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It always seemed growing up that most people who talked about only buying ‘American’ products came across as pseudo-macho, slightly simplistic, and unworldly.  You know, the guys that said, “I only drive Ford trucks and I only buy American-made!”  I guess I felt that most of them that I ran into seemed a bit ignorant.  I suppose much of my judgment came from my own bias and my own superiority complex issues, or maybe the people I knew really were a little naive and I just generalized to every person who believed in purchasing American products.

Recently I’ve gained a new perspective on the merits of buying American-made products.  Part of me used to think that there should be competition between countries and that one should buy the best product for the best price.  I still believe in competition and free market, but I believe that purchasing American-made helps keep the U.S. economy strong by keeping the money flowing within our borders.  By micro-sizing my point, it may become more clear as to what I’m trying to get across.  Walmart and small town economies are good example.  If you study how Walmart affects local economies, you’ll likely find that the corporate giant often severely disrupts small town life.  Walmart eats up small businesses and acts as a funnel, sucking the money spent within its walls away from the town and into the corporate pockets.

Strong local, state, and national economies are crucial to growing the middle class and decreasing the divide between social classes.  When a country like the U.S. moves its jobs overseas and allows illegal immigrants to take skilled and unskilled jobs for lower pay, it weakens the economy.  Let’s say that a U.S. citizen construction worker gets paid $20/hr but an illegal immigrant is willing to work the same job for $10/hr.  These are some of the jobs being taken in this country; it’s not just scrubbing toilets like the media wants you to believe…not that scrubbing toilets is any different in this matter.  So, the U.S. citizen has to compete with an individual that would work for much less pay.  It’s the same for jobs being shipped overseas.  A factory worker in this country may get paid $8/hr.  The same job being outsourced may only pay $8/day.  Slave wages in other words.  Can we compete with that?

And before you start to think the liberal way that we’re helping out the poorer countries, please consider the situation more thoroughly.  Ask yourself how a poor economy got that way in the first place.  Ask yourself if it’d really help the poorer economy out by taking money away from the average U.S. citizen or if it’d actually just drive down our economy to a third world level.  Ask yourself who benefits from large corporations paying slave wages.

Why support another country paying slave wages, just so you can have that I-Pod for cheap?  You should support countries that support their citizens.  Once our national economy gets drained away, we’ll be the ones working for low pay…not that most of us aren’t already.  Again I ask, who benefits if every country competes to become better and better slaves?  Not you.  Sorry Mr. Rockefeller, maybe you will…didn’t know you were reading this.

What does it mean to buy American?  It’s not as simple as buying a Ford truck because your tv says to, my friend.  Where did your truck parts originate and where did the raw materials come from that make up those parts?  You sure you know?  And it’s not just one corporation.

What’s the answer to being a smart shopper?  I think it’s good to appreciate local, small business that treat their employees like human beings and not commodities.  I know it’s hard for small business to compete with the giants to supply livable wages, especially with overhead and insurance costs.  All I’m saying is that the more control a large corporation has over economies, the less automony and freedom the individual worker and employer has.  Don’t like Walmart slave labor and questionable connections with the government?  Well, how do you boycott that store if your town’s economy gives you little or no other alternatives.  Sure, you can always shop somewhere else, but with limited choice most people wouldn’t take action and would just be complacent.

So the issue isn’t as cut-and-dry as one would hope.  Just keep in mind what all these economic issues mean for the average American and international worker.  Putting your money in a place that supports the financial freedom of the individual is your best bet.  Remember that you can’t clean your brother’s house if yours is all a mess.  Taking his junk and throwing it in your yard doesn’t do much good overall. 

Buying American doesn’t quite mean what I thought it did, and I’m sure I still have a lot to learn.  Alex Jones says something to the effect that a rising tide raises all ships.  We should focus on improving the economies of all countries but not by sinking the U.S. ship and dividing the crumbs up amongst the serfs…because there are forces in the world that want to say ‘goodbye’ to America.  see: Bilderberg Group

BusTales.com is a result of spending countless hours riding the bus. Over the last 3 years I’ve seen and heard some pretty weird things, some funny, some smelly, some scary. Nine times out of ten, if I share one of these stories with a friend or coworker, they’ll have two more to tell me. You can easily lose 15 minutes trading good bus stories, or bus tales as I like to call them.

So when I had a bit of a break from freelance over the last couple weeks, I started thinking about actually creating a site. See I always have these ideas, but rarely do I have the motivation/time to see them through. Well I decided to buckle down and do it this time.

In the olden days I imagine a lot of thought went into a company/product name. Today (for me at least) it’s as simple as this: find a url that isn’t already taken, oh yeah, and have the name make sense and be memorable, bla bla bla. Well I did some brainstorming, some google searches, and some url checks and settled upon BusTales. It’s pretty simple, plus it reminds me of DuckTales, Wooo ooo.

After purchasing the url I spent an intense three day weekend on the logo and web site mockups (I’ll scan in some concepts soon). Of all the concepts, the bus symbol with a devil’s tail (playing on the other spelling of the word “tale”) stood out as being the most simple and appropriate for the type of stories I had in mind. After some advice from a friend (thanks Rich) I was able to give the tail a second meaning: the road. So there you have it, a devil’s tail and a winding road in perspective all in one. One other benefit of this mark is how it will integrate with the marketing campaign yet to come.

While those three days were strictly creative concepting, the next weekend was all nerdy development. I had already chosen the web site concept to go with, so I spent Saturday and Sunday building out the site and applying it to the wordpress backend. One interesting challenge was setting up the categories system to accomodate the bus number. With a bit of modification and tricky CSS the post headings and links will change color and pull in a different background image depending on the line.

Now is the fun part of maintaining and promoting, and finding out if this thing is going to live or not. Whatever happens, I’m very excited with how it turned out, and even more so that it turned out.

I’m sitting here watching “JFK: Reckless Youth” as I write this.  It’s a three hour movie starring Patrick Dempsey.  Let’s just say McDreamy is highly esteemed in this household.  The movie has been talking about Hitler and the Nazis.  I’ve wondered a lot recently, what were the Germans thinking during the Nazi regime?  Hitler has been demonized completely since that time, for good reason, so how did the German people allow him to do all of his nefarious deeds?  Was the average German a coward, terrified to challenge the Nazi authority?  Did he/she believe the propaganda and think Hitler was doing the right thing?  Was he/she ignorant of what was going on?  Maybe the average German thought that if Hitler gained more and more power that their life would be safer and richer.  It could be a mix of all of these things, I don’t really know.  This is something we should think about today.  Hitler took away civil rights, declared himself supreme ruler, and killed many people.  How do we know we’re not falling under the same kind of spell?  The German people may have been ignorant and apathetic, brainwashed and proud, or disgruntled and powerless.  Either way, Hitler was allowed to do his damage.  What went wrong with the German people?

History can teach us many things if we are to listen to it.  If we turn a deaf ear, it is also bound to repeat itself.  Welcome to the time loop.  Many of the people in this country have been bound inside a time bubble.  They can’t understand the past and can’t feel into the future…and worst of all, they can’t relax into the present.  We’re taught as kids that the United States is the most powerful and free country in the world and could never be defeated.  Sure we knew about Independence Day and that at one point in the past the U.S. didn’t exist, but the belief instilled in us is that the U.S. always was and always will be…the seeds of complacency…everything’s fine, trust me.  It’s not that we really thought the U.S. had always existed, but just that it didn’t matter to even ponder the past, since we were living in the most liberated country in the world.  We were free, we were on the right team, so why worry about the time before that reality?  Why question the notions of ‘freedom’ when we were told we were free?  At least that was my experience as a school boy.

Yes, I’m gliding around and around the same sorts of ideas in this post…question everything and realize that you may not know everything in your little bubble.  But I guess the point I’m getting at is the benefits of putting yourself in another’s shoes to learn about your own life.  It’s nothing that hasn’t been said before.  Just understand that everything hasn’t always been as it is now, yet things the same things are always reoccurring.  For instance, in ten years, a child may consider it ‘normal’ to have to carry around a National ID card in the United States.  He might think it silly to imagine a world without an National ID card, since it would be all he knows.  Business as usual for the little chap.  He may not realize that Hitler wanted people to carry around national identification papers.  Blissful ignorance?

I was really meaning to write this post about the potential dangers of cell phones.  There are studies that say cell phones are safe and there are others that don’t.  Maybe they’re safe in the short term.  Maybe not.  Maybe in forty years, people will be dying from brain tumors in droves.  I don’t know.  Are you willing to take that risk?  I’m sure if you are a heavy cell phone user that you will naturally gravitate toward the studies that downplay or disregard any potential risks.  Don’t worry, that’s a fairly common psychological reaction.  Ignorance is bliss, right?  How’s your head?  I read an article recently that made a connection to the phenomenon of cigarette smoking and cell phone use.  What do you think the people were thinking when cigarettes were first marketed and the tobacco companies were telling them they were safe and cool?  Is that a correlation worth noting?  Nothing to see here; don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.  Honestly, I’m not saying cell phones are harmful and can potentially cause cancer because I’m not an expert and I don’t know for sure.  But I also can’t say for sure that they’re safe.  The ‘experts’ might not even be able to understand how the cell radiation affects the human body at this point in time. 

I would hope that cell phones are safe for all those who use them currently.  I do think it’s necessary for the issue to at least acknowledge.  Some people may not even realize that this even is an issue and that there are those that warn of serious risks from cell phone use.  I guess only time will tell… 

Here’s a quick list of things that may have an effect on your perception of the world.  Most people know nothing or very little about these items, although a few I’ve mentioned before.  I think it’s fairly true to say that the more you think you’re free, the more enslaved you really are.  Research this list and build at least a basic understanding of the terms and you might surprise yourself.  If you come to think that the items are relevant and important to your worldview, ask yourself why you’ve never heard about them.  And if you don’t care enough to look into them….well, that’s your choice.

Illuminati

New World Order

Council on Foreign Relations  

Trilateral Commission

Bilderberg Group

Carlyle Group

Project for a New American Century

Project Monarch

Project Paperclip

Project Mockingbird

MK Ultra

Operation Northwoods

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

Skull and Bones society at Yale University

Bohemian Grove

National ID card (Real ID Act)

Trans-Texas Corridor

NAFTA Superhighway

Security and Prosperity Partnership

The ‘Amero’

FEMA concentration camps

Military Commissions Act of 2006

Downing Street Memos

Prescott Bush Nazi ties

DynCorp sex trade

9/11 Controlled Demolitions

9/11 Insider Trading; Put Options

9/11 NORAD standdown orders

WTC 7

Rothschild’s family history

Rockefeller’s ‘Memoirs’ quote (p. 404-405)

Internet 2

China’s organ harvesting

Embedded Microchips in prisoners, soldiers, mentally ill, elderly, etc. (you’re next)

Posse Comitatus (research how our police is being militarized)

Information Awareness Office (check out the logo)

Artificial Scarcity (oil, diamonds, etc.)

JFK Commission’s Magic Bullet theory

Top 100 World Economic Entities

Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports

 

Most of us were told as children that any U.S. citizen has the chance to become the President of the United States.  I’m sure for many that seemed like a magical idea…that the U.S. is the strongest and most liberated country in the world and the President is the leader and protector of that sovereign nation.  Sounds pretty cool, huh?  The idea of growing up and becoming the most powerful figure of the modern world.

Well, at least some of us grow up and realize that the mystique of the Presidential position is mostly an illusion.  We learn that the role of the president isn’t supposed to be one of a dictator or ‘decider’, which doesn’t make it seem quite as cool.  We start to see that the president is really just a puppet position for powers far more complex and widespread.  We question whether it’s really true that anyone can become president because we see that every U.S. president so far was a white male.  We wonder, why not a woman or someone from a minority group?

How about Hillary Clinton?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she became the first woman president?  That would prove that anyone can be elected into the position, right?  Well, she’s decided to run after denying the intention for so many years.  Here’s our chance I guess.

Don’t fall on or get run over by the Hillary Clinton bandwagon.  It’s a load.  Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s good…maybe the elite just want to have a different type of suit in the oval office in order to fool you that something will actually change for the better.  Look into the Clinton family history…it’s not all about saxophones and charity work.  The Clintons are cold-blooded.

And the idea that anybody can become president?  The Clintons and the Bushs both come from the same royal line.  Think about it…if Hillary were to get elected and then re-elected for a second term we would’ve had a Bush or a Clinton serving as either a president or vice president for 36 years straight!!!  Are we living under an elite that has a divine right to rule?  I wonder if the president is actually selected by bloodline as opposed to elected…. 

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Somehow I made it to this week without ever hearing about Sealand. I don’t remember how it came up, but the other day at work Andy said something to the effect of “which internet company was it that is looking to buy Sealand?” I said I didn’t know, and then it took a couple seconds of brain processing before I asked “What the hell is Sealand?” Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been trying to decide what to write about for my next post since my riveting poetry session, but it’s been difficult.  There are many things I want to discuss, but I’m not sure what I should bring to the table at this point in time.  Things that I’ve been throwing around in my mind: the necessity of maintain various levels of sovereignty, the implantable microchip (yep, not leaving that one out!), 9/11, the visionary potential of the general public, a list of specific things to do to stop the NWO (instead of a poem, hehe), etc.  In other words, things the few who actually read this are waiting with baited breath to see.

I decided to keep it simple.  It’s an observation and an inquiry…a phenomenon that continues to bewilder me.  I got this idea through an experience I had at the weight room with my lifting pals.  While one of my friends today was benching (I put up 270 lbs tonight, towel bench style!), his shirt raised up and I noticed a ball of lint lodged in his belly button.  I won’t mention his name here, but let’s just say he’s definitely gotten stronger since we’ve been lifting together due to his affinity for carrying heavy bags of sand.  Anyway, I was oddly put at ease with this, knowing that I’m not the only one who deals with this strange belly button vortex effect.  It happens to me basically everyday.  I get home from an extremely hard day working at the temp job and when I take off my shirt, I have a sizable lint ball stuck in my belly button.  It’s like a gravity tornado for shirt fuzz.  Do most guys experience this?  Is it dependent on how much hair you have on your stomach?  Nickie says she may make a sweater from my belly button lint if I start a collection of it.  Any of the five to ten of you audience members out there have any thoughts?  If I can get at least half of you to write a comment on this, I’d at least have two or three comments…What do you think?

P.S.  I’m sure I’ll get more comments on this than any of my previous posts…case in point: American Idol.  10,000 people can try out for a silly pop show in Minneapolis alone, but no one seems to think anyone has the time to get together to protest an unjust war or to impeach the President or to shut down the Federal Reserve.  I guess it’s a matter of priorities…

While I read and enjoy quite a few blogs that are mainly an aggregation of links, I tend to think that I can offer more value by covering one subject in depth. I’m not positive, but I would bet that somewhere there is talk of these two different blog models (or what I call the article vs aggregation debate). Anyway, I don’t feel like writing an article tonight but I had a few links I wanted to share. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve heard more than a few people say that now is a bad time to sell a house. Not only is the market not doing good, but it’s winter and no one wants to move in the winter. The thing is, we’re doing it anyway. Read the rest of this entry »