San Diego Is Burning: TDV Week in Review, May 18th, 2014

As fires broke out in my hometown of Carlsbad, Calif. and surrounding municipalities last week, my Facebook feed lit up.

“How sad!”

“#climate change”

“drought! Save water!”

My feeling towards the fires themselves breaking out was mostly indifference. I initially hoped that no human or pet lives would be lost. Surely, wildlife would be lost. As far as homes, as tough as it would be to lose one, I knew that they were nothing more than material that could be purchased again and rebuilt. Though, to be sure, many people did not have time enough to properly evacuate, something gold and silver holders should note. 

For the next week ten fires would burn up San Diego County, Calif., and almost immediately conspiracy theories started cropping up. Men were running around the county burning up the city, from north to south. Fires even started burning in Tecate, Mexico, south of the border, which was visible from San Diego.  This wouldn’t be a bad idea for a “terrorist” attack, I’d thought up before. I spoke with my Pop The Cop numerous times whose neighborhood was evacuated but he was able to return home each night during the week after work by showing the police, who blockaded his neighborhood,  his retired San Diego Police Department badge. I spoke with him on Tuesday as four fires burned.

“Are you okay, do you need help evacuated?”
“Nope, I am fine. We’ve been through this before. I wouldn’t be surprised if these fires were started by someone!”
“Like the government?” I asked, jokingly.
“No! Not the government!”

Throughout the remainder of the week, people organized and on Facebook sympathy and helping hands decorated my feed. It reminded me of when Jeff helped people outside of Acapulco after heavy rains and landslides. The Red Cros raised $50,000! The community really cares…But, if you bring up the Red Cross is corrupt and unworthy of our money, a front for powerful people, you’re insensitive. 

I tried to keep my mouth shut during the fires, but made sure I kept my podcasts Facebook feed up-to-date with claims that the fires were started to take us off-the-air. I used these smoke-points, which burn all around the building in which we record, as proof:

By Friday, the fires had calmed, despite the weather remaining intense.

“We have to do something about climate change, now! The evidence is overwhelming.  Just look at these fires! Usually they start in September, but it is only May!”

As I recall, there were no fires in September of last year, and it is not like the universe functions along perfectly neat lines of order. From my perspective, whether the fires burn in May or September are actually of quite minimal, universal significance. To conclude whether or not this a symptom of or evidence for climate change is a stretch. But what of the drought? 

I find it cute all of my friends telling me and others to conserve water in a desert. I live in Southern California. They live in Southern California. It is a desert. I live on the coast, which is considered coastal desert. Southern California is one big desert, and everyone thinks there is a drought?

But can there be a drought in a desert? I thought a desert was perpetual drought? People don’t quite understand where they live because they think all of the trees they see along So Cal street are native, when really none of them whatsoever! Only the shrubs and bushes, cactuses and some pines here-and-there. 

Our use of water is not the source of the problem. Deserts generally don’t have much water in them. We can conserve all the water we want here in So Cal but it isn’t going to turn Los Angeles into Portland, Oregon. The real solution is accepting that, perhaps, Southern California was not made to become the second biggest agglomeration in the nation. Perhaps the real solution is leaving.

That is what I am planning to do. Los Angeles has been stealing water from the north for more than a century, and San Diego is dependent on other states to get us our water. Now THAT does not sound too sustainable.

As for climate change – once more, we are in a desert. Deserts are dry and deserts are hot. Just because some wildfires were burning is not a symptom or evidence of climate change. As for all the other “evidence,” if you have not come to terms with the fact that academia is highly politicized and corrupted, maybe you’re ignorant. Just read this Wikipedia article here for a small, small, small taste of the issues. Did I say small? 

How about the homes lost?

Many people are still posting about the tragedy of homes lost, etc., highlighting how materialistic everyone is. I love stuff-and-things as much as the next person, but I am not going to let a burning box with fabrics and perhaps some pictures in it pull at my heart-strings. Why?

Because the fires burning are a good thing. We had 10 small fires burn through San Diego county, and this is a very, very good thing. Since nothing burned last year, things were overdue to burn this year as part of the natural cycle of this coastal desert. With much of the land burned now, the chances of a major fire taking place and engulfing all these regions are significantly diminished. The county is lucky. A few homes were lost, yes, but that is to be expected from time-to-time. We all accept that risk by living here, as well as the risks of there being a major earthquake one day. 

And so, in short, that is why I do not view the fires as a bad thing. They are a part of nature. Apparently one was started by an individual, and that guy has been arrested. If it is true he started a fire, he has some issues that need to be taken care of. In our compassionate, forgiving society, he will spend most of the rest of his life behind bars learning about the importance of empathy and sympathy and, most importantly, holding on tightly to soap.

My heart does go out to one individual (more tha others) during this time. A transient whose body was found burnt to a crisp. His story popped up on Google News, and I took note. Since then, I haven’t heard anyone mention the one human life taken by these fires. Just about the lost homes.

And I doubt the reason the homes were so important is because people were holding their gold and silver in them! But this does give a sober reminder for those gold-and-silverbugs out there to look into some bitcoin, because you never know when Mother Earth will do something…well, probably expected. 

At GoldSilverBitcoin, one of my businesses, we allow people to sell their precious metals in exchange for bitcoins. If you’re interested, please feel free to e-mail [email protected] for more information. 

Join the Discussion @ The Dollar Vigilante

Best,

Justin O’Connell, Head Researcher

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On to the review…

Monday May 12

AMERICA’S #HASHTAG FOREIGN POLICY

Wendy McElroy on Boko Haram and hashtag activism.

“A foreign policy driven by twitter and celebrity ‘selfies’ holding signs is an embarrassing disaster. On April 14, 250+ Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by the radical Islamic Boko Haram, which is on America’s terrorist list. (Sources vary on the number of girls.) As of May 8, #BringBackOurGirls had been tweeted more than 1.6 million times and by such luminaries as Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie. Apparently that’s enough for President Obama to send a team including military advisors into Nigeria.”

continue reading…

Tuesday May 13

DR DRE FORGOT THIS WHEN HE CLAIMED TO BE HIP HOP’S FIRST BILLIONAIRE

Jeff Berwick on what Dre left out.

“A spokesperson for Forbes magazine told TMZ that the $3.2 billion purchase of Beats by Apple won’t translate to a billion for Dre.

Forbes Assistant Managing Editor for Wealth told the entertainment website that, after state and federal taxes are stolen, Dre will be worth approximately $800 million, leaving him just shy of the financial milestone.”

continue reading…

Wednesday May 14

BREAKING FATCA NEWS: A SEMI-STAY OF EXECUTION FOR AMERICANS ASSETS AND THE US DOLLAR

Berwick with more on FATCA.

“The Illegitimate Revenue Agency (IRS) has just announced that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has been postponed from July 1, 2014 until January 1, 2016.

This is good news in many ways for both those with assets that they wish to internationalize as well as for the dollar and US banking system itself but in many ways the damage has already been done.”

continue reading…

Thursday May 15

ARE RUSSIA AND CHINA ABOUT TO ANNOUNCE THE END OF THE US DOLLAR ERA?

Jeff on pending death of the USD.

“Countries all over the world are meeting for a purpose that concerns you greatly, whether or not you’re American: disuse of the US dollar.  

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis the end of the US dollar seems closer than ever. In move-after-move, Russia and China have become closer allies. There are numerous examples of this. For brevity’s sake, two recent examples catch the eye. Gazprom issued bonds in the Chinese Yuan and Russia and China also signed a gas deal.  There are many more examples. 40 central banks have even placed bets on the yuan as the future reserve currency.”

continue reading…

Friday May 16

WHEN PROPAGANDA FAILS, HUMANITY AWAKENS…THE FALL OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Jeff on the inevitable fall of the MSM.

“It doesn’t happen often, but The New York Times (NYT) has truthfully reported on something recently.

On what did it report? Well, on itself, and how alarmed it is due to its own increasing irrelevance in the face of new sources of information.”

continue reading…

Saturday May 17

OPERATION AMERICAN SPRING FAILS TO RESTORE REPUBLIC

Contributor Christopher Cantwell with a bonus Saturday article, on the American Spring.

“Suppose I said to you ‘Let’s get 10-30 million people to go down to Washington DC and force Barack Obama out of office!’ What would you say? Might sound like a great idea at first, until you realize that I lack the capacity to organize millions of people to travel to the nation’s capitol on a workday. Especially when I predict people will wind up dead and in prison, it’s not exactly the most appealing thing for people to hire babysitters for.”

continue reading…

The Moment of Clarity – THE WEEKEND VIGILANTE MAY 17, 2014

Jeff Berwick with his weekly address to TDVers.

continue reading…

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