Saturday, September 03, 2005

Red Cross Banned From Bringing Food and Supplies to Nola

I'm not sure what to make of this: The Red Cross reports:

  • Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
  • The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.
  • The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.
[...]

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012104.html

Normally, a helicopter taxi service or truck shuttle service would be immediately set up to ferry out all women with children and priority cases. This is not happening. These people are being kept in there deliberately.
posted by Irdial , 6:07 PM Þ 

A picture named Shepard-Smith.jpgA picture named Geraldo-Rivera.jpgHorror Show

Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were livid about the situation in NOLA as they appeared on H&C. When Hannity tried his usual spin job and said "let's get this in perspective," Smith chopped him off at the knees and started yelling at him saying, "This is perspective!" It was shocking.

Video-WMP-very big

Video QT

Geraldo who I'm no fan of was crying, holding a little child up to demonstrate the extremely inhumane conditions these people are forced to live under. Forced is the right word because they are locked in the dome by our government and can't leave. Troops are guarding the bridge.

This goes beyond political lines and it's as sad a situation as I've seen. Let's see all the happy politicians slap themselves on their backs after viewing this segment.

[...]

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

The expendable 'blacks' are locked into this circus of hell, with the only way out blocked by the US army.

Sheppard Smith, whose brand of evil journalism helped create the climate where these sorts of atrocities can happen, now, because he can personally smell it, becomes upset.

This is a perfect example of a catastrophic failure of imagination. When th e USA, egged on and justified by FOX News blows children to pieces, and when those same troops lock 250,000 subhuman people into the city of Falluja, just as they are locking those subhumans in that superdome, all of a sudden, because you can't personally smell it, or rather, imagine the smell of it, it becomes another thing, a foreign thing, something to spin, to sell to the american public with your awful lie machine and your repulsive mouth.

There is no explanation, no excuse for why the military will not let those people simply walk away from that inundated hell hole. I would love to read the explanation for this; no doubt, someone will provide one...and it will not matter a single bit. America now sees for itself the sort of nation it is, and the kind of government it has. It now sees what the rest of the world has known for decades; the priorities of the united states are upside down.

posted by Irdial , 5:47 PM Þ 


Paul Hellyer Former Minister of National Defense to Address UFO Symposium on Disclosure and Planetary Directions

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

In an unprecidented move to address this critical issue, Mufon Canada and ZlandCommunications announce Mr. Paul Hellyer, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, will address the UFO/ET symposium at the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall on Sept. 25.

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) August 25, 2005 -- Mufon Central Canada and ZlandCommunications are pleased to announce Mr. Paul Hellyer's participation in Exopolitics Toronto Symposium on UFO Disclosure and Planetary Directions at the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall Sunday Sept. 25.

The Symposium is open to the public.

Paul Hellyer has had a long and distinguished career with particular emphasis on national defense. He held a number of positions culminating in his appointment as Minister of Defense under Lester Pearson. He is a long standing opponent of the weaponization of space and is a supporter of the Space Preservation Treaty.

Mr. Hellyer will address the Symposium's theme: Why information concerning Extraterrestrial-related phenomena and government involvement with these issues is still being withheld from the public by specific western nations.

Some call this the UFO Cover-up. Others call it a truth embargo. In either case Mr. Hellyer's well documented and comprehensive perspectives on such topics as Free Trade, Globalization, the inequitable distribution of wealth, the failure of banking systems and the weaponization of space will affix a compelling urgency to the far-reaching global implications of UFO/ET disclosure.

Mr. Hellyer possesses a unique vantage point from which to share his insights and knowledge with journalists, academics and citizens on matters relating to the UFO/ET disclosure question.

By participating in the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium Mr. Hellyer joins a growing list of important government figures around the world willing to speak directly to this most controversial and profound issue. Canada can play a major role in the truth process, and Mr. Hellyer's involvement will increase the impact of the Symposium.

Journalists and other media representatives who wish to learn more about Paul Hellyer's participation are invited to contact the symposium's Media Director Victor Viggiani for pre-conference press interviews, press passes or questions.

Ticket Orders - Available On Line
Ordered on-line by visiting the symposium's web site: http://www.exopoliticstoronto.com/tickets.html

posted by Irdial , 4:19 PM Þ 

he has a point

I completely and whole-heartedly agree with everything he said.
posted by Alun , 3:53 PM Þ 

Kanye West: "George Bush doesn't care about Black people"

Kanye West and Mike Myers

Video

I don't care what you say about Kanye. I think he has a point here.
posted by alex_tea , 3:37 PM Þ 
Friday, September 02, 2005

"I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamned press conferences... put a moratorium on press conferences, don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city, and then come down to this city and stand with us... Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here - they're not here; it's too doggoned late. Now get off your asses and let's do something..."

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, interviewed on WWL-AM
posted by chriszanf , 3:25 PM Þ 

maybe I should go to india and be reincarnated as a new strain of CJD!

No one would credit it, would they?

Bwa Ha Ha and-if-you-will Haaaaa!!!
posted by meau meau , 3:14 PM Þ 

Your demand for cheap meat and ignorance of the sources did this.

When you refuse to pay for properly-reared beef but demand cheap steak and tuck into your factory-farmed, chemical-laced agro-beef, it is YOU and not the scientist who has created the problem.

When you refuse to pay for wild prawns but still demand prawns and tuck into your sea-farmed, chemical-laced cheap Indonesian super-prawn, it is YOU and not the scientist who has created the problem.

Pronoun problems?

Who is this 'YOU' that you belong to that is separate from 'US'?

WE are all in the same boat and all of US are responsible for what takes place here. A man with the ability to destroy the world cannot justify doing it just because someone pays him to. Come on now!

If there were 50% of the population we (I speak as an animal) would be a lot more than 100% better off.

meau2 is in good company!!!!!!

23 Skidoo!
posted by Irdial , 2:47 PM Þ 

I fail to see how returning (that is if we have left) to the values of the various religions would help in the science/morals debate, after all it is their mentality that the human species of animal is superior to other animals that gives rise to the arrogance of $PRACTIONERS.

If this mentality persists in our supposedly more enlightened times it is because the genesis of scientific ideas occured in an environment dominated by religious values, and the practioners of such ideas are still acting out the role of godless priests. It doesn't help that the power structures of the plague species are still rooted in a theological mentality, viz:

Bush's rampant denial of global warming and rapine greed for oil is not only based in his addictive nature it is part of his deeply held theological views. The same holds for Blair's monomaniacal grip on UK government and its absurdly intrusive and paternalistic legislation in recent years.

Only a very few thinkers even now dare to suggest that the dominant plague animal is NOT superior to the many species it destructs.

-

What do you think of western civilization

If there were 50% of the population we (I speak as an animal) would be a lot more than 100% better off.
posted by meau meau , 2:22 PM Þ 

What do you think of western civilization? I think it would be a good idea.

The image “http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/americas_new_orleans_lawlessness/img/1.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
posted by Alun , 12:49 PM Þ 

Factory farms are businesses. Farmers are businessmen. No scientist forced them to inject growth hormones into their cows. No scientist forced them to fit 5 turkeys per square foot and spray them with antibiotics. Business greed did this. Your demand for cheap meat and ignorance of the sources did this.

Scientists did not 'create the problem'. If anything, capitalism did.

When you refuse to pay for properly-reared beef but demand cheap steak and tuck into your factory-farmed, chemical-laced agro-beef, it is YOU and not the scientist who has created the problem.

When you refuse to pay for wild prawns but still demand prawns and tuck into your sea-farmed, chemical-laced cheap Indonesian super-prawn, it is YOU and not the scientist who has created the problem.

No demand, no problem.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
posted by Alun , 12:02 PM Þ 

you can always blame a scientist

The people who inivented the feed that was made from animals, who put together the machines that milled it the developers of the binding agents that bound it into pellets. They are to blame for BSE. The people who created protien feeds to supercharge the cows that produce 200 litres of milk instead of the normal 14. They are the ones we blame.

We cannot shift the blame away from the people who create the problems, and we must not conflate two separate problems for convenience. Animal husbandry in the form of factory farming has nothing to do with creating monster feeds to distort the way a cow produces milk.

Farmers don't need scientists to build factory farms. Farmers cannot produce supercharged cows pumped up with specially designed feeds without scientists however.

There is the difference. We blame the scientists only for what they are responsible for and nothing else. That is rational.
posted by Irdial , 11:33 AM Þ 

I guarantee you that no farmer came up with the idea of feeding cows 'protien' made from cows to increase milk yield.

YOU SEE?!

And I guarantee that this stemmed from BUSINESS decisions and scientists working for BUSINESS instead of being publicly funded to do their work for the benefit of society as a whole. And I guarantee that POLITICS and LAW created to the advantage of BUSINESS kept the formula a secret.

If BUSINESS and a greed-ridden selfish society hadn't been creating so much waste meat, the ability to re-enter it back into the food chain at a lower level (how economical!) would never have occured.

And, if PEOPLE actually took 1 minute to think about how the SHIT they eat is produced, perhaps they'd stop eating it and demand a change. But no. Keep feeding at the trough and blame somebody else when you die of obesity.

If the BSE doesn't get you first.


One could, if one was so disposed, suggest a moral tale is being played out on those who choose not to think about what they eat and how food animals are treated.


The image “http://www.awionline.org/pubs/Quarterly/spring2001/images/5_3.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Are you happy to ignore this for your bacon sandwich?

The image “http://www.narn.org/images/amberson.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Not bothered where your eggs come from? Then may salmonella, or antibiotic-resistant pathogens rain down upon your head.

The image “http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Factory-Farm-Peter-Rosset.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Like your beef grass-free? Better watch those prions!


Don't forget, whatever happens, you can always blame a scientist.
posted by Alun , 9:55 AM Þ 

First, I would like to say that I hope the people protesting against animal experimentation (1) are strictly vegan, (2) don't use any animal-derived clothing or animal-derived products and (3) are denied any medicinal intervention, surgical or otherwise, which have been generated through the exploitation of humanity's place at the top of the intellectual pile. People agreeing to these conditions can protest to their heart's content and their moral strength will win them many friends.

??!!

There is also an argument that worrying about animals being used under strict laws with the aim of improving human knowledge is pitiful when factory farmed pigs, chickens, cows and the like are slaughtered in their millions every day, wastefully and scornfully treated in both life and death simply to feed an obese population of ingrates with no idea of where the food on their plate comes from.

This is a straw man argument. You present something tangentially related to what you are trolling about and then knock it down to discredit the first argument. Honestly, you have to do MUCH better than that!

While ID could be taught as an "idea" I think Dawkins is fundamentally right in demanding a separation of religious dogma from scientific theory in teaching. I think "disastrous consequences" is about right if children are taught in such a slipshod manner as to allow religious beliefs to define classroom policy and teaching schedules. One may as well include other 'theories' of the nature of the universe into physics classes such that children have no idea whether it's waves, particles or "turtles all the way down".

A mix of straw man, separation of church and state. Oh dear. I'll bite. "Turtles all the way down" is comprable to feathers on dinosaurs. For generations 'science' classes taught that dinosaurs were giant lizards with scaly skin. This was the view handed down by the religiious elite, and all schoolchildren were examined on it, and made to believe it like it was the absolute truth. Now of course, feathers are the vogue, all the books are being re-written the religion has had an update, and if you want to pass the exams, you have to put on the feathers. That is "turtles all the way down"; a set of beliefs that are internally consistent but completely wrong. Why should any student be forced to recite the verses of this religion or face academic failure? It is wrong for scientists to claim that they are the only ones who know what the truth is at any one time, and then to insist that everyone follow them or face ruin.

What people teach in a school is the responsibility of the school and the parents that send their children to that school. The policy for all should not be set by scientist atheists, any more than it should be set by Muslims or Catholics. Scientists fail every time because they believe that they are the only ones that have the correct view. They are precisely like the fundamentalist Muslims, only they don't want to kill you, they just want to kill your way of thinking and they use these skeptic tactics, like the straw man argument, to equate religious belief with illogical nonsense like "turtles all the way down".

Ideas.... See above. When you invite me round to your hovel for a bowl of gruel cooked in your hand-thrown clay pot and show me your lovely new dog-skin trousers and the fabulous new cesspit out back, then I'll let you get away with suggesting a world without scientists.

And we will both be HUMAN when we eat that gruel, which will be real gruel and not GM frankenstien gruel.

There is no dogma! Show me the scientific dogma and I'll run it over with my scientific karma. Richard Dawkins may have dogma, but that's his problem.

There is no dogma? There is no "Mafia". There are no UFOs, There was only one shooter. This is precisely the poor attitude that people are talking about; scientists believe that they are right in all things, and that their method of divining the world is the only correct and trustworthy one, and that they are not suffering under any sort of delusion or misunderstanding or error. This is false. Scientists have been wrong again and again and again; there is nothing bad in this per se, but what is totally wrong is their stubborn and arrogant belief that they are absoutely correct at any one time. I am not against arrogance or stubbornness. BUT when the arrogant and the stubborn try and force people to believe what they believe, they are no better than the female mutilating, child beheading, stoning to death for adultery 'nutcases' that pollute this world. It is they are truely living inside a "turtles all the way down" delusion, because they fundamentally believe that they are correct, above all others. This belief they adhere to is crafted to near perfection; it allows for self correction ad infinitum through writing experimentation and re-writing. The dogma is flexible, handed down as it is 'improved'. The only thing that it cannot absorb is anything that is outside of the scientific method, otherwise, anything is game. This is modern sciences fatal flaw.

"We"? Who we? We the people that guzzle fuel and eat mass-produced shit without a thought? We the populace that demands progress, whether it's a new Playstation or better botox?

We are the people who want to be sure that when someone deveolps a new feed for a cow, that they remember their school lessons whilst they are doing it: 'COWS ARE HERBIVORS - THEY DON'T EAT MEAT, ESPECIALLY NOT OTHER COWS'

Do not conflate the science that produces the playstation (maths, material science) with the science that produces hybrid humans and gm crops. The latter two are BAD and the former are GOOD. The internal combustion engine falls under the former, and is GOOD. Just because it has been over used doesn't make it bad, it means that we all have to change our behaviour, and the people who invented it are not responsible for its misuse. GM damage cannot be withdrawn from the environment, this is why it is different to the damage caused by burning oil (note how I do not call it fossil fuel :P ). The same goes for hybrid humans. Once hybrid human genes are mixed into the gene pool, they cannot be removed; future generations will be contaminated, and that is that. No amount of "sorry" will fix either of those two pollutants.

No one wants to throw away all science. We only want to destroy the bad, the poisoinous, the stuff that kills our childrens rightful inheritance to a clean world.

'Not tested on animals' came about as a result of LAW not science. It was LAW which required products to have been tested for toxicity to animals...

And that makes it right? If they pass a law that all products must be tested on unwilling humans, will the people carrying out the tests comply with it simply because it is the law? "I was only following orders". We all know where THAT road leads don't we.

Starve or take the devil's shilling?

Turtles all the way down....to hell!

The "arrogant and cavalier treatment of our shared environment" is carried out not by scientists, but by businesses and politics. The "evil" is a result of business and politics.

We cannot shift the blame off of the people who carry out the work. The people who carry out the making of exotic poisons are responsible for the existance of the poisons, which would not be there had they not made them. Scientists must decide not to do work that will have disasterous consequences or which will cause untold suffering. If they don't have the backbone to do it, they will be made to do it.

And yet, every time one speaks in an attempt to help people understand science, he is derided as a charlatan.

Richard Dawkins is not trying to help anyone "understand science". He is trying to manipulate public policy to exclude ideas that he finds offensive as a humanist atheist. Helping people understand science by speaking, teaching, and demonstrating scientific principles is good - trying to kill other peoples ideas with hysterical language like "disasterous consequences" is BAD, and he is immediately discredited when he puts himself in opposition to ideas he personally loathes just because he loathes them.

When you need it, and it is your only hope, think of these invisible men.

An emotional paragraph. Emotion is good. No one is agiainst good work. No one is against the men and women who truely want to help their fellow man. Do not confuse peoples disgust with the GM meddlers and human cloners and mix it in with an imaginary hatred of the good biologists who make the world better in a humble and moral way.

No one bats an eyelid when Bush talks anti-science nowadays because.... religious fervour and a McCarthyist attitude to dissent makes it unwise to do so.

NO, People don't bat an eyelid precisely for the reasons that I gave, which aparently went in one eye and out the other.

Exactly why people of integrity and intellectual rigour such as Richard Dawkins should be encouraged to put the true face of science to the people, and to expose business and politics (and religion) as the EVIL manipulating forces behind the problemswith which science has been stigmatised.

ALL HAIL HIGH PRIEST DAWKINS HOLY DISSEMINATOR AND REGENERATOR. ALL BOW TO HIS WISDOM, THE WISDOM OF THE GREAT GOD OF SCIENCE!

ahem...once again, no matter who says it, you cannot excuse the immoral acts of scientists out for a buck and shift the blame onto the paymasters or legislators. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, and scientists are not part of a super human subset of people for whom the rules governing responsibility do not magically apply.

First, (if one agrees in a state-sponsored education system) the argument of what is taught to children should be taken by educated people able to understand a debate. It is these people who should be beating Bush with intellectual sticks and pointing out his lack of objectivity and lack of ability to understand the debate. Second, people like Richard Dawkins are exactly the type of people to tell a school what should be taught.

Firstly there is more than one way to organize state schools. There is no reason why the curriculum should be centrally dictated. Secondly if it is to be centrally dictated, then ELECTED OFFICIALS should set the curriculum, not UNELECTED ATHEISTS. The public pays taxes for these schools and elects representatives to get the job done (ideally) and so lone voice third parties with an agenda, from whatever camp, should not be able to exert undue influence on the shape of the curriculum.

But their poor standard of education has made them too STUPID to see past their TV set and into the real world.

This is the world according to HIGH PRIEST Dawkins. If you do not understand the scientific view of the world, and do not accept its tenets, then you are, by definition, 'uneducated'. After all, no other type of knowledge is valuable, no other belief is correct save that sanctioned by the high priests of science, you are therefore by definition, incapable of making good decisions. If you do not support THEE KNOWLEDGABLE 1 by definition you are outside of the faith, irredeemable, and to be surgically excised. ALL BOW!

would you be able to live with yourself if all you did as the books got burnt was stand by and watch your beliefs go up in smoke?

Funny
you should put it in those terms; Dawkins is the book burner here, as he tries to incenerate the idea of God the creator and replace it with his own ideas to be rammed into the minds of children. Funny that "I was only doing my job" is the excuse used by the vivisectionists who maim, kill and torture "because its the law" borth of these...from the same era of book burning.

The fact that the high priest thinks the people setting the curriculum are "fools" is worth noting. He is the same type that thinks, for example, that "Homeopathy is no better than placebo", and of course now that these holy verses have again been published in The Lancet that printer of pages from the ever increasing multi bible of science, he will believe it even more. No matter that everyone (the MILLIONS of people) who use it say that it works, that it brings them relief from hayfever for example. No matter that this medicine has been used sucessfully for over a century; this doesn't matter because it has not been published in a peer reviewed journal. Dawkins is the fool.
And he is free to be a fool until the end of time as long as he does not foist his diabolical will and evil plans for intellectual domination on anyone. Should he persist, he will be smacked down and all will benefit. Real science will increase; the science of humans for humans, science that is open and not closed will gain ground. Bad science, the bad 'modern science' of religious dogma, rigidity and closed mindedness will loose ground. And that would be a good thing.
posted by Irdial , 9:05 AM Þ 

"Australian scientists have created mice which can regenerate absolutely any tissue except for the tissues of the brain. Heart, lungs, entire limbs, you name it. This is the first time this has been seen in mammals. The potential implications are positively mammoth."

???!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

and:

BSE

Also on the programme, our Science Editor Susan Watts has gained early access to an astonishing report being published tonight in the Lancet. It advances an extraordinary and horrific theory about the origins of mad cow disease BSE.

The latest programme available in broadband

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4204180.stm

...the BSE part of this programme is the most sickening thing ever; a new report to be published in a 'Scientific Journal' claims that the true origin of BSE is human corpses harvested by peasants on the banks of the Ganges river, sold to western farmers as feed for cattle. Now. who was the genius that came up with the idea giving cows cows to eat? Who prepared the formulae, who thought it all up (and most incredibly what the feed was made of was a trade secret so the farmers didnt' know what they were feeding to their livestock). I guarantee you that no farmer came up with the idea of feeding cows 'protien' made from cows to increase milk yield.

YOU SEE?!
posted by Irdial , 12:05 AM Þ 
Thursday, September 01, 2005

First, I would like to say that I hope the people protesting against animal experimentation (1) are strictly vegan, (2) don't use any animal-derived clothing or animal-derived products and (3) are denied any medicinal intervention, surgical or otherwise, which have been generated through the exploitation of humanity's place at the top of the intellectual pile. People agreeing to these conditions can protest to their heart's content and their moral strength will win them many friends.

There is also an argument that worrying about animals being used under strict laws with the aim of improving human knowledge is pitiful when factory farmed pigs, chickens, cows and the like are slaughtered in their millions every day, wastefully and scornfully treated in both life and death simply to feed an obese population of ingrates with no idea of where the food on their plate comes from.

(Then there are the good Dr F's comments, which we shall come to presently...)

I love the way talking head scientists rubbish on about "disastrous consequences" when it comes to ideas being taught[...]


While ID could be taught as an "idea" I think Dawkins is fundamentally right in demanding a separation of religious dogma from scientific theory in teaching. I think "disastrous consequences" is about right if children are taught in such a slipshod manner as to allow religious beliefs to define classroom policy and teaching schedules. One may as well include other 'theories' of the nature of the universe into physics classes such that children have no idea whether it's waves, particles or "turtles all the way down".


Lets apply some logic to both of these troll articles. Life without scientists, means life without ...

Ideas.... See above. When you invite me round to your hovel for a bowl of gruel cooked in your hand-thrown clay pot and show me your lovely new dog-skin trousers and the fabulous new cesspit out back, then I'll let you get away with suggesting a world without scientists.


Anyone that wants humans to live on this planet for another ten thousand years doesn't want anything to do with scientists and their insane world destroying dogma.

There is no dogma! Show me the scientific dogma and I'll run it over with my scientific karma. Richard Dawkins may have dogma, but that's his problem.


We want a world without these egomaniacs who look at every living thing as just another tool or object to experiment on.

"We"? Who we? We the people that guzzle fuel and eat mass-produced shit without a thought? We the populace that demands progress, whether it's a new Playstation or better botox?


The rise of products that are guaranteed 'not tested on animals' is a testament to this sentiment.

'Not tested on animals' came about as a result of LAW not science. It was LAW which required products to have been tested for toxicity to animals, and by extension, humans. This LAW was rescinded or modified. A PRODUCT may state that it has not been tested on animals, while all ingredients in a product may still have been. Of course, if their toxicity is already known, this is not required. BYKT.


Scientists are falling out of favour now more than ever due not only to their arrogant and cavalier treatment of our shared environment, but also because they are trying to control what people think, instead of just getting on with their work quietly and dilligently. They are not content with improving the quality of life for everyone, they insist also on controlling the minds of the population, poisoning the environment with their diabolical experiments and making sure that no one anywhere will be able to even live without their permission. By that I am talking about the scientist created crops that don't produce seeds (for example). That, by any measure, is pure evil, a perversion of nature, and totally inexcusable and unjustifiable.

It is EXTREMELY difficult to get personal funding for science. If it wasn't, maybe fewer scientists would need to work for Monsanto et al simply to have a job. Scientists working for Big Companies are not evil. Scientists in general just have no value in the eyes of either the public or the government, so there is not enough government-funded GOOD science to do. So what to do? Starve or take the devil's shilling? In the real world of academic science it is government policy which sets the limits of what science gets funded, so blame the politicians and the lobbyists who set the scientific agendas. And these bastards are in thrall to the businessmen who tell their monkeys what tune to dance to.

The "arrogant and cavalier treatment of our shared environment" is carried out not by scientists, but by businesses and politics. The "evil" is a result of business and politics. Consider: your country relies on a crop which is susceptible to a disease. Science allows you to modify your crop to resist the disease, and you have scientists capable of doing this work at public-funded institutions. Intrinsically not a Bad Thing, one may think. However, governments do not fund these projects. Instead, they allow businesses to carry out the work, extort maximum profit from the work, protect the rights of the business over the need of the populace... and one ends up with the "evil GM" situation we hear so much about.

Governments could ban companies from using pesticide-resistant crops should they choose. These are of no benefit to the populace, just to the people who sell pesticide. But they don't ban them. Why is that? Is it the fault of the evil scientist, or business and politics?


If I were a scientist, (which I am by the way, a TRUE scientist in the way that men were in the past) I would cease trying to force my religion down the throats of the masses, because the masses are going to turn around and shut down every interesting lab and experiment once and for all, since clearly the people behind them have no sense of responsibility, no common sense, no connection with their fellow man, no morality, no empathy with living creatures or the planet...in other words, they are not human.

And yet, every time one speaks in an attempt to help people understand science, he is derided as a charlatan. As a dogmatist, a blinkered snake-oil salesman incapable of seeing past the glittering piles of gold that litter his evil path through life. This thread, led by an article by a great scientist and an elegant writer and thinker, exists because the argument they pose is immediately stamped with the big red rubber EVIL stamp.

If I were a scientist, I would be saddened by the SHIT that is accepted as 'truth' and the SHIT that is thrown at honourable people simply trying to state their case - a case they may have been working on for decades. I would be disgusted by the EVIL that is publicly accepted "scientists", I would be sickened by "Dr" Gillian McKeith, that she has respect and status, when many people who have worked their entire lives for the ultimate benefit of others go ignored at best. I have met men who have worked for decades developing a whole new theory of immunology and are applying it to treating cancers, and it is working. When you need it, and it is your only hope, think of these invisible men.


No one bats an eyelid when Bush talks anti-science nowadays because everyone and thier dog can see that it is scientists that are pushing us into a nightmare future[....]

No one bats an eyelid when Bush talks anti-science nowadays because.... religious fervour and a McCarthyist attitude to dissent makes it unwise to do so. If people paid more attention to good scientists perhaps Bush wouldn't even be in power, as he would have been clearly seen as the imbecile he is. Instead, Bush, without a functioning brain cell in his head, can delude a nation into thinking global warming won't affect Uncle Sam, and drilling into the Arctic wilderness for more fuel is a better option than setting fuel consumption limits on car manufacturers. There is an imbalance there somewhere, and you know it wasn't the scientists that manipulated the populace into accepting this state of affairs.


Remember when the Cassini probe was being launched? People protested that a nuclear reactor was being used to power it. Those people would rather not have Cassini in orbit around Saturn, simply because they dont like the power source of the mission. These are the types, that if they win, will shut down the beneficial, non destructive science because they cannot distingush between something that doesn't change the environment or humanity and something that is pure exploration / research.

Exactly my point.
Exactly why people of integrity and intellectual rigour such as Richard Dawkins should be encouraged to put the true face of science to the people, and to expose business and politics (and religion) as the EVIL manipulating forces behind the problemswith which science has been stigmatised.


Blathering on about how religion is simply wrong because it has not appeared in a peer reviewd journal is just the kind of insulting, unfeeling, stupid and threatening behaviour that is going to cause this nightmare to come true. And it is threating precisely the wrong groups in society; people with children in schools. Richard Dawkins has no business telling a school what they should or should not be teaching to a mans children, and when you threaten peoples children, as we all know, people go absolutely WILD with rage.

First, (if one agrees in a state-sponsored education system) the argument of what is taught to children should be taken by educated people able to understand a debate. It is these people who should be beating Bush with intellectual sticks and pointing out his lack of objectivity and lack of ability to understand the debate. Second, people like Richard Dawkins are exactly the type of people to tell a school what should be taught. However, all RD is doing is pointing out under what heading ID and evolution should be taught, and that scientific theories and religious beliefs should not be mixed in the same class. If Richard Dawkins was NOT standing up and protesting at the bastardisation of education for our children, THEN the parents should be going wild at him. As it stands, then they should be going wild with rage at the legislators and policy-makers. But their poor standard of education has made them too STUPID to see past their TV set and into the real world.


My advice to all the imbecile talking heads like Richard Dawkins; S.T.F.U. and accept that people will believe whatever they want to believe, they have the absolute right to believe whatver they want to believe, and that this is none of your business.

Of course these points are true, but as a REAL MAN would you be able to live with yourself if all you did as the books got burnt was stand by and watch your beliefs go up in smoke? Would you meekly accept sending your child for indoctrination at a school you know is teaching SHIT at the behest of men you consider FOOLS? If you had a voice would you not speak out? Will you teach your kids to simply STFU?

Then your nightmare has ALREADY begun!
posted by Alun , 9:53 PM Þ 

Scientists are falling out of favour now more than ever due not only to their arrogant and cavalier treatment of our shared environment, but also because they are trying to control what people think, instead of just getting on with their work quietly and dilligently.

-Scientists +Politicians
Holy crap it works just as well with either term!
(I was also going to add +Religious Leaders, but nowadays the term "Politician" seems to cover that just as well so it would have been redundant)

Also:
I find batting around a term like "evil" troubling. To me, evil means simply "the lack of any good at all." That is, there is only good, but when it is not there, there is evil. In other words, evil is a vaccuum. Some people take "evil" in a religious way, as a seperate force that conspires to harm. To think of the word in this way completely changes everything, since rather than an absence there is a competition, a battle.
Personally I prefer to use the term as little as possible, but perhaps I am the only person in the world that thinks about it like this so who cares?

everyone and thier dog can see that it is scientists that are pushing us into a nightmare future where the world (and the very nature of human beings) is being transformed into something that we do not want it to be.

Is it fair to blame ONLY the (mad) scientists for this? Who funds the (mad) scientists? Their power rarely seems to come from within themselves, it almost always seems to come from outside, non-scientific forces who are interested in science's ability to completely detach itself from the world (a philosophical stance of being "above" all else in nature, of having the right to be). Not that I would put this as a hard and fast rule but it generally seems to be the case. GM crops are only gaining ground (for lack of a better term) because the corporate masters that control research funds want them to be gaining ground, the research is steered to benefit the corporation only. If the corporation/lobby group/whatever was not there to hire a group of scientists to do this research research, for example in GM crops, that research would likely not be ocurring at all.
Am I droning on?

PS The RSS feed is still broken. Really don't know anything about these so can't suggest a fix.
posted by Barrie , 6:40 PM Þ 

Situated near the intersection of Liberty and Perrilliat Streets, the Girod Street Cemetery stood near the site of the present-day Louisiana Superdome. Shrouded in strangling vines for much of its history and hidden in a disreputable neighborhood, the cemetery that once existed in the heart of the city is now largely forgotten.


Actress Jane Placide, financer Glendy Burke, and Episcopal cleric Rev. William T. Leacock were only a few of the cemetery’s illustrious dead. One of the most notable monuments honored Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace Smith Bliss, General Zachary Taylor’s Chief of Staff who had perished in the 1853 yellow fever epidemic. Hundreds of that disaster’s less fortunate victims were buried beneath a large earthen mound. Such mass burials occurred several times during the cemetery’s history. The worldwide Asiatic cholera pandemic of 1832-1833 hit New Orleans especially hard; many of its victims were buried in shallow trenches in the Girod Street Cemetery.

The Girod Street Cemetery was located in a flood-prone area, near what would become “the Swamp.” By the 1950s, the cemetery was badly overrun by vegetation and criminal activity. Grave robbers routinely looted the burial ground. Derelicts set up house in vacant crypts while prostitutes conducted business among the crumbling memorials. The site where the city’s first exclusively Protestant graveyard stood has no commemorative marker. Although a legend asserts the New Orleans Saints’s end zone rests atop old graves, the burial ground’s exact location was closer to the New Orleans Centre shopping mall and a corner of the Superdome’s parking garage.
[...]



A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. Inside, a man coughed up blood and his shoulders quaked as he was wheeled through the halls. Thousands clutched their meager belongings, sitting in seats normally used for football games or lying on the artificial turf, its end zones painted with the word "Saints." "There is feces on the walls," said Bryan Hebert, 43, who arrived at the Superdome on Monday. "There is feces all over the place." At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
[...]


An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm. John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."
[...]
posted by telle goode , 5:45 PM Þ 

The reports of a young girl being saved by a pool surveillance system may at first seem like a good use or a vindication of such surveillance but I can't help wondering what advantage is gained in making such a system camera based rather than sensor based i.e. I would have thought something similar to a false colour infra red system rather than CCTV visual feedback would be more appropriate, I also wonder what the implications of such a technology are in termas of recording people/children in a state of reduced clothing are. I haven't gone swimming for about half my life now - is cctv used in swimming pools anyway?
posted by meau meau , 5:10 PM Þ 

Trolling Alun?
I'll bite!

I love the way talking head scientists rubbish on about "disastrous consequences" when it comes to ideas being taught, but when it comes to discussing GM crops being spread throughout the land, this inflammatory phrase is off the table.

Lets apply some logic to both of these troll articles. Life without scientists, means life without the atom bomb, GM crops, hybrid humans. Life with or without teaching evolution in classrooms? No effect on anything at all. Life without scientists also means no pointless and horrifyingly cruel experiments on animals. Result - lots of people may or may not die from all sorts of diseases BUT everyone gets to live in a clean world without GM crops, hybrid humans, atom bombs and cruelty on an unimaginable scale.

Anyone that wants humans to live on this planet for another ten thousand years doesn't want anything to do with scientists and their insane world destroying dogma. We want a world without these egomaniacs who look at every living thing as just another tool or object to experiment on. The rise of products that are guaranteed 'not tested on animals' is a testament to this sentiment. Are the scientists listening? Of course not, after all, the public are at best, children to be guided, and in all other cases, chattel to be experimented on.

Scientists are falling out of favour now more than ever due not only to their arrogant and cavalier treatment of our shared environment, but also because they are trying to control what people think, instead of just getting on with their work quietly and dilligently. They are not content with improving the quality of life for everyone, they insist also on controlling the minds of the population, poisoning the environment with their diabolical experiments and making sure that no one anywhere will be able to even live without their permission. By that I am talking about the scientist created crops that don't produce seeds (for example). That, by any measure, is pure evil, a perversion of nature, and totally inexcusable and unjustifiable.

If I were a scientist, (which I am by the way, a TRUE scientist in the way that men were in the past) I would cease trying to force my religion down the throats of the masses, because the masses are going to turn around and shut down every interesting lab and experiment once and for all, since clearly the people behind them have no sense of responsibility, no common sense, no connection with their fellow man, no morality, no empathy with living creatures or the planet...in other words, they are not human.

No one bats an eyelid when Bush talks anti-science nowadays because everyone and thier dog can see that it is scientists that are pushing us into a nightmare future where the world (and the very nature of human beings) is being transformed into something that we do not want it to be. These inhuman tinkerers are already being harmed and killed (vivisectionists) because they won't listen; next they will all be shut down, and this means the good as well as the bad.

Remember when the Cassini probe was being launched? People protested that a nuclear reactor was being used to power it. Those people would rather not have Cassini in orbit around Saturn, simply because they dont like the power source of the mission. These are the types, that if they win, will shut down the beneficial, non destructive science because they cannot distingush between something that doesn't change the environment or humanity and something that is pure exploration / research.

Blathering on about how religion is simply wrong because it has not appeared in a peer reviewd journal is just the kind of insulting, unfeeling, stupid and threatening behaviour that is going to cause this nightmare to come true. And it is threating precisely the wrong groups in society; people with children in schools. Richard Dawkins has no business telling a school what they should or should not be teaching to a mans children, and when you threaten peoples children, as we all know, people go absolutely WILD with rage.

My advice to all the imbecile talking heads like Richard Dawkins; S.T.F.U. and accept that people will believe whatever they want to believe, they have the absolute right to believe whatver they want to believe, and that this is none of your business. If you do not shut up and get back to decent honest work, your worst nightmare may come to pass and you may find that you get the answer to wether or not there is a God demonstrated to you first hand.

Then your nightmare will REALLY begin!
posted by Irdial , 3:27 PM Þ 
posted by Alun , 12:13 PM Þ 
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

New Orleans is Sinking

Watch out for the jealous killer whale. It'll rip yer arms off.


N.B. Of course, the title of these posts should have been 'When the levee breaks'.
But then everything's obvious in retrospect. Isn't it?
posted by Alun , 8:54 PM Þ 

Why is the feed not working?

New Orleans Disaster:
What I want to say is, I think and hope this will really fly back straight into Bush's face. What am I talking about? Well, look at just how few National Guard members are there to help out. That's right, there're barely any, because most of them are in Iraq fighting for a lie. What are they even doing in Iraq? They're the NATIONAL Guard aren't they? There to guard the NATION? Hmmm, this doesn't look very good does it? And people in America are in trouble because those who have volunteered to guard the nation are half a world away, guarding Halliburton.

In addition, the horrible financial burden of rebuilding entire cities must feel a hell of a lot worse with the added financial burden of a miserable, failed invasion. How has wasting billions of dollars saved America this time around?
posted by Barrie , 6:35 PM Þ 

Welcome to the league of men who have the right to bear the letters BSL after their name:

John Young (BSL)

Where 'BSL' stands for ' British Shit List'.

Cryptome has once again, published a list of M|6 officers, this time, Paddy 'perpetual looser' 'pants down' Ashdown (Jeremy John Durham Ashdown) is on the list.

No Fish & Chips for you sunshine!
posted by Irdial , 2:13 PM Þ 

the newest member of BLOGDIAL, a decloaked lurker!

Contributing member?

meau meau waves
|
posted by meau meau , 11:22 AM Þ 

'Black' people steal, 'white' people discover.
posted by alex_tea , 11:05 AM Þ 
Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Streaming aerial video with narration by some annoying people who claim know the landmarks....(porn for those who long to witness nature destroy hideous urban centers, malls and concrete subdivisions)
http://nebe-b.org/wgno26flyover.asx
posted by telle goode , 9:39 PM Þ 

The Home Office will today propose to outlaw the possession of extreme adult pornography downloaded over the internet from abroad.

[...] the Home Office suggests making illegal "the possession of a limited range of extreme pornographic material featuring adults". It cites the depiction of bestiality, sexual interference with a human corpse or certain forms of extreme violence involving serious bodily harm.

"This is material which is extremely offensive to the vast majority of people (who don't actually view it - mm) and it should have no place in our society," said the Home Office minister, Paul Goggins.

[...]
Guardian

Of course this can't prevent access to such material and why should anyone 'possess' such images when it only takes a few seconds to download again even a screen sized image. Of course what we want to know is if possession something like this (don't worry it's only google) will be outlawed.
posted by meau meau , 1:23 PM Þ 

Now they charge on amain.
Now they rally again.
The Gods from above the mad labour behold,
And pity mankind that will perish for gold.
posted by meau meau , 10:14 AM Þ 
Monday, August 29, 2005
posted by captain davros , 9:58 PM Þ 

It won't be long before the masses demand the invasion/annexation of Saudi Arabia so that gas prices can return to lower levels. Of course, these same masses will never demand that all fuel taxes are scrapped, because, well, they simply have not got the brains to do that....or maybe not.....For every £50 you put in your tank, you're giving the government £37 in tax.



Overseas UK Fuel Prices
Country Local Currency per litre UK pence per litre
Unleaded Diesel Unleaded Diesel
Austria (Euro) 0.98 0.86 67.61 59.33
Belgium (Euro) 1.20 0.83 82.79 57.26
Czech Rep (Koruna) 27.70 25.70 62.25 60.54
Denmark (Krone) 9.05 8.22 86.69 78.74
Finland (Euro) 1.18 0.90 81.41 62.09
France (Euro) 1.11 0.96 76.58 66.23
Germany (Euro) 1.19 1.03 82.10 71.06
Greece (Euro) 0.87 0.94 60.02 64.85
Netherlands (Euro) 1.31 0.99 90.38 68.30
Hungary (Forint) 252.50 237.00 77.80 73.02
Ireland (Euro) 1.00 0.94 68.99 64.85
Italy (Euro) 1.17 0.99 80.72 68.30
Luxembourg (Euro) 0.97 0.78 66.92 53.82
Estonia (Kroons) 11.95 10.50 54.44 47.84
Norway (Norwegian Krone) 9.90 8.55 85.42 73.77
Latvia 0.49 0.47 52.73 50.58
Lithuania 2.73 2.61 56.64 54.15
Poland (Zloty) 3.86 3.40 69.65 61.35
Slovakia 36.90 36.60 66.33 65.79
Slovenia 207.40 199.90 62.92 60.65
Portugal (Euro) 1.06 0.83 73.13 57.26
Spain (Euro) 0.93 0.84 64.16 57.95
Sweden (Swedish Krona) 10.55 9.63 82.55 75.35
Switzerland (Swiss Francs) 1.50 1.59 69.37 73.54
USA (US Dollars) 0.53 0.58 30.07 32.91


"The government spend approximately £6 billion on roads and local transport, but a staggering £36 billion is collected in road taxation" [...]

http://www.lesstaxonfuel.co.uk/index.htm
posted by Irdial , 12:48 PM Þ 
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