I think this means that your internet connection doesn't originate in China
Are you saying they'ed have a system that recognized the source of a request then responded appropriately? Like foreign journalists get victomsofcommunism.com whilst a resident of Hong Kong gets his door kicked in? Heh, not that our media folks, showbiz folks or academia actually question the legitamacy of Communism - just specific implementations.
Well, until some sort of on-site research is done to examine what is or is not there all of this is conjecture. The nature of supposed water deposits on either the moon or mars is, at this time, speculation, as are relative claims of ease of extraction. Your point does not stand as you made it. You claimed that there was *no* water on the moon. If you can't get this right why should I trust what appears to be mere opinion on your part?
Give the amout of solar radiation that falls on the lunar surface on the day side, power (heat) would seem to be low on the list of problems.
Since the moon is a ho away is *is* logigical to examine that first and to try out processes in a lower risk environment. The public purse is not bottomless and ought not be squandered on a glory-quest jaunt to the mars before the required technology has been field tested.
Because the Moon has very little life support infrastructure available.
Dang, no broadband!
Of course, you do need to bring 18 months of consumables with you to get to mars in the first place + time to see if you can even get what you need there to survive. We reached the moon by the skin of our teeth. It cost us a large percentage of the GDP for ten years to get there; it was too expensive. There was no reason for it, then.
As you said, there's "nothing interesting to anybody except geologists". Well, that is why we would go back. Minerals.
The most abundant element is oxygen, accounting for about 58% of the atoms present. Most of the oxygen is chemically united with silicon, next most abundant, and accounting for about 20% of the atoms. Also abundant are aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, titanium rich compounds and other elements that are abundant in the earth's crust.
Exploration of the Universe, George O. Abell
The moons gravity is only 0.165 that of the earth. Getting things into orbit there would be very cheap. A mass driver would do it pretty well.
Supporting life on the moon is a pain in the ass. No air, no water,
Actually, you're wrong. Water was found on the moon on March 5, 1998. Where the hell were you? Also here and here.
Actually there are rocket driven torpedos that travel very fast. Russia has one called the Shkval (Squall) that is said to travel at around 230 miles an hour.
They use a principle known as supercavitation and rockets.
Of late, it has become increasingly apparent that the
world's major naval powers are developing the means
to build entire arsenals of innovative underwater
weapons and armadas of undersea watercraft able to
operate at unprecedented speeds. This high-velocity
capability - a kind of "warp drive" for water - is
based on the physical phenomenon of
supercavitation. This fluid-mechanical effect occurs
when bubbles of water vapor form in the lee of
bodies submerged in fast-moving water flows. The
trick is to surround an object or vessel with a
renewable envelope of gas so that the liquid wets
very little of the body's surface, thereby drastically
reducing the viscous drag. Supercavitating systems
could mean a quantum leap in naval warfare that is
analogous in some ways to the move from prop
planes to jets or even to rockets and missiles.
Nietzsche once said that the human was a bridge between God and animal....Somehow we humans
would slave away at life until we reached some threshold, then magically, some border would be crossed by some
individual to The
Next Great Thing.
Clark has examined the idea of humanity's growth before and I think his meaning in this story is fairly plain to see. It's not
hidden in hexagonal tiles; hellooo, close packing, anyone? Efficient use of materials, maybe? Minimalist structures;
(spheres are best-smallest surface for volume)? - our man Wheats was *obviously* not an engineer. "The choice of
aluminum for the structure is an obvious reference to the sermon on the mount and archery which I shall elucidate as
follows....." *cough*
Transformation and growth.
Did anyone read Childhood's End, fer cry'in out loud? A wonderful and terribly sad story. Humanity is on the cusp of
transformation to The Next Big Thing and is guided by an alien race under the direction of the 'Overmind'; a collection of
races that have managed to make the transition successfully, with out destroying themselves. Well, they lost their physical
form along the way. Hmm, sound familair?
So, one generation is born 'different' - one big gestalt mind. The end of the human race as we know it and the next
step of growth. "when I was a child I played with childish things but now I am a man, blah blah". IT develops and eventually
destroys the Earth as it 'emerges' from physicality to a non-physical existance and joins the others.
The transformation described in C's E was inevitable but was guided to prevent self-destruction. 2001 seems to be more
about giving a series of nudges to promising species. Tutoring a slow child, if you will. Maybe the older race is lonely and
wants someone to play with. Reminds me of David Brin's Uplift series.
The story is about the two most important events for the human race. When we are discovered by the sceince probe/monolith
and chosen for furthur study and given a push and tleft to grow or not. When (IF) we became able to travel to the moon
AND be curious enough to explore it AND find the buried monolith, we'd passed the test that was set up so long ago.
We were ready for further study and evaluation. We were getting another interview with the cosmic HR department.
As for HAL, well doesn't it seem that this is a recursion of what is happenning in the rest of the story to humanity? We're
coaxing sentience out of a pile of silicon and (in the movie) optical circuits much like the makers of the monolith are doing to
us. We are becoming creators of consiousness, foreshadowing our future evolution.
See? Computer Science really is a noble profession!
how much easier is it to get five ISPs to hop into bed with systems like Carnivore than possibly hundreds??
If the goal of the fed and FCC is to encourage competion and options for us citizens the silence of the issue seems odd. Check you premises.
A paranoid might say that the fed is silent on this for a reason. They want fewer companies running the show. Fewer necks to put a leash on.
For a long while, the feds primary motivation has been the increase of it's authority over the states and individuals. It's about power and venal men who like it. Sure the bells profit but that's a side effect; a benefit they get for managing the fief for the FCC (and NSA?). Yes, the NSA has conducted domestic ops (and in all liklyhood still does). They have a long record of disregard for the law and congress.
As someone quiped, 'National security' seems to be the root password to the Constitution.
Check out 'The Puzzle Palace' James Bamford ISBN 0-14-006748-5 "Inside the National Security Agency, America's most secret intelligence organization"
Zinc-air batteries are another nifty technology being developed. Ok, the page is written in marketing-speak but wade through for the details.
The power comes from Electric Fuel's proprietary zinc
anode, compacted from zinc particles in alkaline
electrolyte, made under controlled conditions in an Electric
Fuel regeneration plant. Each anode is flanked by two
specially developed, high-power, long-life oxygen reduction
cathodes that extract oxygen from the air for the
zinc-oxidation reaction. Patented thermal management
and airflow mechanisms ensure uninterrupted performance
for the life of the battery.
Anyway, the darn things are recycleable and have a pretty good specific energy. (energy per unit mass). Sounds promising, anyway.
A fuel cell is not going to care whether its fuel is H or Deuterium because H and deuterium behave exactly the same in
chemical reactions.
Mostly true. I would, however, advise you not to drink heavy water. The deuterium is mostly like hydrogen but only mostly. It's ok to burn with oxygen but I think it doesn't quite work right in biological systems. Kinda toxic. I've forgotten exactly what happens but it's not Good.
Heck, use the gas that you already get in your gas lines (CH4, C2H6 and a little C3H8; methane, ethane and propane). You'd need to crack it to get H2 and some other junk, carbon dioxide, I imagine. Probably some high temperature deal over a catalyst. Anyway, the point is that you already get a source of hydrogen piped in. You just need to massage it a little.
Freedom always has limits. In many ways a society can be defined by what limits it sets on freedom.
Wow, out of mouth o' babes.... Of course! From what we enjoy in the US to what is 'enjoyed' in China. Yes indeed, a society is defined by what limits it sets on freedoms.
The freedom to bear arms is no more a basic freedom than the freedom to have sex with children, and both were considered fine by the framers of
the constitution (using the modern definition of child). It so happens that the second freedom has been eroded since that time but so what? Society has changed.
I rather doubt that those who lived in 1776 condoned sexual congress with children. I imagine that any sex out of wedlock was considered Wrong.
While marriage at what we would consider young took place, it was not enshrined in the Constitution. The second amendment was applied just after the 'freedom of speech' as Important to the survival of the fledgling republic. I don't think the order is accidental. Have you actually read anything that Jefferson, Washington, Adams or the other wrote on the subject? Perhaps you ought to examine the Federalist Papers.
Pay attention: the right to bear arms is an amendment to the Constitution. The age at which people can be married is a cultural more reflected by prevailing law. They are not equivalent 'rights' and your comparison is a disingenuous obfuscation of the issues. But to further the argument effectively requires a little slight-of-hand, doesn't it?
The loss of the right to bear arms is as valid for removal as the right to have sex with children and as valid for defense as the right to equality of treatment.
More false logic but great rhetoric! There never has been a 'right' to have sex with children. So are you still beating your wife? Similarly valid statements. Both offer a false a assumption framed as a given fact. Very naughty. No soup for you!
Further you equate the validity of the loss of TRTBA to the validity of the right to equality of treatment? I agree that a cornerstone principle of our republic is that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That is to say, we all enjoy equal protection and are equally responsible for our misdeeds. (Except for certain recent presidents, of course: some are more equal than others, eh?) I assume that this is what you mean by that vague equality of treatment phrase.
I do not agree with your equation, however. Again, in an ad hominem sort of way, this is not a logically valid statement. You do not discuss the merits of your argument but rather equate your argument to one we all presumably already accept as valid. You argue A is good because B is good although there is no connection between the two. Very naughty indeed; no soup for you, nor ice cream!
Since all "rights" are made up by people, all are ripe to be reconsidered from time to time. I happen to think that the damage caused by the second amendment far outweighs any good it does. You can argue the issue but simply pointing to the constitution and saying "230 years ago there was a society that thought this was good and that's an end to it" is not a rational argument.
Perhaps we should reconsider your right to speak your mind. Don't like it? Well, you're getting smarter already. I'm curious which 'rights' you'd like to have us revisit? The freedom of speech? The right to a speedy trial? Due Process rights? Which? Tell me, and in doing so tell me what you are about.
While laws are formulated by 'people' to ostensibly protect enumerated rights, your comments lead me to a central problem that we face today: the relationship between government and the governed has been turned inside out.
The Constitution delineates what the national government is permitted to do. If it's not explicitly permitted, it is forbidden to engage in it. The 'rights' cited by you and elsewhere are not 'granted' to us. They already exist. The Constitution redundantly states that the government may not infringe of the rights listed. The issue is, as has been pointed out by another worthy, whether the government is allowed to restrict them or passes laws to protect them. It most certainly does NOT grant them.
What you must understand is that the government was never granted the power to regulate any of the things the rights listed protect and therefore could not legally do so whether the amendments existed or not. We the citizens may do what we will unless it is explicitly not legal. The Constitution does not grant the national government the power to regulate speech, therefore it can never do so. In short, the Constitution tells the government what it may do, while those who love power would have us believe that it merely tells government what it may not do. This is a very important distinction.
This was a danger anticipated by Alexander Hamilton:
I go further and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do. Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication that a power prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
- Alexander Hamilton,Federalist Papers,No: 84
In short, the Constitution does not grant the national government the power to restrict the ownership of firearms; therefore it may not do so. This is, of course, to protect me from the likes of you and your 'well intentioned' bretheran.
News flash: we do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic which is a democratic institution in that we elect our representatives to exercise their judgement on our behalf and not to hop to our every whim. The majority does not Rule. The Majority exercise their will through their elected officials who must act in accordance with the Constitution and not do what ever most of the people want.
Be grateful for that; for tomorrow the Majority might decide that It doesn't like you or those like you. And then round you up and exterminate you. And while it would be the logical fruit of your political inclinations, I would not wish it on you.
-tarkas
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
The virus in the Dustin Hoffman movie "Outbreak" could probably not have wiped out a huge population, because its symptoms
showed up so quickly. Infected people could be identified easily and early on.
Another problem (blessing) is that ebola is relativly fragile and will not survive for very long out side of a host (maybe a minute?). Hence the blood contact requirement.
Ebola and Marburg anyway; Reston appeared to be transmitted as an aerosol but only seemed to be lethal in monkeys.
Speaking of monkeys, Marburg appeared at Behringwerke AG, a vaccine factory in Marburg, Germany in 1967. Several people died after being exposed to infected monkeys caught in Uganda.
Investigators concluded that there had been an epidemic in the monkey population starting at about 1961 and was at it's peak in 1967. In the caged animals it was 100% leathal although several of the people survived with serious problems.
Interesting historical sideline. Another hemmoragic fever, Yellow fever, killed 15% of Philadelphia's population in 1793 and is found from Canada to Chile. And also in West Africa where the local populations are rather resistant to it; more so than Europeans.
It's been noted that the acute vulnerability of the French and British colonials to Yellow fever prevented them from attaining full control over West Africa.
"So obvious was this deterrence in some areas of Africa that it was celebrated in song and verse by people from Sudan to Senegal. Well into the 1980's schoolchildren in Ibo areas of Nigeria still sang the praises of mosquitos and the diseases they gave the French and British colonists. - "
What's really ironic is that the mosquito which serves as the vector, A. aegypti is believed to have originated in West Africa and was brought to the new world aboard slave ships along with the virus. Ouch!
I guess it's their history of using biological agents to control pests (like rabbits), such as myxoma virus in the 50's.
Of course the Aussies had one hell of a rabbit problem. Some dope released (or they escaped) european rabbits into the wild where they had no or few natural predators. Suddenly they were up to their arpits in starving rabbits. That ate everything and were crowding out the local species.
After the Calicivirus disease was released, the "... reduction in the rabbit population has allowed the regeneration of many arid-zone shrubs and an
increase in the numbers of native animals."
They seem to have a similiar problem with mice. Floods of mice. I've seen documentaries on the subject where the mice look like a flow of some brown fluid. Again, no predators.
I think the point that human bean was making is that lab mice are a very homogeneous group.
The goal with them is to have a critter that reacts the same way for anyone who performs a given set of research. In hind sight, it's not to surprising that if one was very suseptible to a particular bug, they all would be.
Mad cow disease isn't a mutation to infect other animals. There's a lot of contention on the subject right now, but it appears to be some sort of inorganic agent that causes a specific neuronal protein to refold and form amyloid plaques.
The neuronal protein is present in
all mammals, but is slightly different between some groups. For example, cows and humans
have similar forms of the protein and can infect eachother, but mice and humans have slightly different forms of the protein and
cannot infect eachother.
This is a weird little critter... Caught a documentary bit on mad cow disease or spongiform encephilopaphy (sp?). The investigator thought the stuff was transmitted by the practice of using the ground up remains from slaughtering cows and sheep as feed for cows and sheep. Nice, huh? He suggested that it may have begun with sheep (scrapie) ground to meal, used to feed cows which in turn, developed MCD. Interestingly, the meal is run through a process to sterilize it.
Exept the protein seems to be remarkably tough. Organisms are relatively fragile but the protein that causes MCD withstood all sorts of things. No standard lab sterilization method works.
They said they pretty much destroy instruments they used to examine infected cows as they had no way to sterilize them, short of melting them down. Even the burned carcases, well coals and ashes, were still infectious. Even a well done burger. Eesh.
The show also suggested that the protein itself is the causative agent. A malformed protein, when it came into contact with a normal one, caused it to refold into the malformed version. 2, 4, 8, 16...
Sort of an ice-9 thing.
Was that a hamburger you had for lunch? heh. Sleep well tonight.
Hmm, while I understand and accept that a sovereign state has the right to govern itself without my help(?), I most certainly assert that I can judge it's
behavior by my standards. Of course, Yahoo! must respect French law if it wishes to continue to do business there. There is, however, a huge difference
between complying with a law and accepting it as just and correct. One doesn't have to suspend judgment (and turn off the rational portions of the brain) to
obey the law.
Your statement smacks of moral relativism. If the French were protecting the exercise of (!an imaginary!) right of French citizens to eat Americans, I rather
doubt you would continue to assert that ...others can not be judged by our standards... Of course, any American stupid enough to go to France
under those conditions would simply be improving the local gene pool. Did you respect the rights of Pinochet's regime to 'vanish' it's own citizens?
My opinion remains just that. I'm not suggesting that the French gov should bend it's laws to suit the US's standards (or mine). I can opine that the French
government has a long history of paternalistic (dare I say Statist?) policies without expecting or asking the French to alter those policies.
Although the US has it's failings, it remains preferable to the alternatives as they are demonstrated elsewhere. Further, I deplore the US's failings quite a bit
more than those of another nation because I expect better from this gov.
If the French wish to collectively stick their heads in the sand, wish away the rest of the big bad world and dream of better times (for France) more power to
'em.
If the dems let the election go if the recounts don't go their way, they'll be in fine shape in four years. In the meantime, given their slim
margin in both houses of congress, the GOP won't be able to rape, pillage and plunder. In two years, the dems will take the Senate
and probably the House, they'll win the White House in 2004, and the whole beautiful cycle can start over again.
Yup, then it'll be the the Dems chance to rape, pillage and plunder.
And remember, half of the people fall below the 100th percentile and 100 isn't all that hot.
Wow, I found a mouse in my last bottle of Coke but they won't pay me off!!! Sh*t! To bad I lost the only picture I had of it before I mailed them the bottle. heh.
It's probably that darn right wing conspiracy. Or was that the Illuminati?
The only sort of 'electronic' voting I can imagine being safe is if the voting station produced a nice punch card that also had the choices made print on as well as punched out. That way the computer can be set to a level that even someone operating at the 60% percentile could clearly(?) express their will and the system would produce an error free card that htey could review to ensure that they didn't make a mistake. They'd just have to keep from drooling on it. heh.
To try for a paperless ballot would be sheer lunacy. The possiblity for fraud would be just too great. Nothing as important as this should be left to something as unreliable as a big government run network. If the white house can't even keep it's email straight, well, I think you get the point. Either they couldn't operate it correctly, in which case they're idiots or they sought to conceal the errant email, in which case they're corrupt.
The thing is, how would you know what was being reported electronically, on your behalf? How hard would it be to tweak the system, just enough? Again, a remarkably bad idea. INTERNET voting is perhaps an order of magnitude worse. "In cyberspace, no one knows that vote was cast by a dog." Thanks for voting; your IP has been logged. The thought police will be by later to explain why your votes were incorrect.
Fraud with absentee ballots is bad enough. Spam ballots?! eeesh!
Partial public funding is available to Presidential primary candidates in the form of federal matching payments.
Candidates seeking their party's nomination
to the Presidency can qualify to receive matching funds by raising over $5,000 in each of 20 states (i.e., over
$100,000). Only contributions from individuals
apply toward this threshold. Although an individual may contribute up to $1,000 to a candidate, only a maximum of
$250 counts toward the threshold and is
matchable. + lots o' red tape.
"Each major party is entitled to a public grant of $4 million" for "a party whose Presidential candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the vote in the
preceding election)...".
It never ceases to astonish me how many people equate Libertarianism with Anarchism.
I can, however, believe that someone who has been raised to believe that the proper function of government is to make decsions for an incompetant populace would find the idea of a minimalist government frightening. They might actually have to think. Oh, my! Both of the major parties seem to want to think for you but on different issues. Flip sides of the same coin.
When the operating premise has been 'Vote for me and I'll take goods from the other guy and give them to you' there's perhaps a feeling of outrage that an entitlement is being taken away.
Worse still, the fed takes wealth from everyone and then offers to 'help' if the would be recipients act in the way the fed wants. A rather nifty way to avoid constitutional limits on Fedaral authority. By the time the fed has taken the taxes, there's not enough left to do what needs doing with local resources. C'mon! The goal of congress is to channel the appropriated wealth of the nation into their state. Into their particular pork barrel. Democrats and republicans both seem to be unable to resist the temptation to spend.
It works in theory, to be responsible for your own actions, but we are a COUNTRY, I see myself as a piece of the whole puzzle, I
would much rather see people fighting for each other rather than for the selfishness the Libertarians preach.
Hmm, your kidding- right? Do you propose that we all be responsible for the actions of our neighbors? Do you propose that we not be responsible at all for our own actions? It rather sounds like you have not a clue what Liberatians advocate. I think the goal is not the elimination of government (FUD, if I ever heard it!) but rather restricting the fed to it's constitutionaly dictated limits.
Some how an important principle has been turned inside out. The constitution states, essentially, that the citizens have the right to do what they wish exepting that it infringe on anothers rights. It does not delineate the only rights that they have; it merely high lights those the founders thought most important. Some feared that a bill of rights would be construed as defining the only rights allowed, hence:
Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
On the other hand, government is strictly limited to only those functions dictated by the constitution; not those which are not prohibited to it by the Constitution - which seems to be where we are now.
Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectivly or to the people.
We are free to act except where specifically prohibited (theft, murder, fraud etc) whereas the gov is only free to act where it is specifically allowed to.
As it is, the various governing bodies from the fed to those more local persist in attempting to restrict behaviour to even less than what is enumerated by the bill of rights. They are being treated as the only rights we enjoy and we've bought into that lie.
There is no 'penumbra' that we need hide under or be restricted to; quite the opposite.
Liken the problem to this classic: so, have you quit beating your wife yet? How you frame the issue effects the discussion. The question is a false dichotomy. I've never beaten my wife but the question does not allow for that answer. As Orwell pointed out, in a double-plus-good book, control language and you control thought.
It's the government which must operate under a narrowly defined 'penumbra' of permissible action while the citizens enjoy freedom of action in the sunlight except in narrowly defined cases.
For those with the stomach:
http://consumerlawpage.com/article/privacy.shtml
The results of the Miller argument are the protection of our rights but the the premise still seems to be that the those in the gov can restrict any behaviour of which they disapprove unless it's somehow protected by a penumbra of an explicitly stated right. Double-plus-un-good!
Slashdot Mirror
...and I like to think we have more freedom to express ourselves.
OK,
I'll bite, even if it is trollbait.
In what way do you, as a Canadian, have more freedom to express yourselves? Just curious, since you've asserted it.
Please answer before that big nasty American Jackboot of tyrany steps on my neck and prevents me from reading your resonse. =P
Get real.
I think this means that your internet connection doesn't originate in China
0 379943/103-2263410-8029437?v=glance
Are you saying they'ed have a system that recognized the source of a request then responded appropriately? Like foreign journalists get victomsofcommunism.com whilst a resident of Hong Kong gets his door kicked in?
Heh, not that our media folks, showbiz folks or academia actually question the legitamacy of Communism - just specific implementations.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Well, sort of.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/084
Venona Program
http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm
Give the amout of solar radiation that falls on the lunar surface on the day side, power (heat) would seem to be low on the list of problems.
Since the moon is a ho away is *is* logigical to examine that first and to try out processes in a lower risk environment. The public purse is not bottomless and ought not be squandered on a glory-quest jaunt to the mars before the required technology has been field tested.
Crawl, walk, run.
Dang, no broadband!
Of course, you do need to bring 18 months of consumables with you to get to mars in the first place + time to see if you can even get what you need there to survive. We reached the moon by the skin of our teeth. It cost us a large percentage of the GDP for ten years to get there; it was too expensive. There was no reason for it, then.
As you said, there's "nothing interesting to anybody except geologists". Well, that is why we would go back. Minerals.
The moons gravity is only 0.165 that of the earth. Getting things into orbit there would be very cheap. A mass driver would do it pretty well.
Supporting life on the moon is a pain in the ass. No air, no water,
Actually, you're wrong. Water was found on the moon on March 5, 1998. Where the hell were you? Also here and here.
Get yer facts straight, big guy.
This JPL page on Lunar In-Situ resource utilization seems to be the best of the lot.
-tarkas
Imagine my surprise when I saw the other catagory dealing with this whole torpedo thing. Oops.
They use a principle known as supercavitation and rockets.
From this month's Scientific American
So much for the "silent service".
- tarkas
The flying bone that the proto-human flung into the air is replaced with the spacecraft that the proto-supermen flung into space.
Tarkas
Dang, now where did I leave that stupid sig....
local, Before you spout, check yer facts, OK? That change in atomic wieght changes things just a bit. -tarkas nya, I told u so.
If the goal of the fed and FCC is to encourage competion and options for us citizens the silence of the issue seems odd. Check you premises.
A paranoid might say that the fed is silent on this for a reason. They want fewer companies running the show. Fewer necks to put a leash on.
For a long while, the feds primary motivation has been the increase of it's authority over the states and individuals. It's about power and venal men who like it. Sure the bells profit but that's a side effect; a benefit they get for managing the fief for the FCC (and NSA?). Yes, the NSA has conducted domestic ops (and in all liklyhood still does). They have a long record of disregard for the law and congress.
As someone quiped, 'National security' seems to be the root password to the Constitution.
Check out 'The Puzzle Palace' James Bamford ISBN 0-14-006748-5 "Inside the National Security Agency, America's most secret intelligence organization"
Anyway, the darn things are recycleable and have a pretty good specific energy. (energy per unit mass). Sounds promising, anyway.
-tarkas
Mostly true. I would, however, advise you not to drink heavy water. The deuterium is mostly like hydrogen but only mostly. It's ok to burn with oxygen but I think it doesn't quite work right in biological systems. Kinda toxic. I've forgotten exactly what happens but it's not Good.
-tarkas
Alright, who's up on their organic chem?
-tarkas
Wow, out of mouth o' babes.... Of course! From what we enjoy in the US to what is 'enjoyed' in China. Yes indeed, a society is defined by what limits it sets on freedoms.
The freedom to bear arms is no more a basic freedom than the freedom to have sex with children, and both were considered fine by the framers of the constitution (using the modern definition of child). It so happens that the second freedom has been eroded since that time but so what? Society has changed.
I rather doubt that those who lived in 1776 condoned sexual congress with children. I imagine that any sex out of wedlock was considered Wrong.
While marriage at what we would consider young took place, it was not enshrined in the Constitution. The second amendment was applied just after the 'freedom of speech' as Important to the survival of the fledgling republic. I don't think the order is accidental. Have you actually read anything that Jefferson, Washington, Adams or the other wrote on the subject? Perhaps you ought to examine the Federalist Papers.
Pay attention: the right to bear arms is an amendment to the Constitution. The age at which people can be married is a cultural more reflected by prevailing law. They are not equivalent 'rights' and your comparison is a disingenuous obfuscation of the issues. But to further the argument effectively requires a little slight-of-hand, doesn't it?
The loss of the right to bear arms is as valid for removal as the right to have sex with children and as valid for defense as the right to equality of treatment.
More false logic but great rhetoric! There never has been a 'right' to have sex with children. So are you still beating your wife? Similarly valid statements. Both offer a false a assumption framed as a given fact. Very naughty. No soup for you!
Further you equate the validity of the loss of TRTBA to the validity of the right to equality of treatment? I agree that a cornerstone principle of our republic is that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That is to say, we all enjoy equal protection and are equally responsible for our misdeeds. (Except for certain recent presidents, of course: some are more equal than others, eh?) I assume that this is what you mean by that vague equality of treatment phrase.
I do not agree with your equation, however. Again, in an ad hominem sort of way, this is not a logically valid statement. You do not discuss the merits of your argument but rather equate your argument to one we all presumably already accept as valid. You argue A is good because B is good although there is no connection between the two. Very naughty indeed; no soup for you, nor ice cream!
Since all "rights" are made up by people, all are ripe to be reconsidered from time to time. I happen to think that the damage caused by the second amendment far outweighs any good it does. You can argue the issue but simply pointing to the constitution and saying "230 years ago there was a society that thought this was good and that's an end to it" is not a rational argument.
Perhaps we should reconsider your right to speak your mind. Don't like it? Well, you're getting smarter already. I'm curious which 'rights' you'd like to have us revisit? The freedom of speech? The right to a speedy trial? Due Process rights? Which? Tell me, and in doing so tell me what you are about.
While laws are formulated by 'people' to ostensibly protect enumerated rights, your comments lead me to a central problem that we face today: the relationship between government and the governed has been turned inside out.
The Constitution delineates what the national government is permitted to do. If it's not explicitly permitted, it is forbidden to engage in it. The 'rights' cited by you and elsewhere are not 'granted' to us. They already exist. The Constitution redundantly states that the government may not infringe of the rights listed. The issue is, as has been pointed out by another worthy, whether the government is allowed to restrict them or passes laws to protect them. It most certainly does NOT grant them.
What you must understand is that the government was never granted the power to regulate any of the things the rights listed protect and therefore could not legally do so whether the amendments existed or not. We the citizens may do what we will unless it is explicitly not legal. The Constitution does not grant the national government the power to regulate speech, therefore it can never do so. In short, the Constitution tells the government what it may do, while those who love power would have us believe that it merely tells government what it may not do. This is a very important distinction.
This was a danger anticipated by Alexander Hamilton:
In short, the Constitution does not grant the national government the power to restrict the ownership of firearms; therefore it may not do so. This is, of course, to protect me from the likes of you and your 'well intentioned' bretheran.
News flash: we do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic which is a democratic institution in that we elect our representatives to exercise their judgement on our behalf and not to hop to our every whim. The majority does not Rule. The Majority exercise their will through their elected officials who must act in accordance with the Constitution and not do what ever most of the people want.
Be grateful for that; for tomorrow the Majority might decide that It doesn't like you or those like you. And then round you up and exterminate you. And while it would be the logical fruit of your political inclinations, I would not wish it on you.
-tarkas
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Ebola and Marburg anyway; Reston appeared to be transmitted as an aerosol but only seemed to be lethal in monkeys.
Speaking of monkeys, Marburg appeared at Behringwerke AG, a vaccine factory in Marburg, Germany in 1967. Several people died after being exposed to infected monkeys caught in Uganda.
Investigators concluded that there had been an epidemic in the monkey population starting at about 1961 and was at it's peak in 1967. In the caged animals it was 100% leathal although several of the people survived with serious problems.
Interesting historical sideline. Another hemmoragic fever, Yellow fever, killed 15% of Philadelphia's population in 1793 and is found from Canada to Chile. And also in West Africa where the local populations are rather resistant to it; more so than Europeans.
It's been noted that the acute vulnerability of the French and British colonials to Yellow fever prevented them from attaining full control over West Africa.
What's really ironic is that the mosquito which serves as the vector, A. aegypti is believed to have originated in West Africa and was brought to the new world aboard slave ships along with the virus. Ouch!
Of course the Aussies had one hell of a rabbit problem. Some dope released (or they escaped) european rabbits into the wild where they had no or few natural predators. Suddenly they were up to their arpits in starving rabbits. That ate everything and were crowding out the local species.
After the Calicivirus disease was released, the "... reduction in the rabbit population has allowed the regeneration of many arid-zone shrubs and an increase in the numbers of native animals."
They seem to have a similiar problem with mice. Floods of mice. I've seen documentaries on the subject where the mice look like a flow of some brown fluid. Again, no predators.
The goal with them is to have a critter that reacts the same way for anyone who performs a given set of research. In hind sight, it's not to surprising that if one was very suseptible to a particular bug, they all would be.
This is a weird little critter... Caught a documentary bit on mad cow disease or spongiform encephilopaphy (sp?). The investigator thought the stuff was transmitted by the practice of using the ground up remains from slaughtering cows and sheep as feed for cows and sheep. Nice, huh? He suggested that it may have begun with sheep (scrapie) ground to meal, used to feed cows which in turn, developed MCD. Interestingly, the meal is run through a process to sterilize it.
Exept the protein seems to be remarkably tough. Organisms are relatively fragile but the protein that causes MCD withstood all sorts of things. No standard lab sterilization method works.
They said they pretty much destroy instruments they used to examine infected cows as they had no way to sterilize them, short of melting them down. Even the burned carcases, well coals and ashes, were still infectious. Even a well done burger. Eesh.
The show also suggested that the protein itself is the causative agent. A malformed protein, when it came into contact with a normal one, caused it to refold into the malformed version. 2, 4, 8, 16...
Sort of an ice-9 thing.
Was that a hamburger you had for lunch? heh. Sleep well tonight.
Your statement smacks of moral relativism. If the French were protecting the exercise of (!an imaginary!) right of French citizens to eat Americans, I rather doubt you would continue to assert that ...others can not be judged by our standards... Of course, any American stupid enough to go to France
under those conditions would simply be improving the local gene pool. Did you respect the rights of Pinochet's regime to 'vanish' it's own citizens?
My opinion remains just that. I'm not suggesting that the French gov should bend it's laws to suit the US's standards (or mine). I can opine that the French government has a long history of paternalistic (dare I say Statist?) policies without expecting or asking the French to alter those policies.
Although the US has it's failings, it remains preferable to the alternatives as they are demonstrated elsewhere. Further, I deplore the US's failings quite a bit more than those of another nation because I expect better from this gov.
If the French wish to collectively stick their heads in the sand, wish away the rest of the big bad world and dream of better times (for France) more power to 'em.
Yup, then it'll be the the Dems chance to rape, pillage and plunder.
And remember, half of the people fall below the 100th percentile and 100 isn't all that hot.
It's probably that darn right wing conspiracy. Or was that the Illuminati?
erf, that's 60th percentile. Forgot to run it past my editor. She normally catches my dopy mistakes.
To try for a paperless ballot would be sheer lunacy. The possiblity for fraud would be just too great. Nothing as important as this should be left to something as unreliable as a big government run network. If the white house can't even keep it's email straight, well, I think you get the point. Either they couldn't operate it correctly, in which case they're idiots or they sought to conceal the errant email, in which case they're corrupt.
The thing is, how would you know what was being reported electronically, on your behalf? How hard would it be to tweak the system, just enough? Again, a remarkably bad idea. INTERNET voting is perhaps an order of magnitude worse. "In cyberspace, no one knows that vote was cast by a dog." Thanks for voting; your IP has been logged. The thought police will be by later to explain why your votes were incorrect.
Fraud with absentee ballots is bad enough. Spam ballots?! eeesh!
A question: Do you know what is required for public funding for a campaign?
Apparently not.
There are in fact three types of federal funding for Presidential campaigns:
Federal Matching Funds This is what Browne declined.
General Election Funding
Convention Funding
- "Each major party is entitled to a public grant of $4 million" for "a party whose Presidential candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the vote in the
preceding election)
...".
So, how did they do in '96 Candidate (Party Label) Percent of Popular VoteBill Clinton (Democrat) 49.24
Bob Dole (Republican) 40.71
Ross Perot (Reform) 8.40
Ralph Nader (Green) .71
Harry Browne (Libertarian) .50
Howard Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers) .19
John Hagelin (Natural Law) .12
and so on
Now, in terms of the number of candidates for political office the Liberatrians appear to have the most of any 3rd party by a large margin.
1420 vs. 244 for the Greens(the next highest)
170 elected officials vs. 72 greenies.
I can, however, believe that someone who has been raised to believe that the proper function of government is to make decsions for an incompetant populace would find the idea of a minimalist government frightening. They might actually have to think. Oh, my! Both of the major parties seem to want to think for you but on different issues. Flip sides of the same coin.
When the operating premise has been 'Vote for me and I'll take goods from the other guy and give them to you' there's perhaps a feeling of outrage that an entitlement is being taken away.
Worse still, the fed takes wealth from everyone and then offers to 'help' if the would be recipients act in the way the fed wants. A rather nifty way to avoid constitutional limits on Fedaral authority. By the time the fed has taken the taxes, there's not enough left to do what needs doing with local resources. C'mon! The goal of congress is to channel the appropriated wealth of the nation into their state. Into their particular pork barrel. Democrats and republicans both seem to be unable to resist the temptation to spend.
Hmm, your kidding- right? Do you propose that we all be responsible for the actions of our neighbors? Do you propose that we not be responsible at all for our own actions? It rather sounds like you have not a clue what Liberatians advocate. I think the goal is not the elimination of government (FUD, if I ever heard it!) but rather restricting the fed to it's constitutionaly dictated limits.
Some how an important principle has been turned inside out. The constitution states, essentially, that the citizens have the right to do what they wish exepting that it infringe on anothers rights. It does not delineate the only rights that they have; it merely high lights those the founders thought most important. Some feared that a bill of rights would be construed as defining the only rights allowed, hence:
On the other hand, government is strictly limited to only those functions dictated by the constitution; not those which are not prohibited to it by the Constitution - which seems to be where we are now. We are free to act except where specifically prohibited (theft, murder, fraud etc) whereas the gov is only free to act where it is specifically allowed to.As it is, the various governing bodies from the fed to those more local persist in attempting to restrict behaviour to even less than what is enumerated by the bill of rights. They are being treated as the only rights we enjoy and we've bought into that lie.
There is no 'penumbra' that we need hide under or be restricted to; quite the opposite.
Liken the problem to this classic: so, have you quit beating your wife yet? How you frame the issue effects the discussion. The question is a false dichotomy. I've never beaten my wife but the question does not allow for that answer. As Orwell pointed out, in a double-plus-good book, control language and you control thought.
It's the government which must operate under a narrowly defined 'penumbra' of permissible action while the citizens enjoy freedom of action in the sunlight except in narrowly defined cases. For those with the stomach:
http://consumerlawpage.com/article/privacy.shtml