Wonkette
Every winter the news reports come rolling in that some nice old lady in Maine is starving to death under a bundle of cats because she can’t pay her heating bill. Usually you will start seeing these stories in January or so. But in this great beginning of our New Depression, the bad news is rolling in extra early, and from more southerly climes.
With heating costs expected to rise 23 percent this winter, D.C. authorities had to turn away 1,000 people from a Utility Discount Day where local residents could sign up for assistance with their utility bills. The deadline for applying has been extended, though, due to UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND.
Twenty-three percent, good God, it is too bad cat food is so expensive, because that was going to be our fallback winter menu item. Oh well at least President McCain will give us all tax cuts, and get the government off our backs!
Record numbers seek heating aid [Washington Times]
Fucking Al Gore.
Just give them an axe. Plenty of trees in D.C.
My family’s heating assistance program as a kid growing up….
“PUT ON A CODDAMNED SWEATER AND STOP COMPLAINING.”
The weather always gets more severe in a depression. People sometimes don’t realize this, and end up freezing to death on thier first depression winter. Thank god we have Today’s Techmologies to imform the hobo masses in these latter days of civilization. Also, did anyone see Cindy McCain’s recipe for kitty pot pie? I’m sure I saw that on Bum Food Network.
Maybe we can just connect a big tube to the Congressional Republican offices and pipe in all that renewable hot air to Shaw and Anacostia.
Was I the only one paying attention in high school econ?
Once enough people starve to death, there will be too much supply and the farmers will have no choice but lower their prices. Similarly, once enough of us freeze to death/lose our jobs, then there will be too much oil in the market because no one will be commuting to work anymore or heating their homes, and the petrol exporters will have to lower their prices.
Supply and demand people.
I just read an article about the sheriff in Cook County, IL. Apparently, the department is overwhelmed with eviction requests. The problem is, according to the sheriff, many of the evictees are renters who are paying their rent. It is the landlords who are defaulting. The sheriff accuses the mortgage companies of wanting the “taxpayers to do their dirty work.” He says he’s not going to evict any more “innocent people” on his watch.
I’m sure a court will tell him to get back to the business of evicting, but I admire him for his David-like stand.
Oh well, I’m off to the hobo camp!
rambone: The big supply of dead people should keep their prices down also. Roast for everyone!
depression hurts… cymbalta can help
Farmers’ Almanac is predicting a cold winter, too.
“As homeowners across the country pray for a mild winter to offset rising energy costs, the world-famous Farmers’ Almanac is warning us to prepare for the worst. “Numb’s the word!” is how the 192-year-old publication is predicting the upcoming winter season.
For 2008–2009, the Farmers’ Almanac is forecasting a “numbing” winter, with below-average temperatures for at least two-thirds of the country. Only the Far West and Southeast will see near-normal temperatures. Few, if any, locations will enjoy many above-normal temperature days this upcoming season.”
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/a/could-this-winters-weather-add-to-economic-woes
rambone:
Repubs simply demand supply.
pondscum:
Are you making a modest proposal?
http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/modest.html
This is whats wez gots to do:
http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/uploaded_images/Cat%20Tax-cat%20with%20gun%20looking%20out%20window-760030.jpg
pew! pew!
So, is this it? Are we changing the nomenclature to “New Depression”? I rather liked “Gr8Dpression,” or “Great D,” or “Great Deep.”
How am I going to cook my Top Ramen when they cut my gas off?
rambone: See. If all these whiners would just let the free market work, everything would work itself out. Plus! No more over-population! Everybody wins. I mean, except those folks who die.
Actually, The Guardian has skipped the cat food step and gone straight for eating kittens in our new Great Depression.
McCain better hope he loses this thing in Nov. That way he and the Mrs. can retreat with the Bush’s to their South American redoubt. Nothing’s better to wait this depression out in than a heavily fortified compound cut out of the jungle.
Here’s your survival guide:
http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Hobo
ihasasad: I was thinking Donner, but, yea, that’s the idea.
Nebraska is overwhelmed with people wanting to get rid of their teens: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/08/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html
And to quote my father: NO ONE TOUCHES THAT THERMOSTAT BUT ME!
Here in the south-by-sw netherworld, we might be starving and freezing but by god, ain’t no gay couple married in our town. And that slutty 16 yr. old had that baby and we’re all proud mom and dad got her a nice little trailer house, nearly new, that sits on their front lawn. Just too bad for that wealthy, childless city couple with the BMW and legacy to Harvard that was beggin’ to adopt the the slut’s kid. For a minute there, that baby actually had a future.
We take care of our own here in the heartland–or shoot them.
Heard tell, Granma had some tasty ways with Hoover hog. We’re trying to find the recipes. Of course, even the dumbshits will eventually rename armadillo McCain meat if, God forbid, morons like the ones I live around propel the angry-confused-old-man-and-white-trash-bimbo-ticket to the White House.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: and the “clicker”.
Do NOT mess with Dad’s TV clicker.
Start dating a fat person. They will keep you warm in bed and, as an added bonus, will be able to live off of the stored food they have consumed. Fat people are our least exploited resource.
hockeymom: My dad says “Chill it” instead of “Chill out”
…suckers! I live in Miami, so we don’t need no stinking gas or heating oil!
Darehead: How about the Bush Depression. Better than the Bush Doctrine any day. Maybe Sarah can actually remember what it is.
barrel bonfires and squirrel kebabs - that’s living!
I’ve got my sweet new burn barrel ready, I’m not going end up a Baltimore hobocicle this year dammit!
….I live in Maine.
Quick! Someone send me a bundle of cats!!!!
McCain was there when they invented heat and could have made it cheaper. This is all his fault.
Eat ur cats!
hockeymom: Oh, wow, I didn’t think there was anyone else who called it that!
Depression era media had our neighbors turning into giant hot dogs whenever famine strikes. Or, hobo stew consisted of an over-cooked boot. Sometimes they would carve the last pea like a Christmas turkey. Cannibalism, starvation and despair is teh funny!
Ummm us fatties will take over the world as we will be the only ones not starving!! WHOOT
Heating costs wouldn’t be a problem if we could just accelerate global warming.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Ah, Cog, it’s like we grew up together.
The best part of these utility hobo-rate deals is that the Pepco executives raise everybody else’s rates to help the poorz keep buying juice for their space heaters. Then, off to the country club at 3:00 for a quick 18 holes of ratepayer-funded golf!
rambone: Its the circle of life.
Botswana Meat Commission FC:“PUT ON A CODDAMNED SWEATER AND STOP COMPLAINING.”
That one worked for awhile w/my kids, but then they started whining again like a couple little girls (Oh, wait, they are a couple little girls).
So now I say, “OK, I know how you can warm up, go out the woodshed and bring in couple of loads of firewood for the woodstove. It’s heavy, its work, and guaran-damn-tee ya you won’t be cold when you’re done filling that rack.”
So now they just shut up and put on a sweater.
bluebrazos: Sadly, global climate change will actually make some parts of the country COLDER, so yeah, we’re fucked.
Coolest Hobo ever - Dr. Richard Kimble, MD. In “The Fugitive”, David Janssen created the super sexy, smart, Jack of all trades, and master of medicine and evasion. The good Dr. Hobo’s monikers included: Tony Carter, Bob Stoddard, Alan Mitchell, Jack Davis/Bob Grant/Jack/William Smith, Dan Gordon, Frank Carter, Mike Johnson, Jack Fickett, Paul Keller, Frank Whistler, Richard Taylor…just to name a few.
http://www.davidjanssen.net/EpGuide_TheFugitive_Season3.htm
How hard is it to give people a torch with which to start their own fires to keep their family warm. Heating oil is sorcery. Fire sticks are cost effective.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
Bitters: interest rate swaps and collateralized debt obligations can be used to make a jim-dandy fire in the winter. Just the check the dumpster at you local bank.
I work at a LIHEAP place in cold-ass Upper Midwestia, where winter lasts six months. Like I’ve mentioned before, I can’t fuck around on Wonkette during the day like I’d like, because people are lined up out the door, holding their $2000 - $5000 bills they haven’t been able to pay all year. Best they can get from us is maybe $500, and they’d have to jump thru hoops all winter to do so.
This ain’t good, folks.
p.s. I’m a DC expatriate. It’s at least somewhat possible to survive a winter without gas, there. After all, it’s the Great Marble City of the Swamp. Swamp gas is free, isn’t it?
This winter I am taking my heating tips from polar bears; stock piling lots of blubber on mah belleh and sleeping through winter. If anyone would like to meet up in my 1/2 finished basement cave of an apartment to share free body heat that would be cool. Please bring cardboard boxes and newspapers for blankets if you’re rich enough to afford them.
Now if only I could afford to eat enough to produce that blubber. Maybe I should register as a Republican and join a megachurch so I can eat people’s souls or something.