--You know? That ultra-shiny, candy-coated, plasticy soul-less condescending crap which bears zero resemblance to the real world?
Except Apple adds one more dimension; The death-star finish and the distinct feel of something alien and creepy. Like a Membari space cruiser, but one which wants to force DRM down your throat and still not pay the artists.
Ah, Apple and Japanese culture. Dumbed down for the Pod-People.
The RIAA and Apple now own the Music world, and the musicians are still getting screwed.
--We had, (and still do have), the opportunity to embrace a fair and elegant system of music distribution; to download MP3's directly from the bands and give them donations based on the honor-system. --Heck, iTunes has proven that people are more than willing to pay a buck-a-song. But only, apparently, if that buck is going to a large corporation and NOT the artist.
Yep. People have voted to be unscrupulous and in need of governments and corporations to control their behavior.
Hooray for the Pod-People! You all now give yourselves a nice pat on the back, you cute little consumers, you!
Music is now co-owned by Apple and the RIAA, and the musicians are still getting screwed. --We had the opportunity to embrace a beautiful and fair system of music distribution; to download high-quality MP3's directly from the bands and give them donations based on the honor-system. Heck, we still have this opportunity. Instead people have voted with their actions to be unscrupulous and in need of governments and corporations to control their behavior. And the artists still get screwed.
Hm. This parting line of yours sounds suspiciously like you will be covering ayour ears now and saying, "La La La, I Can't Hear You!" no matter what I say from this point forth.
Well, fine. While I may risk wasting my time actually responding to your 'points', here goes. . .
For starters, whoever modded up "ZOMGLOL YOUR CELLPHONE IS PART OF A GOVERNM3NT PLOT TO MAKE YOU STUPID!!!1111!111" may well be proof of these 'deadened brains'.
Okay. I don't actually know who you're referring to here or what it has to do with anything we've been discussing. Perhaps you are one of those people who thinks that because some people are insane that ALL people are insane. --Think of it this way; If you met a person who was nuts and you noticed that he wore a red tee shirt, would it be logical to then say, "People with red tee shirts are nuts."? If you need help understanding that, let me know.
Secondly, this is the worst tripe I've ever heard. And that's saying something.
Uh. . , (speaking of brain dead). . , this second 'point' of yours isn't actually a point. It's an opinion. If you want to call it a 'point', then you will need to explain why you hold that opinion.
Third, I call bullshit. If all this stuff deadens our brains, how do you explain the fact that Japan, which I think we can safely say has the highest density of sophisticated consumer electronics on the face of the Earth (especially cellphones), has a higher literacy rate than the United States, despite a written language containing several THOUSAND complex ideograms?
For that matter, how do I explain that with all this EM pollution people are still able to walk and drive cars? And speak? --And play video games requiring speedy hand-eye coordination!
I can, however, say for all that, people sure seem pretty dumb. Your argument, for instance, is lacking a degree of necessary logic to be considered anything even remotely conclusive. --Nobody said that being able to recognize words on a page was removed from a person when they use a cell phone. Reading comprehension and higher reasoning, however, are probably in question. Perhaps I am bold in suggesting that you seem to be something of an example in this case. . .
Kindly return to tending your little conspiracy theory website before I sic the thought police on you. Or, if you insist on continuing to troll, might I suggest an elementary school playground as your next venue? The children would make a far better audience for your psuedo-intellectual paranoid delusions than the slashdot crowd.
I don't have a conspiracy website. I scanned a few book pages so that I might share them with others because it was easier than photocopying them and walking down to the mail box. I find it curious how often people are so scared of thinking and exploring that they recoil from the idea of reading a few paragraphs which may threaten their world view. If your world view makes sense, then surely it can withstand a few paragraphs, and if not, then surly you would want to repair it so that it can. Right? It's as though people are scared that their brains will somehow be corrupted by text. Have you no confidence in your own abilities to sort data on your own? A little courage is in order here.
Show me a link to a paper published in Nature or Science, or the New England Journal of Medicine, hell, even in the IEEE journal, and I'll check it out. A book on Amazon? Anyone can get any pseudoscientific crap published, and can even get a few Ph.D's to sign off on it, and will sell a million copies if it happens to relate to the FUD-du-jour.
Sooo. . , you only let knowledge in when it comes stamped with authoritarian approval? Do you lack so much confidence in your own abilities that you need others to sort sense from nonsense? You can't do that on your own? --When you give up your thinking powers to others, others will not respect you, nor will they give you the information which might allow you to grow powerful enough to question them. Slave herders like being in charge. Science and Nature and various Journals of Medicine are limited in what they can publish by boundaries which have more to do with egos, corporate funding issues and fear of ridicule than anything to do with the limits of real science.
Until you change your approach to thinking, you will not be able to amount to anything beyond the limits placed upon you by those who have tricked you into believing that authority figures are the only ones who know how to assess data and that you are too stupid to think for yourself.
Honestly. You act as though simply looking or thinking about anything beyond the safe, pre-defined boundaries will somehow corrupt your mind. You are stronger than that.
Yes, microwaves are dangerous. They heat you up, especially the water in your outer tissues. But I'm a lot more worried about the gazillion-watt microwave source 150 million km away than I am about the tiny transmitters in the city around me.
Yes, microwave radiation is directly damaging at high powers. However, at low powers, as from cell phones, etc., the concerns have far more do to with how cells react, particularly in the nervous system. Lots of funny things happen to one's cognition and perception and brain chemistry when using a cell phone. There are some mechanisms which have been recognized and studied which play a part in this. If you are even slightly human, then you should be slightly curious, and if you have any courage whatsoever, you might try doing some exploration beyond the orthodox limits. It's not going to kill you. And by all means, if a text seems lame, then ditch it. --But you should determine its validity through applied thought and cross examination, not by looking at which authority figures are sniggering and trying your best to not be labeled, 'uncool'.
Furthermore, anyone with even an inkling of understanding of physics will understand why it's impossible.
You are right. It is entirely true that ionization does not happen with the low power levels put out by cell phone devices, and therefore DNA damage cannot happen through this means.
Unfortunately, most people, upon recognizing this oft-stated fact, stop questioning and embrace the technology without any further thought. The issue, however, is many times more complex than allowed for by simple ionization.
I don't want to get into a giant essay here, but I will make two statements which you can take or leave. . .
1. Regarding cancer. . . Cells turn cancerous in the body on a regular basis, and they do this due to any number of causes; radiation from the Sun, toxic chemicals, etc. In the healthy person, the body's immune system is well equipped to detect these rogue cells and kill them. However, it has been demonstrated that when exposed to certain wavelengths of low power EM, cancer cells divide much more quickly while at the same time the body's immune response system is depressed.
2. Cancer isn't even main issue. The real problem is that low power microwave EM, when modulated to replicate low frequencies, (as cell phones do), has been shown to stimulate cells into reacting in a variety of other odd ways. When this happens to cells in the brain and nervous system, it has been demonstrated that perception and awareness are measurably altered at the biochemical level. One mechanic through which this happens is called, Cyclotronic Resonance. I have scanned and posted a chapter from Robter O. Becker's book on how it works here, if you are interested. Basically, EM makes people fuzzy in their thinking and thereby much more easily controlled.
This to me is the real issue. Cancer is a side show.
Wow, a link to information on your geocities site. Yeah, you can get cancer from working a high powered radar system. Of course. You can get cancer from anything. Death is a side-effect of living. Pissing on modern convenience because it'll kill us just the same as everything else, is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Hm. Well there's are several things I should point out here. . .
The first is that Cancer is not the issue with regard to cell phones and low-level EM; rather, it's the effect on brain and cellular chemistry and its effects on consciousness and awareness.
The second is that this state of affairs is understood by those who brought us the technology and was very likely deliberately designed to have such effects for specific reasons.
Thirdly, it's fine to say that the world is dangerous and that living is worth the price, but it's an entirely different thing to choose to live under the strictures of a state which does not want you thinking clearly and which deliberately works to deaden your brain function.
Yes, and more specifically, the reference are pages from a book I scanned and posted there. I did this because the contents of the book were not otherwise available on the web for convenient linkage. If you would like to know more about that source, you may find it here.
Now that this has been cleared up, you may now try actually reading the document before posting your comments.
And you're saying that I should be concerned about the few hundred milliwatts coming from my laptop, but apparently have no concern about the few hundred kilowatts coming from the radio station in the next building? Or the few thousand watts/square meter of microwave radiation I get from the sun on a clear day?
Is that what I was saying? No. Not even a little bit. If you had bothered to read the link provided rather than judge its content based on the quality of the bandwidth provider, you would have been able to work this out on your own, as well as have answered your other questions.
In the words of Martin Sheen, who described this expression in an episode of West Wing, "It's not always true. In fact it's rarely true." Who puts these idiots in charge?
You quote from television without having any of your critical faculties engaged, (and it was a pretend character, not Sheen, btw), and you have the gall to question people who work to extract their wisdom from the real world?
In any case, the basis for much of the concern with EM radiation has nothing to do with clever Latin legal jargon. It has to do with legitimate studies which have repeatedly demonstrated that low-power EM can directly affect living cells and more importantly, biological nervous systems. Do would definitely benefit from some current reading on the subject. Latin philosophy is very clever, but when not properly coupled with real science, it spins off on its own useless masturbatory head-trip.
The posts here read like a grassrooting effort by some telco, except it's probably just a bunch of ignorant geeks who believe whatever they're told by big multinationals and their own beloved government. Oh, it hurts to read this site somedays. . !
There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work.
Yes, I've met hysterical protesters who have used super-soakers to shoot magic indian water at cell towers. They do look silly. --As do hoards of poorly informed parents with bad research and high emotions.
But even sillier are people who cannot make the distinction between a valid concern and an emotional protester with a squirt gun. Think: What if somebody came along jumping up and down with a goofy hat and spittle flying from his mouth insisting that the Earth orbits around the Sun? Would you be so disgusted and put off that you would instantly flee into the welcoming arms of the alternate corporate/government sales pitch for a Flat Earth? You might think you wouldn't be fooled, but the evidence of every day public behavior strongly suggests otherwise. A good example is the current war in Iraq; a lot of people here bought that pack of lies when the government came selling them. Indeed, most people garner most of their knowledge from television, and television has a vested interest in misleading us.
Honestly. A little critical thinking from all the so-called skeptics is in order here, I think.
How does a member of the tinfoil hat set come to run a uni anyway? Friggin luddites...
There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work, and they are understood.
Whereas the only studies which claim that EM is safe were funded by such agencies as the Air Force, (which faced law suits for service men contracting cancer from working radar arrays), and the telecoms who use wording which is strikingly similar to that used by the tobacco giants. An hour of your time doing some research is all that is necessary. Learning is fun!
Why is it anytime that someone mentions God out of the context of a specific religion here on slashdot you automatically get labeled as a Christian[?]
Probably because statistically speaking, most Westerners and Europeans, (from which Slashdot derives most of its readership), if they hold religious views, are Christians.
Please bear in mind that I didn't actually assume that the poster was a Christian. I half-assumed that s/he was an Atheist who was taking a moment to point out the flaws of Islam in a way which seemed rather to lean in a racist direction. All assumption, of course, so I made certain that when I posted my response, it was worded in an open way which might simply include that possibility among others.
If Islam can not stand on it's own than it should not stand. If the best thing you can do to defend Islam is to bash Christians than it's a weak religion.
Huh? I wasn't defending Islam. I think Islam, like all religions, is misguided.
It's odd that on slashdot we have people bashing Christians for so much as protesting or boycotting some media (which is legal) but a Muslim kills someone in the name of defending Islam it's suddenly the fault of Christians? Come on. This is out of hand!
No it's not. Christians are fools, so they're worth bashing until they wake up. --Whether their foolery is aimed at boycotting some media, or declaring war on non-Christian nations, or giving billions of dollars to Israel because their bible is filled with obscure game-rules, Christians are fools. And because we have to deal with millions of them over here in the West, THEY are the ones we need to bash. It's somebody else's job to bash the religious fools living in other nations. Taking care of one's local responsibilities, and all that.
Ah, Christians! They love to wrap their napalm in a veil of righteous denial and fake love. Kind of like a trip to Disneyland, they put reality on hold. But guess what? Women and children still get set on fire. What would Jesus do?
The idea that economies will collapse is just naive. Market economies are responsive, not restrictive.
Responsive? They sure are! --And the collapse of the 20's was one helluva response. It can 'respond' again with similar verve.
The only way the economy will "crumble" into a cloud of dust is for everyone to burn all their money all at once and decide that everything is going to be given away.
Or. . , all of Europe and Asia might switch their reserve currencies; dumping their dollars in favor of the Euro. And if oil prices continue to rise, with everything seeming to live on oil these days, (it governs the cost of transport and heating and farming, which uses enormous amounts of oil in fertilizer), the cost of living and debt maintenence might be pushed beyond the range of most citizens. We're already seeing this pot simmering.
Please bear in mind that I'm not saying the economy will vanish, people will always trade for goods, but I am saying the existing structure is un-sustainable.
Crashing the economy is a deliberate action on the part of the powers that be, effectively making the Government the sole employer, (largely via the military), but it doesn't mean one cannot survive if you build strong ties with your community.
Guess what? It's NOT sustainable. The economy is a top-heavy joke which does not respect Mamma Nature, and as a result, has no choice but to fail spectacularly. --And while it is the engine of greed and control which is speeding this destruction along, some of the unraveling is partly due to the fact that communities have come together to share stuff openly for, oooh, F*R*E*E.
Sure, when the economy crashes, we won't be able to buy things with dollars. (Or rather, with plastic credit/debit cards.) We won't be able to pay rent or buy gas for our cars or go to the grocery store. Horrors! We'll all be broke and the whole world will look like it's crashing down, and it will be.
But. . . When the dust settles, if you want to eat or have somewhere to live, you'll only manage it if you have strong ties to your community. People will have to learn how to take care of each other without the 'aid' of being plugged into the economy. The economy is doomed regardless of how many copies of GIMP are given away. There are larger forces at work than open sourcers and video pirates. But while those larger forces will crumble and fall without their artificial money structure, the communities which learned how to share will survive and thrive.
It's difficult for me to respect any religion which allows any of their religious leaders to offer 1 million dollars as a reward to murder a cartoonist - in the name of Allah, which then should not be used in any disrespectful manner.
Agreed. But we mustn't forget that Christians are guilty of the same thing, with just slightly different methods.
The church-going Bush, who tells us that God is guiding him, calls for us to murder people in the Middle East.
Religion and its leaders can generally be quite dangerous.
s it? Do you have some numbers to back up that claim, or did you just pull some numbers out of your arse so you can feel that the USA (there's other nations in America, too) is the supreme leader in everything, including pr0n?:)
No, I have no figures to back that up, and yes, actually from my arse, which is why I phrased it as a question; Because I don't actually know.
--Though, I do recall reading some stats to that effect, (although, my memory suggests the percentage was actually upwards around 70%, but since I don't know what I'm talking about, I figured it'd be safer to round down. You know, to maintain my integrity.)
But logically. . . When you consider that the U.S.A. is the leader in video media market saturation and general availability of media production technology, and that the entire state of California is filled with porn stars; (and honestly, what other country can make a claim like that?), the U.S. remains one of the most over-sexed, immature, and media hungry cultures on the face of the Big Blue Marble. I'd say that Americans are certainly contenders for the crown of Most Porn Ever Made. --With Japan coming in a middling second. But as you point out, I'm just pulling fake facts from the air, so don't take my words too seriously.
The Department of Homeland Security at the Federal level was created by Congress at the request of President Bush. [. ..] You might want to go read up on the topic of Federalism before making a comment like that.
You said it yourself. "At the request of President Bush."
Keep in mind, that the 9/11 fiasco achieved exactly what was required; panic rendering the minds of the public, and in the case congress, numbed beyond the ability to think rationally. If any real time had been allowed to pass after the event, would the pre-written Patriot Act have been passed without any real oversight, (or anybody reading it)? And in the same way, would Homeland Security have been brought into being without anybody giving it any argument? No. Of course not. "Congress Approved it, so it's not Bush's pet project," is hardly honest.
Montgomery County, Maryland has its own Homeland Security department under its own jurisdiction which may work with, but is not under the jurisdiction of the Federal DHS.
Do you honestly, for five seconds, Really believe that Montgomery County would have implemented it's own office of Homeland Security without Bush's impetus?
Sounds to me like you're incapable of reading and comprehending simple English text. These were county officials. They have nothing to do with "Bush".
Oh come off it. You cannot be serious, can you?
Homeland Security was created by Bush and his crew. Do I really need to use a big fat black marker to connect the dots for you? That kind of hair splitting is a silly waste of time.
Defending American values? Well, sheesh. Isn't more than half of the world's porn made in America? Playboy, anybody?
Sounds to me like Bush's stiffs are more interested in re-defining American values rather than in defending the existing ones. Not like "American Values," which seem to include destroying budding democracies and economies around the world by funding evil men like Saddam, and maintaining one of the lowest standards of living in the world's industrialized nations, the shortest number of holidays, largest number of work hours, largest percentage of starving, homeless and illiterate. . . Golly! Let's defend that!
But with some spiffy re-defining and defending of New American Values, why in 50 years, (if there's still a U.S. around in 50 years when the radioactive dust settles and Bush's babies crawl from their luxurious underground retreats), Americans may well be making the best automobiles, watches and repressed sexuality fetish porn in the world, and be putting all their verbs at the end of the sentence where they damned well belong!
Anyway, what exactly does stamping out porn have to do with stopping 'terrorists' blowing up buildings? Heck, Islamic Extremist groups don't like porn either. They say it's a moral corruption. So wouldn't they approve of this latest move by Bush's stiffs?
It's all nuts. None of it makes sense except when viewed through the spyglass of fascism.
I'm sure people laughed at the brownshirts too. Don't give them an inch.
So you base your facts on your unfounded assumption that anyone who kills in the battlefield is psychopathic... and if they don't make it obvious, they must just be hiding it well? Congratulations, I've lost all respect for you in this debate. Good-day.
That's not what I said at all. Not even a tiny bit. Please re-read my post to determine what I did say.
I find it curious that consistently those who are supporters of war also seem to have problems with reading comprehension. Either they only see what they want to see and act accordingly, (with disastrous results), or they really do try to understand but genuinely have trouble doing so. In either case, the results are similar.
Further, when a debate goes against their position with any force, they tend to run away. This seems strange for people who are pro-war, who I would have thought welcome conflict. Perhaps it's not that they like conflict so much as they like to destroy that which frightens them and if they fail to do so, hide and pretend the opposing view is not there.
All the people in the study were over 65. That means around 40 or so years had passed since they graduated. That's a lot of time to turn into a potato.
Just because you went through school in your 20's doesn't mean you keep on using your mind. From knowing some of the kids I see going to university today, I'd say there is very little proof that it means people use their minds during school. Heck, George Bush is an ivy league graduate, and it is very likely that he suffered brain damaged from all his booze and drug years.
Other studies which I put more stock in, have illustrated that people who regularly work their minds are far less likely to contract degenerative brain diseases. That makes sense to me.
This study sounds chumpy. What are they trying to say exactly? Don't think too much? I'd be very wary if anybody told me to stop thinking.
The instance I like to bring up was when Graham Bell announced that he had come up with a device which could transmit voice miles and miles along a thin copper wire.
Very Smart People guffawed and ridiculed the man. They provided detailed scientific explanations in the journals of the day for why such a claim was utterly ridiculous. They illustrated beyond any doubt that it was impossible for sound waves to carry any appreciable distance down a copper tube which was less than an 8th of an inch in diameter. They laughed and derided and felt very sure of themselves.
So while several warning lights do go off with this guy's claims, (Bell actually had a device to show the world), I'd be careful to close doors on possibilities without having more information. The key is Patience, being Non-Biased and being open to and willing to go looking for New Information rather than sitting on one' arse and letting CNN tell us what is real.
Hahah. That guy kicked your ass so bad in this debate that you became irrational. Good job, other guy.
Irrational? You clearly don't read posts either. I used the phrase, "Fucked in the Head," rather than, "mentally dysfunctional," because I figured he'd understand it more easily given the level of reasoning he'd already demonstrated.
Also, your point fails, becuase if he were really in "counter-intelligence", he wouldn't make such a statement in public!
Why wouldn't he? --It works to dishearten and fragment a movement when a leader does an about-face. Remember, chaos and confusion are the goals of a competent psy-ops project, because without such static tearing things apart, movements can actually succeed.
I don't know about Ross Anderson, but COINTEL certainly does use such tactics.
Slashdot Mirror
-FL
--You know? That ultra-shiny, candy-coated, plasticy soul-less condescending crap which bears zero resemblance to the real world?
Except Apple adds one more dimension; The death-star finish and the distinct feel of something alien and creepy. Like a Membari space cruiser, but one which wants to force DRM down your throat and still not pay the artists.
Ah, Apple and Japanese culture. Dumbed down for the Pod-People.
-FL
--We had, (and still do have), the opportunity to embrace a fair and elegant system of music distribution; to download MP3's directly from the bands and give them donations based on the honor-system. --Heck, iTunes has proven that people are more than willing to pay a buck-a-song. But only, apparently, if that buck is going to a large corporation and NOT the artist.
Yep. People have voted to be unscrupulous and in need of governments and corporations to control their behavior.
Hooray for the Pod-People! You all now give yourselves a nice pat on the back, you cute little consumers, you!
-FL
Music is now co-owned by Apple and the RIAA, and the musicians are still getting screwed. --We had the opportunity to embrace a beautiful and fair system of music distribution; to download high-quality MP3's directly from the bands and give them donations based on the honor-system. Heck, we still have this opportunity. Instead people have voted with their actions to be unscrupulous and in need of governments and corporations to control their behavior. And the artists still get screwed.
Hooray for Humanity.
-FL
Hm. This parting line of yours sounds suspiciously like you will be covering ayour ears now and saying, "La La La, I Can't Hear You!" no matter what I say from this point forth.
Well, fine. While I may risk wasting my time actually responding to your 'points', here goes. . .
For starters, whoever modded up "ZOMGLOL YOUR CELLPHONE IS PART OF A GOVERNM3NT PLOT TO MAKE YOU STUPID!!!1111!111" may well be proof of these 'deadened brains'.
Okay. I don't actually know who you're referring to here or what it has to do with anything we've been discussing. Perhaps you are one of those people who thinks that because some people are insane that ALL people are insane. --Think of it this way; If you met a person who was nuts and you noticed that he wore a red tee shirt, would it be logical to then say, "People with red tee shirts are nuts."? If you need help understanding that, let me know.
Secondly, this is the worst tripe I've ever heard. And that's saying something.
Uh. . , (speaking of brain dead). . , this second 'point' of yours isn't actually a point. It's an opinion. If you want to call it a 'point', then you will need to explain why you hold that opinion.
Third, I call bullshit. If all this stuff deadens our brains, how do you explain the fact that Japan, which I think we can safely say has the highest density of sophisticated consumer electronics on the face of the Earth (especially cellphones), has a higher literacy rate than the United States, despite a written language containing several THOUSAND complex ideograms?
For that matter, how do I explain that with all this EM pollution people are still able to walk and drive cars? And speak? --And play video games requiring speedy hand-eye coordination!
I can, however, say for all that, people sure seem pretty dumb. Your argument, for instance, is lacking a degree of necessary logic to be considered anything even remotely conclusive. --Nobody said that being able to recognize words on a page was removed from a person when they use a cell phone. Reading comprehension and higher reasoning, however, are probably in question. Perhaps I am bold in suggesting that you seem to be something of an example in this case. . .
Kindly return to tending your little conspiracy theory website before I sic the thought police on you. Or, if you insist on continuing to troll, might I suggest an elementary school playground as your next venue? The children would make a far better audience for your psuedo-intellectual paranoid delusions than the slashdot crowd.
I don't have a conspiracy website. I scanned a few book pages so that I might share them with others because it was easier than photocopying them and walking down to the mail box. I find it curious how often people are so scared of thinking and exploring that they recoil from the idea of reading a few paragraphs which may threaten their world view. If your world view makes sense, then surely it can withstand a few paragraphs, and if not, then surly you would want to repair it so that it can. Right? It's as though people are scared that their brains will somehow be corrupted by text. Have you no confidence in your own abilities to sort data on your own? A little courage is in order here.
-FL
Show me a link to a paper published in Nature or Science, or the New England Journal of Medicine, hell, even in the IEEE journal, and I'll check it out. A book on Amazon? Anyone can get any pseudoscientific crap published, and can even get a few Ph.D's to sign off on it, and will sell a million copies if it happens to relate to the FUD-du-jour.
Sooo. . , you only let knowledge in when it comes stamped with authoritarian approval? Do you lack so much confidence in your own abilities that you need others to sort sense from nonsense? You can't do that on your own? --When you give up your thinking powers to others, others will not respect you, nor will they give you the information which might allow you to grow powerful enough to question them. Slave herders like being in charge. Science and Nature and various Journals of Medicine are limited in what they can publish by boundaries which have more to do with egos, corporate funding issues and fear of ridicule than anything to do with the limits of real science.
Until you change your approach to thinking, you will not be able to amount to anything beyond the limits placed upon you by those who have tricked you into believing that authority figures are the only ones who know how to assess data and that you are too stupid to think for yourself.
Honestly. You act as though simply looking or thinking about anything beyond the safe, pre-defined boundaries will somehow corrupt your mind. You are stronger than that.
Yes, microwaves are dangerous. They heat you up, especially the water in your outer tissues. But I'm a lot more worried about the gazillion-watt microwave source 150 million km away than I am about the tiny transmitters in the city around me.
Yes, microwave radiation is directly damaging at high powers. However, at low powers, as from cell phones, etc., the concerns have far more do to with how cells react, particularly in the nervous system. Lots of funny things happen to one's cognition and perception and brain chemistry when using a cell phone. There are some mechanisms which have been recognized and studied which play a part in this. If you are even slightly human, then you should be slightly curious, and if you have any courage whatsoever, you might try doing some exploration beyond the orthodox limits. It's not going to kill you. And by all means, if a text seems lame, then ditch it. --But you should determine its validity through applied thought and cross examination, not by looking at which authority figures are sniggering and trying your best to not be labeled, 'uncool'.
Only muggles care if muggles laugh at them.
-FL
You are right. It is entirely true that ionization does not happen with the low power levels put out by cell phone devices, and therefore DNA damage cannot happen through this means.
Unfortunately, most people, upon recognizing this oft-stated fact, stop questioning and embrace the technology without any further thought. The issue, however, is many times more complex than allowed for by simple ionization.
I don't want to get into a giant essay here, but I will make two statements which you can take or leave. . .
1. Regarding cancer. . . Cells turn cancerous in the body on a regular basis, and they do this due to any number of causes; radiation from the Sun, toxic chemicals, etc. In the healthy person, the body's immune system is well equipped to detect these rogue cells and kill them. However, it has been demonstrated that when exposed to certain wavelengths of low power EM, cancer cells divide much more quickly while at the same time the body's immune response system is depressed.
2. Cancer isn't even main issue. The real problem is that low power microwave EM, when modulated to replicate low frequencies, (as cell phones do), has been shown to stimulate cells into reacting in a variety of other odd ways. When this happens to cells in the brain and nervous system, it has been demonstrated that perception and awareness are measurably altered at the biochemical level. One mechanic through which this happens is called, Cyclotronic Resonance. I have scanned and posted a chapter from Robter O. Becker's book on how it works here, if you are interested. Basically, EM makes people fuzzy in their thinking and thereby much more easily controlled.
This to me is the real issue. Cancer is a side show.
-FL
Hm. Well there's are several things I should point out here. . .
The first is that Cancer is not the issue with regard to cell phones and low-level EM; rather, it's the effect on brain and cellular chemistry and its effects on consciousness and awareness.
The second is that this state of affairs is understood by those who brought us the technology and was very likely deliberately designed to have such effects for specific reasons.
Thirdly, it's fine to say that the world is dangerous and that living is worth the price, but it's an entirely different thing to choose to live under the strictures of a state which does not want you thinking clearly and which deliberately works to deaden your brain function.
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Yes, and more specifically, the reference are pages from a book I scanned and posted there. I did this because the contents of the book were not otherwise available on the web for convenient linkage. If you would like to know more about that source, you may find it here.
Now that this has been cleared up, you may now try actually reading the document before posting your comments.
And you're saying that I should be concerned about the few hundred milliwatts coming from my laptop, but apparently have no concern about the few hundred kilowatts coming from the radio station in the next building? Or the few thousand watts/square meter of microwave radiation I get from the sun on a clear day?
Is that what I was saying? No. Not even a little bit. If you had bothered to read the link provided rather than judge its content based on the quality of the bandwidth provider, you would have been able to work this out on your own, as well as have answered your other questions.
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You quote from television without having any of your critical faculties engaged, (and it was a pretend character, not Sheen, btw), and you have the gall to question people who work to extract their wisdom from the real world?
In any case, the basis for much of the concern with EM radiation has nothing to do with clever Latin legal jargon. It has to do with legitimate studies which have repeatedly demonstrated that low-power EM can directly affect living cells and more importantly, biological nervous systems. Do would definitely benefit from some current reading on the subject. Latin philosophy is very clever, but when not properly coupled with real science, it spins off on its own useless masturbatory head-trip.
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The posts here read like a grassrooting effort by some telco, except it's probably just a bunch of ignorant geeks who believe whatever they're told by big multinationals and their own beloved government. Oh, it hurts to read this site somedays. . !
There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work.
Yes, I've met hysterical protesters who have used super-soakers to shoot magic indian water at cell towers. They do look silly. --As do hoards of poorly informed parents with bad research and high emotions.
But even sillier are people who cannot make the distinction between a valid concern and an emotional protester with a squirt gun. Think: What if somebody came along jumping up and down with a goofy hat and spittle flying from his mouth insisting that the Earth orbits around the Sun? Would you be so disgusted and put off that you would instantly flee into the welcoming arms of the alternate corporate/government sales pitch for a Flat Earth? You might think you wouldn't be fooled, but the evidence of every day public behavior strongly suggests otherwise. A good example is the current war in Iraq; a lot of people here bought that pack of lies when the government came selling them. Indeed, most people garner most of their knowledge from television, and television has a vested interest in misleading us.
Honestly. A little critical thinking from all the so-called skeptics is in order here, I think.
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There have been a lot of studies by reputable researchers which suggest that low power EM has numerous detrimental effects on the nervous system which have nothing to do with ionizion and cell destruction due to microwave heating. There are other mechanics at work, and they are understood.
Whereas the only studies which claim that EM is safe were funded by such agencies as the Air Force, (which faced law suits for service men contracting cancer from working radar arrays), and the telecoms who use wording which is strikingly similar to that used by the tobacco giants. An hour of your time doing some research is all that is necessary. Learning is fun!
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Probably because statistically speaking, most Westerners and Europeans, (from which Slashdot derives most of its readership), if they hold religious views, are Christians.
Please bear in mind that I didn't actually assume that the poster was a Christian. I half-assumed that s/he was an Atheist who was taking a moment to point out the flaws of Islam in a way which seemed rather to lean in a racist direction. All assumption, of course, so I made certain that when I posted my response, it was worded in an open way which might simply include that possibility among others.
If Islam can not stand on it's own than it should not stand. If the best thing you can do to defend Islam is to bash Christians than it's a weak religion.
Huh? I wasn't defending Islam. I think Islam, like all religions, is misguided.
It's odd that on slashdot we have people bashing Christians for so much as protesting or boycotting some media (which is legal) but a Muslim kills someone in the name of defending Islam it's suddenly the fault of Christians? Come on. This is out of hand!
No it's not. Christians are fools, so they're worth bashing until they wake up. --Whether their foolery is aimed at boycotting some media, or declaring war on non-Christian nations, or giving billions of dollars to Israel because their bible is filled with obscure game-rules, Christians are fools. And because we have to deal with millions of them over here in the West, THEY are the ones we need to bash. It's somebody else's job to bash the religious fools living in other nations. Taking care of one's local responsibilities, and all that.
Ah, Christians! They love to wrap their napalm in a veil of righteous denial and fake love. Kind of like a trip to Disneyland, they put reality on hold. But guess what? Women and children still get set on fire. What would Jesus do?
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Responsive? They sure are! --And the collapse of the 20's was one helluva response. It can 'respond' again with similar verve.
The only way the economy will "crumble" into a cloud of dust is for everyone to burn all their money all at once and decide that everything is going to be given away.
Or. . , all of Europe and Asia might switch their reserve currencies; dumping their dollars in favor of the Euro. And if oil prices continue to rise, with everything seeming to live on oil these days, (it governs the cost of transport and heating and farming, which uses enormous amounts of oil in fertilizer), the cost of living and debt maintenence might be pushed beyond the range of most citizens. We're already seeing this pot simmering.
Please bear in mind that I'm not saying the economy will vanish, people will always trade for goods, but I am saying the existing structure is un-sustainable.
Crashing the economy is a deliberate action on the part of the powers that be, effectively making the Government the sole employer, (largely via the military), but it doesn't mean one cannot survive if you build strong ties with your community.
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Guess what? It's NOT sustainable. The economy is a top-heavy joke which does not respect Mamma Nature, and as a result, has no choice but to fail spectacularly. --And while it is the engine of greed and control which is speeding this destruction along, some of the unraveling is partly due to the fact that communities have come together to share stuff openly for, oooh, F*R*E*E.
Sure, when the economy crashes, we won't be able to buy things with dollars. (Or rather, with plastic credit/debit cards.) We won't be able to pay rent or buy gas for our cars or go to the grocery store. Horrors! We'll all be broke and the whole world will look like it's crashing down, and it will be.
But. . . When the dust settles, if you want to eat or have somewhere to live, you'll only manage it if you have strong ties to your community. People will have to learn how to take care of each other without the 'aid' of being plugged into the economy. The economy is doomed regardless of how many copies of GIMP are given away. There are larger forces at work than open sourcers and video pirates. But while those larger forces will crumble and fall without their artificial money structure, the communities which learned how to share will survive and thrive.
Interesting, no?
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Agreed. But we mustn't forget that Christians are guilty of the same thing, with just slightly different methods.
The church-going Bush, who tells us that God is guiding him, calls for us to murder people in the Middle East.
Religion and its leaders can generally be quite dangerous.
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No, I have no figures to back that up, and yes, actually from my arse, which is why I phrased it as a question; Because I don't actually know.
--Though, I do recall reading some stats to that effect, (although, my memory suggests the percentage was actually upwards around 70%, but since I don't know what I'm talking about, I figured it'd be safer to round down. You know, to maintain my integrity.)
But logically. . . When you consider that the U.S.A. is the leader in video media market saturation and general availability of media production technology, and that the entire state of California is filled with porn stars; (and honestly, what other country can make a claim like that?), the U.S. remains one of the most over-sexed, immature, and media hungry cultures on the face of the Big Blue Marble. I'd say that Americans are certainly contenders for the crown of Most Porn Ever Made. --With Japan coming in a middling second. But as you point out, I'm just pulling fake facts from the air, so don't take my words too seriously.
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You said it yourself. "At the request of President Bush."
Keep in mind, that the 9/11 fiasco achieved exactly what was required; panic rendering the minds of the public, and in the case congress, numbed beyond the ability to think rationally. If any real time had been allowed to pass after the event, would the pre-written Patriot Act have been passed without any real oversight, (or anybody reading it)? And in the same way, would Homeland Security have been brought into being without anybody giving it any argument? No. Of course not. "Congress Approved it, so it's not Bush's pet project," is hardly honest.
Montgomery County, Maryland has its own Homeland Security department under its own jurisdiction which may work with, but is not under the jurisdiction of the Federal DHS.
Do you honestly, for five seconds, Really believe that Montgomery County would have implemented it's own office of Homeland Security without Bush's impetus?
Hair splitting is foolish.
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Oh come off it. You cannot be serious, can you?
Homeland Security was created by Bush and his crew. Do I really need to use a big fat black marker to connect the dots for you? That kind of hair splitting is a silly waste of time.
Goodbye.
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Defending American values? Well, sheesh. Isn't more than half of the world's porn made in America? Playboy, anybody?
Sounds to me like Bush's stiffs are more interested in re-defining American values rather than in defending the existing ones. Not like "American Values," which seem to include destroying budding democracies and economies around the world by funding evil men like Saddam, and maintaining one of the lowest standards of living in the world's industrialized nations, the shortest number of holidays, largest number of work hours, largest percentage of starving, homeless and illiterate. . . Golly! Let's defend that!
But with some spiffy re-defining and defending of New American Values, why in 50 years, (if there's still a U.S. around in 50 years when the radioactive dust settles and Bush's babies crawl from their luxurious underground retreats), Americans may well be making the best automobiles, watches and repressed sexuality fetish porn in the world, and be putting all their verbs at the end of the sentence where they damned well belong!
Anyway, what exactly does stamping out porn have to do with stopping 'terrorists' blowing up buildings? Heck, Islamic Extremist groups don't like porn either. They say it's a moral corruption. So wouldn't they approve of this latest move by Bush's stiffs?
It's all nuts. None of it makes sense except when viewed through the spyglass of fascism.
I'm sure people laughed at the brownshirts too. Don't give them an inch.
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That's not what I said at all. Not even a tiny bit. Please re-read my post to determine what I did say.
I find it curious that consistently those who are supporters of war also seem to have problems with reading comprehension. Either they only see what they want to see and act accordingly, (with disastrous results), or they really do try to understand but genuinely have trouble doing so. In either case, the results are similar.
Further, when a debate goes against their position with any force, they tend to run away. This seems strange for people who are pro-war, who I would have thought welcome conflict. Perhaps it's not that they like conflict so much as they like to destroy that which frightens them and if they fail to do so, hide and pretend the opposing view is not there.
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Just because you went through school in your 20's doesn't mean you keep on using your mind. From knowing some of the kids I see going to university today, I'd say there is very little proof that it means people use their minds during school. Heck, George Bush is an ivy league graduate, and it is very likely that he suffered brain damaged from all his booze and drug years.
Other studies which I put more stock in, have illustrated that people who regularly work their minds are far less likely to contract degenerative brain diseases. That makes sense to me.
This study sounds chumpy. What are they trying to say exactly? Don't think too much? I'd be very wary if anybody told me to stop thinking.
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The instance I like to bring up was when Graham Bell announced that he had come up with a device which could transmit voice miles and miles along a thin copper wire.
Very Smart People guffawed and ridiculed the man. They provided detailed scientific explanations in the journals of the day for why such a claim was utterly ridiculous. They illustrated beyond any doubt that it was impossible for sound waves to carry any appreciable distance down a copper tube which was less than an 8th of an inch in diameter. They laughed and derided and felt very sure of themselves.
So while several warning lights do go off with this guy's claims, (Bell actually had a device to show the world), I'd be careful to close doors on possibilities without having more information. The key is Patience, being Non-Biased and being open to and willing to go looking for New Information rather than sitting on one' arse and letting CNN tell us what is real.
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Irrational? You clearly don't read posts either. I used the phrase, "Fucked in the Head," rather than, "mentally dysfunctional," because I figured he'd understand it more easily given the level of reasoning he'd already demonstrated.
How's your head space?
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Why wouldn't he? --It works to dishearten and fragment a movement when a leader does an about-face. Remember, chaos and confusion are the goals of a competent psy-ops project, because without such static tearing things apart, movements can actually succeed.
I don't know about Ross Anderson, but COINTEL certainly does use such tactics.
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