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Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
by Tyler Durden 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

"That's redundant in the modern US. Too bad; there needs to be a counterbalance to the right-wing control freaks, but the left just isn't up to it." Good comment. Indeed, the only thing the Democrats seem to stand for is that they aren't republicans. Meanwhile, the economics of the 'real' left leaves them with a big fat credibility hole right in the center, so no one listens to their politics either. -TD >From: Steve Furlong <sfurlong(a)acmenet.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums >Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 18:31:03 -0500 > >On Friday 31 January 2003 12:40, Tim May wrote: > > On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 07:58 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote: >(snipped) > > > I understand your politics is lefty...this has been shining through > > for years. > > > > But your analytical skills are lacking. > >That's redundant in the modern US. Too bad; there needs to be a >counterbalance to the right-wing control freaks, but the left just >isn't up to it. > >-- >Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel > >You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher >moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know >that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged. > --Michael Shirley _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: "Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

At 06:18 PM 2/3/03 +0100, Thomas Shaddack wrote: >> ...and some very, very tiny fraction may have actually touched >> some component which made them slightly ill. > >Tf they ingested a part made of beryllium alloy, it could make them pretty >sick... Yeah, first thing some people will do with space debris on their lawn is eat it. (Well, *some* will, but that's how evolution works..) Berylliosis is mostly from *inhaled* Be dust. You can touch the metal. ----- Smell that, son? Nothing else in the world smells like that.... I love the smell of hydrazine in the morning.... It smells like incompetence.

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Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
by Steve Furlong 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

On Friday 31 January 2003 12:40, Tim May wrote: > On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 07:58 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote: (snipped) > I understand your politics is lefty...this has been shining through > for years. > > But your analytical skills are lacking. That's redundant in the modern US. Too bad; there needs to be a counterbalance to the right-wing control freaks, but the left just isn't up to it. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged. --Michael Shirley

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Gullible Journalists
by Tyler Durden 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

John Kelsey wrote... "For some reason I've never been able to fathom, many journalists seem to be remarkably gullable, when they're told something from the right kind of source, especially a government agency or other official source." Chomsky (dig around on http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) and others have commented on this quite a bit. What it seems to boil down to is a sort of natural selection. Basically, it works like this: 1) Government is releasing some cool smart-bomb commercials, erh I mean video to a few select news sources. 2) NBC sends a questioning, smart, well-informed dude to said press conference. 3) During said smart-bomb footage notices the Arabic word for Hospital on the top of the smart-bombs target, and asks "Is that a hospital?" 4) Government takes NBC off list of cool "insider" info: "Can't be trusted, not playing ball" 5) NBC, now out in the cold, assigns said informed journalist to covering Ruwanda or other low-profile stuff, and assures military officials that they'll send someone a little more cooperative next time. I'm exagerating for effect here of course...there's possibly not as much conscious decision making, and supposedly this kind of list-making happens for much quieter, "insider" stuff (not smart bomb footage). But clearly, there's got to be SOMETHING like this happening. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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checking weirdness
by Harmon Seaver 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

So what do we get here -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com

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RE: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
by Steve Mynott 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

Bill Stewart > Tim commented about railroad stations being in the ugly parts of town. > That's driven by several things - decay of the inner cities, > as cars and commuter trains have let businesses move out to suburbs, > and also the difference between railroad stations that were > built for passengers (New York's Grand Central, Washington's > Union Station) In the UK at least railway stations tend to have been built in the ugly parts of towns for good reason -- simply because land is a lot cheaper in the low rent parts of town. Also railways stations and the associated cheap hotels with a large transient population tend to attract undesirables such as drug dealers, muggers and hookers and the sort of thing which pushs the value of your house down and nice middle class people don't want on their doorstep. The people in richer areas tend to have more political clout and more effectively oppose development of this sort. -- Steve

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Re: James Watson: Everyone should be DNA-fingerprinted
by Mike Rosing 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > ----- > JW is too old and needs to be lysed. How about lsd'd? Then he won't know the difference between "real" and his head :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike

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Re: Life Sentence for Medical Marijuana?
by Tyler Durden 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

"Great how bush's daughter, the cocaine addict, isn't in jail, but this man, who was deputized by the city of oakland to grow this marijuana, is going to be in jail for 20 years. Bush himself was arrested for DUI, I wish he was rotting in jail instead of ed." Hold it...Bush's relationship with Cocaine is on a first name basis at least. What's this about him as Governer of Texas flying the same plane that had supposedly moved the cocaine for the drugs-for-guns part of Iran Contra? And then there's the PERSISTENT rumors of him actually taking an accidental DEA bust in a Florida airport after landing a fresh new cargo. Supposedly this was a bit of a snafu and they had to let him go on the hush-hush...(And I keep hearing there's video of that bust.) Do some fishing around on http://www.spitfirelist.com/ftr.html and you'll eventually see the references. OK, maybe it's conspiracy theory crapola, but when you start seeing a LONG list of dates/times/places, you begin to wonder that perhaps at least a subset is true. -TD PS: I personally think it would be a waste for that hot little coke slut to get locked away. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: Self-destruct in SZ-4?
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

At 09:09 AM 2/3/03 -0800, Tim May wrote: >Second, I would do the self-destruct with accelerometers: if several >accelerations are felt, detonate. 1. Modern munitions arm this way. If you are an artillery shell and you've been told to arm, and then felt 10s of Gs along one axis and a lot of rotation around that axis, you've probably been fired and can 'safely' explode when you hit something. 2. Why arm a satellite to do this is clear: During launch the rocket could screw up and dump your Top Sekrit satellite into the drink where Mr. Not-so-Friendly Submarine picks it up. It doesn't even violate a treaty if you can't use the satellite offensively (no glide next to a target satellite and go boom). And everyone puts a self-destruct charge in the launch vehicle anyway. Stressful jobs, RSO.

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Re: Shuttle Humor, Risk Estimation
by Mike Rosing 03 Feb '03

03 Feb '03

On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > I heard that at the beginning of the program, NASA estimated 1 bang > in about 75 flights. The Palestine meteor shower was flight > 130-something > and was bang #2. Not to mention that it's 10 years past retirement. Not too bad, but not so good compared to an airplane. > ... > BTW, two birds with one stone: Israeli & Indian. > > Has anyone run their psychosocial simulators on what happens when Osama > claims responsibility? Would he try this? What numbers do you get for > the US pop's reaction? It's easier to just say Allah is on his side and this is proof :-) Most people recognize accidents, and the connection between takeoff and missing tiles is too obvious to dismiss as *the* primary cause. Whether it's true or not remains to be seen. > [SCITECHCOMM] There is a former NASA engineer on one of the tube > stations trying > to explain tech, but he is doing a poor job and unfortunately > reinforcing > a certain notion of engineers as monotone speakers incapable of > relating tech to common experiences. He picked at a tile with his > fingernail on camera, which is good, but Feynman he is not. I only saw him once. He looked like Dilbert, so he'll be exactly what every one expects. Let's face it, TV is about stereotypes, and he fits the bill. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike

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