Slashdot Mirror
'Nuclear Free' Maryland City Grants Waiver For HP
dcblogs writes "The City of Takoma Park, Md. this week granted a waiver to its public library to allow it to use some new HP hardware, whose products are otherwise banned under its 'nuclear free zone' ordinance. That law, adopted in 1983 one month after the Cold War-era movie 'The Day After' was aired, prohibits the city from buying equipment from any company connected to U.S. nuclear weapons production. The library bought new Linux-based, x86 systems from a Canadian vendor and didn't realize the vendor was using HP hardware. The hardware arrived in April and was unused until the Takoma Park city council granted it a waiver this week. The city's list of banned contractors was developed in 2004 by a now inactive group, Nuclear Free America, and hasn't been updated since."
Movies, not reason, dictates their city policy.
How much funding does the city have set aside to fight off 'illegal restraint of trade' lawsuits?
... then you'd realize that this was the least of their worries.
So, if say, Intel and AMD. Both fund a bit of nuclear stuff, the city cant buy PC's?
Really? Can not buy anything from a company that is related to US nuclear weapons production? Really? What a stupid do nothing make everybody feel good while accomplishing nothing lets all hold hands and sing Kumbaya crap law!
I guess they don't use any gasoline since the oil companies sell fuel used to move nuclear weapons. Or any Aluminum since they use Aluminum to build the missiles...
Yeah this made such a difference....
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Maybe they should extend the ban to companies involved with biowarfare (agar, petri dishes, thermal control chambers), or to cyberwarfare (Microsoft, RedHat, and your son's best friend who became a script kiddy last night).
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
"Nuclear free" is sooo 1980s. It's all about "greenness" now. You need to update your pc checklists monthly.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Hey, how did all these dead insects end up in the grill of my Prius?" exclaimed the militant vegan...
The whole state is a subsidiary of the defense industry.
Because illegal aliens tend to be anti-nuke?
Typical posturing twits.
Umfortunately the city government still allows the worst nuclear offender of all -- people with penises.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Takoma Park has long been a center for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and 7DAs tend to be pacifists.
When Pixar was still a hardware company making graphics accelerators, Steve sold one to a DOD contractor. He had to get a security clearance to do so. Someone got the clearance data using FOI and posted a couple weeks ago. Both this and Nuclear Free Zones is some extreme government bureaucracy.
ahhh, Takoma Park, MD! If you lived in that town, you'd be pretty pissed about the waiver, actually.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I can corroborate the above post. And when you add any precipitation to the mix, Marylanders lose their minds (both with respects to automobile driving and computer usage).
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Many cities and other municipalities have ordinances like this. Why is this one instance news? If a municipality decides to operate under these constraints, it seems like something that only the citizens of the municipality would really care about.
Unless maybe HP wants to apply external pressure, so they hire someone to post internet messages, create a disproportional external response to this internal rule to try to overwhelm them and force additional waivers or repeal?
I should disclose that I live in a city that has several of these ordinances. We ban work with nuclear manufacturers, bio- and chemical weapon manufacturers, companies with investments in apartheid (that need to be reviewed and repealed), companies with investments in countries with human rights abuses, companies that invest heavily in tobacco and oil, and all sorts of other things. Our city council also vigorously weighs in on all sorts of US national policies, with all sorts of other symbolic gestures. Some other cities point at us and laugh, but heck, it makes the majority of our citizens feel better about ourselves and our community.
And to correct the misleading statement in the summary, the city was deliberating on this ban BEFORE the movie "The Day After." While that absurd movie may have driven some furor, the issue was raised before the movie and at least some of the citizens still feel that acting locally against something that has global implications is worth their energies: "We feel it's important to make a stand against what we consider to be a potentially destructive force for the whole planet."
I've known several people that have lived in Tacoma Park. It's definitely got an ex-hippie vibe. Pretty nice place, though.
Because illegal aliens tend to be anti-nuke?
No, because they almost exclusively vote Democrat.
Regardless of any good reasons you might have to like the Democrats, it is they who stand to benefit from voter fraud and allowing illegal aliens to vote. That's why they raise such a huge stink whenever the requirement of photo ID to vote is mentioned. They use their old standby of how "racist" this would be, even though a photo ID is free in some states and very cheap in others. Not to mention it's racist of THEM to suggest that just because someone is Black or Hispanic they automatically can't afford a small fee.
Anyway when it comes to illegals voting or standard voter fraud (dead people voting, etc), I wouldn't want the Republicans to get votes this way. Why should the Democrats get a pass? I don't think enough people appreciate just how critically important it is that we have honest elections. Rigged elections are a threat to our very way of life in this country.
Oh no. Someone might vote in the opposite party to you.
How horrible. Or something.
You might make a slightly less poor argument if you say it's unconstitutional for any non US citizen to vote for any level of government in the US. Rather than rant on.
Plenty of Democrats are pro-nuke. So you're lacking a middle term for your syllogism. Even if it is true that most illegal immigrants that vote do so for Democrats, that doesn't explain why it's no surprise that the city council (and the voters at large in the city) are both anti-nuke and supportive of suffrage for non-citizens in local elections.
Moreover, this is not about voter fraud. This is about a city that lawfully has broader criteria for who gets to vote in local elections. It's not about state or federal elections which have their criteria set by the state and federal government. So there is no fraud at hand.
Would someone be in a position to tell us how much of their electrical power comes from nuclear reactors? I'm thinking they should disconnect form the grid until we know for sure...
It was settled predominantly by Seventh Day Adventists as a safe spot for Seventh Day Adventists. So the laws in place tend to reflect the morals of that faith. For a long time, the city was dry. (Although the liquor laws are being liberalized of late.) There is an emphasis on sustainability. In the sixties and seventies, this sort of policy attracted quite a few hippies, utopians and other individuals with pretty left wing ideas. Since the city is a democratic experiment in progress, over time, city policy came to also reflect these values in some ways. As the demographics continue to change, the city's laws and government will also continue to change.
So it's not really a matter of pushing beliefs. It's a matter of people voting their conscience at the ballot box.
Do they refuse to accept tax payments from any residents who are employed by any company with ties to the nuclear industry? Because that would be blood money, yanno?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Takoma Park has long been a center for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and 7DAs tend to be pacifists.
Just FYI, Takoma Park's liberalness (which includes a bead store, vegan restaurants and the rest) has little to do with the Adventists, who aren't really a force in town. Instead, Takoma Park has a long hippy tradition and is filled with aging boomers who moved to the community because of its reputation as a liberal enclave. It's often referred to as the "Berkely of the East" and other such monickers.
My favorite nuclear free story growing up was that the police department looked for a while like it was going to have to buy Volvo squad cars, because every other major manufacturer had some toe hold in nuclear weapons. Not sure how they managed to avoid that, but they did. Similarly, when the transit authority wanted to build a major highway right through the middle of Takoma Park (which at that point was a sleepy middle class suburb full of WWII bungallos), the local community rallied together and killed the massive highway plan on the Maryland side of Washington, DC. Those techies in Northern Virginia who enjoy the Mixed Bowl during their morning commute see what could have happened to Maryland. Of course, nothing's that simple -- but it's refreshing that there's still a place that combates global warming by banning gasoline-powered lawn mowers.....
Takoma Park was a great place to grow up. Crazy as they are, it's refreshing to have such a community of idealists. Even though it seems like the whole community has gentrified over the last few years, I still love it, even as I've transitioned to the Dark Side (business! Eeek!)
You can't expect people on the East Coast not to have some Berkeleys? I think it's charming as long as there are just a handfull of them. I think there are some cities in New York like this. Isn't Chapaqua (sp.?) like that? Every once in a while, the town council makes the news. I used to drive through there all the time. They have little "Nuclear Free Zone" signs when you enter. Precious.
They watched a movie and made up a political agenda because of said movie. Good god Im glad not everyone is so stupid as to buy into movies that are made and skewed to view an opinion that was from like 25 years. Thats as stupid as not doing business with someone today because their great grandparents were slave owners. I hope they dont watch a michael moore film then if they are that guillible.
Say what? ANY company "involved"?
I suspect to make nuclear weapons, you need, like, EVERYTHING. Bricks, mortar, screwdrivers, voltmeters, paper, pencils, pens, pipes (lots of pipes), cars, gasoline, welding rods, drill presses, lathes, etc, etc, etc, etc..............
I think you'd be blocking the buying of almost everything, except maybe nail salon services.
That passed that law in response to a fucking movie should be beaten with a sack of door knobs.
nuclear power is NOT the bomb!
How do they handle smoke detection, since the radioactive americium detectors in them are all manufactured by defense contractors that also work with other nuclear materials, including bombs?
Ultimately it comes down to the city wasting the money on the HP equipment. I guess the pocket book was a bigger influence, than their ideals. Perhaps there is hope after all that reason will ultimately win over knee-jerk reactions.
It really is impossible for government (local, state, or federal) to kill a program, isn't it?
Just for SOMEONE to say "you know, this may have been a good idea, but now it's just stupid, let's stop this"?
Please note that the Rural Electrification Administration - a 1935 New Deal office set up to bring electricity to US farms - still exists.
1935 11% of farms had electricity
1949 mandate was expanded, to allow the REA to offer federal loans to local telephone co-ops
1952 98% of farms had electricity...agency still not dead.
1994 agency renamed the Rural Utilities Service
The role of the current agency is hilariously described in Wiki:
"The RUS administrator makes the primary policy and program decisions for the agency and is assisted by a borrower and program support staff that includes a financial services staff, an administrative liaison staff, and a program accounting services division. Because of the financial nature of the agency's work, the administrator and associated staff work closely with two other agencies that are not part of the USDA, the Federal Financing Bank (FFB)--and the former Rural Telephone Bank (RTB), which was dissolved in 2006. These banks provide the funds for many of the loan programs administered by the RUS.
The program functions of the RUS are divided into three operating units: water and waste, electric, and telecommunications, each led by an assistant administrator. The administrator and staff concentrate on the financial details of individual RUS projects, and these three operating units provide the engineering and technical personnel to plan and execute projects."
Which pretty much translates to a self-justifying rationale any Byzantine Emperor would have been proud to call his own.
-Styopa
This is why I like the idea of having ALL laws auto-sunset every 10 years(or so).
1. Keep legislatures busy re-approving old laws rather than passing new
2. Get a review of the old laws going.
I don't read AC A human right
They should be using a local vendor ... local to them. There are plenty around there.
This is a bold, assertive policy that will have a major impact on world peace and stability. You go, Takoma Park, all 17,000 and 2.36 square miles of you.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Guess who else is connected to nuclear weapons production? The federal government.
This is what happens when you have ONE legislative body or even two that are elected the same way.
Ideally you want at LEAST two that are elected in a different enough way that there would be a culture difference between the two houses. The only legislation that gets passed is what can be agreed upon by BOTH bodies.
Checks and balances.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yes, it's blatently illegal even in the USA. Still, it's for a very small town with a population of like 50, which is all about as white as you can get in the midwest. It's also old. It's not on anybody's priority list, not even mine. I knew it was a non-enforceable law, but wanted to get rid of it to prevent it from being abused by some joker. Such abuse being unlikely unless things massively change there.
I don't read AC A human right
Oh no. Someone might vote in the opposite party to you.
Yes, they might. And if they are a legal citizen and followed all the rules just like I did, I have no problem with that. May the better candidate win!
This is hard to understand? Of course not. Just another standard tactic, conflating issues to deliberately miss the point.
You might make a slightly less poor argument if you say it's unconstitutional for any non US citizen to vote for any level of government in the US. Rather than rant on.
Is it wrong because it's unconstitutional, or is it unconstitutional because it's wrong? Either way it's both wrong AND unconstitutional. What other country even considers allowing illegal aliens to vote? Mexico? Hah. Tell you what, I propose we harmonize our immigration laws to match those of Mexico. That would mean making them MUCH stricter and more draconian.
It's pure insanity that things like this are even a controversy.
Does the US not have any part of the US constitution that forbids laws from discriminating like that?
Yes. The 14th Amendment is probably what you are looking for. It mandates equal protection under the law and was the basis for landmark civil rights decisions such as Brown vs Board of Education.
Since the healthcare mandate says by not purchasing you are participating in the market for healthcare insurance, isn't Takoma's discrimination against nuclear-industry involved suppliers participation in the nuclear industry market?
...for the Lulz.
The nuclear contractor base includes MANY subcontractors and buys from MANY suppliers.
"Torgerson said it is difficult to determine whether a company is connected to U.S. nuclear weapons production. "
It's difficult to determine they are NOT.
If a company does business with the General Services Administration their products are almost inevitably going to be used at nuclear production facilities. The ubiquitous Skilcraft blind-made products are used throughout government and military service. Their excellent green notebooks have been helping the US take lives for decades!
Anyone with current Fed Log and GSA catalog access and knowledge of what a municipality buys could connect the dots easily.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I didn't buy that either side would actually go through with it, no matter how much posturing was done. What person really wants to be responsible for the termination of life on earth?
Probably no one but there are numerous documented cases of the USA and USSR almost launching nukes at each other due to equipment malfunctions and other errors. The safes with the launch codes were kept with a combination of 0000000 (or something similar) to make it easier to launch. Solar effects caused monitoring satellites to falsely report launches and the only thing that stopped a retaliation was a level headed military officer.
While the chances of a nuclear war were/are low, they weren't and aren't zero. People aren't always rational and all it takes is a small number of crazy people to cause a huge problem. Worse, it should be obvious by now that there are some people who are suicidal and would be perfectly content to take you and a million of your closest friends with them to the grave.
If anything, the term "Indian" is a big laugh at Columbus's expense. He was the most lost person ever -- as in, having made the largest navigational error in history. Even "Wrong-Way" Corrigan wasn't that far off.
That's nothing, I know of guys who listen to their iTunes libraries while designing stuff related to nuclear weapons and missiles, in complete violation of the iTunes EULA! (See section g).
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
How much funding does the city have set aside to fight off 'illegal restraint of trade' lawsuits?
Well if the law states anywhere that the city should be "nuclear free" an alternative tack might be to insist on enforcement. Given that all atoms contain a nucleus the only course of action would be to demolish the city and relocate the inhabitants. The only nuclear free city is one which does not exist...unless someone can figure out how to build a city using dark matter.
penis whale goat anus vagina pancake squirrel midget.
Isn't the Federal govt involved in nuclear arms?
I'm wondering if the current incarnation of "Hewlett Packard" is even the company they want to be boycotting. HP is now a maker of commodity PCs and printers.
I'm thinking that back in 1983, HP's high end test and measurement gear was probably used for monitoring weapons tests at Los Alamos, etc. (along with similar products from Tektronix, LeCroy, GenRad, Fluke, and every other test and measurement vendor under the sun.), but that entire division was spun off into a completely separate company, Agilent Technologies.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
But since they're already at it, they should escalate the pressure, something along the lines of massive flyer campaign, perhaps even the T-shirts with catchy slogan. And of course, we have progressed since the times of shooting the Red Dwarf, so today the townsfolk could also collectively join some Facebook group that emphatically disagrees with nuclear weapons.
Then they could have public viewing of Threads, it's better than The Day After.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
" but it's refreshing that there's still a place that combates global warming by banning gasoline-powered lawn mowers..... "
What's refreshing about it? Did you enjoy grand pointless gestures.
Takoma Park is a joke, but at least they keep their stupidity to themselves.
Unfortunately, the rest of the county is run be even stupider people, and frankly we have a governor Martin O'Malley who, no kidding, is a functionally retarded person. He can barely speak in complete sentences. He thinks he wants to be president.
valid then, valid now. i'm more worried about them buying stuff from a dying company.
In my memory, it didn't. I'm not saying it was a well written law, even for the time.
I don't read AC A human right