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Obama remains 'king' of the mountain and is a one man band as he drums out Congress and our Constitution..
Voters wanted change and Greens wanted clean air. A nuclear Iran 'clouds' the issue!
This is not only an Israeli issue. Everyone needs to stand and speak out or the world could pay a horrible price.(See , 1a and 1b below.)
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VERY IMPORTANT: MUST ATTEND Presentations!!!!
Either July 14 or 16 (final date yet to be determined) we will have James Van de Velde present here at The Landings. Jim will be speaking on cyber security and how ISIS is using the social media to convey their message.
His presentation is open to the public and I encourage 'Townees' to attend as well as Landings residents.
This is Jim's resume: "
James Van de Velde, Ph.D., a Lecturer Johns Hopkins University and Adjunct Faculty at the Georgetown University, is also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Intelligence Reserves where he teaches at the National Intelligence University. He is also an Associate for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. He is a former White House Appointee in the US Department of State for nuclear weapons arms control under President George H. W. Bush, a former Lecturer and Residential College Dean at Yale University, and a former career Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department of State. Dr. Van de Velde currently consults with US Cyber Command on US cyber strategy. He has consulted previously on national security affairs with Special Operations Command, the Open Source Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter Proliferation Center, the National Counter Terrorism Center, the US Joint Staff, and the US Department of Treasury. Dr. Van de Velde is an Associate Member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University and the US-Japan Program at Harvard University. Dr. Van de Velde received his B.A. from Yale University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in National Security Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1988."
The purpose of The SIRC's " True Perspective "public programs is to inform on topics of keen current interest. We work hard at seeking experts on the topics presented.
Then, on August 11, Professor Robbie Friedman, will discuss the proposed Iran Agreement and matters relating thereto, including the impact on regional nations, America, Europe etc.
Robbie's resume is:
- "Georgia State University
Robert_Friedmann
International terrorism, Incitement and terrorism, Challenges to Israeli societyDr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He was the Distinguished Chair of Public Safety Partnerships (2007-2010) and served as Chair (1989-2002) of the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Friedmann received his B.S. (Sociology and Anthropology, and Philosophy) from the University of Haifa, Israel (1974); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Sociology) from the University of Minnesota (1978); and his M.S.S.W. (Social Work) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).
His interest and published work focus on community policing, terrorism, and crime analysis. His books include: Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects, (1992), Criminal Justice in Israel: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Publications, 1948-1993 (1995), Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing the Knowledge Base toward the Twenty-First Century (1998), A Diary of Four Years of Terrorism and Anti-Semitism: 2000-2004 (2005; two volumes), and 28 Letters (2012). He also authored numerous articles and research reports on crime and criminal justice focusing on policing and public safety. He was the recipient of several federal grants to improve crime data.Dr. Friedmann chaired the Georgia Commission to Assess State Crime Laboratory Needs into the 21st Century; he is a Member of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP), and a Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and its Community Policing Committee. He assisted in security planning and preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and for the G-8 in Sea Island, Georgia. He served as a member of the Fulton County Court House Security Commission and he serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel, the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, and is a member of the executive committee of The International Counter-Terrorism Academic Community.Dr. Friedmann works closely with a number of police departments, in the U.S. and internationally, on community policing and homeland security.- ===
This is the result and think of all the money tax payers are saving as a result so our elected can sip their wine, bottled opened in a safe and hygienic way while our elected officials they give away our money and members of the DEA can engage with prostitutes!
Big Government is easier to run completely out of control and Rep. Gowdy has revealed just another incidence where this is happening and how tax payers are being played for the suckers we are.
This is the face of our government and it is a tragedy. (See 2 below.)
Another example of great federal cost effective engineering!
Designed for optimal functionality .
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This from a very dear friend and fellow memo reader who is quite often not a happy fellow. (See 3 below.)
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Today, April 15, is when I had my first date with Lynn and we were married March 5, of the following year.
I am sending this memo now because we are having lunch and then going to a movie.
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Dick
1)- Obama’s One-Man Nuclear Deal
Congress will get a vote but the President still has a free hand.
President Obama says he wants Congress to play a role in approving a nuclear deal with Iran, but his every action suggests the opposite. After months of resistance, the White House said Tuesday the President would finally sign a bill requiring a Senate vote on any deal—and why not since it still gives him nearly a free hand.
Modern Presidents have typically sought a Congressional majority vote, and usually a two-thirds majority, to ratify a major nuclear agreement. Mr. Obama has maneuvered to make Congress irrelevant, though bipartisan majorities passed the economic sanctions that even he now concedes drove Iran to the negotiating table.
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The Republican Congress has been trying to reclaim a modest role in foreign affairs over Mr. Obama’s furious resistance. And on Tuesday afternoon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passed a measure that authorizes Congress to vote on an Iran deal within 30 days of Mr. Obama submitting it for review.
The Republican Congress has been trying to reclaim a modest role in foreign affairs over Mr. Obama’s furious resistance. And on Tuesday afternoon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passed a measure that authorizes Congress to vote on an Iran deal within 30 days of Mr. Obama submitting it for review.
As late as Tuesday morning, Secretary of State John Kerry was still railing in private against the bill. But the White House finally conceded when passage with a veto-proof majority seemed inevitable. The bill will now pass easily on the floor, and if Mr. Obama’s follows his form, he will soon talk about the bill as if it was his idea.
Mr. Obama can still do whatever he wants on Iran as long as he maintains Democratic support. A majority could offer a resolution of disapproval, but that could be filibustered by Democrats and vetoed by the President. As few as 41 Senate Democrats could thus vote to prevent it from ever getting to President Obama’s desk—and 34 could sustain a veto. Mr. Obama could then declare that Congress had its say and “approved” the Iran deal even if a majority in the House and Senate voted to oppose it.
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker deserves credit for trying, but in the end he had to agree to Democratic changes watering down the measure if he wanted 67 votes to override an Obama veto. Twice the Tennessee Republican delayed a vote in deference to Democrats, though his bill merely requires a vote after the negotiations are over.
His latest concessions shorten the review period to 30 days, which Mr. Obama wanted, perhaps to mollify the mullahs in Tehran who want sanctions lifted immediately. After 52 days Mr. Obama could unilaterally ease sanctions without Congressional approval. Mr. Obama has said that under the “framework” accord sanctions relief is intended to be gradual. But don’t be surprised if his final concession to Ayatollah Khamenei is to lift sanctions after 52 days.
Mr. Corker also removed a requirement that the Administration certify to Congress that Iran is no longer supporting terrorism. This sends an especially bad signal to Iran that Congress agrees with Mr. Obama that the nuclear deal is divorced from its behavior as a rogue state. One of Mr. Obama’s least plausible justifications for the nuclear deal is that it would help to make Iran a “normal” nation. But if Tehran is still sponsoring terrorism around the world, how can it be trusted as a nuclear partner?
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Our own view of all this is closer to that of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who spoke for (but didn’t offer) an amendment in committee Tuesday to require that Mr. Obama submit the Iran nuclear deal as a treaty. Under the Constitution, ratification would require an affirmative vote by two-thirds of the Senate.
Committing the U.S. to a deal of this magnitude—concerning proliferation of the world’s most destructive weapons—should require treaty ratification. Previous Presidents from JFK to Nixon to Reagan and George H.W. Bush submitted nuclear pacts as treaties. Even Mr. Obama submitted the U.S.-Russian New Start accord as a treaty.
The Founders required two-thirds approval on treaties because they wanted major national commitments overseas to have a national political consensus. Mr. Obama should want the same kind of consensus on Iran.
But instead he is giving more authority over American commitments to the United Nations than to the U.S. Congress. By making the accord an executive agreement as opposed to a treaty, and perhaps relying on a filibuster or veto to overcome Congressional opposition, he’s turning the deal into a one-man presidential compact with Iran. This will make it vulnerable to being rejected by the next President, as some of the GOP candidates are already promising.
The case for the Corker bill is that at least it guarantees some debate and a vote in Congress on an Iran deal. Mr. Obama can probably do what he wants anyway, but the Iranians are on notice that the United States isn’t run by a single Supreme Leader.
1a)
The Iranian crisis: American Jews must stand and be counted
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The announcement of the Lausanne joint statement concerning the framework of the U.S. deal with Iran highlighted the extent of President Barack Obama’s subterfuge and deception. We also witnessed the blatant contempt of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who rejected key components of the “agreements” and referred to America’s “devilish” objectives while his audience chanted “Death to America.” Yet Obama continued insisting that a genuine framework for a deal had been achieved and dismissed Khamenei’s remarks as merely for “domestic consumption.” He reiterated that Iran would not become a nuclear power “under his watch.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now no longer a voice in the wilderness. There has been a surge of condemnations from wide sections of the media, including many liberal and even Obama stalwarts who, ironically, effectively vindicated Netanyahu’s congressional critique of the deal — which they had previously mocked.
The problem is that Obama and his acolytes refuse to face the reality that the Iranian regime is not merely a terrorist state but is controlled by messianic religious fundamentalist fanatics who, during the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, systematically sacrificed 500,000 child soldiers carrying plastic keys to Paradise as they were “martyred.” Mutual assured destruction, which created the deterrence between the Soviets and the West during the Cold War, cannot be applied to leaders capable of launching a suicidal nuclear inferno to destroy Israel, content in the belief that they will be rewarded for their efforts with heavenly paradise.
However, the Iranians will in all likelihood ultimately accept the deal offered because it will relieve economic sanctions, transform them legally into a threshold nuclear state, and, according to Obama himself, provide the legitimacy to become a full-fledged nuclear power after 13 years. As former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Negotiations … to prevent Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability.”
The cynical decision by the Russians to already now lift the ban on providing the Iranians with the S-300 missile system further diminishes any prospects of influencing the duplicitous Ayatollah Khamenei to adhere to a meaningful agreement.
Only Congress can prevent the implementation of this shocking act of appeasement with its catastrophic global implications — and there are only a few weeks left to act. Proposed bills requiring congressional approval for the Iran deal and removal of sanctions are currently being debated and may be voted on this week.
In this context, the response of American Jews to Obama’s actions could be a crucial factor in determining the outcome.
There is already unprecedented tension evident among Jews who are shocked with their vindictive president’s determination to proceed with policies that amount to an abandonment of Israel.
Obama is sensitive to this and has suddenly become excessively solicitous, disingenuously expressing astonishment at those who felt that Israel was not close to his heart, making the cynical observation that a weakened Israel “would be a failure for my presidency.” What an extraordinary statement from a president who, for most of his term of office, has treated Israel worse than rogue states.
He also stated “that if anyone messes with Israel, America will be there.” Aside from being meaningless, taking account of Obama’s track record with his allies, this is a pathetic utterance.
Indeed, when in the midst of negotiations, the Iranian leaders reiterated that “the destruction of Israel is nonnegotiable,” Obama merely expressed regret, but refused to allow this to influence his position.
These developments have obliged even liberal Zionist Jews to admit the painful reality that their president has turned on Israel.
Yet some of Obama’s most fervid supporters are Jews or of Jewish origin. The most benign are schizophrenics who still love Israel but instead of criticizing the administration, vent their spleen on Netanyahu for his “extremism.”
The more vicious are the anti-Israel bashers and left-wing organizations such as J Street, which urge Obama to “punish Israel.” Obama’s verbal onslaughts provide grist for the mill of Jews promoting anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and those at the recent J Street conference, where one panel participant was applauded when she questioned the need to retain a Jewish state.
Few anti-Israel activists have a genuine Jewish background. The majority of the older elements are former communists and Bundists or their offspring who were always hostile to Zionism.
Among the youngsters, it is a reflection of demographic changes, with 80% of non-Orthodox Jews marrying non-Jews. They are misleadingly described as “secular” Jews, but in many cases, the only link to Judaism is one Jewish parent. Many have no ethnic ties or genuine feelings of affinity to Israel and most of their children will not even relate to anything Jewish.
Despite disproportionate exposure, one must not be misled into believing that vast numbers of American Jews are becoming anti-Israeli. The reality is that committed American Jews remain passionately supportive of Israel and, surprisingly, polls still show that they overwhelmingly support Netanyahu.
Regrettably, until recently the grass-roots support was not reflected in the mainstream leadership, which failed to respond publicly to the numerous indignities to which the prime minister of Israel was subjected by the U.S. administration and the unreasonable demands made of Israel, which has been treated far harsher than outright enemies of the U.S.
In general, Americans have no hesitation in condemning or protesting against their president when they disagree with him. Yet the traditionally feisty Jewish leadership which is deeply committed to Israel, with a few exceptions, behaved like “trembling Israelites,” reluctant to even respectfully criticize their president. This is a sad comment about American Jewry, which has always insisted that although in the Diaspora, it is not in galut (exile).
Eli Wiesel and a number of organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and the Simon Wiesenthal Center spoke out when Netanyahu was excoriated by the administration for addressing Congress, but regrettably the mainstream leadership remained silent. Noting that even the Jews were not protesting his primitive insults to Netanyahu, Obama was encouraged to be even more vicious in his verbal attacks.
However, following his intense outrage in the wake of Netanyahu’s electoral victory and as Jews began to appreciate the extent of Obama’s capitulation to the Iranian terrorists, there appears to have been a sea change and the mainstream leadership has finally spoken out. While some of the “liberal” establishment, including the Reform and Conservative Jewish organizations, were at pains to display their bona fides to Obama by castigating Netanyahu, many of their rabbis did not share these views.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee led the charge, criticizing Obama and lobbying Congress to toughen the deal with the Iranians. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations also expressed disapproval.
Other Jewish organizations followed. Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who had previously criticized Netanyahu and urged him to cancel his congressional visit, did not hold his punches. He considered the administration’s behavior “unbecoming” and was profoundly troubled by its reactions, which “raise deeper questions about their intentions and perspectives.”
David Harris, head of the American Jewish Committee, expressed “deep anxiety and puzzlement” and even accused Obama of “having a reasoned interest in prolonging the crisis” and of orchestrating a campaign “completely contrary to the spirit of U.S.-Israel relations.”
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a dove and supporter of leftist causes, accused Obama of creating an “existential threat to Israel” and made parallels with the Western betrayal of Czechoslovakia when he said, “Imagine if the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament had allowed Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia to speak out against the Munich pact.”
This is indeed a time of reckoning, especially as the administration could also be on the verge of abandoning Israel diplomatically.
The unprecedented viciousness of the administration’s anti-Israel rhetoric may be a precursor to withholding its veto from the impending French U.N. resolution effectively recognizing a Palestinian state and negating Resolution 242 with a U.S. or a U.N. imposed settlement that would deny Israel defensible borders. The path would then be open for the Europeans, with the tacit support of the U.S., to commence orchestrating resolutions sanctioning Israel.
The extent to which American Jews raise their voices may have a major impact on the outcome of these developments, especially in relation to wavering Democratic congressmen. Senator Chuck Schumer, recently endorsed for the position of Senate Democratic leader following the 2016 congressional elections, seeks to portray himself as a Jewish “hawk” on Israel and Iran. He has indicated he will back the proposed bill requiring congressional approval of the Iran deal but his Jewish constituents should discourage him from sitting on the fence when it comes to lobbying his fellow Democrats to overcome Obama’s veto and review the unworkable agreement.
This is truly a time for American Jewish leaders to stand and be counted; the issues at stake will profoundly impact Israel’s security and could even have existential repercussions as well as a dismal outcome for the entire world. The indicators all suggest that American Jewish leaders have woken up and will not let Israel down.
The big news today out of Washington isn’t that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker managed to appease enough Democrats to lock up what will probably be a veto-proof majority for a bill mandating a Senate vote on any final Iran deal. The real story is that the White House has now announced that it won’t, despite months of threats to do so, veto the amended bill. Their excuse is that the Democratic amendments Corker swallowed alter the bill so much that it no longer constitutes much of an obstruction to the president’s plans to pursue détente with the Islamist regime. That is, as Corker rightly insists, mostly spin. But the question we should be asking is whether conceding that Congress has a right to an up-or-down vote on the agreement will give the administration the room to maneuver that will enable it to pass the deal despite the clear sense of Congress that it is a disaster.
The concessions Corker made are not insubstantial, but by themselves they don’t destroy the basic principle that he and Robert Menendez, the former ranking member of the committee, sought to establish. Despite the effort of the White House to portray the deal as something that doesn’t fall under the normal constitutional rubric of a treaty that must be submitted to the Senate for approval, Corker-Menendez will allow Congress the final say on a nuclear pact. That’s a victory for critics of the president’s diplomatic strategy as well as a blow struck for the sort of constitutional principles that this president has routinely trashed on issues such as environmental regulations and illegal immigration. But by stating that he’ll sign Corker-Menendez, Obama may have won over a large number of Democratic senators who were planning to vote for Corker-Menendez as well as a bill promising more sanctions on Iran in the event that the diplomatic process fails. As Max Boot wrote earlier, the bill strengthens the president’s hand in the final negotiations with Iran since he can say that he is responsible to Congress and won’t be able to make as many concessions as he might have liked. But assuming that he does continue to make enough concessions to enable Iran to finally sign on to a written version of the agreement by June, the concessions the president won today will be useful to him as he seeks Senate approval for the deal. One can view the White House waving the white flag on this issue as a signal defeat and in that sense it is. But in doing so the president has strengthened his ability to rally Democrats and perhaps some wavering Republicans—like Corker—to vote for the Iran deal once it is finished. Indeed, so long as they have their say on it, Democrats and Republicans may decide that procedure has precedence over substance and wind up giving the president what he wants anyway. It may be that the White House move on Corker-Menendez ensures that Obama will get most Democrats to back the Iran deal no matter how awful a bargain it turns out to be. In addition, by forcing Corker to cut in half the amount of time the Senate has to study what will be a complicated document (from 60 days to 30) and by eliminating other issues from the mix—such as forcing the administration to certify that Iran is not supporting anti-American terrorism—he has simplified the president’s task in gaining the agreement’s eventual passage. The main point here was never just about the president trying to act like a monarch and ratifying a treaty without Congress but whether the Senate could exercise its constitutional responsibilities in a way that could help get a better deal from Iran. The pact Obama has agreed to provides Iran with a path to a bomb both by easy cheating and by adhering to its terms provided they have the patience to wait until it expires. Corker can, as Max noted, take a bow for working in a bipartisan manner and getting something passed. But just as the Iranians learned they could bulldoze the president in an impasse, what opponents of his appeasement must ponder is whether this is a precedent for future negotiations with the White House that will bring the Tennessee Republican over to the president’s side in a final vote on an Iran deal. If the Senate is outmaneuvered in the months ahead and winds up belatedly ratifying a weak deal, we may look back on today’s events and say this was the moment when the president finally wised up and locked up sufficient support for appeasement. |
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2) Trey Gowdy Grills the DEA Over Sex Parties Scandal
Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended sex parties with prostitutes while stationed overseas as far back as 2001, according to a report released Tuesday.
Money to pay prostitutes at a farewell party for a high-ranking DEA official was included in an "operational budget" that used government funds for the party, the report said. DEA agents also rented undercover apartments in Colombia and used them for parties with prostitutes, the DEA said in an internal report.
Excerpts of the report were released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee. The panel is investigating questionable behavior highlighted in a March 26 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that examines sexual harassment and misconduct allegations from 2009 to 2012.
The Justice Department report recounts allegations that DEA agents attended sex parties with prostitutes, funded by local drug cartels, in a foreign county. The report does not identify the country where the alleged sex parties occurred, but the report released Tuesday identified it as Colombia. Source: FoxNation.com - See more at: http://americanactionnews.com/articles/trey-gowdy-grills-the-dea-over-sex-parties-scandal#sthash.W7xVsMXA.dpuf
Congressman Trey Gowdy is leading the Benghazi Select-Committee's investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's involvement in the attack on the American consulate in Libya which resulted in the deaths of 4 Americans.
The media and liberal attack dogs have done everything to discredit and dismiss Americans and Members of Congress who want to get to the bottom of Benghazi.
Recently, it came to light that Hillary Clinton was hiding emails from her time as the Secretary of State while the attack in Benghazi took place.
Tell Congress to support Trey Gowdy and the work the Benghazi Select Committee is doing to expose the truth about Benghazi and Hillary Clinton.
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3)
2) Trey Gowdy Grills the DEA Over Sex Parties Scandal
Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended sex parties with prostitutes while stationed overseas as far back as 2001, according to a report released Tuesday.
Money to pay prostitutes at a farewell party for a high-ranking DEA official was included in an "operational budget" that used government funds for the party, the report said. DEA agents also rented undercover apartments in Colombia and used them for parties with prostitutes, the DEA said in an internal report.
Excerpts of the report were released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee. The panel is investigating questionable behavior highlighted in a March 26 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that examines sexual harassment and misconduct allegations from 2009 to 2012.
The Justice Department report recounts allegations that DEA agents attended sex parties with prostitutes, funded by local drug cartels, in a foreign county. The report does not identify the country where the alleged sex parties occurred, but the report released Tuesday identified it as Colombia. Source: FoxNation.com - See more at: http://americanactionnews.com/articles/trey-gowdy-grills-the-dea-over-sex-parties-scandal#sthash.W7xVsMXA.dpuf
Congressman Trey Gowdy is leading the Benghazi Select-Committee's investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's involvement in the attack on the American consulate in Libya which resulted in the deaths of 4 Americans.
The media and liberal attack dogs have done everything to discredit and dismiss Americans and Members of Congress who want to get to the bottom of Benghazi.
Recently, it came to light that Hillary Clinton was hiding emails from her time as the Secretary of State while the attack in Benghazi took place.
Tell Congress to support Trey Gowdy and the work the Benghazi Select Committee is doing to expose the truth about Benghazi and Hillary Clinton.
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1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television Revenues
To the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)
Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended)
10. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again and again.
All we will have left that which can't be changed... are our "Memories".
Logic is dead.
Excellence is punished.
Mediocrity is rewarded.
And dependency is to be revered.
This is present day America.
When people rob banks they go to prison.
When they rob the taxpayer they get re-elected.
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