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ELF Knocks Down AM Towers To Save Earth, Intercoms
ScentCone writes "The ELF (Earth Liberation Front) has claimed responsibility for destroying the primary AM towers used by radio station KRKO in Washington state. From their statement: 'AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.' The poor intercom performance must have been the last straw."
AM radio causes cancer?
...well maybe your home intercom *is* in danger... won't someone please think of the intercoms?!?
I'm from Jamaica, the show-me island. So show me you're blowing it out your fanny!
(obligatory Futurama reference)
I wonder if any of these ELF people understand physics... Radio behaves according to the inverse square law; in effect, your cellphone exposes you to much more power than all the cell towers around you, simply due to it being much closer. Similarly, any local transmitter you have (e.g. microwave ovens, CRTs, wifi APs, high-speed digital circuitry, etc) will expose you to more power than those far-away broadcast towers. Unless the AM radio tower is in your backyard, you are probably not in tremendous danger...
What a bunch of fucking idiots.
Oh my God, these ELF guys are dumber than a box of hammers. Put their brains in a matchbox and they'll rattle around like a bunch of bbs in a boxcar. Where the hell is the science that shows an AM tower a mile away from your home is giving you cancer? Or hell, a hundred meters from your home? These retards will believe whatever junk science validates their owned warped view and they never fucking question it, defending it to the death. Fuck 'em. Lock these idiots up.
They should have just wrapped the towers in tin foil.
First, damage to property is not violence. The proper response is to seize the assets of anyone connected with the plot, and prosecute the case as a crime.
Second, no one should condone irrational behavior like this. But before you go after the environmentalists with guns, you should probably consider that in the grand scheme of things, the loss of AM towers are the tiniest problems facing the nation right now.
If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association. Or you can arrest the criminals who participated in the act, force the dissolution of the rest of the group unless they officially renounce property damage as a method of protest, and actually take care of the problem.
Because they hide behind this agenda of "defending nature" when everything they do is politically and financially motivated. Green peace, peta, these "elf" too.. Green peace are BigOil's puppets, don't even get me started on peta...
No, no, no. No need to group the treehuggers, the illiterate, nor the morons in with ELF. ELF is a bunch of lunatics who strive to be the most notable domestic terrorists. They'll usually burn cars, buildings (every good environmentalist likes a good bon fire, right?), and I guess knock over radio antennas now.
Since it's decentralized in nature, any nut can say they're ELF. Well, just like any nut can say they're Al-Qaeda. You'd have to be a nut to say you're aligned with either one though. Well, I guess you'd have to be a nut to go around burning things just because you felt they did you wrong.
Speaking of which, I feel a cigarette has done me wrong, so I'm going to burn one rather than reading any more about Nutjubs Inc. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The electromagnetic spectrum is not a hard concept to grasp. Radio waves are about the most harmless radiation there is. They have a lower frequency than microwaves, infrared, or fucking ordinary visible light. Are they going to blow up the sun next?
Yet another group of ignorant children playing dangerous games in the adult world. Sigh.
But they are right about the interference issue. I live a little more than a mile away from AM towers, and they cause all kinds of goofy stuff. Anything with speakers or headphones is an AM radio here. I had to buy new equipment to get rid of the interference via trial and error with my wallet. I used to dismiss the Brady Bunch episode where Jan's braces picked up a radio station. But now it seems plausible.
However, I assure you I have no plans to bomb it. Although, I'd like give them a 20-foot finger.
Table-ized A.I.
Say it with me:
"This is why we need science education"
"This is why we need science education"
"This is why we need science education"
Why the "treehugging" qualifier?
Because these people don't want to "save" the planet for man... they place the planet above man. They view this not as our home, but view people as inferior, a parasite on their world. We call them treehuggers because these people are essentially a pagan earth cult. They're a Gaia-worshipping Luddite movement.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"Y'know, I can almost respect them for torching SUVs "
If you can almost respect them for destroying someone else's property, then you're almost as much as asshole as they are.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
we are going to need to burn some oil and release more CO2 into the air as we transport workers and materials in the rebuilding effort. I'm glad the ELF thought this through.
Disclaimers: I live a few houses down from the station owner, so I've followed this for a while. I was a broadcast engineer in a past life (even did some contracting at a former iteration of this station.)
Here is the story from the local paper: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090905/NEWS01/709059909&news01ad=1 (good set of pictures)
From the Seattle Times version: "Andy Skotdal, general manager of the family-owned sports-radio station, isn't convinced ELF is responsible, even though the group's North American press office in Washington, D.C., issued a news release and posted an item on its national Web site Friday saying it was.
He suspects disgruntled locals who have long opposed the siting of the towers on 40 acres of farmland may have taken matters into their own hands after losing a key ruling in King County Superior Court a few weeks ago.
"My suspicion is, it's somebody local," Skotdal, whose family has owned the station for 20 years, said by phone Friday as he watched dozens of sheriff's detectives and FBI agents comb the property for evidence. "It could be somebody painting ELF on a banner to throw off suspicion."
In the same story, the FBI sees a few things that point to ELF but they are only a day into the investigation. I'd lay away from making a call right now on who is responsible.
Either way, stealing a excavator, driving it through a muddy field and pulling down two towers has to leave a good amount of evidence. I'm also thinking that the guy wires must have been cut too, just to keep from kill the machine operator on the first tower.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association.
I agree with all of your post except this point. Unlike many Islamic terrorist groups, the ELF rarely if ever takes any sort of positive action "back home" to draw in sympathy (e.g. Hamas and Hezbollah run charity hospitals). Additionally, those organizations have an enemy that is widely reviled by their neighbors and considered a threat to their lives and way of life (i.e. Israel and the US). Sympathy for terrorism only happens when normal people feel there's some sort justification for the terrorists' actions.
ELF, in contrast, strikes out seemingly randomly at many targets that are not nearly the worst offenders, like the radio station here or by burning an entire car dealership for selling SUVs. Worse for them, the rest of the green movement is generally filled with people who respect principles of nonviolence and wouldn't support such against against even the worst offenders. That's why next to no one has any sympathy for ELF; they're practically green anarchists. I'm about as tree-hugging as you can get, but absolutely NO environmentalist that I know has ANY sympathy for these losers.
Personally, I'd be happy if they were all locked up so that those of us who aren't violent radicals wouldn't have to have them used against us by people on the other side of the debate.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Maybe AM radio causes cancer, maybe it doesn't. Why take a chance? From now on, I'm only going to listen to FM.
Ferrite cores. If you put them on the wires picking up the signal, it's supposed to stop the pickup.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Y'know, I can almost respect them for torching SUVs - If the government won't tell people "No, you may not drive a vehicle that presents a significant danger* to everyone else on the road, without special training for the appropriate license class", then perhaps fear of having their car burn down one night kept at least a few people driving more realistic vehicles.
So lemme get this straight. You almost respect them for:
- extreme vandalism,
- severely inconveniencing people who rely on their vehicles, which also inconveniences the people who rely on them,
- causing a metric fuckton of air pollution all in one go,
- risking catching something else or someone on fire,
- destroying an SUV that will likely be replaced with ANOTHER SUV, thus INCREASING the demand for them,
because you think the LICENSE BUREAU isn't doing a good job? Would you respect them more or less if you thought they were burning SUVs because the patent office isn't doing a good job?
I always knew that GCC produced gigantic ELF files, but big enough to knock over an AM tower? This is just ridiculous.
I'd never associate with the Earth Liberation Front. Now the Liberation Front of Earth, that's what it's all about. Not like those bastards in the Frontier for Earthern Liberation.
Also, watch out for ground loops. If you plug your computer into your power strip, and then plug an amplifier into the analog audio out connector, and then plug your amp into the outlet, you've created a loop antenna in the ground system (there's a loop running from power strip to computer to amp to power strip, because the audio out cable has 2 single-ended signal lines plus a ground line). Getting rid of such loops can be hard (cutting the ground line in the audio cable doesn't entirely solve the problem and has its own issues, for example), but being aware of them and minimizing the area that they enclose can help dramatically.
I saw an example where the problem was exactly as above, and until they moved the power cables around to shrink the loop the local AM station always played on the speakers.
A tower outside of Allentown, PA was deliberately felled the same night. As it was a guyed tower, the vandals cut the guys to bring it down.
Ah, but if the 'leaders' of these 'ecowarriors' go to jail, who will lead the 'troops'? You send the 'troops' to jail, but keep the 'leaders' free to inspire more and more violent actions in the name of ELF, etc.
ELF, btw, is 'descended' from an outfit called Earth First!, who include people like convicted arsonist Rod Coronado as sterling examples of the 'best' that they offer. No wonder PETA likes nutjobs like him, they make PETA look 'moderate'.
I was talking with an ecofreak once who told me that the 'carrying capacity' of Earth for humans is on the order of 500 million tops. So, with about 7 billion people on the planet at the moment, seems 13 of 14 need to die & join the compost heap. I'd asked the ecofreak if he was volunteering to be one of the first into the compost heap. He told me 'Of course not, they need me to show them the way'. Seems I hear similar things from any of the econutters out there; they're the only ones who can save us from ourselves as long as we do what they say.
I say, compost 'em first.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that PETA kills animals. Not a handful of animals. Thousands.
Perhaps it also has to do with calling feeding kids meat child abuse.
Maybe it could be with this not so tactful ad.
Or maybe he's offended by PETA's ads that make mothers out to be murderers.
Then PETA goes on to say that dad's a psychopathic killer.
SSC
First off, "carrying capacity" estimates are all over the map. True, 0.5B may be the "low impact" carrying capacity, but even that's not a zero-impact - according to something I saw on TV, we have archaeological evidence that pre-Columbian Americans ruined fisheries and caused other localized environmental damage.
Second off, even if we were beyond capacity, the answer lies in encouraging low birth rates without resorting to China-esque techniques, more responsible stewardship of the natural resources we have, advances in science to feed more people with less environmental impact, and in the very long term, space exploration and colonization.
Mother Nature will also put in some degree of population control: As we have a few mega-disasters every century, each one will kill hundreds of thousands rather than the tens of thousands or thousands it would kill if we only had 0.5B spread roughly evenly around the habitable parts of the planet.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If inducing a current merely causes "an increase in temperature", please explain how radio communication works...
At the broadest perspective, sure, any energy input is "an increase in temperature". When you set up your crystal radio to receive AM transmissions, yes indeedy, the thing does warm up a bit as it absorbs EM radiation. (Even though some if it is turned into mechanical energy in the earpiece, it's not 100% efficient.) But describing the operation of the radio as "an increase in temperature" is misleading, to put it kindly.
Can non-ionizing EM radiation have an effect on biological systems? You are, quite literally, looking at the answer.
Can EM radiation in the radio range at low intensity have an effect on biological systems? I dunno. Consider the hot and cold spots that arise as you microwave your burrito. Could very mild but uneven heating have an effect?
If something "gets a little warmer", chemical reactions are affected. If you don't understand this last sentence then please go take a chemistry class and come back.
The scientific way of answering the question "does EM radiation effect biological systems" is to observe biological systems that have been exposed to various sorts of EM radiation and see if there are any effects. Saying "our models don't allow for such effects, therefore they cannot exist" is faith-based reasoning, not science.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
KRKO only broadcast local sports, no political programming whatsoever. I feel compelled to add: "you gigantic idiot."
You could have spent 5 seconds looking that up, you know. It's not like the radio station's format is classified. Hey look, they even have a website: http://www.krko.com/
Comment of the year
In 2006 PETA found new homes for a grand total of 12 animals on a $31m budget. The rest were killed.
Source: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=288&issue=021
The government can't save you.
The size of the loop makes a difference. Consider two devices connected by a shielded signal cable. If they are plugged into the same power outlet, the loop is no larger than the length of the power cords and the signal cable. The safety grounds come together at the outlet. There should be no significant current flowing in the power cord safety grounds.
Now plug the two devices into different outlets. The outlet safety grounds might not come together any closer than the electrical panel. In theory, safety grounds only carry current during a malfunction. In practice, there are induced currents and leakage. One outlet's ground may carry leakage from a furnace blower motor, and the other does not. Cable TV coax is should be tied to the electrical panel ground where the coax enters the house. This means that the coax shield forms another large ground loop when connected to any single-ended device with a safety ground, for example audio equipment.
Devices powered from different outlets should not be connected by single-ended signal cables. Professional audio uses balanced connections, and the shield is usually only connected at the input side. You can put a ground isolation balun in the cable TV coax where it connects to your TV. If all of your home entertainment devices are plugged into the same outlet, and you isolate the cable TV ground, you should not have hum. Keep the cable short, and you shouldn't have RF problems. Speaker cables are long enough to act as antennas, so if you live near a transmitter, you may want to put ferrite cores on the cables near the amplifier.
Can non-ionizing EM radiation have an effect on biological systems? You are, quite literally, looking at the answer.
Excellent example - you beat me to it :) In case the OP is a bit slow (likely!): a photon in the visible light spectrum is non-ionizing, yet it is able to excite photoreceptor cells in the retina by causing a molecule (appropriately named retinal) to isomerize, which catalyzes a whole chain of chemical reactions.
For that matter... if you really wanted to rub it in you could have even pointed out that heat receptors do roughly the same thing, so "an increase in temperature" directly causes chemical reactions in your skin!
Why is it always the people with the fewest facts who are the most arrogant, and start throwing around insults first? ;)
Of course, that being said, I'm sure we all agree that the ELF is a bunch of wackos, and your body absorbs thousands of times more radiation standing outside for a few minutes than it ever would from an AM antenna. We better be careful, their next terrorist act may be to destroy the sun!
And no, there aren't two equal but opposing viewpoints regarding EM. There's right and wrong. Fact and fiction.
Oh, that's just your viewpoint, which is equally valid as my viewpoint, which is that right and wrong are subjective and decided largely by volume of ranting and by a sense of fairness, such that even my made up bullshit gets to be right for a day every once in a while.
And on that day, AM radio towers will cure cancer. I demand an equal amount of airtime for my view as for you and ELF on the non-AM media channels.
The enemies of Democracy are
You know it occurred to me just now that these people with their orgone or whatevers, you know the things with the quartz crystals... They claim that somehow the crystals absorb the EM waves or something; I honestly don't really know the entire spiel.
What do you think would happen if we told them that radio waves are generated using a quartz crystal oscillator? Head explosion? Rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth?
Sadly, it would probably go something like this little conversation I had with my vegan friend:
"It's terrible to kill and eat animals. It's not natural."
"So, should we kill all the wolves and tigers and ferrets? They kill and eat animals."
"That's different because they're natural."
"What are humans, then? Aliens?"
"We have self awareness, so we have the duty to be kind to animals."
"So if animals aren't self-aware, wouldn't that mean that they don't have souls or feel pain?"
"..."
"If wolves became self-aware and stopped eating meat, they'd become sick and maybe die. They have evolved to be carnivores."
"Yeah but humans haven't, we have molars."
"We also have incisors."
"That's for berries."
[facepalm, walk away]
She has a degree in teaching, btw.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Your entire post could be summed up as "I understand a little about radio and microwaves and its effects on animals and humans, and assume nobody else has ever studied this completely new phenomenon".
The truth is people HAVE studied radio and microwaves and its effects on animals/humans for many many years. They've also studied the 50/60 HZ radiation produced by power lines. The conclusions are that it's not harmful. Speculating about what it COULD do and coming up with pet theories about just how it MIGHT harm someone is not science, it's nonsense.
Your own ignorance is not other peoples ignorance. People like yourself who are willfully ignorant and who sit around speculating about how the unobserved harmful effect just MIGHT work are the reason I see stupid marketing on floor heating product about how their amazing technology cancels the EM radiation. Next I'll see marketing on bricks about how their amazing brick technology cancels all the virtual particles created in the empty space within atoms in the bricks. This makes it so the bricks don't gain mass over time.
AccountKiller