... and the result is Mad Cow and equally horrifying solutions.
Something to consider in the Mad Cow phenomena is Mark Purdey's research. Purdey was (... just learned from the site that he's recently passed, and that's all I know) an Organic farmer in Britain, who sued to protect his right to raise his cows without synthetic pesticides. In their infinite wisdom, the British government had mandated that all cows be treated with an organophosphate pesticide in a campaign to eradicate the warble fly. The warble fly punches holes in cattle hides, making them less suitable for leather.
Purdey never had much of a problem with Mad Cows, except (iirc) in the cows that had been born outside his herd. Copper deficiency, manganese toxicity, radiation from chernobyl, etc - all play into the collection of so-called prion diseases. Purdey traveled the world to visit "hot spots" of the various neuro degenerative diseases.
...
The purpose of these journeys has been to unearth the causal riddle of various industrially induced conditions, such as Creutzfeldt Jacob disease, scrapie, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, alzheimers disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis, glioma brain tumours, cot death syndrome, psychoses, teratogenic defects etc.
Although discarded by Establishment bodies, the phenomena of the disease cluster provides an ideal research tool for identifying the true environmental causes of a given illness; which, in turn, paves the way for identifying the best means of eradicating, preventing, and even curing that disease. But, sadly, the unilateral research direction of the multinational-ministerial grand alliance is purely designed to develop the most effective means of suppressing symptoms of disease through formulation of pharmaceuticals, gene manipulation, etc; Such an approach fails to deal with the root cause.
My work focuses on the biological impact of the increasing cocktail of environmental oxidizing agents in our modern environment; eg, ultra violet radiation, systemic insecticides, low frequency infrasonic radiation, radar, microwaves, etc. I am studying the oxidative impact that these agents exert upon various transition metals in the brain - manganese, silver, etc - and how they are transformed into pathogenic 3+ or 4+ species which carries a lethal oxidative capacity that is capable of initiating a self perpetuating free radical mediated neuro degeneration.
My technique of "total ecosystem analysis" has identified several environmental prerequisites which could be involved in the origins of some diseases , most particularly my discovery of high levels of silver or manganese in combination with low levels of copper in spongiform diseases. I have also observed molybdenum and serotonergic toxicity in multiple sclerosis, silver toxicity in glioma tumours, a high manganese/ low magnesium induced mutation in Machado-Josephs disease, etc. The political perspectives of my work first came into the news in 1984, when I successfully quashed the UK government's compulsory warble fly eradication scheme in the high courts; thus exempting my farming business from treating my organic cattle with high doses of "systemic" organo-phosphate insecticides.
The chemicals derived from military nerves gases, which, amongst a myriad of toxicological effects, disturb the crucial balance of metals in the brain. I believed that BSE reared its ugly head in the UK cattle herd as a direct legacy of this exclusive "high dose" UK government mandate.
I have found myself at odds with the reductionist mindset of UK government "experts" ever since, and consequently found myself subjected to a steady derisory trickle of ridicule and dirty tricks. Like many heretics before me, I have found myself forced into operating as an "underground scientist"; tramping a lone journey to the Ends of the Earth, sampling exotic corners of Colorado, Iceland, Calabria, Slovakia, Japan, Australia, etc, where high incidence clusters of various neuro degenerative diseases have erupted....
-from above link, emphasis added
Re:Prediction for 2007: CO2 loses stature
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he offers a fresh look from outside the field. Here's an email I received some months back:
June 8th, 2006 (email text below)
THIS PAPER SOURCE IS DESTINED TO BECOME FAMOUS:
Levitus, who has become one of the old men of oceanography and related earth history, cited in oceanography lit. and esp. related to global warming, is very soft spoken but is clearly telling his colleagues in the backhanded way academics often say things that greenhouse gas theory is a crock. The climate change mostly is being induced by the heating of the ocean, he says....which he does not explain directly in this latest article, but he sure does lay the ground work for a lot of other oceanographers who are very very close to getting bold enough to talk about the extensive underwater volcanism they have found during the last 15 years.
For those of technical bent, get his article and try letting it frame your thoughts about how global warming really does work.
National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA Received 22 September 2004; revised 24 November 2004; accepted 8 December 2004; published 22 January 2005. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L02604, doi:10.1029/2004GL021592, 2005
notes taken from article, some verbatim, going into my books:
During 1955-1998 world ocean heat content (0-3000 m) increased 14.5 X 10x22 J correspoinding to a mean temperature increase of 0.037 Celcius at a rate of 0.20 Wm-2 (per unit area of Earth's total surface area).
confirms long held suspicion that the ocean heat content is the dominant factor in the variability of the Earth's heat balance.
world ocean responsible for 84% of the increase in world heat.
up and down within in early 80's shows increase decrease this variability in the global heat system is large, significant, and COMPLETELY unknown may be underestimating the heating going on in the oceans
significant impact on earth's heat balance (climate} within five year time spans
ocean holds 1000 times as much heat as the atmosphere
or a 0.1 celcius increase in water temp is equiv to 100 celcius increase in atmosphere
"Our discussion here has not been to minimize the impacts of warming of the lower atmosphere due to increasing greenhouse gases, we are simply placing Earth's heat balance in perspective. The response of the Earth's climate system to changes in radiative forcing is often cast as the response of the Earth's surface temperature to these "forcings". This is understandable because we live at the Earth's surface and there has been a lack of subsurface ocean data with which to conduct Earth system heat balance studies.
GET THE BOTTOM LINE BELOW, DO YOU SEE THAT HE IS POINTING IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION THAN CO2? This guy has been studying climate change for 25 years and thinks the climate models are too crude at present for useful results.
"Improved scientific understanding requires that we study the response of all components of the Earth's heat balance, of which the world ocean is the dominant term."
get electronic data at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indprod.html.
If 84% of the increased heat in global warming has come from the oceans during the past 50 years, if this is really true (and since it has been directly measured and calculated from real empirical sources it has considerable validity) you can explain ALL the anomalies of the past 40 years, most esp. those of the last ten. The theory of greenhouse gases cannot explain a single one of the current extremes in the Global Warming Syndrome, least of all the warming of the Arctic..
For those technically inclined, have fun with this, it is a lot to chew on. This article has just recently been added to accessible archives so this is relatively new news, though it was published last year.
Prediction for 2007: CO2 loses stature
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There's a theory about climate change that hasn't yet gotten much press:
Underwater Volcanism is the driving force behind global climate change. Volcanos heats ocean water, causing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, changing weather patterns all over the world.
Water is a much stronger "greenhouse gas" than Carbon Dioxide ever could be.
The inference is that we Humans, while certainly very good at screwing up the environment, are not responsible for the increases in temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, and melting of ice shelfs. While Al Gore's certainly well-intentioned, he's also wrong. My source (sorry, no link as his book's not been published yet) says that oceanographers have 50+ years of data logging ocean temperatures, that prove this theory beyond any shadow of a doubt.
This story is simply anecdotal evidence that this new theory of climate change is the most accurate.
Universal education stems from a time when most people were illiterate and forced to work in the family (usually hard labor agrarian ) business.
Follow the links, as they substantiate what I said in my post. Literacy was near 100% in the colonies and early united States, wherever such a thing mattered. Then schools began experimenting on children with new methods of teaching reading ("whole word"), and literacy dropped like a brick.
Literacy in the 1930's army recruitment tests was 98% (voluntary enlistment). It dropped to 96% amongst WWII draftees, then to 81% amongst Korean war fighters, and to 73% by Vietnam.
Who educates the people who can't afford a private education?
My mother's parents couldn't afford to send her to Kindergarten (in 1950's Texas, Kindergarten cost extra), so they sent her to a caretaker's instead. It was cheaper than kindergarten, in that it allowed her mother to work full time.
Mom was bored out of her little mind at the caretaker's. With a little help from some slightly older children, she taught herself to read. But she learned a much more important lesson: If there was anything at all she wanted to learn, it was her responsibility to teach herself.
Government schools hurt children because they teach children that all knowledge comes from a higher authority.
Gatto gives examples of notable americans who educated themselves in an early chapter in his Underground History.
That's the entire problem right there. People have come to expect that the government is going to do that job [educate their children] for them,...
Ah yes, the classic bait-and-switch technique. Government: "we're going to educate the children now, so every child gets a chance at developing to their full potential." Meanwhile, they're building an alternate set of "education railroad tracks" that lead to a land where illiteracy is the norm and 'the masses' (We the People) are easy to trick and control. Government goons take over the train's engine and throw the switch, all while proclaiming that all their schools need are a few superficial fixes to make them work right.
Maybe if I hadn't wasted all that time in the government's schools my analogy would be more coherent. John Gatto is very articulate in his trashing of the government school concept. Be sure to read (if you can, that is)/The Underground History of American Education/, and The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher.
2)Maglight is the Microsoft of flashlights - they use lawsuits to prevent a LOT of competition
Maglite has principles - they manufacture their lights in the United States because they haven't been seduced by the "globalization" trap. They use every tool available to keep some asian company from creating low-quality look-alikes of Maglite's designs. This is simple business sense - no company will last for long if they let a competitor destroy their reputation with "cheap shit".
Traitors have taken over the U.S. government, which has enabled the present war on the middle class (look for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's Class War talk). The housing bubble has already popped, and an old-fashioned economic collapse is scheduled for 2007. America will be forced to re-industrialize, and if you want to have a job early in the reconstruction, I suggest that you buy a maglite now, on general principle.
So if we're going to feel bad about something, feel bad that some Chinese kid had food to eat and could go places.
China did just fine feeding itself for generations. Then subsidized U.S. agricultural products (the grain surplus) pulled the rug out from underneath Chinese subsistence farmers, driving many of them to the city to seek work. Open boarders and "Free Trade" let the U.S. Corporate class fire their expensive American workers and replace them with cheap Chinese 'slaves'. Search for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's talk, Class War.
My brother took a class that assigned Who Will Feed China?. I haven't finished it yet, but one of the points in the book was that China has replaced much productive farmland with factories. No matter your priorities, food is always more important than Ipods. Whoops.
The globalization blowback has already started, and will pick up the pace as the U.S. recession deepens.
Unfortunately, the people who make homeland security policies seem to make decisions based on theater rather than plain-old boring police work.
But what if good police work turned up inconvenient facts? Such as, for example, there being no substantial threat from arab/muslim "terrorists", as the fabricated liquid bomb plot seems to substantiate? Or the likelihood of Israeli foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks?
Theater is essential to the War Of Terror, because without it the need for perpetual war evaporates.
Osteopathy is the knowledge of the structure, relation and function of each part of the human body applied to the adjustment or correction of whatever interferes with the harmonious operation of the same.
I suffered a lower-lumbar spinal fracture almost seven months ago. The doctors tell me that, essentially, I have to deal with chronic neck and lower back pain for the rest of my life.
The fracture was in the low back, and yet the neck hurts too. I wonder if the Medical Doctors offer a decent explanation for the seeming incongruity?
Neurofascial release works essentially at the level of one type of connective tissue which is called the "fascia". The connective tissue is the glue which holds us together by connecting one part of the body to another. In addition, it makes up the compartments and coverings of other tissues and organs, and it is even connected to itself, all in a very complex and organized way. Therefore, the connective tissue structurally unifies the body, giving it much of its strength and support. This is a unique function which is not performed by any of the other body tissues.
Experts tell us that we "live in our fascia" as though it was a body suit. One indication of the quality of our health is how well this "body suit" functions. Injuries can affect many of our tissues, but especially our fascia. The site of the injury usually causes a local problem, but there is a great deal of truth to the expression, "When my toe hurts, my whole body hurts". A pull or twist in the fascia can also be transmitted along all of its connections, making it possible to produce distant problems as well. When our "body suit" fails to function properly, we can experience pain, headaches, restricted range of motion, and many other problems affecting our general health.
The US systemis filled with mediocre teachers because of the low pay. I spent my school days bored out of my mind...
Teachers are very well paid for what they do, which is to prevent most their students from ever discovering personal power. Every single one of your classmates was "bored out of [their] mind" too - you just managed to find a way to make something of yourself, in spite of the government's attempt to dumb you down too. Most of our peers aren't quite so fortunate, for whatever reason.
Read Gatto's essay The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher, or his book The Underground History of American Education (available for free online at his website).
Or one of Holt's books - How Children Fail or How Children Learn, for example (incidentally, is that your picture on the schoolbus?:).
The government school experiment is a good example of a cascading system failure. The first teachers came from classical american education, where learning was the learner's responsibility. The first school reform was to transfer responsibility for educational institutions from "the public" to "the government", and it's been all downhill from there.
The government school is corrupt because it places all responsibility for learning on the teacher. The first generation of government school students did well because their teachers had been "properly educated" in the traditional American manner. But every generation of teachers has been a little bit worse than the one before, because the system Doesn't teach children that it's their responsibility to teach themselves whatever they want to learn.
Now, 150 years later, many new teachers are frickin idiots. I had a date some years back with a girl who'd just gotten her teaching certificate, and felt sorry for whoever ended up in her class.
All part of a grand scheme to depower 'the masses' (that is, 'us').
Maybe, but why do the people in poor countries accept and even welcome the sweat shops, horrible working conditions, repression, etc? Perhaps, because it's better than what they had before?
Noam Chomsky points out in >Class War: The Attack on Working People (a talk given at MIT in 1995 or so) that "people in poor countries" used to do just fine as farmers. But then they got their legs cut out from underneath them by subsidized grain imports from the United States (and other countries with highly mechanized agriculture). So they started abandoning the countryside for the cities, willing to work for cheap. Western companies have been taking advantage of this new source of cheap labor by firing their "expensive" western labor.
The only people who benefit from this setup are the already-wealthy. Even though the cost of "stuff" has gone down tremendously since the push for so-called "free trade" got started some 14 years ago, 'our' (we, the masses) incomes have gone down even more. Found a copy of The Screwing of the Average Man recently, and it advocates the CATCH-85 rule: "The fallacy in youtooism. Under Catch-85, the number of people who benefit from a special privilege is limited to no more than (usually the wealthiest) 15 percent of the population."
"YOUTOOISM: 1. The belief that whatever applies to the rich applies to the average man, too. 2. The strategy for seducing people into accepting their own screwing. It consists of giving the average man just enough of a break to convince him he's benefiting from the system."
I'm amazed at how many people in this story are defending their own screwing, because they've been tricked by that "15%" that they benefit too.
I got modded "flamebait" recently for pointing out that the United States is bankrupt (and can't afford another Apollo-style moonshot). I'm sure someone with modpoints will be tempted to give this comment the same treatment. But before they do, I hope they consider first whether they are part of the 15%, or part of the 85%.
Chomsky's talk is good; I found it as a.torrent with just a little searching...
There is plenty of time before an actual landing for Congress to cut that part of NASA's budget, saying "The money could be better spent here on Earth," leaving out the last part of the phrase. ("The money could be bettter spent here on Earth getting pork for my constituents so I get re-elected and/or my party gains more seats.")
Just because that's been the modus operandi for most of the 20th century doesn't mean that it will be forever. I expect in the (very near) future it might go something like this: "after 100 years of pork, our once-noble republic is now bankrupt, and we have no resources to spend on moon shots."
There are 77 million baby boomers now ranging from age 41 to age 59. All are hoping to collect tens of thousands of dollars in pension and healthcare benefits from the next generation. These claimants aren't going away. In three years, the oldest boomers will be eligible for early Social Security benefits. In six years, the boomer vanguard will start collecting Medicare. Our nation has done nothing to prepare for this onslaught of obligation. Instead, it has continued to focus on a completely meaningless fiscal metric--"the" federal deficit--censored and studiously ignored long-term fiscal analyses that are scientifically coherent, and dramatically expanded the benefit levels being explicitly or implicitly promised to the baby boomers.
Countries can and do go bankrupt. The United States, with its $65.9 trillion fiscal gap, seems clearly headed down that path. The country needs to stop shooting itself in the foot. It needs to adopt generational accounting as its standard method of budgeting and fiscal analysis, and it needs to adopt fundamental tax, Social Security, and healthcare reforms that will redeem our children's future.
(emphasis added)
This means no more big expensive chemical-rocket-powered moon shots. If someone figures out antigravity (I'd bet that it shares as-yet undiscovered principles with Cold Fusion) in the next couple years that'd be an option, but Apollo is simply fiscally unrepeatable.
Don't mean to be too harsh on GWB & his co-conspirators (coupsters? - whoever killed JFK never let go of the control they gained) - other countries are bankrupt too. But if you can find the United States on this ordered list of Current Account Balances, and compare its number to, say, Germany or Japan, you might begin to understand the U.S. economy's problem. Even though such industrialized countries as Spain, the U.K., Australia, France, Italy, etc are in close proximity on the list, if you compare the actual numbers you will surely realize that that certain 'empire' (military bases in 130+ countries) is in a class all by itself.
Recall that the real unemployment rate in the U.S. is probably somewhere around 12% (according to the Shadow Stats guy), and that the rich have been screwing the masses ('us') for most of the last 150 years, concentrating 'our' wealth in 'their' pockets. Even if this moonshot thing was fiscally possible, it'd just be another way for the corporate class to concentrate the working stiffs' ('our') tax dollars in their pockets.
(I look at the positives of the situation - the end of this economic system will mean the end of the masses' ['our'] current state of Wage Slavery, where many spend 40+ hours/week slaving away at two jobs to make someone else ['the corporate class' or 'the bankers'] rich.)
We can find dinosaurs, but not ancient motorized cranes and wheels.
They didn't need motors or cranes or wheels. According to the advanced-civilization theory of the pyramids, the builders likely had anti-gravity technology to float blocks of stone on air (like a boat floats on water).
I'm not saying that it's not amazing, what they did is amazing. I'm saying, that is fairly inplausable that a superior culture of people lived on Earth, and then a great cataclism wiped out all that tech. (I agree that wiping out all the digital equipment is still fairly plausible though.)
According to the Cayce readings, Atlantis was extremely technologically advanced, but corrupt. The cataclysm took out Atlantis, and the refugees regrouped in Egypt & elsewhere. The pyramids were built with Atlantean technology. After they were completed all that technology was rounded up & hidden... somewhere (?), or maybe destroyed. The pyramid architects left, and civilization was left to evolve again, without the corrupting influence of advanced technology.
While the builders didn't need to use fire for lighting, later groups did not have the use of advanced illumniation technology and had to use torches to see around. Hence the 4600-year old carbon dating.
Something like that... I've a book or two on Cayce's readings on Egypt, but haven't finished them yet. I personally don't know what to think, but thought I'd share what I've read.
First a story about a baby, then a suggested book and some links.
"Sally" knew there was something wrong with her second child soon after he was born. Every so often he'd stop breathing, but never when the Medical Doctor was around. The kid was always cranky. One day while Grandma was watching him, he stopped breathing and turned blue, and Grandma called the ambulance. Sally was like, "thank goodness, maybe they'll FINALLY believe me!" The doctor prescribed a "slant board". Every night for about six months she strapped baby to the slant board. Eventually he "grew out" of the respiratory distress, and the slantboard too.
As the years started to go by, the ear infections started to add up. I guess they were almost constant. Eventually they sent him to a specialist, who decided to chop out the tonsils and adenoids. I guess he was 3 years old or so at the time, and the surgery mostly ended the ear infection cycle. The timetable's not mine, so I don't remember when the hole in the eardrum occurred - perhaps it was pre-surgery, perhaps it was post.
Fast forward to 2005. Sally was dating my father. The son had recently been hauled out of school on a stretcher, because one of his friends had introduced him to Tequila. I suggested a course of action a couple times, but they just ignored me. I begged, I pleaded, but as the year went by, nothing was done. I think his weight started to balloon upwards at this time - he's 5'10" or so, and over 300lbs.
At the marriage I told my "stepbrother" that I thought he'd benefit from some CranioSacral Therapy. A month or two later I set him up with a guy whom I'd had some experience with. Took him over, introduced them, left, came back, paid the guy myself. He liked the experience, and has been back several times. As we were driving away, he noted how he hadn't realized how tight he was on the drive over, but what a difference it was now that those layers of tension were gone.
Ear Infections and Respiratory Distress are red-flags indicating that Osteopathic Manipulation would be beneficial. I knew this because my ear infections have cleared up since I started getting worked on a year and a half ago.
In chapter 2 of Andrew Weil's Spontaneous Healing, Dr. Weil talks about meeting Robert Fulford, D.O., and how Dr. Fulford had remarkable success with children's chronic health complaints. Ear infections usually resolved after two or three visits. Hyperactivity and other "behavioral disorders" frequently resolve themselves when abnormal pressures in the brain are taken care of.
My doctor was good friends with Fulford (took over his practice in Ohio, before following him to Arizona), and told me the rest of the story of how Dr. Fulford got dragged out of his Tucson retirement. Dr. Fulford had a pediatrician friend, and one day the friend was losing a baby to respiratory distress. Nothing the pediatrician did made a damn bit of difference. Dr. Fulford was called in. He put his hands on the baby; five minutes later: *poof*, all better.
Dr. Weil witnessed Fulford's remarkable healing touch, and even experienced it himself when his jaw was knocked out of alignment. He tried - begged and pleaded - to get his fellow M.D.s to witness for themselves the Osteopathic difference, but they mostly weren't interested.
See Lew Rockwell's Medical Control, Medical Corruption for a good take on how "medicine" got so fucked up. Summary: Doctors wanted a monopolly to raise their incomes, Rockefellers wanted more business for their pharmaceuticals. AMA lobbied to shut down the private medical schools, Carnegie and Rockefeller "endowed" the remaining medical schools to indoctrinate teh doktors in pharamceutical-based medicine.
A single ounce of gold placed in a safe today will still be a single ounce of gold a decade or a century from now.
And that is exactly the point. I don't watch much T.V., but someone had the history channel on last night, and the show was on 'pizza'. Mr. Lombardi, an itallian immigrant, had opened the first pizza shop in New York City in 1905. In 2005 the shop celebrated a century of being in business by selling pies for the original price: $0.05.
Land's other drawback is that it's currently overpriced, as a result of the housing bubble. If I had anything to say about my grandparents' farmland I'd hold onto it, as it produces something of value *and* they own it free and clear. A relative thinks it's a bad investment because it "only" returns 5%/year.
So, if you're convinced the next crash is near (I'm not, but I agree it'll happen), buy stuff of lasting value -- but stuff that is *useful* in the meantime, not stuff that is simply stored in a safe.
I mostly agree with most your points in this post, which is why I'm considering diversifying. I only view gold as a short-term wealth holding device, as technology has made it less-scarce than it used to be (the cost to dig it out of the ground has dropped exponentially over the last 200 years).
Furthermore the amount of gold *grows* over time, more is found and dug out all the time, only small amounts of gold are lost or consumed.
Silver gets used up, for all sorts of industrial processes. Mirrors are made with a thin layer of silver, electrical switches use silver to prevent sparking, film photography uses silver, digital cameras use silver, electronics use silver. Silver reserves are quite low (much of the silver that's ever been mined has been used up), and the reason the price of silver is still low is apparently due to manipulation. I have much more silver than I do gold, for this very reason.
Recently found a copy of the 1974 book, The Screwing of the Average Man. One of the early chapters is about how average folk got screwed in the late-60's stock market - funny accounting, etc. As I read it tonight, some 32 years after it was first released, I amazed at how "history repeats itself." The exact same things happened in the late-90's tech bubble.
The U.S. stock markets may be at or near record highs, but adjusted for teh inflation they'd still have to advance another 25% or so to match their bubble peaks. Where are the fundamentals that would justify another 25%? Corporate profits may be at record highs, but average folk are getting squeezed. The housing bubble has burst, foreclosures are going up. Ford recently got 35,000 employees to take a buyout aka paycut. What is the growing industry that will offer jobs that offer comparable pay?
The U.S.-China economic relationship is a highly unusual one between a First World and a Third World country. Moreover, the U.S. trade deficit with China in manufactured goods and advanced technology products is growing rapidly. What explains the U.S. dependence on a poor country for First World products?
The answer, and the key to China's rapid development, is that corporations in First World countries--American businesses chief among them--use China as an offshore location where they produce for their home markets. More than half of U.S. imports from China, and as much as 70 percent from some of China's coastal regions, represent offshore production by American firms for U.S. markets.
What economists overlook is that when we speak of the Chinese economy, we are speaking in large part of the relocation of American manufacturing to China. Those millions of lost domestic manufacturing jobs were not lost. They were moved. The jobs still exist, only they are not filled by Americans.
In a world where capital and technology are highly mobile internationally, these critical factors of production flow to countries with the lowest cost of labor. China has attracted manufacturing, and India has attracted professional services. This has left the American work force with job growth only in lower-paid domestic services, which provide no export earnings.
Most Americans live in a media-induced Never-Never Land, where the American economy, stockmarket and military machines are invincible because they always have been. Never mind that this is demonstrably false (great depresion, 1970's inflationary recession, Vietnam, Iraq, etc) - we're conditioned via compulsory government schooling and the idiot-box (television) to have a short memory.
I gave people $1 (1 ounce) silver coins last Christmas. Think I traded around 10 or 11 "Feral Reserve Notes" for each one. Silver is now up to $13.75 or so, so I'm looking at having to put out about 50% more funny-money paper if I want to do the same thing this year (coin dealers typically charge spot + $2, iirc). Inflation at work.
If I had another $10k, I'd split it between metals and Euros... As it is, I'm sitting on a couple hundred ounces of silver and a couple ounces of gold. Not a sure thing, but the economy we know is doomed. The stock market is terminal too, but the big money will be sure to get out first, in keeping with the traditional screwing of the masses (that's 'us' - me, you, and everyone who reads this comment who doesn't pull in $1million/year).
Actually, I'd buy more Earthboxes, potting mix, and fertilizer (already have plenty of seed). $10k could get me two pallets worth (200), and all the potting mix and f
Buchanan's point is simply that countries with a Value Added Tax are subsidizing their domestic manufacturing industry, whereas the U.S. Feral Government policy has been subsidizing foreign manufacturers. The primary effect of "Free Trade" has been to screw the U.S. manufacturing industry.
From an earlier Buchanan piece:
Free trade does to a nation what alcohol does to a man: saps him first of his vitality, then his energy, then his independence, then his life.
America today exhibits the symptoms of a nation passing into late middle age. We spend more than we earn. We consume more than we produce.
Why does it matter where our goods are produced? Because, as I wrote in The Great Betrayal:
Manufacturing is the key to national power. Not only does it pay more than service industries, the rates of productivity growth are higher and the potential of new industries arising is far greater. From radio came television, VCRs, and flat-panel screens. From adding machines came calculators and computers. From the electric typewriter came the word processors. Research and development follow manufacturing.
Alexander Hamilton, the architect of the U.S. economy, knew this. He had served in the Revolution as aide to Washington and lived through the British blockades. He had led the bayonet charge at Yorktown. And he had resolved that never again would his country's survival depend upon French muskets or French ships....
There are many other writers critical of globalization; I linked to Buchanan's piece because I had it in my bookmarks. Probably should have linked to the earlier piece too, as it goes on to discuss the early use of protective tariffs (which aren't mentioned in the Vdare link).
I have more money to go out to eat, go to the movies, buy a nice new TV from my LOCAL electronics store, or pay my neigbor kid $20 to mow my lawn so he can go spend money at the movies, etc.
Only because your job wasn't offshored, and only until the cascading system failure hits your job too.
Because Dean Kamen had the audacity to open his manufacturing plant in Bedford, New Hampshire (source)?
Everyone knows that the U.S. Feral Government has been actively encouraging the growth of the trade deficit for decades, in the name of screwing average american workers. Banning the export of the few things that Americans still manufacture (Segways, Harleys, Cadillacs and, apparently, personal watercraft) is yet another way of sticking it to 'the masses'. Apple shouldn't have a problem with selling Kim Jong Il his Ipods, because they can just ship a box over the border from their contract builder in China.
traitorous, cosmopolitan politicians and bankers
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Walmart imports tons of Chinese goods because that's the country to where our manufacturing base has been transplanted by market forces for cheap labor.
... And Sam Walton is surely turning over in his grave. I found an article in my Grandmothers house where Walton played up buying "towels" from an American producer rather than one in Hong Kong. After he died, WalMart lost any semblance of principles the collective company once might have had.
There's so much back-and-forth on this particular topic that it's hard to be sure who's full of BS.
It's easy to make the correlation/causation fallacy. A scientist observes a phenomena (climate change), then tries to find the cause thereof. "What has changed in our little world that might be driving the trend?", and the 20th century's rapid industrialization and uptake of petroleum-based fuels is easily noticed and studied.
Carbon Dioxide is also a red herring. There are also factors that aren't nearly as commonly considered which have much more of an impact on global climate change. I am specifically refering to underwater volcanism. We tend to not notice much that goes on under the oceans' surface.
From a June 8th email:
Levitus, who has become one of the old men of oceanography and related earth history, cited in oceanography lit. and esp. related to global warming, is very soft spoken but is clearly telling his colleagues in the backhanded way academics often say things that greenhouse gas theory is a crock. The climate change mostly is being induced by the heating of the ocean, he says....which he does not explain directly in this latest article, but he sure does lay the ground work for a lot of other oceanographers who are very very close to getting bold enough to talk about the extensive underwater volcanism they have found during the last 15 years.
For those of technical bent, get his article and try letting it frame your thoughts about how global warming really does work: Warming of the world ocean, 1955-2003
(emphasis added)
Another email from the same source, from August 15th, 2006:
Global Warming is unequivocably being caused by underwater volcanism which is heating the bottoms of the oceans which is changing currents and radiation and reflection characteristics of the oceans which is changing the climate regimes.
In March I could make strong claims related to such, but by spending more time slogging through the obscure sources of scientific information and reading between the lines, I CAN PROVE IT BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT. The oceanographers, bless them, for the most part do not undersand how the immensely important data they are sitting on adds up. I do and all of this is sitting in rough draft form in a new title, some 280 pages of text and graphs, called:
Major World Trends 1875-2025: A Strategic Brief on Global Warming & The Eight Geophysical Changes Which Are Profoundly Altering The Earth
Haven't heard anything about this specific project recently, though Mandeville said recently that his projects are starting to come to conclusion...
I'm not trying to defend oil - while certainly useful, it's also quite nasty - nobody likes oil spills, or getting squeezed dry by multinational oil conglomerates. Luckly we're only a short scientific revolution away from making oil obsolete. Like vacuum tubes, oil will still be useful, but we won't be dependant on it for mechanical mobility.
I've a copy of 1984., but haven't gotten to it yet. Hopefully when I learn how to read... (Gatto's A different Kind of Teacher pointed out to me that I haven't really learned, at least not yet).
Mr. Orwell does seem like he was somewhat presentient - he 'saw the future', and recorded his visions in 1984. Just look at how much of his book has come to pass in the nearly 60 years since he wrote it.
Granted it's not like most people care nowadays. Look at any slashdot discussion on education, rather sad how people complain about having to take history (heck or any subject they're not "interested in deeply") in school. People want to be ignorant sheep.
History is interesting, school makes it suck: "In Year ABC, XYZ happened. Test next week - students who regurgitate well will get an 'A'."
People don't want to be sheep - totalitarian governments need populations to be docile. School is designed to suck the uniqueness out of children so, as adults, they'll take up a spot on a standardized assembly line.
Kinda cruel how the government has encouraged the shipping of assembly line jobs to China... Dumb down the population, then get rid of the reason for the dumbing-down.
Slashdot Mirror
Something to consider in the Mad Cow phenomena is Mark Purdey's research. Purdey was (... just learned from the site that he's recently passed, and that's all I know) an Organic farmer in Britain, who sued to protect his right to raise his cows without synthetic pesticides. In their infinite wisdom, the British government had mandated that all cows be treated with an organophosphate pesticide in a campaign to eradicate the warble fly. The warble fly punches holes in cattle hides, making them less suitable for leather.
Purdey never had much of a problem with Mad Cows, except (iirc) in the cows that had been born outside his herd. Copper deficiency, manganese toxicity, radiation from chernobyl, etc - all play into the collection of so-called prion diseases. Purdey traveled the world to visit "hot spots" of the various neuro degenerative diseases.
There's a theory about climate change that hasn't yet gotten much press:
Underwater Volcanism is the driving force behind global climate change. Volcanos heats ocean water, causing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, changing weather patterns all over the world.
Water is a much stronger "greenhouse gas" than Carbon Dioxide ever could be.
The inference is that we Humans, while certainly very good at screwing up the environment, are not responsible for the increases in temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, and melting of ice shelfs. While Al Gore's certainly well-intentioned, he's also wrong. My source (sorry, no link as his book's not been published yet) says that oceanographers have 50+ years of data logging ocean temperatures, that prove this theory beyond any shadow of a doubt.
This story is simply anecdotal evidence that this new theory of climate change is the most accurate.
Universal education stems from a time when most people were illiterate and forced to work in the family (usually hard labor agrarian ) business.
Follow the links, as they substantiate what I said in my post. Literacy was near 100% in the colonies and early united States, wherever such a thing mattered. Then schools began experimenting on children with new methods of teaching reading ("whole word"), and literacy dropped like a brick.
Literacy in the 1930's army recruitment tests was 98% (voluntary enlistment). It dropped to 96% amongst WWII draftees, then to 81% amongst Korean war fighters, and to 73% by Vietnam.
Underground History, Ch.3
Slashdot Review of The Underground History of American Education
Who educates the people who can't afford a private education?
My mother's parents couldn't afford to send her to Kindergarten (in 1950's Texas, Kindergarten cost extra), so they sent her to a caretaker's instead. It was cheaper than kindergarten, in that it allowed her mother to work full time.
Mom was bored out of her little mind at the caretaker's. With a little help from some slightly older children, she taught herself to read. But she learned a much more important lesson: If there was anything at all she wanted to learn, it was her responsibility to teach herself.
Government schools hurt children because they teach children that all knowledge comes from a higher authority.
Gatto gives examples of notable americans who educated themselves in an early chapter in his Underground History.
That's the entire problem right there. People have come to expect that the government is going to do that job [educate their children] for them, ...
/The Underground History of American Education/, and The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher.
Ah yes, the classic bait-and-switch technique. Government: "we're going to educate the children now, so every child gets a chance at developing to their full potential." Meanwhile, they're building an alternate set of "education railroad tracks" that lead to a land where illiteracy is the norm and 'the masses' (We the People) are easy to trick and control. Government goons take over the train's engine and throw the switch, all while proclaiming that all their schools need are a few superficial fixes to make them work right.
Maybe if I hadn't wasted all that time in the government's schools my analogy would be more coherent. John Gatto is very articulate in his trashing of the government school concept. Be sure to read (if you can, that is)
2)Maglight is the Microsoft of flashlights - they use lawsuits to prevent a LOT of competition
Maglite has principles - they manufacture their lights in the United States because they haven't been seduced by the "globalization" trap. They use every tool available to keep some asian company from creating low-quality look-alikes of Maglite's designs. This is simple business sense - no company will last for long if they let a competitor destroy their reputation with "cheap shit".
Traitors have taken over the U.S. government, which has enabled the present war on the middle class (look for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's Class War talk). The housing bubble has already popped, and an old-fashioned economic collapse is scheduled for 2007. America will be forced to re-industrialize, and if you want to have a job early in the reconstruction, I suggest that you buy a maglite now, on general principle.
So if we're going to feel bad about something, feel bad that some Chinese kid had food to eat and could go places.
China did just fine feeding itself for generations. Then subsidized U.S. agricultural products (the grain surplus) pulled the rug out from underneath Chinese subsistence farmers, driving many of them to the city to seek work. Open boarders and "Free Trade" let the U.S. Corporate class fire their expensive American workers and replace them with cheap Chinese 'slaves'. Search for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's talk, Class War.
My brother took a class that assigned Who Will Feed China?. I haven't finished it yet, but one of the points in the book was that China has replaced much productive farmland with factories. No matter your priorities, food is always more important than Ipods. Whoops.
The globalization blowback has already started, and will pick up the pace as the U.S. recession deepens.
Unfortunately, the people who make homeland security policies seem to make decisions based on theater rather than plain-old boring police work.
But what if good police work turned up inconvenient facts? Such as, for example, there being no substantial threat from arab/muslim "terrorists", as the fabricated liquid bomb plot seems to substantiate? Or the likelihood of Israeli foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks?
Theater is essential to the War Of Terror, because without it the need for perpetual war evaporates.
From the original poster:
I suffered a lower-lumbar spinal fracture almost seven months ago. The doctors tell me that, essentially, I have to deal with chronic neck and lower back pain for the rest of my life.
The fracture was in the low back, and yet the neck hurts too. I wonder if the Medical Doctors offer a decent explanation for the seeming incongruity?
Drugs have their place, but it's generally much better to fix the actual problem if you can, than to just cover up the symptoms.
The US systemis filled with mediocre teachers because of the low pay. I spent my school days bored out of my mind...
:).
Teachers are very well paid for what they do, which is to prevent most their students from ever discovering personal power. Every single one of your classmates was "bored out of [their] mind" too - you just managed to find a way to make something of yourself, in spite of the government's attempt to dumb you down too. Most of our peers aren't quite so fortunate, for whatever reason.
Read Gatto's essay The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher, or his book The Underground History of American Education (available for free online at his website).
Or one of Holt's books - How Children Fail or How Children Learn, for example (incidentally, is that your picture on the schoolbus?
The government school experiment is a good example of a cascading system failure. The first teachers came from classical american education, where learning was the learner's responsibility. The first school reform was to transfer responsibility for educational institutions from "the public" to "the government", and it's been all downhill from there.
The government school is corrupt because it places all responsibility for learning on the teacher. The first generation of government school students did well because their teachers had been "properly educated" in the traditional American manner. But every generation of teachers has been a little bit worse than the one before, because the system Doesn't teach children that it's their responsibility to teach themselves whatever they want to learn.
Now, 150 years later, many new teachers are frickin idiots. I had a date some years back with a girl who'd just gotten her teaching certificate, and felt sorry for whoever ended up in her class.
All part of a grand scheme to depower 'the masses' (that is, 'us').
Maybe, but why do the people in poor countries accept and even welcome the sweat shops, horrible working conditions, repression, etc? Perhaps, because it's better than what they had before?
.torrent with just a little searching...
Noam Chomsky points out in >Class War: The Attack on Working People (a talk given at MIT in 1995 or so) that "people in poor countries" used to do just fine as farmers. But then they got their legs cut out from underneath them by subsidized grain imports from the United States (and other countries with highly mechanized agriculture). So they started abandoning the countryside for the cities, willing to work for cheap. Western companies have been taking advantage of this new source of cheap labor by firing their "expensive" western labor.
The only people who benefit from this setup are the already-wealthy. Even though the cost of "stuff" has gone down tremendously since the push for so-called "free trade" got started some 14 years ago, 'our' (we, the masses) incomes have gone down even more. Found a copy of The Screwing of the Average Man recently, and it advocates the CATCH-85 rule: "The fallacy in youtooism. Under Catch-85, the number of people who benefit from a special privilege is limited to no more than (usually the wealthiest) 15 percent of the population."
"YOUTOOISM: 1. The belief that whatever applies to the rich applies to the average man, too. 2. The strategy for seducing people into accepting their own screwing. It consists of giving the average man just enough of a break to convince him he's benefiting from the system."
I'm amazed at how many people in this story are defending their own screwing, because they've been tricked by that "15%" that they benefit too.
I got modded "flamebait" recently for pointing out that the United States is bankrupt (and can't afford another Apollo-style moonshot). I'm sure someone with modpoints will be tempted to give this comment the same treatment. But before they do, I hope they consider first whether they are part of the 15%, or part of the 85%.
Chomsky's talk is good; I found it as a
Just because that's been the modus operandi for most of the 20th century doesn't mean that it will be forever. I expect in the (very near) future it might go something like this: "after 100 years of pork, our once-noble republic is now bankrupt, and we have no resources to spend on moon shots."
See the St. Louis Fed's Is the United States Bankrupt?:
This means no more big expensive chemical-rocket-powered moon shots. If someone figures out antigravity (I'd bet that it shares as-yet undiscovered principles with Cold Fusion) in the next couple years that'd be an option, but Apollo is simply fiscally unrepeatable.
Don't mean to be too harsh on GWB & his co-conspirators (coupsters? - whoever killed JFK never let go of the control they gained) - other countries are bankrupt too. But if you can find the United States on this ordered list of Current Account Balances, and compare its number to, say, Germany or Japan, you might begin to understand the U.S. economy's problem. Even though such industrialized countries as Spain, the U.K., Australia, France, Italy, etc are in close proximity on the list, if you compare the actual numbers you will surely realize that that certain 'empire' (military bases in 130+ countries) is in a class all by itself.
Recall that the real unemployment rate in the U.S. is probably somewhere around 12% (according to the Shadow Stats guy), and that the rich have been screwing the masses ('us') for most of the last 150 years, concentrating 'our' wealth in 'their' pockets. Even if this moonshot thing was fiscally possible, it'd just be another way for the corporate class to concentrate the working stiffs' ('our') tax dollars in their pockets.
(I look at the positives of the situation - the end of this economic system will mean the end of the masses' ['our'] current state of Wage Slavery, where many spend 40+ hours/week slaving away at two jobs to make someone else ['the corporate class' or 'the bankers'] rich.)
We can find dinosaurs, but not ancient motorized cranes and wheels.
... somewhere (?), or maybe destroyed. The pyramid architects left, and civilization was left to evolve again, without the corrupting influence of advanced technology.
They didn't need motors or cranes or wheels. According to the advanced-civilization theory of the pyramids, the builders likely had anti-gravity technology to float blocks of stone on air (like a boat floats on water).
I'm not saying that it's not amazing, what they did is amazing. I'm saying, that is fairly inplausable that a superior culture of people lived on Earth, and then a great cataclism wiped out all that tech. (I agree that wiping out all the digital equipment is still fairly plausible though.)
According to the Cayce readings, Atlantis was extremely technologically advanced, but corrupt. The cataclysm took out Atlantis, and the refugees regrouped in Egypt & elsewhere. The pyramids were built with Atlantean technology. After they were completed all that technology was rounded up & hidden
While the builders didn't need to use fire for lighting, later groups did not have the use of advanced illumniation technology and had to use torches to see around. Hence the 4600-year old carbon dating.
Something like that... I've a book or two on Cayce's readings on Egypt, but haven't finished them yet. I personally don't know what to think, but thought I'd share what I've read.
First a story about a baby, then a suggested book and some links.
"Sally" knew there was something wrong with her second child soon after he was born. Every so often he'd stop breathing, but never when the Medical Doctor was around. The kid was always cranky. One day while Grandma was watching him, he stopped breathing and turned blue, and Grandma called the ambulance. Sally was like, "thank goodness, maybe they'll FINALLY believe me!" The doctor prescribed a "slant board". Every night for about six months she strapped baby to the slant board. Eventually he "grew out" of the respiratory distress, and the slantboard too.
As the years started to go by, the ear infections started to add up. I guess they were almost constant. Eventually they sent him to a specialist, who decided to chop out the tonsils and adenoids. I guess he was 3 years old or so at the time, and the surgery mostly ended the ear infection cycle. The timetable's not mine, so I don't remember when the hole in the eardrum occurred - perhaps it was pre-surgery, perhaps it was post.
Fast forward to 2005. Sally was dating my father. The son had recently been hauled out of school on a stretcher, because one of his friends had introduced him to Tequila. I suggested a course of action a couple times, but they just ignored me. I begged, I pleaded, but as the year went by, nothing was done. I think his weight started to balloon upwards at this time - he's 5'10" or so, and over 300lbs.
At the marriage I told my "stepbrother" that I thought he'd benefit from some CranioSacral Therapy. A month or two later I set him up with a guy whom I'd had some experience with. Took him over, introduced them, left, came back, paid the guy myself. He liked the experience, and has been back several times. As we were driving away, he noted how he hadn't realized how tight he was on the drive over, but what a difference it was now that those layers of tension were gone.
Ear Infections and Respiratory Distress are red-flags indicating that Osteopathic Manipulation would be beneficial. I knew this because my ear infections have cleared up since I started getting worked on a year and a half ago.
In chapter 2 of Andrew Weil's Spontaneous Healing, Dr. Weil talks about meeting Robert Fulford, D.O., and how Dr. Fulford had remarkable success with children's chronic health complaints. Ear infections usually resolved after two or three visits. Hyperactivity and other "behavioral disorders" frequently resolve themselves when abnormal pressures in the brain are taken care of.
My doctor was good friends with Fulford (took over his practice in Ohio, before following him to Arizona), and told me the rest of the story of how Dr. Fulford got dragged out of his Tucson retirement. Dr. Fulford had a pediatrician friend, and one day the friend was losing a baby to respiratory distress. Nothing the pediatrician did made a damn bit of difference. Dr. Fulford was called in. He put his hands on the baby; five minutes later: *poof*, all better.
Dr. Weil witnessed Fulford's remarkable healing touch, and even experienced it himself when his jaw was knocked out of alignment. He tried - begged and pleaded - to get his fellow M.D.s to witness for themselves the Osteopathic difference, but they mostly weren't interested.
See Lew Rockwell's Medical Control, Medical Corruption for a good take on how "medicine" got so fucked up. Summary: Doctors wanted a monopolly to raise their incomes, Rockefellers wanted more business for their pharmaceuticals. AMA lobbied to shut down the private medical schools, Carnegie and Rockefeller "endowed" the remaining medical schools to indoctrinate teh doktors in pharamceutical-based medicine.
100 Years of Medical Robbery and Real Medical Freedom are also good, and get into how insuran
A single ounce of gold placed in a safe today will still be a single ounce of gold a decade or a century from now.
And that is exactly the point. I don't watch much T.V., but someone had the history channel on last night, and the show was on 'pizza'. Mr. Lombardi, an itallian immigrant, had opened the first pizza shop in New York City in 1905. In 2005 the shop celebrated a century of being in business by selling pies for the original price: $0.05.
Land's other drawback is that it's currently overpriced, as a result of the housing bubble. If I had anything to say about my grandparents' farmland I'd hold onto it, as it produces something of value *and* they own it free and clear. A relative thinks it's a bad investment because it "only" returns 5%/year.
So, if you're convinced the next crash is near (I'm not, but I agree it'll happen), buy stuff of lasting value -- but stuff that is *useful* in the meantime, not stuff that is simply stored in a safe.
I mostly agree with most your points in this post, which is why I'm considering diversifying. I only view gold as a short-term wealth holding device, as technology has made it less-scarce than it used to be (the cost to dig it out of the ground has dropped exponentially over the last 200 years).
The collapse of the economy as we knew it is well underway, with housing leading the charge.
Furthermore the amount of gold *grows* over time, more is found and dug out all the time, only small amounts of gold are lost or consumed.
Silver gets used up, for all sorts of industrial processes. Mirrors are made with a thin layer of silver, electrical switches use silver to prevent sparking, film photography uses silver, digital cameras use silver, electronics use silver. Silver reserves are quite low (much of the silver that's ever been mined has been used up), and the reason the price of silver is still low is apparently due to manipulation. I have much more silver than I do gold, for this very reason.
Recently found a copy of the 1974 book, The Screwing of the Average Man. One of the early chapters is about how average folk got screwed in the late-60's stock market - funny accounting, etc. As I read it tonight, some 32 years after it was first released, I amazed at how "history repeats itself." The exact same things happened in the late-90's tech bubble.
The U.S. stock markets may be at or near record highs, but adjusted for teh inflation they'd still have to advance another 25% or so to match their bubble peaks. Where are the fundamentals that would justify another 25%? Corporate profits may be at record highs, but average folk are getting squeezed. The housing bubble has burst, foreclosures are going up. Ford recently got 35,000 employees to take a buyout aka paycut. What is the growing industry that will offer jobs that offer comparable pay?
Most Americans live in a media-induced Never-Never Land, where the American economy, stockmarket and military machines are invincible because they always have been. Never mind that this is demonstrably false (great depresion, 1970's inflationary recession, Vietnam, Iraq, etc) - we're conditioned via compulsory government schooling and the idiot-box (television) to have a short memory.
More on the Screwing of average folk...
I gave people $1 (1 ounce) silver coins last Christmas. Think I traded around 10 or 11 "Feral Reserve Notes" for each one. Silver is now up to $13.75 or so, so I'm looking at having to put out about 50% more funny-money paper if I want to do the same thing this year (coin dealers typically charge spot + $2, iirc). Inflation at work.
If I had another $10k, I'd split it between metals and Euros... As it is, I'm sitting on a couple hundred ounces of silver and a couple ounces of gold. Not a sure thing, but the economy we know is doomed. The stock market is terminal too, but the big money will be sure to get out first, in keeping with the traditional screwing of the masses (that's 'us' - me, you, and everyone who reads this comment who doesn't pull in $1million/year).
Actually, I'd buy more Earthboxes, potting mix, and fertilizer (already have plenty of seed). $10k could get me two pallets worth (200), and all the potting mix and f
You're missing the point. See Paul Craig Roberts' Who Owns The Dollar? for another perspective.
From an earlier Buchanan piece:
There are many other writers critical of globalization; I linked to Buchanan's piece because I had it in my bookmarks. Probably should have linked to the earlier piece too, as it goes on to discuss the early use of protective tariffs (which aren't mentioned in the Vdare link).
I have more money to go out to eat, go to the movies, buy a nice new TV from my LOCAL electronics store, or pay my neigbor kid $20 to mow my lawn so he can go spend money at the movies, etc.
Only because your job wasn't offshored, and only until the cascading system failure hits your job too.
Seriously, why would the ban Segway exports?
Because Dean Kamen had the audacity to open his manufacturing plant in Bedford, New Hampshire (source)?
Everyone knows that the U.S. Feral Government has been actively encouraging the growth of the trade deficit for decades, in the name of screwing average american workers. Banning the export of the few things that Americans still manufacture (Segways, Harleys, Cadillacs and, apparently, personal watercraft) is yet another way of sticking it to 'the masses'. Apple shouldn't have a problem with selling Kim Jong Il his Ipods, because they can just ship a box over the border from their contract builder in China.
... And Sam Walton is surely turning over in his grave. I found an article in my Grandmothers house where Walton played up buying "towels" from an American producer rather than one in Hong Kong. After he died, WalMart lost any semblance of principles the collective company once might have had.
See Patrick Buchanan's New Deal For U.S. Manufacturers for one take on how the "market" is rigged to screw american workers.
(I always thought cosmopolitan was just the name of a magazine, then I looked it up...)
What they [dolphins] do is sleep half their body and brain at a time.
There was a post here some years back by someone who claimed to be able to do this. He [?] said he only found it useful for long-distance road trips.
As I recall, his method worked through totally relaxing (via self hypnosis) half the body at a time.
It's easy to make the correlation/causation fallacy. A scientist observes a phenomena (climate change), then tries to find the cause thereof. "What has changed in our little world that might be driving the trend?", and the 20th century's rapid industrialization and uptake of petroleum-based fuels is easily noticed and studied.
Carbon Dioxide is also a red herring. There are also factors that aren't nearly as commonly considered which have much more of an impact on global climate change. I am specifically refering to underwater volcanism. We tend to not notice much that goes on under the oceans' surface.
From a June 8th email:
Another email from the same source, from August 15th, 2006:
Haven't heard anything about this specific project recently, though Mandeville said recently that his projects are starting to come to conclusion...
I'm not trying to defend oil - while certainly useful, it's also quite nasty - nobody likes oil spills, or getting squeezed dry by multinational oil conglomerates. Luckly we're only a short scientific revolution away from making oil obsolete. Like vacuum tubes, oil will still be useful, but we won't be dependant on it for mechanical mobility.
I've a copy of 1984., but haven't gotten to it yet. Hopefully when I learn how to read... (Gatto's A different Kind of Teacher pointed out to me that I haven't really learned, at least not yet).
Mr. Orwell does seem like he was somewhat presentient - he 'saw the future', and recorded his visions in 1984. Just look at how much of his book has come to pass in the nearly 60 years since he wrote it.
Thanks for the link.
Granted it's not like most people care nowadays. Look at any slashdot discussion on education, rather sad how people complain about having to take history (heck or any subject they're not "interested in deeply") in school. People want to be ignorant sheep.
History is interesting, school makes it suck: "In Year ABC, XYZ happened. Test next week - students who regurgitate well will get an 'A'."
People don't want to be sheep - totalitarian governments need populations to be docile. School is designed to suck the uniqueness out of children so, as adults, they'll take up a spot on a standardized assembly line.
Kinda cruel how the government has encouraged the shipping of assembly line jobs to China... Dumb down the population, then get rid of the reason for the dumbing-down.
See Gatto's Underground History, for example.