Animation explaining The Crisis of Credit (2 parts)

Part 1


Part 2


Excellent cartoon from 50 years ago - shows where we are today

Muse: Uprising

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny imposed upon the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson



Muse: Uprising
The paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume
They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on!)

Another promise, another scene,
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on!)

Chorus
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Interchanging mind control
Come let the revolution take its toll
if you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
you’d see that we should never be afraid to die
(So come on!)

Rise up and take the power back,
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack,
You know that their time is coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

Chorus
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Hey .. hey … hey .. hey!
(repeat)

Chorus
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Hey .. hey … hey .. hey!
(repeat)

If you thought 2009 was great, 2010 is sure to be even better

Have you seen this? I think you should. Don't shoot the messenger:


Here are tangible examples of the Capitalization and Redistribution of Assets Project -- the C.R.A.P. plan at work - Tollcha!!!

After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up
By: Susan Ferrechio - Washington Examiner - Chief Congressional Correspondent - November 3, 2009

The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went:

- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.

- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.

- $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.

- $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.

- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.

- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.

- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.

- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.

- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.

- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.

- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.

- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.

- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.

- $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.

- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.

- $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.

- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.

- $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.

- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.

- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.

- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri

- $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.

- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.

- $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.

- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.

Sources: News reports, Office of the Senate Minority Leader, Office of Sen. Tom Coburn

Happy Thanksgiving

John F. Kennedy speaks about the Evils of Secrecy - 48 years ago

This Prophetical speech was made by Kennedy in 1961. In my opinion, this is where we are today. A society where the 1st amendment and individual liberty are taking a back seat, where the press chooses not to report vital information that the public needs to make vital decisions, where important deals involving the public treasury are made behind closed doors, and where the goal of the government seems to be to shut down any ideas and/or communication that aren't consistent with their program.

Wake Up!!!

SNL spoof gets at the heart of the matter

Hickory and this year's Milken Statistics - (2008-2009)

The Milken Institute Statistics of the Best Performing Cities, for the past year, came out last week and I have looked over them. The numbers show that the Hickory metro improved very slightly. We are now ranked #185 out of the top 200 U.S. metros compared to #191 last year. Job growth and wage growth trends are still lousy, but High-Tech GDP output shot through the roof and shows to be an emerging trend.

Here are the rankings and trends since 2003:

Below is a presentation of Hickory's 2009 Milken rankings versus the rest of North Carolina:
What one sees is that the rest of North Carolina's Metro areas are coming back to the pack a little, but not severely. I would speculate that the one-year job growth trends are holding up in Raleigh, Durham, and Fayetteville, because of government jobs; everywhere else has trended down. Only Greensboro sees anything near the abysmal wage growth that we have here in the Hickory metro.

I would also venture to guess that Wilmington and Asheville are coming back to the pack, in the overall statistics, because the recession is having a negative impact on tourism, which is a major component of those area's economy.

The national trends show that 8 of the top 20 metros in the nation are in Texas. International trade with Mexico has had a major impact on the Texas economy, due to strategic location and the weakening dollar. On the negative side, out of the bottom 20 metro areas, 14 are in the Michigan-Indiana-Ohio corridor. That is a continuing trend that I have previously addressed, because Hickory is amongst these city's that are at the bottom of the statistics.

To get a good grasp on these statistics, you can look at the article Hickory - Time to put the Puzzle together. We can pretty much see that we are in the same position as we were last year, but we do see some promise in the infusion of monies related to the High-Tech sector. That is where the future lies and it looks like we are sowing the seeds towards that kind of future. That is promising.

I believe the key is the follow through. We have to make sure that these seeds are allowed to grow and we have to keep fertilizing them. I think energy and devotion towards these High-Tech goals are even more important than money. We all know what needs to be done, we just have to go do it.