I worked as a Park Ranger at Redwood National Park a few years ago, and this is one of their nightmare scenarios. My housemate was a geology major, and the area right off of the coach is very susceptible to huge earthquakes (8.0+)--one happens every 200 or so years on average. The last one happened around 1700, so another one is fairly likely in the near future.
Towns like Crescent City are at huge risk, and the city and state are trying to compensate with warning systems (that have been improved since the tsunami in the Indian Ocean). While some buildings have been constructed to withstand tsunamis (the national park headquarters was designed as a "flow through" building so tsunami waves will just break out the first floor windows and flow through the building), the best advice is to climb. Get to high ground as soon as you feel the earth shake. Don't wait for a tsunami warning--just climb!
Also, don't go back to the ocean until you know for sure that it's safe to do so. Apparently, many of the deaths in the 1960s tsunami were a result of the mayor and several other people going down onto a pier to suvery the damage. Because tsunamis are really sets of high waves and sea levle changes, the next set of waves washed them away.
One more interesting tidbit--most tsunami deaths aren't caused by the water itself. Instead, what happens is that the water crashes into buildings destroying them. Additional waves then take all of that debris and use it like battering rams to destroy more buildings. It's the debris that most often causes human deaths and damage in the city. Perhaps a good case for building more tsnuami-safe buildings?
What do we do when the producer of a theoretically copyrighted work says he wants people to download. See for example Michael Moore's comments where he encourages piracy. I find it likely Farenheit 9/11 will still be searched for by the MPAA's program.
They say that they're going after people sharing only one file in the article. Given that more people share movies over decentralized networks (e.g., bittorrent), it's harder to show that a person is sharing a large number of movies than with music where it is easier to see who is behind each file transfer.
But it won't list the $10000/plate campaign dinners though will it?
Well, there are two kinds of dinners like that. There are the $10000/plate dinners that PACs can host, and those wouldn't be included since there's no reporting requirement for PACs. The PACs can't directly campaign for a candidate, though, so you can't really call them campaign dinners
On the other hand, candidates often hold $2000/plate dinners to raise money (that's what Bush does very frequently). They can only collect $2000 because of campaign finance limitations, and that money does have to be reported. While you won't be able to see that Bush raised $100,000 at a dinner party hosted by person X, you will be able to see the names of each person who attended that dinner party and donated $2,000.
Why? Could somebody please give me a solid reason as to why this is of benefit to a democracy? (though, of course, the US is a federal republic - not a pure democracy).
It helps us to know what is motivating our elected officials to do things. For example, on the PIRATE Act threat, it's been pointed out that Senator Hatch received a lot of money from the entertainment industry. This might suggest to some of his voters that he cares more about the people he gets money from than about the voters he's supposed to represent. You can argue whether it is undue influence, but the more information that voters have to make that decision, the better their decisions are likely to be.
Another example. Suppose, hypothetically, that Bush had received contributions from every president of an oil company (as well as their spouses, children, etc.). Some voters (myself included) might use that information in deciding whether or not to vote for him. I might decide that those contributions are what motivated his decision to invade Iraq and not any real fear of Iraq as a threat. If that's the case, I might decide to vote for someone else who I feel is more willing to represent my intersts, rather than the interests of rich people. Again, not everyone would have the same interpretation as I would, but I think it's important that voters be given the information so that they can decide.
After all, our federal republic is all about giving people as much information as possible and allowing them to elected representatives based on that information.
Not only do the senators want to change the enforcement ability of the justice department, but if you read the bill text, they want to give them $2,000,000 to create a pilot program and start enforcement in four US Attorney's jurisdictions.
Because there's nothing else we should spend that much money on.
At a recent "How to run a campaign" workshop I attended (sponsored by CampaignCorps), the presenters made the point that online tools work better to organize, rally, and excite people who already like a candidate, and they don't work as well to convince newcomers to vote for that candidate. The reason is that the interet is a much more active environment than things like mail, TV, and radio ads. You don't have to search for anything to be bombarded with politcal ads in other media, but you do have to search out a candidate, which is something most people won't take the time to do.
They also pointed out at my class that politicians really shouldn't use spam--you get mad at the people who send you "Enlarge your member" ads, but think about what happens if you get that mad at the politician who's asking you to vote for him/her. That makes me wonder about people like Myrick who are sending out a targeted ad per week--counterproductive much?
I'm one of those "many other" people who agree with you, phoenix.bam! I'm not sure that a mechanism like this needs to have a practical use to be thought of as important. For me, a lot of the emphasis on the practical use of new technologies is over-rated. Can't we just be amazed that we're able to move things that a distance that's only about 5 or 10 atoms' widths? That's pretty damn cool.
Slashdot Mirror
Towns like Crescent City are at huge risk, and the city and state are trying to compensate with warning systems (that have been improved since the tsunami in the Indian Ocean). While some buildings have been constructed to withstand tsunamis (the national park headquarters was designed as a "flow through" building so tsunami waves will just break out the first floor windows and flow through the building), the best advice is to climb. Get to high ground as soon as you feel the earth shake. Don't wait for a tsunami warning--just climb!
Also, don't go back to the ocean until you know for sure that it's safe to do so. Apparently, many of the deaths in the 1960s tsunami were a result of the mayor and several other people going down onto a pier to suvery the damage. Because tsunamis are really sets of high waves and sea levle changes, the next set of waves washed them away.
One more interesting tidbit--most tsunami deaths aren't caused by the water itself. Instead, what happens is that the water crashes into buildings destroying them. Additional waves then take all of that debris and use it like battering rams to destroy more buildings. It's the debris that most often causes human deaths and damage in the city. Perhaps a good case for building more tsnuami-safe buildings?
What do we do when the producer of a theoretically copyrighted work says he wants people to download. See for example Michael Moore's comments where he encourages piracy. I find it likely Farenheit 9/11 will still be searched for by the MPAA's program.
They say that they're going after people sharing only one file in the article. Given that more people share movies over decentralized networks (e.g., bittorrent), it's harder to show that a person is sharing a large number of movies than with music where it is easier to see who is behind each file transfer.
Well, there are two kinds of dinners like that. There are the $10000/plate dinners that PACs can host, and those wouldn't be included since there's no reporting requirement for PACs. The PACs can't directly campaign for a candidate, though, so you can't really call them campaign dinners
On the other hand, candidates often hold $2000/plate dinners to raise money (that's what Bush does very frequently). They can only collect $2000 because of campaign finance limitations, and that money does have to be reported. While you won't be able to see that Bush raised $100,000 at a dinner party hosted by person X, you will be able to see the names of each person who attended that dinner party and donated $2,000.
It helps us to know what is motivating our elected officials to do things. For example, on the PIRATE Act threat, it's been pointed out that Senator Hatch received a lot of money from the entertainment industry. This might suggest to some of his voters that he cares more about the people he gets money from than about the voters he's supposed to represent. You can argue whether it is undue influence, but the more information that voters have to make that decision, the better their decisions are likely to be.
Another example. Suppose, hypothetically, that Bush had received contributions from every president of an oil company (as well as their spouses, children, etc.). Some voters (myself included) might use that information in deciding whether or not to vote for him. I might decide that those contributions are what motivated his decision to invade Iraq and not any real fear of Iraq as a threat. If that's the case, I might decide to vote for someone else who I feel is more willing to represent my intersts, rather than the interests of rich people. Again, not everyone would have the same interpretation as I would, but I think it's important that voters be given the information so that they can decide.
After all, our federal republic is all about giving people as much information as possible and allowing them to elected representatives based on that information.
Because there's nothing else we should spend that much money on.
They also pointed out at my class that politicians really shouldn't use spam--you get mad at the people who send you "Enlarge your member" ads, but think about what happens if you get that mad at the politician who's asking you to vote for him/her. That makes me wonder about people like Myrick who are sending out a targeted ad per week--counterproductive much?
I'm one of those "many other" people who agree with you, phoenix.bam! I'm not sure that a mechanism like this needs to have a practical use to be thought of as important. For me, a lot of the emphasis on the practical use of new technologies is over-rated. Can't we just be amazed that we're able to move things that a distance that's only about 5 or 10 atoms' widths? That's pretty damn cool.