Following Suite

Get it... cuz they're lawyers??

Okay, bad pun. I'm pretty sure that this new generation of lawyers whose starting salaries are half what they used to be don't think it's funny either.

This is, of course, the prevalent theme of the 2010's in pretty much all industries. Take, for example, my job:

Before I got hired, there were 4 people in my position, doing -less- work than I'm currently doing. Now there is only me... and I'm getting paid $5.50 less per hour than the lowest-paid person that I replaced! On top of that, my department hasn't given employee's a penny raise since 2002, and we've only had one cost of living raise in 2006 -- of .5%!

Now, granted initially I didn't feel too bad for those lawyers who aren't getting their tenure-track 120,000 starting salary anymore. After all, 60K a year is far more than I'm sure I'll -ever- see in my life, so it's hard for me to muster up too much sympathy. However, like myself and many other people who find themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of trying to start their career right now, I can sympathize with their frustrations... Nothing is more devastating than to diligently work your entire young life away for the prospects of a better future, only to have that robbed from you at no fault of your own. 60,000 might be a living wage for me, but then again, who knows what the average debt of a law school student these days is... I'm sure it's probably greater than mine.

Makes you wonder what things are going to be like for the rest of us if you have to be a fucking blood-sucking-lawyer just to earn what used to be a pretty standard middle-class salary though, doesn't it?

Robocopcar

"Keeping the City of Angels safe from pot smokers and dead-beat dads.... It also appears to be an revenue enhancement dream come true. It is not clear in the following video if the high-tech cop cruiser has Robocop’s assault cannons onboard, though."

One can only imagine how much something like this costs. 

Incarceration -- Making money on your freedom

Cracking down on the little guy

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws ... pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers." ~Ayn Rand

I don't think I could think of a truer statement today. The following videos clearly demonstrate this principal, and showcase just how drastically things have gotten out of hand. In order to support our overstretched, overpowered militant police force, they have to start turning the whip on the little guys -- you and me. And I can personally testify how true this is... A few weeks ago, I was pulled over and received a traffic violation of $80 for, guess what? Not signaling for 2 seconds before changing lanes.

Yep... I think that warrants an $80 ticket, don't you? I don't even want to know what would have happened had a drifted across a white line...


And, next time you travel, you'd better leave all your cash at home. You might be a drug trafficker.



And hey, while we're crackin down on all these little guys, we might as well throw in some assault on the handicapped too! No one's littler than them.... surely this will strike fear and respect into the hearts of the people.



As a side note, Adams show is particularly worth watching if you have the interest and time. He covers a great deal of related topics, and he's a great voice for the fed-up millennials out there.

As many of you might guess, this 'devolution' of our police force is something that I've been following for quite some time. I've often looked back and pondered many things, like when and why did the police force devolve from being there to help people and serve the public to, quite litterally, the local city mafia. It's no wonder nobody likes police officers any more... plain and simple, they don't give a rats ass about protecting the common man, and they don't understand things like civility, humanity, and common decency and understanding... They're job now is to keep us in line, and to make as much revenue as they can while they're doing it. All they understand now are the necessities of following orders and filling quotas. Oh yeah, and the power. I'm -sure- they understand that, too.

New government spy machine -- your car

The feds are now mandating that a 'black box' be installed on all new cars. These black boxes record information about speed, seat belt use and brake application... And very likely, lots of other information too.

And while some cars have had this technology in place for the last couple years, it was always private information that was only used by the manufacturers... part of the official motivation for this is to 'standardize the data' and redefine who has access to it.


And, while they're at it, intell is working on software to more accurately geo-track your car, and wants to have video cameras installed outside -- and inside -- every new vehicle.

 I can only imagine what other information these devices will collect, and what kind of extra built in 'features' they'll come with.

Good thing I can't afford to buy a new car any time soon.

Behold the War Machine

The following articles all seem to tell one pretty scary story. Lets see if you can figure out what that story is.

1. China has officially put the United States on notice that Washington’s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing.

2. China gives Pakistan 50 fighter jets.

3. Obama already has a plan in action to cease Pakistani nukes 'if they come under the control of terrorists' to protect Pakistan

4. The US has refused to assure that it would not repeat Abbottabad-like unilateral operation in Pakistan

5. India (US alley) is simulating an attack strategy in the event of 'full-out war' with Pakistan.


6. CIA has created own Taliban to wreak terror havoc on Pakistan, claims Pak paper 

7. Pakistan threatens to cut NATO's supply line in American's don't end missile strikes on their soil


8. (No official article for this) Russia is very likely to back China if China is forced to back Pakistan.




The War Machine keeps rolling!
 

Our Nobel Peace Prize winning president violates the War Powers Act

Control the energy, control the people

If you read one of my earlier blog posts in which the spending of the country are put in perspective by oreos, then you may recall that the amount of money we invest into alternative energy is beyond pathetic... it's downright laughable.

Ever since I was a small boy, I remembered hearing stories about various new promising advents in alternative energy. These stories would be featured on the nightly news, and maybe people would talk about them here and there for a few days, but they would inevitably disappear just as quickly as they came. I always used to ask myself questions, wondering whatever happened to such and such technology, and most people wouldn't even know what I was talking about.

When I got older, I learned the answer.

I remember having a very heated conversation about this topic in a seminar class as a graduate student. Me, being the natural resource economist, pointed out that we would never have free, readily accessible energy in this culture. Of course, this upset many of my liberal idealist peers, who still had faith that Obama was actually going to work towards that endeavor (it amazes me how intelligent, educated liberals can be so fucking stupid). My rational was simply this (which is as close to a paraphrase quote as I can get considering it was about 2 years ago).

If you the people the capacity to produce their own energy, you loose the ability to profit off of them, and, in turn, you loose your control over them. Creating clean, efficient, free energy is the -last- thing that the current energy tycoons want, and they'll spend billions, if not trillions, of dollars to make sure that it -never- happens.

This is a snippet of a documentary that I found awhile back that touches on this topic. It's got some good examples, and if nothing else, should be a pretty interesting watch for those of you who have a train-wreck fascination with corruption like I do.    

And this was the head of NSA?

Oh. My. LOL.

Speaks volumes, doesn't it?

Following in China's Footsteps.

Oh, if only we could count the ways.

No privacy -- Check
No personal liberty -- Check
Massive wage inequality -- Check
Destitute 'working class' (i.e. slaves) -- Check
No right to speak out against the government -- Check
No right to safety in your own home from illegal searches -- Check
Complete disregard for the environment, regulations of any kind, and the citizens of the state -- Check

I could go on and on.

This last one speaks for itself.



And, of course, more on the elimination of the 4th amendment:


IN Sheriff: If We Need to Conduct RANDOM HOUSE to HOUSE Searches We Will

Wow... That didn't take long, did it? And now we see why these things are such a slippery slope. 

Speaking of slippery slope, "sneak and peak" search warrants are increasing almost exponentially. What's wrong with these? They allow cops to effectively break in your home and go through your things without informing you, and they do it when you're not even home. And 77% of them are used not for the 'intended' purpose of investigating terrorism, but for minor drug offenses.  

In other news, the 4th amendment isn't the only thing they want to kill.

 H.J.res. 62. Amending the Constitution to end states rights?

Not entirely sure what the implications of this could be, but it should prove to be very interesting.

And finally, just to end the post with some good old fashioned police brutality:

84-year-old man allegedly beaten by police officer after calling 911

CDC: Prepare for ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE

I couldn't help but post this... Mostly because, like many people of my generation, I REALLY hope the world ends via zombie apocalypse. I mean, we're all fucked anyway, right? The way I see it, I'd rather try to hold off as long as I can killing zombies than getting nuked, fighting the Chinese, or even more likely, fighting my own fucking government... or, WORSE case scenario, actually having to endure living in a radiation covered, GMO/chemical fed, Orwellian police state New World Order for the next god knows how long.

But I digress, the CDC is officially warning people how to prepare for zombies.

Now, it's pretty obvious what the real tactic is here, but I still find it funny as hell. Even more entertaining, though, is that of EVERYTHING they tell you to make sure you have, the ONE thing not on their list that is, bar none, the most important, is, of course, A FUCKING WEAPON!!!

Jesus Christ, a massive horde of zombies is heading right for me! Good thing I can hold them off with my birth certificate and passport!

For a full commentary on this article, check out this natural news article.

But, as well all know, most Americans are already zombies anyway. The following song parallels a song that I personally wrote a few years back (and might update a bit) called "Suburban Zombie". It's an amusing watch.

This text will be replaced by the player

50 Depressing Statistics about the US Economy

I can't take credit for this article. The following article was taken from http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/


The following are 50 things that every American should know about the collapse of the economy....

#1 Do you remember how much was made of the "Misery Index" during the presidency of Jimmy Carter?  At that time, the "Misery Index" was constantly making headlines in newspapers all across the country.  Well, according to John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, if we calculated unemployment and inflation the same way that we did back during the Carter administration, then the Misery Index today would actually be higher than at any point during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

#2 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average of about 5 million Americans were being hired every single month during 2006.  Today, an average of about 3.5 million Americans are being hired every single month.

#3 According to the Wall Street Journal, there are 5.5 million Americans that are currently unemployed and yet are not receiving unemployment benefits.

#4 All over America, state and local governments are selling off buildings just to pay the bills.  Investors can now buy up government-owned power plants, prisons and municipal buildings from coast to coast.  For example, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey recently sold off 16 government buildings (including the police and fire headquarters) just to pay some bills.

#5 When Americans think of "government debt", most of them only think of the federal government, but it is not just the federal government that has a massive debt problem.  State and local government debt has reached an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.

#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#7 Credit card usage in the United States is on the increase once again.  During the month of March, revolving consumer credit jumped 2.9%.  Sadly, it looks like Americans have not learned their lessons about the dangers of credit card debt.

#8 Last year, Social Security ran a deficit for the first time since 1983, and the "Social Security deficits" in future years are projected to be absolutely horrific.

#9 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.

#10 Right now we are watching what could potentially be the worst Mississippi River flood ever recorded play out right in front of our eyes.  One agricultural economist at Mississippi State University believes that this disaster could do 2 billion dollars of damage just to farms alone.

#11 The "tornadoes of 2011" that we just saw in the southeast United States are being called the worst natural disaster that the U.S. has seen since Hurricane Katrina.  It has been estimated that up to 25 percent of all of the poultry houses in Alabama were either significantly damaged or destroyed.  It is also believed that millions of birds were killed.

#12 The economic effects of the BP oil spill just seem to go on and on and on.  The number of very sick fish in the Gulf of Mexico is really starting to alarm scientists.  The following is how one local newspaper recently described the situation....

Scientists are alarmed by the discovery of unusual numbers of fish in the Gulf of Mexico and inland waterways with skin lesions, fin rot, spots, liver blood clots and other health problems.

#13 The number of "low income jobs" in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

#14 All over America, hospitals that care for the poor and needy are so overwhelmed and are so broke that they are being forced to shut down.  Recently, a local newspaper in Florida ran an article about two prominent charity hospitals in Illinois that have served the poor for more than 100 years but are now asking for permission to shut down....

Two charity hospitals in Illinois are facing a life-or-death decision. There's not much left of either of them - one in Chicago's south suburbs, the other in impoverished East St. Louis - aside from emergency rooms crowded with patients seeking free care. Now they would like the state's permission to shut down.

#15 The U.S. dollar is in such bad shape that now even Steve Forbes is predicting that the U.S. is "likely" to go back to a gold standard within the next five years.

#16 Most Americans don't realize how much the U.S. dollar has been devalued over the years.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 would cost you $115.93 today.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 would cost you $454.36 today.

#17 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.

#18 U.S. oil companies will bring in about $200 billion in pre-tax profits this year.  They will also receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks from the U.S. government.

#19 It is being projected that for the first time ever, the OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year.  Their biggest customer is the United States.

#20 According to the Pentagon, there are minerals worth over a trillion dollars under the ground in Afghanistan.  Now, J.P. Morgan is starting to tap those riches with the help of the U.S. military.

#21 Speaking of J.P. Morgan, most Americans don't realize that they are actually the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States.  In fact, the more Americans that go on food stamps the more money that J.P. Morgan makes.

#22 When 2007 began, there were about 26 million Americans on food stamps.  Today, there are over 44 million on food stamps, and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#23 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#24 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year.  That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

#25 The financial system is more vulnerable today than it was back in 2008 before the financial panic. Today, the world financial system has been turned into a giant financial casino where bets are made on just about anything you can possibly imagine, and the major Wall Street banks make a ton of money from this betting system.  The system is largely unregulated (the new "Wall Street reform" law has only changed this slightly) and it is totally dominated by the big international banks. The danger from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them "financial weapons of mass destruction". It is estimated that the "derivatives bubble" is somewhere in the neighborhood of a quadrillion dollars, and once it pops there isn't going to be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out.

#26 Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.

#27 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#28 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was "scrap and trash".

#29 All over the United States, many of our once great manufacturing cities are being transformed into hellholes.  In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.

#30 During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.

#31 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.

#32 America's real estate crisis just seems to get worse and worse.  U.S. home prices have now fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.

#33 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

#34 The European debt crisis could cause a global financial collapse like the one that we saw in 2008 at any time.  The world economy is incredibly interconnected today, and the United States would not be immune.  A recent IMF report stated the following about the growing sovereign debt crisis in Europe....

Strong policy responses have successfully contained the sovereign debt and financial-sector troubles in the euro area periphery so far. But contagion to the core euro area and then onward to emerging Europe remains a tangible risk.

#35 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.

#36 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.

#37 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.

#38 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

#39 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#40 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011.  Thanks to our politicians, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.

#41 The U.S. government is over 14 trillion dollars in debt and the budget deficit for this year is projected to be about 1.5 trillion dollars.  However, if the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 trillion to $5 trillion each and every year.

#42 Most Americans don't understand that the Federal Reserve and the debt-based monetary system that it runs are at the very heart of our economic problems.  All of this debt is absolutely crushing us.  The U.S. government spent over 413 billion dollars on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2010, and it is being projected that the U.S. government will be shelling out 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.

#43 Standard & Poor’s has altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from "stable" to "negative" and is warning that the U.S. could soon lose its AAA rating.

#44 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.

#45 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#46 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

#47 According to Gallup, 41 percent of Americans believed that the economy was "getting better" at this time last year.  Today, that number is at just 27 percent.

#48 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.

#49 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#50 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.

Random goodies in the news

Feds interrogate 7th grader:



Fukushima nuclear meltdown actually occurred just 16 hours after earthquake, more meltdowns on the way


International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001 (should be promising... it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it).


Feds crack down on Amish milk Thank you, HB 151


'Glorious Mission,' Chinese Video Game Targets U.S. Troops


And, finally, Say goodbye to the 4th amendment:

Supreme Court upholds warrantless search of apartment based on marijuana smell



What's shocking is not that it happened, but how little press this is receiving. I actually had to dig pretty hard (all things considered) just to find these articles.

Or maybe it's most shocking that this kinda thing still shocks me.

The dawn of WWIII?

As Gerald Celente commonly says:

"When the bailout bubble bursts, the only trick left will be to send them to war... We are in the beginning of the first great war of the 21st century."


Obviously, we've been at war for the last 10 years, but now it seems the wheels of the war machine are starting to pick up speed.

NATO Helicopters Fire on Pakistani Troops
 

Although NATO claimed it was responding to an unprovoked attack, Pakistan lodged a “strong protest,” stating that its soldiers were merely responding to an illegal incursion into Pakistani airspace.

More info on infowars

Pakistan has, understandably, been not too happy about our countless unannounced invasions and bombings. They've told us several times to back off and leave them alone, and we only respond with more and more agitation. It's pretty obvious we -want- to provoke them, no doubt to justify even more military spending, more conquest, and more crackdowns on personal civil liberties. Unlike the rest of the area, Pakistan is a very crucial nation. In addition to having nuclear weapons, they're also close allies with China. It doesn't take a genius to see that this is very turbulent territory indeed.

The College Conspiracy

I graduated from high school in 2004 with a 4.0 GPA. I was my schools Salutatorian, a Sterling Scholar runner up, and had completed more than 40 semester hours of college with the various AP classes I’d taken. By 2007, I’d completed two bachelor’s degrees of the science and economics variety, and by 2009, I’d completed a Master’s of Science degree. Growing up, I, like everyone else in my generation, was told that in order to secure a stable and prosperous life for myself, all I needed to do was to go to college, and I’d get a good job and make good money. In fact, I was reassured that I’d make at least a million dollars more than those individuals who do not attend college, so I was encouraged to take out tens of thousands of dollars of debt to do it, and society told me that I shouldn’t worry, because it was the best investment in myself that I could make. True, I had scholarships to help cover the costs, but they didn’t cover everything, and even though I worked part time, I still had to rack up thousands of dollars worth of credit card debt just to survive. When all was said and done, by the time I’d completed my Master’s degree, I was almost 50 thousand dollars in debt.

I’d been actively looking and applying for work even before I graduated. I sent out about countless applications during late 2008 and early 2009, and was never contacted for a single interview. Faced with no other option, my partner and I had to move back in with my parents while we both struggled to find work, and for over a year I settled for a handful of demeaning temporary jobs making $8 an hour -- when I was lucky enough to get them.

After almost two years of searching, I finally found a permanent job. I work for the state of Utah now, and though it’s, by today's standard, a 'good job', I barely make enough money to cover the debt that I accrued to get the job in the first place (and I absolutely despise it, too). I still have to live in my parents basement, and the concept of ever being able to afford my own apartment, let alone buy a house one day, or a vehicle that isn’t almost 20 years old is a depressingly laughable notion. Even worse, with all the budget cuts that State Governments, and our division has recently been hit with, I feel anything but confident that I’ll be able to hold on to this job for very long.   

What’s sad, though, is how much better off I am than most people in my generation, who have racked up even more debt than I have, and who have less education and even smaller prospects for landing a stable job that pays well enough to ever pay it off. As a nation, we’ve already endured a real estate crisis, a banking crisis, a credit card crisis, and the auto crisis, but the next great crisis on the horizon is the student loan crisis. When the future of America can’t get a job, afford to rent a place, buy a home, get a car, or pay their bills, and is burdened with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt before they even get out of the gate, then where will be as a nation? We can ‘rebuild’ America all we want, but until we do something to address this massive problem overwhelming the foundation for our future, we will never be a prosperous nation again. 

This little documentary has some pretty interesting tidbits in it. Unfortunately, they spent a lot of time speculating about non-related things, and didn't tell the whole story of depressing statistics surrounding the bleak future of college graduates, and thus, the future of our country, but it's still worth a watch.

To help give fill in those gaps, here's a few more facts and statistics for you to consider.

About 1.65 million college students graduated in 2010. 

As of February 2010, over 8.4 million jobs had been lost in the "great recession". I haven't been able to find a comprehensive update of that, but I'm sure it's substantially higher now, especially as federal and state governments start to take the hits.

Employers added 244,000 jobs in April, the best month ever during the great recession. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find how many jobs were -lost- during this time to get -net- job creation). However, in order to fill the gap and get us back to pre-recession levels by 2015, we would have to add (I.E. NET) an average of about 350,000 jobs a month. And this is just to get us BACK to where we WERE. This does NOT account for keeping up with population growth and the demand for jobs... IE the roughly estimated 7.5 million college graduates that have (or will) enter the work force since 2007.

In fact, there has been ZERO net-job growth (jobs created - jobs eliminated) since December of 1999. Wow.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the United States was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 it was 18.8%.  In fact, according to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession. Like all unemployment figures, this doesn't even account for college students that had never had a job.

One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don't even require college degrees.

In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.

In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.

In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salespersons have a college degree.


I could keep going on, but I think I've made my point.

Do yourself, or your child, a favor. Don't fall victim to the next great American ponzi scheme. 

Debt Ceiling Reached

Debt ceiling to be reached -- today!

And, if you prefer a video format,




It's going to be an interesting 2 months, to say the least.

1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual

It's been awhile since my last post, but I wanted to pick up where I left off. I was going to post this thursday, but blogger was down.






And, if you're interested on seeing a day-by-day account of the G20 protests in Toronto, you should check out this little documentary. I've seen lots of individual, isolated videos from various G20's, but this is the first full-length documentary covering one particular event that I've seen. If you have the time and interest, I'd recommend it.

Like Sheep to the Slaughter



It starts out kinda slow, but when it actually gets into the protests it gets very fascinating.. particularly around the 1:10 mark or so. Like sheep to the slaughter...

Not wasting any time

This is almost laughable.

National Emergency Alert System Set To Launch In NYC



Now, granted we all knew it was coming, but still... The implications of this are gargantuan.

1. Your phones will now be mandatorily equiped with FEMA endorsed microchips and software.

2. The messages will supersede all other phone traffic and have a unique signal and vibration...
Anyone see any problems with this???

3. This can already be done anyway! When I was in college, my university had an emergency system in place where they would send a text to everyone incase of an emergency... They certainly didn't need specialized chips and software to do this!!!

Apparently, now that the cats out of the bag that google and iphone were tracking users, the government just decided to put an end to the conspiracy and be up front with it! In the name of our 'safety', of course. And, i gotta hand it to them, it's a rather genius ploy. Now instead of being worried about a private company tracking us, the government can do it right out in the open, and better still, they can even install THEIR OWN CHIPS AND SOFTWARE to do it! And, like everything else, the majority of the sheeple out there who are still scared witless by the 'boogie men' terrorists are going to eat this up.

We are now just a few steps away from having literal telescreens installed in our homes that beam directly into our brains the latest government fables about who we’re bombing now, what level chocolate rations are this month, as well as Michelle Obama’s mandatory exercise program.

Oh wait....

Google's already working on that.

Animal Farm

Now this might come as an interesting change of pace, seeing that it's not necessarily news related, but if you give the movie a chance, I think you might see why I posted it. 

If one's familiar with the work, it should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of George Orwell's 1984. His other cultural masterpiece is, of course, Animal Farm. Now, I've always heard a lot about Animal Farm, but I was never terribly acquainted with it, and more or less only knew that it was a commentary on Communism, and particularly Stalin, during the period just before WWII. Like many of you, I wasn't around at that time, and though I know a little bit about what the history books say about Stalin and that era, I can't really say much about it besides that (and, though I'm not defending communism, or Stalin, we're all familiar with the age old adage "The winners of the war write the history books").

So, being admittedly naive about the original premise of the story, I approached it from a more modern perspective... And, low and behold, it was still a fantastic commentary, even if the context was a little different. If you have the time and are interested in familiarizing yourself with Orwell's other work, and a literary classic in and of its own right, then I'd recommend you watch the animated interpretation.



If I ever find myself with the luxury of having more time to read, it'll definitely be on my agenda.

Here's a plot synopsise from the actual novel, to fill in some of the gaps that the movie leaves, and to point of some of the strinking similarities between the book and what is going on today.



Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, calls the animals on the farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, "Beasts of England".
When Major dies three days later, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and turn his dream into a philosophy. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible Mr. Jones from the farm, renaming it "Animal Farm".
The Seven Commandments of Animalism are written on the wall of a barn. The most important is the seventh, "All animals are equal." All the animals work, but the workhorse, Boxer, does more than others and adopts the maxim — "I will work harder."
Snowball attempts to teach the animals reading and writing; food is plentiful; and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items ostensibly for their personal health. Napoleon takes the pups from the farm dogs and trains them privately. When Mr. Jones tries retaking the farm, the animals defeat him at what they call the "Battle of the Cowshed." Napoleon and Snowball struggle for leadership. When Snowball announces his idea for a windmill, Napoleon opposes it. Snowball makes a speech in favour of the windmill, whereupon Napoleon has his dogs chase Snowball away. In Snowball's absence, Napoleon declares himself leader and makes changes. Meetings will no longer be held and instead a committee of pigs will run the farm.
Using a young pig named Squealer as a mouthpiece, Napoleon announces that Snowball stole the idea for the windmill from him. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. After a violent storm, the animals find the windmill annihilated. Napoleon and Squealer convince the animals that Snowball destroyed the windmill, although the scorn of the neighbouring farmers suggests the windmill's walls were too thin. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins purging the farm, killing animals he accuses of consorting with Snowball. Meanwhile, Boxer takes up a second maxim: "Napoleon is always right."
Napoleon abuses his powers, making life harder for the animals; the pigs impose more control while reserving privileges for themselves. The pigs rewrite history, villainizing Snowball and glorifying Napoleon. Squealer justifies every statement Napoleon makes, even the pigs' alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism. "No animal shall sleep in beds" is changed to "No animal shall sleep in beds with sheets" when the pigs are discovered to have been sleeping in the old farmhouse. "No animal shall drink alcohol" is changed to "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess" when the pigs discover the farmer's whisky. "Beasts of England" is banned as inappropriate, as according to Napoleon the dream of Animal Farm has been realized. It is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man. The animals, though cold, starving, and overworked, remain convinced through psychological conditioning that they are better off than they were when ruled by Mr. Jones. Squealer abuses the animals' poor memories and invents numbers to show their improvement.
Mr. Frederick, one of the neighbouring farmers, swindles Napoleon by buying old wood with forged money, and then attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer, are wounded. Boxer continues working harder and harder, until he collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinarian, explaining that better care can be given there. Benjamin the donkey, who "could read as well as any pig",^[5] notices that the van belongs to "Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler", and attempts to mount a rescue; but the animals' attempts are futile. Squealer reports that the van was purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. He recounts a tale of Boxer's death in the hands of the best medical care. Shortly after Boxer's death, it is revealed that the pigs have purchased more whisky.
Years pass, and the pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and the humans of the area, who congratulate Napoleon on having the hardest-working animals in the country on the least feed. Napoleon announces an alliance with the humans, against the labouring classes of both "worlds". He abolishes practices and traditions related to the Revolution, and reverts the name of the farm to "Manor Farm".
The animals, overhearing the conversation, notice that the faces of the pigs have begun changing. During a poker match, an argument breaks out between Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington when they both play the Ace of Spades, and the animals realize that the faces of the pigs look like the faces of humans and no one can tell the difference between them.

Stop, Think, Connect

Doing some general procrastinating of work tasks today and ran across this video... thought that it was worth sharing.



Also, while the world is distracted with Osama, we've all but forgotten about the nuclear disaster just downwind from us. I've been following it when I can, but news is getting increasingly harder to find. Here's a little update.



And, as far as the police state goes, just one small update for today:

Obama Administration Fights to Allow Warrantless GPS Tracking

I believe the key word there is 'warrantless'.


And, incase you want a little update on Libya:




I think it's interesting to note that the French people have such disdain for their president and the war in general, while here in the states, the whole Osama thing worked like a charm to quell almost all of that dissent. Funny, I thought we were there for humanitarian reasons, not terrorists. But then again, most Americans probably don't even know -that- ...

But how couldn't they? What's more humanitarian than this?



I saw an article about this in my local newspaper today... granted, it was a very small, almost hidden little blip, but it was there, so I guess that counts for something. Now the question that comes to mind is why would 600 people want to flee Libya on a rickity little boat like that? Why on earth would they be so desperate to get out of there that they're willing to leave their entire lives behind and risk death just to get away? Don't they know that we're there to protect them, and to save them from an evil, tyrannical, militant empire hellbent on bloodshed and global domination of world resources?

Oh wait....

Oh well, American Idol's on tonight. I can rest easy knowing that we're making the world a safer place, one war at a time.

For lols

I couldn't help but post this before slinking home for the day:

School district to give away iPod, laptop to children who participate in vaccination contest

Incase you still care

Since they can do it far better than I can, with my current time commitments being what they are.

10 facts that prove the bin laden fable is a contrived hoax

Pretty much sums up everything that I've been bloggin about for the last week regarding our man Osama.



Unfortunately, I was out of town when all these 'videos' were released, so I haven't had the opportunity to look them over in great detail for myself just yet. However, when the story broke, I was watching a local news station, and even the fucking news anchor was commenting on how it didn't really seem to look like the real Osama.

Maybe they really are starting to overplay their hand?


Anyway, on a completely unrelated note, I saw this article on Yahoo news today:

America’s Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts

Nothing groundbreaking, but still a fun little watch for something from yahoo.

Breaking News: Several more countries ditching the dollar

So, Thursday I made a blog post that explained how Gaddafi wanted to create a new gold-backed currency for oil trade -- the Dinar. This would have obviously had some serious consequences for the US, which would have had ended our ability to print money to buy oil with and instead required us to purchase oil with gold (which we don't have that much of, all things considered). I then went on to explain (or rather, link to a video that explained) the petro-dollar system, and alluded to the fact that, once enough countries backed out of the petro-dollar system, we'd finally see the total collapse of the US currency.

Well, it appears that Japan, China, and South Korea have established their own bi-lateral trade agreements, similar to those that China and Russia established with each other just a short while ago.

Asian trio to study dollar alternative: report

Remember what I said about quietly backing away to get to the elevator?

But it's not just them... India and Iran want out too!

Oh, but wait, there's more!

China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings                



0.0 !!!!




So much for quietly backing away... that more like an outright sprint! And in addition to this being, among other things, not a great show of faith in the US by the Chinese, this almost guarentees that we'll be seeing new waves of Quantitative Easing... With China selling, not buying, American debt, we have no choice but to print the money that we need directly (I.E. Quantitative Easing). This, of course, leads to the graph of the money supply looking like this:

Expect to see another 90 degree jump in just a few months.

Lets climb a little higher before we jump to our deaths, shall we?

Seriously people, this is -not- good news. The US economy is beyond fucked, and the dam that is holding it all together just got a few more leaks. As we continue to loose our footing as the global super power, I can only imagine what will happen. I don't know everything, but I have a hunch that America won't go down without a fight.

More lies

So lets sum up what we have so far, shall we?

The fierce firefight did not occur.
Osama bin Laden did not hide behind his wife, or even the woman.
Bin Laden was not armed.
It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but the wife of an aide.
It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.

To quote an infowars article:

Every original story detail has been changed.
Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?

The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

Now, we find out that the photograph of Obama and his staff watching 'live' as Osama was 'killed' was also a fake.

To quote Hillary Clinton:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she has "no idea" what she was watching with President Obama and his national security staff when the photographer snapped a picture showing her with her hand on her mouth and a tense expression.... "I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs. So, it may have no great meaning whatsoever."

Yeah, that's right... Allergies.

As Paul Roberts points out:

The White House had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time, with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight.... No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?

Wait a second... about those SEAL cameras... yeah... That never happened either! Why? at 10:30 AM today, Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off. "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."

Yup, another BLATANT FUCKING LIE. I swear, people... I don't know what's more sickening and absurd... The arrogance and sloppiness of these government lies, or the fact that the general masses eat them up like a fat kid eats up candy, never questioning a damn thing for a damn second.

The only thing that makes me even more angry are fucktards like this:



I can't help but wonder how someone so obviously dimwitted ends up having the fortune to have a gun, a 4-wheeler, and all that beautiful property to enjoy them on, while I still can't get out of my parents basement.

Oh well. Tune in tomorrow, for what I'm sure will be yet another dramatic twist in this incredulous story.

Ground Troops in Libya

Since everyone seems to have forgotten that we're currently in 3 different wars still, I wanted to post this video that I came across yesterday.



So much for the 'no fly zone' only. Honestly, the only thing that surprised me was that it took this long to get there.

Gaddafi gold-for-oil, dollar-doom plans behind Libya 'mission'?

Just a little more evidence going back to a post I made a few days ago... To me, it's a rather convincing argument, especially if you consider that we've literally invaded every single country that has threatened to get off the petrodollar system.



And, speaking of the petrodollar system, here's an interesting little video that says what I've been saying for YEARS... the collapse of the dollar will occur the second that enough countries decide to abandon the petrodollar system and the US dollar as the reserve currency... and many countries cant to get off of it, not only because they're getting fed up with the American dominance of this system, but because the dollar is plummeting in value. China and Russia have already gotten away from this system in their bi-lateral trade... Of course, unlike Iraq and Libya, we can't just go in there and kick their ass. I suspect that more counties will enter in to trade agreements with them, since now smaller nations will have the protection from two major superpowers.




When I have this conversation with people, a question that I commonly get is "well, why aren't countries getting out of the dollar faster if they think it's going to collapse?" The answer is very simple. International markets work very much like Wall Street. If one country were to all the sudden just 'bail out' of the dollar (besides taking a temporary (but recoverable) financial punch in the gut) it would cause MASS panic that would seep through the entire system. To expand upon my analogy, prior to the original great depression, JP morgan, the Rockerfellers, the Rothschilds, and several other prominant bankers slowly and quietly started selling off their holdings. If they'd done this all at once, the panic would have triggered the decline of the system at an inopportune time. By 'sneaking out' of the market, they were able to maintain control of it, maximize their profits and minimize their losses. Then, when the system collapsed, they were able to reap MASSIVE benefits (if you're not familiar with this story, then I suggest you do some research into the original great depression). To put it another way, if you're trapped on a sky skraper and you notice a prominent threat, like a fire or a bomb, you don't want to scream about it at the top of your lungs, because the panic that creates will make it harder for you to ensure your own safety. What an self-preserving individual would do is wait until he safely got to the bottom of the sky scraper before alerting others.

This is very much what's going on with the US economy. In fact, just the other day, China announced that it will Reduce its U.S. Debt Holdings by $249 Billion. Small as it might be in the grand scheme of things, this is a sharp reversal of trends, and effectively, the first step towards the elevator. Many people are still suspicious that Japan might need to cash in on its treasuries to help pay for the recovery too... This remains to be seen, but it could mean some pretty rough times if that does happen.

When is it okay to party in the streets?

When it's endorsed by the government, of course.

I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of this.

First of all, we have an instance where riot police used LRAD, tear gas, and mace on college students celebrating at an annual party:





And then, we have an undoubtedly much larger and, presumably, more wild (as evidenced by people hanging off of light poles) party outside of washington DC, celebrating the death of Osama.



So where was the riot police there? Call me crazy, but that crowd looked far more wild (and FAR stupider) than the college crowd they attacked.

Oh right... Government endorsed idiocy prevails.

In the News

Just wanted to do a quick update of what I thought to be some interesting stories in the news over the past few days while the world's been obsessing over Osama.

BUT FIRST... More developments in the Osama Myth! I -really- don't like to keep obsessing over this, but I found these to be worth while.

First of all, on the front page of my own local newspaper, I come across this story which reveals that, contrary to the official Whitehouse story, Osama was unarmed during the raid. Here's a quote from this article.

“Bin Laden was then shot and killed,” Carney said. “He was not armed.”

That was one of many official details that have changed in the two days since bin Laden was killed. The White House misidentified which of bin Laden’s sons was killed — it was Hamza, not Khalid. Officials incorrectly said bin Laden’s wife died in gunfire while serving as his human shield. That was actually bin Laden’s aide’s wife, and she was just caught in cross fire, the White House said Tuesday.

Carney attributed those discrepancies to the fog of war, saying the information was coming in bit by bit and was still being reviewed.

“We provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you, and through you the American public, about the operation and how it transpired and the events that took place there in Pakistan,” Carney told reporters Tuesday. “And obviously some of the information came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on.”

Now, frankly I don't care if he was armed or not, and that's really not the point in my opinion.. The point is that it's yet -another- inconsistency in the official story. Now, call me crazy, but if it really happened you'd think they could have taken a few minutes to get some details like that sorted out before they released it to the press, and that information wouldn't have to come in 'bit by bit'. To me, this just reeks of a fabrication, and attempting to cover up inconstancy in lies with more lies.  

And it seems unlikely that they're going to release those photos of Osama's corpse. So, it's becoming more and more likely that the only evidence we're going to have that this happened is the almighty word of our government. But surely they would never lie to us!

And, lastly, I ran across this earlier today, and found it rather interesting: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik admitted that Bin Laden has been dead since 2001. Infact, he is even prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack.

I'm highly suspicious that this would ever be allowed to happen, and even if it does, it's even less likely that it would accomplish anything, but good for him anyway. I sincerely hope he does take it to the federal grand jury. 

Not wanting to fall victim to the great Osama distraction, however, I'm here to remind you that there's still a world out there, and real things are still happening. Like the depression.

And how's this for depressing: 1 in 7 Americans receive food stamps. But don't worry, though.... JP Morgan is making a killing off of the 15% of the country who can't afford to feed themselves.

And while we're at it, here's some depressing statistics about the US economy... and some sickening statistics on one of the main reasons why we got here: Outsourcing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Commerce Department shows that US multinational corporations cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s, while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. According to Forbes, the US has lost over 50,000 jobs every MONTH since China joined the World Trade Organization. In 2000, there were 72 million middle-class jobs: manufacturing, construction, FIRE, transportation, etc; today, there are 65 million jobs. This means that  we have lost 10% of our middle class supporting jobs that have, for the most part, been replaced these with part-time jobs, temporary jobs, or no jobs at all. (source). According to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries accounted for 40 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months but only 14 percent of the job growth.  Lower wage industries accounted for just 23 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months and a whopping 49 percent of the job growth.

Still think the US economy is going to recover?  All these facts aside... The dollar collapse aside... Hyperinflation, the national debt, Medicare/Medicade, food shortages, unsustainable wars, and everything else aside, there's one GARGANTUAN fallacy in thinking that the US economy will ever recover.

What is that, you might ask? Simple... It's the foundation upon which the future of this country will be built.. And something that I am entirely too familiar with: Student Loan Debt. This is another big issue for me, and something that I'll elaborate more on in a future post, but let me leave you with this point of consideration.

Student loan debt in the US is second only to mortgage debt... it surpasses all credit card debt, personal loan debt, and all other debt in the nation. In fact, student loan debt is approaching $1 trillion dollars at a rate of over $3K a second. You can watch it escalate here. Over 2/3 of college graduates have student loan debt, and the average amount of this debt is about $25-30K, with some unfortunate souls well into the 100K-200K mark. Interest rates for student loans can be in the upper 20%, and students today are graduating into an economy where you're literally lucky to get a job at McDonald's, as we saw above. And I've got far, far more gruesome statistics to share with you later. So, I ask you to think about this for a second... what kind of future does the US have if all of this is the foundation upon which we are building?

My opinion? Not much. Not much at all.