RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
At 01:00 AM Wednesday 10/4/2006, Ritu wrote: Dave Land asked: > How, exactly? > > I was invited to take part in door-to-door get-out-the-vote > canvassing to help Democrat Jerry McNerney defeat Richard > Pombo in California's 11th district, which borders my > district to the South and East, but I think that's a long way > from "going into the arena and making it for myself." > > Sure, I write letters to my representative (Zoe Lofgren) and > Senators (Boxer and Feinstein), but that is still a far cry > from "going into the arena and making it for myself." It's > still just dealing with Tweedles of varying intelligence. > > So, really, what did you have in mind? Being brave and/or crazy enough to enter politics yourself, form a party with like-minded individuals, and offer people a decent alternative. Of course, the costs are very high, especially in terms of privacy, family time, basic scurity etc, and I am not willing to pay them right now...and so I grumble less frequently. But it is a viable option, and it is less destructive/chaos inducing than a revolution outside the system. Of course, if the changes you want to make are far-reaching enough, as mine are, then you also have to accept the fact that you're likely have only one term in office. That is, if no one assassinates you soon after you put the changes into practice. Ritu Then there are those of us whose health situation pretty much limits our personal participation in the political process to figuring out whether to choose Tweedledumber or Tweedledumberer and then going to the poll to mark our choice. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Time to kick out the people who have thrived on a policy of fear > then, and choose some representatives who value freedom and liberty > more than they value power through fear. So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 04/10/2006, at 9:22 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Time to kick out the people who have thrived on a policy of fear then, and choose some representatives who value freedom and liberty more than they value power through fear. So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) You really think that I think the Democrats are any better? Hypocrites and liars on both sides. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
At 08:55 AM Wednesday 10/4/2006, Charlie Bell wrote: On 04/10/2006, at 9:22 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Time to kick out the people who have thrived on a policy of fear then, and choose some representatives who value freedom and liberty more than they value power through fear. So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) You really think that I think the Democrats are any better? Hypocrites and liars on both sides. Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Assign The Correspondence As You Wish Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 05/10/2006, at 12:03 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Yep. I get that. It's a depressing thought, really. I'm starting to wonder whether the United States can continue in its current form, or if there's going to be a correction. Certainly she can't continue spending money that doesn't exist indefinitely. Eventually, that debt will be called... surely? Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
At 09:16 AM Wednesday 10/4/2006, Charlie Bell wrote: On 05/10/2006, at 12:03 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Yep. I get that. It's a depressing thought, really. Or as [former Alabama governor] George Wallace, said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties." And that was nearly 40 years ago . . . I'm starting to wonder whether the United States can continue in its current form, or if there's going to be a correction. Certainly she can't continue spending money that doesn't exist indefinitely. Eventually, that debt will be called... surely? Okay, I'll bite. Why must it be called Shirley? Someone Had To Say It Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and > Tweedledumber. > > Assign The Correspondence As You Wish Maru You don't hand out easy assignments, do you? ;) Ritu GCU So Why Should I Move To Utah? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 10/4/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) Isn't there a difference between fear for personal safety and fear about principles? Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
At 10:19 AM Wednesday 10/4/2006, Ritu wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and > Tweedledumber. > > Assign The Correspondence As You Wish Maru You don't hand out easy assignments, do you? ;) I thought it would probably involve flipping a coin. (Since showing your opinion of the candidates and their platforms by flipping anything else will probably get you in trouble with the Secret Service . . . ) Ritu GCU So Why Should I Move To Utah? At 07:33 AM Friday 9/29/2006, you wrote: Robert Seeberger wrote: > She gave birth to GOD! > She must have been stretch marks from the neck down! > > xponent > Admit It, You Were Thinking It Too! Maru I was thinking that none of the gods born to goddesses here actually involved pregnancy and childbirth...I've been known to crib about that during my pregnancies... While it is not taught officially in the Sunday school manuals or the like, it is a rather common Mormon folk belief based on some comments made by early Church leaders that God (who it is officially taught has a body of flesh and bones rather than being some kind of amorphous spirit which fills the universe as seems to be a common belief among some other Christian denominations) impregnated Mary in pretty much the normal way. You are most likely to hear the claim from "anti-Mormons" (some of whom are "born-again" or evangelical Christians, and many of whom are former LDS who are now BACs or evangelicals) who gather on the sidewalks during General Conference (held each April and October in SLC, most recently this past weekend') or outside dedications of new temples and ask passersby "Did you know that the Mormon church teaches that God had sex with Mary?" among other things designed to incite argument and to attempt to dissuade anyone who might be investigating the LDS Church from joining . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
At 10:30 AM Wednesday 10/4/2006, Nick Arnett wrote: On 10/4/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) Isn't there a difference between fear for personal safety and fear about principles? Yep. Which one do you suppose most folks normally base their choice of which party or candidate to vote for on? Bread And Circuses Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 10/4/06, Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Yep. Which one do you suppose most folks normally base their choice of which party or candidate to vote for on? What do you mean by "normally?" Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
Ritu wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Hence my comment about a choice (?) between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Assign The Correspondence As You Wish Maru You don't hand out easy assignments, do you? ;) Ritu GCU So Why Should I Move To Utah? Well, there's one couple living outside Salt Lake City who have good taste in books, and the books are taking over the house, so you'd feel at home with *them*, anyway ;) (My uncle & aunt. Father's brother. And they felt so "right at home" when they visited my mom for the first time, with *her* house overflowing with books. Dan's got family with the same appreciation, as well.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On Oct 4, 2006, at 8:30 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On 10/4/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: So, that would mean voting against the people who are campaigning on the fear that their opponents will take away a woman's right to choose, end Social Security and Medicare, send all our jobs to India, and put minorities back on plantations? ;-) Isn't there a difference between fear for personal safety and fear about principles? When Dems engage in fearmongering, they're no better. When they insist that this country live up to its reputation, which includes both rugged individualism and taking care of each other, they're a damn sight better, to my tastes. I'd be an independent voter if it didn't mean basically giving up my franchise. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
Julia wrote: > Well, there's one couple living outside Salt Lake City who have good > taste in books, and the books are taking over the house, so > you'd feel > at home with *them*, anyway ;) *g* Now *that* is a strong argument. :) > (My uncle & aunt. Father's brother. And they felt so "right > at home" > when they visited my mom for the first time, with *her* house > overflowing with books. Dan's got family with the same > appreciation, as > well.) I have a feeling that I'll spend the night dreaming of these houses overflowing with books... All I remember about last night is my dream about reading this *great* book [dunno which one]. When the hubby tried to wake me up this morning, I apparently snapped at him and told him to wait until I had read the last chapter... :) Ritu GCU Off To Bed ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Weekly Chat Reminder
As Steve said, "The Brin-L weekly chat has been a list tradition for over six years. Way back on 27 May, 1998, Marco Maisenhelder first set up a chatroom for the list, and on the next day, he established a weekly chat time. We've been through several servers, chat technologies, and even casts of regulars over the years, but the chat goes on... and we want more recruits! Whether you're an active poster or a lurker, whether you've been a member of the list from the beginning or just joined today, we would really like for you to join us. We have less politics, more Uplift talk, and more light-hearted discussion. We're non-fattening and 100% environmentally friendly... -(_() Though sometimes marshmallows do get thrown. The Weekly Brin-L chat is scheduled for Wednesday 3 PM Eastern/2 PM Central time in the US, or 7 PM Greenwich time. There's usually somebody there to talk to for at least eight hours after the start time. If you want to attend, it's really easy now. All you have to do is send your web browser to: http://wtgab.demon.co.uk/~brinl/mud/ ..And you can connect directly from William's new web interface! My instruction page tells you how to log on, and how to talk when you get in: http://www.brin-l.org/brinmud.html It also gives a list of commands to use when you're in there. In addition, it tells you how to connect through a MUD client, which is more complicated to set up initially, but easier and more reliable than the web interface once you do get it set up." -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ "This message was sent automatically using launchd. But even if WTG is away on holiday, at least it shows the server is still up." ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Collapse Chapter 5 - The Maya Collapses
> > > JDG wrote: > > > So far, our three examples of "collapse", > > Easter, Pitcairn, and > > > Chaco Canyon have all shared the feature of > > >being settled in a > > > marginal environment. Is a marginal environment > > >a prerequisite for "collapse"? I think that's a good starting point for this chapter. Compared to the 3 places above, the Yucatan is less fragile, less isolated and has more variations or diversity, which ought to provide a better buffer against degradation. Nevertheless, Diamond points out that the land is mostly karst, which is porous limestine and holds water poorly, is a seasonal tropical forest with a 4-month dry season, and has somewhat erratic rainfall patterns that cause crop failure even now. Mayan adaptations to these conditions included construction of reservoirs (at Tikal, enough capacity to provide drinking water for 10 thousand people, for 18 months!), use of canals, irrigation and terracing to improve crop yields, and a society structured to provide enough peasant labor that allowed central authorities to indulge in various cultural entities such as city-building, writing and art. Diamond proposes that because of their more limited crops, diet, and ability to transport food for armies (compared to the Aztecs and Inca), the Maya were unable to have a single central ruling body. The result was essentially ongoing if stuttering warfare, as I understand it. Competition to create better temples and monuments appears to be a factor in deforestation of some parts of the Yucatan; they made quantities of limestone plaster that required a lot of wood fuel. This abstract gives a brief description of Neolithic plaster technology: http://www.bu.edu/jfa/Abstracts/K/KingeryW_15_2.html W. David Kingery, Pamela B. Vandiver, and Martha Prickett The Beginnings of Pyrotechnology, Part II: Production and Use of Lime and Gypsum Plaster in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Near East Journal of Field Archaeology 15 (1988) 219--244 Characterization techniques of modern materials science have been used to extend a prior study (W. H. Gourdin and W. D. Kingery, "The Beginnings of Pyrotechnology: Neolithic and Egyptian Lime Plaster," Journal of Field Archaeology 2 [1975]: 133--50) of plaster materials and their processing in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (ca. 7200--6000 B.C.). The "invention" of lime plaster can be traced back to at least the Epi-Paleolithic Geometric Kebaran (ca. 12,000 B.C.) and its use in architecture to the Natufian (10,300--8500 B.C.). The production of lime and gypsum plasters is described as a multi-step process requiring selection and collection of raw materials, heating of limestone at 800--900 degrees C (gypsum at 150--200 degrees C), slaking the quicklime in water to form the hydroxide, mixing with various additives, applying and shaping as a paste, and often coating with a slip coat and burnishing---a skilled craft activity having some structural similarities to pottery manufacture... An aside, but interesting I think- This is about using satellite tech to find Mayan ruins: http://www.nsstc.org/news/msfc_nr_02_15_06.html ...Sever has explored the use of remote-sensing, the science of collecting information about the Earths surface using aerial or space-based photography, to serve archaeology. He and Irwin provided Saturno with high-resolution commercial satellite images of the rainforest, and collected data from NASAs Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar, an instrument flown aboard a high-altitude weather plane, capable of penetrating clouds, snow and forest canopies. These resulting Earth observations have helped the team survey an uncharted region around San Bartolo, Guatemala. They discovered a correlation between the color and reflectivity of the vegetation seen in the images their "signature," which is captured by instruments measuring light in the visible and near-infrared spectrums and the location of known archaeological sites. In 2004, the team ground-tested the data. Hiking deep into the jungle to locations guided by the satellite images, they uncovered a series of Maya settlements exactly where the technology had predicted they would be found ...The cause of the floral discoloration discerned in the imagery quickly became clear to the team. The Maya built their cities and towns with excavated limestone and lime plasters. As these structures crumbled, the lack of moisture and nutritional elements inside the ruins kept some plant species at bay, while others were discolored or killed off altogether as disintegrating plaster changed the chemical content of the soil around each structure. "Over the centuries, the changes became dramatic," Saturno said. "This pattern of small details, impossible to see from the forest floor or low-altitude planes, turned out to be a virtual roadmap to ancient Maya sites when seen from space..." And these articles have some pix: http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_12/issue_04/science_06.html http://www.nasa.gov/visio
Re: Collapse Chapter 5 - The Maya Collapses
I wrote: > Well, I've got to go, so will send this incomplete > post; my rank tyro interpretation of the Mayan > collapses is that they had more to do with bad > societal choices, with environment degradation a > lesser cause (although some of those choices led to > deforestation and so on). But this article hints otherwise: http://meta-religion.com/Archaeology/Central_america/lost_mayan_ruins.htm ...Scientists believe the Maya fell prey to a number of cataclysmic environmental problems, including deforestation and drought, that led to their downfall, Irwin said. "The world continues to battle the devastating effects of drought today, from the arid plains of Africa to the southern United States," he said. "The more we know about the plight of the Maya, the better our chances of avoiding something similar." Another aspect of the research involved using climate models to determine the effects of Maya-driven deforestation on ancient Mesoamerican climate. The goal of this effort was to determine whether deforestation can lead to droughts and if the activities of the ancient Maya drove the environmental changes that undermined their civilization... Debbi Now I'll Really Go Maru __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Collapse Chapter 4 - Chaco Canyon
Debbi wrote: > I know next-to-nothing about the Mayans, but will > tackle that if no one better-qualified steps up. > > Debbi > I Think I Saw A Museum Show About Them Once Maru :) Excelent! I'll do Chapter 6 unless someone else wants a go at it. Any Viking experts? Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
