Don’t Fear the Truth

Shane October 30th, 2007

So my wife was watching Desperate Housewives last night, and the episode is about the women not liking a fountain the gay couple next door had installed. Its big, loud, and shiny. At one point, one of them says a quote and I know I have heard it before, but can’t quite place it. I found it. This is probably one of the most important quotes/poems anyone could ever read.

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

- Martin Niemoeller

Now if you are reading this and knew of this quote and think ‘oh everyone knows that’ well… you are wrong. A lot of people do NOT know it. On almost any site I go to I routinely see people making the statement that ‘oh everyone knows that’. Recently I had a guy say it to me when I used the word “Petrodollar”. He laughed at me and say ‘everyone knows of the petrodollar’.

No, people don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t ask why we are in Iraq.

No one knows everything, and I would say there are extremely few ideas that even a high majority of people know. If you don’t see it on TV, it’s doubtful it’s common knowledge.

(side note) Interesting. If you wanted to control America, what would the above sentence tell you.

Anyway, if you know this poem or quote, pass it along, many people do not know it, and it is important that everyone in America does.

We are supposed to be the country that sets the standard, not the one torturing people in Cuba or Iraq. We aren’t supposed to be the country spying on it’s citizens. Think they are only looking at possible Terrorists? Well “first they only spied on and tortured Terrorists”…

• Politics
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Shane October 27th, 2007

It is impossible to keep up with what is going on in the world. Impossible. I must have bookmarked 50 articles in the past few weeks, and MAYBE read 20 of them. Here are the best 5:

Japan starts buying oil from Iran in Yen, not dollars.

Why is this important? The US dollar is theoretically backed by Oil. In the 1970s, the US left the gold standard and made a deal with OPEC that stated the US would protect OPEC nations if they promised to sell oil in Dollars only. This means all nations need dollars in their reserves. This is good for us.

In January of 01, Saddam Hussein began selling oil in Euros. Iran has been talking about it for awhile, now they are officially doing it. Hmm… what is the country we are fighting in again? Which one are we talking about as the latest ‘axis of evil’?

Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study.

Feeling brave? Google for ‘peak oil’. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

The arguments used by creationists hold no water. Evolution is called a theory, but its about as theoretical as Gravity is…

The Mark of The Beast In An Unfree Society

Did you know you will soon have to get permission from the TSA to leave the US? Eventually you will need permission to fly at all. One of the signs of a facist society is restricted movement. “Papers please” is how we all heard it in old movies about the USSR or Nazi Germany. Recently a few activists wanted to go to Canada to protest, but were denied entrance to Canada from the US. “Sorry you are on the Terrorist Watch List in the US.” You can’t get off of that list. So our government effectively imprisoned those activists in our country. This is not the United States I grew up in…

The Surprising Truth Behind the Construction of the Great Pyramids

Spoiler Alert:

They were *poured*, or cast, like concrete, not chiseled out of real stone. Amazing.

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Shane October 24th, 2007

If there are any regular readers out there… sorry I haven’t posted in a week. Sooo much to read, so much to learn… plus with Bush turning the US into a fascist dictatorship, peak oil forcasting a catastrophic drop in the worlds oil supply within a few years… well, let’s say it’s an interesting time to be alive.

So. Curvy women make smarter babies! Down with Paris Hilton and her ‘I wanna look like a 12 year old boy’ body!

Linkity Link Link

• Psychology
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Shane October 16th, 2007

If you can increase Supply faster than Demand increases, the price goes down. Basic economics.

As the Demand for labor increases, which it will as our economy and population grow, the rates companies pay for labor will go up, unless the supply of Labor goes up *at least as fast*. If it goes up faster than the Demand, wages decrease. Think about this. If 3 people show up for a labor job, it’s likely at least one of them will be a dud. Show up late, half dressed, whatever. Maybe even 2 are duds. What if only one guy shows any eagerness to work? What if that guy is already working, and needs X dollars to change jobs? Or just says he needs X dollars for any reason, and X is more than the company usually pays?

The company is likely to pay it. I have personally seen this happen with people I have hired. I explained to my boss that only one guy is worth hiring, but he needs $1 an hour more than what we normally pay. His reply? “Pay it”.

Now repeat the scenario, but have 100 guys show up. Its more likely the company will pay *less* than they usually do. (assuming this is not a Union job - oh wait, maybe THAT why the government doesn’t like Unions… hmmm…hell this is just one of the many reasons big business doesn’t like Unions.)

Now, as Leader of the Free World, what would you do to ensure that the US has a unlimited supply of laborers that are willing to work for almost nothing? Allow Mexicans to flood our country. And then, years later when the typical jobs that they have filled are getting paid extremely low wages, you can claim that ‘Americans wouldn’t do those jobs anyway!’

Well they would, if the supply of labor wasn’t so high, and we fined companies using illegal immigrants HARD. But we look the other way, instead spending tax money to send cops into airport bathrooms looking for gay men trying to get laid. Isn’t that convenient. We can’t secure a border, but we can spend a trillion dollars ‘helping spread democracy’ or waste police officers trying to catch gays in airport bathrooms?

Here is a real world example. About 8 years ago, just before the Clinton economic bubble burst, there was a local ‘city’ (pop ~ 40K) that was said to have almost 0% unemployment. I remember one person telling me their girlfriend worked as a bank teller there. He said ‘they used to pay like $7.50 an hour there, now she got hired at $10 an hour, and gets overtime because they can’t keep people at all, there are too many jobs paying big money!’ (I live in an economically depressed area, $10+ an hour is a decent wage for high school educated people here. Many, many people work for much less.)

The Supply of workers was zero, so companies had to start fighting for workers. This gives the workers leverage. Increase the Supply of workers, and the companies once again have the leverage.

Is it not obvious why the Republicans and Democrats seem to not be able to solve this issue? Why we spend so much ’spreading democracy’ in Iraq, but can’t afford to patrol our own borders? They even took trained border guards and sent them to Iraq!

If the border had always been secured, I wonder how much better off our lower income citizens would be? Hell, maybe they could afford health insurance.

• Business , Politics
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Shane October 14th, 2007

Oh my oh my, more and more people coming out saying how ridiculous Global Warming is…

• Environment
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