Is your news source really about news?

If you live in the USA then where you get your "news" from is most likely not really concerned with news but money and what sells.  So what sells?  Things that make you afraid of things that are different.  Fear mongering is rich among the major media outlets.  What you don't get is a true picture of what goes on in the world.  You normally hear how it is reasonable that Israel kills 4 times more innocent civilians then intended targets.  You hear how they give warning and ask Palestinians to leave before bombing You hear that Israel has no choice when they kill civilians.  You don't hear that the Gaza Strip is basically a large prison.  You don't hear that Palestinians can't really leave the Gaza strip.  You don't hear that Israel bombs civilians completely isolated from valid military targets like the a hospital or 4 kids playing ball on a empty beach.  I could go on but this post isn't about Palestine and Israel.  It is about news outlets and them not actually reporting news.

Do you know who this woman is? Some of you might but odds are most of you don't.  Her name is Shannon Guess Richardson.  I don't know about you but I think she's pretty but then I have a thing for red heads. Shannon is from Texas and she was an actress.  Don't feel bad if you still don't recognize her.  Even though you've probably seen her, she's been in Walking Dead, Vampire diaries, Twilight Breaking Dawn and a bunch of other tv shows.  Pretty much everything she's been in has been as an uncredited extra.  This isn't the news that you should have been told.  What you should have heard from your news sources is that she is a dangerous terrorist inside of the USA.  You might be thinking "WHAT!?!?!, She doesn't look at all like a Muslim!". She isn't.  She is much more dangerous.  She is an extreme right wing conservative who is part of a population that think it is her right to try to assassinate multiple politicians including the president.  She even tried to frame her innocent husband for it.  What did she do? She actually sent ricin to Obama, Bloomberg and Mark Glaze.  She's eventually pleaded guilty and will serve 18 years.  Now if she was Muslim she probably would have had a good chance of being shot while being taken into custody.

Think this isn't a big deal?  I can see some people I'm related to making the claim it wasn't that serious because the president was never in danger because of the security protocols around him.  For you that don't know how deadly ricin is think about 1 aspirin.  Now chop that pill into over 200 equal parts.  Now take just one of those portions and that is enough to kill a fully grown person.  Yes Obama was very safe.  He doesn't open his own mail and there is strict screening on any mail sent to him so even the staff in the white house were in no danger.  But what about Bloomberg and Glaze?  What about the postal worker that handled those letters.  What if on or more of the letters broke open and contaminated other mail.

But even the "liberal" media of the USA didn't really say anything about this.  Because she is a white female.  You can guarantee that if she was Muslim that you would have heard nothing but her story for weeks on end.  But your news doesn't want you to think critically.  They want you afraid of stuff you find hard to relate to, like Muslim terrorist.  That is what drives their profits and you come out the other end with a distorted view of reality.  You look at Shannon and you probably think something like "she looks like someone I'd be friends with."

How many right wing extremists have you heard about killing anyone?  Now how many times have your heard how dangerous Muslim terrorists are.  Do you know right wing extremists are over twice as deadly as Muslim terrorists in the USA?  Left wing extremists are really bad.  They haven't killed anyone in over a decade.  I often blame conservatives for not standing and speaking up against the radicals in their midst.  But truth is most of you don't know they are there.  Funny enough it is right wing extremists that always ask why Muslims don't condemn Muslim Terrorists.  This is what is called projection and isn't anywhere near reality.  The reality is that there are TONS of Muslim organisations that put out statements of condemnation after some terrorist attacks.  From the right you only hear how the actions of radicals in their own groups are some how justified.

So here is what I suggest you start doing if you want real news.  Try other sources.  Huffington Post is a good one. The BBC is pretty good.  Al Jazeera is actually excellent and much more independent from government pressure then the major networks in the USA.

At the end of the day if you want to stay ignorant then by all means keep watching Fox News, CNN, or even MSNBC.  You'll get right wing view, warped "balanced" news or Centre right "liberal" views.  What you will not get is the real story but something that makes them money and doesn't actually amount to anything remotely like journalism.

My German heritage makes me proud.

While much of the rest of the world says it is to hard, to expensive or not even possible Germany is doing it.  What are they doing you ask?  Converting over to renewable energy sources like wind and solar.  They are doing it at a very nice pace to.  They are putting the change ahead of corporate greed.  They are giving control back to the people.

  For those of you that don't know Germany has a big push and big incentives for people to do things like install solar panels.  There are many people that take out loans to install solar systems that end up not only providing all the power needs for those people but also produces enough excess power to actually pay for the loans and maintenance of the solar power systems.

  This makes me think about the Berkeley professor that redid his house to use more efficient lights and appliances and at the same time install a solar panel system.  The professor paid for the entire conversion by adding on to his existing home loan.  The money the professor saved by going off the grid was more then the increase in his mortgage payment.  It can be done if people want to make the effort.

  Back in July Germany produced over 5.1TWh of power via solar. This broke the record of renewable energy generation previously held by wind turbines of 5TWh.  Germany is looking to get 80% of its energy needs from renewables by 2050 and at this rate Germany will have no trouble not only meeting that goal but exceeding it.

  So successful is the German model that corporations that own old fossil fuel power plants are trying to threaten to leave Germany.  To me that is a bit like a bully threatening a little kid that they'll to go to another school and beat up someone else.  The fact that these corporations are having a hard headed approach to changing to the markets is very telling.

  This is all something that the USA should have been doing back in the late 70s and early 80s but oil corporations lobbied the Reagan administration hard and not only put a stop to changes President Carter put in place but even had solar panels removed from the White House.  Carter said the following "a generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil."  Well a generation and a half later we are basically at the same point.  Obama had panels put back into the White House in 2010.  30 years have gone by.  30 years not completely wasted but not even close to being even partially realised.

  This revolution can either be one that the USA can be spear heading and profiting from or one that the USA can watch from the side lines and resort to being just another consumer dependent on other countries for the market and innovations.

  All this is ignoring the benefits of renewable.  All I'm saying is that the conversion can be done.  It isn't beyond our ability.  When people say it is then they are being VERY short sighted and even more ignorant of the reality of the situation.

  Do you think it can and should be done or are you one of the above?
Which of these do you want near your home?

This?

Or this?