[lakeweb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stu', '
')Judge Lets United Leave Chapter 11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') U.S. bankruptcy judge in Chicago approved United Airlines' reorganization plan yesterday, the final hurdle in the airline's path to reemerge after three years under Chapter 11 protection.

After the ruling, executives from United's parent, UAL Corp., said the airline could complete its reorganization as early as Feb. 1.

[aahala]

I've got good news. My gas service company has just cut rates
20%. And even better news -- I'm now paying just 28% more than
this date last year.

[Leanan]

Well, Andy Serwer (editor of Fortune magazine, and one of CNN's financial talking heads) thinks United is crazy to come out of bankruptcy now. He says there's no way they can be profitable with oil prices as high as they are.

He says they didn't realize that oil prices would be near record highs...but they should have. Because "high oil prices are here to stay." He thinks it would have been much smarter for them to stay in bankruptcy.

[mermaid]

Isn't it a little ironic or naïve to think that with good news we all feel better? It is the tragic of the oil rates and diagrams of the future of finding and supplies! there will be a natural and human catastrofe! it is a fact that all those billions of people are still living 'couse of the oil!! I wouldn't want to live in a big city, we would not survive...

No, i'm sorry, following up only the good news would be as much as lying to yourself and the world.
The world is sick and will not recover.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mermaid', '
')No, i'm sorry, following up only the good news would be as much as lying to yourself and the world.

[Madpaddy]

This is a good news story

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0123/economy.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ank of Ireland economist Dr Dan McLaughlin says a consumer boom will fuel economic growth of 6% this year.

In the bank's economic outlook for 2006, the economist also argues that consumer spending is being driven by last year's 10% increase in household income, and not by debt.

[mermaid]

you're right, it would be self-destructive being busy with only the negative things, but we do have to watch out for getting blind for the future warnings.

[hotsacks]

It's bad news the Irish economy is booming?
The Chinese are blowing up the walls of poverty?
The Canadian and american economies are red hot and expanding?
India is in a hyper growth state?
We believe here that growth is bad.Good news is bad news.Up is down.An airline coming out of bankruptcy is good news...no,wait,it isn't.Is it?
If Simmons and Lovelock and all the horsemen of the apocalypse are right,good news no longer exists.We're nailed to the hydrocarbon cross.Good news must wait until after the resurrection,if resurrection exists.

[mermaid]

ressurection, yes, that is the only good news.

[backstop]

Madpaddy -

while travelling (by 20HP 50mpg 1939-designed Citroen Arcadienne) in your glorious but, as you imply, sadly deluded Isle,
I realized that it had suffered a massive and tragic depletion of practically all of its entire huge population of donkeys.

Having contacts in Brussels my enquiries found that there had been a very covert deal arranged in the name of progress :

that for every donkey exported to Italy for salami, credit would be made available to Irish banks
to fund a debt-boom of McChuck-'em-up bungalows across the land.

Given that the land is now devoid of further donkeys to export, and is cluttered with hideous flimsy bungalows,
while no significant new productive industry has been established to pay off the debt,
it would appear that the Irish are going to need every last scrap of their exceptional sense of humour . . .


Stu -

The distinction between good news and stupefying disinformation seems central to the thread.

The maintenance of business-as-usual, and the provision of solutions-in-isolation that are plainly no solution, appear to be anything but good news -

Yet there certainly are positive developments now going on from the perspective that fundamental change is inevitable in view of PO, GW, Soil loss, Water insecurity, population overshoot, etc.

30 yrs of inaction with regard to changing course would say that the sooner things come apart the better,
in that the new paradigm seems unable to break through while the old still functions, and resources are being destroyed on a daily basis.
That said, there are huge information and physical resources available for restructuring now that may well be lost in a collapse,
meaning that warding off collapse in relevant sectors while initiating the re-structuring is perhaps the critical path to be followed.

In this light the disclosure of information [openness, Glasnost] is key to public awareness of and growing involvement in the restructuring [Perestroika].

Thus for example Brown calling for reserve transparency and Rockerfeller remarking that the oil problem is not soluble are very good news, as was Katrina,
in that US popular awareness of GW appears to have been transformed by the impact on New Orleans and the loss of between 1,300 to 7,900 lives.

Maybe this is too cold-blooded a perspective for most posters on this board ?
I think not, in that there are plenty of sites for those seeking re-assurance that the American dream is reality,
and plenty more for those seeking the buzz of despair at the scale and virulence of the problems we face.

In addition, much really positive news seems to get discounted on the bizarre grounds that it fails to help maintain the status quo,
due either to its scale
- e.g. the global spread of small scale locally reliant organic farming and energy production techniques,

or to its radical orientation to a new paradigm
- e.g. the formal calls at the UN for the equitable global climate-policy framework of "Contraction & Convergence."

As a forum for identifying just what is good news and what is disinformation and for promoting the former while dissing the latter, this thread seems a real advance for the site.

regards,

Backstop

[DarkDawg]

More spittle from the MSM:

Wall Street's Chicken Littles have it all wrong

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')EW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - We're all doomed. One forecaster says the U.S. is on the edge of a recession that will crush the stock market. Another insists that inflation is about to flare up and destroy your purchasing power.

It's hard not to be rattled by such dire predictions, even if you're basically optimistic. So is there really something deeply wrong with our economy -- and are there things you need to do right away to protect your investments? Or should you be looking for ways to take advantage of all the current pessimism?

[smiley]

Here's a positive story

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/do ... 456224.htm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hina to build thermonuclear fusion reactor

[Graeme]

Here's one for you Stu:

Poll finds surprising optimists

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')raqis and Afghans are the among most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a new survey for the BBC suggests.

In Afghanistan 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.

In Iraq 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country's economy.

[Aqua]

http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsaf ... 101403.cfm

Heres a story I found optimistic. Recycling human wastes onto argricultural farmland in the USA. Theres lots of disgusted misinformed residents appalled at spreading human shit on land that grows crops they have to eat and NIMBY type attitudes but this to me is an excellent idea if application guidelines are followed correctly. Just think no heavy reliance on non-renewable natural gas to produce “clean” inorganic fertiliser while adding organic material to impoverished agricultural soils helping to stop them blowing away. This is a much better idea than burning sludge or dumping it by the ship load in the sea.
.
They are even digesting the sludge anaerobically in some treatment works to further reduce the chances of pathogen transmission. I’d love to know what they do with the biogas produced from this process, its an excellent fuel and used widely in the third world for cooking lighting and electricity generation. This type of thing is the future of civilisation if we are to have a future at all.