Here are a couple of quick news articles and my brief observations on them.-
A. Cassettes Disappearing into History
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This is not surprising. About the only place I have seen cassettes of prerecorded music for sale in recent years has been at truck stops. Blank cassettes have all but vanished in most retailers. The product was great while it lasted and was quite functional, except when we all cursed when our cassette deck in our car stereos "ate" the cassette we were playing, leaving a mess to deal with and no way to repair the damage. It looks like CDs will follow cassettes within a decade as music from downloads and on flashdrives is the wave of the future.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/media/28cassette.html?em&ex=1217476800&en=4674bc0af138090f&ei=5087%0A
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B. LED Light Bulbs: The Way to Go for Future Lighting Needs
I am highly suspicious and wary of compact fluorescent light bulbs as replacements for the venerable incandescent bulb. There are serious environmental and safety concerns with CFLs, but it appears there is a better way arising with the LED light bulb. Hopefully they will become widely available and more affordable within the next several years as the incandescent bulb gets phased out from sale availability due to a recent federal law. I plan on hoarding some incandescent bulbs to make through the transition and beyond until LEDs get reasonable priced, which in my opinion is less than $5 per bulb.
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C. Excellent Historical Analysis
Most of us are familiar with the term, "military-industrial complex", coined into the American consciousness by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 when he was about to leave office. However, most of us really cannot explain it or are aware of the historical context both before Eisenhower's warning or in the many years after. Chalmers Johnson, a long respected writer and author on US government follies, shenanigans, schemes, and treachery, does a superb job in trying to explain what it all means both in the past and more importantly, in the future. Be aware !
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174959/chalmers_johnson_warning_mercenaries_at_work
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D. Not Likely to be Done Anywhere in the US Anytime Soon
The small German town of Freiamt has gotten it right in converting their energy needs community wide to a 21st century model of clean and renewable sources. It is a sure thing nothing like this will be seen in the US anytime in the next decade or two as King Coal and Big Oil have a lead pipe lock on community energy resources despite efforts to diversify into wind and solar. Wind and solar will have a presence nationally on a very micro level, but they will be insignificant on a macro level for quite some time still. This is quite unfortunate as a world dominated by coal and oil as energy sources will have dire and grave consequences for species across the globe and will hasten the downturn and inevitable collapse of civilization and society in the second half of the 21st century, bringing unimaginable horrors and destruction for many individuals globally.http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=02cc5690-cb8b-49f1-9d91-b916b1867170&p=1
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