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They've had this sort of tech to read digital images for decades. Papnet is used to read pap smears since the mid-1990s.

http://www.lightparty.com/Heal...

That's like saying the Webb Space Telescope is old tech because Sputnik. Papnet can't read x-rays, and it's not because it never occurred to anyone to try to automate the analysis 20 years ago, it's because it's a harder problem that 90s-era technology couldn't handle.

They've had this sort of tech to read digital images for decades. Papnet is used to read pap smears since the mid-1990s.

http://www.lightparty.com/Heal...

Yes, the entire planet is part of an evil plot to replace hemp with nylon. Countries which can't even agree on the color of the sky have all magically agreed to artificially make hemp obsolete.

No, seriously .... are you retarded?

Seriously... are you retarted?

I think this is interesting, it surprised me when I did a little research and found you can get similar yields of butanol to those of ethanol (I'm not sure which is actually easier to purify and so on though. Two and a half gallons of ethanol can be produced from a bushel of corn, and a new process claims to give the same yield .

Some obscure European political theorist writing about how he admires the Iroquois does not an invention make.

I only provided a starting point, and didn;t do all the research for you. But since you won't follow through with it Benjamen Franklin, a signer of the Declaration Of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson the writer of the DOI also studied and used the Iroquois Conferacy as a basis for the Constitution of the USA:

"The Six Nations:"
"Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth"
The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations."

"Although hotly debated, it is a historical fact that a number of founding fathers had direct contact with the Iroquois and prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were closely involved with their stronger and larger native neighbor, the Iroquois."

"During the era, Benjamin Franklin published twenty-six treaty accounts and represented the state of Pennsylvania as an Indian commissioner. In the pre-Revolutionary period, when he and his friends were advocating a federal union of the colonies, no European model was found to be suitable. Franklin's contact with the Iroquois influenced many key ideas for a new form of government =96 federalism, equality, natural rights, freedom of religion, property rights, etc. At the 1744 treaty council, by Franklin's account, Canassatego, speaker for the great council at Onondaga, recommended that the colonies form a union in common defense under a federal government: 'We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another.'"
...
"Those who recognized the wisdom and long history of the Iroquois government did not consider the Indians as mere "savages." Like the Iroquois, Thomas Jefferson believed that public opinion and popular consent were key in maintaining freedom and good government. He held that the power of public opinion was an important reason for the Iroquois ' lack of oppressive government and class differences, and for the power to impeach officials who offended governing principles. Like the Iroquois, he also believed that the best government is the least government."

" John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have left us some additional evidence that the Iroquois and the Iroquois ideals of government may have influenced them. Johansen asserts that Adams, in his book Defence of the Constitution of the United States, discusses the 'fifty families of the Iroquois' as a model for the Americans to follow. (Johansen 1998:75) Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the quintessential libertarian in American history, wrote admiringly to John Rutledge during the Constitutional Convention 'The only condition on earth to be compared with

It is the transmission of lewd material to a minor that is illegal

I don't seem to understand the way the law works in the USA. If I was to go online and pretend to be a slutty and 'ready for a root' 13yo girl(you could make my screen name something like 'RootRat94') am I committing a crime? If someone was to send me a lewd picture(R or X rated) because I am acting like I want a photograph of a penis then who is in the wrong? Are the penalties stiffer based on flaccidity? I believe that rock spider behaviour is abhorrent but I have very serious problems with this being acceptable police behaviour.

I once had a chick ask me if I had any weed. So, I passed her a bud. She wanted to know how much it cost and I told her it was free. Somehow she put two and two together, came up with Pi, concluded I was attempting to trade drugs for sexual favours, and subsequently arrested me.
How can one possibly even attempt to understand the motivations or mental processes of the morons that arrested me that day?. I was being kind, doing someone a favour, and I end up punished for it. The Magistrate threw the case out, admonished the police for wasting his and my time, ordered the return of my herb grinder, and stated that 'sometimes it doesn't pay to be kind to strangers'. When you begin to assume someone being kind is up to no good due to kindness being a modern rarity then society as a whole has taken a turn for the worse.

BTW: I live in South Australia where you need to be in possession of more than 100 grammes before you are considered a dealer/trafficker (of course if you had only 30 grammes but it was in thirty seperate bags then you are going down for dealing). It isn't a crime to grow a plant in your backyard here yet. Unfortunately part of the latest round of FTA negotiations between the US and Australia include us harmonising our drug laws with those of the US. Funny how it isn't the US having to change their backward, fundamentalist inspired, and shareholder friendly laws! Two industries out of the thousands that profit from the prohibition on hemp alone are the paper and cotton industries. If you do just one thing today other than moderate me '-5 Dickhead' make it reading the previous link. It is without doubt(even doubtlessly) an eye opener.


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WorldFact Is a new service for Australia's friends in the United States
World Fact #1:- John Howard is the Prime Minister of Australia.
WorldFact: Rubbing those two US brain cells together to see if we can generate warmth(let alone humanity)
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If drinking a steady supply of diet coke is a health problem then add that to the list too.

Actually, depending on where you live and what specific recipe of Diet Coke is used in your region, it could be VERY bad for you. I recognize that the site presentation is a little over-the-top, but it is rooted in real science. I've witnessed first hand how damaging over-consumption of Diet Coke can be. A former roommate of my sister drank large amounts of Diet Coke, on the order of 2 - 3 liters per day. She actually suffered a permanent loss of peripheral vision, to a degree severe enough that she'll never be able to obtain a driver's license again. With the damage already done, she didn't see any reason to stop, and continues to drink Diet Coke.

The worst part of the story? While she was rooming with my sister in law, they were both in university in Toronto. My sister in law was doing her masters in Biology, while the semi-blind Diet-Coke addict was doing her undergrad degree in (wait for it, wait for it ...) Nutrition.

The offending ingredient, by the way, is Aspartame. In some areas, the Diet Coke recipe no longer uses Aspartame, and has substituted it with other synthetic sweeteners. So check the label.

Taxes go to subsidise oil prices. Its a payment no US president will remove because it will be far too unpopular if the price of oil in the US was to match the real market value and be the same as what the rest of the world pays for it.

Futher discussions at various places on the web, including the Post.

So next time theres someone complaining about too much tax ask them to start paying for the real cost of their car and its fuel.

What does this mean? Is help four times as efficient as any other form of biomass? Than some other form of biomass? Than some particularly common form, like, say corn?

Hemp reportedly grows four times as much usable biomass per acre of land per year as other plant sources considered good biomass candidates such as cornstalks, sugercane, kenaf, trees, etc. That also should mean it is roughly 4 times as effective against global warming if you were to plant hemp and not use it as fuel instead of planting trees. To better appreciate the factor of 4 improvement as biomass fuel source, consider that about 12% of US land would be required to grow hemp in alternate years (rotation with a nitrogen fixing crop eliminates need for fertilizer and reduces pest problems) to elminate the need for all domestic and imported petroleum. That 12% of land would become 24% or 48% for other popular biomass crops (depending on whether you need to rotate them or not). 12% of total land is viable, 48% would be impractical.

However, I did find a study which did not show hemp had higher yields. Hemp as Biomass for Energy is an interesting read; it indicates a yield of about 390 gallons of ethanol per acre (3.9 tons biomass) of hemp as opposed to the 1000 gallons of methanol quoted by Herrer and lightparty. Lightparty, however, quotes 10 tons per acre. One reason for the discrepency might be that the hempfood study may have only harvested one crop per year. At 90-100 days per crop, 2-4 crops/year are probably possible depending on climate in the continental US. van der Werf apparently grew his crops in the Netherlands where yeilds are likely to be significantly lower than in the American south. It is hard to get good yield data because current laws prevent growing even test crops in the US (one has been planted in Hawaii, though).

When you have enough money to discard any fine?
When you have enough power to force any business entity to do almost anything you need?
When the authorities of the law are so weak and limited in their power?

The only way to get Microsoft, as well as many other unethical, illegal and otherwise misbehaving companies to obey the law is to gradually increase the punishments given when they are found guilty.

The "corporate death penalty" (the destruction of a corporation and the auctioning of all of its assets) was and still is a possible punishment that can threaten those corporations who show contempt for the law and repeatedly defy it.

The "corporate death penalty" brought, and could bring today - respect of the law.

Call to restore the "corporate death penalty" today!

Oooh. The Green Party USA must be out of money because they can't even afford their own domain. They have to host on Geocities!

By the way, you might want to check your facts before you post a link to a Geocities site!

Capitalism and alot of people starve, or Socialism and no one ever starves.

Indeed?

Ever hear of the Great Leap Forward?

(link chosen at random)

Under socialism, you either all eat together, or all starve together.

Under current law, that _is_ the harshest punishment that corporation would receive, short of breaking it up

No, there is existing statutory and case law right now ... all that is lacking is the political will to enforce them! Citizens of the USA have this right. Please see here and inform others

There is probably alot of people who would like to see the CDP revived, but sadly alot of people also dont realize how close they are to actually seeing some suits brought against monsanto et al.

Write your representatives and demand the institution of a Corporate Death Penalty.

You do not have to demand the 'creation' of a CDP, it already exists, the procedure was widely used in the early part of the 20th century... just for some unknown reason the will has left the political and judical systems to enforce.

Go figure... there isnt a politician in America who isnt filthy rich... Im guessing they are skewed abit in favour of 'free market corporate economics' meaning "CDP is interference in a self-regulting free market".

see here

"Property" is a social construct, and when you break the social contract, as Microsoft has, you may quite reasonably expect to get it taken away.

Personally, I don't believe that breaking up Microsoft is a good idea--it would just do what the Baby Bells have done, i.e. grow ever huger and screw over the little guy ever more. The DOJ really ought to consider the corporate death penalty.

Corporations have no implicit right to exist. They are given permission to exist and operate at the state's discretion at the time of their chartering. No corporation can operate in this country unless a state accepts its charter.

At any point in the future, the state has the authority (and some would say the duty) to revoke a given corporation's charter. This is effectively the corporate equivalent of the death sentence. There's a judge in alabama who's trying to go after tobacco companies this way.

The bottom line is that corporations do have social responsibilites and those responsibilities are codified into law. Businesses can delude themselves into thinking that the only thing that matters is money, but in reality, there are serious limits on what they can do and serious legal consequences for violating the public interest. This notion of unfettered corporations being free to do whatever they want with no limits or restrictions is just more advertising/marketing bull.

You may want to look at http://www.lightparty.com/Misc/C orporateDeath.html for more info on giving reckless corporations the death penalty.