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"Does anyone know if plants have DNA? I am thinking that only animals have DNA, that plants have different structures like RNA or something. Sorry for my ignorance, I'm willing to read this online if someone can point me in the right direction to a site on the basics of plant biology without being too 'biochemical genetic engineering' (expert level) text. I've had HS bio, and college chem, and lots and lots and lots of physics, but that's it..."

All biological organisms use DNA. While early life forms are likely to have used RNA exclusively, DNA is used because it's very stable (from a biochemical point of view). Only some viruses contain a string of RNA instead of DNA.

You might find this site interesting.

No matter how cheap HDs get, they just don't have the [...] lifetime

Really, it depends on what you mean by "lifetime". Even assuming the media is still good, try finding a working drive for an arbitrary backup from a decade or two ago. And longer than that? Forget it. (But it's plausible that CDs will be an exception.)

For moderately long-term storage, your best bet is stone, although some metals are a good choice, too. But really, the only currently successful medium for real long-term storage is DNA. That's not because DNA is durable; it's because Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe.

So the lesson is that if you really want to be able to get at your backups in the future, the best way is to keep them 1) live, 2) distributed, 3) replicated, and 4) monitored. Whether you do that by colocating a couple of hard drive arrays or by encoding the data into bacterial DNA with checksum-linked apoptosis mainly depends on your budget.

Except we're using all of them. The codings are here. There are 20 amino acids used by the vast majority of cells, and most of these are encoded multiple times.

because it didn't tell us *which* codon they were working with. There are several codons which were understood to be interepreted as STOP signals, so based on this fragment of the article,

"Surprisingly, the codon Krzycki's team identified should have signaled a stop to protein building but it did not."

it must be one of those. They previously-known-to-be-stop codons are: UAA, UGA, and UAG (did I miss any?). So which one is it? If you know, please reply to this post.

For reference, here is a good page for more info on codons, their product amino acids and more.

By adulthood, Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements is firmly planted in a typical mind either as a tool for study or proof of mystical forces at work in nature. There are alternative structures: some clever and others using alternate media, extensions to the table providing nuclear structure, fermi surfaces, and line spectra.

Still others are extraordinarily cross-thematic, merging chemistry with comic books, poetry or haiku. But only the grouping-nature of the columns is retained in rejected elements, condiments and beer. Eventually the elements and the periodic qualities have been lost entirely, reducing the periodic table to a design template for topical lists of funk and rock music, comedy and TV shows, famous mathematicians and presidents, even SGI products. Soon a complete breakdown of the scientific aspect yields no similarity to the original, becoming a glorified table, a marketing tool, or hype itself. There is mounting evidence of a conspiracy.

Does anybody know the latest information regarding the telomere problem in clones?

Telomeres are long stretches on the end of the chromosome that are cleaved off through the life of the cell. When a certain number of telomeres are gone, the cell knows to undergo death. Some cancer cells protect these telomeres... and thus are immortal.

However, as clones are created from already aged cells... these clones have shorter telomeres. In theory, these clones should age differently. This may be the reason that Dolly already has arthritis, for example.

Anybody with new news on this theory?

I'm not sure if this source is accurate, but if the e-coli bacterium has more than 4 million base pairs... damn, isn't that a lot of combinations? a lot of possibilities for mutatiions? How can you simulate such mutations if each mutation occurs within the next day (maybe even hours) or so??? I don't know where my logic failed, but this seems to me as an awful lot of computation and experimenting if you want to look at the development over a period of 40 years...
i reccon that must amount to at least 40*365.25=15 thousand reproductions, multiply this with 4*3 million if you want to change (not cut one out, add one or anything) just 1 base pair per reproduction and it starts to become a mind boggling big project.
And sure, there are a lot of paths that won't result in viable bacteria, but still..

can someone tell me how they do this and where my calculations go wrong?

else it is a very interesting idea, researching all possibililities... i wonder when we will be able to do this with human genes... just to find out what kind of creatures may evolve from our genome in due time.

Last year, they became the first country to explicitly allow the creation of embryos as a source of stem cells.

In my opinion creation of embryos is equivalent to cloning of human beings. Cloning stem cells themselves is virtually impossible for now, since human cells are virtually impossible to culture, with HeLa-cells (and some other cancer cells) as an exception..

AC,

While may appear to be a point to point communication (from a 'cursory view') the impersonality (not specifying the recipient by any identifyable means) and the inappropriateness (sending an HR oriented letter to a random account) of the email decidedly tag this as SPAM.

The generally accepted point is, Bernie sent Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) to Neil. It was unsolicited; Neil didn't ask anyone for resumes of pompus laywer-wannabe IT consultants in the greater Chicago area, but Bernie sent it anyway. It was commerical; Bernie's asking for money for services. I hope you're not arguing it wasn't email.

The fact that others recieved exactly the same mail message confirms the 'group' requirement you're hung up on.

The complaint Neil used was fairly standard boilerplate for this sort of thing. I can't quite see how you'd consider it bogus or inappropriate. Neil definately put more effort into his email than Bernie did for his. Go figure.

An ISP won't generally kill access with a single spam complaint. It takes a number of complaints to get most admin's attention. This also solves your "but what if it was only sent to one person" blah blah.

I think Bernie's fsck'd, but he did it to himself. It's called self destruct!

It consisted of interconnecting "girders" that looked like the real deal and allowed you to build a lattice either of squares or Xs. Then they supplied these thin plastic panels that either looked like skyscraper windows or some other architectural glass panes.
When we were don we took out giant "Voltrons" (I think it was Voltron, maybe a Voltron precursor... all I knew was it was a huge plastic Japanese robot that allowed you to shoot misses that could choke babies, funny I never knew of any one choking and any of them... but more importantly, you could launch their fists! Really far and hard, it hurt like hell!) and proceeded to level our mini city Godzilla style...

Hmmm. After that I don't think we ever played with it again, no wonder they're gone...

Hey remember Micronauts?!....

This is the same mechanism of action as the Complement System used by your Immune System. Antibodies recognize and bind to a bacteria and recruit the first part of the system, which inserts itself into the cell membrane. The first part of the system recruits other proteins, which recruit other proteins, etc., until a ring of proteins is made in the cell membrane. Since the concentration of salt, protein, sugar, and everything else is higher inside the cell than outside, water rushes in through the tiny hole and the cell membrane ruptures from the rapid expansion of volume.

Here's a brief link or two

Oops! It's already happened.

It's pretty amazing what can be done with ham radios. Of course, there's audio transmission. But there's also image transmission, amateur television (slow scan television), packet radio (woo! 9600 baud!). And surely more.

While I'm not now a ham, I've recently become a little interested in becoming one. I even checked out what was available at my school's Science and Engineering Library. They had old issues of an amateur radio magazine back to around 1936. And this stuff was first being played with in the early 1900's. It's amazing to me, how, for all the technological advancements and the increase of the flow of information, we really haven't gone as far as one might expect in nearly 100 years. When I look at those magazines from the 40's, I'm thinking "wow, this looks really cool!" and here I am in 2001! over 60 years later!

I mean, sure, I'm here using one of the most widespread information networks in the history of the world, but I would think that, after 100 years of worldwide communication, we might have improved upon the reliability of said communication. While the web is generally fairly reliable, I still think it's rather odd that we still experience outages.

Well, okay, I'll concede this: currently, we're working on digital communications, where as radio is analog. And analog IS a very reliable form of communication (thus, hams are used in times of disaster). I suppose, that after another 40 or 50 years, digital communications will have progressed to the point that they are just as reliable as analog is today.

[Contradict myself?! Never!!]


kickin' science like no one else can,
my dick is twice as long as my attention span.

plasmids

plasmids are CIRCULAR DNA rings that are commonly found in bacteria. Upon injecting small plasmids into bacteria, they are readily taken up into the host dna and replicated.

all you then have to do is extract the result and you have a serum of the resulting DNA/Protein synthesized. But, yes, it is still impractical do most genetherapies at this point.

There's a good older article that can be found on just this topic. I've done a lot of reading on this topic on the web, and it's one of the simplest introductions I've found. The article is called Introducing SSL and Certificates Using SSLeay. Just read through the first four sections. They talk about how certificates are used, what a Certificate Authority does, and how SSL works. It's good stuff.

All you'd need to do is get your Amateur Radio License. It's much easier than you might think.

Then, look at this device from Kenwood. It's a neat little package that includes a camera, the display, and all the computing you need.

Hook this baby up to your radio, have a similar setup on the other end, hook it up to a computer on the net and you're all set!

This is called Slow Scan Television (SSTV).

Another cool thing about this setup.. throw in a cheap GPS reciever and you're ready to do APRS! (report your position, send messages, and lots of other fun stuff)

Good luck

I haven't played Nomic, but there is a card game called Fluxx that also has changing rules.

The rules are pretty simple; the game is more easily played than explained. 4 kinds of cards: Keepers, Actions, Rules, and Goals. When the game begins, there is no goal. The Basic Rules are: Draw 1 card per turn, and Play 1 card per turn. From here on in, however, it starts to get sillier

The Keepers are cards played in front of you, depictions of various nouns: Chocolate, Time, Taxes, Love, Milk, Rocket, etc. Actions are cards such as: Draw 3, Draw 4, Play 2, Play 4, Play All, etc. These modify the basic rule of Draw 1, Play 1. Rules are cards that allow players with certain keepers to get bonuses, or otherwise globally affect the conditions of the game. Finally, Goals are cards that set the winning condition of the game (e.g., the goal of Death and Taxes means that the game is won when there is one player with the Keepers "Death" and "Taxes" in front of him/her.)

Since any player may play any type of card(s) during his/her turn, this leads to a lot of rule/ goal/ action turnover. You may have all the necessary cards to win the game, but by the time it comes to your turn, the goal has changed 3 times, and you're starting from scratch.

This game often goes over well with large groups of people, even those who are not particularly into gaming. It's easily learned, entertaining, not much skill or strategy involved, and not particularly competitive. Yes, someone does "win" at the end of each hand, but the win is as often due to luck as anything else.

Buy a deck. Play. (DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Looney Labs, I don't get monetary kickbacks, blah blah blah

-rv --
gallimaufry - http://www.ultranet.com/~rv/
popplers - http://www.ultranet.com/~rv/weblog

I haven't played Nomic, but there is a card game called Fluxx that also has changing rules.

The rules are pretty simple; the game is more easily played than explained. 4 kinds of cards: Keepers, Actions, Rules, and Goals. When the game begins, there is no goal. The Basic Rules are: Draw 1 card per turn, and Play 1 card per turn. From here on in, however, it starts to get sillier

The Keepers are cards played in front of you, depictions of various nouns: Chocolate, Time, Taxes, Love, Milk, Rocket, etc. Actions are cards such as: Draw 3, Draw 4, Play 2, Play 4, Play All, etc. These modify the basic rule of Draw 1, Play 1. Rules are cards that allow players with certain keepers to get bonuses, or otherwise globally affect the conditions of the game. Finally, Goals are cards that set the winning condition of the game (e.g., the goal of Death and Taxes means that the game is won when there is one player with the Keepers "Death" and "Taxes" in front of him/her.)

Since any player may play any type of card(s) during his/her turn, this leads to a lot of rule/ goal/ action turnover. You may have all the necessary cards to win the game, but by the time it comes to your turn, the goal has changed 3 times, and you're starting from scratch.

This game often goes over well with large groups of people, even those who are not particularly into gaming. It's easily learned, entertaining, not much skill or strategy involved, and not particularly competitive. Yes, someone does "win" at the end of each hand, but the win is as often due to luck as anything else.

Buy a deck. Play. (DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Looney Labs, I don't get monetary kickbacks, blah blah blah

-rv --
gallimaufry - http://www.ultranet.com/~rv/
popplers - http://www.ultranet.com/~rv/weblog

Due to moderator abuse, here's a repost at my normal _2_ (yep, I moderate too);

Octothorp recieved a Redundant? Moderators, isn't that a bit harsh?

I guess I'll get a -1 Troll for posting a few links, including an image of a nerd, though it seems to me both posts are on topic;

www.ultranet.com/~brons/NerdCorner/AHED-nerd.html

www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=nerd

These got to be the same little buggers that anakim skywalker had in such big count :)

I say we resurect COBOL on the PRIME MiniComputer

Dear Mister Troll: It's not PRIME but PR1ME.
Please look at this picture.

silly emacser, check out the semantic bovinator by eric ludlum.

Where can I find out more about TAGS? Does it support Java? (My employer's language of choice).

TAGS is pretty wide ranging in it's abilities and Java support is somewhere. Ah. Here it is. To create tags for Java, and for Java development under Emacs, take a look at JDE. I've not used it, but it looks pretty wide-ranging. It also features automatic completion of class fields and methods :-)

Do TAGS automatically update whenever you add or modify members or methods in a class?

No - they are updated when you run the TAGS utility. If you update the methods/members, it's best to rerun TAGS to tidy up the database. It's often a good idea to run TAGS as part of your makefile so that whatever changes are put into the binary are reflected in the TAGS database.

The other thing that is missing (or, maybe not?) from emacs is the good integrated debugger that DevStudio has. Can you do an edit and continue on a running C++ or Java program from inside emacs?

Yes - with GUD (Grand Unified Debugger) under Emacs, you can interface with whatever debugger you feel like, from gdb, xdb, etc.. You can mark lines in the code as breakpoints, view variables, step, next, and so forth inside Emacs, plus issue compile and connect to process calls. I note that JDE also features automatic jump-to-offending-line with compilation issues too.

After a brief amount of searching, I discovered QuickPeek for Emacs, which works as follows:

QuickPeek

Quick peek is a tool that uses a second frame to display context sensitive information about where the cursor is. It wants to be the superior copy of "Intellisense".

There is a reason that one of the more popular icons for Emacs is a kitchen sink :-)

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I stand corrected. That was Serrano.

I get my avant-garde confused sometimes. :)

Are you sure you're not talking about minicomputers here?

This guy here clearly lists the PDPs under minicomputers (just the first link I grabbed off google, is he wrong as well?)

..Wait, I found a better link with an actual definition of what a minicomputer is.

We've gotten very, very good at going faster. The next step is to get where we want to go very fast, then stop.

Empty, harried multitasking can certainly reduce quality of life. One great problem is that it fosters a sense that one always has to be doing something, that relaxation and mindfulness in everyday activities is decadent. Humans were not built for constant stress and mental occupation, though, and a shame-driven call to utilize every moment can lead to dangerous levels of stress. Physical health becomes frankly involved when one applies this ethic to sleep, as Americans (myself included) often do. Sleep debt is not only dangerous, it can impair memory and alertness to the detriment of the very things we skimp on sleep to accomplish!
Another unfortunate outgrowth of our ever-bustling society is the feeling that simple things are no longer worth doing well. Too many people live on fast food, have cheap and shallow relationships, and neglect to exercise, read, or think because there is always so much work to do, so many places to shop, so much web to browse. After a certain point, quantity is a poor replacement for quality.
So Gleick is doing a valuable service in pointing out how driven we've become. However, we must not take his reaction too far. I maintain that the technological genie is out of the bottle, that we don't even want it to go back, and that the only solution is to become intelligent and well-informed information consumers. Because all the negative things that technology does have positive counterparts.
If one is properly discriminating, multitasking doesn't necessarily mean important tasks will suffer -- it simply requires the discipline to recognize them. I was opening my mail while reading /., but when I thought I had something to say about Faster I put it down and gave the computer my whole attention. Here, the ability to do many things at once helped me find the one thing I wanted to do right.
Similarly, the modern profusion of books, magazines, journals, websites, television programs, experts, expert systems, entertainers, celebrities, commercials, politicians, fortune cookies, religious leaders, and weatherpeople who want to tell us what to think can lead to an endless, indiscriminate information grazing which doesn't really enrich or enlighten. The ease of pulling up a page on the Ames test for carcinogens allows thousands of recreational browsers to waste their time, feeling like they're learning something useful... but for a few biologists, it may be just the right information, at just the right time.
Technology is only dangerous if we try to adapt ourselves to it. Just because we can live lives divisible in nanoseconds doesn't mean we have to.

- Michael Cohn

The bad do bad because the bad is rewarded. The good do good because the good is rewarded.

Yes, they seem a lovely pack of jackals and demagogues. Lot's of people are voting for one or the other. In fact, my sister was trying to convince me to become a Republican just the other day <Shudder> "Come on, George W. Bush needs your vote," she said to me, seriously!! <Shudder>. Bleah! And I thought I was convincing her to vote Libertarian... -_-

But there is a solution, and it doesn't involve sitting home on election day! That solution is Harry Browne, Libertarian, a man who is looking out for everyone's rights.

Remember, voting for a candidate who doesn't win may be depressing, but helping to elect a loser is far, far worse!

Vote Browne and send a message to the establishment!

(Incidentally, I've read articles in Forbes magazine that seemed OK, but not only is he out of the race, he was courting the Christian Coalition vote when he was in the race... I think that means, ultimately, filters and censorship under his administration, too.)

Just Some Guy dun said:

Why, oh why, is everything ludicrous attributed to right-wingers? I am just about as far-right-wing as you can get, and I assure that my core beliefs do not condone censorship in any form. I mean, remember the PMRC (record labeling)? That was Tipper Gore, not Pat Buchanan.

Hate to have to bring some things up to dash the illusion there, but there are some things I do need to bring up in light of your venting...

1). The vast majority of groups pushing censorship, and for that matter a lot of flatly ludicrous stuff, are right-wing--specifically, members of various political groups which are basically run by fundamentalist "Christians" in the US. (For that matter, Israel sees the same thing with ultraorthodox "Jews", and darn near every country with a signifigant Islamic population deals with fundamentalist "Moslems" of the two main denominations of their religion. For THAT matter, as I understand it, India's having the same damn problem with fundamentalist "Sikhs" and fundamentalist "Hindus".)

2). For all intents and purposes, there is no functioning left-wing in the United States. The US has literally gone so far to the right (largely because of influence of fundamentalist "Christian" groups, which at one point had pretty much taken over the entire Republican Party apparatus in thirty-four states; they have apparently led to the self-destruction now of a second party [the Reform Party]. It's not all the GOP's fault, though--I'll note that in a minute) that were Richard Nixon to run today on his present political platform, he would be considered a liberal. The most "liberal" parties in the US with any large percentage of voters (the Democratic and Libertarian parties) would be considered right-moderate in most political systems in the industralised world (yes, that includes Canada, too); the largest "conservative" party (the GOP) would be hard-right in nearly any other country's political system, and the second or third-largest "conservative" political party in the US (the US Taxpayer's Party) is, for all intents and purposes, run by extreme far-righters in the US and in fact promotes theocracy as a platform. (The Reform Party, before it basically started destroying itself when Pat Buchanan got considered for nomination, probably fell in between the Republicans and Libertarians; now, for all intents and purposes, the Reform Party will probably end up as two parties, one beign slightly more left-leaning but both still firmly on the right.) One newspaper, which started in the 1800's as a "moderate conservative" paper of the times and has had pretty much the same political bent ever since it started, is now considered one of the hardest-left papers in the US. It would also probably be considered moderate or moderate-left in political spectrums in most industralised countries.

Sad to say, but the political spectrum in the US today is less like other industrialised countries and more like those in which a fair amount of corruption occurs (such as in many "third-world" nations) or which are having very serious problems with fundamentalists trying to subvert the very structure of the government itself (this is certainly true in the US, and in a lot of other places you hear about in the news--like Israel, or Pakistan and India (basically a pissing contest between Muslim fundies and Hindu fundies which could well end up in a nuclear war before it's over with) or Sudan (which is having a rather nasty civil war between Muslim fundies and Christian fundies)).

2a). On a related note, and this is very important to note with anything related to fundy movements in general--most fundy groups, especially so in the US, are basically run by power-hungry individuals. In the US at least (and probably elsewhere--there's real signs of it at least in some ultra-Orthodox communities, and among nations like Iran and Afghanistan especially), many of the people who are members of the various fundy PACs here--and especially the more decidedly active ones--are members of churches that can be described as coercive groups much as Scientology can be described as a coercive group. Many of these groups use various mind-control techniques on their members to not only have them basically allow their minister to think for them, but to specifically "block out" anything that could be averse to what the minister says (these include basically teaching that the people in the church or group are the only ones who are "saved" and that anyone who isn't "saved" is in direct league with Satan; teaching that any doubt is the result of either demonic oppression or (if someone else says it) outright possession and one needs to "pray the doubts out" or have exorcisms performed (often involuntarily); forced confession of "sins" (which have included the involuntary outing of gays in church; most Religious Right groups are homophobic at best and some (like Fred Phelps, or Donald Wildmon, or Kentucky's own Frank Simon) are downright infamous for it); telling members to only do business with "members of like faith" (including printing special directories, like the "Christian Yellow Pages") and to only watch media that is affiliated with the church because all other media sources are "worldly" at best and outright "Satanic" at worst, not to mention businesses; "shepherding" programs and "cell churches" (in most programs, the people are divided into groups of five which, in essence, play "Big Brother" on each other--if someone has doubts, the other members try to work them more into the group, in extreme cases by methods like involuntary exorcisms), and so-called "divine lies" (basically, lying about your goals or at the least being dishonest about them to lure folks in to "win more souls for Christ"--this encompasses everything from "hell house" haunted-houses which are marketed as regular haunted houses for "educational purposes" which in fact are used to make people listen to fundy preaching (and yes, sometimes the doors ARE locked and the people not allowed to leave, so yes, they are in essence forced to listen) to "pep talks" run in high schools by groups that have fundy athletes come in to prosyletise, often on the premise that these are "anti-drug" or "self-esteem" talks (most of the time, these assemblies are mandatory to attend for kids, and often the groups will take innocuous-sounding names like "Athletes Against Drugs" or suchlike to hide their fundy links) to "free pizza parties" held by fundy groups who then hold the kids for hours, not allowing them to leave (it is almost never revealed that the "pizza party" is in fact being run by a fundy group) to "stealth candidates" for political offices (which don't reveal their fundy links till elected)...). Basically, because a lot of these groups ARE essentially Bible-based cults, they can feed their members an amazing amount of horsesheisse and (because they literally have nothing else to "error-check" it with) their followers will swallow it. If anything, most folks involved are to be pitied (the only ones that really deserve hate are probably the leaders who outright manipulate their followers).

There has not been a terrible amount of info on how "Bible-based cults" do manipulate their followers until fairly recently, largely because most folks associate "cults" with "new religions" and most folk haven't wanted to believe that "Christian" groups can and sadly do turn into coercive groups preaching far more of a god of Fear, Hate and Loathing (both of self and others) than a god of love, acceptance, and respect (which is what, at least with those folks whom I've met who I sense actually "get" what Yshua was saying, feel it's supposed to be about anyways). I also expect this is a big reason why most mainstream churches in the US haven't spoken out about "Bible-based cults" except in cases where they've been really extreme (part of this, too, might be because--sadly--coercive tactics are getting into larger and larger denominations; one of the largest fundy denominations in the US, which is in essence a Bible-based cult, was the major source of TV preachers for years and has well over one million members...a recent expose of the "Brownsville Movement" (which is centered at one of the larger churches in the US for this denomination in Pensacola, Florida) using coercive tactics is one of the major exceptions; the Southern Baptists, which have had their entire church head and seminary taken over by the fundamentalist wing of the denomination, are starting to dance close to using coercive tactics though they aren't as bad as the "traditionally" fundy denominations yet); part of that, though, may be because most fundy denominations (and especially those which are basically Bible-based cults) don't have anything to do with most major ecumenical conventions, holding their own separate worldwide conferences because they feel mainstrean Christianity is "lukewarm" at best and outright perverted by Satan at worst).

I'll also note (this is a personal aside, based on my own observations of having grown up in a family of raving fundies and having seen far more than I like of the internals of the Religious Right and fundamentalist groups in the US) that--probably because many of these folks have literally been in these groups for generations (I know of three-generation households in the group I walked away from; also, many of the younger especially are literally isolated from the outside world from birth all the way through college (fundies push homeschooling in large part so that kids CAN be isolated and not see anything that could spur them to walk away; there is now even a college being set up specifically for fundy-homeschooled kids to train them to be "political leaders for Christians", homeschooled kids being perfect fodder because they have literally been raised and brainwashed in Bible-based cults from birth), partly because walkaways from groups one has been raised in are EXTREMELY rare (pretty much most kids walk away when their parents do, or if they are forced out of their homes due to "irreconcilable differences" like the kid discovering he's gay; there are literally no statistics on kids walking away on their own (with no help from parents or exit counselors) from groups they were raised in because it is so rare), and partly because this is all they know as a result...a large percentage of those involved in Bible-based cults and in groups like the FRC are, to put none too fine a term on it, control-freaks. This is probably because the only real model they have IS the preacher, who basically uses coercive tactics (and a hell of a lot of FUD) to keep his flock "in line" and not questioning the preacher--this is especially true of folks who have been raised in such groups for generations--and so they basically take the whole "coercive-tactics"/"control-freak" thing to ALL walks of life. Literally everything from politics (a big part of why fundies want a theocracy here has to do with Control and Power over others; again, this is probably an extension of how their own ministers and deacons use Power and Control to keep the flock in line, along with the major "us versus them" mindset in such groups) to parenting (a lot of fundy parents will homeschool kids specifically to keep a maximum amount of Control and Power over them--this is also why they push so much for censorship initiatives to "protect the children", and a lot of fundies won't allow their kids to attend non-Christian colleges or allow them to attend schools with coed dorms or alcohol on campus [yes, I've had experience with this; the fact Beloit College had coed dorms and alcohol on campus pretty much shot all hell out of any chance I had of going there, even without money concerns]). Basically, to put a fine point on it, many of them are control-freaks by basis of being in groups that are run by control-freaks who use coercive tactics, and they have no other model to use (either by model of literally not knowing any better, or by model of literally being so brainwashed that pretty much they have nothing else to go by).

A good starter for exploring the mindset of which I'm talking on is here. It's a page for walkaways, specifically from Bible-based cults, run by a person who was formerly involved in one (he walked away, and now actually runs a "fight-the-right" group largely because of his experiences in the coercive group); it gives you a lot of perspective on where they're coming from, if you've never been misfortunate enough to have experienced Fundie Hell for yourself. (I honestly don't recommend the latter for anyone, especially not kids and other living things. It can screw you up for life, seriously. Look at me. ;)

2b). As another aside--this is probably not widely known by folks, but there are a lot of businesses in the US--many of them Fortune 500 companies, yet--that not only are affiliated with the Right Wing in the US, but are in fact members and actually supportive of it. An enlightening--and scary page--for starters is here--this is a page featuring info on the Coalition for National Policy, which is essentially a secretive, invite-only think-tank for the Religious Right in the United States. It features a membership list that includes, among others, many members of the Coors family, a (former) Presidential candidate, and a number of representatives to US and state legislatures. There's also a good link here that talks about the CNP and a lot more of the big names in the Religious Right...

For more starters...both the Coors family (yep, as in Coors Breweries) and the Waltons (yep, as in Sam's Wholesale/Wal-Mart--as in, before Sam Walton died, one of the single richest individuals on the planet, worth more than Bill Gates, and only surpassed by the Sultan of Brunei; the Waltons collectively are still in the top 100 of the richest people on the planet) are heavily involved with the Religious Right, outright subsidizing them and being sympathetic to concerns (to give examples--the Coors family supported Amendment 2 in Colorado, which would have rescinded civil-rights laws that included sexual orientation; the Waltons have made it a policy not to carry albums with "Tipper-stickers", refused to carry heavy-metal magazines for a long time, and refuse to provide "morning-after" contraceptives even though they will provide Viagra). Needless to say, these are two of the biggest companies in the US. Another interesting one is AmWay--AmWay in and of itself has been accused of using coercive tactics with its sales representatives, but is also run by fundamentalists with links to the CNP and AmWay has been known to bankroll fundy groups in past. Not even home shopping is immune--as it turns out, the person who owns Home Shopping Club, Home Shopping Network (the off-hours version of HSC that shows up on a lot of "Christian" TV stations and also used to show up on the "Family Channel") and PAX TV is a major bankroller of the Religious Right (more on that below).

For even more shockers...a lot of times, Religious Right groups deal in a fair bit of "cloaking". The Arthur S. DeMoss foundation (a Religious Right group that pushes "Christian Reconstructionism", has actually endorsed Christian Identity groups on occasion, and pretty much is a major funding source for the Religious Right; it was founded by the widow of a Religious Right supporter who happened to be a multi-millionaire) hides most of its nastier stuff by not only doing innocuous-sounding adverts for adoption and "Power for Living" (basically a book which hawks fundamentalist Christianity), but has sympathetic multi-million-dollar stars like the woman from "Children of a Lesser God" and Jeff Gordon (great...have NASCAR drivers hawking fundamentalism to the kiddies...Jeff Gordon, probably more than anyone in NASCAR short of the Pettys, is seen as particularly "kid-friendly" and as a general, All-American "Wheaties"-box boy) and NFL stars hawking for them. (Knowing that group, I'm almost willing to bet that either a) they might not have been too forthcoming with these folks other than that they were a group promoting a book about "Christian living", or b) a hell of a lot of people in show-business need a good expose like there has been with Scientologists in Hollywood...more info on the Arthur S. Demoss Foundation here and here [thank you Google...it seems that Pathfinder is not wanting to behave well].) The Family Channel, until recently, was owned by the same folks who brought you Pat Robertson and the 700 Club--it was renamed from the "Christian Broadcasting Network" to make it sound like it offered "family-friendly" programming and to hide its links to the Religious Right (as Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition had started to get a rather bad name). In fact, the Family Channel was sold to FOX, which does have some links to the right in the US (though not as bad as, say, Coors).

PAX TV, which is a TV network set up by a fundamentalist (again, using the exact same canard that the "Family Channel" did in its Pat Robertson days--as a purveyor of "family-friendly entertainment" which conveniently neglects to mention its links to the Religious Right) and which is largely carried on "Christian" TV stations, is heavily bankrolled by Home Shopping Club and Home Shopping Network (which--not exactly coincidentially--also showed on the Family Channel on off-hours and shows on a lot of "Christian" TV stations in off-hours) and--even worse--is also owned 20 percent by CBS and NBC was planning to buy 32 percent in PAX TV (this would be over 400 million dollars). More info here, and more info on PAX here...for that matter, the very head of Focus on the Family (which spawned off Family Research Council as a lobbying wing), James Dobson, makes a rather healthy living selling parenting books promoting "tough love" and "discipline".

Even besides all THAT, a lot of the major Religious Right groups get a lot of funding from members, and many of them can actually get it tax-free (by either setting up separate "political" wings when the heat from the IRS gets too much, or by setting it up with roughly the same tax exemptions a church would get). There are also local businesses...as one guide has advised, if you want to boycott teh Religious Right you almost have to look through one of the directories made for the Religious Right or avoid every business with an ichthus-fish on it...and besides all THAT, Religious Right groups are increasingly going stealth or relying on certain "code words" within the community like "Family", "Heritage", or names confusingly similar to existing groups (one anti-abortion "counseling center" actually named themselves "PPC, Inc." and based themselves in the same building as the local Planned Parenthood office; a legal group that bankrolls and supports lawsuits friendly to Religious Right causes is named "American Center for Law and Justice"; a really amazing number of Religious Right groups use "Family" or "Heritage" or "Christian Life Center" (in the case of churches) because these are actual code words in the fundamentalist community for fundy-friendly causes).

Needless to say, unfortunately, the Religious Right isn't exactly hurting for money and, short of ALL of their members walking away combined with a massive economic crash that disrupts nearly the entire worldwide financial system to the point that it forces us to go back to barter or most of their members walking away combined with a massive boycott of ANYTHING the Religious Right has their fingers in, they aren't going to be hurting for money anytime soon. :P

2c). Media that isn't tied with the Religious Right somehow is often basically bullied into submission. As noted above, a lot of folks in fundy groups have a very "us versus them" viewpoint to begin with--they literally believe they are fighting Satan and all of us not in a fundy group are practicing Satanists as a direct result. :P If ANYTHING is reported whatsoever that is in the LEAST critical of the Religious Right, they will protest (even if they don't read the paper or watch non-"Christian" TV because it might be "Satanically influenced") because, in essence, they will be informed about it and told to raise forty kinds of hell over it. And they will. In droves. (A Pensacola paper found this out when they basically exposed the "Brownsville Movement" as a Bible-based cult; "20/20" did an expose of the "Brownsville Movement" and likewise were damn near pilloried (of course, most fundies were already boycotting anything relating to Disney because {horror!} they dared give equal rights to gay couples for benefits and had a "gay Day" there, but that's beside the point)...my family raged for days about the expose because "Oh god, they make us all out to be cultists or something" (I hate to inform them, but, well, if the shoe fits...I'd think instead of ranting at ABC maybe you should do some serious soul-searching on whether the chuch is doing the Right Thing or not, but then again, I walked away and I dare to be sensible about the whole thing instead of getting my panties in a wad)...read your newspaper's editorials everytime someone dares suggest that the Religious Right and theocracy or even putting the Ten Commandments in schools might possibly not be the be-all, end-all to the world's problems to get an idea of just WHAT kinds of cain they do raise.) Burger King and Pepsi, among others, have literally been bullied out of running certain adverts or sponsoring programs because of letter-writing campaigns by the American Family Association (a hard-line Religious Right lobbying group which has some decidedly homophobic tendencies); many ABC affiliates were likewise bullied into not carrying "NYPD Blue" during its first two seasons for the same reason.

3). Now, to a direct point I was going to mention--hate to break it to you, but the PMRC is by no bloody means liberal. Tipper Gore (and Al Gore) are (as noted above) right-moderate AT MOST; the other co-founder, oddly enough, just happens to be Elizabeth Dole, wifey of Bob Dole and onetime candidate for the 2000 GOP nomination for President. One of the founding members was Susan Baker (wife of Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III (R)).

More to the point, though, the PMRC has many a link to Religious Right groups. First off, they have carried advertising in PMRC literature for "Back In Control Training Center" and other "training centers"; Back In Control was basically an inpatient program run by two former LAPD officers which was advertised to "de-metal" or "de-punk" kids, which was in effect a brainwashing center with links to the Religious Right and which has claimed, among other things, that Wiccans are Satanists and that the Magen David (the Jewish star) is a Satanic symbol and that if kids are wearing "gothy" or "metal" clothing this is a sure sign of Satan-worship. Back In Control has also worked with a lot of police departments and schools, and (ObSlashdot) is one of the groups that is directly responsible for kids being harassed and worse after Columbine for wearing "goth" clothing. (More info here,here (in passing, but in direct relation to how Back In Control Training Center has been heavily promoted by the PMRC), and here.)

Also, they've promoted and used material from Bob Larson Ministries; for those who aren't aware, Bob Larson is a "foamin' fundy" radio preacher who, among other things, promotes censorship and the whole Religious Right agenda. Among other things, he's called peace symbols and the Nike swoosh Satanic symbols (no, I'm not making this up) as well as the good old canard about the Magen David supposedly being a Satanic symbol. More info here (or the newer version here--the "Bob Larson Fan Site"--trust me, the kinds of horsesheisse Larson spews is the kind that must be seen for itself to be believed), and a lovely expose in a British Columbia Christian mag here. Yes, the PMRC actually promoted material from this nut :P

Incidentially, you can confirm all the info above by getting a copy of the book "50 Ways To Fight Censorship" by Dave Marsh (head of Rock and Rap Confidential, and the guy who coined the phrase "rock and roll" incidentially). It's out of print, but most better libraries do have a copy, and if you can't find it there, there are all manner of online bookstores who could probably scare up a copy for you.

Oh, and if you wondered whether the PMRC still has links to the Religious Right...the answer, darling, is an emphatic yes. The present head, one Barbara Wyatt, just happens (ironically) to also sit on the board of Focus on the Family (!)...more info here (again, thank you Google; the more recent version is here, btw), and here.

And BTW, just for the record--I don't have an agenda, other than being a walkaway from a Bible-based cult who really does not the US to descend into a theocracy (I lived under one for all intents and purposes for 25 years of my life; trust me, it sucks, and it will suck twenty times worse if they can get their theocracy nationwide) and who knows all too well both the mindset these folks operate under and the real danger (to freedom and, ultimately, to the psyches of both their memberships and those who are family to them) these groups ultimately present. In essence, I don't want the rest of y'all on Slashdot to have to put up with what I had to put up with for 25 years of my life, and an especially hellish thirteen years after I walked away and I had to live in a household of which the majority of people were raving fundies (and the rest of my family was, slowly but steadily, being assimilated by the Bible-Based Cult Of Borg). It sucks. Bigtime. :P (I note this because, when I made a little post exposing the agenda of the Family Research Council, I was accused of having an agenda. Sorry, I've got no more of an agenda than a kid who's been abused has in getting the abuse to stop. :P)

• CTS page with computer info
• UofChi MD CTS summary
• Yahoo! Health CTS page
• Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT). CMT is a hereditary progressive neuromuscular disorder which can be confused with CTS.
• CTS summary

I wrote some more detailed comments at
http://www.ultranet.com/~bem/colorado.txt
I hope some of you will take the time to read it.

Basically, I agree that there's a lot wrong with high school, but i don't think that's why these guys cracked. Sometimes I think it just comes down to there being something wrong with the individuals involved. I do know that crackdowns such as banning trenchcoats and such are just plain misguided, though. Going into a school and killing a bunch of people is not about their choice in fashion.

I just wish people would stop looking for the simple answer. Sometimes, there is none. We may never know why exactly this happened, and there's a pretty good chance that nothing we could have done would have prevented it.

--
'I love it when somebody's own sig describes how much they suck so much
more concisely and elegantly than I possibly ever could.'