18 January 2010

7 Taliban Insurgents Attack the Capital of Afghanistan

The L.A. Times reported today that 7 Taliban Insurgents attacked Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. From the sounds of the article, the Taliban were quite successful, despite their small numbers versus our large numbers. Which begs the question, if we can't defeat 7 lowly suicide bombers in our Afghanistan established government's capital, can we ever stop the insurgency? Or has the collective conscious of America accepted the fact we are sustaining perpetual war? When we get reports like this from Afghanistan, it feels like we are beating a dead horse when asking if we can win. Or if that is our true goal? It seems it would take something the scale of D-day to search every cranny of Afghanistan to wipe out the Taliban. More likely the entire Middle East. The non-combatant casualties would be astounding. It looks like we are building towards this. The longer we continue to bomb innocent people, the more terrorist we form; the more terrorist we have, the more terrorist attacks we have; the more terrorist attacks we have, the larger force of troops in the Middle East we'll have; making a viscous cycle that cannot be broken. Since there is no evidence of us changing our foreign policy towards the Middle East, a full out D-day style invasion is a possibility we are working towards.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

15 January 2010

The New Stephen Colbert

There seems to be a new right-satirist news pundit on the air, named Glenn Beck. It appears that Fox News, after seeing the success of shows such as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, as switched to the realm of news parody. Glenn Beck is leading the way for the "news" channel's new direction. Critics are already flooding the show with praise. Glenn Beck has been awarded the "Misinformer of the Year" for 2009. Making him the funniest man on Television. They've made a list of his greatest hits here.

Keep up the funny work Glenn Beck!

12 January 2010

Is the end coming?

It seems since the beginning of this millennium, it has been full of apocalyptic talk. We've had Y2K, the religious right screaming the end is coming, increased terrorism, economics failures, global warming, and 2012 rhetoric. The history channel no longer shows history, it focus its lineup on Armageddon oriented shows, e.g. the Nostradamus Effect, Life After People, and several (feels like hundreds) 2012 specials. Are we really on the brink of civilization? This is inevitable; as we all know, all civilizations fall. Are we about to entire a new dark age? Or is this just a bunch of people screaming for attention?

It seems that things do not look good, this we know for sure. Our built to fail monetary system is on the brink of collapse. At this point we can only prolong its existence. I doubt we can get out of the debt we've put ourselves. We have less money in circulation, than what we owe. The oceans are rising. The Maldive Islands will most likely not see the next century. It doesn't matter whether humans are the main cause to global warming, or if we had little to no influence, it is real. The planet is warming up, the Arctic is thawing, and the oceans are rising. 2008 was the first year, on record, that humans did not grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet. In past years we had enough food, it just didn't make it those who need it. Now there is not enough food. We are beginning to run out of fresh water. Corporations are trying to privatize it, so they have control of the resource when it comes scarce. Israel's settlements in Palestine are based on areas that known to have deep water wells. Terrorist groups are growing, and attacks are continuing to increase. America is now involved in 3 wars Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We have started to covert operations in Yemen, and are planning a surgical strike in Iran. China is starting to flex her foreign policy muscle, executing a British citizen, and testing defensive missiles in response to American arms sales to Taiwan. A country China wants back.

This isn't everything that's going badly, just what I have off the top of my head. We've also had the horrible Tsunami, Katrina, and other horrible natural disasters. And there's more still. Should we be preparing for the worst? I'm not saying this is going to happen over night, like the Y2K predictions. What I want to know is if the natural disasters are to continue, and the terror attacks with increased war responses get worse, will we still have infrastructure in 2050?

I think about his stuff a lot. I'm at a turning point in my life. I don't know if I should continue down the road of academia and see if I can help fix things through education. Or if we should ban together, start a self-sustaining community and just be ready.

What do you think? I'm not sure how many people read this. So this might be asking a blank wall, but leave me a comment about what you think. Am I just letting the "what ifs" eat me alive? Or is civilization heading downward?

(Click the title above for a short video supplied from disinformation.)

04 January 2010

Where's Your Money




A money movement has started, inspiration being drawn from the movie It's A Wonderful Life. It revolves around the concept of taking money out of the big banks that play in the derivatives market, and putting it into community banks. This does two things, keeps your money in the community, making a more stable community. It also keeps the big guys from gambling with your money. When they reap the benefits and you reap the loses, it should be an easy choice to put your money else where.

If you think you are with a community bank, you might find out else wise. I bank at Commerce and I knew they were large in this region, but I didn't think they were owned by one of the conglomerates. Turns out they are. Move Your Money has a simple tool that rates all the banks in your area. So you can see where your banks is.

So check out the site, and move your money today.