Yes, i quit using these methods. I've had no cigarrettes for 6 months now.
(1) Cold turkey is best. (2) First 2 weeks - 2 aspirin in the morning, 2 aspirin when you develop headaches. IF aspirin stops working, switch it with ibuprofen. Dont mix ibuprofen with alcohol ("they" say it's bad for the liver). (3) B-Vitamin anti-stress formula to reduce tension. (4) Nic-Patch - Buy the strongest ones 22mg - treat each mg as a cigarette, and CUT the patches down to size. One mg per cigarrette, and steadily reduce them until you're not using any. (5) If you accidentally "cheat" stick with the program, and keep quitting smoking. (6) Coffee in the morning helps take the edge off. (7) Sometimes a beer at night does the same. (8) Valerian Root, or Camomile Tea to help you sleep. (9) Finally, when you're really stressing and craving, remember that your body actually wants some other thing first, before that cigarrette (which you're NOT going to smoke;) . The other thing might be taking a walk, eating a snack, drinking some water or juice. Taking a nap. You name it.
Combustion engines to paperweights = Peace and Quiet.
^^^ SD rated this comment as flamebait. Then forges along with its conversation concerning the effectiveness of implements of mass murder.
I could talk for hours about the effectiveness of holocaust genocide techniques. By the rationale I see here that would be and "+2 informative" and "+1 insightful" -- whereas the guy saying "lets stop the murder machine" would be "-2 troll", or "-1 flamebait".
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." -- He wasn't talking about a peacemaker pistol.
Given that neither of them has a human brain. People perceive; Net and Government are Tools that People use to do things. People have various opinions.
The whole slashdot article's based on a fallacy.. kind of lame.
From the slashdot excerpt: "The current electricity grid would need to be replaced by a 'supergrid' across the USA, says Jesse H. Ausubel in The Industrial Physicist."
False.
A careful read of the article reveals that the author did not claim that replacing the entire grid was needed [to implement his cleaner "ZEPP" plan]. The ZEPP plant's output is electricity, whereas the misnamed "replacement grid" conveys liquid hydrogen.
Furthermore, the article said "...power companies could insert ZEPPs into densely settled regions such as eastern China without much change to the footprint of the energy system."
So we would not have to replace the whole power grid to adopt the cleaner ZEPP process. ZEPPs make electriciy, which can be used to generate hydrogen (via electrolisys). In turn, the "new relay grid" would convey liquid hydrogen, yet I doubt that we'll live to see the day that electricity is obsolete. The so-called "new grid" would be the addition of liquid hydrogen as an option, alongside electricity and natural gas.
Even as far as private standards go, alot of that data was gathered in a really slimey way. Doubt me? Remember Ad.Doubleclick.net? They were/?are? basically "cyberstalking" internet users across websites. In the face of uproar, their "solution" was to grant users who didn't like [being spied upon] the option of opting out. {opt-in would have been the only ethical way of doing their thing}.
So now you're telling me that some members of Congress want to commendeer that data, rather than having it destroyed, and banning the practice? It smacks of a police state. Why would any decent human pursue data trolling? Remember J Edgar Hoover.
Such entities should be compelled to destroy their data, and desist from further cyberstalking.
If the present attempt/trend [of government net widening] succeeds, we may live to see a second american revolution.
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
PS Too bad a jackass who can't understand the advanced notions of "analogy" and "sarcasm" had the opportunity to mod this article.
Shape mountains, Create lakes, Create 100% radioactive test envioronments Observe radiated species mutations Study human health.
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
The other day the FBI was accused of instigating a raid (in the UK). Does this mean that, in fact, the FBI did NOT instigate that raid? I'm sorry their servers have been seiged, but it would be nice to get facts, rather than impressions.
Key to running a media source is ensuring its integrity. If indy can't check the facts concerning whether the FBI -- er -- CIA -- er -- Italian Government has been shutting them down, then why are they printing it?
I sure hope their misreporting of the facts [in this particular case] does not [in general] represent their quality of journalism. I still have some faith in them, though.
Anyhow, if they want to safeguard against bullying they could use something like freenet.
1) Technically, if a UK server were brought down, it's probably not covered by our first amendment rights. (although I'd preferr that it were treated as if it were) Perhaps a case could be argued that our first amendment rights DO protect foreign media, if the media is available inside the USA -- at least protects that media from our own FBI. After all, (a) Indymedia UK is also American's independant media source about events inside the UK, and (b) the FBI is supposed to handle strictly internal (US) affairs. So if the FBI's doing the raid then our constitution should leash them.
2) If that raid had occurred inside the USA, it would have been unconsitutitional. It sounds as if the post [RNC delegate's addresses -- which was suggested to have been used to justify the raid] wasn't made by the Online Newspaper, but rather by a (potentially anonymous) member/forum poster.
It's the equivalent of shutting down the New York Times {indefinitely} just b/c somebody posted a classified add telling G.W.'s address. (you know, the oh-so-secret "black house" - the seat of our "shadow government")
I must emphasize that IF that was, in fact, the justification for the raid, then we should really be protesting it. Basically, there's no telling WHO posted the data on that server, and it would be a simplistic means of censorship, if the gov't were granted the right to take whole news media servers off the internet every time an anonymous forum member posted "sensetive" information.
Generally I believe we're better off inadvertantly allowing too much information on the net than stiffling free speach in the effort to keep hostil-ly posted personal information off the net.
However, I consider both efforts to be worthwhile.
Anyhow, this ultimately boosts the importance of things like freenet: www.freenet.org..Or international mirror networks for server groups like indymedia.
Personally, I don't believe that I have to BUY music to ENJOY music.
I make music on my computer at home, and I like it. A filesharing network would be perfect for sharing home-spun music, and that wouldn't be piracy at all.
If we don't buy or use anything [from money'd music] then our filesharing networks are our own, and then the corporate vultures can only bitch and moan about how their greed drove us away, and how we never came back, and how our networks aren't pirate networks, they're PUBLIC DOMAIN SHARING NETWORKS, WHICH DON'T DEAL IN PIRATED CORPORATE MUSIC, OR IN MUSIC FROM CORPORATE PIRATES! Then their attorneys can go to the unemployment line, where they might learn the value of free music. =)
There's synthesizer software and a HUGE individual capacity to make music. People dont need hollywood's crappy genre's.
You might ask "But where would we be, without such valued corporate musical stereotypes as the airhead-fem-teenybopper, the criminal-turned-gangsta-wrapper, the frustrated-earth-hating-angry-metalhead, the oversexed-horny-popstar, the desperately-in-love-pseudo-singer, the voice of corporate social conscience, or the voice of artistic despair? the_REAL_sam, where would we be without those things?"
Once upon a time, nobody was dependent on corporate $urrogate culture.
We might miss them, but the real artists will still make music, and they'll manage to make a living, too. The brittany spears's would take their millions and fade away, and we'd get to listen to real artists with genuinely artistic motives.
Sure, we hear the music, not the motives. Maybe our present-day favorites fall within corporate genres, but REALLY, the true artists would keep at it.
Why WOULD anybody vote for a green? Maybe the Green Party would set American energy policy moving in a direction that eradicated greed-driven war in arab lands. Maybe it would result in fewer corporate billboards and fewer public advertisements. Maybe it would result in feasible cars that dont make any noise, and run on electricity. Maybe it would result in the homeless being taken care of, and in all Americans basic health needs being met. Maybe it would reduce noise pollution, environmental pollution, oil drilling, deforestation, suburban sprawl, etc. Maybe it would restore democracy to our country, and remove corporations (and their money) from the electoral process. Maybe it would reduce our taxes -- it would certainly reduce the % of taxes devoted to developing weapons, and reduce the amount devoted to teaching young men to kill for money.
In short, maybe a green president would make our country a wonderful place to live, and encourage the rest of the world to love it, too.
OK? Thanks for reading. -Sam
PS: From the guy complaining about use of the term "frankenfood" (which is a biased term, but does not preclude thought), to the guy ridiculing the (admittedly silly) term "people of color". I have one thing to say to you: is that all you had to say? Why did you even post? And I can't forget the troll academically talking about the green party trying to "sell its symbol, just like all the others" and then caressing his ego by claiming to be above it. And then the 20 offtopic posts about the Libertarian Party (who already had their own slashdot article, just a day or two ago).
To all of you that I just mentioned I say this: Somebody should take away your karma. Your posts were natural 1's and zero's, and nothing should have boosted them any higher. I wanted to read about the Green party, and instead I just read your bullshit posts.
I once took a course on the biology of populations (at U.T. Austin). Here's what I remember about the risks of GM crops.
(1) GM crops are cloned plants, started from seed (genetically identical, or genetically common).
(2) Use of clone crops reduces genetic diversity in field crops.
(3) As a clone, each plant in the crop is vulnerable to the same adversities. I.E. the same frost, same pest, same flood, same drought, same nutrient deficiency, same disease, etc, can now affect each plant in the crop in the same way.
(4) This puts all the genetic eggs into one basket.
(5) A "natural" field of non-GM crops is genetically diverse, resulting in a reduced likelihood of the same adversity erradicating the whole crop.
(6) Pollen contamination -- GM pollen can sometimes hybridize with natural strains of plants, meaning that the natural strain of wild plant is no longer 100% natural, and could potentially fall victim to the same vulnerabilities as the original GM crop.
(7) Diversity is the mother of evolution. Diversity enforces the likelihood that some, or all, strains of a crop will survive a given drought, disease, pestilence, etc. Natural strains of crops are the product of thousands of years of crop evolution, AND those strains have enough diversity to continue evolving. Man is not competent to know how or why these diverse crops are suited to survival -- i.e. we just dont know why they are a decent batch of "good survivers." So man's genetic strain might help ALOT against one particular pest in the short term, but in the long run there's no telling what beneficial traits we've cloned out of the crop. Using a full diversity of strains therefore assists a crop species' long term viability -- and expanding the use of single-strain GM crops is what I'd call a VERY BAD IDEA, in the long run, and possibly even in the short run, because there's no telling what "stealthy survivor traits" we've unwittingly removed from the population. So if an iceberg melts and releases some harmful spore that was frozen 3000 years ago, the diverse crops still have a genetic memory, and some of them "know" how to survive.
(8) Seed dependency -- once a farmer's bought into GM seeds, he's dependent on a corporation to provide each year's single-strain seeds. In "ye olden days", he could simply store some genetically diverse seeds from the year before.
I put about 3 hours into writing this, and put alot of insight into it. I doubt the person who modded it down to zero=troll even read it. But he demoted it to a lower rating than most people would even consider reading.
Given that the rating is wrong I'm reposting the comment, so I at least get the "1" that I deserve for writing something that nobody but a troll read.
Some flaws with the Libertarian View:
1) he advocates privatizing currentcy? how would taxation occur, given multiple forms of currency? and which one is the non-speculator going to choose? and would it still say "In God We Trust"? =) well i hope it doesn't say "in citibank we trust".
2) his answer regarding privatizing public schools is loose and shabby. (my understanding is that) public education is a constitutional right. i don't see how these guys can present themselves as contitutionalists and then try to mandate that private schools be tasked with safeguarding kid's constitutional right to public education.
3) his ideal that the market should be the final determining factor in all matters seems fundamentally flawed. the market is not always right in the long term. (not even in the short term) sometimes a democratically elected government is exactly the right body to ensure that public needs [and preferences] are met.
for instance, government would be the right institution to bypass the biggest environmental blunder man has ever made (transportation via internal combustion), and to move us forward with something that doesn't make smog, doesn't make noise pollution, doesn't make visual pollution, doen't hurt health, doesn't require roads, road crews or jackhammers, doesn't cost a fortune in insurance and bank debt. doesn't cost your soul. etc.
but the libertarian is going to say what? i tend to guess (perhaps falsely) that he'd say the market bears those cars, so proceed accordingly. in fact what makes money is not what would benefit us overall.
people talk about a multibillion dollar industry as if that's what we're GETTING FROM IT, but that's decepetive. first and foremost, A MULTIBILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY IS WHAT IT'S COSTING US!!!. so "what the market bears" is not necessarily a good thing. "what the market bears" is how much we could save if we somehow worked around the problem that's costing us multiple billions....For instance, a public library helps reduce the public cost of what the market WOULD bear for reading books. We all benefit by conserving trees, conserving human labor to make the books, and reducing the number of hours you or I need to work to read those books. Ask your libertarian what he's got in mind for your public libraries! would he privatize them? or close them and claim that he "created jobs" by forcing us to buy more books while encouraging deforestation and taking away a public resource?
question laissez faire. sometimes it's probably the right answer. but not always.
4) the market seems to bear a landscape of pukey corporate billboards: texaco signs, target signs, safeways, billboards, gaps, chevrons, pottery barns, wells fargos, taco bells, 7-11's etc, etc. personally i think it sucks, and i believe i should have a right to vote that crap down so that i dont have to look at a bunch of advertisements when i go for a drive. (lol) does he think these businesses have a right to turn my whole environment into visual pollution [aka advertising space] just b/c they bought / leased a patch of land large enough for a billboard?
5) he talks about stopping the government from selling the right to pollute. as i understand it, that's one of the ways pollution is mitigated (reduced). pollution isn't free, so companies reduce it as best they can. (in theory) the government fills that role b/c no other institution can fill that role. (lets pray that it's never up to Bechtel or Chevron to sells the right to pollute!) so, as i see it, if he stops govt from SELLING the right to pollute, how's he going to handle pollutors? with regular mo
1) he advocates privatizing currentcy? how would taxation occur, given multiple forms of currency? and which one is the non-speculator going to choose? and would it still say "In God We Trust"? =) well i hope it doesn't say "in citibank we trust".
2) his answer regarding privatizing public schools is loose and shabby. (my understanding is that) public education is a constitutional right. i don't see how these guys can present themselves as contitutionalists and then try to mandate that private schools be tasked with safeguarding kid's constitutional right to public education.
3) his ideal that the market should be the final determining factor in all matters seems fundamentally flawed. the market is not always right in the long term. (not even in the short term) sometimes a democratically elected government is exactly the right body to ensure that public needs [and preferences] are met.
for instance, government would be the right institution to bypass the biggest environmental blunder man has ever made (transportation via internal combustion), and to move us forward with something that doesn't make smog, doesn't make noise pollution, doesn't make visual pollution, doen't hurt health, doesn't require roads, road crews or jackhammers, doesn't cost a fortune in insurance and bank debt. doesn't cost your soul. etc.
but the libertarian is going to say what? i tend to guess (perhaps falsely) that he'd say the market bears those cars, so proceed accordingly. in fact what makes money is not what would benefit us overall.
people talk about a multibillion dollar industry as if that's what we're GETTING FROM IT, but that's decepetive. first and foremost, A MULTIBILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY IS WHAT IT'S COSTING US!!!. so "what the market bears" is not necessarily a good thing. "what the market bears" is how much we could save if we somehow worked around the problem that's costing us multiple billions....For instance, a public library helps reduce the public cost of what the market WOULD bear for reading books. We all benefit by conserving trees, conserving human labor to make the books, and reducing the number of hours you or I need to work to read those books. Ask your libertarian what he's got in mind for your public libraries! would he privatize them? or close them and claim that he "created jobs" by forcing us to buy more books while encouraging deforestation and taking away a public resource?
question laissez faire. sometimes it's probably the right answer. but not always.
4) the market seems to bear a landscape of pukey corporate billboards: texaco signs, target signs, safeways, billboards, gaps, chevrons, pottery barns, wells fargos, taco bells, 7-11's etc, etc. personally i think it sucks, and i believe i should have a right to vote that crap down so that i dont have to look at a bunch of advertisements when i go for a drive. (lol) does he think these businesses have a right to turn my whole environment into visual pollution [aka advertising space] just b/c they bought / leased a patch of land large enough for a billboard?
5) he talks about stopping the government from selling the right to pollute. as i understand it, that's one of the ways pollution is mitigated (reduced). pollution isn't free, so companies reduce it as best they can. (in theory) the government fills that role b/c no other institution can fill that role. (lets pray that it's never up to Bechtel or Chevron to sells the right to pollute!) so, as i see it, if he stops govt from SELLING the right to pollute, how's he going to handle pollutors? with regular monthly "fines"? [then what's the difference between that and selling the right to pollute?] they're still gonna be polluting right? or is the laisez faire libertarian ideal going to make them stop? or are all the investors going to be in jail since the corporate veil of investor immunity is lifted, and pollution is a criminal offense? ???!??
i had a motorcycle too but they stole it. i got another but chained it, and managed not to lose that one.
The neighborhood I lived in had a well established car breakin ring -- every saturday night the clubs would fill up, and around 12:30 am [each friday and saturday], one by one, each car alarm on each car on the street would go off, in sequence, just as they were parked. From my house I could hear them all.
over 5 years SF made over $3 grand off me (in parking tickets) but they never helped my jeep one bit. I mean, at those parking rates, you'd think they'd treat my illegally parked jeep as a prized investment or something, and protect it a little. =D they didn't. in the aftermath, the city parking enforcement was a school of sharks (organized crime), and the breakin people were just scavengers by comparison. =\
Car alarms are evil. Consider the city of San Francisco, where there are 16,000 people, and 8,000 cars - per square mile.* So each car alarm incident results in reduced quality of life for about 4,000 people who happen to live within earshot. That's not a necessary evil. It's just evil. "Out-Loud" Car alarms should be illegal, or at least disabled in densely populated areas. I've been tortured by them enough that I don't intend to report breakins of alarmed cars.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msei/on-road/briefs/Public at ion1.pdf
No Problem: Empty the car and leave it unlocked
on
Home Defense, Geek Style?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I learned this living in San Francisco for 5 years. I had a Jeep - over that period of time they broke into my vehicle over 100 times. That's no exaggeration, its actually a conservative estimate.
They would steal anything greater than or equal to the value of a matchbook.
They cut the windows, stole the battery, keyed the sides, pissed on it, cut a tire, broke the interior locks, and broke an egg onto it -- it was a brand new jeep. The city itself helped me out by writing $3000 in tickets.
The ultimate defense was to leave it with the doors unlocked, with all essentials locked into the trunk.
It would be nice to claim the high ground and say it was a turn the other cheek method, but actually it was just the path of least resistance, and incidentally the most effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, i quit using these methods. I've had no cigarrettes for 6 months now.
;) . The other thing might be taking a walk, eating a snack, drinking some water or juice. Taking a nap. You name it.
(1) Cold turkey is best.
(2) First 2 weeks - 2 aspirin in the morning, 2 aspirin when you develop headaches. IF aspirin stops working, switch it with ibuprofen. Dont mix ibuprofen with alcohol ("they" say it's bad for the liver).
(3) B-Vitamin anti-stress formula to reduce tension.
(4) Nic-Patch - Buy the strongest ones 22mg - treat each mg as a cigarette, and CUT the patches down to size. One mg per cigarrette, and steadily reduce them until you're not using any.
(5) If you accidentally "cheat" stick with the program, and keep quitting smoking.
(6) Coffee in the morning helps take the edge off.
(7) Sometimes a beer at night does the same.
(8) Valerian Root, or Camomile Tea to help you sleep.
(9) Finally, when you're really stressing and craving, remember that your body actually wants some other thing first, before that cigarrette (which you're NOT going to smoke
Swords to plowshares = Peace.
Combustion engines to paperweights = Peace and Quiet.
^^^
SD rated this comment as flamebait. Then forges along with its conversation concerning the effectiveness of implements of mass murder.
I could talk for hours about the effectiveness of holocaust genocide techniques. By the rationale I see here that would be and "+2 informative" and "+1 insightful" -- whereas the guy saying "lets stop the murder machine" would be "-2 troll", or "-1 flamebait".
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." -- He wasn't talking about a peacemaker pistol.
Swords to plowshares = Peace.
Combustion engines to paperweights = Peace and Quiet.
Given that neither of them has a human brain. People perceive; Net and Government are Tools that People use to do things. People have various opinions.
The whole slashdot article's based on a fallacy.. kind of lame.
From the slashdot excerpt: "The current electricity grid would need to be replaced by a 'supergrid' across the USA, says Jesse H. Ausubel in The Industrial Physicist."
False.
A careful read of the article reveals that the author did not claim that replacing the entire grid was needed [to implement his cleaner "ZEPP" plan]. The ZEPP plant's output is electricity, whereas the misnamed "replacement grid" conveys liquid hydrogen.
Furthermore, the article said "...power companies could insert ZEPPs into densely settled regions such as eastern China without much change to the footprint of the energy system."
So we would not have to replace the whole power grid to adopt the cleaner ZEPP process. ZEPPs make electriciy, which can be used to generate hydrogen (via electrolisys). In turn, the "new relay grid" would convey liquid hydrogen, yet I doubt that we'll live to see the day that electricity is obsolete. The so-called "new grid" would be the addition of liquid hydrogen as an option, alongside electricity and natural gas.
Even as far as private standards go, alot of that data was gathered in a really slimey way. Doubt me? Remember Ad.Doubleclick.net? They were/?are? basically "cyberstalking" internet users across websites. In the face of uproar, their "solution" was to grant users who didn't like [being spied upon] the option of opting out. {opt-in would have been the only ethical way of doing their thing}.
So now you're telling me that some members of Congress want to commendeer that data, rather than having it destroyed, and banning the practice? It smacks of a police state. Why would any decent human pursue data trolling? Remember J Edgar Hoover.
Such entities should be compelled to destroy their data, and desist from further cyberstalking.
If the present attempt/trend [of government net widening] succeeds, we may live to see a second american revolution.
wait.. maybe we DONT.
oh, yea, so they can stop corruption in elections like they did with the federal election process and television campaigning?
(+1 sarcastic)
(-1 funny)
do i need to elaborate? have you heard of pollen? understand its role?
Thank heaven for the respost feature.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: ALSO VERY USEFUL
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
PS
Too bad a jackass who can't understand the advanced notions of "analogy" and "sarcasm" had the opportunity to mod this article.
Here's the problem with GM crops.
Shape mountains,
Create lakes,
Create 100% radioactive test envioronments
Observe radiated species mutations
Study human health.
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
You've seen Them boast about creating JOBS when they're really just creating WORK. This project creates jobs and REDUCES work. Very nice.
A remarkably good proposal. =)
The other day the FBI was accused of instigating a raid (in the UK). Does this mean that, in fact, the FBI did NOT instigate that raid? I'm sorry their servers have been seiged, but it would be nice to get facts, rather than impressions.
Key to running a media source is ensuring its integrity. If indy can't check the facts concerning whether the FBI -- er -- CIA -- er -- Italian Government has been shutting them down, then why are they printing it?
I sure hope their misreporting of the facts [in this particular case] does not [in general] represent their quality of journalism. I still have some faith in them, though.
Anyhow, if they want to safeguard against bullying they could use something like freenet.
1) Technically, if a UK server were brought down, it's probably not covered by our first amendment rights. (although I'd preferr that it were treated as if it were) Perhaps a case could be argued that our first amendment rights DO protect foreign media, if the media is available inside the USA -- at least protects that media from our own FBI. After all, (a) Indymedia UK is also American's independant media source about events inside the UK, and (b) the FBI is supposed to handle strictly internal (US) affairs. So if the FBI's doing the raid then our constitution should leash them.
..Or international mirror networks for server groups like indymedia.
2) If that raid had occurred inside the USA, it would have been unconsitutitional. It sounds as if the post [RNC delegate's addresses -- which was suggested to have been used to justify the raid] wasn't made by the Online Newspaper, but rather by a (potentially anonymous) member/forum poster.
It's the equivalent of shutting down the New York Times {indefinitely} just b/c somebody posted a classified add telling G.W.'s address. (you know, the oh-so-secret "black house" - the seat of our "shadow government")
I must emphasize that IF that was, in fact, the justification for the raid, then we should really be protesting it. Basically, there's no telling WHO posted the data on that server, and it would be a simplistic means of censorship, if the gov't were granted the right to take whole news media servers off the internet every time an anonymous forum member posted "sensetive" information.
Generally I believe we're better off inadvertantly allowing too much information on the net than stiffling free speach in the effort to keep hostil-ly posted personal information off the net.
However, I consider both efforts to be worthwhile.
Anyhow, this ultimately boosts the importance of things like freenet: www.freenet.org
Personally, I don't believe that I have to BUY music to ENJOY music.
I make music on my computer at home, and I like it. A filesharing network would be perfect for sharing home-spun music, and that wouldn't be piracy at all.
If we don't buy or use anything [from money'd music] then our filesharing networks are our own, and then the corporate vultures can only bitch and moan about how their greed drove us away, and how we never came back, and how our networks aren't pirate networks, they're PUBLIC DOMAIN SHARING NETWORKS, WHICH DON'T DEAL IN PIRATED CORPORATE MUSIC, OR IN MUSIC FROM CORPORATE PIRATES! Then their attorneys can go to the unemployment line, where they might learn the value of free music. =)
There's synthesizer software and a HUGE individual capacity to make music. People dont need hollywood's crappy genre's.
You might ask "But where would we be, without such valued corporate musical stereotypes as the airhead-fem-teenybopper,
the criminal-turned-gangsta-wrapper,
the frustrated-earth-hating-angry-metalhead,
the oversexed-horny-popstar,
the desperately-in-love-pseudo-singer,
the voice of corporate social conscience,
or the voice of artistic despair?
the_REAL_sam, where would we be without those things?"
Once upon a time, nobody was dependent on corporate $urrogate culture.
We might miss them, but the real artists will still make music, and they'll manage to make a living, too. The brittany spears's would take their millions and fade away, and we'd get to listen to real artists with genuinely artistic motives.
Sure, we hear the music, not the motives. Maybe our present-day favorites fall within corporate genres, but REALLY, the true artists would keep at it.
Why WOULD anybody vote for a green? Maybe the Green Party would set American energy policy moving in a direction that eradicated greed-driven war in arab lands. Maybe it would result in fewer corporate billboards and fewer public advertisements. Maybe it would result in feasible cars that dont make any noise, and run on electricity. Maybe it would result in the homeless being taken care of, and in all Americans basic health needs being met. Maybe it would reduce noise pollution, environmental pollution, oil drilling, deforestation, suburban sprawl, etc. Maybe it would restore democracy to our country, and remove corporations (and their money) from the electoral process. Maybe it would reduce our taxes -- it would certainly reduce the % of taxes devoted to developing weapons, and reduce the amount devoted to teaching young men to kill for money.
In short, maybe a green president would make our country a wonderful place to live, and encourage the rest of the world to love it, too.
OK? Thanks for reading.
-Sam
PS:
From the guy complaining about use of the term "frankenfood" (which is a biased term, but does not preclude thought), to the guy ridiculing the (admittedly silly) term "people of color". I have one thing to say to you: is that all you had to say? Why did you even post? And I can't forget the troll academically talking about the green party trying to "sell its symbol, just like all the others" and then caressing his ego by claiming to be above it. And then the 20 offtopic posts about the Libertarian Party (who already had their own slashdot article, just a day or two ago).
To all of you that I just mentioned I say this: Somebody should take away your karma. Your posts were natural 1's and zero's, and nothing should have boosted them any higher. I wanted to read about the Green party, and instead I just read your bullshit posts.
I once took a course on the biology of populations (at U.T. Austin). Here's what I remember about the risks of GM crops.
(1) GM crops are cloned plants, started from seed (genetically identical, or genetically common).
(2) Use of clone crops reduces genetic diversity in field crops.
(3) As a clone, each plant in the crop is vulnerable to the same adversities. I.E. the same frost, same pest, same flood, same drought, same nutrient deficiency, same disease, etc, can now affect each plant in the crop in the same way.
(4) This puts all the genetic eggs into one basket.
(5) A "natural" field of non-GM crops is genetically diverse, resulting in a reduced likelihood of the same adversity erradicating the whole crop.
(6) Pollen contamination -- GM pollen can sometimes hybridize with natural strains of plants, meaning that the natural strain of wild plant is no longer 100% natural, and could potentially fall victim to the same vulnerabilities as the original GM crop.
(7) Diversity is the mother of evolution. Diversity enforces the likelihood that some, or all, strains of a crop will survive a given drought, disease, pestilence, etc. Natural strains of crops are the product of thousands of years of crop evolution, AND those strains have enough diversity to continue evolving. Man is not competent to know how or why these diverse crops are suited to survival -- i.e. we just dont know why they are a decent batch of "good survivers." So man's genetic strain might help ALOT against one particular pest in the short term, but in the long run there's no telling what beneficial traits we've cloned out of the crop. Using a full diversity of strains therefore assists a crop species' long term viability -- and expanding the use of single-strain GM crops is what I'd call a VERY BAD IDEA, in the long run, and possibly even in the short run, because there's no telling what "stealthy survivor traits" we've unwittingly removed from the population. So if an iceberg melts and releases some harmful spore that was frozen 3000 years ago, the diverse crops still have a genetic memory, and some of them "know" how to survive.
(8) Seed dependency -- once a farmer's bought into GM seeds, he's dependent on a corporation to provide each year's single-strain seeds. In "ye olden days", he could simply store some genetically diverse seeds from the year before.
I put about 3 hours into writing this, and put alot of insight into it. I doubt the person who modded it down to zero=troll even read it. But he demoted it to a lower rating than most people would even consider reading.
...For instance, a public library helps reduce the public cost of what the market WOULD bear for reading books. We all benefit by conserving trees, conserving human labor to make the books, and reducing the number of hours you or I need to work to read those books. Ask your libertarian what he's got in mind for your public libraries! would he privatize them? or close them and claim that he "created jobs" by forcing us to buy more books while encouraging deforestation and taking away a public resource?
Given that the rating is wrong I'm reposting the comment, so I at least get the "1" that I deserve for writing something that nobody but a troll read.
Some flaws with the Libertarian View:
1) he advocates privatizing currentcy? how would taxation occur, given multiple forms of currency? and which one is the non-speculator going to choose? and would it still say "In God We Trust"? =) well i hope it doesn't say "in citibank we trust".
2) his answer regarding privatizing public schools is loose and shabby. (my understanding is that) public education is a constitutional right. i don't see how these guys can present themselves as contitutionalists and then try to mandate that private schools be tasked with safeguarding kid's constitutional right to public education.
3) his ideal that the market should be the final determining factor in all matters seems fundamentally flawed. the market is not always right in the long term. (not even in the short term) sometimes a democratically elected government is exactly the right body to ensure that public needs [and preferences] are met.
for instance, government would be the right institution to bypass the biggest environmental blunder man has ever made (transportation via internal combustion), and to move us forward with something that doesn't make smog, doesn't make noise pollution, doesn't make visual pollution, doen't hurt health, doesn't require roads, road crews or jackhammers, doesn't cost a fortune in insurance and bank debt. doesn't cost your soul. etc.
but the libertarian is going to say what? i tend to guess (perhaps falsely) that he'd say the market bears those cars, so proceed accordingly. in fact what makes money is not what would benefit us overall.
people talk about a multibillion dollar industry as if that's what we're GETTING FROM IT, but that's decepetive. first and foremost, A MULTIBILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY IS WHAT IT'S COSTING US!!!. so "what the market bears" is not necessarily a good thing. "what the market bears" is how much we could save if we somehow worked around the problem that's costing us multiple billions.
question laissez faire. sometimes it's probably the right answer. but not always.
4) the market seems to bear a landscape of pukey corporate billboards: texaco signs, target signs, safeways, billboards, gaps, chevrons, pottery barns, wells fargos, taco bells, 7-11's etc, etc. personally i think it sucks, and i believe i should have a right to vote that crap down so that i dont have to look at a bunch of advertisements when i go for a drive. (lol) does he think these businesses have a right to turn my whole environment into visual pollution [aka advertising space] just b/c they bought / leased a patch of land large enough for a billboard?
5) he talks about stopping the government from selling the right to pollute. as i understand it, that's one of the ways pollution is mitigated (reduced). pollution isn't free, so companies reduce it as best they can. (in theory) the government fills that role b/c no other institution can fill that role. (lets pray that it's never up to Bechtel or Chevron to sells the right to pollute!) so, as i see it, if he stops govt from SELLING the right to pollute, how's he going to handle pollutors? with regular mo
1) he advocates privatizing currentcy? how would taxation occur, given multiple forms of currency? and which one is the non-speculator going to choose? and would it still say "In God We Trust"? =) well i hope it doesn't say "in citibank we trust".
...For instance, a public library helps reduce the public cost of what the market WOULD bear for reading books. We all benefit by conserving trees, conserving human labor to make the books, and reducing the number of hours you or I need to work to read those books. Ask your libertarian what he's got in mind for your public libraries! would he privatize them? or close them and claim that he "created jobs" by forcing us to buy more books while encouraging deforestation and taking away a public resource?
2) his answer regarding privatizing public schools is loose and shabby. (my understanding is that) public education is a constitutional right. i don't see how these guys can present themselves as contitutionalists and then try to mandate that private schools be tasked with safeguarding kid's constitutional right to public education.
3) his ideal that the market should be the final determining factor in all matters seems fundamentally flawed. the market is not always right in the long term. (not even in the short term) sometimes a democratically elected government is exactly the right body to ensure that public needs [and preferences] are met.
for instance, government would be the right institution to bypass the biggest environmental blunder man has ever made (transportation via internal combustion), and to move us forward with something that doesn't make smog, doesn't make noise pollution, doesn't make visual pollution, doen't hurt health, doesn't require roads, road crews or jackhammers, doesn't cost a fortune in insurance and bank debt. doesn't cost your soul. etc.
but the libertarian is going to say what? i tend to guess (perhaps falsely) that he'd say the market bears those cars, so proceed accordingly. in fact what makes money is not what would benefit us overall.
people talk about a multibillion dollar industry as if that's what we're GETTING FROM IT, but that's decepetive. first and foremost, A MULTIBILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY IS WHAT IT'S COSTING US!!!. so "what the market bears" is not necessarily a good thing. "what the market bears" is how much we could save if we somehow worked around the problem that's costing us multiple billions.
question laissez faire. sometimes it's probably the right answer. but not always.
4) the market seems to bear a landscape of pukey corporate billboards: texaco signs, target signs, safeways, billboards, gaps, chevrons, pottery barns, wells fargos, taco bells, 7-11's etc, etc. personally i think it sucks, and i believe i should have a right to vote that crap down so that i dont have to look at a bunch of advertisements when i go for a drive. (lol) does he think these businesses have a right to turn my whole environment into visual pollution [aka advertising space] just b/c they bought / leased a patch of land large enough for a billboard?
5) he talks about stopping the government from selling the right to pollute. as i understand it, that's one of the ways pollution is mitigated (reduced). pollution isn't free, so companies reduce it as best they can. (in theory) the government fills that role b/c no other institution can fill that role. (lets pray that it's never up to Bechtel or Chevron to sells the right to pollute!) so, as i see it, if he stops govt from SELLING the right to pollute, how's he going to handle pollutors? with regular monthly "fines"? [then what's the difference between that and selling the right to pollute?] they're still gonna be polluting right? or is the laisez faire libertarian ideal going to make them stop? or are all the investors going to be in jail since the corporate veil of investor immunity is lifted, and pollution is a criminal offense? ???!??
6) the guy said ("perversely") that removing t
I would have been so happy if they'd stolen it. At least then I would have gotten full blue book value. =)
I had a similar problem -- worse actually -- this was my solution:
1 02 31693
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=121564&cid=
i had a motorcycle too but they stole it. i got another but chained it, and managed not to lose that one.
The neighborhood I lived in had a well established car breakin ring -- every saturday night the clubs would fill up, and around 12:30 am [each friday and saturday], one by one, each car alarm on each car on the street would go off, in sequence, just as they were parked. From my house I could hear them all.
over 5 years SF made over $3 grand off me (in parking tickets) but they never helped my jeep one bit. I mean, at those parking rates, you'd think they'd treat my illegally parked jeep as a prized investment or something, and protect it a little. =D they didn't. in the aftermath, the city parking enforcement was a school of sharks (organized crime), and the breakin people were just scavengers by comparison. =\
PS - That is, unless it's to report the car as a public nuisance, and get it towed.
Car alarms are evil. Consider the city of San Francisco, where there are 16,000 people, and 8,000 cars - per square mile.* So each car alarm incident results in reduced quality of life for about 4,000 people who happen to live within earshot. That's not a necessary evil. It's just evil. "Out-Loud" Car alarms should be illegal, or at least disabled in densely populated areas. I've been tortured by them enough that I don't intend to report breakins of alarmed cars.
c at ion1.pdf
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msei/on-road/briefs/Publi
I learned this living in San Francisco for 5 years. I had a Jeep - over that period of time they broke into my vehicle over 100 times. That's no exaggeration, its actually a conservative estimate.
They would steal anything greater than or equal to the value of a matchbook.
They cut the windows, stole the battery, keyed the sides, pissed on it, cut a tire, broke the interior locks, and broke an egg onto it -- it was a brand new jeep. The city itself helped me out by writing $3000 in tickets.
The ultimate defense was to leave it with the doors unlocked, with all essentials locked into the trunk.
It would be nice to claim the high ground and say it was a turn the other cheek method, but actually it was just the path of least resistance, and incidentally the most effective.