Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter

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"Starving the Monkeys" Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Why is there not a blog for this book?

Q2. Is the title a racial slur?

Q3. What is the Banana Hammer™ logo all about?

Q4. What did you mean about the USDA on page 239 (Oct 2009 edition)?

Q5. Your material is pretty bold and threatens some powerful entrenched interests. Aren't you concerned about black helicopters or right wing death squads?

Q6. The material in your book looks like it would be perfect for conservative or libertarian talk shows like Glenn Beck, Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Why don't you advertise on those programs, or at least on their sites?

Q7. In chapter 15 you advise people to "follow them down into debt" and to avoid paying off all debt. Isn't this risky advice?

Q8. Do you?

Q9. What about Sarah Palin?

Q10. Are you?




Q1. Why is there not a blog for this book? Given the controversial nature, surely there would be interest in discussions about the material.

A1. See our No Blog page.

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Q2. Is the title a racial slur?

A2. Of course not. See our Monkey Defined page for exactly how to identify a monkey in the wild.

Now, because you made the effort to dig this answer out for yourself, and not just listen to what you have heard, pat yourself on the back. Then, sit back and enjoy listening to monkeys chatter about how the name of this book has racist implications. And how this collectivist leaping to conclusions pretty much identifies them to you.

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Q3. What is the Banana Hammer™ logo all about?

A3. Some interpretations of the logo are almost obvious, while other elements are delightfully subtle. We leave the full interpretation up to the reader who has finished the book.

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Q4. What did you mean about the USDA on page 239 (Oct 2009 edition) when you said "the USDA is spending millions right now to poison you"?

A4. On that page I was referring to the USDA's Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, which, as I write this in June of 2009, is accepting proposals from farmers for ways to cut energy costs. This program will issue grants for up to 25% of the cost of energy-reduction proposals, such as insulating or adding solar panels or whatever. One option being pushed by the USDA agent at a meeting I attended was the installation of Compact Flourescent Lights (CFL) in chicken houses. Of course, CFLs contain mercury. And chickens will eat just about anything that falls on the ground, such as pieces of broken light bulbs.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work through the implications of this plan. When I buttonholed the USDA guy at the end of the meeting about this, he kind of nervously shuffled and admitted that there would be a non-zero risk of mercury contamination in chickens nationwide. But he declined to comment about whether it was appropriate for the USDA to be recommending the use of CFLs in chicken houses and other livestock pens, or especially, to pay farmers to create this risk. "It's just my job," was more or less the response.

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Q5. Your material is pretty bold and threatens some powerful entrenched interests. Aren't you concerned about black helicopters or right wing death squads?

A5. Well, as you can glean from the book, I'm not a big believer in conspiracies. Instead, I think that a lot of the insanity in the world is easily explained by uncoordinated collective action by selfish monkeys who no longer fear the consequences of their stupidity because we have erected safety nets under all of them.

On the other hand, we have had our site drilled top to bottom repeatedly from IP addresses from the Houston to Dallas corridor, the DC area and Atlanta. We've been visited by the Georgia Department of Transportation (sorry guys, no DUIs), the Department of Veteran Affairs (yep, I'm exactly who I say I am and have done exactly what I say I have done), the U.S. Postal Service, a state senator from Pennsylvania and had numerous hits centered around the Homeland Security facilities. And these are just the people who were interested enough to email each other links to us or do a web search for us. We haven't even bothered to look into all the generic hits.

Most ominously, we were visited by a Halliburton IP address, 34.254.119.224, at about 8:30 AM on 28 July, 2009, whose user lingered on many pages. But I'm sure that was just casual interest.

We'll see.

Epilogue

Within hours of posting this FAQ, an email was opened by someone at 98.88.23.222, and this individual clicked on a link to get to our site. That IP, at the time of this writing, does not exist, as evidenced by a lack of a domain owner record. The idiots took the bait. If these people are that stupid, then how the hell are they going to defeat actual terrorists? Oh, I forgot, they don't intend to. It is a lot easier and safer to manufacture fake terrorists here out of ordinary citizens.

Which is why we will all soon be subjected to a fake crisis, to get the more heroic of us to rise up so that we can be pruned from the vine. Stay calm, my friends. We will win this war if we just smile at the attempts at oppression. Your brothers will need you later after we have starved all the monkeys.

If I recall the playbook, their next step will be to hack the site to take it down, or more likely, attempt to discredit me by placing incriminating or inflammatory material on here. Or to masquerade as me and make inflammatory postings on various blogs. There have already been several attempts to hack this site from IP addresses in Texas and around DC. Sorry guys, no Microsoft here.

Epilogue II

As of 1 August 2009, the suspect IP address 98.88.23.222 now shows as belonging to BellSouth.net in Atlanta, Georgia. Interesting, isn't it? These people just can't help themselves.

Let me make a shout out to my fans in Homeland Security. Hey, guys and gals! If you successfully wussify the entire country, who do you think is going to take up arms to defend you from real threats?

On the other hand, I've had an expert in network issues tell me that IP addresses can wink in and out of existence all the time. That's good to know. I am certain that this is the case here.

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Q6. The material in your book looks like it would be perfect for conservative or libertarian talk shows like Glenn Beck, Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Why don't you advertise on those programs, or at least on their sites?

A6. Great question, simple answer.

Because they won't let us. Find out why here.

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Q7. In chapter fifteen you advise people to "follow them down into debt" and to avoid paying off all debt. Isn't this risky advice?

A7. The point of that discussion is that debt, like liquor or nuclear weapons, can be a good thing if used responsibly. Fleeing from all debt, as the Financial Fool suggests, unnecessarily limits your ability to act in ways beneficial to you. You do need to be sitting on a cash buffer, and you do need to recognize that a historical strategy for banks is to cut off new sources of lending after making credit easy for a long period.

Sound familiar? It should. But to overreact by paying off a six-percent fixed-rate mortgage or a fixed-rate-for-life credit card balance is insane. And it is just as insane to put that diamond tiara on a credit card to woo your beloved. But if you need to buy a tool to get a contract job, and you are reasonably sure that your work can pay that debt off in a reasonable time, even with high interest rates on a credit card, you should use that debt as a tool also. Just be sure that you treat the interest as a cost of doing business when deciding whether that new tool is worthwhile.

And this is one of the few cases where a good attorney, in this case a bankruptcy attorney, will help you structure your debt in accordance with the shifting sands of regulation. The financial industry lobbied for draconian changes to bankruptcy laws halfway through the first decade of this century, while lending was easy, under the guise of limiting bankruptcy fraud. As a result, bankruptcy is no longer the safe harbor against unreasonable lending policies that it once was. We are all now potentially slaves of the banking system as a result. With this in mind, use debt reasonably as a tool, but don't take it to the extreme one way or another.

When the indebted monkeys begin squealing loud enough, you can be sure that the guy who paid off all debt will be on the wrong end of the regulatory stick.

And ultimately, as I mention in that chapter, hyperinflation is the great financial equalizer. When, not if, hyperinflation hits, I would rather be on the side where the equalization benefits me, wouldn't you?

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Q8. Do you?

A8. No, I don't miss the crack-addict frat boy yet.

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Q9. What about Sarah Palin?

A9. Readers of the book will notice a couple of paragraphs which are favorable to Sarah Palin, and which place her in the same category as Ron Paul. This comparison, written in the spring of 2009, made the point that no Constitutional "outsider" will be allowed access to a serious run for President. But, this does not mean that an "outsider" can't decide to buy-in to the establishment issues, and thus purchase themselves access. I don't think Ron Paul would do such a thing. Palin, I'm not so sure, especially given her latest spate of going "Hollywood Rogue".

This is yet another reason to take the overall theme of the book to heart. Think for yourself, and don't depend on any person or personality.

I, however, remain firm behind my stance about the bearskin tickle fight between her and Michele Bachmann. It just has lost a little of the luster lately, and I certainly wouldn't pay $600 per plate to attend.

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Q10. Are you?

A10. No. Despite what Becky tells you (3 March 2010), not everyone who is bald (or shaves his head) is a Communist.

But, just for all those Beckerheads who hang on his every word, here you go:



Note especially the light descending from the heavens.

A HD-widescreen version of this photo is available for those who want a poster to hang next to their Banana-Hammer banners.

Yes, Becky has done a great job educating people about the dangers of progressives. But, if you listen very closely to what he says, he is preparing millions in the 912 movement to be led right back into the waiting grasp of the GOP, or its rebranded equivalent, for the fall elections. We have a historic opportunity to break away from both blocks of knuckleheads, but his recent treatment of Ron Paul and Debra Medina makes my point.

And no, I don't think that everyone with hairplants is an idiot.

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