truedelphi
truedelphi's JournalA Canadian farmer made the top 6 inches of his soil a "work of art" - thus keeping out oil pipelines
And should people from Big Energy firms wish to talk to him, he charges them some $ 500 an hour!
https://www.facebook.com/353739560014/photos/a.10151237768610015.797948.353739560014/10154557272050015/?type=1&theater
If his tactic continues to work, this might be an amazing win-win for both the creative people and the farmers in our society. (As well as for the ecology, of course.) Apparently part of why he gets to coyright the farm is his scuptures that are installed as "art installations." Not all farmers have the artistic gene going on (and some might, but are too busy farming.) So this could be a good thing for city artists who unite with country farmers!
http://aluvionlaw.com/no-its-not-copyright-that-is-keeping-a-natural-gas-pipeline-off-of-peter-von-tiesenhausens-farm/
The newest war there in Syria had to start the moment Russia and China began to pay
For Iranian oil without utilizing the US dollar.
Discuss.
Please DO NOT help me with this unless you know you can go somewhere unsafe on
The internet and get back okay without infecting your computer.
I watch my computer spin out every two hours or so.
It always ends up dumping me on the following site:
s.dessaly.com
And usually there are many letters and numbers in the URL, after the Dot com portion of it.
Then it seems like my typing slows up.
How to I get rid of it? My computer is checked each day by webroot, and I am told by webroot that I have not had a threat since June.
Please Explain This -- BP allows the continued unsafe operation at Deepwater Horizon Oil
Rig, the rig blows up, people are killed, the Gulf of Mexico is destroyed, and not one single arrest.
Meanwhile we read the news and every week there are tidbits like this:
People discovered "illegally" harvesting ginseng - eleven arrests are made.
https://www.facebook.com/CopBlock/photos/a.306193338188.151724.281961363188/10152706243778189/?type=1&theater
Full story about ginseng arrests to be found here:
http://wvmetronews.com/2014/09/18/probe-uncovers-widespread-illegal-ginseng-harvest
Photobucket is losing its hold on folks -
Including me.
What is another free and useful photo website, where I can store my pics?
Where was all the indignation
about African Americans being targeted when Maxine Waters was targeted?
Why all the support for a man who failed the entire nation, again and again? (Especially poorer people, who often are people of color.)
Of course, a big difference between Waters and Holder: Waters has no ties to and no love for the Big Financial firms, and she often attempted to rip them a new one. While we all know that Holder only got where he got due to his toadying for Marc Rich, and his arranging Presidential Pardon from Clinton for Rich. (Basically a "hush money style" appointment - keep quiet about the Rich/Clinton deal and you will be highly rewarded Mr Holder.)
BTW I used to call Waters office once a month just to offer my support. (I live quite a distance from her district, though I do live in California.)
So if you cannot point to posts you made in the past decrying the treatment that Waters had to endure, why are you suddenly upset about Holder?
Eventually the contant outcry that criticizing outright CORRUPTION being perpetuated by African American officials is somehow "racist" is going to have the same "ho hum' reaction that the overuse of the "Anti Semite" epithet now has.
On edit: Holder has not ever been prosecuted. Why? Maybe because Big Bankers know he was their best friend, and they now run the judicial system. Waters eventually got the charges filed against her to go away, as they were trumped up chaarges. But even trumped up charges took a lot of her time and money. And time away from serving her district hurt those poor people in her East LA district.
The relentless War On Drugs is a War on our Economy, on Women, and on
Our ability to remain a productive, abundant and democratic society.
Why The War on marijuana is a war on middle class America, on women and on our economy as a whole
It only helps Big Pharma, Big For Profit Prisons, Politicians, Big Banks
(And all other nebulous and nefarious aspects of life in the USA.)
Recently on some topic I wrote here, I delineated the Obama Administration's tax and war on drugs policies and their catastrophic effects on the rural economic situation in Northern California.
The reply from another DU poster was immediately to the effect that he or she wanted to
leave cannabis out of the discussion, because, although this poster claimed to be "totally
into legalizing marijuana," they are of the opinion that it distracted from any discussion
about the economy to discuss the growing, selling and use of marijuana.
Well, now, how special is that reply? Unfortunately it is not special at all.
We now live in a world where many people are content with the headlines. And over in
Mainstream Media, you only rarely find the importance of the marijuana issue and its
effects on the economy being discussed.
My supposition is that the War on Drugs is a war on a substance that if left unfetterd by
laws making its growth and sales a crime would actually push forward the nation's economic
engine. It would transform the rural areas of America where the economy is currently stagnant and
people face an 18% unemployment rate into a virtual paradise of economic growth, where
everyone can participate.
Currently only the Biggest Economic Forces profit from drug activity without any fear.
Under DOJ Eric "Too Big to Jail" Holder, banks have been taught that the largest amount of
money laundering in history will be marked only by what are relatively puny fines. But
while Big Banks pay little if any attention to laws against money laundering, a guy
arrested for a single joint in WTshington DC might easily find themselves serving 47 days
in the clink!
So let us look at the one place where the growing, selling and use of marijuana has been if
not totally legalized, at least totally de-criminalized: COLORADO.
Here are several articles that spell out the "up" side of Colorado's voter-approved
marijuana laws:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columists/rekha-basu/2014/08/17/colorados-ma
rijuana-law-brought-tourists-tax-revenues/14178219/
If the above link doesn't work, here is its tinyurl -
http://tinyurl.com/k34onks
The above article mentions a major feature of the Colorado legalizing of cannabis that I
had not thought of before: state colleges and universities have had an 33% uptick in
applications from young people from out of state desiring a "higher" education.
From there, the "JustSayNow" Site over at firedoglake, we also learn that the state of Colorado
has had a 184 millions dollar increase in tax revenue.
We also learn that the Court, Attorney and Big Prison Industry System is suffering: The
Denver Post found that “the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one
marijuana offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for
charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an average of 714 per month
during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a
decline of 81 percent.” Fewer poor people's bodies sitting in jail on account of not being
able to handle court fees and fines, and no prison terms.
Another media discussion of increased revenue --
2) $184 Million in new tax revenue – Legal marijuana sales are now projected to bring in
$184 Millions of Dollars after just one year!!
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/02/25/these-5-numbers-show-marijuana-legalization-is
-going-well-in-colorado/
If the above link will not work, here is its tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/mrcxual
Please go to the above link - it is a very decent collection of truths about what happens
when you finally get freedom from a repressive situation.
Remember: this started under Ronald Reagan's "Just Say No!" policies.
It is incredible to understand that there are more people currently dealing with America's
prison system than had been enslaved under Stalin's gulag system. (That number, of people
now on parole or in prison for drug use, is around 6 million Americans.)
And the War on Drugs is a triple whammy - when a young person is convicted of a felony, the
conviction ensures their difficulty in obtaioning suitable employemnt once released from
jail. Also, they often then cannot obtain student grants and loans. They are often on
parole for years, which means that one small slip up can mean a return to prison.
And if their conviction is a flemony, these same young people may find it difficult to vote
in elections!! So the system is guaranteed their dual status quo powers, of income deprivation, and profits from Big Prison Proliferation.
Please read this article about the situation, which is so deplorable that even Pat
Robertson is saying that marijuana should be legalized!
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777,00.html
One more fact from the above article: on account of the war on drugs - "Drug convictions
went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase.
More than half of America's federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In
2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested
on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession."
Furthermore, as referred to in my sig line: "the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion
fighting the war on drugs. The results? In 2011 a global commission on drug policy issued a
report signed by George Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan; the
archconservative Peruvian writer-politician Mario Vargas Llosa; former Fed Chairman Paul
Volcker; and former Presidents of Brazil and Mexico Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Ernesto
Zedillo. It begins, "The global war on drugs has failed ... Vast expenditures on
criminalization and those repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and
consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or limit
consumption." Its main recommendation is to "encourage experimentation by governments with
models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard
the health and security of their citizens."
The Time Magazine article also points to a trend that anyone attending a California campus
of higher learning could explain to you: Partly as a result, the money that states spend
on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the past 20
years. In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on the UC system
and state colleges. Since 1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A
college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year.
Additonally the college sutdents are asked again and again to submit to tuition hikes.
The Time Magazine article concludes with this paragraph: "The results are gruesome at every
level. We are creating a vast prisoner underclass in this country at huge expense,
increasingly unable to function in normal society, all in the name of a war we have already
lost. If Pat Robertson can admit he was wrong, surely it is not too much to ask the same of
America's political leaders."
But the facts are even worse than what has been discussed. The effrorts of any various
economic interests are pushing an "All Prison, All the Time," attitude with respect to
the drug issue. People in the USA who have never dealt with the criminal justice and prison
system remain unaware of one of the nastier trends in deling with crime - although someone
must always pay when there is a drug crime, often the true criminal is too valuable to various
criminal justice officials. Everyone from t he local cop on the beat to the agents who work
the Drug task forces at DOJ, DEA and FBI are desirous of having people put in the slammer
when a big bust occurs. It is just that the Law men and women cannot afford to actually
put the drug kingpin in jail,a she is of more worth to them if they become a
"Confidential Informant." So you have this weird and immoral situation wherein a large
drug bust is made. We are talking large amounts of meth or cocaine, as well as marijauna.
The person who is actually in business for themselves will simply be allowed plead out, in
exchange for offering up a number of known users, who usually are far down enough in the
food chain that they are not even supporting themselves with drug dealing.
One of the saddest cases I came to find out about was that of a young woman, college age. She was
active in her African American community, in terms of church participation and helping with
youth activites. Then her grandmother died and left her a sizeable inheritnce. As she had
recently graduated HS, she immediately went and pruchased a condo and then began to attend
community college.
Tragically for her, she had no idea that a major drug lord was also living in her condo
complex. He was quite attracted to her, and "put the moves" on her whenever possible. His
advances were always spurned. So when he was taken down by the DEA, and then offered a
"plea" to avoid a serious jail sentence if he simply informed on others, he immediately
stated that this young woman had been working for him.
Cops raided her apartment where a sizeable Ziplock baggie of cocaine was seized, having
been planted there in her freezer. (Have I mentioned yet the corruption rampant in the many
various department that bring such young women to "justice"??) So the drug kingpin was back
out on the streets, while the young woman who had not ever wanted any involvement with the
guy was soon put in prison and given the state minimum of twenty years.
When you look into various internet websites about mandatory sentences, it is easy to see that women are often a casualty of the drug war. Their involvement with drug peddling may be minor or non-existant, but due to economic necessity they are living with their boyfriend or husband and when he is found to be peddling drugs, she is convicted as an accessory. And sicn e she is much less of a major player, she often faces more major consequences in terms of her prison sentence. (Often her only involvement would be simply having knowledge of her man's involvement in drug dealng.)
There are many other sad tales of innocents facing tragedy. San Francisco
newspapers carried the 1990's tale of a man who worked in an industrial park in the East
Bay. One afternoon, a co-worker asked him if he could get a ride home with him, as the
co-worker's car was in the shop. On the ride home, the co-worker stated a craving for a
Burger King. The driver obliged, by stopping and parking there. The co-worker went into the burger place, and made a deal, unfortunately with some DEA agents doing a sting. The innocent car driver was then indicted for transporting a drug pusher, again a criminal activity that carried a mandatory twenty year sentence. It was written tht the judge cried at the sentencing, but then told the reporter that "I have no choice; the law is such that I have to issue the mandatory miniumum of twenty years."
We have no money to help defray the cost of a young Californian attending a decent college in-state, but loads of money to put a guy in jail for 20 years for giving a co-worker a ride home.
Now to return to the erlier theme of cannabis being a powerful player in terms of its sales positively impacting the economy, here is an article from ABC News, off its "Money" pages:
Marijuana Called Top U.S. Cash Crop
Dec. 18, 2006
By NITYA VENKATARAMAN
Weeding through the value of the nation's cash crops, a study released today states that marijuana is the U.S.'s most valuable crop and promotes the drug's legalization and taxation.
(Snip)
The report, "Marijuana Production in the United States," by marijuana policy researcher Jon Gettman, concludes that despite massive eradication efforts at the hands of the federal government, "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy." In the report, Gettman, a marijuana-reform activist and leader of the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, champions a system of legal regulation.
Contrasting government figures for traditional crops -- like corn and wheat -- against the study's projections for marijuana production, the report cites marijuana as the top cash crop in 12 states and among the top three cash crops in 30. The study estimates that marijuana production, at a value of $35.8 billion, exceeds the combined value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.5 billion).
####
And the following article contains interesting maps and graphs, for the reader's perusal, including the statement that Oregon would be the cheapest state to grow lots of ganga,. One of the graphs demonstrates that while drug use has stayed fairly constant since 1980, the amount of money wasted on that drug use has continually risen skyward.
http://mic.com/articles/72497/how-much-money-could-america-make-off-of-legal-marijuana-check-this-map
Anyway, this is a lot of information to take in. And what is your two cents on the issue?
The Obsolete Man (Best version)
A really excellent Twilight Zone TV show presentation,
The Obsolete Man (BEST)
Full program, all 24 minutes:
Three minute capture of highlights
To paraphrase John F Kennedy:
Ich bin ein zahnloser Landbauernlackel (I am a toothless country bumpkin.)
Yesterday, it was with quite a bit of revulsion that I noticed a topic on DU in which people with dental problems, who happen to live in the country, were castigated as toothless hicks.
WTF??
What I wonder about the insensitivity of the topic is this: how would any one of you feel if someone smacks you in the face and then makes fun of you while you bleed. Would that be funny????
Is it hilarious? To have suffering going on in your life???
Does this disgusting stance on reality somehow entice the 26% of all Americans who are allied with the Republican party to switch sides?
?????????????????????????????????
How is it funny for people to work all their lives and then be economically slammed around by the insider crowd on the Beltway and their state Capital?
Rural American tries hard to raise the food, the very food on your plates, the juice in your glass.
Meanwhile the Congress critters see to it that the protections that tariffs once offered the farming crowd are gone. Gone.
So go into any large supermarket, and notice how the apricots are from Turkey, the oranges are from Brazil, the fish is from Ecuador.
Meanwhile the unemployment rate is 18%. In rural America.
So yeah, go ahead, be politically incorrect, but don't expect to not get some instant karma.
We deserve respect, as almost every farming community in this nation has been hurt by the policies of the elite. And for most small family farmers, the policies of the Geithner/Bernanke duo have been and are disastrous.
While the largest transfer of wealth went from Main Street and "Small Farmers Are Us" to the financial elite, and as the coffers at the nation's largest banks began to overflow their capacity, no policies were put in place to ensure that banks had to make loans to those in their community who needed those loans. On edit: I do remember a young articulate guy, a Jr Senator from Illinois, stating with great passion that if elected to the Oval Office, he would see to it that Main Street and middle America were respected by the Banking Crowd, or else, but that guy soon disappeared to be replaced by a lookalike shortly after inauguration.
Back during the time of the S &L Savings debacle, somehow the Reagan/Bush crowd saw to it that a bi-partisan committee undertook legislation so that those loans to Middle America were a priority when the nation was under siege from the S & L loan scandals. Geithner knew full well that the same laws that had helped the middle class stay alive in 1989 to 1993 were still on the books in early 2009.
All Geithner had to do was to push to have those laws implemented. Despite the two top people at the House Oversight Committee on Financial Matters taking a lot of their time, circa late Autumn 2008, (one a Democrat, Mr Kucinich, and one a Republican, Mr Issa,) to urge Mr Geithner to do that, he refused, and said that there had to be a new way - that of simply bailing out the big banks, under whatever terms they dictated, for whatever amount of monies they claimed to need.
What was the result of Geithner's policies? At least 100,000 small time family dairy farms went out of business during 2009. And those numbers reflect only three of the 67 counties here in California. All of those farms supported the environment. The cows were raised healthier, without bovine growth hormones. With a great deal of pasture land at their bovine disposal.
Additionally the meadows of small dairy farms provide habitat for deer, rabbits, skinks, skunks, possums, raccoon, badger, cougar, coyote, bald eagle, hawks and countless other species of birds and animals. In many cases, the farmers were forced to sell out their interests in the land to the well to do who come in and put in their water-robbing, pesticide poisoning vineyards, where not even a single caterpillar can sustain itself on thousands of acres of metal stakes and overly sprayed vines.
By 2011, many people were starting to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as the community and the medicinal marijuana clinics did a great financial handshake. Then Holder, the top dog at the DOJ, saw to it that the med marijuana clinics were abolished, with much pressure put on state legislators to see that it happen.
Meanwhile, Bernanke had manipulated the price of oil and gas such that it became tremendously expensive to drive. For many people who had already been reamed by stinky economic policies, this was another blow. Imagine trying to get to a part time job, but needing to somehow pay for $ 4 a gallon gasoline.
For his efforts, Bernanke was re-appointed by Obama.
BTW, my community went overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. And we also have a Congressman with a "D" after his name. (Although I think the "D" after Thompson's name stands for "Damning" Social Security recipients for their part in creating the nation's austerity!)
But people who have had time on their hands, and massive economic grudges under their belt, are not happy here in rural America. Many of them will think long and hard about voting for anyone from either branch of The One Big Money Party. (If they vote at all.)
Warren Buffet's Proposal to Change Social Security and Health Care
Buffet's proposal could help us with Social Security, and perhaps with tweaking the health care system as well. Wait til they have to sit on the phone for an hour in order to then select a health insurer, only to find out a month down the road that the doctors portrayed on the Big Insurers' website as being part of their network actually refused to be part of the network.
Nine Points:
1) No tenure; no pension.
2) A Congressman or woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay once they are out of office
3) Congress, past present and future, participates in Social Security
4) All the funds in the Congressional retirement fund are placed into the Social Security system immediately
All future funds flow into the Social Security system and Congressmen and women participate with the American people. The retirement funds may not be used for any other purpose
5) Congress can purchase their own retirement plan - just as all americans are free to do so.
6) Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay hikes will be on the order of CPI or 3%
7) Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people
8) Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people
9) All contracts with past and present Congressmen and women are void effective 12/1/12 The American people did not make these contracts with Congressmen and women
On edit: It does appear that Warren Buffet did not make this list up. I cannot find any idea as to who did.
Profile Information
Name: CarolGender: Do not display
Hometown: Northern California
Home country: USA
Current location: Office chair
Member since: Sun May 15, 2005, 02:28 PM
Number of posts: 32,324