date:20031223

> >
> > Your model seems to be
> > pre-uplift (stage 0)
> > -> uplifting client (stages 1 to 4?)
> > -> indentured client (stage 5?)
> > Since stage has the same population, and assuming mortality is minimal,
> > each stage must take the same amount of time.
>
> Yes: the period where a species is under uplift may vary a lot, but
> it's said somewhere that the mean [median?] is 100k. And the
> period of indenture is explicitly stated as 100k.
>
> > My mental model is
> > pre-uplift (stage 0)
> > -> uplifting clients, this includes indenture (stages 1-5)
>
> Ok, but why do you join the indenture period with the uplift
> period? They are quite distinct phases.
>
> > The pre-uplift stage goes fast but has high "mortality" as the GUI denies
> > claims or proposed projects.  It is also irrelevant.  We do not worry
> > about pre-clients in this "census".
>
> Yes :-)
>
> > The mean term for uplift/indenture combined is 100KY
>
> No!!! The uplift process can be long or short, but the indenture period
> is fixed.

First, let me say that I am a bit embarassed to be having this conversation 
since it shows the degree to which I have denegrated into a Trekkie -- 
writing fan-fic is bad enough but I am about to indulge in proof-texting 
science fiction.  Of course, my embarasment is not enough to make me stop

Note, I am working off of SeJ's Uplift 2nd ed.  I don't think DB has (or would 
need to) develop this little theme.  Still, for myself it would be nice to 
have this bit of background pinned down.

Alberto, your reading of the text that there are basically four gross phases 
of maturity (pre-uplift, uplift, indenture, full-maturity) seems reasonable.  
Even so, I do not think it was what SeJ intended.  I think that the uplift 
stage (stages 1-5), minor client, and indenture are all meant to be used as 
synonyms.  On Uplift 2nd ed p82 SeJ talks about indenture--that is to say 
being a minor client--in general. On p83 his intent is not to talk about a 
different stage in a species life-cycle, instead he just goes into more 
specific detail about what he just discussed on p82.

I cannot prove outright that SeJ did not mean to say that there was a stage of 
uplift minority followed by a stage of uplift indenture, b I can marshal 
circumstantial evidence that his intent was instead that uplift minority and 
indenture were in fact meant to be two words for the same thing.   

-- Had SeJ meant indenture to be a stage following uplift we would expect him 
to be quite explicit about it.  

 The order of the passages would be different in the 2nd edition.  He 
would first talk about uplift THEN about indenture.  Furthermore, there would 
be a scentence in the passage about indenture to the effect "The period of 
uplift is paid off with a period of indenture."  (There is a passage that 
implies this, but it is in the glossare under 'indenture' and can be read as 
meaning that uplift is paid-off with services rendered during the process of 
uplift.)

 There would somewhere be a reference to 100,000 years followed by another 
100,000 years or a reference to 200,000 years of subjegation somewhere in DB 
or SeJ.

-- When not practiced by wierdos like Humans, the 2nd edition allows for only 
about a 30% variation in the duration of uplift if we keep stage 5 at 50KY 
(and the book say 50KY is a *minimum.)  The minimum period is 83KY and the 
max is 105KY.  There is no need to posit a second 100KY because many species 
are uplifted really fast.

-- The indenture passage on p82 say that patrons can perform uplift 
manipulations on their indentured clients.  If the clients have completed 
their uplift then how can their patrons still perform uplift on them?

-- The Nahalli are reindentured to the Thennanin for punishment, and 
presumably rehabilitation.  This implies that the Nahalli are *NOT* subject 
to uplift as clients in their minority, but the Thennanin are responsible for 
the Nahalli.  The Thennanin have been cursed with an albatros--they cannot 
reform the Nahalli without uplift manipualiton.  (This might make sense if 
the Thennanin were the Nahalli's uplift consorts and are being punished 
rather than rewarded.)

-- When the Stoort free the Kaschan (their elders) and the Heebi (juniors) 
from the J'8lek, the Kaschan are indentured to their uplift consorts as were 
the Heebi, the Pargi.  Why?  Under your interpretation they were *indentured* 
this means that they must have finished or been absolved of further patron 
supervised uplift.  Why force them into an indenture?  If they go into 
indenture why not the trouble-making Stoort?


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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

John wrote:

JDG - Who somehow has demonstrated his void of real arguments by failing 
to respond in depth to Doug P.'s hyperbolic blanket charges against all
conservatives.
I know you don't always follow the list closely these days, so I'll be 
less cryptic.  Gautam has written at length in the past about how the 
right polices it's own and the left does not.  Recent events leave me well 
beyond skeptical, precipitating my comment.

--
Doug
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

> "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Robert Seeberger wrote:

> >I think the point Tom is riffing on is that Rush
> has repeatedly
> >claimed that there is no constitutional right to
> privacy.
> >That would likely apply also to medical records.

> Why does arguing that there is no constitution right
> to privacy to have
> abortions or homosexual relationships at all apply
> to the execution of the
> laws of Florida regarding medical records?   
> 
> Or more generally, what is so inconsistent about
> saying that there is no
> right to privacy to have an abortion or a homosexual
> relationship, but that
> there is a right to privacy that protects one from a
> government's
> unreasonable search of your medical records?

How can you *possibly* equate sexual activity between
consenting adults to abortion?  Especially since
homosexual sex has *no* chance of leading to abortion?
 While I support the right-to-choose as a necessity, I
have posted that in my version of an ideal world, all
sexually active adults (all teens would wait until
"legal" age) would use 100%-effective types of birth
control, all sex would be consensual, and there would
be little need for abortion except in case of the
mother's life being uncorrectably endangered (in my
ideal world, birth defects would be identified and
corrected prenatally, and there wouldn't be any rape
either).  Of course, my ideal world *has* never and
*will* never exist, although we might come close in
some respects.

What happens between consenting adults in their own
homes is certainly not the government's business.  I
personally find the practice of wife/husband swapping
disgusting, but have no interest in any law against it
- although 'the law' might conceivably become involved
if frex there is a paternity question.  :P

*Graphic terms warning this paragraph*
And abortion is a medical procedure, so it falls under
the medical records umbrella.  I personally think that
parts of medical records, such as injuries sustained
in a physical assault or caused accident, do need to
be allowable in court; however, intimate detailed
accounts such as Miss Brown being sodomized by a beer
bottle, or Mr. Smith having his genitals shredded by a
viciously swung chainsaw, should not be made public
(seal the records for 50-100 years?  Forever?).  

As I have previously posted, medical personnel have
*already* deliberately omitted recording certain
things, that have no _current_ relevance, in the
medical record because insurance companies have used
them to deny coverage, and/or employers have gained
access to sensitive information and used it against an
employee.  [Examples of things that might be omitted:
trying pot once or twice in youth (but regular use of
any illicit drug or IV drug use can have future
consequences, so those must be written); clinical
depression, as after the death of a child, that is
diagnosed in retrospect; remote history of being
abused as a child, if therapy has already been
completed in the past.  I have heard of each of these
examples causing significant current problems for a
person, even though the situations were resolved in
the remote past.]

Debbi

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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

John wrote:

As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.

But how many on the left have made grandiose assertions that they have?

--
Doug
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

On Tuesday 2003-12-23 22:09, John D. Giorgis wrote:
> At 10:52 PM 12/23/2003 -0600 Robert Seeberger wrote:
> >I think the point Tom is riffing on is that Rush has repeatedly
> >claimed that there is no constitutional right to privacy.
> >That would likely apply also to medical records.
>
> Why does arguing that there is no constitution right to privacy to have
> abortions or homosexual relationships at all apply to the execution of the
> laws of Florida regarding medical records?
>
> Or more generally, what is so inconsistent about saying that there is no
> right to privacy to have an abortion or a homosexual relationship, but that
> there is a right to privacy that protects one from a government's
> unreasonable search of your medical records?
>
> It is not at all evident to me that there is a position on one necessitates
> a position on the other.

A position on one entails a position of the other if you defend yourself with 
an apeal to a *general* right to privacy.

If you apeal to a medical right to privacy (or confidentiality) then it covers 
the Linbaugh case and the abortion case.  (Separating the two will require 
arguing abortion is not under the purview of medicine--no problem for JDG, no 
doubt, but a postion that is far from obvious to me).  However, a narrower 
medical right to privacy DOES obviously exclude protection for sexual 
practices.

--

More importantly, who cares if Rush is a hypocrite?  If he's such a good 
conservative why has he been married and divorced so many times?  Rush is a 
marketeer.  Attacking Rush for being Rush is a cheap ad homeniem argument.  
Rush is not important, his showmanship and message are--especially his 
showmanship.  The way he packages his message and the good feeling he gives 
his listeners is more important than his message.  The message tends to be 
pretty thin, but its an energizing rush for conservatives.

> JDG - Who has no arguments, nor any apologies.
> ___
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>it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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Re: Notes on Uplift


> > We approximate the rate of uplift as an average of 1.1 client per mature
> > species. (The [fictional] real rate has to include non-reproducers and
> > mortality and some growth in the number of citizen species it must be
> > between 1.01 and 1.2.)  Clients are not fairly distributed.
> >
> > Lets assume 11% of all O-2 citizens are minors. (1% of these are going to
> > get 'lost')
> >
> > Note this seems to imply that the mean life expectancy for an O-2 citizen
> > race is about 1,000,000 years.
>
> This 1 My is explicitly stated in Heaven's Reach.
>
> > This is a bit short for purposes of
> > continuity with the fiction.  If you want the mean life expectency
> > between the start of uplift and passing-on to be 10MY then you need to
> > divide by 10, so only 1.1% of all O-2 citizens would be minors.
>
> But 10 My is too much for an average. Notice that everybody expects the
> Buyur to be retired, after "only" 0.5 My.
>
> > With maximally equitble distribution about 10% of Citizens are patrons,
> > 1% of the population have 2 clients.  In this sort of society you might
> > want to uplift your client early to maximize your power.  This implies a
> > species lifecycle of 10% minority, 10% young adult, 10% active parent
> > with client, 70% empty nest (except for the 10% of the population who get
> > a second client).With low death rates the average client in its
> > minority/indenture would have 4 ancestors in its patronymic because a
> > citizen tends to start its uplift project when it is about 200KY old.
>
> And this is consistent with the data from the Books.
>
> > Alternatively, a most responsible citizen might uplift their client late
> > so they have a lot of wisdom and technology for the project.  Then you
> > have 10% minor, 60% adult, 10% parent, 20% elder.  Patronymics tend to be
> > short.
>
> And Patronymics _are_ short: few races enumerate more than 3 or 4
> "daddies".
>
> > At really low levels of equity only 1% of all species might be patrons at
> > any given time and many patrons will be active uplifting clients
> > throughout their careers as main sequence citizens.
> >
> > If we want 1MY mean life-spans, then 11% clients and 5% patrons might
> > provide for interesting but not grossly inequitble politics consistent
> > with existing sources on the Uplift Universe.
>
> Uh?

I picked 11% because there will be some mortality among uplift projects.  With 
current medical technology the replacement birthrate is something like 2.1 
births per couple.  1.1 is a convenient (if not totally convincing) 
replacement rate for the population of O-2 species

My other point is that if there are X uplift minors and X uplifters then the 
system is egalitarian.  The Uplift Universe is *VERY* fair.  Even if there 
are 10 uplift projects for 9 uplifters the system is still pretty darn fair.  
We get what economists would call a flat wealth curve.  The implication is 
that there is little class warfare -- most (almost all) races are middle 
class and equal.  It implies that even powerful clans, like the Soro or 
Thennanin are not too powerful.  Democratic and egalitarian socio-political 
dynamics keep them in check.

This is bad for literature.

If there are 10 clients being uplifted then we need fewer than 10 patrons.  If 
there are 2 or 3 patrons per 10 clients things are ripe for revolution.  4 to 
6 to 10 and things are noticibly unfair, but we can claim there is equal 
opportunity.  Social Darwinism is good say Dr. Pangloss.  7 or 8 and we have 
some sort of dialectic between fair distribution and rewards to cummulative 
advantage.  

The wealth curves that involve 4 to 8 patrons per 10 clients probably make for 
good story backgrounds.

(These ratios assume that patrons are assigned their clients all at once, 
instead of finishing a project and starting the next Still you see my 
point.)

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RE: Allergies (was: Environmentalism is Evil and Must Be Destroyed)

2003-12-23 Thread Bryon Daly

From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

:
failure -> death if not treated immediately).  But you
didn't mention if your symptoms returned when you came
back from the boat trip and into contact with their
cats; if your symptoms returned promptly upon being
around the cats again, then most likely your body
simply didn't have any cat allergens to react to while
in the boat.
No, they did not return when I got back to their house, (at
least not to anywhere near the same degree).   I was pretty
much OK for the whole rest of that week.
(Jumping threads, Re: SF in music, since I'm replying to you anyways:
I was halfway through writing a post mentioning Rush's "Body Electric",
(and some other Rush stuff) when I had to run and just scrapped it.
Awesome song, awesome album.)
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Re: Outlandish but exceedingly fun.

2003-12-23 Thread Matt Grimaldi

Reggie Bautista wrote:
> 
> Matt wrote:
> >-- Matt
> >
> >...who wonders whether the monkeys' script revisions
> >for Hamlet were any good...
> 
> Is this possible?  Hamlet was perfect, after all ;-)
> 
> Reggie Bautista
> 

The question is not whether it's possible, but
rather, exactly how improbable is it? :-)


-- Matt
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Re: Notes on Uplift

On Monday 2003-12-22 08:45, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> Trent Shipley wrote:
> >> I have done some estimates on this. From data from GURPS Uplift and
> >> from Contacting Aliens, I estimate:
> >>
> >> * about 2 million populated planets at each time
> >
> > Across how many galaxies?
>
> All five of them.
>
> > (Note that for the 1000KY +- Contact Galaxy 4 was
> > fallow, so it doesn't matter.  The real question is whether the GIM
> > populates 2M planets in Galaxy 2 or throughout GIM controled space.)
>
> My estimate includes all five. Of course, as in Drake's equation,
> each factor has an error from 10% to 900% :-)
>
> >> * about 10 planets per race
> >> * about 200,000 races

Alberto, as I recall Drake's Equation has no factor for "Planets Fallow by 
order of the GIM."  Are you proposing there 2M habitable planets, some of 
which are Fallow or that there are, perhaps, 6M habitable planets 2M of which 
are *not* Fallow?

Have you made any allowance for an increase in the number of habitable planets 
due to terraforming?  (Do you need to?)

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RE: ROTK: my mini review (spoilers)

--- Bryon Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >From: "Jim Sharkey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> >A few additional thoughts:
> >Denethor was pitch perfect.
> 
> I thought he was portrayed a being *too* useless and
> psycho.  I read a funny 
> comment from someone saying that Denethor ought to
> get a lawyer because he'd been libeled.

If they'd made it clear that he'd been subtly yet
dreadfully deceived by Sauron's manipulation of his
palantir-viewing, his madness might have been
understandable.  As it was, I thought him pathetic and
insane (not that I am fond of the character - but in
the book it is clear that he has some very good
qualities, sadly corrupted by his mistaken use of the
palantir).

But I liked having Pippin light the first beacon fire
- that was neat!

> >Oliphants rule.

> Yep.  I thought they were great.

  Ooh, yeah!  (Did anyone else have a momentary
flash to the ATATs on Hoth?)

> >Andy Sirkis is *not* a handsome man.

But what a way to lead into the film - very well done,
I thought.

One more nitpick - Arwen's sacrifice of her
immortality was trivialized by having her already
dying b/c of Sauron; IIRC she could have sailed West
anytime before marrying Aragorn.  But the scene where
she sees her future son was beautifully done.

I particularly liked the cutting-back-and-forth from
massive battle scenes to Sam and Frodo's lonely
struggle across Mordor -- very effective.

Adored the music, and even the end-title drawings.

Debbi
Alas, We Have No More To Look Forward To - Although
Hidalgo Ought To Be Good! Maru ;)

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Re: Social values Survey

2003-12-23 Thread Bryon Daly

From: Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Robert Seeberger wrote:
>
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435
>
> I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.
Same here, but very close to the Authenticity & Responsibility quadrant.

I think some of my answers are different than they would have been 4
years ago.  Some attitudes can shift once you have children.
That's about where I am as well.  I know for sure a lot of my attutudes have 
shifted since I had kids.

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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

At 10:52 PM 12/23/2003 -0600 Robert Seeberger wrote:
>I think the point Tom is riffing on is that Rush has repeatedly
>claimed that there is no constitutional right to privacy.
>That would likely apply also to medical records.

Why does arguing that there is no constitution right to privacy to have
abortions or homosexual relationships at all apply to the execution of the
laws of Florida regarding medical records?   

Or more generally, what is so inconsistent about saying that there is no
right to privacy to have an abortion or a homosexual relationship, but that
there is a right to privacy that protects one from a government's
unreasonable search of your medical records?

It is not at all evident to me that there is a position on one necessitates
a position on the other.

JDG - Who has no arguments, nor any apologies.
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite


- Original Message - 
From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite


> At 10:12 PM 12/23/2003 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >> As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.
> >>
> >
> >Is that always your answer? "You're another"? Deal with the issue
at hand:
> >Rush Limbaugh is demanding an accommodation for himself that he has
> expressly
> >insisted, loudly and without compassion or mercy, not be accorded
anyone
> else
> >who has done similar things.
>
> This is false.   I know of no instance in which Rush Limbaugh has
not
> accorded anyone else the privacy of their medical records.

I think the point Tom is riffing on is that Rush has repeatedly
claimed that there is no constitutional right to privacy.
That would likely apply also to medical records.

xponent
Drift Maru
rob


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Re: Social values Survey

> Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Robert Seeberger wrote:

> > > > http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435
> > 
> > I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on
> the graph.

> Same here, but very close to the Authenticity &
> Responsibility quadrant.

Moi aussi.  It's that Lutheran upbringing, I
suspect...
combined with being an Army brat, of course.  If I had
children, I bet they'd be conflicted!   ;)

Debbi
who is *never* conflicted herself...

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Re: Science Fiction In Music


- Original Message - 
From: "Kevin Tarr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: Science Fiction In Music


At 12:06 AM 12/23/2003, you wrote:
>>A message for Kevin for tomorrow!

>And what a short turn around it is.


>>- Original Message -
>>From: "Kevin Tarr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 10:26 PM
>>Subject: RE: Science Fiction In Music
>> >
>> > I have to side with Rob. BOC is very SF. In fact (much to my
delight) he
>> > didn't list Sole Survivor, close to my favorite song, with Secret
Treaties
>> > being my favorite album. (But I'll admit to not knowing Black
Blade, >>>never
>> > heard of it).
>>
>>Black Blade is on Cultasaurus Erectus along with Joan Crawford Has
>>Risen
> >From The Grave.
>>If you like BOC, you are gonna love Black Blade. Its absolutely one
of the
>>best pieces the band ever created. Buck Dharma's guitar smokes all
>>over the
>>song.

>Well, I had CE when it came out all those years ago. I don't know any
of
>the songs on it now, I never got it on tape or CD. Joan Crawford is
on Fire
>of Unknown Origin, the same one that has Sole Survivor.

Oopsyou are rightmy goof!


>> >How does a band from New York City end up writing such messed
>> > up lyrics?
>>
>>They write better song titles than lyrics.
>>Actually, I think the quality of their lyrics has improved greatly
over the
>>years.
>>But I agree that on the first three albums they could be pretty bad.
>>

>Woah Nelly! I didn't mean messed up as bad. (And not trying to put
down
>Deep Purple with this example). Just compare Highway Star to:

[Snip Examples for brevity]

I was thinking more along the lines of:

My heart is black and my lips are cold
Cities on flame with rock and roll
Three thousand guitars
They seem to cry
My ears will melt and then my eyes

Let the girl, let that girl rock and roll
Cities on flame, now, with rock and roll

and

OD'd on life, life itself
OD'd on life itself, OD'd on life itself the power of powers and once
luminous spell
OD'd on life, life itself
OD'd on life itself, OD'd on life itself crumpled like grave cloths
and hipped to the help and you've.
OD'd on life itself

and

Canadian Mounted, baby
Police force at work
Red and Black
It's their color scheme
Get their man
In the end

It's all right it's all right
It's all right it's all right
It's all right ah, yeah my honeys know it's all right
It's all right it's all right
It's all right it's all right
It's all right ah, yeah baby knows it's all right
You'd kill, you'd maim ah, c'mon kill 'em
You'd kill, you'd maim look out


OTOH, BOC uses some imagery that I am quite fond of:

Riding the underground
Swimming in sweat
A rumble above and below
Hey cop don't you know
The heat's on all right
The hot summer day didn't quit for the night

1277 express to heaven
Speeding along like dynamite
1277 express to heaven
Rumbles the steel like a dogfight
You caught me in its spell
Trying to leave but you know darn well
The heat from below can burn your eyes out

Blackened out eyes
Scratched on the wall
Stoned out looks from the crowd
The king will not know
On the wall it was said
The flash of his cards was sprayed with red

xponent
Rumbles The Steel Maru
rob


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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

At 08:21 PM 12/23/2003 -0800 Brad DeLong wrote:
>>  > As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.
>>>
>>
>>Is that always your answer? "You're another"?
>
>Often it is: it's what you do when you're out of real arguments, after all.

Oh I see, Brad, the side with the "real arguments" is the side which argued
that "the Right does not police their own very well" on the basis of Rush
Limbaugh arguing that State of Florida prosecutors did not properly follow
the laws of Florida in asking for his private medical records to be unsealed.

Uh yeah, you guys have "real" arguments all right.

JDG - Who somehow has demonstrated his void of real arguments by failing to
respond in depth to Doug P.'s hyperbolic blanket charges against all
conservatives.   
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

2003-12-23 Thread Brad DeLong

 > As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.

Is that always your answer? "You're another"?
Often it is: it's what you do when you're out of real arguments, after all.

Brad DeLong
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Re: Science Fiction In Music

Julia Thompson wrote:

> Julia
> 
> need to start putting starships on the Christmas tree now...

Tree is decorated.  The R2D2 ornament beeps and whistles when you hit a
button on it.  :)  (That's about as close to the subject line as I can
get with that tree.  Spock, Worf, Janeway and The Borg hardly *sing* on
their starship ornaments)

Starships and angels and bears, oh my!

Julia
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RE: Allergies (was: Environmentalism is Evil and Must Be Destroyed)

> From: Deborah Harrell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> The whole point of "allergy shots" is to increase
> exposure to allergens and get the body to produce
> different antibodies (IgG and/or IgA) which
> effectively remove/destroy the allergen before it can
> interact with IgE, which kicks off the whole histamine
> reaction (OK, that's the general idea, anyway - other
> factors and pathways may be involved also).

When we first got our cats (15 years ago), I had to be extremely
careful when touching them.  If I touched a cat and then touched my
eyes, I'd have a serious allergic reaction.  But of the years that
sort of went away.  Now I can about bury my face in my cats fur and
not have a problem.

I also used to be deathly allergic to a friends Himalayan.  Don't
know if that got getter or not, he doesn't have that cat anymore!

 - jmh
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Re: It was like watching a train wreck..

Gary Nunn wrote:
> 
> I couldn't look away..
> 
> I was sick tonight and was semi trapped on the couch without the remote,
> and The Simple Life came on TV. For those of you not familiar, that is a
> reality TV show that puts Hilton Hotel heiress, Paris Hilton, and Lionel
> Richie's daughter Nicole, on a farm to see how they survive without
> money or credit cards..
> 
> I hope this show was staged, I can't believe that any human could be
> this useless and still be breathing without a respirator.
> 
> Hopefully, the Sci-Fi channel won't pick this up next.

I've been avoiding that show like the plague.  The nanny, who doesn't
have cable, watched an episode, and the tales she told me from that told
me I was wise to not watch any of it.  She was appalled at the behavior
of the girls.

(Anyone planning on seeing some of the Robot Wars marathon on TechTV
Christmas Day?  *Much* nicer viewing.)

Julia
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Re: Incriminating Photograph

2003-12-23 Thread Medievalbk

In a message dated 12/23/2003 8:40:08 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> A lot of attention has recently been given to the now-famous photograph of
>  a prominent American official meeting a brutal dictator and extending his
>  blessings.
>  

Damn. I was expecting to see a picture of Bill Clinton shaking hands with 
Michael Eisner.

William Taylor
-
Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Disney.
What's the difference?
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RE: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread Kevin Tarr

At 11:59 AM 12/23/2003, you wrote:

From: Kevin Tarr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In Music
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 23:26:08 -0500
I'm not trying to be confrontational, but you'd have to carry a lot of 
water to say you are "the" (sorry Nick) resident music freak.
Well I'm a newbie here. So I guess I'll start carrying some water.
(btw, the "confrontational" thing...don't worry about it. Let me have 
whatever you can dish out if you feel so inclined. I simply enjoy discussion)
 seriously, I didn't mean it that way. As I said, it was one 
comment that I didn't want to let go, my fault. And I'm not saying I'm 
anywhere near the level that others are. I know my little realm of music, 
but over a larger area I'm lost.

Would the themes of Boston's first three albums qualify? Only one or two 
songs were SFish, but they had the cover art.
Not to sound confrontational, but you're answering your own question by 
saying that "only one or
two songs were SFish". And of course the cover art is well known. 
Sorry, I'm not trying to be an idiot. I come off a little abrasive at times.

Iron Madien also has Stranger in a Strange Land and To Tame A Land (about 
Dune). Not fantasy DnD at all.
My comments on Maiden were very generalized. In that sense they are very D&D.
I was only pointing these songs out because they are directly about two books.

OH! Just thought of this Rob. On Bucketheads album "Monsters and Robots" 
(SF related in the title alone) he samples R2-D2 (Star Wars) in one of his 
songs. Thought you might like to know.

-Travis "trying to think of the song title" Edmunds

Kevin T. - VRWC
Now I'm going to bed
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Incriminating Photograph

A lot of attention has recently been given to the now-famous photograph of
a prominent American official meeting a brutal dictator and extending his
blessings.

For those of you who haven't seen it, a link to the photograph is included
below, as it has now made it into an archive of American Political History:

 http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/thumbnail394.html

JDG
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

At 10:12 PM 12/23/2003 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.
>> 
>
>Is that always your answer? "You're another"? Deal with the issue at hand: 
>Rush Limbaugh is demanding an accommodation for himself that he has
expressly 
>insisted, loudly and without compassion or mercy, not be accorded anyone
else 
>who has done similar things. 

This is false.   I know of no instance in which Rush Limbaugh has not
accorded anyone else the privacy of their medical records.   More to the
point, I know of no instance when Rush Limbaugh has "loudly and without
compassion or mercy" said that individuals should not have the right to
keep their medical records private.

>Only thing is, Rush is such an obnoxious pig, so loud and so absolutely 
>certain of his own genius and infallibility and perfect rectitude, that
you can't 
>blame people for piling on when he brings all this shit down upon himself, 

I do blame you, however, for gratuitously swearing On-List.

>then acts like he did nothing wrong, and it's all someone else's fault, and 
>then hides behind his lawyers - exactly the kind of behavior that he has
always 
>shrieked about when someone he doesn't like does. Why doesn't he practice
what 
>he's been preaching? 

This is false.   Rush Limbaugh has regularly and repeatedly claimed
responsibility for his addiction and his own actions.

Again, it's simple human nature, but he has never been 
>so understanding of anyone else's foibles. You'd hope being revealed as
flawed 
>would teach him a lesson; but I guess you'd be wrong.
>
>You deal with Rush, since he's one of your own (and you can have him). Leave 
>the Left to the liberals. 

And of course, you have not at all responded to the allegation that the
Left are at minimum no better than the Right than policing their own.
Apparently you would rather swear and bash Rush Limbaugh than actually
address my post.   Kind of ironic for someone who began this post "deal
with the issue at hand."

Thanks anyway.

JDG
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RE: Science Fiction In Music

> Jim Sharkey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Kevin Tarr wrote:
> >Iron Madien also has Stranger in a Strange Land and
> > To Tame A Land (about Dune).

> Or much of the Somewhere in Time album too.
> 
> Glad to have seen 2112 on that list.  I missed it
> the first time through, and had to reread for fear
> that someone on the list had gone insane.  ;-)  You
> could conceivably add the Signals and Power Windows
> albums too.

Ooops!  Sorry, I missed the 2112 reference!  OTOH, I
didn't know that was the name of the album when I
looked Rush stuff up (their early singing is too
screechy for my ears).

Debbi
Color Me Blushing Maru   :}

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Allergies (was: Environmentalism is Evil and Must Be Destroyed)

--- Bryon Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I went to visit some friends...They...had several 
> cats, and my allergies went into 
> overdrive.  I felt like total crud the first two
> days I was there.  Then, I 
> went out in their boat, where we travelled down a
> rather swamp-like 
> stream/river.  I thought I was doomed, but not long
> into the boat trip, my 
> allergies started to clear up, and then they were
> almost entirely gone for 
> the rest of the week.  It was like the massive
> allergen exposure forced my 
> body to quit complaining and just get over it.

The whole point of "allergy shots" is to increase
exposure to allegens and get the body to produce
different antibodies (IgG and/or IgA) which
effectively remove/destroy the allergen before it can
interact with IgE, which kicks off the whole histamine
reaction (OK, that's the general idea, anyway - other
factors and pathways may be involved also).  Of
course, they're supposed to *gradually* expose one to
the offending molecules, but I think that what you
describe is quite possible (I just don't have a cite)
-- although not for a deadly allergic reaction, as in
anaphylaxis (like when a terribly peanut-allergic
child accidentally eats something cooked in peanut
oil; s/he will have severe bronchospasm and vascular
dilation -> respiratory failure and circulatory
failure -> death if not treated immediately).  But you
didn't mention if your symptoms returned when you came
back from the boat trip and into contact with their
cats; if your symptoms returned promptly upon being
around the cats again, then most likely your body
simply didn't have any cat allergens to react to while
in the boat.

This probably ties into the so-called Hygiene
Hypothesis, which posits that early (toddler years)
exposure to various animals and other potential
allergens actually reduces the incidence of severe
allergies & asthma.  Studies have been posted here
previously.

On a personal note, if I'm away from my cats for a
week or more, I notice several days of increased runny
nose/cough when I return, then it gets better.  So I
think that continued exposure is acting as a low-level
'allergy inoculation' via nasal tissue... :)

Julia wrote:
"I've heard the same thing [that consuming unprocessed
local honey will reduce one's allergy symptoms], and
had various people swear up and down that it worked
for them.

"What I want to know, though, is what do you do if
your body has problems with honey?  (I.e., it does
unpleasant things to your digestive system)"

1) If the person's allergies were to flower pollen, as
in ragweed etc., I think this is possible (but
unproven); however if it's pine tree or grass pollen,
or mold, that's the offending allergen, honey wouldn't
have any of those compounds, and so would be very
unlikely to help with symptoms.

2) You could try to obtain locally-produced bee pollen
capsules, which wouldn't contain so much of the
various sugars, and probably less actual chemicals of
bee origin as well.

***I would NOT recommend that anyone with severe
bee/wasp/hornet sting allergy consume either raw honey
or bee pollen capsules!***  (And no Royal Jelly
capsules either!)

Debbi
who is inoculated almost daily with cat saliva  ;)

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Re: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread Kevin Tarr

At 12:06 AM 12/23/2003, you wrote:
A message for Kevin for tomorrow!
And what a short turn around it is.


- Original Message -
From: "Kevin Tarr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In Music
>
> I'm not trying to be confrontational, but you'd have to carry a lot of
> water to say you are "the" (sorry Nick) resident music freak.
He is still pretty new here.
So he deserves some slack.
Besides he seems like a pretty nice guy IMO.
No harm. No foul.

I know. I just read it and wrote my mind. No apologies.


>
> I have to side with Rob. BOC is very SF. In fact (much to my delight) he
> didn't list Sole Survivor, close to my favorite song, with Secret Treaties
> being my favorite album. (But I'll admit to not knowing Black Blade, never
> heard of it).
Black Blade is on Cultasaurus Erectus along with Joan Crawford Has Risen
>From The Grave.
If you like BOC, you are gonna love Black Blade. Its absolutely one of the
best pieces the band ever created. Buck Dharma's guitar smokes all over the
song.
Well, I had CE when it came out all those years ago. I don't know any of 
the songs on it now, I never got it on tape or CD. Joan Crawford is on Fire 
of Unknown Origin, the same one that has Sole Survivor.


>How does a band from New York City end up writing such messed
> up lyrics?
They write better song titles than lyrics.
Actually, I think the quality of their lyrics has improved greatly over the
years.
But I agree that on the first three albums they could be pretty bad.
Woah Nelly! I didn't mean messed up as bad. (And not trying to put down 
Deep Purple with this example). Just compare Highway Star to:

Clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Like acid and oil on a madmans face
His reason tends to fly away
Like lesser birds on the four winds
Like silver scrapes in May
And now the sands become a crust
Most of you have gone away
Or this (about a German jet in WWII)

Get me through these radars, no, I cannot fail
While my great silver slugs are eager to feed
I cant failNo, not now
When twenty five bombers wait ripe
They hung there dependent from the sky
Like some heavy metal fruit
These bombers are ripe and ready to tilt
Must these Englishmen live that I might die
Must they live that I might die
ME 262 prince of turbojet
Junkers Jumo 004
Blasts from clustered R4/M quartets in my snout
And see these English planes go burn
(Wonder if Eric Bloom ever spoke with Roger Waters?) Yes it's nonsensical, 
but it works. Other bands are struggling to compare women with cars and 
these guys are writing this on their third album.



>
> Would the themes of Boston's first three albums qualify? Only one or two
> songs were SFish, but they had the cover art.
Great covers, but not SF&Fnal that I can recall.


I'm thinking of the instrumental before It's Easy on the second release. I 
know you were discounting instrumentals, but you can certainly make 
distinctions between western sounding and urban, so some instrumentals can 
sound SF.


>
> Iron Madien also has Stranger in a Strange Land and To Tame A Land (about
> Dune). Not fantasy DnD at all.
>
> I don't think any of Pink Floyd's music is SF related. It works as a
> soundtrack, but not as directly as the above. Heck, they are more agrarian
> than futuristic.
I always thought of it as either Horror or an Orwellian nightmare.


I may have been stretching that.


>
> What about Devo? The Devolution theme is SFish, but none of their songs >
really fit the bill.
I love DEVO.
The whole DEVO concept is SFish as is quite a bit of Oingo Boingo's music.
I think you would have to fit them into the Phillip K. Dick "reality is
turning against me" conspiracy/paranoia theme file.
Marginally SF at best.

>
> Can't add any more right now. I only flipped the 'puter on because of
> insomnia. Hopefully my 15 hour working day tomorrow will fix that.
>
Good Luck!
xponent
Peek-A-Boo Ha Ha Ha Ha Peek-A-Boo Maru
rob
I started this at 5am, just got home to finish it. I saw the Peek A boo and 
it meant nothing then. Thanks for it.

Kevin T. - VRWC
Back to sleep again, only nine hour day tomorrow
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

2003-12-23 Thread TomFODW

> As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.
> 

Is that always your answer? "You're another"? Deal with the issue at hand: 
Rush Limbaugh is demanding an accommodation for himself that he has expressly 
insisted, loudly and without compassion or mercy, not be accorded anyone else 
who has done similar things. That's blatant hypocrisy. It doesn't matter who on 
the "Left" (which hardly exists anymore, alas, and which certainly does not 
have the ability to reach as many people as Rush Limbaugh does) may have done 
what. Rush wants to be treated in a way that he has always bleated no one else 
should be treated.

Thing is, when just about ANYONE gets in trouble, they suddenly discover all 
kinds of rights that they may never have thought about or even wanted to deny 
other people. Oliver North was not acquitted, after all; his conviction was 
overturned on a technicality. Funny, I don't recall any "lawnorder" types 
bitching about permissive judges when that happened. It's just human nature. 
Right-wingers like to say, "a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." They fail 
to mention the converse, "a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested."

Only thing is, Rush is such an obnoxious pig, so loud and so absolutely 
certain of his own genius and infallibility and perfect rectitude, that you can't 
blame people for piling on when he brings all this shit down upon himself, and 
then acts like he did nothing wrong, and it's all someone else's fault, and 
then hides behind his lawyers - exactly the kind of behavior that he has always 
shrieked about when someone he doesn't like does. Why doesn't he practice what 
he's been preaching? Again, it's simple human nature, but he has never been 
so understanding of anyone else's foibles. You'd hope being revealed as flawed 
would teach him a lesson; but I guess you'd be wrong.

You deal with Rush, since he's one of your own (and you can have him). Leave 
the Left to the liberals. 



Tom Beck

www.mercerjewishsingles.org

"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the 
last." - Dr Jerry Pournelle
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Re: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread John Garcia

At 07:18 PM 12/22/2003 -0600, you wrote:

The Alan Parsons Project?
Puulease..Just look at their catalogue. Its virtually all SF&F!!!
Yep. Gotta agree with you on that one. I'd go with I, Robot by APP.

john

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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

At 05:20 PM 12/23/2003 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>Yea, and between this, the outing of the CIA agent and Bush waggling his 
>finger at Halliburton we see how well the Right polices its own.

As opposed, of course, to how well the Left policies it own.

JDG
GSV Tut Tut Back at Ya
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RE: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread Jim Sharkey

Kevin Tarr wrote:
>Iron Madien also has Stranger in a Strange Land and To Tame A Land 
>(about Dune).

Or much of the Somewhere in Time album too.

Glad to have seen 2112 on that list.  I missed it the first time through, and had to 
reread for fear that someone on the list had gone insane.  ;-)  You could conceivably 
add the Signals and Power Windows albums too.

Jim

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Re: Science Fiction In Music

> Robert Seeberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is
> music with Science Fictional and Fantasmal themes.

No one's mentioned Rush yet - oh, goody, so I get to!
Their concept album 2112 with the "Temples of Syrinx"
speaks of the 'great computers,' the Solar Federation,
and how they have made the world contented:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/9123/lyrics/2112.html

Many individual songs from multiple albums use science
facts or memes to elaborate various themes ; sometimes
it's a pun (frex "in the dog days of summer/People
look to Sirius"  which I heard as "look too serious").

Data might have found this one poignant:
http://www.2112.net/xanadu/lyrics/gup.html#thebodyelectric
"The Body Electric"
One humanoid escapee/One android on the run
Seeking freedom beneath/A lonely desert sun 

Trying to change its program
Trying to change the mode ---/Crack the code
Images conflicting/Into data overload 

1-0-0-1-0-0-1/S.O.S./1-0-0-1-0-0-1/In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0 

Memory banks unloading/Bytes break into bits
Unit one's in trouble/And it's scared out of its wits 

Guidance systems break down/A struggle to exist ---
To resist ---/A pulse of dying power
In a clenching plastic fist... 

(More at the above site; also check out the first
song, "Distant Early Warning" w/ references to 'heavy
water' and satellites.)

"Chain Lightning" makes me think of the Uplift
universe:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/9123/lyrics/presto.html
Energy is contagious/Enthusiasm spreads
Tides respond to lunar gravitation
Everything turns in synchronous relation

Laughter is infectious/Excitement goes to my head
Winds are stirred by planets in rotation
Sparks ignite and spread new information

Respond, vibrate, feed back, resonate

Sun dogs fire on the horizon
Meteor rain stars across the night
This moment may be brief/But it can be so bright

On the fantasy level is "The Trees," about war between
the oaks and the maples (last song):
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/9123/lyrics/hemispheres.html

and "Rivendell" (next-to-last song) at:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/9123/lyrics/fbn.html

Debbi
Oh, There Are Many More But I'll Stifle Myself Maru:)

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It was like watching a train wreck..

2003-12-23 Thread Gary Nunn


I couldn't look away..

I was sick tonight and was semi trapped on the couch without the remote,
and The Simple Life came on TV. For those of you not familiar, that is a
reality TV show that puts Hilton Hotel heiress, Paris Hilton, and Lionel
Richie's daughter Nicole, on a farm to see how they survive without
money or credit cards..

I hope this show was staged, I can't believe that any human could be
this useless and still be breathing without a respirator. 

Hopefully, the Sci-Fi channel won't pick this up next.

http://www.fox.com/simplelife/

Gary

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Guilt by Technology

Drawn from the Comp.Risks mailing list:

A friend was inspired by his sister, who just got an MP3 player
installed in
her car.  He wanted to do the same.
 
He called the Mercedes dealer that he normally goes to, and asked if
they
could fit his car up with an MP3 player.  He was politely informed
that they
could not.  Undaunted, he asked whether an MP3 player could be
installed if
he was willing to put in a whole new stereo system.  The gentleman
on the
line patiently explained that No, Mercedes does not make MP3 players
available in any of their cars, new or old.  As he put it, "MP3s are
for
people who download music.  People who buy Mercedes cars can afford
to buy
their music."

  - jmh
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Re: Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

William wrote:


Maybe what Rush meant to say that there was no Constitutional right to 
privacy for law-abiding homosexuals, but there is a Constitutional right 
to privacy for conservative radio talk show host prescription drug 
addicts.

Yea, and between this, the outing of the CIA agent and Bush waggling his 
finger at Halliburton we see how well the Right polices its own.

--
Doug
GSV Tut Tut
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Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite

2003-12-23 Thread William T Goodall

http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=4369

"Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite.

You might recall that in response to the decision this year in Lawrence 
and Garner versus Texas, which established that people have a right to 
sexual privacy in their own bedrooms, free from the meddling of state 
laws criminalizing their adult, consensual sexual behaviour, Rush 
Limbaugh said, "There is no right to privacy specifically enumerated in 
the Constitution." We reposted an article about this detailing lots of 
rights we take for granted that aren't specifically enumerated in the 
Constitution and how the word "privacy" in colonial times meant doing a 
toilet.

It turns out that Limbaugh has miraculously discovered a Constitutional 
right to privacy when it's his privacy in question. As you probably 
know, Limbaugh is being investigated for illegally obtaining thousands 
of doses of Oxycontin to feed his drug addiction. As part of that 
investigation, prosecutors wanted access to his medical records. I 
agreed that it wouldn't be appropriate for the records to be made fully 
public, but that as part of an ongoing criminal investigation it was 
proper for records pertinent to the investigation to be subpoenaed.

But Rush "No Constitutional Right to Privacy" Limbaugh's lawyers, led 
by Roy Black argued that releasing his medical records to prosecutors 
violated Limbaugh's Constitutional right to privacy. Judge Jeffrey A. 
Winikoff disagreed, saying, "The court knows of no less intrusive means 
to obtain the clearly relevant information than the methods the state 
employed here." He added that the state had acted in good faith.

Maybe what Rush meant to say that there was no Constitutional right to 
privacy for law-abiding homosexuals, but there is a Constitutional 
right to privacy for conservative radio talk show host prescription 
drug addicts.

---Nick"

LOL

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run 
out of things they can do with UNIX." - Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 
1984.

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Re: Have a Soulful Solstice :-)

--- Alberto Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Deborah Harrell wrote:

> > Well, now I must put on my medieval gown and
> trundle
> > off for a solstice party -- this is my neo-druid
> > friends' shindig, and I'm supposed to add a bit of
> > quasi-partial-well-OK-pretend authenticity...   ;)

> How pathetic is this neopaganism in the Northern
> Hemisphere!
> If these things were celebrated here, people would
> be dressed in _skin_! :-P

Wee-el, while the ladies might not care what the cold
does to their assets ("Pardon, do your mammometers
imply that it is nearly freezing?"), but the gentlemen
might prefer not to have theirs so...contracted.   ;}

It Snowed That Night Maru 

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Re: First Mad Cow Case in U.S.

2003-12-23 Thread TomFODW

A) Veneman did not appear to indicate any second thoughts about American 
cattle eating animal byproducts. 

B) Wonder what this will do to the US blood supply. They already exclude 
people from donating blood who've lived for more than a certain amount of time in 
England and other places that have had cases of mad cow disease. If there are 
any significant number of cases here, what will they do?



Tom Beck

www.mercerjewishsingles.org

"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the 
last." - Dr Jerry Pournelle
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First Mad Cow Case in U.S.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/ny-usmadcow1224,0,6747920,print.story?coll=nyc-topnews-short-navigation

The first-ever U.S. case of mad cow disease is suspected in a single cow in
Washington state, but the American food supply is safe, Agriculture
Secretary Ann Veneman said Tuesday.

The USDA secretary said that the testing was presumed to be positive, but
emphasized that the chance of humans contracting the disease was extremely
rare.

"We remain confident in the safety of our food supply," said Veneman.

She said that additional testing was being done by a laboratory in England
on samples being flown there by a military transport, and that in the
meantime, and farm in Washington state had been quarantined.

She told a news conference that a single Holstein cow that was either sick
or injured -- thus never destined for the U.S. food supply -- tested
presumptively positive for the brain-wasting illness.

She added that the case was detected as a result of a longstanding
monitoring program, and that now that an infected animal had been found, the
USDA's emergency plan to deal with Mad Cow disease had been implemented.

The government spokeswoman said that the disease is not easily spreadable
among livestock.

Mad cow disease, known also as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a
disease that eats holes in the brains of cattle. It sprang up in Britain in
1986 and spread through countries in Europe and Asia, prompting massive
destruction of herds and decimating the European beef industry.

Veneman said Tuesday: "This incident is not terrorist related. ... I cannot
stress this point strongly enough."

Veneman said the apparently diseased cow was found at a farm in Mapleton,
Wash., about 40 miles southeast of Yakima. She said the farm has been
quarantined.

"Even though the risk to human health is minimal, we will take all
appropriate actions out of an abundance of caution," she said.

Samples from the cow have been sent to Britain for confirmation of the
preliminary mad cow finding, she said.

Mad cow disease has never been found in the United States before this
incident despite intensive testing for it.

xponent
P.O. Bovine Maru
rob

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RE: Another Social Values Survey

> From: Robert Seeberger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> http://3sc.environics.net/surveys/3sc/main/3sc.asp
> 
> 
> 
> I'm an Autonomous Rebel,
> and show a similarity to Disengaged Darwinists

Automomous Rebel as well.  No similarity that I can see...

 - jmh
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Re: Another Social Values Survey

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:08:25 -0600, Robert Seeberger 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



http://3sc.environics.net/surveys/3sc/main/3sc.asp



I'm an Autonomous Rebel,
and show a similarity to Disengaged Darwinists
xponent
Quizzes Are Fun Maru
rob
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I'm an Autonomous Rebel

With a similarity to Connected Enthusiasts

--
Doug
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Re: Science Fiction In Music

Robert Seeberger wrote:
> 
> - Original Message -
> From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 10:46 AM
> Subject: Re: Science Fiction In Music
> 
> > Robert Seeberger wrote:
> >
> >
> > > I'd like to see some suggestions from others, and criticisms too
> > >
> > > There ought to be a few limits too:
> > > No Purple People Eater comedy type songs.
> > > No instrumentals (Names are just too little to go on)
> > > Songs or albums must have a distinct and clear reference to SF&F tropes.
> > > (I'm including Horror as a subgenre of Fantasy, in case that wasn't very
> > > clear. So Horror is fair game.)
> > > And suggestions for BEST GROUP should come with some justification as to
> why
> > > you think a band or artist is the best SF&Fnal group or artist.
> > >
> > > Now I know I haven't come close to covering all the bases in this post.
> > > So tell me what I missed and where I am wrong!!
> >
> > OK, your rules rule out Fresh Aire V by Mannheim Steamroller.  That's
> > about all I can come up with this morning that hasn't already been
> > mentioned.
> >
> Don't be hasty!
> Now if one can make an argument for an album being SF&Fnal, it has to be
> considered I would think.
> 
> Fresh Aire V appears to be a concept album, and that would make it
> allowable.

The liner notes might help -- most of it is a translation of Kepler's
story about a trip to the moon.  :)  And the pieces on the album are
musical interpretations of parts of the story.

Plus maybe you could make some sort of argument for the cover art.

Julia

need to start putting starships on the Christmas tree now...
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Re: Social values Survey

Robert Seeberger wrote:
> 
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435
> 
> I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.

Same here, but very close to the Authenticity & Responsibility quadrant.

I think some of my answers are different than they would have been 4
years ago.  Some attitudes can shift once you have children.

Julia
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Re: Social values Survey

Robert Seeberger wrote:
> 
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435
> 
> I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.
> 
> Pretty much what I expected.

I wonder if *anyone* subscribed here will take the test and fall into
the Status & Security quadrant.

Julia
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Re: Social values Survey

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:13:13 -0600, Robert Seeberger 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435

I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.

Pretty much what I expected.

Same here.

--
Doug
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Another Social Values Survey



http://3sc.environics.net/surveys/3sc/main/3sc.asp



I'm an Autonomous Rebel,
and show a similarity to Disengaged Darwinists


xponent
Quizzes Are Fun Maru
rob


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Re: christianism is evil, why it must be eradicated

Ronn! wrote:


Like a toilet?

Carefull now, I've been to Alabama.  And not just driving through, either.

--
Doug
Rou On Jefferson Davis' Birthday, Even
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Re: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings

2003-12-23 Thread Alberto Monteiro

Travis Edmunds wrote:
>
>> If one of my kids needed some special organ (say, the heart) and it
>> happened that the only one available (compatibility, etc) was _yours_,
>> I might try to kill you to harvest that organ.
>>
>> That doesn't make it right.
>
> Disclaimer: I didn't render my own opinions in my original post on this
> subject. That being said however, I think you're missing the point. 
>
No, I am just pushing it to the ultimate consequences. It's
like a _reductio ad absurdum_ proof :-)

> If you grew up in a society where killing was commonplace,
> I doubt very much the taking of human life would bother you
> in the least. Unless in an
> intellectual way you disliked the fact that a sentient being was forced
> into non-existence. 
>
But it's the same thing, isn't it? We are going to sacrifice some
few unimportant lifes to save one important life. It's like war: everybody
is a pacifist, until we see a small gain for us at the expense of
killing some strangers.

> On the same note though you bring up an interesting
> point. You're saying that you would cross your own moral, ethical lines in
> order to save the life of a loved one, all the time understanding that what
> you're doing is wrong. But of course the concept of wrong comes full circle
> back to my point.
>
My point - I guess I am repeating myself - is that morality choices done
in despair can't be the basis for a morality system. People kill for a piece
of bread [or a gram of cocaine].

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: innocent non-combatant friend

At 09:26 AM 12/23/03, Robert J. Chassell wrote:

What is a good as well as practical way distinguish friends from enemy
guerrillas?


Um . . . friends don't generally try to kill us?



-- Ronn!  :)

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More U.S. women crack glass ceiling

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031222-091120-7505r.htm

For the first time since tracking began 20 years ago, U.S. women outnumber
men in higher paying, white collar managerial and professional occupations.
The gap will continue because of a self-perpetuating cycle of workplace
gains for women, according to international outplacment firm Chicago-based
Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

"As a growing number move into upper management roles, those further down
the ladder will reap the benefits by increasingly being targeted for
advancement," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of
Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that, as of Nov. 30, women
represent 50.6 percent of the 48 million employees in management,
professional and related occupations.

In 1983, the first year the government began recording gender data for its
occupational statistics, women accounted for 40.9 percent of managers and
professionals.

"At the computer, women are just as productive as men," said Challenger.
"This fact alone has opened up a world of opportunity for women and is
bringing an end to outdated concepts like the glass ceiling."



xponent

A Change Is Gonna Come Maru

roberta


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RE: Social values Survey

> From: Travis Edmunds [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> >From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435
> >
> >
> >I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.
> >
> 
> Same with me.

Me three.  Not sure what else I expected.

  - jmh

Obligatory Last Line Maru
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RE: Social values Survey

From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Social values Survey
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:13:13 -0600
http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435

I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.

Pretty much what I expected.

xponent
Mythical Predictability Maru
rob
Same with me.

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RE: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread Chad Cooper


I don't think anyone has mentioned...

"Major Tom" by Peter Schilling
"Cosmic Thing" by The B-52's
"Planet Claire" by The B-52's

"Jimmy Neutron Theme" - Brian Causey
Brian Causey also was the leader of a band called "Man or Astro-man?" which
is almost all Sci-fi themed music...

Anything by Kraftwerk

Devo was mentioned earlier
"Space Junk" by Devo
"Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" by Devo
"Mechanical Man" by Devo
"Recombo DNA" by Devo
"Gates of Steel" by Devo

"She blinded me with Science" by Thomas Dolby

"Electric Barbella"  by Duran Duran
"Twillight Zone" by Golden Earring 

"Crystal Ship" by the Doors

"Bella Legosi's Dead" by Bauhaus

A bunch of songs by the Cramps

Oingo Boingo was mentioned earlier
Songs of interest are "No Spill Blood" w/ indirect reference to Animal Farm,
and "Weird Science" 


Lastly does "Pencil-neck Geek" by Fred Blassie qualify?


Pencil Neck Geek
Freddie Blassie

Back when I was a kid, life was going swell.
Till something happened, blew every thing to hell.
That night my daddy stumbled in, all pale and weak,
Said "A woman up the block just gave birth to a geek."

Mom said, "Sell it to the circus, what the heck."
Dad said, "Nope, this one's a pencil neck.
And if there's one thing lower than a side show freak, 
It's a grit eatin', scum suckin', pencil neck geek."

You see if you take a pencil that won't hold lead, 
Looks like a pipe cleaner atached to a head,
Add a buggy whip body with a brain that leaks,
You got yourself a grit eatin', pencil neck geek.

(chorus)
Pencil neck geek, grit eatin' freak, 
scum suckin', pea head with a lousy physique.
He's a one man, no gut, loosing streak.
Nothin' but a pencil neck geek. 

Soon the geeks were poppin' up all over town. 
You couldn't hardly sneeze without knockin' one down.
After a nice juicy steak, if you need a toothpick,
Just reach for a geek, they'll do the trick.

One day we cut one up for fish bait. 
Learned our lesson just a little bit late.
Soon as the geek hit the drink, the water turned red.
Next day, sure enough, all the fish were dead.

chorus

Most any night you know where I can be found.
Yeah, stomping some geek's head into the ground.
So keep the faith 'cause in Blassie you can trust,
I won't give up 'til the last geek bites the dust.

chorus

They say, "these geeks come a dime a dozen."
I'm lookin' for the guy who's supplyin' the dimes.
Its gonna be real hard times for all of these
grit eatin',
scum suckin',
boot lickin', 
drop kickin', 
gut grindin',
nail bitin',
glue sniffin',
scab pickin',
butt scratchin',
egg hatchin',
sleezy,
smelly,
pepper bellied, 
dirty, lousy, rotten, stinkin', freaks.
Nothing but a pencil neck geek


Nerd From Hell


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Social values Survey

http://makeashorterlink.com/?C5CB22435


I fall into the Idealism and Autonomy quadrant on the graph.

Pretty much what I expected.


xponent
Mythical Predictability Maru
rob


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Re: Science Fiction In Music


- Original Message - 
From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: Science Fiction In Music


> Robert Seeberger wrote:
>
>
> > I'd like to see some suggestions from others, and criticisms too
> >
> > There ought to be a few limits too:
> > No Purple People Eater comedy type songs.
> > No instrumentals (Names are just too little to go on)
> > Songs or albums must have a distinct and clear reference to SF&F tropes.
> > (I'm including Horror as a subgenre of Fantasy, in case that wasn't very
> > clear. So Horror is fair game.)
> > And suggestions for BEST GROUP should come with some justification as to
why
> > you think a band or artist is the best SF&Fnal group or artist.
> >
> > Now I know I haven't come close to covering all the bases in this post.
> > So tell me what I missed and where I am wrong!!
>
> OK, your rules rule out Fresh Aire V by Mannheim Steamroller.  That's
> about all I can come up with this morning that hasn't already been
> mentioned.
>
Don't be hasty!
Now if one can make an argument for an album being SF&Fnal, it has to be
considered I would think.

Fresh Aire V appears to be a concept album, and that would make it
allowable.

xponent
Not So Much Hard Rules As Soft Guidelines Maru
rob


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RE: Science Fiction In General...

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In General...
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 03:06:31 -0600
At 09:04 PM 12/22/03, Travis Edmunds wrote:

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In General...
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 17:47:28 -0600
Last I knew, he was on the high council.  Of course, it has been a while 
since I talked to him in person.  I suppose I should read his web site 
more often . . .

-- Ronn!  :)
You've spoken to Mr Card in person?

Yes.  Usually when we have both been at LTU&E 
<>, which I had a small part in getting 
started, but obviously don't get to go as often these days as when I lived 
nearer.  (Though, FWIW, I guess OSC and I do live significantly closer to 
each other than either of us does to Provo . . .)

-- Ronn!  :)

So are you an OS Card fan?

-Travis

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RE: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 02:54:35 -0600
At 08:22 PM 12/22/03, Travis Edmunds wrote:

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 17:35:26 -0600
I know.  But then you know I have to point out the obvious . . .

;-)

-- Ronn!  :)
No, I didn't know that. And not to seem sarcastic or disputatious, as that 
is not my intent, could you explain that one to me? I really don't 
understand why you "have to point out the obvious".

See the .sig.

-- Ronn!  :)

Professional Smart-Aleck.  Do Not Attempt.

 "et tu Ronn!?"

-Travis "bowing out" Edmunds

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RE: Science Fiction In Music

From: Kevin Tarr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In Music
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 23:26:08 -0500
I'm not trying to be confrontational, but you'd have to carry a lot of 
water to say you are "the" (sorry Nick) resident music freak.

Well I'm a newbie here. So I guess I'll start carrying some water.
(btw, the "confrontational" thing...don't worry about it. Let me have 
whatever you can dish out if you feel so inclined. I simply enjoy 
discussion)

Would the themes of Boston's first three albums qualify? Only one or two 
songs were SFish, but they had the cover art.

Not to sound confrontational, but you're answering your own question by 
saying that "only one or
two songs were SFish". And of course the cover art is well known. 
Sorry, I'm not trying to be an idiot. I come off a little abrasive at times.

Iron Madien also has Stranger in a Strange Land and To Tame A Land (about 
Dune). Not fantasy DnD at all.
My comments on Maiden were very generalized. In that sense they are very 
D&D.

OH! Just thought of this Rob. On Bucketheads album "Monsters and Robots" (SF 
related in the title alone) he samples R2-D2 (Star Wars) in one of his 
songs. Thought you might like to know.

-Travis "trying to think of the song title" Edmunds

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Re: Science Fiction In Music

Robert Seeberger wrote:

 
> I'd like to see some suggestions from others, and criticisms too
> 
> There ought to be a few limits too:
> No Purple People Eater comedy type songs.
> No instrumentals (Names are just too little to go on)
> Songs or albums must have a distinct and clear reference to SF&F tropes.
> (I'm including Horror as a subgenre of Fantasy, in case that wasn't very
> clear. So Horror is fair game.)
> And suggestions for BEST GROUP should come with some justification as to why
> you think a band or artist is the best SF&Fnal group or artist.
> 
> Now I know I haven't come close to covering all the bases in this post.
> So tell me what I missed and where I am wrong!!

OK, your rules rule out Fresh Aire V by Mannheim Steamroller.  That's
about all I can come up with this morning that hasn't already been
mentioned.

Julia
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Re: Science Fiction In Music

From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Science Fiction In Music
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:04:30 -0600
- Original Message -
From: "Travis Edmunds" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 8:47 PM
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In Music
> Although the music mentioned certainly has sf/f themes, I don't think
that's
> the sole basis of the music itself. Sure some may be quite literally 
100%
> influenced by sf/f, but I think (I hesitate to use the word majority) 
some
> of that music might just be music, and the whole sf/f themes or 
influences
> thing may just be wishful thinking. This is just my opinion though...

No No NO...Its a perfectly valid point.
A point similar to discussions I have been involved in many times over the
years.
There is a gray area where themes may seem to be implied, yet not 
explicitly
stated.
The examples I gave are ones where the theme is either explicit in the
lyrics, or verified in some other way by the creator(s). (Such as in liner
notes or in interviews)

This by itself can be voluminous discussion.

xponent
You Are Helpful Actually Maru
rob
Ok that cleared things up a little.

-Travis "some more suggestions later" Edmunds

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Re: Outlandish but exceedingly fun.

From: "Reggie Bautista" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Outlandish but exceedingly fun.
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:56:47 -0600
Travis Edmunds wrote:
"A rose by any other name
...is the sexual organ of a thorny shrub ;-)

(I wish I could remember where I first heard that...)

Reggie Bautista

 Well if you remember, enlighten me as to the origins of it!!

-Travis "was it a witty biology teacher?" Edmunds

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Re: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings

From: Alberto Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 03:31:30 +
Travis Edmunds wrote:
>
> You may say that it's not justified. Fine. But what if you or your child 
or
> some other loved one of yours, contracted a life threatening affliction,
> and the only means of saving yours or the other person's life was to
> harvest a human embryo (which you consider to be "alive"). What do you 
do?
>
If one of my kids needed some special organ (say, the heart) and it
happened that the only one available (compatibility, etc) was _yours_,
I might try to kill you to harvest that organ.

That doesn't make it right.

Alberto Monteiro
Disclaimer: I didn't render my own opinions in my original post on this 
subject. That being said however, I think you're missing the point. If you 
grew up in a society where killing was commonplace, I doubt very much the 
taking of human life would bother you in the least. Unless in an 
intellectual way you disliked the fact that a sentient being was forced into 
non-existence. On the same note though you bring up an interesting point. 
You're saying that you would cross your own moral, ethical lines in order to 
save the life of a loved one, all the time understanding that what you're 
doing is wrong. But of course the concept of wrong comes full circle back to 
my point.

-Travis

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Re: Filtering

Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> 
> Julia Thompson wrote:
> >
> >> What do you mean by "discuss the weather"? I feel highly offended
> >> when you all start talking about snow in Christmas, and I have 41 deg
> >> in the termometer!
> >
> > 41?  You lucky dog -- I only have 18[1].  (No snow here either.)
> >
> The minimum in Texas is 18? Even here we have some temperatures
> slightly below that, in Winter.

No, that was just the temperature at the nearest Weatherbug reporting
station at that time.

Sometimes it gets down to around 0, even negative.

We had an ice storm in late February of this year, even.  :P

Dan has been wanting to build a fire in the fireplace, but he doesn't do
that unless the temperature is 10 or lower, and it hasn't so far since
we rearranged the furniture in the livingroom to where we *can* have a
fire.

> > Plus it's windy.  Is it windy where you are?
> >
> We had winds last week. I even had to turn off the new computer
> during a storm.
> 
> > It gets very windy here.
> > Or are you going to be envious of my having wind?  :)
> >
> No :-)

Wise, especially given some of the wind we see.  :)

Julia
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innocent non-combatant friend

2003-12-23 Thread Robert J. Chassell

Is a person at home an innocent or a criminal?  Is a person abroad a
soldier or a non-combatant?  Is a foreign citizen a friend or an enemy
guerrilla?

These are important distinctions.  In the past, international
conventions, such as the Geneva conventions, applied to two major
categories:  people at home and soldiers wearing a uniform.

Indeed, historically, the division has been two-fold:  crime has been
considered an `internal affair' and war an `external affair'.  One set
of social rules applied to internal affairs and a different set
applied to external affairs

The Geneva conventions specifically excluded the third category, that
of soldiers not wearing a uniform.  But now the third category has
become vital,

Back on 12 December 2001, in a discussion with Dan Minette, I wrote
that

A major dividing line is the power of the government to *classify*
the actions.  The kind of classification that occurs is dependent
on how much knowledge can be obtained.

Laws place people into different categories, such as those who are
supposed to be in prison and those that are not.

A court is used to determine whether a person at home is innocent or
criminal.  However, this cannot always be done.

... in the case of a war ... the person involved may not be local
and may not be individually identified.

I went on to say

... in a civil war, as in the US between 1861 and 1865, or in a
traditional war, such as WWII, a government will declare a state
of rebellion or war, and those actions serve to categorize people.

But the recent [11 Sep 2001] attacks against the US were by people
who did not affiliate themselves with a particular country.
Moreover, most of those involved cannot be readily identified
individually.  Hence, the US government could not declare war in
the traditional sense.

Instead, the process of classification was assigned to the US
President or someone deputized to act on his behalf.  The criteria are
whether the person is thought to have

... planned, authorized, committed, or aided ... or harbored
...

those involved.

My question is whether this is a good enough classification mechanism?
Or is it too short on accountability and too open to abuse?  How
should a society deal with the person who, although you don't know it,
has been misclassified by computer error?  Were the founders of the
United States right in thinking that people in a government, if not
now, then in the future, will inevitably tend towards tyranny, if they
can?

What is a good as well as practical way distinguish friends from enemy
guerrillas?

--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: Is it Just Me? Re: Thank Goodness

2003-12-23 Thread Robert J. Chassell

Referring to a subject line on

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13579-2003Dec18.html

on 19 Dec 2003, John D. Giorgis wrote:

> O.k., is it just me, or am I the only person who read the
> subject line "Thank goodness" and saw the words "in case you
> haven't heard the good news" and instantly assumed that the link
> provided would be to this article:

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16589-2003Dec19.html

> I mean, a dangerous State deciding to give up chemical and
> biological weapons, as well as a nuclear weapons program so as
> to join the rest of the world in the international community.

to which "ritu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> replied on 21 Dec 2003:

Can't answer for the others but I'd have thought that the bigger
news would obviously be your own judiciary protecting your
fundamental rights from your government's excesses.

I think John was being patriotic and trying to be diplomatic.

  * In the first case, that of a court ruling that an American citizen
seized on U.S. soil cannot be held indefinitely in military
custody, John is, I think, patriotically presuming that the US
government, in this case the judicial branch, will protect
American citizens against enemies.  I hear an unspoken and
patriotic `of course, the judical branch will protect Americans
against a different branch of government.'

I am sure that John figures that if by some computer error, he
were mistakenly arrested as a `sleeper' with a very good disguise,
he would be out of prison with a year or two, and that it would
never matter to him ever in his life that he would have to answer
the question of forms `have you ever been arrested' with a `yes'.

  * In the second case, that of Libya agreeing to inspections by a UN
agency, John is, I think, trying to be diplomatic.  John did not
mention the UN in his comment.  As you know, many Americans are
against the US depending on the UN for security.  John's form of
comment comes across to me as his way of softening his statement
of support for the UN and for international inspectors.

-- 
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Fw: Science Fiction In Music

El Doc chimes in!


- Original Message - 
From: "Davd Brin"
To: "Robert Seeberger"
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: Science Fiction In Music


> Don't forget Jefferson Starship!
>
> Among rockers I know David Crosby & Janis Ian are fans
> of my books.
>
> Happy holidays to you all!
>
>
> With cordial regards,
>
> David Brin
> www.davidbrin.com
>
>
>


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Re: Science Fiction In Music

2003-12-23 Thread Damon Agretto

Also if we're including fantasy in the mix, I'd
nominate The Misfits/Samhain/Danzig too. A lot of
their/his music had dark fantasy or horror overtones
(IIRC that's pretty much what the Misfits were
about...).

Damon.

=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 


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Re: Scouted: Environmentalism is Evil and Must Be Destroyed

"Ronn!Blankenship" wrote:
> 
> At 05:54 PM 12/22/03, Julia Thompson wrote:
> >"Ronn!Blankenship" wrote:
> > >
> > > At 10:54 AM 12/22/03, Julia Thompson wrote:
> > > >Sonja van Baardwijk wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Personally I have noticed that my sensitivity to smoke has been heavily
> > > > > increased the less I'm exposed to it. Nothing psychosomatic about it.
> > > >
> > > >There was one year that I managed to increase my tolerance for smoke,
> > > >and that was done by longer and longer exposures to people smoking.  My
> > > >body just got used to it.  I wasn't happy about it, but I could stand
> > > >it.
> > > >
> > > >(This led to weird things like the time I washed my hair in a sink at
> > > >2AM and to dry it before I went to sleep, spent awhile combing it out
> > > >right next to a radiator)
> > >
> > > Hadn't blow dryers been invented then?
> >
> >Yes.  And given the damage my hair took when I was about 7-10 years old
> >from using one on a regular basis, I wasn't interested in using one.
> 
> When you did use one, did you turn the stereo up loud enough to listen to
> it while you dried your hair . . . and incidentally allow everyone within
> several hundred feet to also listen to it?  (I would be visiting a girl's
> apartment in college and one of her roommates would be drying her hair
> while listening to the stereo, making conversation difficult in the living
> room . . . )

I don't think I've used one since sometime in high school, and I never
used one at the same time I was trying to listen to music.  I think
maybe at some point, my mom used one on me in the den where the TV was,
but if the TV was on, the volume wasn't turned up for *my* benefit. 
(Might have been turned up a bit for someone else's benefit.)
 
> >Plus which, I didn't have one, and at 2AM I didn't feel like going to
> >someone else's room to wake them up and ask if they'd brought one.  :)
> 
> I finally found a hairstyle that will dry naturally rather than having to
> be blow-dried very carefully to keep the wave at least somewhat under
> control.  Of course, it does not meet Air Force or BYU standards . . .

I think the last time I used a blow dryer, it had something to do with
having used mousse to get my hair to stay in place.  I only used that on
special occasions, though.  Now I use hairspray for the purpose, and
that at most 4 times a year.
 
> Cats Don't Like To Be Blow-Dried After Their Bath Maru

Briana doesn't seem to mind at the groomer's, and we don't bother with
that here.  :)

Julia
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Re: Science Fiction In Music

At 07:18 PM 12/22/03, Robert Seeberger wrote:
Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is music with Science
Fictional and Fantasmal themes.
Offhand, bands like Pink Floyd and Hawkwind spring to mind immediately.
But I have been thinking that the band that has done the most and/or the
best with SF and Fantasy themes is Blue Oyster Cult.
So if we were pretending to give out an award for best SF&F song, album, and
group of the 20th century, I would (pending suggestions from others)
nominate the following:
BEST SONG:

Black Blade  by Blue Oyster Cult

After The Goldrush  by Neil Young

Space Oddity  by David Bowie

Homeworld  by Yes (You knew I was gonna sneak them in there)

Rocket Man  by Elton John

'39  by Queen

Ramble On  by Led Zeppelin

Come Sail Away  by Styx

8 Miles High  by The Byrds

BEST ALBUM:

In Search Of Space  by Hawkwind

2112  by Rush

Diamond Dogs  by David Bowie

I, Robot  by The Alan Parsons Project

BEST GROUP:

Blue Oyster Cult?

Almost every album has a song or two that SF&Fnal. These guys must really
like SF&F. They even wrote some songs with Michael Moorcock (Black Blade is
about Elric, and is one ass kicking song.)
Some songs by Blue Oyster Cult:
The Red And The Black
Seven Screaming Diz-Busters
Don't Fear The Reaper
Godzilla
Harvester Of Eyes
Flaming Telepaths
Veteran Of The Psychic Wars
E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)
Workshop Of The Telescopes
Astronomy
Take Me Away
The Alan Parsons Project?

Puulease..Just look at their catalogue. Its virtually all SF&F!!!

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

I'd like to see some suggestions from others, and criticisms too

There ought to be a few limits too:
No Purple People Eater comedy type songs.
No instrumentals (Names are just too little to go on)
Songs or albums must have a distinct and clear reference to SF&F tropes.
(I'm including Horror as a subgenre of Fantasy, in case that wasn't very
clear. So Horror is fair game.)
And suggestions for BEST GROUP should come with some justification as to why
you think a band or artist is the best SF&Fnal group or artist.
Now I know I haven't come close to covering all the bases in this post.
So tell me what I missed and where I am wrong!!


"Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft"?



Going For Completeness, Not Necessarily Quality Maru

-- Ronn!  :)

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Re: Return of the King

At 10:46 PM 12/22/03, Robert Seeberger wrote:

- Original Message -
From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 10:28 PM
Subject: Return of the King
> I saw it today.  I thought it was a great movie.
>
> At the end, Dan turned to me and said that we could tell Sammy that he
> was named after Samwise.  :)  (He hasn't read Lord of the Rings yet, so
> he wasn't familiar with Samwise.)
>
> My only complaint was that at one point, there's a mother with an upset
> baby, and that's just the point at which your body is telling you it's
> time to feed a baby if you're lactating and managed to escape for a few
> hours to see the movie.  Letdown (i.e., milk moving in the breast
> towards the nipple) can be uncomfortable at times, especially if there's
> no baby there to be extracting milk, and this time was no exception.
> But that's just me and a few other people, most of the moviegoing
> population doesn't have to worry about this.  :)
>
Whew!!
You had me scared and excited there for a minute!

xponent
You Can Milk A Cat? Maru


Not without losing blood yourself . . .



-- Ronn!  :)

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Re: Seasonal Puzzle

At 09:12 PM 12/22/03, Reggie Bautista wrote:
JDG wrote:
More to the point, I disagree with the result of #25.   I've never heard
of"Caroling, Caroling" - but "Coventry Carol" is probably much more famous.
"Caroling, Caroling, through the snow, Christmas bells are ringing..."

Coventry Carol may be more famous, but Caroling Caroling is much more fun...


FWIW, here are the "right" answers, from the same source which sent the 
list.  (Don't fuss at me if you disagree with any of them.)



1. TCS (CROAOF) The Christmas Song
2. HYMLC Have Yourself [a] Merry Little Christmas
3. IBHFC I'll Be Home for Christmas
4. FFAJP Far, Far Away [on] Judea's Plain
5. AIWFCIMTFT All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
6. ISMKSC I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Chause
7. SN Silent Night
8. OHN O Holy Night
9. FTS  - Frosty, The Snowman
10. AF (OCAYF) Adeste Fideles (Oh Come All Ye Faithful
11. IDOWC I'm Dreaming of [a] White Christmas
12. TTDOC The Twelve Days of Christmas
13. HCSC Here Comes Santa Claus
14. WW Winter Wonderland
15. SB Silver Bells
16. JB Jingle Bells
17. OLTOB O Little Town of Bethlehem
18. WTK We Three Kings
19. TLDB The Little Drummer Boy
20. LHAREB Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming
21. ATTN All Through the Night
22. BHC Boar's Head Carol
23. GB Gesu Bambino
24. GKW Good King Wenceslas
25. CC Coventry Carol
26. HWCAW Here We Come A Wassaling
27. JJOMD Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
28. MHAB Mary Had a [Little] Baby
29. JOSN Jolly Old St, Nicholas
30. COCE Come, O Come Emmanuel


I Agree With Reggie About Caroling, Caroling Maru

-- Ronn!  :)

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RE: Science Fiction In General...

At 09:04 PM 12/22/03, Travis Edmunds wrote:

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Science Fiction In General...
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 17:47:28 -0600
Last I knew, he was on the high council.  Of course, it has been a while 
since I talked to him in person.  I suppose I should read his web site 
more often . . .

-- Ronn!  :)
You've spoken to Mr Card in person?

Yes.  Usually when we have both been at LTU&E 
<>, which I had a small part in getting 
started, but obviously don't get to go as often these days as when I lived 
nearer.  (Though, FWIW, I guess OSC and I do live significantly closer to 
each other than either of us does to Provo . . .)

-- Ronn!  :)

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RE: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings

At 08:22 PM 12/22/03, Travis Edmunds wrote:

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Scouted: House Bans Patents on Human Beings
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 17:35:26 -0600
I know.  But then you know I have to point out the obvious . . .

;-)

-- Ronn!  :)
No, I didn't know that. And not to seem sarcastic or disputatious, as that 
is not my intent, could you explain that one to me? I really don't 
understand why you "have to point out the obvious".

See the .sig.

-- Ronn!  :)

Professional Smart-Aleck.  Do Not Attempt.

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Re: Science Fiction In Music

How could you leave out Zager and Evans one-hit wonder?



At 07:18 PM 12/22/03, Robert Seeberger wrote:
Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is music with Science
Fictional and Fantasmal themes.
Offhand, bands like Pink Floyd and Hawkwind spring to mind immediately.
But I have been thinking that the band that has done the most and/or the
best with SF and Fantasy themes is Blue Oyster Cult.
So if we were pretending to give out an award for best SF&F song, album, and
group of the 20th century, I would (pending suggestions from others)
nominate the following:
BEST SONG:

Black Blade  by Blue Oyster Cult

After The Goldrush  by Neil Young

Space Oddity  by David Bowie

Homeworld  by Yes (You knew I was gonna sneak them in there)

Rocket Man  by Elton John

'39  by Queen

Ramble On  by Led Zeppelin

Come Sail Away  by Styx

8 Miles High  by The Byrds

BEST ALBUM:

In Search Of Space  by Hawkwind

2112  by Rush

Diamond Dogs  by David Bowie

I, Robot  by The Alan Parsons Project

BEST GROUP:

Blue Oyster Cult?

Almost every album has a song or two that SF&Fnal. These guys must really
like SF&F. They even wrote some songs with Michael Moorcock (Black Blade is
about Elric, and is one ass kicking song.)
Some songs by Blue Oyster Cult:
The Red And The Black
Seven Screaming Diz-Busters
Don't Fear The Reaper
Godzilla
Harvester Of Eyes
Flaming Telepaths
Veteran Of The Psychic Wars
E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)
Workshop Of The Telescopes
Astronomy
Take Me Away
The Alan Parsons Project?

Puulease..Just look at their catalogue. Its virtually all SF&F!!!

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

I'd like to see some suggestions from others, and criticisms too

There ought to be a few limits too:
No Purple People Eater comedy type songs.
No instrumentals (Names are just too little to go on)
Songs or albums must have a distinct and clear reference to SF&F tropes.
(I'm including Horror as a subgenre of Fantasy, in case that wasn't very
clear. So Horror is fair game.)
And suggestions for BEST GROUP should come with some justification as to why
you think a band or artist is the best SF&Fnal group or artist.
Now I know I haven't come close to covering all the bases in this post.
So tell me what I missed and where I am wrong!!
xponent
Starman Maru
rob
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-- Ronn!  :)

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Re: Science Fiction In General...

At 05:52 PM 12/22/03, Julia Thompson wrote:
"Ronn!Blankenship" wrote:

>  From the collection "Hymns We Would Actually Sing":

Where can I find that?


Actually, I don't think it's been published it yet . . .

(Maybe some time after the first of the year, though AFAIK it's not 
scheduled for the January issue . . .)



-- Ronn!  :)

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Re: christianism is evil, why it must be eradicated

At 12:57 AM 12/23/03, Doug Pensinger wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 10:03:02 -0600, Ronn!Blankenship 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

At 12:00 AM 12/22/03, Doug Pensinger wrote:
Julia wrote:

I think it varies on a state-by-state basis.  If you told me this was
happening in California, I'd just want enough info so I could verify the
specific instances.
Yoiks, it must be bash California week.

Question is, if it's so bad, how come there are so many Texans and 
Alabamans (and people from every other state/country/potentate) relocated here?
I dunno.  Why do I hear people in places like Oregon and Washington 
complaining about all the "Californicators" moving into their state and 
changing things?

;-)
Overflow.


Like a toilet?

;-PPP



-- Ronn!  :)

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Re: Science Fiction In Music

Fantasy
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
I Am the Walrus
Octopus's Garden
UFOs/Aliens
Inca Roads, Zappa
It Came Out of the Sky, CCR
They're Not Here, They're Not Comming, Don Henley
Space travel
Space Truckin', Deep Purple
Mr. Spaceman, Byrds
Utopia
Imagine, John Lennon
One World (Not Three), Police
Apocolypse:
The Sun is Burning, Simon and Garfunkle
When the World Ends, Dave Mathews Band
Uplift:

Evelyn a Modified Dog, Zappa

8^)

--
Doug
Evelyn, a dog, having undergone
Further modification
Pondered the significance of short-person behavior
In pedal-depressed panchromatic resonance
And other highly ambient domains...
Arf she said
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Zhuup



Zhuup ab-Lesh ab-Erbl ab-Kosh ab-Rosh ab-Tothtoon
  ul-Zinth ul-Lotip ul-Byldur

The Lesh as members of the Tothtoon Superclan and clients of the Erbl began 
their career in Galactic Civilization from a very privileged position.  By 
the time the Lesh had completed their uplift they had already proven 
themselves merchants of the first order.  Therefore, the Lesh had every 
reason to expect that they could fulfill the Clan Tothtoon ideal of uplifting 
three clients, with the third client uplifted to take over the Lesh niche in 
Galactic Civilization.  

Clan Tothtoon Tradition advises that a young patrons first client should 
complement the would-be patron.  The Lesh were successful merchants.  
Unfortunately, their inherited social structure made it difficult for the 
Lesh to form large, stable social groups.  In particular, Lesh are touchy.  
No one wants to be at the bottom of a social edifice for long.  Lesh who find 
themselves locked in to roles like private soldier or laborer nearly always 
leave to seek greener pastures after a few months.  Lesh military units were 
small and flexible.  Lesh had little heavy industry.  The Lesh economy needed 
organization men to run industry that would produce goods for Lesh merchants.

The Lesh purchased an uplift claim on the Zhuup from the Thennanin who were 
then very active conducting surveys on contract for the GIM.  When discovered 
their homeworld had been in an ice age for about 12,000 local years.  The 
proto-Zhuup were ground dwelling, quadrupedal grazers, living in herds on 
semi-arid temperate plains.  They were moderately large creatures, about the 
size of a small pony.  Herds could include as many as 96 individuals, though 
most were less than half that large.  During the mating season males became 
territorial.  Successful males kept harems during mating season.  

Their natural history had left the proto-Zhuup with intelligence, potential, 
and an unusually long lifespan and tendency to bear few offspring.  However, 
the proto-Zhuup no longer exhibited a high level of neoteny.  Proto-Zhuup had 
camel-like feet and were not terribly fast.  When threatened by predators 
they formed a defensive circle much like Earth's Musk Ox.  They had thick 
hides, butting horns that were particularly pronounced on males, and a single 
short tusk that pierced their upper lip.  The tusk was notable because it was 
hollow and was a means for injecting a poison that was very painful to most 
of the local fauna.  

The proto-Zhuup also had a notable sensory array.  Behind their horns they had 
a fully retractable set of four eyes on stalks, phenomenal hearing, and an 
acute sense of smell.  

Uplifted Zhuup are smaller than their ancestors.  They are only slightly 
larger than Humans.  They are fully upright with serviceable hands.  They 
retain their horns and poisonous tusk (according to the Library the poison 
should have little effect on Earthlings); however, horns are not fully formed 
until the Lesh are in late puberty to facilitate cranial expansion.  The Lesh 
opted to reduce the proto-Zhuup sense of smell to free up room for higher 
brain functions.  Zhuup hearing is still very good, though not quite on par 
with their ancestors.

Most of the year the Zhuup are some of the hardest workers in the Galaxies.  
However, the Lesh did not alter the proto-Zhuup mating pattern.  The Zhuup 
home planet of Kppthi'ik has a year that is 1.2 hab-years long.  For 1/16 of 
that year the Zhuup are on mating season holiday.  Female Zhuup are very 
engaged during this time but always manage minimal staffing levels for 
critical services.  Males in critical professions such as physicians are also 
on call and capable of performing their duties competently.  Zhuup are 
seriously annoyed by novelty and surprises, they gravitate toward predictable 
industries and plan all their undertakings extensively.

The Zhuup are tremendously successful industrialists who work very well in 
large teams.  Zhuup are also good, if uninspired, soldiers.  They have a 
reputation for being mediocre ecologists, however.  This is a serious failing 
in the Tothtoon Clan, but the Zhuup make the most of it.  Many live on 
a-class worlds or space-based arcologies.  As uplift artists the Zhuup are 
unremarkably competent, but prolific.  They are already powerful, wealthy 
patrons in their own right.  

Politically the Zhuup are instinctive conservatives.  Nevertheless, they tow 
the Lesh diplomatic line.  Meanwhile, they actively lobby for more 
conservative Lesh Clan policies.  The Zhuup exhibit less diplomatic 
flexibility and finesse than the Lesh, despite the costs they often go 
through mediators when doing business with species that differ from them.  

Despite the Lesh policy of promiscuous trade, Zhuup refuse to do business with 
the Tandu.  There are a few other Inheritor and Obeyor Clans or Species that 
the Zhuup embargo.  The Jophur are *not* on the list.  Zhuup do business with 
the Jo

Re: christianism is evil, why it must be eradicated