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Protesters Block Effort To Restart Work On Controversial Hawaii Telescope
sciencehabit writes: An attempt to restart construction on what would be one of the world's largest telescopes was blocked yesterday, after state authorities escorting construction vehicles clashed with protesters blockading the road to the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano. Officers from Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), and construction workers for the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), turned back from the summit shortly after noon Wednesday, citing concerns for public safety after finding the road blocked by boulders. The withdrawal followed several hours of clashes with Native Hawaiian protesters blockading the road, culminating in the arrests of 11 men and women, including several protest organizers. The protesters have said the $1.4 billion TMT would desecrate sacred land.
Tired.
$Bignum will appease the gods.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
No doubt once someone starts talking $$$ the natives sing a different tune very quickly. We deal with this same kind of bullshit in Canada.
It isn't any more sacred than a church is. The people doing this protesting are no better than those who would block laws being passed in a country because they didn't go in line with their religion.
You know what? You throw a stick in the air around here it falls on some sacred fern.
if they dont move, run um over
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
They block the very thing that would likely keep the area underdeveloped. I think it likely they actually want more development and more money.
Shouldn't this read, Extortionists Block Effort To Restart Work On Controversial Hawaii Telescope? I would call them luddites, but's it's not about technology. This is hijacking science for profit in the name of religion and their naked greed needs exposed for the shakedown that it is.
make the best hamburger.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It's about time for religious groups to be informed, in no uncertain terms, that religious freedom is always constrained by the rule of the law. Until recently, religion was the law. Not any more. Learn to live with it.
Note the huge error, the denial of those persons, their culture and their heritage "sacred sites in Hawaiian religion and culture". This repeated denial of equal existence by Immigrants that stole the land but deny the people. It is not "sacred sites in Hawaiian religion and culture", a denial that they are American, it is "sacred sites in Hawaiian American, religion and culture". They are meant to be Americans, their culture and religion are mean to be American culture and religion and not somehow be publicly defined as be foreign and those people are being foreigners. This is repeated again and again in immigrant dominated societies, the complete denial of those original inhabitants as being real citizens, they are foreigners in the own land, who hold foreign non-Immigrant cultures and beliefs and whose history is not Immigrant America, it is foreign to Immigrant America but the immigrant capitalists of course still want that land whilst they was want to denying the people and who those people are. Hawaii culture and religion is 'American' culture and religion and you are horribly racist and prejudiced if you believe any different (one element of it, of course, not the totality of American culture and religion). They are meant to be Americans and hence their culture and religion are meant to be American and not denied by immigrants as being somehow foreign to those immigrants and thus denied in a country now predominately occupied and controlled by foreign immigrants.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Then a telescope?
But ... those are sacred boulders! They shouldn't be rolling them around willy-nilly across white man's roads. If the natives aren't going to respect every last little part of Mauna Kea, then why should we?
Have gnu, will travel.
A casino instead.
The governor of Hawaii tried a compromise where they would decomission 4 old telescopes, to be able to build this new one.
It was rejected.
My suggestion is, ante up on the compromise. Promise to build the new one on the site of one of the old ones. In other words, don't create any more development on undeveloped land, which seems to be a big part of the what the protestors object to.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
There are over a dozen telescopes at the same site where they intend to build the TMT, some of which have been there since the late 60s. Their complaints that their "most sacred site will be desecrated" seem to be a bit late. I think there has already been an agreement to remove quite a few of the current telescopes to revert a significant portion of the site to a more natural state. There is another larger mountain on the same island, something tells me if they began building telescopes on that mountain it would suddenly become a "most sacred site". This to me smells much more like a NIMBY group using vague religious/cultural references to try to get there way.
Chowing down on dozens of pounds of pork, spam, and pineapple and turning your body into a quivering tub of flaps of lard is no way to go through life, son. Who are these walking slabs of lard to tell anyone about desecration? They have been desecrating their bodies for years.
should be fucking outlawed.
I REALLY want to go off on a rant here, but I think that sums it up pretty well. I'm fucking sick of the NIMBY crowd, I bet they don't even live in sight of the mountain.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
That sad thing is this isn't even all native Hawaiians or even a majority. It's just a small minority of extremely loud native Hawaiians. Plenty of native Hawaiians have no problem with the observatories and actually want them built
The Cat should make short work of the piled-up rocks, and the high-pressure hoses would be ready in case the demonstrators start throwing anything.
Now that science itself is under attack, we need to be prepared to defend it.
Sacred volcano where the natives threw people into.
The protesters are claiming things like pollution from the telescope will kill fish in Hilo bay. WTF? You can't even sneeze on the MK summit w/o a permit. All the facilities up there get regular inspections, and can get in trouble for even a wayward piece of trash. Construction vehicles must be parked on plastic to catch oil drips. Not so on the rest of the island. Hell, when they change the oil in cars around here, they just dump the oil on the ground. They don't give a damn. Yet they'll claim the telescopes are killing fish half way across the island? They claim it's a watershed, yet the site's chosen b/c of 300 days/year of clear skies, and how dry it is?
Hmph. Nutcases.
The telescope is the eyes on the world watching http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...
Custer surely would have never ever gotten that far. It takes a telescope to rile them up. Blankets? Do they need blankets?
Jason Momoa A Hawaiian native, has posted a YouTube video in opposition to the TMT.
Seriously, You don't want to mess with Khal Drogo!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Technically, the acquisition of Hawaii was botched and it is not legally part of the United States. This may sound preposterous but it has been reported on. Essentially the United States to control of Hawaii in the same way that Russia took control of Crimea.
In the old days they used to be able to pay off some local leaders to make the resistance go away. Now, they're absolutely bending over backwards, funding education initiatives, etc, and the protestors won't go away. Why? Two reasons. First, they made the mistake of breaking ground on a day that drew more attention because the activists were also doing something that day. Second, with Twitter and the internet the True Believers don't need local leaders to stir them up and connect them, they can do it themselves.
Basically, they're trying to placate a bunch of implacable Luddites and Fanatics who won't be placated. Nothing but complete surrender or martyrdom will satisfy them.
It's infuriating.
Technically, the acquisition of Hawaii was botched and it is not legally part of the United States.
You birther's are simply not going to go away, are ya?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Ask a grownup to explain the concept of "fait accompli" to you.
Around the world, religious nutcases impede progress. In every case that I am aware of, some individual gains power and authority by restricting the rights of others, in most cases restricting the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of their followers and the world around them. Do the Aztecs, the Maya, the Vikings or the American Indians have the power to carry on this foolishness? No, because there is no crazed leader nor is there a body of ignorant fearful followers. But in some Muslim, Jewish and certain other areas, primitive religions defy science, common sense and public safety for ideals that are tenuous at best.
Find out what person or group benefits from this charade and eliminate their incentive to protest the telescope. Debunk the mystical nonsense that they use to indoctrinate their followers. In most (all?) cases the followers are motivated by fear, and the leaders are experts at exploiting that. Empower these ignorant people to understand the real world, which may not be quite as scary as they think.
Educate everyone. No, not the job training that passes for education these days. Real education in the ways of the world, history and wisdom. Give everyone the tools for survival and excellence.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Let's turn every fern into a no trespassing sign. Privatize photosynthesis!
The Cat should make short work of the piled-up rocks, and the high-pressure hoses would be ready in case the demonstrators start throwing anything.
Now that science itself is under attack, we need to be prepared to defend it.
The scoops are coming. The scoops are coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You keep saying that and you keep being fucking wrong.
Crimea was part of Russia before they "invaded".
Hawaii was legally annexed.
This may sound preposterous, if you're a retard.
I live in california where we always have some group of hairy drugged out morons protesting something. And the construction companies out here just expect it.
They plan for it... they say"well, we need this much cement, this many men, so many machine... and oh yeah, bolt cutters and an overtime budget to bring people in at midnight to do the job when all the hippies are sleeping.
The college campuses for example can't knock down trees on the premises during the school year. So they wait until the summer break then knock the trees back. The hippies come back and possibly see a stump. No discussion. No protest of consequence.
In Canada they had a bridge that needed to be widened. And some trees to the right of the bridge needed to be taken down. Of course the fucking trees were swarming with dreadlocked buffoons. So the city said "you win, we won't take the trees down, everyone go home"... hippies cleared out... and at midnight that very night the city just cut all the trees down that were in the way of the bridge.
And this is what the social discussion is at this point.
The stupid mountain in question is covered with fucking telescopes. Go up there and look at it. There are loads. Saying "oh not one more or it will anger our impotent god!'... please.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Hyperbolic paranoia. Those scientists can fuck off to space. I bet they'd prefer it. Win-win.
The native claim that this is the first mountain in the chain and where the 'goddess' first set foot. Really. They are as bad as bible thumpers demanding fossils a million years old are not so. Hawaii is the last island in the chain. There is a new one on the sea floor rising to the east of Hawaii. Science tells us, clearly, a tectonic plate is moving that has created the islands. Their beliefs are easily proven false, just as some many others are. I have no respect for 'traditions' that cannot be reconciled with reality. Christian, Islamic, Jewish or Hawaiian. Anyway, as the Hawaii natives didn't arrive there until a few centuries back, how the hell would they know which island was first?
That's a bad argument. The US says they annexed Hawaii and built military bases there. Nobody stopped them. Ergo, Hawaii is part of the US.
Russia says they annexed Crimea (with a popular vote even [allegedly]) and built military bases there (technically already had military bases there). Nobody stopped them. Ergo, the Crimea is part of Russia.
Actually, the Russian claim to the Crimea goes back far longer and probably has more substance.
And once again, the cultists are standing in the way of scientific progress. Sickening.
Technically, the acquisition of Hawaii was botched and it is not legally part of the United States. This may sound preposterous but it has been reported on. Essentially the United States to control of Hawaii in the same way that Russia took control of Crimea.
Almost, usually it's the last line in the article you read, it was annexed to stop the depression cheaper sugar caused.
Around 1893 "Without Presidential approval, marines stormed the islands, and the American minister to the islands raised the stars and stripes in Honolulu. The Queen was forced to abdicate, and the matter was left for Washington politicians to settle. "
"Hawaii remained a territory until granted statehood as the fiftieth state in 1959."
First hit, they are all the same http://www.ushistory.org/us/44...
Guam, Marshall Islands, Johnston Island, there are a lot of US territories, as you were referring to.
the pandering to religions by the USA, as long as they're Christian, rather throws out any right they have to counter it.
Hawaiians, THERE IS NO FUCKING GOD, GOT IT?
Religon? Bullshit.
Reverence? So the fuck what? Russians were reverent of Stalin. Do you give a shit, or do you want accuracy and criticism of him to be allowed by you? What about Hitler (note: Godwin doesn't say ANYTHING about having lost an argumnent, just the inevitability of a hitler comparison and that the thread will devolve into arguments about hitler not the original topic, so if you piss and moan about having Godwin'd, the only one doing that is YOU, you fuckwit), Germany damn well deified him. Should his reverence mean we should never speak badly of him?
So, apart from that, what the fuck is left to your argument it shouldn't be built?
Well fuck, if they're tearing down Mauna Kea to build this, then fuck, yeah, they should stop. Not because of any special site, but because that's a shitload of destruction just for a new telescope.
What;s that? They're not blowing it up?
Aaaw, fuck it, man, why the hell did you lie to me?!?!?
The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
http://www.civilwar.org/educat...
The specific primary issue was whether or not slavery would be prohibited in new territories when they became states, changing the balance of power between slave-holding and non slave-holding states. Prior to the election of Lincoln, the balance was maintained by inducting one non slave-holding state and one slave-holding state at the same time (paired statehood grants).
The South was not fearful of the existing slave states losing their slaves, they were fearful in a change in relative power between the two power blocks, and the election of Lincoln made this inevitable.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was in fact a punitive action relative to the secessionists only, and only applied to the ten states then currently in rebellion. It is widely regarded as the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back", and was issued under the president's war powers, and thus necessarily excluded those areas not in rebellion. In other words, of the 4 million slaves currently held at the time, about 1 million of them were *not* freed by the proclamation, as they were within states not in open rebellion.
But nice try on your straw man argument.
Note: as a technical note, free persons who commit criminal acts *could* in fact be made slaves today through court action, since you may deny someone their liberty through due process of law. We just don't use this particular loophole within our justice system.
If my church were being torn down for a telescope, I would of course protest.
However, I would protest when they were first tearing it down in 1967, and not wait until 37 years later, in 2004, to start protesting.
They've only been protesting about how holy the site is since about 2004. When it benefitted them in ways other than piety for them to do so. This is about trying to garner international attention for the monarchist movement in Hawaii, who would like to bring back the Kingdom of Hawaii, and are still pissed off about the deposition of Queen Liliuokalani, and the effective annexation of Hawaii in 1893.
Protesting a telescope gets media attention, even though there are already 13 telescopes on the site, operated by 11 nations, and they are in fact already the largest astronomical observatory on the planet. The only thing new about this one is that it was easier to latch onto the media attention, since the telescope in question was going to be very large, and was therefore already getting media attention.
Of course, assuming this was granted (thus setting the precedent for all non extinct indian nations to reclaim their lands within the U.S. as well), there would immediately be internecine warfare as to *who*, of the 10 groups claiming to have the "rightful" king or queen among their members, got to be the "official" one.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Okay. We've sued and lost.
We've sued again and lost.
We've appealed to every political figure available and lost.
We've tossed up every roadblock imaginable and lost.
So now, despite what the law says and the fact that it's obvious other people want this, we're still going to interfere and be assholes because we didn't get our way.
At this point, I'm with the social darwinists. Just roll over the fuckers. You'll be doing the species good by ridding it of obvious mental defectives.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why doesn't he just knock them down?
You say that as if you thought it actually mattered.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No native Hawaiians like native San or Pict who only slaughtered Neanderthal. Got that factoid ? Proto-Hawaiians sailed there and butchered-out the previous dwellers. CHOP/SLASH/HACK ! Got the picture matey? Then again this: present-day Hawaiians are no more racist than Japanese or Chi.coms ... eh ...? hehehe. What a feckin-A lib.com fool you are, all for blo-jobbing the snowflake American Bantu savage who white-men welfare--ized like pet vipers instead of being Obama.phone & NIKE.deficient & lion-eaten ! Feckin-A white fool.
buy a couple of those armored bulldozers the Israelis use to flatten Palestinian houses.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
One small problem: anti-science wackjobs are just as much against space programs as they are against other applications of science.
it will be the largest telescope thus it has serious value to scinece
There is nobody for whom the summit of Mauna Kea is their "backyard", so this isn't NIMBY. There are sincere religious and political reasons for opposing this.
Imagine yourself in their position. If a conspicuous structure on the summit of Mauna Kea offended your religious sensibilities when the first one went up, then you're not going to feel less strongly about the thirteenth or fourteenth to go up. Likewise spreading the development to a second, pristine sacred site wouldn't placate you.
The position that nobody's religious views should ever matter is one most people wouldn't agree with, but at least it's a principled position. Claiming (without proof) that views that stand in the way of something you want are insincere and should be disregarded strikes me as dishonest.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Apparently there aren't enough protesters to kill this development project, you know what might help? More well funded people that don't want development. But where do you find people that want an area clear of unnatural smog, light polution, and people? Astronomers? No clearly we just saw from Karmashock's post that they only want to ruin the island with their giant ugly telescopes.
It's a little sad to see people fighting so hard for the cause of ignorance...
Has anyone bothered to ask them what they REALLY want? This project has been planned for at least a decade and they are only now starting to aggressively protest? This tells me this has nothing to do with sacred ground, they want a payoff of some kind. "$Bignum will appease the gods."
Grab the protesters and throw them over the side.
This is not new, and happens everywhere. It isn't so much a protest is it is an negotiation tactic.
You just want to do a giant selfie don't you?!