Reflections From a Murky Pond

Really! You’ve got to love fish. Hopefully you also love fishing because it’s one of life’s better entertainments.

Well here are six women, all celebrities, who love fish enough to get naked with them in order to draw attention to the sad fact that we’re not practicing anything remotely close to what could be called intelligent and sustainable fishing practices and, resultantly, we’re crashing fish populations.

This is a world apart from- and at least an order of magnitude better than PETA’s stupid attempt to manipulate children with their Sea Kittens campaign atrocity. Then Fish Love is a practical and pragmatic group of activists whereas PETA is a cult of pseudo-religious fanatics so this is to be expected.

The British environmental activist group, Fishlove was set up in 2009 by Nicholas Röhl, co-owner of the Japanese restaurant MOSHIMO, and actress Greta Scacchi to raise awareness of the unsustainable fishing practices that are destroying the the earth’s marine ecosystem and threatening local economies across the globe.

Yes, it’s true that Fish Love, like all activists, bases their actions on the worst-case scenario and probably overplays the immediacy of the threat to both marine ecosystems and local economies. That doesn’t, however, mean that they’re in any way shape or form wrong in slightest about the threat itself.

If nothing else, and to expand upon Fish Love’s theme, we don’t want this to come to an end, now do we?

So we really need to fish more responsibly if we want to continue fishing in the future.

Tags: Activism | Caroline Ducey | Celebrities | Dakota Blue Richards | Economics | Emilia Fox | England | Europe | Fish | Fish Love | Fishing | Gillian Anderson | Jeany Spark | Lizzy Jagger | Marine Life | Oceans | Seafood | The Environment

This entry was posted on Friday, December 6th, 2013 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Politics, Society, The Environment. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

All cultures and peoples have their myths and myth cycles. These myths are actually one of the identifying foundations of those separate cultures and peoples and, by and large, they are both good and necessary. Only upon rare occasions do these myths become damaging.

Sadly, in America, one of our myths has become damaging. It might even be lethal to our nation.

Greek Mythology – It Couldn’t Happen In America

“It can’t happen here,” is a pernicious belief based on a self-serving and self-deluding perversion of American Exceptionalism. It’s a potentially lethally harmful myth.

Not only can what is happening in Greece and Europe happen in America, it is already happening. We just haven’t hit the bottom … yet.

California and many other of the several States are, essentially, as bankrupt as Greece and are being propped up by the federal government, a government that is so deep in debt that it boggles the mind – and they want to keep borrowing more and fight against any reining in of their profligate spending!

What is the scariest is that one thing really can’t happen here in America. The European Union is predicted to collapse very soon but that can’t happen in America; we have laws against secession and breaking the union. As no federal government that I could imagine would reduce itself, any attempt by the states to break the union for their own survival would lead to civil war.

The upcoming 2102 elections may not be the watershed moment but, if we don’t move swiftly, strongly, and sternly towards fiscal responsibility in this election, we will bring that moment closer – assuming it’s not here or already past – and make correcting the problems that much harder.

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Debt | Debt Ceiling | Deficit | Economics | Economy | Euro | Europe | Greece | Myths | Politics

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2012 at 8:55 am and is filed under 2012 Election, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

It’s been a couple of weeks, maybe even a bit longer, the Obamas must be tired from all the campaigning, even with Barack’s occasional breaks to “telesign” some legislation. It’s about time for them to take another vacation. I mean they’re entitled to it, aren’t they, as the First Black Family? It’s sort of like reparations by proxy. 😛

Personally, I’d suggest that the Obama’s take a European vacation. It’d be quite educational for Sasha and Malia.

The Obama’s Studying European Archeology

They could tour the historic ruins and Obama could teach his daughters about how Europe continues to influence the “America” that he wants to build. He could also explain how creative destruction is necessary when The One wants to fundamentally change something…

Tags: Banking | Debt | Economics | Economy | Entitlement Society | Europe | Finance | Humor | Obama | Politics | Reparations | Spending

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 at 8:44 am and is filed under Humor, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

I’m not one to pay overly much attention to the various things that spew from the maw of Paul Krugman. The pontifications, ramblings, and rants of a rabidly fanatical Keynesian neo-Socialist who makes his rent working for the filthy rag known as the New York Times aren’t the sorts of things that I, or any other American, normally pay much heed to – except to keep an eye on what our nation’s enemies are thinking or emoting.

Krugman is willfully dead wrong more often than not on causation and dead wrong, again willfully, every time when it comes to remediation

All that being said, Krugman is not an idiot and he is skilled enough to make solidly plausible predictions of future events, especially relatively near-term ones.

Some of us have been talking it over, and here’s what we think the end game looks like:

1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month.

2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany.

3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals.

3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the banks from collapsing.

4a. Germany has a choice. Accept huge indirect public claims on Italy and Spain, plus a drastic revision of strategy basically, to give Spain in particular any hope you need both guarantees on its debt to hold borrowing costs down and a higher eurozone inflation target to make relative price adjustment possible; or:

4b. End of the euro.

And we’re talking about months, not years, for this to play out.

Of course this isn’t exactly rocket science or even one of the more arcane examples of the semi-mystical art form known today as the study of Economics. Both hyperinflation and the end of the Euro in the near future are easy predictions to make in the wake of Greece’s Keynesian meltdown and financial collapse.

NOTE: Krugman’s prediction of a European financial meltdown matches my own and naturally feeds into whatever level of Confirmation Bias that I’m saddled with.

Of course these events will happen and happen soon. They were foreordained from the moment of Greece’s financial implosion under the weight of their Socialist economic policies.

I’ll add though that these event will, in turn, most likely lead to the breaking of the European Union by 2015. They can’t hold together as a government – or meta-government, or whatever they are – without a common currency.

Tags: Debt | Depression | Economics | Economy | EU | Euro | Europe | Finance | Germany | Greece | Keynes | Keynesian Economics | Krugman | New York Times | Recession | Socialism | Spain

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

There is no doubt in any sane person’s mind that Obama rose to power on a three part platform: that he wasn’t President Bush; the “Magic Negro” promise; and his avowed belief in far Left, Socialist policies. These three points are what allowed him to garner enough funding to buy his way into the Presidency.

The first two are important only in future historical context and as an object lesson in real racism; the reactionary nature of the electorate, and ethnoguiltism and racism are well established phenomena. It is only the third leg of Obama’s platform that really matters right now – his left-wing, socialist demagoguery based upon the postulate that America needs to be fundamentally changed.

We Need To Fundamentally Change America

Obama’s professed racially tinged Liberal and/or Progressive ideology is important for two reasons:

1. It was and is the rationale used by many for supporting Obama. White Leftists supporting him can claim that they’re doing so based upon his policies instead of his race.
2. It’s Obama’s avowed ideology that stands the real chance of further damaging America because he has to show that he’s making a concerted attempt to fundamentally change America into a European style, neo-Socialist quasi-nation subordinate to extra-national powers, and any success that he has in this will be a failure for America.

The sole bit of good news is that Liberalism and Progressivism, seasoned with racial angst, are only Obama’s professed and avowed ideologies. The boy is far to narcissistic, self-centered, and small to let any of his supposed beliefs get in the way of his legacy. This means that he’s controllable through his own weakness and that Americans, if they maintain or expand their control of Congress, can blunt most of his actions and policies that would harm America.

Hehe…Keep control of the House and get a few more seats in the Senate and Americans can impeach, convict, oust, and imprison or even hang Obama over Libya.

There’d be a certain joy – Schadenfreude certainly – in forcing the Liberals and Progressives to defend the President’s “right” to engage in illegal wars.

No, Obama is eminently defeatable even if he manages to shuck, jive, lie, and demagogue his way into a second term; he’s just a selfish, spoiled, little boy playing at being a man and, like all such brats, it just takes a firm hand to keep him in line – the last three years have proven that.

If Americans can keep their eyes on their local and state legislatures and upon the Congressional elections, we can look at Obama and, when he acts outs, metaphorically say, “Go to your room, boy!”

America needs, not to be fundamentally changed, but to fundamentally changed back into the great, shining beacon of freedom, liberty, responsibility, and pride that is meant to be – and, if Americans keep a firm hand on the strap, we can do that irrespective of whether or not Obama is continued to be allowed to be President.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down.

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Capitalism | Economics | Economy | Europe | Narcissism | Obama | Politics | Socialism | Statism | Welfare State

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 7:57 am and is filed under 2012 Election, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.