The proposal is for a mission 13 years from now. Durring that time the Neo-Luddites will exhale far more CO2 into the atmosphere than the small ammount that would be generated by the launch of a Rocket that mainly burns H2 and O2. A Mass suicide by the Global warming alarmists will do more to protect the enviroment than banning manned space flight. I have given a far better reason to put off a manned mission elsewhere in this thread, namely contamination of Mars by Earthly Microbes making it hard to study the possibility of Native Martian life.
Not because of any paranoid mistrust of the Russians. Not because of any BS about spending the money on the earthbound poor. Simply because we don't know if there is life on Mars yet. A Manned mission will "contaminate" Mars with our micro-organisims making it very difficult to discover any native Martian microbes unless they are very different from the mundane Earth microbes that would arrive as colonists with the manned crew. If unmanned exploration fails to discover any native life on Mars Then I'll be one of the biggest supporters of Manned exploration. If there are "natives" on Mars their existance will have to be protected from the contamination that would go with a manned mission. Life that evolved off Earth could provide us with many answers about the evoulation of life and of how common life may be in the Cosmos. It would be a far more valuable resource than any bennifits that could be gained from a Mars Mission.
No matter what the Proposal, we hear the same alarmist claptrap from the eco chicken littles. " Burning that much rocket fuel would turn our atmosphere in to that of Venus's!"
Any solid scince to back up your contention? Any thing besides the warmed over 1960s Hippy Dippy nonsense that dominates the eco movement? "Trust me on this one." After the alarmist nature of your post I have far more reason to distrust you than to trust you.
"the Mac will eventually dominate the planet as planned!"
So we switch from having Microsoft dominating the software to having Apple dominating the software AND the hardware? Sounds like a step backwards to me. Sorry I have no intrest in placing Steve Jobs in a stronger postion than Bill Gates is in today.
"Also, think of all the s/w that would have to be rewritten.... flight control systems, databases, operating systems, the list is endless! Yikes!"
Yikes?... Try Who Hoo!!! Think of all the $$$$ that PHBs were shovelling at Geeks for software and consulting 3 or 4 years ago when they were scared to death of Y2k!! We could do it all over again. This is a GOLDMINE !
It wouldn't matter if Buffy was on the ballot. It wouldn't matter if Buffy was the best damn show on TV (Which IMHO it isn't). It still wouldn't win because it's too far out of the mainstream to get the votes. Sorry to bust your bubble but the emmys (and the Oscars and the Grammys, etc) aren't about which is best (a subjective view), they are about self promotion by industry insiders. These people consider Buffy a silly cult show not worthy of their attention let alone their votes. Deal with it, the emmys will go to bland heavly promoted trash or Pompus BS that pretends to be artistic, just like they allways do.
This little weasel is just the middleman. If he was shut down the sleezeballs that pay him to spam people would just find another little weasel to send out the spam. It's just like trying to stop illegal drugs by arresting street level dealers, someone else steps in as soon as you bust a pusher.
To stop the spamming you have to go after the people paying them. A Good starting point would be ISPs blocking the IP addresses of sites that pay people to spam. Then spamming would result in fewer page hits instead of more hits, and cost them money. It would also stop the spammers that are sending the crap from Russia, Asia, and other areas where ISPs are glad to even get spammer biz. Another way to cut down on spamming would be for the Feds to start arresting the scam artists running Pyramids and other schemes that are allready illegal fraud operations. Scam Spamming with a snail mail return address should ammount to advertising your location so the feds know where to find you.
"That all said, I've been in quite a few manufacturing shops and in every one the radio was on. Is that different from mp3s in terms of "music-comes-out-of-a-box-while-people-work"?"
The RIAA isn't threatening to sue sue over listening to the radio, so the employees of those manufacturing shops aren't putting the company in the postion of having to spend a lot of money defending itself. The Radio dosen't slow down the forklifts, or the other machinary in the shop, something that can't be said about the effect downloading MP3s can have on the company's internet connection.
My Company has a simple answer, you can listen to regular Audio CDs or MP3s IF you bring them in with you and use headphones or play music that others in your work area don't object to, but NO DOWNLOADING MP3s with the company's bandwidth.
"Huh, never heard about that claim. Probably because I'm not American myself. Do some people really claim this?"
This isn't just an "American" claim. For most of the last 2000 years Christian doctrine has been that God manifests himself as three personalities, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is susposed to be the second personality of the Triune Christian God. How someone can hold this belief and also claim to be a Monotheist is something that has never made a lot of sense to me, but that's beside the point. The Christian Bible claims that Jesus (second person in the Triune God) was the Author of the Lords prayer.
" Most people in this country are monotheistic, and since majority rules we have "In God we Trust". If you want to be in a Ahtiest country, go to China."
IF you beleave this nonsense, then In the Roman Empire the majority of the people were Pagans, so the early Christians were WRONG to attempt to introduce Monotheism into a Pagan nation, and the Romans were justified in persacuting them for refusing to join the majority in offering sacrafices to the Gods of Rome.
Don't hand me any "majority rules" bullshit if you follow the teachings of men who rebelled against the majority religion of their time. This includes the Old Testiment prophets and Jesus of Nazarath as well as Mohaemed of Mecca.
"the government doesn't advocate the Judeo-Christian beliefs that it was founded on."
I Would suggest that you study a little real history instead of the drivel the so called conservatives spout. The Philosphy of the 17th and 18th Centuries played a far larger role in the founding of the United States than "Judeo-Christian beliefs".
I'll give you a big clue, in 1776 when that band of rebels were ready to formally break with England who did they select to lay the ideals that the new nation was fighting for on paper? Jefferson, a Deist, a man who openly admitted that he didn't beleave in the divinity of Jesus of Nazarath. Does that sound like the man who would be selected to launch a Christian nation?
Pull a Dollar out of your wallet and look at the back, just under the pyramid, and you'll see the Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum" A New Secular Order. The founders of the United States intended this to be a secular nation, NOT a Christian nation.
John Locke had far more to do with the ideals of the USA than John and Luke.
"The words behind the pledge are lost because they learn to recite them like robots long before they can really understand the implications of the words."
It's been a very long time since I was in school but I can still say the pledge Without giving it a thought the words just spill out of my mouth leaving no impression on my mind. I was also in school before manditory prayer was banned so I can also parrot the Lords Prayer without thinking about what I'm saying.
Think about that, a Pledge, which is a solem oath and a Prayer which is susposed to have been authored by God himself (If you beleave in that sort of thing) being reduced to meaningless noises that students squak out like good little parrots.
It Amazes me that the strongest foes of manditory recitals aren't the people that strongly beleave in the pledge and/or prayers, yet the Patriots and Fundimentalists are allways ready to have the words that mean so much to them turned into a series of sounds that have little or no meaning to many of the students who are forced to mouth them.
If the Artist screws up, the album dosen't sell. If you screwed up studio time was wasted. If I screwed up the alignment on the GCA Radar people died.
Sounds like I'm more entitled to a royality than some artist that had a good jam secession 15 years ago, and recorded it, and certainly more entitled than the artists great grand children 50 years after he died, which could easily be over a hundred years after that good jam secession.
A Person who writes a song (or a novel, or a program, etc) is no more entittled to a government sponsered monopoly for life plus seventy than someone who adjusts a Radar or engineers an album or hauls off the garbage. It's just another job.
"Personally, I think that (unless the artist choses otherwise) copyright should last until the death of the artist. Don't forget, in 1790 the average life expectancy was a lot lower than today"
Why limit the gravy train to artists? I would like to continue recieving payments from my employer of 14 years ago for the rest of my life. Why shouldn't I be able to avoid the 9 to 5 grind. 14 years ago I was maintaing Radar systems at a base where the US Navy trains pilots, and some of these pilots are still flying Naval aircraft so the Navy should be paying me "royalities" for the rest of my life.
Sorry "Artist" is just another job field. It's special nature of payment IS deserving of a limited copyright protection, but NOT a lifelong mealticket. 14 years of automatic copyright protection covers this for most works, perhaps with an aditional ONE TIME 14 year extension upon payment of regestration fees but that's as far as it should go. Certainly not life plus 70 years so that the grandchildren of the "artist" can continue to collect long after they bury Gramps.
I fully expected some simpleminded modarator to mod that post down.
Get it right! That was a pure and simple flame attached to a flamebait post, tho' I shouldn't expect the politically correct crowd to understand a nuance like that. Not something that told the cold hard unvarnished truth about modern liberalism's value system.
Free Speach for all who agree with you, isn't that the essance of political correctness?
What an insecure little dweeb. What's a matter, can't feel good about yourself without steerotyping the Nerds so you have somebody to look down on? You are just like the Klansmen who's inferiorty complex leads them to look for "proof" that they are "superior" to "Niggers" and "Kikes".
Oh those poor little mythical 9 year olds in Indonesia! Reality check. Does the Gap send out slave catchers to kidnap kids for their "sweatshops"? Hell No the Parents try to get them jobs there if they can't get the jobs themselves because the "Sweatshops" often pay higher wages than the local jobs. Try talking to the people you CLAIM you want to help. They bitch because there aren't MORE of the so called "sweatshops". They think we buy too many raw materials instead of allowing them to do the factory work.
Kids NOT working is a vainty for wealthy nations. In the poorer nations the choice for most people is put the kids to work or go short on food. Sending the kids to work is a chance for the family to get ahead. These conditions existed in the West up until about 125 years ago when enough wealth was accumalated to begain considering the idea that kids shouldn't be working. Before then if you were Rural your kids worked on the farm. If you were Urban you kissed ass to try to get your kids a place as an apprentice to a master if you didn't own a shop where you could put them to work.
Of course when your goal is the vain attempt to feel better about your worthless life, to feed your weakened ego by being a "caring activist", tossing a few bricks at a plate glass window achives your goal.
There is only one thing you are doing to help the people in the third world. Your dumbass tatics go a long way towards insuring that your simpleminded politics won't be adopted, robbing them of a chance to get ahead.
It makes the experimentation so much fun taht you won't bother with a sim.
Accel has a EFI system for Chevrolet V8 Engines (Wussymoble 4 cylinder drivers are out of luck) That is a blast to tune. You can hook a laptop up to the ECM and adjust it while it's being driven, and save the maps so you can load the map for the performance leveal you need for any given day.
I Set up a Corvette with 400 cubes, a Paxton supercharger and the Accell EFI. That was a fun filled day. Beat the hell out of simulating it on a PC. The only bad part was returning the car to the owner at the end of the day.
HILL refers to the Southern Apalachian and Ozark Mountains, Billy a nickname foe William, a term applied to the residents of the Mountain Areas of the Southern United States.
The traditional culture of this region started dying out in the post World War II era as modern transportation ended the isolation. The Mountain people are primarly of Scots-Irish, and English ancestry, and the culture was as distinct as any other ethnic group in America.
In 1966 the Foxfire project was launced in in the Rabun County Ga School system. Students have spent the last 36 years interviewing their "kin" to preserve a record of their cultural heirtage.
http://www.foxfire.org/
The "Hillbilly" sterotype is pointed an ethnic group and is every bit as offensive as the sterotypes applied to Blacks and Jews. Too bad they aren't one of the left's pet groups and not protected by the PC Police.
Oh the Dems have some real "talent" for scandal but they keep getting nailed at the lower levals so they don't make the major leagues.
In One Atlanta Suburb the Shiref was caught up in one scandal after another. After he lost his bid for reelection the guy that beat him was ASSASSINATED, and he's on trial for ordering the hit now.
"the fact is, Democrats can't even do scandals very well. The Republicans have them beat hands-down in that department"
Oh I think conspircing with organized crime Bosses to overthrow a government (Cuba) and Wiretapping and Spying on Dr. King tops anything the GOP has done in the last Century. Of course it's easy to get away with things like that when your name is Kennedy.
Rather Ironic to be using an Ethnic Slur like "Hillbilly" while making your Politicaly Correct Observation. Is hatred of ethnic groups that don't enjoy the left's favor what you prefer teaching to your kids?
Re:Days of denial are over.
on
Baked Alaska
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"If you don't think global warming is real, great, PROVE IT!"
The debate isn't IF global warming is occuring, It's the cause of the warming. The burden of proof lays on those who claim that humans are responsible.
There are facts that contradict the "humans cause global warming" assertion of the neo-ludites.
The average Global tempature is lower than it was 700 years ago. At that time wine was produced in areas of England where grape cultivation is impossible today. The Vikings had a thriving colony in Greenland. Some crops were grown in higher elevations in Europe than are possible today.
This warm period was ended by the little Ice Age which saw a period of global cooling. There is also evidance for a similar period of cooling near the end of the Roman Empire though it isn't as well documented that preceded the Medeval warming period.
The historic periods of warming and cooling preceded the industrial era and are certainly natural. The present warming may be no more than a natural end to the natural cooling period that started about 650 years ago, and the fact that tempatures are still lower than they were between 1000 and around 1350 points seems to show that we still haven't recovered from the global cooling.
The biggest falicy of the neo-ludite views on global warming is that the tempature at the start of the Industrial period was "normal" rather than just another period in the long cycle of natural warming and cooling eras.
Re:oh no... more global warming (...not...??)
on
Baked Alaska
·
· Score: 2
"What I don't understand is why most right-wingers in the USA like to classify issues such as global warming as a left-wing political issue."
It might have something to do with the neo-ludite faction of the left using "harm the enviroment" as a mantra to oppose any progress. 50 years ago it was "harm the workers" now it's "harm the Furbish Lousewort"
When the nut cases espouse your cause you become identified with nut cases. This is equally true if it's right wing or left wing nut cases that espouse your cause. The Enviromental cause is not helped by a pack of Hippies that refuse to accept that it's not 1968 running around every Earthday mouthing pop eco Bullshit. If the Neo Nazis had decided Global warming was a "Jewish Plot" to destroy the "Aryans from the Northern areas" and made more noise than the Hippy tree huggers then it would be viewed as a far right political cause.
Slashdot Mirror
The proposal is for a mission 13 years from now. Durring that time the Neo-Luddites will exhale far more CO2 into the atmosphere than the small ammount that would be generated by the launch of a Rocket that mainly burns H2 and O2. A Mass suicide by the Global warming alarmists will do more to protect the enviroment than banning manned space flight. I have given a far better reason to put off a manned mission elsewhere in this thread, namely contamination of Mars by Earthly Microbes making it hard to study the possibility of Native Martian life.
Not because of any paranoid mistrust of the Russians. Not because of any BS about spending the money on the earthbound poor. Simply because we don't know if there is life on Mars yet. A Manned mission will "contaminate" Mars with our micro-organisims making it very difficult to discover any native Martian microbes unless they are very different from the mundane Earth microbes that would arrive as colonists with the manned crew. If unmanned exploration fails to discover any native life on Mars Then I'll be one of the biggest supporters of Manned exploration. If there are "natives" on Mars their existance will have to be protected from the contamination that would go with a manned mission. Life that evolved off Earth could provide us with many answers about the evoulation of life and of how common life may be in the Cosmos. It would be a far more valuable resource than any bennifits that could be gained from a Mars Mission.
No matter what the Proposal, we hear the same alarmist claptrap from the eco chicken littles.
" Burning that much rocket fuel would turn our atmosphere in to that of Venus's!"
Any solid scince to back up your contention? Any thing besides the warmed over 1960s Hippy Dippy nonsense that dominates the eco movement?
"Trust me on this one."
After the alarmist nature of your post I have far more reason to distrust you than to trust you.
"the Mac will eventually dominate the planet as planned!"
So we switch from having Microsoft dominating the software to having Apple dominating the software AND the hardware? Sounds like a step backwards to me. Sorry I have no intrest in placing Steve Jobs in a stronger postion than Bill Gates is in today.
"Also, think of all the s/w that would have to be rewritten.... flight control systems, databases, operating systems, the list is endless! Yikes!"
Yikes?... Try Who Hoo!!!
Think of all the $$$$ that PHBs were shovelling at Geeks for software and consulting 3 or 4 years ago when they were scared to death of Y2k!! We could do it all over again. This is a GOLDMINE !
It wouldn't matter if Buffy was on the ballot. It wouldn't matter if Buffy was the best damn show on TV (Which IMHO it isn't). It still wouldn't win because it's too far out of the mainstream to get the votes. Sorry to bust your bubble but the emmys (and the Oscars and the Grammys, etc) aren't about which is best (a subjective view), they are about self promotion by industry insiders. These people consider Buffy a silly cult show not worthy of their attention let alone their votes. Deal with it, the emmys will go to bland heavly promoted trash or Pompus BS that pretends to be artistic, just like they allways do.
This little weasel is just the middleman. If he was shut down the sleezeballs that pay him to spam people would just find another little weasel to send out the spam. It's just like trying to stop illegal drugs by arresting street level dealers, someone else steps in as soon as you bust a pusher.
To stop the spamming you have to go after the people paying them. A Good starting point would be ISPs blocking the IP addresses of sites that pay people to spam. Then spamming would result in fewer page hits instead of more hits, and cost them money. It would also stop the spammers that are sending the crap from Russia, Asia, and other areas where ISPs are glad to even get spammer biz. Another way to cut down on spamming would be for the Feds to start arresting the scam artists running Pyramids and other schemes that are allready illegal fraud operations. Scam Spamming with a snail mail return address should ammount to advertising your location so the feds know where to find you.
"That all said, I've been in quite a few manufacturing shops and in every one the radio was on. Is that different from mp3s in terms of "music-comes-out-of-a-box-while-people-work"?"
The RIAA isn't threatening to sue sue over listening to the radio, so the employees of those manufacturing shops aren't putting the company in the postion of having to spend a lot of money defending itself. The Radio dosen't slow down the forklifts, or the other machinary in the shop, something that can't be said about the effect downloading MP3s can have on the company's internet connection.
My Company has a simple answer, you can listen to regular Audio CDs or MP3s IF you bring them in with you and use headphones or play music that others in your work area don't object to, but NO DOWNLOADING MP3s with the company's bandwidth.
"Huh, never heard about that claim. Probably because I'm not American myself. Do some people really claim this?"
This isn't just an "American" claim. For most of the last 2000 years Christian doctrine has been that God manifests himself as three personalities, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is susposed to be the second personality of the Triune Christian God. How someone can hold this belief and also claim to be a Monotheist is something that has never made a lot of sense to me, but that's beside the point. The Christian Bible claims that Jesus (second person in the Triune God) was the Author of the Lords prayer.
" Most people in this country are monotheistic, and since majority rules we have "In God we Trust". If you want to be in a Ahtiest country, go to China."
IF you beleave this nonsense, then In the Roman Empire the majority of the people were Pagans, so the early Christians were WRONG to attempt to introduce Monotheism into a Pagan nation, and the Romans were justified in persacuting them for refusing to join the majority in offering sacrafices to the Gods of Rome.
Don't hand me any "majority rules" bullshit if you follow the teachings of men who rebelled against the majority religion of their time. This includes the Old Testiment prophets and Jesus of Nazarath as well as Mohaemed of Mecca.
"the government doesn't advocate the Judeo-Christian beliefs that it was founded on."
I Would suggest that you study a little real history instead of the drivel the so called conservatives spout. The Philosphy of the 17th and 18th Centuries played a far larger role in the founding of the United States than "Judeo-Christian beliefs".
I'll give you a big clue, in 1776 when that band of rebels were ready to formally break with England who did they select to lay the ideals that the new nation was fighting for on paper? Jefferson, a Deist, a man who openly admitted that he didn't beleave in the divinity of Jesus of Nazarath. Does that sound like the man who would be selected to launch a Christian nation?
Pull a Dollar out of your wallet and look at the back, just under the pyramid, and you'll see the Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum" A New Secular Order. The founders of the United States intended this to be a secular nation, NOT a Christian nation.
John Locke had far more to do with the ideals of the USA than John and Luke.
"The words behind the pledge are lost because they learn to recite them like robots long before they can really understand the implications of the words."
It's been a very long time since I was in school but I can still say the pledge Without giving it a thought the words just spill out of my mouth leaving no impression on my mind. I was also in school before manditory prayer was banned so I can also parrot the Lords Prayer without thinking about what I'm saying.
Think about that, a Pledge, which is a solem oath and a Prayer which is susposed to have been authored by God himself (If you beleave in that sort of thing) being reduced to meaningless noises that students squak out like good little parrots.
It Amazes me that the strongest foes of manditory recitals aren't the people that strongly beleave in the pledge and/or prayers, yet the Patriots and Fundimentalists are allways ready to have the words that mean so much to them turned into a series of sounds that have little or no meaning to many of the students who are forced to mouth them.
If the Artist screws up, the album dosen't sell. If you screwed up studio time was wasted. If I screwed up the alignment on the GCA Radar people died.
Sounds like I'm more entitled to a royality than some artist that had a good jam secession 15 years ago, and recorded it, and certainly more entitled than the artists great grand children 50 years after he died, which could easily be over a hundred years after that good jam secession.
A Person who writes a song (or a novel, or a program, etc) is no more entittled to a government sponsered monopoly for life plus seventy than someone who adjusts a Radar or engineers an album or hauls off the garbage. It's just another job.
"Personally, I think that (unless the artist choses otherwise) copyright should last until the death of the artist. Don't forget, in 1790 the average life expectancy was a lot lower than today"
Why limit the gravy train to artists? I would like to continue recieving payments from my employer of 14 years ago for the rest of my life. Why shouldn't I be able to avoid the 9 to 5 grind. 14 years ago I was maintaing Radar systems at a base where the US Navy trains pilots, and some of these pilots are still flying Naval aircraft so the Navy should be paying me "royalities" for the rest of my life.
Sorry "Artist" is just another job field. It's special nature of payment IS deserving of a limited copyright protection, but NOT a lifelong mealticket. 14 years of automatic copyright protection covers this for most works, perhaps with an aditional ONE TIME 14 year extension upon payment of regestration fees but that's as far as it should go. Certainly not life plus 70 years so that the grandchildren of the "artist" can continue to collect long after they bury Gramps.
Another simpleminded member of the PC crowd shows his cluelessness while modarating based on political content.
That post was OFFTOPIC exposure of the shallow joke called modern Liberalism's lack of credibility in the area of freedom of speach.
Thanx for proving my point by using your Mod points as a coward's way of avoiding debating the subject.
Freedom of Speach ONLY for those who agree with you, isn't that the essance of political correctness?
ROFLMAO,
I fully expected some simpleminded modarator to mod that post down.
Get it right! That was a pure and simple flame attached to a flamebait post, tho' I shouldn't expect the politically correct crowd to understand a nuance like that. Not something that told the cold hard unvarnished truth about modern liberalism's value system.
Free Speach for all who agree with you, isn't that the essance of political correctness?
ROFLMAO
What an insecure little dweeb. What's a matter, can't feel good about yourself without steerotyping the Nerds so you have somebody to look down on? You are just like the Klansmen who's inferiorty complex leads them to look for "proof" that they are "superior" to "Niggers" and "Kikes".
Oh those poor little mythical 9 year olds in Indonesia! Reality check. Does the Gap send out slave catchers to kidnap kids for their "sweatshops"? Hell No the Parents try to get them jobs there if they can't get the jobs themselves because the "Sweatshops" often pay higher wages than the local jobs. Try talking to the people you CLAIM you want to help. They bitch because there aren't MORE of the so called "sweatshops". They think we buy too many raw materials instead of allowing them to do the factory work.
Kids NOT working is a vainty for wealthy nations. In the poorer nations the choice for most people is put the kids to work or go short on food. Sending the kids to work is a chance for the family to get ahead. These conditions existed in the West up until about 125 years ago when enough wealth was accumalated to begain considering the idea that kids shouldn't be working. Before then if you were Rural your kids worked on the farm. If you were Urban you kissed ass to try to get your kids a place as an apprentice to a master if you didn't own a shop where you could put them to work.
Of course when your goal is the vain attempt to feel better about your worthless life, to feed your weakened ego by being a "caring activist", tossing a few bricks at a plate glass window achives your goal.
There is only one thing you are doing to help the people in the third world. Your dumbass tatics go a long way towards insuring that your simpleminded politics won't be adopted, robbing them of a chance to get ahead.
It makes the experimentation so much fun taht you won't bother with a sim.
Accel has a EFI system for Chevrolet V8 Engines (Wussymoble 4 cylinder drivers are out of luck) That is a blast to tune. You can hook a laptop up to the ECM and adjust it while it's being driven, and save the maps so you can load the map for the performance leveal you need for any given day.
I Set up a Corvette with 400 cubes, a Paxton supercharger and the Accell EFI. That was a fun filled day. Beat the hell out of simulating it on a PC. The only bad part was returning the car to the owner at the end of the day.
"When the taxes are lower, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
That's because the Rich keep doing the things that made them rich, while the poor continue doing the things that made them poor.
HILL refers to the Southern Apalachian and Ozark Mountains, Billy a nickname foe William, a term applied to the residents of the Mountain Areas of the Southern United States.
The traditional culture of this region started dying out in the post World War II era as modern transportation ended the isolation. The Mountain people are primarly of Scots-Irish, and English ancestry, and the culture was as distinct as any other ethnic group in America.
In 1966 the Foxfire project was launced in in the Rabun County Ga School system. Students have spent the last 36 years interviewing their "kin" to preserve a record of their cultural heirtage.
http://www.foxfire.org/
The "Hillbilly" sterotype is pointed an ethnic group and is every bit as offensive as the sterotypes applied to Blacks and Jews. Too bad they aren't one of the left's pet groups and not protected by the PC Police.
Oh the Dems have some real "talent" for scandal but they keep getting nailed at the lower levals so they don't make the major leagues.
In One Atlanta Suburb the Shiref was caught up in one scandal after another. After he lost his bid for reelection the guy that beat him was ASSASSINATED, and he's on trial for ordering the hit now.
"the fact is, Democrats can't even do scandals very well. The Republicans have them beat hands-down in that department"
Oh I think conspircing with organized crime Bosses to overthrow a government (Cuba) and Wiretapping and Spying on Dr. King tops anything the GOP has done in the last Century. Of course it's easy to get away with things like that when your name is Kennedy.
"hillbilly justice"
Rather Ironic to be using an Ethnic Slur like "Hillbilly" while making your Politicaly Correct Observation. Is hatred of ethnic groups that don't enjoy the left's favor what you prefer teaching to your kids?
"If you don't think global warming is real, great, PROVE IT!"
The debate isn't IF global warming is occuring, It's the cause of the warming. The burden of proof lays on those who claim that humans are responsible.
There are facts that contradict the "humans cause global warming" assertion of the neo-ludites.
The average Global tempature is lower than it was 700 years ago. At that time wine was produced in areas of England where grape cultivation is impossible today. The Vikings had a thriving colony in Greenland. Some crops were grown in higher elevations in Europe than are possible today.
This warm period was ended by the little Ice Age which saw a period of global cooling. There is also evidance for a similar period of cooling near the end of the Roman Empire though it isn't as well documented that preceded the Medeval warming period.
The historic periods of warming and cooling preceded the industrial era and are certainly natural. The present warming may be no more than a natural end to the natural cooling period that started about 650 years ago, and the fact that tempatures are still lower than they were between 1000 and around 1350 points seems to show that we still haven't recovered from the global cooling.
The biggest falicy of the neo-ludite views on global warming is that the tempature at the start of the Industrial period was "normal" rather than just another period in the long cycle of natural warming and cooling eras.
"What I don't understand is why most right-wingers in the USA like to classify issues such as global warming as a left-wing political issue."
It might have something to do with the neo-ludite faction of the left using "harm the enviroment" as a mantra to oppose any progress. 50 years ago it was "harm the workers" now it's "harm the Furbish Lousewort"
When the nut cases espouse your cause you become identified with nut cases. This is equally true if it's right wing or left wing nut cases that espouse your cause. The Enviromental cause is not helped by a pack of Hippies that refuse to accept that it's not 1968 running around every Earthday mouthing pop eco Bullshit. If the Neo Nazis had decided Global warming was a "Jewish Plot" to destroy the "Aryans from the Northern areas" and made more noise than the Hippy tree huggers then it would be viewed as a far right political cause.