Well, it looks like my thoughts about Netflix just been improved (had some hard feelings with slow shipments and losing a week worth of service a while back: http://reflectedthought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2008/08/18/Netflix-I-am-not-so-happy-anymore.aspx ).

Netflix has made a deal with Starz! for 2,500 movies to be listed under their “Watch Instantly” streaming video on demand system.  While Netflix had 12,000 titles listed in the “Watch Instantly” section, much of them were older shows or really, really lame shows.  With this deal, Netflix has 1,000 of these new titles available now and the other 1,500 are supposed to be added soon.  Also, was mentioned watching Starz! through live streaming at no extra cost (not available yet, but supposed to be soon).

After a quick browse of new releases in the “Watch Instantly” section and it is obvious the Starz! titles have arrived.  There are quite a number of main stream titles.  There should be plenty to watch when you have the time.  Also, they have TV Series available.  Miss an episode of CSI last year?  They seem to have all CSI (prior to this year) available for instant view.

For our house, we have an old DEL laptop with S-Video output which we use in the living room to watch Netflix “Watch Instantly” titles.  There have been a few quirks with bandwidth using wireless, but that issue will be solved shortly as I ordered some Cat 5 cable and will be hard wiring the LAN into the living room which should give us plenty of bandwidth. 

Cost is not bad, a good older laptop, $80 on eBay, Cat 5 cable $13, audio patch cord $5.  If you are not interested in having a usable computer pumping out the video, you can purchase either the Roku standalone Netflix viewer for $99 or the LG Network Blu-ray Dsic Player for $399. 

For those that are not aware, you can get a membership to Netflix with unlimited “Watch Instantly” and have 1 DVD shipped out at a time on top of it for only $8.99 per month!

As the flag to the right appears to be a bit tattered and torn, slowly falling apart at the seams, so to our wonderful USA has become tattered and torn, and we also appear to be falling apart at the seams.  Why does this happen, what is the cause?

Perhaps it is out of neglect, those that we have appointed to watch over our treasured land have fallen to sleep and no longer pay attention to the signs of stress or the needs to be repaired to weather what we must go through over the years ahead to provide a land of freedom and plenty for all.  It is hard to understand though, as we all can see the signs of wear, those points of stress where we seem to want to divide.  It is there in plain sight, just as the flag to the right, which waves above a city in clear view, so are the issues that want to tare our country apart.

In the end of the day, we all only have our selves to blame.  They problems have existed for decades and only increase year after year.  Now we stand at a precipitous point in American history.  Our great country has fought and stood strong throughout the centuries, but now it seems our values have fallen, corruption rules, controls grow  and greed governs.

Where are the source of these dark thoughts that I ponder?  Well, I have witnessed how the ethics and morals of our nation have ebbed and flowed over the last couple of decades, but especially over the last year or two.  It is like the people are sleep walking and no longer pay attention to anything.

About an hour ago, I finished watching the first Presidential debate.  I find it hard to believe that a country such as ours, which has been the beacon of light to the nations around the world for more than 200 years have come to the point that we would have these two candidates to select from for the leader of this great nation.  These men do not seem to be worthy of even running for the office the clamor to obtain, let alone to actually be in that office.  Can you really say in your heart that these two are the best we have in this nation of over 300 million people? 

Maybe, it was our complacency as the issues streamed before us, or perhaps some have just been blind or fallen to sleep and did not see, nor possibly even wanted to see.  For far too long citizens have swept the dirty deeds of elected officials under the carpet for one reason or another and now we all pay the price.

Where is the heart and soul of this great nation?  Where is the passion of patriotism that once graced our nation as a mighty flood?  Where have all the citizens gone?  They are obviously not voting, they are not running for office, they clearly are not standing against the tidal waves of corruption and moral ineptness.  

Slap the person next to you, we all need to wake up from this nightmare!  You know, with a little effort and a little time and a lot of caring, that flag can be fixed and fly once again, complete and whole, so could this nation if people would leave their hedonistic lifestyles and think of something more than themselves!  Stand firm against greed and corruption, stand firm against injustice, be the people this nation once was full of and heal the land!

It is really getting insane around this country lately.  Now there is the battle over the bag!  With all the woes that our nation is undergoing, is it really the time to FORCE everyone away from plastic grocery bags?

When the plastic bag came along, I thought it was great.  Here we have a device that can hold more than my old paper bags without ripping along with the added bonus that if something spills in the bag, it would stay in the bag, cool!  Yes, there is an issue that the bags do not stand up like paper and when you get home you may find some of your groceries scatter around the back of your vehicle, but this was a trivial problem.

Now it seems, everyone is calling the plastic bag one of the most evil things on the planet (or at least they make it sound that way).  Just recently, some of our stores in our State of Oregon, have decided to kill off the old plastic bag and some have even decided to charge for each bag unless you have your own cloth bags.  Have you noticed those people that come up to the counter with those dirty nasty looking bags?

I do not like cloth or paper bags!  Why?  First, if something spills, in the bag, it is all over the vehicle.  Next, I would have to wash the cloth bags, using more water and detergents as they get pretty nasty looking quickly.  Then you have the problem of making sure you have them with you, just another pain to live with.

Plastic bags get more than one use in my house, they end up with trash in them and typically, cat littler.  Of course, they are used to pack lunch to work, store loose items around the house and a host of other uses.  Now, instead of have these bags paid for by the price I pay for the groceries, I now have to buy them in addition to the groceries and take the chance that I do not get flogged for using them.

I would think that those who are concerned about the plastic bags, should maybe take on diapers or possibly that hard plastic that seems be bound all over just about any product you buy lately.  How about when you buy scissors and they are incased in this huge flat plastic that requires scissors to get into?  It is a joke how much plastic is used wrapped around products to prevent them from being stolen along with making the product visible.

For me, I will just boycott any stores that force people to give up plastic bags until they all have the policy, at which time, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and make sure my wife does all the shopping so I do not deal with them anymore ;)

There are a number of elected government officials that seem to care more about their pockets and those of their friends than the good of our nation.  This trend appears to have been going for many years now.  Government officials and large corporations seem to be running everything, at the cost of our nation they claim to support.

Let is take a snapshot of our country at the moment.  Once we were a nation of producers and now we have become a nation of consumers.  In the past we actually had a manufacturing sector and now we have an Import sector with huge trade deficits.  How did this come about?  Is it just a global society and we need to figure new technologies to stay in the game?

The answer is obvious, large corporations and elected officials have sold our nation down the river.  Their interests not based on the good for this nation.  We have large corporations such as Wal-Mart that side with businesses in other nations to attach and destroy companies in the USA all in the name of making a buck (one reason I have not stepped inside a Wal-mart store in over four years now).  I do not know if they are are just greedy to the point of turning stupid or if they really do not care which nation they are based in, this new world of International global friendly companies seem to live in the gray area.

Whenever you talk about our economy and the loss of jobs due to shipping those manufacturing companies or technologies out of our nation, there are those that raise their banners shouting “Protectionism”.  Well, yes, there should be protection for our jobs and our economy and that should come from the White House all the way down, anything else is putting out country up for sale to the lowest bidder.

Look at just energy over the last ten years.  We had Enron and their corruption that took good power plants off the grid for supposed maintenance only to drive the prices up with the word “Shortage”.  Some people had their electric bills double, triple and at times even go much higher.  It is fraud, but what do you think of the so called Oil shortage now, do you really think oil is three to four times more valuable now than four years ago?  No, it is yet another case of fraud.  We have huge energy resources in this country, but the public is duped into believing we should not touch them.   In another decade fossil fuels will have little market value and probably be going for $0.50-$1.00 per barrel as we no longer need it for transportation or electricity generation.

These are just a few examples of how our nation is being governed by a select few who do not have this nation’s interests at heart.  These elected officials and large corporations will sell out just about anyone for a buck.  They are beasts that have no ethics and only survive to feed on greed.

Another example is from the local area where I was born and raised out here in Oregon.  Many years ago, we were primarily supported by the timber industry.  In the early days they did not manage forest correctly and we have mountains with the ugly clear cutting scars to prove it.  But those days where long past when a group of people wanted to kill of the timber industry in our area and got the worthless spotted owl on the protection list and told everyone that we needed to leave the forests alone for those little worthless owls.  If they were really concerned they should have captured them all and threw them into a zoo.

Well, that little owl got enough people’s attention that our government sold out the timber industry in trade for regular payments from the Federal government to help make up the loss of timber revenue.  So much for the interests of the Timber industry and all those tens of thousands of employees, this little ugly owl was more important than all of them.

It has been many years since those days and now the Federal government is ending those payments and all these counties and scrambling for some way to even stay running.  Guess they should have not sold out the timber industry and force the closure of all those mills.  Wake up call – TIMBER is a renewable resource!

Back on Point to the Solution

One of the primary problems I see, is that the people in charge do not have an investment in what is good for an area or the nation.  It does not matter to them if times are good or bad, if good the claim it was because of them and if bad they claim it was due to everyone and everything else.  We need more accountability!

Here is a wild thought for a possible solution to this problem.  How about we make sure they have a vested interest in the success of the area they control?  We could start with salary.  How about making elected officials salary equal to the average salary for the area they control?  That could hurt their pocket books.

Even if their salary is in direct relationship to the local economy, they still have all their revenue from books, conferences, speaking fees, etc., not to mention they may already have a great wealth before they take office.  That could be easily fixed by requiring all their assets to be on hold for the term they are in office other than their salary.  In addition, they should be barred from speaking fees and the like, while they are in office.

I have heard people say that you would not have anyone wanting to run for office if they were paid the average salary.  I am not sure that is true, to me it seems like public offices should be more honor than money making.  It does not matter what the person would make in the public sector, let them “Server” the country or not run.

The main point here is that officials should have some concern about the area they control and we need a method that will keep them on track with accountability.

Who said Hollywood does not have new ideas?  Oh, I guess they don’t or we are heading for a time warp.  Ghostbusters may be coming to a theater near your over the next couple of years.

Back in 1984, you were hard pressed to find people that did not know the theme song to Ghostbusters and most of the youth had seen the movie.  If that where not enough, there was a video game put out for the Commodore 64 computer (yeah, those nice little machines you hooked up to your TVs ;) ). 

For me, the squeal pretty much stunk.  Some thought it was funny, but I thought it was no where near the mark of the first.

I just hope they stay with the original cast!

http://www.variety.com/VR1117991624.html

http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/celebrity/news/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9485415

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-ghostbusters3writers,0,4036136.story