Unbranded vs branded products

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We have been led to believe, through clever advertising and marketing, that branded products, be it cornflakes, cellphones or whatever, are better than those that do not have a brand label, especially not a “recognized” one. But is that really the truth?

The Lacoste T-shirt, or what other brand name one, more than likely is exactly the same as one that does not have the logo on it. Many brand garments, as well as other products, are the same as those without the big names on them, with the only difference of having the logo embroidered or otherwise attached.

This goes also for, as already indicated, many other branded products, and I would like to come here with two examples.

One of them is a ruggerized cellphone. I got mine at Aldi for around £50, under Aldi's “Workzone” label, and found it to be the same that a coppice worker in the area had that cost him a little over £80. Now there is a JCB cellphone that looks similar, though I could say exactly the same, that cost almost £150 or even more. All in JCB color and with the JCB logo but, and I believe you may have guessed it by now, it has got exactly the very same phone inside as does the Aldi one and the one the coppice worker had.

The second example be my bread maker, also from Aldi, under the “Ambiano” label for £50, which is the same, and I do mean exactly the same bar for the names, that under a variety of top brands is sold for between £95 and £145. So, what that does that tell us?

It tells us that brands, nowadays, at least, mean very little to nothing in the main. Having said that there are probably some, especially if the products is not “Made in China” where they can and will be made for anyone, where the price is worth paying as it is something different. But for many household goods, and electronics, what's on the label is not always what's inside the product, and the same, under a different label, can be had for a quarter if not even half the price, and still the same quality.

Those are not copies of a brand product copied in China (then they would have the brand name on them, wouldn't they, otherwise copies don't work) but those are the same inside. Only on the outside they are different.

It can be safely taken as read that many brand names today – if not even the majority – are not about quality but about ripping off the consumer by suggesting better quality only.

© 2018

Your organic milk might contain algae and fish oil

Millions and millions of gallons of organic milk contain industrial-brewed ingredients to beef up nutritional values.

When you buy a carton of organic milk, chances are you think you’re getting a carton of pure organic milk. And if you’re splurging on organic milk with DHA Omega-3 fatty acids to support brain health – and who doesn't want their brain health supported? – chances are you think that those healthy bits are coming courtesy of healthy grass-fed cows. But as Peter Whoriskey points out in the Washington Post, you might be wrong on both accounts – much of the nation's organic milk can thank algal oil (and fish oil) for its brain-boosting boasts.

Whoriskey describes a setting in a South Carolina factory that sounds a tad less charming than Horizon’s cartoon cow leaping across the planet's grassy fields might suggest. He writes:

Inside a South Carolina factory, in industrial vats that stand five stories high, batches of algae are carefully tended, kept warm and fed corn syrup. There the algae, known as schizochytrium, multiply quickly. The payoff, which comes after processing, is a substance that resembles corn oil. It tastes faintly fishy.

The oil is added to milk, in this case Horizon’s DHA Omega-3 version, allowing the company to advertise its added benefits and attach a higher price tag. Consumers bought more than 26 million gallons of Horizon’s algae-goop milk last year, according to the company; that accounts for 14 percent of all organic milk gallons sold.

Read more here.

25 sneaky names for palm oil

Palm oil and its derivatives can appear under many names. For consumers concerned about the catastrophic ill effects of the palm industry, here’s what to look for.

Palm oil is the most popularly used vegetable oil in the world. It is remarkably versatile and is used in everything from snack food and shampoo to biofuel. It is so prevalent that it can be found in around half of packaged items in most supermarkets.

It comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis) which is native to West Africa. It was once used for basic things like food and fiber, but with a yield greater than other vegetable oil crops, and with low labor costs, it has become the go-to oil. While trees were once planted in small-scale, sustainable systems, the high demand has created a need for large-scale plantations.

Read more here.

Trickle down economics

How we are told it works and how it actually works

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We are often told that the trickle-down economy works like a pyramid of glasses and when the top one is filled and overflows the others below are filled up and when they overflow the ones lower down. The reality, however, is a rather different one, as shown in the graphic.

Mysteriously, rather than the top glass overflowing it seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger still without anything even reaching the second tier let alone the bottom one.

The entire story of trickle-down economy is a lie designed to keep the masses quiet and in the belief that, sooner or later, as long as those at the top get the tax reliefs and all that, the good things will trickle down to those at the lower tiers. Fact is, however, that simply is not going to happen.

There is really only one way that those at the bottom of said pyramid ever get the benefit of their labor they, those that do the work, will have to take control of the means of production. There is no other way.

More and more people, including and especially economists, are beginning to come to the conclusion that capitalism is coming to an end and that Marx was right after all. However, while Marx initially said that the means of production must be in the hands of the people somewhere along the line this line has been changed, in later editions of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, to read “the means of production must be in the hand of the state”. The latter makes a total mockery of worker control as they change but one slave master for another, and the latter being worse than the former.

Only when those that actually produce the goods actually also reap the fruits of their labor in that they own the means of production, the workers the workshops and factories, the farmers the fields and the farms, and the woodsmen the woods and forests, will the exploitation of man by man ever come to an end.

© 2015

'Front group': Coca-Cola funds scientists who stress exercise not diet to avoid obesity

Coca-Cola has pumped millions of dollars into the founding of a new nonprofit that claims there is "strong evidence" that lack of exercise is mostly to blame for obesity, not poor diet.

Coke, the leading producer of soda and sugary drinks across the world, has invested heavily in the Global Energy Balance Network, a nonprofit run by a handful of university scientists who were offered $4 million by Coke to fund various research projects, according to the New York Times.

Halting weight gain should be less about dieting and more about "maintaining an active lifestyle and eating more calories,"the group said on its website. The group's proof of this claim comes down to two research papers, both of which end with the same footnote: “The publication of this article was supported by The Coca-Cola Company.”

The organization calls itself “the voice of science” on its website. It ultimately bills itself as a "not for profit dedicated to reversing the obesity & chronic disease epidemics through healthy lifestyle behaviors."

Read more here.

Basing the Revolution on lies

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

A Revolution based on lies will either fail to get off the ground or fail in the end.

When we attempt to create a new society, a socialist society, even a communist one, then it cannot and must not be started with the same means as are being used by the enemy of the people. It must be based on honesty and trust.

While the enemy happily uses lies against us and in general lies must not be part of our arsenal and the fact that the enemy may have trashed trust does not mean that we should resort to lies and even half-truths. Even if we are in the gutter fighting to survive it is and must not be a case of “anything goes”, including lies. The Revolution will not happen if it is based on the same falsehoods as was that that it is meant to replace.

Talking about the enemy having trashed democracy means that we must first of all have had democracy which we have not as there is no democracy in any of the places that call themselves democratic countries. Just being allowed to vote for who is going to be the next captain and crew of the ship that they continues on the same course, right towards the abyss is not democracy, not even the start of it.

Mark Twain was right when he said that if voting would make a difference they would make it illegal. As it is still legal it is but being used by the powers-that-be (but rather should not be) to keep the masses in the belief that they have a say. If voting would really make a difference in the current systems then the powers would have banned it already. But it is useful to keep the masses in a dream and that is what counts.

If we are talking about working with democracy in our respective countries then that is the first lie that we must overcome and inform the people proper that they are not living in any kind of democracy. That the so-called democracy is but a fake, a lie.

However, that is probably the smallest of the lies. Creating fake pictures, even if with noble intent, also is lying and does not advance the course, especially not if and when this lie is being discovered. The same goes for any other half-truths, untruths and outright lies.

Yes, it is true that the enemy will employ all those means against the revolution and the revolutionaries but that still does not make it right that we employ the self-same methods and lies. All it will do is make the movement out to be false and its leadership and membership to be liars and something that cannot be trusted. Lies and falsehoods destroyed the Soviet Revolution and many other countries that attempted socialism, which, alas, was but state capitalism. There were lies against people who were critical of what the leaders were doing, there were lies about production, and so many more lies.

But we, as true revolutionaries must not stoop as low as they are and use the same kind of methods of deceit and of lies, regardless of what they are doing in that way. Our path must be the shining path of truth for only when we are honest with ourselves and with the people will the people back our cause which is, ultimately, their cause.

The system cannot be changed by the same means that it uses, be it lies, deception or others, though there may be a validation for the use of arms.

The revolutionary must be true to himself and with and to the working class and thus any untruths, however small, have no place in this.

© 2015

Green products – marketing or real change in values and attitude?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Numerous “green” products, claiming to have but a small environmental footprint in comparison to their conventional counterparts, give us the feeling to think and live more sustainable. But, has really enough been done and are the products really as environmentally friendly as their claims suggest? The answer here must be an emphatic NO.

The potential as far as consumer products to become “greener” is immense. According to German research consumers in that country in 2011 spent around 36 Billion Euros worth of “sustainable” products, around 14 Billion of that on products in the energy savings and energy efficient living sector. I do not, I have to admit, any figures for Britain or the USA but that is neither her nor there in the discussion.

The problem is that many of those so-called “green” products are not actually as green as they make out to be and greenwash still rules the roost supreme, and this in almost each and every sector of the sustainability market, so to speak.

While it may be eco-friendly to buy this or that product made from recycled materials in many cases people have to look no further that their trash can or recycling bin where to find the raw materials from which to make the very things themselves. In fact, those things should not even end up in those bins and be reused as much as possible.

That is, however, but one area. When it comes to energy efficiency and saving of energy and water it would be much better rather than buying and using special devices to reduce consumption and use in the same was as reuse, reduction is better than the other options.

In the EU, including Britain, we have had the supposedly energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) forced upon us which, in themselves, in their manufacture and disposal, present an environmental problem, rather than having worked on more efficient use of the old style of light bulbs, that is to say the incandescent ones.

The latter ones, while being a little more juicy as to the consumption of energy is concerned, do not pose a health risk or one to the environment, unlike strip lights and CFLs and the latter are but a compact version of the former, due to their mercury content.

We should have rather developed better lamps with mirrors and such like or, like the on shoemaker's globe, with lenses to increase the lumen output of even the lowest power incandescent bulbs rather than having gone for enforcing upon an entire population those CFLs which may do more harm than good. I doubt that it would have been difficult.

In the old days we used sconces to reflect the light of a candle or an oil lamp away from the wall and magnify it and there would have been many ways of increasing the lumen output of the incandescent light bulb by making lamps more efficient without the need for high wattage ones instead of messing about with the CFLs which are not at all safe. Greenwash this is in the same way as with so many other products.

The problem is that the consumer either is not given a choice by having something forced upon him or her or is being sold a lie or both. And I do not even want to start with the electric car.

Industry and governments alike are conning the consumer into believing that he or she is doing a good deed for the environment – and in other instances governments even force consumers to this – but the truth is often different than what we are being told.

People have also been conditioned to think recycling before anything else and hence waste reduction and the reuse of anything that can be has fallen by the wayside and the supposed recyclability of products such as computers, cell phones, etc., has led top an increase in waste rather than a reduction as people believe that everything is fine in going to get new even if the old one works fin as the old one can be entirely recycled. Somewhere along the way the point is being missed, namely the one that we must reduce and not just waste products but consumption.

However, the mere advocating of this can now be construed as an act of domestic terrorism as it could slow down the economic growth, this word that keeps popping up time and again. Growth on a finite Planet, and the Earth is finite, it cannot grow, is a misnomer and a recipe for disaster.

In order to grow the economy, under the guise of reducing the effects of a changing climate, it has been mentioned that people might be forced to replace their white goods, that is to say refrigerators, cookers, washing machines, etc., with energy efficient models even if their old ones are still working perfectly. This does not help the Planet, it just helps industry and creates a mountain of waste. A present people are just being “encouraged” to buy those, supposedly, energy-efficient white goods but, as said, it could come to people being forced to replace and the new “smart meters” could possibly be used to do just that. The latter are also being forced upon the people whether they want them or not. And those can, in fact, cut people off the grid if the powers-that-be decide that the householders use too much energy.

Total people control all in the name of combating climate change. But I digressed a little.

When it comes to green products and such like one can but wonder whether industry just manages to blind both the consumers and governments alike with the claims often attached and even scientists seem to be involved in this scam, such as with reducing paper use and going paperless saving the tropical rainforests. The wood from those trees is actually not suitable for the making of paper pulp.

Going paperless, especially in governments, has nothing whatsoever too do with saving trees, regardless of the claims, but with saving money as far as printed materials are concerned. And the paper industry, in fact, keeps many forests in existence that would not be there would it not be for the paper industry. So, going paperless could cost us forests as the industry owns those and if there is no benefit in keeping them they might sell the land off to developers.

There is more to many things than meet the eye but the public is often being blinded by the powers-that-be on purpose as to the truth of things. A proper book is more than likely more environmentally-friendly than is an e-book reader and electronic books and, in addition to that, you actually own the book unlike the electronic ones (unless they are PDFs on your PC) which, in the case of Amazon on Kindle, the company, despite the fact that you have paid for it, still maintains to be its property. You cannot legally and technically pass them on to someone else and neither can you print them out.

The public has to learn to be much more discerning if we, as a whole, really every are going to make an impact as far as reducing our impact on the Planet is concerned for there is so much greenwash around from industry and government that cutting through this fog of war requires more than night vision goggles and infrared equipment.

© 2013

Greenwash, greenwash everywhere

Greenwash, greenwash everywhere and not an ounce of truth

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Bamboo products such molded bamboo (made from bamboo sawdust and touted as green alternative to plastic), and bamboo flooring are still being promoted as the green choice in favor of wood. Sorry, but this does not compute.

While bamboo is an interesting material the flooring is nothing but a laminate, which means glues are being used and, compared to wood laminate flooring, a great deal of heat and other energy has to be expended to make the bamboo flat.

Molded bamboo products, as an alternative to plastics, is also a load of bull dust, as our Australian cousins would say, as fair as sustainability is concerned and is but greenwash.

But there is so much greenwash around in general, and the bigger the company the bigger the lies, it would seem, that we almost drown in the stuff.

OK, let's get back to bamboo once more. Bamboo is not a tree, for starters, but a grass that has a very hard stem when dry and there are indeed many great products that can be and that are being made from bamboo which are, indeed, very green, but only when they are made in the way that they have always, traditionally, been made, by the local craftsmen and -women in those countries where bamboo grows and those products have evolved out of need and creativity of the people that have always relied on bamboo. But bamboo flooring, bamboo board made by gluing strips together, bamboo “plastic”, and such like are greenwash and not green.

The other greenwash, as already indicated, is being perpetuated by the likes of Coka Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Nestle, and other corporations of their ilk, only in order to bamboozle (sorry about the almost pun) the consumer.

A supposedly 100% plant-based PET plastic bottle that, upon closer inspection states, made with 30% plant material, is not 100% plant-based but maybe 30% and because of this content recycling of that type of PET, according to information from recyclers, is almost impossible. In addition to that, despite the fact that the plastic has a plant-based content it is not, though people are led to believe that, biodegradable and compostable.

Yes, there are indeed plant-based plastic which break down in the environment and which even composts quite nicely. In the latter case most of the time, however, only in commercial hot composting facilities and not in the home compost environment, but they are totally based on corn starch or potato starch and are not a PET.

We can now come to fuels, such as bio-diesel and bio-ethanol. While green, to an extent, in that they are not fossil fuels they are, however, not good for the environment either.

Studies state that the particle emissions from bio-diesel is several times higher than those of oil-based diesel and it is such particle emissions from diesel vehicles that are the cause of respiratory illnesses, especially among children. In addition to that, while not being fossil fuels, they are still being used in an infernal combustion engine and thus still release CO2 and other pollutants.

The people, that is you and I, are being conned left, right and center by industry and by our governments, in the same way as they keep touting, especially in the UK, nuclear power as a green energy. Or, if they try to be less disingenuous, as a low-carbon or even zero carbon energy. But those claims do not compute either for they do not add into the equation the energy, more often than not fossil fuel energy, and thus carbon, in the mining of the uranium and in the shipping of same and then the production of the fuel rods, etc.

Their greenwash simply does not wash and we must equip ourselves with the knowledge to understand the ins and outs so that we can challenge those that make such unsubstantiated claims and outright lies.

Oh, and before I close I think I also better mention “clean coal”. This is a total and utter oxymoron as there is no such thing as “clean coal” and never will be and carbon capture in rocks, caves and under the sea are first and foremost untried and untested and, much like nuclear, a very dangerous undertaking in case of an accident. A nuclear accident releases often dangerous radiation, and we all know that, but consider the release of millions of tons of previously stored CO2 at one foul swoop in an accident. The entire climate balance will collapse within a short space of time without anyone being able to do anything about it and – bang – here goes life on Earth.

Other systems are also being greenwashed to turn out whiter than snow and one of them is so-called geo-engineering in order to reduce warming by blocking out the sun. Or weather manipulation so as to bring rain to drought stricken areas, and such like. Cloud seeding is already many decades old but still almost each and every time that it is being tried it either does not work or, in the worst case, it cause deluges that cause serious flooding and destruction. But man believes himself to be so superior that he thinks he can play weather god and more. Well, we are not that far advanced and we cannot control the weather. We can just cause disasters playing god.

Act against greenwash of all kinds and keep telling others as to what is going on so that people will come to understand how the cookie crumbles.

© 2013

Npower and its shenanigans

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Is Npower the new Starbucks? At the same time as hiking our energy bills, Npower are using accounting tricks to dodge paying their fair share of tax in the UK. On April 16, 2013 it was revealed that they have not paid a single penny in corporation tax for the last three years!

But now that this is out in the open, Npower are vulnerable and just like the PR disaster this issue was for Starbucks when their tax affairs were exposed in later 2012 so it could be for Npower. And just like with Starbucks it could cost them their customers and should.

But this is just one of the shenanigans this company engages in. it also cons the public with their sales pitch where the company claimed to be an wholly British company and one that is green.

As I personally pointed out, in front of many potential customers on a consumer fair to one of the salesmen, the claim is false as the company of wholly owned by RWE AG, formerly Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG, as German company and one that had, at that time, the greatest number of German nuclear power stations. I asked the sales rep since when RWE, their parent company, was British and he was totally lost and tried to continue with his spiel.

RWE also owned Thames Water and many other utilities worldwide. RWE produced in 2007 electricity from the following sources: 32.9% hard coal, 35.2% lignite, 1.1% pumped storage, 2.4% renewables, 13.6% gas and 14.9% Nuclear power, with lignite, which is referred to in German as Braunkohle, being one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the market.

As far as the tax scam is concerned NPower’s accounting scam works like this: they are turning UK operating profits into accounting and tax losses by making large "interest payments" to other parts of their own business, based overseas. This is currently legal, unfortunately and the people must push the government to close this blatant loophole.

They make those "interest payments" in the main, more than likely though this would require further investigation, to their parent company in Germany, and thus they are not liable for tax in the UK.

But not only their tax and accounting scams need to be stopped. Also the miss-selling of their services to unsuspecting punters needs to be nipped in the bud and they need to have the knuckles wrapped over this.

In fact, it is time that the utilities, electricity generation, gas, water, etc., be brought back into British hands, and best the way it was; back into the hands of the country itself. Such vital services should never ever be allowed to be owned by foreign companies and investors.

Powergen, now E-on, also makes false sales claims stating to be a British-owned company, which it is neither. Powergen, which took the name of its parent, E-on, is a wholly-German owned company and it would appear that most of the utility companies in the UK which are owned by foreigners, bar EDF (Électricité de France S.A.) who are open about being French, claim that they are British. Time the people spoke up and told them to come clean, and that in more than one aspect.

We have the power to change the system...

© 2013

The myth about the FEMA concentration camps

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Time and again the scaremongers, with the likes of Alex Jones and his ilk in the forefront, try to make the people buy into the stories of FEMA concentration camps, FEMA coffins (because the US government wants to kill so and so many people), etc. and those people then claim that this or that location is the site of one of those camps.

Just like this facility along the Ca. I-5 which has been claimed to be a FEMA concentration camp and the conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and others, have claimed that the large over 30+ foot tall fence is there to keep people in.

There is just a slight problem with this particular site and location that that this is the fence surrounding the Fink Landfill at Lat. 37°23'23.69"N Long. 121° 8'15.24"W. The fence is there to keep trash from blowing on to the Interstate and not to keep people in.

Other sites that have been reported to be such camps do not even exist and were, it would appear, created by the scaremongers to make their little videos and photo series. All in order to sell guns, ammo, and other “survival” supplies to those that they manage to scare.

A fair number of years ago now others in the same fraternity as Alex Jones brandished about photographs of supposed joint US/Russian checkpoints with signs in Cyrillic and English. It is just such a shame that those who made up the sign did not know that just writing “Stop Checkpoint” in Cyrillic does not make it Russian.

The there was the “scare” of the Warsaw Pact UN vehicles at a staging yard in the southern USA, claimed to be readied for a UN takeover – using Russian forces – of the USA. Shame that this was just a used car lot of ex-East German military surplus vehicles bought by a car dealer. But, one cannot let the truth get in the way of a good story now, can one?

Oh, and while we are at it let us also look at the Chemtrails which are, according to many of those scaremongers, chemicals being sprayed to kill us all. Right you are! And that would also mean that the powers-that-be would breathe in the same chemicals and they also would be in danger.

While there is some aerial spraying being conducted, predominately in the USA, which is an attempt to control climate change, the absolute great majority of the so-called chemtrails are in fact nothing more than aircraft contrails. The latter are by no means harmless as they cause a type of cirrus cloud scatter that does block out sunlight and thus cause changes on the ground.

But in order to get rid off those trails and the resultant cirrus clouds would mean to reduce aircraft use and that would mean for most people to fly less. Something that I think will not goo down well with those that wish to jet off on vacation every so often to sunny Spain, or for skying to the Alps, and such like.

Contrails have been around ever since we have jet aircraft and even before. The sky over England was crisscrossed with contrails during the Battle of Britain and that by the contrails from the Spitfires, Hurricanes and the German planes.

Today's crisscrossing contrails are not because planes fly back and forth to create a grid, as the scaremongers claim, but they are from aircraft flying at different altitudes and if looked at properly in the field this can be seen though on photos they are often made to look as if they are a grid.

We have had attempts of weather modification by use of “chemicals” for many decades by now already, predominately in an attempt to make it rain, using silver iodine. Cloud seeding it was referred to and it is still going on. The rain created by this method, when it is successful, more often than not, however, is not very useful as it comes down as a deluge. Man cannot control weather very well and the HAARP they try to play at times does not do too well in that department either.

I would be more concerned about the facilities under the US legislation that allows for the indefinite detention of people, including and especially anti-government Americans, that are being created on US bases in the States.

FEMA could not organize a proverbial in a brewery, as was evident from the Katrina aftermath fiasco, but the US military is more than capable of doing it and if there are any camps then they will be on existing military facilities. So, don't worry about an old railroad yards, or a landfill, or a water works.

But what you need to worry about is the agenda that those scaremongers are pushing and especially in this department Alex Jones and some others. Who are they really working for and what is their beef?

So far all FEMA concentration camps that they have ever claimed to exist were fakes and the same goes to the checkpoint signs and such like.

“STOP CHECKPOINT” in Russian reads “ОСТАНОВИТЬ КОНТРОЛЬНО-ПРОПУСКНОМ ПУНКТЕ” and not “СТОП ЖЕКПОИНТ”. And there is just a slight difference. But that is not something that the ordinary punter would know and thus the scaremongers get away with it.

So, don't believe everything that you read or hear or even watch on TV or other channels. Not everything that is claimed to be the truth is.

© 2013

Microsoft criticizes its competition OpenOffice.org on YouTube

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Epsom, UK: Recently Microsoft's Office Division made public on YouTube a video in which they list one supposed disadvantage of OpenOffice.org after the other.

They claim that Oracle's free office product, OpenOffice.org, is incompatible, insecure and slow and that it would be no alternative for firms and other businesses to the Microsoft Office-Suite.

In this video Microsoft's Office Division claims the free office OpenOffice.org to be entirely incompatible, insecure and way too slow. For the professional use in businesses they claim that the free Open-Source solution is entirely useless, as, because of the lack of support and the unreliability high additional costs would arise.

In the three-minute long film selected representatives of a variety of companies are cited who, so it is claimed, after the installation of OpenOffice were forced, because of disappointment, to switch over to the to be paid for Microsoft Office software.

Mostly mention is made of so supposed additional costs which are supposedly caused by the implementation of Open Source software solutions.

“First we used Open Office, based upon Linux systems, in order to save money. We found soon, however, that the exorbitant costs and the extremely limited available support, left us worse off than before,” claims, for example, James Fleminf, of the American company “Speedy Hire”.

An estimated 25% extra time would be needed in order to install and maintain Open Office based systems, claimed David Sterling, IT manager of Central Scotland Police. Even a teacher is quoted as saying that pupils who handed in a document converted with OpenOffice.org for grading and who, as a result, and how could it be different, received worse grades. With use of Microsoft Word or Excel this could and would not have happened, they claim.

After the video had been put up on YouTube and the first critics had countered the claims made as not being objective enough it was removed from YouTube. In the meantime, however, Microsoft has put it back up, in, so I understand, the same way as it was before.

Having been using OpenOffice.org for years now I can but say that I find it easier to use than MS Word (and other MS Office products) and there is absolutely no compatibility issue. In fact all documents convert to OpenOffice.org without any problems whatsoever, whether MS Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Just a shame that MS often does not allow for proper back-conversion.

It is also a shame that the likes of Avery and others still only make their templates available for MS Word and not OpenOffice.org though many Microsoft templates do, in fact, convert.

I must say that I have serious misgivings as to the reliability of the quotes in the video as, for instance, many local governments and police authorities on mainland Europe work in OpenOffice.org on Windows and on Linux-based Operating Systems.

The claim about security issues with OpenOffice.org and its files is absolutely laughable. Microsoft would do well to clean up in front of their own door before talking about other people's products.

Then again, those tactics and antics of the Redwood-based company do not surprise me at all. It is the same story when it comes to talking about Open-Source Operating Systems as when it comes to OpenOffice and, indeed, other Open-Source software.

Microsoft is running scared that it could be losing customers, especially in the still ongoing Great Recession.

While it is true that not all the keyboard shortcuts on OpenOffice are the same as on MS Word, for instance, it does not take much to get used to them and the interface is not much different to MS Office, even Office 2007.

Folks, don't allow yourselves to be scared off by the bullies out of Redwood. Rather give the a good run for their money while not wasting yours.

OpenOffice.org is compatible and secure and fast and I use it every day.

© 2010

Jumping on the Green Bandwagon

Greenwashing in action

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Recently we received an email here at the Green (Living) Review from KEEPME BAGS of Greenhithe, Kent, advertising – whether this email was intended to us as a “press release” or something else I do not know – their “ECO Bag of non-woven polypropylene”. The claims for those ECO PP Bags from “Keep Me Bags” are as follows:

“100% recyclable, robust & 100% reusable, biodegradable, non toxic, made using very clean and energy efficient manufacturing processes, printed with water based inks, flame retardant and air permeability, ECO friendly - new generation of environment-friendly materials, made from spun bonded 100% Polypropylene.”

While I am not arguing in any way with the claims for being 100% recyclable, and those of robustness and and of the ability to be reused, nor have any problems with them, I am having great problems with the claim of those bags as being biodegradable. Polypropylene is a plastic, basically; a synthetic material, that is oil based and that is NOT biodegradable, whatever any vendor or manufacturer might like to claim in order to sell those to companies who may be rather ignorant as to what is or is not biodegradable.

Plastics of any kind break down in the environment, that is true. But that is just it; the material slowly breaks down by the action of light and and soil and weather into ever smaller fragments of – plastic. And, while doing so it releases harmful substances into the soil and water. Cheers. They do not compost and therefore are not biodegradable.

The same applies for any other plastic bag unless the bags are made of PLA, that is to say corn starch or lactic acid based “plastic” type of materials. Those latter ones do, indeed, biodegrade; they in fact compost nicely.

It would very much appear that the green bandwagon is the one to jump on at present and too many companies wishing to be seen as green buy such bags unbeknown of the fact that they are being lied to as to the biodegradable claims and such like.

In this case we are talking about a polyester fibre, non-woven – which means the fibers are being bonded together (by some sort of glue, one should guess) and we are being given all those “green” credentials. This is a definite case of greenwashing, much like the “Eco-Button”, that useless piece of electronic trash.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008