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Friday, November 14th, 2014
College hoops is back! One more look at Blue Ribbon's Top 25
This is the time of year the writers and editors of Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook live for. It's the college hoops equivalent of opening day, or the first round of the Masters. It's time for the games to begin. With that, we thought we would list our preseason Top 25 one final time. Blue Ribbon has had a solid track record over the years with its rankings. Let's see how well we do this time. Enjoy the season, and if you haven't gotten your copy of Blue Ribbon yet,Read More


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Berkeley County man admits to his role in heroin trafficking ring
MARTINSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA – A Hedgesville, West Virginia man was convicted today of heroin distribution, Acting United States Attorney Betsy Steinfeld Jividen announced.
Wayne Kegley, age 44, pled guilty to one count of "Aiding and Abetting Possession with Intent to Distribute Heroin." Kegley admitted to his role in a heroin distribution operation in Berkeley County and Baltimore, Maryland in June 2016.
Kegley faces up to twenty years and a $1,000,000 fine. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed will be based upon the seriousness of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendants.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Z. Krasinski prosecuted the case on behalf of the government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Eastern Panhandle Drug & Violent Crime Task Force, a HIDTA-funded initiative, investigated.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Trumble presided.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ariana Grande – "The Light Is Coming" Ft. Nicki Minaj MP3.
Ariana Grande – "The Light Is Coming" Ft. Nicki Minaj, No Tears Left To Cry Singer Ariana Grande teams up with Female Rapper Nicki Minaj on new song labelled "The Light Is Coming", The new Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj written song was produced by Pharrell Williams & a Co Production from Ariana Grande Herself was welcomed.
"The Light Is Coming" sees Ariana Grande focusing on the chorus and the last verse, While Nicki Minaj did justice on the first just as she laid dope verses on their last joint sing "Side To Side" released back in 2016. The Light Is Coming is fortunate to be listed off Ariana Grande forthcoming studio album "Sweetener" which half of was produced by Pharell Williams.
Besides "The Light Is Coming" Ariana Grande already release songs like No Tears Left To Cry off the project which is Grande's fourth project coming in August. Download the mp3 to "The Light Is Coming" by Ariana Grande Ft. Nicki Minaj Below, Drop your comments behind.


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Check out this exclusive clip from 'Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines,' featuring Doug Bradley (Pinhead from 'Hellraiser').
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text: How to succeed in business? Ask these 4 execs May 18, 2017 As the newest culinary and hospitality management graduates embark on careers in our industry, four successful executives offer some tips on achieving success: Jeff Davis, 2017 chairman, National Restaurant Association; chairman of United States Beef Corp. "Engage, educate, innovate and advocate. Also, be surrounded by good people who care for the guests, employees and the industry." Lorna Donatone, region chair North America, CEO of Schools Worldwide, Sodexo Inc. "Consider all options before deciding the best fit. "When you're trying to grow your career, make sure you widen your lens to include different types of jobs and pieces of this industry." Roz Mallet, president and CEO, PhaseNext Hospitality "If you work hard, find the right mentors and the right network, you can have a phenomenal career. Also, have clarity when it comes to understanding your own core competencies. And never stop learning. Intellectual curiosity is the key to expanding your knowledge base — personally and professionally." Christianne Ricchi, owner, iRicchi ristorante in Washington, D.C. "Stop and think about who you are, what you want, what the market wants, and go from there. Have the courage to take some calculated risks and a visionary zeal that keeps you going." Visit the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation for more information on our work with the industry's next generation of leaders.


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This is a very long post and may be my last for a while. I'll be back. Probably May or early June at the latest. If the title topics are of interest, the most pressing analysis of what is really happening today is near the end. This is a pulling together of countless posts over the years and an expansion of many topic discussed on here. I generally don't provide such level of detail about certain topics because of the endemic plagiarism and pilfering on the internet but today I'm sharing an unfiltered stream of conscious post. Frankly, I decided to do this after reading David Stockman's recent NYT editorial glorifying the good ole days of capitalism. This is truly hilarious and completely unhinged from reality. Although I appreciate and respect Stockman for his unvarnished honesty and share his outrage at how morally-bankrupt the corporate state is. They have certainly abrogated their moral authority and thus have forfeited their moral right to serve the people.
I doubt you will read anything similar to much of the later analysis below. Especially many of the points made with regards to what I suspect is the coming demise of "free market" corporate capitalism's reign of terror. That is, unless I am subconsciously channeling someone else in my analysis. I surely can't be the only person who understands some of the dynamics that are endemic to capitalism that are pushing it to the brink of self-destruction but those within the current system, both bulls and bears, both supporters and detractors, are often very biased in their perceptions of reality. Many people are limited by what others tell them is real. Too many let others define their reality by outsourcing their thinking. Reading what confirms our beliefs and surrounding ourselves with like-minded people instills roteness, conformity and ideology into our perceptions of truth. And it does so unknowingly without the mindfulness of our own ego-motive. This obviously imprisons our perceptions to fit within an ego-defined control structure or false belief system. Ego-motive is nearly all consuming within people who have benefited from this system unless they have somehow experienced some crisis of conscience that allows them to awaken to greater truths.
The below analysis of corporate capitalism and its likely collapse, similar to communism and the Soviet-bloc structure, is unique and it is based on factual contradictions inherent within its structure. Capitalism is essentially a finite-state machine that is used as a control system. Capitalism is in a finite state today that is very, very dangerous. There is no way out of the current state without the use of force. If you don't understand the concept of a state machine, think in terms of playing chess, which is essentially a finite state machine. Your opponent has just checked you. Being chess is based on control, your next moves are limited to a finite number of states. Any of those moves could very well determine checkmate. Game over. If checkmate happens, we are likely to have global monetary crises as well as the end to capitalism. Not a dollar crisis. A global crisis. Something I have been writing is imminent for the last seven years as the dollar trade settlement system is overdue to freeze up, collapse, disappear, etc.
I hope this post gives many readers a greater perception of the extent of the false reality that exists in the world today. A false reality created through political and economic control. Remember, control is but an illusion. It exists no where else but in your mind. And it is created only through false perceptions of reality One day all of us will awaken to a completely different reality. A return to truth will happen.
Let me make one more remark before continuing to the post. Below I use the term state quite frequently. State as in the artificial system of control or organized polity that enslaves people around the world today. Not to be confused with the finite-state machine remarks above. For new readers or even existing readers, as a reminder to my voluminous posts on the state, my definition of the "state" is that organized political bureaucracy which exists outside of self-rule or local-rule. It is a class-based bureaucracy that serves itself. It is that political bureaucracy which is hidden from the view of self-rule and citizen government. In places like North Korea, the state is nearly an all-consuming manifestation of the polity. There really is no appreciable self-rule or local rule in North Korea. A simple way to explain the differences between the state and self-rule is that the state derives and maintains its existence through force & violence and democracy derives its existence through the consent of the governed or self-rule and a rule of law based on natural rights. That is, nature-given or God-given rights that limit the lawless violence of the state and allow us to live as we would were the state nonexistent. ie, As nature intended. In today's world, I would have to say the vast majority of the activities of organized polity around the world are highly statist. There is very little true self-rule or freedom or polity based on natural rights anywhere in the world today. What there is plenty of is force and violence that defines the state and gives it purpose.
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." -- General Smedley Butler, 1933, Author of War is a Racket: The Profit Motive Behind Warfare
How wonderful it is to read Smedley Butler wax poetic about the good ole days of capitalism. If we could only return to those good ole days of a century ago when capitalist economic slavery was the norm. Or maybe two hundred years ago when the king's corporate capitalism led to the Revolutionary War. Well, and when capitalism's economic slavery was supplemented by outright human ownership, human trafficking and indentured servitude to serve our capitalist masters.
Let's start with a follow-up to my post on the BRICs trade clearinghouse bank meant to replace the IMF and World Bank. In that post I remarked of Chavez's death and that of eight other South American leaders since 2009. All caused by cancer. Let me say that I'm not a Chavez advocate or detractor. I have no dog in the hunt of vilifying or worshiping him. Regardless, I suspect he was much more virtuous than the CIA, the American military-industrial complex and most American politicians. Especially since he came out publicly against America's policy of murder and war as a method of spreading freedom. I would also say that it's apparent to me that Venezuela under Chavez was much more free than our nation currently is. And the fact that American politicians despised him so much is some level of proof to me of that reality. Regardless, the people of Venezuela should be allowed to decide their own democratic fate and elect whomever they wish. And that is what they did against the wishes of the United States corporate and political interests.
We are going to see an election in Venezuela to replace Chavez in less than a week. U.S. politicians have meddled in Venezuela continuously and there is some evidence the CIA tried both to kill Chavez and then overthrow his democratically-elected government some years ago. Do your own diligence but you'll find substantial evidence of this effort that is consistent with past U.S. meddling in Central and South America as Smedley Butler notes above. And for the exact same reasons. That is, corporate power. Obviously, since we live in a country where the state is the source of endless secrecy, and self-rule is dead, we don't really know exactly what is going on in Washington, or for that matter, any of our state capitals. But we do know there is enough circumstantial evidence to investigate U.S. meddling further. That is, if we had a functioning form of citizen government capable of doing so.
The U.S. appears again to be involved in attempting to manipulate this Venezuelan election. (By the way, international election organizations have participated in onsite election monitoring and have sanctified Venezuela's elections as honest and valid; something that has never happened with U.S. political hypocrites who are constantly meddling with election laws, voting rights, election districting, etc.)
I bring this up because Venezuela's election is very important for many reasons not well understood by most. America has essentially operated under the Monroe Doctrine for almost 200 years. Not exactly new news for most. That is, Central and South America are fair game for American intervention whenever we deem it appropriate as noted in General Butler's comments above. That intervention has typically been on behalf of American corporations rather than any form of true justice or self-rule. That policy has led to constant meddling, murder, mayhem and puppet governments in Central and South America courtesy of U.S. politicians and its violent, covert corporate-capitalist-inspired operations. Some of this was certainly rationalized because of past European colonial, capitalist and then Soviet communist meddling. But, two wrongs don't make a right. It was also the basis of Ronald Reagan's arms for hostages crimes that apparently may have involved selling crack cocaine to African-American communities in America. Chavez's election was a karmic response or blowback to that endless meddling that has created massive poverty and injustice while keeping entire nation's beaten down by American debt enslavement and corporate capitalism. And, importantly, as it pertains to this post and this topic, Chavez championed The Bank of the South and maybe even more importantly, started selling Venezuela's massive oil reserves to China in yuan thus threatening the lynchpin petrodollar and global U.S. corporate, military and financial hegemony.
The Bank of the South is an institution very similar to the BRICs effort that I wrote about a week or so ago. This bank, formalized in 2009, is meant to get the IMF and World Bank, U.S. institutions of corporate hegemony and debt enslavement, out of South America and to replace the dollar in South American trade with a common settlement currency system designed to encourage economic development rather than economic colonization and exploitation.
The IMF and World Bank have been used by U.S. politicians to enable American corporations to loot, manipulate and dominate South America for the past 65 years. But that policy really gained traction in the last thirty years since Reagan institutionalized neoliberalism or comparative financial advantage as an economic policy and used the dollar trade settlement system to enforce it. It just so happens that of the five of the founding seven member nations of the Bank of the South have seen leaders die of cancer since it was conceived a handful of years ago. Coincidence? We just don't know. But given The Bank of the South would shut out U.S. corporations, the military-industrial complex, financial institutions and the hegemony of U.S. power, there certainly are very serious reasons to be suspicious.
My point is that with Venezuela championing these efforts at South American independence from U.S. corporate, military and political power, and its substantial threat to the petrodollar, it certainly made Chavez and his hand-picked successor candidate enemy-number-one for the U.S. corporate state. Just as Iraq, Iran and Libya that also announced plans to move away from dollar trade settlement. Without oil settlement in dollars, what else is left? The dollar reserve currency will fail without oil settlement; our nation has nothing anyone wants to buy with those dollars except real estate. Well, and a few other glorified, Soviet-style, state-backed industries. In a nation that has institutionalized a policy to murder its own citizens when deemed a threat to the state, is it really hard to imagine murder being a possibility when anyone's actions, even if legitimate, threatens to bring down the American corporate empire and the military-industrial complex?
This upcoming Venezuelan election is worth watching. There is little time for the U.S. to destabilize the country before elections but I am quite certain they are trying their damnedest as I type this. Just as they have done in Libya, Iraq, Iran and anyone else who has ever threatened petrodollar hegemony or American corporate state interests. I guess all trade is free trade as long as it involves dollar and American corporate enslavement. That clearly includes within our nation's borders as well as around the globe. You know, just like all trade was free trade in 1776 as long as it was backed by the British Empire's private, for-profit bankers debt-based money and controlled by the British trading and land corporations. Corporate capitalism at its finest.
It is actually globalization and the dollars created through the current trade settlement system which is driving another U.S. real estate bubble as I type this. ie, Dollars accumulated by other nations through the dollar reserve currency status or global trade settlement are rushing back into the U.S. to buy the only tangible products we actually "make" that other nations and their elites can buy with their trade settlement dollars. That is, military weapons, genetically-modified foods, financial products & financial transactions (mergers & acquisitions, stocks, bonds, U.S. intellectual property, etc) and real estate; all reflating their respective bubbles. For now.
American bureaucrats in political and corporate positions have actually subverted our citizen's property rights and, as payment for maintaining their global empire they are allowing noncitizens (foreign corporations and foreign elites) to buy American real estate, intellectual property, publicly-owned corporations, sold off public assets in distressed municipalities and states, etc. as a form of hush payment or legalized bribery to maintain their empire. This while millions of Americans are being shoved out of their homes and denied their own property, economic and democratic rights. Most of these foreign elites are benefactors of American corporate neoliberalism. They include thugs, mafioso, drug lords, dictators, communists and murderers to name a few. The Saudi elites are major buyers of U.S. real estate, foodstuffs, financial products and weapons as an example. Regardless, almost all foreign and domestic investors rushing back into American real estate have benefited from American neoliberal hegemony in some form or another. A capitalist system of economic slavery. Even if they have no idea they are, in fact, supporting it. Hegemony that suppresses global self-rule and freedom.
This is why China, Russia and Japan have acquired so much in dollar-denominated Treasury debt with their surplus trade-settlement accounts. Not that their statist economic policies are any more virtuous because they certainly are not. But there is literally almost nothing else for them to buy with the amount of dollars they have accumulated. What else are they to do with dollars other than burn them for fuel or buy real estate, weapons, foodstuff or American intellectual property, stocks, bonds and corporations to maintain their own mercantilist-statist schemes?
The fact that equities and real estate are once again pushing higher as the U.S. economy has record poverty aren't bullish signs at all. They are proof points that the dollar trade-settlement system is failing - monetary velocity temporarily screams higher in these sectors due to an excess dollar glut of capitalism's globalization while money is nearly nonexistent in the U.S. capital-creating and capital producing sectors that actually drive wealth creation for our nation. This is no coincidence. It is contrived by politicians and corporations. On that note, if you think the "newfangled" service economy creates wealth or even surplus value, you really are deluding yourself. It may create marginal but economically-undefinable value but there is little, if any surplus in doing each other's laundry. That fact will expose itself in due time. Of this I am completely certain. The mythical service economy is nothing more than another scheme rigged by the dumbed-down political and corporate clowns who created this mess.
Isn't it hilarious to listen to faux economics fanatics talk about the need to avert trade wars after the 2008 crisis? That it was these supposed trade wars that caused the Great Depression and we must not repeat history; a statement I have clearly remarked many times on here is nothing more than propagandized nonsense. Corporate capitalism is in itself a constant, covert system of violence. Capitalism is itself a never-ending trade war. Corporate capitalism, an invention of the state, is a constant source of violence, predation and exploitation. It is inherent in its structure. As an invention of the state that is enforced by the state, capitalism was a control system created by European feudal lords to loot the world. It is a nondemocratic, statist, class-based control system that was devised by elites to maintain their grip on economic and political power while exploiting the only method they had to accomplish this. That is off of the labor of the masses, be they slaves, indentured servants, born without class rank or corporate-controlled assets that we now call employees. And after their political monarchies fell, it was the only way they maintained their structure of class, title and wealth.
Europe is still enslaved to the same elites since the fall of aristocratic, feudal Europe less than a century ago primarily due to corporate capitalism. Who do you think is causing the austerity crises targeting the middle class and those without a voice aka the impoverished in Europe? The same aristocratic families and elites that were once part of the ruling class of feudal lords, private for-profit bankers and corporate capitalists. The same forces that started World War I for reasons of maintaining capitalist empire, power and class. There is almost complete social stratification in Europe. It is the same stratification that has existed for 500 years. It is a system of dead weight at the top where the wealth remains concentrated in the same aristocracy that has always existed. Corporate capitalism is a major source of this transgenerational aristocracy. Corporate capitalism, as it has always been practiced, (not as a democratic, merit-based economy needs to be) is not consistent with self-rule or freedom. We see that in the endless injustices created by capitalists in Europe today. The reality is corporate capitalism is the last vestige of European feudalism that remains with modern societies and it almost certainly in the process of dying just as another violent and repressive state-enforced control system, communism, did. Just as monarchies and birthright privilege did.
I have noted on here before that this control system can only continue with the use of greater and greater violence and force. You must appreciate how this dynamic is required to maintain any inherently unstable, complex finite-state-based system that continues to destabilize. We see this around the world with excessive, almost unbelievable use of force by the most outrageously outsized- military the world has ever seen. A military that serves a primary intent of enforcing a dollar-driven global control system rather than America's defense or global democracy. We see similar force being applied to Europe, the founders of corporate capitalism, as it too spins out of control. This excessive force is necessary or the system would destabilize out of control. Without the use of force, we would have already seen the end of dollar hegemony and American corporate empire and a birthright-privilege-driven aristocratic Europe long time ago. That said, I wouldn't be so certain that Russia, Venezuela, China or any external factor will destabilize this system. Some see this so clearly they believe a dollar collapse is inevitable. The U.S. control system is beyond historical precedence. It is massive in its power and has countless adherents, global elites and leaders, who have become rich off of this exploitative system. Rich at the expense of the vast majority who have suffered needlessly. You know, Adam Smith's invisible hand of self-interest.
I seriously doubt any nation or nations can take this system down. The U.S. has knocked them off one by one whenever their threat became large enough. The only force large enough to potentially stop this system is corporate America's colony, China. But doing so would come with grave consequences for the communist elites. Remember, while there have been countless people calling for a dollar collapse, the long term thesis on here written of countless times is the dollar is putting in a major bottom and likely to rise violently at some point. I said it before 2008, when it rose violently during the crash, and evidence based on fact (supply & demand) still supports this outcome. The dollar doesn't need to collapse for this system to fail. It may be counterintuitive to many but it certainly is the most likely outcome given how this system is constructed. Remember, this system eventually will fail for no other reason than it requires greater and greater force, exploitation and predation applied not only to other nations but to the American people not because a prospective dollar collapse. To me, the most plausible outcome for this system is the Soviet or Roman Empire outcome of failure from within due to the endemic contradictions or instabilities of this control system.
Saving this system is impossible once the chain-reaction of destabilization has reached critical mass. The only question is when did or will that happen. There is ample evidence that happened under Reagan for many reasons. That includes the ideology that Reagan took mainstream that government deficits don't matter. This was clearly forbidden in Bretton Woods because other nations recognized that excessive money creation by the state would lead to empire. Hence the limiting factor of gold backing agreed to in Bretton Woods. (The Triffin Dilemma is not a necessary function or outcome of this system as many have incorrectly remarked it is.) That said, the original Bretton Woods system was doomed to fail at some point because gold as a form of global trade settlement does not work under capitalism for many reasons. Given that capitalism is an invention of the state and relies on the force of the state to survive, and that private, for-profit capitalism is driven primarily by the need for greater and greater profit, a dynamic also driven by force, all that happens under a gold trade settlement system is that the game becomes which corporate state can acquire all of the world's gold or all of the world's profit. Now, can anyone tell me how this exploitation benefits your fellow man in other countries? Taking their profits for your nation's self-interest? Is this self-rule or consistent with spreading self-rule? Well, gold trade settlement also permanently enslaves impoverished nations to its capitalist masters and creates exploitative and predatory capitalist mercantilist and colonialism policies. There are certainly other major flaws in this system as well. Gold is not democratic money as explained on here countless times. It is a control system of looters and lords.
The desire for the profit-motivated capitalist state to acquire all of the world's gold is what led to the U.S.'s disproportionately enormous Great Depression collapse when it had successfully accumulated most of the world's gold or its profits in 1929. This was nothing more than state-sponsored economic warfare. The policies that created this dynamic were exploitative, predatory and violent. This is endemic to private, for-profit corporate capitalism created and enforced by the state. If you are an ego-motivated capitalist, then you certainly have no problems with exploiting other nations or people. But, the intent of discovery and truth recognizes others around the the world were exploited and preyed upon in order to loot the world under this dynamic. Is the intent of garnering the majority of the world's profits, and in the process exploiting its resources and peoples, really any different than bombing another nation into submission? Is it any different than American military interventionism on behalf of capitalism we see today or which Smedley Butler opined about a century ago? Clearly these corporate capitalist principles are not consistent with democracy, freedom, self-rule, humanism, human-centric philosophies or any of the world's religions. Well, other than the religion of ego-motivated selfishness and immorality. It's the same insanity that has created today's mess.
Contrarily, you might consider that China's state-driven trade policies today are the exact same policies that pushed the U.S. economy into a total collapse starting in 1929. China's state-enforced, predatory, violent, mercantilist capitalist policies have looted the world of its gold (U.S. dollars in today's capitalist trading system) and it will pay the consequences with its massive capitalist production overcapacity. Something no one seemingly understands as the dumbed-down economics, political and financial communities continue to wax poetic about China as they do about free market capitalism. Once again, debt is not the issue the world or any nation is facing. Don't believe mainstream media, financial oligarchs or politically-contrived myths planted by the criminal class who enslaved us to this debt.
Reagan clearly abrogated the U.S.'s legal responsibility to the rest of the world by institutionalizing the policies that deficits didn't matter. This clearly created both a military and corporate empire and broke the intent of the dollar-based global trade settlement agreement with violent, exploitative, predatory institutionalized economic policy. (Yes Nixon broke the gold peg for benefit of waging American wars but Reagan institutionalized it with formal economic policy and with the massive military spending needed to create and enforce corporate capitalist empire.)
The Reagan administration's use of the IMF and World Bank as blunt objects of Reagan's militant foreign policy was also an abrogation of that legal responsibility to Bretton Woods partners who agreed to use the dollar to settle international trade. This was the first truly institutionalized use of these systems as extensions of militant American economic warfare rather than being used as they were intended for global development and global good. This overt and intentional change created by Reagan's policy enforced the dynamic of American-created neoliberal-economic/financial-comparative-advantage between nations that enslaved global production to declining wages and American empire. It also created the dynamic of debt & austerity used as a political tool to "loosen" up global assets in developing economies for American corporate theft. This enabled U.S. elites and corporations to loot the "developing" world. Like in Central and South America. Like Venezuela. Chavez clearly came to power as backlash to Reagan and Clinton's neoliberal policies. (The Reagan administration also looted the Social Security Trust Fund and middle-class Americans to pay for tax breaks for corporations and elites. The Reagan administration was comprised of the greatest number of criminals in history as noted on here before. Is it really any surprise politicians renamed an airport in Washington D.C. as Ronald Reagan National Airport? He gave megalomaniacal American politicians unprecedented power and purpose by creating empire.)
Now it is just a mere formality as to when this control system fails. In other words, George Bush senior was right at the time to call Reagan's economic policies voodoo or nonsensical. But he was right for the wrong reasons. ie, His remark that deficits did matter was defined by the support of a faulty, anti-democratic, private for-profit, debt-based monetary system. That said, we certainly don't want the state to spend all of our money which simply enslaves us to a ruling class like the Soviet Union or the British Empire or as Reagan and all politicians have since.
The reality is U.S. capitalism was collapsing right alongside Soviet communism during Reagan's reign of terror; something I have noted on here countless times. But it was papered over by money printing and global looting; a luxury the Soviets didn't have. So much for the mythical political propaganda of Reagan's legacy in defeating communism. Reagan's faux legacy still continues today and was (neo)liberalized even further by Clinton, Bush and Obama. Reagan's true legacy is the beginning of the end of deregulated capitalism. Capitalism that had to be deregulated by Reagan because that was the only way to save it. Yes, capitalism was already collapsing during Reagan's time in office. As noted on here many times, America's peak economic output happened around 1980, give or take a few years. More on this another time.
Again, the failure of this control system is all good news (long term) for the U.S. economy and democracy. That is, if the U.S. survives in its current form. It is clearly plausible that it may not. Our economy could recover rapidly with the right policies as I have noted countless times on here over the last eight years. When this system fails, it will suck to be you if you have been looting the U.S. public treasury – global elites benefiting from American-created neoliberalism, Chinese communists, Saudi Arabia, U.S. elites, the military-industrial complex, hyper-consumerism aka the mythical make-work "service" economy, American political parties, the investor class, Wall Street, industrial food corporations, the corporate healthcare system, multinational corporations, etc. I hope this will give you a greater appreciation for why so much force is being applied to maintain this system. Because with out it, the entire Ponzi Scheme of control will collapse. Not just in the U.S. either.
This is exactly how the Soviet Union failed. Exactly. And its state-propped up corporations - control systems - fell with it. The Cold War was never about freedom versus communism. It was the battle of "isms". It was a war between corporate capitalism and communism as two state-enforced economic control systems. Our society is substantially similar to that of the Soviet Union in its structure. We have state-backed corporate and political bureaucracies that essentially control the people in this nation. We don't produce what we want or need. We produce what the bureaucrats want us to produce. Sometimes they are corporate bureaucrats and sometimes they are state bureaucrats. Just like in Mother Russia. And we produce it in excess. Just like Mother Russia. There is no self-rule in this nation.
What corporate capitalist proponents fail to realize in our corporate capitalist system of control only exists through the force of the state just like state-propped up Soviet corporations. And that central planners exist in capitalist corporations just as they did in Mother Russia. In fact, central planning in corporate capitalism is necessary for its success. Without quota-driven overproduction created by corporate planners, profits disappear and so does capitalism. This isn't some new development either. This is corporate capitalism in its full regalia.
In a truly free society with true economic freedom, can you imagine people volunteering to work as mindless drones collecting serfdom debts under the dull hum of fluorescent lights in their brown JP Morgan cubicle for the benefit of an authoritarian megalomaniac like Jamie Dimon? Or chained to a desk, essentially unable to move for twelve hours a day, staring at miniature parts through magnifying goggles to overproduce smartphones so you can have a shiny new toy every six months and do this for a slave wage of $2 a day? Or overproduce enough prescription drugs to turn our nation into a society of emotionless zombie workers fit for corporate state exploitation? Or purchase endless amounts of generally useless junk made through a nonliving wage after being fed a healthy dose of marketing propaganda in TV infomercials whose intent is to prey on your insecurities? And then be forced to the front lines to wage economic war on behalf of our corporate masters and do so for the lowest possible wage? Does anyone actually think people voluntarily participate in these and other forms of corporate slavery needed to keep this system going? Seriously? Ego-motivated delusions and rationalizations. Is this really different than the dull hum of a meaningless existence as practiced under Soviet control? The Soviets were all alcoholics. We are all drug addicts. Well, and work addicts, alcoholics, gambling addicts, shopping addicts, and on and on – outcomes of emotional dysregulation created in large part by an inhumane corporate capitalist social value system. The reasons for dysregulation in the Soviet Union and the United States are the same. Being forced into a Godless state-enforced system of control that steals their humanity. Corporate capitalism has only ever survived because the state forced people, like cattle, into this control system just like they forced people into other control systems like communism, socialism and every other "ism".
"isms" and other institutions of control, or institutions of the ego, are created by weak people for the benefit of weak people. They are created so weak people can prey on and exploit others who are vulnerable through methods that wouldn't exist without isms. They are also created so weak people can become powerful by making strong people weak. This is done by forcing people into a conscription system that allows weak people – those who will do anything to their fellow man to gain authority, power, status, class and control - to become powerful. While truly strong people will recognize how unjust such a system is and will have a harder time rationalizing selling their souls to the proverbial devil (the "ism" created by the ego for purposes of control) in order to gain such ego-motivated authority, power, status, class and control. Or a strong person will eventually rationalize the abandonment of his virtues to conform to this exploitative system. A truly strong person, one who recognizes theirs strength comes from their inner divinity and thus recognizes their love for all of humanity, understands that no person should ever be granted authority over another human being. And that no person should ever be conscripted into economic slavery or any control system based on force. The weak person almost always rises to the greatest levels of power in any "ism" or any bureaucracy and that dynamic weakens and destabilizes everyone else.
We need solutions that strengthen all of our citizen's inherently divine or decent qualities including compassion, community, economic freedom and creativity so that all people have an opportunity to become who they were meant to become. And as part of that to be emotionally-responsible and where appropriate, physically-responsible for themselves. Only with responsibility comes the freedom of empowerment. Not to become who capitalism or any other forced "ism" tells them who they should become. We need an economic framework that protects vulnerability rather than exploits it. So that all people have an opportunity to walk the path leading to their own greater divinity and power. Then all people will be raised to a higher level of quality-driven existence through the expression of our divinity and our humanity.
Never in the history of humanity have we seen such a growing global mindfulness of how insane this corporate capitalist control system truly is. Even if just and honest people in the system are too afraid to admit it. Too afraid because they are forced to participate in the system to survive its endless violence.
The Soviets maintained empire by ensnaring a sphere of influence based on a control system that benefited a ruling class in its satellite or Soviet-bloc states just as neoliberalism has for those states in America's sphere of influence be that Japan, Russia, China, emerging markets or elsewhere. Communist China, a wildly corrupt class-based (control based) "ism" with rampant poverty, has simply created a new class of elites that have benefited by submitting to the American corporate empire while hundreds of million of its citizens live in abject poverty.
As the Soviet empire started to destabilize, it was unable to purchase its quota of goods and services from its satellite nations, the Soviet-bloc, that kept these nation's peoples employed (docile or controlled) and their corrupt elites beholden to their Soviet master. Over a period of years the Soviet Union was increasingly unable to buy its quota of goods from the Soviet-bloc and the working class in these nations started suffering greater and greater consequences. In other words, the Soviet Union's empire was based on a dumbed-down, proletariat, quota-driven system of corporate overproduction just as corporate capitalism is. So, when overproduction was no longer sustainable because of this control system's many inherent contradictions aka instabilities, the system became even more unjust, people more impoverished and the control system started its destabilizing descent. Soviet and bloc wages were suppressed even further so that more money could be diverted into maintaining empire. ie, More of the wealth of society could then be forcibly-diverted into guns rather than butter –> greater and greater control needed to maintain a control system from destabilizing. You know, just like the U.S. today. Much of this was first experienced at the edges of Soviet empire. Can you say Solidarnosc? And then Perestroika? Both growing signs of a control system's inability to maintain stability. We see the same wage and impoverishment dynamic has been unfolding in America for decades. And just like in the Soviet Union this statist-driven austerity for poor bastards is sold by lawless elitist political criminals as a necessary sacrifice for our own good. Umm, that is the reason for our massive debts. Living wages are denied so that the wealth of society can be spent so the bureaucrats and central planners can expand and maintain corporate capitalism.
Our corporate capitalist system too is driven by that same dumbed-down, proletariat, quota-driven overproduction and its necessary propagandized glorification of work to serve our private, for-profit corporate capitalist masters. Capitalism too is driven on the artificial requirement for never-ending, quota-driven production increases to serve its artificial and unsustainable need for growth. This contrived system of control is need to serve the primary need of ever-increasing profit of private capital or capitalism. This control system maintains its power under the exact same dynamic as the Soviet and Soviet-bloc elites. That is, by enslaving a society to state-enforced, quota-driven conscription or corporate work. Corporate capitalism, just as the Soviet Union, too is proletariat in that glorifies work above all other human expression because doing so is necessary to maintain its control. Quite honestly, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union are/were enslaved to a system of make-work. This enslavement is not only physical but because it is propagandized and glorified by the corporate state, it is also psychological. ie, It is institutionalized.
The economic parallel today includes U.S. hyper-consumerism. This is both a function of capitalism and because it is concentrated in the U.S., it is a function of corporate capitalist empire enforced by the dollar. It would be the same were the yuan or the pound were the reserve currency. ie, The respective nation would have the same ability to over-consume. If the world's reserve currency were a basket of currencies, it would still be the same. Capitalism would still require more nations to over-consume in order for it to survive. Over-consumption is an inherent flaw of capitalism given it is a discounting mechanism for future production as noted on here before. In other words, it is essentially the same Soviet quota-driven overproduction system requiring the purchasing goods from across our empire and sphere of influence to maintain control. But rather than the Soviet-bloc, for the U.S. it is China, Japan, emerging markets, etc. that are enslaved into the dollar-based global capitalist production system. And if it wasn't the U.S., it would have to be someone else. Regardless, in order to keep overproducing we must keep shopping. You know, like George Bush told you to do right after 9/11. By the way, the pseudo-capitalist service sector is also reliant on this shop till you drop paradigm, a point clearly missed by the dumbed-down proponents of a post--productivity or even post-science economy. Now we are now witnessing the same Soviet-style overproduction collapse today around the world as Americans and others, denied their economic freedoms and living wages necessary to maintain empire and capitalism's requirement for constant growth, we have increasingly exhausted our savings to keep this global overproduction Ponzi Scheme afloat.
When other nations in our sphere of influence can no longer rely on the U.S. to buy their endless supply of excess production and outright overproduction, the control system loses its fundamental influence or power and worse. Just as the Soviet system lost its influence over bloc nations for the exact same reasons. This is easily measurable today by the systemic crisis in global unemployment, underemployment and poverty in the capitalist system. This unemployment, underemployment and poverty is massive and unprecedented in scale. It is a far larger problem than the substantially smaller Soviet empire or communism's forced, quota-driven production. This control system cannot and will not be restarted. Period. There is no recovery and never will be as I have uniquely written of incessantly over the years. Nor are we going to export our way to prosperity (more overproduction) as Obama wrote in the Wall Street Journal op-ed during his first term. Something I mocked as nonsensical blatherings of a bureaucrat at the time of its printing. Now some are starting to recognize something systemic is wrong and it is a global issue. This is what is wrong. Capitalism is dying. The horror of globalization, as it has been created by our corporate capitalist masters and their beholden political idiots, is dying.
Not surprisingly, many pundits are incorrectly focused only on the U.S. because it drives their confirmation bias. This narrow fixation or false perception of reality and its associated confirmation bias prevents their minds from seeing the true reality as it exists. This is a very key point and the most important to remember in this post –>> The U.S. is not failing. The control system of corporate capitalism is failing across the entire globe just as communism did. And that means America's corporate capitalist empire, the corporate state and modern capitalist society are failing along with it. You read it here first. I have been writing exactly this for years.
Don't let anyone tell you the issue in this nation or anywhere else is debt. Debt is an illusion created by corporate capitalism to enslave people to a system of overproduction. The issue of our day is that corporate capitalism itself is dying and the U.S. corporate capitalist empire and the financial slavery used to create it must also therefore die. That is why we see excessive use of force around the world today. The corporate capitalists are trying to save the system and it must exert greater and greater control as this complex control system continues to destabilize. Just as happened in the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc states. Once again, this is corporate capitalism as it has always been practiced. It is only created and maintained by patriarchal state force and it is violent, repressive, exploitative and predatory. Those who wax poetic of the good ole days of capitalism are deluding themselves rather than opening their minds to discovery and truth.
So if you didn't know, now you know why Japan has been experiencing deflation for 25 years yet hasn't had a debt collapse. And why the rest of the world has joined Japan just as I wrote it would back before the 2008 collapse. Debt deflation is a myth perpetuated by a flawed post-facto analysis of the Great Depression by Irving Fisher. One that has been adopted by people who outsource their thinking. Debt is a dependent variable in the deflation equation as I have noted. And if you didn't understand before, you also now know why the Federal Reserve cannot fix our economy by printing more money. Do we need to build more roads and bridges and could we with printed money? Sure we could. But Japan has been building & tearing down and building & tearing down bridges, roads and buildings for 25 years. They have turned it into a system of permanent make-work. Yet they haven't solved any of their economic issues. And they never will under this global control system.
Do you know how to solve these dilemmas permanently and democratically? I have hinted and remarked of numerous structural changes over the years. No, it isn't another "ism" or a dumbed-down state glorifying proletariat work. Gold-backed money? lol. That would crash this system quicker than anything else I could imagine. The answer doesn't even involve money. The answer certainly isn't more jobs either. That's simply more nonsense trying to keep us enslaved to a dumbed-down control system of state-enforced corporate work. To give you one indication of how proletariat we have become as a corporate capitalist society, what invariably is one of the first things someone asks when they meet you? What do you do for work? More than anything else, corporate capitalist society defines us by our label of work. How rote and meaningless that we create a primary label for people in society based on what they do for work as opposed to uncovering the many layers of their inner beauty? When your identity is primarily perceived through work, who cares about anyone's inner beauty? There is little social demand to even develop it. How often have you experienced that reality? Corporations and the corporate state don't care about your inner beauty. Or your uniqueness. Or your emotional development. They care about your mindless conformity to a system of conscripted work. And boy do good corporate capitalists love to work. Just like Mother Russia.
I can tell you how capitalism has historically solved the issue of overproduction. Well once you understand this is a control system of violence and exploitation, it becomes obvious. War. Sometimes economic. Sometimes military. What better way to remove the world's overproduction than to blow up your competition and then start all over again? Of course, sometimes we don't even need to wait for overproduction. Just blowing up the competition for profits or to achieve greater profits or new markets can't seemingly wait. Then there are the endless trade wars of capitalism. Do you know how many wars, both overt and covert, trade and military, the world has fought in the last 500-odd years because of capitalism? (Capitalism was practiced well before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. He simply wrote the magnum opus for corporate state-based corporate looting.)
Are wars actually planned by capitalism? You know, like Soviet planners? Hmm. Some certainly are. Trade wars are created with intent. They are planned. This global capitalist system is a planned trade war. Our political and corporate masters conspired in secrecy to create it. Now capitalism may not plan all military wars but as Smedley Butler noted and we see today, they certainly conspire to create some wars. And, as noted on here before, World War I was created with intent by capitalism. War is simply another outcome to the state-enforced violence of capitalism. Competition for greater and greater profits and greater and greater resources needed for those profits and the greater and greater markets needed for corporate overproduction simply leads to the inevitable. As Randolph Bourne opined, war is the health of the state. That certainly applies to state-enforced capitalism's economic warfare. Warfare that is always fought by the minions as both corporate slaves and in its military campaigns. Umm, that would be us. Bourne's remarks more pointedly are simply that the state exists through violence and thus must maintain this violence for its own health or existence. Capitalism, war, empire… just different manifestations of state violence.
Do we need to make things society needs or even wants? Of course. Do we want to do this under the control over Soviet-style government bureaucrats? Hardly. I don't want to drive a Trabant or buy a Soviet-built house. But we don't need this violent overproduction and the artificial need (control) for endless corporate capitalist profits that unnecessarily rapes the natural world, preys upon the mass of people to maintain its control, subverts democracy for the benefit of the few, forces societies around the world into unnecessary, destructive emotional competition, economic slavery, conflict and violence, and socializes all of its losses while privatizing the gains for a very few. Not through the predatory, private, for-profit corporate capital mechanisms that define capitalism as it has always been practiced. We have turned the world into a garbage dump and an internment camp for most people. There certainly is a substantially more quality-driven existence than this.
Maybe now many can start to appreciate why I have remarked that money is nothing more than an institution of control and that some day we will see the concept of money disappear. Forever. There is endless money around the world for state-enforced overproduction required by capitalism but seemingly no money for billions of people around the world to acquire that overproduction of food, to cite just one example. Ditto with healthcare. Ditto with homes. In many regards, the process of money's death has already begun. What are food stamps? One could consider them to be a form of specialized money. Or, they could be considered the start of a trend in a movement away from money. Why can't everyone have a food voucher in this nation to receive their natural right to our nation's food supply? Obviously with natural right stipulations of personal responsibility to community or a nation or whatever. This is simply one instance where money is showing appearances of dying. There are many. Is the trend of it temporary or a permanent trend? A world without money would be a far more quality-driven existence for humanity and true freedom. And by quality, I mean something along the lines of Robert Pirsig's metaphysical view of quality. Not a new Ferrari or second mansion driven by the self's fatally-flawed subject-object perceptions and its insatiable desire for amusement. Another post for some day in the future.
"My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the State. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites. We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been cast out. And the poisonous weeds of disinformation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today we celebrate the first, glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directive! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on Earth! We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion! We shall prevail!"
Institutions of the ego or of control always fail. Corporations, communism, the state, capitalism, rules, institutionalized science, rationality, university-conscripted corporate education and laws not based on natural rights…….. On and on and on. It's just a matter of when. Some may question if this is just another hiccup for the systemic violence and inherent contradictions or instabilities of capitalism. Don't bet on it. How do you plan to create jobs for the 50 million Americans on food stamps? Or reverse the fortunes of 150 million Americans who have just enough to barely make it? Now, take this dynamic global and it is in the billions. Remember, one of my long term theses is that we are in a cycle of volatility – one of the most accurate outcomes written about on here over the last eight years. There are esoteric factors not appreciated by mainstream or institutionalized perceptions of reality that are driving this crisis. These factors are are now. In this cycle. And if you open your eyes, you see it everywhere.
Just as when the Soviet's control system unwound it created collapse all throughout its empire of Eastern Europe and elsewhere, so too will the entire corporate capitalist control system around the world likely experience the same fate. Does that mean a post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max? Well, if the capitalists have it their way, then yes war and violence is possible. Remember, the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc really fell with little more than a peep. A system of inherent instabilities and contradictions that is perpetuated by statist ego and ego-force only exists through illusion. One day people woke up and the illusion had disappeared. Freedom is first a state of mind. Releasing our ego's attachment to illusions that create and perpetuate our own suffering.


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Is ESP real? 9 March, 2011Posted by Simon Nickerson in Uncategorized.
Tags: ESP
In January, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published research by Daryl Bem of Cornell University that measured an actual effect of extra sensory perception (ESP) (the link is to a preprint copy of the paper). Basically, the subjects in his experiments were able to guess the outcome of a random event – before it happened – with a small, but statistically significant, margin greater what you expect from just random luck. Jonah Lehrer of Wired has a good summary.
It's pretty startling to find something like this in a mainstream journal – the journal felt the need to include an editorial comment stating
To some of our readers it may be both surprising and disconcerting that we have decided to publish Bem's article … We openly admit that the reported findings conflict with our own beliefs about causality and that we find them extremely puzzling. Yet, as editors we were guided by the conviction that this paper—as strange as the findings may be—should be evaluated just as any other manuscript on the basis of rigorous peer review. Our obligation as journal editors is not to endorse particular hypotheses but to advance and stimulate science through a rigorous review process.
The research sparked a number of different responses in the scientific community. First, there was the "there must be something wrong with the experiment" view. Generally, this view starts from the assumption that the paper's conclusion (that ESP is real) must be incorrect, therefore some error was committed in the course of the research – example here. In the same issue of the journal, a group of scientists from Holland point to the statistical analysis as the source of the error, and warn that many psychology experiments many suffer from the same flaw.
Another response was "this never should have been published". An article in the NY Times quotes psychology professor Ray Hyman as saying:
It's craziness, pure craziness. I can't believe a major journal is allowing this work in… I think it's just an embarrassment for the entire field.
If I was going to be completely objective about this, I would reserve judgement on the research and wait for the results to be replicated by other researchers. To his credit, Bem details his experimental setup and analysis techniques in great detail, and states:
The major empirical challenge … is to provide well-controlled demonstrations of psi (ESP) that can be replicated by independent investigators. That is the major goal in the research program reported in this article. Accordingly, the experiments have been designed to be as simple and transparent as possible…
Many other findings of positive results for ESP have disappeared when others tried to replicate them.
The main reason for people to assume that the paper's conclusion is wrong is that there is no way to explain how ESP could possibly work. Bem attempts to address this, pointing out that the mechanisms behind many physical phenomena effects were only found many years after the first evidence of their existence. In this particular case, I don't think that's a satisfactory answer. The issue with ESP isn't just that we can't explain how it could work; it's that any explanation would require a complete rewrite of the laws of physics. That's an unbelievably tall order – the biggest scientific revolution ever, so I think it's understandable (and even reasonable) to assume that the research is flawed, until many more irrefutable experiments show otherwise.
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Earlier this month, EarthColor was awarded the Sustainability Award at the New Jersey Manufacturing Awards. As a company, we were all very happy that we received this award and appreciated the recognition we received for our efforts.
While we were grateful, the truth is EarthColor doesn't do this for the accolades –this is just a part of our business strategy. Yes, it's true; we've implemented six core principles that we apply throughout all our processes. You can take a look at the six core principles that guide our business practices here.
We've adopted innovative technologies with extended capabilities that help us maintain a renewable energy management plan, minimize airborne emissions, and support our on-site real-time greenhouse gas sequestration. Our efforts have led us to become tri-certified in international forestry standards.
In addition, EarthColor has partnered with non-profit organizations, like Canopy and Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED), for their efforts in developing environment-friendly printing policies and supporting the sustainable use of natural resources.
You see, we take this initiative because the way we see it, if we're leading the efforts then we're not only doing our part in the movement but we're also educating and sharing knowledge about sustainability.
We pride ourselves in being a leader for our sustainability efforts –but also pride ourselves in being able to help our clients achieve the maximum savings while reducing their carbon footprint and supporting their sustainability initiatives.
We document and monitor our environmental footprint through a matrix of data tracking energy usage. And we have an Earth Savings Estimator to give you the opportunity to see how we can help you save.
Join the movement and start your sustainability practices today.


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The Leprechaun Resort
378 Stuart Highway, Winnellie, Darwin, Australia
The Leprechaun Resort is located in Darwin and offers complimentary Wi-Fi. It also provides a coffee bar, a BBQ/picnic area and an outdoor pool.
The rooms are air conditioned and include tea and coffee making facilities, wireless internet access and a refrigerator. All provide ironing facilities and a ceiling fan.
The Leprechaun Resort houses both a restaurant and a bar where guests are able to unwind of an evening with a meal and a drink. There is a range of breakfast options on offer every day.
Darwin International Airport is a 15-minute drive from the resort. Marrara Stadium and Charles Darwin University are easily reached by car.


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It's October, and Halloween crafts and decorations is right on the way. Don't hesitate to check out our fairy pumpkins, and so many Halloween decoration ideas and party treats that you won't miss, just click the link and you will get inspired for your Halloween party more exciting this year. The easy to DIY Halloween decorating list is an fabulous collection that you should definitely go check out, The party snacks and treats and the ghosty lollipop design are just fun and spooky for any kids party. Today we are going to crochet something for Halloween, the day of the dead crochet skulls.
---- More DIY Ideas ----
Celebrate on that day at your side? Check out the Healthy Halloween Snacks Recipes for Party.
Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions, and acknowledged around the world in other cultures. We can see many craft supplies here in California, too. The three-day celebration starts on October 31 (All Hallows Eve) and ends on November 2 (All Souls Day). There are parades down the street, many times, ending at the cemetery for more celebrations. It's not a day to be associated with death; but rather it's a day to celebrate with the living. Sugar skulls is one of the most common element we see for the day of the dead. And this fabulous pillow for Red Heart Yarns and it's a perfectly beautiful sugar skull that can be used for several seasons to celebrate.
You can get free pattern download from Red Heart Yarns HERE. And if you are looking for pillow crochet, the DIY Adorable Crochet Lamb (Sheep) Pillow is right for a cozier winter.
You can also crochet simple skull applique for decoration that day.
Get the free pattern from Kristin's Krazy via this link: Day Of The Dead Skull. Don't miss out the our favorite crochet peacock appliques.


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How Long Your Meta Description Should Be?
Before jumping to this question directly, let's get an idea of what meta-description is and what is its function.
A meta description is a snippet that gives a brief information about a page's content. It is a tag in HTML underneath the blue clickable links taking you to the page you requested for…
…They are between one sentences to a short paragraph which Google shows you in the search results when the queries you searched for are contained in the description (in an attempt to better answer your query).
What does a meta-description do?
The meta-description is an HTML tag. The main function of a meta-description is to get a visitor from Google to click that particular link. In other words, meta-descriptions are there to generate clickthroughs from the search engines. There is an indirect benefit of these meta-descriptions.
Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) as a way of determining if that page is a good result…
…To serve its purpose, a meta-description has to be appealing and inviting. It should contain a quality description of the product or the information contained in the link.
As for the link is used, it ranks up higher on the list shown by the search engine for the purpose of a rich description or the better idea of the product. The snippet seemed to be crossing 155 characters back in the past years which seemed to be very rare but it is time to revisit these guidelines on the meta-description heading into 2018.
Digging in, the average reaches up to 215 character length for meta-descriptions. This is quite interesting as it leaves the limit way behind. On the other hand, some snippets are way too short because their meta-descriptions are very short.
But the question is – Do we really care about the very long or too short meta-descriptions? The answer is NO. But what we really want to know is why Google cuts off the long snippets down to the character limit. On more digging, we find that the average character limit after the cut off remains up to 200 to 212 long.
According to the new limit of 300 to 325 characters, the cutoff percent is out 33%. As there is no such thing as the right amount of characters, the meta-descriptions are cut-off unevenly.
We've got a closer spike in 300 to 325 character range but the descriptions are cut off in the 200 character range. We later found out that these are two things going on.
Firstly, the video snippets reduce the character size to 200. These snippets seem to be maxed out in 2 lines and are further restricted by the space that the video thumbnail occupies. Space remaining for the snippet is about 70%.
Secondly, the pre-cut meta-tags seem to reduce the character limit.
The long meta-descriptions are pre-truncated. So, most probably, the meta-description length is decided by Google as there might be add-ons by Google in the snippet or there might be some information that Google itself might want to add in the given meta-descriptions.
The question is- does Google rewrite all the snippets? Studies told that 35% snippets had no change, 15% had some added data. The rest 50% of snippet perfectly matched the data. Cutting it short, we can say that 300 characters are a pretty safe bet for meta-descriptions.


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So far this week I've sent my mindfulness YouTube link to a random person instead of a patient and information about my dishwashers for sale to some number I've never seen before until the deed was done. Good job I make life up as I go along!
Oh yeah – and I've managed to order, put on hold and cancel 4 showers as I kept getting the entrances and sizes wrong!


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CoreCompete enables companies to bring their big data and analytics use cases to life faster, cheaper and better. Our approach combines business consulting with analytics and technology enablement in small teams that work in an agile model to deliver value in most cases in less than 12 weeks.
Our established partnerships with big data and analytics vendors such as SAS, Tableau, IBM, AWS helps us bring the right best of breed solution to address your need.
At CoreCompete:
- We deploy big data technologies for our clients. We generally deploy the analytics and BI layer on top of the Hadoop platform.
- We help our customers identify the business opportunity to be driven by these technologies, identify the right technology stack that cost-effectively delivers on the value proposition and bring the technical solution to life.
- Our business expertise combined with agile practices and cloud first approach allows our customers to gain value quickly.


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- What have you done to be the change for animals?
- Who do you know who acts tirelessly on animals' behalf?
- What favorite cause has a special need right now?
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Be the Change For Animals!
17 comments:
I know someone who is working to help animals! Well......I don't really know her.ReplyDelete
But she is working to ban DECLAWING cats!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!! :-)Replies
That's FANTABULOUS Ragdoll Mommy!!!!Delete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
My Dad works so hard to help homeless critters. Great post sweet friend!ReplyDelete
It is very important for us blogging kitties to look out for those who are less fortunate than we are!ReplyDelete
Thank you for coming!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 15, 2013 at 3:53 PM
I have a series on Monday's called Monday Matters to spread awareness for animal causes. Great post! We should all be working to make a better world. ;)ReplyDelete
What a wonderful thing you do to help less fortunate animals.ReplyDelete
We may not do much, but we do what we can.
Thank you for this post :)
Purrs Tillie and Georgia,
Treasure,Tiger, JJ and Julie
Thanks to you and Ku for all you do to help animals. :)ReplyDelete
We agree thank you and Ku for all you do. We always donate over here when we can.Have a wonderful Wednesday.ReplyDelete
Best wishes Molly
Thanks for meowing @ us at TLOA!ReplyDelete
Great post, Swami Zoe. Thank you and Ku for all you do to help homeless animals. The mom and dad here work real hard to help them, too. :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 16, 2013 at 4:38 PM
Thanks for all your hard work!ReplyDelete
This is a great post Zoe,thanks for sharing,xx RachelReplyDelete
Thank you for sharing this important reminder, Zoe!ReplyDelete
Zoe thanks for spreading the word, I have your brothers book but didn't know you had one. I have to keep on top of your doings :)ReplyDelete
You are the change!ReplyDelete


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Beijing was recently named the best mainland Chinese city for entrepreneurship in 2017.
The ranking emphasized the impact of a city's policies and talents on its entrepreneurship. The main gauge was the enthusiasm of establishing start-ups, government policies and intellectual support.
Report shows that there are five major entrepreneurship regions in China, one of which is the North China region with Beijing and Tianjin at its core.
As the birthplace of the policy of innovation and entrepreneurship, Beijing has demonstrated increasing competitiveness in this aspect. A total of 1,450 Beijing enterprises are listed in the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, roughly equal to the combined total of those in Shanghai (878 enterprises) and Shenzhen (686 enterprises).
Beijing is also home to 174 national innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, still roughly the sum of those in Shanghai (89 platforms) and Shenzhen (86 platforms).
In addition, Beijing continued to relocate non-capital functions in 2016, which will grant more development opportunities to neighboring cities including the newly established Xiongan New Area.


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Last Updated: 12/9/15
Motorhome Specs:
• Model Year: 2004
• Model: Allegro
• Length: 30 Foot
• Odometer: 35,115
• Engine: Triton V-10
Ad Information
• Source: Craigslist
• City/Area: Minneapolis
• State/Region: Minnesota
• Asking Price: $32,000
• Contact: Janet (317) 885-0702
Type of RV: Class A – Gas
Year: 2004
Make: Tiffin
Model: Allegro
Length: 30
Mileage: 35115
Fuel Capacity: 75
Fuel Type: Gas
Engine Model: Triton V-10
# of slide-outs: 2
Sleeps how many: 6
Number of A/C Units: 2
Awnings: 1
Price: 32000.
Stock Number: 723497. One owner 2004 Tiffin Motorhome Allegro Open Road, This RV is priced to sell!!! Triton V-10 engine with 35,000 miles, new tires all around. It has an Onan generator, gas and electric water heater. RV size refrigerator and oven with 3 burner cook top. Plenty of exterior storage for grills, chairs or anything you may want to take along. 2 slides open the coach for a nice roomy kitchen/living area and make the bedroom a comfortable space as well. Interior is very clean and has lots of cabinets in the kitchen, bath and bedroom as well as a full length closet for hanging clothes storage. 2 air conditioners, new microwave, original bed coverings. Awning has small tear and front jacks act up. Please call 317-885-0702 or 317-716-4993 for further information, or reply to this post.
Last Updated


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Equity Cases in the Court of Exchequer, 1660-1714
Equity Cases in the Court of Exchequer, 1660-1714
This work is a translation of over 450 case reports of equity cases from the Court of Exchequer from the period of the later Stuart monarchs of England, 1660 to 1714. The vast majority of these cases have never been printed before. In fact, before Professor Bryson published his edition of Samuel Dodd's reports in 2000, there was no collection of Exchequer reports in print for this lengthy period at all. Furthermore, the equity cases from the other courts in England are somewhat sparse for this period. Thus, this book fills in a large gap of printed law reports. Some of the manuscripts edited here for the first time were widely known to the bench and bar of eighteenth-century England; others are more obscure, but nevertheless state and explain the law of England at the time.
These reports illustrate many areas of the law, especially problems of the public revenue, creditors' rights, wills, and trusts. These reports give the historical background of the present Anglo-American common law and equity law. Many of the cases are still good law today, others show where the law came from and how the law got to where it is now.
This book has a Table of Cases Reported and an extensive Subject Index, which will be very useful to historians and lawyers to locate the relevant cases to a wide field of legal issues. The Introduction is a bibliographic study of the manuscripts that are edited in this book.
See also the 2017 companion publication Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer in the Time of King Charles II


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Usage: <table-emit/>
This command may only be called at the end of the table body and performs the following functions:
terminates the final row of the table body
emits the whole stored table
resets the system ready for the start of a new table
The entire table is printed as a single unit when <table-emit/> is called. This means that TopLeaf will apply the table settings and text settings (such as font and spacing) that are active at that point. Settings in force when other commands (e.g. <table-cell>) are invoked have no effect on the finished table. Likewise, any visible text emitted while the custom table is being constructed will appear before the beginning of the table.


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This band released their first album, Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, a month or 2 ago and its slowly been growing on me after quite few listens. Their website is an unorganized collection of songs, videos and collages that work all work together with the chaos of this unique and abrasive band. Click on the photo to visit their website.
WU LYF - DIRT from LUCIFER YOUTH FOUNDATION on Vimeo.
Friday, September 9, 2011
WU LYF: World Unite: Lucifer Youth Foundation
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Wineries in Syrah Wineries in Graton
Pax Mahle Wines
in Syrah Wineries, Grenache / Garnacha Wineries
Honest, authentic and compelling wines from special places.
PO Box 467
Graton, California 95444
United States
Review This Winery
Shane Wine Cellars
in Syrah Wineries, Pinot Noir Wineries
The mission of Shane Wine Cellars is to produce hand crafted, small lot, terrior specific Rhone varietal wines infused with the passion of their winemaker and the purity of their vineyards.
PO Box 259
Graton, California 95444
United States
Review This Winery


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- meganracingAsked on March 06, 2017 at 04:04 PM
Your form services have been working flawlessly until recently. We are now receiving sync issues in our Dropbox folder of incomplete files PDF (refer image attached below) and some form submissions not being synced at all. Please feel free to reply back at your nearest convenience.
Emerson Hemedes
- JotForm SupportjonathanAnswered on March 06, 2017 at 05:51 PM
The pdf report being used in Dropbox was the PDF report in your form. It is possible the current PDF was customized already.
To fix this issue, you will need to reset the PDF report template to the default template.
Follow this user guide on how to access the form PDF report designer.
To reset the PDF template:1. Go back to your My Forms page2. Select the form you want to edit its PDF report3. Click on the Reports button found on the top menu then edit the PDF Design.
Let us know if this did not resolve the issue.


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If you came to see what was our favourite meal in Edinburgh, welcome! If you came because of Tuesday's post, welcome back!
While in Edinburgh, we tried lots of food (specially seafood). Some of it was Instagram worthy, some of it we decided to have for ourselves (hey, we were celebrating our third anniversary, after all!) but the meal we had at Taisteal was too good to keep it to ourselves, so here I am sharing my favourite restaurant from all the places we visited. I do have to say that we were in Edinburgh for only two days so we didn't get a chance to try many places, but I can tell you for sure that I wish I could visit Taisteal more often, because this lunch blew my mind (and palate), and their dishes were on a whole new level.
Taisteal literally means travel, journey, and that's definitely what you can expect to experience with their menu. Every single dish is both captivating and exciting, and takes your palate on a world tour with all of the influences that chef Gordon mixes. We, of course, didn't try everything, but our small taste of the menu was incredibly promising and kept me wanting more.
What is it that we had, you ask? Let's dig in.
If we want to talk about a great start, this would be the perfect example.
The venison was delightful and tender, seasoned perfectly, as one would expect from a Michelin-trained chef. The pithivier itself was delicious as well, flaky and with an amazing texture, and its savoury flavour was complemented by the sweetness of the pumpkin puree.
G decided to go for the soup of the day, which was incredibly nice and creamy. The mushroom pastry on top was the perfect addition and it gave the whole dish a twist in terms of flavour and texture. Thumbs up!
This was my first time trying pheasant, but it was definitely love at first bite. The meat was tender, as with every dish we tried, but my favourite part was the mix of textures. The combination between the pheasant, the cannelloni, and then the crispy Parisian gnocchi was exquisite, and definitely the best part of this dish.
It may look like too much is going on just by reading what's in it, but I promise it was all united to present a perfect balance in every possible way. By far one of my favourite dishes. Not only in Taisteal but in general.
G loves risotto, and because we both have an Italian background, we've tried a good amount of risottos so far. That being said, I think none of us had ever tried anything like this.
While squid ink dishes are not something completely revolutionary, the combination of flavours that the chef put together in this case is what makes this dish stand out from the rest. The savoury taste of the risotto paired with the roast hake was absolutely delicious presenting a twist from the Italian classic.
Then it was time for dessert.
Being completely honest with you, the matcha cheesecake wasn't my favourite, and to this day I think I should have picked something else from the dessert menu.
The cheesecake itself was delicious and incredibly creamy, as cheesecakes should be, and the matcha flavour was strong but not too overpowering. The combo that the crumbles and the cheesecake created was definitely enjoyable, but you know I have a sweet tooth, and my body was craving a little bit more of sugar.
I think this dessert is perfect if you want to have a nice closure to your meal without it being too sweet, but if you're like me, I'd consider something else from their dessert menu.
G, on the other hand, did listen to his heart and went for what he loves the most: cheese.
I tried some bits and pieces here and there (making the best use out of my puppy eyes!) and we both could agree that the cheese selection was perfect. It had a nice variety of flavours, going from bland cheeses to stronger ones, without making you feel like it's too much. Definitely what he was expecting from it.
Overall, the place was beautiful and the menu was exciting. I'd love to pay them another visit and see what else they have to captivate me, because I'm sure it will be great. If you're ever in Edinburgh, I'd strongly advise getting a reservation to eat here. The dining experience will be outstanding, to say the least, and you'll find dishes and combinations that you'd never thought would work together, and I think that's the beauty of it!
Since I'm 'new' to Manchester, I'm open to any suggestions on places that offer a similar experience in this beautiful city. If you have any recommendations or questions, send them my way! I'd love to give them a go. You can find me on Instagram (@michellelovestoeat), Twitter (@mlovestoeat), and Facebook (@michellelovestoeat). And make sure to follow me for more foodventures (I'm always documenting fun events and experiences on my Instagram stories!).
If you're a brand, restaurant or fellow foodie and would like to collaborate, you can email me: firstname.lastname@example.com, and I'm sure we'll create something great (and yummy) together!
I hope you enjoyed this small taste of what we had in Edinburgh, because I sure loved sharing it with you. I hope to see you back next week. I promise I'm preparing something nice and tasty. But today we're done.
Michelle's out!


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- advitamAsked on June 20, 2017 at 08:30 AM
The request:
"""GET /form/{id}/submissions
doesn't work anymore.
exemple the idform: 71703439174962
Can you help me please?
- OzanDostAnswered on June 20, 2017 at 10:05 AM
Hello advitam,
I have managed to get a response from GET /form/{id}/submissions on my end.
Please try again writing your api key to the black area carefully and if the issue repeats, we will investigate this further!
Good luck!


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Tokyo: Potpourri
A potpourri of scenes from Tokyo. First up is Hanazono Shrine, a colorful shrine carving out a niche from amongst the tall buildings, which I passed while walking in the general direction of Shinjuku. Next, the main campus of Tokyo University, where in addition to the campus buildings, there is also a lovely pond and garden, of which I took quite a fancy to. Finally, a few photos of the splendid Jamee Mosque, the oldest mosque in Japan.Read More