Knittlin covered most of what I intended to say... nice synopsis. With one exception, perhaps: "Let's say there's someone out there who is the only person to have an unusual type of seed. The holder of the unusual seed sends a small portion of seeds to Svalbard. He continues to grow out and share the seeds. If, for some unknown reason, the only people who accept the seed from him all lose their seeds at the same time the original holder of them does, the original holder requests some of the seed he sent to Svalbard and is able to start over again." As I'm sure you already know, Svalbard does not accept seed from individuals, regardless of the merits of the seed. To get into their bank, the seed would need to be deposited into another bank first, and that bank would need to back it up into a second bank. So in the end, Svalbard + two other banks + the original grower would all have the seed. The good news is, that because SSE (Seed Savers Exchange) is now a depositor at Svalbard, it is possible for heirloom varieties to be protected. Don't get me wrong; I am still somewhat critical of the project. As another poster stated, if the great calamity does occur, it may be difficult or impossible to get the seeds from Svalbard to the depositor. Nor am I satisfied that all legal situations have been addressed... such as what happens to the seeds if the depositor no longer exists, has been taken over legally/politically, or lacks the means to propagate the seed. I am also apprehensive of corporate involvement, regardless of what rules might presently be in place. Governments change. Rules change. Greed is a constant. There are clauses in the Depositors Agreement that could, IMO, be abused to benefit the large multi-national seed companies. But for those that see Svalbard as the salvation from famine, it may never fill that role - or not directly. It is designed to preserve germplasm, not to propagate seed on a worldwide scale. That will always be the role of the the original depositors, their supporting governments, and the private sector. Were a major disaster to suddenly occur with one of the food staples (wheat, for example) it would take many years to multiply seed stocks, and in the interim, millions would starve. Sorry to end on a dark note, but that's the reality. Svalbard is something we hope we will never need to use.

My almost 21-year-old daughter saw American Sniper a couple of weeks ago and loved it. She said that after the movie was over, the entire theater was deathly quiet. No one moved while all the credits rolled through. And then everyone left, as quiet as can be. She said you could hear a pin drop as everyone left. Respectful, I guess. And perhaps blown away by what these great heroes, all of our military people, actually went through over there . . . and here, afterwards as well. I'm anxious to see it, but as the mom of someone who served two tours in Afghanistan, I'm steeling myself as to how it will probably affect me. To me, every soldier is someone's beloved son, daughter, husband, wife or good friend. From what I hear, i'll need to wear waterproof mascara and bring along a lot of Kleenex.

Interest rates have been at or near zero for quite awhile. I also miss those high interest days of the 80s, but I think they were sort of a last hurrah. I understand the S&L Crisis back then was brought on in part by those high rates. I have several accounts at my credit union and keep moving funds back and forth as the rates change, but they're all still around 1%. I had an offer from American Express for a 3% rate, which looks to be higher than the savings rates listed at the bankrate.com site. OTOH, I have several credit cards w/ 0% interest, and I keep getting more offers in the mail every week, probably because I have a very good credit rating. I have a stack of envelopes piling up, because I procrastinate shredding them. I heard some reporting recently about how many women tend not to invest their money, but rather tend to just have savings, and there was a site created to help with that - and now I cannot recall the name of it.

Thank you for the recommendation! It seems to be a great movie as you described it. Nowadays, finding a movie without swearing, violence, and intimate scenes is a bit hard and tricky. It takes me hours to find something decent when I watch something with my kids. The only blockbusters with Jackie Chan exclude murders, and the main character is only beating up furniture. By the way, my friend recommended I use this platform https://yeahmovies.tv/flixtor to get good links to watch movies. I'd be grateful if you'd give feedback on that platform because I'm using Netflix, that's a bit costly, and if possible, I'd prefer to change the streaming service.