Throw out perfectly good goods

"Change your TV, change your life"- an actual slogan. I heard it last night. I'd also like to note, before i continue, the commercials where a woman throws her perfectly good washing machine into a pool so she will need to buy a new "red" one- to enrich her life. Also the commercial where the couple throws their phones into a lake because they are tired of them.

Now i ask you, is a company encouraging the disposal of working cell phones into a lake really showing any consideration for the environment whatsoever?

In their defence: It's drama, its a joke, you're not to take it literally.. . .Fine. . ..But wouldn't this be the same argument racists use to defend themselves? The redneck who uses the word Nig*** in a joke is just kidding right? No big deal. Humour is a very effective way to soften people up to a new idea. It allows the person to convey a message, but hold on to an easy way out. That way, if someone points out the negative aspect of your message, you can easily divert blame by stating that you were not serious and that the message should not be taken lightly. Dudes who pick up lots of girls in bars use this technique constantly; joke to a girl that you want to take her home, if she laughs- you stated your intentions and she did not object. On the other hand if she doesn't find it funny- "hey relax chick, i was just joking". Guys trying to pick up chicks is pretty harmless, things like racism and environmental destruction are not.

What message are these companies softening? Well obviously they're not condoning the disposal of cellphones into lakes, this is not the intention of the ad. However, the ad is intended to convince you to throw out your perfectly good phone- from this they stand to make millions. Now if i joke to a friend that they have an ugly phone and should throw it out; the total environmental destruction from that message would be very very slight. If that message is repeated to millions of people (as happens on TV), the environmental affect is very great. I absolutely guarantee that somewhere some idiot has thrown his phone into a lake as a means of disposal and he got the idea from this commercial. Conversely, the somewhat smarter portion of the population disposed on their phones into a landfill when they tired of the colour.

The Alkaline Battery Hoax

Repeatedly disposing of everyday alkaline batteries is completely unnecessary. Its a perfect example of misleading the public in the interests of profit. The environmental effect and the wasted resources from this corporate lie are devastating. Sure there are cleaner methods of disposal being developed in some communities- but that doesn't fix the problem. Improve the product not its disposal; its like fixing a leaky faucet by improving the drain.

Common Batteries can be recharged as safely and effectively as "rechargeable" batteries.

Alkaline batteries all carry a label warning about leaks and explosions. Damaging a household battery is just about as dangerous and squishing a lemon- its a marketing tactic using fear. The technology to make a charger for regular alkaline batteries is incredibly simple. There once was a charger on infomercials, very briefly. I'm sure the company was shut down. There are plenty of people on the internet who have built their own chargers- look it up if you like. Personally, i can't be bothered to build one, nor do i have the right tools or skills- but if they had it at Canadian Tire i would buy one for sure. These are my choices: buy terribly over priced "rechargeable" batteries, or, since im often short on cash, buy the generic coppergizers and throw, throw, throw them away.

Don’t blame people, blame Walmart for employee death.

When you're in a mob, you don't have a lot of choices- its either keep moving or fall victim to a trampling yourself. Walmart is the cause of their employee's death; surely his family has already received a massive settlement to make the matter go away. Since there is no union at walmart, there is no one to argue in defense of employee safety here. This will be summed up to people being inhumane, oh and by the way it happened at a walmart (but could have been anywhere).

For a price, this mob could have been well contained and controlled, but profit is paramount to Walmart.

If you're going to whip up a frenzy, you'd better have proper barriers in place, employees trained on mob mentality safety issues and heavy, heavy security. Rock concerts do this, so do political rallies, why is walmart allowed to let an unsupervised mob form in their parking lot?

Walmart is just as responsible as the night club owners who cause death by having improper emergency exits, or the miscreant that encourages the start of a riot.

Jack Layton for Prime Minister

Conservatives are reading that heading and saying “dear god not this again”

If the liberals and NDP do form a coalition, they had better be very careful who they select as PM. Dion has already said he is stepping down; if he doesn’t feel he’s fit to lead the party- how can we expect him to lead the country? The other 3 liberal contenders were not candidates for PM. To give them the job would seem to circumvent democracy- not that we really have a democracy here in Canada.

No, the only choice would be Layton. He’s the only one who actually ran in
the election and maintains that he’s up to the job. To bad the liberals would never let it happen, they would never give up the power- even when its ill designed. That’s what Paul Martin’s government was all about.

"Grassroots"

Another term falling victim to language manipulation in the interest of political gain. Examine the metaphor. Many roots of blades of grass working together to grow into a lawn; many many small additions to the whole, together can create a powerful total. So ‘grassroots’ funding would be many many small sources of funding coming together to create one large pool of money.

Harper is always talking about his ‘grassroots’ campaign fundraising. The budget they recently presented eliminated government funding for political parties, meaning all parties would have to rely on their individual supporters for all campaign funds. The opposition parties are very upset with this because they know that the conservative ‘grassroots’ fundraising is far superior to their own.

So, it leaves the question, why is conservative ‘grassroots’ the most effective? Only recently have they been flirting with majorities, but Harper’s been going on about his ‘grassroots’ since the party was much less popular. Therefore its not by quantity of blades of grass that the conservative lawn is much greener. So where the hell is the conservative party getting all this green? It can only be explained by the quality of the roots. Conservatives must get more funding per source, each root being stronger on its own.

Well, conservative voters are traditionally older and wealthier. They have more money to pass along to the party sure, but that can’t be the only explanation. There have to be a few roots in that lawn that are very very large. Its no secret that the conservatives have many ties in business and receive much of their support from corporate sources.

Sorry but that is NOT ‘grassroots’ fundraising, its corporate. You can’t have a lawn made up of 50 giant blades of grass, it makes no sense. ‘Grassroots’ is a metaphor wherein the many weak bond together to become strong, its not applicable to the many strong bonding together to become even stronger. This is a traditionally lefty term, and Harper has brilliantly stolen it. It makes his party seem like it derives it greatest strength from the people which is total BS; the conservatives are strong because they have a leader whose great at playing the game of politics and a corporately stocked war chest for elections.

I’m sure Harper also can’t resist referring to his party with a term that sounds both populist and environmental.

My Point Exactly.

My Point Exactly.

Please see my last post also. . .

A mob of people desperate to get into Wal-Mart trample a worker to death as he waits to unlocks the door at 5am. Other employees try to rescue him, the mob continues pouring into the store. Even as police try to do CPR, the crowd doesn't relent and pushes and shoves the officers all in the interest of getting inside. These animals tore down the front doors of a store. Makes me think of those horror movies where the salivating crowd of undead tears down a building to eat at the sweet sweet brains inside.

Maybe a pack of dogs, did i already use that analogy?

Other parts of the world, people get trampled when crowds run from danger or towards safety. North America?, The desire to shop,literally, drives us to murder. . ..Happy Holidays!

Its all a sham my friends, we’re not all going to be out of work living in our cars. North Americans have one quality that guarantees our economic survival- we are the perfect consumers. Global conglomerates have invested fortune after fortune for generations convincing us to be the perfect little shoppers. We’ve been meticulously studied and prodded. They know how to sell to us, where to sell to us; they’ve been blasting us with their messages since birth. Think about it, we know the lyrics to jingles, we buy cheap equipment doomed to break constantly- we’ll wait for hours in the cold for a store to open when the latest crap is made available.

Then there’s the infrastructure. Look at a company like Walmart, with the reach and market saturation they’ve got in the USA. Do you think a company like that would want to pack it in and move out. Of course not, sure there is potentially much more consumption to be had elsewhere and they’re expanding abroad, but North American consumption is all set to go. The stores are here everywhere and we’re all salivating at the mouth to get in.

People in other parts of the world aren’t nearly as addicted to shopping as we are, they’re more like our grandparents. One set of dishes washed, none of this paper and plastic shit. A can opener that never broke. Baths instead of long showers. Our corporate masters have too much of a vested interest in this population, they know they can shit any garbage on us and we’ll scoop it up like dogs. They’ve got to keep us working to make this possible. These “economic downturns” are just opportunities for them to freak us out and make it okay that we didn’t get a raise this year, or that we took a terrible job and count it as a blessing. The working man’s slice is always shrinking.