Sky Quarry asks prospective investors:
Did you know millions of tons of shingles end up in landfills every year? It’s an environmental problem. But we have a solution!  At Sky Quarry, we get paid to collect and dispose of asphalt shingles, and here’s the real magic – we transform them into valuable, resellable asphalt bitumen. 
Our business plan is simple – we turn waste into wealth!
We’re on a mission to reduce, recycle, and reuse shingle waste.
Ultimately, we’re doing well while doing good and looking for like-minded investors to join us. 

Is there a cost associated with separating asphalt shingles from the other substances that are going into landfills? Does that cost make this proposition completely asinine, even if there were a potential business model in selling asphalt bitumen?

Think for yourselves.

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And precisely what is this “edifice” to which MLK was referring?

I would simply say trickle-down economics.  Lowering the top federal tax bracket from 90% to 28%, while taxing Social Security benefits and handing out huge additional tax breaks for the top 1% has left us with an edifice in which schools and  other public programs are grossly under-funded.

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Here’s a cool pic of a defunct gas station.

Perhaps it’s also a visual metaphor for our civilization’s phasing out of fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy.

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Throughout the millennia, most religious texts have attempted to blend faith and reason. Thomas Aquinas, for example, set out to prove the existence of God using only the laws of logic that had been propounded by Aristotle roughly 1400 years earlier. Descartes, perhaps 300 years later, was on a similar mission.

As shown above, however, faith and reason aren’t always best of friends.  Some of today’s churches are run by those who want us to choose between the two.

A cynical mind may suspect that these folks want us to remain as stupid as possible.

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Ms. Streisand may be the wealthiest American headed for a sane and decent place to live if Trump is re-elected, but she certainly won’t be the only one.

There are large ex-pat populations all around the globe, whose numbers will swell impressively if the United States is no longer a democracy.  Costa Rica, New Zealand, Iceland, not to mention Western Europe and Scandinavia all jump to mind.

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I’m sure the actual reason that today’s air travel is so uncomfortable is complex, but it strikes me that there was a limit to corporate greed 50 years ago that is altogether absent from our lives today.

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In a world in which empathy seems to be on the run, it’s good to be reminded of what the world’s great thinkers have had to say on the subject.

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Primatologist Jane Goodall says that one of the key reasons she remains optimistic about the future of Earth’s environment is its resiliency.  I.e., the moment we stop inflicting harm to the planet, it begins the slow process of healing itself.

Here’s a fabulous and mesmerizing illustration of precisely this.

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I appreciate the content of the letter at the left, but here’s an even better idea for Walmart shoppers: Stay out.

Walmart, in and of itself, isn’t abusive enough?  Shopping there is a degrading experience, and doing so is supporting the punishment that one of the world’s wealthiest families inflicts upon both its customers and its employees.

Even if this weren’t the case, how much low-quality crap do you want in your life in the first place?  Do you really want a pair of gloves that will keep your hands warm for a single season, but has been engineered to fall apart soon thereafter? How much Coca Cola and Doritos do you really want in your diet?

Get out of there and stay out.

 

 

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Ha!

Terry Wagner makes an excellent point.

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