Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Where are all of the holiday commercials?

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In recent years there has been a chorus of complaints, mine included, about Christmas commercials starting even before Halloween. The buy now, shop early was really annoying. This year, holiday commercials are almost non-existent, relatively speaking. The most I've seen so far are from car dealers, the little else. Why? Have companies seen the light? Have they decided to not annoy people?

Even more interesting is the total lack or new products--new fads to attract the weak minded, weak willed, the keeping up with the Jones', and the gullible. No really new gadgets-just old models made bigger or slightly modified. Star Wars-boring, been there, done that.

Yeah, there are Black Friday and pre-Black Friday and post Black Friday emails advertising sales, but it's all just same old stuff. What is going on? Are companies just trying to save on expenses? Are they concerned that wanton consumerism is a thing of the past? Do they know something about the economy that we don't? For an economy that has rebounded this lack advertising is disconcerting. The lack of anything new is bothersome.

On the one hand I was happy not to be inundated with ads in October. But here we are, the week of Thanksgiving, and I'm still not seeing what has become the normal bombardment of jingle bell ads.

When Wall Street doesn't act in their normal greedy way, it is worth taking notice; it is worth wondering why.


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Refugees and the Growing Danger of Social Monocultures

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The Dangers of Monocultures (please keep reading)


Monocultures are large areas of land on which only one type of plant is grown. There are tree monocultures as well as crop monocultures. There are dangers associated with this approach to agriculture, especially environmental ones.

1. A monoculture is very vulnerable. It can be wiped out completely by one virus, fungus, destructive insect, or other disease. A farmer could lose his or her entire crop – and income – to one microbe.
2. Monocultures encourage more diseases, weeds, and destructive insects. These pests build resistance to the changeless nature of a monoculture, and their life cycles are never interrupted.
3. Because the natural resistance is so low in a monoculture, farmers must use greater and greater amounts of synthetic pesticides and fungicides to keep their crops alive and yielding. The environmental and health impacts of this kind of copious use of agrichemicals are significant.
4. Nutrients become depleted in soil that is used to grow only one type of crop year after year. Thus, farmers must step up the chemical fertilizers to keep getting crop yields.
5. The recent decline in honeybee populations has caused many to cast a critical eye on monocultures as a possible causal factor. Honeybees are prime pollinators, and only having one type of flower from which to gather pollen is completely unnatural (vast monocultures do not occur in nature).
( http://greenhealthreport.com/2010/07/the-dangers-of-monocultures/ )

What the hell does this have to do with refugees?

Societies around the globe have created social, political, and religious mono-cultures. As in agriculture, we have seen that this has caused the depletion of the human spirit, an increase in social disease, a vulnerability to thought viruses of hatred and mistrust, and the spread of mental poison to attempt to weed out the undesirable. 

Biodiversity is essential to a healthy environment. There are too many examples of biodiversity being lost and the collapse of ecosystems that follow. The same is true of human systems. Through the influx of many immigrants and cultures, America became the hotbed of new ideas, innovation, tolerance, and change. But when society no longer accepts diversity and mono-cultures its ideas and and socio-religious institutions, what follows is a nation of dogma, decay, and collapse. Innovation becomes stale as the new becomes rejected only because it is new. Looking back on our history, the nation grew the most when it experienced wave after wave of new people from foreign lands. Were there clashes? Yes. But while a few of the newcomers turned to crime, the majority was a net gain to our society. The diversity made us healthy and strong.

But now there are those who would make us all the same, in their image, with their religion, political ideology, and social biases. They have, in the name of religion and using fear propaganda, fed the mono-culture notion to those who have been to complacent in their ways. 

Like the honeybee, America used to be the prime pollinator of the world. However, it would appear that our current mono-culture of ideas is leading to colony collapse.

Alas poor America , we knew you well.

 

Deadly Quake, Impact Watch | S0 News Nov.17.2015

Monday, November 16, 2015

ISIS Prediction

I believe that ISIS/ISIL may well have radicalized itself out of existence. The clock is ticking.

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It is my prediction that France, with help from the U.S., Britain, Russia and others will conduct a air/ground assault on all ISIS strongholds. Russia will help with the deal that the coalition will not use this effort as an opportunity to remove Assad, and will, in fact, leave his fate in the hands of Russia. I wouldn't be surprised if the coalition effort also included coordinated attacks on sites in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Increased airstrikes will occur to "soften" targets, but knowing that any real defeat must include feet on the ground, ISIS has crossed a line that will make that happen. Iran and the Saudis will be heavily involved and the ISIS held thought that that there will be a surge of Muslim support for them will be revealed for the illusion that it is.

The clock is ticking against this band of sadistic murderers. While it will take time to organize, time is running out for ISIS.Image result for isis