It's Not Your Imagination

Your Juice Has Been Downsized

"Does it seem like you've been changing the toilet paper a little more often, or heading out to buy paper towels a little more frequently? It's not your imagination.
According to research from Consumer Reports, many companies have been shrinking the size of the products you buy, while charging the same amount for the product.
The report, featured in the February issue of Consumer Reports and online on their Web site, says companies are attributing the downsizing to rising costs for ingredients and energy.
"They've got a point," says Tod Marks, a senior editor at the magazine, in a press release. "Higher commodity and fuel costs are expected to spike in food prices by as much as 3 percent in 2011. But if manufacturers are skimping when costs go up, why aren't they more generous when costs hold steady or fall?"
Good point."

flashback 7/08 - In The Land Of The Dull Witted, They Think You Won't Notice

"The humble American consumer, already dogged by soaring petrol prices and declining wages, now has something more sinister to contend with: downsized groceries.'There is a grocery shrink ray that has been unleashed on supermarkets across America,' said Ben Popken, editor of consumerist.com, a popular consumer affairs website.Facing higher prices for ingredients and a tumbling dollar, American food manufacturers have been forced to tackle the issue of price inflation. But rather than increase the prices of packets of food on the shelves - which tends to steer consumers away from expensive branded goods towards cheaper varieties - many of the big food manufacturers have simply shrunk the size of their products while keeping prices steady.'That's why we call it the grocery shrink ray,' said Popken, adding that his website has seen a massive increase in alerts from users over recent weeks."

Bulk cat food bags used to be four pounds, then dropped to three and a half, now a lot of products are marked in metric measurements to fool the unwary, so if something on the shelf is metric it's a good chance it was zapped by the shrink ray.

In The Land Of The Dull Witted, They Think You Won't Notice

Honey, they shrank the packets of food

"The humble American consumer, already dogged by soaring petrol prices and declining wages, now has something more sinister to contend with: downsized groceries.
'There is a grocery shrink ray that has been unleashed on supermarkets across America,' said Ben Popken, editor of consumerist.com, a popular consumer affairs website.
Facing higher prices for ingredients and a tumbling dollar, American food manufacturers have been forced to tackle the issue of price inflation. But rather than increase the prices of packets of food on the shelves - which tends to steer consumers away from expensive branded goods towards cheaper varieties - many of the big food manufacturers have simply shrunk the size of their products while keeping prices steady.
'That's why we call it the grocery shrink ray,' said Popken, adding that his website has seen a massive increase in alerts from users over recent weeks."

I can sneer at this with self righteous snobbery because I don't buy much of that corporate packaged crap, but I have seen cat food bags magically get smaller. They even went so far as changing the advertised weight on the package to metric to keep what they did a mystery.

Operation "Pirate Justification" Well Underway

Well, here we go again - our government destabilized a piece of the earth's surface in order to blame the chaos as justification for invasion. It's their M.O., their business model, the way they roll, motherfucker.

Over the years islamists in Somalia weren't particularly popular until the US supported their usual cast of thug warlords, who were even less popular with the population. Thus the rise of the UIC (Union of Islamic Courts) which had actually gotten rid of the pirate situation. (shades of the Taleban who actually ended opium poppy harvests in Afghanistan) That didn't sit well with our meddlesome overlords so they funded and equipped an Ethiopian proxy army to invade and take out the fledgling islamist government, which they did without much problem because the islamists in power melted back into society. The country promptly fell completely apart.

At that point our fascists couldn't help letting the cat out of the bag about their intentions. In January 2007 the State Dept. announced they were forming AFRICOM, a "new U.S. Africa Command headquarters to coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent". Funny, though, when Uncle Sam approached the AU (African Union) to find a home for the empire's new militaristic outpost, every single country told them to stick it. They knew better.

But Somalia is ripe for the plucking as far as finding a land base for AFRICOM. It's most excellent location at the eastern tip of the continent will allow it to lord over shipping lanes and together with CENTCOM our wily fascists will have control over all natural resources west of the Black Sea. Somalia basically has no government with quasi independent regions and clan strife and warlords, essentially a perfect system for our masters of chaos to manipulate. AFRICOM is currently based in Stuttgart, Germany but I have a feeling they've got their bags packed and ready to move.

Enter the pirates. This latest hostage drama seems to fit into ongoing plans quite nicely. Hapless teenagers biting off more than they could chew, the first ever US flagged ship attacked by Somali pirates carrying food for African refugees, kidnapping a captain who stays in touch with US warships by radio, with the drama ending on Easter Sunday. And about the hijacked vessel -
Maersk Line, Limited is based in Norfolk, Virginia, and is one of the Department of Defense's primary shipping contractors.

"It has been a reliable partner for the government in peacetime and war for almost 30 years. It manages a fleet of nearly 50 ships in commercial and government service, including vessels requiring Top Secret security clearances."

Worldwide coverage ensured everybody gets the message about who the bad guys are, Obama gets to look butch, the bad guys vow revenge. MSM toadies couldn't gush enough about the wonderfullness of this stage play and the whole world gets to do the happy dance, except maybe the families of some 250 sailers still held for ransom by the pirates who might have some objection to their compatriots' heads being blown off their shoulders. While out of gas. And ammunition. While being towed.

But the drama, aided by someone (with bad aim) lobbing fireworks at a US politician, worked to perfection to set the stage for our crafty manipulators' next production - Operation Land Invasion.

US military mulls attacking Somali pirates’ land bases

They've even already started calling Somalis who might object 'insurgents', imagine that.

added - Enough Dead Pirate Porn: The Press is Relishing the Killing of Three Teenage Pirates With Disturbing Zeal

"The American public is relishing the deaths of the pirates to a degree that's downright unseemly."

added - Emotional Rescue: Praise for Sea Victory Could Presage Carnage