Government is corrupt. government is rife with crony insiders from wall street and the casino banks who rotate in and out of government and are in the positions of ultimate economic authority, including at the Fed. All policies come from there. They also lobby/bribe off other government employees..politicians and 'regulators", to look the other way or to sponsor new legislation or remove old legislation that gets in the way of their skimming con games.

Government is 100% at fault, being so corrupt. Corporations are *corrupt by design*, the nature of the beast, it is the government's job to regulate them. None of those entities could do squat unless they were allowed to do it. They couldn't come up with toxic waste derivatives and sell them, or nuthin. the government should have said "WTF are these CDOs and so on? Are you crazy, this is bullshit, these are not "products", GTFO of here right now". These corporations couldn't manipulate the (now scam and counterfeit since 1913) money supply, manipulate the markets, without government lack of oversight, no matter how much tax money is stolen from the "people" for them to do their jobs correctly. Oh, but they are well paid, now government employees at the Fed level make way more than most non government workers and have carved in stone pensions and health insurance and other sorts of goodies.

    These are corporations and receive government charters to function as corporations.. they have to "incorporate", the government could say "no", and either not grant the corporate charters for scam businesses like these, or actually remove them if malfeasance is found, but they do neither, they just steal tax payer money and re-allocate it further upstream to those guys, and let them continue with their mass thievery. It's a mostly closed good ole boy loop, with "government" being the enforcer, the entity with dudes with guns who tell people what they can and can't do. Now, they tell the "people" to always support those billionaires and make them even richer.

  That's all they do, make already rich corporations richer, and get everyone else to believe they are "in debt" to them via constant mass brainwashing.

And so on, and man am I disappointed, it's like all those articles I did, all the typing..gone, worthless, waste of time.

Anyway, thanks for making me realize this, how much of a waste of time and effort it is here.

...is that stupid looking. Government sure does come up with some harebrained excuses to drop tons of cash on fatcats all the time...

Hey, here's a thought....don't invade other nations where the locals don't like you and resort to any weapon they can come up with to stop you. Of course I know this doesn't make the fatcats any *more* money, but really....

Look at those pics....geez....the "insurgents" will enjoy their skeet shooting. And the oil companies will enjoy their profits, after first having to transit five other fatcat DOD "contractors" pockets first. What is it in ashcanistan now, 400 bucks a gallon for fuel delivered, something like that? Can you imagine the fuel an even slightly armored flying dork mobile like that will need to burn to get off the ground and stay aloft?

Can't have PETA showing up (unless it is those nekkid gurl protesters all decked out in animal body paint...)

Helium balloon for the GPS bug tracker spoofing win!

..and here I thought they just liked the taste of my corn, squash and tomatoes..learn new stuff ever' day.... /me heads to the farm n feed for USB spray.....

I could have saved confederate money and old stocks from the great depression blowout. They sold a bundled thick stack of either for ten cents at the five and dime back then.

Coulda woulda shoulda

Army surplus rifles and pistols were wicked cheap back then as well.

I have no idea what is worth saving today, but I have hung on to my old first computer, a mac 512k, and then a few more very slightly newer like an LC and some others I forget now.

Scrounger's guide to Sat TV

http://www.nmia.com/~roberts/scrounge

Free to air Sat receivers

http://www.tech-faq.com/free-to-air-receivers.html

If you don't want to go TV, you can make spiffy outdoor table canopies from them, or use them for home solar thermal alt energy projects, once you have a tracker. I've seen them used for the tops/roofs on backyard small buildings as well.

I was thinking stray cats or pigeons would be more fun.

The entire loanshark banking creating poof "credit" then "taxes" system is the flawed "trickle down" theory of economics. Works swell for the top 1% and paid off politicians then hired on government workers, for everyone else it is a life long economic serfdom experience. And people go way out of their way to get entrenched into that system, they work on improving their "credit score", whereas if they just thought about it, it is a long term debt score. Why the heck do people want to go out of their way to go into debt forever??

Why more progessives don't understand this yet is beyond me, they stay fixated on keeping that system completely intact, then just wanting to tax everything more. That's just plain illogical nutz...in meat space I have yet to meet a democrat or "progressive" who understands this *at all*, they just can't conceive of anything but increasing income taxes on everyone and expanding government more. That's their solution to everything.

As to mortgages..30 years only if you go through a bank, which is not absolutely required.. The nation is awash in owner financed homes now, and you can negotiate more there, with the added benefit you aren't contributing to this fiat currency/credit bubble mess and no "new debt" is being created, just transferred on time payments. The money supply isn't being overly inflated with owner financed or owner built/restored (sweat equity).

With that said, I lived four years and change in my RV... it was OK. You get used to it quickly. Those things are cheap now, used. The only furniture you need is folding lawn furniture for sitting outside, all the rest is built in.

Oh, boomers dropping housing..I doubt it, a paid off house with just taxes and maintenance is cheap compared to anything else, and the older you get the more you want security and some way to drop expenses. Plus it would be psychologically hard and stressful to go back to renting when you have been a home owner for so long.

I think a better alternative is to go back to the most common way humans lived for millenia, the multi generational home/farm stead. With many adults working, stuff gets a lot more affordable, especially if the property itself makes an income.

You always have a job, and a place to live, if you farm, or market garden, always, even if it is just a side job. Cuts down on the worry factor.

The generations right before me went through the great depression, renters and city people suffered a lot more than rural people with the tight money supply and jobs, etc. It was only in the limited dust bowl areas where it got bad enough for people to want to move. The ones who managed to stay put on the multi generational farms rode it out.

All my toys from the early 50s, expensive collector items. All my baseball cards from then, I could pay cash for a new sportscar. All my *comic books* from then, and sci fi and fantasy books..cash for a new house. All chucked out/given away, "no room" "don't want to pay freight hauling it to the new house" etc. Heck, even my old themed lunchboxes are worth some decent loot today.

Water pumped steroid corn that has patents on it, and is harder for animals and humans to digest? Actually causes problems in animal studies but they sort of ignore that point because they have millions to bribe with, in political circles and at the ag colleges? Those "wonder" seeds? That academic and industry developed shit that is one of the main causes of obesity and diabetes, that stuff? Plus, you can't save seeds practically or legally with their crap, meaning you are in economic thrall to some other place forever and two days, have to pay what they demand, plus use their brand chemicals to even make the seeds work, again, whatever they demand in price??

No thanks, I'll stick to my country hayseed bumpkin non academic open pollinated seeds, save the very best ones from my yield every year, then plant those the next year. Well, as much as I can, until their patented crap has spread so much you can't do that any longer.

I don't care how much you alter them, you aren't developing *exact* good seeds for extreme specialized and local cases, the individual farm. I know my weather is different from just ten miles north of here. You have academic developed seeds to deal with that? I'll answer that, no, you don't.

    If you want to do some actual research and learn something, go look how much franken academic/corporate whored off seeds have destroyed all the wonderful little specialized corn crops in Mexico, replacing nutritious corn with generic puffed water "almost could be called food" corn, and is causing economic chaos and a drop in the health of the people there because of it.

Just because you get more bushels an acre doesn't mean it is better quality, more nutritious, or even economically advantageous. It's economically advantageous to the seed and chemical companies and the asshole loan shark banks and wall street speculators and hustlers, that's it. You wind up *needing* more bushels an acre just to break even with increased costs of production.

      The "green revolution" was due to cheap oil and cheap natgas and cheap phosphates and cheap weed and bug killers (especially when they didn't give a crap about long term environmental effects from those), none of which is true any more.

I farm and garden, and you can "plant" your monsanto and similar franken seeds where the sun won't shine on them.

Now, I think your point has some merit, some but not entirely, because your analogy didn't work based on real life stuff once you see through the PR propaganda that the corporate/ag-ademic heads push out. Ya, they can do it, but is it really a good deal? Just because you *can* do something like that, make cross species franken seeds, isn't the only reason that you should.

I also think you'll find the bulk of the youngerish pro farmers today have at least some college/university education and are usually *better* at general tech than most specialized IT people or pure career academics. Because they have to use such a variety of modern tech to make a living, they get more flexible at problem solving, because real life always has unexpected problems, wildcards.

There's a case to be made for single specialization, and just that, and obviously we need *some* people to do that, the very small in numbers extreme far out deep thinkers who can't tie their shoelaces or anything else much, but there's a better case to be made for higher level generalized knowledge in the "practical" world where stuff gets done. You won't get that in academia very much, it takes out in the "field" work to do that, the ag field or the shop or the data center or the factory floor or the design office, etc. Because that's where the wildcards show up that have to be dealt with *today*, thee is no luxury of another year or ten research, it has to be fixed *now*.

  And that's what the article is about, in general terms, if you over specialize in just one thing, you can get shafted fast when reality changes, whereas if you do a high level generalization, learn several different disciplines well, and train your mind to *think* better and be more flexible, to think "wider", you are able to move smoothly from one situation to the next, you are able to deal with the unexpected better, and to grok the overall scene better. Military folks have a term for this way of thinking, because their work has rather harsh consequences for failure, it is called "situational awareness" and you will not get that in academia. Some guy could be top in his class at west point, have degrees, teach some specialized aspect of military thought and science, etc, then out in the field fail on day one at a real "job site".

And it's the same with every other discipline out there. Theory is nice, practice gets things done and smooths out the bugs in the theory. Both are needed, but the bug smoothing, the polishing of the thoughts, is the real-value added that society and civilization needs.

The above ^ in one sentence, a "theoretical" question..

Which is more practical and of more value, Minix, or Linux?

Just a list of all the carriers out there in case anyone wanted to see it. I wasn't trying to score any points or dispute anything with it, just thought it interesting.

With that said, if you want to get into dick swinging for some reason, in the next major war, not a joke war with the US versus some third world nation, like we use carrier aircraft now against, hitting goat herders in pickup trucks, but against a real opponent, you'll find out that carriers are obsolete now, just huge expensive targets. I wouldn't give ya a nickel for one then.

Happened in the US with our civil war. Took a long time for it to get back to "normality" and I guess I would say it never has really. Now I didn't realize that so much until I was an adult and moved to the south. Growing up in the north we had a certain cultural mindset, but after moving here it hit me how much differences remain, and how much the south is still discriminated against in general terms.

And the weirdest thing to me is, because this was mainly about race issues..the north is more racist, just they don't admit it or acknowledge it. The most racist place I have lived is in Boston, followed by Detroit, way more racist than around here where I live now, rural bubba land Georgia.

I've noticed a rather glaring oversight in the FOSS world. A good browser that isn't an offshoot and "oh ya, that..." from a Microsoft product. Ya, talking about Firefox. We need an open source browser that has *nothing* to do with MS windows or Apple.

I don't know if a clean slate effort would be better than a serious fork from mozilla or what, but I think FF on Linux suffers greatly from being tied to Microsoft products so heavily. I always get the impression that the windows version is the real effort there at moz central, and linux is a little side effort that they really aren't all that interested in.

No idea how to make that pay other than what has been tried before, establish a foundation/non profit and start looking for grants and ask for donations, etc.

With that said...Brazil is looking to be on an economic upswing this century, probably the best of the developing world because of natural resources and efforts to have a diversified and robust internal economy. I know a ton of farmers here are giving up in the US and moving there, and I guess I would assume the industrial and otherwise sector is as well. The big kahuna this century is energy self sufficiency, water access, and ability to also be food self sufficient, and Brazil has all that right now, plus, still cheap to live.

List of carriers and nations, all classes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier#Aircraft_carriers_in_service