The Compact Disc is dying

If you are at all interested in music then you know that there is a bit of a revolution going on in the industry in terms of how music is delivered to the public. For about the last 25 years or so the method of choice has been the compact disc or cd but like Bob dylan said "...the times they are a changin..." especially among the very young. According to a recent survey 48% of U.S. teenagers did not buy one single cd in 2007. This number is up from 38% in 2006. At the same time the number of Americans buying music on line in 2007, (legally that is) has risen to 29 million which represents a 20% increase from 2006. If you were to estimate the number of people who are illegally downloading music through file sharing sites the number would skyrocket. Some people make the argument that the music industry got what it deserved after decades of charging people upwards of $20 for a single cd and in some cases even more. Especially in light of the fact that it costs them far less than $1 to make a cd. It is actually less than 50 cents per copy. It neglected to understand or care about the fact that the majority of its consumers were young people who were either in high school or college and lacked the funds to sustain those kinds of expenditures for music. If you insist on economically raping people for a long enough time they likely will react in ways that you may not expect, prefer, or anticipate. Such is the new situation that faces the music industry today.

Pollution Badly Effecting The Worlds Oceans and Air

We all know that pollution is having a devastating effect on the Earth's eco-system. There are some real concerns over the summer olympics being held in China this year for example. The pollution in the capital city of Beijing is so thick and overwhelming that there are major concerns that the athletes who will be competing there will be so negatively effected that their perfomances will suffer simply due to the lack of fresh air to breath. Pollution of course is not limited to the air. The Earth's oceans have been suffering for decades with the actions of man in this regard. In 2006 the United Nations undertook a study of how badly the oceans are polluted. There are all kinds of junk that are thrown into the ocean but the study focused on just plastic pollution like bottles and bags. It estimated that for every square mile of ocean there are about 46,000 seperate pieces of plastic waste floating around on the surface. In addition to things like water bottles and sandwich bags the waste includes things like the plastic rings that hold a six pack of beer cans together and also plastic needles that you would find typically in hospital waste.

FYI - On a somewhat unrelated issue April 20th is the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Last November on this blog I wrote an article in which i described some of the details of the events of that day. It's Called "Columbine Massacre Revisited". If you type that headline is the search box at the top of this blog the article will come up for you if you would care to read it.

U.S. Soldiers In Iraq - Army Doing Most Of The Dying

The milestone has only just recently been reached. The U.S. suffered its 4000th casualty in Iraq after about 5 years of fighting there. It is also estimated now that the number of wounded is nearing the 100,000 mark as well. These figures do not even include the number of suicides that have taken place with soldiers who have returned from combat with all kinds of emotional problems which led them to such behaviors. How exactly do the figures break down by branches of the service? Here is a quick look. The four branches of the military are of course the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The Army by far has done the bulk of the dying so far in Iraq as you would expect. They account for over 70% of America's war dead. The Marines are next with about 25% of the casualties which adds up to 1 out of every 4. The Navy has suffered much fewer losses accounting for about 2% of the total. The Air Force the least with about 1%. The good news is that casualties in general have gone way down in Iraq overall in the last year. In May of 2007 The U.S. suffered 130 dead in that month which was almost a record high for one month. In December of 2007 it was less than 30. The trend for this year so far has been about 30 a month. We all of course keep our fingers crossed for this positive trend to continue.

How An Egg Can Kill You

Some of us are actually old enough to remember those old ads on tv that used to promote eggs and the consumption of eggs years ago. The jingle used to go ..."the incredible edible egg." The part that they were leaving out was the part about how much cholesterol one little egg contains. Did you know that just one egg has about 80% of the total amount of cholesterol that you can safely consume in one day? Based on recommended daily allowances that's it, just one egg and you are already at the limit just about. So imagine how many two eggs or three eggs will do you. It is one of the biggest and fastest ways to clog your arteries that is out there. Some doctors say that if you have been eating eggs since you were a child that by the time you are middle aged you should be worried about consequences. The chickens coming home to roost so to speak. The way i found out about it is that i was preparing myself some eggs to scramble and make some sandwiches with and as i was scrambling the eggs in the pan i finally took the time to glance at the nutrition label that was on the inside of the egg container. When it got to the cholesterol listing and it stated that it was 80% for just one egg i just stopped dead in my tracks because i was planning to have at least a half dozen of them in just one sitting and the rest on the following day. When i read it i got scared. I thought to myself that i cant keep doing that to myself or i will be dead way before i should be. I never ate eggs on a regular basis anyway but i have to admit i had no idea there was that much gunk in just one egg because eggs have always been promoted as kind of a healthy choice. I didnt eat the eggs i was scrambling on that day over a year ago. I have not touched an egg since. They are just off the list now. They have to be. They are too dangerous.

Why Gore Likely wont Run

It has been a question that a lot of democrats have been asking themselves this election year over and over in some cases. Why wont Al Gore run? Now that he could finally win the thing with both hands tied behind his back and both his feet tied why doesn't he do it. If you listen to him tell it he says that he has "Fallen out of love with politics." That's probably one of the reasons o.k. but another one might be money. In the year 2000 when he won the general election and ended up having it stolen from him by the Supreme Court it is estimated that his total net worth was around 2 million dollars. After the election Gore got depressed. It was that period in 2001 2002 where he gained all that weight and grew that awful beard that he was walking around in and he looked like he was ready to go build himself a log cabin somewhere and just completely drop out. An amazing piece of luck presented itself to him in those years and it is called Google. He got in on the stock just as it went public and was going for under $10 a share. If you know anything about Google you know that between 2002 when the stock debuted and last Christmas 2007 the stock rose to over $700 a share. Gore Made a ton. It is estimated that his net worth is now somewhere between 100-200 million. This kind of growth in one's personal fortune can make anybody come out of a funk. Since his revival he has found a great cause to champion in global warming and it got him the Nobel Prize last december. I cant really blame him all things considered. Why should he go back into politics. it is interesting to note that while he has ruled out running for president again he has not totally ruled it out. It will be interesting to see what might happen.

Bush ignores Endangered Species List

One of the jobs that every president has had among his many duties is to protect animals who's numbers have fallen to dangerous levels by placing them on the Endangered species list in order that they can be protected and perhaps be given some time to recover their numbers. The current president's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, placed a total of 231 species on the endangered list during his 4 year term between 1989-1993. President Bill Clinton in his 8 years as president between 1993-2001 placed a total number of 521 on the list. The current president, George Walker Bush in his 7 years so far has only placed a grand total of 59. This is yet another area in which the president has fallen short. Is there any area in which he has not fallen short? It was interesting to see how the president was greeted on sunday march 30th at the opening day baseball game for the Washington Nationals in D.C. It was a mixture of cheers and boos but the dislike of him was palpable in that stadium as he walked off the field after throwing out the first pitch with an embarrassed look on his face.

How Stupid Was Donald Rumsfeld?

I was watching The Newshour the other night and they were doing a piece about the total cost of the war in Iraq. They had economic experts on who were crunching numbers and making estimates and they came up with the figure of about 3 trillion dollars before it is all over. This figure does not even include the interest on the money that we are borrowing in order to finance the war which is the first time in history that we as a country have ever done that. One of the most interesting moments in the piece came when they briefly ran an interview with Rumsfeld form January 2003 which was two months before the war started. I think it was from "This Week with George Stepanopolous." He asked Rumsfeld how much did he think the total cost of the war was going to be. He throws out the figure "somewhere in the neighborhood of about 50 billion dollars." The host then comes in and says "well some economists are putting the figure at closer to 300 billion." Rumsfeld blows it off and says "bologna."
I swear to God and i am actually asking this seriously. Was that idiot ever right about anything he ever said or did? Before the war started the general in charge of the invasion Tommy Franks was fighting with Rumsfeld about how many troops we were going to need for the invasion. Franks wanted 400,000 which was the number that most of the Generals at the Pentagon were comfortable with in order to get the job done. Rumsfeld was insisting on using only 75,000. Franks kept fighting with him about it until he finally gave in and he ended up coming up with a compromise figure of 160,000 for the initial invasion. We are having so much trouble keeping the lid on Iraq with this compromise figure even now can you imagine how much worse the security issue would be if we only had the 75,000 Rumsfeld wanted to put in with his "Light Footprint" idea for the invasion? Rumsfeld is this generations Robert McNamara. He should have been smarter than this and he should have known better. I cant figure out why after some 50 years in government he ended up being so stupid about it all. I mean he was absolutely wrong all the time practically. He is an American tragedy.