24 Things About to Disappear in America

Re: 20. Phone Landlines

Home security systems generally require a landline phone, so that may keep the landline around for some people.

Re: 24. Yellow Pages

I find the printed yellow pages far easier to search when I am looking for a business category. Online searches can return enormous numbers of entries, making the search very tedious.

Re: 4. Honey Bees

Did you know there were no honey bees in the Americas before Columbus? (And no earthworms either.) There are alternate pollinators obviously. Also, many plants (e.g., grains) are not insect pollinated.

Re: 10. The Milkman

Wow. I thought they were already long gone. My parents told me about milkmen (some houses in our neighbiorhood even had a special milk-chute door), but I never saw one.

Paper billing, paper bank statements, many forms of paper record-keeping.

Im old enough to remember:
24. Yellow pages, I still let my fingers do the walking.
23. Classified ads, I can't afford to buy anything anyway.
22. Never rented a movie!!
21. Our landlines here on the ranch suck.
20. See 21 above.
19. Whats a Blue Crab???
18. Vcrs, Hey I got a barn full of those!
17. If you have one, go out and kiss your ash while you still have it!!!!
16. I'd gotten one but Morse Code kicked my butt.
15. Got five of them and I wont sue.
14. Hmmm, I got a few of those around to.
13. I miss film, I have a Canon that's great, remember my Argus C3.
12. Whatever.
11. We still have one in Ennis.
10. I remember having two quarts of milk on the front porch in the morning with about an inch of cream on the top.
9. I remember the last one I got. "Get out of town"
8. All horses are wild, horses should only be under the hood.
7. Personal checks, haven't gotten any lately. BOA writes mine.
6. We have a brand new one here in Ennis and they are doing great.
5. Good, had both what a pain.
4. Year before last none. Last year a few. Have seen them this winter. I think it was Albert Einstein that said without them we only had a few years.
3. I look forward to my "Photoshop" magazine every month.
2. There wil always be analog. Pres Zero say so. Bad reception on porch.
1. We stil live on ranch, kids won't come within 5 miles. Show me the money. This is an xpensive hobby.

22. Movie Rental Stores

It's little wonder Blockbuster is having a hard time. My local Blockbuster charges about $4.50 to rent a new release! Between Netflix and the $1.00 DVD rental machines that many local grocery stores now have, it makes absolutely no sense to rent from Blockbuster. They will either have to dramatically reduce their prices or go out of business.

rr

There's an independent, stand-alone movie rental store in our town. It appears to be thriving since new owners bought it three years ago. Hopefully they can hang on.

Funny you should post this list right now, Rod, because just this week I was having some kind of midlife crisis spasm in which I paced the house and bemoaned the impending loss of certain "good, old things." Like handwritten letters (and even signatures! Many schools are not even teaching kids how to have a cursive signature). And stationery. And classical music.

Sure, I say good riddance to some of the things on the list (incandescent bulbs, etc.). But we really gotta mourn the loss of certain other things that have made our lives more civilized and enjoyable. "Progress" is indeed a mixed bag.

The only real catastrophe here - but it's a biggie - is honey bees. If this is correct.

The rest of this stuff has either outlived its utility (VCR) or was an actual bad thing anyway (mumps, measles and wild horses) or is of relatively minor status (crabs and ash trees). Or will survive as a niche (film cameras). Actually I'm hearing from my musician friends that analog music (that's records to you) are increasingly interesting to younger audiophiles because of the way CD's and even more so mp3's mangle the music. (Of course, as my friends admit, most of the music deserves no better treatment.) I'd suspect the same situation in photography.

28: Marriage as normative: Married couples are already now a minority of households, I believe, and this trend will only accelerate.

Marriage is risky for men, since in marrying they face a substantial risk of losing wealth and children in an unwanted divorce. And for the nonreligious, marriage offers few benefits not available to singles. In coming years, marriage will increasingly become the province of a small religious minority.

Good call on libraries, Roland.

#29: Rising life expectancy: To stem runaway health care costs, Medicare and insurers will ration and cap health care at the end of life, leading to a reversal in life expectancy.

Personally, this is a change I welcome: I do not judge increasing the years of my decrepitude through expensive and burdensome interventions to be a good. I would not pay for this myself, and I certainly don't expect taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Related to #22, the CD. As more people are getting their music via downloads, the pre-recorded CD will only be seen as desirable to people who want all the songs and graphics of a given release.

I don't have a #25 to add. I just wish to lament the loss of the incandescent bulb. It has one big advantage over its curly cousin being foisted on us: NO MERCURY.

Have to disagree with you about Ham Radio. Numbers may dwindle, but as a ham radio licensee, wife to another, and mom to three who have licenses and one avidly studying, I've seen both the importance and durability of ham radio. Weather training and emergency drills are part of our lives: we coordinate with local law inforcement during power outages and other emergencies. Ham radio operators provided essential support during Hurricane Katrina -- working at relief centers and providing names to emergency personnel to help families find each other, as well as working long hours coordinating with various agencies helping with relief efforts. Cell phones and the internet can be unpredictable and often tied to local power sources. Ham radio, a small but valiant group, has been around for a hundred years. I predict it will be around another hundred.

Unless all the bees disappear and we all die.

To piggy-back on a previous post - handwriting. My daughters, ages 10 and 12, have deplorable handwriting. I can remember at that age practicing my cursive letters until I had perfect cursive handwriting. Now I can barely read even their print writing. Their teachers don't seem to mind or allow them to do all work on a computer!

I'll take the liberty of commenting again, since Rod's post got me so riled up. Organ music is also on its way out, as are traditional worship forms (at least here in the Protestant world, where the seeker-sensitive style has spread across the theological spectrum and we traditionalists are defending the last stand).

And screened porches. Growing up in a place with fairly hot and humid summers, we eschewed air conditioning and instead lived the summer months on our porches. Now most houses are sealed up tight. Ick.

Dressing up for church is also (for us white folk) clearly on the way out. In fact, I can hardly think of anything that white folk dress up for these days. Sad.

North America lost a lot of elm and chestnut trees years ago. Now there are new diseases that are killing pine trees in Louisiana and oak trees in Texas. What will we have left?

1. The Family Farm

I think I read lately that the number of farms inched up a little lately according to the USDA. They define anything that sells more than $1000 in agricultural produce as a farm. The increase was in small niche farms.

Despite reports of it's demise, the family farm is still alive here in the Midwest. They've just gotten fewer and bigger. They may have multi-million dollar gross sales and many employees but even the biggest farms are mostly family owned. Now if you're talking about single family full-time farms with few if any non-family employees, their numbers continue to decline.

Cash. And sports stadiums named after people or places, not products.

Apropos of line item 9, I try to keep this fire alive. I do not hand-write my letters, but that is only because I fear the dreaded Carpal Tunnel. It's a shame, really, my handwriting is quite handsome, despite how crudely I hold my pen (according to one Mrs. Majewski of the third grade).

Landlines may not be as doomed as you think. It turns out the credit agencies downgrade you if you only have a cell phone. Don't know why, but they do.

25. Stoicism. ;)

*

Has P.J. O'Rourke been reading this blog and Sharon's? The latest from Peej:

"America is experiencing a polar ice cap and financial meltdown, causing sea levels to rise and sending cold water flooding into Wall Street where the rapidly acidifying ocean is corroding our 401(k)s and releasing mortgage securities full of hot air into the atmosphere until our every breath is full of CO2 especially when we exhale, which should be banned when children are present lest their uninsured health care be harmed by second-hand greenhouse gases that are causing endangerment of plant and animal species (Republicans are extinct already), leading to a shortage of green, leafy vegetables vital to the fight against America's growing epidemics of obese hunger and housing foreclosures on the homeless."

Things about to disappear: The GOP.

Here's a snip of an interview with Tony Perkins...

Q: Was there an event or series of events that soured the relationship between social conservatives and the Republican Party?

A: It is something that happened after 2004, when there was a great emphasis by the Republicans and the president on the need to protect marriage. It was used to secure a second term for President Bush and to expand Republican control of Congress. And after the election, the issue was basically dropped.
That, combined with corruption that distracted the Republican Party, Mark Foley—it all added up to where people began to scratch their heads and say, "This is not the party that is really reflecting our values."

Social conservatives have kept the GOP alive all these years, and the GOP abandoned them thus abandoning its future.

The family farm will be coming back quite soon, I suspect.

My bet on things to disappear next - the "tween" - that cultural construct of the sales industry, the result of pushing children too fast to adulthood. I'm guessing a major cultural rebellion against the concept is coming.

Sharon

“A concomitant trend to be lamented is of course the underappreciation of the missionary position itself. Despite the availability of more choices, a return to basic postures is fundamental to the regeneration of humanity.”

I couldn’t agree more.

What's even more interesting is how #4, CCD has been largely avoided by any "respectible" media group.

Mostly cause it's really, really frightening (not like global warming frightening, or terroist attack frightening) and they have absolutely NO idea what's going on.

There are theories from mites, to virus, to HAARP.

Problem is, a large portion of all produce is fertalized via honey-bee.

They are working now with an Australian form of the bee which seems ot be immune. Time will tell.

Re: Along with the decline in vocations in general, the lack of missionaries is a casualty of the sensate secular mindset and the moral chaos emblematic of the dictatorship of relativism.

Why do we need missions nowadays? with the possible exception of some remote corners of the Amazon and some even more remote corners of New Guinea, the Great Commission has been fulfilled: the Gospel has been preached everywhere on Earth. And in most parts of the world (notably in Africa, Latin America and Oceana) there's a well-established local church that can and should be doing the job of evangelizing the local population. Sending folks from America to preach at people in Botswana runs afoul of St Paul's earning against planting in another's garden. Any missionary work that should be done now needs doing right here at home.

Get Omega Protein out of Virginia and the crabs will be back. These are the type of common sense environmental issues we all should be able to agree upon.

http://www.chesbay.org/articles/4.asp

I ALSO PREDICT:

1) Interest over the next 30 years in Paris Hilton will fade.

2) Peach tea will not replace high balls in country club bowling alleys.
__________GONE

3) There will be, within 20 years, no new Tara Reid films.

4) Pauly Shore will disappear altogether, like the dinosaurs and horn toads.

We are the first thing cut in local and college budgets but we still survive. Libraries are vibrant places. We still provide quiet places for reading and reflection (you can take the books home usually), but thinking that is all we are good for is...quaint.

I'm a librarian too, though I'm not working as one at the moment. In Ohio, where I come from (and where I got my MLIS), traditionally library levies get more support from the public than school levies. If a library levy and a school levy are on the same ballot, and if only one of them passes, usually it will be the library levy.

I find it telling that "dial up internet access" and "the milkman" are items on the same list. I think that suggests that the author is young. I do remember the milkman. And since I now drink raw milk, the only legal way possible, which is to buy a cow share and pay for delivery. So the milkman has happily returned into my life, and dial up internet access is happily out of my life.

About 5 yrs ago my brother and I had to clean out our aunt's house next door (she was in a nursing home) and we salvaged 2 rotary dial phones. We cleaned them up and installed them in our house. Sure, we both have cell phones and a cord-less phone. And yes, we really don't use the rotary dial phones very much, but they do in fact work quite well; one was manufactured in 1970; the other, in 1960. Compare that with today's cell phones, which seem to conk out after three or four years! You know what? I am going to look for a third rotary dial phone for our kitchen! Quite easy to find on the Internet!

"Why pay a substantial sum to a guy who will tell you what you already know and believe anyway?" John

TR: I'm Catholic and Rod's Orthodox. So what you're saying may be borderline inexplicable to us. (Well Rod was raised Methodist so may get it)

I don't pay my priest anything, all donations are voluntary. Nor do I go to Church for "a guy saying religious stuff." In Catholicism, and Orthodoxy too I think, you largely for the connection to God through Eucharist and liturgy as well as connection to the community of believers.

To be honest even in Protestantism I don't think it works like what you're suggesting. There are many things you presumably "get" by being in the social community that you don't get over the screen.

Print encyclopedias: For years I was looking for an update as my set of encyclopedias are from the 1960s. Sadly I waited too long and print encyclopedias are now difficult or impossible to find. They may already be dead. I kind of miss them.

TR - Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but Encyclopedia Britannica still carries print versions. A bit pricy at $1200/set, but that seems comparable to when I last priced them (admittedly almost a decade ago).

Reading number 15 "The Swimming Hole" brought nothing but sadness knowing that my children will not grow up having the experience of walking down a winding path to the river only to spend the day with friends laughing and swinging on that old frayed, knotted rope that usually dangled over every good swimming hole. I wish lawyers had made the list. If they had, we'd probably see a return of what was great about America.

#25: The idea that Obama and the Democrats are the answer.

Martin Wolf:

First, focus all attention on reversing the collapse in demand now, rather than on the global architecture.

Second, employ overwhelming force. The time for “shock and awe” in economic policymaking is now.

…

Unfortunately, what is coming out of the US is desperately discouraging. Instead of an overwhelming fiscal stimulus, what is emerging is too small, too wasteful and too ill-focused. Instead of decisive action to recapitalise banks, which must mean temporary public control of insolvent banks, the US may be returning to the immoral and ineffective policy of bailing out those who now hold the “toxic assets”.

Yves Smith

The Obama Administration is as obviously and fully hostage to the interests of the financial services industry as the Bush crowd was. We have no new thinking, no willingness to take measures that are completely defensible (in fact not doing them takes some creative positioning) like wiping out shareholders at obviously dud banks (Citi is top of the list), forcing bondholder haircuts and/or equity swaps, replacing management, writing off and/or restructuring bad loans, and deciding whether and how to reorganize and restructure the company. Instead, the banks are now getting the AIG treatment: every demand is being met, no tough questions asked, no probing of the accounts (or more important, the accounting).

I am desperately unhappy.

#26: That the GOP is a responsible political party.

Paul Krugman:

Thirty-six out of 41 Republican Senators voted for the proposed DeMint amendment to the stimulus bill — a massive package of permanent tax cuts that would create a huge hole in the budget, while doing very little to help the economy.

There isn’t much room for bipartisanship when 87.8% of the other party is totally irresponsible.

I think Krugman is going easy on them. Anybody who thinks the DeMint amendment is a good idea is a complete and utter fool.

Pyrrho,

Did you see the jobs chart from today?

Chris: Did you see the jobs chart from today?

Yeah. The actual figure is probably higher because the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a theoretical model based on the past few years to estimate job gains or losses in various sectors of the economy. This overstates or understates the number when the economy changes suddenly to the upside or downside. It's proabably overstating it now ... by a lot.

I see signs of deflation everywhere. It's actually very unsettling.

I would argue that even with the decline in total licensees that Amateur Radio will not be going away anytime soon. This is due to the fact that during times of natural disaster and other emergencies Amateur Radio is often the only way to get communications out of the disaster area.

Even with cell phones becoming ubiquitous, it doesn't take much to make them virtually useless. During the Minneapolis bridge collapse a year or so ago even this very localized emergency resulted in such an increase in people trying to use their phones that the system was overloaded.

Spam. No, not the junk email, the food. My kid couldn't understand why I wanted to pick up a can of Spam. When I told him what it was, he said: That will never survive my generation. I think, for obvious reasons, he is probably right.

Unless the economy really tanks and that's all he and his generation can afford to buy to eat. After all, the reason so many people ate Spam in postwar Britain wasn't because they liked it but because it was cheap.

Spam. No, not the junk email, the food. My kid couldn't understand why I wanted to pick up a can of Spam. When I told him what it was, he said: That will never survive my generation. I think, for obvious reasons, he is probably right.

Don't tell Hawaiians. It's their state food!

By the way, do polaroids count, or are they considered already gone?

Re: I see signs of deflation everywhere.

I've seen others claim this, but where is the deflation in the real world? Other than gas prices (and those have been creeping up since New Years) I have not noticed any of the prices on things I actually buy declining consistently. There's been some up and down on groceries, as always, but they're still historically high. Nothing else I pay for (rent, utilities, clothing, insurance, healthcare, entertainment expenses, garden supplies, books, magazines, etc. etc.) shows any sign of deflation.

And Star Wars takes a shot out of no where... wow...

It is nice to have these memories... we'll always be able to say things like, "remember when phones had rotors?" But we can't be angry that things are dying off. In most cases, they are just being replaced by something more convenient. When our kids get to be in their later years they might say things like... "remember when you actually had to DRIVE the car?"

Don't be angry that things aren't the way the used to be. The definition of normal will change for every generation.

Who are the couples celebrating the Golden? Those who were married back in the late 1950’s, and early 60’s, when divorce was taboo, and those values were instilled in them by their parents.

The reason those who married back in the 50s and early 60s will be celebrating their golden anniversaries is that it's closer to 50 years since they got married. It would be cheeky, indeed, for someone who got married in 1979 to declare this to be their golden anniversary year, don't you think?

By the way, none of my grandparents made their golden. One grandmother died young, and the other grandfather died six months before his. What used to be the enemy of the golden anniversary was death, and in many cases it still is.

Jon @ 11:11 PM writes:

“Re: I see signs of deflation everywhere.
I've seen others claim this, but where is the deflation in the real world? Other than gas prices (and those have been creeping up since New Years) I have not noticed any of the prices on things I actually buy declining consistently. There's been some up and down on groceries, as always, but they're still historically high. Nothing else I pay for (rent, utilities, clothing, insurance, healthcare, entertainment expenses, garden supplies, books, magazines, etc. etc.) shows any sign of deflation.”

There is some deflation going on, but it’s mostly in the financial sector. All those ones-and-zeros in people’s IRAs/SEPs/401(k)s are no longer there waiting to chase goods and services in Reality; if that’s not deflationary, I don’t know what is. Unemployment is rising as well; that tends to drag down what the economists call the “velocity”of money. It’s rather like the scenario some people have been analogizing to for a while; a car (the economy) having the gas pedal (inflation/money supply) pushed down while the brakes are locking up. The idea is to have the car slow down to the point of being able to pull it over, rather than having the brakes lock up totally and have the car flip over and kill everyone inside.

I still think the inflationist forces are going to win out; the money supply has just skyrocketed over the last few months. The banks are sitting on those new deposits (because they’re primarily loans, not outright asset deposits. Let’s also not forget that the banks’ balance sheets are seriously in the toilet (BoA’s capitalization ratio is still under 3 %; it should be 5-7 % at a minimum to keep the regulators happy), and there are still all sorts of toxic time-bomb assets that are waiting to get written down. They can’t get written down all at once without wiping out the assets—that would kill the banks off entirely. I don’t see mark-to-market getting suspended anytime soon, since that would make lots of those time-bomb assets impossible to value reliably. That would utterly destroy what little confidence is left in the banking system.

From where I sit (Pyrrho, Chris, feel free to correct me on this if you like), correcting the economy’s major problem means restoring the banking system to something resembling functionality. That means that banks have to do two things: write down lots and lots of non-performing loans while at the same time attracting new deposits. Attempting one would be bad enough; trying to do both at the same time is just about impossible without a new source of deposits. Meanwhile, spurring new business activity (the main source of productivity and, therefore, new real wealth to serve as potential deposits) is going to be more difficult than it was before, because lending standards are going to be an awful lot tighter than they were previously.

The central government claims to be trying to stand in for the private sector in doing that spurring, but its claims are seriously overblown. Much of the spending in what I refer to as the “Jimmy Dean Memorial Pure Pork Stimulus Package and Giant Sausage Sandwich (World’s Largest)” won’t kick in for a long while. Furthermore, without reducing the tax burden on productive investment (and its results), the burden of the central government on the weakened productive economy will not be lessened. If anything, it will be increased. This will show up as inflation, as all those injections of "stimulus money" will wind up being paid for by getting monetized.

Bottom line: the next five to seven years, economically speaking, are going to be seriously not pretty, since people and firms will be trying to survive and rebuild their balance sheets. Why anyone would want the job of Chief Executive right now, under these conditions, is rather beyond me.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

While the majority of the list is accurate, particularly the inclusion of the honeybee, #16, Ham radio should not be included in the list. Ham operators are an unseen network of folks that provide backup communications in times of emergencies. 2 examples: Sept 11, 2001 and the 2005 hurricane season (Katrina, Rita, Wilma). Disasters such as these cause the collapse of major communications infrastructure, both for the general population and public services like police and fire. During these times, Ham operators step in and provide communications assistance for everyone. How often has your internet worked during a power outage, or your cellphone when the towers are knocked down or everyone is trying to make a call all at the same time. Also, the National Weather Service heavily relies on Ham operators to provide real time eyes-on data to their local offices to issue watches and warnings. Those are just a couple of things hams do. But of course you'd never hear about it on the local news. Also, most of the astronauts are hams are there are ham radio stations aboard the space shuttles and ISS. Your statistic of 50,000 people dropping their license in the last 5 years is totally innacurate. Theres actually been a resurgence in Ham operations in the last 2 years due to the dropping of the morse code requirement. Hopefully its a sign of people being fed up with their stagnant lifestyles and getting away from the tv and learning something new for a change. Also, drive-ins, sure, those drastically disappeared over the last 30 years, but those too are making a slow comeback. Face it, technology does not overcome all.

This column reminds me how depressing and pessimistic people of the conservative thinking are. Pity they have no hope and joy and once they read something that fits their thinking fail to read any further.

LK,

You're always a compelling read and make many good points. Allow me to briefly try to bring you over to the dark side (deflationist camp).

I don't think banks will create more credit just because Bernanke has massively increased the base money supply. The banks are just going to sit on it. In order to create more credit there has to be a matching increase in debt. Do you really think the private sector is goint to take on trillions more in debt on top of what they already owe? Isn't there massive overcapacity in just about every industry? Are consumers in need of new stuff? Price deflation, which is just now taking hold after the speculative boom in commodities last spring and summer, will continue because distressed sellers are desperately trying to avoid going bankrupt. Downward pressure on wages, which has been going on for decades in the case of most wage earners, will increase as the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed grow. Furthermore, deleveraging on the part of corporations and individuals will reduce demand no matter what else is done.

Remember, most money is credit (private debt). Bernanke's big boost in the base money supply is supposed to be a multiplier for private debt creation. Do you really think it's going to happen?

There it is, in a nutshell. Looks like I ended too early. I still have another 45 minutes to wait before I can knock back a stiff one with lunch. Enjoy the depression.

You forgot to say that, but for the baby-killer Obama, we would still have all these wonders. The idiot Americans who didn't vote for the real American ticket drive me crazy.

By the way, none of my grandparents made their golden. One grandmother died young, and the other grandfather died six months before his. What used to be the enemy of the golden anniversary was death, and in many cases it still is.

Neither set of my grandparents did, either, due to death of one of each set. But my parents made their 50th last year.

I agree with you on all 24 items on your list. I am 67 years old, so I don't know if all of these will have disappeared in my lifetime or not.

I would add that No. 25 would be divided into several forms of entertainment:

-Cassette Tapes. With the rising of the CD's these are becoming a thing of the recent past. Although some retailers like Radio Shack are still selling tape decks, there are mostly an audiophile item.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/media/28cassette.html

-Compact Discs. They just replaced the cassettes tapes and vinyl records not too long ago. They are on the way out. The mighty MP3 file is one of the biggest reasons, while you need a CD to create an MP3 file, it's easier to distribute their contents throughout the Internet. The rising of the music piracy online has contributed in large part to the demise of CD, along there are shops like Amazon and iTunes that make the purchase of music and audiobooks more easier and convenient.

Sales of CD's have been on decline in the past few years at the same time that digital downloads (legally) are on the rise.

It will take a few years more but the CD's days are numbered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/arts/music/01indu.html

-DVD's and Blu-rays. The Blu-ray format while brand new, it might go faster than their predecessor: the DVD. You can blame Netflix, iTunes and Vudu where you can rent or buy high definition movies online, also some TV manufactures are coming out with TV sets that connect directly to the internet so you can watch content online without a set top box.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/technology/05bluray.html?ref=technology

Also:
1. Academic tenure--once this generation of tenured faculty dies off, they will not be replaced.
2. The Reformation tradition
3. Tooth powder (remember?)
4. Lavoris (I asked my dentist about it the other day, and apparently it is just not being marketed any more)
5. Retirement
6. cash (at least any form of it larger than the $20-bill.)
7. pseudonyms
8. Religious orders other than Mother Teresa's, which still has a waiting list
9. Talking psychotherapy
10.Secretaries and receptionists, except at extremely high-end workplaces
11.Employer-paid health insurance

Neither set of my grandparents did, either, due to death of one of each set. But my parents made their 50th last year.

Should have added, my parents didn't make it, either. Mom died just before what would have been their 47th.

Happy to say that the in-laws are far more long-lived, they're past their 60th already.

How long can humanity last without honey bees??

are YOU going to pollinate?? who's gonna do it??

I have to agree on #24 Yellow pages. I got one behemoth on my front porch last week. I carried it directly through the house, did not pass go, and into the recycling bin it went.

"And that's exactly what happened in
Seattle. The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was
paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park."

Just a tip, Bellingham is 3.5 hours north of Seattle next to the Canadian border.

and "The Republican Party outside the South"

Some of the posts above (e.g., the one where someone praises a slide rule for not needing batteries) reminded me of a few classic spoof ads from Dr. Boli's blog:

Instant Messaging via pigeons: http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/advertisement-289/

Get Your News on Paper: http://drboli.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/advertisement-266/

The Latest in Green Technology: http://drboli.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/advertisement-237/

Analog Computers: http://drboli.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/advertisement-131/

Amazing New Digital-Free Cameras: http://drboli.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/advertisement-114/

#16 = Lies.

Ham radio is alive and well, my friends. This figure they give: a decline of 50,000 - someone pulled that number out of their @$$ because they thought it sounded good and it supported their argument, but it is FALSE! There has been a net increase in the number of licenced amateur radio operators over the past 5 years in the U.S. (and abroad). Emergency communications aside, Amateur Radio has been (and still is) an unsung pioneer in wireless technologies, particularly with regard to the design of ever-more efficient antenna systems, data compression and emission types, and over-all pushing the limits and expanding the capabilities of radio-frequency technologies in general.

I know first hand, and for a fact (since I was a founding member of a group that has been instrumental in gaining this status for Ham Radio) that the ability to communicate via Ham Radio is now a REQUIREMENT for Hospitals in the U.S. per the Joint Commission (JCAHO).

FEMA and Homeland Security are also subscribing to and funding volunteer citizen's programs for training and the implementation of Ham Radio networks that will be utilized during disasters.

Don't listen to their lies!

Ham Radio could very well save your butt someday.

Re: Why should the last 45% be any different from the first 55%?

Because at some point you end up seriously angering a sufficiently large number people (and also costing an important industry, i.e., healthcare, a lot of money in unpaid bills) that the politicians are forced to do something about the mess. Heck, even the insurance industry itself would be seriously hurt if workplace health benefits ceased to exist; that's how they sell most of their policies, and mostly prefer it that way. In fact I think we're pretty much to the breaking point right now, well before the number of people without health insurance gets anywhere near a majority. Moreover even without govermment action the market itself pushes back. Sure you can hire a Walmart greeter without providing health insurance, but try hiring someone at the professional level. Employers aren't providing health insurance because they are altuists; they are doing so in order to attract potential high quality employees. That isn't going to change.

"The Republican Party outside the South" jacob

TR: Being born in the South I've been increasingly curious as to when Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, and Alaska became part of the South. This has been indicated so many places I still wonder when it happened I why I wasn't informed. For that matter is Oklahoma now in the South? I mean I can see that one, but I didn't know it was declared as such. Some of my Arkansas relatives might not be happy about it.

Uhh I made that point on February 6, 2009.

Religion, free markets, many other freedoms we now seem to take for granted. Don't believe me, just wait until the socialists drive their programs to the White House.

There are wild horses in North America NG just did an article on them, they are dwindling though.

After quite a long decline, the population of ham radio operators has actually been on the increase for the past couple of years. Anecdotally, as a radio contester, I have seen a lot of new callsigns on the air in recent contests. This trend hasn't escaped the notice of other radio folk and contesters in particular, much to our collective delight.

Gotta disagree with number 16. HAMS have developed new ways for digital communications and are still exploring the 1296Mhz and VLF spectrums. We've already had natural disasters totally take OUT the Internet and local communities' public service communications that relies on Internet relays to work. HAMS will always be there...

Surprised you missed this one...

Parish run K-8 Catholic elementary schools.

I think they have largely disappeared from places in the US where Catholics do not represent a majority and are rapidly decreasing even in places where they are.

Mostly this is a side effect of the other disappearing item, the nun.

I think the #1 thing disappearing in this country is 'fear of consequences', not to mention manners. Our teachers are paid almost nothing and have no authority to enforce good behavior. Yet everyone wonders why the prisons are overflowing and being built at breakneck speed? The middle class is being eradicated, soon we will have a slave nation made of ultra-rich, and the slave class.....something to think about.