Black Friday is sickening.

Black Friday violence: 1 shopper critically injured after shooting, 15 others pepper-sprayed

Updated at 8:40a.m. ET: NBC station KNTV's Monte Francis reported that a Black Friday shopper was shot and critically injured by a robber in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in San Leandro, California, early Friday.

Updated at 7.30a.m. ET: An angry woman used pepper spray when Black Friday bargain-hunters tried to cut in line at a crowded Wal-Mart store in Los Angeles late Thursday, leaving 15 people with minor injuries. The incident occurred shortly after 10:20 p.m. PT (1:20 a.m. ET Friday) in the San Fernando Valley as shoppers looking for deals were let inside the outlet.

This is why I've always hated Black Friday and avoid it like the plague.  I also thought it was a waste of time for the Occupiers to protest it.  But now I'll have to rethink that. The customers are morons, but no one is putting a gun to the head of retail execs and overpaid marketing clowns who encourage this sort of behavior. I'm sure they absolve themselves of all responsibility as they laugh at moronic customers and count their cash. Society has to say ENOUGH.

I actually believe that Blue Laws are not a bad idea, not for the original religious justification, but for people to take a break from everything.  I remember everything but convenience stores being closed on July 4th in Mass. and was shocked to see this on a Walmart in Utah in 1996:

In honor of our nation's birth we will be closing today at 5:30 PM.

Wow, don't go overboard on your honoring there. Now it seems like that is the norm. What do we expect in a country that went to war and issued tax cuts at the same time?

Greed is killing us

Police clear Bonus Marcher's..er Occupy Camps

Over the weekend Portland, Oregon (there's two Portlands you know), Salt Lake City, Oakland and Denver cleared out the Occupy camps in those cities. Last night New York did the same, but there is a court order overturning NYC's action. No tanks, bayonets or calvary were used.

Which brings up the most obvious analogy to the Occupy events, the Depression era Bonus Marchers. 

"Bonus Army marchers (left) confront the police." Wikicommons.

There was one good article I came across in October linking the two, as well other similar movements during economic stress in the U.S. such as Coxey's Army.  Why don't we hear this analogy more often in the MSM, instead of very weak comparisons to the Sixties' anti-war protests?  Sadly I would have to attribute it once again to the severe cultural myopia of the Baby Boomers, as the error is made by those on both the left and right.  The danger from this narrow viewing of history is that it shoehorns everything into the conflicts and issues of a narrow slice of time that are not appropriate to today's program.  It is similar to when those who should know better frame every period of international tension with a grossly simplified version of the '38 Munich Appeasement.

Harsh Realities Set in

Wall St. tanked today, with the Dow falling more than 500 points, in what is called a "correction".  Some believe, in short, Kudlow's wonderful investing class realized that nothing was worth as much as they thought.

Fareed Zakaria thinks that the Democrats will now mirror the obstinacy of the Teabaggers and the so-called super committee will deadlock and accomplish nothing.  So we have unbridgeable divide in Congress, thae aggravating part about that is that is the partisan claim that it represents the electorate.  In truth, the partisans make up less than half the voters in many states and their Archie and Meathead bases are an even smaller slice of the population.  Yet due to a rigged electoral system the minorities and their war control the government. I think Obama honestly tried to be post-partisan , but the system is fixed to prevent it from happening.

Texans were told to conserve electricity or run the risk of power outages. Now they are occurring sporadically and rolling blackouts may begins as electricity use skyrockets in the face of unprecedented heat:

"I can't remember any year with the magnitude and length of this heat wave," Jack Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, told msnbc.com on Thursday.

And it's not just Dallas, or even Texas, for that matter. On Thursday, 14 states from Texas to Virginia were under heat alerts. Several dozen deaths have been tied to the heat since early July.

Will an Oil Crunch Derail any Recovery? Plus the Weekly Marcellus Update

Enjoying the economic recovery? Yeah, not being a Wall St. broker I haven't seen much of one either. Now a number of people have blamed the 2008 crash on the spike of oil prices; I think it may have been a component but there were structural flaws present to begin with in the economy. However, as Lisa Margonelli at The Atlantic reports, once-again rising oil prices may thwart any recovery presently underway. This situation appears similar to the stagflation episode in the 70's, which was due to the various energy crises of the time and responses to them. There are  of-course some major differences between our economy then (much less domestic manufacturing and less sprawl) and economic effects (high inflation, interest rates and unemployment). Nevertheless, there seems to be little room for rational doubt regarding the negative impact an oil price crunch will have on the global economy.

Now the weekly round-up of news on the Marcellus going-ons in Pennsylvania:

Publication focuses on water withdrawal for gas drilling Clearfield Progress Originally published Sept. 2009, "Water Withdrawals for Development of Marcellus Shale Gas in Pennsylvania" reflects the latest Marcellus-related regulatory changes enacted by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, the Delaware River Basin Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Gas Pipeline Firm's Plans in Pa. Hit Snag ABC News State public utility regulators have been advised to reject an effort by a natural gas pipeline firm that could subject its unregulated pipelines to safety standards, but also help it secure the power of eminent domain on private property.

Study shows wind and gas drilling trends Daily American Online Pennsylvania could become the site of an additional 60,000 Marcellus natural gas wells and 2,900 wind turbines by 2030 — developments that may cause significant environmental impacts...

WVIA to broadcast Marcellus Shale program live from Towanda's Keystone Theatre Towanda Daily Review The Thursday, Dec. 9 show of WVIA's weekly public affairs television program, "State of Pennsylvania," will be broadcast live from the Keystone Theatre in Towanda and will focus on issues related to Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

Antero Resources to buy Marcellus assets Oil & Gas Journal Antero Resources LLC, a private Denver independent, is buying Bluestone Energy Partners, a private company with Marcellus shale acreage in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Marcellus information online Daily American Online For the first time Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry production and compliance information is available online as part of the commonwealth’s ongoing effort to make the industry’s operations more transparent, according to the state.

Warren sewage plant gets OK to treat gas-drilling wastewater Youngstown Vindicator -The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has granted a final permit modification to Warren to allow its waste-treatment facilities to treat wastewater generated by drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale region....The water will come from wastewater generated from hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale deposits located primarily in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, ...

I'm sorry to tell you this, but our economy has cancer.

A modern, technologically advanced economy is like a human body. It has many different organs that each perform a task necessary for the whole organism to survive. None can survive without a whole and healthy organism, and this requires a delicate management of the system. The problem for the greedy is that in a properly managed  healthy economy (one that benefits all) the opportunities to become very wealthy can be somewhat limited, as innovation and the success of new products are always uncertain. It isalso difficult to rapidly gain excessive wealth, particularly through non-productive activities of the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sectors when the economy is working well for all sectors.

In a living body, some diseases occur when some organs fail and others when organs operate improperly. This happens in our body economic as well. We also know that sometimes certain cells go into a malignant mode, reproduce rapidly, perform no useful whole body function, consume bodily resources, overrun their organs and spread; in other words cancer.

In 2010 America we no longer produce much of what we use. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our health services are still too expensive and out of reach, emergency response is being cut, acquisition and spread of knowledge is a joke, the flow of money to much of the economy is diminished. The FIRE sector no longer serves a productive capitalist market economy, but exists for its own sake. Since the time of Reagan, we have led an lazy, unhealthy lifestyle (sending our productive jobs overseas), concentrated fat in a few places (income disparity), and consumed a monotonous diet of an economic carcinogen (cheap oil).

A malignancy began in FIRE, aided by a hyperactive marketing organ. We embarked on a runaway-feedback loop as rapid suburban and exurban development generated mortgage and other finance activities and associated insurance activity. To continue the beast required further real estate development and the cycle began to feed on itself.  People involved in FIRE moved to the new exploding exurbs and those who in the past would have worked producing goods wound up serving the exurbs as contractors, retail clerks, and landscapers. Thes people needed to live in exurbia, but instead of wages FIRE produced a sweet diet of credit. Exurbia required huge amounts of transportation to grow and survive, which required increasing amounts and dependence on oil. Exurbs took over local farms, requiring us to move food across state, across country, across the seas, consuming more oil. The FIRE metastasized in the government and media and academia. Those organs began to mimic FIRE, producing less while increasing useless administration. The body failed to notice because it was being drenched in the marketing hormone.

We were diagnosed in 2008. Many have balked at the mild (too weak in turns out) treatments prescribed, favoring the tax cut, tax cut and tax cut woo pushed by Tea Party quacks. The marketing hormone and oil addiction are too strong for many. But the cancer is still there, and it will continue to feed.

Another rig goes boom

Another oil platform has suffered an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. No word on how big it is or whether any oil has spilled. It is not supposed to be currently producing. Apparently the operator is Mariner Energy.

Even without a spill, it does once again show that accident can happen on these rigs and we should think seriously about the energy supplies that underpin our whole economy.  I don't expect it to stir any action though, since the world of progressive thought that should push for it is controlled by those who would rather sit and moan and wring their hands. And I ain't talking about elected Dems either.

Update: The platform was on what is called the Vermilion Block 380 and was producing  58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas each day. An oil sheen 100 feet wide and a mile long has been spotted.

Update: Good news, it looks like the sheen was from the fuel supplies on the platform.  Still, it emphasizes the risks of our current energy supplies.