Cartoon(s) of the Week

Tom Toles in the Washington Post:

Holidays reflect our lives…

– and –

Nate Beeler in the Washington Examiner:

Home is where the heart is…

The sun is out, but it is really icy,,,

Damn! My car doors are shut. I can’t even get in to warm it up so I can drive into town to see if the Farmer’s Market is open.

By the time the su n gets to the front of the house, bringing the Subaru out of the shade, it will be after the Market ends for the day.

There goes this week’s local, natural food shopping!

Related articles

• Snow, wind, rain smack Northeast; cleanup begins – Boston.com (boston.com)

It has been snowing for the last 12 hours…

… and the weather bureau says it will continue through the evening. Tomorrow the sun is expected to shine on 4 to 5 inches of snow.

We took an experimental ride into the back country to see if it would be reasonably easy to get down the gravel roads to the house we saw yesterday… and we had no trouble getting there. Now we need an agent to show us the inside.

Here’s what it looks like with no snow:

Lots of gardening room!

We saw a “farmhouse” we both liked…

…and Elly says we could afford it. It’s out on a back road in Kearneysville, WV, with almost 2 acres of potentially gardenable land and a dozen or do mature apple trees (I grabbed an apple off one and it was yummy.)

Problems: smaller living space than we have now (future additions are possible) and lack of storage (we’re looking into the cost of a mobile storage unit rental prior to additions.)

Now we have to look into a few other things and maybe we’ll make an offer.

Quote of the Day – Looks like the Occupy Movement will benefit Obama

“While people were pretty evenly split on whether the administration favors the middle class, the rich or the poor, they were all but unanimous about which class the Republicans favor; 69 percent said Republicans in Congress favor the rich, while just 9 percent said the middle class and 2 percent said the poor. That’s a significant perception problem for the GOP, and the Occupy Wall Street protesters — for whatever bad press they have created and will create due to the actions of some participants — are rallying support against the very class that the GOP is thought to favor.”

- Chris Cillizza, The Fix, Washington Post

I’m not sure the GOP cares… nothing else that has been said, polled, complained about or done has gotten them to listen to the Middle Class that they started to disable with Reagan. The day one of those turkeys comes out to Tax The Rich and gets the Republican Party behind him (or her) is the day the world will end.

Related articles

• Mitchell Bard: Income Inequality Is the Achilles Heel in the GOP Strategy to Demonize Occupy Wall Street (huffingtonpost.com)
• Elizabeth Warren: The Woman Who Would Throw Stones, Radicalize Your Firstborn And Make the Streets Run Marxist Red (skydancingblog.com)
• Obama camp: Perry flat tax “a far-right vision” (cbsnews.com)
• Study: Rich get a lot richer, outpace middle class (sfgate.com)
• Rich Man Rules (thedailybeast.com)

Just got back from hearing Holy Ghost Tent Revival at the Timberframe Folly…

… and they were GREAT!

I’m sitting in as host on tomorrow  morning’s Winners And Losers show for John Case (7:30 to 9:00 AM) on WSHC and I think I’ll play one or two of their songs.

The warmup group was Monkey Island. I’ll play one of theirs, too.

Have you noticed the increase in prescription medications advertised on TV?

As one who takes a large number of pills plus insulin shots every day, I have become extremely aware of the number of really serious prescription meds advertised on television. According to law, prescription meds have to reveal potential side effects in the ads (patent medicines don’t… although they may also have serious ones) and we are getting so used to hearing them that I think we have tuned out on what is being sold.

Thoughts of suicide, stroke, increased cholesterol, and even death are some of these announced side effects, but the drug companies drop them into the ads as if they are relatively unimportant.  Since I have lately been thinking about the effects on foods of Monsanto‘s chemicals, these meds (a couple of which I take myself on doctors’ orders) seem to join the chemical dominance of life in the U.S.

While I want to see a healthy nation, I am very worried that we use dangerous chemical compounds more and more often, seemingly as much as a commitment to corporations as they are to curing or maintaining control over diseases. In some cases they are used where non-medication solutions were effective in the past.

It’s time to investigate this further.

Related articles

• Educate yourself – learn about Monsanto, GMO foods and industry lobbying… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Economy Has Patients Seeking Freebies (abcnews.go.com)
• Watchdog wants answers on Pfizer payments deal (theage.com.au)
• Stopping the Escalating ‘Pill Epidemic’ in Indian Country (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
• What Others Won’t Share With You About Life Threatening Adverse Reactions of Numerous Prescription or Non-Prescription Medications Are Not Better Than the Health Problems They Treat (masculinefacecare.wordpress.com)
• Think You Know All There Is To Know About Fatal Adverse Reactions of Many Prescription or Non-Prescription Medications Are Not Better Than the Health Problems They Treat (beautyindustrytrends.wordpress.com)
• For Those Folks That Need The Best Tips About Lingering Adverse Reactions of Many Prescription or Non-Prescription Medications Are Not Better Than the Health Problems They Treat (masculineskincare.wordpress.com)
• Medications Safety (lifelegacyorg.wordpress.com)
• Mega-bucks flow from drug cos. to doctors (cbsnews.com)

Why Occupy Wall Street?

Here is a video by D C Douglas that gives you 4 good reasons:

Related articles

• I AM NOT MOVING – a short film – Occupy Wall Street (pixiq.com)
• If you can’t make it to Wall Street, Occupy the URL lets you do it from home (thenextweb.com)
• Watch Live Stream Of Occupy Wall Street Protest In NY’s Times Square (mediaite.com)
• Occupy Wall Street: video of NYPD arresting what is said to be a 13 year old girl (boingboing.net)
• Sean Lennon serenades ‘Occupy Wall St.’ with Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ | The Raw Story (worldwright.wordpress.com)
• FIRST LOOK: MTV’s ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Reality Show (huffingtonpost.com)

The new reality…

A number of political economists and business authorities are predicting that a 9%-10% unemployment rate has become the norm and will remain so for at least the next generation. And what has caused this? The banks? The politicians? The President (or the preceding presidents?)

Perhaps it is none of the above… perhaps it is the mix of our inventiveness, technology and and our growing productivity.

Think about this: we make more and more automobiles, with more advanced engines and technical attributes, but we use less and less employees to manufacture them. Through the use of advanced robotics we have taken what used to be thousands of workers on the assembly lines and replaced them with hundreds. That means 90% of previous employees are no longer necessary due to our technical advances… and more of these are coming. What if the hundred worker line becomes the ten worker line? It’s not only possible, it’s likely.

I heard someone on television ask “When was the last time you dealt directly with a bank teller?” The answer, of course, is that with debit cards and ATM machines, we handle our own deposit activities, get our own cash, check our balances, etc. Do we wonder, then, why the number of bank employees have fallen off?

The people in retail stores who used to mark items with price tags have been replaced by preprinted bar codes which are scanned at checkout counters to connect with computer listed prices. And now, in grocery stores for instance, there is a marked increase in checkout lines where you do the bar code scanning yourself, replacing  the cash register employee. In my supermarket, eight checkout lines are now customer scanned and are observed and approved by one employee at the end of the aisle, thus eliminating seven cash register employees. As the self-checkout system grows, fewer and fewer cash register lines are even lit up and open… this almost forces many people into the self-checkout so they don’t wait in a long line.

The one set of industries that would employ larger numbers of people… construction, both on housing and in repairing our highways, bridges and infrastructure… is being ignored by Congress in an obvious and serious political confrontation with the President. By voting down the Jobs act (or not letting it come into being) there is no support for this help to Americans and their country.

Then there are teachers, firemen and police officers, all who have faced extreme layoffs due to budget cuts after tax income has been reduced due to increased unemployment. There are smaller towns that have eliminated their police departments altogether, if you can believe that. Schoolrooms now have larger and less teachable classes in order to cope with less teachers… and the academic achievements of our children have diminished accordingly. We are becoming both poorer and less educated at the same time.

If there is a solution to all of this… if there is a response other than absolute anger, as the Occupy movements are showing… I don’t know what it is.

This is a new America which we must find a way of dealing with. I’m not sure we will in the near future.

Related articles

• Supermarket Self-Checkouts Being Replaced With People (outsidethebeltway.com)
• If This is the Future of Shopping, Heaven Help Us! (customerthink.com)
• Paypal the future of shopping…retail, QR codes, barcode, scan and more (c24.co.uk)

Classic Proof…

Something I ponder whenever I see them open the House or the Senate with a prayer to a god that does not exist:

Related articles

• Proof Prayer Is A Crock Of Shit (truelogic.wordpress.com)
• Proof The Easter Bunny is Real! (dangeroustalk.net)

Cartoon(s) of the Week – Answering the Questions

Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

Do the rich corporate types even care about what they’ve done to our society?

– and –

Ben Sargent in the Austin American-Statesman:

And while they are riding on the rest of us do they even think we’ll really turn on them?

– and –

Cam Cardow in the Ottawa Citizen:

And do they know anything about the history of economic revolutions?

– and –

Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune:

I don’t think so…

Continuing with food and poison problem…

Here is a rather long video with a French and Canadian co-creation, and it deals with how Monsanto markets their chemical products to farms, etc. Take a look:

UPDATE:

After watching “The World According to Monsanto,” I saw significant proof of the company’s lies, ethical violations, manipulation, bullying and significant health destruction world wide. I hope you take the hour and 3/4 it takes to watch this and then get back to me to discuss what we can do to protect ourselves, our children and out food.

If we don’t act now, it becomes harder and harder to turn the hazard of RoundUp Ready Crops around; to eliminate bovine hormones in our milk, cheese, ice cream; to prevent Monsanto from taking control of the world’s food supply.

In the last couple of days there have been protests in Washington DC against Monsanto. Their grasp on the balls of our politicians and the amount of money they spend on controlling the FDA and the EPA is outrageous.

Some suggestions:

1. Let local restaurants, school cafeterias and grocery stores know that the community is not happy to have GMO contaminated foods in their establishments…

2. Start community gardens and Food Coops to bring untainted foods to our homes…

3. Make sure all our local politicians and state and federal representatives know how we feel (get them to look at the videos we’ve put up over the last couple of days)…

4. Demand that American food be labeled like European food to know when GMOs are present in what we buy.

– then =

5. Don’t buy them.

 

Here’s a PR that went out on World Food Day… Keep this stuff going around:

 

Good luck… we’ll need it.

Last night at the Sustainable Shepherdstown Local Food meeting we discussed food safety, among other things.

We played the Ted Conference piece by Robyn O’Brien on poisoning in food. It led me to research more about Monsanto and the chemical poisoning all our food which they are carrying out through government manipulation and media control.

Take a look at this:

And look at this one:

Now what are you going to do about it?

I’d like to hear from you. (By the way, we’re screwed.)

Homecoming Day at Shepherd University…

… and I had a hard time finding a place to park to get into the radio show this morning. Alumni were wandering in clumps all around German Street and many were starting to head for the Stadium for the football game.

Of course, with all of this the Football guys were late getting into the studio and I had to stick around after my show to make sure they got into the studio.

Another Saturday at WSHC.

Obama: Troops out of Iraq over next two months…

The President scored another foreign policy day following  the demise of Qaddafi… All US troops are coming home from Iraq ASAP.

The major reason is that the Iraqi government would not extend immunity from legal prosecution to US Troops if they stayed as trainers… therefore Obama is pulling them out. Relations between Iraq and America are now turned over to the State Department.

Obama’s successes in foreign policy (especially in the past year as he completed goals that the Bush administration couldn’t get to over two terms… notably the ends of Qaddafi and Bin Laden), although played down and ignored by Republicans, puts him in a position of leadership many didn’t expect. Of course, the Republicans are going to find away to play this down as well.

If we credit the Bush Administration with anything, why not the almost 4,500 military deaths in Iraq (and over 39,000 permanent injuries)?

I’m interested in what the debating clowns say next Tuesday when their topic is supposed to be Foreign Policy.

Quote for the Morning

“To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now.”

- Andrew Sullivan

… but since he’s a Democrat, the right will credit George W. Bush with having set up the accomplishments.

QADDAFI KILLED – Another turnover in the Middle East

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was killed today in a gunfight in his hometown of Sirte after a prolonged struggle, the interim Libyan government said, thus ending once and for all the rule Qaddafi had held since 1969.

Four decades of Qaddafi’s control of the oil-rich country led to advanced weapon development which was later abandoned, grizzly murders of opponents, responsibility for airplane bombings and the creation of a cartoon-styled identity used to present himself to the rest of the world.

He became the longest serving Arab or African dictator, outlasting his early contemporaries such as Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Gamel Nasser, yet he never believed that the Libyans, in the last couple of years, had turned against him.

Apparently he was wounded in the fire fight and died later in the ambulance. One of his sons died as well.

The best news to me is that we didn’t do it!

The world now watches to see what will happen in Libya as it reconstructs itself.

The day turned SPECTACULAR in one brief moment…

I stopped into a Weis supermarket, a place where I don’t normally shop. Elly needed a bottle of Advil, and as I was looking for the Pharmacy aisle, I walked by the meats rack… and there, in all it’s glory, was Gaspar’s Linguica!

Gaspar’s Linquica is a Portuguese sweet sausage which, if you ever lived on Cape Cod or in New Bedford, MA, or anywhere in a hundred mile range of North Dartmouth, MA, you would have accepted as one of the ordinary joys of life.

It’s only after you move far away… say to Shepherdstown, WV… that you realize what you have lost. Elly and I have searched stores for years to see if anyone carried this most delicious meat product with no luck. But finding it today gives me hope for peace and prosperity in the world.

Dinner tonight will be great!

… and an Economic Quote for the Day:

“The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don’t they understand what we’ve done for the U.S. economy?

“The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.”

- Paul Krugman, NY Times

Let’s see… did they push worthless mortgages and leave the lower middle class holding the bag?

Did they make millions while many of us lost just about everything because of their activities?

Is the sky above us?

Second Quote of the Day – I couldn’t resist…

“What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.”

- John Huntsman

Governor Huntsman skipped last night’s Vegas debate… smart move, I think, after seeing the nonsense that came out of it, and instead held a New Hampshire Town Meeting, finishing up with:

“What happens in New Hampshire affects the World.”

Quote of the Day – S#*T from Mitt…

Romney Joins the Ranks of the Inverted

“As to what to do for the housing industry, specifically, and are there things that you could do to encourage housing: One is, don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom. Allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up. And let it turn around and come back up.”

- Mitt Romney on the mortgage crisis,

Wait until they try to find renters that can afford them.

Related articles

• Housing Wars (thepage.time.com)
• Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum Get Into Heated Exchange About Health Care At GOP Debate (huffingtonpost.com)

Last week to get this special offer…

I need your help to keep Under The LobsterScope going… but I never take your contributions without making it worth your while:

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and

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Bill’s Asterisks and Bullets and Bill’s Ampersands (see samples below.)

Neat, hey? From graphic designers to desktop publishers, these two fonts will be in use all the time. So, for a donation of $5.00 or more they are yours. Offer ends on Sunday Oct. 23.

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A Break from Politics: Visual quiz of the day…

How many perfect circles are in the image below?:

Isn/t this a better problem than determining who is going to lead the Republicans into Hell in 2012?

BTW, I found this graphic on line and it summed up the Repubs just fine:

I guess Mitch McConnell wrote this one… ;)

Occupy Wall Street meets The Intelligence Establishment…

Did you see the New Yorker cover? Looks like the Occupy folks have connected to another level of the main stream.

Related articles

• Obama Criticizes Republicans for Blocking His Jobs Proposal – BusinessWeek (businessweek.com)
• 9-9-9: Herman Cain’s tax plan exists in another world – Los Angeles Times (feeds.latimes.com)

Just returned from the Farmer’s Market where we did quite a bit of shopping…

The idea of being “sustainable” on locally grown and processed foods starts at the weekly Farmer’s Market and we got there about 1 and 1/2 hours before its closing for the day.

Elly wants to experiment with putting some fruit “up”… she’ll cook the apples and pears and I’ll haul out my Mason jars and can them – based on my pickling experience last year.

We also got to spread the word about the Friday night Sustainable Shepherdstown program about growing and eating locally.

We also bought a week’s worth of local meat and cheese… everything wild grass raised and organic.