Slashdot Mirror

You had me untill the hemp part. Why do you assume switching to hemp would SAVE forests? Experience indicates the opposite:

In 1916 the USDA reported that hemp hurds could produce four times as much paper per acre as trees. With increased yields and improved technology this may now be higher. In addition, hemp paper is stronger. can be recycled more often, and lasts longer than tree paper.

Benefits of Hemp Production

...
Less than twenty percent of the harvest is used as raw lumber for planks and beams.(21) A dated United States Department of Agriculture ("U.S.D.A.") report claims that an acre of hemp can produce four times as much pulp and fiber as an acre of trees.(22) However, recent reports from Europe, Australia, and Canada indicate that the pulp and fiber return from hemp may be even greater than the old U.S.D.A. estimates.(23) Additionally, unlike kenaf and other alternative paper crops, hemp can grow in a variety of climates.(24) Farmers claim that they can grow hemp without pesticide or herbicide application because it grows quickly and is not likely to fall to disease.(25) Hemp also has water and fertilizer requirements similar to corn and wheat.(26)

What Thomas Paine says:

" In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage."

What do we have more of, endangered spotted owls which we don't eat or ugly smelly tasteless cows which we do?

Other than logging endangers spotted owls I'm not sure what this has to do with hemp. The fact is though is that hemp is one of the most industrially versatile plants there is, which is why it was made illegal via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Thomas Jefferson even wrote the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.

6 days a week, for a dollar or so. Kids to have to work too, in factories and mines.
But your ancestors fought back, and finally won some decent working conditions. Some of them died for our working conditions.

When the investor class gets its way, we Americans will be back to those kinds of conditions. But you don't care, right? As long as YOU can handle it, as long as YOU are OK, then everything is OK, right?

Volkswagen, literally "people's car," has been producing vehicles in Germany since its original founder, Adolf Hitler, brainstormed their first concept. Their niche was once to build a car that the everyday Aryan could afford, and to bring strength by empowering their people to commute cheaply and effectively where they needed to go. Today, Volkswagen is much more, representing an entry-level German nameplate for automobile owners to get the trademarks set by every German automobile: great styling, great handling, and prohibitively expensive repairs.

Their product repertoire includes several historical namesakes from previous generations, as well as modern day contenders in the 21st century automobile market. The New Beetle and the Jetta are Volkswagen's entry level vehicles for German beginners. Moving up the chain brings you the Passat and the Golf, for European luxury in midsize prices. At the top of the chain brings the near-luxury Touareg (German for "SUV") and Phaeton (German for "German Luxury"). What Volkswagen wants you to forget, however, is their rich lineage which spawned today's vehicles.

Founded in 1932 by the famed Nazi leader, his first project was to design a vehicle which would aid in building the strength of the fascist state. The car would be built to mimic the symbolic ideals of the cult-like ruling Nazi party. The Beetle, it was to be called, would be Volkswagen's first foray into enabling the Nazi leaders to commute to battle meetings to coordinate the death of the Allies. Throughout the War of Europe and subsequently World War II, Volkswagen earned the Nazi regime heavy profits due to its rapid expansion and slave labor. This, in turn, allowed Volkswagen to expand plants to newly-acquired German territory in Russia, as well as Czechoslovakia.

After the crumbling of the Nazi party, and effectively the entire German social structure in 1945, Volkswagen was left without its founder and entire management structure. Influenced by the opportunity of quick expansion, wealthy British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Sr. invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the plants to retool them for postwar production throughout Europe. Volkswagen was then reborn to make models that would carry its rich heritage to nations left unaffected by its founder.

Throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's, the world went through major changes as a global economy started trickling into every nation.

Let's try that a different way. Click Ansel Adams for some black and white photography viewing pleasure.

I prove my case. Among The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party were:

• 11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
• 13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
• 14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
• 15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
• 18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

We would not have nuked a peacful nation.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941.

Generally, if one does not want physical retaliation, one does not initiate a fight.

then

Now

I do believe that we are a nation extremely divided, so much so that I present the above graphs as a scary reality of the current situation. I have no idea of how to resolve it but, it is truly scary when you look at the graphs and their striking similarities. It is again like two nations with two different philosophies coexisting under a strained bond that neither pleases nor comforts either populous.

I personally think Bush holds the best interest for me and my family but it does not seem that it is the case for the other side of the nation, which I feel very badly for. It was a little more than 100 years ago that a similar division happened and my family was on the loosing end of the deal. In which they felt they had to defend their rights as states as well as repeal what they felt was unjust taxation on the agricultural industry. In the end they decided that their was no other solution than to take up arms against their sister states to rectify their grievances. It is very scary how similar the course has taken. If you replace weapons of mass destruction for heavy taxation and the war on terror for states rights then you have the prevailing cause for the turmoil. Then if you look at history and find that all leaders try to find a moral cause for their war to rally support from the people and use that to supplant slavery with democracy then you could have the following two sentences:

Abraham Lincoln pursued the War Between the States as the southern states felt that there was no rectification for the taxation and states rights issues. He latter formulated that freeing slavery would win him moral support for his cause.

George Bush pursued the war on terror as rouge states felt that there was no rectification for the destruction of their weapons of mass destruction and harboring terrorists. He latter formulated that freeing Arabs would win him moral support for his cause.

Rudolf Hess, the nazi, did not write books. Hermann Hesse wrote a number of great books, but he was far from a Nazi. In fact, he became a Swiss citizen in 1943.

"When "I saw during the post-war years how with one accord Germany was sabotaging the Republic, and that it had learned nothing from its previous mistakes, it became an easy matter for me to assume Swiss nationality, something I would not have been able to do during the war, in spit of my condemnation by the German Machtpolitik." Hesse, 1945 in a letter to Bishop Wurm of Wurttemberg.

I feel compelled to respond as this is the second time in a few months I have heard this particular slander of Hesse, the writer. The other time (which was second-hand) was expressed by a very high-ranking Cato Institute nut, to his 18-or-so son. Oh, the irony...

Wasn't vigilanteism and anarchy how the American Rrevolution started? Americans said "laws be damned, no more taxes to the British"?

Not really (except, perhaps, from a contemporary British perspective). The American Revolution started when the Second Continental Congress declared itself independant from Britain following a dozen years of wrangling between the colonial governments and King George III. There may have been some vigilantes in the mix (e.g. the Sons of Liberty), but they were not the cause of the war and they did not start the war. I don't think you can make any case for anarchy in the colonies: one of the things that the colonists were upset about was that they weren't represented in the British government. They wanted government, but they wanted a fair and representative government.

Those aren't necessarily bad things. In fact, they're usually the only way of getting your voice heard once the government is corrupted (in this case by the RIAA's bribes... I mean, campaign contributions ;) ).

Back to your sig... I'd suggest that one way of getting your voice heard is to vote and encourage others to do the same. Assuming that your sig is in fact correct, you should have no problem mobilizing an enormous number of Kazaa users. It's not hard to get your voice heard if you just bother to speak up.

ah yes. violent revolution has no place in america.

The batteries consist of an earthenware pot, stoppered with asphalt. An iron rod goes through the centre of the stopper. The jar is lined with a copper cylinder which does not touch the iron.

Konig first proposed they were a form of battery in 1940, although other events meant his publication was overlooked until the post war era.

AFAIK the Egyptians did not develop anything similar, they did plate metals with gold, but they used mercury amalgam or gold leaf.

Best wishes,
Mike.

I wonder how americans think about the worlds top amount of dead children due to traffic overspeed in germany.

Americans tend to be more concerned about the more active roles Germany takes in killing its citizens.

For those who don't follow, Zyclon-B was a hydrocyanic acid initially used as disinfectant and insecticide that ended up being used by the Nazis in the concentration camps,

It's also the name of a Metal group from Norway that ought to disinfect their own style.

> For the first time in my scholastic career, I had a history class that went beyond "We had a revolutionary war in 1776. We had a civil war in 1860. ..."

Yeah, a good class would get the dates right.

> Yes, I've heard stories of political correctness being forced on people at universities, but it's not at every one, and even at those universities, you'll find an amazing diversity of opinion if you actually talk to the students and teachers.

Teasing aside, the main point of your post is certainly correct.

In the last 100 years no country has successfully invaded another. The world just doesn't take to kindly to that. There is a few possible exceptions (china and tibet),

V-E day 1945, just for one massive counter-example to your nonesensical theory.

... because they seem to be on top of the leading causes of war and death, and genocide.

... because they seem to be on top of the leading causes of war and death, and genocide.

For the historically inept, like BurritoWarrior here, check out the early machinations of Chancellor Hitler - a democratically elected leader (puts him one up on Bush) with a Rather Special Agenda (world domination through force, rather than securing our oil supply).

The burning of the Reichstag

Faking terrorism and creating national emergencies is not a new political trick, fake Caesar quotes notwithstanding.

We do not know, for sure, that BushCo had any foreknowledge of 9/11, but there is ample evidence that they have not told the full truth to us about the various and sundry procedural problems of the defense response to 9/11.

There are unanswered questions.

Again, this all sounds like somebody wants control and have the little people pay the price. I'm not for it. I don't go to movies and I don't buy CDs. Any form of entertainment which relegates me to a simple consumer will not and has not receive any of my money.

BTW - the steps leading to the American Revolution can be found here.

Dec 7, 1941 is the turning point of WWII. Up to this time, the U.S. has been fairly neutral with regards to sending troops and as a consequence the Allies are getting their ass handed to them on a platter. Enter the U.S., and thereafter it's a downward spiral for the Axis.

You were saying, you ungrateful little piece of Euroshit?

historyplace.com

John

They should publicly burn those documents. It's the only way to be sure.

Call me pedantic, but the Nazis are responsible for quite a few more than 6,000,000 deaths. Granted, that link lists totals for all of WWII, but I think we can be sure the Nazis are responsible for a bit more than 6,000,000 with over 52,000,000 total dead.

I think that you prehaps have some of your facts screwed up about Pearl Harbor. It is a common misconception that the president knew all about what was going to happen and let it happen to stimulate the economy, drag us into the war, etc... There are several theories about what happened that day - I don't think anyone will know for sure, but these links should clear up a little of it. Theory one(it's about halfway down the page) - (history place.com): We broke the code in time to prevent the attack, but then we sent the information by commercial telegraph. Something we need to remember is that the president couldn't just pick up the phone and call Pearl Harbor at the time - there were very few means of communication with the mainland. According the the link, we had lost radio contact with Pearl Harbor at the time, and this delayed the message until about noon Hawaii time -- approximately four hours after the attack had begun.
Theory Two: (ukans.edu) Stephen Budiansky is a historian who's written a book on code-breaking in WWII - his theory is quite simply, we couldn't read the codes. The japanese had evidently been changing their codes quite frequently - or at least frequently enough the confuse our code-breakers. I'll leave a further explanation to reading the link - it sounds to me like he's saying the Navy really didn't decode the relevant messages until 1946, almost five years after the attack.
The main thing we have to remember here is that communications at the beginning of WWII were really bad. Nowdays we have ways to get messages and information across the globe in seconds - it's very easy to forget the fact that if a coded message was broken in the evening in Washington, in 1941 there was literally a very good chance it would not get to Hawaii by the following morning. This makes the most sense to me as an explanation for what happened - not saying the president and all his generals and code-breakers knew about this far enough in advance to prevent it and all conspired together to keep the base commander in Pearl from knowing.
There is a slightly more sinister idea that makes more sense to me than saying the president knew all about it. The code-breakers may well have known - as I mentioned earlier, there's some dissension on that point. The code-breaking community in the military is EXTREMELY secretive. There could very well have been an admiral or captain(I believe it was the navy running it at the time) who was told and simply decided not to pass the information on. In that case, he would have had to make a decision based on, first of all, how likely he thought it was that the information was accurate, and secondly, on how badly it would affect his intelligence gathering capabilities in the future for the japanese to find out that we knew about the attack in advance. That's the biggest problem with intelligence - frequently, when you use it, you compromise its source, and then you have to start all over again, either breaking a code, or compromising a foreign agent, etc... so it's a tough call for someone in that position - one I would never want to have to face.

Februrary 28, 1933

At a cabinet meeting held later in the morning, the Chancellor demanded an emergency decree to overcome the crisis. He met little resistance from the cabinet. That evening, the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor went to the President and the befuddled old man signed the decree "for the Protection of the people and the State."

The Emergency Decree stated: "Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."

Does any of this sound familiar? Can you not see similarities to the proposed 'new FBI powers' and 'relaxed wiretap requirements' discussed in Congress today?

Granted, perhaps the most recent terrorist bombings were no Reichstag fire. Is that any excuse for ignoring the lessons of history?

If you love New York, your heart will break when the smoke clears. Something about the city is busted for good, no matter what the mayor says.

One has only to think of London under the blitz or the San Francisco earthquake to know that great cities can recover from great disasters.

According to seminal urbanologist Jane Jacobs, cities are inherently resilient to catastrophe. More damage is done by misguided urban planning.

The World Trade Center, as its name suggests, serves a national and international market. The demand for the products and services that the companies in the World Trade Tower provided is still there. Compared to the damage caused by hurricanes in Florida, the cost to rebuild is manageable.

If New York could thrive despite a crime rate that killed many more people than the terrorist over the last 10 years, it can survive this single event.

I suspect that the most lasting effect is that architects will reconsider the need for 110 storey buildings.

Bzzt! Wrong. This title has already been taken. I'm not sure if he was the first to manage this feat, but:

Germany was a "free country" when the Nazi party was elected into the second largest position in the German government in 1930.

Hitler was eventually appointed Chancellor in 1933 as part of a change of government that was within the law.

Within weeks he became dictator of a "free country".

(Obviously you can't be dictator of a free country as it becomes non-free after the installation of a dictator, but that's a separate matter.)

Bzzt! Wrong. This title has already been taken. I'm not sure if he was the first to manage this feat, but:

Germany was a "free country" when the Nazi party was elected into the second largest position in the German government in 1930.

Hitler was eventually appointed Chancellor in 1933 as part of a change of government that was within the law.

Within weeks he became dictator of a "free country".

(Obviously you can't be dictator of a free country as it becomes non-free after the installation of a dictator, but that's a separate matter.)

Yes, RMS is a fanatic. Also Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.

When Hitler invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Neville Chamberlain) tried to be "rational" and to avoid a new World War. So he sat down to negotiate with Hitler. He succeded to keep the peace. Hitler would rule Austria and Checoslovaquia.

Churchill was very critic about that. He always said that the Nazis were dangerous and that Hitler and the Nazis should be stop as soon as possible.

When Hitler invaded Poland it was clear he was right.

Only fanatics can lead a revolution. If RMS was rational, the Free Software movement would be lost.

I know that also Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung were fanatics. But is our responsibility to decide what is the wise solution. To follow a fanatic or to surrender to the current situation.

I follow RMS

Yes, RMS is a fanatic. Also Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.

When Hitler invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Neville Chamberlain) tried to be "rational" and to avoid a new World War. So he sat down to negotiate with Hitler. He succeded to keep the peace. Hitler would rule Austria and Checoslovaquia.

Churchill was very critic about that. He always said that the Nazis were dangerous and that Hitler and the Nazis should be stop as soon as possible.

When Hitler invaded Poland it was clear he was right.

Only fanatics can lead a revolution. If RMS was rational, the Free Software movement would be lost.

I know that also Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung were fanatics. But is our responsibility to decide what is the wise solution. To follow a fanatic or to surrender to the current situation.

I follow RMS

Yes, RMS is a fanatic. Also Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.

When Hitler invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Neville Chamberlain) tried to be "rational" and to avoid a new World War. So he sat down to negotiate with Hitler. He succeded to keep the peace. Hitler would rule Austria and Checoslovaquia.

Churchill was very critic about that. He always said that the Nazis were dangerous and that Hitler and the Nazis should be stop as soon as possible.

When Hitler invaded Poland it was clear he was right.

Only fanatics can lead a revolution. If RMS was rational, the Free Software movement would be lost.

I know that also Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung were fanatics. But is our responsibility to decide what is the wise solution. To follow a fanatic or to surrender to the current situation.

I follow RMS

live by the sword, die by the sword.

War is scary business, also pretty lucrative if you're in the right one.

--

http://www.historyplace.com/kennedy/jfkpix/swear thp.jpg

W
-------------------

Does Clinton want to be known for having started a second Manhattan project (I suppose it is a lot better than what he will most likely be known for)?

If your position is that we shouldn't explore something that's dangerous, you picked a piss-poor example in the Manhattan project.

If the US hadn't poured a whole bunch of money into that project in a hell of hurry, somebody else would have gotten it first, and the world would be in way worse shape than it presently is.

You can't fight something unless you understand it, and you can't fully understand it unless you can build it from scratch.

The famous line from John F. Kennedy's Berlin speech is as follows:

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum." Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."

...according to http://www.historyplace.com/speec hes/berliner.htm. The German phrase could be interpreted as either "I am a citizen of Berlin" or "I am a jelly doughnut". Those listening knew perfectly well that he meant the former, although "Ich bin Berliner" (no "ein") would be more grammatically accurate. This is briefly explained at http://www.urbanle gends.com/language/kennedy_berliner_quote.html.

For that matter, so does Babel Fish. InterTran translates Ich bin Berliner as "I am doughnut" and Ich bin ein Berliner as "I am one doughnut" -- not too swift. At least it handles a ton more languages than Babel Fish does (even Japanese with Shift JIS encoding to some extent).

And you don't have to always have English as a language being translated to or from, either.