Slashdot Mirror

The fact is that liberals have control of the networks - I saw poll that showed essentially all journalists at CNN, ABC, CBS etc vote for the Democrats.

[Citation-Needed]

Seriously. You're proving the point many here are making about Fox News viewers. Because much of the reporting fails to provide context, or arrives at conclusions based on tenuous data, viewpoints frequently get contorted to the political viewpoints of the networks and broadcasters.

In particular, many news organizations explicitly prohibit this sort of behavior. NPR has an excellent writeup and analysis of these policies.

The poll you mention, is most likely http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485">the one conducted by MSNBC last year, which did indeed find that 9 out of 10 journalists who made donations did so to the democratic party.

The poll identified 143 such individuals who made political donations. The total sample size consisted of approximately 100,000 newsroom staffers.

In other words, approximately 0.1% of journalists donated money to the democratic party.

Other forms of media - talk radio, for instance, have a blatant and well-known conservative bias. On the way to work yesterday, the guy I carpool with had it on, and the host was arguing against nationalized healthcare, for the reason that (and I quote) "poor people deserve to die." (He also went on a huge pro-Christian rant later on in the show. Has this guy ever even looked at the New Testament?)

Similarly, I could imagine that many non-pundit journalists are going to exhibit a somewhat liberal bias, given that they've been very closely exposed to the news of the past 7 years, particularly, the gruesome images coming from Iraq and Afghanistan that aren't allowed to be showed on TV. I can't imagine that many of the journalists in Iraq are particularly happy about being shot at.

To quote Stephen Colbert: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias"

You can argue the merits of small vs. big government, but most people who have kept up with the doings of the current administration are pretty appalled on both a logical and emotional level. We went to war, lowered taxes in order to do so, and then sanctioned actions that would have been considered war crimes under any other administration.

You seem to be under the impression I am advocating coal

No, I don't have the impression you're pro coal. I do think you're pro nuclear power, wanting to build more power plants "with only a few thousand nuclear plants, eventually, powering the US" .

Environmental impact of energy production comes from the waste emissions

Environmental impacts also come from mining as well as pre and post processing solid waste.

That's where nuclear becomes a very attractive option.

Uranium mining can be very dirty and destructive. "Uranium mining left a legacy of death". The Navajo have had to live with it. "Navajos won't allow uranium mining"[pdf]. Throughout the world it's mostly Indigenous peoples who carry the burden of uranium mining. "Indigeneous Peoples Call for Global Ban on Uranium Mining".

when we're redirecting enough solar energy to electricity that we start losing vegetation?

Any vegetation effected by solar power, PVs or concentrated, will only be where the concentrators or PVs are.

Nuclear, on the other hand, won't still the tides, it won't slow the winds, it doesn't soak up the sun's radiation, and it won't release the CO2 that we now know from experience warms the earth.

Forgetting mining, the construction of nuclear power plants releases a lot of CO2. Construction of plants require prodigious amounts of concrete and steel, both of which require massive amounts of heat energy to manufacture, and more than likely it come from coal. Then there's the need to transport them.

...the wind potential off the Mid Atlantic comes to 330 [gigawatts] Look at that another way - that's 330GW (but really a lot more, since windmills aren't 100% efficient) of energy getting taken out of the global airmass every year and put into our air conditioners and refrigerators. Nuclear takes that 330GW (again, more in reality) out of a fairly small amount of uranium or thorium.

Like there are air conditioners and refrigerators of the coast. There are more than likely houses with them near mining and manufacturing though. Then there's the need for water for the mining yet water isn't readily available where the uranium is. In Colorado "Gov. Ritter Signs Uranium Mining Water Protection Bill".

The Univ. of Delaware study you linked to (see, I click! I read! Feel the love, Falcon.) plans to generate 330GW of power annually - from 166,720 turbines floating on top of fifty thousand square miles of ocean.

That area is still capable of being used as it is now. Ships and sail boats can still sail. Fishermen can still fish, actually because of the platforms needed for wind ginnies more fish could live there. Then with more fish more people could be encouraged to swim or snorkel and dive, which could boost the economy of the area. This is being done in Florida, artificial reefs are made by sinking cleaned objects which then encourages coral to grow. The coral offers shelters and food to fish.

That's a wind farm roughly one-fifth the area of Texas

Texas, specifically west Texas has wind farms that prod

An anti-semite used to be someone who hated Jews. Now an anti-semite is someone hated BY Jews. YOu don't need to look much farther past Jimmy Carter to see what I mean.

Carter, who is hardly a skinhead, was recently lambasted for being an "anti-semite" for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, its not OK to use tanks to fight kids with rocks.

Absolutely false. Israel doesn't use tanks to fight kids with rocks. Israel uses tanks against fighters well-armed with rifles, machine guns, mortars, rockets and RPGs.

Carter was criticized by many for suggesting that Israel was akin to Apartheid South Africa. There is no apartheid in Israel.

Arab & Muslim citizens of Israel can vote, run for office, say anything they want, print anything they want, follow any religion they choose, work in any profession they choose, serve on the supreme court, and sue the government (and sometimes win). Doesn't sound like apartheid to me.

These are all things that are sadly lacking in most Arab & Muslim countries. Why are Arab & Muslim countries not accused of apartheid?

In fact, refugees from Sudan try to get to Israel. Isn't that odd? Even more strange, Sudan is actually still at war with Israel. Why would someone voluntarily choose to live in an enemy foreign country under apartheid?

"I'm done with giving Obama money."

Perhaps you weren't aware that Obama doesn't want any more public finanacing? However, ObamaDonations.com is still willing to take your monies...

Here's one more for you. Kit Bond (R-MO) on NPR this morning:

When the Government tells you to do something, I think you all recognize, uh, that that is something that you need to do.

You make very good observations and arguments, but then I hope you realize that the statistics you quote do not help your arguments at all - that the Japanese have enshrined over 1,000 convicted war criminals at one location alone. Or that 30% of Filipinos (that's about 30 million Filipinos) do not see Japanese influence in the world as favorable.

I've had somebody tell me that over 40% of Japanese oppose prime minister Koizumi's visit to the shrine, but that leaves over 50% that does support it. Granted, their educational system is as propagandistic as most other nations', so I'll write that off to mere ignorance on their people's part. There is nothing wrong with visiting the war dead in the shrine, but they have rejected suggestions to move the questionable individuals (the war criminals) to another location which is really the core of this can of worms. Actions speak much louder than words, in this case.

An interesting aspect of the Japanese surrender to the Americans is that MacArthur prevented Hirohito from being tried in a war criminals tribunal. This meant more to the Japanese people at the time than many realize - historians have speculated that the number of mass suicides from the grief of the emperor's "face loss" amongst the Japanese populace would have been significant. Especially during that era, the emperor is revered by the general public in the same, if not higher, status as the king in Thailand. In other words, Americans had already bought themselves many a brownie points with the Japanese people by just sparing their emperor from any tragic embarrassment (as well as let Hirohito keep his traditional claim of divinity, which is really what counts). They had never expected the white devils to be so lenient and accommodating to them, especially after what they had been taught (of course, now we know there are strategic motives to befriending Japan in such a manner).

But in the end - I mostly agree with your point that governments take advantage of raw nerves and channel anger away from their errors and incompetencies.

NPR gives you a map you can play with yourself.

The one I did a while back matches pretty close to the one in TFA. One of the main differences is that I predict Missouri will go to Obama, and New Mexico will go to McCain.

I think the race is Obama's to lose.

6500 light bulbs isn't all that much. Let's be generous and say that each bulb is a high-powered, inefficient 100-watt incandescent bulbs. 6500 bulbs x 100 watts = 650,000 watts, or .65 megawatts. To put things in perspective, a coal or nuclear plant might put out 500-1500 megawatts of power (according to various Wikipedia pages). Obviously, the power output is going to be a lot lower if they're talking about 15 watt compact fluorescent bulbs, however; that'd be about 100 kilowatts of power. That's a respectable amount of power, but you've got to ask (1) how expensive is it going to be, (2) how widely applicable is this model going to be, and (3) how reliable is this power source? Presumably foot traffic is going to decline substantially at night, and perhaps on weekends and major holidays, so the average power generation will be much lower than peak power generation.

I thought this article http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90714692 provided a much more practical take on the problem. Apparently, factories, mills and refineries which generate high temperature exhaust can use that exhaust to generate power. A major difficulty here is legislative, not technological; if you install the machinery to generate power from the heat produced by a steel furnace, laws designed to protect utilities mean that it's often difficult to sell it.

That being said, I don't think that recycling waste heat, or any other single technology will solve our energy problems. We need a whole suite of technologies- the ability to drill for deeper oil deposits, more cost-effective mining of tar sands and oil shales, more efficient cars, solar, wind, and more efficient houses, cars, and light bulbs- to increase our supply and reduce our demand.

An oddly interesting interview that explains a lot about the banana.

I'm moderating in this forum and I could not verify the above claim.

In fact, I found several resources claiming that watch batteries have been actively using mercury for 50+ years. Mercury usage in batteries appears to be capped, making it more worthwhile for most devices to use other types of batteries, but I can't verify that watches (being small and not really power-hogs) fall into that category, since the main advantage of mercury batteries appears to be a longer lifetime.

Also of note: there is more exposure to mercury from the fish you eat than from CFL bulbs (according to NPR and Energy Star). The above user (jabuzz) appears to have fallen victim to the very FUD that brunes69 is talking about.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything. They built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and they feel their dreams slipping away. And in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

What are you, racist ? Not voting for a black man is obviously racist. Clinton is a woman, so they're giving her some leeway in politically-correct land.

But let's take a look at races, without prejudice :
-> Race A votes 91-9 for the candidate of the same race (and 25% admit that they only did soe because of race)
-> Race B votes 58-42 for the candidate of the same race (and only 2 guys admitted it had something to do with race)

Who are the racist voters ?

But let's not forget Obama's church ... "Only white people can be racist". So it's Race B that's almost 100% racists, capiche ?

As Obama's mentor says Are you white ? Are you aware that you've created the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied ...

From what I understand, cloned beef is now in the food supply, so they may have advanced their techniques since the show you saw was produced.

First episode, mid-2007:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/TV_Episode.aspx?episode=1

Cloned meat in food supply, early-2008 (Wired says it already is, NPR says it is approved):

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/15-11/ff_clonedmeat
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18137332

Farmer states that progeny of clones are in food supply on this page:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/15-11/ff_clonedmeat?currentPage=4

Do you mind sourcing that? The closest I'm able to find is that "74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others." Source I've no doubt that many people have very different views than me on what the first amendment guarantees, but I honestly doubt your figure, particularly considering the other data on the same site.

On the subject of the article, I must say that I'm rather skeptical. It's possible that Chinese citizens really do appreciate censorship by such an overwhelming majority, but I am reminded of this article, particularly the line "Having lived in a society where millions were arrested for speaking inadvertently to informers, many older people are extremely wary of talking to researchers wielding microphones (devices associated with the KGB)." This was last December, mind you, more than a decade after the fall of the USSR.

on global warming? McCain should find a shuffleboard court in Flordia and stay there. P.S. Are you ready for the Iran War in September when BushCo will release the U.S. strategic oil reserve? I am. My bunker has solar panels.

The problem with underwater data centers is the water. How's about the arctic. It's cold there too. This project chose the arctic to reduce their cooling costs and remove the need for redundant cooling systems.

female hysteria which was cured by rape.

there is a common cause to these deaths, police intervention with taser. Calling it something else is a lie.

As others have said, Oregon has very strong free speech protections.

For that matter, Oregon is one of the most "libertarian" (small 'L',) states out there. We've got nearly unlimited free speech, (for example, anti-abortion groups are allowed to carry banners showing aborted fetuses in front of baseball games!) We have (tied for) the most legal marijuana, we have legal doctor-assisted suicide, etc. We've had the state Attorney General come out against the RIAA, we've had our local police refuse to participate in federal anti-terrorism probes because the probes were too invasive, and more.

If anything, Oregon has gotten in trouble for not protecting enough

San Salvador gets most of it's income from the US labor market.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15218365

But this is a good use for yard waste in sub/urban areas. Boston is now switching to actually doing something with yard waste (capturing methane from a compost pile), but in a lot of places, this just gets dumped somewhere and ignored. I would prefer that people use yard waste to, you know, fertilize their lawns (instead of doing the chemlawn thing), but it's pretty clear that the reason they don't is because they want a beautiful, leaf-free lawn. I personally just want to see lawns go away in general.

all for the heinous crime of having no family that will inquire about your whereabouts?

Sounds like the US, though Immigration here doesn't torture people, they just throw them in jail... even if they do have family to vouch for their citizenship status.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/25392.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11086544

Japan has universal health care which is not considered socialized. The only major flaw of their system is that the health care costs are too cheap.

Self regulation is crap. If comcast thinks they need to self-regulate, then what harm is there in making it as law? After all as Bush often claims, why do you worry about surveillance, if you are not breaking the law?

Reminds me of this story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89164759

Unfortunately yes, you did miss at least one.

Do you think a cultural push toward hysteria proves global warming or something?

When corn prices go up for ethanol, more farmers switch from whatever they were growing to corn, because it makes more money.

Corn production is up, and yes that is effecting other food costs, however:"The USDA reports that farmers intend to plant 8 percent fewer acres of corn this year than last. In 2007, farmers planted the highest number of corn acres since World War II....The USDA's report looks at other grains as well. Oat plantings are expected to fall. Sorghum, too. And barley acreage could grow this year " So I guess we should still have some beer supplies coming out of America, the farmers are actually backing off corn production this year. But I don't think Australia's problem isn't corn,it's a drought that has lasted several years. "This lack of rainfall, combined with hotter than average daytime temperatures and strong winds, has led to the rapid deterioration of crop yield potential and in many areas has resulted in total crop failure," ABARE executive director Phillip Glyde said. The three major crops of wheat, barley and canola will amount to 18.0 million tonnes for the year -- about 42 percent below the five-year average but still 4.0 million tonnes above the previous year's output"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12449705

Spanish winemakers have already started moving their vineyards into the mountains because of climate change.

Maybe that's what the barley and hops growers need to do

Untrue.

Some restaurants have gone card-only.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6246139

Waiting to the end of your meal to pay isn't incurring a "debt" in a legal sense.

As requested, documentation:

RE: killing the birds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_sparrow_campaign

"It was decided that all the peasants in China should bang pots and pans and run around to make the sparrows fly away in fear."

Eye witness account of Great Sparrow Campaign:

http://zonaeuropa.com/20061130_1.htm

"As I recalled, my fellow students and I climbed onto some tall trees on the side of the road and banged our gongs, drums, washbasins and anything else that can make loud noises. The sparrows were forced to keep flying until they dropped dead from fatigue."

Beijing is not right next to the Gobi Desert, but it is downwind from it when the winds shift that way in the Spring. The rest of the year, it's not. But Beijing at any other time of the year, on a windy day the atmospheric effect is like being in a dust storm.

RE: Air quality in Beijing

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:HjyJWuowpeUJ:www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/estnews0915.htm+beijing+air+quality+ranking&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=21&gl=us

"Beijing ranked second-worst out of 47 Chinese cities in a 1999 SEPA air pollution ranking "

RE: Concerns with the Three Gorges:

(from 2001)
http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/arch374/winter2001/dbiggs/three.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

For good measure, a couple links on deforestation in China:

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/pcs/state/chinaeco/forest.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19203227

China's government is not comprised of idiots, but their ideologically-driven policies and lack of free and open discussion in a robust civil society lead to actions and results that are adverse to their own interests at a rate greater than that in countries that do have the ability to contest government policy.

The point of my post was that in China under the CCP, there is a history of trampling the environment for the sake of, previously, Mao's mass campaigns, and now, for the sake of rampant economic development. There is also a concommitant pattern of wildly over-engineering the environment when common sense would do. It is within that context that the story about cloud-seeding resonated.

So the post was a bit of a hip-shot. The above links and many more could have been initially provided, but it's Slashdot and the tone of the post was meant to be wry and few, even on this site, want to wade through a dissertation in response to every article. Thus, the comments were couched under the term, "anecdote."

But as an East Asian studies scholar who's lived there for significant swathes of time over the past 18 years, the comments were not pulled entirely out of thin air. Even a casual visitor to Japan can observe that many products have humorous names or sayings in English on them, such as Calpis Water or Poccari Sweat. Most people do not demand academic citation upon hearing about such a thing--they accept them for what they are: anecdotes.

It was in that spirit that the stories were relayed.

Wyoming has done similar tests (click "listen now").

Apparently US legal system is a bit messy. Eventhough the federal government has to obey the treaties, according to the supreme court, States do not have to obey all treaties.
Not justifying the US actions here, but occasionally foreign courts refuse to obey US courts - I agree that disobeying US court orders (whose opinions are valid through bilateral treaties) is slightly different from WTO obligations, but I think in general we can safely say that international law is not always smooth

Sorry but the Supremes just declared otherwise.

That Supreme Court case had to do with whether a treaty signed by the US could be enforced by the president.

Apparently, that particular treaty didn't have any legislation passed by congress backing it up and/or the treaty didn't include say anything about how it would affect the states.

"Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said that because the treaty did not explicitly say its provisions were binding, and because there was no legislation to make the treaty binding, the president could not on his own force the states to comply." From here.

"...in the Tuskegee program to infect Black people with syphilis to study how to destroy their society."

http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/

They were untreated, not infected by the Tuskegee program. It's no less atrocious, but let's get the facts correct. I've seen this error repeated on slashdot.

At least pretend you watched more then the 30 second clip of Wright and the subsequent "firestorm" by high school drop out Faux News/AM radio talking heads...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88941182 is an example of a good, impartial take on it from the mind of a truly religious man with no political agenda to push.

Many TRUE religious leaders have come out in defense of the Trinity church and Pastor Wright. That church has done more for the poor communities in Chicago then you will ever do for anyone in your life. Think about that before you apply such blanket hateful statements to such a helpful organization. In fact, the Clinton's have sought the direct help of Pastor Wright in the past. The man is a respected pastor for a reason, and it's not the reason you're being shown on crappy YouTube clips and the O'Reilly spin hour.

There are educated men and women among us willing and able to rise above the petty bullshit that CNN, Fox, Rush Limbaugh, etc etc insist on cramming down our freaking throats. These educated men and women are the opinions you should seek if you truly wish to educate yourself. Letting some cack smoking flunky feed you lopsided opinions on the nightly news is a sure fire recipe for ignorance and misunderstanding... hence the state of our world/politics today.

Once you yourself become one of those educated men/women, perhaps you will be able to see through the bullshit and focus more on the important, and deadly serious, issues facing America in 2008 and beyond.

Hint: A pastor's 30 second clip, meant to falsely represent over 20 years of preaching, from 5+ years ago isn't high on that issue list.

Listen to what Huckabee, himself a minister, has to say about Obama's church. Listen to what Martin Marty, one of the countries most respected theologists, has to say about it.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion in the matter, but please make sure that your opinion isn't at such odds with reality as to be nonsensical gutter talk.

This isn't a plea to support or love Obama. This is a plea to educate yourself and rise above the petty playground politics of deception and outright lies that has become big talk radio/news. There's far too much at stake this time around to be fooled again.

Fool me once, shame on.... uhh shame on you.
Fool me... erm... you can't get fooled again.

The interview can be found here I heard it too but have not re-listened to it. I suppose he could have been a little more polished and less cranky but I think the gist of his argument was that it was a nebulous federal requirement that would cost Montana money and there would be no benefit.

I hope he doesn't back down.

[Ralph Spoilsport wrote] Because the energy required to pull hydrogen out of water or methane or petroleum is going to be greater than the energy you get from burning the hydrogen

It's sad, but I first read that as "This happened to Alistair Cookie" and thought something happened to Cookie Monster.

All the economists I've heard talk about it (about 4 different ones between All Things Considered and Marketplace) have said that the risk to the market of a failing major investment bank is worse than the risk of moral hazard, in this case. And you can't say that the owners of Bear Stearns haven't suffered. The stock went from $95 to $2.

I do agree with you that, generally speaking, bail-outs suck.

-l

There hasn't been any indications that information gained by illegal surveillance has been used in an attempt to prosecute someone.

"Prosecute?" What an old-fashioned notion! US citizens can be declared enemy combatants and held without trial if they provide "material support" to an undefined enemy in an undeclared, neverending war (such as by linking to a jihadist website). Who needs prosecutions?

It is sort of hard to say that a "the Democrat-controlled Congress APPROVED the surveillance program..." when no bill approving of Bush's warrantless spying has ever been approved by Congress.
From: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88251865
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the government may have as many as five ongoing clandestine surveillance programs. "Congress is not fully informed, and it would be reckless to grant retroactive immunity without knowing the scope of programs out there," Harman said.
"All members of Congress should see those documents so they could see the breadth and scope" of the wiretapping program, said Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass.
That does not sound like congressional approval.
The bill allows the government to keep all the secrets it wants. All it requires is that a judge be able to examine the evidence. That is something the administration is afraid of allowing. It seems that the main purpose of the immunity is to protect the Bush administration, not the Telecom industry and not to make cooperation easier in the future. I for one do not want to set a precedent that companies should do whatever the administration says, even if it is illegal.

> Thanks for taking the time to write this.

You're very welcome. It's something I needed to do, a sort of
professional-piety response, perhaps, giving credit where due.

> I enjoyed it very much. I never stop to think about how my affinity
> for Perl might be related to imagination then related to AD&D.

Adam Rogers of Wired Magazine wrote convincingly in the NY Times that:

        GARY GYGAX died last week and the universe did not collapse.
        This surprises me a little bit, because he built it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/opinion/09rogers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I strongly encourage you and all programmers and gamers alike to check out
what Adam has to say there about our world being one that Gary built.

Adam also has a 17-minute segment on NPR:
      http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88062853

D&D promotes open, imaginate thinking and problem-solving ability.
Consumerist alpha-state zombies entranced by the bube tomb do not
develop these skills. From the moment I took up D&D in 1975, lo these
33 years ago, I never again watched TV with any regularity, racking up
fewer hours per year than the average American does in a single week. I
later became convinced by Postman's position, and his take on Huxley's
_Brave_New_Word_, and so came to see television as modern-day soma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Comparisons_with_George_Orwell.27s_1984

The crossover between gamers and programmers, especially but apparently
not uniquely those of us of a certain age, is remarkably high. For it's
still going on as young players, often social outcasts looking for a safe-
space for nerds or geeks or whatever outsider term you care to apply to
them and us, are always coming into the gaming world.

The imaginative, creative, problem-solving ability essential in any good
admin or programmer is not nurtured by couch potatoes in trance state
worshiping their false idols of TV and spectator sports, wasting away
"Amusing Themselves to Death" per Postman. That ability is stifled, quelled,
stanched, nipped in the bud before it can even develop. Instead, these
abilities are much better fed by interactive challenges, and this is why
good gamers make good sysadmins, and good programmers sometimes, too.

Gary also helped plant the seed in me of being a word-guy, something of
a vocabulary antiquarian. He would plumb older sources for words in
English that in modern times were either unused entirely, or used
quite differently. A brief list of these might include:

        adamantite, aegis, cantrip, cuirass, curate, drow, durance vile,
        dweomer, electrum, glaive, habergeon, lich, morningstar, myrmidon,
        panoply, rune, sigaldry, sigil, thaumaturge, theurgist, and wight.

I should really write these all down some time. I'll bet even such words
as apothecary and dwarves owe much to Gary for their modern currency.

For a while, Slate had the best Gary Gygax article at:
        http://www.slate.com/id/2185914/pagenum/all/#page_start

But I think now that the Wired treatment is most impressive:
        http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2008/03/ff_gygax

--tom

Traditional or revised list?

Presumably they are running afoul of New Deadly Sin's numbers 4, 5, 6, and perhaps 7 (see below)

The new deadly sins are:

1.) genetic modification

better get rid of rice, and just about every other staple in our diet. All are the result of selective breeding (i.e. GM) over hundreds of
years. Oh, and shoot the dog.

2.) carrying out experiments on humans

Every psychology experiment, every modern medicine, you name it,you're going to hell!

3.) polluting the environment

We're all doomed. Doomed! Guess we'd better all go live in a shack like the unabomber.

4) causing social injustice

Like say, stripping women of their right to choose whether or not to carry a child inside their body? Whose idea of social injustice shall we use. Karl Marx's? George W. Bush's? The "Pedophile Two-step Shuffle" Pope's?

5.) causing poverty

How exactly? By tithing the faithful, or encouraging couples to have too many children, or denying women access to birth control and abortion? By mismanaging national monetary policy, devaluing the currency, inciting a housing bubble, followed by a housing collapse and mortgage crisis?

6.) becoming obscenely wealthy

Like say ... I dunno ... the Pope? Oh yeah, he gets to fake out God by telling him he's personally living a vow of poverty...it's the church that puts him up in his fine palatial rooms, with his fancy clothes, fancy hat, wine, meals, pope-mobile, personal jet, etc etc. For that matter, what is "obscenely wealthy" and who gets to decide? To be safe, guess we'd all better opt for poverty, and head-butt the economy even further.

7.) taking drugs

Better put those aspirin away! Anyone with health problems, tough shit. Die! And you mentally ill folks on your anti-psychotics, put down the pill bottle, get out there and go on a killing spree! After all, murder isn't one of the Deadly sins, but by God, taking your medication is!

Presumably they are running afoul of New Deadly Sin's numbers

(Anyone who still believes in religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, after the Vatican puts out this kind of silliness needs their head examined).

i listened to a program about this very subject on the radio this morning.

1) smaller amounts are reported than $5k
2) banks track and rate every single transaction, even if it's a $1 charge

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88132229&sourceCode=RSS

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88031211&ft=1&f=1001

There is a "Listen Now" link, too.

But, here's a chunk:

"Army Maj. Reid Sawyer, of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, says that is now changing -- and that al-Qaida's central leadership, securely based in Pakistan, is once again taking charge.

"What we have been observing is al-Qaida's attempt to re-assert control throughout their disparate networks, with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, in the Horn of Africa, to provide guidance and mentoring, if you will, as well as some funding to these organizations," Sawyer said.

"And so the organization has coalesced again, because of its ability to have sanctuary. And that's really given it such a benefit that can't be overstated."

Michael Scheuer, a top al-Qaida specialist at the CIA until 2004, goes even further in his assessment.

"I think al-Qaida as an organization was never seriously damaged," Scheuer said. "What we're seeing is, it has a new base. It is fairly comfortable where it sits at the moment. And it is able to go back to doing the things it did since 1988."

But the world has changed since 1988 -- and so has al-Qaida.

The group is now on the Internet, and it even has its own media company, producing videos for radical Islamist Web sites.

With these new tools, the Internet makes it possible for al-Qaida to promote its vision of jihad or holy war and solicit recruits throughout the Muslim world.

Sawyer says the Internet even provides a training mechanism, taking the burden off al-Qaida bases in Pakistan.

"What the Internet has really created for al-Qaida and its affiliated groups is a virtual sanctuary,... "

Like Adama told Tyrol about Galactica Valerii: "You'll see her again, Chief.... There are many copies."

Anyone remember around 1999, when Sony camcorders were being recalled because their cameras could "see through clothing"?

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/see-thru-lens.html

http://www.kaya-optics.com/devices/sony_nightshot.shtml

http://www.spy.th.com/camcorders3.html

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/H9/H9A.HTM

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/V3/V3A2.HTM

Would any of this Sony technology have any silent (via shadow investors/subsidiaries) part in resurrecting Sony income stream? Would this technology in the news today be very good for random and equidistant surveillance points for bridges, office towers and infrastructure.

I can imagine a whole new slew of patent-evading startups (not counting some failed or badly-focused ones in the SillyConJobAlley area just north of San Jose/Milpitas...). Might be JUST what Boston and Santa Clara need.

However, if:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88031211&ft=1&f=1001

is any indication, countries like the USA will have the hopeless task of putting such cameras EVERY WHERE (good for business income from DOD/DHLS contracts...) until policy or attitude toward people OUTside of the US changes.

Maybe it WILL be good for police to use. Now, they will have no reason to cavity or strip search people. It could reduce the number of unjustified shootings/killings of people. No more claims of "S/he had what appeared to be a firearm aimed at me/my partner/a civilian bystander...". It could even protect police when approaching vehicles. No more being shot just for trying to issue a traffic citation for a vehicle code violation.

Stores and offices could use them for silent reporting and logging of robberies or undesired proliferation of weapons in neighborhoods. I wouldn't be surprised if places like SF's Tenderloin and Bayview/Hunters Point and Fillmore district get these things.

But, the train stations/undergrounds will be clamoring for federal funds (matching?/challenge grants?) to get these new gadgets installed.

HEHEH.... Captcha: Positron (how coincidental...)

This just in: Actually Obama won Texas. So when the two steps are all done, the projection is for Obama to emerge with 98 delegates to Clinton's 95. http://www.npr.org/watchingwashington/index.html