution of Post-American America, as explained in the Wall Street Journal.  Panarin predicts that the US will “disintegrate” in the Summer of 2010 and that it will break into six regions.  While Panarin’s handy map seems both naive and silly to residents of the US (while I think the US will eventually break into smaller states, Panarin’s timeline and breakdown seems like something cooked up on a lazy afternoon), isn’t it fun to be discussed abroad in these terms?  Surely that, in itself is interesting.

I like his particularly grim Russin outlook on the situation faced by the US today:

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he wrote. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

What, no miracles?  But I was promised miracles, unicorns and rainbows!

Technorati Tags: Your Moment of Apocalypse, Igor Panarin, Balkanization, BldgBlog, Wall Street Journal, prediction

One of the funny things about living in San Pedro is the nuclear attack footprint of the South Bay. Being both one of the world’s largest harbors, being near the core of the American high-tech aerospace industry and much of the West Coast’s refining capacity, I remember once learning that there were 19 [...]]]>

One of the funny things about living in San Pedro is the nuclear attack footprint of the South Bay. Being both one of the world’s largest harbors, being near the core of the American high-tech aerospace industry and much of the West Coast’s refining capacity, I remember once learning that there were 19 different Cold War-era missile targets in the South Bay alone. When people think of nuclear war, they think of the puny explosions from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and imagine seeing them in the distance, obliterating the tall buildings of downtown. As someone who happens to live in one of the cores of the American industrial enterprise, and who has an unhealthy obsession with the apocalypse, I imagine about two dozen explosions, as MIRV warheads split and explode both on the ground and at low altitude. Something less like a mushroom cloud, and more like just overlapping waves of light and heat, a silent (since both the heat and the light move faster than sound) blinding (as in eye melting blinding) moment. That’s all. No drama, nor smoke. Just blast waves and simultaneous burning…

That’s why I got so hot and bothered when BldgBlog’s post, Nuclear Urbanism, introduced me to CarlosLabs’ Google Maps mapplet, Ground Zero, that lets you drop nukes of various vintages on the cities of your choice. A bit abstract, and missing the drama and “relational aesthetics” of the interaction with the target site itself, but awesome, regardless. Above that’s my house as ground zero. Now the only thing we need is a mash-mash-up where you can see the results of overlapping multiple ground and air explosions, just like in the real thing!

Technorati Tags: CarlosLabs, mapplet, Google Maps, Ground Zero, BldgBlog, nuclear explosion, blast radius, Your Moment of Apocalypse

At the Memorial Shooting Center in Houston, a popular gun store and firing range that shares a building with a church, managers said they sold out their stock of assault weapons a day after the election and are now adding orders, at more than [...]]]>

How can the aesthetics of the sentence below be denied?

At the Memorial Shooting Center in Houston, a popular gun store and firing range that shares a building with a church, managers said they sold out their stock of assault weapons a day after the election and are now adding orders, at more than $1,000 each, to a monthlong waiting list.

Technorati Tags: your moment of apocalypse, gun sales, church, red state aesthetics, assault weapons, guns, sign of the end times

Jenny Hart over at Dinosaurs and Robots went to the Koons exhibition at Versailles.  Apparently it was verboten for the tour guides to talk shit about the art, but they couldn’t help themselves, a feeling that I think anyone in the presence of Koons’ work seems to share.  I can’t recall being in [...]]]>

Jenny Hart over at Dinosaurs and Robots went to the Koons exhibition at Versailles.  Apparently it was verboten for the tour guides to talk shit about the art, but they couldn’t help themselves, a feeling that I think anyone in the presence of Koons’ work seems to share.  I can’t recall being in the presence of his work and not hearing someone talk shit, and I’ve never in my entire life heard someone advocate his work.  Even people who work on his projects seem to loathe him.

Hart liked the exhibition, and there’s a whole Flickr set of her shots here.

Photo at top by Flickr user Ted Drake.

Technorati Tags: Your Moment of Apocalypse, Jeff Koons, Versailles, art, contemporary art, Dinosaurs and Robots, Jenny Hart

Well, we all know that she wanted to keep Wasalia’s library free of pesky ideas, and I think it’s pretty plain that she doesn’t read the newspaper and that she slept through years of American history classes in school. What does she read? Well according to the [...]]]>

Click through for full size action!

Well, we all know that she wanted to keep Wasalia’s library free of pesky ideas, and I think it’s pretty plain that she doesn’t read the newspaper and that she slept through years of American history classes in school. What does she read? Well according to the photo supplied by her family to the AP, above, she reads American Opinion, the official magazine of the John Birch Society. You go girl!  Show those true colours!

Original story from BAGnewsNotes. The Society has it’s own post up on the photo. Apparently it’s also the 50th anniversary of those wacky paranoid folks at the JBS. Congratulations on a half century of ultraconservative activism! Thanks for keeping things interesting.

Technorati Tags: apocalypse, your moment of apocalypse, sign of the end times, Sarah Palin, John Birch Society, American Opinion

A single onion costs pennies, but the chopped remains of about one (also available in red!) will run you $1.99 at your local “overpriced organic ego-chow mart.” This was spotted at the Henry’s in San Pedro, an upscale market that always seems light on customers. I have nothing to add other than that [...]]]>

A single onion costs pennies, but the chopped remains of about one (also available in red!) will run you $1.99 at your local “overpriced organic ego-chow mart.” This was spotted at the Henry’s in San Pedro, an upscale market that always seems light on customers. I have nothing to add other than that I’m no longer shocked by the downward spiral of self-reliance in this society. Oh, and I guess I raise a tiny, tear filled glass to the opportunistic bastards at Gill’s Onions for separating the lazy from their undeserved shekels.

FYI – if you’re the kind of person who buys this stuff, after the apocalypse, you’re first into my over-sized cooking pot, future long pig. Lazy, desk jockeys with health care, don’t work with their hands, organically fed humans are the tender, well marbled Kobe beef of the desolate future.

Photo by generous phonecam wielder and fellow shopper Michele.

Technorati Tags: Henry’s, food, Your Moment of the Apocalypse, Sign of the End Times, onions, Gill’s Onions, sloth