It's probably bad taste to point out to them that "museum" is actually the title of the temple to the Muses - the Greek pagan goddesses of the natural sciences and arts. Of course if we pointed that out to them they'd respomd with "well that word has changed in meaning since then"... just unlike the bible.
I am an Old universe, evolution supporting Christian. Intelligent Design is a fraud. So is this "Museum".
The show was "The Money or the Gun" hosted by Andrew Denton. It was indeed an Australian show (and a bit more than "a few years ago" as well), and is an example of the kind of thing that would become rather dodgy under the proposed new Laws.
In other countries stop signs mean "Stop, and remain stopped until all other traffic has passed". Rather than the typical American defensive reaction, have a look at other replies to my post that actually got the point of what I was saying:
Don't judge other people's road rules by what you are used to, because if you do you'll have accidents
I take my hat of to the other people who actually read what I posted and didn't assume that I was talking about anything other than my experience of driving in a foreign country, with different road rules. After all, isn't the original article about just that? Let's see: "I can't see this idea getting traction in the U.S.". Yep, I thought so.
I was terrified by the traffic signs and rules in California. I found the 4 way cross-roads with a stop sign on each entry particularly confusing. It seemed to work on the principle of "everyone knows when it's their turn to go". Here on the Gold Coast we have a lot of roundabouts, which are not a perfect solution, but are really very simple (1) traffic entering the roundabout gives way to all traffic on the roundabout, and (2) on a multi-lane roundabout, only exit from the first left if you entered in the left hand lane. Keep those 2 rules straight and it's near impossible for it to stuff up.
In general, the rule here is "whoever disturbs the flow of the traffic the most gives way", which seems simple enough. It's different in other states though. I can't see the idea of less signals and signs working in the USA though, as your society thrives on rules and regulations, and without them people will cause trouble asserting their "rights" and "freedoms" over other people. The other posters who have pointed out that politeness is a key to safe driving without signs are on the money too - and American's are not noted for their politeness in general.
I tried hard to resist the urge to dignify your post with a response but failed. Here goes....
Well I guess it's fair to say you vote 1 green queers or union scum.
I have never voted Green, and am not likely to until they develop balanced, effective policies that do more than follow a mindless eco-ideological meandering path to poverty. As for "Union Scum" (looks so much better capitalised!), I have been a member of the AMWSU, the LTU and most recently the AAA in my working life. I've never voted for unions outside of voting for delegates and stewards at meetings. I am unashamedly leftwards leaning in Politics - I've been arrested in the early 1980's protesting the corruption and nepotism in Queensland (Joh^H^H^HGod's Own Country!), and also for interfering with the Nuclear Armed vessels in the Port of Brisbane in 1983. I'm a member of the ALP, but not due to religious adherence to the party, but because I have the utmost respect and support for our local member, who has also been known to walk against Party lines when his conscience demands it.
Kyoto was fucked from the word go.
Yes Kyoto is indeed far from perfect. But I see it as a lot like watching a baby learn to walk or swim. I'm fairly certain Ian Thorpe didn't slide out of the womb swimming world record pace, but he had to start moving one step at a time. I see Kyoto as that very first step towards a global approach to ecological responsibility and sustainable economics.
As for AWB, who gives a shit? If we weren't over there fighting the "our money paying for weapons to kill our diggers" thing would be moot. I'd rather see farmers sell their gear for money than have it sit in silos.
Yes, we all want the cockies to sell their produce at a good price. I don't think there's much in the silos at the moment though, due to the drought. The issues as I see it are more that we entered into an agreement to impose sanctions on the Iraqi regime, yet the AWB deliberately worked around the system, even when they knew there was a risk of being seen to be contravening the sanctions. I refer you to I Thessalonians 5:22.
How the fuck can you compare immigration detention centres ("in the middle of nowhere" where there's fucking towns with 10's of thousands of people?) with Nazi concentration camps, Gulags and shit?
Yes, there are some detention centres in built up areas. There are also some in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully the one at Woomera has been closed down. How you can possibly say that Woomera isn't "in the middle of nowhere" is a total mystery - have you ever been there? I never stated that the camps were parallels to the Nazi camps, the gulags or anything. They are concentration camps though. A large number of people (including children) have gone mad in them. There is a serious problem with the safety and security of the people in the camps, there is plenty of documented evidence that the rights and protections of common law do not apply inside the camps the way they do outside. I had the experience of meeting an Iraqi Christian here on the Gold Coast, who had been in one of Saddam's camps and in the Woomera detention Centre. He said that the main differences were that here you didnt get shot and beaten by the guards, and you were allowed to use a name as well as your number. He did not want to stay in Australia permanently, just until he could find a safe place for his family. He was looking at getting to Lebanon, as there is a large arab christian population there, as he believed (based on his Woomera experience) that it would be a better place than Australia. How many inmates of the detention centres have you met and spoken with? How many have you been to?
Yes, we were training Indonesian Officers for decades. The way it was explained to me by our Colonel was that this way we would know what responses to expect from them in the event of the war with them. This was in 1980-1983, when the Australian Army had manuals describing how to be prepared for war against an "sizable unnamed non-Christian archipelago to the immediate north of Australia". This much information was made public in the 7:30 report back then, and we were told that that much information and no more was no longer covered by the Official Secrets Act.
The fact that our government withholds such things is a crime against humanity.
The UN considers access to adequate and effective pain relief to be a basic human right. It's time to abandon the Calvinist view that suffering somehow makes you a better person - it just makes you an angrier, sadder and less effective human being in all but the exceptionable cases, where it teaches some people that the limitations they previously placed on themselves were too easy.
No, the first poster on Tai Chi said "I know first-hand that if you take the time to learn Tai Chi, your pain will disappear." (I added the bold tag). This seems to me to be pretty much a statement that implied that Tai Chi is "guaranteed to solve all other somewhat related problems for all people.". I believe that is what the GP poster is complaining about. See my other post in this thread for my comments about the error in the assumption that it will work for everyone, especially where I note that I'm a fan of Tai Chi, and used to be a practitioner before my Pain Problem took me down.
I think the phrase if you take the time to learn Tai Chi, your pain will disappear is a bit strong. It can make a difference for many people, but won't make the pain disappear for most of us with serious brokenness of the nervous system. And in some cases (such as my own) it is almost certain to make things much worse. "White Crane stretches it's wings" is a move that will have me puking and seeing the grey spots that indicate I'm close to passing out through shock. Even "Holding the ball" is pretty uncomfortable. "Lift Heaven" is simply not possible. These are all pretty basic Tai Chi moves, and if you can't do them there's no way Tai Chi is going to help in a big way. Note that I did Tai Chi for 10 years before my surgery, infection and subsequent crippling, I know first hand that what you say is true for many people, but it is not a panacea for all conditions or all people.
Whatever gives you some scape is a good thing, if it works for you. Not all strategies for dealing with intractable pain work for all people, but you are so correct that there are many lifestyle choices that can improve quality of life, as well as chemical approaches.
You are lucky if you can manage chronic pain with no chemical treatments. Not everyone is that lucky though.
As a Chronic Pain sufferer, and also an active Christian (no, not a rabid looney "short earth", "let's kill the arabs" Christian) it makes a huge difference to me to know that in the next life I get a body without flaws and brokenness. It helps me get through each day, knowing that what I go through is temporary, even if it lasts all this life.
I sincerely hope that you'll consider this, and not ask someone in a terrible situation to consider that their Last Hope might be groundless. It's just a philosophical position to you, but it's a major factor in trying to put the things that matter most (like our kids, the smell of rain, the feeling of a cool breeze on a hot summer afternoon) first in our lives, instead of the gut wrenching, humanity deadening thing that constant chronic pain is. I guess I'm saying that even if we're living in ignorance, let us stay there if it gives us hope. The idea of having to live like this in Eternity is too horrible to even contemplate.
One of the scariest things about the whole Nuclear debate is the new Security Agreement with Indonesia. Indonesia have just announced that they are about to embark on a program of nuclear power generation. Now as far as I can tell, Indonesia has no real uranium reserves to speak of, yet some of the world's largest reserves are right at the surface just 100km from Darwin. Given the rise of militant Islam in Indonesia over the last 5 years, I'm very uncomfortable about the whole thing. It's going to be awkward for us to say "even though we are promoting the mining, processing, export and use of Uranium we don't want you to be developing reactors next door while you're running around engaging in genocide and developing biological war agents". For a long time our armed forces were trained with the expectation that some day there would be conflict between Australia and an unnamed Muslim archipelago somewhere to the immediate north of Australia. I can't see how nuclear proliferation (ours or our neighbours) in this region can be a Good Thing.
I'd like to add an informed opinion about this point of view:
I have Brachial Plexus Neuropathy. 10 years ago I got a MRSA infection following a Bankart Repair of my right shoulder. It took 3 months to clear up the infection, and in that time the cords of my right Brachial Plexus were damaged. Now I live in 24 hour constant pain, somewhat as if my arm is being torn off (it isn't).
I take Oxycontin twice a day, with Endone (more oxycodone) as a top up in the case of breakthrough. I go to my Pain Specialist every 6 weeks and get a series of nerve block injections, which give me 3 to 5 days relief (not counting the relatively minor discomfort of having 2 inch needle driven into my shoulder and spine).
I've found that light use of cannabis does increase the efficacy of the oxy. Too much (i.e. being "stoned") and it can be that the senses are heightened, which is a very very bad thing. Use every day diminishes the effectiveness.
I've found that occasional use (when I don't want to take anymore oxy but I have to get more relief or jump in front of a bus) works well. But grass is not that effective a painkiller on it's own, and seems to me to be most effective because (a) the spatial and temporal distortions can make the pain less important (i.e. it can relieve suffering but not so much pain) and (b) it increases the effects of the opiate based medicines.
Keep in mind that most of the medications being developed for neuralgia have a host of other unpleasant side effects. Find an extreme epileptic and have a chat to them to get an idea of what they are like.
A chronic pain sufferer's dependence on opiates is no different to a diabetic's dependence on insulin. In both cases it's what makes some kind of a life possible.
Almost anyone living with chronic pain is treated for depression at the same time. This is because about 70% of chronic pain sufferers consider suicide as a viable option. As for patches, in this country at least (Australia) they are reserved for terminal patients only.
John Howard is a very accomplished politician. He's making "climate change" noises now purely to distance himself from the US election results. This is the man who claimed that the Boat People refugees were "throwing their children overboard" even though the military told his people that wasn't true within 24 hours after the alleged event. He continued to support the Children Overboard story for over a month, until after the Federal Election. See http://www.alp.org.au/features/lies.php for a breakdown of some of his side-stepping and double dealing. Or even better try http://www.google.com.au/search?q=john+howard+lies for a wider view.
John Howard has been using his absolute majority in both Houses to force all sorts of ideologically motivated laws through, regardless of how they may change Australian Culture. He seems to be intent on making us a new state of the USA. He is the person responsible for ensuring that the USA is not alone in its' Kyoto stance. He is responsible for a "Free Trade" agreement which is dismantling our fair-use provisions under copyright, is introducing DMCA legislation, is changing our patents office to be in line with the US model, is diluting our PBS (the Government sponsored sale of pharmaceuticals, all of which must happen before 2010, yet the USA is under no obligations under this agreement until 2022.
He is responsible for setting up concentration camps for refugees (more precisely, for illegal immigrants who are requesting refugee status). Most of these camps are in the back of beyond. There are children who have liven for most of their lives behind the razor wire, and there is a horrific incidence of mental illness associated with this detention in sub-human conditions.
Now that public opinion can be shown to be swinging against the US Republican approach to the Middle East and "The War on Terror" he's simply waving an extremely large, colourful and exciting flag (climate change acceptance) to distract people from his complete failure to interface with the Democrats. The news is now that the Democrats are going to demand a US inquiry into the AWB scandal (The AWB, run by Howard's mates, was busted paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam Hussein to get around the trade sanctions, abusing the UN "Oil for Food" program).
I, along with many other informed Australians, do not believe there is any change of heart in Howard's new "Climate friendly" position. It's all just an attempt at distraction from the real issues.
America will fall to a 3rd world economy
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More A's, More Pay
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This will help The Rest Of The World in their plans to destroy American Culture.
Seriously though, this will (if allowed to run for long enough) lead to a surge in mediocrity that can only benefit countries where teaching is based on the idea that students learn stuff, rather than the idea that teachers document stuff. "Client based education" was the first step. This is a huge step further.
You left out his work with David Bowie on the Heroes album, which is undoubtedly Fripps most listened-to work. There was an issue of Guitar Player magazine back in the mid 1980s which had details on exactly how he got that delay thing working, and had a floppy record of some astounding solo work. Listen to the David Bowie track "Moss Garden" to hear Frippertronics at full steam.
I have a friends machine here - I've identified 110 viruses and items of malware on it so far. Something has screwed with the drivers sufficiently that it keeps rebooting, even in safe mode. Since they are running a pirated version of windows XP and they don't have the CDs it's a challenge finding a way to get the machine to sty up long enough to remove errant drivers. As far as I can tell it's all come from promiscuous surfing, and from installing what they describe as "free software". I'm still looking for that old w2k install cd to see if I can get it to stay up long enough to replace the dodgy drivers.
There are plenty of English speaking countries that associate the string '9/11' with November 9th. I tend to think "WTC - that got smashed in November" if I'm not really thinking about it. And since I'm not an American, I don't really think about it other than to think "well, that's not really that surprising, if you shit on someone's front lawn enough times eventually they'll come around to your house and throw bricks through your windows".
I even know people who love watching the never-ending-stream of documentaries on the WTC thing cos they're "the day the US got it back at them". Personally I think the glorification of the whole event is kinda sick, whether it's done by US hating Freedom Lovers, or by American Media companies making megabucks from peoples misfortunes. Very refreshing to read Bruce's take on it.
A 2% error rate is more a reflection of how you cant, rather than a reflection of manual counting.
Here in Australia (where we vote with pencil on paper, and people count the votes), a scrutineer watches (and counts the votes) as an Electoral Official counts the primary votes for a single candidate into bundles of 50. If the scrutineer contests whether there actually are 50 votes in the stack, those votes are recounted until everyone concerned is sure there are 50 votes. Once all the votes for that candidate are in stacks (plus one stack of from 0 to 49 votes) then all the officials and scrutineers watch whilst the stacks are counted. This number is halved and multiplied by 100, and the odd stack's count is added to it. At all times there are at least 3 people watching every vote being counted, with these people being from at least 2 parties. ANY disagreement as to whether the vote is accurate results in the disputed votes being re-counted. In our electorate 29,450 votes were counted within an hour. The "error" at our booth was 2 missing votes from 3420; 3420 people received ballot papers from the Electoral Officers, but only 3418 were counted from the ballot boxes, so 2 people didnt vote but were signed off as having received there ballot papers (compulsory voting really means that receiving a ballot paper from an Official on Election Day is compulsory).
This is an "error rate" of 0.058% - is this significantly close to zero? Note that this electorate was won by about 2000 votes, so an error of around 7% would be required to queer the results.
Here in Australia we use people to count paper ballots, with scrutineers appointed by all the candidates observing the counting, as well as being part of the decision process when considering potentially invalid votes.
The rules are very strict - we can't touch any votes. We can't approach the counting tables with a pencil or other drawing implement in hand. Whilst we are watching the counting, we are also watching each other, and representatives of the Electoral Commission are watching us all. We watched the ballot box seals be opened, and compared the seals to those set before voting started. In order to queer the system, someone would have to pay off the Electoral Officials and the scrutineers of 2 to ten opposing candidates. In what way is they any security issue or vulnerability here? I guess that in the US, where I understand there are only two candidates in most races, there would be less people to bribe, but scrutineers are usually picked by candidates as most loyal and upstanding party members, and would be awfully expensive to bribe. In our electorate it would of meant bribing 56 scrutineers as well as several hundred Electoral Officers and Returning Officers, just for one electorate (which I believe is the equivalent to your district about 30,000 voters over 14 polling places).
And that's how it works here in Australia. I was a scrutineer at the September 9th Queensland State Election, and we (representatives of the Labor, National and Greens) saw every vote being counted. Furthermore, we were the ones who ruled on the "possibly invalid" votes. Here a vote is declared valid if the scrutineers AND the Returning Officer all agree that the voter's intention is clear, regardless of what they have marked on the vote (ideally only the digits 1 to x or an X are marked, only in the boxes provided). It seems as if you don't have that protection in the USA, and hence the Florida votes that were disenfranchised, even though it was clear who the votes were for. This is another reason why The Rest Of The World does not want US style "freedom" and "democracy".
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It's probably bad taste to point out to them that "museum" is actually the title of the temple to the Muses - the Greek pagan goddesses of the natural sciences and arts. Of course if we pointed that out to them they'd respomd with "well that word has changed in meaning since then"... just unlike the bible.
I am an Old universe, evolution supporting Christian. Intelligent Design is a fraud. So is this "Museum".
The show was "The Money or the Gun" hosted by Andrew Denton. It was indeed an Australian show (and a bit more than "a few years ago" as well), and is an example of the kind of thing that would become rather dodgy under the proposed new Laws.
In other countries stop signs mean "Stop, and remain stopped until all other traffic has passed". Rather than the typical American defensive reaction, have a look at other replies to my post that actually got the point of what I was saying:
Don't judge other people's road rules by what you are used to, because if you do you'll have accidents
I take my hat of to the other people who actually read what I posted and didn't assume that I was talking about anything other than my experience of driving in a foreign country, with different road rules. After all, isn't the original article about just that? Let's see: "I can't see this idea getting traction in the U.S.". Yep, I thought so.
I was terrified by the traffic signs and rules in California. I found the 4 way cross-roads with a stop sign on each entry particularly confusing. It seemed to work on the principle of "everyone knows when it's their turn to go". Here on the Gold Coast we have a lot of roundabouts, which are not a perfect solution, but are really very simple (1) traffic entering the roundabout gives way to all traffic on the roundabout, and (2) on a multi-lane roundabout, only exit from the first left if you entered in the left hand lane. Keep those 2 rules straight and it's near impossible for it to stuff up.
In general, the rule here is "whoever disturbs the flow of the traffic the most gives way", which seems simple enough. It's different in other states though. I can't see the idea of less signals and signs working in the USA though, as your society thrives on rules and regulations, and without them people will cause trouble asserting their "rights" and "freedoms" over other people. The other posters who have pointed out that politeness is a key to safe driving without signs are on the money too - and American's are not noted for their politeness in general.
I tried hard to resist the urge to dignify your post with a response but failed. Here goes....
Well I guess it's fair to say you vote 1 green queers or union scum.
I have never voted Green, and am not likely to until they develop balanced, effective policies that do more than follow a mindless eco-ideological meandering path to poverty. As for "Union Scum" (looks so much better capitalised!), I have been a member of the AMWSU, the LTU and most recently the AAA in my working life. I've never voted for unions outside of voting for delegates and stewards at meetings. I am unashamedly leftwards leaning in Politics - I've been arrested in the early 1980's protesting the corruption and nepotism in Queensland (Joh^H^H^HGod's Own Country!), and also for interfering with the Nuclear Armed vessels in the Port of Brisbane in 1983. I'm a member of the ALP, but not due to religious adherence to the party, but because I have the utmost respect and support for our local member, who has also been known to walk against Party lines when his conscience demands it.
Kyoto was fucked from the word go.
Yes Kyoto is indeed far from perfect. But I see it as a lot like watching a baby learn to walk or swim. I'm fairly certain Ian Thorpe didn't slide out of the womb swimming world record pace, but he had to start moving one step at a time. I see Kyoto as that very first step towards a global approach to ecological responsibility and sustainable economics.
As for AWB, who gives a shit? If we weren't over there fighting the "our money paying for weapons to kill our diggers" thing would be moot. I'd rather see farmers sell their gear for money than have it sit in silos.
Yes, we all want the cockies to sell their produce at a good price. I don't think there's much in the silos at the moment though, due to the drought. The issues as I see it are more that we entered into an agreement to impose sanctions on the Iraqi regime, yet the AWB deliberately worked around the system, even when they knew there was a risk of being seen to be contravening the sanctions. I refer you to I Thessalonians 5:22.
How the fuck can you compare immigration detention centres ("in the middle of nowhere" where there's fucking towns with 10's of thousands of people?) with Nazi concentration camps, Gulags and shit?
Yes, there are some detention centres in built up areas. There are also some in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully the one at Woomera has been closed down. How you can possibly say that Woomera isn't "in the middle of nowhere" is a total mystery - have you ever been there? I never stated that the camps were parallels to the Nazi camps, the gulags or anything. They are concentration camps though. A large number of people (including children) have gone mad in them. There is a serious problem with the safety and security of the people in the camps, there is plenty of documented evidence that the rights and protections of common law do not apply inside the camps the way they do outside. I had the experience of meeting an Iraqi Christian here on the Gold Coast, who had been in one of Saddam's camps and in the Woomera detention Centre. He said that the main differences were that here you didnt get shot and beaten by the guards, and you were allowed to use a name as well as your number. He did not want to stay in Australia permanently, just until he could find a safe place for his family. He was looking at getting to Lebanon, as there is a large arab christian population there, as he believed (based on his Woomera experience) that it would be a better place than Australia. How many inmates of the detention centres have you met and spoken with? How many have you been to?
HARDEN THE FUCK UP!
Is this some kind of sexual invitation?
Yes, we were training Indonesian Officers for decades. The way it was explained to me by our Colonel was that this way we would know what responses to expect from them in the event of the war with them. This was in 1980-1983, when the Australian Army had manuals describing how to be prepared for war against an "sizable unnamed non-Christian archipelago to the immediate north of Australia". This much information was made public in the 7:30 report back then, and we were told that that much information and no more was no longer covered by the Official Secrets Act.
The fact that our government withholds such things is a crime against humanity.
The UN considers access to adequate and effective pain relief to be a basic human right. It's time to abandon the Calvinist view that suffering somehow makes you a better person - it just makes you an angrier, sadder and less effective human being in all but the exceptionable cases, where it teaches some people that the limitations they previously placed on themselves were too easy.
No, the first poster on Tai Chi said "I know first-hand that if you take the time to learn Tai Chi, your pain will disappear." (I added the bold tag). This seems to me to be pretty much a statement that implied that Tai Chi is "guaranteed to solve all other somewhat related problems for all people.". I believe that is what the GP poster is complaining about. See my other post in this thread for my comments about the error in the assumption that it will work for everyone, especially where I note that I'm a fan of Tai Chi, and used to be a practitioner before my Pain Problem took me down.
I think the phrase if you take the time to learn Tai Chi, your pain will disappear is a bit strong. It can make a difference for many people, but won't make the pain disappear for most of us with serious brokenness of the nervous system. And in some cases (such as my own) it is almost certain to make things much worse. "White Crane stretches it's wings" is a move that will have me puking and seeing the grey spots that indicate I'm close to passing out through shock. Even "Holding the ball" is pretty uncomfortable. "Lift Heaven" is simply not possible. These are all pretty basic Tai Chi moves, and if you can't do them there's no way Tai Chi is going to help in a big way. Note that I did Tai Chi for 10 years before my surgery, infection and subsequent crippling, I know first hand that what you say is true for many people, but it is not a panacea for all conditions or all people.
Whatever gives you some scape is a good thing, if it works for you. Not all strategies for dealing with intractable pain work for all people, but you are so correct that there are many lifestyle choices that can improve quality of life, as well as chemical approaches.
You are lucky if you can manage chronic pain with no chemical treatments. Not everyone is that lucky though.
As a Chronic Pain sufferer, and also an active Christian (no, not a rabid looney "short earth", "let's kill the arabs" Christian) it makes a huge difference to me to know that in the next life I get a body without flaws and brokenness. It helps me get through each day, knowing that what I go through is temporary, even if it lasts all this life.
I sincerely hope that you'll consider this, and not ask someone in a terrible situation to consider that their Last Hope might be groundless. It's just a philosophical position to you, but it's a major factor in trying to put the things that matter most (like our kids, the smell of rain, the feeling of a cool breeze on a hot summer afternoon) first in our lives, instead of the gut wrenching, humanity deadening thing that constant chronic pain is. I guess I'm saying that even if we're living in ignorance, let us stay there if it gives us hope. The idea of having to live like this in Eternity is too horrible to even contemplate.
One of the scariest things about the whole Nuclear debate is the new Security Agreement with Indonesia. Indonesia have just announced that they are about to embark on a program of nuclear power generation. Now as far as I can tell, Indonesia has no real uranium reserves to speak of, yet some of the world's largest reserves are right at the surface just 100km from Darwin. Given the rise of militant Islam in Indonesia over the last 5 years, I'm very uncomfortable about the whole thing. It's going to be awkward for us to say "even though we are promoting the mining, processing, export and use of Uranium we don't want you to be developing reactors next door while you're running around engaging in genocide and developing biological war agents". For a long time our armed forces were trained with the expectation that some day there would be conflict between Australia and an unnamed Muslim archipelago somewhere to the immediate north of Australia. I can't see how nuclear proliferation (ours or our neighbours) in this region can be a Good Thing.
I'd like to add an informed opinion about this point of view:
I have Brachial Plexus Neuropathy. 10 years ago I got a MRSA infection following a Bankart Repair of my right shoulder. It took 3 months to clear up the infection, and in that time the cords of my right Brachial Plexus were damaged. Now I live in 24 hour constant pain, somewhat as if my arm is being torn off (it isn't).
I take Oxycontin twice a day, with Endone (more oxycodone) as a top up in the case of breakthrough. I go to my Pain Specialist every 6 weeks and get a series of nerve block injections, which give me 3 to 5 days relief (not counting the relatively minor discomfort of having 2 inch needle driven into my shoulder and spine).
I've found that light use of cannabis does increase the efficacy of the oxy. Too much (i.e. being "stoned") and it can be that the senses are heightened, which is a very very bad thing. Use every day diminishes the effectiveness.
I've found that occasional use (when I don't want to take anymore oxy but I have to get more relief or jump in front of a bus) works well. But grass is not that effective a painkiller on it's own, and seems to me to be most effective because (a) the spatial and temporal distortions can make the pain less important (i.e. it can relieve suffering but not so much pain) and (b) it increases the effects of the opiate based medicines.
Keep in mind that most of the medications being developed for neuralgia have a host of other unpleasant side effects. Find an extreme epileptic and have a chat to them to get an idea of what they are like.
A chronic pain sufferer's dependence on opiates is no different to a diabetic's dependence on insulin. In both cases it's what makes some kind of a life possible.
Almost anyone living with chronic pain is treated for depression at the same time. This is because about 70% of chronic pain sufferers consider suicide as a viable option. As for patches, in this country at least (Australia) they are reserved for terminal patients only.
John Howard is a very accomplished politician. He's making "climate change" noises now purely to distance himself from the US election results. This is the man who claimed that the Boat People refugees were "throwing their children overboard" even though the military told his people that wasn't true within 24 hours after the alleged event. He continued to support the Children Overboard story for over a month, until after the Federal Election. See http://www.alp.org.au/features/lies.php for a breakdown of some of his side-stepping and double dealing. Or even better try http://www.google.com.au/search?q=john+howard+lies for a wider view.
John Howard has been using his absolute majority in both Houses to force all sorts of ideologically motivated laws through, regardless of how they may change Australian Culture. He seems to be intent on making us a new state of the USA. He is the person responsible for ensuring that the USA is not alone in its' Kyoto stance. He is responsible for a "Free Trade" agreement which is dismantling our fair-use provisions under copyright, is introducing DMCA legislation, is changing our patents office to be in line with the US model, is diluting our PBS (the Government sponsored sale of pharmaceuticals, all of which must happen before 2010, yet the USA is under no obligations under this agreement until 2022.
He is responsible for setting up concentration camps for refugees (more precisely, for illegal immigrants who are requesting refugee status). Most of these camps are in the back of beyond. There are children who have liven for most of their lives behind the razor wire, and there is a horrific incidence of mental illness associated with this detention in sub-human conditions.
Now that public opinion can be shown to be swinging against the US Republican approach to the Middle East and "The War on Terror" he's simply waving an extremely large, colourful and exciting flag (climate change acceptance) to distract people from his complete failure to interface with the Democrats. The news is now that the Democrats are going to demand a US inquiry into the AWB scandal (The AWB, run by Howard's mates, was busted paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam Hussein to get around the trade sanctions, abusing the UN "Oil for Food" program).
I, along with many other informed Australians, do not believe there is any change of heart in Howard's new "Climate friendly" position. It's all just an attempt at distraction from the real issues.
This will help The Rest Of The World in their plans to destroy American Culture.
Seriously though, this will (if allowed to run for long enough) lead to a surge in mediocrity that can only benefit countries where teaching is based on the idea that students learn stuff, rather than the idea that teachers document stuff. "Client based education" was the first step. This is a huge step further.
You left out his work with David Bowie on the Heroes album, which is undoubtedly Fripps most listened-to work. There was an issue of Guitar Player magazine back in the mid 1980s which had details on exactly how he got that delay thing working, and had a floppy record of some astounding solo work. Listen to the David Bowie track "Moss Garden" to hear Frippertronics at full steam.
I have a friends machine here - I've identified 110 viruses and items of malware on it so far. Something has screwed with the drivers sufficiently that it keeps rebooting, even in safe mode. Since they are running a pirated version of windows XP and they don't have the CDs it's a challenge finding a way to get the machine to sty up long enough to remove errant drivers. As far as I can tell it's all come from promiscuous surfing, and from installing what they describe as "free software". I'm still looking for that old w2k install cd to see if I can get it to stay up long enough to replace the dodgy drivers.
There are plenty of English speaking countries that associate the string '9/11' with November 9th. I tend to think "WTC - that got smashed in November" if I'm not really thinking about it. And since I'm not an American, I don't really think about it other than to think "well, that's not really that surprising, if you shit on someone's front lawn enough times eventually they'll come around to your house and throw bricks through your windows".
I even know people who love watching the never-ending-stream of documentaries on the WTC thing cos they're "the day the US got it back at them". Personally I think the glorification of the whole event is kinda sick, whether it's done by US hating Freedom Lovers, or by American Media companies making megabucks from peoples misfortunes. Very refreshing to read Bruce's take on it.
More to the point, who is Paul Revere? Some kind of Rock Star?
A 2% error rate is more a reflection of how you cant, rather than a reflection of manual counting.
Here in Australia (where we vote with pencil on paper, and people count the votes), a scrutineer watches (and counts the votes) as an Electoral Official counts the primary votes for a single candidate into bundles of 50. If the scrutineer contests whether there actually are 50 votes in the stack, those votes are recounted until everyone concerned is sure there are 50 votes. Once all the votes for that candidate are in stacks (plus one stack of from 0 to 49 votes) then all the officials and scrutineers watch whilst the stacks are counted. This number is halved and multiplied by 100, and the odd stack's count is added to it. At all times there are at least 3 people watching every vote being counted, with these people being from at least 2 parties. ANY disagreement as to whether the vote is accurate results in the disputed votes being re-counted. In our electorate 29,450 votes were counted within an hour. The "error" at our booth was 2 missing votes from 3420; 3420 people received ballot papers from the Electoral Officers, but only 3418 were counted from the ballot boxes, so 2 people didnt vote but were signed off as having received there ballot papers (compulsory voting really means that receiving a ballot paper from an Official on Election Day is compulsory).
This is an "error rate" of 0.058% - is this significantly close to zero? Note that this electorate was won by about 2000 votes, so an error of around 7% would be required to queer the results.
Here in Australia we use people to count paper ballots, with scrutineers appointed by all the candidates observing the counting, as well as being part of the decision process when considering potentially invalid votes.
The rules are very strict - we can't touch any votes. We can't approach the counting tables with a pencil or other drawing implement in hand. Whilst we are watching the counting, we are also watching each other, and representatives of the Electoral Commission are watching us all. We watched the ballot box seals be opened, and compared the seals to those set before voting started. In order to queer the system, someone would have to pay off the Electoral Officials and the scrutineers of 2 to ten opposing candidates. In what way is they any security issue or vulnerability here? I guess that in the US, where I understand there are only two candidates in most races, there would be less people to bribe, but scrutineers are usually picked by candidates as most loyal and upstanding party members, and would be awfully expensive to bribe. In our electorate it would of meant bribing 56 scrutineers as well as several hundred Electoral Officers and Returning Officers, just for one electorate (which I believe is the equivalent to your district about 30,000 voters over 14 polling places).
And that's how it works here in Australia. I was a scrutineer at the September 9th Queensland State Election, and we (representatives of the Labor, National and Greens) saw every vote being counted. Furthermore, we were the ones who ruled on the "possibly invalid" votes. Here a vote is declared valid if the scrutineers AND the Returning Officer all agree that the voter's intention is clear, regardless of what they have marked on the vote (ideally only the digits 1 to x or an X are marked, only in the boxes provided). It seems as if you don't have that protection in the USA, and hence the Florida votes that were disenfranchised, even though it was clear who the votes were for. This is another reason why The Rest Of The World does not want US style "freedom" and "democracy".