That's right. Walking into a shop and taking away an object is stealing. Copying a record, tape, CD, or digital file deprives no one of their property and IS NOT stealing; nor is it rape, barratry, public drunkeness or murder.
Symbols and their meanings define human reality. Keeping terms unconfused keeps definitions sane, keeps PEOPLE sane, and prevents liars and bastards of all types from confusing the issue by false symbol assignments in order to falsely win a fraudulently defined contest.
In other words, don't let liars define the terms of the argument. Swat them down or they steal the semantic ground you stand on, making it impossible for manipulated people to follow sane arguments because the terms are redefined in THEIR HEADS. False definitions are reality filters.
Offtopic? Listen, We-create-our-own-reality types. That IS the topic. Bush and his fellow ideologues are flipping off the planet, creating their New American Century so well described by the Project for the New American Century thinktank that so many of his people were part of. After the Soviets broke up their empire, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rice et al wanted the US to become the de facto and de jure world government. This DNS holdoff is only one aspect of this war.
The world is in a semi-polite revolt against the NWO of the Bushes. The damage of the grab for our empire is horrendous.
You're getting to the base of the problem. They will buy the law to make it a crime. The real problem is that wealthy interests can phone in any law they want to a legislator, who needs the campaign money to stay in power.
Want this not to happen? Make laws effectively repealling the Supreme Court ruling that "Money = Free Speech". If money is speech, then the loudest wallet wins. And remove all private donations from campaigns, while giving manadatory free air time to candidates. Eliminate the need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to become a President.
on the other hand, devolving the power to 53 local powers gives the bribers and con artists 53 more opportunities to buy laws. If you spread out power, you make it impossible to keep track of where the bastards are heisting the vault.
At least with the Feds, you have one point of failure, IE Chertoff at Homeland Security not calling in the troops for New Orleans, rather than devolving the responsiblity and the costs for disaster relief onto a broke state government, a broke city and dozens of broke local municipalities -- all of which are disfunctional, out of communication, and underwater.
A central point of power at least gives you one point of disfunction to repair. Spread it around, and no one is responsible for anything.
Also, the founders had a system where communications were by horseback or signal towers. They couldn't consider a truly centralized national government, because it was bloody impossible with 18th century technology.
The US may have trouble building maglev trains, but the rest of the world hasn't.
Sadly, the US isn't building much of anything anymore. We're a nation of managers and businessmen, not engineers.
Because most of the US lacks the basic knowledge set to even understand how a space elevator will work, or the trained imagination to envision what to do with it, the subject is incomprehensible to our citizenry.
We don't even build REGULAR trains anymore. We've deemed them dinosaurs used by the poor or the shipping industry looking to capitalize on a dying infrastructure, and left the rails to rot in a free-market grave. Maglev? Americans want a faster Mustang. They care nothing for trains, and never heard of maglevs in other countries. We think MONORAILS are stupid, even tho they are far superior for public transit than the 19th century horrors in Boston, New York, or Chicago.
I don't see America ever considering building a beanstalk.
Here's what I'm hearing and reading about the NASA back-to-the-moon program, as a for-instance: We went there before, over thirty years ago. Why go again?
This is not a field of dreams for building a fantastic SF future. Look to Japan, to China, even to Europe, maybe, for the human future in space. Far-sighted Americans will flock to those projects. But they will not be built in the US. We're lost in a dream in which the 1950's never ended, oil is cheap, we're the biggest dog on the block, and cars are the main means of self expression.
As Arthur C. Clarke and Asimov and so many other have explained, the space elevator, AKA the Beanstalk, works like this:
A 24,000 mile elevator cable, a space port at geoosynchronous orbit, and another, what, multi-thousand mile cable that extends even higher with a massive counterweight at the other end, ie a captured asteroid. A BIG counterweight, moving at at different orbital speed than the station to stabilize the cable?
Did I miss something in the last few years? Did someone come up with a new wrinkle in orbital mechanics that does away with the need for a counterweight in a higher orbit to keep the cable tight?
Another category 5 "once in a century" storm is heading for Texas and/or western Louisiana, less than three weeks after the last "once in a century" storm hit.
The warmer water of the Gulf of Mexico are part of the global warming trend.
Scientists are done studying whether global warming is a trend. It is now a fact, and only Republican/corporate sponsored "science" is making sure it stays "controversial". The mechanism of meme injection is their only tool, 'cause they sure ain't got no scientists to back them up.
There is no controversy; there is a well-funded anti-science PR campaign to make sure that car MPG stays low, oil stays our number once source of power and cars spread across the entire planet as the only mode of transportation. That's all the "controversy" is about.
These is no "dispute" in the meteorological/climatalogical community about global warming. It is a fact, and they aren't arguing about it.
It has been tiresomely documented in the past fifteen years or more that corporate groups, allied to the point of merger with the right wing of the Republican party, have created fake "controversies" about everything from mercury poisoning to global warming by creating and financing fake "scientific" studies by "think tanks" that reference each others' "results" in an enless echo chamber. News organizations, having been hammered by the right into promoting "balance" by presenting "both sides" of every piece of "controversy", put both "sides" on every time something like global warming comes up as a story. The gross ignorance of science and engineering in the journalism, English and history majors that comprise any news organization also adds a filter of ignorance on the whole presentation of "sides" of the "issue". If they don't understand how science is done, the reporters fall for the whole "it's just a guess, a THEORY" line used by every Republican Scientist (love that term) from creationists to the anti-hippy warming-ain't-happening group [brought to you today by EXXON-MOBIL, screwing you today for a brighter tommorrow).
The "side" saying it ain't so is beholden to the oil and auto companies that fund it. Their "science" is sophistry and deflection, their arguments baseless and calculated to appeal to sloth and ignorance.
Climatologists and meteorologists are done studying global warming. It's now a matter of how bad it will be, not whether it is happening or not.
Hm. As I understood it, as it was happening, the mechanism of the success of the Japanese model was not so much how they made things, but how they treated their human assets.
Weirdly enough, it was an American (don't recall the name) labor theorist that went to Japan and impressed them with the Theory Y style of management -- teams, listening to the line workers and giving them credit, and most especially treating them like a valued member of the company instead of a liability that needed to be cost controlled at all times.
Workers at Japanese plants worked there for life. They received regular raises. They had good morale. They contributed to their companies much like they would their families, and the companies boomed.
Now, remember that the US tried the same theories out, but since the Reagan era has dismantled the whole concept and returned to a 19th century model of driving down wages, treating labor as a liability, killing the morale and, more importantly, draining the intelligent cooperation of its employees in order to make More Money.
Japan has grudgingly started to pare down its Theory Y management style, but still enough of it exists to provide a compare-and-contrast with the US screw-you-morlocks management style.
Some of you may point out they had a huge economic crash. But that was caused by overspeculation in real estate by the banking industry, not salaries for employees.
Their products seem to be more technologically innovative than ours. They have large manufacturing capabilities we've lost.
Who was right? Theory X or Y? 19th century US industrialism or 20th century Nipponese? It seems the Japanese have won. If you disagree, try and go pick up a GE cell phone.
Thas a joke. Even if one of you manages to point out a GE cell phone, the point is there should be many US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, as well as TV's, radios, iPods, whatever. Nope, off-shore tax-free manufacturing plants don't count.
"Is DRM the answer? (Well, I can't even suggest that on slashdot, can I?)"
Well, it's a Slashdot crowd. DRM is worthless as a legless catepillar, because it'll be cracked in days.
Even if they produce Perfect Content Lockdown, I could simply set up a digitial camera in front of the ebook reader, and take a shot of every new page as I scroll through the ebook. I'd then run the shots through a standard text reader program, and convert it to a text file in whatever format I like.
Ditto super-protected DVD's, music files, yadda yadda. There is no way to stop copying, other than feeding the media directly into your retina, keyed to your brainwaves and password. Even then, we'd find a way. It's just a matter of time.
You, with your Apple iLibro, are reading the seventh book of the Harry Potter trilogy.
Here comes your wide-eyed nephew. "Can I read it, please please please?" He's holding up his iLibro eagerly.
"Sure", you say. Smiling, you tap on the "share me!" tab on the top of the iLibro's screen. Nephew's iLibro acks and receives the book in four seconds. MEEP.
Nephew flops down on the grass, eagerly reading his new copy of HP.
I've just made a publisher's heart skip four beats with this scene. THAT is why there are no eBook readers.
As for a light source, how about OLED?, or LED lit, not by a normal backlight, but by a Viewmaster-like arrangement of a transparent window behind the screen, so you could hold it up to ambient light to view. eInk is still under patent, but someday it'll be free -- and then we'll party with some decent screens.
The Palm Zire cost around 100 bucks. The screen is hobbled for reading full page text, but it needn't be so.
The hardware is there; the only resistance is coming from:
1. The conservatism of readers, who just are used to paper books. We can't develop a new generation of kids who are used to ebook readers because there AREN'T any ebook readers. Catch-22.
2. Publishers, who are terrified of.txt files of their inventory being traded like mp3's.
3. Hardware manufacturers, who don't see any profit in making $25 dollar ebooks.
If you'd like to see how cool an ebook machine could be, take a look at the iPod Nano. Imagine a bigger screen. Imagine it weighs four ounces, has copious flash memory, and can connect via USB or maybe ethernet. Imagine it is solar powered. Keep it low powered and simple by only having a b&w screen.
Imagine it costs 50-100 dollars. And it's possible with today's technology, given economies of scale.
Imagine ten years from now, when diamond-based chip tech gives us terabyte nonvolatile memory, eInk gives us paper-like screens with book quality text.
Imagine the trees not needed for paper. Maybe we can let some oaks grow back, instead of soft pine.
As for power, make the flip side of the reader a solar cell panel. When the batteries run low, just flip it over for a couple of hours in bright light, and you're up to full power again.
Calculators have been photovoltaic for years, so there's no reason why an ebbok couldn't be.
As for backlighting an LED. Why not do the Viewmaster trick? Instead of a battery powered light source, why not make the back of the unit transparent? That way, you could simply hold it up, and any ambient room or outdoor light could shine through the LED panel.
In other words, when you find yourself trapped in a burning building, it's not wise pump a barrel of gasoline into the flames.
We may be in a warmer cycle, but it is a firm fact that we've pumped up the methane, CO2 and CO in the atmosphere. We are pumping a tanker of gasoline onto a raging inferno.
No matter the overall climatic changes, OUR activites have made it much worse and much faster. Ice is melting everywhere. Glaciers are going, Siberia is melting, releasing methane in a vicious cycle, villages in Alaska are disappearing in the meltoff of the land, we're getting four times the normal number of hurricanes in a year -- and they are stronger, for the waters are warmer than they have been in centuries. The Northwest Passage over the arctic ocean is opening up as the ice floes melt.
It's real. The only choice we have, in the short run, is whether we wish to mitigate the changes by cutting down greenhouse gases -- immediately. We wait, there'll be new oceanfront property really soon.
Of course, the same industrial and financial firms who wished to maintain their status quo by resisting change and financing PR fake science will shift gears in the new warm world and find massive profit in the meltdown. It's all the same to them.
The Screen Savers have returned, all must rejoice! Leo LaPorte, Patrick Norton, Roger and just about everyone in the geek world who used to guest on TechTV are showing up weekly.
I am humbled. O Monkey Jesus, save us from both of these damned parties. There's no difference between the DLC and the GOP.
The Bush team originated these "First Amendment" zones. I doubt we'll find a judge, after this flurry of installations these past five years, who''l put a stop to this.
Forget about the Supreme Court. They'll probably put their stamp on executing anyone who speaks outside the designated "free speech" zone.
And the peeple won't care. That's the core, the crux, the whole damned problem. What's the use of a constitution that no one cares about?
It's called decadence.
Thanks for showing us this. I completely missed it when it happened.
We need a new political party. God. Maybe those move-on people are right: we need to take over the Democratic party, make it what the old Republican party sorta used to be. Right now, we've got ultra-right-fringe loonies making up the GOP and far-far right wing me-too-ers in the Democatic leadership.
I want a cookie. It's going to take a century to clean up this mess.
"or 2004 DNC (boston) where protestors were segregated to "free speech zones" locked behind a fence. under a freeway ramp. down the street from the convention center."
NO, NO NO ! you dingdong, ONLY the Republicans did that. They STILL do that. No Democrat has ever, EVER HAD A FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE.
And the Americans report that although disaster relief following the invasion is as good as could possibly be expected, the real responsiblity lies with the local governments, who forgot to inform the President of the invasion in a timely matter; documents signed by the President indicating his knowledge of the impending decimation of the Apple headquarters notwithstanding. Not that they would play a "blame game", of course. And it's Clinton's fault, ultimately, senior adminstration officials say in an off-the-record interview. And no one could possibly have expected this move.
Newsweek magazine reports that White House officals dithered for three days following the Gate attack bomber wings, debating the proper legal role of the Federal government in local disaster relief. Consensus opinion ultimately was in favor of local responsiblity for local disasters, with the Federal government reserving its forces, thus teaching the Americans on the ground the value of the need for separation of state and federal powers, leaving them an incentive to learn critical self-reliance.
Bush announced that Cheney will head the investigation of his administration's failure in the face of Redmon's long-anticipated invasion. All other hearings on administrative failure have been cancelled by House Speaker Hastert.
The French assistance for Americans under seige at HP at the very beginning of the invasion does not seem to occupy the short-term memories of the American combatants, who persist in calling them "surrender monkeys" in spite of all evidence of French military assistance for the last four years in Afghanistan.
I was watching a rerun on Friday(?) night on the Discover Channel. The documentary, updated that day for Katrina, was not new, and was a complete rundown of what would happen if a Cat 5 hit NOLA.
But they mentioned the other city in the crosshairs. New York City. It's in the elbow of two long pieces of land, both aimed at the Atlantic ocean.
If a hurricane comes up the water, which it will, NYC is going under as surely as New Orleans did. It's only a matter of time.
Slashdot Mirror
Noticed on boingboing.net that a Chinese company is marketing a DRM-free version of an ebook reader using an eInk screen.
Although I don't think it's on sale, it is the Holy EBook Reader Grail we've been seeking for ten years.
If we're gonna download ebooks, we should have a reader to read them with, no?
We've trained ye well.
That's right. Walking into a shop and taking away an object is stealing. Copying a record, tape, CD, or digital file deprives no one of their property and IS NOT stealing; nor is it rape, barratry, public drunkeness or murder.
Symbols and their meanings define human reality. Keeping terms unconfused keeps definitions sane, keeps PEOPLE sane, and prevents liars and bastards of all types from confusing the issue by false symbol assignments in order to falsely win a fraudulently defined contest.
In other words, don't let liars define the terms of the argument. Swat them down or they steal the semantic ground you stand on, making it impossible for manipulated people to follow sane arguments because the terms are redefined in THEIR HEADS. False definitions are reality filters.
Offtopic? Listen, We-create-our-own-reality types. That IS the topic. Bush and his fellow ideologues are flipping off the planet, creating their New American Century so well described by the Project for the New American Century thinktank that so many of his people were part of. After the Soviets broke up their empire, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rice et al wanted the US to become the de facto and de jure world government. This DNS holdoff is only one aspect of this war.
The world is in a semi-polite revolt against the NWO of the Bushes. The damage of the grab for our empire is horrendous.
Is it a crime?
You're getting to the base of the problem. They will buy the law to make it a crime. The real problem is that wealthy interests can phone in any law they want to a legislator, who needs the campaign money to stay in power.
Want this not to happen? Make laws effectively repealling the Supreme Court ruling that "Money = Free Speech". If money is speech, then the loudest wallet wins. And remove all private donations from campaigns, while giving manadatory free air time to candidates. Eliminate the need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to become a President.
Barring that, game's over.
on the other hand, devolving the power to 53 local powers gives the bribers and con artists 53 more opportunities to buy laws. If you spread out power, you make it impossible to keep track of where the bastards are heisting the vault.
At least with the Feds, you have one point of failure, IE Chertoff at Homeland Security not calling in the troops for New Orleans, rather than devolving the responsiblity and the costs for disaster relief onto a broke state government, a broke city and dozens of broke local municipalities -- all of which are disfunctional, out of communication, and underwater.
A central point of power at least gives you one point of disfunction to repair. Spread it around, and no one is responsible for anything.
Also, the founders had a system where communications were by horseback or signal towers. They couldn't consider a truly centralized national government, because it was bloody impossible with 18th century technology.
The US may have trouble building maglev trains, but the rest of the world hasn't.
Sadly, the US isn't building much of anything anymore. We're a nation of managers and businessmen, not engineers.
Because most of the US lacks the basic knowledge set to even understand how a space elevator will work, or the trained imagination to envision what to do with it, the subject is incomprehensible to our citizenry.
We don't even build REGULAR trains anymore. We've deemed them dinosaurs used by the poor or the shipping industry looking to capitalize on a dying infrastructure, and left the rails to rot in a free-market grave. Maglev? Americans want a faster Mustang. They care nothing for trains, and never heard of maglevs in other countries. We think MONORAILS are stupid, even tho they are far superior for public transit than the 19th century horrors in Boston, New York, or Chicago.
I don't see America ever considering building a beanstalk.
Here's what I'm hearing and reading about the NASA back-to-the-moon program, as a for-instance: We went there before, over thirty years ago. Why go again?
This is not a field of dreams for building a fantastic SF future. Look to Japan, to China, even to Europe, maybe, for the human future in space. Far-sighted Americans will flock to those projects. But they will not be built in the US. We're lost in a dream in which the 1950's never ended, oil is cheap, we're the biggest dog on the block, and cars are the main means of self expression.
As Arthur C. Clarke and Asimov and so many other have explained, the space elevator, AKA the Beanstalk, works like this:
A 24,000 mile elevator cable, a space port at geoosynchronous orbit, and another, what, multi-thousand mile cable that extends even higher with a massive counterweight at the other end, ie a captured asteroid. A BIG counterweight, moving at at different orbital speed than the station to stabilize the cable?
Did I miss something in the last few years? Did someone come up with a new wrinkle in orbital mechanics that does away with the need for a counterweight in a higher orbit to keep the cable tight?
Flamebait, huh?
Another category 5 "once in a century" storm is heading for Texas and/or western Louisiana, less than three weeks after the last "once in a century" storm hit.
The warmer water of the Gulf of Mexico are part of the global warming trend.
Scientists are done studying whether global warming is a trend. It is now a fact, and only Republican/corporate sponsored "science" is making sure it stays "controversial". The mechanism of meme injection is their only tool, 'cause they sure ain't got no scientists to back them up.
There is no controversy; there is a well-funded anti-science PR campaign to make sure that car MPG stays low, oil stays our number once source of power and cars spread across the entire planet as the only mode of transportation. That's all the "controversy" is about.
These is no "dispute" in the meteorological/climatalogical community about global warming. It is a fact, and they aren't arguing about it.
It has been tiresomely documented in the past fifteen years or more that corporate groups, allied to the point of merger with the right wing of the Republican party, have created fake "controversies" about everything from mercury poisoning to global warming by creating and financing fake "scientific" studies by "think tanks" that reference each others' "results" in an enless echo chamber. News organizations, having been hammered by the right into promoting "balance" by presenting "both sides" of every piece of "controversy", put both "sides" on every time something like global warming comes up as a story. The gross ignorance of science and engineering in the journalism, English and history majors that comprise any news organization also adds a filter of ignorance on the whole presentation of "sides" of the "issue". If they don't understand how science is done, the reporters fall for the whole "it's just a guess, a THEORY" line used by every Republican Scientist (love that term) from creationists to the anti-hippy warming-ain't-happening group [brought to you today by EXXON-MOBIL, screwing you today for a brighter tommorrow).
The "side" saying it ain't so is beholden to the oil and auto companies that fund it. Their "science" is sophistry and deflection, their arguments baseless and calculated to appeal to sloth and ignorance.
Climatologists and meteorologists are done studying global warming. It's now a matter of how bad it will be, not whether it is happening or not.
Hm. As I understood it, as it was happening, the mechanism of the success of the Japanese model was not so much how they made things, but how they treated their human assets.
Weirdly enough, it was an American (don't recall the name) labor theorist that went to Japan and impressed them with the Theory Y style of management -- teams, listening to the line workers and giving them credit, and most especially treating them like a valued member of the company instead of a liability that needed to be cost controlled at all times.
Workers at Japanese plants worked there for life. They received regular raises. They had good morale. They contributed to their companies much like they would their families, and the companies boomed.
Now, remember that the US tried the same theories out, but since the Reagan era has dismantled the whole concept and returned to a 19th century model of driving down wages, treating labor as a liability, killing the morale and, more importantly, draining the intelligent cooperation of its employees in order to make More Money.
Japan has grudgingly started to pare down its Theory Y management style, but still enough of it exists to provide a compare-and-contrast with the US screw-you-morlocks management style.
Some of you may point out they had a huge economic crash. But that was caused by overspeculation in real estate by the banking industry, not salaries for employees.
Their products seem to be more technologically innovative than ours. They have large manufacturing capabilities we've lost.
Who was right? Theory X or Y? 19th century US industrialism or 20th century Nipponese? It seems the Japanese have won. If you disagree, try and go pick up a GE cell phone.
Thas a joke. Even if one of you manages to point out a GE cell phone, the point is there should be many US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, as well as TV's, radios, iPods, whatever. Nope, off-shore tax-free manufacturing plants don't count.
Correct for my sloppiness. LCD. Sorry about that. Display tech that relies on backlighting. Dunno if ambient room light would be bright enough.
"Is DRM the answer? (Well, I can't even suggest that on slashdot, can I?)"
Well, it's a Slashdot crowd. DRM is worthless as a legless catepillar, because it'll be cracked in days.
Even if they produce Perfect Content Lockdown, I could simply set up a digitial camera in front of the ebook reader, and take a shot of every new page as I scroll through the ebook. I'd then run the shots through a standard text reader program, and convert it to a text file in whatever format I like.
Ditto super-protected DVD's, music files, yadda yadda. There is no way to stop copying, other than feeding the media directly into your retina, keyed to your brainwaves and password. Even then, we'd find a way. It's just a matter of time.
Palm III's are going for seven dollars US on eBay. Problem with eBook reader solved, pricewise.
Here's the book publishers' terror:
You, with your Apple iLibro, are reading the seventh book of the Harry Potter trilogy.
Here comes your wide-eyed nephew. "Can I read it, please please please?" He's holding up his iLibro eagerly.
"Sure", you say. Smiling, you tap on the "share me!" tab on the top of the iLibro's screen. Nephew's iLibro acks and receives the book in four seconds. MEEP.
Nephew flops down on the grass, eagerly reading his new copy of HP.
I've just made a publisher's heart skip four beats with this scene. THAT is why there are no eBook readers.
We may have to make our own.
Did you read this article on the indestructiblity of the iPod Nano? These solid state devices are pretty damned tough.
As for a light source, how about OLED?, or LED lit, not by a normal backlight, but by a Viewmaster-like arrangement of a transparent window behind the screen, so you could hold it up to ambient light to view. eInk is still under patent, but someday it'll be free -- and then we'll party with some decent screens.
The Palm Zire cost around 100 bucks. The screen is hobbled for reading full page text, but it needn't be so.
.txt files of their inventory being traded like mp3's.
The hardware is there; the only resistance is coming from:
1. The conservatism of readers, who just are used to paper books. We can't develop a new generation of kids who are used to ebook readers because there AREN'T any ebook readers. Catch-22.
2. Publishers, who are terrified of
3. Hardware manufacturers, who don't see any profit in making $25 dollar ebooks.
If you'd like to see how cool an ebook machine could be, take a look at the iPod Nano. Imagine a bigger screen. Imagine it weighs four ounces, has copious flash memory, and can connect via USB or maybe ethernet. Imagine it is solar powered. Keep it low powered and simple by only having a b&w screen.
Imagine it costs 50-100 dollars. And it's possible with today's technology, given economies of scale.
Imagine ten years from now, when diamond-based chip tech gives us terabyte nonvolatile memory, eInk gives us paper-like screens with book quality text.
Imagine the trees not needed for paper. Maybe we can let some oaks grow back, instead of soft pine.
As for power, make the flip side of the reader a solar cell panel. When the batteries run low, just flip it over for a couple of hours in bright light, and you're up to full power again.
Calculators have been photovoltaic for years, so there's no reason why an ebbok couldn't be.
As for backlighting an LED. Why not do the Viewmaster trick? Instead of a battery powered light source, why not make the back of the unit transparent? That way, you could simply hold it up, and any ambient room or outdoor light could shine through the LED panel.
You've a point: you'd have to be pretty slow to enjoy "Mind of Mencia"...
In other words, when you find yourself trapped in a burning building, it's not wise pump a barrel of gasoline into the flames.
We may be in a warmer cycle, but it is a firm fact that we've pumped up the methane, CO2 and CO in the atmosphere. We are pumping a tanker of gasoline onto a raging inferno.
No matter the overall climatic changes, OUR activites have made it much worse and much faster. Ice is melting everywhere. Glaciers are going, Siberia is melting, releasing methane in a vicious cycle, villages in Alaska are disappearing in the meltoff of the land, we're getting four times the normal number of hurricanes in a year -- and they are stronger, for the waters are warmer than they have been in centuries. The Northwest Passage over the arctic ocean is opening up as the ice floes melt.
It's real. The only choice we have, in the short run, is whether we wish to mitigate the changes by cutting down greenhouse gases -- immediately. We wait, there'll be new oceanfront property really soon.
Of course, the same industrial and financial firms who wished to maintain their status quo by resisting change and financing PR fake science will shift gears in the new warm world and find massive profit in the meltdown. It's all the same to them.
They are now recording video and the first and second shows are now free for the taking!
http://twit.tv/
The Screen Savers have returned, all must rejoice!
Leo LaPorte, Patrick Norton, Roger and just about everyone in the geek world who used to guest on TechTV are showing up weekly.
I am humbled. O Monkey Jesus, save us from both of these damned parties. There's no difference between the DLC and the GOP.
The Bush team originated these "First Amendment" zones. I doubt we'll find a judge, after this flurry of installations these past five years, who''l put a stop to this.
Forget about the Supreme Court. They'll probably put their stamp on executing anyone who speaks outside the designated "free speech" zone.
And the peeple won't care. That's the core, the crux, the whole damned problem. What's the use of a constitution that no one cares about?
It's called decadence.
Thanks for showing us this. I completely missed it when it happened.
We need a new political party. God. Maybe those move-on people are right: we need to take over the Democratic party, make it what the old Republican party sorta used to be. Right now, we've got ultra-right-fringe loonies making up the GOP and far-far right wing me-too-ers in the Democatic leadership.
I want a cookie. It's going to take a century to clean up this mess.
"or 2004 DNC (boston) where protestors were segregated to "free speech zones" locked behind a fence. under a freeway ramp. down the street from the convention center."
NO, NO NO ! you dingdong, ONLY the Republicans did that. They STILL do that. No Democrat has ever, EVER HAD A FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE.
Informative my ass, SHOW YOUR SOURCE.
And the Americans report that although disaster relief following the invasion is as good as could possibly be expected, the real responsiblity lies with the local governments, who forgot to inform the President of the invasion in a timely matter; documents signed by the President indicating his knowledge of the impending decimation of the Apple headquarters notwithstanding. Not that they would play a "blame game", of course. And it's Clinton's fault, ultimately, senior adminstration officials say in an off-the-record interview. And no one could possibly have expected this move.
Newsweek magazine reports that White House officals dithered for three days following the Gate attack bomber wings, debating the proper legal role of the Federal government in local disaster relief. Consensus opinion ultimately was in favor of local responsiblity for local disasters, with the Federal government reserving its forces, thus teaching the Americans on the ground the value of the need for separation of state and federal powers, leaving them an incentive to learn critical self-reliance.
Bush announced that Cheney will head the investigation of his administration's failure in the face of Redmon's long-anticipated invasion. All other hearings on administrative failure have been cancelled by House Speaker Hastert.
The French assistance for Americans under seige at HP at the very beginning of the invasion does not seem to occupy the short-term memories of the American combatants, who persist in calling them "surrender monkeys" in spite of all evidence of French military assistance for the last four years in Afghanistan.
I was watching a rerun on Friday(?) night on the Discover Channel. The documentary, updated that day for Katrina, was not new, and was a complete rundown of what would happen if a Cat 5 hit NOLA.
But they mentioned the other city in the crosshairs. New York City. It's in the elbow of two long pieces of land, both aimed at the Atlantic ocean.
If a hurricane comes up the water, which it will, NYC is going under as surely as New Orleans did. It's only a matter of time.
Will we move NYC?
You've a point. The various sharing services are immensely slower than they used to be.
Putting downloading bots into the mix to annihilate the bandwidth of sharers is a no-brainer, so we have to assume they are doing it.