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fracking ... it's been done ... for decades.

You mean "for decades starting 2005 when Bush-Cheney Energy Policy Act famously exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.. I cannot find any publicly available fracking statistics, probably because it is a "private trade secret", but if you can find something to substantiate your claim, please do.

It's almost always done at deep levels that simply cannot pollute water tables absent some serious messed up concrete jobs on wells.

So fracking is safe ONLY when "done at deep levels" AND "absent some serious messed up concrete jobs on wells." So what goverment agency makes sure that the above requirements are observed?
Looks like none:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEtgvwllNpg

Why would they? It is exempt from clean water act anyways.

These conditions persist at this one location for hours on end, every single day. How many hash challenges do you suppose there are in just this one photo?

My estimate is that there are 250 vehicles in the photo, generating 31250 hash challenges in a single moment of time at a single location.

Hundreds of billions of hash challenges per hour would be a severe low-ball on this planet, especially if we use your 10 mile radius figure. I am not full of shit as these conditions happen in hundreds of thousands of places around the world all the time

You need to check some of your assumptions.

I think, while in many cases I think technology is of a benefit to us, I also think that there are cases where it is harmful. We want to be selective about how we apply technology. For instance, there are drugs which have doubtless saved lives. With these drugs however, and with most technology, a person should be able to choose not to be exposed to them. No one tries for force a drug on a person, and a drug is usually used to treat a problem that exists, rather than given to everyone. Vaccines are provided to prevent diseases not currently present, however, even vaccines should be a matter of personal choice and no one should be forced to take them. The problem with GMOs is they are being forced on people who do not want them, and they are an artificial food which are being shown to have a good potential of being toxic. Furthermore, the issue of genetic pollution and the fact that crops tend to cross pollinate, endangers non-GMO fields where GMOs are not wanted, growing foods for people who do not want to eat GMOs. So the mere nature of GMO and its self replicating and transmissive quality makes it a danger to consumer freedom of choice to choose to not consume natural foods.

In regards to rat toxicity, As far as rats being intolerant of all potatoes, i am not sure about this. Rats being a scavenger species, might be equipped to handle, as such species often do, a large range of food items. I have been reading on the internet and I do see warnings to not give rats raw potatos, or green potatoes. Green potatoes are toxic to humans as well. Raw potatoes probably also would not be good for humans. Humans mainly eat cooked, ripe potatoes.

Problems have also been reported with corn and soy in rats.
http://uniorb.com/RCHECK/animalgm.htm

Also cows have been reported to die after eating GMO:
http://www.earthisland.org/project/newsPage2.cfm?n ewsID=576&pageID=177&subSiteID=44

Besides the potatos, we also have other reports of rats dying from eating GMO ingredients.
http://www.biotech-info.net/pusztai_article.html
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/84 8d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/9f8d26bd0d23b83c802 5704600419579!OpenDocument
http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey8.htm

I do think that there is something odd going on here, and that the intolerance was likely not caused by a general intolerance to potatoes, but rather to the GMO ones. Studies which use a control group of a rats being fed non-GMO items can prove that.
I think when it comes to something like GMO, which is an artificial food, I would rather play it safe and go with the same foods humans have been eating for thousands of years, that is, non-GMO natural foods. For me, the risk in life and health is not worth it, to allow for agribusiness to make a little more profit. I do not like playing games with health and placing myself in unneeded danger, and especially with this technology, my gut instinct tells me the danger is significant and real.

I am one who would say we should not mess with the foods that we are eating, or at least, force them on people who dont want them. I am one who does support choice about what goes into our bodies, and the right of every person to refuse to put artificial substances into them if they refuse.

I do think, humans have evolved for thousands of years eating a certain range of foods and suite of nutritional components that comes from natural foods. The further we get away from the foods we have evolved to utilise and which our bodies are best equiped to handle, the less our bodi

Public Relations work is actually fairly cheap. Even the largest PR company, Edelman PR, only had revenues of $206 million in 2002. [1] All they needed to do, in this case, is to create the impression of a "controversy" by ensuring that a few high profile "experts" get funded, so that politicians who wouldn't be inclined to act against global warming anyway would have a moral justification to do so. The Discovery Institute, by far the single most important entity in the similarly huge Intelligent Design "controversy", only received about $3.5 million in reveneues in 2004. [2] Now compare that number to the amount of media stories about "Intelligent Design" (a pure PR rebranding of the earlier "creation science" effort) in 2004. Of course, ExxonMobil's campaign is also part of a larger effort, as detailed, for instance, by PR experts Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton in this article.

The Russians launch over land all the time. But it's been said that there have been occasional problems with this.

As far as I know, the Chinese are not as interest in dolphin huntings as Japanese

If you have been following the news, you would know that Japanese are joining hands with other countries like Norway to lift up the whale and dolphin-killing prohibition.

Here are a few references for you:
Activists video bloody dolphin kill
Japanese Whaling: the truth behind the Fisheries Agency of Japan's public relations campaign.
Save Taiji Dolphins
Futo Harbor Dolphin Slaughter

Taiji, Japan, is the site of the annual ritual dolphin massacre in which fishermen drive pods of dolphins into shallow coves and stab them with spears. You should see it. It is quite a sight. The sea water turns red with blood, and the air is filled with the extraordinary sounds of screaming dolphins (they literally seem to scream).

Generally large fireballs are associated with explosions, which this seemed to be. More specifically, the shuttle was wrenched off course suddenly by the disintegrating and burning fuel tank (i.e. the exploding (or as others will be sure to point out to me-rapidly burning) part). While the crew cabin survived and plummeted to the ocean at more than 200 mph. It has been heavily rumored that buried in a secret safe in NASA is a tape recording from one of the astronauts (who had a recorder running during takeoff in his pocket) muttering the Lord's prayer during the descent.

There is sufficent evidence that the bodies of the astronauts were put in barrels on the back of a flatbed when brought ashore as to not raise any suspicion

Pieces of Challenger still occasionally wash up on the beach, with a large wing portion showing up on the beach in the late nineties. Pieces of the wreckage of the shuttle are "entombed" in a missile silo on Cape Canaveral.

There is this very prescient article written while the shuttles were being built. He also wrote an excellent followup after Columbia. Personally, I thought Challenger was a "one-off" and that things had been fixed, but I lost all faith in the space agency (and its subsequent funding for the expensive shuttles).

There never been an exact cost released by NASA for what it takes to launch a shuttle, but I'm quite sure that it is very much more than the 500 million they said before the Columbia disaster. Some say more than a billion dollars.

Which I believe would be the cost to build a decent Hubble replacement and launch on an unmanned rocket. Food for thought.

Sirs:

You dont see an aircraft that is going to hit you until its really, really close. Same with the Ozone.
A tiny break in the data ( 1 yrs vs 30yrs ) everybody gets their panties in a knot and
YELLS WE'RE SAFE. YOUR BEING LIED TO!

See for yourself:

This is the NASA TOMS SATALITE LINK PAGE.
http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Current Scientific though is NOT BEING PUBLISHED!
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/fall98/wn_fal l98silenced.html
"Silenced Science: Arctic Ozone Loss
by Jim Scanlon

Vital information on environmental change is being withheld from the public by the print and broadcast media."

Another post by Jim Scanlon:

Subject: Atmospheric Effects of Aviation Ignored

From: jscanlon@linex.com (Jim Scanlon) ( Refrence JimScanlon @ The Coastal Post )

X-Nntp-Posting-Host: sp110.linex.com
Message-ID:
Sender: news@linex6.linex.com (news admin)
Path: linex6!sp114.linex.com!user
Organization: none
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 03:29:26 GMT
Xref: linex6 sci.environment:124887
sci.geo.meteorology:31554
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology

In March 1997, the Third Meeting of "Ozone Research Managers" took place.

The managers are responsible for informing the signatories to the

"Montreal Protocol" on substances that deplete the ozone layer. I have included the full executive summary below. It is very gloomy reading.

I wish to call particular attention to one recommendation in the Summary

The interactions between ozone and climate and the impact of aircraft emissions need to receive a high priority in research.

I first read of the interaction of the ozone layer on climate in John Gribbin's book, "The Hole in the Sky:Man's Threat To The Ozone Layer" which was published in May 1988. I am not sure when I read the book, but it was before I traveled to Patagonia in the Spring of 1990 to look around for myself.

For those who may have forgotten, the intense concern for the viability of the ozone layer started in the 1970s. The concern was the impact that oxides of nitrogen emitted by jet engines would have on the ozone layer.

(The health effects of sonic booms were also important considerations)

Nothing was known about the effects of CFCs etc., or heterogeneous reactions on ice or acid aerosols or soot or metals or of the Antarctic

Ozone Hole. It was all the effect of aircraft emissions and gas phase reactions.

When the US aircraft industry abandoned its plans for a fleet of Supersonic Civil Transports because of financial reasons, the issue of aircraft affecting the ozone layer went into deep hibernation, where it remains today.

The most accurate estimate I know of indicates that the thousands of aircraft that fly the North Atlantic Flight Corridor
fly in the stratosphere 44% of the time (JGR Vol 28 D12 12/20/93).
Other estimates I have heard are that civil aircraft fly in the stratosphere from 17%, to 25% of the time.

This flight time will increase as the fleet grows (perhaps 200% by 2020) and newer generations of sub sonic jets, being introduced right now, which fly higher, longer, enter service.

Through inattention, a global industry has been allowed, without debate, to routinely enter the stratosphere, where the affects of its activities may prove dangerous or disastrous to life on earth.

Jet aircraft are not to Boeing and Airbus what CFCs were to Du Pont. Jet aircraft are not to all global societies what CFCs are. It seems evident that the optimism so universally expressed in the success of the Montreal Protocol has been misplaced!

There is a painful difference between "good" as "not good enough"!

Our political systems seem completely inadequate in merely evaluating the effects of technological let alone having any effect on the implementation of any technology w

We're talking about bio-diesel-- usually in the form of recycled vegetable oil.

Yes, but he has also been looking at all biomass derived fuels. As others have pointed out, right now - there is virtually no demand for what is being discarded as a waste product, so this makes sense to use. But the calculations still hold for no matter what *vegetable* (usually an oil seed - which is somewhat more efficient than corn/ethanol). His most optimistic calculations for the US (the ones used I used in the parent) were the 1/8 of land surface, slightly less than 50% of energy needs. (The link I provided was to corn ethanol). This is from an older source - I can't find his most recent paper - It came out this year, but it did a more refined calculation that actually took into account all animal biomass as well.
"In the US, the annual amount of solar energy captured by vegetation -- agricultural crops, forests, lawns, gardens and wild growth -- is 54 quads (one quad equals one quadrillion British Thermal Units). Americans currently use 40 percent more fossil energy than the total amount of solar energy captured by plants."

He scares me. although the rest of the article shows that they publicly disavow the use of nuclear weapons. this is also interesting
(as an aside, but slightly related) I hope people won't get the idea that I dislike Japan or the Japanese people, far from it. But I don't trust governments or corporations, be they American or Japanese, in fact, I might trust Japanese corporations more, once you have a job, you have it for life. And I've had mostly good experiances with individual Japanese, more per capita than I do with Americans.

Are you sure about the conversion? This is MILES PER GALLON we're talking about. This article, admittedly from 2000, says that the average MILES PER GALLON fuel economy for cars in Europe is 25 mpg (28 in UK). I'm not from anywhere in Europe, so I'm not sure, but an average of 40-45 mpg sounds almost too good. Interestingly enough, 40 KM is ~25 MILES and 45 KM is ~28 MILES, so it really does sound like you're talking about kilometers per gallon. I don't know, though, why a metric system user would use gallons, so that's why I'm asking if you're sure about the conversion.

In August 1996, the Western Intertie - a particular grid of tied wires that supplies the western states with power - apparently overheated, promptly shutting down large parts of eight states.

More information - although with an environmental bias - can be found at this site here.

Park's book should be read together with another one: Trust Us, We're Experts! (Amazon) by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. While there is a lot of "junk science" out there, there is at least as much corporate sponsorship behind efforts to discredit real scientific work as such. See also this story about PR efforts to discredit global warming, and my related K5 comment.

Why the automatic assumption that Micheals is "politically-motivated"? Perhaps he's just a pissed off scientist because his research has to pass a much higher bar because his findings aren't politically correct and aren't "normal."

How much do you know about PR, really?

New Zealand has a privatised electricity production industry and it keeps electricity prices down. It's a little thing called competition.

New Zealand's electricity production is a bad example. On February 20, 1998, there was a major power outage in Aukland. The reason? Due to the privatization of electricity, the power company had cut back on the maintenance of the power grid to save money, causing a failure. For more info, read the story at the Earth Island Institute.

New Zealand has a privatised electricity production industry and it keeps electricity prices down. It's a little thing called competition.

New Zealand's electricity production is a bad example. On February 20, 1998, there was a major power outage in Aukland. The reason? Due to the privatization of electricity, the power company had cut back on the maintenance of the power grid to save money, causing a failure. For more info, read the story at the Earth Island Institute.

The facts are that corporations can manipulate the perception of reality of many people, and thereby, eventually, in some ways, reality itself. Those who don't believe this should read Toxic Sludge is Good For You and, as an intro into what you may expect, The PR Plot to Overheat the Earth. Toxic Sludge should be required reading in high school. It points out the many ways in which corporations are actively spreading disinformation and distorting our perception of reality, to maximize their profits -- often with deadly results. It easily refutes the most basic flaw in libertarian ideology, that free and informed decisions are possible in a centralized, corporate media world.

Rusty makes a valid point; namely, that the only way to fix this problem is by allowing people, instead of corporations interested only in maximizing profit (and speaking through corporate media), to inform other people -- building "communities" (a word which I merely put in quotes because of its [ab]use by others).

What is less interesting (but probably important to Rusty himself, who seems to only recently have discovered these facts) is the discussion of reality and what makes it. Unfortunately, this is the intro to the article, so many may stop reading there. Also unfortunately, the meatier parts are not backed up with sources. The truth about reality vs. perception is pretty easy to sum up:

• There is an objective reality.
• Our perception of reality tends to be an approximation, since reality is not a closed system, yet our information about it is limited. (The only method by which this approximation can be perfected is the scientific one, as compared to religious belief, which is basically guessing.)

Things get really messy once you start questioning the idea that there is actually an objective reality to begin with. Don't do that. If you assume that there is no objective reality, the first assumption you make is subject to this theory. That means it's both wrong and right at the same time. That means it's worthless. Constructivism and postmodernism are, therefore, bullshit. Rusty's arguments go a bit in the postmodern direction (or at least sound like it), but not too much.

All in all, I would have preferred more interesting real-life examples of mass manipulation and a neurophysiological explanation of the mechanisms of manipulation, but if I want to read that, I probably have to write it myself. Those of you who want to talk about the actual solutions to the discussed problems should subscribe to p2pj, a mailing list about peer-to-peer journalism (or "collaborative media", if you prefer that) which I have created.

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