PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

DVD at Amazon
From Kurzweil AI comes a summary of a Physorg report that must be read completely about Turkish scientists creating a revolutionary glass spray that promises to “make cleaning obsolete” and even serve as a non-toxic barrier to pests for food crops.
“The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on […]

I’ve heard the Lifesaver bottle advertised on The Survival Podcast, but was not excited about it until I saw this TED Talk video from 2009 of Lifesaver’s inventor and CEO Michael Pritchard’s presentation at Oxford, England.
The Lifesaver system filters out contaminants larger than 15 nanometers. It’s 100% effective against the 25 nanometer sized polio virus […]

Justin Stout photo
Guest blog post:
The Mad Tea Party
by Brad Linaweaver
Here’s a prediction.
In the future the Tea Party movement will call for higher taxes. It will be done in the name of national security. Their beloved Leader, Sarah Palin, will be in the forefront of demanding the increased revenue. She won’t call it taxes. She will […]

Very Interesting. . .
Brad Linaweaver says he’s getting tired of the “Wall Street vs. Main Street” rhetoric, which he believes ignores the Empire as the dominant agency for the immiseration of the proletariat, comrade. (He wouldn’t put it like that.)
Brad suggested finding out if the Pentagon was located on a Street that could find its […]

Courtesy of LJDopp.com
SF Weekly just published an article about Shaxul Records in their “In Store” column about local record shops in San Francisco.
Stone Clement runs Shaxul Records with a partner who, because of the exoteric absence in the article, evidently must not be named, in a hole in the wall joint specializing in Heavy Metal […]

No Secrets Allowed.
My name was mentioned in J. Neil Schulman’s latest blog post titled “No Secrets Allowed.”
“Oh, try taking photos someplace the government has decided is their turf.”
“On a Sunday in summer 2006, when the Las Vegas FBI office was closed, I tried to shoot video of a plaque honoring FBI agents that was posted […]

Karl Hess Club, Dec, 2009
California Legal Rights Fund founder, Geo. McCalip, laid out his strategy to radically change how the State of California enforces every law in his Karl Hess Club speech, “Fomenting Revolution for Fun and Profit.”
Here’s a link to an MP3 recording of the talk at the CalRights.org blog.
Geo.’s approach reminds me of […]

This ABC 7 online article, “Urban Farming Gains Popularity in Bay Area,” features video of a small farm in Oakland, California and a store in Berkeley catering to increasing numbers of urban farmers in cities surrounding San Francisco.
In San Francisco itself, from the YouTube description posted July 30, 2009, a doctor at UCSF deals with […]

Conservation
Refugees
In a recent podcast of the San Francisco radio show An Organic Conversation, with host Helge Hellberg, Guernica magazine and former Mother Jones journalist and now “investigative historian,” Mark Dowie, talked about his career and plans for his own radio show.
I enjoyed the German, Hellberg’s personal account of his experience twenty years ago when the […]

Coca Cola was one of the companies listed on an often played TV ad in the U.S. that shows the word “Copenhagen” morphing into “Hopenhagen.”
Maybe Coke’s marketing department was thinking of their polar bear mascots.
The solution to stopping global warming proposed by scientist Saul Griffith, in his SALT talk in January of this year, […]

Newsweek has a reputation for bias toward the Democrat party in the U.S. Browsing their website tends to support that notion, because of the anti-Fox News and pro-Federal Reserve articles. That Fed support is a bit much even for most Democrats. Job numbers are “growing” (still at 10% unemployment) and anything else the administration does […]

Josiah Warren began publishing his The Peaceful Revolutionist paper in 1833, and is most famous for promoting his version of “The Sovereignty of the Individual.” He ran a successful “time store” in Cincinnati based on his theories and later founded entire utopian communities.
Warren was the first of the American individualist anarchists. Wendy McElroy explains who […]

Here’s an excerpt from email I got from J. Neil Schulman:
“Frankly — as a subscriber to Permakent who has it as the only external blog on my blog roll at J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review — I’d been waiting for you to make a statement on this for several days. Just as I was […]

A recent WorldChanging article, which came to my attention in this TreeHugger article, complains about the alleged “Dark Side of Transition Thinking,” and thus bashes a growing movement active throughout the world.
The author, Alex Steffen, wrote in “Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities?” that “All over the world, groups of people with graduate degrees, affluence, […]

This is a response to my friend Brad Linaweaver’s article “Repent, Roman!” and several comments in the Mondo Cult forum. Follow the links at Mondo Cult online.
It’s appropriate to review the real life horror story, Polanski 2: The Extradition, on Halloween weekend.
An L.A. Times editorial published Oct. 31, 2009 defends the Jew hunters in Switzerland […]

Geeks and nerds everywhere are celebrating Monty Python’s 40th anniversary. From USA Today:
“”We should have had the 37th anniversary or the 41 and 1/2 anniversary; 40 seems too predictable for Python,” says Michael Palin, one of six members of the comedy troupe that launched Monty Python’s Flying Circus in 1969.”
Don’t worry, Mike. Giant man-eating snakes […]

In the October, 2009 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, amongst the full page luxury car ads, guides to trendy clothing stores, restaurants, shopping in general, and Hollywood industry discussion, I was surprised to see “Homegrown” and “How to have a bumper crop right in your own backyard” on the cover.
The print edition has a section […]

“The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant” is the title of the main feature of the October, 2009 issue of Popular Mechanics. The cover says it’s the “Self Reliance Issue,” but the largest font size goes to the word “SURVIVAL.”
Yet another indication that the recession is over and prosperity is right around the corner. (That was […]

Here’s the YouTube trailer for the latest feature film I edited, Crustacean.
Exploitable elements include Yours Truly as The Bearded Fat Lady, a lobster clawed humanoid mute murdering man beast, nudity, violence, bad language, and funny satire.
The description at the CrustaceanTheMovie channel reads:
“Crustacean is a Comedy Horror Feature Film Written and Directed by L.J. Dopp […]

The cost of permits for a wind power system from various local government agencies may multiply the money you have to spend compared to just buying an installed system. Yikes!
Check out this outrageous item about Ventura County, California, “Will Red Tape Stop Green?”
Also, since finding out that the PVC cut-out blades for some homebrew designs […]

Hempcar.org
Alan Bock posted an item on Orange County Register’s “Orange Punch” online, “Testing hemp for biofuel,” with a link to the original story in Canada.
Bock wrote, “Think maybe this would be worth trying in California? Even on a pilot basis to see if Jack Herer’s claims about hemp hold water?”
ArsTechnica recently published a general summary […]

At the Karl Hess Club on Monday, August 17, 2009, Chuck McGlawn argued that libertarians should reclaim the term “Right” as an important step in defending freedom.
Although I use “left” and “right” as he defines it for certain issues (which U.S. political party started more wars?), I wouldn’t call Rush Limbaugh’s support of the Patriot […]

“Our freedoms are eroding faster than the topsoil,” said the late Marshall Fritz.
Even left wing permaculturists are asking if “The Busybody State” (their phrase) is out to get them.
“As any old hippy will tell you, festivals aren’t what they used to be. Gone are the days when you could announce a happening, call up a […]

Here’s a recording of Tracy Torme’ at the KHC that I just found on an old computer. He is introduced by Brad Linaweaver.
MP3 (32 min. 44 sec.)
Tracy Torme’ was the speaker at the Karl Hess Club (a libertarian group, but not just Libertarian Party supporters, some of us are anarchists) on October 17, 2005, […]

Geo McCalip sent me email about forced innoculations on August 7th. (Quoted in full at the end of this post). I figured he got something wrong. Forced innoculations? I doubted it. He must have misheard some talk about childhood immunization requirements by some well meaning Obama health official. Bush/Cheney’s reign of error is over, isn’t […]

I’ve been following Bruce Schneier’s career since I reviewed the first edition of his Applied Cryptography book for the Agorist Quarterly in 1995.
Just a few years ago, Schneier was talking about the probability of post-9/11 threats on a computer security podcast. The chance of any particular American facing terrorist violence is nearly zero. But there […]

OCAW union
FreedomFest in Las Vegas had good attendance for a libertarian event. Read more about it at J. Neil Schulman’s FaceBook page (log in required).
The list of exhibitors leads off with energy and mining companies. They probably get hassled by Atomic unions lead by the likes of Homer Simpson. OCAW is an actual really for […]

flickr - mtoz/659463004
The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia published the cheerful report, “Monsanto Runs Into Wall. Yes!!” in their “Why Permaculture/GMOs” website section.
Poor little Monsanto must be feeling the heat. They’ve got a Biotech-GMO cheerleading page online that essentially says organic customers and growers face no danger from them.
I’ve been listening to the Audible edition […]

Wind Simplicity’s WindancerTM
One objection to wind power is the ugliness of the turbines.
Even T. Boone Pickens said he wouldn’t have one of the turbines for his own Pickens Plan on his property for that reason.
If small wind systems became decorative and attractive, maybe homeowner associations (HOA) wouldn’t resist them so much, as is discussed in […]

Just read an article by “Permabear” and Crash Proof author at Mises.org, “Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One”. Jon Stewart’s interview with Schiff is also linked on the site (and here too, now).
I’m listening to the Crash Proof audio book now, and the picture it paints of the growing, decades long corporate […]