The Blackout
I just posted a bunch of links to photoblogs & slideshows of the blackout on my own blog if anyone is interested: http://zarq.livejournal.com Jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: This Tiger Has No Teeth
--- "G. D. Akin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This Tiger Has No Teeth > This is Clancy's least enjoyable novel. IMO, of > course Thanks for the heads up. I thought _Red Rabbit_ was a bit of a bore, too, so if this is even worse, perhaps I shall avoid it entirely. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
This Tiger Has No Teeth
This Tiger Has No Teeth I just finished reading Tom Clancy's latest "real" (not "Op Center," etc, collaborations) novel, "The Teeth of the Tiger." I have to admit I'm a Clancy fan. I read "The Hunt for Red October" on a red-eye from DC to Las Vegas right after the book came out in paperback. I wanted to sleep on that flight, but the book wouldn't let me. Over the years, I've looked forward to his books and, for the most part, haven't been disappointed, until now. "The Teeth of the Tiger" is a slow, ponderous story that takes forever to get to any real action, which is over as quickly as it arrives and brushed under the rug. Without it being too much of a spoiler, I'll say that after the inevitable terrorist attack, the story goes into a revenge mode of illegal killings (murders) by the good guys. They justify their actions pretty much by saying "some people need killing." The main characters are related to former president Jack Ryan, who is referred to in the book as "Dad" and "Uncle Jack." These characters spend more time on three-mile runs in Virginia, and then driving a Ferrari around Europe talking about the good food they're missing than actually "operating." I'll say again, the story is slow and ponderous, perhaps in an attempt to build suspense, but, instead, it builds boredom. The plot is contrived and the conclusion, while screaming loudly and clearly "sequel", is empty and unsatisfying. This is Clancy's least enjoyable novel. IMO, of course ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
B5 question
Well, I've been through season two of B5 and am thoroughly hooked. My friend just got the season 3 DVD set is will lend them to me later this week. The other day I was looking throught the rather meager selection of SF books at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) at Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul. To my surprise, "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" by Kathryn M. Drennan was on the shelf. I remember someone mentioning this was a book to find out what happened to Sinclair after he left B5. Naturally, I picked it up. My question is this: should I read it now or wait until after I have watched season 3 or does it matter? George A ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
At 07:31 PM 8/16/03 -0400, Erik Reuter wrote: On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 05:30:44PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > Which is one point in favor of a firearm for home defense: it takes > less training to learn to fire it than it does to learn to use a > throwing knife, I consider that a point against. If I have a weapon that requires skill, if it gets into someone else's hand, especially an attacker, then it probably isn't as effective against me. I agree. OTOH, if you are an 80-year-old woman with arthritis who has to shuffle around with a walker, you probably don't have the dexterity or strength to use a throwing knife, sword, or quarterstaff, and on Social Security you can't afford air conditioning so you have keep the windows open or literally die of the heat inside your closed house, you want something handy and easy to use in case some @#$%*&!! decides to take advantage of the open windows and come in to steal what little you have and/or assault you. In short, there is no single answer to home/personal defense which is both safe and effective in all situations . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Elevators and Death - My day at work
- Original Message - From: "William T Goodall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 6:56 PM Subject: Re: Elevators and Death - My day at work > > On Sunday, August 17, 2003, at 12:40 am, Robert Seeberger wrote: > > > When the elevator door opened, the elevator had not leveled correctly > > and > > was a couple of feet too high. The resident tried to jump up onto the > > elevator platform, but slipped with the upper portion of his body on > > the > > elevator floor. > > > > The elevator doors *tried* to close on him, and the elevator started > > to rise > > as he struggled to get out. > > The resident had just enough time to scream before he was decapitated. > > > > His body fell into the elevator pit in the basement, so wrapped and > > tangled > > in cables that it had to be cut into pieces to be removed. > > > > Meanwhile his head rode the elevator up to the fifth floor where it > > greeted > > a group of people waiting to get on the elevator on that floor. > > How old are these elevators? How many systems had to fail for that to > happen? These are original building equipment, so they are 40 or so years old. Not too bad by elevator standards. The system that detects objects blocking the door may have failed. The system that prevents the elevator from moving when the doors are open definitely failed. This is what killed the man. The floor leveler system obviously failed. xponent Pretty Messed Up Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fastest Qheuen Alive rewrite--longer, new ending.
Added characters, hopefully better logic, and now with a date and made up localation. I don't know if I've gotten the Ur lisp right. I don't have my copies marked for Ur, only Hoon. Comment on this version--not the first draft. --- The human's old story about the race between the tortoise and the hare was never very popular with the other sept of Jijo. In fact it was never really understood. Some 'wolfling' concepts did not translate well into the uplifted civilization of the Five Galaxies. This was true even with those jijoian races had abandoned almost all of the befefits of that civilization. A hare that took the time to sleep during a contest had too much personal hubris to be able to be a representative of one's race. Such an er would have been disqualified by its own kin, and a replacement would have been found. Someone with a better sense of duty to er's clan. "On Jijo, the hare is a g'Kek and the tortoise is a traeki or a qheuen. A g'Kek will always beat a qheuen in a race." So stated the g'Kek Vebbin to the qheuen Face Maker. Repeatedly. "Hoon are stronger, Traeki are stinkier, and g'Kek are faster then the Qheuen," Vebbin would always state. Then whenever she remembered to be polite, she added "But no one can sculpt like a qheuen." It had only been forty seven years since the creation of the Great Peace. An event that was not so long ago that old feelings could not once again resurface for even the slightest of reasons. Everyone was trying to be polite to everyone else. The other races in the village were being polite to to the recently transplanted g'Kek families. They all knew of the economic advantage they'd aquired by now having a local source of quality first rate stitched sails and knotted fine mesh nets. No more waiting for a shipment to be exported from somewhere far to the north. And to the south was Wuphon, where they could now be the exporter for finished sails and nets. As for the rest, basically the Hoon specialized in their sailing, the Qheuen specialized in ship construction and fish farming, the single human family specialized in not being specialized, and the lone traeki tried to keep everyone else healthy. In praising Qheuen carving, Face Maker was also always praised. Face Marker had a particular, well noted talent for carving and sculpting wood. Even among the Qheuen. No other qheuen had ever gotten such a unique name. Then again, no other qheuen had ever looked up while still in the infant's pen to see a human face in the observation port, and then proceed to accurately carve that face into the wooden floor. It was only ment to be taken as an inalterable matter of fact, diversity as it is, or the luck of the roll of Ifni's dice, whenever Vebbin said what she said, that, "No qheuen could ever beat a g'Kek in a race." But that matter of fact was probably stated a bit too often. Face Maker became fixated on the idea of proving that statement false. Not always, of course. Just once would be enough. He'd seen Phwed, the adult male human-for-hire of the village do logic charts in the sand. Even a flyspeck's worth of intersection with a circle means that a statement true to almost all of the circle can no longer be made for the entire circle. So, how to do it? Not underwater. That wouldn't be fair. It'd have to be on neutral ground. Or even on terrain that would normally favor a g'Kek. Face Maker confided with Phwed and told him his dream. One of Phwed's unspecialized specialities was in being neutral to all, and tattletale to none. "You know I always take the more cautious route," Phwed said with a wink. "I took my name from one of the old human books of cartoon art, but changed it a bit by adding an extra letter." "Why so?" Face Maker asked, fully aware that in doing so he was only being a straight man. "Two hundred and fifty years is a long time in Earthclan terms. One never knows how the copyright laws might have changed." Face Maker did his best to vent a traeki fart as laughter. "That is _definitely_ being cautious." "As to your problem, solve it quickly, or give up on the idea," his human friend concluded. "If you don't, you'll soon have your brain running in circles." * * * * The Qheuen are not the sept best known for having abstract thoughts. But by and far they are the race best known for both having and holding abstract visualizations. When the eye is on top and can't see what the mouth on the underside is doing, there's really no other way for the brain to develop. Coordination exists in having the mind be able to remember an item three dimensionally by both visual and tactile sensations, and then to transfer that image from one medium to the other. Face Maker started to visualize a qheuen and a g'Kek at the same time. Then he made the revolutionary breakthrough by moving about various parts. Although his human friend didn't know it, Phwed had provided the solution. Face
Re: Elevators and Death - My day at work
On Sunday, August 17, 2003, at 12:40 am, Robert Seeberger wrote: When the elevator door opened, the elevator had not leveled correctly and was a couple of feet too high. The resident tried to jump up onto the elevator platform, but slipped with the upper portion of his body on the elevator floor. The elevator doors *tried* to close on him, and the elevator started to rise as he struggled to get out. The resident had just enough time to scream before he was decapitated. His body fell into the elevator pit in the basement, so wrapped and tangled in cables that it had to be cut into pieces to be removed. Meanwhile his head rode the elevator up to the fifth floor where it greeted a group of people waiting to get on the elevator on that floor. How old are these elevators? How many systems had to fail for that to happen? -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Elevators and Death - My day at work
My day at work was more interesting than I desired. I really didn't want to work in the first place, I have my son this weekend and wanted to spend time with him. But duty calls so.. Nothing went right from the getgo. I woke up late. I arrived at work barely on time, but everyone else was about an hour late. We couldn't locate the key to the snorkel lift I was to use. My boss hadn't ordered all the lamps we needed. The safety harness I needed was missing. (Worked without it anyway - not a good idea) Outriders from Hurricane Erika were on their way. But the heat was high 90s and the humidity stifling and I was out in the direct sun. And we started working 2 hours later than we should have. This isn't the way things were planned. About an hour after we started working, the first firetrucks arrived. I didn't think much of it, we have false alarms often enough, and its not something one gets excited about. Then the police cars arrived, several of them. Jose, who was working with me today, walked around the corner to investigate. This looked to be something different. While Jose was gone, the first news crews arrived, and I started feeling a little paranoia. I could just imagine being seen on television, without any safety equipment, by someone who works at my shop. So, I parked the lift and set off to find Jose. Jose shows up a minute or so later and tells me that someone had been killed in an elevator. So we went back inside and met our boss on his way to the death scene. Hospital security drafted us to get some barricade tape and block the elevator doors at each floor that this particular pair of elevators stopped on. Along the way we managed to pick up the story. This resident was waiting for an elevator on the second floor, planning to go up higher in the building. There were purportedly 2 others waiting with him, an unnamed woman (who was taken to the emergency department due to shock) and a doctor( who disappeared immediately, AFAIK they haven't located him yet). When the elevator door opened, the elevator had not leveled correctly and was a couple of feet too high. The resident tried to jump up onto the elevator platform, but slipped with the upper portion of his body on the elevator floor. The elevator doors *tried* to close on him, and the elevator started to rise as he struggled to get out. The resident had just enough time to scream before he was decapitated. His body fell into the elevator pit in the basement, so wrapped and tangled in cables that it had to be cut into pieces to be removed. Meanwhile his head rode the elevator up to the fifth floor where it greeted a group of people waiting to get on the elevator on that floor. It was very painful to see this residents co-workers, visibly upset, very distraught. I know some of these people quite well, I speak with them all the time. I probably even know this resident by sight, though his name doesn't ring a bell. He was 35 years old. Either Indian or Pakistani. That's just too young to die for want of an elevator. I know the elevator guys pretty well. They are going to have a lot of fingers pointed at them. And they had been working on this particular elevator all of last week. Everytime a baby is born in the women's building next door, the PA system chimes a phrase of "Happy Birthday To You". And there were a lot of babies born today apparently. It seemed morbidly ironic. And my day did not get any worse. But in retrospect it wasn't as bad as it could have been. None of the elevators in this particular building (there are 10) actually work exactly right *all* the time. And I am on these elevators constantly. That's likely on a lot of minds at the hospital now. xponent Down Day Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 05:30:44PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > Which is one point in favor of a firearm for home defense: it takes > less training to learn to fire it than it does to learn to use a > throwing knife, I consider that a point against. If I have a weapon that requires skill, if it gets into someone else's hand, especially an attacker, then it probably isn't as effective against me. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
At 10:06 AM 8/16/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: The Fool wrote: > The photo-ID requirement is presented as a security measure, but business > is the real reason. Airlines didn't resist it, even though they resisted > every other security measure of the past few decades, because it solved a > business problem: the reselling of nonrefundable tickets. Such tickets > used to be advertised regularly in newspaper classifieds. An ad might > read: "Round trip, Boston to Chicago, 11/22-11/30, female, $50." Since > the airlines didn't check IDs and could observe gender, any female could > buy the ticket and fly the route. Now that won't work. Under the guise of > helping prevent terrorism, the airlines solved a business problem of > their own and passed the blame for the solution on to FAA security > requirements. > > But the system fails. I can fly on your ticket. You can fly on my ticket. > We don't even have to be the same gender. Heck, before, if the ticket had been bought with a name appropriate to *either* gender, it wouldn't have been a problem! :) (Lynn, Leslie, Kelly, etc. -- I've met people of all those names in each gender.) . . ., Terry, Kim, Alma, . . . In fact, "Shirley" was originally a man's name, and I know of at least one man with that first name, though for some reason he goes by the initial "S." and his middle name. A Boy Named Sue Is Probably Destined To Become A Lawyer Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
At 10:04 AM 8/16/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: Erik Reuter wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 10:58:17PM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > > > The only weapons we keep with that sort of accessibility right now > > are swords. And me cornered in my own house with a sword is probably > > *extremely* dangerous to whomever is cornering me. > > Do you think your son could expose the blade on the sword? Not at this time under normal circumstances. I don't keep it next to the bed most of the time, but it's in a place I could get to in under 10 seconds, out of his reach. If I were asleep in bed, the dogs would alert me to the presence of an intruder in enough time for me to get to it. (Unless they were out in the yard for skunk-related reasons, which may be the case tonight, depending on how well the cleanup goes today and if the skunk has the sense to get the @#$% out of our yard before they *kill* it.) The last time I had it right next to the bed, he was not sufficiently mobile to get to it or do anything if he *did* get to it. (Speaking of him as a small baby and weapons, have I mentioned the photo of him next to an unsharpened battleaxe? It's really cute, and one of my friends has a framed copy of it on display in her apartment) > How about a quarterstaff (I think Aikido experts call it a "Bo") for > home security? That could work. I like Andy's solution of throwing knives. I'd have to train to use them, though. Which is one point in favor of a firearm for home defense: it takes less training to learn to fire it than it does to learn to use a throwing knife, and it does not require as high a level of physical dexterity or strength to use. Admittedly, those are also the reasons that make it more dangerous if a child finds it. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html Exerpt: "At issue was Iraq's efforts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The U.S. government said those tubes were for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, had uncovered strong evidence that Iraq was using them for conventional rockets. Joe described the rocket story as a transparent Iraqi lie. According to people familiar with his presentation, which circulated before and afterward among government and outside specialists, Joe said the specialized aluminum in the tubes was "overspecified," "inappropriate" and "excessively strong." No one, he told the inspectors, would waste the costly alloy on a rocket. In fact, there was just such a rocket. According to knowledgeable U.S. and overseas sources, experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the Italian-made Medusa 81. Not only the Medusa's alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes." Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
On 15 Aug 2003 at 20:48, Jan Coffey wrote: > > The problem is that guns are too accident prone. (and illegal over > > here). I'm happy with keeping a throwing blade within reach when I > > sleep. > > > > And yes, I've had run-ins with skinhead thugs...but I've never, > > admitedly, been on the worse end of the resulting injuries. > > > You say that guns are acident prone. But you don't have a gun do you? > You havent had a gun around a lot, you don't know how they work or > what features they have so that accidents don't happen do you? > > Why not give a for example. How does this accident happen? I've handled guns yes. When I've been in Israel. I'm a good shot. And I can read rates of things like accidental shootings... > If you have kids isn't every cabinet in your house kidproof? Don't you > have every outlet covered? Again, not a problem with a blade. It's perfectly possible to have a kidsafe holder for one which won't stop me using it quickly. (yes, I'm arround places with kids sometimes...) And lemmie restate - if the UK had the US's gun laws, I WOULD be dead. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
- Original Message - From: "Jan Coffey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 3:26 PM Subject: Re: Most Dangerous States > You don't know me, or my friends, my experiences, or obviously my sympathies > to those who have endured this type of crulty and evil. Its not that I suspected that you don't have sympathy for victims. Its that your apparent attitude that there are just a few criminal types from the wrong side of the track who perpetrate this that feeds the shame of victims. People tend to hide problems in the family due to shame. If it is generally accepted that this happens even in good families, and the fact that the victims have no responsibility, and that there is no family shame associated with it, then victims are more likely to speak about the problem. But, if it is evidence that the victim comes from the wrong type of family, then the victim feels shame for being part of a bad family. (Shame is different from guilt, BTW. Speaking roughly, shame is feeling bad about who you are; while guilt is feeling bad about what you've done.) > I seem to have struck an emotional chord with you and I appologize if that > has made you angry at me, or hurt. I appreciate your apology, but the problem is not so much that you struck an emotional cord as that you repeated dangerous myths that I've seen damage families for 20+ years. Unfortunately, after dealing with sexual abuse, one develops a radar for it. I'll give one example. A young friend of my daughter was sexually abused by an uncle. She would sit on his lap and he'd rub against her. It was subtle enough so he could do it in front of people and only the two of them would know. We have a feeling that something was amiss, but didn't say anything. Finally, when Teri was discussing unacceptable behavior...her job with Parents Annomous dealt with that kind of stuff and my roll as a Brownie leader gave us "permission" to talk about safety issures for kids, the girl said "well, execpt if its a family member, then its OK." We got her premission to talk to her parents, who were very uptight about it. They didn't get help, because of the shame they all felt about this type of thing happening in their family. We lost contact when we moved, but when we regained contact, we found out that the now teenage girl was "boy crazy" and out of control. Its well known that eating disorders, sexual disfunction, etc. are tied to abuse. > I do realize that there are many who are abused and attacked. I am not > suggesting otherwise. I am, however, suggesting that the stats are scued to > make the situation (as far as male perpitrators) seem more widespread than it > is. I understand that. Unfortunately, this belief helps perpetuate the problem. I went to the web to look up sites, and in the hit or miss fashion of the web, I found more information of studies of abuse of males. Its at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyviolence/pdfs/invisib.pdf The surveys are pretty straightforward in theory, but not necessarily in practice. Phone surveys tend to have the lowest number of reported cases, annonomous surveys that people just fill in have the medium, and interviews have the most. One of the difficulties is that one needs to make reporting abuse safe for the victim. Given that, its easy to see why phone interviews are the lowest. Face to face interviews may tend to have a biased sample. But, as you see here, there are samplings that appear to be fairly random...like college students. > Not that it is not a problem mind you. > > There is also a distinct lack of data in these numbers about what part of > society the perpitrators come from. One of the myths is that the perps. come from a distinct criminal element or from poor families. Reported cases to CPS of abuse are biased towards lower income groups, mostly because they have fewer resources to hide the problem. Yet, when surveys are done for past histories, the same bias towards lower income groups is not found. I'd argue that its akin to the fact that illegal drug use cuts across all ecconomic, race, and social boundaries, but people serving sentences tend to be black and Hispanic and tend to be lower income. I know that drug use is rampant among the kids in the upper middle class community I live in, but their families can keep them out of jail if they do get caught. As an interesting aside, even when one logically expects ecconomic status to play a major role in decision making, the evidence for that does not exist. My wife did her master's thesis on the relationship between ecconomic status and battered wives returning to their abuser. She had a fair sample size, 190, and fully expected to see a relationship. She didn't. > Besides, if the numbers are so greate, wouldn't it seem wise for possible > victems to carry a leathal weapon? The problem is that it would usually require a 5 year old or a 10 year old or a 15 year
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
On Saturday, August 16, 2003, at 04:27 pm, Erik Reuter wrote: On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 10:06:33AM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: *either* gender, it wouldn't have been a problem! :) (Lynn, Leslie, Kelly, etc. -- I've met people of all those names in each gender.) You've met a male who spells his name "Lynn"? I know a male Len, never a male Lynn. I concur with the other two. In the UK Leslie is the masculine form and Lesley is the feminine form. And Cameron is *only* a male name here... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ 'The true sausage buff will sooner or later want his own meat grinder.' -- Jack Schmidling ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
Erik Reuter wrote: > > On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 10:06:33AM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > > > *either* gender, it wouldn't have been a problem! :) (Lynn, Leslie, > > Kelly, etc. -- I've met people of all those names in each gender.) > > You've met a male who spells his name "Lynn"? I know a male Len, never a > male Lynn. I concur with the other two. I've met one with the middle name of Lynn, anyway, and I know that a couple of men associated with the NFL have the first name "Lynn". Lynn Scott plays for the Dallas Cowboys, for example. It's interesting how, over time, some names originally meant as boys' names end up being more girls' names. Leslie and Kelly are two such names. Not sure about Lynn. "Madison" which seems to be popular for girls these days has "son" at the end; I don't remember the definition I found in a name book, but it was "son of X" for some X. I think Taylor used to be pretty much just a boy's name, but I know one little girl named Taylor and have heard mothers in stores addressing a daughter as "Taylor". (I don't care for any of the names I've listed above as names for my own offspring, so if there's a pool I don't know about for names, those can be pulled right out of the running. :) ) Julia p.s. Kinda back to the subject line: We'll be needing to travel before the babies are old enough to be left for even a couple of days, so we'll ALL travel together, and I called Southwest (which is probably what we'll end up flying) to ask about ID for young children. Not necessary if the accompanying parents have ID, which would be required. (They *do* want proof of age if you're trying to fly with a child under 2 as a "lap baby", though. Which I would not want to do -- we'll need car seats at the destination and it's easier to just *use* them on the plane than to try to check them, and who wants to hold an infant for a few hours straight in a cramped space like that anyway? I just hope that all my offspring spend more of the flight time sleeping than not) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 10:06:33AM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > *either* gender, it wouldn't have been a problem! :) (Lynn, Leslie, > Kelly, etc. -- I've met people of all those names in each gender.) You've met a male who spells his name "Lynn"? I know a male Len, never a male Lynn. I concur with the other two. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 10:04:28AM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > Erik Reuter wrote: > > > How about a quarterstaff (I think Aikido experts call it a "Bo") for > > home security? > > That could work. That was actually a non-rhetorical question, hopefully for someone who has trained with a staff or a Bo. I assume you would want a slightly shorter staff for indoor use, say 4 or 5 feet. But I wonder if the close quarters would hamper its use. I've often thought that if I ever learn a weapon, I would like for it to be the staff. Most injuries I would inflict with it would be non-lethal, it is no more dangerous in untrained hands than a baseball bat, and I like the idea of the extended reach if the attacker has a (non-throwing) knife. Of course, it would not be much use against an attacker with a gun, but even if I had a gun I think I'd not want to get into a shootout with an attacker with a gun -- in that case I'd either run or try to act submissive and weird until a distraction allowed me to run. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
The Fool wrote: > The photo-ID requirement is presented as a security measure, but business > is the real reason. Airlines didn't resist it, even though they resisted > every other security measure of the past few decades, because it solved a > business problem: the reselling of nonrefundable tickets. Such tickets > used to be advertised regularly in newspaper classifieds. An ad might > read: "Round trip, Boston to Chicago, 11/22-11/30, female, $50." Since > the airlines didn't check IDs and could observe gender, any female could > buy the ticket and fly the route. Now that won't work. Under the guise of > helping prevent terrorism, the airlines solved a business problem of > their own and passed the blame for the solution on to FAA security > requirements. > > But the system fails. I can fly on your ticket. You can fly on my ticket. > We don't even have to be the same gender. Heck, before, if the ticket had been bought with a name appropriate to *either* gender, it wouldn't have been a problem! :) (Lynn, Leslie, Kelly, etc. -- I've met people of all those names in each gender.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
Erik Reuter wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 10:58:17PM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > > > The only weapons we keep with that sort of accessibility right now > > are swords. And me cornered in my own house with a sword is probably > > *extremely* dangerous to whomever is cornering me. > > Do you think your son could expose the blade on the sword? Not at this time under normal circumstances. I don't keep it next to the bed most of the time, but it's in a place I could get to in under 10 seconds, out of his reach. If I were asleep in bed, the dogs would alert me to the presence of an intruder in enough time for me to get to it. (Unless they were out in the yard for skunk-related reasons, which may be the case tonight, depending on how well the cleanup goes today and if the skunk has the sense to get the @#$% out of our yard before they *kill* it.) The last time I had it right next to the bed, he was not sufficiently mobile to get to it or do anything if he *did* get to it. (Speaking of him as a small baby and weapons, have I mentioned the photo of him next to an unsharpened battleaxe? It's really cute, and one of my friends has a framed copy of it on display in her apartment) > How about a quarterstaff (I think Aikido experts call it a "Bo") for > home security? That could work. I like Andy's solution of throwing knives. I'd have to train to use them, though. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 10:58:17PM -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > The only weapons we keep with that sort of accessibility right now > are swords. And me cornered in my own house with a sword is probably > *extremely* dangerous to whomever is cornering me. Do you think your son could expose the blade on the sword? How about a quarterstaff (I think Aikido experts call it a "Bo") for home security? -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scarry - United let's anyone past security.
On 16 Aug 2003 at 1:05, The Fool wrote: > This is a classic example of a security failure because of an > interaction between two different systems. There's a system that > prints out boarding passes in the name of the person who is in the > computer. There's another system that compares the name on the > boarding pass to the name on the photo ID. But there's no system to > make sure that the name on the photo ID matches the name in the > computer. There is if you fly El-Al. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
How to Rig an Election in the United States
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/voting.shtml How to Rig an Election in the United States Sludge Report #154 Bigger Than Watergate! By C.D. Sludge Tuesday 08 July 2003 A Diebold touchscreen voting machine Makers of the walk right in, sit right down, replace ballot tallies with your own GEMS vote counting program. See Below the Companion Article For Detail And Screenshots Of An Election Hack Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program --- The story you are about to read is in this writer's view the biggest political scandal in American history, if not global history. And it is being broken today here in New Zealand. This story cuts to the bone the machinery of democracy in America today. Democracy is the only protection we have against despotic and arbitrary government, and this story is deeply disturbing. Imagine if you will that you are a political interest group that wishes to control forevermore the levers of power. Imagine further that you know you are likely to implement a highly unpopular political agenda, and you do not wish to be removed by a ballot driven backlash. One way to accomplish this outcome would be to adopt the Mugabe (Zimbabwe) or Hun Sen (Cambodia) approach. You agree to hold elections, but simultaneously arrest, imprison and beat your opponents and their supporters. You stuff ballot boxes, disenfranchise voters who are unlikely to vote for you, distort electoral boundaries and provide insufficient polling stations in areas full of opposition supporters. However as so many despots have discovered, eventually such techniques always fail often violently. Hence, if you are a truly ambitious political dynasty you have to be a bit more subtle about your methods. Imagine then if it were possible to somehow subvert the voting process itself in such a way that you could steal elections without anybody knowing. Imagine for example if you could: secure control of the companies that make the voting machines and vote counting software; centralise vote counting systems, and politicise their supervision; legislate for the adoption of such systems throughout your domain, and provide large amounts of money for the purchase of these systems; establish systems of vote counting that effectively prevent anybody on the ground in the election at a booth or precinct level - from seeing what is happening at a micro-level; get all the major media to sign up to a single exit-polling system that you also control removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans. And imagine further that you install a backdoor, or numerous backdoors, in the vote counting systems you have built that enable you to manipulate the tabulation of results in real time as they are coming in. Such a system would enable you to intervene in precisely the minimum number of races necessary to ensure that you won a majority on election night. On the basis of polling you could pick your marginal seats and thus keep your tweaking to a bare minimum. Such a system would enable you to minimise the risks of discovery of your activities. Such a system would enable you to target and remove individual political opponents who were too successful, too popular or too inquisitive. And most importantly of all, such a system would enable you to accomplish all the above without the public being in the least aware of what you were doing. When confronted with the awfulness of your programme they would be forced to concede that at least it is the result of a democratic process. How To Rig An Election In The United States So how would such a system actually work? Well one way to run such a corrupt electoral system might look like this: Each voting precinct (or booth) could be fitted with electronic voting systems, optical scanning systems, punch card voting systems or the more modern touchscreen electronic voting machines; At the close of play each day the booth/precinct supervisor could be under instructions to compile an electronic record of the votes cast in their booth; They might print out a report that contains only the details of the total votes count for that precinct/booth, and then file via modem the full electronic record of votes through to the County supervisor; The County Supervisor could be equipped with a special piece of software and a bank of modems that enables all these results to be received and tabulated in the internals of the computer; The County Supervisors themselves could be assured that their system was bullet proof, certified and contained tamper-protection mechanisms par excellence; The Country Supervisor could be given a range of tools for looking at the data within this software, but nothing to enable them to directly manipulate the results; But unbeknownst to the County Supervisor the software could actually create three separate records of the voting data; Meanwhile - also unbeknownst to the County Supervisor - these three tables of vot
