Direct precise observations conradicts this idea. We'd know it right away from GPS. People have already looked into it and the rotation of the Earth is proceeding as expected.
If you can post false assumptions, then you also have access to the internet.
Look before you leap.
Seriously. Look up "Leap Second". The Earth's rotation is in fact variable and right now it happens to be slowing.
So I'm supposed the buy the idea that there is no anthropogenic global warming despite massive physical evidence----but there is some mystical planetary changes because of a "dark star" despite the total lack of any physical evidence.
No. You're supposed to believe in AGW, and you are proceeding accordingly. That's how propaganda and mind-programming works.
I'm just pointing out the truth. Whether you choose to explore that truth and determine how it fits with your existence is entirely up to you. It's not my problem.
The point of the matter is that the evidence for global warming, if you actually explore it, tells a far more complicated story than the one which has been bought and paid for by people who don't actually have your best interests at heart. (Actually, I doubt they even have hearts at all, but that's another issue.)
The facts don't line up, there is real hysteria and momentum preventing clear thought, and there are many scientists who disagree with AGW for exactly those reasons, so there really isn't any global consensus despite what AGW people claim. And there are other facts which are being totally ignored. I have provided a lot of threads and ideas which you can independently verify, and which lead to actual knowledge rather than the kinds of false assumptions you have been conditioned to make.
Thinking independently IS hard, I know. But it's the only way out, because you are NEVER going to be told the truth by big media, nor will you find it on either side of any large populist debate. The truth is the quiet thing off to one side.
Are you a cow or a human?
Most people are cows and they prove it every single day through their preference to being herded over the rigors of independent exploration.
There's plenty of good thinking and evidence and answers to your questions, but it's not going to be served up on a silver platter, especially with your attitude.
Remember: Your level of awareness is nobody's problem but your own. Put another way: I've got what I need. Why should I care how stupid you are at the end of the day? I just put stuff out there for others who are seeking and curious because I learned from similar efforts. But that's the end of my obligation. Forcing knowledge on people is not my job.
Only fools believe they need validation from muggles.
There are a couple of satellites which travel regular orbits enabling perfect pictures of Greenland and its glaciers.
They are the Terra satellite and the Aqua satellite.
Terra has been in orbit since 1999 and Aqua since 2002. They have taken some excellent, high-resolution images of Greenland and her ice sheets.
They are both in a perfect situation to take comparative images of the extent of glaciers and ice pack over the approximately 10 year period of their service. It would be quite easy to see just how much ice is and is not there in that given time frame. However, there is a problem. I can't find any images which show these comparisons. Why? It ought to be an obvious course of research. "How much ice is there today verses ten years ago?"
But that question isn't answered with direct photographic evidence.
Instead, we are offered fudge FUDD articles like this one, (widely quoted), based on squishy, confusing math.
Why can't we see some simple photos? I am told over and over that the glaciers are retreating. The ice packs are melting. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is vanishing so quickly. (One wonders why the bears did not just walk away from the water's edge. Greenland didn't sink. So maybe something else was going on. Like creative hysterical journalism perhaps?) But okay, the claims are that the ice is vanishing. Fair enough. I'm open to that. I've been open to that for the whole enthusiastic several-year ride I took on the Al Gore bandwagon. But enough is enough. Show me the pictures. We have the satellites in place, they take excellent images on a regular basis. So show them to me. We could all benefit from this very simple demonstration.
But really, I'd like to see those satellite images from then and now. Why has nobody provided them?
Here's one theory:
Global Warming is a giant scam. A one-world-government tax scheme and distraction from what is REALLY going on.
Yes, before you argue, climate change is certainly happening. There is no question about that. But the problem is a LOT more complicated than just CO2 emissions. Consider. ..
1. It's happening not just on earth. (Notice the brand new giant spot on Jupiter? What convenient timing.)
2. Animals are freezing to death in places where this doesn't normally happen. Vietnamese cows. Fish in many parts of the world are dying because they find the water too cold. Even people in India are being hit with weird cold snaps. It is suggested that we are entering another ice-age.
3. Magnetic north is rapidly sliding out of the norm. The airport in Tampa FL just repainted its runway markers to catch up with the change.
4. Greenland experienced its first sunrise after the longest night two days too early.[..]on january 13th (13 minutes before 13:00) of each year, the people of Ilulissat go to welcome back the sun after months of darkness." It's clocked to the exact same minute every year. This year it was off by two days. That's odd. --And of course, the AGW people have quickly leaped to blame the melting ice sheets, saying that with the ice sheets melted down, the sun would of course be seen earlier. But there is a problem with that theory. The Sun's appearance isn't measured over something as changeable as ice. It is measured over rock and ocean. So what might be the real reason? Well, here's an idea which doesn't requ
One department in the ultra-semi-secret world of semi-clandestine operations and general screwing around would have been in charge of building the thing to accomplish whatever task it was designed for, though due to rampant compartmentalization, they probably didn't know where it was being aimed.
Another department was probably in charge of making sure the world found out about it and that the project got plenty of attention so as to continue the psy-ops war against Iran. ("I'm not yet convinced that Iran really is the boogey man we need to spend a trillion dollars going to war against on flimsy evidence made up by a couple of psychopathic war-mongers in England and the U.S.. I need more news stories where Iran is the bad guy.")
And few of the project workers would have been clued into what the other project workers were clued into. Compartmentalization keeps stuff mostly secret but then drops the ball on organization.
"The popular astrologer Susan Miller called the news "ridiculous." In an interview with ABC News, she said, "We've known about this for ages. The constellations don't suggest what's coming up, it's the planets! The constellations are a measuring device."
"In ancient days there were, like, 50 constellations. Then they finally got together and agreed on 18. Then they narrowed it down," says Miller. "I'm getting so many tweets. Trying to explain something technical in 140 characters is hard!"
That's it. Two lines.
There is a LOT of media energy being spent focusing on spinning up a ton of confusion based on old, (OLD) news and very little spent asking people who know what they are talking about to clear things up. It's almost as though there is some sort of vested interest in muddying the waters.
-A story which actually happens to be HUGELY important because it means our planet is changing significantly, (probably spinning more slowly.)
Though, I notice in the rush to forget about it as quickly as possible, they're actually trying to pin it to Global Warming. (As if they measure the annual sunrise dates against the tops of mutable ice and snow rather than a fixed horizon feature, like the ocean, for instance.)
Whatever the case. . , I smell distraction.
The world is changing in BIG ways, folks. But yes, let's confuse the issue by creating emotional links to nonsense stories that scientifically inclined people will then have to contend with should they ever wake up for long enough to notice the real issues happening around them.
I know that astrology is bunk anyways... but I'd seriously like to know if this is for real... at least insomuch as it is part of actual astrology?
I'm confused. You KNOW that astrology is bunk, but you don't know enough about it to understand this story?
Sorry. That doesn't parse.
How can you know enough to judge something you don't actually understand?
-Remember all those antagonist characters in stories the hero has to deal with? The ignorant Kafkaesque lunatics in power? Slashdot is full of weenie versions of them.
In your rush to arrogance, did you stop to consider that Astrologers have known about precession for as long as there has been a word for it?
It's just a labeling problem, and an easy one to solve. Astrologers who know their stuff work from current activity in the night time sky. This is only an issue among the ignorant, of which you are a member. Sorry.
There is as much disinformation among the New Age types as there is among the Science types. The god of Dogma wears all hats.
The fact that the vast majority of the people reading Slashdot have never done any honest hands-on research into Astrology, and who fall so easily into pack mentality, (laughing because everybody else is laughing regardless of the actual realities involved), speaks clearly as to the quality of the minds in question.
They're children. They are governed by fear of ridicule and they seek public acceptance above ALL else. Science is a powerful tool, but it only works when one is willing to act based on logic and objective observations even when the popular beliefs of the herd insist otherwise.
The simple fact that you have taken the time to actually explore and research Astrology beyond simply memorizing the popular critiques, means you are further developed than those who allow fear of ridicule and rejection by their peers to dictate their actions; to dictate their beliefs.
Apart from anything else, you shouldn't rampantly capitalise things that aren't proper nouns. Using Scientists, Astrology, Zodiac and Planets instantly loses you credibility because you're using a language construction which usually denotes some kind of exceptional status, when you should be treating them as basic nouns and calmly discussing something about them.
I also watch grammar as a means of gauging the competency of the poster. However, the technical flaws you point out are on the forgivable side of the line; that is there are such things as typos, and various colloquial usages which while not technically correct do not actually get in the way of robust communication. Those are okay by me. Your two sentences above, in fact, have a couple of technical flaws of that very sort which I let go for exactly this reason. They're not important and the intelligence of the poster comes through nonetheless. On the grammar side, anyway. In the reasoning side, I take exception. . .
Capitalizing improper nouns for effect is something I do all the time, and I call it "Style". It's like putting vocal emphasis on words when speaking, denoting importance within the context of the discussion. 'Science' and 'Astrology' are both the subjects of the debate, and depending on how I feel like writing on a given day, will get capitalized due to that significance.
Calling the poster's use of capitalization "Rampant" to denote a negative emotional quality to his writing style, which you then use to attack his credibility, is however, a curious thing for you to attack as doing so actually damages your own credibility exactly because it's such an unwarranted nit-pick.
There is no problem with his writing style. His reads as sane and collected. (Though, I'd add some extra carriage returns to make reading a bit easier). If you take issue with his thinking and his subject matter, then do so, but attacking based on flimsy grammar issues is cheap and evasive.
FFS, why in Jehovah's name are we giving anything like this even a MICROSECOND of our attention when vaccinations are SAFE and WORK?
Because that's a blanket statement which isn't true all of the time, and you know it. There is corruption, greed and ineptness in the world, and to pretend that there isn't simply because we like the fundamental IDEA of vaccines, is foolish. Injecting mercury and formaldehyde and other questionable contaminants is a BAD idea even if it does happen to be done in conjunction with the execution of an otherwise GOOD idea.
In a black & white universe, it's easy to make choices. But our universe is filled with colors and shades, and that is why we give this subject our attention. It's how we learn.
People taking one side with great vehemence without considering the other really doesn't help.
Yeah, last year's flu vaccine bonanza world-wide sales due to all that fear marketing only reaped something like 6 billion dollars in sales split between a half dozen small medical companies. Just in time for Christmas bonuses.
But yeah, that IS actually relatively little money by comparison to all other combined drug sales. Amazing.
Though, I don't know about the world being better off with big pharma than without. People are fat and stupid as a direct result of food/drug companies and their policies. As with most things championed by Slashdotters; the idea is great, but the reality and execution are pretty damned corrupt.
Ten years after the spill in 1999, the beaches appeared clean but a 2001 NOAA study of 91 area sites found that more than 50% were still contaminated with Exxon Valdez oil to nearly the same degree as during the initial spill. 2003 studies indicated that 21,000 gallons of this oil still remained in the area and up to 450 miles away. The oil is estimated to be diminishing at a rate of only 4% per year. Clean-up and natural processes have only been able to clean oil out of only the top 3 inches of sediment.
I check in once a month (or less) just to access the dumb messages people don't feel fit to just email like in the old days, but mostly to make sure people don't feel left out. Apparently, I have several hundred friends. Who knew? I wish everybody the best, but I find that site aggravating beyond belief and I am almost 100% certain it's the result of some half-baked CIA funding on some level.
Best story I heard lately which sounds the death knell for that atrocious waste of bandwidth: "My mom wanted me to show her how to sign up. I said no way! I don't want her knowing about my social life!" (Speaker was a lesbian and whose hard-case mom didn't know it.)
FB is also no longer, as far as I can tell, useful for legions of bored stalkers and Jr. High social comparison because people have been locking down pictures and other "top secret" personal silliness. Thus, the main feature which attracted everybody to it, the chance to see beneath people's public masks, is now drying up.
That stupid, soul-diminishing site which encourages the dumbest, most 2-dimensional human behavior sets is dying, and not a moment too soon. The only thing which sours my joy over this fact is the unpleasant anticipation of what new horror is no doubt waiting in the wings to continue the feast upon people's hearts and minds.
Most of the people here will never, ever do that. Heck, most people here, unless it's a TV program they can zone out in front of while pretending to be 'learning', will do exactly zero research into anything which has even a slight chance of accruing ridicule.
Corporate health care and food and drug systems have a proven track record of making everybody sick for profit, and the laws of competition simply don't work as promised in preventing this. If they did work, then Americans wouldn't be so fat and sick. At least with government there is the idea that control and regulation are in the hands of the public.
That's the dream, anyway. The reality is that the military/industrial interests have taken over the government, so democracy is a big fail.
But the original idea itself was sound. It's too bad that the real world is corrupt to the core. Thank-goodness for this coming ice age and the comets and all the other stuff which will be wiping the slate clean!
Actually, I'm glad the two of you posted. I can just add it to the list of items which seem to indicate that parts of North America are being affected differently by these weird weather patterns than is Europe.
Until you spend some time on the lonely side of the podium, it's hard to comment with a full scope of knowledge on this question.
Classes where laptops are left closed result in much more engaged and dynamic classes. Those where they are open result in the "room full of zombies" effect. There's a reason it's so annoying to talk with somebody who looks away and digs in a purse or engages elsewhere when it's your turn to speak. The bio-feedback loop collapses and the teacher might as well post lectures on YouTube and students post questions in an on-line forum somewhere. Heck; on YouTube you can pause and re-play stuff. And it's cheaper!
Universities were built and people attend them at great cost in order to assemble like-minds in one place so that everybody can benefit from those aspects of humanity which thrive on face to face communication, (also earned at great cost through the trials of evolution). There are many layers of communication taking place, both subtle and extreme, which bring a room alive when people engage in each other in meat-space, but which are stripped away when it's done through a computer screen. This doesn't mean that the virtual world is without benefit. It's not; computers are a boon. But the virtual world can be attended any time, any place you can flip open a laptop. It was built to simulate the grand effect of a campus assembly. But if you are actually attending a college assembly. . ?
Laptops need to be used responsibly. Turn off animations and distracting screen savers in respect of the people sitting near you. If you're going to take notes, then sure, do so, but have the courtesy to limit it to notes and stay engaged in discussions. If you need to look something up to aid the discussion, then sure, do that, but in general things work best when all eyes and ears are on whoever is speaking. If you want to play on Facebook or dip into a game, then that's fine by me, but please physically leave class first because you're literally sucking the life out of the room by removing your mind and leaving a vacant corpse in your chair. It's creepy.
Ideally, I like to have wifi and fluorescent lights killed and windows open for fresh air. I also like to rearrange the chairs so that we can all see each other to better engage. Do that, and everybody wakes up, but these days it's very hard to scrub an environment of all the fuzz designed to keep us zoned out.
It doesn't matter what course you choose to take. If you leave the psychopaths in positions of power, then whatever system is used will only lead to further misery.
These problems can only be solved by the recognizing and removal of non-humans. I'd start at the banking level, remove the psychopaths from that system, undo usery, and then work down.
If the ability to experience empathy is a pre-requisite before one can be considered human, then Psychopaths are not human. They are a predator population which has embedded itself at the highest levels of power and social control. If you want to treat them kindly, then that's fine, but whatever happens, they need to be removed from their positions or we will continue to live in a state of war, poverty and misery.
Thank you for the advice, but I'm going to ignore it. In fact, the more I learn, the more fascinating the world becomes and the less apathetic I grow. I certainly don't disagree that governments are incapable of imagination, but I don't see how that proves your point; 9/11 was utter Bruce Willis shlock designed for a low-brow TV addicted nation.
Maybe your books, people, experiences, practices and modes of thinking need to be updated?
Or maybe you need to avoid tap water? Fluoride poisoning is one of the leading causes of apathy.
Arguments like yours are why the scientific method is such a necessity.
Wrong. Scientific method is such a necessity because so many people refuse to do anything more than pay it lip service.
If you stop putting on a nice civilly compliant act of knowledge seeking and go and actually seek some knowledge, you'll be much richer for the experience. You'll be ostracized, of course, but only by a bunch of cognitively dissonant muggles utterly unworthy of any respect whatsoever, so who cares?
This reads like "Project Blue Book" crap, which was later admitted by those involved to be nothing more than a public relations lie factory.
A cursory flip through these documents reveals them to be a sampling of sleep-worthy accounts, (points of light in the sky which are easily identifiable as satellites or other mundane objects) and a collection of letters written by school children and un-balanced people along with the patient responses from overwrought defense officers charged with the duty of replying to this nonsense. -Along with a bunch of internal memos where clipped newspaper articles were circulated among government staffers.
Either New Zealand's military, police and air traffic officials are blissfully excluded from the rest of the planet which has lived through hundreds of events of a far more dramatic nature and which include multiple witness accounts including people who are not allowed to omit documenting their experiences.., or this whole release is carefully edited spin.
I mean, come on. This is published by a government! As anybody who has experienced anything to do with any government anywhere, the people involved must exist in a state filled with 800 pound gorillas and the game-theory proven reality is that never, ever sticking your neck out is simply the only way to survive as a civil servant.
The only interesting point in all of this is that somebody somewhere decided that spin was in fact needed. THAT means there is a fear that the population was threatening to become a little too informed and needed to be tucked back in.
I'd say that Richard Dolan is largely responsible for this response, and he's been soundly dealt with over the last year or so; a man who was once a premier UFO researcher of impeccable academic quality and grit has been given quite the mind-fuck lately with a lot of weird influences introduced into his life. (Creepy psyops people). He's been seduced into doing those idiotic TV shows for heaven's sake!
This kind of release would help along the impression that his work is just a bunch of bunk.
If their insight into the reality of what makes the human mind react is this thin, then I can only imagine that the punchline/plot-twist/grand-finale is going to be just as campy and groan-worthy.
If they hadn't already softened up (force-fed) their audience with twenty years of the most embarrassingly and increasingly low-brow circuses humanity is capable of viewing without actually drooling into their popcorn, I'd venture to guess that nobody would buy any of this farce.
If you want to see how much traction false media stories can achieve, just look at pretty much every second news item.
This is why discussion forums are so important; so that people from diverse backgrounds can network and compare notes and at least make an attempt to figure out what is really going on.
News stories are usually, I find, only valuable in terms of meta-information which can be used to extrapolate reality. Deliberately poisoning the mix with lame information is nothing new, the only difference here is that in this particular case, we've been let in on the starting point of the corruption.
Slashdot Mirror
Direct precise observations conradicts this idea. We'd know it right away from GPS. People have already looked into it and the rotation of the Earth is proceeding as expected.
If you can post false assumptions, then you also have access to the internet.
Look before you leap.
Seriously. Look up "Leap Second". The Earth's rotation is in fact variable and right now it happens to be slowing.
So I'm supposed the buy the idea that there is no anthropogenic global warming despite massive physical evidence----but there is some mystical planetary changes because of a "dark star" despite the total lack of any physical evidence.
No. You're supposed to believe in AGW, and you are proceeding accordingly. That's how propaganda and mind-programming works.
I'm just pointing out the truth. Whether you choose to explore that truth and determine how it fits with your existence is entirely up to you. It's not my problem.
The point of the matter is that the evidence for global warming, if you actually explore it, tells a far more complicated story than the one which has been bought and paid for by people who don't actually have your best interests at heart. (Actually, I doubt they even have hearts at all, but that's another issue.)
The facts don't line up, there is real hysteria and momentum preventing clear thought, and there are many scientists who disagree with AGW for exactly those reasons, so there really isn't any global consensus despite what AGW people claim. And there are other facts which are being totally ignored. I have provided a lot of threads and ideas which you can independently verify, and which lead to actual knowledge rather than the kinds of false assumptions you have been conditioned to make.
Thinking independently IS hard, I know. But it's the only way out, because you are NEVER going to be told the truth by big media, nor will you find it on either side of any large populist debate. The truth is the quiet thing off to one side.
Are you a cow or a human?
Most people are cows and they prove it every single day through their preference to being herded over the rigors of independent exploration.
-FL
Be lazy at your own risk.
There's plenty of good thinking and evidence and answers to your questions, but it's not going to be served up on a silver platter, especially with your attitude.
Remember: Your level of awareness is nobody's problem but your own. Put another way: I've got what I need. Why should I care how stupid you are at the end of the day? I just put stuff out there for others who are seeking and curious because I learned from similar efforts. But that's the end of my obligation. Forcing knowledge on people is not my job.
Only fools believe they need validation from muggles.
-FL
There are a couple of satellites which travel regular orbits enabling perfect pictures of Greenland and its glaciers.
They are the Terra satellite and the Aqua satellite.
Terra has been in orbit since 1999 and Aqua since 2002. They have taken some excellent, high-resolution images of Greenland and her ice sheets.
They are both in a perfect situation to take comparative images of the extent of glaciers and ice pack over the approximately 10 year period of their service. It would be quite easy to see just how much ice is and is not there in that given time frame. However, there is a problem. I can't find any images which show these comparisons. Why? It ought to be an obvious course of research. "How much ice is there today verses ten years ago?"
But that question isn't answered with direct photographic evidence.
Instead, we are offered fudge FUDD articles like this one, (widely quoted), based on squishy, confusing math.
Why can't we see some simple photos? I am told over and over that the glaciers are retreating. The ice packs are melting. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is vanishing so quickly. (One wonders why the bears did not just walk away from the water's edge. Greenland didn't sink. So maybe something else was going on. Like creative hysterical journalism perhaps?) But okay, the claims are that the ice is vanishing. Fair enough. I'm open to that. I've been open to that for the whole enthusiastic several-year ride I took on the Al Gore bandwagon. But enough is enough. Show me the pictures. We have the satellites in place, they take excellent images on a regular basis. So show them to me. We could all benefit from this very simple demonstration.
But we don't have those photos. (We do have some curious items like which seem to stand in stark contrast to the AGW narrative.)
But really, I'd like to see those satellite images from then and now. Why has nobody provided them?
Here's one theory:
Global Warming is a giant scam. A one-world-government tax scheme and distraction from what is REALLY going on.
Yes, before you argue, climate change is certainly happening. There is no question about that. But the problem is a LOT more complicated than just CO2 emissions. Consider. . .
1. It's happening not just on earth. (Notice the brand new giant spot on Jupiter? What convenient timing.)
2. Animals are freezing to death in places where this doesn't normally happen. Vietnamese cows. Fish in many parts of the world are dying because they find the water too cold. Even people in India are being hit with weird cold snaps. It is suggested that we are entering another ice-age.
3. Magnetic north is rapidly sliding out of the norm. The airport in Tampa FL just repainted its runway markers to catch up with the change.
4. Greenland experienced its first sunrise after the longest night two days too early. [..]on january 13th (13 minutes before 13:00) of each year, the people of Ilulissat go to welcome back the sun after months of darkness." It's clocked to the exact same minute every year. This year it was off by two days. That's odd. --And of course, the AGW people have quickly leaped to blame the melting ice sheets, saying that with the ice sheets melted down, the sun would of course be seen earlier. But there is a problem with that theory. The Sun's appearance isn't measured over something as changeable as ice. It is measured over rock and ocean. So what might be the real reason? Well, here's an idea which doesn't requ
One department in the ultra-semi-secret world of semi-clandestine operations and general screwing around would have been in charge of building the thing to accomplish whatever task it was designed for, though due to rampant compartmentalization, they probably didn't know where it was being aimed.
Another department was probably in charge of making sure the world found out about it and that the project got plenty of attention so as to continue the psy-ops war against Iran. ("I'm not yet convinced that Iran really is the boogey man we need to spend a trillion dollars going to war against on flimsy evidence made up by a couple of psychopathic war-mongers in England and the U.S.. I need more news stories where Iran is the bad guy.")
And few of the project workers would have been clued into what the other project workers were clued into. Compartmentalization keeps stuff mostly secret but then drops the ball on organization.
Go Team!
-FL
"The popular astrologer Susan Miller called the news "ridiculous." In an interview with ABC News, she said, "We've known about this for ages. The constellations don't suggest what's coming up, it's the planets! The constellations are a measuring device."
"In ancient days there were, like, 50 constellations. Then they finally got together and agreed on 18. Then they narrowed it down," says Miller. "I'm getting so many tweets. Trying to explain something technical in 140 characters is hard!"
That's it. Two lines.
There is a LOT of media energy being spent focusing on spinning up a ton of confusion based on old, (OLD) news and very little spent asking people who know what they are talking about to clear things up. It's almost as though there is some sort of vested interest in muddying the waters.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Greenland saw the Sun rise two days too early this year. . ?
-A story which actually happens to be HUGELY important because it means our planet is changing significantly, (probably spinning more slowly.)
Though, I notice in the rush to forget about it as quickly as possible, they're actually trying to pin it to Global Warming. (As if they measure the annual sunrise dates against the tops of mutable ice and snow rather than a fixed horizon feature, like the ocean, for instance.)
Whatever the case. . , I smell distraction.
The world is changing in BIG ways, folks. But yes, let's confuse the issue by creating emotional links to nonsense stories that scientifically inclined people will then have to contend with should they ever wake up for long enough to notice the real issues happening around them.
-FL
I know that astrology is bunk anyways... but I'd seriously like to know if this is for real... at least insomuch as it is part of actual astrology?
I'm confused. You KNOW that astrology is bunk, but you don't know enough about it to understand this story?
Sorry. That doesn't parse.
How can you know enough to judge something you don't actually understand?
-Remember all those antagonist characters in stories the hero has to deal with? The ignorant Kafkaesque lunatics in power? Slashdot is full of weenie versions of them.
-FL
In your rush to arrogance, did you stop to consider that Astrologers have known about precession for as long as there has been a word for it?
It's just a labeling problem, and an easy one to solve. Astrologers who know their stuff work from current activity in the night time sky. This is only an issue among the ignorant, of which you are a member. Sorry.
There is as much disinformation among the New Age types as there is among the Science types. The god of Dogma wears all hats.
-FL
The fact that the vast majority of the people reading Slashdot have never done any honest hands-on research into Astrology, and who fall so easily into pack mentality, (laughing because everybody else is laughing regardless of the actual realities involved), speaks clearly as to the quality of the minds in question.
They're children. They are governed by fear of ridicule and they seek public acceptance above ALL else. Science is a powerful tool, but it only works when one is willing to act based on logic and objective observations even when the popular beliefs of the herd insist otherwise.
The simple fact that you have taken the time to actually explore and research Astrology beyond simply memorizing the popular critiques, means you are further developed than those who allow fear of ridicule and rejection by their peers to dictate their actions; to dictate their beliefs.
-FL
Apart from anything else, you shouldn't rampantly capitalise things that aren't proper nouns. Using Scientists, Astrology, Zodiac and Planets instantly loses you credibility because you're using a language construction which usually denotes some kind of exceptional status, when you should be treating them as basic nouns and calmly discussing something about them.
I also watch grammar as a means of gauging the competency of the poster. However, the technical flaws you point out are on the forgivable side of the line; that is there are such things as typos, and various colloquial usages which while not technically correct do not actually get in the way of robust communication. Those are okay by me. Your two sentences above, in fact, have a couple of technical flaws of that very sort which I let go for exactly this reason. They're not important and the intelligence of the poster comes through nonetheless. On the grammar side, anyway. In the reasoning side, I take exception. . .
Capitalizing improper nouns for effect is something I do all the time, and I call it "Style". It's like putting vocal emphasis on words when speaking, denoting importance within the context of the discussion. 'Science' and 'Astrology' are both the subjects of the debate, and depending on how I feel like writing on a given day, will get capitalized due to that significance.
Calling the poster's use of capitalization "Rampant" to denote a negative emotional quality to his writing style, which you then use to attack his credibility, is however, a curious thing for you to attack as doing so actually damages your own credibility exactly because it's such an unwarranted nit-pick.
There is no problem with his writing style. His reads as sane and collected. (Though, I'd add some extra carriage returns to make reading a bit easier). If you take issue with his thinking and his subject matter, then do so, but attacking based on flimsy grammar issues is cheap and evasive.
-FL
FFS, why in Jehovah's name are we giving anything like this even a MICROSECOND of our attention when vaccinations are SAFE and WORK?
Because that's a blanket statement which isn't true all of the time, and you know it. There is corruption, greed and ineptness in the world, and to pretend that there isn't simply because we like the fundamental IDEA of vaccines, is foolish. Injecting mercury and formaldehyde and other questionable contaminants is a BAD idea even if it does happen to be done in conjunction with the execution of an otherwise GOOD idea.
In a black & white universe, it's easy to make choices. But our universe is filled with colors and shades, and that is why we give this subject our attention. It's how we learn.
People taking one side with great vehemence without considering the other really doesn't help.
-FL
Yeah, last year's flu vaccine bonanza world-wide sales due to all that fear marketing only reaped something like 6 billion dollars in sales split between a half dozen small medical companies. Just in time for Christmas bonuses.
But yeah, that IS actually relatively little money by comparison to all other combined drug sales. Amazing.
Though, I don't know about the world being better off with big pharma than without. People are fat and stupid as a direct result of food/drug companies and their policies. As with most things championed by Slashdotters; the idea is great, but the reality and execution are pretty damned corrupt.
-FL
Bullshit. Are you evil, insane or just ignorant?
Ten years after the spill in 1999, the beaches appeared clean but a 2001 NOAA study of 91 area sites found that more than 50% were still contaminated with Exxon Valdez oil to nearly the same degree as during the initial spill. 2003 studies indicated that 21,000 gallons of this oil still remained in the area and up to 450 miles away. The oil is estimated to be diminishing at a rate of only 4% per year. Clean-up and natural processes have only been able to clean oil out of only the top 3 inches of sediment.
http://greenanswers.com/blog/161681/exxon-valdez-today
And that doesn't take into account the pathological use of the highly toxic Corexit.
-FL
Nah. After the Ultraword (tm) fiasco, the project was (thankfully) abandoned.
-FL
Hate the damned site. Hate it.
I check in once a month (or less) just to access the dumb messages people don't feel fit to just email like in the old days, but mostly to make sure people don't feel left out. Apparently, I have several hundred friends. Who knew? I wish everybody the best, but I find that site aggravating beyond belief and I am almost 100% certain it's the result of some half-baked CIA funding on some level.
Best story I heard lately which sounds the death knell for that atrocious waste of bandwidth: "My mom wanted me to show her how to sign up. I said no way! I don't want her knowing about my social life!" (Speaker was a lesbian and whose hard-case mom didn't know it.)
FB is also no longer, as far as I can tell, useful for legions of bored stalkers and Jr. High social comparison because people have been locking down pictures and other "top secret" personal silliness. Thus, the main feature which attracted everybody to it, the chance to see beneath people's public masks, is now drying up.
That stupid, soul-diminishing site which encourages the dumbest, most 2-dimensional human behavior sets is dying, and not a moment too soon. The only thing which sours my joy over this fact is the unpleasant anticipation of what new horror is no doubt waiting in the wings to continue the feast upon people's hearts and minds.
-FL
You're willing to go out and look for yourself?
Most of the people here will never, ever do that. Heck, most people here, unless it's a TV program they can zone out in front of while pretending to be 'learning', will do exactly zero research into anything which has even a slight chance of accruing ridicule.
Kudos to you.
-FL
That's not really fair.
Corporate health care and food and drug systems have a proven track record of making everybody sick for profit, and the laws of competition simply don't work as promised in preventing this. If they did work, then Americans wouldn't be so fat and sick. At least with government there is the idea that control and regulation are in the hands of the public.
That's the dream, anyway. The reality is that the military/industrial interests have taken over the government, so democracy is a big fail.
But the original idea itself was sound. It's too bad that the real world is corrupt to the core. Thank-goodness for this coming ice age and the comets and all the other stuff which will be wiping the slate clean!
-FL
Actually, I'm glad the two of you posted. I can just add it to the list of items which seem to indicate that parts of North America are being affected differently by these weird weather patterns than is Europe.
-FL
Until you spend some time on the lonely side of the podium, it's hard to comment with a full scope of knowledge on this question.
Classes where laptops are left closed result in much more engaged and dynamic classes. Those where they are open result in the "room full of zombies" effect. There's a reason it's so annoying to talk with somebody who looks away and digs in a purse or engages elsewhere when it's your turn to speak. The bio-feedback loop collapses and the teacher might as well post lectures on YouTube and students post questions in an on-line forum somewhere. Heck; on YouTube you can pause and re-play stuff. And it's cheaper!
Universities were built and people attend them at great cost in order to assemble like-minds in one place so that everybody can benefit from those aspects of humanity which thrive on face to face communication, (also earned at great cost through the trials of evolution). There are many layers of communication taking place, both subtle and extreme, which bring a room alive when people engage in each other in meat-space, but which are stripped away when it's done through a computer screen. This doesn't mean that the virtual world is without benefit. It's not; computers are a boon. But the virtual world can be attended any time, any place you can flip open a laptop. It was built to simulate the grand effect of a campus assembly. But if you are actually attending a college assembly. . ?
Laptops need to be used responsibly. Turn off animations and distracting screen savers in respect of the people sitting near you. If you're going to take notes, then sure, do so, but have the courtesy to limit it to notes and stay engaged in discussions. If you need to look something up to aid the discussion, then sure, do that, but in general things work best when all eyes and ears are on whoever is speaking. If you want to play on Facebook or dip into a game, then that's fine by me, but please physically leave class first because you're literally sucking the life out of the room by removing your mind and leaving a vacant corpse in your chair. It's creepy.
Ideally, I like to have wifi and fluorescent lights killed and windows open for fresh air. I also like to rearrange the chairs so that we can all see each other to better engage. Do that, and everybody wakes up, but these days it's very hard to scrub an environment of all the fuzz designed to keep us zoned out.
-FL
It doesn't matter what course you choose to take. If you leave the psychopaths in positions of power, then whatever system is used will only lead to further misery.
These problems can only be solved by the recognizing and removal of non-humans. I'd start at the banking level, remove the psychopaths from that system, undo usery, and then work down.
If the ability to experience empathy is a pre-requisite before one can be considered human, then Psychopaths are not human. They are a predator population which has embedded itself at the highest levels of power and social control. If you want to treat them kindly, then that's fine, but whatever happens, they need to be removed from their positions or we will continue to live in a state of war, poverty and misery.
-FL
I like your version of reality better than the one I live in. I'd sign up in a heartbeat if I felt you could deliver. :(
-FL
Thank you for the advice, but I'm going to ignore it. In fact, the more I learn, the more fascinating the world becomes and the less apathetic I grow. I certainly don't disagree that governments are incapable of imagination, but I don't see how that proves your point; 9/11 was utter Bruce Willis shlock designed for a low-brow TV addicted nation.
Maybe your books, people, experiences, practices and modes of thinking need to be updated?
Or maybe you need to avoid tap water? Fluoride poisoning is one of the leading causes of apathy.
-FL
Arguments like yours are why the scientific method is such a necessity.
Wrong. Scientific method is such a necessity because so many people refuse to do anything more than pay it lip service.
If you stop putting on a nice civilly compliant act of knowledge seeking and go and actually seek some knowledge, you'll be much richer for the experience. You'll be ostracized, of course, but only by a bunch of cognitively dissonant muggles utterly unworthy of any respect whatsoever, so who cares?
-FL
This reads like "Project Blue Book" crap, which was later admitted by those involved to be nothing more than a public relations lie factory.
A cursory flip through these documents reveals them to be a sampling of sleep-worthy accounts, (points of light in the sky which are easily identifiable as satellites or other mundane objects) and a collection of letters written by school children and un-balanced people along with the patient responses from overwrought defense officers charged with the duty of replying to this nonsense. -Along with a bunch of internal memos where clipped newspaper articles were circulated among government staffers.
Either New Zealand's military, police and air traffic officials are blissfully excluded from the rest of the planet which has lived through hundreds of events of a far more dramatic nature and which include multiple witness accounts including people who are not allowed to omit documenting their experiences.., or this whole release is carefully edited spin.
I mean, come on. This is published by a government! As anybody who has experienced anything to do with any government anywhere, the people involved must exist in a state filled with 800 pound gorillas and the game-theory proven reality is that never, ever sticking your neck out is simply the only way to survive as a civil servant.
The only interesting point in all of this is that somebody somewhere decided that spin was in fact needed. THAT means there is a fear that the population was threatening to become a little too informed and needed to be tucked back in.
I'd say that Richard Dolan is largely responsible for this response, and he's been soundly dealt with over the last year or so; a man who was once a premier UFO researcher of impeccable academic quality and grit has been given quite the mind-fuck lately with a lot of weird influences introduced into his life. (Creepy psyops people). He's been seduced into doing those idiotic TV shows for heaven's sake!
This kind of release would help along the impression that his work is just a bunch of bunk.
Oh well.
-FL
Somebody is clearly writing this nonsense.
If their insight into the reality of what makes the human mind react is this thin, then I can only imagine that the punchline/plot-twist/grand-finale is going to be just as campy and groan-worthy.
If they hadn't already softened up (force-fed) their audience with twenty years of the most embarrassingly and increasingly low-brow circuses humanity is capable of viewing without actually drooling into their popcorn, I'd venture to guess that nobody would buy any of this farce.
-FL
If you want to see how much traction false media stories can achieve, just look at pretty much every second news item.
This is why discussion forums are so important; so that people from diverse backgrounds can network and compare notes and at least make an attempt to figure out what is really going on.
News stories are usually, I find, only valuable in terms of meta-information which can be used to extrapolate reality. Deliberately poisoning the mix with lame information is nothing new, the only difference here is that in this particular case, we've been let in on the starting point of the corruption.
-FL