Social Media Is Toxic Prayer

SOCIAL MEDIA IS TOXIC PRAYER

The need to always be right is toxic (probably me). 

The need to be heard can be toxic (me). 

Social media was better when it was just a way to connect with your friends (right?). 

The need to convince 71 million other people is toxic and impossibly ridiculous (me). 

Arguing with people you don't even know on Facebook is toxic (me).

And it's crazy where people are getting their news these days.  Podcasts are fun, but it's like cherry-picking your news that only fits your pre-conceived ideas and beliefs.  It makes sense, though, that people do listen to them.  Because there are no decent, unbiased journalists, reporters or new outlets anymore.  So, where are people (especially young people) supposed to go to get information? (No! Not Social Media, cringe!).

It's better to discuss things with your own little circle of friends (yes!). 

Weigh your own facts,and make up your own mind what the truth is for you.

It's better to sit around with friends discussing stuff, maybe over a cup of coffee or maybe a few beers, because you can just lean back and say "Yeah". You're probably right...". 

It's toxic to want to be an influencer (not me). 

It's toxic to want to be "liked" by everyone (not me). 

It's toxic to take Facebook polls of your friends, to see what they would do, where they would go, what they would buy (not me).

It's toxic to post your feelings on Facebook with a red background and big white capital letters (not me, that's just wrong).

Here's an activist social movement for you:  Delete all your political comments. 

Everyone's truth is based on their own experience and their own environment. Let them have their opinion.

Just my reality, not yours.  Was keeping me up at night.  Hate stuff that messes with my sleep.

I remember my Dad talking about National news on the TV and I said "I don't care about national news, never watch it".  I was like 20 years old.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I just want to go back to THAT mindset!

David A. Shogren

r opinion.

WW3: Ukraine, Zelensky and NATO

David Shogren

Anybody recall the Lend-Lease Agreement Roosevelt made with Churchill before WW2? Roosevelt was a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist, but he knew that the American public popular opinion did not want to get into a world war. So, he resisted giving England arms or financial aid to fight Germany.   Finally, Roosevelt, in a stroke of genius, came up with the Lend-Lease Agreement. Allowing arms to be shipped to England as a "Lease" agreement. NOT free -- a lease agreement paid by Englund. That was the genius part. Placate the public while providing aid for hire (in the Ukraine case mineral rights). Then wait and see if public opinion changed. That's probably what Zelenskyy was ambiguously referring to by ..."you have a nice ocean and don't feel [it] now, but you will feel it in the future.". 

Finally, the American public's opinion shifted after Pearl Harbor. A lot of parallels here. Especially if you study history. Make no mistake, Zelensky wants WW3. So ask yourself honestly. do you want to sacrifice another 407,000 American soldiers for the Donbas region of Ukraine?

The question came up: [Marc Morrison] What's your evidence that Zelensky wants a world war?

He (Zelenskyy) wants to join NATO and pull every associated nation into the fight. That's the first step. He knows he doesn't have the resources to fight on his own. If you don't learn from history, you are destined to repeat it. Ironically, when Biden was in the white house, I asked myself if he had the wherewithal to do what Roosevelt did. The intuitive answer was a resounding no. This administration seems to have that wherewithal.

Okay, so suppose we are at the precipice of a world war. We already know China is sending arms to support Russia. Would China make a move to gain world dominance? Another Pearl Harbor? In the words of Yamamoto, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant". No, they would not. They know, like the Japanese did back then, that there are 330,000,000 American citizens armed to the teeth, who would be ready to die for Democracy and their homeland, if you wake them up.

So then the next question is, "Well what would it take to convince 71,000,000 voting Americans that Ukraine is more important than $12 carton of eggs and $300 weekly grocery bills"? The answer is this.

It is well known that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world (why do you think Biden was doing business there?). It's also probably the money laundering capital of the planet. So, before you are going to convince those 71M people to send money to Ukraine, they're going to need to know the money isn't just going to be laundered back to the DNC national convention server or to a Treasury slush fund then back to the DNC. Or, who knows where? Some Ukrainian oligarch cosplay soldier-presidents' personal bank account?

No more sending pallets of money, like Obama did to Iran so it can end up who knows where? There has to be assurances that our tax money is actually going to the cause. That's what Trump is trying to do. With Ukraine and within our country.

You have to sway public opinion. Biden didn't think he had to. The academic elite always think they know best for the unwashed masses. Remember Hillary Clintons remark "The Basket of Deplorables?. But Roosevelt knew this.  The only way to wake up and galvanize the sleeping giant is direct war on our land, or change public opinion.

Create government transparency and accountability.

If Ukraine actually has skin in the game -- the rights to Ukraine's mineral wealth -- then we're sure it's not going back into someone's pocket. Zelensky refuses.

The Nature Conservancy the second largest land owner in the United States!

The Nature Conservancy is the second largest land owner (119,000,000 acres, yes 119 million acres!!) in the United States, right behind the U. S. Federal Government. More than all native indian tribes. Way more than the largest private land owner (~ 2.0M acres). Why is that? Their charter is to buy and turn it over to the Feds so the public can use it, but that rarely happens. Recently a scandal with The Nature Conservancy had them selling land to trustees and supporters. We've personally seen that happen in South Dakota. In Fall River County, they won't let the public on their land, claiming they are keeping the land pristine. Except they have a bunkhouse on the premises that trustees and donors frequently use as their private playground.

Haiku's

Fall haiku:   

White stuff is coming.

Carbs are clean and snowmobile is running. 

Life is good.

Snowboard haiku:

Last day of the season.

Sixty degrees is sweet.

Endless winter is a myth.

h.

State of Fear

 Can you imagine what these climate doomsayers would have proclaimed if they were living through the Great Depression? "The sky is falling, the sky is falling"!

The climate on earth has fluctuated since the beginning of time immemorial. Ice ages, global warmings, inland seas mini Ice Ages in the 1800's, etc, etc.

The academic elites want you to live in a "State of Fear", so they can propagate dependance on the government that makes them rich.

Just the Right Hat

Grew up in Minnesota.  When I was 14 a Remington Arms sales rep moved in across the street.  His name was Art Wheaton.  Many, many great memories following Art around hunting grouse in northern Minnesota.  Just told a story about Art to my co-workers todayas a matter of fact.  

On the weekends in the fall when not duck hunting, we would tear up north to grouse hunt.  One of Art's insider tricks was to carry a full complement of implement dealer hats in the back window of his company stationwagon.  We would slowly drive by any likely hunting spots and he would look to see what type of farm equipment that particular farmer would have sitting in the yard.  Then he would rifle through is hat collection to find a matching implement brand.  With that hat on, he would go to the door and ask permission to hunt their land.  In all my time hunting with Art, I never saw him get turned down.

By the way, I still shoot the 1974 Remington 870 Wingmaster that Art Wheaton helped me buy.  Have never found the need for a different shotgun, while hunting the lakes and upland of Minnesota, the pheasant fields of central South Dakota to the sharptail habitat of western South Dakota where I now live.

Obama's Legacy:

 

From Factcheck.org:

1.       Debt – The federal debt has more than doubled under Obama.  As of Oct. 4, the U.S. government’s debt owed to the public was well over $14 trillion, an increase of nearly 125 percent since Obama first took office.  The debt also has grown dramatically even when measured as a percentage of the growing economy, from 52 percent of gross domestic product at the end of fiscal year 2009 to an estimated 76.6 percent as of the end of fiscal year 2016 on Sept. 30, according to the most recent estimate, published Aug. 23, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

2.       Total debt, counting money the government owes to itself, currently stands at nearly $18.2 trillion, up 71 percent under Obama.

3.       The home ownership rate slipped again since our last report, to the lowest point in over half a century.  In the second quarter of 2016, 62.9 percent of households owned their own home, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. That ties the lowest point since the Census Bureau began collecting the figures. The last time the rate was this low was in the third quarter of 1965.  The home ownership rate began to slide even before Obama took office. It peaked at 69.2 percent in the second quarter of 2004.  But most of the decline since then has occurred under Obama. The most recent rate is 4.6 percentage points lower than in the quarter just before Obama first entered the White House.

4.       Labor Participation Rate — Meanwhile the labor force participation rate ticked up to 62.8 percent in September.  That rate, which is the portion of the entire civilian population age 16 and older that is either employed or currently looking for work, is now 2.8 percentage points lower than when Obama took office.

5.       Food Aid - As of July, the most recent month on record, nearly 43.4 million Americans were still receiving the food aid, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  That’s down by 9.3 percent from the record level set in December 2012, but it is still 35.6 percent higher than it was when Obama took office in 2009.

6.       Crime - The number of murders in the U.S. jumped up nearly 11 percent last year, the worst such one-year spike since 1990. No one is sure why; there are competing theories.  A further 13 percent increase in the murder rate is projected for 2016 in a preliminary analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. That’s based on police reports for roughly the first half of the year, collected from the 30 largest U.S. cities. About half the predicted increase is attributed to Chicago, which alone has seen more than 500 murders so far this year.

7.       Not only has Obama failed to persuade Congress to reinstate the “assault weapon” ban that expired in 2004, as he proposed during his 2008 campaign, his tenure has been marked by a remarkable increase in the production and sale of handguns.  Government figures released at the end of August show annual U.S. production of pistols and revolvers totaled nearly 4.3 million last year. That’s an increase of 134 percent over the figure for 2008. And the figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives show that 96 percent of those handguns produced in 2015 were not exported, but presumably sold in the United States.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/obamas-numbers-october-2016-update/