Doom and Gloom Thread

[Ann]

I had intended to start a thread where I put up news I thought would be positive, uplifting with a bias toward the optimistic things as I see them. It was going to be a doom and gloom free zone. Then I realized it would be impossible to keep all the doom and gloomers at bay. I would need Joe to be flicking posts constantly. Of course this would lead to all the doom and gloomers abandoning ASF and heading off to places more negative about life.
So I decided, heck why not pander to their doom and gloom appetites with a doom and gloom thread specifically tailored for those who wish to worry about things beyond their control. A thread to drive them deeper into their despair and depression. Enjoy!

I found a wonderful article which is telling us shocking flooding is about to happen in the US, of rampant medieval-type diseases which may well spread internationally, with the added feature of nuclear power plants in the path of the disaster. It might be true, it may be an April Fools Day but let's not ruin a good story, it may happen and it is clearly so popular to worry about stuff we can't control.

Biblical Anxieties

The sore beset people of this land may be good and goddam sick of politics, RussiaGate, and Trump-inspired social strife, but they may soon have something more down-to-earth to worry about: Biblical floods and plagues.

Media hysteria around the Mueller Report has nearly eclipsed news of historic flooding in the midwest that has already caused $3 billion in damage to farms, homes, livestock, and infrastructure. With spring rainfall already at 200 percent of normal levels, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a statement in late March saying, “This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding in their communities.”


More to the point, two major western dams show disturbing signs of potential failure that may bring on unprecedented disasters. The Oroville Dam on the Feather River north of Sacramento — the highest earthen dam in the US — nearly blew out in February 2017 when record rains damaged the main spillway, threatening to send a 30-foot wall of water downstream towards California’s capital and towns along the way. When that spillway was closed to assess the damage, which was significant, the secondary emergency spillway was opened for the first time since the dam was built in 1968. It too started disintegrating and before long Lake Oroville began flowing over the top of the dam itself. The state had to order evacuation of 188,000 people in three counties. Frantic efforts to drop sandbags from helicopters stabilized the damage and, luckily, the rain stopped.


Subsequent lawsuits against the state’s Department of Water Resources revealed shoddy maintenance, theft of equipment, and poor record keeping. Now, two years later, new cracks have appeared in the repaired Oroville Dam main spillway. The Sierra Nevada snowpack stands at 153 percent above average, and the National Weather Service predicts that weak El Nino conditions with above-average Pacific Ocean temperatures are likely to produce above-average rainfall this spring along with the snowpack melt.
More (bad news) here...

 

[cynic]

Yet more conflicting reports on the end of the world:

 

[Ann]

Yet more conflicting reports on the end of the world:

NO! NO! NO! Cynic this is a thread of DOOM and GLOOM. We must be very careful not to make people laugh. We need to keep this strictly depressing with no hope or joy. Get with the times Cynic, you are clearly a dumb fcuk who just does not know how to stay with the agenda of the kind of propaganda I am trying to promote. If you persist with your efforts to derail this thread with your pathetic efforts to turn this into a humourous and positive thread I will be left with no other alternative but to become insulting, rude, vulgar, offensive, disparaging, belittling, derogatory, disrespectful, denigratory, uncomplimentary, pejorative, vituperative, disdainful, derisive, scornful, contemptuous, scolding, castigatory, reproving, reproachful, bitchy and contumelious. I warn you, am not a pretty sight when I become contumelious and vituperative.

If you do not have something negative to say then you are a moron of little consequence and need to look to your lack of intelligence.

 

[Ann]

All the great effort of CNN, MSNBC, the Democrats and many others in the media even some of the good folk on ASF made a huge effort to calm us all by saying Russia was helping Trump and was actually taking an interest in the US's future. Sadly that turned out to be just plain bullsh!t like a lot of us pessimists actually had already suspected. Trump isn't Putin's pal after all, now it is back to the cold war and all that entails.

Damn, this is really something we can worry about and we have absolutely no control over it either. We will be able to create a decent chronic fear about what this means for the future. Enjoy!

Russian helicopter pilot training center opens in Venezuela

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. A helicopter pilot training center, created with the help of Russian specialists, was unveiled in Venezuela on Friday, the press service of Rosoboronexport, the arms trader of Russian state corporation Rostec, has said.


"A modern helicopter training center was built under Rosoboronexport’s contract with Venezuelan state-owned defense manufacturer (CAVIM). Its opening ceremony took place on March 29," the organization said in a statement.


The center will give Venezuelan pilots an opportunity to train the use of Mi17V-5, Mi-35M and Mi-26T helicopters.


"At present, Russian helicopters supplied to Venezuela not only take part in operations against smugglers, but also successfully perform aerial survey of wildfires, take part in rescue and evacuation missions in areas hit by natural disasters and deliver humanitarian cargo to remote regions of the country," Rosoboronexport said. More...

 

[Ann]

Here is some more bad news about Climate Change to worry about. Enjoy!

Climate Change Alarmists Routinely Ignore Chinese Flouting Of Paris Accords

........China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been burning up to 17 percent more coal a year than the government previously disclosed, according to newly released data. The finding could complicate the already difficult efforts to limit global warming.


Even for a country of China’s size, the scale of the correction is immense. The sharp upward revision in official figures means that China has released much more carbon dioxide — almost a billion more tons a year according to initial calculations — than previously estimated...... More..


This cartoon is not here for anyone's amusement. There is no humour intended just words of warning.

…sooner or later, we will be in for some sort of massive worthless legislation that will accomplish nothing – except higher taxes and more useless regulations.

 

[Ann]

Gosh, I was so worried I wasn't going to find any DnG news today but here it is, if a full-blown Plinian eruption were to occur it would be the worst natural disaster in the modern history of North America. Nothing in the world we can do about it folks either. Might all be bulsh!t but desperate times. Enjoy!

A Volcano That Could Completely Cover Mexico City With Volcanic Ash Just Erupted 200 Times In A 24 Hour Period

The most dangerous volcano in Mexico just erupted 200 times in a 24 hour period, but there has been an almost total blackout about this in the U.S. media. Authorities are saying that the odds of more volcanic activity at Mt. Popocatepetl are “immediate to high”, and if a full-blown Plinian eruption were to occur it would be the worst natural disaster in the modern history of North America. Approximately 26 million people live within 60 miles of Popocatepetl’s crater, and so we are talking about the potential for death and destruction on a scale that is difficult to imagine. In ancient times, Mt. Popocatepetl buried entire Aztec cities in super-heated mud, but then it went to sleep for about 1,000 years. Unfortunately for us, it started waking up again in the 1990s, and now this is the most active that we have seen it ever since the volcano originally reawakened.

What we have witnessed over the last several days has been nothing short of stunning. According to a British news source, a level three yellow alert was put into effect after “200 eruptions were recorded in just 24 hours”… More..

 

[Ann]

2 Minutes and Counting

Crises that seemed contained not long ago have now spiraled out of control—and the prospects for resolving them peacefully look depressingly bleak.

It’s terrifying to contemplate how much more dangerous the world has become over the past six years. Things seemed precarious enough in late 2012, when we published our book, The Untold History of the United States, and began airing our 10-hour Showtime documentary. The situation seemed dire, but not desperate. Barack Obama, a disappointing though somewhat restrained proponent of American empire compared to his neocon predecessors, was about to be elected to a second term, having tamped down the worst excesses of the Bush-Cheney era. The United States had slowed rendition and repudiated torture, withdrawn troops from Iraq, negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran, pardoned Chelsea Manning, normalized relations with Cuba, and was reducing its military footprint in Afghanistan with complete withdrawal promised for 2014. Al Qaeda was on the run following bin Laden’s assassination and ISIS had yet to emerge. And the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock stood at five minutes before midnight, which was sobering but significantly further from Armageddon than many times before. More bad news continues here.

You are helpless to do anything about it so Enjoy!

 

[Ann]

Food Crisis 2019: An Outbreak Of African Swine Fever Is Devastating The Global Pig Population, And Pork Prices Are Skyrocketing

An absolutely devastating disease is wiping out herds of pigs all over Asia, and most people in the western world don’t even realize what is happening. Since it was first detected last August, there have been 116 officially reported outbreaks of African Swine Fever in China, and since that time it has rapidly spread to surrounding nations such as Cambodia and Vietnam. African Swine Fever is not harmful to humans, but the vast majority of the pigs that catch it end up dead. It spreads very quickly and there is no cure, and this outbreak has already driven global pork prices through the roof. If this crisis continues to escalate, we are potentially talking about a crippling blow to global food production.


China raises and consumes far more pigs than anyone else in the world, and it is also the epicenter of this crisis.


At this point we don’t know exactly how many pigs that they have lost, but we have some numbers that at least give us an idea. For example, the Chinese government admitted that China’s pig herd was 13 percent smaller in January compared to a year earlier…

China once had a population of 430 million pigs, and taking 13 percent of that number would give us a total of 55.9 million pigs that have been lost.


But there have also been allegations of a “cover-up”, and some believe that the true number of pigs that have been lost is closer to 100 million.


In either case, we are talking about potentially apocalyptic losses.


And these losses are really starting to move global pork prices. Over the last two weeks alone, we have witnessed a 20 percent increase…

More bad news about this here....




This has been a really tough day, I have been looking for some really bad news all day and finally I have found it. Poor pigs are dying. I like pigs. I also like bacon, roast pork with crackle and I like that it is affordable meat....well was affordable meat. I think we may be in a real crisis here. I know I can keep chickens but I think my council may draw a line at a few piggies in my back yard. Now this is something I can really get my teeth into and start worrying a whole lot, because again we can't do a damn thing about it........Enjoy!

 

[MARKETWINNER]

 

[Ann]

Even Vegemite Feels the Bite as Australia's Downturn Hits Stocks - This is very serious folks, even Bloomberg is concerned!

Vegetables, vitamins and Vegemite are taking a hit as consumers rein in spending amid weakening economic growth in Australia. The stock market is feeling the pinch too.

Consumer staples are the nation’s worst-performing shares this year after a disappointing earnings season. The S&P/ASX 200 Consumer Staples Index is up only 4.3 percent, while the benchmark gauge climbed 9.5 percent, and the outlook isn’t all that rosy as households spend less.


“Weakness in housing markets is causing consumers to feel less confident and defer spending,” said Natalie Tam, investment director for Australian equities at Aberdeen Standard Investments. More important serious news....


OMG the housing down turn is so bad we have stopped buying Vegemite. WTF are we spreading on our toast? Bullsh!t? Enjoy!

 

[MARKETWINNER]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...e-brings-mosquito-threat-190404080809375.html
Europe set to suffer as climate change brings mosquito threat

 

[Ann]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...e-brings-mosquito-threat-190404080809375.html
Europe set to suffer as climate change brings mosquito threat

Thanks for adding to this thread but this isn't really the SHOCKING UNCONTROLLABLE news I am after for this thread. Mosquitoes can be stopped with a can of Mortein and mosquito nets.
In fact it may not have a lot to do with warmer weather, Poland is plagued by Mozzies so much so they put out Mosquito warnings on their weather reports...

 

[wayneL]

But see, there is joy and revelry, "slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
“for tomorrow we die!”

 

[Ann]

But see, there is joy and revelry, "slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
“for tomorrow we die!”

Wayne, wayne this is not a thread of happiness and joy this is a thread of depression, disaster, disintegration, desperation and deprivation, not depravation, enough of your eating meat and drinking wine and having a good time before you die. Life is only about wishing for a catastrophic end and living in the fearful expectancy until the last day when they hand out the Kool Aid and you find out all they said was true!

 

[wayneL]

My apologies Ann. From now on I will be impressively contrite and miserable, just to keep the Greens happy.

 

[Ann]

My apologies Ann. From now on I will be impressively contrite and miserable, just to keep the Greens happy.

Happiness is not what they want wayne, you will only antagonize them. You just don't get it mate, do you? I can see why they hate you, you are happy. How dare you!

 

[Sdajii]

 

[Ann]

Sdajii, STOP IT! I say STOP IT! You are working against my agenda and I will get very cross with you and call you Turnip Head and say all sorts of unkind and unjust things to you. You clearly have been listening to dying frogs again and have no concept of what life is truly like!
I am just struggling to find appropriate DOOM and GLOOM news at the moment, it is no excuse to come on this thread and pollute it with your rubbish!

 

[MARKETWINNER]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-05/researchers-warn-of-rising-mortgage-stress/10972682
'We've never seen it as bad as it is': Researchers warn of rising mortgage stress

https://thewest.com.au/business/hou...e-prices-plunge-to-2006-levels-ng-b881158018z
Perth house prices plunge to 2006 levels

May be Pirth residents are migrating to Sydney or Melbourne.

 

[Sdajii]