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Thursday, August 25, 2011

3

We haven't made televisions in the USA for decades now. Foreign car companies offer better quality products overall, etc. etcetera. The one thing we'd had going for us was our farm land food production. But government subsidies of less than desirable 'agribiz' crop choices and farming methods are going to cost us that as well as topsoil depths decrease -- and this doesn't even factor in the loss of the use of farm land as residential housing expands exponentially (and water once used for irrigation goes to raising lawn grass and household uses).
Google: topsoil loss usa

For example, look at corn production. Subsidizing corn ethanol is foolish, once you crunch the numbers. And the new acreage being put into raising corn is marginal land that requires more care and is more susceptible to erosion of topsoil (that took eons to build up).
Note: Some regions in the world are increasing the depth of their topsoil by simply using appropriate crop selection and methods. [There are not many farmers really left in this country by that definition, plus there are few subsidies for what few small farmers there are).]

Instead of continuing to subsidize corn for fuel, we need to dramatically increase R&D of "cellulosic ethanol". By using the native switch grasses on marginal land that originally built up the soil (and corn stalks, etc.), we can establish a perpetually profitable renewable resource -- instead of letting greedy gut American agribiz corporations "sell us down the river" (literally). Land is the only "real" wealth there is in the world and we're letting it slip between our grubby fingers
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/The-lowdown-on-topsoil-It-s-disappearing-1262214.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/business/13erosion.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol
http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-06-23-congress-about-to-let-agribiz-get-liberal-with-pesticides
A proposed financial reform law would require companies to report the ratio between what it pays its CEOs and what its average employee earns. [The average CEO currently earns 300 times what the average worker does / up from 40 times in the 1970s.] Of course, big companies oppose this. Especially since this could influence corporate tax reform. Many firms pay their executives more than they do in taxes.
Do companies want to hide CEO pay?
http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/07/01/corporate_pay_gap
July 19, 2011   
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury

 
Doonesbury
This is a supplement to postings entitled 'Solutrean Connection' & 'New World's Doggerland Immigrants'. Keep in mind that history does tend to repeat itself - "aka" - Second verse, same as the first...

Doggerland: Lost Beneath The Waves / video (03:57)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf5rryrEVYQ

Still interested?

select video from --
http://wn.com/paleolithic_stone_age_period
1st -- Stone Age Atlantis 1-7
then - Stone Age Atlantis 5-7

Still going? then:
Stories from the Stone Age 2 of 15
Ancient Europeans settled in America says artifacts unearthed in the Chesapeake Bay. About 18,000 years ago, Solutrean hunters followed seals and other marine mammals across a partially frozen north Atlantic Ocean to the New World... "Pre-Clovis is a fact in North and South America," archaeologist Michael Collins of the University of Texas at Austin said this year at a symposium on the topic... Pre-Clovis culture represents a transition between Solutrean and Clovis cultures, according to Stanford. Not only do the pre-Clovis sites fill the time gap, but they are conveniently located near the Atlantic coast of Europe and North America, he noted. The Solutrean people lived about 16,000 to 22,000 years ago.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1630309/posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean
Doggerland is a name given by archaeologists and geologists to a former landmass in the southern North Sea that connected the island of Great Britain to mainland Europe during and after the last Ice Age before it was finally submerged by rising sea levels about 8000 years ago.
http://tinyurl.com/5w3lqm4

Did people such as the Doggerlanders enter North America from the east concurrently with peoples entering the Americas from the west (Bering Strait)? I think so, yes. Consider that when sea levels were at even lower levels "prior" to 11,000B.C. (before Doggerland began to be flooded), 'water migration' routes along the edges of 'continental shelves' were more conducive to migration -- not only from Asia to western America, but also from Europe to eastern America. Also, take into consideration that there have been peoples adapted to living north of the Arctic Circle for at least 18,000+ years.
Note: Upper Paleolithic style spear points distinctive of European peoples have been excavated from the Chesapeake Bay embankments in layers dated prior to 11,000 BCE.
Note: All human artifacts in this region disappear concurrent with the Canadian comets strike of 11,000B.C.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30508
http://www.snowwowl.com/peopleinuit2.html

Continental Shelf:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Continental_shelf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
"For decades, the tug-of-war between left and right has kept government's share of the economy nearly constant, around 19 percent of GDP. But in what you might call the revenge of Lyndon Johnson, the ballooning cost of Medicare is poised to tilt the [current budget debate] decisively toward liberalism."

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/douthat-the-method-to-their-madness-1606351.html

[If you've seen the Medicare billing of anyone at all, then you know how it feeds the ballooning of medical costs. Getting rich is still the #1 reason that people choose to become doctors.]
In 2009, 51% of American households paid 'no' (zero) income tax. And 30% made money via the "Earned Income Tax Credit" (a policy to encourage low-income Americans to work by refunding tax money through the 'tax code'). The tax system not only collects funds, but also re-distributes wealth -- as with "tax breaks" aka "tax expenditures"  
[Note: Many Americans who pay no income tax do pay payroll taxes (SS, Medicaire, etc.]
http://tinyurl.com/3nbrttn

[Even though what Cornyn says is true, note he made no mention of the fact that a higher percentage of big corporations pay no federal income tax. Hmmm -- I wonder why not?]
The 'popular' notion is that it's the people receiving "social welfare" who have developed an 'entitlement mentality' in this country. We forget that "corporate welfare" recipients have the original mega-Entitlement Mentality ("blue-bloods", "silver spoons"...) Over half of big corporations pay no federal taxes due to special tax laws and subsidies made just for them. Is it any wonder that they feel entitled?

Define: Entitlement - a government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group.

Republicans defend their special entitlement groups just as the Democrats do. The problem is that they're both doing it so successfully that the 'middle class' is shrinking. So, excuse me if I hold both parties in equal disdain.

Note: Democrats who are wealthy are easy to understand - they can afford to be magnanimous. But staunch Republicans who are poor are a mystery to me -- makes me wonder about the poor whites who fought for the Confederacy. [I know that when a slave owner had hazardous work to be done, he'd not allow his slaves to do it. Instead he'd hire a "free" person to do it. After all, why would the master risk damage to valuable 'property' when he was "entitled" to bring in an 'expendable' worker.] Why fight to preserve a such system?
North Carolina, home state of "laissez faire" activist and newly elected 'Tea Party' Congresswoman "Renee Ellmers", has the dubious distinction of using more antibiotics for livestock production than the entire United States uses for humans.  Chickens, cattle and hogs are fed antibiotics not on a case-specific basis to treat disease, but indiscriminately to make them grow faster -- which increases profit margins for livestock producers -- and prevent disease from teeming in 'filthy conditions'. "Industrial farmers" (agribiz) literally add antibiotics to livestock's food and water, so they are all medicated.

This excessive use of antibiotics in food production is leading to the creation of 'antibiotic-resistant' disease. Medical overuse of antibiotics in humans is one aspect, but the greatest, and most hidden, factor is the extreme and indiscriminate use of antibiotics in food production. It's been unclear just how many antibiotics were really used in the manufacturing of our food -- until now....
http://tinyurl.com/3mv255d

An example of how this works has been playing out in the European 'E.coli' "superbug" headlines lately [you already know about MRSA, etc. in the USA]. This particular 'e.coli' variation is a member of the O104 strain, and O104 strains 'had been' almost never (normally) resistant to antibiotics. In order for them to acquire this resistance, they must be repeatedly exposed to antibiotics in order to provide the "mutation pressure" that nudges them toward complete drug immunity.

Take Action:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/750/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7103

Meanwhile, I suppose it's 'busine$$ as usual' / "lai$$ez faire" / '$urvival of the Fittest' / or at least the 'luckiest' as determined by random chance...
Daily, I record onto VHS tape the half hour showing of 'Joyce Meyer Ministries' (for my mother). Meyer has an astounding number of episodes that keeps it fresh. You can watch them either on TV or on-line.
http://www.joycemeyer.org/home.aspx
Although I don't buy into some of the underlying 'fundamentalism', she does have a very good understanding of applying spiritual Godly principles in daily life. And she knows how to communicate it well.

My point: Her husband, Dave Meyer, made a full program appearance at their the 4th of July conference. Appropriately, it's entitled "Maintaining Godly Heritage" in America. He talks about the importance of historical knowledge and the understanding of the values that our republic was founded upon in a respectable no-nonsense manner that provides a good 'starting point' for those listening who didn't already know what he presented (though it is over simplified). He, also, does a good job in telling how we developed an "entitlement mentality" in this country beginning with the New Deal in 1933 and onward.
[Note: It's very appropriate that they decided to present this lesson in El Paso. My friend lives in El Paso and he is very aware of how our future hinges on the Americanization of our new immigrants. He's also aware of their underlying hunger for 'law and order' -- something that Judeo-Christianity begins with (in the Ten Commandments, etc.). As a retired teacher, he's also knows how the 'entitlement trap' undermines this.]  

And so, without further ado --
Dave Meyer's "Maintaining Our Godly Heritage" episode / I suggest starting at 10:30:
http://tinyurl.com/69c3qaf